9 squee pt. 2 (now in public view)
omnisti and I attended a free screening of 9 in San Francisco on 9/8/09. Totally cheating, but I'd been wanting to see the film since I saw the trailer in January, a couple of days after my surgery. We waited in a very amiable line for two hours, then were ushered in very quickly at the appointed time (9:09pm PST) with nary a bag search or anything but a mild smile from any employees or theater security. I was pleased, and we got good seats together for our trouble.
What follows is a bit long and perhaps poorly punctuated. This is a week overdue (where self-imposed deadlines are concerned) and I had a lot of thoughts to smush in. Please forgive any mistakes or run-ons you may come across.
"Our blind pursuit of technology only sped us quicker to our doom."
These are the words spoken by the disembodied voice of the Scientist, whose death we see as 9 begins.
It's a sickly green world gone down in flames that greets us on the screen.
Longish, very spoiler-heavy synopsis under the cut.
Keep in mind that this is only how I remember it and isn't necessarily complete. I did my best.
9 wakes up in the dead scientist's workroom, creeps about, and then carefully goes out exploring, holding to him the copper talisman which was with him in the workshop where he was made. The inventor 2, a stitchpunk creature nearly identical to 9, but an earlier version of him if you check the details, finds 9 (after 9 clocks him in the head with a makeshift weapon), is happy to see the talisman (says "you found it! He's always drawing this!"), finds a spare part to fix 9's insides so that he can speak, and teaches 9 a little about their world before he realizes they're not alone. 9 zips the talisman up safely inside his own front, and 2 urges him to hide. The Beast (mean predator critter which was the main antagonist in the short film) attacks them both and carries 2 away to a scary looking factory building in the distance. During the attack, 2 protects 9, just as 5 did in the original short, down to the body language. This delighted me.
Attention shifts to 5, who spots 9 wandering wounded and worn out and alone, by means of a telescope in a tower. 5 goes to fetch 9 and bring him to safety. Safety turns out to be a cathedral hideaway, inhabited by helpful, industrious 5, bossy and imperious 1, thuggish 8, and enigmatic 6.
When 5 brings 9 back, 1 scolds 5 for leaving and teaches 9 about what's happened to the earth. Selectively.
Mankind was killed by its own machines, by noxious gas the machines created themselves. 1 doesn't like it when anyone asks questions, but 9 keeps asking. 5 is distraught when 9 blurts out that 2 is the one who found him, and that 2 has been captured by something. 1 refuses to let them go and look for 2, showing 9 how they've already lost others (a list of numbers on the wall with 3, 4, and 7 crossed out). 1 sends 5 and 9 off to the lookout tower.
Once there, 5 tells 9 that 2 is his mentor, that they built the telescope together. 9 manages to convince 5 that they should go after 2 and not give him up for lost, though it's like pulling teeth, because 5 doesn't want to disobey 1's rules. 9 says "but what if he's wrong?" Finally 5 grabs a map and goes with 9.
They lose their map in the wind, but they find a tunnel and the tracks of the Beast. 5 says to 9 "you're just like 2. You forget to remember to be scared." A third, sinister figure follows 5 and 9 into the tunnel.
The stitchpunks remind me so much of Burners, using what they find around them (when the tunnel looks too dark, 9 removes the blade from 2's spear and installs a lightbulb in its place, for instance). omnisti says that he will lay good money down on the thought that a lot of people on the development/production teams for this film were Burners.
9 and 5 find a way into the war bots factory easily, and there they find 2 in a cage. The Beast breaks up their reunion, but the sinister figure from the tunnel reveals herself as number 7, fierce and fearless. She efficiently chops off the Beast's head with a flying leap and slash (the only time this move ever works for her. A good lesson, but a frustrating one). They free 2. 5 says to 7 "you came back!" to which 7 responds "I never left. You've finally decided to join the fight!"
Before anyone can stop him, 9 installs the talisman into a socket and starts the whole factory going on its own, awakening a large, spider-like machine/beast with a red glowing eye which reminds me all too much of the insane Portal orb. The talisman kills 2, sucking the green spark of life from him. Crazy giant spider machine is now entirely awake and hell-bent on killing 5, 9, and 7. They narrowly escape it.
Left alone, the thing starts building creatures of its own, and the whole factory starts belching smoke.
