Fight Club, Star Wars and American Psycho join in as the most notable films to have fanbases that have wildly different interpretations of the art that is… concerningly bad to say the least
You would think the final shot showing the globe with "the world is yours" over Tony's dead body would have telegraphed the message about insatiable greed and ambition leading to his downfall, but apparently not.
It’s only wannabe gangsters who idolized him. That’s why so many rappers popularized that sentiment. It was part of the “live fast, die hard” persona they used to sell records.
Normal people believed Tony’s own words…”take a good look at the BAD GUY, last time you gonna see a BAD GUY like ME”.
Tony got a taste of greatness. Most people don't even get that or the white picket fence. Just 70 years of being a loser then they die alone in a nursing home.
Tony didn't seem happy for a second and the only "greatness" he got was being a rich scumbag who thought he was important. Turns out he's the same lump of meat and bones as the rest of his and gave nothing good to the world.
People idolize the parts that got him to the top for a while and the power he achieved. You can dismiss the greed and evil things he did. It’s entertainment.
ask a fan of "the wire" who the bad guy is. it's either stringer, marlo, or omar. omar is my fav! omar's comin yo! classic line. come at the king best not miss!
no one wants to talk about institutions, capitalism. it's all in the game!
The bad guy in the wire is poverty-induced crime and a system that has failed to address the inequalities that make crime a viable economic option for those in poverty.
But it's fun to think of the orientation of each of the characters. Stringer Bell is lawful evil, Omar is neutral evil (ends will justify the means but still lives by a personal code). Bubbles is probably true neutral. McNulty is absolutely chaotic good (especially in the final season) - he was willing to do anything to get the funding they needed, and do anything to catch Stringer Bell.
The system is the bad guy in the wire for sure but Marlo always felt like another level to me and kinda showed how the game was only getting more ruthless with each new generation. I feel like Avon or Stringer never would have done that security guard like that.
marlo was the evolution of the system. The system is design to keep people down and hurt us, Marlo is a product of the system continually evolving to make things worse and worse and worse.
The guy who subverted a religion and implimented a galactic Jihad that killed billions specifically because it was the only path where he would get vengence for his father is the good guy though.
Bro, Muad'dib speaks to the gathered masses from his perch of power, and the act of doing so calls down the rain. Like, Lynch's work is assuredly a mind-fuck, but I think his intent there was clear.
Well, to be fair he did kinda turn the thing on it's head in the later books, from Children onwards. Didn't it all end on "and then his son commited even more vile atrocities but IT WAS ALL NECESSARY!! for humanity's survival." (a.k.a. "THE GREATER GOOD!" from Hot Fuzz)
Did you mean Starship Troopers? What do people disagree on with Star Wars?
And I'm generally of the opinion getting people to think for themselves by evoking radically different interpretations is one of the main purposes of art. If it can only ever be seen through a single lens you're not making good art - you're making boring propaganda.
The subtlety of the bugs throwing a rock from across the galaxy that would be impossible to aim and take millions of years to even reach earth was lost on people. You have to have a basic understanding of just how absurdly big the galaxy is to catch the satire of it being a false flag. The nazi uniforms and child soldiers went right over peoples heads too.
The subtlety of the bugs throwing a rock from across the galaxy that would be impossible to aim and take millions of years to even reach earth was lost on people.
I thought the false-flag fan theory was put to rest, when the director (??) stated the bugs did throw the rock - they (director/writers/whoever) just didn't account for the physics involved.
Not that I mind - the movie is hardly subtle with its fascist symbolism and language.
IIRC, it doesn't make the bugs the bad guys even if they did launch the rock, because they were retaliating against humans encroaching on their territory and building settlements there in the first place. They have no other reason to launch a pinpoint-accurate attack on a planet at the opposite side of the galaxy, other than to send a very clear message to the home-world of the settlers invading them.
Nah, the bugs are still the bad guys because the said encroaching humans were religious separatists that A) went against Federation orders to keep away from the sector, and B) were unaware the habitable planet was already occupied given bugs live underground.
And regardless of whatever propaganda was fed to the crayon eating marines it's also revealed at the end that their actual objective was simply to capture a brain bug to establish first diplomatic contact.
