First Contact with Mirrors
1 day ago
Showing posts with label Violence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Violence. Show all posts
Ralph Bakshi... Now there's a name I haven't heard in a long time.
I was introduced to Bakshi's work when I saw the 1978 animated version of Lord of the Rings animation on VHS. All that rotoscoped animation (see: animation that is literally traced from live action movement) was a pretty cool gimmick, but it sort of wore thin. Since then I haven't paid much attention to the guy until recently.
Fire and Ice, a movie which where Ralph Bakshi collaborated with fantasy-art master Frank Frazetta
On a whim, I decided to check the Bakshi since I was getting tired of hearing folks reference his infamous 1972 animated feature 'Fritz the Cat'. I haven't seen Fritz yet, but I've seen some of his shorts, such as the 1981 animated short 'American Pop'. Try it, it's pretty interesting.
Youtube describes American Pop as "The story of four generations of a Russian Jewish family of musicians parallels the history of American popular music in the 20th century."
One video that really got me riled up was this passionate rant by Bakshi to the artists of 'this' generation. Meaning US - the young, impressionable artists who possess all these fantastic tools at our disposal. Go out there and do something!
It doesn't matter what you're into - whether it's traditional, flash, or #D animation, digital art, game design, whatever. Ralph Bakshi tells it like it is. Get out there and get creative!!
The good ol' days of wanton destruction and violence. Oh wait. Violence is more present than ever in today's media. So why discuss such a non-issue? Well, I was just thinking whether or not the entire concept of bloody violence is necessary for a science fiction space opera type thing. Sure, we got the ol' standbys such as the classic Aliens and Predator franchises showing us just how violent the genre could be, and we got games like Gears of War and Fallout just how cool it might be...
But is this teenage fantasy really necessary in a sci-fi universe?I was just wondering this while reading the same boards for the umpteenth time. Over the decades, we've had the usual assortment of sci-fi violence such as people blowing up or being atomized, fools freezing up in deep space, floating corpses and body parts - you know... kid's stuff! How about giving us some of that buckets of blood and severed spines ala Predator?
I once read the ol' Starwars comic "Shadows of the Empire" and it had Luke Skywalker, lightsaber in hand, slashing some poor guy, cutting his limb in the process. The comic scene had copious amount of blood splattered around the victim, and for some reason, I felt it looked... wrong. Its not just in science fiction comics like that, I remembered watching a failed animation pilot/movie called Gen13 I think, and it was American style animation with a lot of violence - but the violence itself looked like crap and out of place. (These aren't very good examples, I know)
Anyway, I'm rambling. I can only offer so much of what little I know about the subject, but maybe its just too hard to translate grand space operas with insane amounts of violence. Or maybe not... I just recalled the cheesy yet cool 199x film Starship Troopers. Now there's a sci-fi epic with the insane amount of violence I was thinking of! Well, this is a blog, so I might as well wonder if the concept would fit with whatever I'm working on...
In the meantime, waste your time and watch this short.
PS. I was typing this while half-asleep.
