A while back I wrote about Lupin III: Green vs. Red,
describing it as an interesting failure. Not particularly awful,
especially compared to some TV specials (looking at you, Another
Page), and even somewhat admirable for its lofty ambitions. It
just fails to reach those ambitions. To its credit, it knew how to
have a little fun along the way, which kept things from getting
too pretentious. The same cannot be said of the 1982 film Future War
198X.
The concept is rock-solid. Based actual statistics and scientific
projections, Future War 198X examines the circumstances
leading up to nuclear war. Fictional characters are used, from
common people right up to the bigwig politicians, but all named
countries and locations are real. Everyone is drawn as realistically
as possible, and despite a good bit of talking, we hear only the
narrator's voice as he describes each event. Every aspect screams
documentary, alternate future, serious business you guys.
With the unconventional format, though, comes a flaw inherent to
most documentaries: it can be boring. There's just something
about an all-knowing narrator explaining all the action, the sequence
of cause and effect, and how the viewer should be feeling that took
me out of the human drama despite the English narration itself being
mostly well-written and performed. It doesn't let us form our own
conclusions, and it hurts to be led around by the nose for two hours.
While we're on the subject of action, let's just say there's
something to be desired in that department, too. The genuinely good
battle sequences are few and spaced far between scenes of meetings
and political maneuvering, all gratingly dialogue-free. The
animation isn't cheap, per se; character designs are incredibly
detailed, and a lot of different locations are used. It just limits
its impressive moments far too much to actually impress. Oh, and the
music choices during some of those action scenes? Pure cheese,
played totally straight.
And speaking of cheese (man, I'm just on a segue roll, aren't I?),
this brings us to the film's biggest problem: it's still dumb.
Nuclear war, though not a light issue today, would have been such a
deadly serious issue back in 1982 that the merest whiff of cheese
would spell this movie's death. Yet all the more optimistic moments
reek of it. The peace movement that organizes towards the end seems
out of place given the film's overall grim tone. The narrator
himself is involved in the story in a subplot that would make Michael
Bay proud. It involves a love triangle and a civilian scientist who
defies his orders to become mankind's only hope by the end. The
narrator's own insistence that everyone involved was at heart a good
person is completely trashed when a single, radical Soviet official
clearly proves himself an irredeemable villain.
Bottom line: Future War 198X hasn't aged well. Its “what
if” scenario is just too hard to take seriously so long after the
Cold War's end, especially since the documentary bits are sabotaged
by parts which belong in a lame Hollywood blockbuster. Maybe these
parts were a comfort blanket to people of the time, who didn't want
to feel completely powerless before the paranoid power of world
governments, but we're too gleefully obsessed with deconstruction to
do anything but laugh at such scenes today. In the end, that's the
only way I can recommend this movie; more of an amusingly flawed
snapshot into a different era's most intense fears and hopes than
either the bad action flick it could have been or the serious,
inspirational work of art it wanted to be. Oh well.
What are some anime that you'd call interesting failures?
What are some things you've seen that wanted to be taken seriously,
and what killed it for them? Sound off in the comments!