|
Loved it. The John Denver song was sublime.
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2017 04:38
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 14, 2024 12:57 |
|
|
Uncle Boogeyman posted:You could not eat it And then you'll end up like Silver: weak and starved because food production in the modern age is pretty much industrialized and harmful to the environment in some way. Even the production of vegetables and fruits ends up with farmland encroaching in native species areas, animal and plant alike. If you really want a way to subsist without harming living beings, you could always try and go photosynthetic, but that's still a while in the future. Hollismason posted:Just because something can't discuss how much Batman v Superman sucked doesn't mean it.doesnt have consciousness. Even people in the first world have trouble trying to get enough food to get by every day. I think it's in the D&D forum thread about big box stores, how sometimes they're the only way people can buy food because they live in the middle of nowhere, and there are no markets or farms nearby to provide cheaper and more nutritious alternatives, and that leads to people having to eat pizza and hot dogs every day because anything else is just too expensive. If you can buy organic apples or free-range chickens free of hormones then that's great, but industrialized food production is how many people can now eat affordable steaks or strawberrys out of season. I think the point the film is making in regards to the food industry is that people should be aware that their food comes from places like the big slaughterhouse from the end, and that we as consumers should demand better conditions in the production, instead of just leaving it at wanting shiny, more colorful and cleaner packaging for the end product.
|
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2017 04:49
|
|
|
Kal-L posted:And then you'll end up like Silver: weak and starved because food production in the modern age is pretty much industrialized and harmful to the environment in some way. Even the production of vegetables and fruits ends up with farmland encroaching in native species areas, animal and plant alike. his problem isn't that he's not eating meat, its that he's not eating anything.
|
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2017 15:57
|
|
|
One thing I like about this movie is that Lucy is shown as genuinely trying to be good but she's so surrounded by people that just want to keep their boss happy at all times rather than actually doing what what she wants that it undermines the whole thing. Also, with all the over top acting in the film, for me Paul Dano quietly stole the show.
|
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2017 16:04
|
|
|
Uncle Boogeyman posted:his problem isn't that he's not eating meat, its that he's not eating anything. Yes, because he's the endgame of objecting to foods on ethical grounds. If you live in industrialized society something suffered more than strictly necessary for your nutrition. Stopping at vegan is just playing Six Degrees of (Kevin) Bacon with the chain of responsibility. That pallid, barely conscious ecoterrorist barely sustaining himself on foraged sprigs of parsley is the only person in the whole film with nothing to apologize for. McSpanky fucked around with this message at 16:12 on Jul 3, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2017 16:05
|
|
|
Uncle Boogeyman posted:his problem isn't that he's not eating meat, its that he's not eating anything. It was more he wasn't eating anything that was made by harming something else, which led to him eating nothing.
|
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2017 16:07
|
|
|
McSpanky posted:Yes, because he's the endgame of objecting to foods on ethical grounds. More like a comedic exaggeration of it. The whole "oh, you don't eat meat? Well, did you know that some produce is harvested in ways that are unethical/not environmentally sound?" argument has always been a specious one.
|
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2017 16:07
|
|
|
I knew that it was sort of necessary for the movie to work, but during the Black Chalk sequences all I could think about was that these people would otherwise already be tear-gassed, or worse. Besides that, I loved the heck out of this movie, and loved it even more after I realized it was by the same director from Snowpiercer. It's bleak as gently caress, but it's 2017 as gently caress.
|
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2017 16:15
|
|
|
Hi I just made a big post in gen chat before realizing it was here I really like this movie and I'm terrified of late capitalism. Silver is a dumb kid. I'm not a vegetarian or a vegan at the time, but please don't equate what he does with, like, smart or good practices
|
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2017 16:21
|
|
|
Uncle Boogeyman posted:More like a comedic exaggeration of it. The whole "oh, you don't eat meat? Well, did you know that some produce is harvested in ways that are unethical/not environmentally sound?" argument has always been a specious one. I imagine so if you think harvesting is the only problem and not, you know, the entire process starting with carelessly destroying millions of square acres of indigenous land and biomass to feed the subsequent invasively spread plants to an animal. The denouement of this film is an apt metaphor for ethical veganism: you rescue your own little piece of meat from a dark fate and feel great, but have to trundle past the thousands and thousands more going to slaughter and can only look away, lest you be reminded of the hollowness and selfishness of your gesture. And all it took to even get that far was being rich enough to afford negotiating with the very people who make it all possible in the first place! Good for you. Savor that happy ending.
