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warrior-poet's Replies
You're right, others have done the same thing, which I consider lazy writing. This show in particular is for kids (these two seasons are noticeably less mature, in tone, writing and animation, than the original series), so I can kind of understand why they wouldn't worry as much about it, but on the other hand for a show that seems to have an educational aspect it seems very strange to completely ignore it. There could have easily been a device written in that would allow them to communicate.
Yeah I meant the first season of this sequel series. It actually started over with a season 1 instead of considering it season 2: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2563792/episodes?ref_=tt_ov_epl. Although probably either way would be a legit way to look at it.
I beg to differ. Plenty have commented on those exact things long before the internet age, and have created memes about them since. But there's a pretty glaring difference. Those shows use a handwave story mechanism to get past it, yes, but at least they throw something in there. MCOG season 2 didn't even try. They just for some reason had everyone speaking the same language.
Ding ding ding! Well said. The moral is that nobody's perfect. Good people do bad things, and "bad" people aren't truly evil, just misguided and/or raised poorly. They are just as capable of caring for others as so-called "good" people, while good people (usually just a perception perpetuated by success, power and privilege) are just as capable of doing bad things.
Like you said, nothing is black and white. This is why I really like this show.
On top of the very well-directed understated performances (Shyamalan's hallmark), the score for both Signs and The Village by James Newton Howard is some of the most haunting and emotionally engaging I've ever heard (even besting his own Batman Begins score, which is quite good also). He's probably my favorite composer, even edging out greats like John Williams, Howard Shore, James Horner, Jerry Goldsmith, Alan Silvestri, Phillip Glass, Michael Kamen, Hans Zimmer... okay I guess I'll stop there.
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The "no clothes" bit is the most viable question to ask, though. But there's so little information, the answer could be anything, which nullifies it as a legitimate complaint from an objective standpoint. Plus, God’s plan supersedes all else. If we think about it logically, however, clothes are a strictly human conception. No other species we know of wears clothes, although some do commandeer shells and wear them. Additionally, stealth when prowling around on the ground was clearly an objective, and we’re shown that they have a natural ability to camouflage by reflecting their surroundings. Wearing clothes would have completely negated this benefit. Plus, culture plays a huge role in clothing. It may simply be a concept their culture never developed, or that prefers against it in lieu of stealth, with their organic camouflaging ability being a major factor. Even among humans here on Earth there are cultures that wear very little or no clothes at all, even in some harsh jungle environments.
Having said that, like any work of art viewers are free to feel how they choose, and no one likes every movie they see.
As a side note, Shyamalan’s original intent was for the aliens to be octopus creatures, which is where their camouflaging ability stemmed from. However, after trying to get the SFX guys to get the CGI right, he wasn’t satisfied with anything they offered so they landed on the humanoid creature we ended up with (and probably less screen time for aliens). But I wonder if that would have been better, or if it would have just rendered it all sillier and even more derided than how it turned out? Hmm.
Who said they "Managed to invent intergalactic travel"? Perhaps they found whatever means of transport they used. Or who says that the creatures sent down aren't the equivalent of trained monkeys or dogs? Or weren't prisoners from another species? Or created in a lab for cannon fodder? Or that their “ships” were actually ships at all? Or that they were even intergalactic, as opposed to interdimensional? We have no idea where they came from, how they got here (we never even actually see a ship, merely lights in the sky and an invisible tangible field in the sky a bird flies into), or what their circumstances are. It can only be seen as a possible story problem if you make assumptions and apply your own preconceptions and expectations onto what you’re experiencing.
Remember, the entire point of the story is that “everything happens for a reason according to God’s will”. That alone quashes any perceived “plot holes”. Why were the aliens sent down to the surface naked? Because God wanted them to be. That’s the internal logic we’re presented with as it exists within the context of the story’s universe. And it trumps everything.
