Superhero stories are usually well aware of how people might abuse super powers. Those people become supervillains. The only way this criticism makes sense is if you think that no one would ever try to use their powers for good.
Internet troll criticizes comic book fans with chart pointing out that women prefer comic book fans to internet trolls by a 3 to 1 margin.
This video is dumb. It's making contradictory criticisms while having no alternative of its own to suggest.
The heroes don't use their powers to radically alter the world because, first and foremost, then it wouldn't be our world, it would be a very different one. Once you actually apply all the innovations that should be possible, the setting starts looking more like Star Trek, and it becomes a very different story. This is the same reason that Batman will never keep his villains off the street, whether he captures them or kills them. It's the same reason the Doctor always makes his way back to current year earth somewhere in the UK. The status quo they are maintaining is the one that let's us continue telling this kind of story.
Second, things like time travel and reality altering magic, things which can fundamentally change our world in an instant have to be kept limited, or we have no more stories. This goes beyond just the status quo of the setting and gets into the basics of storytelling and having tension. Make your heroes too powerful with no limitations, and you can't maintain a conflict without gigantic plotholes.
Second and a half, fundamentally altering the world with time travel or super science or magic is a concept that should be terrifying in its implications. Maybe time travel could alter the timeline for the better, but who gets to decide what is better, and what trade offs are worth it? Who gets to decide that it's worth unmaking millions of lives to alter history into something you think might be better? And how many ways can it go wrong? The world is a complicated place, you can't make sudden drastic changes without inflicting a lot of harm, even if you think the good it does will outweigh the harm. And doing so with forces that we may not fully understand or control is reckless. I mean, fuck, Ultron is the example they give of something to change the world, and would you trust the people making AI today to put that in a self-aware army of iron man robots?
Third, what kind of message would it send if the heroes used some bullshit super science or magic solution that quickly and easily solved environmental issues or social problems? Is that really addressing the issues in a way that's helpful for us in the real world? Is it setting an example for us to follow when they aren't faced with any of the real difficulties that come with solving those problems? it seems like that would just be dismissing the problem and implicitly endorsing the kind of vaporware solutions that polluting industries often try to hype up to avoid real change.
Fourth, do you really think the world would end up better if a small group of super powered individuals tried to overthrow governments, destabilize economies, and transform civilization by force? We're not just talking about intervening in a specific conflict like Ukraine or Palestine here, the video makes that clear. If at the end of the day, they aren't radically altering society, they are just defending the status quo. But, how do you think that would actually play out, especially in a world where there are other super powered individuals who will oppose them? World domination by benevolent dictators imposing their will on society while tearing the current order down by force is not going to be pretty, it's going to be a fucking nightmare. And let's be honest, none of our heroes have shown the capacity for building back the world they would be destroying, which is the much harder part.
Well, actually, no, despite criticizing the heroes for not using their powers to single-handedly institute radical change the video goes on to argue that change would actually require larger movements lead by the public, and condemns the idea of an elite few hogging power (should iron man be flooding the streets with military hardware? And how the fuck is the hulk suppose to share his power?). So, what then is the right thing for them to do? I guess they should engage in peaceful activism and support the people when they aren't called away to stop some murdering asshole from killing a bunch of innocent people. So, basically what we have now, but with a few more scenes of them making political statements and doing volunteer work that doesn't actually contribute to the plot.
Fifth, the villains are sometimes given sympathetic motivations because we want some nuance and complexity. The world is complicated and most conflicts are not just black and white. The lesson isn't that change is bad and evil, it's that you can't just view the world in such simplified terms. The alternative of making the villains all bad and the heroes all good is actually far more dangerous, because it reinforces the idea that we can just see the world in simple us vs them terms, with no need to understand other points of view or to question our own.
Sixth, they do fight the status quo, just not the parts that the video wants to address. Daredevil can't solve all the world's problems but he can and does fight both organized crime and corruption. Captain America isn't going to overthrow the government, but he will fight SHIELD when it crosses the line. Iron Man changed his own company to address its role in the world, and uses it to innovate to make the world a better place, that's just not the focus of the story.
