So… this movie is shit, but not on a technical level, on which it actually has a lot of merit. No, it’s shit on a quasi-political level.
Let’s lists the main protagonists of the film:
1. Disabled, sexually repressed and highly empathetic mousy woman who never hesitates to do the right thing or stand up for herself, especially against WHITE (*wink*) authoritarian figures. 2. Sassy, salt-of-the-earth and pillar of her household best-friend of said mousy woman, who, although loves her husband, belittles him at every opportunity. 3. Gay neighbor who goes with the flow, whether that’s being understanding of her friend’s burgeoning sexual relationship with a literal sea-monster or said sea-monster eating his cat, but that’s totally OK because he actually has a ton of replacement cats.
Now let’s list the antagonists of the film:
1. Middle-class WHITE MALE (emphasis on white, if you couldn’t tell) with a nuclear-family who lives in the suburbs. Big into torture with the use of a phallic object for some reason, abuse of authority and talking-down to people of lesser social status, one of whom he sexually harasses (*wink wink*). 2. Owner of a café that pretends to be something he’s not, who isn’t just casually homophobic but also racist, all in the same scene! 3. Evil russians with bad accents meddling in american affairs??
It’s insulting how the movie goes out of its way lend some depth to the heroic protagonist characters, but fails to develop any of the villainous roles besides making them more evil for evil’s sake. (e.g. doubling down on the homophobe by also making him a racist). It’s almost amusing to think how 10 to 15 years ago this movie would’ve made an effort to give a fair treatment to the characterization of its characters, as opposed to the two-dimensional cutout treatment of today that happily tows the SJW doctrine. How can you say we as a society have progressed when this is the type of film that wins BP?
>that wins BP Spotted the problem. You think any """award""" they give themselves means anything whatsoever. All of these awards are and have been a joke. Never means anything at all. Nothing.
I agree with your breakdown of the film though. I'd hunt with you.
Aiden Gonzalez
I didn’t like how poorly the owner and Russians were developed but I thought they did a good job of showing how incomplete Strickland was. The scene with him buying the car sticks out to me, along with him just casually reading The Power Of Positive Thinking. His primary motivation is control, however he can get it, because he sees the lack of control as weakness (something instilled in him by that awful fucking General character). Even his last words are him acknowledging that there’s some things he can’t control nor even comprehend, rendering his motivation pointless.
I dunno. You’re right for the most part.
Nathaniel Hall
bump
Ryan Long
Fact is there is nothing particularly wrong with this film. /thread
Lincoln Bailey
I unironically found Shannon to be the only likable character in the film. Why is this?
Matthew Johnson
The academy has had its issues before but the past 5 or so years have really been a train wreck for them. Really once they said they felt like they "had" to vote for 12 Years a Slave you knew it was over.
Juan Gutierrez
You have to understand this garbage winning is merely a preamble to Black Panther winning next year. When Black Panthers wins and people groan about capeshit winning Oscars the response will be "WELL UH LAST YEAR A LITERAL SEA MONSTER MOVIE WON AND YOU DIDNT SAY ANYTHING". It wont matter that a bunch of people are raising a stink about this trash winning, a year from now it'll all be forgotten because this movie is seriously the most forgettable film to ever win anything.
And then everyone will pretend not only Black Panther deserved to win, but also The Shape of Water deserved to win. This will be looked back on like the steroid era in baseball. All these awards are going to have asterisks next to them in people's minds in the future. I wish we could just fast-forward to that point, I'm tired of this waking nightmare.
Anthony Lewis
>Evil russians with bad accents meddling in american affairs??
Sup Forums has gone so fucking insane that they think communists being depicted as villains in a film set during the Cold War is liberal propaganda
Luis Roberts
How did they discourage people from voting otherwise?
Juan Reyes
I know the term "dishonest filmmaking" has become a meme, but this film is a good example of it. This is being marketed as a fairy tales for adults but del Toro is very arbitrary about what things he wants to adultize and what things he wants to keep as convenient caricatures.
