u/NeoArkodd

I expressed my dislike of Kojima's reviewing mindset with him cowardly only reviewing movies that he liked and intentionally avoiding saying bad stuff about movies he didn't like. As usual I received lots of replies. But among them, one very detailed and interesting response made me thing. The text below is a section cut from that comment which explains how Kojima can't say no no meanie words about other media because:

" A publisher is going to be less likely to work with Kojima if he trashes games and movies constantly; because they would see him as a bull-headed ass who would waste development time and money fighting with producers. A hollywood actor or director is less likely to work with him if he calls their previous work garbage. And audiences will more likely avoid his games out of protest if he criticizes the media they make their personality orbit around. "

This explanation is fascinating. It's makes so much sense as it explains my entire disgust of Hollywood and other media industries as a whole.

These creators and studio heads are so egotistical yet fragile that they can't take criticism from their colleagues in any way or form. And they conserve this empire by indirectly blackmailing eachother. "If you say mean things toward me, then I won't work with you".

So you can imagine how joy when I read how brutally Emily Wilson ripped apart Nolan's subpar adaptation of Homer's work. It's so funny how redditors are upset because she was "too condescending" and "not professional" because she said something like "I would be ashamed of having any part in it" or "my teenage son would like it".

And here I am asking why? Why is that too MEAN? and if it truly is then how is that a bad thing? Nolan and many of these directors and creators are rich and privileged people. They lived and will live better lives than most of us. Their only job is making art but they can't even do that right as Hollywood and other industries have been producing slops for years. So somehow it's such a "mean" and "no no" thing to criticize or even insult these people as if it will physically hurt them or make them go bankrupt or something.

The fact that Nolan cited Wilson''s work as one of the sources for his adaptation which will boost the sells of her translation yet she took offense by the quality of the movie and destroyed him is so funny, FEELS SO GOOD!

More of this please! More of celebrities, directors and writers dunking on eachother in a unpolite manner. These people need drop the "High society respect" bs and just rip into eachother's works without mercy so this can become normalized and these creators' ego and pride just dies and stop growing. Eventually making them humble and forcing them to actually listen to criticism from the audience too.

So I am in favor for the hollywood elite having beef with eachother. More Tarantino calling Hollywood garbage, more Scorsese calling MCU theme park rides and less Kojimas and Chris Stuckmans being scared of criticizing media in order to save connections.

I expressed my dislike of Kojima's reviewing mindset with him cowardly only reviewing movies that he liked and intentionally avoiding saying bad stuff about movies he didn't like. As usual I received lots of replies. But among them, one very detailed and interesting response made me thing. The text below is a section cut from that comment which explains how Kojima can't say no no meanie words about other media because:

" A publisher is going to be less likely to work with Kojima if he trashes games and movies constantly; because they would see him as a bull-headed ass who would waste development time and money fighting with producers. A hollywood actor or director is less likely to work with him if he calls their previous work garbage. And audiences will more likely avoid his games out of protest if he criticizes the media they make their personality orbit around. "

This explanation is fascinating. It makes so much sense as it explains my entire disgust of Hollywood and other media industries as a whole.

These creators and studio heads are so egotistical yet fragile that they can't take criticism from their colleagues in any way or form. And they conserve this empire by indirectly blackmailing eachother. "If you say mean things toward me, then I won't work with you".

So you can imagine how joyful I felt when I read how brutally Emily Wilson ripped apart Nolan's subpar adaptation of Homer's work. It's so funny how redditors are upset because she was "too condescending" and "not professional" because she said something like "I would be ashamed of having any part in it" or "my teenage son would like it".

And here I am asking why? Why is that too MEAN? and if it truly is, then how is that a bad thing? Nolan and many of these directors and creators are rich and privileged people. They lived and will live better lives than most of us. Their only "job" is making art but they can't even do that right as Hollywood and other industries have been producing slops for years. So somehow it's such a "mean" and "no no" thing to criticize or even insult these people as if it will physically hurt them or make them go bankrupt or something.

