#my fantasy live-action remake of this movie is just the plot of the movie but set in '55 when it was released and the tramp is a greaser now

[tybaltsjuliet]

look at the skies; they have stars in their eyes.

lady and the tramp (1955)

#lady and the tramp #mike faist #nicola coughlan #disneyedit #ladyandthetrampedit #i *had* to get this out of my system #i have had to do this since i found a picture of nicola in that dress #is that not the perfect lady dress of all time #my fantasy live-action remake of this movie is just the plot of the movie but set in '55 when it was released and the tramp is a greaser now #i don't know why disney wastes time making lame CGI remakes of their animal movies when they could do fun adaptations instead #ask me about my aristocats 1960s screwball comedy starring audrey hepburn as duchess #;dream factory. #;enough to make kings and vagabonds believe the very best. #;swan’s graphicks. #;you'll find enchantment here.

[yeyinde]

Haha, I also spoil myself intentionally, but for the plot of movies, tv shows, and games I’m not super invested in. If I accidentally spoil myself (especially if I learn a character dies) I’ll cope by telling myself “I don’t know how/when it happened though”

Anyways Major Character Death!!

I’m SO disappointed in them killing off Soap and especially in how they did it! No buildup or anything! To me it was disrespectful to the character and to Neil Ellice. And then the 141 don’t even say anything and it cuts to them spreading his ashes with a simple goodbye! They could have at least made them a little more upset 🥲 also I hate how abruptly the game ended. Makarov gets away, but no mention to that at the end.

I had also initially requested what would become infinity in the palm of your hand (eternity in an hour) as a way to “cope” with 2009 Soap’s death because it’s always been on the back of my mind for years (weird, I know). But now after playing the new MW3 campaign I look like boo boo the fool because of who went and got killed off 😭 now every time I go back to reread it, it will be painful knowing what’s in store for reader for their current reincarnation of Soap.

Tldr I’m kinda not okay with MW3.

From what I've seen, it feels like they pulled it out of a hat. All names went in, but his (amongst others) came out. And I guess it's safe because he died in the OG, so the backlash can easily be deflected from within their own community when other fans come to their defence over this choice. But idk.

I agree with everything you said. It doesn't make any sense. It's jarring and misplaced, and canonically pointless. I'm not against character death. Grief is a powerful thing. But I just hate when it's so contrived and needless. It was definitely done for shock value over plot/character growth and I think they were trying to re-create the massive storm that happened when OG Soap died because they know they don't have much else going for them. It just massively missed the mark because: a) Price and Gaz had no tangible in-game relationship with Soap the same way Ghost did; and b) what does his death really amount to in the end? Nothing. It feels cobbled together and poorly thought out. It's sad when Portal 2 has better writing than your whole remake combined. Honestly, it's kind of impressive how little thought they put into this. I'm getting flash backs to DGG's Halloween.

If it's any consolation, the mythology I based the reincarnation off of in infinity would essentially just be neverending. An ouroboros. The events would happen much the same way. A knock on the door. Spiral of grief. A bog. A deal. Restart. So, you'd just wake up again and live life until whatever the old you made a deal with decides it's time to collect. You're forever stuck in a loop with your soulmate until you get it right.

The rest is just how I kinda wish it went, but this was getting very long because I have more thoughts on this than I anticipated lmao 😅

Personally, I think it would have been much more interesting if they brought in a new passel of characters and slowly chipped off the main cast in a series of horrible decisions that slowly begin to feel hollow and empty. That leave you, the player, feeling emotionally gutted with each new chapter because the choices previously are absolutely impacting the way they move forward, but they're too deep into their own revenge fantasy to see it until the very end when it's too late. Give me actions have consequences and every choice you make is directly responsible for someone's death. The realities of war. And what happens when you give a group of people the power to play god in countries they know nothing about. It would have matched the gritty tone they tried to go for with the trailers and actually served as an interesting conversation about war and how we tend to deify the military when they're just men with too much power in their hands. Instead, we have a death that means nothing. That arguably happened much too early in the series so the payoff is solely meant for clicks and reaction channels. Pointless.

And Makarov. A Russian Ultra Nationalist. I feel like that title alone says everything for me, and yet. They still somehow managed to give a Russian War Criminal so many wins. I'm just so irritated by it all.

#cod spoilers #mw3 spoilers #mwiii spoilers #call of duty spoilers #cod 2023 spoilers #SO MAD!!! #but also #it was a cheap way to get more engagement with their fanbase and theyre technically protected against backlash so #poor writing for the win (again)

[wanderingmadscientist]

Okay, after watching End of Evangelion in theaters this past Sunday, I decided to do an analysis of the live action sequence in the film.

This sequence can perhaps be considered the weirdest part of the movie, as it doesn't truly fit in the plot, unlike the other weird parts.

So a quick rundown.

Taking a break from being in the sea of lcl where everyone is a singular being. We cut to live action of a man opening his eyes, taking in an empty movie theater.

Followed by a sequence of everyday clips.

Then we see people watching the early screening of Evangelion death & rebirth in theaters.

Followed by the voice actors who played Asuka, Rei, and Misato

Followed by three mannequins dressed up as Asuka, Rei, and Misato

Followed once more by people watching Evangelion Death & Rebirth, followed once more by an empty theater, then some fanmail to the Gainax team, and then we return to the regularly scheduled program that is human instrumentality.

Let us now take a look at the dialogue.

Shinji (voice): Hey… Misato (voice): What? Shinji (voice): What are dreams? Misato (voice): Dreams? Rei: Yes, dreams. (Screen text:  Do you feel good?) Shinji (voice): I don’t understand… I don’t really understand reality. Rei (voice): So, you can’t understand the gap between other’s reality and your own truth. Shinji (voice): I don’t know where to find happiness. Rei (voice): So, you can only find happiness in your dreams. Shinji (voice): Then, this isn’t reality… Because no one is here. Rei (voice): Yes, it’s a dream. Shinji (voice): So, I’m not here either. Rei (voice): You were trying to remake reality with convenient fantasies. Shinji (voice): Is that wrong? Rei (voice): You were using fabrications to escape from reality. Shinji (voice): Can’t I dream alone? Rei (voice): That would not be a dream.  It would just be compensating for reality. Shinji (voice): Then… where is my dream? Rei (voice): It is the continuation of reality. Shinji (voice): Where is… my reality? Rei (voice): It is at the end of your dream.

The dialogue seems to imply that the live action real world is Shinji's dream, a world where he doesn't exist. The truth is though, that it forces the viewer to confront the fact that Evangelion isn't real. It's a dream.

Now Anno has stated that Evangelion a consideration of Otaku, specifically the aspect of escapism, hence Shinji's common line in Evangelion, "I mustn't run away." While in Shinji's case it is meant as not running away from responsibility, in human instrumentality it also comes to mean not running away from the harsh pain of reality.

In order to further analyze this point, one must consider Anno's relationship with the fanbase. In an interview he has stated

For the TV series, we certainly ran out of time. We had no time for episode 25, so we remade it for the theatrical edition. The final episode, episode 26, was going to be that way originally.

Episode 26 was always meant to be the positive ending it was in the show, but because of the fan response, he was made to redo it to something darker and more gritty.

Another fact is that there was a live action scene cut from the film. In it we see the voice actors of Misato, Rei, Asuka, and Toji, playing their characters, living out their lives in a world where Shinji doesn't exist. Throughout this scene, we hear Shinji, voiced by Hideaki Anno this time, calling out to the characters, but they can't hear him. In the end, he remarks, "I'm not here." Anno is recognizing his own attempts at escapism through his work, and admitting that he too is an otaku, he is trying to convey to the audience that he is not attacking them, but trying to help them, as well as himself, with the problem of escapism.

The live action is therefore inserted not as a revenge against the fans, but statement to them, about learning to live in reality, while still enjoying the fantasy and dreams of such fiction.

#neon genesis evangelion #evangelion #end of evangelion #hideaki anno #ikari shinji #shinji ikari #asuka langely #asuka langley soryu #misato katsuragi #misato #rei ayamani #ayanami rei #evangelion analysis #analysis

[ladyofthewolfsbane]

Feelin’ bored, so I decided to rank all the Nightmare on Elm Street movies from least favorite to most favorite. I’m leaving out the remake because I haven’t seen it, but if I had, it would be at the bottom : P My rankings are also based on how much I enjoyed a movie, not the actual quality of it.

Okay, here’s my list with a little explanation for my rankings!

8. Dream Child: Honestly? I don’t remember much about this movie, but I remember I found it boring and confusing. If you’re gonna be a bad movie, at least be a fun bad movie.

7. Freddy’s Dead: Aaaand speaking of fun bad movies! Yeah, this movie is a trash fire, but it’s at least entertaining to watch. This movie is basically an R-rated live action Loony Tunes cartoon. There are very few good ideas here, but there are crumbs of good ideas, like Freddy as a family man. Carlos’ death is also pretty memorable.

6. Freddy’s Revenge: I feel kinda bad ranking this one so low because it isn’t a bad movie and it has some interesting themes. But it just isn’t for me. Possession stories aren’t really my thing and I didn’t find the plot that compelling. It also didn’t really feel like a NOES film to me

5. Dream Master: This entry in the series has some real fun sequences, a nice neon aesthetic, and some characters I like. But it does that thing I don’t like where a horror movie sequel unceremoniously kills off almost all the characters from a previous movie.

4. New Nightmare: A really unique entry in the series and a unique horror movie in general. This film has a solid plot and well done characters and good acting.

3. Freddy vs. Jason: … Listen. Listen. I know this isn’t a great movie. Most of the characters are bad. There’s unquestionably some problematic stuff because it came out in 2003, a dark time, as we all know. But I always have so much damn fun when I watch it, and this is may be my favorite characterization (and look) for Freddy. 🤷‍♀️

2. Dream Warriors: Aw yeah!! So good. I doubt I can say much that hasn’t been said, but I like this one for the blend of horror and fantasy, and this is probably the perfect balance of serious Freddy and humorous Freddy. I love the ensemble cast too. It feels much more like a continuation of the first movie than Freddy’s Revenge does.

A Nightmare on Elm Street: Watching this for the first time as someone with little exposure to bloody slasher movies probably made me the perfect audience because I didn’t grow up horror at all, and definitely not with the more gruesome stuff that was coming out in the 2000s, so I was still surprised she grossed out by certain things when I watched it for the first time a few years ago. I mean, what can I say? It’s a classic through and through and the premise about someone killing you in your dreams is still very creative. I love it, aside from the studio mandated tacked on ending, and even that I don’t hate.

#a nightmare on elm street #noes #anoes #freddy krueger

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

Whenever One Of Those Disney Remakes Comes Out...

This was originally a Twitter thread that I wrote the other day, and wanted to repost it here because I... Accidentally deleted the first tweet, haha...

Anyways... Regarding "shallow" Disney romances, plot elements of the animated films that supposedly don't add up, and how these remakes supposedly "improve" on them or "add depth"...

