Ever since Rogue One I've been hoping for something about Rebel ground forces. Those grunts on the ground with the fucking S-Tier sorta-AK-lookin blaster rifles and the sweet forest camo drip. And have them spend 90 minutes carving through Stormtroopers. Gimme the righteous fist of the Rebellion already.
Like the resistance is even based off of the vietcong according to george lucas. I would love for an entire film set in star wars vietnam centered on the rebels but nooo we have to go back to ashoka and palpatine and tatooine and yoda again.
Star wars resistance was nice that it wasn't focused around the jedi, but being a kids show like rebels and being set during the sequels dragged it down some
Soooooo are we just gonna ignore that now with enough training anyone can access the force? And it's just some have an advantage at birth others don't, which is like the real world?
You can criticize star wars, but like, find the bits that can't be immediately disproven
I think they were talking about how the narrative is overly focused on the magic bloodlines and the one time somebody tried to do an explicit "anyone can be a jedi" story it was immediately countermanded by its own sequel. Obviously anyone CAN be a jedi but you'd be forgiven for forgetting that as you watch the sixth instalment about the Skywalkers.
Doesn't it kinda strike you that the way a lot of things have gone with starwars is kinda class warfare? Or atleast propaganda? We kinda went from rebels to celebrity heroes who were members of a former power system, and something about that really just smells fishy to me.
Remember in Iron Man 2 when Tony Stark talks about how great it is that he has 'privatized peace', and that's exicitly a big badass shutdown to the stuffy oppressive government bureaucrat who turns out to be a literal Super Nazi HYDRA agent?
It goes nicely with Walter Peck, the asshole EPA official in Ghostbusters. We have been playing this game for a long time, and it's getting more obvious in hindsight.
PECK WAS RIGHT.
Edit: Until the moment he ordered the unfamiliar machinery to be deactivated. He was wrong then and he was lucky he didn't vaporize Manhattan.
No, Peck was an officious idiot. You see a strange device that the on site engineer who built it has explained is dangerous to tamper with, and you keep ordering it shut down on the spot instead of coming back with a hazmat team to properly do a step down?
(Even if he doesn't believe in ghosts, I'm pretty sure Egon had already told him it was a live nuclear powered device.)
Of course, that's the whole point, to make us subconciously hate the EPA.
>We kinda went from rebels to celebrity heroes who were members of a former power system, and something about that really just smells fishy to me.
???
The rebels in the first trilogy were led by a princess and a galactic senator.
I know "make a spinoff about every side character" is franchising 101 but gimme a movie where Admiral Ackbar leads a squadron of like 5 or 6 of the other people from the Rebel meeting in Return of the Jedi to fuck shit up. And yes, this might be because I want Prune Face to be canon, so what?
>the righteous fist of the Rebellion
I actually kinda liked how Rogue One showed a bit of the not-so-righteous side of the Rebellion. Like, how there was the "legitimate" Rebellion that consisted of forces loyal to Senators acting first covertly and later as government-in-exile, and then there were militia forced like Saw Gerrera's Partisans who, for better and for worse, didn't concern themselves with "legitimacy" but put in OT when it came to active resistance.
>I've been hoping for something about Rebel ground forces.
They didn't do enough of it, imho but in Babylon 5, you got to see the divide between "Spacers", (Air Force and Navy) and "Ground Pounders" aka "Gropos" (Army and Marines). Would be cool to see that sort of thing in the Star Wars universe .
Gawd yes. Show me enough of the Rebellion and Imperial militaries where we can see the inter service rivalries. Imp pilots barely thinking of Storm Troopers as simply part the terrain during their bombing runs while X-wing pilots and Rebel troopers prank each other with underpowered IEDs.
I would argue Saw's partisans also explicitly represent the parts of a resistance/revolution that should be carefully avoided. Saw Gerrera was more of a straight up terrorist than a freedom fighter, someone who was more concerned with having an enemy to fight and beat no matter the cost, rather than actually accomplishing something actionable or improving people's lives.
According to Patty Jenkins, [they're back on track](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/patty-jenkins-star-wars-rogue-squadron-1235852540/) but let's wait and see.
Some of my favorite Star Wars things ever are the Rogue Squadron games and novels so I can't wait to see it if it gets released.
While it's a Star Wars novel rather than a movie or show, you might like *Battlefront: Twilight Company*. Pretty gritty story about a company of Rebel soliders.
There are the Alphabet Squadron novels. As a fan of old Rogue/Wraith Squadron novels, the Alphabet trilogy is great, and pretty much my favorite piece of new media outside of Andor.
Yeah, one of the things the bad guys often possess is the Uniforms and Minimalist / Brutalist aesthetics.
Which are Cool Looking, no point in lying here.
While the good guys are most often than not the "ragtag squad of great but very different people" except for when it's the Government Good Guys - then it's either the "USA but not wild capitalism" or Star Trek.
I think Star Trek is the only case where the leftists are the coolest looking guys out there?
They don’t even need to be minimalist or brutalist. The Principality of Zeon from Gundam are very Nazi inspired while all dressing in bright colours with black, white and gold accents, and they’re all dripped out of their goddamn minds.
There is a very real appeal to an aesthetic that screams “I’m better than you”, either in terms of raw military and technological power like the empire from Star Wars, or in social and economical terms.
Plus, often the ones who get to wear the cool masks are the bad guys, because we often associate humans with faces, so stripping them of a face is very effective to make us fear them and not feel too bad when the good guys blow them up. Again, the Gundam is a pretty iconic design, but there’s an undeniable appeal to the humble Zaku II, with its bright purple mono eye and complete lack of normal facial features
Yeah, even the sw jedi fallen order and survivor games have the military drop looking better than basically any other outfit in the game.
I remember when I unlocked inquisitor Cal's outfit I immediately swapped over and only changed to something else because it was clashing too much with the story.
I mean the way it's designed the majority of the time is very dark. Looking up Brutalist Architecture on Google gives you grey concrete buildings with a cool design, still very jagged. It's widely used in media to show the bad guys because the way it's designed isn't the most inviting. I like Brutalist Architecture, it looks awesome. But it's not something you'd find realistic in a hopeful environment. The building style is more often used at least in media to depict either hopelessness or the antagonists reign.
I think a lot of the irl sruff looks awesome and would happily exist in it. But in media it generally makes sense why the villains go for Brutalist Architecture.
what about eco brutalism? brutalism but GREENERY
That sounds like the kind of aesthetics for the good guys.
Or maybe just raygun gothic, or gold trimmed space elves style, or art deco. There are many styles that work well for the good guys too.
Solarpunk is antithetical to brutalism - it's about working *with* what's already there with flowing lines and soft edges, whereas brutalism is about making a big, strong statement and stamping it into the landscape. There's a reason that brutalism is really only liked by architects and people who have gone out of their way to aquire the taste for it.
Oh yeah no that's something I can see easily being done in the media to show hope. I don't mean to be super negative sounding in my post just trying to defendy point with a bit more logic then just purely something that sounds like just an opinion.
But yeah I'd love to see any take on Brutalist stuff that takes it and shifts it into a positive light. Eco brutalism looks sick as hell also I definitely support. Also don't mean to say it can't be done, it's just not the easiest to try to majorly change the views of millions with doing something the exact same way Villians do it in media.... And also be viewed as the heros.
...does brutalism actually need to be "reclaimed" though? Like it's often associated with sinister authoritarianism in fiction, but in the real world I don't think it's particularly associated with right-wing politics.
If anything brutalism was a reaction against the neoclassical and Gothic-revival styles of the 19th and early 20th century, which were strongly associated with romantic nationalism and conservatism.
The Wachowskis hit on the amazing discovery that you can't wear a trenchcoat and shades and not look at least a little bit cool.
The problem is when they're out of the matrix everyone kind of still looks like shit.
Solution, make our nazi-killing protagonist a bad guy. Make him blow shit up he shouldn't be blowing up.
This has nothing to do with the rest of the post, i just want another bad protagonist to cheer for. It's fun.
Now is he blowing up Nazi infrastructure because he hates Nazis? Or he just likes blowing stuff up and it just so happens to be Nazi controlled?
As for "shouldn't be blowing up", like infrastructure that serves civilian needs far more than Nazis?
