Starter: Why are these videos relevant?
This video shows a Japanese soldier choosing not to kill Wolverine, and in turn, Wolverine shows his gratitude by stopping the Japanese soldier from killing himself as the atomic bomb strikes. He is shown leading the soldier to shelter and protecting him from the atomic bomb. I think the relevance of this video is that even though there are horrors such as the atomic bomb killing thousands of people and leaving behind a wasteland, there is still humane people left in the world. Or at least that's what the director is trying to get across. However, this could be just a ruse, to fool the public into thinking everything will be alright in society.
This trailer could be relevant to Media studies because back in the 1980's, this is what they imagined a hyper-reality in the Tron game to be like. The graphics back then were simple and didn't make the reality look believable. Therefore, the film wouldn't have had much of an impact on society as the public wouldn't have escaped in this world.
This trailer showcases the reboot of the classic RoboCop film, created in 1987. The intent of the film seems to set out to boost the decreasing popularity of cops, particularly the USA. The trailer also comes with a critic reviewing the trailer, who says the new RoboCop 'looks like a washing machine', this shows how people perceptions of the original RoboCop don't want to change, and most are still stuck in the past. The film shows that we are living in a future where we are constantly looking back on the past and nothing is ever truly original anymore.
WRECK IT RALPH
1. Why does it LOOK Pomo? (Jameson)
The look of Wreck It Ralph plays with the idea of recycling retro and combing it with the newer looking graphics of today. This way people familiarise themselves with the old game characters but are still able to watch a film which keeps up with the change of technology. Even at the beginning of the film an old Disney animation introduces the film, which triggers an emotional memory from viewers before they have even watched the film. Especially, in the last scene it shows how combining different intertextual ideas and creating a bricolage has become a new way of making “old” feel “new” and exciting. Bricolage blends the idea of video games and films, and while we can control video games, we cannot control this film.
2. Does it THINK Pomo? (Baudrillard)
The ideas that feature in Wreck it Ralph show eclecticism because it draws on more than one idea and does not go on just a set of assumptions. For example, we don't assume that all the villains are the bad guys, that there is good and bad in everyone, as even the people from 'Fix It Felix' show acts of bullying towards Ralph, who just wants to be the good guy, and fit in. There is a modernist view of the villain living in the dump, in the darkness alone, while the heroes live in the nice penthouses illuminated. (Light representing goodness and purity and darkness representing the opposite, it is clear that the grand narrative here is fairly modernist.) At Bad Anon, the villains show a degree of vulnerability, and not in the modernist way of being vulnerable. These emotions and feelings of self doubt are apparent, in a post modern way. A line from one of the villains (a zombie) is "labels won't make you happy, you must love you." Modernism was obsessed with labelling people, genders, sexualities, races. A post modern society tries to break down these labels and has even introduced people that don't identify with any of these labels. While it is a kids film, Disney still showing that it has a message in it, despite it's post modern qualities.
3. Is it AFTER modernism (what structures and boundaries - Lyotard)
It has a grand narrative. It follows the story of a good person trying to prove the world wrong about himself, fighting evil and in the end, the good wins. This is a typical, “happy ending” type of story, which according to post-modern views is very “modern”. Post-modern ideas explain that grand-narratives are being collapsed but this film does not support that. Therefore, you could argue that this is not a post-modern film but it only explains and demonstrates post-modern ideas.
APPLY TERMINOLOGY TO WRACK IT RALPH
Bricolage
Parody
Pastiche
Hybridity
Hyper-reality
Intertextuality
Style Over Substance
Self-reflexivity
This comes at the point in the film when Ralph accepts his status for what it is not what he does, as he hurtles himself into the volcano, "I'm bad and that's good". The slow-motion part shows hyper-reality as this doesn't happen in real-life.
Immersion
Flow
Prosumers
Nostalgia
Grand Narrative/ Meta Narrative
Popular (Low) Culture
Simulacra