While in hiding, 5 seems to recover all too quickly from watching his mentor be killed before his eyes. 9 apologizes and continues to rightly blame himself, and somehow, that's enough for 5 for now. It didn't sit well with me that 5 continued to trust 9 after this, but maybe 5 is just that much of a follower. At least we get to see firmly that our hero, 9, is not perfect.
5, 7, and 9 visit what I swear is the library of the British Museum, all in ruins now, where they find the twins, 3 and 4, who are adorable. 3 and 4 educate the others with the info they've catalogued (they catalogue 9 as well, their shutter-eyes flashing): the spider thing is The Machine, which turned against man in what to all appearances was the 1930's. The Scientist created the red-eyed BRAIN, which is how the Machine started out, Misused in war as the Machine to build other defensive robots, it and all of its descendants went dormant after killing everyone and everything. The spark of life from 2 reawakened the Machine.
8 shows up and bullies 9 back to the cathedral. This is the first time we learn who stripey, cryptic, artistic 6 is (I *heart* 6). 9 confronts 1 after 1 stops 6 from trying to explain to 9 what he is drawing, but is interrupted by crazy scissor pterodactyl, who enters in a wash of flame to kill them all! 8 does something useful for once and wounds it, protecting 1. 7 falls in trying to finish it off ("let me try that again," she says, nonplussed, and is then wounded), and finally, 5 and 6 trap it in a thread and drag it through a propeller, which chops it to pieces. 1 and 3-9 all survive, but their cathedral home is destroyed by fire.
Stripey 6, the visionary artist, I love. "Go back to the source!" he says, pushing one of his messy drawings at 9--clearly a drawing of the talisman. This is as articulate as he gets, mostly.
The characters are not superheroes, and I love this. They have to adapt quickly, just as their enemy does. They are ordinary folk in a way, but smart, talented, and brave, with the ability and unhesitating willingness to work with what they can find.
Back in the museum, 5 sews up 7's wound.
Meanwhile, the Machine learns of its bird's defeat and starts making new and more numerous predators to seek out the stitchpunks.
Outside the museum in the garden, where he's presumably supposed to be standing watch, 8 shows himself a stoner as well as a thug by happily frying his brain with a magnet he's been hiding.
Inside, 1 admits, without regret, that he sent 2 out to die. 9 has to talk 7 out of running him through. She screams at him and calls him a coward, her spear at his throat.
8 is captured by a new beastie, the Seamstress, which uses 2's lifeless body as bait (this was the creepiest thing in the entire film).
After the confrontation with 9 and the rest over right and wrong and fighting vs. hiding, 1, walking alone and muttering to himself, is nearly captured by it as well.
(1 reminds me of any other fundamentalist, unable to see any "way" but his own. "Why doesn't he see the folly of his path?" he complains to the air of 9.) 7 saves 1's ass and gets captured herself in the process, despite 9 and 5's best efforts to get her to safety and to beat back the Seamstress, which sews 7 and 8 into its body and skitters off to the factory. This thing was a cross between a caterpillar and a spider, with attributes of Medusa and a baby doll thrown in just to make your skin crawl extra fast and far.
9 plans a way to go and get 8 and 7 back, blaming himself for waking up the Machine in the first place. The theatre is utterly silent as 3-6 and 9 put a (to scale) penny over 2's eyes and send his body floating down a drain.
3-6, 1, and 9 creep up to the factory. 9 goes in alone, telling the rest to stay behind, that they'll know what to do when the time comes. Despite 1's grousing, 5 grows some balls and starts working on his backup plan, which involves exploding drums of oil or fuel.
Inside the factory, 9 sees the Machine kill 8. He manages to rescue 7 and kill the Seamstress, but they're now running for their lives from the Machine, which is not pleased.
5's plan works, despite 1's numerous attempts to jump the gun and blow up everything before 9 and 7 get out safely, and the factory goes down in flames. There's brief sunshine and celebration, as 3 and 4 get an old Victrola going. 5 chases an errant LP down a hill, where he discovers that the Machine, much wounded, has dragged itself out of the factory and is still after them. 5 dies to the sounds of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," which is just sick and wrong. Funny, I've heard that song used to creepy psychological effect in a stage play before, when the main character was losing his mind (The play was a fellow college student's, called "The Puppeteer").
