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avortac4's Replies
" But it's kind of a shame Atreyu didn't get a better ending."
Having his beloved horse back to life and being able to live the happiest life possible as if nothing bad ever happened is somehow not GOOD ENOUGH for him and you?? WHAT?
It's almost as if you want him to have an EGOTISTICAL ending instead of a HAPPY one, so at least call it by its real name.
What does Atreyu care if he doesn't get accolade or prestige, rewards or medal or .. (groan, how stupid) a 'peck on the cheek' (what would THAT do compared to bringing Artax back to life?)..
..when:
a) He DID save Fantasia, completed his quest, can now live stress-free the most happy and natural life he could possibly imagine
b) He got Artax back to life, as if nothing bad ever happened
c) He got the whole WORLD rebooted, so now it's as happy as ever, if not happier
What do you really want for him? A fanfare, medal, ceremony and applause? A 'peck on the cheek' (seriously, what's wrong with people?)??
He did what he set out to do, he completed the quest, he got Artax back, he's happy - what the heck do you want? You are talking as if HE was important, but it was never him, it was the QUEST that was important, and he completed it.
Give him credit for being selfless and pure, truly a humble soul, that's a PROPER hero's ending, not to demand, lust, crave or revel in superficial accoladest and gilded treasures, but to just do what you need to do, make things right and then remove yourself from the equation to go live your own happy life somewhere. He even waved to Bastian and the Luck Dragon after that.
To me, that's the BEST ending for him - instad of egomaniacal gold-lust in his eyes, screaming in front of a cheering crowd of mongo1oids, he just does his duty like a Zen-monk and withdraws back to his happy life when things are back to normal. No need for superficial glitter, he knows what's important.
What could be more admirable, respectable and heroic than what he does in the end? That's a true hero anyone can LOOK UP to, and I'd take THAT kind of role model over some 'look at me and give me a trophy'-glitterbimbo any day.
The BEST ending possible - showing his true nobility and humility, showing how to be a respectable character that anyone can look up to.
Would you really trade THAT for a lousy gilded medal?
"I assumed that only the kids could see it since they're the ones with imagination."
What about adults that still have imagination? How about teens?
Also, so adults would NOT see the dragon - but they'd see a kid flying in the air in a sitting position and maneuvering about very fast? Sure, that's not weird at all, just flying kid on a not-dragon.
Might be actually less traumatizing to see the dragon at that point, if the alternative is just seeing a flying kid.
Obviously that bully-chasing thing never happened in the actual, real world (think of the implications of people seeing that stuff, and how much Bastian could CHANGE the real world with his wishes).
You can think of Fantasia as Bastian's private Holodeck - he can make 'anything come true', but only in the world of imagination, which is what Fantasia is. He made the bully-revenge happen just the same way as he made Artax come back alive - how the heck could he fly a Luck Dragon in any real world city, where he'd need to follow the laws of physics, the Luck Dragon would need some actual form or propulsion and Bastian would get hypothermia from the freezing wind and so on?
It was just WISH-FULFILLMENT, because that's all that exists in Fantasia. It's not possible to bring things from your imagination to real world just by wishing, the whole point of the movie is that Bastian escaped his chores, responsibilities and the dull, limited, strict, unforgiving real world for the Fantasia world of imagination, where anything is possible.
You can create a jungle in the Holodeck, but you can't just wish for a planet to be created next to the spaceship in the real world and it will happen.
Bastian moved to live in the Holodeck, so that's where everything happens - just because it looked like 'the real world' doesn't mean it actually was.
To me, it always sounded more like 'Montoya' or something like that.
First you complain about the wolf, then you say the 'nothing' should've had a personified baddie. Hello? Contradicting much?
In any case, the story couldn't have been simpler. Atreyu tries to save Fantasia, then stuff happens, making it clear he couldn't do it, goes to Empress to talk about his failure, then Empress says all of it was necessary to complete the quest, because the REAL quest was simply bringing the reader (and watcher of the movie, YOU) with him so then he could give the Empress a new name.
Basically, 'bring a kid to empress - quest completed, level up, 200 gold!'
How could the story/plot (still not sure about the difference) have been simpler?
In fact, it was SO simple, I was disappointed when I saw the movie the first time, as in 'that's it?'. I wanted something more complicated an intricate.
