![]() One of the settings is OZ, an overwhelmingly large, Internet-based society in which tens of millions of people and businesses around the world, represented by their own custom avatars, can interact and connect with each other to partake in all manner of activities, from chatting and playing games to receiving medical treatment and satellite information. Summer Wars presents us with two different settings and conflicts. What I expected to be a good movie ended up being a fantastic movie that gave me a number of things to ponder… It’s a borderline teenage/adult film and will introduce them to a world of anime outside of Miyazaki.I finally got around to watching Summer Wars, director Mamoru Hosoda’s latest anime film that just won Japan Academy’s Animation Award of the year. Although, if your younger ones are anime fans, then get this for them. Lengthy dialogue scenes and complex plot will ensure that your 12-13years or younger, will become bored. Having said that, Summer Wars isn’t a film that younger audiences will enjoy. But Anime fans will enjoy it, and Miyazaki fans looking for something a little different, will hopefully be pleasantly surprised. It’s a brilliant film, which is so off the wall, you will finish the credits trying to work out what exactly you have just watched. The intelligence and challenging story keeps you engaged and wondering right up until the last-minute what is going to happen. The second half of Summer Wars does make reference to old-style Anime classics, fight sequences etc, but this didn’t put me off (although I understand that some might not enjoy it as much). The virtual representation of Love Machine, a virus taking over OZ ![]() It leaves us, the audience, as intelligent human beings to work that out for ourselves. What would you do if that information vanished or fell into the hands on someone who would manipulate it for bad? Whilst this isn’t necessarily examined extensively in Summer Wars, the implication is there. And all of this can be done with someone you’ve never ever met, and probably will never ever meet. But what if all of a sudden that information was corrupted on an international scale? What if my information was used for bad? What would I do if I suddenly lost everything that I had online? Many would shudder to think about it, but it’s very much a reality that so much information is online, it’s not difficult anymore to paint a pretty comprehensive picture of someone from their date of birth, to where they were born to what they had for dinner yesterday. I wouldn’t consider deleting my profiles because there is so much of me on there, it’s personal to me. I know that I use Facebook and Twitter as my main points of contact with loved ones, I communicate through short statuses and images. It does make you think about the direct connection between digital and real. People’s profiles and avatars are stolen and do the bad work of Love Machine. And when it’s hacked, the most prominent damage is the identity theft. There is obviously a lot of social commentary, the virtual world of OZ represents everything in modern life, from social media to controlling traffic lights to retailers, advertising, health care, pretty much everything in modern society is linked in one way or another to OZ. Keep up with how many characters there are! This is just a handful of them! To be honest, it doesn’t really matter if you cant remember all the characters names by the end, it’s the realism of the family unit which we are supposed to identify with. But I think that’s the point of Summer Wars. The only detriment to this is that, the film doesn’t feel big enough for so many huge characters (upwards of 20 separate characters!) and it can be difficult to keep track and engage. Each character could stand alone as a protagonist, each one has been expertly written and given such a rich personality, something which is so notably absent from many other films. The characterisations of Natsuki’s family are heartwarming and hilarious. But the real beauty of Summer Wars is the complexities of everything else. The attention to detail is so fine, it’s easy to take for granted. The opening sequence is testimony enough to the graphics on display. It’s a stunningly beautiful film, so vibrant and bold, it’s a wonder to look at. But it slowly morphs into something completely unexpected. In all honesty, I wasn’t sure what I could expect from Summer Wars, and it does start out as a typical examination of Japanese family culture.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |