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Posted: Sep 20 2009 11:33 pm

Has anyone else seen this?

Visually, it is fantastic. It looks amazing. The plot is pretty good, but somewhat confusing.

This is the basic plot:

1. Scientist creates a super advanced computer brain to bring peace and prosperity
2. An evil chancellor uses the computer brain to make war machines and dominate the world
3. The computer and its war machines turn on mankind
4. Sensing the end of humanity is near, the scientist transfers pieces of his soul into 9 little dolls
5. Humanity and the machines destroy each other
6. The 9th doll accidentally awakens the dormant computer brain with a talisman the scientist left him
7. The computer brain begins killing the dolls and stealing their souls
8. After trying to destroy the computer brain, the 9th doll goes back to his creator's lab and finds a hologram the scientist left for him explaining that the computer brain was flawed because it lacked a soul, and the scientist had put his soul into the dolls with the talisman.

Now at this point, it would stand to reason that the dolls were created to be absorbed by the computer brain and give it the compassion and human perspective that it lacked, right? Then maybe it could slowly work towards rebuilding the planet, right?Wrong. Instead here's what happens:

1. 9 removes the talisman from the computer brain
2. 9 frees the souls of his 5 dead friends
3. The freed souls somehow make it rain.

That's it. So maybe some grass might grow. But the planet is still devoid of animal life, and the only "living" things are four little dolls.

The scientist's goal in creating the dolls never really makes sense. He created the dolls, but he wanted some of them to die, but not all of them? And then somehow freeing them would save the planet? I dunno.

But the action sequences are great and the film is beautiful. Still, a slightly more coherent plot would have been nice.

Posted: Sep 20 2009 11:57 pm

...

That is rather confusing. I'm going to hold back on theorizing on it til I've actually seen it myself, but you've got me interested enough to cough up the ten bucks. (Well, I was pretty much going to anyway, but still.) Thanks for the info.

Posted: Sep 21 2009 12:02 am

The movie is visually stunning and really entertaining. I was a little confused as to what the scientists plan was (alright, a lot) but I also found myself not really caring.

There is one thing you MUST know before seeing the movie:
The voice of 5 is John C. Reilly. Not saying that as a bad thing, but the moment he opened his mouth I was almost positive it was him, and I then spent much of the movie trying to figure out if it really was if I was mishearing.

Posted: Sep 21 2009 12:02 am

It is definitely worth seeing.

Gallery 2 · Posted: Sep 21 2009 07:00 am

From what I see it, I believe the "rain" was meant to represent that the essence of life is being brought back to Earth so it may start anew over the millennial. Remember that the scientist wasn't focused on saving humanity, but making sure life goes on.

It kinda makes sense if you look at it from an evolutionary point of view, though what role will the remaining dolls play is vague as it is.

It could be that... Or that the director was a pretentious twat who couldn't come up with a deep ending so he made it extremely vague so his fans would do the speculation for him.

Regardless, it was an OK movie, but it could had been better.

I do agree it would had made for a much better ending if the dolls decided to do the ultimate sacrifice in order to reform the computer and inspire it to rebuild the world. A bittersweet ending, yes, but at least would had a better closure than an ambiguously vague ending.

Posted: Sep 21 2009 09:56 am

AtmanRyu wrote:

From what I see it, I believe the "rain" was meant to represent that the essence of life is being brought back to Earth so it may start anew over the millennial. Remember that the scientist wasn't focused on saving humanity, but making sure life goes on.

I can with that agree. The symbolism was a little cheesy, but it was also remiscent of the world creation story for Ocarina Of Time.

But the overall plan still had logic gaps in it. What if 9 had seen the scientist's message when he first awoke? What would have happened if he had known the computer brain was too dangerous to awaken? Would he have been forced to wield the talisman himself to kill his friends?

It's a shame this got a PG-13 rating, because I think it's a great movie for kids. Like a "My First Post-Apocalyptic Nightmare" sort of thing.

Gallery 2 · Posted: Sep 21 2009 12:01 pm

Syd Lexia wrote:

But the overall plan still had logic gaps in it. What if 9 had seen the scientist's message when he first awoke? What would have happened if he had known the computer brain was too dangerous to awaken? Would he have been forced to wield the talisman himself to kill his friends?

That's the overall vagueness that I was talking about.

But for the sake of an arguably happy ending, they went for the current one.

Posted: Sep 23 2009 12:40 pm

Also, I really could have done without 8's masturbation scene.

Posted: Sep 23 2009 12:41 pm

Yeah that was kinda weird, my friend and I thought he was just getting high, but overall she found the movie to be kind of sad.

Posted: Sep 23 2009 01:35 pm

Syd Lexia wrote:

Also, I really could have done without 8's masturbation scene.

That wasn't masturbation, that was drug abuse.

Posted: Sep 23 2009 02:13 pm

Kind of like that episode of Futurama when Bender turns into a electricity addict.