![\"\"](\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/mickey17_fail.jpg\")
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One of the things I watched during my staycation was Mickey 17<\/em>, for really no other reason than it was directed by Bong Joon-ho. Parasite<\/em> was truly a best picture, and I always exert a little more effort to support those from the Motherland, so I had high hopes for Mickey 17, being (I think) Bong\u2019s return to the screens since Parasite.<\/span><\/p>\n When the film finally ended, I was left with this disappointed feeling, and worst of all, the feeling that I had wasted my precious time.\u00a0 At 2:20, it\u2019s what I would classify as \u201ca long movie\u201d and if I\u2019m going to sink that much time into something, I\u2019d hope it\u2019s got some redeeming quality.<\/span><\/p>\n Like lots of films, I felt the film prioritized its named stars, leaning on Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie and Mark Ruffalo to hard carry the film in spite of the weak story, but obviously a film is only as good as its story, and the cast of the Avengers would struggle to make Mickey 17 decent.<\/span><\/p>\n Mythical wife, being a K-pop snob, had begun distancing herself from BTS fandom, once BTS really came into the global mainstream, and wasn\u2019t just a niche phenomenon within Korea and those who knew them from long ago.\u00a0 She cited that their sound had immediately morphed into a more vanilla, cookie cutter sound, clearly catered to wider, global audiences instead of sticking with the formula that made them who they are.<\/span><\/p>\n Frankly, this is nothing out of the ordinary, nor was it remotely surprising to me, because Korea has been notorious for changing shit up in all facets of media when it comes to seeking validation from The West, most specifically from America.<\/span><\/p>\n Once anything starts to receive any praise or acclaim from The West, Koreans have shown a tendency to lean hard into it and try to squeeze out more validation, even if it means compromising the foundations of said things.<\/span><\/p>\n Music, food and in the case of Mickey 17, film are all fair game when it comes to this general practice, and in the vast majority of cases, it doesn\u2019t result in as much success as they hope it will, and they\u2019ve compromised their concepts and alienated those who were fans before the mainstream rub.<\/span><\/p>\n Take Squid Game<\/em> S3 for example; the first season was brilliant from nearly start to finish.\u00a0 It couldn\u2019t escape all Korean tropes but frankly those tropes really are things that make Korean media, Korean.\u00a0 But when S2\/3 came, I still enjoyed it, but there were clearly ideas incorporated into it that were clearly influenced by their knowledge that The West, would be watching.<\/span><\/p>\n Top from K-pop group Big Bang as the colorful Thanos, spouting horribly broken Engrish every chance he could, the ending that basically had kicked the door down that they want to go Westward Ho.<\/span><\/p>\n But nothing was more evident that they\u2019re seeking Western acceptance than the character Hyun-ju, which most casual Americans simply recalled as \u201cthe trans one.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s changed a little for the better these days, but LGBTQ+ concepts are still considered taboo and not nearly as accepted as they are in America.\u00a0 Although I had no problem and appreciated Hyun-ju\u2019s inclusion in Squid Game, there\u2019s no part of me that believes such would have ever happened if not for the influence of potential Western viewers.\u00a0 In this case it\u2019s a positive result, but I still chalk it up as a decision made to appease The West.<\/span><\/p>\n The reason Parasite was so good was that it was inherently a film for Koreans, telling Korean stories and describing Korean struggles. It showed the cultural differences in setting and appearances but at the core of it, it\u2019s a relatable story that sucked audiences from all over the globe in and deserved all the praise and accolade and the Oscar it got.<\/span><\/p>\n Mickey 17 was clearly made for The West, with its\u00a0 Hollywood cast, and evident copious budget.\u00a0 The core story was an interesting concept that provokes discussion about ethics and morality, but to me, it was like asking Bong Joon-ho to direct Starship Troopers<\/em> or something out of his element.\u00a0 It would be like asking Francis Ford Coppola to direct Parasite or something completely different than his own background and expecting it to be not full of holes as the result of cultural unfamiliarity.<\/span><\/p>\n Needless to say, in spite of energetic and enthusiastic performances by Pattinson and Ruffalo most notably, they couldn\u2019t rescue a weak story.\u00a0 Halfway through the film, I started to glaze, and by the time the last quarter was around, I was already dicking around on my phone and half listening.\u00a0 And by the time the credits started rolling, the seed for this post had already been planted.<\/span><\/p>\n I mean, it\u2019s a nigh impossible task to hit a home run after winning an Oscar, so it\u2019s no surprise that Mickey 17 wasn\u2019t that great. But considering the heights that Parasite climbed to, it\u2019s extra disappointing to see just how far down Mickey 17 fell to.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One of the things I watched during my staycation was Mickey 17, for really no other reason than it was directed by Bong Joon-ho. Parasite was truly a best picture, and I always exert a little more effort to support those from the Motherland, so I had high hopes for Mickey 17, being (I think) … Continue reading Mickey 17 and the Korean curse of producing for The West<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[100,45,103,41,83,89,69,190,49],"class_list":["post-50761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-comparison","tag-fail","tag-motherland","tag-movies","tag-observations","tag-racism","tag-television","tag-white-people","tag-wtf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50761"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50763,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50761\/revisions\/50763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}