Also, it quite clearly wasn't H2O that harmed them. It was the specific mixture of ground water on Earth that harmed them. Otherwise, the fog, moisture on the ground, etc. would have been a problem. We're directly shown that it isn't, while being shown that water from an underground aquifer and up through a faucet did harm them, and we're told they avoided "bodies of water", i.e. mineral-enriched ground water, with a solution specific to Earth, and clearly only in quantities sufficient enough to be poured from a glass. Ever put a dab of bleach on your skin compared to pouring a glass of it over your arm, especially if you’re particularly allergic? It’s the difference between no reaction at all to permanent disfiguration, a difference that may very well look like what happens in the movie. H2O itself wasn't their problem. It was Earth-specific ground water that was.
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Boom!
COVID19 definitely speed up the inevitable. Things have been slowly headed this way for years now, but the pandemic may have just skipped about a decade's worth of slow progression and jumped right to the end. Time will tell.
I don't see feeling conflicted as a complaint, but a strength of the show.
You've actually summed things up here quite well, but why do you think you're "supposed" to hate Robbie? You're not "supposed" to do anything. How you feel is entirely up to you. Plus, "all the characters hate Robbie now" isn't an accurate statement. Far from it.
The entire premise of this show revolves around the idea that nothing is black and white. Good people can let their emotions get the better of them, or let power and privilege to go to their head, which leads them to do crappy things. "Bad" people who weren't raised correctly can start to change their ways and become a better member of society, or can have people they care for.
In my view this is the show's greatest strength, and is a quality very few shows ever portray. No one person is good or bad. Everyone is both. It all comes down to individual and distinct circumstances, and how a person reacts to each circumstance.
This is what being human is all about. It's messy. It's chaotic. And it doesn't follow any rules.
Agreed on every count, including the perturbing sudden penchant to miss Miles by Nix after going robocop and terminator on everyone in that warehouse. Maybe subconsciously she felt bad for him and it interfered with her will to kill him. But yeah other than that point, I thought this was a bonkers, fun, flick.
Most of these points, along with many of the complaints I've heard over the years, don't hold up even a modicum of scrutiny. Although a few have some merit, this post is largely the product of a dense mindset. I actually enjoyed AVP Requiem. I certainly like it much better than the first AVP by Paul W.S. Anderson, which I found to be quite cartoonish (like all of his films). It too was enjoyable in its own way, just forgettable and juvenile. While far from perfect, I've never understood the hate for AVP: Requiem, and find most complaints about it woefully lacking.
Yeah he did go WAYYYY long with that. It could have been significantly reduced I think. But I'd say you summed it up pretty well. I think that's exactly what the movie is saying, that human nature is the core of the problem, not the system. Although I think there's a secondary commentary that certain systems channel that behavior differently, that a system that incorporates self-interest for all equally is the best possible way to go.
But no system will be perfect. When it comes down to it, it's not about a system, it's about human behavior, or ultimately what some might dub the "golden rule". As a society we must mentally transcend any system, not give power to it (or the people in power within in) and make ourselves a slave to it. In other words, any system can become bad, but some systems have a greater probability of success than others.
Sure thing!
I would agree that I'd personally have liked it more, but I don't agree on an objective level that "they would have ended up with a far better film", or in other words I highly doubt it would have made more money than it did. Possibly even less.
I don’t entirely disagree with that. I would state that I personally would have liked the movie even more than I did (much more, actually) had it stuck closer to the book. Generally speaking, however, a movie has to appeal to the broadest audience possible to sell tickets and put butts in theaters seats. Sticking to the book would have almost certainly rendered it much less successful than it was. Would the primary demographic for theaters, 16 to 24-year-old millennials, have really liked a movie with an archaic, sexist macho lead character? Hell no. Word of mouth would have killed the film in one weekend. Having said that, I personally would have preferred a much less emo, more macho John Carter character, just maybe tamped down a bit.