Moving and thinking as fast as they can, 9, 7, 6, 4, 3, and 1 lead the Machine down to a collapsing railroad trestle, which will hold their weight, but not the weight of the Machine. 6, at the last minute, urges them all not to destroy the Machine, because he knows that the sparks of life from 8, 2, and 5 are trapped inside the Talisman--still attached to the machine. 6 goes down with the Machine, urging the survivors to "go back to the source" as he has all along. The Machine steals his spark of life and his body falls between the cliffs. 6 fulfills his archetypal role of doomed visionary.
9 goes back to "the first room", the Scientist's workroom, alone. He unlocks a box which shows him a video the Scientist left behind for him (a la Leia in what those of us of a certain age will always know to be the first Star Wars film). 9 learns that he and the others each hold a piece of the Scientist's soul, all that remains of humanity, and that the Machine did not start out bad. It was built of the Scientist's intellect and hard work, taken from the Scientist before it was ready, and then corrupted by a Chancellor/dictator and his military. Before the video ends, the Scientist tells 9 to take care of the talisman, and how to use it.
After showing remorse for his deceased creator, 9 runs back to tell 3, 4, 7, and 1 what he's learned. The survivors are fighting the belligerent Machine, working to destroy it with whatever ammunition they can scrounge. The Machine literally doesn't know when to stop and is hell bent on killing them. 9 moves to sacrifice himself, telling 1 and 7 that they have to get the talisman while the Machine is distracted, that he will teach them the sequence to unlock it.
I pitied the Machine here, as it dragged itself through the dirt and single-mindedly fought to complete its task.
1, the coward, finally gets it and sacrifices himself in place of 9, pushing 9 out of the Machine's way. His last words are "one must be sacrificed," which is something he said earlier in defense of his treatment of 2.
9, unable to stop 1, does what a ninja's gotta do and pulls the talisman out of the Machine while it's still distracted from receiving 1's spark of life. The Machine shakes with rage and loss, but 9 quickly unlocks the talisman, following the Scientist's dying instructions.
The Sparks of Life in full force destroy the Machine completely.
3, 4, 7, and 9 release the souls of their friends, in the same style as the original short film- a sacred fire circle.
Worst credits name ever: Ho Suck Moon.
9's producers/directors/makers did not keep the original score writer from the short film, which I think was a mistake. They replaced him with innocuous, Edward-Scissorhands-meets-Land-Before-Time-generic, actiony, kid-friendly film score by Danny Elfman and Deborah Lurie. I congratulate both composers, but I miss the work of Earganic, who scored the short film. The music at the very beginning of the film gave me hope, as it evoked Earganic's work somewhat, but very quickly after that, with the exception of 3 and 4's theme, the music all started to sound like something I'd already heard.
Unfortunately, the film as a whole is full of other things I've already heard or seen as well.
I fear that the people who have given it 2-star reviews are right. 9 is one sci-fi cliche after another, and I could have done without the "war bad, everyone dies, machines vs. man AGAIN" storyline. I really was a lot more interested in 1-9 themselves, and how they get by in the world which now belongs to them, than why humanity is gone completely. The look of the film and the amount left open to the imagination by the original short set me up to really care less about what happened to all of mankind in this case, and that was fine.
The most often used line in the film's advertising is as follows: when our world ended, their mission began.
What mission? To survive? That's fine if that's all they're doing, but no other clear "mission" ever comes to light.
I've already said I loved watching them learn and adapt and get by.
Just don't set me up to expect a grand quest if there isn't one.
I don't even want a grand quest--nor do I want to be stood up.
Despite their blatant archetype representation (curmudgeon, inventor, hero, warrior, apprentice, etc) the characters themselves did not disappoint--and I'm including the beasties and the baddies in this. The story, however, which was all over every overdone post-human sci-fi plot element ever, just about, left me cold and deflated.
Fortunately, 9's fandom is already vast, and inspired, and runs much deeper than the film itself. I've seen drawings on deviantArt of characters numbered 10 all the way to 81. Chances are, if you pick a number, someone has created a stitchpunk character with that number and drawn its picture by now. Focus Features is wisely running a contest for new designs of beasts. I am in turn inspired by my fellow fans and by the film, to create necklace designs for each character, 1-9. I don't actually have TIME to EXECUTE those designs, so I'm listing my skeletal ideas here for those of you who are crafty, and who have seen the film, to run with as you like. Anything you make along these lines for 6 or 7, I want to see, and I call dibs.
