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Danger posted:What do you mean? Guevera wrote extensively on the integral power of love and compassion. My post (and provided source) were agreeing with you. Yeah, but he also performed a lot of summary executions. I'm not sure he's on the firmest moral ground.
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Aug 10, 2013 20:06
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In the defense of intellectually bankrupt film readings, the readers are now defending an intellectually and creatively bankrupt filmmaker. To defeat monsters, they became monsters.Danger posted:What do you mean? Guevera wrote extensively on the integral power of love and compassion. My post (and provided source) were agreeing with you. Ask the Congolese how all that compassionate writing turned out in practice. Oh wait, that would require a Marxist to admit that their precious theories actually exist in historical examples of repeated failure, instead of still lying in wait for that ideal implication that will save the world from    the specter haunting Europe
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Aug 10, 2013 20:13
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Ugly In The Morning posted:I mean in the sense of some very basic decisions, like filming basically the entire thing on a greenscreen, the stilted dialogue, the way the actors were directed, the whole thing just came off like there was no one to take a step back and evaluate what they were doing and most of all how they were doing it. Even with that, it wasn't something that was 'objectively' bad in my consideration and reading of the movies. Again all Art(movies/music/painting etc) is not something everyone objectively agrees upon with regards to the people involved in making it or the final piece itself(when/where/who/how). Hell some of it might have been a unintended happy accident when you consider the juxtaposition of both sets of movies. I'm just saying it actually gave more context when watching the movies personally and just pointing out something in my interpretation of them that contrasts with another read of the movie.
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Aug 10, 2013 20:18
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McSpanky posted:In the defense of intellectually bankrupt film readings, the readers are now defending an intellectually and creatively bankrupt filmmaker. To defeat monsters, they became monsters. You don't know what the 'spectre haunting Europe' actually is, do you?
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Aug 10, 2013 20:25
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Prism Mirror Lens posted:You don't know what the 'spectre haunting Europe' actually is, do you? I do, and I also know what's proven itself abysmally inadequate as an alternative.
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Aug 10, 2013 20:29
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Ugly In The Morning posted:I mean in the sense of some very basic decisions, like filming basically the entire thing on a greenscreen, the stilted dialogue, the way the actors were directed, the whole thing just came off like there was no one to take a step back and evaluate what they were doing and most of all how they were doing it. Like Del Toro, Lucas didn't accidentally make the film with special effects. Mako is told that her own memories aren't real. They're achronological, abstracted. This is real - the CGI simulated robot combat is real. The aesthetic of the films is a deliberate statement about how we perceive/experience reality - what reality is. And these are post-Jurassic Park, post-Matrix films that say (symbolic) reality is akin to a virtual reality or videogame. Lucas isn't an idiot - he wanted to depict the center of virtual capitalism in the galaxy as a pristine digital concept city. The attack on Coruscant evokes the common observation that 9/11 was 'like a movie.' Maxwell Lord posted:Yeah, but he also performed a lot of summary executions. I'm not sure he's on the firmest moral ground. Guevara is talking about compassion, not pacifism. Compassion for the poor means destroying the rich.
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Aug 10, 2013 20:43
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Like Del Toro, Lucas didn't accidentally make the film with special effects. Now whose compassion is too limited?
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Aug 10, 2013 21:11
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Pacific Rim: To Defend Monsters We Defended George Lucas Any news on the Japanese front? The movie just opened there, didn't it?
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Aug 10, 2013 21:18
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McSpanky posted:I do, and I also know what's proven itself abysmally inadequate as an alternative. The spectre is communism. It's the first line of the Communist Manifesto.
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Aug 10, 2013 21:26
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Raserys posted:Pacific Rim: To Defend Monsters We Defended George Lucas http://forums.boxoffice.com/index.php?/topic/3478-japan-box-office-2013/page-107 This "olive" guy seems to be posting a weekend forecast and the others take his word for it. Though this is counting only Saturday and Sunday 
Mu Zeta fucked around with this message at 21:38 on Aug 10, 2013 |
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Aug 10, 2013 21:34
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Happy K-Day, by the way.travisbeacham.tumblr.com posted:Today is K-Day Oblivion Bay founding is probably later today or tomorrow, I suppose.
