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#the idea of being shoehorned into these different roles and finding your way back to who you truly are... chefs kiss
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Maybe this is just me, but if it ever happens I think FB4 should be set in 43, and include the events surrounding the Chamber of Secrets. Or shift the timeline slightly and have it in 45 and in FB5. I know we complain about shoehorning in Hogwarts, but this is actually a major event for Dumbledore and I think it would be interesting to see Albus juggle it alongside the Grindelwald war - torn in every direction, so to speak. It could also be an easy tie-in for Nagini and/or Newt, what with the basilisk and all. Also Newt and Hagrid could be an interesting dynamic. Hell, having Tom in the picture could potentially even give them an easy way to connect to Ilvermorny, with all the Slytherin stuff. Not to mention contrasting Tom and Grindelwald and Albus' approach to both and how one influences the other. What I'm trying to say is they have a free Voldemort and I feel like there's quite a lot they could do with him, even as a sideplot, that is relevant to the story and not forced, and I think they should use him.
I wouldn't want FB4 to be set in '43. I definitely want The Chamber of Secrets to be addressed, but I don't want to see too much of it. Frankly, I don't want to see a lot of Tom and I don't want the movies to explore his connection to Isolt.
It's not that I don't find the lore fascinating or that I don't love Tom's character. My issue is that we have two movies left and the plot is PACKED. We have many main characters, there will probably be a few more faces (because in CoG Nicholas Flamel was searching through an entire book of possible contacts before ending up finding Lally, and I doubt she'll be the only one from that network that will play a role), and we haven't even gotten into the Global Wizarding War.
Personally, I feel like we know enough about what happened with the chamber back then and we have had more than enough about Tom throughout 7 books. I want to see a nod to the fact that Grindelwald and the politics of the time affected him and I think that in '43 the Chamber would have been important to Albus' storyline, having the threat of blood supremacist attacks inside Hogwarts' walls, and one of the main reasons that his hands will be tied. But I think we should only see it in the context of the politics, of Albus' emotional state, and as you said, of him being torn in different directions. We should also have a small nod to his future connection to Nagini. But this can happen in a very contained way and, other than that, I'd rather Tom stays in the background because we already know how Albus handles him and we already know how he ends up compared to Gellert. Not to mention that overall, he wasn't important to the main conflict that was happening in the wider Wizarding World at the time and that's where this franchise's emphasis is.
I'd start FB4 in '40 to show the start of the war and Grindelwald's rise to power, not to mention that the breaking of WWII will be essential to his increasing following. I'm firm about '40, '43 and '45 all being essential years and I hope that the two upcoming films will manage to touch upon all of them.
I actually like your ideas, but not for this story. I'd love seeing them in another spin-off. It' s just a personal opinion, but I'm just much more interested in exploring Gellert and Albus' love and conflict (both in the present and in the past), the rest of the characters I've come to love, Gellert's followers (if we are ever graced with more substantial writing when it comes to them) and the war, which is far worse than anything we saw in HP, instead of losing a lot of the barely sufficient screentime to a character that has been developed extensively.
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imuybemovoko · 2 years
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I die inside while dissecting Jesus music, part 4
I don't understand how they can justify still making more of this stuff. It's not like they say anything new...
Anyway, here's another round of psychic damage I could avoid by doing literally anything else, including healthy things like sleeping or finding a better job and a fucking therapist, but here I am anyway :^)
Since I mostly just Deadpool my way through these, I might come across as very fuckin sarcastic in a way I don't really intend (at least not this time. I might've in the past, I forget because it's been at least months since I did this to myself.) So I'd like to clarify this time that I don't mean this as a dig against Christianity as a whole, nor do I presume to analyze the way every Christian approaches this song (unless I do a Bethel one, then I'm going to feel pretty free to assume only the unhinged ones engage with it since that's my experience). Bethel aside, I'm looking into the way the people I used to run with interpreted these songs and how fucked those interpretations get. They do worse shit with the doctrines in general than many do, and music is not only a useful way to analyze it, but in evangelical and fundie circles literally functions as a way to speedrun the practice of inducing a panic attack in everyone present and marketing that as the presence of God. In the past I've kinda just been venting with these, but I can probably shoehorn it into some kind of useful analysis of a specific fucked up subculture if I'm not lazy about it.
Today, no guarantees on consistency in that. I should be asleep instead of writing this at the moment.
Anyway.
CW: extensive discussion of toxic religion, also I manage to bring up conversion therapy somehow.
Today's victim source of absurd suffering that I could've avoided: None But Jesus, by Hillsong United featuring Brooke Ligertwood.
That's right motherfuckers, we're getting into Hillsong.
I chose that one because I liked it when I was still cringe enough to unironically enjoy this kind of music. I don't think that's exactly what they mean by "kill your darlings", but fuck you, language changes, I can death of the author a phrase thank you very much >:(
alright. Strap in.
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The particular version I linked above is an acoustic version of a song that maybe they do in other ways? I'm not aware of them if they exist, at least not anymore. Not being able to remember shit like this off the top of my head is kind of nice. I'll be getting lyrics from Genius like I typically do.
The format is a pretty standard verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus kind of situation, with a prechorus that's different each time it shows up. Hard to go wrong with that format.
Nah, they find other ways.
First verse:
In the quiet, in the stillness I know that You are God In the secret of Your Presence I know there I am restored
I think the stillness here is a reference to an incident from 1 Kings 19 where the prophet Elijah fucks off into the mountains, where God hits his favorite mountain with a downright apocalyptic wind followed by an earthquake, and then a fire?!, and Elijah finds God's presence in none of that but rather in the calm afterwards.
And then for a reason I forget, God says "bro what the fuck are you doing on this mountain?" I remember Elijah being a bit of what God would call a dramatic lil shit and I would probably call "fuckin relatable, I mean holy shit the guy goes through a new life-altering trauma a week in his role as prophet, no shit he wants to disappear into the hills and never come back sometimes, I feel that way and I haven't seen a few dozen murders, several wars, visions of an apocalypse that I'm supposed to share, and to crown it all, some eldritch horror with nineteen wings and a crust of eyes all over its body". It's not super relevant to the song. The reference to 1 Kings that I pick out of this might be a bit less than conscious anyway, the idea of God's presence as a voice in stillness is pervasive. Maybe the singer is just referring to just like reminding herself of her faith during quiet times, an incredibly common practice across probably all branches of Christianity including the sane ones, and also common in quite a few non-Christian faiths. I didn't need either of these paragraphs, but I have them anyway because fuck it.
Anyway I don't know why she would call the Christian God's presence a secret in the second half of this verse, they don't treat their ideas around God's presence being healing/cleansing/etc. as any kind of secret. Maybe there's context I'm forgetting or maybe it's a neat way of referring to it for the song because it does carry over some of that quiet place vibe. In either case, she's saying that this presence is restorative.
Nothing super fucky just from this verse, which is actually unlike the deathculty vibe from Even So Come, the pretty surface-level gaslighting of Gracefully Broken, or the "Jesus is my boyfriend and dying for him would make me cum" vibe of Even Unto Death. This one is honestly just "God has been a positive influence in my life", the song. Where this gets fucked up in the churches that weaponize this stuff is where just how intense they are about original sin and making people feel like absolute piles of shit for existing comes into play. I spent a couple of years in a Pentecostal campus ministry cult (AoG affiliated, if you know what that is I'm terribly sorry) and a couple of years involved with Calvary Chapel and in both cases, "restored" here is going to carry connotations of having any shot at being a moral person, being "right with god", being plucked out of eternal suffering despite having no fucking right to that, etc. We didn't tend to do a lot of interpretive work on songs, but this is the role it would play.
First prechorus:
When You call I won't refuse Each new day, again I'll choose
Sane Christians are probably going with something a bit resembling reciprocity here. Like a "God is a stabilizing influence on my life and sometimes I do things for him because I'm thankful" kind of situation. The source material they're drawing from frames this as an obligation, so they do that incredibly often as well, and I'm actually not aware of Christians who don't, but I'm sure there's a lot of healthier approaches than what I was learning from 2015 to 2019. Because in fuckin Chi Alpha or Calvary Chapel, this becomes "Trying to have my own agency is Satanic and I have to fight it every day, I'm a lifeless hole empty vessel for you God".
Yes, that's a reference. Dorian Electra is cool.
The chorus is a touch weirder just on the surface of it:
There is no one else for me None but Jesus Crucified to set me free Now I live to bring Him praise
It's giving "Jesus is my boyfriend" meets, in the last line, "Agency? Who's she?". I assume sane people think, "yeah, there's only one son of god, I only worship one god and he did do the whole sacrificing himself for my sins thing, I really like him" or something. In my series of cults, they take this something more along the lines of "hello yes i am either addicted to Jesus and my sole purpose is singing neat little songs to him and yelling about him in places where no one wants that and abusing children so they do the same thing, or i am not only deeply evil but not trying to do the impossible task of becoming not evil". These people literally want to fucking delete their own agency and be empty vessels for God. One guy spent like 20 minutes telling me about how he wants to rely on God rather than the mechanisms of his own fucking body to breathe and held that up as an example of what we should be. These lyrics are a little "agency? who's she?", but holy FUCK does what's inherent to them pale in comparison to how they had me trying to live. These people also lean incredibly hard into sin as a thing that makes a person thoroughly fucking evil. The last time I ever spoke to the pastor at the Calvary Chapel I subjected myself to, he pointed to his grandchild, a literal baby, touching a stove when he said not to as a sign that this kid is evil to their core and not as a sign that they didn't know what "don't touch that, you'll burn yourself, it's hot" means at this early point in their life. Every fucking thing you do is, to these people, a sign that you're infinitely bad and deserve to die and then burn forever.
Oh, and being queer in any way? Very much worse.
I need ✨therapy✨.
Verse 2 is also a touch hard to divorce from the insanity, but I can imagine it being, in the right hands, about as ambiently toxic as it's unavoidable for Christianity and its authority-based language structures to be.
In the chaos, in confusion I know You're sovereign still In the moment of my weakness You give me grace to do Your Will
First half is more of the normal actually stuff from the first verse, just like... the singer reads God as a stabilizing influence on her life. "Sovereign" here is an example of that ambient authoritarian language, which means culty people will do insane shit with it and sane Christians will just say that God is... I don't know the exact takes, but like an underlying force of the universe and has a good plan or something. And what is life except a parade of chaos and confusion punctuated with some nice chill moments? It's just how we exist, and that's neither here nor there, but it can be nice to feel like you have a stabilizing influence.
The second half is where this not only gets a bunch worse in culty settings, but becomes a little harder to avoid problems from, the latter mostly because I honestly fail to see how this doesn't end up becoming shaming. Like "God gives you everything you need to avoid fucking up, so why do you, asshole?" is a thing that I don't see being absent from this bit in any circumstance at all, it's just that sane Christians will go "eh, learning experiences amirite????!!1?" and cultists will go "we are all living proof that every single human deserves D̸̟̫̙̮̝̃̍̊̊̊̾͋̎̒É̶̛͚͓͙͎̈́̓͋̎̽͑͌̂̈́̏̕͠͠A̶̹̳͚̰͓̰̾͑̎́͌̀̄͋͜T̴̛̪͓̹̲̋͋̌̍̅̒̓H̴̟̳͈̔̈́̃̆͛̈́̏̕͝͝ for literally just existing, go forth and hate yourself until you're better".
Oh, also, conversion therapy rests on this premise. Christian bigots typically say "God says don't be gay or trans, and God can change you, so change, [REDACTED]".
That is, it rests on strained, uncharitable interpretations mixed with hate and a copious amount of outright bullshit.
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Second prechorus:
So, when You call I won't delay This my song through all my days
First bit feels a bit ambiently authoritarian, just "God says frog, we jump" vibes that can't really get out of it there. Answering God's call is important to the singer and they express it in a way that's like "oh, ok yeah sure just hand the bastard a weapon why don't you". Christianity has that as a structural problem. Second line is a lifelong commitment. Nothing too weird there, I mean, people do that with other humans too, sometimes for worse reasons than someone who has a positive experience with a god might have for saying this.
Or, as AoG or Calvary types would put it, "Hesitating to obey God's commands is a sin and God might kill you for it." Because they're at best not approaching the faith in a healthy way and at worst, weaponizing the ever-loving FUCK out of it.
Time for the bridge.
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Bridge is just this, twice:
All my delight is in You, Lord All of my hope, all of my strength All my delight is in You, Lord Forevermore
This is very "all your eggs in one basket" for me, but hey, I'm not a monotheist, plus the god she's referring to here didn't deliver for me. A sane person's approach to this might be something like "God is the source of these good things and also I like him a lot".
AoG and Calvary both told me:
that unbelievers are incapable of happiness (bullshit, but scary)
that people, even Christians, who don't yeet themselves as deeply as possible into God are pushed around by every idea that gets thrown their way and also probably fully want to die as soon as life gets fonky
that people who aren't the right kind of Christian who say they have any hope are either bullshitting, deceived by Satan into thinking that, or both
that people who enjoy things other than God are idolaters
and probably a lot of other similar shit that I'll uncover in therapy sessions one day
being God's literal puppet slave forever will be like cumming for all of eternity actually (of course they're far too prudish to actually use those words, it would've been funny in retrospect though)
or, in other words, they take all these ideas in the worst direction possible, of course.
I should sleep now. And probably also find a therapist.
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Deste hságâneutá, sa dorá se hajse dlázo, se termíneko...
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eddtollett · 3 years
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thinking about nonbinary arya and the way the house of black and white is a perfect representation of others seeing arya a completely different way than they see themself, other people not seeing arya at all but the masks they have to wear or the conventions they have to fit. but they're arya stark of winterfell and have always been!
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kanchelsis · 3 years
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If you wrote the Nikolai Duology, how would you change it? You have some good ideas!
aaaaaa thank you!! people have been so lovely about my salty post ghsfjks i'm kissing you all on the cheek 💕
to answer your question, i think it might be less about what i would do, and more about what i wouldn't do. i'll make some bullet points and say whatever comes to mind.