For all the talk about some Disney romances happening in such ostensibly short amounts of time or feeling kind of halfhearted... It becomes apparent when you step back and think about it, possibly... but there's a reason the stories hold up and work despite this perceived issue... That's animation and lyrical storytelling bypassing what's supposed to be realistic. That's one of the medium's very special abilities...

Like, most people watching those Disney animated classics back when they came out were so engrossed in the stories and even the romances, because animation like that is really on its own plane of existence, operating on a unique wavelength that really makes it all register so seamlessly. But there's also plenty of substance & depth in what's being told, as it's woven in there by the visual (and sometimes visceral) storytelling itself. That's a big thing for me with Disney's animated movies, that they can establish so much in such short bursts in an 80-90min runtime.

A lot of what's often said about certain animated films reminds me of "style over substance", which is a phrase I absolutely can't stand. The style *can* be the substance, actually... it's there if the one watching is on the film's wave. Otherwise, it's just pretty pictures and noise to them.

A lot of my favorite Disney animated movies play this game very well, going all the way back to Walt's output. That there can be so much feeling, emotion and ideas in mere drawings mixed w/ music, dialogue, editing choices, etc. It's often hard for me to explain, but I naturally feel it whenever I watch it.

And that's not even getting into the language of fairy tales and fantasy stories, often laden with symbolism and metaphors and such, which are also on their own wavelength entirely. I feel, when you try to take all of that so literally, to make it "realistic" and feasible in another medium, let alone apply these ideas completely to *real life* itself... you're breaking it apart and overdressing it. Hiding its unique essence, ripping it away even. The fantasy element is dialed down, which kind of takes away from the whole appeal?

As I get older and I really try to nail how I write fantasy stories myself, I find the connection between this kind of fantasy and reality fascinating, how they in different ways inform each other. Not in the sorta "cute" ways that you can put into a neat little box ("Disney movies once taught me-"), but much more complex than that.

I'd say in terms of a recent live-action fantasy movie, one of the most interesting was David Lowery's THE GREEN KNIGHT, an adaptation of Arthurian legend, which really embraced a kind of lyricism and dream-like logic that you don't often see these days. Even in mainstream animated movies that favor talking heads scripting over this kind of thing. Naturally, it was "confusing" for some. I know I was kinda lost when I first saw it, but I couldn't stop thinking of the intricate texture of the piece after I left the theater. It's a feat when a movie of any kind can preserve that onscreen, not what was only in the text.

Of course, a classic animated movie isn't immune to criticism, but sometimes I think a lot of what I see written online is done out of misunderstanding of the animation medium (does that peer pressure from when they were 10 years old still linger in their heads?), and there's a lack of media literacy there as well. As if the CinemaSins crew are in charge here, nitpicking small things that don't matter while missing the much bigger picture. Animation and fantasy like this require a nuanced perspective to dig in, I feel.

Animation itself, when executed like this, is just really on a whole other field... And those who dig the films so much, I feel they naturally get it and don't knock the movies for these perceived "issues". Nor make rash generalizations about a whole body of work, which is also common with some folks who talk a good show about Disney animated movies. Even Disney themselves, which is always concerning, but this is nothing new. As far back as the late '80s/early '90s, various people who worked for them or on their movies echoed these kinds of weird reductionist sentiments, too... And I feel it really all boils down to... These movies are animated. Thus shallow, for children, lacking, without much substance...

If not that, then I feel it's a misunderstanding of how these outlandish stories work and what level they are on... Almost like it's being reduced to a "that was weird!" MCU-level joke, or- Again, fodder for CinemaSins or some garden variety Nostalgia Critic-style video.

[ogradyfilm]

Recently Viewed: Short Cuts Program 1 (Japan Cuts 2023)

After taking last year off due to COVID-related concerns, Japan Cuts has finally returned to NYC! Since I’m feeling a bit out of practice, I decided to ease myself back into the festival experience by starting with a screening of short films:

“Flashback Before Death”

From the moment this eerie tone poem begins, director Hiroyuki Onogawa’s background as a composer is immediately evident. The sound design is meticulously crafted—and I’m not just talking about the music: the audio is as integral to the narrative as the visuals. Such ambient noises as the gentle splash of an oar dipping beneath the surface of a river, the mournful howl of wind above the treetops, the dry crunch of gravel underfoot, the faint clatter of glass shattering across cobblestones, and the moist smack of ravenous mastication coalesce into a rich, symphonic sensory experience, immersing the viewer in the protagonist’s perspective.

As for the plot… well, it exists, but it’s almost incidental. Describing the film in such concrete, literalist terms as “ghost story” is, in my opinion, egregiously reductive. Onogawa is not interested in superficial tropes and genre conventions; he instead emphasizes surreal imagery: broken mirrors, bodies of water, toxic shellfish, unnervingly anthropomorphized dolls. These cryptic symbols suggest some decidedly Lynchian themes: mortality, guilt, memory, nostalgia, repressed trauma, multiple identities, the conflict between fantasy and reality, et cetera.

Dense, introspective, ambiguous, and hypnotically beautiful, “Flashback Before Death” is the quintessential festival short. Do not allow concrete interpretation to diminish its emotional resonance; its true “meaning” lies in the feelings that it evokes.

“Silent Movie”

A collaborative effort produced by current and former Tokyo University of the Arts students, this compilation of silent shorts is nothing less than a celebration of cinematic history. The first vignette, for example, purports to be a remake of a lost jidaigeki helmed by Sadao Yamanaka—and although the resemblance isn’t quite flawless, the framing, lighting, editing, costuming, and performances nevertheless come impressively close to replicating the auteur’s trademark style. Other contributions feature: rotoscope animation, rubber monsters rampaging through cardboard cities, slapstick comedy reminiscent of the Keystone Kops series, satirical meditations on the nature of romantic relationships in the age of social media, and nightmarish physical transformations via forbidden shinobi magic (achieved entirely through primitive in-camera effects—Georges Méliès would be proud).

The common thread uniting these tonally and thematically disparate works into a cohesive whole is Ichiro Kataoka, who provides voiceover narration that clarifies and contextualizes the onscreen action. This sort of commentary would have been expected by Japanese audiences back in the ‘20s and ‘30s; indeed, many benshi were celebrities in their own right—a subject explored in Masayuki Suo’s Talking the Pictures. Experiencing such a beloved theatrical tradition (albeit only in pre-recorded form; I would savor the opportunity to enjoy a live rendition) was a genuine treat.

While not every film in the collection is an essential masterpiece, “Silent Movie” remains a delightfully fun throwback—the perfect light snack to cleanse the palette following “Flashback Before Death’s” daunting three-course meal.

#Japan Cuts #Japan Society #Japanese cinema #Japanese film #short films #Flashback Before Death #Silent Movie #Hiroyuki Onogawa #Sadao Yamanaka #film #writing #movie review

[fabianocolucci]

Can we have one lighthearted and optimistic show or movie for once?

Hello, I am writing this post because I have read that the CW is making a TV show about the PowerPuff Girls, except they’re going to be depicted as “20-somethings who are disillusioned after having spent their childhood fighting crime”.

Reading that angered me, I have to admit it, because this is just the latest of a never ending series of shows and movies that try to take something that is supposed to be lighthearted, funny and optimistic and turn it into something dark and edgy about how much life sucks, trying to highlight that “we live in a society” and so on.

Riverdale is the example many people come up with most of the time, and I can see why: its shared universe (which includes The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina) is a textbook example of how Hollywood keeps handling these things. However, what many people fail to realize is that this trend has been going on since long before the CW took Archie Andrews and the others and tried to be as dark and edgy as they can.

When Batman Begins proved to be a huge hit, and it was followed by an even greater hit (The Dark Knight), Hollywood apparently thought that the reason of its success was that it tried to be darker and edgier. However, those things worked only because Christopher Nolan wanted to take a popular superhero and tried to depict him in a more realistic tone (after all, their movies may be even darker than what Batman is supposed to be, unless you take in consideration any Batman comic written by Frank Miller).

Since then, we’ve seen countless movies, games and shows that tried to be so dark they’ve become bleak and, honestly, even a bit bland.

On the superhero side, we’ve seen multiple depictions where, for instance, Superman has become evil and is now a force that needs to be stopped (they even made a movie about this being a possibility, as if it’s inevitable), while we’ve seen at least four live-action depictions of Batman being a killer hero who has lost his vision and hope (to the point where Batwoman casually mentioning how Batman has a no killing code was enough to make that world’s Batman a lighter version than what is the current trend). The Netflix shows about Marvel superheroes even made it look like the Avengers’ arrival caused nothing but problems for New York (admittedly, they kind of have to depict New York this way, otherwise it would feel weird how there’s so many superheroes in that city and yet crime is still a thing).

On the fantasy side, because of Game of Thrones’ success, now every fantasy TV show wants to emulate it, and as such we have bleak, humorless worlds where there’s a lot of darkness, with constant “mature” content like swearing and sex (The Witcher is a great show, but they could have toned it down a bit, in that context). It’s like even a genre whose name is literally “fantasy” can’t escape in trying to depict a more gritty and real world where everything always has to be dark.

On the science fiction side, well, we’ve seen the new Star Wars movie, which took the ending of Episode VI, which was full of optimism and hope, and basically said “nope, everything now is so dark and lonely”. I guess one of the reasons why you could pretend the sequel trilogy never happened is that, well, they end with a more positive note than whatever happened after episode IX.

On the TV side, there isn’t just Riverdale or the upcoming PowerPuff Girls show. The Winx Saga has taken away all the color of the cartoon (no, seriously: everything is so grey and soulless looking in the TV show that someone may have to tell you they’re supposed to be The Winx Club in live action). The Nancy Drew show now is a dark mystery more in line with Riverdale actually. Netflix is making an Avatar show and apparently they want to age up the characters “so that they can have sex” (which somewhat implies that there’s someone who looked at 12 year old Aang or 14 year old Katara and thought “I want to see them have sex”, which is so creepy and disturbing that I even regret pointing it out).

This would not be such a big deal if there wasn’t the fact that we’re talking about the vast majority of big movies and shows! Even something funny like Lost in Space has been turned into a dark remake.

Why is it so hard to find something in Hollywood that doesn’t try to be dark and depressing? Well, I think there are multiple reasons, which I’m going to point out:

·       There is this idea among writers that drama is the only thing that keeps the plot interesting. Characters need to have tragedies thrown at them all the time, they constantly have to fight and (usually) heavens forbid if they even try to lighten up a bit. This is, of course, wrong, as shown by how many fanfiction writers take characters who have a life made of day-by-day drama and depict them in quiet scenes like them making a meal for their beloved or just going to a vacation where they can relax. Just because depicting nothing but quiet and peaceful moments can become boring on the long run, doesn’t mean it can never happen;

·       Because we live in dark times, then everything has to be dark. It’s as if people can’t experience any sort of hopeful escapism when out there it seems like nothing but tragedies and negativity occurs outside of their windows. Illnesses, war, deaths, recessions and so on happen 24/7, so how can you showcase even a bit of positivity? Well, I have one question: what kind of escapism would constantly remind you of the very thing you are trying to temporarily escape from? If I want to forget about the World’s problems for an hour, then why on Earth are you making me think about them? Who decided that the best way of forgetting that life sucks is to have your story say “life sucks” all the time? I don’t understand;

·       Writers are probably influenced by the “loser culture” on the internet. I mean, wherever you go on social media, people seem to have a race to see who has the most miserable life. Many comic artist have their characters experience all sorts of problems and negativity, there’s a lot of memes about negative stuff (how many times have you seen a wholesome post with a reblog or a retweet adding something negative? For example, I don’t know, someone tweets “I asked my mom a puppy, she brought me five of them” and someone says “if I asked it to my mom, she’d bring five slaps to my butt”). Of course, if I, a writer, see that people can’t stop talking about how much their life suck, I would think “well, maybe that’s all they want to hear about” and make characters with miserable lives;

However, I have always noticed how there’s a medium who seems to not be easily affected by all this stuff: animation.

