Sundown

I'm not painting either Miyazaki or Takahata as right wing propgandists or apologists. That should be pretty plain in all that I've blabbed on about. I don't think they're ignorant either. My hunch is that they're part of a conciousness that tends to dissociate themselves from the atrocities and actions that instigated WWII in the pacific, and because war has become a general and unspecific evil, it is something to be avoided for its own sake. Aversion to war isn't the same thing as taking responsibility for those many actions committed long before and leading up to the war. But still, they are certainly not the hawkish nationalists who defend Japans actions in WWII. I would agree with you completely. GOTF is absolutely anti-war, and isn't meant to be apologetic in the least. It's just missing certain parts of historical reality in its telling, parts that I think might actually affect the telling (for both good and bad). It suggests that we should avoid war in order to spare innocents from suffering and in order to avoid such suffering ourselves. But it fails to mention the other half of the historical equation-- that such wars were the inevitable consequence of causing others to suffer without provocation. It really has the best of both worlds-- promoting peace without exposing the viewer to national shame, although I'm even less sure that this is the intent than I was before, now knowing that GOTF is based on a semi-autographical novel. Being perceptive of what causes war in general and wanting to avoid the suffering it could bring-- and being forthright in pointing out the actual things ones nation did to provoke justified retaliation, and then taking responsibility for that as a member of that nation, are in fact completely different things. Miyazaki and Takahata are hardly ignorant. And I don't doubt that he hopes Japan continues to avoid repeating those past actions that brought upon war. But I have hardly ever heard a Japanese author or creator flat out say, "Look at what we have done to start this. Look at the suffering we caused before we ever became victims. And look at the suffering we received at the hands of those who had no other way to respond-- who indeed were justified in responding the way they did. But even with no retaliation, these acts would remain an evil even worse than war itself." Now that I understand that GOTF is based on a semi-autobiographical novel, it does change my perception a bit. I can understand that the original author might not even have had any thought of cause, effect, and national responsibility in his thinking. His only realities are his actual experiences and suffering. It would be difficult even for me to ask him to answer the questions the film itself provokes in context of history and in context of what we know about postwar Japanese attitudes. But if the animated adaptation 30 years later does try to offer a view upon war, then I hardly think wanting those questions answered or addressed is "saddling" GOTF with something beyond its scope, as if we're simply supposed to be entertained and cry a little to a pictoral of a real person's suffering, and consider it a wrap. If GOTF can't answer something because they do not fit into someone's personal memoirs, that's one thing. But I hardly think it needs to be protected from the questions that it invariably makes us ask. And I do think the animated GOTF offers a view on war, especially given Takahata's track record that you highlight above. It's apparent to me in the viewing, and it would be hard for me to buy that Miyazaki would be suddenly and conspicuously silent about war-- when the subject matter just happens to be the most prominent war in modern Japanese history. Anyway, I do tend to view an animated feature made in the late 80's differently from the autobiographical memoirs of someone who actually lived through wartime Japan written in 1967. A short animated feature tends to impress quickly and attempts to wrap up the experience in the span of a few hours. It tends to make its point and then is done with the discussion. A book is something one spends time with, and reflection is a natural part of the medium. It's a different experience all together. So, GOTF as an animation viewed in modern times can be a bit jarring in light of what we do know about WWII. And because it is an adaptation, I'm torn between whether it should be true to the spirit of the original, or whether it should offer at least hint at some historical realities given the years that have passed since the book was written. Perhaps hoping to preserve the "spirit of the original" is already a lost cause in the transition to the animation, where your main characters are hopelessly cute with little of the grit of real humans in suffering. But I don't think that thinking a bit beyond what the film shows and finding the viewing to be jarring is something as easily explained away as "baggage"-- as if it's something we should leave behind in order to fully enjoy a cartoon about a boy and his sister dying. I'm not sure I can watch something like that with an empty mind, without bringing in the things that I know and the questions I have. And, well, I'm not sure I'd want to, either.

