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BlitzBlast posted:Orga is covered in death flags not because "it's Gundam, somebody must die to add tragedy" but because he's so obviously a roadblock to Mika's development. Yeah, that's what I mean by plot focus instead of character-focus, sorry. I'm uneducated so I try to describe things as best I can but I probably use the wrong words to do it. Plot Narratives are traditional narratives formed by very mechanical adherence to tradition and convention. The hand of the author is very visibly crafting the narrative to match and then play with the audience's expectations for how these stories should go, in order to entertain. Character narratives are stories where the impetus is instead on the interactions and beliefs of the characters involved within. The hand of the author is still present but instead of things happening because this is what would tell the best story, its allowing things to develop more naturally through internal events and conflicts instead of overtly crafted external ones. Think Gabriel Garcia Marquez's short story work, I suppose. Plot and Character focus also isn't a strict black/white spectrum either, its possible to tell stories without dramatic external events affecting them but even with those big actions there is room for characters to drive the story as opposed to the events of the plot driving them. 0080's characters are pressured by characters and events outside of their control to act the way they do, but the narrative gives them time and space to explore why they have made these decisions anyways, in a way a lot of longer gundam shows don't give its characters a chance to. That's just my view, though.
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Oct 8, 2015 09:16
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A plot focused story is detailing the characters going on a journey and their adventures along the way, a more character focused story would be something like a more intense exploration of a set of characters and their place in a wider world. I think since Mecha is really just a set dressing of a genre it's possible to tell both kinds of stories well, but anecdotally it seems like mecha as a genre favors the first path pretty dominantly. Maybe just because of the targeted demographics, but that's fine.
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Oct 8, 2015 09:24
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You actually kinda hit the nail on the head for why shows like Turn A and 0080 are my favorite parts of Gundam. It's rare you get shows in the franchise that take as many breather moments to let the characters be themselves, grow, and impact events outside of a cockpit. Hell, 0080 has an entire episode that basically boils down to Bernie wrestling with his conscience about whether or not to sacrifice himself in an attempt to save the colony, a plot beat that would probably be five minutes or less in a lot of other shows. I always thought it was a stronger story for it.
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Oct 8, 2015 09:33
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The death flag stuff just irks me because as necessary development it always feels kinda crap, it's a cheap emotional shock for any viewers that had become attached to that character and oftentimes doesn't even affect the remaining cast all. In Catch-22 Snowden's death is something that has already happened and already heavily changed Yossarian's outlook on life and his role in the world. Details of it are teased throughout the whole narrative which help aid in the exploration of why Yossarian is the way he is now, and the full event is only revealed near the conclusion of the text. That's not to say death always has to be incredibly impactful or meaningful either, The Thin Red Line uses the idea of constant death and violence to explore how combat can push men otherwise in a unit to a communal form of isolation, but int the process you are gaining more insight into the minds of the men that survive as the book goes on. It helps explain why Bernie's death is so impactful compared to other deaths in the franchise, since the narrative is spent almost entirely exploring him and his relationship to Al, Both him and you, the viewer, feel the full force of his loss entirely. You can reap greater benefits if you put in the time and work to establish relationships, and constant combat and dramatically appropriate death can cut into a writer's ability to do that. Maybe i'm just getting older and asking too much from what I liked as a kid, but I really do think there's a place for good smart writing in mecha shows. Sharkopath fucked around with this message at 09:59 on Oct 8, 2015 |
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Oct 8, 2015 09:43
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Those are good posts and if I were not phone posting at the moment I would say more, but since I am I just wanna add that people commenting on "death flags" always feel like they're gamifying it, so to speak It comes across to me like when that's the only thing they wanna say about a character, they care more about guessing the outcome correctly over anything substantial.
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Oct 8, 2015 10:51
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And hell, with IBO's case some folks might as well have been taking bets on who will die before the show even started They wanna take a random guess with little information available just so they can say that they *so* called it if they get the outcome they want
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Oct 8, 2015 10:53
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And before someone says that Okada wrote a show where a lot of characters died, she has also written shows were few or even no characters died so don't try to pull a fast one on me!!
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Oct 8, 2015 10:55
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Srice posted:And before someone says that Okada wrote a show where a lot of characters died, she has also written shows were few or even no characters died so don't try to pull a fast one on me!! I remember people expecting G-Reco to go full Moonlight Butterfly when the last time Tomino did an ending like that was in 1993.
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Oct 8, 2015 10:59
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Sakurazuka posted:I remember people expecting G-Reco to go full Moonlight Butterfly when the last time Tomino did an ending like that was in 1993. Yeah that was dumb, especially since even back in those days he still made a fair amount of shows that didn't end like that.
