#brilliant in terms of result but like. comically evil

[robobee]

anyways speaking of English words the more u read into how British rule straight up irreversibly reshaped the subcontinent's political and social structures for the worst .. the more horrified u get and the more u understand that sometimes white people are just evil

#brilliant in terms of result but like. comically evil #yeah yeah racialised slavery is modern but like. its still white people #and i do genuinely feel that like. there is a massive debt there that does need to be repaid by being extremely mindful of status privilege #and its also why every time i see some white person haggle for 200 rupees i get SO SO SO violent #the LEAST you can do bro #salt for ts

[maxwell-grant]

Would you consider Hugo Strange a pulp villain?

Yes. And I would argue that he didn't really stop being one even after his revival.

"Professor Hugo Strange, the most dangerous man in the world! Scientist, philosopher and a criminal genius - little is known of him, yet this man is undoubtly the greatest organizer of crime in the world! - Bruce Wayne, Detective Comics #36

Hugo Strange was created with the intention of being Batman's arch-enemy right from the start, introduced as such by Bruce when he figures out he's responsible for the G-man assassination, pretty explicitly intended to be Batman's Moriarty and with even an equivalent demise. He was big enough to tower over his henchmen and fistfight Batman, he had a uniquely deformed skull, he was both a charismatic but threatening crimelord as well as a mad scientist plotting to TAKE OVER THE WORLD, and I've heard before the argument that the Monster Men were taken from a Doc Savage novel released earlier the same year called The World's Fair Goblin that revolves around a giant mutated man doing crimes under command by the story's villain

That poor devil, Maximus, was a Fair visitor himself, once. He was given injections of thyroxine and adrenalin—and changed rapidly into a pituitary giant. But, in the experiment, his will power was destroyed. Now he only follows the directions of that masked devil who has him hypnotized

He said, "The Man of Tomorrow stuff was merely publicity to draw the Fair crowds—and a shield to cover your own experiments. But the masked surgeon cashed in on it. Obviously he is mad enough to really believe a superman can be created." - The World's Fair Goblin

(Considering Lester Dent had taken potshots at Superman explicitly in "Whisker of Hercules", it's not unlikely that this is an explicit reference)

Although there's really no overlap in the stories besides that, as The World's Fair Goblin only had one giant where as Hugo mutated a couple dozen mentally ill patients to create monsters and then used them to go on mass murdering rampages, because Batman has always been over-the-top. But, yeah, original form Hugo was a pretty cut and dry pulp villain, like most of Batman's villains who debuted prior to 1940. Which is part of why he only had about 3 appearences before they killed him off.

By this point, Batman was in the process of moving away from his pulp knock-off origins into more of his own character, with the introduction of Robin and Dick Tracy cartoon villains that would set the tone for the rest of Batman in the Golden Age, and with the debut of Joker and Catwoman in Batman #1, Hugo was already obsolete as an arch-enemy, and was killed off the following appearence.

Of course, if you know Hugo Strange, you likely already know this, and that he was then revived in the 70s by Marshall Rogers with a brilliant take that stuck to the character's origins as a brilliant crimelord and scientific genius, but also added to him a specifically twisted psychological bent of being obsessed with Batman and becoming Batman, a villain of unshakeable will and even a twisted sense of honor and ethics, refusing to divulge Batman's secret identity even while beaten to death.

And from that moment onwards Hugo would go on to have some of the most consistently brilliant appearences out of any Batman villain (at least until the 2010s) and would secure himself as a mainstay, albeit a very obscure one, figure of Batman, the kind of villain whose plots can range from Born Again-esque subtle destructions of a person's life to a rampage of mutant kaijus on downtown Gotham, and like many of the best Batman villains, it all comes back to a central obsession and psychological edge upon Batman, and the weaponizing and destruction of anything that stands in his way.

You could argue Hugo Strange used to be a cut and dry pulp villain who was eventually reimagined as a Batman Villain, and it would even be somewhat fitting of his in-universe trajectory as a man who started out a career as a figure of prestige and respect, effortlessly able to blend in society, until his repeated encounters with Batman and, most importantly, his gradually increasing obsession with becoming Batman, gradually destroyed him until he's no longer the one ruling the madhouse, but instead trapped in it.

But the reason why I'd argue Hugo Strange is still a Pulp Villain is because his reinventions didn't shed away what he used to be, they merely returned him to his true origins. Because Hugo, you see, is not just a Mad Scientist or Mad Psychologist, Batman's got those by the dozens. Hugo is of a particularly nasty kind of Pulp Villain, who came to existence around the same time as the Mad Scientist if not slightly earlier, an archetype Jess Nevins has named The Evil Surgeon

Medicine has arguably thrown up more serial killers than all the other professions put together, with nursing a close second - Herbert Kinnel, former chairman of the British Medical Association

The Evil Surgeon came to existence as a pop culture archetype in the late 19th century, as the result of serial killers like Jack the Ripper and H.H Holmes making the news, with Doctor Quartz from Nick Carter being first and foremost among these, as the main arch-enemy of the most published character worldwide at the time.

He would be followed years later by H.G Wells's Doctor Moreau, and the likes of Dr Caresco and Professor Tornada, the stars of novels created by André Couvreur, who was himself a medical doctor and used these novels to both condemn the characters as well as give serious consideration to the ideas they explored, and depicted Dr Caresco's over-the-top exploits harkening back to stories about Marquis de Sade (the origin of the term "sadist"). These would be followed by characters like Grigorii Trirodov, Dr Cornelius Kramm, Dr Gogol from Mad Love, currently the most famous example of this seems to be Hannibal Lecter. And Hugo has been operating much more along the lines of those characters in the last decades, than the typical mad scientists he was once designed in reference to.

Of course there's a massive overlap between the two and room to dispute whether they even constitute separate archetypes, they practically came to existence together following the footsteps of Victor Frankenstein, who really isn't a true example of a Mad Scientist in the original novel, and wasn't even a real doctor, but Frankenstein's reputation undeniably is the oldest cultural touchstone we can point to as an influence in the archetype, even if said archetype would only truly take form in pulp magazines and serials.

What I'd argue defines the Evil Surgeon as an archetype specifically, is that they are specifically centered around the violation and destruction of the human body and function more as murderers with budgets, than supervillains in labcoats. Mad Scientists are generally more centered around plots closer to sci-fi/fantasy inventions like sentient robots and immortality potions used for large scale global domination, where as Evil Surgeons are more preoccupied with wielding psychology and torture and criminal resources to get away with destroying minds on more individual scales, or turning cities into slaughterhouses for them to work in.

They aren't quite full blown slasher villains, like Zsasz or Professor Pyg, instead they usually tend to be quite good at passing off as respectable, mentally sound figures of moral standing, and usually possess a sense of purpose towards their work, a goal they are working for by piling corpses atop each other and moving resources to achieve, even if said goal is a purely selfish fulfillment of their own desires. It's quite common for these characters to acquire large bases for them to operate in, even islands specifically.

In Caresco Surhomme, Caresco has taken control of the Pacific island of Eucrasia. Caresco applies his surgical methods to the inhabitants of the island, altering them to better do their jobs. The captain of the plane which brings outsiders to Eucrasia is a limbless trunk with telescopic vision. Even the island itself is in the shape of a human body. The natives of Eucrasia are addicted to various sensual pleasures and generally submit to Caresco’s rule, for fear that he will castrate them or worse.

On Eucrasia, Caresco makes use of “omnium,” a mysterious and unexplained power source, to create: a machine capable of stripping the years from human bodies and reversing the aging process, a fast underground train system, food pills, omnium-powered diving suits, and so on. Caresco is given to such things as collecting the spleens of all those he operates on - Jess Nevins, The Encyclopedia of Pulp Heroes

So, yes, I absolutely would argue Hugo Strange is still a Pulp Villain. Pulp villains do come in many different forms other than the Fu Manchus and Fantomases that are most commonly imitated, pulp was the breeding ground of the supervillain as a concept after all, where they got to star in their own magazines time and time again. Hugo started off as a fairly generic one, and when he's written poorly, he tends to be brought onboard of a story purely because it calls for a mad scientist.

But Strange came back from death as something much, much worse than just a crimelord and mad scientist, a much more rare and much nastier type of villain that, much like Hugo himself, may lie dormant, but refuses to stay dead for long.

"Quincy. My servant. My friend," Hugo said. "We don't have much time."

Quincy was crying again, with joy. "How, master, how did you-?"

The therapy, Quincy realized. The hypnosis. The drugs.

"Stay with me master, please!" Quincy tried to grab hold a phantom hand.

"I cannot." Strange said, looking benevolently down at Quincy, stroking his hair with a touch the prisoner couldn't feel. "But there is one last service you can perform me."

"Anything, Hugo, please."

"First, remove the sheet from your bed, Quincy. And tie it to the light-fixture on the ceiling."

#replies tag #batman #dc comics #hugo strange #dr jack quartz #pulp villains

[popculturebuffet]

Ducktales Della Arc Reviews: The Last Crash of the Sunchaser!

Hello all you happy people. I’ve been dreading this one.. not because it’s bad. Quite the oppisite. In fact on rewatch I was marveling at how brilliant this one was and remembering why it was on my best of list. But because the ending, as you all well know, is the most gutwrenching part of the entire series. Three seasons and lots of other heartrending moments.. and the ending of this episode from the big reveal to that final shot above tears you the fuck apart. It’s hard to watch even know it all works out in the end and that i’d be watching the conclusion the next day instead of having to wait a rather painful week like I did at first airing. It’s just that good. So join me under the cut for a review of one of the series finest half hours and some of David Tennant’s best work as we crash the Sunchaser one last time.. for this season... and i think Launchpad crashes it again in the finale so I don’t get that title. 

So our plot for the episode is that 

Yes Clan McDuck is taking their version of a vacation. It’s off to Monocrow for the E.X.C.E.S.S. Expo! Yes it’s the EXCESS Expo! With the latest in racecars lasers and many more! The EXCESS Expo! With booths from such welcome guests as Stark International, Muppet Labs, S.T.A.R. Labs, VenTech, The Franklin Sherman Memorial Fishmobabywhirlomgig Institute, TCRI, Gryzzl, Sumdac Systems, G-Heavy Industries, Tylerco, Lexcorp, Wayne Enterprises, Quickstart, The Gizmonic Institute, Alchemax,and Baintronics! But that’s not all! We also have huge paneeellls! Hank Pym’s “The ethics of dating your robot grandaughter”, Reed Richards “How to Dispatch an Evil Council made up entirely of yourself!”, Victor Von Dooms “CURSE YOU RICHARDS I’M SMARTER FOR I AM DOOM”, Stanford Pines with “How to Kill a Godlike Demon and Get your Smile Back”, Dr. Bunsen Hondedew with “How to abuse your assitant in 2020″ Dr.Light with “The Ethics of helping your robot child fight an evil albert einstein”, Profesor Henry Hidgens with “The incoming apocalypse with songs from Working Boys: A New Musical” Ray Palmer “Welcome To Pain”, and you know our friend Ass Dan will be in full effect> yeah bitch you know he’s going to live forev... what’s that? He’s dead. oh shame. Someone call rusty venture. Yes I know i’m typing this. Shut up. THE EXCESS EXPO. BE THERE OR WE’LL SEND OUR ROBOTS AFTER YOU. 

... Where.. Where was I? Oh yes, big vacation. Monocrow.. which sadly is not just a big field with just Crow T. Robot in it. Someday you’ll get MST3K/Ducktales Jake, someday. Point is our heroes are excited, and Scrooge is also there to find the Maltese MacGuffin, a mysterious artifact no one’s ever seen. And the kids and Scrooge have their own specail guest joining them: Bentina! Yeah turns out she has hundreds of vacation days built up, and simply hasn’t used them so she’s using a few to join them. It also once again shows how much less of a heartless money monster this Scrooge is as any of his employees asking for a vacation, paid or not, in the comics would result in this:

So their off on their greatest adventure.. with Louie having’ bought something mysterious along with him he’s only telling the other kids about. On with the intro!

Beakly.. is intstantly not at ease as they take off after driving their jeep into the plane. She feels launchpad is reckless, rightfully so not helped by a lack of seatbelts on the plane or his cheefully saying the closest he’s got, a floatie, will help “When” we crash. She’s also equally annoyed by Scrooge’s cavalier attitude, having intrusted the kids to him only to find out what the adventueres are really like. And this is the only part of the episode that REALLY doesn’t work. She KNOWS these two idiots too well for this to be beliviable. Launchpad wrecks part of the mansion at least once a day, and before Duckworth she had to clean that shit up. He’s there all the time.. and more damingly HE DROVE YOU AND YOUR KID, YOUR KIDS BEST FRIENDS, AND YOUR KIDS GIRLFRIEND TO THE FUCKING MOVIES. I can’t buy given how bad a driver launchapd is she didn’t wrench the wheel from him to prevent their early graves. Scrooge meanwhile is her BEST FRIEND. And until season 2 for her and 3 for him ONLY friend. Sure she works for him, but outside of one incident in this episode he treats her as his equal more than his housekeeper for the entire series. They trust each other more than anyone else at this point. And the only other two people Scrooge ends up trusting as much are Donald and Della. She’s been around him enough to know how he is. What did she THINK he was going to be like with the kids? She’s met the twins, and even mroe so is on good terms with Donald even into the pilot and they only got off on bad terms due to clashing over house rules. So she KNWOS this is what he does with children. You can’t be shocked Scrooge took children on death defying adventures in a barely secured plane after all this time. It’d be like giving Donald a turkey to carve and being suprised when it ends in this...

It just dosen’t work especially with a professional spy! Her job is reading people! And yes I know many of you are going to say “Well she misread Bradford”... but so did Scrooge and so many others. NO ONE suspected him. He’s that good. So her suddenly having a complaint about all this stuff when she could’ve come along anytime to check it out or just looked at the plain bothers me a LOT. Thankfully it’s only really present at the start as while it sets off her concern their back and forth soon has a far deeper meaning. But Scrooge insists Launchpad take her on a tour to ease her worry, seems like a contrdictary set of sentences there, while he flies. How hard could it be. Somewhere on the Moon, Della has the sudden urge to kick her uncle’s ass. 

So meanwhile in a secret base set up in a cargo box, the kids are working on the Della mystery. Turns out what Louie smuggled aboard was the documents shredded on the date the boys found on the Spear of Selene plans. Louie got them by smooth talking Quackfaster who even he found nuts. It also once again shows Dewey was only holding things back by keeping the other boys out as in jus weeks, since chronologically there were two other episodes between this and the last Della episode versus just one, their almost to the truth as one document from that day is simply torn into pieces and simply needs to be re-jiggered like a puzzle. Like most puzzles though naturally once they get it all together they find there’s one goddamn piece missing and it ends up loose int he plane flitting around... just as Scrooge majorly screws up and bumps things, leading Beakly to wonder where the kids are and them to scramble out. 

So yeah Scrooge seemingly crashed the plane.. except Launchpad notes that if they crashed.. why are they still airborne? This leads to everyone finding out their precariously perched on a VERY narrow rock that’s skewered the plane. Orignially the crew decided to strictly adhere to the concept that any movement would rock the thing.. but realized i’td make things boring visually so they allowed themselves some artistic license. 

So yeah our heroes are stuck in a hard place and Scrooge stubbornly digs in insisting he can fix this and turns on the plane.. which sends it spinning and prevents Dewey from getting the piece which ends up wedged in the jeep. Huh I think we need some appropriate music for going in circles. 

So yeah all Scrooge did was blow up one of the engines... I mean the blow up the engine button is right there, would’ve saved you some time. So Beakley berates him for not calling for help and digging in and for it’s next plan it’s time for Handyman Corner where he’s going to show you how to jumpstart a plane with a jeep’s engine. Beakly is not impressed and Scrooge’s case is not helped as Louie feigns fear , with Huey and Webby following his lead, so Dewey can get the piece. Unfortunately pointing out the very REAL dangers they face, with Huey giving the odds and Webby pointing out unlike most dangers they face there’s no easy way out and no villian to fight, sends Louie into an actual panic, jumpstarting the car  and causing the cargo bay to open, leading to one hell of a sequence: From Bentina driving a butterfly knife into the ground to hold the kid’s secret base crate (and wondering why it’s so heavy), to Launchpad desperatley platforming his way to saftey to scrooge swining in with his cane to rescue them. It’s some whopper animation that really shows off how damn good the team was and how gorgeous this show truly was at it’s best. 

The results aren’t good: the plane’s ballnce is now off so even a slight movement can move it, a holdover from the original idea simply saved for when it’d create the most tension. As a result Dewey can’t get the last piece as he can’t move and Scrooge berates the kids and has thems tay still watching the end credits of darkwing duck (It’s launchpad’s inflight movie and the tape is jammed to that section.

IT’s here the Scrooge and Beakley stuff went from poorly written to “oh shit” in one line. Scrooge is getting more and more desperate to prove he can take care of the kids on his own but Beakely’s demeanor has turned from annoying scolding.. to genuine concern and PLEADING with him not to go through with another dumb stunt that will leave them in a worse situation, int his case using the parachutes as counterweights to fix the engine. He refuses both rebuffing her as “your boss” (Which gets her rightfully pulling on the cord too tight) .. but then that one line comes in “I can protect her”. Beakley is confused.. but it instantly makes clear this is about Della and on rewatch now knowing the reveal at the end.. it makes it that much more heartbreaking. Part of his refusal to backdown is his natural nature as a stubborn ass. It’s been well displayed throughout this season and the ones after it: HIs refusal to backdown from nevverst, his jealousy of Dewey for being better at him and his refusal to accept it.. the man just does not back down and while it’s good in tight spots and against bad guys, as he finds a way out for him and his family with sheer grit and badassery... it’s a massive character flaw when dealing with people, as refusing to actually talk to them like a ratoinoal adult only makes things worse. And boy oh boy is he about to make things worse. But the other part is he can’t admit to himself there’s a risk in his lifestyle and that he can’t keep everyone safe constantly.. that theres inherent danger. He’s bought into the “because i’m scrooge mcduck” mantra here not out of his ego, entirely, but because he can’t let that not be enough again. He can’t LOOSE someone again like he lost Della and he can’t fail again. So his worst trait and his greatest trauma have mixed to make him act so rashly even Launchpad takes some shouting to agree to give him the other parachute. It’s clear he’s endangering EVERYONE to prove he can save them. 

Eventually though things reach their head as Dewey CAN’T take the wait anymore. He’s waited his whole life to find out about his momma, and the answer’s feet away... and he can’t let it sit any longer. He HAS to know what happened. So he goes for it, though the rest of the kids are against it since i’ts highly risky and they can wait Huey ends up agreeing to help using his Junior Woodchuck knowledge (Where Newton apparently got the idea), to counterbalance hsi weight and guide him via walkee talkee. It’s a really nice moment, not only showing off Huey’s skill and intellect but also how much they care for her. Dewey may of screwed up last time but their still the duck boys and if he can’t talk him out of being sucidially reckless.. Huey’s going to at least give him a fighting chance. 

Unfortunately Scrooge spots him mid argument with Beakley and naturally wants him to give it here... but once the ship buckles when Dewey tries we get the scene that makes the episode. Up till now the tension has been top notch, ratcheting up by bit, not knowing if the kids would get caught, if something would happen with the plane all building to this. Scrooge and Dewey’s final chase. Dewey uses the distraction to make a runner for it with Scrooge following.. and Launchapd using the fact he’s still attached to the airbag to stop him. It’s a small but excellent character moment, showing that as much as Launchpad loves his boss.. he loves his best friend and eveyrone else’s saftey more. SCrooge of course uses it to knock him back while Beakley and the kids counterbalance. We also get the best joke of the episode as Beakley tells them to stop running.. only for them to simply start tip toeing, with Bentina’s reaction being a perfectly resigned “That’s not what I meant and you know it”. 

