Beatnik

Earlier, the point was made that the Giant could possibly have had some of his programming partially erased by the impact that caused the bump, but partially by the electric shocks. It's ambiguous as to which caused him to forget. I think this opens it to the hinting that Hogarth is partially responsible for creating him, in a sense.

https://youtu.be/pUtuM1H-wLM?si=1ALUJpQ7SRW4v-JG&t=10684
Fringald points out how hogarth presumes the giant is good by default; the counterfactual doesn't even exist in his mind. Whereas Mansley sees nothing but the negative. Hogarth is naive, but Mansley is pathologically cynical, i.e. he cannot advance to the next state of wisdom (the courage in trusting despite the potential for malevolence in the stranger)

https://youtu.be/pUtuM1H-wLM?si=yN8rNggHQ8j-jNRE&t=11186
Rags refers to the process of Creation (Order > Chaos) and the limitless potential therein

https://youtu.be/pUtuM1H-wLM?si=YAwD33C3qiT-zMa8&t=11386
Fringy says Hogarth being good molds the giant into Goodness as well...

The themes™ are there!

Art: taking something supposedly worthless/meaningless and EXTRACTING/CONJURING meaning therefrom!

https://youtu.be/pUtuM1H-wLM?si=eB8HcQF-LZprSC_6&t=11570
"It's like Coffee-zilla" => Coffeezilla

https://youtu.be/pUtuM1H-wLM?si=UH77IMKZqcsaIpvC&t=11940
might have been the beginning/rebirth of pre-vis (Bird and the team's “digital story reels” or "Leica reels")

https://youtu.be/pUtuM1H-wLM?si=0DxVz7wKVgVUD9sK&t=12300
"you are who you choose to be" is THE statement of the film.

When discussing this, I'd put it this way:
The question that Bird sought to answer, in grieving his sister's murder, was, of course: what if a Gun had a soul, and didn't want to be a Gun? And the answer to that question was encapsulated in this line. YOU ARE WHO YOU CHOOSE TO BE.

He could have set about creating a propaganda film about how guns are bad and evil, but he wanted to FIGURE SOMETHING OUT. What he realized, was that it's not about the gun, it's about the power that it holds, and that's why the exploration of the soul in the gun is so important; it makes the exploration about power per se, and not about an externalized, particularized form of power. Then you have to contend with the real problem: the force of your being can be used for good, or for evil. So CHOOSE!

https://youtu.be/pUtuM1H-wLM?si=pLHYD7Lv1PDPWc0C&t=12318
Mauler remarks that it's ALL about choice; MAXIMAL INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY. None of this shit about how you were just born that way and you're fucked; predestined for whatever path that has been chosen about you, so there's no reason not to be evil. That's why they say that; if it's not your responsibility, every excuse for your evil is available to you. If it is, ultimately, your responsibility, you have no excuses, and every reason to refuse evil.

https://youtu.be/pUtuM1H-wLM?si=hmm4aI04oF1SlUPE&t=12453
Fringy's discussion of the Giant being literally created for the purpose of destruction...

That's the BEAUTIFUL part about it all. It drives home the message: you were created for enacting devastation upon creation. That is what your PURPOSE has been determined to be by the temporal actors who created you. But YOU decide whether or not you accept that purpose. MAN WAS CREATED FROM THE BLOOD OF KINGU, THE GENERAL OF ALL MONSTERS.

"Residual programming that he is trying to fight" Mauler

https://youtu.be/pUtuM1H-wLM?si=vajng6l0oXrKNujg&t=12733
"It" versus "HE, not it" really puts the Man versus Monster polarity into focus.

https://youtu.be/pUtuM1H-wLM?si=ubRzfzeMX-0jvy52&t=13320
The themes are never forced! Because Bird and the team put SO MUCH into actualizing them so that they WORK on every level of analysis.

Fringy: Mansley's strategy is the literal embodiment of Mutually Assured Destruction. And it can certainly be said that he went M.A.D.

https://youtu.be/pUtuM1H-wLM?si=0QXcWf--v6x2RvFr&t=13485
Rags: Is it any coincidence that Mansley's name is MANsley, given what he represents?

https://youtu.be/pUtuM1H-wLM?si=4JIMy8_3lDVAq8v1&t=13789
Garrett: The mental battle that goes on in their heads; the childish side of the argument wins over

3:53:00
Mauler interprets the Giant's mimicry like a robot trying to act more human (Terminator trying to mimic a smile), which I'd say means his behavior is calculated. Rags brings up Toothless' smile mimicry, which I think is far more apt for both situations; an intelligent monster, using mimicry in an attempt to fit in for genuine, non-nefarious purposes.

https://youtu.be/pUtuM1H-wLM?si=-K3xe0v7sNuHPSY8&t=14544
Fringy: if the Giant killed the Deer, he would have fallen into a pit of depression that the writers couldn't have pulled him out of.

