Opinions about Railgun S and Cinematography (Derailed due to flamebait, locked)

[ssme80386]

@Traece

... What exposition did these rare action sequences in Railgun S have that made it so hard for you to stomach [?]... Perhaps you can do me the favor of putting forth some detailed examples and reasoning as to why the pacing bothers you

Ok. Let's look at the scene where Accelerator is lying on the ground and realizes that he can use air while delivering the following speech:

01 Air. Wind. Atmosphere. It's been here the whole time.
02 Everything I need to kill that little shit in front of me.
03 If I can grasp the flow of all the wind in the atmosphere with this hand...
04 If I control the directions of all the wind on this planet...
05 then I should be able to destroy it too.
06 The strongest in Academy City?
07 Level 6?
08 Who the hell needs that?
09 No one on Earth can stop me anymore!
10 The world is in the palm of my hand!
11 Compress... Compress the air...
(total ~40 seconds)

I guess the dialog was taken directly from LN.

As for the movie only line 1 and, maybe, 1/2 of line 2 are relevant.

Lines 3-5,11 are explanations what he is doing. You need it for the book, but in a movie you just show what he is doing.

Lines 6-10 is your off-the-shelf "evil man speech". It may accent the proper atmosphere for a book, but in a movie it's a downer, especially in the middle of action scene - one can (and should!) use visual means to convey the evilness of a character (like, evilly distorted face expressions, incoherent growling speaking, etc).

Also, have you ever been in a fight? You don't make evil/goodsamaritan speeches when you are fighting, believe me. Also, when your opponent is in the process of preparing a strike, you don't just wait for it.

Shall I continue with detailed analysis you wanted?

FAIL!

Lesson: a movie IS NOT a book. Both should stick to their own rules, if they want to be good, that is.

[StaticLord]

Lesson: This is not a movie nor real life. This is a totally different style. Deal with it.

[hamazura]

you wont enjoy the show if you thinking too muh and criticize everything

[Traece]

Oh my. This should be fun.

Spoiler for Response to ssmmwhatever:

Originally Posted by ssme80386

@Traece

Ok. Let's look at the scene where Accelerator is lying on the ground and realizes that he can use air while delivering the following speech:

01 Air. Wind. Atmosphere. It's been here the whole time.
02 Everything I need to kill that little shit in front of me.
03 If I can grasp the flow of all the wind in the atmosphere with this hand...
04 If I control the directions of all the wind on this planet...
05 then I should be able to destroy it too.
06 The strongest in Academy City?
07 Level 6?
08 Who the hell needs that?
09 No one on Earth can stop me anymore!
10 The world is in the palm of my hand!
11 Compress... Compress the air...
(total ~40 seconds)

I guess the dialog was taken directly from LN.

As for the movie only line 1 and, maybe, 1/2 of line 2 are relevant.

Wrong. Lines 6 through 10 are related to a character development. I explain that later when I make my third correction.

I'm curious, but could you explain how exactly line 2 can be chopped up to only be half relevant? I'm fascinated by how that could even work.

Also, 3 through 5 are technically explanations as to how he's achieving this process, which is acting as a build-up and a setup for Misaka's explanation as to what exactly Accelerator is doing. It's not completely necessary, but it's not irrelevant.

Lines 3-5,11 are explanations what he is doing. You need it for the book, but in a movie you just show what he is doing.

True. Good thing they actually were showing what he was doing, as he was talking about doing it.

Convenient isn't it, that the dialogue was overlaying his actions?

Did you go and watch that scene to pull up an example, and conveniently ignore everything but the little subtitles? The growing vortex of air and then eventually plasma as Accelerator raised his arm to the sky and delivered his "screw you guys, I just realized I can destroy the whole city!" speech. You just conveniently ignored that?

Lines 6-10 is your off-the-shelf "evil man speech". It may accent the proper atmosphere for a book, but in a movie it's a downer, especially in the middle of action scene - one can (and should!) use visual means to convey the evilness of a character (like, evilly distorted face expressions, incoherent growling speaking, etc).

Wrong again. This dialogue is vital to establishing the current mindset of Accelerator. The implication here is that Accelerator is done with all of this. He's realized that this new found power makes him far superior to everyone else, and in his mind beyond even the capabilities of the Level 6 Shift Project. That's what this dialogue is conveying. Presumably.

Also, have you heard a standard villain speech? The standard villain speech is exposition of the plans of the villain, and his intentions. NOT a monologue conveying a character development.

