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Zero Woolfe
เข้าร่วมเมื่อ 26 พ.ค. 2013
I'm Zero. I make videos about things I'm interested in. I like art and civics and comic books and cats.
Grief, Catharsis, and Spider-Man
Given how much I talk about Spider-Man movies, a lot of people wanted to know what I thought about 2021’s No Way Home. And as a movie, I would overall describe it as fun but lazy. I thought the whole thing felt a little thrown together, but I also have no huge critiques from either a filmmakers or audience members perspective. It’s an MCU movie: the themes are relatable and inoffensive, the compositions are aesthetically passable if not particularly groundbreaking and the characters have been focused grouped to have enough cute dialogue to fill twitter and tumblr’s appetite for gifsets.
But given my oft stated love for Andrew Garfield’s portrayal of Spider-Man, a lot of people also wanted to know how I felt about his return to the big screen seven years after his last appearance. And while it was certainly good to see Garfiled in the suit again after so long, and vindicating to hear a resurgence of appreciation for his portrayal of the character, i had, to put lightly, grievances. Andrew Garfield is only half of what made this character what he was, and the absence of Marc Webb’s writing is palpable. Now there isn’t anything specifically wrong with what he says or does, its just that this character is antithetical to the content of this movie. Fictional characters don’t exist in a vacuum, and Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man comes from a story who’s morals are in direct conflict with this one’s. He is a refugee from a genre deconstruction of the exact kind of movie he’s now in, a movie that indulges in the same toxic avoidance of proper grieving that Marc Webb spent two movies criticizing. Let me explain.
Part One: Patterns
The MCU is not particularly interested in complex emotions. That’s not to say they aren’t emotional, (I’ve seen your fanfiction and angsty fmvs) but Kevin Feige is interested mainly in big, operatic, cathartic emotions. Revenge, and self sacrifice, and rage and true love. Characters do have emotional problems, but they’re more often than not solved with magic keys. The Magic Key is one of the primary ways that hollywood likes to deal with human psychology. People’s psychological problems have a single obvious, often freudian source, and a simple, often very literal solution. In Iron Man Three, for example, Tony’s PTSD and paranoia manifests in the form of him obsessively building new Iron Man suits. Over the course of the movie he regains his confidence in both his engineering skills and his ability to protect his loved ones and symbolically lets go of his paranoia by blowing all of the suits up. This is not a knock at Iron Man Three I actually think its one of the stronger MCU movies, it definitely benefits from being a largely standalone story and having a director with a distinct singular creative vision, but thats a different video. The MCU likes simple emotional problems with literal dramatic solutions.
But not all emotions have magic keys. Like, for example, grief. Dealing with the tragic loss of a loved one doesn’t have a simple solution that lends itself to the structure of a popular narrative. It’s just a feeling that sucks, that demands to be felt, and that there is no real escape from beyond time. So the MCU just doesn’t deal with grief. It flat out refuses to acknowledge its existence, because grieving doesn’t sell popcorn. Now you may be saying “But Keane! The MCU has so many tragic character deaths! How could it have made it though 27 movies without ever getting into the subject of grieving?” Well, by distracting you. Lets go back and take a look at the sympathetic characters that bite it over the course of this franchise, and how the aftermath of their deaths are dealt with.
In the first Iron Man movie, all the way back in 2008, Yinsen acts as a sort of mentor figure to Tony while he’s trapped in a cave with a box of scraps. He teaches tony to be less of a shitty person, he helps him build the first Iron Man suit, and then boldly sacrifices himself to buy tony precious time. He dramatically imparts some inspiring words then dies, inspiring tony to go storming out of the cave and kick some terrorist butt in a kick-ass action sequence. Then this action scene is immediately followed by a comedy beat, and we forget about how sad we are and move on with the rest of the movie. Yinsen is never mentioned in the movie again. Actually aside from a brief cameo in the flashback prologue of Iron Man 3, he’s never mentioned anywhere in the franchise at all after his death. The guy who’s sacrifice inspired Iron Man is never memorialized or thanked or even just brought up in passing. Because that shits kind of a bummer and we’ve got quips to make!
In Captain America Erskine acts as a mentor figure to Steve, teaching him to see the innate goodness within himself. Then he’s shot by a hydra mole and has a dramatic death scene in front of steve which inspires steve to go kick some hydra butt in a kick-ass action sequence, and then he’s hardly ever mentioned again.
But given my oft stated love for Andrew Garfield’s portrayal of Spider-Man, a lot of people also wanted to know how I felt about his return to the big screen seven years after his last appearance. And while it was certainly good to see Garfiled in the suit again after so long, and vindicating to hear a resurgence of appreciation for his portrayal of the character, i had, to put lightly, grievances. Andrew Garfield is only half of what made this character what he was, and the absence of Marc Webb’s writing is palpable. Now there isn’t anything specifically wrong with what he says or does, its just that this character is antithetical to the content of this movie. Fictional characters don’t exist in a vacuum, and Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man comes from a story who’s morals are in direct conflict with this one’s. He is a refugee from a genre deconstruction of the exact kind of movie he’s now in, a movie that indulges in the same toxic avoidance of proper grieving that Marc Webb spent two movies criticizing. Let me explain.
