Post by Jean Luc de Lemur on Aug 29, 2015 2:58:02 GMT -5
22 The First Move Wins the Computer Operation
Intelligent, threatening computers were a staple of 1960s science fiction and spy stories. The most famous of these come, of course, from Star Trek, with Kirk killing Landru and Nomad via some well-placed logical paradoxes. In The Prisoner put an existential twist on this, with No. 6 destroying “The General” computer by asking it, “Why?” As much as I like Star Trek and The Prisoner, a lot of these examples haven’t really held up very well in the computer-smaller-than-a-room era, or at least haven’t held up as well as far the computer-related aspects go.
By this point, Lupin III has barely touched a computer. It’s understandable—at this point in history there’s little in the way of electronic security at this point, to the extent hacking exists it’s playing pranks on Ma Bell, and Lupin’s an adventure show, so there’s a bias towards going places and stealing actual things in ways that are more exciting physically (though from the late eighties onward my impression is that Lupin does spend more time in front of computer monitors). When computers do exist, though, I think Lupin III has aged better than its contemporaries for two reasons: their computers are still advanced by contemporary stands, and when a computer does appear the focus is how on our characters respond to it.
The only previous instance where a computer was important was way back in “Introducing Goemon XIII,” where the computer was completely fictional, part of a story told by the episode’s villain to deflect agency away from himself. The boundaries of disbelief in the Lupin universe were just flexible enough that this was believable, but the story was bunk. Here again the issue of how much we can believe a computer is key. Like Landry or the General the danger from this episode’s (unnamed) computer is to human agency, but it doesn’t control directly. Rather, it predicts crime and recommends how to respond to it. Though Zenigata and Lupin remain on different sides for this episode, they both are facing the same foe.
Lupin’s confident at first that he can defeat the computer by acting as usual and expects this to be another instance of police hubris, but he doesn’t manage to go through with his planned train hijacking. Lupin isn’t captured, but it’s only because Zenigata jumps the gun, foiling the computer’s plan. It’s human error, not human ingenuity, that “beats” the computer, and then only narrowly—Jigen and Goemon still end up in police custody. Lupin, as creative as he is, is still predictable.
Lupin, after doing extensive research, is alarmed to find that computers are something beyond his comprehension. As impressive as the computer is (it’s understanding of habit anticipates the algorithms now used to predict our shopping patterns, what we’d like to read, where we want to eat, and how we structure our day), we don’t get a sense of the human work that went into building and programming it—the computer’s surprisingly accurate predictions seem to be wholly its own product, and even the computer itself has a vaguely anthropomorphic face. It’s less like a computer and more like an idol.
And that’s how it’s treated by the policeman, despite Zenigata’s protestations. Lupin’s plan to rescue Jigen and Goemon is more elaborate than his plan to hijack the train, and it’s hard to see how everything will hold together. The computer performed impressively during the hijacking while Zenigata messed up—this time they won’t let their knowledge of how Lupin will infiltrate the police headquarters affect their performance.
Thus Lupin, disguised as the computer’s steward but still obviously himself, stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Zenigata, within easy reach for arrest, while the Tokyo police chief keeps Zenigata back. Zenigata’s instincts may have betrayed him before, but fealty from the computer’s keeping him from exercising common sense here. The computer from “The First Move” is intimidatingly powerful, but still no substitute for thinking creatively, and taking advantage of an opportunity right in front of your nose.
Stray Observations
• Lupin’s “Shit! That Zenigata is a persistent jerk!” made me laugh.
• While we’ll get more into the Lupin franchise’s antagonistic relationship with American military power next week, it’s worth noting the computer comes from the FBI and its steward is named Commissioner Gordon.
• The train model used in the simulation of Lupin’s train hijacking made me think of Back to the Future Part III. I adore Back to the Future Part III.
• In a nice touch, Lupin uses a different model of truck in his jailbreak plan than the computer simulation anticipates. It’s a nice touch, making the model of truck essentially below the model’s resolution and also subtle foreshadowing that things won’t go as planned.
