Time and Time and Time Over Again
Aug. 25th, 2019 10:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearI've been stuck in a time loop for the last three days. To be able to listen to more Ink To Film episodes, first I listened to the audiobook of All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakuazaka, then I read the manga version by Ryosuke Takeuchi and Takeshi Obata, and then I watched the movie adaptation, Edge of Tomorrow. It turned out to be the right order to do it in, not only chronologically but also experientially, since I thought the manga was better than the novel and the film was better than the manga.
All of them tell the story of a solider in a future war against invading aliens, who gets stuck in a time loop, reliving the same day over and over again, with the loop restarting when he dies.
The audio version of All You Need Is Kill doesn't fulfil my rules for using Audible credits because it's way too short - 5.5 hours - but I bent my rules because I knew I'd be reading the text version of the manga and wanted a multimedia experience across the three versions. And I'm glad it was short, because I really didn't enjoy it much at all. It has a lot of battle/weaponry/technology/violence detail that isn't really my cup of tea, but I guess is to be expected in a military sci-fi book where the protagonist fights the same battle over and over again.
But it's also very sexist and a little bit homophobic. The narrator includes breast size in the description of all the female characters he meets (of which there are only three) and thinks about women generally in terms of the categories: pretty, homely, or gorilla. So, there's that...
I have to say the potential problem of the narrative being repetitive is dealt with very well. The first loop starts with Keiji's death on the battlefield, so while the whole preceding day plays out for him a second time, we only see its events for the first time in the second loop. By loop three, he's decided to do things very differently, so the story diverges quite quickly.
The other main character is the US Special Forces soldier, Rita Vrataski, who is well respected as a warrior, if still referred to in mysogynistic terms by her male counterparts. The book took my by surprise by switching to her point of view for the third quarter of the story, which was a pleasant change and made the whole thing a lot more interesting.
The explanation of how the time loops came about and how to break out of them passed me by completely and the development of the romance between Keiji and Rita didn't work for me at all - because while he was spending time with her and building up feelings for her, she was always experiencing the day for the first time (in her perception) so it ended up being a bit icky. The ending seemed abrupt and the whole thing about one of them needing to die seemed unnecessary.
So, strike one against the novella.
The manga is a very faithful retelling of the novella, so there weren't any surprises. I thought the visual style worked really well for the story and made it easier to follow to a certain extent, which is why I liked it better than the audiobook. Also, since events had to be compressed, a lot of the offensive banter and sexist commentary was removed, which was an improvement. That wasn't excised completely, though, since the three female characters were all sexualised, and there were several gratuitous ass shots. Why on earth a kitchen worker at a military base would be wearing very tight hotpants and a cropped shirt that bared her midriff and that her breasts were nearly falling out of, is beyond me... Additionally, after revealing that Rita was about 16 when she joined the United Defence Forces, she then continually started her time loop *in the shower*... Sigh.
It was still good to have the section from Rita's point of view though, as it balanced out the story a lot and added a lot of resonance to her character. I didn't understand the timey-wimey stuff any better in the manga, but the eventual showdown between Keiji and Rita was clearer. She said that one of them needed to die for them to escape the time loop and take the fight into the future, and then attacked Keiji. But it was counter to classic storytelling for him then to decide he wanted to be the one to live, and therefore fight back and actually kill her! That did happen in the novella too, but I think I missed the details. So, a bit of a weird way to end things.
I think I declare a draw with the manga because it was well-told and less problematic than the novella.
The film version, renamed Edge of Tomorrow, stars Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt and came out in 2014. I remember going to see it in the cinema at the time and enjoying it. And I largely enjoyed it again last night. It shares a basic premise with the original story, but is very different in a lot of respects.
The setting is changed from Japan to Britain. Keiji is now Major William Cage, a US officer. And while Rita retains her name, she's now British rather than American. Always nice to see London in a movie. Cage is a very different character - Keiji is a rookie going into his first battle after boot camp, while Cage is a PR guy with no battle training or experience at all. He starts the film as a cowardly, snivelling wretch and the film leans in hard to the trope of battle forging real men.
The stakes are increased two-fold in the film, in that Cage has no training whatsoever going into his first battle, and that battle is a last stand against the aliens, rather than just one fight among many in the ongoing war. The aliens are a lot cooler and a lot scarier visually in the film than in the manga and their wibbly hierarchy is even more convoluted and confusing.
The film adds the ridiculous trope of soldier protagonists not wearing their helmets (so we can see their lovely movie star faces, of course), and the film in general is much funnier. The sexism and homophobia are blessedly absent and Rita's character isn't sexualised at all, which makes for a refreshing change.
Other changes in the film are that the phenomenon of time loops are a secret, whereas in the novella and manga the higher-ups know about them and have been studying Rita. Also, she knows more about how they work and can control them better. In the novella, they're trying to end the loop so they can carry on the war into the future. In the film, though, they're trying to keep Cage in the loop so he has more opportunities to end the war altogether because they need to collect certain information and have him carry that through to future loops so they can progress further towards victory each time.
Rita is much cooler and much colder in the film. She's older (thank god) and more embittered by the whole thing, and she has a lot less patience with or sympathy for Cage, which makes their relationship much more interesting and more entertaining. It's still a bit creepy the way he's basing their interactions on months of working together, while it's always the first day for her, but this is played better in the film and is more affecting on both sides. I do like the way Cage defers to her authority throughout, though, and she is the one who gets the other soldiers on board because they respect her.
More tropes! Plucky band of misfits and losers go on a covert mission to save the world and mostly die! Kill the leader of the aliens and all the others just fall down!
The reset of the final time loop to back before the film started, but still having the aliens being defeated makes no sense whatsoever, and is a bit of a cop-out to be able to have everyone be alive again.
