welshnew50

This game (or i hope i wasn't playing something else, in the Epic-port-to-PC? ) is a nice simple adaptation of if not exactly? Then not much more, of what one would've experienced in an arcade machine style extension on the original series of games, and in terms of weapons/monsters, almost what one would've experienced with the classic doom2, plus one extra weapon, a few new monsters, but quite significantly, some monster-TWEAKING, which i quite enjoyed the difficulty-spike from - A perhaps better balance, that the original games dare i say it,.. SHOULD'VE had?

Although to make it much more of a realistic difficulty, doom should've always added jitter to monster's direct projectile attacks, so that not-only marines with their guns, would regularly hit you, if you're good at dodging.

That was always a significant advantage if you like being able to rarely-die, or maintain your saves in one continual didn't-die re-loading, unlike people being happy to keep going after dying and starting with nothing and going from there.

The PC's auto-reloading of one's save-file gets around that problem (if you consider it one), or if you enjoy the difficulty in having to aquire everything again, perhaps denies you the masochistic difficulty you enjoy, although there might be a special code or something to start from scratch if you die, so you can then simulate ... pfff... another survivor turning up and taking off from where you started, i suppose.

I don't believe it has co-op mode, but i am sure that on the higher difficulty settings it would be needed. Hurt me plenty was difficult enough, so i can't imagine how well you'd need to know the levels like the back of your hand, in order to complete them on hell mode,.. unless,.. they don't respawn?

Dunno. Didn't try it.

But ASSUMING you're content with only having to kill them once,.. then YES!

This is a very good homage to the originals, with plenty of improved textures / high contrast, for quite a gloomy / otherwordly feel like in some levels in the original series, where the WAD maker has actually put some effort into matching the colors and the light levels, etc

Similarly, there is relatively good level selection, although some are a bit perfunctory / over-exploitative of the mechanisms of D. C. K.'s/WAD's functions, rather than trying to paint a movie-like scene, and USING DCK to paint that picture.

Traps aren't too bad? Although there are a few that are arguably too impossible to work out the first time.

Well, you don't want your prey figuring it out, do you?

:D

Having said that, rewards in levels for surviving them, and balancing is sometimes a bit off - not everyone goes charging in all the time - i as a Heretic player as well,.. found many levels with far too much healing, and sometimes unnecessary inflexibility in how they finish - you fall down a well with no damage, and have no chance of going back up again, to collect gear before the next one, etc

A few things like that, sure,

but overall a solid test of your old-skills, for those who played the originals. :)

And that last battle with the 'mother of all demons' (not exactly canon from the series? Heh ) ... was nasty! If she was a bit faster at getting around, the size of the arena might not have been enough to be able to keep giving her the run-around.

Diagonal extra speed, still works in this game.

Perhaps her speed in a smaller one would've been more appropriate, as-long-as they'd made those useless? 3 buttons on posts in the wall instead?

I think i died from hitting those while missiles then hit me in the back from slowing down,.. more times than anything else, in that level!

Her combat itself, was not impossible to master, but like all good boss fights, it should still be a challenge, after you figure it out - a little less room, but a few annoyances removed, would've made for a better balance / maintained intensity. Not as bad as the old Desparil in Heretic, that level had a ridiculous amount of space, but still, if her weapons needed to work in a balance-OF space,.. why have annoying , very much UN-fun obstacles that just get in the way of a fair fight?

A bit like that, some levels needed some more play-testing before being published and included in the game,

but definitely thumbs up for the staying-true to the limited range of engine dynamics / original feel!

And thumbs up for not being doubtful about little additions like the hyper-imps,.. imps fireballs were always too slow! :D

more like this!

Enough said. Nuh.

Family values are more than one a minute, Girl Interrupted character-concept ripped off, distracting from the atmosphere, as-were also, the marvel-like powers of some but not all - & possibly sexist, i would add. Both males had physical ones, and one-trick limited ones, both the female had metphysics / mind-control. Deliberate on the part of the writer, per some dated/never-right-in-the-first-place othodox !*$^*&^ ?

Wouldn't surprise me. Little new, predictable evil-corp, unrealistic level of acceptance / too-few a number of questions-asked of the staff and too little an amount of thought put into how to potentially escape, such as introducing the corp-employee being forced to use her powers earlier, when at least one of the four could've used theirs to try to compel / force her to help them escape, that was especially obvious.

Instead, they were all crestfallen-but-accepting having-made-mistakes teen-examples-to-us-all,... bleuuugh... i realized i was watching a rehashing of Girl Interrupted at that moment,..

so nuh. Just nuh.

Unlike most here, who i'm sure mostly have relative-to-other pinku / erotica films comparatives, experiences to share, and film-criticisms/film-praise of it's multiple blended genres,

the first thing i thought of ( guilty-puppy look ) that i should make a point about in a review here, was from perhaps the under-developed porn directer in me,

That in the first sex-scene with the Kappa, he seems perfectly fine, with being shown the front door, instead of insisting on the rear,

which, although i believe not-explicitly always-consistent? In the myth/lore? I.e. Sometimes shirikodama are not a part of the myth at all, and it might only be a partial occurrence? / was only sometimes present, presumably in the more monstrous portrayals?

... would nevertheless,.. mm... make sense, to be of primary-interest / natural-instinct, would it not?

Considering the normal location of the also-mythical shirikodama?

I.e. If they're normally getting in there for sourcing their mystical power... surely the front door's of little interest?

Is our contributing to society hero-of-a-Kappa, meant to be an exception to the rule?

He is also quite passive / not very proactive,

so perhaps he was meant to be cast that way?

:) OK then, but it does detract from the original creative-CONCEPT a bit, for the ever/always 'with-a-bald-spot' (hint) creatures, to be OK with risking ending up with more mouths to feed, or whatever else, transitionally.

Using metaphoric transitions is always fiddly, i just wondered if it might've been a production oversight / deliberate. If there's further movies like this / any sequels, you might want to ... 'stick to what's consistent between us all'.

Hrrrrmph. Never invite a history-student to a musical.

Didn't-know-how-to rate / probably shouldn't've rated this, so i gave it a 5/6.

Ahmed, Omar, ahhh-nooo, so many opportunities for Demyana Nassar to've had resigned-to-fate expressions, appealing to the gods for less ironic or cruel further-problems, and comparisons of him compared to when he was human, or stabs-at '1-adult' households in some cultures neglect of acting on men's obligations to their wives/household/children, etc,..

in soooo many moments, memories of cynical greek irony-comedies or latino/sth-american-neo-socialism states part-ambivalent cynicism-realism sitcoms, or french-absurdities of social-angst/awkwardness/mismatches, etc,.. where the women in absurd or difficult circumstances are more actively asking-the-universe-why, or talk themselves through further misfortunes with how-much? 'hands-thrown-uo-almost-giving-up' or 'why-persist-if-something-else-is-going-to-make-it-even-worse' sentiment, rather than as she was in this, being just passive, near-emotionless, accepting of choosing-between what was around her rather than seeking options form further-afar, friendless, and without any means of trading-with or working-for others, dependent on her husband... at all?

Trying to get work AFTER is one thing, but having no friend or networking-neighbours,.. we needed perhaps just a little more, to know-WHY she was so doomed in social-resourcelessness.

I.e. Even though it was easy to imagine why she felt like she was without options in terms of those she went to locally for help, the degree of, oppressed, 'don't-depend-on-others-other-than-your-husband' lack-of-social-skills / momentary chances suppressed initiative, is just too much a nondescript, passive, and bland, without-character character, to be following around in terms of all the things that happen to her.

Put differently, her being, 'just a mum' ... LIMITS how much you could DO, with her reactions - more of a aware of breadths-of-fate, and decrying cruel-ironies and trying a few things to get around the level of oppressive criminal and absurdly rule-based limitations on women / sole / without-husbands / whichever rules they are, like when the husband's "not dead",.. ugh.

I'm saying what was done with the degree of difficulties that she faced as things got worse and worse, could've been combined with more of a french-absurdity / comic scene-by-scene introduction, instead of such a constant oppressive bleak settings and extended scenes with long wide shots, and very little movement in & out of shots - almost all? Extended shots were still, and not 'following-the-character'.

Relegating the main character down to another character not-in-focus in the backgrounds of shots, limits how much you can use their facial expressions, or changing between close and long distance shots, smaller sound-spaces, and clearer emotion. If the main character's emotion is barely even noticeable and only imaginable from too far away, their reactions and progressions of emotion and development of character, remains-distant.

Kind of felt like that, even though i enjoyed some of the awful sitcom :D.

Some name / style exploitation films of the 60s/70s had sexist undertones / audiences,

others had political prejudist ones, etc,

others, like this one, had a pure exploit, in this case of a name,

and so are not excluded even moreso than the worst of the worst,

BUT,

also like some exploit films where they were likely just a bit of fun at the time,

it had aside from the usual, not much worse than a james bond film at the time baddies,

one memorably absurd and unique way of dealing with robot like under a mad scientists's control clones / baddies...

... feed them some weed!

:D

worth it just for that! Lol.

Maybe strap a bucket-bong to their heads and spin them around JC style?

Might've been too obvious? Lol.

Worked though, didn't it? Metallic man went down!

Brave. Compared to many exploit films, on-screen,.. weed makes metallic-man goes down... FEED YOUR MAN WEED... ethics, politics at the time,..

... yep. Brave. Production values are a joke,.. :D ... but brave nevertheless.

A wacky for-kids tibetan film style zoom-in on the metallic-men's faces contorting to the taste / experience of the weed, would've been a nice touch.

:)

worth it just for that. The rest is disposable.

In describing one of the inescapable themes of this movie,..

You COULD focus on the dad's MH,

you COULD focus on some single paintbrush version of a strong daughter telling her dad she doesn't have to be the same as him,

you COULD go on about child-rearing values without being circumspect and impartial to cultural values,

you COULD be hypocritical as to whether or not one needs to be indigenous to have the right to live an alternative lifestyle &OR sacrifice parts of one's life FOR something bigger than your petty little insignificant human life,..

... OR,

you COULD, focus on what one dies-for, at the same time, as one lives.

As in, there is no avoiding the question of what one chooses to sacrifice one's time for, unless one tries to turn into stone like a Buddhist, or sand like a dervish, or whatever, of those who arguably waste what opportunity they've had MORE than others on self-aggrandized illusions, so one man's definition of a waste of one's time-before-death, is another man's cultural, religious, or whatever else, rights.

Life is not ONLY about living, it is also about dying, and charlatains and vultures in religion, avoid facing mortal man's best weapon against the fate the gods might try to lay out for you, be that in the form of flapping-flags and shields needing to be picked up,

or in the form of forms to fill out from a welfare officer - a meek, meager role compared to the mightier gods, having to be played by those behind a smaller mask, but one still within their pantheon. Simpler times, meant simpler DYNAMICS, between them. Whoever thought that a or many gods of welfare, would oppress every man or woman, trying to make decisions abound.

Fortunately, other gods provide other pathways, even if they lead to shorter ends, but as i said, if one is free to die however one wants, that is not for any religion to decide for you, nor impose on you in a supposed land all about freedom.

MAKE UP YOUR MIND, AMERICA, or hadn't you already?

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This film does very-well, in portraying that KIND of conflict of control, societal imposition, and values-clash, while perhaps missing out a little, on the chance to portray the hypocrisy of regulated-parenting , with the self-delusional claim of various freedoms,

instead, it DEMONSTRATES it, and for that, it's no wonder it got so many awards and nominations.

Stars wise, i had to take a few off, for limited scope, but not every film can be an epic, one for the (deliberatly) limited range of character's personalities and emotions, and one for the acting being a little too stale / drifty / empty. There could've been more emotion, while the modernity-doom / helplessness could've been a little more atmospheric rather than,.. 'causing-a-blank-look'.

Just a little. Don't get me wrong, i have a very good including personal idea & experience, with why that happens,

but just a shave off of one for the other. A little more oppressive modernity CONTRAST, visual contrast,

could've made room for a bit more emotion amongst the various characters and especially the main 2.

Instead, the abscence, the void, the dulled / suppressed emotional resolutions never-happening in the father, spill over too much?

I'm not saying the daughter would be somehow the opposite of her father, she SHOULD be like him, considering his impact on her, and the trust between them, but as the story's progressing, she could've become a little more anguished or not-frantic, but,.. mm... strained-for-choices?

It's only a minor point though, the almost an elf-babe actresses's alteration of her appealing-to-one's-parent voice, was perfect, for how the two are being portrayed.

