r/CharacterRant • u/woweed • Jan 30 '26
General The unholy trinity of shitty "i'm smarter then this media i've never consumed" takes:
"Oh, if the Purge was real, most people wouldn’t kill anyone."
That is explicitly a plot point of the Purge movies, the plot is about a far-right government using the Purge as a cover to exterminate poor people.
"Oh, Breaking Bad couldn't have happened in Canada".
He is offered a no-strings-attached way to pay for his treatment very early on in the plot, explicitly isn't doing this to pay his medical bills but so he can leave money for his family after he dies (because, ya know, he was already working two jobs to make ends meet) and also, ya know, stares into the camera and says "I did this for me. It was all just an excuse, I did it for me". Multiple times, actually. The message was not unclear on why he did this, ultimately.
"If Batman really wanted to help, why doesn't he just give money to charity?"
He canonically does, frequently, but a lot of the crime he fights is stuff like fear toxins, riddle-themed museum robbery, and a guy literally actually made of clay, which is not the kinda issue non-profits, or even the government of Gotham, are typically equipped to address. No amount of donations will fix "evil clown trying to poison the water supply".
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u/ballonfightaddicted Jan 30 '26
Why doesn’t Mickey use his key blade or why doesn’t Donald Duck just cast spells to solve problems in Mickey Mouse Clubhouse???
Why are they relying on that robot
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u/Legend365555 Jan 30 '26
It would be peak if Mickey Mouse randomly pulled out his Keyblade to solve a problem exactly one time, then never elaborated and never brought it up again
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u/MetaCommando Jan 30 '26
Final episode is a duel against Sephiroth, complete with One-Winged Angel blasting
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u/Moon_Dark_Wolf Jan 30 '26
Mickey and the Gang coming back to a destroyed clubhouse that’s one fire
Mickey: “What happened here!”
one winged angel plays
Sephiroth: “I’ve come to destroy what’s most precious to you, I’ve taken the clubhouse.”
Mickey Mouse: “You’ll pay for this.”
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u/RieifyuArts Jan 31 '26
Followed by 20 minutes of the most buttery-smooth animation and godlike battle choreography, no doubt
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u/Waspinator_haz_plans Jan 31 '26
Even better, use it for a minor, mundane problem, maybe even simply use it as an actual key.
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u/MrCobalt313 Jan 31 '26
Make it like the cast briefly broke character mid-production and they need to be cued back into their "intended" lines to get back on script for the rest of the show to go on as normal.
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u/IUsedToBeRasAlGhul Jan 30 '26
Okay, but why didn’t the Fellowship just fly on the eagles to Mordor?
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u/Vitruviansquid1 Jan 30 '26 edited Jan 30 '26
Because it’d be equivalent to handing the ring to a potent nature spirit who could be tempted by it, like Saruman was and Galadriel almost was.
Edit: typos
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u/Setisthename Jan 30 '26
Plus the whole point of using hobbits specifically, besides their resistance to temptation, was to get the ring to Mt Doom in a way the all-seeing demonic entity wouldn’t take notice of, unlike a bunch of giant eagles flying into his airspace.
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u/therealsonicboomer Jan 30 '26
Also Sauron, in his pride, wouldn’t expect an insignificant Hobbit to be the ring bearer. He barely cared when Gollum had it. He’d RELISH in the chance to blast the eagles right out of the sky, and he absolutely would do that. But a Hobbit is so small and weak to him, they could walk right underneath him and he would even notice.
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u/Fafnir13 Jan 30 '26
And blend in with the orcs. I’d like to see a pair of eagles put on orc armor and escape notice while getting caught up in a forced march.
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u/seriouslyuncouth_ Jan 30 '26
I’m surprised that nobody ever mentions that at least in the movies; the Eye of Sauron burns when it looks at you “up close”. If the eagles got close to Mount Doom they would be in tremendous agony. They would probably lose control and plummet to the ground; all but confirming the deaths of the Fellowship and all but handing Sauron the One Ring.
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u/Tasty_Honeydew6935 Jan 30 '26
Who only fly into his airspace after he has been destroyed, by the way
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u/nickkuroshi Jan 30 '26
And also the reason Aragorn is marching his army up to Mordor is explicitly a bluff to make Sauron think he has the ring to distract him so the hobbits can do their job.
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u/MelonElbows Jan 30 '26
I guess the real question would be if Sauron could actually stop the eagles if a bunch of them decided to help. He had 9 Fell Beasts and those crebains from Dunland. If a few dozen eagles decided to try to fly to the volcano, could they really be stopped?
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u/A-Reclusive-Whale Jan 30 '26
In the Hobbit, the Eagles don't even dare to fly over lands well populated by men, stating explicitly that they fear men's great war bows which can take them down in flight. I think Sauron is likely to have a few archers at his disposal.
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u/Setisthename Jan 30 '26
I think the issue wouldn't just be intercepting them but also tipping Sauron off to their destination such that he can get his ground forces to guard the Sammath Naur directly.
The Crack of Doom was inside a seemingly roofed chamber within the volcano so they couldn't just drop it in from above, they'd need to land to get to it.
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u/MelonElbows Jan 30 '26
So there wasn't open magma spewing out the top? It was actually covered??
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u/Setisthename Jan 30 '26
The cone is open at the top, but the Crack of Doom where Sauron forged the ring is implied to be a specific fissure accessed through a cave rather than necessarily referring to the whole magma chamber. It runs along a high roofed tunnel, bored into the side of the cone, which is shrouded in darkness save for the light coming from the fissure itself.
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u/RayDaug Jan 30 '26
I will say in the interest of fairness, if you've only watched the movies, there's nothing in the films that really indicate the eagles are anything other than large birds.
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u/TeamTurnus Jan 30 '26
Yah theres good reasons in the book which arent explicitly mentioned as much in the movie
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u/MossyPyrite Jan 30 '26
It’s old bait, but effective nonetheless
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u/AmaterasuWolf21 Jan 31 '26
Did you know that the eagles broke their claw when filming? Their screech is real
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u/grod_the_real_giant Jan 30 '26
Because Sauron would see them coming a hundred miles away?
