Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism/Film: Difference between revisions

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* ''[[Rambo (Film)|Rambo]]'' has its foot firmly planted in the cynical side. The pacifistic missionaries attempting to peacefully change civil-war torn Burma are naive and misguided, whilst the gritty, war-hardened mercenaries are the only ones who can defeat the evil forces leading that regime. It's showing its '80s action-movie pedigree. The common theme in most of those films was that diplomacy was useless against America's enemies, and that [[Strawman Political|lawyers and judges existed solely to let drug dealers and sociopathic murderers back on the streets]]. In both cases, one or two [[Badass|Badasses]]es unconstrained by rules were all you needed to defeat Third World dictators or clear the streets of crime.

* ''[[Short Circuit (Film)|Short Circuit]]'' had this kind of conflict between the idealistic Newton Crosby ([[PHD]], who wanted to capture the wayward Number 5 intact and unharmed to study why it was acting the way it was) and the cynical Captain Skroeder (who had a bit of a [[General Ripper|technophobic streak]] and was understandably wanting to take the robot out before it could do any harm with its ''fully armed and combat-ready laser weapon''; [[Word of God]] has even admitted that despite being the villain for the movie, he is still doing the right and logical thing by trying to destroy Number 5). Also, the crew purposely used this trope in combination with [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?]], wanting to get away from the "idealistic" approach of having the characters treat their start as always being "alive" and instead explore the question of how people would react to [[Instant AI, Just Add Water|artificial intelligence]] in real life (their answer being that no one would believe it for a second).

* Even more surprisingly ''[[Batman (Filmfilm)|Batman]]'' also fits on the idealistic side, although not quite to the point of ''[[The Dark Knight Saga]]'', but for Batman's actions, he becomes publicly loved and gets the girl, and [[The Joker]] is dead. Although he had to take the cynical route of killing people to get there. It is mostly cynical, but it too is a case of [[Earn Your Happy Ending]]

** ''[[Batman Returns (Film)|Batman Returns]]'' on the other hand is even more cynical to the point of nihilism despite not being as dark as the original with more jokes and campy idiots instead of corruption. However Batman losses the girl, ends up being forced to do even more killing, the one person he loves ends up being morally ambiguous, and everyone hates him again thanks to The Penguin via the murder of The Ice Princess.

** In contrast ''[[Batman Forever (Film)|Batman Forever]]'' and ''[[Batman and Robin (Filmfilm)|Batman and Robin]]'' are heavily on the idealistic side

* ''[[Twenty Eight28 Days Later]]'' represents this scale through hardened survivor Selena, whose experiences have made her bitter and cynical and convinced that the only way to survive is to kill before you get killed and abandon anyone who might hold you back, and Frank, the optimistic cab-driver who is convinced that an outpost of survivors exists to the North who will protect and defend them, roping the others into helping him find them. Jim, the main character, is somewhere in the middle. Selena survives the movie, whilst Frank is eventually infected and killed by the very soldiers he came to find (who turn out to have been luring people there so that they could rape the women anyway). However, things are not quite as cynical and bleak as this makes out; Selena's cynicism is worn down by the fact that she is falling in love with Jim, who ultimately convinces her that there is hope after all and that abandoning others is not the way to go, and the final scenes reveal that she is working harder than any of them to contact the survivors they have come to believe are outside of Britain.

* Critics accused ''[[ValentinesValentine's Day]]'' of being a bit too much on the cynical side for a romantic-comedy (one reviewer compared it to "expecting milk chocolate but getting baking (bitter) chocolate instead"; another compared it to "getting bad Valentine candy from a pretty/handsome person" in reference to the brilliant but wasted [[All-Star Cast]]), especially compared to its [[Spiritual Successor]] [[Follow the Leader|predecessor]] ''[[Love Actually]]''.

* For a [[Black Comedy]], ''[[Horrible Bosses (Film)|Horrible Bosses]]'' is ultimately surprisingly idealistic. {{spoiler|Only one character is capable of murder.}}

* The [[Marvel Cinematic Universe]], as a whole, tends strongly to the idealistic side, which provides an interesting contrast to [[Mark Millar]]'s very cynical [[The Ultimates|Ultimates]] comic book run, which a lot of the movie continuity takes elements from. However, there are still some [[Bittersweet Ending|bittersweet moments]], if the endings for both ''[[Thor (Filmfilm)|Thor]]'' and ''[[Captain America: theThe First Avenger]]'' are any proof.

* The ''[[Alien (Filmfranchise)|Alien]]'' series ultimately lands on the far end of the cynical side. Aside from Ripley and a few other heroic characters, the universe of the movies is very much a [[Crapsack World]] where uncaring governments and profit-driven [[Mega Corp|MegaCorps]] place little value on human lives [[For Science!|as long as they can experiment on them]] with alien [[Super Soldier|SuperSoldiers]].

* ''[[Apocalypse Now]]'' is about as cynical as it gets. [[War Is Hell]] and [[Humans Are Bastardsthe Real Monsters]] are the defining tropes of the film.

* ''[[Blade Runner]]'' is fairly cynical, with a heavily [[Dystopia|dystopiandystopia]]n interpretation of the future and [[Grey and Black Morality]] at best. The ending is slightly more positive, though, because the film is ultimately about an [[Anti-Hero]] [[Heel Realization|realizing the error of his ways]].

* ''[[Narc (Film)|Narc]]'' is a very cynical movie, which focuses on rough, poverty-striken area's and police corruption.

* ''[[The Breakfast Club (Film)|The Breakfast Club]]'' is extremely cynical in its view of high school life and humanity in general. Parents and authority figures are portrayed as apathetic at best or [[Complete Monster|total scumbags]] at worst, and its hard to say by the end which of the characters has the least controversial amount of blood on their hands.