Nightcrawler's sins

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Nightcrawler's sins

Post by Siona »

Ooh, I like that theory, spinifex. Not the mention your siggie...

*gets whapped by the :offtopic sign*

OW! Sorry, sorry!

OK, here's my two cents...and a nickel for free.

I just got my DVD *SQUEE!* and, yes, the guy does say they're for conjuring up angels. And NC says it himself: "They're angelic symbols."

But then he says "One for every sin."

So I think it's "I have sinned, God send me angels to help me repent and guide me" and so on and so forth.

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Nightcrawler's sins

Post by Nighton »

I think that the theory of each tattoo being punishment for sinful thoughts seem more true. After all, Kurt's such a nice guy that he probably doesn't find sinning to appalling, and therefore simply doesn't think of sinning that much.
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Nightcrawler's sins

Post by Bamf Bunny »

Originally posted by spinifex
Would he be able to go to Confession, looking the way he does?
Maybe not with those newfangled glass-sided confessionals, but with the older ones ... sure, why not?
Maybe the scars are in lieu of that. He knows he can't confess to a priest, so he 'confesses' via scarification directly to God.
Possibly ... but Catholicism has always encouraged "mortification", ranging from self-denial to self-inflicted physical pain. (More the former than the latter nowadays.) The Catholic Encyclopedia sums it up as follows:

"It is practiced likewise as an expiation for past sins and shortcomings, for it is the belief of the Catholic Church, that, although only the Atonement of Christ can offer adequate expiation for the sins of men, men ought not to make that an excuse for doing nothing themselves, but should rather take it as an incentive to add their own expiations to the extent of their power, and should regard such personal expiations as very pleasing to God. This explains why many of the mortifications practiced by devout persons are not directly curative of evil propensities, but take the form of painful exercise and privations self-inflicted because they are painful, e.g., fastings, hard beds, abstention from lawful pleasures, etc."

Me, I'm inclined to understand Kurt's scars in this context, though I still suspect the filmmakers put them there to look cool.
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Nightcrawler's sins

Post by Siona »

I'm agreeing with the bunny; they needed a way to seperate NC from all the beautiful people, so they decided on tattoos. One of the designers found the markings and another found out that they were religious, so it all fits.

But, hey, I'm lovin' the theories. :p

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Post by TelegramSam »

My own 2 cents:

As far as the mental state of movie-kurt goes, it may be less penance and more as a reminder, much in the same fashion that some people wear crucifixes, etc, to remind themselves of their sinful nature and, more importantly, of Christ's sacrifice for them. Perhaps he did them to serve as the same sort of constant physical reminder of the pain and blood that bought his soul, etc. Granted, it's a bit extreme, but he IS a performer, and such folks to tend to enjoy melodrama. That said, I like furry-Kurt better than scarry-Kurt.

As far as the movie-makers go, I agree with the notion that it was probably mostly a visual trick with little regard for the effect it would have on the character himself. Rather irresponsible, if you ask me, but keep in mind this is the same hollywood that put elves at Helm's Deep and sent Tolkien flipping in his grave. Speaking of LotR, you'd think they wouldn't have any trouble doing Kurt as an entirely CG character, in the same grain as Gollum was. I know gollum isn't furry, but fur isn't impossible to pull off, just look at things like Monsters, Inc, etc.
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Nightcrawler's sins

Post by Dark Angel »

Originally posted by TelegramSam
Speaking of LotR, you'd think they wouldn't have any trouble doing Kurt as an entirely CG character, in the same grain as Gollum was. I know gollum isn't furry, but fur isn't impossible to pull off, just look at things like Monsters, Inc, etc.
Maybe it would have looked too cartoony or something like that.
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Post by taekwondodo »

I must say, as disappointed as I was with the casting of the role, I still infinitely prefer Alan Cumming to a CG Kurt. I can't imagine it being believable amidst a live action cast. Gollum was very well done, but still obviously an animation. The only thing that made it work for me is how shrunken and attentuated and cartoony Gollum really is. I don't think an actor *could* have portrayed Gollum and had it work. Kurt, however, is more than sufficiently human for an actor to be the best choice. In my opinion anyway....
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Post by TelegramSam »

Have you ever seen "Final Fantasy: the Spirits Within"? It's possible to make non-cartoony CG characters. Most of those looked near-photo realistic. http://www.finalfantasy-spiritwithin.com/ has images, click on "gallery" over on the left. Keep in mind that the movie is a few years old, the technology has only improved since then.
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Nightcrawler's sins

Post by BrimstoneFaith »

Well, back to the tattoos. I do think it is one for every sin that could be commited (as a reminder). When you look at the scars, there is a pattern. It seems that one side of his face is the same as the other side and the same for his chest and body.
I was reading Catholics For Dummies :D and it said that there is 7 Major sins or something like that. Maybe he had like 5 sins written on his face, doubled on the other side, then really big Angelic letters (standing for different sins) on his body with the other few.
How about it?
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Post by SeanChen »

Kurt believes that his exsistance is a sin. Everything that happens is his falt. You have to look at the younger issues
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Nightcrawler's sins

