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Old 12-20-2010, 11:51 AM   #176
Talon87
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Wow.

More comments after lunch. For now, I wanted to let you guys know ...

Don't get the current Mazui sub. It isn't the subtitling that's the problem, it's the video. When I watched the movie last night (first half) and this morning (second half), it looked beautiful to me. Perfectly crisp. No jaggies, no fuzzies, no nothing. But when I took a look at my screencaps, I saw serious visual degradation. And when I opened the video file up in other video players besides my default, it looked pretty bad in them too. Stuttered a whole bunch as well. I don't know what the cause of the discrepancy is, but I would trust to Mazui's proclamation at this time -- that the video they've released has sub-par video quality -- and I'd encourage you all to wait just a little bit longer if you can for a better video source to come along. Something funky is going on and it's probably got something to do with how the video (either the original raw or else the subbed raw) was encoded. 'Cause there's no other way to explain how it could look beautiful in some players but ugly in others. (For the record, it looks pretty in VLC and terrible in SMPlayer.)

If you absolutely cannot wait, then I would say now is the time to act: because seeds are sure to be sky-high right now and they're going to topple off into oblivion in just a short matter of days. So either get it now, or don't get it at all.

Either way, you'll want to get the better one if/when it comes.

Okay. More after lunch.

EDIT: I checked Mazui's site before shutting down. Turns out they have an 850-megabyte AVI for those of you us who like this sort of thing. Since a.f.k.'s subbing job on Season 2 was all 704 x 396 resolution with somewhat grainy pixels (though hardly noticeable when viewed from 10 feet away ), I figure that this file will make a perfect addition to that set. So ... I'll be getting it and I'll let you guys know how it looks and handles. If it looks as good or better than a.f.k.'s Haruhi S2 feeds (which shouldn't take much ^^; ), then I'd encourage you to get this while waiting for an eventual Blu-Ray rip. Hell, you may even decide that you don't need that and you're perfectly happy with the 850-megabyte version.

EDIT2: Oh yeah. Mazui's translation gets, as far as I can tell, my stamp of approval. While casually listening (i.e. enjoying the film, not particularly listening for errors), I didn't catch one single mistranslation.

Last edited by Talon87; 12-20-2010 at 12:03 PM.
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Old 12-20-2010, 03:38 PM   #177
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So does that mean you finished watching the whole movie?
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Old 12-20-2010, 05:56 PM   #178
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Yeah, I did. In the next four posts, I'll share some of my opinions about the story. Some of them are incomplete but feel free to reply to them now and I'll try to build on them later in replying to you guys.
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Old 12-20-2010, 05:59 PM   #179
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Thoughts on Book 4's Villain

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Going into this semi-blindly, I had not anticipated that Nagato Yuki would prove to be the villain of the fourth novel. I didn't even imagine for a second that she could have been the culprit until we went to her apartment, three years in the past, and it was explained that Haruhi was not the one behind the events going on. At that point, it became clear that the only person who could be responsible would be Nagato Yuki. (Well, her or another Data Thought entity like Asakura Ryouko.)

