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"The Man with the g-g-golden e-eyball..."
2002-10-28 00:30:17
Hokay, big theoretical here, but let's say that you get stuck with door duty Halloween night or get stuck babysitting, and you've gotta look after your littler sibling/neighbor in the meantime. Give the little rugrat a true appreciation of Halloween. Rent "Halloween I." Why? 'Cause it's about a monster that kills babysitters. That oughtta put the fear of God into them. Yeah, you'll catch hell for it later, but come on...if you want the kid to regard this holiday as anything other than another "I get candy" secular night of “the cool kids all having more fun than me”, then scare the shit outta the little guys. THAT they'll remember, and getting to see a scary movie (even one as ancient as this) will elevate the fun into the realm of the forbidden for them. Yeah, they'll have nightmares, but at least they'll learn to appreciate a classic before they get jaded by all the high-budget snazzy special effects of the newer flicks. (I've said it before and I'll say it again...if anything can ruin the horror genre as a whole, it's money. Look what big budgets have done to Sci-Fi...) Besides, Donald Pleasance really needs more exposure. Poor guy died doing this series…and at a low point of the sequels, too.
Hey to everyone who sent along a note about my comments concerning Ghost in the Shell. I’m betting I missed a couple (in fact, I know I missed one, but can’t remember who it was) but here’s a note or two in response. ErMaC; thanks. You have any idea how long I’ve wanted to get that little bit of uber-geekery out of my system? I might put a bit more geekery later in this post of a similar nature, but a diff series.
Omnistrata: Yeah, the TV version couldn’t have put as much nudity in as the movie, but that’s not really the point. In the film, the nudity served a point beyond merely pulling in the horny fanboys. In fact, in some ways, it even deconstructed that aspect. (Some of the erotic nature of a nude scene is destroyed when you’re watching the woman’s SKIN being assembled….) In the TV show, not only isn’t there any reason given for her outfit, it doesn’t fit with the storyline, and there’s no real thematic reason for it to be there other than to titillate fanboys….it’s just logically dumb. (Sorry, I’m usually better at phrasing this…but I have to wind up to it.) Incidentally, after seeing the second episode, I’ve concluded that she’s not wearing panties, but, instead, the bottom half of a swimsuit.
The second episode did go a long ways towards reassuring me about the quality of the series. The CG stuff this time around looked much better, especially with the tachikomas. (Basically mobile little mini-tanks with ingrained AIs. Remember, this is the same guy who gave us “Bonepart.” They each “seat” one person apiece, or you can turn them over entirely to the onboard AI, which sounds remarkably like a more-coherent Japanese version of GIR. They each have 4 insect-like walking legs with swing-out wheels, and two manipulator appendages with miniguns mounted in the palms. (Think of a miniature “spider-tank” from the film.) The net effect of a group of them in motion is of an attack by the “Starlight Express.” They’re also the main source of humor from the original comics. They were cut out of the film, since their immature brand of humor didn’t really fit with the overarching theme. Gamers will also recognize them from the GITS video game.) ‘Course, the fanservice was still there. As you have to lie flat on your stomach to fit in the control seat of a Tachikoma, and since the hatch is in the back, getting in and out of the mini-tanks is a little awkward. So when Motoko has to get out in a hurry, we get an increasing closeup of her posterior as she crawls ass-backward out of the rear hatch. On the other hand, she was actually wearing pants this time. Sorta a tradeoff.
I actually prefer the slightly older (age-wise) design of Kusanagi in the film, as I feel it’s closer to the original manga concept…and I’m against the current trend to de-age any character down to that of the target audience, ie 17-19. It’s not as bad in the TV as I’ve seen elsewhere, but I think this design has her hair too damn big… Nigel O’Rear insists that she’s still depicted as too old in the TV series, but I don’t see it.
Let’s see, what else is going on. Got to see Spirited Away in the theaters last weekend. I’ve already reviewed that one previously, (quick recap, not my favorite Ghibli or Miazaki film, but a strong contender for second place in both of those.) but I do have a comment or two about the dub. For the most part, the dub was really well done. At its worst it was still adequate, but the quality tended to be a bit uneven, so that parts looked worse by comparison. I didn’t care so much for the voice of Yubaba in particular. Some problems with inflection and the like meant she sounded like she was reading her lines at times. Sen was a little louder than I’d have liked as well. Other problems I acknowledge were just insurmountable. Like translating the little “greeting song” sung for no-face by the bath foreman just made it sound silly (as in dumb-silly, not funny-silly). I’m really uncertain in this next bit, as I’ve only seen the pirate-sub, but I THINK that some of the lines were slightly altered. Not to censor anything, but actually to add stuff in, explaining things that would have been obvious to a Japanese audience. Sticking in an “Oh. A bathouse” really might be necessary for an American audience. Alterations like that I really don’t mind much. All in all, a very good dub, but not a perfect one. Everyone go out and see this, especially so you get a chance to see this masterpiece on a big screen. You’ll have to hunt a bit though. It’s only on like 150 screens across the US. What I wish would happen would be for this film to outsell the next piece Disney is foisting on us “Treasure Planet.” I don’t know if TP is any good, but I’d just like Disney to get its comeuppance on this. Won’t happen, though.
Hmm. What else. Finished “A Year at the Movies: One Man’s Filmgoing Odyssey” by Kevin Murphy. (Otherwise known as Tom Servo’s new book.) It wasn’t quite was I was expecting or hoping for, which would have been a fearless destruction of all the pap and pablum that was meandering through the theaters last year (as well as well-earned praise for the good movies). Instead it was more of a record of the moviegoing experience itself. The especially good and especially bad films got a review, but the rest were mentioned only in passing, if at all. Basically, Kevin Smith went to a movie a day in theaters all over the world (he counted in-flight films for the sake of GETTING there) for the entirety of 2001. He pulled a couple of stunts too. On thanksgiving he managed to smuggle an entire turkey dinner into “Monsters Inc.” and set it up for his entire family in the front row. He spent a week sneaking into the movies. He spent a week eating nothing but movie concession-stand food. Imax, front rows, balconies, tiny independent theaters, working the counters, etc. etc. It’s a good enough book, but, to be honest, you really have to be into this stuff already. I was only minor-ly interested in the premise, was further interested by Kevin Murphy’s reading of one of the chapters (the one panning “Corky Romano”) at D*C, and really pulled in by the idea of a book written by the same mind as voiced Tom Servo. That last one is really not a good reason to read the book. The snide sarcasm and vindictive humor of everyone’s favorite little robot is mostly missing from the book. The book’s humor isn’t as pop-culture referential, and much of the energy is devoted towards promoting the little independent theaters, decrying the vapidness of modern movie releases, the lack of personality of multiplexes, and bemoaning the lack of any screening rooms for honestly good films from the past. I agree with him in principle on much of this, but there’s a big difference between agreeing with it and tolerating a minor rant repeated over and over from chapter to chapter. Yeah, each chapter is devoted to a different topic, but some themes keep raising their repetitive heads. On the other hand, each of the 52 chapters were rarely over ten pages long, which makes it the perfect size for reading one a night before you go to bed. In portions of one or two chapters at a time, this is a fun read. Anything more and it’ll start gnawing on you.