You want a fantasy show where everything is colorful and bright? There’s lots of cartoons for that.

You want to see superheroes doing their best to fight for the good of the World? There’s plenty of them in animation.

You want hope and positivity? Tune in on any station that airs cartoons and you will find it.

However, the problem is that this goes hand to hand with the old stigma that, well, “cartoons are for kids”, so it feels like movies and TV shows are saying “positivity and happiness are for children. Grow the hell up and see how dark and hopeless the World truly is!”.

Why is trying to be positive and optimistic something that can’t happen if you’re a mature person? Why is it so wrong to just want to see a bit of peace in these media?

I don’t know what else to say or to add, so it’s best if I finish my post right here. So, here’s my opinion:

Even though it is okay for you to tell me a story where nothing matters, where “we live in a society” and where you can’t have good things, it should be balanced with something. Have you ever seen the Yin Yang symbol? Why do you think it depicts darkness with a little bit of light? Because nothing can be completely dark. So, just try to add some good energy in your story. It won’t be an issue for anybody to just have one moment where everyone smiles.

#darker and edgier #dark and gritty #dark TV shows #edgy #positivity #why is everything so dark #optimism #Riverdale #PowerPuff Girls #PPG CW #CW #Game of Thrones #superheroes #happiness #hope

[letterboxd]

Blurring the Line.

As a new Space Jam film beams down to Earth, Kambole Campbell argues that a commitment to silliness and a sincere love for the medium is what it takes to make a great live-action/animation hybrid.

The live-action and animation hybrid movie is something of a dicey prospect. It’s tricky to create believable interaction between what’s real and what’s drawn, puppeteered or rendered—and blending the live and the animated has so far resulted in wild swings in quality. It is a highly specific and technically demanding niche, one with only a select few major hits, though plenty of cult oddities. So what makes a good live-action/animation hybrid?

To borrow words from Hayao Miyazaki, “live action is becoming part of that whole soup called animation”. Characters distinct from the humans they interact with, but rendered as though they were real creatures (or ghosts), are everywhere lately; in Paddington, in Scooby Doo, in David Lowery’s (wonderful) update of Pete’s Dragon.

The original ‘Pete’s Dragon’ (1977) alongside the 2016 remake.

Lowery’s dragon is realized with highly realistic lighting and visual-effects work. By comparison, the cartoon-like characters in the 1977 Pete’s Dragon—along with other films listed in Louise’s handy compendium of Disney’s live-action animation—are far more exaggerated. That said, there’s still the occasional holdout for the classical version of these crossovers: this year’s Tom and Jerry replicating the look of 2D through 3D/CGI animation, specifically harkens back to the shorts of the 1940s and ’50s.

One type of live-action/animation hybrid focuses on seamless immersion, the other is interested in exploring the seams themselves. Elf (2003) uses the aberration of stop-motion animals to represent the eponymous character as a fish out of water. Ninjababy, a Letterboxd favorite from this year’s SXSW Festival, employs an animated doodle as a representation of the protagonist’s state of mind while she processes her unplanned pregnancy.

Meanwhile, every Muppets film ever literally tears at the seams until we’re in stitches, but, for the sake of simplicity, puppets are not invited to this particular party. What we are concerned with here is the overlap between hand-drawn animation and live-action scenes (with honorable mentions of equally valid stop-motion work), and the ways in which these hybrids have moved from whimsical confections to nod-and-wink blockbusters across a century of cinema.

Betty Boop and Koko the clown in a 1938 instalment of the Fleischer brothers’ ‘Out of the Inkwell’ series.

Early crossovers often involve animators playing with their characters, in scenarios such as the inventive Out of the Inkwell series of shorts from Rotoscope inventor Max Fleischer and his director brother Dave. Things get even more interactive mid-century, when Gene Kelly holds hands with Jerry Mouse in Anchors Aweigh.

The 1960s and ’70s deliver ever more delightful family fare involving human actors entering cartoon worlds, notably in the Robert Stevenson-directed Mary Poppins and Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and Chuck Jones’ puntastic The Phantom Tollbooth.

Jerry and Gene dance off their worries in ‘Anchors Aweigh’ (1945).

Mary Poppins is one of the highest-rated live-action/animation hybrids on Letterboxd for good reason. Its sense of control in how it engages with its animated creations makes it—still!—an incredibly engaging watch. It is simply far less evil than the singin’, dancin’ glorification of slavery in Disney’s Song of the South (1946), and far more engaging than Victory Through Air Power (1943), a war-propaganda film about the benefits of long-range bombing in the fight against Hitler. The studio’s The Reluctant Dragon (1941) also serves a propagandistic function, as a behind-the-scenes studio tour made when the studio’s animators were striking.

By comparison, Mary Poppins’ excursions into the painted world—replicated in Rob Marshall’s belated, underrated 2018 sequel, Mary Poppins Returns—are full of magical whimsicality. “Films have added the gimmick of making animation and live characters interact countless times, but paradoxically none as pristine-looking as this creation,” writes Edgar in this review. “This is a visual landmark, a watershed… the effect of making everything float magically, to the detail of when a drawing should appear in front or the back of [Dick] Van Dyke is a creation beyond my comprehension.” (For Van Dyke, who played dual roles as Bert and Mr Dawes Senior, the experience sparked a lifelong love of animation and visual effects.)

Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke and penguins, in ‘Mary Poppins’ (1964).

Generally speaking, and the Mary Poppins sequel aside, more contemporary efforts seek to subvert this feeling of harmony and control, instead embracing the chaos of two worlds colliding, the cartoons there to shock rather than sing. Henry Selick’s frequently nightmarish James and the Giant Peach (1996) leans into this crossover as something uncanny and macabre by combining live action with stop motion, as its young protagonist eats his way into another world, meeting mechanical sharks and man-eating rhinos. Sally Jane Black describes it as “riding the Burton-esque wave of mid-’90s mall goth trends and blending with the differently demonic Dahl story”.

Science-classroom staple Osmosis Jones (2001) finds that within the human body, the internal organs serve as cities full of drawn white-blood-cell cops. The late Stephen Hillenburg’s The Spongebob Squarepants Movie (2004) turns its real-life humans into living cartoons themselves, particularly in a bonkers sequence featuring David Hasselhoff basically turning into a speedboat.

David Hasselhoff picks up speed in ‘The Spongebob Squarepants Movie’ (2004).

The absurdity behind the collision of the drawn and the real is never better embodied than in another of our highest-rated live/animated hybrids. Released in 1988, Robert Zemeckis’ Who Framed Roger Rabbit shows off a deep understanding—narratively and aesthetically—of the material that it’s parodying, seeking out the impeccable craftsmanship of legends such as director of animation Richard Williams (1993’s The Thief and the Cobbler), and his close collaborator Roy Naisbitt. The forced perspectives of Naisbitt’s mind-bending layouts provide much of the rocket fuel driving the film’s madcap cartoon opening.

Distributed by Walt Disney Pictures, Roger Rabbit utilizes the Disney stable of characters as well as the Looney Tunes cast to harken back to America’s golden age of animation. It continues a familiar scenario where the ’toons themselves are autonomous actors (as also seen in Friz Freleng’s 1940 short You Ought to Be in Pictures, in which Daffy Duck convinces Porky Pig to try his acting luck in the big studios).

Daffy Duck plots his rise up the acting ranks in ‘You Ought to Be in Pictures’ (1940).

Through this conceit, Zemeckis is able to celebrate the craft of animation, while pastiching both Chinatown, the noir genre, and the mercenary nature of the film industry (“the best part is… they work for peanuts!” a studio exec says of the cast of Fantasia). As Eddie Valiant, Bob Hoskins’ skepticism and disdain towards “toons” is a giant parody of Disney’s more traditional approach to matching humans and drawings.

Adult audiences are catered for with plenty of euphemistic humor and in-jokes about the history of the medium. It’s both hilarious (“they… dropped a piano on him,” one character solemnly notes of his son) and just the beginning of Hollywood toying with feature-length stories in which people co-exist with cartoons, rather than dipping in and out of fantasy sequences. It’s not just about how the cartoons appear on the screen, but how the human world reacts to them, and Zemeckis gets a lot of mileage out of applying ’toon lunacy to our world.

Bob Hoskins in ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit?’ (1988).

The groundbreaking optical effects and compositing are excellent (and Hoskins’ amazing performance should also be credited for holding all of it together), but what makes Roger Rabbit such a hit is that sense of controlled chaos and a clever tonal weaving of violence and noirish seediness (“I’m not bad… I’m just drawn that way”) through the cartoony feel. And it is simply very, very funny.

It could be said that, with Roger Rabbit, Zemeckis unlocked the formula for how to modernize the live-action and animation hybrid, by leaning into a winking parody of what came before. It worked so perfectly well that it helped kickstart the ‘Disney renaissance' era of animation. Roger Rabbit has influenced every well-known live-action/animation hybrid produced since, proving that there is success and fun to be had by completely upending Mary Poppins-esque quirks. Even Disney’s delightful 2007 rom-com Enchanted makes comedy out of the idea of cartoons crossing that boundary.

When a cartoon character meets real-world obstacles.

Even when done well, though, hybrids are not an automatic hit. Sitting at a 2.8-star average, Joe Dante’s stealthily great Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003) is considered by the righteous to be the superior live-action/animated Looney Tunes hybrid, harkening back to the world of Chuck Jones and Frank Tashlin. SilentDawn states that the film deserves the nostalgic reverence reserved for Space Jam: “From gag to gag, set piece to set piece, Back in Action is utterly bonkers in its logic-free plotting and the constant manipulation of busy frames.”

With its Tinseltown parody, Back in Action pulls from the same bag of tricks as Roger Rabbit; here, the Looney Tunes characters are famous, self-entitled actors. Dante cranks the meta comedy up to eleven, opening the film with Matthew Lillard being accosted by Shaggy for his performance in the aforementioned Scooby Doo movie (and early on throwing in backhanded jokes about the practice of films like itself as one character yells, “I was brought in to leverage your synergy!”).

Daffy Duck with more non-stop banter in ‘Looney Tunes: Back in Action’ (2003).

Back in Action is even more technically complex than Roger Rabbit, seamlessly bringing Looney Tunes physics and visual language into the real world. Don’t forget that Dante had been here before, when he had Anthony banish Ethel into a cartoon-populated television show in his segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie. Another key to this seamlessness is star Brendan Fraser, at the height of his powers here as “Brendan Fraser’s stunt double”.

