Purposefully bad acting is excruciating.

[TheGuyThatEveryoneHates]

I was watching episode 5 of season 2 of The Boys. It begins with the superheroes filming a movie for the VCU (ugh), and the acting is intentionally bad.

Look, I get it. You're trying to do what Saints Row 3 did when it made fun of Twilight. You're trying to make a point about the "mainstream superhero movies that the sheeple watch where the acting is cheesy, the scripts are hammy, and the action is lame," but this kind of thing is just excruciating to watch for a few reasons.

For one thing, this show was made for Amazon. It doesn't feel like a young auteur is making a point about how bad mainstream movies are. It feels more like Amazon is either pulling a "How do you do, fellow kids," or taking cheap shots at Disney for being incredibly successful with the MCU.

I like The Boys a fair amount, but the cynicism in the show is definitely not something I enjoy because I feel as though any point it makes about superheroes seems hypocritical when it is a heavily promoted superhero show making money for a big corporation. It feels hypocritical when it says: "Hey, isn't it stupid how companies will plaster a city full of ads to promote the latest superhero movie," when the street that I have to walk down every day is plastered with ads for The Boys.

Honestly, I think that at least the MCU kind of embraces the corporate angle in a good way. In the movies, you get the sense that the actors and directors watched that episode of The Simpsons where Gary Coleman says something like: "But, just because a corporation is evil, doesn't mean that it can't make people happy."

You know what, Gary was kind of right. Just because the MCU is owned and financed by Disney doesn't mean that those movies aren't good, or that they don't make people happy. I wish that The Boys embraced that idea a little bit more, instead of: "We're going to be the cool, hip superhero show, with murder, and sex, and the gays," because I don't think that will age well. In fact, I kind of think that if it keeps going down this kind of lame path, it might end becoming more worthy of mockery than anything in the MCU, in the same way that Shadow The Hedgehog is more of a joke than Sonic.

Just my thoughts.

 

[Shiver]

Maybe add in a quick spoiler for the boys season 2 epp 5 at the start of your post?
I'll comment after I've seen it.

 

[CupcakeNinja]

I was watching episode 5 of season 2 of The Boys. It begins with the superheroes filming a movie for the VCU (ugh), and the acting is intentionally bad.

Look, I get it. You're trying to do what Saints Row 3 did when it made fun of Twilight. You're trying to make a point about the "mainstream superhero movies that the sheeple watch where the acting is cheesy, the scripts are hammy, and the action is lame," but this kind of thing is just excruciating to watch for a few reasons.

For one thing, this show was made for Amazon. It doesn't feel like a young auteur is making a point about how bad mainstream movies are. It feels more like Amazon is either pulling a "How do you do, fellow kids," or taking cheap shots at Disney for being incredibly successful with the MCU.

I like The Boys a fair amount, but the cynicism in the show is definitely not something I enjoy because I feel as though any point it makes about superheroes seems hypocritical when it is a heavily promoted superhero show making money for a big corporation. It feels hypocritical when it says: "Hey, isn't it stupid how companies will plaster a city full of ads to promote the latest superhero movie," when the street that I have to walk down every day is plastered with ads for The Boys.

Honestly, I think that at least the MCU kind of embraces the corporate angle in a good way. In the movies, you get the sense that the actors and directors watched that episode of The Simpsons where Gary Coleman says something like: "But, just because a corporation is evil, doesn't mean that it can't make people happy."

You know what, Gary was kind of right. Just because the MCU is owned and financed by Disney doesn't mean that those movies aren't good, or that they don't make people happy. I wish that The Boys embraced that idea a little bit more, instead of: "We're going to be the cool, hip superhero show, with murder, and sex, and the gays," because I don't think that will age well. In fact, I kind of think that if it keeps going down this kind of lame path, it might end becoming more worthy of mockery than anything in the MCU, in the same way that Shadow The Hedgehog is more of a joke than Sonic.

Just my thoughts.

I agreed with the first half, but then it started to seem like you were ragging on the show in general and i dont agree with that. LIke the fuck you mean, "hip and cool?" it aint trying to be hip. Its just exploring an interesting route of the superhero genre, one often not traveled because DC and Marvel dont like the anti-superhero tones that it comes with. In fact, the Boys as a comic series was once cancelled for exactly that reason.

As for the cynicism part....Nigga its cynicism is an integral part of the story, the world itself. The fuck you mean you dont enjoy it? It's THE WHOLE FUCKING POINT OF THE SHOW.

You cant have this show without it being cynical of superheroes. You dont like...then why are you watching it? If you didn't have that aspect it'd just be your regular old Superhero series with friendship and family bonds and good christian values shoehorned in.

