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Ismailov's Replies
Yeah the film, for all its anachronisms and fictionalized portrayals, ended up boosting Scottish national identity, an identity which may quite possibly lead to Scotland's independence over the next few decades.
Compare that to The Patriot, also starring Mel Gibson. British publications criticized it as demonizing the Redcoats, but it wasn't like American audiences were going to demand changes in US foreign policy towards Britain after seeing it, so it doesn't have the sort of "notoriety" Braveheart does.
From a superficial reading of her life, probably not. She was found guilty, sentenced to life in prison, and there's seemingly been nothing in the decades since then that throws her guilt into doubt or mitigates her decision to commit murder.
The main criticism (even from Bruce Willis) is that it's too similar to the first, which I agree with, but I also think the film is good enough on its own merits that stuff like "oh hey it's that scumbag news reporter from the first movie and he's yet again making things worse" isn't a big deal.
The poster I was responding to used the term "Space Hitler," presumably since Drax wanted to create his own "superior race" by exterminating those who he felt would get in the way of his plan. In Hitler's case the main target was Jews (although Slavs and others labeled "subhuman" would be subjected to depopulation with their remnants serving as slave labor.) In Drax's case it was all humanity except for his relatively small number of followers.
There's even a part in the film where Drax talks creating "a race of perfect physical specimens" in front of Jaws and Jaws' "imperfect" (due to impaired vision) girlfriend. I don't think it's a stretch to say this was meant to remind viewers of the Nazis with their advocacy of eugenics, sterilization, etc.
Also, if Hitler had been a space-faring astronaut then saying "Space Hitler" would have just been redundant.
On the other hand, Drax <i>is</i> basically "Space Hitler," so it makes sense he would engage in something "dark, mean-spirited, and gruesome." Also, it's been a while since I last saw the film, but I recall that Corinne's death happens relatively early, before the enormity of Drax's plans are established. So the scene might have existed to give audiences an idea of what to expect as to how unhinged his plans will be.
I think Zorin's massacre makes less sense to put in the film, because by that point it's been made crystal clear to the audience how psychopathic and violent Zorin is, not to mention his plan (involving mass death) was already revealed long before the flooded mine scene.
The impression I get is that when replicants were first created, they were a lot more "mechanical" both physically and emotionally. The "friends" Sebastian creates for himself are an example of this. But by the time Nexus 6 models appeared, replicants had become much more human.
If the humans in the film (like Deckard) nonetheless still refer to them as "robots," "machines," "skinjobs," etc., I think it's meant to represent how they prefer to use such dehumanizing terms to make it more acceptable to treat them as slave labor and kill those that resist. Even the act of killing them ("retire") becomes a euphemism more suited to deactivating a robot than taking a sentient life.
The impression I get is that Tyrell figured he was doomed the moment Roy was able to enter his bedroom without any security being alerted.
Roy wanted to know if there was a means of extending replicant lifespans. I doubt he expected Tyrell to actually help extend them, and even if Tyrell did offer to help, Roy had no reason to trust him.
It's interesting how nowadays the commercial is often criticized for a very different reason, either because it's accused of playing into the "vanishing Indian" narrative (in which indigenous peoples are portrayed as belonging to a long-gone past and their "remnants" soon doomed to disappear), or because the campaign was financed by corporations that wanted to shift the onus of pollution on individual citizens littering rather than corporate entities responsible for a great deal of pollutants.
But I've seen people from back then say that the ad campaign really did help reduce litter and make people more conscious of environmental problems, even if the focus on individual littering was too narrow.
I always interpreted the soldier's behavior as indicating it's aware the replicants are a danger, something Sebastian himself realizes more slowly than his own "toys" (which themselves seem to be very simplistic replicants.)
I also think the fact Sebastian makes these "toys" is meant to show the viewer how he treats replicants as less than human. Similar to how Chew remarks about making Roy's eyes, leading Roy to reply "if only you could see what I've seen with your eyes." In other words, Chew seemingly doesn't care about the plight the replicants are in, a plight he helped make possible.
Given that Sebastian ages abnormally fast, his personality appears to be a lot more naive and oblivious, to the extent he can proudly state how "there's some of me [i.e. the Methuselah Syndrome leading to early death] in you." But in the eyes of Roy and his friends, there's no real difference between Chew and Sebastian. Both are pretty much equivalent to slave breeders.
1. Replicants exist to be used by humans as slave labor in outer space. If they can just roam the earth like anyone else, that makes their status as slave laborers untenable.
2. If they learn they only have a few years to live, and no chance of being let free from the slave-like conditions they're in, that would understandably make them more than a little upset and to seek revenge or at least violently try to escape.
3. I'd assume that people on earth are taught to regard replicants as unfit to live freely among human populations due to the danger they can pose, which in turn would create public opinion in favor of keeping their presence on earth illegal.
I think both were famous enough back in the day, and so obviously different as persons and in terms of their careers, that any confusion would have been rare.
1. Even if you want to claim that "there are more blacks in prison today" (the actual statistics are more complicated: https://www.vox.com/2015/2/23/8088989/john-legend-oscars-speech-quote), that's irrelevant unless you think serving a prison sentence after being found guilty of a crime is equivalent to being considered subhuman and therefore "naturally" fit for slavery your entire life with no ability to legally marry, being subjected to laws that made it illegal to learn to read or write, etc.
2. Turner served under multiple masters throughout his life. In his confessions he only speaks well of the last of these, and he evidently didn't think that because an individual master happened to be a "good" man that this somehow justified the institution of slavery and made revolt against it unjust. I don't know where you got "the majority of former slaves talk well of their masters" from.
