battlewraith
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Posts posted by battlewraith
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4 minutes ago, Excraft said:
Tony Stark selling weapons did not do anything criminal or illegal with his legitimate business.
Then why did he stop? Why was it a major plot point in the series that he chose to shut down his arms division?
The point is not that he couldn't legally do it. The point was that he recognized it was unethical. He could not guarantee that his weapons would not be used on innocent people and there was already a death toll associated with his business. That's the key word: business. That's the thing you're not getting. Someone like Justin Hammer is villainous in large part because they have no concern with the damage that they enable and encourage in the world as long as they can make profits and legally get away with it. Meanwhile Riri would be irredeemable for stealing a candy bar.
Stark continues to make weapons in the series, but it's no longer a business. That means he no longer has an implicit interest in seeing those weapons used to make the enterprise profitable. He also doesn't use political influence to direct governments towards military interventionism. If anything he's trying to undermine the justification for nations investing in defense contracting, with mixed results.
The arguments that arms dealing is fine are basically this:
The arguments against amount to this:
Duvall's character thinks he's in the right. As an individual he even helps the woman and her child. But anyone who puts any thought into this scene, or that pointless war, understands that this guy probably had cooked hundreds of such women and children the same way. Dow certainly understood this and didn't care. And the use of napalm was eventually restricted when people ethically objected to it.
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9 hours ago, Excraft said:
So what? He still built weapons.
I think you lost the point of the discussion. There are people here saying Riri is a bad character because she makes bad choices and gets involved in crime.
Tony was brought up as a counterpoint to show a double standard. The consequences of his arms deals are far worse than the crimes Riri is involved in. But he is redeemed (after almost getting yeeted by his own weapons) and becomes a beloved figure in the MCU. You pointing out that Tony, even after his redemption, continues to make bad decisions that have almost world ending consequences makes that double standard even more apparent.
9 hours ago, Excraft said:Are all weapons offensive? Or can they be defensive in application? How are you going to defend yourself against an aggressor without weapons? Like I said above, you're picking and choosing where it is or isn't acceptable to produce a weapon.
Yes, because that's what sane people do. You look at the consequences of what something is meant to do, how it will be used, what the effect on the public will be, etc. That's what public policy is: picking and choosing. We allow people to go into a store and buy Tylenol. We imprison people selling heroin on the street. Why? They're both selling a drug that can be misused. The reason is that societies generally aren't governed by cartoonishly simple comparisons.
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1 hour ago, Excraft said:
Yeah that's magical fantasy world though. In the real world, there are very bad, very evil people out there, and not having weapons to defend yourself leads to bad consequences for you. Thinking that if the world magically stops manufacturing weapons that conflict will disappear is wishful thinking. Even in the fantasy world of the MCU, the world still builds more and more weapons despite Stark ending his manufacturing of them.
No, you're actually still in the fantasy world.
Wars are generally fought for control of resources and political dominance. If you want to reduce the number of very bad, very evil people in the world stop behaving in a very bad very evil manner. Stop blasting innocent people to smithereens and expecting their relatives to not hold grudges. Stop propping up psychotic dictators that commit atrocities because it keeps the oil flowing or is politically expedient in some way. Keep war profiteers and lobbyists away from politicians so that the government isn't incentivized to manufacture and perpetuate armed conflicts in the world. There are a lot of options.
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9 hours ago, ShardWarrior said:
No one in the history of the world has ever been murdered by a knife? Hammers can be used as weapons too. You missed the point completely.
You're trying to absolve arms dealers of moral responsibility by shifting the blame solely on misuse by the customer. Thus placing firms that make things like nukes and mines on the same level as Home Depot or Lowes.
The difference is that Home Depot's business model is predicated on selling tools for construction projects. They encourage people to do home renovations, DIY projects, etc. Someone using a hammer as a weapon of opportunity does not advance their business model.
Arms dealers sell equipment that is generally intended to blow shit up. That is the intent. That is the proper purpose. The business model entails selling as many of these weapons as possible. The proliferation of weapons increases the likelihood of warfare, which is a desirable outcome for the arms dealer because it boosts demand for the product. Death and destruction of property--often inflicted on innocent noncombatants-- is baked into this model. It is not some aberration like when someone gets killed with a hammer or a kitchen knife.
Even in the sanitized version of Tony Stark in Iron Man 1, there is a recognition of this. He says there is "no accountability" and then shuts down his weapon division. He doesn't fire bad employees or have Jarvis run the operation. He stops it completely. Because there can be no accountability--selling the arms entails bad consequences the same way tobacco companies promote cancer.