It’s a tense chase, with both sides using the enviorment to their advantage from the parachute to the crate.. and it’s breaking open reveals something’s gonig on and causes Beakley to notice Webby has the blueprints in her pocket and once she unfurls them and finds out what they are.. she can only give a sad, remorseful “oh children, what have you been up to” She’s not even mad like they seem to think.. she’s just sad, knowing the wound that’s about to be reopened for her closest friend and the one that’s about to be inflicted on those poor children, and knowing that they’re ALL made it worst by hiding it. Toks deserves all the praise for her delivery here. 

Eventually the piece blows outside of the plane and Dewey refuses to give up and go after it. Things get their most tense as everyone BEGS him not to come back, it’s not worth his death to get this. It’s not worth all of this. But he simply chucks the walkee away and ignores them. We then get Scrooge going from scolding grandpa.. to dearly begging Dewey to come back... David’s delvery here is just heartbreaking “I can’t protect you. Is that what you wanted me to say. Please lad just tell me what it will take to come back inside?” And Ben Schwartz meets it with an utterly emotional “Tell me about the spear of selene”. The animation here is once again some of the series best with Dewey’s determined face and Scrooge’s heartbreak as he realizes he has to finally stop hiding this from them and he’s not ready. So he takes his uncles hand.. and if you thought all of this is painful.. oh boy.. we’re just getting started. 

So back in the plane, with Launchpad setting up a table and a proper counterbalance so they can all sit, Scrooge finally explains and the boys, webby, and us int he audience all get the answers we desperately wanted: It was 10 1/2 years ago. The Original Trio had journeyed the world, having all sorts of adventures and making themselves into legends. But eventually you hit a wall and they’d realized they’d been just about everywhere. They could still globetrot of courser and as Season 3 would bear out there were some places they didn’t know about.. but the earth was about used up. So Della, being an aerospace wunderkind, thought of the next logical place to go. The stars. The Spear of Selene was a rocket, her pet project to give her kids, who she was expecting at the time the stars. 

Thing was Donald wasn’t on board with this at all. And the clash between the two, which we see in the flashback but don’t hear since Scrooge is narrating all of this over some cool looking semi-still images, was inetiviable. As I coverd in the spear of selene review I feel Donald was burnt out at this point. That he was tired of adventures and just wanted normalcy even before Scrooge forced his hand with what was to happen next. So to him Della should just settle down, live a regular life and raise those kids. The problem is... Della WASN’T burnt out. She didn’t need a break to live a normal life like Donald badly needed. She wanted to keep going and it was her choice. While Donald ultimately was right about the risk, he was wrong to try and force her into a life she didn’t want and project on her like that. 

What happened next though was all on Scrooge and Della. Scrooge simply did the thing that’s likely part of why Donald resents him so much and it took so long to fix thing: He ignored what Donald felt and thought, sided with Della and built the ship without telling either of them. His selfishness, thinking he knows what best and treatment of donald.. all backfired horribly. Della sussed out the ship.. and I still feel she was suspicious on her own.. and that Bradford telling her was him simply handing her a lit fuse knowing it’d go off and WHATEVER happened as a result of this would break scrooge. Even if the rocket had gone off saftely and everything was fine.. he could easily claim Della threatned him,k which she probably did and he simply went with it, and either way Donald would be unable to forgive either SCrooge or Della for the deciet. It just went better, and worse than he could’ve anpiciapted: much like the fantastic four she took the ship in the dead of night and hit a cosmic storm, with Scrooge only finding out in time to try and help her.. but the storm hit the ship.. and unlike the ff instead of gaining the power to turn invisible, she simply disappeared. She was lost. He and Donald didn’t speak again after Donald found out till 6 months ago. 

If that wasn’t heartbreaking enough.. it gets worse. The kids, full of fresh pain and anger over Scrooge’s part in things, their mom abandoning them, and their uncles hiding this for decades.. take it out on the one person there. Frank and Matt recently said in an artcle detailing the best 7 episodes from one site, or at least what the site considered to be the best, that Donald was absent because  he also knew and would’ve told them sooner. I also feel it’s because he would’ve disarmed this conflict, at least admitting what scrooge did alongside beakley. As mad as he was.. his own anger had started to disapate. The wound was fresh to the boys and thus they lashed out. 

Dewey blames him for it outright, Huey tell shim he should’ve called her back, and Louie tells him he shoudl’ve sent a fleet of ships to find her. As we find out in the somehow even MORE crushing ending he did the last two and as I made clear, and the show does, this was Della’s horrible decision. She took an unfinsihed rocket, she left her kids, she did this. While she regretted it and I don’t hold it against her because she spent 10 years away from the mon the moon, she’s suffered THROUGHLY for it and I don’t feel I need to pile on, Scrooge wasn’t wholly responsible. Still partly. Dewey makes things worse by impling scrooge GAVE UP ON HER because it cost too much. 

Look the rest of it is valid, if misguided, as Beakley tries to chime in on it and correct them knowing the full story. But claming, no matter how greedy he is that Scrooge would ABANDON HER.. that’s just wrong and he knows it. It’s why Scrooge gets so upset.. and why he pushes the last two people in his corner away. Webby critisizes building the rocket and Scrooge belts out “This is a family matter, your not family”. runing his position and poisiong his one ally by lashing out at someone who DID NOT DESERVE THIS. Make no mistake, this is present day scrooge’s WORST action. The past scrooge did worse, we saw that, but this is almost worse than the goat thing. Telling a child h’ed basically adopted, ignoring the finale twist for this as it’s irrelvant and all it does is twist the knife deeper, that “she’s not family” just because he wants someone to be mad at besides his boys... that’s fowl. Everyone’s against him except launchpad and tha’ts where his stubbornesst ragically comes in: he digs in his heels refuses to explain.. and the plane crashes due to it. though safely. Their safe.. but the family is broken. 

So we get our hell of an ending scenes. Donald cheerfully announces to the boys, who earlier had no intention of leaving anyway, the boats finished.. only for Dewey to inform him “We know abotu the spear of selene” . Donald is heartbroken, not only that they know.. but that he didn’t tell them. 

But since “it gets worse” is this episodes motto, we end on Beakley, Webby and Duckworth all leaving on vacation. How a ghost does vacations I dunno, maybe he’s going to go to Amity Park. Point is Webby, despite EVERYTHING , is crestfallen he’s not even going to say goodbye and still worried. As I said in my review of the finale.. it’s her heart that makes her and while Scrooge may be a dick right now.. he’s family. So we get the final lines of the episode Beakley: Well, you've successfully pushed your family and everyone who ever cared about you away... again. I hope you're happy. Scrooge:I AM

It’s just damn heartbreaking.. once again he’s lost everything and is too bitter to admit it and try and get it back. And as we see between the lines.. the boys were wrong: He drained his bin and his buisnesses creating a fleet to get Della back, and kept going despite the expense. He did everything he could to call her back. Nothing worked.. and he only stopped because the board yanked him away, Bradford sneering with pride as his plan, which backfired HORRIBLY, had at last finally gotten him what he wanted: a broken scrooge tired of adventure. And as Scrooge sits in his chair seething.. he’s broken again, angry, with tears in his eyes, loving nobody.. and nobody loving him, eerily mimickcking his first appearance in comics. 

Final Thoughts: 

This episode is a masterpice. It’s perfectly paced, with only a minor flaw tha’ts qwuickly snuffed out for a gripping drama. This was a gamble, taking 9 minutes where ther’es almost no jokes and just pure tensino and heartbreak.. but it paid off. This episode is one of the series finest and leads to one hell of a finale but on it’s own.. it’s nigh untouchable. This is the series at it’s best, and the finale and later information (More about Della and the spear, WEbby’s true origin, bradford’s role in all this and role as head of fowl), only make it better, with all those things being aware to the creators but not us. They really made us wait for this reveal but damn if it wasn’t perfect. 

Next Time: Webby, Bentina and Launchpad try to desperatley piece the family back together before the boys and donald leave forever.. and Scrooge’s darkest hour leaves him vunerable for his greatest foe. It’s finally time to get back to Lena as the Shadow War descends over our heroes.

If you liked this review, follow for more and you can comission your own reviews by paying me 5 bucks to review any episode you like. Message me to talk it over. And if you’d rather get a gaurantted review every month, hit up my patreon at patreon.com/popculturebuffet. For 5 bucks a month you get a review every month and as of now special thanks in each review. Even a buck a month gets the thanks and helps and my next stretch goal, which is 5 bucks away nets everyone a review of darkwing duck everymonth for my lovely patreons to vote on. Special thanks to my patreons Emma and Kev, and I will see you at the next rainbow. 

#ducktales #scrooge mcduck #dewey duck #della duck #the last crash of the sunchaser #della arc #huey duck #louie duck #webby vanderquack #bentina beakley #launchpad mcquack #donald duck

[joealwyndaily]

Man About Town interview with Joe Alwyn

Fresh off the back of a star turn in Kasi Lemmons’ Harriet, we catch up with British superstar Joe Alwyn about getting into an evil mindset, playing the long-game in his career, and his upcoming role in Steven Knight’s A Christmas Carol.

words by Francesco Loy Bell

It’s an unnerving experience, having to ask an actor to fill you in on the ending of the film you’re supposed to be interviewing them about, but it’s a testament to Joe Alwyn’s charm and down-to-earth manner that he duly obliges, happily relaying the final ten minutes of Kasi Lemmons’ Harriet with an infectious enthusiasm only someone with genuine passion for a project could muster. I had been most of the way through Lemmons’ bold new offering, centred around American historical icon and slave-turned-abolitionist Harriet Tubman, when the fire alarm sounded, resulting in a hoard of shell-shocked journalists being quickly ushered out of the building, only to be told that we would not be able to watch the last 25 minutes of the film. Fast-forward 24 hours, and I can’t help but pause to reflect on the surreality of sitting across from the films horrifying antagonist as he casually explains his fate to me over coffee. More on that later, however. 

Despite being the only actor in his immediate family, it’s fair to say Alwyn inherited some of the requisite DNA to pursue a career in film, his father, a documentary-maker and his mother, a therapist. Alwyn sees both as formative, instilling him with the “curiosity for looking into people’s lives, observing, and listening to stories” that had possessed him from an early age. “I always liked going to the cinema,” he explains, “sitting in big dark rooms, watching stories. It was kind of a way to disappear.” Though he cannot pinpoint the exact ‘light bulb’ moment in which he decided to become a professional actor, he does attribute seeing Ben Whishaw as Hamlet at the Old Vic when he was 12 or 13 as foundational, and “one of those moments that stick with you, where I thought: ‘I would really like to do that’.” That feeling soon blossomed, Alwyn taking numerous shows to the Edinburgh Fringe while at school and university, shows he can now jokingly admit “should not have been seen by anyone!”

Drama school naturally beckoned, the then-graduate enrolling himself into The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, an experience he looks back on fondly, his eyes lighting up as he recalls some of the more eccentric aspects of his time there. “A lot of rolling around on the floor, a lot of tight black clothing. And lots of trees, I was a brilliant tree,” he laughs, before informing me, in sudden deadpan: “you’re also looking at a llama.”

Alwyn probably wouldn’t have expected such a swift re-entry into the dynamic absurdity of drama school so soon after leaving, but then he probably wouldn’t have expected to be working with director Yorgos Lanthimos only a couple of years later either. Having shot his first job — Ang Lee’s reverse-engineered war film Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk — just after he graduated in 2015, Alwyn was sent the script of a then still in development The Favourite soon afterwards. “It felt like a special script. I mean, at that point, I hadn’t read that many scripts. I still was” — he catches himself, as his eyes widen in momentary wonder — “well, I still am new to this. But yeah, it was just... such a good script. I knew of Yorgos; I knew of his films. And those two things kind of narrowed together: this twisted take on a genre that can be quite conventional and stuffy, and his very unique, singular mind. It was exciting.”

A skype session with Lanthimos soon followed (“we talked about everything probably apart from The Favourite” Alwyn laughs), and the rest is history, the actor landing the role of Samuel Masham, a young baron in the court of Olivia Colman’s Queen Ann. Though his turn in the film is punctuated by exaggerated physicality — the court dancing scene with Rachel Weisz a particularly memorable example — Alwyn tells me that it was only when he got on set that Lanthimos’ true, bonkers vision began to come to life. 

“I didn’t know that it was going to become one of those moments,” he says of the dance scene and others like it. “Because in the script it just said ‘they dance’, or, ‘he chases her’.” He can’t help but smile when speaking about Lanthimos: “He is hilarious. And confusing. He doesn’t really say anything to you about conventional direction; there was no discussion of period, or etiquette, or character, or history — which I think we’d expected to a degree, just because of the nature of the film. We had two weeks of ridiculous exercises and rehearsals, where I’d be playing Olivia’s part, and Olivia would be playing Nick [Hoult]’s part, and you’d sing the lines, and you’re chasing each other, and... you don’t know what you’re doing, or why you’re doing it. And Yorgos doesn’t say anything. And then he’d get on set, and just kind of say ‘Mmm... louder, faster, quieter’.”

The profound respect Alwyn holds for Lanthimos is tangible — he responds “Yorgos again” in a flash when I ask him who he’d love to work with — and he largely credits the director’s vision for the success the film has since garnered. “He made it weird and wacky and bawdy and irreverent, and it’s just not what you’re used to seeing,” he gushes. One particular on-set tale gives some insight into the energetic nature of Lanthimos’ sets, Alwyn recollecting a close-shave experience during a flirtatious forest scene with Emma Stone which resulted in the actress being taken to hospital. “The woods scene; the rugby tackling scene. We — or I — got maybe a little too carried away in the rugby aspect of it, and Emma took a fall... which was completely my fault. She knocked herself on the root of a tree and hurt her head; the paramedics came, she had to go to hospital, and we had to stop filming for the day.” The sheer panic still momentary lingers on Alwyn’s face as he recounts the story: “She’d just won an Oscar [...] I was cowering in the corner thinking I’d just killed Emma Stone.”

Alwyn’s latest project, Harriet, is a stark departure from The Favourite, the actor trading in Masham’s comic fluidity for the chilling rigidity of Gideon Brodess, the vengeful and sickeningly violent son of Harriet’s owner. As aforementioned, it is difficult to reconcile the man sitting opposite me sipping his coffee with the evil he portrays on screen, and I’m curious as to Alwyn’s process for getting into such a poisonous mindset. “It’s tricky, because what he stands for is abhorrent, and obviously unrelatable,” he explains. “What him and his family did, and the idea of slavery, is repulsive. But I suppose with those kinds of characters you try to find some kind of humanity within them — which suits the time they were living in — to hold onto. And in Gideon’s case, it’s probably some kind of deep, repressed, buried feelings of love. Maybe love for Harriet? I don’t think he necessarily has a language for it, or even understands what it is. But he’s deeply tangled and confused inside. And you try and connect with those sides of him. But, in terms of who they are and what they stand for... it’s hard to find a way in. It’s near impossible.”

Alwyn gives a brutal performance in the film, deftly showcasing Gideon’s skin-crawling internal struggle between racist disgust, and Lima Syndrome-style  lust of Harriet, and his antagonistic villainy is the perfect foil to fellow Brit Cynthia Erivo’s stunning performance as the eponymous emancipator, Alwyn extolling her “formidable” work ethic and on-screen generosity as hugely motivational in his preparation. The story of Harriet Tubman, though well known, is perhaps not as staple a piece of knowledge in the American psyche as her actions demand, and Alwyn hopes that the film will help to give her the wider historical credit she deserves, both in the States and beyond. “Growing up in the UK,” he explains, “I didn’t know who she was, really. I’d seen her name; I’d seen the older iconic images of her. But I didn’t know her story. You hope that films like this will make it more accessible, and bring people in to learn about her and the story of what she did, what she achieved.”

As the politics of division take hold around the world, there has been an intensified focus on the debate surrounding story-telling, and the potential impact or consequence a story can have in the current climate; Todd Phillips’ Joker, for example, has faced significant criticism for potentially giving encouragement to white terrorism and racism. In this vein, the telling of stories like Tubman’s seems more necessary than ever, and this is not lost on Alwyn. “If you go on Twitter and read down on the news, there’s endless stories of division and racism, bigotry, families being torn apart at the borders. Without putting too much on it, if there was someone who represents a fight in the face of that, Harriet Tubman seems to shine pretty strong. And you’d hope that someone like her would become a part of a global curriculum at school.” Alwyn is hopeful that giving figures like Tubman their due historical credit — at least in terms of film — will universalise her all-too-recent struggle, and help unite people in the face of societal partition.

Alwyn’s next project will see him return to London, albeit a dark, Dickensian version of the city, as he takes on the role of Bob Cratchit — Ebenezer Scrooge��s much-abused clerk — in Steven Knight’s upcoming rendition of A Christmas Carol. Though he cannot give too much away, he promises the miniseries will be much darker and truer to Dickens’ sordid portrayal of London than previous versions. “It’s very much more in that kind of gritty, darker, slightly twisted world,” he explains. “It’s not as sanitised, perhaps, as most other versions are [...] it really goes into Scrooge’s own pain and why he is the way he is in quite an unpleasant way. And definitely in a way that hasn’t been seen before.”

Alwyn speaks with a soft, magnetic enthusiasm that almost makes me forget that this is indeed an interview, and I am disappointed to look down at my dictaphone and discover that our allotted time slot is drawing to a close. Characteristically, however, he laughs off any time constraint, and I am afforded some final questions. At 28 years old, the actor is arguably slightly older than some of the other industry ‘up-and-comers’ one might bracket him alongside, and I ask whether he thinks the hyper-visibility of fame elicited by social media is in part to blame for an increasing tendency to link the validity of success with being in your early 20s. Alwyn, despite having an instagram page and being in a relationship with one of the biggest musicians in the world, is notably more private than many others in his position, and he quotes a piece of advice given to him by Ang Lee on set of Billy Lynn in his response.

“It’s not a sprint,” he decides, after some deliberation. “Everyone has different ways of going. I’m still at an early stage in my career. I left Central in 2015, the first film I was in came out at the end of 2016. It doesn’t feel too long ago. I don’t think there is any right way to do it, but [...] I do think it’s an interesting point about social media and the idea of instant visibility, an instant attainment... it’s a dangerous thing to play into. And something that would be dangerous to get hooked on because I don’t think it’s real. You know, social media is [a facade]. And if you buy into that being a reality — or that’s what you go after — it’s not healthy.”

I am struck by how refreshing Alwyn’s attitude to fame is, though by the end of our conversation, I am hardly surprised. This is someone for whom the work is clearly a far superior motivational factor than fame or recognition, and this passion for his craft is evident in every project he touches. Ang Lee was right, it is a marathon rather than a sprint, but Joe Alwyn certainly seems ahead of the curve as he enters what promises to be a vastly exciting new chapter in his career. I, for one, can’t wait to see what he does next.

#joe alwyn #interview #man about town #harriet #a christmas carol #the favourite

[the-hetchia-universe]

So i found i miciti disney of phantom blot!

And i wanted to share the translated version of the interview ! ( and i like he has some kinda story behind the interview. The extras will be on a reblog post.)

"If I didn't have a heart of gold..."

Meeting within the walls of the prison with the one who likes to call himself a villain unique in style, intelligence and personality. A true emperor of crime, if it were not for the too much sensitivity that makes him hate violence and has prevented him on various occasions to get rid of the enemy Mickey, for now.

When it was decided to dedicate a volume - and a coin - to The Phantom blot, it was prudently placed towards the end of the series, in the belief that sooner or later the person concerned would be available for the ritual interview.