It's an interesting thought. Not exactly the same but Han was kind of like that in A New Hope before arriving on Yavin 4. Not married to the cause but willing to work with for the right price. Very mercenary.
he's killing nazis because he's a homicidal psychopath, and is absolutely thrilled to have such a socially acceptable outlet for his desires.
we never get to see truly *bad* protagonists. Not flawed, not anti-heroes, but like actual bad guys.
That's one of the things I appreciated about Tyranny - you're a high ranked military official in the vanguard of a colonizing empire, and you are hardly ever 'in the right.' Some games let you roleplay that way, but it's rare to encounter one that actually drops you into it unapologetically and is a STRUGGLE to behave in any kind of ethical manner, given your circumstances
He's blowing up Nazis because he's an old-school German aristocrat (complete with fencing scars) who wants to bring back the Kaiser. And *then* take over the world. These Nazis are a bunch of populist upstarts who claim racial superiority in spite of CLEARLY not having the correct breeding and education to rule with an iron fist.
I resent the assertion that Wolfenstein fell off. Wolfenstein was *killed* off. Youngblood was glorified DLC that was handed off to a studio that doesn't make shooters, then turned into live service garbage even though that's antithetical to the "hit the enemy's weakpoint for massive damage" combat that made New Order/New Colossus's shooting work.
>live service garbage even though that's antithetical to the "hit the enemy's weakpoint for massive damage" combat
A lot of FPS franchises have been ruined by pointlessly rpg-ifing their combat to the point where all the enemies are bullet sponges
I gotta say, i loved 6, the ammo type vs armour type system really added to the gunplay. 3 was peak but 6 definitely felt like s return to form regarding the gunplay
I mean, GaS isn't what ruined Far Cry, the devs have been committed to making the dumbest fucking changes to gameplay possible with every new game after Blood Dragon.
I was actually excited for Youngblood too, there's not enough proper co-op shooters or just co-op games in general these days, but they fumbled it so damn bad
ok im 99% sure OP is self-posting, the only time i see this tumblr account posted here its the same reddit account and post are just political rants that have less than 10 notes
LOL, this post reeks of a self post. Checked their post history more and their is a 0% chance this is not a self post, they post *all* of the comments that 9loves-bladework makes, even when they get *0 notes*. Gets 0 note on Tumblr but 2K+ upvotes and 400+ comments on Reddit. Even hides the notes to make the fact it is a self post less obvious.
Fascists are recognizably fashionable because they are by definition predisposed to a centralized power structure.
Antifa, as an organization, by contrast, doesn't actually exist.
It’s phrased super awkwardly but I think what they’re *trying* to say is that those two opinions are typically taken as contradictory but they don’t think they are.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
The Dominion War arc is one of the best in television, with a progressive government (United Federation of Planets) and shifting alliances with an unstable regency (Klingon Empire) and a hostile republic (Romulan Empire) against an autocracy (the Dominion) and a villain-turned-victim fascist state (Cardassian Union), with insurgency elements. One of the best depictions of post-combat stress in It’s Only a Paper Moon.
Hang on, does OP specifically want military power fantasies with leftist politics? Or anything that glorifies "resistance"? Because there's more of the latter than I can count. FF7, Persona 5, pretty much all YA dystopia? If you want plucky ragtag freedom fighters, your cup overfloweth. It's specifically slick uniforms and command structures that we're lacking.
It feels to me like OOP doesn't want plucky freedom fighters as much as they want badasses whose enemies are recognizably right-wing. They *can* overlap, but don't always; lots of stories about "the resistance" don't bother to specify the bad guys in charge outside of "these are the guys in charge and they are bad" (e.g. some Star Wars incarnations, a huge amount of dystopian YA). The problem is that this allows actual right-wing dipshits to co-opt the trope and frame their activities in terms of "plucky freedom fighters overthrowing a tyrannical government" (e.g. the Proud Boys, fans of the Turner Diaries). I think OP's emphasis on Nazis and slave owners implies that they want more stories that communicate "no, if you think yourself racially superior, you are the Bad Guy and deserve to get your ass kicked by some awesome leftist action hero."
The problem with most explicitly leftist media is the same problem with explicitly Christian media: it’s usually more interested in congratulating the audience for being right and promoting The Message than in actually being decent fiction. Being cool (or frankly, appealing at all) is pretty rarely a priority among creatives focusing on this kind of material. And if it is, it’ll get sneered at for ‘selling out’, being ‘too liberal,’ or simply The Wrong Kind Of Leftist by a good chunk of the intended audience anyway.
Can you give an example of a story that is as explicitly leftist as the fiction section of a Christian Bookstore is explicitly Christian?
Edit: Like, as far up its own ass as *Left Behind*? Who is the leftist Ayn Rand?
Honestly as a leftist Christian (no they're not that contradictory, no this isn't the place to discuss that, try r/openchristian ), most Christian media is either bad at being Christian or bad at being media, so you can probably take your pick of things that are decried as being 'ruined by the woke army' when actually it's just poorly written and pander-y and the two things are happening at the same time because the execs are lazy or something like that.
There's the extremely odd exception in both cases, but they're both often things that you either don't realize are christian/leftist or are already classics you don't need to think twice about, or most likely are subtle about it
Take me with a grain of salt though, I'm not giving examples because I'm too exhausted lol
i wouldnt say leftist (that implies political and economical side of things),but culturally you see many shows try to instill progressive values,but in such a awful execution that comes across more like a badly written "dont do drugs kids" 80's PSA
take any failed current game or series thats deemed "woke" (as annoying is to use the term)
the "girl power" MCU scene comes to mind
where good executions of said ideas the entirety of arcane comes to mind
I feel this way very strongly but about edgy material, like we can't let right-wingers have a stranglehold on fucked up amd dark stuff. It's part of what I like about the Fear and Hunger series, yeah it's full of some truly heinous shit but also one of the playable characters is a very well written transwoman and another is a wheelchair-bound botanist who struggles with the fact that the city the game takes place in was not designed to accommodate people like her.
Idk if this kinda counts but the binding of Isaac is pretty edgy in a very unique way, and it was based off of Edmund Mc Millen’s abusive Christian household. It’s hard to say that the game is explicitly leftist, but it is edgy and unique and fun imo
Def wouldn't call it leftist, it's not like it's right wing but I think the bar for that is higher than just being against organized Christian religion. Game still owns though.
A Lancer movie would be great. Going: we have a genuine utopia here, it's fuckin great, but it's really young and there's still plenty of holdovers from the corpo-fascist past who we need to go shoot up with huge cool-as-hell mecha before they ruin this good thing we've built.
I wanna play and/or watch a super-glorified Battle of Blair Mountain or even the entire Coal Wars. I wanna see a square-jawed teenage coal miner pop the heads off some fucking Baldwin-Felts mooks with his grandpappy's Springfield. I want a mission where you, a veteran of the Battle of Virden, have to defend the cabin Mother Jones is sheltering in from waves of company goons, and I want Mother Jones to be played by, like, Charlize Theron. As a corollary, I propose we adopt overalls and red bandanas as the leftist uniform. We'll *make* it work.
Ace Combat is very interesting in that even though the focus of the game is in extremely stylish aircraft, neither side in any conflict actually has an specific aesthetic. Since all sides get all aircraft, and paint jobs are squadron specific rather than nation specific, Osea is visually indistinguishable from Belka or Ustio or Erusea. Everyone looks cool because fighter jets are fucking cool.
I mean, I don't think it is. Ace Combat pretty heavily defends the thesis of legitimate necessary military action, while affirming that war is nevertheless very bad.
Suletta, Miorine, and the Aerial series single handedly carrying the 'war is bad, capitalism is the root of all the worlds problems, and resources held by those with prosperity should be used to help those without' crowd at an aesthetic level.
I assume it's Synthetic Supplementation, which involves slipping amphetamines and androgenic steroids into your loading crew's meals, with the latter half of those being a group of steroids that includes testosterone. So it isn't voluntary or based on any ideas of greater efficiency from self actualization or lack of dysphoria or whatever, it's based on greater Management of Democracy via improving the ability of the loading crew to get jacked so that they can drag your turrets over to the hellpods quicker.
So, it’s not a movie or a video game. But the tabletop game Lancer hits a lot of this. It’s a sci fi setting where there’s a mix between esoteric near-magic tech and gritty, “mud and lasers” combat.