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If the book version is more of a complete picture including of more demanding emotion on the father\s part, and stress and perhaps anxiety on the part of the daugther, then sorry, i only meant as the two's co-dependency and trust has been done in the movie, not the book.

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VERY solid contrast of choices in terms of portraying death-instinct and how modern society not only understands it poorly, as-well-as what value-of, and role dreams have, in healing trauma, in terms of how our minds can cope or at times not-cope, and switch to self-sacrifice, with proximity to natural cycles OF death.

I found the possibility of the dad thinking of flies on corpses when the daughter was telling him he didn't need to be afraid, interesting,.. it was not apparent in the scene at ALL, and i have no idea if that was in the book, but IF it was, then that's exactly what i mean in the above - shes' got no idea what's going on in his head, but the perhaps difficult for him to've been FAMILIAR with difference between bees and flies,..

... is something NOT UN-familiiar, and IS familiar, when one remains close to nature, especially in relation to dreams. People have been pointing out things like that for decades now - too much detachment from nature, LIMITS how much the brain and mind can imagine of ways OUT of handling nightmares, and rationalizing death especially when causing it in others.

I should say though, not in the same way from normal small-scale human tribal conflict or something, compared to war-veterans,.. of course that's not the same,..

... but i just meant in terms of do we have the capacity to handle things like nightmares or even waking-morbid focus, our imaginations damaged,.. withOUT things like natural decompositionary 'logic' becoming a way out of perceived inescapability from one's own memories?

I.e. The SEPARATION in death, from one's own memories, is appealing, in a natural sense of rebirth, reincarnation, or even oblivion, as less-appealing as that might sound.

Whereas when you are alienated FROM nature, that refresher,.. that... re-stimulus, is not already adjusted to, not already known to go BACK to, to depend upon.

Instead, artificial concrete blocks, not time-weathered rocks,.. etc... make for a trapped dream-SCAPE, and from that, we cannot remind ourselves, or at least rely on being reminded EXTERNALLY, by being around de-composition.

It's a difficult thing to have to think about and try to wrap your head around, but what was the dad needing to be CLOSE to?

Its' no rational answer. You try putting it in a sentence.

It requires a ALSO irrational answer, not a rational one.

Don't be afraid of insisting on the right to be able to experience BOTH, and express BOTH, and work with BOTH.

Only trying to use one, makes you go off like a kettle left on the boil, or whatever. The subconscious stimulus, even if of death 'instinct', or things more recently discovered like programmed-cell-death, are opening up all kinds of explanations for sublimated functioning.

The combination of the two, could soon explain MANY things, that have been very badly handled in the past, by supposedly 'responsible' betters.

Well done to the producers and cinematographers and stroyboarding, too, the slow bits did not go on for too long, and the time needed on the daugher's finding-community scenes, were long-enough to succeed at getting the contrast right with the dad.

Good TIME management by the producers/editors, perhaps. Whoever. :)

Without getting lost in too many relatings of the history & context of opposition/resistance to the British empire, or other empires or impositional-religions also, & to remain focused on just this film,

this is a film where there are few 'good guys' if any at all, or to be more fair, 'war makes devils of us all',

& so without taking sides before reviewing it,

perhaps it most difficult but revealing scenes are the execution-of-a-previous-ally near the end, where the as it has been characterised before, vulture-like REFUSAL to respect the rejection of catholic last-rights, or refusal to respect in-death rejection of during-life adherance-TO catholicism then rejected in death, or near-death,

is akin to desecration, and in no less than a minute, is Damien's ex-ally turned British lackey disrespecting HUMAN dignity-of-CHOICE.

Obviously not an easy choice for the character, and if it is based in reality, no-doubt in his mind, what he THOUGHT in the moment, is what he should've done,

but just to portray the DIVISIONS being forced on them, i think it captures-a-lot-in-a-little - not that it's at all the only deeply evokative or symbolic moment in the film, but in terms of the ADDITIONAL division and harm that the 'free' state puppetry caused, when the crown COULD HAVE chosen more wisely, i think it's perhaps the best - the parallel religious-reasons are something not a part of my life, but are still present DESPITE what more modern, without-extras nationalism if-not also larger causes, try to not choose between, or depend-upon, to maintain clarity and consistency globally, in their purpose and principles.

Small scale -applied , vs. Global-consistency , you might say - despite the clear pattern of rejection in marxist like thought or realisation about who the Catholic Church often favors in times of conflict/strife, when their own PEOPLE, fail, even if their words WOULD ADVOCATE sacrifice and persistence, which is often arguably utilised by BOTH sides in conflicts like this, the PEOPLE fail, HUMANS fail,

and there it is - it's-LIMITS, as Damien has to walk away.

That's not unique to Catholicism to be fair, but the FILM SUCCEEDS IN PORTRAYING THE QUESTION, what's the point in self-deception in the long-term, if it can DO NO BETTER?

Again, the same question can be posed to/for other religions also, and in that sense one can be overly-critical of Catholicism, but some of those who focus on the wrong parts of it, or are too-opportunistic with WHEN they'll show respect for others choices, when taking a stance of active-DISrespect of-others,

was quite courageously portrayed - no doubt they knew when making the film, that seeing someone do the 4-points thing over Damien's fresh, still-dying corpse, could CAUSE a reaction - you can't make a film with a scene like that in it, without some balls.

Somewhat limited in it's broader scope, and without a base-description of the history, it is both fairly-limited to it's own world, but could've been better introduced, for people not already familiar with the history/context.

Cinematically OK though - plenty of wide-shots, sound-rec's quite well chosen in terms of distance-from the action recording - indoor's natural, outdoor's got no artificial-spacial-reduction, etc - very natural soundscape - simple capturing's sometimes more believable. I believed it.

What can be said about a anime series that although based off a manga / light novels where most of the creative-work was already done, managed to capture the necessary-conflict between prim-prunes, and irreverent-hentai, that both Japan, and the WORLD, needs to see?

Inevitable everywhere, but again, not everyone chooses to lead in this regard, and there is something to be said here for reform and it's opposites as the latter of the two struggle in our accelerating technological revolution & societal adjustments to it,

that said, some of the references unique or more familiar to Japanese audiences might go over many's heads, but i didn't have a problem with that,

this series can be watched in a take-it-lightly way, without needing to google every word and reference you don't understand,

mainly because of it's well set-up character-conflict dynamics - the monster that is Anna, and the resolute Ayame, with poor old Okuma inbetween like a slice of meat in a sandwich, both bizzarely parallel forces in the school, one two-faced and insane, the other conflicted but committed to their choice,

this series actually portrays a 'necessary-evil', VERY well, in that regard, while the hypocrisy, molestations, sexual-assaults, and outright attempted-rape BY Anna, are in constant contrast to the good chosen-level of reversal of policy aimed for by SOX, a misunderstood protest-group, really.

Called terrorists though, they struggle under the scapegoating oppression of TOO-civil society, and encounter a few further manifesations of the same pressure-creating-monsters rather than a more reasonable balance preventing them,.. along the way - my favourite, gathered fabric, with it's defiant suave? There's another word for it.. .consumate? Leader white peak, who i was surprised when i first watched it, could not be tolerated by the low-bets overly careful but-tactful Ayame.

Her wisdom prevails in the end, in better-understanding the context they're in, in not pushing things too far else risk the falling into the traps of the machievellian emotional-blackmail & similar machinations of the morality-pushers behind the oppressive system, preferring instead for GRADUAL reversal to balance,

but i could not help but agree and sympathise with White Peak, in his point about the world being insane, and "needing to be destroyed",

and the same with Kosuri's line that "thee people are no better than my decrepid father", and another about pandering at one point ;

There is a lesson to be learnt there, about irreverence, and who historically has backed it while being at the same time, pressured by especially religion.

It's a lesson already taught & remembered though, so it doesn't need to become overly-political, the constant refusal to stop doing her wordplay puns and double-entedres constantly frustrating Okuma, still brings a smile to my face most scenes when i watch it again.

Probably not suited for too-young an audience,

it definately has a, well, several points to make, and does so while also have a laugh all-throughout, but does still succeed in making a few tender moments when the generation we're following, find the efforts of their immediate past generations, which RE-FRAMES the questions the series raises, into more than just the immediate questions posed by the pushers of the control systems - their focus is narrow, but even just these handful of kids, can realise and discover that it's a much longer conflict with more depth than at-first might not appear, that especially the information suppression, is to be despised and defied, even if differences between groups mean that different groups have to part ways on some issues - more of that in more episodes with gathered fabric, could've portrayed that too, with some successes in cooperations painting more of a optimistic potential from the multiple groups (mostly)common ground,

but as i understand it, the series wound up doing less than perhaps it could've.

A second series then!

A wider picture/setting, and Q.s moreso public-indecency than personal-liberty?

SOX's timid limits of their ambitions, did limit how much the series could take on.

BUT, to be fair, it was consistent both in terms of what the group DID, and what they SAID, they were about,

so it was a integral struggle, in terms of their manifesto matching their deeds. Gathered fabric or similar groups would have to admit that, i think.

---------------

This world, IS insane, though, he's right.

It DOES, still, need to be destroyed,

Groups like SOX have their limits.

So do YOU,.. if you keep society's ball & chain dragging you back, like Ayame did.

While this series probably should not be judged or scored in terms of comparisons with series / plots with wider long-term character progression/development, such as in epic novels and sequential-generations series, it'd also be too easily given too a high score if you only took most of it at face-value, especially considering that it is aimed at a younger audience,

However, you can also say how important it is there, to not be slack or careless to-use tropes or stereotypes, if wanting to create truly new identities in an alien world, where human values become Star Trek like self-conceited/imitated and not TRULY-ALIEN, when complex & unrealistically-present in things like villages, or in terms of development, histories of repetitive destabilization, etc.

The identities in the nations/settings in this series, are mostly ones meant to be ones often recovering from cycles of immense disaster and warfare, or raiding aided by magic, and for a fantasy-setting that introduces quite early on, that there's basically only offensive, healing, and magic-circles (which seem to do nothing but trap people), it sets a bleak setting of a absurdly simple range of magic's impact/influence/presence, as-well-as then also, a OK, inevitably and perpetually violent world, where power brokers VIA magic, would inevitably rise, and puppet nations would have their strings pulled via various parallel org.s.

Yet we're introduced into something that's half harry-potter amazement-going-to-school, and 1/2 special-kid-goes-straight-to-the-top, of the also absurdly transformed main chr, who although understandably hesitant, somehow ditched his decade? Of hikkokimori like existence back in the real world.

To pause to praise it for a moment, i did give it a star for the starting with the end, going backwards at times real-world reveals, leading to his momentous decision to go and find the dream-of-death, that he either hadn't fully realized was what he was going to find in a moment of clairvoyance, or, chose-anyway.

It's difficult to approach suicide in such a manner, so i also gave it 1/2 a star as a bonus, amongst the 4 total,

but i also have to say, that choosing too-backwards a, reveal 'plan', when storyboarding / planning, can go-wrong,

whereas if a mixture of at-first forwards-time, can introduce a character BEFORE a climax (or dislocated-/disjointed- climax in this case), and then after enough intro, you can then start the 'some time later' decision making, and then work back from there - i.e. If it was from 0-100, the whole time frame... 0-40... then 99-100,.. then back to 41-98.

The way it was done, was a little unnecessarily disjointed multiple times in terms of the parallel plots, almost as though the writer didn't want to have to EDIT it so that more about him was revealed earlier, OR, added to the climax nearer to the end.

Personally, if you're going to try to create a good plot-twist, you should always leave much of it for the END, nothing beats the explanatory oooOOooo, so that was-why! Reactions that you get if you hadn't guessed it.

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That said, because it's a waking-dream one in the context of a suicidal, clairvoyant pursuit, and interestingly LEFT unexplained except by modernity's neglect, there is actually quite a strong, poignant and important message there in terms of trying to SHOW people who don't understand modern loneliness / tech-fragmented-societies' -suicides, & what kinds of things can make a person FEEL more empowered ; the pityful chr here's choice, to pursue a sort of clairvoyant-loop or self-fullfilling-end, with an absurd amount of veiling, self-DISTRACTING, content, was also quite good in terms of real-life mental illness, where even-when a distraction / hobby / choice of how one spends one's time can be consciously chosen, that the individual can still be prone to making decisions that might end a perceived inevitability of suffering but ALSO be-naive ones, to be fairly critical, or critical-ENOUGH, of the suicidal who hasn't experienced enough of-life-AFTER change, to know any better about how they can change their circumstances.

