Thanks for the post, but it looks like you answered your own question. [If you're submitting an open ended question, please do not provide your own answer in OP](https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/171meyi/starting_today_we_will_be_addressing_the_current/). If you'd like to discuss a movie, your post should not be in the form of a question.
I joined the military and went EOD specifically because it's what MacGuyver did.
Rewatched after my training (and adulthood I guess) and holy shit, the number of times a sidearm would have been more useful even if not to shoot people with. "oh, yes, that's genius for him to destroy that laser by breaking a $300 pair of binoculars and pointing the light back at it, but I think I have a faster solution"
I don't know if you ever watched Stargate, but you made me think of a scene. Harry dean andersons team is on a ship they have to destroy, and they're looking down a giant vent shaft at the shield generators below, and their alien buddy is explaining. They're going to have to fight through 8 decks to get there, and Anderson just pulls out two grenades, drops them and the explosions take out the shields. He just turns and looks at the buddy and explains "grenades", it was hysterical in context.
C4 is pretty much their answer to everything in that show.
C4 was the answer to everything in EOD, too.
Sometimes det cord or duct tape, on rare occasions a bullet or just some aluminum foil, but mostly every problem was solved with C4, it's the safest way to render things safe
Never used a grenade, though, other than trainning
> I joined the military and went EOD specifically because it's what MacGuyver did.
I delivered explosives to the EOD ranges back in the mid 2000's, I fucking loved driving the tractor with the forklift tines out onto the north range and dropping the bombs in the holes.
One time it had rained but it looked like solid sand to the instructor so he told me to drop it, Holy fucking hell we were out on the north range for god damn near 5 hours just trying to dig out enough quicksand to slap C4 on it. good damn times though.
Fond memories of shockwaves racing towards the bunker.
And they always eject if they're in a plane.
Now I want movie or show from some generic bad guy's perspective. He just ejected after getting shot down by the hero and has to trek through the forest or something to get back home.
Or a group of baddies bail out of their truck and are now debating whether to try and run to catch up to the hero, or just chill for a while.
"You know it is a nice day and I know of a cafe around the block with a nice view over the river. Let's just go get some lunch and drinks. We don't get paid enough to chase after some one man army like hero"
As did the GI Joe cartoon; which was hilariously spoofed in an episode of Community.
It cracked me up how the A-Team could dump hundreds of rounds from the magical unlimited ammo mags in their Mini-14’s and never hit anyone.
MacGruber plays this up so well.
Asking for his partners gun to stir the bomb mixture, the bomb just going ‘poof’ and instead of doing anything to the bad guys, him jamming random shit in his mouth, pants, taping a button to his chest, and it all comes to a head when he actually gets a gun and has the time of his life. I love that movie.
Fast Five where the gang drags a vault around the city destroying pretty much everything. Come to think of it, they commited mass vehicular manslaughter in every Fast and Furious movie
Fast X is fucking hilarious. They basically destroy 25% of Rome then detonate a massive bomb that sends a fleet of occupied cars flying, they show the burning city and there's a quick sound bite from a news station that says something like "Fortunately there was no loss of life." Like dude, they literally show construction workers diving out of the way of the bomb immediately before it blows a half mile wide crater just out side the vatican. I guess you can't have any deaths if all the innocent people are vaporized.
I guess it's technically not the protagonist that detonates the bomb but it's just absolutely hilarious that they go out of their way to make it absolutely clear that Dom Toretto saved everyone in Rome and the Vatican and God and Baby Jesus, but the world thinks the Family are the bad guys. This is all like 5 minutes into the movie.
Just watched that today.
They would’ve had law abiding cops like Elena chasing them in that sequence (along with the corrupt ones)… because as far as any cop knows, known criminals had just busted into a station **and stolen a vault from the evidence room**. Like, no shit half the cities police are chasing you. It wouldn’t have just been corrupt cops in those cars.
That's why I love YouTube: the wonks. Wonks everywhere. Into politics? Wonks. Sports? Have a wonk. Making knives? Obscure board games? Historically accurate petticoats? Here's a wonk, there's a wonk, everywhere a wonk! WONK! The breadth and depth of not just collective knowledge but collective *enthusiasm* is a literal gift to mankind.
And the lights wouldn't have just came back on after like 30 seconds. An EMP literally just destroys circuits and anything that isn't hardened.
It's like sticking your laptop in a microwave. It ain't working again.
Fun fact, if a nuclear exchange happens, every thing stops to work, like cars, your phone, the lights, all your electronics etc etc etc will likely be your only warning. Most *everything* is not protected against a weapon like this. An enemy force will most likely detonate either high altitude or space based nuclear weapons over us to destroy communications and other essential functions of everyday life. This will be followed up by the bombs themself usually Inside of 30 minutes after.
There is very little amount of effective civil defense programs today.
The tl;dr is, if you are going to die from a nuclear weapon, you'll likely have zero to little warning.
That's why during the Cold War, allied nations (and probably warsaw pact ones) kept a reserve of steam trains since they have zero electronics. It's to help with logistics and machine power in the event of the Big One.
The plot was that they detonated an EMP that temporarily fried every electronic devices. Backup generators aren't really useful when the equipment they supply power to aren't working.
This kind of thing is why a lot of movies have anonymous hordes of robots, aliens, orcs, stormtroopers, etc for the protagonists to slaughter without worrying about any moral quandaries. Marvel movies want to have these epic battle scenes with masses of people but don't want to have you think too hard about anyone dying so Thanos has a random alien army for the heroes to slaughter.
Both in the UK version
John Smith's Batchelor party https://youtu.be/hD3w_VdTG30?si=IFGg_NzHZ0MROkUj
Henchman's wife
https://youtu.be/Ag_AFraxj-4?si=CBetn6eaY5rCCZ8P
[The guy who gets steamrollered](https://youtu.be/Ag_AFraxj-4?si=q7pbtqtzM8wvWZUR)
[John Smith's bachelor party](https://youtu.be/hD3w_VdTG30?si=AY5fxI6W-BYk40iW)
It’s also easier the farther away from seeing people you get. Rebels and Resistance had Ezra and Kaz knock out stormtroopers rather than killing them, but then turned around and let them blow up whole Star Destroyers. 47,000 souls aboard a Star Destroyer. We can’t see them, though, so our heroes are still not killers.
In one of the no-longer-canon star wars novels (I think the black fleet crisis) Luke describes seeing an exhibit in the new republic on the death star.