'Nothing' is deliberately an 'impossible concept' so it remains in the world of 'unclear' or 'unexplainable', so the viewer - get this - has to use their IMAGINATION of what it might be like! No one can fully and in intricate detail explain, draw, visualize or imagine a concept like that. It's like trying to draw 'happiness' - you can only draw forms, symbols, maybe something abstract, but not something that everyone would instantly recognize as 'happiness' and nothing else.
Kids have active imaginations (kinda point of the movie), then it dulls down when they grow to be adults (sad). This means, evoking and provoking and prodding their imaginations by presenting a 'vague concept that can't be fully envisioned' is actually brilliant, and very easy for a kid to wonder about.
Not everything has to be easily digestible, it's good to leave some mystery and things that you can't just easily define and illustrate on any old piece of paper or film, this makes things more interesting and dare I say it - magical!
What kind of dull, unintelligent kid must you have been to watch this and not only not understand it, but complain about the 'nothing' concept.. ?
His mother is already alive. Just not in a physical body at that moment - why do people still not realize that physical body is not anything but a dead vessel that only SEEMS alive because a soul is living in it..?
Also, Fantasia is the world of IMAGINATION, so he can't bring changes to the REAL WORLD, except purely physically. He can't wish for the Earth to explode (or he can WISH, but it won't come true), for example, but he can wish for Artax to be alive, because Artax isn't REAL.
What Bastian has is just a HOLODECK - you can create things that are 'very realistic', but you can't affect things outside the holodeck. He can't manipulate other people's lives, free will or bring people back to the physical world from the astral side, or he could look at any historical atrocities and just decide to bring people back that died in wars and whatnot.
His power does not manipulate the 'real world' (or he could turn IT into Fantasia), the power only creates 'very realistic figments of imagination'.
In effect, he could've brought a facsimile, something that looks, acts, behaves and sounds like his mother, but it would not have been her actual mother, because Fantasia is the world of imagination, and the only way to affect the real world is to bring things from it into the real world.
However, even that might be an illusion - it could be argued that the ending with the Luck Dragon and the bullies didn't REALLY happen in real life, Bastian simply imagined it happening, so it happened to him 'realistically' (again, think of Holodeck), but the actual bullies never saw any Luck Dragon, and never jumped into the garbage bin.
I mean, if he could have any wish he wants in the REAL world, why would that affect the world of imagination, and then couldn't he wish to live on a different planet, do time traveling, change the political system, end hunger and wars, and and and..??
Obviously, he couldn't, even the narrator says that he 'returned to the real world' (or something).
So the 'simple gender switch' never really works, because women and men have a very different psychology, physiology, mating strategy and brain functionality.
The world also treats women and men differently - we are always ready to believe a man is a scumbag, but almost never that a woman is.
To me, a character, man or woman (or genderless), is not powerful because they can beat 12 men easily with some magical Aikidoo, but because they can TAKE HITS from men into the face. You almost never see a woman be shot in the head and blood splatter, but you see this a lot for men.
The world wants to protect women, it's ready to believe women and not believe men, and so on.
This could be utilized SO much, as it's a huge part of women's power in real world, so why not in a story/movie as well? Instead, they make the women look like men, so no one is supposed to care about them, and men are always ready to physically FIGHT a woman, when in real world, they would be constantly thinking about how to get in the woman's good side so they might give them.. favors..
All this is never considered in a story, so it comes off as fake, unrealistic and silly. A man would rather sleep with a woman than fight her, especially a pretty one, but in these stories/movies, men are always INSTANTLY ready to just FIGHT her instead. And the woman physically fighting them also seems a waste, when she could just seduce them and then control the situation. Women using fists to solve problems just isn't realistic - not because women can't kick buttockses (they can), but because they have SO MANY BETTER OPTIONS because women have more power than men in the world!
All men have, are their fists/weapons in these situations, but women have a PLETHORA of other options that are actually more powerful.
This is why women fist/sword/weapon-fighting especially men always seems off, it always feels weird, it's always unrealistic and so on. You can't just 'switch' genders.
The dynamic just wouldn't work.
Sure, you can have your 'Alien' and 'Red Sonja' and all that, and it can work fine in a movie, and all the 'strong women' can look good on screen punching, kicking and hitting other women and also men.
However, it's not woman's real power to be able to kill something with a sword the same way it's a man's real power. It's not a woman's real power to be able to kick buttockses of much bigger men as if it's just a walk in the park.
Something always feels off, when you see a tiny woman just punch their way out of every situation, and you see these large men just fall so easily. It's not the same.
