Good commentary, if a little drunker than usual.

I was too old for the cartoon show or the toys, so the movie was of no interest. I found it to be kind of fun, but Teague got it when he said that the movie's main problem is that the stakes are not well defined. Without a good understanding of who wants what and why, the movie really is just a circus, as Trey said.

However, I'm guessing hardly anyone involved imagined that they could make a genuinely interesting story out of cartoon toy car robots. I think people forget how Batman started in 1940; it was way closer to the TV show than to The Dark Knight.

I think it takes a long time and a couple of really creative, genre-loving story-tellers (like Frank Miller) to demonstrate how a silly genre character actually has something interesting to reveal about the human condition. Once someone has done that (and maybe the kids who first embraced the character have grown up to make movies), then you can have your Dark Knight.

And if you try to skip the step of having it embraced by kids who grow up to appreciate a more mature version, I think you get Underworld and Blade, hollow and overly serious story-telling.

I live in South Bend, where I'm a traveling corporate training consultant.

I didn't mean to take anyone to school or anything, but Gregory asked for specifics. It was fascinating to listen as you first played along with the film makers' game (these aren't humans but they are totally equal to humans) and then tore it apart (maybe they're caste-bound creatures; we don't know). You'll notice that in my comments, I was always playing along with the film makers, but I recognize that it's perfectly valid not to.

Okay, Gregory, here are some quotes, all from 1:18:40 to 1:31:00. I apologize for the length, but it was a really intense discussion. The beauty of the film is that you can say these things, and it's kind of okay. It doesn't make you a racists to parrot racist arguments from the 19th century because the movie isn't about human races. It's about aliens. Except that... really... it is about humans (as is pointed out a couple of times in the commentary).

Again, this was my favorite Down in Front commentary.

I really don't think you can call it even. Suggesting that scattered violence by oppressed peoples is equal to the conquest, oppression, and discrimination visited on them is just silly. However, I agree that you can make a reasonable argument that, if you have been conquered, you need to eventually get over it.

Trey then tells the PJ O'Rourke story and emphasizes the contrition instead of the oppression itself (this was 1989, immediately before apartheid was dismantled).

It's the difference between the guy who used to beat his wife and now treats her right and the guy who is still beating his wife. The first guy gets to tell the second guy that he's being a bad person.

Then everyone but Trey begins rationalizing the treatment as being actually pretty good, sounding hilariously like Barbara Bush after Hurricane Katrina. Then Michael comes to his senses and does a 180.

These are exactly the same arguments white men have made about blacks and Indians since encountering them. "This is fine, by their standards. They can't take care of themselves. They're savages in their homeland. They take each other as slaves." And so on.

Brian then makes up a back story that makes the humans sound magnanimous. "Presumably" we tried to help them, but "presumably" the prawns didn't do anything to help themselves. The film is at fault for not providing that back story, but you don't get to make up your own. You could just as easily say that humans ruined the aliens' potential to form a working society by giving them cat food, which seems to act like a drug on them. That's at least something we actually see.

The film makers would disagree with you. The movie is all about how the ruling class mistreats an underclass they don't like, because it's a nearly exact mirror of actual South African society with regard to impoverished foreign refugees. You can argue that the film fails in that the aliens really are different from those real-life people (we don't know; they never present the aliens' side), but that's not what Teague says, altho Michael sort of makes that point when he says the aliens should not have to be digging thru garbage.

But the reason for that historically among humans is that one group has conquered the other and failed to exterminate or assimilate them and/or it stems from religious and/or racial intolerance. All three of these are morally unacceptable in a modern civilization.

Brian immediately argues against Trey's premise, but Trey defends his premise to a point.

Michael and Trey then compare the aliens to raptors and Komodo dragons, which is contrary to the story the film is trying to present (they are clearly smarter than animals) but does square nicely with historical defenses of racism. (I'm not really suggesting they are 19th century social Darwinists, of course. As far as I know, they don't even own fob watches.)

Trey then uses Palestinians as an example of an angry people who can't be satisfied because the ruling class just doesn't want to give up their superior position (my wording). Brian seems to misunderstand his point and points out that it is only a small minority of unreasonable Palestinians who just really want to blow up Jews (most Palestinians have given up trying to get fair treatment, he seems to suggest approvingly). But Trey's point is, I think, that the problem didn't start with them. It started with Jews relocating to Palestine, taking over, and forcing Palestinians into second-class citizen status. But he doesn't actually say that.

Trey then uses Iraq as an example that assimilation is about the only way to resolve these things, even if assimilation comes in the form of extermination (rather than education, tolerance, and anti-discrimination laws). That's an oversimplification of what has happened in Iraq; the Sunni and Shi'a haven't really exterminated each other. They were forced to stop fighting by the surge in US troops. That seems (as much as I hate to admit it) to have provided a cooling off period that may create a lasting peace.

