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Clipperton posted:And anyway: why use Freud even for media criticism, if Freud's been debunked? Once you knock out the scientific support for psychoanalysis, what reason is left to use Freud's set of symbols instead of some purely arbitrary one (JAEGERS=DONUTS)? I think the justification is that the psychoanalytical language/symbolism is often used by directors and it's basically a secret language to communicate with the media literate inside their secret clubhouse of fine art and discussion. But because its all dicks and vaginas its all really weird and creepy to the uninitiated and/or sane. Basically, as several people pointed out pages and pages ago, this entire debate exists because the two sides are speaking different languages. Peruser fucked around with this message at 23:40 on Aug 21, 2013 |
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Aug 21, 2013 23:29
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One need not agree with all of Freud's ideas to find his terminology useful in discussing fiction. "Character", "plot device", "act", "protagonist", "antagonist", "mcguffin", and so on are all common terms that apply to fictional stories but not real life. Why not add "id", "ego", "super-ego", "libido", "unconscious" to that list, or forum favorites from Lacan like "the real" or "objet petit a". Also Freud didn't invent the idea of phallic, sexual, fertility, or masculine/feminine imagery. They've been a part of human myths and stories for maybe the entire history of storytelling. Freud and related thinkers (like Joseph Campbell) were attempting, in part, to describe patterns they saw in that history. Freud's Oedipus complex concept, for example, is named after the Greek Oedipus myth. Lord Krangdar fucked around with this message at 23:49 on Aug 21, 2013 |
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Aug 21, 2013 23:45
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Well, GG Pacific Rim thread, it was good while it lasted. I'm not sure how people can go on and on about this stuff and not realise that you are boring people to death.
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Aug 21, 2013 23:47
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Milky Moor posted:Well, GG Pacific Rim thread, it was good while it lasted. I'm not sure how people can go on and on about this stuff and not realise that you are boring people to death. I'm not bored to death. This sure beats people moaning about not being able to buy plastic figurines.
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Aug 21, 2013 23:48
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Milky Moor posted:Well, GG Pacific Rim thread, it was good while it lasted. I'm not sure how people can go on and on about this stuff and not realise that you are boring people to death. It's a natural progression from people disagreeing about the film to discussing why they're disagreeing.
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Aug 21, 2013 23:51
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Clipperton posted:why use Freud even for media criticism, if Freud's been debunked? Once you knock out the scientific support for psychoanalysis, what reason is left to use Freud's set of symbols instead of some purely arbitrary one (JAEGERS=DONUTS)? In 2000, the 100th anniversary of the publication of Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams was accompanied by a new wave of triumphalist acclamations of how psychoanalysis is dead: with the new advances in brain sciences, it is finally put where it belonged all the time, to the lumber-room of pre-scientific obscurantist search for hidden meanings, alongside religious confessors and dream-readers. As Todd Dufresne put it, no figure in the history of human thought was more wrong about all its fundamentals - with the exception of Marx, some would add. And, effectively and predictably, in 2005, the infamous The Black Book of Communism, listing all the Communist crimes, was followed by The Black Book of Psychoanalysis, listing all the theoretical mistakes and clinical frauds of psychoanalysis. In this negative way, at least, the profound solidarity of Marxism and psychoanalysis is now displayed for all to see. There is something to this funeral oratory. A century ago, in order to situate his discovery of the unconscious in the history of modern Europe, Freud developed the idea of three successive humiliations of man, the three “narcissistic illnesses,” as he called them. First, Copernicus demonstrated that Earth turns around the Sun and thus deprived us, humans, of the central place in the universe. Then, Darwin demonstrated our origin from blind evolution, thereby depriving us of the privileged place among living beings. Finally, when Freud himself rendered visible the predominant role of the unconscious in psychic processes, it became clear that our ego is not even a master in his own house. Today, a hundred years later, a more extreme picture is emerging: the latest scientific breakthroughs seem to add a whole series of further humiliations to the narcissistic image of man: our mind itself is merely a computing machine