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Aug 10, 2013 21:44
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Jet Jaguar posted:Happy K-Day, by the way. I thought it took almost a week to bring Trespasser down.
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Aug 10, 2013 21:52
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Prism Mirror Lens posted:The spectre is communism. It's the first line of the Communist Manifesto. I don't feel an ounce of embarrassment or shame for getting that wrong, since the only thing I'd feel happier wiping my rear end with is Mein Kampf, another work of extremist political monstrosity that brought misery and false hope to entire continents when enough of the misguided, desperate and foolish took it seriously. And that's all I have to say about that. redstormpopcorn posted:I thought it took almost a week to bring Trespasser down. A week of conventional military attack that was virtually ineffective, then three nukings in San Francisco Bay.
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Aug 10, 2013 22:11
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Like Del Toro, Lucas didn't accidentally make the film with special effects. I would be more forgiving if he didn't intend for it to be a nearly all-CGI hell. If something had gone wrong, if footage needed to be replaced, that would be one thing, but he made an artistic desicion to replace a lot of the sets and characters with CGI effects, and I think it made for a crappy looking movie. Some things can't be done without CGI, and that's one thing, but when most of your movie doesn't physically exist, you have actors trying to play off a tennis ball and it always looks fake and awkward and takes me out of the scene. Del Toro is a pretty good contrast for this, actually- if it can be done with practical effects, he does it with practical effects. It gives for a sense of weight and reality, and it gives the actors a lot more to work with. Hell, the fight scenes wouldn't have been half as exciting without the physical cockpit sets getting actual, in the moment reactions from the actors.
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Aug 10, 2013 22:20
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So I just saw this movie in a huge theater with 3D, and it was awesome! Me and my brother absolutely loved it because many things reminded us of the mecha-animes we used to watch, and my father who had grown up in Chile with such big-robot against monsters animes was like a little kid watching that movie. But now I come here and you're discussing if the movie is fascistic or something? Could anyone break down what you guys are discussing, because I really don't get it.
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Aug 10, 2013 23:01
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Stalins Moustache posted:So I just saw this movie in a huge theater with 3D, and it was awesome! Me and my brother absolutely loved it because many things reminded us of the mecha-animes we used to watch, and my father who had grown up in Chile with such big-robot against monsters animes was like a little kid watching that movie. But now I come here and you're discussing if the movie is fascistic or something? Could anyone break down what you guys are discussing, because I really don't get it. Super Mecha Godzilla's gimmick is extremely overplayed in this thread, that's really all you need to know. Lets post some goddamn pictures or something instead of arguing about fascism for the thousandth page   
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Aug 10, 2013 23:24
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One faction of CD posters enjoys discussing a movie's high and low points, the tactical realism of its character's actions, the world implied by the film's rules and details, the likelihood of sequels, and the movie's commercial auxiliaries (action figures, etc). In this view, movies are treated primarily as glimpses of another world, one bound by causality and logic like our own - the Objectively Real. Deeper readings of the film shouldn't really be attempted - they're intellectual pareidolia, a game in which there are no standards of evidence or tests of validity, cargo-cult assembly of disconnected and 'unintentional' details or conclusions to support a pre-selected framework. The other faction prefers to examine movies as cultural artifacts. Because every element of a movie, from the rendering of a CGI effect to the blocking of a shot, is part of an intentional, made work, movies can be treated as objects dense with cultural information. They convey the attitudes, preconceptions, and values of the people and societies who created the movie. It doesn't matter so much what the writer or director intended the movie to say with a given decision - what matters is what the movie ended up saying. Movies can define their own causal logic, because they're not portals into another world, they're symbolic statements. (As an example, the characters in Prometheus don't have to behave rationally because they're not astronauts exploring an alien world, they're characters in a movie, a movie made by people with intellectual interests, in a society defined by capitalist/what-have-you ideological structures.) Faction A views Faction B as guilty of 'overthinking it', of forcing top-down readings onto films, selectively recruiting