Damien Valentine 00:55
Hello and welcome to the final episode of this month of another enough facility. Machinima. I'm Damon Valentine, and I'm joined by Tracy Harwood and Phil rice. Hey there. This week we'll be discussing another film, and it's Tracy's pick. So what have you chosen for us? Because it's quite intriguing film.

Tracy Harwood 01:14
It is intriguing. Yeah, it's called V never stop fighting, and it's a cyberpunk, 2077 film that was released, actually a few years ago now, is in February 2021 by a Creator called Charles Louis. Don't know very much about Charles. He's not made very much, but this one particularly caught my attention. It's, it's an edited run through of the story of the female character V in the cyberpunk 2077 world. And it's told as a music video. And it's, it's a, it's kind of interesting, actually, because Ricky picked, I'm still seeing Breen for the beginning of this month, and I picked this one. And we, we didn't. We didn't really talk about whether we should pick music videos this month. But it's kind of interesting that they're both not dissimilar in their in their strategy, in in as much as they're sort of like runs edited run throughs of the of the game and the and the way that they're kind of edited is not a dissimilar depiction, if you like, in terms of how it's edited to the music selection. In this particular case, its representation of the character, I guess, is quite faithful to the to the game, because it's been picked up by the voice actor, Jeremy Lee, and also Powell sasko, who are respectively the voice actress for the and also cyberpunk lead quest designer. And you, you hear a lot of the voice of the character and her interactions with others, but you rarely see her in this in this video, and that's because it's a this first person perspective of her view of the cyberpunk world. It's interesting. I do think it's interesting when you compare that sort of style to the to the Breen film, I think it's it's quite similar with this one. I particularly like the editing. I thought the sound mixing was was interesting. I also thought the the choice of of shots to show the meaning and the plot progression were also quite interesting. And those were very similar comments the ones that we made to the to the Breen selection as well. The music selection to this is is intriguing because it's a classic Johnny Cash song called hurt. And so it's really quite an empathetic piece, and I think it's been selected to align really well with the story of the game world. Here it actually you've kind of got two deep levels of storytelling going on simultaneously, one with the music and one with a with the game. So I think these two things kind of complement each other really nicely. I think, I think what's I don't know whether this works so well for you or not. I was in places the sound of the music just drowned out a little of the action that you saw in the game world. And that was clearly a deliberate choice by the Creator, you know, where some of the actions and the and the shots and the explosions and the struggles of the were sort of facing, and the way that the music was sort of fading in and out of that, in order to allow parts of that plot of each, if you like, to sort of take over at different moments of time. That was a really intriguing sort of editing choice. I think that was, I think in places work better than in other places, where there's probably the best way to describe it. There was one area where I got a little bit lost in this when I first started watching it, but I watched it through a couple of times. And in the end, I thought, No, this is this is this is good. This really, this takes me on this, this story of this character, V anyway, not knowing too much about the level of the work that's gone into this, and I'd say it's quite a lot from the editing and how the music syncs to it, I think I'd be really interested to hear what you guys have got to say about how well it works for you. The one thing that does disappoint me about this is that the Creator just has only made two films, which is, which is a pity, and they're both of the same kind of age, about 2021, I couldn't find anything out about this creator at all, so I guess he's just sort of dipped in, made these and kind of moved on. But he's really got quite a lot of talent. I think if you watch both of these, the films that he's made, you'll see that there's, there's real editing quality in what he's done, and a real eye for for a shot and and a way of telling a story through this sort of game world. I think it's a pity that he's not actually made more anyway. What do you guys think?