 

[SaddyStorm]

Kinda agree with you, kinda cause yes it seems a bit hypocritical for a show bringing in money for a big conglomerate making money off the anti-hero genre which is taking a dump on big companies. I don't wanna go into the depressing side of this so, focusing on if the show is hypocritical? Maybe. It's making a statement about it whether as a accident or intentionally, which is ok in my book and that means that I don't hate or like the situation. But like you said, how although Disney is cringy and a monopoly it sometimes dishes out quality goods, cause just by its size talents should be noticed, not always but happens regularly enough I guess. And so yeah like the show anyways, leaving aside the moral dilemma standstill between it being a sellout and being a standing to corporations. Or maybe the producers of the show are playing 7D chess and showing the greatest statement in the real world for how standouts are marketed by our corporate overlords.

 

[CupcakeNinja]

Kinda agree with you, kinda cause yes it seems a bit hypocritical for a show bringing in money for a big conglomerate making money off the anti-hero genre which is taking a dump on big companies. I don't wanna go into the depressing side of this so, focusing on if the show is hypocritical? Maybe. It's making a statement about it whether as a accident or intentionally, which is ok in my book and that means that I don't hate or like the situation. But like you said, how although Disney is cringy and a monopoly it sometimes dishes out quality goods, cause just by its size talents should be noticed, not always but happens regularly enough I guess. And so yeah like the show anyways, leaving aside the moral dilemma standstill between it being a sellout and being a standing to corporations. Or maybe the producers of the show are playing 7D chess and showing the greatest statement in the real world for how standouts are marketed by our corporate overlords.

yeah. i just dont get why he associates the story itself with the corporation running the series. Like the story this was based on had anything to do with Disney.

this is just a sub-genre. I dont see how the corporation has any relation to the story being hypocritical

I suppose its only okay if a smaller, less well known company run it, i guess he's saying? i mean in know its not. Thats just how it sounds.

 

[Stratothrax]

I love the cynicism, that's the whole reason I watch the show, though I will admit that scene wasn't great, but not because it was failing to make a point or anything like that, it was just super boring.

 

[TheGuyThatEveryoneHates]

You cant have this show without it being cynical of superheroes. You dont like...then why are you watching it? If you didn't have that aspect it'd just be your regular old Superhero series with friendship and family bonds and good christian values shoehorned in.

I don't like the cynicism in it because I want it to be a nice friendly superhero show. I don't like it because it's boring, mainly, but the fact that it's criticizing corporate products sold to the masses while being a corporate product sold to the masses is just, well, it just gives me Hot Topic vibes.

I mean, part of why I don't like 'edgy' things, in general, is because it's predictable. What's going to happen to this interesting character? Oh, the main character killed him because he's badass. How will the main character solve this problem? Oh, by killing the people. By the tenth time, it's just predictable.

Like I said, in many ways 'typical' superhero movies like Winter Soldier are way more interesting just because you aren't expecting the superheroes to come up with the solution of just killing the bad guys. Like, all that I want is interesting stories, and I feel as though the story in The Boys is actually handicapping its story by reducing its emotional range with all of the cynicism.

 

[CupcakeNinja]

I don't like the cynicism in it because I want it to be a nice friendly superhero show. I don't like it because it's boring, mainly, but the fact that it's criticizing corporate products sold to the masses while being a corporate product sold to the masses is just, well, it just gives me Hot Topic vibes.

I mean, part of why I don't like 'edgy' things, in general, is because it's predictable. What's going to happen to this interesting character? Oh, the main character killed him because he's badass. How will the main character solve this problem? Oh, by killing the people. By the tenth time, it's just predictable.

Like I said, in many ways 'typical' superhero movies like Winter Soldier are way more interesting just because you aren't expecting the superheroes to come up with the solution of just killing the bad guys. Like, all that I want is interesting stories, and I feel as though the story in The Boys is actually handicapping its story by reducing its emotional range with all of the cynicism.

Read the comics then

 

[TheGuyThatEveryoneHates]

Read the comics then

The comics are even worse in that regard because the characters have superpowers and just beat up the superheroes (at first, anyway), so it's even more boring.

 

[BenJepheneT]

The entirety of the Amazon series is riding on the gimmick of playing edgy jokes on the current superhero movie fad. You can only take it so far before it gets stale as fuck. There's only so many variations you can do for one joke.

It isn't a series built to run many seasons. Just hope they won't end up like Black Mirror, where the memorable episodes are few and far between the well-made-but-ultimately-forgettable ones.