These days it's just easier...
Mar. 31st, 2006 03:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sub_divided...to summarize things in exhaustive detail than to actually work out what I want to say about them.
Yukikaze is a show about these guys who are fighting a war they don't understand against aliens they don't understand on the other side of an interdimensional portal whose physics they probably don't understand, and meanwhile most of the people on Earth don't even remember they exist. Poor guys. There's also some stuff about artifical intelligence.
Did these as I was watching, tried not to let previous knowledge influence what I was writing but I probably failed. They're mostly honest first-time viewing impressions, anyway.
EPISODE ONE
In the first episode some stuff happens that MAKES NO SENSE okay, so what happens is: after surviving a fight with a plane that looks like an ally, but isn't, Rei Fukai is promoted away from the direct command of Jack. Jack is worried that he'll lose Rei to Yukikaze (again). The best way to describe Rei is as someone suffering from perpetual rage except when he's on downers. Then he's really soft-spoken and passive. He doesn't seem to like Jack. The only thing he likes is Yukikaze. Yukikaze is his plane.
Dream -- I get the dream, obviously Yukikaze is the beautiful girl locked in the cell Rei has the key to, but isn't allowed to open.
Then a dogfight with JAM (the aliens) that starts with the rest of the squadron being killed, moves on to JAM that vanish into thin air to appear behind you...the point is that when the battle gets really tough, Yukikaze takes control of the plane. I can't tell whether Rei goes into a trance or just zones out for this. Then cut to the next mission where Rei and Yukikaze are lost, Jack is almost court-martialed trying to look for them.
Then the bizarre stuff starts. Rei is suddenly recovering at a frontier base. He's told that his location was phoned in to headquarters, a lie. He's told he's suffering from Fairy Fever, possibly the truth. He's told his partner died from it, no way to check that but probably also a lie. He's told "give us the access code for Yukikaze's computer brain, we need it to make repairs and wouldn't you rather we re-wire all of this unnecessary interface out anyway?"
Rei rebels, shoots the commander with the commander's own gun -- first time Rei takes the initiative in anything, it figures Yukikaze is involved -- and then THE SKY MELTS AND HE'S IN SOME WEIRD ALTERNATELY REALITY, WHAT THE HELL and then he and Yukikaze are back in real space being shot down by JAM. Yukikaze takes control of another plane and transfers her data, then ejects Rei with a parting message of "Good Luck Lt. Fukai" just before being shot to pieces.
Questions:
1. Yukikaze technology somehow related to / based on JAM technology? Or just really sophisticated AI?
2. Why does Jack put up with Rei, anyway? When he's not angry, all he does is mope. This makes the two of them very easy to slash, though (the "what else besides the physical does he see in him" effect).
3. No one else is sensitive to the AI like Rei is. Does this make Rei Shonen Special, or just a socially maladjusted idiot?
4. I wonder how many other planes still have pilots, given the full-AI-control rollover Jack describes, and given that Rei is only still piloting Yukikaze because he insisted on it. Or maybe Jack was only trying to break up Rei and Yukikaze because he was worried, and he exaggerated the extent of the rollover.
5. ALTERNATE DIMENSION WTF. All that just to get Yukikaze's access codes? What is she to them? Or was Rei the target?
EPISODE TWO
Rei's in rehab. Yukikaze flies a test on full auto; before landing she opens fire on three friendly planes parked at the base that she IDs as JAM, although no one else does. Correction: no one else and Rei, who does some kind of weird psychic long-range synchronization that I would say MAKES NO SENSE except he does seem to be wearing some kind of transmitter.
Which still doesn't explain anything.
There's no way to override Yukikaze from outside when she's on a mission. This strikes me as colossally STUPID, but I guess the fear of JAM takeover is that high? For something humans don't understand at all, JAM certainly seem to know what we're about.
In Rei's dream, the Yukikaze-woman in the cell now has fairy wings. Also, a JAM breaks in on them and he wakes up in the cockpit -- honestly these sudden transitions are really starting to annoy me, I wonder if we're supposed to take them literally. Like, was Rei actually dreaming in the middle of battle exercises? Or are the animators just fond of abrupt scene changes? Suspect later, but it's damn annoying.
