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Shelf Life - Breakfast of Champions

Cheesecracker wrote:

Mr Adventure wrote: I'm not sure how Christian imagery and allegory nessisarly is a negative attribute. Considering how the show then turns it on it's head (like good science fiction tends to do) Just for the record, that's not what I was saying.

I was speaking about Erin's original review, and how she uses it as ammo against the show.

And you're right, that sort of metaphorical belief exists in many religions and mythology in some form or another.

Has your husband watched any movies like Mad Max, The Road, A Boy & his Dog, or Book of Eli?

I'm actually a fan of post-apocalyptic films and literature, and it wasn't the aesthetic of Casshern: Sins that left me cold. The films you mention are all successful to varying degrees: Mad Max demonstrates the breakdown of social order and how terrifying true anarchy would be; The Road renders an excellent portrait of how miserable day-to-day life might be (although, if anything, for a book so widely regarded as unrelentingly bleak, I was surprised at how much hope there was); A Boy & His Dog (otherwise known as A Killer Boy & His Psycho Dog -- which you get points just for mentioning in this list) is an excellent (by which I mean disturbing) exploration of end-of-the-world sexual politics... Book of Eli is the only one of these I feel really fails, as the whole story is a contrivance for the twist-in-the-end which is supposed to blow our minds... but really I have very little patience for that sort of thing.

My main difficulty with Casshern: Sins is that the whole thing is such an over-the-top on-the-nose exercise in melancholy I can't find any of it engaging. There's no subtext, and whenever anything is ever in danger of becoming subtext, it gets explicitly spelled out in the dialogue. It makes the world feel very inauthentic to me, especially coupled with the hoards of rust-ridden robots Casshern smashes his way through. These folks hardly people this world; they are more like video game sprites. I think there is, for the vast majority of fight sequences, little dramatic weight. Once we know spoiler[ Casshern cannot be killed -- or even mortally wounded for very long -- there isn't any danger. ] The fights are there just to look "cool." Yes, in my view, this is a bad thing.

It's this inauthenticity, exactly in contrast to a movie like Mad Max, that makes me wonder about the audience that Casshern: Sins resonates with. I think the story claims to pose very human questions (for which it deserves some credit), but addresses them so perfunctorily I wonder what others are getting that I am missing.

Anyway, if you like stories like these, check out Pat Frank's book Alas, Babylon -- I think that's probably my favorite. Also, David Brin's The Postman (the short story -- NOT the book, and DEFINITELY NOT the movie) is pretty excellent.

I've gone on for long enough... I guess if I want to post in these forums, I should probably get a login or something. Sorry about that.

Has your husband watched any movies like Mad Max, The Road, A Boy & his Dog, or Book of Eli?

I'm actually a fan of post-apocalyptic films and literature, and it wasn't the aesthetic of Casshern: Sins that left me cold. The films you mention are all successful to varying degrees: Mad Max demonstrates the breakdown of social order and how terrifying true anarchy would be; The Road renders an excellent portrait of how miserable day-to-day life might be (although, if anything, for a book so widely regarded as unrelentingly bleak, I was surprised at how much hope there was); A Boy & His Dog (otherwise known as A Killer Boy & His Psycho Dog -- which you get points just for mentioning in this list) is an excellent (by which I mean disturbing) exploration of end-of-the-world sexual politics... Book of Eli is the only one of these I feel really fails, as the whole story is a contrivance for the twist-in-the-end which is supposed to blow our minds... but really I have very little patience for that sort of thing.

My main difficulty with Casshern: Sins is that the whole thing is such an over-the-top on-the-nose exercise in melancholy I can't find any of it engaging. There's no subtext, and whenever anything is ever in danger of becoming subtext, it gets explicitly spelled out in the dialogue. It makes the world feel very inauthentic to me, especially coupled with the hoards of rust-ridden robots Casshern smashes his way through. These folks hardly people this world; they are more like video game sprites. I think there is, for the vast majority of fight sequences, little dramatic weight. Once we know spoiler[ Casshern cannot be killed -- or even mortally wounded for very long -- there isn't any danger. ] The fights are there just to look "cool." Yes, in my view, this is a bad thing.

It's this inauthenticity, exactly in contrast to a movie like Mad Max, that makes me wonder about the audience that Casshern: Sins resonates with. I think the story claims to pose very human questions (for which it deserves some credit), but addresses them so perfunctorily I wonder what others are getting that I am missing.

Anyway, if you like stories like these, check out Pat Frank's book Alas, Babylon -- I think that's probably my favorite. Also, David Brin's The Postman (the short story -- NOT the book, and DEFINITELY NOT the movie) is pretty excellent.

I've gone on for long enough... I guess if I want to post in these forums, I should probably get a login or something. Sorry about that.