Djervig

I totally get what this movie was trying to achieve. It came close, but the jokes were too few and far between, the emotional moment never quite hit their mark, and despite the plot being rich with drama and conflict, a lot of it ends up feeling both forced and unresolved.

The dangers of their society's belief system is never addressed, apparently they just had the wrong beliefs. The dangers of Nimonas powers are never acknowledge, and makes the analogy lack the power it could have, considering that most people who find that their identities are not accepted by society do not pose a danger to anybody. Or perhaps the moral is just that might makes right, and if someone has a difference of opinion you are allowed to hurt them. I suppose that doesnt correlate with American foriegn politics. The distrust and betrayal of various relationships is quickly forgotten, without any attempts of communicating, both during the conflicts and after. Its all just a bit too convenient and boring, and a bit pretentious in its attempt to say something without saying anything. Also considering the themes and overall message of this movie, using the Knight theme felt like a mismatch. But I suppose that for a country like the US they have two options. Appropriate someone else's culture and history or acknowledge that your own country was build on genocide.

My review is based on the first two episodes.

The show is beautifully shot.

Despite the many characters, the story is easy to understand and the actors portraying them are delivering strong performances. All around the production is delivering everything I can ask from a show.

But unfortunately its fails to ask any interesting questions in regards to the shows premise, at least so far.

The obvious question being, does might make right?

Instead it seems to have already settled on an answer that "Yes, might makes right" meaning that a societies moral standards are defined by those in power. It portrays a world in which the powerful are categorically unempathetic to the plight of the powerless and cannot be persuaded by logical arguments, and therefore should the roles be reversed, they wont deserve any empathy either.

Frankly it is awfully black and white, with good people and bad people and nothing in-between. The universe seems like a oversimplified representation of the world we live in, juvenile, boring and unimaginative.

I look forward to the day shows are written by people who are smart enough to come up with creative solutions to problems - but with American productions it's always the same; Violence is the answer. Every genius in a superhero movies seem intent on creating easier ways to kill things. Doesn't matter if the hero of the story is a man or a woman, black or white, old or young - and in a story specifically about oppression and for one named The Power, it seems to spend awfully little time questioning how such power should be wielded. I get it might not be the first question, but at this point it should have come up. Its not believe able that so many characters would just roll with it.

I wonder if this show will end up looking like a CW production after a season or two.

I was underwhelmed. Obviously the production value was great, as is to be expected with a marvel production. Good CGI, beautiful lighting, good casting. But for what I have come to expect from superhero shows, the stakes were just too low.

I am not familiar with the source material for this show, so I don't know how true it has stayed to it. But this felt unusually vanilla - even for Disney.

Perhaps the most stimulating element in this show, is that it raises the question of religion's role in a universe where gods are not only are proven to exist, but regularly interacts with humans. On top of that they aren't even part of the Abrahamic tradition.

So I get that this is not a universe that would have a lot of atheists - as devotions is no longer a matter of faith. But does it make sense to worry that an event is haram in such a universe(?) - a universe where a purple spaceman can snap half the population out of existence with magic stones that pre dates all earth's religions.

I suppose this premise is just asking me to suspend my belief a bit more than I am willing to do, to entertain a show that I do not find entertaining - or maybe I am getting too old for superheroes.

Considering the aforementioned facts I doubt that anyone in the Marvel universe would bother with atheism. But I would still love to see a bit more representation for the atheist community in popular culture - with a superhero that saves people from religious oppression and cults. That would be cool.

So far The Boys probably has the best commentary on religion out of any of the shows. They generally do the social commentary thing with a bit more finesse and better execution.