As much as I love Dr. Strangelove, and am sad to see this be the only reference to it, what, exactly, does this have to do with Dr. Strangelove except trying to make a "hey, Utsuho has nuclear power, let's make a reference to something related to nuclear power" type of reference?
There isn't even a joke, here - If Utsuho is Dr. Strangelove (who was a rocket scientist based on Wernher von Braun, not a nuclear scientist, anyway), then why's she standing in for Major "King" Kong?
NWSiaCB said: As much as I love Dr. Strangelove, and am sad to see this be the only reference to it, what, exactly, does this have to do with Dr. Strangelove except trying to make a "hey, Utsuho has nuclear power, let's make a reference to something related to nuclear power" type of reference?
There isn't even a joke, here - If Utsuho is Dr. Strangelove (who was a rocket scientist based on Wernher von Braun, not a nuclear scientist, anyway), then why's she standing in for Major "King" Kong?
Because drawings of people riding bombs is funny. Hope that helps.
Thimble said: Because drawings of people riding bombs is funny. Hope that helps.
Maybe I'm just too much a fan of the original, but the original scene was meant to be a satire of the United States' views on nuclear war at the time - riding off to face the total extinction of the human race like it was some sort of mechanical bull and test of manliness. The major had earlier talked about how glad he was that he was getting a chance to start a nuclear war because he was hoping to earn a medal for a war that would wipe out humanity. It wasn't just funny, had a real political point to make.
People throw up photoshopped pictures replacing Slim Pickins with whatever random thing they want nowadays to the point where I doubt many people even understand what the original was trying to say.
NWSiaCB said: Maybe I'm just too much a fan of the original, but the original scene was meant to be a satire of the United States' views on nuclear war at the time - riding off to face the total extinction of the human race like it was some sort of mechanical bull and test of manliness. The major had earlier talked about how glad he was that he was getting a chance to start a nuclear war because he was hoping to earn a medal for a war that would wipe out humanity. It wasn't just funny, had a real political point to make.
People throw up photoshopped pictures replacing Slim Pickins with whatever random thing they want nowadays to the point where I doubt many people even understand what the original was trying to say.
I doubt that it really matters what the original has to say in the context of this image. There are many times that a reference is made, such as this image, because of a simple association between two works, or just because the artist thought it was interesting enough to make.
Also, you seem to be forgetting something: The movie is 50 years old, by now a lot of the satire is outdated for a modern audience, and more importantly, pop-cultural osmosis has made the famous riding-the-nuclear-bomb-in-an-adventure-of-freud-and-MAD a pretty common feature in a variety of works, who take it out of context. So a Dr. Srangelove reference that is going to be a single image or one-page comic is probably going to be either the Kong ride to Russia, or maybe Utusho in a wheelchair doing the "my fuhrer, I can walk!" line, and either way, its not going to tie into the political messages into a one-shot touhou comic. On top of that, so much of this isn't about 'respecting' the message as much as taking a part of the scene and running with it.
To continue this wall of text being made because I've gone 24 hours without sleep, Utusho fits Majaor Kong quite well since her motivation was essentially the same as his, she wanted to scourge the surface because she had atomic power, and I'd say a part of her character from my understanding is that you're giving a very simple creature a hell of a lot of power and not giving it any way to fully understand what is happening. Effectively, she'd doing it because she can. Kong was pretty much the same way, and I'd say that both are largely isolated, narrow-minded, and a bit insane, and are given the type of power they shouldn't getting.
Anelaid said: To continue this wall of text being made because I've gone 24 hours without sleep, Utusho fits Majaor Kong quite well since her motivation was essentially the same as his, she wanted to scourge the surface because she had atomic power, and I'd say a part of her character from my understanding is that you're giving a very simple creature a hell of a lot of power and not giving it any way to fully understand what is happening. Effectively, she'd doing it because she can. Kong was pretty much the same way, and I'd say that both are largely isolated, narrow-minded, and a bit insane, and are given the type of power they shouldn't getting.
tl;dr, its just a damn touhou comic.
