Appleseed: Ex Machina – RANT

“Please Judge! I swear it wasn’t my intention to assault this title. It was a total accident that we even met. I only saw the first 20min and already reached for the shotgun… What? The Swissknife? Well, after noticing that the lock in the closet in which I keep all my firearms has jammed I reach for the next best thing.”

Ok, for those who may not know – “Appleseed: Ex Machina” (2007) is the 2nd movie after “Appleseed” (2004) which was based on a manga under the same name created by Masamune Shirow (yeah, the GiTS dude – *I am not worthy**I am not worthy**I am not worthy*).

So about he first movie, the CGI was – I guess – so-so for 2004, it didn’t really aged well. Besides that “Appleseed” was good… not great, but good. The fight scenes choreography was done well, the female lead actually felt human, story wasn’t too transparent, the writers concentrated on the tensions between Humans and Bioroids… as they should have. It also felt a bit cyberpunkish. There was also the soundtrack – this plays during the opening credits and a few minutes later this.

Imagine my surprise when I found out that there was a second movie out… for something like four years. Oh goody – I thought – something entertaining to watch for the evening. Here is a number of thoughts that past through my head while watching the first 20min of “Appleseed: Ex Machina” (that’s how long I watched it before hitting STOP):

1. *Two troop transports fly between the buildings* Late XVIII buildings in an post-apocalyptic utopian future? ESWAT changed their awesome tiltrotor planes to flying eggs? Ok, so they changed the setting a bit, this is not necessary a bad thing – my gut was telling me something different but I ignored it. How naive of me.

2. *Troops in the transport are getting ready* The ESWAT is engaging cyborgs without any Landmate (Battle-Armor) support? Yeah, I understand this is a hostage situation in an enclosed space but not even a few of them in case that the situation goes belly up… like it usually does? Besides, cyborgs are no pushovers as far as I remember from the first movie.

3. *Opening Credits: Produced by John Woo* Wow, you mean THE John Woo?

4. *Deunan uses a sleek move to get to the roof and eliminate the sentry at the same time* This is strange. Did she shoot that guy in the head? What I saw is a close up of our protagonist and some fragments flying from off-screen. Hmm, if they actually showed the dude bitting the bullet it would be three time as cool. They did exactly that a movie earlier, glorious slow-mo included.

5. *The most pathetic excuse for a fire-fight ensues after which you will wish Woo would be directing this* Wow, just wow.

6. *Poseidon emissary arrives* Wait, was Athena ever that hot? – Of course not. Nike was the hot one, Athena was just old.

7. *Deunan confronts the Construction Landmate* Wait, why is she still trying to stop that mecha, the ESWAT has already arrived… and they have guns. Just ask the guy to surrender, that’s all – You know what is worse then stupid bravado? Pointless bravado.

8. *A Bioroid is cloned from Briareos DNA. Deunan is ordered to become his partner to “bring out his full potential”*

Ok, let’s stop here and think about this for a moment. We have two lovers from which, one lost his body and had to became a cyborg to survive, the second one still a full fledge human. Now let’s add to this equivalent a third person, a clone of the lover who is now the cyborg. You don’t have to have a Ph.D. in human psychology to know that this will not end well.

And yes, I understand Bioroids had their emotions suppressed and may not exactly understand what this love triangle will result in (envy, lust, hate, guilt, grief etc). Then again you don’t have to understand how exactly a 82mm mortar shell works to know that tossing it into the fire WILL NOT END WELL.

A hell, fuck the moral issue. What about the legal issue? Don’t they have any laws in this society against this type of shit? If this would be the GiTS universe Section 9 would be going ballistic on Olympus ass.

Wait, another thought just occurred to me – If Briareos and Deunan work in ESWAT on the same terms why did they go with the first one if they wanted the superior soldier material? I think it’s pointless to argue which one of them was faster, smarter, stronger to still have an organic body.

Ugh my head hurts, I’m thinking too much about this, let’s get back to the numbers.

9. *Deunan acts like a hyperactive mentally handicapped (read: retarded) prepubescent girl every time she does or says something (point 5, 7, 8 and a few less important moments)* Isn’t this like the opposite of what she was in the first movie? – all of this was accompanied by a strangely familiar feeling, a familiarity I couldn’t put a finger on… yet.

10. *Hitomi’s birthday party* Good god, every male participant looks like a fucking fag, wonder what kind of a dress Deunan will have? Probably something red and… :headdesk: WHAT THE FUCK!?! What the fuck is that get-up? She looks like a fucking nun! And why are all those faggots gasping, she lost any sexappel she ever… wait… “faggots”, that’s it… SWEET POT SMOKING JESUS!

No Jesus, not now. Later.

It all became clear at that moment. The familiar feeling was the one I got when watching a really shitty JRPG cutscens. In short – characters don’t make sense, the story also… and nobody has any taste in clothing. Beautiful, a JRPG writer wannabe doing a script for a movie. What could go wrong?

All in all, to totally fuck up a movie in the first twenty minutes, it has to be a new record. This of course aroused my curiosity so I did some serious research (I checked wikipedia). There are four things I wanted to underline:

- the first “Appleseed” was rated “R”, this one on the other hand got the “PG-13″ tag (I think I got my answer for point 4). Now, folks. You don’t have to be a film critic to understand that when a sequel gets a lower MPAA (or whatever the fuck they call it) rating, something is clearly afloat. Ever heard the term “kiddy-friendly”?

- (now this came as a surprise) both movies were directed by the same dude. Taking into account how different they are you have to think – either this guy is not cut out to be a director or he spend his whole time drinking sake and scratching his balls… and the writers were let loose on a rampage.

- about the writers (dudes responsible for the screenplay in this case). There were two responsible for the first movie – Haruka Handa and Tsutomu Kamishiro. The second movie had one – Kiyoto Takeuchi. Now, if you check them out, their work I mean. You will probably come to the same conclusion and the answer why Ex Machina is what it is.

- and last (this one actually made me fell out of my chair) concerning that horrible dress Deunan wore. It was actually designed, designed by Miuccia Prada… you know, one of those professional fashion people. The person who came up with this idea (to employ Prada) should be taken behind a barn and shot in the back of the head. Seriously, do I have to explain everything here? For a dress to be hot it has to fulfill one of the two basic requirements: it has to have a cleavage or be tight around certain parts. This isn’t fucking rocket science people.

The conclusion of this rant is that “Appleseed: Ex Machina” did everything wrong what “Appleseed” did right. And it’s bad, no wonder that I never heard about it. Who would want to speak about this piece of shit.