The bad guy in black panther had a point, but was also a fascist trying to start a race war. And in the end, the hero acknowledges the issues that the villain had raised and does make changes to address them.
I’ve begun judging people that enjoy these movies... I believe the movies are trash.
...just because they don't agree with your opinions, doesn't make them inherently wrong.
A major part of why Trump never seems to face consequences is because of judges (really the entire justice system) playing it safe. They tip the scales in Trump's favor so that their decisions can't be easily portrayed as being biased against Trump.
In this instance, the judge could do the legally expected thing and just follow a normal timetable without worrying about the election. But sentencing Trump in the lead up to the election is very likely to be portrayed as an attempt to influence the election, and that would maximize the amount of scrutiny the decision gets both in and out of court. Trump will appeal as he always does, and there will be angry nutjobs sending in death threats at the very least, with a very real possibility of actual violence of some kind.
On the other hand, delaying until after the election means that the decision can't be seen as influencing the election. Instead, the outcome will either be known by everyone involved, or it will be in an extended dispute that will likely drown out any attention the sentence would receive. If Trump wins there's probably no point in worrying about the sentence anyway since he will be above the law. And if he loses, there will probably be a lot fewer people looking to pressure the court, and the judge might even be able to give a real sentence without retaliation
I'm not saying this was the right decision, but I think it's easy to see why the decision was made.
It does indeed.
And even if these cruise missiles were completely undetectable, it would still fail unless the strike takes out 100% of the enemy nukes. If even one is able to survive, you risk a nuclear holocaust.
Being able to theoretically wipe our all the enemy nukes without using any of your own is strategically nice to have, but on its own it isn't enough to negate the threat of a nuclear exchange. At best, it should make your enemy more reluctant to retaliate with a nuclear launch, assuming they realize that they aren't getting nuked and that a launch would potentially change that.
First character: A brooding loner with a tragic backstory, full of obvious parallels to my own life.
Second character: Yes these mechanics I'm combining are wildly mismatched, but my backstory explains it all.
Third character: A centaur that I play as a cab driver. Work in references to Taxi Driver, Cash Cab, Fake Taxi, etc. 100% dedication to the bit at all costs.
Fourth character: Mysterious backstory and ominous foreshadowing throughout the campaign, all leading up to the moment in the final session when I unleash the pun that the entire character was built around.
The first Mission Impossible movie is a fun time capsule in many ways. It has some fun stuff with early 90s depictions of computers, hacking, the internet and email, back before anyone knew what any of that actually looked like.
But it's also a great example of the 90s naivete that the US had about conflict and global politics. There's an entire monologue about how intelligence agencies are obsolete because the cold war is over. There was this vague notion in the 90s that world peace had broken out and things were just going to get better and better. And Hollywood sometimes struggled to come up with villains now that they no longer had soviets for that, so you don't see it reflected as much in films, especially since optimism doesn't make for good popcorn flicks, but Mission Impossible captures the thinking if not the warm and fuzzy feeling.
My other suggestion would be Contact. My theory has always been that 2001 A Space Odyssey, Contact, and Interstellar are really the same movie made in different times. As the 90s incarnation, Contact has no international conflict, only internal politics. It's got that I'm spiritual but not religious" vibe that was everywhere in the 90s. It has a vague message about hope, and belief and trying to understand the universe and what's out there in order to understand ourselves... it's hard to put it all in words, it's just the whole tone and vibe of the thing, it's all just so sincere and idealistic.
(For a great big dose of 90s optimism and hope for the future, I highly recommend watching the Adventures of Brisco Country JR. I'd have nominated that, but it isn't a movie)
The post: Can we just take a moment to acknowledge that there are at least some positives to be found in in the US?
The comments: No
And don't get me started on modern conveniences.
And then everyone making the criticism ignores that passing reference.