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Medoken
Jul 2, 2006

I AM A FAGET FOR BOB SAGET


What is this why is Captain America in a movie about class warfare?

Wikipedia posted:

Snowpiercer (Korean: 설국열차; hanja: 雪國列車; RR: Seolgungnyeolcha) is a 2013 South Korean-American science fiction action film based on the French graphic novel Le Transperceneige by Jacques Lob, Benjamin Legrand and Jean-Marc Rochette.The film is directed by Bong Joon-ho, and written by Bong and Kelly Masterson. The film marks Bong's English-language debut; approximately 80% of the film was shot in English.

South Korea has been making a name for itself with some seriously cool action flicks that have recently made headway in American markets - this film is an excellent example of bridging the foreign-language gap by giving American audiences a film with a recognizable lead (Chris Evans) while still holding onto the roots of South Korean action sensibilities. As an argument for American's seeing more South Korean movies, I think it does a drat fine job.

But that's not what the movie is all about. This is a movie with an agenda, an action flick that has something to say that you might not expect from a lack-luster blurb.

quote:

In this sci-fi epic, a failed global-warming experiment kills off most life on the planet. The final survivors board the SNOWPIERCER, a train that travels around the globe via a perpetual-motion engine. When cryptic messages incite the passengers to revolt, the train thrusts full-throttle towards disaster.

A bit more on the plot: Curtis (Chris Evans) is a reluctant, yet steel-nosed leader of the revolutionaries in coach. Being largely unwanted guests aboard Wilford's (Ed Harris) Atlas Shrugged-style ultra-luxury train for 18 years of the apocalypse, Curtis and his group of mismatched class-warriors finally have a plan to seize the engine and take control of their destinies. Curtis leans on Gilliam (John Hurt) as he navigates his uneasy position of power within the revolution. The two have identified a first-class passenger and security expert, Namgoong Minsoo (Kang-ho Song), who can get them to the engine, but first they'll have to break him out of prison.

I only thought about seeing it because I'm a sucker for sci-fi dystopia, post-apocalyptic rigmarole, and then I saw that it's holding onto a 94% on rottentomatoes. My curiosity was officially piqued, so I found it playing at my local theater and gave it a shot. Sadly I was one of only two people in the theater.

This is a movie that is unrelentingly honest, refusing to pull its punches. Its roots as a graphic novel are apparent even if I didn't know that going in. While I was willing to accept the basic premise of the movie, that people hosed up the world through our own special form of hubris by trying to take a shortcut into saving it (hint: this is a lesson the rest of the movie hammers home) I was still asking myself, "but why are they on a train?" It makes sense that people have to band together to survive the brutal cold, but there have to be a million better places to survive the desolate hellscape the world has become thanks to man's latest folly. The movie answers that question, justifies its setting, and does a whole lot more along the way to build a believable world through its characterization and set design.

As Curtis journeys from the tail of the train to its engine we learn more about the unique culture that has grown aboard this perpetual-motion coffin - things like the disgusting origins of the ubiquitous protein bars, the growth of hallucinogenic industrial waste, and the reason this train was built in the first place. The journey itself is fraught with heavy-handed metaphor (this is a movie that is unapologetic about its discussion of class), but it is done in such a way that is completely organic to the film. The movie doesn't revel in spectacle, violence is brutal and personal (or in some cases, disturbingly de-personalized). There is a scene about 3/4 through the movie where Curtis and one of his antagonists engage in a shootout between cars across a winding valley. There is a deadly focus as each side concentrates first on breaking through the reinforced glass by pouring round after round into the same spot, and then a cold-calculation as they each take carefully executed shots trying to thread their rounds through these miniscule targets. It's a sequence that doesn't end in a climax as our hero pulls off the perfect shot, but rather serves to build tension and illustrate the deeply personal struggle each side is engaging in.

For me, this movie came together with its ending, not a twist, but a logical conclusion to all the narrative and ideological momentum of the film. I would compare to I Am Legend in that it's clear the ending we got here was one that could have easily been stripped of any meaning via over-engineered focus grouping. Thankfully the directors original vision remained intact.

Wikipedia posted:

The American rights were acquired by Harvey Weinstein in 2012, based on the script and some completed footage, with a plan for wide release in the United States and Canada. However, it was reported that Weinstein wanted to trim several minutes from the end of the film, which led to a dispute with the filmmaker. In February 2014 it was agreed that the film would remain intact at 125 minutes, but there would be a platform release, meaning the film would open in only in major markets, expanding in distribution only if sales showed promise.

