Chris Prusinowski Really? He actually seems fairly realistic in the setting of the TV series/comics. How a man who is seemingly nigh-invincible with Superman like powers but is raised in a terrible environment in a laboratory; his nihilistic and psychopathic tendencies the byproduct of such a hostile and merciless upbringing Theres a reason why he’s being called as one of the -best- villains of all time. And I absolutely agree with that. Psychologically, he makes sense to be the way he is, and he’s a lot more realistic than most over-the-top villains we’ve seen anywhere else
People don't seem to realize that Homelander isn't bad because he's human, it's because of his upbringing. He was raised in a lab, with detestable parental figures, and role models. While Superman was raised in a small town by loving parents that taught him compassion, kindness, and mercy as well as controlling his strength and helping others. Homelander could have been a decent human being it he had a decent childhood.
@@christbenitez8797 Its kinda already shown in the new clips they aren't going the same way with the comics since Black Noir isn't unhurtable and Stormfront isn't a man
There's one Scene that says everything about the entire series in quite a simple way: the Scene of "Homelander" heating up the Gun of a Criminal to such a degree that it literally melts onto his hand... but the kids he is "Saving" are just staring at how cool he is. "The Boys" ain't just about showing how Super Heroism can be scary... but how people shouldn't ignore the consequences behind their Super-Powered actions.
... I just realized... I don't remember the gunpowder igniting and sending molten metal flying everywhere. In other words... That should've killed a lot of bystanders and doing that would've been stupid and reckless.
Ivanperez 128 It is possible though would be intensely difficult, if he pushes it to hard he bursts through it and if he tries to little nothing happens. He could do it best if he could find something large to push against it in order to disperse his force.
Even if GoT's ending was rushed, that doesn't mean that GRRM will do the same thing. DnD rushed seasons 7 and 8 because they wanted to start working on Star Wars. So instead of the nuanced, layered writing we got in seasons 1 through 6, they decided to only focus on the major points and completely breezed through everything in between. It's not that they're bad writers, because some of my favorite stuff was original content by DnD... Like Arya and Sandor in season 4. It's the fact that they somehow didn't want to take the time to finish the biggest show in TV history because of money AND their own personal agendas getting in the way. It will never make sense to me how HBO allowed them to shorten the seasons and end the show earlier than expected. GRRM should understand that his ending could be great as long as all of the blanks are filled in.
@@MFBloosh I'm not sure his ending can be great. The thing I love about Martin's writing is how he treads through tension and sets up mysteries. But it's shallow. The answer to these mysteries don't really mean much to us on Earth. What kind of ending can it have that will stick with us humans? I think Tolkien's ending was perfect and shines even now.
@MFBloosh The problem is, GRR Martin is 71 years old, severely overweight and not in the best medical condition. And it took more and more time between the release of the books. So how are the chances that he drops dead before he can finish the series?
@@michaelcardno9859 comics have a good premise but ruin it with shitty edgy stuff. Butcher bangs cia woman in her kitchen right then and there, starlight gets gangbanged, the 9/11 stuff, plenty more. For the same reason why superheroes movies are unrealistic in the way they portray benevolence, the boys' comic is over the top in a bad way in the way they portray the evil of supes.
I honestly thought that it's at least partially making fun of the fact that Batman is the superhero that gets the most attention always when he is part of a story.
Yeah there was a Superman story about why he needs the Clark Kent persona rather than being Superman 24/7. It kept him human and not Godlike
5 лет назад
@eviad Kill Bill is one of my favorite movies but that monologue suck ass (no the delivery tho, David Carradine was amazing). It describe Superman as a godlike alien who acts like a coward and patetic reporter because that's how he sees humanity. That's not how Superman sees humanity.
Ignacio Cañas Exactly! The real reason Superman is Clark Kent is because he was raised as Clark Kent. He was just a normal boy for so long, until he one day learned he was a man of steel that could do literally anything. But, the reality is that, ironically enough, the humans that he saves every day have more freedom and more choice than Superman ever could. They are allowed to decide their fate. Superman’s is already decided for him, in a way. He wants to be Clark Kent, because he wants to be free. Superman wants a chance to live a normal and quiet life, but is also too selfless to ever abandon his post. Which is why he cannot give up being Superman as long as Superman still exists within him. So having Clark Kent is an essential compromise he’s made to still remain capable of holding control over his own existence
@ So people perceived the monologue as incorrect because it was delivered by Bill, the antagonist who believes in that line of thought, hence his actions against the Bride, hence the conflict.
Maybe it's both? I could definitely see that though, many people worship celebrities or fall for the public persona they or their team creates for them when really they are terrible people re: Ellen
@@slemangerdy8407 Idk what your saying but yeah captain America really doesn't care about being a idol he's just doing the right thing. That's the reason why I want to watch falcon and the winter soldier it show's what happened after endgame and how the government is replacing him anyways have a good day.
@@CrimesForDimes i love action scenes, and his story fits well with the movie, but to idiolize his looks and try to be patriotic because of "My HeRo" doesn't make you a good person, most of people love him, they don't just like the movie, i am also waiting for the show it looks epic
Watchmen just wasn’t very good at this (film version) it wasn’t very realistic and failed to really capture ‘what would real superheroes be like’. Snyder was way too concerned with everything looking cool for that to happen.
@@Th3-3nd I did like the Ultimate Cut, but I prefer the Director's cut because the narrative is a lot more focused and with the extended running time, there are some pacing issues that tend to crop up.
