The Big Picture: Destined for Disappointment, Part 1

[Sergey Sund]

I always thought Anakins anger-metre was broken in the prequels. He was a nice guy - BAM - he's killing is friends and father figures. I thought it was the "power of the dark side of the force" that they were trying to depict with this crass reversal - turns out it was destiny?
Yeah. Pretty lame. But then, there was so much stuff wrong with those prequels ..... I just missed one fault of a dozen.

 

[maximara]

lets hope that does not happen to our BatVSSup movie.... or is it too late for that too?

Well, anything Batman vs Superman risks falling to the because 'he doesn't have super powers he actually has to use his brain and so can out think every super on the planet and as a result has ways to shut all of them down' mentality or basically Tower of Babel/Justice League: Doom. To some degree that is worse then they whole destiny thing.

 

[Britishfan]

Anyone else bored of hearing MovieBob bash the Amazing Spiderman? I understand that there is no reason for it to exist, but personally I found to be a better film and far more enjoyable than the trilogy that came before it.

OT: yes lazy writing in Hollywood is all too prevalent and sucks but in defence of the use of destiny in the new Stark Trek films. Does it not in some way mirror the knowledge of the audience going into the film? Everyone watching them has the knowledge that Kirk and Spock are close friends and work together on the best ship in the fleet and many die hard fans know all the details of their various foes and adventures together; Old Spock and the "destiny" element just seems to be an attempt to work that into the film itself. You're probably going to use a similar argument about everyone in the audience knowing that Anikin is going to become Vader for your thing about the Star Wars prequels next time.

 

[Jester076]

To: Michael Bay (and the people most responsible for his continued "career")
Re: Go F!@#$ Yourself

I would elaborate on this statement further if it wasn't doomed to deteriorate into a scathing rant that scrapes the bottom of my vocabulary. Suffice it to say that I simply use this one pixelated dimension of the internet to renew my express distaste and loathing for director Michael Bay and that leadless pencil he calls an imagination. Not because I believe this forum will facilitate any change or that somehow word will get back to the "artist" in question, but for the simple reason that it makes ME feel better. There aren't very many constructive ways of venting impotent rage, but this, at least, offers the opportunity for others to floor their responses. Director Michael Bay is a talent-less, soul-less, hack and were it possible to bring a lawsuit against him for the torture and rape of movie cameras, I would gladly participate. How many more intellectual properties are doomed to suffer at the hands of this uninspired cretin? Stop him before it's too late. *END RANT*

 

[Jester076]

(statement retracted)

 

[Abyss]

@Britishfan "Anyone else bored of hearing MovieBob bash the Amazing Spiderman? I understand that there is no reason for it to exist, but personally I found to be a better film and far more enjoyable than the trilogy that came before it."

I thought fans were more bored with MovieBob trashing Man of Steel. He's barely trashed Amazing Spiderman that much. I agree, Bob can be a little bit too obsessed with the comic books films which disappoint him, but I don't begrudge him for that. It just makes me wish I could have a conversation with him soon in my lifetime, because there are many ideas and topics I want to exchange with him.

Anyway, I look forward to Bob's assessment on what makes the Star Wars prequels a well done adaptation of the prophesied hero myth well. I can believe that Lucas gets the outline right, even though he screws it up with his unedited writing style and directorial choices. I find Anakin's character just as annoying as anyone, yet his violent stupidity is rather reminiscent of Achilles sulking in his tend over something very petty. If only Lucas explained how Anakin grew from someone younger than his future wife into someone a little older. The Force must have been strong with him, that it acted as super effective growth hormones.

As for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: I think that they should have opted for a 1980s Japanese film approach to the subject matter. Set it in a realistically filthy part of New York, and have the Turtles be as brutal towards their enemies like the contestants from Bloodsport. That, and retain the dark humor from the original comic books, and take the cartoonish absurdity of the characters to 11. A director should go full-out blast with how crazy TMNT really is, and not rewrite it or water it down by any means. Try to make it really interesting, not a bore.

 

[Abyss]

And?

I found this response to be interesting. You can look at Stormfront or any other racist website to see the similar lines of reasoning when it comes to racist opinions.

The bottom line is that the racists who criticized Thor weren't wrong because of the racial history of the United States, but because that type of discrimination is wrong. Just throwing old types of discrimination in to reverse against white people is not a solution. It's just as bad as other types of racial discrimination.

I'm hopeful that the clear idiocy of people like Suey Park is going to make that clear to more and more people.

As I recall, in your Thor video, you praised Idris Elba's performance as Heimdall. Maybe the actor they picked for Shredder is just the actor that they thought was the best for the role. Maybe he just makes an awesome Shredder, at least according to the same people who made the turtles look like sloths.

