A Bug's Life Is LITERALLY Seven Samurai

what's in a name if you're a fan of Shakespeare or took drama in ninth grade I expect you to answer that which we call a rose by any other word with smell of sweets alternatively if you're a fan of the shins you may soon return with they got a name for everything truthfully it's of little consequence which answer you choose because they mean the same thing the former is a line found in the second scene of the second act of Romeo and Juliet and the latter is James Mercer of The Shins referencing that same line 400 something years later see in the play the phrase what is in a name in its accompanying lines are opposed as an argument from Juliet comparing Romeo to a rose she proposes that he would still be graceful and still be her love if he hadn't been named Romeo if any other name had been given to him had he not been born a Montague she would not only love him still but be able to love him freely something or someone's name is immaterial when considering their essence their beliefs or their worth and in the shins song name for you the phrase proposes the same argument accepts instead of contending for the right to love someone belonging to a rival family it argues in favor of female agency and against those who would attempt to constrain a woman's spirit by casting labels against them no matter what name or label you give someone their qualities remain unchanged same exact argument just in a different social context on a different continents in a different century point is a name is - Romeo what setting is - Juliet's argument it's inconsequential a medium or setting is of meager significance when a moral is universal and I don't think there is a medium on earth more intimately acquainted with the idea of the same plots and characters and morals being endlessly referenced and resurrected under new names than film is whether it's Ridley Scott's Blade Runner or Aronofsky's requiem for a dream film is an art form of rebirths it is a Lazarus Pit that we lower Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago into and pull David Lean's Doctor Zhivago outta from King to Kubrick from Puzo to Coppola film at its best is oftentimes just the retelling of a story that we've already heard or that someone else has told before sometimes though a redux comes along so disjointed from its original that it's hard to tell it's a reproduction in the first place and that's what I'm gonna spend the next however long I feel like talking cool about so put on your thinking caps and strap in I'm really smart and this is why a bug's life is literally Seven Samurai [Music] [Applause] [Music] Pixar got its start in 1974 when the founder of the New York Institute of Technology Alexander Shore launched what he called the computer graphics lab and began recruiting other computer scientists who shared in his ambition to create the first ever computer animated film after sinking mountains of money into the department though the team realized they wouldn't be able to make their dreams a reality unless they found a home in a legitimate film studio and that's when the big man himself George Lucas came knockin 21 years Luke is suffering from a financially crippling divorce and Steve Jobs becoming their CEO later their first feature-length film drops to universal acclaim distributed by Disney and beating out their own film Pocahontas at the box office Toy Story became a symbol of things to come from the new boys on the block and later that year production started on their next big project a bug's life and despite the film still turning out to be a success it was nonetheless plagued by tensions surrounding its production largely due to a feud between two warring factions huh never mind wrong Kurosawa phone anyways ex Disney chairman in current DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg had been told the entire original plot and approach of Pixar's next film by his once good friend the leading director in head of Pixar's animation Department John Lasseter Katzenberg realising the potential for the concepts and not wanting DreamWorks to fall behind their Disney backed opposition had his team gets straight to work on ants their own insect based study of society in the natural order where a young male villager would discordant tendencies relative to his people sets out on an adventure to save his land in whoo its princess in the process and I just got talk about when they tryna dude just net no once it got back to Lassiter in jobs that their old friend had taken the idea and ran with it tensions quickly rose in the animation world and then erupted into a public feud Katzenberg attempted to hold a bug's lives winter release state hostage so that it couldn't compete against DreamWorks much-anticipated theatrical debut the Prince of Egypt in an effort to corner Pixar Katzenberg even offered the production team in charge of ants tremendous financial incentives to do whatever they could to make sure ants was released first despite Pixar's headstart not only was Katzenberg and DreamWorks prepared to ruin a close friendship from his tenure at Disney but he was willing to risk the success of what was intended to be their debut feature by moving ants released in front of it to do it nonetheless jobs and Lasseter never backed down ann's released a month before a bug's life and grossed less than half of what a bug's life would go on to make at the box office existing not only as a monument to the aggressive business tactics Katzenberg had learned from jobs but to Lassiter's resolve as a creator to stand up against a studio even one ran by an old friend to defend his work and this is where a bug's life first begins to mirror Kurosawa's masterpiece not just in its first scene but in the production of it Seven Samurai was a technical and creative force to be reckoned with of watershed within the world of film and Kurosawa knew it through the use of at the time rare telephoto lenses as well as multiple camera shoots using diagrams to choreograph each operators movements Kurosawa was setting a new bar for every artist within the medium unfortunately a trailblazing often comes at a steep cost