So there's also a included-in-the-package pandora's box of parallel value sets and dichotomies there, he's highly fantasy capable, but barely able to fantasize himself improving, or his parents potentially being willing to listen to a suggestion like moving to a different part of the country and starting-anew, etc ... or other ones, like his potential for fantasy in being more in control of his sexual appetites / means of approaching others in relation to it.

In some of those pandora's boxes of fantasy parallels, this series then falls quite disappointingly flat, relying on a lot of character stereotypes and stressor/adversities SET in a very narrow range of depths-of-character,..

... but ... again, because it's meant to be in his head,.. ... that also has a mirroring or further-proving of his naiveté when-also the SOURCE, -of, those characters,..

... conveniently for the real-world writer ;)

... but all-too-easily single-source HEAPED-upon just the one stumbling through life character.

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It COULD, have blamed-more, been a bit more political / socially-responsive, in the introduction to HIS suffering,..

...instead, it focuses on mostly his inadequacies/incapacities, which considering that he's a virgin 30?40? YO hikokkimori type, is quite unfair.

Portraying the bullying he went through, withOUT portraying the uncaring external world in larger-SCOPE, risks it being portrayed as more of a individual-failure, rather than a by-product of modern sick human social-breakdown, isolationism, density, overpopulation, etc, by-products.

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Similarly, in his fantasy-world characters, although there is diversity, in what's being played out in his imagination, although we some see dreamscape 'edges', there is much too much focus on confident, strong-personality characters, or highly-self-'expressive' (modern fashion/personality sense), when medieval, especially when it comes to poor-education settings, people are actually much more hesitant, unsure, CONFERRING, social-decision-makers-huddling, etc. We were also 'privileged' to experience the perhaps most-absurd demon-lord character, who seems to be little other than some B&D squirt-fantasy.

Yes, again, it is meant to be HIS, fantasy,

but that's the extent of power, that he's supposed to be willing to explore,.. IN ... his fantasy?

Since when do suicidals, not have nightmarishly cruel, depths that one cannot escape from?

I don't know about you, but when i dream of a demon or something, it is not as pathetically lightweight/neo-modern as she was. -1/2 star just for her!

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There were also too many character simplifications of the in-fantasy characters along-the-way, to make much of it seem worth watching to any great level of attention, even if you cared for some of the circumstances they were meant to be in.

If you accepted the premise, that he actually HAD been reincarnated into another world, within reasonable degrees of acceptance (in a fantasy), then although it is hinted by the end what's actually happening, such as in the opening his curtains getting daylight having the fantasyscape washed-away by outside real-world light, to be pulled along for as long as the series went for, for something that would end up although a good demonstration of some of what happens to (some)suicidals, felt like a distance unnecessarily traveled.

Other series that have tried portraying a world-with-a-world, or the degree of elaboration within just-one-mind, have done so before the back-in-reality reveal, a LOT more efficiently.

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So while the in-fantasy-setting ride is OK, if you like fantasy stories with familiar dynamics, then fine,.. it's got lots of that.

But as a dreamscape transitional, why have literally 99% of the series SET IN the fantasy?

That's too much. 80-95maybe, and 95's pushing the limit.

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consequentially, i couldn't give either reality enough from the positives of-the-other, to allow both to contribute to a high score, and then the base exposure risks, of things like character-stereotyping, and focus on his personal inadequacies, without much social-critique / taking a stance,

felt like a betrayal of all the time i spent watching it.

Not everyone who watches fantasy, or makes fantasy, is as helpless as the poor sap in this, to then be nailed as-he-is, in a neo corporate-competitive-pressure/democracy-failing world ;

to many of us, 'the' fantasy setting, is non singular, fantasy-settingS '

are non- mental-health contextual *rolling eyes*,

are non- hikokkimorio-suicidal contextual *facepalm*, and

are non- you-WILL-develop-inadequacies paranoid, ( fantasy is a thing that can be a MIRROR-TOOL particularly, or experimental play-ground, even-if often time-consuming.

What will you see, Bilbo Yamada? )

That incomplete / arrogant POV on fantasy, added an additional -1 star on top of the other ones that took it down, when it could've had longer periods of transitional time-spending - more time SPENT, in both worlds.

The Inuyasha classic series comes to mind. Often repetitive stressor/conflict resolutions on-stage ... in the action between the characters, but,.. there is a decent amount of on-screen time spent back in the modern world - yes, it is different since both worlds are meant to be real / only time-dislocated within the setting, but i'm talking about FANTASY-transition, not time.

Take say, a disturbing christian dogma / dreams/visions nightmare setting, a thriller or horror, where a disturbed 'leader' , so completely ruins the imaginations of his 'flock' ... and one is so out of it a lot of the time, that THEIR transitions, interpose themselves INTO reality, when set to thinking, that BRINGING that non-reality,.. INTO reality,.. is somehow a moral thing to do. Ugh.

Each JUMP-between , is what i mean - too few, and too non-linear.

Considering how late i played this, and then checking the date, 18 years ago, i guess i shouldn't forget to frame it as-of engines & capacities at the time,

that said though, i have to wonder how it was planned, or soon into it, whether or not the directors/producers could've put their foot down on a few things which's inconsistencies with the original series in the 90s, were maybe a little TOO creative - such as the spider-demons' telekinetic spiky-seaweed-bulb things - massive mistake.

The atmosphere's mostly good, although some of the hell-flesh emerging into our dimension, is a bit simply done / more enclosing than it needed to be - one feature of the original games, which reminded you as you played, was the sky/background scrolling-vista - although the base engine has one too... you barely ever SEE it, compared to the insides of the mine - a better idea might've been something like a central-tower having to be returned to a few times, and perhaps a close-mountain, to have towering high-enough up that you could see it behind the surface-level over your head when looking out a window.

As well as the atmosphere, i loved the way the old textures were given a 2nd... errr ... 4th? 5th? 10th? Lease of life, and MIXED-with-new textures, although some of the wall ones had too-clean an edge, which compared to most ended-up looking especially prismatic - when you're trying to use grime / lots of shadow in the 3D dynamic lighting, it's best to have dark-corners in just-about everything, so you make the most of 3D shadows/lighting ability to add as little as possible in the corners, which when combining with textures on flat prism walls, means you barely-notice the lines if-at-all.

The adoption of many the textures from the original games, was actually quite encouraging, but when it came to things like monster-changes that heavily-imbalanced the game, i couldn't really find myself FEELing like i was playing a similar game - i felt like i was playing more of a quake-labyrinth with-excuses - meaning ;

1 Instead of some levels with a decent amount of SPACE, in which to run around a bit more, and to have to avoid damage more, and kill a lot in one go,

2 We were constantly in front of locked doors that just-shut behind us, constantly being ready to react to the remote/tracking summonings, when you need INconsistency so you start to relax, and then bam! You've relaxed and it happens again,

3 because of the lack of space able to both allow players a chance to dodge & kill a lot in one go, some weapon types were much better at defending-with against the remote summonings, while others were hopeless, and this meant that opportunity was missed, to make more of a variety of uses-of-ammo - if different players preferred different weapons in open spaces compared to tight spaces, they didn't really get much of a chance to use them. This meant little flexibility to suit the individual player's skills / preferred-play, and also meant that you didn't need to plan with your ammo either - one difficulty of the original series, that made them both a challenge and a lesson-to-be-learnt (rather than feared going to make brats unhappy re marketing-fears) , was that if you went too far into a chapter after-having collected the wrong types of ammo for the rest of the levels & boss at the end, you would face a much more serious challenge than you didn't in this one, with the soul-cube more than compensating - after getting it, i found all the rest of the bosses little more difficult than coming across a single hell knight - in terms of skill, the Guardian of hell was the most difficult from a lack of having the thing to heal-with.

Although that was meant to be a part of the plot/mystery, it imbalanced it TOO much, especially when getting a BFG early - if surprised by more than one higher-difficulty monster like an arch-vile or hell knight, one bfg round followed by a quick switch to a charged cube, could take one out in under 5s, and then you only had one left to-dodge.

Similarly, there was a distinct lack of things like machinegunners & revenants in little windows / holes in walls firing at you from far-away, to force you to decide-quickly & switch to attacking-quickly, in traps, which back in the old games, were arguably much more diffcult than the weapon-switching that one can do in this one, in anticipation of a few more difficult than usual enemies in tight spaces, especially after getting the rocket launcher or BFG.

Levels in the old games where choosing-to waste precious rocket ammo in tight spaces, was a massive-mistake unless you were fully-stocked and doing it for some other reason - building back up another type, or something, were ones where you really needed to get used to guerilla-cover tactics and making the most of your shotty ammo by letting monsters like imps get-close so you only needed one shot, etc.

In other words, there was not-enough room to get REWARD, if you'd already conserved your rockets, since you still risked shooting yourself with them point-blank, which left you with the BFG, and it didn't have frequent enough ammo to be a constant defence against those surprises where the designers forced you to think-quickly.

I like a challenge in close-combat games like that, but NARROWing the number of things a player can do in a REPETITIVE pattern, is the worst combination of choices of the two, IMO.

The old games let you make your own mistakes,

this one held-your-hand allllll the way through, which i found tiresome and quite boring after 10-15 maps or so. Only the puzzles, new-monsters, and boss fights remained interesting.

Also, a hallmark of the old games, were FEW locking doors, so that you couldn't go back to places you'd been before.

This game had LESS-monsters, and LESS space.

Doom needs more of BOTH.

For a frag-fest game? THE frag-fest game, the very source of the word? Agh! Nuh.

While the first movie has some stale/nothing-new scenes that dragged on for probably longer than they needed to in setting the setting and establishing CHRs,

this film doesn't need to do the same, and-so can spend more time on the absurdity/kookiness of the premise/romp, which climaxes well with another clash between the competitive hostesses,

which in-itself, could be enough to-turn most away from the film,

but that's like ... toooootally not-the-point, when it comes to producers/writers? Choosing to throw caution to the wind / taking off the rubber for a closer feel of WHY, this kind of absurdity/romp IS, funny, and not just misogynistic teenager-boy jerk off rubbish, by the time the two giants are fighting it out in the forest, especially, and the whole-unit ... mmm ... complete-package of their heroine? Mmm maybe that's a stretch,.. OK,.. entertainer-concepts,.. have to bring everything they've got to bear on-each-other - as in ... you could smell the pre-cum ending up your mates pants as you were watching it without anyone noticing, ( if you've got a nose for that sort of thing ) , when each has brought everything they're going to be able to, and you KNOW that what you're seeing is as good as it going to get at any point in the movie.

Some funny dom-absurdity scenes, with the standard-apologetic/sub businessmen ofc, and some maturity in the main chr, after she's learnt some lessons from the first movie.

A limited scope/plot, buuuuut what are you expecting?

Don't watch this if it's absurdity isn't what you were after.

Years ago, this series immediately turned me off when i noticed that all the lead female characters were unneccessarily-blonde, perhaps there was a reason in the plot/setting, but that-was-that, a superficial annoyance turning me off, i chose something else to watch, and moved on - anime being the smorgasboard it is,

---

Now that i've actually watched it, as the series has progressed, some of the effort put into the methods particularly, of the monsters versus the rather stale & near-homogenous heroines, kept me interested,

when i might've otherwise got sick of the repetitous competitive-aggression vs. Disciple theme amongst the heroines , which although parallel to the conflict, limits how diverse the 'good-guys' ARE,

which indirectly makes them LESS-interesting than the monsters (plus a few other more diverse characters like the shadowy leader/liason of the org that's constantly giving orders),

And-then, because the monsters are usually / mostly disposable characters, the lack of diversity remains and the limited culture if that's not too much of a word for it, amongst the org. Doesn't change or adapt all that much, and there seems to be an obvious abscence of non-Claymore powers of the (100%)humans themselves, aiding, working parallel, or even at times, competing-with the Claymores, in their OWN defence.

That simplification of the 'settled'-balance of relied-upon power in the setting, limits what-happens in each episode, as-well-as who gets involved in the ending,

so while there isn't too much to have to think about, if intrigue bores you, especially if still-frame + opening&closing mouths visuals bore you, and the series DOES do a reasonable job of making sure there's enough action and visuals progression for an anime, to keep you interested most of the time, i can't help but feel that there's a a niggling few missing-realism-pieces to a more complete setting, so i had to shave a star off for that.