Picked up my first copy of Heavy Metal (mag) ever the other day. My local comic shop has started carrying it on an extremely limited basis (maybe 12 copies at a time), even putting them out there with all the new releases. While I let the first few slip by, I went ahead and bought one this last weekend. Frankly, I’m pleased that the comic shop would take that much of a risk, what with all of the more stupid parent groups and their idiotic “save the children” campaigns. There have been more than a few attempts to get comic shop owners locked away for selling “pornography”…and they’re starting to succeed. There’s a comic shop owner in Texas whose been locked up for selling a copy of “Overfiend” (yeah, that’s right, they’re targeting hentai) to an undercover cop…after asking for id. He lost his case, and is currently pursuing appeals. Check with the CBLDF for details. Anyway, HM is pretty much how I remember it. Its rep as a purely sex-comic mag is somewhat undeserved, as porn is hardly a prerequisite for inclusion. Out of six stories in the issue, there was sex in only two of them, and fairly tame (if rather condescending) by any anime fan’s standards. Mostly, it’s a forum for all the odd comic stories that wouldn’t have a home otherwise. Sort of a “Liquid Television” for comics. Experimental, short, foreign, non-name productions, or the taboo (stuff containing sex) makes up their submission pool. A good bit of it is remarkable in the artistic department, since you get watercolors, or meticulously airbrushed panels instead of the standard computer-coloring, since the artist typically didn’t produce the story with a deadline in mind. A good bit of them, though, are weak in the storytelling department. Stories can be a bit muddled, or have that off-center feel from being badly translated into English. The real prize this time around was a little 6-page three-parter; “Lady Halloween’s Horrendous Revelations.” Fairly obvious, but fun, and I liked “Lady Halloween.”
So, am I going to get around to the movie review? Yeah, why not. I’m gonna skip my most recent assaults on mount DVD since I went out and caught a matinee of “Ghost Ship” earlier today. I had a choice between seeing that and “The Ring” which were about ten minutes apart. So why “Ghost Ship”? Especially when everyone had been telling me how great “The Ring” was? And telling me all the plot points? And telling me how it ENDED? Does that answer your question?
*Sigh*
Anyway, Ghost Ship. I should warn you that this review will be rather spoiler-heavy since, if it wasn’t…..I’d have nothing to talk about.
The film starts out with its biggest-budget stunt, filled with gore, and horror, and screams, and terror, and death, and unfortunately goes downhill from there. We sail up on the beautiful ocean liner “Antonio Graca” with a swell of cheesy, romantic lovey-dovey torch-music, and festooned with credits in a “Love Boat” font. It’s plainly some time in the past, and everyone on board is speaking Italian. A great, if slightly crowded time is being had by all, and we join one little girl, bored to tears, on the front deck, which has been converted to a dance floor. Paper lanterns and electric lights have been strung out for the party.
Then someone throws a switch.
See, SOMEONE has taken one of the rigging lines (corded steel strands) and run it in a big slip-knot around the deck, at about chest-height on one side and waist-height on the other. The rigging lines, when automated, are normally employed to raise and lower the sails. As such, the winches reel in the cord pretty damn quick to get the rigging up and in place.
Everyone know how a whipsaw works? Have you seen “Cube”? How about “Resident Evil?”
To be honest, it wouldn’t work this way, but we all make allowances for stupid action films and silly horror flicks. At any rate, when the knot closes, the little girl, dancing with the captain, was the only one short enough for the wire to go over her head. So she’s left standing while everyone else goes to pieces around her. Really nice, horrific scene, and the best one in the film.
The whole question, of course, is “why?” That doesn’t get answered until much later, so bear with me.
To the present! We join up with a salvage crew. There’s the standard “establish the hot-shot crew in an entirely unrelated sequence” segment, which I’ll spare you. They’re approached by an arctic photographer who’s spotted a ship adrift in international waters a couple hundred miles off the Bering straight. (The bit between Alaska’s furthest islands and Russia.)
[You know, there’s just so much here that I could skip, and you wouldn’t be missing anything. I think that’s really my problem with the film. It’s got some creepy segments at work, and some neat little sequences, but all I really have to do is tell you “why” and how each crewmember dies.]
Anyway, creepy little seasick guy offers up the find to the salvage crew for a part of the finder’s fee, (portion of the final value of a salvage) but insists on going along. After a few strange problems with the sonar (the ship keeps disappearing off the sonar) they nearly run into the salvage, and quickly discover that it’s the Antonio Graca. The skipper (Gabriel Byrne, the priest from “Stigmata”) explains that it’s an ocean liner gone missing from Italy over 40 years ago. Cream of the European crop aboard at the time, making it a particularly sought-after salvage. (Any boat and contents recovered in international waters becomes the sole properly of the salvagers) Going on board, they’re unable to find any sign of passengers. The ship is filled with the detritus of decaying furniture, the decks are badly rusted, and, it’s discovered, the ship is sinking slowly. Due to a quirk of the current, the ship’s apparently been floating in circles for years, but is slowly approaching a set of rocky islands (barely above the waves) that could easily sink her.
However, other things are happening on board. Epps (Juliana Margules, Nurse Carol from ER, and the required female member of the crew) keeps spotting a little girl (same one from the opening) running around the ship. There’s no sign of the long-dead crew or passengers, but they do find a few ominous signs, like a rusted straight razor in the sink, or dozens of bullet holes in the walls of the empty swimming pool. The captain mentions a similarity to the “Mary Celeste” but gets about half the facts wrong. (The ship was found under full sail, entirely abandoned in May of 1872 off the coast of Gibraltar. It’s the original tale of a “real” ghost ship, as the mystery of what happened to the crew has never been solved, although some pretty good guesses have been proposed. The movie got the eventual location [never made it into the Mediterranean], the condition [under full sail, no steam power available on the ship], and even the ship’s name wrong [he called it the “Marie Celeste”]. Nit-picky yeah, but it would have taken so little effort to get it right…)
The crew thinks that they start to unravel the mystery when they uncover hundreds of millions of dollars worth of gold in one of the holds. However, they also uncover something they can’t explain. One of ‘em uncovers a digital watch. Epps encounters their first bodies…but the bodies have only been dead a handful of weeks.
