The Pitters' Place

Spoilers:

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The Pixar writers are excellent story tellers, this is true.

But, sticking with 2015, I'd put Mad Max into that category of rare blockbusters that present intellectual and emotional stakes really well.

Mad Max was brilliant. Everyone is hung up on the action, yes, but you were kept guessing the whole time. There was no clear cut winner until the end. And Max was presented in such a way that he could have died at any moment and you'd be OK with that. He was a hopeless, directionless, chaotic, insane character that we all fell in love with, but understood that he could exist in the same way alive or dead. This is why he took up the causes of other people; he knew he didn't have anything to fight for other than survival. People around him had hope for something better, and he was their best chance to give that to them. I think Mad Max presented monumental stakes really well in that those stakes never belonged to the main character. Max was going to drop off the girls in their new paradise home and then move on. His own personal stakes don't go beyond surviving, but when you put other people's huge stakes on the main character's shoulders, the movie becomes interesting. Max is made into nothing but a vessel, a means to get the girls across the desert safely. In this way the writers could have Max do, be and say anything.

I'm getting off track. The point is, I appreciate Pixar and agree that their movies often steer clear of typical bullshit (except for Cars, that shit sucks), but there are plenty of mainstream flicks that do that. Take everything Nolan and Tarantino have done, for example. All blockbusters, all atypical films.

sikax wrote:The Pixar writers are excellent story tellers, this is true.

But, sticking with 2015, I'd put Mad Max into that category of rare blockbusters that present intellectual and emotional stakes really well.

Mad Max was brilliant. Everyone is hung up on the action, yes, but you were kept guessing the whole time. There was no clear cut winner until the end. And Max was presented in such a way that he could have died at any moment and you'd be OK with that. He was a hopeless, directionless, chaotic, insane character that we all fell in love with, but understood that he could exist in the same way alive or dead. This is why he took up the causes of other people; he knew he didn't have anything to fight for other than survival. People around him had hope for something better, and he was their best chance to give that to them. I think Mad Max presented monumental stakes really well in that those stakes never belonged to the main character. Max was going to drop off the girls in their new paradise home and then move on. His own personal stakes don't go beyond surviving, but when you put other people's huge stakes on the main character's shoulders, the movie becomes interesting. Max is made into nothing but a vessel, a means to get the girls across the desert safely. In this way the writers could have Max do, be and say anything.

I'm getting off track. The point is, I appreciate Pixar and agree that their movies often steer clear of typical bullshit (except for Cars, that shit sucks), but there are plenty of mainstream flicks that do that. Take everything Nolan and Tarantino have done, for example. All blockbusters, all atypical films.

I'll admit the title is misleading. The main point of the article is that people tend to think if someone's life isn't in danger, that means the stakes aren't high.

Oh. Yeah, I guess that's true with most blockbusters with superheros and shit.

sikax wrote:Oh. Yeah, I guess that's true with most blockbusters with superheros and shit.

And Tarantino & some Nolan movies .

The stakes in Nolan's Batmans had nothing to do with anyone's personal safety. The fate of Gotham's soul, man!

Cars is the third best Pixar movie, fact.