Like Hoskins before him, Fraser brings a wholehearted commitment to playing the fed-up straight man amidst cartoon zaniness. Fraser also brought that dedication to Henry Selick's Monkeybone (2001), a Roger Rabbit-inspired sex comedy that deploys a combo of stop-motion animation and live acting in a premise amusingly close to that of 1992’s Cool World (but more on that cult anomaly shortly). A commercial flop, Back in Action was the last cinematic outing for the Looney Tunes for some time.

Nowadays, when we think of live-action animation, it’s hard not to jump straight to an image of Michael Jordan’s arm stretching to do a half-court dunk to save the Looney Tunes from slavery. There’s not a lot that can be fully rationalized about the 1996 box-office smash, Space Jam. It is a bewildering cartoon advert for Michael Jordan’s baseball career, dreamed up off the back of his basketball retirement, while also mashing together different American icons. Never forget that the soundtrack—one that, according to Benjamin, “makes you have to throw ass”—includes a song with B-Real, Coolio, Method Man and LL Cool J.

Michael Jordan and teammates in ‘Space Jam’ (1996).

Space Jam is a film inherently born to sell something, predicated on the existing success of a Nike commercial rather than any obvious passion for experimentation. But its pure strangeness, a growing nostalgia for the nineties, and meticulous compositing work from visual-effects supervisor Ed Jones and the film’s animation team (a number of whom also worked on both Roger Rabbit and Back in Action), have all kept it in the cultural memory.

The films is backwards, writes Jesse, in that it wants to distance itself from the very cartoons it leverages: “This really almost feels like a follow-up to Looney Tunes: Back in Action, rather than a predecessor, because it feels like someone watched the later movie, decided these Looney Tunes characters were a problem, and asked someone to make sure they were as secondary as possible.” That attempt to place all the agency in Jordan’s hands was a point of contention for Chuck Jones, the legendary Warner Bros cartoonist. He hated the film, stating that Bugs would never ask for help and would have dealt with the aliens in seven minutes.

Space Jam has its moments, however. Guy proclaims “there is nothing that Deadpool as a character will ever have to offer that isn’t done infinitely better by a good Bugs Bunny bit”. For some, its problems are a bit more straightforward, for others it’s a matter of safety in sport. But the overriding sentiments surrounding the film point to a sort of morbid fascination with the brazenness of its concept.

Holli Would (voiced by Kim Basinger) and Frank Harris (Brad Pitt) blur the lines in ‘Cool World’ (1992).

Existing in the same demented… space… as Space Jam, Paramount Pictures bought the idea for Cool World from Ralph Bakshi as it sought to have its own Roger Rabbit. While Brad Pitt described it as “Roger Rabbit on acid” ahead of release, Cool World itself looks like a nightmare version of Toontown. The film was universally panned at the time, caught awkwardly between being far too adult for children but too lacking in any real substance for adults (there’s something of a connective thread between Jessica Rabbit, Lola Bunny and Holli Would).

Ralph Bakshi’s risqué and calamitously horny formal experiment builds on the animator’s fascination with the relationship between the medium and the human body. Of course, he would go from the immensely detailed rotoscoping of Fire and Ice (1983) to clashing hand-drawn characters with real ones, something he had already touched upon in the seventies with Heavy Traffic and Coonskin, whose animated characters were drawn into real locations. But no one besides Bakshi quite knew what to do with the perverse concept of Brad Pitt as a noir detective trying to stop Gabriel Byrne’s cartoonist from having sex with a character that he drew—an animated Kim Basinger.

Jack Deebs (Gabriel Byrne) attempts to cross over to Hollie Would in ‘Cool World’ (1992).

Cool World’s awkwardness can be attributed to stilted interactions between Byrne, Pitt and the animated world, as well as studio meddling. Producer Frank Mancuso Jr (who was on the film due to his father running Paramount) demanded that the film be reworked into something PG-rated, against Bakshi’s wishes (he envisioned an R-rated horror), and the script was rewritten in secret. It went badly, so much so that Bakshi eventually punched Mancuso Jr in the face.

While Cool World averages two stars on Letterboxd, there are some enthusiastic holdouts. There are the people impressed by the insanity of it all, those who just love them a horny toon, and then there is Andrew, a five-star Cool World fan: “On the surface, it’s a Lovecraftian horror with Betty Boop as the villain, featuring a more impressive cityscape than Blade Runner and Dick Tracy combined, and multidimensional effects that make In the Mouth of Madness look like trash. The true star, however, proves to be the condensed surplus of unrelated gags clogging the arteries of the screen—in every corner is some of the silliest cel animation that will likely ever be created.”

There are even those who enjoy its “clear response to Who Framed Roger Rabbit”, with David writing that “the film presents a similar concept through the lens of the darkly comic, perverted world of the underground cartoonists”, though also noting that without Bakshi’s original script, the film is “a series of half steps and never really commits like it could”. Cool World feels both completely deranged and strangely low-energy, caught between different ideas as to how best to mix the two mediums. But it did give us a David Bowie jam.

‘Space Jam: A New Legacy’ is in cinemas and on HBO Max now.

Craft is of course important, but generally speaking, maybe nowadays a commitment to silliness and a sincere love for the medium’s history is the thing that makes successful live-action/animation hybrids click. It’s an idea that doesn’t lend itself to being too cool, or even entirely palatable. The trick is to be as fully dotty as Mary Poppins, or steer into the gaucheness of the concept, à la Roger Rabbit and Looney Tunes: Back in Action.

It’s quite a tightrope to walk between good meta-comedy and a parade of references to intellectual property. The winningest strategy is to weave the characters into the tapestry of the plot and let the gags grow from there, rather than hoping their very inclusion is its own reward. Wait, you said what is coming out this week?

Related content

Rootfish Jones’s list of cartoons people are horny for

The 100 Sequences that Shaped Animation: the companion list to the Vulture story

Jose Moreno’s list of every animated film made from 1888 to the present

Follow Kambole on Letterboxd

#kambole campbell #mary poppins #ralph bakshi #hayao miyazaki #ghibli #disney #who framed roger rabbit #roger rabbit #spongebob squarepants #spongebob #animation #live action animation #live action animation hybrid #stop motion animation #stop motion #wes anderson #brad pitt #bob hoskins #genre #space jam #space jam a new legacy #michael jordan #lebron james #looney tunes #bugs bunny #daffy duck #warner bros #2d animation #letterboxd

[lany-d-flow]

Whisper Talk: Going Against Alternate Timeline Theories with a Theory, and Answering Questions Saying Otherwise.

Those who look with clouded eyes see nothing but shadows. -Sephiroth, Final Fantasy 7 Remake.

SPOILER WARNING

Pressing “Keep Reading” will bring you into spoiler territory for, well... Final Fantasy 7 Compilation and Remake, so this is your warning, all right buddy?

Also, this is one person’s interpretation of another work. What I predict may very well turn out to be untrue, and if you disagree with my prediction then that’s totally fine! (If you’d like, we could chat about it).

But honestly, I have spent the last few months thinking about this game in an unhealthy manner. I think having all of these whispers inside of my head with my frustration getting bigger is not going to move anything forward. So it’s time to wake up, get up, get out there and write thoughts about what is actually going on with Final Fantasy 7 Remake, while trying to clear up misconceptions that may be leading people astray. Perhaps the latter is the intention of the developers. If it is? Well, let’s move past the clouds and find the sunlight. 

All right, let’s mosey into this nonsense.

It’s been months since the release of Final Fantasy 7 Remake. After a long five-year wait for many fans, we got a piece of the story on the Playstation 4 in March and April 2020. It was exciting to see the capital of Final Fantasy 7, Midgar, be brought to life with state-of-the-art graphics. Treading through mako reactors, Sector 7 and Sector 5, the nasty Wall Market, Shinra HQ, hearing conversations of lively NPCs, exploring the subtle easter eggs and symbolism through visual storytelling... Goodness, so much of what this game had to offer was a delight! The developers put their heart and soul into fleshing out a section of Final Fantasy 7 that was, at most, 6 hours long. This level of detail cannot go unnoticed, and I’m sure it’s made everyone excited to see the reimagining of Gaia when we receive future installments!!!!

Oh, but wait... the developers introduced a new monster called Whispers, otherwise known as Arbiters of Fate, and... What purpose do they serve?! Why are these things in Final Fantasy 7 when they never had a role in the original game? Based on everything we saw in the story, they seem to be making sure the story of Final Fantasy 7 runs exactly as it’s supposed to. Without these ghosts, the story will not be 1:1. To make things worse, we have Sephiroth who’s from the future?! No wonder these Whispers are here, Sephiroth’s trying to rewrite history because everything he has tried before failed him!

So based on what we saw in Final Fantasy 7 Remake, the developers decided to create a metaphor for the fanbase, and since we defeated ‘destiny,’ we’ve defeated the fanbase’s say in where the story goes, thereby giving the developers permission to change the story the way they want it. Wow, this is pathetic on Square Enix’s part. Final Fantasy 7 is an amazing story with layers and layers of complex themes, why would they try to form it into something else? Now we’re going to have time travel and alternate timelines in the plot and Sephiroth seems unstoppable now. Heck, the developers are probably going to make sure impactful moments in Final Fantasy 7 do not happen, so Zack and Aerith are probably going to survive. And they’re also ditching the Compilation? Can these people be trusted? 

Final Fantasy 7 Remake is ruined!!!

Still with me? Well, this is just some of the talk that I’ve heard based on the execution of Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s plot. I won’t try to list every possible thing people are talking about, but I think we get the idea of the impression that our game’s ending put on a lot of players. So I wanted to give my input on what I believe is actually going on with the story, as well as answer many questions popping up about the circumstances of our game’s characters.

So, do I think the developers are changing the story?

Short Answer: No, at least not in the way that many people think. They’re “changing” the story by putting in new elements, moments that tie with the rest of the Compilation, but the main plot points (Overarching plot, the main crisis, the internal plot, the emotional climax, etc.) still need to happen. This series is more than 2 decades old, and with time it has received: a movie, 2 books, a sequel, 2 prequels, and now a remake with existing materials to tie into the game. 

Long Answer: All right, if you’re still with me, thank you. I will do my best to explain all of what’s going on. I’ll give my input via understanding how the FF7 Universe works; in other words, what the Whispers are, how the Whispers work, how they’ve actually always been apart of FF7 and are now receiving an expanded role, and how Sephiroth and Aerith showing meta behavior makes sense due to the power that the Planet has given to the Arbiters of Fate (exposure = visions out of context). I will also be answering questions that one may bring up as proof of an alternate timeline/story change and argue what their purpose may actually be.

So, let's Talk about A Whisper

Wait a minute...

So, let's talk about the Whispers.

