Machinima, real-time filmmaking, virtual production and VR. Four veteran machinimators share news, new films & filmmakers, and discuss the past, present and future of machinima.
Ricky Grove 00:44
Hello everyone. My name is Ricky Grove, and you are watching And Now For Something Completely Machinima, a podcast about machinima and real time related technologies. I'm here with my pals, Tracy Damian and Phil Hey guys.
Tracy Harwood 00:58
Hi, hello.
Ricky Grove 00:59
Always happy to see you. Well, each week, we each month, we're going to be looking at different films. The first film is Phil Rice's pick. Tell us about your film. Phil,
Phil Rice 01:14
yeah, so this, this film's a little bit unusual. It might not, at a glance, seem like an unusual pick for me, because I do tend to, I tend to gravitate towards the zany and and that kind of thing. But this one actually is the first film, I think, since we've done this show that I I picked even though I didn't like it, I'll explain what I mean it I okay because of the effects that it had on me and the the potential discussion, I thought it might but it's not a film I enjoyed, so it's, it's a weird one, like, I don't know how to say, I don't know If I necessarily recommend it, not for the reason of, hey, you'll really like this. It's really, you know, so we'll, we'll dive into it. But the the film is according to Google Translate, which I don't know how spot on this is, but Google translate from the original Japanese of the title. It's a GTA five film, and it's titled Los Santos. Police throw themselves into offering box. And essentially what this film is is the player has found a bug in the non player character, AI in GTA that has to do with their navigation when in a specific location. And what the player does is sets up this scenario where they've attracted the attention of the police, they've gotten a wanted level in GTA, right and and then they go to this high place on a building where the police can't really get to them. Looks like they may have some kind of a cheat activated because they're getting shot, but not really seeming to care. So I'm sure some cheat was active there. But the police are trying to navigate around and duck for cover and get an angle on it and stuff, but they don't seem to the AI doesn't seem to understand what gaps in in between buildings mean. And so it ends up being a lot of just pratfalls. And of course, it because it's GTA, it's, it's, it's not particularly cartoonish. It's, it's bloody, it's bloody and violent, and you hear their cries of pain, and you know, it's, I don't know, here's, here's why it struck me. And then I'm really curious to see what you guys think. But you know, so I feel like that. If you watch this film with anything other than a coyote and Roadrunner mindset, Coyote and Roadrunner, hopefully all of you at least know what that is that are listening. But I know all of you guys do. It was a cartoon made in the I guess, 60s and 70s, that was very popular for decades. After that, it's the same family of cartoon characters as like Bugs Bunny and that kind of thing, Warner Brothers, right? It's this violent, very, very violent cartoon where this coyote is in pursuit of this road runner and all this, everything seems to go wrong in a very violent way. He's getting smashed by boulders. He's falling off of cliffs. He's crashing into this and that getting run over by trucks. Tom and Jerry cartoons were very similar that, you know, this cat trying to chase the mouse and all manner of the most memorable episode of Tom and Jerry is one that ends with like. A basically a gigantic bomb blast going off, and this disfigured Tom poking up from the rubble, all patchy and destroyed. It's like, if you took that as literal, or if that was made as a live action show or with realistic human characters, it would be very disturbing, I think, or potentially disturbing. And that's kind of where this GTA video falls for me, because it's realist. Well, you know, it's humanoid, realistic enough looking characters, and more specifically, it's, it's police officers, which is, you know, given some of what's been going on, particularly in the US, but I think to some degree worldwide, in the last decade, there's been, you Know, some things that have elevated the idea of questioning whether police officers are the good guys, I guess, is the best, the most tactful way to put it. So given that, and there's been incidences where a lot of in real life, a lot of police officers committing violence against people and it being questioned, and the other way around too, that violence against police officers, in some cases, being all but encouraged, even by political leaders. I mean, it's a really weird time. There's, there's been