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A Thread About Movies

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Posts

  • AtomikaAtomika Live fast and get fucked or whatever Registered User regular
    Hey, guys. Here's some help with the 24fps vs. 48fps debate. This link is totally legit, and it will download two copies of a film clip to your computer, one in 24fps and one in 48fps. See for yourself. Some of you will be aghast. Some will be curious as to what the big deal is. Some will likely not see any difference at all. Those in the latter group are probably my dad, and you probably also hate how letterbox movies put them black bars that cover up your TV.

    Link


    It's a large file, btw.


    If you're more eagle-eyed than some, check out the difference between 24 fps and 30 fps in a clip from Tron Legacy.

  • Form of Monkey!Form of Monkey! Registered User regular
    The difference is that in the one case, you would have had a somber, linear reflection on the meaning and impermanency of human life, whereas in the movie as it stands, you are dragging lil' Osment out of stasis only to torment him that much more, all while introducing Even More Futuristic Elements that ultimately undermine the plausibility--and therefore effectiveness--of the story as a whole.

  • AstaerethAstaereth In the belly of the beastRegistered User regular
    The difference is that in the one case, you would have had a somber, linear reflection on the meaning and impermanency of human life, whereas in the movie as it stands, you are dragging lil' Osment out of stasis only to torment him that much more, all while introducing Even More Futuristic Elements that ultimately undermine the plausibility--and therefore effectiveness--of the story as a whole.

    Does an ending where all humans have died, with their only remnants ruins and a robot designed to have and fulfill a singularly human need, say nothing about the impermanence of human life?

    Is AI intended to be plausible?

    Is implausibility always less effective?

    ACsTqqK.jpg
  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Peter Jackson says 48 fps is fine, guys, what's the big deal and that "it's similar to the moment when vinyl records were supplanted by digital CDs" because he is apparently unaware that vinyl is far superior in most ways.

    I use frame interpolation on my TV. For a little while, things look smoother and the effect is noticeable, and then after a little while the effect is completely transparent and you just become used to it. If it becomes standard, people will adjust, and in a few years nobody will even remember that this was a thing. There is no rational reason why 24fps is The Best Framerate and anything faster is bad and cheesy.

    Remember when HD came out? And it was really good for some things but then people realized that HD made a lot of special effects in movies looks really cruddy because you could now see the faults? Or how CG often has uncanny valley issues when you take it past a certain level of realism? Yeah, this is the same thing. The solution is not to cling to stuttery prehistoric frame rates because they are "cinematic," but rather to push forward and figure out how best to use the new technology. Just like the solution to the uncanny valley effect in CG is not to never progress the technology past Toy Story, but rather to work with the medium until we can get amazing effects that don't make the viewer do a double-take.

    I, for one, welcome our new faster-framerate overlords.

    HD only exposed the fakeness of effects in TV, where they'd been using shit cameras for ages.

    For Cinema? Cinema was already higher resolution.

  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    The ending of A.I. is probably the best part.

    It's horrifying, and bleak as hell, and probably the most subversive thing Spielberg has ever done, and all of it drenched in a heavy layer of irony.

    I think it was a great idea that just wasn't well executed.

    Partially because of the bullshit crap the future-AI randomly pulls out of his not-ass in order to make David's choice even more horrifying.

  • AManFromEarthAManFromEarth Let's get to twerk! The King in the SwampRegistered User regular
    shryke wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Peter Jackson says 48 fps is fine, guys, what's the big deal and that "it's similar to the moment when vinyl records were supplanted by digital CDs" because he is apparently unaware that vinyl is far superior in most ways.

    I use frame interpolation on my TV. For a little while, things look smoother and the effect is noticeable, and then after a little while the effect is completely transparent and you just become used to it. If it becomes standard, people will adjust, and in a few years nobody will even remember that this was a thing. There is no rational reason why 24fps is The Best Framerate and anything faster is bad and cheesy.

    Remember when HD came out? And it was really good for some things but then people realized that HD made a lot of special effects in movies looks really cruddy because you could now see the faults? Or how CG often has uncanny valley issues when you take it past a certain level of realism? Yeah, this is the same thing. The solution is not to cling to stuttery prehistoric frame rates because they are "cinematic," but rather to push forward and figure out how best to use the new technology. Just like the solution to the uncanny valley effect in CG is not to never progress the technology past Toy Story, but rather to work with the medium until we can get amazing effects that don't make the viewer do a double-take.

    I, for one, welcome our new faster-framerate overlords.

    HD only exposed the fakeness of effects in TV, where they'd been using shit cameras for ages.

    For Cinema? Cinema was already higher resolution.

    This is some straight truth.

    Lh96QHG.png
  • So It GoesSo It Goes We keep moving...Registered User regular
    I can't tell a difference in that Tron thingy, but I guess it's only a few more frames

  • AtomikaAtomika Live fast and get fucked or whatever Registered User regular
    shryke wrote: »
    The ending of A.I. is probably the best part.

    It's horrifying, and bleak as hell, and probably the most subversive thing Spielberg has ever done, and all of it drenched in a heavy layer of irony.

    I think it was a great idea that just wasn't well executed.

    Partially because of the bullshit crap the future-AI randomly pulls out of his not-ass in order to make David's choice even more horrifying.

    I might agree, but I think Spielberg's renown for schmaltz worked in his favor for the subversiveness of the ending. Tonally, the film ended like a dozen other familiar Spielberg films, but textually it's horrifying.

