The fun thing about The Last Samurai is that the title doesn’t refer to Tom Cruise. He does not play a samurai in the film. He plays an American officer.
He hangs with a group of samurai, who are collectively the last of their kind.
That said, plenty of people complained about it in its day.
I might be terribly incorrect.
But i remember that Tom Cruise’s character switches sides in the movie after spending time with the Samurai (He was captured by them). He trains under them and becomes a Samurai. In the end, they fight against the (British?) and lose due to a gattling gun. All the Samurai die except for Tom’s character. So symbolically, Tom is the Last Samurai.
Yes, it’s a classic “white savior” trope.
What did he save? Literally everyone but Meiji-backed forces dies at the end.
he die didn’t save shit though :D
It is implied that Tom Cruise dies at the end. I think the confusion comes from a voice over, but you never see the character on screen again.
He also does not “become a samurai”. He fights alongside them, but at no point do they call him a samurai.
Edit: looks like that link is wrong. He doesn’t die at the end. I guess memory is a fickle beast.
He also does not “become a samurai”
Correct. That’s why I said symbolically.
but you never see the character on screen again
I maybe incorrect but towards the end of the movie, the Emperor asks how Katsumoto died, to which Tom Cruise replies “I’ll tell you how he lived”. So he was alive?
Hm, I may need to rewatch it myself. That also doesn’t match what the link above suggests about interpreting the ending: “Algren finds redemption through his newfound purpose and ultimately sacrifices his life for the cause he once opposed.”
Edit: I just checked the last scene. You’re right, he doesn’t actually die. Which means the link is also wrong.
Still, I think it’s a stretch to say he’s the last samurai, since he never really becomes a samurai. One important note is that samurai is “samurai” in the plural, too.
Meme of Giancarlo Esposito / Gus adjusting his tie with the caption “You won’t buy Assassin’s Creed Shadows because you’re racist, I won’t buy it because Ubisoft games are shit. We’re not the same”
I hate that I’m on the same side as the racists though.
Thanks a lot Ubisoft.
It’s Far Cry 5 all over again
There is a lot of highly critical discourse around the Last Samurai. Not current, because it’s not a current movie, but saying that it’s “okay” suggests
youthey haven’t looked for criticism.Also, weary.
Edit: clarity.
Edit2: I have since been made aware by @SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world of a different perspective that makes a lot more sense, see comments below.
Yup, Last Samourai is 22 years old. Back then a lot of social issues have not been widely discussed.
And even then, there were people who were uncomfortable with a narrative of some heroic white dude coming in to save the exotic natives. Just wasn’t a very popular opinion.
Save the natives?
Doesn’t the movie end with them all dying?
That’s presumably the beginnings of an awareness of why that narrative is problematic. And also of the importance of historic accuracy. His role in the narrative was that of a saviour though. (Also, he survives.)
It was the main reason why I never ended up watching that film.
Yeah but it was the other side of the spectrum. It weren’t right wing racist who were mad but SJWs who didn’t see the movie and don’t understand that the word Samurai in the title is plural not singular.
Oh you’re saying that this is about right wingers who think the Last Samurai is okay (while Ass Creed isn’t).
… That… makes sense. Huh. I hadn’t seen it that way.
Lol as good as the production looked even as a white dude I kind of cracked up at Tommy in that role.
The Last Shogun appears to have the same thing going but idk I havn’t watched it yet.
I’m not sure if The Last Shogun is something different, but if you’re referring to the Shogun series recently adapted by FX, I can say having watched it that it features a main character who fancies himself a superior white savior, but ultimately leads to realizing how completely out of his depth he is.
But it’s like the Memoir of a Geisha problem: since the original work was written by a white dude anyways, how much value does it have as a cultural work?
I thought so too in the beginning. But the English character in that series is more of a… Useful tool that gets used. He has no agency and he never realises it throughout the entire series.