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Oct 8, 2015 11:03
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Honestly, though, I didn't quite feel like G-Reco's cast earned as happy and casualty-light an ending as they got. The whole story was about a bunch of kids playing around with WMDs, and it didn't really feel like they grew up enough to escape the consequences. Bellri's scarily cavalier about civilian casualties even late into the game (remember how he escaped from the G-IT Corps by using that family's house as cover), Raraya and Noredo kill the capital ship of their ostensible allies in the final battle just because, and the series ends with Aida wearing an admiral's coat that's literally too big for her and with Klim using a symbol of interplanetary cooperation to stage a political assassination. I feel a more cataclysmic ending would have been a little more cathartic than it would have been in, say, Turn A, where the cast get clear reality checks and learn from their mistakes way more.
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Oct 8, 2015 11:39
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I'd be super happy if Orga survives the whole show.
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Oct 8, 2015 11:41
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Sharkopath posted:It's also still super prescient because the first thing everybody said about the new gundam show is I hope the robots are cool and I hope the fights look cool, characters and the actual writing are still considered secondary aspects of the franchise. All the talk about death flags just kinda hammers it in that as a genre mecha is still plot-narrative focused instead of character-narrative focused, to its detriment, although that's a personal observation and obviously plenty will disagree. I loving hate all the talk about death flags so much
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Oct 8, 2015 13:29
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Darth Walrus posted:Honestly, though, I didn't quite feel like G-Reco's cast earned as happy and casualty-light an ending as they got. The whole story was about a bunch of kids playing around with WMDs, and it didn't really feel like they grew up enough to escape the consequences. Bellri's scarily cavalier about civilian casualties even late into the game (remember how he escaped from the G-IT Corps by using that family's house as cover), Raraya and Noredo kill the capital ship of their ostensible allies in the final battle just because, and the series ends with Aida wearing an admiral's coat that's literally too big for her and with Klim using a symbol of interplanetary cooperation to stage a political assassination. I feel a more cataclysmic ending would have been a little more cathartic than it would have been in, say, Turn A, where the cast get clear reality checks and learn from their mistakes way more. The entire point of the show is that they avoid war. Like, that's the whole goddamn thing, they're all flying around in crazy death machines and playing at war. But at the end, when they get an actual taste of how bad war is, just the smallest example of it, they're all like "gently caress this" and decide not to do a war. The two guys pushing for war, Cumpa and President Nicchini, get loving smashed to bits in comically over the top ways, and everybody else decides to try to figure out a peaceable solution.
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Oct 8, 2015 13:35
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Sharkopath posted:A plot focused story is detailing the characters going on a journey and their adventures along the way, a more character focused story would be something like a more intense exploration of a set of characters and their place in a wider world. I think since Mecha is really just a set dressing of a genre it's possible to tell both kinds of stories well, but anecdotally it seems like mecha as a genre favors the first path pretty dominantly. Maybe just because of the targeted demographics, but that's fine. You might like VOTOMs because that entire series is character focused in the way you're speaking. Chirico mostly wanders from place to place trying to deal with what he is and his place in the world. He has adventures but they're pretty much incidental to him trying to make peace with himself.
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Oct 8, 2015 13:45
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Kanos posted:You might like VOTOMs because that entire series is character focused in the way you're speaking. Chirico mostly wanders from place to place trying to deal with what he is and his place in the world. He has adventures but they're pretty much incidental to him trying to make peace with himself. Votoms is cool yeah, that run up to the ending is so weird though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3I1YIJsyvYY Sharkopath fucked around with this message at 15:21 on Oct 8, 2015 |
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Oct 8, 2015 15:08
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boom boom boom posted:The entire point of the show is that they avoid war. Like, that's the whole goddamn thing, they're all flying around in crazy death machines and playing at war. But at the end, when they get an actual taste of how bad war is, just the smallest example of it, they're all like "gently caress this" and decide not to do a war. The two guys pushing for war, Cumpa and President Nicchini, get loving smashed to bits in comically over the top ways, and everybody else decides to try to figure out a peaceable solution. The problem I had with this is that it ignores some of the big reasons that wars start and just attributes it to 'bad men pushing people into war'. They land a capital ship in the middle of a political rally, leveling a significant number of buildings in an attempt to kill one guy. In the attempt they almost certainly kill dozens or hundreds of innocent bystanders and the cast just smile and go along with it like its no big deal even as they create a dozen orphaned Shinn Asuna's who now hate the crescent ship and everything it stands for. They didn't learn a single thing from all of this and they're still acting like children and using the weapons they have as toys.