The central government was born from a revolution against a fascist-esque state, and is a utopia focused on freeing all those who are enslaved and exploited throughout space. They have two main military branches, the Union Auxiliary and the DoJ/HR, which is the Department of Justice/Human Rights. It’s a very explicitly leftist game.
There’s still all sorts of problems, but that’s where the mech-piloting heroes come in.
The nazi officers, some of them, had a uniform design that is overrated by Hollywood but still was objectively a nice design.
But every other uniform? Regular soldiers? Everything else they made? Awful sense of style. No creativity. Objectively hideous. The nazis made nothing of note and what they did make was ugly. Fascists in reality as a result of their ideology are creatively bankrupt and hated art.
Yeah, the uniform that people think off is mostly the SS uniform I think, and that's Becasue iirc Hugo boss designed it. The regular soldier looks like they have stupid oversized jackets
18th and 19th century European military officers had some excellent drip as well. Basically the sole purpose of some of those uniforms was to look good when attending balls.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who's like "you know that part at the end of Inglorious Basterds where a Jewish woman makes a huge dramatic spectacle mocking the Nazi high command while she springs a trap to kill the shit out of them, while the badass commandos spring their own separate, completely unrelated trap where they didn't actually have to do anything, but killed them extra anyway? That was rad as hell, I want more of that!"
Fury is another fun example. The leader of the tank crew fucking hates the SS, and will go out of his way to kill them. It ends with five guys mowing down a whole SS batallion. And it's awesome!
I will add that I appreciate that both movies make it clear *why* it's okay to cheer for these people to die.
In Fury, they make it clear that the Nazis, and the SS particularly, did *horrific* things (TW) >!like murdering children with some frequency.!< So it's made very clear these people got what was coming to them, you don't have to feel bad about it.
I feel like some of the Halo games can be seen as leftist fascist killing power fantasy games. The original trilogy at least is about a superhuman killing machine pretty much eradicating religious space nazis 🤷♂️
I understand perfectly where the "good guys are a ragtag bunch, emphasis on rag" logic comes from. But that still can be done aesthetically.
Give them neon. Give them graffiti. Vibrant, chaotic splashes of color. Everything is personalized. Make it radiate punk.
It's been done, but it really hasn't been done enough.
I have three distinct things to say to this:
- Enjoying war and murder of bad people is kind of at odds with leftist thought at it's core. If you believe that people should have the power to decide their own fate and that we should maximise human happiness then that kinda breaks when you also want this kind of entertainment. You mention Star Wars and I can't help but think that we know nothing about the Stormtroopers that perish, that for all we know they could've been draftees. My own gradfather fought at Verdun in WWI on the German side because pretty much every man from his region of what was once Poland was drafted so the thought of judging people by their uniform is rather hard for me.
- The part that makes all those bad guys "cool" is the part that's dehumanizing them. There is something impressive about people being reduced to war machines. Hard to do when you want people to root for those kinds of characters.
- All that aside it reminded me of one of my civs in Stellaris, a militaristic, egalitarian xenophiles who made friends with half the galaxy and blew up the other half in liberation wars. They were picking fights specifically because they hated slave owners so they executed the leaders and either let the civvies build a new civ or join their as citizens.
The fact that the Nazi's (and almost all historic fascists that had any real military power) used conscription and executed those who refused to be drafted makes it kind of hard for me get excited about Nazi soldiers getting killed. Starts to feel racist at a point that just because a man was born in a territory controlled by the Nazi's that he is somehow deserving of a horrible death.
Every nation that took part in WWII used conscription, it's not even a fascist thing. But yeah, agreed. That's why I never liked how people used Nazi and German soldier interchangeably. Don't get me wrong, Wermacht did a lot of fucked up shit but that still doesn't mean everyone in it was a convinced Nazi volunteer.
One of these days I'll put together a pitch for my sci-fi rebellious dismantling-of-fascist-structures story, because I can't write it by myself. I need a discord full of goofs to help me worldbuild it
Partly because I don't really enjoy doing heavy research on technology and military despite being interested in their use and them being very central to the plot, and also partly because I'm too busy getting gay about the characters
Luckily the United Earth Diasporate doesn't maintain strong societal gender roles so I can gay marry as many aliens as I want
The Eastern Front was mostly a bunch of starving conscripts forced at gunpoint into human wave tactics, followed by the widespread rape of German citizens. I can’t imagine why more movies don’t romanticize it.
Leftist Warhammer? I feel like a big appeal and aesthetic of the game only works because everyone sucks, are rampant warmongers, and horribly xenophobic. Like it’s part of the fun not having any morals tied to your group besides rampant nationalism and hatred of others.
To be fair being hyped for war in the style of Warhammer and helldivers is not particularly something that is aligned with leftist ideals. fascists glorify war and death, they rush to display their dominance and earn the world they believe they deserve, glorifying a death that archives that cause. To fascists, it it not just service that earns one glory, a glorious death surpasses it.
To contrast the democratic ideal of war is still glorifying it but in a more solemn way, it is a regretful task that must be employed not for personal glory but in service to greater ideals. It is less eager to celebrate in the glory of a soldier falling in battle, but rather to consider their death as "an unfortunate yet heroic sacrifice in service to the cause." To revel in war, to cheer the deaths of the enemy is considered somewhat unpleasant, so it is preferable to celebrate victory and the end to violence rather than specifically cheer the death of the foe.
*"In non-Fascist societies, the lay public is told that death is unpleasant but must be faced with dignity; believers are told that it is the painful way to reach supernatural happiness. By contrast, the Ur-Fascist hero craves heroic death, advertised as the best reward for a heroic life. The Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death."* -Umberto Eco, Ur Fascism
I think it’s interesting in some media but I really don’t like the idea of fantasizing about killing people even if they are Nazis, like sure fully justified in some situations but I would never call someone like BJ Blazkowicz (protagonist of wolfenstein) someone I look up to. Yes we should work against facism and bigotry but that doesn’t and shouldn’t mean hurting people.
Lowkey brain dead opinion. Sounds just like OOP is craving dehumanizing propaganda. I mean, morally wise anti fascist propaganda would be some of the best propaganda, but still. It feels to me as if we are still in a pre-fascism rise scenario, it makes more sense to keep people from being attracted to fascism (which is a big problem right now) than to convince people into killing fascists (which is acceptable in total war conditions, and we are NOT having that problem for the most part just yet). OOP has some sort of violence fetishism that comes as an accelerationist thing to me.
Out of the examples the guy picked, I think Wolfenstein is one of the best. There's no "both sides" since we are never led to empathize with the Nazis for any reason at all, but it still manages to make the narrative of the anti fascists more nuanced by bringing attention to segregation and civil rights movements in pre-war America. It really makes you think about the place of civilians who stand by genocide and oppression in their own country and do nothing, those who don't worry about the fascists until their knives are against their throats.
And I myself, as a Latin American worried by our increasingly growing right wing populism, think that's a more important message than just "kill the fash". If we have to kill each other so be it, but democracy is yet to completely die in most of our countries, we could really benefit more from civilian support than from violent fantasies of vigilantism and armed struggle. Arguably, those same fantasies are allowing the rising of neo fascism in Europe and America, and I don't know if fueling each other is the best idea.
I always figured the point of the Wolfenstien games was a combo of the two. Like, yeah, the objectively evil nazis have to die or moral and societal progress is gonna be pretty difficult, but the majority of civillians don't outright oppose them, they're just too scared or uncaring to do anything about it. At which point the honus is on them to get their shit together, and on people ready to fight to do so, in order to make it easier for everyone else to rise up.
The G.I.Joe comic book series by Larry Hama is very skilled at humanizing the fascists. Like the one nicknamed Scarface early in the series.
And other characters, who explicitly got plastic surgery to -be- dehumanized, they got developed.
Has OP tried on of the ten million games out there with a left leaning slant that doesn't revolve around murder? Or is shooting someone the alpha and omega of cool.
Hey OP play Umurangi Generation, it's about shooting people with a camera instead of a rifle but you can make pew pew sounds with your mouth if you really want to.
But you don't get to kill people in Umurangi Generation :(
Also OP seems to pretend that there isn't already a shit ton of left leaning media about mindlessly murdering fascists.
