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posted by martyb on Monday October 01 2018, @10:14PM   Printer-friendly

c|net:

Marvel Rising: Secret Warriors is a sweet superhero tale where, yes, a group of younger heroes come together to battle an extremist group. But more importantly than that, it's a superhero tale with diversity oozing out of every animated frame.
...
Ms. Marvel, who idolizes Captain Marvel and is inspired by her, instead leads the Secret Warriors movie, showcasing her origin tale, her relationship with her mother and her struggle for acceptance in a culture that is adverse to the creation of the Inhumans -- the latter being people who gain superpowers after getting into contact with a gas substance called Terrigen Mists.

What Secret Warriors is doing particularly well is that it isn't shying away from its focus on diversity in any part of its plot. In particular, the storyline aims at a brewing conflict between humans and an extremist group of Inhumans, the latter believing that a war between the two groups is inevitable. Khan ends up stuck in the middle, as an Inhuman herself who doesn't believe the conflict is needed.

Another refreshing carryover from Marvel comics is America Chavez. Her origin story, which sees Chavez's two mothers sacrificing themselves to protect their daughter, remains completely intact and sympathetic. Chavez herself demonstrates herself as a formidable ally, having super strength and the ability to fly. It's a nice start for LGBT representation on the animated side of the Marvel universe for now.

Wasn't Captain Marvel a man?


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Monday October 01 2018, @10:44PM (18 children)

    by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Monday October 01 2018, @10:44PM (#742521)

    This looks no different from the endless shoddy superhero movies both DC and Marvel have been pouring out over the last 15 years or so, just aimed at a slightly different market.

    I don't care about this, not because the cyphers in it are gay or trans or black or whatever, but because I'm an adult and prefer my entertainment to have an original story and characters who are more than paper thin.

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Acabatag on Tuesday October 02 2018, @12:12AM (12 children)

    by Acabatag (2885) on Tuesday October 02 2018, @12:12AM (#742550)

    I'm just so tired of superheroes. They crowd out good SF that I'd rather be recognized as the really good stuff.

    All the 'Marvel' stuff. I just turn away when I hear the 'M' word. There's a lot of other stuff that I think, personally, is better.

    Stuff like Jeff VanderMeer's Annihilation. Plenty of heroes involved, but not musty old pulp from the past.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @07:13AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @07:13AM (#742663)

      ^^^^This

      These superheros are just the modern vampires/witches/fairies and old greek Gods sold by other name and a fantasy without the susbtance and influence in people's lives as had the latter.

      Most if not all real SF (and not only hard SF) keeps being influential, inspiring and driving real people's lives and humanity beyond where no man has gone before, despite the current studio's attempts.

      Why they keep calling superheros stuff SF when the plot is pure fantasy?

    • (Score: 1) by Blymie on Tuesday October 02 2018, @10:19AM (10 children)

      by Blymie (4020) on Tuesday October 02 2018, @10:19AM (#742695)

      Have to say this -- superheros aren't sci-fi. They're fantasy, in almost all cases. EG, not based on any form of science that we recongise as valid.

      Superman, getting enough power from the sun (with his small body surface size), to do *anything*? Sorry, sunlight doesn't have that much power pre square cm, superman would make more sense if his powers came from eating massive quantities of food, or somehow performing cold fusion in his stomach.

      No matter what comic you look at, all most all of it falls into this category. And just because something is in outer space, doesn't mean it's science fiction either.

      Comics are fantasy. Like LOTR, or most zombie movies / fiction.

      (The only zombie fiction that "made sense" scientifically, was one based upon nanotech I read. Sure it wasn't perfect, but it at least explained the rapid expansion of the "plague", how it was 100% contagious, how the dead were able to live without a heartbeat, etc...)

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @03:39PM (5 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @03:39PM (#742840)

        Iron Man and Batman.

        • (Score: 1) by Blymie on Tuesday October 02 2018, @11:26PM (4 children)

          by Blymie (4020) on Tuesday October 02 2018, @11:26PM (#743127)

          Iron Man and Batman are fantasy.

          Iron Man isn't sci-fi. The movies have attempted to make it somewhat more plausible, but the science behind it is still... barely sane.