Yuki's motives for her actions made much sense, but I don't think the official script explained her behavior the way that I think it really played out. According to the official script, Yuki's programming went aberrant on December 18, 199* due to the incompatibility between her emotionless avatar and the desire for and exposure to emotions that she found herself with while on assignment. I think it was actually a little different. I think that Yuki decided to create her Happily-Ever-After with Kyon. I mean, let's think about it:
  1. She has every reason to be sick and tired of Suzumiya Haruhi. Especially after what happened with Endless Eight. (See!? This is why it was important for fans to have to endure that arc for nine episodes. There really isn't any better way to get the fans to recognize the Hell which Haruhi put Yuki through without partly experiencing it for yourself.)
    1. While she was stuck in the Endless Eight loop (500+ years), she had plenty of time to conduct research. She could read, she could create experiments, etc.
      • The Tanabata episode ("Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody") showed us that Yuki is capable of creating bubbles in which the flow of time is greatly slowed down: or even halted altogetehr ("stasis"). By creating similar time-manipulating bubbles around her experimental reagents, she could easily conduct research which might ordinarily have taken years, centuries, millenia in each one of those twelve-day windows of time.
      • This time period is probably where she learned the most about how to assume the powers of God (i.e. Suzumiya Haruhi). She may even have originally pursued this knowledge only to innocently find a way to break out of the loop.
    2. Yuki sees firsthand the ugliness of Suzumiya Haruhi during the filming of the SOS Brigade's student video.
  2. Kyon is Yuki's most special person, the existence dearest to her.
  3. Yuki realizes that Kyon is probably not happy being bossed around all the time by Haruhi, having to worry himself sick day and night as to whether or not she's going to end the world, etc. And Yuki realizes that she has the power to put a stop to this for good. She has the power to rob God of hers.
  4. Yuki creates a world in which ...
    1. Suzumiya Haruhi is still alive and otherwise unaffected but for the simple fact that she never went to North High and so never met Kyon. Yuki is a merciful God.
    2. Asahina Mikuru is rendered a normal student. Yuki surely predicts that Kyon will desperately attempt to reach her and, in so doing, will irreparably damage his chances to wind up with the alternate-reality Mikuru.
    3. Koizumi Itsuki is removed from the picture, placed alongside Haruhi where he can at least be happy for a time.
    4. And so Yuki has cleared the playing field of all of her rivals for Kyon's affections. She has removed Haruhi (Kouyouen), Itsuki (Kouyouen), and Mikuru (North High, thinks Kyon's a creepy stalker).
    5. And for herself what does she do? She renders herself a cute, quiet, shy girl. Just as Kyon imagined she might have been when he first met her.
    6. She leaves in place her dearest memory -- that of the time Kyon took her to the library and helped her to obtain a library card -- and otherwise removes all traces of the SOS Brigade from her mind.
The alternate reality Nagato set up was one which was almost guaranteed to have Kyon and Yuki winding up as a couple. Why would Yuki do this unless she wanted it to happen? Exactly. Kyon himself says in the script that he rejects the line of reasoning that Yuki behaved because of a glitch in her program. Kyon himself says that he believes that Yuki acted the way she did because it was in her own interests to do so. She stood to gain the most out of this. A normal life. Life as a human girl. Life alongside her most precious person. And perhaps ... life where he would feel the same way towards her.

The Yuki of December 18 4:00am is without a doubt one of the most fearsome villains the SOS Brigade has yet faced. And while her goals are sympathizable ... I'm still kind of shocked and disappointed that even Yuki has succumbed to villain status. We can try to paint this as happily as we like, but in the end the reality is that Yuki took revenge against Suzumiya Haruhi, stripping God of her own powers, taking them for her own, and then discarding them once she no longer needed them. Yuki went against the will of God. Even if I don't like God (Haruhi), and even if I do like Yuki, we still have to keep Yuki's actions in context. She subverted the will of God, made herself God in Haruhi's place, and crafted the world to her own liking. That's ... uh ... that's pretty villainous.
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Old 12-20-2010, 06:03 PM   #180
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Thoughts on the Amazing Surprise @ 2h12m50s

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I totally did not see Asakura's attack on Kyon coming. O_O That was amazing! So she'd been playing dumb the entire time! Wow!

I really wish that we could have seen the fight between Asakura and Yuki. I understand that the decision to not explore the fight or what led up to it in this novel was made by none other than the author himself, Tanigawa Nagaru, but still. Part of what made the original fight between Asakura and Yuki in Book 1 so exhilarating was that it came completely out of nowhere and unfolded right before our eyes. There was Asakura, one minute chatting Kyon up and the next minute explaining to him with the most innocent of smiles on her face why he was going to die by her hand; and she suddenly found herself in mortal combat with Yuki, the girl we had up until that very moment been able to only speculate about, wondering to ourselves whether she really was what she had claimed to be. The fight was initiated and then it was explored without pause. We had no time to catch our breath. That was what made it exciting to see. So while I was still really excited to see Asakura attack Kyon in Book 4 and even more excited to see Yuki tackling her head on, it's a shame that we've now got to wait to see how the fight actually unfolds -- and an even larger shame that we'll be re-entering it with all the anticlimax in the world. Whereas the outcome of the original fight was not exactly known, the outcome of this fight is already written in stone: Asakura loses for a second time, as she must; Kyon survives; and the world returns to normal. For a time, at least. So while I would still like to see Kyon do this -- better that we see it in this capacity than that we don't see it at all -- I'm disappointed that the fight wasn't depicted, the characters' agendas explained, etc in the original setting of the fourth novel. It would have been so much more exciting that way.
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Old 12-20-2010, 06:05 PM   #181
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Concerns about time travel's rising role in Haruhi stories

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I'm a little concerned about the time-traveling becoming a more frequent plot device. When Tanabata was a self-contained event -- Kyon travels back in time three years, ensures that the time he knows will be the time that ultimately comes to pass, and then goes into stasis for three years because Nagato can't help them return to the future for lack of technology -- it didn't pose any danger to the rest of the Haruhi stories. Then in Disappearance, we have Kyon going back in time again to Tanabata three years ago. Now things are starting to get dangerous. He goes to Yuki's apartment once again, this time with the adult Asahina in tow, and once again he informs the three-years-ago Nagato Yuki about things which she shouldn't yet know.

