Duckyworth's Thoughts: 9 ~ 2009

Hello everybody!
I've been thinking about whether I should start taking commisions - just to make ends meet, and to try to earn myself a little bit of money while I'm in University and waiting for my university grants to come in. I've uploaded a poll about it, so if you haven't seen it, can you please comment on the poll? Also, this weekend gone, we went to our annual restaurant meal at a place called The Running Horse - I had a loaf of bread stuffed with beef (not literally, but that's how it said it on the menu ) and I also had some creme brulee for pudding. I also went to a Christmas Fair, one in Ludlow that we go to every year.... It rained a lot, but it was still nice to go there. Two weeks left of term... Bring it on!

Today's installment of Duckyworth's Thoughts is less disturbing than Felidae, I assure you, but... it does still have some surprisingly scary parts..... Today's film shall be the post-apocalyptic stitchpunk adventure - 9!



Yep.. I remember waiting to see this film in the cinema in 2009... I was so eager to see it, and had been planning to see it for months... But as soon as I had a chance to see the film..... It had stopped being shown at cinemas..... Fortunately, I did get it on DVD for my 16th birthday from one of the support staff at my old secondary school... along with a lifesize figurine of 9. And... I have to say, it was quite a cool film.

Now, I have to clear something up.. in my Frankenweenie review, I said that Tim Burton directed 9... Sorry, but I made a mistake... 9 was actually directed by Shane Acker, but Tim Burton DID produce it. It's like Nightmare Before Christmas, even though Henry Selick directed it, people plastered Tim Burton's name all over it... But Shane Acker does of course deserve credit. Okay, now I've cleared that up, let's talk about the film.

Of course, as I mentioned in my Rock and Rule review, post-apocalyptic futures could be seen as a story that's too popular to be original anymore... But as always, I love seeing films have their own twists on them... and this film is no exception. And many people see this film as a mixture between WALL-E and Terminator... and I have to be honest... I can see why this may be..... The prologue shows a scientist hooking up one of his ragdoll inventions up to a machine to give it life... and all the time, he's talking about how mankind squandered their gifts and allowed the advance of technology to cloud their judgement, and the machines, that were originally used in the hope of bringing wealth and prosperity for the state turned on their masters...... And that did remind me of Terminator... But as I said, post-apocalyptic futures could be seen as an idea that is losing originality.... But I still see charm in this film. It reminds me of Fallout 3 at times – and I love that.

