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Comment by g9yuayon | Hacker News Reader

> 2023 had a lot of big-budget bombs. Ant-Man, Indiana Jones, Mission Impossible, Transformers, The Flash, Fast X, Blue Beetle, Elemental, Shazam!, and the Marvels all underperformed somewhere on the scale from "disappointment" to "disaster".

And rightly so. The so-called special effects in those superhero movies are really getting exhausting. What's the point of having superpower yet battling like a peasant in medieval times? What's the point of having super intelligence yet making so many illogical decisions? What's the point of having the best technologies on earth yet having your tribe living in dirt and fighting with rhinos and using duels to elect your leaders? I can even tolerate such plot holes if the movies have good stories or interesting characters, but do they?

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For me it's not the bad plot decisions, it's the tone. Every movie has the same "feel" to it. It's a milder version of the "algorithm optimized" tone of eighty percent of YouTube videos. Almost like every movie is being made by the same person. I think the reason I loved Dune is that it didn't feel fucking identical to everything else I watched in the last ten years.

> For me it's not the bad plot decisions, it's the tone. Every movie has the same "feel" to it. It's a milder version of the "algorithm optimized" tone of eighty percent of YouTube videos. Almost like every movie is being made by the same person.

This too!

I don’t feel like you can look at the top ten movies of the year and tell me they had the same tone

I haven’t seen the marvel films but even those I think are pretty darn different

If you haven't already read Mother of Learning you really should, you would absolutely adore it.

And Torth series. No punches pulled on the logical outcomes of superintelligence and powers.

!!! This is a new one for me, but it's definitely up my alley. Thanks!

Some people call this genre rational fiction. Personally I really liked Harry Potter: Methods of Rationality. The MC was super narcissistic and nitpicky, a true engineer. For example he was often looking for ways to create perpetual motion machines / infinite energy with magic.

I love rational fiction. Yes to Methods of Rationality, Mother of Learning, and also Paranoid Mage and a few others, including Majority by Abby Goldsmith.

Oh wow, I just binged Paranoid Mage and it was really good (especially books 1-3). Thanks for the recommendation!

If you have superpowers, you are more powerful than almost all weapons. So you fight with you as the weapon, because it's the most powerful you have.

Also: I presume you meant duel. Using a duet to elect your leaders has a certain charm to it...

Thanks, it should be duel. Updated accordingly. I kinda think that quantitive change in energy output will lead to qualitative change in the form of fighting. In addition, it's hard for me to relate to fist fighting among superheroes. If I were to enjoy fist fight, Legend of Fist by Jet Li is a much better alternative.

What does “like a peasant” mean? Like uninspired punchy fights that don’t utilize powers creatively?

I feel like marvels been decent at that since Thor 3.

>What's the point of having the best technologies on earth yet having your tribe living in dirt and fighting with rhinos and using duet to elect your leaders

Yes, Marvel is shit now, but escapism and fantasy entertainment doesn't work on real world logic. If I want to see realistic battles going on I just turn on the news. I go to the cinema because I want a dose of escapism while I turn off my brain for 2 hours.

Me too. It's just that I don't want to escape into the world of the villagers in Wakanda, where owners of stealth jet and energy shield fought on rhinos with spears, and a handful of people lived like royalties but I would live like a peasant.

>It's just that I don't want to escape into the world of the villagers in Wakanda

Then why do you go watching Black Panther movies, when you already know the plot holes? It's not for you or me, but according to their finances, a lot of people seen to enjoy them .

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