@@boukh_h there's literally nothing wrong with having a username and pfp reminiscent of or identical to your favorite character, so you can fuck off too.
Even if Superman couldn’t lift the plane, he would have put as much effort into flying to and from the plane to save as many people as he could. Hell, he’d dive underwater when the plane crashed if it meant saving at least one person. Homelander didn’t even try
@@heyitsvonage2768 Also you: Idk what I'm talking about but I heard something that sounded fye from an unconfirmed biased source. If the book can be read it's not infinite.
One of my fave changes from the comics--besides Homelander--is that The Boys themselves aren't superpowered. Well, beyond the Girl. I hope it stays that way, for awhile at least. I really had trouble connecting to The Boys' mission to take out supes when they're suped up themselves. The entire thing just seem hypocritical. By keeping the main crew unpowered it makes their struggle to overcome the supes they're up against far more gratifying.
Well that is the point. The Boys in the comic are complete hypocrites. They're not as depraved but they are psychopaths. They are killers. Hughie is the hero because he hates the violence but the Boys LOVE it. Did you read it to the end? I don't want to spoil it for you but the ending is very telling.
@@99RedRedfake Oh I read the entire story. Still prefer this take on the characters. Looking forward to what they're going to take and what they're going to leave. Because all the characters have far more depth in here than they ever had in the comic.
@@djsosonut Well, I deeply disagree. Some of the Seven do, but they never the center piece. The Boys are so much weaker. I connected so much with the idea of ultra macho men being both completely toxic but necessary. Yet so dangerous once they don't have a purpose. It's like Ennis who himself is that macho man admits that men like Hughie are so much better for the world but so naive at the same time. Plus the sheer excessive pussification of superheroes felt catarthic XD The show feels like it pulls a lot of punches. The Boys are supposed to be military men. Real men. They're not supposed to struggle against superheroes. The supes are supposed to be so damn pathetic but think themselves so powerful. But the comic brilliantly refuses to make heroes out of the Boys. It keeps them, if not as bad as them, certainly not a force for good. It's brilliant and the show misses that so much in my opinion.
@@99RedRedfake All that depth you're seeing in the comic I'm not getting. It's was just Ennis being Ennis. Supes had depth? Where? Homelander was an incompetent manchild. That was his entire arc. Queen Maeve was basic eye candy and last minute turncoat. Damn near no presence in the story. The Deep had no depth. The Lamplighter was stuck playing with his poo. Sparkle was just a punching bad and Hughie's fuck buddy. Black Noir is the only one with any real depth of character, mainly cause he played everyone. Still, even that doesn't make much sense. I don't want to spoil the reveal just in case the show goes that route, but you should know what i'm talking about. And if he was made to be like that, at least the people that made him should've been able to catch on to what he was up to. Especially James Stillwell. (Probably my favorite character in the story. So callous and corrupt.) I think you're confusing sensation with depth. I don't mind if they don't the route of having full on group recliner circle jerks for shock value to show how depraved and damaged the supesin that world are. They can pull that punch. Ennis can be too Ennis sometimes. (Still remember him having one character have sex with a monument of meat in Preacher. I much prefer how they played that character and his obsession with meat in season one of Preacher.) I think the supes are far more interesting here. They aren't racist, homophobic, baby eating, pedos that it's easy to enjoy the Boys take out. They're damaged in a far less sensational but realistic way. Trapped by their fame in the roles they play and the things they do to stay there. Which makes things more grey when the Boys take them out or blackmail them. The Boys aren't heroes here either. Show Butcher blew up a house with a baby in it, on the slim chance he could take out Homelander. There is nothing heroic about that. That's what I enjoy. I like the show more because I like the characters more here. They're so deliciously messy, yet grounded in their hyper reality that is a funhouse mirror of our own. For me the show took something that I thought was just okay, and made it great.
I'll be honest, if nothing else, this analysis makes me appreciate Spiderman even more. The comic itself and its intended narrative goes so far out of the way to show that Spiderman is a kid in the beginning, that he makes mistakes, that people get hurt and he faces those consequences. Not just the people close to him either, people everywhere die in Spiderman stories and it messes with Peter on a level that many comics struggle to approach. If he weren't able to lead his dual life and continue hiding his identity, I think there could be a much darker version of his comics that parallels this series. He just happened to be loved by his Aunt and Uncle, so his nurturing was much more positive than Homelander's.
@@GaiusIntrepidus which makes me think what would Vought do if they found out that kid who had no record of having spider like powers is running around being a vigilante
I love that in contrast to comics, the Boys don't have any powers.... This gives total sense of danger, how normal people react to people with super powers. Beside the fact that they rely simply on guns, tactics make them look like regular criminals robbing banks. Criminals that Spiderman or Superman stop like every day. ... Imagine playing Spiderman PS4 and being defeated during regular crime fight on street during free roam xD you defeated bosses like Shocker, Scorpion, Rhino but you got knocked by a guy stealing old lady purse ;D
@@AveTrueToCaesar8212 I only hope they will reserve it for finale :o I prefer it when the Boys don't have powers :o it makes better contrast with the Seven
i esspecially like how on starlights first day translucents priority is to discuss copyright infringment and illegal merchandising of their merchandise. it was only when homelander who was trying to give a good impression said to tell about someone they saved today the conversation shifted
That scene really got me, despite everything that already happened I was still naive ( just like starlight) and when he said they needed to talk about serious crimes I really didn't expect it to be about copyright
Complex and layered characters are the bread and butter of any story. A good fictional world needs actions and consequences of these actions made by those characters.