Then, of course, in attempting to get the gold off the boat, their own ship has an “accident” involving half of the pyrotechnic budget and the finely seared body of one of their crewmembers. So the remaining members do the only reasonable thing.
They all get drunk. Of course, THAT helps with their spook problems.
The escalation of spooky happenings begins. The designated black member of the crew encounters the featured sultry torch singer from that night in 1962 and he “steps downstairs” to become better acquainted. (He ain’t L.L.Cool J, so you know his prospects for life are as good as anyone else’s.) The doofus brothers have a “Lost Boys” moment with 40 year old cans of beans which aren’t quite as good as they thought, and follow it up with a close look at the engine room. The captain has a chat with another man who lost his boat, and learns the key to the TERRIBLE SECRET of the story, only to become the most ironically dead of the group.
And two people die OFF SCREEN! Bleh. We’ve only got seven living cast members…I’d appreciate seeing them all kick off.
Anyway, the terrible secret. Read no further if you actually plan to see the film, as the secret is the best pulled off part of the film. (Despite one minor quibble.)
The terrible secret of the boat is both the way in which everyone died and the reason for it. Epps befriends the little girl ghost she encountered (and encountered again hanging in her closet) and the little girl shows her what happened. It’s actually a fascinating little piece. How do you kill an entire boat full of people without sinking the boat? Hit the big groups all at once, and mop up the little guys afterwards. Then mop up the guys that did the mopping up. Repeat until everyone is dead. The wire trick got a good thirty, fourty people. Another couple hundred succumbed to the rat-poison bisque in the dance hall. (The cooks thought they were in on it, and were shot for their trouble.) The gun-toting mutineers who organized it all gathered anyone else above decks and took them to the pool for a mass-grave slaughter. A handful went from room to room with straight razors catching the stewards and the like who were sleeping till their shifts. (Two drag the little girl back to her room and hang her in the closet.) Then everyone went down to the hold to celebrate over their ill-gotten gains….at which point the mastermind mutineer with his sultry torch-songstress mow them all down. He turns for a kiss, and she shoots him between the eyes. At which point she meets her REAL lover…..creepy airplane photography guy! (Who proves that she fell for him…HOOK line and sinker…)
This whole sequence is told in a nicely horrific flashback montage, slightly out of order and disjointed. Really quite effective, and nicely horrifying as opposed to merely frightening (in the manner of someone jumping out at you). Sort of an over-the-top technique in the telling, but it works regardless
For some reason the slaughter events reminded me of the slaughter at Masada. A Jewish fortress (and enclosed community) at the top of a ridiculously difficult-to-attack peak held out against the might of the Roman army for months, but at the end of one battle, the entire community committed suicide. (The reasons are a little elaborate.) The menfolk all went home from the war meeting, and quickly killed their wives and children by beheading. Then the elder man of the household killed the other men in the same way, and five appointed elders went around to each household to check up on progress, and to finish off the head of the household. The fifth then killed the other four, and he, himself fell on his sword. When the Romans stormed the fortress the next morning, they found a community of corpses except for seven, a woman and her six children who’d managed to hide from the purge, and the only reason we know what happened. Total death toll? Somewhere around 970. Bet they didn’t teach you that in school. (If memory serves, it happened sometime before 100 AD.)
So what’s the deal with creepy airplane photography guy? He collects souls. For “someone else.” He fills the boat up with souls he’s marked, and once it’s filled he can sail them off to wherever “marked” souls go. A couple of things can be assumed from what we’re told about him. Either the initial massacre was brought about by him in order to get the gold, and the evil of his acts prompted his “promotion” to soul collector, or he was already a soul collector when he set the events in motion. See, it turns out he wasn’t originally a passenger, and the gold wasn’t registered cargo for this ship. He and the gold were picked up two days before the massacre off of another derelict ship, the “Lorelei.” (I am reasonably certain no one would ever name their ship “Lorelei,” because Lorelei is a well know German ghost whose beauty distracts sailors into sinking their ships.) This brings me to my quibble. (Long time coming, huh?)
Hokay, spooky guy is picked up two days before the massacre, along with the gold. If they’d put into port anywhere, they’d have dropped him and it off. So, assuming that he got two dozen crewmembers and all the cooks to mutiny for him….where’d they get all the automatic weapons? Who stores an arsenal on an ocean liner?
Anyway, I’m also a bit unclear on another point. The little girl ghost can’t be counted in the ship’s “quota” because she was “free of sin” and couldn’t be “marked.” So she’s been here anyway, just trapped on the ship by the general evil vibe. Now, my question is, has it taken spooky guy forty years to approach his quota? He musta been pretty close with that initial massacre, and maybe another one on the Lorelei. If not, has he dropped off the initial load already, and is rounding up a second or third one with the aid of a few favored spooks? (The little girl can’t be offloaded either, since she isn’t “marked.”) I’m guessing this is the way it works…mostly because they’re in the WRONG OCEAN. The initial destination was New York, and they’re now in the Pacific. I’m a little surprised no one in the movie mentioned such a thing. Guess he’d farmed out the Atlantic and wanted to try his luck on the other side. (Think he went through the Panama Canal? )
So, in conclusion, a good, fair-to middling film, but uneven in construction. Or possibly my really REALLY having to go to the bathroom halfway through (always happens with boat movies) affected my judgement. The sets were a little boring, since nearly everything was that same dessicated red-rust, grey-steel, and brown-rot palette. The acting was all adequate, but didn’t really engage me much. Watch it for the individual deaths (only one of which is really clever and a little unexpected), the intro, and the flashback sequence…oh and the first sequence in the pool is pretty good too.
Eh. I’ll leave the geeking out for next time
HEY! The guy who did “genre” looks like he made it into Adult Swim! If it’s what I think it is, watch it, this guy’s great!
And I see that second amendment issues have spilled into the journal area. Pleh. Just remember my comment about hatred for the individual debater interfering in honest debate. -
A short entry?
2002-10-23 08:34:23
Whoa. Lot of people reading this all of a sudden. Thanks for all the random props I've been seeing (won't enumerate them since I'm sure I missed a few).
Just wanted to put a short note here to say that the VAT Talent awards have finally been posted in the AMV contests section. I'd have cross-posted them to other forums, but didn't want to get mistaken for spamming. -
"You can get any thing you want...at Alice's Resturant ('Cept for Alice)"
2002-10-20 01:44:56
I'm HUGE!!!
Got myself a brand new (well...store display discount) 20 inch monitor for my computer. Quite a step up from the old 16 inch. I keep feeling like I need to back away. 'Course, now that the screen is so much bigger, I upped the resolution and can fit truly ENORMOUS amounts of text on the screen.
(Heh heh.)