for data-processing, our sense of freedom and autonomy is merely the user’s illusion of this machine. Consequently, with regard to today’s brain sciences, psychoanalysis itself, far from being subversive, rather seems to belong to the traditional humanist field threatened by the latest humiliations. Is, then, psychoanalysis today really outdated? It seems that it is, on three interconnected levels: (1) that of scientific knowledge, where the cognitivist-neurolobiologist model of the human mind appears to supersede the Freudian model; (2) that of psychiatric clinic, where psyhoanalytic treatment is rapidly losing ground against pills and behavioral therapy; (3) that of the social context, where the image of a society, of social norms, which repress the individual’s sexual drives, no longer appears valid with regard to today’s predominant hedonistic permissiveness. Nonetheless, in the case of psychoanalysis, the memorial service is perhaps a little bit too hasty, commemorating a patient who still has a long life ahead. In contrast to the “evident” truths of the critics of Freud, my aim is to demonstrate that it is only today that the time of psychoanalysis has arrived. On reading Freud through Lacan, through what Lacan called his “return to Freud.” Freud’s key insights finally become visible in their true dimension. Lacan did not understand this return as a return to what Freud said, but to the core of the Freudian revolution of which Freud himself was not fully aware. Lacan started his “return to Freud” with the linguistic reading of the entire psychoanalytic edifice, encapsulated by what is perhaps his single best known formula: “the unconscious is structured as a language.” The predominant perception of the unconscious is that it is the domain of irrational drives, something opposed to the rational conscious self. For Lacan, this notion of the unconscious belongs to the Romantic Lebensphilosophie (philosophy of life) and has nothing to do with Freud. The Freudian unconscious caused such a scandal not because of the claim that the rational self is subordinated to the much vaster domain of blind irrational instincts, but because it demonstrated how the unconscious itself obeys its own grammar and logic – the unconscious talks and thinks. The unconscious is not the reservoir of wild drives that has to be conquered by the ego, but the site where a traumatic truth speaks. Therein resides Lacan’s version of Freud’s motto wo es war, soll ich werden (where it was, I shall become): not “the ego should conquer the id”, the site of the unconscious drives, but “I should dare to approach the site of my truth”. What awaits me “there” is not a deep Truth I have to identify with, but an unbearable truth I have to learn to live with. How, then, do Lacan’s ideas differ from the mainstream psychoanalytical schools of thought and from Freud himself? With regard to other schools, the first thing that strikes the eye is the philosophical tenor of Lacan’s theory. For Lacan, psychoanalysis at its most fundamental is not a theory and technique of treating psychic disturbances, but a theory and practice which confronts individuals with the most radical dimension of human existence. It does not show an individual the way to accommodate him- or herself to the demands of social reality; it explains how something like “reality” constitutes itself in the first place. It does not merely enable a human being to accept the repressed truth about him- or herself; it explains how the dimension of truth emerges in human reality. In Lacan’s view, pathological formations like neuroses, psychoses and perversions, have the dignity of fundamental philosophical attitudes towards reality. When I suffer obsessional neurosis, this ‘illness’ colours my entire relationship to reality and defines the global structure of my personality. Lacan’s main critique of other psychoanalytic orientations concerns their clinical orientation: for Lacan, the goal of psychoanalytic treatment is not the patient’s well-being or successful social life or personal self-fulfilment, but to bring the patient to confront the elementary coordinates and deadlocks of his or her desire. With regard to Freud, the first thing that strikes the eye is that the lever used by Lacan in his “return to Freud” comes from outside the field of psychoanalysis: in order to unlock the secret treasures of Freud, Lacan mobilized an eclectic series of theories, from the linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure, through Claude Lévi-Strauss’s structural anthropology, up to mathematical set theory and the philosophies of Plato, Kant, Hegel and Heidegger. No wonder most of Lacan’s key concepts do not have a counterpart in Freud’s own theory: Freud never mentions the triad of Imaginary, Symbolic and Real, he never talks about the “big Other” as the symbolic order, he speaks of “ego”, not of “subject”. Lacan uses these terms imported from other disciplines as tools to cut distinctions which are implicitly already present in Freud, even if he was not aware of them. For example, if psychoanalysis is a ‘talking cure’, if it treats pathological disturbances with words only, it has to rely on a certain notion