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Optimus' mania was pretty drat well justified, and I think it made him more relatable. The thing is, Frasier's viewpoint was largely justifiable given the events of the last three movies, even if it wasn't really Optimus' fault. It's an honest to god complicated moral issue, in a Transformers movie. Was Frasier's opinion the right one? Could it have been handled better, and more diplomatically? Optimus' reactions are largely natural given what he's gone through. Emotional responses from a sentient robot are an interesting idea, even if the movie didn't explore it much. Although even if Optimus' presence brought down Lockdown's wrath, the whole Galvatron nukes a city subplot wasn't Prime's fault and at the end of the day he did save the world (yet again) soooooo
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Jun 29, 2014 18:32
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Frasier doing a (really quite remarkable) Peter Cullen impersonation definitely added something to the performance.
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Jun 29, 2014 18:37
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No I totally get it now, in the movie the Autobots are the American military in Iraq and both the population of Earth (Iraqis) hate them, and the outside bounty hunters killing them too (Al-Qaeda) hate them and Optimus (George Bush) flies home to find inspiration from Primus (Dick Cheney). So based on this analysis expect Bumblebee (Barack Obama) to take over in movie 6.
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Jun 29, 2014 18:42
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The Rage posted:No I totally get it now, in the movie the Autobots are the American military in Iraq and both the population of Earth (Iraqis) hate them, and the outside bounty hunters killing them too (Al-Qaeda) hate them and Optimus (George Bush) flies home to find inspiration from Primus (Dick Cheney). So based on this analysis expect Bumblebee (Barack Obama) to take over in movie 6. "*Hiss. Beep. BOOP!*" (Oh, who am I kidding, in this series they'd just have him play the loving Obama clip)
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Jun 29, 2014 19:29
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Xenomrph posted:Optimus' mania was pretty drat well justified, and I think it made him more relatable. Frasier's opinion is certainly justifiable, but I have no idea how you get from having a whole contingent of N.E.S.T. soldiers and their superior officers having worked with the Autobots and able to back up their claims that the Autobots were instrumental in stopping the attack on Chicago to Frasier having absolute authority over everything Transformer-related without even the White House knowing what was going on (that last part played as an obvious "lol Obama" joke, but still). Prime's rage against humanity is apparently part of the continued effort to distance him as much as possible from the G1 character, but I don't know if it was justified because the movie never tells us what happened. How did the Autobots get split up so much that they were able to be taken individually? Was Prime betrayed by the N.E.S.T. team? Was he betrayed by Sam? What happened to make this character who, even with his psychotic tendencies on the battlefield, did tend to see the best in the humans he fought alongside? What went down that made him so willing to dismiss his experiences with Sam and the N.E.S.T. field team? I just don't see how you get from the end of 3 to the beginning of 4 in a way that makes sense, but considering Bay can't cleanly get from one Point A to Point B inside one movie, I suppose that shouldn't surprise me and/or isn't supposed to matter. Or maybe I'm just supposed to assume the CIA is that all-powerful and mindlessly insidious because they're all secrety and stuff, so clearly they're up to no good. As you say, the movie doesn't explore most of the interesting things it (accidentally?) brings up, although a couple of these seem to be due to saving them for sequels (Galvatron's status as a resurrected Megatron, the "creators" Lockdown is apparently working for). There's a notable and clearly intentional theme of fathers and patriarchy in the film that never really goes anywhere outside of a brief scene with Cade and Prime. Every single person under the charge or command of a patriarchal figure in TF4 bristles at said figure's authority and/or points out that said figure is repeatedly being an idiot. Tessa does both with Cade (in large part because Cade's "rules" are ridiculous), the Autobots bristle under Prime's orders (in large part because Prime is ordering them to help their tormentors), the Transformium scientist rolls his eyes a lot and calls out Not-Steve-Jobs' hypocrisy/retconning of reality with the jellyfish thing, and even the control room that Frasier clears for the Graveyard Wind op has a "everyone humor the big man" attitude as they