Results 31 to 60 of 105
Thread: The Suicide Squad
-
2021-08-11, 11:14 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2008
- Location
- Lost in the Hinterlands
- Gender
Re: The Suicide Squad
Here’s two things to consider about Waller’s decision towards the end of the movie:
Spoiler1) Because Starro was being studied secretly by the U.S. government, Waller would likely have an idea of Starro’s offensive capabilities. She would know full well if he posed a threat to the world or just the dismal little nation of Corto Maltese, which apparently has an anti-American sentiment. This version of Starro is definitely weaker than his comic incarnation, which is a threat that generally requires the whole Justice League to take on. She likely believed Superman or Wonder Woman or Aquaman could handle a rampaging Starro, or if not, a nuke could probably wrap things up. No more Starro, no more Corto Maltese.
2) Task Force X is supposed to be top secret, as it would be a pretty huge scandal for people to hear that the U.S. government is employing supervillains to carry out top-secret missions. (Weasel ate 27 children. Their parents would not be happy to learn he was now free because of Waller.)
However, by fighting Starro, the squad ended up garnering international attention. Remember Bloodsport’s daughter saw him on the television? This, Waller’s pet project is that much closer to being exposed.
That said, I’m surprised you all consider Amanda Waller to be a paragon of competence? Again, I’m not a diehard DC comics fan, but her animated counterparts constantly create messes that the JL have to clean up.Last edited by Giggling Ghast; 2021-08-11 at 11:23 PM.
-
2021-08-11, 11:24 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
Re: The Suicide Squad
Spoiler: My Thoughts On StarroI compared Starro to Godzilla combined with Doomsday with the starfish mind-control abilities. These supervillains have a chance of heart to save a country from a giant space starfish. (Why not say sea star instead. That's the correct term instead of starfish but whatever.)It's time to get my Magikarp on!
-
2021-08-12, 01:33 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2011
- Gender
Re: The Suicide Squad
Ultimately though, the reason Waller acts the way she does is that she does not care what Starro does, because the whole point of the plot and Peacemaker's secret orders within it is that the powers that Waller represents do not give one single solitary damn what happens to the people of Corto Maltese as long as it doesn't make the USA look bad.
Someone like the Justice League will show up and deal with Starro, the USA retains deniability, the surviving members of the squad can be used on another mission later, it doesn't matter what happens to anyone on the island because they're foreign.
-
2021-08-12, 02:17 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2010
- Gender
Re: The Suicide Squad
She has to be at least somewhat competent, because alien gods and freaking Batman know what she's up to, clearly disapprove, yet she's still allowed to do it.
More pertinent though is that she's clearly being positioned in these movies as a Nick Fury type, the government official who keeps the metahumans in line by outsmarting them, so that is what people will expect her to be. For her to abandon the big picture in a fit of pique is pretty jarring, given that comparison.Plague Doctor by Crimmy
Ext. Sig (Handbooks/Creations)
-
2021-08-12, 02:44 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2020
- Location
- United States
- Gender
-
2021-08-12, 03:06 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2011
- Gender
Re: The Suicide Squad
I think that's what they were trying to go for in the first movie, but the first movie was so crashingly ineptly edited and probably pretty dumb before that that it didn't matter what they were trying.
In this movie, she's not outsmarting anyone. She's strongarming people, blackmailing them, and imposing her will through force and the ability to detonate their brains when she wants.
And that is on purpose. It is part of the theme.
-
2021-08-12, 08:29 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2012
- Location
- Britain
- Gender
Re: The Suicide Squad
It'd have made more sense if she'd either told them to kill it so the US could take the credit for killing it. Or if she'd said to just get out of there and leave it to Superman as he's a better representation of liberty than them, and she doesn't want him to be seen working with villains. Just saying get out of there because is pretty lazy writing to make the villains heroic because our protagonist villains aren't actually allowed to be evil.
Another issue I have with the movie is Harley, she has some really good scenes but the film also slams into a brick wall so those scenes can happen. I understand Harley is pretty much the biggest draw with these films but I'd rather have had more time with the new team. I also liked the jellyfish scene but again it doesn't really fit into the film which is a shame since it was a good scene for King Shark.
-
2021-08-12, 09:25 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2009
- Location
- Maryland
- Gender
Re: The Suicide Squad
Certainly.
I would argue that in the first movie, she is incredibly incompetent. In this one, she is...while not a shining paragon of competence, much more of an evil, uncaring bastard than an inept buffoon.
And that's okay, because that's pretty much what Waller's character is supposed to be.