Aside from the setting/writing/breadth,

the deliberativly limited weapons/armour consistencies of the Claymores also seemed un-neccessarily homogenous/limited, even-if you're to believe they're an order with rules/reg.s,

surely the grumpy/cynical/better-survivors amongst them, would have a crossbow or two with good penetration, or grenades, or poison, or something - instead, the constant 'big-sword' perhaps-even peeny-envy/imitation ... :D ... got a bit... mmm ... difficult-to-swallow?

Surely axes-with-spikes / picks/hand-scythes / spears , would've made better piercing weapons, for the persistently tough-skinned monsters, but instead they all go for long-blade slashing, which just doesn't seem to match up.

---

On personality, many of the Claymores are far too limited by relative similarities with-few-differences amongst-the-disciplied,

and of the a-little-but-not-enough cynical +more aggressive , too limited by their org.s rules/reg.s, despite being cynical-enough to've ended up higher-up amongst the org., even-if they had to stick with the same armour/weapons.

Some of the side-characters or non-Claymore characters are more diverse and realistic, but considering how much TIME we spend with only-Claymores, the more we hear of their stories, the more reluctant they seemed to me, to be likely to have contingencies that break the rules - there were some exceptions, i have to admit, but the 'established-balance' (of the order ) still seemed too unrealistically inflexible, if more flexibility would've meant it could keep greater numbers, as-well-as be able to rely on more ranges of capacities.

The simple acceptance of the hidden/secretive leadership, without a more realistic range of DIStrust, considering that the upper leadership protects itself by sacrificing the lower members is just too much as a balance - it seems more like an abscence-of a balance.

Although that's perhaps an OK realism in the context of the internal-doubt in EACH Claymore, in terms of losing-control, the by-product of that chosen-constricted-realism, should've created more cynical / mixed-loyalties / conditional-service ANYway - as in, although you can set-aside how much wider-society could-not trust and rely on something that limited, INdiverse, and constrcited, for example, none of them even seem to ride a horse, for instance, for faster arrival times?.. you can still RE-criticise the abscence of more RANGES of capacities of an org. That's supposed to be USED TO protecting against different threats - surely the humans would at least have other mercenaries or something, that can fill a gap / meet a challenge that the Claymores cannot - a wave of FLYING ones, say - Claymores standing around with 2-handed swords would be useless - surely humans would've fostered / supported similiar orders / mercenaries,.. something,.. with more ranges of readiness-FOR different threats.

Had to drop a star for that, too - the setting seems to have quite advanced building and metalworking crafts, but i barely remember ANY missle weapons, and there was a near-total abscence of magic weilding BY humans also, which is also too-unrealistic.

Especially considering that the more powerful of the monsters, amongst the awakenedBs, start to RELY on psychic / mind-control / soul/aura capacities, and humans willingness to sacrifice themselves when we/they have SHORTER lives. I.e. With a short(er) life, there is less sacrificed compared to lost, with each Claymore lost - at one point the dialogue contained that they don't AGE - yet both the order AND the humans, are happy to have them constantly losing their experience, by this limited gear/weapons rule?

Why. Couldn't give it 7, when just too many plot-conveneiences to have the two opposing sides going at each other constantly withOUT human resistences/help, forced a limit on the entire setting's goodly-types versus the force-of-evil - althoug the terrain/scene-by-scene settings change a little, the persistence of the useless-humans-in-contrast-to-neccessary-evil within EACH Claymore, was an interesting limit on their powers UNlike many series where the heroes are too over-powered, the various LANDS and powers they travel THROUGH ... all have the same policies!

There's never any monster-hunters, never any mercenaries, never any standing-armies elite forces,.. nothing!

---

Has a well suited stop-start rythmn intro tune eliciting altenation between blocking & swinging a weapon / running & stopping, etc,

time-management / storyboarding/scene-sequencing is good, and the art itself, is a suitably dreary mostly-greys & blacks, which indisputably maintains a consistent 'north' / winter setting, but then, humans seem to go around in temperate clothing! :D

so yeah, a little more double-checking in the realisms in the plot-balances / fleshing out the world/setting would've made for a more complete plot/setting, and then a few more sub-plots / additional antagonists / changing-style as the Claymores moved-throughout various lands, would've made for more of a ... we're-a-responsive-emergent-order-that-responds-to-monsters-emerging-to-ADD-TO-what-you've-got-for-defences-locally ... mmm ... arrival, in a theatrical sense.

Instead, it felt like more like repetitive games of chess / lined-up ... select-your-team to fight the repetitous monsters, and on-that, those that they fought MOST of the time, were visually pretty-plain, rather than more cunning / a hidden-monster-or-two-amongst a population, like there was in the first episode.

Yes, Claire's own adventure is meant to be SCALING up, else she might've been just continually doing similar scale work, but as the conflict, well-beyond her own direction/control, clashes with what SHOULD be more cunning/better-surviving monsters, most of them simply start to get larger / stronger / in greater numbers - that got repetitious too - more creativity in HOW stronger ones were supposed to've ALREADY learnt to survive weaker Claymores, SHOULD've meant more moderately strong, but intelligent ones - instead the few intelligent ones, kept leading plain, lizard-like / golem-like muscle-mass target-practice styles, and that really didn't make for much of a challenge. I'm exaggerating a little, maybe the balance was 40%/60% ... i wanted to see 80/20 ... not-many, would be simple/armour+strength ones, if they're exactly the kind easily chopped-up by the supernaturally-strong Claymores - there's a who would've survived question there left un-addressed - over-time, the monsters would've become LESS crude&chunky.

---

Some of the word usage, at least in the English-translation, is too-modern, too - unsuited for a medieval setting - swearing, concepts of divinity/prayer are all christian ... is it meant to be a christian setting?... etc.

If they were meant to NOT be in a christian setting, then why do some of the characters, again at least in the english version, call out to / pray to "god" ?

Yaaaawnn...

There's almost too many things for me to think of to say what is wrong about this series,

although i'm sure many might FEEL as though the upbringing they've had is one of some similarity-in-cruelties under gov. Programs with assumed/presumptive aims supposedly for-the-individual,

that doesn't make the series well MADE, nor something that will resonate-with different audiences, and have then, similar effects of intended portrayal-of , evocation-of, or inference-of, emotion,

so while some might feel more for the 2-male antogonists how-to-end-it-all naive thoughts/plans, the plot-basis was badly done in the anime, even if it was better done in the original manga, which i imagine it was.

I felt as i watched it, without having read the manga, like the two had unknown reasons and i was having to wait unneccessarily until the last few episodes before it was clearer, even though the characters glum/pessimistic/accptances-of-a-predetermined-reason to be going ahead with some kind of plan, gave you an educated guess - some grude against the state or parts of it, from having turned a blind eye to something it couldv'e prevented / changed it's mind about / done-differently - the few hints / suggestions slowly gave you that idea, but the deliberate writing/production choices in the anime/if-not-also-manga, to withhold things until near the end, really didn't make me CARE much about them, nor see them as potentially-deserving-sympathy exceptionally badly treated VICTIMS - they could've been, but they also could've been many things, and that really didn't add anything to any mystery that could've been intended, since something just didn't pluck that mystery-string in my mind - instead, a tired setting, tired political-context, and scale of the anti-heroes vs. Ordinary cops, is hardly one we've not seen before,

so although following the cops' difficulties and adjustments to the parallel military/gov interests was exciting / watchable,.. ... MOST of the time was spent on the 2 young men and the got-caught-up innocent what's-her-name,

and seeing as though i couldn't feel much for them YET,.. it all hinged on how the story was going to be revealed,

aaaaand, then as it got closer, the uttterly un-explained motivations of n.5 , just lost-it for me - while there was the occasional line about "have you forgotten how we were treated?", existed between the older of the two boys, n.5 just came across as a STYLE setter / merchandising / consumer-personality primer / model -tragic, for the unimaginative/uncreative, and as it ended, ludicrously killed herself for-what ... a chance to have a kiss? A snog? How-about a root?

OVERly melodramatic, narrow, stereotyped female antagonist, while poor old non-savant whats-her-name that got caught up but-survived ... the ordinary-girl, by constrast, got-to-survive, but was ofc hopelessly less-a-attention-getter / 'female empowerment'-ed heroine,..

*fingers down back of the throat retch*

... sorry guys,. But n.5 was NOT empowered.

Female-with-determinisms characters, need MORE, than just strong-emotion.

Or moreso, strong-emotion WASTED, on gender-stereotype melodramatic BS,

is almost OFFENSIVE to, in addition to failing-to try to balance things out,

so yeah. Nuh. How about we saw some REALISTIC emotion on what's-her-name that got caught up in it... Lisa,.. at least ... hmmm ... WANTING TO KNOW WHY?.. ffs ... her free-rent/food potential-threesome ... oooo! That could've been interesting,.. but again... no...

... wanted, to be doign bombings in the first place?

Through all the episodes, she barely made a SQUEAK, just somehow unexplainedly content to go along with it,

and even-that, was way too much of a stretch.

Ordinary-girl turns - collaborator to building-bombing saboteurs/terrorists , because what ... she's seen them on tv? Has a minor single moment, of exchanged pheremones perhaps, when the younger one bumped into her breasts accidentally?

Ffs , even THAT would've been enough to give us SOME idea,

but-no. Much like the balloon-escape of White Peak out of Shimoneta , the writer/s / producers escaped in a no-longer-having-to stay on the ground , in a grounded-reality ... with both motivations, realisms(except the cops-realisms, they were mostly ok ), and well ... HOW ... various characters / players were going to achieve their aims.

It was just overall,.. too conveneiently worked out, including of always-predictable side-characters or disposable-characters that were there to have the plot propress, while choosing to focus on the 2 boys +1 ,

and that lead to a too-consistent, never-surprising progression of the drama, when the 'oh, but he's a savant' card was played too many times - that lost, eroded, or undermined being able to predict whether or not they'd ever get into any trouble / anything unexpected.

The only exception to that was the airport episode, but IT, was then ruined by the ostentaciousness / preteniousness of the chess-game.

Flat, watered-down, unconvincing, and gender-imbalanced/melodrama-stereotypes-perpetuating.

3's as much as i can give it, for the art, SFX, and sequencing / storyboarding, etc. Those PV were fine.

I was initially entheusiastic about this game when i first heard about it, immediately got it,

but was-then also, immediately dissapointed with it,

the obvious lack of complex gameplay, turning it into a mostly-physical+powerups type pitfight, revealed ;

1 a lack of imagination , (metaphysics, dweomers, manifestations, extra-dimensional environmental effects,.. whatever)

2 innovation in terms of king-of-the-hill gameplay (why should king-of-the-hill stay the same even with a setting like this?) ,

3 good business-planning in terms of not wasting time asking-for-problems by disrespecting traditional-depictions of the gods themselves when modelling them, which could've just been a straightforward top-down order from the executive to not-screw-around with them, which arguably the game has ended up doing especially with the turning of traditionally lightly-clad ones into BEACH-babes, which is clear case of cultural-homgenisation / cultural-Americanisation,

4 And most recently, and perhaps EXEMPLAR of what is wrong with the game's leadership / owners not telling the board to get their act together,..

... the recent absurdly obvious inclusion / integration of Slipnot into the game, from a quite sad guess that somehow all metal fans would appreciate or be attracted to the themselves-sad, moreso manufactured-metal / theatrical than pure metal band,..

... a sign that the team was clearly never-led by people who respect history, culture, and if bound by dogma and static-dominion / static-pantheons , religion,

... and will no-doubt lose the position as the company that set the standard for a game that does what Smite SHOULD have been able to do, especially when getting-going and getting enough-money IN, to be able to improve the game and ADD features, ADD complications & elaborations, rather than gimmicks along the same already-successful business model, so that those already owning the game, could try to squeeze more from it before people lose interest.

That typical cynical profiteering, has clearly ruined the game, and the fact that a American-manufactured / pop-metal, rather than more pure metal band has been chosen, reveals WHICH TARGET AUDIENCE (or consumer-group) , it has been NARROWED down -TO,..

...rather than EXPANDING the game,..

... to include even more gods, culture, new features, teamplay based on existing relationships IN existing pantheons/groupings/myth , and say, individualist gods like Jehovah could be tougher standing-alone ones needing teamwork to defeat, etc,

... and as i said earlier, EXPANDED gameplay,..

... instead, this narrowing, reveals that the leadership did not realise the potential they had at their fingertips,

and have instead, scuttled it, abandoned it, so another in the future by another team, with more imagination, less-fear-of-intelligent/complex play, may-well superseed the game, making it look like nothing but an archaic-brawler, SELLING ITSELF as global , but never really being global, only-ever really being for Americans with a limited world view, mostly being one descended from the american-wrestling-HYPE period of the 1990s and vague militarist submarine-door-echo-slamming period of the 2000-2020s during-which the rest of the world ended up having to react-to and re-educate ones thinking that their neo-cold-war victory-at-all-any-cost extremisms exported by the country, is something goign to be tolerated by the rest of the world.