Later, Rei is flying with his psychologist, who has been conducting experiments on him without his knowledge. They lose spectacularly to the new unmanned show model -- Rei says it's not a real battle and doesn't mean anything -- and then they're attacked by JAM for real. Not for the first time. It seems that in addition to all their abilities, JAM can attack anywhere at any time. Or else the air force is doing its test flights in enemy territory. Either way, the situation isn't good.
Questions:
1. These experiments: the cause of Rei's unnatural closeness to Yukikaze, or just a sophisticated form of psychological profiling studying its effects? Top Brass knows something.
2. I'm actually not sure any more that the girl in the cell is Yukikaze, since the JAM that interrupts them also looks like Yukikaze (plane). And the girl looks like the logo on Rei's hat ("Boomerang Squadron"). It's just a dream, anyway.
3. HOW is JAM infiltrating? More planes that look like ally planes? Or are they mind-controlling the technicians, and if yes, how? Why do they know more about us than we do about them?
4. WHAT HAPPENED AT THE END. I mean. Here's what I can tell:
Rei and Yukikaze and Rei's psychologist distract JAM while the unmanned plane runs missile interference, using the observation plane as a shield (killing some people in the process). The unmanned plane sends a last message similar to Yukikaze's in the last episode, a simple "Good luck". I can't tell whether it was also intelligent or whether Yukikaze was controlling it. Rei has been flying manual -- because Yukikaze's attention was elsewhere? but she's a computer, she can do more than one thing at a time -- except he's been having trouble since Y won't let him override her air-intake functions. Eventually he succeeds, but at this point Y returns to take control AND THEN THE CREDITS ROLL.
Seriously, what. This scene felt significant re: Y's trust in Rei/Rei's belief that Y trusts him, but it's hard to say what about it was significant when I'm having a hard time reconstructing what actually happened.
EPISODE THREE
I know this plot! I saw it on The Outer Limits once. I'm also reminded of Betterman, an anime that ended every episode with a WTF alien takeover, with the explanation saved for the next episode.
Rei finally finds a human being he can bond with, a timid American Indian engineer named Tom John (nickname Tomahawk). Lest we miss this point, his psychologist is conveniently on-screen to inform us that Lt. Fukai "is experiencing a rare sense of connection and sympathy." I don't know how she knows at that distance; maybe he's wearing a neural transmitter.
Tom was one of the engineers who designed Yukikaze and he thinks she's special, which earns him lots of points with Rei. By the way, Rei's psychologist is also long-distance-psychoanalyzing Tom and Yukikaze (that's right, the plane). Y's been outfitted in the latest in JAM camouflage fashion, soon the two sides will be indistinguishable LOL. Also, we hear more about how people on earth don't believe that JAM is real, to which I can only say WTF.
Rei and Tomahawk have been sent to investigate an aircraft carrier that went nuts. They land in it without incident. The carrier appears to be deserted. Around this point I started humming The Outer Limits theme song. Oh noes! JAM can duplicate people!! Out of goo!!! We learn that the frontline base (episode one) had been destroyed before Rei even got there, making him the first human being to come into direct contact with JAM and all of the recent infiltrations his fault, in a way. Tom might be an alien clone. If he is, he doesn't know it -- the only sign is that he sometimes blanks out and wakes up cozy with JAM, a VERY FAMILIAR scenario. (Now I really wish I knew whether those sudden cuts were literal.) Tom chooses to stay behind on the carrier when it is being blown up by the Air Force, just in case.
Questions:
1. Actually, not too many. For once an episode that answers questions, yay! I do wonder how much else the Top Brass knows, if they already suspected that JAM's infiltration could include people.
2. I'm also sort of suspicious of Lt. Fukai. But I'm probably seeing connections where none exist (again), because I doubt we're supposed to doubt him, at least not in that way.
3. As for the people on Earth. It's not like the inter-dimensional tunnel is a one-off thing: it is there in the sky and things pass through it all the time, including copies of Ms. Jackson's book on the JAM invasion of Earth -- which, by the way, took place less than sixty years ago. I guess I shouldn't underestimate human powers of denial, but surely all of this adds up to uncontestable evidence that the aliens are real? On the other hand I can imagine the situation, a real threat played for insignificant political gain, easily.