Promise I won't let it go to my head though. Things have been looking up a bit for me, although all signs point to it only being temporary. Presentation at work went over phenominally well, but it's still going to be an uphill battle to maintain my momentum
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OK, fuck that noise
I started writing this yesterday when things were actually looking up, but since then, for a bunch of petty, insignificant reasons, it’s all been downhill. How petty and insignificant? Well, primary among them is the fact that I haven’t won a single game of warcraft if three days. All of a sudden, I really suck. I can’t understand it. Even when I think I’m doing well, all of a sudden a dozen frost dragons come over the hill and beat the hell out of all my expansions. Yeah, it’s stupid, but most of the time I kept getting rushed by fucking first level heros intent on wasting my peons or some other petty little delay tactic. Infuriating and stupid, but you can’t help wanting to play again after succumbing to a strategy like that, in the random hope that you’ll get another team that isn’t so cheap.
Then, of course, I had to bawl out a staffer for not doing his fucking JOB...AGAIN. I am seriously pissed off at this point. In a related note, I STILL don’t have the list of personal award winners yet. I’m not going to guess at this point when I might get it, and post it, as the remarkably simple job has become terribly unpredictable.
And, to add minor inconvenience to minor inconvenience, the last light bulb I had for my room lamp blew out. To understand the annoyance, you have to realize that Tech, in its infinite wisdom, decided that the best way to save energy would be to put fluorescent lights in all the dorms. The net result is dim off-white light that’s entirely insufficient for reading. In a tech school. Great thinking guys. So now I have a headache from trying to read in this stupid lighting. Honestly, it would be better if I just tried to read from the light coming off my monitor.
At work I’d forgotten to do a preparatory step in the protocol yesterday (overnight incubation), so now I have to come in tomorrow to do it right. (I really didn’t want to have to do that.) Which means less time to do data analysis, which means another late Monday night, which means missing the game for ANOTHER week.
And to top it all off, I wanted to invite someone to go see “Spirited Away” at the Tara theater today, but I couldn’t get in contact with them all day, and I waited around for so long to hear from them that its now too late and I can’t see it myself.
So yeah, in the grand scale of things, my life is really good. I’m in school, have enough to support myself and several hobbies, and my family lives nearby. On the other hand, I’m pissed off, sitting in a dimly-lit room (daren’t light up any candles as I’ve no idea how sensitive the smoke detectors are) with a headache, and that crappy “Transformers: Armada” is the only thing on. So my day’s been pretty crappy all around.
So I’m about to overcompensate by utterly geeking out. Remember, I have a headache, so I’m likely to be even more pissy than usual. And I’ve got a couple of Guinness.
So Darius brings by a tape to last Mon’s meeting. And, naturally (as is the wont with Darius) it’s a holy grail. The new Ghost in the Shell TV series, first episode. Daaaaayum.
‘s pretty. But I have an entirely geeked-out quibble with it.
First, a brief review. The episode is actually pretty good, in that it remained true to the mood of the original comics. Little fighting, and what little there was, was dealt with swiftly and efficiently by the main characters, like the consummate professionals they were. For those of you who haven’t read the comic or seen the movie, the concept is, in brief, an anti-terrorist/espionage special weapons unit in a heavily technologized future, staffed by a somewhat motley crew of complete professionals, several of whom are heavily cybernetic. This isn’t your typical GI Joe assemblage of ludicrous costumes and stylized names. Everyone has some expertise in computers, but the best stay back at the base and run the research. The heavy action is usually taken on by two of the most heavily cybernized, Bateau and Motoko Kusanagi. Kusanagi is the real main character of all the different incarnations, but she’s subtily different in all the versions.
In the original comic (mini-series stretching….uh….six? nine Issues? Don’t remember.) Motoko Kusanagi is really not a nice person. Bearing some of the personality of Deunan Knute (Appleseed) without what little happy-go-lucky aspects Deunan had, she is cold, efficient, vicious, and professional in all aspects. She’s also been entirely cybernized, possessing only a human brain, the entire rest of her body being an enhanced mechanical apparatus, self contained in a fairly curvaceous exterior. (We are talking about Masamune Shirow here…) On one particular occasion (partially recreated in the comics) Motoko is badly blown apart in a battle with a spider tank. (Multi-legged, and wheeled.) When the driver is blown out of the tank, he lands, incapacitated and defenseless next to Motoko. Bateau tosses her a gun, and she unloads it in the driver’s head. Yeah, not a nice person at all.
Throughout the comic series, Motoko responds in social situations, even intimate ones, almost mechanically. For the first few episodes we just assume that she’s a bitch. Midway through, however, this becomes a major theme. Her mechanical aspect has just been setting up the essential question of the series, namely, what, exactly, is she? She’s human only in her thoughts, and mechanical in all of her physical attributes. Except that she treats even her thoughts as though they were merely mechanical tools, using them as she sees fit, and even lending them out to make a little spare money. (In one famously edited-out (for the US edition) scene, Motoko actually prostitutes out her VR body in a computer simulation for a gratuitous lesbian sex scene...pite the fact that there are no other indications that she’s a lesbian, as her occasional boyfriend would attest. [The scene was re-inserted in the graphic novel edition…in color no less]) “So gimme the upshot. Stop beating around the subject.” Hokay. I wrote a 20-page paper on the manifestation of this theme in the film version back in undergrad, but here’s the cliff’s notes version. The undercurrent (only vaguely stated in the comics) is that Kusanagi is questioning her identity. She’s afraid that she’s become nothing but a machine, a “ghostless” robot AI, since she has no human reference any more. (The “ghost” is a concept only barely touched on in the film…but is basically the messy jumble of illogical and disorganized thoughts and aspects that makes up individual personalities and cannot be replicated in AIs….somewhere between “soul” and “non-simulated self awareness.”) All of her sensations come to her via her machine body. Technology in her era is sufficient to create memories and entire false experiences. Thus her body is mechanical, and her mind is mechanical-like. So what remains to differentiate between human individuality; the identity of “self” and an entirely replicated human being, who could easily look identical due to identical exteriors and think the same due to computer-generated memories?
Yeah. Heavy.
Motoko is considering these ideas against a background of political and technological intrigue; SWAT-style missions and covert actions that make up her daily assignments, when they encounter a case involving an AI that has somehow developed an actual “ghost.” Motoko tracks down this AI (which “escaped” from it’s makers) in order to figure out what differentiates it from her and thus her from her machine body. She actually gets an answer, although you have to look really closely to put it in a simple statement. It’s also the eventual reason I really liked this series, as I’ve seen entirely too many sapp-tasical versions of this involving “love” “sacrifice” “faith” or “self sacrifice.”
The answer is: “Who cares?”