leave. Lockdown has it figured out, since his minions are mindless drones, but he's also the most blatant example of "father/authority figure wants to keep everything in its place forever" in the film. Of course, the key to surviving the movie is to be a father figure who questions his own judgment, as everyone who does that (Cade, Prime, Not-Steve-Jobs) survives, and everyone who is absolutely convinced of the rightness of their authority is horribly killed (Frasier, Lockdown). It's an odd thematic element for a self-confessed authoritarian director whose response to criticism tends to be "Eh, gently caress 'em." Makes me wonder if screenwriter Ehren Kruger was just seeing what he could get away with. Keldroc fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Jun 29, 2014 |
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Jun 29, 2014 19:45
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Keldroc posted:Frasier's opinion is certainly justifiable, but I have no idea how you get from having a whole contingent of N.E.S.T. soldiers and their superior officers having worked with the Autobots and able to back up their claims that the Autobots were instrumental in stopping the attack on Chicago to Frasier having absolute authority over everything Transformer-related without even the White House knowing what was going on (that last part played as an obvious "lol Obama" joke, but still). Prime's rage against humanity is apparently part of the continued effort to distance him as much as possible from the G1 character, but I don't know if it was justified because the movie never tells us what happened. How did the Autobots get split up so much that they were able to be taken individually? Was Prime betrayed by the N.E.S.T. team? Was he betrayed by Sam? What happened to make this character who, even with his psychotic tendencies on the battlefield, did tend to see the best in the humans he fought alongside? What went down that made him so willing to dismiss his experiences with Sam and the N.E.S.T. field team? I just don't see how you get from the end of 3 to the beginning of 4 in a way that makes sense, but considering Bay can't cleanly get from one Point A to Point B inside one movie, I suppose that shouldn't surprise me and/or isn't supposed to matter. Or maybe I'm just supposed to assume the CIA is that all-powerful and mindlessly insidious because they're all secrety and stuff, so clearly they're up to no good. Now I'm picturing some late night screenwriting sessions between Ehren and Bay where Bay is just drinking some Budweiser watching a game and yelling at Ehren and "WHY CAN'T YOU BE MORE LIKE YOUR BROTHER" and Ehren just has no loving clue whats going on.
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Jun 29, 2014 19:54
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The movie is the first movie of 2014 to break the 100 million mark in box office sales. I think it may have beaten out the previous 3 movie's records. TEN THOUSAND YEARS OF SEQUELS SHALL NOW FOREVER CURSE THE LAND!
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Jun 29, 2014 20:12
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The Taint Reaper posted:The movie is the first movie of 2014 to break the 100 million mark in box office sales. I think it may have beaten out the previous 3 movie's records. Revenge of the Fallen made $108 million domestically on opening, so we'll have to wait and see what the final tally is for AoE. It definitely beat the other two, though. $301 million opening weekend, internationally, including the best opening in Chinese history, which I'm sure was part of the plan. Will probably beat DotM's total, and has a shot at beating Iron Man 3 if attendance holds for most of July, which it might since it has very little competition judging by the release schedule. At the very least, AoE is likely the new #7 unadjusted top grossing film of all time.
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Jun 29, 2014 20:23
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I really like how some people are reading all these deep subplot in a Michael Bay movie. Why was Optimus a murderous sociopath with a gun? Well, it's either a surprisingly human turn of emotions brought on by a noble entity beyond our understanding being pushed just a bit too far by our crude human handling pushing his already scattered race to the brink of extinction. OR Michael Bay/his writers don't know anything about Transformers and wanted Optimus to be a cool badass who kills most things and threatens to kill those he doesn't. Hmmmmm.
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Jun 29, 2014 20:29
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Does anyone have a scan of the Target Exclusive Grimlock Instructions. I'm curious what line they had him fall under. Because for DOTM you had stuff like G1 Unicron come in Generations packaging but it had DOTM instructions. I'm wondering if they're melding lines again for movie exclusives.