But it's also pretend-realism. Just because the solution to these problems is really hard doesn't mean it's impossible and we shouldn't try to achieve reconciliation. After all, different races and religions really do live together in harmony in many places around the world, even if there is an occasional racist murder.

Overall, it was a really stimulating discussion, but I feel like everybody sometimes fell right into the film makers' trap of feeling like the humans' treatment of the aliens was justified even tho, intellectually, you know perfectly well that that sort of treatment is never justified (like watching Cops and going, "I would just beat the shit out of that guy with my stick and then taser him.").

I take issue somewhat with the film makers in making the aliens so unlikeable and never presenting their point of view. It needed even just one alien saying, "We weren't like this before we came here. We traveled across the fucking galaxy. We're a civilized people. We just need a structured environment, that's all. There are no jobs for us to do here. And the cat food, man. The cat food turned us into bums."

A particularly good commentary, guys. I agree with nearly all your points about the film's greatness and weaknesses. However, I find myself in stark disagreement on your broader political positions.

By the end, you very nearly conclude that apartheid is not a bad way of dealing with people you can't get along with. Good luck on the coin flip that puts you in the oppressor tribe vs the oppressed tribe.

Thruout history, the primary reason two groups who cohabitate don't get along is that one of them conquered the other and social stigmas of race or religion keep them from integrating. That's the source of the problem in Israel and was the source of the problem in South Africa, Northern Ireland, and the New World.... That puts the blame on the oppressors. You don't get a pass just by saying, "Well that was kind of a long time ago that we conquered you, stole your land, and forced you into ghettos. Why can't you be civil and stop setting off bombs? This is why we still actively discriminate against you, you know."

And apartheid wasn't established in South Africa until the 1950s, just when the entire rest of the world had collectively come to the realization that we all needed to try to enfranchise disenfranchised groups. So, yes, South Africa was just like America... only 300 years later when they should have known better.

However, for the record, I'm against trying to negotiate with komodo dragons. Those lying fuckers can't be trusted.

I was slightly disappointed by the shirt. The transfer had some white specks in it. I took a marker and blackened them. It may have just been this one transfer that was a little iffy, and they decided to send it out rather than re-do it.

Right. I guess I just never took that remark literally. It just seems like any other discussion of girls by military men; they always seem to claim that the other guy's date was a dude.

Iron Man comes to mind, and I think there was a similar thing in Top Gun.

Terrific commentary. I enjoyed this on first viewing up to the end, which I felt just didn't make any sense.

I'm with Brian that the theme of the movie is what these characters will do for their art, which is fake magic. Introducing real magic undercuts that badly.

Ending on 75 water tanks full of dead Wolverines is just ridiculous. Even if you buy the unspoken premise that he'd never want a surviving copy (because of the problems with Root), he'd still just empty the one tank and reuse it.

Great work, guys. This movie has a lot going for it, but the fact that it basically retraces the steps of the first one is an insurmountable problem. Vigo works for me (altho there does need to be more villainy) but the walking Liberty doesn't, for some reason. Logically speaking, doesn't Vigo just want *a* baby? What a terrible idea it is to decide to steal the baby of a woman who is personal friends with the Ghostbusters. Crack babies practically littered the streets in 1989!

I'm *not* looking forward to GB3. Has *any* 25-years-later sequel worked? Maybe Rocky Balboa, I guess.

Terrific commentary! Great comparisons to other movies, and I loved the discussion of breakfast cooker inventions and the town square set.

I don’t think the mogwai are supposed to be entirely natural. I think they’re supposed to be partly magical. They're biology just doesn't make any sense. I agree that they should have done more sabotaging and less attacking; it would have been sort of a reverse Home Alone then.

Good work and fun, altho certainly a love-fest that is a bit light on analysis of why the film works until very close to the end. No one should fault you, Teague, for loving this movie.

Re: Fifth-DIFer William Goldman. Does this mean we can expect Down in Front to tackle "Magic" and "Memoirs of an Invisible Man"?

Can't post a comment on the blog because the preview pops up a Captcha in a non-scrolling box that's too small for it, so I can't see the Captcha text entry field or Submit button.

This is great, but are you going to eventually put the direct links in the front page listings themselves?

Imagine the Star Trek fan who wants to tell others about your Star Trek 6 commentary:

"Go to downinfront.net and click on Archive and then scroll thru the thumbnails in the little box until you find the one that looks like the poster for Star Trek 6, and click on that."
"Is that the one with the Enterprise coming out of Kirk and Spock's heads?"
"No, no, no. You're thinking of the poster for Star Trek 5. The Star Trek 6 poster has the Enterprise about to teabag a Klingon."
"I thought that was Star Trek 7."
"NO! Star Trek 7 was Generations! That had the Enterprise coming out of Kirk and Picard's heads!"
"Found it. Oh, crap. The link's broken."

Aaaaaaaand scene.

By the way, the download link actually IS broken on the Star Trek 6 listing. The file name is missing the 3 at the end.