Part One: Patterns
The MCU is not particularly interested in complex emotions. That’s not to say they aren’t emotional, (I’ve seen your fanfiction and angsty fmvs) but Kevin Feige is interested mainly in big, operatic, cathartic emotions. Revenge, and self sacrifice, and rage and true love. Characters do have emotional problems, but they’re more often than not solved with magic keys. The Magic Key is one of the primary ways that hollywood likes to deal with human psychology. People’s psychological problems have a single obvious, often freudian source, and a simple, often very literal solution. In Iron Man Three, for example, Tony’s PTSD and paranoia manifests in the form of him obsessively building new Iron Man suits. Over the course of the movie he regains his confidence in both his engineering skills and his ability to protect his loved ones and symbolically lets go of his paranoia by blowing all of the suits up. This is not a knock at Iron Man Three I actually think its one of the stronger MCU movies, it definitely benefits from being a largely standalone story and having a director with a distinct singular creative vision, but thats a different video. The MCU likes simple emotional problems with literal dramatic solutions.
But not all emotions have magic keys. Like, for example, grief. Dealing with the tragic loss of a loved one doesn’t have a simple solution that lends itself to the structure of a popular narrative. It’s just a feeling that sucks, that demands to be felt, and that there is no real escape from beyond time. So the MCU just doesn’t deal with grief. It flat out refuses to acknowledge its existence, because grieving doesn’t sell popcorn. Now you may be saying “But Keane! The MCU has so many tragic character deaths! How could it have made it though 27 movies without ever getting into the subject of grieving?” Well, by distracting you. Lets go back and take a look at the sympathetic characters that bite it over the course of this franchise, and how the aftermath of their deaths are dealt with.
In the first Iron Man movie, all the way back in 2008, Yinsen acts as a sort of mentor figure to Tony while he’s trapped in a cave with a box of scraps. He teaches tony to be less of a shitty person, he helps him build the first Iron Man suit, and then boldly sacrifices himself to buy tony precious time. He dramatically imparts some inspiring words then dies, inspiring tony to go storming out of the cave and kick some terrorist butt in a kick-ass action sequence. Then this action scene is immediately followed by a comedy beat, and we forget about how sad we are and move on with the rest of the movie. Yinsen is never mentioned in the movie again. Actually aside from a brief cameo in the flashback prologue of Iron Man 3, he’s never mentioned anywhere in the franchise at all after his death. The guy who’s sacrifice inspired Iron Man is never memorialized or thanked or even just brought up in passing. Because that shits kind of a bummer and we’ve got quips to make!
In Captain America Erskine acts as a mentor figure to Steve, teaching him to see the innate goodness within himself. Then he’s shot by a hydra mole and has a dramatic death scene in front of steve which inspires steve to go kick some hydra butt in a kick-ass action sequence, and then he’s hardly ever mentioned again.
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Everything Wrong With- Everything Wrong With The Greatest Showman
What an absolutely fantastic video. As a young teenage nerd who loved photography and skateboarding, and always felt like an outcast, this movie was amazing to watch. And as someone whose recent therapy sessions have been about conditional love and trying to detach self-worth from being useful, this video just tied everything together in a way I can't put into words. I replayed the second half of this video again cuz it hit that close to home. Thank you for this video ♥️
Civil war and Winter Soldier deserved to be Grey and gritty
I wonder if they thought of the sunset solution right after Age of Ultron but decided to keep it for Endgame instead of using it in Civil war or infinity war. being creative is good but when you have 5 movies to do instead of one you kinda gotta hold onto the good stuff for when it counts
Most super heroes are supposed to stand out. That’s why they wear the suits and aren’t jumping purse snatchers in a black hoodie. Someone like Spider-Man is supposed to be bright and welcoming. Someone like Thor is supposed to look other worldly. Someone like iron man is supposed to look like a muscle car.
It is criminal you dont have more subscribers, you are my new favorite channel. Stay on the path, you do more than you know.
solid takes from beginning to end.
why would you complain about a superhero movie looking cartoonish? that's how it should be
I'm glad someone agrees that the first avangers looks great. I love that it's a bit campy, I love that they look like cartoons in the middle of grey concrete buildings, we can see them it's bright and sunny and I think it was perfect as it was ✨🙌
James Camron’s Avatar enters the chat 🤨
I’ve never heard anyone complain that the Avengers movies looked too cartoony, but I’m glad I’m not friends with them. Superheroes are supposed to be in bright colors. Deadpool and Wolverine proved that it looks good, and can be done. Stop desaturating everything or putting everyone in neutral clothing. If you can’t successfully use colors, that’s a skill issue.
IMO, it's just better to look cartoonish. These simply are superhero movies.
There is no way you said "do your homework it's 2pm"... and it was true and valid.
You know nothing about color theory, marvel is the best thing in existence & the new Star Wars movies are absolutely awful
Color theory? I think we should test this out in a Children's Hospital
they used gas and lights to gaslight us...