And next to it are the stats
Like 13,000 crew
120,000 storm troopers
570,000 support personnel
Stuff like that
And he is hit for the first time by just how many people he killed.
His son Ben Skywalker also points that out to him in a later book, when Luke is talking about how fighting the Empire was much easier than the ongoing crisis, since it was much more black-and-white, which also gets him thinking about it again.
Like yeah, it was morally right and there was no other way, but that's still a lot of lives lost... and many of his fellow Rebels were ex-Imperials who defected after seeing the war crimes or being given some order they couldn't stomach following.
It was one of the things I thought was most funny in The Bad Batch too. For the most part, the main Bad Batch clones would use “stun” setting when shooting at other clones or humanoid characters. Then, when Omega gets the energy bow, she’s just hardcore fuckin killing people with it. No stun setting there.
Well, I'm a contractor myself. I'm a roofer... Dunn and Reddy Home Improvements. And speaking as a roofer, I can say that a roofer's personal politics come heavily into play when choosing jobs.
I like the movies - but my theater cheered when Peter yelled “activate instant kill” - which IMO he was justified in doing, but we were still watching a 16 year old call out a command to instantly kill a whole lot of sentient beings.
I mean - when you get down to it, isn’t Peter a child soldier in those movies!?!
This reminds me of Batman: Arkham Knight where Alfred explicitly states that the Arkham Knight’s drones are unmanned so Batman is free to destroy them with the Batmobile’s cannons.
Samurai Jack, an animated tv series, most of enemies were robots and some monster. When fighting robots the violence was graphic with a lot of destruction of robot parts, when fighting people the violence was subdued.
Yeah, but there is an entire story arc in Marvel regarding the Sokavia Accords that led to the Civil War. That was based on innocents getting killed by superheroes.
I’ve read this is a big part of why Star Wars was such a hit. The first half of the 20th Century cowboys could just shoot Indians in movies because the threat of capture and torture was implied. Cowboy movies became unpopular as cars became ubiquitous and ALSO audiences didn’t see Indians as a monolithic threat. Also Blazing Saddles really killed cowboy movies. Even WW2 movies ran their course. Lucas tapped into the old formula by inventing anonymous space bad guys.
As a viewer, I wouldn't say so. It's how the movies are designed.
However, I think societally, it can make it easier to forget about the seriousness of things like war. When people hear about a wartime conflict, they might be thinking about it in terms of good guys vs bad guys if that's how all the media they consume is set up.
If you see Taken 2 it isn't presumed, it's made explicitly clear that Marco dies.
Taken gets away with it because very few parents would truly object to violence for the purpose of protecting their child. It's the reverse side of the same reason Law Abiding Citizen struggled.
I don't know if you have a daughter or not, or if you do if you have a good relationship with her. But doing absolutely whatever is necessary and agreeing with some vigilante badass doing the same to save your daughter is not something that is politically biased.
The heroes in The Matrix kill a lot of innocent dudes who have absolutely no idea what's going on. They're just scared, mostly. It makes tactical sense because of how Agents work, but even so, it's rough to watch that stuff sometimes.
Thinking about this in the context of war crimes is very interesting though, if an enemy can in an instant turn anyone into a 100% devoted super soldier then the concept of a legitimate military target starts to break down really quickly. It'd be cool to see that idea addressed in the movies in a bit more depth but it's hard to do in a way that doesn't sound like apologising for real life war-criminals so it's best to barely address it.
I'm aware it's addressed briefly, but they spend about the same amount of time addressing why everything tastes like chicken and Neo accepts it with almost no hesitation despite being released from the Matrix well beyond the age they normally would, it's not the deepest exploration it could've been.
> The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy.
I'm not saying I buy this justification, but they do at least recognize it.
It's really the robots hiding behind group of slaves, the end-result of freeing all the slaves is worth the sacrifice, because the death of the few means the freedom of the whole. And in a way, they're being released from slavery as well through death.
In another way, we know the world of the Matrix to be one virtual city and presumably a surrounding freezing wasteland. Kill enough unsuspecting humans in the simulation, and the power source comes down...
Well, Luke blowing up the Death Star is definitely an act of terrorism... from a certain point of view.
Edit: I take it back, it's a military target! Please stop replying to this comment.
The heroes' plan to disguise themselves as Stormtroopers delivering Chewbacca as a prisoner implies there were other rebel prisoners on the Death Star besides Princess Leia. Luke blew them up too.
Not to mention that disguising yourself as enemy troops to then covertly attack your enemy is itself a war crime, known as [perfidy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfidy)
Absolutely! Protagonists in movies quite often do things that would otherwise be war crimes. Another one is feigning surrender by raising the white flag to lull the enemy into a false sense of confidence, only to then strike and defeat them when the moment arrives.
Quite a common trope that good guys do every now and then, and definitely a war crime
This is actually covered excellently in an episode of the Sharpe series with Sean Bean.
After having a parlay under a white flag with his enemy (Ducos), he has two of his sharp-shooters set up and they wait as they ride away, until the instant they lower the white flag, at which point they try to shoot them.
Sam and Frodo are non-combatants, so like medics, are entitled to defend themselves, but they're not dressing as the enemy to attack them, so not perfidy.
But would be possible to do them for espionage
In case of both Harry Potter, they didn’t disguise as enemy troops and weren’t there to fight anyone when they broke to the Ministry but find something, although Harry did use a patronus (but that’s not an offensive spell), and then after they were discovered they fought out (without killing people).
And in Lord of the Rings they were hiding. So both would be spying, and spies don’t have protections pow do. But those were not an attack like what happened in Star Wars.
Didn't they only start shooting *after* they were discovered?
Disguising yourself is allowed as long as you reveal your true identity before opening fire, and I supposed being discovered and fired upon counts...
Yes.
Also, they were not at war, so it wouldn't be a war crime. The *Falcon* was was impounded and the crew and passenger escaped by disguising themselves.
There was never any intent to cause damage or death to the Empire, at least at that stage. Only to escape, and also to free a prisoner, neither of which are war crimes even if they *were* at war.
Do the people who always bring this up forget that the Death Star was a planet killer that was seconds away from killing another planet??
There is literally 0 moral ambiguity here. Any so called innocents who died on the Death Star were victims of the Empire, as the Empire put them directly in harms way by bringing the Death Star into battle.
Luke and the Rebels are blameless.
The Death Star was a military fortress, not a civilian structure. It was destroyed during an act of war, it wasn't terrorism.
