Uhm, so this thread just happened...

[Heidegger of Shinra]

Imma be real with you chief, those "post-modernism" and "deconstruction" definitions you are using are more akin to their internet usages than their academic roots.

Apologies, but your subsequent definitions aren't much better. Please don't construe this as me trying to posture over you, it's just that current academic thought is struggling to extricate postmodernism from modernism.
Of course there is the internet jargon of "postmodernism is bad", but even at the highest levels there is uncertainty as to whether these movements are truly distinct from one another. Postmodernism could be seen as an attempt to transcend modernism, but perhaps it was a mere culmination of those same tendencies. Being inherently synthetic (in a dialectical sense) modernism has a tendency to incorporate its own undoing. We could get all Hegelian here but we'd run the risk of sinking into our profundity.
I realise I've merely broached this difficult topic in a broad and poorly argued way, I don't intend to definitely sway your opinion here.

If a "truth" can't hold it own when slightly questioned, than I think they can hardly be called a truth at all.

Again, there is another view on truth. While I don't expect to sway you, I would just like you to know that alternatives exist and have earned serious academic consideration.
The common conception of "truth" as "certainty" necessitates a contentious stance. We currently define the truest statement as the one which endures the most assaults, flatly denying that truth might require cultivation and care. Heidegger uses the term Verwahrung (safekeeping) to express this same conception. Wahr also means true or genuine. I like to compare this juxtaposition between the two "truths" with an argument about durability. Is a dead man more hardy than a living man, seeing as nobody can kill him? The dead man corresponds to truth as certainty, the living man to Alethea.
Whatever the merits of this argument might be, it serves to reverse our relationship with truth. Rather than hoping for the truth to save us, truth itself might be in need of saving.

To tie this back into the thread in question, deconstruction would be only one half of creation. Someone inheriting an IP has to conserve and progress in equal measure. Too much conservation and the work is mere pastiche, not enough and the distinct character of the work is lost. In the latter case it merely becomes another product of the zeitgeist.
Our tendency for seeing conservation and progress as diametrically opposed is a lamentable runoff of our political models. Maintaining the integrity of any entity (organic or otherwise) requires both.

 

[DinoRexMax DinoRexMax]

>this show is a deconstruction!
>look inside
>it's literally just the genre it's part of

I heard this one differently...
>this show is a deconstruction!
>look inside
>utter disdain for the genre

I will never understand why companies hire people who openly dislike the source material.

Corpos only follow the money. The real problem is, why do these deconstructions profit?

What you are saying is that things lack "geniuine-tess"

Yes. They are hollow and without soul, caring or understanding nothing about what they adapt but deconstruct out of automated response like a machine.

I can't believe there are still people who say NGE was a deconstruction in the big 2026.

Eva is not a deconstruction, it was never intended to be one and wasn't even the first one to do what it did.

If Anno didn't want to get called out for deconstructing everything, then he should PROBABLY STOP DOING IT. Or, are we going to pretend that the entire Shin Japan heroes line wasn't a deconstruction of their source? Fuck me, EVA Rebuild is a fucking decontruction OF EVANGELION!

And no one said it was the first, that would be like saying Watchmen was the first to deconstruct super-heroes. Squadron Supreme already did that shit in the 70s. It would be like saying EVA was the oriign of the Waifu Wars when that was Dragon Quest V. The amount of young men cut down over the simple question of "Bianca or Nera?"

Really, Tomino was the original Mecha deconstructionist with Gundam and IDEON, and EVA was following suit. The primary difference between Gundam and EVA is that Evangelion is a more high sci-fi setting and uses a monster-of-the-week formula in place of war-torn space opera.

Nadesico is just a parody, it plays around with tropes from old robot anime but it also play those tropes straight in a mix of homage and meta humor.

No, Nadesico is not a parody. It has comedic and lighthearted moments that are juxtaposed with drama and action, but outside of a few characters who are parodies of anime and mecha fans, the series itself was not a parody. Homage was a better term.

Never seen this many Anno dislikers in one place, that's kinda fun!

Shin Godzilla was bad and you should feel bad.

 

[extermist]

I don't think it's wrong to deconstruct a story or genre, but what I see problems in is when the writters go for a sarcastic satire of the thing it's supposed to be.
It comes of as obnoxious and up their own ass, going out of their way to present the flaws and absurdity of the thing like it's some grand infallible truth while undermining other merits of the story or genre.