That's not true. Many of the best books and movies in story doesn't have complex and layered characters. Fahrenheit 451, I, Robot, movies like Orange Clockwork, Blade Runner, etc. A good story is the one that can get your attention and make you forget details and enjoy the journey
@@someghostinthewild I agree with you that most stories on television like having iconic characters. But to my opinion (and I should have added that on my first comment), for a good story you need a cast of good characters who are not defined by one trauma (Harry Potter) or just a quirky flaw (any romcom) or just one bad/good decision (Superman who chooses no to kill people). They change because of *many* choices that they make or all the stuff that happened to them, in a realistic way. That's why I like complicated characters that will result in a realistic depiction of a fictional world (in my opinion, I prefer game of thrones than Lord of the rings). Nobody is simple and iconic. It's true that it depends on taste but my personal preference is a story lead by layered characters.
@@leazribi8388 frieza from saiyan arc was heartless and merciless monster with no remorse or sympathy and a terrifying badass he was pure evil to the core but still a total badass and a great villain/character
@@Anubis-xk4ht true. I also enjoyed dragon Ball as a kid. And all the Disney villains! But animations are meant to be exaggerated. The bad guys are really bad and can give you good conflict without complexity. It's basically "I'm gonna destroy the world and be green or purple cause that's the bad guy's colours." And the protagonist and any sane person would be against so you easily root for the hero. Plus your entertained by the witty jokes from the villains. I mean it's not bad but when you want to give a feel of realism while world building, a tiny bit more of complications is necessary.
@@leazribi8388 lmao frieza wasn't like any Disney villain and this sympathetic villains have been used too much say whatever you want but he was a great villain
I think superheroes are, literally, the secular world's version of mythology and religion. Recreating the gods, but in shapes and forms more comfortable to a modern audience. If superheroes existed, most of them would probably be either gods or dictators. Their powers are so far above that of human mortals, there simply is no comparison. Beings that can run so fast, bullets move as if through thick syrup. Beings that can destroy entire cities just by looking at them. Beings that can control the minds of every moral on the planet. There wouldn't be any mutant wars, at least, not with humans. We'd just be pets, slaves, and another endangered species. The real wars would be apocalyptic ragnarok struggles, with mountain ranges leveled and oceans turned to steam, before the hands of the gods bring the dead back to life and cause the forests to regrow, or time itself is reversed at a mere whim.
You're already presupposing that power and authority begets corruption or worship, that it is black and white, good or bad. God or dictator. Their emergence not taken after the fact what they were once or how they were brought onto the earth. What if one chose to be neither and live among humans? What if they do it in the shadows? Or sequestered themselves? You're treating superheroes like they're the Elder Dragons of MTG when in most cases, they are just plainly human beings as well. For all the shit religion gets, it literally is the cornerstone of morality, ethics and philosophy in any civilization.
I've been binge watching all your videos this last week, it's all super helpful and very well explained! Thank you for making these it really helps you see how subtle some dialogue is but how important the pay off can be if executed correctly. Excellent videos
Hey, I didnt know you watched this channel Love your animations Btw, just remember to take you time and dont let anyone force you to rush you to animate faster
GGX TriHard the S class might have some ego and problems of their own but I don’t think they’re quite as bad as the Seven yet. They atleast seem to have saving people as their number 1 priority
I think a lot of people have overused the term "deconstruction", which has been interpreted as turning the genre on its head. That is why we have so many self-claimed deconstruction of superhero that ended up as box office flops. Those successful case of "deconstruction" must have stories to tell in the first place. George R. R Martin created Game of Throne based on Medieval British history; Alan Moore satirizes not only superheroes but also Americanism in both pop culture and cold-war politics. Frank Miller simply used Batman-Superman rivalry to describe America's widespread fear and discontent in the 70s and 80s.
All that RR Martin says is ignored by D&D on season 8. It ended exactly like LOTR: Bran ruled fair and peaceful. And the Dothrakis, we don't care about them adapting to Westeros...
@@elpaladindeltrolling6037 it was only bitter because of how awful the ending is, and sweet because that travesty of a season finally came to an end. D and D are hacks.
This is why I don't like RR Martin, it's kind of like as if he can't suspend the reality of fantasy. sure there has to be tension and cruelty in a fantasy world, but you still have to understand that this is a fantasy world, talking just only said the basis of a hero's journey narrative and also a fantasy epic, the point of it is to escape to it and to hope for a better world.... Not filled with very awkward incest and rape. :/
@@MistCellaneous-5 If you're reading Game of Thrones hoping for escapism and a happy ending where the heroes win and live happily ever after, you shouldn't really be reading Game of Thrones. Just like people who want a light-hearted comedy at the moment probably shouldn't be watching a horror movie.
The Boys has one of the darkest stories but one of the happiest endings really. That's the trick. The darker your story is, the more hardships your characters face only makes the victory sweeter.
i love the character building they did with the bad guys, Homelander is evil because he never had a family, he never really knew love, he was raised in a lab, And Queen Mav it was so sad to see she just wanted to have a relationship but she couldn't maintain it if she wanted to be this super hero. I love how the evil characters became real and we see that their evil nature was just a product of their environment. they didn't chose to be evil, they were just raised and fostered that way.
every time i read a comic the first thought i have is... what would happen if these things REALLY did happen. Watchmen was our first insight into that. Then there was Kick Ass and now this. Just because you have super powers doesn't automatically make you super. You are still a flawed human being like everyone else.
