u/Poweredkingbear

The discussion around The Boys being way too on the nose about Trump and Trumpism is just obnoxious. It’s either way too political or pandering for the sake of pandering. Like first of all the original comic book that the show is based on clearly had Homelander as an obvious political allegory for George Bush. Everyone thought of George Bush as a massive dumbass so the writer also made Homelander also a massive dumbass who’s equally as dumb as a piece of rock. 

Then there’s also comic book superhero characters such as Captain America punching Hitler in the face in his first ever comic book appearance. Some people would argue “Well it’s old history and Hitler wasn’t as relevant when the comic was written”. Like for some reason the vast majority of people seem to have a collective psyche that the first ever comic book appearance of Captain America punching Hitler in the face happened 100 years after World War 2 happened.  Yeah, here's the thing is that World War 2 was literally still heating up when Captain America was first published in 1941. D-DAY hasn’t even happened yet in 1944. Adolf Hitler was still alive and kicking before offing himself in 1945 which meant that the first ever publication of the Captain America comic happened 4 years before his death. In other words Captain America was super political for its time and had a clear message against Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. They weren’t doing that shit when they had to make a fictional organization loosely based on the Nazis like Cobra or Hydra to be more suitable for the kids and the general public. It was just Captain America fighting Hitler and his Nazi regime. 

I really do hate this talking point that every fictional media out there are only justified with their political allegories if they’re only basing it off “old history” and not new or recent history. Like every fictional media out there, they always had to talk about the current political events that was happening during their time. Back then it was World War 2 before moving on to the Vietnam War. After the Vietnam war the vast majority of people then moved on to the Bush era and the Iraq War. What was relevant for their time is obviously going to be given the most attention than the ones from the past. So in our current era Trump and Trumpism is the number one issue of the day because it’s literally happening right now. 

I think the main criticisms towards the monster designs for Welcome to Derry just showcase how much people don’t give a shit about the source material. One of the most common complaints outside of some bad CGI in some scenes for example is that the monster designs for the show such as the Pickle monsters and the giant mutant baby are too over the top and too corny where they’re almost like Goosebumps monsters.

Alot of people seem to argue that they want the monsters to be subtle and ambiguous to make them scary. They felt like showing the monsters too much made the show less grounded and less serious than it should be. Like do people realize that the source material that the show is based on literally had Pennywise turning into a damn werewolf wearing a Letterman’s jacket, a talking moon, a giant eagle and a Lepper offering a blowjob to one of the main characters right? None of the monster forms from the book are even remotely “subtle” or "ambiguous" because Pennywise as a character was never supposed to be a grounded and realistic character. Pennywise was always supposed to be a fantastical, campy, zanny and horrifying character which Welcome to Derry perfectly captured. If you remove any of those premise then Pennywise ends up being a completely different character all together. His pickle dad form and the mutant baby form literally captures the overall vibe of Pennywise in the novel.

When some people brought up the Goosebumps comparison just pissed me off because I’m pretty sure IT as a story has alot more commonality with Goosebumps than it does for more grounded horror such as Hereditary or the Jordan Peele movies. Let alone the fact that IT chapter 1 and 2 completely left out the fantastical and sci fi elements of the original novel in favour of a more grounded approach. Like IT as a novel wasn't just a coming of age horror story ,but it had a much larger emphasis on the fantastical elements of the Stephen King's universe which is why the idea of a shining in the show comes off as a surprise to non book readers. IT was always supposed to be fantastical and I hope the next season leans on that even further. Improve the CGI and do more practical sets next time. Pennywise turning into a goofy aah monsters while being scary is something they should double down on regardless of what some critics think.

I just seen the recent penultimate episode of The Boys and for fuck sake they literally made the same mistakes the Stranger Things writers made when they made that penultimate episode for the last season where they decided to do even more setup instead of resolving the majority of the major plot beats to set up the conclusion of the story.

The whole point of a penultimate episode isn't to keep adding in more major sub plots for the finale. It's whole purpose is to raise the stakes and be the climax for the finale. The penultimate episode for WTD is perfect because it was literally the climax of the story. The major sub plot of setting up Pennywise's last rampage before his sleep was resolved in the penultimate episode. The episode was intensed and gave a conclusion to many of the major characters like Rich, Ingrid and Pennywise before we go to the finale. The penultimate episode then ends with the major stakes being raised way higher than before when Pennywise became even more of a major threat after he was finally set loosed by the US military. The Boys kind of did a similar thing to one of their main characters ,but the showrunners decided to add even more characters from one of their spin off shows which ends up becoming alot more distracting and probably made the finale even more convoluted than it should be. Stranger Things literally the dropped the ball on their penultimate episode because nothing major happened at all ,but they decided to do even more boring set ups.

I seriously hope season 2 doesn't repeat the same mistakes that the other shows have made and continue what they have been doing from season 1 of the show.