At 06:28 AM 1/30/2007, Dr. Core wrote:
seen. War is a central of aspect of Gundam. In fact, aren't the
asteroid battles in first Gundam, at Solomon and A Bau A Qu modeled
on the island hopping campaigns in the Pacific war? But comparing
Hah, I never thought of that before, but there's indeed some similarity...
You...wait, what? I thought the notion of the Earthside bits of
Gundam being the European theater and the spaceside bits being the
war in the Pacific was common knowledge, and in fact the stated
intent of Tomino and the rest of the show's crew.
Likewise, many other _good_ stories that also achieved commercial
success recently had their (often unsubtle) moral theme ignored by the
wide audience. I am not talking about "art house" fares like American
Beauty. I am talking about the likes of LOTR, Star Wars prequels,
X-Men, V for Vendetta, Borat etc.
Well, do note that most of these are adaptations of existing works,
and that the film versions often lose a lot of the substance that
make the original stories work to begin with. LotR had so many themes
to it that it can't really be easily distilled, and the Star Wars
prequels were so mired in mediocrity that their themes were lost in
the shuffle. As for X-Men...the core of the comic's identity is the
civil rights movement, but that looks awfully strange given that the
X-Men exist in a world full of people like the Avengers and the
Fantastic Four. Why would mutants be reviled when other sorts of
superhumans are celebrated as heroes? Doesn't make a lot of sense.
And of course, V for Vendetta was largely a critique of Thatcher-era
British politics, something that's largely lost in the film version.
When wife and I saw V for Vendetta we were surprised that there were
no riots against Wachowski brothers, Natalie Portman etc. Don't they
deserve at least a Dixie Chicks treatment? But then we realize it's
not necessary, the audience are quite ready to enjoy the movie without
accepting or rejecting the film's message.
Well, it got that treatment from Alan Moore, who wrote the original
story. :) His work was set up as a conflict between totalitarianism
and anarchy, whereas the film version was more about the conflict
between liberalism and neo-conservatism. This means the film is
essentially more American-centric (in tone if not setting), which
garnered it a fair bit of criticism overseas.
But yes, as you said a film's messages are largely lost on the bulk
of the viewing audience. So long as the flick is entertaining most
people don't seem to care what it has to say; they just want their
action and their drama and they're happy.
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