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warrior-poet's Replies
I agree with this review that was left on IMDB by user TheKing87. Too bad IMDB forums don’t exist anymore, or that TheKing87 doesn’t use MovieChat. But I think TheKing87 100% nailed it.
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Part I
I think this movie was very interesting and full of interesting symbolism. I definitely recommend watching this movie.
I have read a lot of different understandings of this movie, but I think that a lot of people maybe misunderstood the role of Miharu. So this is my analysis of the movie:
In general, the facility represents society. The levels represent society classes and hierarchies. The protagonist, Goreng, represents a resistance movement who is ready to use threats and violence to secure that there is enough food for everybody. The old man, Trimagasi, represents a supporter of the system. The woman from the administration, Imoguiri, represents a peaceful movement that wants change but is unable to do so. Miharu who rides down the platform actually represents the upper class (se explanation further below).
The cellmates believe that the change of levels each month is random. However, the administration does not randomly choose the levels for all prisoners each month. The administration choses if each prisoner should go up or down the levels each month based on whether they have eaten their cellmates or not. If a prisoner is willing to kill his or her cellmate and eat of them then he or she is secured a higher level the next month. This is evidenced a couple of times in the movie: At first Goreng starts on level 48 with Trimagasi and they live peacefully. Then they move down to level 171 the following month where Goreng ends up killing Trimagasi and eats of him to survive. Then Goreng moves up to level 33 the next month where he meets Imoguiri and they live peacefully. Then they move down to level 202 where Goreng is forced to eat of Imoguiri who has killed herself. Then Goreng finally moves up to level 6 where he meets Baharat.
LOL. Feeling your age? I feel ya. 2002. Yikes.
It's not okay to hunt humans? Didn't realize that. Movies like this brainwashed me into think it was okay.
Surrrrrrrrrre it did. All the way back to the original story using this plot, The Most Dangerous Game. Books, cave paintings, comics, movies, video games. They're all the same. They all tell people it's okay to kill people. We should ban all fictional stories, art of any kind, in fact. People kill people only as a result of seeing movies, reading books, and playing video games. Never mind the underlying message usually built into those stories indicating such behavior is actually a bad thing, or espousing a broader message, usually through satire (just like this movie). That part doesn't matter. People are stupid monkeys and if they see one person kill another they'll go repeat it.
Or could it be that this movie doesn't actually suggest it's okay to kill people? That it in fact satirizes how absurd the notion is?
LOL. Nice.
Actually by all accounts the only real issue with John Carter wasn't ticket sales. It sold a helluva lot of tickets in theaters, much more than most movies by comparison. The real issue is that they spent more than double of what they actually needed to in the making of it because Stanton (the director) used the same method as he did with Pixar's animated films. He literally ended up shooting the entire movie twice, which required rebuilding a lot of big sets twice. John Carter actually made quite a bit at the box office. In other words, they spent so much making it that despite some level of success, it wasn't enough to justify a sequel and is considered a major flop financially as a result.
To add some perspective, in 2014 only 90 movies out of the 316,773 total movies theatrically released since 1888, a meager .03%, had grossed over $614 million at the box office, the approximate amount “John Carter” would had to have made to turn a profit (a studio exec commented prior to its release that if it didn’t make around $700 million they wouldn’t do a sequel). In 2014 “John Carter” was ranked 361 of that 316,773 total number of theatrically release movies in ticket sales, meaning it drew in more than 99.89% of all movies made since 1888. So although the subject was somewhat niche, a lot of people actually still saw it.
So to sum up, the issue wasn't that as compared to most other films people didn't go see it in theaters. Although it didn't have a very broad scope of appeal, given it's subject and nature, quite a few people did actually go see it. The real issue was that Disney spent way more making it than they needed to because of the inefficient method with which it was filmed.
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Never believe. Always question. Rebuke belief, a.k.a. bias, a.k.a. groupthink, a.k.a. ideology, the bane of skeptical, logical reason.
Agreed. That's most likely what happened. I think I would have preferred a slightly altered world where the KGB still existed secretly rather than tech from 2019 showing up in the early 90's. But oh well. But yeah I bet you're right.
MariannIAm, indeed, and it's nice to hear from someone else who grasps why this is problematic, or at least why some major fictional physics gymnastics are required to make most time travel movies work. Even Edge Of Tomorrow, which I absolutely loved, requires special movie time travel physics (although honestly I always enjoy making up my own explanations and physics for such movies and posting long-winded theories about them).
If you ever check out the other movies I cited, Predestination is the perfect example of a bootstrap paradox, and is based on All You Zombies by Robert A. Heinlein. I found it to be a moderately entertaining as a film, but it does a pretty good job of representing "real-world" time travel based on known physics. TimeCrimes is another film (Spanish language) that's pretty interesting and does fairly decent with the time travel.
But you're right about how clean 12 Monkeys' time travel element is. It's perfectly presented, and in my view the best example of a very well thought out time travel story.
Not truly a time travel movie (yes there's time loops, but it's more a supernatural thriller akin to Jacob's Ladder) is Triangle with Melissa George, written and directed by Christopher Smith. If paying attention there's so many layers in this film it'll take multiple viewings and discussions to catch them. It does NOT follow logical time travel concepts, but goes in a direction most time travel movies don't, and I personally find it a fascinating film. Don't expect a time travel movie though. Not sure why I even mentioned it, actually (other than it consists of overlapping 3-in-1 time-loops that I spent wayyyy too much time puzzling out, documenting and charting) :)
Just finished it and quite enjoying it myself. Nice pop culture references, with humor and action. I have to agree, however, about the PC SJW hits here and there. However, in a number of instances for me it came off as making fun of the over-PC culture, not endorsing it. That's how I took it, anyway.
