I took Media Studies during my younger and more studious life. Post-education I promised that I would try to never use the techniques I was taught to better understand trailers for films, rational being that I intended to try and enjoy things rather than think about them too much.
And here I am, for you, telling you why the above is a pile of vomit coated in cane-sugar.
You’re thinking; sweet, King Leonidas and Dexter are in the same movie where dudes are being shot up, I’m into this.
But you probably shouldn’t be.
My main issue with this film, and I say main issue because there are a few, is that from what I’ve seen in this trailer it stands to only perpetuate a stereotype. I’ve talked about public acceptance before in my articles and how our pastime isn’t well understood by a majority of people and I feel like this plays on that.
My understanding of the plot is that “gamers” get to use living people as pawns to commit real murders to other living people inside a game. We didn’t get a motive reveal from whoever is controlling to know whether they’re well rounded human beings or not, but barring some kind of terrible psychological trauma, why would they ever be willing to really cause someone to die?
I think my girlfriend would probably argue that when I shoot someone in my near constant play sessions with COD4, I am ostensibly using weapons to end a life, and I understand where she’s coming from, I am however less willing to admit that this is analogous to really finding joy in ending a life.
The trailer reassures me that these men are on death row anyway, but even setting aside my disdain for the death penalty, it takes on a whole different light if the people in charge of performing state-sanctioned soul-snuffing are actually doing it for the sake of enjoyment.
I’m really going to have to see this film to attempt to settle how I feel about it, and if it plays out without a lot of proper characterisation I’m probably going to feel a little sickened that this is what mass media thinks we are.
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Yeah i saw this traailer yesterday and i’ve comented today on http://www.negativegamer.com about the public perception of gamers as a whole(with regards to LA Bordello’s cosplay girls), and to think that people would honestly believe that a person such as myself would use/take a life as entertainment is quite insulting.
Will i go see the film? I’ll wait till ive read a decent review first.
Gamer looks like a reskinned version of Tron.
So Death Race demonizes people who watch reality TV, or perhaps Nascar? The public execution as entertainment idea has been used many times as a plot device for silly action movies. Whether it’s gamblers, tv viewers, fans of contact sports or gamers — the implication that they get off on death may be there, but does anyone actually take that seriously? Of course not. It’s just an excuse to blow stuff up!
im gonna see it, why?
cause of gerard butler and michael c hall. thats it…
Well, I’ve never heard of this film before, and after watching that trailer I don’t have a clue what’s going on, so I’m not expecting it to be any good and I don’t plan to see it either. Anyway, yes, I agree, this is just using the stereotype that all gamers love to do is kill people, and then using it to create entertainment from it. Just because most gamers enjoy killing people in games, (there’s not much else to do in games nowadays) doesn’t mean that they enjoy killing or would ever consider murder in real life. It’s time that people realised that games are becoming just as legitimate a form of entertainment as films and TV shows are. More and more people are playing games, and I’m sure I remember hearing something like more money is made from the games industry than films. (I can’t remember if that was exactly it, so don’t quote me on that) You know, if this film sucks, it will kind of be ironic, because there are games creating a much better form of entertainment, and much higher quality experiences.
Any movie with ludacris in it….CAN’T be taken seriously….
i think you’ve got the wrong idea. The whole “entertainment/execution” idea has been used tons of time, maybe it’s becasue of gaming getting a lot of bad publicity but it seems like you’ve jumped the gun on what is clearly just a film.
The plotline sounds like it’ll fall apart as soon as an annoying geek comes within 5 miles of it but this does sound cool, people on death row being used as pawns in a video game.
I can just see some guy know about to die from a fatal bullet wound thinking “crud why’d i have to get stuck with the noob!” before bleeding to death! ^_^
@Timewarp: there’s a difference between this and the others, the execution for entertainment usually comes from people having passive involvement, they watch it.
This is, as far as the trailer leads me to believe someone actually doing it for the sake of enjoyment.
@kneutral: there’s a difference between this and deathrace, the latter had someone taking part in the game for the sake of freedom, this has someone taking part purely for entertainment.
Murdery entertainment.
The worst kind.
I liked it better when it was called The Running Man.
That is an entirely different and better plot that is still not nearly as good as the book.
Entirely different? Contestants are convicts? Survive and you get set free? Real killing for entertainment like a “show”?