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D0ct0rteeth

Name: Chris Johnson

Bio: http://twitter.com/c_johnson


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D0ct0rteeth's Recent Comments
August 6, 2012 9:08 pm Ok, so from what I am reading Marvel is about to get the rights back to Daredevil, Bullseye and Kingpin... and instead of being grateful for this huge gift... they are willing to let Fox keep them in exchange for Galactus? Maybe I am crazy, but that seems like a TERRIBLE move.... Wasnt Galactus what everyone laughed and rolled their eyes at when it came to FF2? They want to give back what is arguable their answer to Batman, for a giant purple guy that is basically unfilmable? They are willing to give a potential franchise away for a villian that shouldnt be part of their plan at all? Part of me would believe that Disney are master negotiators and that this is leaked in order to get Fox a false sense of hope/security so that the Joe Carnahan movie ISNT fast tracked and ideally falls apart and then Marvel gets DD back. The smart play would be to take this as a sign that Fox has terrible organizational leadership right now. With the rushed, erratic and inconsistency of the rumors/scheduling that Daredevil and The Wolverine are going thru they should take Daredevil and then just wait for them to fumble another property and get that one back too.
November 30, 2010 9:27 pm I thought I was the only one who has been fairly bored with the writing, especially considering it is an adaptation of an existing work, and so critically successful - you would suspect that it would be more dramatic and interesting.

I loved the pilot, however I wished that there was... more.... to the show.

Glad to see that they are making changes.
March 8, 2009 2:01 pm Watchmen vs Zack Snyder

I had tried to read watchmen back in the 90's, and I'll be honest I never really got into it... But when I heard that they were making a movie I read it, and reread it over the last few years and I can truly appreciate it.

The comic itself was a turning point, and it wasn't that it was unique - but instead that it both critiqued and analysed everything that came before it.

- what would it actually take in a real world for someone to dress up in a costume. If they did wouldn't that person literally become a sociopath?
- If someone was super powered - how would that impact their love-life and connections with humanity?
- How would the rest of humanity truly look at heroes?
- What is the connection between violence/power/control and sex?
- What is the role of homosexuality and fetishism in comics
- As we age and mature - how do we pass that on to our children and avoid damaging or controlling them?
- How do we deal with a world that is changing so fast, and that uses us up, spits us out and in the end will destroy us.. How do we find hope and joy in this world.. or even a sense of purpose or meaning?
- And despite however amazing the world is - we will always have a need and desire for escapism. You see this in the black freighter comic
- How politicians and people of power will always seek to control and win and dominate - they are reactionary and respond only to fear. Fear of losingtheir power.. fear.. fear.. and more fear. and in the end it wasn't hope or a sense of higher purpose or ideals that saved us... but a very very delicate balance based on a greater fear.

This comic is praised so much, and over the past few weeks critics just say that it is a great comic universally - but never actually say why it is great. The comic is over 20 years old and the themes of Watchmen have been used and reused from Heroes, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and in some degree I will say that there is a part of me.. somewhere.. that says that this truly is the best Watchmen film that could possibly ever be made - but then there are also so many other things that absolutely made me shake my head. Now I will say that I feelSnyder did a decent job, and in a way I almost don't feel that it is even fair to critique or judge this movie at all. This movie cannot be made. Its as if you tried to make Six Feet Under, The Wire or the Sopranos into a 2hr movie. Its too broad. its too epic.. and I know that they wanted to do it on HBO, but HBO said no. When the 3.5-4hr extended cut is released I will rewatch it, but even then I feel that you cant fix a bad recipe by making more of it.

Snyder seems to have largely traded the subtext, nuance and social exploration aspects of the work for an excuse to just make the most brutal and dark superhero movie he could. Thisisn't a terrible film... its amazingly reverent and loyal to the book - but it does so in a way that has actually misrepresented the original.

Imagine if you went to a art gallery and it had posters and lithographs of Michelangelo, Degas and Picasso all over the walls... you may take 4-5 minutes and walk around and look at them, and comment that they are nice... However, you can never call them art.. they have no soul, they reflect the light completely differently and they will miss all of the texture, nuance and history that the original have that make it a true work of art. Most importantly, you should never miss the opportunity toactually see an original in Paris - and if you did, you would say, without any doubt - "Wow, I had no idea, it does look completely different".. the complexity of thecolors and the entire experience of seeing it would be completely different.

Snyder's film in dozens of ways has actually misrepresented the classic, and had traded substance for style, and is in a way satiring itself - which unfortunately becomes confusing and sloppy.

For instance, just to take a single aspect - Violence in the original work was the exact opposite of every other comic book. Violence was a poor sad desperate result of fear or desperation. It was a central pillar of every character.

Ozymandias killed the comedian because he was afraid his plan would get out. He was the Smartest man in the world... but like a Pharaoh, or King.. he was completely alone. Like a machine.. a reflection of Dr Manhattan - he will do what is logical in order to save the world but his plan, and the violence was pure logic. It was not out of love or ethics... but just amathematical desperate decision.

