SUMMER WARS
Credibly brings to life the sheer oppression of being trapped with a large, tightly-knit family on account of a girl you like but who you are not sure actually likes you—however, as an Internet apocalypse movie,
Summer Wars only marginally succeeds as science fiction, or science fantasy, or fiction, or fantasy.
2009
Directed by Hasoda Mamoru
Written by and Okudera Satoko and Hasoda Mamoru
With holy shit, you're Dean fucking Venture! Michael Sinterniklaas (Koiso Kenji), Brina Palencia (Shinohara Natsuki), Pam Dougherty (Jinnouchi Sakae), God knows how many other voice actors, and there's a Japanese seiyu cast too but I watched it dubbed like a philistine—a philistine like a fox
Spoiler alert: moderate
There are a lot of ways you can go with a destructive AI let loose upon the Internet. There's
The Terminator approach, which is to give it access to your killer robots and nuclear arsenal. There's the
Ghost in the Shell approach, which is to allow your characters to talk to it and reason with it, and also giving it access to your killer robots as well as your killer sex robots. There's
The Matrix approach, which is to create an entire virtual world within which your characters' minds are wholly immersed, so that fighting software is not dissimilar to a kung fu battle. There's the
Serial Experiments Lain approach, which is to mysticize it so that it becomes a Lovecraftian horror capable of emerging into the real world (I think). Back on the other end of the realism spectrum, there's the
WarGames approach, which involves a Broderickesque nerd, if not an actual Matthew Broderick, typing on a keyboard for hours on end. Using the
WarGames method, you would be well-advised to involve some chase scenes and military guys with guns.
Then there's the
Summer Wars approach, which is to have an ancillary character try to beat up all the AI's pixels with his custom M.U.G.E.N. character.