(to be honest, the idea of nikolai having his own duology has lost its appeal to me, which is sad because i adore him. i just believe he's a better side character than main, and there are more interesting grishaverse stories waiting to be told. but let's work on the assumption that i have to keep the basic pillars of the books and not just throw away the whole concept.)
ok so... zoya. i would take her in a completely different direction than lb did. i love a good morally ambiguous character, so i wouldn't just erase that - what drew me to her in tgt was her stubbornness, her shallowness, her capacity for petty cruelty, but also her determination and confidence. we can't just have her holding one of the most powerful positions in ravka and everyone just accepting that. not only does she need to have doubters, the doubters need to have a point.
we have a ruthless young woman, a soldier no less, suddenly needing to utilise diplomacy to protect an entire country. make her screw up. make her uncompromising and callous. make her human. don't expect her to step into this role seamlessly just so unlimited power can be handed to her on a silver platter.
if she has to be an ultrapowerful grisha, it's so much more logical to make her work for it. to hell with the saints on the fold stuff, what even was that?? lb tells us that everything we thought about grisha power is wrong, but 1) throws away the really cool magic system she made and 2) doesn't replace it with anything else. just let zoya be a squaller, not a dragon-saint-chosen-one or whatever.
writing this has kinda made me sad, since zoya could've been amazing, but anyway. onwards to nikolai.
this is the nikolai duology. if he's giving his name to the series i expect him to be the central character. i'd want his main struggle to surround identity and an uncertain future - who is nikolai, underneath the charm and flirtation? there could be an internal war between the demon, carefree sturmhond and the duty-bound king of ravka. both he and zoya are faced with a disarrayed court filled with people who don't think they have what it takes to lead.
there are so many nonsensical subplots in the duology that... fizzle into nothing. cut it down. pick a few things to focus on and give them the detail they deserve.
speaking of, the cult of the starless! lb took what could've been a source of endless interest and turned it into a bland caricature. we get it ma'am, you hate the darkling. but the problem is that the darkling's root motive gets conveniently glossed over in favour of character bashing. he wanted a safe world for grisha. that still doesn't exist. there's a tidbit about grisha no longer being forced to join the second army, but that was not the issue at hand at all? they're not going to know how to use their powers. they're still going to face discrimination.
so onto my point, what if the cult of the starless was predominantly grisha? those who feel let down by the world around them, who see the darkling as a martyr for a reason. now THAT would be something to contend with. a physical consequence for the events of tgt. put them next to people like genya and nikolai who intimately understand the harm the darkling has done, and you've got a badass subplot going there.
plus, imagine zoya spotting old friends and comrades amongst the starless. angst potential. also, yuri's treatment in the books pisses me off so much - lb wants us to see him as a foolish annoyance, but this kid literally marched the religious sect that he leads right up to the gates of os alta. now top that off with grisha powers (inferni would be cool) and you have a way more threatening character.
zoyalai. right, ok. what irks me about these two is that their so-called banter and pining go nowhere. we get some half-hearted justifications for them not being together, and the narrative completely overlooks zoya's comments about him in the trilogy. let's fix this.
maybe they could start off professional around each other, somewhat cold. until at some point, they begin an exclusively physical affair, just fwb and nothing more. i think this could work given the fact they're both flirty and materialistic. the stakes would be that if the court found out, their reputations would be significantly tarnished, yet neither are willing to stop. as they spend more time together, feelings blossom. they're no longer the demon king and squaller general to each other. they just want to be nikolai and zoya, yet both are too proud to make the first move. let the pining commence.
either that or give nikolai a new love interest. wasn't there a line in kos that joked that nikolai would be prone to falling in love with a palace maid? the potential spice of his love interest being someone with zero political standing, someone like dominik. a fellow pirate or even a starless member.
i don't even know what to say about nina. i was devastated over her treatment. there really do need to be more stories where a character who has lost a lover moves on and finds love again, but matthias is quite literally freshly buried when she meets her new boo. that's a major disservice to the potential of hanne's character as well. i'm kinda in favour of scrapping nina's whole plot. it would need a colossal amount of overhaul to work and even though i'm enjoying sharing my ideas, i don't have time to think about that.
same goes for isaac and mayu. either scrap it or give it the attention it needs.
i'm aware this is very kos-centric, but kos is the root of my issues and row is just an extension of that.
MOST IMPORTANTLY: no darkling return. no alina and mal. this story has been told and wrapped up. please don't cheapen it by going back and contradicting tgt. no gratuitous, shoehorned crow cameos either.
that's that about that, i guess!! i apologise for any spelling or grammatical errors, i wrote this rather quickly. i know this isn't gonna be for everyone. that's alright. i just ask people to civil about it and if discussion is going to be had, don't take things in bad faith. sorry anon this got long af.
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The Dax Debacle: Re-Imagining S7 of “Star Trek Deep Space Nine”
*This post came about after a few discussions with Lee @creativilee on how the stories of Jadzia and Ezri could have been adapted to better serve both of those characters and respect the work of both actresses! Thanks to them for all their help, encouragement, and serving as a springboard! Anything in italics is theirs!
For all of us DS9 fans, the finale season can be rather fraught for several reasons, many of the biggest revolving around the transition from Jadzia Dax to Ezri Dax, henceforth called “The Dax Debacle.” Many folks seem to love one and hate the other, which is a huge shame because both characters brought amazing potential and storylines to the table, but the writers really fumbled in some key aspects. This sure-to-be-long-winded meta is an attempt between myself and Lee to fix some of those fumbles and give both characters the storylines they deserved. So, let’s get to it!
First, a little behind-the scenes context.
Why Two Dax-es?
To begin with, it’s important to acknowledge that the Dax Debacle was largely unplanned, and the writing often reflects the ways in which Nicole de Boer was shoehorned in as Terry Ferrell’s replacement, just as the character of Ezri was deliberately put forward as Jadzia’s replacement as the next host of Dax. What happened?
It is widely believed, based on various interviews Terry gave during the show’s run, that the set of DS9 was inhospitable to her, placing her in situations of harassment and abuse. By the time of S7, due to this as well as the sheer grueling schedule of the show, she wanted to be moved from a permanent member of the cast into a reoccurring role like that of Andrew Robinson. When it proved fruitless to negotiate this, Terry decided to leave the show, though she explicitly stated she had not wanted Jadzia’s character to be killed on her departure.
Though the writers went through with the decision to kill Jadzia, they still wanted the character of Dax to remain on the crew, and due to the way Trill physiology was designed, they decided to do this with another host, similar to how Jadzia was initially seen as the continuation of Sisko’s old friend Curzon.
Enter Nicole de Boer as Ezri Dax, a young unjoined Trill who had never intended to be a host at all, and the story of her adjustment to carrying on the Dax legacy.
The Story’s Seed
It’s definitely worth noting that the initial conception of Ezri’s story, the young suddenly-joined Trill joined under trying circumstances who has to re-discover herself has a lot of potential! It could have been extremely poignant and moving, in something of the same vein as Seven of Nine rediscovering herself on “Voyager.” Unfortunately, the choices made regarding how she became the next Dax make it hard to appreciate Ezri on her own merits. Both we as the audience and the other characters are constantly seeing Jadzia in her place. It stymied who she was able to be as a character and how the audience was able to receive her. The way she was written invites constant comparisons, often to Ezri’s detriment in her initial interactions with the crew.
Lee said some things extremely well here: “Ezri as a character was hindered a lot by being made ‘Jadzia's replacement’ instead of ‘the next Dax,’ a Dax in her own right. While Jadzia definitely had Curzon's legacy to live with, it was absolutely not all she was, and she interacted with it as such, but Ezri wasn’t written with the same care. She isn't ‘Ezri Dax’ she's ‘Ezri, the one who replaced Jadzia.’ She was entirely written as a replacement, and it shows.”
Fumbles, Fumbles, Fumbles
Let’s review some things that went sideways in Ezri’s arc, so we can see it for the purposes of our rewrite.
The “I'm the new host of your dead friends symbiont" aspect is very difficult to watch. It’s hard to say if the writers wanted to lean into this aspect deliberately, but even if they did, I don’t think they ended up hitting the emotional notes they wanted to.
Ezri doesn’t seem to get much training from what we can tell, and being joined is a huge change! We learned from Jadzia’s arc that initiates often train for years. It’s wartime, but she still really did get thrown into the deep end!
The audience can’t approach Ezri on her own merits, but quite often, the crew isn’t doing that, either. There’s the caveat that they’re grieving and it’s an odd situation to be in, but! Sisko initially tries to interact with her in the same way he would Jadzia (calling her old man, which upsets her a great deal,) Julian flirts with her with the same intensity he did Jadzia in early seasons, Worf seems to only be seeing his dead wife any time he looks at her.
Ezri is given a role as ship’s counselor when she is in no way emotionally able to handle the psychological difficulties of others when she’s going through so much herself.
Her return to Deep Space 9 (the station) seems to contradict what we know about Trill culture. Joining is meant to give the symbiont as many life experiences as possible, and re-association (to various degrees) is anything from strongly discouraged to forbidden. Ezri goes right back to living Jadzia’s life in some ways, in the same place with the same people. Jadzia wasn’t able to resume her relationship with Lenara Khan, but Ezri finds herself being intimate with Jadzia’s widower.
Our alternatives and fixes for the arcs of Jadzia and Ezri fall into three broad categories, which we’ll break down here:
1. Ezri Not-Dax? (Ezri is still joined unexpectedly, but rather than the Dax symbiont, she is host to another symbiont which needed her.)
2. Where in the World is Jadzia Dax? (If Ezri isn’t a Dax, we have to figure out what to do with the Dax we know!)
3. The Legacy Question (The age-old Trill questions of new hosts, old hosts, and interpersonal relationships.)
Ezri Who? Ezri Not-Dax!
The best solution Lee and I were able to find was the idea that Ezri was joined under similar circumstances to canon, but not to Dax itself.
This is still largely workable for the story we want to tell, because, as Lee explains: “The Dax symbiont isn't key to her character, except to affect her relationships with the crew. Her main personal conflicts are about being joined before she was ready, not about being joined to Dax. She still would have worked without the Dax symbiont.”
For the sake of convenience, let’s call this hypothetical new symbiont Nal. So, Ezri Tigan —> Ezri Nal.
Where in the World is Jadzia Dax?
Theres 3 different paths we could take with Jadzia!
If Terry was made a reoccurring member of the cast, the writers could easily have put Jadzia into the position of being given a transfer assignment. Though Jadzia might initially struggle to accept this because of her loyalty to her friends, “with things picking up in wartime, it's believable that Starfleet would want the people more familiar with what dangers are on the other side of the wormhole to be spread around and maximize the number of ships and stations that are prepared for it. Maybe Jadzia acts as a representative and goes around giving lectures/debriefings on that stuff. This situation puts us in a position to get frequent updates about Jadzia, even if we don't see her again!"
If Terry did not stay on at all, Jadzia as a character could still have died, but the Dax symbiont finds a new host back on Trill, away from the station. Maybe we get updates about this Dax because Ezri trained with them for a bit, or the new Dax reaches out to Sisko from time to time, since he was well-acquainted with two previous Dax-es.
The option I like best for purely self-indulgent reasons would be if Terry stayed on for one more season and was present on the station when Ezri arrived, serving as a mentor to her.
The Legacy Question
Since the “TNG” days, Star Trek likes to experiment with Trill, and what happens in relationships between joined Trill and non-Trill, particularly in the case of a symbiont with a new host. We might assume this was part of the writer’s intent with the Dax Debacle, but it went over much better in the move from Curzon to Jadzia then it did in the move from Jadzia to Ezri.
Other options for exploring “the legacy question:”
“If they wanted to explore the whole ‘new host when the previous host was close to you’ thing, they could have had an episode that went into detail about Sisko meeting Jadzia for the first time after the death of Curzon.” Or, just having Sisko reflect more on the changes and developments in their relationship as time passes. They did this quite well initially when Jadzia first came aboard, but dropped it soon after the first season for the most part and left it to our amazing fic writers to pick it back up.
The character of Curzon is often used as a vehicle for explaining Jadzia’s connection to Klingon culture, but he also gives us access to a wealth of relationships which could be used to explore the legacy question. “Curzon had so many friends, and we see a variety of reactions from them, particularly with his Klingon friends. Some of them immediately fall back into that friendship, some of them struggle to recognize that Jadzia may not be Curzon, but she is still Dax, and has a lot of Curzon in her.” Keeping that thread going would have been intriguing also.
The Life of Ezri Nal
Here’s how some elements of Ezri’s story might look with the “Nal” symbiont.
Ezri is joined rather unprepared when a medical emergency puts the life of a symbiont at risk and the host is unable to be saved. For convenience, let’s call this symbiont Nal.
Ezri was always interested in Starfleet Service, especially in working as a counselor (which she studied on her own rather than gaining the knowledge through the memories of past hosts.) She assigned to the station by the Trill Symbiosis Commission largely because there are people there who will know how to help a newly-joined Trill; namely Sisko, Julian, and Jadzia.
Jadzia+ Ezri
Being the only other Trill on the station that we know about, Jadzia puts herself in a mentor role to Ezri, helping her adjust to her new life and consciousness. Her personality and experiences make her perfect for the job!
As a bonus, we get to see how the mentor and mentee relarionships between joined Trill and initiates work.
We also set up some fun parallels! Take Jadzia, who had to try so hard to be joined, and it was a huge goal in her life (to the point where she applied again to the Symbiosis Comission after being rejected once, which is played as something that basically never happens,) versus Ezri who was perfectly happy to be just herself and ended up taking on this responsibility without being ready and without feeling like she had much choice because of how Trill culture regards symbionts.
From the little we know about Jadzia before she was joined, she was somewhat like Ezri-bookish, shy, anxious-and she initially struggled to adjust to the likes of Curzon. But now, she’s gown so confident in who she is, for the most part, and she’d be the perfect person to guide Ezri and help her find joy in her new life.
But, she also understands having difficulties with aspects of being joined, for example, her conflict in whether she should rejoin with Lenara Khan, or how she struggled in the aftermath of the discovery of the cover-up regarding Joran.
In short, Jadzia helps keep Ezri as mentally and emotionally healthy as she can be.
Julian+Ezri
Being CMO, Julian helps look after Ezri and ensure she’s physically well; after all, it’s what he does best! “Having Julian as the Chief Medical Officer on board would be a big draw for the Trill. He's even performed a symbiont joining and removal procedure. He had to be very familiar with Trill biology, meaning a newly joined host would be relatively safe and well-cared-for on board. And, I’m sure that there's a big chemical change in Trill when the get joined, and adjusting to that would be hard!”
Julian can also sympathize having something done you didn’t want or weren’t ready for, and can help her process those feelings. “ They both have complicated relationships with their parents regarding their parents’ expectations and their own desires and feelings, which would be interesting!”
In some ways, Julian can serve as another mentor to Ezri. It would be an interesting shift to watch Julian, who is often portrayed as the the youngest or most “green” be able to mentor and guide someone else. “This is also a good way to show Julian has grown and matured, without having to have other characters just say it.”