    The Omni-Bots are a little deus ex machina, but there's not a lot of ways to get back to that ending. I'm not saying a better ending couldn't be had, I'm just saying I didn't have a huge problem with the way Spielberg went about to get it.

  • AstaerethAstaereth In the belly of the beastRegistered User regular
    Hey, guys. Here's some help with the 24fps vs. 48fps debate. This link is totally legit, and it will download two copies of a film clip to your computer, one in 24fps and one in 48fps. See for yourself. Some of you will be aghast. Some will be curious as to what the big deal is. Some will likely not see any difference at all. Those in the latter group are probably my dad, and you probably also hate how letterbox movies put them black bars that cover up your TV.

    Link

    The 48fps appears to be more "crisp", which I attribute to having more information-slash-continuity-of-image. However, it also appears to be playing slightly faster--is this a function of the particular clips, or something endemic to 48fps?

    ACsTqqK.jpg
  • AtomikaAtomika Live fast and get fucked or whatever Registered User regular
    Astaereth wrote: »
    However, it also appears to be playing slightly faster--is this a function of the particular clips, or something endemic to 48fps?

    It's some weird optical illusion endemic of any framerate higher than 24fps. Check out that Tron link with the 30fps, it will seem sped-up to.

    It's not sped up at all, and the time signatures should link up. But there's something about those higher rates that don't jibe with normal vision.

  • So It GoesSo It Goes We keep moving...Registered User regular
    yeah that looked weird because of the speed, not the crispness

    I think I will get used to it quite easily

  • TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu PIGEON Registered User regular
    edited May 2012
    Hey, guys. Here's some help with the 24fps vs. 48fps debate. This link is totally legit, and it will download two copies of a film clip to your computer, one in 24fps and one in 48fps. See for yourself. Some of you will be aghast. Some will be curious as to what the big deal is. Some will likely not see any difference at all. Those in the latter group are probably my dad, and you probably also hate how letterbox movies put them black bars that cover up your TV.

    Link


    It's a large file, btw.


    If you're more eagle-eyed than some, check out the difference between 24 fps and 30 fps in a clip from Tron Legacy.
    I'm what you might call eagle-eyed (the difference in the TRON clip was pretty obvious) and generally I hate the whole soap opera feel that high FPS film gives off, but for some reason the 48 FPS version of that clip you posted didn't set off the "TRASHY/SOAP OPERA" alarms in my head the way most higher FPS stuff (like even the TRON clip to some degree) does.

    I think maybe it just has to do with what's being filmed: I was fine with the clip up until the very end, when it panned across the box with the jars and my brain screamed "YOU ARE WATCHING A TELEVISION COMMERCIAL." I think maybe a static camera vs. a moving camera is a large part of it, either because when everything in the frame is moving, the FPS is even more apparent, or for some other reason.

    Interesting my eagle eyes give me another reason to hate pan and scan: when they pan across the picture, I think it's often at the TV FPS rather than the film FPS, which makes the camera movement look unnaturally smooth to my eyes.

    TychoCelchuuu on
  • AstaerethAstaereth In the belly of the beastRegistered User regular
    Astaereth wrote: »
    However, it also appears to be playing slightly faster--is this a function of the particular clips, or something endemic to 48fps?

    It's some weird optical illusion endemic of any framerate higher than 24fps. Check out that Tron link with the 30fps, it will seem sped-up to.

    It's not sped up at all, and the time signatures should link up. But there's something about those higher rates that don't jibe with normal vision.

    The basement clips you linked to are not identical, so the time-codes don't match. Unless you were referring to the Tron ones, which I didn't watch.

    ACsTqqK.jpg
  • Form of Monkey!Form of Monkey! Registered User regular
    Astaereth wrote: »
    The difference is that in the one case, you would have had a somber, linear reflection on the meaning and impermanency of human life, whereas in the movie as it stands, you are dragging lil' Osment out of stasis only to torment him that much more, all while introducing Even More Futuristic Elements that ultimately undermine the plausibility--and therefore effectiveness--of the story as a whole.

    Does an ending where all humans have died, with their only remnants ruins and a robot designed to have and fulfill a singularly human need, say nothing about the impermanence of human life?

    It actually speaks even less to that idea through its elaboration. Saying less can often mean even more.
    Is AI intended to be plausible?

    An interesting attempt to change the subject. Are we really playing this game? Guessing about the intentions of a dead man? We are only evaluating the merits of the work itself as it resonates--or rather fails to resonate--with the audience, not trying to play armchair structuralist and guess how things came together in the mind of man who is not alive to intelligently speak on the subject.
    Is implausibility always less effective?

    I think you may have intended these as rhetorical questions, but they only serve to irreparably harm your defense of this awful ending, not enhance it. The answer is almost always yes, but for mercurial reasons that have to do with audience expectations and the difference between moviegoers who want to see Jude Law's chiseled jawline, and niche moviegoers who prize highly conceptual science fiction films.

    Audiences are generally more willing to suspend their disbelief when it comes to films set at some point "in the near future" as opposed to "far, far into the future." The former scenario is inherently relatable, whereas the latter requires careful handling to ensure that the audience's still "exists" in the form of characters who still act like us and still share our values. For the sake of easy illustration, compare the humanity present in the older star wars movies, quite literally set in a "galaxy far, far away", to the soulless science fiction husks that are the newer three films.

