NationStates Jolt Archive


Wow, this is really bleak and depressing.

Techno-Soviet
17-05-2009, 23:29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetarian

Reading that article brought me on a short Google search to get this. After going through the whole four hour, I realized how depressing the ending is:

While dodging detection from killer machines, the junker enters a building with a dome on the roof to search for usable supplies. Inside the dome, he meets Yumemi, who offers to show him a special commemorative projection especially reserved for the 2,500,000th customer, although he is in fact the 2,497,290th customer. Despite his aggravation with her, he agrees to attend her show. However, the projector device, "Miss Jena", has broken down and is in need of repair. Curiously, he tries to repair it himself, and in the process, understands that the planetarium is not a military building but an amusement attraction. It turns out that his arrival is of sheer coincidence, as the place runs on an old power generator somewhere in the city still giving minimal power, which is only enough to recharge Yumemi to operate for exactly one week every year. After Miss Jena is repaired enough to function mechanically, Yumemi plugs herself in to start the show, and presents an amazing projection of the starry sky, something missing from the outside world because of the polluted skies. Unfortunately, the power finally goes out in the midst of the show, but Yumemi proceeds through the rest of the event with no visuals at the request of the protagonist.

Both of them eventually leave the planetarium, as Yumemi insists on escorting her customer back to his vehicle outside the city walls. It is during this time that he devises a plan to quietly transport Yumemi out of the city when her battery completely runs out, and later find a way to re-activate her and obtain a portable projector so that they can travel to various refugee encampments together and show the remaining humans her presentation. When they reach the city walls, he spots a machine he calls a fiddler crab due to its design guarding the entrance in which he came from, and he tells Yumemi to stay put while he leaves to destroy it. Armed with only a grenade launcher, he tries to take down the machine with his remaining high explosive squash head rounds covertly, but a dud blows his cover and he is forced to face the machine front on, and thus is completely outmatched by it, breaking his right leg while evading its gunfire. Programmed with the directive to protect human life before performing all other orders, Yumemi ignores the earlier request to stand still and approaches the machine to try and electronically command it to retreat. Before the protagonist can capitalize on the distraction and finish the machine off, Yumemi is literally blown in half by its machine guns, destroying her main battery.

Irreparably damaged from the attack and being further destroyed by the toxic rain shorting her now exposed internals, she attempts one last time to send a distress call to the no longer existent support center. She spends her emergency battery life replaying her pre-war memories to him using a tiny hologram projector on her ear. She visually recollects the day she was activated, cheerful experiences with past customers, and the day the entire city was evacuated as war broke out, with the other planetarium workers unwillingly leaving her behind. When the video fades, she reveals that she had known that the planetarium would never have more customers during the thirty years she was alone, despite her apparent infinite optimism up to this point. She prays to the stars and wishes to serve humans forevermore in heaven as she "dies" in front of him. To comfort her, he lies and makes up a story that he was specifically sent by her human coworkers to pull her from the city and take her to her new place of work, indirectly referring to his own earlier plans to rescue her. In her final moment, she ejects the memory card from her artificial brain for his safekeeping. Touched and completely shaken by the loss of the beautiful world she left in his mind, he throws away his gun and puts the memory card in his coat, before wandering off with a broken leg as the fallen war machine's automated backup close in on the scene.

Seriously, that is one of the saddest stories ever. It's only further emphasized by the ironically cheerful music as Yumemi dies. This is the first time I've cried at the end of a game/movie/novel since I saw the ending of Gladiator. :(
Conserative Morality
17-05-2009, 23:32
Eh, I've heard far more depressing stories.
Techno-Soviet
17-05-2009, 23:36
Eh, I've heard far more depressing stories.

True but I think the visual aspect of the novel really helps it emphasize the emotions. I mean, with a normal novel you can visualize things but I think actually seeing them does more than imagining.

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Conserative Morality
18-05-2009, 00:04
True but I think the visual aspect of the novel really helps it emphasize the emotions. I mean, with a normal novel you can visualize things but I think actually seeing them does more than imagining.

=\

If it helps your pain, I cried when Rorschach died.:p
Galloism
18-05-2009, 00:12
If it helps your pain, I cried when Rorschach died.:p

I sniffled a little when Aeris died.
Techno-Soviet
18-05-2009, 00:13
If it helps your pain, I cried when Rorschach died.:p

Lulz, I actually haven't read The Watchmen yet. :P

I really should, too.
Conserative Morality
18-05-2009, 00:24
I sniffled a little when Aeris died.
Bah. FF7 is overrated, at least story-wise.
Lulz, I actually haven't read The Watchmen yet. :P

I really should, too.
'Tis a great 'graphic novel'.
Getbrett
18-05-2009, 00:34
Man, why is manga/anime so fucking awful? Jesus.
Galloism
18-05-2009, 00:35
Bah. FF7 is overrated, at least story-wise.

