|
I got the impression that Alphie was the child she was pregnant with.
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2023 15:11
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 5, 2024 22:03 |
|
|
Howdy! I helped (in a tiny, tiny, way) with the VFX work on this...about the only thing people are praising, which is a nice feeling, I guess. Personally, I liked the movie. Derivitive, yes, but at least it had a vision and wasn't made by committee. Plus the on-location shooting is pretty immaculate. Will say, without breaking too many rules or NDAs or whatever about how-the-sausage-is-made: Gareth Edwards is one of those directors who really loves his job and loved creating stuff. I've been in meetings with directors who couldn't give less of a poo poo about things or had to have their producers get them up to speed on what they're looking at - like they've never seen a rough cut of their own movie before - but not with Gareth. He could explain things how he wanted them, had his concept artist in every meeting to hash things out, and genuinely seemed excited to get his vision right - as well as compromising on cost and technique and look when necessary. If he was impressed or it worked well with the movie, he was enthusiastic and grateful, and just a "nice guy". Dude was sometimes on 4 hours of sleep and 14 hours into his day and still brought his A-game to every meeting. Only other director I've met / worked with that had the same level of positive attitude? Paul WS Anderson (Mortal Kombat, etc.). Which is weird, I guess, since Anderson's considered a bit of a "hack". Won't name any jerks, but they're usually "name brand" directors, producers, or showrunners. I know the movie bombed but I'm rooting for Gareth to keep making stuff, based on his good-guy-ness. 
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2023 16:16
|
|
|
PeterWeller posted:I got the impression that Alphie was the child she was pregnant with. It’s treated as though Alphie is the secret twin of the biological kid, which is fascinating because that can’t possibly have been the case. Like, logistically, Alphie would have had to go through multiple iterations, or have passed through various material supports. The implication is that Maya designed her to be a learning robot who begins ‘blank’ and has to experience roughly nine months of existence as a fetus before being transferred into (a series of?) more-mature bodies by the team in the underground lab. (To the question of how Maya was able to hide everything, that huge team of assistants is the simple answer.) This ties back into the idea of “donating your likeness” - where, for whatever reason, robots can’t or won’t invent their own human faces. Alphie is possibly the first robot to have the face of a ‘nonexistent’ person, extrapolated from scans of Maya’s kid. So that’s a big innovation in this setting.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2023 16:50
|
|
|
I think my major critique of the movie is that it really only works on the metaphor levelbif that makes sense. Like it's a good movie about western imperialism, but it's not a good movie about humans fighting sentient ai. I think the big issue is that the setting is too complicated for the story they are trying to tell. There's too much stuff going on in the background that isn't really important to the story, but really needs further explanation to establish the context of the story.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2023 17:28
|
|
|
Simplex posted:I think my major critique of the movie is that it really only works on the metaphor levelbif that makes sense. Like it's a good movie about western imperialism, but it's not a good movie about humans fighting sentient ai. This is what I liked about it. I thought I was in for another Prometheus story and then after about a half hour realized I wasn't, which was fun.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2023 17:31
|
|
|
Captain Hotbutt posted:Howdy! I helped (in a tiny, tiny, way) with the VFX work on this...about the only thing people are praising, which is a nice feeling, I guess. You did great work! And I have good news; to qualify as a bomb it would have to lose money, and it's still in theatres and has made back it's budget already, which is pretty impressive considering it's a sci fi movie that accurately depicts the brutality of western power! It may not make a lot of profit, but it's not like Fox/Disney was gonna share that with us so who cares
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2023 17:32
|
|
|
SuperMechagodzilla posted:It’s treated as though Alphie is the secret twin of the biological kid, which is fascinating because that can’t possibly have been the case. I thought they said she grew up, like her own physical body matured and grew like a biological body. I figured the hollow neck was just an aesthetic thing to remind everyone (especially the audience) that she's AI.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2023 17:44
|
|
|
