The Last Jedi and Nihilism (SPOILERS)

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This post is definitely a spoiler for a movie I have not seen, The Last Jedi (2017).

I normally dont mind spoilers for a variety of reasons but I tried to avoid them for this movie at the request of Mark Hamill. He suggested that everyone go see this movie knowing as little as possible. I respected that until I started to hear some of the controversy and being a curious person I looked further. And what I found out annoyed me so much that I wrote some nasty emails and this post.

It goes something like this. Rian Johnson comes into something that has been going on for 30 years and decides to shake things up. Show a new point of view. Maybe be a little bit of a hipster. A new direction! Something like that.

A little controversy can be good. It can refresh and empower a franchise that has been around for a while. If you just keep doing the same old thing, blowing up that damn Death Star again, for example, that would be boring.

Its spoiler time, kids.

So this guy Rian Johnson comes in and here is what we get. Rey hands Luke his lightsaber and Luke throws it away. Who are Rey's parents? No one. Trash. What about Snoke, who is he, where does he come from? It doesnt matter, we just killed him. How about that secret mission that so many risk their lives on? It goes south and many people die who might not have died otherwise. It would have been better if they had just followed orders and done nothing at all. As for Luke, well he is dead for no particular reason it seems, too bad.

Star Wars was never about "no meaning".  It was all about "meaning", it was all about "our lives have meaning", there is a purpose to all this, you can make a difference.  This was your father's light saber.  He wanted you to have it when you were old enough.

Darth Vader was never just a bad guy in black with asthma.  He had a history, he had betrayal and murder in his past.  We did not know it at first, but the emperor was not just any old emperor, he was a Sith. 

A light saber was not just a weapon.  It was personally created by each Jedi as part of what made them a Jedi.  It had meaning.  It had purpose.

It was never about "stay home and die, you might fuck things up".  It was about "go out there and fight for what you believe in and you can make a difference".

It was never about "evil has no meaning", it was about "evil has a purpose and you can stand up and thwart their plans and help people".

Well not to Rian Johnson.  His message is that you dont matter, nothing matters, its all random, dont give a fuck.  Just sit there and die.

And they wonder why people are pissed off.

Blood Transfusions and Anti-Alien Bias in Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

The following post contains a not too outrageous spoiler for Edge of Tomorrow (2014) so if spoilers are not your thing, you should see this movie and then possibly read this.

In a moment, we will discuss the importance and semiotics of blood transfusions in Edge of Tomorrow (2014) that epic alien invasion Groundhog Day film.   But first, I must protest Hollywood's endless hate-filled diatribes against peace loving alien invasion species.   How do we know that these aliens are not actually our friends?  Why do we always have to fight a war against something that looks like about 100,000,000 gigantic, mutated metallic spiders on crack?  Can't we just love each other while they are eating us?

So getting back to Edge of Tomorrow (2014), it is a fundamental plot point that it was the intermixing of alien and human blood that causes the plot device that the hero can now use the time reset ability of the alien with some loose ends left loose, but thats ok. What is made explicit is that the human must not receive a blood transfusion because if you do then the spell, I mean the plot device, is broken. And you are really dead the next time things happen.

So two things, first.

A lesser spoiler must be that when one receives a transfusion, that the recipient must really know that the spell is broken in some intrinsic way otherwise they are just going to get themselves dead but this time it really is game over. And the situations that our hero or heroine are in are so dire that it is very, very easy to get yourself dead.

No blood, please.

But, and I hate to pick nits, but why not, everyone who goes into battle these days, at least any human that goes into battle, contains a hard to remove tag to indicate blood type and any special instructions to the attending physician while the patient is unconscious (and possibly having limbs removed, etc).  Most transfusions in battlefield conditions are often plasma-only transfusions which still require knowing the ABO blood type, but not RHD. Thus, it would be perfectly possible to have a dogtag that indicated that it was the patients wish to receive no transfusion even to the point of death. It would not be normal, but it would be possible. What would be less clear is whether the technician or doctor would follow the instructions on the tag given the death of the patient from blood loss and shock.

But maybe that would not have been as fun.

It may be also worthwhile pointing out that a film that depends so heavily on the issue of blood shows you so little of it, and what you do see is obviously alien blood and therefore on some level does not count.  Yes selfishly we do not seem to care about the vast suffering on the part of the misunderstood aliens in this film.

It is implicit in this spoiler that I would care enough about the film to even think of or worry about such a thing in contrast to most films, for example, Pacific Rim (2014), where it is not even worthwhile to find plot issues, its just not worth your time.

The Fate of Giant Robots in Cinema

[in progress 7/1/2013]

There is some real content here: and it is the following.  First, that Pacific Rim is an example of a video game character / voice makes the transition from games to film.  In this case, its the voice of the computer in Portal and it is also the voice of the computer in the giant robot, I think.  It is usually the other way around (e.g. from movie to game).   Second, that water in visual effects is hard, very hard.  And big water, e.g. water that is scaled up is even harder.  I don't care how fast your computers are, although that helps, it is a very tough problem for reasons we can go into later.  Third, the plot device of the "neural bridge" has amusing psychosexual implications, I hope they make good use of it.  Fourth, its been a long time since we destroyed Tokyo in cinema, I hope the filmmakers are up to the task.