Post by The Drastic Spastic »

Originally posted by SeanChen
Kurt believes that his exsistance is a sin. Everything that happens is his falt. You have to look at the younger issues
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Post by SeanChen »

I don't know. I saw a frame of a comic where Kurt was a kid and he was crying about someone dieing and if God brought him back, he promised he wouldn't be a demon agian. Plus in UXM, he said how could he believe in creation when he is liveing proof of evolution.
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Post by Blue_Demon94 »

Well, I guess killing your brother is frowned upon in the eyes of God, but maybe if they stay true to the comicbook, Kurt ended up killing his brother. There's also the original sin of being born, also incest is illegal and he dated Amanda, his adopted sister. In the movie who knows how long it took to get to the church, he could've made one before Jean and Storm arrived there. It's a sin to waste food and I guess under mind control, he didn't eat much, Weapon X could've made him do so much stuff before we actually see Kurt.
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Post by Bamfette »

this is MOVIE Nightcrawler.... you can't really count anything from the comics, except maybe the movie prequel. we don't even know if he HAD a brother... if you count the prequel as part of movie canon, no mention of Stefan was made at all, though Amanda and Margali were shown.

oh, and i am with Tae on this... yeah, i have seen Square's stuff, and it is impressive for what it is. but NEAR photo real is not real enough. people know how people act far too well, the tiniest flaw makes them stand out as not quite right. animals and fantasy creatures they can get away with, becuase we can't see the tiny flaws as well. but we interact with other people every day, so we can see the flaws easier. from what i have seen from the trailer of The Polar Express (not Square, but close enough...) the technology, the talent, (though that is motion capture, but MC always needs cleanup animation, it can't be used straight form the source.) simply isn't there yet. it looks stiff and the rendering is just not quite real enough to truly fool you into thinking it's the real deal. mostly, it's jsut missing that *spark* that you can't really say exactly what it is, but you know when it's gone. some of that i chalk up to the motion capture. i think the technology is jus... ugh. not only because it is putting talented animators out of work, aside form cleaning up captured data to remove jerkiness and make hands and other details move right, but it loses the spark in translation. a talented animator can add that spark to an animation, and i think they would be better off to key animate even these photo real characters. Gollum i think looked better, and he was *mostly* key animated. using on set reference as just that, reference, not using the captured data after it was discovered it looked wonky and lifeless. or having to do a combination of the two, cleaning up the captured data heavily.
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Post by Bamf Bunny »

There's a robotics theory called the Uncanny Valley. Essentially, it says that when robots look kind of realistic, people respond well to them, and as they get more reaslistic, people like them more - but only up to a point. People respond worse to an almost-but-not-quite-right robot, or CGI model. Perhaps it's because the flaws stand out more, or because people start to respond positively and are then unnerved to be thrown by them.

Gollum's an interesting test case for the theory. He's creepy, but he's meant to be. If the studio had put the same effort into (say) a beautiful woman, would it have been effective? Or would she just have been differently creepy?
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Post by Bamfette »

that is a great theory, and i think nails it. i notice in that article that it says moviemakers ahd not yet had negative reactions to their photo-real characters, but i would beg to differ. i know a lof of people who were very weirded out by Final Fantasy's human characters, and i know this is one reason Pixar rarely (until very recently) incorporates human characters despite having the technology to do so. they included humans in Toy Story, (and, admittedly in Toy Story 1 the technology wasn't *quite* there yet, but...) but they said, and it is in the special features on the DVDin the Ultimate Toybox Edition, that they were the hardest characters to include, becuase they could get them very close to real, but not close enough, and it ended up being creepy. so they made the features cartoony to offset it somewhat. and it's why the toys, Woody and Buzz in particular, are so much more appealing. they took that to another level. Also, with their short Geri's Game. that was made in 1997, they certianly could have made a photo real character for that short time, but he is a caricature instead, and is much more appealing as a result. though, yeah, as mentioned, the technology also was not there for the first movie. alomost, but not quite. i think much of this thinking came from where one of their shorts from '88 called Tin Toy early on in their existence failed. that one featured a baby, it was modeled to be realistic, but (being 1988, and all) fell short in many regards. and mostly what you ended up looking at was not what they did right, but what they did wrong, or where the technology fell short. and now, look at The Icredibles. agian, Pixar TOTALLY has the technology to do photo-real, but they CHOSE not to. they keep them real enough that they are obviously human, they have realistic cloth, hair, skin texture, but they are totally cartoony, and so are not creepy at all. part of that i am sure is the irreverent, funny subject matter. but still...

and i think this is why the baby in The Mask 2 looks so fucking creepy. the baby is very realistic looking. but (and yes, i realize this is the premise of the whole movie) it acts in such an unnatural way, it's just wrong. when Jim Carrey went all Mask in the first one, he had the distorted green Mask makeup to make his features less human. could you IMAGINE how creepy it would have been if it had just looked like him with no makeup?

that was off on a tangent tho. those are not subtle things 'not quite right' but big things, but i think it still relates....
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