Also, have you ever been in a fight? You don't make evil/goodsamaritan speeches when you are fighting, believe me. Also, when your opponent is in the process of preparing a strike, you don't just wait for it.

Well in Touma's defense, he's laying in a pool of his own blood, and Mikoto is literally incapable of doing anything to stop Accelerator. So yeah, in this situation you do get to make speeches, because nothing is going to stop you from power tripping when you can turn the atmosphere into plasma and explode it on the near-corpse of your fallen foe.

This isn't a bar fight. Accelerator didn't hit Touma over the head with a barstool and then get escorted out by his friends. He's turning the atmosphere into plasma. I can't stretch this enough if I tried.
[quote]Shall I continue with detailed analysis you wanted?

Lesson: a movie IS NOT a book. Both should stick to their own rules, if they want to be good, that is.

Good thing this isn't a movie. It's an anime slated for over 20 episodes. They have plenty of room for dialogue like this and if they can use it in scenes without breaking the flow of them, then they're more then welcome to. Edit: You know what? I'll give you a very, very slight concession. The dialogue is slightly over-the-top. But it fits in with the style of this show just fine, and it's consistent. If you did this scene without any of the character saying anything, it would be Accelerator looking very insane, a giant vortex of death, and Misaka giving not-Misaka some suggestions on how to stop him. I BET THAT WOULD BE SO ENTERTAINING TO WA- Oh. Right. It wouldn't be. That's why this studio that is experienced and very capable of handling a scene like this, animated the scene this way. It's a good thing they're professionals and have a rudimentary understanding about psychology so that they can entertain an audience by not having a scene that relies heavily on visual explanations when not appropriate.

Because yet again, at the end of the day Railgun S is NOT AN ACTION-ORIENTED ANIME. So yes, they very well can do this and frankly if you are displeased I recommend you go watch one of those nice hundred-odd episode shounens.

Edit: I just want to add something here. This may come as a shock to you, but based on the content of your post you didn't seem to think that you could be proven wrong, if even disagreed with. It should go without saying at this point, but I want to make this very clear: You are wrong. The example you used is a direct contradiction to your very argument. This pleases me greatly.

FAIL!

Don't be so hard on yourself. Just find a good example and people might understand the point you're trying to make. Might.

You know, at the end of the day the best advice I can give you, besides not ever using that word that I just quoted you using ever again, is that you stop watching Railgun S. I sincerely and wholeheartedly recommend that.

[Chaos2Frozen]

Hilariously, the one thing I took away from this is that I just realized why ssmm said that he prefers fanservices...

...The characters just have to look pretty, that's his 'visuals' right there lol

It's unfortunate then, that this series is more than just cute girls doing cute things.

Anyway I wash my hands off this topic.

[Rovert10]

This conversation is slowly going to become a train wreak. I can just feel it...

[ssme80386]

@Traece

I'm curious, but could you explain how exactly line 2 can be chopped up to only be half relevant?

The meaning is relevant. Just too long for a fight scene. Should be shortened. Minor issue.

Good thing they actually were showing what he was doing, as he was talking about doing it. Convenient isn't it, that the dialogue was overlaying his actions?

Convenient? What, the audience are idiots who need to have explanation of what they are seeing?

Well in Touma's defense, he's laying in a pool of his own blood

Have you even watched the scene we are discussing?

When Touma knocked Accelerator down he was proudly standing. And continued standing while delivering his little victory speech. Then he stepped back and was standing while listening to Accelerators return speech I had quoted. (I am suprised he wasn't writing down notes.) Then Touma was standing and watching how Accelerator was building up new attack.

When you read LN you don't see all this, so when Touma ends in a pool of his own blood, you'd think:"Poor brave fellow!".

But when you see all this, you'd think:"What a cretin. He should have punched Accelerator's lights out while the latter was down. Or, at least, use his right hand to prevent the evil guy from continuing the fight."

Good thing this isn't a movie. It's an anime

FYI: from Dictionary.com:

movie/motion picture:

1. a sequence of consecutive pictures of objects photographed in motion ... and thrown on a screen by a projector ... in such rapid succession as to give the illusion of natural movement.

2. a play, event, or the like, presented in this form.

Anime is a movie. Even if it has 100 episodes.

I'll stop here.

Tell me, if you think your arguments are unbeatable, why do you resort to personal offenses?

Anyhow,

you didn't watch the episode/scene we are "discussing", you don't even know what a movie is!

I am not continuing with you. Bye.

[leukrota]

@ssme80386 - I see your point and I agree that visual narration is important for animation, and that those that are able to convey everything just through visuals can be really good.