It seems clear to me what Weinstein wanted to cut from the film, and I'm incredibly thankful that it was left in. The heart of this movie exists in the questions the ending poses, a set of questions I wasn't expecting, and I think you won't find in many wide-release American action flicks. Spoilers below where I talk about that.

The movie ends with a dramatic change of perspective. Whereas Curtis had been our protagonist throughout the entirety of the film, in the aftermath of his decision to destroy the train we are no longer following his story anymore. I was left wondering why the film focused on Yona (Ah-sung Ko) and Tim as they left the train to set foot into the snow-pocalypse. I wasn't sure what to make of it, I had spent the last two hours rooting for Curtis to take apart the powers that be and institute a class-less paradise, and all of a sudden he was nowhere to be found. This change in protagonists (because certainly the movie begs us to wonder what will happen next to these previously tertiary characters) is the heart of this movie, and why I'm glad to know that it was released untouched.

Curtis is a figure for radical revolution - he leads a class-struggle aimed at uprooting all existing power structures. And he does it without remorse, sacrificing even Edgar (Jamie Bell) who is his best friend/albatross/atonement for his past sins. Curtis reminds us throughout the film that his struggle can only be successful if he learns from the history of revolutionary struggles, that is how he is able to out-maneuver a system that has brutalized him for 18 years. Of course, we learn at the end of the film that he hasn't outmaneuvered it at all, he is still caught in that same savagery, being manipulated into leading others to their deaths. So when he chooses to destroy the seat of power, dismantling every vestige of the old system by literally running it off its tracks, the movie asks us to recognize that he no longer deserves a place of primacy in the new world order he has created. His struggle has always been about those too weak to fight for themselves, or too unaware to recognize the system as a brutalizing machine, but once he has accomplished his goal and destroyed the old power, he is no longer the focus of our story. The new world is about people who have the ability to re-envision the future (a literal sort of re-envisioning is suggested in the case of Yona). This is a movie that lends itself (obviously) extremely well to a Marxist reading, and, I believe, raises a lot of interesting questions rooted in the history of class warfare.

There are people who are a lot smarter than me who can probably suss out all the details, but I was left with a strong appreciation for what was an apparent summer action movie willing to delve deeply into the arguments surrounding radicalism vs. incrementalism.


In much the same way I think Edge of Tomorrow is getting short-shrift from the culture at-large, I think Snowpiercer is set to suffer similarly without word of mouth. I would encourage anyone even slightly interested in graphic novel adaptations, South Korean action, post-apocalypse sci-fi, or CAPTAIN AMERICA CHRIS EVANS to give this move a chance. Please, be smarter than me and talk about all the obvious symbolism I missed or mischaracterized!

Medoken fucked around with this message at 19:16 on Jul 3, 2014

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Al Cu Ad Solte
Nov 30, 2005
Searching for
a righteous cause
I wanted to like this film. It certainty has heart and soul behind it, but there were just too many questions that popped up that were offered no explanation.

Why was the girl psychic? Where did that come from?

Why was there just a bunch of dudes with axes and nightvision goggles in the train?

Where's the residential areas? The logistics of the train don't really seem to make sense.

The poor folk in the back of the train don't seem to serve any purpose. Why keep them on the train in the first place?

AlternateAccount
Apr 25, 2005
FYGM
I enjoyed this quite a bit. I'd say it's worth the price of admission.


Al Cu Ad Solte posted:

I wanted to like this film. It certainty has heart and soul behind it, but there were just too many questions that popped up that were offered no explanation.

Why was the girl psychic? Where did that come from?

Why was there just a bunch of dudes with axes and nightvision goggles in the train?

Where's the residential areas? The logistics of the train don't really seem to make sense.

The poor folk in the back of the train don't seem to serve any purpose. Why keep them on the train in the first place?


Good god, I can't believe I am saying this, but you can't take this movie at all literally or as some kind of scientifically accurate representation of anything.

Medoken
Jul 2, 2006

I AM A FAGET FOR BOB SAGET

Al Cu Ad Solte posted:

I wanted to like this film. It certainty has heart and soul behind it, but there were just too many questions that popped up that were offered no explanation.

Why was the girl psychic? Where did that come from?

Why was there just a bunch of dudes with axes and nightvision goggles in the train?

Where's the residential areas? The logistics of the train don't really seem to make sense.

The poor folk in the back of the train don't seem to serve any purpose. Why keep them on the train in the first place?