The Taint Reaper fucked around with this message at 20:43 on Jun 29, 2014 |
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Jun 29, 2014 20:39
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Never attribute to genius what can be explained by ignorance. AOE isn't good but it's better than the other three combined. You can tell the characters apart, there's a plot that has story beats, the fight scenes aren't nonsensical messes, 90% of the Transformers aren't grey messes of triangles... It's a movie. More than I can say for the other three. One thing about the movie is that it shows its seams really badly. All the China stuff is spliced in, especially Lucy Liu's character, who basically fills the same role as the chick from the Mummy does (who disappears once they get to China). John Goodman has lines inserted while his character's offscreen or nobody's talking to him, and considering we all know his lines weren't recorded long ago makes him feel like a last minute addition. Overall the movie feels like its got like a quarter of the budget of the others- fights and transformations sometimes take place offscreen, and some things that are pros would have been CG not long ago. The China stuff was Hella expensive I'm sure, which makes me feel like there was a huge production upset behind the scenes. Drift does absolutely nothing, which is weird because he was prominent in the advertising. They also said he would speak entirely in Mandarin; he does not. The big thing is that this movie feels like a completely different director. Its really strange to watch.
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Jun 29, 2014 20:49
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The Taint Reaper posted:Does anyone have a scan of the Target Exclusive Grimlock Instructions. I'm curious what line they had him fall under. Because for DOTM you had stuff like G1 Unicron come in Generations packaging but it had DOTM instructions. I'm wondering if they're melding lines again for movie exclusives. Keldroc, I agree that more could have done to flesh out the collapse of NEST and the betrayal of the autobots, and I wish we'd gotten a bridging/prequel comic series like we did with the other three movies. For what the movie gives us, though, it makes enough sense. Chicago gets totaled, Frasier convinces enough people that all transformers are dangerous, plans a strike that scatters the Autobots, and then has Cemetery Wind start hunting them down one by one. At some point Lockdown shows up and helps them since they have concurrent goals. If anything, I wish Chicago had been shown in a greater state of disrepair. For a city that got assaulted by an alien invasion, it was in pristine shape with everything rebuilt 4 years later. It's been 13 years since 9/11 and we still haven't finished rebuilding the World Trade Center.  I was hoping for something a bit like the half-rebuilt cities in Pacific Rim, but oh well. Edit-- why on earth would Drift, modeled after a Japanese samurai and voiced by a notable Japanese actor, speak Mandarin? Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 21:00 on Jun 29, 2014 |
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Jun 29, 2014 20:55
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GrimGypsy posted:I really like how some people are reading all these deep subplot in a Michael Bay movie. The former is the excuse for the latter, but as I said above, they never figured out a way to justify it given Prime's relationships with humans in the first three movies, so they just "bleeped" over it, didn't mention any of the old characters, and hoped/expected nobody would notice or care. This interview with Ehren Kruger is interesting in that he very diplomatically says "To write for Michael Bay you have to learn to let go of things like logic and narrative consistency." As weak as the writing was, Kruger probably earned his money twice over just being in writing meetings with Bay multiple times per week. ForeverSmug posted:All the China stuff is spliced in, especially Lucy Liu's character,  Xenomrph posted:Keldroc, I agree that more could have done to flesh out the collapse of NEST and the betrayal of the autobots, and I wish we'd gotten a bridging/prequel comic series like we did with the other three movies. Right, we're not supposed to care because it's a new movie and a new trilogy and all that. But the whole point of the N.E.S.T. guys' actions in DotM was that they would never abandon the fight and considered the Autobots noble and correct in their intentions. That's why they all convoy to Chicago in the first place before the Autobots reappear and join forces with them. These characters, paper thin as they are, have one thing that defines them, and that's their loyalty to and belief in Optimus Prime and the Autobots. Just dismissing that with no explanation is incredibly lazy storytelling, and unless Spike is right and Frasier's team just assassinated them all (which, to be fair, does sound like a Michael Bay solution to this problem), I don't believe for a second that they wouldn't have done something to help. It's pretty necessary narrative groundwork, which I know is silly to expect from Bay, but in an age when blockbusters are delving heavily into planned continuity and consistency from film to film regarding characters and story, it's even more jarring than usual. Keldroc fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Jun 29, 2014 |
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Jun 29, 2014 20:59
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Xenomrph posted:
Well yeah, that's exactly what everybody said. But Michael Bay. It was said was that "one character will speak exclusively in Mandarin," but there's nobody else they could have meant. Don't you remember this?
