This week in Netflix

April 23, 2008 on 2:37 am | In Movies, Netflix | 1 Comment

Every week, the DVD-through-the-mail site Netflix announces new DVDs for rental. Most are films that never got a theatrical release. Ethan Kaye brings you This Week In Netflix, the most inexplicable actual description of an actual film actually posted by the Netflix staff.

This week?
Oban Star-Racers: Vol.1: The Alwas Cycle

Every 10,000 years, a huge galactic race takes place, and Earth’s only chance to avoid annihilation by the evil Crogs is to win the race with its entry, the Whizzing Arrow. When Earth’s star pilot is taken out, its fate rests on teen prodigy Molly. Co-produced by French and Japanese studios, this popular series boasts theatrical-quality animation and a thrilling story line, drawing viewers into an action-packed world beyond imagination.

Rule one in film: DO NOT use more than one set of colons in your title. Yes, I know it’s some sort of anime thing that’s divided into ninety million parts each with an obscure proper noun in the title, but it just looks dumb. Use a dash or something, people.

So this film took up the time of both the French and the Japanese. All the crepes that could be made, all the sex robots that could be made…sigh. No, instead of working towards better trade relations, these two superpowers got together and made a movie about an implausible space race and their cute little car “Whizzing Arrow”.

I have not seen this film, I always have to say that with these articles, but I assume it adequately explains the fact that our planet is threatened if we don’t win a race. It’s fairly typical of alien races in anime to judge the viability of a culture based on how well it does in a galactic race, right? I remember a Speed Racer episode with a similar plot, where a country would close off its borders unless someone could beat them in a race. Must be a familiar theme with foreign countries.

Part of me suspects that this is just a ploy by the Japanese and French to put the idea of a galactic race in our heads, and then make fun of the US when we don’t have the stones to enter it. I understand, that’s a good plan on their part. Not a feasible, reasonable plan, but whatever, it’s at least being proactive.

C’mon America, get in the race already. It only comes around once every 10,000 years.