the facts to fit what they want to see. They accuse Faction B of confabulating or wholesale fabricating their interpretations. In the extreme they cannot believe that the Faction B posters, like Danger or SMG, actually believe what they're saying. Faction B views Faction A as blinkered - bound to a narrow 'realist' viewpoint that demands they treat films as documentaries of the Real rather than texts or artifacts. They see Faction A as more interested in consuming media, accepting it and its slogans and soundtracks and gifs and Tumblr posts, than in engaging with it and really understanding what it's trying to say. Bound by a nerd mindset that enjoys calculating the kiloton yield of a Star Destroyer's turbolasers or accusing characters of acting suboptimally, they can't understand movies as produced objects. Personally, I'm much more interested in what people like SMG and Danger have to say because I think it's very, very easy to have discussions about a film's implied world or its tactical realism - anyone can walk out of the theater and start arguing about 'what they should have done.' SMG posts provide discussion I couldn't generate myself, and they make connections I wouldn't have thought of. They don't hurt anyone. It doesn't matter if the film is fascist and he makes us think about that. At worst we can decide we disagree; at best we find new ways to understand what we're watching. 
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Aug 10, 2013 23:39
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Also, there's often disagreement within Faction B that never seems to be resolved.
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Aug 10, 2013 23:44
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I think that's too simplistic a dichotomy. I find subtextual readings can be fun, but when the word "fascism" is thrown around a sort of moralizing tone sets in and everyone takes sides and you got a war. As in the real world, politics ruin everything.
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Aug 10, 2013 23:49
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It probably is too simplistic, but I do feel like it's a bit dichotomous. It's not about whether everyone in one faction agrees, it's about the kind of reasoning used. Some people don't want to go past what's literally said in the film, including, perhaps, only the most obviously 'intended' analogies and imagery. Others - even when they disagree with each other - like to recruit political discourse, Marxist philosophers, intertextuality between films, the framing of individual shots, the contrafactuals of what the film doesn't do, so on. You can get vicious disagreement between two tactical realists or two cultural critics, but at least they're speaking the same language. Again, I'm obviously biased here by finding the more associative, cultural approach to film more interesting. I don't think we need to be scared of a bit of politics in our thoughts about a giant robot movie! If someone thinks the film is fascist, the most harm that befalls us is that we think a little harder about the movie.
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Aug 10, 2013 23:57
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The film itself is 'moralising'. There's no neutral position to take regarding the film - accepting the film's presentation of moral behaviour as actually being moral isn't neutral. Attempting to avoid politics and just talk about how cool the robots punching the aliens was is not non-moralising because it's an implicit acceptance of the political/social/moral overtones which the other side see as having fascist qualities. The film is also pretty explicitly political; even those who think the film was not fascist use, as support for their viewpoint, the politics of all the nations joining together etc. People are being very sensitive about their favourite robot movie being called fascist, even though none of the people doing Marxist readings get offended when people post things about Marxism being an McSpanky posted:extremist political monstrosity that brought misery and false hope to entire continents when enough of the misguided, desperate and foolish took it seriously.
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Aug 11, 2013 00:11
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The problem is not that SMG posted his usual analysis, its that he did it a hundred pages ago and we're still arguing about it.
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Aug 11, 2013 00:16
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e: Ah gently caress it, this was stupid This whole argument really is just one big, stupid, nerdfight though. Peruser fucked around with this message at 00:23 on Aug 11, 2013 |
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Aug 11, 2013 00:19
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I wasn't offended, and neither was anybody else. That's the point - that only one side is wailing about being attributed bad political beliefs instead of debating using the film itself. The class-analysis guys don't break down going no - it can't be! I can't have bad political beliefs!! every time someone disagrees. (Probably because if they did get offended by that kind of thing they would spend so much time being offended they wouldn't have any time to post) e: this was in reply to above post.