tension between people and police. Well, probably since police began to exist, but but certainly heightened in the 60s, with a lot of the protests on college campuses and some of the things that happened there, just very sketchy, and then more recently, with events that have happened. So in that context, this video is potentially really disturbing. I'm not sure if the Japanese filmmaker has as much cultural awareness of that phenomenon as I do as an American. Maybe he doesn't. And so to him, it's just silly, cartoonish stuff. But yeah, it's, it's pretty disturbing to and it's, it goes on and on. It's like a Seth McFarlane joke where he keeps repeating the joke way too long, right? But for comic effect, and sometimes it works. And this is just over and over. I mean, it's several minutes of just police officers looking like fools and dying. So, yeah, it's, it's, again, if you interpret it purely as cartoonish stuff, then it's just kind of silly, and to many people may be tasteless, you know, but, but not harmful. But if you interpret it with what GTA tries to convey, frankly, GTA is hold attitude towards police has always been, let's say, more than, more than a little ambivalent, right, right? If not, if not, I'm anti, struggling for a word anti. There we go. So yeah, that's the film. The only other thing that I'll note for before you guys take it away. Is just a side note, not really related to the film itself. But I found it interesting that this, this YouTube creator who, I guess I should have mentioned, who that is. Let me see what they call themselves, mzenkarau. Mzenkarau, which doesn't really sound like, Well, who knows? M, M, Z, a, n, he, K, u, r, O, W, 22,000 subscribers. This video has 17,000 views as of and it was released just two months ago. Anyway, he has a he or she has a process where they are regularly for their films, taking a screenshot from GTA and running it through one of these AI style transfer things to make it, you know, essentially photorealistic to a degree that GTA, even with all the best shaders around, can't do. But I think, as a for lack of a better word, a marketing purpose, thumbnails are widely known to be a big reason why people will click through and and, you know, click on your video, and you click on the video, and it's just straight GTA. There's nothing in AI enhanced about it, but he's doing that for the thumbnails. I thought that was interesting. Probably different people have different reactions to that, not just based on their attitudes about AI, but the whole clickbait phenomenon, you know, it this is what I'm going to be watching on the video, right? No, you never see. That. So that's that's just interesting. Maybe, if anyone finds that interesting, to talk about it. But main thing, I'm curious to hear what you guys thought about the film and how it struck you, and you know what your thoughts are on it.
Damien Valentine 10:13
Well, the Who else can go first? Oh my, go ahead. All right. Okay. So the thumbnail I'm going to cover that first I noticed that as well. And, yeah, there's a bit of you expect that to be the film, and then you click on it, and it's not. It's like those pre rendered game trailers that come on at ether. It's a great analogy, yeah. And, you know, it looks stunning. And then you see the game itself, and there will be blocky characters and badly animated,
Ricky Grove 10:41
because they created the trailer inside of 3d Studio Max, exactly,
Phil Rice 10:47
Final Fantasy, first couple decades, basically, exactly,
Damien Valentine 10:51
yeah. And so when you pointed out that's what, maybe it made me think of those. But you know, GTA five still looks good. So if you look at the thumbnail and you're thinking, well, it doesn't match, it's okay, because it still looks pretty good a decade old now it doesn't look like it is aged badly as a game so graphically, as for the film itself, quite entertaining. And I was laughingly at it, and then I started thinking, I just got to come to an end soon. And I looked at the one bar, and it was less than halfway through, and that's when I started. I actually started to be a little bit uncomfortable, because it was going on far too long, right? Yeah, at that point where I thought it's going to end soon, if it had ended there, but I would have been a good comedy video, but then, because it didn't stop, I watched it all the way to the end, and I said I did start thinking about, you know, the real world issues with the police. Obviously, what's been happening in America with the police over the last five years, noticeably in the news that came to mind and some of the incidents of what the police have been doing here as well, which they probably should be doing, that's going through my mind, and that I started to get more and more uncomfortable watching this video up to the end. And, you know, I got to the end point of the video, I was glad it was over, but I did like that. It got me thinking about those things. I have no idea if this film maker intended that or that was my question
