Reviews

I don't know how they but they manege to come up with the most boring uninspiring unfunny characters in the history of Pixar films. The side characters used to be so good that they got their own spinoffs but not this one. I guess they are shooting for "more relatable", but there's simply no earnest to be felt. Together with the frustrating plot they give a performance that will put you right into sleep if you can stand them in the first place. The only good thing is buzz lightyear, he's still kind and trustworthy.

About the story and theme, it happened to overlap a bit with a recent episode of Orville. And Orville did a better job in any metrics, by light years.

This episode is clearly the one of the better ones in this season other the the first episode in my view, and it just got abysmal rating that I don't understand. Episode like 'The Ricklantis Mixup' is so bloated that no one seems to find the plot is so generic and predictable. Another episode "Vindicators 3" which is one of my favorites in this season, is clearly something that they would do in season 1 or 2, the quality and the sprite is totally the same as any episode from season 1 or 2,it also get bad ratings. I don't know who is responsible for this rating, but I have to except the fact that rick and morty has gone main stream and hopefully the writer won't abandon their creativity from season 1 or 2 and ran this show into a s*** hole in order to gratify the "new coming" main stream viewers

Although the quality of the show is not the same as it used to be, the early seasons are among the best that had aired on the TV across all genres, needless to say animation. It also sit comfortably in the center of the all the American made animations, when it comes to the spirit and direction of the show. Animation in my view can be roughly put into two categories, one is associated with Japanese animation, the other is associated with American animation. The difference is obvious on the surface such as style of drawing, but a more subtle yet more important difference is the theme. The Japanese animation tend to be fantasy based and try its best to distant itself from reality, this phenomena rooted in otaku culture, which means the viewers are sick and tired of reality to some degree and just want watch something that is not here not now. While the American animation basically is no different from any real world TV series in themes and story telling, but because the drawing dose not amount to the real thing, this bring a great advantage. Namely a more loosely and more ambiguously defined world can be used to justify much more ridiculousness and randomness in the plot, and because the viewer don't usually associated a poorly drew face to a real person, this can be used to justified the character's more complex behavior and a more flexible personality. This makes the American animation perfectly suitable for portraying society in a certain way, or be critical of something in the pop culture. And basically this is what American animation does, it is used as a self-reflection tool or a way of express certain thoughts on society or life by the writers. Generally I think animation does a better job than the real world TV shows with few exceptions such as "black mirror".

Simpsons is among the best in this regard and is very moderate in the theme of the story. Some shows tend to reflect on personal growth and development, such as "Bojack horseman", some show would discuss personal philosophy on a more grand scale, such as "rick and morty". Other shows offers critical view of society such as "South park". Simpsons simply does all at the same time, it's critical to society today but not as sharp as "South park", it has a underlining tone of "no matter what we do the society won't change much", so in its story telling it just paint the whole picture without providing the cause nor the solution, in "South park" the cause part is at least provided. On the side of personal philosophy, the starting point of discussion in Simpsons is the relationship between individual and the group whether it's family or the whole society, discussion that focus on personal development is also presented but overall it's not a major topic. Shows like "Bojack horseman" or "rick and morty" emphasize more on the topic of a abstract person in a abstract environment, the relationship between self and others are somewhat secondary.

In other words you can basically start with Simpsons and apply minor change to it and you can get most of the American show with few exception such as "Adventure time" which is a fantasy. In no way I'm saying that all the shows are originate from Simpsons, it just happens that Simpsons just sit in the middle of basically everything, and has this "All in one" characteristic. You could say it does everything well but is not the best in any given area, to some extend it's true, but bear in mind that none of the creators has this idea of "do all the things at the same time" when they start the show, to end up with Simpson, it took true genius, but when you see all the writers that had been working on the show, especially the early season, it won't be a surprise.

In my view there's no need to over read into this show and dig deep under what this show would offer, but to summarize its spirit, it followed a dark theme of nihilism which is very popular after the 08 economy crash, which is a quite significant event in modern history, after which people find it harder and harder to achieve financial success, at same time feels more and more insignificant compared to the numerous institutions that control their lives, or they just start to realize it. Similar show include F is for family, BoJack Horseman etc.

