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Maybe I'll try to get past the bozo, maybe I won't. I don't generally have patience for people that turn me off in short order.
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Originally Posted by TrueGentleman
It's all in fun, Landis's commentary-performance included. Just wait until you get to Simon Pegg.
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Too many alts to list.
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You sound like the old people at the McDonalds who freeze up when a group of teenagers walks in and orders chicken nuggets because one of them has a skateboard.
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Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
Sorry but there's no "sudden" about it. All teenagers are sociopaths. PERIOD. It's part hormones, part cultural indoctrination, and probably part genetic (as in a "feature" of the species h. sapiens).
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Was that supposed to make sense?
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Originally Posted by Warkupo
You sound like the old people at the McDonalds who freeze up when a group of teenagers walks in and orders chicken nuggets because one of them has a skateboard.
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Too many alts to list.
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You're probably too old to understand it.
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Originally Posted by docbuzzard
Was that supposed to make sense?
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No. Not really. Just a realist.|
Originally Posted by Warkupo
You sound like the old people at the McDonalds who freeze up when a group of teenagers walks in and orders chicken nuggets because one of them has a skateboard.
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I was a sociopath as a teen. As was everyone else I knew. Some people grow out of it, many don't. Don't forget the fact that most sociopaths have thin veneer of civility and sociability so they're at least marginally functional.
Look at the DSM-IV definition of socipathy:
A) There is a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others occurring since age 15 years, as indicated by three or more of the following:
- failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest;
- deception, as indicated by repeatedly lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure;
- impulsiveness or failure to plan ahead;
- irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults;
- reckless disregard for safety of self or others;
- consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations;
- lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another;
Series B is there simply because, in teens, most of the symptoms of A are ubiquitous.
Series C, go look up "conduct disorder". It pretty much is a "yep, teenagers" thing.
Series D is there to help isolate diagnosis of APD from more severe forms of mental aberration.
I'm not saying this out of fear of teenagers. I don't fear them. I'm merely making a statement that all teenagers are sociopaths. With very few exceptions, the standard definition of Antisocial Personality Disorder (sociopathic behavior) is bog standard behavior for teenagers.
I say again, it's a combination of hormones, cultural indoctrination and basically just a part of being human.
Now the fact that this condition IS so pervasive is nothing to worry about. As I said, most people grow out of this behavior (hence the Series B age qualification).
Now if this continues into adulthood, or said kid develops dangerous super powers and goes on a killing spree, THEN you worry.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
*MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS*
Andrew's villain name should have been APEX. Indeed I will call him this from now on.
Matt's hero name should be CAPTAIN USELESS. Indeed I will call him this from now on.
Anyway the movie was good but the ending was stupid in my opinion. It was a load of crap how CAPTAIN USELESS still felt that APEX was a good person and felt that he needed to fly nonsensically to Tibet for stupid sentimental rubbish. He spend like 5 hours trying to talk APEX down from violence instead of forcing him to stop... all while APEX was screaming incoherently in a blind Rage.
Regardless of how APEX was bullied, I , as a rational person, have no sympathy for him , so that means the audience, who should be assumed to be rational, should not either. Hitting a bully back is one thing, but killing people is another. So the ending with CAPTAIN USELESS showing sympathy for APEX was a load of BS.
The lack of imagination was ridiculous too. APEX once asked, CAPTAIN USELESS, if he thought of using his powers for anything greater to which he responded "NO." Soo none of these guys ever saw superhero movies before? They had to look up telekinesis for God's Sake
Holy hell what a lack of imagination. If it were me I would have made a costume within 3 days of getting those powers and spent another week coming up with a name for myself. In fact I was dreaming of Global Domination since I was 8. Instead we have to watch CAPTAIN USELESS fight in Abercrombie and Fitch attire.
APEX didnt even have imagination. He just attacked and killed people with no sensible plan..the others used it for tricks....sigh....... give me something less parochial
The baseball scene was silly being that the characters did not have invulnerability. There are more logical ways to test those telekinetic powers than letting yourself get hit in the face with a baseball.