It also has to be condensed into 2 hours from what would probably be about a 20-hour movie if shot verbatim from the books it pulled from. Choices must be made. But I would definitely agree that I personally would have liked it better if it had stuck closer to the plot and story of the books it was based on. In fact, I would have preferred that the first film of what was intended to be a franchise had adapted only elements from A Princess of Mars, and then brought the Therns in during sequels like the books, instead of having them be such a prominent component of the story right out of the gate.
But ultimately, we can't judge a movie by its source material. It must be assessed solely off its own merits. The source material is largely irrelevant, and trying to compare the two is only applicable to personal taste, not what will sell tickets. The bottom line is that compared to most movies John Carter did very well, in the top 1% of all time earners at the box office worldwide. So the problem wasn’t with selling tickets. The problem was with its unusual production methodology that required Disney to dump much more money into it than they needed to (about double by all accounts) for the type of movie it was.
Part IV
The end of the movie is quite vague, but it does have a meaning. At the end, we don't see what happens to the protagonist, but it is hinted that the protagonist probably dies. Notice that he was heavily injured and barely got on the platform with the girl, when they reached the bottom, then he suddenly he gets off and walks normally when he sees the ghost of Trimagasi. The girl transports upwards to the top floor at the end of the movie. The protagonist is trying to send a message to the administration by transporting the girl to the top. Perhaps the message is to show that despite that most people are greedy, there are also some people who are willing to show benevolence and generosity to save others.
I think this movie was very interesting. The movie is open to interpretation, and this is of course my point of view and I hope you found this helpful
Part III
The movie hints that there is actually enough food for everybody on all floors because the administration puts every prisoner's requested food on the table. This is evidenced when the protagonist is interviewed by the administration official about his favorite food (snails) and that it will be served while he is imprisoned. We also see that the protagonist sees his requested food for the first time when he is on floor no. 6 because none from the upper floors has touched it yet (but he doesn't eat it). He did not get to see his requested food before because those on the upper floors always ate it before it arrived to him. If every prisoner in the facility kept his or her requested food when it arrived at his or her floor, the floor will not turn hot or cold. This is evidenced by one of the last scenes when the protagonist keeps the Panna Cotta when he is at the girl's floor, which must be the favorite food of the girl. All the prisoners had to do was to take their requested food, and not eat the others' food, so the food would be equally distributed all the way to floor no. 333. However, the prisoners from the upper floors greedily ate more than their favorite food leaving less to the ones on the lower levels. So the main message of the movie is that people are very greedy and are ready to take more than they need, and not so much that the system is flawed. We see that the alternative system that the protagonist tries to enforce by distributing little food to everybody also leads to violence and deaths and is not much better.
Part II
The woman Miharu who rides down the platform actually represents the upper class of society because she knows how to exploit the system. Notice that she always rides down the platform and comes from the top floors and she is always bloodied and emotionless. That is because she always makes sure to kill and eat her cellmates every month, and that's why she always ends on the top floors. Miharu rides down the platform to make sure that there is food for the little girl (which we assume is her daughter) on the bottom floor. The girl is always on the bottom floor month after month, because she has never killed and eaten her cellmate. Miharu rides down the platform once a month so she has to make sure that there is enough food for the girl because she cannot get up again until the month is over (the platform only travels back up to level zero, which prisoners presumably are not allowed to enter). That's why she killed so many prisoners on her way down. Miharu must have a good reason to ride down the platform every month and that was to take care of the little girl. Miharu has managed to stay on top and alive for long because she knows the system. However, even she succumbs to the system when she is killed in a fight with the prisoners.
Notice that we learn from Imoguiri that she selected Miharu to enter the facility 10 months ago, that she entered alone, and that nobody under 16 years is allowed in the facility. However, we cannot trust Imoguiri's information because she also said that there are 200 levels, which turned out to be false, and the prohibition against under 16 year olds to enter the facility also turned out to be false. So the question of how the little girl ended in the facility remains unanswered. Perhaps the little girl was born in the facility or she was thrown in there with her mother.