And they found themselves cheering and rooting for their guy and screaming at the finish as though they were watching it live and not history that happened decades ago This flashback is shown to us with washed-out color, as though it were a black-and-white film
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Royalton snarling with relish in Speed's face "I'll tell you what's going to happen. You're going to march out of here all self-righteous and you're going to do everything in your power to prove what I've told you is a lie."
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"But you won't. You won't win, you won't place, you won't even finish the race. You'll never win a race again, no matter what you do. Because [Hollywood] isn't about [movies], and it isn't about [filmmakers]. It's about money, and it's about power."
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(Lana's shockingly frank interview before Jupiter Ascending, seven years later in 2015 "We've never had a #1 box office hit since V for Vendetta. This is the last chance they're giving us to do so, and if we fail this time, I don't think we ever will again.")
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It fucking hurts like hell to think about I can only read this movie in that real-life context, that making this movie itself was an attempt to escape from all the bullshit, to make a movie that's about the love of making movies
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Everything else -- money, fame, fans -- is bullshit, it's a distraction The reward for making a movie is *getting to make a movie* The reward for being a racecar driver is *they let you drive a fucking racecar*
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The character's experience of driving the car and the creators' experience of actually making those scenes is one and the same Marveling at the beauty of the technology, the power of it, the way the machine and the human controlling it harmonize with each other
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Mom Racer's little speech that it's not about the trophies or the cash prizes or even keeping their business afloat It's just about watching him race "Like painting a picture, or playing music... the things you do that no one else can do... it's beautiful"
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The Wachowskis, of course, were not literally attacked by ninja assassins and did not literally have mail bombs sent to them and their competitors in the film industry were not literally trying to run them off a cliff to their deaths But in 2008 it sure must've felt like it
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And that cheesy family adventure movie question -- "Why do you keep doing it if it just puts you and your family in danger? Why keep doing it if everyone's spreading lies about you and your fame turns to infamy? Why do it if you know they'll never let you win again?"
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I'm pretty sure Lana has actually said in interviews the same line she gives Speed Racer here "I have to [make movies]... It's the only thing I can do"
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Everyone else sees this machine, this device, this tech, this hunk of metal, as a tool It's a business -- it's for transporting people to and from work, it's for hauling cargo across the country, it's to provide customers for tourist traps and fast food restaurants
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(It's to make commercials and trick people into buying shit It's for putting in every corner of every public place to create a ubiquitous surveillance state and get people arrested It's for making blurry selfies and sexting and other random social garbage)
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You are one of the only ones, the lucky ones, who gets to use one of these things *just because it's cool* Who gets to push it to the limit, to see how fucking cool it is, this miracle the eggheads invented and never understood when they did
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The feeling of moving faster than any animal with legs has ever moved, the landscape turning into a colorful blur, the G-forces clutching your body like a fist, your eyes and hands and nerves becoming one with a steel beast with the power of five hundred fucking horses
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Knowing how steadicam and greenscreen and VFX workstation fit together just like engine and transmission and wheels Pointing and clicking and like magic here's a hail of gunfire, here's a fiery explosion, here's a majestic sunset and a moon that fills half the sky
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I'm allowed to do anything, no speed limit, no red lights, no traffic laws of any kind I get to go as hard as my skill and my tech and my courage can take me
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I can film a flashback that takes place *during* the framing scene flashing back to it, literally overlapping each other through superposition I can break the rules of cinematic space, I can have things and people my character imagines literally physically wander into frame
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(Speed Racer walked where Sense8 ran here, and Rian Johnson, again, owes Lana and Lilly a cup of coffee) I can use modern VFX to make "live-action" transitions -- wild whip-pans and absurdly long zooms -- only dreamt of in the tackiest Saturday morning cartoons
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I can do anything I want, because for now I'm in the driver's seat, and even if tomorrow I wake up a bankrupt laughingstock, if the money men never let me touch the wheel again, right now I'm redlining the engine and I just broke the sound barrier and nothing can fucking stop me
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("I don't -- I don't believe it! SPEED RACER IS DRIVING UP A SHEER CLIFF! THIS SHOULDN'T BE POSSIBLE!" A moment that, as we say, addresses the audience on multiple levels)
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In this appreciation thread I will add one more thing I don't know if Lana Wachowski has an ADHD diagnosis, but this movie is an absolutely ADHD movie and I mean that in the best possible way The movie makes that clear from the very first scene
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It's literally little kid Speed Racer being unable to focus on his schoolwork, compulsively stimming, his mental landscape morphing into a racetrack His teacher bringing in his parents for the concerned family meeting
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When he's in that zone, when he's hyperfocused on getting to that finish line, everything makes sense, everything fits together, he's on top of every single thing he needs to know and he's fucking unstoppable When he's not in the car and it's just him, he's helpless
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(I think this is notable because it's a major shift from the original character, who was a stereotypical all-around awesome dude including being a straight-A student This little detail feels... very real)
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(Lana's interviews about her tough childhood, struggling with dysphoria and with just generally being a lonely nerd Never feeling actually present in the world around her, throwing herself into theatre and movies hoping they could teach her to really *be*)
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The message of this movie, corny as it is, is this message about eudaimonia, about what it means to really succeed in life, as a human being That the purpose of art isn't to make money or to earn fans or get laid -- it's not even to make the world a better place and fix society
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Speed gets all of those things in the end -- even changing the world and fixing society, thanks to the hilariously unapologetic way this world is built completely around Racecars Are Serious Business ("The world economy rests on the outcome of a children's card game")
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But that's not the reason to do it The reason to put the bad guys in prison and to usher in a new era of freedom and prosperity is... he gets to keep on driving The reason to make a movie you hope will save the world is so there will be a world where you can make more movies
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The point of being alive is to have that one thing you're damn good at that no one else can do quite the same way you can, and to fucking NAIL IT and know that in that moment YOU ARE AWESOME And to look at your loved ones and see that joy reflected between you and them
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(As
@FilmCritHulk points out one of the ways this movie nails it, where a wussier movie would just be schmaltz, is the unapologetic use of quick cuts and sensory overload We fully see his victory in the rapid-fire succession of everyone else reaction to it)Show this thread - Show replies
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