The reasoning did not make a wrinkle: more than six months would have been enough for him to try to pull off one of his famous shots, which would have been followed by the probable (not to say inevitable) arrest, and so it would have been easy to meet him in the cooler.

And instead, time has passed and no news of the lantitante Phantom blot has been heard.

That he had decided to take a long vacation or, even worse, to retire permanently from...business?

The only hope of not being forced to write with blank pages was placed in the major expert of the black character and his nemesis for sixty years, and that is Mickey. Who immediately reassured us. "No, Phantom Blot doesn't know what the holidays are," he said convinced.

"And as for the idea of retiring, I don't think it ever even crossed his twisted mind. He's not the type to sit on his hands, and even if he was, he'd never retire before he took me off the streets. He swore it to me... and he's not the type to break his word."

But then how did you explain him not talking about himself for so long? 

"He's on a break," sentenced Mickey. "he's preparing a big score... and I know which one too!"

At the Mousetown Research Center, very advanced studies were underway on a device to make people invisible. Very secret studies, of course, but not for Phantom Blot, as revealed by an ingenious electronic bug system discovered by chance at the Center.

There was no doubt that he was the one who planted them.

"Invisibility has always been his dream," Mickey said.

"And with that device, he'd have one that's perfectly good, not the handcrafted one that gives him his black cloak in the night."

the bug hadn't been removed, so as not to put the Phantom blot on the forewarning so that we could catch him red-handed at the appropriate time. Which, unfortunately, wouldn't be for a few months at the earliest. And to hasten the time was not even talked about it: even if it had been possible, an interview would hardly have been a sufficient reason to speed up the work.

I was already resigned to having to give up the interview when I had a dazzling idea. What if he just pretended to finish the job? A nice, exclusive benefit performance by Blot and his bugs and...

"And he'll bite for sure, because he doesn't know that we know that he knows!" exclaimed Mickey.

"Besides, if he has to act sooner than expected, he won't have the time to get his plans right, and it'll be easier to neutralize him. And there is another advantage: even if he gets away with it, he will have nothing to steal. But he won't get away with it..."

Mickey was a good man (not that it took long: all the precedents were in his favor) and so here I am, in Mousetown prison, visiting the blackest black character in the Disney world.

Who receives me in his usual cell. I'd like to describe him, but how do you tell something you can't see? The room, in fact, is in total darkness...

Interviewing an invisible subject is not the best, but taking notes in the dark is impossible...can't you turn on a light?

PB: Yes, but then you'll miss the right dark atmosphere.

Patience, I'll work on my imagination.

PB: I hope you've had enough. Anyway, I'm keeping the cloak and hood. Without them, I wouldn't be me anymore. Even the warden lets me wear them when I'm in jail. He has respect for my personality...

Me too, I assure you. You've always been my favorite negative character. The best villain. And don't get me wrong, when I say "bad"...

PB: There's no need to add anything else. I get it. On the other hand, how could you define me differently? Well, maybe instead of "bad," you could use the term "evil." I think it suits me better and is more exclusive. I'm the only one who's evil, and the comic book pages are full of villains.

And no one remotely has my class. Not to mention style, intelligence and personality.

Modesty, on the other hand, is quite common among you criminals...

PB: If you think you're funny, you're very wrong. I'm not immodest, I'm just telling it like it is. I'm not the kind of guy who's special, I'm not the kind of guy you're looking for.

That's what Floyd Gottfredson thought, too... 

PB: He's designed me. You ever wonder why I made myself look so much like Walt Disney?

As a joke, if I'm not mistaken.

PB: Pff! That's the official version. The truth is, he wanted to pay tribute to a great man by making him play a great character. And who could you find better than me? Walt and I have a lot in common.

Certainly not a criminal record.

PB: Obviously not. But we're both geniuses.

With very different results, though. His career has been a little bit better than yours. Speaking of which, can you explain the long hole between your first compo, in 1939, and your return to action, in 1955? Sixteen years is a long time: what have you been doing in all that time?

PB: If you had that imagination you boasted about earlier, you wouldn't ask me such a question. It's obvious I've been in prison. Serving my long sentence and figuring out how to get revenge on the man who put me away. You should have known better. And if you're really a fan of mine, you should know that I almost succeeded. I had a diabolical plan, a revenge so subtle that only I could have imagined it. Nothing crude, no direct violence. Mickey sabotaged himself with his own hands! I hope you publish the story of my return to the scene, so that readers will also appreciate my genius.

It's the first of this volume, a real classic. You really missed nothing because you're getting rid of your enemy. In this regard, can you explain me why, even though you had several times - and since your first encounter - the possibility to eliminate Mickey directly, you never did it?

PB: Because I'm too sensitive. I hate violence and I could never get my hands dirty. I wish I could. It would be so easy to just get the rat out of the way! But instead I'm forced to make deadly contraptions or studying very complicated subjects. Imagine that once, in order to get rid of my hated enemy, I managed to erase it from the mind of every inhabitant of Mousetown. Of course, as you can gather from my presence here, it didn't help. Do you know what that crude Pete once said to me, who I often share a cell with? That without my good heart, I'd be the emperor of crime! I hate to do this, but I have to agree with him.

Yeah, if it hadn't been Mickey in his way... He's blacked you out plenty of times!

PB: Yeah ! That's some low-rent humor. Why don't you also say that it's...stained my career? I don't mind anyway, because I'm tenacious, me. I'll never give up. I know what I'm worth, and I know the day will come when I can get rid of Mickey once and for all. That is, if luck doesn't keep on helping him, of course. That nosy little chap's always got a dose to envy even Gladstone.

You're not saying that to console yourself? The way you're putting it, it sounds like Mickey doesn't deserve any credit for putting you in jail. I'll grant you that sometimes he got away with it because your sensitivity prevented you from giving him the coup de grâce, but to say that he beats you regularly just because he's lucky, seems too much.

PB: Is that what you think? Then let us examine this latest supposed success of the brilliant detective, the genius of investigators, the terror of criminals. Tsk! I was preparing a perfect score, according to a schedule studied in detail... and what happens? That those scientists realize much earlier than expected the invention that I was so interested in, thus forcing me into a hasty action that led to my arrest. Mickey was there waiting for me, but if I'd had time to make a proper plan, I'd have done it under his nose, always snooping around. Grrr! And you're telling me he's not lucky?

Well, yeah, maybe a little. I'll grant you that it's not his fault, but the case, if the microplashes you had installed at the Research Center were discovered. But he was the one who figured out you planted them and had the idea to leave them where they were so you wouldn't get suspicious. And the fact that the invention was ready before its time is not a stroke of luck, but simply... false news.

PB: What?! You made that up. I don't believe it!

And it hurts, because I know what I'm talking about. I'm the one who gave him the idea. I went to consult him to find a way to interview you... Hey! Why did you get up? You don't want to...

PB: ...hurt you? No! I hate violence, you know that. I just want to hug you to show my appreciation! You are living proof that Mickey beats me just because he is lucky. But do you realize? I ended up in jail because of an interview!

That we can continue...

PB: Ah no! Even if I'm not angry with you, I don't talk to my worst enemy's allies. It's a matter of principle... that brings us to the end. So I'd be grateful if you'd leave. And on your way out, turn off the light!

#phantom blot #the phantom blot #mickey mouse #disney #ducktales #the reporter is a sadist poor Blot... #fans like me will never rebate on him ... #But I'm happy Blot counterattack him in brilliance èwéb!

[esdeem]

She-Ra Season Five

Spoilers abound behind the cut. But a no spoilers, quick hit take: The show is brilliant, the conclusion is beautiful and I don’t think there was a single character I didn’t enjoy on some level.

But if you want more in-depth spoilery thoughts, in particular some kind of deep dive stuff on Catra, then by all means... continue!

Starting with The Big Thing: As someone who wasn’t opposed to Catradora but wasn’t super invested in it either... damned if Season Five didn’t change that for me. Everything they went through led to a beautiful payoff and a strong, healthy relationship that is exactly what both of them needed. Honestly, the romance storyline this season was really beautiful.

But... okay, let’s talk a little bit about Catra and just how much I related to her and how much I found her story arc utterly compelling. The first truly brilliant move is, after everything she’d endured in Season Four and how she reacted to all of it, I was a little surprised to see her try to play Horde Prime. But it ended up being an absolutely brilliant way to strip away the last thing Catra had to hand onto from her old life. She couldn’t rely on her guile anymore, and you could probably argue that it was foreshadowing what we were going to see this season. Just as Catra couldn’t fool Horde Prime, she couldn’t fool herself anymore.

One of the scenes that really spoke to me was Catra’s fear that Lonnie would replace her as Adora’s friend. I related and it was in essence the linchpin for seeing what drove her, and giving great insight into the person she became. Her anger was a manifestation of her insecurity, the end result of her treatment from Shadow Weaver and re-enforced by everything else she’s experienced. And when she’s finally able to see that, she makes the choice to do “one good thing”... but she’s still convinced she’s not worthy of friendship.

And I love that Noelle Stevenson and the rest of the creative team refused to give anything to Catra easily. I love that she needed to reconcile with so many different characters, and her reaction as each of them came to accept her. I love how important Melog was to her journey, pretty much a physical manifestation of the feelings she tried to hide. And the way it all came rushing back when she saw Shadow Weaver, that felt so remarkably true. And that despite everything, she still convinced herself that Adora wouldn’t want her in the same way, until the very end.

I really love her storyline. She’s a remarkable character, one I never expected to relate to so strongly when the show first started. Her story is going to help people with their own problems, I know it.

And since that went really long... some other quick hit thoughts:

- Wrong Hordak is an icon and a national treasure.

- The other romances in the show were really, really sweet as well. I love Hordak and Entrapta and I’d love to see stories about how both she and Wrong Hordak might help him to grow. I love love LOVE that we got more with Spinnerella and Netossa (and Spinny being an utter badass as a villain... and “You’re my weakness....” Just.. I love it.). Bow and Glimmer is cute, and I didn’t expect the Scorpia and Perfuma stuff but that just works.

- Speaking of Scorpia... you could make an argument she’s the heart of this show. And watching her grow in confidence and remain true to herself has been such a joy.

- Shadow Weaver is absolutely fascinating, especially after reading a few interviews with Noelle where she talks about her selfishness, and even her sacrifice had an “all about me” element. I love the complexity, and the idea that someone can be both important to you AND toxic. That’s an important lesson.

- Horde Prime, though essentially pure evil, was a pretty fascinating villain to watch, particularly when his schemes fell apart.

- Also, can we take a moment to appreciate how freaking great Keston John is, especially voicing three distinct characters this season? All the voice acting has been great but I was really impressed with him and Lorraine Toussaint were phenomenal.

- I didn’t expect it, but I’m actually really happy with the fact that there wasn’t a “Save Angella” moment. Compared with comics and cartoons where the death and subsequent revival of a character have become punch lines, it was a choice that gave additional gravity to the show.

- in terms of lore... there seem to be some hints here and there that there might be vague ties to the original shows... Skeletor’s staff and other Masters weapons in Horde Prime’s trophy room, certain elements of the First Ones lore and the references to Greyskull and Eternia. I know it had to be kept vague since they didn’t have access to the He-Man side of things, but it was an interesting touch. Even without a connection, the Heart of Etheria is at least akin to the power of Grayskull, and I kind of like the idea of the show ending with the power being given to EVERYONE, rather than shared by one person or even a small group.

- If I have any quibbles, they’re really minor ones. I wish we’d gotten a little more with Hordak after he was freed, but at the same time, there are a lot of time constraints to deal with. I also wish Kyle, Lonnie and Rogelio had gotten more than a cameo, but again... there’s only so much you can pack into a season and there was a lot to cover in this one. I’d still be interested to see how they’d react to Catra in light of how she’d changed.

So yeah... that’s a lot of rambling about the show, but I kinda wanted a space to share my thoughts and feelings after watching the last season. I really enjoy this show and could easily see it being one that I’ll want to revisit several more times.

#She Ra #she-ra spoilers #spoilers #she-ra season five #catra

[soyouareandrewdobson]

Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na RACIST! (how Dobson thinks Batman is a supremacist, why I think Batman is not so good and Frank Miller is problematic

Over the last couple of years, Andrew Dobson has mad eit clear that he is not a fan of the character of Batman much (or anymore), calling him a Mary Sue and an embodiment of toxic masculinity as if that term means something nowadays considering how often it is thrown around. And don’t get me wrong, if you don’t like Batman as a character, that is completely fine with me. I myself am not the biggest fan of Batman myself. Or rather should I say, his overexposure in the comics.

Cause honestly, I do not hate the character on concept. I watched reruns of the Adam West Batman show from the 60s and the animated 90s show long before I even saw the Burton versions. Batman Brave and the Bold is one of my favorite animated shows of the 2000s. And I think that there are quite a few good Batman stories, shows and games out there overall. I do however believe that when it comes to Batman in the mainstream comics, things have taken a nose dive for a long time. Writers like Grant Morrison, Scott Snyder and Tom King in particular have over the last 10+ years (at least in my opinion) not just attempted to write stories about Batman as a hero, but also put him into the center of ever escalating events and philosophical wang fests so often, the comics and its characters (Batman and his villains alike) have become quite ridiculous. As a result Batman as a comic series is at times just too edgy, people get sick of certain characters (I like the Joker, but the way how he was handled in some of Snyder’s stories was ridiculous to the point they should have just called him Satan) and Batman comes off as a Gary Stu almost by default, cause the only way a “normal” human could even dare to deal with the over the top situations he faces, is by being even more over the top and smart and awesome by default.

 Now that we got my soapboxing regarding why I think Batman is not as good as a comic character anymore out of the way, lets see what Dobson’s take on Batman is and why he thinks he is turning Bat- I mean bad.

 He believes that Batman turns into a fascist.

... I would ask if that is a joke, but I know that Dobson does not get humor at all or can tell a good joke if he was possessed by Leslie Nielsen.

Okay, so lets just try to dissect why this is dumb.

First off, while I did not talk about it in detail, I did mention that there are different incarnations and versions of Batman to enjoy. Hey, Dobson himself said that the one he enjoyed the most was the Batman of the animated series in the 90s. Which btw I highly recommend. And so do others. But here is the thing: There is not one “ultimate” version of Batman to stick to. There are different interpretations of the character. And most people are okay with that. Heck, there are more than enough people who both enjoyed the 60s Batman and Burton’s Batman. The important thing is, that all those interpretations need to have a certain key element of Batman still in order to make the character recognizable as who he is to be. Which in my opinion is the willingness to fight for good even in the face of some serial killer level baddies and show also once here and there his smarts as well as a bit of heart (guess what people, Batman can be compassionate too if he needs to be) while at the same time wearing a costume as he does and try to convey the image of being “the night” to put fear in the hearts of those cowardly criminals.

 Which is why people in general will call writers out on being bad, when you do not “get” Batman or what people in general associate Batman to be. But Dobson seems to insinuate at least indirectly that people are dumb for not understanding it. That he is supposedly the only one who “gets” Batman right. No Dobson, you are not the only one. The shitton of people who mocked Batman vs Superman of which you were a part of, are proof enough.

 Next, I have to admit I find it hilarious that he believes that Frank Miller’s version of Batman is what he believes people consider slowly the mainstream version of the character. No they don’t.

 Let me try to explain it with this version a bit, seeing how Dobson does not and in doing so is utterly misinformative. In the late 2000s, comic writer Frank Miller, known for work such as Sin City, 300 and his run of Daredevil in the 80s, was tasked by DC comics to write “All Star Batman and Robin” a miniseries in 12 issues. While the thing has actually pretty good artwork by Jim Lee (an artist Dobson wishes he could be), the story itself is very, very bad. While Miller was in the past quite respected and was the man behind “The Dark Knight Returns” in the early 90s (a comic even I think is pretty decent as a story about Batman as an older man taking the cowl up again)  , his work in general even at this point was not that good. Miller had become an openly racist person towards people of muslim background after witnessing 9/11 in New York in person, Batman in his work became a vigilante who gets away with levels of assault, violence and edgy philosophing and beating his meat (metaphorically) that it just became pretty obvious that Miller had turned into a racist grandfather with power fantasies whose ideas oozed into his work. I am not denying the accusations Dobson throws here at Miller. His Batman in All Star is violent, acts like a self righteous psycho, kidnaps an underaged boy and does at one point consider that if he had Green Lantern’s power ring he could make the world “better” than Hal Jordan. Which considering his actions so far in that comic makes any person with self preservation instincts and empathy  wonder, what “better” means. Additionally, other characters like Superman, Wonder Woman and the mentioned Green Lantern don’t really fare good either when it comes to having likable personalities, making you wish a villain like Luthor would just get rid of those “heroes” already just to assure us they could not go crazy next tuesday.

So yeah, it is a shitty version of Batman, despised by many to the point All Star Batman is mocked to the nth degree. Miller himself became even more controversial and hatred when he wrote and got Holy Terror released, a beast I do not even want to touch upon at the time righ now. I just say it is bad as shit and one of the worst writen and drawn things I ever saw.

 HOWEVER… this version of Batman is not the mainstream one. I repeat: this is not the mainstream one, “accepted” by a majority of people. As the paragrpah previously show.

The character All Star Batman is considered ONLY associable with Millers miniseries of the same name, that did not even properly conclude as it was put on endless hiatus with issue ten. It has never become inspirational for any other portrayal of the character so far and DC comics also does not endorse the character in correlation with its main universe, even if they still sell tradepaperbacks of the series.

This, if you have any reading comprehension, points towards one of the biggest lies in Dobson’s comic: The idea, that THIS Batman is the one that’s been popular for the last 15 years or so, as STATED by Dobson himself in the second panel of his comic.

 No. No, this “Batman”, the violent psychopath who uses guns and drives a tank, is not the mainstream and never was so in the last 15 years. Or I should rather say 20. See, this comic was published like in 2015. Meaning he is referring to Batman from between 2000 till 2015.

Lets see what versions of Batman were popular at this point

So we got a Batman who was there for a girl dying cause of something done to her brain, a 60s inspired Batman who still was badass and worked well with other heroes and saved the world a few times, a videogame Batman who would not even have let the Joker die when his poison finally got the better of him (Arkham City), a Batman who travelled backwards through time into the present and then tried to use his fortune to support heroes in other parts of the world to do good (I acknowledge though, the Batman shooting Darkseid thing was crap, even if Darkseid is the god of evil in DC) and we even got (though not shown here) a Batman who even when he drove a freaking tank did not run over peolpe with it (Batman, Nolan trilogy) and would rather accept people hating him than being a hero, by taking on the blame of Harvey Dent being killed to not taint the laters reputation. Oh and did I forget to mention that Nolan’s Batman almost sacrificed himself to prevent Gotham from nuclear destruction?

And before someone says “gotch’ya” by pointing at another rinfamous work by Miller, known as the Dark Knight strikes again… I said popular. That comic from the early 2000s was not popular and again NOT referenced much by mainstream media or mainstream fans as good.

 Now I will say, Batman as in the mainstream comics at the same time got unfortunately darker to the degree I hinted on when I made this post. Cause the last 15 years were comic wise the time of Morrison, Scott and others in particular. Who were involved in such “brilliant” moves as the Court of Owls story, the introduction of Professor Pyg, turning Joker into a satanic archetype villain stu, Batman having the brilliant idea to go Big Brother Eye, the No Man’s Land shit, having to deal with more brutal murders than previously etc. Yes, mainstream Batman got more violent. But the violence was less in the character itself as more within the world he was part of. Mainstream Batman comics took on a more violent tone than there was before. But ironically, even if Batman had to face more brutal beatdowns and villains, by comparison he is one of the most “kind” characters compared to the ones he faces or even works with. This is a character who had to teach his own son that murder was not okay, cause the kid was raised by an evil murder cult.