I think you're right that some questions raised in the plot were unresolved, however I don't feel like they were ultimately detrimental to the overall film. I think the director was looking to put large ideas together in a novel setting and ask some fundamental questions about the nature of order and anarchy, and while doing this some details were glossed over. It didn't slow me down in enjoying the film, but I could see how it might upset the experience for some.

To try to answer a couple of your questions:

I think there was an extremely underplayed, perhaps even edited out subplot that explained Kronol in more detail. My guess is that the Yono's fledgling clairvoyance is tied to the antagonist in the suit who we clearly see strangled/stabbed to death earlier suddenly get up and pull the kukri from his side later. I think this is also tied to Namgoong Minsoo getting shot and then moments later fighting off a horde of tweakers on the engine-bridge, and even to the blue goop the thugs rub on that one man's arm just before they punish him by locking it outside of the train. My pet theory is that Kronol is more than industrial waste/hallucinogen/bomb, and that it has more unexplained properties that link back to each of these events.

The axes make sense if you believe Wilford was telling the truth about his use of revolution as a form of social engineering. The guards had probably mostly run out of bullets during previous riots, and decided to prepare for the future riots with other techniques with more longevity, namely the axes and knives. The nightvision goggles I couldn't answer for, but if Wilford created an entirely self-sustaining train, and he was as militantly apocalypse ready as it appears from the outset, then maybe he stocked his luxury train with all sorts of limited use goodies for his amusement/extreme what-if scenarios.

As for residential space, I don't think we saw all of the different cars on the train. Looking at the aerial shots when the train derails, it seems to me that there are a lot more cars that were glossed over during Curtis' journey to the engine.

And most importantly, the purpose of the tailies: this gets to one of the basic themes of the film. Wilford is obsessed with his idea that the train is a closed ecosystem that requires careful, sometimes brutal, social engineering. He has the mentality, often seen in people obsessed with trains, of rigorous systematization. It's repeated over and over again that everyone has a place on the train, a purpose that they serve. The tailies, however don't apparently do anything to benefit the rest of the train, but you have to remember that this train was never meant to be the last bastion of civilization. The train is a manifestation of Wilford's Galt-like obsession, one that allowed him and other ultra-rich 1 percenters to retreat from the rest of the world. Coincidentally at the same time they chose to begin their permanent vacation the apocalypse happened. It's never explained why, or who chose to bring the tailies aboard, but one can imagine that as the world was ending, someone aboard the train, perhaps Gilliam, as a kind of mercy brought on these refugees without any real plan for how to feed them, where to keep them, or what to do with them afterwards. Ultimately this purposeless act of mercy led to their cannibalism as Wilford (or someone) figured out how to manufacture the protein blocks that sustained the tailies. In fact one can imagine that Gilliam, being the empathetic one, advocated for the tailies initially, and his sacrifice led Wilford to create the protein block car when he realized that the tailies could be of some systemic use to the train. Wilford explains to us what this use is: they are literally replacement parts. The engine is spoken of as a living thing, when a piece of it breaks and can't be repaired, it is referred to as being 'extinct'. The tailies in this sense are the organic mechanism through which the train can ultimately repair itself. Additionally, Wilford has constructed a regimental class-system, one that requires, like Plato's five regimes, a large underclass. This serves a psychological purpose for the rest of the passengers (look how bad it could be, in a real rather than conceptual sense) as well as for reasons of propaganda (which can be seen in the classroom scene and the way the students without hesitation condescend towards the tailies).

The fact that the tailies aren't shoveling coal, or something else equally anachronistic, is an invitation by the film for us to ask questions about poverty and privilege, first and third world relationships, and the nature of otherizing. The tailies exist in the world of the train only to be brutalized. They are a commodified good, traded between the first class passengers at will, any work they perform is incidental, it doesn't define their station on the train. They exist solely to be the lowest possible class, in order to be exploited by those with more social power than them. In the shots we get of the rest of the train it is clear the first class passengers live in extreme luxury, their world is not defined by scarcity and rationing, but by leisure and luxury. As a class they are insensate, they brutalize the tailies by their very nature, and do so not for self-preservation, or "greater good" economics, but because they have chosen to build a system that can do nothing else but otherize those with less socioeconomic power than them.

Bulging Nipples
Jan 16, 2006

Medoken posted:


South Korea has been making a name for itself with some seriously cool action flicks (think The Raid and Ong-Bak)

The Raid is Indonesian and Ong Bak is Thai, or am I reading this wrong

Neo Rasa
Mar 8, 2007
Everyone should play DUKE games.

:dukedog:
I still can't believe there are adults in the world who would see this movie, and consider it a bad thing that footage was not shot of the characters traveling through every individual car of the train. That the movie somehow doesn't work because we don't see every individual car.