It would be more organic and interesting if men were allowed to be the strong, masculine leader types, and women were the more subtle, maybe socially manipulating types, that can use psychological and even sexual mind games to extract information from men, and read other women and use that to their advantage and so on.
It's such a waste to always see the 'strong woman' trope simply being a 'clone of a man', and then feeling all the weirdness that comes with trying to make a woman into a man. The psychology is so different, it just doesn't work. You can celebrate James Bond for being able to attract some gorgeous beauty, but it's hard to celebrate a woman being able to attract a simp desk clerk.
It just feels weird when a woman does 'man-stuff' too much, and doesn't utilize the IMMENSE sexual-social power she has in the world. If a woman points a finger of accusation, everyone believes her. Men generally want to protect women, especially against men, but not men, especially against women.
Wouldn't it be cool to see a woman protect a man socially the way men are expected to protect women physically? I can only recite ONE example of this, and it was the coolest moment in a TV show ever - the Black (that IS her surname!) woman defends Larry David in the show 'Curb Your Enthusiasm', when Susie tries to slam him verbally - GLORIOUS!
"Why didn’t one of them just sleep on the floor at the motel?"
How is this a plot hole?
I mean, even if the core 'issue' you have could be said to be a plot hole, you are not writing a statement, you are ASKING A QUESTION.
How is YOU asking a QUESTION a plot hole the filmmakers created?
Now, let's answer your _E_X_T_R_E_M_E_L_Y_ confusing question..
"Why didn’t one of them just sleep on the floor at the motel?"
Because there was a bed.
Q.E.D.
P.S. Your question TRULY baffles me.. why would you ask why someone prefers bed to floor to sleep on? What? To me, that looks like:
"Why are they not sitting on rocks, when they could be sitting on a comfortable chair?"
(I know the 'correct' usage is probably 'in', but it makes no sense to me to sit IN a chair, any more than it would make sense to be 'underWATER', when you are INSIDE the water and SURROUNDED by it, and if anything, you are only under SOME water, but also ABOVE some other water, and to the left and to the right of some other water, and so on, but I can't change a whole illogical language so quickly, so this might take a couple of thousand years - or it would, if there weren't people that constantly keep destroying it without care..)
Neither you, nor your question, nor your name (all CAPS, like a toddler, really?) nor your ridiculous conclusion make any sense.
"Lewis is resposinsible for Murphys death"
First of all, you need an apostrophe for possessive - it's " Murphy's ", not " Murphys ".
Second of all, Murphy DOES NOT DIE in this movie. What is the last word of dialogue said by someone clearly still alive in this movie? Think about it.
So your post makes no sense.
What's weird to me, is that even Hank's wife knows that coal-grilled food tastes much better than propane-grilled food, and Hank remains blissfully ignorant that he's married to a traitor and a liar. Hank pushes propane everywhere he goes (though it's never explained why he loves propane so much), but doesn't ever realize that coal is better for grilling food, even after agreeing that said food tastes better (I think in that episode he rationalizes that the reason is something else).
I think these TV shows would be so much better, if they had some kind of stance, some kind of point, some kind of important and poignant story people want to tell, for example, about this planet, its weird world, and how wrong certain everyday things in it are, and what we could at least try to do to change those things. Instad, it's about silly stories that go nowhere, or have no meaning whatsoever.
In the end, it's all about money first, and all about entertainment second, and that's all we get. At least they could try harder to be funny.
".. there was nothing "grounded" or "subtle" about King of the Hill. It was nothing but the "Weekly Misadventures of Hank Hill Reacting to the Annoyances of Modern Day Life.""
I agree about this, but I don't agree on how you insult other posters to make your point.
KotH is very mediocre, very 'safe', very 'conformist', very bland, unexotic, uninteresting, unedgy, well, it's hard to even find enough words to describe just how bland and boring that show really is.
I know the basic idea was pretty good and sound, Mike Judge trying to fix his fence and his weirdly talking neighbours ending up fixing it with proper tools and materials, but it just doesn't really work as a whole cartoon of 13 full seasons. Quite respectable that they were able to stretch something that thin for that long.
To me, KotH isn't particularly exciting or entertaining - it seems to lack a 'spark'. It's like a car with no destination, running by itself with no one behind the wheel, accidentally happening to turn here or there due to the terrain, but never ending up anywhere interesting, until it just falls off a cliff at the end.