But still, it's a fun movie and way better than the source material, in my view.
So, one point to the film!
I shall be interested to hear what the Ink To Film guys thought, though I think they missed out the manga in their reviews.
All of them tell the story of a solider in a future war against invading aliens, who gets stuck in a time loop, reliving the same day over and over again, with the loop restarting when he dies.
The audio version of All You Need Is Kill doesn't fulfil my rules for using Audible credits because it's way too short - 5.5 hours - but I bent my rules because I knew I'd be reading the text version of the manga and wanted a multimedia experience across the three versions. And I'm glad it was short, because I really didn't enjoy it much at all. It has a lot of battle/weaponry/technology/violence detail that isn't really my cup of tea, but I guess is to be expected in a military sci-fi book where the protagonist fights the same battle over and over again.
But it's also very sexist and a little bit homophobic. The narrator includes breast size in the description of all the female characters he meets (of which there are only three) and thinks about women generally in terms of the categories: pretty, homely, or gorilla. So, there's that...
I have to say the potential problem of the narrative being repetitive is dealt with very well. The first loop starts with Keiji's death on the battlefield, so while the whole preceding day plays out for him a second time, we only see its events for the first time in the second loop. By loop three, he's decided to do things very differently, so the story diverges quite quickly.
The other main character is the US Special Forces soldier, Rita Vrataski, who is well respected as a warrior, if still referred to in mysogynistic terms by her male counterparts. The book took my by surprise by switching to her point of view for the third quarter of the story, which was a pleasant change and made the whole thing a lot more interesting.
The explanation of how the time loops came about and how to break out of them passed me by completely and the development of the romance between Keiji and Rita didn't work for me at all - because while he was spending time with her and building up feelings for her, she was always experiencing the day for the first time (in her perception) so it ended up being a bit icky. The ending seemed abrupt and the whole thing about one of them needing to die seemed unnecessary.
So, strike one against the novella.
The manga is a very faithful retelling of the novella, so there weren't any surprises. I thought the visual style worked really well for the story and made it easier to follow to a certain extent, which is why I liked it better than the audiobook. Also, since events had to be compressed, a lot of the offensive banter and sexist commentary was removed, which was an improvement. That wasn't excised completely, though, since the three female characters were all sexualised, and there were several gratuitous ass shots. Why on earth a kitchen worker at a military base would be wearing very tight hotpants and a cropped shirt that bared her midriff and that her breasts were nearly falling out of, is beyond me... Additionally, after revealing that Rita was about 16 when she joined the United Defence Forces, she then continually started her time loop *in the shower*... Sigh.
It was still good to have the section from Rita's point of view though, as it balanced out the story a lot and added a lot of resonance to her character. I didn't understand the timey-wimey stuff any better in the manga, but the eventual showdown between Keiji and Rita was clearer. She said that one of them needed to die for them to escape the time loop and take the fight into the future, and then attacked Keiji. But it was counter to classic storytelling for him then to decide he wanted to be the one to live, and therefore fight back and actually kill her! That did happen in the novella too, but I think I missed the details. So, a bit of a weird way to end things.
I think I declare a draw with the manga because it was well-told and less problematic than the novella.
The film version, renamed Edge of Tomorrow, stars Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt and came out in 2014. I remember going to see it in the cinema at the time and enjoying it. And I largely enjoyed it again last night. It shares a basic premise with the original story, but is very different in a lot of respects.
The setting is changed from Japan to Britain. Keiji is now Major William Cage, a US officer. And while Rita retains her name, she's now British rather than American. Always nice to see London in a movie. Cage is a very different character - Keiji is a rookie going into his first battle after boot camp, while Cage is a PR guy with no battle training or experience at all. He starts the film as a cowardly, snivelling wretch and the film leans in hard to the trope of battle forging real men.
The stakes are increased two-fold in the film, in that Cage has no training whatsoever going into his first battle, and that battle is a last stand against the aliens, rather than just one fight among many in the ongoing war. The aliens are a lot cooler and a lot scarier visually in the film than in the manga and their wibbly hierarchy is even more convoluted and confusing.
The film adds the ridiculous trope of soldier protagonists not wearing their helmets (so we can see their lovely movie star faces, of course), and the film in general is much funnier. The sexism and homophobia are blessedly absent and Rita's character isn't sexualised at all, which makes for a refreshing change.
Other changes in the film are that the phenomenon of time loops are a secret, whereas in the novella and manga the higher-ups know about them and have been studying Rita. Also, she knows more about how they work and can control them better. In the novella, they're trying to end the loop so they can carry on the war into the future. In the film, though, they're trying to keep Cage in the loop so he has more opportunities to end the war altogether because they need to collect certain information and have him carry that through to future loops so they can progress further towards victory each time.
Rita is much cooler and much colder in the film. She's older (thank god) and more embittered by the whole thing, and she has a lot less patience with or sympathy for Cage, which makes their relationship much more interesting and more entertaining. It's still a bit creepy the way he's basing their interactions on months of working together, while it's always the first day for her, but this is played better in the film and is more affecting on both sides. I do like the way Cage defers to her authority throughout, though, and she is the one who gets the other soldiers on board because they respect her.
More tropes! Plucky band of misfits and losers go on a covert mission to save the world and mostly die! Kill the leader of the aliens and all the others just fall down!
The reset of the final time loop to back before the film started, but still having the aliens being defeated makes no sense whatsoever, and is a bit of a cop-out to be able to have everyone be alive again.
But still, it's a fun movie and way better than the source material, in my view.
So, one point to the film!
I shall be interested to hear what the Ink To Film guys thought, though I think they missed out the manga in their reviews.