4. Maybe JAM is not actually aliens, or even alien A.I., but time-warped products of human invention? That would create paradoxes, though. Actually my current favorite theory is that the aliens, not knowing what kinds of intelligence their machines might be encountering, programed them with what they thought would be the simplest and yet most versatile instructions: whatever the enemy does, you pay back in kind. Most of the time, JAM is reactive. Of course, there are some pretty notable exceptions (the initial invasion, the kidnapping of Lt. Fukai, the infiltration plot, all those ambushes...).
5. If Yukikaze is a learning AI, and she got her personality from Rei, and Rei is in love with her, does that mean Rei is in love with himself?
EPISODE FOUR
Show is back to its old tricks.
Rydia (Top Brass): The JAM are finally targeting us as well as our computers and machines. Their aim is to take the "human element" out of the equation. Of course, we mostly rely on computers anyway.
Edith (Rei's psychologist): I see, so that means...Gasp! That?! You wouldn't!
Rydia: Wouldn't you? To survive.
Edith: But, to do that is...
Rydia: We have no other choice.
Edith: ...
Rydia: ...
Edith: ...
Rydia: Be careful, Edith.
Subdee: WAIT, THAT'S IT?
I demand an explanation! On the other hand Rei does finally get to be cool. He and Jack go to Earth to test out a new engine for Yukikaze -- why they have to test in Earth atmosphere is one of those things only the Top Brass and those they choose to have incomprehensible conversations with know. Some JAM follow them through the Passageway and TOTALLY PWN the wimpy Japanese Navy, until Yukikaze and Rei lay the smack down. They land on-deck to refuel and are treated like lepers, except by Ms. Jackson who manages to have a decent conversation with Rei, all things considered. Overlapping interests (Yukikaze and JAM) help.
Back on Fairy, a Mysterious Plane arrives to do battle. Everyone is wearing a serious expression; I, as usual, have no idea what's going on.
Questions:
1. That super-cryptic talk. I think it's obvious that the plan, for a while, has been to automate the defense on Fairy, then leave human AI and alien AI (JAM) to fight it out. But this strategy is ineffective because JAM can copy machines and computers. They can't copy people -- except for recently, when it turns out that they can. I honestly have no idea what this horrible unmentionable contingency plan is. It's pretty clear, though, that if the Fairy forces ever get tired of their green and purple sky, they can easily invade and reconquer Earth.
2. Mysterious Plane?
3. Not a question, but: Rei also manages a normal conversation with Jack! This is like his Shining Moment or something.
EPISODE FIVE:
Not included because I can't find it subbed, ALAS.
MEANWHILE, IN MOVIE-LAND:
Walk the Line.
Joaquim Phoenix was a inspired piece of casting: Johnny Cash in this movie is so pathetically dependent that without Joaquim's soulful staring eyes no one would put up with him. I wouldn't have, at any rate. He crossed my line a couple of times as it was, during the drug addiction scenes (I had to leave the room for one of them); but he gets better and by the end I'd been convinced that he -- and, more importantly, the movie -- had earned his happy ending.
V for Vendetta
Me: It wasn't as good as I thought it would be.
Mom: Too much hype.
Me: And there was too much exposition, I mean all of the themes were spelled out.
Mom: Like in a comic book.
Me: I didn't like the action scenes either, they were unnecessary and gross.
Mom: Slow-motion blood splatters are disgusting.
Me: And the way this theoretical British government so obviously being paralleled to the current U.S. government?
Dad: *interrupting* What was wrong with it?
Me: ...the United States isn't a fascist police state that kills everyone who makes fun of President Bush?
Dad: Fascism doesn't exist for no reason, it's exists in response to an organized opposition. It's only the absence of serious resistance that allows our government to maintain the illusion of democracy.
Me: ...
Dad: What I didn't like was that V was a lone-wolf figure. It would be more accurate to say that governments are overthrown by massive spontaneous popular uprisings.
Me: ...
Dad: But any move that ends with the Parliament building being blown up is a good movie.