and for Kurosawa it was having his productions shut down not once but twice his own studio between the rewrites the recasting the meticulous set designs and the overwhelming amount of time required to capture his vision Kurosawa managed to nearly quadruple seven samurais original budgets and extended its production length to almost 150 days of shooting spread over nearly a year Toho Studios the production company that had originally given Kurosawa his start as a 25 year old assistant director had been financing Ichiro Honda's epical production of Godzilla contemporaneously with Kurosawa's Seven Samurai and at a tremendous cost finding themselves backed into a wall by the ever-expanding cost of Kurosawa's epic the studio had no choice but to threaten him to rein in his excessive spending or else Kurosawa though knowing what was at stake ignored their pleas forcing Toho Studios to completely halt production on Seven Samurai to avoid falling into bankruptcy despite the immense amount of pressure on him to reduce the length of a shoot and cut his budget or risk losing all of his work each time Toho shut down his production Kurosawa simply went fishing and waited for them to ask him to continue his work the reason he later gave for having such a calm and unfaltering resolve was that he couldn't imagine a company on earth that would sing so much time and money into his vision and then not let him complete it and sure enough they asked him to come back twice Kurosawa's faith in his work and his crews determination to complete the vision they had set out to realize were fortifications against a siege of pressure to cut his losses and allow someone other than him to dictate the amount of time and passion put into his work and when it should be released but even if the conflicts during the production of their films and the public controversy surrounding them were similar surely that isn't enough to call them the same movie right well like Gary Jones says and that pretty terrible Dead Rising movie that's not even the half of it yeah now that we've gotten Lassiter and Kurosawa's parallel production perils out of the way it's time we jump into the films themselves starting now [Music] the film's open with an establishing pan of a landscape just outside of where most of the story will take place we're assured into a bug's life by a Clement gust of wind and the sound of insects and birds in the distance the camera Dalene forward like a leaf in the breeze that we're listening to being carried towards the beginning of our story in Seven Samurai our establishing shot is scored by nature as well the pounding of approaching hooves swells under the foreground bringing a metaphor from the previous title cards to life the sound of Kurosawa's figurative thunderous downpour completely dominates the aural landscape for the first 30 seconds of the film only relenting to allow us context this is a village and these are farmers neither the villager in Seven Samurai or the series of ants in a bug's life that were first introduced to our proper introductions to a significant character within the narrative but it is precisely this insignificance that makes their introductions so crucial they aren't a main character rather they are a criterion for the society that the main characters exist in content to serve but brimming with fear both without strong leadership to defend them or free them from their chains of servitude reasoning that this alone isn't enough for us to grasp the true scope of their despair though Kurosawa and Lassiter each decide it's time to sit us front row for a full demonstration and following a cut to this gathering of villagers in the colonies leadership respectively we're given a 1-minute crash course on the overarching despondency that rules over these consonant societies in Seven Samurai the villagers respond to proposals of hope with anger or counter propositions of suicide and in a bug's life there is no proposal of to begin with as the queen explains to princess Atta that serving the grasshoppers and leaving hardly any food for themselves each year is just the way things have always been for their people in one film the villagers combat any suggestions of seeking help or subverting what they perceive to be the natural order in the other and during the scene in a bug's life the sentiments of Mons oh and most of the other villagers and Seven Samurai are condensed into the Queen specifically see although these are essentially the same movie the lengths of their runtimes are radically different from one another and due to the almost two hours of time we don't have to be introduced to a dynamic cast of characters with unique personalities and differing means of responding to every beat in the story and the way we do is Seven Samurai a lot of the characters in a bug's life take on multiple roles within the film um here actually let me show you what I mean so protagonists of the film I'm skipping ahead a little to their introduction but the reason I am is because Flik the main character of a bug's life is Mons Oh Rikishi ket's hero and in one scene kikuchiyo at the same time he has the individualism and fighting spirit of Rikishi but the fear and otherwise cowardly demeanor of Mons oh it's flicks idea to seek out the warriors in the first place on top of this he places the Warriors on an unrealistically high pedestal to the point of borderline infatuation his desperation for strength to defend his people but simultaneous disdain for their subservient nature in the cycle that forces them to live that way driving every decision he makes from the beginning to the end of a film oh and speaking of infatuation he's in love with the young bright female star of the village that despite his best efforts in consistently putting himself in harm's way for her doesn't seem particularly thrilled with his presence beyond his objective use to the colony yeah sound familiar well flick in this context plays a role of cats hero princess Atta plays Shino again with the compression though so does dot weird I know but it makes perfect sense once you think of these two characters in relation to Mons oh and cats a hero the