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Monday, October 21, 2019

Antihero Fatigue

The original Star Trek had as a design rule that the crew would be good and benevolent toward each other -- that the drama would be in tackling external problems, not in creating their own. A lot of 80's movies and shows had at least some of that sense, but it was all but lost in the 90's when we saw a shift to flawed characters as the bread and butter of plot development--endlessly exploring the consequences of things like selfishness and entitlement, lack of empathy, and especially poor communication. (Why are you not immediately telling the others what you just saw/learned, you idiot!? Oh, right, because that's there instead of a plot...)

I find this utterly uninspiring, and I half wonder if a whole generation has been brought up with this as their template for what people are like by default or, worse, are supposed to be like.

More to the point, I miss the benevolent, competent, heroic characters of the past. Can y'all recommend current or recent movies and shows that are good this way?

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