-
2021-08-12, 10:30 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2006
- Location
Re: The Suicide Squad
That was not the message / meaning. It was that the system and it’s avatar is monstrous, even to the point it looks cartoonish. But that is us and our projection. We want the system to be competent, for humans want in our imagination the systems we live under to be something close to “just”, for it helps us to not feel alienated with the system we live under, we justify the unjustifiable for making nonsense rationalizations is one technique to deal with the absurd.
Points to this thread for literal demonstrations of this. Some of us are bargaining as a grief reaction saying in a better movie X would happen, others are doing the depressed thing, or angry, etc.Stupendous Man drawn by Linklele
-
2021-08-12, 10:40 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2010
- Gender
Re: The Suicide Squad
I wouldn't say she didn't outsmart anyone. She boxed in Bloodsport to lead her team pretty easily. And Flagg certainly still seems to be on a leash despite Enchantress being very dead.
She also has "power-dampening collars" at her disposal, and who the hell knows if they'll even remember or bother to explain those.Plague Doctor by Crimmy
Ext. Sig (Handbooks/Creations)
-
2021-08-12, 11:24 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2011
- Gender
Re: The Suicide Squad
Yeah, but she didn't do that by being particularly clever or cunning, she did it by demonstrating power over him. She has the power to hurt something he cares about and the will to do so, and he has no power to stop her.
Originally Posted by Spacewolf
She doesn't.
Starro literally does not feature in her decisions. It is not her problem, it is not the US government's problem. Waller is an absolute stone cold psychopath whose only reaction to the deaths of probably hundreds of thousands is "meh" but will absolutely demand obedience to her will.
-
2021-08-12, 11:35 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2010
- Gender
Re: The Suicide Squad
That power was based on knowledge. She knew about his daughter and their strained relationship before she came to visit him for the first time, knew the details of her crime, and knew what strings to pull to not only get her tried as an adult but assigned to the same prison as him if convicted. Those aren't trivial manipulations.
And again, she has at her hands technology that can suppress metahumans, which I don't think we've seen in the DCEU as of yet. Remember that before this, her only leash on Enchantress was having her heart in her possession. That could come in handy even beyond TSS.Plague Doctor by Crimmy
Ext. Sig (Handbooks/Creations)
-
2021-08-12, 11:44 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2011
- Gender
Re: The Suicide Squad
Yeah, but having access to technology and people to tell her things doesn't make her clever, it doesn't help her outsmart people.
She is good at applying pressure but she's good at that not because she's particularly smart, but because she's particularly ruthless.
We are not supposed to see her in this film as some kind of master-plan chessmaster, we're supposed to see her as the brutal but effective face of a powerful uncaring organisation.
-
2021-08-12, 11:47 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2010
- Gender
Re: The Suicide Squad
Plague Doctor by Crimmy
Ext. Sig (Handbooks/Creations)
-
2021-08-12, 12:00 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2011
- Gender
Re: The Suicide Squad
That's not how knowing things works. She doesn't know Batman's secret identity because she's clever enough that that information just sort of pops into her head, or because there's some disparate set of otherwise unconnected facts that only she is clever enough to have deduced the meaning of.
She knows it because she's got an amazingly large and powerful intelligence gathering organisation at her fingertips and the classification level to be allowed to be told those things.
Waller is, in pretty much all of her incarnations, the face of systemic power. When she flexes on someone like Batman by reminding him she knows his secret identity she's not saying "I figured this out" she's saying "The government is watching you, you have no secrets from us".
-
2021-08-12, 12:03 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2010
- Gender
Re: The Suicide Squad
Plague Doctor by Crimmy
Ext. Sig (Handbooks/Creations)
-
2021-08-12, 12:25 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2006
- Location
Re: The Suicide Squad
People are talking past each other for we are doing binary gradients. It is like saying there is "Mind-Body" dualism (a cartesian myth), and then trying to apply that logic to The Hulk. Is Bruce Banner a separate personality, a separate person from The Hulk? How about the other incarnations of The Hulk and Bruce through his comic history? Using a Mind-Body duality, and the limits of language and you get this.
-----
Waller has over 500+ appearances in comics over the years in her 35 year comic history. Not all of these appearances are "continuous" belonging to alternative realities, else worlds, etc.
But even in the same reality, even with different writers, and also with the same writer and in different story she has been written differently. Her being written as not-clever (but smarter than the average human), who uses force, and the powers of the system is a common way she has been written and it lead to disastrous results of her own making (Waller is her own Nemesis) in the late 80s / early 90s of the comics. Likewise in other stories she is hyper-competent for that is what the story needed as a foil, or the writer just like those aesthetics.