I didn't think Yona was actually a psychic mutant or anything like that at all. She's in her like early twenties so I figured she was just gradually remembering stuff about the train from when she was really young. I know she's asked outright about this but I took it as sarcasm since it's never mentioned or brought up again.

Kronol in general in the movie causes one really really stupid moment though. I hate the scene leading up to them opening the door to the engine room and how Namgoong demands more of it right before the end even though he just grabbed like a billion cubes of it from the club car. But this just leads up to his speech about how he's opening the other door anyway. Also while I like the movie a lot overall it was slightly painful to get not one but two exposition dumps near the end, though as a Korean flick based on a French graphic novel it figures we'd get that twice over.

cubicle gangster
Jun 26, 2005

magda, make the tea

Bulging Nipples posted:

The Raid is Indonesian and Ong Bak is Thai, or am I reading this wrong

yeah I don't know what the gently caress he's talking about.
south korea puts out some amazing movies and neither of those are from korea.


I really enjoyed the movie, it's fun, exciting and does that whole korea thing of being incredibly silly while also deadly serious at the same time.
My friend was on board until they started moving through the train cars - I loved the contrast and wild location changes, he just kind of sat up and went 'hang on a minute, how does this work?'


The reason why there's poor people in the tail is because there's always been poor people, I don't believe it was done as an act of mercy. you cant have a society where everyone has a perfect life forever. like you need to know you've got it better than someone else or you need to know someone else has it better than you to have purpose/feel like you belong.
Maybe the point it's making is that people at the top keep the poors down because that's the way it's always been done and they don't know any other way. They don't even understand why they're there, they just know that's how it's supposed to be.

cubicle gangster fucked around with this message at 16:39 on Jul 3, 2014

Neo Rasa
Mar 8, 2007
Everyone should play DUKE games.

:dukedog:

cubicle gangster posted:

Maybe the point it's making is that people at the top keep the poors down because that's the way it's always been done and they don't know any other way. They don't even understand why they're there, they just know that's how it's supposed to be.

Tilda Swinton basically says this outright early on in the film. The entire point of the ending is that for humanity to truly grow the system itself needs to be painfully broken and completely scrapped instead of continuing to try to change it or have the "good guys" take it over.

In South Korea itself we see an example of this with how their property rental system* works, giving both business owners and tenants more financial freedom in the long run. It played a huge part in the country's extremely rapid growth. At the same time though it relies on landlords taking that massive deposit and investing it well or putting it into their own business. Recently though the deposit amount has been driven up as more and more people are moving into the major cities. At the same time landlords have attempted to force something more like what we have in the US/Europe onto tenants to get monthly payments by making that initial deposit so high as to be unapproachable. The link I posted below is from 2011. You'll see a lot of articles from that same year noting the rising population of homeless people in South Korea. Just trying to directly use either of these established systems because that's what the big countries do is failing.



*http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20110508000149

Medoken
Jul 2, 2006

I AM A FAGET FOR BOB SAGET

Bulging Nipples posted:

The Raid is Indonesian and Ong Bak is Thai, or am I reading this wrong

I don't know what I was thinking either, actually I do, somehow my head connected The Raid to this because of its structural similarities and then I don't even know about Ong-bak. I'm going to edit that part out, cause it's honestly pretty embarrassing. Thanks for catching me on it.

Cubicle Gangster posted:

I really enjoyed the movie, it's fun, exciting and does that whole korea thing of being incredibly silly while also deadly serious at the same time.

I found Chris Evans' delivery of "I know what people taste like and babies taste the best" to be quite inappropriately hilarious.

Medoken fucked around with this message at 19:22 on Jul 3, 2014

AwkwardKnob
Dec 29, 2004

A good pun is like a good steak: A rare medium well done
I wanted to like this movie. I'll settle for I didn't hate it, but I'm fine with never watching it again. It sucks to admit to myself, but as I get older, I'm growing less tolerant of that kind of over-the-top OH WHAAAAT ALL THOSE DUDES HAVE NIGHTVISION AND HATCHETS OH SHITTTTTT mentality that used to give me big cinema boners when I was literally in college for film. Stuff like that can look cool, but it can also really pull you out of what's going on because just what in the gently caress.

Why were the hatchet dudes, like, gutting fish too? Ugh sometimes Asian cinema just makes me go cross-eyed. I can't quit it though.

