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[Movies] Watch Edge of Tomorrow. Bitch about it. Repeat.
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Well, yes, because it's a story about a girl with magic powers.
Yes, and Disney has a long enough history making films where women only have agency or importance if something magical happens to them.
It's a macguffin that happens to be a person, that's not an unknown plot in fiction. Being special by itself isn't a bad plot, Mr. Sinister does that for the Summers Family. For her it's not any different since she didn't have a choice, her powers were thrust upon her by an outside force - who was her
Again, I'm not examining this film as a singular instance.
Lots of things hold up under the caveat of being within a vacuum.
Well, yes, because those stories tend to be about something magical happening to an otherwise downtrodden person.
No they don't. They are usually princesses.
Whether you're of royal blood or not doesn't matter when you're trapped in a tower.
edit: Like, there's the sleeping beauty, who is cursed; Snow White, who is the target of an assassination; and Frozen, who has uncontrollable freezing powers. While not literally downtrodden, they got probs.
It does. Because it makes you special.
And most stories are about special people because normal people are boring.
But the male lead was a black haired man with a large nose, and the main villain was gorgeous.
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Way to completely ignore everything this conversation is about. As Atomika points t's not about whether or not she's special, but why.
The why is inconsequential. How she got her power proves nothing. I still need to know how someone earns their powers, too. That wasn't properly explained.
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Not even a little bit.
So, let's assume that before the movie proper starts, there's a little montage where Rapunzel goes to a hair sensei and earns her hair powers through training.
How does this affect the rest of the movie?
I certainly thought it was more entertaining than The Hunger Games, since it wasn't Battle Royale Lite and tried to be somewhat original.
Oh yeah, the author of THG never read Battle Royale. Sure, and Harry Potter's author never read Matilda.
(I think she had the nerve to say she'd never heard of Battle Royale, but I guess it's possible if she lived under a rock while writing that book.)
Because it takes her from being genetically "special" to someone who worked hard to develop a skill. If you can't see the difference in that, well, I don't know what else to tell you.
The fact that this may or may not change broad plot details isn't important. She's a character. Pete Venkman being a lovable scamp doesn't change the fact Gozer is bringing that Marshmallow Man to town.
This is a specious line of reasoning.
Going back to the list of 25 Disney films released post-2000, there are a total of two films in which the lead character is magical or in some sense "chosen". Both of them are women. So in a technical sense, you're correct, but i don't think you're correct in any way that's relevant. More commonly, the protagonist is specifically normal or unremarkable and makes a difference anyway.
Mostly it seems like you aren't too familiar with Disney films, given that you keep making factually incorrect or grossly misleading statements about them.
To the extent there is a common theme in recent Disney films, it's more akin to "do what you want with your life, fuck societal roles, and hard work and perseverance will pay off." I submit as evidence:
Wreck-It Ralph
Brave
The Princess and the Frog
WALL-E
Ratatouille
Meet the Robinsons
Those are the ones where "be yourself" is an obvious theme. There are several others where it's arguably a supporting theme.
I would ask, Atomika, that if you want to keep asserting the existence of all these problematic films, you start providing specific examples. Because it's hard to discuss things when your argument consists of vague and supported statements like "they're usually princesses."
Whereas I find that first sentence to be factually wrong and the first book at least to be objectively terribad. Opinions etc!
At the most basic level it is in fact about a girl that successfully poisons her mother. Then regrets it.
Our of those 13, seven are dudes and six are gals.
Just in case you're curious.
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I haven't seen Meet the Robinsons.
I unequivocally love Ratatouille, it's my favorite Pixar film.
I haven't seen Princess & The Frog, but the description earlier prompted me to say that I shouldn't have any problems with it.
I don't like WALL-E because the main character strikes me as a weird neckbeard and I didn't like the way that Pixar walked back on it being a pro-environmentalist film.
Brave is fine.
Wreck-It Ralph, as I've said, is fine.
That still doesn't account for the Disney Princess brand. The Cinderellas and Snow Whites and Sleeping Beauties and Little Mermaids and Aladdins and Beauty & the Beasts and Frozens and Rapunzels and Sophias. I think all that shit is harmful.
Lilo & Stitch? Not so much.
Man, what? Are you saying Roald Dahl invented the idea of children with magical powers in 1988 and JK Rowling took that basis for her series?
Sounds about right. I am not actually a Disney fanboy, and yet I've always had the sense that they were basically even-handed in their portrayals. Initially they were white-centric, but they seem to have intentionally stopped being that some time ago.
Well, yeah. It's a little dark. Though "poisons her mother" is a bit reductive, and anyway the film shows the disastrous consequences of her selfish actions and she learns a lesson in the end, so...
I am. Which dudes?
It is a well known fact that Jo Rowling stole the plot for the Harry Potter franchise from the movie Troll.
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And yes, BR's based on a book. A very good one. The movie is pretty much 1:1, though the film tweaks some little things. I think the film has a happier ending.
The Little Mermaid has a similar thing where Ariel makes a very misguided and selfish deal with Ursula that almost allows Ursula to usurp Triton and become de facto Queen of the Oceans.
It only gets averted when Ariel's boyfriend slaughters Ursula with a ship.
That was pretty indirect, though, and while the deal is going on Ariel is at most making a bad personal life choice. Whereas, Merida is actually giving her mom a tampered item and deceiving her to her face.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Little Mermaid is actually about the American Revolution. The ship at the end is the french saving us from the british.
pleasepaypreacher.net
And as usual, the novel is way better than the movie.
See in the beginning Ariel is chilling cool with the sea, but she wants to be on the land to hang out with america. Ursala a stand in for the british, totally says she can, but only if she agrees to not have a voice (ergo taxation without representation), all the while its her grand plan to take over america with Ariel distracted by the lure of being in america. So the prince as a stand in for the french kills the shit out of her and america is free with a voice.
Boom this all makes logical sense and has no gaps of logic at all.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Though the movie is still damn good, and a very faithful adaptation.
I had never heard of Battle Royale until it came up in discussion after Hunger Games came out in theatres.
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Ursula's clammy gray skin and tentacles also seem authentically British.
Point of order. In Tangled, Rapunzel is NOT born with magic powers. She actually becomes deathly ill for reasons unexplained, and it is the magical flower that they turn into a cure for her illness that grants her hair it's magical healing powers. Once cut, the hair loses that power.
If anything, Rapunzel is actually cursed by the magic, as it is the reason Mother Godel kidnaps her and locks her up in the first place.
She wasn't born magical or special. It was a side effect of becoming so ill that only magic could cure it, and that magic caused an entirely new set of problems.