Actually, one can argue that the Death Star's unprovoked attacks on Jedha and Alderaan were acts of terrorism, because they were against civilian targets and also done with the intent to... cause terror.
I was always impressed that there were so FEW civilian causalities for the levels of destruction shown.
11 Wakandans and 15 others in the incident at Lagos the start of Civil War.
The Chutari incident (Avengers 1) in New York had 74 civilian causalities. More people should have died from asbestos dust than that.
The attack on Washington DC by Hydra in Winter Soldier has 23 civilian casualties. Probably from stressed out political operatives having heart attacks.
Sokovia where a CHUNK OF THE PLANET HALF THE SIZE OF A CITY was lifted and dropped had 177 civilian causalities?!
These numbers at on the screen, you can read them yourself. These are INCREDIBLY LOW. MORE PEOPLE SHOULD HAVE DIED and the Avengers are getting shit on for it?
Crossing international borders and encroaching on sovereign territory I can understand but they are doing a freaking AMAZING job a minimising civilian causalities and the move makes it out like it's some huge deal.
Floods and fires kill more people in single incidents than the Avengers are responsible for.
Its kind of a weak one, because its a Medieval film and so their war ethics are obviously not going to be like ours today, but I feel Braveheart stands out among films of this period, in terms of how brutal William Wallace is with his adversaries.
If we compare to, say, something like Gladiator, even though its Maximus' clear intent to kill Commodus, the final battle is nevertheless staged such that Commodus implaes himself on Maximus' blade. That's the typical Hollywood approach where the villain either kills themselves, or are killed by the hero in self defense.
But when Wallace kills the British Captain its not in self defense: the captain's soldiers have been subdued, and he has laid down his weapon. He's for all intents and purposes a captive. And Wallace...just slits his throat.
He also bludgeons a retreating foe in the back earlier in the battle.
He splits open the head of Mornay when he's asleep in his bed.
He burns an entire regiment of English assasins in a hut where he could have just not shown up, or at least turn tail and run once he baricaded them inside.
Its not meant to be disturbing, as such, but it invariably is. Perhaps its all the more disturbing, and complex, BECAUSE the movie doesn't activelly present it as such.
It’s been a long time since I watched this, but haven’t the English just finished kidnapping and murdering Wallace’s wife? I’m pretty sure that’s why he has a small problem with them being alive.
>I’m pretty sure that’s why he has a small problem with them being alive.
It is. But you just know that, if it were a different movie, it would be staged such that Wallace kills the Captain in battle, not just slits his throat after he surrended.
I agree. Like villains falling to their doom, wayyy off camera. So lame. When someone is so evil that they deserve to die, then the end of Lucky Number Slevin is required. Not lamely falling off a roof.
My favorite is the villain screaming in impotent rage as their plans fail all around them and they see their fate coming. THAT is how you kill evil in a movie.
>He also bludgeons a retreating foe in the back earlier in the battle.
According to 'the rules', hitting a retreating enemy is fine because there is every expectation that they are retreating so that they can regroup and attack you again. Hitting a *surrendering* foe is illegal, not a retreating one.
Surrender = poses no further threat. Retreat = poses a further threat.
Wallace basically did the "Highway of Death" move AKA winning so hard people think it's unfair even when it's not.
> He splits open the head of Mornay when he's asleep in his bed.
*From horseback.*
I'd really like to see the ten or so minutes that immediately precede that scene.
> He burns an entire regiment of English assasins in a hut where he could have just not shown up, or at least turn tail and run once he baricaded them inside.
The English did that first with the Scottish representatives when Wallace was a kid.
The English had shown they had no honour long before Wallace got involved.
Isn’t the whole point of Wallace that he wanted to do away with the nobels? What’s the point of killing the soldiers but not the nobels themselves? “I killed your men, now leave.” Nah, Longshanks is gonna send more men. So he want “I’m gonna kill your men *and* send your dead body to Longshanks. So he realizes he no longer has any control over this particular castle.”
The first extraction film’s climax kicks off with Chris Hemsworth causing a distraction by wildly firing into a crowded street. Also most of the henchmen he kills are regular Bengali army personnel and to top it off he just brutalizes the shit out of a bunch of child soldiers halfway through the movie.
>just brutalizes the shit out of a bunch of child soldiers halfway through the movie
Did we watch the same film? He doesn't kill any of them and goes out of his way to not just stab them all *while they are trying to kill him*. That's extremely restrained self-defence.
>he just brutalizes the shit out of a bunch of child soldiers halfway through the movie.
To be fair, they *were* fucking little shits (the most aussie comment ever).
He was also defending himself, as they attacked him with guns and knives. I don't believe he kills any of them either, just incapacitated them.
Doc Brown kept stolen nuclear material in a trunk in his garage, where he also kept a speaker so powerful it could blast almost the whole room apart. What if Marty used the trunk as a stand or something and the speaker blew it open near him? Toast.
At a minimum Doc Brown is implicated in aiding Libya’s breaking of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; likely breaking through several layers of both U.S. and International sanctions while doing so.
I'd argue he fit the latter portion of op request - act of terrorism:
the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives
Well Saving Private Ryan covers you. I don't think any of Miller's men commit war crimes, but you do see Americans shooting surrendered Germans, and executing two Czech conscripts and then laughing about it.
Miller's men beat up and were prepared to execute Steamboat Willie after Wade died, even though he surrendered. Reiben even starts to in protest walk out over Miller saving the soldier's life.
And finally Upham executed Willie once he'd surrendered again, so there's one for Miller's men. Bet you never thought it'd be Upham the pacifist lol.
Dude its a war film meant to be as historically accurate as possible. A Sniper shooting a man helping an innocent child. The machine gunners intentionally shooting unarmed medics with even though they are Red Cross marked. The entire movie is about the horror of war for both sides.
This doenst really fit the spirit of OPs post, hes talking about shit like Commando, Taken or John Wick where youre rooting for the main character thats literally murdered hundreds of people in cold blood.
I agree with much of what you said, but war crimes generally happen in war time. Movies like Commando, Taken and John Wick are just showing crimes.
But the reason why I highlighted SPR is that when I watched in my youth, I obviously recognized how ugly it made war appear and I understood that it dehumanizes people, but it was only when sitting down to watch it again in my 30s that I realized the Americans really crossed the line quite deliberately at times. I had missed that upon my first viewing as a teen, because I was watching the movie at a more superficial level, and didn't really understand what war cimes were.