But I don't think that means that getting complemented with dialogue or even monologues makes it automatically bad. A movie is not just visuals, it's also audio (and before there was audio, there was plenty of text), and it can also be a rich resource for narration.

In fact, there are many things that are very hard to convey with just visuals. I would like to know how would you have shown, without that monologue that annoys you so, that Accelerator has ceased to care about becoming a level 6.

[lazydoggamer]

@ssme80386

I thought you were a troll at first but now you're starting to make sense. I have to agree that it's annoying to have a fight scene interrupted by monologues but they aren't nearly as long as you make it out to be. I also think you're missing the point of the dialogue, which is to provide insight of each character motivations and beliefs. Touma started preaching towards Accelerator because he wants Accelerator to acknowledge the clones as humans. What would be the point of Touma beating Accelerator if he just goes back to killing clones? He needs to make Accelerator see the error of his ways and I fail to see how you can do that without dialogue.

[Apache Thunder]

To me exposition and dialog isn't bad if it conveys information that helps the story line and progress the episode. I suppose some are too focused om seeing it come to an end or want more action then they are getting.

You need to also see this from the perspective of viewers who may not have seen the original Index anime nor the source material.

Dialog that seems unnecessary from our point of view may not be for another viewer. This is an argument that will always drag on forever because it's clear you are all entrenched into your beliefs and nothing will change that.

You are working too hard on comparing the pacing with the manga and how you feel the pacing should be for an animated work compared to pacing to a manga. For me, I enjoy this pacing. It's slow and provides me with more information. I'm one of those that enjoys the information in a show and not just the action. The index version of this now seems to have gone by too fast and the fact that this version slowed down to get the details makes it worth it to see it again. So in the end it's all subjective. No point in arguing over it now.

Think of it this way, if they had just kept the same pacing the index version had of this story arc, then you would still get Misaka's point of view, but it would still be the same watered down story pace from Index. Railgun S is not Index. The style the show goes for definitely seems to be more towards following the manga more closely. Index took a different route.

They both are not inherently dependent on each other and the independence this show has from Index is why I enjoy it. It doesn't work at all trying to replicate Index's style. It just goes it's own way and that's why it's not boring to me despite it covering the same story arc from Index. Index covers all the story arc surrounding Touma with a few sideplots. But Railgun S covers only Misaka's side of the story. Index had to use a faster pacing to get things to fit in a 24/26 episode season. The two shows are inherently different in material and the amount of it, thus the pacing WILL be different. Just accept that. :P

I enjoyed this episode because it conveyed more information about the existing story arc + from a slightly different point of view with new better animation. I could care less about the pacing because it's exactly how I feel it should be.

[ssme80386]

Originally Posted by leukrota

@ssme80386

But I don't think that means that getting complemented with dialogue or even monologues makes it automatically bad. A movie is not just visuals, it's also audio (and before there was audio, there was plenty of text), and it can also be a rich resource for narration.

In fact, there are many things that are very hard to convey with just visuals. I would like to know how would you have shown, without that monologue that annoys you so, that Accelerator has ceased to care about becoming a level 6.

Yes, the motion picture isn't video only. That's why I had said "by mostly visual means".

No, I didn't mean that "getting complemented with ... monologues makes it automatically bad". My point is that it's bad when monologue unnaturally interrupts action scene.

As for your question - how I'd do it .....

...... IMEO, the way the fight was set up, there could be only 2 options: either Accelerator kills Touma off the bat, or Touma manages to get close, use right hand to disable Accel, knock him down, then sit on Accelerator with right hand on his throat (to keep him disabled - Accelerator seems to be very weak physically) and using left hand to pull cellphone and call The Judgement.

The way the fight was set up - it should not have got to the "plasma stage".

But, well, why not : I 'd focus on Accelerator's crazy face and have him incoherently shouting like "iam god now! take this you f--kers!" while zooming out and showing that that tornado of his is on the huge, cosmic scale (ok, planetary scale).

would it work?

Originally Posted by lazydoggamer

@ssme80386

I ... think you're missing the point of the dialogue, which is to provide insight of each character motivations and beliefs. Touma started preaching towards Accelerator because he wants Accelerator to acknowledge the clones as humans..

I am not against monologues per se. But in the middle of the fight?

Again: it can work in LN/VN/books. They have their own rules.

But for a movie - it's unnatural. Not in a magic-doesn't-exist type unnatural. Common sense unnatural.

You can always provide characters' motivations and beliefs before the fight - there are 00s ways to do it. You can use a speech before the fight. Even 1 sec before the fight. But not during the life-or-death fight.