The girl was still filming the camera on CAPTAIN USELESS as his nose was bleeding in the bathroom. If it were me I would have told the stupid girl to take the damn annoying camera away and if she did not immediately respond I would have SWEET CHIN MUSICED(Super Kicked) her in the damn face.
The movie was entertaining overall and I was always interested... I just didnt like CAPTAIN USELESS' feelings toward the end to the short-lived villain APEX.
AHHHHHH the story of the short-lived villain APEX !!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdHBerxnr28
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I might be able to agree with you if 'Captain Useless' and 'Apex' had just been cursory friends. But given that they were not only friends since childhood but family I can't quite.|
Originally Posted by New_Dark_Age
Anyway the movie was good but the ending was stupid in my opinion. It was a load of crap how CAPTAIN USELESS still felt that APEX was a good person and felt that he needed to fly nonsensically to Tibet for stupid sentimental rubbish. He spend like 5 hours trying to talk APEX down from violence instead of forcing him to stop... all while APEX was screaming incoherently in a blind Rage.
Regardless of how APEX was bullied, I , as a rational person, have no sympathy for him , so that means the audience, who should be assumed to be rational, should not either. Hitting a bully back is one thing, but killing people is another. So the ending with CAPTAIN USELESS showing sympathy for APEX was a load of BS. |
I know those sort of bonds don't actually matter to some people, but to others ... like for instance 'Captain Useless' they do. I could even see him feeling like if he'd been a better friend then things wouldn't have turned out the way the did.
MA Arcs: Yarmouth 1509 and 58812
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Sounds like a lot of your friends where jerks then. You might have even been one of them. That wasn't my highschool though. You had your usual band of jerks, but they where greatly outnumbered by just... normal kids. Normal kids who occasionally do stupid stuff, but not to the extreme about being gleefully malicious about their activities. |
Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
No. Not really. Just a realist.
I was a sociopath as a teen. As was everyone else I knew. Some people grow out of it, many don't. Don't forget the fact that most sociopaths have thin veneer of civility and sociability so they're at least marginally functional. Look at the DSM-IV definition of socipathy: A) There is a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others occurring since age 15 years, as indicated by three or more of the following:
Series B is there simply because, in teens, most of the symptoms of A are ubiquitous. Series C, go look up "conduct disorder". It pretty much is a "yep, teenagers" thing. Series D is there to help isolate diagnosis of APD from more severe forms of mental aberration. I'm not saying this out of fear of teenagers. I don't fear them. I'm merely making a statement that all teenagers are sociopaths. With very few exceptions, the standard definition of Antisocial Personality Disorder (sociopathic behavior) is bog standard behavior for teenagers. I say again, it's a combination of hormones, cultural indoctrination and basically just a part of being human. Now the fact that this condition IS so pervasive is nothing to worry about. As I said, most people grow out of this behavior (hence the Series B age qualification). Now if this continues into adulthood, or said kid develops dangerous super powers and goes on a killing spree, THEN you worry. |
Maybe you where the bully, and you hung out with bullies, but it's far too big of a generalization to proclaim all teenagers are sociopaths. It's not enough to just draw some comparisons between periodic behavior of a teenager and a sociopath either, else I could claim that anyone who has ever lied, got irritated, or didn't think something entirely through was a sociopath.
It makes a mockery out of people who actually *are* sociopaths.
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Hyperstrike read the entire post. I explain why it isn't realistic for the kid to act like that. The kid literally has no mental escape and that is not realistic. People who are in those situations build mental defenses and escape into something else and because the character is never shown doing that it is not realistic.|
Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
I'll just say that you've had a VERY sheltered upbringing then and compliment your parents on their skill.
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Originally Posted by Rylas
Yeah, because the nerdy, picked-on, socially awkward kid becoming the hero isn't a cliché of its own...