of speech; Lacan’s thesis is that Freud was not aware of the notion of speech implied by his own theory and practice, and that we can only elaborate this notion if we refer to Saussurean linguistics, speech acts theory and the Hegelian dialectics of recognition. Lacan’s “return to Freud” provided a new theoretical foundation of psychoanalysis with immense consequences also for analytic clinic. Controversy, crisis, scandal even, accompanied Lacan throughout his path. Not only was he, in 1953, excommunicated from the International Psycho-Analytic Association (see his Chronology) but his provocative ideas disturbed many progressive thinkers, from critical Marxists to feminists. Although, in the Western academia, Lacan is usually perceived as one of the postmodernists or deconstructionists, he clearly sticks out from the space designated by these labels. All his life, he was outgrowing labels attached to his name: phenomenologist, Hegelian, Heideggerian, structuralist, poststructuralist; no wonder, since the most outstanding feature of his teaching is permanent self-questioning. (link)
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Aug 21, 2013 23:51
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Lord Krangdar posted:You and OldPueblo haven't learned it, that's the whole problem. You haven't learned to be literate in the language of film. This is basically right. I used to be absolutely terrible at discerning even the surface narrative of films because I literally could not 'read' the language of films. (Think of your grandparents not even understanding how to navigate 3D space in a video game; this was basically me with films.) Finally after watching a movie with someone where all I saw was a shot of some shoes but they managed to correctly extrapolate an entire subplot from it, I decided enough was enough and I actually needed to make a concerted effort to understand film. Some people are more apt at intuitively doing so than others, I guess. Now I too can talk poo poo about subtext, not brilliantly but at least to some level! Some movies, for me especially Ridley Scott ones, are massively improved if you do have some knowledge of film crit. You don't even have to go like, full Zizek/structuralist readings, but if you're arguing over whether symbols have meanings at all or not seeing sexual imagery in Alien or debating whether Jaws is scary for any reason other than "it has a big shark", I really recommend reading some film/semiotics books because you will end up, as Peruser puts it, speaking the same language as filmmakers. Even if you think Freud and Jung are a load of old shite and will not be persuaded otherwise, I can guarantee that loads of films will use their ideas because they are part of film language (media language in general, really), and if you don't know them at all, you will be missing meaning.
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Aug 21, 2013 23:51
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Why not? It's an ideal to strive for. I believe in literacy, and if the choice is a binary between hoarding merch and being literate, then burn Hasbro to the ground. Good thing it's not a binary, then! The forum's software is clearly robust enough to handle a long thread in which people discuss themes, buy merchandise, whine about not getting merchandise, insult other posters for liking a "fascist" film, share fanart, discuss Alien, discuss whether symbolism even exists, etc. Now let them have their fun and you can continue having yours.
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Aug 21, 2013 23:53
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Lord Krangdar posted:No. Before taking on a specific example, from Pacific Rim or Prometheus or Alien or whatever, lets first establish that symbols can have obvious meanings. Can we both agree that a stop sign has an obvious meaning? Find a hitherto-undiscovered Amazonian rainforest tribe, show them a stop sign and ask them the meaning of it. I mean, if it's obvious they should get it right away. quote:You and OldPueblo haven't learned it, that's the whole problem. You haven't learned to be literate in the language of film. Once again: where does one learn this? Whose feet do I sit at to "learn the language of film"? Please don't say "Freud". Lord Krangdar posted:One need not agree with all of Freud's ideas to find his terminology useful in discussing fiction. "Character", "plot device", "act", "protagonist", "antagonist", "mcguffin", and so on are all common terms that apply to fictional stories but not real life. Oh, too late. Dude, Freud's ideas may be useful but it's on you to demonstrate they're useful. And saying 'phallic imagery has existed forever' is begging the question, since it's only Freud et al who identified a lot of it as phallic imagery, and if Freud is bullshit then there goes the basis for that. e: VVVVVV PaganGoatPants posted:I need some Romeo Blue sneakers. gently caress yes. Clipperton fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Aug 22, 2013 |
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Aug 21, 2013 23:57
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I need some Romeo Blue sneakers.