[GundamZZ]

Originally Posted by ssme80386

Yes, the motion picture isn't video only. That's why I had said "by mostly visual means".

No, I didn't mean that "getting complemented with ... monologues makes it automatically bad". My point is that it's bad when monologue unnaturally interrupts action scene.

As for your question - how I'd do it .....

...... IMEO, the way the fight was set up, there could be only 2 options: either Accelerator kills Touma off the bat, or Touma manages to get close, use right hand to disable Accel, knock him down, then sit on Accelerator with right hand on his throat (to keep him disabled - Accelerator seems to be very weak physically) and using left hand to pull cellphone and call The Judgement.

The way the fight was set up - it should not have got to the "plasma stage".

But, well, why not : I 'd focus on Accelerator's crazy face and have him incoherently shouting like "iam god now! take this you f--kers!" while zooming out and showing that that tornado of his is on the huge, cosmic scale (ok, planetary scale).

would it work?

Not really, they still have to follow the source. The Railgun production staffs indeed take some liberty for the filler material. It is known as net(ネタ) or raw material. In order to get their jokes, you have to know Japanese pop culture. It reminds us the show is made for Japanese audience. First, the boxing match has the trait of Kawaii Takeshi(河井武士). Second, Accelerator's dialogue resembles the dialogue of Matsuda Yuusaku.

You know Accelerator with God complex is out of his character. After all, he was hesitate to kill number 1. Then, scientists tell him it's OK to tell her. They convinces him that clones are not humans. Accelerator is not a nice person, too. He's not afraid to harm other people, if they makes the threat to him. To him, the collateral damage from the self defense looks fine.

Images

comparison

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[Chaos2Frozen]

...After all that, the best you could come up with is cut out everything and end it in one move with only two options?

Guys, please stop humoring this.

[julioalqae]

Originally Posted by Chaos2Frozen

...After all that, the best you could come up with is cut out everything and end it in one move with only two options?

Guys, please stop humoring this. I'm surprised all of this hasn't been nuked yet.

well we are discussing another perspective and understanding right???

it's not out of topic yet according to mod.....well although i still can't understand...the point of that "poor pacing"

it was just matter of the one hardheaded person's taste and opinion who couldn't be understood by maybe most of us....

maybe it's called reasonable troll???

[leukrota]

Originally Posted by ssme80386

As for your question - how I'd do it .....

...... IMEO, the way the fight was set up, there could be only 2 options: either Accelerator kills Touma off the bat, or Touma manages to get close, use right hand to disable Accel, knock him down, then sit on Accelerator with right hand on his throat (to keep him disabled - Accelerator seems to be very weak physically) and using left hand to pull cellphone and call The Judgement.

The way the fight was set up - it should not have got to the "plasma stage".

But, well, why not : I 'd focus on Accelerator's crazy face and have him incoherently shouting like "iam god now! take this you f--kers!" while zooming out and showing that that tornado of his is on the huge, cosmic scale (ok, planetary scale).

would it work?

The problem, besides whether the experiments would stop or not like this, is that it would skip important developments.

Without knowing what lies ahead, it might not seem important to you the changes in Accelerator's character during this fight, but his realization that he needs not become level 6 is actually very relevant.

We can't discuss what's not in the anime yet, but it's the first of two big steps for Accelerator. Cutting that would put the story in a very different path.

EDIT: BTW, about Touma not going berserk on Accelerator and allowing him to get that far, it has to do with the former's personality, which isn't properly covered in the Railgun anime. In short, Touma is always trying to save his opponent too, and thus he makes his "annoying" preachings (he is greedy and naive I know, but that's how he is).

I think that not explaining it is a slight miss that can make a Railgun only viewer wonder why isn't he simply focused on beating the life out of Accelerator, but it's still an understandable decision on the director's account. Explaining more about Touma would make the pace slower (and I remember you complaining about that) and it's not relevant in this arc... It might not even be relevant at all in the Railgun side story as a whole.

[Miraluka]

Originally Posted by leukrota

The problem, besides whether the experiments would stop or not like this, is that it would skip important developments.

Without knowing what lies ahead, it might not seem important to you the changes in Accelerator's character during this fight, but his realization that he needs not become level 6 is actually very relevant.

We can't discuss what's not in the anime yet, but it's the first of two big steps for Accelerator. Cutting that would put the story in a very different path.