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Aug 11, 2013 00:26
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McSpanky posted:In the defense of intellectually bankrupt film readings, the readers are now defending an intellectually and creatively bankrupt filmmaker. To defeat monsters, they became monsters. Dred Cosmonaut posted:The problem is not that SMG posted his usual analysis, its that he did it a hundred pages ago and we're still arguing about it. Can we just get to the drawings of robots loving, already? I'm ready.
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Aug 11, 2013 00:36
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Prism Mirror Lens posted:That's the point - that only one side is wailing about being attributed bad political beliefs instead of debating using the film itself. I tried, but I know when I'm out of my depth. There were others, too, like Maxwell Lord, who put up quite a spirited defense of the film's politics. At a certain point, though, I suppose you just have to agree to disagree with SMG.
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Aug 11, 2013 00:36
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Bongo Bill posted:I tried, but I know when I'm out of my depth. There were others, too, like Maxwell Lord, who put up quite a spirited defense of the film's politics. People defending their reading of the film's politics and/or quibbling about specific readings of the film (aside from complaining about reading the film at all) is quality posting, though. Keep on keepin on.
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Aug 11, 2013 00:39
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Prism Mirror Lens posted:I wasn't offended, and neither was anybody else. That's the point - that only one side is wailing about being attributed bad political beliefs instead of debating using the film itself. The class-analysis guys don't break down going no - it can't be! I can't have bad political beliefs!! every time someone disagrees. I kinda bowed out of the debates after I realized it threatened my sanity; so you'll forgive me for not remembering if anyone has ever broken down because of the implication that they may be fascist/ have fascist sympathies. All I've seen is people debating whether or not the film has fascist undertones (and I've seen it for nearly a hundred pages now). If people are being offended I think I'm willing to offer them some slack considering the loaded emotive undertones the word "fascist" carries and no, I'm not in agreement with the "its just a word" argument. 'Fascist' carries with it the luggage of a hundred million corpses; you want to use it? Fine, but don't pretend to be surprised when people get a little bit pissy with you or block you out entirely.
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Aug 11, 2013 00:48
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Danger posted:People defending their reading of the film's politics and/or quibbling about specific readings of the film (aside from complaining about reading the film at all) is quality posting, though. Keep on keepin on. Can only echo this point, the majority of the time I'm clumsily trying to say(reinterpret/understand) something that SMG generally expresses with more deft and nuance. Still don't think SMG made the most significant contribution to the thread, at least earlier on in the discussion. Jefferoos posts actually helped a lot more initially in working out my reading of this film and wanting to bring that to the discussion. None of this makes it worse in my mind, if anything that made the movie and contributions in the discussion surrounding it better. ^^^To explore it a little further when people were addressing lists of what makes something or other fascist the discussion regarding an undercurrent, there are quite nationalist themes present while coming together under a single banner in opposition of an Other. the Other is why they are coming together in the spirit of co-operation. My personal history of nationalism is fairly loving negative, generally leading to easy targets you're supposed to hate because of a long standing history where they started it first so that justifies continuing the hatred while making sure to ignore those exploiting that pain/anger for their own gains. In short the enemy of my enemy is my friend, but this is something worth talking about why does shared hatred of an Other bring people so easily together while ignoring the structural problems that are leading too/actively perpetuating the problem? Some of us don't see the Other as something abject but rather just a reflection of ourselves, what happens in that world when this Other is gone, do you honestly think they will solve anything when we've(to some of us at least) seen them unable to understand their relationship in adding to the problem? vvv Well said, put it much better. Also just to add, much of this discussion isn't about subtext. brawleh fucked around with this message at 01:28 on Aug 11, 2013 |
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Aug 11, 2013 00:59
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Peruser posted:I kinda bowed out of the debates after I realized it threatened my sanity; so you'll forgive me for not remembering if anyone has ever broken down because of the implication that they may be fascist/ have fascist sympathies. All I've seen is people debating whether or not the film has fascist undertones (and I've seen it for nearly a hundred pages now). If people are being offended I think I'm willing to offer them some slack considering the loaded emotive undertones the word "fascist" carries and no, I'm not in agreement with the "its just a word" argument. 