 And even with the mainstream comics such as Detective Comics and Batman main series becoming darker… they are not pro-fascist or go into that direction. I read a lot of DC in general, not just Batman, and Batman is not going sieg heiling or beating up people because of the color of their skin or because they are poor. When Lex Luthor was president, Batman was one of the main heroes opposing him. Mainstream Batman is beating you up for being a murderer and highly violent criminal with a gimmick, independent of your political agenda. And the writers are also not pro fascist, including even post 2015 Frank Miller.

 Yeah. Frank Miller, whose work I am not fond of and who I think is a racist asshole who had things coming for Holy Terror,  is not really writing (or at least publishing) racist Batman anymore.

Don’t get me wrong, I still think the guy is bad and I believe if he had a chance to get his opinion out unfiltered, we would be in for a shitstorm. But I actually read up on his Dark Knight 3: The Master Race thing because I was worried how racist that is and how DC would recover from that dud. Turned out… it was not as bad as you would expect with a title like this. The “Master Race” referred in that story to a group of racist kryptonians who thought they should take over earth because their powers made them superior. While Batman was not the most positive character in it, he was fighting against them with many other heroes. This Batman was actually a vast improvement personality wise from Batman in Dark Knight strikes again and All Star. So yeah, Batman written by racist grandfather was still a hero. Granted, I think a lot of that was also thanks to the fact that DC had partnered up Miller with someone who kept things tighter around him, but still. Fascist Batman is not a thing the comics and the majority of fans want.

 Ironically, if you want to see how a publisher taints the image of a hero people look up to by making him more racist… well, Dobson’s “praised” and woke Marvel did once something called Secret Empire. Which had Captain America turn into the Fuehrer and taking over America. And the Nazis for a lack of a better word, were “competent” enough in the story that the heroes really only won in parts thanks to a shitton of asspulls. So… yeah.

I mean, the event still ended with the good guys winning and the bad guys defeated, but still.

#batman #adobsonsartwork #andrew dobson #frank miller #dc comics #this sucks #grimdark #batman and robin #syac #idiocy #fascism

[alexsmitposts]

UK: Everyone Now Drowning in Enoch’s Rivers of Blood The Prophet Enoch is a well-known figure in the Old Testament. Consequently his name has been popular as a personal name at certain periods, with parents of Jewish and Christian backgrounds naming their sons after him. The name never used to have any significance, except in reference to the biblical figure, other family members or some minor celebrity used to be the fictional character “Aynuk”, who features in comic dialogues with his mate “Ayli” (Eli) in local humour from the Black Country, the industrial area to the west of Birmingham – if you can understand the dialect. But nowadays it is a very brave person who dares give their child the name Enoch. It has developed connotations so disturbing that no one wants to be associated with it. “Enoch” is an insult you give to a particularly nasty, bigoted, narrow minded racist who is happy to be that way, regardless of the harm it causes. Call someone that, and you expect a violent or verbally aggressive reaction, a lot of other people joining in, and probably several trips to the hospital. So why has the man who destroyed the reputation of this name come back into the news? In the UK, where he did his evil deeds, there was no story. But the rest of the world has noticed his resurgence for the same reason they do when former Communists gain votes in Eastern bloc countries, and the German and Italian far right make comebacks. These countries are supposed to have got over all that nonsense, but here they are, backsliding into the bad old days. For over fifty years, British political life has tried to move beyond Enoch Powell. Now he is being looked back on with fondness by the most extraordinary constituency. What he represents has gained a new respectability – and this is as frightening as any nuclear bomb, or deranged US president, when you realise why this has happened, and how easily it can happen anywhere else. Beyond fame One of many ironies in this story is that he wasn’t even supposed to be an Enoch. The notorious former Conservative and then Ulster Unionist MP was christened John Enoch Powell, and therefore not expected to use his middle name in everyday life. Powell was always known to be intellectually brilliant. He was a classical scholar who university contemporaries remembered being very much a loner, simply because he couldn’t find anyone of his own level to talk to. Even near the end of his life, when accused of agreeing with something outrageous in conversation at a dinner, a witness to the event commented: “He wouldn’t remember because he is always in the clouds above us. He was probably speaking Aramaic at the time.” Yet despite his many gifts and accomplishments, Powell lives in history as a result of a speech he made in Birmingham in 1968 in which he attacked mass immigration from the British Commonwealth. This is known as the “Rivers of Blood” speech, because although he didn’t actually use those words, he quoted this line from Virgil’s Aeneid: “As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding; like the Roman, I seem to see ‘the River Tiber foaming with much blood’”. This astonishing attack on people of colour by a senior politician got Powell sacked from the Shadow Cabinet (the opposition party’s alternative ministerial team). But they struck a chord with many people who felt that the UK was being overrun by “foreigners” (non-white people), and they were becoming strangers in their own land. Though hardly anyone in a public position wanted to be associated with Powell thereafter, his views were shared by many voters, who thus considered themselves a persecuted underclass, being robbed of what was rightfully theirs by a liberal elite incapable of representing them. Exactly the same arguments used by the Brexit cult and its supporters today. Down the pub, in safe environments, you could admit to agreeing with Enoch Powell. In places regarded as “respectable” and “establishment,” his views and supporters were beyond the pale. Yet now, in a poll by the radio station of The Times newspaper, the most “establishment” journal of all, 16% of respondents have stated that Enoch Powell, out of a long list of historical figures, would have made a good Prime Minister. That is the third highest number. Just imagine how loved someone must be to be the third most desired leaderin any country’s history. Powell died over twenty years ago. But his racist rhetoric, and general outspokenness on other subjects, are still part of the UK’s political legacy. Everyone still knows who Enoch was, and why he’s famous, and has an opinion on him. Far from softening his reputation, time has magnified it beyond the many failures Powell endured after his notorious speech. So have the many attempts, at every official level, to declare him and his views unacceptable., because these are so obviously political in nature, dictates from above. When consulted by people in authority about other issues, people who agree with Powell think they are being spoken to as fellow human beings. If they mention race issues,they feel they are talking to a dictated opinion, imposed upon the people who repeat it as much as them. This sends them running to anyone who can treat them with respect, but still hold these abhorrent views. But Brexit has taken the sad rehabilitation of Enoch Powell to another level. Leaving the EU remains as it always was: the mantra of those who feel dispossessed because they have the “wrong views” on immigration and many other matters. Winning that argument has made the “Enochs” feel they are now in charge, and can behave however they like. BoJo the Clown and his circus have made this acceptable, and they pride themselves on doing what no other government has dared to say or do, because that in itself makes them heroes to people who just want someone to listen to them. All this has made Enoch a Prophet once again. For some he is a martyr to political correctness, the forerunner of Farage who suffered for being on the side the Brexit referendum has now proved right, in its own eyes. But most of us never deal with anyone like Enoch Powell. We don’t have a framework to see him within. This isn’t because it doesn’t exist, but because it does – and makes us all look so stupid, we wish it didn’t. Beyond point Powell has had several biographers. Each one has soon discovered that Powell had very clear positions on a wide range of topics, each meticulously argued, often in the face of intellectual disapproval. For example, it is generally agreed that although Saint Matthew’s Gospel is placed first in the New Testament, Saint Mark’s Gospel was written earlier. Powell spent decades trying to prove the contrary, with a supreme belief in his own understanding backed by wide and deep scholarship few can ever have equalled in this field. The big task for a biographer is to work out how all Powell’s different positions fitted together, and what this tells us about the man. Each one has made a point of saying they have done this. But by the act of doing so, they make clear that there isn’t a definitive understanding, and that what they think may be their personal conclusion, but there is room for argument. As a result of the horrible views he expressed, no one wants to bracket Powell with other great geniuses. But he was undoubtedly a major figure in the political life of his day, even when he no longer had any chance of office, or even a party he could call his own. Major figures do have one thing in common. Everyone who is good at a particular thing is very different from all the others who are good at it. Think of artists, car makers, sportspersons, newsreaders – if they are good, they are distinct, and do what only they can do. Brilliant people have the next dimension up. They can only function by being not only different, but the opposite. They cannot accept the arguments everyone else finds persuasive. They can only exercise their brains by arguing the opposite of what everyone else accepts, simply because only people of their intellectual level can do that successfully. Enoch Powell was an early exponent of what later became known as monetarism. He developed his views at a time when Keynesianism was the accepted logic, backed by powerful political and social forces which declared all non-accepters to be morally maladjusted, unable to grasp the rightness of the new, post World War Two classless society. In time, professional economists started drawing the same conclusions as Powell. Most of these probably never knew that Powell had had the same ideas first, and wouldn’t have wanted to admit it if they had, because he was a layman in economic terms. But when Keynesianism ran its course, politicians such as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, like Powell conservatives who gloried in seeming extreme, adopted a lot of Powell’s own economic thinking as if it were their own. Most thinkers in such circumstances would be glad to be proved right. But Powell was rather upset, insisting that these people didn’t really understand his arguments. What he meant was, if his arguments were so poor that his inferiors could understand them, they weren’t as good as he thought they were. The mere fact that his views had been accepted meant he had to reject them as unworthy of his superior intelligence. This is the one common thread in Enoch Powell’s outrageous and contrary bucketful of opinions. They were so wrong that only a brilliant man would be able to think and argue them. Powell needed the power of his own argument, which was always more important to him than believing a word he said. Maybe Enoch Powell really did believe his evil rhetoric. But that wasn’t important. The point was to gain intellectual stimulus by trying to make the impossible true. It’s the way brilliant people operate. But doesn’t it remind you of anyone else? Beyond acceptance Donald Trump and Boris Johnson are in broadly the same part of the political spectrum Powell was. Neither is regarded as anywhere near as brilliant as Enoch. But they attract the same sort of visceral adoration from the same type of people: those who feel excluded for having the “wrong views,” who feel these wilful outsiders represent their interests and no one else does. Both Trump and Johnson are regarded by many as pathological liars, and with considerable justification. This is often considered, rightly or wrongly, to be par for the course for politicians. What makes these two different is that they don’t seem to care, or understand why anyone else should. Trump is so associated with lying to his back teeth that people began counting his lies even before he had been elected. Since then, this has become a cottage industry, and has produced disturbing data. But Donald doesn’t care, and neither do his supporters. All that matters is that he makes the argument he wants to make, no matter how wrong and downright dangerous it is. He doesn’t feel any need to believe a word he says, or have anyone else believe it, it is all about how he says it. BoJo was sacked for lying when he was a newspaper columnist, and has made a long string of offensive statements about every segment of the population, in print and in person. Thousands of these are also well-documented. When this was brought to his attention, he told everyone to ignore whatever he might have written or said. It was all show, people shouldn’t conclude that he actually believed anything he’d ever said or done in his whole life. Those who buy into the racist rhetoric and wilful contrariness of Enoch Powell, Donald Trump and Boris Johnson do so because they believe in what these men say. It matters to them, it’s important. But those who say it are only interested in advancing an argument to convince themselves they can get away with it. They don’t have to believe it themselves, and aren’t interested in whether they do. Maybe we want someone to con us so we don’t have to admit we’ve conned ourselves. We all know, deep down, that conning ourselves leads to nowhere good. We don’t want to put ourselves in that place, or our friends and family. So we let Enoch and Donald and Boris do it for us, in public, and let them take the blame for what we have chosen to become. This is what these people represent, and as Enoch isn’t alive to disappoint anyone, he always will – if we let him, by continuing to let his successors get away with it.

[sweetsummerchildofmine]

Catra vs Zuko - or, how Catra got the redemption arc we never dared to dream for Azula

Ok so since She-Ra’s finished and ATLA’s back on Netflix and everyone’s having a super fun time comparing the two, here’s a long rant about redemption arcs that absolutely no one asked for.

[spoiler warning for both obviously??]

So Prince Zuko is still, correctly, held up as the redemption arc ideal.

Look at this boy of course he is.

As an excellent recent post I can’t currently find why don’t I ever tag things reminds us, the great thing about Zuko is that we always want to see him redeemed. Even though he starts out with bad hair and a bad attitude and on the wrong side, he’s a main character and a sympathetic one.

Iroh is introduced as a wise and lovable uncle to us all, so if he believes in his nephew, then so do we.

But it’s not all about how Iroh sees him. As this brilliant video from Melina Pendulum that I’m essentially just riffing on here rightly points out, Zuko always has a strict code of honour. He generally believes he’s doing the right thing, that the Fire Nation is doing the right thing, and that he can and must make a difference in the world… and is kind of a huge dufus. Now that’s getting a lot less Catra and a lot more…

In a lot of ways, Zuko is wayyy more of an Adora than he is a Catra. As another post that I can’t fucking find points out, it would have been incredible and hilarious if Zuko had somehow turned out to be the Avatar he was searching for all along. Mostly, I’m thinking that if a magical destiny and a new support group hit Zuko square in the face in the early ATLA episodes, we might have got something like the instant turnabout arc that Adora got. But Zuko didn’t get a magic sword – he had to figure out the evil of the Fire Nation slowly, coming to the final understanding that he couldn’t continue fighting for it, not even when it meant giving up all the love and prestige he’d ever sought in his life.

But much as Adora left the hoard and had to unlearn a lotttttt, she hadn’t exactly done anything bad out in the field yet. It’s Catra that’s our redemption arc poster-girl here. Because she actually causes a lot of innocent deaths and nearly destroyed the world but hey nobody’s perfect.

Like Zuko, Catra is introduced as one of our main characters, and she’s even more of an instantly loveable one than he is. She’s not an honourable follower of rules – that’s hammered home in her first scene - 

- but she’s relatable. She’s in love with her best friend, she struggles to take things seriously, mostly as a defense mechanism, and she’s bitter about the fact that she’ll never be anything but second best. When it comes to Adora, despite her jealousy and teasing, she’d do almost anything to protect her. This is something we see throughout season 1, right up until The Promise – the friends might be at odds, but she doesn’t want to see Adora hurt. Especially not if that hurt is coming from their childhood abuser.

So many people have written about the great ways both shows handle the trauma of child abuse and how it won’t necessarily look the same across a family, so I’m not gonna go hard on that. But as a recap – Zuko literally walks around with half his face badly burned off because he embarrassed/disappointed his warlord father. Thanks to a lifetime of negative reinforcement Catra believes herself to be worthless, and she’s noticeably twitchy whenever someone touches her unexpectedly. Growing up with Adora, Catra was the scapegoat kid, taking on most of the blame for all their perceived failures (and giving Adora her intense responsibility complex and belief that everything is somehow her fault yay).

It’s a less clear-cut dynamic for Zuko and Azula – partly helped by the fact that we never get much of Azula’s POV. 

..she’s kinda Catra without the benefit of narrative sympathy. 

Where SPOP never stops reminding us that Catra is a vulnerable, lonely, insecure teenager beneath it all, ATLA barely ever lets us glimpse it in Azula. And maybe it’s not really there yet.

When Catra gives her infallible villain speeches, we know that’s not all there is to her, and the narrative pokes fun at the heroes for believing she’s really that cool or unstoppable or evil.

The joke is…. That’s not Catra. But for most of ATLA we have no reason to question it in Azula.

When Catra has her breakdown after getting everything she ever wanted, but with no loyal friend left at her side, it’s Azula she most resembles. We get our madness, our lashing out, our losing it publicly. But unlike with Azula, Catra is able to learn and grow from that. Because unlike Azula, Catra has always been a prioritised main character, whose feelings constantly help drive the plot.

For Azula, this moment was a private one for the audience. It let us know how much her friends’ abandonment had affected her, and gave us an excuse for her approaching defeat.

The ATLA writers did have a plan for Azula’s arc from there, which involved Zuko being pivotal for her and every day I remember it existed I want to die a little –

"Azula loved Zuko, more than anyone save her father. She also felt competitive with him for their parents’ attention of course, but since she had alienated herself from her mother, she focused her energy on pleasing dad… which of course meant acting in more and more intense and possibly evil ways. By the end of the series, of course, her loss of her friends shatters the part of her identity that she could somehow control affection and love through intimidation. As a result she spirals… I did however intend to leave a kernel of humanity, and had we made a season 4 Azula would have completely bottomed and we would have explored the possibility of a path to redemption. True story!"

-       Aaron Ehasz

This is uhhhhhhhh...

...this is Catra’s story. She just gets to hit that rock bottom and has that hand up held out to her.

- but it’s pointless to speculate about how well or meaningfully the ATLA team would have handled this particular redemption arc because they didn’t get the episodes for it. Azula’s story ends with her, the new Fire Lord’s insane little sister, defeated and locked up to stop her hurting anyone else. yes I know the comics exist I am not gonna talk about the comics.  

No adult ever seems to worry about Azula. Not even Iroh expresses belief that she’d ever be better than she was acting. Which seems… unfair, considering his infinite patience for Zuko, and the fact that he himself was the biggest most effective bad guy the series never saw up until his son’s death.

So back to the Zuko/Catra comparison. Although Catra starts out reluctant to do much damage to Adora and therefore the rebellion hopes she represents as She-Ra, and Zuko starts the series at his most inflexible and serious, they follow a similar journey. Both reach a point where they’re allowed a period of happiness, and the audience hopes that if they do rejoin the war it might be for the good team.

Hurt and discarded by the hoard for daring to show sympathy towards a prisoner, Catra’s sent out into the Crimson Wastes on a fool’s errands, with only her loyal, loving only friend beside her, urging her to choose happiness, to choose herself.

Catra definitely has more fun in the Crimson waste than she does throughout most of the show.

Zuko too, when he lets himself ease into his customer service job, starts to smile. He goes on a DATE, he mellows out, he has fun being a vigilante on his own terms, he’s making his Uncle proud.

But they can’t choose it, because they’ve been forced into it. They need to get the thing they think they want first before they can decide to give that up. So when the chance to return triumphant to their old life falls into their laps, it’s too big a temptation to give up.

And though they want similar things – prestige and respect as part of a colonialist war machine – their motivations for wanting them are completely different.

Our good boy Zuko believes he’s a good boy. He has that strict code of honour and he never wants to let anyone forget that that’s what he’s all about. It’s not until he’s subject to the cruel effects of the Fire Nation himself that he understands how wrong it is. Until then he believes the Fire Nation is in the right, and needs to be proven that they’re not – again, Adora vibes.

Catra, again, does not care about honour. She’s all about trickery. No one needs to convince her she’s the villain of the tale – she’s fully self-aware of that.

And the thing is……. She thinks she deserves to be bad, that they all do, but her especially.

This isn’t an angsty revelation for Catra. This is something she did on purpose as vengeance on a world she feels has only ever hurt her. She genuinely feels that hurting people is all she’s ever been good for, that the best one good thing she could do would be to make the ultimate sacrifice and take herself off the chessboard.

Zuko has never had to doubt that he mattered. His choices always mean something, and if he’s ever in danger of forgetting the truth or weight of that, his uncle is always there to offer love and patience and council.

Zuko’s issue isn’t that no one ever tried to get him to try harder or be better – it’s that so many different people tell him this that he doesn’t know which version of better is right.

Catra’s never had anything resembling a loving and guiding parental presence in her life. No one really holds her accountable to her actions until that rad time when Adora punches her in the face.

The first time Catra sees that there’s an option to deal with bad mistakes that isn’t just giving up and doubling down is when she sees Glimmer work to fix hers.

No one was ever going to stand patiently and unconditionally by Catra’s side. Adora couldn’t (rightly). Catra always kept Scorpia as much at arms length as she was able to, because she knew that one day she’d go too far and lose her. (and she does! again, rightly.) And of course though Shadow Weaver briefly fakes being the caring parent she never was, she’s in this for herself.

