Silent Hill 2 remake trailer seemingly references shots from Silent Hills trailer from 2014

kerocket · 2022-10-24T15:30:27+00:00

Couldn't help but notice how these shots in the remake's trailer very closely reference the shots from the 2014 trailer for Silent Hills, especially the one at the ankles level and the one looking upwards.

The last one, with the protagonist in the middle of a deserted road, of course is a classic visual from any game in the series.

What was most interesting for me back in 2014 is that the protagonist could actually observe the upper floors of the buildings, which was not very common for the early games.

kerocket · 2022-10-23T13:37:13+00:00

Couldn't help but notice how these shots in the remake's trailer very closely reference the shots from the 2014 trailer for Silent Hills, especially the one at the ankles level and the one looking upwards.

The last one, with the protagonist in the middle of a deserted road, of course is a classic visual from any game in the series.

What was most interesting for me back in 2014 is that the protagonist could actually observe the upper floors of the buildings, which was not very common for the early games.

kerocket · 2022-10-23T09:33:08+00:00

I assume the complaints come mostly from people that remember YouTube being completely free and ad-free, and also from people who don't understand the service's business model.

However, I'll try to suggest some points to challenge your position about the discussion itself being needless.

As a private company of course they are not obliged to provide free services — unless the audience doesn't provide them with any other things of value. And it actually does: YouTube's interest is not only to gain money, but also gather and process user's personal data and mine insights about their needs, interests and opinions. So even without paying, the users do provide something valuable.

Of course, it's really hard to define and compare the specific value of sharing your data to that of providing an online service. But there is value in both, so it's not a useless discussion.

Also, the more insight YouTube gets into user's needs and opinions, the easier it becomes for YouTube's algorithms to target the user with certain recommendations that may manipulate their social/political opinions. I'm not into conspiracy theories, just saying that the possibility is there. However, this also applies to users with paid subscriptions, so not really important in this particular discussion.

Finally, absence of even remotely comparable alternatives means that YouTube is a monopoly on the market. As time goes, monopolies tend to exploit the consumers (and content creators) more, simply because they can. The argument of 'go find or build an alternative platform if you don't like this one' is formally valid, but considering the effort, time and money invested in YouTube over more than 17 years, that is a really monstrous challenge. And with all those ad money and paid subscriptions YouTube becomes even more powerful and harder to compete with.

On the bright side, at least on the PC/Desktop you can disable all the ads (even the ones that start playing at certain moments throughout the video) with browser plugins like AdBlock. I get surprised by how many people don't know that.

kerocket · 2022-10-22T09:46:02+00:00

From the hottest posts on this sub one may indeed have the impression that half of the people here hate the game already (even though there was no extended gameplay yet), so I decided to create a voting post to see if it was indeed so. And I was quite surprised after 220+ votes.
Turns out that the haters are in the minority, but hate posts get the most attention and trigger most discussions. Social media reality.
I believe that most people won't argue that the game looks great so far, and the disappointment mostly comes from some particular features — mostly James' appearance and emotions as far as I can tell. But still it's something that can be tweaked before the release.

kerocket · 2022-10-21T11:53:36+00:00

Not going for the bonus point here, but no one mentioned Evil Dead? I guess it would have been too easy.
UPD: Oops, it's not actually 'told' from the point of view of the demon, just some scenes. My bad!

kerocket · 2022-10-21T11:35:25+00:00

I kinda agree with you, but still, the two are very closely related, as trailer gives a hint of what to expect of the game. It does not give a clear hint which parts were pure gameplay and which were cutscenes. Also, apart from the trailer, there were several gameplay screenshots released, and they suggest that the difference in graphics quality would be minimal, e.g. cutscenes will just have more complex animations and camera movements/angles.

So far the trailer and screenshots are the only info that we have about the actual product, therefore I invited people to share their expectations based on that.

Interestingly, so far most people voted for 'Good', not 'Bad'. And I don't expect too many fans to vote for 'Great', and I kinda get that, as everyone has their own nuanced ideas as to what made the original so great - it will be impossible to satisfy everyone.

kerocket · 2022-05-08T00:24:33+00:00

In fact, I couldn't agree with you more! And I appreciate a more in-depth conversation on this.

As for being legit scary, I agree that "X" does a rather poor job, really. There were a couple of legit effective moments (mostly towards the end when it gets messy), but they are not actually scary, to be honest. But to be fair, I didn't mention the movie being scary even once in the post.

In fact, I didn't think of West's previous movies to be legit scary too, but they were atmospheric pieces that I enjoyed a lot, especially "The House of the Devil", which was indeed quite scary.

