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Anarchist Indoctrination

Don't get me wrong.

I enjoy the idea of a genetically-engineered and enhanced vigilante in a Guy Fawkes mask slashing away at corrupt politicians as much as the next guy. The film, in itself, is a spectacular piece of art that truly deserves higher praise.

However, if you really look into the film V for Vendetta, the message isn't in the blood and hacking. It isn't in the fiery explosions that light up the London night sky. And it most certainly isn't Natalie Portman's ugly cry face.

The true message behind V for Vendetta is actually the indoctrination of a mass of people into following the beliefs and the words of a man behind a mask. If that isn't chilling enough, the idea that "V" poses for the British commoners is a belief that anarchy is the solution to their problems.

We can see this play out in two forms: a micro perspective and a macro perspective.

Let's delve into the macro first.

We first see V's extremist acts when he met with Evey, Portman's character, and they climb atop the London rooftops to witness V's 'orchestra' performance. Once V had begun waving his hands in the air, the music began to grow in a phenomenal crescendo, leading up to the explosion of the Old Bailey, a symbol of law and order.

V's reasons, as he put it, were rooted from the corrupt justice system that was now in place in Great Britain. What was once a justice system for the people was now a means for the government to unfairly persecute anyone who would defy their order.

His next spectacular display of anarchy is seen by a larger population, with a lot of eyes on him at this point. This is V's call to action--his means of swaying the public's mind into following his own set of beliefs.

When V had taken the news station over, he had one clear goal in mind: provoke outrage outright. With the thousands of eyes glued to their television screens in their homes, in local pubs, and on large city-scape digital billboards, it was impossible to have missed V's message.

As I watched this sequence roll on my computer's screen, I vividly remember widening my eyes when I heard V's Revolutionary Speech.

"And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission"

This is where I begin to wonder where the lines were. How much of this film was fact and which parts of it was fiction? Because when I had heard these words uttered by the masked vigilante, I could think of no other time but now when censorship is rampant, when freedoms of speech are denied, when people are oppressed because of their beliefs, when discrimination is the response to diversity, and when government surveillance seeks to limit our every move.

In other words, this scene is a reflection of the truth that lies in the real world, where the lines between this film's fictitious aspect are blurred.

In the film, this speech was enough to spark a flame that burned deep in the hearts of the oppressed British people. Riots and fights began to grow on the streets, the youth began spray-tagging public walls with the iconic "V", and the masses began to rise up against the cruel "Fingermen" or the British secret police.

What we see next is the execution of some of the most iconic scenes in the film: the murders of the key politicians and instigators of injustice. From corrupt politicians to vile newsmen who sway the public masses into becoming sheep for the slaughter, V had his list of targets to weaken the current administration.

This is a display of how a government could be weakened to the breaking point if the legs by which it stands are crippled and ultimately taken away. Remember, these are the acts of a lone man on a mission of vengeance and justice--somebody that the audience is urged to root for, somebody who is seen as the hero of the plot.

Finally, we move on to the micro aspect of the anarchist indoctrination process.

Evey, the timid and frail girl we see entering the life of a crazed vigilante, is the subject of V's anarchist indoctrination. When she first appears on screen, she is this shy, wavering, and hesitant lady who feared to be out and about at night.

Her character is clearly a play on the ‘maiden in distress’ film trope that a lot of Hollywood films use to make the audience root for the pretty face in the story. This film, however, breaks that trope into a million pieces.

Once she meets V, she had begun to develop as a character as she rapidly progressed from a shy and timid girl into a strong and capable character who ends up with no fear for death or persecution. This, of course, is the sole doing of V, who had staged and simulated Evey's imprisonment, wherein she was tortured, shaved bald, starved, and locked away in solitary confinement.

In the end, I was able to see just how much Portman's character had changed throughout the torture process as she clung on for dear life. Inspiring as it was, the reveal at the end of it proved my theory: Evey had willingly accepted V's beliefs and his morals on her own as she was subjected to the same kind of horrible treatments as he had gone through in his imprisonment at a concentration camp.

Sure, the concept of revolution and chaos isn't an entirely new idea, since we have seen countless attempts of uprisings and unrests all across the globe but the way that film director James McTeigue plays with the idea is truly spine-tingling.

See, the concept of anarchy spreading all around through the mainstream media to the minds of the viewers is dangerous enough as it is. Imagine if you'd play with the idea of anarchy on the big screen, where over twenty million viewers who aren't just lazing around in their couches but are actually actively paying attention to the moving pictures on their screens.

What do you think about this? Is V for Vendetta a film depicting Anarchist Indoctrination?

[yodhjaminong-blog]

How did the Emoji Movie not die in the box office?

The Emoji Movie is perhaps the mother of all cash grabs in the history of film. Forget about the fact that several movies and film sequels have been created just to quickly capitalize on the original’s growing population. This “film” in particular makes use of deception, blatant advertising, childhood innocence, and the rise in the popularity of trends just to make a quick buck.

More than that, the idea behind the film is based on a trendy fad that drives millennials in their day-to-day communication. With the growing popularity of emojis in text messaging, Sony Pictures Animation executives probably told themselves, “Wow, we can totally cash in on that,” and then the Emoji Movie was born. All it took for this film to be created was the use of terrible animation, a poor storyline, a generic plot, and a “relatable” character that just can’t fit in.  I wonder how they thought that up.