I like the idea that the perfect mechanism of the Engine, where everyone has a place in the design, apparently contains room for 75 hatchet-wielding fish-gutters. No wonder everything else is so out of whack, that's a lot of protein bars to come up with every week right there.

edit: also, other people I was watching with seemed to enjoy the shootout scene as the train went around that huge curve at one point, but I found that whole segment to be really silly. Not even accounting for the speed of the train itself, outside is supposed to be so cold it will freeze your arm off and kill you 100 feet from the tracks, but like, I guess Captain America and Gay Murderous Guy Who Seems To Have A Vendetta Because His "Roommate" Got Killed are sniper-elite crackshots who can account for impossible blizzard winds and the Coriolis effect on the fly, drilling the same spot they're aiming at over and over again.

AwkwardKnob fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Jul 4, 2014

Ariza
Feb 8, 2006


It took me forever to figure out who she was and when I did it made me very happy.

Stare-Out
Mar 11, 2010

You could pick just about any Kang-ho Song movie and have a good time. Dude's in some excellent movies.

Ccs
Feb 25, 2011


This movie was pretty great. The visuals and acting was fantastic. I gotta wonder if anyone besides the girl and boy at the end actually survived the train crash though. 2 people is not enough to repopulate the world. Not enough genetic diversity and whatnot. I know it's a movie, but it's sad when it's supposed to be hopeful because two people of the opposite sex survived, but actually humanity is doomed.

BrianWilly
Apr 24, 2007

There is no homosexual terrorist Johnny Silverhand
God, I'm almost afraid to see what CineD is going to say about this film, but I really loved it. There are parts of it that does kinda border on being too "on the nose" and there's at least one part near the beginning where a character was like "Cigarettes went extinct a long time ago!! I can't believe he has one!!!! :downs:" that made me go, yeah, too much. Dial it back a bit, we aren't morons, we don't need to be told that so explicitly.

But otherwise I quite enjoyed it. It's nice to see a film that knows exactly what it's trying to do and manages to do that thing exactly.

Too bad everyone gets eaten by bears at the end!

AwkwardKnob posted:

Why were the hatchet dudes, like, gutting fish too? Ugh sometimes Asian cinema just makes me go cross-eyed. I can't quit it though.
I'm pretty sure that was their idea of being symbolic. "We're gonna gut you like a fish if you fight us" sort of thing.

Also remember the metaphor about the aquarium. That makes it even more explicit that the fish represents people.

cubicle gangster
Jun 26, 2005

magda, make the tea

Stare-Out posted:

You could pick just about any Kang-ho Song movie and have a good time. Dude's in some excellent movies.

He is! between him and Min-sik Choi you've got a massive amount of very good korean cinema.

It was months since I saw this so I just went to do some reading, and this is a great and recent interview with the director - http://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/feature/2014-06-27-interview-with-bong-joo-ho-about-snowpiercer-feature-story-by-anne-katrin-titze

CCs I dont think it matters that they probably couldn't do it - the status quo has to be smashed at whatever cost and maybe humanity does end up hosed and cant survive, but at least they tried. maybe it's better it doesn't continue rather than continue as it was etc.
Good quote from that interview - "Nature is what is eternal and not the people that are trying to control this system that's manmade"

I think one of the reasons I liked this movie so much is that i've had an idea for a movie myself (that over the years i've gone so far as to storyboard a 5 minute short of which I still plan to make) - the basic point of it is that everything starts to go to poo poo, but it properly goes to poo poo and nobody wins, everybody loses, it's all hosed you can go home now. And this movie does that without being incredibly dark at the same time.

cubicle gangster fucked around with this message at 05:07 on Jul 4, 2014

prezbuluskey
Jul 23, 2007
A life, Jimmy, you know what that is? It's the shit that happens while you're waiting for moments that never come.
Best movie of the summer, even if it was a bit obvious. So many memorable scenes and was super engaging.

MarcusSA
Sep 23, 2007

This movie was loving awesome. I really think I'm going to go watch it again in a different theater.

I'm really liking Evans as an actor. He was drat amazing in this.

Atoramos
Aug 31, 2003

Jim's now a Blind Cave Salamander!


So I guess we're supposed to assume Gilliam told Curtis to cut out Wilford's tongue to prevent him from learning the truth. I felt some parts of the movie were a bit overblown (the cult-like worship of the train), but I understand why they're necessary plot point, potentially adapted straight from its source. The movie repeatedly pushes hard on suspension of disbelief, but it seems like that's a mainstay of the genre.

Cheston
Jul 17, 2012

(he's got a good thing going)
Thanks for the thread, I'd half-forgotten and half-dismissed this movie. I don't know why, because now that I've seen it I feel like the buzz should have been a lot bigger.

