So here's my interpretation of We Are The Strange:

    I imagine that the land that exists within We Are The Strange was once a good place; an rpg fantasy land, for example, populated by the characters we see in this movie
    But the game has sat in the back of an arcade, and the cartridge broken down over time (maybe touched by a magnet :P ) and with it have gone all traces of coherence to the world.  It has been reduced to glitching graphics and repeating sound bytes, monsters, looping music, and horrible sounds; the universe has been robbed of its inherent logic to make sense of all the numbers and noise.
    More simply, take your top three favorite old-school games.  Now put them through a blender.  Now, through the magic of Movie Magic, force the mangled heap of electronic crap to work, in a Frankenstein's monster of a thing (consisting of two Ataris and and an EZ Bake Oven hot-glued together.)*
    At first I thought Emmm, by the nature of his character a sort of guiding forest fairy spirit, represents the basic simplicity and innocence of such games.  There is little (or literally no) logic to him, only the happy urge to progress forward.  Notice his ecstatic freakout when Blue does just that, playing video-games in the square (as opposed to in the forest, when she was unenthusiastic about it and he simply fell asleep).
    Having finished the movie, I now believe that Emmm could be interpreted as a representation of the modern 'main character' (badass giant robot pilot) as a child, though the sense of being the one who moves the game forward stands.
    Ori and Rain might seem to represent characters IN the game, who have since been changed as much as the rest of the world (Ori being the Funny Sidekick, Rain being the Mercenary Badass).
    Now Blue I'm a little less sure about.  Her 3D appearance seems to suggest she exists at a higher level than the other characters (maybe a cutscene? ) which would seem to be reinforced by the fact that her textures get distorted when she becomes too taxing to the processor (as characters in cut-scenes sometimes used to do when doing anything complex).  This might be supported by her seeming unfamiliarity with the world, and Rain's assertion that 'You don't belong here'
    Him, however, seems to me a very clear transposition of the typical player, especially in his objectification of women and overall maliciousness.  He exists to gratify himself.  That's all.
    The crazy horde of face people inside the cathedral tower make me think of your typical NPC's, who are all alike and yet slightly different; only marginally self-aware, but all too knowledgeable about the evil things that are going to Destroy Us All.
    As to the monsters, their dialogue ('wahooo, what now?!') would seem also to suggest they also are players, though it might be they're simply the personification of the breakdown in the world (or the mutated remnants of the game's former antagonists).
    Of course there may be the chance I'm just reading into it too much or completely off-base altogether; it could just be an orgiastic explosion of (slash love letter to) sprites, music, battle, sound&fury, etc, ie all the things our generation was weened on.  
    At any rate, it's a fascinating movie and incredibly animated (and beyond that, just very well conceived aesthetically) and you deserve all the praise and awards you get for having made it.  I hope someday I can create something with half as much artistic depth.  
    And to those who say the movie lacks plot, I say it takes a special amount of understanding (or a handful of genius) to realize that each story has to be engaged on its own terms.  We Are The Strange could not have been a 3-act romantic comedy, nor could it have been a Miyazaki fantasy extraordinaire.  It is what is is (as opposed to being something it's not...like most of what passes for 'entertainment' today) ( <-- zing)

On a side note, I've dabbled in flash animation, 3D modeling, and music most of my life, and I draw and write regularly (hope to become a writer professionally**) so I have a very deep appreciation and awe for the level of talent it must have taken to create even the more minimalist scenes of this movie.

* Let stand before consuming.  Serves NO ONE.
**Whatever that means <_<

M Dot, if you need a screenwriter for your next project, look my way  I'm thinking gothic steampunk pirate thriller, with an indie-folk/acid techno-electronica soundtrack.  The DVDs will come packaged in hollowed-out copies of kitchen-appliance-technical-manuals, and the limited edition will be shipped with a sandwich (your choice of bread).  

--Last edited by teknoarcanist on 2008-12-21 23:40:39 --