Scrapped Princess

Scrapped Princess

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So here we are at ep 12, and what a fucking shit bomb they dropped. up to now i was digging the show fantasy type with a decidedly tech heavy feel. swords and sorcery was getting really good, i love the characters. As i kept up with the show little hints of maybe a post apocalyptic world were rising i was cool with that. But no in ep 12 theyh gotta just come out and say hey check out our weak matrix clone wannabe :...: that alone has just about killed it for me. but i will stick it out and see watg they think of next.

i take it u didnt like the matrix? or u just dont like the matrix animated? either way i agree with you.. it sounds awefully matrix-esque.. and not in a good way either. maybe it gets better in the end.. we'll find out soon, i wanna see pacifica's real power, i notice she does some hocus pocus in the outro..

from whaty\ was described her power is just to infect people with the ability to not have to listen to the peacemakers. maybe when it awakens she can do it at awill and over a larger distance.

How come when that other Peacemaker guy 'influenced' people, he gained control of them, but in this episode when the people in the Beast Princess' fortress were 'influenced,' they acted like they were sick/in pain? I guess there's two possible explanations:

1) Different Peacemaker 'influence' people differently

or

2) It's a silly plot device to keep Steyr from being too powerful.

But yeah... I'm not going to go crazy on it, but this is the first SP episode that I didn't like all that much... it just felt like they were trying to cram too much plot development into one episode and it was kinda... fake. And it really is WAY too similar to The Matrix. Just the whole 'is the world not real and meant to deceive us' thing I wouldn't mind as much simply because it's such a common topic in philosophy through the ages, and Matrix was far from the first to bring it up. But all the stuff about 'born for a certain purpose'... I don't kn ow, I hope they do something original with this in later episodes.

hummm, personaly i was thinking on something identique whith "hyperion" and in particular whith "endymion" when the the prophet was able to "contamin" the human race whith a virus contain in his blood ! when i was watchinc the 12 it's the first impression than i was .... and hyperion was writing in 90', si i think it's more appopriate in reference than matrix ... ( did someone understand ?)
well if you read "hyperion" and marion zimerman bradley, you have 2/3 of scrapped princess ...

Why is this "born for a certain purpose" thing such a big deal though? First, it seems like Pacifica's role in this has been known from the beginning because of the whole prophecy. Aside from that, this is a long-time stable in fantasy in general..... I don't even see what makes it specifically Matrixy.

What it reminds me of more than anything else is probaly closer to "The Invisibles", the landmark comic book series created by Grant Morrison that the Wachowski's heavily "borrowed from" in making the Matrix.

Either way, after watching episode 12, I just don't see anything that seems all that dramatically bad, given the techno-fantasy nature of this show. No doubt it isn't original, but "originality" isn't exactly something I ever got a sense of from this show in the first place.

-Freakzilla

Well, to me, the originality of the show came from the great characters placed in a more traditional fantasy setting... I guess what threw me about this episode was that the non-original story elements seemed to totally overwhelm the characters... it was missing the great tinge of humor that most of the episodes have had thus far, and the pace seemed to be totally off from the rest of the show.

But again, it's not that this episode somehow ruined the show for me, I just hope it's a one-episode thing and the show goes back to the way it's been up 'til now.

Freakzilla Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2003 5:42 pm Post subject:

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Why is this "born for a certain purpose" thing such a big deal though? First, it seems like Pacifica's role in this has been known from the beginning because of the whole prophecy. Aside from that, this is a long-time stable in fantasy in general.....


said like this it's exacly the same in "endymion" !! ( hyperion is very good s.f than i consider like one of the most interesting novel ever write (equal whith azimov "robots", "dune" "fareinheit 137" ... ) just read it if you don't !! ... )

considering the prophecies, people fighting with gods, people having to obey peacemakers, being born for a purpose shouldnt be a surprise. thats just anoter way of saying "destiny". unless the world is suddenly all a dream and people are being used as a pwoer source(one of the dumbest, most idiotic, and inefficient things i would expect a race of robots to come up with), it isnt like the matrix.

link was born to save zelda over and over
mario was born to beat up turtles and save the princess over and over

and as far as the episode not following the same pacing as the others and cramming a bunch more story in, that was bound to happen. i mean, they're fighting against a god. you cant always make that into a mildly funny situation. not to mention, its better that they cram it together, than have dragged what we saw in episode 12 out across 3 episodes.

personally i liked episode 12, since they finally explained what the hell was going on with a bit of detail.

Well ep 12 was defiantly a shocking/unexpected turn of events XD ... well at least for me ;P ... Wasn't really where my thought process was going on trying to unravel the mystery of the Peacemakers and the Dragons.

And I think the reason Steyr had a different influence on these ppl could have come from three different sources ... In the ep they say she's a 'Civilian' type Peacemaker meaning her influnce is different from other Peacemaker types. Also since these ppl know the truth of the world maybe it makes them able to resist the Peacemakers to a point ... not a point thats useful if they're sick and in pain and basically incompacitaded.. Or Steyr's a mean #$@#$ and decided to just render these ppl useless and in pain to lower morale on the other side.