EDIT: BTW, about Touma not going berserk on Accelerator and allowing him to get that far, it has to do with the former's personality, which isn't properly covered in the Railgun anime. In short, Touma is always trying to save his opponent too, and thus he makes his "annoying" preachings (he is greedy and naive I know, but that's how he is).

I think that not explaining it is a slight miss that can make a Railgun only viewer wonder why isn't he simply focused on beating the life out of Accelerator, but it's still an understandable decision on the director's account. Explaining more about Touma would make the pace slower (and I remember you complaining about that) and it's not relevant in this arc... It might not even be relevant at all in the Railgun side story as a whole.

Thats Kamachi's way of doing things, instead Mikoto being the one who goes trough a permanent change of character she returns to her usual self, in the other hand is the enemy the one who is questioning himself and grows as character.

[Reality_Breaker]

Originally Posted by ssme80386

Yes, the motion picture isn't video only. That's why I had said "by mostly visual means".

No, I didn't mean that "getting complemented with ... monologues makes it automatically bad". My point is that it's bad when monologue unnaturally interrupts action scene.

As for your question - how I'd do it .....

...... IMEO, the way the fight was set up, there could be only 2 options: either Accelerator kills Touma off the bat, or Touma manages to get close, use right hand to disable Accel, knock him down, then sit on Accelerator with right hand on his throat (to keep him disabled - Accelerator seems to be very weak physically) and using left hand to pull cellphone and call The Judgement.

The way the fight was set up - it should not have got to the "plasma stage".

But, well, why not : I 'd focus on Accelerator's crazy face and have him incoherently shouting like "iam god now! take this you f--kers!" while zooming out and showing that that tornado of his is on the huge, cosmic scale (ok, planetary scale).

would it work?

But if you do that then you cut all of the character development for the four sides involved in this arc, Touma, Mikoto, Accelerator and the Sisters. TAMNI?TAKNR is a series more focused on character development than the fights. If you noticed this season was about deconstructing Mikotos past character development as she got close to the darkness of Academy City, which changed when Touma intervened. Then you have the Sisters character development which was possible because of Mikoto and Touma messing with the experiment and treating them like they're human rather than guinea pigs which ended up in what you saw in this episode. Then theres Toumas character development here just like Mikoto he's realizing the true face of Academy City and then theres also Accelerators character development, not going to say about Touma and Accelerator because it would be entering spoiler territory. If the studio had changed the fight scene into something similar to what you proposed then all of that character development would have been denied and all we would get was Touma punching Accelerator and nothing else.

[ssme80386]

Originally Posted by leukrota

... about Touma not going berserk on Accelerator and allowing him to get that far, it has to do with the former's personality... Touma is always trying to save his opponent too, and thus he makes his "annoying" preachings (he is ... naive I know, but that's how he is)...

... it is a slight miss ...

Subduing Accelerator and calling The Judgement - how in the world can you call it "going berserk" ??!!

Tell me, what was Touma hoping for when going for a fight with Accelerator? Even if he wasn't planning to kill the guy, he would know that for him, for Touma, the fight would be life or death.

Are you saying he was planning to commit suicide? No? Then what were his intentions? Knocking down Accelerator and using right hand to subdue the guy was the only possible thinkable course of actions for Touma. And he didn't do it. Ridiculous.

It wasn't a "slight miss". Touma wasn't incapacitated. It wasn't a fleeting chance requiring split-second decision.

Well, the answer is obvious: like GundamZZ said, the anime creators had (actually, decided) to follow the LN faithfully. But what works for a book doesn't necessary works for a movie.

In a book author can show "character development" during a fight. In an anime that pretend to be "realistic" (unlike other animus that choose path of surrealism) there are other ways to show character development.

Yes, they followed the source by unnaturally interrupting fight scene with "character development" speeches. And they ended up with a failure of a scene => failure of episode - and now close to failure of anime. Back to where I began: pain to watch.

[Chaos2Frozen]

Originally Posted by ssme80386

Well, the answer is obvious: like GundamZZ said, the anime creators had (actually, decided) to follow the LN faithfully. But what works for a book doesn't necessary works for a movie.

It is fortunate that it does work for this eh?

The moment you suggested to change everything that happened in the original two sources for your 'edited' version tells me that you're so out of touch with what the core audience of the show want.

[ssme80386]

Originally Posted by Chaos2Frozen

...After all that, the best you could come up with is cut out everything and end it in one move with only two options?

There being only 2 options is due to how the fight was set up.

I would set up fight differently.

Heck, I would change pretty much everything, including the story itself.

The LNs, as they are, seem to be unfit for a direct transfer to a film. If you want the film to be good, that is.