This sounds like the film Shyamalan has been trying, and failing, to make for nearly a decade and a half now.
How are they not? Their whole stick is "If you say anything we think is too extreme, we'll attack you!"
I am not criticizing the fact that they make fun of both sides. I am criticizing the fact that they have now become incapable, (or unwilling) to recognize when they themselves are acting indistinguishable from the sides they are criticizing.
That's what we call "The Fallacy of the Middle Ground."
Yes. You are not going to help them and you are not going to get in their way ... and if they fail, the status quo will have been upheld. And you won't care that the status quo will have been upheld. Because the status quo works for you. THAT is why you support the stars quo by not taking a side in any attempt to alter it. Whether or not that is the morally "correct" thing to do in any given situation is for you to decide, but don't sit there and try to wash your hands of all responsibility. Because like it not, complicit in it or not, you are benefiting from a status quo that other people are suffering under. To claim otherwise is intellectually dishonest.
Actually it makes perfect sense, because Trey Parker and Matt Stone seem to themselves have been infected by a certain sense of self-righteousness and potentially damaging habit that has plagued every political movement, regime, and generation that has ever existed. The middle ground is just as much of an extreme as the right or the left and has just as much of an unrealistic desire for control as either of them. It doesn't matter that these guys think the middle ground has the better vision. The fact that South Park seems unable or unwilling to accept or even realize this uncomfortable truth, means that these guy have gone from raging against extremes to simply reveling in their own. And THAT is why they have gotten old!
"Hate speech is a symptom of a disease we can't really cure by telling people to shut up, even if it makes the rest of us feel better." Which is ironic, because South Parks' whole stick for the past 20 years has been, "Everybody just shut up already!"
So you don't care about them, what they do, what happens to them, or whether or not it continues unabated, and you expect us to believe that you don't passively support the status quo that ALSO doesn't care about them, what they do, what happens to them, or whether or not it continues unabated?
In the trailer they released a few months ago you can clearly see their parody version of Captain America, "Stars and Garters" fighting Brock Sampson. Since Sampson is back working for the OSI, I am assuming that the Venture Bros is setting up their own parody of Marvel's civil war.
For me I think it's just fatigue at this point. I don't know if the film is going to be any better or any worse then the last two. Especially after the last one. At this point I am just so tired with it all that I really can't be bothered to read anything into this trailer for better or for worse. I can't even be bothered to think critically about this anymore.
My Trek?
My dad's Trek?
I don't know and don't really care.
I'll wait for the reviews and if enough people who's opinions I trust say they like it I might give it a watch. If not I'll just wait for Netflix.