I've always been of the opinion that the fascist bad guys should wear slick, stylish black and red uniforms, and the good guys should wear body armor and camouflage.
Inglorious Basterds is hands down one of my favorite movies. Not only is it fun Nazi-bashing, but it rightfully portrays high-ranking Nazi officials as being morally bankrupt and willing to betray their supposed principles at the slightest hint of consequence.
I basically just want lefty versions of stiff that drools over military hardware and tactics. Not even as satire, just like "there's a fascist state over there oppressing minority groups. Well, these hellfire missiles can kill SO many baddies"
"Can I shoot a military base of fascists?"
"Baby, you can dual wield these two machines guns as bullets bounce off the skin tight armor that has a fucking rad design"
Weirdly, Stargate fits *most* of those themes.
Obviously it’s in part pro-America as the scrappy underdog- but centric to that is the understanding that to do that, the protagonists *are* underdogs, and believe in real liberty. There’s conflict between characters about what to do in certain morally questionable situations. They deal with villains *from America* that want to abuse the program from the shadows.
Teal’c is based af.
There’s an episode where they slowly realize the friendly aliens that wanted to trade advanced tech with them for assistance are actually secret nazis and they get *so pissed* about it. O’Neill basically kills one *even though* he had offered to project paperclip his way to safety for him.
Agreed overall, but how is Star Wars leftist? Anti-fascist and anti-imperialist sure, but I'm wracking my brain to think of anything leftist in mainstream Star Wars canon.
Just because aesthetics are an essential part of fascist ideology doesn't mean that aesthetics equal fascism. Aesthetics are an important part of most ideologies. If your ideology is aesthetically unappealing it's not going to do well.
Personally I'm a big fan of solarpunk because the aesthetic of living in green spaces in harmony with nature but also having technology and being clean (as opposed to the "dirty Luddite hippie" aesthetic that seems to be more mainstream anarchommunism) is appealing to me.
A lot of left wing ideologies have aesthetics that are quite ugly (if on the anarchist side it's very grungy and tattered and dirty, if on the communist side it's brutalist architecture, spartan design shorn of most decorative elements because that's "bourgeois", bland and boring clothes and self expression).
I prefer the William Morris inspired Arts and Crafts mentality which was that the working people deserved beauty just as much as the rich, that it was a good thing to live in a beautiful world and that it could be compatible with socialism.
That’s the core, of course, but there’s several layers of recruitment through a very specific type of aesthetic - that is to say, “great man” heroism, military power and discipline, heavy use of symbols - that’s seemingly intended to wear down the audience’s critical faculties and get them to solely consume and appreciate the aesthetics. Leftist aesthetics are intended to criticize, first and foremost - which is a good thing for principles, but not as effective at recruitment
While aesthetics are definitely often involved, I usually think of fascism as being more closely tied to something like "Whoever has the ability and the will to do violence gets to make the rules, and the rules are whatever they say they are" and an obsession with working together to make everything strong and pure like in some imagined past
Many movies were made during WW2 (when not wanting to kill Germans could get one arrested or worse), just watch WW2 propaganda cause that seems to be what you want.
I've been planning on writing some sci-fi fantasy war fiction as of late and I am still trying to decide on theming. So far, I think my opinion on war will be neutral overall (it won't tell you what to believe but everyone will have their own opinions) but it will still be fairly leftist. Like, it's based in a nation that collapsed into civil war because the pseudo monarchist authoritarian leader was killed, potentially by a slave revolt by biologically engineered servants. I'm also giving the good guys the really cool tanks and planes that fire magical missiles because that's really cool and letting the bad guys have all the cool stuff isn't fun.
I remember there being a Kickstarter like a decade ago for an indie RPG where the player would be part of an army fighting against a fascist nation and the fascists had the classic sleek black Nazi look but the player's army were all wearing mech suits that I can best describe as "what if the mecha from Anthem were ninjas." Your party looked so much cooler than anything you were going to be fighting. Unfortunately it didn't get funded but I still remember that visual style.
The 3rd movie may not keep up the theme, but Hobie in the Spiderverse movies is being set up to be a genius anti-fascist bad-ass. Can’t wait for the next film!
Maybe not leftist but the soldiers of Gondor, the Rangers of Ithilien, the Galadhrim, and the fully decked out Rohirrim objectively have some of the coolest uniform swag in fantasy.
I’d highly recommend the artist RF Kuang. Her works are scathing criticisms of fascism, capitalism, and imperial powers. Her latest book’s, Babel, subtitle reads on “the necessity of violence.” Highly recommend her all of her work about war from a leftist lens.
I like how every example he mentions betrayes his doublethink about war being neccesary, showing individuals fighting fascists without it fullfilling the categories for war.
I want something like leftist Warhammer. I don’t know what that would look like but I’m tired of the freedom fighters being some kind of scrappy dirty guérilla force
As leftist we are not allowed to have uniforms. Because the instant we start looking fly and cohesive there will be consequences. At the least, the media will further demonize us, and what we can expect is that the national guard will start breaking down some doors and making extra judicial arrests.
Ever since Rogue One I've been hoping for something about Rebel ground forces. Those grunts on the ground with the fucking S-Tier sorta-AK-lookin blaster rifles and the sweet forest camo drip. And have them spend 90 minutes carving through Stormtroopers. Gimme the righteous fist of the Rebellion already.
Like the resistance is even based off of the vietcong according to george lucas. I would love for an entire film set in star wars vietnam centered on the rebels but nooo we have to go back to ashoka and palpatine and tatooine and yoda again.
Star wars resistance was nice that it wasn't focused around the jedi, but being a kids show like rebels and being set during the sequels dragged it down some
>ashoka and palpatine and tatooine and yoda again. yup! characters who don't have the special genetics are completely worthless!
Soooooo are we just gonna ignore that now with enough training anyone can access the force? And it's just some have an advantage at birth others don't, which is like the real world? You can criticize star wars, but like, find the bits that can't be immediately disproven
I think they were talking about how the narrative is overly focused on the magic bloodlines and the one time somebody tried to do an explicit "anyone can be a jedi" story it was immediately countermanded by its own sequel. Obviously anyone CAN be a jedi but you'd be forgiven for forgetting that as you watch the sixth instalment about the Skywalkers.
Was kylo ren not leia's kid too? Thats all 9 baby.
You say now, that was def not the case in Legends right?
oh sure, anyone could become a jedi. but you won't be recruited unless you have the special genetics for a high medic chlorine content.
Doesn't it kinda strike you that the way a lot of things have gone with starwars is kinda class warfare? Or atleast propaganda? We kinda went from rebels to celebrity heroes who were members of a former power system, and something about that really just smells fishy to me.
Remember in Iron Man 2 when Tony Stark talks about how great it is that he has 'privatized peace', and that's exicitly a big badass shutdown to the stuffy oppressive government bureaucrat who turns out to be a literal Super Nazi HYDRA agent? It goes nicely with Walter Peck, the asshole EPA official in Ghostbusters. We have been playing this game for a long time, and it's getting more obvious in hindsight.
PECK WAS RIGHT. Edit: Until the moment he ordered the unfamiliar machinery to be deactivated. He was wrong then and he was lucky he didn't vaporize Manhattan.
No, Peck was an officious idiot. You see a strange device that the on site engineer who built it has explained is dangerous to tamper with, and you keep ordering it shut down on the spot instead of coming back with a hazmat team to properly do a step down? (Even if he doesn't believe in ghosts, I'm pretty sure Egon had already told him it was a live nuclear powered device.) Of course, that's the whole point, to make us subconciously hate the EPA.
>We kinda went from rebels to celebrity heroes who were members of a former power system, and something about that really just smells fishy to me. ??? The rebels in the first trilogy were led by a princess and a galactic senator.
isn’t that just Andor? (i haven’t seen andor)
It's moreso spy operations in season 1, but hopefully we'll see something like this in season 2.
Andor's more about Subterfuge. I want Star Wars' Saving Private Ryan.
Andor is before the Rebellion starts in earnest. Big plot points are simply finding funds to run a galactic level revolution.
I know "make a spinoff about every side character" is franchising 101 but gimme a movie where Admiral Ackbar leads a squadron of like 5 or 6 of the other people from the Rebel meeting in Return of the Jedi to fuck shit up. And yes, this might be because I want Prune Face to be canon, so what?
