What are you watching right now?
- Thread starter LordOfDarkness
- Start date
I always adore these "behind the scenes" look when it comes to motion capture and making video games. 
Just watched the last Eva movie. I guess I didn't like it. It's not that it was bad but after chewing on it for bit I've really found myself not liking the way they wrapped things up.
The first two rebuild movies were far closer to the original but with a far grander scale and trimmed down to the bare minimum, but they were good interpretations. Once 3 hit, though, I started to waver.
Spoilers ahead, if you care.
When it comes to Shinji I really don't mind if he ended up with Asuka, Rei or Kaworu, though I'd prefer Asuka, so seeing Kaworu have a significantly larger role was nice, even if I could make and argument about how much better his presence is being only there a few minutes that changed Shinji's life again, and the science fiction elements were downright fascinating, but that's about it. I really didn't like Asuka's portrayal. She's become overly un empathetic and sympathetic. Yeah, she was tsundere personified but she wasn't so uncaring. They dialed that up to 15 and it made her utterly unlikable. Everyone's attitudes for that matter, were way too melodramatic. Their motivations were way too erratic and, really, just so for the sake of moving the plot. Their treatment of Shinji was pasted on drama and the narrative became less Eva and became something more akin to Darling in the Franx and Gurren Lagann. Neither are bad shows but they are also not Eva so that choice, to blow stuff up like that, the drama, the character behaviours, was a kind of stumble for me. For example, Shinji suddenly not listening to even Kaworu and spikes the Eva wasn't just irrational it was nonsensical within the character's traits. He wouldn't have ignored Kaworu's warnings like that, not when the consequences were so dire and he was the only person he believed in.
With 4 I liked the human elements far better. The action was still a bizarre mix of later Trigger and Gainax titles. It didn't have the same way about it that Eva once had, even with the first two Rebuild movies. Shinji being so positive and progressive with how he views the people in his life is the natural progression of the character. He's supposed to learn to love and the scenes with his father, though too long in my opinion, were a great look into him and who he was. There were a lot of good things about this movie but when you balance everything out I can only feel let down. Not angry, not cheated, I suppose. Disillusioned, disappointed. Edit: Also, that CG was ugly. I don't mind CG in anime but in this case it was hideous in parts and not sticking with 2D style art was very 4th wall breaking. Even when you break down the movies down right to storyboard it's done intentionally. WIth this CG it's ugly interpretations made it too uncanny valley.
From what I understand, the character of Mari is based on director Anno's wife, which explains why Shinji, his representation of himself in the story, parts ways with everyone to stay with her. Anno was famous for his clinical depression when making Eva back in the 90's and using it to express his emotional state. If this happy ending is in some way a reflection of his current state, happily married and living well, I can say that I am sincerely happy for him and if the trade for a real person's happiness is my disappointment in something, even if my expectations were decades old, I think it's a good trade and I'll gladly take it. Even so, I cannot pretend to be happy with it. Fortunately, this being something as open to appeal and intake as it can get, I can take my preferred format for the story as I see fit. Meaning, I can ignore the Rebuild movies and stick to the original, which is what I think I'll do.
The first two rebuild movies were far closer to the original but with a far grander scale and trimmed down to the bare minimum, but they were good interpretations. Once 3 hit, though, I started to waver.
Spoilers ahead, if you care.
When it comes to Shinji I really don't mind if he ended up with Asuka, Rei or Kaworu, though I'd prefer Asuka, so seeing Kaworu have a significantly larger role was nice, even if I could make and argument about how much better his presence is being only there a few minutes that changed Shinji's life again, and the science fiction elements were downright fascinating, but that's about it. I really didn't like Asuka's portrayal. She's become overly un empathetic and sympathetic. Yeah, she was tsundere personified but she wasn't so uncaring. They dialed that up to 15 and it made her utterly unlikable. Everyone's attitudes for that matter, were way too melodramatic. Their motivations were way too erratic and, really, just so for the sake of moving the plot. Their treatment of Shinji was pasted on drama and the narrative became less Eva and became something more akin to Darling in the Franx and Gurren Lagann. Neither are bad shows but they are also not Eva so that choice, to blow stuff up like that, the drama, the character behaviours, was a kind of stumble for me. For example, Shinji suddenly not listening to even Kaworu and spikes the Eva wasn't just irrational it was nonsensical within the character's traits. He wouldn't have ignored Kaworu's warnings like that, not when the consequences were so dire and he was the only person he believed in.