overprotective father relationship that Manzo shares with his daughter Shino is at its core the same dynamic between flick and dot it just overlaps cats a heroes relationship with Shino which is ultimately one of unrequited love cats II hero doesn't behave the way Shino expects a samurai to behave and when you consider her reactions to everything that happens between her and cats a hero during the film it becomes clear that he's the immature damsel who's fallen in love and lacks experience whereas she knows just a farmer's daughter that wanted him to drop some samurai dick off and leave the radical class inequality that ultimately makes their relationship impossible might be inverted in a bug's life but the same dynamics are at play adda has virtually no romantic interest in flick for nearly the entire film and this is largely due to the fact that he behaves in pretty much direct contrast to what adda wishes for a man in the colony to behave like just like Shino Lassiter throws flick a bone by having a de at least hold his hand and kiss his cheek before the ending of a film sure but when you consider the context surrounding it and the film it mirrors especially in its closing moments as she know is completely disinterested in cats a hero well Katsuhiro looks absolutely heartbroken in response to it flick and Atta likely have no chance of sustaining a relationship outside of the war that they temporarily came together during and just like Shino Atta doesn't have to she doesn't owe that that's what we call female agency shout out to k-swiss for being ahead of the curve many is Kambei the oldest and wisest of the Warriors but has now grown tired of what he does de facto leader but generally the most restrained of the group gypsy is shichiroji loyal the Kambei above others and the screenplay specifies they share a close bond in this case romantic as their a couple instead of old work opinions but it carries the same weight in terms of exposition for these two characters Kambei has calm and measured responses while she to Rho G contrast them with jovial warmth and encouragement Heimlich is the other half of Katzie hero the least mature of the group even in contrast to kikuchiyo and at times he feels more like a liability to the group than a helping hand katsu heroes metamorphosis from the young boy we met in the beginning of the story into the man we've come to know by the end is made literal in a bug's life by heimlich breaking out of a cocoon following the battle and the other warriors pulling him along before the credits roll Francis is kikuchiyo short-tempered but arguably the most emotionally consistent in well meaning out of the Warriors although all of the warriors are there for a noble cause his manner of speaking and the way he carries himself alludes to the fact that he comes from a lower rung on the societal ladder much like the ants and it's because of this that he relates better to the children and the children to him than any other warrior Tim is high Hachi although cheerful and upbeat it's acknowledged by the rest of the samurai that next to cats a hero he is the least skilled combatant and that his use largely comes from appearing to be an imposing adversary and being a warm uplifting presence Rose is Goro Bey easily the most collected and easygoing member of the Warriors but a satellite character nonetheless so her dialogue is somewhat limited compared to a few other members next in line to kikuchiyo in terms of how well they bond with the village especially when considering that katsu heroes bond was specific to sheena and seemingly suffocated by the others in the village especially Monza Slim is Cuusoo another trait of the samurai made literal CUSOs exceptional swordsmanship is mirrored by way of the other warriors usually Francis using slim as an actual sword CUSOs reluctant demeanor towards combat in the killing of others perfectly translate to slim as well as he is consistently the least willing to fight and the most eager to avoid it thumper is Rikishi's wife in that he serves the same narrative purpose a symbol of terror and brutality that keeps a colony living in fear a symbol they're familiar with kosaka the old man is the queen Mosca is mr. soil and Yohei is represented by the ant colony as a collective consistently refuting hope doubting the viability of flickin Rikishi's plans and in constant disbelief of their own ability to defend themselves until the apex of the film and finally PD flea introduced to us near the beginning of the film and making his return at the end sweeping the Warriors away with him PT doesn't represent any character from Kurosawa's film rather he represents the prevailing theme of the samurai within it hunger not just for food but for purpose PT fails to maintain an audience and when he is able to garner some appreciation it's only through literal self immolation the samurai no longer fight for lands or for money the time of the samurai is coming to an end and the appreciation for them is limited at best the threat to the colony was nullified so it's all happy faces and music for the villagers but the hunger is still there and it takes the warriors away because there's nothing left to feed them here anyways after we're introduced to the black sheep of the village and the People's Court agreed to send him on his quest we cut away to our young protagonist setting out for the big city in search of protectors willing to defend the colony again due to the contrast and run times we don't get to see the Ronin Avengers Assemble one by one like we do in Seven Samurai but a bug's life still captures the essence of the sequence flawlessly the flies yelling at Manny and the rest of the troupe calling them washed up as well as the group being introduced while they're performing as clowns for entitled and ungrateful on lookers perfectly reflects the way Kurosawa introduces Kambei Cuusoo and hi Hachi to us resigned to lowly work for relatively little appreciation despite their ability the feats they perform going largely unappreciated following this when Rikishi and Flik returned to their villages with their saviors the people flee hidden in their houses and their canals