• Lupin, Jigen and Goemon make an aerial escape—given the number of aerial escapes we’ve gotten so far it’s surprising to me the computer didn’t anticipate one.
• I ended up rewatching “Return of the Archons” after writing this review and had forgotten how good it was. It really is about much more than the Kirk killing a computer with a logical paradox.
Recommended?
Yes—it’s the rare sixties-seventies computer story that doesn’t feel too dated today, and most of the interest comes from how everyone reacts to the computer’s powerful predictive algorithms, something I think we’re still working through as a culture.
23 The Great Gold Battle
How to draw the first Lupin series to a close? It wasn’t ending because of any creative choice on the staff—the show simply had low ratings (and only started to accrete viewers when it was subsequently rerun or syndicated—I’m not sure which). There hadn’t been much in the way of arcs, at least since the midpoint of the show when Miyazaki and Takahata took over, sanding away some of the show’s rough edges (Goemon started as an opponent for Lupin but quickly became a team member; and while there wasn’t much progress in Lupin and Fujiko’s not-quite-a-relationship it also disappeared). There isn’t much real need for an ending—another well-done episode would be enough.
And that is mostly what “The Great Gold Battle” gives us, though it does try to give us more of a window onto Lupin’s world. We actually see Lupin assembling his gang, giving Jigen and Fujiko little moments before they arrive. We also get a nice little Miyazakian car chase (one that obliterates a 2CV and sees Fujiko—driving, of course—and Jigen literally dropping in for tea in their Mini). Crucial for the episode, though, is Lupin’s hideouts. For most of the series they’ve just seemed like apartments or hotels or cabins, nothing special. They’re a big deal here, and while I’d always pegged Lupin for someone who burned through his winnings pretty quickly (and he has a fairly high failure rate on a lot of elaborate heists over the series), we do get to see his “museum,” full of old criminal records, airplanes, cars, and guns in classic gadget-worshipping fashion.
The great advantage of all of this, though, is that it makes the actual heist—stealing a disputed cache of gold—go all the quicker. And Zenigata also gets a special focus—we see more from his point-of-view than usual this episode, and he manages to figure out Lupin’s game. It’s a good showcase for Lupin and Fujiko (with Jigen and Goemon, despite mostly being to the side, getting their moments), but it’s really an excellent one for Zenigata.
There’s a hint of gravity at the end, when Zenigata’s finally cornered Lupin and Lupin, resuming his pyromaniac streak from earlier in the show, threatens to explode his newfound lair even while he’s standing on it. The old, whistling western music from the earlier episodes are heard, and the heart pauses a little, even though we know Lupin will get out of this scrape and the chase will go on. It’s only a couple of seconds, but that moment of gravity nicely brings the show full-circle.
Stray Observations
• Be warned there’s a lot of gruff Japanese policeman yelling early in this one, and it can go on for long enough that I actually found it kind of grating.
• Fujiko’s cover is in a jewelry shop, and her phone to Lupin is hidden in a stuffed chimp (a joke on his kind of simian appearance?).
• I love this shot with hands going over the map of Tokyo trying to trace all the police cars looking for the loot.
Recommended?
Yes—it’s an average story, but the extras on either end—the extended assembly of the team at the beginning and the final showdown with Zenigata—are both fun and ensure the main story doesn’t have any slack.
I will be continuing with these reviews, but not for all Lupin media. I’ll do the first two movies—The Secret/Mystery of Mamo and The Castle of Cagliostro, followed by the two Miyazaki-directed episodes of the second, “red jacket,” series, “Albatross: Wings of Death” and “Farewell My Beloved Lupin.” I don’t currently have a high-quality copy of Mamo so I’ll have to get that before going on, so I don’t have a timeframe for that.