I think superheroes are, literally, the secular world's version of mythology and religion. Recreating the gods, but in shapes and forms more comfortable to a modern audience. If superheroes existed, most of them would probably be either gods or dictators. Their powers are so far above that of human mortals, there simply is no comparison. Beings that can run so fast, bullets move as if through thick syrup. Beings that can destroy entire cities just by looking at them. Beings that can control the minds of every moral on the planet. There wouldn't be any mutant wars, at least, not with humans. We'd just be pets, slaves, and another endangered species. The real wars would be apocalyptic ragnarok struggles, with mountain ranges leveled and oceans turned to steam, before the hands of the gods bring the dead back to life and cause the forests to regrow, or time itself is reversed at a mere whim.
If you like this type of superhero story, there is one more movie that I don't often see referenced. Check out "Chronicle". Yeah it looks like another shaky-cam crapfest, but the characters are well developed and well acted. Basically, it takes an abused and suffering person and gives him the power of Superman.
Bill Lyons Yeah it’s pretty good, giving a depressed man who is furious with the unfairness of the world superpowers is really sad and really terrifying.
Man, Chronicle is gold. I wish Max Landis got to make his sequels, it would've been great. Andrew's character is so well developed and believable; his helplessness made me care for him so much. I love that movie
@@bigboibubba5528 Well, there's a sequel called Martyr and the script was already finished which it's in 2012. But that's sad because it was cancelled.
To be fair, Marvel's whole storyline since Civil War touched on the repercussions of innocent casualties / collateral damage due to the hero's actions. It's a huge thing in Black Panther as well. Sure, it's still in the Marvel formula, but at least they acknowledged this side of the story and used the opportunity to enlarge/complexify their world and explore a new kind of villain. This being said, The Boys does it a lot better, and I really appreciate that it's a core element of the show.
What's different about Marvel imo is that the heroes are too infallible. The only ones who actually still have problems AFTER becoming a super hero is Spiderman and the Guardians
@@buldockschannel1528 Bruce Banner and Tony Stark still have some pretty big problems they have to sort out after becoming heroes. Bruce’s problems are pretty self-explanatory, and Tony is practically the poster child for flawed superheroes. Iron Man 2 shows that Tony remains a very flawed person even after becoming Iron Man, and his PTSD from the events of Avengers leads him to create Ultron. And that disaster started a cascade of other problems that eventually led to Thanos winning in Infinity War.
Yes, The Boys has a lot of deconstructed superhero tropes, but it also has a lot of subverted ones. It's not just that they're not paragons of virtue, unlike the comic A-train kills Hughey's girlfriend not while fighting a supervillain, but buying drugs, the strech guy not only hides he's gay, he preaches against them and Homelander isn't a failed Superman, he is a straight up villain. And yes, the series gives the "superheroes" more dept, but also turns them from not good enough into actually evil.
I personally love traditional superheroes stories. I love the larger then life adventurers, I love the titanic battles and most of all I love the wholesomeness and altruistic of superheroes. I like seeing people do good things both in fiction and in real life. I was not really going to check out the show as I hated the comics series it was based and I am generally getting quite sick of superhero deconstruction as it quite over done. Oh sure if your only familiar the movies and TV shows it seems fresh to you but if your a comic reader like me you have probably already read quite a few deconstructions already. Lord knows there is no shortage of them in Indie comics. Don't get me wrong there have been some very good ones that offer new and interesting ways to look at superheroes but a lot of them just boil down to "what if the heroes were not so heroic". It's like Kurt Busiek said. "Superhero creators who engage in deconstruction fall into two categories: There are the guys who do it because it's easy, because it gets an audience reaction if you point out that superheroes must be a bunch of psychotic nuts. And there are the guys who do it because they're actually interested, and they're trying to get at what's going on underneath. They're interested in the process and the results." I just don't find the whole "if superheroes were real they be assholes" approach all that interesting. All that said this video has convinced me to give this show a chance. Sorry for the long commit but this video really got me thinking. Nice one mate.
You pretty much summed up my feeling toward magical girl and super heroes, just because its edgy and blacker than 13 black cat s does not make a deconstruction or good
The "super" part of superheroes has to do with morality also. I dont believe a character like superman could really exist but tony stark or captain america are pretty realistic archetypes of people. Tony grew a lot from being an alcoholic megalomaniac to going as far as to sacrifice himself for everyone.
Supermen exist all around us, but they're not usually recognized because merit isn't often the focus of our pop culture and politics. Kissinger getting a noble peace prize and living a long happy life is a great example.
3:13, I think you're forgetting the real RomCom formula: "Boy finds girl, boy loses girl, girl finds boy, boy forgets girl, boy remembers girl, girls dies in a tragic blimp accident over the Orange Bowl on New Year's Day." -The Naked Gun
I mean... Satire and parody have existed a split second less than story and narrative itself. To blindly call The Watchmen the creation of Satire Comic Books is... Kinda ignoring the fact that it almost certainly wasn't. But yes, it was one of the first well-known ones, a direct inspiration for The Boys, and very important in making way for other approaches and parodies. (Then again, I mostly just don't really buy into the idea of genres because all story is kinda linked and genres deal more with theme and setting than actual meaning and what the story is really about... And yeah. I'm sure there was satire about age-old myths thousands of years ago. And I bet some would even be similar to Watchmen or The Boys in meaning and story.)