    In the ending to the ending to the ending of AI, humanity no longer exists, and so the relatable human element in the new Far Flung Future no longer exists either. Nor is any care exercised to re-establish those vital connections beyond some brief exposition hurriedly told to the audience, to go along with some views of abandoned skyscrapers. We do not exist in this future, quite literally, but also in terms of the human sensibilities that were so artfully established up until that point.

    This is why the ending to AI is poor. It eschews even the basic narrative construction that an ending should contribute to the story as a whole, all for the sake of killing off both the humans onscreen and and those watching the film, all to unnecessarily amplify exactly the same message that would have been more poignant and relatable had it been left open-ended.

  • CaptainNemoCaptainNemo Registered User regular
    I find most of AI sappy as fuck, but I do adore the Advanced Robots design in the Epilogue.

    PSN:CaptainNemo1138
    Shitty Tumblr:lighthouse1138.tumblr.com
  • AstaerethAstaereth In the belly of the beastRegistered User regular
    Astaereth wrote: »
    The difference is that in the one case, you would have had a somber, linear reflection on the meaning and impermanency of human life, whereas in the movie as it stands, you are dragging lil' Osment out of stasis only to torment him that much more, all while introducing Even More Futuristic Elements that ultimately undermine the plausibility--and therefore effectiveness--of the story as a whole.

    Does an ending where all humans have died, with their only remnants ruins and a robot designed to have and fulfill a singularly human need, say nothing about the impermanence of human life?

    It actually speaks even less to that idea through its elaboration. Saying less can often mean even more.

    I guess I'm not sure how "robot gets caught in an infinite loop at the bottom of the ocean" says anything about themes you're discussing. It might suggest symbolically that the desire to be loved doesn't lead anywhere? The complete ending, to me, speaks to impermanence the way "Ozymandias" does: by showing how the tools we create will live beyond us (and thus their usefulness).
    Is AI intended to be plausible?

    An interesting attempt to change the subject. Are we really playing this game? Guessing about the intentions of a dead man? We are only evaluating the merits of the work itself as it resonates--or rather fails to resonate--with the audience, not trying to play armchair structuralist and guess how things came together in the mind of man who is not alive to intelligently speak on the subject.

    Perhaps intended was the wrong word. I meant to ask whether you thought AI was plausible up until that point. There are a number of points in the film that strike me as surreal or exaggerated, from some of the pointedly stilted dialogue to the moon chase to the over-the-top robot gladiatorial arena to the immense and stylized architecture of the city settings to the fairy-tale influences on the narrative and visuals.
    Is implausibility always less effective?

    I think you may have intended these as rhetorical questions, but they only serve to irreparably harm your defense of this awful ending, not enhance it. The answer is almost always yes, but for mercurial reasons that have to do with audience expectations and the difference between moviegoers who want to see Jude Law's chiseled jawline, and niche moviegoers who prize highly conceptual science fiction films.

    Audiences are generally more willing to suspend their disbelief when it comes to films set at some point "in the near future" as opposed to "far, far into the future." The former scenario is inherently relatable, whereas the latter requires careful handling to ensure that the audience's still "exists" in the form of characters who still act like us and still share our values. For the sake of easy illustration, compare the humanity present in the older star wars movies, quite literally set in a "galaxy far, far away", to the soulless science fiction husks that are the newer three films.

    I think you've deliberately run away from my question, or at least somehow confused "plausibility" (I can suspend my disbelief in this) with "relatability" (I recognize a similarity between this and myself, this matters to me). I do not find impossibly advanced robots to be significantly less plausible than slightly-less-impossibly advanced robots and all the other strangenesses that we find in the film, any more than I find a bedroom at the end of the universe significantly less plausible than a violent computer or a mysterious monolith.
    In the ending to the ending to the ending of AI, humanity no longer exists, and so the relatable human element in the new Far Flung Future no longer exists either. Nor is any care exercised to re-establish those vital connections beyond some brief exposition hurriedly told to the audience, to go along with some views of abandoned skyscrapers. We do not exist in this future, quite literally, but also in terms of the human sensibilities that were so artfully established up until that point.

    This is why the ending to AI is poor. It eschews even the basic narrative construction that an ending should contribute to the story as a whole, all for the sake of killing off both the humans onscreen and and those watching the film, all to unnecessarily amplify exactly the same message that would have been more poignant and relatable had it been left open-ended.

    I think AI is very Kubrickian in the sense of the ending relating to the whole mostly on a thematic level (although the main character of the movie is Osment's, isn't it?)--witness the final scenes of 2001, Paths of Glory, or The Shining.

    I also think that the question of relatability is one the film is deliberately asking us to consider. What makes us human? Can we empathize with a simulacrum? Should we? It's hard to watch the scene where the mother abandons Osment in the woods, but why? Is he any different from a calculator? The videos I posted on the previous page suggest ways that the film asks us to think of humans and their robotic counterparts as points on the same continuum, both cared about and caring, needful and needed, regardless of their genesis.

    To put what I'm saying in a different context, I find that when I watch AI I'm not merely observing a process, I'm invested in a story and in a programmed machine character; his desire for love, his confusion, his pain, his joy are all emotions that appear to match my own. (Isn't that what actors do?) I don't see this as strange; I can get equally involved in the plight of a fish, a lamp, a red balloon, a plastic bag. Why not a computer program?

    In simple terms, most of the movie is about a robot. The ending isn't any less relatable to me because there are no humans around that robot (hell, there aren't any humans at the bottom of that frozen sea, either).