I guess you -could- make the debate that KotH was somewhat 'grounded', or that it did have some 'subtle' humor (instead of saying something actually funny, saying something unfunny in a monotone voice in a situation that became ridiculous enough to warrant a different tone of voice can be considered 'subtle humor'), but in the end and in the long run, it's not funny enough, and despite the 'wacky adventures', it never really grabs you and tells you something important or takes you towards a message that's poignant.
You could say what Kung-Fu Panda does really well (even though it's a movie), KotH doesn't even try to do. There's no message, it takes no stance, it goes nowhere, and we never even discuss whether propane pollutes or not, or whether alternative ways of heating things could actually be more environmentally friendly.
You actually perfectly point out why this show doesn't work - it REMINDS you of better shows, that did similar things better. I WOULD rather watch 'That '70s Show', 'Married With Children' or Mike Judge's best work. Heck, even the best episodes of King of the Hill are more pleasant to watch than this.
Why is it that when a show swims in vulgarity and low-brow cesspool of stupidity and filth, people are so quick to raise to defend it, but then they never have actual arguments, so they have to insult the poster, who did nothing more than give fair criticism towards a below-mediocre cartoon that mimics other shows so much that you wish you were watching those other shows instead..?
Let's just start being honest with things and call things what they are. So far, this show has not impressed me, and it has made me want to watch so many other shows instead. Heck, even the UK 'The Office' is more entertaining and interesting than this one. At least they tried doing something new back in the day..
So this show seems to be like King of the Hill in the sense that Mike Judge didn't seem to have a particularly poignant reason or a deep message for creating that particular cartoon - he just wanted to try animation.
Bill Burr, I guess, had a bit of a reason for voicing this angry dad, because he could channel his own father. However, so far, EVERY time he has done it on stage, he has been amazingly funny, but any second so far on this show, he has only been pretty 'meh', quite boring, and not funny at all.
I guess 'talking about your father' is different than 'trying to act like your father' - I don't know, but this show just doesn't really work.
There's the additional problem of 'comparing' - there HAVE already been pretty good shows doing pretty much anything and everything imaginable for a cartoon show, whether it's the story, actions, jokes, surprises, structural stuff and so on. Is there anything this show can do to really keep you interested, when you feel like you have seen it all already, because you have watched The Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park, King of the Hill and the list goes on...? I mean, what can this show offer that those shows haven't already?
It's like playing a game on Atari ST ... you can like the game, it can be pretty good, but you just KNOW there's a version of that game that looks, plays and sounds better, plus has better atmosphere to it. Very often that other version is found on the Amiga side, sometimes in the of coin-up Arcade games, other times even the humble Commodore 64 or even Atari 800 (or '8-bit', as they call it).
So watching this, you get a similar feeling, you start itching to watch something that did a similar thing, but much better - whether that's The Simpsons, South Park, Family Guy or something else is up to you, but it's easy to get that uneasy feeling while watching this, isn't it?
Maybe we can do a test - imagine Frank was voiced by some unknown. Would you STILL watch this? Be honest.
Yes, this show does remind me of 'King of the Hill' - another show where a famous and wealthy creator of other things decided a 'cartoon format' would work for him, but after watching pretty much every episode (besides some sports-themed ones, of which there are WAY too many), I can conclude the end result is lukewarm and lackluster at best, boring, predictable, long-winded and asinine (yes, I said it) at worst.
KotH doesn't 'dare' enough - it does poke at 'serious topics', but then shies away from really making a statement or taking a stand, as if they don't want to ACTUALLY offend anyone, so everything always returns to the safe, wishy-washy, conformist 'non-stance' and next episode has forgotten all about it.
No one ever grows or learns anything, etc.
Now, I have only watched almost two episodes of this particular, weirdly-named show, and so far all I have seen are anachronisms, unsatisfied stories, horrible, jerk characters, modern speech patterns, wrong television sizes compared to what they are supposed to be and wrong kinds of typewriters (square-keyed, tight-keyboard, electric typewriter-looking ones did not exist in the 1970s), and Bill Burr ranting and raving a bit, but not to the point of being funny, and that's about it.
It's like some people have to try 'everything', even though only one thing works for them. Bill Burr is a master of comedy craft when he's on stage. He can make you laugh even if you disagree with him or realize how misandristic and woman-worshipping he is (while supposedly saying some raw truths about them).
However, he is also a helicopter pilot, actor, writer, podcaster and so on, and now a voice actor for (so far) an unfunny, repulsive cartoon that seems to serve no point. It doesn't really seem to work. What works on stage, just doesn't work for a cartoon. Just him voicing an angry dad is not enough, it's not particularly funny.
