#i think the light fury's design isn't as awful as people make it out to be

[raveartts]

#raveartts #httyd #how to train your dragon #light fury #dragon art #anyways so i was trying to study what method was used to draw the httyd concept art #and eventually i think i figured it out #it's (colored) pencils with alcohol markers #i was unsure if it was digital or watercolor at first tbh #also they definitely use toned paper which i simply do not have #so I gave it a shot by mashing up some of the light fury concepts for fun #i didn't fully finish coloring it bc i got tired #but i think i captured The Look at least a little bit #style replication isn't really my thing ofc but for a first attempt. you can see it resembles the concepts #.....also honestly. this is unrelated #but i've never fully watched httyd 3. i tried numerous times but i could never get my full attention on it #i'm sorry it's just. so bad omg #i think the light fury's design isn't as awful as people make it out to be #but she just doesn't look like she belongs in the universe either #SHE'S TOO FUCKING SMOOTH MAKE HER ROUGH #though the way she's animated is very nice to look at ofc

[pnw-chaplain]

On Men Having Emotions in Space

Watched 2001: A Space Odyssey last night and:

WOW WOW WOW THEY MADE THIS BEFORE THE MOON LANDING

This movie had men in space who felt some emotions, but it was not what I would call a "Men Having Emotions in Space" movie

What is a "Men Having Emotions in Space" movie (MHEIS)? It's a jokey term I came up with after watching Ad Astra and realizing that part of what appealed to me about it was that it spent so much time reflecting on the main character's loneliness and his desire to connect with his missing father, and used the expanse of space itself to make room for those feelings.

I've watched movies and shows that take place in space before--Firefly, Star Wars, Doctor Who, etc.--but there it felt like space was not much more than a way to have extra fun with setting and characters.

In Ad Astra, space is almost another character, but rather than actively engaging with McBride and others, it simply exists and the human characters have to react to it. They respond with fear, awe, depression. Space is so vast and so unfeeling that humans turn inward, and our focus turns to their inner lives because there is so little outward for them to really latch onto.

Another movie I'd classify as MHEIS is Sunshine, which a lot of people don't really like but which is one of my partner's favorite movies and which I really enjoyed too.

Sunshine shows a crew having to confront matters of spirituality, trust, the value of one life over many, all in a small group of people who live on a ship strapped to the back of a nuclear bomb meant to be fired into the center of the sun to revive it. Here, there's not just the emptiness of space that prompts these powerful reflections and feelings, but the sun itself becomes divine in the eyes of multiple characters. Being in the presence of even a tiny percentage of its rays about Mercury's distance away from it has profound effects on how those who experience it think about themselves and their fellow humans. This isn't because the sun magically speaks to them or anything; the simple exposure of the sun's light and heat prompts them to go inward and think on what something so intense means.

The movie has a weird structure because two thirds are this moody, slow-ish character study, and then the last third is kind of a slasher film until the last few minutes. What I like about the first part though is exactly the meditative pace, just like with Ad Astra, where you have time to really reflect on what it must be like to be in a small group (or even alone) in the vast emptiness of space, where the void really does gaze back into you and you're forced to confront things that lie deep within because space gives you nothing.

2001 also has a very slow meditative pace, but it's not so much to give space for these big reflections and emotions. The characters don't seem very interested in the vast void of space until they're directly vulnerable to it (hell, Dr. Floyd sleeps on his flight from Earth to a space station, even as "The Blue Danube" plays and we watch the station and other satellites dance above the world). The pace feels more in service of the audience directly, to appreciate the gorgeous design and to contemplate the themes of progress and violence. This, to me, means it's not MHEIS.

The "Men" in "Men Having Emotions in Space" is also important to me. In so many sci-fi stories, men predominantly take action and go on adventure and either save the day or fail. Maybe they have individual emotions--fear in 2001 when HAL goes rogue, fury and despair in The Empire Strikes Back when Luke learns his enemy is his father--but the movie doesn't give room for itself to be about the emotions of men. In a society where men aren't taught to identify their feelings and can easily live quite emotionally stunted lives, it's really meaningful to me to see movies where men have little to do but feel deeply.

Something that I haven't yet seen in MHEIS movies, but is hopefully out there, is what happens when one turns away from the great void of space and turns back toward Earth, toward home. Sunshine features a room on the ship that projects things like ocean waves and birdsong, to be used by crewmembers when they're overwhelmed and homesick, but we don't hear as much about how being in space changes their relationship with their planet. Ad Astra comes a bit closer, ending with McBride returning to Earth and starting to open his heart to human connection again after confronting his loneliness, but we really only see this in the very last moments of the film.

In real life, however, this seems to be a major part of the experience of being in space. Astronauts speak of what's called the "overview effect," the huge mental shift that occurs when you look down on the surface of Earth and realize you can't see borders, buildings, or people, but you can see both the tremendous beauty and the human-caused destruction of our home. They describe a deep sense of connectedness to all life on Earth and a desire to put aside conflicts in the name of protecting something so precious. It's a beautiful thing that we've only been able to really have in the last 60 years.

On the more bleak side, there's what's probably the most stark example MHEIS from real life, when William Shatner got to briefly go into space with Blue Origin:

I want more of this in movies. I want the men who go to space and have their Big Feelings about humanity and themselves get to be seen being changed by those feelings and coming home to live anew.

What I love about MHEIS is the time and the depth, the rich spaciousness of what is awakened in these men. I wonder about the potential of MHEIS movies to invite those of us watching to experience these emotions ourselves, and let them transform how we interact with our fellow humans on our little blue marble of a planet. Can we let even a simulated void open us up to what lies deep within our hearts, and can we allow what we find there to come forth and speak to us?

#film #sci fi #ad astra #sunshine #2001 a space odyssey #ad astra spoilers #sunshine spoilers #2001 a space odyssey spoilers #film analysis #overview effect #space #space travel #science fiction #speculative fiction