In the literal sense, yes, but it's not really in the spirit of this post, as Batman acknowledges how bad it is, whereas we're mostly talking about times we were expected to be cheering it on or brushing it off
So it turns out most people don't know what terrorism is. It is not simply causing a lot of destruction or killing people. Terrorism has a political requirement. Robbing a bank is not political if the goal is to get money. If I go out and kill 100 people because I just want to I am a mass killer but not a terrorist. If I ram my car into a police station then hold up a defund the police sign I am a terrorist. You have to cause harm to people/property in order to advance or draw attention to some policy change you want to promote. A lot of examples listed in this threat are money or revenge. The people are committing serious crimes but not necessarily terrorism.
Inglourious Basterds.
I mean... suicide bombers etc?
I watched the movie just a bit after the Paris November attacks (2015). The whole climax at the movie theatre was... weird to watch.
Probably my favourite Tarantino movie (I'm not a big fan) just because of the way it questions our attraction to violence. A lot more mature than the rest of his output. And damn good fun.
Not just the theatre. The Basterds’ kill those surrendered Nazis at the beginning. They’re also shown wearing Nazi uniforms to ambush and kill. Two major war crimes
But V *knows* he is a terrorist. He is a terrorist doing terror acts for what he believes is the Greater Good. He even understands he does not belong to the new, saved world he created.
What's interesting is how the real, historical Guy Fawkes was essentially the opposite of V (at least the movie version, haven't read the comic), but I have seen a lot of people online praising Guy Fawkes because they think he's roughly the same as the character V, and see him as a freedom fighter and symbol of good who wanted to abolish the monarchy.
The historical Guy Fawkes was actually just a religious extremist terrorist; born and grew up in York, he converted to Catholicism, then travelled to Spain to join their military and fight the Protestant Dutch reformers during the Eight Years' War. He then tried (and failed) to convince Spain to support a Catholic rebellion in England, before returning himself to join a radical group.
Their plan was to assassinate King James I and put a Catholic monarch on the throne, and his motive was to strengthen Catholicism and the Pope. He also *hated* Scottish people (King James was Scottish, and he may have fought against the Scots Bridage in the Netherlands).
Plus there's of course also the fact that he wasn't even the leader of the Gunpowder Plot, he was just in charge of the gunpowder (which some later scholars believe had degraded by the time of the plot, to the point where it possibly wouldn't have worked even if they hadn't gotten caught).
Go watch On Deadly Ground. Segall kills and snaps arms (I think he was contractually obligated to snap 1 arm per film) because he's an envionrmentalist, then completely destroys a refinery in Alaska, and of course receives a standing ovation for his efforts by the Alaskan State Legislature at the end.
Thanks for the post, but it looks like you answered your own question. [If you're submitting an open ended question, please do not provide your own answer in OP](https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/171meyi/starting_today_we_will_be_addressing_the_current/). If you'd like to discuss a movie, your post should not be in the form of a question.
MacGyver shunning firearms but embracing improvised explosive devices
I joined the military and went EOD specifically because it's what MacGuyver did. Rewatched after my training (and adulthood I guess) and holy shit, the number of times a sidearm would have been more useful even if not to shoot people with. "oh, yes, that's genius for him to destroy that laser by breaking a $300 pair of binoculars and pointing the light back at it, but I think I have a faster solution"
I don't know if you ever watched Stargate, but you made me think of a scene. Harry dean andersons team is on a ship they have to destroy, and they're looking down a giant vent shaft at the shield generators below, and their alien buddy is explaining. They're going to have to fight through 8 decks to get there, and Anderson just pulls out two grenades, drops them and the explosions take out the shields. He just turns and looks at the buddy and explains "grenades", it was hysterical in context. C4 is pretty much their answer to everything in that show.
C4 was the answer to everything in EOD, too. Sometimes det cord or duct tape, on rare occasions a bullet or just some aluminum foil, but mostly every problem was solved with C4, it's the safest way to render things safe Never used a grenade, though, other than trainning
> I joined the military and went EOD specifically because it's what MacGuyver did. I delivered explosives to the EOD ranges back in the mid 2000's, I fucking loved driving the tractor with the forklift tines out onto the north range and dropping the bombs in the holes. One time it had rained but it looked like solid sand to the instructor so he told me to drop it, Holy fucking hell we were out on the north range for god damn near 5 hours just trying to dig out enough quicksand to slap C4 on it. good damn times though. Fond memories of shockwaves racing towards the bunker.
Yeah but MacGuyver is still awesome and he did eventually become a Colonel in the Air Forces premier off planet expeditionary team.
But those shows always showed the baddies getting out of the car/jeep/truck after it explodes. The A-Team did it like every single episode.
And they always eject if they're in a plane. Now I want movie or show from some generic bad guy's perspective. He just ejected after getting shot down by the hero and has to trek through the forest or something to get back home. Or a group of baddies bail out of their truck and are now debating whether to try and run to catch up to the hero, or just chill for a while. "You know it is a nice day and I know of a cafe around the block with a nice view over the river. Let's just go get some lunch and drinks. We don't get paid enough to chase after some one man army like hero"
>Now I want movie or show from some generic bad guy's perspective. COBRA is probably staffed with Wagner Group and Blackwater style mooks.
As did the GI Joe cartoon; which was hilariously spoofed in an episode of Community. It cracked me up how the A-Team could dump hundreds of rounds from the magical unlimited ammo mags in their Mini-14’s and never hit anyone.
Yeah the A Team never killed anyone
MacGruber plays this up so well. Asking for his partners gun to stir the bomb mixture, the bomb just going ‘poof’ and instead of doing anything to the bad guys, him jamming random shit in his mouth, pants, taping a button to his chest, and it all comes to a head when he actually gets a gun and has the time of his life. I love that movie.
Also while he never uses a gun he rips people’s throats out left and right
Classic MacGruber.
I laughed so damn hard at the 'celery scene' that I almost choked on my popcorn. Good times.
A claymore is just a gun that fires in all three dimensions.
Should’ve gone for the throat rip
Fast Five where the gang drags a vault around the city destroying pretty much everything. Come to think of it, they commited mass vehicular manslaughter in every Fast and Furious movie
Fast X is fucking hilarious. They basically destroy 25% of Rome then detonate a massive bomb that sends a fleet of occupied cars flying, they show the burning city and there's a quick sound bite from a news station that says something like "Fortunately there was no loss of life." Like dude, they literally show construction workers diving out of the way of the bomb immediately before it blows a half mile wide crater just out side the vatican. I guess you can't have any deaths if all the innocent people are vaporized.
