Pan's Labyrith

The writer chose to base the film during a real historic event to set a time period and a purpose for Ofelia to escaped into a fantasy world. I think the story had to have both reality and fantasy to show the violence which was taking place around Ofelia's life. She lost her father and is now living with a fascist leader whom using violence to demand obedience from his soldiers. The drama in Ofelia's life draws her into a fairytale world. Obedience was incorporated into the story mainly through the Captain. The Captain demanded obedience throughout the entire story from his wife to Ofelia, his soldiers and his maid and any of those people disobeyed him there were consequences that would be paid. I would compare this movie to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Charlie doesn't escaped to a fantasy world however, when he wins that golden ticket and gets to go on a tour of Willy Wonka's factory; that is Charlie's fantasy world. Charlie was living in poverty and he got to escape reality into Wonka's factory. The people who disobeyed the rules suffered consequences as did the people in Pan's Labyrinth minus death.

RoboCop

This week we are discussing whether the violence in RoboCop is either realistic or "fun" violence and whether or not it can be viewed as artistic and unique or simply entertainment for the masses. The violence in RoboCop is "fun" violence; in the beginning before the guy becomes RoboCop he gets shot 20 times from 5 feet away with shotguns, gets his hand and arm shot off and then gets shot in the head...and lives? Not REAL. The violence is over exaggerated as a way to glorify the criminal activity in the city. There is nothing artistic about this movie as well. It is entertainment for the masses. A couple isn't going to pick RoboCop to go see together for the story line. A group of guys will go see this together for the action just like when the last Rambo came out. Stallone only had 4 lines in the entire movie yet I went with a coupe of buddies because it was Sly Stallone as Rambo again and we want him to go out and kill as many people as he could. Same with RoboCop; I want to see him pull up to a crime and catch the criminals by surprise so I could see that look of fear on their face. I worked at a detainee prison where probably 1 percent of the population spoke English however, they all wanted to watch action movies. RoboCop delivers in that aspect; it's full of "fun" violence produced for the masses.