Turin the Mad |
Dragon78, depending on the specific distance you have to cover and the availability of cabs/Lyft/Uber in the area and depending on your spare fun money supply:
I used to make a movie day every 3 to 6 months back in the day. Look up a theater that has concessions other than popcorn, candy and nachos, plan to see 4 to 6 movies starting with the first matinee showing bracket and make an entire day of it. Buy all of the tickets on arrival and enjoy an entire day of cinema.
:)
Thomas Seitz |
It did better than Ben Hur for whatever that's worth
Well consider the plummet to the ground Ben-Hur took, I'd say Kubo has a better shot of making back its production costs.
Also agree that we still have a few more weeks out and maybe Kubo will break into the top 3 before Labor Day.
Rosgakori Vendor - Fantasiapelit Tampere |
Fourshadow |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Just saw it and absolutely adored it. Easily my favorite movie of the year. Ending left me speechless at first and then made my cry, honest to god. That was amazing experiece.
Hey, I came close to it myself! Such a fantastic movie that it is a shame so few have seen it. I talk it up any chance I get.
Benchak the Nightstalker Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8 |
Abraham spalding |
4 people marked this as a favorite. |
What I like is that if Kubo was a girl, people would be calling him a total Mary Sue. But because he's a boy, he's just a "cool hero". It's so absurdly transparent sometimes.
A very good movie, though.
Lets consider this claim.
To be a Mary Sue he would need to:
1. Be exceptionally talented in an implausibly wide variety of areas.
2. Lack any realistic or plot relevant character flaws.
3. Unusual and exceptional backstory
4. Be beloved by ALL, those that aren't loving are treated poorly by the story
5. Outstanding and unusual physical traits
6. Is "to pure for this world" (suggested as an trait to the original term)
So is Kubo exceptionally talented in a wide array of areas?
No. We see him use his magic very well (which covers music/showmanship and origami), but he cooks... rice. Not exactly something a culinary genius is needed to do. At the end he uses a sword passingly well. However he doesn't really pilot the ship he makes, he doesn't know where to find everything, he isn't exactly mister acrobatics all over the place. He manages to shoot a fish under direction from the beetle samurai. His skills are definitely finite and limited to what you might expect a boy of his talents to know, with the obvious exception of his 'epic battle' at the very end. Arguably that was as much the magic of the items he collected as anything else though, and we see that it very much fails him too. He was not some invincible warrior to any extent.
Does Kubo lack any realistic or plot relevant character flaws
Again no. He has character flaws and the plot is in fact predicated on them. If he had been an obedient son we likely would have never left the village as he wouldn't have been out after sunset. In fact his predilection to being a know-it-all, impatience, and not listening to good advice is in many ways what cost his parents later in the story as well. In fact the argument could be made that the entirety of the plot revolves around him growing and working away from his character flaws.
Unusual or exceptional background
Alright completely true. In fact we would have no story without his background. As such this one is true however is not unique to only mary sue characters.
Be beloved by all
Kubo is well liked by most everyone he comes across. Even his extraplanar family 'loves' him as much as they can understand it (to the point they just want to help him ascend to what they think he should be). As such we have no one to judge how those that don't like him are perceived. The underpinnings of the plot include a strong theme of "how do we love each other?" and "do we change for those that claim to love us/ claim to know what is best for us?" There is a huge discussion to be had in regards to this movie and those questions alone. Also while he is beloved by all (as we know them from a monkey, his mom, a beetle samurai, a village, and his aunts and grandfather) we are treated to a very small subset of the world; his family, and a village that has little overarching plot significance.
Outstanding physical traits
In a movie with extraplanar aunts, grandfathers a beetle samurai, a monkey martial mastery mother, a giant skeleton, and glowing hypnotic eyes of death Kubo is most notable for his lack of supernatural physical features. The most he has going for him in this department is his missing eye and presumably that's actually fairly common in the world at large. Sure the reason his eye is missing is a big deal but the eye being missing isn't in and of itself. He's a boy that is missing one eye. That's all. As such he doesn't trigger this one either.