I'm not ambivalent on this picture because that sort of connection can't be made, I'm ambivalent because that connection WASN'T made when it could have been.
You can do things to update or bring back a message from the past quite easily, and people can make 1984 references or the like all the time.
You could have had her rant about the purity of her evil spirits/underground spring fluids. There could have been a joke about hiding the population in a abandoned underground hells with a ratio of 10 lolis to one adult woman (or ten pets to one girl) for optimal breeding, and worries over a "hell gap" (or some sort of Yukari joke), which would have tied jokes about Touhou together with the jokes in Strangelove.
The problem I have is with just showing a Touhou character on top of a bomb and calling it a day without trying to actually connect any sort of message or joke to it.
"Miss Satori, I would not rule out the chance to preserve a nucleus of youkai specimens. It would be quite easy at the bottom of some of our former hell. The radioactivity would never penetrate a cave some thousands of feet deep. And in a matter of weeks, sufficient improvements in dwelling space could easily be provided." "How long would you have to stay down there?" "I would think that uh possibly one hundred years." "You mean, youkai could actually stay down there for a hundred years?" "It would not be difficult mein Fuhrer! Nuclear reactors could, heh... I'm sorry. Miss Satori. Nuclear reactors could provide power almost indefinitely"
NWSiaCB said: As much as I love Dr. Strangelove, and am sad to see this be the only reference to it, what, exactly, does this have to do with Dr. Strangelove except trying to make a "hey, Utsuho has nuclear power, let's make a reference to something related to nuclear power" type of reference?
There isn't even a joke, here - If Utsuho is Dr. Strangelove (who was a rocket scientist based on Wernher von Braun, not a nuclear scientist, anyway), then why's she standing in for Major "King" Kong?
NWSiaCB said: Maybe I'm just too much a fan of the original, but the original scene was meant to be a satire of the United States' views on nuclear war at the time - riding off to face the total extinction of the human race like it was some sort of mechanical bull and test of manliness. The major had earlier talked about how glad he was that he was getting a chance to start a nuclear war because he was hoping to earn a medal for a war that would wipe out humanity. It wasn't just funny, had a real political point to make.
Funnily enough, that actually indicates that Okuu is *more* appropriate than most. Remember how eager she was to nuke everyone in her boss dialogue in SA, despite clearly not having invested a moment of thought to what she would do afterwards?
NWSiaCB said: As much as I love Dr. Strangelove, and am sad to see this be the only reference to it, what, exactly, does this have to do with Dr. Strangelove except trying to make a "hey, Utsuho has nuclear power, let's make a reference to something related to nuclear power" type of reference?
There isn't even a joke, here - If Utsuho is Dr. Strangelove (who was a rocket scientist based on Wernher von Braun, not a nuclear scientist, anyway), then why's she standing in for Major "King" Kong?
It's almost a year later, but since the "Onward, Trusty Steed!" pool brought this post up again, it occurs to me that pretty much all of NWSiaCB's objections can be solved by a very small alteration: change the title of the picture to "Dr. Yasaka, Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love To Bomb" instead.
This casts Kanako as the foreign scientistdeity with great visions for the future brought by this new power, which is also what Major "Slim" Reiuji will use to fulfil her dreams of destroying the Soviet Unionsurface world, never mind that it will lead to a war where everyone loses. Much better fit to the original movie, and we still get the scene depicted here, so everyone can be happy.
"Dr. Yasaka, Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love To Bomb" instead.
Was this a typo, or a clever little shout-out to Gameplay Mechanics? (Even if it was the first, I'll take it as the second, because it just works so well.) Edit: never mind, I see the post you got it from, where it was clearly intentional.
I kind of wish we had a good candidate to cast as Col. Ripper, though.
(Maj. Utsuho: Shoot, a girl could have a pretty good time at the Hakurei Shrine with all that stuff.)
You're right; I was confusing General "Precious Bodily Fluids" Ripper (who fits power-crazed Utsuho's "nuke 'em all" intentions) with Major "King" Kong, who actually appears in the iconic scene this parodies (and isn't especially crazy as far as I recall).
(And then I apparently also confused him with the actor playing him. orz)