Here comes the first worrying development in the plot: Yuki contacts her future self. This had actually been done in the first place, too, when Kyon first traveled back in time to the night of Tanabata and Yuki, after "synchronizing" with her future self, took off her glasses to confirm to Kyon that she understood what was going on. At that time, I really tried to ignore what I perceived to be a major flaw in the story, but now this second time around I can't ignore it any longer:

First: if Yuki can contact her future self, then it is unreasonable to believe that she could not send Kyon and little Asahina back to the future. The Data Thought Entity has already proven itself to be far more powerful than either of the two other factions investigating Haruhi. It was nonsense in Season 2 with Tanabata to believe that they hadn't figured time travel out yet but I rolled with it, telling myself that maybe it was because time travel violates the laws of physics the Data Thought Entity are bound to but which (by the whims of Haruhi's subconscious mind) the time travelers are not. However, I can no longer roll with it. I can't roll with it now because we've been told, shown TWICE, that the Data Thought Entity can communicate back and forth in time. If they can send one form of data backwards and forwards through time, then it stands to reason that they can send all forms of data backwards and forwards through time. In other words, if the Yuki of the past can talk with the Yuki of the future, then there is absolutely no reason to believe that either of the two is incapable of traveling to meet up with the other one in person. And if they can do that, then it's only a hop, skip, and a jump away to consider sending Kyon and Asahina through time as well.

Second: according to the official plot, Kyon was not in a parallel dimension. Which is to say, he was in a particular timeline where life was peachy, and then Yuki activated her program, and then the world changed around Kyon, sparing him. He returned to three years past when he told Yuki he was ready and pressed the Enter key. He went back in time. From there, he went forward in time to the morning of December 18. And -- presumably after his failed attempt to inoculate Nagato with the program-vaccine -- his second self showed up with little Asahina and regular (ass-kickin') Nagato Yuki, they defeated Asakura, they inoculated the human Yuki, and they returned to the world to normal before returning to their own time. This opens up some problems ...
  • When Kyon pressed the Enter key, what exactly happened? Did Nagato transport Kyon back to the night of Tanabata and leave the alternate-reality world otherwise alone?
    • If so, then she just created two different timelines. In one timeline, Kyon suddenly vanishes from existence, leaving behind a very confused Haruhi, Itsuki, and Mikuru a very depressed Yuki. Seems pretty awful. In the other timeline (our original), Kyon reappears and starts to work on a plan that will ensure that the alternate reality timeline doesn't become ours.
    • If not, then did she morph the data of that world into a facsimile of the world the night of Tanabata three years ago? If she did that, then Kyon didn't actually travel back in time, and the timeline's gotten even screwier.
    • If not that, then what?
  • (lost train of thought)
Third: if the Yuki of three years ago can do all of these things, it stands to reason that the Asakura of three years ago can do all of these things too. In other words, we now have to ask ourselves why the Asakura of three years ago wouldn't have attempted to contact her future self (of course she would have!), why she wouldn't have worried when she failed to find a signal beyond three years from then (i.e. our present Asakura-less time), why she wouldn't have instated some failsafes, etc. In other words, we've just introduced a colossally bad game of the hand stacking game you used to play as a kid in grade school. "My hand's on top!" "No, mine us!" "No, MINE is!" "No, mine!" "Mine!" "MINE!" "MIIIINE!" Bad case of the game. We've just started it.
  • Asakura finds out that she's destroyed in the future. So she hatches a plan to defeat Yuki. (Maybe she's the one responsible for Disappearance!)
  • But then Yuki in the future finds out and thwarts this Asakura, too. Original Yuki (turned into a human) is freaking out meanwhile and is very confused.
  • Then out of nowhere comes another Asakura! Holy cow!
  • But then out of nowhere comes a third Kyon with another Yuki in tow! Holy shit!
  • etc, etc
These kinds of things always start off as great fun for everybody but quickly enter into "laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame " territory. And I'm afraid it looks like Tanigawa Nagaru has opened this most unholy of cans of worms.

