It has a beginning and an end. It has many characters (maybe too many characters). It has conflicts. Many of the conflicts are resolved.
It is a science fiction movie. There were many special effects. There were aliens and robots. There were many strange planets (maybe too many planets). There were gigantic slow motion explosions. There were space battles.
It benefitted from a large special effects budget, and from the 40 years of Star Wars resonances constantly humming under the hood. Aside from those, though, it seemed more like a Roger Corman imitation of a Star Wars movie. The fact that the music was just slightly off from the expected John Williams score made that even more gratingly apparent.
However, it was a perfectly serviceable, if unexceptional science fiction movie. Much more upscale than you’d get on SyFy, but otherwise it would have fit in well with other genre movies on cable TV.
See? No spoilers.
The SyFy channel is to science fiction what Le voyage dans la lune is to the Apollo program.
Indeed, with much the same fidelity and quality control.
Oh, despite the risk of annoying those about who loathe spoilers, can we get some?
Are there actors and actresses in it? Is there a plot, even if it’s not all that great or is superb?
Does the ending say “The End” or “Finis”?
Hmm, those aren’t much in the line of spoilers, huh?*
*Personally, I don’t mind real spoilers, if the plot sounds decent (and on occasion, even when it doesn’t), I’ll go see the work and enjoy some (hopefully) good acting.
Which means that anything on SyFy is pretty much out.
Does it pass the Bechdel-Wallace test? Does it even come close?
@InitHello, I actually had to look that one up. Somehow, it managed to dip under my radar, probably as we had an infant at the time it was promulgated and a second one just barely spaced afterward safely.*
Perhaps, a better spoiler question is, would any character pass the Turing test?
But then, far too many political, aw hell, journalists in general, wouldn’t pass the test.
*Although, I’ll admit as hearing in passing and when invited into participating in “girl talk” sessions as the only male, mates tend to be the frequent subject of discussion and the male mates stupidity, inflexibility and inanity.
But then, I’ve long admitted to my own stupidity, inflexibility and inanity, but do my best to address each facet.**
**Some gaffes here are typically said, but my body language, exaggerated gestures and facial expressions, as well as the high speed gish gallop of reductio ad absurdum that is coupled with the previous betray the humorous intent.
Frequently with, “But, that doesn’t even make sense”, replied with, “Yeah, but neither did *he*”. ;)
Other gaffes, just my dyslexia and fatigue. Even I would fail a Turing test under those conditions. ;)
Does it pass the Bechtel test? Sort of. Mon Mothma and Jin talk to each other about war stuff, but many others are there.
The movie was wholly mediocre and I say this as someone with a high tolerance for melodrama and action. Of course, that could be the problem- it felt like a 60s WW2 spy movie with a Star Wars skin.
@antigone10, I wonder if that ’60’s analogy was intentional, as one who did grow up in that age.
I’d actually have to get to see the movie now, just to ascertain that.
Which, frankly, won’t be before new year, at best.
It is a Star Wars paint by numbers. It checks off all the boxes you need for a Star Wars movie with none of the magic.
But a Syfy movie can be made with a $45,000 budget, a roll of duct tape, and some Taco Bell coupons. If Rogue is comparable how do you justify the $199,955,000 defecit?
I have mixed feelings about paying for a ticket, because I loved the director’s debut film, Monsters (2010), but I wouldn’t wipe my ass with a print of Godzilla (2014). You know, if movies still had prints.
Will wait for more info.
Since it’s come up, fwiw, I have serious problems with the Bechdel test I’ve never had adequately resolved. For one thing its fairness is dependent on viewpoint. If the work is third-person-omniscient, fine. Most television shows are. But the vast majority of film and literature is third person limited or first person, and if the narrator (if first person) or focus (if third-limited) is male, it will fail the test, unless the individual is listening in on a coversation he is not a part of (as if through a keyhole). Only third-omniscient films with three or more principal female characters, and female narrated/focused films (with three or more female characters) can pass it.
For another we have all these great feminist milestones in film that fail the test. Alien fails it, Terminator fails it, hell almost every episode of Xena: Warrior Princess fails it, and there’s two female leads in that. It could be that the writers are all male, but it could also be the nature of the story. I’m sure both have been the case at different times for different things.
It seems to me where the Bechdel test is useful is in aggregate. If you have X movies in a year and X-Y of them have enough female characters to pass it, and only 20%(X-Y) do, you’ve indicated an alarming statistic. But it is not fair to apply it equally to individual titles. Shouldn’t it be fine if some fail?