Catra didn’t need to be told she was fighting on the wrong side – she knew that - what she needed to learn was that she was loved, so that she could believe that she was worth making herself something better.

She needed to know that there was an option to turn back and stop slipping further down the villainy slope.

Family drama aside, Zuko grew up loved and in luxury. He grew up used to hugs, presents and fancy things. Up until season 2, he goes around with his own warship, his own room, and no one to answer to. Catra has none of that she’s hoping to get back to, or to win.

No matter how high Catra’s star rises in the hoard, the closest she ever gets to luxury is in Adora’s dream vision for them. Unlike most of SPOP’s female leads, Catra is no Princess. Not only has she never known parental love and support, she’s spent her whole young life as a child soldier, training to be a weapon. Adora and Catra have never eaten cake, or petted a horse. They’ve never not worn some kind of uniform. They’re used to bunk beds and a sky grey with ugly fumes.

The most we ever see Catra get for herself is a slight addition to her outfit. There’s no fine clothes or room or food for the chief strategist of the hoard – she’s just a cog in the same machine. It’s control and protection Catra’s chasing – not materialistic gain.

She doesn’t even want power– she just wants to be respected and safe and trusted.

On ATLA -  as brilliantly pointed out here  – Zuko gets his big moments with Aang, Sokka and Katara, but not with Toph. I do think that was because there was nothing personal he needed to make amends to her over (recent assassination attempt aside), but more practically it was about the others needing to learn to trust Zuko. Yes, Zuko needed to make amends but we don’t actually see much of that in season 3 - what we do see is the Gaang learning to trust him.

The Best Friend Squad basically trusts Catra immediately. Unlike the Gaang with Zuko, they’re not worried that Catra’s about to betray them- she’s already made the ultimate sacrifice for them, and has no bargaining power with Prime. Where Zuko was a new friend when they did make him one, Catra was already everything to Adora and that’s not news. Glimmer and Bow love Adora, and they know she needs Catra.

Catra’s redemption is important for her story, but it’s not what our heroes need from her. Before she can have a chance to be redeemed, she needs to be rescued. Save the cat indeed.

Again, it comes back to the fact that Zuko had things back in the Fire Nation to give up, but by the end of things with Catra, she has no one, and she’s a brainwashed pawn. Unlike Zuko, who they worry might betray them again for the family, girlfriend and title he left behind, the BFS have no reason not to trust Catra.

There is nothing for her to flip to. She’s on their side because she has nowhere to go.

Zuko approaches the Gaang, seeing in them his new and only path to honour – the Best Friend Squad go out and get Catra, because she’s part of the hero’s prize.

To even make himself tolerable for the Gaang, never mind a prize, Zuko needed to change – to let his pride turn to humility, to let his prickly lone wolf act die. But Catra needed to mostly stay who she is – a tactical genius, a suspicious rebel who’s “never listened to anyone in her life” who is desperately, selfishly in love with Adora, our painfully self-sacrificing hero.

Zuko, unlike Catra, basically trusts his new friends, because he chose them. He’s known them on some level for years, and is prepared to take any punishment they feel he’s earned. But Catra spends most of the immediate time after her rescue terrified that someone’s about to enact revenge on her – she needs to learn to trust them.

There was no reason it HAD to be Zuko who taught the avatar fire-bending other than it making a nice narrative circle with his family history and because we’re already invested in his development. But to save She-ra and Etheria, it had to be Catra. Because only Catra was the thing Adora selfishly wanted for herself – only Catra loved her completely as Adora first, She-Ra second.

So what fuelled the fire of this messy disjointed rant was seeing a lot of people claim that no redemption arc since Zuko’s has been written so successfully.

Certainly, Zuko gets forced to reckon with his actions and make an active choice to do the right thing and make amends. Our heroes don’t all immediately forgive him and the narrative doesn’t imply that they should. I can see how, with less episodes interacting with the group (but really only just) Catra can be seen as “getting off easily”.

In getting into arguments about redemption at all I think we’ve got to look at justice and forgiveness. Justice is good and important to seek in a story for kids about writing the wrongs of an unjust war. But justice should be about the people who have been wronged getting what they need, not about punishing the character who wronged them. No single character that’s been wronged owes the one who hurt them their forgiveness - but if they give it, what then?

In the same way Aang letting the Fire Lord live had nothing to do with Ozai, and everything to do with Aang and what he’d be comfortable with as a pacifistic child, Catra doesn’t have control over the fact that the people she’s spent seasons scheming against or hurting are instantly prepared to put that behind them.

On a morals front? Sure, it’s good to let kids know that when you fuck up and act like a bad guy that you work to earn redemption from those you’ve harmed. But it’s also an entertainment show. And what we want to see as an audience for our wayward heroes is the reconciliation with the person who loves them the most, that they let down most personally - the closest the two of them have to loving family. For Zuko that’s Iroh. For Catra it’s Adora.

Zuko meets Iroh last, so when they do hug it out, we’ve watched him change and grow a lot - it feels earned. But Adora is the first one Catra sees - who doesn’t even ask her to change yet, just to keep fighting, to live.

“That’s how she would have gotten out, and changed. With the faith and love of someone she had hurt, but who stuck by her anyway. Just as he had been saved by faith and love from someone he had hurt, but who stuck by him.”

-          Aaron Ehasz on Azula and Zuko 

I might wish we’d gotten more episodes of She-Ra for Catra to interact with the whole crew and make amends, forming individual bonds just like Zuko was allowed to do, but I’m so grateful, that, unlike in Azula’s case, we got those episodes at all.

Noelle said in a recent interview when asked about whether Adora had gotten over the whole believing-her-worth-was-based-on-what-she-could-do-for-others thing that it probably wasn’t something she’d fully worked through yet. But she’d started working on it. At the end of the show, Catra hasn’t finished with her issues either – so maybe the bulk of any real amends she needs to make are still to come.

Zuko does get a more complete “redemption” but his journey was always different to Catra’s, and in many ways much more like Adora’s. The very nature of Catra’s story is about questioning how much she needed redemption in the first place, or at least, how much more than the rest of them. Scorpia, Entrapta, Hordak’s a whole other ball-game, Adora, Glimmer, Huntara, Lonnie, Rogelio and Kyle were all involved in doing bad, and some of them got the time to strive to make up for it. Catra’s redemptive moment doesn’t just come right after she just got everything she ever worked for and hates it – it’s when Glimmer, someone she arguably did the most to hurt, is also at her lowest.

SPOP may give us less of an epilogue, but there’s a certainty now that the hoard is gone. The Fire Nation very much does not go away, and only limited attempts at reparations are made. So yeah, maybe Zuko gets a harder time before getting crowned the new Fire Lord, but Catra gets no prize out of her redemption. Just life, and the knowledge that Adora loves her.

None of these characters make for exact mirrors of each other that are easy to compare. Their creators were telling different stories and She-Ra had that all-important gay agenda to work in. To preserve that, Noelle Stevenson’s talked in multiple interviews about them having to make Catra and Adora’s romance central to allowing both their plotlines and the endgame for the show to function.

(Though as correctly noted here I’m not saying that it wouldn’t have improved things if Avatar had felt like pushing for that)

I’m not gonna lie – I have not always been a ride-or-die crewmember on the good ship catradora. I mean I was here for it, I saw and loved and hated Buffy season 3, I knew what was missing in my life, but maybe I just hadn’t seen enough stories like theirs work out in either fiction or real life before and didn’t dare to hope it would all work out ok.

And tbh the crew crafted such wonderful characters I was in a very comfy multishipping place as a viewer for most of the show. (as late as 5x03 I was still yelling that glitter/catra and scorpia/adora were both underrated ships which deserved way more screentime.)

Again, really not the best person to say it without a load more research, but neither show is perfect, especially as it comes to exploring colonialism through fantasy worlds. But I think it’s definitely wrong that Avatar which has a lottttt of well-documented criticism against it is held up on a pedestal as the only way for characters like Zuko or Catra to make amends. Also, because no other story is hopefully ever going to be telling the exact same story for its world or characters. She-Ra certainly wasn’t. And that’s a good thing!!

So Zuko had to learn he was wrong about everything and give up the life he’d been dreaming of for so long. The thing Catra needed to be proved wrong about to allow her to change wasn’t morals. It was her belief that -

#prince zuko #catra #zuko redemption #catra redemption #azula #adora #she-ra #spop spoilers #atla #a rant that got too long #i have so many screencaps #redemption arcs #i still haven't seen ros and i'm ok with that but that bitch kylo wants what they have #this is the closest thing i've come to writing a comparative essay since my undergrad dissertation lol #if anyone made it through all of this forgive me for the amount that i just straight up repeat myself here #please forgive the messy screencaps #spop meta #atla meta

[skull001]

Friday... It was like 7:30 PM and thought I could take a quick 10 minute nap but was so exhausted from work that next thing I knew was waking up at 3:00 AM. And since there is not much to do to pass time, I decided to do something about it: write.

One of the things I always liked about the Sonic franchise is it's characters. It's not only that they have very appealing designs that combine cute traits with a touch of coolness, but also their well defined personalities. Saddly, I often see people get the wrong idea about them... and it's not just the fans (particularly the fandumb who misinterpretate them into something they are not out of spite) but even the people who are supposed to be professionals who for some reason struggle to get the hang of characters that at first glance seem to have simple personalities.

Today I'm just going to focus on the main cast besides Sonic: Eggman, Tails, Amy and Knuckles.

Dr. Eggman IMO is a character that was always meant to be a cartoony villain who is as goody as he is dangerous. While in Japanese manuals he calls himself a scientific genious of evil, the truth is that Eggman is for the most part, just a very selfish and immature fellow who happens to also be the most brilliant mind in the entire world.

The reason why Eggman is so dangerous is that he pursues his selfish desires such as building an entire amusement park just for himself (and to absolutely share it with no one else) without ever thinking of how he puts everyone, himself included, in great danger by handling forces that he can't expect to control. He is like a very spoiled manchild who is playing with fire in a tinderbox.

While he considers evil, it's also important to note that Eggman is not exactly what I would call sadistic (except in the Archie/IDW comic) since he never is shown to enjoy the suffering of innocents that are caught on his schemes... Eggman simply just doesn't care, but I believe that if he were to be conscious of how his actions affect others, he might at the very least hesitate on going further with his plans because despite being a trouble maker, Eggman is not a monster and in some occassions has shown to still have redeeming aspects that do surface from time to time.

Another interesting aspect about Eggman is that despite him boasting about how great it is to be him and acting all smug, he might actually be a character that feels lonely. In Sonic Unleashed, this point was brought by Chip and think there is validity to it because in the next game, we're introduced to his two assistants Orbot and Cubot, who ever since have kept company to the doc, though as expected, he treats them awfully (but never in a cruel way) just like a bully would to their henchmen. Perhaps Eggman does want to have friends, but because of his selfish and self-centered personality, he drives away anyone who might want to try to come close to him. Heck, the only reason he and Amy remained Fuzzy Puppy buddies in Sonic Boom was that for once, Eggman stopped acting like a spoiled brat and returned the stolen figure after Amy threatened to stop being his friend.

Tails (aka Miles Prower). Tails is a character that has suffered a lot in recent games because of what I mentioned at the start of this wall of text: simple characters who are misunderstood.

This is a character that is meant to be the kid of the group, and as such, he would be the one who experiences doubts and self-confidence issues because while you have strong and experienced characters like Sonic and Knuckles, or the self-made heroine that Amy Rose eventually grew to become, Tails is just the youngest member of the group who for the longest time relied on being by Sonic's side to have the confidence to do things.

Tails has a talent when it comes to tinkering with machines which seems to bring him great joy (I imagine it's the kind like when I build sci-fi model kits), and is always seeking to gain the acknowledgement from his friends by showing to them his latest inventions. At heart, Tails is a gentle child who is the exact opposite of Dr. Eggman because while the doc uses all his talents and resources for self-serving purposes, Tails wants for his inventions to help make life easier for others. However, often his inventions have flaws/bugs that the boy oversees because of his child-like enthusiasm, and this can sometimes cause troubles (like in Sonic Boom's "UT" episode) that causes for Tails to sink into his own doubts.

One thing that I feel is very important to take into consideration is that Tails should never be the kind of character that guilt-trips the audience into feeling sorry for him. When one feels empathy for a character, it's often because they struggle and show very humane and relatable emotions. Tails being confused about what went wrong is IMO a very sincere form of showing his doubts and him trying to correct them is his form of struggle. A trap writers could fall for is to make the other characters act mean to him which is something I feel should be avoided because it cheapens the whole thing.

Amy Rose. With Amy, the thing I liked and always believed is that out of all the characters, she is the one with the most potential... And what annoys me is the way Sonic Team fails to deliver on it by all of the wrong reasons.

I always loved Amy because she is one of the characters that to mee feels the most "real". Amy is a very energetic and bubbly girl with an endless supply of optimism that always makes her see the best out of any situation. She also has quite some flaws too, like being impulsive, quick to jump into conclussions, can be a bit feisty, etc... IMO, this makes Amy feel closer to the normal people and believe that in the Sonic franchise, she serves as a bridge between Sonic's bigger than life adventures and the normal, everyday life. But if there is one thing that this character has that won me over, is her compassion and empathy for others. Sure, every character can show that too because it's a basic humane quality. However, none of them takes it to the length that Amy does because what makes Amy unique is that her compassion and empathy also extends towards the bad guys. You see, Amy is the kind of character that believes that everyone deserves to be happy in life, and because her insight makes her realize the sadness experienced by those who lost their way and deviated into a dark path, she will try to make them realize the inner good that they forgot existed or did not know was there. Where Sonic saves the world, Amy saves bad guys from themselves.

Funny enough, Amy herself is a character that I am very sympathetic for because unlike Tails and Knuckles, who from the very start of their careers had the full support of Sonic Team and always received a preferential treatment, Amy is a character that had to start literally from zero to get where she is now... and even then, sometimes it feels like she is often left behind by the developers who overlook the many things that she as a character can contribute to the main cast, what she herself can accomplish as a hero, what she can add as a playable character... And it's this one-sided form of exclussion that feels so unfair, based on dumbass ideas like "she wasn't part of the Genesis trilogy" that has resulted in so many missed opportunities... From SA2 not continuing her character development by giving the spotlight instead to Knuckles (who didn't even contributed to the plot in any meaningful way and was just there for the sake of pandering to his popularity), to being robbed in Forces from being the leader the IDW comic showed (and which previous games hinted she would one day become) to Mania not having her in the game despite already haven proved to be a great addition in Sonic Advence, giving her spot instead to a couple of literal nobodies. Even the animated mini-series would had also forgotten all about her had it not been for Tyson Hesse, who likes the character and always wanted to feature her and insisted until he got the green light to go ahead with what I feel is the most special episode of the Mania Adventures mini series (and the oerfect Christmas gift for me).If only Christian Whitehead and Takashi Iizuka had been more like Hesse... Cowards. No, I'm not even fucking sorry for calling them that.

Sometimes, as an Amy fan, it's so very hard to have any love for things like the immensely popular "classic trio" (the concept, not the characters involved) because how this has resulted in Amy always getting the short end of the stick. This is a character that IMO should had been right up there along Tails in terms of importance, not being sidelined or excluded over crap "reasons".

And finally, Knuckles.

Oh Knuckles, where do I begin. Despite how sometimes I may sound harsh towards the character, I have to say that I do like Knuckles because as a character, I believe he can be one of the most entertaining and relatable of the franchise, but because Sonic Team are a mixed bag themselves (they create wonderful character designs and give them unique personalities for the most part, but God if they can be clumsy when it comes to handling them) I feel that Knuckles is the opposite of Amy in that he is a character that fell victim of his popularity, where Amy on the other hand is a victim just because she wasn't introduced in a certain trilogy of games.

As a character, Knuckles feels like a mix between Donald Ducks short-tempered personality, and Daffy Duck's jealousy towards the main character. Indeed, Knux can be quite explosive with his temper, especially if it involves unwanted visitors laying their filthy casual paws all over the master emerald, or when facing unexpected obstacles (I know how this feels... I too hate when my work is affected by factors outside my own power. XD) which in animation, were hilariously captured by Tyson.

Knuckles relationship with Sonic on paper is that of a friendly rivalry... Not because Knuckles is this supposedly good, close friend of Sonic, which I still believe he is not (Tails has a reason to be a close friend, Amy has a reason AND had to struggle and insist until she finally got there... Knuckles though, he was never given one, although it's never too late to start working on it), but rather, because Knuckles was never a bad guy... He simply was some echidna with a very honest and naive sense of what is right which Dr. Eggman took advantage of to pit him against Sonic and Tails. Even if Knuckles was thankful to Sonic for helping clear the mess and recover the master emerald, I believe that deep down, Knuckles still resents having not only been tricked by Eggman, but also being beaten by Sonic... and not just in the literal sense of having been KO'd in Kombat, but also in the sense that Sonic did what he was supposed to do: retrieve the master emerald. This IMO is a wound in Knuckles' pride that never truly healed.

And this brings me to what makes Knuckles so sympathetic. Knuckles is the least brilliant mind of the group. He us also stubborn... A literal knucklehead. And yet, Knuckles is aware of this and in more than one occassion has expressed his frustration and regret for how easy he can be taken advantage of... How could someone not love Knuckles and just want to give him a good hug? This is why I was so very moved when the Archie comic had a heartwarming moment where he and Amy have a talk during a journey to retrieve the shards of the master emerald. Ian Flynn did a great job IMO at humanizing Knux by having him open up to Amy and talk about the things that trouble him, from Sonic being a teased, to his doubt to whether he is worthy of being the master emerald's guardian... And how Amy not only reminded how despite his mistakes, he never ever gave up. And when their adventure was over and succeded in their mission, Amy gave Knuckles that hug he deserved and needed so badly to make him feel appreciated.

They are all wonderful characters when they are done right, and why it so frustrates me so very much when they mess up with them because people, like the unintelligent mass of meat that they are, will always jump to the laziest and easiest conclussion, which is why they all have been given negative stigmas that have been so hard to shake off.

I really wish that these characters were made not only justice, but also to be handled by competent people that can understand what makes them themselves, who understand how they are suppose to act like and provide something that actually rewards their fans instead of punishing them (I'm looking at you Sonic Forces!). Funny how it's cartoons like Sonic Boom, the very last Archie comics and the IDW comic that has been delivering the things I always wanted while the games struggle and fail to deliver. This is why the idea of the next game worries me because I really don't have much faith in Sonic Team doing anything that has not been done in the last games: Sonic only, Tails's character being further butchered while Amy and Knuckles are glorified extras. How can I even have the least faith in them when their track record speaks so loud and clear? Only way the next game will give this characters the care they deserve is if the story is writen by either Ian Flynn or Tyson Hesse. They're the only ones that deliver what Pontac, that other guy and Sonic Team themselves failed to do.

#Sonic the Hedgehog #Miles Tails Prower #Amy Rose #Knuckles the Echidna #Dr. Eggman

[mostlymovieswithmax]

1. Logan (2017)

Spoiler warning? Probably.

At the time, this was one of those ‘once in a blue moon’ movies. It took a character we’d seen portrayed by the same actor for 17 years over a period of eight movies and gave us something we never knew we needed. James Mangold flipped the formula on us and delivered a film that didn’t need to promote a franchise or pander to a whole host of demographics so that they could get as many people in the cinema as possible. Those who worked on it looked at the people who had followed the X-Men movies, even those who were just kids when the first movie came out at the start of the millennium, and decided to treat the audience with dignity and respect, knowing at the very least, those who had grown up watching Hugh Jackman in this role from the beginning would be old enough to view a movie like this. They gave this iteration of the character a proper send-off before he was left to stagnate and fade. It was something that hadn’t really been done in the superhero genre before and I would argue, hasn’t been done since. They gave us Logan.