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Jun 29, 2014 21:06
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ForeverSmug posted:Well yeah, that's exactly what everybody said. But Michael Bay.
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Jun 29, 2014 21:10
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Xenomrph posted:Who cares. No, really, who cares. Look we're talking about a franchise based in fiction, there's not a whole lot to really seriously care about to begin with. I mean checklists added stuff like Platinum Starscream as a generations figure, but it seems to vary by checklist.
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Jun 29, 2014 21:13
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ForeverSmug posted:Well yeah, that's exactly what everybody said. But Michael Bay. They could have meant literally anyone except Bumblebee and Prime. People speculated that the human-made TFs (particularly Stinger) would speak Mandarin because they were possibly built in China. The most logical assumption was that the E-Jet Transformer would speak Mandarin, but I don't even remember seeing that one in the movie. Nobody attached to the actual production said Drift would speak Mandarin, as far as I can find via Google.
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Jun 29, 2014 21:17
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The Taint Reaper posted:Look we're talking about a franchise based in fiction, there's not a whole lot to really seriously care about to begin with.
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Jun 29, 2014 21:20
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Keldroc posted:They could have meant literally anyone except Bumblebee and Prime. People speculated that the human-made TFs (particularly Stinger) would speak Mandarin because they were possibly built in China. The most logical assumption was that the E-Jet Transformer would speak Mandarin, but I don't even remember seeing that one in the movie. Nobody attached to the actual production said Drift would speak Mandarin, as far as I can find via Google. Alright, I guess that makes sense. The Vehicon/unnamed man made TFs were cool. There was a trash truck that was a three-part robot like Reflector, and some two-headed purple thing that looked like Hardshell from Prime. The best one was the white Vehicon though. Nice and simple. I realized that if Bumblebee is robot Jonah Hill, then Cliffjumper is Seth Rogan in that mall cop movie where he goes crazy.
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Jun 29, 2014 21:22
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Xenomrph posted:But who cares what sub-line something is filed under? No, really. I'm just curious if it's part of the line or not because I'm collecting the Generations line.
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Jun 29, 2014 21:27
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It says "Generations."
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Jun 29, 2014 21:42
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The Taint Reaper posted:I'm just curious if it's part of the line or not because I'm collecting the Generations line. If that's the case, I wish I had your kind of disposable income.
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Jun 29, 2014 21:49
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Xenomrph posted:Edit-- why on earth would Drift, modeled after a Japanese samurai and voiced by a notable Japanese actor, speak Mandarin? Because the movie is pandering to the Chinese.
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Jun 29, 2014 22:06
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Xenomrph posted:So you're buying the whole line regardless of whether or not you like the characters or even the quality of the toys, but just because it's arbitrarily labeled a certain thing? And it truly is arbitrary - much of the HFTD and RTS toys are arguably "Generations" styled toys, even though they don't have the Generations title, for example. Between this discussion and the movie discussion you're coming across as really confrontational lately, is everything ok at home?
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Jun 29, 2014 23:35
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"RRRRRRAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHIIIIII'LL TALK IT OUT IN A RATIONAL FASHION THEN WE'LL HUG IT OUUUUUUUUTTTT!!!" The only human the Autobots killed in this movie (on purpose, because who knows about collateral damage) was Frasier Crane, and he was asking for it. The Vehicon transformation wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't a magical floaty ribbon. Bulkhound was very concerned that we would forget that he was, in fact, a fat ballerina. Grimlock & company respect strength, which is what Prime had to prove. They're not very smart, those guys. I expect Bayverse Quintessons/Unicron coming up. This was an okay movie. It was long enough for the 15 dollars I paid to see it, and reasonably coherent. There were some obvious effect shot cuts. It bridges the gap between reboot and sequel similar to those last two Hulk movies and his role in the Avengers. Taken on it's own, with no knowledge of the other films, I'm sure I could gives a "good." But I can't unsee the other movies, and can't wait for Terry to take a crack at this one.
