Squid Game

AiN is worth skipping around an watching the games, don’t get too invested in it because holy shit does the reveal at the ending of the manga suck.

yeah. can't stand most of those kinds of channels. like the rest of Screenrant is just garbage.

But that guy is usually spot on with Pitch meeting. often bringing up points others miss. like here mentioning how shit the writing and acting for the VIPS was.
Which was a point I thought too. considered talking about it.

First was just, why are they written like American douchebags? almost purely American. not multicultural at all. (one later). and little variation in personality. Oddly seemingly incompetent. clowns.
Which on some level. ok. I assume this was partial to make them more "relatable". show these rich assholes as clowns and "normal" people. Not some hyper intelligent/competent person that deserves their wealth and power.

Finished it, liked it.

My main problem with the show is that when we get to the halfway point and much of what is happening is interpersonal drama stuff between players I had seen all of those little vignettes before in Battle Royal, The Long Walk, etc. Takes a bit of work to get to the first game and then it's pretty great with extra layering to the storytelling but then it just kinda slows down and yeah, the VIPs suck. You could delete them entirely and the show would be better.

For someone that hasn't read every dystopian game show story there is and seen every adaptations of those works I would think this would be a real treat and I'd still give it a solid B.

Finished it last night, was okay. Over-hyped. The main character had that overly-animated, overly-exaggerated, no person in real life is like him thing that makes most Asian shows, Anime especially, completely unwatchable for me. It's like in the east everyone's supposed to be stoic and quiet and then when they portray any character on screen they have to go 1000% in the opposite direction.

I'd say 7/10 seems fine. Some of the shit was just dumb, like making sure the game is fair and balanced, but allowing players to just kill each other during the downtime. What? That means anyone who's prone to violence or physically exceptional has a much much higher chance of winning outside of the games. Retarded.

Most of the show I was just waiting for the games to finish to see who died. The whole Cop side-story was completely unnecessary and just Season 2 fodder. Like remove the Cop shit and nothing changes. Nice.

I did laugh at the hair thing, but who knows if they were trying to be poignant or just showing the character is still "zainy".

yeah i think there is a whole different vibe to the show if you go in completely blind and are surprised by how competent it is, vs going in on a hype train and there is no way it meets the hype. I went in blind expecting something along the level of Alice in Borderlands, and it was better than that show (which I also enjoyed).

halloween is gonna just be endless squid games, i know at least 2 couples planning adult squid game parties esp since halloween falls on a sunday this year (sat night for adults, sun for the kids)

Xevy said:

Finished it last night, was okay. Over-hyped. The main character had that overly-animated, overly-exaggerated, no person in real life is like him thing that makes most Asian shows, Anime especially, completely unwatchable for me. It's like in the east everyone's supposed to be stoic and quiet and then when they portray any character on screen they have to go 1000% in the opposite direction.

I'd say 7/10 seems fine. Some of the shit was just dumb, like making sure the game is fair and balanced, but allowing players to just kill each other during the downtime. What? That means anyone who's prone to violence or physically exceptional has a much much higher chance of winning outside of the games. Retarded.

Most of the show I was just waiting for the games to finish to see who died. The whole Cop side-story was completely unnecessary and just Season 2 fodder. Like remove the Cop shit and nothing changes. Nice.

I did laugh at the hair thing, but who knows if they were trying to be poignant or just showing the character is still "zainy".

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yeah, the random arbitrary elements of "fairness" annoyed me too.
the host. not fair at all.

Allowing the night massacre. then stopping it "randomly". not fair at all. when they would, or wouldn''t allow infighting was totally random. like the dude at the end cutting the throat.. then stopping the retaliation.
Then questions of how literal rules are. the bridge and no rules on passing others, or using the beams, etc..

Tug of war setup. I'd have the rope attached to winches. when a side wins, their winch engages, pulling the other side off the platform. The way they have it set up, the other team being pulled off, is not guaranteed. AND, the winning team could be pulled off due to the body weight of the falling team, even after winning..

the exploding bridge was just plain bullshit.

great set design and killer iconography is its real highlight.

its meant to be a subtle dig at capitalism and how there are rules and structures in place that seem fair at first but aren't really when you dig into it. You can't cheat the government out of taxes. Except if you structure your income as pass-through corporate income and spend money on leasing cars, vacation homes, and retirement planning. You can't cheat in school exams. Except if you are rich and hire private tutors.

