Topic: The Movie Thread

@zupertramp Respectfully disagree. Expecting fantasy characters to conform to any human norms is inherently ridiculous. Do androids dream of electric sheep?

Maybe the people leaving some of those comments actually think they are mermaids...

https://amp.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/may/22/we-can-t...

@FuriousMachine I last saw some of "KotCS" at Christmas when it was on TV. I made it to the quicksand/snake scene before I noped out on that occasion which is better than I usually manage. Needless to say, I haven't taken the 4K disc out of the box.

@zupertramp I was skeptical when Hamilton re-cast actual historical figures into different races, but then I actually ended up quite enjoying the show and gleaning something from it educationally. I guess it’s all about the core motivation and reason for the casting. For whatever reason, it seemed to work in Hamilton with the musical backdrop and I thought it was brilliant. Nevertheless there’s definitely other scenarios where things seem to have been shoe-horned in just to fit a quota. (Not saying that The Little Mermaid is doing this necessarily).

As an example, I thoroughly enjoyed Hogwart’s Legacy but the number of diverse backgrounds on display borders on checklisting, especially considering the timeline and setting. But hey, it was fine and in some ways refreshing. It’s complete fantasy and so they can do whatever they want, even though it seemed a probable reaction to the controversy surrounding the IP’s creator. Either way, a little trailblazing is sometimes needed.

But I also feel like if a developer wants to have things more historical or source material traditional in their game or movie, then that’s ok too. (I think it was Kingdom Come Deliverance which got grief for having no racial representation). As long as it seems to fit the artistic intent, I don’t mind.

@Th3solution yeah you touch on box ticking and that's a lot of it for me. it's so rich that a company with a history of churning out white princess after white princess has now turned a progressive corner but has to resort to race-swapping legacy characters because they don't have any stories involving people of color to remake. But they're the good guys and people who wanted a Jodi Benson type are the klan. It's just a little eye-roll inducing for me. It's like, you know where the mythology comes from in this case... both in terms of story origins and your own animated feature so stop pandering. I want to say no one is buying it but everyone is apparently.

And true it's all fantasy so what's it matter but then you have Hamilton, Cleopatra and Marilyn Monroe getting race-swapped and it feels less like an ambivalence toward race and more like a concerted effort to demonstrate how you're soooo open minded (as opposed to your political enemies who couldn't possibly hold a complicated and nuanced view on anything because they're all Nazis).

All's I know is if you roll up with a story about genies and lamps and magic carpets I imagine certain people. Because that's the mythology. And cool, subvert expectations if you want but please don't act like every person who was expecting certain characters to hold true to their origins is also burning crosses in their free time.

And don't even get me started on the lyric changes to Kiss the Girl and Poor Unfortunate Souls. Again 🙄

@zupertramp Mermaid stories originated in Syria. Jodi Benson is not Syrian.

@nessisonett sigh, that may be but the story Disney originally based this off of is not Syrian. Nor are syrians who anyone thinks of when they imagine mermaids and shipwrecks. Like, I don't understand why everyone suddenly plays dumb just to own the conservatives.

@zupertramp The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen was written as an allegorical love letter to another man. Jodi Benson is not a gay Danish man.

@nessisonett an allegorical love letter.

@LN78 I don't even remember the scene you mention... come to think of it, apart from the infamous fridge thing and the aliens I don't remember much of anything from that movie... Now that just adds an element of morbid curiosity to my upcoming rewatch

@zupertramp The point is that they’re all interpretations of age-old myths, legends and stories that stem from various sources. The 1989 Disney movie doesn’t even come close to being a straight adaptation of the original text, which is in itself just using the mermaid myth as a metaphor for unrequited gay love. Ariel being a black woman is a million times more ‘faithful’ to the original when Melissa McCarthy is Ursula. If people really cared about these movies being faithful then a drag queen should have played Ursula due to the design being based on Divine. It’s a movie for kids, it surely isn’t that big of a deal to allow kids of all backgrounds to be able to see somebody who looks like them as a princess. Getting annoyed about ticking boxes is a pointless endeavour because it’s self-fulfilling, you’ll now see anything deviating from the original casting as ticking boxes when that’s the reality of acting, especially in industries like theatre when the same roles have been played by people of different backgrounds for as long as productions have been put on.

