Saturday, March 20, 2021

Bug People

 A full review of the Snyder Cut is going to wait a few days, but before I disappear I just wanted to add a voice to the chorus against what is consistently the worst offense of both the MCU and the DCEU: bug people.







Problem: We want to show our heroes kicking ass. But we don't want our heroes callously killing hundreds of human beings. They're smart enough and liberal enough to know you don't solve problems on Earth by slaughtering other people. And aliens that look like and act like people, that also leads to too many ethical questions.

Solution: We make alien hordes that are just human enough to fight, but not an inch of empathy more than that. 

Result: The six pictures above came from six different movies (Avengers 1, 2, IW, Endgame, Suicide Squad, Justice League) and yet are depressingly similar. I estimate 10 hours of my past year has been watching superheroes fight these same, boring Bug People.

They don't make for good fight scenes, and half the time you can't even see what they are doing.

They don't make for good ethics, because "there exists a faceless horde you can slaughter to solve your problems" is still the fantasy that needs to be destroyed. The only thing in our world is other people who need to be interacted with as people. That doesn't mean violence will never be an answer, but it does mean violence always has a cost. Bug people are the fantasy of violence without cost.