4 ms·

The word 'subtle' was included.

johnnyanmac 3y ago
"shoved" was also included. And I don't even think there's a DreamWorks movie as heavy handed as Wall-E, which we considered part of the "Renaissance"
- c_crank 3y ago
  Weird as it sounds, I would still describe the political message in Wall-E as more subtle than in Elemental, or even Strange World - another recent flop. Why is that? Wall-E, although clearly and one sidedly in favor of environmentalist or conservationist causes, still describes the problem and the solution in fantastic terms. The entire planet being covered in skyscrapers of toxic trash may have some parallels to the present, but those are just parallels. The message you can take away from Wall-E is not a literal solution (planting plants to rejuvenate things ignores the complexity of real life ecosystems - just consider invasive species!). Instead, the message must be more abstract - something like "Care more about the environment." The political situation in Elemental, by contrast, is barely abstract at all. There is a city, there are immigrants, and the elemental toothpaste commercial aesthetic is a thin veneer over real life racial and ethnic tensions. So any solution the movie suggests would be something that maps very closely to the real world.
  - gjsman-1000 3y ago
    Some critics brought this up, but the more overt message of Elemental actually makes things worse. Think about it. In real life, skin color doesn’t do… anything. It’s just a stupid way humans distinguish between each other. Elemental - the two “races” can literally annihilate each other on contact. It would be like if we had humans made from matter and antimatter. “Racism” in such a world is completely justified and a matter of survival - what message does that send if you are meant to read it as a racial allegory? It makes no sense.
    - yowzadave 3y ago
      Zootopia had this same problem. I believe we were supposed to see the “predators” and “prey” as allegories to racial groups and the tensions between them. But predators were literally killing and eating the prey! The prey were right to be afraid! If you were a rabbit I would not counsel you to become best friends with a fox, regardless of the assurances he provides you.
      - c_crank 3y ago
        An observation that will make Zootopia much more enjoyable is realizing that the predators and prey don't map onto racial groups and aren't intended to be seen that way.
        gjsman-1000 3y ago
        I don’t know, plenty of film critics as well as political review sites interpreted it that way; and no creative member behind the movie ever said that it was not meant to be somewhat correlated. Which as Vox pointed, is fairly problematic because the lack of an official statement means that not viewing it as a racial allegory is simply a matter of an opinionated interpretation that a true racist could disagree with, without any contradiction.
        c_crank 3y ago
        Without bringing highly opinionated interpretations into it, Nick Wild is voiced by a white man doing a white southern accent. The number of characters voiced by black men is not very high.
        mcphage 3y ago
        That was my frustration with the discourse around Zootopia when it released—people complained that the predator / prey distinction mapped badly onto US racial issues. But that was just people wanting the movie to be a thing which it wasn't, and then complaining that it didn't work.
  - jemmyw 3y ago
    I don't really see how the story in Wall-E is any more subtle than the one in Strange World by your measure: > The entire planet being covered in skyscrapers of toxic trash may have some parallels to the present, but those are just parallels. They lived on the back of a creature that was dying as a result of an infection and they had unknowingly been using the result of the infection as their power source. It's exactly the same kind of parallel and solution in fantastic terms. Stripped down these movies have a very similar storyline and message (things are broken, we can't just fix it without transforming ourselves, and some force or people will oppose that transformation). Now, I prefer Wall-E. I think the cinematics are better. The emptiness and stillness of Earth, the serenity of space, the scene where the spacecraft docks with the Aurora and is cleaned. Films of that era and before gave you some breathing space with the spectacle without so much shit going on constantly. That said, I think if Strange World came out at the time Wall-E did instead of it then it would have been better received, I personally feel like I'm pretty tired of the style.
    - c_crank 3y ago
      The problem in Strange World is abstract with parallels, but the solution maps more precisely to reality. We do not live on the back of a turtle, but the solution of abandoning the Brussel Sprouts is very similar to the real life message of abandoning fossil fuels. I do not think overt messaging was the main reason Strange World flopped (although it probably was the case for Turning Red), but rather, the general gross-ness of the character designs, along with the dull premise.
      - mcphage 3y ago
        > I do not think overt messaging was the main reason Strange World flopped (although it probably was the case for Turning Red) What overt messaging was in Turning Red? In any event, the reason that one flopped in theaters was that it also released simultaneously on Disney+, where AFAIK it has been very popular.
        c_crank 3y ago
        The message in Turning Red can be trivially read as a thirteen year old girl learning to prostitute herself against the wishes of her stifling and controlling mother, even if this wasn't the intent of the filmmakers. Concerned parents will probably also find it strange that a Pixar movie made for small children casually throws around words like 'degenerate' and 'stoner' and talks explicitly about pads for minutes on end. I am not sure I would take popularity on the streaming service as a sign of financial success, given something like Encanto was big in both the box offices and after the fact streaming, but who knows what the balance sheet really looks like with these big companies these days.

