Metropolis Connection??

I've watched the best version of Metropolis over and over again, and I just can't see any similarity between it and the Big O, apart from the fact that Roger and Freder are both negotiators. All I got from it was a big allegory of a member of the upper class helping negotiate a business treaty between the lower class and the form of government. I see that MAYBE Roger negotiated between Paradigm Corp. and someone else, but I'm really not getting anything. I expected to watch it, go Oh Yeah, and then done. But I got two different stories from both the Big O and Metropolis. Could someone please clarify the link between these two?? Thanks

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Originally posted by Robot7290 I've watched the best version of Metropolis over and over again, and I just can't see any similarity between it and the Big O, apart from the fact that Roger and Freder are both negotiators. All I got from it was a big allegory of a member of the upper class helping negotiate a business treaty between the lower class and the form of government. I see that MAYBE Roger negotiated between Paradigm Corp. and someone else, but I'm really not getting anything. I expected to watch it, go Oh Yeah, and then done. But I got two different stories from both the Big O and Metropolis. Could someone please clarify the link between these two?? Thanks

I never saw the connection, either. (I also found the classic and the animated version of Metropolis to be almost unbelievably dull.)

I think the link is just the visual imagery .

And robots. Even though the robot in Metropolis looks more like C-3PO.

The inside of megadei seem to look like the artsy-style of that German-ish style of art Frtiz Lang had worked into Metropolis. The old-typewriter style control console, just the styling of the gadgetry in the cockpit, actually mostly the cockpit. The outside looks pretty realistic for any age, but the Big O's skirt/waist thing looks kinda Metropolis.

I watched part of Metropolis when Adult Swim showed it and found myself thoroughly unimpressed.

The characters looked like they were swinging around ham steaks for arms.

I.E.

I actually liked the movie but was confused on some aspects, like the ending.

But connection? The title of the movie is the same as the title of book in Big O. There.
Peace.

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Originally posted by Mike I think the link is just the visual imagery .

Aesthetic similarity was what I was thinking too.

cool man (or dude. Whatever)

Fritz Lang's Metropolis has several parallels to the Big O.

The city of Metropolis in the original movie is as Paradigm City; both are Utopian on the surface yet Dystopian behind the facade; where the wealthy live in luxury and pleasure, and the workers suffer in miserable conditions. In Metropolis, the workers live underground and never see daylight...in the Big O, the workers live outside the domes in a world where it seems to never stop raining. The underclasses in both worlds occupy dilapidated and crumbling tenements.

Roger Smith is similar to Freder in Metropolis. He is a prominent citizen who becomes aware of the suffering of the proletariat, and joins with them...Roger by leaving the domes, and Freder by intervening in his Father's plot to maintain the proles' submission.

Both Metropolis and Big O have Futura and Dorothy, a female robot that are so natural in their mimicry of human behavior so as to be indescernible from a real human (for the most part). When Rotwang steals Maria's soul to animate Futura, and Wayneright recreates his daughter with R. Dorothy, both men are playing god.

Another parallel between the two stories, are their predominating themes: the conflict between classes, the excessive power of technology and the struggle of male and female together against evil.

Both stories also integrate a lot of Christian icons and symbolism. Freder definitely symbolizes a messiah character, and Roger's title of "Dominus" also has the interpretation of "Clergyman or Priest".

There is a strong aesthetic similarity between the Megadei and a famous scene in Metropolis, where an accident transforms a megamachine into the gaping maw of a pagan idol, receiving human sacrifices...the scene is definitely a metaphor for technology that escapes human control and can destroy us, much like the Megadei are capable of...and possibly have.

There are probably a lot more associations one can come up with, but I think this is a start...