|
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2017 16:39
|
|
|
Uncle Boogeyman posted:More like a comedic exaggeration of it. The whole "oh, you don't eat meat? Well, did you know that some produce is harvested in ways that are unethical/not environmentally sound?" argument has always been a specious one. As far as ethics go, how do we measure the amount of suffering to create our food? Is it in the amount of life lost, pain felt, or sapient creatures harmed? Is killing untold scores of small mammals during industrial agriculture as an accidental byproduct of tilling and harvesting crops significantly 'better' ethically than an instant death via bolt gun to a larger animal during butchery? Are some lives worth saving more than others? Are some deaths viewed as inevitable and others as preventable? So much of what we do stems from tradition way more than sensible and consistent applications of logic. Along those lines my ex-girlfriend, a vegan from about the age of 9, would buck the Peta party line (she used to work there) by consuming (locally sourced) honey and certain kinds of shellfish that lack central nervous systems. If there wasn't direct suffering then it was still vegan, she'd argue. Dunno how well that holds up with vegan organizations, but it does follow a certain ethical consistency. I like how the movie kind of approached these questions, just a little bit to get some thought going, but wish it were just a little more willing to step further into the grey and suggest that the industrial processes are both awful AND (presently) important to feeding the world's growing population. The greater the population, the worse the effect on the environment, and the uglier things will have to be to feed everyone. It piggybacks on the afore-mentioned theme: unpleasant truths being faced.
|
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2017 16:42
|
|
|
McSpanky posted:I imagine so if you think harvesting is the only problem and not, you know, the entire process starting with carelessly destroying millions of square acres of indigenous land and biomass to feed the subsequent invasively spread plants to an animal. I mean this is all basically the same as the "Oh, you don't like capitalism? Well I can't help but notice that you have a cell phone  " argument. It's a dodge.
|
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2017 16:42
|
|
|
McSpanky posted:I imagine so if you think harvesting is the only problem and not, you know, the entire process starting with carelessly destroying millions of square acres of indigenous land and biomass to feed the subsequent invasively spread plants to an animal. This. Very much this. This was the moral I saw in the film, the truth behind the tear-jerking scenes and high-minded sacrifices of Paul Dano's character and their compatriots: that in the end very little changed except for one person. And that's enough for a great journey type story, but the greater allegory the film is critiquing is really loving depressing in its hopelessness.
|
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2017 16:47
|
|
|
Uncle Boogeyman posted:I mean this is all basically the same as the "Oh, you don't like capitalism? Well I can't help but notice that you have a cell phone It's a lot more complex than that. If you lay down a blanket "industrial production of meat is bad, industrial production of plants is good" morality pledge, you're relying on a bunch of simplifications and a hell of a shaky definition of "animal suffering inherent in the process"
|
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2017 16:50
|
|
|
Pander posted:It's a lot more complex than that. If you lay down a blanket "industrial production of meat is bad, industrial production of plants is good" morality pledge, you're relying on a bunch of simplifications and a hell of a shaky definition of "animal suffering inherent in the process" I don't think anyone's doing that though. There's a weird assumption around vegetarians/vegans that they care about literally nothing else but vegetarianism/veganism.
|
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2017 16:55
|
|
|
Uncle Boogeyman posted:I don't think anyone's doing that though. There's a weird assumption around vegetarians/vegans that they care about literally nothing else but vegetarianism/veganism. Semi-related note: Did any industry groups try to push back on this film? Ban it, or call it out as exploitative or something? Cause man, you show this film to anyone between like 8-12 I dunno how they'll eat meat again unless they're sociopaths or Texans.
