JUSTICE LEAGUE Review

THE PANCAKE COMA 

Justice League (2017)

A Review By Ben Hunter

2/5 Stars

GET TO THE POINT BEN!

The universe wasn’t developed enough for a team up together, superhero movie. And that’s me trying to stay polite about it. 

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“In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later, the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy.” 

-George Orwell 

And then the writer’s strike happens, right as the steam in your iron builds and well before the other shirt by your competitor has even begun to straighten. But you progress, and progress isn’t even the word. You redefine the entire industry! Your competitor has gotten a great start on the straightening of their shirt, starting to figure out how to truly “iron out the kinks”. 

But you? 

You have bought the patent on the iron itself and all sales from the biggest retailer in the history of mankind exclusively strikes a deal garnering you huge profits. 3 major product sales you accomplish, the second of which gradually has become the measuring stick of irons. Your biggest competitor is steaming and spray starching along, and consumers are happy with their purchase, for it gets the job done. 

Cough Green Lantern Cough

But you?

You reinvent people’s lives! You don’t just keep them crisp for the day, you’ve given them a new meaning on the word “maintenance”. It’s now about a reinvigorating burst of hormonal energy that makes one reminisce the beauty of life with no worries or cares, just like their childhood. When mother would make the fluffiest of pancakes on Saturday mornings, oozing of richness and creamed with melting butter and maple syrup. And as you’re caressing the insides of your throat with calcium enriched, pulp free orange juice, your father tells you how proud of you he is as mom plants a smile induced approval on the side of said earned smile. And then they snap back into the current year, caressing the shirt they enriched with your iron. 

But new things are now of old and your competitor’s well planned strategy isn’t pancake coma inducing, but it’s enough to take over and hold a monopoly on the market. They’re trying new starches, innovative technology methods experimenting with steam and hotter enforcement. The tide starts to shift with the competition. 

But you?

You decide to follow in their footsteps. When the very essence of the clothing was at the will of your fingertips. The most prestigious honor in the industry started to lose credibility because they failed to honor your 2nd major product for biased and prejudiced reasons. But with your past credibility, your consumers are willing to walk through fire for you. To defend you to the end, because of the pancake coma and the receptivity that could never be achieved through any commercialized, knock off that came at a bargain from your competitor. So if you’re going to follow in a similar path as them, your consumers know it will be of a more genuine and truer quality, not just for getting the ironing done, but sending us into another reality! Where only the highest of feeling is achieved. There’s something about the pancake coma, that makes one view your product in a different light. A higher expectation, a greater sense of achievement, a more true, more pristine, and all around superior quality.

Philosophical arguments ensue. The opposition has won over a lot of your following. For your following footsteps were too engulfed in the shadow of your adversary. People begin to wonder if the pancake coma is truly necessary? Or is ironing genuinely about utility, making sure the job is executed to give a great presentation? Not necessarily providing such a comfort that your iron gives, that the very texture of the fabric has been transformed. So with one deep touch, senses begin to languish, true state of chimera sets in, and the pancake coma ensues. Maybe the other guys simply nailed it by going for the base hit and not necessarily knocking it out of the ballpark, like you did that one time before with the series of 3 great products? Your competitors chug along, with cigars puffing, and champagne in hand.

But you?

You redefine your entire company to model after your rival! Your colors, your imagery, the lingo on your product description boxes, everything is modeled after the successful who were once trailing you in true quality, in real prestige and honor. You’ve completely lost your identity, your personality, your soul, your wit. The only thing that seams to be true in this “universe” is that the ONLY way to succeed, is to do what your competitor is doing. In exactly the way they are doing it. Massive efforts are taken to recover your belched efforts. To mask the planning, direction, employee mustaches, and sins of your once great company. Not only does this fail, but people become disgusted with your betrayal of character. Your premature development, and benign denial of duplicity. The forfeit of dignity for the acquiesce of survival. Thus, the morality, the nobility, the virtue, all to squander in shame. 

Nowhere in this new line up of disappointment and anguish are the values that brought us to channel the very essence of our humanity. To learn what it means to stand in the face of adversity, surrounded by fear, yet filled with bravery. Nowhere in this fraudulent regurgitation of your antagonist do we remember that we have what it takes to live diligently, faithfully to our values, and lovingly to our neighbors, because dad reminded us that we could when he told us how proud he was of us that warm Saturday morning at the breakfast table. You changed the industry forever all those years ago. 

One intimate touch of the enchanted fabric that you transformed the very nature of, and once again we long no more to enter the most esteemed of intimate kingdoms our hearts can carry us. Where we feel empowered, loved, and happy. To learn that life is full of danger, but we don’t have to be afraid. To not be a hero, to be something more. As we awaken from the pancake coma, induced from your work. Your challenger will never reach this, despite some of its supporters stating that what they do is enough to reach the kingdom. But deep down, they know the truth. As evidenced from their anger when you mention your 3 great initial products that became the measuring stick on this side of things. Nonetheless, your competitor does what they do well. They’re a well oiled machine that knows their mission and purpose, their strengths and weakness and how to overall operate in this business. 

But you?

You’ve lost your way. You’re grasping at straws, trying to hold on for dear life at anything that will keep you afloat and stop you from drowning, ceasing to exist. For anyone at that point to mention your name would be ridiculed, mocked off of the yacht your competition is leisurely cruising upon. Off onto a lifeboat, to float by the wreckage of your once great ship. Where you struggled dearly to stay relevant when passengers started to flock to the competition’s better pinnace. When your deepest supporters shed tears as it became certain, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the tide had torn a hole in the vessel and the ship was starting to sink. A problem that could’ve been EASILY avoided at better direction of your captains! But too many cooks in the kitchen was always a major problem with you. When the ship was all but gone, miraculously, the ship’s figurehead floated up, and the crew all held on for dear life to the beautiful Amazonian goddess of wonder. Even garnering a few people from the competition’s yacht as some people just didn’t want to give up hope. 

But a figurehead is not a ship. Not enough to sustain. Not enough alone to endure the hardships of the ocean. Not enough to carry the vision of your company to true paradise. A paradise beyond the basic gratification provided by your competitor. You were given a grave responsibility with your life altering initial products. And the company is now basically flushed. 

Setting the pancake coma off into the distance. Off from reality, and turned off in our hearts. So distant and dark, opposite of the fabricated mock identity in effort to mimic the yacht sailing away in laughter. 

Leaving us to ponder ... if it was even a reality ... at all. 

Justice League (2017)

Action/Adventure, 121 Minutes, PG-13

Story By: Chris Terrio & Zack Snyder

Screenplay By: Chris Terrio & Joss Whedon

Cast: Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Gal Gadot, Ezra Miller, Jason Momoa, Ray Fisher, Jeremy Irons, Diane Lane, Connie Nielsen, & J.K. Simmons