Phil Rice 12:28
too. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Damien Valentine 12:30
I imagine that the filmmaking, some of it, I expect not. They must have heard at least something about it on the news, though some of the things is because it's all over the news here as well, when the American police are up to you soon,
Phil Rice 12:47
you know, Damien, I might have, I might have suspected more that there was intent, if it weren't for the fact that the GTA game is already set up to that to where violence against police Officers is basically a condition to complete the single player game. Like, I mean, it's, it's built in for that. So, yeah, how much of it was his intent? It'll Ricky's film, which we're covering next week, with regard to with in that one, for as an example, which we'll see intent is very clearly there. Yeah, and this one, no, I kind of think that it's just, I don't know, is it just a maturity thing like this? Is just, this is something that I think would be funnier to someone, and I don't mean this condescending, but just someone who's a little less mature you tend, I you tend to laugh more at this kind of stuff without thinking any deeper about it. And I think with us all being a little bit more advanced, in years, we've seen more of of, you know, real stuff on the planet. And yeah, it does. It takes us there. So yeah, that was almost exactly my process watching the film Damian. What you described. That's really interesting. I'm
Damien Valentine 14:01
glad I was the only one time. Wasn't the only ones having that because, you know, I think I'm not sure if I'm enjoying this. Now, it stopped being funny, like those first few minutes I was laughing because it is silly. And yeah, it's just yeah, it's just too much of it to be I mean, it could also be a cultural thing, because, you know, over in Japan, maybe that is the length of something that's funny. I don't understand a lot about Japanese entertainment, so I don't know. Maybe, maybe that is the perfect length for the comedy film for this creator. So yeah, who knows. But yeah, that's what I came away from. It is it's a little bit too long for my well, too long to be funny, but it'd be interesting to see what other people think of this as well, not just you guys, but anyone watching our show, and they go and watch this, I'd like to know what they think you
Tracy Harwood 14:52
want me to go next. Yes, please. Alright. Um, okay. Well, Japanese content creators, you've already. He kind of said that I had a look at his portfolio, because, like, like you guys said, made me feel a little bit what's going on here? There's, I kind of got a suspicion there was a bit more to it than, you know, the face value of it. His other work is, you know, he's, he's done a lot in GTA five, mainly police videos, and I would say mainly what I would describe as frag movies. Now, do you remember, do you remember frags from years ago? Frags are the, basically, the kills through a game or a frag movie is, is really an edit of all these kills, not necessarily putting them together in any kind of story to to, you know, sort or a documentary, or anything like that, really, but just sort of editing, editing, editing them together in some sort of attempted humorous way. And that's really how I thought, You know what I kind of thought this was, it's a kind of a classic sort of thing that you might have seen back in the very early 2000s this sort of frag movie style sort of thing. And I couldn't pick up any additional story here, beyond the frag contexts, beyond the music choice, because I think that's something that maybe has some relevance here. And in the case of this particular creator, mazang Carol,
Ricky Grove 16:32
mazangkara
Tracy Harwood 16:34
or corral, his music choice is really quite contemporary. And I think, Phil, you put a note on the on the on our, you know, preparation channel that you thought that was quite interesting, too. I think it is quite interesting. Now, this guy's got lots of followers, as you've already said, and they're all kind of clearly watching these, these frags. They must be particularly interested in the ways in which characters, NPCs, in particular, can die in the game. I was kind of drawn to the comments some of them were making. And they were things like, why is it that people are drawn to content that just involves police falling from a high place? Yes,
Phil Rice 16:34
that comment really stuck on me. Yeah.
