I saw The Long Walk and it was very mid.I went into it blind and the narrative reminded me of Catcher in the Rye - mid century young adult novel. But along with that it became clear to me that the characters and names were supposed to be regional stereotypes of White Americans (New Yorker, Southern hick, Midwestern farm kid, Louisiana Cajun, etc.) but it seems like they race-swapped half of the main characters with Black actors, but not even African-American actors, West African, Nigerian, and South African actors. It took me out of it because its kind of a period piece, the kids personalities reflect a different cultural milieu and a less connected, more culturally diverse White America and they seemingly papered over this by making them say "fuck" every 5-10 words (no exaggeration). Then I saw that Stephen King wrote it in the 70s, which makes sense because their personality and dialogue doesn't reflect modern youth culture or Black American culture at any point in time. It was almost like one of those shitty ragebait docudramas with a black Cleopatra.The premise of the movie is also kind of idiotic - the idea is that by televising 50 kids (1 from each state) walk until they can't anymore, it will motivate people to work harder to increase the GDP. Mark Hamill's character is a very generic bad guy and his place in society is ambiguous.About the only interesting or well done thing in the movie are the special effects because the kids are killed in very graphic detail and the gore is realistic and impressively abrasive.5/10
Bump
its kinda fucked they removed the totalitarian angle and the boys were drafted rather than having volunteered.this would have been so much more interesting and thought provoking but i guess its easier to write and pull off this way.
>>214606396Being drafted into a war isn't likely to happen, or at least the creators of the film don't think so I can somewhat understand why they change it. since the original was a bit of a critique of the Vietnam War, using the draft.
>>214606396I don't know how this misinfo keeps getting repeated. They all volunteered. They randomly pick 50 people out of the volunteers. Morons heard the term "lottery" used to describe the pool of volunteers and assume it's a mandatory draft. It's not. The characters discuss how they "had no choice" because they're so poor they need the prize money to have a life worth living, I expect some burn outs zoned out during this conversation, only hearing a few words and walked away from the movie thinking everyone is forced to sign up to the lottery.>>214603800In the book there's only one negro and he's just some random red shirt that dies with no fanfare. The movie of course made multiple minority characters and ensured they were all noble and helping other contestants to the point where they frequently risk their own lives. The minorities get all dignified or heroic deaths (except for the Asian who went out in a really pitiful way). All undignified deaths are reserved for the white characters of course.