Politics in Media - The Good, the Bad, and the Preachy

I admit I have difficulty discussing the DLC because it is a Berserk Button for me. I don't know why this particular piece of media pisses me off as much as it does, but it's the only time I can think of a video game actually making me angry with its narrative.

Here's a really good article on Bioshock: Infinite's politics even if it's mostly agreement with the forum.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/exkvvk/the-politics-of-bioshock-infinite-are-all-the-worse-when-seen-in-a-heated-election-year-130

For me, I've decided Bioshock 2 is probably the best even if we remember Bioshock 1 better.

I will said a problem with bioshock 2 is not so universal aseop, is very VERY step into US history which muddle thing up.

Like, black people in general arent revantchist but integracionism, they try to fit into US sociaty and have done so very well, daisy is something I could see her as warlord in world war 2 china or a populist here in latin america.

But THE US? hell no.

Part of the issue was the story was cut and pasted from Bioshock 1. Daisy being Atlas.

One thing I wish they'd incorporated was that Daisy was in one draft supposed to be Comstock's black daughter. She was going to have the hidden motivation of wanting to take Columbia back from her racist father as her birthright and everyone was just a means to an end.

That would have been interesting.

Probably, I will said something I kinda like is I kinda sort may pity comstock a littke bit(just a little bit) since for me is clear he create columbia as is own world in order to no deal with is guilt on wounded knee and is clear booker doset know how to deal with it ether.

I will said another problem is in the first bioshock(and the second one you can argue) Adam blend well with the objetivist message, have ryan being more sane he wuld take back and tested before but he was so blind he let everyone go insane, here the multiuniverse stuff got in the way of the message.

Ken Levine said he also got a lot of feedback from his religious coders (who turned out to be more numerous than he thought) who pointed out his understanding of Christianity was Artistic License – Religion at best.

There was several other drafts of Bioshock Infinite that looked way more interesting. I think part of the issue was the alternate timelines thing muddled everything up.

All I really remember about Bioshock Infinite is that it thought swarming you with Elite Mooks was a good substitute for actual challenge.

As I recall, he changed parts Comstock's character because one developer threatened to quit over the game. As in, finished playing through a level, and then immediately opened up a Word doc to write his resignation letter.

They had a chat, and then Ken Levine wrote Comstock better - or well enough that the dev continued to work there at least.

Why’d he threaten to quit over it?

Edit: never mind.

Edited by fruitpork on Mar 20th 2019 at 9:38:55 AM

Kotaku shares some words Hayao Miyazaki had on Hollywood movies and how they are influenced by American Imperialism.

Of course as Kotaku pointed out:

That civilians bit doesn't really work since in Lot R the forces of Sauron didn't have civilians.

Miyazaki clearly didn't read the original books. And I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't actually watch the entire movies either and based all of that on random clips of it.

It's a bit of a stretch to draw a comparison between Lot R's war sequences and the actual wars in the Middle East.

Edited by M84 on Mar 22nd 2019 at 4:20:57 PM

I suppose he could be referring to the Haradrim and Easterlings, and I think Faramir's musings about them not being Always Chaotic Evil are only in the extended edition.

This seems to be one of those times, where well respected talented famous person said something weird, poorly researched and stupid. Which happened quite a few times recently.

I don't think he's wrong. I think his view hinges on the difference between what Tolkien intended to craft with his books and what the movie crafted from the book.

Like... The idea that Lord of the Rings doesn't have civilians isn't completely wrong. Few to no civilians are seen once the fellowship gets past Bree. But the fact that none of the non-civilian people encountered (whether human, elf, dwarf or orc) after that point are starving, unclothed and homeless, we can pretty much deduce that there's farmers, weavers, tanners, tailors, woodcutters, miners, blacksmiths, carpenters and all the other many civilians that are required to do the work while the soldiers of fantasy land go about their fighting.

And where the books and the films differ is that while the books describe Mordor as a harsh unwelcoming land and all that and there's no mention of civilians, there's also no explicit 'and there's no farmers, weavers, etc... there at all'... But the films show us Mordor and it's a harsh unwelcoming land visibly devoid of agriculture or any kind of non-military industry. Because you know that Peter Jackson and the rest of the crew, upon translating Mordor from text to visual, gave no thought to questions like 'but what do the orcs eat when they're at home?' and 'what were the orcs doing while Sauron was dormant and not yet gathering his armies again?'.

