A montage of scenes of traditional military force being deployed, while the BETA remain faceless and unseen, gives the impression of a series of defeats while still maintaining the suspense. At this point the story skips ahead a year, and the scene changes to the front lines where the viewer is told that the Japanese mainland is now under attack. The cadets are told that anyone who can’t bear to look should drop out of the training program, and one of the characters we have been briefly introduced to is gone. This status quo is then shattered by a reminder of the threat posed a crashed TSF and its brutally killed pilot. It is a simple way of building sympathy and pathos which suggests that there will be tragedy to come, but at the same time the depiction of areas of Earth that have maintained a state of comparative normalcy also provides some implicit clue as to the extent of the BETA’s occupation.
Furthermore, the setting of a military school also allows the viewer to learn about the characters we are not introduced to them in situ at the front, already affected by war, but instead see them at rest, and enjoying family life. By focusing on the training that pilots go through, the viewer is able to learn a lot about the setting in a short space of time – the nature of weapons, tactics and by implication and context the nature of the threat. Mechanism of conscription, his fetishisation of the soldier as a true citizen in Starship Troopers can be argued as a more subtle rationalisation of it.Ī subsequent mock battle between TSF units provides a better picture of humanity’s capability to fight the TSFs are armed with conventional ballistic weapons and large metal blades for close combat – instantly understandable technology. Indeed, a scene in which the protagonist talks about her future with her family heavily evokes a “service equals citizenship” mindset.
As a justification for this technology, it is no more or less contrived than many SF series, and the Heinlein influence is very clear through the mass conscription and the way in which this is accepted by society as a vital step, inscrutable alien foe and high technology. Indeed, rather than depict an attack by the BETA or any kind of action involving trained soldiers, the viewer learns about their capabilities via the context of a wargame exercise notably that they have some kind of highly efficient anti-aircraft weapons necessitating fighting at ground level or low altitudes and hence the use of the TSFs. The young age of the cadets and the description of low survival rates (a pilot apparently survives on average eight minutes on the frontline) is used as a simple deivce to present humanity as being under serious threat from these enemies, although at no point during the first half of the episode are they shown. The remainder of the episode is spent introducing the rest of the world that the series depicts it is set in a futuristic Kyoto which has remained safe from BETA attacks, and focuses on a group of TSF ( Tactical Surface Fighter – Starship Troopers-esque fighting suits) pilot cadets being prepared to go off and fight the BETA. In a world where the space race took place early, mankind ran into aliens on Mars known as BETA ( the first of many painfully awkward acronyms being thrown out here, standing for Beings of Extra-Terrestrial (origin) Adversarial to Earth) which proceeded to quite happily destroy the fledgling space program and then move on to Earth itself. Total Eclipse chooses the former, laying down its simple conceit in a straightforward narrated introduction. Note: following a point raised in the comments, I have edited this article to address a slight inaccuracy and clarify my meaning.Ī requirement, in my mind, of any first episode of a science-fiction series is either to provide necessary exposition, or to leave the setting sufficiently mysterious yet compelling that continuing to watch is appealing. This is entirely blind, judging the series as a series in its own right. Secondly, I know nothing about the source material that it’s based on.
It will be called MLATE or possibly just Total Eclipse.
Firstly, there is no way I am typing this series’ title out in full every time. This may or may not become a full series blog in the vein of my Eureka Seven articles and before we begin, a few notes. …it’s kind of hard to go in cold to a show that’s spin-off of a sequel of a sequel which is an AU spin-off of a spin-off - on Twitter