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Oct 8, 2015 16:36
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Yeah I don't really get the death flag talk either. Like yeah it's interesting to talk about why a character's actions lead to their deaths, but making a game out of it is a little strange. Darth Walrus posted:Honestly, though, I didn't quite feel like G-Reco's cast earned as happy and casualty-light an ending as they got. The whole story was about a bunch of kids playing around with WMDs, and it didn't really feel like they grew up enough to escape the consequences. Bellri's scarily cavalier about civilian casualties even late into the game (remember how he escaped from the G-IT Corps by using that family's house as cover), Raraya and Noredo kill the capital ship of their ostensible allies in the final battle just because, and the series ends with Aida wearing an admiral's coat that's literally too big for her and with Klim using a symbol of interplanetary cooperation to stage a political assassination. I feel a more cataclysmic ending would have been a little more cathartic than it would have been in, say, Turn A, where the cast get clear reality checks and learn from their mistakes way more. Maybe Tomino's point is that these characters are still immature and didn't learn what they should have from their experiences? That last episode is still weird though.
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Oct 8, 2015 16:43
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Caros posted:The problem I had with this is that it ignores some of the big reasons that wars start and just attributes it to 'bad men pushing people into war'. Dude, you gotta remember that this was a Japanese show made by Japanese people in Japan in 2015. "We can avoid wars if we refuse to go to war and tell the people who want to start a war to gently caress off" is a pretty reasonable message in that context, it doesn't matter if England had no choice but to join World War 1 once Germany invaded Belgium.
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Oct 8, 2015 16:47
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Sharkopath posted:Yeah, that's what I mean by plot focus instead of character-focus, sorry. I'm uneducated so I try to describe things as best I can but I probably use the wrong words to do it. Plot Narratives are traditional narratives formed by very mechanical adherence to tradition and convention. The hand of the author is very visibly crafting the narrative to match and then play with the audience's expectations for how these stories should go, in order to entertain. Character narratives are stories where the impetus is instead on the interactions and beliefs of the characters involved within. The hand of the author is still present but instead of things happening because this is what would tell the best story, its allowing things to develop more naturally through internal events and conflicts instead of overtly crafted external ones. Think Gabriel Garcia Marquez's short story work, I suppose. Kind of off-topic, but I was really disappointed when the Unicorn short movie called One Hundred years of Solitude turned out to just be a boring summary of Early UC. It feels like a huge missed opportunity.
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Oct 8, 2015 18:29
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MonsieurChoc posted:Kind of off-topic, but I was really disappointed when the Unicorn short movie called One Hundred years of Solitude turned out to just be a boring summary of Early UC. It feels like a huge missed opportunity. That would certainly be a bizarre novel to try and turn into a Gundam show lmao.
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Oct 8, 2015 18:32
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Raxivace posted:That would certainly be a bizarre novel to try and turn into a Gundam show lmao. Oh I dunno about that, a story that follows a family of gently caress-ups over the generations could make for a pretty good Gunda- Oh. Oh dear. 
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Oct 8, 2015 18:38
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The AGE cast doesn't have the excuse of generations of incest for messing them up though. Or whacky magical shenanigans-well it has X-Rounders I guess. I want banana plantations IN SPACE dammit.
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Oct 8, 2015 18:43
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Raxivace posted:The AGE cast doesn't have the excuse of generations of incest for messing them up though. Or whacky magical shenanigans-well it has X-Rounders I guess. Haven't the space colonies been around for hundreds of years by the time AGE begins? I bet each colony is at least as inbred as Iceland.
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Oct 8, 2015 18:48
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Haha, who knows. AGE is really frustrating because there's a like a thousand different ways to change it to make it more interesting. I'd have to imagine just making Flit being the final boss would have helped a decent amount, instead of the Vegan Gear.
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Oct 8, 2015 18:59
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Take out the scene where the colony dosed by gamma rays can move this entire time
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Oct 8, 2015 19:02
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Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Char Aznable was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover lightning.
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Oct 8, 2015 19:05
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MonsieurChoc posted:Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Char Aznable was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover lightning. "So!", he said "you don't believe it either". "Believe what?" "That the Zeon fought 32 civil wars and lost them all."
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Oct 8, 2015 19:11
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I loved G-Recos ending and how cheerful it was but the whole end part of the show was a bit odd thematically. It very much felt like a show cut short even though it really wasn't at all! Would love to see a Tomino novelization come out someday.