The Writer, Director, and other creative team of this specific movie wrote a Waller that is true to previous incarnations, while at the same time telling their own story with themes, meaning, etc. Waller did what she did for she cares about different things than you. Waller cares about her turf* and only that thing.
Edit: wrong vowel for a word.Last edited by Ramza00; 2021-08-12 at 03:30 PM.
Stupendous Man drawn by Linklele
-
2021-08-12, 12:25 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2011
- Gender
Re: The Suicide Squad
Amanda Waller isn't the head of the US Government or any of its intelligence gathering organisations*. She's a manager of Task Force X specifically. And you get to those levels by being an effective politician. Which she is. Hell we see it in the movie, she's more concerned about looking good at a golf game with an elected official than with the mission.
That doesn't require particular intelligence, as I think we should all know by now.
We are not supposed to think that Amanda Waller is personally clever or competent (she screws up repeatedly, not checking whether the team can swim on a water insertion, not recognising Bloodsport's reaction to Sebastian when introducing Ratcatcher), we are supposed to think that she is the face of a callous, ruthless organisation that is so large and powerful it does not need to be either.
Like what's Batman going to do if he disapproves? Declare war on the United States? Get rid of Waller and another manager starts doing the exact same job.
* Yes, that is a correct British spelling. First rule of nitpicking spellings on the internet, you're always going to screw up.
-
2021-08-12, 01:29 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2010
- Gender
Re: The Suicide Squad
Nice goalpost shift there, but "head of the US government" isn't relevant to this discussion. Task Force X is an intelligence organization and she is the head.
She's smart enough to know you need both - political resources and the intelligence to run an intelligence organization.
The golf thing happened while they were radio silent, short of flying down there herself she needed to wait until they established contact. All the intel they had gathered (there it is again) on the team at that point was that the bombs were still connected.
You mean she didn't care whether the decoy team that was not supposed to survive insertion could survive insertion? Almost as if they were... a decoy team?
And Bloodsport himself explains why she didn't know about his phobia if you had paid attention to the movie.
He certainly seemed to think he could do something judging by his threat.Plague Doctor by Crimmy
Ext. Sig (Handbooks/Creations)
-
2021-08-12, 02:03 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2006
- Location
- England
- Gender
-
2021-08-12, 02:07 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2007
- Location
- Knoxville Tennessee
- Gender
Re: The Suicide Squad
I'll point out the decoy team was presumably supposed to fair much much better, they had some absolute heavy hitters involved and if they had gone in then it would also help with the issue of how Squad 2 was supposed to be sneaky. Much easier to do that when you have a big ol distraction.
Thanks to Linklele for my new avatar!
If i had superpowers. I would go to conventions dressed as myself, and see if i got complimented on my authenticity.
-
2021-08-12, 02:17 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2011
- Gender
Re: The Suicide Squad
Task Force X is a deniable black ops unit. It is not an intelligence organisation. Think Navy Seals not CIA. And lots of people have been put in charge of governmental and even military organisations without having actual competence. (There's an interesting book on the subject, The Psychology of Military Incompetence)
She's smart enough to know you need both - political resources and the intelligence to run an intelligence organization.
The golf thing happened while they were radio silent, short of flying down there herself she needed to wait until they established contact. All the intel they had gathered (there it is again) on the team at that point was that the bombs were still connected.
And Bloodsport himself explains why she didn't know about his phobia if you had paid attention to the movie.
He certainly seemed to think he could do something judging by his threat.
-
2021-08-12, 02:26 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2009
- Location
- Maryland
- Gender
Re: The Suicide Squad
Those are more impressive manipulations if they're done by some loner. Someone working for the government in some capacity, with an entire department of underlings(both movies had this), it's...not at all impressive. She had an underling search a criminals criminal history, wooo. As for the rest, that's pretty much just talking to judge/prosecutor. Even if true. It could have been lies. It's not as if Waller has any compunction about the truth.
None of the above makes her particularly smart. It just means she's in a position of some power, and has no ethical restraint.
She's not any more smart than Gen. Ross is portrayed in the MCU.
Even from the standpoint of a decoy, someone who drowns before the enemy even knows they're there is a pretty useless decoy.
It's most definitely a point against competency.
I don't think team A was a decoy, though. Flagg is actually loyal for....some reason, and it would be sort of dumb to intentionally sacrifice him. Plus, given the orders to extract him, it does not seem likely that his death was intentional. I find it more likely that she simply cared more about success that *any* lives on either team, and tossed two teams at it just to boost the odds of success no matter who died. If team B died off entirely and team A was successful, she'd have been equally happy.