My dad is like that, though. I think I get my love of official-sounding rhetoric from him. And actually, I did like the movie, just not as much as I thought I would.
Yukikaze is a show about these guys who are fighting a war they don't understand against aliens they don't understand on the other side of an interdimensional portal whose physics they probably don't understand, and meanwhile most of the people on Earth don't even remember they exist. Poor guys. There's also some stuff about artifical intelligence.
Did these as I was watching, tried not to let previous knowledge influence what I was writing but I probably failed. They're mostly honest first-time viewing impressions, anyway.
EPISODE ONE
In the first episode some stuff happens that MAKES NO SENSE okay, so what happens is: after surviving a fight with a plane that looks like an ally, but isn't, Rei Fukai is promoted away from the direct command of Jack. Jack is worried that he'll lose Rei to Yukikaze (again). The best way to describe Rei is as someone suffering from perpetual rage except when he's on downers. Then he's really soft-spoken and passive. He doesn't seem to like Jack. The only thing he likes is Yukikaze. Yukikaze is his plane.
Dream -- I get the dream, obviously Yukikaze is the beautiful girl locked in the cell Rei has the key to, but isn't allowed to open.
Then a dogfight with JAM (the aliens) that starts with the rest of the squadron being killed, moves on to JAM that vanish into thin air to appear behind you...the point is that when the battle gets really tough, Yukikaze takes control of the plane. I can't tell whether Rei goes into a trance or just zones out for this. Then cut to the next mission where Rei and Yukikaze are lost, Jack is almost court-martialed trying to look for them.
Then the bizarre stuff starts. Rei is suddenly recovering at a frontier base. He's told that his location was phoned in to headquarters, a lie. He's told he's suffering from Fairy Fever, possibly the truth. He's told his partner died from it, no way to check that but probably also a lie. He's told "give us the access code for Yukikaze's computer brain, we need it to make repairs and wouldn't you rather we re-wire all of this unnecessary interface out anyway?"
Rei rebels, shoots the commander with the commander's own gun -- first time Rei takes the initiative in anything, it figures Yukikaze is involved -- and then THE SKY MELTS AND HE'S IN SOME WEIRD ALTERNATELY REALITY, WHAT THE HELL and then he and Yukikaze are back in real space being shot down by JAM. Yukikaze takes control of another plane and transfers her data, then ejects Rei with a parting message of "Good Luck Lt. Fukai" just before being shot to pieces.
Questions:
1. Yukikaze technology somehow related to / based on JAM technology? Or just really sophisticated AI?
2. Why does Jack put up with Rei, anyway? When he's not angry, all he does is mope. This makes the two of them very easy to slash, though (the "what else besides the physical does he see in him" effect).
3. No one else is sensitive to the AI like Rei is. Does this make Rei Shonen Special, or just a socially maladjusted idiot?
4. I wonder how many other planes still have pilots, given the full-AI-control rollover Jack describes, and given that Rei is only still piloting Yukikaze because he insisted on it. Or maybe Jack was only trying to break up Rei and Yukikaze because he was worried, and he exaggerated the extent of the rollover.
5. ALTERNATE DIMENSION WTF. All that just to get Yukikaze's access codes? What is she to them? Or was Rei the target?
EPISODE TWO
Rei's in rehab. Yukikaze flies a test on full auto; before landing she opens fire on three friendly planes parked at the base that she IDs as JAM, although no one else does. Correction: no one else and Rei, who does some kind of weird psychic long-range synchronization that I would say MAKES NO SENSE except he does seem to be wearing some kind of transmitter.
Which still doesn't explain anything.
There's no way to override Yukikaze from outside when she's on a mission. This strikes me as colossally STUPID, but I guess the fear of JAM takeover is that high? For something humans don't understand at all, JAM certainly seem to know what we're about.
In Rei's dream, the Yukikaze-woman in the cell now has fairy wings. Also, a JAM breaks in on them and he wakes up in the cockpit -- honestly these sudden transitions are really starting to annoy me, I wonder if we're supposed to take them literally. Like, was Rei actually dreaming in the middle of battle exercises? Or are the animators just fond of abrupt scene changes? Suspect later, but it's damn annoying.
