The Batman - 2022

[Fyraltari]

I dunno, sebulba I think falls into the obstacle not antagonist portion because he was no different than the tusken raiders taking pot shots at everyone. There was nothing personal in it. He wasnt after ANAKIN, he just wanted to win the race and cheats to do so.

That doesn't really matter, does it? He opposes the protagonists, that makes him an antagonist, regardless of his reasons. Sauron has nothing personal against Frodo.

[Peelee]

You mean like that stupid CGI alien in The Phantom Menace?

Gonna need you to be more specific there, you just described most of the characters in the movie (and the next one, and the next one...).

[Traab]

That doesn't really matter, does it? He opposes the protagonists, that makes him an antagonist, regardless of his reasons. Sauron has nothing personal against Frodo.

But he does. Frodo has his property. he wants it back, therefore he is targeting the hobbit directly. He is not just some passing stepping stone that has no bearing on the story outside of a single set piece. If sebulba is an antagonist, you might as well proclaim the merchant that owned the part they needed (and anakin) was an antagonist, he wasnt, he was a merchant with goods for sale the protagonists wanted. Not falling over himself to give away his merchandise doesnt make him an antagonist. It makes him a character. Stories have more to them than antagonists and protagonists.

[Fyraltari]

But he does. Frodo has his property. he wants it back, therefore he is targeting the hobbit directly. He is not just some passing stepping stone that has no bearing on the story outside of a single set piece.

So the Balrog isn't an antagonist? Neither are the trolls that tried to eat Bilbo?

If sebulba is an antagonist, you might as well proclaim the merchant that owned the part they needed (and anakin) was an antagonist, he wasnt, he was a merchant with goods for sale the protagonists wanted.

Watto is an antagonist. Getting his pieces and slave is the entire stake of the Tatooine sequence. He is the obstacle for the protagonists to overcome during a whole stretch of the movie (in tandem with Sebulba).

Not falling over himself to give away his merchandise doesnt make him an antagonist. It makes him a character.

What do you think an antagonist even is?

Stories have more to them than antagonists and protagonists.

Of course, there are also helpers and bit characters.

[Psyren]

First, you are changing the scenario which is never a sign you are on the winning side of an argument.

Dude, the "unique sword merchant" was your scenario, not mine.

Secondly, the merchant is still is not an antagonist. The villain is.

Conversation:
Hero: I need to buy a sword.
Merchant: 100gp please.
Hero: I only have 50gp.
Merchant: Sorry, can't help you.
Hero: But I need it to kill a villain and save everyone's lives.
Merchant: Sorry, 100gp please.

The merchant is nothing more than a obstacle in the Hero's way. Instead of the merchant, there could be a mountain that the hero has to climb or a river he/she has to cross.

Now if you want to change the scenario further where the Merchant is in league with the villain and, say, sells the Hero a sword that will break the first time its used, then the Merchant could be an antagonist.

Under your scenario, the hero needs that sword. There is no other way to beat the villain and no other place to get it. The merchant has moved into an antagonist role by refusing it to the hero.

[Dragonus45]

Dude, the "unique sword merchant" was your scenario, not mine.

You did create some extra context in your post that really raised the stakes of the sword and it's sale.

[Traab]

So the Balrog isn't an antagonist? Neither are the trolls that tried to eat Bilbo?

Watto is an antagonist. Getting his pieces and slave is the entire stake of the Tatooine sequence. He is the obstacle for the protagonists to overcome during a whole stretch of the movie (in tandem with Sebulba).

What do you think an antagonist even is?
Of course, there are also helpers and bit characters.

Not everyone who refuses to fall over themselves to help the hero is an antagonist. In the original star wars, darth vadar and the emperor are the antagonists. The storm troopers are not, they are faceless mooks and obstacles at best. Tools of the actual antagonists. Under your definitions that idiot at the bar bragging on his death warrant is an antagonist. Uncle owen is an antagonist, the bartender who made his droids wait outside is an antagonist. To paraphrase Syndrome, "when everyone is an antagonist, nobody is." Because you have robbed the word of all meaning at that point.