Dr Manhattan was the mirror to Ozymandias in the fact that he was a central representation of love all thru the book. He truly loved Janey Slater. - but by being transformed into Dr Manhattan.. by actually being the representation of wish fulfillment an having all of the power in the world, he lost/chose to stop loving her. He abandoned his role as a husband and chose the love of another woman, Laurie - who ironically did the same to him with Dan. It is only on Mars when Dr Manhattan see's the true complex beauty in Laurie that he begins to love again and becomes almost human again. Manhattan does several amazing things at the end of the book, all related to violence.

1. He chooses to not stop or condemn Veidt. He literally chooses pacifism. Just moments after reconnecting with his humanity, this is not his apathy or ambivalence - but he absolutely chooses to stop the violence, both on Earth and in Antartica.
2. He murders Rorschach, or more accurately commits Euthanasia to end his tragic life. He could have left him out in the snow, of course he would have died and would have no opportunity to tell anyone. But he kills him to ease his pain. Again mirroring the sacrifice of millions in NYC
3. He doesn't attempt to reunite or reconcile with Laurie, he steps aside and literally disappears. He leaves to allow her and Dan to mature into fully functional adults. All 3 of them have now left their twisted violent/heroic ways and are now true mature  adults and can have a relationship thatisn't based on violence, S&M or approval of their mother/Hollis.

The comedian was a weak sociopath who used violencece to control, dominate others - to the point of it becoming his career - in the end he realizes what a joke he is. He is mirrored by Rorschach whom shows how a life or repeated violence is literally so tragic and meaningless that he literally begs to be killed at the end of the story. Both men tried to find meaning in their life by dominating violencethru violence - ultimately both men were destroyed by it.

Violence is literally a replacement for love or spiritual connection for both Nite Owl and the Silk Spectre. Hollis has actually moved on and found fulfillment in restoring old cars, mentoring Dan, and with the neighborhood kids. Hollis literally tells Dan to move on and he doesn't need to keep coming around, and Dan blows him off... not to be polite... but because Dan NEEDS Hollis.. Dan is so empty and is missing something in his life. All of his money has been given to him, he has no one to share his life with - and is so desperate for companionship he has named his ship, and is in twisteddysfunctional relationships with both Rorschach and Sally (which eventually mature into more meaningful relationships).

I could write about this for hours but the violence in the book is a conscious tragic substitute for life and meaning. As the characters mature they either chose to change, or be destroyed by it. Unfortunately the movie doesn't truly illustrate this arc, but instead it celebrates the violence, amps it up and doesn't add to or make the connections.. but instead it blurs them and this can be said about several aspects of the film such as the music, sex, and dialogue.
January 31, 2009 6:42 pm My mom always told me if I didnt have anything nice to say...
December 15, 2008 5:17 pm

Lets just admit that there were several mistakes with the first X-Men.

Sabretooth, Toad, Storm, and the whole Statue of Liberty and turn everyone into a mutant plot was lame.

The huge Over-The-Top villianious schemes are the problems with most of these comic films. When a character is turned in to a superhero, too many films immediately amp up the villian into an absurd exact opposite of the hero (Iron Man, Hulk, Hulk 2, etc..)

If the X-Men franchise got rid of half the characters, and was more of an introspective character study between Magneto and Prof X's dream, that erupted into a series of battles as charachters switched sides, flashed back, andnormal humans were caught in the middle. That would be a far better film.

 Unfortunately, X1 and X3 are underwhelming.

December 5, 2008 5:54 pm http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/death_sentence/ actually looks better
August 26, 2008 4:59 pm

@JumpingJupiter Luthor and IroncladMerc are nailing it.What the guys at WB are completely missing is that TDK is NOT successful because it is "dark" or "evil" (Otherwise Blade, and Dark City would be 500mil movies) the reason why it was so successful is because of they nailed the joker and the actual batman characterization. They finally tapped into the true soulm of the character. THIS was finally Batman. It was finally a great story, and NOT just a superhero movie

 If they make a dark Superman then they are just wasting their time and money... they need a superman story/script that people will stand and applaud and want to see 4-5 times in the theater.

Ironically, that story has already been written.. and its fairly dark - but true to the Superman character.

 Kingdom Come

If they want to please everyone. Stay true to the superman character, create a DC film multiverse, do the "Dark Superman" and do a trilogy... they should do Kingdom Come - and people would see this, baby in the theater 5, 6, 7 times. easily.

 

May 1, 2008 8:19 pm OK. So.. um... the president is like.. 30 years old? 
April 10, 2008 6:07 pm

Possibly the best episode of iFanboy so far. The only other competitor may be the interview you had with the Marvel PR/editorial staff guy

Fantastic job!

March 17, 2008 8:42 pm I just wanted to publicly recognize that the thought baloon was cropped in a fantastic way.