Going to guess you aren’t European and you aren’t aware of what Putin did to our gas prices at the start of the Ukrain invasion.

You’re out by a million miles (sarcasm, not exact figure).

Yes, I totally agree and I think you’ve hit on something subtle but really important…

The difference between starting to make a work (of art, if we are lucky) with an intent for it to be about something and telling people a work is about something.

I think the intent is important. Marvel’s latest round of press includes them telling us how the new Captain America is about modern politics but the plot really doesn’t hold that up beyond some fairly blunt motifs. Ultimately, it feels as if it about a struggling studio, if that is a theme.

I guess the context is really important… And it highlights the slippery thing between thematics and meaning. Take a film like Stalker where the plot is arguably slight, but the characterisation and the context give rise to meaning through the themes… It would be a different film if Tarkovsky had tried to market it as being about politics and Chernobyl.

Hang on, are we arguing for the same thing? That story, and more importantly, compelling story, is what is needed?

I was just using king as an example of someone who crafts stories… Whether they are page-turners or not, that compel audiences.

My problem with Marvel films is that they are stale, narratively, and as such the only thing that can fix them is decent writing that isn’t in the service of “franchise”.

Yeah, if we weren’t talking about Marvel films you’d have a point.

Which is to say that absolutely, you are right that theme is important because ultimately theme is context.

I do wonder how much of this belongs, not to the creator, but to the viewer/reader.

There’s that great example with Ray Bradbury telling people that Fahrenheit 451 was not about fascism until someone pointed out to him how it absolutely was.

I think the slightly casual, almost throwaway comment that I started this with was more about the fact that, specifically Marvel, films have become all theme and no story.

The standard superhero narrative of “Bad guy gets weapon, or does something bad and Superhero A must stop them” doesn’t sustaing multiple franchises.

Couple that with the classic trauma genesis story which forms the obligatory introduction arc.

Marvel films have become about themes almost entirely to the point where characters and story are interchangable. Take the latest captain America… Almost any other Marvel character could have played the same role in that film… The narrative is so weak that it doesn’t matter. The themes are grand and perhaps even important (a bright red tyrannical monster rampaging in the whitehouse) but the story is what let’s it down.

These stories are weak and we’ve seen them multiple times now. It doesn’t matter how often we change the themes, whether the film is about fascism in America, finding friendship and family, or the perils of unchecked science… These themes ultimately fall flat when the underlying structure, the story, used to convey them is weak.

Sure, all art is usually about something, and those themes can be important, but I stand by what I said… If you want Superhero films to see any good they need to shrug off the notion of being entirely about symbology and theme and maybe have some gripping story.

Sure mate, Stephen King says this:

. . . starting with the questions and thematic concerns is a recipe for bad fiction. Good fiction always begins with story and progresses to theme; it almost never begins with theme and progresses to story”

But what does he know?

Sure mate, I mean Stephen King says this:

. . . starting with the questions and thematic concerns is a recipe for bad fiction. Good fiction always begins with story and progresses to theme; it almost never begins with theme and progresses to story”

But what does he know?

Or, you know, actually stories rather than themes and characters.

As others have said, a really easy improvement is to straighten that horizon up so all the water doesn’t tip out.

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Yes, and we now know that most Americans will sit by and watch it happen.

Some might take to the internet, clutching pearls, to tell us how they don’t agree with it, but most will just wag fingers and do nothing else.

That line about evil and good men doing nothing … That’s what is happening right now.

Thank you… You know, that sounds mighty civilised.

As someone who isn’t a North American… What is a salad kit?

Great work Sherlock.

I’m not British but I live in Scotland since it is a country that doesn’t lock immigrants up in concentration camps.

Poor take.

You could have shown some contrition or humility. It is Your government, that represents You that is encouraging ethnic cleansing abroad and also creating concentration camps for immigrants at home, making You complicit.

And you are complicit, whether that is against your will or not.

Instead of recognising that, you chose to try and teach me about morality and now have decided to judge me.

This is what makes you a hypocrite.

As I say, I feel like being lectured on morality by an American is a common occurrence. You love to tell people how to think and behave whilst you elect rapists and invade countries. And it isn’t just Trump I’m talking about. The US has nearly an unbroken record of inflicting trauma on the world, whether that is over oil, or politics.

And you’ve benefitted from that, and done what? Banged out some judgemental words on a keyboard?

You are behaving exactly like why the world is tired of Americans. You are a bully and a blowhard. You have no humility and you can’t walk away from a fight you lost before you even started.

Classic American, lecturing the world on the ethics of things. .

That’s not what I said, but thanks for going on a tangent to correct me.

Yeah, it’s sickening that one of the proudest democracies in history is clearly faltering.

However, I thought they taught Americans about the responsibility of democracy. Hell knows we here you bang on about it when invading the rest of the world.