I'm a huge fan of the Boys, but do not bring Watchmen down to its level. For all its flaws, Watchmen actually has something interesting and slightly logical to say. The Boys is pure nihilism, which makes it just as unrealistic as the stories it is parodying. Only darker. Even Alan Moore noticed it shortly after the Watchmen era. He said a lot of writers started making up these excessively dark stories that had nothing going for them other than the fact that they were dark.
@@asherujudo7383 I love The Boys but you are 100% right. Its fun violent schlock whereas Watchmen is a bit more complicated. Both are great in their own ways.
To all the circus seals clapping their flippers off to the tune of "OMG, that's what the superheroes would be in real life!", you do realise that brutal, immoral or malicious superpowered characters exist in mainstream comics as well? They're called superVILLAINS. Some of them even pretend to be heroes. You cannot even say that "Boys" depicts the world without real superheroes, because that's not true - there's Starlight.
I'm telling you, it's like you ripped the thought right out of my mind through my nose! It's no different than any other story that leads you to a special place inside yourself. These are the same people that joined the "Thanos did nothing wrong" human, meme-linked fence. Oh, the hypocrisy. Starlight, in the show, was the purest form of the traditional hero to me. What happened to her, throughout the show, felt more like the embodiment of the contempt the creators and a notorious "executive producer" all have for real "Supes." I don't mind the original video post, but sometimes, we engender more bias in our praise than we realize, or even intend.
Here's more proof. Man of Steel failed for the same reason that "the Boys" succeeded; the deconstruction of super heroes. Zach Snyder didn't want to tell a wholesome story about a special "kid raised in Kansas" anymore than "the Boys" wanted to tackle the plight of the comic book superhero against diabolical "evil in the world." In either case, there is an oft hidden, seething contempt or irresistible urge to debunk the virtue and conviction that would create a superhero. I've seen this before. How much better would Sausage party have been if Seth Rogen wasn't hell bent on his "seething contempt or irresistible urge to debunk" Christian faith? Sometimes, when some people don't want to cop their own misgivings or shortcomings, they lash out at others who don't have those issues. Although I really enjoyed the Boys, the attempt of the showrunners to flip me off because they made it on the train in "time" only prevented me from returning the empty wallet they left on the bench.
I mean its pretty much literally what happened in My Hero Academia before All Might came around. All For One was basically Homelander, he just preferred to stay in the shadows instead of seeking the spotlight.
If you like the Boys check out these comics. Irredeemable, Incorruptible and Jupiter's Legacy. They all do a great job of destructing the superhero genre. Jupiter's Legacy is being adapted into a Netflix series and is being filmed as we speak hopefully it turns out good.
The Boys is kind of like a reverse Watchmen. Watchmen was an amazing deconstruction that got adapted to an stylized cookie cutter superhero movie. The Boys was adapted from a good but a bit generic "dark and gritty" superhero comic to an amazing deconstruction in the TV series.
@@Pikashades the one that carbon copies 80% of the plot of a graphic novel that was entirely about the deglamorization of the superhero, portraying them as inherently ridicolous and broken individuals and utilizes the comic book golden age aesthetics of costumes and even plot points to an extent to draw an even sharper contrast, and what it does is fetishize them, their screen presence and everything that surrounds them; Moore says "look at this nutcase in a spandex costume who violates civil rights on the daily because he's a shell of a man who can't hold a regular job anymore, who in their right mind who'd worship him?" Zack Snyder goes "look how fucking cool Rorschack is with his coat in slow mo in the rain busting jaws, isn't it cool? Aren't silk spectre and nite owl awesome when they send a goon flying against a wall ten meters away with one punch and then have slow motion sex looking like victoria's secret models?" That's the movie. That movie is proof like no other than you can copy the plot and still fail to convey the story entirely, so yeah, it is a cookie cutter because instead of being a deconstruction of the genre it is just an edgier, darker, more allegedly "realistic" version of the same spandex suit action porn moore was criticizing; despite his writing doing all the work can to mend the dissonance, snyder's puerile directing tramples all those efforts
The only thing sad here is the fact that "realistic" is people not being good. If anything good superheroes could leave an imprint on children and raise them into better people as they could have them as a reference point. Just leave them as good people. Just Let it be a reference
The point is they ARE good people, but they're put in real life circumstances, so they're also shitty people. Just like real humans lol, no one is perfect. I do think their needs to be more heroes who are little more selfless like Starlight shown though. It seems just about everyone in the super hero industry in The Boys is corrupt. This is one area I think OPM did a great job in showing what a corporate run super hero characters would be like.
@@JameboHayabusa thing is i met people. People as good as steve rogers and i met absolute piece of shits too . It's not unrealistic to have people like tony stark or thor. Are they perfect . Of course not, they had flaws . Tony is a straight up selfish asshole, who's arrogant . Doesn't give a shit about others lives. But he changes. Same with thor, arrogant shit who alwayss wants to pick a fight . People can be aa good as thor or steve rogers or peter parker . They can be shits, I'd rathee meet more people like steve types which like i said I've seen. Mostly cause I've lived with them for years. Media has an effect . You can't be like " this is it this is the reality" cause it's not. It can really change people.