Beyond that I’m not sure—people at the Dissolve were curious about Legend of the Gold of Babylon so I might check it out, though its reputation is…not good. There is also a new Lupin series airing in Japan on October 1st, though I’ll probably wait for an actual subtitled version to come out before tackling it. A trailer has come out and I’m glad I can recognize the Alfas and Peugeots…
Intelligent, threatening computers were a staple of 1960s science fiction and spy stories. The most famous of these come, of course, from Star Trek, with Kirk killing Landru and Nomad via some well-placed logical paradoxes. In The Prisoner put an existential twist on this, with No. 6 destroying “The General” computer by asking it, “Why?” As much as I like Star Trek and The Prisoner, a lot of these examples haven’t really held up very well in the computer-smaller-than-a-room era, or at least haven’t held up as well as far the computer-related aspects go.
By this point, Lupin III has barely touched a computer. It’s understandable—at this point in history there’s little in the way of electronic security at this point, to the extent hacking exists it’s playing pranks on Ma Bell, and Lupin’s an adventure show, so there’s a bias towards going places and stealing actual things in ways that are more exciting physically (though from the late eighties onward my impression is that Lupin does spend more time in front of computer monitors). When computers do exist, though, I think Lupin III has aged better than its contemporaries for two reasons: their computers are still advanced by contemporary stands, and when a computer does appear the focus is how on our characters respond to it.
The only previous instance where a computer was important was way back in “Introducing Goemon XIII,” where the computer was completely fictional, part of a story told by the episode’s villain to deflect agency away from himself. The boundaries of disbelief in the Lupin universe were just flexible enough that this was believable, but the story was bunk. Here again the issue of how much we can believe a computer is key. Like Landry or the General the danger from this episode’s (unnamed) computer is to human agency, but it doesn’t control directly. Rather, it predicts crime and recommends how to respond to it. Though Zenigata and Lupin remain on different sides for this episode, they both are facing the same foe.
Lupin’s confident at first that he can defeat the computer by acting as usual and expects this to be another instance of police hubris, but he doesn’t manage to go through with his planned train hijacking. Lupin isn’t captured, but it’s only because Zenigata jumps the gun, foiling the computer’s plan. It’s human error, not human ingenuity, that “beats” the computer, and then only narrowly—Jigen and Goemon still end up in police custody. Lupin, as creative as he is, is still predictable.
Lupin, after doing extensive research, is alarmed to find that computers are something beyond his comprehension. As impressive as the computer is (it’s understanding of habit anticipates the algorithms now used to predict our shopping patterns, what we’d like to read, where we want to eat, and how we structure our day), we don’t get a sense of the human work that went into building and programming it—the computer’s surprisingly accurate predictions seem to be wholly its own product, and even the computer itself has a vaguely anthropomorphic face. It’s less like a computer and more like an idol.
And that’s how it’s treated by the policeman, despite Zenigata’s protestations. Lupin’s plan to rescue Jigen and Goemon is more elaborate than his plan to hijack the train, and it’s hard to see how everything will hold together. The computer performed impressively during the hijacking while Zenigata messed up—this time they won’t let their knowledge of how Lupin will infiltrate the police headquarters affect their performance.
Thus Lupin, disguised as the computer’s steward but still obviously himself, stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Zenigata, within easy reach for arrest, while the Tokyo police chief keeps Zenigata back. Zenigata’s instincts may have betrayed him before, but fealty from the computer’s keeping him from exercising common sense here. The computer from “The First Move” is intimidatingly powerful, but still no substitute for thinking creatively, and taking advantage of an opportunity right in front of your nose.
Stray Observations
• Lupin’s “Shit! That Zenigata is a persistent jerk!” made me laugh.
• While we’ll get more into the Lupin franchise’s antagonistic relationship with American military power next week, it’s worth noting the computer comes from the FBI and its steward is named Commissioner Gordon.
• The train model used in the simulation of Lupin’s train hijacking made me think of Back to the Future Part III. I adore Back to the Future Part III.
• In a nice touch, Lupin uses a different model of truck in his jailbreak plan than the computer simulation anticipates. It’s a nice touch, making the model of truck essentially below the model’s resolution and also subtle foreshadowing that things won’t go as planned.