I recall quite a bit of people taking issue with it. Goes back further with carradine in kung fu. Plenty didn’t but same with assasins creed.
In 2003? What are you talking about? The only thing we weren’t talking about by then was trans-rights.
The uncomfortable racism was noted.
I think it’s wary, not weary. Could go either way, I guess.
I hate that nazis glom onto any bad game and ruin the discussion around it.
Hardly ruin, you have to purposefully go find them gloating over Steam charts. But it’s too funny that people really have choice enough now in the good graphics segment that Ubisoft is sinking. It’s my fault, I cursed them when they left Steam for their 4-UAC-prompts-whenever-you-start PoS. They showed total contempt for their users with Breakpoint, tried an nft grift on the side, evolved all cosmetics to clown shoes level and totally failed to offer anything new. Where’s Reflextions? Stuff like Grow Up / Home, metroidvanias on UbiArt Framework? They have great 3D engines and can’t keep a team happy or unfired enough to have people that know how to use it and optimize a game and are able to take some risks with game design. It’s all either heavily monetized multiplayer dreck or incremental QoL features in ever larger and shallower sandboxes in one of few large franchise flavors. There’s not that much to discuss, woo bamboo cutting tech, a new coat of paint and some gimmicks. People claiming it’s failing because it’s either woke or culture appropriating are ascribing cultural import to a happy meal.
I agree, I skipped over the latest Prince of Persia for a while because “eww Ubisoft”, but it really is a great mteroidvania.
Headline makes it sound Ubisoft posted this, but it doesn‘t look like it.
I was misinformed by an Azerbaijani home electronics swap meet board
Why do people manufacture arguments like this? Who is arguing that one is okay while the other isn’t? A couple random people on the Internet?
The only thing I can think of is The Last Samurai is a 20 year old movie and that somehow means not bringing up this historic fictional movie = you’re okay about a white dude becoming a samurai but not okay about a black dude becoming a samurai.
Whataboutism at its finest.
Did it not occur to this person that perhaps some people just don’t care about the movie, haven’t seen the movie, or plain just didn’t bring it up because it’s a movie? Is it “double standards” for one to pick their battles and not be enraged at everything all the time? My god this shit is exhausting.
Disclaimer: I have no opinion on the game itself because I frankly don’t care about it because I’m not the biggest Ubisoft fan outside of Rayman. Nor does the above necessarily reflect my opinion on the game’s historical accuracy. I’ve always loved The Last Samurai and Memoirs of a Geisha though and find both beautiful and touching films, so make of that as you will.
when you dont have arguments that fit with what you want to do, you make up your own.
I like how OP also chose to do zero research of all the controversy of the Last Samurai, and the years of PR control.
It is a fighting game with stereotypical characters. Not historically accurate in any way. This is astroturfing by some org that wants racial in fighting
The only thing I can think of is The Last Samurai is a 20 year old movie and that somehow means not bringing up this historic fictional movie = you’re okay about a white dude becoming a samurai but not okay about a black dude becoming a samurai.
You should watch the movie. Cruise’s character does not become a samurai. He spends time with the last samurai.
You should read the rest of my post. You would have learned that I have watched it.
If that was true then why did you completely misstate what the movie was about? Cruise does not become a samurai at any point.
Oh man I just remembered how great that could have been.
Red Dead 2 dealt with racist cults so elegantly.
And Far Cry 5’s “Oh we’re going there!” And making the most surface-level milquetoast bullshit I have ever seen.
Ubisoft didn’t post this
I remember people complaining about that movie when it came out actually
I learnt the trope of the “white Savior” thanks to last samurai, and that was eons ago.
This is not a case of double standards, it’s plain racism and influencer grifting.
That’s some grade A vintage racism right there.
Nah I think both of these are examples of pandering. The Last Samurai is even worse because there was no reason at all for Tom Cruise to be there historically. Yasuke at least was a real samurai and I think if you were to ignore the fact that ubisoft is obviously pandering for publicity and cash his story isn’t much different than Will Adams’ portrayal in Shogan.