          Then, consider that movies with Iron Man in it have wizards, people being mutated by being bit by a spider, people turning big and green because they irradiate themselves, people that are "gods", people shrinking themselves with little amulets and calling themselves ant-man, and on and on and on. It's fantasy, because the science is complete gibberish, bull, and half the realm is magic/etc.

          On to DC/Batman, the guy has money -- and therefore has all manner of wondrous tools that simply appear without any real logic behind how they could possible do what they do. Not to mention that in real life, Batman would be dead 1000 times over from the falls/injuries, and on and on. Of course, Batman is in movies with Superman (which is pure fantasy), Ares (a freaking Greek god), Wonder Woman (made out of clay by another god), immortal women (amazons), green lantern (who's ring is powered by beings that have lived for billions of years, and his ring is powered up with enough juice to move PLANETS with one charge), and the list is endless.

          Claiming one character is sorta-kinda-maybe almost "It feels like it might be sci-fi, almost!" isn't good enough, when the canon is all about fantasy.

          I read sci-fi. I read fantasy. Read comics as a kid, watch DC and Marvel and other such fims, and frankly enjoy them. But none of these DC/Marvel films even remotely approach soft-scifi, let alone hard-scifi.

          • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday October 03 2018, @04:55PM (3 children)

            by tangomargarine (667) on Wednesday October 03 2018, @04:55PM (#743491)

            The Iron Man and Batman movies, specifically. I don't read the comics themselves, but the movies (the trilogies, not the Avengers/Superman crossovers) were pretty strictly no-fantasy-involved.

            Then, consider that movies with Iron Man in it have wizards, people being mutated by being bit by a spider, people turning big and green because they irradiate themselves, people that are "gods", people shrinking themselves with little amulets and calling themselves ant-man, and on and on and on.

            First movie, he's fighting another guy from the same company who built his own suit. Second movie, he's fighting a Russian dude who built his own suit. Third movie...okay, the bad guys actually have pyro-y superpowers due to some slightly-handwavy medical treatment. Which they fight with an army of autonomous suits, which, while rather ridiculous to watch, there isn't anything particularly implausible about. It's a question of just making *better* AI, not that AI isn't a thing that exists already.

            On to DC/Batman, the guy has money -- and therefore has all manner of wondrous tools that simply appear without any real logic behind how they could possible do what they do.

            Having just watched the first 2 Batman movies again, I recall they actually went out of their way to explain how they worked sometimes. Like the skyhook thing [wikipedia.org], and the universal mobile phone sonar hack. Obviously the sonar thing has bandwidth and latency problems, but hey.

            The most magic-adjacent thing I can think of from those was the hallucinogenic flower from Tibet or whatever (and the subsequent panic gas based on it), but there are/were Native American tribes that use peyote etc. for a similar effect in religious ceremonies.

            --
            "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
            • (Score: 1) by Blymie on Wednesday October 03 2018, @11:16PM (2 children)

              by Blymie (4020) on Wednesday October 03 2018, @11:16PM (#743745)

              You can't take a movie, remove it from its canon, and just say "meh, this tiny story wasn't fantasy, because I'm ignoring the rest of the universe where ironman / batman live".

              You watch Iron Man? That's the Marvel universe. Batman? DC. Both are fantasy, complete and total fantasy.

              Attempts to take a little, tiny, isolated story out of that universe, and pretend that therefore "Batman" is sci-fi, is... well, you're not even remotely being honest.

              • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday October 04 2018, @03:14PM (1 child)

                by tangomargarine (667) on Thursday October 04 2018, @03:14PM (#744118)

                The summary is talking about an animated show, so the movies are relevant, debatably more relevant than the comic books. No, it's not "dishonest."

                --
                "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
                • (Score: 1) by Blymie on Friday October 05 2018, @02:41PM

                  by Blymie (4020) on Friday October 05 2018, @02:41PM (#744630)

                  At no point did I say looking at the movies was dishonest. No where. Not in one place. Ever. At any time.

                  What I said is, you can't take movies by themselves, removed from their universe, their canon. And that to look ONLY at the movies was not honest.

