Avengers Assemble!

[Captain Russ]

Also, I have a question that I swear I'm not being snarky with but honestly need to understand (and this may only get a real response from Martin or any other people here with kids and in no way is meant to be a slam or anything like that) but how is WW or CM or really, ANY MOVIE important to a kid just because of the gender of the character?

Like (and again, not directed towards you specifically Martin but your post was the most recent example on my time line, glad your kid loved it!) I have so many friends on social media saying how important CM is for their daughters and shit (and the fact that charities were being set up to send underprivileged kids to see a FUCKING MARVEL MOVIE) and I sort of get that because most superhero movies are dudes but like when I was 8 The Goonies was super important to me because it showed that kids didn't need to rely on adults but now you fucks all say what terrible taste I have and how shitty that movie is ,etc...

And on the flip side as an 8 year old I also fucking LOVED Pippi Longstocking(went as her for Halloween one year), She-Ra (collected all of the fucking toys, wanted to have long hair like her, etc), Return to OZ, etcccc and all of those starred little girls and in no way was I ever meant to feel weird or even lifted up by people saying THOSE ARE IMPORTANT MOVIES so why CM and how much of this shit is Disney manipulating the masses here?

Again, shouldn't kids be empowered by REAL people or things and not fucking comic book movies? Like what parent is saying "You know Iron Man is really important for my kid to see because of how resourceful Tony Stark is..."

Again, I have zero ill will towards CM (haven't even seen it yet so I can't even say if it's good or bad) or honestly any movie starring any fucking gender.

I just want to understand.

But Rob, the Goonies DO suck.

[Abraham Smashington]

But Rob, the Goonies DO suck.

Noooooooo.

[Matt]

Seconded. THE GOONIES is fucking horrible. As you may recall, I have a thread about how wrong most of you are regarding that film.

[Abraham Smashington]

I enjoy it purely due to nostalgia now. Well that and for Joey Pants and Robert Davi.

[Captain Russ]

Sorry to lay that out there and derail your questioning of capeshit’s inflated sense of importance in the modern world.

Escapist fare such as these films should be for everyone and are generally designed as such, but the current climate for discourse about largely innocuous fluff is an absolute circus (which is far more entertaining than the films themselves these days in the rubbernecking sense of things).

And I don’t even have to buy a ticket for that tidal wave of lunacy.

Kids like crap. Who are we to rob them of crap?

[Abraham Smashington]

I love you Russ. Forever and ever.

[Captain Russ]

Back at ya buddy.

So when is Disney buying the rights to Blankman?

[Trejo]

My watch runs on Goonietime

[Timothy225]

Fuck it, I'll say it. I dig the Goonies, and the Sloth/Chunk scene at the end gets me everytime.

To run with what Bill said, and with what I'm experiencing with my niece, to see characters onscreen that kids can personally identify with is something awesome. My niece seems to be segueing from Disney Princess-land to "Wonder Woman can beat up batman? COOL!". Throw in the fact that Captain Marvel has a LOT of personal identifiers for her (kid has the same hair color and hairstyle as my niece, and her mom was in the Air Force like CM), and I can see her rocking a CM costume come Halloween (I'm already getting questions from her as to how strong she is - is she stronger than the Hulk? - and what her powers are). I also have to referee the growing conflict 'twixt her and her mom, ans her mom is very much Team Steve Rogers vs. anyone else in the MCU.

Like you said, Rob, kids like what they like, and as long as it's not something that'll hurt 'em or lose a limb, more power to 'em. Plus, it's a gas to see my niece and her friends worked up over the shit they like. They're having FUN, so why fuck that up with whining adult man-babies who get their knickers in a twist because there's a movie with a woman in the lead kicking bad guy ass.

Real world heroes, however, almost always have feet of clay. People fuck up, and watching a personal hero fall from grace can be devastating to a kid. No great shakes for an adult either, but kids can take such disappointment hard.

Reminds of the Force Awakens and Last Jedi crapfest from the trolls - they swear they love Star Wars but hate that Rey and Finn were the heroes. Princess Leia and Lando Calrissian would love to have a chat with you on that score. Same with horror films - like you said, most monsters/slashers get their asses handed to them by the ladies at the end of the flick, and rightly so. I ask you, where would Freddy Krueger be without Nancy fucking his shit up?

I also have to see Rob's She-Ra collection (never got the toys, but I pretty much watched MOTU and She-Ra fairly regularly. Team Teela 4 Life, yo) and there better be pics of young Rob as Pippi Longstocking on display here stat.

[FilmNerdJamie]

Honestly, it's not that The Goonies is bad per say. I'm just not the audience anymore and even putting on the Nostalgia Glasses, it doesn't hold up.

I grew up adoring it like many. But it wasn't 'till around.. 2007 (ish) when I was showing it to my niece and it just started unnerving me.

[FilmNerdJamie]

Disney rehires Gunn for Guardians Vol. III, swearing they made a bad call. When in reality, there was (in all probability) a legal loophole they missed.

Very mixed on this call. Dude should have never been fired in the first place. However, he was never the martyr/victim Film Twitter made him out to be. Said tons of nasty, vicious remarks (even to the point of tweeting out post-Roseanne Gate how old comments can and should be used against someone) and got rightfully called out on it. Unfortunately, it was Alt-Right bros who pointed out Gunn's hypocrisy... so that null-and-voids the point?

[Matt]

Does this resolve the Dave Bautista situation as well?

[FilmNerdJamie]

Bautista was the only one who was refreshingly honest about the whole situation. Everyone else (while yes their back was against the wall too) came off as covering-their-ass and scripted as all Hell.

They're swearing they will share Gunn with Warner Brothers for The Suicide Squad. This brings back memories of Bryan Singer trying to do Superman Returns and X-Men 3 back-to-back.

I... find that hard to believe. But we'll see.

[BillyG]

I mean, I guess good for Gunn. But Guardians 2 sucked ass hard. Between that and me being completely over Pratt has me left with no excitement for another GOTG.

[Captain Russ]

I think the other aspect that goes unchallenged a lot of the time or at least drowned out by the dimwit opinion mobs regarding the reasons why people push back on the current diversity push is that it rings false a lot of the time when they are presented with underwritten and underdeveloped characters that lack a strong dramatic impetus to become heroes or forge their new identity. It’s a lot of tell, don’t show now.

Largely they are just plugged into a plot and do things only because the plot demands they do them. That’s underserving your character and insulting your audience.

Finn and Rey are both awful examples to admire precisely because they haven’t given the audience a real reason to identify or cheer for either when they overcome something. The struggle for both is mixed at best and a confusing bore at worst.

In Finn we have a turncoat who at one point begins to shake off his programming and in the next scene cheers on his minutes-before sworn enemy since indoctrination for blasting his comrades to hell (the same ones he was shaken to see being cut down in the scene previous).

To say Rey is something to aspire to is to what? After two films we haven’t gleaned anything at all of who she is as a person beyond an orphan who was born a space jesus of the Force. No past, wallowing confused and alone in the present, and trudging into a future with little to show for it. No real struggle to train, to learn hard lessons of sacrifice in the pursuit of inner or outer knowledge and growth.

Even after two films, they are still largely unchanged by the lackluster efforts afforded them so far.

There have been well written arcs of characters and stories for women and people of color that ring true. Some of this shit today is lazy and I think kids deserve better than cardboard heroes (I know I’m undermining my glib remark earlier that kids love dumb shit. They can also love well made dumb shit that doesn’t skip over the harder parts of fiction writing.).