Entertainment That Causes Spontaneous Fits of Philosphy and Thought...

[JohnCrichton]

Top of my list was Neon Genesis.

So watch out in this thread, cuz here... there be SPOILERS!!!!

Usually after sitting a spell through some anime, video game or a movie there's laughs and fun.

There was a serious silence amoung my friends and I after we got done watching the Neon Genesis Movies.

It's all open to the most incredible and deepest philosphical speculation you'll ever see in an anime series. If there's anything that can grip my mind and soul that seriously, I haven't seen it in absolutely any other form of entertainment.

FAQ's have answers, but I still say some of it's open to interpretation.

FAQ I read said that Shinji rejected the "fake" paradise of LCL where everyone was one and excepted each other unconditionally.

But in the last episode of the series they explained better than anything that the whole WORLD is jut a compelation of different Points of View. That there really is no one reality.

For me, I felt Shinji in all his self hatred had denied himself the heaven of becoming one with everyone else and instead decided on the hell that is complete and utter individuality.

It kinda went on like that, but there wasn't a single smile on anyone's face as we sat in my friends room and the images and concepts of that movie kept resurfacing in our minds. Rei's giant head floating in a sea of blood.

What it would feel like to be completely and utterly loved, understood, and cared for in all the ways you've ever wanted at the cost of your own individuality.

Anything else you and your friend ever read inspire Random Fits of Philosphy with you and your friends?

Books that have done this:

Hyperion
Fall of Hyperion

Endymion
Rise of Endymion

Celestine Prophecies

[Zoddman]

The ending of Akira left me absolutely silent. that was the most perfect ending I've ever seen to a movie, anime or not. It left me in awe.

[Andy Mancini]

The ending of "Adeiu, Galaxy Express 999" did it for me. Especially...
the scene with all of the bodies of the conveyor belt. It became painfully obvious at point that this was more than a "futuristic robot movie". This was obviously talking about the Holocaust, only replacing Nazis, Jews and "The Final Solution" with robots, humans, and those "robot energy crystal things". There was no music, no uneeded dialog. Just a shot of our hero Tetsuro yelling "how could you do this?" on a balcony with all of the bodies piled up behind him. That just blew my mind. I can honestly say that only few movies have kept me speechless, but that was one of them.

[Zoddman]

Originally posted by dj_gir
The ending of "Adeiu, Galaxy Express 999" did it for me. Especially...
the scene with all of the bodies of the conveyor belt. It became painfully obvious at point that this was more than a "futuristic robot movie". This was obviously talking about the Holocaust, only replacing Nazis, Jews and "The Final Solution" with robots, humans, and those "robot energy crystal things". There was no music, no uneeded dialog. Just a shot of our hero Tetsuro yelling "how could you do this?" on a balcony with all of the bodies piled up behind him. That just blew my mind. I can honestly say that only few movies have kept me speechless, but that was one of them. Oh yeah, anything Leiji Matsumoto is absolutely wonderful. I consider him one of the great philosophers of the twentieth and twenty-first century.

[StrangerAtaru]

Probably "Serial Experiment Lain" most recently and, somewhat connected to it, "Digimon Tamers". Chikako Konaka is always trying to figure out a compromise between the worlds of the living and the worlds of the digital. In one series, he uses technology to try and search for sense and possibly things that have been seen before in religion and cults. Meanwhile, he took a mainstream franchise such as Digimon and turned it on its ear in Tamers, looking also at the nature of reality in the Digital Era. I remember at one point one of the characters spurts out "Data.....flesh and blood....what's the difference?"

[DR. BELCH]

Daria often left me thinking, esp. eps like "The Misery Chick", "Write Where It Hurts", "Dye, Dye, My Darling!", "The Story of D", and, naturally, both the "Is?" movies.

I just finished Stephen King's Hearts of Atlantis and was moved by that as well. I won't spoil it for you, or at least I'll try not to, but it's amazing how 'Nam intertwined so many seemingly unrelated lives, and sad that two characters who seemed so perfect for one another never, because of war and other damnable circumstances, got to make a go of it.

Trainspotting both amused and revulsed me. I never realized you could climb down a Welsh khazi (toilet)...but the sight of the dead baby with eyes like black marbles poked in raw dough quelled my earlier amusement.

[oranthal]

i still think that shinji chose to be individuality which means that he be hurt again than become completing of instrumentality. i don't think it was because that he hated himself that he denied "heaven" but he finally accepted himself and others.


Originally posted by JohnCrichton
Top of my list was Neon Genesis.

FAQ I read said that Shinji rejected the "fake" paradise of LCL where everyone was one and excepted each other unconditionally.

But in the last episode of the series they explained better than anything that the whole WORLD is jut a compelation of different Points of View. That there really is no one reality.

For me, I felt Shinji in all his self hatred had denied himself the heaven of becoming one with everyone else and instead decided on the hell that is complete and utter individuality.

[RogueMartian]

The top of my list right now would probably be "Fight Club". Definitely a movie that makes you think a lot about society and your place in it.

Gundam Wing was definitely another one. It makes you think a lot about war, and its true purposes. Gundam Wing has a lot of other philosophical aspects as well.

[Daughterof_Evil]

" Grave of the Fireflies" really made me think. It's really an alagory for the entire Second World War, from the Holocaust to the pre- and post-war lives of Europeans and Japanese, to the outright massive loss of life. That there is despair, but hope. The one scene that struck me the most was when the cockroach Naomi accidentally wanders into a roach trap, then gets stuck inside. She realizes there are hundreds of other roaches in there, captive and dying slowly, and when they sense she is alive, they all move whatever free limb they have to get her out.

But the one movie, I think, that left me completely speechless was "A.I." I saw that movie and I don't think I talked for two days afterward. It left me completely disturbed, but also sort of enlightened. It makes you think more about the things you take for granted, your family, your home, all the securities you know.

[Andy Mancini]

Three live action movies that did it for me were:

American History X (Heavy, heavy movie)
Bringing Out the Dead
Ice Storm (This film was directed by Ang Lee, and believe me, this is the anti "Crotching Tiger, Hidden Dragon)