The Gamer's Quarter

[Ketch]

It seems to me that games could gain in subtlety if they were more influenced by Kill Bill. Kill Bill rejects the good vs evil motif, instead using a bad (but portrayed as good) vs. worse motif. Why are we meant to sympathise or root for The Bride? She was part of the Deadly Viper squad, just as the rest of the bad guys. But the tragedy she has suffered at Bill's hands seems to justify her desire for revenge. Likewise, the ex-Members of the Deadly Viper squad seem to be generally bad guys.
But what of The Bride's actions, are they justified?
And overall, what is the *point* of Kill Bill? just as what is the point of videogame-stories?


* God Hand is apparently going to take this bad vs worse idea as part of its scenario.

[Shapermc]

Kill Bill is hardly the first time this has been done. But that said, I thought Yakuza did this as well?
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[dhex]

[player 2]

I think you've broken it down. It makes me think in a really Nietzschian way when I think about designing videogames, because really, you can't expect anything else. You can give the player all the power he wants, but in the end his story will be determined where his will drives him. I think that's why physical conflict is so easy in games because no one wants to get beat up or pushed around no matter who or what their other motivations are. Losing? Psh, fuck that noise, I'm not going to lose either.

Imagine how much less insane violence there would be in Grand Theft Auto if you had a set number of lives?

Yeah, I suppose "bad vs. badder" could be a way to gain subtlety in videogames. But I'm not sure if God Hand is really going for subtlety, hey?
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Wii #: 8749 9109 9732 3653

"It is a peaceful way of understanding life, to play"
_Marcel Duchamp

[dark steve]

[helicopterp]

I'm not sure Kill Bill is really going for subtlety, hey!

I found the first Kill Bill to be nothing more than cinematic masturbation. And I don't think games should learn from that. I have not seen the second Kill Bill.
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Like you thought you'd seen copter perverts before. They were nothing compared to this one.

[TheRumblefish]

[dark steve]

[Mr. Mechanical]

[dark steve]

Word on the street about that is that it's actually kind of interesting.

[dessgeega]

in noboyuki forces 3, which i've spent an obscene amount of time on, you can unlock the outfit from kill bill as a costume for your character.

it caught me off guard a little bit.
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[Mr. Mechanical]

[TheRumblefish]

[kirkjerk]

The Bride's Yellow Jumpsuit was an homage to Bruce Lee:
http://www.bruceleedivinewind.com/god72.html
So it's not clear which one GTA is having fun with, IIRC it's comically tight on the main character.

I've never seen a sequel do so much to reframe its predecessor as Kill Bill 2 did to 1, it did a lot to move it beyond basic vengance.

The interesting bit about "bad vs worse" is when Uma is going after the black woman, who now seems to be trying to make a nice decent suburban life for herself and daughter. Especially because both kind of collaborate to keep the battle from the child, which is a bit silly because I think she's going to notice that mommy's a bloody corpse.

I don't understand the charges of "cinematic masturbation".

[dessgeega]

[Mr. Mechanical]

I quite enjoyed Kill Bill for all the reasons people seem to hate it. I still need to get the first one on DVD and watch them both back to back sometime.

[kirkjerk]

[dessgeega]

i wish i could spell "exercise".

i find excessive violence profoundly alienating.

except in gta2, apparently. possibly because there i get to direct it. also possibly because the people are tiny pixel people.
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[player 2]

You know, this whole "bad vs. badder" thing is so goddamn fucking Western (and, well, wrong). The movie isn't about "bad vs. badder". The "badguy-ness" of all the characters is really just a way to appeal to the audience - to make the characters more likeable. It's like Robin Hood. Would you like Robin Hood any less if he kept all the money for himself?

In the end, the movie is about honor. It's about fulfilling duties. You fucked me up, I'll fuck you up. Oh, you saw how I killed your mom? If you're still sour, you can come after me, and that's cool. It's also about how that honor is sometimes difficult and painful. The painful awkwardness in the final scenes with Beatrix, Bill, and the daughter? That's the fucking cake right there.
_________________
Wii #: 8749 9109 9732 3653

"It is a peaceful way of understanding life, to play"
_Marcel Duchamp

[dark steve]

It's the most lurid spaghetti western north of the border.

[Scratchmonkey]

There's Bruce Lee jumpsuit love in Tekken as well. Well, Bruce Lee love in general. Including the jumpsuit.

[Lockeownzj00]

yeah--it's kind of ironic that people are criticizing Kill Bill for its exaggeration when it's supposed to be an amalgam (in a darkly satirical style) of Hong-Kong cinema, action-story cliches, and kickassery.

Jeeze. I mean, oh man, someone talented is a little narcissistic, none of the great artists are like that. He's a pretty damn keen guy and the KB movies are Western neo-HK revival.

I agree with player 2 about the thematical substance of the movie.

I think a lot of games do make use of what you propose, Ketch--modern games really don't mind throwing us the anti-hero. In fact, they might even prefer it sometimes.

[helicopterp]

Thanks, Locke. I was really unclear as to what it was supposed to be.