How do I explain that this is my favourite movie of all time? Yes it is well-made. Yes, it ticks a lot of the technical boxes I look for in movies. It is what it is because it stems from a franchise of films based on comic book superheroes. Without the highs of movies like X-Men: Days Of Future Past, or lows of movies like X-Men Origins: Wolverine (which I still kind of find fun to watch), would Logan exist today? Or, if the answer is yes, how different would it be if we took even one of those movies away? Everything happened in the order and time it did and as a result, this movie came into being. I doubt the connection I have to Logan would be as strong or even have developed in the first place if it didn’t have those previous entries to continue the character from. I remember going to see Logan in the cinema when it was released and at the time, I didn’t think all that much of it. Characters that I had grown to love over the years from when I was a child died in front of me and when they died, they died for good. No resurrections this time. And I knew that. But I sat, stone-faced, unmoved by what I was seeing and now, two years on from watching it initially and having seen it multiple times since, I have to ask myself… why? My most recent viewing had me bawling like a baby. Why was my earliest reaction to my now favourite movie so mild? When you think of grand climaxes to beloved characters, especially superheroes, it’s not uncommon to think a proper send-off is something akin to Avengers: Endgame. I’ve seen Wolverine built up over 17 years. He fought a samurai robot in The Wolverine; he went up against the Dark Phoenix in The Last Stand and had the skin torn away from his body repeatedly in an attempt to keep her from destroying everything; he stopped an apocalyptic extermination of mutants in Days Of Future Past. So logically, doesn’t he deserve a goodbye that measures up to those standards we’ve applied to him over the years? To put him in a situation that requires him to save the world? Is this the ending I wanted when I saw the movie for the first time? Logan is small-scale. It deals with a situation on an intrinsically human level. The only goal is to protect a child and get away from the bad guys, who serve as a last middle finger to a character who has gone through so much shit and who at this point, at almost 200 years old in the year 2029, just wants to buy a boat and live out the rest of his days in peace with his oldest and only remaining friend. Logan understands the scale it conveys and uses that to its advantage, grounding the character and the story as a whole in order to give it the emotional weight and resonance it needs to serve as not just a decent end for Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, but a notable, spectacular end for an iconic character in popular culture.

How original Logan is in terms of the story it tells and how it goes about certain elements is debatable, although I’m not entirely of the opinion that it’s even trying to be so unheard of in every department. Yes, I’ve never seen anything like this before in the confines of an existing character who, up until now has only been seen to operate under the restriction of what is appropriate to a viewer aged 12 or above. I’ve never seen this kind of story told in as bleak a fashion when it comes to comic book superhero movies. But no, this is not the first and only movie to tackle the themes it’s going for or the type of story it tells. We’ve all seen road trip movies; there are countless tragic hero stories and antagonists set on building armies. How many times have we seen a movie where the villain is just an evil version of the hero? This isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel. Juxtaposing Logan (aka James Howlett/aka Wolverine) with X-24, a younger, stronger version of himself was a brilliant way to go. It speaks subconsciously to the characters’ fears and what he sees himself as. He is his own demon. This film takes a lot of inspiration from and pays homage to the type of stories that are told in old Westerns, specifically the 1953 film ‘Shane’, where a gunslinger hopes to settle down with a family but is forced into a battle between two separate parties. Mangold goes as far as to literally show a scene from Shane in Logan to highlight this and say that it’s not a wholly new concept for a movie, but wears its inspirations on its sleeve and even acts as a tribute.

The acting is superb, as if anyone needed to be reassured. Hugh Jackman gives maybe the best performance of his career in this. He gives it his all, as someone who clearly cares a lot about the character of Logan/Wolverine and manages to portray him in a way I never knew I needed. Patrick Stewart takes his iconic Professor X (someone we’ve known on the big screen just as long as Wolverine), who’s always been such a wise and collected authority figure, and twists him into this heart-breakingly haunted ghost of his former self, dipping in and out of sanity as he battles with the very human disease of dementia. Dafne Keen as Laura is exactly the fire this film needed to elevate itself past being just above average. A girl of few words but a presence that is felt so strongly. For a first feature and from someone so young, I’m amazed at how spot on the casting for this character was.

Violent and visceral; I now feel every emotional beat like a punch to the gut. The sound and cinematography are so well done and make for some heavy scenes that are meant to establish characters or make the audience feel horrible and upset. The first scene itself lets us know exactly where Logan is at in life and it’s genuinely one of the many highlights. The writing is pitch perfect; it is everything that I want and more and, if I’m in the right mood, has no problem reducing me to tears. The ever-memorable screenplay gives these characters a lot more depth than they had previously by honing in on what is explored in the previous movies. We always knew Logan was a pretty tragic character but never before have we seen the extent of how haunted he is. The sadness of it all comes from realising he has constantly been dealt a bad hand for nearly two centuries and is seldom given much of a break. Every time I revisit Logan I find something else to love about it. Possibly my one and only gripe is that the score could be better and really, as scores go, it’s still decent. With all the blood and action and misery and sorrow and blood (again) that is exhibited, I hang on to the small glimmer of hope that takes this movie to the end, in what is a heartbreaking finish but also an immensely satisfying one. I’m not sure I’ll ever tire of this. I can’t see myself one day feeling like I no longer get enough out of it to warrant watching it again. Logan brings a magnificent conclusion to a character I’ve followed for so long and I’m so thankful that Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine wasn’t left to collect dust until retiring in a most lacklustre fashion. This is everything I love about film.

#logan #dir: james mangold #movie #review #ranking #favourite movies #x-men #logan spoilers

[eggoreviews]

E3 2019 Nintendo Direct - BREAKDOWN

Oh wow. That big ol direct sure was something. So now I’m here to break down everything that happened in unnecessary fashion and give my personal reaction to everything that happened with my tried and true Excitement Rater. Want to see my heavily scientific and not at all arbitrary process? Then click down to see the deets.

Before we kick off my (very very scientific) breakdown of this year’s packed direct, I thought I’d briefly go over how I rate things:

A random string of letters/numbers = Immeasurable excitement

YEEHAW BABEY = Big excitement

Heck Yeck = Vague excitement

Yeah! = Not really excited, but still could be good

Sure, why not? = I’m more confused than excited but sure

Oh = The excitement isn’t there

Oh no = Used on the rare occasion I really don’t like what I’ve seen

The Hero from the Dragon Quest series in Smash!

After a brief montage of some games that already came out I guess, the direct jumps straight into an ominous shot of World of Light baddie Dharkon, followed by a seemingly hopeless fight between Link and one very possessed Marth. Then the Luminary turns up gloriously on his horse. With all the leaks that had been flying around for so long, I think pretty much everyone had accepted the presence of Dragon Quest at this point and I was totally stoked when this happened! I love Dragon Quest! And my boi from 11 is here, along with a few other DQ veterans as alt swaps and a pretty awesome looking stage overlooking what seems to be the land of Erdrea and the World Tree. Now to wait until summer and hope the Smash team have some sick ass remixes for us when the time comes!

Excitement Rating: YEEHAW BABEY

Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age - Definitive Edition

In a move that makes it a lil obvious that DQ’s Smash addition was more than a little commercially minded (not that I really care I’m still big hyped), a trailer for the expanded edition of the series’ latest installment follows. Seeming as I’ve already played this, I doubt I’ll be picking it up again but I still heartily recommend the game to any JRPG fan. Admittedly, the fact you apparently get to explore worlds from past games is pretty exciting.

ER: Heck Yeck

Luigi’s Mansion 3

In a way I thought was surprising, Nintendo’s first proper focus of Luigi’s Mansion 3 actually took up more time than Animal Crossing, but I guess that’s because it’s further along in development. We now know that the game is set within a haunted hotel and had some new gameplay features shown off, including the various ways Luigi can succ a ghost. Most exciting I think for me was the various multiplayer aspects, such as the local co-op option to play as Gooigi and the seemingly challenge and minigame-based ‘Scarescraper’ which I think incorporates online co-op too. Overall, this is looking to be a creative and well thought out entry in the series and I’m here for it.

ER: Heck Yeck

The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance - Tactics

A licensed tie-in game for a thirty year old film feels a little odd, but I suppose stranger things have happened. This looks to be a sort of top-down tactical thingy involving the various characters from The Dark Crystal and for some reason Netflix is involved, I don’t know, but I guess it could be interesting.

ER: Sure, why not?

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening

The adorable remake of this classic Game Boy title seems to be coming along great and this direct’s extended trailer gave us a good look at what we’ll be exploring come September 20th. The overhaul Koholint Island has had is phenomenal, giving us designs for Link and various other characters that we’ve never seen before and that makes this remake look especially unique. Another very exciting aspect for me was the dungeon builder that looks like great fun! You collect different dungeon parts as you go and then you can build and explore your own! Am I a goblin child or does that sound like the best thing ever?

ER: YEEHAW BABEY!!

Trials of Mana / Collection of Mana

I’ll admit I’m not really familiar with the Mana series, but from what I was shown in this direct, it looks to be a fairly standard JRPG. That’s definitely not a bad thing, as most JRPGs are amazing, but nothing in this trailer really stood out and came into its own. That being said, the gameplay and graphics look pretty solid and I’m sure the Mana fans have been fairly starved for content for a while so that’s something to look forward to. On top of this remake/new game with the same title as an older game (I really don’t know), the Collection of Mana containing the series’ first three games is being released real soon on the eShop.

ER: Yeah!

The Witcher III: Wild Hunt - Complete Edition

Following a few scattered rumours, we finally have confirmation that a Witcher 3 port is in fact in the works, coming packed with all the game’s DLC. This basically legendary RPG is not one I personally had a great experience with, but I’m sure a lot of people are gonna be happy to play this in handheld. I’d keep expectations tempered however, with the likes of Assassin’s Creed 3 and Saints Row the Third proving that these ports don’t always function brilliantly on this platform.

ER: Yeah!

Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Yet another and probably our last Fire Emblem trailer was shown in this direct, giving us a better look at how the story might play out and what our villains are going to be. With most of the gameplay features explored in the previous February direct, it’s good to have a slightly better idea as to what’s actually going on in terms of story and, to me, the results seem pretty damn good. Definitely one to keep an eye on!

ER: Heck Yeck

Resident Evil

In a slightly unnecessarily convoluted advert, we were given a two minute reel of two teenagers playing the original RE in tabletop mode in an abandoned house (??), along with the kind of less than exciting announcement that we’re getting the two weakest entries in the series for Switch, RE 5 and 6. I probably wasn’t the only one who felt a little passive about this whole thing. That being said, definitely not complaining about 1 & 4 being ported over.

ER: Oh

No More Heroes III

After the very slightly disappointing Travis Strikes Again, I really wasn’t expecting them to drop a trailer for the series’ third mainline installment so soon after. What we’ve seen looks pretty much like classic Travis, with a smidge of gameplay seen that looks just a bit more like what we’re used to. Of course, with this being the first reveal, there’s still a lot to find out but this looks very promising.

ER: Heck Yeck

Contra: Rogue Corps / Contra: Anniversary Collection

I’m not gonna pretend to be familiar with the Contra series, but this doesn’t at all look like what I’ve seen in the past. Honestly, this seemingly tactical shooter didn’t elicit much excitement from me and neither did its rushed character drops or its oddly rough textures. I’m unsure of actual fan reactions to this, but in my mind this one kind of sits in the ‘guess this exists’ category. As well as this, we got a shadowdrop for the Contra Anniversary Collection, whereas Rogue Corps comes on September 24th.

ER: Oh

Daemon X Machina

In what seems to be almost a mainstay in Nintendo directs, we’ve got another vague trailer for this mech shooter that finally has a confirmed release date of September 13th. The gameplay looks harmless enough, with the mechs seeming to be a blast to pilot, but beyond that, I can’t really see a lot of substance that would draw me in beyond the cool robots. I’m sure it could be good, but not really one for me.

ER: Yeah!

Panzer Dragoon

I was completely unsure of what this one was, but it looks a bit like a cross between The Last Guardian and those bullet hell sections from Kingdom Hearts 2. They’ve certainly nailed the smooth graphics and the cool looking creatures, but this one is mostly a case of needing to know more.

ER: Yeah!

Pokemon Sword & Shield

This one’s obviously a title so monumental that it consistently needs its own directs, but there wasn’t any *real* news about it in this direct. We were given a brief explanation as to how the Pokeball Plus works in conjunction with the games (something to do with taking your Pokemon for a walk) and the fact that we’ll see more gameplay during Nintendo’s Treehouse streams. Still, excitement remains pretty high for these titles.

ER: Heck Yeck!

Astral Chain

This game, to put it bluntly, looks awesome. The newest Platinum Games IP seems to be set in Blade Runneresque futuristic city with an alien threat and some cool ass looking fighting police people. Our second proper look at this game has cleared up a few murky doubts as to what exactly is supposed to be happening, so now we’ve got a much better idea of what this game is going to be. The story seems pretty full and polished, the gameplay looks like brilliant fun and I’m definitely not mad at the cool monster designs. This is one I’m definitely watching.

ER: Heck Yeck!!!

Empire of Sin

I know very little about what this game is supposed to be, but it looks to be a 40s gangster XCOM, substituting alien fighting marines with gun toting mafia dudes. The trailer went for style over substance, giving us an edgy visual thing of some burning playing cards and broken bottles, but the little gameplay we saw looked decent enough and may just end up injecting more variety into this genre.

ER: Yeah!

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order

An obvious pick for any Marvel fan, this hack-and-slash is jam packed with various heroes and villains from the comic series’ rich history. Ghost Rider and Elektra were among those revealed to be playable, while the likes of Mysterio, Hela, the Destroyer, Doctor Octopus, Surtur and MODOK are seemingly part of growing cast of villains. Looks like a good bit of fun if nothing else, though the immediate presence of a season pass is a tiny red flag.

ER: Yeah!

Cadence of Hyrule

In an unexpected but greatly welcomed crossover between Nintendo’s RPG titan Zelda series and the indie developed Crypt of the Necrodancer, a new rhythm based dungeon crawler with some brand new Zelda remixes and the presence of Link and Zelda as playable characters. This game’s retro graphics look totally adorable and the addition of the Gohmaracas were a definite highlight.

ER: Heck Yeck!!!!!

Mario & Sonic at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games

Tell you what, this definitely looks like a Mario and Sonic Olympic Games game. There looks to be a decent amount of variety in terms of what sports are involved and with its online multiplayer, there’s no shortage of vaguely cartoon sportyness to be had with friends both real and virtual. I’d be lying if I said I was totally disinterested because it does look a bit fun, but we all know it won’t be anything groundbreaking.

ER: Yeah!

Animal Crossing: New Horizons

In a fairly drastic formula change, Nintendo have decided to strand us on a desert island rather than move us innocently to another village, but Tom Nook is still here and oh yes he’s coming to collect his bells. From this surprisingly brief trailer, most of Animal Crossing’s core gameplay seems to be intact, with the return of craftable items from Pocket Camp, and the sudden bombshell that the game has been pushed back to March next year. Never going to be a bad thing if the finished product is all the better for it, but I guess that just means more info is to come!

ER: Heck Yeck

Highlight Reel

In what looks like a list of honourable mentions, Nintendo gave us a laundry list of other titles coming to the system:

Spyro Reignited Trilogy is joining Crash on the Switch with his acclaimed remaster trilogy.

Hollow Knight: Silksong, the prequel to the original game, looks just as charmingly dark as its predecessor.

Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch is showing up I guess, but I’ll come out and say I know nothing about it except that it looks cute.

Minecraft Dungeons looks better than it has any right to be and looks a bit like blocky Diablo I guess

The Elder Scrolls: Blades sure exists and I’m unsure of what it’s trying to be, but whatever quells off the need for Elder Scrolls 6 I guess.

My Friend Pedro, another strangely unique title from Devolver Digital, looks like it somehow incorporates banana peels into its combat system.

Doom Eternal looks like Doom always does, but a distinct lack of gameplay may put its dual release with the other consoles into question.

The Sinking City with its Lovecraftian inspiration looks totally brilliant and looks to be a unique experience for sure, so eyes firmly open for this one

Wolfenstein Youngblood definitely looks all Wolfenstein-y, but rumours of Dishonored-like sandbox levels has definitely piqued my interest.

Dead by Daylight still looks unfortunately a bit eh, with its slightly not great graphical quality from what we’ve seen in the trailers.

Alien Isolation was an extremely odd one, but I’m not gonna say no to more good horror content on the console.

Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles seems to be continually delayed, but they’ll probably get round to it eventually.

Dragon Quest Builders 2 looks adorable and I’m very into the idea of Dragon Quest Minecraft, so sign me up.

Stranger Things 3: The Game looks a little more SNES-like in terms of graphics than its 8 Bit mobile predecessor, which is definitely a decent step. An obvious pick for fellow fans of the show.

Just Dance 2020 is definitely a Just Dance game. Yep, sure is. I even checked. And it is.

Catan is a tabletop game of sorts, but I really couldn’t figure out what kind from that few seconds of vague footage.

New Super Lucky’s Tale looks like Bubsy, but actually good and worth real money

Dauntless looks like a bit of a Monster Hunter clone, but you know, doesn’t look terrible.

And lastly, Super Mario Maker 2 was tacked on the end there to remind us all that Nintendo is taking our money in 2 weeks.

Banjo-Kazooie become Smash Ultimate’s 3rd DLC Fighter

Just when we all petering out a little and the hype seemed all but dormant, they go and drop this on us out of nowhere. While I personally don’t have an attachment to the bear and bird, I’m fully aware of their significance and how much they mean to a lot of people out there. And that excitement ended up being contagious, so this fact coupled with a pitch perfect reveal trailer has got me hugely hyped to see these guys join the fight come autumn.

ER: YEEHAW BABEY

Sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

And now, dear reader, for the reveal that removed my scalp and cut out my eyeballs. At first, I was totally confused as to what this could be. And then I recognised the symbols, and then my perfect lil Hyrule eggs come on the screen and it’s all spooky and there’s dead Ganondorf and I don’t clock the fact that I’ve just screamed out loud. A direct sequel to my absolute favourite game of all time is happening and it’s real and I get to live another adventure in the best game world ever crafted all over again. I think it’s safe to say I have transcended the definition of hype when it comes to this one.

ER: AAA!!! AA!!! GFFGF!!! THIS!!! ZELDA!!!! HGGGG!!!!

So there’s my probably a little stupid breakdown of everything Nintendo bestowed upon us this E3. Guess I’ll jump in after the next direct to give you yet another heavily scientific analysis of its events. Or I’ll babble at you until I start punching the keyboard. Either way, happy trails my dudes. Don’t let the hype bugs bite.

#e3 #e3 2019 #zelda #loz #the legend of zelda #mario #smash #super smash bros #super smash ultimate #astral chain #fire emblem #animal crossing #pokemon #Luigi's Mansion #dragon quest #final fantasy #nintendo #marvel #resident evil

[kaleidographia]

[Analysis] The "Weird" One: Where The Last Jedi Fits

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I have a confession to make.

This may be a weird way to start what is essentially the first post of a new media critique blog, but I consider it to be essential knowledge. Every reviewer and analyst brings their own unique perspective to their writing, and I am no different; sooner or later, this truth will make itself known. To know this fact about me is to gain a new understanding of what makes me tick as a consumer of art, and it is one that it best to get out of the way as soon as possible, for it is better for a reader to lose interest now than to string along until the awkwardness of hiding such a secret reveals itself.