Ccs posted:

This movie was pretty great. The visuals and acting was fantastic. I gotta wonder if anyone besides the girl and boy at the end actually survived the train crash though. 2 people is not enough to repopulate the world. Not enough genetic diversity and whatnot. I know it's a movie, but it's sad when it's supposed to be hopeful because two people of the opposite sex survived, but actually humanity is doomed.

I have two thoughts on this: First, there probably actually would be other people alive in bunkers and stuff. Forget about perpetual motion, nuclear reactors could last much longer than eighteen years. I assume this, and feel like the film wants us to, because it lets the ending stay simple without it being overwhelmed by nihilism.

Second, humanity being hosed as far as the train goes is the point. The entire system was set up for either brutal inequality or violent revolution. Incremental change could have been an option, but Wilford didn't allow that, and actually pushed his system further and further from it- see: the school car. When Curtis is confronted with the sheer, horrific extent of what's going on, he has two options: let it continue, or break it. (Wilford offers to have Curtis succeed him, but by that point most of the tail section - pretty much everybody he's known for the last eighteen years- is dead. And that was planned. He saves the kid, but what else is there? Forget trying to change the system or undo eighteen years of propaganda by himself, could he even stay sane knowing what he knows? Is he even sane by the time he gets the offer? It doesn't matter how big or small or distant the chance for a middle option was- Wilford took it away.)

Destroying the engine wasn't supposed to do anything but doom everyone. What Curtis decides is that that would still be better than letting the train (and the system) continue. And the film is a warning that in that situation, most people would make the exact same choice.

AnonSpore
Jan 19, 2012

"I didn't see the part where he develops as a character so I guess he never developed as a character"
I saw this during its initial run in Korea and thought it was great. I'm not much for analysis so I'll just say the movie really reminded me of Children of the Sky by Robert Heinlein in places.

Also the best part of the movie (I dunno if this was subtitled in the American release) was right after they get Minsoo out of his confinement.

Chris Evans: ARE YOU NAM? ARE YOU NAM, KOONGMINSOO?
Song Kang-ho: (in Korean) The family name's Namgoong and the given is Minsoo, you fuckin' dumbass.

:allears:

cubicle gangster
Jun 26, 2005

magda, make the tea
I remember he hosed up the order of his name and it was pretty funny, yeah.
apparently the original plan for the worldwide release was a heavily edited version, but thankfully that was squashed and it was released as is although as a much more limited run. Stories about the edit that nearly came to be did not sound good.

cubicle gangster fucked around with this message at 09:10 on Jul 4, 2014

thedaian
Dec 11, 2005

Blistering idiots.

AnonSpore posted:

I saw this during its initial run in Korea and thought it was great. I'm not much for analysis so I'll just say the movie really reminded me of Children of the Sky by Robert Heinlein in places.

Also the best part of the movie (I dunno if this was subtitled in the American release) was right after they get Minsoo out of his confinement.

Chris Evans: ARE YOU NAM? ARE YOU NAM, KOONGMINSOO?
Song Kang-ho: (in Korean) The family name's Namgoong and the given is Minsoo, you fuckin' dumbass.

:allears:


No, that part wasn't subtitled in the American release.

I saw this yesterday, and enjoyed it a lot. It actually has a happier ending than the original comic even though humanity is basically doomed by the end, which has recently been translated into English.

Al Cu Ad Solte posted:

I wanted to like this film. It certainty has heart and soul behind it, but there were just too many questions that popped up that were offered no explanation.


Where's the residential areas? The logistics of the train don't really seem to make sense.

The poor folk in the back of the train don't seem to serve any purpose. Why keep them on the train in the first place?


Slight spoilers for the comic as it relates to the movie:

In the original comic, it's explicitly stated that the train is 1,001 cars long. It's not as clearly stated in the film, but there's way more cars on the train than we see the characters walking through. That said, it's implied that they passed through some sleeping/residential cars during the montage where they see shops and stuff. Especially since the layout of those cars with the barbershop and dentist are the same as a regular sleeper/compartment train car.

As for the poor folk in the back, again, in the original comic it's stated that there were effectively riots to get onto the train in the first place when the world was ending, and the trail section was added as an after-thought, being livestock cars attached to the train in an effort to save as many people as possible (and to keep people calm by giving them hope that they could survive). The cannibalism in the trail section is directly from the comic.