With 4 I liked the human elements far better. The action was still a bizarre mix of later Trigger and Gainax titles. It didn't have the same way about it that Eva once had, even with the first two Rebuild movies. Shinji being so positive and progressive with how he views the people in his life is the natural progression of the character. He's supposed to learn to love and the scenes with his father, though too long in my opinion, were a great look into him and who he was. There were a lot of good things about this movie but when you balance everything out I can only feel let down. Not angry, not cheated, I suppose. Disillusioned, disappointed. Edit: Also, that CG was ugly. I don't mind CG in anime but in this case it was hideous in parts and not sticking with 2D style art was very 4th wall breaking. Even when you break down the movies down right to storyboard it's done intentionally. WIth this CG it's ugly interpretations made it too uncanny valley.
From what I understand, the character of Mari is based on director Anno's wife, which explains why Shinji, his representation of himself in the story, parts ways with everyone to stay with her. Anno was famous for his clinical depression when making Eva back in the 90's and using it to express his emotional state. If this happy ending is in some way a reflection of his current state, happily married and living well, I can say that I am sincerely happy for him and if the trade for a real person's happiness is my disappointment in something, even if my expectations were decades old, I think it's a good trade and I'll gladly take it. Even so, I cannot pretend to be happy with it. Fortunately, this being something as open to appeal and intake as it can get, I can take my preferred format for the story as I see fit. Meaning, I can ignore the Rebuild movies and stick to the original, which is what I think I'll do.
Saw this video a while ago. I thought it was fascinating. I like the genre and the opening of this game is one of the best horror cinematics I've seen in ages.Man, why did I miss out on so much good survival horror back in the day?
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Finally reached the final season of Attack On Titan.
Sitting through Erwin's obsession with Eren's basement was awkward.
Sitting through Erwin's obsession with Eren's basement was awkward.
Good lord, Meyer went and actually published Midnight Sun? I remember reading the leaks back in high school, gosh I feel old.
Edward boasting that he can snap five children's necks per second will never not be hilarious to me.
Edward boasting that he can snap five children's necks per second will never not be hilarious to me.
Recap of Psychonauts 1 and it's VR spinoff Rhombus of Ruin.
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Wait, how did he measure that? Did he snap one child's neck, time it, and then multiply that to get a rate per second? Did he actually snap five kids' necks in a second? Is he snapping adults necks then scaling back per size?Good lord, Meyer went and actually published Midnight Sun? I remember reading the leaks back in high school, gosh I feel old.
Edward boasting that he can snap five children's necks per second will never not be hilarious to me.
He didn't. So like, he goes into murder mode upon sniffing Bella for the first time and has to hold himself back because if he drinks her there'll be witnesses. So he spends the rest of the class fantasising the best way to kill the rest of his classmates so he can enjoy drinking Bella in peace. He even plots it out, reckoning that if he started from the back he could take out half of the class before the other half noticed anything was wrong since he thinks he can snap five necks per second.
...It reads disturbingly like a school shooter. Sadly that is the most entertaining scene in the entire book.
Well, yeah, I'm aware that Stephenie Meyer has no self-awareness of what she writes and that she missed her calling as a horror author, and that this book is a hilarious doubling down on everything people criticized the original Twilight for by making Edward an even worse person than what Meyer thought she was portraying. (It's the Dawn of the Future of vampire romances, in short.)
I was just wondering how he thinks he can snap five necks a second, implying he must have snapped a non-zero amount of necks in the past. It's not like him being a school shooter is a departure from all the serial killing he was originally doing.
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Oh okay. Well he has killed people in the past before becoming a member of the Cullen family, during his vigilante days so I imagine he probably has snapped some necks in his old age.
I know that, but him being that precise about the amount of necks and the time sounds like internet tough guy "trained in gorilla warfare" tryhard copypasta type of thing. Which after giving it some thought, is entirely on brand for Meyer, because she's a hack who thinks Brazil has a West Coast and also that Jasper can willingly fight in the Confederate Army and no one will raise an eyebrow at that.
I propose a more interesting version of the Twilight series is one that acknowledges that Bella isn't exactly pure of heart in the situation and puts her on the side of villainess since none of the reasons she wants to become a vampire/likes Edward has to do with him as a person.