    You have yet to explain how ending on the Blue Fairy scene makes the message of the film poignant and relatable (not to mention open-ended--if you cut to credits from there, that scene literally means "and then the character never did anything ever again for the rest of time"). Please, elaborate!

    ACsTqqK.jpg
  • ThirithThirith Registered User regular
    Hey, guys. Here's some help with the 24fps vs. 48fps debate. This link is totally legit, and it will download two copies of a film clip to your computer, one in 24fps and one in 48fps. See for yourself. Some of you will be aghast. Some will be curious as to what the big deal is. Some will likely not see any difference at all.
    I don't find the 48fps one horrible as such; used well, I could imagine that the hyper-real feel (which, because we're not used to it, looks *weird*) could be very effective. My doubts are less about 48fps than about The Hobbit using it - the trailer has the sort of painterly storybook look that LotR had, and at the moment I'm finding it difficult to imagine how the smoothness of 48fps will gel with the overall look. I could actually imagine Tron working better at a higher framerate because of its glossy computer aesthetic.

    Of course all of this is based on hunches, gut feelings and the like, and has no basis in reality (yet).

    webp-net-resizeimage.jpg
    "Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    I think the ending of AI is important because stopping it at the Blue Fairy just conveys David's obsession. And it does so in an almost storybook fashion. It doesn't convey sheer creepy inhumanity of him. The final ending seems saccharine and neat, but is in fact deeply fucked up and intended to smash any storybook-esque elements of his journey throughout the movie.

    David ultimately isn't a real person. He doesn't grow or change and what he wants isn't a real person, but a simulacrum of life just like him. And he's willing to kill the real women it's based on to get it.

    Even in a world of AIs, David is still not a real boy.

  • HacksawHacksaw J. Duggan Esq. Wrestler at LawRegistered User regular
    You really can't appreciate how Soap Opera-y 48 fps makes things look until you're watching a scene that isn't about camera jerk and fast movements. I watched The Green Lantern on a Samsung SmarTV with all the bells and whistles turned on, and oh my fucking GOD but can you tell the difference. It was like watching Days Of Our Lives but with superpowers, and way more melodrama.

  • Linespider5Linespider5 ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGER Registered User regular
    Hey, guys. Here's some help with the 24fps vs. 48fps debate. This link is totally legit, and it will download two copies of a film clip to your computer, one in 24fps and one in 48fps. See for yourself. Some of you will be aghast. Some will be curious as to what the big deal is. Some will likely not see any difference at all. Those in the latter group are probably my dad, and you probably also hate how letterbox movies put them black bars that cover up your TV.

    Link


    It's a large file, btw.


    If you're more eagle-eyed than some, check out the difference between 24 fps and 30 fps in a clip from Tron Legacy.

    Oh, crap.

    Yes, totally see it. The second clip is much more jumpy.

    I suppose the best comparison in all this is to think of it as a song being played with a faster tempo than it needs to be.

    There were some totally valid statements being made about the accepted perceptions of movies through the different stages of technological development in the past, but I think what Ross is saying, and I'm inclined to believe him for the moment, is that this new tech is largely an arbitrary distinction rather than something that will truly advance the medium.

    I suppose it can't be helped. We humans are kind of helpless when it comes to needing to pointlessly tinker with something again and again.

    Personally, I would've preferred better colour matching and palette control in movies, but that doesn't require new tech to do and has been largely incumbent on the people making the movie to get that done right.

    Maybe this is all being born of some need to make movies look 'new' again.

  • HacksawHacksaw J. Duggan Esq. Wrestler at LawRegistered User regular
    Maybe this is all being born of some need to make movies look 'new' again.

    I wouldn't doubt it. Movie attendance rates have been dropping in the past few years. I'm willing to bet money the big shots at the top are hoping more new gimmicks will mean more butts in seats.

    If only that were true!

  • Mad King GeorgeMad King George Registered User regular
    Hacksaw wrote: »
    Maybe this is all being born of some need to make movies look 'new' again.

    I wouldn't doubt it. Movie attendance rates have been dropping in the past few years. I'm willing to bet money the big shots at the top are hoping more new gimmicks will mean more butts in seats.

    If only that were true!

    "You mean things like coherently told stories featuring interesting characters and theme would make for more movie attendance? Lookit those transformers pitchers! They're gangbusters!"

  • ThirithThirith Registered User regular
    edited May 2012
    Since the last discussion of AI (this one comes back periodically, it seems) I've been thinking about a point made last time round: would I like the ending better if I didn't know the film was by Spielberg? I honestly can't say, at least not without rewatching the movie. I understand what people see in the ending, but I didn't buy the clash between Spielberg's signature mawkishness and the pretty horrific implications of the scene. I don't think of Spielberg as an intellectual filmmaker - IMO he's strongest when he works with feelings - and I don't remember the film as striking me as particularly smart in that respect, so I didn't trust it to be intelligent enough to handle or even understand that tension. To me it felt as if the film (and, by extension, Spielberg) only saw the sentimental surface text - but if it had been a different director, I might have had more confidence that the film knows what it's doing. Does that make any sense?

    Edit: shryke perfectly summarises how I saw the ending: "David ultimately isn't a real person. He doesn't grow or change and what he wants isn't a real person, but a simulacrum of life just like him. And he's willing to kill the real women it's based on to get it... Even in a world of AIs, David is still not a real boy." The film's style (or Spielberg's style, or my understanding of Spielberg as a film-maker) makes me doubt that the film understands its own profound ambiguity.