I'm wondering if the corrupted machine-brain scenario, with the technology being snatched away and turned into a source of weaponry, is a deliberate reference to Einstein and the atomic bomb, or if it's just more over-used sci-fi hanging around with the rest.
I'm also wondering how much of the Portal design team took part in this film. Some similarities are striking.
And I'm sure that, had I studied more numerology and Fibonacci and such, I could go on for several pages about the significance of the numbers 1-9, and 9, 7, 4, and 3, who survive...but I haven't studied those areas much. If you have, please share anything you might have to say. I'm wondering if there's any correlation whatsoever between the character archetypes and their numbers, particularly.
Of course, it bothers me that 7 is the only stated female of the set (3 and 4 are effectively genderless). At least she rocks, much more so than many of her brethren. That was intentional, I've no doubt.
Again, I turn to deviantART to be soothed.
My favorite piece of 9 fan art right now is of the non-canon character 13, who's not only female, but carries a musical instrument.
omnisti and I speculate that those who see both the short and the feature will get the most out of this (though you might disbelieve me, considering how much comparison I've done in this post between the two, not all of it favorable). The story of the feature film goes predictable and transparent constantly, but the characters make up for a lot. The short film fired my imagination such that I will always love it--it hits me in that same place The Dark Crystal does--and so, by association, I will continue to be a fan, though a restless one, of the feature film.
I am glad to have seen 9, though I wish that there had been a way for the feature film to inspire me and excite me with the same potency as did the short film. Perhaps there was a way in the beginning, and it's simply that other choices were made, to make the film as accessible and palatable to a wide, ticket-buying audience as possible. I'm not in Hollywood, so all I can do is wonder.
I do intend to go and see 9 a second time, and to pay for my tickets, to support it and so that I can look for details I missed on first viewing. It's possible I'll have an entirely different experience the second time around.
Even though there is less of substance in 9 to adore than I'd hoped, the stitchpunk love is still very much alive.
All the activity surrounding it online is worth playing with, too, from Facebook to the interactive websites constructed in support of the film, and I know there's a lot that I haven't yet seen.
What follows is a bit long and perhaps poorly punctuated. This is a week overdue (where self-imposed deadlines are concerned) and I had a lot of thoughts to smush in. Please forgive any mistakes or run-ons you may come across.
"Our blind pursuit of technology only sped us quicker to our doom."
These are the words spoken by the disembodied voice of the Scientist, whose death we see as 9 begins.
It's a sickly green world gone down in flames that greets us on the screen.
Longish, very spoiler-heavy synopsis under the cut.
Keep in mind that this is only how I remember it and isn't necessarily complete. I did my best.
9 wakes up in the dead scientist's workroom, creeps about, and then carefully goes out exploring, holding to him the copper talisman which was with him in the workshop where he was made. The inventor 2, a stitchpunk creature nearly identical to 9, but an earlier version of him if you check the details, finds 9 (after 9 clocks him in the head with a makeshift weapon), is happy to see the talisman (says "you found it! He's always drawing this!"), finds a spare part to fix 9's insides so that he can speak, and teaches 9 a little about their world before he realizes they're not alone. 9 zips the talisman up safely inside his own front, and 2 urges him to hide. The Beast (mean predator critter which was the main antagonist in the short film) attacks them both and carries 2 away to a scary looking factory building in the distance. During the attack, 2 protects 9, just as 5 did in the original short, down to the body language. This delighted me.
Attention shifts to 5, who spots 9 wandering wounded and worn out and alone, by means of a telescope in a tower. 5 goes to fetch 9 and bring him to safety. Safety turns out to be a cathedral hideaway, inhabited by helpful, industrious 5, bossy and imperious 1, thuggish 8, and enigmatic 6.
When 5 brings 9 back, 1 scolds 5 for leaving and teaches 9 about what's happened to the earth. Selectively.