|
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2017 16:59
|
|
|
Lots of good words here about the film. To tie int to what someone said about the themes of lying for the "greater good", the grandfather was one of my favorite characters. At the beginning, when he's lying to Mija, you can tell he's just desperately afraid of losing his last human connection. He lives alone on this mountain except for his granddaughter. His children and child-in-law are dead. Okja provides a companion for Mija this keeps her from gravitating toward the city. He doesn't have a choice in keeping Okja, he can't. And he knows that if he reveals thlis information to Mija in the wrong way, she will hate him for it and he will lose the most important thing in his world. I thought it was a very human character and a great performance. And yes, also as someone said earlier, Mija eats fish, but we're explicitly shown her practicing sustainable fishing practices. She takes a big fish, throws a small one back, and then Okja's droppings feed the fish.
|
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2017 16:59
|
|
|
I couldn't like Jake Gyllenhall in this. He felt like a knock-off Jim Carrey doing an Ace Ventura impression. I mean, maybe that was the point, but it felt like he was trying way too hard.
|
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2017 17:02
|
|
|
Pander posted:Maybe I misunderstood your point then? Basically, yes I agree that there are problems with industrialized agriculture as well as problems with industrialized meat farming. But the latter is really easy to do something about, because it's very easy not to eat meat. The former is trickier, because it's very hard not to eat anything (there are still steps you can take though, of course).
|
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2017 17:08
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:I couldn't like Jake Gyllenhall in this. He felt like a knock-off Jim Carrey doing an Ace Ventura impression. I didn't really get that vibe at all. As some one pointed out (I swear I'll look up who it was when I'm off mobile), honesty vs lying is a pretty big theme in the film. His character is a criticism both of mass media and its consumers. He's a tv oersonality who's slogan is (paraphrased) "I'm never boring!". He's like the animal planet version of the 24 hour news cycle, where everything has to be sensationlozed of no one will watch it. I think when was younger, he probably was an animal lover and cared about bith anumals and facts, but working in the entertainment industry he continually had to compromise more and more just to get heard. If he gets boring, his career ends and no one learns about animals anymore. He's a narcissistic bitter drunk, there's no doubt, but I think there's a case to be made that the system pushed him that way.
|
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2017 17:16
|
|
|
 Reminder of Okja being A) raped B) injured with the meat extractor before being paraded out. BTW Dr Johnny has some sexual issues he's dealing with as well. He gets completely emasculated in front of the board, so he gets drunk and rants about women. He waves the meat extractor around as it if was a surrogate phallus to reassure himself of his manliness.
|
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2017 19:03
|
|
|
Steve Yun posted:
His character feels odd because the tonal shifts are so stark. Some scenes he's a burnt out goofball kinda like Slurms McKenzie from Futurama, but rather than undergoing a redemptive arc he remains a slave to his narcissism. Like, compare the dark monochrome scene where he tortures Okja to the bright colorful happy parade where his crimes are unveiled. He committed "R-rated" violations to Okja, but his punishment (a crowd converging on him) didn't look out of place in a PG rated Disney film given the lack of strong violent content or implied violation, just an implied beating. His flaw, narcissism, is the same in both the extractor scene and the scene where he meets Okja. In the former scene it plays out violently against Okja, because Okja is female and he had just been emasculated. In the latter scene, he's burnt out, travel-lagged, miserable traveling in Korea in summer, and he just wants to get it over with and end up on TV. So he takes out his frustrations on his subordinates, who stand in for the cause of his annoyance and suffering, the TV production he desires to remain part of. Whether you think the character is necessarily realistic is a fair point, but I thought Jake did a great job evincing the sense of desperation and isolation that goes hand in hand with the arrogance and jealousy.
|
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2017 19:29
|
|
|
Snak posted:At the beginning, when he's lying to Mija, you can tell he's just desperately afraid of losing his last human connection. He wants to her to grow up, not stay with him. He wants her to accept the system.
|
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2017 19:33
|
|
|
Pander posted:His character feels odd because the tonal shifts are so stark. Some scenes he's a burnt out goofball kinda like Slurms McKenzie from Futurama, but rather than undergoing a redemptive arc he remains a slave to his narcissism.
|
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2017 19:41
|
|
|
temple posted:He tells her maybe its time for her to go to the city and meet a boy. No, he wants her to not hate him. Everything he says is deflection tactics because he knows she's gonna feel betrayed. Her growing up and going to the city would be fine, as long as she doesn't hate him. What I meant was that, initially, when she was a child, Okja made the perfect companion to keep her happy on the mountain in a way that an old man couldn't be. So she didn't resent her isolation with him.