 

[AceOfAces]

Shin Godzilla was bad and you should feel bad.

idk what you're talking about, Shin Godzilla was fuckin' great. So was Shin Kamen Rider (although that was a borderline straight-up adaption of the original Kamen Rider into a film format, rather than being re-imagined into a J-Horror like The FIRST and The NEXT, or the original Shin Kamen Rider with the kaijin suit).
Haven't seen Shin Ultraman and I'm also much less familiar with it outside of being a Brother3 enjoyer so can't comment on that one.

Post automatically merged: Yesterday at 7:41 AM

It comes of as obnoxious and up their own ass, going out of their way to present the flaws and absurdity of the thing like it's some grand infallible truth while undermining other merits of the story or genre.

I think part of this is that people who love something also tend to love its flaws, or at least acknowledge and enjoy them. It's why b-movies with terrible special effects are beloved. I personally love Kamen Rider Kuuga and think it's arguably the best series of the franchise narratively, but that's not going to stop me from making fun of its absolutely abysmal special effects and heavy, shitty suits that greatly restricted the suit actors. Those are both things that are fun when I engage with them.

If you have people who don't love something doing your 2000s X-Men movie treatment, then that poking of fun tends to be malicious and on the nose, rather than a shared laugh.

There's actually a pretty good example of this in nu Doctor Who, the series 9 episode that introduces the Daleks - they briefly stymie the Dalek with a flight of stairs, something that had long been an in-joke among Who fans, only for the Dalek to declare "EL E VAAAAATE" and just hover upwards, both poking fun at the original series and turning the joke on its head.

 

[dkpopman]

Shin Godzilla was bad and you should feel bad.

Ok.

I think this will be my last time trying to discuss anything related to Eva on here lol.

 

[Princess Viola]

I'm too lazy to read through the thread again but it's probably been said that you really can't do a good deconstruction without actually caring about the genre you're tryna deconstruct right?

 

[DinoRexMax DinoRexMax]

Again, there is another view on truth. While I don't expect to sway you, I would just like you to know that alternatives exist and have earned serious academic consideration.
The common conception of "truth" as "certainty" necessitates a contentious stance. We currently define the truest statement as the one which endures the most assaults, flatly denying that truth might require cultivation and care. Heidegger uses the term Verwahrung (safekeeping) to express this same conception. Wahr also means true or genuine. I like to compare this juxtaposition between the two "truths" with an argument about durability. Is a dead man more hardy than a living man, seeing as nobody can kill him? The dead man corresponds to truth as certainty, the living man to Alethea.
Whatever the merits of this argument might be, it serves to reverse our relationship with truth. Rather than hoping for the truth to save us, truth itself might be in need of saving.

Wow, my first thread in a while that didn't devolve into a literal whore show, has instead involved into a legitimate discussion of philosophy.

To tie this back into the thread in question, deconstruction would be only one half of creation. Someone inheriting an IP has to conserve and progress in equal measure. Too much conservation and the work is mere pastiche, not enough and the distinct character of the work is lost. In the latter case it merely becomes another product of the zeitgeist.
Our tendency for seeing conservation and progress as diametrically opposed is a lamentable runoff of our political models. Maintaining the integrity of any entity (organic or otherwise) requires both.

Well said, but it's also just the foibles of taking on the adaptation of an established entity. It's also the fundamental futility of remakes in general. The Vince Vaughn starring remake of Psycho is a good example, as it accomplishes little to no sense of progression in it's efforts to conserve that it outright regresses. The '99 remake of The Haunting is a good example of the opposite, with no conversation whatsoever, as it progressed into a completely different genre of film altogether to the point it's almost a family adventure film instead of an atmospheric horror.

Maintaining the integrity of the entity requires conservation and progression, which in an of itself requires respect and understanding. A guy like Kevin Smith or Warren Ellis don't have any respect or appreciation for anything, because they're a bunch of post-modernist schmucks.

idk what you're talking about, Shin Godzilla was fuckin' great. So was Shin Kamen Rider. Haven't seen Shin Ultraman.