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Jun 29, 2014 23:58
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CAPT. Rainbowbeard posted:and he was asking for it. problematic
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Jun 30, 2014 00:17
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I don't know how someone could see Pain & Gain, which is about as scathing a satire against the American Dream as you can make, and then look at Optimus draped in red, white, and blue brutally killing poorly-defined bad guys, and then go on to not make some sort of connection that Bay and his compatriots are sort of disgusted with many aspects of America and interested in using the films to showcase that. That people are repulsed by his films and also endlessly (or at least one billion dollars' worth) attracted to them is exactly the sort of hosed-up dynamic they seem intent on exploring. But, maybe not. I don't know. To be honest, the whole idea of debating intent seems fruitless and arbitrary to me. Even if Bay made some public address stating the entirety of his intent, if it was too intellectual an approach, from what many of you are saying you would attribute that purely to hindsight, or credit such an approach to other people reporting to him on what to say in order for him to sound smart. So there's an argument that never goes to any intellectually interesting place. Why can't we just look at the materials in place in the films, acknowledge that art doesn't exist in a vacuum, and create interpretations that align with the text as it is given? I love to think about class and gender and race and corpocracies and have a fear of surveillance; when I watch these movies, those things get brought up and are examined in some weird and interesting (and sometimes outright awful) ways. I imagine some of you see none of the things I see; that's cool. Keep looking. I would love to look for what you're discussing, but to be honest why X killed Y or why isn't backstory Z referenced just isn't very fun to explore when compared to how a work can be analogous to the issues of its day. The issue I would take with some folks is that they are putting their gut response under the purview of their analytical criticism, and to be honest I've seen everyone here wax philosophical about pieces of plastic so I know you're smarter than that. I would argue that all these movies are great at science fiction, because the object of science fiction is to lay out a canvas for people to examine their own world and the oddness of interpretations available to them for social and political issues. These movies have some pretty troubling interpretations to examine. MTMTE does too, for example, but it's approach is more streamlined and many great areas of discussion are found just near the surface (the available quality of a surface read of something has little to go with ultimate quality, imo, and is more an expression of POV and style). I haven't seen AOE yet because I'm on vacation, but I can't wait to jump in tomorrow when I get back. The films are just loving fascinating.
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Jun 30, 2014 00:22
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Xenomrph posted:So you're buying the whole line regardless of whether or not you like the characters or even the quality of the toys, but just because it's arbitrarily labeled a certain thing? And it truly is arbitrary - much of the HFTD and RTS toys are arguably "Generations" styled toys, even though they don't have the Generations title, for example. The Classics Generations figures have all been pretty good quality. So that's never been an issue. I just prefer their G1 aesthetic over the movie guys, so if the two packs are coming with Classics Generations guys with the same Classics instruction sheet I was figuring on getting them because the redone Classics Prime and grimlock looked pretty ok. I've got a huge diorama with everything from Classics to Generations so I'm always looking to add stuff from the line. Also while I do have all of HFTD, the deluxes were going for under 5 bucks on clearance at TJMaxx and other places and voyagers were like 10 bucks. There were no had to get figures or rare ones until RTS with the whole windcharger deal. Everything in that line was common and oversaturated so nothing ran close to MSRP. Of course now things are higher than they were so you can't even get the legends sets and other exclusives for 3 dollars. The Taint Reaper fucked around with this message at 00:33 on Jun 30, 2014 |
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Jun 30, 2014 00:30
