A Cigar is a cigar... unless it's a penis.

[lazyfatbum]

It's also possible you may have looked into that a bit too much. That's an... interesting interpretation, but I'm not so sure the guy actually intended that it was seen that way. I certainly didn't get that impression. I suppose one way would be to ask him, or barring that, check out interviews and such on those DVD collections.

Here's something to think about. There are many times someone will try to get a philosophical or political message out of something, and sometimes it's clear that a message was intended (MASH anyone?). Sometimes though, the creator just wanted to make a story about city smashing robots. Sometimes the meaning someone sees is merely projection.

I'll check out the commentary! Its possible to be totally off but that's the gamble. If you seek out the hidden contexts of the story you may fall short of reaching for what the writer was shooting for while piecing it together. That's why I use this method:

-Notice of first hidden context
-What scenes back it up as the hidden context?
-Can the hidden context be proven in a logical order?
-Does the fluidity of it allow you to use the scene in a logical order to create the full hidden story?

I stayed up late one night with minka and we watched Alien, she hates horror movies with too much gore but she likes Alien/Aliens (didn't care for Alien3 that much but neither do I, my friend butte came up with this awesome idea where Alien 3 was an iconic dream that Rip had while in cryosleep, i'll see if he'll type it up and lemme post it) and I sought to completely map the hidden story and created the above rule. The one thing I keep trying to figure out is the balance of giving it away and keeping it secret, should there be a key under the mat so to speak that clues you in to the hidden meanings? Or should it be kept as far from the audience as possible? Finding that balance is hard, sometimes it's stupidly obvious in movies but people dont get it all. I mean in Alien its a no brainer that the aliens look like dicks but other than "hey lmao they look like dicks!" they dont go any further to see the story of a woman facing her sexuality or dealing with a male oriented world..... and I just ranted for no raisin! Woopy ;D

I would also argue that sometimes a story can be direct and straitforward (Lord of the Rings, which while many interpret it as strong allegory, the writer strongly denied it was anything more than what it was at face value, a story of magic and legend, and he denied allegory to his dying breath) and still be very good. Not everything has to be symbolic. That said, sometimes heavy symbolism makes a great story too. Silent Hill 2 for example.

I agree completely, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. But Tolkein definitely dipped in to passive story telling - I mean srsly, the arab and celtic influences, the WW2 references, he used alot of real life to structure the Rings world. Whether it has any hidden story would be up for debate (just thinking outloud: There could be a message there about government, single ruling powers/governments of the people, etc, i'd have to look in to it more) but he obviously crutched on retelling real-life events and peoples just as much as Lucas does, but that brings up a weird factor I think you were getting at below that you can offend people - Jar Jar being the 1920's negro slave taken right out of Gone with the Wind and Watto the Big Greedy Jew Reference but then again dealing with a writer director who blatantly copies other films might have done exactly that with those characters and then the flip side is that the *recognition* of the stereotypical imagery is misplaced and blown out of proportion but seeing a big-lipped brown skinned character that lives on a jungle planet screaming "MEESA PEOPLE GONNA DIE!?" you have to wonder.

A more direct example of an intended hidden meaning would be like in that episode of Powerpuff Girls where they make that new friend and explain to her that they were created in a lab accident and she tells them "oh yeah, my parents tell me I was an accident too". There's something that doesn't really take much invention to see a meaning there, and if that was unintentional, I'd be rather surprised (because then the joke wouldn't make sense).

haha I love that episode if its the one you're talking about, sometimes when I do something stupid I throw my hands up and yell "BUNNY" in a retarded voice (no one gets it). But yup. The trick is that when dealing with comedy you have to take the beats in to consideration. It could have just been a joke because of the timing involved but I agree that the joke wouldn't make sense *logically* if it wasn't referring to itself (although that happens in comedy all the time where breaking logical rule just adds to the humor *Spock explodes*) but if we use this:

-Notice of first hidden context
*joke involving word play on 'accident' referring to an unplanned pregnancy

-What scenes/aspects back it up as the hidden context?
*single parent home?

-Can the hidden context be proven in a logical order?
*?
-Does the fluidity of it allow you to use the scene in a logical order to create the full hidden story?
*?

Is the episode on youtube anywhere? or in pieces. If we break it down we might be able to prove an entire hidden story (seeing as its the same director as Foster's/Dex it should piece together nicely)

Finally, it's not always how the creator actually intends the thing to be interpretted. I often get a different meaning from stuff than the creator wanted, and that's fine. Take from it what you will. What it DOES say is art is a very bad way to try to initiate communication with foreign persons, simply because it's so open to interpretation and easy to perhaps misunderstand. There's very few set rules, so you are as likely to offend as enlighten, or at the very least confuse the heck out of someone. When the walls fell... Darmok and Jallad at Tanagra. His arms wide! The sails unfurled.

Nice quote. But I think i'm misreading something...


...are you foreign? I've had this.....


...odd feeling.... that you might be somewhat..........


oriental......?


Or did you just mean foreign in that people outside the circle of the creation of the art (or otherwise untrained) will find the interpretation difficult? This is extremely broad imo but at its most simple form our own space program has a set rule book on finding intelligent life and how to initiate communication using shapes and colors similar to how studies communicate with higher animals like dolphins, gray parrots, apes and blonds. woah, dejavu!

grumble grumble/ There's a write up on Pinnochio about its contexts that blew me away, i'll try to find it I think you'll dig it.

I remember being in film school and having this rant about how the evil dude turned them to donkeys to represent the hard labors in life, being faced with go-nowhere jobs and the like and one of the people in the discussion said "I think it was just saying if you act like an ass you turn in to an ass." Cue red bull out of nose.