The fact that Nolan cited Wilson''s work as one of the sources for his adaptation which will boost the sells of her translation yet she took offense by the quality of the movie and destroyed him is so funny, FEELS SO GOOD!

More of this please! More of celebrities, directors and writers dunking on eachother in a unpolite manner. These people need drop the "High society respect" bs and just rip into eachother's works without mercy so this can become normalized and these creators' ego and pride just dies and stop growing. Eventually making them humble and forcing them to actually listen to criticism from the audience too.

So I am in favor for the hollywood elite having beef with eachother. More Tarantino calling Hollywood garbage, more Scorsese calling MCU theme park rides and less Kojimas and Chris Stuckmans being scared of criticizing media in order to save connections.

I know the bad track record of the MCU is another major issue but while watching the trailer, I personally felt the real problem was about the plot.

All the trailer and by extension Thor himself does is hyping up this new threat that is Dr. Doom. (Omg a threat bigger than anything the heroes had faced before? ) Thor saying that instead of petty fighting (Heroes not getting along in an Avengers movie? No way) they have to team up (They have to put aside their differences and work together? Never seen before!) In order to defeat Doom.

I know my sarcastic remarks can be implied for most stories but the Avengers movies follow such a repeated formula that it's exhausting to see another one of these with no variety.

We already know Avengers, F4 and X-men are going to fight instead of focusing on Doom. We know they will lose the third act fight to Doom because no shit it's a two parter so the first movie will glaze Doom just like it did Thanos in Infinitly war then the second movie will have Avengers rise from their lowest point and eventually defeat Doom just like Endgame.

I think beyond the bad writing, there is another reason to this fatigue and that's the fact that the novelty is entirely gone. A crossover like Infinitly war or hell even the Avengers 2012 was an unbelievable pop culture milestone at the time. If you told someone from 2009 that there will be a movie with Ironman, a norse god, a wizard and a CGI Racoon fighting against a purple alien warlord and it would be the highest grossing movie of the year too, they wouldn't believe that.

Now the crossovers are done, they don't feel impossible anymore. If someone from the future told me that in 2035 they made a Avengers vs Justice League movie, I would totally believe.

So now that both the writing is bad and the gimmick of the Avengers movies has wore off, there is nothing new this movie has to offer to make audience exited. It's just stuff happening and you already know how it will be end. Doomsday just looks like Infinitly war but bigger and that's not enough anymore in big 2026.

Before you jump on me, I will clarify that I don't like the story of the new Doom games. Doom 2016 has a cliche and generic story with the biggest sin of having unskippable cutscenes. Doom Eternal has a confusing story and overcomplicated lore which retcons itself constantly. Doom the dark Ages has a boring and dull story with no life or energy in it. I love these games because of their gameplay, enemy designs, environmentsand and music but none of them have compelling characters, character arcs or well written narratives. Despite all these there is only one aspect which I want to defend about the story of these games and that's the new characterization of the Doomguy because many gamers interpret him as something entirely different.

I think most of the blame doesn't go to these gamers or meme makers themselves but to the creative head of these games, Hugo Martin. I think Martin did a good job with handling everything else but the story because it feels like he is just really out of touch when it comes to examining the reception of these games. The misinterpretation stems from the fact that the old dooms games weren't "Intellectual" as they didn't have a story or themes but the new doom games badly want to be have a Warhammer 40K like deep like and story but the gamers and fans just don't care about the story and lore and still treat them with anti-intellectual mindsets which is valid because they stories weren't deep or well written to begin with but this has caused the gamers to actively or ignorantly deny the way doomguy is portrayed.