It comes out a bit more clearly in the film (due to limited time for subtlety), but basically the Puppetmaster (the AI) tells her that the essence of life itself is change based on stimulus. Motoko was born human, but changed. Changed so radically that she really isn’t human. Hasn’t been for a long time. But why should that bother her? She is what she is. The only thing holding her back is all this damn angst about “human identity” and not “loosing herself...her self-identity.” If her “self –identity” doesn’t jive with what she actually is, then it’s just a practice in self-deception, and doesn’t do anyone any good. She’s been so concerned about maintaining a “human mind” even after she stopped really being human, that she’s let it blind her to the enormous possibilities of exploring what she is now.
Hokay...all of you who’ve seen the movie, does the ending make more sense now? Reborn as a child (representing the new fusion of Motoko and the Puppetmaster) she steps out and overlooks the city, commenting on the vast possibilities before her. (In the comic, she’s actually transferred into the body of a male transvestite by mistake….driving home a slightly different point and making a massive joke at Bateau’s expense.)
So, the film. The main difference in the film (which I really was going to cover only briefly….damn Guiness is making me run at the fingers) is that Motoko is much more of an introspective, moody philosopher than a cold-hearted bitch. Basically, to compress even the overarching themes into the length of the film, they had to drop most of the “bitchy” exterior and cut straight to the “philosophical chase” by making her as moody and introspective as a goth. The theme is a little simplified, but visual parallel interpretations more than make up for it, elaborating in neat, well animated ways the concepts at the heart of the film. The film also established the combat sequences as pretty A) one-sided (to the advantage of Motoko and her pros) and B) brief/efficient.
The TV series, though, has more room to work than the film.
First off, let me say that I was disappointed in the CG aspects of the TVanimation. We were watching a rather strangely-encoded version transferred to tape (at times the video froze or the frame-rate dropped and the audio continued, only for the video to catch up a few seconds later…looked awful), but still, I thought the CG bits, especially of the cars, stood out like a sore thumb. The animation is (naturally) several steps below the absolutely stunning work on the film, but that was to be expected.
Due to the longer scope of the TV series, it looks like they’ve decided to start out with the “bitch” façade strongly in place…although a little altered. In the first (really cool) scene, Motoko corners a guy on the edge of a skyscraper. He, being heavily augmented, leaps from the edge, aiming for another skyscraper a few hundred feet away and down. Motoko runs to the edge, takes careful aim….and shoots him through the ankle right before he lands, incapacitating him heavily. Then she follows. Quick, efficient. Then, however, she gives him a brief, rather condescending lecture while apprehending him. Doesn’t interfere with her work, but still struck me as out of character. Unfortunately, I think they may have decided to mix a bit of the dominatrix into her character instead of straight “efficient ice-queen”…although I’m not sure. Just from the angles shot, a touch of attitude, and a few of the lines. I hope they don’t overdo that.
The story is heavy on the intrigue and both A) clever and B) simple, not an easy trick to pull off. Look close enough, and it’s actually rather perverted as well. The only problem is that they telegraphed the plot too much.
So, now that the brief (HA!) review is over, what’s my quibble?
Thermoptic camouflage.
No, it’s not a tech issue with the existence of the gadget. Not really. Sort of.
See, in the comic, the Thermoptic camo was just another of Kusanagi’s toys. Like 007’s supplies from Q, not a real central issue.
The film, though, is different. The thermoptics, in addition to being really cool for use in an animated film, became pretty damn central to all of the action scenes, and even participated in the thematic elements. Critics of the film, however, point out the main draw. Apparently Motoko had to be naked to use them. So, here we go into the geeking out. Everyone stand back.
There are three main reasons for the way in which the thermoptic camouflage were used in the film. They are categorized as
1) Technobabble reason.
2) Metaphorical reason.
3) Fanboy titillation.
Let’s cover the easy one first. The thermoptics have to be worn against the skin (or the cybernetic equivalent) to be really effective, so every time Kusanagi uses them, she has to strip. This means she spends a lot of time wearing little more than her gun, boots, the specs that let her see while invisible, and an overcoat she can shed quickly. It certainly didn’t drive any adolescent boys away from the theater, and I’d be an idiot to tell you different. So, yeah, some of the driving reason behind the use of thermoptics was to get the cyborg-girl bouncing around in her all-together. It should be noted, though, that this makes a good deal of sense based on Motoko’s regard for herself. Her body’s just a machine, one she could trade out for another model at any time. It’s not like anyone’s really looking at HER, just the model machine she’s driving. She might regard clothing as a social necessity, but nudity is no more an embarrassment than if you suddenly decided to put a shirt on your car.
Technobabble alert! These are the complete geek-ified reasons I’ve come up with for the technical necessity of Motoko having to wear the thermoptics against her skin. I feel justified in this because Masamune Shirow is one of the most elaborate technical-futurists in manga. His comics are filled with elaborate footnotes describing technical minutia of his creations. (At one point he postulated the use of fiber-optic refraction as a method of creating the sensation of touch in cyborg skin. Referenced scientific journals in the process.) First off, it should be noted that Motoko is wearing the absolute highest-end of thermoptics, so requirements probably won’t match those of the lower-grade version worn by the UZI gunman near the beginning of the movie. Bateau was able to spot the gunman with a couple of sensitive adjustments to his ‘scope implants, whereas the spider tank had to employ a (normally shielded) multiple-million dollar optic system at point-blank range for nearly a minute to piece together an image of Motoko. (Likely assembled from sensing deviations in local air currents, or spotting the nearly-shielded electronics of the thermal camo.)
Thus, what do we know about this stuff? It must be really fucking expensive, for one. Making it skintight would cut down on the yardage of the stuff needed for a full suit, and removing a few inches of surface area likely cuts tens of thousands off the cost. Lame? OK, how about this. What does thermoptic mean? Thermal and optic camouflage. The optic aspect is explained away with a bit of technical hand waving…”bending the light around the subject, preventing anyone from seeing it.” The thermal aspect, though, is much simpler. How do you become invisible to thermal detectors (IR scopes, etc.)? You become the same temperature as the surroundings (ambient). How do you do that? By adding or taking away heat from the surface of the object you want to hide. Thus, the camo would have to be at least mostly sealed to prevent heat leakage from Kusanagi’s servos. Otherwise, you’d see people as a walking bunch of seams, where all the excess heat (or lack therof) would leak out. Second, the suit has to have some kind of integrated heating system running throughout the entire suit in order to quickly adjust to meet ambient temperatures. As the temperature variation isn’t large, and the area for carrying extra batteries isn’t large (Motoko likely just hooks it up to an onboard power supply) the full heat delivery to any area of the suit is likely fairly small. So, why skintight?
Do you know how the insulation in your house works?