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15 minutes ago, BrandX said:
Assassin for the government is no different than soldier.
Absolutely not true. Natasha, depending on the circumstances of her kills, is probably has committed war crimes according to international law.
3 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:There are a surprising number of ordinary, every day items that can be used as lethal weapons too.
Which is why they found American pillows and hammers all over the Middle East after the Gulf war, right? The mental gymnastics going on here is off the hook.
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10 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:
No, he was not ethically obligated to do anything.
You clearly don't understand the story.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/With_great_power_comes_great_responsibility
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1 hour ago, BrandX said:
More, o
Peter Parker wasn't required to help. He felt guilty for it because he could've easily stopped it. He however, was not guilty of any crime.
Being a weapon manufacturer isn't illegal, criminal or evil. Tony seeing what his weapons did to those on his side and innocent people, had him feeling guilty. He was never criminal.
I'm not saying genius always make good choices, but the one she's making is obviously bad. She knows it's bad, but she's doing it anyways, because she's under the misguided ideology, that it's okay to hurt and rob others if it means she gets what she wants.
Peter Parker was ethically obligated to help. That was the message of the story.
There is a difference between ethical obligations and legal requirements. You're conflating the two.
Arms dealers are one of the most evil and destructive forces on the planet. If your business is selling weapons you have an interest in seeing them used in order to make profit. Arms manufacturers will lobby and back politicians who will support the continued production and use of these weapons. Eisenhower warned of this trend back in the 1960s.
I don't think people here are arguing that 20 year old student Riri is making good choices. It's just hilarious to see that as a dealbreaker when born to wealth and privilege Tony Stark, continues in the family arms business and then in his late 30s realizes that innocent people are being slaughtered by his goods. Oooops!
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2 minutes ago, BrandX said:
Irredeemable? No. Of course not. Still, her reasoning for a genius is terrible. She's not someone without options. She's someone with options, she just doesn't like the speed of those options.
Though, that said, Peter's redemption, he really didn't do anything wrong (though, I don't think MCU Peter went this route).
Tony didn't do anything wrong either. Just because he felt guilty, is a different thing, but everything he did was legal and he didn't personally fire the weapons.
Scott was Robin Hood, stealing from a company that stole from it's employees, then went back into crime, to get an item from a killer.
Natasha worked for her government.
Bruce Banner, has he had deaths, not sure that's been shown in the MCU, however, the property damage is usually linked to him getting attacked and him getting away. Harlem? That was him cleaning up Ross's mess.
Aside from the issue of how Riri is characterized in this series, the expectation that genius level intellects make good decisions across the board is just wrong. Some of the most clueless people I've met in life were class valedictorians.
Peter Parker did something wrong. The whole point of Spiderman is "with great power comes great responsibility" and he suffered because he didn't act when he should've.
The idea that something isn't wrong because it's legal or because a government sanctions it is incoherent. Your moral compass would be spinning simply from landing in different parts of the world. And you would have no basis for saying that a particular government is correct without appealing to some moral standard external to that government.
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3 minutes ago, Ghost said:
I won't get to it right away. We typically sub one streaming service at a time and my wife is finishing up some shows on another service.
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2 hours ago, ShardWarrior said:
Not quite the same thing as being a criminal stealing from others.
Nope. Several orders of magnitude worse. But still able to come back from it and become this beloved heroic character.
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11 hours ago, ShardWarrior said:
There is no reason it would have to be. It would barely even need to be mentioned. It certainly a better and more relatable profession than turning to crime.
They could do a lot of things. They could put her in a mansion with a butler. I don't see how these other options would be certainly better and more relatable. Tony Stark started off as an arms dealer. He is certainly responsible for more death and devastation than Riri will do in this series. He changed his mind when he almost got yeeted by one of his own missiles.
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59 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:
This does happen in real life. Even if Riri Williams would not accept funding in exchange for an Iron Man type suit, she is intelligent enough to create other kinds of technology such as the vibranium detector. Surely there are other things she can be given funding to work on or invent other helpful and profitable technologies. She can use the money she makes from that to do her own thing. That is a far more endearing character than one who turns to a life of crime.
Yeah they could have her be working for some sort of firm and doing her own research. That would be a different show with it's own set of issue--probably half workplace melodrama. Maybe something similar to how She-Hulk was trying to continue her law career. You'd have the whole bit where she'd go awol to go fight some threat. It's been done.