[Psyren]

You did create some extra context in your post that really raised the stakes of the sword and it's sale.

Based on the word "need" from his scenario. If the sword isn't really "needed" that obviously changes things.

Not everyone who refuses to fall over themselves to help the hero is an antagonist. In the original star wars, darth vadar and the emperor are the antagonists. The storm troopers are not, they are faceless mooks and obstacles at best. Tools of the actual antagonists. Under your definitions that idiot at the bar bragging on his death warrant is an antagonist. Uncle owen is an antagonist, the bartender who made his droids wait outside is an antagonist. To paraphrase Syndrome, "when everyone is an antagonist, nobody is." Because you have robbed the word of all meaning at that point.

"Antagonist" != "Big Bad and Dragon only."

[Fyraltari]

Not everyone who refuses to fall over themselves to help the hero is an antagonist.

You are creating a false dichotomy. There are states between "fall over themselves to help the hero" and opposes them. And we are not talking about character motivation we are talking about narrative roles. There are three categories in which you can sort characters in that regard: helps the protagonist, hinders the protagonist and flavor.

In the original star wars, darth vadar and the emperor are the antagonists. The storm troopers are not, they are faceless mooks and obstacles at best. Tools of the actual antagonists. Under your definitions that idiot at the bar bragging on his death warrant is an antagonist. Uncle owen is an antagonist, the bartender who made his droids wait outside is an antagonist.

In the original Star Wars, Vader and Tarkin are the principal antagonists, the Emperor is vaguely alluded-to background figure (flavor if you consider him even a character), the stormtroopers are minor antagonists, so is Greedo, Uncle Owen is an antagonistic figure in that he prevents the beginning of the literal hero's journey (which the film does frame as bad, even if understandable) and the bartender is flavor (no influence on the protagonist).

To paraphrase Syndrome, "when everyone is an antagonist, nobody is." Because you have robbed the word of all meaning at that point.

Except that not everyone is: Luke, Han & Leia are protagonists; Obi-Wan, Chewbacca, R2, 3PO and the rebels are helpers; the rest (mostly the people of Tatooine) are bit characters.

[Wintermoot]

Because you have robbed the word of all meaning at that point.

What -they- are doing is using the word by it's ACTUAL meaning. You, on the other hand, are using some personal definition of the word. Which is -fine- but don't get into arguments with others who DON'T use YOUR personal definition of the word and tell them THEY are the wrong ones.

[Eldan]

But he does. Frodo has his property. he wants it back, therefore he is targeting the hobbit directly. He is not just some passing stepping stone that has no bearing on the story outside of a single set piece.

Excuse me, it's not Sauron's property, it's Isildur's and by extension Aragorn's. Isildur took it as Weregild for the murder of his father, which is legitimate under anglosaxon law. Aragorn, presumably, is fine with the ring being destroyed.

[GloatingSwine]

So the Balrog isn't an antagonist? Neither are the trolls that tried to eat Bilbo?

For the scene, yes, for the story, no.

An antagonist at the level of the story is a character who is persistent throughout the story and works actively to bring about a state of affairs opposed to those of the protagonist. If the protagonist is a champion of the status quo the antagonist seeks to disrupt it, if the protagonist seeks to disrupt the status quo the antagonist seeks to enforce it.

A character who appears for one scene or act and is disposed of thereafter can be antagonistic within their scene but do not have an active effect on the story and is not an antagonist of the story.

eg. Darth Vader is an enforcer of the status quo, antagonistic to the protagonists who seek to overthrow it. He is relevant beyond scenes he is personally present in as his actions drive the actions of the protagonists who are forced to respond to what he is doing whether he is in the scene or not. So he is an antagonist for the story, but Boba Fett is not. He is only relevant to scenes he is in and the protagonists are not pushed to act to respond to things he does unless he is actually in the scene.