Here it is:

I LOVE the Star Wars prequels.

Oh, not only do I love them, completely and unironically, I actually do not care much for the original trilogy. It’s all right. But it doesn’t make my heart sing.

Attack of the Clones does.

Okay, okay, I can already hear the groans of disgust and the clicks of mice leaving my blog to the wilds of the web, but I promise this is going somewhere. I am not unaware of the many flaws the Prequel trilogy has, and I can’t in good conscience call them cinematic masterpieces, but I think this opinion derives itself not from poor taste, but the relative lack of blockbuster quality movies that tap into very particular themes and structural quirks that I appreciate. I may dive into those specifics at a later time, but the reason why I am bringing this up now is because it inextricably ties into my feelings about the most recent film in the franchise’s main series, which would be impossible for me to discuss without addressing this aspect of my formative film influences.

The Last Jedi has already received tons of coverage, controversy, and counter-controversy, so if you’re interested in picking apart the finer aspects of the plot and characters, feel free to look those up — I am sure there is a brilliant video essay on Youtube tailor-made just for you. I am more interested in the meta-narrative surrounding its position in terms of fanservice to what is an enourmous empire of not only fans of the original trilogy, but fans of its many derivations, spin-offs, and cultural foundations.

Star Wars is no longer just a film about a space farmer who learns he’s a space wizard and goes on a perfect beat-by-beat hero’s journey. It encompasses more than that: two sequels, an expanded universe of books upon books, comics, videogames, pinball machines — a holiday special (and no, I have not watched it) — toys, cartoons, parodies, reiterations, iconic images, phrases, cinematic touchstones, and, of course, the Prequels.

When the new Sequel trilogy was announced, the filmmakers had a real challenge to contend with: How can one follow up on not only a legacy of films, but also a legacy of expectations of what such a sequel would be like? I am not just referring to the fact that Disney, post acquisition of Lucasfilm, decided to just toss out the previous expanded universe, label it “Legends”, and start afresh with a new canon. I am also referring to the literal millions of fans who were already thoroughly familiar with not only the films but also their cultural impact. How could one possibly please them, especially when the Prequel trilogy was so universally mocked?

It was clear that Disney needed to win the crowd over, and to do so they leaned heavily into a safe bet: the Original trilogy. The Force Awakens released with a sort of wink-and-nudge, reflected in its story beats, characterization, and practical effects, that said “hey, we hear you. We know you’re scared because you don’t trust us to do this material justice and we know you love the original films, so we’re gonna give you exactly what you’re looking for”. It’s hard not to see the fanservice and whether or not it was successful has already been discussed to death, so I won’t get into it here, but the point is — and I am sure this wasn’t really intentional — to someone like me, who actually liked the prequels and a lot of the expanded universe, this approach felt incredibly alienating. Everyone was having fun with the new film, but to me it felt like it was saying, “all those things you love about Star Wars are not the reasons why anyone else loves Star Wars,” and I’m not gonna lie, I was pretty hurt, but at the very least The Force Awakens gave me a cast to fall in love with.

This is why when The Last Jedi was in production, I was intrigued to hear that this film was going to be “weird” and “unlike any other Star Wars film”. My expectations were tempered by the fact that ultimately this was going to be a Disney movie anyway, so it was probably not going to reach my standard of Weird (my dad showed me Koyaanisqatsi when I was 7, to give you an idea). Nevertheless, after the very safe rehash of Episode 4 that was The Force Awakens, I was just hoping for anything that might show me the franchise still had room for creativity.

I was in fact happy with the result, although it doesn’t surprise me at all that it attracted controversy. Some of my close friends, whose opinions I highly respect, hated the film for various reasons and I can even agree with them on some points. Others, like me, loved it. Overall, however, what I like most isn’t necessarily anything about the film itself, but its position as a nod to fans who wanted their corners of the Star Wars universe acknowledged. To put it bluntly, as a Prequels fan, I felt represented.

Going even beyond the Prequels, The Last Jedi contains themes from my favourite piece of Star Wars media, the Bioware-produced videogame Knights of the Old Republic and its Obsidian-produced sequel, which layer critique of what it means to be a Force user and what the role of Jedi and Sith are in the grand scheme of things. “Jedi” does not necessarily mean “good”, a fact Luke highlights in his role as reluctant mentor to Rey, and while there are some things I would change about his portrayal here, this perspective is absolutely one I wanted to see more of in the main series. Even as a kid, good-vs-evil stories bored me; it’s one reason why the Original trilogy failed to speak to me, because even though I wouldn’t have been able to articulate why at the time, the setup was just too easy. It didn’t challenge me to think that there’s a side that’s inherently good and a side that’s inherently evil, but when Knights of the Old Republic put decisions about when and how to use the Force in front of me, that was a much more interesting proposition, and the idea that doctrine about the nature of the Force could be wrong or even damaging was outright enticing. I honestly can’t remember whether playing the games or watching the Prequels came first, but I get the feeling it was the games, because that malleable view of what the Force means and who the Jedi and Sith are has carried through for me ever since.

The Last Jedi does kind of play it safe in some ways, ultimately being a Disney property that has to sell lots of merchandise and bring people to theme parks, but it also boldly rejects just about every expectation one might have of a “Star Wars Film”, characters make mistakes, they fail, things go wrong at the worst possible times, some act selfishly or foolishly, and by the time the credits roll there’s actually very little to be excited about, as the heroes are in a much worse position than they were when the film started, which was already very bleak. But in a way, that was the most exciting part to me, as someone who grew tired of the popular culture perception of Star Wars and who felt shut out of the Sequel trilogy by its first film; The Last Jedi may have been agonizing, but it was agonizing in a way that promised more, giving hope to those of us who were looking for a less straightforward narrative at a time when powerful politicians can be comically villainous in public and yet people would bend over backwards to excuse their actions as if an “evil empire” didn’t already exist. Over the last couple of years I have seen people post a gif of Padmé Amidala’s iconic line, “So this is how liberty dies… with thunderous applause”, saying this was the only part of the Prequel trilogy that aged well, and yet to me the truth was already glaringly obvious back when the film was released, contributing strongly to my own critical interpretation of it. The Last Jedi is a film that picks up on the thought that people can make foolish and terrible decisions and runs with it, but it is by no means the first in the series to approach this theme.

(I should note that as a Brazilian, whose country was freshly out of a dictatorship when I was born and which is now hurtling towards another at full speed, my views on what counts as an Evil Empire and how and why a democracy dies may be somewhat sharper than the average American’s. This is by no means the only reason why I’m into this kind of storytelling, nor is it exclusive to me, but it is a big one, and it would be short-sighted to ignore it.)

Ultimately I understand why The Last Jedi is so polarizing; it doesn’t pull punches and some of the punches it throws are even a bit misaimed, thus the description of it as “weird” and “unprecedented” makes sense. It just isn’t quite as weird or unprecedented when compared to previous attempts at broadening the scope of the Star Wars narrative both within the main film series and the expanded universe (at least pre-Disney; I haven’t engaged with any post-Legends canon aside from the Rebels cartoon, so I can’t say for sure). It also serves as a complete 180° turn from the Sequel trilogy establishing itself as a safe haven for Original trilogy fans and a middle chapter leading into a final film we still know nothing about, so whether its narrative leaps will pay off are still a mystery. In any case, The Last Jedi rejects superficial concerns in favour of theme, leading to a certain degree of dissatisfaction from fans who really wanted to know Rey’s parentage and what exactly was up with Snoke, but I think this is a good thing, because they gave new meanings to previously established Star Wars tropes and drove the whole thing into uncharted territory. I for one am glad the franchise has freed itself of these particular burdens; it simply remains to be seen whether the conclusion will maintain this momentum.

All this to say, I like the Last Jedi because it likes the things I like about Star Wars, and now I know I’m not the only one.

#Analysis #film #Star Wars #The Last Jedi

[zak-animation]

Potential Films to Explore

In this post, I’m writing up my initial ideas for the Narrative Research project: exploring three potential films to look at and the subject material they offer before reaching a conclusion.

1. Megamind (2010)

My first candidate is Dreamworks’ Megamind, an American 3D computer-animated film following the story of a super-smart alien super villain, who actually beats the superhero! With complete control over Metro City, Megamind eventually finds out that he has no purpose without his much-loved enemy Metro Man. He constructs a new superhero to serve as an artificial nemesis, but when this plan horribly backfires and results in an all-powerful supervillain instead, Megamind attempts to set things straight and discovers his newfound role as a superhero.

This film gives me the chance to discuss a range of interesting narrative structures, including the Rebirth plot type by Christopher Booker. Whilst I could explore the film in relation to Booker’s plot type, and how the film subverts or follows his described structure - I’m more inspired by the idea of a villain’s journey. Taking an interesting spin on Campbell’s mono myth, Megamind presents a flat-out villain at the beginning of the film who, after learning a few valuable life lessons, becomes a hero. I feel like it would be interesting to analyse how the film’s narrative subverts ideas of the Hero’s Journey and effectively exaggerates and stretches each step: instead of beginning the narrative as an everyday person, they are a morally evil character. Hence, the protagonist needs to undergo more growth and development than your run-of-the-mill Hero’s Journey story.

This is also quite interesting in terms of social change; Megamind follows the life of a super villain - someone who isn’t morally good, noble or righteous. It’s an engaging spin from Dreamworks, and instantly subverts the cliches of regular superhero flicks. The film could also allow me to discuss the third question, looking at the film as an engine for social change and how it presents ambiguous morals. Towards the end of the film, Megamind realises his new-found role as a hero - commuinicating to the audience that they, too, can do the right thing (even if they weren’t that good in the first place).

As a whole, Megamind represents an interesting choice for this project. The brief asks us to analyse the narrative of our film, and I feel like the idea of a villain embarking on his own Hero’s Journey towards redemption is an engaging plot to analyse.

2. Anomalisa (2015)

A film that makes the audience forget they are even watching an animation, Anomalisa is a brilliant and emotional character drama written and directed by Charlie Kaufman. The film explores what it means to be human, in a way that truly understands the complexity of the human experience and personal connections between people and does so expertly through animated puppets. We follow a lonely business man who perceives everyone he meets as identical, and boring. This is, at least, until he meets a unique woman in a Cincinnati hotel.

This film allows me to discuss the fourth question, exploring how the medium of stop motion animation is a core and essential part of the film - and essentially defines the film’s narrative. It’s important that we discuss the film’s approach to animation as well as the plot, so this would be an interesting pick. Not only is this a film that I personally love, there is also plenty of room for meaninglful critical analysis: in comparison to Megamind, Anomalisa deals with much more complex and meaningful ideas and themes such as self-absorption, loneliness and anxiety. Kaufman is able to present an unnerving study of the human experience through stop motion puppets, in which a mental breakdown and flash of anxiety is portrayed by the puppet’s mouthpiece and voice malfunctioning. Anomalisa benefits from eerily creepy imagery that could only be achieved through a masterful and unsettlingly detailed use of stop motion animation. I could explore why this narrative needed to be told through a stop motion lense.

3. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

My last film pick for this narrative research essay is the recent Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. A marvel of computer-generated animation, the film follows Brooklyn teenager Miles Morales, as he picks up the mantle of Spider-Man after being bitten by a similar radioactive arachnid that once bit Peter Parker. Soon, Miles realises that he’s not the only Spidey out there, and forms a team to battle  the hulking Kingpin, an evil business-turned-mad-man who has the power to open portals to other dimensions in a tragic attempt to bring his loved ones back from the dead.

This, to me, is the most interesting choice. Whilst I’m engaged by the introspection of Anomalisa and the villain-turned-hero aspect of Megamind, it’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse that I keep coming back to. A dazzling, fluid animated feature film with a hand-drawn comic book touch, this pick gives me the opportunity to discuss all of the potential questions. It’s a film that’s able to encapsulate the essence of a comic book to the big screen in a way that no other live-action feature can, with a groundbreaking new visual style that manages to replicate the look and texture of a comic book panel. The animation is fluid, snappy and pops on screen: just as a film featuring Spider-Man should do.

For my response to this project, I plan to focus on a specific question outlined here but also discuss other aspects of the film as a way to construct a well-rounded, considered analysis of the film.

What I’m personally inspired by about Into the Spider-Verse is it’s complete understanding of Spider-Man’s character: the film effectively examines what it means to be hero, and so embodies the ideas of the Hero’s Journey very nicely. I could easily analyse the narrative with close reference to the Hero’s Journey, and even explore the idea of a story’s purpose too.

The film has made a huge cultural impact, and is praised by both critics and fans alike: it’s a successful movie with a powerful message that the film expertly uses to its advantages: ‘anyone can wear the mask’. It’s this new idea of a universality to the Spider-Man character that allows me to discuss the third question with some real weight: how Into the Spider-Verse has used its universe-bending narrative as a vehicle for social change, teaching its all-ages audience that anyone can be Spider-Man, not just Peter Parker. There’s definitely some good analysis material here, and I could easily tie it in with the film’s total understanding of everything the character of Spider-Man represents.

Aside from this, Into the Spider-Verse is praised for it’s groundbreaking new visual style, a love and appreciation for the comic style of old that’s hand-drawn into every frame. And it’s not just how every shot of the film looks and feels like a comic book through hand-rendered graphic pointillism to evoke the poppy art style of classic superhero fare, it’s the film’s snappy approach to computer generated animation that makes the movie shine. There’s nothing that really feels like Into the Spider-Verse, and that’s because the creatives behind the film took over two years to establish the look of the film. They wanted something fresh, new and exciting - and that’s what they got. With a slightly lower frame rate than most other films, Into the Spider-Verse feels like a set of continuous moving panels in a way that bursts with energy and plain…fun. Comic-book onomatopoeia springs up throughout the film, and Mile’s thoughts pop up through narration bubbles and boxes. It’s a film with spectacular visuals that pop off the screen, a mix of graphic tones, vivid colours and snappy animation that makes for a great essay subject choice.

Finally, this film represents the epitome of the super-hero movie in both storytelling, characters and visual style - and this is something that I’ve briefly mentioned already on this blog. I’ve discussed how superhero movies could be argued as the ‘new fairytales of cinema’, and this is a theory that I’m actually really interested by. Into the Spider-Verse not only represents a culturally-relevant candidate, but also an opportunity to explore the idea of a modern fairytale in depth too.

In this post, I’ve written up my initial thoughts on the project - exploring some potential candidates for the Narrative Research essay and settled on a conclusion on my film choice: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. This was something I realised fairly early on in the project, just because of my passion for the film and it’s brilliant approach to animation, but here I wanted to evidence a few ideas and alternative analytical directions before settling onto my chosen animated narrative.

Next week, I will begin collecting research sources for my essay exploring Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (through online videos, books and any other media of discussion) and decide on an essay question. I’ve got a basic idea of the themes and concepts I want to discuss with this essay, but I need to have more of a focus and central question to begin the research process.

#ba1b:narrativetheory

[davidmann95]

I read your post about why Batman is great and I love how thoughtful that is. Can you do one for Superman? Thanks ^_^

Unsurprisingly, I’ve touched on a lot of the basic aspects of it before, so for a couple parts of this I’ll keep it restrained (speaking entirely relatively), but given I think about Superman more than most people think about their best friends, I feel qualified to state that yes: Superman is great. As I said with Batman, the reasons why on a mass cultural basis are much broader than ‘he’s a really well-written character’ - hell, too often that isn’t even the case, even if plenty *have* stepped up over the years - so I’ll start with the lizard hindbrain stuff and work my way down to the finer details.

Superman has iconic power by default

What it really comes down to, at least in terms of keeping him afloat in the public eye when actual public opinion on him has been shot completely to hell over the last couple decades, is that Superman is a Big Deal. He’s the founder of his own genre: literally every surface-level aspect of his mythology is shorthand for the concept he created as well as for plenty beyond superheroes, from the suit (trunks included) to Lois Lane to Lex Luthor to Clark Kent to flying to Kryptonite to Bizarro and Brainiac to super-pets and x-ray vision. A red cape fluttering in the breeze is itself an evocative image entirely sans context, because people know that means him, by which it really means all superheroes. That means he takes the hits of getting all the complaints other characters duck even as others write thinkpieces on his place in culture and how he represents everything from America to Jesus to conservative values to the immigrant experience, all from people who may well have never picked up a comic or watched a cartoon of his in their lives. Even when most people don’t know much about him as a character, he as a symbolic figure is too massive to not grapple with one way or another, even via shorthand such as ‘he’s dumb’ or ‘he stands for us at our best’; while many of his recent woes can be traced back to people telling stories solely about or defined by that iconography, it still has power. Kids on the other side of the world from wherever you’re sitting right now know he can leap a tall building in a single bound. There’s maybe two or three other fictional characters in the world with that level of exposure and impact, and the unconscious emotional connection that comes baked right into it.

Superman is a protector

When kids talk about loving him because he can do anything, and adults talk about how he brings back those memories of joy and comfort, I think this is what it really comes down to a lot of the time. Superman’s the one who looks out for us, the guy who cares about you. Yeah, there’s gotta be the odd story about how NOT EVEN SUPERMAN CAN SAVE EVERYONE! to keep him honest, but by and large, yes he can. He wears a fun flashy uniform and he can wrap you up in his cape and fly you away from whatever bad’s happening, and even if something can catch up, no bullet or bomb in the world is going to get through him to you, or even hurt him enough to at least be scary. Nothing’s so hard or so big or so scary he can’t help, not really; he naps on clouds and swims in the sun. He’s polite, and never aggressive towards the innocent (not even that often towards the guilty), and he doesn’t talk down to people even though he’s stronger and knows better. He’s as confident as a cool big brother, as supportive and sturdy as a good dad, as vaguely ethereal and perfectly impossible as Santa Claus. It’s not an act, it’s not impersonal - he wants you to be okay, he cares about you and he’ll do whatever he can to make sure you’ll be alright. When that’s done just right? That kind of unreserved, unconditional, powerful demonstration of kindness making a difference, even from a cartoon alien, can knock a lot of typically steely emotional walls down like balsa wood, especially when that can save the day just as much as quick wits or a fist, the way anyone here could too in the right circumstances when they try their best.

Superman is a romantic figure

Something overlooked or deliberately sidelined by many is that a huge, huge part of Superman’s appeal in lots of circles is that he can be a romantic ideal rather than (or as well as) a protective one. He’s a sweet, funny, confident, smart guy who’s built like Adonis and doesn’t think he’s better than everybody else even though he’s literally the best. He holds down a socially valuable job he’s successful and happy at, he’s gentle and considerate, and he’s entirely comfortable being second in his household to a commanding career woman who he’s instinctively protective of, but also willing to back off of when she feels smothered because he acknowledges her independence. He can fly her to the moon, he never lets her forget how happy he is that when he was left lost and alone on the other side of the universe he fell to the one place he could find her, and he wears tights. The comics may forget that, but Lois & Clark knew it. Smallville sure as hell knew it. So have the last couple movies, and Supergirl. Even Christopher Reeve, America’s Dad, got it on with Margot Kidder in that weird shiny Fortress hammock. You wanna talk about the aspects of Superman that go for…ahem…primal instincts, that he’s the member of the Justice League historically most likely to go shirtless* is worth bringing up. 

* Aside from maybe Batman, who’s usually beat to hell and too miserable to leverage any of that playboy charm, and Aquaman, who’s Aquaman.