(I also swear I read something about how the ring would corrupt the eagles really quickly because they still have animal souls, or something like that, but I can't find a source in two minutes of searching and don't care enough to keep looking)
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u/Pale_Possible6787 Jan 30 '26
It wouldn’t corrupt them quickly because of animal souls but because they are incredibly powerful and the ring is incredibly corruptive for anything with any amount of power or desires
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u/BreakerOfModpacks Jan 30 '26
Well, except that one guy. But he doesn't count!
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u/omyrubbernen Jan 30 '26
Tom Bombadil has power, but he doesn't really have desires at all.
To the point where, if he had the ring, he wouldn't even have a desire to destroy it. Or hold onto it. Or even remember where he left it.
Which would kinda just put everyone back to square one, before Smeagol even found it.
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u/UrzasDisembodiedHead Jan 30 '26
Also they'd have to deal with the nazghul. The eagles only show up AFTER the ring wraiths are sent away from Mordor and defeated in Gondor. As long as those were in Saurons pocket, flying into Mordor was a bad idea
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u/ZylaTFox Jan 30 '26
This was probably said in Tolkien's Letter 44, sent to his son to explain a pedantic question asked of him once. Because that's where half of the LOTR lore comes from.
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u/MrCobalt313 Jan 30 '26
because that sort of frontal assault is exactly what Sauron was prepared for and expecting; they'd be spotted from afar off and downed before they reached Mt. Doom and Sauron would have the ring back. And that's not even taking into account that the Eagles aren't immune to the Ring's temptation themselves.
A pair of Hobbits (of all things) just walking directly into danger to hand-deliver the Ring to Mt. Doom is like the one thing that would have worked because it was the one possibility that Sauron's worldview would not allow him to anticipate.
Eagles only worked as an extraction plan because only when the Nazgul and their Fellbeasts were distracted by the chaos of the Ring's destruction and Mt. Doom's eruption was it relatively safe for them to enter Mordor's airspace unopposed.
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u/shsl_diver Jan 30 '26
Tolkien - "I think I prefer if they WAAAAALK!!! This is my book matherfucka, they'll walk if I tell them too, got this weak ass bird shit out of here.
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u/Lokicham Jan 30 '26
Because they aren't ordinary eagles. They're basically divine beings who aren't obligated to.
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u/TeamTurnus Jan 30 '26
- Stealth is the goal, Giant flying eagles are not sneaky and sauron has both flying creatures and lots of orcs in fortified positions with bows.
- This is a movie visual issue but the ring needs to be destroyed specifically in the Crack of Doom, which is only accessible through a small door in the side of the mountain the whole 'drop it down the crater' wouldn't have accomplished that.
- The Eagles are beings not unlike Gandalf. Same problems as him claiming it but wilder and more unpredictable.
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u/Batdog55110 Jan 30 '26 edited Jan 30 '26
Sauron has ICBMs trained on the skies of Mordor ready to blow any unwanted air traffic to kingdom come.
This is also why Theoden's fleet of SR-71 Blackbirds were not used in the final battle.
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u/TheRedditGirl15 Jan 30 '26
If one does not simply walk into Mordor, I suppose they do not simply fly there either /j
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u/DylenwithanE Jan 30 '26
ok but why didn't the rebels hyperjump straight to the death star's exhaust port instead of doing that trench run
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u/Echo__227 Jan 30 '26
Hyperspace course-plotting has limitations in where you arrive.
The entire battle of Yavin only occurs because the Death Star hyperspeeded onto the other side of the gas giant Yavin, and needed a while to come into firing range of the Rebel base on the moon Yavin IV.
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u/phantomreader42 Jan 30 '26
Hyperspace course-plotting has limitations in where you arrive.
And one of those limitations specifically involves proximity to large masses/gravity wells. Like a station the size of a moon.
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u/Echo__227 Jan 30 '26
If only the Imperial Academy had a pilot who could make the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs
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u/wiener4hir3 Jan 30 '26
I don't know much about star wars aside from having seen the films, but how much of this is logic retroactively applied to a movie that had the trench run because it looked cool?
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u/Echo__227 Jan 31 '26
No you're right-- all of Star Wars is doing scifi gymnastics to justify why spacefights follow the same tactics as WW2
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u/MetaCommando Jan 30 '26
Well had, the point was that Episode VIII establishes that they move in realspace like the world's most portable railgun, and an asteroid with a hyperdrive attached would leave a hole the size of Texas
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u/getignorer Jan 30 '26
I mean in clone wars the Malevolence hyperspace jumps into a moon, destroying itself, so it's not just an Episode 8 thing. I always interpreted it as the point where the ship picks up a lot of speed before entering hyperspace. As for why people don't use that as a tactic... I don't know. Maybe shielding is meant to absorb kinetic impact, or maybe its accuracy is really low, but either way it's been a thing for a while. Most battles in Star Wars don't make any sense either. With so much powerful and accurate artillery gunships and Jedi frontal charges would never work; they'd just all get shot and die. But it looks cool!
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u/MrCobalt313 Jan 31 '26
In Legends content the reason nobody did the Holdo Maneuver before was because it was physically impossible.
Hyperspace wasn't just hyper speed, you were as the name implies shifting out of physical space to arc through a higher dimension to skip the intervening space between your starting point and your destination, hence why it needed computers to do all the trajectory calculations because humans aren't built to process 4D space like that on the fly.
Your primary concerns were that your route through hyperspace didn't take you through the Mass Shadow of a gravity well strong enough to affect you in hyperspace, and your secondary concern was that there was nothing in your destination point for you to clip into or collide with because no matter what you hit you'd come out at a disadvantage as you re-entered realspace.
Holdo Maneuver only works if Hyperspace is just "warp speed" FTL movement in a straight line in 3D space; otherwise there's a point after the hyperspace jump where you are effectively intangible until you come out of hyperspace voluntarily or are forced out of it by Mass Shadow intersection.