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Aug 21, 2013 23:58
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Clipperton posted:Once again: where does one learn this? Whose feet do I sit at to "learn the language of film"? Please don't say "Freud". Roger Ebert might be a good start for the basics. edit: and I dunno, maybe listen to a few director's commentaries.
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Aug 22, 2013 00:03
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Clipperton posted:Oh, too late. Dude, Freud's ideas may be useful but it's on you to demonstrate they're useful. And saying 'phallic imagery has existed forever' is begging the question, since it's only Freud et al who identified a lot of it as phallic imagery, and if Freud is bullshit then there goes the basis for that. You know how Facebook is sometimes objectively awful but everyone's on it so you end up having to use it? Freud, Jung, Lacan etc are a big part of film whether you see any 'truth' in them and whether you like them or not. You either learn them or miss out. That's their use, as shared language, meaning and culture. (Of course they were all attempting to analyse culture and psychology to begin with, so there's a strange and interesting process by which their analysis of culture BECAME culture and to some extent became true whether it originally was or not - but it's all just "bullshit", right?) VV you must be mad if you want people to go straight from "look, the alien didn't literally have sex with Ripley, so where are you seeing all these penises?" to Lacan. I mean yeah everything ends up at Lacan but read some introductory stuff first 
Prism Mirror Lens fucked around with this message at 00:11 on Aug 22, 2013 |
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Aug 22, 2013 00:06
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Clipperton posted:Once again: where does one learn this? Whose feet do I sit at to "learn the language of film"? Please don't say "Freud". Lacan. Everyone in the thread has been referencing Lacan, not Freud. See my above post. Maxwell Lord posted:Good thing it's not a binary, then! The forum's software is clearly robust enough to handle a long thread in which people discuss themes, buy merchandise, whine about not getting merchandise, insult other posters for liking a "fascist" film, share fanart, discuss Alien, discuss whether symbolism even exists, etc. No.
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Aug 22, 2013 00:07
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Lacan. Well, too bad. You're not actually going to stop anyone discussing what they liked about the movie, you're not going to stop the trivial conversations by people who use discussion boards for trivial fun, the world keeps on turning. The Revolution will survive people buying Gipsy Danger toys.
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Aug 22, 2013 00:15
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Maxwell Lord posted:Good thing it's not a binary, then! The forum's software is clearly robust enough to handle a long thread in which people discuss themes, buy merchandise, whine about not getting merchandise, insult other posters for liking a "fascist" film, share fanart, discuss Alien, discuss whether symbolism even exists, etc. It's weird that you'd use phrases like "let them" when as far as I can tell you're the one actually attempting to police discussion. What's SMG going to do, start probating people? Does it mean anything that buying toys or whatever requires the absence criticism in order to work properly?
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Aug 22, 2013 00:15
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Ferrinus posted:It's weird that you'd use phrases like "let them" when as far as I can tell you're the one actually attempting to police discussion. What's SMG going to do, start probating people? Does it mean anything that buying toys or whatever requires the absence criticism in order to work properly? making GBS threads on other posters for not continuing to play the "Is This Fascist?" game may not shut down other discussion but it is passive-aggressive and a trollish thing to do. I like movie threads where people aren't assholes to each other.