nobody at least not at first wishes to face them because they're afraid the mantra by which they survive the only rule that has successfully sustained them is that their only choice is to endure so they hide following the initial armament of the village when Kambei and the others are presented the armor of fallen samurai hunted down and killed by the villagers after battles is mirrored by the Warriors being presented a tapestry portraying the conquest that the colony expects from them and their immediate realisation that Flik misunderstood who they actually were and just as we're shown the samurai silently retreats into their own anger and shock we're shown the Warriors trying to speak up through their disbelief and fear the desperation inflicts plea as he too realized what has happened mirroring the anger and sorrow in kikuchiyo 'he's and after this initial conflicts the films give us a brief repose the presence of the Warriors alone and their decision to stay has revitalized to the colony a sense of contented restfulness seems to have washed over the people within it as well as the Warriors their hope that was so long dormant or perhaps never there to begin with has finally been restored and soon after the film's lul us into the sense of warmth the villages are attacked Lassiter not having the same luxuries as Kurosawa an hour and twenty minutes of runtime to illustrate one of the greatest battles in cinema history condenses the most broad dramatic sweeps from seven samurais timeless sequence into the last half-hour of a bug's life PD FLE returns and proposes to the Warriors that they need to return to his circus and abandon the villagers that they've sworn to protect reflecting Kikuchi owes decision to abandon his post out of hunger for purpose and honor and like kikuchiyo the warriors come back the crescendo of both films the villagers and Samurai and one in the colony ants and warriors and the other clashing with all of the spit and fire they have in them against the duplicitous natural order that we were ushered into the films by come to pass in the pouring rain shortly after this shared Meridian the film's end and a subdued wind carries the defenders off as the villagers begin their harvest Kurosawa's greatest feats his most overwhelming and formidable displays of filmmaking to me at least have always been his command of nature his innate ability to elevate the natural forces of the world that his characters live in beyond a simple plot device or aesthetic pattern and instead treat the rain and wind and thunder and fire and snow of his worlds as characters unto themselves the opening sequences of both films stating before anything else that a downpour is on the horizon in Kurosawa's by the sound of the bandits horses and the prodigious clouds looming above them and in Lassiter's by the first shot opening on a dried riverbed introducing us to the colony as they discuss the coming of rain thunder being represented by the terrible crack of the muskets in Seven Samurai and the harrowing screech of the bird in a bug's life weapons that pose a terrible threat not simply to one side but to all sides of these conflicts the roaring of fire symbolizing the sudden rush of indignation within the villagers as well as the sacrifices they had to make in order to contend the fate they had previously submitted to expressed in a bug's life by the children narrowly escaping it and in Seven Samurai by Rikishi's wife walking back into it both films assure us in and guide us out with rain and wind during a harvest and both are at their core a meditation on the ever-changing natural societal order that we all end or under an exploration of selflessness versus pragmatism and an age long since passed of personal honor and kind deeds being handsomely rewarded closing with what at first watch may leave you feeling is an elated note to end on a triumph over evil but on a second or third watch proposes a much more gray and indistinct resolution the villagers and the ant colony content to not further reward their saviors or even offer them a place among them consistent with Aesop's fable of the ant and the grasshopper which both films screenplays were based on proposing that the ants in the villagers are not victims they are pragmatic and miserly but only because nature dictates them to be and the grasshopper as well as the ants brave defenders that Kurosawa and Lassiter and Tomioka and Roberts and noob Manav and sails included are merely products of the same order John Lasseter's a bug's life may differ in the finer strokes there may be changes made cuts to certain character dynamics in the interest of accommodation for Lassiter's time constraints as well as his audience but it doesn't change anything that matters the broad-strokes remain untouched sure there may be a rift that separates them 44 years of technological advancement presented to a different society in a different setting starting at different species presented with a different name but beat for beat point for point a bug's life is literally Seven Samurai it's just got a different name and after all what's in a name [Music] like hey thank you so much for watching my snappy uh video here I hope you enjoyed it at least half as much as I did making it big big big tremendous thank you to my patrons for making these vids possible look at the pretty little 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Channel: BREADSWORD

Views: 336,689

Keywords: A Bug's Life Is LITERALLY Seven Samurai, Pixar analysis, Pixar video essay, A Bug's Life review, A Bug's Life video essay, Seven Samurai review, Seven Samurai video essay, Seven Samurai analysis, Pixar review, A Bug's Life analysis, Disney review, Disney analysis, Disney video essay, BREADSWORD, Akira Kurosawa video essay, Akira Kurosawa analysis, Akira Kurosawa review, a bug's life is literaly seven samurai, A Bugs Life Is LITERALLY Seven Samurai

Id: absNLWpjnqc

Length: 29min 57sec (1797 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 22 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/prollyjustsomeweirdo]

Only Seven Samurai is literally Seven Samurai...

[u/shadowban_this_post]

It sure is.