Captain Hotbutt posted:Howdy! I helped (in a tiny, tiny, way) with the VFX work on this...about the only thing people are praising, which is a nice feeling, I guess. This is cool to see at least. It did feel like a film made with love for the visuals, that Gareth had a REALLY specific idea in his head what it should look like. And those visuals were great. I liked NOMAD hanging over the cities, I liked the targetting reticule (once I worked out what it was) and the design of everything was great. The little "us army" mark on the tank or the scene of the barrel robots running - all really nice. But I agree with everything Acebuckeye13 has said in the thread. Me and the friend I saw it with just didn't like the world building at all. Firstly a nation that's Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia merged together feels dumb as gently caress. Secondly the US just having carte blanche to do what it wants in that nation (especially 50 years from now) felt insane. Okay it's a vietnam war allegory, fine. But I really don't like what they implied with it and how they showed this future. Plus it's been 15 years, if they have their big spaceship just flying around why are these AI bases hidden? They're just out in the open. In fact it felt like half the population of Vietnam was AI. The motivation and drive of the US as the villain didn't feel like it made sense. Destroy all AI? Sure. Kill the 'creator' (I don't actually know how this person WAS the creator, they didn't come up with the idea of AI...was it just to stop the weapon which had already been made?) sure I guess. But there's loving AI all OVER the show that they completely ignore. Setting and theme is really important to me and I just think they did lovely with it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2023 20:22
|
|
|
The behaviour of the Yanks is the most realistic aspect of the whole thing! It's not an allegory for Vietnam, but the war on terror Blood Boils fucked around with this message at 21:07 on Oct 19, 2023 |
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2023 21:04
|
|
|
Yeah it's very much we are going to invade Afghanistan because we want to kill or capture Bin Laden, to that's not really a priority, to 10 years later killing or capturing Bin Laden is suddenly a priority again.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2023 21:19
|
|
|
Blood Boils posted:The behaviour of the Yanks is the most realistic aspect of the whole thing! It felt like what Americans think they can do. Full scale deployment in the backyard of the other superpower in 40 years time? Na
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 07:56
|
|
|
Taear posted:Plus it's been 15 years, if they have their big spaceship just flying around why are these AI bases hidden? They're just out in the open. In fact it felt like half the population of Vietnam was AI. The motivation and drive of the US as the villain didn't feel like it made sense. Destroy all AI? Sure. Kill the 'creator' (I don't actually know how this person WAS the creator, they didn't come up with the idea of AI...was it just to stop the weapon which had already been made?) sure I guess. It’s not too complicated. In our reality, you get extreme anti-immigration rhetoric from the right-wing which is often just straight-up genocidal. “They’re stealing our jobs!” However, these reactionary figures do nothing to stop companies from employing undocumented workers. Is this a contradiction? No, because the actual goal is slavery: for the workers to have as little rights as possible, up to and including the point that they can be killed with impunity. The US military’s stated goal of the elimination of all AI is an exaggeration, believed only by the most extreme, a cover for their use of AIs as a disposable workforce. See: the suicide bombers, brain duplication tech, and other obvious AI-related tech used by the baddies. “Nirmata” was a high-ranking member of the insurgency, helping to develop more and more sophisticated technology to combat this. This includes, apparently, the widespread ideological campaign to ‘humanize’ AIs with faces and such. Although, unknown to the protagonist, the US military believed it had killed Nirmata at the start of the film, the insurgency continued to make headway in the conflict. The US isn’t winning, and couldn’t kill every robot even if they really wanted to. The NOMAD station, at the end, is a last resort where they are about to fully declare war on the entire nation (presumably because their newest intel shows just how well-supported the insurgency actually is). The ultimate goal for the good guys at the end is to prevent this.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 14:57
|
|
|
Most of the issues with this film are a refusal to admit Americans are scum, imo.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 16:23
|
|
|
HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Most of the issues with this film are a refusal to admit Americans are scum, imo. For real.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 17:54
|
|
|
HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Most of the issues with this film are a refusal to admit Americans are scum, imo. Fer sure, but it’s exacerbated by this interpretive failure where, for example, the imagery of streets full of robots is met with a declaration that the streets should not be full of robots. Instead of interpreting the imagery, the imagery is ignored in favour of an imagined scenario. Of course, but these two things are linked because the imagined scenario is one where the Americans are fully self-aware and omnipotent.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 18:14
|
|
|
HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Most of the issues with this film are a refusal to admit Americans are scum, imo. Man I'm absolutely okay with americans being scum It's just badly done It's a bit like Us where they're making a vibes film but over explaining it so you look for other explanations and they're just not there
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 18:16
|
|
|
SuperMechagodzilla posted:Fer sure, but it’s exacerbated by this interpretive failure where, for example, the imagery of streets full of robots is met with a declaration that the streets should not be full of robots. Instead of interpreting the imagery, the imagery is ignored in favour of an imagined scenario. There are robots who don't do anything useful because they're breeding out of control!