Phil Rice 06:10
All right, I'll go next. So I think, I think I've reached my saturation point for this story. Okay, yeah, just, I was really hoping for something that wasn't just another retelling of the this, this, this narrative of this game, the general arc of it, the main characters, they encounter, the ups and downs, has been told in machinima. So much that I do not own this game. I've never played this game, but I know this story, that's how much. And it's not like, I go and watch, you know, cyberpunk videos all the time, but it's, it's, I'm like, so craving for a another story in that world, the world of cyberpunk, 77 really compels me. The story did the first few times that I visited it, but that's my struggle with this film, just going into it, I felt kind of impeded by that is the familiarity. And I didn't want that I wanted. I was hoping for something a little new so that, out of the way, I also, I also didn't like the music selection. Oh, okay, so this is not intended to be a mean review, I promise. But I think it's because of a personal relationship with the song. So the song is Johnny Cash. It's a cover of a song originally written by Nine Inch Nails, or Trent Reznor. And one of the things that I remember about that song is an interview with Trent Reznor, because this was on the album called the downward spiral, which is 1994 and a couple years after that album, which was a huge critical and commercial success, he was in an interview and said that he went to a strip club, and one of the the exotic dancers was out there stripping to this song, and it just broke his heart, like it just he just said. It just destroyed me, because the song is a very, very, probably the most deeply personal song that he'd ever produced. It's about how heroin addiction almost completely destroyed him as a human being. And you know that just the it's about the deepest, darkest place that a soul can go, you know. And much as he was very flattered years later when Johnny Cash would cover it, because this is one of the it's not the last song Johnny recorded, but it's one of the last. It was very near the end of his life, and he knew it, like it, Bowie did something very similar, recorded this, like this very memorable song. I did the video and stuff, knowing that he was not long with this world. This is that moment for Johnny Cash, really, and looking back on this life that you know, we know a lot about Johnny Cash's life, and it was not an easy one. And it was, it was he had ups and downs and he had regrets, and, I mean, it was a full life. And this is, this is a song that he picked out and wanted to cover because it spoke to him. And just so the song is really heavy for me, like it for both of those reasons, for the original author, and then reading about what Johnny had to say about it, and then what Trent had to say about Johnny recording it and all that. And so this is kind of watching it in this film of the recycled story of. Is kind of like the strip club moment for me, a little bit of just, oh no, what are you doing? It's not that it doesn't musically fit. It does. So I've got my negative stuff out of the way now, right? And they're all that's all subjective. But to your point, Tracy, when you were talking about the editing and the fact that there's snippets of conversation going on from the the game footage, but then lyrics going on in the song, yeah, man, there's some real, really, really masterful Timing and Editing going on there to where, when those don't need to, like, there's, there's several points where you can hear one of the dialog bits of audio. And I mean, the fraction of a second after that person finishes their word is when the vocal of the song comes back in. That's not an accident. That's really, really wonderfully carefully done. It's, it's, it's, it's a pro skill. So that is quite impressive. And the overall, the overall edit, and the, you know, the success of this is a three minute video, is that right? Little over three minutes? Yeah, compressing a multi hour narrative into three minutes because this, this is trailer length, right? And a trailer usually gives you a taste. This is a compression of the whole narrative, really, all the important beats, all the important themes of the game, condensed into three minutes. That's That's astounding. And I don't know if you noticed, but the top comment, the pinned comment, is from cyberpunk, from Cyberpunks own channel. Yeah, thank thank you for creating this beautiful video. We're humbled that you enjoy our story so much. So yeah, they got that too. This sense of it really is true to the story. You know, whether or not you're a grumpy guy like me who's maybe a little tired of it from over exposure, which I'll take the blame for, but in terms of the skill required to to condense that down like that and not miss anything important I don't think and present it. It. You know what it feels like? The video feels like the sensation that's often described when someone says when they're at the end, end of their days, their life flashes before their eyes. This is like that, like what you would envision, how this is typically portrayed, right? I don't know if that's really the case. I won't know until it's too late to tell you about it, but this is the sense of it is, you know, what do you remember when you're looking back and summarizing your life and as you're as you're fading away, what do you remember? And this is that everything is of import, you know, and we may not even understand all other references, you know, there'll be little moments where you know someone that that she's with passed away in her presence, or where she's getting a wound healed up, or all that. What's beautiful about the way that's done is that that's how memories work. That may be all you have is that little visual of your leg getting stapled up, but there's this whole fountain of memory of the experience that surrounded what led up to that, what came right after that. How did that actually feel? So you know, credit first and foremost, to the game, for including enough experiences of that sort that it feels like a real life, like it feels like a plausible life set in this futuristic, fantastic world, of course, but still, it has a credibility and integrity to the story. And then on top of that, you know, this, Charles has has distilled this down to something very succinct, you know, it's, it's very well done. It's very well done. I just, I have, I have personal issues with the subject matter. I think I've worn myself out on it. That's not his fault. And I have, I have personal feelings about the almost, uh, admittedly, probably an inappropriate sense of the sacred about that song, because of personal feelings I have about it. But musically it fits. It fits really well. I would have been interested to see them attempt that same edit with the original cut of the song, which is much different type of instrumentation. It's, it's got a lot of dissonance and noise built into the music and stuff like that. And it would have been, I. Yeah, it would have been inherently more cyberpunk sounding, but there's something to be said for the contrast of this very acoustic cover that Johnny Cash and Johnny Cash's voice, I mean, professors, an amazing musician, an amazing film score, not, not the world's greatest vocalist. Let's Let's all be honest about that, right? He's got a sound that's very distinct and unique. But, you know, Johnny Cash, come on, you can't, you can't beat that. So, and he just got better and better as he got older. Is my in my opinion, anyway. So, yeah, I've got mixed feelings about it, and most of the negatives, I think I brought to the table before I even watched the film, if I'm honest, it's very well made. It shows off the cyberpunk world very well. Like the variety of shot selection in this is amazing, everything from the broadest cityscape view down to super close ups of and some of the faces in this game are remarkable.