Haven't seen Shin Kamen Rider or Ultraman outside of brief cultural osmosis, but I will die on the hill that Shin Godzilla is really Shit Godzilla. I wasted 2 hours of my life and I got barely 5 minutes of Godzilla and 1 hour and 55 minutes of nerds FUCKING TALKING. I appreciate the idea of Godzilla becoming an international issue, the political red tape especially involving the post WWII non-aggression treaty of Japan, and how they have to reach out to other political allies for help, and how other nations might monopolize Godzilla, but that all could've been exceedingly condensed. Like, all of that could easily be scrunched into a half hour at the very most, but it stretches into hours of nothing. Godzilla just keeps showing up in awkward cut in shots as if they were embarrassed he even existed up until he finally evolves and ends up standing around a lot of the time. I kept waiting and waiting for the movie I was promised, for this ugly ass re-design to pay off (it was based off of radiation burns) like this going to be some sick hardcore shit and it was nothing. nothing, nothing. NOTHING.

The original '54 film was 1000 times more fucked up and cool then Shin. It was also somehow the most competent film in the entire franchise at actually depicting the tragedy of the monster attacks than either Shin of Minus Zero, two films that set out with the intention of doing just that. Even Godzilla vs Destroyah had the Destroyah Larva stalking and killing people in dark alleyways, and was actually scary and didn't have to sacrifice everything for a stupid looking design to accomplish it.

Fuck Shin Godzilla, all my homies hate Shin Godzilla.

I'm too lazy to read through the thread again but it's probably been said that you really can't do a good deconstruction without actually caring about the genre you're tryna deconstruct right?

@Heidegger of Shinra had a good point that a deconstruction (or any adaptation) must balance the idea of both "conserving" the identity of the source material while also "progressing" the material with new ideas. I might be less about caring about or being a fan of the oriignal idea than it is to care about the final product while also having an actual good idea for a story, one that also doesn't betray the core principles of the original.

 

[ShinnAsukaYESTaylorSwiftNO]

I heard this one differently...
>this show is a deconstruction!
>look inside
>utter disdain for the genre

Corpos only follow the money. The real problem is, why do these deconstructions profit?

Yes. They are hollow and without soul, caring or understanding nothing about what they adapt but deconstruct out of automated response like a machine.

Bingo! You practically summed up everything wrong about modern media! I mean, where's the sincerity, passion, escapism, creativity, and fun? It's no wonder why us zoomers and Gen Alpha are so black pilled. Endless devirative nihlistic BS and please don't get me started on the cancer that is reality TV....

Heck, even AI is more human than the irresponsible soulless greedy hacks that plague every faucet of society these days!

 

[Ikagura]

Deconstruction and subversion of expectations work when a genre is getting old and that fresh blood has to be injected into the art to make it feel new and not stale (remember that sci-fi before Star Trek and Dr. Who was very formulaic and seen as extremely cliche) but things are now both getting stale and deconstructed without any further reading in an art form.

I still love how they deconstructed Batman (to rebuild him stronger) in The Dark Knight Returns with that small comment about why he has kept his old yellow oval bat logo on his chest

This is not just clever but a good explanation for any previous incarnations of our dark knight.

That is the kind of deconstruction I want to see more often, not just "lol so cringe to see people with colored suits and capes fighting each other".

Post automatically merged: Yesterday at 10:33 AM

I feel as if both creators and audiences are so afraid of being made fun of for what they like or work on, that they desperately clamber to reductively dismiss or mock their favourite franchises like: "Oh, yeah, naw, bro. I totally get that JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is gay and retarded, bro. I'm like, totally in on the joke too guys, hahah! Like, King Crimson, how does that work right? Looks like Araki forgot again! Hahah!" or something to that effect.

Isn't weird that when many animes have bishônen male protagonists people mock them for being too feminine (there's nothing intrinsically wrong with that and not every heroes have to be a symbol of masculinity and virility to be appreciated) yet when you see muscular guys people also says that it's "suspiciously crypto-gay"... You can't win apparently.

JoJo is inspired by greek statues and anatomy lessons in art before anything else. I wish people could remember what a "dynamic pose" is.

 

[ConanTheDestroyer]

There is no sincerity in the works of alot of these writers. I know deconstruction isn't bad by default (though I haven't been much of a fan of it) but the way it's been done comes across as spiteful like the people writing it despise everything about the source material. I know it's been said before that if you're gonna deconstruct something you need build something after that but when it comes to modern writing it seems much easier to just tear down everything that your predecessors spent years building. It's gotten to a point that subversion itself has become the norm and I find myself surprised whenever I see a story that's genuine with classic tropes and archetypes. Ironically things that were considered cliche at one time are actually subversive whenever I come across them now.