Say what you will about the white savior trope, but wasn’t there a historical reason for Tom Cruise’s character to be there? Japan was accepting foreign influence and modernization at that time, from what I know of history.
Yeah I was wrong. He’s based off of Jules Brunet who was a french officer that trained the Tokugawa samurai in the use of modern weaponry of the time. He sided with the resistance against the emperor of Japan until he was evacuated by a french warship later on when the resistance was defeated. He wasnt a samurai by any means but he was a real guy
The story’s title is in reference to “The last of the Samurai”, not Tom being a Samurai, and the last one.
Kind of reminds me of Big Trouble in Little China, where the story follows a white guy, and the true heroes are in the background.
That’s the narrative shared by the studio which I begrudgingly accept. Even though the title and Tom being the face of it muddles it a lot. And I also don’t consider it a good movie.
I mean, it’s a common trope in story telling to use an outsider protagonist (from the perspective of the people in the story) to allow world building and immersion in the world/culture your story is set within.
So, the “guy with amnesia”, “orphan kid”, “dude in a foreign land”, “time traveler”, “new person in the organization”, “certain types of isekai” tropes all exist to tell a story where the reader/viewer get to learn as they go.
Fairly popular in historical fiction, fantasy, and many other genera.
It makes “Shogun”, “The Last Samurai”, “Marco Polo”, “Big Trouble in Little China”, and others like them more accessible to “Western” aka “white guy” demographics.
I don’t really see an issue with it, when done well.
It’s also not pitched as being based on a true story. I take less issue with him becoming a samurai than surviving the last real samurai, lol.
Except The Last Samurai isn’t remotely historical.
Tom Cruise’s is very roughly based in a French admiral. That admiral got sent specifically to Japan to create political relations with a certain faction of Samurai to further French interests there. The French admiral was made samurai as honorary title and put into service of the household.
During the final battle (which was a castle siege, and both sides were using guns), the French admiral was released from service and sent home.
If a movie or a series were to be made of this, and if it were to be somewhat accurate, it’d be closer to a political thriller with some battles in between.
Good thing I was expecting historical fiction then and not a documentary or even a dramatization of true events.
It can be a bit of both. You can tell a good story that also stays true to the historical events. Not being being able to do that shows a lack of skill and imagination.
To tell a story history is not binding. It neither a lack of skill or imagination - it’s an intended. What you have shown is a lack of understanding of the art of telling a story.
Are you telling me The Last Samurai wasn’t skillfully made or imaginative? Nah, it was no masterpiece, but I liked it just fine. Having some westerners in Japan training their military on modern weaponry as the samurai are fading from relevance passes my threshold for “remotely historical”, and it’s definitely not a requirement for me that Tom Cruise’s character needs to have an American historical analog to meet that criteria. Any historical fiction will inherently have to change things about what actually happened in that era, after all.
It was not skillfully made or imaginative. It was a very basic toybox of exotic nonsense about Samurai wrapped around a premise similar to Dances With Wolves.
I think you missed the sarcasm in the rhetorical question, but yes. It’s one of at least three or four movies I’ve seen utilizing the Dances With Wolves trope, though I’ve never seen Dances With Wolves itself, and that’s okay. It was entertaining.
In the same way that someone replaced all rainbow flags with confederate battle flags in Spiderman, someone’s gonna mod the game to change the character’s texture, then racists will also be happy (unless the game is shitty idk).
Joke’s on you; neither are OK. The Last Samurai is only good to those with weird exotic ideas about Samurai, Japan, and that time period.
Would be cool if there was a series about the actual French admiral that movie is based on, and all the political miandering that happened in that time.
Loved the film as a kid, would be down to watch that series if it was ever created!
People raging about videogames being woke
VERSUS
People raging about people raging about videogames being woke.
…FIGHT!!!