As for endearing characters--there are a lot of criminals or former criminals that are popular characters. It's going to be a while before I get to subbing Disney to watch this, but judging from the previews it seems like she makes bad choices and then gradually finds her moral center. Not every character is going to be a moral paragon like Supes.
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28 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:
I am so glad I didn't watch this show.
Putin probably doesn't like it either.
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3 minutes ago, BrandX said:
They're going to throw money at her because she invented an Iron Man suit and still has access to it.
Again:
There is no way in hell that, because she's really smart, someone is just going to throw a bag of money at her and let her just do what she wants.
Anyone fronting her money, would do so in order to acquire that technology and control it. Yes she would be funded and have earnings. No, she would not be allowed to take that tech and run around as a superhero.
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10 hours ago, JKCarrier said:
They might hire her, but no corporation is going to write her a blank check and let her run wild. She'd be subject to all kinds of scrutiny, have to submit plans and outlines and budgets and cost/benefit analysis, and take notes from the higher-ups ("The focus groups didn't respond well to the 'rescue suit' concept. Can we make it a VR game controller instead?"). It would most likely end the same way her stint at MIT did. If she wants to do her pet project her way, that pretty much means self-funding.
Yeah, this objection that people keep fixating on is so bizarre to me. There is no way in hell that, because she's really smart, someone is just going to throw a bag of money at her and let her just do what she wants.I am sad that we won't see a plotline where she finances her superhero career through Patreon. They could spend an entire episode at least dealing with her trying to figure out her reward tiers. And then we could see her waiting for her monthly payout and delivering stuff to the Patrons. Maybe the top tier Patrons would get their own gimpier version of a power suit. And then in addition to all that drama, maybe we'd see her take out a mugger or something. It would truly be a show.
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2 hours ago, Ghost said:
For every Critical Drinker going on and on about how bad everything Marvel is, there’s a ComicBookCast going on and on about how great everything Marvel is.
Are they not one in the same?
Nope. Not even close.
A shill is supporting the industry, trying to get as many people as possible to watch a film. As flawed as the industry is, it's a platform for a multitude of creative endeavors--writing, acting, directing, art, music, etc. Even a bad film is likely to shine in some respect and others may get a reappraisal after they have failed at the box office. Regardless of motivation, a shill is generally pro art.
A grifter follows an ideological script to crap on things for clicks.
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37 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:
This is giving people like Critical Drinker far more agency and credit than they deserve. He simply does not have the power or influence to sink a film on his own. At some point, a bad film is just a bad film and if people are not turning out to see it, it is not because Critical Drinker told them not to.
Well, he has around 2 million subscribers on youtube. "People like him" probably range from similar youtube commentators to something like the entertainment wing of the Daily Wire. So is that enough to have an impact on a film's performance? Maybe? I think the effect is actually more corrosive on production. Studios don't know which "fans" they should be listening to. So they ignore fans in general or invest in directors/producers/etc. that they think have nerd clout like James Gunn, Zack Snyder, etc. which can pose it's own set of problems.
Regardless, increasingly people are not turning out to see movies. It might be a good film. It might be an ok film. It might be a bad film. But rest assured the outrage peddlers will be there with there litany of complaints about the industry and why "the fans" knew the film was garbage.
1 hour ago, ShardWarrior said:And you know this as fact? Every thumbs down on a movie trailer is from someone deliberately trying to tank a film just for the laughs? None of them cannot possibly be from anyone who just did not like the content?
Lol no I don't think it's people trying to do it for laughs. These are people that are aggrieved that studies are not catering to them.
Do I know that for a fact? No, but it compellingly explains the bizarre behavior of negatively rating ads for properties in which you have no interest.
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41 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:
So all of these fans who are not turning out to see the latest movie or watch the new streaming show are now "toxic" because they do not like badly written stories?
41 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:The fans are intelligent enough to recognize that.
Movies and shows fail for a variety of reasons. But you literally have to be living in denial to ignore the fact that there is a dynamic of culture war bullshit that pervades the reception of Marvel properties right now. A big tipoff is when you have people going around telling you what "the fans" think, or what they know. Or that something failed because the "the fans" do not like badly written stories.
I don't have a crystal ball showing me the heart of the fans. I can clearly see, again, a reactionary social media influencer whose business model is hating on woke industry product signaling to his audience: Wow guys this one is real shite. It's even more shite than the last thing I said was shite. And then a certain percentage of this moron's audience is going to take that as gospel that is indicative of how "the fans' feel about it. Before they argue with you that they are an individual and make up their own mind etc. etc.
