What was the issue then, as that’s escaping me.
the callous treatment of the character and the subject matter associated with her.
they used sex trafficking to ostensibly provide extra depth, real world topical/gritty relevance, and some sympathy to a one dimensional narrative device, then had bond immediately have sex with her (she said she was a sex slave from a disgustingly early age just beforehand), and then had her brutally killed in a game between two alpha males, and very promptly forgotten about.
Ok, I get the issue with the sex slave part, but that can be brushed off as just needing to have some kind of backstory for someone involved in criminal activity without making them greedy or sociopathic. As for the manner of her death, it being part of a game between two alpha males was incidental. She was always going to be disposed of by the villain, the fact that he wanted to make a game out of it did not change that in any way, and that means was used to show just how evil and psycho the bad guy was. Since we barely knew her and she wasn’t important other than as a means of finding the bad guy, the sex slave part also works here to make audiences feel sorry for her, since we can’t care about her in any other way due to her inconsequentiality, which would have rendered her truly meaningless. Heavy-handed, perhaps, but hardly a cinematic mortal sin. Also, she wasn’t killed brutally, she was shot in the head, a near-instant and essentially painless death, compared to how many other people die just in this movie, never mind the franchise. She was fearful, before her death, sure, which might make it cruel or sadistic, but not brutal.
Either way, I think we’re turning this into the unpopular opinions thread here.
if i could brush it off, i wouldn’t take issue with it in the first place.
i think evoking something as horrific as goddamn sex trafficking just to slightly flesh out a character in a bombastic, mindless hollywood action film is a callous and shitty thing to do.
not wanting sex trafficking evoked callously is an unpopular opinion? huh.
And while I can certainly understand that, in order to enjoy this kind of entertainment, I’ve already had to set aside my issues with things that would anger me in the real world, such as committing murder, public endangerment, acts of terrorism and sabotage, torture, kidnapping etc., in the name of security, as presented in these movies. And that’s on the “good guys” side. Setting aside my qualms about real-world sex crimes for the sake of enjoying escapist fiction that might contain them, after having already learned to cope with them normalizing fictional depictions of crimes equally horrible or worse, isn’t difficult at this point.
No, but turning a thread about what movies we’ve seen into an argument about the implications of one movie’s content qualifies for thread derailment and post migration, I think.
none of these acts as depicted in skyfall are in any way approaching an honest reflection of their real world counterparts or their consequences. in my book, that is a very different thing from evoking a disgusting, often ignored, real world crisis in someone’s backstory simply to illicit sympathy and seem gritty or topical.
if you can’t see the difference between those two, i don’t know what else to say.
i wasn’t arguing with anyone till you popped along, chief.
Your point and your feelings on the matter have been made very clear. You think it shouldn’t have been done in spite of its fictional nature, I say it doesn’t affect anything either way due to its fictional nature. You think I’m completely wrong, I think your argument has merit but that you’re perhaps a bit too focused on it. Let’s leave it at that, because we’re not getting anywhere.
And while my comment might have sparked off the argument between us specifically, neither of us needed to drag it along this far, and the overall discussion of the character’s treatment was brought up by you, several hours ago, and was already kind of going off topic right then as a result, and continued before I even said anything. I’ll admit, I shouldn’t have run with the line, but that did not start from my doing so.
Either way, I don’t want to escalate, so regardless, I’ll end my side of this here. No offense intended.
mate, i gave a reason i didn’t like skyfall. unless one of the actual mods here say otherwise, i don’t think that’s off-topic.
however, this is, so imma bounce my fat arse outta here. toodle pip.
Just watched no time to die, i really enjoyed that movie. Would say more but i don’t wanna spoil
current ranking of craig bond movies.
Skyfall > No Time To Die > Casino Royale > Quantum of Solace > Spectre
Ah yes, if someone were to ask me about the film´s plot:
(the whole thing really felt like a mashup of Metal Gear and World of Tomorrow)
I know only first year game design students are supposed to say it but I recognised the meme from that man’s silhouette alone.
I’m currently watching Enter the Dragon, it was one of the main inspirations for the first Mortal Kombat, very good movie.
that lalo schifrin soundtrack is
Got this on vinyl of course – spinning it right now!
That cast is loaded too!
Mel Gibson. Sam Elliott as the Sgt Maj? perfect! “What are you the fucking weather man?” Barry Pepper, Greg Kinnear, and a young John Hamm in only his 3rd film.
Seeing all these reviews of 007 is getting me excited! I have tickets for the day after tomorrow. I have only skimmed everyone’s posts to avoid spoilers but it seems like you all liked it and I’ll be in for a good show.
it’s the “waste of a good whiskey” line that just… like, man, what the hell were they thinking?!
writer #1: “what could bond say after the sex slave gets shot in the head?”
writer #2: [wiping away the vapour trails] “I’ve got it!”
well that explains the dj in your screen name
Free Guy is a a halfway-decent movie.
It’s got lots of cookie-cutter hallmarks of what’s in popular blockbusters – just feels like there was a list of tropes someone wanted to cover and they went through it one by one – and definitely feels like a movie we’ve seen a hundred times before, but there’s a nugget of interesting writing in the middle that’s just so… out of its genre.
This film gets all sci-fi philosophical-existential and I did not expect that at all.
All my eye-rolling at this “world based in reality (evidenced by real news agencies and streamers) but with fantasy NPC who inexplicably ‘breaks his code’ and acts out of character” was actually addressed in a pretty serious manner! It’s just an evolving, self-learning AI program that worked!
Granted, that’s also based in fantasy (at the moment) but offered this pretty plausible explanation that I never thought the film would address!
Though I still find it weird how Taika Waititi, a 46-year old guy, was casted to play the crazy-hipster-CEO game dev. I get what they were trying to parody, I get that he’s the kind of actor they want for the role, but I think he’s way out of that age range.
Just for reference Elon Musk is around 50 and so is Todd Howard which shows just how badly Elon Musk has aged.
Ah, right, forgot about that guy…
Still, I don’t see too many of those wacky, old types in the games industry (at least in the West) so I found that character/casting choice odd.