[Traab]

Excuse me, it's not Sauron's property, it's Isildur's and by extension Aragorn's. Isildur took it as Weregild for the murder of his father, which is legitimate under anglosaxon law. Aragorn, presumably, is fine with the ring being destroyed.

Possession is 9/10ths of the law, and considering everyone possessed by the ring will be lead to sauron eventually I think its still his.

[Rodin]

*saunters vaguely in the direction of the thread topic*

What struck me most from the trailer is Batman doing a slow walk through heavy machine gun fire. Batman isn't the Terminator or Superman, and wearing bulletproof armor wouldn't allow you to pull that move. It's also not his style, and not why I go to see a Batman movie.

I go for the "Terror of the Night" Batman we see in Arkham Asylum. He doesn't walk into a large group of guys with guns, he comes crashing through the skylight kicking guys in the head and knocking their guns out of their hands with Batarangs. He emerges from the night and silently takes down thugs one by one until the last guy is freaking out. A single thug getting a few shots that deflect off his armor is fine. What we saw in the trailer was not.

I'm fine with Batman being gritty, but he needs to feel like Batman.

[Lord Raziere]

I'm fine with Batman being gritty, but he needs to feel like Batman.

Which feels to me another reason why we should just give the character a rest a while.

Batman is already awesome enough, he is an awesome surplus and we don't need to add walking through gunfire to that. he is more than enough awesome to do without. like thats just an unnecessary amount of coolness that he is too cool to need. that feat something he looks at and goes "nah, other superheroes can have that. I'm not greedy."

[Peelee]

Agreed. Batman's two biggest skills are being a detective and being a ninja. Most of the movies completely avoid the detective angle or make him just a horrible detective, (eg Christian Bale's detective work: "WHERE ARE THE DRUGS?!? WHO IS YOUR BOSS?!?") and while some at least start out with the ninja bits, they usually peter out to Batman just straight up brawling through hordes as he openly makes his way to where he wants to go.

[brionl]

I wonder how people would react to a superman flick where there is no zod, no braniac, no doomsday, no darkseid. Its just clark kent trying to live his life as clark kent while not being able to ignore all the pain he can hear all the time in metropolis alone. Where its not an action film, its a dramatic one with character growth being the primary focus. Maybe put it so its right after he gets to metropolis and starts to experience how different it is from smallville. Living on the farm he isnt being exposed to literally millions of people with dozens to hundreds of crimes going on every day that he can hear taking place. He gets to experience the difficulty in being clark kent when superman is needed so often. A different version of tobys spiderman 2 where everyone sees him as unreliable because his time in the suit keeps getting in the way of time as himself. He is trying to be a reporter, trying to make friends, but he keeps getting called away to save lives and stop crimes and doesnt know what to do.

They already did that one back in the 90s. It was called Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. As I recall, they hardly ever had world destroying threats or super fist fights.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lois_%...es_of_Superman

Anyway, you can tell we're all real excited about YABOS (Yet Another Batman Origin Story), by the fact we're all talking about MCU and Superman and stuff halfway down the first page. I think one of the best parts of Lego Batman was that they didn't rehash his origin story again (and again).

[Trafalgar]

Dude, the "unique sword merchant" was your scenario, not mine.

{scrubbed}. You altered the scenario.

Under your scenario, the hero needs that sword. There is no other way to beat the villain and no other place to get it. The merchant has moved into an antagonist role by refusing it to the hero.

No, that's not an antagonist. That's a merchant doing what merchants do. The merchant is willing to sell the sword to the hero, just not at a discount. In Jaws, if Quint had maxed out his credit cards and couldn't afford to buy diesel for the Orca, that wouldn't make the fuel dock attendant an antagonist.

Someone mentioned Watto from the Phantom Menace. I agree that Watto is an antagonist. But there is a lot more is going on with Watto in that story.

