There is a lot of highly critical discourse around the Last Samurai. Not current, because it’s not a current movie, but saying that it’s “okay” suggests you haven’t looked for criticism.
Also, weary.
Ubi, it's $70 and people are vary of your mile wide puddles that drop 75% in price after half a year
Submitted 3 weeks ago by zecg@lemmy.world to games@lemmy.world
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/d06bae75-b6b3-4e0b-a56c-72dba71b5067.jpeg
Comments
Lumidaub@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
ka1ikasan@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Yup, Last Samourai is 22 years old. Back then a lot of social issues have not been widely discussed.
Lumidaub@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
And even then, there were people who were uncomfortable with a narrative of some heroic white dude coming in to save the exotic natives. Just wasn’t a very popular opinion.
HubertManne@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
I recall quite a bit of people taking issue with it. Goes back further with carradine in kung fu. Plenty didn't but same with assasins creed.
RowRowRowYourBot@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
In 2003? What are you talking about? The only thing we weren’t talking about by then was trans-rights
Tikiporch@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I think it’s wary, not weary.
circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org 3 weeks ago
The fun thing about The Last Samurai is that the title doesn’t refer to Tom Cruise. He does not play a samurai in the film. He plays an American officer.
He hangs with a group of samurai, who are collectively the last of their kind.
That said, plenty of people complained about it in its day.
xavier666@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
I might be terribly incorrect.
But i remember that Tom Cruise’s character switches sides in the movie after spending time with the Samurai (He was captured by them). He trains under them and becomes a Samurai. In the end, they fight against the (British?) and lose due to a gattling gun. All the Samurai die except for Tom’s character. So symbolically, Tom is the Last Samurai.
Newsteinleo@infosec.pub 3 weeks ago
Yes, it’s a classic “white savior” trope.
circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org 3 weeks ago
It is implied that Tom Cruise dies at the end. I think the confusion comes from a voice over, but you never see the character on screen again.
He also does not “become a samurai”. He fights alongside them, but at no point do they call him a samurai.
CosmoNova@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Headline makes it sound Uni posted this, but it doesn‘t look like it.
zecg@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I was misinformed by an Azerbaijani home electronics swap meet board
shani66@ani.social 3 weeks ago
I hate that nazis glom onto any bad game and ruin the discussion around it.
zecg@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Hardly ruin, you have to purposefully go find them gloating over Steam charts. But it’s too funny that people really have choice enough now in the good graphics segment that Ubisoft is sinking. It’s my fault, I cursed them when they left Steam for their 4-UAC-prompts-whenever-you-start PoS. They showed total contempt for their users with Breakpoint, tried an nft grift on the side, evolved all cosmetics to clown shoes level and totally failed to offer anything new. Where’s Reflextions? Stuff like Grow Up / Home, metroidvanias on UbiArt Framework? They have great 3D engines and can’t keep a team happy or unfired enough to have people that know how to use it and optimize a game and are able to take some risks with game design. It’s all either heavily monetized multiplayer dreck or incremental QoL features in ever larger and shallower sandboxes in one of few large franchise flavors. There’s not that much to discuss, woo bamboo cutting tech, a new coat of paint and some gimmicks. People claiming it’s failing because it’s either woke or culture appropriating are ascribing cultural import to a happy meal.
cvf@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I agree, but I skipped over the latest Prince of Persia for a while because “eww Ubisoft”, but it really is a great mteroidvania.
Hyphlosion@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Why do people manufacture arguments like this? Who is arguing that one is okay while the other isn’t? A couple random people on the Internet?
The only thing I can think of is The Last Samurai is a 20 year old movie and that somehow means not bringing up this historic fictional movie = you’re okay about a white dude becoming a samurai but not okay about a black dude becoming a samurai.
Whataboutism at its finest.
Did it not occur to this person that perhaps some people just don’t care about the movie, haven’t seen the movie, or plain just didn’t bring it up because it’s a movie? Is it “double standards” for one to pick their battles and not be enraged at everything all the time? My god this shit is exhausting.
Disclaimer: I have no opinion on the game itself because I frankly don’t care about it because I’m not the biggest Ubisoft fan outside of Rayman. Nor does the above necessarily reflect my opinion on the game’s history accuracy. I’ve always loved The Last Samurai and Memoirs of a Geisha though and find both beautiful and touching films, so make of that as you will.
reksas@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
when you dont have arguments that fit with what you want to do, you make up your own.
VitoRobles@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
I like how OP also chose to do zero research of all the controversy of the Last Samurai, and the years of PR control.
KeenFlame@feddit.nu 3 weeks ago
It is a fighting game with stereotypical characters. Not historically accurate in any way. This is astroturfing by some org that wants racial in fighting
RowRowRowYourBot@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
The only thing I can think of is The Last Samurai is a 20 year old movie and that somehow means not bringing up this historic fictional movie = you’re okay about a white dude becoming a samurai but not okay about a black dude becoming a samurai.