If we still followed their romance route, having Ezri as Ezri Nal rather than Dax could have make the relationship between her and Julian sit a lot better with audiences. With a rewrite, Julian is not chasing the “ghost” of Jadzia; rather he’s meeting Ezri for the person she is, on her own terms. This also prevents a regression of his character back to the way he chased Jadzia in the early seasons, and instead honors the relationship of treasured friendship that Julian and Jadzia built.
Sisko+Ezri
As he is with many of his younger crew, Sisko takes naturally to the role of a mentor and father figure with Ezri, again meeting her for the person she is, on her own terms. He serves as a valuable guide to ship life and helps her get acquainted with station staff and residents.
Like with Jake, Sisko encourages Ezri to find herself by being her own person.
Ezri tries to take up cooking as a hobby with Sisko, but the experiences of past hosts mean her skills vary wildly depending on what they are making.
Other Relationships
Garak helps Ezri figure out how she wants to dress, often integrating different styles from past hosts. (He rather jumps at the chance.) Ezri still has her difficulties helping him as a counselor, but her additional training and the lack of complications from the Dax symbiont make things easier. They also get to know each other through Julian.
In this Ideal Timeline, Ziyal survives and meets Ezri. They relate well to each other, both of them not really knowing where they fit and grappling with someone else’s legacy, but they have each other for support. Ziyal has given her portraits as gifts.
She has a similar dynamic with Jake, who is trying to figure out how to honor his parents while being his own man. Ezri starts writing memoirs of sorts about her past lives on his suggestion.
Surprisingly, she gets on with Nog, too. They’re both doing things unexpected and feeling like they’re going to be the first in something big.
She isn’t especially close to Worf, but he assures her that the sacrifices she made for Nal are ones to be honored, and becomes rather fond of Ezri due to Jadzia’s influence.
Thanks for reading this super-long meta! Please tell Lee and I your thoughts on this rewrite!
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jadelotusflower · 2 years
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Roundup - September 2021
This month: Saving Fish From Drowning, Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass, Anne Boleyn, Cruella, The Chair
Reading
Saving Fish from Drowning (Amy Tan) - I've always enjoyed Tan's work (particularly The Joy Luck Club, both the book and film) - Fish is somewhat of a departure, following a group of American tourists in Myanmar, narrated by their recently deceased friend Bibi Chen. The novel begins with a preface in which Tan explains she drew inspiration for the novel based on real events chronicled by a San Franciscan psychic's "automatic writing" channeling Chen's spirit (in truth a complete invention on Tan’s part, both literary device and metaphor).
Bibi is a compelling narrator, full of wry commentary of her friends as they bumble their way through their trip, the tone of the novel quite light despite some of the dark subject matter around the political situation in Myanmar (the novel was written in 2005 and set several years earlier) and the nature of intervention - the title referring to fisherman who "save fish from drowning" by netting them. It was at times difficult to keep track of all twelve (!) of the main characters and who was who outside of the few who get the most attention of the narrative.
An interesting read, about the stories we tell ourselves and others, and the fictions we believe for comfort and hope.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass and what Alice found there (Lewis Carroll) - I've been making more of an effort to work on my novel lately, which makes some reference to these works so thought it was due for a re-read. It seems impossible to consider these separate novels given how conflated they have become in pop culture - even the Disney film takes elements from both - they act as either a duology, or alternatively a single story told in two parts.
I personally much prefer Looking Glass, perhaps because I imprinted on the 1985 miniseries as a child (which adapts both novels, but we only had the second part on tape) - best known for it's celebrity cameos in silly costumes - including Sammy Davis Jnr, Donald O'Connor, Ringo Starr, and Carol Channing, among others, and the danger of the Jabberwocky as a manifestation of Alice's fears quite a nice idea that isn't found in the original text.
Perhaps Looking Glass, while remaining absurdist, is more cohesive than Wonderland with the chess motif and central motive for Alice to reach the Eighth Square and become a queen. I do however find the constant poetry tedious, and wonder whether both Wonderland and Looking Glass are better remembered for the concepts rather than the actual text.
Watching
Anne Boleyn (episodes 1-3) - I didn't think we needed another film/show about Anne, but I was always going to watch it. This series relies upon familiarity with history as it begins with Anne's final, doomed pregnancy - opening with the haunting words “Anne is the most powerful woman in England - she has just five months to live.”
There's nothing especially new here; rather a mood and character piece as Anne's isolation and desperation grows. It is of course built around the central, compelling performance of Jodie Turner-Smith, in every single scene and not afraid to shy away from Anne's sharper edges while remaining profoundly sympathetic, surrounded by a court of whispers, her existence on a knife's edge. We know only what Anne knows, and we see the smaller, heartbreaking moments usually passed over in other adaptations - in her grief following the stillbirth, Anne sits up in bed almost catatonic, milk leaking from her breasts, her attempt to walk back the infamous “dead man's shoes” comment, and the long days of her imprisonment.
Then there’s the beautiful costumes - in a court of dark furs, Anne wears bold primary colours and velvets that catch the light, that them become more subdued prints once she is in the Tower.
The other notable feature is the casting - described as "identity conscious" rather than colour-blind, representative of the othering of Anne and her relatives. Another standout is Thalissa Teixeira as Anne's cousin Madge Shelton, fleshed out as her confidant and the only one who remains true to her. It's a fresh perspective and a worthwhile watch, particularly for Turner-Smith's performance.
Cruella (dir. Craig Gillespie) - Spoilers. I wasn’t planning on bothering with this, but my sister wanted to watch it and I’d been told by several people that it was actually quite good. Look, I'm not saying they lied, I just think they were able to look past things that I was not.
Because actually, the core story has potential and the film has enjoyable elements (notably Emma Thompson), but simply falters every time they try and shoehorn references to the source material, and there are some truly egregious attempts - Roger is the Baroness’s lawyer for some reason? And writes the familiar Cruella De Vil song about how awful she is when she's just given him a puppy?
It doesn’t work as a prequel, or villain origin story, or even a reboot, since Cruella’s character journey is over by the end of the film (I have no idea what the purported sequel is going to be about) - in fact "Cruella" is just a persona Stone's Estella adopts (complete with a terrible affected accent), and there is no conceivable way for her to become the wannabe puppy murderer we know from the book or any of the film adaptations. Oh, and Pongo and Perdita are siblings! Well done, Disney. Slow clap for you.
Also, with a runtime of 2 hours 16 minutes it is Interminable and the whole thing is saddled with a terrible, unnecessary voiceover. Seriously, they should show this in film class to demonstrate when v/o hinders not helps.
They were likely going for a Maleficent-style re-imagining, but where that succeeded (somewhat) in a completely new retelling right down to a different ending to the source material, this wants to have it's cake and eat it too - it wants to have the Cruella aesthetic (the car, the hair, Hell Hall, the camp accent) but doesn't ever let her be a villain, or even the beginnings of a villain, but that's that's reason she's so memorable in the first place. It puts all the pieces in place for the story we know, and yet that story simply cannot happen with this version of Cruella.
In the end, it's a story of a fundamentally decent person who maybe goes a bit overboard in retaliating to bullies, and swindles a sociopath to reclaim what's rightfully hers. Cruella De Vil! I just couldn't get over this fundamental misapplication of the source material.
In many ways, it almost feels as if this was pitched as a sequel, with Cruella in the Baroness role. It would have fit a lot better with the aesthetic, the time period, and the concept of punk disruption of classic fashion. Or, it was a completely unrelated story of a plucky orphan who rises in the fashion world, that at some point was grafted onto the Dalmatians property. Either one would have worked better, frankly.
I am probably being overly harsh. If you switch off your brain and enjoy the clothes it’s fine. But honestly, if you want your live action Cruella fix, just watch the Glenn Close version, because it is superior in every way.
The Chair (season 1) - I watched this for Sandra Oh, and I was not disappointed, because I got to watch Sandra Oh. On the other hand...it's not that I didn't like it, I just...wish it had been better?
The story revolves around Ji-Yoon Kim, the first woman (let alone woman of colour) to become Chair of English at a "minor Ivy" university, as she tries to juggle the clash of old style academia and new, raise her daughter as a single mother, and deal with a series of controversies caused by one of her professors (and love interest). It's the latter I feel sucked up way too much time and was ultimately unsatisfying - particularly the end, which was played like a moral victory but really rubbed me the wrong way. If this gets a season 2, I hope they dump Jay Duplass' fuckup sadsack because hoo boy, am I sick of that kind of male character.
But Sandra Oh is wonderful.
Writing
The Lady of the Lake - chapter 5 posted, 4215 words (10,261)
Against the Dying of the Light 1954 words (11,976)
Here I Go Again - 414 words (12,948)
Novel - 1039 words (1484)
Total this month: 7,622
Total this year: 48,435
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hapuriainen · 3 years
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Hapuriainen's Animation & Comics & Games of 2020
It is again time for the annual compilation!
Manga:
Attack on Titan
I'm so sad this is so close to end... It's been my main thing for a few years now. Eren definitely didn't take the route I expected but I still find this consistent with his character and a bold and interesting move from the author.
(My notes say I also finished the jr high spin-off manga but it's not worth talking about)
Awards given: Best Side Girl (I still like Gabi, haters gonna hate), Best Boy (ditto Eren)
One Piece, My Hero Academia My interest in OP is still at an all-time low and I'm just waiting for the arc to end. There are so many characters and I have little idea what their deal is, Carrot hasn't been interesting in ages and currently Yamato is the only character I care for. Same for HeroAca; at least the excruciatingly long action scene is finally over.
Undead Unluck New Jump series! I think the main duo have a really good dynamic, but they're pretty much the only thing I care about and I'm very lost with what the plot is actually supposed to be about.
Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro
I like detective stories so here's one from the Assassination Classroom creator! The detective stuff itself could get rather nonsensical and as the story progressed more and more fantasy elements were added, but the titular character was entertaining enough to keep me interested. The viewpoint character was refreshingly (for a Jump series) a girl and her dynamic with Neuro (an ordinary schoolgirl and an arrogant amoral troll demon) was great.
Awards given: Best non-romantic relationship (Neuro & Yako)
Spy x Family
Super fun and the characters are cute!  The main couple has such great chemistry and in general I enjoy following characters who are really competent at their job. Not surprised that this has become hugely popular.
Awards given: Best romance (it is rare to get me to ship anything but the main couple here is just so cute)
Delicious in Dungeon
This manga has amazing character design and the author clearly loves to play around with it, like by drawing each character as each other's races, or making clones of everyone but each clone is a little different so you can guess which is the real one with the characters, and there's so much thought put to the outfits too. And then there's of course all the worldbuilding around how an RPG dungeon and the creatures in it could work, but it's presented simply enough that the story is still easy to follow. I also like the upbeat atmosphere; maybe I could get a bit more emotionally involved if there was more drama, but I still really like this as it is.
Awards given: Best character designs
Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou
Reread one of my favourite manga ever and it's still just as good. I love how the manga still has a positive vibe to it, under it there is the quiet melancholy of a world that is close to ending. And it's wonderful how uninterested the story is answering any of the worldbuilding questions it sets up.
Beastars
This was incredibly interesting in how it presented an animal society where the carnivore-herbivore differences couldn't be just explained away with "the differences don't really exist", and the story looks at this from so many different angles. Pairs really well with Zootopia for a completely different approach. Louis was a really interesting character with how he publicly managed to appear as if he was a good candidate to be the next ambassador for the peace between the animals but was actually very cold and broken inside, and I really liked his breakdown moment. The ending was pretty meh though.
Awards given: Best Side Boy (Louis)
Kannagi
This one has really cute character designs but apart from that it's a pretty generic harem story. Except for the twist that the main girl already had been involved with a boy which caused otaku to shred their manga or whatever. I believe I would have enjoyed this more if it finished back when it went to hiatus since at this point it didn't do much for me.
Witch Hat Atelier
The main girl is the kind of heroic, friendly, plucky goody-two-shoes protagonist I really don't like but apart from that this is a great manga. I love the art, and the way the magic works is really well set up but also easy to understand. Great outfits too!
Anime:
This year I learned that in order to clear stuff from your anime watch list you need to actually watch anime. So unexpectedly I think I watched a lot more different series than usual.
Attack on Titan
It was my plan to watch seasons 1-3 before jumping on board with the last one, and of course I dragged my feet for the entire year and had to marathon the whole thing in autumn. I still prefer the manga, but the anime does have great colours, soundtrack and voice acting and some of the action scenes were amazing. But I really hate what they did to Historia in season 3... The final season has been excellent so far and I can't wait for the big scene in the next episode.
Awards given: Best OP (all the Linked Horizon ones)
Ouran High School Host Club
Haruhi continues to be one of the best girls in the anime and manga industry ever with her confident and no-nonsense attitude, and Tamaki's oblivious and overflowing friendliness makes for a great counterpart to her. And the opening theme is so darn catchy.
Awards given: Best Girl (Haruhi)
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann Finally managed to watch this. I love the iconic character designs and all the chaotic energy. Kamina for best bro. I've never cared for mecha, the girls were nice but the writing around them sucked and the second half wasn't as strong as the first one, but still a good package overall.
Awards given: Best ED (don't care for the song that much but Simon looks somehow really cool in the second ending)
Haibane Renmei
Another one that had been on the watch list for years. A lovely quiet and contemplative show. Visuals were rather dull though but maybe it's better for a show like this that the characters didn't have bubblegum pink hair.
Digimon Adventure 2020
This started promising but has since lost steam. I really like how different the story is from the original Digimon Adventure, and compared to Precure it's super nice how not every episode has the exact same structure, and the cast has different roles and regularly gets split up instead of shoehorning everyone into every conflict. But on the other hand the characters feel way more samey and flat, and the original "kids want to return to their home from the Digital World" plot was a lot more personal than the current one about global crises and prophecy jargon. And some of the action scenes last way too long.
Awards given: Worst side boy (Agumon and his evolutions, it is of course expected that he'd get a lot of screen time but I'm so over how much he's constantly pushed in your face in the franchise)
Shuumatsu Nani Shitemasu ka? Isogashii Desu ka? Sukutte Moratte Ii Desu ka?
This wasn't afwul but still left me kind of cold. I think the character designs were a problem here, in general I'm used to brightly coloured anime characters but this was trying to be a very serious story about child soldiers who know they're going to die young. But when they were colour-coded and always wore the same clothes (and mostly had pretty generic animu girl personalities) they felt so artificial which made it harder to get into the drama. Nice OP song.