Let’s start by explaining what the Whispers are, what function they serve to the Planet, and how the Planet creates them in the first place:

Whispers are souls that act as arbiters of fate and have been a part of the Planet for as long as the Planet has existed. They know the fate of the Planet from beginning to end, and their function is to make sure that a specific destiny runs its course. They all unite under the will of the Planet, just like the Sephiroth Clones all act under the will of Sephiroth, which is probably the reason why they were given a cloaky look: the Whispers' function parallels the Sephiroth Clones' function and both act under the authority of something else. They cannot be seen by everyone, and to actually see their physical manifestation, you need to either be 1) deeply connected with the Planet, or 2) receive some form of physical contact from someone who has a strong connection to the Planet. This is established early in Chapter 2 of Final Fantasy 7 Remake. Cloud meets Aerith for the first time, and at first glance she seems to be blown away by the wind. After Cloud and Aerith have an exchange and Aerith gives Cloud a flower, immediately after this we are greeted with an illusion of Sephiroth tormenting Cloud and more importantly, Aerith touching Cloud, allowing him to see the Whispers floating around the street. This follows the logic of my two points, as Aerith is a half-Cetra who’s been receiving visions of the past and future for years (her mural of symbolism in her Shinra HQ room was drawn when she received a vision as a child, though she does not understand the full context of what it means), and of course she ended up giving permission for Cloud to see the Planet’s protectors in action.

So how do the Whispers make sure destiny happens as intended?

Well, they do so by constantly observing the actions of the Planet’s people, sometimes in sight, sometimes not. If something happened that is off course, the Whispers immediately act to correct the course of said issue. We see this multiple times in the story. Some examples include: Aerith trying to leave the street where she meets Cloud, then proceeding to leave the street after meeting Cloud, following the Whispers’ intentions; Jessie getting injured in Sector 7 because destiny needs to make sure Cloud goes on the next AVALANCHE mission. If this didn’t happen, then Aerith and Cloud probably wouldn’t have met again; Surrounding the debris on top of Jessie to ensure her death takes place on top of the Sector 7 Tower (I’ll cover the speculation on her “survival” later); stopping Cloud from remembering everything about the Shinra Research Lab; stopping Hojo from revealing the truth of Cloud’s past (no way in Hell are they going to let the internal conflict unfold this early); reviving Barret from the stab wound that the Sephiroth remnant gave him; lastly, pushing Wedge down the Shinra HQ tower to ensure his death happens. Destined events either eventually happened, or they got delayed. This implies that the Whispers are nigh-omnipresent beings, especially given how many they are and how they were able to surround Midgar entirely, and their part of correcting destiny follows the flow of a river. As Red XIII puts it, “The flow of the great river that is the Planet, from inception to oblivion… For it is the will of the Planet itself”.

Cool. So how are the Whispers born? Where do they come from?

It’s actually a pretty straightforward explanation, and Aerith tells us in Chapter 18: Destiny’s Crossroads. Before the Whispers became Whispers, they were “Those born into this world. Who lived and who died. Who returned. They’re howling in pain.” This adds on to what Sephiroth said a moment ago: “All born are bound to her.” All Whispers were once living people, animals, etc. And all that are given life on the Planet are bound by something like a contract: You get made into an image and are given a physical life. In exchange, once that time’s up, you must return to the Lifestream and become a part of the Planet, being one of many who follow her will. You’re born, you live, you die, and you serve another purpose in a collective of spirits who are now tasked with making sure the flow of destiny is as it should be. By following all of this, we can conclude that 1) Everyone who lives on Gaia could eventually become a Whisper, and 2) since Whispers are a part of the Planet, they are formed from the Lifestream, the Planet’s lifeblood. This leads us into the next question...

How do the Whispers know the course of Destiny from start to finish?

Great question! The logical explanation to how they know is quite simple: the properties of the Lifestream. The Whispers are made out of Lifestream, and that gives them knowledge of the Planet’s destiny. I argue it is not farfetched to make this claim, as the Lifestream has shown time and again what it is capable of. Infact, let’s make an analogy of Lifestream manifestations via state of matter.

Lifestream: Its Three States of Matter and their Benefits and Side Effects

Mako is the liquid form of the Lifestream, Materia is a solid form of the Lifestream, while the regular Lifestream itself can be most equivalent to something of a gas/plasma, at least one that can be seen. Throughout Final Fantasy 7 we’ve seen what all of these forms can do. Mako is an extremely powerful energy source that powers all of Midgar through reactors, and is also what SOLDIERs are bathed in to possibly receive superhuman strength; Materia are jewels capable of all kinds of powerful magic; summoning fire, lightning, ice, creating shields, copying abilities of other living beings, healing, elevating other materia abilities, and most notably summon manifestations of powerful beings (Bahamut, Shiva, Ifrit, Odin, Knights of the Round). While the Lifestream itself? That’s all the souls of the planet with a consciousness that follows the Planet’s will. Some can appear as a physical manifestation, but they’re not quite solid, which is how Cloud’s buster sword moves through the Whispers as if he didn’t cut through anything. Use of the Lifestream can also create projections (think Aerith’s Chapter 14 resolution), allow access into someone’s subconscious under certain circumstances, and of course, give people visions of the past and future without any context as to how those events happen(ed).

All three forms of the Lifestream have side effects, too.

Materia can degrade the vitality and strength of the user. Think of it as a trade-off for borrowing the Planet’s lifeblood in the form of a jewel.

Mako can cause extremely intense mental breakdowns and break the psyche of those without strong mental resilience, which is why Cloud was unable to make it into SOLDIER. But he eventually received Mako exposure anyway. What happened? Oh yeah, he went into a comatose state not once, not twice, but THREE times. First during experimentation, second when he arrived at Midgar before Tifa bumped into him, and when he fell into a pool of Mako and washed up on the shore of Mideel.

Meanwhile, Lifestream side effects are non-contextual visions, loss of sanity similar to Mako (think Tifa before she entered Cloud’s subconscious), and if the Lifestream has something in it, infection! That’s how Geostigma came to be: Jenova cells from Sephiroth, Jenova, and the remnants were floating in the Lifestream, and when the latter destroyed Meteor, it also exposed humans to Jenova cells, turning into a severe disease that is deadliest toward hosts with emotional fragility. This is why Cloud has a “Geostigma episode” in Advent Children when he runs into an injured Tifa.

Even with all these side effects, the benefits are far too great to ignore. All this power from the Lifestream is why Sephiroth and Jenova wanted to siphon it for themselves in the first place. By siphoning the Lifestream resisting side effects, one can receive unparalleled powers. Sephiroth himself said it in the original game: 

“By merging with all the energy of the Planet, I will become a new life form, a new existence. Melding with the Planet… I will cease to exist as I am now. Only to be reborn as a god to rule over every soul.”

Notice how the last quote aligns with what Sephiroth said in the Edge of Creation about the Nebula? 

“Our world will become a part of it… one day.” 

We’ll come back to that statement, I promise. But for now, based on everything I’ve told you, here’s what I think is going on in Final Fantasy 7 Remake:

Sephiroth is not from the future. His exposure to the Lifestream for the last 5 years gave him the side effect of non-contextual visions. Among these visions, he probably saw his master plan fail. Eventually he realizes that the reason he has these visions is because of the Whispers and more specifically, the Planet’s Weapon Arbiter. The Whispers are fighting against Sephiroth as he’s gained both a rough understanding of the future and the Lifestream’s powers by siphoning it up. So, his new master plan? Defeat the Arbiters of Fate and THEN continue with his original plan. Sephiroth being omnipresent makes sense given his control over Jenova and her shapeshifting, S cells that allow him to puppetize clones and Cloud, and being in the Lifestream basically giving him more power with one form of that being omnipresence. What’s going to lead to his downfall is ultimately his arrogance: he probably thinks that just stopping the Whispers is enough for him to win. So while the physical manifestation of fate is gone, Sephiroth still needs to meet the same criteria to win: get the Black Materia to summon Meteor, his ticket to siphon up all the Planet’s Lifestream, which means he also needs Cloud to give him the Black Materia, which then means that eventually Aerith will have to summon Holy and eventually become one with the Lifestream to beat Meteor.

See how all of this comes together without time travel theories that go off on insane tangents? It’s established that the Whispers know the course of destiny from past, present and future. But WHERE did it say that they can travel through time? WHERE did it say that Sephiroth can travel through time with the Lifestream? That kind of power would be an enormous retcon to the story and the functions of Gaia, and it would also lead to a really convoluted plot that can deviate from the main themes of the story (trust me, some theories out there are wild). We do know that Whispers are in a singularity and it moves like a river, which as @silver-wield cleverly put in a post about the story of FF7R, translates to:

The arbiters of fate issued a correction to Wedge and made him fall out of the window in the Shinra building. Which means fate cannot be altered, merely delayed, which then leads to a more painful end for not accepting that fate.

...Or perhaps shuffled up with ultimately the same necessary outcome, because the river of destiny was put on a different course but is still heading to the same destination. There are multiple works in the compilation that the writers and developers would like to tie together to the main story. What’s a way for them to execute this? By making a metaphor for the OG storyline and by beating it giving them permission to add new things? From a certain point of view, sure, but the developers never needed permission to do this in the first place. But the side effect of beating the physical manifestation of destiny was likely shuffling parts of the story of Final Fantasy 7, prequels all the way to the chronological sequels. One can make a case for this based on the explosion felt at Midgar when the Arbiter and Sephiroth were defeated in the Singularity. The glitters of light could also reflect this change. From all this I argue freedom came to be, and characters from the Compilation might make an appearance during the main story such as Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo. However, no matter what changes are present, the outcome will be the same. Cloud is not properly himself yet; he still thinks he made it into SOLDIER, he gets slight interferences from Jenova throughout the story (example: Cloud’s hand twitching when against Sephiroth at the Edge of Creation), he has the Buster Sword but still doesn’t remember who its original owner was, so his unreliable narration, downfall and emotional climax still need to happen. Aerith is the only character who can summon Holy and the only character who can call forth the Lifestream, and the only way she can call forth the Lifestream is by becoming one with it. How can she do this? There’s only one way: Death. Sorry guys, but if both Sephiroth and Aerith have prophetic visions of the future, there’s a chance that both know what must be done for themselves to get the upper hand. Sephiroth still wants to siphon up the Lifestream and become an omnipotent God, and the best way for him to do this? Summon Meteor. What does he need for this? The Black Materia. Who does he manipulate into giving him the Black Materia at the Northern Crater? Cloud.

My point from all this is that there are specific beats that need to happen to move the plot forward, no matter what new things they add from the Compilation. Using a different crisis for the overarching plot that isn’t Meteor is a retcon to the story, and why advertise Meteor and have it as the centerpiece of artworks and the title screen if you’re not going to use it in the first place? That’s just… really strange. We can add things in the middle of the plot to flesh out the main themes of a story while staying faithful to the outcomes. Adding something entirely different as a crisis like time travel in a game that has never been about time travel is out of place, unnecessary, and people are placing way too much faith in this being true while not looking at the bigger picture and function of Final Fantasy 7’s power tools. I believe the developers want you to think that the story is changing, that a happier outcome is in store for everyone. This all works with what Final Fantasy 7 did for many players in the first place: subvert expectations by placing us in an illusion with an unreliable narrative. We assumed Cloud made it into SOLDIER until we found out he never made it into SOLDIER and created a facade to conceal the truth that he was afraid to face. We thought Aerith was the love interest when the game kept making us appreciate her perky attitude until she ended up dying and then we discover in the Lifestream Sequence that Cloud’s romantic feelings, his whole reason for fighting, was for Tifa. We thought Shinra was the main antagonist of the game until shortly after going through Midgar, the main antagonist is Sephiroth. We thought we were fighting Sephiroth throughout the game until we find out that the real Sephiroth was encased in a crystal sucking up the Lifestream. We don’t actually fight him until the very end when he merges with Jenova and the Lifestream into Bizarro Sephiroth and Safer Sephiroth.