Mankind was killed by its own machines, by noxious gas the machines created themselves. 1 doesn't like it when anyone asks questions, but 9 keeps asking. 5 is distraught when 9 blurts out that 2 is the one who found him, and that 2 has been captured by something. 1 refuses to let them go and look for 2, showing 9 how they've already lost others (a list of numbers on the wall with 3, 4, and 7 crossed out). 1 sends 5 and 9 off to the lookout tower.
Once there, 5 tells 9 that 2 is his mentor, that they built the telescope together. 9 manages to convince 5 that they should go after 2 and not give him up for lost, though it's like pulling teeth, because 5 doesn't want to disobey 1's rules. 9 says "but what if he's wrong?" Finally 5 grabs a map and goes with 9.
They lose their map in the wind, but they find a tunnel and the tracks of the Beast. 5 says to 9 "you're just like 2. You forget to remember to be scared." A third, sinister figure follows 5 and 9 into the tunnel.
The stitchpunks remind me so much of Burners, using what they find around them (when the tunnel looks too dark, 9 removes the blade from 2's spear and installs a lightbulb in its place, for instance). omnisti says that he will lay good money down on the thought that a lot of people on the development/production teams for this film were Burners.
9 and 5 find a way into the war bots factory easily, and there they find 2 in a cage. The Beast breaks up their reunion, but the sinister figure from the tunnel reveals herself as number 7, fierce and fearless. She efficiently chops off the Beast's head with a flying leap and slash (the only time this move ever works for her. A good lesson, but a frustrating one). They free 2. 5 says to 7 "you came back!" to which 7 responds "I never left. You've finally decided to join the fight!"
Before anyone can stop him, 9 installs the talisman into a socket and starts the whole factory going on its own, awakening a large, spider-like machine/beast with a red glowing eye which reminds me all too much of the insane Portal orb. The talisman kills 2, sucking the green spark of life from him. Crazy giant spider machine is now entirely awake and hell-bent on killing 5, 9, and 7. They narrowly escape it.
Left alone, the thing starts building creatures of its own, and the whole factory starts belching smoke.
While in hiding, 5 seems to recover all too quickly from watching his mentor be killed before his eyes. 9 apologizes and continues to rightly blame himself, and somehow, that's enough for 5 for now. It didn't sit well with me that 5 continued to trust 9 after this, but maybe 5 is just that much of a follower. At least we get to see firmly that our hero, 9, is not perfect.
5, 7, and 9 visit what I swear is the library of the British Museum, all in ruins now, where they find the twins, 3 and 4, who are adorable. 3 and 4 educate the others with the info they've catalogued (they catalogue 9 as well, their shutter-eyes flashing): the spider thing is The Machine, which turned against man in what to all appearances was the 1930's. The Scientist created the red-eyed BRAIN, which is how the Machine started out, Misused in war as the Machine to build other defensive robots, it and all of its descendants went dormant after killing everyone and everything. The spark of life from 2 reawakened the Machine.
8 shows up and bullies 9 back to the cathedral. This is the first time we learn who stripey, cryptic, artistic 6 is (I *heart* 6). 9 confronts 1 after 1 stops 6 from trying to explain to 9 what he is drawing, but is interrupted by crazy scissor pterodactyl, who enters in a wash of flame to kill them all! 8 does something useful for once and wounds it, protecting 1. 7 falls in trying to finish it off ("let me try that again," she says, nonplussed, and is then wounded), and finally, 5 and 6 trap it in a thread and drag it through a propeller, which chops it to pieces. 1 and 3-9 all survive, but their cathedral home is destroyed by fire.
Stripey 6, the visionary artist, I love. "Go back to the source!" he says, pushing one of his messy drawings at 9--clearly a drawing of the talisman. This is as articulate as he gets, mostly.
The characters are not superheroes, and I love this. They have to adapt quickly, just as their enemy does. They are ordinary folk in a way, but smart, talented, and brave, with the ability and unhesitating willingness to work with what they can find.
Back in the museum, 5 sews up 7's wound.
Meanwhile, the Machine learns of its bird's defeat and starts making new and more numerous predators to seek out the stitchpunks.
Outside the museum in the garden, where he's presumably supposed to be standing watch, 8 shows himself a stoner as well as a thug by happily frying his brain with a magnet he's been hiding.
Inside, 1 admits, without regret, that he sent 2 out to die. 9 has to talk 7 out of running him through. She screams at him and calls him a coward, her spear at his throat.