---

Truly dIssapointing, that unlike honest, worldly-Americans, who could've predicted that people would reject the beach-babe DISRESPECTFUL stance toward other cultures/religions, that this game was not approached with more of a REALISTIC ANTICIPATION, of how it would be received, if respect was not a part of the business-model / design/planning.

Besides, there's better choices of metal bands especially black- that are more suited to polydeism vs. Monodeism , when it comes to portrayals-of and embodiments-of refusals of monodeists, Slipnot are a more like a theatrical-tragedy - bunch of abused/negleted american reform/failed-social-planning systems - a by-product of corrupted religion in the country, yes,..

... but what's that got to do with the rest of the world? / how were they going to be RELEVENT, to the rest of us?

Wow.

Who made that decision.

Runied.

Un...in...stalled, as soon as i saw it in my steam library.

This movie does succeed at portraying not "losing touch with reality", or however it's been plot-synopsised,..

-but, a range of emotiotional tolerances freying and then failing, in a high-pressure rescue/needing-to-stay-hidden situation, that leads to a non-hostile being murdered by the team of three's captain,

and then in the compressed sequences in the remainder of the film, the disconnectedness of-involvement of reparations / compensation for the innocent victims of war, disgustingly, tragicly, contrasts-with the only officially recorded on-paper act to compensate for, a killed goat, leaves a human-murder crime un-addressed,

of which the soldiers unceremonially / culturally-insensitivly also bury the child with the goat, in a roadside grave,

and the level of preparedness of-honesty of the soldiers themselves, vs. State-interests & the state's un-willingness to involve soldiers PERSONALLY with those they've wronged,..

...creates a sense of DISTANCE, that in the final scene, comes back to haunt the capitan while he's trying to forget, and portrays (potential) subconscious sensitivity even-over long distances, if-not-simply what that inhuman disconenction between the offender and the victim causes, of/in imagination, from-guilt.

It uses a mixture of long and face-focused emotional shots, as-well-as medium distance ones to follow the soldiers perspective from a easy to follow height and shot-setting-up, and it doesn't waste too much time in transitions, which keeps you able to follow the plot without getting tired of the same atmosphere, since the film concentrates on the characters' emotions and choices - if it'd been too atmospheric, the contrast-between choices could've become less-theatrical, and lost audience-focus.

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On the downsides of the film, more background & history in countries in the middle-east / arabia / steppes , could've framed both why strong centralised government has failed tin some countries many times (as-have forced centralisation), as-well-as the on&off nature of support of both Russia and the USA at different times, that has lead to the inundation of military equipment and forced-exposure to modern warfare, that has caused the tragedy of what many in those areas have gone-through emotionally themselves, in effective-contrast,..

... and-also framed the setting as one where common herders/pastoralists are NOT some kind of endless army of ready, active, hostiles, which might've given them more of a contrast-with active military hostiles, similarly, the odd choice of the capitain to hide in their vehicle with the child, when potentially already spotted followed by the locals walking all over it, with the camera only on the inside, kept a, 'alien' portrayal throughout the film, and if wanting to contrast choices, a few short herder-frontman conversations and a more-complete dialogue in the hiding in the vehicle scene, would've portrayed the capitain's precaution if-not-also-paranoia, better - instead, we only see the emotions and intentions of the child-victim, and that really isn't exposing the audience to the wider-people/s , nor any cultural-differences, then quite easily comparable with high-tech armies capacities & experience & precautions.

The focus on themselves and their own military and the story leading to the situation on the road, leaves the audience to contrast what the 3 are expecting of-enemies, in-contrast to innocent farmers/herders , themselves, which for many audience members, is not difficult to notice, but for some watching this movie with a precautious / accepting mindset of 'readiness' used in-discriminately, it could've been better with more contrast made un-avoidable, if-not also spoken by characters along-the-way , or did i miss it? *shrugs*

Wow... where to start with this roman-schoolboys pseudo-romantic trajedy excercise in self-obsession ;

of both the ever-tragic-waste, of attempts to "de-mystyfy" the mysterious, in the ARTisan, or should i say Art-uro,..

and a tragedy-of wasted-hope, on the part of those wishing to try to whitewash Rome's history in Britain.

I almost feel like i am a disgruntled British home-owner, having to shovel-the-shit off my front porch in even having to respond/review this pile-of,

the shit the film, the script, and the effort put into any honesty that could've been admitted in silent-acceptance of not being ABLE, to de-mystify the myth, nor it's older origins than the later 11th C was it? Version, nor the even more recent romaticised rip-offs,

like rubbish tossed in the street, needing to be cleaned up, i doubt this film was even worth the paper it was written on.

---

It's few redeeming parts, were few ;

moments of differences & distinctions between non-christian-romans & non-roman-christians,

moments of human-values triumph, mis-inferred AS-christian, although that's contextually-reasonable considering the absurd simplification of the saxons,

and moments of portrayals of rome's neglect / folly, even-though the homogeny amongst Saxons was a simplifying load-of, also.

Back in reality, significant differences between saxons, made at-times, also significant differnces between who-suffered in context,

whereas this film simplifies pretty much all saxons as only-destroyers, whereas in reality many saxons were supposedly, christians.

Hence the utter pointlessness of this film for anything-OTHER, than the remaining well-wishing regret potentials, of christian-imperialists, now able to see what the attempted impositions caused in the NAME of harmony and tolerance, as in ... the HOW ... not the why ... i.e. How can anyone claim to be christian, if their supposed demonstrations of how to live, how to teach, how to love, etc ... come at the end of a sword, for supposedly 'walking in christ's steps' imitation, of a pacifist and reconciler.

*scoff*

Soooo aaaah yeah, sorry, this setting/context were that all Britain is to some,

is STILL, not ideal for you boyhood fantasies and would-be-successful assimilatory 'absorbptions', to become even-greater.

You are not some kind of gelatinous-blob, able to absorb the will, strengths, determinisms and suffrances-especially, of those that at times have been under the empire, through quite obvious romps like this. In a similar way, that being able to talk-sh** about attempts at progeny-through any means other than children, as has gone through the minds of truly insane romans of the past, no matter how HARD they tried, etc...

... should reveal the, again,.. pointlessness of such assimilatory folly.

Sometimes, not everything can become one,

and sometimes, it's better that way, else we all seem no different from each other, and all exotic-babes or beefcake, lose their appeal.

Pffffff,

need i say more?

-------

sets and design and costumes were 2nd rate, although how much was put into the withOUT chrisitan symbology roman gear of the main dirty-dozen, was obvious, compared to hapless saxons,

so yeah, not much to boast about in that department either.

Runes were on screen, which was something, as-was christian hypocrisy,

so one star for that,

but lets face it, that's not difficult to do these days,

so pfff..... HAD the 'woads' been liberated by the saxons rather than being all turned into extras that would lose their existence at the end of the film... :D hmmm... perhaps being able to be assimimlated into a horde,.. which continues to exist OUTside of the film? *shrugs* ... might've meant for a longer existence than the writers / direcrtors doomed them to...

so... pfff.... again ... it's not easy to find much to give this one...

and yeah,.. as i said earlier,.. no differences,

ahem,

"between brothers",

amongst the saxons?

Reaaaly wasn't TRYING.

So-nuh.

Bin it.

My main grief with this series, despite my liking of the anomalous plant mutation base-plot setting,

is the, in almost every single episode, scene where Erin has to self-talk himself up with a 'for my friends/family/allies/comrades/whatever' determinism close ups, audio-focuses, etc, some of which last for going-on a minute or sometimes? More?

When we were used to his transition from a child to a determined adult seeking vengence/revenge from the very first episode, after his mum's eaten in front of him.

WE GET IT!.. he's really determined!..

ugh... i got so sick of it, at-times i ceased caring whether or not i was missing plot / exciting bits when then having to skip with a crude mouse click or two on the progress-bar, i just wanted to move on from yet-another one to what was supoosed to be changing in the city's, or by the time they discover the outside world's, circumstances / intruigue.

Having said that, the script/editing, has been written/planned well enough that keeping the audience in the dark if they hadn't already read a spoiler or if someone had told them what the setting was about re; the city containing rather than protecting it's inhabitants and the exiles being permanently transformed to sporadically attack it and keep it's kept in the dark residents unaware of their source,..

... did make for a shock-reveal that both ended a lot of plot-lines & characters' fulfillment ... mmm ... what's the right word ... ends-in-sight ... when then betrayed, which set up Erin's distaste for humanity in the last few episodes / few tens-of? Episodes?,

which also cycled-back potentials of some of the others characters we've seen-along-the-way, when having not known their motivations/reasons.

That surprise added nicely to the plot-RESOLUTION, which isn't always easy to do when writing something this long.

If it were a movie, and you weren't dragged-along-for-the-ride at the personal level, you might've guessed it quite soon,

so in making the series long, that does work, as i said, as long as no-one's ruined it for you.

-------

if the manga had more on the anomoly, the investigation / research done, etc,

i wish it had been in this series as-well, since without much ... mmm ... creepy music, alien-mystery, the entire context for the entire series, remained obscure,

and if a person had not understood that early plot-setting part, the entire series/franchise could seem like a massive, near-pointless, gratuitous-violence romp.

Having said THAT, i noticed that some ppl have made accusations online, about some of the visuals/concepts added in the film, (without naming-names / anything in particular) re; Hollocaust sensitivities re; the yellow armbands of the "tolerated" titan bloodliners living under normal humans rule in the mainland,

I can't help but wonder, 1 how much was carelessness on the production's / writers' parts,

2 If any was deliberate,

3 or if as i was saying, those REASONABLY sensitive to the careless use of armbands with a yellow star,

might've focused-MORE-on the alien-freaky-powers BASE of the setting,

and then perhaps,

those that have reasonably-reacted to the choice.

Might not've been more likely to react to it as neccessarily-deliberate. Again, the determinisms were so strong, that it's no-wonder that what the production was aiming-for of-combinations-of-inclusions, became suspect.

Sigh...

Writers, artists, and concept-artists, DO make insensitive mistakes,

so, without beleiving either-way,

from genuinely not-knowing, if it was deilberate or not,

I can only add,

That that ALIEN-FREAKY powers bit, might've brought both? Critics if-not-also writers/designers ,

BACK,..

to,.. it's ... well ... freaky sci-fi SPACE, that is ... ALIEN-origins plot-base, which one cannot deny is being portrayed as having done what it's done,

TO, humanity.

Not to- any particular identities within,

so while they've borrowed heavily on art, and concepts from reality,

FOCUS, is what i'm saying, could've brought us back as-an-audience,

as-one ... to the not-at-all human, influence,

affecting humanity and the characters in-focus in most of the series.

In other words it's unfortuante that that sci-fi BASE, has been not focused ENOUGH-on, and instead mistakes have been made in choosing to take too many things FROM reality, and i think that's a parallel mistake in-addition to the insensitivity.

The plot-twist with them finding out they're the ones being contained, because of having SPACE... alien,.. stuff in them, was fine, from my POV.

Regular sci-fi, happening-TO-humans, again, no-sub-identity/ies within, just,.. to-humans.

Been done dozens of times in sci-fi, without any over-attributions to anyone back in reality.

*shrugs* Definately insensitive though.

I didn't LET the insensitivity, ruin the series for me though,

the frequent frantic-pace of the series, in moving characters on, from previous settings,

worked well to progress them throughOUT different authority, and pressure-situations upon-them, which, if having been done,..

...with-LESS 'i'm going to kill them all" going-psycho determinism sequences,..

...and-MORE character-depth in more of the side-characters, ( like Erin's sister, who remains quite a one-track character throughout the whole series) , it would not've felt like the focus was on one-person too-much,

and then, those over-determinism sequences, would not've annoyed me as much as they did.

---------

Similarly,

there are too many sacrifice-everything!!

Determinisms in other characters, at weird times,

or things like, weird expectatious dialogue between an angry scout, and an already-dead Titan,

shouting at one while it's titan-flesh is dissolving, and there's only other characters around to witness it.

DID any of the audience really benefit from sequences like those?

We'd ALREADY UNDERSTOOD how desperate and determined all the characters WERE,

similar problem.

------

If desperation / fighting for their lives / what-to-do-when ...