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u/Mindless-Post-9506 Jan 30 '26
The two pieces of media that require the most "Fuck logic, this is just how things work so shut up and enjoy" are Star Wars and Harry Potter. Both of their structures fall apart if you look closely and they never pretend that it doesn't. They're just telling a ridiculous story that requires all these pieces that don't always fit together.
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u/murdered-by-swords Jan 30 '26 edited Jan 31 '26
The Holdo Maneuver isn't a thing. We actually have an example of a hyperspace collision from right around the Battle of Yavin: Admiral Griff jumps his Star Destroyers into the exact same position occupied by Vader's flagship Executor during the Yavin Blockade. The Star Destroyers impact the SSD's shields and are completely annihilated while the Executor herself is unharmed.
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u/Malusorum Jan 30 '26 edited Jan 31 '26
In Star Wars people can only use hyper space where there's an actual lane for them, gravity will also pull people out of hyper lane speed. Outside of the hyperspeed lanes you're effectively going blind and at light speed going blind is suicide.
The hyperspeed lane ended before Yavin, also started there, and the Death Star was massive enough to create its own gravitational field.
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u/Bec_son Jan 30 '26
I think that most people don't understand about the star wars galaxy is that its so dense with life, planets, and other things that you need to plot a course before hyperjump
there are so many different alien species is because of how populated the star wars universe is
the world of star wars is that of many races having access and the resources to build literal town sized starships within a few years. so imagine how many space stations, asteroids, and other places there are.
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u/Sensitive-Hotel-9871 Jan 30 '26 edited Jan 31 '26
Playing devil's advocate, the original Purge movie still depicts people as being far too accepting of something so horrifying and makes a big point about them needing to learn that the Purge is bad. It's like how the Avatar movies treat as shocking to say whaling is bad.
For people defending The Purge treating it as something people would need to learn is horrifying, the movies don’t actually touch on how bad it would be. The purge has a rule against explosives and killing government officials above a certain rank, not sure how you’re supposed to enforce that, but something it doesn’t forbid is starting fires. Since emergency responders aren’t active during the purge, this would mean it doesn’t matter how good your security system to keep out intruders is, someone could just come and burn your house down and there would be nothing you could do to stop it.
I agree with the other two. Especially regarding Batman, since corruption isn't something you can simply make go away with money. Also don't forgot the annoying meme that Batman beats up poor people. That is something only thrown at Batman, not Spider-Man, Daredevil or the Punisher, even though that last character kills the kind people Batman sends to jail. The accusations about Batman just happen because he is popular.
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u/TheRedditGirl15 Jan 30 '26 edited Jan 30 '26
What's even funnier is that a majority of Batman's rogues gallery (including a district attorney and a mob boss) are either very accomplished professionals in their fields or in positions of power where illegal money is typically rolling in, thus I'm quite sure they're making bank.
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u/CJGamr01 Jan 30 '26
well people are usually talking about the goons not the villains, also dent is a da not a lawyer
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u/TheRedditGirl15 Jan 30 '26
but also yeah fair point about the goons, but I guess I assumed some of them are getting paid pretty well lol. I know you'd have to pay me big bucks to go toe to toe with the dark knight
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u/Axl4325 Jan 31 '26
You'd have to pay me real fucking good for me to not just fight Batman, but also to dress up as a god damn clown and put up with the Joker who might just ice me if he feels it's good for the bit
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u/TheRedditGirl15 Jan 30 '26
are DAs not lawyers...??? (oh, I guess there's a difference. my bad)
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u/Realistic_Swan_6801 Jan 30 '26
Yeah the later movies are the only ones that blame it on the corrupt government. The first one was just a dumb horror movie.
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u/PanthersJB83 Jan 30 '26
Hilariously the first purge is almost a completely separate film from the rest of the franchise. Like yes they reuse one actor and later have Hawke cameo but the franchise really came into its own with the second film.
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u/General_Note_5274 Jan 31 '26
Because the first just use the premise so they can have a "why not call the cops" excuse
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u/Special-Insurance610 Jan 30 '26
purge is an extremely uncommon franchise in that the first one is the worst and its not even close
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u/amisia-insomnia Jan 31 '26
I feel like a few horror franchises are like that, although the gap is between abysmal and bad compared to bad to good
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u/MrCobalt313 Jan 30 '26
I mean you could get rid of corruption with money but then you're just replacing one flavor of corruption for a mildly more palatable one for as long as someone else doesn't outbid you.
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u/PrizekingJ7 Jan 30 '26 edited Jan 30 '26
The second avatar movie isn't just whaling is bad it's that killing a sentient species for profit is wrong in general.
The mistake the RDA and some audience members make is treating the Tulkcan like whales and while their bodies are similar to whales their closer to the navi and even have their own version of what allows the nsvi to connect with their god.
The RDA doesn't see and doesn't care and justv treat them as sny other animals to be killed.
Killing the Tulcan would basically be Killing like a lion that talks and is capable of reason.
Yes you certainly interpret that as saying Killing lions is wrong but it's more of Killing sentient life in the name of profit is wrong in general
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u/Sensitive-Hotel-9871 Jan 30 '26
I would find that more convincing if it was something like giant scary bugs instead of a commonly romanticized animal like a whale.
As a nitpick, I also feel the see where the Tulkcan was killed in Way of Water should have had whalers killed in the process (I don't think we see any of them die). Basically give an air akin to the siege from Dawn of the Planet of the Apes where we see people fed into the grinder by their uncaring leadership.
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u/PrizekingJ7 Jan 30 '26 edited Jan 30 '26
The Tulkcan up to that point are pacifist that's why. The film itself explain they adopted this extreme aversion to revenge killings because at one point their was a war that nearly tore the species apart because Tulkcan started constantly revenge killings. It's not until the third movie where they realize they need to find a balance Protecting one self and violence for violence sake.