    Thirith on
    webp-net-resizeimage.jpg
    "Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
  • Mad King GeorgeMad King George Registered User regular
    edited May 2012
    Thirith wrote: »
    Since the last discussion of AI (this one comes back periodically, it seems) I've been thinking about a point made last time round: would I like the ending better if I didn't know the film was by Spielberg? I honestly can't say, at least not without rewatching the movie. I understand what people see in the ending, but I didn't buy the clash between Spielberg's signature mawkishness and the pretty horrific implications of the scene. I don't think of Spielberg as an intellectual filmmaker - IMO he's strongest when he works with feelings - and I don't remember the film as striking me as particularly smart in that respect, so I didn't trust it to be intelligent enough to handle or even understand that tension. To me it felt as if the film (and, by extension, Spielberg) only saw the sentimental surface text - but if it had been a different director, I might have had more confidence that the film knows what it's doing. Does that make any sense?

    I get what you're saying, but I think you have to take it on a case by case basis with the man.

    When Raiders introduces us to Indy stepping out of shadow, or casts his shadow in Marion's bar, then Belloq later has a line, "You and I are very much alike. Archeology is our religion, yet we have both fallen from the pure faith. Our methods have not differed as much as you pretend. I am but a shadowy reflection of you. It would take only a nudge to make you like me. To push you out of the light," that seems 'intellectual' to me.

    Mad King George on
  • VariableVariable Mouth Congress Stroke Me Lady FameRegistered User regular
    Hey, guys. Here's some help with the 24fps vs. 48fps debate. This link is totally legit, and it will download two copies of a film clip to your computer, one in 24fps and one in 48fps. See for yourself. Some of you will be aghast. Some will be curious as to what the big deal is. Some will likely not see any difference at all. Those in the latter group are probably my dad, and you probably also hate how letterbox movies put them black bars that cover up your TV.

    Link

    those dude's jeans are terrible

    it looks weird because I'm not used to it but I don't see that smoothness as a bad thing. I knee jerk never wanted it to be used because I'm fine with how things are but it's not -bad- by any means. I am excited to see a full movie with it, especially one I am looking forward to so much. Ideal situation to get accustomed to it and enjoy any improvements I can find.

    BNet-Vari#1998 | Switch-SW 6960 6688 8388 | Steam | Twitch
  • HeisenbergHeisenberg Registered User regular
    Hacksaw wrote: »
    Maybe this is all being born of some need to make movies look 'new' again.

    I wouldn't doubt it. Movie attendance rates have been dropping in the past few years. I'm willing to bet money the big shots at the top are hoping more new gimmicks will mean more butts in seats.

    If only that were true!

    Better movies gets asses in seats, as much as studios don't want to believe it. I would love to see The Dark Knight Rises break TDK's record.

  • LucidLucid Registered User regular
    edited May 2012
    In both of the clips Ross posted(for the higher frame rate), the impact/force seemed to carry more weight, whether it was objects hitting the floor, or in the case of Tron, the characters bodies interacting with the environment/thrown objects. I didn't see any problem really. At first, in the basement clip, the person shaking their foot seemed a little off, but on viewing it more than once it became natural and fluid.

    Lucid on
  • Form of Monkey!Form of Monkey! Registered User regular
    Astaereth wrote: »
    Astaereth wrote: »
    The difference is that in the one case, you would have had a somber, linear reflection on the meaning and impermanency of human life, whereas in the movie as it stands, you are dragging lil' Osment out of stasis only to torment him that much more, all while introducing Even More Futuristic Elements that ultimately undermine the plausibility--and therefore effectiveness--of the story as a whole.

    Does an ending where all humans have died, with their only remnants ruins and a robot designed to have and fulfill a singularly human need, say nothing about the impermanence of human life?

    It actually speaks even less to that idea through its elaboration. Saying less can often mean even more.

    I guess I'm not sure how "robot gets caught in an infinite loop at the bottom of the ocean" says anything about themes you're discussing. It might suggest symbolically that the desire to be loved doesn't lead anywhere? The complete ending, to me, speaks to impermanence the way "Ozymandias" does: by showing how the tools we create will live beyond us (and thus their usefulness).
    Is AI intended to be plausible?

    An interesting attempt to change the subject. Are we really playing this game? Guessing about the intentions of a dead man? We are only evaluating the merits of the work itself as it resonates--or rather fails to resonate--with the audience, not trying to play armchair structuralist and guess how things came together in the mind of man who is not alive to intelligently speak on the subject.

    Perhaps intended was the wrong word. I meant to ask whether you thought AI was plausible up until that point. There are a number of points in the film that strike me as surreal or exaggerated, from some of the pointedly stilted dialogue to the moon chase to the over-the-top robot gladiatorial arena to the immense and stylized architecture of the city settings to the fairy-tale influences on the narrative and visuals.
    Is implausibility always less effective?

    I think you may have intended these as rhetorical questions, but they only serve to irreparably harm your defense of this awful ending, not enhance it. The answer is almost always yes, but for mercurial reasons that have to do with audience expectations and the difference between moviegoers who want to see Jude Law's chiseled jawline, and niche moviegoers who prize highly conceptual science fiction films.

    Audiences are generally more willing to suspend their disbelief when it comes to films set at some point "in the near future" as opposed to "far, far into the future." The former scenario is inherently relatable, whereas the latter requires careful handling to ensure that the audience's still "exists" in the form of characters who still act like us and still share our values. For the sake of easy illustration, compare the humanity present in the older star wars movies, quite literally set in a "galaxy far, far away", to the soulless science fiction husks that are the newer three films.