... is what they were going for,

then more grime, more blood, more disease, more rubble, etc

might've done it. There might've been too many 'blank-slate' street backgrounds used in the cinematography / visuals,

too many backdrop/background houses used without during-an-attack debris, smoke, dust, blood,... whatever.

If that at-safe-times / at-times-when-a-titan's-got-through contrast was more contrasted,

perhaps the production might not've ended going back to the determinism in the scouts in particular so much.

----

similarly, i thought the city's residents were a little too simplified / easily tricked/swayed / all-fearful at-times, or all-determined at-times ... even at times when they were under immanent anticipation of another titan.

When civilians are fearing an immanent attack, they don't stand around appreciating how-determined their front line troops are, with comraderie like stances, fists in the air, and cheers - they're just running for their lives, saving others, and doing things like moving valuable things inside,.. they don't have the TIME, to be striking-a-pose.

Rrrrmphh.

A mixed bad of melodrama in that sense, and also too many high-chord European classical-singing / roman? Orchestrals, too. Often repeditive, and too medieval. Why choose medieval. Some more pumping / thumping modern tracks might've combined well with the scouts when they were-in-action fighting, and scene-by-scene strings might've been a better choice inside the city, instead of singing-orchestrals.

While wanting to facilitate / create catalytic change when it comes to the common good, or social cohesion, or other things affected by theft left-unaddressed,

attempting to RELY on false-pretences of levels of acceptances of personal change, in any & every character rather-than only-SOME, in both anime and regular film or TV,

is a mistake that many producers and directors have made in the past, in wanting for life to imitate art,

rather than making art that imitates-life.

While one can't ignore it's role, art can only affect SOME things inamongst that cycle, even amongst humans where we are affected by it more than nature, animals, etc,

So while we are more susecptable to art,

it has it's limits.

So too does, correspondingly, the effect of anime/manga characters ON real-life children, including one's own, when it comes to theft,

and although i'd like some of the sit-com and ironies in this series, the idealistic and unrealistic parts when it came to the 2nd telekinetic character, became too much, and this episode was a series-killer for me - i had to stop watching the series entirely.

Sorry, but ex-thieves who ALREADY have a sense of the disproportions of money, which for the character in this series had ALRAEDY been a feature including in direct dialogue of the character herself in the episiode where she's adjusting to living in the park and learning from the guy who introduced her 'into the community',..

... and-THEN, are re-written into a story as 100% reformed (in a societal sense) , or who betray the reasons of those that were already politically, wealth-redistributionaries in a passive sense, or people who act in relation to theft in the context of money-disproportionisation and elongating of it's affordability power, that ONLY the extremely rich survive,..

... even at idle times of slow inflation compared to crisis,..

... even BEFORE adding anything economic, just in terms of how much money do different people have? P(s)OV ...

... is ludicrous, unrealistic, idealistic,..

... and yeah. A waste of time.

Even children know WHY, they steal.

The dreamed for adult-responsibility consistency, does not exist. It'd be nice if it did,

but it does not. Adults are the BEST thieves, rather than -not. In a similar way to the way in say,.. game of thrones, where one of the nobles retorts to the Iron Bank representative, that they are "the world's best-gamblers".

A bit like that, especially when it comes to white-collar-crimes, episodes like this, set-up children to become vulnerable,

not set-up-children to be able to ANTICIPATE when society, their boss, the party/coalition in power in a democracy ... whoever ... will be stealing from them, or harming them, economically.

And THAT, is irresponsible in-itself.

So bye-bye, no more for me. It'd already started to creep in for the 2nd telekinetic in previous episiodes, but because the group of homeless were SMALL, the chance that there were legitimised while still neglected ones, doing menial street-jobs ... was believable enough to ignore.

But now pinning-down this more ASSERTIVE potential strong-female lead character in the series, into a passive, submissive, indiscriminant-nothing-but-regretful emotionally-regressive child who seems to've forgotten all about opportunity and her-OWN experience when homeless,

is just too much.

The homeless, are one of the STRONGEST sources of resentment in relationt to societal neglect,

they've been used for assasinations, (unwittingly)bombings, organised-crime exploits, political purposes, etc,

and they retain AND maintain, inamongst subtelties of conceptualising parts of governance or politics they don't understand, particularly, character-OF, those supposedly impartial as to WHOME they help.

Only genuinly impartial charities, pass their scrutiny, most others both inside society and outside it, fail to varying degrees.

Like that,

this politically-bleached VERSION of homelessness, demonstrates a lack of understanding abotu political RESENTMENT,

and WHY when the people get sick of inaction by government/authority, to act in PREVENTING of inflation crisis / prices going up / wages not increasing, etc, ( as well as it's indirect effects )

they BECOME political animals, even if beforehand, they had no interest.

I.e. There is a RISK, in leaving neglected people on low-boil,

rather than affording the little it takes to meet their basic needs - the argument for welfare has been well and truly PROVEN, it is not-still a theory.

------

On the additional combination of population-control/incentives WITH welfare,..

... Japan is one of the leaders, although the leadership when it comes to lower-end economy afforadabilities is a ongoing area of debate,.. so it SHOULD BE a place where reasonably, what has been learnt about welfare-question like considerations/issues, like there are within common/petty theft, should NOT BE UNFAMILIAR,

so this AVOIDANCE, seems moreso deliberate than of emotional-aversion / 'only wanting to see the positive side of life' , etc

it seems more DELIBERATE, and that's too much to tolerate, if not also a religious or something naivity and imposition and illusion,

an INFLICTION upon the child,

and yeah - too much for me.

Probably never going to want to watch the rest of the series ever again.

Some sequels are honest, atmosphere-adopting, with only some variation attempts to continue A STORY,

others, are dishonest, contrived, shambolic wastes of time, where inconsistent / ingenuine directorship, production-priorities, and adding-themes 'contributors' hijack a series laddest-addition, after a change in ownership of the creative-liscence, or similar breakdown of the base who's-in-charge purpose of the production if not also the producers individually.

Pityful / tragic-perhaps , is the director who has to fight against the owners/investors at every turn,

----------

But truly despisable,

is the mis-USER, of a series, it's fanbase, it's aquired-additional fans, it's associated game-playing fans going over the originals ( even if they aren't coming from the same POV )

and whatever else,

when they turn what should be a INTERESTING if-not-also a scary, sci-fi, drama, thriller, horror, or adventure,

into a unseen-interests consumerist/merchandising primer, 80% full of varieties of competitive tough-guy characters regardless of gender, and regardless of REALISMS,.. in which little other exists in this pityful fantasy world, other, than american wrestling actors/neo-criticisms-of-being-fake now 'genuine' sadist non-wrestlers , who have more interest in machismo imitation, and over-preparedness for disasters that never come,

where you're to basically take turns altenating between

1 losing any sense of discerning purpose behind events in a movie ... and basically just go ... yeeaaaahhhh whooo awesome ! I don't even care what i'm getting excited about !

Very genuine stuff, and

2 ooooh so heart-breakingly personal guesswork-moments, where family-values, have a place in the middle of a frantic emergency,

aaaand of course, one always has the time, to stop to patronise the child, sterotype/perpetuate the sterotype of the wife, sterotype/perpetuate the sterotype of the husband, sterotype/perpetuate the sterotype of the prisoner, sterotype/perpetuate the sterotype of the pffff... whichever ones there were,

and then 'try to understand' things like a child's senstivity, in-only broad terms, like difference = disability,

or whatever other dated teen-angst fear-based predictive-tedium, that emerged in the 60s-90s, starting with films like James Dean films & early neo-war elvis, or whatever else, where coolness had it's beginnings, and the sad attempted merchandising of the bully-character protagonist , reckoners-of-strength , in various contexts began,

and there has been only on&off diversion away from as-a-whole, in the USA, despite the vast amount of mockery, derision, characterisation, psychology, and counter-culture denying the absurd context, that clearly ACTUAL americans, have never accepted, 'is the way reality is' , or 'is the same anywhere you go in the world' , etc

Contrary to false-positives with that argument, who claim that getting what you want behind the barrel of a gun CAN work anywhere, somehow means that the claimed context of needing-to-'defend'-oneself,

this fantasy, had not retained some foothold, in reality, OUTside of countries like Italy, the USA, Russia (neo adoptions of perceived indivdualist incentives), Japan, and to smaller degrees in satellite states, states heavily affected by the influence of those exporting so-called culture-OF superpowers or states that have accellerated technological innovation particularly,

especially when considering, that the absurdity of it being ambiguated WITH TECHNOLOGY, which gets-around, strength,

is counter-actuative , or contradicting, to the 'strength is more reliable' paranoias of whichever colonialist dated-turds it came from, over there.

THE REST OF THE WORLD, sorry, guys,

comes from a normally-socially-adapted or balanced POV ... where things like constant SUV defensive/offensive driving, is-NOT one of the many things 'every father' needs.

*scoff*

--------

This film is a HOPELESS SHAMBOLIC MESS, of all of the above, as well as poor camerawork / fast-paced action-thriller inappropriate editing (predator was atmospheric and SLOW, for the most part,.. STEALTH like ... except for perhaps the initial raid on the camp) ,

is another of those where many of the scenes are uneccessarily zoomed-in too far, and what ... everyone slows down the time on the DVD player / app, to work out what each character did, scene by scene?

Hmm, or,.. most just pretend as though they caught what just happened, and ACT like they appreciate / like what they just saw.

The same criticism is fair when it comes to MA films, where is too much compressed into too little a amount of actual film-time, and no matter how well chosen and planned the scene has been set up, the capturing and choice of not slowing time down, makes it little more than a blur, and there's little point in actually trying to watch them, in disdain about the trying to out-do each other as MA directors able to 'compress'.

Cybernetics, and maybe GE,.. not skill,..

will allow us to compress our perception of time.

Like that, better SET scenes, portray the MOVEMENT BETWEEN scenes, as the diaglogue, or action, RESOLVES each scene, in between each movement.

I.e.

Scene, movement, scene, movement

overlapping.

Sigh.

We might be in the 'age' of handicams and neo Blair-witch-project 'scaryness',

but makes for truly stupid, and pointless film.

This one, has some of the by-products of that DEVOLVEMENT in american cinema,

COMBINED, with the marketing/consumerist priming *** i was talking about before.

I've seen worse,

but this has RUINED the Predator series for me.

Chance that this sensitive individual, PAID ATTENTION?

To the family-values programming?

ZERO.

After finishing watching this movie, i could not help but wonder if in a novel original, if there is one, or perhaps in the conceptualisations of the writer / re-namer for western audiences, there was a catholic-values ATTEMPT, to pose a only-their-way layer-of-reality over reality, inamongst the commonality of sometimes but sometimes-not , the societal value of honesty in inflammatory situations,

which without having missed the point,

such as the confession method,

can ALSO be MIS-used to falsely validate falsities AS-TRUTH, when society or authority pretends as though things like character of-a-person can be trusted over individuals self-interest , when the pressure is on.

Although it is a nice dream, WERE we all to alwasy be honest, the cold hard reality that we are not, undermines this fantasy on the part of the endless billions of well-wishers wishing that RELIABILITY could come, from systematic advice / guidance,..

... compared to coming-FROM, things like forensics, new technology ( like in some scenes mid-way through the film where the dad is taking extra precautions as he's destroying evidence ) , and the fear of it ... or things like internet securities, and more recently, hackers acting for things much less sterotypically than they used to - hackers in movies, used to be little other than characters like the Boris character out of James Bond, or pffff ... worse along those lines - little more than hyper-reactive, hyper-over-thinking greedy, peverted, breakaways with no plans for their future.

REAL WORLD things like the exposE of the Panama-papers, has shown humanity what we CAN do,

what the little-guy can do,

OUTSIDE, of fear-based portrayals of the 'futility of trying to escape justice' developed in times without anything coming even close, to modern forensics, or anything like hackers,

the medieval / whenever equivalent is perhaps a spy, or infiltrator,

and UNlike what convoluted 'power-play' up to their eyeballs in it hypocrytical gangster characters that have diversified all over the world in film, from ethinically and culturally predjudist sterotypes of italians, etc, in the 1920s? - 1940s? ... cannot be honestly said to be what is AIMED FOR with confessional-systems,..

were one to, the whole mountain of counter-arguments and anti-fascist-catholic efforts put in over the centuries looms-close as soon as one errs in their rediculous boasting and over-estiamtions of it's reliability,..

things like hacking, is now creating a DIS-advantageous environment,.. AGAINST, the uber-criminal masterminds of times gone by in especially fantasy, where then of the past, FEAR , is now not-enough, and there are far more ppl willing to let the blade fall, and gamble on innocents then taken-along with a purge when framed by fraud, or false-evidence, etc,

compared to the then not-willing-to-sacrifice-the-few-for-the-sake-of-the-purge-greater-good , not-facing the consequences hacker, who can do it REMOTELY.