It's science FICTION, my guy. If the good guys can break physics with faster than light travel the bad guys can as well. And it's both explained, as well as shown that what humans can achieve through technology the bugs can through mutation. Ie, they discovered Earth's location through eating Mormon settler brains, and focused it down by concentrating bio energy into Zerg style worm holes.
The Nazi style uniforms and child soldiers made it obvious to everyone what Verhoeven's INTENT was, however he results were mixed because it was an adaptation of a completely earnest work that still showed Earth as an otherwise perfect utopia without racism or sexism where everyone is rich and hot.
The movie is intended to be anti-fascism. I don't think such a broad intent necessarily makes a movie boring. Most great movies have some kind of point they are trying to make.
I mean Star Wars fans of a certain group actually think unironically the Empire did nothing wrong. And I guess Starship Troopers I know about has some folks still think the bugs are meant to be the real villains instead of the human faction
If you want to see some really unhinged loony, borderline fascist apologists head to the Robert Heinlein subreddit. All they do is bitch about the movie and extoll the virtues of how a society where only people that serve in the military being allowed to vote is actually a good idea. Some real whackadoodles over there.
Aww, I love that book as well. What introvert doesn't want to host a weekly canasta night with their spouse for the only other only other couple that exists?
Unironically? I always took them as a "flat earth society" movement that deliberately tries to argue for the wrong viewpoint as an exercise in argumentation.
I used to feel that way, too, but the problem with those groups is that they always end up being overrun by true believers. Flat earthers used to be tongue in cheek, now they are mostly true believers.
I think they mean the old flat earthers who were so tongue-in-cheek that they didn't notice when the real crazies found a comforting home, thinking the crazies were even better at the joke.
Sort of why I'm worried about the current "Bird are government drones" obvious-joke-for-now argument.
There will always be some people satire simply doesn't work on because they're extreme enough that there's no satirical version of their world view you could show them that goes too far. They'll just nod along and say, "Hell yeah."
The Empire is clearly based on the Nazi's but that doesn't mean they are always a Nazi stand in. The Rebels fighting on Endor is a clear nod to the Viet Cong (confirmed directly by Lucas) and the Empire patrolling Jedha in Rogue One is a clear nod to America in the Middle East.
Ive seen that quote but will note that Lucas is frequently a liar about how he wrote Star Wars , pretending what ended up on screen is what he wrote, that various plot points were always intended...
Death of the artist has to the lamest movement that has ever graced the philospical space when it comes to media
It wouldnt even be remembered if it wasn’t for fanfic writers wanting to have legitimacy so in turn putting out video essays about how important death of the artist is and how actually your own interpretation of the art is actually what matters
If instead people realized that the creator was actually the God of their world and unless they specifically said they meant for you to interpret however you want it, then it has a specific meaning. We wouldn’t be inundated with a generation/s that has zero media literacy thanks to further video essays telling people their theories should actually be canon or having people get upset when their theories don’t come true
Death of the author has been an influential philosophy in literary criticism since the 70s. It's also not about how the author's intent is meaningless, or that you should separate the art from the artist. Those are pop culture simplifications of the theory. Instead, death of the author is better summed up as, "What the author was thinking or feeling when they wrote something is less important than what they actually wrote."
Since you mentioned fanfic, take 50 Shades of Grey as an example. The author felt, and has repeatedly stated, that she was writing a normal, healthy relationship between the main characters. Of course, thousands upon thousands of readers disagreed and saw the relationship as toxic and abusive.
By your logic, how E. L. James feels about the story she wrote is the only true interpretation of the text, and everyone that disagrees with her is wrong.
No, not how she feels, but what she intended. She can feel whatever she wants, that's not an objective thing. Let's use Birth of a Nation as an easy example. It is a movie about how the KKK are good and pure and how they're important to American identity. That's the intent. How you feel about that intent is for each to decide, but nobody gets to redefine the intent.
Whether a particular Star Wars media is good, especially anything post-Disney. You got some simply enjoying parts of new stuff that came out, and others (at worst) screeching as if they would be happier if Star Wars disappeared completely tomorrow. Just look at online discourse for the Last Jedi. You'd be forgiven to think TLJ slept with took people's lunch money, slept with moms, and kicked their dads down stairs.