Now, the casting in this film is some of the best that I've seen in a while.... We have Elijah Wood as 9 , who still manages to keep his wide-eyed curiosity and vulnerability from lacking the knowledge of the post-apocalyptic world from Frodo Baggins from Lord of the Rings in my opinion... yet he sounds more like Spyro from The Legend of Spyro in this – combining the best of those characters , yet his personality becomes more well-refined as the film goes on, and it turns out that he is the best creation made by the scientist – both physically and mentally. But unfortunately, like Frodo... sometimes his curiosity can lead to trouble... Especially in a scene that is actually pretty gruesome...
We also have the wise explorer 2 , played by Martin Landau – Mr Ryzkruzki from Frankenweenie, but luckily, he doesn't talk about electrons rushing to the land of opportunity. He reminds me an awful lot of Psyches for some reason... Psyches is much older of course, but Psyches is as wise and physically vulnerable. I feel SO sorry for 2 in this.... In the trailers, all we see of him is him getting captured by the Cat Beast, and we learn that he was left to die by the leader of the stitchpunks, 1.... cut the poor ragdoll some slack! Speaking of 1 , he's voiced by Charles Muntz from Up, Christopher Plummer.... and I have to say, he gives SUCH a cool voice to 1 in this.... Old and well-renowned, yet he seems to be more sly and bitter than 2, and he believes that it's much better to hide in safety, than to even ATTEMPT to make something out of the outside world – leading to some bitterness between him and 9..... And if you watch 1 in this, and see his negative personality traits... You can probably see where I got some of the inspiration for Balthasar the Alakazam from my Pokemon Comics. But 1 does try to keep the rest of the stitchpunks safe... But it seems that his lack in bravery and his contempt for those who are dead to him (those who leave the safety of the Sanctuary to discover more about the world) makes it a bit difficult.
Some of those that 1 considers worthless are the mute twins 3 and 4, , easily two of the cutest of the stitchpunks, who were created to analyse the world that has been destroyed so that the stitchpunks could have an idea about what the world used to be like... So that they could learn that it wasn't always this ruinous. And the way that they 'catalogue' everything is pretty cute as well – they scan things with their eyes, and they have housed themselves up in an old library.. so as you can imagine, there's a LOT of cataloguing to do! The fourth stitchpunk 1 considers is worthless is the main female of the group (although I... think 4 is a girl as well? ) , 7 , voiced by Jennifer Connelly – yet ANOTHER pretty, yet tough, tomboyish character... And her attire is AWESOME... a bird skull helmet, an arm shield (which she ends up losing MUCH too often... ) and a sharp blade staff.... For some reason, she reminds me quite a bit of a Alissa Vincent from Dead Space Downfall.... she's tough and always remains headstrong, but she does want to keep her friends safe at all costs, and she often throws herself into harms way to protect those in need – but in this... 7 seems to do that quite often... For example, when up against the Winged Beast, she gets hit by it, and then zooms back in.. Didn't you learn your lesson, 7?!
The other stitchpunks are 5 , voiced by John C. Reilly – the handyman of the group, the protégé of 2, and he reminds me an awful lot of Samwise Gamgee from Lord of the Rings, and like him, he sticks with Elijah Wood's character through thick and thin – he also has a pretty cool getup – a cool backpack and an eyepatch, covering his lost eye.... , 6 played by Crispin Glover, the eccentric of the group.. and also a pretty cute character – and possibly my favourite of the stitchpunks. At first, I thought his different sized eyes was an animation error, but it could be a way of symbolising that he's slightly different from the others... and the way he keeps drawing the talisman that 9 finds and he keeps shouting 'The source! The source!' also helps to shine some light on some of the mysteries that are thrown at our characters... even though at times it sounds as though he really badly wants some ketchup... I feel sorry for him being grimaced at by some of the characters though... 1 cuts him off before he has a chance to tell 9 about the talisman, and 8 even treads on his drawings!
And last but not least, we have the powerhouse of the group, 8 played by Matthew Tatasciore. He reminds me of a stitchpunk version of Paranorm the Dusknoir.. My favourite scene with him is when he pokes his head with his magnet, which explains one reason why he isn't the brightest bulb in the socket... And I also love the conversation between him and 1 –
Subjugate them!
Sub.. what?
You illiterate cretin.... Take their belongings!
I also like how he often messes around with the other stitchpunks... we see him try to leap into action to protect them, and he does show some unease when he's forced to follow 1 and leave the others in danger... It's just a very childish way for him to have fun... You could say that's he's not entirely dumb... he just has the mind of a child.  For some reason, I think Sleepy the Snorlax would sound an awful like 8.. especially when you see 8 plummet down a rooftop when the Winged Beast attacks the group.
But of course, all of these stitchpunks are fun to watch, and even though I wish some of them could have had some more screentime, they all have some great characteristics, and you can see that each of them have their own role to make a community – something resembling life in this abandoned wasteland.

Now that we've talked about the main characters, let's talk about the setting.... I LOVE the creativity of this film.... the outfits that the characters wear, the different materials and designs that they're made of.... having NOTRE DAME as the setting for 1's sanctuary, and even some form of weather in this world - when we see 6 try to chase after burnt bits of paper falling from the sky. But above all... the designs of the mechanical creatures are INCREDIBLE... the Cat Beast, the Winged Beast, the Seamstress and the B.R.A.I.N (Binary Reactive Artificially Intelligent Neurocircuit) are the villains in this.. and the designs all look amazing. The Seamstress especially.. doll's heads were creepy enough.. but this film goes the extra mile with the Seamstress... The Cat Beast was actually the last thing that the B.R.A.I.N designed before it originally shut down and it was made to collect the talisman, which was originally used to start up the B.R.A.I.N, so that it could be reactivated. The Winged Beast was made to attack the stitchpunks head on.. and when that didn't work, the Seamstress was made to attack from the shadows.. And I have to admit, my design for the Mesmeriser Necromorph was loosely inspired by the Seamstress... it was just so cool, and it was so creepy, I could easily see it working as a Necromorph. The way it uses red string to tie up it's victims reminded me of muscles and blood , and the way it uses its prey to hypnotise other prey to draw them in is just so cool.
Other designs I really like is the ideas for objects that are used to create the devices that the stitchpunks use, the clothes that they wear (2's candlestick helmet especially ), and the whole world seems slightly steampunk-like. Which is also pretty cool. The sets also have a strange charm to them... And, when you look at this film... You can see where people are coming from when they mistake this for a Tim Burton film... I'm not sure if being a producer has much of an impact on the film, but maybe Tim Burton lent some of his ideas to Shane Acker to use.

The music and sound effects are also extremely cool... Danny Elfman was one of the composers who worked on this, and of course, his music is always nice to listen to. At times, the music can be absolutely BEAUTIFUL... The sound effects the mechanical creatures make are also awesome... Especially the way they sound like savage animals. Some of the music actually reminds me of some of the more gentle music in the Dead Space games for some reason, and it also has hints of Coraline at times. Also, the song used on the trailer for this, a Coheed and Cambria song - Welcome Home. I loved that song when I heard the trailer, and the full song isn't that bad either.. but it's the ONLY song from Coheed and Cambria that I liked...