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Aug 22, 2013 00:20
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Clipperton posted:Find a hitherto-undiscovered Amazonian rainforest tribe, show them a stop sign and ask them the meaning of it. I mean, if it's obvious they should get it right away. This is not an argument against what I've been saying. Despite the fact that others may not understand that symbol, we both do. Because we are literate in English. The existence of people who have not learned English doesn't nullify the meaning of communication in English, and the same goes for film. quote:Once again: where does one learn this? Whose feet do I sit at to "learn the language of film"? Please don't say "Freud". I've already said multiple times there's no final authority on any language, I don't know why you keep assuming I would name one. Where and how did you learn English? How did English come about, and how did it/does it it evolve? Answer those questions and then apply the answers to film's visual language. For a specific example, when you see a light-bulb above a cartoon character's head you know it means they have an idea, right? How do we both know that? When a there's a cut in a film and words appear on the screen saying something like "New York, 2011", you know it means the scene is taking place at that city in that year. How do we both know that? Whose feet did we have to sit at to learn these things? quote:Oh, too late. Dude, Freud's ideas may be useful but it's on you to demonstrate they're useful. And saying 'phallic imagery has existed forever' is begging the question, since it's only Freud et al who identified a lot of it as phallic imagery, and if Freud is bullshit then there goes the basis for that. If I argue that they're useful then I will attempt to demonstrate that they're useful. I was arguing that terminology can be useful to describe stories without it applying equally to real life. I don't need Freud to clue me in to the phallic imagery here, even if I might not use that same term without his influence: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/Pompeya_er%C3%B3tica6.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/62/Blue_Mars_symbol.svg/400px-Blue_Mars_symbol.svg.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/Der_Daemon_Baphomet.PNG http://i.imgur.com/VgZA8G0.jpg Read a book on comparative mythology if you want more detail.
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Aug 22, 2013 00:21
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Maxwell Lord posted:making GBS threads on other posters for not continuing to play the "Is This Fascist?" game may not shut down other discussion but it is passive-aggressive and a trollish thing to do. I like movie threads where people aren't assholes to each other. But... how can you possibly call other people passive aggressive assholes in the same breath that you say that they're making GBS threads, that their sincere attempts at analysis are just a game, etc? Kind of an unusually touchy and hostile reaction - and one with parallels to the movie itself!
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Aug 22, 2013 00:25
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People who just want Pacific Rim action figures are knowingly, or unknowingly, merely advocating for aestheticism, which is an intellectually consistent position and should not be dismissed lightly.
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Aug 22, 2013 00:28
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Pacific Rim - To Fight Monsters, We Bickered Amongst Ourselves
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Aug 22, 2013 00:30
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Ferrinus posted:But... how can you possibly call other people passive aggressive assholes in the same breath that you say that they're making GBS threads, that their sincere attempts at analysis are just a game, etc? Kind of an unusually touchy and hostile reaction - and one with parallels to the movie itself! I think SMG is utterly sincere in his analysis of the film. I think he's making GBS threads when he makes posts about how FASCINATED he is by people talking about merchandise and box office and how this points to the film's fascism. I don't know if he's just trying to pick a fight or what, but it's clear that people got fatigued with all the fascism-chat, that died down, the thread went on to some low-level talk about fanart and toys and whatnot, and this is apparently unacceptable.
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Aug 22, 2013 00:30
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I thought the movie was just about team work. 
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Aug 22, 2013 00:30
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Maxwell Lord posted:Well, too bad. You're not actually going to stop anyone discussing what they liked about the movie, you're not going to stop the trivial conversations by people who use discussion boards for trivial fun, the world keeps on turning. The Revolution will survive people buying Gipsy Danger toys. Weird thoughts.
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Aug 22, 2013 00:33
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thelaughingman posted:I thought the movie was just about team work. Team work is fascist.
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Aug 22, 2013 00:33
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What is Pacific Rim - There Will Be Rocket Punches? What is Pacific Rim - There Will be Rocket Punches about?
