I think this is the third time I’ve talked about A.I. and writing. The first time, I concluded that the main problem with A.I. and writing is that we live in a Capitalist society which is always looking for the cheapest labor and a better bottom line. The second time, I came down harder and talked about how it is a machine designed to steal the voices and styles from artists and writers.

My day job is programming. I have an understanding of machine learning, and there are absolutely wonderful uses for A.I. that are not confined to large language models (LLMs) and art simulation. Seriously, when technology is used for good, it is great, and I’m always going to be a fan.

But, there are people using LLMs to write stories, and there are people using LLMs to write code. On the code-side, the term is “vibe coding.” A couple of decades ago, we called this “intentional programming,” in which a programmer uses tools to generate code based on their intentions, rather than having to roll up their sleaves and do all the plumbing themselves. We have frameworks and libraries and development environments dedicated to reducing the busy-work in programming.

I don’t blame anyone for wanting to make their life easier. As with all things in life, there is a balance. If you want to use an LLM in order to walk through a dataset or a database and create a bunch of standard plumbing code, go for it. Before you do, make sure you know how that plumbing code works. To gain that understanding, you’re probably going to have to write it yourself a time or two.

Don’t use an LLM in place of learning.

What about writing fiction? Is there a place for “vibe writing?”

No.

The most generous take I can give is that, there are visual artists that can take a squiggle on a piece of paper and turn it into art. It may be possible for a writer to take A.I. slop and turn it into something decent, but I can’t see a real writer doing that because they’re depriving themselves of the fun part.

Editing A.I. slop doesn’t save time. There is no such thing as “standard” fiction to tack onto your story. Writers create characters with voices, and they place those characters into situations baked from their imagination, which test truths that resonate in the writer’s soul.

How do you write a book? One word at a time.

Every word is a choice. Every verb and adjective. Every sentence fragment, every comma splice, every imperfection laced into the narrative, like the vocal fry of a singer as their belting out their biggest hit. Authorial voices are diamonds, given beauty by the flaws more than the perfection.

Machines abhor imperfection.

A writer sees the world and then writes something to the world about the world. LLMs regurgitate the words from the stories they were trained on, using math and probability to generate something that looks like a statement, but isn’t.

Vibe coding is giving the idea to the machine to generate a solution to a problem. Vibe writing is giving an idea to the machine to generate a story, but as I have said before, ideas are cheap. The idea is usually the least interesting thing about a story.

Writers do not need a machine to give them ideas. They’re already drowning in ideas. And they don’t need a machine to do the writing for them, because it’s the writing itself that sustains them and gives them joy. That’s why we do it.

I will conclude with stating something that is obvious, but related to this topic. There is a difference between making something and having something. There are many people that want to have written a story without going through all of the work to write it themselves. Most people that set out to write a story do not finish.

If you have started a story and stopped before reaching the end, hold your head up high. You’re in good company. Try again, and keep trying until you finish, because one of the defining characteristics of a writer is perseverance.

Don’t be fooled or tempted by the plagiarism machine. If you whisper your idea into ChatGPT and it gives you “your book,” you didn’t write it. You didn’t create anything. You may have a story, but you didn’t make it, and you have my pity, because you deprived yourself of something you may not even understand.

I went with my kids to see Thunderbolts* Thursday evening. As a reminder, Chris turned 27 last month, and Bryanna turns 29 in August, so I wasn’t bringing small children to a Disney movie. I brought adult children to a bloodless but still violent Marvel movie.

My Bias:

I remain a Marvel fan boy. I don’t go out to the movies as much as I used to, but I still go to see the latest Marvel flick. I’m part their target audience.

I don’t really believe in “superhero fatigue.” I think that audiences want interesting stories that come from the heart, regardless of whether or not there are fantasy, SciFi, or superhero elements involved. They don’t want to be fed something generated from a formula. They like being forced to think, but they love being made to feel.

Computer generated eye candy is not a replacement for good storytelling. Special effects are not a good substitute for solid setups and payoffs.

Finally, Marvel movies suffer the same problem that other large franchises suffer, which is toxic fandom. These are fans that are looking for excuses to shit on movies. These are fans that are taking popcorn filler way too seriously.

I am a fan of good storytelling. I am a fan of giving artists and directors the freedom to make something unique, even if it must exist within a larger playground. I am also willing to turn my brain off for a few minutes and just have a good time for the sake of a good time. For me, the story does not have to adhere with maximum accuracy to the comics that may have preceded it.

That is my bias. I think every reviewer should state something like this before their review, because the consumer checking reviews may or may not be looking for something that the reviewer has to offer. I know a bit about the comics, but if you’re here to see if I will give an account to the “accuracy” of the movie, you’re in the wrong place.

My review will be from the perspective of a writer, and from someone that has watched all 36(!) of the preceding films.

Spoiler Free Review:

Thunderbolts* is a solid movie that relies more on good storytelling and excellent acting than special effects. It is emotional. It is thoughtful. It has humor without becoming a comedy. The stakes are high without becoming cosmic.

I had a good time with this one. Florence Pugh is the star and plays the main viewpoint character. She gives an outstanding, emotional performance. I enjoyed her in Black Widow and the Hawkeye series, but she really stands out in this movie. I’m looking forward to seeing more of her in future movies.

David Harbour plays a more comedic character in the scenes, but again, it isn’t treated like a comedy. He does and says things that are funny, but there is an earnestness to his performance that balances it out. An argument could be made that he steals every scene he is in. The scenes that involve him and Florence are great. They play off of each other perfectly.