Every minutia or interpretation of the lore is also fair game. To this day, there's still argument what "Balance in the Force" means, who is or is not a "Grey Jedi" (it's a fan interpretation) and if/how superior it is to regular Jedi/Sith, and plenty of other things.
It seems the only thing "fans" of Star Wars can agree on most recently was "Andor was good."
...but that then devolves into arguments of whether Jedi/Sith/the Force should henceforth be completely cut out from future Star Wars media because one show without the Force was good.
TLDR from a non-geek, got it explained thru beers by a colleague in an office party: while using the dark force, Palatine (or some other) could predict the future and he foresaw that a new alien race, way stronger, would invade their Galaxy. The Death Star was a prototype weapon to fight them, and he wanted to create a militaristic society ready for that intergalactic war.
For anyone more curious, that was mostly (or exclusively) in the Expanded Universe, or books/comics that were published throughout the 90s/2000s. There's literally hundreds of books and comics from those decades. Not to mention the games.
The Expanded Universe is full of loads of wild and crazy stuff that's more contradicting than the movies themselves.
When Disney bought the franchise they specifically decided only the Movies and Clone Wars TV Show would be 'canon', only later taking certain characters, plots, or stories and adapting them into the new canon. Like Thrawn or Teras Kasi.
The idea that Palpatine knew a greater threat was coming also never justified his actions or how he went about preparing to deal with it. There's no good or rational reason for his tyranny, oppression or fascism. The dude legit was just in it for power.
Even if a new danger was looming, he still wanted to be top dog.
Yeah, think that this comes from a folk that also loves the Legion in FONV xD I'm not that geek. And to add a film, Starship Troopers xD when Neo Facism planet wise is presented as a good thing xD
Well Starship Troopers is satire. It being presented as 'good' is part of the critique. Paying attention to what's actually happening on screen should make it clear that it wasn't meant to be seen as positive.
It also doesn’t exactly match up either. Palps is still absolutely, unquestionably evil in the EU. The unifying against the Yuuzhan Vong theme seems to be a conflation between Palpatine and what we hear about Revan’s motives in KOTOR 2 (that Revan was trying to unite the galaxy against the actual Sith Empire in the Unknown Regions). Palps knew about the Vong (ish), but they weren’t enough on his radar to worry about.
Look, I'm a fan of a lot of the EU stuff that got decanonized, but the Yuuzhan Vong were some edgy 90s bullshit that belongs more in Warhammer than Star Wars. (I am also a fan of Warhammer, this was really just a way to demonstrate how tonally inconsistent they were.)
Exactly. Fight Club is all about ignoring the prescriptions of a society and finding your true self while alpha male culture is about piling on a whole bunch of new prescriptions and pretending to be like those dumbasses, yet somehow they see it as in agreement.
Just like when all the cops were wearing "punisher" t shirts to for the Blue Lives Matter nonsense. Please don't appropriate stuff that has nothing to do with you.
Wolf of Wall Street has the problem where while the moral is clear it also potrays the bad things as awesome. The main character goes to prison at the end and loses his friends but he also gets years being super rich, doing drugs, driving expensive cars, and having sex with Margot Robbie before the downfall. A lot of people would make that trade if they could. Same issue with Scarface or Lord of War, they end up dead or disowned by everyone they cared about but the ride was awesome until the ending.
I don't really like this idea that there are correct/incorrect ways to interpret art, or to derive personal meaning from it. if we were to play that game, then op's interpretation is also wrong as Palahniuk himself pushed back on the phrase 'toxic masculinity', saying "I’m not sure if I really believe in it" and calling it an externally imposed and overly vague label. he doesn’t even regard Fight Club as gendered at its deepest level
the thing with art is that people will view it through different lenses and take different things from it. you simply can't tell something "the thing you got from that movie is wrong actually" because its their subjective experience. what it means to you, or even what was meant by the artist, doesn't necessarily color the meaning others will discover from it
sure, chuds are hilariously bad at understanding media and often appear as professional misunderstanders of art. but that doesn't mean they're still not meaningfully resonating with themes and narratives as they find them. art hits everyone different, even if you didn't "get it"
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u/Jiellyeum 23d ago edited 23d ago
Fight Club, Star Wars and American Psycho join in as the most notable films to have fanbases that have wildly different interpretations of the art that is… concerningly bad to say the least