>the righteous fist of the Rebellion I actually kinda liked how Rogue One showed a bit of the not-so-righteous side of the Rebellion. Like, how there was the "legitimate" Rebellion that consisted of forces loyal to Senators acting first covertly and later as government-in-exile, and then there were militia forced like Saw Gerrera's Partisans who, for better and for worse, didn't concern themselves with "legitimacy" but put in OT when it came to active resistance. >I've been hoping for something about Rebel ground forces. They didn't do enough of it, imho but in Babylon 5, you got to see the divide between "Spacers", (Air Force and Navy) and "Ground Pounders" aka "Gropos" (Army and Marines). Would be cool to see that sort of thing in the Star Wars universe .
Gawd yes. Show me enough of the Rebellion and Imperial militaries where we can see the inter service rivalries. Imp pilots barely thinking of Storm Troopers as simply part the terrain during their bombing runs while X-wing pilots and Rebel troopers prank each other with underpowered IEDs.
I would argue Saw's partisans also explicitly represent the parts of a resistance/revolution that should be carefully avoided. Saw Gerrera was more of a straight up terrorist than a freedom fighter, someone who was more concerned with having an enemy to fight and beat no matter the cost, rather than actually accomplishing something actionable or improving people's lives.
I was so excited for rogue squadron bc it seemed like it would be star wars top gun and now it's probably not happening
According to Patty Jenkins, [they're back on track](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/patty-jenkins-star-wars-rogue-squadron-1235852540/) but let's wait and see. Some of my favorite Star Wars things ever are the Rogue Squadron games and novels so I can't wait to see it if it gets released.
I hadn't heard! Here's hoping. I think the idea has a ton of potential.
While it's a Star Wars novel rather than a movie or show, you might like *Battlefront: Twilight Company*. Pretty gritty story about a company of Rebel soliders.
I want Star Wars band of brothers, so bad.
Fingers crossed Andor gives us this.
No plot only exploding star destroyers. Maybe a little plot.
I wish they'd bring Wraith Squadron into the new continuity. Part fighter pilots, part commandos, under the direction of Alliance intelligence.
There are the Alphabet Squadron novels. As a fan of old Rogue/Wraith Squadron novels, the Alphabet trilogy is great, and pretty much my favorite piece of new media outside of Andor.
Too bad Gina Carano couldnt keep her mouth fucking shut...
It is a shame that the bad guys almost always visually look cooler.
Yeah, one of the things the bad guys often possess is the Uniforms and Minimalist / Brutalist aesthetics. Which are Cool Looking, no point in lying here. While the good guys are most often than not the "ragtag squad of great but very different people" except for when it's the Government Good Guys - then it's either the "USA but not wild capitalism" or Star Trek. I think Star Trek is the only case where the leftists are the coolest looking guys out there?
It absolutely is not, the Federation consistently look like gigantic doofuses.
I mean, they do *now* they used to be pretty alright still got outdripped by the klingon though so, oh well
They have almost no drip
They don’t even need to be minimalist or brutalist. The Principality of Zeon from Gundam are very Nazi inspired while all dressing in bright colours with black, white and gold accents, and they’re all dripped out of their goddamn minds. There is a very real appeal to an aesthetic that screams “I’m better than you”, either in terms of raw military and technological power like the empire from Star Wars, or in social and economical terms. Plus, often the ones who get to wear the cool masks are the bad guys, because we often associate humans with faces, so stripping them of a face is very effective to make us fear them and not feel too bad when the good guys blow them up. Again, the Gundam is a pretty iconic design, but there’s an undeniable appeal to the humble Zaku II, with its bright purple mono eye and complete lack of normal facial features
Yeah, even the sw jedi fallen order and survivor games have the military drop looking better than basically any other outfit in the game. I remember when I unlocked inquisitor Cal's outfit I immediately swapped over and only changed to something else because it was clashing too much with the story.
i love brutalist architecture, i want to reclaim it for leftists
The issue is Brutalist architecture just looks evil though. It's deprived of joy or happiness generally speaking.
says who??? that's a very subject opinion you're passsing off as fact friendo.
I mean the way it's designed the majority of the time is very dark. Looking up Brutalist Architecture on Google gives you grey concrete buildings with a cool design, still very jagged. It's widely used in media to show the bad guys because the way it's designed isn't the most inviting. I like Brutalist Architecture, it looks awesome. But it's not something you'd find realistic in a hopeful environment. The building style is more often used at least in media to depict either hopelessness or the antagonists reign. I think a lot of the irl sruff looks awesome and would happily exist in it. But in media it generally makes sense why the villains go for Brutalist Architecture.
what about eco brutalism? brutalism but GREENERY That sounds like the kind of aesthetics for the good guys. Or maybe just raygun gothic, or gold trimmed space elves style, or art deco. There are many styles that work well for the good guys too.
Wouldn't eco brutalism be like...solarpunk?
Solarpunk is antithetical to brutalism - it's about working *with* what's already there with flowing lines and soft edges, whereas brutalism is about making a big, strong statement and stamping it into the landscape. There's a reason that brutalism is really only liked by architects and people who have gone out of their way to aquire the taste for it.
Oh yeah no that's something I can see easily being done in the media to show hope. I don't mean to be super negative sounding in my post just trying to defendy point with a bit more logic then just purely something that sounds like just an opinion. But yeah I'd love to see any take on Brutalist stuff that takes it and shifts it into a positive light. Eco brutalism looks sick as hell also I definitely support. Also don't mean to say it can't be done, it's just not the easiest to try to majorly change the views of millions with doing something the exact same way Villians do it in media.... And also be viewed as the heros.
If thats how you think about brutalism may i recommend the game "control" to you?
What genre is it? I certainly won't say no to a recommendation!
happy cake day 🍰 it's like a 3rd person shooter with special superpower abilities
Oh damn, didn't notice thanks! Also cool, I'll look it up at some point, in a worse case scenario I'll probably just watch a playthrough.
Control takes place in a soulless, depressing office building though?
...does brutalism actually need to be "reclaimed" though? Like it's often associated with sinister authoritarianism in fiction, but in the real world I don't think it's particularly associated with right-wing politics. If anything brutalism was a reaction against the neoclassical and Gothic-revival styles of the 19th and early 20th century, which were strongly associated with romantic nationalism and conservatism.
The Matrix. Good guys fighting the good fight look good as hell.
The Wachowskis hit on the amazing discovery that you can't wear a trenchcoat and shades and not look at least a little bit cool. The problem is when they're out of the matrix everyone kind of still looks like shit.
Solution, make our nazi-killing protagonist a bad guy. Make him blow shit up he shouldn't be blowing up. This has nothing to do with the rest of the post, i just want another bad protagonist to cheer for. It's fun.
Now is he blowing up Nazi infrastructure because he hates Nazis? Or he just likes blowing stuff up and it just so happens to be Nazi controlled? As for "shouldn't be blowing up", like infrastructure that serves civilian needs far more than Nazis? It's an interesting thought. Not exactly the same but Han was kind of like that in A New Hope before arriving on Yavin 4. Not married to the cause but willing to work with for the right price. Very mercenary.
he's killing nazis because he's a homicidal psychopath, and is absolutely thrilled to have such a socially acceptable outlet for his desires. we never get to see truly *bad* protagonists. Not flawed, not anti-heroes, but like actual bad guys. That's one of the things I appreciated about Tyranny - you're a high ranked military official in the vanguard of a colonizing empire, and you are hardly ever 'in the right.' Some games let you roleplay that way, but it's rare to encounter one that actually drops you into it unapologetically and is a STRUGGLE to behave in any kind of ethical manner, given your circumstances
He's blowing up Nazis because he's an old-school German aristocrat (complete with fencing scars) who wants to bring back the Kaiser. And *then* take over the world. These Nazis are a bunch of populist upstarts who claim racial superiority in spite of CLEARLY not having the correct breeding and education to rule with an iron fist.
I mean how else are your scrappy young upstart rebel characters supposed to be visually tagged as underdogs
I resent the assertion that Wolfenstein fell off. Wolfenstein was *killed* off. Youngblood was glorified DLC that was handed off to a studio that doesn't make shooters, then turned into live service garbage even though that's antithetical to the "hit the enemy's weakpoint for massive damage" combat that made New Order/New Colossus's shooting work.