Tracy Harwood 16:50
Well, that was one, and then another one was do Los Santos police officers lack the ability to thoroughly check their surroundings. And then another. And then others were would, well, they were way. They were things like they wanted to see the characters in GTA six retain some of the stupidity that they evidently have in this version of the game. And then other comments were about, well, you know, how do they not know that this is such a dangerous roof? And other ones were just sort of commenting on the on the fact that police characters in the game don't seem to know their own physics properties, that kind of thing. Importantly, though, in reference to the title of the film, which you sort of read out, there are comments about what it is within this film that constitutes an offering box. And I guess it's partly also a comment on the game and that, that kind of, you know, the offering box thing is what led me down to a little bit of path, a path of exploration, from what, what that title might mean, as as you can imagine, I did a bit of digging, and I have discovered so osaisson is the custom of making a monetary offering to a deity called a kami.
Phil Rice 18:47
I figured there was maybe some idiom involved that the Translate probably doesn't handle properly
Tracy Harwood 18:52
so well. I know. I think it probably does. I think it's a play on it. Okay, so this, this deity is called a Kami, and you make your offering at a Shinto shrine and a saisen baku is the offering box the name of the film. The term kami is often translated as a god or a lord or a deity, which I think is what is being referred to in this but it also includes other forces of nature, such as good and evil, which, because of their superiority or divinity, become objects of reverence and respect. Now, the shape of the offering box, the offering made at a temple, I think, from what I could determine, has kind of changed over time. So long ago in Old Japan, for example, it was rice that was offered as money, the rice, rice that was offered. But as money became kind of more relevant, then people started offering coins, and these coins were left in this offering box, and in effect, they basically hold the meaning of expressing thanks to kami. Now, a lot of people in the chat on the or, you know, the comments on the video were actually sort of saying, Well, isn't it about wishes coming true, that kind of thing? That's not what the research that I found seemed to suggest it. It was about, it's not about making a wish come true with the police say, but about sort of giving thanks for something. And importantly, kami has the power of flight in its godly chi, which which can be controlled simply by controlling energy. So in this film, what I think you've got is a play on these themes, using this kind of contemporary nature of GTA five, and this kind of interpretation of the precious role of these useless police who, instead of being custodians of humanity in the game, are instead then offering their own that you know, they're offering themselves up to Kami, who Basically rejects them by using its godly chi to end their lives. That's what I think is going on. Or perhaps another possible interpretation here is that this female character, whom you know, you think is kind of protected in some way. Perhaps that character that these police are trying to shoot is imbued with the godly chi, because she obviously evades death and seems to end the life, the lives of these police or Phil this is where the Mario Kart thing comes in, in terms of the sound design. Because when I looked that particular interpreted version of it up it. I think it was the Game Boy era from about 2001 with the with the music with it, which I thought was a particularly intriguing choice. But then I thought wasn't one of the powers of Mario, the power up, and wasn't that about driving into boxes laid out on a game course. So I thought perhaps there's another kind of play on it, which is, is possible, possibly a kind of interpretation of the reference to the power ups kami was using to end the lives of police. In any event, I think what you've got here is absurdist humour and this kind of play on old Japan. That's what I think it is. So I think it's an in joke, not a joke aimed at the US in any way at all. Now you you also, you know, you've all, you've kind of discussed the disturbing nature of it in relation to the kind of contemporary issues in America. Say it's, you know, the police violence and what have you. And sure enough, in this film, what you've got, and how I sort of saw it initially, was this unarmed person being relentlessly pursued by many armed police determined to end this so called criminals life, and I can see how that can be an interpretation. But actually looking at the work of this creator, I don't think that's the intention here at all, but it is a point to reflect upon, and it reminds me, or it reminded me when I was looking at this, at some of the comments over the years that have been made about machinima films that kind of transcended cultural references, and you'll all know this one, probably one of the most notable films for attempting to do this was Alex Chan's French Democracy. Now, whilst that film explicitly referenced an incident that took place in Paris and and indeed that incident had sparked wide scale social unrest. The film was actually not picked up first in France, but it was picked up first by the US media and was used as a commentary on domestic issues, which, you