-
2021-08-12, 02:59 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2006
- Location
Re: The Suicide Squad
In the last 5 years Flag is more independent and goes rogue. Such as he does when he rescues Harley even though that is a mission delay.
Waller would not like this even if she may tolerate it many times. My point here is she is a mess of competing drives (like all humans) and will be willing to sacrifice Flag in a moments whim if she feels she can not control him. Likely she will tolerate these discretions if she feels like she can control him. Waller has an insatiable need for control, a Thanatos drive (also called Todestrieb aka death drive) , she severely dislikes disorder she can not control. She uses agents of chaos, in order to have power and order. But even in this “controlled” chaos we see patterns of aggression, dominance, repetition, compulsion, and lastly self-destructiveness.
Waller in this movie (and in some comics not all comics) does the compulsion and self-destructiveness at a moment of tension. Will she push the button and blow up her chaotic agent when they challenge her authority? For maximum stakes and tension we have to have the suicide soldier say something that makes sense. Like they are following a goal she laid out, or the goal does not make sense due to new information, or the greater good. We the audience with 2nd person information, notice the irony and the tension with this control. Yet Waller can push the button at any time and calls irrevocable change despite the contradiction and thus the tension.
And how the director, writers, and other creatives took care of this is with a 3rd option and thus a surprise. Waller could push the button, or not push the button when she had a stare down with the suicide soldiers, but there was a 3rd option of the people in Waller’s room hitting her with a golf club for they too have agency. This in turn surprises the audience for if the tension is working we do not reconsider the possibilities for we are emotionally aroused and tunnel vision, instead of surveying other options we did not consider before.
—————
So to repeat Waller consider eliminating Flag for he is not reliable, yet she never considered if the people in her own room whether they were reliable or not. For she was the master of her own domain and is her own nemesis.Last edited by Ramza00; 2021-08-12 at 03:00 PM.
Stupendous Man drawn by Linklele
-
2021-08-12, 03:12 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2010
- Gender
Re: The Suicide Squad
So Waller's crew of IT neckbeards tapping into satellite feeds to spy on a foreign power without being detected were Navy Seals?
"I'm not shaking the rat's hand" is hardly evidence of a debilitating obstacle.
It was Bruce Wayne that threatened her.Plague Doctor by Crimmy
Ext. Sig (Handbooks/Creations)
-
2021-08-12, 03:17 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2008
- Location
- Lost in the Hinterlands
- Gender
-
2021-08-12, 03:29 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2006
- Location
-
2021-08-12, 05:22 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2007
- Location
- Indiana
- Gender
Re: The Suicide Squad
I assume that Team A was supposed to be a distraction, but not necessarily all wiped out in one moment on the beach. Basically be the loud distraction while Team B is also to get in and do the job. Or, provide more options to make sure the job gets done. Either way, I think all of them getting wasted at the start was a fluke and not part of the plan.
-
2021-08-12, 05:55 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2013
Re: The Suicide Squad
As I said elsewhere on the internet.
Personally, I don't think she really cared about rescuing Flagg. All the members that were left over from the first movie's mission were put in the distraction team, and I don't think that was a coincidence. I think that she was still angry at them for going off script in the first movie and was cleaning house.
The reason the team was assigned to rescue Flagg with "extreme prejudice" is because Waller wanted to cripple the rebels. Previously, Corto Maltese had a government that was willing to take orders from the US, and I believe Waller wished to go back to that arrangement. Since the rebels if they took power would not be compliant, Waller wanted to leave them in no position to make a successful bid for power. In preparation for this mission she would have been watching Corto Maltese with her infrared camera spy satellites and would have known where all the major government and rebel bases were. Seeing that Flagg had been taken to the main rebel camp, Waller saw an opportunity to take out the rebel leadership and a good portion of their most loyal forces.
However, Flagg acted to stop the main team from killing the rebel commander and pointed out that when the armed forces got pulled from the palace would be the perfect time for the rebels to attack. This ruined whatever Ms Waller had been planning for Corto Maltese. Also, these actions plus Flagg efforts to save the hard drive so it could given to the press, fully vindicated Amanda Waller's original decision to put him in the sacrificial team in the first place.
-
2021-08-12, 08:09 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2010
- Gender
Re: The Suicide Squad
Speaking of Team A getting wiped out, Nando had a suggestion to amp up the Starro fight that I found very interesting. Basically it plays into the main strength of Starro from the comics, that he's turning hero against hero. (Or "hero" in this case.)
Plague Doctor by Crimmy
Ext. Sig (Handbooks/Creations)