Later, Rei is flying with his psychologist, who has been conducting experiments on him without his knowledge. They lose spectacularly to the new unmanned show model -- Rei says it's not a real battle and doesn't mean anything -- and then they're attacked by JAM for real. Not for the first time. It seems that in addition to all their abilities, JAM can attack anywhere at any time. Or else the air force is doing its test flights in enemy territory. Either way, the situation isn't good.
Questions:
1. These experiments: the cause of Rei's unnatural closeness to Yukikaze, or just a sophisticated form of psychological profiling studying its effects? Top Brass knows something.
2. I'm actually not sure any more that the girl in the cell is Yukikaze, since the JAM that interrupts them also looks like Yukikaze (plane). And the girl looks like the logo on Rei's hat ("Boomerang Squadron"). It's just a dream, anyway.
3. HOW is JAM infiltrating? More planes that look like ally planes? Or are they mind-controlling the technicians, and if yes, how? Why do they know more about us than we do about them?
4. WHAT HAPPENED AT THE END. I mean. Here's what I can tell:
Rei and Yukikaze and Rei's psychologist distract JAM while the unmanned plane runs missile interference, using the observation plane as a shield (killing some people in the process). The unmanned plane sends a last message similar to Yukikaze's in the last episode, a simple "Good luck". I can't tell whether it was also intelligent or whether Yukikaze was controlling it. Rei has been flying manual -- because Yukikaze's attention was elsewhere? but she's a computer, she can do more than one thing at a time -- except he's been having trouble since Y won't let him override her air-intake functions. Eventually he succeeds, but at this point Y returns to take control AND THEN THE CREDITS ROLL.
Seriously, what. This scene felt significant re: Y's trust in Rei/Rei's belief that Y trusts him, but it's hard to say what about it was significant when I'm having a hard time reconstructing what actually happened.
EPISODE THREE
I know this plot! I saw it on The Outer Limits once. I'm also reminded of Betterman, an anime that ended every episode with a WTF alien takeover, with the explanation saved for the next episode.
Rei finally finds a human being he can bond with, a timid American Indian engineer named Tom John (nickname Tomahawk). Lest we miss this point, his psychologist is conveniently on-screen to inform us that Lt. Fukai "is experiencing a rare sense of connection and sympathy." I don't know how she knows at that distance; maybe he's wearing a neural transmitter.
Tom was one of the engineers who designed Yukikaze and he thinks she's special, which earns him lots of points with Rei. By the way, Rei's psychologist is also long-distance-psychoanalyzing Tom and Yukikaze (that's right, the plane). Y's been outfitted in the latest in JAM camouflage fashion, soon the two sides will be indistinguishable LOL. Also, we hear more about how people on earth don't believe that JAM is real, to which I can only say WTF.
Rei and Tomahawk have been sent to investigate an aircraft carrier that went nuts. They land in it without incident. The carrier appears to be deserted. Around this point I started humming The Outer Limits theme song. Oh noes! JAM can duplicate people!! Out of goo!!! We learn that the frontline base (episode one) had been destroyed before Rei even got there, making him the first human being to come into direct contact with JAM and all of the recent infiltrations his fault, in a way. Tom might be an alien clone. If he is, he doesn't know it -- the only sign is that he sometimes blanks out and wakes up cozy with JAM, a VERY FAMILIAR scenario. (Now I really wish I knew whether those sudden cuts were literal.) Tom chooses to stay behind on the carrier when it is being blown up by the Air Force, just in case.
Questions:
1. Actually, not too many. For once an episode that answers questions, yay! I do wonder how much else the Top Brass knows, if they already suspected that JAM's infiltration could include people.
2. I'm also sort of suspicious of Lt. Fukai. But I'm probably seeing connections where none exist (again), because I doubt we're supposed to doubt him, at least not in that way.
3. As for the people on Earth. It's not like the inter-dimensional tunnel is a one-off thing: it is there in the sky and things pass through it all the time, including copies of Ms. Jackson's book on the JAM invasion of Earth -- which, by the way, took place less than sixty years ago. I guess I shouldn't underestimate human powers of denial, but surely all of this adds up to uncontestable evidence that the aliens are real? On the other hand I can imagine the situation, a real threat played for insignificant political gain, easily.