know, then later got picked up in France, and it led to a really deep discussion in the US about the role of computer games and their potential for corrupt, for being a corrupting influence on the way players think about violence and how they trivialise it and so on. And in that sense, all these games that portray a kind of realistic virtual space that can be used as a metaphorical reference to contemporary issues, if you like. Are, you know, they're all potential of being interpreted in a particular way. I think in actual fact, that's very much what the filmmaker that we will take a look at next week, or in a couple of weeks time, that that is Ricky's pic. I think that's what they're doing. They're doing something a little bit more deliberately. But what's different in the film that we'll look at in a couple of weeks is. Is that, you know, they intend to create the metaphor. And in Chan's work, I think what happened there was it was willfully appropriated as a commentary by the media and by others. And I think what's different this week is that there is neither the intent nor the appropriation as commentary, or at least, that's not, not to say that our commentary won't kick off that that wider discussion, assuming anybody is watching. So that's my thoughts on. It
Ricky Grove 25:36
fascinating. I had, I had no idea. I always appreciate the fact that you go deeper into the background of the filmmaker and the other things that they've done. It gives it a really rich perspective. My take is a little more mundane than that. I think Damien and Phil will share this experience little boys when they start playing. They, at least in my day, they had the opportunity to play with small little plastic models like army men or little monsters and things like that. And invariably, there'd be a sadistic play streak in which you'd have these soldiers, for example, you might have a book or something, and you'd have the soldiers coming up, what is this? And then you'd drop them, you they'd all die. Or you'd have a big fight, and everybody would be fighting, and they'd all be dead at the end of it. And this is exactly what's happening in this film. This filmmaker is playing like a little boy with a bunch of figures that he could kill, and it's fun in the way that a adolescent would enjoy the deaths of countless authority figures. There's a little irony in that as well. Well, at the beginning of machinima, you pointed out that there was these, would you call it fracking film? No, no. Frag movies.
Ricky Grove 27:09
Frag movies. Yeah, right. Frag I called that in the early part of machinima, wise ass machinima, because it was a, it was a bunch of wise asses going see how I can blow this thing up. And the audience for that were other wise asses who love that kind of stuff, the people who didn't like that kind of stuff just didn't watch it. You know, the fact that there are 17,000 subscribers on this guy's channels indicate that this kind of sadistic gameplay using authority figures is something that still is a part of even older people's mentality, that notion of being able to play play in a sadistic way, and I think that's what the appeal is. But what Damien pointed out something that I think is very significant, and you did too, Tracy, and that is, is that the film gets to a point where that sense of humour would stop. It's a one joke setup. You set it up, the joke's finished, but it keeps going. And for people who aren't interested in the adolescent sadism of the scene, it becomes uncomfortable, and then you start reading in. You try to read in, why am I uncomfortable? And obviously, because it's related to police. You start reading in the notion of police, whether it's there, whether it's not, I don't know, but you read that in because you want to try to come up with a reason for the way you feel about it. You know also the irony will be a big thing in both in this week's film and next week's film. The irony of this, I don't know, bright happy music, this kind of Tom and Jerry kind of music, versus this uncomfortable deaths of these people, which the the GTA game provides in graphic detail, as Phil pointed out, and you start looking at these people, women, you know, innocent looking women back to the edge of the of the the apartment complex and fall off and their bodies splat, and you hear them groaning, and their legs and arms are in awkward twitch. It just becomes unbearable to watch, at least if you're not looking at it from an adolescent, sadistic viewpoint. And I say that as that's a natural part of how boys grow up, one of the key things, though, and then the music provides an ironic commentary on that isn't this. Fun. Golly, well, death, all of these horrible deaths, shouldn't be fun, but the people who are watching it use that music to show how even darker humour in it, and they find that very funny. But one of the key things, though, for me, was the fact that the choice of the criminal at the beginning was a woman. Now, in any other kind of male adolescent fantasy, you'd have a guy running from it. The guy would be the one, because you'd say, well, he's obviously a crook, you know? So they're, they're going after him, you justify it, but it's a woman in this thing. Also, the woman seems to have a pre she is predetermined to get to that point at the apartment complex. It's not like she's fleeing blindly, like she's lured them there. That's exit. It's part of a plan, which is, of course, what
Phil Rice 30:58
the player did to engineer this whole thing. Yeah, exactly.