MovieBob actually interacts on this forum?! I am astounded! When will he come again?

Back on topic, the reverse-discrimination arguments are getting pretty convoluted. I much prefer Shredder to be played by a ripped, intense Japanese actor who knows how to play the villain as a ruthless, skilled, slasher-prone thug that he is. However, as proven by Ben Kingsly's portrayal of The Mandarin, a Caucasian dude could pull off a radical interpretation of The Shredder if it has a purpose. Perhaps as an American corporate CEO in Japan whose business tactics and criminal activity were inspired by a combined fascination with 17th-Century Spanish traders in Tokugawa's Japan, and from certain bloodthirsty daimyos and Nija sects from that time period? Now THAT would be an interesting radical approach to The Shredder.

 

[Tim Ryan Scully]

The point stands firm: Destiny is meant to be a central theme, not a Deus Ex Machina.

 

[road_to_dawn]

I would have guessed that the Harry Potter series does the destiny thing pretty well. There is a prophecy but it is kept ambiguous, it's even possible that Harry Potter shoved his butt into another guy's destiny inadvertantly while himself struggling a whole lot with it.

Exactly, I was gonna say that. I don't remember if the movies got into it, but the books make a point of reiterating that our own choices govern our lives. Harry CHOSE to not go to Slytherin, Voldemort CHOSE one of two different babies to attack.

The movies go into the importance of choice somewhat, like Sirius' mini-speech to Harry in OotP, but I think it would've been driven home even better had they gotten the prophecy right. I can't really blame Bob for thinking that Harry is just another special snowflake when the prophecy is just one of many things the Harry Potter films got massively wrong. They latch onto Harry as "the Chosen One" and completely ignore that Neville could've just as easily been in his shoes had Voldemort gone after him instead of sending Bellatrix and others after his parents. They mention that Neville's parents were attacked, yes, but the significance of their attack is brushed aside. Also, it's not only a matter of which baby Voldemort chose to attack, but that he chose to attack them period. Had he just left them both alone and ignored the prophecy entirely he could have kept on growing in power and been virtually indestructible, if not for his pride and fear. The idea that Voldemort essentially made his own enemy is still there in the films ("he will mark him as his equal," etc), but I think taking Neville out of the equation makes that idea lose a lot of its intended weight. Destiny didn't choose Harry, Voldemort did, but the films dropped the ball.

 

[HalfTangible]

@Broken Record: Yes. But in this case 'record' registers in the context of a world record - more of a 'but i used to have the record!' thing: Repeated so often as to become tiresome.

I don't find it tiresome in this case, but you get the idea.;

 

[GamerBoy92]

Since this video was released, I've been fascinated (re: obsessed) with the idea of how destiny is being used these days, and I came to notice that inserting destiny where it wasn't before has happened in video games as well. Back when they recreated and ruined Spyro the Dragon (the first time with the "Legend of Spyro" series, that is) they made the character part of a prophecy about a legendary purple dragon born to save the world or something, while in the original game (though it wasn't a major story point) Spyro was just smaller than the other dragons thus managed to avoid being trapped in crystal. And in the sequel he was brought to the land of Avalar by accidental on his way to a holiday resort but still agreed to save the creatures he meets there anyway.

Of course video games have their good destiny stories too. "Tak and the Power of JuJu" is actually all about the prophecy of the Pupununu people, that tells of the great warrior Lok who will save the tribe from being turned into sheep . . . except that Lok is a bumbling idiot who dies pretty quickly and has to be resurrected. The game is actually about the tribal shaman's assistant Tak who has to do all the work, the whole time he and everyone else still thinking Tak as just the errand boy until right at the end when he's straight out told that he's been the hero of the prophecy all along. There's also an interesting little point made in the third game of the series, in one scene where Lok takes a moment to reminisce about when he was thought of as the hero and how he misses that sort of attention.

That's one main thing I've been interested about lately; not just the use of destiny, but the downside of destiny! Because in a lot of these stories where a prophecy is known by a bunch of people, who's usually the one character who decides to fight against it? . . . The villain! Of course the villain knows about the prophecy, but they always try to go against it and always lose. That's actually sad when you think about it; to not only be told that no matter what you do you will fail at everything, but for the person telling you that to be 100% right! And sometimes it's not just the villains. As mentioned above, Lok was led to believe all his life that he was the hero, only to be pushed aside when it turned out everyone was wrong about him. Lucky for him he didn't end up on the same path as Anakin Skywalker and actually comes out of it OK as far as I know, but that's still a sad thing to have happen to you.

P.S. I'm fully aware that my choose of examples are somewhat older games, but I am a semi-retro gamer, still stuck in the PS1/PS2 era. lol I'm sure it's happened more often more recently.