Like doomguy isn't even a well written or deep character but he isn't a psychopath violent sigma male thirsty to kill either. I haven't read those "Flynn Tagart" books so I won't cover them but it's clear the new games portray him as a serious person who WANTS TO SAVE HUMAN LIVES. This version of doomguy doesn't enjoy or get a boner over killing demons as if he sees all of these as an entertaining hobby. No, he genuinely wants to eradicate demons so they wouldn't harm any more humns.

In the opening of 2016, Doomguy sees the corpse of an UAC worker in the elevator and smashes the screen of Samuel Hayden defending his actions regarding harvesting energy from hell. Many people interpreted this scene as a way of "Doomguy or the game not giving a shit about the story, Hell Yeah! ". They treat Doom 2016 as a "Satire or parody of modern story driven games". Ok if that was the case, then why the fuck does the game lock you into a room so Hayden can exposition dump you without giving you the option of skipping it, not just once but TWICE. Doom 2016 sets the whole sentinel lore and Doomslayer being a eons old god thing and takes all of these VERY SERIOUSLY. It's kinda baffling when people spare this game's story from criticism because they think it was "Self aware" because it wasn't. There is a literal lore entry explaining the science of a max health pick up, explaining it as "UAC scientists put argent energy into these capsules which desolve in the air and heals the subject" type of shir. Does this reads like a parody game to you? If your argument is the game wasn't as bullshit as the other two, that's valid but don't pretend like it had a remotely good story with it's cliche "Capitalism bad" message being the deepest thing it had going for. The devs didn't backtracked in Eternal, the success of Doom 2016 caused them to learn the wrong lessons and continue what they already had planned before hand which was expanding the lore. Doomguy in 2016 still takes everything seriously. Without listening to Hayden's exposition dump, he wouldn't know where to go or what to do. This applies to Eternal too.

In Doom Eternal‌, Doomguy doesn't land on Earth to stop the invasion all by himself. Yes, I guess he could but that would take a very long time so instead he goes for killing the priests in order to stop the invasion as fast as possible. His objective in not having fun by killing demons, it's saving as many human lives as possible. In the dlc, he fucking gives the satan god his body back so he can kill him NOT TO SHOW OFF but to break a bullshit seal so demons can't exist outside of hell. He literally took a gamble by bringing back devil so he can get the chance of ensuring the security of earth forever. In the dark ages, he broke his tech/magic or whatever control leash all because he heard screams of innocent people dying.

Gamers glaze him as this violent and selfish beast with no regard to human life. That whole "Doomguy can rip apart demons but only uses weapons as a challenge" is so bullshit. If this guy only cared about having fun, he wouldn't go to stupid quests and would just stay in hell. I will be honest, I don't like the stories of these games as I said but I like how doomguy is actually a heroic and serious person who takes the story seriously to save as many people as possible instead of being a antihero who doesn't give a shit and only wants to kill demons and just randomly saves the day all by chance. But I think I only like this because it clashes with people's nihilistic view of doomguy despite that he is still not a deep or interesting character and the story surrounding him is bad.

At the end, It all comes down to Hugo Martin's obsession with story and lore ruining the franchise in the long run. The stories are also bad so people ignore them and by doing so also misinterpret doomguy's true motivation. Hugo has said before how much he wants to make games like blockbusters or action movies but doesn't understand that the mediums are really different and those action movies need to have a good story to be good.

I like many people agree that the new doom games just need to ditch the story aspect entirely. I think doomguy shooting a death star laser on Mars or fighting demons in a medieval setting or lovecraft dimension is fun but we DON'T NEED A STORY for that. If the next game just puts doomguy in a prehistoric setting killing demon dinosaurs without any context, I wouldn't even care. We can have these crazy environments, demon designs and scenes of doomguy disobeying scientists or angels in order to save lives without the boring lore trying to justify them.

Edit: Also I ahted how TAG 2 made him a "Primordial" god like figure instead of a normal soldier who earned his super powers because aliens though he was worthy of it.

I also I don't like the rabbit thing. I think it's stupid and is just for cringe memes.