Ricky Grove 31:01
But if you see it as a character, this woman dressed in an odd flowing dress and high heels, ends up going to this top thing. And she's, some sounds superhuman, because many times you see bullet splats come off of her body, and she's completely unaffected by it all. So that notion of the that Kami, that you were talking about, Tracy, fits in perfectly there. But I think the the filmmaker was delighted by the fact it was this woman avoiding all of these guys. It's a it's an added on bit to the black humour of the piece. Now, the the, the fundamental problem with the film is that it's a one joke piece, and it doesn't go anywhere have the the the filmmaker decided to give a little bit of story element to to the film, like showing the woman at the beginning and then having a description who she is and what she's doing, gives you a context to understand who she is and to make a character out of her. And had you established a couple of the police officers earlier with separate shots and then maybe some recorded dialogue in which the guys are going, boy, this is a this is a killer. Man, we've got to get her off the street. It would have given a context for it. It wouldn't have taken
Phil Rice 32:31
much, yeah, no, no, very little. That could have transformed it. Yeah,
Ricky Grove 32:36
of course. And that's what led me to believe that that's not what the goal of the film? The goal is not to tell a story. The goal is to set up a situation in which you can just destroy and murder a whole bunch of authority figures with glee. Now from if that's the case, then the discussion of the film is much richer than the actual film itself, which is why I'm glad you chose it, Phil, because we should talk about this stuff. For example, the cartoon violence that you referenced at the beginning, the wily coyote and the Roadrunner, all have specific characters that you know and identify with. Yes, if you're a kind of person who identifies with the Wiley Coyote, you love the fact that the coyote plays with the the roadrunner plays with the coyote and letting him think that he this time he's going to get him and he doesn't. And so the fun of that is the pleasure of being able to see the coyote get his just evil desserts. And that context makes the violence acceptable. In this film. There is no context for that at all, even though the it's cartoon violence. And so that's why, when it goes beyond its point of humour, it becomes uncomfortable where that would never happen in a wily coyote and Roadrunner film, any of those had a Barbera and cartoon films, they all have context. This one doesn't. And so for those reasons, I'm I just love this film. I think it's fascinating. It harken backs to it. It harkens back to an earlier time in machining in which people would use game engines to do one joke pieces. The frag films show how people could get blown up or fly incredibly high and then die. They're just fun, adolescent jokes the film, however, next week is going to be really interesting because it takes some of the same ideas and applies them in an entirely different manner. So I thought it was a really great pick, but not so much for the film, but for the idea. Is that it engendered in our discussion.
Phil Rice 35:03
You're, you're bringing up the idea of play with, you know, using the army men as an example that just that kind of blew my mind. That was that really opens up. It doesn't redeem the film necessarily, but it opens up a whole different way to think about this and and there's a I can't remember who it is that said this, but it's something that I heard recently at a lecture, or something like that I listened to, but talking about why, the the freedom of of ideas, and for us to feel free to communicate with people who have different opinions than us, the reason that's important is because we need to put our ideas out there in the wild and test them. Because if you the alternative is you just go do those ideas, and if you're wrong, you die. Yeah, right, but if you discuss, you let the ideas be your gladiators. Essentially, they do battle. The winner wins, the loser loses. And you've tested and found out which of those works best. And I think to some degree, play, particularly that type of play in in boys that you described, where they tend to play in battle. And it's true for kids who played cops and robbers, and sorry for this reference, but cowboys and Indians, it was a thing, yeah, um. Or, or, you know, pretending to sword fight army men, yeah, yeah. Or army men, exactly that. It's, it's a healthy way, in a weird way, healthy way, to let those ideas do battle in a harmless environment or in a sheltered environment, right? As opposed to growing up and going out and behaving that way and you get somebody or yourself killed. So yeah, the old maybe the only head scratcher about this is, this is not the age. This the resulting content for this film is something you'd expect from someone who plays with army men, and it's hard to imagine someone who plays with army men having had the skill to put this video together. So it must be someone significantly older, and like you said, rookies is apparently still playing with army men in their own way. So, and that's fine if they, well, that's fine, yeah, yeah. Better that than he going and trying to, you know, literally in in trap, or, you know, lead police into death or something. You know, people do that in real life. It's awful. It's ugly. So, yeah, maybe there's a weird redeeming quality to this type of play, even if, like you said, Ricky, I think everyone noticed this about that the runtime you're you just nailed it. It's exactly right, that when I reached that point, it was what changed, was my realisation of how uncomfortable I was feeling, and grasping for an explanation for that. That's so right. It's so obvious. And I didn't see that in myself when I was watching it. I just, I just rode the ride, but didn't really understand what was happening. That totally explains it. So, yeah, I'm kind of glad I picked this, this shitty little film.
