No way you can lay this at the feet of Peter Jackson’s movies. Orcs are orcs and he was just being true to the source material, not scrubbing violence out of a fantasy battle. What you’re talking about pre-dates the Hobbit movies quite a bit. One of the more egregious examples I can think of is how George Lucas replaced Stormtroopers – which have people inside them! – with those Roger Roger droids.
It was the Suicide Squad podcast. Part of the issue with Suicide Squad is how it couldn’t reconcile how dark it was trying to be with how dark it actually wasn’t. Your point about the safely non-human carbonite bad guys is the perfect example.
If this is in response to what I was saying above–this is why I always quote the bits I’m responding to, because the software sometimes lets me know when it’s a response, and sometimes doesn’t, for some reason…probably user error on my part–then let me be clearer. I used the word ‘weird’ in particular about the fact that the moms were the ones interested. The dads could not care enough to engage on the topic. They’ll go along with the moms on the violent games issues, most of the time, but they don’t engage on it the way the moms do.
I find that weird and interesting.
I do find this odd, and it was difficult in describing the game to the mom, especially in light of how the kids often play PvP so they are sniping other “human” characters who are their friends, but it’s cartoony…so okay?
So when we deal with our superhero-supposedly-human-even-if-they-may-be-gods wreaking havoc, they have to do it against the Chitauri or whatever, or else the camera has to look away. Witness when Cap has to push down the dongle to make the heli-prop spin slower and real dudes are attacking him. Or when Hulk [I mean the pre-“I say ‘NOOOOOO’” Hulk] tosses the pilot out of the fighter jet and we must see that there’s a parachute.
Yes! That’s it! I remember a bunch of be-headings that just were like knocking the top off of a statue or something. Nice pull, Tom.
We might not agree with them, but I think the participants in that battle would see a huge difference between shooting a friend in the head to (maybe!) stop the bad guy vs. risking their lives to repel invaders. (Whether or not they are right, the characters’ motivations make sense to me.)
Now maybe we think King T’Challa would be thinking more statistically – any one person might survive the battle but a bunch of his people are going to get hurt or killed. But what are his options at that point? Order Wanda to destroy the stone immediately? (And if she refuses?) Would that even stop the invasion? If Thanos can’t kill half the universe, he’s at least going to want to kill half the Earth. And surrendering the stone to Thanos (either directly or by kicking Vision out) would kill more Wakandans than that battle.
And then there’s the question of whether Wakandans value some things more than their lives. Like their nation’s undefeated record, or their honor, or their hospitality.