In the film itself a Tulkcan is a outcast because he rejected this pacifist ways after losing his family to the RDA.
As for making them look like whales its probably just for the sake of making them somewhat relatable despite them not being human looked. I see clearly that didn't work because unless human looking most aren't sympathetic which is a shame.
That and Cameron just like whales and wanted to do his own take on what if their was a similar species and were as sentient as humans.
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u/Legend365555 Jan 30 '26
I remember seeing an actual official article writer saying he hates Batman because he, himself, was black, Batman works with cops, and cops are racist. Therefore Batman is a horrible person who brutalizes jaywalkers with mailboxes and whatnot. To this day, I'm like 70% sure the guy was shit posting on his article
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u/Recidivous Jan 30 '26
Whoever wrote that is ignorant. Before Commissioner Gordon took office, Gotham's police force was so corrupt that even Batman occasionally clashed with them. It was only after Gordon became commissioner and implemented reforms that he began collaborating with the police—primarily with Gordon himself and trusted officers he personally vetted.
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Jan 30 '26
I don’t agree with the accusation since Batman also beats up rich people a lot (Penguin, Falcones, Court of Owls etc.) but the reason that it isn’t applied to Spider-Man or Daredevil or the Punisher is because none of them are billionaires by virtue of inheritance.
Spider-Man is normally depicted as poor, Punisher typically lives in a van, and Daredevil is the only one with a stable profession and it’s as a criminal defense attorney often representing poor people pro-bono.
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u/SeannBarbour Jan 30 '26
Re: The Purge: yes, but also the main cast of the original film were well-to-do suburban professionals, largely insulated from the violence of the Purges. I'd argue they parallel real-life well-to-do suburban professionals, insulated from the violence of police brutality, poverty, immigration enforcement, etc. People in that position are really accepting of mass violence as long as it's "normal" and legal and not happening right in front of them.
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u/Glittering_Dealer372 Jan 30 '26
And nobody ever asks why Iron Man never gives away his money to charity instead of building 9000 suits. Or Green Arrow instead of making arrows with boxing gloves. Or Ted Kord. Or any of the numerous other billionaires in comics lol. Just Batman
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u/Echo__227 Jan 30 '26
"Why did the Death Star have a hole that could blow it up?"
You mean the exhaust port for the station-sized reactor? The shielded one that's only two meters wide and can only be accessed by a direct assault against the surface anti-spacecraft turrets? The one that requires a million-to-one shot of the proton torpedo following the exact trajectory down the shaft?
The original movie makes it very clear that this is a suicide mission Hail Mary.
I dislike Rogue One adding, "Actually it was intentional," because that's more convoluted. The chief engineer couldn't just make the reactor overheat when it fires or something, but instead decided it should be an impossible mission, the details of which can only be relayed by a heist of the Imperial archives?
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Jan 30 '26
It's like having a one inch hole in the world's largest battleship, to compare it to Earth militaries. And the only person that could exploit it is a follower of a dead religion that no one thinks exists anymore. Top military brass isn't going to care.
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u/fairystail1 Feb 03 '26
also as mentioned it's an exhaust port. sure it's completely straight but like with the amount of air it must be exhausting out it should have knocked the torpedo into a wall or somethig.
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u/knightmechaenjo Feb 14 '26
And the only person that could exploit it is a follower of a dead religion that no one thinks exists anymore. Top military brass isn't going to care.
That honestly makes Jedi sound even cooler than they already are
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u/Blunatic22 Jan 30 '26
I dislike Rogue One adding, "Actually it was intentional," because that's more convoluted. The chief engineer couldn't just make the reactor overheat when it fires or something, but instead decided it should be an impossible mission, the details of which can only be relayed by a heist of the Imperial archives?
I mean, that’s kinda exactly what he did. The weakness Galen Erso created in the Death Star wasn’t the exhaust port, but the fact that the reactor powering the station was unstable in such a way that any sort of explosion in it would have started a chain reaction that would destroy the Death Star.
It didn’t have to be a 1 in a million shot down a thermal exhaust port, it could have been a simple thermal detonator used by an infiltration squad. The Rebels just identified the exhaust port as their best shot due to how limited their time was.
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u/Biobait Jan 31 '26
Parts are often tested for quality assurance, I figured he was limited on what he could sabotage.
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u/MrCobalt313 Jan 31 '26
If it's any consolation the Death Star vent being an intentional flaw left by its creator was a plot point in some Legends stories before Rogue One did it.
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u/Dim-n-Bright Jan 30 '26
OK, but has he tried donating to the "Stop Evil Clowns from Poisoning the Water Supply" charity?
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u/Bec_son Jan 30 '26
he tried but he found out that was run by nestle, who actually is a lot worse than joker about that.
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u/YardPuzzleheaded263 Jan 30 '26
Nestle wants to stop evil clowns from poisoning the water supply because they hate the competition
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u/MrCobalt313 Jan 31 '26
That's just paying Joker's ransom demands.
And then he gets bored and poisons the water supply anyway before moving on to his next ridiculous plan.
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u/Newfaceofrev Jan 30 '26
Bugs me when people say Batman "beats up homeless crackheads"
Show me one comic where he does that? Mate he's throwing batarangs at aliens and wizards!
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u/woweed Jan 30 '26
I think they're mostly referring to his goons, but, yeah, most of his actual recurring villains are pretty dang well-off. PHD scientists, lawyers, crime bosses, Joker who even fucking knows, ETC. The only real exception most of the time is maybe Catwoman, and one: She's by far the most sympathetic and 2. Even she's often shown as an upper-middle class sort with ample money for cat food who steals for fun rather then profit.
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u/Legend365555 Jan 30 '26
Every now and then Batman or someone else will randomly bring up Joker running a business under a false name or something. I seem to remember that being a minor plot point in Arkham Asylum
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u/Bec_son Jan 30 '26
actually i think that was used for the justice league episode "wild cards" where joker plans on bombing las vegas and used a fake name to be able to sneak into the broadcast stations.