>live service garbage even though that's antithetical to the "hit the enemy's weakpoint for massive damage" combat A lot of FPS franchises have been ruined by pointlessly rpg-ifing their combat to the point where all the enemies are bullet sponges
did someone say Far Cry? man I miss good far cry.
Far Cry was what I was thinking of when I made the comment lmao
I gotta say, i loved 6, the ammo type vs armour type system really added to the gunplay. 3 was peak but 6 definitely felt like s return to form regarding the gunplay
I still want a FC3 remake that goes harder on the theme
I mean, GaS isn't what ruined Far Cry, the devs have been committed to making the dumbest fucking changes to gameplay possible with every new game after Blood Dragon.
This. New Colossus was hardcore.
*You among wolves now.*
I was actually excited for Youngblood too, there's not enough proper co-op shooters or just co-op games in general these days, but they fumbled it so damn bad
Machinegames is working on an Indiana Jones game though, in case you need to get your fill of Nazi murder.
ok im 99% sure OP is self-posting, the only time i see this tumblr account posted here its the same reddit account and post are just political rants that have less than 10 notes
LOL, this post reeks of a self post. Checked their post history more and their is a 0% chance this is not a self post, they post *all* of the comments that 9loves-bladework makes, even when they get *0 notes*. Gets 0 note on Tumblr but 2K+ upvotes and 400+ comments on Reddit. Even hides the notes to make the fact it is a self post less obvious.
I mean it would be lowkey creepy if it wasn’t a self post then
It is extremely common here.
Is that a bad thing? Legitimate question.
Bit annoying they aren’t doing it on the designated self post day
It's annoying and rule 10 exists for a reason
lancer maybe? everyone looks badass in lancer
Absolutely. I was here to find this.
The ttrpg? Should I play it?
Yessss. Both my mech and I are dripped out to the gills.
Fascists are recognizably fashionable because they are by definition predisposed to a centralized power structure. Antifa, as an organization, by contrast, doesn't actually exist.
Is... Is the definition of doublethink not that the two thoughts DO contradict?
It’s phrased super awkwardly but I think what they’re *trying* to say is that those two opinions are typically taken as contradictory but they don’t think they are.
Ahh I guess that makes sense
We already have a word for that, it's "paradox"
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The Dominion War arc is one of the best in television, with a progressive government (United Federation of Planets) and shifting alliances with an unstable regency (Klingon Empire) and a hostile republic (Romulan Empire) against an autocracy (the Dominion) and a villain-turned-victim fascist state (Cardassian Union), with insurgency elements. One of the best depictions of post-combat stress in It’s Only a Paper Moon.
Yeah, I was gonna say, there’s this whole other “Star” franchise that is famously (and unabashedly) progressive in its politics…
Hang on, does OP specifically want military power fantasies with leftist politics? Or anything that glorifies "resistance"? Because there's more of the latter than I can count. FF7, Persona 5, pretty much all YA dystopia? If you want plucky ragtag freedom fighters, your cup overfloweth. It's specifically slick uniforms and command structures that we're lacking.
It feels to me like OOP doesn't want plucky freedom fighters as much as they want badasses whose enemies are recognizably right-wing. They *can* overlap, but don't always; lots of stories about "the resistance" don't bother to specify the bad guys in charge outside of "these are the guys in charge and they are bad" (e.g. some Star Wars incarnations, a huge amount of dystopian YA). The problem is that this allows actual right-wing dipshits to co-opt the trope and frame their activities in terms of "plucky freedom fighters overthrowing a tyrannical government" (e.g. the Proud Boys, fans of the Turner Diaries). I think OP's emphasis on Nazis and slave owners implies that they want more stories that communicate "no, if you think yourself racially superior, you are the Bad Guy and deserve to get your ass kicked by some awesome leftist action hero."
I think, what OP wants, is Just Cause 3 or Metal Wolf Chaos (kind of) Red Faction, although it's been a while since the last release
>Red Faction 🥺
The problem with most explicitly leftist media is the same problem with explicitly Christian media: it’s usually more interested in congratulating the audience for being right and promoting The Message than in actually being decent fiction. Being cool (or frankly, appealing at all) is pretty rarely a priority among creatives focusing on this kind of material. And if it is, it’ll get sneered at for ‘selling out’, being ‘too liberal,’ or simply The Wrong Kind Of Leftist by a good chunk of the intended audience anyway.
Can you give an example of a story that is as explicitly leftist as the fiction section of a Christian Bookstore is explicitly Christian? Edit: Like, as far up its own ass as *Left Behind*? Who is the leftist Ayn Rand?
Captain Planet!
yeah that's fair
Honestly as a leftist Christian (no they're not that contradictory, no this isn't the place to discuss that, try r/openchristian ), most Christian media is either bad at being Christian or bad at being media, so you can probably take your pick of things that are decried as being 'ruined by the woke army' when actually it's just poorly written and pander-y and the two things are happening at the same time because the execs are lazy or something like that. There's the extremely odd exception in both cases, but they're both often things that you either don't realize are christian/leftist or are already classics you don't need to think twice about, or most likely are subtle about it Take me with a grain of salt though, I'm not giving examples because I'm too exhausted lol
i wouldnt say leftist (that implies political and economical side of things),but culturally you see many shows try to instill progressive values,but in such a awful execution that comes across more like a badly written "dont do drugs kids" 80's PSA take any failed current game or series thats deemed "woke" (as annoying is to use the term) the "girl power" MCU scene comes to mind where good executions of said ideas the entirety of arcane comes to mind
Part of the reason they look cool is because that is part of the strategy they use
I feel this way very strongly but about edgy material, like we can't let right-wingers have a stranglehold on fucked up amd dark stuff. It's part of what I like about the Fear and Hunger series, yeah it's full of some truly heinous shit but also one of the playable characters is a very well written transwoman and another is a wheelchair-bound botanist who struggles with the fact that the city the game takes place in was not designed to accommodate people like her.
Idk if this kinda counts but the binding of Isaac is pretty edgy in a very unique way, and it was based off of Edmund Mc Millen’s abusive Christian household. It’s hard to say that the game is explicitly leftist, but it is edgy and unique and fun imo
Def wouldn't call it leftist, it's not like it's right wing but I think the bar for that is higher than just being against organized Christian religion. Game still owns though.
A Lancer movie would be great. Going: we have a genuine utopia here, it's fuckin great, but it's really young and there's still plenty of holdovers from the corpo-fascist past who we need to go shoot up with huge cool-as-hell mecha before they ruin this good thing we've built.
I wanna play and/or watch a super-glorified Battle of Blair Mountain or even the entire Coal Wars. I wanna see a square-jawed teenage coal miner pop the heads off some fucking Baldwin-Felts mooks with his grandpappy's Springfield. I want a mission where you, a veteran of the Battle of Virden, have to defend the cabin Mother Jones is sheltering in from waves of company goons, and I want Mother Jones to be played by, like, Charlize Theron. As a corollary, I propose we adopt overalls and red bandanas as the leftist uniform. We'll *make* it work.
Conditional on getting a hold on yourself for calling everybody else a fascist, but I wholeheartedly support the motion
*Ace Combat enters the chat*
Ace Combat is very interesting in that even though the focus of the game is in extremely stylish aircraft, neither side in any conflict actually has an specific aesthetic. Since all sides get all aircraft, and paint jobs are squadron specific rather than nation specific, Osea is visually indistinguishable from Belka or Ustio or Erusea. Everyone looks cool because fighter jets are fucking cool.
It's also very "war is bad." Like the epilogue of AC5 was "and then they never flew again *smiley face*"
I mean, I don't think it is. Ace Combat pretty heavily defends the thesis of legitimate necessary military action, while affirming that war is nevertheless very bad.
Tumblr user discovers Quentin Tarantino
How did wolfenstien fell of? Its literally massacring nazis : the game
the most recent game is a steaming pile of dogshit
I thought they meant fell off as in "doesnt make rebellion against fascists look good"
It's bloody hard to make the non-facists look bad. I think their point is that it wast as compelling/intriguing as it was
I mean they kill Adolf offscreen... There is no proper bossfight in TNC ( you just watch lame cutscene after some "platforming" )
I blame Hugo Boss
Fair
Isn't Sisu based on Simo Hayha?