8 is captured by a new beastie, the Seamstress, which uses 2's lifeless body as bait (this was the creepiest thing in the entire film).
After the confrontation with 9 and the rest over right and wrong and fighting vs. hiding, 1, walking alone and muttering to himself, is nearly captured by it as well.
(1 reminds me of any other fundamentalist, unable to see any "way" but his own. "Why doesn't he see the folly of his path?" he complains to the air of 9.) 7 saves 1's ass and gets captured herself in the process, despite 9 and 5's best efforts to get her to safety and to beat back the Seamstress, which sews 7 and 8 into its body and skitters off to the factory. This thing was a cross between a caterpillar and a spider, with attributes of Medusa and a baby doll thrown in just to make your skin crawl extra fast and far.
9 plans a way to go and get 8 and 7 back, blaming himself for waking up the Machine in the first place. The theatre is utterly silent as 3-6 and 9 put a (to scale) penny over 2's eyes and send his body floating down a drain.
3-6, 1, and 9 creep up to the factory. 9 goes in alone, telling the rest to stay behind, that they'll know what to do when the time comes. Despite 1's grousing, 5 grows some balls and starts working on his backup plan, which involves exploding drums of oil or fuel.
Inside the factory, 9 sees the Machine kill 8. He manages to rescue 7 and kill the Seamstress, but they're now running for their lives from the Machine, which is not pleased.
5's plan works, despite 1's numerous attempts to jump the gun and blow up everything before 9 and 7 get out safely, and the factory goes down in flames. There's brief sunshine and celebration, as 3 and 4 get an old Victrola going. 5 chases an errant LP down a hill, where he discovers that the Machine, much wounded, has dragged itself out of the factory and is still after them. 5 dies to the sounds of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," which is just sick and wrong. Funny, I've heard that song used to creepy psychological effect in a stage play before, when the main character was losing his mind (The play was a fellow college student's, called "The Puppeteer").
Moving and thinking as fast as they can, 9, 7, 6, 4, 3, and 1 lead the Machine down to a collapsing railroad trestle, which will hold their weight, but not the weight of the Machine. 6, at the last minute, urges them all not to destroy the Machine, because he knows that the sparks of life from 8, 2, and 5 are trapped inside the Talisman--still attached to the machine. 6 goes down with the Machine, urging the survivors to "go back to the source" as he has all along. The Machine steals his spark of life and his body falls between the cliffs. 6 fulfills his archetypal role of doomed visionary.
9 goes back to "the first room", the Scientist's workroom, alone. He unlocks a box which shows him a video the Scientist left behind for him (a la Leia in what those of us of a certain age will always know to be the first Star Wars film). 9 learns that he and the others each hold a piece of the Scientist's soul, all that remains of humanity, and that the Machine did not start out bad. It was built of the Scientist's intellect and hard work, taken from the Scientist before it was ready, and then corrupted by a Chancellor/dictator and his military. Before the video ends, the Scientist tells 9 to take care of the talisman, and how to use it.
After showing remorse for his deceased creator, 9 runs back to tell 3, 4, 7, and 1 what he's learned. The survivors are fighting the belligerent Machine, working to destroy it with whatever ammunition they can scrounge. The Machine literally doesn't know when to stop and is hell bent on killing them. 9 moves to sacrifice himself, telling 1 and 7 that they have to get the talisman while the Machine is distracted, that he will teach them the sequence to unlock it.
I pitied the Machine here, as it dragged itself through the dirt and single-mindedly fought to complete its task.
1, the coward, finally gets it and sacrifices himself in place of 9, pushing 9 out of the Machine's way. His last words are "one must be sacrificed," which is something he said earlier in defense of his treatment of 2.
9, unable to stop 1, does what a ninja's gotta do and pulls the talisman out of the Machine while it's still distracted from receiving 1's spark of life. The Machine shakes with rage and loss, but 9 quickly unlocks the talisman, following the Scientist's dying instructions.
The Sparks of Life in full force destroy the Machine completely.
3, 4, 7, and 9 release the souls of their friends, in the same style as the original short film- a sacred fire circle.
Worst credits name ever: Ho Suck Moon.