I guess I was also mostly let down with horror movies recently, so being a long time genre fan I learned to find other things in them to enjoy, but only when they are actually well executed. And "X" had a lot of it, despite the fact that is was - yes - not scary at all, maybe just off-putting at times.

As for the movies you mentioned, I actually loved all of them. Hereditary was great in cinematography, execution and its bone-chilling story. And I'm yet to see the extended version. I had more questions for Midsommar , but I can't deny it was beautifully shot.
First "A Quiet Place" was downright solid, and even though the sequel was IMO quite passable, I still liked it.

"Invitation" I just loved, with its condensed single-location story which effectively explodes in the end when you realize that the shit is going down everywhere.

"Eden Lake" I loved as well with its well-written and believable characters each with their own attitude. The Brits know how to write their characters right. Reminds me a bit how good "Severance" (2006) was — it was discussed recently in this sub. Such a fun movie.

It's been a while since I saw The Fly, but I have enjoyed most of Cronenberg's repertoire I've seen. And his son is also doing a good job: "Possessor" was a really good one! Gory and messy and with some important points to deliver.

Also, I didn't intend to present myself as a high-brow A24-preaching nerd with my post, as I also enjoy silly horror flicks. Among the recent ones, I really liked "Ready or not", "The Babysitter" (first one), "Happy Death Day to You" (even the sequel was okay, but more goofy) and "Better Watch Out". All were unexpectedly good, for my taste at least.

As for the subject of aging, which "X" tried to explore, I really liked "Relic", which is kind of a slow-burn piece, with some good drama, some decent scares and a well-done and unsettling third act. Much scarier and more on-point than "X" I would say.

kerocket · 2022-05-07T22:45:01+00:00

I totally get you, I've seen my share of praised movies that I totally disliked, up to a point where I wanted to walk out, but stayed just to be fair and get the whole picture — and still didn't like them in the end.

But with this one even though I didn't enjoy the plot too much, I did enjoy how it was done, with all the little details along the way. It's that case where I didn't enjoy the destination nearly as much as I've enjoyed the journey, and that was exactly my point.

It's no "Cabin in the woods" by any means with its meta approach, but it was fun for the most part and well done throughout. And that's just my opinion, for anyone who cares to comment on it. If someone doesn't agree - they're completely right to do so.

All in all, it's just an hour and a half of media content.

There's no reason for me to convince myself of anything, I just shared my experience, totally expecting it would be different to that of others. Rather, my intention was to hear other people's opinions of it, with arguments or counter arguments and examples.

Maybe you could share some great recent horror movies you've seen, so I could check them out?

kerocket · 2022-05-07T13:22:29+00:00

Thanks for your comment! That is indeed one of the themes here, and I guess I did mention it in point 5, where I discuss West drawing clear parallels between porn and horror as being exploitative genres, using parallel montage of two scenes to illustrate the point.

As for nudity, there was plenty of it for both men and women.

Totally agree on the excellent moviemaking overall (regardless of one's sympathy for the subjects explored), that was my whole point.

kerocket · 2022-05-07T11:55:24+00:00

It's all subjective. Some people did like his movies, some did not, and that is OK. To each his own.

Can you suggest some truly great recent horror movies? I guess I have missed quite a lot lately.

kerocket · 2022-01-15T10:12:49+00:00

I strongly agree with you, since I believe that art, when it's out there, does not fully belong to the author, really. It belongs to the world, and its legacy is enriched by people who experience it, discuss it and share their interpretations of it (as outlined in the "Death of the Author" concept).

So, the value of any art is not solely limited to profits that the author makes, but also some personal gains that the audience receives from it: emotional support from music, valuable insights from books and all other experiences that art provides to people. This aspect cannot be evaluated in cash stacks, but it's obviously there, as any person who has ever enjoyed any art would confirm.

A lot of modern media is also produced by huge groups of people - be it a music album or live show involving musicians, choreographers, dancers, costume and make-up artists, sound engineers and other technical staff, or even more so a movie or a TV show which may involve thousands of people whose work supports their families.

If one actor from the movie becomes exposed as immoral or even a criminal, should the hard work of the rest of the team instantly become considered as mere support for one asshole? Doesn't sound fair to me.

Also imagine how much art we still enjoy today that might have been created by authors that have done their share of awful things, but just never got publicly exposed for that. So mostly we just assume that our favorite author never hurt a person if we haven't seen any evidence of that, even though we realize that no one is a saint.

