But to contribute I’ll mention one kids movie and one movie for older audiences that both rubbed me the wrong way.
For kids (and to flaunt my weeb credentials) we have Pokemon: Mewtwo strikes back. Mewtwo is disgusted with the ways humanity treats pokemon so they want to wipe out all life on earth save for them, and the clones they made. It’s a lighter version of PCU of the ubiquitous ‘evil antifascist’. Mewtwo may be sort of right, but they seek revenge instead of justice so that makes the former injustice ok. Also, Mewtwo decided to blame and wipe out all of humanity when they had a golden opportunity to just telekinetically blow up Giovanni, a leader of a corporation dedicated to exploiting pokemon. Thankfully, iirc the Japanese version was better and Mewtwo was more lost and confused like a proto-Zuko. But I still sort of like it because it is one of the first times Pokemon does unpack its own ethics, and Mewtwo continues as a sympathetic character in a later movie.
My dishonorable mention is idiocracy. We’ve analyzed it a bunch of times, but it could have been a huge warning of the dangers of anti-intellectualism in a way that I wish was touched up on in Fahrenheit 451, but it had to do the “it’s poor people’s fault for trusting the fascist porks they hold so dear!” (Being a reactionary isn’t metaphysical you fucking lib!) it would have been handled a lot better if the “idiots” were revealed to be perfectly intelligent but faked stupidity because they want to be ‘cool’ or were just trying to look macho or something. Plus I think it would have been hilarious if there was a scene where there was a stereotypical jock and cheerleader reading Plato for fun, were caught by the protagonist and begged him not to tell anyone they were “closet geeks”.
Finally the big one I want to touch up on is the Star Wars prequel and sequels, I think it made a mistake by adding an explanation to the space magic, like power levels from dragon ball but the film expects you to take it seriously. Finally the demonization of anger. Sure, part of the film was showing how the Jedi dogma bit it in the ass, but our last impressions of the Star Wars characters for years should not have been that dogma. Also, I really did not like Kylo’s forced redemption in the sequels. Rey should have just turned him to ash with force lightning in the first film, had all the chuds cry that the character that resembles them got destroyed and had Rey tackle a whole new threat altogether that wasn’t a literal rehash of the old villains. There’s so much of the expanded universe they could draw from.
Fuck PCU.
But to contribute I’ll mention one kids movie and one movie for older audiences that both rubbed me the wrong way.
For kids (and to flaunt my weeb credentials) we have Pokemon: Mewtwo strikes back. Mewtwo is disgusted with the ways humanity treats pokemon so they want to wipe out all life on earth save for them, and the clones they made. It’s a lighter version of PCU of the ubiquitous ‘evil antifascist’. Mewtwo may be sort of right, but they seek revenge instead of justice so that makes the former injustice ok. Also, Mewtwo decided to blame and wipe out all of humanity when they had a golden opportunity to just telekinetically blow up Giovanni, a leader of a corporation dedicated to exploiting pokemon. Thankfully, iirc the Japanese version was better and Mewtwo was more lost and confused like a proto-Zuko. But I still sort of like it because it is one of the first times Pokemon does unpack its own ethics, and Mewtwo continues as a sympathetic character in a later movie.
My dishonorable mention is idiocracy. We’ve analyzed it a bunch of times, but it could have been a huge warning of the dangers of anti-intellectualism in a way that I wish was touched up on in Fahrenheit 451, but it had to do the “it’s poor people’s fault for trusting the fascist porks they hold so dear!” (Being a reactionary isn’t metaphysical you fucking lib!) it would have been handled a lot better if the “idiots” were revealed to be perfectly intelligent but faked stupidity because they want to be ‘cool’ or were just trying to look macho or something. Plus I think it would have been hilarious if there was a scene where there was a stereotypical jock and cheerleader reading Plato for fun, were caught by the protagonist and begged him not to tell anyone they were “closet geeks”.
Finally the big one I want to touch up on is the Star Wars prequel and sequels, I think it made a mistake by adding an explanation to the space magic, like power levels from dragon ball but the film expects you to take it seriously. Finally the demonization of anger. Sure, part of the film was showing how the Jedi dogma bit it in the ass, but our last impressions of the Star Wars characters for years should not have been that dogma. Also, I really did not like Kylo’s forced redemption in the sequels. Rey should have just turned him to ash with force lightning in the first film, had all the chuds cry that the character that resembles them got destroyed and had Rey tackle a whole new threat altogether that wasn’t a literal rehash of the old villains. There’s so much of the expanded universe they could draw from.