Enough!
I never said anything about Objectivism. The movie simply left a bad taste in my mouth. Syndrome’s specific actions are unimportant, since I felt he was mostly a straw man, a kind of “this is what happens when you try to rise above your station… you become a murdering baby-raper” deal. That is, he was unsympathetic because of course he’s unsympathetic! He’s not a super! It’s only natural that he tries to be a superhero and winds up a mass murderer instead!
LOL Syndrome wasn’t an overall lesson about not rising above your station, he was a lesson about being poisoned by jealousy.
Naw, see Reign Of Fire was an allegory for the War On Terror. Europe turns out to be complacently harbouring a nascent threat within its own cities: when awakened, that domestic threat then emerges to bring down those cities in fiery ruin. The survivors respond by retreating into tiny enclaves which struggle to cling to bare existence, while they vainly seek succour in re-enacting fragments of dimly remembered American pop culture.
Suddenly! The American military, in the form of a tattoed and cigar-chompin’ Matthew McComedy, arrive with tanks and helicopters: no more hidin’, no-siree-bob, they’s gonna open a can a whuppass on these godless turrists, I mean dragons, but first these pantywaist Limeys gotta learn who’s boss, see? Suitably chastened after having his “ass” “whupped” Christian Bale yields command to Matthew McWhupass: hurrah and huzzah, they take the fight to the goddamn Ay-rabs and the world is saved for Freedom and Democracy, but not before American McJesus dies for our sins.
And I double-dare ya to challenge that interpretation.
Wow, you’re really reading a shitload of stuff into the movie that’s just not there.
Christ, I thought this thread was “your unpopular interpretations of creative works”. I thought it would be a given that any interpretations posted here would not be shared by a lot of people.
Fair point. I guess I was just wondering where you got this interpretation of Brad Byrd’s personal motives.
I read a magazine interview around when the movie was released where he basically repeated a lot of the things Bob Parr said in the film (or, since I watched the film after I read the interview, it appeared to me that Bob Parr was repeating Brad Bird).
I have to ask - do you feel the same way about Ratatouille? Thematically, it’s basically the same film.
Batman, in many of his incarnations, doesn’t choose not to kill because of moral qualms. It’s because he, at least subconsciously, wants to prolong his fight against villainy. It’s what he’s based his identity on, and channeled his entire reason for being (and his own pain and rage) into. If he won, he’d have to stop fighting.
Oh, another one. I always thought the Bible story of Jacob and Esau was horrifically unfair. I’m supposed to believe that Jacob is rewarded for being deceitful and opportunistic?
But I’ve decided that the story works a lot better if I think of Esau as a big complainer, blaming all his problems on Jacob. Now Esau, did Jacob really impersonate you by dressing up like a goat, or did you kind of exaggerate this story to explain why things didn’t go your way? I like picturing Esau complaining that he could have been really successful, only God liked Jacob so much better, and God saying “yeah right, kid, you keep on believing that” and rolling his eyes.
Well, when you look at all the favoritism of siblings in real life that goes on, I don’t find it so hard to believe. You know, like the younger sibling who gets their own TV, computer, and away with murder when the older sibling can barely get anything?
Alas, I’ve never seen it, so there’s no way to tell.
The one other thing I can think of that irritated me in roughly the same way was a children’s book called A Cage of Butterflies. I thought just because the bad guy was an asshole didn’t mean the protagonists weren’t sadistic little bastards, and that the Babies’ much-praised pacifism only really amounted to them wanting someone else to pull the trigger. But that book, thankfully, is pretty obscure.
And I took away a totally different meaning than that! I did come from an unhappy home life, and I took it to mean “There’s no place like home, so work to make your home a happy place.” Which I always did, once I was an adult.
A friend speculated after seeing Chicago that the entire final scene (Velma and Roxy headlining at the posh venue) was a fantasy sequence in Roxie’s mind and that in reality the best they’d ever get was a $100 bucks each in the dive Velma mentioned. I prefer to think they really did get a great comeback (though I can’t see it lasting for more than a few weeks).
In a recent thread on Cabaret someone mentioned that the numbers at the Kit Kat Club were obviously fantasies in Sally (Liza Minelli’s) mind on how she interpreted her own singing. I think that one has merit.
Bob Parr yes…but you seemed to be saying that Syndrome was speaking for Byrd.
Hm, this one’s interesting. As in, she was so out there that she thought she was a great singer/performer, but really she was a nobody?
I always assumed that as well.
I don’t know that I agree that this is the reason, but I do know his refusal to kill is a selfish one that allows innocents to suffer so he can remain “moral.”
I don’t see that. The message in Ratatouille was “you’re as good as everyone else so don’t let other people convince you they’re better than you.” The message in The Incredibles was “you’re better than everyone else so don’t let other people convince you they’re as good as you.”