Phil Rice 16:06
And especially the game is, was it four years old now or more? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Damien, you and I were talking earlier about having watched the Gaming Awards, and there's, there's a couple games that they showed off there, where you got some close ups of faces and oh my goodness, the metahuman level stuff that's going on there is just amazing now. Well, this game was, was doing that really well four years ago. Yeah. So

Damien Valentine 16:39
it makes me excited to see what cyberpunk two, which they are working on, will do. That's a long way off. Yeah, they're still working. Their focus is on the Witcher four, which did get revealed at the awards. So that's going to come before cyberpunk, but they are working on cyberpunk. So yeah,

Phil Rice 16:58
my prayer for it, which I don't think will get answered, but my prayer for it would be that it has an open world, truly open world, sandbox option. My understanding of the first game is it has the feel of an open world in terms of the look, but your your narrative is pretty, pretty confined. If you, if you go much outside the lines of where you're supposed to be, the the level of detail in terms of NPCs and things like that, maybe doesn't hold up quite as well. And maybe that's why there hasn't been a lot of original storytelling in this game, and more focus on the main storyline. And I think that's one area where Rockstar, particularly in red, Dead Redemption, two less so in GTA. GTA didn't GTA is the same could the same thing could be said about GTA. But there's unmistakably an open world. Way you can approach that game, especially once you've finished playing through the single player campaign. It's this city simulator that you could just go and do stuff and make stuff happen. And yeah, no narrative is going to leap out at you, but it's, it's a canvas, right? And I'm not certain that cyberpunk that they set out to develop that type of game when they make this. So my hope would be, hey, keep doing the you know, the storyline that attracts talent like Keanu Reeves, that's awesome. Do that, because that's going to sell the game for sure. But boy, would an open world, cyberpunk world be exciting, a truly open world where you can go and do anything, and that's when we'll see new, new types of machinima coming out of it.

Damien Valentine 18:50
I spent I played the game a lot, and there are parts of the city where you can drive on any road, you can go down everywhere, but there are parts of the city where the developers hadn't put a lot of effort into, like, there's buildings, you can't go in them, they can get out, you can walk around, and there'll be procedure generated crowds for people walking around, and some things happening. But there's not really much to do there, apart from

Phil Rice 19:13
GTA five is the same way, yeah, GTA five is the same way trying

Damien Valentine 19:17
to build a full size city, that is a huge amount of work. So I can I understand why it's that way?

Phil Rice 19:24
No, it's insane. Yeah. I mean, with red, Dead Redemption two, at least you could say, Well, okay, a lot of that is just open, open countryside. You know, with a city with a city on the map the size of red, Dead Redemption two, yeah, there's okay, you can have maybe some areas that don't have much going on. But the whole point of the city is there's lots of people. There's lots of people, yeah, and that's a much, much, much harder challenge, so, but I still, selfishly, I hope they do that me

Damien Valentine 19:50
too. Yeah, it's funny. You mentioned that the look of it's like looking back of your life, one of the endings of the game, which I'm going to spoil now. Up if you haven't played it after four years, I can't help you. So the Plot The game is you've got this chip in your head and Keanu Reeves character, Johnny Silverhand, and you are having this conflict about who's going to take over your body, and depending on the choice of the game, affects the ending and how your relationship with him, but I played it so that I got I was friends with him because I like the character and I didn't want to be fighting with him. But even at that point, there's this element of you kind of both characters who make the player character and Johnny still hand what to sacrifice themselves for the other so I played it, I played it, so I lived, and then I played the other end. I went back a little bit and changed it just enough so that he won and took over the body, and my character died. So you've got that that kind of fits us. Your character dies at the end of the game, but you're still the life leading up to that moment is this video? Yeah, I think the way you said that, that's what got me thinking about that. Oh, wow. So

