Another AniMat video response? I found some of his theories interesting and wanted to comment on them. So sue me!
In this video, AniMat reviews Antz. Having spent some time with Antz’s story and themes for The Philosophy of Antz video, I found it strange that AniMat proclaimed its story as barely present. He describes Z’s life as a worker ant who falls in love with a princess as a separate story from Z’s desire to leave his colony and travel to Insectopia. These sound less like separate stories and more like Act 1 and Act 2 of the movie. Act 1 introduces Z, the colony, and his feelings of not belonging. Z falls in love with Bala because it appears to him that she’s rebelling against her position in society, too. In Act 2, Z rejects the colony’s collectivist ideas and travels to Insectopia where he and Bala can be their own ants. The overall story is about Z finding his place in a society of overwhelming conformity. The film ends with Z proving the value of individualism in society. He finds his place here, in between the militaristic conformity of the colony at the beginning of the film and the complete independence and solitude in Insectopia.
AniMat also criticizes the characters for being avatars for the actors who portray them. This isn’t so much a criticism as it is pointing out that the actors were cast into roles that they are good at playing. People who don’t know the actors certainly wouldn’t think better or worse of the film because of them. I can’t see Daniel Radcliffe as anyone but Harry Potter, but I’m not about to criticize Horns for that. Similarly, Sean Bean and Lena Headey make Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV reminiscent of Game of Thrones, but I’d sooner criticize the movie for having morally reprehensible characters. Someone who’s very familiar with Woody Allen or the other actors in Antz might have trouble seeing past them, but that isn’t a mark against the script, the characters, or even the film. For someone like me, who recognizes only the actors’ names for the most part, I only hear the characters in Antz, and I thought they all worked well in carrying the film’s story.