See where I’m going with all of this? The developers want to continue using red herrings and playing the theme of illusion by using different methods. The old methods will not work anymore, so they have to find a new way to subvert expectations in a way that gets us confused, excited, and uncertain what will happen until we actually play through the next installments. When that time comes, be prepared to get your heartstrings pulled, because reality hits our characters hard, just like it hits us hard. Think Biggs, Zack, Aerith are going to survive, and that Sephiroth is travelling through time to accomplish his devious tasks? Well, think again.

Now that we’ve gotten this far into this Whisper Talk, there are a load of questions I will need to address. So without further ado, Let’s mosey!!!

How is Sephiroth not from the future? His one-winged form from Advent Children Complete was shown in the final boss fight, the boss map looks eerily similar to Edge, and we saw multiple Sephiroths throughout the story. The game is heavily implying that Sephiroth is from the future and he wants to try to achieve victory a second time.

Well, for starters, First Class SOLDIERs having wings has been a thing for a while. Sephiroth was not the only SOLDIER to have a wing. As Final Fantasy 7: Crisis Core showed us, Sephiroth’s comrades, Angeal and Genesis, were able to grow wings at will. They had different cells (G cells) which gave them a different ability, make copies of themselves, rather than control others who share their cells, sure, but that is NOT stopping any of them from growing wings at will. It’s something used across the board for all three of these really powerful SOLDIERs and it’s no surprise that this time around, they want to show Sephiroth using more of his abilities throughout the game.

Also, Sephiroth having one wing is nothing new. It’s part of his Safer form and is named on his track, One-Winged Angel. So, as an homage, they wanted the villain of the game to use a wing during his fight in Advent Children.

There’s also another way we can explain this. Sephiroth formed a body of his image in Advent Children thanks to Kadaj. And what purpose does Kadaj serve? He’s a strengthened remnant embodying Sephiroth’s cruelty. In other words, he’s another puppet Sephiroth can manipulate. And he uses Kadaj’s body + Jenova’s head to form his image. A clone and Jenova cells, or just straight up Jenova, allow him to shapeshift as that’s one of Jenova’s trademark abilities. So using this as an implication of time travel doesn’t add up.

When it comes to Sephiroth’s 70 alternative accounts, each of them have a straightforward explanation, including the one that confuses most people. Here we go, according to the FF7R Ultimania:

An illusion only Cloud can see:

Cloud has S cells injected into him. The same S cells are also Jenova cells. Jenova cells allow hosts to read the memories of those nearby, inherit the memories of other hosts, and give Sephiroth shapeshifting and puppeting abilities on those who have S cells. This is how Cloud created his SOLDIER facade thanks to Zack’s injection, similar memories and instinct to hide from the truth. What’s likely going on here is Sephiroth is able to make Cloud hallucinate thanks to said S cells, hence why it’s an illusion ONLY Cloud can see. We saw this during the Nibelheim flashback, meeting Aerith for the first time, after the Sector 7 Plate collapse when he was behind Tifa. This is another way of showing Sephiroth’s omnipresent power.

Also, if we're going to get really specific about the properties of Jenova cells, we can look at a source like FF7 Ultimania Omega:

Jenova's mimic ability Jenova has a mimic ability which allows it to read the memories and feelings of others, then adjust its appearance, speech and behaviour accordingly to imitate what it has seen. Jenova once used this ability to get close to the Ancients and infect them with its virus, which killed many of them.

This ability is not limited solely to Jenova itself, for those who have its cells within them passes it as well, though in an incomplete form. Immediately prior to the start of the game, when Cloud's mind was shattered, he ran into Tifa and seemed to immediately return to "normal"; this was because of the mimic abilities of the Jenova cells inside Cloud read her mind, seeing her memories of him, which were then combined with his own ideal vision of himself, fashioning a new personality for himself.

And there you go. Jenova's signature abilities are shapeshifting and illusion. It's mentioned in her backstory, It's shown in her boss battles, it's shown in Jenova-infected hosts, and it's even shown in her OST! The illusion aspect being something only Cloud can see makes sense, thanks to his Jenova S cells, so the developers are expanding this ability.

Black Robed Man:

Simple. These are Sephiroth Clones, also known as Remnants. Each of these puppets have S Jenova cells injected into them, which is what allows Sephiroth to create illusionary projections of himself via their bodies. They can also create an illusion of Jenova’s Lovecraftian forms. If predictions are correct, there’s a chance that a couple of them could end up becoming the Advent Children (more on that later).

Flashback:

Also simple. This connects to what was mentioned in Cloud’s illusion. Cloud knows events he should not thanks to his Jenova S cells, and flashbacks like, “Within my veins flows the blood of Ancients. This Planet is my birthright!” are events that will be featured later in the game in moments like the Kalm flashback. Moving on!

Unknown:

This is where people get confused. But believe me, the answer is MUCH simpler than most people realize. The Unknown Sephiroth is the last form of Sephiroth that we fought in Final Fantasy 7. Yes, the shirtless one. From here forward I'll call him SOLDIER Sephiroth. For reasons I do not know, they decided not to make him shirtless this time around (too sexy by far?) but believe me when I say that that Sephiroth is the same one we saw at the Edge of Creation. How am I so sure of this? Look back at how Cloud met that Sephiroth in Remake and compare it to what happened in the Crater. They have the same tunnel of light and Cloud’s visiting a persona of Sephiroth that exists in a dimension unaffected by time and space. The Lifestream gives Sephiroth the opportunity to pull Cloud's conscious mind into this dimension. Cloud being in the Singularity during the final battle of FF7R Part 1, and the Singularity containing Lifestream = ability to take Cloud to meet SOLDIER Sephiroth in a pocket dimension, the Edge of Creation. In OG, being exposed/near the Lifestream in the Crater allowed Cloud to visit Shirtless SOLDIER Sephiroth in another dimension and finish him off, with Aerith helping Cloud return his consciousness to the real world.

See?! It actually makes a lot of sense, only this time Sephiroth hasn’t been stripped of his God powers and is currently siphoning the Lifestream. So this time around, Cloud couldn’t beat down Sephiroth. The reason the FF7 Remake Ultimania labels this Sephiroth as unknown is because it’s following a narrative where it assumes you do not know everything yet. Final Fantasy 7 Remake has only covered Midgar, and there’s still many places and moments we have yet to explore. But the Ultimania is not going to cover them until they are published in the next installments, and why would it tell us unrevealed "secrets" of the story? So for now, it has to act as if this is a mystery. This is the same case with Zack being labeled as “Missing in Action” rather than dead in the Ultimania, because we have not reached that moment in the plot yet. But I’ll cover that a bit more on one of the next questions.

As for Sephiroth being prophetic in the Edge of Creation, it’s simply foreshadowing what we’ll eventually have to face. “That which lies ahead… does not yet exist” is telling us that the final battle still has years before it’s ready to be unleashed. As for the Nebula, “Our world will become a part of it… one day,” this is a more vague statement of what I quoted earlier:

“By merging with all the energy of the Planet, I will become a new life form, a new existence. Melding with the Planet… I will cease to exist as I am now. Only to be reborn as a god to rule over every soul.” The Nebula that Sephiroth is staring at is stated in the FF7R Ultimania to represent Sephiroth’s wing(s). This same Nebula also has a similar shape to the original sketch of Safer Sephiroth. So, based on what SOLDIER Sephiroth told Cloud, we can conclude that Safer Sephiroth will one day be born and be the last fight for our team, maybe even taking place in the Edge of Creation. BUT it’s not quite time for that to happen yet, as Safer Sephiroth's physical body is still resting in a crystal at the Northern Crater. So there you have it!

Lastly, conceding the battlefield against Sephiroth, it is an homage to Advent Children and Edge, yes. That does not automatically mean that Sephiroth is from the future. We just fought arbiters of destiny who turned themselves into depictions of the three Advent Children. This is ultimately the developers' way of ending the game with an exciting boss battle and a somewhat familiar scene. It's just a manifestation of one of Gaia's locations while in the Singularity. Also, this whole boss battle was ultimately a fanservice-esque decision by the developers, particularly Co-Director Naoki Yamaguchi. They originally did not plan to have this boss battle in the first place, but they wanted to end this game on some kind of high note with the main antagonist. They could've ended the game with the Arbiter boss battle, and I think doing so would have confused less people, but the reason behind the Sephiroth boss battle has been spoken. We can conclude this: it was a Jenova/Remnant copy of Sephiroth using expanded abilities like his wing and absorbed some of the Whispers' power before this Sephiroth was defeated by the team and the Whispers were released from his grasp. There is no need to overthink this decision (but yes, I don't think it was entirely necessary).

But what about the Arbiters manifesting into images of Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo? Whisper Rubrum, Viridi, Croceo, and Bahamut SHIN are all representations of Advent Children’s antagonists and their bio says they are from a “future timeline.” Isn’t this proof that there’s time travel and alternate timelines going on?

Well, you are right about the enemy intel bio in Final Fantasy 7 Remake stating that these guys are manifestations of figures from a future timeline. BUT that does not imply that multiple timelines are forming. Technically speaking, we all live in one timeline that follows through a singularity. This is the same case for Final Fantasy 7, and the very place we are fighting these Whispers is called the Singularity. The reason the Whispers are forming into these creatures is because of their future knowledge. This is their way of shapeshifting into powerful foes that can defend themselves against the team. They are turning into foes that destiny will one day birth, but in the form of something akin to a Weapon just like the main Arbiter itself, and this is also the developers way of adding a homage and possibly a hint of the foes that will appear in the future. They are NOT the Advent Children themselves, otherwise there would probably show more personality, and they would also… look more like them. So what happened with “time” after defeating these Advent Whispers and the Arbiter Weapon? Well, it sharpened the curves of the river and put destiny on a new course, but to the same destination, hence the “set beginning and end” that the developers mentioned before. In the river’s new course, we’ll get new events that while still having original events that will all be more fleshed out. In part of this new course of destiny maybe there’s a chance that we will see the Advent Children themselves. How can I be sure of this? After speaking to a friend about it, the remnants we encountered give us a hint. Marco, #49, resides in Sector 7. Who was a teenager that resided in Sector 7 before becoming a remnant and then Advent Child? Kadaj, also known as the manifestation of Sephiroth's cruelty. Meanwhile, we have #2 in Sector 5, who shows strong features fitting for someone in SOLDIER. Who fits this category? Loz, also known as the manifestation of Sephiroth's strength. People have theorized that #2 is Zack, but I do not agree and will address that later. The only remnant candidate we have left is Yazoo, the manifestation of Sephiroth's allure. This makes sense as he’s the most silent of the trio, so the developers will keep his remnant in mystery for now. But there you have it. By Nomura stating, "Come back to me a few years later and ask me what remake means," what I believe he means by "remake" is write the original story of Final Fantasy 7 with characters in other parts of the compilation included. Hence, a shuffled story with the same necessary outcomes.

