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Pixel Problems

Ta-metru_defender

Entry posted by Ta-metru_defender

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Essays, Not Rants! 172: Pixel Problems

 

I remember seeing Patrick Jean’s short film “Pixels” when it first hit the internet a few years ago. It’s a cool short film with a fun concept. It does what it does and is great for it. Then there was Freddie Wong’s “

” which took a similar idea and, though not quite as visually spectacular or narratively sound, was a great ode to nerd culture (Lara Croft from Tomb Raider gets in the lander from Lunar Lander!).

 

Then along comes this new movie Pixels, based on Patrick Jean’s eponymous short. It’s always exciting to see an independently made short get a feature based on it, especially one with such a relatively nerdy concept. But based on the trailers and such for the film, it’s, well, it’s looking more Big Bang Theory than Chuck.

 

And not just because of Adam Sandler.

 

Although there’s an outlandish concept to accept, (not Kevin James as president; an alien invasion taking the form of classic arcade games) but it serves its purpose well enough. That is, it allows the story to collect a team of former arcade super stars. So far, not so bad. There’s a great opportunity here to celebrate retro-gaming and gamers in general: gamers get to save the world! Nerds get to be the winners.

 

Only thing is, it’s looking like nerds are the punchline again. There’s no attempt to show the them as anything other than people to be laughed at. They could keep them weird, they could make them normal, or even take a page out of Edgar Wright’s The World’s End and have most of them have moved on in their life and now have to access something they thought they grew out of (which, for the heroes of Pixels, would also allow them to recapture the joys of youth). Instead, no, the nerds are social rejects who are thrust into the spotlight for us to enjoy how hilariously out of touch they are. Also, they’re saving the world.

 

Which, again, wouldn’t be so bad if it felt more like a love letter than, well, whatever this is. Having a fictionalized version of Pac-Man’s creator show up (by name) is awesome, but it’s quickly negated by his appearance being reduced to something of a racist caricature. Because a screaming Japanese man makes for an easy joke. Again, this is based on the trailer, but I have a great deal of respect for Toru Iwatani and it’s disappointing to see someone playing him only to get the short end of a stick.

 

Which isn’t even touching the film’s gender issues. Michelle Monaghan plays the all too familiar hot-woman-who-tags-along-with-the-nerds, albeit a Lieutenant Colonel. But in doing so the film falls back into the trap of the myth that women can’t be nerds. The film creates a clear gender dichotomy that a woman’s not a gamer and is instead the ‘normal’ character who keeps the others on leash. It’s very rare to see any form of media actually get through this (Chuck had its moments), but nonetheless it’s a bummer. Would it have been too much to rework her character into someone who avidly actually enjoyed games?

 

Look, Pixels isn’t out yet and I don’t really plan on seeing it (which makes this one of the few things I complain about without watching). But nerd culture is something I’m big on, seeing as it’s something that occupies a large chunk of my life. I want a movie like Pixels, but I want a movie better than it. One where being a nerd is cool and can be anyone, whether they’re socially apt, a man or a woman, or heck, whatever their race is. ‘cause c’mon, nerds are cool now.

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Pomegranate

I agree 100% with this. I'm in love with the premise and the visual effects and some of the execution looks pretty good, but the treatment of the characters and the jokes themselves are thoroughly disappointing-- I really hope the plot doesn't suffer as well. So far the trailers have been really lackluster in that regard and I'm hoping whoever put them together just has really bad taste and took a lot out of context, and the movie ends up a lot better.

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Vorahk1Panrahk2

Having a fictionalized version of Pac-Man’s creator show up (by name) is awesome, but it’s quickly negated by his appearance being reduced to something of a racist caricature. Because a screaming Japanese man makes for an easy joke.

 

Not to defend this movie, because it looks awful, but that seems like a mighy big leap to racist caricature. The humor from that scene comes from (or is supposed to come from) the character's complete 180 response from the sentimental speech to cursing in only a few seconds. Given that this is the creator of Pac-Man, his cursing makes it all the more amusing.

 

As for Michelle Monaghan's character, what are you basing that off of? The trailer kind of implies that trope, but it also implies that she knows what Ghosts are. There could be more there, and unless you know something I don't (which is entirely possible since I've been ignoring this movie) I'm not seeing a basis for complaint yet.

 

And, lastly, isn't your complaint about how the nerds are "social rejects who are thrust into the spotlight for us to enjoy how hilariously out of touch they are" rendered moot by the fact that one of them is, in this film, the President of the United States?

 

(Unless you were making a subtle political jab, in which case carry on.)

 

I do think it's kind of strange that you're writing a critique of a movie you haven't seen when it sounds like you should be writing a critique of the trailer instead. I mean, I'm pretty sure that's what you were intending to do, but some sections (specifically that whole paragraph about Monaghan) seem really definitive about what the movie is rather than what it looks like.

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Ta-metru_defender

I dunno. I got the feeling that the way they had fictional!Iwatani approach Pac-Man and the whole "my creation" schtick really built on the fact that he was Japanese. Strikes me as they've got him tagging along for the giggles more than anything.

 

Re: Monaghan, again, it's all gut response. But given that for most of the trailer she's in dress uniform while the actual 'nerds' are in the combat-uniform thing. Maybe this is me feeling all too familiar with the trope. She just seems like an outsider who may know what the ghosts are (because she did a buttload of research but has never actually played the game which in turn will lead to a touching moment between her and Sandler where he shows her how great it actually is to play it and blahblahblah), but ultimately isn't "one of the gang." Which is where I take issue.

 

Don't know enough about the movie (just wikipedia, and the two trailers I rewatched to write this), but I got the feeling that the President had moved on from it all or had never been involved. This one's up for grabs (and it does work as a political jab).

 

Yeah, I know I'm being unfairly/prematurely harsh. Just everytime I see the trailer/posters (which is frustrating because there's a poster on the bus station outside my apartment) I get a weird sort of nerd rage that needed a takedown, haha. There's a part of me that genuinely hopes it's good (as a rule I don't like to hope for a movie to be bad), but the chips seem stacked against it.

 

Unrelated, but I always love your comments, V1P2; they're some of the most thought out and interesting ones I get to read.

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