Yashahime
Inuyasha was my first show after really getting into anime so I was super hyped for any kind of new content. So far this has unfortunately been rather dull since I'm not particularly interested in either of Sesshoumaru's daughters, and the way the show treats the absence of the old cast is annoying. Just either show them or make it clear we're not supposed to care about them, now it's just annoying how their disappearance is treated as a mystery but the three heroines know barely anything about their heritage and don't even seem interested in learning either. But I'll watch this to the end for Moroha.
Kaitou Tenshi Twin Angels, Twin Angel Break, Pretear, Happy Seven, Healin' Good Precure
Watched a lot of magical girl stuff this year too, these being shows that play the tropes straight. The Twin Angel seasons had different flaws but were otherwise watchable aside from the awful Twin Angel Break heroine. Pretear had surprisingly nice character writing and I feel I would really have liked this if I saw it at an earlier part of my anime hobby experience but now it doesn't feel so special any more. Healin' Good Precure has been rather dull.
I also watched a bunch of Precure movies, out of which only the Star Twinkle Precure one was actually good, and the Spring Carnival crossover movie was also good in an absurd way, while the rest ranged from awful to somewhat decent.
Awards given: Worst girl (Meguru - Twin Angel Break), Biggest WTF (Happy Seven suddenly going from monster of the week shenaningans to alien mass destruction weapons)
Concrete Revolutio, Myriad Colors Phantom World, Re:Creators
Also some anime where the magical girl was a side character. Concrete Revolutio was an unpleasant mess with nice visuals, Myriad Colors was a pretty boring otaku high school harem thing and the magical girl episode was also rather bland, and Re:Creators had a lot of potential with the "anime characters come to our world" setting but the result was somewhat uneven. Re:Creators had the best magical girl out of these three.
Awards given: Worst non-romantic relationship, Worst side girl (Setsuna from Re:creators, with the main boy) not really an awful character on her own, but the writing around her was pretty bad, let's also give Worst Boy for the said main boy
Nausicaa
I watched the first half of the movie over a decade ago and didn't manage to finish until now. After seeing so many other Ghibli movies this didn't do much for me, but the animation and nature were still beautiful.
Western:
Most Popular Girls in School
The newer seasons didn't reach the heights of the earlier ones but there's still something entertaining about a very raunchy Barbie doll stop motion show. Also pairs well with the Barbie Life in the Dreamhouse for a fun but more child friendly Barbie experience.
Frozen 2
I'm wondering if these really are the only Western piece of media I consumed this year? I certainly didn't go to movies after March. Anyway, like the previous film I had major problems with the plot and characters (I don't think Elsa's story was set up properly, Kristoff's sub-plot feels like an afterthought when he doesn't factor to Anna's sub-plot at all, Olaf is annoying, too much Lore) but ultimately I still had a good time. I like the costume design, the idea for Elsa's arc is fine, the songs are great and there were plenty of good scenes too, and the lullaby was beautiful. I'd say that like the original Frozen this was patched together from perfectly serviceable pieces that didn't quite work combined.
Awards given: Worst romance (not the pairing itself but the way Kristoff x Anna was written)
Games:
Animal Crossing Pocket Camp
Early this year I just decided not to open this app for the daily money-grubbing grind and haven't touched it since. I'm free!
Animal Crossing New Horizons
However the daily grind continues here! It's been way more enjoyable, primarily due to lacking the microtransactions/limited time item angle and also for being so much more customisable. And the nature is so pretty... But I've reached a point where even this has started to feel kind of stale.
Super Mario Odyssey
My first Mario game since Super Mario World so of course I'm blown away by everything. I like how colourful and welcoming the worlds were, Cappy was a surprisingly enjoyable sidekick/mascot and also the game was easy enough and had a simple linear plot so it was far easier to approach than Zelda BotW which is still on hold.
Plans for 2021
Actually play Zelda BotW
Maybe finally Evangelion?
Finally finish the mostly disappointing Digimon Adventure tri
Various magical girl sequels and remakes
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whipped-stream · 3 years
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I watched: The Night Manager
I find spy stuff a bit difficult really. It’s so smug - long, indulgently complicated stories chock-full of smart men in smart suits drinking man-drinks like whisky or martinis, surveilling each other out of the corners of their eyes, skulking around the charming alleyways of some architecturally opulent urban space. No one is ever insecure in a spy story; no one ever has a moment where they’re at a loss for words; no one ever has acne or eats a burger or even drinks a latte, because the only coffee appropriate for a spy story has to be something tight and elegant like an espresso. Oh, and very few people in these stories are ever female, fat (unless they’re evil) or gay (unless they’re evil).
Of course, this is all completely endemic to the genre. Asking for a spy thriller without these qualities would be like asking for a Judd Apatow comedy without a bunch of scruffy beardy blokes. But like - it’s 2021 now, and you’d think we would be gradually nearing the point where we were ready to retire all the tiresome, difficult stuff about the genre and do something new and interesting with it. Alas, The Night Manager has proved to me that we are nowhere near this possible future.
Don’t get me wrong, this is an enjoyable, easy show if you don’t think about it too much. It’s polished, gorgeous to look at and the basic plot revolving around illegal arms trading in the Middle East is absorbing, albeit a little toothless (for all the action and violence in the Middle East scenes we never really engage on any level with the human impact of this nefarious trade, besides one anecdote which never really lands). Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie are both, predictably, also amazing in this show. Tom Hiddleston is perfect as a hotel manager; his earnest, twinkly-eyed politeness fits perfectly in the luxury hotels his character glides through, just as his luxury suits and luxury face suit the luxury décor. Then, as a secret services mole amongst gangsters, he is perfect again, charming everyone into smitten trust with a gleaming smile as they fall into the glacier-blue lagoons of his eyes, barely noticing him surreptitiously gathering all their secrets.
Hugh Laurie is as charismatic and sinister as a cartoon devil and makes for a terrific villain, fiercely dedicated to chewing the scenery at every opportunity. It is unclear to me why they chose to give him a sortof shabby Friar Tuck haircut for the role, but perhaps he is doing a Harrison Ford and just exerting his Great Actor Famepower to refuse to undergo any kind of personal grooming before a scene.
But yeah. Every time I was enjoying it, the dang show did something to ruin it. Firstly it was the ‘Bond women’. Sure, stunningly beautiful and sexually inviting women are a staple of this genre, and this show tries its best to show good faith by making sure that the stunningly beautiful and sexually inviting women in this instance have some kind of personality and plot relevance. It’s a pathetic effort at best. The first gorgeous woman chivvies the plot along for all of two minutes before flinging her fabulous self at Tom Hiddlestone and being a charming bedfellow just long enough for him to be distraught when he discovers her moments later in a pool of her own blood. Ahh, yes, a classic Woman in Refrigerator - gosh, I haven’t seen one of those employed with such efficiency in quite some time. Despite barely knowing her, Tom Hiddlestone is so devastated that he moves into some kind of massive concrete bunker right at the top of a Swiss Alpine mountain (what IS that house, dude!?!? Do you live in a weather monitoring facility?) and eventually agrees to become an agent for the secret services - which of course presents even more opportunities for some top totty.
The other stunningly beautiful woman in this show is in a relationship with the baddie played by Hugh Laurie, even though the two of them don’t so much have an age gap as an age chasm. She is called ‘Jed’, and she truly is only here for the camera to make long, indulgent pans up her svelte legs and delicate back. The show leaps at any opportunity to show a bit of her boob and at one point she fully disrobes and walks slowly and teasingly into the sea, pointing her arse right at Tom Hiddlestone, in order to make a point about living a carefree life. All the personal details about this woman are arbitrary - she has a kid that she never gets to see, I guess, and like she’s kind of suspicious of her boyfriend the arms dealer or whatever, but the show refuses to waste any time giving these story points any more than a cursory glance. Jed is a hollow, objectified character whose clothes fall off at the slightest jostle.
And then there’s the other thing. The torture thing. What is up with these spy shows? And how the only thing they love more than sexy women is the spectacle of sexy women being battered, tortured and lying dead in revealing poses? Just like her predecessor, poor Jed barely gets to do anything interesting or even proactive before she is ‘found out’ and we have to endure a really queasy scene where she’s being beaten up and repeatedly almost-drowned for her treachery. As her sore, blue-purple face is thrust over and over again into the brimming bathtub and she thrashes for air, her naked breast dangles out of her top in a tactless mush of raunchy objectification and vicarious misogyny. It’s one of the most troubling things I have witnessed on telly in a good while.
Okay - there is one other woman in this show. Olivia Coleman plays the head of this secret service operation, and she is written as a fierce, ambitious agent who knows exactly what she’s doing. Oh, and she’s pregnant, so I guess we’re doing Fargo too, a bit? For the entirety of the programme, which seems to span several months, she appears to be at the end of her third trimester. No one ever asks her when she’ll be going on maternity leave and who will take over this spy operation when that happens. As part of the final showdown, she travels to the Middle East, stalks around a hotel filled with murderous gangsters, shoots people in the knee and hides from even more murderous gangsters WHILE SEEMINGLY MOMENTS AWAY FROM HER FIRST CONTRACTION.
Essentially this woman’s pregnancy is a decorative character quirk, like having an eyepatch or an eccentric moustache. The story doesn’t let the character engage with her pregnancy in any human sense: and sure, the logistics of being pregnant is not exactly thrilling espionage content, but then why bother doing it at all? Leave her unpregged, and let her run around with guns to her heart’s content, or do it properly, and engage with interesting ideas of how we see and define modern motherhood; how we see pregnant women as vulnerable and in need of protection rather than being the protectors; how a woman’s career clashes and harmonises with her biological fate to be the child-bearer. Fargo did all that stuff effortlessly. Watch Fargo. The film, not the telly programme.
I also feel that it’s worth pointing out that this character was a man in the book, which makes it pretty clear that she was the hail-mary gesture to preempt any complaints that the only female main characters are bland eye-candy.
I have one last complaint. Remember that thing I said at the beginning about how the only gay characters allowed in this genre have to be evil? Well yeah, stamp that one on your bingo card too. I cannot believe that we are at a point in society where we can generate edible meat in a lab and yet the most frequent gay characters we see in mainstream TV are still either camp BFFs or acid-tongued villains. Tom Hollander is a completely wonderful actor and I urge you to watch basically anything else he has done besides this. There is no need for this character, Hugh Laurie’s snide and suspicious right-hand man, to be a creepy, predatory homosexual man. He is preposterous - constantly leering at Tom Hiddlestone and making blunt innuendos or just full-on grabbing Tom Hiddlestone’s giblets. A clear conflation is being made: this man is a threat, and the threat he poses to Tom Hiddlestone’s mission is mirrored by the threat he poses to Hiddlestone’s hetero-masculinity, his sexual autonomy. It feels like this character is a charicature of how homophobes see all gay men: malevolent and sexually rapacious, on a mission to assault, harass and render uncomfortable all hetero men who are just minding their own business.
I truly don’t understand this show - how they made such an effort to shoehorn so much deeply troubling messaging into a story which needed none of these things. The bare bones of the spy story is solid and it could have been turned out in so many different ways, but this was what they chose. It all feels so retrograde, so unnecessary. This is the kind of thing that Netflix would not have toyed with - whatever you feel about that streaming platform, they create stories with real, three-dimensional women and all kinds of diverse characters from the LGBTQ+ scene and beyond. Amazon Prime still needs to work on getting woke. But I guess we shouldn’t expect too much from the platform that snapped up Jeremy Clarkson.