[See also:] Kick A**, Spider Man, Goonies, Gen-13, Harry Potter, The Never Ending Story, and the crap-ton of movies, books and comics that have been widely popular in geek culture. If you came away with popular = good as the message, that's your own problem. Not the fault of the movie. |
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See, I believe characters are defined through conflict, not through "he likes chess and does these things" (at least in movies), so I thought that Andrew was a well-defined character with powerful motives, while Matt felt like an uninspired hipster with little personality or development. |
Originally Posted by Durakken
That's semi true, but it comes off as a sorta as he becomes evil because everyone is mean to him. As if it is saying "yeah it's ok to be a jerk just because others are mean to you" it also seems to send the message of "you shouldn't bully people because one day they may be stronger than you" instead of a good message like "Hey you should be nice regardless of how the world treats you"
Conversely though if they had Matt or Steve become all villainy they'd send an equally bad message of "They're only nice to him and good is because they are so popular and have a good life" or "Just be glad they can't do worse because those popular people are psychos" Overall I think it was just a little too forced with Andrew. Not that it's not realistic, but because the more they pile up on this one character the more they become unrelateable both in and out of the story. Andrew is a loser who gets picked on in school, abused by his out of work father, while is mother is dying of sickness, who's only friends are the two most popular people in the school which came about by happen stance and he films everything for no reason who is also a virgin who not only has no skills but also recognizes he has no skills nor is he that intelligent and he doesn't seem have games or access to the net (or much) and he doesn't do drugs or play sports or read or do art or have any hobby defined. From what we are told of this character we can only construct that his days are pretty much get bullied all day and sit in his room staring at the ceiling without thinking. You don't get the impression that he's smart or talented or doing well in school or anything that could give him that reality... all you get is him being screwed with and him looking at the ceiling doing nothing else more or less and everything we see other than that is a product of things that happens after the start of the movie. He's a poorly developed character and doesn't work... On the other hand Steve and Matt are far more developed and not just "well everything good happens to them" which is really kinda crappy because Steve is only really in there as a warning sign, which isn't utilized well at all either. Matt, on the other hand, has a lot of deeper character. He's popular, he's nice, but he's not just popular and nice. He's also probably the smartest of the 3. He reads philosophy, has a girlfriend, has other friends, he's adventurous, and is thinking about the consequences of the actions that these powers might allow them to do. now if you would have had Matt or Steve go evil and have Andrew as a tertiary background character you could have told better and more cerebral story imo. You see yourself in Matt or Steve because they are relatable and charismatic, plus they are completely different in their philosophies and I could see where they'd do this or that for their reasons. They would act like a hero or villain because there is so much you could do with the whole "fun loving politician" vs "Philosopher but slacker" positions no matter which way you go. Andrew when you really look at him falls flat as a main character and noone can really relate to him because he acts like a child in his reaction and in his life in terms of throwing a fit and all like that, but he's not innocent in any way and as such his character is static and there is no arc there. |
Note that Andrew could have gone on a power trip much earlier, but it was only when his father blasted him with the fact that his mother was dead (and that he blamed Andrew) that he completely snapped. Essentially, he only cared about 3 people in the world, and he accidentally killed one of them and was blamed for killing the other. He wasn't killing just because he thought humans were less powerful than him; he was trying to escape his sins, possibly using Matt as a way to suicide (since normal methods couldn't kill him).
However, he still had enough humanity left earlier in the movie to keep his father alive (and he actually didn't even use his powers until he looked like he could be seriously hurt). I think that the nuances in the movie make him much more complex than his last actions show.
TW/Elec Optimization
Just got back from it. I liked it. I'm glad that movies like this can get made. Unfortunately, the folks in charge of marketing hurt the story by giving away too much in the trailers and TV spots.
- CaptainFoamerang
Silverspar on Kelly Hu: A face that could melt paint off the wall *shivers*
Someone play my AE arc! "The Heart of Statesman" ID: 343405
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Originally Posted by Oliin
I might be able to agree with you if 'Captain Useless' and 'Apex' had just been cursory friends. But given that they were not only friends since childhood but family I can't quite.