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Captain Magic posted:I don't know how someone could see Pain & Gain, which is about as scathing a satire against the American Dream as you can make, and then look at Optimus draped in red, white, and blue brutally killing poorly-defined bad guys, and then go on to not make some sort of connection that Bay and his compatriots are sort of disgusted with many aspects of America and interested in using the films to showcase that. That people are repulsed by his films and also endlessly (or at least one billion dollars' worth) attracted to them is exactly the sort of hosed-up dynamic they seem intent on exploring. I don't know how someone could see Pain & Gain and think that's what it was. Pain & Gain is a meanspirited and straightforward celebration of what you seem to think it's satirizing. I think you're staring at the blank reflective surface so long your brain is seeing things that aren't there in an attempt to explain it. The alternative, that these films really are as shallow, repulsive and cynical as they appear to be, is so hard to accept that it's easier to recontextualize Bay's work as some kind of subversive self-reflexive commentary, but I don't buy that interpretation for one second. It's simply not there in the text. Is it possible that, immersed in the cultural zeitgeist of the current day, people making the biggest, dumbest, slambangingest, explodiest action pictures imaginable accidentally ended up going so far over the top that they made something that could be taken as a satire of same? Sure, it's possible, but I don't believe it's intentional at all. I mean you're aligning yourself with Armond White on this. That in itself should be a giant screaming red flag. Keldroc fucked around with this message at 00:35 on Jun 30, 2014 |
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Jun 30, 2014 00:32
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I keep going back to, in my head, this scene in DOTM where Ironhide steps on a car with two people in it. It's during the scene with the standoff between Sideswipe and Ironhide and the two Dreads. Like, that's pretty antiheroic, no question about it. That's a very deliberate thing to do, and it's not like those shots happen by like, fuckin' accident. Those actors had to be hired, they had to be told to sit in that car and that car had to be crushed and the shot had to be rendered and Ironhide's foot had to be modeled crushing a car with two actors in it. And for something that's not even a focus of a shot, that's a lot of loving work for a throwaway gag, especially since it isn't played as one. Is there a message in these films beyond a simple summer action flick? Maybe? Is it a well-delivered message if so? Not really. Are these films worth looking at to examine the cultural trends they exhibit, even if they lack distinct messages targeted at the viewer? Yes, absolutely.
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Jun 30, 2014 00:44
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Bear in mind, Bay's parents are the most hippie-ish, California liberal types you could imagine, and he was schooled at one of those places that doesn't 'do' grades, by their choice. I find it far more likely that his fetishising of the military and traditional conservative values and masculinity is more a "gently caress YOU DAD!" concept (see the famous "Loshers whine about their BESHT!" speech from The Rock) than a brilliant mockery of those ideals. It's just that an incompetent celebration of a value can easily look like a well-thought out parody of it.
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Jun 30, 2014 00:53
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Rei_ posted:I keep going back to, in my head, this scene in DOTM where Ironhide steps on a car with two people in it. It's during the scene with the standoff between Sideswipe and Ironhide and the two Dreads. I just see this as Bay & Company acknowledging that if giant robots fight in a populated area, there's going to be collateral damage. Action heroes do stuff like that all the time in movies, and most people don't give it a second thought when John McClane does something that probably gets people hurt or maybe killed. But when you bring in something like giant alien robots or even a superpowered humanoid, you're crossing into a realm of gods stepping on ants, especially when the movies themselves contextualize the Autobot/Decepticon conflict as something that is, by Optimus' own statements, not the humans' war. That's why Ironhide stepping on that car is disturbing, because we're used to superhuman heroes that take pains to keep innocent bystanders out of the line of fire. But that doesn't happen in Bay's films, and in the conflict between "making wry commentary about the nature of action pictures" and "didn't think about the consequences because cars getting crushed by robots looks loving awesome," I'm going to Occam's Razor to the latter explanation every drat time. quote:Is there a message in these films beyond a simple summer action flick? Maybe? Is it a well-delivered message if so? Not really. Are these films worth looking at to examine the cultural trends they exhibit, even if they lack distinct messages targeted at the viewer? Yes, absolutely. I don't disagree with any of this, but in my opinion the people who think the arcane meaning you can extract from these films as a fun intellectual exercise were put there intentionally have no leg to stand on. I tremendously enjoyed Terry's thread on the first trilogy, but I took it as an absurdist exploration of taking the death of the author to such an extreme that you come back around and ascribe ridiculously complex meaning to authorial intent. I took it like those old internet copypastas about how Hello Kitty has no mouth because she represents the silenced masses killed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and in truth the black infinite eyes that stare out at you represent pain. It's a cool and different way to think about something that's familiar and likely without much real intellectual depth, but I would hope that nobody actually thinks that's Sanrio's intent when they sell you a pencil case.
