Well, first off, a lot of the time I avoid reading any reviews before I write my own. With exceptions! Or occasionally I'll write the review, read other reviews before posting mine, and then either make small corrections or add observations, but when I do that, I keep almost all of my commentary intact, otherwise it would feel dishonest. In this case, I didn't read any reviews at all. The downside of that is I missed some details. Like, another reason the story probably suffered: actress Emma Thompson quit the project in protest over Lasseter being hired - and then a year later, director Alessandro Carloni quit too, citing "creative differences".
So now that I've looked up a review or two, I'm not seeing a lot of discussion about corporatism - but it's an excellent point. And it didn't even occur to me. Hey, new mental bias discovered! Woohoo! Which is odd, actually, because I lean left politically and am anti-large-corporate/monopoly. Welp, time for some personal background!
My parents definitely lean left, with mild activism. They'll go out and help a political candidate canvas the neighbourhood, that sort of thing. Or they'd go stand in front of a municipal building to protest, but that's pretty rare. My dad is a huge advocate for public transportation (especially trains), he was head of a group for that, and did a lot of letter-writing. Growing up with them, my sister and I both turned out left-wing as well, but without the activism. We vote; that's about it, and try to live by positive principles. My young nephew, not so much, he's right-wing, but it's his life, his choices.
My parents didn't push any big agenda on us with politics or religion, they let us ask questions and figure things out for ourselves, but of course there was some bias. I think the worst case was a tabletop board game called - I'm not kidding here - Class Struggle. I was young enough to know propaganda, and this wasn't my thing. It had about the same appeal as Monopoly, albeit with the addition of a square that could end the game in nuclear war. Anyway, although I was leftish, I didn't become a Marxist, activist, nor a railfan.
One thing I decided for myself was that I hated Disney. Sundays at home were the most boring days of the week, and there was nothing good on television all day. If there wasn't a hockey game (which I also didn't enjoy), Disney owned a good chunk of Sunday prime-time TV where I lived for something like 20 years. This was just as home video rental was coming in, and their strategy was to play bits of Disney classics, but never the full versions. Everything in the timeslot pushed other Disney products, it was insidious, along with an insistance of the MAGIC of Disney and Everybody Loves [insert Disney product here].
Even at a young age, I was thinking it wasn't entirely trustworthy for Disney to tell me how great Disney was. I was also really put off by the number of live-action Disney actors with blue eyes. I didn't know the concept of Aryanism yet, but damn, that was fucking creepy. Then as I realized how pervasive Disney products were, everywhere, that just solidified the distrust. Now, if anyone out there loves Disney and their products, that's fine, the world can be crappy, go to your happy place. I would never take the joys of The Lion King or Gargoyles away from my friends. The company's hugeness allows them to hire great talent, writers, and do stuff with high production values. But underneath all that, I wonder... what stories would we see if they weren't in control and had more competition? That's just one of the reasons why I don't like Disney, they're simply too big. Anyway don't bother arguing with me, this sort of thing is emotional and partially irrational and anyway it's not why I'm typing this extremely long response, but I thought you should have some context.
(Oh, I should say I do watch the occasional Disney thing, it's just very limited, and extremely random. I've got some massive gaps. Consequently I'm not that great at movie reviews, but pfff, not many other people are doing it on this site. Actually it's very unusual for me to have reviewed something as mainstream as Luck. But I've been so busy in the last year, I thought I should do something for a change.)
Right, so where were we... Corporatism as a theme in animated films. Excellent observation! So before I click that link you supplied, I'm going to try and think where I've seen that sort of thing before. (Thinks...) ...Actually this is pretty hard, I've never thought of animated films from that perspective. I'm going to look up some animated film lists. (Slightly later...) Ok, now let's look at the article, and see what it talks about. (Follows the link) Oh, it talks about some live-action stuff too. Well, here are the films they bring up. An asterisk (*) means I have not watched the film, and a check-mark (✔️) means the film was on my list too.
A Matter of Life and Death*, Beetlejuice*, Monsters Inc.✔️, Arthur Christmas✔️, Storks✔️, The Boss Baby*✔️, Soul*, Inside Out*, Coco*, Bee Movie*, Wreck-It Ralph✔️, and The Emoji Movie*.