The Night Manager, available on Amazon Prime
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hellyeahlucifer · 4 years
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TVGuide.com interview with Tom Ellis & Lauren German
When you look back at the first season of Lucifer, what evolutions and changes have surprised you the most? Tom Ellis: You start a show in Season 1, and you really have no idea where it's going to go. In the pilot script, Lucifer was a very irreverent character. He didn't seem to care about anything other than himself. It was just, f-- his dad and f-- everyone. He just doesn't care anymore. He's decided to do things his own way. When we shot the pilot, the relationship with Decker — it was apparent that it was something that was going to blossom. I don't think I'd really comprehended what a journey it would be, and how kind of less devilish Lucifer would become as he evolves and spends more time with humanity. Especially as he spends more time with the Detective, and what that brings out of him. Lauren German: You look back now, and Lucifer's been helping do such wonderful things with Chloe — helping get bad guys, and he helps her learn about herself. You would never think, even when you and I got the roles, that it would have turned into this very sentimental, caring friendship where there are feelings. Where this man, Lucifer, has just been more like an angel who has helped. Ellis: Ironically. German: Yeah, I know! I know. Not necessarily a fallen angel. Just a really great angel. Ellis: That's quite interesting — [the characters have] been like angels in each other's lives. We spent five years pulling the layers back, having a character that was very stoically one way, and then realizing — and seeing him realize — that there's much more to him than that. And that has been exposed by the Detective, basically. They are the most vulnerable when they're with each other. That's so interesting, because the Detective makes Lucifer vulnerable, physically, but they've made each other… Ellis: Emotionally vulnerable. German: Absolutely. Chloe Decker has undoubtedly influenced Lucifer to a great degree. But how do you think Chloe has changed as an individual, whether changed by Lucifer or just by circumstance? German: I feel like Chloe has become more tender and more OK, at this point, with being vulnerable emotionally, like Tom was just saying. I think that her and Dan probably had a great relationship, but there's nothing with anyone ever before [comparable to] what she feels with Lucifer. There's just such respect there. I think she's always in awe of how he helps people and how he helps her come out of her shell and feel things she hasn't really felt with anybody. There's a lot of love and respect there, and her vulnerability is more present than ever before — but that can often be the most intoxicating element in a relationship. Someone that keeps you on your toes can be thrilling. It can be a different level of love from the love she has for Trixie or for Dan. It's just this… you know… sad fireworks. [Both Ellis and German laugh] If you look at Chloe early on in the show's run, Chloe had quite a few defenses up. But then again, I'm not sure which character had more walls up. Ellis: Yeah, they both had walls up. But the weird thing with Lucifer was that he was very open with everybody about the fact he was the Devil, including with the Detective, but she wasn't having any of it. Actually that sort of played into their relationship because without that element, Lucifer is kind of nothing, he's stripped down to, "Well, what is it you see in me?" I think the interesting thing, for both of the characters' development, has been when the Detective found out he actually was the Devil at the end of Season 3. In a weird sort of way, that's like Lucifer's biggest fear — that she actually found out. He assumed at the beginning of Season 4 that she had disappeared and that's it. You know, no one wants to know the Devil. And the knowledge that she left put him in metaphorical hell. Ellis: Yeah, he was in a personal hell about that. That's why it was so disappointing when we got canceled [by Fox]. It was like, we just got to the [midpoint of the story], and I wondered what the second half of the story was going to be. [That revelation] laid down challenges for our characters. The fact that she knows he's the Devil and she suddenly has to forget all these things about science and logic — all the things that made her the person that she is — she's able to see through that, and still see the man beyond that. And that is quite an amazing and humbling experience for Lucifer. I started watching it thinking it was a charming, fun, witty show. But it's turned into this sweeping love story. Did you expect to go in this epic romance direction? German: I didn't. I never projected it feeling this genuine. The fact that Lucifer and Chloe have never been together or dated — when that happens in life with someone, we've all been there, where you may want to be with someone but for whatever reason, you can't. If you love the person and they're still in your life, it forces you to get to know them better and love them in a different way than maybe just a physical way. So I think, luckily, through our trials and tribulations, Chloe and Lucifer have been forced to get to know each other in a way that brings so much more depth to the friendship and the love and the respect. [The fact that we've gone down that path] for so long — it just feels like it means so much. As opposed to maybe in Season 2 or something, if we just started dating — then it becomes about that. This feels so tender and precious and beautiful because it's been kept at arm's length a bit. I love that. It's almost like, when it comes to their relationship, there's a hesitance to plunge fully in, because what if you break it? German: Yeah. Ellis: Yeah. That is a lot of how Lucifer feels. When we find ourselves in Season 5, he's in a place where he is acknowledging all these things — but for him, that is terrifying, because what if, like he has done many times in the past, what if he messes all that up? Like that one time he got exiled from Heaven. That's a bit scarring, right? Ellis: Exactly! Completely scarring. Weirdly, as someone who presents as supremely confident, he's actually his biggest doubter. Especially when it comes to something like this, because this is new territory. All these feelings that he's been exposed to and is feeling — he doesn't know what to do with them, because that's not his safe place. He's been seemingly happy to just do what he wants and say what he wants. But actually, when it comes down to it, he's as vulnerable as everybody else when it comes to sharing your emotions with someone. Going back to your question, when you start off with a pilot script, for me first thing that was appealing was the fun of the character and the relationship of these two and the fact that you've got someone whom he doesn't affect in the same way as everybody else. That was the conceit to start with. Knowing where that was going to go and knowing it's going to turn into this big epic love saga — I don't think either of us really comprehended that. Because the other thing about when you're approaching pilots, you're kind of led to believe [the shorthand description] — "This is a medical drama," "This is a procedural cop drama," and so forth. When people were trying to shoehorn this into one of those soundbites in the early days, it would have been easy for us to think, "Oh well, we'll just do a case of the week and that will be that." That's been the beauty of the show — yes, there is this procedural element to it, but it's consistently affected by how these two feel about each other. German: Thank goodness. Imagine... Ellis: Could you imagine? German: It's been deeper than that, thank god — thank you writers, a lot. Thank you, everyone! So when we left Chloe at the end of Season 4, she told Lucifer she loves him. And then he went home. What's that like for someone who had those walls up? German: I think it's pretty brutal. For someone like Chloe, who really does have so many walls up, finally, finally she gets to this point where she just can't almost take it anymore, and is so in love with him, and she tells him. And he leaves. And so… Ellis: …And it seems reciprocated — well, it is. But there's something in that last scene that didn't happen and that is kind of fuel for our [fifth] season. You know, [Lucifer] didn't actually reciprocate what was said. German: I think Chloe's heartbroken, but it's like, you can't turn off love. It's actually really fun to play the element of, "He said what he said" — or hasn't said — "and this is where I'm at and this is how I'm feeling." Chloe is maybe feeling a little rejection, a little heartbreak, but she's smart enough and knows him enough to go, "There's such good in there. I know it." Ellis: She has an incredible amount of faith in Lucifer, which is really quite warming. German: Yeah. It's consistent. But is there an element of danger in the whole situation? All these very restless demons we saw at the end of Season 4 probably want to run around and do demon-y things, I would imagine. German: But for Chloe, all he's ever done is protect or help me. I wouldn't necessarily want to see his anger, which I've seen a couple of times. But I think Chloe feels very safe with him. And as for Lucifer taking his throne back — it's been a while since he was down in Hell. I would imagine that's not going to be a simple task. Ellis: No, it's not that simple. At the beginning of Season 5, our characters are poles apart celestially, and geographically as well. And how we get them back together — that's not really a spoiler because you know that at some point they will get back together in the same room — it does kind of cement this faith that they have in each other. But it's like you say, nothing is simple when there are celestial threats around.
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nihilnovisubsole · 4 years
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Hey man, do you have any advice for describing body movement? I remember your Crowley and Agent 47 (using them as examples that stand out) both had very expressive and true-to-character body language, and I've honestly been killing myself for the past 2 weeks trying to figure out your style, but I either focus on the wrong body parts or choose wrong words - what do you consider to be focal points in mannerisms.. or maybe words/phrases to think about when describing a character's body language?
sorry to hijack your question, anon, but a quick order of business: i’ve noticed something about how i’ve been receiving asks lately. i only tend to get them directly after i post/reblog stuff, like people aren’t sure whether i’m around or don’t want to bother me [which some of them have said outright]. don’t worry about it! trust me, i lurk on tumblr all day. i’ll see it. i’m grateful for the distraction. just because i don’t hate writing doesn’t mean i don’t love to procrastinate.
anyway, body language. i think, without having seen your writing, you’re probably being too hard on yourself. if you’re for-real-for-real using my writing as a style reference, i’m very flattered. if you message me off anon, i’d be happy to chat about it. let’s also not rule out that my style might just be nonsense and you’re struggling to figure it out because it’s, well, nonsense. let’s not forget we’re human here.
but in general, it’s an inexact science - like many things with writing, you kind of just have to feel it out. i don’t follow any body language rules that i don’t make myself follow with the rest of my narration, too. “stay in active voice,” “stay in third-person objective as much as you can,” and “use a verb only once per scene unless you’re really struggling.”
if finding focal points on a character’s body helps you, let’s look at it that way. which body part is changing? what were they holding still, but are now moving? which part of their face is communicating their expression the most? i notice that people emote a lot in their eyebrows, which may be where eyes get their reputation for being “windows to the soul.” some people talk with their hands or interact a lot with the furniture around them. some people are more self-contained.
more importantly, what do you notice? what do you like to think about? your sense of human observation is what will make your writing yours. do you find yourself paying attention to people’s hands a lot? or maybe their posture? you’re not doing it wrong if you’re not doing it exactly like me.
if you want some more detailed thoughts, i’ve included one of my usual tl;drs below the cut. these are less a direct answer to your question and more ideas i have about writing body language in general.
1. acting helps
if you’re writing a character that somebody has portrayed onscreen, you’ll have a big advantage when you try to write how they move. skilled actors are able to give their characters a distinct physical presence, and it’s all just sitting there for you to study and work from.
this is the big reason i like modeling my characters on famous people. i mean, well, mainly i just love movies and daydreaming about what filmed versions of my stories would be like. but when you have that base, you can look up videos of them and analyze everything from their physical habits to the cadence of their voice. how do they sit? what kind of roles have they performed well in? certain people just fit into a time period or aesthetic like a glove. i was completely lost with marcus until i made the connection between him and henry rollins, and then it all fell into place. that stiff, over-disciplined posture and tamped-down nervous energy were perfect for a career military man with a lot of inner turmoil.
in crowley’s case, david tennant is a very physical actor. anyone who writes good omens fic has a treasure trove of lanky, rubbery body language to work with. [aziraphale, my favorite, is kind of the underdog here. i love michael sheen’s performance, but aziraphale’s whole thing is restraint, so i guess crowley ends up being the one who jumps off the page.] on the opposite end, agent 47 is extraordinarily still, with bursts of extraordinary brutality done with extraordinary precision. where crowley is swooshy, 47 is about no wasted movements. his body is wired to be a predator even when he’s off the job. i know it’s weird to compare a video game character to a live actor, but i assume 47 was mocapped, so just… bear with me.
once i have that frame of reference - or i don’t, and i have to come up with my own - i start to act out the character myself. i’ve talked about this before: i feel more comfortable writing a character when i can “embody” them, imitating their body language as i read their dialogue. i must look pretty eccentric when i do it, but it works.
P.S: of course you don’t have to limit yourself to trained actors. you can just as easily reach into your personal life. a lot of authors get incredible results from going back to their mother, or a friend, or some tragic first love.
2. simple, but specific verbs
i’ve heard that a lot of creative writing teachers find their students are timid about the strength of verbs. they’ll bend over backwards to “soften the blow” with gerunds or other unnecessary clutter because they’re not confident that they’ve chosen the right one. “he was sitting on the stump and starting to carefully carve a bar of soap when she came over and he pressed a kiss to her hand.” that kind of thing. my preference is, own it. choose a good verb and leave it naked. let it speak for itself. be declarative. be more forceful in your personality. fight. WIN!
for the record, i’m not averse to using a thesaurus. i think they get a bad rap because of writers who shoehorn in SAT words to make themselves sound more intelligent. did your character walk across the room, or did they pace? did they stroll? did they stride? did they lope? did they run, or dash, or scamper, or bolt? they all feel different, don’t they?
counterpoint: some people add flourishes to their body language so that you’ll really linger on the feature in question. the first thing that comes to mind is romance, where they want you to think long and hard about, i don’t know, the hidden strength in the love interest’s folded hands. this is… i feel… a matter of artistic discretion. it’s not my thing - i prefer to describe more neutrally - but many people love it. it’s something my producers at voltage lovingly bap me on the head about, because lovestruck games are all about zesty High Romance™ and i always wish i could play it down with my plain, unromantic prose. i used to rail away about it in other people’s work. now? whatever. i’m not here to judge you. writing is hard.
3. on the other hand, don’t be afraid to get colorful
if, in the process of writing, you discover some quirky figurative twist that nails dead-on what you’re envisioning, i say go for it. especially if you’re not trying to be wholly detached as a narrator. if i tell you a character “scooted across the bed like a seal,” it gives you a pretty clear mental image, doesn’t it?
if you have a distinctive voice - and i’m sure you do - i think these are the times where you, the writer, as a character are really going to come out. the reason we keep coming back to, say, mark twain is because nobody “prose talks” quite like he did. whether you like it or dislike it, it’s unique.
full disclosure: this is a potent spice, so you may want to use it in moderation. the most fanciful comparisons may work better in comedy, when you have a little more room to be out-there. my mother defines humor as “associating two unlike things in a way that highlights the absurdity of how similar they actually are.” it may not be a coincidence that a curious case of miracles and death and orchids are less serious stories, so i felt comfortable being sillier with my figurative language, and that may have made crowley and 47 seem more expressive. YMMV!
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How I Think The Star Wars Sequels Should Have Happened: Another MrMallard Nerd Moment
(MAJOR SPOILERS)
The Force Awakens:
fine jumping on point. Not perfect, but honestly a return to form in regards to making Star Wars movies fun again. Keep TFA as-is, warts and all - the trick is paying this movie off by the end.
The Last Jedi:
Less faux-Guardians of the Galaxy humor. That's not to say "no humor", I honestly thought Luke Skywalker had the best jokes of the movie, but less "your mother" and less "Finn wakes up from a coma and drips IV fluid everywhere, Wakka Wakka!". The former is corny, the latter is undignified and actively cheapens character development from the prior movie.
Cut the stampeding race-beasts, because it reeks of Disney's "fuck you we're Disney" money, but keep Canto Bight as a whole. The alien designs are charming - it's a nice moment of fanservice, along with the Jizz music. It also serves as a nice character-building exercise for Rose and Finn.
Ultimately, I think it might have been a better idea to kill off Leia in this movie considering Carrie Fisher's passing. I don't dislike her in this movie, and I honestly enjoyed the scene of her in space - my first thought was "holy fuck she can use the force!!" - but I think it would have been better for her to pass on in this movie, both logistically and for her character. That, or they should have scaled back her cobbled together Frankenstein-performance of CGI, cut lines and recontextualised footage in TRoS. Either/or.
Keep the mutiny plot with Poe, but something has to be done with how they treat the secret plan. The resolution to the mutiny plot was the thing that bothered me the most with TLJ, but it's pretty much the only thing for Poe to do in the movie and it adds conflict to the main story I guess. Making the Holdo/Poe seem a little less personal might help? idk. honestly a lot of this storyline felt forced.
Don't try and resolve Rey's backstory in this movie. Keep it as a running mystery. I understand that they were trying to go for a clever subversion in this movie, but it just added another stupid thing that TRoS bad to address and it honestly kinda ruins the trilogy.
Honestly, either cut Crait entirely and make it the beginning of the next movie - bc the movie's already two hours long and it feels like the final battle stretches the movie out beyond its natural ending point - or shorten it a bit and make it a bit more functional. It looks cool, but at that point it's like tacking an extra mile onto a marathon.
Also, don't shoehorn a failed heroic sacrifice with Finn imo. That, or give him more screentime and character development to build up to that moment. Post-TFA, he's really half-baked, and I honestly think he should have been more of a focal character next to Rey. The heroic sacrifice felt like it came out of nowhere, and by thwarting it and adding the Rose Tico scene, it felt like a waste of time even having it in there. It comes and goes with no fanfare.
Honestly, I would have preferred if Luke stayed alive at the end of the movie. I think his death was a movie too soon. Saying that, I think they nailed his death in this movie - if they were gonna kill him off, I think they did it right. Also, don't kill off Snoke. It's a cool scene, but it fucks up the next movie.
Re: Rose Tico - she's not my favorite part of the movie, but I don't actively hate her and I think the response to her character that Kelly Marie Tran had to face was absolutely disgusting. I think her plotline with Finn was a little underbaked, and that scene at the end where she prevents his heroic sacrifice just kinda sidelines them both. I think making her a navigator would have helped her character in TLJ and TRoS.
In short: trim a few excessive CGI scenes, cut a few cornball jokes out, play around with the characterisation and tone of the mutiny plot, dignify Finn's character instead of reducing him to a rehashed coward, comedic relief character and pointless failed Rebel martyr, and maybe keep Luke Skywalker alive at the end. Bring the movie in at around 2 hours max.
Keep Luke Skywalker as-is, bc his character is a highlight of TLJ.
The Rise of Skywalker:
Kill off Luke Skywalker in this movie. Seriously, just cut and paste his death at the end of TLJ into this movie. Work him into a reduced role when Rey junks her ship, like the force projection messed him up and he doesn't have much longer to live, and have him help her when she returns to his island planet instead of adding a phoned-in Force Ghost appearance. Maybe have her there when he passes?