3. There have been innumerable figures throughout history who claimed to receive visions from God. In conditions where religious belief is practically omnipresent and superstitions widespread (as was the case in 19th century America), Turner doesn't stand out too much in this regard. He was evidently able to gain followers who did not see such visions but who trusted Turner as a leader capable of achieving their own freedom.
4. The killing of children was done because the small band of rebels did not want anyone potentially capable of raising an alarm and thus allowing for the crushing of the revolt before it gained momentum. On the other hand, when Turner's men came across the residence of an impoverished white family, it was decided these were so poor that they'd have no interest in assisting the slaveowners and therefore weren't killed.
If he thought black people "were useless subhuman defective farm equipment" he would have been in favor of slavery. To quote him, "When one starts poor, as most do in the race of life, free society is such that he knows he can better his condition,—he knows that there is no fixed condition of labor for his whole life. I am not ashamed to confess that twenty-five years ago I was a hired laborer, mauling rails, at work on a flatboat—just what might happen to any poor man's son. I want every man to have his chance—and I believe a black man is entitled to it—in which he can better his condition—when he may look forward and hope to be a hired laborer this year and the next, work for himself afterward, and finally to hire men to work for him. That is the true system."
He did hold that black people were biologically "inferior" to whites, but by the time he was assassinated he had begun to feel that certain segments of the black population ought to be given voting rights. His belief in "solving" the issue by having black Americans emigrate to Africa was also something he abandoned by 1865.
IMO the real problem is when the ad starts shoehorning in quotes from the film.
The idea of an ad where Carrey plays an annoying cable guy is fine. The fact he's reprising a film role would just be an added bonus. But by lazily invoking quotes and his character's lisp I could see certain viewers being a bit confused and wondering "uh, is this supposed to reference something?"
That's the case with almost all the actors in Romero's first three "Dead" films. Even Ken Foree isn't nearly as famous as, say, Samuel L. Jackson or Denzel Washington.
I do think it's nice that otherwise obscure actors like Lori Cardille, Joe Pilato, Gary Howard Klar, Richard Liberty, etc. got a chance to give memorable performances in one good movie.
Yeah the only way Tim Allen would be reduced to "living in his car" is if he was absurdly irresponsible with his money.
Hell, the amount he got for reprising his role in Toy Story 4 (and however much he's getting in the mail since doing it) is probably sufficient, in itself, for him to live out the rest of his life in comfort.
Cosby played an important role in financing the film, hence the cameo.
It's sorta like how a bunch of films between 2005-2017 include The Weinstein Company in their opening credits. Obviously awkward in hindsight, but it is what it is.
Yeah, if it came out in the 1970s it'd be a very different film no matter who was starring in it. In fact given the original's plot about kidnapping and two assassins trying to kill the protagonists, a 70s version would probably feel more akin to Silver Streak with cars and trucks instead of a train.
I wasn't talking about "society as a whole," I'm focusing on the man himself. Nor do I dispute that he did good, as I've repeatedly noted. We're both going around in circles at this point making basically the same statements.
As for not seeing "anything objectionable in the fact that people thought he was the real thing," it depends. A common criticism is that both on and off screen he portrayed a Hollywood version of what a "real Indian" is like. This undoubtedly fascinated a lot of non-indigenous Americans and encouraged them to learn more about Native American cultures and causes, but it also contributed to portraying Natives as exotic figures who are "one with nature" and other noble savage stereotypes that annoy plenty of indigenous people because it leads to assumptions about how "real Indians" look and behave.
There were also, apparently, actual indigenous actors in 1930s-50s Hollywood who took issue. The son of one of them claimed, "While there were various stories during the many years about Iron Eyes, the image makers in Hollywood were able to dispel any criticism of him. Instead those Indians who criticized Iron Eyes soon left Hollywood." (quoted in Michelle Raheja, "Reservation Reelism," p. 132) But as I've noted, there were also Native Americans (like filmmaker Bob Hicks) who knew Cody as a friend and didn't mind that he wasn't actually indigenous.
I used Means as an example of why it doesn't make sense to imply, as you did, that there weren't any Native Americans who (as you put it in an earlier post) "stood up and took it upon themself to" become the best-known Native American in the country. The fact Cody became as famous as he did was a combination of his own talent, his "inoffensive" life (working for Hollywood and Disney is evidently different from working for groups like the American Indian Movement), and of being able to star in an incredibly popular ad campaign.
.... because people were deceived by a man who claimed to be something he wasn't, and whose fame and livelihood was largely based on a lie. Do you really see nothing at all objectionable in what he did?
I don't know why you write "no real Natives were interested in the job" (I assume the "job" being the most famous living Native American.) It isn't as if "famous person" is something you fill out an application form for. Cody was a veteran Hollywood actor who ended up starring in a commercial that became incredibly popular. There were certainly figures like Russell Means who would have been willing to take Cody's stature in American pop culture (hell, Means even took up acting later in life.)
According to his autobiography ("My Life as a Hollywood Indian," pp. 268-269), a photographer from a New York ad agency had asked him to star in said commercial. Cody replied, "Tell them I know plenty of Indian actors who'd more than welcome the chance to be in a campaign like this." But the photographer later insisted Cody take the role. Thus, by Cody's own acknowledgement, an indigenous actor easily could have gotten the part.
Of course, as an actor who did a great job playing into American pop culture conventions about how "real Indians" look, dress, and behave, it isn't surprising that Cody became as famous as he did. I'm certainly not questioning his skills in that regard.