Okay, but didn’t the developers say that Final Fantasy 7 Remake is not canon to the Compilation, thereby making it a different story from the Compilation and proving the developers are ditching the original story in the process?

Let me tell you right now: if those lines were what they actually said in full context, then they were lying. How am I sure? Because throughout FF7R, parts of what happened in the Compilation are included in the story. Zack’s Last Stand was featured in a flashback; Hollow’s lyrics greatly parallel the lyrical version of Price of Freedom; one of Cloud’s old Shinra Military comrades was featured and mentioned Kunsel, from Crisis Core; and of course the big Arbiters being manifestations of the Advent Children.

For saying the Compilation is being ditched and is the bad ending, why include characters and homages specifically from the Compilation? If they really were, they wouldn’t put pieces of it into the story like this. All that was stated by Director Tetsuya Nomura was that FF7 Remake is not canon to the Compilation YET. Keyword YET. The story is incomplete and the developers need to see Remake through from start to finish before they can say it’s truly canon to the Compilation. And what have Scenario Writer Kazushige Nojima and Producer Yoshinori Kitase said about the story?

Does this sound like they’re ditching the Compilation to you? I think this should sum up how they are tying the series of Final Fantasy 7 into one big package, but there are some people saying that the team seeing Advent Children and the Planet 500 years later, followed by Red XIII saying it’s “a glimpse of tomorrow if we fail here today” as proof that what happens in the future is a bad ending. This is not entirely true. It makes sense for humanity to be gone 500 years later with the Planet living on because that was the life that the team was trying to save in the first place. What Red XIII told us was simple: that if Destiny wins, then the river of Destiny will run the same course, and that includes the events of On The Way To a Smile, Advent Children, Dirge of Cerberus, and of course humanity being gone 500 years later. This is another case of the team receiving future visions without context, as I addressed before. They saw an event where they maybe saw people they knew, but do they know what leads to it? No. So what they assume about the outcome of the future and what’s good and bad may not necessarily be correct. They will find that out as the next parts of Final Fantasy 7 Remake are released.

Okay, but aren’t the characters free to do whatever they want now that they have beaten Destiny? As Aerith said, they have boundless, terrifying freedom.

They have freedom from the Whispers, and like Zack once said, “The price of freedom is steep.” They can begin their journey without the worry of the Whispers acting up if they do something that strays far away from what’s necessary. That doesn’t mean that they are not going to head to all the destinations we needed to reach in the original game. We will still probably have the flashback at Kalm since it’s the nearest town away from Midgar. We still need to pass through the Mythril Mines to get to other destinations. We still need to pass through Corel, Barret’s hometown, to get to the Gold Saucer where we will meet Cait Sith and reach Barret’s character climax. We still need to reach Gongaga and this will likely be a required place to visit because of how much more importance Zack is given in Remake. There’s also no working reactor in Gongaga so there’s a chance that yellow reunion flowers will grow as foliage. We still need to head to Cosmo Canyon, where Bugenhagen will teach us more about the Lifestream and where Red XIII will learn the truth about what happened to his father Seto. We still need to head to Nibelheim where a lot of confusion is going to rise within our team--specifically Cloud and Tifa--and also where we need to release Vincent from the Shinra Mansion. We still need to cross Mt. Nibel (we might get a flashback from Cloud) and head to Rocket Town to meet Cid and drink some goddamn tea. We still need to head to the Temple of the Ancients for the team to find out what needs to be done to save the Planet, and also the place where Sephiroth will manipulate Cloud and the team into giving him the Black Materia. We still need Aerith to head to the Forgotten City as it’s the only place she can use her prayer to activate the White Materia and summon Holy. We still need to head to the Northern Crater as that’s where Cloud will likely have his downfall and submit to Sephiroth….

We could keep going on with this, but I’m sure you see my point. New things will happen but there are important locations that the team needs to reach in order to come closer to their goal of stopping Sephiroth. The simple thing is that, from here on out, the Whispers will not intervene, giving us the illusion that things will change, but we most likely will learn the hard way that the necessary outcomes will still happen. So once again, the river is on a new course to the same destination.

Okay. You’ve talked about Sephiroth not being from the future, but what about Aerith? Her prayer stance in the opening cinematic looks eerily similar to her stance in the ending of Final Fantasy 7. Based on this, is she from the future/did she see the outcome of the Meteor-Lifestream-Holy Conflict?

No. What probably happened was the developers paid homage to that ending screen. What follows immediately after that is Aerith picking up a crushed reunion flower, symbolizing the non-reunion that Aerith and Zack could not receive in life, but eventually receive in the Lifestream. And once again: Aerith has received visions of the future, but without context as to why and how they happened. In a novella it’s mentioned that Aerith received a vision as a child and drew her mural of symbolism in her room as a result. We know she’s been receiving non-contextual visions for awhile, but being forced into a big responsibility by the Planet is something she needs to learn to accept, and that’s part of her character arc we will receive in the next parts of FInal Fantasy 7 Remake. There is no evidence she can time travel, and she doesn’t always know the Whispers’ intentions. When the team asked her what they were doing while surrounding the Shinra HQ Tower, she simply replied, “Who knows?”. She’s not omniscient. She has some meta knowledge and a big responsibility, but does not know how to handle this role yet. And that's where character development comes in for our Maiden of the Planet.

Cool, but why are people like Rufus and Hojo able to see the Whispers in the first place? And maybe Zack, too?

Actually, there’s a pretty straightforward explanation for this. As we know, to be able to see the Whispers, once again you have to either be heavily connected to the Planet or touched by a special person. Aerith spent a portion of her childhood in the Shinra HQ Tower. Who else was there with her? Her biological mother Ifalna. These two are both Cetra, one half and one full-blooded. Hojo likely spent hours upon hours with both of them, especially Ifalna, so receiving contact from them is not farfetched. Also, that gross f***** of a scientist does unfortunately play an important role in the plot and keeping the flow of destiny on course. As for Rufus? This man was a teenager when Aerith and Ifalna were living in Shinra HQ. It’s very possible that he ran into one of the two cetra and maybe received contact from them. If he didn’t? Don’t forget, this man is the president of Shinra throughout almost all of FF7. Even if the team opposes him, they still need him. He is very necessary to destroy the barrier that blocks the team from getting into the Northern Crater. Without his actions, the team cannot make it to Sephiroth. It’s that simple. And even though he can see the Whispers, how much does it matter? It’s only going to matter if the Whispers make a resurgence sometime in the plot. There you have it.

Okay, but why is Zack alive after his Last Stand? And why were the Whispers present during this? Also, what about the Stamp bag? Isn’t this proof of time travel and alternate timelines?

And here’s where the red herring comes in! He did beat the Shinra Army. And yes, the Whispers were present. BUT why were they present? Remember what was mentioned earlier? The Whispers are dead souls returning to the Planet, and if that’s the case they have been part of the Planet for a LONG time. This means that they were ALWAYS present through the course of events in the Planet. The reason we see them during Zack’s Last Stand is likely to throw one off at first, until they connect the dots with how old the Whispers actually are. And they are showing themselves in the Last Stand because this is an extremely important event that has to happen for Cloud’s next journey to begin. We didn’t quite get to see how the Whispers changed up the event, but they likely did form it in a way where the developers wanted to trick us. It's also left ambiguous if he can see the Whispers or not, although they do not seem to alarm him IF he can see them.

Now, about the Last Stand, If you compare Remake’s Last Stand to Crisis Core and Final Fantasy 7 OG, you’ll notice that Remake’s moment has similarities to the OG scene.

Zack walks, drops Cloud in a safe place, and defends himself against the soldiers in all three. So here's where the cutscenes get different:

FF7 OG: Zack fights against Shinra infantrymen. We don't see the troops, but Zack thinks he defeated them. Afterwards he heads to Cloud but immediately gets shot by a group of Shinra troops, and I mean shot. Afterwards, there is no dialogue between Zack and Cloud, Cloud grabs the Buster Sword and starts breaking down in the rain. Thus, his journey--nearly--begins.

FF7 Crisis Core: Zack confronts the Shinra army. He begins his monologue:

Boy oh boy... The price of freedom is steep. Embrace your dreams, and whatever happens... Protect your honor, as a SOLDIER!

We then proceed to battle the Shinra army. Eventually, the screen fades to black and we see Zack mortally wounded. The same group of Shinra troops from OG come over and bullet Zack to death. Eventually, Cloud wakes up in shock, and Zack parts Cloud his sword and last words:

For the both of us... You're gonna... Live. You'll be... My living legacy. My honor, my dreams... They're yours now.

Cloud then proceeds with a breakdown, and afterwards begins his journey, where he'll bump into a certain someone while in Mako comatose. Sheesh I hate watching that scene due to its deadly side effect.

Where does Remake stop?

Right in the area where Zack’s grave is, a cliff with a steep descent to flat land. It’s the same spot where Zack got shot by a Shinra infantryman who pursued Zack throughout his running away from Shinra Mansion; it's the same spot where Cloud placed the Buster Sword to honor his close friend’s wish; and the same spot where Zack declared, “For the both of us… you’re going to live. You’ll be… my living legacy.” The developers intentionally stopped us from seeing the outcome of that moment because it’ll either be the same place where Zack will die, or we’ll see his fate get delayed and placed somewhere else. 

I have also seen people argue that #2 is Zack, or if not Zack, then Zack’s corpse.

This is false.

Remember why Zack was placed in a cryosleep tube in the first place? Because, like Cloud, he was considered a failed experiment by Hojo because the S cells could not turn him into a Sephiroth clone. Zack becoming a Sephiroth clone would be a major retcon to the story and how he was able to escape with Cloud in the first place. Zack becoming a clone would mean that he was never a failed experiment. And what would happen if he wasn’t a failed experiment? Cloud wouldn’t be able to escape and FF7 wouldn’t have happened. Could Hojo have picked up Zack’s dead body after his death? Maybe, but is there evidence that his corpse would still become a clone? That’s extremely unlikely in my personal opinion. We would have to assume that Hojo did another clone experiment this time around and the Shinra troops decided to take his body with them when they had no good motive or order to do so anyway. Their orders were likely  “shoot to kill” and that’s it. We don’t need Zack’s corpse to be remade into a clone, and we certainly don’t need him to be a clone if Sephiroth wants to do something like create an illusionary projection of Zack. Remember what happened in the Northern Crater? Sephiroth used Jenova to create an illusion of Tifa in order to trick the Black Materia holder into “helping” the team.

Lastly, that bag of Stamp's Champs, Original Flavor.