                  And it's not. And by the fact that you're ignoring my point, and pretending I'm making another point, makes me believe you know it -- and are instead just arguing around that point.

                  You cannot take movies, remove them from the entire universe that is batman/dc, and then point to them in isolation and say "See! This one Batman movie is sci-fi!"

                  Nope. Nada. Can't do it. Never.

                  Because, Batman exists in a universe greater than that single movie. It's called *canon*, so understood that there's a specific word for it.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @08:56PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @08:56PM (#743066)

        Why? Because it is internally consistent, it has rules for the 'technology' that it centers on, and it primarily depicts the social interactions and conflicts caused by that technology. In this case the Ring, and spread across the whole of the pantheon, magic, its corruptable influence on all forms of intelligent life, and its eventual quashing to leave a world of mystical neutrality with neither mystical boons nor banes available to the remaining inhabitants.

        • (Score: 1) by Blymie on Tuesday October 02 2018, @11:29PM

          by Blymie (4020) on Tuesday October 02 2018, @11:29PM (#743129)

          Something isn't sci-fi, because it has consistent rules. If that was the case, the bible would be sci-fi.

          LOTR is fantasy.

      • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday October 02 2018, @10:56PM (1 child)

        by Freeman (732) on Tuesday October 02 2018, @10:56PM (#743109) Journal

        Someone clearly didn't watch "I am Legend." The premise behind that was pretty solid as far as a scientific zombie movie is concerned.

        --
        Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
        • (Score: 1) by Blymie on Tuesday October 02 2018, @11:16PM

          by Blymie (4020) on Tuesday October 02 2018, @11:16PM (#743120)

          I am legend wasn't bad... but I did say "most".

  • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @04:15AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @04:15AM (#742638)

    There are over 10 million Americans (160 million world wide) with an IQ of less than 70. When are these people going to have super power representation?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @07:42AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @07:42AM (#742669)

      Good news!

      They always did.

      That explains most superhero plots anyway.

      Except for Batman. He's like ... 110. Pretty good stuff.

    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday October 02 2018, @04:13PM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 02 2018, @04:13PM (#742867) Journal

      I don't think you're *really* paying attention. Those 10 million retards are getting their representation right now!

  • (Score: 2) by schad on Tuesday October 02 2018, @01:55PM (1 child)

    by schad (2398) on Tuesday October 02 2018, @01:55PM (#742776)

    I think we're going to see a greater split between "popcorn movies" and "good movies" as time goes on, with only the former surviving in big multi-screen theaters. The latter will end up on those single-screen specialty theaters, or simply go direct to e.g. Netflix or Amazon. (Didn't Annihilation go direct to Netflix everywhere except the US?) There's just not a big enough market for "good movies" to show them in cinema multiplexes.

    Personally, as long as those "good movies" keep getting made and I can watch them reasonably cost-effectively and conveniently, I'm OK with this. I think that "good movies" do better in a smaller environment anyway; I think I watched Ex Machina on my computer with headphones, and I can't imagine what it would be like in a big movie theater. Suffice it to say that I don't think the theater would've contributed positively to the experience. But on the other hand, a movie like Disney's Marvel's Avengers: Infinity War 2: Part 7: Electric Boogaloo? That benefits from being in a theater, and the constant stream of explosions and witty banter will drown out the noises your fellow movie-goers are making. And if you have to pee because you drank that entire 128oz soda? No worries. The plot is so simple that missing 5 minutes of the movie is no big deal.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @04:32PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @04:32PM (#742892)

      Well "good movies" have always been a problematic designation.

      I have long observed that whenever some movie critic pans something as being low brow, it will show up as the new blockbuster.

      Then again there is also a long long history of "direct to rental/sale" movies. Hell, some of the most acclaimed anime series are OVAs, or Original Video Anime. Meaning that they were released directly to VHS back in the day, rather than cinema or TV. Yet there have been produced crazy things like 110 episode scifi epics that way.

      Sadly what seems to be going on is that some variant of the "movie" critic seems to be taking over the "social" world by abusing the internet to produce outrage mobs.