Clearly the percentage found should also be expected to scale with number of characters in the overall film. If films like Rogue One with fifty+ characters in an epic story fail it surely it means more than a smaller, independent film with < 10 characters failing it.
Would these discrepancies be solved if for the test to fail (female characters always talk about male characters), it must also pass its opposite (male characters always talk about male characters)? Probably not. I would not like to see good stories discarded on the basis of this test, though. You don't solve the poor representation of strong female characters in film and literature by conforming to a specificly formatted plot and viewpoint, you solve it by writing more female characters into the story. I bet having male characters talk about female characters more wouldn't hurt either.
I also see no reason not to apply these tests on the basis of people of color, if we're going there, but it would run up against story/logic conflicts much more often, so again it would only be appropriate in aggregate.
Obviously, as if it needs to be said, there has been and continues to be poor representation of women in good roles in film. I'm only arguing the Bechdel test isn't the tool to solve it. It may be the tool to diagnose it, but there are a lot of those. It's too flawed and arbitrary to use it as a personal rubric for seeing a film or not.
Would love to hear other takes.
Sounds absolutely dreadful!
It has slowly dawned on me, ever since I discovered the internet, that Americans, on average, tend to take films way more seriously than we do over here. I suppose that’s only to be expected, given that you make most of them and they form a comparatively larger part of your national culture. Of course we have dedicated cineasts over here, people with a hobbyist’s love of the medium, but outside their tiny cliques most British people tend to treat films much like exciting pieces of wallpaper. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered two British people discussing a film like this, outside of review programmes featuring the aforementioned cineasts – we just watch them and then get on with life. We rarely ever know the names of the people who direct the films, certainly not the names of the people who produce them or write the music, and discussions of how much the film cost to make sound to us like discussions of how much a book cost to publish – we’re just not interested in that stuff. A typical British conversation about a film like this would consist of “hello John, did you enjoy Rogue One last night?” “Yeah, it was ok, how are the kids?”, whereas Americans tend to behave like professional film critics on the subject.
It’s an interesting cultural observation, I think. From the other side of the fence, I have heard an American (North Carolina is still American, right?) say much the same about British people and music – you tend to just listen to it and move on, where we tend to dissect it and research it and argue about it a lot. I say we, I find little of interest in either medium, but I certainly have heard in-depth discussions of a musician’s output and oevre in pubs over here, where I haven’t with cinema.
I see that the Bechdel test is named after Alison Bechdel. She was on one of the best episodes of Theater Talk (on PBS) I’ve seen, talking about the musical adaptation of her graphic memoir, Fun Home, along with the lyricist and the composer. Now that would be worth shelling out a few buck for.
@taraskan, 10
Essentially everyone I’ve seen using the test (with the exception of the comic book character that originally posited it) make it clear that passing the test doesn’t make it a good or feminist movie and failing the test doesn’t make it a bad or misogynist movie. It’s just a quick metric.
Also both Aliens and The Terminator pass it (Ripley talking to Newt about parents, monsters, and dreams; Sarah talking to her coworker about shitty job stuff and the news).
My only expectation of a Star Wars movie is that it have a lot of pretty Star Wars stuff to look at and preferably not make me cringe too much. This one accomplished both better than Episode 7 and much better than the prequels, so I am very happy with how it came out. The TIE fighters could have been a bit louder for my taste.
Cartomancer:
It’s hard to believe that someone as clearly bright as yourself finds such a gormless generalization to be an . 300 million people, guy. Some are cinephiles, some are mad for various flavors of music, some are full-fledged participants in the burgeoning fan culture that takes Star Wars films seriously.
I’ve never had the pleasure of visiting England, but it seems highly dubious that your broad brush is any more apt when pertaining to its 50 million people.
(I always look forward to and appreciate your posts here for their learned perspective on the classical world and its parallels to current events. That said, your insight into modern culture is evidently as lackluster as any attempt I might make to extemporize about ancient Rome.)
@10 taraskan:
As Matrim said @14, it’s just a quick metric, generally used to judge representation of women in movies and the creative process. It’s also one case where you have to be careful not to miss the forest for the trees – the test is only useful at all in looking at the ensemble, and not useful at all in the specifics (for instance, a movie striving for realism which is set in a men’s prison is almost guaranteed to fail, but that doesn’t mean there’s anything sexist about it).