Propoganda to what end? 374662[/snapback] I like I said, GOTF isn't propaganda. It doesn't have a political end-- its chief aim is simply to show suffering, build sympathy for those who suffered in war (here, children in WWII), and to evoke emotion from the viewer. It's not propaganda, but it does rely partly on omission in order to achieve its artistic ends. Well, it does seem like the "enemy" in GOTF was something other than an act of nature. It appears to be human apathy and war. I really can't view GOTF and feel like it's not making at least some commentary on war, especially given the prominent anti-war sentiments of the Japanese culture. And I think the creator knew that his message (whatever we think it is) wouldn't have the same resonance if he chose to use a volcano instead of historical WWII as the story's backdrop. It just wouldn't hit the Japanese psyche in the same harrowing way. That's why GOTF isn't an animated take on the last days of Pompei. But if he's going to be invoking history and tapping into the national psyche, then I think some responsibility falls on him to at least address those facts that might affect his telling.

True. But at the same time, I think historical reality and the apparent omission of such in order to tell a story has to weigh in somewhere. If anything, GOTF seems to reveal the Japanese culture's baggage more than it does the viewer's. Artists are people too, and they carry a plenty of baggage of their own, and we can't talk about the audience's baggage without fully acknowledging that they are in fact interacting with the baggage that the artist himself presents. Again, even though GOTF isn't intended to be propaganda, I dare say that it "works" in a similar way to how propaganda works-- by omitting bits of historical reality that might dampen the emotions the work's trying to invoke. But for those who simply know more than the artist is willing to show, this just doesn't really work, and the story itself suffers. And I think this effects its "merit" somewhat. At any rate, I hardly think caring about historical reality and how that actually effects the intent of a telling is "baggage". I think that's a pretty fair thing to be concerned about when an artist is making a statement by invoking history.

Well then again, Moore's own hatred of guns predates Craig's for a Bond actor. Yes. And if we get rid of guns, people will just bludgeon, stab, pummel, or otherwise mutilate each other by somewhat slower means. And that is so much better. It'd be no big deal if he never learned to drive stick. But if he's actually unwilling to, I guess that'd put him down a notch in my book as a Bond actor.

As good as Mcguire is, I still think maybe they should have just gotten Topher for Peter Parker to begin with. Topher's sarcastic deliveries would have fit Spiderman's witty one-liners just a little better. SPOILER!!! I hear Venom is going to be only slightly bigger than spidey, not the rippling mass of muscle and goo we're used to. The teeth and tongue are there, but not so pronounced as in the comics. WHY?! OH WHY?!

But it actually looks good. I'll be dissapointed if the real thing isn't at least that awesome.

Black Spidey, but not really? That scale-texture looks new... symbiote/protoplastmic Ultimates suit? Sigh, the more I hear about my favorites being adapted this way or that for a new audience and a hipper generation, the older I feel. Back in my day, Venom was a body builder and an alien symbiote picked up from the Secret Wars. And we liked it. [/old SNL reference]

Pretty striking resemblance, especially to Alex Ross's Wonder Woman. She even has the blue eyes. Alex Ross's Wonder Woman is a little bit Linda Carter injected with a lot of Amazon buffness, and Lawless has the physicality to pull of the latter.

Eek, she just doesn't have the look, in my opinion. I'm really not digging the modern move towards cutesy, girly women for heroines and metro guys for heroes. Wonder Woman needs to be statuesque. Lucy Lawless would make a much better Wonder Woman, perhaps even rivalling or bettering Linda Carter, if we can just forget that she was ever Xena.

Oopsies. I figured it was Shirow since he created GITS in the first place, and I thought he still had primary creative control. My bad.