Presumably, the same sort of thing happened in the movie. The world was freezing and people rushing the train in an effort to be safe from death. The existence of people in the trail also helps serve the cult of personality that developed over Wilford and the engine, because Wilford is benevolent enough to allow the lazy scum in the trail section to survive on his wondrous train. He's so kind and wonderful, isn't he?


The movie has a lot to say about fascism, and class. It also has some really amazing and cool action sequences. I'm glad that the proposed edits never happened.

tehsid
Dec 24, 2007

Nobility is sadly overrated.
I enjoyed everything about this, bar the camera work in the action scenes. It felt really shaky and distracting. The worst part was that the shake didn't "look real" in the that it looked like they shot it steady, then threw in a repetitive shake in editing. Almost put me off completely.

Glad I stuck it out though.

AwkwardKnob
Dec 29, 2004

A good pun is like a good steak: A rare medium well done
Makes me wonder just how the hell people rushed the train and rioted to get onboard in the first place, considering the whole point of the train was that it was supposed to be self-sufficient and like, never stop for any reason. Look at the way it plows through huge chunks of iced-over track. That train was definitely not stopped by a mob of desperate people.

BrianWilly
Apr 24, 2007

There is no homosexual terrorist Johnny Silverhand
I think the main point of realism-contention for me is that, well, did they really need this train in the first place? I understand that's the entire central conceit of the storyline without which the themes and allegory don't work, but what specifically stopped them from just building...well, warmer houses in the first place? Surely that would've been an easier solution than this...rather complicated one?

Especially when we see at the end that arctic life was evidently able to survive for seventeen years without going extinct, so even if the planet went catastrophically cold, it still wasn't the type of catastrophic cold that couldn't conceivably be handled with care.

It's like the complex conceit of Avatar that never really made sense to me; we needed to be able to survive on this alien world and interact with the natives, so we cloned them and stuck our brains into them. Like...:stare: there's gotta be a more straightforward way than that, y'know?

AnonSpore
Jan 19, 2012

"I didn't see the part where he develops as a character so I guess he never developed as a character"

BrianWilly posted:

I think the main point of realism-contention for me is that, well, did they really need this train in the first place? I understand that's the entire central conceit of the storyline without which the themes and allegory don't work, but what specifically stopped them from just building...well, warmer houses in the first place? Surely that would've been an easier solution than this...rather complicated one?

Especially when we see at the end that arctic life was evidently able to survive for seventeen years without going extinct, so even if the planet went catastrophically cold, it still wasn't the type of catastrophic cold that couldn't conceivably be handled with care.

It's like the complex conceit of Avatar that never really made sense to me; we needed to be able to survive on this alien world and interact with the natives, so we cloned them and stuck our brains into them. Like...:stare: there's gotta be a more straightforward way than that, y'know?

I'm pretty sure the train was designed independently of the catastrophe, it just turned out to be a really good place to live when the rest of the world went to hell in a handbasket.

Fat Lou
Jan 21, 2008

Desert Heat? I thought it was Dessert Heat. No wonder it tastes so bad.

AnonSpore posted:

I'm pretty sure the train was designed independently of the catastrophe, it just turned out to be a really good place to live when the rest of the world went to hell in a handbasket.

They mention the tracks and the main train were there, but when earth started going to poo poo Wilford made the magic perpetual motion engine.

Illinois Smith
Nov 15, 2003

Ninety-one? There are ninety other "Tiger Drivers"? Do any involve actual tigers, or driving?
The director deserves an award for somehow convincing the Weinsteins to leave his movie the gently caress alone.

Fat Lou
Jan 21, 2008

Desert Heat? I thought it was Dessert Heat. No wonder it tastes so bad.

Illinois Smith posted:

The director deserves an award for somehow convincing the Weinsteins to leave his movie the gently caress alone.

The reward should be that a different studio pick him up next time.

Meowbot
Oct 12, 2005

I havent had a plrecription for my eyes in years so the other day I went and got a new one and it hasnt changed. The doctor was like why havent you seen us in 4 years? I told them im scared of op tomietris when the air shoots into your eyes and dilation. They told me my eyes cold get worse....
My friend invited me to this movie and having never heard about it I went to rottentomatoes and didn't see it on the main page but a search brought up a 94%. I glossed over the reviews - what the hell this movie seems almost PERFECT according to the critics.

I did not like this movie. I kept yawning as it really was boring since it would be like "long action scene" and then "here is a bunch of talking about the way things used to be" ... oh here is a scene where we don't explain a bunch of poo poo that just happened or is going to happen. A lot of the sub plots the kids were like oh big fuckin deal and pretty obvious.