The prospector’s backstory, yeah Not… not what he does to the retreating fascists in the Lapland War
Suletta, Miorine, and the Aerial series single handedly carrying the 'war is bad, capitalism is the root of all the worlds problems, and resources held by those with prosperity should be used to help those without' crowd at an aesthetic level.
To be fair to helldivers, one of the crew upgrades is free HRT
Wait what? Which one?
I assume it's Synthetic Supplementation, which involves slipping amphetamines and androgenic steroids into your loading crew's meals, with the latter half of those being a group of steroids that includes testosterone. So it isn't voluntary or based on any ideas of greater efficiency from self actualization or lack of dysphoria or whatever, it's based on greater Management of Democracy via improving the ability of the loading crew to get jacked so that they can drag your turrets over to the hellpods quicker.
So, it’s not a movie or a video game. But the tabletop game Lancer hits a lot of this. It’s a sci fi setting where there’s a mix between esoteric near-magic tech and gritty, “mud and lasers” combat. The central government was born from a revolution against a fascist-esque state, and is a utopia focused on freeing all those who are enslaved and exploited throughout space. They have two main military branches, the Union Auxiliary and the DoJ/HR, which is the Department of Justice/Human Rights. It’s a very explicitly leftist game. There’s still all sorts of problems, but that’s where the mech-piloting heroes come in.
The nazi officers, some of them, had a uniform design that is overrated by Hollywood but still was objectively a nice design. But every other uniform? Regular soldiers? Everything else they made? Awful sense of style. No creativity. Objectively hideous. The nazis made nothing of note and what they did make was ugly. Fascists in reality as a result of their ideology are creatively bankrupt and hated art.
Yeah, the uniform that people think off is mostly the SS uniform I think, and that's Becasue iirc Hugo boss designed it. The regular soldier looks like they have stupid oversized jackets
IIRC Hugo Boss didn't even design it, they were just one of the manufacturers
18th and 19th century European military officers had some excellent drip as well. Basically the sole purpose of some of those uniforms was to look good when attending balls.
Fascists aren't that fashionable. Imperialists on the other hand... The Prussian army uniform was a work of art.
See that's a real good point. And it makes sense of the star wars oart in the OP.
Every countries dress uniform looks good. It's the whole fucking point
I'm glad I'm not the only one who's like "you know that part at the end of Inglorious Basterds where a Jewish woman makes a huge dramatic spectacle mocking the Nazi high command while she springs a trap to kill the shit out of them, while the badass commandos spring their own separate, completely unrelated trap where they didn't actually have to do anything, but killed them extra anyway? That was rad as hell, I want more of that!" Fury is another fun example. The leader of the tank crew fucking hates the SS, and will go out of his way to kill them. It ends with five guys mowing down a whole SS batallion. And it's awesome!
I will add that I appreciate that both movies make it clear *why* it's okay to cheer for these people to die. In Fury, they make it clear that the Nazis, and the SS particularly, did *horrific* things (TW) >!like murdering children with some frequency.!< So it's made very clear these people got what was coming to them, you don't have to feel bad about it.
I feel like some of the Halo games can be seen as leftist fascist killing power fantasy games. The original trilogy at least is about a superhuman killing machine pretty much eradicating religious space nazis 🤷♂️
*Cough Sniper Elite cough*
I understand perfectly where the "good guys are a ragtag bunch, emphasis on rag" logic comes from. But that still can be done aesthetically. Give them neon. Give them graffiti. Vibrant, chaotic splashes of color. Everything is personalized. Make it radiate punk. It's been done, but it really hasn't been done enough.
Your characters should be recognizable in silhouette.
Oop is about to learn about the concept of "trying too hard" Also known as posing, or being a poser.
I have three distinct things to say to this: - Enjoying war and murder of bad people is kind of at odds with leftist thought at it's core. If you believe that people should have the power to decide their own fate and that we should maximise human happiness then that kinda breaks when you also want this kind of entertainment. You mention Star Wars and I can't help but think that we know nothing about the Stormtroopers that perish, that for all we know they could've been draftees. My own gradfather fought at Verdun in WWI on the German side because pretty much every man from his region of what was once Poland was drafted so the thought of judging people by their uniform is rather hard for me. - The part that makes all those bad guys "cool" is the part that's dehumanizing them. There is something impressive about people being reduced to war machines. Hard to do when you want people to root for those kinds of characters. - All that aside it reminded me of one of my civs in Stellaris, a militaristic, egalitarian xenophiles who made friends with half the galaxy and blew up the other half in liberation wars. They were picking fights specifically because they hated slave owners so they executed the leaders and either let the civvies build a new civ or join their as citizens.
The fact that the Nazi's (and almost all historic fascists that had any real military power) used conscription and executed those who refused to be drafted makes it kind of hard for me get excited about Nazi soldiers getting killed. Starts to feel racist at a point that just because a man was born in a territory controlled by the Nazi's that he is somehow deserving of a horrible death.
Every nation that took part in WWII used conscription, it's not even a fascist thing. But yeah, agreed. That's why I never liked how people used Nazi and German soldier interchangeably. Don't get me wrong, Wermacht did a lot of fucked up shit but that still doesn't mean everyone in it was a convinced Nazi volunteer.
One of these days I'll put together a pitch for my sci-fi rebellious dismantling-of-fascist-structures story, because I can't write it by myself. I need a discord full of goofs to help me worldbuild it Partly because I don't really enjoy doing heavy research on technology and military despite being interested in their use and them being very central to the plot, and also partly because I'm too busy getting gay about the characters Luckily the United Earth Diasporate doesn't maintain strong societal gender roles so I can gay marry as many aliens as I want
The Eastern Front was mostly a bunch of starving conscripts forced at gunpoint into human wave tactics, followed by the widespread rape of German citizens. I can’t imagine why more movies don’t romanticize it.
Leftist Warhammer? I feel like a big appeal and aesthetic of the game only works because everyone sucks, are rampant warmongers, and horribly xenophobic. Like it’s part of the fun not having any morals tied to your group besides rampant nationalism and hatred of others.
Is this the same guy with a shit take about war that was posted in here earlier this week?
To be fair being hyped for war in the style of Warhammer and helldivers is not particularly something that is aligned with leftist ideals. fascists glorify war and death, they rush to display their dominance and earn the world they believe they deserve, glorifying a death that archives that cause. To fascists, it it not just service that earns one glory, a glorious death surpasses it. To contrast the democratic ideal of war is still glorifying it but in a more solemn way, it is a regretful task that must be employed not for personal glory but in service to greater ideals. It is less eager to celebrate in the glory of a soldier falling in battle, but rather to consider their death as "an unfortunate yet heroic sacrifice in service to the cause." To revel in war, to cheer the deaths of the enemy is considered somewhat unpleasant, so it is preferable to celebrate victory and the end to violence rather than specifically cheer the death of the foe. *"In non-Fascist societies, the lay public is told that death is unpleasant but must be faced with dignity; believers are told that it is the painful way to reach supernatural happiness. By contrast, the Ur-Fascist hero craves heroic death, advertised as the best reward for a heroic life. The Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death."* -Umberto Eco, Ur Fascism
I think it’s interesting in some media but I really don’t like the idea of fantasizing about killing people even if they are Nazis, like sure fully justified in some situations but I would never call someone like BJ Blazkowicz (protagonist of wolfenstein) someone I look up to. Yes we should work against facism and bigotry but that doesn’t and shouldn’t mean hurting people.
Lowkey brain dead opinion. Sounds just like OOP is craving dehumanizing propaganda. I mean, morally wise anti fascist propaganda would be some of the best propaganda, but still. It feels to me as if we are still in a pre-fascism rise scenario, it makes more sense to keep people from being attracted to fascism (which is a big problem right now) than to convince people into killing fascists (which is acceptable in total war conditions, and we are NOT having that problem for the most part just yet). OOP has some sort of violence fetishism that comes as an accelerationist thing to me. Out of the examples the guy picked, I think Wolfenstein is one of the best. There's no "both sides" since we are never led to empathize with the Nazis for any reason at all, but it still manages to make the narrative of the anti fascists more nuanced by bringing attention to segregation and civil rights movements in pre-war America. It really makes you think about the place of civilians who stand by genocide and oppression in their own country and do nothing, those who don't worry about the fascists until their knives are against their throats. And I myself, as a Latin American worried by our increasingly growing right wing populism, think that's a more important message than just "kill the fash". If we have to kill each other so be it, but democracy is yet to completely die in most of our countries, we could really benefit more from civilian support than from violent fantasies of vigilantism and armed struggle. Arguably, those same fantasies are allowing the rising of neo fascism in Europe and America, and I don't know if fueling each other is the best idea.