'Cause, you know, in the end the orcs are one-dimensional enemies to be defeated, not 'real' people and having parts of Mordor covered in amber waves of grain or any other kind of non-military, non-'blasted wasteland' visuals, however necessary for the orcs the not be extinct a couple of generations after Sauron's previous defeat, would diminish the ominous villain-land visuals of the place.

And I can totally see why someone like Miyazaki, whose work is great and vivid precisely because he and his studio asked themselves questions like that all the time when doing their visual design, might spot that.

Edited by Robrecht on Mar 22nd 2019 at 11:17:15 AM

It's the forces of evil that have no major civilian population. Because a large part of what maintains them is Sauron and his evil quasi-divine magic. There's a reason that his entire army falls apart the moment he is defeated by the Ring's destruction.

Miyazaki just generally seems to hate everything even remotely associated with the USA.

Amusingly though, he also seems rather critical of his own nation. Or at least, its rightwing nationalism. He's not a fan of Japanese nationalists and he's suffered a lot of backlash for it.

Edited by M84 on Mar 22nd 2019 at 6:36:48 PM

Eh? Edoras and Minas Tirith are full of civilians. Slightly

That's mostly because Frodo and Sam's journey only took them through the volcanic plain that constitutes the north-western quarter of Mordor's landmass (and holds all the military and industrial bits as a result). The other three quarters are arable, and farmed by slaves.

Now yeah, I can see Miyazaki's point (and yours) because his thing is visual worldbuilding, but the LotR movies weren't going to go out of their way to show Núrn, especially when the books didn't, and they were already trying to squeeze too much in at that point.

It's interesting to look at LotR as Western imperialism when the "AMERICANS" are explicitly fighting a defensive war against an expansionist tyrant. And that Faramir scene when he looks at the fallen Haradrim is IMO a vital part of everything his character is. But "Filmamir" was always one of PJ's biggest deviations from the source material, and I hope that scene was in the theatrical release. It's far more important a clip than most of the rest of Faramir's scenes.

Edited by GoldenKaos on Mar 22nd 2019 at 10:40:41 AM

That Indiana Jones bit was about how Miyazaki interprets the Indiana Jones movies as being about Americans shooting up Japanese people. Even though, as the article pointed out, Indy is mostly shooting up Nazis.

Miyazaki is very clearly letting his anti-American bias cloud his judgement.

Edited by M84 on Mar 22nd 2019 at 6:43:34 PM

The problem child looms: Temple of Doom. Indy punches up part of Singapore to arguably save a questionable, very blonde damsel, gains the unfortunate bundle of implications that Short Round comprises, then moves on to an incredibly racist take on a cult of Kali somewhere in southern India.

That's a fair bit of Asia-punching.

Edited by Euodiachloris on Mar 22nd 2019 at 10:56:41 AM

And if he was just talking about Temple of Doom that'd be a fairer criticism. But he's talking about the Indy franchise as a whole.

Edited by M84 on Mar 22nd 2019 at 6:50:43 PM

Yeah, I'm getting behind punching Nazis. I'm not getting behind whatever the hell Temple of Doom was about, though I did enjoy it as a mindless action movie.

I wouldn't blame him if he quit paying attention post-Temple.

Edited by Euodiachloris on Mar 22nd 2019 at 10:51:59 AM

If Temple of Doom was about anything, it was about Lucas and Spielberg working through a lot of bad romantic issues (divorce and a breakup respectively) in the worst way possible. A textbook Creator Breakdown.

I gotta admit, I can't even bring myself to watch the entire movie anymore. If I ever do watch it, I steer clear of the beginning, the infamous dinner scene, everything about Short Round...the mindless action sequences are pretty much the only bits I like about it.

Edited by M84 on Mar 22nd 2019 at 7:08:22 PM

Indy scrambling for that antidote while being dizzy was very lame.

BTW here's the article (also from Kotaku) from a few years back detailing how Miyazaki hates the USA.

The Time Hayao Miyazaki Went Off on America

And while this rant is from something he wrote in his youth...this recent spiel about Lot R and the Indy movies implies that he still very much feels this way.

And if you're curious, here's the article covering his views on the iPad (from 2010).

Hayao Miyazaki Compares iPad Use To Masturbation

Edited by M84 on Mar 22nd 2019 at 7:11:00 PM