(interrupted train of thought)
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Old 12-20-2010, 06:11 PM   #182
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Problems with the power level of the villain in Book 4

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Here's another thing which worries me about the story: a villainous Yuki gains the powers of God. What does this mean?
  • Yuki can now completely bend space-time to her will.
    • It was stated that she wrote the entire Data Thought Entity out of existence. Poof. Gone.
    • She turned Asahina into a normal girl. Similarly she turned Itsuki into a normal boy. This means she can manipulate anybody. Even Kyon. In fact, it was stated that she simply chose not to rewrite Kyon. Kyon presumes that it's because Yuki wanted to leave the decision ultimately up to him. Otherwise she would have totally rewritten him too.
  • Yuki can travel through time. She can also send others through time.
If she couldn't do these things before (as regular Yuki), she sure as hell can now. Because Haruhi can, has.

So think about what this means:
  • Yuki took 500+ years off thanks to Endless Eight ...
  • She spent the time learning how to steal God's powers from Her ...
  • And she finally did so, temporarily making herself the world's new God, rewriting the story of the world, and then stripping herself of her God powers, leaving the rewritten world godless.
And think about what that means. It means anybody else in the Data Thought Entity can do this too. Yuki is by no means the most special member of her alien race. She was given a backup (Asakura) specifically because it was deemed necessary, i.e. her superiors believed Yuki required backup. Thus, this alone tells you that they don't think she's perfect. But it gets better. We already know from Book 1 that Yuki has a master. She is not her own boss. Unlike Asahina and Koizumi who belong to organizations, Nagato has a master who is a member of a council (the high council?) within the Data Thought Entity. Thus, one can safely assumes that Nagato's master is more powerful, knowledgeable, etc than she is. One typically cannot be the master of others without being their equal or their better. So ...
  • This means that there are others who could pull off what Yuki pulled off.
  • Which means there are others who can basically steal Haruhi's God powers from her and rewrite history as they see fit.
This may sound like a really cool threat, like a really cool enemy for future books, but in fact it's a major temporal problem. Because think about it ...
  • Are there people in the Data Thought Entity who oppose Nagato's master? Yes. (Including and not necessarily limited to Asakura's master.)
  • Could one of these entities perceivably try to get what they want by giving themselves the power of God? Sure, why not. If the low-ranked Nagato Yuki did it, what's to stop someone in a higher position of power from giving it a go and succeeding?
  • And what would they then do?
You got it. Remember Kyon's threat at the end of the film? Lay one finger on Yuki, he told them, and I'll get Haruhi to help me beat you guys up and rescue Nagato. Uhhhhh... why should they have to fear Kyon or Haruhi when they can just make themselves Gods, as Nagato did, and totally pwn Kyon and Haruhi? Plot hole. Major plot hole. Especially now that Kyon's warned them, i.e. given them a head start. Now they have every reason in the world to start researching how Yuki managed to do what she did (make herself God and make Haruhi not God) and to copy it.

And an enemy who is as powerful as God himself is the worst enemy you can ask for in storytelling. Because the story can only end one of two ways and when your villain is as powerful as God neither of the two endings is good:
  1. the heroes defeat God, leaving you to wonder how the hell they pulled that off. Because if they're not already Gods, and God is already God, then God in his omnipotence can see them coming from a mile away and smush them before they even get 1/100th of an inch within knowledge of how to become like Him.
  2. the heroes are defeated by God, and you're like "What. Umm ... what. " And then your 's soon give way to 's as you realize you just wasted your time on the worst story ever.
I don't want Haruhi to go in either direction, but uh oh. Tanigawa's opened Pandora's Box, I'm afraid, and there's no way of closing it back up.
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Old 12-20-2010, 06:32 PM   #183
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
Spoiler: show
  • When Kyon pressed the Enter key, what exactly happened? Did Nagato transport Kyon back to the night of Tanabata and leave the alternate-reality world otherwise alone?
    • If so, then she just created two different timelines. In one timeline, Kyon suddenly vanishes from existence, leaving behind a very confused Haruhi, Itsuki, and Mikuru a very depressed Yuki. Seems pretty awful. In the other timeline (our original), Kyon reappears and starts to work on a plan that will ensure that the alternate reality timeline doesn't become ours.
    • If not, then did she morph the data of that world into a facsimile of the world the night of Tanabata three years ago? If she did that, then Kyon didn't actually travel back in time, and the timeline's gotten even screwier.
    • If not that, then what?
  • (lost train of thought)
Third: if the Yuki of three years ago can do all of these things, it stands to reason that the Asakura of three years ago can do all of these things too. In other words, we now have to ask ourselves why the Asakura of three years ago wouldn't have attempted to contact her future self (of course she would have!), why she wouldn't have worried when she failed to find a signal beyond three years from then (i.e. our present Asakura-less time), why she wouldn't have instated some failsafes, etc. In other words, we've just introduced a colossally bad game of the hand stacking game you used to play as a kid in grade school. "My hand's on top!" "No, mine us!" "No, MINE is!" "No, mine!" "Mine!" "MINE!" "MIIIINE!" Bad case of the game. We've just started it.
  • Asakura finds out that she's destroyed in the future. So she hatches a plan to defeat Yuki. (Maybe she's the one responsible for Disappearance!)
  • But then Yuki in the future finds out and thwarts this Asakura, too. Original Yuki (turned into a human) is freaking out meanwhile and is very confused.
  • Then out of nowhere comes another Asakura! Holy cow!
  • But then out of nowhere comes a third Kyon with another Yuki in tow! Holy shit!
  • etc, etc
These kinds of things always start off as great fun for everybody but quickly enter into "laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame " territory. And I'm afraid it looks like Tanigawa Nagaru has opened this most unholy of cans of worms.