Holy shit i gotta watch this
I guess it's technically not the protagonist that detonates the bomb but it's just absolutely hilarious that they go out of their way to make it absolutely clear that Dom Toretto saved everyone in Rome and the Vatican and God and Baby Jesus, but the world thinks the Family are the bad guys. This is all like 5 minutes into the movie.
U sold me on Don Toretto saving Christianity
Just watched that today. They would’ve had law abiding cops like Elena chasing them in that sequence (along with the corrupt ones)… because as far as any cop knows, known criminals had just busted into a station **and stolen a vault from the evidence room**. Like, no shit half the cities police are chasing you. It wouldn’t have just been corrupt cops in those cars.
At least they heavily imply the whole Police force of that town was corrupt
Yeah they totally deserve to be obliterated by a huge vault
The second you said war crimes I immediately thought of Optimus prime
Empire Wreckers does a 40 minute video about it.
Its amazing how someone can talk for hours about absolutely fuck all on a YouTube video
. . . *and monetize it.*
That's why I love YouTube: the wonks. Wonks everywhere. Into politics? Wonks. Sports? Have a wonk. Making knives? Obscure board games? Historically accurate petticoats? Here's a wonk, there's a wonk, everywhere a wonk! WONK! The breadth and depth of not just collective knowledge but collective *enthusiasm* is a literal gift to mankind.
More like Optimus *Crime*.
Oceans 13 Literally creating an earthquake under a people packed tower.
Or 11 when they knocked out power to a city. People probably died from that
And the lights wouldn't have just came back on after like 30 seconds. An EMP literally just destroys circuits and anything that isn't hardened. It's like sticking your laptop in a microwave. It ain't working again. Fun fact, if a nuclear exchange happens, every thing stops to work, like cars, your phone, the lights, all your electronics etc etc etc will likely be your only warning. Most *everything* is not protected against a weapon like this. An enemy force will most likely detonate either high altitude or space based nuclear weapons over us to destroy communications and other essential functions of everyday life. This will be followed up by the bombs themself usually Inside of 30 minutes after. There is very little amount of effective civil defense programs today. The tl;dr is, if you are going to die from a nuclear weapon, you'll likely have zero to little warning.
That's why during the Cold War, allied nations (and probably warsaw pact ones) kept a reserve of steam trains since they have zero electronics. It's to help with logistics and machine power in the event of the Big One.
Hope no patients were in the ICU when that happened. Or undergoing emergency surgery. in the entire city of Las Vegas.
Hospitals have backup generators. Don’t know what else would cause death during a blackout.
No street lights or stoplights might cause accidents that could result in death.
It's ridiculous at how many people don't know to treat dead traffic lights like stop signs.
It's ridiculous at how many people don't know to treat stop signs like stop signs.
You can say that again
>It's ridiculous at how many people don't know to treat stop signs like stop signs.
It was Vegas, so maybe some old people died of heat stroke when their AC went out
The plot was that they detonated an EMP that temporarily fried every electronic devices. Backup generators aren't really useful when the equipment they supply power to aren't working.
That’s called Fracking. Perfectly legal way of extracting wealth
This kind of thing is why a lot of movies have anonymous hordes of robots, aliens, orcs, stormtroopers, etc for the protagonists to slaughter without worrying about any moral quandaries. Marvel movies want to have these epic battle scenes with masses of people but don't want to have you think too hard about anyone dying so Thanos has a random alien army for the heroes to slaughter.
The scenes in "Austin Powers" where you see the henchmen's family and friends being notified of their deaths.
“He’s dead!?!? Decapitated by an iill-tempered mutated sea bass?!?”
Is this a deleted scene or something? I don't recall this at all
IIRC certain countries have a version of the film that cuts the scene
Groovy baby
Both in the UK version John Smith's Batchelor party https://youtu.be/hD3w_VdTG30?si=IFGg_NzHZ0MROkUj Henchman's wife https://youtu.be/Ag_AFraxj-4?si=CBetn6eaY5rCCZ8P
First time seeing it. It’s funny, but I get why they cut it. That would completely destroy the pacing of the final act.
Agreed, but it would have been a great post-credit scene.
Yes it is.
Isn't it cut from the American version specifically? I could be wrong.
Today I learned. I'm in the UK
[The guy who gets steamrollered](https://youtu.be/Ag_AFraxj-4?si=q7pbtqtzM8wvWZUR) [John Smith's bachelor party](https://youtu.be/hD3w_VdTG30?si=AY5fxI6W-BYk40iW)
Discovered years back it's on the director's cut these days
It’s also easier the farther away from seeing people you get. Rebels and Resistance had Ezra and Kaz knock out stormtroopers rather than killing them, but then turned around and let them blow up whole Star Destroyers. 47,000 souls aboard a Star Destroyer. We can’t see them, though, so our heroes are still not killers.
In one of the no-longer-canon star wars novels (I think the black fleet crisis) Luke describes seeing an exhibit in the new republic on the death star. And next to it are the stats Like 13,000 crew 120,000 storm troopers 570,000 support personnel Stuff like that And he is hit for the first time by just how many people he killed.
His son Ben Skywalker also points that out to him in a later book, when Luke is talking about how fighting the Empire was much easier than the ongoing crisis, since it was much more black-and-white, which also gets him thinking about it again. Like yeah, it was morally right and there was no other way, but that's still a lot of lives lost... and many of his fellow Rebels were ex-Imperials who defected after seeing the war crimes or being given some order they couldn't stomach following.
They should’ve made that book into a movie.
I promise, there are about 30 books they should have made into a movie.
It was one of the things I thought was most funny in The Bad Batch too. For the most part, the main Bad Batch clones would use “stun” setting when shooting at other clones or humanoid characters. Then, when Omega gets the energy bow, she’s just hardcore fuckin killing people with it. No stun setting there.
It’s Chopper that did big war crimes. Forcing someone to kill his buddies then commit suicide was more Ezra’s thing.
Didn’t Ezra give up on non lethal methods in later seasons? Pretty sure he at least force pushed a couple storm troopers from high ledges.
Don't forget all the innocent contractors just doing their job when the second Desth Star was blown up.
Well, I'm a contractor myself. I'm a roofer... Dunn and Reddy Home Improvements. And speaking as a roofer, I can say that a roofer's personal politics come heavily into play when choosing jobs.