Andrew Long
Because he is the only character with flaw in the movie, even if the flaw is too exaggerated by the writing time to time. He stands out when every other character are just perfect all around noble and virtuous people in the story’s context
Nathan Watson
I just feel sad, hellboy 1 and 2 were legit capekino, but between this and capeshit now it’s just a sad reminder of what could have been.
Yeah, del toro sold out to a shitty political message to grab some late game awards and get merit. Real pity, his earlier works were amazing but I guess it’s easier to be popular than good. The movie was crap, it wants to be serious about the message but the message is so widely accepted and milquetoast- not to mention comically cliche in execution, as OP pointed out-it’s not worth shit. Just beauty and the beast but make it about a class oppression instead of human struggle thing and take out all the good stuff and make it blatant political pandering played as something else.
It’d like if someone was to just copy some shit like stepford wives, kill all the nuance, then make it a screaming heap of trash about some political issue from a Babby good v ebil political angle with- oh wait
Dominic Hall
You're absolutely right, the world should just work like Sup Forums and all media should be viewed through some panic repub lens of "I'm a pussy about everything" fear of white genocide.
History will forget this movie and everyone who bought a MAGA hat will be remembered as being heroic patriots and not shmucks who are desperately trying to add political gravity to their incel neckbeard disposition.
Eli Watson
Dunno but the character was so well acted, he stole every scene he was in.
Anthony Kelly
You're an idiot.
Justin Bailey
So every Shannon role?
Samuel Carter
>1. Disabled, sexually repressed and highly empathetic mousy woman who never hesitates to do the right thing or stand up for herself, especially against WHITE (*wink*) authoritarian figures.
Hi there Sup Forums it was an extremely simple movie but you still seem to have missed the point. She was somewhat of a weirdo/outcast living as a human, but then it turns out she never was human to begin with and there was someone even weirder but still similar to her with whom she ultimately finds love/belonging.
It's almost as if del Taco was saying people/sea creatures need to seek out those similar to themselves to find happiness.
Jacob Long
Indeed, he's so good
Aiden Bell
He already did that with Pan's Labyrinth. >commies were nice people >fascists were bad people They're never gonna film Orwell's Homage to Catalonia, aren't they?
Isaac Green
That doesn't necessarily make it shit, just the flip side of the usual, of which there are numerous examples made every year. So what if the heroine's disabled? So what if the villain is white?
Jaxson Martinez
There is a problem when the villain is the only real three dimensional character in the entire movie. I actually empathized with him because he was a real human being who demonstrated real human weakness, someone who endured real human trials. I wanted to see him succeed, despite his flaws, because he was the only "character" in this entire film that exhibited any sense of humanity.
The gay artist man, I'm supposed to care about him because the bartender was mean to him when he found out he was gay? A real trial homosexuals face, no doubt, but gay artist man was just gay artist man. He wasn't a real human being. Writing an incredibly forced, purposeless scene where a bartender is mean to him doesn't invoke any sympathy because the character has never demonstrated any depth, which takes me out of the movie when said scene occurs because it's blatantly just there to make us feel sorry for him.
Tyler Diaz
The movie just tries to trick you into liking the neighbour, because he's nice. If he was depicted as an asshole, no one would care about bartender shunning him.
Jayden Bell
Just yesterday I saw three threads talking about wanting to fuck the golden alien in GOTG2 and one about a mutant girl in Logan >Shape of Water won It's not OK to fuck fishman!!!
Tyler Kelly
If you're a low IQ subhuman, you can be tricked by this pathetic "trick". In actuality it's just bottom of the barrel writing. He doesn't have to be depicted as an ass hole, he just needs to be portrayed as a real human being. Also, the bartender shunning him has no purpose. It was an attempt to trick dumb people into feeling sorry for him because he's a 2D cardboard cutout. That's literally the only purpose of that forced scene. A flimsy attempt to invoke an emotional response to hide the fact he's a terrible character. Smarter people know better.