'Fascist' carries with it the luggage of a hundred million corpses; you want to use it? Fine, but don't pretend to be surprised when people get a little bit pissy with you or block you out entirely. Again, this isn't my point. I'm not making an 'it's just a word' argument (although I think General Battuta maybe kind of is? I'm not completely in agreement with the idea of it "not mattering" whether the film is fascist or not). I'm saying that getting offended over that word being applied to the film is not relevant to this thread, and is unnecessary; either argue that the film is not fascist, argue that it is fascist but that there is nothing wrong with fascism, or stay out of that particular debate. Don't just post about how people should not use the word fascist because it is offensive and upsetting and moralising and is causing side-taking and wars. How can SMG present his analysis without saying the film is fascist, if that's what his conclusion is? What should he say, instead? Or should he simply not present a political view of the film at all? And I am not sure why you would give slack to people offended by a film they like being called fascist, when you would simply reply in a "well, it's true, so there" tone to possibly offensive posts condemning an entire political philosophy (beginning with an absurdly misinterpreted first line from its most basic text!). I think this is more combative than people discussing the ideology of the film itself, and I don't think that's a way you would like the class-analysers to reply to those who disagree. The class-analysers literally get told to shut up and that their ideology is one of awful mass-murder and deception, yet they plough on regardless, posting discussions of the film that just elicit cries of "Stop shutting down my views! Stop using the word fascism!"
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Aug 11, 2013 01:05
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Prism Mirror Lens posted:Again, this isn't my point. I'm not making an 'it's just a word' argument (although I think General Battuta maybe kind of is? I'm not completely in agreement with the idea of it "not mattering" whether the film is fascist or not). My mistake then. Prism Mirror Lens posted:I'm saying that getting offended over that word being applied to the film is not relevant to this thread, and is unnecessary; either argue that the film is not fascist, argue that it is fascist but that there is nothing wrong with fascism, or stay out of that particular debate. Prism Mirror Lens posted:Don't just post about how people should not use the word fascist because it is offensive and upsetting and moralising and is causing side-taking and wars. How can SMG present his analysis without saying the film is fascist, if that's what his conclusion is? What should he say, instead? I'm not saying people can't say the word "fascist", I'm saying if you are going to use it don't get upset when, surprise surprise, an offensive word causes offense! But now that I know this wasn't your point, it's kinda attacking an unintentional strawman. Prism Mirror Lens posted:Or should he simply not present a political view of the film at all? Well that would be my personal preference, but some people like it so who am I to judge? Prism Mirror Lens posted:And I am not sure why you would give slack to people offended by a film they like being called fascist, when you would simply reply in a "well, it's true, so there" tone to possibly offensive posts condemning an entire political philosophy I edited out that (admittedly stupid) statement because I was trying to make a point, but failed miserably. No, I do not think Marxism is comparable to fascism nor do I think it's a failed ideology. Prism Mirror Lens posted:The class-analysers literally get told to shut up and that their ideology is one of awful mass-murder and deception, yet they plough on regardless, posting discussions of the film that just elicit cries of "Stop shutting down my views! Stop using the word fascism!" You think it's noble, I think it's kinda annoying. A fundamental disagreement in experience that probably can't be resolved. If you want to continue this with me, send me a PM, as I'm not interested in derailing this thread any further. EDIT: Just realized you can't send messages, oops. Peruser fucked around with this message at 01:42 on Aug 11, 2013 |
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Aug 11, 2013 01:36
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Prism Mirror Lens posted:I'm not making an 'it's just a word' argument (although I think General Battuta maybe kind of is? I'm not completely in agreement with the idea of it "not mattering" whether the film is fascist or not). I'm saying that getting offended over that word being applied to the film is not relevant to this thread, and is unnecessary; either argue that the film is not fascist, argue that it is fascist but that there is nothing wrong with fascism, or stay out of that particular debate. This is the option I agree with most, though I'll have to set that aside to join in the chat again. I've already said my piece on the topic dozens of pages ago but I can sum it up again. In short, it's not fiction's fault that fascism as a cultural force co-opted the human heroic narrative to suit their own purposes. It's true, though, that often unwritten biases or premises skew uncomfortably close to those assumptions made by the expressly fascist narrative, and this was a matter that's haunted nerd and geek culture for some time. And while SMG's posts are a lot of fun to read, chastising Maxwell Lord for pointing at the Emperor's New Clothes is a bit unnecessary. He's just speaking from a position of good faith, and the last few exchanges between him and SMG were worth more than a hundred paragraphs of quotes. That said, half the fun of lurking the discussion is knowing that those posters being provocative are intentionally so, because being provocative itself sparks discussion. Speaking as an outsider myself, crossover posters from non-CineD interest cliques are often unprepared for rough-and-tumble film analysis culture, and this is an old song the subforum sings quite well. Just don't be surprised that nobody cares when an actual political belief gets insulted. People tend to be pretty down with bringing fascism and communism to task for their respective abuses, though people do become offended when they're snidely compared to those political beliefs they disagree with. This is, of course, exactly why one would do such a thing.