(interrupted train of thought)
I don't think you can rationalize this stuff yet. We need more information. Be Satoru, not Kokoro!

It's been hinted in the later books that a Slider, the one type of anomalous being Haruhi hadn't roped into her SOS Brigade, will be joining the cast. The very existence of Sliders precludes Adult Mikuru's entire existence and purpose. The logic behind Adult Mikuru's world is that history is an ever-changing series of random variables with a sequence of dependence, and random variables can be generated at any time. If too much of the wrong set gets generated at once, Adult Mikuru's future ceases to exist. If it didn't, there would be no reason to preserve the timeline - since history would have been set in stone, her future exists and phases into an alternate reality. Since alternate realities can't exist, the very existence of a Slider, one who can enter alternate possibilities/parallel realities, adds a major contradiction to the story.

My idea is it's possible that the physical laws apply differently to all four group sets (The Organization, time travelers, IDSE, the sliders), which would be possible under Haruhi. In TYPE-MOON works, for example, each planet has different core of metaphysical laws. The only way they can battle one another is on overlapping concepts. For example, the Aristoles can't be "killed" by humans because they don't know what death is. But they can be "destroyed".

Quote:
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And think about what that means. It means anybody else in the Data Thought Entity can do this too. Yuki is by no means the most special member of her alien race. She was given a backup (Asakura) specifically because it was deemed necessary, i.e. her superiors believed Yuki required backup. Thus, this alone tells you that they don't think she's perfect. But it gets better. We already know from Book 1 that Yuki has a master. She is not her own boss. Unlike Asahina and Koizumi who belong to organizations, Nagato has a master who is a member of a council (the high council?) within the Data Thought Entity. Thus, one can safely assumes that Nagato's master is more powerful, knowledgeable, etc than she is. One typically cannot be the master of others without being their equal or their better.
I feel this is erroneous. The IDSE could merely have created Nagato to do things it could not. Perhaps the IDSE is omnipotent, but not all-powerful, while Nagato is all-powerful while not omnipotent, thus forcing mutual reliance.
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Old 12-20-2010, 06:40 PM   #184
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Omniscience, by definition, means that you have amongst other pieces of knowledge the knowledge necessary to successfully make yourself omnipotent. If you don't know how to make yourself omnipotent, then you're not omniscient. "I know how to do everything but...." is something non-omniscient beings say.

EDIT: As for the slider issue, we've already seen sliders: the Nordic warriors in the student festival. Also, Kyon seems to be the perennial red herring slider.
Spoiler: show
The story of Book 4 is no exception. I was convinced he'd slid to another dimension until I was forced to accept, "No, this is the same world, just restructured."

Last edited by Talon87; 12-20-2010 at 06:43 PM.
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Old 12-20-2010, 06:51 PM   #185
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Quote:
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Thoughts on Book 4's Villain

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  1. She has every reason to be sick and tired of Suzumiya Haruhi. Especially after what happened with Endless Eight. (See!? This is why it was important for fans to have to endure that arc for nine episodes. There really isn't any better way to get the fans to recognize the Hell which Haruhi put Yuki through without partly experiencing it for yourself.)
Told ya.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
As for the slider issue, we've already seen sliders: the Nordic warriors in the student festival.
Remember that the medieval characters were animé-exclusive. They never appeared in the novels.

I really hate to debate time travel... And it's been a while since I've read the novels myself. I'll get back to your concerns after I watch the movie to refresh my memory of how the alternate world came into being. As soon as a DDL of the XviD gets posted, I'll start pestering my friend to get it for me.
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Old 12-20-2010, 07:23 PM   #186
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Well, it's tough debating time travel even for a finished product like the Back to the Future franchise, never mind an incomplete product like the Haruhi franchise. Doppel and I have different opinions on the possibility (or impossibility) of time travel in the real world as well as the specifics behind our reasoning. It makes one man's A++ story with time travel the other man's B+ or A- story.