I know those sort of bonds don't actually matter to some people, but to others ... like for instance 'Captain Useless' they do. I could even see him feeling like if he'd been a better friend then things wouldn't have turned out the way the did. |
I just dont agree at all. If my twin sister, best friend or any family member went on a deranged killing spree, I would never think or say " Geee he/she was a good person." Such irrational nonsense can only be arributed to parochial fools or weaklings. So the movie at the end was treating the audience like they were such.
And lets not forget to mention the heat of battle. In situtations where lives have to be saved notions of " but we're family" has no time to manifest itself. You get stuff done. You see someone trying to kill you or other people...YOU STOP THEM...You dont have time to ponder " ...but he's family...I dont want to hurt him. Any person who hesitates to get stuff done to save lives for their parochial nonsense is a chump.
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Okay, I don't know where you guys get the idea that Matt was one of the most popular kids in school. Liked by many, sure, maybe, but there were many references to him kind of being 'above it all' and a little nerdy because of his reading habits and such, and so didn't really fit in completely. He didn't get the girl until after his powers (remember their first meeting at the party and her attitude with him) and he worked up the nerve to talk to her. Also, until he started hanging out with Steve, I don't think he knew a lot of people. He was Andrew's cousin, and was probably the least interested in developing his powers, and was therefore the least powerful of the 3 (which was also demonstrated a couple times in the movie).|
Originally Posted by Durakken
From what we are told of this character we can only construct that his days are pretty much get bullied all day and sit in his room staring at the ceiling without thinking. You don't get the impression that he's smart or talented or doing well in school or anything that could give him that reality... all you get is him being screwed with and him looking at the ceiling doing nothing else more or less and everything we see other than that is a product of things that happens after the start of the movie.
He's a poorly developed character and doesn't work... On the other hand Steve and Matt are far more developed and not just "well everything good happens to them" which is really kinda crappy because Steve is only really in there as a warning sign, which isn't utilized well at all either. Matt, on the other hand, has a lot of deeper character. He's popular, he's nice, but he's not just popular and nice. He's also probably the smartest of the 3. He reads philosophy, has a girlfriend, has other friends, he's adventurous, and is thinking about the consequences of the actions that these powers might allow them to do. |
Conversely, I can't agree with your assessment of Andrew. He did find a hobby, it was the camera, and recording everything. It was even talked about how he was probably using this hobby as a way to put a barrier between himself and others, which he didn't really argue with. Remember the camera isn't a non-entity here, it's actually in every scene and is the focus of Andrew's attention (and controlling it).
Because of that, he wasn't staring up at the celing blankly, he was focusing his ability to influence the camera... constantly practicing. He had a computer (he was at it at least once) and probably did play what few games he could get (remember poor family) but once he got his powers, focused almost all his time on that. We don't know what he did before he got the camera, because that's how it starts.
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Originally Posted by New_Dark_age
I just dont agree at all. If my twin sister, best friend or any family member went on a deranged killing spree, I would never think or say " Geee he/she was a good person." Such irrational nonsense can only be arributed to parochial fools or weaklings. So the movie at the end was treating the audience like they were such.
And lets not forget to mention the heat of battle. In situtations where lives have to be saved notions of " but we're family" has no time to manifest itself. You get stuff done. You see someone trying to kill you or other people...YOU STOP THEM...You dont have time to ponder " ...but he's family...I dont want to hurt him. Any person who hesitates to get stuff done to save lives for their parochial nonsense is a chump. |
Someone you love just goes nuts in a way you don't expect, and there's something wrong with you if you don't immediately put a bullet in their head instead of trying to talk them down or figure out what happened? Is that what you mean? Because that's the way you just came off to me as saying.
"I play characters. I have to have a very strong visual appearance, backstory, name, etc. to get involved with a character, otherwise I simply won't play it very long. I'm not an RPer by any stretch of the imagination, but character concept is very important for me."- Back Alley Brawler
I couldn't agree more.
