The Film Thread: Page 388 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

The Film Thread

goon

That's a pretty accurate summary. Felt incredibly shallow.

Klaus

Burnwinter wrote:
The original is a hell of a lot better, even though you're dead right about its annoying cult Klaus.

I reviewed Blade Runner 2049 elsewhere, it's not awful but I definitely didn't rate it highly.

Interesting review Burnsy! I haven't seen the film so I'll take your word for it, but it sounds like a lot of the same flaws have carried over from the original. It's interesting how virtually every American-made futuristic vision in the last 30 years has fetichised visuals and cultural elements from Hong Kong cinema. Lots of Asian-influenced futures without any actual Asians in them. Like in Firefly (which I love dearly) where Chinese supposedly has become the official world language, but the characters only seem to know enough of it to swear, and none of them are of Chinese descent of course. No one in the galaxy ever attempts to converse with them on Mandarin, and so forth. Typical clumsy Whedon nonsense.

I think only Asian person in the original Blade Runner along the same line (aside from James Hong in a tiny token cameo) is the woman whose face is projected onto the skyscraper.

Burnwinter

You're very much right Klaus, but I think there's a bit of exchange there.

For example the GitS casting controversy was a reminder that GitS itself borrowed hugely from Blade Runner.

Even though I'm not a cultist, the aesthetic development of sf noir by the original was extremely influential alongside the Chandler stylings of Neuromancer, which it certainly must have influenced.

Both came out at a time when the US and UK were obsessed with Japan and the possibility of economic domination by Japan. Now that neurotic, paranoid obsession is directed at China.

With Blade Runner 2049 the big thing they fucked up was making a plot sequel instead of a conceptual sequel. As I said in that scrap (taken from Letterboxd) dystopias have to be somewhat convincing, and it really wasn't. The future of the world in which we all live is clearly not what it showed us.

@[deleted] I agree, I don't want to see any more film or TV about consciousness that is less interesting than an entry level undergraduate conversation. Felt similarly about Altered Carbon. If you want to do ideas fiction you've got to be really interested in the ideas, Hampton Fancher and Villeneuve are faking it with BR 2049.

Mirth

Burnwinter wrote:
For example the GitS casting controversy was a reminder that GitS itself borrowed hugely from Blade Runner.

What I found quite interesting about GitS casting controversy is that it was never considered offensive or insulting in Japan itself according to a couple of polls that I saw at the time. Then again, I suppose Japan has a vibrant history in making films for themselves so they don't really need Hollywood to represent them.

https://comicbook.com/anime/2017/04/09/ghost-in-the-shell-scarlett-johansson-japanese-reactions/

"Honestly, that would be worse: someone from another Asian country pretending to be Japanese. Better just to make the character white."

People are weird. 😆

Edit: I remember Memoirs Of A Geisha being banned in China for that very reason, actually.

Klaus

Burnwinter wrote:
For example the GitS casting controversy was a reminder that GitS itself borrowed hugely from Blade Runner.

Yeah, definitely. It was a very Americanized story to begin with. You can see the same post-occupation era fascination with American pop culture in other works from the 80s, like Hideo Kojima's old scifi games. Look at Snatcher or Policenauts - one's a love letter to Raymond Chandler and Terminator, and the other one is heavily inspired by Mel Gibson and Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon. The Metal Gear series is about nuclear weapons and the anti-war message can be traced all the way back to Kojima's parents barely surviving the air raids on Tokyo in the 1930s. However, its main character is a white American with the same properties as Snake Plissken from Escape From New York. I had a chance to interview Kojima a few years back and asked about his Western influences, and he said that when he grew up he was surrounded by American tv shows, British music, and so forth. He claimed the exposure to Western culture alongside the Japanese had left him feeling like someone of no particular nationality, which I'm sure is a claim that someone like Haruki Murakami would also make if you asked him. Probably Kar-Wai Wong too if you want a Chinese equivalent.

The Ghost in the Shell manga was about these things, like a weird mirror reflecting back the Western cultue reflected onto Japan, just like Kojima's games or Miyazaki's films. One of the themes in the story is about how digital consciousness has 'disconnected' somewhat from social constructions of ethnicity and nationality. This nuance got lost somewhere in the social media debate surrounding Scarlett Johansson. I'm not trying to defend that casting choice or the Hollywood whitewashing that was so obviously the reason for it, but I think it somewhat explains why both Japanese people in general and GitS fans in particular reacted with a shrug.

Burnwinter

Mirth wrote:
What I found quite interesting about GitS casting controversy is that it was never considered offensive or insulting in Japan itself according to a couple of polls that I saw at the time. Then again, I suppose Japan has a vibrant history in making films for themselves so they don't really need Hollywood to represent them.

What people are sensitive or get offended about is one of those really hard to gauge parts of cultural difference, because it emerges from very specific places.

A couple of Japanese people I know were way more pissed off with Isle of Dogs and its sort of cutesification of Japanese aesthetics—and that's despite that film employing lots of Japanese production design talent.

The whole Zhang Ziyi playing a geisha thing was a huge misstep, but that book was also roundly criticised for being a westerner's exoticised view of life as a geisha. From memory it was written by a Texan Japanophile who did a gap year or postgrad in Japan. Must admit I liked reading it, never saw the film.

Burnwinter

@[deleted] The cool thing will be when the MGS titles come all the way back round and start to influence Hollywood films again. Which I'm guessing has already happened.

The intertextuality of film and games these days is absolutely fascinating. You can practically smell the cross-pollination. Felt that about Mission Impossible: Fallout for example.