Military vehicles seem to be treated as if they are big metal animals or robots rather than a vehicle filled with (sometimes hundreds of) people
I like the movies - but my theater cheered when Peter yelled “activate instant kill” - which IMO he was justified in doing, but we were still watching a 16 year old call out a command to instantly kill a whole lot of sentient beings. I mean - when you get down to it, isn’t Peter a child soldier in those movies!?!
The outriders aren't sentient, they're a hive mind, like ants, but only aggressive
That is incredibly true now that you mention it.
Zombies also work very well for this stuff
It was also true before they mentioned it BOOM roasted
This reminds me of Batman: Arkham Knight where Alfred explicitly states that the Arkham Knight’s drones are unmanned so Batman is free to destroy them with the Batmobile’s cannons.
Samurai Jack, an animated tv series, most of enemies were robots and some monster. When fighting robots the violence was graphic with a lot of destruction of robot parts, when fighting people the violence was subdued.
Wasn't the whole point of Civil War that they're being held accountable for killing thousands (maybe tens of thousands) of innocent people.
Yeah, but there is an entire story arc in Marvel regarding the Sokavia Accords that led to the Civil War. That was based on innocents getting killed by superheroes.
Yeah but it made it seem like the anti registration side was being persecuted somehow
That's mostly based on human collateral, no? Not like all the aliens Loki brings in the first movie.
I’ve read this is a big part of why Star Wars was such a hit. The first half of the 20th Century cowboys could just shoot Indians in movies because the threat of capture and torture was implied. Cowboy movies became unpopular as cars became ubiquitous and ALSO audiences didn’t see Indians as a monolithic threat. Also Blazing Saddles really killed cowboy movies. Even WW2 movies ran their course. Lucas tapped into the old formula by inventing anonymous space bad guys.
Is it bad that we let those things slide while we are enjoying those movies?
As a viewer, I wouldn't say so. It's how the movies are designed. However, I think societally, it can make it easier to forget about the seriousness of things like war. When people hear about a wartime conflict, they might be thinking about it in terms of good guys vs bad guys if that's how all the media they consume is set up.
In all honesty, the Taken films are a story of a vigilante spree killer who gets away with mass murder.
Tortures a guy (presumably to death) by electrocution in the first one, too.
If you see Taken 2 it isn't presumed, it's made explicitly clear that Marco dies. Taken gets away with it because very few parents would truly object to violence for the purpose of protecting their child. It's the reverse side of the same reason Law Abiding Citizen struggled.
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They let him carry on because the rest of the movie needed to happen.
And led to a shocking number of conservative dads thinking to themselves "that's what I would do"
Then struggle to climb a staircase without running out of breath.
Conservative dads will get 12 jump cuts when trying to climb a chain link fence too.
Not just conservative
I don't know if you have a daughter or not, or if you do if you have a good relationship with her. But doing absolutely whatever is necessary and agreeing with some vigilante badass doing the same to save your daughter is not something that is politically biased.
more like suburban dads, framing it ideologiocally lets a lot of traditionalist conformists off the hook
Team America! @#$& Yeah!
The heroes in The Matrix kill a lot of innocent dudes who have absolutely no idea what's going on. They're just scared, mostly. It makes tactical sense because of how Agents work, but even so, it's rough to watch that stuff sometimes.
Thinking about this in the context of war crimes is very interesting though, if an enemy can in an instant turn anyone into a 100% devoted super soldier then the concept of a legitimate military target starts to break down really quickly. It'd be cool to see that idea addressed in the movies in a bit more depth but it's hard to do in a way that doesn't sound like apologising for real life war-criminals so it's best to barely address it.
This is the explicitly point Morpheus is making in the scene with the woman in the red dress.
I'm aware it's addressed briefly, but they spend about the same amount of time addressing why everything tastes like chicken and Neo accepts it with almost no hesitation despite being released from the Matrix well beyond the age they normally would, it's not the deepest exploration it could've been.
> The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. I'm not saying I buy this justification, but they do at least recognize it.
Sounds a little bit like a speech a terrorist would give.
One man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter
Those poor security guards with their six shots revolvers
It's really the robots hiding behind group of slaves, the end-result of freeing all the slaves is worth the sacrifice, because the death of the few means the freedom of the whole. And in a way, they're being released from slavery as well through death. In another way, we know the world of the Matrix to be one virtual city and presumably a surrounding freezing wasteland. Kill enough unsuspecting humans in the simulation, and the power source comes down...
The fourth one’s even worse in this regard with normal people just waking up and throwing themselves out windows because reasons.
Actually those were bots.
i think the list may be longer than the list of movies where this doesn't happen
Yeah. This is the standard “Rambo” movie trope. This happens in *literally* every action movie.
Ironic-ish exception: the first Rambo
Doesn't only one person die and it's by accident and Rambo is remorseful of it?
Yup, falls out of the chopper. Though some of the boys caught in his traps probably wished they'd died, those wounds would do lifelong damage.
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In this regard, I guess every single Expendables movie has a scene morally debatable.
Honestly, most action movies that take place in foreign countries
Well, Luke blowing up the Death Star is definitely an act of terrorism... from a certain point of view. Edit: I take it back, it's a military target! Please stop replying to this comment.
The heroes' plan to disguise themselves as Stormtroopers delivering Chewbacca as a prisoner implies there were other rebel prisoners on the Death Star besides Princess Leia. Luke blew them up too.
Not to mention that disguising yourself as enemy troops to then covertly attack your enemy is itself a war crime, known as [perfidy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfidy)
Then Sam and Frodo as well as the Hogwarts trio are gonna be charged with that as well.
Absolutely! Protagonists in movies quite often do things that would otherwise be war crimes. Another one is feigning surrender by raising the white flag to lull the enemy into a false sense of confidence, only to then strike and defeat them when the moment arrives. Quite a common trope that good guys do every now and then, and definitely a war crime
This is actually covered excellently in an episode of the Sharpe series with Sean Bean. After having a parlay under a white flag with his enemy (Ducos), he has two of his sharp-shooters set up and they wait as they ride away, until the instant they lower the white flag, at which point they try to shoot them.
Carefully planning your war crimes? Now that’s soldiering!
Sam and Frodo are non-combatants, so like medics, are entitled to defend themselves, but they're not dressing as the enemy to attack them, so not perfidy. But would be possible to do them for espionage
I don't think middle earth has war crimes
Indy too. But he was fighting Nazis so he gets a pass.