It’s also important to note that the only way to really get any usable data out of the Bechdel test is to compare it to the reverse test (the same for men). Given the roughly equal number of men and women, a non-sexist society would produce movies that pass and fail both tests at the same rate – but there’s no predicting what that rate may be. If you notice just that the Bechdel test is passed 25% of the time, that tells you nothing. Maybe interaction is just rare in movies these days. If you notice as well that the reverse test is passed in 90% of movies though, then you have a good indication that there’s a problem. Unfortunately, this is rarely done – I think in all the discussion of the test, I’ve only seen it done once, looking at Oscar nominees for one particular year (which had statistics close to the 25/90% I used above).
Aside: This is an issue I see with many similar proposed tests. For instance, I once saw a test proposed for trans* characters that was similar (to require two trans* characters to have a conversation about something other than their trans* status). Problem is, it’s a lot harder to judge whether a pass rate on this is good or bad, as trans* people are a small minority of humans. The reverse test is going to be passed a lot more often just by numbers alone, without any bias coming into play. Is a 1% pass rate of this test and a 99% pass rate of the reverse test a good rate? *shrug* beats me.
I read another review that noted
using some tech magic by the Disney production boffins. The reviewer I quoted, felt the resurrected Moff was not quite Cushing, more an impressionistic portrayal. What were others opinions? Still intrigued, not just to stick it to Trumpists but also to see a worthwhile portrayed explanation of the big mcGuffin of Episode IV: the secret plans to the Death Star that were just dumped into Leia’s lap.
The former is the priority, however.
re Bechdel Test:
I’m too lazy to look more deeply, still think this phrase “talk about a man”, means talking about feelings bout a man, or about a man personally. Not about the actions of one of the other characters who happens to be a man. When a movie only has two women speaking characters, they would be most often speaking of things going on around them, with few women in action, they are written to fail the test.
but that’s the point. only men are portrayed as the action figures, that’s the point.
the focus of the test is not the talking itself, but the lack of diversity of subjects for them to talk about. gotcha.
thanks for letting me clear myself up by using this free bandwidth.
Thanks PZ, I think I’ll cancel my ticket now and wait for it to come out as a rental.
The Bechdel test is more interesting that dispositive, but the question is, why are Bechdel conversations so rare, while their dual– conversations between two male characters about something other than women– are so common?
This was called Battle Beyond the Stars, and let’s be realistic, it was made with sub-Syfy channel production values. It is to compare Jason X or a Stargate Atlantis episode to Avengers Civil War.
I hate to break it to you, but Michael Giaccino and a small army of composers have been covering John Williams’s gigs in an uncredited capacity for years. The man a hundred years old!
Dirty little secret is that most “name” Hollywood composers at this point have a team of people writing the music and they only take a supervisory role. Hans Zimmer has a three story office building in Santa Monica that’s filled with dozens of composers, all cranking out Hans Zimmer scores.
antigone10
I described it similarly and was greatly entertained by it. Different strokes, I suppose.
For those trying to decide whether or not to see it, this is probably a good metric to go by. Does the idea of “The Dirty Dozen. In. SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE” amuse and delight you or make you groan?
Arren >< Neverbound, #16
I did try to make it clear that I was only talking in general terms about broad cultural trends. Tendencies, rather than cultural universals. Obviously you can find dedicated British cinephiles and obsessive American music fans, I'm not denying that. But that doesn't negate the fact that our two countries do have different cultures, and the importance the cinema plays in each is very different. It's practically impossible to discuss cultural trends without making some generalisations. It is no less true to say "the Romans were keen on gladiatorial fighting and beast hunts" because a number of Romans (Cicero, Seneca, Pliny) were vocal about how tawdry and crude they found such entertainments – as a general cultural trend it's right on the money, and when provincial elites in Greece, Spain and so forth wanted to imitate the Romans and assimilate their culture they put on such shows in their own theatres.
I think this is interesting because these cultural differences can be linked to differences in how, historically, our cultures have engaged with the cinema. You have a big, established centre of cinema production – Hollywood, which is a major engine of American culture. We have no such centralised film industry, and the majority of films we see are your Hollywood films showcasing your American cultural sensibilities. To us the cinema is a medium dominated by foreign imports, reflecting a foreign culture, and our own cinematic productions tend to be very different (partly due to lower budgets, partly as a form of cultural rebellion). In such circumstances is it any wonder we tend to take the medium less seriously? We also have a much-loved state TV broadcaster, rather than your constellation of commercial channels, so we tend to place greater cultural emphasis on TV than film in terms of our national identities.
