Satire, a soupçon of light relief.

[boolybooly]

There is this movie, called Free Guy, with Ryan Reynolds as Blue Shirt Guy and sundry noble artistes.

In it Taika Waititi plays Antwan, the axe wielding bad boss of Soonami Games which runs an MMO named Free City  where players commit sim crimes and which, by name and activity, bears more than a passing resemblance to Liberty City of GTA.

Liberty City, Free City, sound kinda similar, coincidence? I think not. Since GTA series began in 1997 this looks like art immitating life. Immitation, it is often said, is the sincerest form of flattery.

For plot purposes in film game has a dark secret being (fictionally) built with stolen code. I am not suggesting that is immitation, just a plot necessity and trope for low ethics. The audience must  decipher what is satire and what is fiction. 

Antwan was the thief, in order to prevent his dark secret being revealed and save his money (which is where real world satirical parallels reemerge like new born butterflies drying their fragile wings in the dawn light) he destroys his own game... by hacking the servers ... with a fire axe, of course ... its Hollywood, anything is possible.

A wonderful metaphor, I thought, a fire axe in the back of a server, for the destructive act of stopping KSP2 mid development for the sake of mere money, oh where is the humanity? Anyway it made me laugh.

I just wondered, with all this extraordinary satirical reflection going on... considering Free City was produced in 2021 and today looks like a prophesy of the subsequent destruction of Private Division in 2024, it makes one wonder if life is now immitating art? 

Do big dev studio bosses feel encouraged to behave like on screen stereotypes? Is Taika Waititi's Antwan a voice in their head like his imaginary Hitler in Jojo Rabbit? Is that how it works?

The question I really want to ask is this, does Antwan dress like the guy who shut down KSP2?

Would be glad to hear of any more game related satire out there which might give as a laugh about the KSP2 situation and perhaps poke little fun at our friends in TTWO.

[para 9]

This is so cringe. 

"Corpo suits = movie villain bad." lol. ok. 

The "creatives" at PD and Intercept did a great job in authoring their own destruction. 

[Scarecrow71]

You know, this thread is coming up at the right time for me.  I started watching Tron last night on Disney+, which is effectively "corpo suits = movie villain".  For those of you who haven't seen this, the plot is effectively that Jeff Bridges is a great software engineer who wrote multiple video games that were then stolen by David Warner and pawned off as his own, which catapults Mr. Warner into the executive chair.  Warner then writes a program that somehow is able to pull Bridges into the computer world, where Bridges has to try and survive all while attempting to find proof of the theft AND bring down Warner's program.  That's a massive over-simplification, but there you have it.

Anyhow, I started watching it last night (for the billionth time, I might add), and that kind of fits into this thread here.  Sofware devs are hosed by other corporate entities - in this case, another dev - and don't get the credit they deserve while watching their original creation do something that wasn't intended.  In the case of Bridges, he writes multiple video games that go on to become massive successes, but he gets no credit while Warner does.  In the spirit of Hollywood, there are multiple other storylines going on, such as the MCP trying to take over the world, and other programs written by end users - such as TRON, written by Bruce Boxleitner - being either shut down, forced offline, or destroyed because they pose a threat to the MCP.

Yes, the movie is pure early 80s cheese.  But I dig it, and I think it fits into the spirit of this thread.  And when I'm done with Tron, I'll rewatch Tron:  Legacy (but I refuse to watch the animated TV show; I can't get behind Bridges' program CLU being the bad guy).

[boolybooly]

Big bad bullying poor little creatives is bound to fascinate decent folk like us. The horror, the horror. 

Ready Player One was another movie about the little guy winning in a game against badness, though it wasn't really satire.

FreeGuy on the other hand made me outraged and laugh at the same time as it is full of gags, a bit subtler than Spaceballs etc but lots of jokes, cameos and nods to well known games and movies.  

Though after all the talk of corpo suits it may surprise some to learn that this is Taika Waititi as Antwan. Too trendy, not all evil costumes are suits, something tells me Antwan loves his own reflection a little too much... 

Edited July 29 by boolybooly

[Scarecrow71]

Sorry, but I just can't see Taika Waititi as anything other than Korg.

[Superfluous J]

Crazy how much this poster (From 2023's FUBAR) resembles the poster from Free Guy.

Talk about sealing from a source.

[boolybooly]

Sincerest form of flattery ... also meme evolution.

Korg was funny, a bit of a send up imho. Maybe even parody.

That thing around Antwan's neck though, is that a bagel?