Friday, July 27, 2018

Nazis, Disney, and James Gunn.


Why should James Gunn be rehired by Disney?

Firstly, I’ll catch anyone who doesn’t know what is going on in the magical world of Disney. James Gunn is the writer and director for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. one, and two. He was writing Volume three and set to start filming it in October. Until about a week ago, a right-wing journalist, Mike Cernovich had posted a few tweets that James Gunn had posted between 2008-2011. These tweets were nasty, if you took them seriously, you would almost assume that James Gunn is a pedophile. But seriously, then you need to lighten up. I’m not defending them at all, they were horrible, and Gunn never should have posted them. But to say that those few tweets reflect his personality as a whole? Of course, they don’t. Long story short, James Gunn posts a few nasty tweets, ten years later they bite him in the butt, Disney fires Gunn. Disney more than likely didn’t want to do it, they just figured if they didn’t than they would have the mob at their castle just like the end of Beauty and the Beast.



There are many reasons as to why James Gunn should be rehired and given a second chance to prove himself. Firstly. He already has proved himself, it’s not like rehiring him would be giving him a second chance. Cause hiring him was already a chance, and he proved himself worthy to lift Thor’s hammer. It’s not like those tweets weren’t there when Disney originally contracted James Gunn to write and direct Guardians of the Galaxy. It just wasn’t a big deal back then.

But now I figure if you take anything anyone says out of context enough, take it way too seriously, anyone could get fired for anything. I would take a tweet from Disney’s CEO Bob Iger and twist it and make it “super evil” and mean. But I respect him too much. I like him being at the head of Disney, except for this one instance where there is no forgiveness for Gunn. He may have created movies that allowed families to come together and smile, laugh, and cry. But he posted a few nasty tweets ten years ago so “Off with his head”

This whole situation is easy to sort out without even thinking about it that hard. They were tweets, people post things to shock people all the time, just for attention. I would understand firing him swiftly if what he had said he was following through with. If he actually was a pedophile then I would understand. But we have no proof. This is the paranoia of the #metoo movement. This is the other extreme. We don’t want to start accusing people who aren’t guilty. We want to get the guilty people locked up, and then continue smiling and laughing without them.

One thing I would like to point out is that Disney has always been a very forgiving company. Walt Disney specifically was extremely forgiving. I’ll give the most stand out example of Walt Disney’s ability to accept the change in people, in order to work together and create amazing things.

Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun, it’s a mouthful I know, I’ll just call him Max for now. In his early twenties, Max worked in Nazi Germany’s rocket development program. You heard me, “Nazi” and I mean it for real, he was a legit Nazi. He helped create the V2 rockets that were used in World War Two by the Nazis.

When Max was a kid his mother gifted him a telescope, that allowed him to develop a passion in astronomy. He once got in trouble in his hometown for detonating a wagon, by attaching fireworks to it. He was inspired by speed records established by Max Valier and Fritz von Opel, in rocket propelled cars. I thought that was cute.

But later in his life, after being well taught in the ways of math and rockets and like space and stuff. He joined the Nazi party during World War Two. –

“In 1939, I was officially demanded to join the National Socialist Party. At the time, I was already Technical Director at the Army Rocket Center at Peenemünde (Baltic Sea). The technical work carried out there had, in the meantime, attracted more and more attention in higher levels. Thus, my refusal to join the party would have meant that I would have to abandon the work of my life. Therefore, I decided to join. My membership in the party did not involve any political activity.”-Max

After a while he was set with a team to research and develop the previously mentioned V2 rocket. He was using some technology from America’s own Rocket enthusiast Robert A. Goddard, who he was almost a fan of. But a test V2 had crashed in Sweden, and parts of it were shipped to Goddard who confirmed that Max was using his technology. Max reflected on this later and said this…

"His rockets ... may have been rather crude by present-day standards, but they blazed the trail and incorporated many features used in our most modern rockets and space vehicles."-Max

The funny thing is, it was confirmed later that Max had never seen a patent of Goddard’s while developing the V2. So, they both basically made some similar advancements without knowing about it apparently.

In 1942 Hitler ordered for the V2’s production as a vengeance weapon. In 1943 Max made a color movie to show a V2 taking off, Hitler was so impressed with Max that he personally made him a Professor. In Germany currently, that was a big deal for a 31-year-old engineer to be a professor already.

One of the biggest events in Max’s history is cool to me. While working in Peenemünde Germany, the Soviet army was getting close to them. They moved their research to a town in the Bavarian Alps, where they were guarded by the SS, who had strict orders to execute the team if they were about to be captured. Seems harsh. *shrug*

Max convinced the SS officer to disperse the soldiers into the town where they were. To not make them such an easy target all in their own base, away from civilians. Max and his brother Magnus (who I forgot to mention earlier but he’s been here this whole time) and the rest of the team escaped to Austria, where they found an American Solider, and they then surrendered to the Americans, As you should. 😉

“We knew that we had created a new means of warfare, and the question as to what nation, to what victorious nation we were willing to entrust this brainchild of ours was a moral decision more than anything else. We wanted to see the world spared another conflict such as Germany had just been through, and we felt that only by surrendering such a weapon to people who are guided by the Bible could such an assurance to the world be best secured”-Max

After they handed themselves over, they were interviewed by The British first, and then the Americans second. This team of engineers consisted of the future lead designer of Rolls-Royce and the inventor Concordes engines. Also, Max’s brother was eventually a lead executive for Chrysler.

Max on the other hand eventually was lead designer for our Jupiter-C rocket, that was the West’s first satellite in space. Max had new ideas for rockets, but America was only interested in a very modest rocket program. In the meantime, the press was all caught up on Max’s past as a Nazi and all that. (Naturally)

Now the point that I’ve been leading up too, Max met Walt Disney at some point. He became the technical director for Three television films on space exploration. The first broadcast was titled “Man in Space” and it aired March 5th, 1955, with 40 million viewers. That’s a lot of people. Also, I’m fairly certain there is a life size model of the V2 rocket in Tomorrowland in Disneyland to this date, thanks to Max.

Walt Disney did not let Max’s affiliation with the Nazi’s affect his perception of Max’s character, only ten years after being a Nazi. So why should we let a few tweets from ten years ago affect our perception of James Gunn? We shouldn’t. He’s changed over his time, just like we all do. And if we are going to go around treating people like they are 100% unable to change for the better, then why should we strive to be better at all? Why does anything matter? It’s a dangerous mindset that shouldn’t be getting its way. I mean if we’re going to judge people based on their past then let’s look at Robert Downy Jr. I’m teasing. He’s a different man than he was back then.

…And Max wasn’t the only ex-Nazi to work for Disney.

I feel like there literally must be something more to this than we know. Call my crazy but maybe Disney wanted James Gunn fired but couldn’t justify it. So, they had someone rat him out so they could fire him? Seriously the reason they did it was already so stupid…