    I think you've deliberately run away from my question, or at least somehow confused "plausibility" (I can suspend my disbelief in this) with "relatability" (I recognize a similarity between this and myself, this matters to me). I do not find impossibly advanced robots to be significantly less plausible than slightly-less-impossibly advanced robots and all the other strangenesses that we find in the film, any more than I find a bedroom at the end of the universe significantly less plausible than a violent computer or a mysterious monolith.
    In the ending to the ending to the ending of AI, humanity no longer exists, and so the relatable human element in the new Far Flung Future no longer exists either. Nor is any care exercised to re-establish those vital connections beyond some brief exposition hurriedly told to the audience, to go along with some views of abandoned skyscrapers. We do not exist in this future, quite literally, but also in terms of the human sensibilities that were so artfully established up until that point.

    This is why the ending to AI is poor. It eschews even the basic narrative construction that an ending should contribute to the story as a whole, all for the sake of killing off both the humans onscreen and and those watching the film, all to unnecessarily amplify exactly the same message that would have been more poignant and relatable had it been left open-ended.

    I think AI is very Kubrickian in the sense of the ending relating to the whole mostly on a thematic level (although the main character of the movie is Osment's, isn't it?)--witness the final scenes of 2001, Paths of Glory, or The Shining.

    I also think that the question of relatability is one the film is deliberately asking us to consider. What makes us human? Can we empathize with a simulacrum? Should we? It's hard to watch the scene where the mother abandons Osment in the woods, but why? Is he any different from a calculator? The videos I posted on the previous page suggest ways that the film asks us to think of humans and their robotic counterparts as points on the same continuum, both cared about and caring, needful and needed, regardless of their genesis.

    To put what I'm saying in a different context, I find that when I watch AI I'm not merely observing a process, I'm invested in a story and in a programmed machine character; his desire for love, his confusion, his pain, his joy are all emotions that appear to match my own. (Isn't that what actors do?) I don't see this as strange; I can get equally involved in the plight of a fish, a lamp, a red balloon, a plastic bag. Why not a computer program?

    In simple terms, most of the movie is about a robot. The ending isn't any less relatable to me because there are no humans around that robot (hell, there aren't any humans at the bottom of that frozen sea, either).

    You have yet to explain how ending on the Blue Fairy scene makes the message of the film poignant and relatable (not to mention open-ended--if you cut to credits from there, that scene literally means "and then the character never did anything ever again for the rest of time"). Please, elaborate!

    It is possible that you don't understand the points being made on a very fundamental level. (Why a somewhat plausible "the near future" setting can be more relatable to an audience than a completely speculative "the distant future" setting, things like this.) You've certainly responded to it as though those points were never made to begin with.

    I am incredulous, because I truly just took the time and paragraphs to explain all of these things to you and walk you through some pretty complicated concepts, such as human agency in the film, and how it exists up until the Blue Fairy scene, and fails to exist after it, and how that is actually more lazy than it is artful, and your response is that I "still haven't done that." "I still haven't explained it."

    So what I'm going to do here is not restate the same thing a fourth time (and counting), but to assume you truly don't understand the points that are being made. Indeed, the heart of your own response was to focus on a meaningless semantic difference between the words "plausible" and "relatable", concepts that have been elaborated upon and conflated to aid your own understanding, not mine, and then you followed up with some unrelated, elementary analysis of what the film is "about" that anyone would essentially agree with.

    I understand why you've done this--the ending to A.I. is awful, nearly indefensible, and a lot of people may hate it, so you'd rather just change the subject and talk about anything but that, including the meanings of words, everything in the film up until the ending--anything that is more tenable and that another person could get behind. We could have done that if you wanted to. Bad ending aside, the film has some redeeming qualities as a meditation on the meaning of human life. (This is what I suggested earlier.)

    Where you lose me is with the conclusion that I "have yet" to explain what I just used my own words to explain. So, respectfully, it would just be a waste of my time and yours to state and restate and restate the same thing again and again until you one day magically register that you at least understand what is being said. It would be as futile as Osment's pleas to the Blue Fairy.

  • Alistair HuttonAlistair Hutton Dr EdinburghRegistered User regular
    Page- wrote: »
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    Fist of Legend disagrees with this statement. The pinnacle of the hard martial arts genre.
    Iron Monkey is my favourite wire assisted film even though you can spot the under-cranking.

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  • KalTorakKalTorak One way or another, they all end up in the Undercity.Registered User regular
    Heisenberg wrote: »
    Hacksaw wrote: »
    Maybe this is all being born of some need to make movies look 'new' again.

    I wouldn't doubt it. Movie attendance rates have been dropping in the past few years. I'm willing to bet money the big shots at the top are hoping more new gimmicks will mean more butts in seats.

    If only that were true!

    Better movies gets asses in seats, as much as studios don't want to believe it. I would love to see The Dark Knight Rises break TDK's record.

    Wasn't that record already broken by... Harry Potter? Twilight? Maybe both?

  • AstaerethAstaereth In the belly of the beastRegistered User regular
    It is possible that you don't understand the points being made on a very fundamental level. (Why a somewhat plausible "the near future" setting can be more relatable to an audience than a completely speculative "the distant future" setting, things like this.) You've certainly responded to it as though those points were never made to begin with.

    I tried to focus on what I thought were the key points of difference between us, rather than respond to everything.

