See, no, that doesn’t work, because Buddy being excited to do the superhero thing and not being patient enough to listen to the cautious adult in the room doesn’t survive Bob thinking Dash risking exposure by using his powers is not a bad thing. Which Helen finds is a major issue and Bob, to her frustration, either ignores or encourages.
Later Dash, who is coded as the rash, impulsive guy, will find himself in a situation where he DOES have to go into a life or death situation by himself and naturally thrives and finds out about things he didn’t even know he could do. If the payload Bird wants to deliver is that kids should listen to adults then why would Dash’s rebelliousness save the day while Syndrome’s ruins it? What did they do differently from each other for the movie to consider one a bad kid who grows into a villain and the other as a good kid who is being repressed by society? It sure seems to just be what their natural ability happens to be by birth.
Violet also thrives by herself, by the way. When the adults are off the picture she DOES learn how to use her powers, despite being too anxious to pull it off in the plane. Helen isn’t there when it happens, she and Dash are being actively shot at and she just reacts out of instinct. And by the end of the movie she hasn’t just done that, but become more self-assertive and gotten over her anxiety. Instead of having added PTSD to the mix, somehow.
You can taste how proud of itself the movie is for tapping into that Goonies thing where when the kids are in danger they are in danger, the movie isn’t pulling punches and their adventure has real stakes. Which is cool, but it really takes the fangs out of the argument that Syndrome shouldn’t have been superheroing because he was young or inexperienced. Either the movie presents Syndrome’s issue as being less naturally capable and jealous of the natural ability of others… or Bob is an absolute monster who flip flops between being so arrogant and incompetent he brews a major supervillain out of callousness while simultaneously putting his whole family at risk for his midlife crisis-fueled political views.
Oh, and for the record, Syndrome isn’t the only one to say “if everybody is special then nobody is”.
Dash does, too.
Dash: Dad always said our powers were nothing to be ashamed of. Our powers made us special.
Helen: Everyone’s special, Dash.
Dash: [muttering] Which is another way of saying no one is.
Sure, Syndrome uses that retort to describe his evil plan of first becoming a superhero himself, then giving everybody superpowers through technology. But that’s the plan the good guys have to stop. Because it’s a bad thing. The movie agrees with Syndrome. Dash doesn’t learn the lesson that everybody IS special after all, everybody else learns the lesson that Dash was right in the first place, so now they’re all back to superheroing and being praised by the masses for it.
See, no, that doesn’t work, because Buddy being excited to do the superhero thing and not being patient enough to listen to the cautious adult in the room doesn’t survive Bob thinking Dash risking exposure by using his powers is not a bad thing. Which Helen finds is a major issue and Bob, to her frustration, either ignores or encourages.
Later Dash, who is coded as the rash, impulsive guy, will find himself in a situation where he DOES have to go into a life or death situation by himself and naturally thrives and finds out about things he didn’t even know he could do. If the payload Bird wants to deliver is that kids should listen to adults then why would Dash’s rebelliousness save the day while Syndrome’s ruins it? What did they do differently from each other for the movie to consider one a bad kid who grows into a villain and the other as a good kid who is being repressed by society? It sure seems to just be what their natural ability happens to be by birth.
Violet also thrives by herself, by the way. When the adults are off the picture she DOES learn how to use her powers, despite being too anxious to pull it off in the plane. Helen isn’t there when it happens, she and Dash are being actively shot at and she just reacts out of instinct. And by the end of the movie she hasn’t just done that, but become more self-assertive and gotten over her anxiety. Instead of having added PTSD to the mix, somehow.
You can taste how proud of itself the movie is for tapping into that Goonies thing where when the kids are in danger they are in danger, the movie isn’t pulling punches and their adventure has real stakes. Which is cool, but it really takes the fangs out of the argument that Syndrome shouldn’t have been superheroing because he was young or inexperienced. Either the movie presents Syndrome’s issue as being less naturally capable and jealous of the natural ability of others… or Bob is an absolute monster who flip flops between being so arrogant and incompetent he brews a major supervillain out of callousness while simultaneously putting his whole family at risk for his midlife crisis-fueled political views.
Oh, and for the record, Syndrome isn’t the only one to say “if everybody is special then nobody is”.
Dash does, too.
Sure, Syndrome uses that retort to describe his evil plan of first becoming a superhero himself, then giving everybody superpowers through technology. But that’s the plan the good guys have to stop. Because it’s a bad thing. The movie agrees with Syndrome. Dash doesn’t learn the lesson that everybody IS special after all, everybody else learns the lesson that Dash was right in the first place, so now they’re all back to superheroing and being praised by the masses for it.
I addressed the Dash everyone super idea in another comment - https://lemmy.zip/comment/18650684
I’m running low on time and think we’re getting away from the core issues, so I’ll reply with a meme.