I hope the show does show a more unique twist than the stuff its borrowing from. I mean no ones exactly said who put the Providence effect in place and why. And exactly how Pacifica was kept from having its effect put on her.

ok, scratch what i said previously

pacifica = neo
raquel = trinity
shannon = morpheus

they've been trapped by the "gods" on a continent that just so happens to be called "dust-bin", since they were thought of as trash. the peacemakers supervision has maintained society at the middle ages 6,000 years ago. which was 1,000 years before the genesis war happened. since then the humans have been stuck on the continent, unable to leave. yet as it turns out there is a human resistance outside the continent. oh yea, and it seems all the peacemakers and crap are really aliens that wanted to take over earth

but i will give it one good point...

it doesnt have keanu reeves

yeah i think the whole comment of : a small group of humans on the outside trying to free the rest of humainty from being trapped in "dust-bin. just sealed it away as a matrix clone

no, theres a bit more reasoning for it than that. trapping humans in is one thing, but not letting them progress as a society(matrix), having people watch over them to make sure they dont notice or rebel(matrix), after a race of intelligent somethings have taken over(matrix), and suddenly in this world the main character has the power to defy the people watching over everyone(matrix), so naturally the people doing the enslaving are trying to stop the character(matrix), and in the meantime a group of people have made it their mission to spread the truth to humanity and try to free everyone(matrix), all while in a spaceshipboathoevrboardthing that they use to do battle in(matrix)

after these 2 episodes(12 and 13), this show had better start showing some more originality. because its getting pretty damn stupid.

Well this is...interesting. Scrapped princess went from a reg(though really good) fantasy anime to it taking place in the future...and the evil god everyone was talking about was just the leader of the human resistence...and the god everyone worships and the peacmakers are just aliens....oooooooook.

I don't know, episode 13 made it seem LESS similar to Matrix to me, now that we know that this fantasy world seemingly really does exist and isn't any kind of 'illusion' created by the Peacemakers.

I'm not sure if anyone else caught it, but the most interesting part of episode 13 to me was a line about the Peacemakers not being able to attack Pacifica directly because they're not 'authorized' to (as opposed to simply being unable to). I wonder what that could imply.

And let me finally just say that I think it's silly to heap so much scorn on this show just because the past two episodes have revealed plot points that are to some degree similar to Matrix and other such stories. Stories about a chosen one trying to free the protagonists from an oppressive outside force hardly began with Matrix. I personally have a lot of confidence both in BONES and on the people working on this show.

yes, the matrix wasnt the first show/movie to do that. hell, logans run did. but plot points or not, the fact that they slapped all that crap into 2 episodes(cramming it together as much as possible), makes it out almost exactly like the matrix except for the fact that they arent dreaming(that we know of yet), and quite frankly im so sick of the damn matrix i find it completely annoying since i was hoping for a good fantasy show, not some sci-fi space alien bullshit

Just saw episode 14... unfortunately, tons more talking about the setup of this 'world' and very little actually happening... they even apparently realize how long-winded they're becoming, with that scene where Pacifica falls asleep listening to Zefiris ramble on about this and that... I suppose they probably think it's important to set up a backstory for the rest of the show, but I don't see why it's necessary to take three episodes to do this... I mean really, what new things did we find out in this episode except that the Peacemakers were originally created as human weapons and then were 'brainwashed' by the aliens? Everything about Lord Beckenham and the Dragoons we already knew.

Anyway, judging from the way this episode ends, this may very well mark the end of the three-episode 'lots of talking' arc. One of the reasons this show has been so refreshing is that it uses the story to develop the characters, instead of the tendency to spend half of every episode on the long-winded internal monolgues and poorly conceived self-reflection (like what you see in Naruto) that plagues so many animes.

I wouldn't classify Scrapped Princess's story as "sci-fi space alien bullshit." I'm pretty sure that the theme of a scientifically advanced civilization bringing about its own downfall, and the rise of a medieval-level civilization after it (with all the fantasy trappings, such as magic), is not a rare one in the fantasy genre. The only specific example that comes to mind at the moment is the recent "Voyage of the Jerle Shannara" series by Terry Brooks; it's a fun read, and shares some commonalities with Scrapped Princess's story, but by no means are they "rip-offs." From the first few episodes, I too inferred that Scrapped Princess would be a standard, though well-executed, entry in the fantasy anime genre, but rather than be shocked at the revelations, I've been pleasantly surprised. Little clues have been dropped here and there, before the actual exposition of the sci-fi aspect of the story, so I don't feel let down in any way.

Classifying Scrapped Princess as a rip-off in any way of the Matrix is also a cop-out and a rash decision. The Matrix borrows story elements heavily from the canon of science-fiction, fantasy, and philosophy; in fact, almost all new sci-fi and fantasy novels are appreciated not because they are truly original, but because they use elements familiar to us in an original way. Tolkien, regarded by many as the father of the modern fantasy genre, used elements from mythology, fairy tales, and so on and so forth to craft his original tales. You could also compare Morrowind (the PC/XBox RPG) and the Wheel of Time -- both feature strikingly similar stories, with a reincarnation of a hero chosen by prophecy going to a mountain to defeat an ancient evil. But just because the two share similar plot points doesn't mean that one is a rip-off of the other. Pay attention to the execution, for chrissakes.

Have you seen bullet-time in Scrapped Princess? I sure haven't.

If you don't like the way the series is going, fine -- stop watching, don't buy the DVDs; do whatever you'd like. Don't make accusations that have little basis in fact. Scrapped Princess shares some things in common with the Matrix, but it is nowhere near "almost exactly like the Matrix except for the fact that they aren't dreaming." And if you've got something against the Matrix, then try not to pull your bias into the viewing of vastly different material.

so altho it jsut so happens to borrow just about every other element from the matrix without being verbatim to the best of their ability, just because its missing one special effect used in the movie means it has no relation?

and how is the execution that different? not dreaming, mideval world vs dreaming that its 1999 for eternity.

I was going to post something, but I'm just going to give an emphatic thumbs up to kaz's post instead.