This is the most criminally underrated movie of all time
Goddamn, how can someone in this world dislike this film????? Ridley Scott, Stanley Kubrick and Genndy Tartakovsky would be proud if they watch this film, because it captures perfectly their vision with their films (Blade Runner, 2001: Space Odyssey, The Clockwork Orange and Stalker).
Most people when praise Osamu Tezuka's Metropolis they often mention the art direction and forget to mention the vision this movie shows to the public. The way it criticize the future, the human nature and the terrible fate mankind's awaiting is simply genious. What I liked the most about this movie is how the 'villain' became the savior in the end and how he was the hero since the beginning. Rock knew what would happen if the Duke Red gave Tima the control of the ziggurat and tried to stop it. This Rock's quote is mindblowing: "It's you (the Duke Red) who should sit on the throne."
He means if the world is meant to be conquered, it should be controlled by human hands and not something you can't control. This theory reinforces the Terminator 2 one as well (Skynet became conscious and destroy the world). But here, Rock knew since the beginning that the human must control themselves, not a machine, not someone who can't speak for the human race.
The no-heart Tima is brilliant as well. Tima is an innocent, cute little girl who don't know the power she have on her hands, she even believe herself to be a real human girl. In my opinion, her innocent personality indicate the innocence and the impossibility of human race to control such huge power when is 'pure and docile'. Like saying: "When human race is fine with itself, they don't need this power." Rock says: "How can a baby like you sit in the throne?", referring to the 'docile' personality of Tima, knowing that she can't control such power because she's pure and innocent and don't have the coldness and ambition to rule the world.
When she became 'conscious', she lost her heart and turned back against the humans who created them. This is a metaphor on the human race when they become greedy and power-hunger (just as the members of the party are), they lost their humanity (heart) in exchange for domination and control.
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Of course, the ending is a piece of art. Yes, this theme was used before in 2001: Space Odyssey, Terminator series and Matrix series (machines turning back on humans), but here it's on another level. The sheer brilliance of the scene with the Ray Charles song and the meaning of it. Mankind reached the climax of it's technology superiority with the ziggurat but in the end all did wrong and fall down. Unlike Terminator and Matrix, the machines didn't conquered the world and both human's and machines's tools of domination were destroyed. Or... it could be a metaphor from a robot uprising foiled by human hands.
But what makes Osamu Tezuka's Metropolis so unique is the mythology that Tima and Rock create and the 'what if the machines didn't conquered the world' ending that many Terminator and Matrix fans certainly thought about on it. I consider this as one of the best movies of all time. Osamu Tezuka would be proud if he was alive at the time, unlike what the producers told, because this fits perfectly his vision not only on this original manga work, but in his other works.