Lewis Pullman also knocks this out of the park. He’s asked to do a lot and he delivers. He must be vulnerable, sympathetic, menacing, and powerful, and he succeeds at all of it. I hope we see more of him in the future, but given the nature of his character, I think this is probably the only time we’ll see his character in this way. I hope I’m wrong about that, but I think his character is difficult to write around. You either relegate him to the background and hope the audience forgets about him, or you center your story around him because he has that much gravity. Again, this is the spoiler-free section. I’ll talk more about him in the spoilers below.

I enjoyed seeing Wyatt Russell again. He and the rest of the cast didn’t have as much to do, but they all did their part, and they all had moments to shine.

I can’t think of any parts of the movie that felt slow or uninteresting. The pacing was fine. I can see people saying that the resolution was a little rushed, but I don’t agree with that. I’ll talk more about that in the spoiler section, but I think that people unsatisfied with the ending probably didn’t understand it.

At least one other reviewer has said “this is the best one since Endgame” and while I had a great time and highly recommend this movie, I’m not sure I like the comparison. I think it sets up an expectation that the movie will not quite meet.

Endgame gave us payoffs to story arcs that spanned about a decade of storytelling. There were moments in Endgame that got the audience jumping out of their seats, cheering. Thunderbolts* does not do that.

What Thunderbolts* does do is give an audience a chance to cheer for underdogs and misfits. It tells a story of hope and healing, which is exactly what we need right now. It sets things up rather than pay things off.

Thunderbolts* is better than Captain America 4. It is not as funny as Deadpool and Wolverine. It is not as exciting or as nostalgic as Spider-man: No Way Home. If you go into Thunderbolts* expecting to see something that will make you jump out of your seat, you will probably be disappointed.

However, if you’re looking for a really good movie that just happens to have superheroes in it, something heartfelt without being sappy, then this is the movie for you.

Spoiler Details:

This is a sentence to give people a chance to bail out because they do not want to read spoilers.

This is also a sentence that does that, while also setting up a lie/lame joke. That is, I couldn’t believe it when the film stopped part way through and just starting playing the first twenty minutes of James Gunn’s Superman movie. It was a crossover none of us expected!

Okay, that’s enough padding. If you’re still reading this and you don’t want spoilers, that’s a you-problem, not a me-problem. You’ve been warned.

Let’s talk about Lewis Pullman and Sentry.

I went into this movie with some knowledge of Sentry from the comics, and I’d seen just enough of the advertisements that I knew Sentry was going to be in the movie, which is a little bit of a bummer. I think my viewing experience would have been slightly improved to have Bob Reynolds/Sentry revealed, rather than spoiled.

Pullman knocked it out of the park. Seriously. I’m not sure another actor would have succeeded in making Bob Reynolds sympathetic. But Pullman did it. And then when Sentry is revealed in his costume and becomes terrifying, Pullman succeeds again. Florence Pugh and David Harbour deserve their flowers, but I think this movie wouldn’t have succeeded if Lewis Pullman hadn’t performed the way he did.

I didn’t talk about Julia Louis-Dreyfus, not because she did a poor job, but because I didn’t want to spoil things. We’ve seen her character in previous movies, and I think she subtly added more nuance to her character. On the surface, she’s a cartoonish villain, but there’s more to it, and not just because we got to see her father killed in front of her when she was a child. There’s something in her eyes, and the tightness of the way she holds her body.

I’m not a fan of flat, unmotivated villains. Her character could have been that, but I think her performance elevates into something I can respect.

Let’s talk about the ending.

The entire movie is about dealing with trauma and depression. From the opening dialog to the final conflict resolution, it treats the subject honestly and seriously. It doesn’t overstate or understate the themes. It is sincere.

Depression is the real villain in this movie. Trauma. Self-loathing. It is represented by The Void, but it is something everyone carries with them. The characters. The audience. Everyone.

And the answer to dealing with depression isn’t pushing it down and bottling it up. The answer also is not beating it down, because when you fight your depression, you fight yourself. It is part of you, and you deserve to be treated with care.

The answer to fighting depression isn’t to duke it out. It’s not punching and shooting your way out of the problem. The answer is to face the tragedy head on, with courage and without shame, and it is to face it together. Get help. Put away the violence and hold each other up. Which is exactly how the conflict was resolved.

Not only that, but it was a group of unlikely misfits that did it. The group had super powers, certainly, but it wasn’t through force of strength that they overcame the villain. It was by holding onto each other, defying the darkness, and giving each other light.

That’s good storytelling. It’s honest, true, and hopeful. Because if these not-quite-heroes can defeat The Void by banding together, what can we do?

From that perspective, maybe this is the best Marvel movie since Endgame. I’d rather not put it that way, though, because I’m not sure the average movie-goer is going to read into it as deeply as I have.

It’s popcorn fun, and it does have good special effects. I think the real beauty of the film is something that will ultimately go over the head of the average movie-goer. Maybe that’s me being cynical, but I haven’t seen much lately that would change my mind.

Final Thoughts on the After Credits Scene:

I think it was fine.

It was directed by The Russo brothers, and I enjoyed it for what it was. I’m also looking at it like it’s something completely separate from the movie that preceded it. You can skip it, if you like.

I’m excited to see The Fantastic Four, and seeing how it fits in with the rest of the stories that came before. This after credits scene gave us a hint how they’re going to do it, and I hope it wasn’t a spoiler for the movie coming out in a few months.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this review! If you think I left anything out or just want to talk with me about the movie, let me know.