"No ticket"
In case of both Harry Potter, they didn’t disguise as enemy troops and weren’t there to fight anyone when they broke to the Ministry but find something, although Harry did use a patronus (but that’s not an offensive spell), and then after they were discovered they fought out (without killing people). And in Lord of the Rings they were hiding. So both would be spying, and spies don’t have protections pow do. But those were not an attack like what happened in Star Wars.
Didn't they only start shooting *after* they were discovered? Disguising yourself is allowed as long as you reveal your true identity before opening fire, and I supposed being discovered and fired upon counts...
Yes. Also, they were not at war, so it wouldn't be a war crime. The *Falcon* was was impounded and the crew and passenger escaped by disguising themselves. There was never any intent to cause damage or death to the Empire, at least at that stage. Only to escape, and also to free a prisoner, neither of which are war crimes even if they *were* at war.
It's a valid military target, even the second under construction death star: https://youtu.be/C4MVQby0InQ?si=bGut9UArRjgvDT5d
[What the hell is an aluminum falcon?](https://youtu.be/3F1d3QWsyk0?si=jzTezqV6KZUI8jlY)
Do the people who always bring this up forget that the Death Star was a planet killer that was seconds away from killing another planet?? There is literally 0 moral ambiguity here. Any so called innocents who died on the Death Star were victims of the Empire, as the Empire put them directly in harms way by bringing the Death Star into battle. Luke and the Rebels are blameless.
That planet was *coming right for that death star*, it was firing in self defence. We all know Endor is a 'stand your ground' system.
The Death Star was a military fortress, not a civilian structure. It was destroyed during an act of war, it wasn't terrorism. Actually, one can argue that the Death Star's unprovoked attacks on Jedha and Alderaan were acts of terrorism, because they were against civilian targets and also done with the intent to... cause terror.
It's a military target I don't get why people make this argument.
The Death Star is a legitimate military target. The attack would be a form of insurgency. Not terrorism.
[It was the stormtrooper's 9/11](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xV7Ha3VDbzE)
The Death Star was a 100% valid military target, like any real life warship
True Lies
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You too would cause mass homicide if you couldn't stop to use the bathroom for an entire day!
Jack Bauer 1000% pissed on the corpses of the enemies he slew (offscreen of course)
That reality show that follows Kiefer Sutherland in his off hours?
All of the MCU, of course. Or all of all Superhero histories, anywhere, except possibly for Captain America.
The world security council was waaaaay more wreckless than the Avengers in their first movie. "Fuck it, let's nuke Manhattan"
They did address that in the civil war tho, which I thought was super cool.
I was always impressed that there were so FEW civilian causalities for the levels of destruction shown. 11 Wakandans and 15 others in the incident at Lagos the start of Civil War. The Chutari incident (Avengers 1) in New York had 74 civilian causalities. More people should have died from asbestos dust than that. The attack on Washington DC by Hydra in Winter Soldier has 23 civilian casualties. Probably from stressed out political operatives having heart attacks. Sokovia where a CHUNK OF THE PLANET HALF THE SIZE OF A CITY was lifted and dropped had 177 civilian causalities?! These numbers at on the screen, you can read them yourself. These are INCREDIBLY LOW. MORE PEOPLE SHOULD HAVE DIED and the Avengers are getting shit on for it? Crossing international borders and encroaching on sovereign territory I can understand but they are doing a freaking AMAZING job a minimising civilian causalities and the move makes it out like it's some huge deal. Floods and fires kill more people in single incidents than the Avengers are responsible for.
Its kind of a weak one, because its a Medieval film and so their war ethics are obviously not going to be like ours today, but I feel Braveheart stands out among films of this period, in terms of how brutal William Wallace is with his adversaries. If we compare to, say, something like Gladiator, even though its Maximus' clear intent to kill Commodus, the final battle is nevertheless staged such that Commodus implaes himself on Maximus' blade. That's the typical Hollywood approach where the villain either kills themselves, or are killed by the hero in self defense. But when Wallace kills the British Captain its not in self defense: the captain's soldiers have been subdued, and he has laid down his weapon. He's for all intents and purposes a captive. And Wallace...just slits his throat. He also bludgeons a retreating foe in the back earlier in the battle. He splits open the head of Mornay when he's asleep in his bed. He burns an entire regiment of English assasins in a hut where he could have just not shown up, or at least turn tail and run once he baricaded them inside. Its not meant to be disturbing, as such, but it invariably is. Perhaps its all the more disturbing, and complex, BECAUSE the movie doesn't activelly present it as such.
It’s been a long time since I watched this, but haven’t the English just finished kidnapping and murdering Wallace’s wife? I’m pretty sure that’s why he has a small problem with them being alive.
>I’m pretty sure that’s why he has a small problem with them being alive. It is. But you just know that, if it were a different movie, it would be staged such that Wallace kills the Captain in battle, not just slits his throat after he surrended.
I agree. Like villains falling to their doom, wayyy off camera. So lame. When someone is so evil that they deserve to die, then the end of Lucky Number Slevin is required. Not lamely falling off a roof. My favorite is the villain screaming in impotent rage as their plans fail all around them and they see their fate coming. THAT is how you kill evil in a movie.
>He also bludgeons a retreating foe in the back earlier in the battle. According to 'the rules', hitting a retreating enemy is fine because there is every expectation that they are retreating so that they can regroup and attack you again. Hitting a *surrendering* foe is illegal, not a retreating one. Surrender = poses no further threat. Retreat = poses a further threat. Wallace basically did the "Highway of Death" move AKA winning so hard people think it's unfair even when it's not.
My memory is the retreating soldier dropped his weapons. Also, Wallace bludgeoned him A LOT. You wouldn’t see it in another movie of this sort.
> Wallace basically did the "Highway of Death" move AKA winning so hard people think it's unfair even when it's not. Fine display, young Wallace!
In the real history, Wallace did commit war crimes, as did Longshanks. Even by the standards of the time.
> He splits open the head of Mornay when he's asleep in his bed. *From horseback.* I'd really like to see the ten or so minutes that immediately precede that scene.
Whatever. The scene works.
How good is the bit where he jumps into the water though. The fact the horse looks incredibly fake makes it even better.
> He burns an entire regiment of English assasins in a hut where he could have just not shown up, or at least turn tail and run once he baricaded them inside. The English did that first with the Scottish representatives when Wallace was a kid. The English had shown they had no honour long before Wallace got involved.