The incredibles was a visionary tale well ahead of its time now that i think about it. It opened with them being heroes and deal with a decent part of it with them trying to stay heroes and bob even crossing the line into criminal territory more than once
I've been leaning towards watching The Boys Karl Urban is a favorite of mine and I've been interested in the concepts and how they are executed. I didn't know Eric Kripke was the show runner, that seals the deal for me, he's great with character creation and development. This is a great video SavageBooks, thank-you for sharing your thoughts. Hayley ^_^
personally I'm not interested in the application of "Realism." If anything, I prefer the exploration of potential. I am a sucker for redemption stories. It is very rare that a murderer changes his ways, finds the light, and tries to atone for his past evils or failures. But it isn't impossible. I like the encouraging thought, that anyone has that small chance of realizing their mistakes, and can seek their own justice to right the wrongs of their past.
4:05 I'm going to be honest, this movie already does not sound like my cup of tea at all just from this comment which is a microcosm of the biggest problem I have with so many "Superhero Deconstructions." They're not as smart as they THINK they are. Everyone of these movies tries to "Deconstruct" the superhero premise by going: "What if someone gained superpowers who WASN'T a good person??" and they approach this question with such condescending smugness that it's clear they think they were the first to come up with it. Except... they aren't. Even in that comment, the writer is blatantly wrong. The MCU has ALWAYS had greedy or selfish or otherwise flawed characters gaining superpowers. They're called SuperVILLAINS. And that's just it. These movies CLAIM they have some great insight into superheroes, but all they're doing is just showing characters who are BAD at being heroes, super or otherwise, and then trying to claim their selective sample is a more "realistic" take than the classic, even though it's actually much SHALLOWER. Showing only the failures, when Marvel has shown the successess AND the failures and all in between. And on a philosophical note, these movies send what I feel is a VERY toxic message that: "Heroes don't exist." It spreads an EQUALLY mythical viewpoint of a fantasy world where everyone's an asshole and Good=Dumb, which is a blatant falsehood dressed up as "realism".
I understand what you’re getting at but you have to remember that the Vought Supes are seen as heroes by the masses (but not by us, the audience). Supervillains in MCU are seen as supervillains by everyone. The Boys explores morally grey areas with protagonists and antagonists alike. While it’s certainly nothing new, I’d disagree that it’s “SHALLOWER”.
I loved this video. I just finished the first season of The Boys for the first time and I absolutely loved it. I've been trying to find a good deep dive into the show and I finally found yours. I will 100% be subscribing and coming back for more videos!
Can i make a recommendation for all those who enjoy this show to look up the comic series "Uber" by Kieron Gillen. A series that goes about deconstructing the romanticization of the second world war & some of the archetypal supers heroes it established, as well as using super powered characters to highlight the horrors of war. While it's very easy to look at who the villains of the second world war are, it can be often glossed over just how many cities, homes, and generations of people were burned down and whipped out to stop them.
No problem, plenty of hidden gems out there to share around, if you're also into Roleplaying and tabletop games, you might like another one of his ongoing works "Die". Very different artist who's done one heck of a stylised and just about every panel is its own painting.
A bit late, but there's also the Reckoners series by Brandon Sanderson for those who're into reading. It's set in a post-apocalyptic world ruled by "super heroes" and is about a small team of regular humans trying to bring their tyranny down. It's well written and very enjoyable overall
As glad as I am for this series' existance, I am also glad that the avengers and the jl weren't conceived during our time. Cause coming up with them in today's climate . . . They would end up like this, no doubt.
A very good reason why The Boys just plan sucks. Why would I want to watch a rendition of a superhero story that just continues to remind me how shitty the real world is?
@@chrisprusinowski5287 superhero stories are meant to get away from the reality and push us to do good. The boys is just a apparent thing called “what if superheroes were real?” even though it has nothing new to say other than “haha, look, the heroes are misusing their powers again”, it’s literally just supervillains running a oversized scam in the story.
I don't understand one thing - right after the plane scene, Homelander was shown floating in place, looking at the falling plane, meaning that he can control his flight freely, moving at any direction at any speed he wants. So that means that he's not kicking air or whatever to fly, so if he wanted to lift a plane in midair he would've just needed to fly upwards, and if he has the strength to move the plane along with himself, then he should be able to do it easily, ignoring the actual physics of that much force being applied to a small area. My point is, I don't think it would have been impossible.
If you're interested, there's this other show that operates as a deconstruction of the superhero genre called The Umbrella Academy. It's about a family/team of superheroes (ala the x-men) who reunite at the funeral of their father/mentor and discover via their decades missing brother that the world is going to end. However, they're so dysfunctional and closed off of each other that they just make things worse. The deconstruction is less about "What would happen if superheroes existed?" and more "How screwed up would be a family who were groomed to save the world from an early age?" It's a bit more weird than the boys but it's pretty good. Also, grat job as always with the analysis!
Where has this channel been all my life! After just 3 mins im spiritually relating to this guy whilst also looking at other uploads, my childhood and understanding of film based literature and cartoons is about to be turned upside-down!
Yeah, some formulas work for a reason but its always nice to see a twist to it. The problem is focusing more on being different more than having substance.
Looks like they're having it both ways. You cant "not" lift a plane while flying but ALSO stop a speeding armored vehicle by letting it hit you. You're not heavy enough to stop and you have nothing to brace against except the air behind you and a little bit of ground which would give out.