It reminds me, since we brought up the Classical world, of the differences between the way the Athenians viewed the theatre and the way the Romans viewed it. In 5th century Athens the theatre was a crucial part of national democratic culture – a state religious observance and a forum for educating the citizenry about the significance of their political role. Greek playwrights such as Euripides were very keen on stressing the educational and philosophical role of dramatic productions in civic life – and it was a source of local pride since Athens pretty much invented the concept of theatre. In Rome, however, the theatre was a foreign import. Conservative moralists thought it unacceptably Greek, damaging to fine, old-fashioned Roman morals and either a load of prissy highbrow nonsense or another kind of worthless popular distraction (a common Roman term for plays was "ludi scaenici" – scenic games – revealing that they were seen in the same terms as popular sporting shows). Its devotees in Rome tended to be the Hellenophile literary set watching Greek plays, or else the lower classes getting knockabout pantomime stuff by native Roman comic poets. It had little of the deep moral seriousness to it that its Greek counterpart had.
@Mellow Monkey
The original “Star Wars” third act was basically a retread of the 1955 Dam Busters. The “war” aspect of Star Wars has always been about recontextualizing WW2 tropes in a space/sci-fi milieu.
Rogue One owes a lot to Dirty Dozen and I think there are some explicit nods to Guns of Navarone.
Well, I rather enjoyed it. This was very much Star Wars with the emphasis on the ‘war’ part – Star Wars as a war movie, which despite the series’ title is something of a departure for the franchise. This approach allows for a look at the Rebellion from the perspective of characters who aren’t members of established Star Wars character dynasties like the Skywalkers or the Solos, and so have to get by without automatic inches thick plot armour and magic Force powers to infallibly keep them and all their friends alive in any and all circumstances.
This rendition of the Alliance was also rather interesting. In a situation of asymmetric civil war against an opponent with such a huge advantage in numbers, resources, equipment and especially firepower as the Empire possesses, then if the underdog faction wants to win it will inevitably have to make some very troubling moral compromises and be prepared to do things that aren’t exactly the last word in virtuous heroism. Not wanting to spoil anything overmuch for people who haven’t watched the movie yet, this Alliance is still the ‘good guy’ faction of the movie but only in so far as they are very much a lighter shade of grey rather than Star Wars’ usual penchant for straight forward black and white dichotomies in its systems of morality. That alone provides rather more nuanced story telling than most Star Wars movies offer the viewing public.
Out of curiosity PZ, which do you prefer; The Force Awakens or Rogue One?
The Force Awakens was (in my opinion largely justifiably) criticized for being too close to the structure and plot line of A New Hope, but if anything the criticism of Rogue One tends to go the other way and suggest that it deviates too far from the usual Star Wars comfort zone – which approach do you think holds up better, or are they on an even footing to you?
Awww – I enjoyed the film. It provided a great backstory for how those plans came to be delivered to Princess Leia.
There was lots of fun melodrama for those of us who enjoy it. There was that common Star Wars theme of a young person who has been orphaned and is searching for Daddy, with a female in that role. There was the usual sexual tension between the male and female leads, which I tend to enjoy. There was a snarky, smart-mouthed Droid for comic relief – something that we’ve come to expect from the Star Wars franchise. There were lots of space and planet-bound battles and explosions, also expected in a Star Wars film.
Add in the fact that we attended with a large group of Science Fiction fans at a theater which showed some cute u tube fan films and vintage Star Wars commercials, along with food and adult beverages delivered to our seats, and it was a very enjoyable evening out. It was made even better knowing that the Trump voters and White Supremacists were urging people to boycott the film.
Cartomancer – Interesting that you should bring up the UK Television culture. We’ve been fans of the BBC for many years. We’ve watched Dr. Who in our home since the ’70s, and consider Tom Baker to be “our doctor”. Our children grew up watching the show, and now our grandchildren do.
We were recently discussing the importance of watching TV on Christmas Day in England and the phenomenon of many shows there producing a Christmas special to air on that day. Our DVR will be recording Dr. Who that day while we do the expected family visits and we will settle in with a bottle of wine to watch it when we return home.
British humor is also a joy for us – often a bit more intelligent and biting than what we see here in the US.
Cheers!
Ummm,…I am from Texas and Howdy is not spelled with an “ie” . Douche!
@cartomancer #12:
Speak for yourself, sunshine. I love to examine and dissect films. But, then again, I have no friends…
@magistrasmarla #27:
Pfft. Jon Pertwee. Everyone knows it’s really Jon Pertwee.