Here are more from my list: Rise of the Guardians (the Tooth Fairy had some kind of organized franchise), Sing, The Lego Movie, Wonder Park*, Hotel Transylvania, Spirited Away, Big Fish and Begonia.
Not to disparage the commentary about Corporatism in that article - which is very much on point - there's a lot of variation. In Luck, The Lego Movie, Wreck-it-Ralph, and Big Fish and Begonia, the world is very much a job in of itself. In many of the others, it's a business enterprise set within a larger world, and we may (or may not) get to see the rest of the world it fits into (Monsters Inc and Spirited Away show us more of their worlds). Sing is a notable exception for being a business being run badly. And the story of Santa with a toy factory goes back decades. (By the way, Arthur Christmas is a highly underrated holiday movie, I definitely recommend it. And Big Fish and Begonia is a beautiful if extremely bittersweet Chinese animated film.)
So now that I look at it from that perspective, Luck's world - the good luck half, at least - is very weird. You don't see where people live or eat. It's not clear how many staff they have to manage the luck of several billion people on Earth. The dragon is their CEO. Someone else pointed out it feels like an ultra-clean "campus" like it was Google or Apple. The bad luck side seems to be an industrial hellscape, although they have a bar. That's the only non-corporate location we see.
As to why I didn't notice this theme, I don't know! I guess when one of these movies come out, I usually accept their universe at face value, and then examine the internal consistency and the implications it creates.
I also had an interesting discussion with a friend, who was immediately put off the film by my description. The story could have been so much more daring. What if Sam rejected the concept of luck entirely, and the privilege it gave people? For a similar example, look at the film Gattaca and the protagonist's quest to succeed, despite the dystopian society's insistence on biological determinism. Or look at - well actually, don't look, it's terrible - the Spanish animated film The Missing Lynx. The main lynx character is extremely unlucky, and during the climax he weaponizes it by yeeting himself onto the bad guy and clinging to him, causing him to run afoul of every single trap on the deadly obstacle course that's been set up.
So yeah, it's annoying to see more corporate culture as a plot point, and I wish they'd done something different and more challenging with the luck angle.
Well, first off, a lot of the time I avoid reading any reviews before I write my own. With exceptions! Or occasionally I'll write the review, read other reviews before posting mine, and then either make small corrections or add observations, but when I do that, I keep almost all of my commentary intact, otherwise it would feel dishonest. In this case, I didn't read any reviews at all. The downside of that is I missed some details. Like, another reason the story probably suffered: actress Emma Thompson quit the project in protest over Lasseter being hired - and then a year later, director Alessandro Carloni quit too, citing "creative differences".
So now that I've looked up a review or two, I'm not seeing a lot of discussion about corporatism - but it's an excellent point. And it didn't even occur to me. Hey, new mental bias discovered! Woohoo! Which is odd, actually, because I lean left politically and am anti-large-corporate/monopoly. Welp, time for some personal background!
My parents definitely lean left, with mild activism. They'll go out and help a political candidate canvas the neighbourhood, that sort of thing. Or they'd go stand in front of a municipal building to protest, but that's pretty rare. My dad is a huge advocate for public transportation (especially trains), he was head of a group for that, and did a lot of letter-writing. Growing up with them, my sister and I both turned out left-wing as well, but without the activism. We vote; that's about it, and try to live by positive principles. My young nephew, not so much, he's right-wing, but it's his life, his choices.
My parents didn't push any big agenda on us with politics or religion, they let us ask questions and figure things out for ourselves, but of course there was some bias. I think the worst case was a tabletop board game called - I'm not kidding here - Class Struggle. I was young enough to know propaganda, and this wasn't my thing. It had about the same appeal as Monopoly, albeit with the addition of a square that could end the game in nuclear war. Anyway, although I was leftish, I didn't become a Marxist, activist, nor a railfan.
One thing I decided for myself was that I hated Disney. Sundays at home were the most boring days of the week, and there was nothing good on television all day. If there wasn't a hockey game (which I also didn't enjoy), Disney owned a good chunk of Sunday prime-time TV where I lived for something like 20 years. This was just as home video rental was coming in, and their strategy was to play bits of Disney classics, but never the full versions. Everything in the timeslot pushed other Disney products, it was insidious, along with an insistance of the MAGIC of Disney and Everybody Loves [insert Disney product here].