Let me start by saying media literacy shouldn't just be "I understood the subtext". It should also contain recognizing bad writing, tropes and bad creative decisions. It should be "I understood the subtext but the subtext is bullshit and poorly executed".

The worst take that I have heard from this fanbase is "Homelander was always a pathetic loser, he was never smart" in order to defend the bad writing of seasons 2 to 5 which is just baffling and factually WRONG!

Here's what Homelander did in season 1:

When Translucent was missing, he immediately locked in to find him, flying over the city to search for him. Modern HL would send Deep to do this job, if he even realized a member of the seven was missing at all.

After the flight 37 incident, he quickly shifted the narrative to put the blame on military. Modern HL would whine to Ashley to spin this shit because she is the spin doctor and he can't do that himself for some reason.

He heard that politician blackmailing Madeline in episode 1 and immediately took initiative to protect the company secret. Modern HL would just stare intensely and do nothing probably.

After Mesmer snitched on the boys, he immediately searched them up and figured out their entire operations through the season. Trump lander would make Sage do that and receive a report from her because he himself can't do that anymore.

He realized the inconsistencies between the stories of Madeline and Vougleboum, figured out something was off and punished them both for lying to him about Ryan. Trump lander would just ...... eh ....... do nothing I guess. He wouldn't even listen to the stories properly I suppose.

And the BIGGEST OF IT ALL. Even before the season began, he orchestrated the entire supe terrorist thing. He secretly gave V vials to A-train to give them to terrorists so the supes can have an excuse to get into military to protect US from the danger he himself created and it worked perfectly and the supes got the military contracts Brilliant! Hell, his decision kickstarted the entire series as A-train hit Robin when he was spreading those vials. Remember that stupid scene from the end of season 4 when Sage suddenly shows up and says "All according to the plan" ? Homelander pulled that way before and in a well written and effective way. He didn't need Sage, he himself was smart and cunning.

Then season 2 came out and it flanderized the hell out of him. From the very first scene of the season 2, he starts drinking milk like a baby and throws a tantrum to Ashely over a blind guy. Season 1 HL wouldn't dismiss Blindspot for being blind when he knows he is still capable of killing targets effectively but we can't show that HL is SMART, we have to show how egotistically stupid he is because ERIC KRIPPLE is a hack fraud!

And remember that supe terrorist plan that worked very well in season 1? It was actually a BAD plan this whole time and Homie was stupid for doing that, you see? Suddenly Stan Edgar comes and tells him how stupid he is for doing something that benefited the company at the end. Literally in the very next episode, the image of the Vought is saved because they killed a supe terrorist and Stan and Stormfront take credit for it but IT WAS HOMIE'S PLAN. You can't scold him for that plan and then benefit from the very same plan. Stan didn't even acknowledged this nor did he thanked Homelander at all.

We also got that "Homelander doesn't understand how social media manipulation works" plotline so Stormfront can come and teach him how "memes" work! FUCKING KILL ME PLEASE.

I don't even want to talk about the whole "He will snap" BS since all that build up led to nothing so we all can universally agree it was a bad creative decision in hindsight. Instead of making him crazier, we could have had Season 1 Homelander for 5 seasons. Just imagine if that actually happened. The boys could have been the next breaking bad but Eric Creep key doesn't want to make a good show, you see!

And stop fucking bringing up that "He was beefing a baby in season 1" defense. That was like two or three scenes at max. He was just annoyed of that baby, he wasn't "beefing" with him. He didn't even kill the baby after killing Madeline because he wasn't insecure about it. Modern HL would just cry in front of Stillwell and shout "You love baby more than me" like a toddler. Season 1 HL knew to keep his emotions in check.

In conclusion, Homelander from season 1 and Homie from season 2 to 5 are completely different characters. If yoh genuinely can't tell the difference between the two and how they flanderized him then I don't know what to say anymore.