Post automatically merged: Yesterday at 12:31 PM

That is the kind of deconstruction I want to see more often, not just "lol so cringe to see people with colored suits and capes fighting each other".

I have my problems with TDKR but have a lot of respect for what Frank Miller did for the character. I think his work on Daredevil was even better with how much he expanded upon what was already there. Just like the yellow symbol example you gave for Batman I really liked the explanation he gave for Daredevil's radar sense. Something that added to the character's mythos rather than tearing it down.

 

[PrismRed]

This thread is still only on second page and I never see so much big words being thrown around this much.
Ima put it in a way so people with a mental capability of neanderthal (i.e. me) can understand.

Funny media haha, bad media awful.
If me no understand creator intent, me learn, creator and history, gud teaching.
I no have to agree, but me know and me happy, else, move on.
Ooga booga.

 

[Ikagura]

I have my problems with TDKR but have a lot of respect for what Frank Miller did for the character.

Let me guess: too verbose? That female characters have square jaws and a bit too much lipstick? Or just that an old man is able to do athletic things (I won't say that some cannot be lucky enough with genetics but Batman is still fundamentally human with ageing bones and muscles).

Frank Miller did more good things with Batman than many others I think. I'm a bit tired of modern writers "Punisher-ising" Batman and making Joker a statement about "society" than a madman who wants to push the Dark Knight into his limits to prove his point instead...

I think his work on Daredevil was even better with how much he expanded upon what was already there. Just like the yellow symbol example you gave for Batman I really liked the explanation he gave for Daredevil's radar sense. Something that added to the character's mythos rather than tearing it down.

I need to read more of his take on Daredevil then.


Some people are putting the blame on Joss Whedon (which I can understand) but his work were fitting for his settings. Adding that kind of talk to other IPs may not be appropriate.

You can make a new series that subverts or make our protagonist question themselves or their actions when it's done in a smart way. Sadly many are missing the whole meaning behind subversion and makes it a parody of itself than a series that makes the reader think.

I remember how revival Dr. Who managed to make the Doctor question himself with deep and solemn moments without being all "hahaha that old sci fi series was so weird and quirky!" but even this is slowly getting lost as the modern seasons are missing what made the show good. Ditto with Star Trek missing that optimism that Roddenberry had back then.

 

[ConanTheDestroyer]

Let me guess: too verbose? That female characters have square jaws and a bit too much lipstick? Or just that an old man is able to do athletic things (I won't say that some cannot be lucky enough with genetics but Batman is still fundamentally human with ageing bones and muscles).

Funnily enough none of those things. Just not a fan of how Superman is portrayed in it seeing as he is my favorite comic character. For that matter I've never really liked Frank Miller's portrayal of him and it seems to me Superman is one of those characters that's just not a good fit for him.

Frank Miller did more good things with Batman than many others I think. I'm a bit tired of modern writers "Punisher-ising" Batman and making Joker a statement about "society" than a madman who wants to push the Dark Knight into his limits to prove his point instead...

I agree. Rereading some bronze age Batman was really refreshing to see a Joker that wanted to best Batman and rather than be used to make a statement about society which has just been done to death at this point. And while Batman is being turned into Punisher, Punisher himself has strayed away so much from his original incarnation to the point he is unrecognizable. And that's the problem I have is that these characters have been changed so much they don't even resemble themselves, not because their characters developed authentically but more so because those writing them don't understand them.

Some people are putting the blame on Joss Whedon (which I can understand) but his work were fitting for his settings. Adding that kind of talk to other IPs may not be appropriate.

I think they took all the wrong lessons from his writing and any attempt to recreate his brand of humor just falls flat on it's face. They can have characters questioning themselves which can definitely lead to some great character development but their approach is to make the whole thing a big joke that only the writers find funny and it all turns into as you said a parody of itself.

Ditto with Star Trek missing that optimism that Roddenberry had back then.

I agree that along with the optimism old Star Trek used to have sophistication that I just didn't find in the new Star Trek. DS9 had already done interesting things with the universe without losing the core of the series. So something new definitely could've been done but new Star Trek strays so far from the core that it comes across as Star Trek in name only.