Levi Hall
Reminder that saying a piece of art is bad because of its political content is just as vapid a form of criticism as saying that it's good because of its political content
Hudson Flores
literally this
they also get triggered every time USSR GREATEST ALLY gets brought up in a negative light
Jordan Cox
>l-leave Russia alone :( >w-why do we hate the ruskies?
James Hughes
forgot pic
Brandon Ward
>watch cold war movies made during the cold war >russkies are bad — and sometimes good too >more like the characterization in x-men first class since Sup Forums never watches classics anymore >yfw when russkies were an actual enemy USA understood they were people too Go to /his/ if you want to mess around with history
Brayden Watson
>a fucking Monster From The Black Lagoon reboot flick >"""""best picture"""""
pfffffbahahahahahahahaha the absolute fucking state
This is probably what's going to happen, lmao
Mason Martinez
>>yfw when russkies were an actual enemy USA understood they were people too HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA >m-muh ruskies dindu nuffin >dey gub bois dey be gud in old movies n shit >why can't drumpf just do a little treason with them
Adam Martin
>Coens >James Cameron >Edgar Wright
can they just make a movie about cool filmmakers hanging out together, and then they all make fun of David Goyer's writing
Jayden Harris
I WILL FIND HIM! I agree, I was rooting for him the whole time
Brody Mitchell
Yes I really believe USSR commies are people too
If the movie is about tolerating difference it should continue another Coldwar stereotype
Sadly this is what liberals always do. Promote rights of social minority while reinforcing international conflicts
Thomas Barnes
so what happened to the whole meme >Trump will start war with Russia if wins I've been hearing trough the whole election time?
Isaac Clark
ummm where did u hear that? it was already known that Trump was a Russian puppet back then. It was Hillary the one who was supposed to start a war with Russia over the no fly zones in Syria......
But then Obama was supossed to tek er gunz and declare himself a Dictator....
Chase Cox
Those are gills? They looks like scratches. Having sex with an animal would result in scratches one might presume. Hence why your mother duct tapes oven mitts on the family dog.
Liam Jackson
>Grinding Nemo won best picture
Luis Ward
fuck off pol jesus christ, you guys whine as much as tumblr these days.
Caleb Wright
They are scratches. She was human but he healed/mutated the wound into gills.
Benjamin Thompson
>Those are gills? >They looks like scratches. >Having sex with an animal would result in scratches one might presume. Hence why your mother duct tapes oven mitts on the family dog.
Jonathan Anderson
It seemed like a watered down version of Pan's Labyrinth.
Both are about female characters who befriend a potentially dangerous monster and pull off a series of heists to help it. But in Pan's Labyrinth the faun was more ambiguous. You never knew if he had good intentions or not. You never knew if Ophelia was doing the right thing. Did you ever get the impression that maybe fishman was going to hurt her? I didn't.
And the general is more or less the same character as Zod, but more like a goofy caricature, like Billy Zane in Titanic. The Shape of Water really has no ambiguity to it. Morals are stark black and white, almost like a Harry Potter film. And the whole part where she signs "fuck you" to the guy with the smuggest look on her face reeks of some childish power fantasy. You don't need to understand sign language to know she's insulting you, look at her face, retard.
The whole film is just kind of childish. I felt like I was being talked down to as I watched it. Like I saw the bad guy torture fishman but Del Toro thought I was too stupid to understand who the bad guy was so I had to watch him rape his wife, sexually assault the main character, and make some antisemitic remarks too. "DO YA GET IT?!"
Ian Scott
He was weirdly attractive in this movie, I wanted him to dominate the shit out of me while in other roles he seems too creepy.
Matthew Mitchell
I actually felt bad for Shannon's character. Mostly in part because he's a good enough actor to will a second note out of him.