But I still feel like it's possible for us to explain our satisfaction or dissatisfaction with how a particular story deals with time travel, especially if we very clearly explain what it was we took issue with. In my case here, I just fear that Tanigawa is creating a universe which will ultimately have an impossible history. In other words, he's going to tell us that Kyon went on adventures A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and H and that he had to overcome obstacles 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 to do it; and that it's going to be painfully obvious in hindsight that if obstacle 6 existed from the very beginning of the story then adventure C couldn't have possibly ended the way it did.

This problem almost never affects writers who completely think out their plots before writing. So if Tanigawa is one of those writers and he already knew how he wanted Books 1-10 to go, then great, we've got nothing to worry about. But if Tanigawa created this universe with only Book 1 in mind originally, and if Books 2, 3, 4, and 5 were afterthoughts which came to him later, and if Books 6, 7, and 8 were yet further afterthoughts, and if Book 9 was in a fourth category of how early Tanigawa had thought about it, then I fear that the prospects for the franchise look a little bleak.

Then again: I've only seen Books 1-4 on television. I haven't seen any of Books 5-9, and I think all of the rest of you say that you have. So I'm the only one left who's talking in ignorance of a good chunk of the franchise. And so it's possible that you guys know that my fears are unfounded but that you just can't tell me why because you don't want to spoiler me (you nice guys you ).
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Old 12-20-2010, 08:22 PM   #187
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My favorite portion of the movie was:

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Kyon searched all over the school for signs of the SOS brigade and ended up finding the Literary Club being what it should have had been, the Literary Club! With that, Yuki is frightening in the corner with a crazy Kyon ranting about how things changed. Then as he finally decides to go home, Yuki gives him membership sheet.

Then, after finding normal world Yuki and her tiny clue to fixing everything, he gathers Haruhi and Koizumi from another school and brings Asahina into the room with Yuki. The computer starts up and mentions how Kyon can try to fix the world. He chooses and hands Yuki her membership sheet and apologizes.

My heart literally broke. It was like Kyon punched poor, helpless, bookworm Yuki in the face and ran off laughing with the Haruhi as his girlfriend, driving off into the sunset. Okay, that really isn't how it was, but I couldn't help but feel bad for the poor girl. The only reassurance was when Kyon promised to protect Yuki at the end, but it felt more like Kyon was trying to protect his happy little world rather than Yuki specifically.


Also, watching the movie at a theater room at Comic Con was definitely a grand experience that can't be captured by watching the movie by yourself in your room on your computer or DVD player. Even though I had a shitty seat and had to stretch my neck just to watch, you really feel the group emotion when great moments happen.
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Old 12-20-2010, 08:40 PM   #188
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Then again: I've only seen Books 1-4 on television. I haven't seen any of Books 5-9, and I think all of the rest of you say that you have. So I'm the only one left who's talking in ignorance of a good chunk of the franchise. And so it's possible that you guys know that my fears are unfounded but that you just can't tell me why because you don't want to spoiler me (you nice guys you ).
I will say this: time-travel doesn't end with Book IV. And I don't mean just because Kyon still has to take Nagato back and save himself.
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Old 12-20-2010, 09:07 PM   #189
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My favorite portion of the movie was:

Spoiler: show
Kyon searched all over the school for signs of the SOS brigade and ended up finding the Literary Club being what it should have had been, the Literary Club! With that, Yuki is frightening in the corner with a crazy Kyon ranting about how things changed. Then as he finally decides to go home, Yuki gives him membership sheet.

Then, after finding normal world Yuki and her tiny clue to fixing everything, he gathers Haruhi and Koizumi from another school and brings Asahina into the room with Yuki. The computer starts up and mentions how Kyon can try to fix the world. He chooses and hands Yuki her membership sheet and apologizes.

My heart literally broke. It was like Kyon punched poor, helpless, bookworm Yuki in the face and ran off laughing with the Haruhi as his girlfriend, driving off into the sunset. Okay, that really isn't how it was, but I couldn't help but feel bad for the poor girl. The only reassurance was when Kyon promised to protect Yuki at the end, but it felt more like Kyon was trying to protect his happy little world rather than Yuki specifically.
The way you describe it makes me think I'm probably gonna cry at that scene. ;.; Disappearance Yuki is almost exactly like myself IRL, which is why I empathize so strongly with her.