You should watch the movie. Cruise’s character does not become a samurai. He spends time with the last samurai.
Hyphlosion@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
You should read the rest of my post. You would have learned that I have watched it.
Arcane2077@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Ubisoft didn’t post this
Railcar8095@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
I learnt the trope of the “white Savior” thanks to last samurai, and that was eons ago.
This is not a case of double standards, it’s plain racism and influencer grifting.
Dr_Box@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Nah I think both of these are examples of pandering. The Last Samurai is even worse because there was no reason at all for Tom Cruise to be there historically. Yasuke at least was a real samurai and I think if you were to ignore the fact that ubisoft is obviously pandering for publicity and cash his story isn’t much different than Will Adams’ potrayal in Shogan.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Say what you will about the white savior trope, but wasn’t there a historical reason for Tom Cruise’s character to be there? Japan was accepting foreign influence and modernization at that time, from what I know of history.
Dr_Box@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Yeah I was wrong. He’s based off of Jules Brunet who was a french officer that trained the Tokugawa samurai in the use of modern weaponry of the time. He sided with the resistance against the emperor of Japan until he was evacuated by a french warship later on when the resistance was defeated. He wasnt a samurai by any means but he was a real guy
Tattorack@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Except The Last Samurai isn’t remotely historical.
Tom Cruise’s is very roughly based in a French admiral. That admiral got sent specifically to Japan to create political relations with a certain faction of Samurai to further French interests there. The French admiral was made samurai as honorary title and put into service of the household.
During the final battle (which was a castle siege, and both sides were using guns), the French admiral was released from service and sent home.
If a movie or a series were to be made of this, and if it were to be somewhat accurate, it’d be closer to a political thriller with some battles in between.
Viri4thus@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
That’s some grade A vintage racism right there.
emb@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Game seems cool, but it requires a download to play. They don’t meet my basic requirements for a game I’d even consider buying.
glimse@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
“doesn’t have to be downloaded” is a basic requirement of a game for you in 2025?
emb@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Yep! And it’s really surprising to me that so many people are OK with that sort of defective-by-design anti-feature. It’s a single player game, why would it have any dependence on networks or servers of any sort?
Not to say that I’m against digital distribution altogether, I think that’s a perfectly valid preference w/ pros and cons.
But if you are going to sell the video game on a disc? Shipping a whole playable game seems like a pretty low bar to meet. Most games (that get a physical release) in [current year], for every year that exists so far, don’t have a problem managing to do this.
VitoRobles@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
My basic requirements is that it’s a good game from a respectable company.
And even if it is a good game by reviewer standards, Ubisoft has been an awful studio to the game industry for the past decade. From sexual harassment lawsuits to investing in web3, shutting down servers that causes single player games to lose features, having their own storefront, being creatively bankrupt with their releases, nickel and diming their product…
Not the worse mind you, but easily the bottom.
Buy it when it’s $5 on steam in a few years.
VitoRobles@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
Oh man I just remembered how great that could have been.
Red Dead 2 dealt with racist cults so elegantly.
And Far Cry 5’s “Oh we’re going there!” And making the most surface-level milquetoast bullshit I have ever seen.
rabber@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
I remember people complaining about that movie when it came out actually
madcaesar@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It’s an actor ACTING as someone else that’s the whole point of ACTING. People need to stop with this bullshit.
galanthus@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
How do you act like you have black skin, for instance?
madcaesar@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
How do you act as anyone else ever? Unless you are a genetic clone of the person you must not be allowed to act!
VitoRobles@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
Australian method actor and five-time Academy Award winner, Kirk Lazarus, can explain.
Halosheep@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
You’re right. We should absolutely, not once, not ever, have a person who doesn’t perfectly, down to the finest detail, match the description of the character they are depicting act for that role.
I saw a local stage play of madame web where a woman played a male character. It literally wasn’t even a distraction and they sold the character well.
RxBrad@infosec.pub 3 weeks ago
People raging about videogames being woke
VERSUS
People raging about people raging about videogames being woke.
…FIGHT!!!
Tattorack@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Joke’s on you; neither are OK. The Last Samurai is only good to those with weird exotic ideas about Samurai, Japan, and that time period.
Would be cool if there was a series about the actual French admiral that movie is based on, and all the political miandering that happened in that time.
Zanshi@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Loved the film as a kid, would be down to watch that series if it was ever created!
Rin@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
In the same way that someone replaced all rainbow flags with confederate battle flags in Spiderman, someone’s gonna mod the game to change the character’s texture, then racists will also be happy (unless the game is shitty idk).
ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Meme of Giancarlo Esposito / Gus adjusting his tie with the caption “You won’t buy Assassin’s Creed Shadows because you’re racist, I won’t buy it because Ubisoft games are shit. We’re not the same”
VitoRobles@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
I hate that I’m on the same side as the racists though.
Thanks a lot Ubisoft.
ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
It’s Far Cry 5 all over again