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 18:19
|
|
|
Taear posted:Man I'm absolutely okay with americans being scum I haven’t seen Us, but it seems like you’re just restating that you reject the film’s story wholesale for no clear reason (“vibes”?). That’s something to examine
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 18:38
|
|
|
Us has the issue where it explains too much. Specifically, ending in a loving info dump that makes the  meme look tactful.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 18:50
|
|
|
SuperMechagodzilla posted:I haven’t seen Us, but it seems like you’re just restating that you reject the film’s story wholesale for no clear reason (“vibes”?). You’d probably like it HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:There are robots who don't do anything useful because they're breeding out of control! They’re probably just programmed to be naturally lazy Taear posted:Man I'm absolutely okay with americans being scum The “explanation” in Us is not diagetically true exposition. You can tell because, among other things, it doesn’t make sense unless you’re a child
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 19:59
|
|
|
SuperMechagodzilla posted:I haven’t seen Us, but it seems like you’re just restating that you reject the film’s story wholesale for no clear reason (“vibes”?). I swear I remember you posting up a storm in the Us thread.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 20:29
|
|
|
Blood Boils posted:The behaviour of the Yanks is the most realistic aspect of the whole thing! I mean the VTOL jets were literally making Huey whup whup whup noises, I don't know what to tell you. though I guess you could say the war on terror was itself a vietnam allegory
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2023 06:37
|
|
|
Vietnam imagery is just shorthand for “ooh-rah” marines being sent to slaughter for something they don’t actually understand, just like it is in Aliens, not about Vietnam itself or the reasons for that specific war.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2023 06:44
|
|
|
A flawed movie, for sure, but I'm willing to forgive a lot for such a beautiful-looking film. There are so many great visuals: the cursor gliding over the landscape- the suicide runner drones- the neat corporate "us army" logos on the megatanks- big things looked big!- and so on.
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2023 08:29
|
|
|
I don't know why it so many peeps are saying this is a "vibes" movie - as opposed to . . movies that don't have tones, or make you feel emotions? Like what isn't a vibes movie!
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2023 15:15
|
|
|
Blood Boils posted:I don't know why it so many peeps are saying this is a "vibes" movie - as opposed to . . movies that don't have tones, or make you feel emotions? Like what isn't a vibes movie! I think the implication is that it only works on that level, instead of as both vibes and also as a simulator of a world where all decisions are practical and rational at the levels of individuals as well as collective society and governments.
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2023 15:36
|
|
|
Sure, but then the question is the same: what's a movie that attempts to simulate that? It just doesn't seem like a very coherent criticism compared to how often it's being repeated.
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2023 15:54
|
|
|
“Vibes movie” tends to just means the music and visuals are fantastic and also probably a little moody. It’s not a negative on its own. If someone says it’s “just a vibes movie,” they tend to mean those things are fantastic but nothing else is very good. “It’s an audiovisual spectacle with a weak or minimal narrative,” but spoken like someone under a certain age talking to friends rather than someone writing an essay.
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2023 00:18
|
|
|
The scenes of celebration after NOMAD blows up are a prelude to celebrations that will happen in the Global South after the first US carrier fleet gets destroyed in the next decade or two. I think the anti-imperialist themes were really solid. Besides the initial idea of "New Asia" consisting of seemingly every country south of China and east of India. There were a lot of religious themes too which I thought were interesting but not nearly as fleshed out. It seemed like most of the dialogue from Harun and Drew, "The Friend" who examines Alphie, about Alphie being explicitly a super-weapon is delivered while they are facing away from the camera. It made me think it might be ADR. It made me wonder if some previous versions of the plot Alphie was more symbolically important for the AIs, instead of "only" being able to take down NOMAD. There's also possibly something interesting going on with all of the dialogue about souls between Taylor and Alphie and the Buddhist imagery. Buddhism generally rejects the concept of a permanent soul. I wonder if Alphie asked one of the robo-monks if she had a soul and was told no. I think part of the use of Buddhist imagery is to portray the US blowing up religious sites in a way that's shocking again. Most Westerners are numb to drone strike or cruise missile hitting a mosque. Taylor, Maya/Nirmata, and Alphie are like a remixed version of the Christian trinity for the new race of robots. Allison Janney tells the temporarily resurrected soldier that she'll see him in Valhalla after his second death.