|
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2017 19:42
|
|
|
Snak posted:No, he wants her to not hate him. Everything he says is deflection tactics because he knows she's gonna feel betrayed. I don't get the impression that, if she had never known of Okja, she'd have resented him. Or that she disliked the isolation. The only comment even near to this was when she called him a tightwad for not getting a new TV. It's just they DID get Okja, who effectively became a family member in Mija's estimation, so her grandfather was stuck between trying to please both her Mija and Mirando. He tried to do both by giving Mirando Okja and getting Mija the gold pig, but unlike Mirando (in the end) Mija's loyalty to Okja wasn't for sale. I don't argue that the grandfather probably didn't like the level of Mija's friendship with Okja, since he still seemed wedded to the thinking that it was a food animal and was going to get slaughtered eventually. But I don't think there was some animosity between him and Mija beyond that failure to understand one another wrt Okja.
|
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2017 20:13
|
|
|
Pander posted:...I don't think there was some animosity between him and Mija beyond that failure to understand one another wrt Okja.
|
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2017 20:24
|
|
|
Totally loved this. I'm curious to hear from people who didn't like Snowpiercer (which I also loved); maybe this one will feel more emotionally grounded and less of an intellectual exercise? Anyway, I kinda wanna watch it again immediately to help form my thoughts, which rarely happens to me. For now though I feel like the movie isn't really specifically commenting on the food industry so much as it's talking about capitalistic exploitation in general. The level of intelligence displayed by Okja at the beginning is so wild that it turns this from a story about cute and loveable animals into a story about a person who is viewed only as food by the system, and always will be. If he were really trying to talk about the food industry, I think making the superpigs have almost human-level intelligence hurts the argument; it's not too hard to come away from it thinking "whew, thank god cows aren't that smart. Now I don't feel so bad."
|
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2017 20:28
|
|
|
I could watch Giancarlo Esposito use the term "best superpig" all dang day
|
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2017 20:31
|
|
|
Martman posted:The level of intelligence displayed by Okja at the beginning In any other movie, that scene was there to foreshadow that during an action climax, Okja would save Mija again using the rope and fulcrum trick. But no, in this movie the point is to let you know that if this animal is eaten for food, this is the level of intelligence that will be lost forever to the bolt gun.
|
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2017 20:41
|
|
|
Martman posted:I think making the superpigs have almost human-level intelligence hurts the argument; it's not too hard to come away from it thinking "whew, thank god cows aren't that smart. Now I don't feel so bad." People who treat agriculture as an out-of-sight process downplay both the harshness of the process and the surprising capacity of the animals involved. Given a chance, most of the animals on a farm will exhibit every bit as much personality as dogs. On the topic of Okja and your post, I think what sells that scene (rope scene) was Okja's eyes. I wasn't initially really into the Okja CG until that, where they did such a good job portraying her thoughts through her expressive eyes. The other scene where the expressive of the superpigs really hit home was near the end, where the two parents passed their baby under the fenceline and kept staring after them. I'm at work I really need to stop thinking about that scene
|
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2017 21:30
|
|
|
Yeah, the physics of the rope problem makes Okja about as smart as a raven, but the important factor in both that scene and the scene mentioned above, is self-sacrifice. This is something that's incredibly rare in animals and speaks to their humanity much more than "intelligence". After all, there are plenty of humans who are much stupid than animals.
|
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2017 21:36
|
|
|
Snak posted:Yeah, the physics of the rope problem makes Okja about as smart as a raven, but the important factor in both that scene and the scene mentioned above, is self-sacrifice. This is something that's incredibly rare in animals and speaks to their humanity much more than "intelligence". After all, there are plenty of humans who are much stupid than animals. Agreed. It felt out of an "____ of the Apes" movie, where animals have all the humanity that humans lack. I mean, I just saw a video of elephant parents freaking out when their baby fell into a pool, and they rushed around to get in themselves and help get it out. There was almost no difference between the reactions of hypothetical human parents in that situation and those elephants. And yet elephant hunting for sport is still a thing, something our idiot president's idiot son partook in. He killed something capable of thought and empathy because he wanted to brag to other people that he did. If anything Okja wasn't dour enough, but I guess sport hunting is something separate from corporate agriculture.