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While emotions do have a tendency to be very irrational, I really don't think that having ones actions effected by their emotions is a fool, a weakling or a chump. Actually, not having emotions kind of makes someone somewhat of a sociopath.|
Originally Posted by New_Dark_Age
Such irrational nonsense can only be arributed to parochial fools or weaklings.
Any person who hesitates to get stuff done to save lives for their parochial nonsense is a chump. |
And really Matt did try to stop Andrew. Sure he didn't immediately jump to killing his cousin/childhood friend, but he did eventually do what was needed. First Matt tried to talk him down and reason with him, then he progressed to trying to beat Andrew down (which didn't work since Andrew was the stronger of the two of them) and finally he used a cheap shot to take Andrew out even though he obviously didn't want to.
MA Arcs: Yarmouth 1509 and 58812
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Never said most of the people I grew up with were my friends.|
Originally Posted by Warkupo
Sounds like a lot of your friends where jerks then.
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| You might have even been one of them. |
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| That wasn't my highschool though. |
Again, I'm not saying these people are in any way truly mentally ill. It's simply an end effect of various factors interacting. And they don't manifest uniformly across the population. Some people display greater symptoms, some people are nearly asymptomatic. But at some point, pretty much EVERYONE evinces SOME symptoms.
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| You had your usual band of jerks, but they where greatly outnumbered by just... normal kids. Normal kids who occasionally do stupid stuff, but not to the extreme about being gleefully malicious about their activities. |
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| Maybe you where the bully, and you hung out with bullies, but it's far too big of a generalization to proclaim all teenagers are sociopaths. |
There were lots of people who could have stood up and said something. They didn't. And this included teachers and school personnel.
Even moving to another school in my senior year, I noticed the same behavior patterns. Just, less pronounced, mainly because the suburb we moved to was more affluent with more and better teacher and parent interaction.
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| It's not enough to just draw some comparisons between periodic behavior of a teenager and a sociopath either, else I could claim that anyone who has ever lied, got irritated, or didn't think something entirely through was a sociopath. |
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| It makes a mockery out of people who actually *are* sociopaths. |
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
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They escape eh? These guys look like they're escaping right?|
Originally Posted by Durakken
Hyperstrike read the entire post. I explain why it isn't realistic for the kid to act like that. The kid literally has no mental escape and that is not realistic. People who are in those situations build mental defenses and escape into something else and because the character is never shown doing that it is not realistic.
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Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
Hyperstrike,
Yes those kids did take part in escapism as is talked about in a few documentaries. They didn't just snap and that was a lot less than what Andrew had to deal with. Columbine happened after the escapism didn't work and peer pressure and other various factors.
As far as your sub-discussion of sociopathy/psychopathy is way off base. It is a physical medical condition that is a result of babies not being held and touched (not in that way pervs!) The lack of physical contact causes a portion of the brain to not develop which controls sympathy/empathy... Others becomes more a concept that isn't associated with actual others...
So to discuss teenagers as if they have this medical condition shows a complete misunderstanding as the actions of teens more often comes from the opposite of Sociopathic behavior as they focus on the other rather than have no concept of it.
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I think that's partly because that list has some incredibly broad points. I mean one of them is 'impulsiveness or failure to plan ahead'. Also because several of those things are also indicative of 'teenager'; notably the failing to conform to social norms and irresponsibility. As you've noted most people grow out of that phase which is probably why there's the 'over 18' stipulation.|
Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
Again, I'm not saying these people are in any way truly mentally ill. It's simply an end effect of various factors interacting. And they don't manifest uniformly across the population. Some people display greater symptoms, some people are nearly asymptomatic. But at some point, pretty much EVERYONE evinces SOME symptoms.
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Really I think the big thing here is you're calling people who fit the criteria of that list sociopaths, which (to my understanding) isn't true. People who fit 3 or more criteria from that list have 'Antisocial personality disorder' of which sociopaths and psychopaths are but a subset, not the whole. Notably sociopaths and psychopaths display a marked lack of remorse for their actions. Now, often teens don't fully understand the consequences of their actions, but that's not nearly the same thing.