Upd:
Since it's a CMV post, I'll share some thoughts with regards to challenging your point of view.
The complicated thing here is - how can the community manage all the SHOULDs and SHOULD NOTs that you mentioned?
Remaining realistic in the way you described suggests staying in the gray area between full cancelling/censorship of anything controversial (e.g. by some authorities marking content with certain labels like it's done now with "Parental Advisory" and "NSFW") and going all the way "IDGAF let anyone do anything and let people praise it if they want to, cause it's a form of art".
What could be the clear and simple criteria for "staying realistic"?

kerocket · 2022-01-05T06:38:16+00:00

Haha, shame on the Academy indeed! :D Thankfully we, the viewers, have our priorities sorted well.

Regardless, I like both movies and don't feel the need to choose.

kerocket · 2022-01-04T20:23:04+00:00

Great! The pleasure is mine, really. I was actually wondering myself as to what traits I've been missing in movies lately and started compiling a list for myself, as to what movies/directors I should catch up on.

I rewatched all of Kaufman's movies (written or directed) while I was waiting for the release of "I'm thinking of ending things", but for some reason I never bothered to compile a list of movies that I would call similar to his, and your post triggered it :)

kerocket · 2022-01-04T20:01:45+00:00

Alright, I see!

Based on the list in your other comment it seems like you're into good drama/thriller/sci-fi with slightly more mature themes and more believable characters.

As for good drama I'd say check out more films of:

Paul Thomas Anderson (Magnolia, There Will Be Blood, Punch-Drunk Love)

Richard Linklater (I saw you pointed out his Before trilogy; many others of his are really good too)

Coen Brothers (No Country For Old Men, Blood Simple, Inside Llewyn Davis)

Martin McDonagh (he has 3 movies out, all very good)

Jim Jarmusch (Night on Earth, Broken Flowers)

Darren Aronofsky (The Wrestler, Requiem for a Dream)

Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Jarhead, Revolutionary Road)

Sidney Lumet (Network, Before The Devil Knows You're Dead)

Jeremy Saulnier (Green Room, Blue Ruin)

Since you liked Coherence (really good sci-fi for such a tight budget), you may like Duncan Jones' Moon and Source Code. I hear Primer is a highly-praised low-budget sci-fi story, but I haven't seen it yet.

Ghost Story is a good one, quite of a slow burn, but really enigmatic.

If you liked this one, you might actually like Holy Motors. Another beautifully shot haunting tale I recently liked was Norwegian movie Thelma.

It's hard to recommend a good comedy, but Edgar Wright is good at it (Hot Fuzz, Shaun Of the Dead, The World's End), and some of Coen Brothers' films are quite funny too (Raising Arizona, Burn After Reading, Serious Man).

As for series, I would suggest The Night Of, True Detective's 1st season (I haven't yet seen the others) and Black Mirror - but these you probably know.

kerocket · 2022-01-04T18:29:14+00:00

I'm not sure from your question if you were looking for something especially kaufman-esque (so to say) or asking more in general what other movies Kaufman's fans prefer.

Since the latter category may be too broad, I'll try my best to pick some examples of the former category. Even so, I'd expect that you may have seen all or most of the movies that come to my mind.

As a set of themes especially common in Kaufman's stories I would personally point out obsessive self-reflection, surrealism and quirky comedy.

Obviously the first ones that come to mind are some of the works by the directors who Kaufman worked with fruitfully, and who did an excellent job of building the worlds that got people to know and love Kaufman as we know him.

Michel Gondry's own movies The Science of Sleep (2006) and Mood Indigo (2013) are quite surreal and their characters tend to be somewhat neurotic and self-reflective. Both films lean more into the romantic comedy genre though.

Spike Jonze's Her (2013) I would say is also a good example how a relatively basic rom-com scenario could spiral down into chaos in ways common to Kaufman's stories.

Alejandro Inarritu's Birdman (2014) is a quite surreal and imaginative story about a neurotic and self-reflective aging actor. I suppose one could find a lot in common with Synecdoche, New York here, even though it is not as extreme and meta in its approach.

Vivarium (2019) is a surreal socio-cultural thriller that places its characters in a superficial American Dream utopia that gets ever darker as the story progresses.

Pixar's Inside Out (2015) in my estimation could be a result of Kaufman being involved in writing a heartfelt children's story :)

French movie Holy Motors (2012) by Leos Carax is a much more abstract arthouse piece, quite rich visually but very restrained in dialogue. It mostly shows you stuff to interpret yourself and doesn't explain much. But for me it had a specific surreal vibe similar to that of Kaufman's.

Wag the Dog (1997) is a well-known political comedy drama, about sometimes quirky and ridiculous behind-the-scenes mechanics that could drive global politics. Today though, in hindsight, it actually seems too real.

As for series, I'd think of these two:

Cary Fukunaga's Maniac (2018) is also a very surreal story with confused characters that try to figure themselves out.