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Oct 8, 2015 20:05
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boom boom boom posted:The entire point of the show is that they avoid war. Like, that's the whole goddamn thing, they're all flying around in crazy death machines and playing at war. But at the end, when they get an actual taste of how bad war is, just the smallest example of it, they're all like "gently caress this" and decide not to do a war. The two guys pushing for war, Cumpa and President Nicchini, get loving smashed to bits in comically over the top ways, and everybody else decides to try to figure out a peaceable solution. No, I get the idea is 'kids, say no to war', it's just that it didn't feel like the cast had completed the emotional journeys that would allow them to do that. I get that it's a relatively easy thing for Japan to do in real life, but it didn't seem like an easy or likely choice for the characters of the show. Like I said, I felt that Turn A did it a lot better with wake-up calls like the nuke detonation that clearly affected how the characters behaved and saw the world, while G-Reco's cast were childish and unthinkingly destructive pretty much throughout. It really did seem like setup for a tragedy.
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Oct 9, 2015 10:45
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Tae posted:Take out the scene where the colony dosed by gamma rays can move this entire time Take out the sick little girl that's supposed to make us feel bad for the Vagans.
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Oct 9, 2015 11:08
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Its stuff like 0080 or Turn A that make me bummed out at how many of the Gundam shows fall short of their ambitions. I would have loved more 8th MS Team episodes like the massacre of the Guerrilla fighters and the changing viewpoints on the carnage, which was about the only truly good episode in the series after that loving hot springs on Everest bullshit.
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Oct 9, 2015 16:21
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Arcsquad12 posted:Its stuff like 0080 or Turn A that make me bummed out at how many of the Gundam shows fall short of their ambitions. I would have loved more 8th MS Team episodes like the massacre of the Guerrilla fighters and the changing viewpoints on the carnage, which was about the only truly good episode in the series after that loving hot springs on Everest bullshit. At least it had NORRIS MOTHERFUCKING PACKARD, that's gotta count for something.
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Oct 9, 2015 16:57
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VolticSurge posted:At least it had NORRIS MOTHERFUCKING PACKARD, that's gotta count for something. Gundam's own Otto Skorzeny.
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Oct 9, 2015 17:00
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I think my favorite thing about the g reco livewatch was how every episode people kept predicting that this next faction was TOTALLY THE PUPPETMASTER FORCE BEHIND EVERYTHING, and then got really pissed when the show ended and the whole point was that there was no one group of scapegoats unilaterally responsible for all evil in the setting, its just fuckups all the way down starting poo poo because they wanted to be king shits of gently caress mountain and didn't think things through
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Oct 9, 2015 18:02
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08th MS Team was super loving romanticized, and I don't mean the love story. You got this team of ostensibly grunts being involved in this super melodrama that has the fate of the entire Asian theater in the balance, and they are directly involved in its outcome. For a story claiming to be this grim and gritty tale of average soldiers, they sure do a lot of super Gundam-y things and have a very overwrought and melodramatic story.
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Oct 9, 2015 20:16
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Yeah I don't really get the huge love for 08th MS Team. I don't really think it's much better than something like 0083 or SEED, even if it does have the cool Norris battle. I guess people think it's better than it really is because of the lack of Newtypes? Raxivace fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Oct 9, 2015 |
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Oct 9, 2015 20:35
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Raxivace posted:Yeah I don't really get the huge love for 08th MS Team. I don't really think it's much better than something like 0083 or SEED. 0083 doesn't have any Newtypes either.
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Oct 9, 2015 20:36
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Son Ryo posted:0083 doesn't have any Newtypes either. I know, I'm not trying to imply 0083 does.
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Oct 9, 2015 20:39
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Raxivace posted:Yeah I don't really get the huge love for 08th MS Team. I don't really think it's much better than something like 0083 or SEED, even if it does have the cool Norris battle. Most people seem to like it for its loving great art direction and soundtrack. I know that's why I enjoy it. And like I said, some of the episodes are really drat good, it's just that the central love story and the overall plot collapse in on themselves after that goddamn hot springs episode. (no, I will not stop harping on this, I don't care if you used a beam saber to make a jacuzzi, a loving hot springs episode in the goddamn himalayas is retarded)
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Oct 9, 2015 21:09
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So, who is ready for some Gundam saturation in the West? - G-Reco on DVD/BD in Spring 2016 - 0079 Trilogy DVD Box re-release - Releases of Z, ZZ, X, GBF, and GBFT in 2016 (no idea if all of those but X will get BDs or not. Smart money is yes, given that G-Reco is getting a BD release) - and the big one, IBO is getting a dub from Bang Zoom sometime next year.
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Oct 9, 2015 22:17
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