9's producers/directors/makers did not keep the original score writer from the short film, which I think was a mistake. They replaced him with innocuous, Edward-Scissorhands-meets-Land-Before-Time-generic, actiony, kid-friendly film score by Danny Elfman and Deborah Lurie. I congratulate both composers, but I miss the work of Earganic, who scored the short film. The music at the very beginning of the film gave me hope, as it evoked Earganic's work somewhat, but very quickly after that, with the exception of 3 and 4's theme, the music all started to sound like something I'd already heard.
Unfortunately, the film as a whole is full of other things I've already heard or seen as well.
I fear that the people who have given it 2-star reviews are right. 9 is one sci-fi cliche after another, and I could have done without the "war bad, everyone dies, machines vs. man AGAIN" storyline. I really was a lot more interested in 1-9 themselves, and how they get by in the world which now belongs to them, than why humanity is gone completely. The look of the film and the amount left open to the imagination by the original short set me up to really care less about what happened to all of mankind in this case, and that was fine.
The most often used line in the film's advertising is as follows: when our world ended, their mission began.
What mission? To survive? That's fine if that's all they're doing, but no other clear "mission" ever comes to light.
I've already said I loved watching them learn and adapt and get by.
Just don't set me up to expect a grand quest if there isn't one.
I don't even want a grand quest--nor do I want to be stood up.
Despite their blatant archetype representation (curmudgeon, inventor, hero, warrior, apprentice, etc) the characters themselves did not disappoint--and I'm including the beasties and the baddies in this. The story, however, which was all over every overdone post-human sci-fi plot element ever, just about, left me cold and deflated.
Fortunately, 9's fandom is already vast, and inspired, and runs much deeper than the film itself. I've seen drawings on deviantArt of characters numbered 10 all the way to 81. Chances are, if you pick a number, someone has created a stitchpunk character with that number and drawn its picture by now. Focus Features is wisely running a contest for new designs of beasts. I am in turn inspired by my fellow fans and by the film, to create necklace designs for each character, 1-9. I don't actually have TIME to EXECUTE those designs, so I'm listing my skeletal ideas here for those of you who are crafty, and who have seen the film, to run with as you like. Anything you make along these lines for 6 or 7, I want to see, and I call dibs.
I'm wondering if the corrupted machine-brain scenario, with the technology being snatched away and turned into a source of weaponry, is a deliberate reference to Einstein and the atomic bomb, or if it's just more over-used sci-fi hanging around with the rest.
I'm also wondering how much of the Portal design team took part in this film. Some similarities are striking.
And I'm sure that, had I studied more numerology and Fibonacci and such, I could go on for several pages about the significance of the numbers 1-9, and 9, 7, 4, and 3, who survive...but I haven't studied those areas much. If you have, please share anything you might have to say. I'm wondering if there's any correlation whatsoever between the character archetypes and their numbers, particularly.
Of course, it bothers me that 7 is the only stated female of the set (3 and 4 are effectively genderless). At least she rocks, much more so than many of her brethren. That was intentional, I've no doubt.
Again, I turn to deviantART to be soothed.
My favorite piece of 9 fan art right now is of the non-canon character 13, who's not only female, but carries a musical instrument.
omnisti and I speculate that those who see both the short and the feature will get the most out of this (though you might disbelieve me, considering how much comparison I've done in this post between the two, not all of it favorable). The story of the feature film goes predictable and transparent constantly, but the characters make up for a lot. The short film fired my imagination such that I will always love it--it hits me in that same place The Dark Crystal does--and so, by association, I will continue to be a fan, though a restless one, of the feature film.
I am glad to have seen 9, though I wish that there had been a way for the feature film to inspire me and excite me with the same potency as did the short film. Perhaps there was a way in the beginning, and it's simply that other choices were made, to make the film as accessible and palatable to a wide, ticket-buying audience as possible. I'm not in Hollywood, so all I can do is wonder.
I do intend to go and see 9 a second time, and to pay for my tickets, to support it and so that I can look for details I missed on first viewing. It's possible I'll have an entirely different experience the second time around.
Even though there is less of substance in 9 to adore than I'd hoped, the stitchpunk love is still very much alive.
All the activity surrounding it online is worth playing with, too, from Facebook to the interactive websites constructed in support of the film, and I know there's a lot that I haven't yet seen.