@14 Matrim and @17 Infophile
That makes more sense. I have, however, seen people use it seemingly as a rubric either for seeing a film or as part of a rating system on film review sites. For example FlickFilosopher lists whether each movie she’s seen passes it and seems to consider it a disappointment when it doesn’t. My point with the viewpoint illustration was to suggest that almost half of all films have to fail it structurally, before anyone can even get into other reasons or motives, and therefore you’d have to be prepared to write off a lot of stuff you might otherwise enjoy.
For some reason, I didn’t until now understand that the convention isn’t strictly two women talking about a third, but just talking about something other than other characters who are male. That does broaden it enough to ruin my examples. So, thanks for that. The first Alien film would I believe still fail it. The only time Ripley and Lambert are talking to each other alone is in a deleted scene – and their topic is sex with Dallas.
@23 cartomancer
It would make sense you get more excited about television than film since (the majority of) your television is at least British produced, but why then did you name a channel Dave and fill it with reruns? I won’t get into Jeremy Clarkson, Russel Brand, or Merlin out of politeness/the special relationship.
OTOH no mainstream USAnian network will ever make anything as good as Fleabag, Fortitude, or QI.
Rich Woods, #29
Oh, I never intended to suggest that a critical interest in films is unknown here, or even looked down upon. I was just making an observation that it seems to be the norm in the US where it is much less ubiquitous over here. I would also say that a love of tea, football and the Royal Family are commonplace British traits, even though I myself don’t like any of them!
magistramarla, #27
Yes, the big set-piece Christmas Day TV special has been a tradition here since the 70s. Originally it was the Morcambe and Wise Show that was the big one, but since they’re both dead now the BBC has focused on other centrepieces – for the last ten years or so it has been Doctor Who. The tradition has grown out of the annual Royal Christmas Message, which has been going since the 30s (first on radio, then TV). Since we generally watch that in the middle of the afternoon after dinner it makes sense to have something afterwards to carry on the fun.
The key to understanding the importance of TV to the British is understanding what the BBC means to us. Mitch Benn has a song that really captures the warmth most of us feel towards it. Most of the song is just a list of BBC programmes past and present, but each one is considered absolutely iconic by at least some of the population:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3q2iZuU5WM
“We’re not just listeners and viewers, it belongs to us” pretty much sums it up. I find it very difficult to imagine an American writing a similar song about CNN or ABC or PBS (though I can imagine it about Hollywood films).
Taraskan, #30
Reruns are another British TV tradition. Before we had all these satellite and freeview channels to put them on they took up valuable BBC2 space (it is an amusing fact that the second programme ever broadcast by the BBC was a repeat of the first!). Dave has become a TV tradition in itself now though – QI and Have I Got News For You frequently make jokes at the expense of future Dave viewers in decades to come.
Though if you think US networks are sniffy about QI, the day one of them shows an episode of Only Connect is very likely the first sign of the apocalypse.
But the most important question didn’t go answered:
Did many Bothans die?
cartomancer, it seems like you criticized my ancient/modern comparisons but are comfortable drawing your own. I’m interested in your criteria.
Nonsense.
No Bothans were harmed in the making of this film. They stole the plans for the second Death Star.
….can anyone name a movie PZ reports having liked?
Overall I enjoyed the film even if it was (due to its placement in the Star Wars chronology it could only be) predictable. I was impressed with the computer-generated Grand Moff Tarkin, who I think had almost a bigger role than Peter Cushing did in the original film. The computer-generated Leia at the end was less impressive though. There will be no sequels to this film.
I have nothing to add about RogueOne or, indeed, StarWars or its universe. However, SC’s mention of the concepts of ancient & modern on this thread caused me to halfway-remember some dialog from Captain America: Civil War, a movie which I most certainly did not see by watching a digital stream from a server that was almost certainly hosting and sharing the movie in a rather transparent violation of copyright law.
As I remember, SpiderMan is portrayed as the high school kid he is during his origin story, but unlike his comic book origin which took place decades ago, his origin in the Marvel movies timeline had to happen mere months ago for him to be a teenager during his “present day” actions in CA:CW, a movie released in spring/summer 2016.
SpiderMan is asked by Stark/Iron Man to help out with something, which leads to SM fighting some really, really huge robot-face. RRHRF is doing a lot of damage to the whole area in the context of the fight, and isn’t getting hurt much by weapons & powers scaled to human use. So he shoots some webbing out that sticks to the hip of RRHRF, and then does his web-swinging around RRHRF’s knees, while saying something like,
To which another character responds, “really, really old movie? How old is this guy?”