• Lupin, Jigen and Goemon make an aerial escape—given the number of aerial escapes we’ve gotten so far it’s surprising to me the computer didn’t anticipate one.
• I ended up rewatching “Return of the Archons” after writing this review and had forgotten how good it was. It really is about much more than the Kirk killing a computer with a logical paradox.
Recommended?
Yes—it’s the rare sixties-seventies computer story that doesn’t feel too dated today, and most of the interest comes from how everyone reacts to the computer’s powerful predictive algorithms, something I think we’re still working through as a culture.
23 The Great Gold Battle
How to draw the first Lupin series to a close? It wasn’t ending because of any creative choice on the staff—the show simply had low ratings (and only started to accrete viewers when it was subsequently rerun or syndicated—I’m not sure which). There hadn’t been much in the way of arcs, at least since the midpoint of the show when Miyazaki and Takahata took over, sanding away some of the show’s rough edges (Goemon started as an opponent for Lupin but quickly became a team member; and while there wasn’t much progress in Lupin and Fujiko’s not-quite-a-relationship it also disappeared). There isn’t much real need for an ending—another well-done episode would be enough.
And that is mostly what “The Great Gold Battle” gives us, though it does try to give us more of a window onto Lupin’s world. We actually see Lupin assembling his gang, giving Jigen and Fujiko little moments before they arrive. We also get a nice little Miyazakian car chase (one that obliterates a 2CV and sees Fujiko—driving, of course—and Jigen literally dropping in for tea in their Mini). Crucial for the episode, though, is Lupin’s hideouts. For most of the series they’ve just seemed like apartments or hotels or cabins, nothing special. They’re a big deal here, and while I’d always pegged Lupin for someone who burned through his winnings pretty quickly (and he has a fairly high failure rate on a lot of elaborate heists over the series), we do get to see his “museum,” full of old criminal records, airplanes, cars, and guns in classic gadget-worshipping fashion.
The great advantage of all of this, though, is that it makes the actual heist—stealing a disputed cache of gold—go all the quicker. And Zenigata also gets a special focus—we see more from his point-of-view than usual this episode, and he manages to figure out Lupin’s game. It’s a good showcase for Lupin and Fujiko (with Jigen and Goemon, despite mostly being to the side, getting their moments), but it’s really an excellent one for Zenigata.
There’s a hint of gravity at the end, when Zenigata’s finally cornered Lupin and Lupin, resuming his pyromaniac streak from earlier in the show, threatens to explode his newfound lair even while he’s standing on it. The old, whistling western music from the earlier episodes are heard, and the heart pauses a little, even though we know Lupin will get out of this scrape and the chase will go on. It’s only a couple of seconds, but that moment of gravity nicely brings the show full-circle.
Stray Observations
• Be warned there’s a lot of gruff Japanese policeman yelling early in this one, and it can go on for long enough that I actually found it kind of grating.
• Fujiko’s cover is in a jewelry shop, and her phone to Lupin is hidden in a stuffed chimp (a joke on his kind of simian appearance?).
• I love this shot with hands going over the map of Tokyo trying to trace all the police cars looking for the loot.
Recommended?
Yes—it’s an average story, but the extras on either end—the extended assembly of the team at the beginning and the final showdown with Zenigata—are both fun and ensure the main story doesn’t have any slack.
I will be continuing with these reviews, but not for all Lupin media. I’ll do the first two movies—The Secret/Mystery of Mamo and The Castle of Cagliostro, followed by the two Miyazaki-directed episodes of the second, “red jacket,” series, “Albatross: Wings of Death” and “Farewell My Beloved Lupin.” I don’t currently have a high-quality copy of Mamo so I’ll have to get that before going on, so I don’t have a timeframe for that.
Beyond that I’m not sure—people at the Dissolve were curious about Legend of the Gold of Babylon so I might check it out, though its reputation is…not good. There is also a new Lupin series airing in Japan on October 1st, though I’ll probably wait for an actual subtitled version to come out before tackling it. A trailer has come out and I’m glad I can recognize the Alfas and Peugeots…