Reduce Leia's role in this movie instead of stitching together a Frankenstein's Monster of a performance. Not to be morbid by that reference - it's just that everything she says feels so stilted and wrong, like you can definitely tell they've thrown all the scraps they have left into her character in this movie. It doesn't feel natural or respectful for her character to spit out non-sequiters for the characters to respond to in an equally unnatural sort of way.
Honestly? Canonise Fey/Rinn, however you want to portmanteau Rey and Finn's ship name. If you give Finn more of a character arc in TLJ instead of side-lining him, and establish that he and Rey are particularly close - which they are IMO - and then pay off that "I have something to tell you" beat with a confession of love. This isn't a stab against Reylo, though I've certainly had words to say about Reylo, I just think Finn/Rey is a more wholesome ship and I prefer this dynamic to the fuckin dark side/light side paradigm of Reylo. I Just don't care for it. Kylo Ren's conflicted nature doesn't have to resolve in romance. Gimme Rey/Finn.
Snoke gets offed by Palpatine. There's no breeding vat for Snokes, but if the movie wants to suggest that he's still just a puppet or a creation, that's fine. That, or build Snoke up as the bad guy, and either follow through on that or have Palpatine be a twist halfway through the movie.
Maybe make Palpatine a Sith Ghost? They do exist to some degree. Or have him stuck in some other limbo that requires him to hijack Rey. Anything is better than that "if I do this you do this, but then I'll do this so you would have to do this, but really I'm going to do this so either way my entire plan was completely unnecessary lmao" clusterfuck where he's a living corpse impaled on a robot arm.
Cut out the macguffins, or make them feel less inconsequential. Okay, so the dagger storyline involves rebooting C3PO. It has stakes and gravitas to a degree. Cool - keep that. What the fuck is up with the wayfinders though? Why are there only two? Why do they need to be so convoluted?
Maybe have Maz Kanata talk about Luke's lightsaber, and/or have her involved in finding a way to Palpatine. It would pay off her appearance in TFA and explain her importance to Luke.
By making Rose Tico a great navigator in TLJ, her role on the team can be expanded in TRoS and she can do like star charts and stuff for all the different worlds they're going to - she can come along instead of being fucked over by JJ Abrams in this movie. She can even help with Maz Kanata's wayfinding plan. In short - make her a part of the team.
Honestly, fuck the Knights of Ren right off. They're a waste of time. That, or set them up in TLJ - hell, have one of them on Canto Bight and another one on Snoke's ship. Maybe even retcon Phasma into being a Knight of Ren. Anything but bringing them back as a mook squad in this movie, with no weight or character.
Honestly? Show Palpatine surviving the Death Star crash. The retcon is all the more painful for being completely and utterly unexplained. Doesn't matter if you have to touch the source material to do it, CG in a force shield as Palpatine falls through fire and have him hobble to a life support pod that takes him to where he is in TRoS. Literally anything is better than "Somehow, Palpatine returned".
Either cut the healing powers, or leave them in sans Reylo kiss.
In short: reduce Leia's role instead of using cut content and a CGI puppet to stitch together a performance, leave Luke alive until this movie, kill Snoke in this movie OR have him be the big bad, make Finn/Rey a thing over Reylo - again, no hate, I just prefer this pairing over Reylo - write more details about Palpatine's survival, either put some Knights of Ren into TLJ or don't have them at all, get rid of the Wayfinder macguffins and/or work Maz Kanata and "master navigator" Rose Tico into a plot to find Palpatine.
At the end of the day, there should have been a planning committee for the Star Wars story, not for the merchandise. You can see from how the sequel trilogy crammed out merchandise that Disney was clearly asking for marketable merch, but the story is a trainwreck - there was a Star Wars committee, just not where the property needed one.
The sequel trilogy was a worthwhile experiment imo - it didn't pay off, but it was worth doing just to see if it was possible. But even then, I would prefer three decent movies over a couple of experimental trainwrecks retroactively ruining one decent movie.
This post was mostly trying to work with what the movies already have, though by TRoS you really do have to start overhauling shit to make it work. In my eyes, the longest that these movies should run is two hours - any more than that is a slog, especially when the movie feels like it takes two hours. The Last Jedi felt like two and a half hours. The Rise of Skywalker felt like a two hour movie crammed into 80 minutes, despite the fact it was longer than 2 hours. The best way to make these movies more watchable is to make them shorter - cut out superfluous money shot scenes like the Canto Bight chase, have more efficient scenes to balance out the stylish scenes. The sequel trilogy is short on efficiency imo, and without a movie where it feels like progress is being made, the style doesn't work.
So tweak some things to make each movie more efficient.
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chaos-burst · 4 years
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Various comments on my question about campaign starts a while back! I finally got around to answer them! I’ll try to see if I can get to some of the asks I’ve gotten as well. 
@bi-vexual If the characters are the typical hero type something spontaneously attacking wherever they're at is cool imo! That immediately makes them work together and then they might try to find out why that attack happened
-> They are indeed not the typical hero types :’D The most hero-type character is a grumpy cleric. So that will not be a solution for them. 
@im-your-spacedad-now One of my players tried to steal something and one by one the rest joined in a chase across the town
-> Actually something that might happen, but I feel like depending on the characters you have it might misfire and stop them from actually forming a group. But it sounds like a nice creative start of a campaign!
@canaryfeather I like the characters to start out knowing each other. That way you don't have the awkward getting to know you stuff and can go straight to having them walking into a town or getting attacked or whatever. That said, the first game I was in, we met on the road when a few were attacked by wolves, others stopped to help, and a cleric happened by to heal them.
-> Yeah, I like when characters know each other as well! Won’t work for me, but I will have two of them meet beforehand at least :) 
@weissschnee-tm  In one campaign I dmed, made an npc that I had all the pcs know, then had her gather them to ask for their help with something. Party tie, first quest, and a bit of insurance all in one! In the other, I helped the pcs build back stories that put them all in the same place at the same time in a really interesting and thematic city. I sort of figured they'd stumble across each other as they explored it, but I was ready to stage a small attack on the city to bring then together if necessary
-> That thing with the NPC everyone knows is really really awesome :D I will keep that in mind for any future campaigns I might do!
@artisticarperture One of the campaigns I was I started similarly to the force awakens where there was a riot and my character was a soldier who was supposed to silence it, but gained morals halfway through. The rest of the players were all either rioters or bystanders. It was interesting cause we started the campaign in initiative
-> I like that, because it’s customized so much for the individual characters :) And starting in initiative must be very exciting :D
@dark-as-night-sweet-as-sin One of my campaigns, all the pcs got a letter from an npc they all knew, asking them to meet and go on a quest for them Also you could have a session zero where all the players get used to rping their characters, and the group could come up with why their characters know each other organically
-> That is already out of the window, because they all have wildy differing backstories, so they won’t really know each other beforehand, bc reasons ^^ But generally that is a very nice idea!
@phirephox666 In jail
@lionsfairytale In one of our summer campaigns, my friend started us in a tournament scenario, which gave us a chance to get back into the swing of things and play with our character’s abilities before we were attacked for real. For the next one he did give us a hint he wants us all to start by being woken up from literal death by some sort of entity.
-> Waking up from death sounds very badass. The tournament was something I considered, but had to dismiss bc of one of the player’s backstories ^^ But I might get back to it later in the campaign.
@tiefling-queer I introduced my players to each other by putting them all in the hotel California and making their first encounter be the lot of them trying to escape and fighting off goons. in one campaign I'm in, we all started in prison and were broken out by rebels. in several I've been in, we were all just separate schmucks who happened to answer a job put out by a village. setting/campaign plot can play a big role in the meetup - the prison break scenario was a fun setup for us becoming rebel fighters (sort of), and in a sailing campaign I was in the party was just assigned bunkmates/on the same watch. i enjoy throwing the party right into some sort of immediate problem since it gives them a moment to think "oh these guys know what they're doing I could roll with
-> Breaking out of jail was one of my initial ideas, when one of my players said “don’t traumatize my poor boy” and I was like “fair enough” :’D But throwing the party into an immediate problem sounds very reasonable!
@wytch-lyghts Each of my players were being inducted into a thieves guild — each knew a friend of a friend type scenario who told them to be at the same place at the same time, they show up, it’s not the guild. It’s where they met a recruiter who started them off on their first task to prove themselves capable/worthy: find the guild via a long trek through the city sewers. I figure this design could work for joining any group really, but it was fun
-> Ha, that reminds me of the start of the thieves’ guild quest in TES Oblivion :D it’s pretty cool, as long as your characters all fit that kind of thing (which mine do not)
@squirrel-saloli my friends and I recently started a d&d club, and we got a lot of new players. we started out as one big group with three of us dming. because a really personal beginning was impossible with so many people, we had them start out in a guild that would pay them to complete tasks that regular citizens commission them for.
-> I have a series of oneshots i do for the same group of friends and that has them in a guild as well! it’s a pretty nice starting point and i like it, but i enjoy it mostly for the oneshots! for a whole campaign i will do it differently :)
@kneesntoess    we met in a tavern, but we met in a tavern after the three of us had been accidentally plane shifted by a death cult, so
-> Oh wow :o That surely is a beginning :’D 
@pixeljam45 My current crew met over an ad that they all saw, but we have plans that in the next campaign, they're going to all wake up after a night if drinking too hard and be on the run for a crime they can't remember committing that night because it was nickel-shot-night at the bar.
-> Something like that seems to be very popular! I wish I were better at creating mysteries, bc I would totally love for them to solve some puzzles/crimes along the way. Let’s see if my brain will let me :D
@captainclovey in one campaign I was a player of, we all met at a festival for a big event in the city we were in, cue something goes wrong and we're ones who get pulled into helping out before all being branded with something magical that meant we couldnt back out
-> Yep, I considered cursing two of my players with magical objects so they couldn’t leave the other’s vicinity without taking damage. I hope it won’t be necessary :D
@faecallie In the drow campaign my sister made for us the party had been kidnapped by drow to be slaves, but the caravan had been attacked by a drow dissenter to free us. But as part of the terror tactics the drow used to break slaves, we woke up naked in coffins. Really set the tone for a campaign where the drow were nearly done conquering the surface for Lothe.
-> I’m not a fan of the classic d&d drow concept *cough* And I don’t want to make my campaign too grimdark. But if that’s your sort of thing, I hope it was lots of fun :D
@dontdropthejam I started my players on a train, in the same car as each other. Some plot relevant NPCs joined them, and then the train had to stop for repairs, leaving them stranded in a remote mountain hotel, where train car passengers were sorted into hotel rooms with each other. Then a kid got kidnapped and the plot began!
-> Kidnappings/Jails seem to be very popular :D 
@sandssavvy Well, in one campaign I was in they all met because they were all arrested (mostly separately) and had to escape from the same cell. It wasn't done that well by the dm cause he tended to shoehorn moments. But if it was done well by a dm who knew a lot about the pcs and their weaknesses/what could get them into trouble, it could be cool.  In snother campaign, we were each sent a summons into a meeting for an investigation they wanted us to do cause of our different talents.
-> I think many concepts for campaign starts depend on how well the DM does it. I mean, we saw Matt doing a very lovely tavern-meeting-campaign-start! And my first campaign started like that as well. But yeah, the jail idea is really great and I love it a lot :D
@genderliquid If you’re overwhelmed: make them decide, but RP it - give them enough context on their world and whatever mini arc you want to start with and make the players tell you where they’re meeting, what they’re doing there (as much as they want to say to the others) and how they got hooked in.
-> I mean, being overwhelmed is part of my nature, but I won’t do it like this for the campaign. I do want to have a plan and give them directions. But it’s something to bear in mind for potential future campaigns when the backstories are not all done yet ^^
@seventeenhealingpotions One really nice beginning is: You all wake up on the shore. There's parts of a shipwreck all around you. You see *other party members*. You don't remember them, or anything that happened before. But if these people are here, then that means they're part of your crew or other passengers. Maybe they are your group? It's only logical to stick with them for now. It's a good beginning, since you don't have that tavern trope, and you give them a reason to form a party.
-> Memory loss is pretty cool and a nice tool for a campaign start, but it’s nothing that fits my characters for the moment. I really like this idea for a oneshot or mini-adventure tho! :)
@deathdefyinglifeleaps So what if the Rogue and the Wizard stowed away on the sky pirate’s ship and the cleric is busy tending to one of the other pirates when Something happens that causes the sky ship to take off too quickly for any of them to leave? Maybe the rogue is just there to steal something?
-> Thanks for the specific suggestions, but I do have very detailed character backgrounds already and for various reasons all those solutions are not doable ^^ 
@hgr-ros Try the old voyage trick: they just arrived in the starting city and they vaguely know and like each other enougj to stuck around. I use it a lot evem though my players usually create very social characters
-> City, yes. Social characters and knowing each other will be a no :’D
@pokidragon My campaign is very homebrew so the game started with my players waking up an a prison after each of their characters died- it’s very dark souls themed :) 
-> That sounds very badass and also very ominous :D 
@asdeclaredbythedeptofawesome  One thing I will say is that my dm has written up a questions sheet. And then asked who would have done what. This allowed us to have already met and have some small back story together. They were mostly fun things like who got drunk and had to be carried home and who started the bar fight. Or who accidentally started a revolution and stuff. These all ended up having minor or major plot hooks later. It also meant that we established some of the party dynamics And relationships easily without having the first couple of sessions being awkward. Highly recommend if you want everyone to have already met. The other is tell everyone they need a reason to follow something and ask them to come up with reasons why they would follow the initial plot hook. Having built in character reasons makes things a lot simpler 
-> Oh, yeah, I have all my characters’ motivations down, that’s not the problem at all. And I will have two of them meet beforehand, but they will not be friends by any means. And questions like that I had for my series of oneshots, but for various background reasons those four would not really have known each other beforehand. 
Thanks for all the input! It’s really interesting to see how differently people start their campaigns ^-^
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sobi-fans · 4 years
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Thoughts on TROS
So I’ve received a few asks asking about my thoughts on The Rise of Skywalker, and I haven’t replied because I have many thoughts and I’m still processing stuff. But yesterday @riselioness messaged me to ask the same, so I thought it was time to try and organise them on a page.Yes, I am very, very late to this party. 
Obviously spoilers, so I’ll put it under a cut. Also, I’ve only seen the movie once, and that was back in December, so my memory might be a little hazy. I probably need to see it again.
