MovieChat Forums > Samâ taimu mashin burûsu (2005) Discussion > Too much spelled out at the end

Too much spelled out at the end

posted 12 years ago by holtor
4 replies | jump to latest

This one is a great little movie, but it could have been so much better if they restrained from detailing everything at the end. The last 15 minutes were awful, listening to the characters explaining everything as if the viewers are little children. The movie was pretty much self-explanatory without that. No one needed to explain that the universe never was in any danger, the thing with the Kappa was told at least 3 times when it would have been so much nicer just to subtly allude to it, no one needs a graphical exposition on the white board of the travels of the remote control. They did not need to have a verbal discussion about the thing with the shampoo, just indirectly showing that he nicked it would have been better. People could guess about the parents of Akira quite early on ("my mother was at this university", "she loved going to this cinema" etc.), that could have been handled in a much subtler way too.

[–] JayRZay 12 years ago

I agree; I thought the same about each of these parts, particularly about Mushroom's parents. On a second thought they might have had some trouble how to handle the thing with Mushroom's name. Unless they had made him hear his father's name first and then suggested he might have lied about his own name to not mess up the past (knowing he was his father). This might have been a pretty funny twist.

[–] holtor 12 years ago

It is very strange though that he would not recognize his own parents. Even if they changed a lot, he must have seen old photographs. Plot hole.

[–] JayRZay 12 years ago

It is very strange though that he would not recognize his own parents. Even if they changed a lot, he must have seen old photographs. Plot hole.

Or it's proof of Asian people having the same difficulties distinguishing between other Asian people as western people do. ;) Yeah I think intentionally hiding his true name because he recognizes his father would have been a better solution and not discussing everything in detail at the end (and leaving it to interpretation) might have been the best.

[–] avortac 11 years ago

"I think intentionally hiding his true name because he recognizes his father would have been a better solution"

That would not have been a SOLUTION, but it would be more like DESTROYER OF THE FILM.

Think about it - this film uses the "predestination paradox" variety of time travel. If what you say happened, it would destroy the whole predestination, by changing things into an 'eternal loop', where each loop is different from the previous one (like in Back to the Future, for example).

This movie's time travel works like The Terminator (1984) and 12 Monkeys, not like Back to the Future.

If he had LIED about the name, and the father would still have adopted the LIED name, wouldn't he have then have to have come up with a DIFFERENT name for the lie, which would then have turned to become the father's actual name, and on and on and on, in a neverending loop..?

Like, if his father's real name was Takahashi, and the son would lie that it would be Ishikawa, then the (young) father would change the name to 'Ishikawa', to "slip into the role of the father" (a stupid way for the movie to refer to the 'predestination paradox'), so then the son would be named Ishikawa, and thus would lie that he's Tamamura, for example. Then the (young) father would change his name to "Tamamura", to get the pretty girl, and the son ..

.. well, you get the idea. It would keep changing for every loop, destroying the neat predestination paradox that this movie gives us.

Though it was really clumsily explained by the woman (yeah, in movies, women are always the aggressive, intelligent type, and not men - although in reality, it's vice versa - movies are misandristic). I wondered why couldn't she just say: "This is a predestination paradox type time travel", or just explain properly what "predestination paradox" is, instead of talking about "Kami-sama" and the other guy talking about "slipping to roles".

It was a really stupid, predictable "twist" (that creates a 'non-fabrication problem' á la the magical, never-manufactured clock in "Somewhere in Time") that the scientist guy who destroyed the remote control, would be the father of the invention. So who created it ORIGINALLY? So he got SCHEMATICS for the time machine BY OBSERVING THE TIME MACHINE that was built by a man who got schematics for it originally by observing it?? WHO ORIGINALLY PLANNED AND CAME UP WITH IT? IT CAN'T HAPPEN THAT WAY, DAMNIT!

It's like I copy a movie from someone who comes to visit me from the future, and that copy that I took, will be the same exact copy that someone in the future will take with them when they go visit me in the past! WHO MADE THE MOVIE ORIGINALLY?

Well, anyway. A fun flick, but very stupid and misandristic, and at times, intolerable with the typical japanese formula of "super-feminine loser-men that overreact to everything like little children, especially the VS shampoo guy, urgh, how I hated him and everything he represents in Japanese culture", and other typically japanese stupidities, quirks and annoyances, childishnesses (if this is a word), and stuff that a rational adult can't be experience without groaning or rolling his eyes. Yes, I say "his", because I have no evidence so far of any woman ever having been a 'rational adult' so far in human history. Probably in non-human history as well.

The time travel concept was well executed in this, but once you know about predestination paradox, you will know exactly how this movie will pan out, and most of the movie is either boring bits, annoying stupidity and childishness (why does EVERY japanese movie, play, musical, story, etc. HAVE to have that "screaming like a woman" type loser-male character? WHY?), or repetitive and predictable stuff.

And like people here said, everything is way over-exposed - there's exposure upon exposure, but even with that, things are not explained rationally, logically and well, but instead in a really flumsy and fuzzy way. Instead of introducing a word like "predestined", they walk about "maybe things couldn't be changed, because Kami-sama wanted us to slip into roles".. sheesh!

I wanted to like the movie, and time travel is always interesting, and this movie really tries, and gets many things right mainly because they chose the 'predestination paradox' (to make the whole thing solid, logical, etc.) but it ultimately fails because of it's childish and unrealistic characters, and unrealistic plot OUTSIDE the time travel stuff.

Are you kidding me? They have a time machine, and no one even CONSIDERS using it for informational/educational/exploratorional/experiencial/financial/mind-expansial purposes?

ALL THEY CARE ABOUT IS THE REMOTE CONTROL? WHY?

So they could keep cool? Then why not simply time travel to winter/autumn/spring of some year when they know it's safe to appear? I mean, that way, they could keep cool. Or why not use the time machine to get enough money to buy a new remote control? Why never even consider what might happen, if they try to take a remote control from it's natural timeflow and change the past?

I would have thought before leaving for such a brainless trip, that something like this might happen:

If we go and get the remote control from the past, there won't be cola spilled on it, it won't get get trashed to pieces, so it will simply disappear for a time - changing the past in a way that they might not be able to time travel into the past (because they are instead out shopping for a new remote control or searching for it or something), because the events set in motion by a completely different past will affect the future. Thus if we can't go, these events can't happen, so we can go, but if we do, we can't, and so on. Paradox.

But this wasn't explained very well. They only touched upon the grandfather paradox, but did that poorly. But it's sort of ironic, because the movie utilizes the 'predestination paradox' anyway. Why didn't the science guy explain THAT one?

I guess it would have negated the whole movie, because if you leave out the time travel and the 'predestination paradox', this movie is just a bunch of silly guys jumping around a couple of 'intelligent, pretty, aggressive women' (the woman always makes the first move to initiate going to a movie or dating, unlike in reality, where they don't have to, because they get so many requests from men anyway - why would they bother?), and nothing much interesting ever really happens.

They don't explore the history (except for the BRIEF visit to 99 years ago), they don't explore space, Universe, galaxies and solar systems, they don't experience different dimensions, etc. They just run around in a school area where most of the scenes are spoiled with a stupid "heat wave" effect that simply waves everything around, trying to make it look like it's really "atsui". Seesh.

SPOILERS:

So basically the plot is:

Your son from the future comes to help a really trivial phase in your life (trying to get a remote control for an air conditioner, that doesn't have ANY MANUAL BUTTONS (what kind of a system has ONLY remote control for it?)) to happen according to 'predestination', instead of happening randomly.

Wow, what an interesting plot and premise! Whoever thought that deserves a cookie!

... NOT.