Of course, I'm not a Psychiatrist, so ....
MA Arcs: Yarmouth 1509 and 58812
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No, it wasn't. I've only been out of highschool for about 4 years. This isn't some terribly distant memory for me that I need some isolated field study to remind me of. It's the better part of my life. |
Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
That's just it. It WAS. Simply because you don't remember it or didn't see it didn't mean it wasn't. |
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| Again, I'm not saying these people are in any way truly mentally ill. It's simply an end effect of various factors interacting. And they don't manifest uniformly across the population. Some people display greater symptoms, some people are nearly asymptomatic. But at some point, pretty much EVERYONE evinces SOME symptoms. |
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| Actually no. I wasn't. I was actually the one getting the crap kicked out of me because my circle of friends wasn't wide enough to stand up to 10 on 1 and none of them were at all interested in fighting "fair". |
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There were lots of people who could have stood up and said something. They didn't. And this included teachers and school personnel. Even moving to another school in my senior year, I noticed the same behavior patterns. Just, less pronounced, mainly because the suburb we moved to was more affluent with more and better teacher and parent interaction. |
And to be terribly nerdy, that person was usually me. Blame batman cartoons, but I still mostly reside in a fantasy world for that sort of thing. I'm sure it'll kill me one day too.
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| Again, I never said that teenagers a diagnosed sociopaths who belong in a mental facility. Merely that, to a greater or lesser degree, they're all somewhat sociopathic. |
I still don't believe that just showing a symptom of something is the same as having something.
you sociopaths go make your own thread 
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The audience isn't given much history to show whether or not he had some hobby/creative outlet. So you can't say with any authority he didn't. And when he's picked up a hobby of filming everything BEFORE being changed, one should be more inclined to consider that a hobby. |
Originally Posted by Durakken
Hyperstrike read the entire post. I explain why it isn't realistic for the kid to act like that. The kid literally has no mental escape and that is not realistic. People who are in those situations build mental defenses and escape into something else and because the character is never shown doing that it is not realistic.
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Either way, I think you're missing the point that his character development IS realistic. You may not like it, but fortunately, you're not the deciding factor on realistic portrayals.
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| I know, which is why I mentioned that no matter which way they went they'd generate some message or cliche. |
@Rylas
Kill 'em all. Let XP sort 'em out.
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Obviously, you've never had to kill a person. Let alone a family member. If you don't have at least some tiny reservation about killing someone you know and have a close relationship with, even when it means you'll save others, then you're humanity could be in question. And honestly, I don't think Matt showed much hesitation. I think he did the responsible thing by trying to calm Andrew first. |
Originally Posted by New_Dark_Age
And lets not forget to mention the heat of battle. In situtations where lives have to be saved notions of " but we're family" has no time to manifest itself. You get s*** done. You see someone trying to kill you or other people...YOU STOP THEM...You dont have time to ponder " ...but he's family...I dont want to hurt him. Any person who hesitates to get stuff done to save lives for their parochial BS is a chump.
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Being judge, jury and executioner is a choice of last resort. Anyone who doesn't stop to think about the implications is only risking becoming like Andrew.
@Rylas
Kill 'em all. Let XP sort 'em out.
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How the hell would you know dude lol ? |
Originally Posted by Rylas
Obviously, you've never had to kill a person.
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Anyway another thing I missed in my inital review...APEX'S step father.... He tells APEX" I went through that camera of yours.. and all I saw was you being a weakling"......Yeah... cause thats the important part of the camera footage.... nevemind the flight or telekinetic powers or alien discovery.....APEX having performance issues in the bed room is what was really important and what any rational person would have been interested in.
[See also:] Kick A**, Spider Man, Goonies, Gen-13, Harry Potter, The Never Ending Story, and the crap-ton of movies, books and comics that have been widely popular in geek culture.
If you came away with popular = good as the message, that's your own problem. Not the fault of the movie.
@Rylas
Kill 'em all. Let XP sort 'em out.