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Also, watching the movie at a theater room at Comic Con was definitely a grand experience that can't be captured by watching the movie by yourself in your room on your computer or DVD player. Even though I had a shitty seat and had to stretch my neck just to watch, you really feel the group emotion when great moments happen.
How I wish I had been there...
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Old 12-20-2010, 09:43 PM   #190
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It's a pretty crushing scene. I agree with Loki about how it felt like Kyon basically shat in her face.

Spoiler: show
Going into this film, I had been expecting that I was going to come out of it a bigger believer in a Kyon x Yuki pairing.

But I actually came out of this film believing that Kyon x Yuki is far less likely to happen than I was by the end of Book 3. And it's because, canonically, Kyon had a chance to spend the rest of his days with alternate reality Yuki and he told her "Fuck dat shit."

And it wasn't even just that he told her "Fuck dat shit." Had it only been that, I could still have believed in a Kyon x Yuki pairing. After all, I myself preferred the real Yuki to the alternate reality Yuki. Maybe Kyon did too! Maybe Kyon was simply rejecting the alternate reality Yuki, thinking "I'd rather have a shot at the real Nagato than a guaranteed life with her human alternate." Still pretty cruel to alternate Yuki, but hey, at least it'd make sense to me and it'd still be in keeping with Kyon x Yuki.

But he doesn't even do that. He pretty much asks himself in his internal monologue, "Would I rather be with alternate Yuki or would I rather be with Haruhi?" And he concludes, "Haruhi, man. Haruhi is so much fun. Man, I love Haruhi. Haruhi all the way. "

And I was just D: .
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Old 12-20-2010, 09:52 PM   #191
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Book IV wasn't the final culmination of Yuki x Kyon, it was more like the beginning. I'm not as sure if the decision to change the world back would have come as easy (it wasn't easy the first time!) to Book IX Kyon as it did to Book IV. After this incident, he never looks at Yuki the same way again.
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Old 12-20-2010, 09:57 PM   #192
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Someone's uploaded Mazui's 1080i sub to Youtube. Doubtless, it'll be taken down within the next 24 hours. But just in case, I figure I may as well link you to it now so you can maybe get a chance to watch the film sooner rather than later, lilblue: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zyfEcXLRQ8

Also, here's the link to the specific part of the movie Loki and I talked about:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeS_bGkheP8#t=10m55s

I'd recommend watching it in the context of the entire film, but if you absolute cannot wait and want to see the specific scene, then there's the link. Pretty sad.

DOPPEL, WTF. Spoiler tags, man. Fucking A.
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Old 12-20-2010, 10:07 PM   #193
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Huh?

Excuse me. I only used Book IX because it's the most recent book, I don't mean to imply there are Yuki x Kyon moments in it. I don't remember. I'm just saying that Book IV isn't the end of Yuki's story, so if you want to ship Yuki x Kyon Book IV is not definitive confirmation that such a pairing is never going to be.
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Old 12-20-2010, 10:08 PM   #194
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
It's a pretty crushing scene. I agree with Loki about how it felt like Kyon basically shat in her face.

Spoiler: show
Going into this film, I had been expecting that I was going to come out of it a bigger believer in a Kyon x Yuki pairing.

But I actually came out of this film believing that Kyon x Yuki is far less likely to happen than I was by the end of Book 3. And it's because, canonically, Kyon had a chance to spend the rest of his days with alternate reality Yuki and he told her "Fuck dat shit."

And it wasn't even just that he told her "Fuck dat shit." Had it only been that, I could still have believed in a Kyon x Yuki pairing. After all, I myself preferred the real Yuki to the alternate reality Yuki. Maybe Kyon did too! Maybe Kyon was simply rejecting the alternate reality Yuki, thinking "I'd rather have a shot at the real Nagato than a guaranteed life with her human alternate." Still pretty cruel to alternate Yuki, but hey, at least it'd make sense to me and it'd still be in keeping with Kyon x Yuki.

But he doesn't even do that. He pretty much asks himself in his internal monologue, "Would I rather be with alternate Yuki or would I rather be with Haruhi?" And he concludes, "Haruhi, man. Haruhi is so much fun. Man, I love Haruhi. Haruhi all the way. "

And I was just D: .
When I first read the novel, my impression was that Kyon didn't choose Haruhi over alternate Yuki specifically, but rather the SOS Brigade, which includes real Yuki. It's the same as when he and Haruhi were in Closed Space. If he loved only her, he could've just chosen to stay with her in the new world. Instead he wanted to go back to see everyone again.

Though he'll never openly admit it, what Kyon treasures above all else are the friends he's made, and the crazy experiences he gets to share with all of them. I don't think he'd jeapordize that group harmony for the sake of romance, which is likely part of the reason he's reluctant to make a real move towards anyone.