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Aug 22, 2013 00:33
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What is a rocket punch? A miserable little pile of Fascism!
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Aug 22, 2013 00:35
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Maxwell Lord posted:I think SMG is utterly sincere in his analysis of the film. So, here, you write "this is apparently unacceptable" but it's actually you who is asserting that certain kinds of discussion are unacceptable and should be silenced. When you get pushback you gloat about the power and inevitability of consumerist behavior, aligning yourself with the status quo and acknowledging that that status quo sustains itself on toy purchases. There's room for everybody in this harmonious, teamwork-based thread of ours! Well, almost everybody...
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Aug 22, 2013 00:39
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Lord Krangdar posted:You and OldPueblo haven't learned it, that's the whole problem. You haven't learned to be literate in the language of film. Annddd this brings me back to my original incredibly simple point. What if GDT literally meant the simplest of things with certain scenes and you guys are going off the deep end with them making poo poo up? That's not subtext, it's fantasy. If I took a video of my cat taking a poo poo and thought to myself "this represents melted chocolate cake and the decadence of humanity" but I made no reference to that and didn't infer it in any way, you would literally have no reason to think of it as anything other than "cat poo poo". What I mean and what you interpret can be two completely different things. Did GDT give ample clues/context/reference for certain scenes or are you guys literally making cat poo poo into chocolate? Is GDT on record as having stated why he did certain scenes a certain way? How many times is kaiju procreation/pregnancy mentioned in the film? Enough to make it a real actual thing? Back your poo poo up and please try to keep it to like three sentences drat. Call me a simpleton all you want, I do get imagery. I just don't masturbate to my pseudo-intellectual self in the mirror over imagery I've conjured up out of cat poo poo. When I watched the Ripley scene I literally saw a dude choking a chick with a magazine. A surprise freaky twisted robot dude no less. It didn't need subtext or need to make sense, I didn't sit there thinking "Hmm why a magazine there must be something deeper". Freaky robot dude. Now in that case it sounds like there was a deeper meaning, and one that was obviously intended by the director. I'm down with that. Does that mean there is subtext in everything? No. Jason Bourne killed a dude with a towel in one of this movies, I don't need to know what brand of towel and I don't need to ask if the fact that he did it in a shower MEANS SOMETHING. And if I came out of all four alien movies without a boner and having sex/alien genitals being the furthest thing from my mind, then the director failed miserably I guess. The movie is no deeper or better with that revealed. And Pacific Rim is literally getting shittier by the post with all this nonsense. OldPueblo fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Aug 22, 2013 |
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Aug 22, 2013 00:42
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Also I call dibs on being the Russian couple at comicon next year. My wife and I could totally pull it off, don't copy!
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Aug 22, 2013 00:43
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OldPueblo posted:How many times is kaiju procreation/pregnancy mentioned in the film? I just watched it again, and interestingly after the first drift, Newt says that the kaiju are grown. This leaves the question of why one is being born in this manner. I have no idea if this conflict has been discussed previously. quote:Enough to make it a real actual thing? Back your poo poo up and please try to keep it to like three sentences drat. Call me a simpleton all you want, I do get imagery. I just don't masturbate to my pseudo-intellectual self in the mirror over imagery I've conjured up out of cat poo poo. See, for my part, I don't think a text can possibly have any inherent meaning, and that when you interpret any text, you're pouring your own ego into an empty vessel and looking at the reflection. So when people are doing this, you can choose for yourself whether or not you believe it tells you anything about Pacific Rim, but it could be telling you something interesting about the beliefs of the person writing it.
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Aug 22, 2013 00:54
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By the way is said Freud et al, not just Freud alone. He is the start if anything is. I don't know how you even grasp Lacan with out knowing something if Freud. Also I think it is funny to claim Jaws is scary because its a giant shark and not a vagina because Jaws isn't really even a giant shark.