|
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2017 21:51
|
|
|
Pander posted:And yet elephant hunting for sport is still a thing, something our idiot president's idiot son partook in. He killed something capable of thought and empathy because he wanted to brag to other people that he did. If anything Okja wasn't dour enough, but I guess sport hunting is something separate from corporate agriculture. drat you for putting me in the position of defending a Trump's actions. But... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUA8i5S0YMU Trophy hunters are nothing compared to illegal poaching. Pander posted:People who treat agriculture as an out-of-sight process downplay both the harshness of the process and the surprising capacity of the animals involved. Given a chance, most of the animals on a farm will exhibit every bit as much personality as dogs. It took the publication of "The Jungle" for people to demand enough safety so we could be sure we don't get human fingers in our hot-dogs. I hope Okja starts a trend of media devoted to the the food industrial process as a whole.
|
|
#
?
Jul 4, 2017 02:47
|
|
|
Kal-L posted:drat you for putting me in the position of defending a Trump's actions. But... Yeah, in a perfect world it works be way to condemn trophy hunting but from what I understand it's currently the main thing g funding protection of animals. Like ideally that money would just be available through governments and donations but it's not so for now we have to accept the occasional hunting of an animal that usually needs to be put down anyway.
|
|
#
?
Jul 4, 2017 03:00
|
|
|
For a movie that's as blunt as a punch to the face, it also has some incredibly subtle moments. Lucy Mirando raises her presentation clicker to go to the next slide.  All the members of the press raise their phones to take pictures, mimicking her motion. By having the press mimic Lucy's motion, the idea is that the press is there to parrot whatever corporate BS the company puts out. At no other point in her presentation does Lucy use a clicker. It is only shown there to make this statement.  If the point isn't clear enough, we have this rear end in a top hat who praises Lucy for being more fun than her predecessors. The press isn't there to investigate or question anything. Steve Yun fucked around with this message at 09:40 on Jul 4, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jul 4, 2017 09:34
|
|
|
Steve Yun posted:
Hey, the daily planet is a respected news organization.
|
|
#
?
Jul 4, 2017 15:35
|
|
|
I had a bunch of this movie spoiled for me before I could watch it. I've got too much of a backlog to get to it soon, so figured I'd ask here: Why are these super-pigs given to random children, who aren't told their purpose? My dad grew up on a dairy farm, and one thing I distinctly being told is that you compartmentalize your feelings for your farm animals. You might consider a chicken something approaching a pet, but you also grow up knowing you're going to be having Petey for dinner eventually. It cuts down on what I'm told is the central focus of the film.
|
|
#
?
Jul 4, 2017 21:13
|
|
|
MisterBibs posted:
quote:My dad grew up on a dairy farm, and one thing I distinctly being told is that you compartmentalize your feelings for your farm animals. You might consider a chicken something approaching a pet, but you also grow up knowing you're going to be having Petey for dinner eventually. It cuts down on what I'm told is the central focus of the film. Here's the thing though, people aren't completely rational. For example: My great-great grandmother lived on a farm where they could only afford to have one pig at the time. This pig was allowed to be in the living room and was in may ways treated the way Mija treats Okja. My great-great grandmother knew perfectly well that the pig was for eating and not for keeping and yet she couldn't bring herself to eat it when it was slaughtered for christmas.
|
|
#
?
Jul 4, 2017 21:25
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 14, 2024 12:57 |
|
|
Another wrinkle in their situation is that Mija's parents were dead, so the grandpa saw Okja as an opportunity to give his granddaughter a companion and keep her company. The day would come when Okja would be taken away, but the grandpa probably figured 10 years felt like it was forever away. I should also point out that these superpigs were all given to farmer adults, and in the case of Korea, was given to the grandpa. Mija's relationship was not in Mirando's plans. Steve Yun fucked around with this message at 22:16 on Jul 4, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jul 4, 2017 22:11
|
|