Damien Valentine 38:27
It's a shame we didn't make a note of when we started to be uncomfortable because it'd been interesting, if it'd been exactly the same time or very close, yeah, well, near
Phil Rice 38:37
the midpoint. Yeah,
Tracy Harwood 38:38
it's actually near the midpoint for me as well? Yeah,
Ricky Grove 38:40
I suspect the tolerance for that sort of thing would vary from person to person, of course. You know, maybe some In other
Phil Rice 38:49
words, I probably held out longer than all of you. For me, just like I had 30 seconds left and I was like, what's going on? No, I
Ricky Grove 38:58
think it's important to be able to watch and discuss even films that one we may consider poor or or in bad taste, right? Not to say that others think they're great. They do. Obviously, 17,000 people love this way of looking. Yeah, it's all subjective, but I think it's important to do that, because in the mix of things it provides, as you say, the ideas clash and you you try to work out what, what fits, what ideas and these and and those films that aren't made in an artistic way, provide a quality of thought and and feeling that is different from the other films, and I think are appropriate. I love Tracy's examination of the going deeper into the title of it and it's it's relative meanings according to Japanese culture, I would have never. Never thought of that before, but maybe that was, it makes sense. Yeah, fascinating for this film. It actually gives it a value that I think is not necessarily in the film, but I think can be interpreted given the the facts of the title and the translation and everything. So all in all, fascinating conversation that I think, and I'm really happy you picked it. I'm really happy you picked it. Yeah, I will be going back to that fellow's channel again. But
Phil Rice 40:31
all the films this month moved me, I have to say, and you'll, you'll folks who are listening, watching, you'll see as we go to discuss them, every single one of them moved me. This one did, but I didn't expect it to in a different way. Yeah, yeah. And I think, honestly, most of the way it moved me was in this discussion or anticipation of this discussion, right? Wasn't the film itself, other than that discomfort like you talked about. So,
Ricky Grove 40:56
yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, can I close out with just a brief notice of of game related news, sure, sure. The DLC the downloadable content for Elden ring. It was just released on Friday after two years that the game was released two years ago. It the original game sold 25 million copies. Oh, wow, which is extraordinary. And since the announcement of the DLC back in February, they've gained a whole new raft of users and players for the game. The DLC launched on Friday, and currently there are about half a dozen major Elden ring gurus and pros who are doing 15 to 17 hour live streams of their playing of the game, which I'm not watching all of that, but I'm, I'm fascinated to see these genius players, to see what they do with this, this DLC. The DLC, universally, is hailed as a absolute masterpiece. I briefly put my toes in it a couple days ago, and it is, indeed. It's just a it's absolutely gloriously built. It has a range of characters and moods and tones that are just hard to describe it. It's one of the most extraordinary DLCs I've ever seen before. Now, I haven't gotten into any of the combat yet, but many have, and it's extremely difficult. In fact, the actual steam rating for the game is mixed.
Phil Rice 42:48
It's hailed in some quarters as perhaps the best DLC that has ever been created for any game, right, in the history. Absolutely
Ricky Grove 42:57
right.
