Specifically, it's Protagonist Journey To Villain.

NO! NO more pagetoppers. I never know what to link...

Topper, I guess.

edited 16th Mar '12 2:04:10 PM by Bluespade

-sigh- Typical that my friend would recommend something with a Villian Protagonist. Not that I don't mind movies like that, but he has an entirely unhealthy fascination with evil characters.

Haven't seen Chronicle but I really was expecting a sort of teen comedy or something when I saw a trailer for it, up until he flings a car into the river.

Yeah, interesting whiplash for me.

Well that's not too bad, as long as there's a good guy in it, who stays good throughout the whole thing and ultimately stops him

edited 16th Mar '12 2:00:30 PM by gingerninja666

I've heard pretty good things about Chronicle, but I'll probably wait until it hits DVD before I see it.

Ginger, I'm not really sure it could be easily divided into a good guy/bad guy scenario from my understanding.

edited 16th Mar '12 2:01:57 PM by Drenius

I thought there was a lot of Mood Whiplash in this thread have reading Kegisak gushing about Journey, immediately followed by discussion of sanding Rarity toys.

edited 16th Mar '12 2:01:13 PM by storyyeller

Don't forget Spirited Away

Now, how to link it to ponies...

Hm.. has Nausicaa been crossed with ponies?

edited 16th Mar '12 2:04:33 PM by Drenius

Which pony would like Spirited Away the most?

Since people seem interested:

Chronicle is a movie about three high school boys who discover some kind of weird, probably alien device out in the woods. After messing with it like morons, it activates, and each of them are granted powerful telekinetic abilities. They spend months experimenting and growing stronger with their powers, learning how to fly, protect themselves from harm via forcefields, and other uses. Rather than try and become superheros or something, they pretty much just play around with their powers, using them for their own amusement. None of them are particularly close at first, but as they spend time together they become very good friends. Unfortunately Andrew, the main character, has an extremely shitty life and some very worrisome tendencies. Eventually, he snaps, surprise surprise, and goes on a massive rampage around the city.

The three main characters are all really good, deep, realistic characters, and the actors do an amazing job, particularly since they are all quite young. The degree to which the movie delves into the powers themselves and how they go about learning to use them is really intriguing. And the film plays with it's own limitations (it's a "found footage" film) in very creative ways. It's worth a watch.

Rarity likes it a little rough... well... rough at first then nice and smooth aftewards. All that friction really heats her up too.

Im talking about sanding...

-poker face-

This is absolutely true. The other two main characters are definitely good guys.

edited 16th Mar '12 2:07:12 PM by Bluespade

How does one show a fight scene in a found footage movie?

edited 16th Mar '12 2:06:46 PM by gingerninja666

While we're on Ghibli films, which pony do you think would like Only Yesterday?

Ghibli films bug me because NONE of them have villains. NONE of them.

First of all, the main character is the one doing most of the filming, and he's ALSO the most powerful telekinetic... so about halfway through the movie, he starts levitating the camera around, allowing for cinematic shots (it's pretty well established that it was only a found footage film because of budget concerns).

During the final battle, the perspective shifts repeatedly though the many various cameras around the city, from news helicopters, to police, to random passerbys, to the villain intentionally filming himself due to his own megalomania. I can see how this would be a concern, but in my opinion it was done very well.

Mononoke did.

edited 16th Mar '12 2:11:03 PM by Bluespade

Laputa has a clear villain, and if you actually read the Nausicaa manga, that has some excellent villains. From Kushana's brothers, to the Dorok Emperor, most of them are well developed despite being monstrous. I this doesn't necessarily refute your point completely, but it is proof that Miyazaki has villains in his work.

edited 16th Mar '12 2:13:57 PM by Drenius

Mononoke doesn't have a clear villian.

...kinda... That's probably why it's my fav ghibli movie.

Wait, what's the fight like though? I mean, these are people with the most awesome superpower ever TK.

edited 16th Mar '12 2:13:48 PM by gingerninja666

To me, Mononoke was pretty much nothing but villains. The samurai army was unambiguously villainous, and I consider both the lady who owned the town and the god of the forest to be villains, even if they were anti-villains. The only truly heroic character was the main guy, who tried to stay out of the battle and simply helped whoever he could.

It was really intense, but not really much of a fight per se. It was pretty much one guy defending himself while the other one wrecked the city. It was a really great climax to the film, but don't go in expecting an actual fight scene.

edited 16th Mar '12 2:16:12 PM by Bluespade

All of this discussion about how certain stylistic choices can affect the quality of a work kind of puts me in an awkward position. I'm personally of the belief that with enough care and creativity, anything can be done well. Any style, any genre, any character type, nothing is off limits to a good story or work. Because of this, I pretty much refuse to set expectations for anything, both good or bad, based off of anything except the quality of past works in a series. Even then I tend to avoid negative expectations because I've seen many many poorly done series or creators redeem themselves with time.

Awww, what? They an't even stand up to him? Lame

It's more that I KNOW which elements I'd like for certain. So I'd rather find all the films that have those elements before I start taking shots in the dark

I fucking hate EVA with all my heart

edited 16th Mar '12 2:20:08 PM by gingerninja666

@Lurker: I agree with you, actually. Neon Genesis Evangelion is seen as one of the best anime of all time, but it came about as a result of executive meddlers attempting to grant the staff such a low budget that it would be guaranteed to fail (they were pulling an investments scam of some sort). Hideaki Anno embraced his limitations and turned lack of budget into something amazing. Just one example.

No, the good guy wins... he just spends most of the battle fighting defensively. They're friends, remember, and he wants him to back down, thinks he can redeem him.

edited 16th Mar '12 2:20:22 PM by Bluespade

Gah, I hate not being able to contribute to this discussion. But I would feel bad if I selfishly railroaded the thread. I guess I'll just lurk for now.