I didn't say that exactly. But I do think art and film needs to be evaluated at least partly on the basis of how it serves and speaks to its culture and audience. I do think it has technical merit, but it doesn't allow itself to go beyond the safe and isolated microcosm of innocent suffering because of things it fears to say and show if it does. And it ends up being weaker even as a story for it, in my opinion. While children might not have such an understanding, the exploration of cause, effect, and responsibility is not beyond the understanding of the audience. I guess I'm not very satisfied if in the end, the story only enables me to think as a child without adding the accompanying perspective of an adult. And like I said, I don't think it simply shows a childs perspective... much of what it conveys seems to be part of the larger Japanese psyche, adult, child, or otherwise. I'd agree that a deep exploration of guilt would be inappropriate and out of scope. I never suggested that Graveyard be that. But it doesn't even use real historical context for accuracy or flavor, and I think the omission, coupled with how Japan views itself in regards to WWII, is a little glaring. No, of course not, because it would inappropriate and would be contrived. However, historical references or even tongue and cheek jabs at Japanese propaganda of the day, say in conversation between adults or soldiers overheard by the children... would flesh out the world they were living in. We would see the children accept such with their childlike innocence, but we of course as an audience, would know better. Yes, they still suffer. Yes, they had little to do with the war. But I do feel manipulation if we're to pity the children without understanding who or what might be responsible, and allowing us to reflect and react to that as well. I don't mean to say that Japanese atrocities somehow make the characters' suffering right or justified. No way. Quite the opposite-- I think it's only fair to hold the Japanese goverment of WWII culpable and responsible. And I think it would both be fair to the viewer as well as powerful to at least hint at this responsibility, of a nation and government to its people. If we're not allowed a real glimpse at cause, effect, and responsibility, then it becomes a meaningless exercise in pity for pity's sake. I guess in the end, I feel tragedy in fiction needs to have a meaning, and needs to be part of something richer that becomes impetus for reflection, and hopefully someday, action. Shock and tragedy for its' sake alone ends up being a little empty, and in the end, I guess I personally want more than to say that Graveyard made me cry... which it didn't. But it did make me frustrated in its attempt to do so. In the end, what is Graveyard trying to say? Children suffer? That sucks. Then the next logical thought is, so, what factors are responsible? Is it war? How did the war start so we might prevent it? Oh wait, can't talk about that. Okay, then is it man's inhumanity? That too. Then I suppose we ought to fight against our apathy, selfishness and help where we can-- in little things and big things. Maybe even in preventing and ending such wars and the suffering they cause. So how did this one start? Oh right, can't talk about that. We inevitably ask why, but no why is offered. Even if we look, the answers seem to be intentionally obscured. In the end, we get Children Suffer, Suffering Hurts, and Maybe We Should Do Something. I'm not left with anything I didn't come into the film with, and we're sort of spinning our wheels watching children die. I just don't find that to be enough for me. I'd brought Germany into the picture not just to compare their handling of WWII, but because Germans don't seem to feel pointing out the historical realities when portraying German suffering somehow cramps their artistry. If anything, they feel it an inherent part of the story itself. And whether in big or small part, I'd agree.

I might have to watch it again someday. It didn't help that I was watching it with a friend, and that he was repeatedly shouting "Stupid! This is stupid!" while shaking his head as I heartily agreed. I didn't see the philosophical exposition having to do much with the plot beyond certain contrived bits, but I might have missed it the first time around.

Wow, that is so how I felt, to a tee, when I watched Graveyard. Even without any political baggage, the viewing felt a little like, "Okay, that really sucks. And then?" Boy, stuck in neutral is the perfect description. And it seems stuck because if it attempted to go anywhere, it'd find itself having to address things and say things that it was so careful to avoid. Man, his sister and her candy box, and ultimately her death. Tell me that does not tug on heartstrings. I still feel it now. But I felt manipulated into feeling sorry for the characters without being given anything back. And I get irate whenever characters that I like are killed off simply for shock and tragedy's sake. If I can't see how their deaths make for a better telling or how they fit into something more profound, I start to blame the artist and not the story for their deaths. If tragedy and death in fiction are supposed to get us to ask questions, I think it's only fair that the fiction starts to address those questions, even if only in passing. If the characters' deaths are due to the tragedy war, then let's talk about war. Specifically, this war. But it feels like Graveyard brings me just to where it wants me, then adamantly refuses to dialogue with me because of what might actually be said. Inconceivable! You like Innocence? O_o What parts and aspects of it did you like that I seem to have missed?