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2023 01:00
|
|
|
Something I keep coming back to is that the robots are wholly designed, created and manufactured by humans, but it's not terribly clear why. Why would you give feelings to your toaster? I do think there is a bunch of a running theme that the world is overly cynical, and arguably that is the purpose of the AI, to provide compassion.It's kind of interesting that the US views the AI as effectively Screamers and that those emotions are simulated at best and just another weapon in the robots arsenal at worst.
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2023 01:59
|
|
|
Blood Boils posted:I don't know why it so many peeps are saying this is a "vibes" movie - as opposed to . . movies that don't have tones, or make you feel emotions? Like what isn't a vibes movie! It just means that concepts are introduced without expository establishing shots, like the tentacle robot or the giant tanks. Something I don't think has been mentioned - Joshua (no relation) is constantly having flashbacks to his pregnancy photoshoot because he doesn't remember anything about his years undercover except that he had a pregnant wife who he betrayed. It's ambiguous whether he thought her secret robot baby project was not worth mentioning to his handlers at the time, or whether he's just such a total dumbass that he didn't notice and thought she was knitting hats or something. And it's been well-trodden but the answer to "Why doesn't New Asia have weapons capable of attacking the hovering US orbital bombardment station" is "the US has an orbital bombardment station". Beyond that the insurgents don't seem to have many explosives of any variety.
|
|
#
?
Oct 25, 2023 09:36
|
|
|
Bugblatter posted:“Vibes movie” tends to just means the music and visuals are fantastic and also probably a little moody. It’s not a negative on its own. If someone says it’s “just a vibes movie,” they tend to mean those things are fantastic but nothing else is very good. I know it's not necessarily a negative. But all that just seems to waste time avoiding the real meat of the issue: what's weak or not good. Edit: for the record, imo the weaknesses are some of the dialogue is awkward and the pacing is sometimes too rushed, but these are fairly minor issues in what is otherwise a pretty solid movie Blood Boils fucked around with this message at 02:53 on Oct 27, 2023 |
|
#
?
Oct 26, 2023 22:39
|
|
|
Simplex posted:Something I keep coming back to is that the robots are wholly designed, created and manufactured by humans, but it's not terribly clear why. Why would you give feelings to your toaster? I do think there is a bunch of a running theme that the world is overly cynical, and arguably that is the purpose of the AI, to provide compassion.It's kind of interesting that the US views the AI as effectively Screamers and that those emotions are simulated at best and just another weapon in the robots arsenal at worst. A ton of our existing technologies are totally unnecessary or dangerous by most measures. Insert Jeff Goldblum from Jurassic Park quote here* But besides that the robots/AI in this are less a prediction of the future than stand-ins for irl dehumanized people in the global south/3rd/"developing" world.
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2023 03:07
|
|
|
Blood Boils posted:I know it's not necessarily a negative. But all that just seems to waste time avoiding the real meat of the issue: what's weak or not good. For me too much of it felt like they had nice concept art of something (eg: robot in buddhist robes) but didn't really care to explore it. I guess it also feels like the motivation of the US in the story is kinda all over the place. You want to stop the creator - cool okay. But what does that mean before they find this super weapon? What does blowing up an AI base (or 'all the AI bases') mean when it feels like 65% of all people in new asia are an AI? It's been said before but having New Asia be a polity at all is stupid and I really don't like it. Yes it's being metaphorical, this just represents 'downtrodden place the US can gently caress about in' but it still seems kinda thoughtless. Especially when it really looked like they were bombing southern china in that map near the end too. This stuff doesn't necessarily matter but I can't help myself thinking about it when they try and establish "realistic" politics and are trying to make a point. Also people getting hit by a bomb, not noticing then realising it was about to blow really took me out of it both times, felt like something from loving Abbot And Costello Blood Boils posted:But besides that the robots/AI in this are less a prediction of the future than stand-ins for irl dehumanized people in the global south/3rd/"developing" world. Ye which is fine but they try and make it feel a bit "realer" than that. I get the metaphor of it, the rest of the film feels kinda clumsy around it. I said it earlier but for me it was like Us - where you want a Lynchian style dreamy kinda story that's teaching you a lesson, but you've gone a BIT too far into the real and it's stopped it working. Taear fucked around with this message at 02:17 on Nov 7, 2023 |
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2023 02:15
|
|
|
I admit I've only seen bits of Meet Frankenstein but Nomad eating RPGs did not remind me of Abbott & Costello
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2023 23:23
|
|
|
Taear posted:For me too much of it felt like they had nice concept art of something (eg: robot in buddhist robes) but didn't really care to explore it. This comes up in a lot of discussions, but what do you mean by 'explore'? The droid is a buddhist, like many of those we see onscreen. In fact, a significant number of the movie's droids - if not a majority - practice buddhism. These droids, as you may recall, are the ones shown fighting in the conflict the entire movie is about. They're protective of an entity they call The Creator, which is also the title of the movie, so it seems like religion is important. Alpha lays hands on a suicidal soldier-droid, calming him. (The antagonists, on the other hand, are religious in their own way - caught up in ideas like that droids don't have 'souls' and so-on.) Because of this gulf between the amount of illustration and your demand for 'more exploration', my assumption is that you're writing about expository dialogue. The droid doesn't sit down and explain to us the tenets of his faith in detail. Instead, he and the other characters simply do things in the setting. But that's not a flaw. Drawing inferences from what characters do is important, because you otherwise end up asking questions like why characters fighting a war are attempting to destroy the enemy's infrastructure and and kill their leadership. What would they gain from that? It doesn't make sense!