"shoved" was also included. And I don't even think there's a DreamWorks movie as heavy handed as Wall-E, which we considered part of the "Renaissance"

c_crank 3y ago
Weird as it sounds, I would still describe the political message in Wall-E as more subtle than in Elemental, or even Strange World - another recent flop. Why is that? Wall-E, although clearly and one sidedly in favor of environmentalist or conservationist causes, still describes the problem and the solution in fantastic terms. The entire planet being covered in skyscrapers of toxic trash may have some parallels to the present, but those are just parallels. The message you can take away from Wall-E is not a literal solution (planting plants to rejuvenate things ignores the complexity of real life ecosystems - just consider invasive species!). Instead, the message must be more abstract - something like "Care more about the environment." The political situation in Elemental, by contrast, is barely abstract at all. There is a city, there are immigrants, and the elemental toothpaste commercial aesthetic is a thin veneer over real life racial and ethnic tensions. So any solution the movie suggests would be something that maps very closely to the real world.
- gjsman-1000 3y ago
  Some critics brought this up, but the more overt message of Elemental actually makes things worse. Think about it. In real life, skin color doesn’t do… anything. It’s just a stupid way humans distinguish between each other. Elemental - the two “races” can literally annihilate each other on contact. It would be like if we had humans made from matter and antimatter. “Racism” in such a world is completely justified and a matter of survival - what message does that send if you are meant to read it as a racial allegory? It makes no sense.
  - yowzadave 3y ago
    Zootopia had this same problem. I believe we were supposed to see the “predators” and “prey” as allegories to racial groups and the tensions between them. But predators were literally killing and eating the prey! The prey were right to be afraid! If you were a rabbit I would not counsel you to become best friends with a fox, regardless of the assurances he provides you.
    - c_crank 3y ago
      An observation that will make Zootopia much more enjoyable is realizing that the predators and prey don't map onto racial groups and aren't intended to be seen that way.
      - gjsman-1000 3y ago
        I don’t know, plenty of film critics as well as political review sites interpreted it that way; and no creative member behind the movie ever said that it was not meant to be somewhat correlated. Which as Vox pointed, is fairly problematic because the lack of an official statement means that not viewing it as a racial allegory is simply a matter of an opinionated interpretation that a true racist could disagree with, without any contradiction.
        c_crank 3y ago
        Without bringing highly opinionated interpretations into it, Nick Wild is voiced by a white man doing a white southern accent. The number of characters voiced by black men is not very high.
      - mcphage 3y ago
        That was my frustration with the discourse around Zootopia when it released—people complained that the predator / prey distinction mapped badly onto US racial issues. But that was just people wanting the movie to be a thing which it wasn't, and then complaining that it didn't work.
- jemmyw 3y ago
  I don't really see how the story in Wall-E is any more subtle than the one in Strange World by your measure: > The entire planet being covered in skyscrapers of toxic trash may have some parallels to the present, but those are just parallels. They lived on the back of a creature that was dying as a result of an infection and they had unknowingly been using the result of the infection as their power source. It's exactly the same kind of parallel and solution in fantastic terms. Stripped down these movies have a very similar storyline and message (things are broken, we can't just fix it without transforming ourselves, and some force or people will oppose that transformation). Now, I prefer Wall-E. I think the cinematics are better. The emptiness and stillness of Earth, the serenity of space, the scene where the spacecraft docks with the Aurora and is cleaned. Films of that era and before gave you some breathing space with the spectacle without so much shit going on constantly. That said, I think if Strange World came out at the time Wall-E did instead of it then it would have been better received, I personally feel like I'm pretty tired of the style.
  - c_crank 3y ago
    The problem in Strange World is abstract with parallels, but the solution maps more precisely to reality. We do not live on the back of a turtle, but the solution of abandoning the Brussel Sprouts is very similar to the real life message of abandoning fossil fuels. I do not think overt messaging was the main reason Strange World flopped (although it probably was the case for Turning Red), but rather, the general gross-ness of the character designs, along with the dull premise.
    - mcphage 3y ago
      > I do not think overt messaging was the main reason Strange World flopped (although it probably was the case for Turning Red) What overt messaging was in Turning Red? In any event, the reason that one flopped in theaters was that it also released simultaneously on Disney+, where AFAIK it has been very popular.
      - c_crank 3y ago
        The message in Turning Red can be trivially read as a thirteen year old girl learning to prostitute herself against the wishes of her stifling and controlling mother, even if this wasn't the intent of the filmmakers. Concerned parents will probably also find it strange that a Pixar movie made for small children casually throws around words like 'degenerate' and 'stoner' and talks explicitly about pads for minutes on end. I am not sure I would take popularity on the streaming service as a sign of financial success, given something like Encanto was big in both the box offices and after the fact streaming, but who knows what the balance sheet really looks like with these big companies these days.