For the sake of context, I have no OTP for the sequel trilogy, but I have been known to read Reylo and Damerey on occasion. (And randomly Gingerflower – aka Hux/Rose – purely because of that TLJ deleted scene where she bites him!) Let me tell you, being on the outside of the shipping wars has been very interesting, and it seems abundantly clear to me that your enjoyment of TROS depends greatly on who you ship, or whether you ship at all. I would have been happy if Finnrose endured or Stormpilot became a thing, but ah well. Onwards!
I’ll try and keep this somewhat cohesive, but I feel like it’s going to be all over the place. Apologies.
Let’s start simple. Stuff I liked that doesn’t have a ‘but’ attached:
- Lando (where’s he been all this time?)
- Wedge (where’s he been all this time?)
- Finn being able to show his individuality with clothing and hair that’s his choice
- Purely for shallow reasons, Poe’s outfit
- Poe and Rey channelling Han and Leia with their bickering at the start
- The Force bond stuff was visually stunning with the dual locations
- Luke’s expression after he raises the X-wing, like ‘Yeah, finally nailed it!’
- Ben Solo channelling his father – also Adam Driver in general for making Ben so very different from Kylo with just body language and facial expressions alone. He literally moved like a huge weight had been lifted from him, and it was pretty amazing to watch
- The fact that Rey’s mother is Villanelle from Killing Eve
- Kaydel looking like Endor Leia at the end
- LGBTQ representation!
- Seeing young Luke and Leia
The stuff with Leia was very poignant and emotional, but I can’t exactly say it was good. It’s tricky. I don’t feel like I’ve separated Leia from Carrie in my mind, so it’s really hard to look at it objectively. I do know that when Chewie howled after Leia’s death, I teared up pretty much immediately!
I have mixed feelings about the trio interaction. Don’t get me wrong, it was nice to see them together, and I love their banter, BUT it felt incredibly forced. Shoving them together for the sake of them being together does a disservice to all three characters. This was the last movie. They should all have been developing their individual stories at that point. Rey with her Jedi stuff, (which she does get to go off and do, but not without Finn traipsing after her like a lost puppy), Poe finding his feet as a leader of the Resistance, and Finn doing literally anything else other than running after Rey yelling her name all the time.
There was a lot of stuff that I wanted to like, but mostly it came across as missed opportunities. Such as:
- Jannah and the other former stormtroopers – this would have been such an interesting idea to develop, and would have given Finn a cool storyline of his own that didn’t involve Rey. I would have liked to see Finn reaching out to current stormtroopers, persuading them that they had other options. That would have been cool. A stormtrooper revolution turning the tide of the final battle!
- Finn’s Force sensitivity – where did this come from? Okay, so maybe it was hinted at in TFA, but it wasn’t carried over to TLJ, and JJ should have respected that in the interest of cohesive storytelling. And as interesting as it could have been to see, it doesn’t take any strength away from Finn to have him not be Force sensitive.
- Hux being the spy – this is such an interesting idea, and it’s hilarious to me that he would go to such lengths to be petty towards Kylo, but it was executed in a rush, much like a lot of other stuff in this movie. They could have made Rose his handler, which would have been a nice change in their dynamic after TLJ.
Stuff I did not like: (warning, rants ahead)
- Completely unnecessary new characters – elaborated below
- Pryde – what was the point of him? Hux could have easily fulfilled that role if they didn’t want to develop his spy storyline.
- Zorri – could have been cool, but seemed shoehorned in to remind us that Poe Dameron is straight, thank you very much!
- Poe being a former spice runner – just why? Poe already had a perfectly good back story.
- Palpatine being back – I know opinions vary on this, but I’m not a fan. Doesn’t it just cheapen Anakin’s entire story arc? (This is not to take anything away from Ian McDiarmid’s performance, which was amazing as always.) Also the complete lack of a reasonable explanation for how he returned. In fact, doesn’t someone even use the word ‘somehow’ at some point?
- Rey Palpatine – again, I know opinions vary, but I hated this so much. I’ve been team Rey No One since the beginning! This is our first female protagonist, and in my opinion the thought that she came from completely humble beginnings was fascinating. To link her to a powerful name – a powerful male name, at that – and for it to be literally stated that her power comes from him was just kind of deflating, to be honest. Also, it makes no sense. Are we expected to believe that Luke there-is-good-in-Vader Skywalker writes off his own nephew because of his potential darkness but is A-OK being a mentor to Rey Palpatine?
- Leia knowing that Rey is a Palpatine – this makes no sense either to me. Leia accepts and nurtures Rey despite her bloodline, sensing that there is good in her, yet thinks that her own son is irredeemable? The sense of ‘we had a bad child, but we found a better one’ is just…ugh. And this happens throughout the ST, even with all the Jedi standing behind Rey having abandoned Ben for years. Even if you believe that Rey is more deserving of that attention, the callousness just doesn’t seem very Jedi-like to me.
- Leia’s reasons for giving up her Jedi training made no sense.
- The sidelining of Rose – it seems painfully clear that JJ had no idea what to do with her character, so she’s just kind of…there. I refuse to believe that they couldn’t have come up with something, even if it was just her accompanying Finn or Poe on their storylines. That wouldn’t have given her a whole lot of agency, but it would have been something.
- Rey ending up alone on a desert planet, exactly where she started. Yes, I know she’s likely not going to live there, but visually the movie is showing us that nothing has really changed. We know Rey wants a family, and the hug with Finn and Poe was lovely to see, but to have the last image of her be her alone on a desert planet is actually kind of depressing.
- Rey calling herself a Skywalker – like the Palpatine thing, it’s linking her to someone else’s legacy. I think it would have been more powerful for her to declare herself ‘Just Rey’. No one’s on at Finn to declare his surname, are they?
Now on to the big one. Bendemption and Reylo.
I have been hoping for Bendemption from the beginning, because redemption, compassion and forgiveness were key themes of the OT for me. But I had a feeling that if Kylo did get redeemed, he’d be doomed to die, because as we know, JJ likes to follow the exact same patterns that we’ve already seen before. I have issues with Vader’s ‘redemption’ on the grounds of it being a ridiculously quick turnaround, (quicker than Kylo’s, even), plus he gets an easy way out just returning to the Light and then dying straight after. Lo and behold, the exact same thing happens here. What would have been really interesting to see, in my opinion, is Ben living to atone for what he’s done. That would have been true redemption, and I think the same is true for Anakin too.
Now, as we know, Kylo is much worse than Vader, even though Vader spent literally half his life on the Dark Side, murdered thousands of people, including children, chopped off his son’s hand, tortured his daughter and her future husband. We know this because Kylo killed Han Solo, the fanboys’ favourite. Therefore, he is much worse, despite only having been on the Dark Side for about six years after being mentally manipulated from birth by the most evil man in existence. Don’t get me wrong, I am not apologising for Kylo. I’m aware he did terrible things, hence why Ben should have lived to atone, but I do believe that he gets an unfair level of hatred, largely stemming from killing Han.
As mentioned above, I have occasionally delved into Reylo fics to see what was out there. I’ve always been a supporter of watching their story play out, because enemies to lovers was something new for a Star Wars movie, and it’s a cool idea to explore. We’d previously seen it with Luke and Mara in Legends. (Mara, incidentally, being someone who was redeemed and lived to make up for her bad deeds.) I loved Ben Solo for the short amount of time we got to see him. The interactions between him and Rey over the bond were so cool to watch. Ultimately, though, I don’t feel like their story was particularly well handled in this movie. I buy it because Adam and Daisy were so brilliant, but I can’t help but feel that Ben’s death was a giant cop-out.
I have mixed feelings about Rey facing Palpatine alone. I can see that there’s some kind of strength to her battling alone there. (Except she wasn’t, because she had every Jedi standing metaphorically behind her.) That said, to have Ben out of the fight felt…weird. Since TFA certain people have said that Rey and Ben/Kylo were two halves of one protagonist, which makes me think that he should have been present there instead of tossed into a pit. Also, after the mental mind games that Palpatine has been playing for his entire life, he pretty much deserved to be. But I don’t know. I think I need to watch it again and see how I feel.
This ended up being super long and ranty, sorry. I’ve probably missed a lot. Maybe I’ll change my mind on a few things when I see it again. I thought writing this out might help to organise my thoughts, but I’m not sure it has!
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that-shamrock-vibe · 4 years
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Disney+ What To Watch: My Top 10 Favourite Disney Live-Action Remakes
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So we’ve covered the main Walt Disney Studios animated movies, and I am trying to find categories that I can slot other Disney animated movies into, but for now we are going to follow Disney’s latest trend and jump into the live-action field with my personal favourite top 10 live-action Disney remakes.
Now of course Snow White and the Huntsman will not be on this list primarily because it is not a movie released by Walt Disney Studios and also because it took me three attempts just to get through it. But I will also not be including sequels as they are not reworking animated movies but continuing the stories of the remade live-action movies, so 102 Dalmatians, Alice Through the Looking Glass and Maleficent: Mistress of Evil are also not in contention.
Also remakes of live-action movies, even if those live-action movie are in some form animation hybrids, also will not count, largely because I am only counting those under the official Walt Disney Animated Studios banner but also because there’s no real point.
As always please remember that these rankings and opinions are purely my own, I am not saying these movies are factually worse than others or better than others I am merely saying this is how I view them.
#10. The Lion King
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The reasoning for this movie being at #10 despite how well it has done compared to other live-action remakes is purely because I had to check and make sure the title gif I am using for this entry was the one from the live-action remake and not the 1994 animated movie...I should not have to do that!
The problem this movie has, as many critics and fans have pointed out and I believe as I did in my review, is that this is effectively a shot-for-shot remake of said original animated movie. That doesn’t mean it’s not good because the original was a phenominal piece of cinema for the genre and the studio, but it does leave a question as to the relevance of bothering to remake something practically identical with the only USP being that this movie is completely CGI in an attempt to give it the “live-action” treatment.
That being said, I was somewhat entertained by this movie, but by different parts than how I was in the original. For instance, in the original Rafiki was my favourite character in terms of comedy and just as personal preference, here he barely gets anything to do and instead the likes of Sarabi and the Hyenas are more fleshed out.
I did enjoy how the Hyenas showed more of a pecking order in this version, with Shenzi this time being depicted more as the clan leader who is somewhat of a left-hand to Scar in the same way that Faora was to Zod in Man of Steel.
Also Sarabi, who is somewhat forgettable in the animated movie as she’s barely in it until really the end to the point where me saying she was Simba’s mother is the only real jolt some fans may have to remembering her, and the other lionesses had that one really tense scene with Nala trying to escape Pride Rock without being detected by the Hyenas and Scar in order to find help. I can imagine that being a very hard level on the game-version of this movie because I always hated stealth levels like this particularly in the earlier Harry Potter games.
Timon and Pumbaa come in and kind of steal the show half-way through and notably there is a bit more of them raising SImba even as an adult and both Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen do respectable jobs in their respective roles, in fact some have argued they are the best part of the movie because they bring some level of excitement to an otherwise bland remake.
To be fair, one of my favourite parts is when Timon begins to sing “Be Our Guest” as a way of distracting the Hyenas as live bait along with Pumbaa, this of course is reworked from the original when it was them performing a hula-inspired performance which I still love to this day, but this reworking did make me laugh.
Outside of that though, everyone really fills their roles as they did in the original, and it comes across as simply a pale imitation in comparison. It’s not like the other remakes where there was something new enough and exciting enough to differentiate the two. Yet this movie is longer than the original because the stuff that either is new or extended from the original feels like it has just been either shoehorned in because maybe the writers or Favreau himself believed they were lacking in originality or maybe they believed what they actually had was exciting.
The biggest misstep of this type is the almost three minutes spent following a piece of Simba’s mane on its journey from falling off Simba to reaching Rafiki and thus him discovering Simba is in fact alive. In the original, this wasn’t even a 30 second segment and they played up Rafiki’s shamanism a lot more to deduce this fact, but here the hair goes from river, to birds nest, to a giraffe’s digestive system, to a ball of dung, to an ant line until finally reaching him...all the while only promoting the admittedly impressive CGI.
Another example of this is at the beginning of the movie where there is more focus on the field mouse that Scar toys with before losing the opportunity to make it lunch, we spend a good 30 seconds to a minute more than the original as the mouse makes its way up to Scar’s den rather than simply starting off there. I don’t feel this is as big an offence as I do the hair scene but the time could easily be spent elsewhere.
There’s also, I feel, a disadvantage with trying to make these animals as realistic as they did. 2019 struggled with “realistic” CGI animals from The Lion King to Cats and Sonic the Hedgehog, and while Sonic fixed itself by having the titular protagonist’s design changed to a more accurate look, it is a shame that The Lion King did not also have the same idea because giving these lions more animated features may have helped show the emotional hot points of the movie, particularly Mufasa’s death and the emotion on Simba’s face.
It’s also a shame that the voice actors are underwhelming outside of Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen. I do appreciate that they cast regionally-appropriate actors for the most part, even bringing back James Earl Jones for one of his two most famous roles, but there in lies the problem, he simply performed an almost line-for-line redo of what he originally did in the animated version. It’s great hearing him again but I could have just watched the original again to hear him not do anything different.
You also have Beyoncé who fails at both scene-stealing acting and singing performances with her new original song which is hardly in the movie. However, while Beyoncé still delivers on star quality, she also outshines the movie’s main lead Donald Glover who feels like an acting school work experience placement compared to Beyoncé.
Finally the music, forget the rolling turn of mane, this movie butchers and wastes one of the best Disney Villain songs in history by having Chiwetel Ejiofor talk his way through one chorus line of “Be Prepared”...next to that having a lackluster shot-for-shot remake of “Circle of Life” didn’t seem so bad.
Overall, this live-action remake simply felt more like fan-service or even like Jon Favreau was too scared to touch what had come before and so just decided that simply having a fully CGI version of an animated classic was enough...but aside from simply looking at it, there is nothing really wondrous about this movie.
I can see why people like the movie, but I can’t really understand why people defend the movie even from a nostalgic point of view, I mean seriously just watch the original version you’ll get the same feeling out of it.
So what do you guys think? Post your comments and check out more Disney+ What to Watch Top 10s as well as more Top 10 Lists and other posts.
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nadziejastar · 4 years
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Kingdom Hearts III’s story prioritizes wrapping up plot threads to set the stage for the next major arc. III’s ending is vastly different from I and II’s as a result, in that III doesn’t even humor the possibility of there being no more Kingdom Hearts. II’s story, on the other hand, prioritizes wrapping up plot threads to ensure the story’s core themes & arcs are resolved in an emotionally and narratively satisfying manner. Sora doesn’t accept Roxas within him to set up a new game. Riku doesn’t conquer his darkness to prep an expedition into the Realm of Darkness. Their character arcs simply come to their natural conclusion and are allowed to end.