|
|
#
?
Nov 9, 2023 15:39
|
|
|
I really dislike the uneven tone of this movie, specifically all the immature jokey bullshit which defuses any moment in which you might feel how you should when watching something terrible happen. It completely deflates the power of many good scenes and invokes disney IP. Levity is important in all movies, but this poo poo is childish - loving your mother jokes via translation over a dying scientist, dog fetches dynamite... christ.
Qmass fucked around with this message at 07:08 on Nov 14, 2023 |
|
#
?
Nov 14, 2023 06:56
|
|
|
made a thing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7w7Uh-q1u8
|
|
#
?
Nov 16, 2023 00:27
|
|
|
Qmass posted:I really dislike the uneven tone of this movie, specifically all the immature jokey bullshit which defuses any moment in which you might feel how you should when watching something terrible happen. It completely deflates the power of many good scenes and invokes disney IP. Levity is important in all movies, but this poo poo is childish - loving your mother jokes via translation over a dying scientist, dog fetches dynamite... christ. I don't think it's childish for a scientist to curse the soldiers who have murdered her and her colleagues. Dogs actually do that kind of thing irl all the time, they're dogs! It is funny, but horrifying too imo Lol
|
|
#
?
Nov 24, 2023 01:44
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 5, 2024 22:03 |
|
|
The movie had a lot of cool visuals and ideas. The plot was incredibly dumb. I hate to be a Cinema Sins kind of guy but some of it was just taking the piss. - So, the Bad Guys capture Robot Child God and put her in their choppers, right under the Nomad. They then.... fly her to LA? We then get an incredibly dumb scene of her and Washington just climbing a ladder out of an overpass and somehow beating the government to the... spaceport! And no one at the spaceport is ready to look for or stop the one and only child-bot in existence in the world, who is also Enemy Number 1. Yes, yes, because the movie wants to do a 9/11 but it doesn't earn it at all. 9/11 worked because those guys were undercover. It wouldn't work if Bin Laden just broke out of an American jail and drove direct to JFK and bought a ticket. Why not just have the aircraft fly directly up to Nomad and save us several scenes of the bad guys being dumb for the sake of dumb? They can even have Alphie take control of the aircraft mid-flight and drive it right into the Control Room or something. - The response to being boarded by 2 hostiles (one of them a child) is just for everyone to bail? This child is of course able to shut down electronics but is this child able to shut down a single guy with a crowbar? She is 'nonviolent' and not one person is even willing to just shove her over? I know, it is so the movie works. In Star Wars at least they build up Tarkin and Vader's rivalry so it makes some sense when Tarkin refuses to deploy all the defenses because he's trying to show off. Here it just seems like standard procedure to completely evacuate your superweapon when a child gets on it. - Wow they did it they got Nomad. But, the US still has the location of all these secret robot bases? The US is also presumably capable of seeing where their own escape pod lands, right? This is the point of escape pods, so someone can go pick up the survivors. This is the highly advanced future where the US has an amazing Death Star but somehow lost the ability to put ordnance on a target in any other way? Again this might work if it is all allegory, but this is a movie that simultaneously wants us to believe every robot is a unique individual with desires, yet it also wants to have the trope that you can press a single button to turn off the enemy's war. I want to see a better movie in this same setting. I feel like the movie is absolutely on team Alphie but if we're supposed to believe these robots are humans, then it is loving horrifying that a child is born that is capable of just enslaving or destroying any of them with a mere thought.
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2023 12:37
|
|