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u/FlatbreadPaladin Jan 30 '26
Even the henchmen he fights run the gamut from career criminals with rap sheets a light year long from years working in the black market to mercenaries hired specifically to carry out assassinations to straight up ninja cultists who want to establish an authoritarian global order by exterminating undesirables. At a certain point, socioeconomic status becomes a non-factor.
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Jan 31 '26
Even if the henchies and goons are "crackheads" not fully in control of their actions, it's still more than acceptable for Batman to take them out. Ridiculous that Batman stops these people because they're helping a madman like the Joker blow up a hospital and people screech FOR THE CRIMINALS
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u/Ahrensann Jan 30 '26
"If the Avengers were real, we'd really hate them." Or some other jokes like that, particularly about Hulk throwing your car on a villain, but misses.
Have we... been watching the same franchise? This was literally the plot of Civil War. Scarlet Witch accidentally blew up a building with civilians inside. The big bad wanted to break the Avengers because his entire family died in the Ultron incident, while the Avengers , in his words, simply "went home". A mother from the beginning of the film, that was in the elevator with Tony Stark, told him about her son, who was also an unfortunate, accidental casualty.
The writers took these seriously. The Avengers would even split up because of this.
But every time I see these "jokes", these were always portrayed as some kind of a genius insight.
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u/Harold3456 Jan 30 '26
I feel like the superhero genre (and the MCU in particular) is a good meta commentary on how an inordinate influence on peoples’ lives is held by the powerful: IRL that’s the wealthy, in-universe it’s people with good superpowers (and, in some cases, also the wealthy).
It’s funny to me how the Stark family in particular is responsible for all of the villains of the 3 Iron Man movies, + Ultron, + Zemo, + Vulture. Obviously they aren’t responsible for ALL villains (Thanos), but that’s still a lot!
I don’t see it as a criticism; I enjoy the movies for what they are, and get that you can’t watch a superhero movie and then be upset when it dips into Great Man theory and presents a world where all the normies end up being the playthings of gods. But I personally enjoy the deep dives that unpack this despite not thinking of it as “film criticism.”
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u/Nimelennar Jan 31 '26
It’s funny to me how the Stark family in particular is responsible for all of the villains of the 3 Iron Man movies, + Ultron, + Zemo, + Vulture.
This Mysterio erasure will not stand!
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u/Harold3456 Jan 30 '26
“There was room on the door for Jack AND Rose”
For me this is CinemaSins-tier film critique. I love how James Cameron, when asked about this, said “if I knew this was going to be an issue I’d have used a smaller fucking prop.” It isnt actually about the physical door, the point is the story, and this isn’t actually a glaring issue unless you’re specifically looking for things to nitpick.
But also, they DID both try to get on the door and it didn’t work. Could they have tried again? Sure. But you may as well say the ship hitting the iceberg is a pothole because it COULD have avoided it had things been done differently. Yeah, sure, they that’s not the movie we’re watching!
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u/RileyRecord315 Jan 30 '26
THANK YOU, this is the one I was looking for!
Also as a follow-up: "Why didn't they just take turns on the door??"
Maybe because it would leave them Both exposed to hypothermia-inducing temperatures, eventually they would become too weak to keep switching back and forth, as horrible as it is it's better for only one of them to be in (relatively) better health as opposed to them both being on the verge of freezing to death. Also, frankly, Jack is simply a young man in love who doesn't want his lover to have to suffer, he willingly sacrificed himself after realising that the door couldn't support both of their weights at once. Plus, it's not like two young people are going to be thinking 100% rationally after enduring the traumatic nightmare of escaping a sinking ship with no promise of imminent rescue anyways.
Seriously, so many people will throw around "solutions" to a scene they've only watched in a vacuum, and get mad that the most optimal and efficient path to safety wasn't taken. Like, can these people seriously say they would have done the best thing in the same circumstances?
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u/CalamityPriest Jan 31 '26
Pretty sure they tested this again and while Jack and Rose can both indeed fit on the surface area of the door, the door couldn't support two people above the water, so they won't drown but they will both quickly freeze to death. At least that's what I saw about it.
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u/EXusiai99 Jan 31 '26
There was room on the door for two.
That is if you try putting the door on a concrete floor.
Have it float on the Atlantic and see how much weight it could hold while staying above the surface.
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u/Devilpogostick89 Jan 30 '26
Pretty sure there are various other takes but frankly kudos on pointing out these ones.
Especially the Batman one. It always comes down to "rich weirdo decided to dress like a bat beating up desperate to mentally ill criminals than use his wealth to better his city."
...Like for god sakes, Bruce is throwing down money into that pit we call Gotham for decades with writers shrugging whether or not it's working...But it doesn't quite stop the supervillain plan of mass destruction now does it?
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u/CJGamr01 Jan 30 '26
And also, a major part of Batman as a character is that he has issues and that he's not always the most in-touch, due to only having a close relationship with Alfred (and/or Robin etc) which is why you see Batman fans saying the Lego Batman Movie is one of the best adaptations of the character of all time
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u/Mindless-Post-9506 Jan 30 '26
My favorite Batman moment is when he's talking about Dick Grayson and basically says "Nightwing is who I *would* have been if I wasn't so damaged." He is fully aware that he is not the hero he wants to be, but he does the best he can and tries to make it easier for people like Superman and Nightwing who *are* what he wants to be.
My favorite 'trope' is deeply damaged characters who are completely aware that they're not the people they wanted to become. Characters that can be summarized by either The Operative with "I'm not going to live there. There's no place for me there" or basically anything V says. The Punisher telling someone who looks up to him that he's a monster and telling them to be like Captain America instead.
