Violence and (Geek) Entertainment

[TiQuinn]

Shooting the chase scene between The Joker and Batman, for "Suicide Squad", on an empty street in Downtown Toronto. Yonge Street is never empty, if it's open. Not even at 3:00am. There were a couple of hundred people watching the filming from the third floor windows in our Student Campus Center, who had to be shot around.

The Dark Knight did this too, with Chicago clearly standing in for Gotham. The car chase scene is probably the biggest set piece of the movie, but you’ve got a police escort trying to go down Lower Wacker and then top level through downtown, and again, it’s virtually empty of people and cars (except some parked ones specifically blown up by design). It’s not that the focus shouldn’t be on the action - it’s that the emptiness of the space feels wrong. Even if it’s “not really Chicago”, I can’t help but feel like it’s off.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Way to point out the bleedin obvious. “Superhero” and “realism” are diametric opposites.

Lovely, I'm talking in terms of following the natural principles of science. I'm not talking about superheroic powers or superheroes existing.
I should not have to explain myself as it is 2025 but here we are again with this silly argument. We have to cover it in RPGs I guess we need to cover it superhero movies too.

But that’s not a problem in itself. Entertainment is not supposed to be realistic, it’s supposed to be entertaining.

Yes and if I'm to be entertained it needs not to break my suspension of disbelief in what happens when entire buildings fall, or people with bright white shirts run head first into machine gun fire...etc
If it does, I will not be entertained.

The overwhelming majority of movies are not realistic, the superhero genre is just more up front about it. Man of Steel was a bad superhero movie.

Yes but there is a level of non-realism that is unacceptable...you know that right?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Yes and if I'm to be entertained it needs not to break my suspension of disbelief

Which is highly subjective.

What breaks your suspension of disbelief is probably very different to mine. As a scientist, I have to make a determined effort to switch science brain off for practically every movie I see.

Yes but there is a level of non-realism that is unacceptable...you know that right?

Nope, ever heard of surrealism? Ever seen Head? There is absolutely no requirement for any level of realism or logic in a movie.

 

[MGibster]

Maybe it’s because I’ve been to Rome so I knew exactly how busy that place can be even at night. Venice, yeah. It’s on an island, and the canal system means there’s not a lot of major streets and less traffic overall. But even then, that’s just a single example. I’ve noticed this in other movies where the locations just feel so unnatural because they are clearly depopulated.

It's like watching a car commercial showing the vehicle driving on an empty road in a city and the disclaimer at the bottom reads, "professional driver on a closed course." I'm not talking about a commercial showing a vehicle doing outlandish stunts or anything, it's just being driven down a city street.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Which is highly subjective.

Yes.

What breaks your suspension of disbelief is probably very different to mine. As a scientist, I have to make a determined effort to switch science brain off for practically every movie I see.

When (bad word) people spend THAT much money on superhero movies they could at least get a decent script and not bend reality that much. Make the effort is what I'm saying - and its not like I cannot enjoy superhero movies, but this thread is about the consequences of violence and destruction. Now given a seeming attitude of I do not care by these people in basic logic I cannot imagine them caring about violence and destruction unless it is part of the plot.

Nope, ever heard of surrealism? Ever seen Head? There is absolutely no requirement for any level of realism or logic in a movie.

In order.
I learnt about Surrealism at school during art;
I have not seen Head; and
We disagree.

 

[Umbran]

This thread is inspired by Stephen King's recent comment regarding the violence of Marvel movies being almost "pornographic." In a nutshell, King's criticism is the movies show all sorts of destruction to a city but very little on how that impacts the people there. i.e. No blood. It's a similar argument I heard Larry Hama make when he said the 80s GI Joe cartoon was "morally bankrupt" for depicting violence without anyone suffering from the natural consequences. For those who might not know, Hama wrote the 1980s GI Joe comic and most of the bios for the figures sold by Hasbro. The comic book was quite different from the cartoon and when the Joes or Cobra shot at someone they might actually injure or kill them.

I don't know when Mr. King made those comments, but if it is recent, there's an interesting point here: Mr. King just opened up the universe of his book The Stand to other writers in an anthology, The End of the World As We Know It. Now, The Stand, and the anthology, are all about the impacts of death and destruction, as the world in it is decimated by a superflu. So, I'll grant that King knows something about the topic.

But, I think King is a little off the mark here, in two ways:
1) Not everyone has to talk about his pet topic all the time.
2) The MCU does address many of the consequences of violence... just not the consequences King would, nor in the way he would do so.

Like, Tony Stark is a poster child for PTSD, and everything he builds is informed by it, as are his interactions with Peter Parker. And the recent season of Daredevil is largely about Matt Murdock's response to death. And Peter Parker, as a character, is all about responsibility, including how to do, and not do, violence... And we could go on, if we really wanted to.

I think more media, even media aimed at children, should better show the consequences of violence.

This gets difficult to discuss, because none (?) of us are child development experts, and because we haven't really defined "children" in the context of this discussion.

Teens and adults have rather more emotional and societal context and rational and emotional tools, than children do - showing kids the consequences of violence (or some other topics, like sex) without knowing the parents are engaged to help them work through those consequences is not likely to be useful to the child.