Kill Bill is masturbatory not because it presents exaggeration or because Tarantino loves himself or because it is very violent. It is masturbatory because it is an amalgam of so many genres, all of which Tarantino thinks happen to be really cool. He has made a movie (at least with one; again, I have not seen v. 2) because it is a collection of everything he gets off on. All the shout-outs to Hong Kong cinema and Sergio Leone and manga are each a private little mindgasm for Tarantino. And yes, it is 'stylish', but that's a label we attach to something when we can't see what the style is getting at (in this case, because it is woefully skin-deep). It is an irresponsible waste of film, and somehow garners a staggering amount of attention because it's just so damn cool and look at all the cool things he likes and look at how all these cool things are put together around a core of cool cool cool.[/i]
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Like you thought you'd seen copter perverts before. They were nothing compared to this one.

[TheRumblefish]

[kirkjerk]

I thank masturbatory is a needlessly unpleasant and not particularly accurate term; "self indulgent" covers it, because I think Kill Bill engages its audience, which might consist a bit too much of fanboys and the like, where as "masturbation" doesn't describe that kind of dialog.

And "waste of film"? I think you can only argue that if it clearly repressed some other promising film, and I don't think that's a clear cut argument. A lot of people enjoyed it, it was a nice exercise in stylish violence, and it pulled a remarkable trick with how the second film totally reframed the first... I'm not a film buff, but I can't think of another pair of films that did that. (It's kind of akin to the Star Wars prequels making the original trilogy the story of Vader instead of Luke, but without all the issues and problems and klutziness and retroconning that entailed)

[helicopterp]

I am going to defend my terminology.

I use the word masturbatory in its sense of "excessively self-indulgent or self-involved" as defined by the American Heritage dictionary. If it is an unpleasant term to you, then I am glad. Kill Bill is an exceedingly unpleasant film to me, and if I am going to mount a critique of it, I hope that my words will reflect that.

And it is a waste of film in that Tarantino has made much better films before it, and potentially could have been doing something substantial instead. I guess I'd call it a waste of Tarantino, too.
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Like you thought you'd seen copter perverts before. They were nothing compared to this one.

[dhex]

[Shapermc]

[Lackey]

Huh, Conan the Barbarian is probably my favourite movie but I didn't really "get" Kill Bill. Granted, they're different in so many ways, but I'm leaning towards helicopterp's angle on this.
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| Little bird fighting against a bat sect game |

[kirkjerk]

[simplicio]

[Scratchmonkey]

[kirkjerk]

[Mr. Mechanical]

[dhex]

i have bad taste in film (and games) so i really enjoy the cinema of retribution. i could probably teach a learning annex course in it.

conan, like kb, is about retribution above and beyond morality. is conan a nice guy? no, he's a fucking murderer. "what is best in life?" etc. he's a purely amoral, egoistic, self-directed force of destruction, and he totally fucks james earl jones in the ear. it's about the actions of others (jones/bill) creating the people who eventually kill them. it demonstates an understanding of the universe as a blind machine of action and reaction (orthodox vedic explanation of karma, basically); the viewer just happens to root for one of the little marbles for two hours or so.

it's a really universal theme. and frankly, a better lesson for the modern day than all that indie wank about feelings.

edit: also conan is the germanic warrior christ figure that most appealed to the various tribes in that area during the rise of the spread of christendom. the idea of self-sacrifice in the guise of warfare makes perfect sense, then, just as eternal warfare requires eternal return.
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[dark steve]

[simplicio]

[Mr. Mechanical]

[rf]

I didn't like KB V.1 that much, for something like helicopterp's reasons. To say this in broad and patronizing a manner as I can, it felt like it was made by a geek who really really liked a disparate group of things and wanted to combine them, without realizing that each of those things internally maintained a different tone, worldview, and level of seriousness, and that a combination could only be fatally inconsistent in style.

I wasn't expecting to like it, though.

[player 2]

[Swimmy]

I have trouble enjoying a movie if it doesn't have over-the-top, stylized, or just plain gratuitous violence.
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"Ayn Rand fans are the old school version of Xenogears fanboys."
-seryogin

[Lockeownzj00]

[Lackey]

I don't think the complaint was with the high degree refrencing in itself, but the fact that that alone doesn't make a movie, especially if it isn't coherent.
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| Little bird fighting against a bat sect game |

[Mr. Mechanical]

[kirkjerk]

For some reason this discussion reminds me of my love/hate fan relationship with Kevin Smith.

I really liked Clerks, the popculture riffing and the sheer bravado in making such a no-budget flick. Some of his other movies had good moments as well, in a highly-unpolished kind of way. And I liked how he had fun branching out into comics and what not.

Then I had the misfortune of "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back". SO many god damn fan shoutouts and so little of anything else:: "If you want a picture of 'Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back', imagine a boba fett removing his helmet, revealing a human face, turning to the camera, and giving a big old wink, forver"

I'm not going to defend Kevin Smith too loudly... although I appreciate him as a kind of wobbly bridge between fanboys enjoying pop culture and fanboys making popculture, I could see him REALLY getting on someone's nerves. But, I dig his stuff in reasonable doses, and will probably see whatever movies he decides to throw together in the future.

[TheRumblefish]

[helicopterp]

[Lockeownzj00]

[Scratchmonkey]

Man, good thing we're talking about what art is, that always goes somewhere.

[kirkjerk]

"Art is what you can get away with"