Every time he is interviewed about this part, he reverts back to his material as well.
"..why would you seek out a public forum to trash the work of someone in your life to a bunch of strangers who are likely here because they enjoyed it?"
Why would you use such weird language, as in trying to make 'honest, critical forum post' sound like some kind of secret ops mission that some nutcase goes on after dark, hiding camouflaged in the bushes to SEEK someone frantically?
Can't a forum post be just someone sitting comfortably on a chair, typing away into the night, while calmly sipping some iced tea and writing a thought that came to their head? Does it have to be SEEKING?
Also, what kind of a friend can't handle honest opinions? I think it's commendable and encouraging to tell your friends what they might have done better when they work on something and the result is crappy. If you do something lousy, regardless of the amount of effort, wouldn't you want to KNOW it's lousy, instead of living in illusions?
So why would YOU be so 'attackive' (opposite of 'defensive' doesn't really exist, does it? I mean, I could say 'offensive', but that has a completely different meaning now) over someone just writing their thoughts of the show?
We can all wonder all kinds of things, and no TV cartoon is above criticism, even if you know the makers of it. Why should it be otherwise? We could wonder many things about this show, about almost anyone's comments here.. but the point of a board/forum like this is for people to talk and converse about these movies, TV shows and even cartoons. Why would you wonder about why someone would come to a forum to 'trash' (quite opinionated and 'attackive' language from someone that claims to not attack, and for trying to shame someone on being 'defensive') a show, when they simply use the board for its intended purpose?
"If you knew (truncated), then you would have (snip) adored"
I added proper punctuation and removed some irrelevant things to emphasize what you said.
So knowledge = adoration?
If you knew Bill Burr, you would have ADORED grotesqueness and the clichés of the show? I wish I could summon Mr. Spock here to tell how much logic your claim has. You can be a fan of someone, but you don't have to lose all logic while trying to defend a show they are a voice actor in.
Bill can be funny and you can know his 'persona' (whatever that means in this context) without automatically adoring a cartoon that he just happens to be one of the voice actors of. I mean, if you find some Bill's joke funny, does that translate to ADORING this cartoon showing a man being decapitated by a propeller? How does that work?
That's the problem with fandom, when push comes to shove, logic flies out the window and you get the craziest statements that make no sense whatsoever.
Even a blind chicken is correct sometimes, it seems.
Yeh, that was a really idiotic bad parenting choice, but Hank has never been very intelligent or knowledgeable - he just seems to be, because he's surrounded by idiots.
The norm back in the, I don't know, 1950s maybe(?), was that if your kid smokes a cigarette, instead of withholding the 'enticing forbidden substance' from the kid, you FORCE them to indulge in it until they feel sick.
This sounds very solid, psychologically speaking, you make the kid HATE the thing he thought was so cool and exciting, so it'll be a while until they try it again, if ever. Basically using trauma as a deterrent.
However, the amounts are all out of whack in this episode. It should've been something like ten cigarettes (or even a whole pack), and even that would be ridiculous. It could've been excused in the 1950s, when the dangers of cigarettes and all the addictive and poisonous chemicals in them weren't widely understood or known about.
Hank's decision couldn't be more ignorance-based if it tried. Not only will that many cigarettes seriously harm Bobby's health (they're dangerous even for adults, but especially people younger than 18 years old), without giving the body time to recuperate - it could cause PERMANENT damage very easily - but even if Bobby escapes the health risks, he will most likely develop a CRAVING that's going to be very difficult to escape as well.
Just make him smoke like four or five cigs in a row (and not even fully), and be done with it.
Then again, bad parenting, bad dog handlership (two of the big burning problems ignorance has unleashed upon this wretched world) and other bad things run rampant in this pretty dull show, so that's realistic.
Hank has broken so many laws in this show, I even wonder why anyone would wonder about any of it.
Kicking 'a55' is unlawful, because it's trampling someone else's rights. You can't just go on attacking people according to law or even the legal system.
Then there's the whole 'scalper tickets' thing when Hank is excited that Bobby is interested in American Football or something. How many laws does he break there, including 'stealing' a luxury box or whatever it's called..?
Hank gladly does not only the wrong thing, but the unlawful, let alone illegal thing, if it serves him, while pretending to be a law-abiding individual. Hypocrisy at its finest.. Hank has no spine, while pretending to have one, and yet judges others for breaking the law.
" She needed to be brought down a couple of notches."
Notches? Not .. pegs?
What a missed opportunity for a great pun!