4. Maybe JAM is not actually aliens, or even alien A.I., but time-warped products of human invention? That would create paradoxes, though. Actually my current favorite theory is that the aliens, not knowing what kinds of intelligence their machines might be encountering, programed them with what they thought would be the simplest and yet most versatile instructions: whatever the enemy does, you pay back in kind. Most of the time, JAM is reactive. Of course, there are some pretty notable exceptions (the initial invasion, the kidnapping of Lt. Fukai, the infiltration plot, all those ambushes...).
5. If Yukikaze is a learning AI, and she got her personality from Rei, and Rei is in love with her, does that mean Rei is in love with himself?
EPISODE FOUR
Show is back to its old tricks.
Rydia (Top Brass): The JAM are finally targeting us as well as our computers and machines. Their aim is to take the "human element" out of the equation. Of course, we mostly rely on computers anyway.
Edith (Rei's psychologist): I see, so that means...Gasp! That?! You wouldn't!
Rydia: Wouldn't you? To survive.
Edith: But, to do that is...
Rydia: We have no other choice.
Edith: ...
Rydia: ...
Edith: ...
Rydia: Be careful, Edith.
Subdee: WAIT, THAT'S IT?
I demand an explanation! On the other hand Rei does finally get to be cool. He and Jack go to Earth to test out a new engine for Yukikaze -- why they have to test in Earth atmosphere is one of those things only the Top Brass and those they choose to have incomprehensible conversations with know. Some JAM follow them through the Passageway and TOTALLY PWN the wimpy Japanese Navy, until Yukikaze and Rei lay the smack down. They land on-deck to refuel and are treated like lepers, except by Ms. Jackson who manages to have a decent conversation with Rei, all things considered. Overlapping interests (Yukikaze and JAM) help.
Back on Fairy, a Mysterious Plane arrives to do battle. Everyone is wearing a serious expression; I, as usual, have no idea what's going on.
Questions:
1. That super-cryptic talk. I think it's obvious that the plan, for a while, has been to automate the defense on Fairy, then leave human AI and alien AI (JAM) to fight it out. But this strategy is ineffective because JAM can copy machines and computers. They can't copy people -- except for recently, when it turns out that they can. I honestly have no idea what this horrible unmentionable contingency plan is. It's pretty clear, though, that if the Fairy forces ever get tired of their green and purple sky, they can easily invade and reconquer Earth.
2. Mysterious Plane?
3. Not a question, but: Rei also manages a normal conversation with Jack! This is like his Shining Moment or something.
EPISODE FIVE:
Not included because I can't find it subbed, ALAS.
MEANWHILE, IN MOVIE-LAND:
Walk the Line.
Joaquim Phoenix was a inspired piece of casting: Johnny Cash in this movie is so pathetically dependent that without Joaquim's soulful staring eyes no one would put up with him. I wouldn't have, at any rate. He crossed my line a couple of times as it was, during the drug addiction scenes (I had to leave the room for one of them); but he gets better and by the end I'd been convinced that he -- and, more importantly, the movie -- had earned his happy ending.
V for Vendetta
Me: It wasn't as good as I thought it would be.
Mom: Too much hype.
Me: And there was too much exposition, I mean all of the themes were spelled out.
Mom: Like in a comic book.
Me: I didn't like the action scenes either, they were unnecessary and gross.
Mom: Slow-motion blood splatters are disgusting.
Me: And the way this theoretical British government so obviously being paralleled to the current U.S. government?
Dad: *interrupting* What was wrong with it?
Me: ...the United States isn't a fascist police state that kills everyone who makes fun of President Bush?
Dad: Fascism doesn't exist for no reason, it's exists in response to an organized opposition. It's only the absence of serious resistance that allows our government to maintain the illusion of democracy.
Me: ...
Dad: What I didn't like was that V was a lone-wolf figure. It would be more accurate to say that governments are overthrown by massive spontaneous popular uprisings.
Me: ...
Dad: But any move that ends with the Parliament building being blown up is a good movie.
My dad is like that, though. I think I get my love of official-sounding rhetoric from him. And actually, I did like the movie, just not as much as I thought I would.