Happy Feet
Dec. 20th, 2006 11:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quizcustodietAm home for Christmas now - doing a couple of hours worth of work a day to keep my hand in, but mostly I'm quite enjoying the chance to relax a bit. Playing very silly games - my father, my youngest brother and I are currently playing our way through the original Neverwinter Nights single-player campaign. So far it's mainly reminded me of how annoyingly obvious the first set of 'secret' baddies are, and how infuriatingly impotent your PCs are to do anything even once they've belatedly worked out the cunning conspiracy. So if anyone has any recommendations for modules suitable for co-operative multiplayer, do let me know!
The main entertainment for today was, however, not computer based - we went to the cinema to see Happy Feet.
The main entertainment for today was, however, not computer based - we went to the cinema to see Happy Feet.
My first impression was: here we go again. And it's fair to say that the current crop of animated films is getting pretty repetitive - this is illustrated particularly well by a trailer that aired before Happy Feet, about a little fish that learns to outswim sharks. Which would be great.. .except that it was already the plot for Shark Tale a year or two ago. All the usual ingredients are here - loner/outcast suffers for his individuality in the face of conformist society, is rejected by love interest, sets off on redemptive quest with a misfit group of characters for comic relief, etc.
And then it kind of veers away, with our hero spending some time going (not so quietly!) mad in a zoo. The surprise of this move raised the movie several points in my estimation, points which it unfortunately then lost for a sudden change of focus from our 'yay individuality!' story to a 'boo non-sustainable fishing!' story - the rest of the film is an uncomfortable superposition between these two stories, and suffers for it. I think either of these would have made an interesting and entertaining film, but both at once doesn't quite come off.
One thing redeems the movie for me - I think it became increasingly clear through the film that what they intended from the conjunction of these two stories was to subvert the basic idea of the film: to raise a question in our minds about how sensible it really is that a cute tap-dancing penguin is enough to make an audience reconsider its fish purchasing habits. That is, to point out that this is just another example of humanity not really caring about the environment until it's cute and conveniently anthropomorphic, and how rubbish that is as an attitude to the environment. I think the film-making is a bit too flawed for this to really work, but it entertained me enough to leave a positive impression of the film for me.
And then it kind of veers away, with our hero spending some time going (not so quietly!) mad in a zoo. The surprise of this move raised the movie several points in my estimation, points which it unfortunately then lost for a sudden change of focus from our 'yay individuality!' story to a 'boo non-sustainable fishing!' story - the rest of the film is an uncomfortable superposition between these two stories, and suffers for it. I think either of these would have made an interesting and entertaining film, but both at once doesn't quite come off.
One thing redeems the movie for me - I think it became increasingly clear through the film that what they intended from the conjunction of these two stories was to subvert the basic idea of the film: to raise a question in our minds about how sensible it really is that a cute tap-dancing penguin is enough to make an audience reconsider its fish purchasing habits. That is, to point out that this is just another example of humanity not really caring about the environment until it's cute and conveniently anthropomorphic, and how rubbish that is as an attitude to the environment. I think the film-making is a bit too flawed for this to really work, but it entertained me enough to leave a positive impression of the film for me.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-20 11:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-20 11:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-20 11:47 pm (UTC)Mind you, I spent ages trying to post a bit of HTML code the other day, and in the end I only got it to work by inserting the <> as > <. Sometimes "helpful" interfaces are just annoying *g*.