Phil Rice 42:58
I mean, and I'm not, I'm not exaggerating it really is truly inhaled. But you're right. I think the I haven't played it, I don't play elder drink, but the difficulty, I can tell from the expanded vocabulary I'm hearing from my son in the next room as he plays through it. Yeah, it's a difficult game, very, very difficult, but he loves it like it's just real
Ricky Grove 43:24
now. So what I'm waiting for, because of the difficulty level, is, inevitably, over the next week or so, there are going to be players who have found out how to cheese some of the bosses. And I am a cheese lover. I love cheese, and so I'm going to wait until some good cheeses come up so I can beat these bosses without the agony of bashing your head after the sixth hour of trying to beat the boss, in which you keep saying It's unbeatable, It's unbeatable. It's unbeatable.
Phil Rice 44:02
I'm picturing a scenario where Ricky leads goes to a high place, and all the bosses come in and fall down to their death.
Ricky Grove 44:10
That's damn right. That's exactly right. And so that's what I'm waiting for, is to get the cheeses. But it is fascinating. They've what they've done, what, what the company have done, from software and Miyazaki, the guy who designed it, is, they obviously have listened and watched and talked to other players that have developed a mastery of the game, and they've decided to adjust this, this zone you you access The game through a place inside of the original game, and all after beating a hard boss. And when you go there, they give you new mechanics and new gameplay opportunities that only occur inside of the zone if you go back into the original game. All. Those are lost. So they've made this place a special place to have specific so what they've done is that in addition to making new beautiful, startling vistas and design and characters and lighting and weather and all NPCs board, they've also given it a shift in game mechanics, which makes the game more repeatable. And the last thing I want to say about is a Miyazaki was very canny, because people were asking him, how large is the game? And he said, Oh, it's about the size of limbgrave, which is the first area that you go in limgrave is fairly large. Well, he was obviously playing downplaying everybody, because what they've done it is the size of limgrave. However, they've emphasised the verticality of the place, so you can go higher, higher, higher, higher or lower, lower, lower. It's about 10 times the size of limgra because but it's all done vertically. The design is done vertically. So some areas that you get to are just seemingly impossible to try to. You can see them, but you could say, how do you get there so that the gameplay becomes less fighting than trying to understand the environment, which again, increases the playability of it. So I think, I mean, I haven't played or killed any of the bosses or anything like that, but for my money, it's just extraordinary, and I can't wait to see how people play it and learn it and come up with new builds. And I urge anybody, if you have to be fairly proficient at Elden ring in order to play this DLC of a raw person going in is not going to do very well, but with practice, I think you can reap the rewards of this brilliant game. It's going to win all the game Game of the Year awards. No question. I
Damien Valentine 47:04
have a little story about Elder Ring, which I'll share before we finish up on Friday. On Friday, I went into game, which in the UK is a chain store that just sells video games. I went into the one, quite a local one, and the girl behind the counters got really excited that someone had walked in. So I said, Hello, and it's really quiet here. I said, Yeah, everyone's at home playing Elden ring. I was in a single customer all day.
Ricky Grove 47:33
That's true. In fact, a lot of people were sick on Friday all across across the world, because it launched in the morning and people wanted to get a good start. Well, that's it for our show today. Thank you, Phil, for such an entertaining and interesting pick and everybody's commentary. It's always a pleasure to be with you guys. If you have thoughts on this film, we brought up a lot of interesting topics. Please contact us at talk at completely machinima.com we take your posts, your emails and comments seriously, and oftentimes bring them up on the show. If you're the actual filmmaker of the film and you think we're all full of shit, please write us and tell us why you think that's the case. In any event, we'll be back next week with my choice, which I think is an interesting one too, and we'll provide a different whole set of new ideas and new commentary. So that's it today. Thank you, Tracy Damian and Phil for being here today. I'm happy to be here. My name is Ricky, and we'll see you next time
Phil Rice 48:38
bye bye,
Tracy Harwood 48:39
bye bye.