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Aug 22, 2013 00:55
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On the subject of Toychat (because man, fascism, am I right?), Think Geek actually had Gipsy Danger and Leatherback in stock this morning (as well as Crimson Typhoon, which has been available for a while). Of course, as of right now Gipsy Danger's already sold out and isn't expected back in stock until tomorrow. I really hope people in WB/Legendary's marketing departments are paying attention to this.
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Aug 22, 2013 01:03
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Psybro posted:See, for my part, I don't think a text can possibly have any inherent meaning, and that when you interpret any text, you're pouring your own ego into an empty vessel and looking at the reflection. It all adds up now.
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Aug 22, 2013 01:09
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OldPueblo posted:It all adds up now. Post the poo poo video. Make the cat poo poo video and post it.
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Aug 22, 2013 01:11
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Post the poo poo video. Make the cat poo poo video and post it. I am deathly afraid of what might ensue.
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Aug 22, 2013 01:14
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OldPueblo posted:When I watched the Ripley scene I literally saw a dude choking a chick with a magazine. A surprise freaky twisted robot dude no less. It didn't need subtext or need to make sense, I didn't sit there thinking "Hmm why a magazine there must be something deeper". Freaky robot dude. Now in that case it sounds like there was a deeper meaning, and one that was obviously intended by the director. I'm down with that. Does that mean there is subtext in everything? No. Jason Bourne killed a dude with a towel in one of this movies, I don't need to know what brand of towel and I don't need to ask if the fact that he did it in a shower MEANS SOMETHING. And if I came out of all four alien movies without a boner and having sex/alien genitals being the furthest thing from my mind, then the director failed miserably I guess. The movie is no deeper or better with that revealed. And Pacific Rim is literally getting shittier by the post with all this nonsense. Also Ash--as he later reveals--admires the xenos and in the scene where he assaults Ripley, he is emulating what he knows about them; the facehugger assaults its victims in virtually the same way. If it appears the subtext is present in Ash's scene, why must that subtext stay confined that scene and that scene alone? Especially when Ash's behavior is textually connected to the xeno's. AtraMorS fucked around with this message at 01:17 on Aug 22, 2013 |
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Aug 22, 2013 01:14
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You seem to be saying that people who talk about merchandise are ignorant of the implications of that preference with respect to their engagement with a political system, and that because of this, they're being hypocritical in refusing to discuss your interpretation of the film: after all, both are political, and isn't "politics" the word they use for what they object to? Okay, so what does it mean to fetishize and consume a capitalist-produced effigy of Cherno Alpha, which echoes Soviet design? They like its sturdy, industrial appearance, that it was in continuous service for 15 years and went down fighting, that all it does is punch kaiju really hard. Its and its pilots are Russian, not just in the sense of being from Russia but also by having many qualities of Russia. It's not the hero, but a member of the team, and it's cool because it's strong. So they're accepting the premises that all the jaegers are important because the PPDC is a team, so they can pick their favorite. They're toys, meant to be played with, staging mock fights between humanity's defenders and its would-be exterminators. The film ends on the screen, but it need not in the imagination. The film, intentionally, echoes a childish experience, being awed by the size of things, which is complemented by using miniature props thereof to explore what they mean, unconsciously if one prefers, in the consequence-free act of play. What is Pacific Rim about? I agree with the director: it's about people coming together, trusting each other, synthesizing their disparate viewpoints and talents, "[choosing] to believe in each other," and thereby finding the strength to overcome seemingly insurmountable and senseless hardship. This is the easiest interpretation to make and it is a very strong one. It's one that virtually everyone will find palatable, as well.
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Aug 22, 2013 01:17
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Russia hasn't been soviet in over two decades.
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Aug 22, 2013 01:19
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This thread makes me want to revive the auctor. One dim corner of the internet would be all the better for it.
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Aug 22, 2013 01:20
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| # ? Apr 28, 2024 09:45 |
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Russia hasn't been soviet in over two decades. Really? Wow!
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Aug 22, 2013 01:23
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