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Aug 11, 2013 02:56
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T.G. Xarbala posted:This is the option I agree with most, though I'll have to set that aside to join in the chat again. I acknowledge the fact that you made a point, and then I rocket-punch it. Point destroyed, I win. (that's how its done folks)
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Aug 11, 2013 03:12
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Danger posted:People defending their reading of the film's politics and/or quibbling about specific readings of the film (aside from complaining about reading the film at all) is quality posting, though. Keep on keepin on. The thing is, though, from my side, it's kinda exhausting. I'm much more interested in the craft side of things and how it ties into the kaiju and tokusatsu traditions (and it's REALLY gotten me into sentai stuff. I'm watching Power Rangers now. Never thought I would.) I think that even on a theme level, there's more to be looked at than politics- "everything is political" may be true on some level but it's also reductive. Life is complex and art can examine facets other than "who's in charge". There's a point where it does threaten to spoil one's enjoyment of the film, not because you have to think about it, but because you have to read it defensively, against someone else's reading. Whereas for the people who don't like the film in the first place there's nothing to spoil. Gives them the advantage.
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Aug 11, 2013 03:23
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Prism Mirror Lens posted:Again, this isn't my point. I'm not making an 'it's just a word' argument (although I think General Battuta maybe kind of is? I'm not completely in agreement with the idea of it "not mattering" whether the film is fascist or not). I'm just saying that if someone contends the film is fascist, the worst thing that can happen to you as a consequence of that assertion is that you disagree with them, and that's not very bad! Other consequences include: you think about the movie and agree with them, you think about the movie and don't agree with them, you make some kind of substantive contribution to the discussion either way, you maybe even learn something. Fascism is clearly not 'just a word', but I don't think people should get defensive about the contention that Pacific Rim has fascist undertones. They should try to understand why that argument's being made. I think it's an interesting argument! So I think I am basically saying what you were saying - getting offended is not relevant or necessary.
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Aug 11, 2013 03:34
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Give it a loving rest already.
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Aug 11, 2013 05:44
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Not to derail the thrilling discussion on fascism, but here are some cool youtube clips of Guillermo del Toro promoting Pacific Rim over in Japan. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-zCQGA4fdY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiwkProsb5o He seems to really be having a blast over there.
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Aug 11, 2013 05:47
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Milky Moor posted:Give it a loving rest already. Fascist.
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Aug 11, 2013 05:49
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ShadeIncarnate posted:Not to derail the thrilling discussion on fascism, but here are some cool youtube clips of Guillermo del Toro promoting Pacific Rim over in Japan. Del Toro's a big geek; he's having the time of his life over there. I think he recently went and saw the RX-78 Gundam they have. e: That's what I get for posting before viewing. He goes to see the damned thing in the first link. These are amazing and seeing him as giddy as I would be is awesome. Thanks. PerrineClostermann fucked around with this message at 07:06 on Aug 11, 2013 |
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Aug 11, 2013 05:52
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Let's see if I did this right
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Aug 11, 2013 06:20
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