[Psyren]

You altered the scenario.

Did you not intend to write the word "need" in that scenario? How is treating a need as though it is a need an alteration?

No, that's not an antagonist. That's a merchant doing what merchants do. The merchant is willing to sell the sword to the hero, just not at a discount. In Jaws, if Quint had maxed out his credit cards and couldn't afford to buy diesel for the Orca, that wouldn't make the fuel dock attendant an antagonist.

If it was a plot point that there was no other earthly means of getting to the shark to kill it, absolutely they would be.

[Trafalgar]

Did you not intend to write the word "need" in that scenario? How is treating a need as though it is a need an alteration?

Sure, I used the word need. But you added:

If not getting that sword is keeping the hero from defeating the villain and saving everyone's lives, including the merchant - and the merchant knows that but digs his heels in anyway - then of course he is.

Which is changing the scenario. But even in your version, the merchant is not an antagonist. You need to change the scenario further to make them into an antagonist.

[Psyren]

Sure, I used the word need. But you added:



Which is changing the scenario. But even in your version, the merchant is not an antagonist. You need to change the scenario further to make them into an antagonist.

I'm assuming the protagonist has a brain and thus articulates their need to the character withholding said need.

[Peelee]

I'm assuming the protagonist has a brain and thus articulates their need to the character withholding said need.

If we're going to be fair here, assuming a character in any given story will explain the nature of the problem is probably a bad bet.

[Psyren]

If we're going to be fair here, assuming a character in any given story will explain the nature of the problem is probably a bad bet.

Can't argue with that!

[Dragonus45]

Did you not intend to write the word "need" in that scenario? How is treating a need as though it is a need an alteration?

The part where you took a simple concept like need and added a bunch of context to massively raise the stakes of why he needed it to world ending importance thus emphasizing the antagonism of the merchant in this scneario. Perhaps the hero just needs the sword because his is wearing down and it would be a good idea to get a new one before he goes out to do hero things again.

[Psyren]

The part where you took a simple concept like need and added a bunch of context to massively raise the stakes of why he needed it to world ending importance thus emphasizing the antagonism of the merchant in this scneario. Perhaps the hero just needs the sword because his is wearing down and it would be a good idea to get a new one before he goes out to do hero things again.

That's "nice to have", not "need."

[Callos_DeTerran]

I'm not so sure. Marvel started small (with Iron Man, as I recall) and built up the franchise and characters in stages, finally putting them together with Avengers. They took time to experiment, didn't over-reach and were always in a position where they could put the project down without looking as if they had failed.. That smacks of at least some level of planning and forethought rather than plain luck. (Although I acknowledge that a huge amount of luck is required...)

While others have been accused of following Marvel's template, I'm not really sure that anyone really has. More that they have tried to create the same endpoint, but without doing the same level of preperation. DC tried to do the same thing in the space of about three films and rushed it too much, and Universal "Dark Universe" Pictures dived straight in with the first film and crashed.

You can honestly say that the Monsterverse has followed the Marvel template, successfully at that.

[Dragonus45]

That's "nice to have", not "need."

I mean if my sword being in good condition when stabbing something was a concern I would call that a need even if it wasn't an emergency.

[Peelee]

There happens to be a fairly relevant situation on this very site!

I would not call the pirates antagonistic there. They simple see the heroics as a normal thing that happens in the world so much that they can pass it off as "apocalypse of the week". There are many campaigns going on at any given point, apparently, and they don't want to be stuck with the bill. From their point of view, it's perfectly rational - the heroes want a service to save the day, they pay for that service. And the heroes, I should note, seem to agree.

[Clertar]

If we're splitting hairs, the merchant and sword story is a false analogy fallacy to begin with. Other people playing with it is the least one could expect.

[Anteros]

It appears Batman has done his patented disappearing trick from this thread. Truly, he is a master of stealth.