Edit- Thanks for the links, though I promised I would watch the entire film with my friend. (Plus I can't see much by myself on dial-up.) If it's still up tomorrow, I'll contact her and see if we can't arrange a meeting soon. Though I'd still prefer to wait for an XViD DDL.

Last edited by lilboocorsola; 12-20-2010 at 10:14 PM.
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Old 12-20-2010, 10:10 PM   #195
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Doppel: Unless I read your spoilers wrong, you basically told me that in Book IX, these two things go down:
Spoiler: show
1. the world is changed again and it's up to Kyon to restore it
2. he never looks at Yuki the same way again

Two HUGE spoilers for someone who's been repeatedly yammering about how he only knows what happens in Books 1-4. C'mon, man!
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Old 12-20-2010, 10:17 PM   #196
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Originally Posted by lilbluecorsola View Post


When I first read the novel, my impression was that Kyon didn't choose Haruhi over alternate Yuki specifically, but rather the SOS Brigade, which includes real Yuki. It's the same as when he and Haruhi were in Closed Space. If he loved only her, he could've just chosen to stay with her in the new world. Instead he wanted to go back to see everyone again.

Though he'll never openly admit it, what Kyon treasures above all else are the friends he's made, and the crazy experiences he gets to share with all of them. I don't think he'd jeapordize that group harmony for the sake of romance, which is likely part of the reason he's reluctant to make a real move towards anyone.
You're absolutely right that this is what he says. Kyon's narration suggests what you've written. However, what is shown on screen is another matter entirely. The movie very clearly depicts Kyon's internal monologue as ...

Spoiler: show
Kyon walking away from alternate Yuki, tugging at his sleeve from one side of a subway station ticket-gate, and walking towards Haruhi in their classroom at North High. The visuals make it a very stark Alternate Yuki vs. Haruhi contrast rather than an Alternate Reality vs. Original Reality contrast.


But yes, there's a humorous moment right there in the film, no doubt lifted straight from the pages of the book, where Kyon tells the reader/listener exactly what he thinks of anybody who would have made the opposite choice.
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Old 12-20-2010, 10:30 PM   #197
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You're absolutely right that this is what he says. Kyon's narration suggests what you've written. However, what is shown on screen is another matter entirely. The movie very clearly depicts Kyon's internal monologue as ...

Spoiler: show
Kyon walking away from alternate Yuki, tugging at his sleeve from one side of a subway station ticket-gate, and walking towards Haruhi in their classroom at North High. The visuals make it a very stark Alternate Yuki vs. Haruhi contrast rather than an Alternate Reality vs. Original Reality contrast.


But yes, there's a humorous moment right there in the film, no doubt lifted straight from the pages of the book, where Kyon tells the reader/listener exactly what he thinks of anybody who would have made the opposite choice.
In that case, the movie visuals seriously embellished the script. I don't recall Kyon ever specifically mentioning Haruhi as his reason for turning back.

Not that you've told me this, I wish the film could've depicted the whole gang on the other side instead of just Haruhi. Meh, artistic license wins, I guess.
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Old 12-20-2010, 11:19 PM   #198
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I have to admit the whole Kyon/Yuki thing has always been possible since the day she saved him from blue haired knife girl I can't bother trying to spell her name and he said, "I'm not a glasses man," (not the exactly quote).
Spoiler: show
The movie just points out that Yuki isn't as emotionless as she seems. Clearly she can feel tired of the chaos and cleaning up Haruhi's messes. And in a sense, her more ideal world would have had been herself with Kyon in a simple literary club. With Kyon rejecting her more ideal scenario, it really shows how... idunno, but it's not good for Yuki.
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Old 12-21-2010, 12:40 AM   #199
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Doppel: Unless I read your spoilers wrong, you basically told me that in Book IX, these two things go down:
Spoiler: show
1. the world is changed again and it's up to Kyon to restore it
2. he never looks at Yuki the same way again

Two HUGE spoilers for someone who's been repeatedly yammering about how he only knows what happens in Books 1-4. C'mon, man!
Ahaha, you're reading too much into what I say.

Remember, I don't recall anything specific about Book IX, and I'm not sure if I can even trust the non-specific. I was just using it because Book IX is the most recent release, so "somewhere between Books V and IX, there is more Kyon x Yuki interaction". Book IV changed Kyon's perception of Yuki forever, and that influence is felt down the line.
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Old 12-24-2010, 12:34 AM   #200
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The next novel release date has been announced: May 25, 2011.

...And I hear it's going to be two books: "Before" and "After".
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