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Jun 30, 2014 00:55
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Gaz-L posted:Bear in mind, Bay's parents are the most hippie-ish, California liberal types you could imagine, and he was schooled at one of those places that doesn't 'do' grades, by their choice. I find it far more likely that his fetishising of the military and traditional conservative values and masculinity is more a "gently caress YOU DAD!" concept (see the famous "Loshers whine about their BESHT!" speech from The Rock) than a brilliant mockery of those ideals. It's just that an incompetent celebration of a value can easily look like a well-thought out parody of it. But the real crime is Pacific Rime 2 won't even come close to AOE's amount of money made.
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Jun 30, 2014 01:04
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Transformers: immersed in the cultural zeitgeist of the current day
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Jun 30, 2014 01:17
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I don't think the Transformers movies ever knew what they were trying to be.
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Jun 30, 2014 01:56
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Why cookie Rocket posted:Between this discussion and the movie discussion you're coming across as really confrontational lately, is everything ok at home? Vaerai fixating on what is/isn't Generations strikes me as Dumb poo poo, but far be it from me to tell someone how to spend their money (on transforming robot toys, no less).
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Jun 30, 2014 02:29
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SlothfulCobra posted:I don't think the Transformers movies ever knew what they were trying to be. What are you trying to be?
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Jun 30, 2014 03:12
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Keldroc posted:I don't know how someone could see Pain & Gain and think that's what it was. Pain & Gain is a meanspirited and straightforward celebration of what you seem to think it's satirizing. I think you're staring at the blank reflective surface so long your brain is seeing things that aren't there in an attempt to explain it. The alternative, that these films really are as shallow, repulsive and cynical as they appear to be, is so hard to accept that it's easier to recontextualize Bay's work as some kind of subversive self-reflexive commentary, but I don't buy that interpretation for one second. It's simply not there in the text. Again, authorial intent is besides the point, and always has been. You're getting hung up on intent when interpretation is a far better pathway for discourse. I don't really care if Bay intended the things I see or not. They are there, in the canvas. Art bounces off of other art and of society. That is interesting to me. And even if the Transformers films are shallow, repulsive, and cynical (I wouldn't disagree with you on all of those points)--that's still no reason to write them off. They made a billion loving dollars. They are connecting with people. If these films are exactly as you describe, then them doing bang-up business and connecting with people on an enormous scale is like when voters vote against their best interests. It's all just fascinating. As to whether something is "there" in the text or not--that's not really up to you when it comes to my interpretation. There are lots of things that can inform an interpretation outside of what an author intended; if I continually make a case for an interpretation, however, we can start to make one or two reasonable guesses about what an author wanted to communicate. Even so, because someone can take the same evidence and point it in the opposite direction, there are no real attainable, objective facts available about intent. There are only valid courses of argument for interpretation. (As such, I would also say that I'm confused at your attempt to override my interpretation with your "harder-to-accept" version based on your completely unsupportable insight into the author's intent.) It terms of Pain & Gain, I would posit that a film that has someone continually look like a complete fool and ends that film with the same person in jail isn't really celebrating the person or their actions. You can have a different interpretation of that, which is cool. Keldroc posted:I tremendously enjoyed Terry's thread on the first trilogy, but I took it as an absurdist exploration of taking the death of the author to such an extreme that you come back around and ascribe ridiculously complex meaning to authorial intent. I took it like those old internet copypastas about how Hello Kitty has no mouth because she represents the silenced masses killed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki... So you ascribed an interpretation to a work that the author may or may not have intended, you say?
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Jun 30, 2014 03:41
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I enjoyed it but thought it was overly long.
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Jun 30, 2014 03:46
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Ka0 posted:Break from all the movie spoiler talk; you guys sure I'm supposed to hate Energon toys? Nobody could ever hate Energon Mirage. Unless you don't have a heart.
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Jun 30, 2014 03:49
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