Superman is an easy power fantasy

Obviously, superheroes are often power fantasies in general; they do stuff we can’t do but wish we could. And Superman’s near the top of that list not just because he’s iconic, and not even because of the scope of his power - Green Lantern and Thor are comparable in terms of raw ability, GL even has an honest-to-goodness wishing ring, but they don’t measure up in that regard. What is is, I think, is that Superman’s powers are rooted in physicality, and therefore easy to imagine yourself doing. Everything most people can do, he does best, from lifting to running to looking to hearing to punching. Even his non-physical powers have a connection to actual physical acts: to see through objects he focuses as if peering through a fog, he doesn’t shoot power blasts from his fists to light things on fire but instead burns them with a furious glare, he doesn’t dispassionately levitate through the air as a standard but takes off and holds his arms forward as if in a mighty never-ending leap. Batman may be ‘real’, but if you imagined suddenly being him, you wouldn’t be Batman, you’d be a rich dude with a weaponized theme park in his basement, because you have no training and no tangible point of reference for thinking of how anything works beyond “punch and throw things”. But it’s easy to imagine being Superman in a visceral, physical sense - just imagine everything you did worked optimally, even the way it only could in a dream.

Superman is fun

All of the above makes him grand and likable, but that’s not the same as being able to support decades of monthly adventure stories. The basis of that is that he lives in a universe-sized, Earth-shaped toybox. He doesn’t just have superpowers and a nifty suit, he’s got a cave at the North Pole right near Santa with a time machine, statues of all his friends, a space zoo, a gun that turns people into ghosts, and a bottle city full of real people, plus robots to keep it all tidy, and only he can get in because the key was forged in the heart of a star. His cousin, kid, dog, and a few of his best friends wear capes too, and his ‘brother’ with reverse-superpowers lives on a cube planet where it’s perpetually opposite day. His friends and wife often go on their own adventures and get temporary superpowers just by being in his vicinity, he dated a mermaid in college, his after-school club was in the future and he commutes to the moon for work, and his deadliest enemies include a crazed mad scientist, an evil robot with a death-heart, a mischievous imp in a derby hat, and brilliant alien computer literally named Brainiac. Superman lives in a sci-fi fantasy dreamland of childish archetypes that can exist on any scale from the microscopic to the galactic to the other-dimensional, and as a result of that he can go on any adventure imaginable, to any time and place, and as a super-man who doesn’t often have to worry for his own safety, he can survive and appreciate and care for it all.

Superman mythologizes the mundane

And it’s where the fun and the big, mythic aura Superman carries meet that the magic happens that makes him as versatile and effective a character as there is in fiction: everything he does is rooted in something incredibly normal and human. His wild super-suit of circus royalty is made to reconnect with his heritage the only way he has, and to try and make himself colorful and unthreatening to a world he needs to accept him. When he travels through time, it’s never just to save reality, it’s to go see family and friends. He walks his dog around the rings of Saturn, he looks at his city in a bottle and wonders if he’ll ever be able to get around to taking care of that, he walks on the bottom of the ocean to think things through privately, and spends an entire day saving the world to get away from a conversation he doesn’t want to have. Every mad, cosmic aspect of his world is something totally normal blown up to be as big as it feels, and even when he does interact with the truly ‘mundane’, his presence alone elevates it to myth in a way no other superhero can. That’s the true source of his ability to adapt, rarely tapped but always potent: he can do anything, because he’s us.

Superman’s an actual good, interesting character

I place this at the bottom because it’s the aspect that’s most rarely captured, especially in the public eye (though the handful of times it has been are why he’s my favorite). But when he’s handled properly, then even divorced from everything else, Superman is fascinating as a *person*. Raised knowing there’s something different about him even as his weird alienness lets him understand people and the world around them in ways no others can, he learned one day he was born of the most mind-shattering act of cosmic horror imaginable, with a place greater than Earth in every way destroyed by coincidence, a signpost by any measure that the universe is a chaotic, meaningless, cruel place that destroys the innocent with indifference…and he became a good man who treasures life over anything. He has power that lets him do literally anything he pleases, and he spends half his life among us at a desk job because he thinks we’re just swell and he wants to keep being part of it all. Even though he can never entirely, not really, divvying his life up into discrete, manageable chunks that let him interact with the world on his own terms and try to see through what he sees as his responsibility, until a woman sees through the deception and self-deception and gets the real him to tentatively come out. 

He has fun little hobbies, and unusual friendships, and a complex rivalry with the one man in the world who could’ve been his equal. He’s seen the best and worst of the world, and he accepts it all, but he still radiates a decency and innocence that can be mistaken for naivete by those who don’t know him. He’s clever but easy to catch off-guard in the right circumstances, always struggling to be the god people expect him to be rather than the inadequate fake his humility can make him look at himself as, he likes football and pretzels and pulp novels and Metallica, he gets a kick out of writing because it’s one of the few things he can do on an even playing field, he’s not sure how best to raise his kid, he worries that that one alien dictator is going to pop by again soon and he might not be ready to deal with it, he has to coordinate dates with his wife precisely because they both have such busy schedules, he counts dust particles in the air when he gets bored, and he believes in everybody. There’s so much going on with this guy, this identity-case, this brute, this pacifist, this establishment-man, this rebel and idealist and weirdo and a dozen other conflicting things. He’s been and done just about everything with charm and style over the decades, and it works, because it all adds up into one nice guy’s unusual, well-rounded life. And because it’s always anchored by an understanding: for all that he’s a unique freak of creation, he knows that in all the madness and uncertainty and horror, the one thing we have to rely on is each other. So he’ll put on his suit and throw himself out there against the only things in the universe that could kill him when he could be doing anything else, because he’s found a home with us little people when he lost his, and he knows we’re worth the fight; everyone is, aliens just like him in their own ways, waiting to be saved the way they saved him when he landed in a field. That’s why Superman’s great.

#Superman #Analysis #Opinion

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #499

Top Ten Everything Ever

Four hundred and ninety-nine. That’s how many weeks I’ve been doing this four. Four hundred and ninety-nine.

Next week is the big five-oh-oh and I’m doing something typically stupid, but I wanted to make it a real celebration. That means for the next three weeks you’re going to get some rather meaningful and special Tops Ten; lists that have been long in the making, or that are just bonkers-level awkward for me to do. Like this one.

I mean, I’ve ranked films, games, fictional guns, and robots that made me cry. How much longer can I do this for? How many more weeks am I going to put myself through this?

Give me a barrel with bottom unscrap’d.

There’s nowhere to go but up, ladies and germs, and so I present to you the list to end all lists. The most definitive list possible. A list of everything. A list of my favourite things in all of time and space. A list of the official best things ever.

I mean, what more is there to say? This covers everything. I’ve tried to avoid it being really specific to one film or one person. And, of course, it doesn’t include people I know in real life, or events that have happened to me. These are, in their own way, big, sweeping things; film series, franchises, bands, stories that have in their own way changed my life. Just the greatest things I’ve come across in my nearly 40 years on this planet.

And you can’t say fairer than that.

The Transformers comic: this should be obvious to anyone who knows me well, but there’s no greater influence in my life, in terms of storytelling or entertainment, than Transformers. And of all the variants branching off from the Prime Timeline (pun very much intended), it’s the comic that’s greatest. Whether it’s the melodrama of Simon Furman or the intricate plotting of James Roberts, I’ve been addicted to the Transformers comic for the vast majority of my life. It has fundamentally shaped how I consume fiction and the sorts of things I’m into. It’s also really changed how I write, and, in fact, the original Marvel run is at least partly responsible for the fact that I write at all. I drew Transformers comics as a kid. I planned out elaborate multi-issue arcs before I was a teenager. I wrote detailed synopses and snatches of scripts for Transformers movies that would never be made. And I robbed, wholesale, motifs and lines of dialogue for the original books and comics I was working on too. It changed my life. It’s not hyperbole to say Transformers is the single biggest piece of fiction I’ve ever touched. Till all are one indeed.

The films of Steven Spielberg, 1975-1982: Spielberg is my favourite filmmaker, but it felt a bit weird to just say “Steven!” as one of the entries here. So instead I’ve decided to hone in on his early career, despite the fact that knocks out one of the biggest influences of my life, Jurassic Park. But everything I love about Spielberg is in these movies. His skill with a camera, his love of light, his great eye for casting, his way with actors; I mean, Close Encounters, which I probably first saw aged about twelve, is just a microcosm of all my interests in my teens: aliens, government conspiracies, determined men going on a crazed quest, and above all a pervasive sense of hope and optimism. Spielberg’s craft is exemplary, but that’s also true of many of his peers. His flair for action scenes and love of spectacle is entertaining, but there are many directors of whom you could say the same. What I love about him – what keeps bringing me back to him – is his warmth and optimism, his belief in the best of us. Even in his darkest movies, in Schindler’s List and A.I. and Munich (which has one of the bleakest endings of his career), there’s still joy and warmth and something worthwhile and wholesome to fight for. And whilst Raiders is a thrill-ride and E.T. an emotional tour-de-force, all of his preoccupations are encapsulated in Jaws, a tense horror film, a buddy-comedy, an entertaining rollercoaster, an acting masterclass. But it’s still Jurassic Park that made me want to make a movie.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe: so when I was a kid I was reading Transformers and Ghostbusters and other Marvel-published adaptations, but not really any actual Marvel comics. However, as a result, I became very loosely familiar with who Iron Man and Doctor Strange were (and Spidey of course) through references and back-up strips, and that time Death’s Head fought Tony’s nephew Arno Stark. No, when I started reading “proper” comics – mainstream superhero stuff – it was DC. I loved Batman, so I bought Batman, and that was a gateway to the rest of the DCU. However, despite the successes of the various DC movie adaptations, it’s the MCU that really, really got its hooks into me. For one, they’re really good adaptations, well-cast, with some great set-pieces. But the interconnected stuff is what really sings. Not just the characters popping up in each others’ movies, or even the overall arc leading up the crossover events; no, it was the actual shared-ness of it, the way the destruction of SHIELD had an impact, or the Sokovia Accords, or Asgard, Skrulls, magic… everything has an impact, an effect. And sure, it’s incredibly good fun to follow the breadcrumbs and try to work out where things are heading. As we enter a new phase – literally and figuratively – I just can’t wait to find out what’s next.

Grant Morrison’s Batman: talking about interconnectivity, no one does it better – or weirder – than Morrison. His Batman arc – and I’m referring to the character not the title, as it spans multiple series and even, arguably, includes work he did on JLA years earlier – is a web of connected theories, images, themes, events, and references. What does the Zur-En-Arrh graffiti in Gotham mean, not just in the here-and-now, but also as a long-standing reference to decades of Batman’s past? The anticipation of uncovering the next breadcrumb, the excitement of deciphering the next reference; it was long-form storytelling as a form of existential theatre, and it was sublime. But he also did two things that have utterly changed my view of the character. On the meta level, he presented a Batman where everything was canon; the grim thirties Shadow-inspired vigilante, the goofy fifties space adventures, the hairy-chested love-god of the seventies… it all happened to one man over a span of about 15-20 years. Fair enough; that’s cool storytelling. But his idea that Batman was not a miserable, psychopathic loner, that he was not insane or struggling to cope or still traumatised by his parents’ death, that Bruce Wayne was a nice guy with friends and family, who’d used his pain as a weapon, who’d gotten past his rage and grief and turned all the negative stuff outwards. Batman was what was built from all that, and Batman allowed Bruce to grow. And what did he do? He found other lost children and saved their lives, allowing Dick Grayson to take over. Batman is a force for good, in a similar way to Superman in Morrison’s All-Star book, making people better by association. And his confrontation with Darkseid in Final Crisis is extraordinary; brilliant as-is, as a piece of comicbook badassery on the page, but the metatextual resonance it’s given – Batman as a good man versus the font of all evil, David versus Goliath, Theseus and the Minotaur – is brilliant. How it ties in to Morrison’s wider Bat-epic, the whole Black Glove stuff and the devil and time travel and the myth of Batman’s creation and all of it… and just the simple thing of Batman’s last act being shooting the embodiment of evil, saving a human life, and then saying “Gotcha,” before dying, is perfect. Perfect.

The Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge: when I was little, I played Spectrum and C64 games at my cousins’ house. Then I got an Amiga – I think maybe I was ten? – and I started playing Amiga games. And it was fun and all, but then I read a review in Amiga Action, and my life changed. It was something called an “adventure game”, and it let you walk around chatting to people and interacting with the world, with great big colourful graphics and characters whose mouths moved when they spoke. And then I played it. My love of the medium and its possibilities was cemented then; and, fittingly, it was through the wordy, hilarious dialogue and comedy antics of a wannabe pirate who may, or may not, be selling these fine leather jackets. It’s not overstating things that my gaming tastes were defined by this game and its technically superior sequel. The quirky set-pieces, the weird puzzles, the playing with form (like when you “die” in Monkey 2), and the smart use of Lucasfilm in-jokery. The first game’s “How to Get Ahead in Navigating” gag/puzzle will live with me forever, as will the second game’s bonkers, nightmarish, beautifully constructed ending. As good as they were, none of the subsequent games could hold a candle to it, especially as the whole aesthetic changed into something much more cartoony. But these two? They’re my Big Whoop.

Star Wars: I imagine I know a lot of people in real life who would be surprised – nay, astounded – that I would list my ten favourite Things of all time, and yet Star Wars would not manage to break the Top Five. That’s because that as much as I love Star Wars – and I do, I really do – it didn’t hit me, didn’t speak to me, apart from one brief and weird moment in my late teens. It was games that made me fall in love, I think; games and toys. And, I have to confess, it was the prequels; the intricate digital visions of gleaming cities and impossibly acrobatic Jedi. I love the goofiness and ultra-seriousness of Lucas’ vision, sadly muddled now by the earthy chaos of the sequels. Star Wars is cool; for a while, it defined my idea of cool in cinema. An exciting sci-fi reimagining of ancient and endless myths, a confusing smorgasbord of weird stories and arcane philosophy. Plus spaceships and rapscallions and laser swords. So yes: whilst it was never my faith, so to speak, it’s still one of the coolest and most original pieces of fiction in my lifetime, and to this day there are very few things at all that I find more exciting and evocative than the thought of a Jedi pirouetting through the air with their ‘saber lit.

Middle-Earth, in print and film: one of my most vivid memories of childhood is my mum reading me The Hobbit (and also Macbeth, funnily enough). Then I bought myself my own copy, read it as a kid, read it again as a teenager, wrote (aged about 12 or 13) a sequel in which Gollum comes back to reclaim the ring. I remain to this day baffled that my teacher did not think to tell me that there actually was a sequel to The Hobbit. Eventually I did hear about it, watched the Ralph Bakshi version, and – when I read in Empire that it was gonna be a film and Sean Connery, of all people, was gonna be Gandalf – I thought it best to take the plunge. And I adored it. whilst there’s something about the lyrical simplicity of The Hobbit that I prefer, the depth and scope of The Lord of the Rings – and Tolkien’s subsequent, more disparate writing – that moves me on a profound level. It’s not just the epic nature of the work – the story itself, with its grandiose tales of heroism and adventure – but the sheer balls of the man to make such a thing, to craft wholesale an entire mythological ecosystem. And then the films! I can’t believe they managed to do that; it was pure lightning in a bottle, and we know that because they didn’t quite manage to do it a second time with the Hobbit movies. But all those glorious moments: “Fly, you fools”, “For Frodo”, “I can carry you”, “Go away and never come back” – bloody hell.

Empire magazine: it feels a bit weird, for some reason, citing a magazine as a Favourite Thing. It’s a magazine, a periodical, a journal; it tells you the news and recommends films. it’s not supposed to be part of the culture, part of the fabric of one’s being. But whilst you could debate whether criticism itself is culture, Empire definitely has a culture. It’s a club, nay, a family; something that has been entrenched in recent years through its podcasts and live shows. But for me it began as an education. I started reading it, really, to find out more about Jurassic Park (there we are again, the secret eleventh part of this list). But it went on, showing me more films and filmmakers, introducing me to esoteric industry concepts, broadening my horizons. I always liked film, but Empire made me love film. It reflected my tastes but then it enriched them, codified them, offered me new flavours. It was the first magazine to put Lord of the Rings on the cover; it celebrates Spielberg and the MCU; it had articles about The Greasy Strangler, for goodness’ sake. So much of what I love about film I learned from Empire over the last (nearly) thirty years, and so much of what I love about Empire now is because of what I learned. Bangily-bang.

Traveller’s Tales’ LEGO games: the games that did not make this list, I don’t know. Halo; man, I love Halo. Or what about classics like Lemmings, Worms, or SWOS? What about Mass Effect, Deus Ex, or Fable? What about Mario Kart, what about Civilization? They all deserved a place, really. But there’s something esoteric, timeless even, about the heights of the LEGO games. I remember playing a demo – on the first Xbox, I think – of the first LEGO Star Wars, and being blown away by the fact that, well, it was good. When the games started coming out on the 360 – Star Wars II, Batman, Indiana Jones – I was in the gloriously fortunate position of getting a lot of them for free at CITV, and I devoured them. The simple mechanics, the generous, forgiving gameplay, the satisfying tactile feel of smashing objects and collecting studs. There was something just so rewarding about playing them. And the fan-service! Giving you all those beloved characters, all those worlds, all those genuinely funny in-jokes, references, and cut-scenes. Plus they’re great to play with kids. Time went on, some games were better than others; I feel they reached their peak with the first LEGO Marvel Super-Heroes game, presenting us with an open world New York to play in and a collection of comic book characters that fitted the gameplay perfectly. Subsequent games have either put new restrictions on play, or given us more complicated stories and mechanics, or – really – just over-egged the pudding slightly. I’m really, really optimistic and excited for The Skywalker Saga, long overdue, and promising something of an overhaul. it began, really, with Star Wars; and I feel with Star Wars they’ll have their greatest hour.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: fun fact: finding the tenth spot on these lists is very hard. How about a brand I love, like Xbox, or the BBC, or even Disney? Or another writer or director – what about Aaron Sorkin? Or a TV show – Doctor Who, perhaps, or Star Trek? Or how about, oh I dunno, Shakespeare? I like him. But I’ve not talked about music, so let’s do that; we’ll go out on a number. I’m not a musical person; I didn’t grow up frequenting record shops or listening to mix tapes in my room. I liked songs, but mostly I came to music through film. That was even true with Nick Cave, who I first heard in an episode of The X-Files, and read about in the X-Files magazine. But he remains one of the few artists, The Bad Seeds one of the few bands, that I continue to seek out and listen to regularly (rather than just saying “Alexa, play nineties rock”). I love the different styles, from the distorted noise of the early, post-Birthday Party years through the sombre melodies of Nocturama. I love Cave’s lyricism; his evocation of myth, his use of imagery. I love how he manages to get phrases like “morally culpable” into a song. I love the humour as well as the tragedy, the references to things both real and mythological, the sadness and eloquence of it all. I love how so many of his songs are about sex but are also really moving and meaningful; how much of the music is infused with pain and sorrow but is also uplifting. The horrible evocations of Cave’s own abuse in Do You Love Me, through to the references to his son’s death in Girl in Amber. I love Cave’s voice. I don’t know if this has come through in this list, but something I really like is stuff that makes me cry but isn’t necessarily sad. I cry when I read Sandman, when he wins the Oldest Game by challenging the end of everything by becoming “hope”; I cry when Donna tells Josh, “if you were in the hospital I wouldn’t stop for red lights”; I cry when Steve Rogers jumps on that dummy grenade. I think it’s hope and heroism and love. And that’s something that I get constantly, mainlined, intravenous, from Nick Cave. As Morgan Freeman says in Seven, “The world is a fine place and worth fighting for – I agree with the second part.”

God, there’s so much stuff not listed here. So many things I love that I feel are core; no Pixar, no West Wing, no other filmmakers cited, really, apart from Spielberg. But ten’s not a big number, and I contain multitudes.

Thanks for reading.

#top ten #everything #499 #nine years #lists #my life