More people should watch Legend of Galactic Heroes

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > VEGETA > More people should watch Legend of Galactic Heroes

Food Court Druid: Jul 17, 2007; Boredom is always counter-revolutionary. Always.

Zorak posted:

Every time they show gore it has a thematic point. The entire point of that scene was to show the senseless violence the war causes. War is violent, it costs lives. LOGH looks at things always from the perspective of the commander moving troops, moving numbers. Reinhard almost carelessly blows men's lives away, but each of those men are people, they have families, they have loves, they have lives.

It's not gore-pandering, it's not meant to be shocking you out SAW like, it's supposed to make you think about holy poo poo there are people dying; Yang was reflecting on the fact that it was hypocritical of him to seek personal happiness when he marches millions of people to their deaths consistently, tantamount in his mind to genocide on people who have faith on him. He carries that burden only because he thinks it will save more lives, he thinks. But he's still the one responsible.

The fact that such a cruel scene is included actually emphasizes the sheer amount of thought that is involved int he series' production; it has a measured, important point. It wasn't excessive, it was just right to make the situation clear.

The same is true of other really gory scenes, generally speaking.

Yeah, I would agree that this was the point of that episode, but it does kind of weirdly jar with the rest of the series. I mean, is the viewer supposed to go "Yeah, the plot of the series is just petty power struggles that cost millions of lives. Now let's watch 58 more episodes of those power struggles."

I'm 64 episodes in, and it seems like there's some leftist junior director struggling against the generally conservative tone of the series. 51, that episode on the rural border planet, and the history of Earth episode all seem to have this kind of divergent message from the rest of LoGH.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2010 23:55

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# ¿ May 20, 2024 09:30

Food Court Druid: Jul 17, 2007; Boredom is always counter-revolutionary. Always.

sensual benny posted:

I think his point is that despite using a sci-fi setting its really more of an opera or tragedy. The idea behind sci-fi, as a genre, is examining the implications behind certain advances, whereas technology and space really mean nothing to LoGH and it could be easily presented in other contexts.

LoGH would actually make a lot more sense if it was about an 18th-century war over Germanic provinces or something. But I guess then even fewer people would watch it

# ¿ Mar 18, 2010 04:14

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > VEGETA > More people should watch Legend of Galactic Heroes