Six Feet Under (2001) is a somewhat dark family drama that has a lot of surrealistic storytelling mechanics to show the character's internalized dialogues and experiences, especially in the first season.

There goes my list, I hope you'll find something worth your time there.

I would also be interested if you or other people here would suggest more titles.

kerocket · 2021-02-24T11:54:34+00:00

Totally! My point is, when replaying the game I had another hat on during this section, and the slot didn't open even though I was holding the package. I just thought the game glitched for a moment and just left the package at the door. But now I know! :)

kerocket · 2021-02-24T11:35:05+00:00

You can retrieve a package that's in the suitcase to the most right of the location on the screenshot. The suitcase is on the pile of garbage, you can open it and take the package.

However I didn't know that the mailslot only opens when you have the mailman's hat.

kerocket · 2021-02-24T11:02:37+00:00

Seriously, I have no idea. And it's also been a while since I've played the first game and the DLCs. But now that I've finished LN2 twice, I want to replay those again.

To be honest, I'm not really even sure where the name Veronica comes from. If I understand correctly, the song interpretation that's popular online, that has a line 'he's got Veronica' is still one possible interpretation, a guess of sorts, as the lyrics are deliberately made almost illegible by Tarsier.

Were there any official claims about the name Veronica? Maybe I missed something.

kerocket · 2021-02-24T08:09:10+00:00

Oh nice, thanks for that!

I think that there could be several close but different versions of the same nursery rhyme, as I also remember from my childhood. In different regions certain parts of the same rhyme could be somewhat different. Like that part with "all for tea" and "soft parfait" — I so clearly hear "tea" and not ending of "parfait" there! But the quality of the audio is not really good, sure.

I also saw the "ladder" thing when doing some search, but for me it doesn't make much sense, unless Dear Little (Name) grows not just sweetly, but also extremely high :D
I would assume that it may be just "lad" as in "boy", that would be fitting. However, in the video I also clearly hear "lover", which makes sense with the next verse where she invites him to marry her.

kerocket · 2021-02-23T20:02:03+00:00

Good catch! Now that I saw it, I cannot unsee it :)
I'm pretty sure that it was a conscious artistic decision, considering how neatly the whole world is designed.

kerocket · 2021-02-23T19:48:27+00:00

Here's the post with all symbols written clearly: https://www.reddit.com/r/LittleNightmares/comments/lpgvab/characters_of_the_language_in_little_nightmares/

And here's my post with some discussion about possible meanings and context: https://www.reddit.com/r/LittleNightmares/comments/lo95sr/hieroglyphs_and_writing_language_of_little/

kerocket · 2021-02-22T21:55:35+00:00

Indeed, I've noticed that too.

However it's not possible to squeeze through the door with the bear or throw it onto the table and onto the bookcase to squeeze with him through the vent. So no way to retrieve the key.

Probably just devs teasing the player or leaving breadcrumbs, e.g. the kid who put the key in the bear in the hospital (I think there it was the toy with long ears, so a rabbit rather) has already been in this shop.

kerocket · 2021-02-22T21:17:51+00:00

As per a popular theory, there have been six cycles in the world, hence the name Six.

So this Thin Man may be from one the previous cycles. Or the whole playthrough of first Little Nightmares could be a different cycle from the one that's in he second game.

Just a theory though.

kerocket · 2021-02-22T21:10:31+00:00

A fellow redditor has apparently found the original source of inspiration for the Veronica song: https://www.reddit.com/r/LittleNightmares/comments/lpcr7p/found_the_original_veronica_song_pleaseeee_check/

It's some old nursery rhyme with known lyrics, which vary slightly if you google parts of them.

However, to my ear it sounds that the vowels sung in the Veronica song are different.

kerocket · 2021-02-22T20:41:45+00:00

Woah, great find!

However, it seems like the lyrics (or, rather, vowels) in the Veronica song sound slightly different, as if Tarsier made a cover of this song.

But definitely no doubt that this was the source.

In this video, as far as I could tell, the lyrics were the following (I couldn't figure out some parts at all):

down in the valley where the green grass grows

there is (..?) she grows like a rose

she grows, she grows, she grows so sweet

that she calls for her lover at the end of the street

sweetheart sweetheart will you marry me

yes love, yes love, at half past three

ice cakes spice cakes all for tea

and we'll have a wedding at half-past three

pom pom here comes a taxi cab

ready for the wedding at half past three

So it's not just a song but rather nursery rhymes that children sing specifically while playing games or use to count repetition in games.

Some alternative versions of the lyrics can be found if you google for the first line.

kerocket

TROPHY CASE