What you said there x 1000. There are still plenty of movies being made for white cis-gendered people and as a white cis-gendered male I really can't even begin to be bothered by more representation in modern culture.

@nessisonett

Well I do agree with you there. But alas I'm probably going to do it anyway.

For the record I am more bothered by the very life-like but very unreal-looking CGI sea creatures and Melissa McCarthy than Ariel but that wasn't what got brought up so here we are.

Moving on, saw Aniara last night. It was fairly compelling but I think I ultimately had higher hopes for it. I imagined something more thought provoking I guess.

Also I'm looking through the new and upcoming movies on rotten tomatoes and mostly everything looks depressingly awful and so I'm wondering..
are movies getting worse? It's hard not to get that feeling but then maybe I'm just romanticizing a past where films were actually just as bad I just didn't notice.

Akira (4K UHD BD)

Recently rewatched this as I got in the 4K BD.

All these years later & it still looks absolutely stunning. It's really strong until the end where it kinda loses me. I mean, I think I understand it a bit more everytime I watch it... maybe.

Anyhow, there's just something about the gritty sci-fi anime of the 80's that I can't get enough of.

Ant-Man & the Wasp Quantumania (Disney+)

This was fine.

It's visually a bit of a mess (I know they wanted the Quantum Realm to come off as strange, but a lot of it is just CGI noise), some scenes looked really cool (like when Scott was being split up into "possibilities") while others looked 10-15 years out of date (the scene in the "desert" where Janet negotiated with those raider types).

Otherwise it was okay. A bit too lighthearted of a character to really sale the higher stakes adventure it was trying to be (given that it was building up the next major villain post Thanos).

@RR529 I agree with your assessment of Ant-Man & The Wasp Quantumania. I've pretty much been on board with most of the MCU output so far, even the much maligned Eternals and Black Widow. I didn't even dislike Love & Thunder, though that was a massive step down from Ragnarok imho. But the latest Ant-Man outing was the first time I left the cinema feeling quite disappointed. Usually any disappointment I might have would be overshadowed by me simply having a good time, but this one just felt off to me. I feel it was a mistake to use the Ant-Man franchise to kickstart the Kang storyline as Ant-Man works better with lower stakes (or rather, more personal stakes than your typical "threat to the universe" stakes).

As for Akira, I'm actually somewhat ashamed of the fact that I have yet to see it; it's been on my "to watch" list for at least 20 years... need to get off my butt and do something about that one of these days

@RR529 @FuriousMachine I watched Akira for the first time in ages a couple years back in 4K from my rental service. Still good as I remember when I watched it all those years ago. And yes it does get a bit bat **** crazy towards the end.

I've since bought the limited edition 4K set, which I've not read through the booklet or rewatched the film yet. Will hopefully soon though.

"Avatar 2" is getting a 3D Blu-ray release but not in a set with the 4K disc like they did with "Alita". This crap gets multiple format releases but still no sign of "True Lies" or "The Abyss" on even standard Blu-ray. Sigh.

@LN78 Yeah, what's with the refusal to release Cameron's good stuff on physical media, anyway? At least we got the T2 release (which I haven't checked out yet, so I don't know if it's a good one, but I assume it's a quality release)

@FuriousMachine In point of fact, the 4K release of "T2" was a notorious disaster for the format. The transfer was sourced from the 3D re-release of the theatrical cut and as such was a DNR heavy, badly colour corrected mess. What's worse is that the English language soundtrack on the disc wasn't in Atmos but the German language one was.