I'm just going to assume you either

A) Never played it.
B) Didn't understand the story.
Conserative Morality
18-05-2009, 00:39
I'm just going to assume you either

A) Never played it.
B) Didn't understand the story.

Played it. Have it still even. It's a good game, but I simply didn't care for the story.
SaintB
18-05-2009, 00:40
Actually I find it hopeful and uplifting.
Galloism
18-05-2009, 00:42
Played it. Have it still even. It's a good game, but I simply didn't care for the story.

Kids these days... *grumble*
Conserative Morality
18-05-2009, 00:44
Kids these days... *grumble*
My grandparents didn't care for it either, and they love every other part of the game. :p
The Lone Alliance
18-05-2009, 03:23
Hmm... If we want to get some regular stories. I can name a few.
Half of most "Sci-fi" shorts end with tragedy.
"The Cold Equations" Woman sneaks aboard cargo space ship to visit brother on colony,
Problem: ship only has enough fuel for the mass of the cargo and the pilot, she is too much added mass, the cargo is critical medical supplies to cure a plague on the colony so no part of the cargo can be dumped, neither can the pilot as he is the only one who can navigate so... She has to die in the end.

Then for a classic post nuclear tragedy there's the classic book "On the Beach".
Post WWIII Australia has everyone waiting for the global winds to bring the radioactive fallout that will kill everyone.

And don't get me started on anything made by Japan.
H N Fiddlebottoms VIII
18-05-2009, 04:51
Then for a classic post nuclear tragedy there's the classic book "On the Beach".
Post WWIII Australia has everyone waiting for the global winds to bring the radioactive fallout that will kill everyone.
I didn't like the book as much (it dragged a bit, and tended to get focused on bookkeeping details about supply levels, etc), but loved the movie. Very, very dark.
Vetalia
18-05-2009, 05:13
Nah, depressing would be a Nazi official falling in love with a Jewish girl only to have her deported to a concentration camp and then before he can save her she is liberated by the Soviets and deported thousands of miles away to a GULAG camp in Magadan. And then when she is finally released, she arrives in East Berlin on August 13, 1961 right when the Berlin Wall is being built and remains a citizen of East Germany until November of 1989...

...and then attempts to reunite with her lost love only to find out he died in 1986.
Zombie PotatoHeads
18-05-2009, 06:14
Hmm... If we want to get some regular stories. I can name a few.
Half of most "Sci-fi" shorts end with tragedy.
"The Cold Equations" Woman sneaks aboard cargo space ship to visit brother on colony,
Problem: ship only has enough fuel for the mass of the cargo and the pilot, she is too much added mass, the cargo is critical medical supplies to cure a plague on the colony so no part of the cargo can be dumped, neither can the pilot as he is the only one who can navigate so... She has to die in the end.

Very dramatic, but just plain silly. Stories like that flare up my pedant instinct.

They'd really measure out the amount of fuel to exactly equal the mass of the ship, med supplies and pilot with no leeway for error? What if the pilot had a really big meal after weigh-in?
Her weight compared to the ship would be well within the margin of error.
Even if we accept the 'not enough fuel' scenario, then surely she's already doomed the ship as most of the fuel would have been used for escape velocity, not the voyage.

A far more plausible scenario would be her finding out that the trip would take 6 months, say, and there's only enough food and water on board for 1 person - the pilot. Or that there's only one sus-an chamber (again, the pilot's).

muttergrumblemutter.
Nanatsu no Tsuki
18-05-2009, 08:29
I sniffled a little when Aeris died.

You can sniffle?!:eek:
Colonic Immigration
18-05-2009, 08:32
Man, why is manga/anime so fucking awful? Jesus.

Blasphemy!
Techno-Soviet
18-05-2009, 13:04
I didn't like the book as much (it dragged a bit, and tended to get focused on bookkeeping details about supply levels, etc), but loved the movie. Very, very dark.

Same here
Peepelonia
18-05-2009, 13:05
True but I think the visual aspect of the novel really helps it emphasize the emotions. I mean, with a normal novel you can visualize things but I think actually seeing them does more than imagining.

=\

You are joking right?
Agolthia
18-05-2009, 17:36
You are joking right?

Would seeing someone dying in front of you upset you more than imaging someone dying in front of you? (Appologies for the slightly morbid example)
Kyronea
18-05-2009, 17:42
Man, why is manga/anime so fucking awful? Jesus.

Oh stop getting your knickers in a twist.
Techno-Soviet
18-05-2009, 22:50
You are joking right?

I really don't see how that's false. =|

It's the same thing with movies. Usually, a movie with a 'sad' ending is more likely to make someone sad than a novel with a sad ending, at least in my case. >_>