News flash: they didn’t. Once the film reels started rolling, it was pretty clear that the emoji movie didn’t just make a terrible plot. They stole it. The movie trope of a character who just can’t fit in and tries to find himself has been overused to the point that it’s sickening and borderline just plain boring. This is further proof that the Emoji Movie was just a cash-grab and nothing short of a terrible piece of work. The laziness of the animation and the stolen plot just goes to show how tired, uninterested, and dispassionate the creators were when it came to actually satisfying the audience with a good story matched with a decent art style.

However, a lot of people already knew about how terrible the movie would be even before it hit the big screen. When the first trailer was released, the Emoji Movie received tons of hate and criticism from both the viewers and the actual film critics. Content creators all across Youtube were putting out videos about how much they hated the film even before the release date, saying that it would be a terrible flop. Netizens on the Twittersphere weren’t out of this fight either. It came to the point that several internet personalities and celebrities were shitting on the film that hating on the Emoji Movie was like beating a dead horse. 

With all this hate and all the backlash from critics, you’d think that the movie would die and be forgotten. Right?

Right?!

Wrong. All the hate and the criticism only made the abomination stronger in the box office. Don’t believe me? Take a look at all the green that this film was able to gross in the box office:

With all these added up, the question still remains: how in the world did the Emoji Movie not wither up and die as soon as it hit the big screen? The answer lies in the age-old saying.

Publicity, whether good or bad, is still good publicity.

All the hate and the jokes made about the movie weren't effective at all in trying to kill this atrocity. What really funnelled the dollars into the Sony Pictures Animation executives' pockets was the widespread talk about the movie, which only provoked movie goers to actually go and sit for an hour and a half to see if it's as bad as they said it was.

And boy, was it bad.

[yodhjaminong-blog]

Cash Grabbing 101: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

           Beloved fans of the Harry Potter franchise who had read the original books authored by JK Rowling were in a mix of emotions once the last two films of the original storyline were released. To some, the idea of receiving two separate films was a dream come true because it allowed them to see their heroes on the big screen for two more times than one. Other fans, however, saw through the film releases and glared at the corporate decisions made by Warner Brothers executives.

           Let’s break down what got the fans riled and generally confused.

           The first problem that fans initially saw was that the seventh book of the same title wasn’t even the longest book in the entire set of Harry Potter books. The longest book, the Order of the Phoenix, comes out on top with over two hundred and fifty-seven thousand words. The Deathly Hallows, on the other hand, only had a hundred and ninety-eight thousand words in total, yet the film execs still managed to stretch out the book into two films while cutting out some of the important details of the longer book.

           However, it could be argued that the Warner Brothers executives wanted to make the end of the storyline to be as true to the book as possible in such a way that they had to pour in every single detail of the novel into the film. This way, the fans are able to both see their heroes for much longer on the big screen and see every detail in JK’s original design for the story.

           It can’t be argued, however, that Warner Brothers didn’t really do well with the first installment of the last book. Almost all the fans of the Harry Potter franchise as well as other critics of the first last film can agree that HP: DH Part 1 was bland, slow, and uninteresting as compared with previous installments of the film franchise. Which begs the question: did the film execs really do this to give us every detail? Or did they do so for the purpose of cashing in on fan adoration to their advantage?

           Popular opinions on this film always state that the film was dragging the scenes too long. This can be seen with Harry Potter and friends mostly spending screen time sitting around in their camp, making fools out of themselves instead of working on actually progressing the plot and developing the characters. With this, it appears as though the first installment of the Deathly Hallows was just one big cash-grab to keep the fans enticed just enough to hold onto the film but not enough to keep them actually entertained.

           Another point that defending fans claim is the fact that the first book was a sort of ‘warm up’ for the actual plot and to that we say: poppycock. If Warner Brothers really wanted to create a warm-up for the fans, they should have done it in their trailers or perhaps the first quarter of one standalone film. I don’t know about you, but warming up for over two hours is a little bit much, no? The fact that some fans claim that the first installment is simply a warm-up to the actual plot is evidence enough that they are simply blindly following the franchise because it has the words “Harry” and “Potter” in the title.

           The absurdity of blind allegiance and patronage is sickening on its own. Warner Brothers, knowing that the fans would never turn down a chance to see Dan Radcliffe on the big screen for two and a half hours, capitalized on their emotional attachment to the Potterverse.

           Or had the Warner Brothers Executives planned out an interesting way to improve upon the viewer’s experience by giving out every little detail in the last installment of the original Harry Potter storyline?

           Either way, we can all agree that cash-grabbing isn’t an entirely new concept. Usually, films are produced for the sake of the money in the form of sequels to a successful original film. A fair example of this is Sam Raimi’s entire Spiderman franchise where the two sequels are obviously just cashing in on the original’s fame.

           Frankly and honestly, Hollywood can make as much money as they damn well please with all this content that they continuously churn out. Sequels, reboots, remakes, and prequels of some of their most successful films are what they mostly produce nowadays and they have become a way to destroy the wonderful reputation of the original films.