Phil Rice 21:08
what we can take away from this is that, given the right circumstances, Damien will kill Keanu Reeves to present himself, that's the headline. I mind,

Damien Valentine 21:25
I spent a lot of time playing this game. I just said I recognized a lot of these moments. But even though the game is a fully open world, there's an open world that those things this video I did not see. So they this different experiences and and maybe it's just because I went down a different corridor during a certain sequence, or something like that. But there's definitely things in there I didn't recognize, but then there's plenty in there I did recognize, and it made me want to play, I guess.

Phil Rice 21:52
Well, do you mean when you're playing the game with the main intention of killing Keanu Reeves? I felt really certain things. Well, you felt mad. I

Damien Valentine 22:05
don't I don't want him to die, but the choice is, either do this or stop playing the game and don't see how that plays out so well, that's why I went back and we played. So we both had a chance of living. And you've played, spent a lot of time in this world, getting to know the cat, his character, and the other characters in the game, seeing that cutscene, depending which way it goes, and which characters you end up still in your circle, and where you end up, that's a really powerful thing. I know some game endings, don't you've had a big, long journey, and then the ending is very disappointing because they've rushed it, or they haven't put a lot of thought into it, or they just put a different color filter to flex your choices, which you won't name that game. So having us this ending where it really feels like the choices that you made throughout the game and the relationships you've forged the NPCs really matters, and I've only played these two endings. I know there are many other endings that go back. The choice can go back to even to how you create your character and the background you choose for that character. So it's a huge game. So you can't just create a new character, and then six hours later, you've had a play to I spent about 50 hours playing through the main story. Okay, I did spend a lot of time doing side missions as well, which you can not to sure, but they're interesting, so I wanted to explore the game. And I'm sure there's more I missed, but yeah, this video does show a nice snapshot of some of those key moments of the main story, obviously doesn't show everything, because it's a huge game, and you can't put that all into three hours. So three into three minutes, but it's enough for the important parts, and I do feel I need to replay it again, maybe with some different character choices so I get different ending. Yeah. Ending, yeah, and

Tracy Harwood 24:03
don't kill Keanu Reeves. One more

Phil Rice 24:05
Keanu Reeves lives. I hope

Damien Valentine 24:08
there's an ending where you can both live, but it's not that kind of world. It's not a everyone lives happily ever after kind of game, right? Yeah, someone has to die,

Phil Rice 24:19
and it's Keanu Reeves, I was

Damien Valentine 24:21
thinking where you both die, that'd be interesting, just beyond the point where you just get shot, you're losing a fight game ending. Yeah, what's this? Excellent pick, Tracy, I'm gonna have to resist it to replay it, because I do have other things. You've got other projects you've got to do, yeah, but it brought back a lot of good memories playing the game as well. So there is that also music. The other thing that came to mind my attachment for this is it's the same song for youth in the trailer for Logan, which is a film I watched recently because I. I i watched the Deadpool and Wolverine last summer, and I really enjoyed that. So it's time to go back and watch all the previous X Men films. So got to that one, and then I watched the trailer after it. That's I recognize that song when it came to this. So, okay,

Tracy Harwood 25:15
didn't I haven't seen that. Well, I've actually liked it kind of Phil,

Phil Rice 25:24
there's a lot to appreciate in it, for sure, exactly.

Tracy Harwood 25:29
It's funny that we've ended the month on another music video. That's what

Damien Valentine 25:32
we're going to choose for next. Yeah, randomly, if we all choose music videos, or

Tracy Harwood 25:39
we all choose flight sims or Sims.

Damien Valentine 25:46
Maybe Phil, you'll get lucky and find a soap pack video that tells a new story. Yeah? All right, so I think that wraps up our first month of the year with this video. Be stop fighting. I'm David Valentine. I've been joined by Phil rice and Tracy Harwood. If you'd like to discuss this video or cyberpunk or anything else we've been discussing over the last few weeks, please send us an email at talk at completely machinery.com and you can check out our blog at completely machinery.com where you'll find all the show notes and everything we discussed, and we're back next month with Ricky and some more fun film stuff. So take care and see you then,

26:29
bye, bye, bye.