I'd agree that what problems I have with Graveyard is something that's actually more widespread, and very little Japanese entertainment or art really "owns up" to Japanese involvement in WWII as instigators. Japanese culture is heavily pacifist, but it's pacifist because war as seen as a generic evil to be avoided at all costs, and I'm guessing that this happens because any other view puts square responsibility and "blame" on the Japanese nation itself. And that view would be hard to bear for a culture in which saving face is so important. The thing is, this seems to be the only perspective the Japanese have as a culture-- as unfortunate victims because they engaged in non-specific "war". And while a more comprehensive background on WW2 would probably be out of scope of the story, there are plenty of opportunities to drop in historically relevant hints which in my opinion, would add depth to the telling. So Graveyard's perspective isn't really unique... it seems to be the only perspective that Japanese culture at large has. See, I'm not sure this question is ever really asked, because from the Japanese perspective, the audience Graveyard was made for, the answer would be a rhetorical no. Japan did lose the war after all. For the rest of us, we have to struggle with whether the suffering of innocents is a price worth paying in order to stop the aggressive military regime under which they live. And our answer might be a hesitant yes. But its intended audience doesn't have to do any of that soul searching, because history has already responded for them. So ultimately, I feel that Graveyard, by omission, adds to a lack of perspective rather than contributing anything fresh to our, and more importantly, the Japanese peoples' understanding. And by omission, there are times when it views almost to me like a propaganda film although I'm pretty sure that's not its intent. Yes, the film conveys a childlike ignorance, but that simplistic view isn't too far removed from the understandings of most of its viewers, and I think it fails if it actually fosters such understandings rather than dispels them. Graveyard is as if a German filmmaker made a film about the suffering of children in the firebombing of Dresden, without ever showing German troops or ever mentioning Hitler, European conquest, or the Nazi regime in the slightest. Many Germans consider Dresden a war crime, but such a film would probably be beyond most German sensibilities. They're too conscious of their past, and even if such a film were made, it would be seen by people who already have perspective on Germany's responsibility in the war. Oh whoa... coincidentally, a new German Dresden film just came out. It's causing a stir, but mostly for telling both sides of the story and for attempting to show Dresden might not have been the pointless loss of life it's usually seen as. http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1903823,00.html "'The film shows from the start that the Nazis were the ones who were guilty of starting the war,' said Günther van Endert, an editor with public broadcaster ZDF, which will show the film as a two-part miniseries in March. 'That does not mean we have to shy away from the fact that civilians suffered horribly,' van Endert said. But even after the wrenching scenes of dead bodies strewn in the streets and incomprehensible devastation, the movie makes a point of showing Nazis forcing concentration camp prisoners to clean up rubble and shooting looters." Interesting that although it's billed as a tragic love story, it doesn't feel that it's telling is somehow hampered by artistically showing what needs to be shown.

Oh, and Graveyard is not the worse I've seen. It's actually quite good if you divorce it completely from relevant reality. The absolute worse I've seen recent is Ghost in the Shell: Innocence. I don't know how well it was received, but it was a painful watch. Yes, the animation is beautiful... yes, the CG's great, and visually, everything is fantastic. But the story... well, isn't one. It's Batou and his partner spitting quotes of dead philosophers at each other incessantly. I disliked Innocence, and I love philosophy. When you're telling a story, you're supposed to show, not tell. Innocence would have been so much stronger if those philosophical ideas were actually being illustrated by situations the characters found themselves in, rather than blatantly crammed down our throats. We need to see and feel why those ideas matter to us-- and more importantly, matter in whatever it is the characters are doing at the moment. But if you have to spit quote after quote at us, because you, yes you, Masamune Shirow, are just sooo enthralled with Hume, or Hobbes, or whoever, and you're such a big shot that no one dares to tell you, "Shirow-san? Men with guns sitting around quoting philosophers for two hours makes for really crappy anime." you've sort of lost the whole point of the artistic endeavour. The basset hound was the best part of the whole movie.