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Minor Spoiler Alert, but nothing you would not learn from any trailer.

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The very future of Giant Robots, the apex of sophistication of all cinematic art, is at risk.

This important subgenre, pioneered by the Japanese and others in the far east, was created and nurtured in the field of Anime. But then it jumped out of that subgenre and into the world of mainstream filmmaking through the genius of Michael Bay, that underrated director of robotic conflict, whose Transformers can be said to have changed the very face of the cinema, transforming, as it were, the worn and old-fashioned ideas of story, character, mere plot and nuance into a vigorous and renewed art form of the clash of giant robot on giant robot.

Whereas previous narrative was limited to "person vs nature", "nature vs nature" and so forth, we can now add "robot vs robot" and "robot vs alien" greatly expanding the range of narrative possibilities.

No more weak cop buddy movies for Hollywood, or High Noon in space, or a repeat of Halloween XIII, all were swept away by the magnificence of the Transformers films. But as geniuses are wont to do, Michael Bay became bored with the genre he had helped to create and lost his way. And the genre of giant robots itself fell into decay, fallen from its former glory.

Now the entire field of Giant Robots in the hands of a tyro, a beginner to the art form, Guillermo del Toro, who is an esteemed but imperfect filmmaker. His first Hellboy was a triumph, and so were some of his earlier low budget films to a varying degree, but Hellboy II was a disappointment for reasons that were entirely under his command.  He recouped some ground with Labyrinth of Pan, but one could hardly call Labyrinth a giant blockbuster hit and, as we all know so well, in American all that really matters is money.

Thus the fate of this important genre may ride on the box office performance of Pacific Rim. Hollywood being what it is, were Pacific Rim not a "monster" at the box office, and failed, it would impose a chill on the financing of other giant robot projects, no matter how worthy. That is the normal craven behavior of Hollywood and is just a fact of our lives.

The premise of Pacific Rim is sophisticated and rich in nuance. Giant aliens menace the earth from under the seas, not from outer space, and proceed to destroy civilization and small children while we are powerless to stop them. Perhaps we have a homage here to Godzilla, even though of course Godzilla was not an alien, but an earth creature mutated into its cinematic form through the plot device of nuclear mutations. So the first thing we know is that the plot premise "aliens attack and try to destroy earth" is totally original.

From out of the alien rift comes this aquatic menace to destroy Tokyo

The second important element of Pacific Rim is that all our weapons fail to stop this menace, and we are reduced to one last chance, one last resort, a vintage, early-model Jaeger, which is a giant robotic device controlled by not one, but two, humans in concert.

Is there any science in this fiction? Well, there might be. It is generally believed by those who study such things that a large part of the brain mass of different creatures is proportional to the size of the creature. In other words, whether or not an elephant or a gorilla is intelligent (which they certainly are), a certain amount of their very large brains is used up by the sheer mechanics of controlling their large bodies. The larger the body, the larger the brain, so this argument goes.

The two buddy giant robot controller team

Thus in Pacific Rim, we need not one, but two, humans whose combined brain mass, roughly divided left and right, is necessary to control the Jaeger in its sophisticated war against the sea aliens. The two humans are brought together in "neural fusion" which is a privacy destroying mechanism in which all their dreams, mistakes, fears, emotions and memories are fused. Anyone who agreed to neural fusion must be a very brave person indeed, who would want to be fused with their girl or boy friend? You would break up at once.

The incredibly hot Japanese martial artist teenage lust object robot controller

So through this plot device we actually have a nice undercurrent of sex/relationship politics. Do we have two beefy guys in a homosexual neural fusion, or do we go the heterosexual route, particularly with a hot oriental martial arts master. We do go the heterosexual route, indeed, and it could be fun. Will the neurally fused couple be able to stay together long enough to beat up the giant sea aliens, or will their relationship break apart, will they start throwing things at each other instead of the deadly Kaifu, leading to the defeat of all humanity?

For those of you who are interested in mere visual effects, there are a number of interesting challenges to this film and they generally have the word "water" in them, lots of water.  Water in scale.  Very hard to do.  Very expensive, very annoying.

Pacific Rim has another first to the best of my knowledge.  A voice character from video games has made the transition to feature films.  You may recognize the voice of "Portal" in key places in Pacific Rim as the voice of (what I think is) the computer that helps manage the Jaegers.  If you listen carefully near the beginning of this trailer, you will hear a very recognizable voice say "Pilot to Pilot connection: engaged".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6irOTZ0WskU#at=16

So much is riding on this one film, I hope Guillermo doesn't "fuck it up" as they say.

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Pacific Rim on IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1663662/