What make this show outstanding is the free spirit of creation and imagination, and the devotion to make something new and bold. As a adult animated series, it had tons of toilet humor, but darker, sicker and usually on a cosmic scale, combined with the twisted theme, it create something hasn't been seen on TV before.

A show with similar tone would be futurama, which like the rick and morty complete took advantage of their futuristic/sifi setting to justify the ridiculousness and randomness of the plot which is just the symptom of the creator's imagination running wild. But the difference between the show is obvious, while the futurama follows the way of Simpson in portraying the society in a very subtle way, rick and morty address the flaw and idiocy head on. South park is also known for doing the same thing, but the theme of the episode is usually very specific and timely, rick and morty 's topic is more fundamental and metaphysical. Other major topic of the show is the rick's philosophy which is deeply rooted in nihilism, rick is actually quite similar to a nearly indefeasible "one punch man" which is a very natural setting for nihilism, but unlike "one punch man" whose power is unmatched by his enemies, the rick's power is unmatched by reality itself, he completely exploit the fact there are infinite reality, combined with lacking of basic morality, which let him walk out any difficult situations with an even more sinister and pessimistic attitude.

Update: the show has took a seriously downfall in season 3, which is not something that could be expected, since this usually happens when the show has reached its late seasons, like season 7 or 8. This makes the viewers wonder what's going on, apart from the obvious reason that different writers have been hired, the main reason is that there is just too little characters in the show, compared to Simpsons or futurama, the total number of characters of Rick and morty are laughable, this definitely contribute to the lack of directions for the show to move forward. Unlike the shows that have tons of supporting characters, rick and morty is about rick and morty literally, other characters that could be used in the show are some family members and a bird man. The other reason would be the world in rick and morty is so vaguely defined, this evidently is also why the show is great in many ways, viewers will always be surprised to see what the show take them next, but since the world is so vague, the show can't just do some "routine" episode where the characters just do something they usually do. this further limited the content of the show, the writers just have less to write about. Season 3 just demonstrate the shortcomings of show so well, unless the writer come up some serious changes, this might be the end of rick and morty.

the best Documentary on the topic are the money master and Money As Debt,i assume the producer At least have seen them but they haven't.

for the part where money was created，Borrowing is the major way ，when someone Borrow from bank where does the money come from，does it came from your Account? i don't think so . if this was the case you will notice. does it come from bank's money? i don't think so ,they need it for the Bonus. in fact it's money from nowhere created by the bank, it's a Obligation that bank has to pay the Borrower in exchange for the the Promise that the Borrower will pay back more, yes it's that twisted, for instance the Borrower spend the money and the money usually end up in some Account in the bank, bank's Assets(everyone's saving plus the Borrower's Promise) and its liability (Obligation to pay Depositor and the Borrower) both increase ,and as long as the bank's Assets is greater than its liability ,the came can continue forever.

as for the fed which is a Private bank with its own share holders just as the Central Bank of the United Kingdom, it is responsible for the Creation of U.S. dollar. the Borrower is US government.

as for Greenspan who has been Praised a lot by the movie (at least by the people they Interview) is not the Reason for the U.S. economy to be Prosperity in 1990. the true Reason is that sucker like china gone dollar-Fever , they pumping low-cost merchandise into US in exchange for green paper which keep the Cost of Living low while Destroy the manufacturing industry of US thus free the whole Country to work in Financial sector which Attract suckers all over the world to Invest in its Stock market. lots of Big shot Appear in the movie, but it didn't help, because they only help Themselves

in the end they try to Summary that the wallstreet did what they did because fed made the money easy and the fed did what they did because they are simply unware of the Consequence of their Behavior, which is so not true, anyone with a basic Knowledge of Economy knows what would happen if the Leverage was too high

a better choose of Documentary on Financial crisis would be inside job and meltdown by cbc