Which is the real strength of Kingdom Hearts II. This is a game that accepts the prospect of the end, and it’s an idea hammered in early on. In the same way, Roxas has to accept that his summer vacation has to end, so do audiences need to accept that Kingdom Hearts II needs to end– and perhaps the franchise with it. But it didn’t end, and it won’t end anytime. All the same, that doesn’t invalidate the finality at the heart of Kingdom Hearts II. If anything, that makes it more special. Kingdom Hearts II ends with that perpetual promise of more, but with none of the baggage that weighs on every other game in the series.
Kingdom Hearts II leaves fans wanting more not because of what it leaves unresolved, but because good stories resonate with audiences– and good stories need to be allowed to end. What good is it resolving a plot 17 years in the making if in the very same breath you’re going to strip away any sense of finality by underscoring the next big story? Even considering the vast difference in context between KH II and III’s release, Kingdom Hearts III should have taken a page from its numbered predecessor and feigned finality for the sake of it. Not “just in case,” but because Kingdom Hearts II set an important precedent for concise storytelling. At the end of the day, the finality in Kingdom Hearts II is simply evident in thoughtful writing. A story doesn’t have to be the end to feel like the end. Kingdom Hearts is better off not having ended at II, but the series’ natural stopping point came and went in 2005.
Thank you! Excellent article. Very enjoyable to read. The last three paragraphs are golden. I’m happy to see mainstream articles acknowledge the lack of closure KH3 offered. 
“The first is that Nomura revealed that the theme of Kingdom Hearts III is resolution. It is the final battle against the main series antagonist, Master Xehanort, so his story is finally reaching its resolution. But because it is the theme, there will no doubt be many emotional resolutions to the journey’s we have taken with Sora over the years.”
It was touted as the game to offer “resolution,” but it did a really bad job. Nomura is still to blame, but I don’t think this was his original intention. Sure, the series was never supposed to end with KH3. But I highly doubt he wanted KH3 to be a game that seemed to be more about setting up future games than concluding the Dark Seeker Saga. 
There had been anticipation building for Kingdom Hearts III from as early as 2005, and as more & more games released, it seemed as though the third numbered installment would be destined to wrap up the series’ growing plot threads. But the introduction of the ‘Dark Seeker Saga’ as a mere concept opened a new door for the franchise: one where the end was nowhere near in sight. It can leave one feeling as if the story waltzed right past its natural stopping point. Plots that had been building for years are resolved, but with an assurance that there’s more to come for everyone involved. Even Xehanort himself hasn’t been retired as a character, with Dark Road outright featuring him in the lead role.
It makes sense, though. Think of the context around Kingdom Hearts III’s release: Union x was actively pumping out new lore on smartphones, Back Cover brought the series’ story further back than ever, and the distinct lack of content at III’s launch (most notably Critical) all but confirmed work was still to be done on the final entry of the Dark Seeker saga. Why feign finality when anyone paying attention can tell Kingdom Hearts isn’t going to end anytime soon? It’s not as if III doesn’t resolve the story beats that defined Kingdom Hearts’ first story arc, but it’s hard not to feel disappointed that Kingdom Hearts III ended up as little more than just another piece of the puzzle. Especially since the series did indulge in finality once before.
I think it’s not very well-known that there was supposed to be another game before KH3. I don’t blame games like KHUX or Dark Road for KH3′s issues. Once again, I blame the cancellation of KH0.5/BBSV2. If that game hadn’t been cancelled, I’m sure the series would be MUCH different. There wouldn’t even be a Dark Road. 
―Can you please tell us a little more about the series-first KH game for PC browser? Nomura: This is not a title with an emphasis on story, but we are working premises in. That said, for the first time in the series you can enjoy the content completely separately from the main series, so even beginners to the series might be able to be at ease playing it. The battling is different again from KH Re:CoM, and we are aiming for something with simple controls and flashy movements. I think customising is important to this type of game, so we are filling it with new elements in that area.
And KHUX would have probably been what it was originally described as. A game where story was not very important and SEPARATE from the main series. The lore would enhance your experience of KH3, but it would ultimately be optional. I doubt Ventus, Marluxia, and Larxene’s backstories would have been relegated to this game if KH0.5 had not been cancelled.
— Mr. Nomura, since you are the one that is writing the scenario this time, how is the progress coming along?
Since we are arriving near the conclusion of Xehanort in KINGDOM HEARTS III, the outline of the story has been solidified but not necessarily the direction where the KINGDOM HEARTS series is continuing to head. We are still trying to decide where to go from several choices.
— What is that specifically?
In the KINGDOM HEARTS series, I don’t think there has been an actual happy ending. KINGDOM HEARTS II is close to it. Since most of the titles have ended in cliffhangers, we’re worried about what we should include in KINGDOM HEARTS III. —Dengeki Playstation June 2015
KH’s present state feels very much like it’s flying by the seat of its pants. Nomura is just making it up as he goes. The current direction of KH was decided around 2015, after production started already. Before that, Nomura was unsure of the direction the series was headed. 
—Does that mean you already have a plot for KHIII?
Nomura: Hmm… I have an idea but it can’t be helped because my team are planning to work on our next different title. So we’re not working on KHIII now and we’re not planning to work on it for some time, too. I have a plot in my head but I’m not sure if it’ll be released to the world or just stay in there. — May 2012
Of course, I’m certain that Nomura had a specific ending for KH3 in mind well before 2015. The beach epilogue seemed to be planned for ages. It also sounded like he had an actual happy ending in mind, like with KH2. I’m sure that 90% of players would have preferred that.
— The press release for KINGDOM HEARTS III unveiled by Square Enix discusses the search for the “Key to Return Hearts.” Is there anything you can tell us about that?
There are two possible meanings of the “key.” One of which is the “hardware” key, which opens doors - this is what keys are in general (laughs), and the other is the “light” key, that opens something else. In this case, it is currently unknown as to which type of key Sora must find. This is the main storyline of KINGDOM HEARTS III - Sora must go on an adventure to find the “key” without knowing what or where it is. But as you know, we can’t really say anything else on the subject (laughs).  —July 2013
If you compare the pre-2015 interviews to the post-2015 interviews, you see that KH3 had a different story pre-2015. My personal opinion is that the current unresolved plots and the cliffhanger ending of KH3 (Sora missing, Yozora, Kairi asleep, Braig being Luxu, Lea and Isa looking for Subject X) was created after 2015, after Versus XIII and KH0.5 was cancelled, and after Nomura became depressed. He changed KH3′s story and shoehorned a lot of stuff in that originally wasn’t there. He basically used KH3 as an opportunity to take things in a new direction—away from the core themes of the Xehanort Saga. So, it didn’t really offer resolution in any satisfying way. Very, very sad.
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secondpersons · 4 years
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You don’t owe your readers to tag who the top or the bottom is in your fics. You owe your readers nothing. Don’t like? Don’t read.
Readers who refuse to read a fic if they don’t know who’s the top or the bottom miss out on a lot of gorgeous writing, moving stories, and incredibly hot intimate scenes. Sad but true.
Real-life gay and bisexual couples don’t always have a set top and a set bottom. Many switch. Many don’t have penetrative sex at all.
So yes -- as a writer, you have every right to withhold that information.
Acting superior about it, however? No. You don’t have the right.
When I come across a fic whose writer states they don’t tag that info, I don’t bother the writer. I move on.
Why am I letting myself miss out on so much potential wonderful storytelling for something as silly as who shoves their dick in who?
I’ll tell you, and I won’t even ask you who you think you are to decide what is and isn’t silly. I won’t even tell you your anger and essays and gatekeeping efforts are all not only silly, but scientifically wrong. The gay community is online. Go ask.
But anyway. Back to all your accusations.
So having a designated top and bottom role isn’t realistic because many RL couples switch?
Like I said, I won’t go into the fact that there are, in fact, many men who get zero pleasure from bottoming, and other men who get zero pleasure from topping, so much so that it can actually kill their boner.
You can ask your gay friends about that or visit the millions of reddit threads where gay and bi tops ask bottoms how on earth they enjoy it and vice versa. You can read all about how astonished switchers and tops are at bottoms who won’t top, because there’s nothing hotter or sexier than a hole.
You can read about bottoms who can’t for the life of them understand how anyone would want them to give up having a beautiful hard cock inside them and how the mere attempt means they lose their erection.
You can read the very enlightening words of a bi or gay (I don’t remember) man trying to explain it by saying that for bottoms, simply seeing their partner’s hard cock is enough to make them melt and want it in them, whereas for tops it’s not their partner’s boner that revs their engines but their hole and the idea of thrusting and becoming one.
Google it if you want. Find what men have to say about it. I’m certainly no authority on this -- I’m not a man.
What I’m going to say is this: You’re writing about demons and vampires and ABO and telepathy and you think I’m concerned about realism?
Even more astonishing, you, the writer spinning so much wonderful fantasy and science fiction, want to judge me for eschewing realism?
I’m missing out on some incredible writing because I’m only concerned about who shoves their dick in who? Are you serious?
You know what other beautiful writing you and I and a gazillion other people are missing out on? Science fiction, when you’re in the mood for a love story. Epic fantasy, when you’re in the mood for a good old crime thriller. A tenderly woven tale of love and loss and healing, when you’re in the mood for a slapstick comedy because you want to laugh from your belly.
Fanfic is not required reading. It’s not staying vigilantly on top of every story with a promising summary because you mustn’t miss out on potential life-changing writing. I’m not a publisher or a reporter or an SEO site.
Fanfic is not literary education. Fanfic doesn’t belong anywhere near sentiments of obligation, responsibility, and not missing out on an excellent opportunity.
I don’t know if you’ve forgotten, but fanfic is what you do when your class is over and your work is done and you let out a big old sigh, kick off your confining shoes, put your feet up, and dream. Escape. Recharge. Heal the way that works for you.
It’s unhealthy to slap a label on a character? We write, read, and love Wincest and you’re lecturing me about my unhealthy approach to fiction?
It’s fetishizing and demeaning to insist that one character is what equates to the woman because the other fucks his hole, and that it must be equal?
I won’t even broach the subject of why you think being the woman is demeaning to the character and what that says about the misogynistic programming you seem not to mind, if you’d rather attack me and readers like me for the way we prefer to consume our fantasy.
I won’t broach all that, because there have been many incredibly well-written posts about why exactly women like reading about man-on-man love, and I don’t just mean the smut. I mean the loyalty and fidelity and possessiveness and every emotion in the book.
I’ll just ask you this: I’m happily gobbling up incestuous fanfic about two brothers from writers who happily write it, and you think I care about fetishizing? I’m reading about gun play and pain play and piss play and you think I care about demeaning?
What happened to fanfic writers and readers? We defend fanfic every single day when its worth is attacked, but among ourselves fanfic suddenly turns into something that must be realistic and healthy and not -- according to you -- fetishizing or demeaning?
Do you know how many women there are out there who have never had an orgasm because of rape or childhood trauma that means they can’t bear to be touched but would still love to, even if it’s impossible?
Because of vaginismus, which wrecked their marriages and relationships and put them in a place where they can’t even masturbate, don’t even know what it is, don’t even know how to be any help for their own daughters in the future, if they come to them with questions about sex?
Because of a million other reasons?
Do you know how much it means to those women to read about the character they identify with or relate to or fantasize about as a bottom, simply because it’s the closest they can come to pressing their noses against the glass and looking in?
This mysterious thing they don’t understand that is shoehorned into all metaphors and analogies: Better than sex, sex on legs, your magical first time, and so on and so forth, endlessly, a fucking barrage of sex sex sex being the best thing in the world, and they know firsthand that they melt from kisses but they’re useless because they can’t be touched?
When the character we like to think of as a bottom is sweetly pursued (like we were), is bone-meltingly kissed (like we were), then gets fucked (like we never could get, because it’s physically impossible, enough that our partners left because we didn’t have a fucking working hole), it’s the closest thing to experiencing it ourselves.
I don’t get it. Gatekeeping efforts are against us. We’re called every horrible name in the book by the ignorant and the naive and the malicious who are masquerading as social justice fighters. Why are some of us turning against the rest and trying to be gatekeepers as well?
You don’t tell a fishing hobbyist that they’re missing out on so much beauty because they refuse to take up stargazing. Stargazing is unbelievably beautiful and enlightening. It’s just not what they want to spend their free time on.
I’ve often wondered why this gatekeeping never applies to things like, say, Established Relationship vs First Time fics.
I follow a bunch of writers religiously -- I’m subscribed to their ao3 accounts, I reread their gorgeous fics more times than I could count.
I follow them into fandoms I know nothing about and read fics about characters from books I’ve never read and movies and TV shows I’ve never read. Because I’m so insane about their writing I can’t afford to miss a word they write.
Except Established Relationship fics. Even though I love those writers so much, I only want First Time fics. It’s one of the most important things I want in a fic. That pining, that moment of realization, that struggle with the forbidden love.
Does that mean I’m missing out on awesome content? You bet. Not only am I missing out on awesome content, I’m fully aware that I’m missing out on awesome content.
But you see -- because this isn’t a required course, I’m fine with that. I turn to fics for joy, love, that rush of feelings that comes with exquisite writing about my beloved OTP the way that works for me.
I don’t bash anyone who wants to write different stuff. I don’t bash anyone who wants to read different stuff. And the weird thing is I see no one bashing anyone about this particular tag.
Other tags people are left to read or avoid without any gatekeeping or guilting efforts to “educate” those who avoid them on the important of broadening their horizons and reading them? Hurt/Comfort. Crack. Fluff. These are just a few examples.
So why is who tops and who bottoms such a big deal? Why does that and that alone require strong-worded posts bashing those who want the tags, or condescending posts ridiculing them?
Sure, if a reader is being rude, by all means put them in their place. If they’re being an entitled little shit, they have it coming.
But for the whole issue to merit post after post criticizing the mere existence of readers who like to read a particular top/bottom pairing, or mean replies to people who politely ask about the info?
Sigh. For what it’s worth: I’m including myself with those who ask politely out of solidarity. But I have never asked a writer about that. I simply steer clear of their writing. The gazillion superior essays about how readers must be open-minded and whatnot finally got to me, which is why I wrote this.
So sure -- don’t tag. Refuse to tag. Insist outright that you don’t tag top and bottom. You owe us nothing, and you have every right to do what you want with the beautiful writing you gift the world.
Just don’t act superior or attack those of us who ask politely about the tags once, or those of us who use those tags in our own works.
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