• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Just watched Paprika. WTF happened?

Status
Not open for further replies.

Dibbz

Member
What did i just watch? Is this supposed to make like zero sense? Why was a girl sucking up a big black shadow man at the end? Did that dark haired woman marry that big fat guy or something at the end?

Feels like someone made a movie about Colonel Campbell's AI breakdown in MGS 2.

Gotta say the music and animation were great though.
 
Well the dream world stuff is obvious. It seemed pretty straightforward to me when I saw it years ago. I should do Kon marathon soon. Loved his stuff.
 
Weird. I recently watching it again with the better half and I fell asleep halfway through it. Was tired as shit, and I had some weird dreams later that night.
 
I didn't know when I first watched it, can't fully remember now. All I know is I liked the sound track
 
entrement said:
Well the dream world stuff is obvious. It seemed pretty straightforward to me when I saw it years ago. I should do Kon marathon soon. Loved his stuff.
Yeah I got they were in a dream world but why was it all happening? I had basically no idea why anything was going on. It was all so random and mashed together.

The old guy wanted to take over the cosmos or something? I mean that came out of nowhere in the last 10 minutes. Before that it was all walking mailboxes and talking dolls. Shit was everywhere.
 
The girl was the combination of Chiba and Paprika, after Chiba accepts that Paprika is part of her. She then has the power to consume the evil Chairman, restoring normality.
 
Mortrialus said:
Satoshi Kon's worst movie just happened.
As if! It's fuckin great!

The ending was bizarre, but I guess it was just taking the whole "dreams are nuts" thing to an extreme, so it makes sense within context. Taken not completely literal, and just enjoying the spectacle, I liked it.
 
remz said:
As if! It's fuckin great!

The ending was bizarre, but I guess it was just taking the whole "dreams are nuts" thing to an extreme, so it makes sense within context. Taken not completely literal, and just enjoying the spectacle, I liked it.
I totally understand that they emphasized dreams are crazy but is there nothing more to it than that?

The whole cop story seems kind of redundant in the end.
 
His worst is Paranoia agent, but that's a series. I think I like Paprika more than Tokyo Godfaters and Millenium actress though. Number 1 is still Perfect Blue.
 
At the end it sort of presents the notion that all dreams are connected/take place in the same world (the Jungian collective unconscious thing), and you've pretty much got to swallow that concept without questioning when it's presented or the movie won't make any sense at all (specifically, it won't make sense that it's affecting people who haven't even been attached to the device).
 
Mockingbird said:
His worst is Paranoia agent, but that's a series. I think I like Paprika more than Tokyo Godfaters and Millenium actress though. Number 1 is still Perfect Blue.

Aw hell naw.gif
 
I love it. Maybe that's because i saw it at the cinema on my first viewing something about the images being that size on a massive cinema screen made it utterly amazing.
 
Probably the most visually astonishing film I've ever seen. But I haven't seen much, so whatever :lol

The ending is utter shite. The rest is marvellous. Dat opening :O
 
His best is Millennium Actress.
I agree with BlazingDarkness about Tokyo Godfathers. The only Kon work I'd call just 'ok'.
 
Mortrialus said:
Satoshi Kon's worst movie just happened.
Yeah. Visuals and OST are great but other then that it's a big dip in quality for him. Still it's better then most crap japan keeps putting out.
 
Anticitizen One said:
Its like an anime version of Inception. I thought it had cool visuals though.
It begins!

Mockingbird said:
His worst is Paranoia agent, but that's a series. I think I like Paprika more than Tokyo Godfaters and Millenium actress though. Number 1 is still Perfect Blue.
Seriously?
 
I bought this and TekkonKinkreet as part of my early bluray collection when I first got the PS3 - both... I thought were... pretty bad.

/sad
 
Kon is one of those unique filmmakers where you could argue that as he progressed:

Perfect Blue
Millennium Actress
Tokyo Godfathers
Paranoia Agent
Paprika

His work got progressively worse.
Not saying I agree fully, though I do think Perfect Blue and Millennium Actress are undoubtably his best works, but it is interesting to note the further he developed he love of experimentation the less satisfying his work became.
 
Krev said:
I didn't buy Chiba having a repressed love for Tokita. At all. Maybe I'm just extremely shallow.

Susumu Hirasawa is brilliant.
Yep the flashback she had that showed the conversation in the elevator felt so weird. It felt so typical of an anime, which is odd considering the rest of the movie is so different from normal anime.

cajunator said:
My favorite Kon movie was Millenium Actress, followed by this one.
Way too young. He was way too fucking young.
He died?
 
speedpop said:
Weird. I recently watching it again with the better half and I fell asleep halfway through it. Was tired as shit, and I had some weird dreams later that night.
I fell asleep during kakurenbo once and dreamt giant, half bull, half snail things were chasing me in an underground tunnel
 
B_Rik_Schitthaus said:
Thank you for putting some truth in to this thread.
Yeah. It's less "experimental" than his other stuff, but I feel that it's more well-made and coherent than the rest of his stuff too.

icarus-daedelus said:
Yes, and they both took the entering dreams idea from A Nightmare on Elm Street and Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer.

aka "Woody Allen syndrome." Nope, it's not you. It is, oddly enough, the least believable and most jarring aspect of the movie.
I need to watch this. Do I need to watch any prior UY stuff? I might watch the first Oshii-directed movie, but I don't really want to get into the series. Too long.
 
Huh? I've actually always thought that Paprika was surprisingly less convoluted and easier to follow compared to other anime similar to it.
 
icarus-daedelus said:
aka "Woody Allen syndrome." Nope, it's not you. It is, oddly enough, the least believable and most jarring aspect of the movie.
Unless they were still in a dream? Other than that yeah I don't know how I'd explain it.
 
icarus-daedelus said:
Yes, and they both took the entering dreams idea from A Nightmare on Elm Street and Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer.
Of course, they all do pretty different things with them.
 
The way it was edited and some of its techniques (post-opening scene music video intro, the Paprika transformation's depiction) made the thing feet like a TV movie of an already established series, at times. It also had some really weak visual humour.

But it was gorgeously animated and the cop's story based around film-memory dreams was expertly done - film needed more of that kind of thing. Could have been a real good film overall but the final act kinda through it all out of the window with giant man.

It was no Perfect Blue.

edit - Oh, yes, fantastic soundtrack.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom