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The Boys on Amazon

24 Jan 2019 20:13 #62712 by oliu99
The Boys on Amazon was created by oliu99
New teaser, truck smash @0:24:

The following user(s) said Thank You: Sarge395, Raa, Artnico, Dru1076

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24 Jan 2019 22:50 #62713 by Dru1076
Replied by Dru1076 on topic The Boys on Amazon
I got a bit excited there for a second. A world where supers are abusing their powers? Sounded awesome until I dug a little deeper. I am gonna dodge this unless I hear they've changed the fate of their strongest female super.

SPOILER ALERT
She gets decapitated in the books in a "futile" fight. I got a bit of a peril vibe reading the descriptions and none of the female characters sound particularly appealing. It's another macho fest by the sounds of it. I'll stick to watching highlights of the girls power scenes on YouTube unless I hear different.

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24 Jan 2019 22:54 #62714 by Woodclaw
Replied by Woodclaw on topic The Boys on Amazon
For me this is an automatic pass, it's based on a Garth Ennis comic, which I didn't enjoy at all.

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25 Jan 2019 00:43 #62717 by Dru1076
Replied by Dru1076 on topic The Boys on Amazon

Woodclaw wrote: For me this is an automatic pass, it's based on a Garth Ennis comic, which I didn't enjoy at all.


As far as I can tell, all the fun is to be had by the men. Just going on character descriptions I read, it's the blokes enjoying the power trip while the ladies mope about getting raped and abused drowning sorrows in alcohol. That's the impression I got. I went from deeply curious to thoroughly repulsed in VERY short order. 

But big thanks to the OP regardless for bringing this up in the forum. I won't be watching the show,...it sounds extremely awful to me...but I will be keeping an eye out for YouTube clips.

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25 Jan 2019 02:19 #62721 by shadar
Replied by shadar on topic The Boys on Amazon
I share Dru's and Woodclaw's perspective on this show. 

What I found interesting is that superhero and superheroine depictions have now run the entire gauntlet. From optimistic, good-hearted, self-less Kal and Kara to the absolute depths of exploitive violence in this show. . 

I think this is the clearest evidence yet that the superhero genre is starting to split into sub-genres in TV and movies. Hopefully it won't be as blatant a schism as that between heroic and peril fiction and videos, 

But could superhero horror become a sub-genre?

Or Superhero comedy

Or Superhero romance/soaps?

Or Superhero Sci Fi (my favorite).
A good high-budget SciFi movie with a truly superhuman female character would be great fun. And given it seems that everyone wants to write females into power positions currently, now's the time. 

(And we've already had a superhuman in Orville.)

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25 Jan 2019 02:53 - 25 Jan 2019 02:55 #62722 by Helstar
Replied by Helstar on topic The Boys on Amazon
If it's even as half as brutal as in the original comic book, this will be the most extreme and explicit tv-serie ever (not only about superheroes, but in general !).

It's also true that the comic book was supposed to be a satyrical (...) depiction of superheroes tropes/dynamics.

Anyway, 99% is a big "paaaass" for me.
Last edit: 25 Jan 2019 02:55 by Helstar.

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25 Jan 2019 06:58 #62724 by willow
Replied by willow on topic The Boys on Amazon
I have read the Boys series and thought it was an interesting take on the superhero genre, especially when you get into the portions about corporate control, branding, marketing. The series has some really messed up concepts coupled with extreme violence and sex. However, the story arcs often center on superheroes being giant assholes who see themselves above normal society and are protected by a large international corporation solely for the purposes of not hurting the company's profits. Similar to stories of out of control rock bands whose various antics were covered up by their record labels.

Most of the major superheroes in the comic are effectively manufactured by the corporation Vought American. The Homelander (Superman) was engineered in a secret corporate laboratory and then given a false backstory of being an alien baby found by a mid-western couple on a farm. The Wonder Woman character from the trailer is implied to have been a failed attempt at creating another Homelander superhero. There is a panel in the comic where the Homelander uses his x-ray vision and laughs when he discovers she even has breast implants. The comic opens with the main character's girlfriend being killed shortly after proposing to her when a speedster superhero literally runs through her at top speed while fighting a villain. The speedster brushes it off as "shit happens" and his corporate sponsors brush the entire incident under the rug to prevent a PR nightmare or damage their profits.

A major theme through the entire series is the interest by Vought American to begin creating supers for the United States military. The company's only real interest comes from the vast profits of getting a government defense contract. More clearheaded people in the government realize that mixing superpowers and the military would just create a new global arms race with disastrous results. This is how and why the group The Boys is formed as a way to monitor various superheroes. However, the group's leader has an intense hatred of superheroes and uses the group to publicly disgrace or secretly kill them whenever he can.

I am ambivalent about the television series itself. I like Karl Urban and thought he was great in Dredd. I look forward to what he will bring to the table. However, if you are looking for a Girl Power television series, then you are looking in the wrong place. This will likely have some scenes as seen in the trailer, but they will be far and few between with more emphasis on superheroes behaving badly than anything else.
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