The fiberglass in your attic keeps the house warm by trapping hundreds of thousands of tiny pockets of air between you and the outside. Air is a remarkable insulator, but only when currents of heat transferrance don’t develop. The fiberglass keeps currents of any sizeable amount from developing. Air is an excellent insulator, as heat is transferred from a surface to the air, then the air has to move to another surface, then it has to transfer the energy to the second surface. In the fiberglass, the insulating effect comes from having to do this thousands of times instead of just once (outside to wall, wall to inside wall, inside wall to you, you feel cold/hot). Thus, if the thermoptic camouflage was not skin-tight, then there would be pockets of air between the heat sources (Motoko’s cybernetic body) and the camo material. Moreover, the pockets would shift as she moved. So? So it would confuse the hell out of the camo. Think about it. If the camo is skin-tight over her left thigh (uhhh huh huh….) then the servo in the thigh ball-and socket joint isn’t going to move around her body, right? So the camo senses and knows that there’s a heat source there that has to be compensated for. If she starts running, that part has to absorb more heat, and adjusts accordingly. (Also works for muscle heat production.) If the material is loose, then sometimes the material touches that part of her thigh and has to ramp up heat redistribution suddenly to compensate, only to swing away a moment later when the material shifts, and air insulates the servo surface again. It would have to keep dealing with sudden temperature changes on the interior, and adjusting so that the exterior remains at ambient. Putting clothing in between the material and her skin would add a further layer of complexity, as it would sometimes touch her skin, and sometimes the clothing. In other words, you’d make the poor stuff neurotic. It’s input would likely change faster than it could adjust for if you were moving quickly. It just can’t do it, not at the level of efficency it needs to in order to evade careful scopes. (Remember, the UZI gunman’s camo was fairly low-level.) How do I know the camo can’t adjust that fast? Think about when everyone’s camo failed. UZI gunman’s coat failed entirely, while Motoko’s fritzed in and out occasionally. When? When they were hit by/standing in/ WATER.
4.218 baby.
Water has an incredibly high specific heat. On a weight scale, the highest of any in nature. That means it takes a lot of energy to raise its temperature. Specifically 4.218 joules per gram per every degree. Now think about what the camo material thinks when it’s splashed with water. Suddenly, one part of its exterior that its been carefully maintaining at ambient temperature is suddenly MANY degrees cooler, and no mater how much heat the suit shoves into it, it just can’t seem to raise the temperature anywhere near ambient.
So it shorts out. The gunman’s suit shuts down completely after Motoko (knowing all this) fires into the water around the boat, splashing him thoroughly. Motoko’s suit probably has an over-ride to prevent the short out, and tries to gradually raise the water temperature up to ambient, but she was STANDING in the stuff, so her suit kept freaking out. (Think about how it would look in IR, though. Couple of patches of cooler area hovering in mid-air. You just spotted someone who spent millions of dollars to keep you from seeing them. And all it took was a little water.)
(Not bad for a technobabble explanation, huh?)
Supposedly, this is all secondary to the story-serving metaphorical reason for Motoko to strip to the buff and dive off a tower. To be honest, I think the tech ideas lead the concept in Shirow’s case (just ‘cause he seems like that kind of guy), but here’s the final reasoning. The manner in which Motoko sheds her clothes and enters into the vast, technological world beneath her during that first free-fall scene seems to say it’s a metaphor for her own “naked” mind diving into and moving in and among the technologies of her own body and the mechanisms of the “wired” world. Thus, when she engages the thermoptics, she is becoming only her own “ghost” moving swiftly, freely, and joyously through the “machine” of the city. Further metaphors can be seen as her shedding her humanity in order to immerse fully into the technological world, or a loss of self (loss of her own body, made visible, and thus defined apart from any accoutrements before disappearance) before the vast technological structures of the city. To go into this further would get into that 20-page paper I told you about, so I’m gonna stop with these couple of examples.
So what’s the quibble?
In the TV series, thus far, Motoko is dressed absurdly. She does use thermoptics, but they aren’t skintight, and several other officers use them. Thus either A) the tech problem doesn’t / no longer exists (no time relation is given thus far between the TV series and the film...looks like an alternate timeline universe) or B) they’re all using lower-quality thermoptics.
But if she doesn’t have to shed clothing quickly, why is she dressed like that? Motoko, on assignment, is dressed in a white bustier, jacket, stockings (w/garter), and panties. She literally looks like she forgot to put pants on before reporting for work. There’s no story reason for it. There’s no metaphorical reason for it. One could argue that it’s merely another manifestation of the “you don’t dress your car” consideration she has towards her cybernetic body. This would make more sense in the original comic, where ghost-less cyborgs in menial jobs were usually female and dressed provocatively to be walking advertisements for businesses, or just for the hell of it. (You don’t build ugly robots, so why not show them off?) Here, however, she’s the only one who dresses like that. Hell, everyone else has uniforms. Isn’t she required to wear one?
It’s dumb, there’s no reason for it, and if I wanted cheap, meaningless fanservice there are plenty of places in anime to find that. It doesn’t belong in a political intrigue storyline. Despite the excellent work they did scripting her, the outfit just blows it all to hell and leans us towards the dominatrix angle again.
*Sigh*
For an (admittedly) extreme parallel, they’d have to do an underwear spread of Belldandy in Oh My Goddess.
It’s late. I sleep.
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(Sigh...AWA entry is three posts down...)
2002-10-08 21:01:14
Personal Awards will be posted shortly, as soon as I get a few key details back from Patrick (and B-ko). In the meantime, here’s the movie review I wanted to tack on the end of the last few entries, but decided I’d already said enough.
Oh, those you you looking for the AWA insider report will have to go down a few entries.
And those of you who’ve only started reading my little journal since that report should be warned about my movie reviews:
I obsess a little….
So, anyway, here we go:
Red Dragon. Yup, the maneater’s back again. Or previously. Whatever.
This flick is basically a remake of the original “first film in the series” of Hannibal Lecter flicks “Manhunter.” I’ve never seen it, but by all accounts it was a good film, perhaps more plot-driven and less sensationalistic than its sequel, but Hollywood couldn’t possibly let it stand untouched. See, Anthony Hopkins wasn’t in it. Silence of the Lambs came five years after “Manhunter” and Hopkins’s part in the film was so utterly defining (or the budget was so much larger) that everyone kinda forgot about the previous guy (Brian Cox). Yeah, the middle film in a trilogy makes it big. Whatta ya gonna do? Well, what Hollywood’s gonna do is go back sixteen years later and corrects the casting mistake (or budget mistake…whatever) by remaking the entire movie. Change the title to “Red Dragon’ so no-one really suspects it’s a remake, and move on. ‘Course it might’ve backfired a bit this time round, as the movie title evokes a puzzled frown in most audience members. They all know they’ve heard about it, but can’t piece together exactly what it was about the movie that was supposed to be special. You have to actually prompt them “it’s another Hannibal flick.” That alone will probably cut into revenues pretty badly.