Is the auto-captioning on this video just unbelievably broken for anyone else? It's complete word salad with maybe two or three accurate transcriptions every few sentences.
i’m getting the same result here. it’s really weird. maybe something to do with this guy’s audio caused the auto-captioner to freak out?
I don't think the clashing of mostly saturated colors is necessarily a bad thing when it comes to the costumes. I mean sure it can be kind of hard to focus on any specific character, but you are there for the whole team, as well as each individual. I think using the lighting to highlight characters along with probably some creative camera use to frame each character and highlight their individual costumes is a phenomenal way to do it though.
the problem with people and the tasm movies is people don't actually understand movies properly, they just judge the tasm films on what they know already about 'spider-man' . they do not care for actual good filmmaking, they just care about spider-man being the same as what they read in he comic books. and other people are clueless because they just see a superhero and assume violence is all that is present withint hose films
Marvel really stepped up their set colour design game with loki, especially the scenes that were shot in the TVA
im surpised this hasnt blown up yet.
Criticizing The Avengers for looking cartoony is truly hilarious
Honestly, 2012 avengers still looks the best to me. I want colours and fun, it's a superhero movie!
This is also true for Wicked
“Take care, be good, pet cats” is my new personal mantra
It's amazing how people will just make a problem up just to celebrate mediocrity.
Its like 4 years ago, but i would watch your opnion and conclusion about Bleach Blue/Red design sooo cool
"...his best friend Neil" Historians be like "they were roommates"
It worked for captain america
Why did the mcu look more realistic (in brightness, there's little to nothing realistic in that movie(aside from the government being evil and controlled by HYDRA(lizard people)))in civil war
such a good explanation....
Purple, pink, and magenta are all the same color, but go on…
I love your way of expression, great video and educational!
shooting a movie on an amazon alexa?
Man what a good video
It is so noticeable how much better Guardians Vol. 1 looks in comparison to Vol. 2. The colors were generally darker and in the light scenes they looked crisp and generally didn't have the darker moments within them. This was also mostly followed in the far superior Vol. 3 (as a sequel). Vol. 2 looked like crap because it was full overbright and obnoxious which didn't work for "The Suicide Squad" (nor birds of prey) either.
I am a total sucker for your weird little outros
Yes! The awkward endings are back! 🤩
"LIKE MOST EXERCISES IN PRETENTIOUSNESS IT WAS DEVELOPED IN EUROPE IN THE 18TH CENTURY" LMAOO
Aw no awkward outro on this one 😢 Ironically, discovering this channel and knowing it hasn't released a new video in years makes watching all the uploads even more suspenseful 😂
Compare the modern use of colors to three strip Technicolor. A great example is The Adventures of Robinhood (1938).
Spectacular outro
"the best way to learn the rules is to break them" Easily the most positive context ever for "fuck around and find out."
The Avengers is the best looking Marvel movie I think, but Cap’s shade of blue looks fucking ridiculous. But the colors were all so deliberate and the shading actually felt real. Cause Endgame was still so so gray.
I absolutely love your videos. Though I do wish you’d tone down the woke bullshit a tad
4:09 - when you have to change the colors to prove a point about said colors - you don’t really have a point! Disliked! NEXT video.
Bro what
You did not understand the point being made at all 😭😭
Yes I did
I question how accurate the color palette identification system you’re using is. The one with Gemora and the red light, the palette clearly doesn’t reflect the intensity of the red highlights in the image. If the palette doesn’t capture these small points of intensity, you aren’t actually looking at the full range of color in the frame.
Amazing video <3
(This comment will make more sense after reading my comments on your TASM video about gifted kids.) MARC WEBB DIRECTED 500 DAYS OF SUMMER, TOO? Goddamn it I should know that. I'm gonna look at his filmography before you ambush me again.
Former gifted kid here. You have fantastic videos; Haven't posted in years, but I subbed anyways. You deserve so much more attention than you have. I watched your video on GotG and I'm gonna watch your Grief, Catharsis, and Spider-Man vide next. You don't even have that many video so I may binge them all, frankly. They all look really interesting. "Spider-Man is Boy-Twilight" in particular also intrigues me! I wanted to thank you for this one, though. AGarfs was always my favorite Spider-Man, and I've always felt like I loved these movies more than others. I grew up on Maguire, I had his first movie on VHS, by all rights I should prefer Maguire -- But I just don't. Never have. I always just loved The Amazing Spider-Man series more. (I also have a shitload of mysterious-amazing-beloved-daddy issues which eerily lines up with Peter & Richard but shh!) I feel like you put into words most of the reasons why (ok, all the reasons, except my weird daddy issues), when I've never quite been able to put my finger on it. Thank you. This video was a gift to watch.
ALSO WHAT THE FUCK I NEVER REALIZED GIFTED STARRING CHRIS EVANS AND MCKENNA GRACE WAS ALSO BY MARC WEBB, GET THE FUCK OUT! OH HELL YEAH, I LOVE THAT MOVIE, OF COURSE, JESUS CHRIST, HOLY SHIT. I'm not doing a good job of demonstrating I was a gifted kid lmfao but I swear!
1:27 get in the robot…