Asterix

Mirth wrote:
Burnwinter wrote:
For example the GitS casting controversy was a reminder that GitS itself borrowed hugely from Blade Runner.

What I found quite interesting about GitS casting controversy is that it was never considered offensive or insulting in Japan itself according to a couple of polls that I saw at the time. Then again, I suppose Japan has a vibrant history in making films for themselves so they don't really need Hollywood to represent them.

https://comicbook.com/anime/2017/04/09/ghost-in-the-shell-scarlett-johansson-japanese-reactions/

"Honestly, that would be worse: someone from another Asian country pretending to be Japanese. Better just to make the character white."

People are weird. 😆

Edit: I remember Memoirs Of A Geisha being banned in China for that very reason, actually.

The original Monkey TV series featured Japanese actors portraying Chinese characters. I wonder if there was a reaction to that?

QuincyAbeyie

No new movies that I wanted to see, so I scrolled through my watchlist and ended up seeing Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I didn't really laugh all that much, but it was still very charming. The final act was great, and it was interesting seeing that Charlie Sheen even played himself so many years ago.

arsedocmd

Another Bryan Cranston sighting just now in Lincoln lawyer. Noticed him last week in saving private Ryan.
Gotta check his imdb.

goon

Watched the Last Jedi. Thought it was really enjoyable personally, more so than the overrated originals. Why did so many people have a problem with it?

QuincyAbeyie

I really liked it myself, but I think I've read enough criticisms of it to answer you. The Force Awakens was basically a soft reboot, you'd seen everything before, but it was still well done. Some didn't like this and some did. The Last Jedi went in the other direction to the point where much of it didn't feel very Star Wars-y to some.
[spoiler]The one part of this I agree with is Canto Bight. Everything that happened there was boring and reminded me more of Harry Potter than Star Wars. Many people also think they shouldn't have built up Snoke to be the big bad and then kill him like that, while others feel like they shouldn't have built up Rey's origin if she's just an ordinary person. I disagree with those two criticisms, but that's what many people are saying.[/spoiler]

I will say though that while I loved the movie when I watched it in the theatre, I found it slightly boring when rewatching at home.

goon

I liked that it was slightly less Star Wars-y personally. I'm not exactly a huge fan of the originals but even if I were, that format had it's time. I'd love it if they go a little further with the next film or at least the next trilogy.

[spoiler]Yeah, Canto Bight was pretty bad, didn't even get anything of any real substance out of it either. It doesn't help that Mark Hamill is a terrible actor. Hopefully Luke's role in the franchise is over now given how it ended though I get the feeling that won't be the case. [/spoiler]

Qwiss

goon wrote:
I liked that it was slightly less Star Wars-y personally. I'm not exactly a huge fan of the originals but even if I were, that format had it's time. I'd love it if they go a little further with the next film or at least the next trilogy.

[spoiler]Yeah, Canto Bight was pretty bad, didn't even get anything of any real substance out of it either. It doesn't help that Mark Hamill is a terrible actor. Hopefully Luke's role in the franchise is over now given how it ended though I get the feeling that won't be the case. [/spoiler]

[spoiler]I doubt we'll see Luke again as more than a brief appearance as a ghost.[/spoiler]

Anyway I like this response to most of the criticisms levelled at The Last Jedi

MistaT

est

That looks good, Mista.

QuincyAbeyie

I didn't like Hostiles very much. Some great acting from both Bale and Rosamund Pike, but the story in general isn't good enough. Considering how slow paced it is, much of that time could've been spent on the characters getting to know each other, but they barely interact.

Pepe LeFrits

goon wrote:
Watched the Last Jedi. Thought it was really enjoyable personally, more so than the overrated originals. Why did so many people have a problem with it?

It threw out all of the set-ups from TFA (thus managing to make TFA an even worse movie), the script was terrible, no characters had any arcs, Luke being somebody else, Luke dying... because, Leia not dying... because she's Mary Poppins, Rose & Finn, General Hux, the light-speed ship weapon, purple haired Laura Dern, it's kind of covered already between Rose & Finn and the mention of the shit script but casino planet needs a second mention, the bombers, the slow-mo ship chase, the Rey/Kylo humour, the Poe humour... eh, I guess that's all. Actually the tone is all over the place as well, I mean the video qs quoted talks about it being the dark middle chapter, and yeah, the entire rebellion is basically wiped out, so why are they smiling and hugging and back-slapping at the end? It's just a terrible, incoherent mess of a movie. It looks gorgeous, has a great soundtrack... and that's about it.

So yeah, didn't like it much.

goon

To be honest I can’t really argue with your points, but then I could probably come out with an even longer list of issues from the original trilogy. Point being, it’s what I’ve come to expect off Star Wars so the incoherence was built into my expectations. Ultimately though, I found it enjoyable.

Also happens to be why I liked the prequels, JarJar aside, unlike everyone else on the planet it seems. It’s the most coherent of the lot, the lead character had a great arc and the plot itself was pretty intriguing. I watched it before the originals so it helped that I managed to avert the massive spoilers that were the sequels.

Burnwinter

My basic theory about Star Wars is that the eclectic, slightly contradictory setup of the original pulp story really never had the strong bones to turn into a huge world-building exercise and merchandising platform.

I think the perpetual struggles of several generations of writers to come up with a self-consistent, aesthetically attractive expanded chronology show that's the case. From Return of the Jedi onward, nearly every film has moments of brilliance but none of them quite nails it.

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