Even at a young age, I was thinking it wasn't entirely trustworthy for Disney to tell me how great Disney was. I was also really put off by the number of live-action Disney actors with blue eyes. I didn't know the concept of Aryanism yet, but damn, that was fucking creepy. Then as I realized how pervasive Disney products were, everywhere, that just solidified the distrust. Now, if anyone out there loves Disney and their products, that's fine, the world can be crappy, go to your happy place. I would never take the joys of The Lion King or Gargoyles away from my friends. The company's hugeness allows them to hire great talent, writers, and do stuff with high production values. But underneath all that, I wonder... what stories would we see if they weren't in control and had more competition? That's just one of the reasons why I don't like Disney, they're simply too big. Anyway don't bother arguing with me, this sort of thing is emotional and partially irrational and anyway it's not why I'm typing this extremely long response, but I thought you should have some context.
(Oh, I should say I do watch the occasional Disney thing, it's just very limited, and extremely random. I've got some massive gaps. Consequently I'm not that great at movie reviews, but pfff, not many other people are doing it on this site. Actually it's very unusual for me to have reviewed something as mainstream as Luck. But I've been so busy in the last year, I thought I should do something for a change.)
Right, so where were we... Corporatism as a theme in animated films. Excellent observation! So before I click that link you supplied, I'm going to try and think where I've seen that sort of thing before. (Thinks...) ...Actually this is pretty hard, I've never thought of animated films from that perspective. I'm going to look up some animated film lists. (Slightly later...) Ok, now let's look at the article, and see what it talks about. (Follows the link) Oh, it talks about some live-action stuff too. Well, here are the films they bring up. An asterisk (*) means I have not watched the film, and a check-mark (✔️) means the film was on my list too.
A Matter of Life and Death*, Beetlejuice*, Monsters Inc.✔️, Arthur Christmas✔️, Storks✔️, The Boss Baby*✔️, Soul*, Inside Out*, Coco*, Bee Movie*, Wreck-It Ralph✔️, and The Emoji Movie*.
Here are more from my list: Rise of the Guardians (the Tooth Fairy had some kind of organized franchise), Sing, The Lego Movie, Wonder Park*, Hotel Transylvania, Spirited Away, Big Fish and Begonia.
Not to disparage the commentary about Corporatism in that article - which is very much on point - there's a lot of variation. In Luck, The Lego Movie, Wreck-it-Ralph, and Big Fish and Begonia, the world is very much a job in of itself. In many of the others, it's a business enterprise set within a larger world, and we may (or may not) get to see the rest of the world it fits into (Monsters Inc and Spirited Away show us more of their worlds). Sing is a notable exception for being a business being run badly. And the story of Santa with a toy factory goes back decades. (By the way, Arthur Christmas is a highly underrated holiday movie, I definitely recommend it. And Big Fish and Begonia is a beautiful if extremely bittersweet Chinese animated film.)
So now that I look at it from that perspective, Luck's world - the good luck half, at least - is very weird. You don't see where people live or eat. It's not clear how many staff they have to manage the luck of several billion people on Earth. The dragon is their CEO. Someone else pointed out it feels like an ultra-clean "campus" like it was Google or Apple. The bad luck side seems to be an industrial hellscape, although they have a bar. That's the only non-corporate location we see.
As to why I didn't notice this theme, I don't know! I guess when one of these movies come out, I usually accept their universe at face value, and then examine the internal consistency and the implications it creates.
I also had an interesting discussion with a friend, who was immediately put off the film by my description. The story could have been so much more daring. What if Sam rejected the concept of luck entirely, and the privilege it gave people? For a similar example, look at the film Gattaca and the protagonist's quest to succeed, despite the dystopian society's insistence on biological determinism. Or look at - well actually, don't look, it's terrible - the Spanish animated film The Missing Lynx. The main lynx character is extremely unlucky, and during the climax he weaponizes it by yeeting himself onto the bad guy and clinging to him, causing him to run afoul of every single trap on the deadly obstacle course that's been set up.
So yeah, it's annoying to see more corporate culture as a plot point, and I wish they'd done something different and more challenging with the luck angle.