    Anyway, I agree that near future settings can be more relatable. But I found the last scenes relatable, because our fairly-relatable protagonist is still there. In terms of relatability, I don't think a far-flung future is terribly different from a fantasy setting (I think Clarke said that). I'm still interested in what is happening to David because his story is what I've been following all along, and although an entire movie of David with no humans around him might be harder to watch, a single sequence (especially one that's pointedly about the effects of the absence of humans) works for me. The film has taken us on a journey, and the memories of that journey echo and inform this closing passage.
    I am incredulous, because I truly just took the time and paragraphs to explain all of these things to you and walk you through some pretty complicated concepts, such as human agency in the film, and how it exists up until the Blue Fairy scene, and fails to exist after it, and how that is actually more lazy than it is artful, and your response is that I "still haven't done that." "I still haven't explained it."

    I believe I understand your points; I just don't agree with some of them. I'm not asking you reiterate them but to expand upon them by offering logical and evidentiary support that might convince me. I'm sorry if I was unclear.
    I understand why you've done this--the ending to A.I. is awful, nearly indefensible, and a lot of people may hate it, so you'd rather just change the subject and talk about anything but that, including the meanings of words, everything in the film up until the ending--anything that is more tenable and that another person could get behind. We could have done that if you wanted to. Bad ending aside, the film has some redeeming qualities as a meditation on the meaning of human life. (This is what I suggested earlier.)

    Okay. What does the film say about the meaning of human life?

    ACsTqqK.jpg
  • Form of Monkey!Form of Monkey! Registered User regular
    edited May 2012
    Astaereth wrote: »
    Okay. What does the film say about the meaning of human life?

    Great!

    For starters, we have to first agree that the film is definitively NOT about artificial life. It's called "A.I. Artificial Intelligence." Its protagonist is an artificial creation.

    And yet despite all of that, it is a commentary on human life instead. At constant issue are the affinities we humans attach to objects, whether they are cars, favorite jackets, or even futuristic creations that we assign human traits to as a form of anthropomorphism.

    And despite how real and visceral that materialistic, thing-loving experience can be, it is ultimately a useless and impermanent endeavor. It is inauthentic at best. It is the participation in this truly "artificial" practice that is indicted in the film, not the artificial nature of David him / itself.

    Would you agree with all of this so far?

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  • CptHamiltonCptHamilton Registered User regular
    For starters, we have to first agree that the film is definitively NOT about artificial life. It's called "A.I. Artificial Intelligence." Its protagonist is an artificial creation.

    How would you define 'artificial life' in a way that isn't also an artificial creation?

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  • ElJeffeElJeffe Moderator, ClubPA mod
    HD only exposed the fakeness of effects in TV, where they'd been using shit cameras for ages.

    For Cinema? Cinema was already higher resolution.

    In principle, this is probably true. In practice, I've watched movies in HD - The Mummy stands out in my memory - where certain props look really phony as a result of being able to look at them with more detail.

    Regardless, that's not really the point. Let's just talk about TV shows. HD makes some TV shows look less realistic. This is a negative side-effect. But it's not an insurmountable side-effect, and it's sure as hell not a reason to never move up to higher resolutions.

    I mean, the clue here should be the fact that the main criticism is generally expressed as "it looks like a low-budget soap-opera!" This is a criticism that only makes sense if soap-operas exist. Imagine a world where there is only cinema. TV doesn't exist. You can no longer make the claim "it looks like this other thing that I associated with low quality!" You have to simply criticize it based on its own qualities. And basically, then, the claim becomes "I don't like 48fps film because it looks too real."

    If that's the claim you want to make - that you don't want your films to look excessively real - that's fine. Just recognize that that is what you're actually clamoring for, and that it sure as hell isn't some objective quality of the faster frame-rate.

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  • Form of Monkey!Form of Monkey! Registered User regular
    For starters, we have to first agree that the film is definitively NOT about artificial life. It's called "A.I. Artificial Intelligence." Its protagonist is an artificial creation.

    How would you define 'artificial life' in a way that isn't also an artificial creation?

    This is an incredibly unimportant distinction, and in fact you are supposed to be reading that paragraph and categorizing all of that stuff as "things the movie is not about." Why is it important to differentiate between one thing it's not about and another nearly synonymous thing it's also not about? It's not important at all.

    The film is also not about cookies. And not about pizza. And not about the inhumanity of war.

    But that is a rare internet-based talent, to completely ignore all subsequent language that goes on to talk about what it IS about.

    Am I being poorly trolled here? I am asking a serious question.

  • syndalissyndalis Getting Classy On the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Products regular
    Face/Off in HD is a fucking riot, as you can actually see the guidewires pulling people away as they get shot.

    I am sure this was true in theaters as well but I have recollection of the shots being done so poorly before seeing it on TV in 720p

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  • Mad King GeorgeMad King George Registered User regular
    ElJeffe wrote: »

    In principle, this is probably true. In practice, I've watched movies in HD - The Mummy stands out in my memory - where certain props look really phony as a result of being able to look at them with more detail.

    This is also an effect of having home theatre viewing. Back when you could only see a movie in theatres, unless you went 50 times you were most likely caught up in the overall movie and not the details of the furniture that make it up. Being able to watch a film whenever you want, pause it, etc., provides more time to look at the pieces rather than the whole.
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Regardless, that's not really the point. Let's just talk about TV shows. HD makes some TV shows look less realistic. This is a negative side-effect. But it's not an insurmountable side-effect, and it's sure as hell not a reason to never move up to higher resolutions.

