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This and Endgame and "Environmentalist Villains" (SPOILERS)

posted 5 years ago by ecarle (14979)
3 replies | jump to latest

I've been a little intrigued that the blockbusters of two summers seem to share a similar villainy standpoint, and a murky one at that.

If I get this right, both Thanos in Avengers: Endgame and the Charles Dance character in Godzilla: King of the Monsters are -- to put it politely -- "environmental activists" or -- to put it less politely -- "eco-terrorists" with the same goal: to eliminate large swaths of the human population on earth in order to save the planet.

From some reviews I've read, evidently some critics are sympathetic to the cause here -- environmental purity -- while missing the forest for the trees: mass murder, on a global scale, of millions, to achieve that purity. (Also hidden in the message: environmentalists as people who hate other people, and would prefer them to be dead.)

One of the reasons that the new Godzilla picture plays pretty dumb(even with all the great monsters all over the place) is that the daughter seems to treat her mother's willingness to kill off half the world(no, wait, that was Thanos' game) as just mean, misguided misbehavior. Rather than insanity.

Hollywood has a pretty environmental reputation, and yet I guess these movies are out to make the point that good causes can drive Fascistic, murderous behavior.

Interesting.

[–] kuku (3510) 5 years ago

Thanos wasn't a environmentalist. He was a Malthusian. A stupid Malthusian, since the population grows exponentially and dividing it by two doesn't change shit.

Indeed, Thanos was anti-enviromentalist. He aimed every population equally, no matter they were trying to grow in a sustainable way or without control.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Helpful...I mean, I struggled with these characters in both movies. Thanks.

[–] Satan2016 (25525) 5 years ago

Google comes up with this from Jan. Washington Post!

Environmentalists make good movie villains because they want to make your real life worse
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/01/03/environmentalists-make-good-movie-villains-because-they-want-make-your-real-life-worse/

Thanos, the villain (and protagonist, really) of the $2 billion-grossing megahit, “Avengers: Infinity War,” was basically an omni-powered Paul Ehrlich. Whereas the comic book version of Thanos sought to kill half of the universe in order to prove his love for an anthropomorphized Death, the film version was driven insane by his home planet’s self-immolation after a series of resource wars. Determined to eliminate suffering over food and land, over clean water and clean air, Thanos used the Infinity Gauntlet not to create abundance of each but to kill half of all living things.
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Aquaman's King Orm.
Dominic Greene was a Bond villain.
Kingsman: The Secret Service's Valentine.