The problem I personally had with Graveyard, despite its dramatic direction and technical merit, was that it wasn't a history lesson at all. It never once dares to ask why the main characters were suffering. Partly because the answer, from my Western mind, is painfully obvious and potentially embarassing to a Japanese audience. In WWII, the Japanese government engaged in campaigns of conquest across Asia and ultimately attacked the United States unprovoked. That is the key historical instigator of their civilians' suffering-- simply put, the Japanese government brought war upon their own. If we're expected to sympathize with the characters, then I think it's only fair to ask what the root cause of their suffering was. I think that would be fair. Instead, the only answers we're given is a generic "because of war". And from a certain narrow viewing of the movie, "because of allied planes, and thus, allied forces. Oh, and war." So the problem I have with Graveyard is that it's a narrow view of personal suffering divorced from a greater reality, which combined with a culture that only seems to remember the atomic bomb, doesn't do much to give viewers the perspective they badly need. They learn only that "war is bad", while true, fail to understand that it's unjustified military aggression that is truly evil. In fact, war may sometimes be necessary in the face of that aggression. Anyway, I know we've covered all this before, and I don't want to get terribly political here, but as art, I think Graveyard fails to say what needs to be said and what needs to be heard. It fails even to hint at the real situation, which I think would add more to the fabric of the personal story rather than being a distraction. Without perspective, Graveyard becomes somewhat of a meaningless pity story, and to someone who does have that perspective, they can only scream incredulously at the set, "but-- but-- but-- what about the Japanese government that were every bit responsible?!" And to me, that glaring ommision almost seems to be manipulative, and even unintentionally deceptive.

What consistently bugs me are those giant cylinders on the top of the fuselage. It just looks like it'd create a lot of unnecessary drag, and wears away at whatever's left of the airworthiness of the design. It just looks so chunky.

From what I've heard, a bit of both, sadly. =P

Disagree, I guess. The accent is for me too distracting when no one else in the dub has a similar one. From what I've heard, it also wears at the believability of the chemistry between her and Hikaru. The main appeal of having Mari do the dub is so that HG could say, "HEY! IT'S MARI! IT'S 'REAL' MACROSS! BUY!" And it worked. Her inclusion lends some supposed credibility to their dub, but she would be a poor casting choice if we looked beyond the novelty of her presence. I guess I care more for how things feel as a whole than whether she can pronounce certain names or manage to deliver her lines somewhat acceptably. As much as I appreciate her original work, I'm not willing to give her a break just because she's Mari, if in the end, I don't feel that she fits the particular production.

You know, I'm actually here, so you can actually address me directly with any threats of running me through with a sharp stick. And no, Reba's crummy, but I do find her voice acting less distracting than Mari's accented one in the dub. And I'll admit to liking a few of the RT Minmay songs, even if they're horribly delivered.

This would be blasphemy to some, but for me, would be the perfect Macross. I even really like some of the Minmay-related instrumentals. I remember that one piece that sounded a little bit Chinese, and had these strings being plucked in this melancholy manner. I think they tended to use it during the quiet moments where they show the aftermath of battle, Macross life, and Rick moping about something or other. It was just really moody. Man, that really still hits me hard nostalgically.

Who's Anouk Aimee? Apparently she's some hot, now old chick from the 70's that keeps popping up for me. I guess I can see the resemblance. We should get together and have kids. There would be minimum risk of our offspring coming out badly, and it's pretty predictable what we'll end up getting. By 'we' I mean me, and the hot version of her from the 70's. Not the old version of her today.

That's kind of funny, because I actually like RT's music better, with exception to most of the Minmay songs. Of course, I'd been exposed to RT first, and it better fits my western sensibilities. But there are a few RT tracks that I'm actually kind of sorry aren't part of the real Macross score, like a couple of the Zentradi themes, and even a few versions of the main RT theme.

I tried it with some artwork of mine. She came up as a close match with Sophie Loren. The old version. Not real flattering, but I can see why it thought so. The character also has prominent cheekbones and a pouty kisser, but she ain't 90 years old!

Um. Yes...? Yes! Of course. Finally you get it. Yes, now you see. Except for one detail, young learner. Really, boobs > than all. And one last lesson. Some great things can be complimented by other great things. Taken at the same time together, but never to be combined as one: I give you boobs, and guns. Good. Boobs that shoot bullets, however, or guns that squirt milk? Bad.