But of course, the main thing I love is the ANIMATION. My goodness, is the animation incredible. It's just such a beautiful film to watch, but a lot of the scary imagery is beyond effective -  when the B.R.A.I.N takes the souls from some of the characters, the imagery is pretty GRUESOME at times... even if they don't bleed.... And of course, it's beyond sad to see the characters die... I mean, the first death is within the first TWENTY MINUTES! It's like Felidae - you get attached to some of the characters, that's why it's beyond shocking when you see them die! Back to animation, the shining effects on the optics of the characters, the lighting, the backgrounds, the dark sky, the weather effects... Everything is so pretty.... And when the film needs to focus on pure atmosphere.. the animation takes over, and we don't need any sound... Much like the original short that this film is based on, much of it focuses solely on atmosphere, and of course, I love that. Some of the atmosphere is extremely pretty, and a lot of scenes simply focus on the facial expressions of the characters... A look alone can say a thousand words.
The ending in particular is extremely pretty, and it brings new hope for us, and we can guess for ourselves the new life that can be born from the rain that falls from the sky with the new energy inside it.. But, is it me, or does some of the rain look like the worm-like things that James is given by the spaceman in James and the Giant Peach? The ending is also pretty close to the short... and it is almost completely silent... The atmosphere is SO heavy.

Now to be fair, I wasn't that scared by this film... True, it can be pretty dark at times (it has a 12 certificate for a reason! ) and, like Watership Down, Plague Dogs and Felidae, it can be pretty mean-spirited and cruel at times, and it is also filled with a lot of beautiful moments.. But it wasn't as gritty as the three films mentioned.. maybe because it's not hand-drawn animation, so it's more shocking if hand-drawn animation has those levels of horrificness.. But still, when I saw it, I was pretty tense at times, and I can see why some people may have been scared by it at times. The jump scares weren't that bad for me - although the Seamstress creeped me out.... It's more the imagery, and the fact that the characters are nearly ALWAYS in peril...

Unfortunately, there are some things about the film that I feel are obvious flaws. Sadly, as nice as the animation is... I noticed a few flaws in the animation. For example, sometimes, we see characters' eyes don't shine when others are, in some shots, the continuity is flawed - in one scene, when 2 is searching for a voicebox for 9, we see that 9's front is zipped open, in the next shot, it's closed, and in the next, it's closed again... Another example is when 3 and 4 witness rain for the first time, and they DON'T catalogue it... Well, maybe they have seen it before on videos? Also, the film is only 76 minutes long, and some of it feels slightly rushed.. some scenes could have been made longer, some characters could have had more screentime - as it was pretty cruel not giving some of them that much screentime, and they could have focused on having more of a gap between the action scenes - allowing for more atmosphere... But to be fair, it worked for Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, so it could be overlooked.

Also, there are some plotholes left in the film.. But the documentary and the 9 website answer some, if not all of these questions, and one thing that I LOVE about the fanbase for this film is that people have started making their own explanantions, stitchpunks, prequels and fan-sequels to this film. If a film gets THAT much popularity, that's a good sign... And to be fair, I wasn't that all confused by this film... True, I had to watch it again, but all the pieces of the jigsaw fell into place. I also drew quite a few stitchpunk designs in the past... I unfortunately lost most of them in the past, probably lost among my reams of forgotten drawing paper and concepts in my drawers at home... But I will be drawing my favourite designs of characters in the future.

As I said, this isn't the best film I've seen, and like Home on the Range, I have to admit that it's flawed at times and I can see why people may dislike it, but for what it's worth, it's DEFINATELY worth seeing. Check it out for yourself, and see some great creativity and post-apocalyptic action.


Well, next time, I shall be finishing my reviews of the unholy trinity of childhood destroying films....
Watership Down and Felidae have already been reviewed.... so next time, I shall bring back the nightmares with a critique of the final member of this unholy trinity of films......
PLAGUE DOGS!



COMING DUCKYWORTH'S THOUGHTS -
The Secret of NIMH
Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas
Plague Dogs
An American Tail
The Black Cauldron
Animal Farm
Pokemon - Lucario and the Mystery Of Mew
Pokemon - The Rise of Darkrai
Brave
A Cat In Paris
Basil The Great Mouse Detective
Pokemon - Jirachi:Wishmaker
Dracula (1931)
Hellraiser
Hellbound: Hellraiser 2
The Silence of the Lambs
Zombieland
Hot Fuzz
The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari
Freaks
Fright Night
Frankenstein
Bride of Frankenstein
Casablanca
The Godfather
The Godfather - Part 2
The Godfather - Part 3


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