I have always felt that people attribute things to stories and their creators that are not really present. Much of the brilliance of Conrad's Heart of Darkness, for example, comes from a near infinite ambiguity that allows AP English teachers to draw myriad conclusions that probably had nothing to do with the author's thoughts when he wrote it. That doesn't mean it wasn't brilliant to begin with. That doesn't mean that the author didn't mean some, or even most of the things that people see in it. People will find things if they are looking, even when they aren't there, and the best creators take advantage of that.
What do you think of something that never really matures, never changes, and only dies if something else kills it? I'm not talking about the elf of every fantasy story since Tolkien. I'm talking about anime.
It has been ages since I watched Sky Crawlers, so I have forgotten most of what I was thinking at the time. Still, I would like to convey the gist as best I can from memory: Sky Crawlers is an allegory for the failure of the anime industry.
Maybe I'm giving it too much credit. Maybe not. In either case, the movie shows us endless repetition. In essence, we see an immature product that utterly lacks change, except when some outside force effects the end of an existing member. Is this not the embodiment of the industry's failures? We have seen what amounts to the same product remade every year. For the most part, said product is juvenile. For the most part, specific variants of the product only die out when profiting from them becomes completely infeasible, or when (perhaps due to closures) no one remains who makes that variant.
Of course, this doesn't address the principle problem, which is that people actually want the same old crap over and over again. They complain about things being the same, but whenever something new and different comes along, people hate it. I have seen it many times, both with anime and with other products. Only comfortable, familiar products are consumed in worthwhile quantity. Anime creators have no incentive to change.
That's enough of my rambling. Here's my review.
--------------------------------------------------
Sky Crawlers is thoughtful and well made. Its visuals are brilliant. It's one of very few anime that are worth watching in 1080p. It's also dead boring.
Okay, so it probably isn't entirely fair for me to say that. I enjoyed it, but I have to say: not everything Mamoru Oshii does is a masterpiece. In fact, I think his crap/quality ratio is about average. His best stuff, Talking Head for example, is the kind of thing you can argue about endlessly. Sky Crawlers succeeds on that count, but the real question is: will you want to? The average viewer will lose interest five minutes in.
The Sky Crawlers is a prime example of a show that feels like the creators are trying way too hard. It's a magnificent production. It also largely fails to be fun. As amazing as Sky Crawlers may be, it ultimately fails in its job as entertainment.