You can literally write huge essays on how societies have vast amounts of rules and people figure out ways to cheat, like trannies and womens rights/sports and how the system deliberately enables cheating for some and discourages for others (police state, prisons, bail bonds, drug abuse, corporate welfare, on and on).

heres an extremely subtle thing you likely won't notice on the first watch: the old man is NOT locked/shackled to the rope on the tug of war game. Rules for you, not for me. imo thats why the show is so fantastic, its shallow on the surface but when you dig into tons and tons and tons of production details, there is a level of "show, not tell" that is just amazing.

spronk said:

its meant to be a subtle dig at capitalism and how there are rules and structures in place that seem fair at first but aren't really when you dig into it. You can't cheat the government out of taxes. Except if you structure your income as pass-through corporate income and spend money on leasing cars, vacation homes, and retirement planning. You can't cheat in school exams. Except if you are rich and hire private tutors.

You can literally write huge essays on how societies have vast amounts of rules and people figure out ways to cheat, like trannies and womens rights/sports and how the system deliberately enables cheating for some and discourages for others (police state, prisons, bail bonds, drug abuse, corporate welfare, on and on).

heres an extremely subtle thing you likely won't notice on the first watch: the old man is NOT locked/shackled to the rope on the tug of war game. Rules for you, not for me. imo thats why the show is so fantastic, its shallow on the surface but when you dig into tons and tons and tons of production details, there is a level of "show, not tell" that is just amazing.

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I saw Ben Shapiro saying this, I think it's reading too much into it.

Spronk might be autistic...

I'm not sure I believe that. like... the basic premise of the show is that. The entire point of the Squid game was, we are rich and bored. Hey lifes not fair, so lets give these people another shot in this life or death game of high states, where is fair. But then THAT is also not fair, and thats a critique of Capitalism, and Meritocracy? huh? what? again, they expressly state the point of the game, was life not being fair. suggesting everyone is equal in childrens games. taking everyone away to an island without any outside support. no one in the show, or the show itself ever actually calls out the Squid game for not being fair. Seems suspect the directors intended for us to notice it, when its never actually addressed at all.

thats precisely though why i loved the show so much. you can take the surface level "play kids games, play fair and honest, winner takes all" and leave it at that. But there are a ton of subtle things that its open to interpretation.


the thugs in the game (mafia) bully and intimidate those around them, but they "followed the rules" for the marbles game, and even invoked the authorities when a rulebook question came up. they may use violence and intimidation when no one is watching, but they are still limited by their inability to think outside the rules. In the final 3, who was the one who snuck across the room and cut their own teammates throat while 456 was distracted? It was the white collar, wall street banker former society elite. He ultimately was the most gangster of all, just like drug company executives are far more deadly than any mobster.

The VIPs have absolutely no rules, they tell the players there are rules and they will be applied equally, but thats not true. Games were never fair - after the bridge game, glass is shot everywhere and seriously maims one person, after the game is over! No one comes to "treat" her or help her even though it would be super obvious she is bleeding to death.

Ultimately the show is even fucking with viewers, by telling you a fantasy that the games are fair and impartial even though literally the last episode point blank tells us that was never true. the old man was never in any danger in any game. think about every one of them. in marbles, he was likely never going to be picked and the odd one out. even after he got picked he had an easy out. tug rope, he wasn't tied to the rope (only one not tied). red-green light, the robot would just skip him.

I do freely admit I do watch too much tv (I'm retired) and after a few years of new shitty shows with chars making speeches about social issues it was nice having a show where no character speechifies and viewers are free to interpret the show as they wish. I miss shows that aren't written by writers who need to tell you their social stances every 5 minutes.

Having the VIPs would make the rulebreaking more bullshit. If it was just a super rich dude fucking with some poors it would be more believeable. But having other rich dudes there betting on them should be keeping it in check.

Red light green light was the only game mentally that seemed fucked since none knew wtf was happening and then marble game which was bs in a way