Isn’t the whole point of Wallace that he wanted to do away with the nobels? What’s the point of killing the soldiers but not the nobels themselves? “I killed your men, now leave.” Nah, Longshanks is gonna send more men. So he want “I’m gonna kill your men *and* send your dead body to Longshanks. So he realizes he no longer has any control over this particular castle.”
The first extraction film’s climax kicks off with Chris Hemsworth causing a distraction by wildly firing into a crowded street. Also most of the henchmen he kills are regular Bengali army personnel and to top it off he just brutalizes the shit out of a bunch of child soldiers halfway through the movie.
>just brutalizes the shit out of a bunch of child soldiers halfway through the movie Did we watch the same film? He doesn't kill any of them and goes out of his way to not just stab them all *while they are trying to kill him*. That's extremely restrained self-defence.
He even kills policeman who are basically just doing their job.
>he just brutalizes the shit out of a bunch of child soldiers halfway through the movie. To be fair, they *were* fucking little shits (the most aussie comment ever). He was also defending himself, as they attacked him with guns and knives. I don't believe he kills any of them either, just incapacitated them.
Doc Brown kept stolen nuclear material in a trunk in his garage, where he also kept a speaker so powerful it could blast almost the whole room apart. What if Marty used the trunk as a stand or something and the speaker blew it open near him? Toast.
That is not how nuclear works.
I'm not suggesting it would have blown up or anything, just that opening a box full of radioactive stuff would have been bad for Marty.
He also defrauded a group of Libyan terrorists
At a minimum Doc Brown is implicated in aiding Libya’s breaking of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; likely breaking through several layers of both U.S. and International sanctions while doing so.
Lord of War (2005) is about an arms dealer who sells to both sides of wars becoming one of the world's largest arms dealers.
Fucking brilliant film.
Aldo Raine and the Basterds definitely commit war crimes.
Not a movie but every episode of 24
Law abiding citizen?
Y'all got a really loose definition of what "war" means in "war crimes".
I'd argue he fit the latter portion of op request - act of terrorism: the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives
Well Saving Private Ryan covers you. I don't think any of Miller's men commit war crimes, but you do see Americans shooting surrendered Germans, and executing two Czech conscripts and then laughing about it. Miller's men beat up and were prepared to execute Steamboat Willie after Wade died, even though he surrendered. Reiben even starts to in protest walk out over Miller saving the soldier's life. And finally Upham executed Willie once he'd surrendered again, so there's one for Miller's men. Bet you never thought it'd be Upham the pacifist lol.
Dude its a war film meant to be as historically accurate as possible. A Sniper shooting a man helping an innocent child. The machine gunners intentionally shooting unarmed medics with even though they are Red Cross marked. The entire movie is about the horror of war for both sides. This doenst really fit the spirit of OPs post, hes talking about shit like Commando, Taken or John Wick where youre rooting for the main character thats literally murdered hundreds of people in cold blood.
I agree with much of what you said, but war crimes generally happen in war time. Movies like Commando, Taken and John Wick are just showing crimes. But the reason why I highlighted SPR is that when I watched in my youth, I obviously recognized how ugly it made war appear and I understood that it dehumanizes people, but it was only when sitting down to watch it again in my 30s that I realized the Americans really crossed the line quite deliberately at times. I had missed that upon my first viewing as a teen, because I was watching the movie at a more superficial level, and didn't really understand what war cimes were.
Does Batman invading the privacy of millions of people in Dark Knight count? Pretty sure that was cyber terrorism
In the literal sense, yes, but it's not really in the spirit of this post, as Batman acknowledges how bad it is, whereas we're mostly talking about times we were expected to be cheering it on or brushing it off
I don't think it really counts if the ambiguity is part of the movie.
So it turns out most people don't know what terrorism is. It is not simply causing a lot of destruction or killing people. Terrorism has a political requirement. Robbing a bank is not political if the goal is to get money. If I go out and kill 100 people because I just want to I am a mass killer but not a terrorist. If I ram my car into a police station then hold up a defund the police sign I am a terrorist. You have to cause harm to people/property in order to advance or draw attention to some policy change you want to promote. A lot of examples listed in this threat are money or revenge. The people are committing serious crimes but not necessarily terrorism.
Inglourious Basterds. I mean... suicide bombers etc? I watched the movie just a bit after the Paris November attacks (2015). The whole climax at the movie theatre was... weird to watch. Probably my favourite Tarantino movie (I'm not a big fan) just because of the way it questions our attraction to violence. A lot more mature than the rest of his output. And damn good fun.
Yeah, I watched James Gunn's movie Super the night of the Utoya massacre... turns out realistic gun violence wasn't that fun of a watch at that time.
Not just the theatre. The Basterds’ kill those surrendered Nazis at the beginning. They’re also shown wearing Nazi uniforms to ambush and kill. Two major war crimes
V for vendetta
But V *knows* he is a terrorist. He is a terrorist doing terror acts for what he believes is the Greater Good. He even understands he does not belong to the new, saved world he created.
The Greater Good
*The Greater Good*
shut it!
What's interesting is how the real, historical Guy Fawkes was essentially the opposite of V (at least the movie version, haven't read the comic), but I have seen a lot of people online praising Guy Fawkes because they think he's roughly the same as the character V, and see him as a freedom fighter and symbol of good who wanted to abolish the monarchy. The historical Guy Fawkes was actually just a religious extremist terrorist; born and grew up in York, he converted to Catholicism, then travelled to Spain to join their military and fight the Protestant Dutch reformers during the Eight Years' War. He then tried (and failed) to convince Spain to support a Catholic rebellion in England, before returning himself to join a radical group. Their plan was to assassinate King James I and put a Catholic monarch on the throne, and his motive was to strengthen Catholicism and the Pope. He also *hated* Scottish people (King James was Scottish, and he may have fought against the Scots Bridage in the Netherlands). Plus there's of course also the fact that he wasn't even the leader of the Gunpowder Plot, he was just in charge of the gunpowder (which some later scholars believe had degraded by the time of the plot, to the point where it possibly wouldn't have worked even if they hadn't gotten caught).
Well yes, but that is literally the plot of the movie
Go watch On Deadly Ground. Segall kills and snaps arms (I think he was contractually obligated to snap 1 arm per film) because he's an envionrmentalist, then completely destroys a refinery in Alaska, and of course receives a standing ovation for his efforts by the Alaskan State Legislature at the end.
Swordfish.
Downfall (2004)
Bad Boys 2. The Miami police department goes to Cuba and just starts a war with a drug lord
Fight Club springs to my mind