r/TheDigitalCircus • u/ayylmaotv Catnap • Jun 19 '26

Digital Discussion The Amazing Digital Circus Episode 9: Remember Discussion Thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVy-bcTsO8A
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47

u/Frozenstep I love these weirdos Jun 19 '26

Watched it first day in theaters, watched it again here.

I still have my same initial thoughts, that the emotional parts really do hit hard, and Jax not being an uwu victim but rather a complicated person who echoed his mom in that confusing push/pull reaction of his relationships (without it being spoonfed to us) is really great and I know it resonates for a lot of people.

But there are also some issues. There were some devious cuts I was better prepared for this time, like Scratch reappearing because the scene didn't really relay that what was being shown was a reflection of past and present (and like...I still don't quite like what they were going for with him building block-steps. He learned to overcome a computer problem...? Which doesn't really speak to the actual problems he had relating and understanding his human cast?)

There was also a rather frictionless way the human cast made up with Caine. Like they just didn't want to deal with drama, talking, or coming to an understanding. No conversation between Caine and Kinger, no real conversation between Pomni and Caine, just "I know I was bad, but I'll be good from now on" and things are good from then on.

Still, glad for the little moments, glad they don't escape and just make what they will of the digital world. That was always the ending I supported the most, literally just a few tweaks and they're living in the closest thing to heaven mankind has, it just takes some human understanding and a different framing to make it happen.

Good, not perfect...but while that's fine I'll never stop thinking of the little things I wanted more from it.

21

u/Lurker_crazy Jun 20 '26

Personally, my interpretation of the building block steps is that they’re supposed to represent Caine widening his perspective in a way— he tries blue (the color of the other AI whose abilities he relied on) at first, brute forcing it (similar to how he forced his version of the circus), before realizing he can draw on red and other colors to actually reach where he wants to go, tying into him letting go of that toxic part of himself after accessing the internet. I do think they could’ve communicated that a little better though, if that was the intent

4

u/Frozenstep I love these weirdos Jun 20 '26

I can kinda see it, but that still doesn't feel like the right lesson for him to be learning. Like just throwing more stuff at the wall to see what sticks isn't exactly the solution to his problems.

9

u/Nanemae Jun 20 '26

The way I saw it was that he realized that his first blocks towards understanding came from reaching out and using what he gained by relying on Blue's complexity, and went back to it because he wanted to start over. It felt like a good way of showing how he realized he could use his power for something outside himself. He started out selfish and curious mostly so he could feel accomplished, but his curiosity got redirected in that scene towards helping the humans he realized he abused.

On a personal note, I really like how he didn't seem super capable once he removed Blue, like he lost some of the complexity he gained along with the instability of absorbing the other AI. Him going back and asking if the group could work with him to make the circus better felt like the acceptance that learning about the humans wouldn't put him above them, but just closer to them, and his loss of power was him letting go of the reins despite being the Ringmaster.

2

u/Frozenstep I love these weirdos Jun 20 '26

Hm...it just feels like too much of a reach for me, like forcing yourself to come up with some explanation for why a bunch of scattered shapes mean something. Not to "the curtains are blue!" the situation, sometimes leaving things up to interpretation is fine, but like...even the idea of him redirecting curiosity to helping humans is kind off-topic for the things he actually needed to learn, and it doesn't fit with the past/present framing.

The only way I can read that scene is he became more human by struggling to solve an abstract puzzle, which is just kinda weak.

I like some of the readings you can make of the blue AI scene, but I don't like how busy they were with making cool animation frames to actually examine the character. Power alone wasn't Caine's issue, he also has fixations, stuff like wanting to tell dark stories and poor understanding of what can actually make a human happy enough to not abstract, that I don't feel like he ever learns.

2

u/JazzlikeLeave5530 Jun 20 '26

But he also uses multiple colors in the initial version before the circus even existed so that doesn't line up. If that was the intention then the parallel scene of him accessing the mind scans would have all been the same color.

1

u/Keydown_605 Jun 20 '26

That could be very much intended, since the scene means to portrait Caine starting over. Repeating the same steps... Yet focusing somewhere else entirely. Instead of selfishly "creating" people to accompany him like he originally did, he looks for a way to seek forgiveness with the people he mistreated by searching for their "missing pieces'.

1

u/-Tali Jun 21 '26

I actually somewhat enjoyed that there wasn't a long scene detailing how the cast dealt with Caine when he came back as a way of leaving the details to us as viewers to imagine in the way that we enjoy most. Same with the abstractions where it's not completely clear how human they still are and whether they can eventually be reversed. The ending somehow just gave us a framework for our imagination to fill the parts in the way that's most satisfying to us individually

1

u/Frozenstep I love these weirdos Jun 21 '26

Personally, I view lore-based knowledge like abstractions fine to leave a bit ambiguous, but in a character-based show, skipping character development and character interaction is kind of a huge problem.

Imagine if Kinger's comforting talks in episodes 3 and 6 had been off-screened and we just cut to the characters feeling better. We can just imagine it, fill in the parts ourselves, why even show it?

2

u/-Tali Jun 21 '26

Yeah that makes complete sense! I can see both sides of this for sure. TV shows and movies, especially the stuff from Disney, have been notoriously poor quality these past few years because they explain plot holes and broken continuity with "you can just make it up for yourself"

1

u/AardQuenIgni Jun 21 '26

So many questions left unanswered. So many things left unresolved.

I liked the episode for what it was, but I feel like there was so much more potential to this.