The Boys had some of the best foreshadowing I've ever seen. Just a throwaway line here or there and a few hours later that line comes back to bite you in the ass.
5:00 G RR Martin does not understand Tolkien, Tolkien specifically said that after LOTR Aragorn’s descendants would have been “like Denethor, or worse”.
No, he doesn't, whenever I hear this phrase, all I can interpret is that Martin wants to look smarter than Tolkien, but in the end he looks petulant and edgier. LotR itself is a story of decay, of how the "great kings" are becoming part of the past and legends, like the entire point of the Silmarillion, and yet some of that spirit has to be present to fight Sauron.
Lol these Tolkien intellectual wannabes who will literally argue that the lack of complexity in LoTR somehow makes it superior and that Martin doesn't understand it. What does he not understand? It's a traditional fantasy story. He understands that. What he's saying is that Tolkien and most fantasy writers take the easy way out by saying "the king ruled wisely" or "like Denethor, or worse" without going into detail what makes these kings good or bad. Without that it makes the story have no meaning in that aspect.
Marat LOTR IS a complex story, much moreso than GoT. GoT is just a story based HEAVILY off of real world politics like The Wars of The Roses; it doesn’t really contain well thought out messages about good and evil like Tolkien.
@@killgriffinnow It does because it's more grounded in reality than LoTR is. And besides, LoTR is really black and white in its depiction of good and evil. Orcs are evil. Humans/Hobbits/Elves are mostly good. And even the negative behaviours of the Humans/Hobbits mostly come from an external source, the One Ring. Whereas in aSoIaF is up entirely to the characters how they behave, it's all internal. So, no, LoTR isn't more complex in this regard either.
I literally only know this show exists from one time I got an ad for it on RU-vid, and the time it took over every single Tumblr ad to ever exist for a little while.
3:30 "once the hero beats the villain, and overcomes their character flaw, they are cemented a a paragon of virtue who will benevolently use their powers time and time again" *Shows iron man* Yes, brilliant example. Absolutely flawless dude with NO downsides or flaws whatsoever in any of the movies going forwards. Definitely
What's your point? He overcomed ALL his flaws, his greed, he stopped selling weapons to Saudi Arabia, his alcoholism, he started to care about his soon to be wife etc etc etc Iron man literally died to save THE UNIVERSE. HE IS SPACE JESUS! HOW THE FUCK SPACE JESUS HAS FLAWS OR DOWNSIDES?
@@G32352443 he almost killed his kinda son twice by making both of his enemies he made ultron genocidal robot so yea space jesus has flaws and downsides
Im pretty sure he meant Iron man as a standalone movie, and the majority of super heroes sequels are just basically the exact same thing again, an end with the same premise what he means to ask is "what would super heroes really do when there are no villians left and they are just left with unopposed power?"
I’ve been noticing a transition from the public craving stories of superheroes as a means of fantasizing about the best people can be to people having been made cynical through the utterly depressing state of the world and thus only being reminded of the lack of a superhero-esque attitude towards the betterment of all humanity within our world; as of late, seeing perfect people who dedicate their lives to upholding good and protecting the earth only reminds them that our world is run exclusively by people who couldn’t care less about the people they govern, and that a hero - one that doesn’t care about anything EXCEPT the people they protect - can’t exist in reality. Deconstructing the superhero genre empowers people, because it shows very flawed people working towards what they believe in an imperfect manner. Seeing a perfect idealized hero hurts, but seeing a flawed and relatable person standing up for their beliefs gives us hope that we who are unhappy with the state of the world can also defend our ideals and make a difference without being a perfect human specimen with superhuman abilities.
I do hate the “Dark and gritty equals more realistic” trope. There are just as many logical flaws in The Boys universe. Also it’s unfair to say this is a “groundbreaking deconstruction” of the Hero genre when comics have been doing the dark and gritty takes for a while
It depends on how you are defining ‘realistic’. If you just mean whether there are inconsistencies in the story then yes, the Boys isn’t anything new. But I don’t think that’s what most people mean by realistic. They mean that it speaks to a more likely real life outcome of a common genre. The Boys is undoubtedly a more likely result of superheroes existing in the modern world than the MCU for example
W H If anyone thinks the government would allow any corporation to possess essentially nuclear weapons-level military power, they are living in a fantasy
I agree. I think Spiderman got it right with the balance. His story and world are so human and more relatable to me. It took me a while to really appreciate it.
@@wh5601 Not really. Its just an opposite extreme. A real life example would be something so shackled by bureaucracy and red tape that it's impossible to get anything done. The venture brothers is more "real." You know why these tropes keep being used? Because it's the law.
This was brilliant, it broke down the unique narrative, subtext and characterisation of the show that demonstrates why it's so unique and timely and why the deviations from the original text are necessary when creating a series for television.
Honestly, I'd probably be consumed by revenge, if a loved one was killed the same way Robin was. It's one thing to have them killed in an accident, or even intentionally for whatever reason. It's another entirely to have the reason be recklessness, like a fucker who was juiced up on drugs, and then either making fun of it or playing it off. I don't wanna say Huey is right, but *can you blame him if he doesn't come around?*
I see him as a soldier in a war against Capes. Yes, vengeance kills a person, but that's what soldiers do. They go through hell so that others wouldn't. Rage and pain and revenge will consume him, but his sacrifice will allow others to avoid that.