So what’s the story? Well, we start off with the story of how they caught Hannibal. I won’t go into the details as that would ruin some of the bits, but they did give us more of an insight into what exactly he’d been doing the whole time he’d been running around free before they caught him. (I also haven’t seen “Hannibal” …I know, shame on me for missing a single release out there…so excuse if this was covered equally well in that final film)
He was eating people.
Yeah, we all knew that, “Hannibal the Cannibal” and all, but from SotL I’d always assumed that eating his victims was sort of…cleaing up after himself. You know, ancillary to the whole “killing people” part. The way it’s framed in the intro of this movie makes Dr. Lecter’s gourmet palate the entire point of his repeated killings. Harvesting bits and pieces for his larder seems to be the only reason for the slaughter. This was somewhat disappointing, as it seemed entirely too straightforward and unimaginative a pursuit based on the bits and pieces we got from him in SotL. There, each of the killings mentioned seem to have more individual and studied purpose in his dark and twisted psyche, not just that he felt peckish for some sweetbreads. Oh well, I suppose that every person is reduced to a series of simplifications when examined closely enough.
So, anyway, Hannibal gets caught and incarcerated. The detective who finally figured him out retires from the force down to a beach-house in Miami with his family. OK, I know I’m fairly experienced with horror films, but I can recognize tropes in other generes as well, including detective thrillers like this. Twelve minutes into the film I jot down “Killer goes after his family” on a scrap of paper. Movies are getting way too easily read in their plot twists. Introduce a loving wife, cute kid. Oh yeah, whoever the killer is will end up going after one or all of them. Ultimately, one of the film’s main problems was its predictability. Not in the individual details, but in the overall scope it follows so many of the classic horror / serial killer tropes that practically nothing comes as a surprise. (My guess is that every film trying to touch on this subject is trying to become the ur-serial killer film…trying to outdo every shock, every twist of insanity, every perversity of sexuality or upbringing, that it jams the films so full of “stuff” like this that not only doesn’t it mesh well, but there isn’t enough room left for a good story.)
So, one day, the cop’s old boss shows up with a new casefile. Another serial killer is on the loose. This cop has that special “gift” of being able to get inside the killer’s mind and understand the way they think…all the better to catch them. As we all knew he would, the boss (Harvey Keitel) talks the cop (Edward Norton) into coming up to Chicago just to take a look at the crime scene. See, the killer apparently likes the full moon, and has killed two entire families on the nights of the full moon. As the second family was just killed, they’ve got a little over three weeks before another murder is expected. The cop visits the scene of the second crime at night and he does a step-by-step through the house to acquaint us with the particular perversities of the killer this time around.
Again, I was disappointed on a couple of levels. I suppose it was what I should have expected, though. See, the killer in SotL (Buffalo Bill…you know, the killer we always forget about while watching Anthony Hopkins steal the movie) was sort of a perverted, extreme form of transvestite, wanting to become a woman through the sewing together of women’s skins to make a “woman suit.” Sicko. Twisted. Homicidal. And it pissed off a large portion of the lobby and PR power behind “alternative” sexuality rights.
Which it really shouldn’t have.
Honestly, I’ve never understood the mindset that applies politically correct or incorrect tags to the fantasy worlds wherein a single fictional member of a group is seen to “represent” and condemn an entire subculture. It’s not like we think Dr. Lecter is supposed to represent all psychiatrists. I think it’s just that some special interest groups get really antsy when some movie portrayal starts looking like it might possibly put any fictional member of that group in a bad light. ‘Course this was nothing compared to the hullaballo kicked up a year later by lesbianism and bisexuality in “Basic Instinct.” (Oh come on…did the protestors really think that the pull of the film was the condemnation of lesbianism? It’s perfectly obvious that the real draw was hoping to catch a glimpse of Sharon Stone in bed with another woman, or, failing that, to at least hear her talk about it at great length. Geez. People unclear on the concept. The point of that film was VIOLENCE & PORN (occasionally at the same time) not class stereotyping.)
What does this have to do with Red Dragon? Well, I’m betting when they went through all the details of making the killer this time around they decided to leave out anything that might have possibly been misconstrued as a “class generalization.” Thus we get a violent heterosexually-motivated series of killings, touch of artifical voyureism, and a crazy religious guy. Hey, the church was gonna hate it anyway, why not piss them off if they’re the only viable target anymore?
But I was more immediately disappointed by the apparent sloppiness of some of the film’s details, and it’s overboard nature of piling on the perversions to a point where it just doesn’t mesh anymore. See, the killer disposes of the dog the previous day, enters the house late at night, creeps up the stairs. Then (according to the narrative we hear from Mr. Norton) he slits the husband’s throat. And shoots the wife in the stomach to disable but not kill her. Then he goes to the children’s rooms and shoots them. “The children were still in their beds at this point, so a silencer was probably used.”
‘Scuse me? Couldn’t you tell from the ballistics report whether or not a silencer was used? The muzzle velocity of the bullets at least should have dropped noticeably. And wait…mom got shot in the stomach but didn’t make any noise? It’s six feet to the kids’ room, why didn’t they hear the screaming? Or anyone else? Sloppy.
Next bit is really sloppy, but just in the nebulous way it’s told to the audience. OK, the guy breaks all the mirrors in the house. Presumably after the whole shooting thing. Then he takes small pieces of mirror and places them flat inside the eyelids of his victims. We’re told in a completely roundabout way back at the beach-house that he sexually assaults the female head of the household (they got blood type from semen and saliva). Strangely, we’re never told whether or not the women are dead at this point. Later we learn that the reason for the mirror is so that the victims look alive and he has an audience when he’s “touching them” (no mention of necrophilia or posthumous rape is made at any point…all language on the matter is sorta blunted) so we have to assume that the women are dead when he commences with his nocturnal wet dreams. But if so, they why with the shooting in the stomach so she doesn’t die immediately? Makes no sense. If he taunts his victims, it’s never mentioned. Lecturing them would be more appropriate (due to later revelations) but the issue is simply never revisited.
My problem is that they make such an enormous deal out of the ritualization the killer goes through in his killings, and then they give us a ritualization that makes no internal logical sense, leave out fairly significant details, and in the end never really adequately explain the TITLE of the movie. Hell, The Cell was the exact inverse of this film. The most carefully crafted thing about the film was the internally consistant perversities of the killer, while the plot was pure crap.
Let me speed through the next little bit so I can get to whining about the lack of explanation elsewhere. The cop does a bit of legwork, finds a few clues, but is mostly stymied. Harvy Keitel then suggests that he go and talk to Dr. Lecter. Seems that the good doctor had helped Edward out on a previous case, and Keitel thinks he might be able to aid in this case.