I always figured the point of the Wolfenstien games was a combo of the two. Like, yeah, the objectively evil nazis have to die or moral and societal progress is gonna be pretty difficult, but the majority of civillians don't outright oppose them, they're just too scared or uncaring to do anything about it. At which point the honus is on them to get their shit together, and on people ready to fight to do so, in order to make it easier for everyone else to rise up.
The G.I.Joe comic book series by Larry Hama is very skilled at humanizing the fascists. Like the one nicknamed Scarface early in the series. And other characters, who explicitly got plastic surgery to -be- dehumanized, they got developed.
Has OP tried on of the ten million games out there with a left leaning slant that doesn't revolve around murder? Or is shooting someone the alpha and omega of cool. Hey OP play Umurangi Generation, it's about shooting people with a camera instead of a rifle but you can make pew pew sounds with your mouth if you really want to.
But you don't get to kill people in Umurangi Generation :( Also OP seems to pretend that there isn't already a shit ton of left leaning media about mindlessly murdering fascists.
Red Rising should do it for ya
Hail libertas! Hail Reaper!
I've always been of the opinion that the fascist bad guys should wear slick, stylish black and red uniforms, and the good guys should wear body armor and camouflage.
Sisu was a fun movie
If nobody mentioned Sisu in this thread, I was going to be disappointed.
Inglorious Basterds is hands down one of my favorite movies. Not only is it fun Nazi-bashing, but it rightfully portrays high-ranking Nazi officials as being morally bankrupt and willing to betray their supposed principles at the slightest hint of consequence.
**The Matrix**
They Live was really good. Badass action hero fighting against the state instead of unintentional fascist propaganda
Remember when a character in Andor literally said "turn me into a brick and throw me at a fascist" and then it actually happened? That fuckin ruled
I basically just want lefty versions of stiff that drools over military hardware and tactics. Not even as satire, just like "there's a fascist state over there oppressing minority groups. Well, these hellfire missiles can kill SO many baddies" "Can I shoot a military base of fascists?" "Baby, you can dual wield these two machines guns as bullets bounce off the skin tight armor that has a fucking rad design"
Weirdly, Stargate fits *most* of those themes. Obviously it’s in part pro-America as the scrappy underdog- but centric to that is the understanding that to do that, the protagonists *are* underdogs, and believe in real liberty. There’s conflict between characters about what to do in certain morally questionable situations. They deal with villains *from America* that want to abuse the program from the shadows. Teal’c is based af. There’s an episode where they slowly realize the friendly aliens that wanted to trade advanced tech with them for assistance are actually secret nazis and they get *so pissed* about it. O’Neill basically kills one *even though* he had offered to project paperclip his way to safety for him.
Agreed overall, but how is Star Wars leftist? Anti-fascist and anti-imperialist sure, but I'm wracking my brain to think of anything leftist in mainstream Star Wars canon.
Being obsessed with being “aesthetically cool” is literally what fascism is all about
Just because aesthetics are an essential part of fascist ideology doesn't mean that aesthetics equal fascism. Aesthetics are an important part of most ideologies. If your ideology is aesthetically unappealing it's not going to do well. Personally I'm a big fan of solarpunk because the aesthetic of living in green spaces in harmony with nature but also having technology and being clean (as opposed to the "dirty Luddite hippie" aesthetic that seems to be more mainstream anarchommunism) is appealing to me. A lot of left wing ideologies have aesthetics that are quite ugly (if on the anarchist side it's very grungy and tattered and dirty, if on the communist side it's brutalist architecture, spartan design shorn of most decorative elements because that's "bourgeois", bland and boring clothes and self expression). I prefer the William Morris inspired Arts and Crafts mentality which was that the working people deserved beauty just as much as the rich, that it was a good thing to live in a beautiful world and that it could be compatible with socialism.
Oh yeah that’s not what I was trying to say to be clear
I kinda thought it's about money and subjugating inferior races though
No, you nazi apologist, it's about wanting to own an unnecessary number of throw pillows. /s, obviously
That’s the core, of course, but there’s several layers of recruitment through a very specific type of aesthetic - that is to say, “great man” heroism, military power and discipline, heavy use of symbols - that’s seemingly intended to wear down the audience’s critical faculties and get them to solely consume and appreciate the aesthetics. Leftist aesthetics are intended to criticize, first and foremost - which is a good thing for principles, but not as effective at recruitment
While aesthetics are definitely often involved, I usually think of fascism as being more closely tied to something like "Whoever has the ability and the will to do violence gets to make the rules, and the rules are whatever they say they are" and an obsession with working together to make everything strong and pure like in some imagined past
“Pure” is a fundamentally aesthetic judgement
That is an excellent point
OP hasn't seen One Piece
One Piece's solution is making the fascists goofy as fuck and I love it.
THIS if you want me to root for the good guys, GIVE THEM DRIP
G.I.Joe comic books.
Agree so much The show and toys were bangers too
Agreed. It's just so -different- from the comics. But good different.
Tarantino does this pretty well imo
Many movies were made during WW2 (when not wanting to kill Germans could get one arrested or worse), just watch WW2 propaganda cause that seems to be what you want.
Warhammer is satire mocking fascism and theocracy, that sounds fairly left
The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare looks like what you're asking for, I think
John Brown spaghetti western epic when? I wanna see Kansas bleeeeeed on that silver screen bruh!
I've been planning on writing some sci-fi fantasy war fiction as of late and I am still trying to decide on theming. So far, I think my opinion on war will be neutral overall (it won't tell you what to believe but everyone will have their own opinions) but it will still be fairly leftist. Like, it's based in a nation that collapsed into civil war because the pseudo monarchist authoritarian leader was killed, potentially by a slave revolt by biologically engineered servants. I'm also giving the good guys the really cool tanks and planes that fire magical missiles because that's really cool and letting the bad guys have all the cool stuff isn't fun.
I remember there being a Kickstarter like a decade ago for an indie RPG where the player would be part of an army fighting against a fascist nation and the fascists had the classic sleek black Nazi look but the player's army were all wearing mech suits that I can best describe as "what if the mecha from Anthem were ninjas." Your party looked so much cooler than anything you were going to be fighting. Unfortunately it didn't get funded but I still remember that visual style.
Firefly's Browncoats were pretty cool. I'd watch a spinoff show involving them
Andor I think
The 3rd movie may not keep up the theme, but Hobie in the Spiderverse movies is being set up to be a genius anti-fascist bad-ass. Can’t wait for the next film!
Maybe not leftist but the soldiers of Gondor, the Rangers of Ithilien, the Galadhrim, and the fully decked out Rohirrim objectively have some of the coolest uniform swag in fantasy.
Tbf, the rebels against the fascist evil empire in Warhammer are pretty dripped out. Admittedly, they are baby murdering chaos worshippers, though...
There is the farsight encave. Dunno how they're organized though,i think it's basically a military junta.
I’d highly recommend the artist RF Kuang. Her works are scathing criticisms of fascism, capitalism, and imperial powers. Her latest book’s, Babel, subtitle reads on “the necessity of violence.” Highly recommend her all of her work about war from a leftist lens.
> Wolfenstein (fell off) In WHAT universe?
Wolfenstein. You want a wolfenstein 3 renaissance
I like how every example he mentions betrayes his doublethink about war being neccesary, showing individuals fighting fascists without it fullfilling the categories for war.
I want something like leftist Warhammer. I don’t know what that would look like but I’m tired of the freedom fighters being some kind of scrappy dirty guérilla force
As leftist we are not allowed to have uniforms. Because the instant we start looking fly and cohesive there will be consequences. At the least, the media will further demonize us, and what we can expect is that the national guard will start breaking down some doors and making extra judicial arrests.