George RR Martin should not be lecturing anyone about realism, considering the way he scoured 1,500 years of European history for the most horrific deeds he could find, before cramming them all together into a 20-year period as though that's a realistic depiction of medieval times. Everything from the Bloody Mummers to the flaying habits of the Boltons is over-the-top and sensational, and the cynic inside me believes he used this as a device to cover up the lack of actual plot. Martin gave us very vivid and detailed character studies, but if Westeros truly worked the way he wrote it then it would be depopulated within a handful of generations. Actual history has plenty of examples of wise kings ruling justly, a-la Aragorn, to go with the butchers and the monsters, and it's realistic to portray them; the true break from reality is to pretend that medieval society would be sustainable the way that Martin grotesquely depicts it.
The idea that having heroic (if still flawed) heroes who basically do the right thing is somehow boring, lame or tired is deeply troubling to me. Characters like Iron Man, Thor, Cap, Superman, Wonder Woman etc aren't supposed to be "realistic"; they're meant to be ideals. Complaining about these characters being too "good" is essentially the same as complaining about these characters being who they are. If you want Thor to be a mass-murdering psychopath who doesn't care about protecting innocent people, then sorry, that isn't the character that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created. If you want Tony Stark to be a selfish asshole who isn't willing to sacrifice himself in order to save the universe, then again, sorry. You're wishing for a different person than the one from the source material. This reminds me of when Zack Snyder said that he wanted Batman to get raped in prison. Stories like The Boys and Watchmen that show the real-world implications of superheroes are definitely valuable, but the idea that they are automatically superior to more traditional superhero stories seems to me quite dubious. I would argue that a number of MCU films (Winter Soldier, Civil War, Black Panther, Infinity War and Endgame) are among the best comic book movies of all time. At the end of the day, why can't we appreciate both?
Well said. Anti heroes and morally black characters are no substitute for traditional heroes and vice versa. Those characters all serve different roles so to completely disguised one or the other is just wasteful. Aspirational characters still and always will have there place. It's not like we don't have people in real who strive to do good in the world. A character can still be flawed without being a monster.
The problem is when those characters being "too good" is too unnatural. That happens a lot in superhero movies, sure we dont want Thor to be a murdering psychopath, but I still want him to feel natural.
Yea the edgy comic book writers thinks that making characters into an edgelord piece of shit are "unique" and better but it just fucking garbage. They could write a good adult superhero story without making them overly edgy but they dont have the writing talent.
I gotta say, the recent adoration of "The Boys" is very funny to me. Even when I first picked up the comic series around 2010 in my early 20's, I recognized it for what it was. Nothing more than typical edgy Garth Ennis crap. And now a decade later people are praising it unabashedly. It's so hilarious.
Sadly Growing up I’ve always been painfully aware of the death of civilians in both movies and shows. I’ve never been able to enjoy a movie with out being aware of all the death that happens around it.
Obligatory comment plugging Worm, a brilliant reconstruction of superhero tropes self-published as a web serial back in 2011-2013. Seems relevant, given the subject of conversation here.
Before I elaborate, I want to define my terms, because I frequently see the terms used interchangeably, and that can get confusing. Both decontruction and reconstruction generally take tropes that have become particularly saturated in a given genre, and seek to take them apart. The difference is in intent, and follow through. In deconstruction, the purpose of taking the tropes apart is to demonstrate them to be absurd, usually to the apparent detriment of the genre being deconstructed. In reconstruction, the purpose of taking the tropes apart is to understand what makes them so appealing within that genre, so as to better understand how to write effectively within that genre. Earlier, I called Worm reconstruction. That's because, while it absolutely takes apart superhero tropes, it obviously comes from a place of respect. Wildboar clearly loves superhero stories, but wants to ask tougher questions. He wants to know Superman's tax policy, if you will. I'd obviously also term A Song of Ice and Fire reconstruction. Murder Santa loves fantasy, and particularly Tolkein, but wants to ask tougher questions and explore deeper societal issues. Now compare this with the Watchmen comics, which was written by a bitter man who loathed the superhero genre. He didn't want to write more effectively within the genre; he wanted to see it destroyed. I bring up this distinction, because aside from coming from a different place, it also goes to a different place. Deconstruction, as I would define it, almost uniformly goes to a bleak, hopeless place, because the author has a bleak, hopeless attitude towards the genre he or she is deconstructing. Reconstruction might go to very dark places, but it will generally have a somewhat more optimistic view overall. I will disclaim that I have neither read The Boys, nor watched its adaptation. However, I have read and watched material about them, and my understanding is that the source material falls very squarely into deconstruction, a bleak, cynical world that indulges in edge for its own sake, where everyone is fundamentally corrupt to their very core and the world is a harsh, bitter place; the characters are not morally gray, they've all been set on moral fire and the resulting charcoal dipped in moral tar. And it sounds like this adaptation of The Boys took issue with that, sanding down some of the edge to deliver a more nuanced world and characters in what I would probably classify as reconstruction. All that to say, I think anyone who likes The Boys, the live action adaptation, will probably like Worm for similar reasons, whereas I suspect that anyone who likes The Boys, the original comic, will find that Worm is insufficiently edgy and optimistic for daring to portraying any character as being anything but narcissists and psychopaths. And, to that end, I think that, if Worm was inspired by the The Boys comic, it was because Wildbow was dissatisfied with the comic's reductive approach to the genre.