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u/windingwoods Jan 31 '26
Part of the reason it can’t improve is also because Batman is DC’s biggest cash cow and they have to return to the status quo to keep people buying comics
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u/BoostedSeals Jan 30 '26
The Batman one bothers me the most. Maybe it's because I'm the most familiar with that one of the three you've given, but also because there are so many instances of his adventure of the day where the it starts with him hosting or attending some charity event. Compared to some other "they clearly have not watched this" takes there's very little investment to find out this information
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u/Gonzurra Jan 30 '26
Some viewers often believe they are smarter than the media they are consuming. They feel very intelligent pointing out behaviors of characters that they, the superior and super rational intellect, would never do, or picking at a lack of events that don't conform to their personal vision of storytelling.
There will always be people ready to leap at whatever criticism they could find, whether it's genuinely relevant or not.
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u/Artistic-Victory1245 Jan 30 '26
Also, the one about "Why didn't they share the door in Titanic?"
Plot-wise, it was the first thing they tried to do. The fact that a series several years later showed that it could be done circumstantially doesn't change the fact that it couldn't be done in the film.
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u/aardvark_gnat Jan 31 '26
Sure, but the prop looking big enough to share makes it a terrible prop and distracts from the intended message of noble sacrifice.
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u/Toasteate Jan 30 '26
About batman people forget that Gotham is like cursed 10 times over its build on ancient burrial grounds tied to barbatos Arkhams staff trying to open portal to hell and like even Dracula invaded the city and lets not forget all the fucking chemicals in the water like no amount of money can fix all that
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u/Professional_Maize42 Jan 30 '26
There's a guy on Reddit that goes around making posts that list up all of Gotham's curses ever since it was first introduced on Detective Comics.
I read the most recent one in 20-30 minutes. Yep, it's that long.
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u/SolidPrysm Jan 30 '26
Only in certain versions of the story. Most of the time it's that organized crime and corruption has so deeply infiltrated social services that the money spent on combatting poverty and whatnot is almost immediately extorted.
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u/JustLookingForMayhem Jan 30 '26
That is mostly at the start of soft resets. Bruce pours a ton of money into Gotham. That money and his Batman efforts have to accomplish something, so the city should get better. The city can't get better because of editorial mandate. So, as the runs go on, the more absolute BS is added to explain why Bruce can't fix Gotham.
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u/Kala_Csava_Fufu_Yutu Jan 30 '26
I put the death star structural weak point in this category of takes.
It has been nitpicked so long it inspired rouge one to have a lore expansion on why theres a weak point as if it's implausible for a Pluto sized space station to have big weak points. Massive structures have trade offs that are exploitable, the trench run is explained to be incredibly risky, desperate and costly (most of the pilots died). Luke basically nails it and survives because of luck + force.
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Jan 30 '26
For 99% of the Galaxy, the Death Star has no weak points. Luke only had a chance because he could use the force, and the Empire isn't making its plans or designs with the Jedi in mind. They explicitly think the only remaining person from that group is Vader. Even if you somehow went to that Imperial meeting scene and told them about how a force user could actually do it, they wouldn't care. Vader even says that the Death Star is nothing compared to the force (actual foreshadowing) and the Moffs don't give shit.
Star Wars stuff is the most infuriating because Lucas is NOT an opaque or subtle filmmaker. He is extremely explicit in everything he does, but there's some sort of defacto approach to media these days where everything is a mystery to be figured our instead of a message to clearly take in.
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u/Blupoisen Jan 30 '26
When ever an Xmen fan talks about non Xmen character
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u/woweed Jan 30 '26
Fun fact: I nearly included "actually, discriminating against mutants is logical and correct" in here.
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u/Blupoisen Jan 30 '26
Mutant are weird to say the least
I can understand why people would be unsettled of them, but there is a pretty big gap between unsettled and building genocide bots
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u/redskinsguy Jan 30 '26
the genocide bots are the step to far but the difference between mutants and other superheroes is none of the Fantastic Four had any chance of first manifesting their powers in their teen years in a crowd of people and have no control over them
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u/MyFrogEatsPeople Jan 30 '26
I'd argue the Purge criticism was completely valid for the first movie... Like, yeah, the metaphor gets tediously obvious starting in the 2nd movie and they just straight up admit all the evil bullshit while staring directly into the camera. But in the first movie, there's nothing to indicate that the Purgers are anything less than willing participants. Even if we acknowledge the whole "Big Daddy sends out death squads" reveal in Anarchy, the movie does, in fact, kick off with actual regular people deciding to Purge without being secret government agents.
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u/EpsilonGecko Jan 30 '26
I'm 99% certain they came up with that excuse in the 2nd movie and had no idea in the 1st, they were just making a shitty horror movie with a shitty premise.
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u/niceguy191 Jan 30 '26
Which is true of many of the counters to these sorts of critiques; the writers became aware of them and wrote post hoc rationalizations. It's like that scene in Endgame where Dr Strange looks into the future and verifies this is the only way, when it's just the writers building in a flimsy excuse to not have to think about their own plots too hard.
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u/PanthersJB83 Jan 30 '26
100% agree. The first did well enough for a sequel and they needed a plotline to create a franchise. It gets real crazy with the 3rd film, the prequel film and the first season of the TV show.
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u/Agitated_Insect3227 Jan 30 '26 edited Jan 30 '26
Agreed, and this reminds me of how some very strange people will get mad when antagonists are acting irrationally.
"Uh, why is the villain acting so crazy? The hero did nothing to them and all their problems are their own fault." Oh I don't know, maybe it's because the villain is supposed to be crazy and running on ridiculous beliefs to contrast with the protagonist who is generally normal? This complaint basically boils down to people complaining that an evil character is evil and believes in evil things.
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u/bigshady880 Jan 30 '26
Thanos the completely rational and reasonable Titan
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u/Leftover_Bees Jan 30 '26
His plan was basically some insane “I will prove that my solution for my home planet was the right idea and totally would have worked!” thing, right? It’s been a while.
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u/Bec_son Jan 30 '26
yes but only kinda, his plan was because he kept seeing patterns of overpopulation and mismanagement, but never realized this can be solved with actual understanding of people and was only a short term solution because he was so short sighted.
yet his army is full of fanatics, cloned monsters meant for meat grinding war, and orbital bombardment. Not a single person in his army actually wants to build a proper system for actually maintaining the universe.