    I mean, the clue here should be the fact that the main criticism is generally expressed as "it looks like a low-budget soap-opera!" This is a criticism that only makes sense if soap-operas exist. Imagine a world where there is only cinema. TV doesn't exist. You can no longer make the claim "it looks like this other thing that I associated with low quality!" You have to simply criticize it based on its own qualities. And basically, then, the claim becomes "I don't like 48fps film because it looks too real."

    If that's the claim you want to make - that you don't want your films to look excessively real - that's fine. Just recognize that that is what you're actually clamoring for, and that it sure as hell isn't some objective quality of the faster frame-rate.

    But "low-budget soap-operas" do look excessively real. To the point where you know that's not a real mansion, just a set. If 48FPS does that to movies, then movies become impossible to make. How do you make the mines of Moria look real without actually hollowing out a mountain?

  • CptHamiltonCptHamilton Registered User regular
    edited May 2012
    For starters, we have to first agree that the film is definitively NOT about artificial life. It's called "A.I. Artificial Intelligence." Its protagonist is an artificial creation.

    How would you define 'artificial life' in a way that isn't also an artificial creation?

    This is an incredibly unimportant distinction, and in fact you are supposed to be reading that paragraph and categorizing all of that stuff as "things the movie is not about." Why is it important to differentiate between one thing it's not about and another nearly synonymous thing it's also not about? It's not important at all.

    The film is also not about cookies. And not about pizza. And not about the inhumanity of war.

    But that is a rare internet-based talent, to completely ignore all subsequent language that goes on to talk about what it IS about.

    Am I being poorly trolled here? I am asking a serious question.

    You said it's not about artificial life, it's about an artificial creation. I don't really understand where you're going with that and I don't understand the distinction. Obviously the movie isn't about cookies, but it is about a little robot boy whose 'alive'/'not-alive' value is (as far as I can tell) meant to be ambiguous. If you're going to say that the movie is NOT about Artificial Life because David is an artificial creation...then what does that mean? Is it possible to have something that is simultaneously artificial life and not an artificial creation? Whatever parameters you're using to rule out David being artificial life, will they allow for anything to be artificial life? In what ways is David not alive?

    Edit:

    To address the rest of your original post so that you don't continue to accuse me of trolling:

    No, I don't agree. I haven't seen the movie in quite a while, but I don't think that its purpose was to show us the futility and falsity of engaging with a life of possessing things. There are parts of the movie that I could see speaking to that theme, but significant blocks of the movie feature no living humans, and others that seem to be saying that you can have a meaningful experience with a 'thing'.

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  • CptHamiltonCptHamilton Registered User regular
    ElJeffe wrote: »

    In principle, this is probably true. In practice, I've watched movies in HD - The Mummy stands out in my memory - where certain props look really phony as a result of being able to look at them with more detail.

    This is also an effect of having home theatre viewing. Back when you could only see a movie in theatres, unless you went 50 times you were most likely caught up in the overall movie and not the details of the furniture that make it up. Being able to watch a film whenever you want, pause it, etc., provides more time to look at the pieces rather than the whole.
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Regardless, that's not really the point. Let's just talk about TV shows. HD makes some TV shows look less realistic. This is a negative side-effect. But it's not an insurmountable side-effect, and it's sure as hell not a reason to never move up to higher resolutions.

    I mean, the clue here should be the fact that the main criticism is generally expressed as "it looks like a low-budget soap-opera!" This is a criticism that only makes sense if soap-operas exist. Imagine a world where there is only cinema. TV doesn't exist. You can no longer make the claim "it looks like this other thing that I associated with low quality!" You have to simply criticize it based on its own qualities. And basically, then, the claim becomes "I don't like 48fps film because it looks too real."

    If that's the claim you want to make - that you don't want your films to look excessively real - that's fine. Just recognize that that is what you're actually clamoring for, and that it sure as hell isn't some objective quality of the faster frame-rate.

    But "low-budget soap-operas" do look excessively real. To the point where you know that's not a real mansion, just a set. If 48FPS does that to movies, then movies become impossible to make. How do you make the mines of Moria look real without actually hollowing out a mountain?


    CG, probably. If you can't shoot it on location your options are to use a sufficiently realistic CG set or to just use a set and people can try to suspend disbelief.

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  • ElJeffeElJeffe Moderator, ClubPA mod
    But "low-budget soap-operas" do look excessively real. To the point where you know that's not a real mansion, just a set. If 48FPS does that to movies, then movies become impossible to make. How do you make the mines of Moria look real without actually hollowing out a mountain?

    Well, they look excessively real in that you get a good sense of the quality of the set pieces. Which is: bad. But this isn't an argument for hiding behind choppy frame rates, it's an argument for making higher quality sets. Which we can absolutely do.

    What about, say, a nature documentary? Would you rather have that filmed with a more-realistic 48fps camera, or a less-realistic 24fps camera? If you say the latter, why? What do you get out of making actual reality look less realistic? And if you say the former, isn't that just an argument for better sets and props and costumes?

    The argument against higher frame rates strikes me as very much akin to looking at crappy CG used to poor effect in the 90s, and deciding that we should never use CG again because it could look cheesy when it wasn't done right.

    See, I'm assuming the goal here is for movies to look like you are actually in the middle of a real event that is happening. Increased frame rate is a necessary step towards realizing that goal. It is also an impetus towards taking the other necessary steps as regards realistic sets and props.

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