On "Guns Kill" it's on the level of abstraction that both Hogarth and the Giant can understand. Guns are, in fact, designed to destroy. But so are humans, particularly men. So only a man who is evil will destroy with impunity. A man who is good will destroy only what he is absolutely required to. And that's the difference in Ideals between Hogarth, Mansley, and Dean.

https://youtu.be/pUtuM1H-wLM?si=GrX84uf1gveo27CH&t=14973
Fringy: Robot meets Nature is a very ripe idea. The last Bastion is the best Overwatch short, The Good Robot explores this as well...
I think it emerges from the collective unconscious, explicitly due to our capacity for Reason. We ARE the robots in our Man-Nature stories.

Garrett: the context of learning what the gun is, and that the gun means violence, prompts him to instinctually respond with or otherwise tap into/discover, violence. This is required for the later scene in the junkyard where the ray gun causes him to lose control.

https://youtu.be/pUtuM1H-wLM?si=u27mjCy73QvoO9rl&t=15379
Fringy: the lesson that Hogarth teaches the giant about the nature of life, death, good, evil, and souls, is not something he was taught or that he invented, it's EMERGENT.

Garrett refers to this as a "tropey" thing in the positive sense; what he's referring to is an ARCHETYPE. "A kid falling into a parental role" it's so REAL!

4:20:30 Garrett: the difference between a rock and a tree is an important basis for him to get this lesson: the difference between life, and the lack thereof.

4:28:10 Mauler: the role of gov't gets scary, when all is justified, given it's in """the people's best interest"""

4:34:00 Fringy: the Giant doesn't want to play Atomo. He wants to play Superman. Great touch.

4:34:30 Mauler: This is one of the few stretches in the film, but "if that gun functioned normally as a toy, Hogarth would be dead." I'd say this is a pretty huge convenience.

I'm not Gun!...

4:53:00 Mauler: it's almost like a muscle memory, that Hogarth told him not to touch the dead

4:54:30 Mauler: it becomes man versus robot, and he has to maintain the heart within him, fighting against the urge to kill, but fascinatingly, this might be one of the most relatably human reactions that the Giant has; "somebody he loves is killed, and it drives him insane." I wouldn't say insane actually, I would say he refuses to inhibit the monster within him, embracing it, because he now knows WHY one would want to destroy.

4:58:30 Mauler: the design philosophy is keep him neutral enough to border on cute, but make it so that all it takes is a couple small tweaks to make him horrifying. Toothless and Stitch have similar design phils

5:05:30 The General is behaving rationally with the information that he has. He's reasonable where Mansley is not; archetypically, he's the positive valence of the State.

5:07:00 Mauler: the truth of Mansley's motivation comes out; "Screw our country, I want to live!"
Mauler: The General has no fear, he's resolved with the knowledge that they're all going to die, so he commands him to stay and die for his country.

5:12:00 Mauler: the animation within seconds, going from recognition that the people are life, then the realization that he can save them, and then the determination to do it.

It's extremely meta-true that they begin by telling stories and playing games, to reason out how a moral life is lived, then Hogarth articulates it as best he can, then the Giant realizes the emergent morality in a moment, and consciously chooses to embody it.

5:13:00 Fringy: It's an incorporation of all the lessons. You are who you choose to be, you are good, like Superman, and it's not bad to die.

5:14:00 Garrett: Hogarth says I love you, and I wondered, is that too much? But no. I'm glad it's there.
Fringy: truly is the best Superman Movie

~5:16:00 Something about the town being encapsulated in a glow from the heavens, as if the Giant has been accepted into heaven, the place where Good Souls go when they die...

5:18:00 Mauler: the general's humanity was never in doubt, but regardless, he pays his respects to the Giant, who sacrificed himself, and there's a parallel that the Giant is a soldier of sorts, too. Rags: he did his duty.

5:21:15 Mauler: People say he should have used his lazers to destroy the rocket, but the entire point is that he's resolving not to use the weapons. I think if there were ever another threat, he would have to use them, or shouldn't refuse to use them just in case, but he's clearly quite resolved to not use really any force in this case. There's something to be said about males being biologically expendable.

5:25:00 Mauler: it's not in character and it's not mechanically appropriate, because the Giant does not seem to have control when he brings the weapons out. I don't think he's learned that yet.

By the end, the Giant wakes up and smiles. Against my will, it's hard not to see the Christ parallels.