4 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:I take it you never read product labels to see what is in the foods you buy or read the ingredients on menus at restaurants?
I don't eat mushrooms. I'll look at a menu and avoid ordering food that has mushrooms in it. I don't then get online and put the restaurant on blast for selling food with mushrooms in it.
Review bombing done based on a trailer is an effort to tank a film. It's laughable to me that people can't or won't take it for what it is.
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20 hours ago, SuperJames said:
Your analogy falls down because CoH gives us the resources we need while playing. We don't have to do anything other than play.
It's not a perfect analogy but I think you're missing the point. If I make a new character and need enhancements, I like most everyone else do a lot of things other than playing that character. I somehow grind the resources--farming, playing the market, doing repetitive task forces, etc. If the enhancements were freely available, my focus would be on the actual goal--playing the character--and enhancing as I go.
20 hours ago, SuperJames said:Some people will play diligently every weekend for years to amass vast armies. Then someone else will say the models should be free, because hey, these are only pieces of plastic.
They are just pieces of plastic, given more perceived worth through the imposition of artificial scarcity.
The person playing diligently every weekend should've gotten some entertainment value for their time. The issue is that this expectation is replaced with a grind mentality where the value of playing is measured by what you acquired, not what you experienced. And then the people invested in this virtual rat race want everyone else to have to commit to the same grind in order to preserve the sense of worth they associate with the time they spent grinding.
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5 hours ago, Intrinsic said:
Why would you want to remove that source of enjoyment?
Because that source of enjoyment for some players is predicated on an imposed hassle for all players.
Similarly when people say “if everything were free, the game would lose meaning”, they are arguing that the gameplay itself is not sufficient. The repetitive tasks they routinely do only matter for the reward. Ergo, everyone should have to grind those repetitive tasks in order to prop up this value system.
Imagine you had a chess league where, in order to play, people had to periodically carve their own pieces. The more diehard players would flex on casuals with their more artfully carved pieces. They would have themed sets they collected. There would be a market where you could acquire pieces, resources to make pieces, etc. But at the end of the day, the actual game is still chess. It’s not made any better for these side activities and in some ways the league makes it harder to play.
Under this scenario, you might have someone show up and suggest that the league do away with all this fixation on pieces—everyone plays with a standard set. The response would be the same. “If I wanted my pawns just handed to me, I’d go play in that other league.” The success and failure of MMOs is that they prop up gameplay with various grindy timesinks to keep people playing. This entails a conflict between people who would like a more dynamic game, with less associated time sinks, and people for whom the game is essentially a platform on which to accumulate stuff.
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In terms of games that I think have great stories and could potentially be great movies:
Bioshock
Half-Life 2
maybe Hades as a full length animated feature.
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36 minutes ago, arcane said:
Firm believer in needing to take a power if you’re after its animation
Maybe you're a firm believer in Bigfoot as well but that also isn't an actual argument for or against this proposal.
The game is a comic book reality that mixes technology and magic. I see no reason why magic themed characters should have to pay some sort "power tax" because their aesthetics were overlooked at the START vendor (which also offers magical items like blackwand).
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It's a basic of tenet of product design in 2025. "There is a wealth of information out there."
So if you buy a microwave and can't find any start button--google that shit. Log on to the company website and ask the community.
We have never been this connected in the history of the species, so there's no excuse for things being straightforward.
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4 hours ago, Rudra said:
If this is true, then it would indeed make the discussion irrelevant. To quote you though: show it to us.
He showed you. What does that screed about streakbreaker have to do with anything?
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Ironheart Trailer
in Comic, Hero & Villain Culture
Posted
Note that you didn't answer the question. If what he did was legal--why did he stop selling arms? Why did they make such a big deal about it? The answer is simple: the writers saw his arms deals as incompatible with virtuous heroic behavior. His arc in the first film was to go from "Pa always did right for 'Murica" to "I need to take responsibility for my tech and keep it out of other people's hands." Legality is not synonymous with morality.
Is Riri ethical or right in her criming? No, but I don't see her as an irredeemable character. Particularly in regards to the mayhem to which Tony would've contributed.
If illegality is a dealbreaker for you and characters simply can't recover from that, I would like to introduce you to a character named Batman. Batman routinely violates laws that get in his way and has no intention of ever changing in that regard.