It has become a REALITY, for organised crime, that they now cannot rely on ppl involved, being anywhere NEAR, any suffering they can create.

Ironically, then,

much wisdom about suffering,

both coming from genuinly hopeful leaders, AND fear-reliant criminals, white-collar included,

are BOTH, being denied their continued environment of reliability of stifling conversation & debate, if not also social-opposition/reaction ... as well as being forced to have to address perhaps the religious equivalent of omniprescence in it's primitive days of mobile phone captures.

By the time integrated cynerbetics is commonplace,

they will be further pressured,

and if i'm any good at guess at it, will probably keep trying to rely on countries local-laws self-determinism laws, to get around their responsibility of EXPORTS,.. what they create and sell, to tourists, etc.

How humans SOCIALLY react to that, legally or otherwise,

will not become some kind of proof of mutual-respect, make no mistake.

It is temporary, in MIS-used systems.

--------

A bit like that,

i couldn't help but feel that this film, mmm,

kept-it-simple, i suppose,

but maybe for it's scope, that was fine - the plot ( based off a true story? ) WAS limited in context, so i guess that's ok,

taking on too much and having political actors turning it into some other kind of film would've ruined it.

:)

mmmm ... something ... im not sure what i'm noticing,..

perhaps some kind of creeping into Buddist regional film, catholic confessional FALSE PROMISES,

in some form.

BE WARNED, take it from this barbarian,

thier false-promises of reliability, have ALRAEDY been exposed for all to see,

in their hypocrisies and absurd fantasies, while those ACTUALLY committed to justice whether judicial or not,

go their own ways in being a part of those who spill blood. So be it. The cowardice of those that lie about what being nothing-but-peaceful all the time, creates, turn a blind eye, to when the abscence of martial or protectorative PRESCENCE in society, capacity,.. leaves it vulnerable to most if not all threats that will use violence.

That catch-22 of acceptance of the need for societal authority , that is a diffcult pill to swallow for many, is something that also, in time, should dwindle, when investigating white-collar crime will also become more facilitated ( at least socially) , and systems THAT VALUE SOCIAL VALUE,

will retain the wisdom in their choosing, over LIMITED social-planning absurdities under-religion, with it's own editing and filtering of the consequences of what it creates ( with some exceptions for usualy simple-religions or spiritualisms that do not involve themselves in social-control or social-predicates )

--------

Something like that :D

--------

While some watching this movie will think of themselves as blessed 'by-their-shepard',

i think of myself as blessed by cynicism, by doubt, by caution, by truth,

not by ideals that will never eventuate, and have always BEEN lies,

mostly to keep children more easily able to sleep at night.

If you prefer for your children to BE ALERT,

then do not protect them to the point that they become hopelessly vulnerable,

then trapping yourselves into MAINTAINING the falsities that have either kept them hidden from seeing the world, or from seeing their own future, based off how they're thinking they can interact with it.

I don't mind saying at all, i didn't spare a thought for the son killed in this movie, nor felt much for the parents at the Stupa near the end,

he and his kind are a symptom ... a TEMPORARY symptom, and are being societally undermined as we live and breathe right now in 2022 ... and have been for decades - both genetic research and social research continues UNIMPEDED, by hopefuls and dreamers wanting to travel back in time for their dissapointment,.. and contrary to what some will tell you , we ALREADY 'COMMIT' ( choose ) to test babies for serious abnormalities, so we can minimise suffering and otherwise further budening on society by letting supposedly-ONLY, nature, when it is not ONLY nature anymore, create what 'it' will, create.

Agent Orange,.. was not nature.

Nuclear power, and bombs' testing (mostly), in both the USSR and the USA, and everywhere else ... posioning the locals, was never "nature"

in the same way, that we still seem to've forgotten to truly tell the difference between integral animals, and hypocrytical humans, that say that animals are worse then-they.

----------

PRETENDING TO ONLY SEE,

things from past-times where observations that might've USED TO'VE BEEN valid,

in the 21st century, is a hopeless joke.

In reality, only the deluded are pretending old values will be all will need.

If that kind of thing was supposedly reliable,

ooooh soo generous donators that kept their billions in hidden bank accounts in the Caymans ... would've been protected by your god,

but they weren't.

The hackers weren't struck down by lightning,

your-god ... was so easily defeated ... by fat guys wearing My little Pony T-shirts ... eating cheesy-poofs ... and drinking coke.

What a joke. Where is your god?

---------

Some of that has a closeness to European religious exports, rather than Buddhist, sorry,

but the point is ... similar to WHEN ... are evil-doers supposed to be suffering, when various buddas are supposed to be manifesting punishment?

Pffff... punishment needs to happen NOW.

The punishment and prevention, facilitated by the murder of the boy in this film,

should not have to be DONE BY THE FAMILY.

I.e. WHO does it, who gets the credo, who gets the kudos, who gets the honor.

Or, ideally

your society prevents them from re-emerging ... the cliques are DENIED their privacy,

the private-societies have their doors kicked in, and all the hypocrytes hung up to dry like Musolini or whoever else.

A bit part of how the failures of ordinary man,

add up ... build up ...

is a part of WHEN types of politics emerge, that take a at least partially reasonable cynical-approach towards the public, or BOTH private societies AND the public, when both are guilty of different failures at different times.

INDIVIDUALIST failures, like in the boy in this film,

are waaayyyyyy outside what is usually of only minor failures of common folk, compared to WHEN police USUALLY take something more seriosuly than littering or shouting in traffic.

This film, mmm,

does contextualise a abborent TIME, when they might act more than usual,

compared to their normal prioritisations, to ignore most things common folk do, comapred to organised crime.

A better wider-scope film to watch AFTER this one,

is one where policing/authority is cracking down on white-colar crime, and insufficient ... who's-policing-the-police ... or 'mutual powers of investigation' , as has been coined.

I don't usually defend ANYthing from the USA,

but 'mutual powers of investigation', seem likely to stay as a concept, even if the USA's gone backward in USING them.

Movies that are made with many long periods of silence inbetween main characters' critical moments, or things like their moments of absorbing something significant that's happened to them, difficult realisations, etc, can do it well, by the contrast of the rest of the film, with the most-critical scenes where (mostly)silence will have its effect, need to not OVERdo it, and end up having so many, that most of the film is silence or near-silence, the scenes where you were wanting that contrast, then lost amongst the general atmosphere.

This film does not highlight nor focus on any myth/lore of vampires, nor directly, overtly, on a curse or curses of undeath,

BUT,.. it does blend-in role-fullfilling acting-OF,.. acting-AS,.. monsters, inamongst an incredibly un-traditional context of vampires, which although perhaps a realistic opportunity FOR a vampire in terms of plot-setting, a struggling war? Torn/drained small town somewhere near industry?.. is far-from anything recognisable to vampire film fans,

so keeping that in mind, considering that it perhaps needed atmosphere to carry-over similarly-styled/produced scenes-with similar atmosphere set at-night, it was not going to be easy to make not seem alien and of someone else's culture as-a-film-to-port to someone else's country/setting,

and considering THAT, i was going to give this film a lower score when finding some of the photography uneccessary, but after realising it was much more about both lead characters than only the vamp, ( perhaps that's the fault of my local advertiser in mis-understanding the point of the movie ), and a few of deliberately chosen linking plot-devices, like the potentially reincarnated mother/wife as-the-cat paranoia, which brought a smile to my face in the scenes following, when the with-more-sense-than-his-father-gives-him-credit-for then utterly disregards,

slowly, my disfamiliarity with 'the night' of 'the east' ... in a Persian-Nights style sense, of antiquity of arabic / w. Himalayan heights as you're getting closer to india and china, silks, incenses, opium, etc, ... sort of RE-SET, after having already noticed the Russian cultural exports of the 70s-90s context of the style of the male-human lead, but no reciprocality of the same, in the female lead,

and that deliberate? Portrayal of LESS self-expression, less confidene-of-character, in the lead vamp character, and by contrast examplar-character, unlike then freely-allowed and encouraged culturally, to lead by strong character in open-spaces character that is highly gender-disencouraged/encouraged, in.countries with highly orthodox / conservative gender roles,

when this almost sullied ? Meek? Certainly under-ambitious vamp, uses hesitancy with illusion AS just-another sullied/cowed under the 'cultural protections' that simultanesouly stereotype/belittle/downplay men's capacity to change-away from orthodoxy and absurdly portray the capacity of all women to 'cause' envy/coveting / risks of infidelity/marriage-disloyalties, etc

that ironic-empowerment, in her ease of ability to INFILTRATE the world of humans,

has potential paralells, in terms of how dated and VERY different context, the laws in question, were FORMED,

such as horses not being a thing you could use frivilously, let-alone cars being a thing one could use for IMPULSIVE, spurious moments of amongst other things, romantic-spontenaity.

They were formed in CONTEXTs, so far back, you're talking medieval contexts, in a similar sense of the limitations of hopeless old/dated laws in other orthodoxies now long-since needing shelving to the history bin,

and just-as-much as anywhere else, the MEN, in Iran, are now deserving of liberation from orthodoxy's grip on them, too,

so the almost romeo & juliet LIKE ... mmmm, sort of ... with culture vs. Humanity ?

Something ..

took a little to blend, with the unfamiliar night of someone else's country,

in my and our 'visit' , through the magic crystal-balls of television,

familiar skies/nights, DO limit, how believable or suitable ?

Someone else's might seem, when porting a type of movie into an unfamiliar context/place,

so yeah, i was going to give this a 4 maybe 5,

but the multiple plot-lines coming together to some extent near the end of the movie, was something i liked, considering that it had a leaving-behind the INSANITY of suposedly-reliable drama within divine-inspiration, or mystic-reckoning, etc ... that might've been somehow present in the father before she yummed him up and made-USE of something otherwise obsolete and worthless, discarded,

left-behind, without any value salvaged from it.

That can't be easy to have to handle in any sense, micro or macro,

when parallels of something like that, can be found in real-life, when that NEGLECT of the liberation of Iranian men from orthodoxy's expectations of them, COMBINES, like another chain-to-break, keeping them down,

and being-discarded,.. IS something to pity.

If that takes the INHUMAN, observing pityful humans self-neglect,

then that COMBINATION, replacing constrictive, underestimating, cynical versions of what-men-cannot 'help themselves from not doing' , in relation to women, that combines with dogma, and stricture in religion,

then so be it, it's worked in other countries.

It's arguable that ONLY WITH PERSPECTIVE from without, can we as humans, get perspective ON OURSELVES,

otherwise all-else STILL-MADE-BY-HUMANS-ONLY ... is still all mere vanity.

Take star-trek, for instance,

an ATTEMPT, as rediculous as some of it is,

but still only MADE, by us.

THAT, is why even star trek, is still not true perspecive on-ourselves.

Reluctances to try to transcribe perspective on-us, from animals, or whatever else at varying levels of consciousness,

has been a problem that religions that focus ON, consciousness, have tried to address at times,

but not all, and Islam is far from the only one guilty of not-trying hard enough.

Again, so be it. A lot to learn, but this kind of deliberate contrast with the unhuman,

is a positive sign. Our ability to IMAGINE, others' perspective on us,

is better than nothing. Filtering OUT the vanity amongst it , to find truths discovered in the creative process,

is WHY, science fiction especially, has it's value.

Yes, there's vanity in there, but you can just filter it out, dismiss the parts-vain, as needed for the event, or the excitement, the hype, the advertising,

i.e. What gets bums-on-seats at the theatre, something that's been done in all kinds of civilizations for thousands of years.

Set aside your hesitations, to use the inhuman vs. Human, and find the value in the contrast, that it creates.

Yes, it's a light-romance,

yes, it's aimed at a young audience,

yes, it's a pseudo-reality fantasy,

BUT ;

1 The deliberate disrespectful making-soft&safe version of vampires, ruins whatever scary/exciting aspects that attracted some of the audience to it, which inidrectly dis-empowers the female-lead, which then leads to yet-another helpless-girl-needing-a-wordly-older-male style scenes, despite the fact that the female lead, in being a vamp, is probably several times older than the male UZSR reserve member.