Is Kubo too "pure" for this world?
The origins of Mary Sues typically had a stream of self sacrifice for the greater good. Kubo doesn't do this. In fact in many ways he goes the exact opposite direction forcing those around him to do more because of his unwillingness to change or do something he doesn't want to do. He's headstrong/stubborn to a fault and is all too easily misled. While he has a strong sense of purpose that is hardly the same.
Is Kubo the central character?
Absolutely. It is a story about him, his family, and how people change or don't when pressed by those that claim to love or know best for them. However simply being the lead character does not a mary sue make.
Is Kubo talented in an unusual way?
Again Absolutely. He is descended from "all powerful" outsiders. However he grows into his power, and that power is very much the same as his mothers and inline with what should be expect of his bloodline. Quite frankly all we know is he was able to defeat his grandfather by what amounts to magical trickery.
Now I cannot say that if this had been a female lead that people would not have thrown accusations of Mary Sue at her... but they would have been wrong too.
Honestly we might be dealing with the child of two Mary Sues more than Kubo being one.
John Woodford |
IMDB box office shows it not quite earning out in theatrical release (ca. $50M foreign & domestic vs. $60M production), but I think it'll do well on disc. It seemed like publicity for it was pretty sparse; I didn't see a trailer for it until after I saw the movie. Part of the problem, I suspect, is that it was marketed as a kid movie, and there wasn't a lot of attention given to the possibility of older viewers.
HenshinFanatic |
It wasn't the marketing but the fact that few if any cinemas ran it for any length of time (seriously, my local Cineplex only had showings for a week while other movies got 3-4 weeks before being taken off the now playing list), and that's only if they even had it available at all.
Nekroskop |
Absolutely wonderful movie. And looking at all the making of material that is already available baffles me even more. The pure love and artistry that goes into a movie like this.
And I adore the humor. "I don't know if this counts as Origami - I am pretty sure there were scissors involved".
I would love to have my own little Origami Samurai, but I am equally sure I would completely fail in folding it.
Threeshades |
I didn't say Kubo was a Mary Sue. I just pointed out the double standard people apply to characters like Rey. :P
Are we talking about the same Rey who after living for her whole life in the desert, foraging for scrap, had basically just learned that she is force sensitive and immediately starts mind-tricking people and out-force-muscling a guy with years of jedi training (repeatedly I might add; and the guy in question being a descendant of the miracle bloodline we know as the Skywalkers; of which, granted, we don't know if she also descends, but the previous examples of this families were scrubs before they had any training, the only big thing about them being latent force augmented piloting talent (which again also came with a certain amount of experience however)), also happens to be a better pilot than several trained fighter pilots (not only that, bu she does it using an ill-maintained much larger and less agile ship) and also is quicker to diagnose mechanical problem with the Millennium Falcon than the people who have been spending more time flying and maintaining that ship than she was alive for? The same Rey whose only discernible character flaw is... an inconsistent accent maybe?
Point me to a male character who just seems to outperform everyone with literally infinitely more experience than him at anything he does and isn't considered a mary sue and I'll happily agree.
This is coming from someone who celebrates the idea of having a female lead for a core star wars movie and thinks we need more of those in all forms of action cinema. And indeed video games.
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for the record: sorry for the derailment, i'd be totally down with a mod splitting this potential discussion off from the thread
PS: Kubo was an absolutely beautiful movie and was worth every cent of the roughly 50 euros and two hour travel time I spent to get to Hamburg just to see it in the original voiceover.
Rosgakori Vendor - Fantasiapelit Tampere |
Added this to our collection. Previously only my sons and I saw it. My wife was not as impressed as we were...sigh. Still one of if not THE best movie of 2016, IMO.
It was my favorite of this year. No other movie got me so much engaged in what was going on screen.
In case someone was interested what was my top 5:
4. Nice Guys
3. Captain America: Civil War
2. Room (it came in february in Finland)
1. Kubo