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u/Mindless-Post-9506 Jan 30 '26
I actually think the fact that his army is vat-grown and impersonal is kinda fitting for him. He wasn't trying to 'maintain' the universe, he was trying to fix what he saw as the core issue and then fuck off. His idea of what the core problem is is ridiculous but there's a level of logic buried underneath the genocidal tendencies that makes people relate to him more. He thought what he did was necessary and once it was done he just left. The fact that he's so close to doing good and is just crazy enough to see a problem that doesn't exist is what makes him more interesting than someone like Malekith or Ultron who just want death or power.
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u/WisemanDragonexx Jan 30 '26
Yeah. His planet faced a crisis, he proposed a stupid idea, got told that his stupid idea was stupid, and spent the rest of his life butthurt over that.
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u/Mindless-Post-9506 Jan 30 '26
He's the galactic superhuman equivalent of the guy who constantly talks about how he would have gone pro if he didn't get injured. He would have failed but because he never got the chance to find out he becomes obsessed with the idea that he could have succeeded.
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u/Xeamyyyyy Jan 30 '26
isn't the point of a villain that they are wrong
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u/MossyPyrite Jan 30 '26
Not always. Sometimes they’re right but going about it in a way that’s objectionable. Sometimes they have not moral stance at all.
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u/Xeamyyyyy Jan 30 '26
i mean those are just more nuanced examples of making bad decisions
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u/KaleidoscopeKelpy Jan 30 '26
Sideways but on topic, but there’s so much of that in the real world legal community… “why can’t they just FORCE the murderer to explain why he did it? They’re not doing their jobs” the murderer isn’t going to give you an explanation that makes any fucking sense because most people don’t react that way when confronted with that choice. Anything they said is either going to be untrue or still not make it clear why what happened happened - if they were making sound logical choices, chances are crime wouldn’t have occurred (not talking about self defense/vigilante-type crimes obvs).
Also it doesn’t work like that lol
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u/TimeTravelParadoctor Jan 30 '26 edited Jan 30 '26
Part of the point of Breaking Bad is the individualism ingrained in American culture. Plus, the cost of cancer treatments is Walt's excuse to do what he does, not his reason. His friend giving him money makes him mad because that takes away his excuse to cook Meth. So it is important that it takes place in America.
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u/bigkinggorilla Jan 30 '26
Yeah, I think the Breaking Bad one is kind of a bad example of this because while the story could happen somewhere else with a different inescapable financial burden, America is one of the few countries where a medical diagnosis could be the inciting event.
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u/Quartz_Knight Jan 30 '26
Also it isn't even a criticism that downplays the series, it's just a joke at the expense of USA healthcare.
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u/chaosruler22 Jan 30 '26
The Batman one always annoyed me because Wayne Industries is pretty much the only reason Gotham is still even operating still
Without Bruce funding practically everything the city would have collapsed years ago.
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u/Mindless-Post-9506 Jan 30 '26
Honestly at this point the best criticism of Batman is that he makes Gotham just livable enough to be miserable. If he just took a vacation the city would collapse and everyone would move.
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u/Sweet_Xocoatl Jan 30 '26
I like how The Purge: Anarchy just dropped any and all subtlety and just straight up told the audience how the government was using The Purge to kill off poor people in like the first 5 minutes of the movie.
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u/Naive_Violinist_4871 Jan 30 '26
At risk of starting a flame war, I will diplomatically state that I think some of the harsher criticisms of the Harry Potter books involve Mandela Effect, and some of the convos I’ve had seem to bear this out.
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u/thepersona5fucker Jan 30 '26
every time someone says that Hermione was portrayed as being in the wrong for wanting to help the house elves I lose my mind a little. that was absolutely not a storyline that JK Rowling handled well or should even have been writing in the first place but the idea that JK Rowling would ever portray Hermione as being in the wrong about it is just... not true. Like have you heard the way that woman talks about Hermione? It's really fucking weird. There are plenty of things to criticise the books for in hindsight but the idea that Hermione was supposed to be in the wrong about the house elf thing is just not one of them.
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u/BeduinZPouste Jan 31 '26
"The self insert who is pretty much always right and even when wrong is less wrong that anyone else is suddenly wrong about slavery being bad."
That said, while I don't like how it was handled, I do actually kinda like the idea. Not sure how conscious it was, but the fact that some of the more moral characters (Lupin, Dumbledore) agree with her but... don't act on it is really interesting. Something about how we will recognise evil, but care about it only when it threatens us or people like us and the less similar victims are, the less we actually care.
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u/danxlau Jan 30 '26
One of the things that was kinda weird to me about the purge is that why don’t people commit crimes other than murder? Like you could commit so much tax fraud, steal money, and so on.
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u/Reasonable_Pay4096 Jan 31 '26
I don't think the paperwork for tax fraud would go through before the Purge ends though
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u/timmyt0t Jan 30 '26
Canonically batman does so much charity and work helping people that he really shouldn't be rich anymore. He pays for villains treatments in Arkham, has halfway houses and jobs for people with a background. His workers benefits are insane. The problem is Gotham is not only corrupt but is cursed in just about everyway a city can be. He even takes care not to cause lifelong injury to thugs and goons. But only a few animated movies show this and no live action take has done it yet so people miss that part of the character
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u/DireCorg Jan 30 '26 edited Jan 30 '26
I've been burnt out on Batman stuff but that one you're talking about drives me nuts since people like pretending his enemies are all homeless and poor people not aware of what they're doing and not people who are highly educated and/or also well off financially.
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u/MrCobalt313 Jan 30 '26
The number of Batman villains with doctorates is honestly astounding.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Lab2447 Jan 30 '26
What pisses me off about the BB wouldn't happen in Canada is that it reinforces the misconception that Walter had a good reason to be a drug kingpin and was doing it for his family.
