Frankly, I have no idea on either point: I never even questionned it before you mentionning it!
When the sequel comes out I’m requesting that you folks send in audio files with pronunciation keys that we can edit into the podcast.
-xtien
“It was not the power of the body that did this. It was the mind.”
Thank you so much to @Left_Empty and @iron_weasel for taking me seriously in my request that they include their whole emails. They really are worth reading. I have precious little time to get all of the details in, but that does not mean I wish you to truncate your comments. I just need to be able to work details into the discussion as organically as possible. Sometimes it’s a bit forced–that’s on me–but often it works out. I love that Tom introduced this idea. For me it enhances the show and even gives us new avenues for discussion.
That said, I often want all of the email to be included in the thread because, again, I think these opinions and thoughts are valuable. And I think you can see that happening here.
So again, to any of you that include your emails–I think I used the example of @JoshL from the Glass podcast–because I love reading them and love hearing how the other guys react to them.
Thanks again.
-xtien
“Meanwhile, a woman we’ve never met goes home…”
The opsis was amazing. So many great lines.
This thread turned into an exploration of the finer points of linguistic syntax and I’m fine with that.
Anyone know how to pronounce Cixin Liu? Serious question. Sixxin’ can’t be right.
Speaking of names, Dr. Jism Flamps is this year’s Chip Plinjminson.
According to Google Translate it’s something like, “Lee-OH tsue-sheen,” which sounds about right to me (not that I’m anything like an expert).
Yeah, it does. Really itching to do a Wandering Earth 'cast…
I am glad you liked it. One of the fun things about the movie is seeing all the Alita fans come out in force.
On another note, I thought the Waifu thoughts on the podcast were interesting. It was another sign the Rodriguez didn’t really get everything. Doc Ido’s relationship with Alita is a strange daughter / lover / pet / doll kind of thing which was the heart of their conflict in the comics. It was like movie created the exact thing the characters fought over.
Wandering Earth has the Kellywand seal of approval?
I think that might be my favourite name.
I like movies with any part of my name in the title. Even Turner & Hooch.
The C- X- and S- sounds are all pretty confusing in pinyin (the romanization used for Chinese). The google translate audio is pretty good, actually. It’s really hard to describe tones to somebody who isn’t familiar with the tonal notation in pinyin:
Translate
Although, you don’t want to lean too hard into Chinese pronunciation, or you sound like the obnoxious guy who went to Spain and insists on saying “Barfelona”. In the context of an English sentence, I’d probably pronounce it closer to “see-sheen lioo”.
I feel kinda embarrassed for this, but I’m a waving thumbs up on this one. Yes, on a structural level it’s a disaster (which is strange, because whatever else you might say about him, James Cameron understands structure), and Handsome Mc Love Interest cannot carry what the script requires - there should be a ruthless edge there that is completely missing.
It’s a mess, but between Rosa Salazar, the visuals, the gnarly cyborg violence (Ed Skrein gets his face sliced clean off and the rest keeps talking! Ya’ll underselling how nasty this stuff actually gets.) and the fact that is so emotionally major key made me kinda go with it
I somewhat grudgingly went to see this last night, and I am surprised to not hear more discussion of the violence. I am shocked this got a PG13 rating, honestly. I know there’s no blood, so you can kill hundreds of people without the MPAA caring too much, but SO MANY PEOPLE get cut in half and dismembered in this. And when Grewishka dies, there’s a line of slime between the two halves of his head and a sloppy wet sound.
Anyway. Didn’t like it much. Too much of it looked like a literal cartoon. Not sure sure how much the eyes contributed to that, but they didn’t help. And Edward Norton as Nova looked fucking ridiculous – the least intimidating overlord I can imagine.
These are pretty good points, @JPR. I think this movie pushes the envelope on that “carbon creatures” thing I’ve been complaining about for a long time. That thing where as long as they don’t look human enough, you can slaughter as many beings as you like and still grab your PG-13.
This movie puts people faces on robots and gets away with slicing them up, I guess because they aren’t really human. They’re closer to the carbon creatures we’ve seen decimated in a bunch of other movies. As long as there are metallic parts in the gore, I guess it’s okay now?
Of course I’m a total hypocrite on this. I’ve watched Avengers with my kid multiple times and I justify it because the Chitauri aren’t real. It’s fantasy violence. But it’s still violence.
Yeah. Edward Norton was a weird choice. I couldn’t quite figure that out.
-xtien
Nova isn’t really supposed to look intimidating, though. I mean, we’re talking about this joker:
I guess there’s a chance they might be planning to take him in a different, darker direction in their planned sequel, but I’m not sure why they’d do that. Desty Nova’s personality is basically that of an amoral scientist-god - more the Joker than the Overlord.
There are thematic problems with using an argument like that with this movie, though. Its viewpoint is definitely that cyborgs are people. There are evil cyborgs, just like there are evil “soft-bodies” or whatever they called them, but there are plenty of non-Alita cyborgs (like the maid) who are clearly just normal people to be treated as such.
Motorball is a blood sport (and Waltz calls them “monsters” a bunch of times), so perhaps we’re supposed to be inured to them getting hurt or killed? It was unclear whether the boyfriend’s gang only attacked Motorballers or also regular randos. They do repeatedly show people held down struggling while their limbs are severed. And that one guy gets decapitated. Not like they cut away, either – they linger on it.
Anyway. The Chitauri are non-human, though. They are a swarm of interdimensional monsters working to enslave/destroy/whatever humanity, so I think there is more latitude for bloodlessly slaughtering them.