I think a lot of it had to do with where they were. They got the entire drat world around them and they just hang out on this train (yes, I get it that is the plot but I would hve liked something to come from the snow is melting comment). I don't even know what the gate opening guy was talking about when he told Curtis that he doesn't want to get him hyped up, and of course they never explained it. A lot of dumb things and dumb characters. I guess I just don't like over the top characters like the yellow lady or the one gross lady ... she was just annoying, and overly loud. Is the korean movie really good? How can this movie have a 94% it was really kinda boring.

I guess I have played too much Metro 2033 and other type of games where a bunch of dirty fucks are staging a revolution in a decrepit boring rear end quarters.

MarcusSA
Sep 23, 2007

You really didn't pay attention to the movie at all did you?

That's cool you didn't like it but most things were pretty cleanly laid out.

I actually went and saw this flick again today and it was just as awesome as the first time.

Neo Rasa
Mar 8, 2007
Everyone should play DUKE games.

:dukedog:

Meowbot posted:

I think a lot of it had to do with where they were. They got the entire drat world around them and they just hang out on this train (yes, I get it that is the plot but I would hve liked something to come from the snow is melting comment). I don't even know what the gate opening guy was talking about when he told Curtis that he doesn't want to get him hyped up, and of course they never explained it.

The only possible way you can think this is if you walked out twenty minutes before the movie ended. If anything they repeatedly over-explain it.

Pierson
Oct 31, 2004



College Slice
Saw it and liked it. I'd definitely recommend it to others but I definitely wouldn't go see it again since the entire train and associated systems weren't even subtle about being absolutely Ayn Rand-brand libertarianism and that poo poo sets off a slow burning rage in me whenever I see it anywhere.

got off on a technicality
Feb 7, 2007

oh dear
Saw and liked the thematic elements. The symmetry between Gilliam giving up his arm to perpetuate the system (bringing a semblance of order to the underclass) and Curtis giving up his arm to destroy the system. Unlike say Elysium where the ending is sort of a cop out that "solves everything," this film makes hard choices, ends surprisingly bleakly and you have to applaud its courage. Also Tilda Swinton was amazing and stole the show for me when she took her dentures out :laffo:

Did not like Chris Evans' permanent glower (oh I am so angsty the weight of my people's lives rests on my shoulders); I don't think he sells it, he just looks constantly annoyed and constipated. Minor irritations: his assortment of annoying disposable sidekicks, the gratuitous, long drawn-out action (the sniper duel, grand guignol in the sauna, grand guignol in the tunnel), and what on earth caused the partygoers to drop everything and start attacking the Korean dude and his daughter?

On balance a better sci-fi movie than I have seen in a while

Grandmaster.flv
Jun 24, 2011
I started cracking up at the babies line.

Uncle Boogeyman
Jul 22, 2007

origami posted:

I started cracking up at the babies line.

In my theater, after that line there was a pause and some dude in the audience just went "...Jesus Christ" and then a bunch of people started laughing.

MarcusSA
Sep 23, 2007

Admirable Gusto posted:

and what on earth caused the partygoers to drop everything and start attacking the Korean dude and his daughter?



The audio might have been a little low but,

They were pissed off about their drugs being taken. You can hear them yelling at the both of them to give back the things they took.

Throwdown
Sep 4, 2003

Here you go, dummies.
Just watched it, was decent but the movie still had a lot of flaws. I seriously felt like the director was flicking his fingers in my face at parts while saying "Get it! Get what I am saying here?!".

The whole eating babies thing was pretty bad

Mu Zeta
Oct 17, 2002

Me crush ass to dust

What was with everyone celebrating new years in the middle of a fight

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Vermain
Sep 5, 2006



Pierson posted:

Saw it and liked it. I'd definitely recommend it to others but I definitely wouldn't go see it again since the entire train and associated systems weren't even subtle about being absolutely Ayn Rand-brand libertarianism and that poo poo sets off a slow burning rage in me whenever I see it anywhere.

It's not just Ayn Rand libertarianism, though: it is an analogy for the capitalist system itself. The "perpetual motion engine" - whose only purpose is to continue to turn itself - is a perfect mirror to capitalism's sustained cycle (the accumulation of profit for the purpose of the accumulation of profit, etc.), alongside it being sustained by literal slave labor hidden away from the rest of the world. It's why Curtis' decision to destroy the engine, rather than merely appropriating it for some "better use", is important. His radical act fundamentally redefines the world, opening up the space for a new society to emerge that isn't based on feeding human sacrifices to the engine of the train forever.

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