One of the best laughs in all of CA:CW, and it came at the expense of the vanity of the religious fans of star wars. Mmmmmm, doubleplus good!
===================================
Don’t like my story? Have some unicorn jedi.
SC, #33
I am not against comparing ancient with modern – indeed, I think it is a very useful thing to do – I was just saying in that previous case that I don’t think the comparison between Donald Trump and Caligula holds up. I don’t think they are similar in either personality (not that we really know much about Caligula’s personality anyway, beyond sensationalised hearsay) or in the problems they faced and the actions they took. That may change as the Trump presidency drags on, but at the moment I can’t see the parallels beyond both being thoroughly despised characters (in Trump’s case, quite deservedly, in Caligula’s… who knows?). I did, however, say that there may be interesting parallels to note between how Roman aristocrats coped with their newfound lack of power under emperors like Caligula and how the American political classes might cope with a similar lack of power under Trump.
But I do see some interesting parallels between Greek and Roman attitudes to theatre and British and American attitudes towards cinema. Both are examples of the surrounding culture colouring a people’s approach to an art form, and both involve a certain element of percieving said art form in terms of native versus foreign. I wouldn’t want to press the comparison any further than that of course – in other respects they’re quite different – but they are examples of the same process of cultural evolution shaping distinctive attitudes in a society.
I’m not sure what you’re calling nonsense either. I have most certainly observed this trend. Every time I have encountered Americans talking about films they do so like critics – both online and in real life. I have never encountered British people doing likewise, except for professional critics. I would not wish to suggest that it never happens, or that I have encountered every single instance of the phenomenon, but it seems very unlikely indeed that this is the result of pure chance. Though I suppose one could confirm it with large-scale surveys. Given the vastly different place of cinema in the respective cultures, though, I would be very surprised if that didn’t create substantial cultural differences in the way we tend to engage with the medium.
The first thing about the Bechdel test is it’s an incredibly low bar to get over – two women, talking to each other, about something which isn’t a man. I could get a pass out of the way in the first thirty seconds of the average teen jock movie, just by having the opening shot being of a class letting out into a hallway, and having the first audible dialogue being two female students talking about the class matter and homework, before you zoom in on the male hero looking moody as he comes out of the classroom last. Easily done – Bechdel pass, right there. It’s worth noting that “Iron Man” in the Marvel Cinematic Universe passed the Bechdel test, while “Captain America: The First Avenger” (and “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”) didn’t (Iron Man’s pass is in the bit where Pepper Potts talks to Christine Everhart and gives her her marching orders).
The second thing about the Bechdel test, and the one a lot of people miss, is it was a set-up for a punch line – the punch line being the character who uses this test hasn’t seen any new film produced in the past five years (she names the last film she saw as “Alien”, which was produced in 1978, while the cartoon came out in 1983). So the joke, such as it is, is even given such a low bar to get over in order to get this person’s money, Hollywood couldn’t manage to hurdle it in five godsdamn years – and still has problems with tripping on the bloody thing even now.
Another comparison one might point to is the way Japanese people tend to engage with animation and comic-style art compared to how British people do. In Britain comics and cartoons have traditionally been a medium for children, whereas in Japan they have traditionally been more universal, so British people tend to be more dismissive of animated productions aimed at adults than the Japanese. This can be traced back to early modern approaches to realism in art in Europe, which were largely absent from Japanese culture, and perhaps to different attitudes towards sharp divisions between the worlds of adults and children.
@Sigaba, #21:
well, technically this was a Corman parody of a Kurosawa movie…
First, no Trump/Putin presidency has begun yet, so it’s strange to talk about it in the past tense. Second, the “interesting parallels” you note were what my post was about (my blog post discussed how they succumb to corporate power, and then I suggested we could think similarly about their responses to an unstable, immoral autocrat like Trump).
My anecdotal experience doesn’t track with yours. I read the comments on the film and TV reviews in the Guardian, and they sound the same as those on A.V. Club reviews. There could well be differences, but you made sweeping generalizations about how “we” (British people) are “just not interested in that stuff.”
FYI what I heard was that in Rogue One, Princess Leia was fully CGI while for Grand Moff Tarkin, they digitally painted Peter Cushing’s face over a new live actor.
johnhodges @ 43, that makes sense, as Carrier Fisher is 60 and Peter Cushing is dead.
I’ve actually been expecting to see deceased actors and actresses be brought back to the screen digitally for some time now.