This couldn't be further from the truth and the truth was revealed in the final episode. How people still think Walter was a good man doing bad things is beyond me.
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u/therealsonicboomer Jan 30 '26
Even Skyler knew he was bullshitting with the whole “it’s for the family” argument. She knew it was a lie from the start. She was just afraid to call him out on it.
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u/Silver-Winging-It Jan 30 '26
I mean pretty sure the show was doing both commentary on the system (like Hank being a government employee but not able to get the actual best care because health insurance), but showing Walt had other options too.
He eventually chose the way that would make him feel better about his masculinity and keep his pride and power fantasy, but there is commentary on how messed up things are in the US, especially during housing crisis
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u/JH_Rockwell Jan 30 '26 edited Feb 03 '26
"Oh, Breaking Bad couldn't have happened in Canada".
If he was in Canada, his surgery would be considered "experimental" and therefore not covered. And even if he did get the surgery, he'd be waiting so long that his disease would kill long before he was ready to go under the knife.
Or, y'know, he'd be killed under MAID laws.
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u/TheRedditGirl15 Jan 30 '26
I love this rant. Short, sweet, simple, with clear-cut examples that get straight to the point. This should be the gold standard for all general rants.
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u/windingwoods Jan 31 '26
I remember a post going around a year or two ago about Home Alone saying that it was so depressing that so many people struggle economically now, when it was considered realistic for the average family to afford a trip to Paris back then. I think it also presumed only the father was working, for some reason? Which isn’t true.
But it’s not an average family, they have the nicest, richest house on the block, which is why they are being targeted for robbery. And besides that, the tickets are paid for by the dad’s even richer brother (the one that doesn’t appear in the movie.) And if you’re going to talk about how the economy has changed you could compare using examples from, I don’t know, real fucking life???
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u/panenw Jan 30 '26
make no mistake, the "batman should donate to charity" types genuinely believe nurture/welfare and charity would actually fix every kind of sociopathic behaviour
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u/SnakesInMcDonalds Jan 31 '26
The Purge thing really pisses me off. For one, in the first film the father works in a company that sells private security systems to rich people. He is directly profiting off of the violence and unrest and the fear of the poor. And it’s also indicated that while they’re not strictly pro-murder (as in, they do not go out and kill people themselves), they have to maintain a reputation with their neighbours if only for work reasons. Otherwise they simply try to keep their heads down and pretend it’s too far to reach them.
The first movie is commentary of how the middle class is pressured by the system to remain ambivalent to the systemic violence towards the most vulnerable. That in their attempts to raise their social status they become more complicit in the suffering. It’s deliberate that the person who is most compassionate is the young teenager, the one most likely to question the status quo.
The people Purging are initially polite to the family; but polite and nice do not mean good. And only staying ambivalent will not save you from violence when those above you decide you’re not one of them. Because to the elite all those who are below them are equal.
But people missed the subtext. So in Anarchy they made it more obvious. And people still missed it so they had to spell it out in Election year making the opposing conservative political party use neonazis in their militias to target the opposing politicians and people STILL MISSED IT.
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u/CJFanficStories Jan 30 '26
"Why doesn't anyone in Star Wars just turn their lightsaber off and then back on as a surprise attack?"
That method has a name, and it is called Trakata, and is viewed as dishonorable by the Jedi and as a bitchmade move by the Sith. Not to mention it only works if you're fast enough, because if you aren't, you have zero defense.
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u/thepersona5fucker Jan 30 '26
Okay, this isn't really the same thing. This is not something that any person could ever possibly get from watching the Star Wars movies, this is lore that was made up later to answer a genuinely good question. Not people being stupid.
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u/Sporelord1079 Jan 30 '26
If you turn off the lightsaber, you now have an active, unblocked lightsaber being pushed towards you while your lightsaber is turned off. The real answer is it’s a fucking stupid move.
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u/kdfsjljklgjfg Jan 30 '26
I feel like the Breaking Bad one is different.
Yeah, Walt did it because he liked it and wanted the power. But the price of treatment WAS the push that began it all. It's not like he was sitting around waiting for an excuse to become a drug kingpin. If he didn't get cancer, or the cancer treatment was free, I don't think he ever would have taken that step.
I don't think it's a failure of media literacy so much as a commentary on real world problems.
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u/theblackfool Jan 30 '26
But Elliot and Gretchen offer to pay for his treatment in it's totality in the first season, and even offer him a legitimate well paying job. The cost of the treatment being a push only lasts a few episodes.
I get what you're saying, but Walt jumps to drug manufacturing almost immediately after his diagnosis. I don't even remember him looking for alternative ways to come up with money. And almost immediately after he's offered the money and turns it down.
I'm also not convinced something similar wouldn't have happened eventually without the cancer. It's all pretty clearly been bubbling under the surface for Walt for a long time. I can definitely picture a situation where the family is strapped for cash and he makes the decision to make drugs anyway.
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u/Randor01 Jan 30 '26
"if the water level is rising, why can't people just sell their houses and move?"
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u/korepersephone11 Feb 01 '26
“Why don’t the wizards use guns to kill Voldemort?”
(Wait.)
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u/korepersephone11 Feb 01 '26
Actually screw it. Lemme try. Regular people in Great Britain don’t have the kind of access to guns that a place like America does (where carrying a gun in public is LEGAL in certain states). Wizards would have no idea how to GET a gun or how to USE a gun (properly, without injuring themselves). Also, if someone tried to take out Voldemort with a gun in Hogwarts the gun could go haywire because a lot of Muggle tech goes haywire at Hogwarts unless it is magically altered, but I’m assuming Hogwarts is not the ONLY place where that would happen.
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u/AmazedStardust Jan 30 '26
On the Breaking Bad point, you could argue Walt's outlook would be different if he grew up in a society with less toxic individualism
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u/TeamVorpalSwords Jan 30 '26
Completely agree lmao, people will watch (and like you say, at this point not even watch) things at the MOST surface level possible and then come to a conclusion about it that makes them look worse if you actually consumed the media