2 The selectively chosen scary-things-out , funny / 'just-different' things left in,

editing of what vampires are supposed to be,

also removes what explains some of the reasons-WHY vamps can't do this, can't do that, even-for, a younger audience not familiar with the genre/history, leaving a plot-hole / background-hole that is not filled with anything. The supposed 'ancient-history' now abandoned by vampires, puts a ludicrous amount of CHOICE, in the hands of vampires, when the entire genre is one of oppression & cruelty under a curse, under a god/gods - (that vampires are to be pitied despite their agelessness).

3 There is a quite obvious avoidance of American culture/impact in the foreground, while still leaving little things here and there in the background, or surruptitiously, like the uneccessary amount of time spent on whether or not 'Soda' is being adopted/found-agreeable, per the historical slow introduction of american culture real-history.

4 There are also some minor plot-holes in production, but they're less significant that other things, like the barracks scene in the first episode, where while in reality, RETURNED cosmonauts dined at GALAS sometimes, in celebration in beating the Americans at various things during the space-race, cosmonaunts did not dine with-roses-at-the-table , in the ordinary barracks... sigh.

And yet simultaneously, we're to be 'told' as the audience, that this and that about-vamps , are just myths.

Portraying myth and lies inamongst (now-old) propoganda, seems to be fine according to this series director/s / producers, when portraying the 'UZSR' ,

but seems to be wrong ... when portraying what WOULD BE myth about vamps, under creative-liscence.

Sigh.

----------

I had to stop watching the series when the ICBM explosion story, remineded me recently, of the confusion about why higher-enriched plutonium is currently being used in Iran, after an Israeli sabotage effort, and the plant has been literally needing to run on one-less-cylinder, and in doing so, has been simply been needing to use-more-fuel , in-less-reactors.

The portrayal of failure, is all blame-the-UZSR ... the failings are all-theirs,..

... while 'cans of pop' ... are still being pressured upon the cowed-female 'lead',

although "lead" , is being generous.

I hope later in the series, she cuts-sick, snaps the leash, grabs her man by the collar and flaps off to devour him in 'light-romantic' ways in some grotto somewhere in the transalvanians,..

... but considering how tame, softened, watered-down, and anti-feminist this series already seems to me after only 2 or 3 episodes, i doubt it will.

---------

ONLY IF it turns that around, then maybe 4 or 5 out of 10 stars.

This almost continually difficult to watch and (for most) when only being able to imagine while watching, film, does not pull-punches on the topics it portrays, and although incest and parental abuse is not an experience everyone shares, one does not need to to get something from watching it in regards to whether or not the presumption of families-always-sticking-together , is or is not, a one-size-fits-all cock-up of administrative, legislative, and state-claimed-responsinility neglect,

as well as being a film to help people who underestimate the importance of self-determination, to realize that when a state CLAIMS responsibility as one's protector, that it needs to live up to it's claim, else face the consequences of its' failures.

This film potrays VERY well, what , yes, only one (of many types), but a-should-not-ever-be-ignored one, a consequence of such failure, when at-LEAST intervention , is a duty of the state.

While the film does not primarily concentrate on welfare compared to working , it's slipped in there amongst the progression and future that Claireece aims for, but from my POV, it's undeniably clear that breaking up 'family' , as a singular, portrayed as always a good thing, single-concept ... is in this case a GOOD thing, and those that would tell one that one is better off in a single household with multiple incomes, per the mother's priority in her depression and loathing and whatever else, do NOT have an easy time of applying their belief to the 'family' they've just seen for an hour or so.

Inflexibility in gov. Systems, will always cause problems, there are few exceptions - engineering, contagion,.. pfff ... maybe a few.

But compared to social needs, that's a side point , clearly flexibility is needed so that intervention and prevention is not just a possibility, but DEMANDABLE, from, the state. Those that highlight what types of social-capital exist and can be integrated amongst government process, do so in knowing that UNlike money, if people are willing to OFFER their own, their time, you might simply say, then that it is clear that people will try to help each other, no matter how much industrial-workers separation and societal breakdown , fragmentation, whatever you call it, tries it's hardest, to supress human empathy and sympathy, and what doors it opens up, EVEN IF, your government tries to close them.

As i was watching it for the first time tonight, I literally anticipated the line by the teacher that-"that was not love" , when she's not handling finding out that her father gave her HIV in addition to everything else, and the teacher's trying to make sure she persists with her self-improvement , rather than bottling-everything-up / keeping everything in her head.

The following scenes with Claireece's comments about homosexuals and her grandmother's opinion, and the contrast of what she'd experienced FROM a hetero, presumably, brought a bitter grimmace to my face, in a similar way that already, the film, had introduced one inconsistency and promises-falling-short theme, with family, and here was another - another proof in the arsenal, against orthodoxy, against white-washing of family, and against defaulting-to conservative values as a supposed MODEL, for social-rehab, or social learning, or whatever else.

I did think the film, could've portrayed more of the mother's ambivilence, or more helplessness, with a few critical flashbacks or moments of conflict, so that her failing was more clearly contrasted with her general-trauma and copying / transference of the abuse she'd suffered, upon Claireece. It could've portrayed her at different times-in-her-life, in terms of her own perceptions of helplessness, right or wrong, ignorant or not ... when it came to what she THOUGHT, she could not do, or get, FROM, society, FROM, governement.

It was only in the final scenes in the welfare office, that i felt any sympathy / pity for her, not that that reduces at all how Claireece should feel about her failures / betrayal / personally-rationalized turning a blind eye to the abuse - although some who fail to intervene upon it, to eventually get insight into what preventing it prevents, or, how a person can deveop outside of an abusive envrinoment, sometimes it takes contrast for them to see by-contrast, the pros/cons of what would be different, a bit like with a time-lapse comparison, or a what-if ? Hypothetical with two different outcomes - some's capacity to imagine is more severely limited by their own experiences than others, and in-time, cannot RE-update new possibilities as time goes on, and more and more possibilities emerge as we develop further.

Similarly, in countries/regions where people's opportunities are worsening, the opposite applies - people who have known better times, are off in another reality , not-in-touch with the already-NARROWED choices.

That kind of dynamic might be part of what was in the uncertainty of the mother, and a little history of what she's seen in her life, might've contextualized why she was so pessimistic, and portrayed the larger picture of governmental-neglect, racism, and capitalist-neglect, leaving very-different parts of the USA in very-different ways.

It is in THAT sense, that one can sympathise with her sense of helplessness, and although that probably shouldn't be enough to Claireece to accept her failure, it might at least EXPLAIN it, even though it remains a failure, and there is no lessening of her reason for resentment, and to-not forgive, etc.

I did like the kitchy, daggy, still-self-deluding? Subtle way that her option for going to church, was breezed-by , before she ends up at the TEACHER's door.

Nice-touch comrade! Lol ! *thumbs up*

And there i was ! ,..

... thinking that the film was about some tiresome, stereotype-perpetuating soul-singing Christian bollocks i would not have any tolerance for.

It was some of the advertising, i think, attempted by American-Idol, using the bubble-of-strong-chararacter soon after the film came out, if i remember correctly - exploiting the neglected sector in the music industry, etc.

Aaanyway, nnnnope! That wasn't good enough for her, and only TEACHING, more modern teaching, or the values of a modern teachER ... proved to be her in religious terms, 'salvation'.

Would a christian priest, have sent her BACK to her mother? Or at least done-nothing to PREVENT that from happening, if she'd had no-where else to go?

Wouldn't be surprised. Niec RE-focus back to REALITY, director, and writers/editors ... much like her fantasy cut-aways, that illusion/dream, was no more,.. no less,.. ignored, compared to her immediate REALITY to have to deal with. *thumbs up*. Perfect filmesque redirection, despite how difficult a subject you were having to deal with, and potential worry that it was not gritty-enough if using too-much / too-many cut-aways and disjointings of continuation of where the camera and audience were, while-watching , while follwing her - that if dealing with such a difficult issue, that one needs to barely cut-away from the main character at all, all-throughout the movie, to keep us focused , captured, on their emotion. By contrast, as the film progressed, the sequences reduced in number, and that was in concordance with her no-choices-but-to-have-to mature maturing, against the predictions of both her parents.

There couldv'e also been a bit more contrast of the grandmother and the mother, such as in the line she remembers of her grandmother telling her that she's not like her mother, at all. There might not've been many moments OF that, in her story,.. :( ... but, only one could've been missed - if the film'd been another ... 20m long? And 1 , had that, and 2, had the previous periods of emotion and self-believed-helplessness in her mother,

it would've been perfect in terms of leaving-no-room for the mother's failure, in portraying her CHOICE, to protect the father, her CHOICE, to choose the single-household X multiple incomes 'better' choice.

... leaving any room for RISK , that the audience will end up thinking so, rather than those moments-OF-choice, left the choice still up for debate.

Sometimes debate is important, sometimes it's not. Sometimes failing to ACT on what you know already, is the very thing that causes DELAY, in prevention, DELAY, in intervention, from uncertainty, or perpetual FUTURE-planning, when INTERVENTION-NOW, also needs to be done.

There are far too many neends negelcted in an ongoing-sense, because no-one's wanting to deal with the PRESENT, this film is a very good example of that, but ... it could present a bit more background in terms of the state-neglect. It would need some background in COMBINATION with it's viewing, to get both points across.

Most of this episode is fine, but the patronizing lecture being given to his dark-elf elite guard or whatever she is, about how not-clearing forests is not much better than clearing them in terms of mudslides, is one of the WORST examples of less-well-travelled than they think they are Japanese INVESTORS trying to justify their choices in recent decades on islands that were never previously a part of the agriculture in-japan, that i have EVER seen.

Yes we know, that japanese food production was a great idea considering how much people wanted and were, selling it to them, before and including after population stabilization, and that one can balance food and timber in the same land, which if i'm not mistaken is a part of the plans for many islands including nature-corridors and parks, which is probably about as good a balance as one can ask for...

... but do NOT tell me , preach to me , that all land is the same, when it comes to floods, rainfall, evaporation, and the RATES involved.

Nor, avoid bevels/aqua-engineering , such as Japan is in no position to ignore, has been used in places like Cambodia and Indonesia, for a VERY long time.

Instead, this 'lecture' ... with the simplified but OMISSIVE 'choice' between ambiguous felling/clearing , and the again simplified supposed 'incapacity' of elves, which is itself, a ignorant simplification of what elves are actually meant to be BETTER knowers of , in balance, than humans,

utterly REEKS of spefiic-argument PRIMING , and indiscrimination and poor-research.

--------

lets see the kingdom come into contact with some similar-to Cambodian or Indo - elves, who correct BOTH these isolated ones, AND humans, at the same time,

and teach the humans, how to COMBINE aqua-engineering , flood-damage-minimization, forestry, AND farming ... all in the same space.

No-one does it like those traditions, with some small isolated examples like the cloud-moisture guys in Chile? Equador? I've forgotten where... the Incas?

Who conserve and re-use water with bevels on the way down the mountain.

If ancient people could do that, then it is our, MODERN-SHAME, that we pretend as though we cannot,

and the kinds of simplifications that are in content like this episode, are precisely the kind of indiscriminations we need to stop ourselves from committing upon-ourselves uneccessarily.

I felt like i was watching something written by a ,

'retuned-from-a-holiday-to-Texas-with-a-pair-of-Jeans-with-holes-in-them-that-only-cost-50,0000Yen'

utter-imbecile , wearing a cowboy hat on his/her head as s/he wrote it , thinking that one or the other , must be chosen, at-only the other's expense.

Get REAL , you American-bootlicking traitor.

Visit Cambodia or Indonesia, LEARN how they do it, and then have another go, with some new 'race' , if you must , that does it differently, and have those elves correct the hopelessly passive and submissive and receiving instruction FROM human ones in this series, have them LIBERATE the isolated ones under human rule, and have them CONDITIONALIZE their return to peace AGAINST huamans, after having joined the new ones who are at war with humans, UNTIL they learn how to do both.

Even just water-irrigated croplands, has more VALIDITY in terms of floods, but this ludicrously simplifying scene made me want to vomit.

Wow ... how many rediculous plot-holes for a series supposed to be about realism, can one episode have?

A "dark" elf, ends up a lightly-tanned one, (sigh)

a ELVEN custodian / protector of a forest, a creature of fey-origins , isn't aware of basic density / over/undergrown dynamics ?

And then, in the middle of a FAMINE , the people supposedly RESPOND positively to him accepting the gluttony 'champion' , rather than find it insulting / insensitive at-least, that WHILE they're starving, the new king's entertaining and taking-on a glutton?

Ugh... i couldn't watch the rest of this episode. And didn't care if it got better.

>> / SKIP / FF.