Once again we get the long walk down the hall to Dr. Lecter’s plastic-fronted cell. Again, I was disappointed. When Clarice made the walk we were treated to a descent into hell, past the cells of the true raving lunatics to meet the devil himself. Clarice wasn’t safe even with the bars between her and them, as a handful of flung semen pointed out. (Oh? What did you think it was?) Conversations with Hannibal were acts of violation in and of themselves, his ability to wound her with ideas despite their physical separation was what made him menacing. This time it’s just a walk past a row of silent cells, a few occupied with somber-faced individuals. We do get the best line of the film when the resident Psychiatrist asks Edward what his “trick” was, though.
The scenes with Hopkins are plainly slated to be the main crowd draw of the film, and they are interesting. Tend towards rather circular logic, though. You get the impression that they’d been over all of this ground several times before. The difference in chemistry between Edward and Clarice is pretty profound, although Hannibal plays them both expertly. Wheras Clarice fascinated Dr. Lecter, either intellectually or as an interesting plaything, Hannibal apparently hates Edward. Perhaps an ounce of respect, but mostly quietly seething rage watching and waiting for an opportunity…and he does find an opportunity or two despite being sealed in a cell. The help he offers is sporadic and fairly obvious to the audience…but only because we’ve already been let in on who the killer is. (Similar to SotL.)
The killer is Francis Dolarhyde. A bodybuilding hobbyist who lives in an old, abandoned nursing home where he grew up with his grandmother. (Dolarhyde nursing homes? Get it?) His grandmother was not a kind woman and verbally abused him constantly as a child, especially on matters of love and sex. (What exactly happened (if anything did) other than verbal abuse is never mentioned.) Nonetheless, this is a man with pretty severe childhood issues, compounded by being born with a cleft palate, necessitating corrective surgery and an upper set of dentures. Apparently he’s convinced that he’s hideous in appearance, despite the fact that he’s played by a remarkably buff Ralph Fiennes. His facial deformity consists on one 1.5” scar on his upper lip. Yeah, he’s fucked in the head.
Somehow, the end result of all this abuse and self-esteem problems leads to Mr Dolarhyde adopting the aspect of the Red Dragon. See, the only reference we’re given in the film is a brief mention of Revelations, and then a lot of focus on the Blake drawing, (You’ll see enough of it without me describing it) as Dolarhyde has had extensive tattooing of the dragon from the sketch down the full back side of his body.
What isn’t covered is what the Red Dragon MEANS. Again with the missing details. Here’s the relevant text from Revelations 12:1-9
“1 A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and a crown of 12 stars on her head. 2 She was pregnant and cried out in labor and agony to give birth. 3 Then another sign appeared in heaven: There was a great fiery red dragon having seven heads and 10 horns, and on his heads were seven diadems. 4 His tail swept away a third of the stars in heaven and hurled them to the earth. And the dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she did give birth he might devour her child. 5 But she gave birth to a Son--a male who is going to shepherd all nations with an iron scepter--and her child was caught up to God and to His throne. 6 The woman fled into the wilderness, where she had a place prepared by God, to be fed there for 1,260 days. 7 Then war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels also fought, 8 but he could not prevail, and there was no place for them in heaven any longer. 9 So the great dragon was thrown out--the ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the one who deceives the whole world. He was thrown to earth, and his angels with him.”
(This sequence takes place immediately after the opening of the seventh seal, for those of you following along at home.)
So the Red Dragon is SATAN. You’d have thought something like that would have come up in the film somewhere, but there was no mention of it at all. You could say that the film is just assuming a high level of intelligence on the subject from its audience, but there’s some basic textual problems with that. If the women he posthumously rapes are supposed to be the “woman clothed in sun” then there should be a child figuring prominently in the killings somewhere. Both families had kids, but the detective tells us that the women were the only focus of the killings, everyone else were just details or bonuses.
In the end, the only real connection drawn is a kind of shamanistic drawing of strength through association with the Red Dragon. From the lack of a biblical reference by the killer, we might even assume that he’d just become attached to the atavistic strength of the Dragon in Blake’s drawing. (Later events show an extremely close attachment to the image itself….) If this was the case, though, it would have been nice to let the audience in on it… The other connection made is one of transformation. This was a little disappointing on two levels. First, it’s a direct repeat of the transformation Buffalo Bill was obsessed with in SotL (you know, the chrysalis/moths thing). Second, the meaning of the transformation is only referred to indirectly, and then couched in convoluted, almost magical terms that the audience is never really let in on. I’m all for not telling the audience everything, keeping some of the mystery and insanity inherent in the subject, but here it just felt like they were covering up for the fact that the director didn’t understand it either.
There’s actually quite a bit more here even after we get past the whole “serial killer” thing. This time around, a surprising amount of the film is spent developing the killer into a more complete character than we encountered in Buffalo Bill. There’s even a love story hiding in the recesses, where Dolarhyde falls for a bind woman at his work. As you might guess, it ends badly, but probably not for the reasons you think. One scene involving the two of them just fell apart due to technical reasons, though. At one point they encounter a tiger in a vet’s office (it makes sense, but takes too long to explain) and the tiger is BLATANTLY not there. I mean it’s obviously been composited in from different footage in completely different lighting. We AMVers could have done a better job. And I’m sorry, but that tiger was plainly sleeping, not sedated. Sedated tigers don’t growl and cough….’cause if they did it would make the DENTAL SURGERY it was being prepared for be JUST A LITTLE DIFFICULT.
Eh.
Now, I know it sounds like I’ve been picking this film to pieces, and I have to a certain degree, but most of these are really little issues. Overall, it pulls the film down a ranking or so, but it was still an enjoyable film, just not fantastic. To put it simply, if this had been the film with all the money poured into it the first time around instead of “Silence of the Lambs” it would have done well…but ultimately been forgotten within a few years, and no one would mention Dr. Hannibal Lecter on a list of famous Hollywood psychos. In the end (especially at the end) the film and the villain are actually significantly smarter than I give them credit for, but a step out of the league of SotL. Doesn’t help it that I took a film course in undergrad where we actually studied SotL for a week….
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(The AWA report is two posts down....)
2002-10-07 11:39:43
EK: No worries. (You apologize too much.) I kinda figgered that was what happend. Thanks again for the sketch at the end of the con. Please attribute any bluntness on my part on Sunday to the fact I was having trouble remaining upright without a wall to lean on. (Didn't even get the inherent joke in "VAT cave" until like ten minutes later....man I was out of it.)
Forgot to ask, did you sell those prints you said you were going to bring? I forgot about them entirely until Sun, so I figure I missed my chance.
JOURNAL: MCWagner (Matthew Wagner)
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