It showed at Grimmfest and is available now in the U.K. from 101 Films (as of Oct 7th), although that one's Region B locked. Shout! Factory has the rights to release it in the U.S., but I'm not sure of the date. You'd think it'd be released in Canada by now since it's a Canadian film, but my guess is that the Region A format of it from Shout! Factory will appear in the U.S. and Canada around the same time. So if you're in the U.S. you may have to wait a bit.
Just saw this. While definitely not on par as the original for me all in all, I liked some elements of it better, actually. I thought Laura Vandervoort, who's acting I've found hit and miss in the past, did a solid job in this. Doesn't have the haunting after-effect the original had, and lacks that special Cronenberg vibe, but it's worth checking out. Don't expect it to hold up to the original though.
Yes! That was a nice little touch for those in the know.
Good thing he kept it in the freezer and wasn't eating it or he may have gone the way of Chocolate Chip Charlie!
I actually quite liked this film. The action was well choreographed and she made it very believable for being such a waif. It was like "La Femme Nikta" mixed with "Fresh" or "Miller's Crossing".
But yes the tech presented is a MASSIVE fail. What the hell was Besson thinking? It's hard to see that it was an oversight, because who in god's name could miss this throughout the entire production process? It's almost like it was some willful, intentional attempt at something. An alternate universe? It's just weird. I just pretended it was taking place in modern times. Maybe putting in 1990 happened at the end of production? it really does boggle the mind.
Remove that oddity and I actually liked this much better than I expected.
But.... the TECH! WHYYYYY!?
Quite enjoyed it myself. One niggle though: the move relies on a massive temporal paradox (most of these time travel movies do). Because its a causal loop changing the future changes the past and vice versa (i.e. since it's a loop the past can change a future that's already been experienced, and an individual's future can be the past relative to everyone else). By preventing the catastrophic events that lead to Rya going to the past, Rya would then never go to the past. So why does she ever show up at all? If she doesn't go to the past the war happens. Then she goes to the past, prevents the war. Then she doesn't go to the past and devastation ensues. It's paradoxical, requiring some sci-fi vudu magic physics to explain. It's also a perpetual, never-ending loop of two alternating timeline segments.
To accommodate this we have to invent a mutable timeline concept unique to time travel movies where there's only one universe (no multiverse--I won't get into the weeds as to why that is here), but where timelines can fracture off for short segments when a time loop is created (i.e. there's only two or more parallel timeline segments as a result of altering events in the relative past or future that cause a change that impacts the very reason the loop exists to begin with). If we pretend that's how physics works within a science fiction context, we can accept it. Off the top of my head, only Predestination (where a bootstrap paradox, something predicted and allowable by known physics) occurs, 12 Monkeys, Time Lapse and Primer truly get it right. Most flicks based on time travel don't.
Still a very interesting movie. I'd give it a 6.5. As a side note, i disagree that there's a message here (or in most movies, for that matter) like some are saying. The movie doesn't take sides. It just shows events that unfolded and their eventual outcome.
Neither did the house in this movie! :)
Awesome movie! Rob Roy from that era was pretty good too. But have to agree, Braveheart, although it plays a little loose with historical fact (what movie doesn't?), is quite moving and was Gibson at his best.
As a side note, although I greatly enjoyed that reference in Braveheart, Warrior Poet is my actual last and first names, using the Gaelic/Celtic meanings (I have Irish ancestry). So reverse to Poet (Celtic word that means "poet") Warrior (Gaelic word that means "warrior") and you might be able to decipher my real name. I actually started using this tag in the very earliest days of the internet on Usenet. Good heavens I'm getting old.
That may have been a bit too much info to divulge publicly on the internet. Oh well.
He is indeed :)
It's both a time loop with innocent bystanders drawn into it, and a form of punishment (for not paying the ferryman). Want more detailed discussion. A LOT more detailed discussion? Check this out: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/26466-triangle/discuss/58c071f7c3a3684c15000359?language=en-US.
In a word: yes. He was in fact responsible for everything sinister that happened.
He, or in essence the little boy he used to be, was the negative force in the house. He just probably wasn’t completely aware of it consciously. If you recall there's a conversation around the middle of the film where Dr. Faraday is discussing the situation with a colleague. They broach the subject of studies that suggest poltergeist activity is not in fact ghosts, but the subconscious will of a living individual’s unmitigated desire (my words-I’m paraphrasing, but this is the gist of it).
Understanding the movie hinges on this information.
Recall the various connections depicted throughout the film of Faraday as a boy coveting the opulence and prestige of the house, wanting to be like those who lived within it, to the point of breaking off the acorn. Toward the end of the film this is visually presented as a connection to his present-day desire, which we learn at the very end was an obsession that he'd harbored all those years.
Remember even how he was looking at the girl playing with the dog early in the film before it acted very out of character and attacked her? Faraday’s subconsciously-generated force of will made that happen, manipulating events that let him worm his way into the household he so coveted.
But then at the very end of the film, he's had to dispel or kill everyone in the house in order to take up residence, and so he's shown as a sad little boy with a tear running down his cheek, finally having attained the object of his obsessive desire, but having to get rid of everyone else in the house to do so. He now has what he wanted, but it’s now lifeless and devoid of what had made it special.
Also, just found this interview off a quick Google and it seems to verify my own interpretation:
[url]https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/the-little-stranger-movie-ending-explained[/url]
Boom!
You should really delete this post. It's embarrassing.