History Film / Emperor2012

* WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue: Historical movies usually have this, and this one's no exception, detailing the fates, of Tojo, Konoe, Sekiya, Kido, Fellers, [=MacArthur=] and Hirohito.

* TheBigBoard: Feller's investigations center on this, the 32 men most close to Hirohito, divided into three categories; Military, Imperial and Political.

* {{Flashback}}: When Kōichi Kido meets Fellers.
** TroubledBackstoryFlashback: Feller's ones with Aya.

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: [=MacArthur=] seems like a hard-nosed glory hound, but he takes his responsibility to rebuild Japan and prevent further bloodshed seriously and when he finally meets with the emperor he simply asks for Hirohito's help in doing just that.
** Hirohito proves to be quite reasonable, silencing his entourage when they object to [=MacArthur=] ignoring Imperial protocol and offering himself up to take whatever punishment [=MacArthur=] has planned (he doesn't) for the sake of his people.
* SceneryGorn: Fellers strolls around Tokyo and several other places surveying the destruction caused by bombing raids.
** When Kōichi Kido recounts the 9th of August in Tokyo, all we can see are crumbling buildings in flames.
* SophisticatedAsHell: At the end of the movie when accepting Fellers recommendations, says that after consideration he's decided that General Richter can go piss up a rope.

** Tojo is the first we see explicitly, it only being AttemptedSuicide and a GoryDiscretionShot notwithstanding. [[spoiler: He was hanged.]]

* CoolUncle: General Kajima is a sterner version of this trope than usual but did engage in philosophical discussions about the war with his niece and Fellers, and helped Fellers sneak out of the country and avoid being arrested by the regime when war broke out. [[spoiler: When the war is over, he bonds with Fellers over their mutual grief over Aya's death, and confides his regret for some of the awful things he and his men did in the war.]]

* GeneralRipper: Pretty much every Japanese military leader in the film. Many were invoked in a coup trying to prevent the surrender, and their record of war crimes is referenced, with even the fairly benevolent General Kajima admitting he allowed himself and his men to descend to shameful levels. The Americans also have General Richter, although all he lacks the authority to make major policy decisions on his own.

* IronicEcho: When Fullers first meets General Kajima before the war, he confidently declares that if fighting should start Japan will win due to their single-minded devotion to the emperor. When they meet after the war, Kajima laments that their single-minded devotion led them to do barbaric things.

** Hirohito proves to be quite reasonable, silencing his entourage when they object to [=MacArthur=] ignoring Imperial protocol and offering himself up to take whatever punishment [=MacArthur=]has planned (he doesn't) for the sake of his people.

* CoolUncle: General Kajima is a sterner version of this trope than usual but did engage in philosophical discussions about the war with his niece and Fellers, and helped Fellers sneak out of the country and avoid being arrested by the regime when war broke out.

* NotSoDifferent: Funimaro Konoe, former Prime Minister of Japan, pulls this on Fellers when discussing how international leaders had taken over lands in the past, and Japan was just following America's "fine example."

* HappyEnding: Fellers makes the good decision to advice [=MacArthur=] to make the good decision of allowing the reconstruction of Japan with the help of the Emperor.

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* AmbiguouslyEvil: As is repeatedly noted, Hirohito's actual complicity in Japan launching the war and committing atrocities during it is neither proven nor disproven, although the film seems to side with the idea that he’s an innocent figurehead.

* SophisticatedAsHell: At the end of the movie when accepting Fellers recommendations, says that after consideration he’s decided that General Richter can go piss up a rope.

The [[TheEmperor Emperor's position in Japan]] has been seen as a god by the Japanese people for hundreds of years, and the current emperor Hirohito is no exception; this opinion does not falter even after the bombs which decimated Hiroshima and Nagasaki fell. General UsefulNotes/DouglasMacArthur (Jones) is sent to Japan to secure the Emperor's surrender, which begins with the arrest and detainment of 30 of the Emperor's top men. But this is just the beginning, as [=MacArthur=] assigns one of his intelligence officers, Brigadier General Bonner Fellers (Fox) to perform research and investigations into what should be the Emperor's fate; the famous General believes that the Japanese situation could become a powder keg if anything untoward were to happen to their beloved monarch, and Fellers is to verify that such would indeed happen, to justify pardoning the leader.

''Emperor'' is a 2012 HistoricalFiction film about the end of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, starring Creator/TommyLeeJones and Creator/MatthewFox.

The [[TheEmperor Emperor's position in Japan]] has been seen as a god by the Japanese people for hundreds of years, and the current emperor Hirohito is no exception; this opinion does not falter even after the bombs which decimated Hiroshima and Nagasaki fell. General Douglas [=MacArthur=] (Jones) is sent to Japan to secure the Emperor's surrender, which begins with the arrest and detainment of 30 of the Emperor's top men. But this is just the beginning, as [=MacArthur=] assigns one of his intelligence officers, Brigadier General Bonner Fellers (Fox) to perform research and investigations into what should be the Emperor's fate; the famous General believes that the Japanese situation could become a powder keg if anything untoward were to happen to their beloved monarch, and Fellers is to verify that such would indeed happen, to justify pardoning the leader.

** Hirohito proves to be quite reasonable, silencing his entourage when they object to MacArthur ignoring Imperial protocol and offering himself up to take whatever punishment [=MacArthur=]has planned (he doesn't) for the sake of his people.