It’s interesting, isn't it? And Nomura told us to pay close attention to both stamps. This is probably the biggest case of an alternate timeline being real, but after thinking about it for a while, I argue that it's not proving an alternate timeline exists, but rather it's being shown to give focus to two different heroes. And how does this work in the FF7 world? Well, Shinra probably has simple rebranding of Stamp on a Shinra product. It’s not uncommon for corporations to rebrand their products into a different name (just look up Lay’s Potato Chips and you’ll come across Walkers, as shown in my poorly collaged photo). BUT there's another example to talk about, as a friend mentioned. Stamp's Champs are the "original" flavor. This original flavor and Terrier is being used to represent Zack in FF7, as he was once called a "puppy" by his mentors in FF7 Crisis Core. Now, that bag is calling to the original hero, who was Zack (could also be an homage to how Zack's design was originally assigned a "different" role in FF7 OG) up until he passed his dreams on to Cloud. So what this means is both Stamps are used for wither a different flavor or got rebranded after a certain amount of time passed, or the Stamp brand has the same flavor is different depending on the location in Gaia. Now for the second functionality for Stamp: It's being used as a red herring to mislead the players deeper in to the mouse trap. Remember Stamp’s original function in the context of Shinra? It served as a propaganda device for Shinral to promote its use of warfare for wealth to mislead the public into thinking Shinra’s deeds were for progress and beneficial for the Planet. It’s very possible that the developers are using Terrier Stamp as a propaganda device to trick the face-value players into thinking everything’s going to be different for the story until we're shown otherwise. And if it actually is an alternate timeline? It will not affect our team. As established previously, there is no time travel that our team is capable of, and the Whispers act on a fixed flow under the Will of the Planet and are almost omnipresent, so they must correct the course of destiny in the present and as quickly as possible. That alternate timeline would probably just be used to show us that no matter what we do, what’s set in stone needs to be kept in stone. So, don’t get your hopes up that Zack is going to survive, especially since he already passed on the Buster Sword to Cloud in the present "timeline" that we're playing.

But why is there a different Seventh Heaven sign shown during the ending sequence? Isn’t this proof of an alternate timeline?

Careful now. There’s a big possibility that what was shown during that shuffled sequence of events was the original Seventh Heaven bar. That’s right, there was a Seventh Heaven before Tifa’s in Sector 7. How do I know this? It’s a sidequest in Final Fantasy 7: Crisis Core. Zack met an unnamed carpenter in the Sector 7 slums and helped name the bar. The canon answer in the narrative is to choose the name Seventh Heaven. So what’s likely happening here is 1) we saw a past event of the first Seventh Heaven bar being worked on, as the folks of the slums are building their homes together; 2) we are seeing the folks rebuild the Sector 7 slums, and perhaps to honor what was once there, the folks are building another bar and making sure to keep the original name Seventh Heaven, or 3) pretty much what I said before and it’s happening in an alternate timeline. Regardless, there’s a good chance that Crisis Core is being referenced here. And if it isn’t and it’s different events happening in an alternate timeline? Once again, our friends can’t go to that alternate timeline because time travel is not a power they have. So, it doesn’t really affect the main beats of our journey. What may happen, though, is our team will visit the Sector 7 slums later down the line, and they’ll have a reunion with a rebuilt home before settling the score with Shinra and Sephiroth. Until we see it, though, that’s just headcanon.

But why is Biggs alive? Aren’t Wedge and Jessie alive, too?

Biggs is shown to be alive, yes, but at what point of time and for how long? Also, even though he is shown to be alive, how is that going to drastically alter the story for our friends? He may stick around and have a minor role later, but he could very well die again depending on where the Destiny River is heading, and there’s likely very little he can do to somehow drastically change the story. Is he going to suddenly appear and sacrifice himself to make sure Aerith survives? Highly doubt it. See what I mean? Even if someone like him is left alive, he’ll either receive the same fate in a different way or just get a role that won’t change much of the main story. So, are Wedge and Jessie alive? Wedge, absolutely not. He was pushed down Shinra HQ Tower and there is no way he was able to survive a fall that high. There is no evidence that he “survived” after that fall as well. As for Jessie, we saw her gloves and headband on a dresser next to Biggs, but that’s it. Why would they place those next to him and not next to Jessie if she’s still alive and being taken care of? She was high atop the Sector 7 tower and it’s very unlikely anyone besides our team was able to run up and grab her on time. She was also in a worse state than Biggs and probably got crushed by the tower collapsing. In other words, she got crushed twice. Once when she set off her bomb and Cloud and Tifa bump into her; the second, when the plate dropped. What the glove and headband are, are likely nothing more than the remains of a friend who couldn’t make it. There may have been time for someone to pick up Biggs and that’s how he ended up in a bed, covered in bandages. As for more proof he’s the only one who survived? Wedge had 3 cats he held. Out of the three, only one named Biggums survived. The other 2 missing, I believe, are symbolism for the fate of the AVALANCHE trio. There you have it, three charming but minor characters who had written character arcs that got fleshed out in Remake, but don’t serve an extremely important purpose to the main plot points of the game (no offense to the trio, I do like Mr. Not-Charlie-Sheen and I wonder what they will do when the inevitable happens).

This is cool and all, but what about Sephiroth's line? "Seven Seconds till the end. Time enough for you, perhaps. But what will you do with it? Let's see." Also, this Sephiroth used more informal phrasing in the Japanese acript, such as "ore." He seems to be aware of what the future holds, too. So what do you make of this?

Ah yes, this moment, also one of the first pieces of script the writers thought of:

Well friend, I actually covered this topic before:

Seven Seconds Before the End: Theory vs. Context

While that post was made to debunk a theory, I believe what I wrote in it can easily be taken into the context of this post. That's one thing people constantly overlook about this line: it already has a given context. What do I mean by that? Check out the story log here:

In the world beyond, Sephiroth shows Cloud a vision of the planet seven seconds before its demise. Having strayed from the course destiny set for them, they strike out on a path toward an unknown future.

This is what Sephiroth was referring to: the end of the Planet. Unfortunately people are taking this line WAY out of context and using it to write theories that stray far away from the line's meaning in the first place. It's part of what Sephiroth is after, and it's part of what Cloud is fighting against. The team fought against the Arbiters of Fate because they believe what they saw was the end of everything for them without seeing the long-term outcome, while Sephiroth lured the team to fight against the Arbiters of Fate because he may have seen his failure, and believes that with the physical manifestation of the Whispers gone, he can continue his plan without any chance of failure. A part of the future, no matter what seems to happen, will involve making a decision seven seconds before the Planet's demise. What will cause the Planet's demise? Meteor. That is the main calamity we are trying to stop after defeating Sephiroth, and we need to defeat Safer Sephiroth and SOLDIER Sephiroth to make sure his will cannot block Holy from being summoned, as well as prevent Aerith from calling forth the Lifestream. So once again, this is from Sephiroth's rough understanding of the future, and it's a meta message for the players of what the ending of Remake might entail. It is NOT Sephiroth from the future suddenly sending his body/consciousness into the past in a really odd moment to give Cloud a warning.

Even with all this, the ending of Final Fantasy 7 Remake stated, "The Unknown Journey will continue." What do you have to say about this?

Yes, there is an unknown journey. This is a journey with new content to tie the rest of the Compilation together, like a possible story shuffle mentioned earlier. There's bound to be new and revised scenes in between the set beginning and end, hence "the unknown journey." I talked about this before, but for the developers to put something like "The same journeys from 2 decades ago will continue" is counter-intuitive to what they just showed us in the ending and would mess with all the anticipation for what's to come next. We have to think about this in a different perspective, and not the perspective of "oh, nothing is going to change." The developers need to keep people excited, and part of keeping that excitement is marketing a tease. It's pretty much how marketing works, too. A marketing scheme that only tells the literal facts without trying to juggle the consumer's emotions isn't going to interest the consumer that much compared to the marketing scheme that teases at the possibilities. As for the reason Yoshinori Kitase will then say that the team is continuing FF7R as FF7 has? He's in a different mindset during interviews like that. The game Final Fantasy 7 Remake is telling us things like a book, ending the events with a To Be Continued cliffhanger. Meanwhile, Kitase can state that FF7R will continue as FF7 because that's technically a vague statement. We know we'll get key locations and scenes, but we don't know how they'll get fleshed out. And we sure as heck don't know about any new scenes and how those are going to be executed in the next installments. In other words, think of a classic sandwich with a hipster rendition. The set beginning and end are the top and bottom buns, the protein is almost the same, maybe a couple spices added in there; and the unknown is all the new toppings added in your hipster-style classic sandwich. I know this is a strange analogy, but hopefully it gets the point across. So don't worry too much; Nojima, Nomura, and Kitase haven't shown us the new condiments yet!

Conclusion

If you're still here after reading through my wall of jargon, thank you! After all that I've written, I hope I was able to accomplish my goal: to ease your worries about the developers' plans with the story. And I hoped to do this by giving an in-universe explanation as to why certain things are happening. There is context to the Whispers' powers, and with the Whisper following a continuous flow of destiny, pieces of the future and past are scattered in that river. Sephiroth's been basking in this river for years now, so he got similar exposure as Aerith did and now has rough knowledge of what's to come. I think people who are clinging to time travel theories are taking the Whispers' powers out of context. We saw vague bits of the future; Aerith did, Sephiroth did, we did, and do you know who else? Cloud, Tifa, Barret, and Red XIII. Heavy exposure to the Whispers gives visions as a side effect. They're not travelling through time from the future to fix things when they've always existed as dead souls who returned to the Planet; they're continuously moving around Gaia and watching folks--especially key players in saving the Planet. The flow of a river doesn't stop, it keeps moving through its closed course. Maybe it can change its course in a slightly different direction, or get shafted into sharper curves to delay the flow, but it will still head to its final destination no matter what. While we are in the current of this new course, we'll stumble upon some untouched terrain before we get to the set ending.

However, even if we know about the inevitable, that isn't going to stop us from feeling intense pain for our heroes.

Thus the journey continues.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go sit my ass down and drink some god-damn tea.

Special Thanks

@otp-oasis-heavenxearth (Also known as @magicalchemist)

For taking the time to read my rough draft and pointing out the goofs, bringing in your theory ideas, as well as helping me solidify my confidence in Final Fantasy 7 Remake's future. Seriously, if you haven't, check out her blog. She's incredibly knowledgeable when it comes to FF7 and looks through every different perspective while sticking to the facts. In other words, straight up awesome!

@silver-wield

For allowing me to cite your post, as well as being the first person that made me faithful the developers are staying true to their word with their direction of FF7R. Seriously, thanks! If you haven't, check out her blog. Her attention to detail is incredible!

#final fantasy 7 #ff7 #ffvii #final fantasy vii #ff7r #ff7 remake #ffviir #ffvii remake #final fantasy 7 Remake #final fantasy vii remake #theory #fan theory #lany-d-flow #my thoughts #red herring #whisper talk #i spent way too much time on this #final fantasy #ff #final fantasy 7 remake #theory nonsense #nonsense #timey wimey #there ain't no time travel nonsense

[pinnochiro]

pinn reviews - final fantasy xv

a long ramble about final fantasy fifteen that sort of looks like a review, as written by someone who finished the game fifteen minutes ago and needs to get these words out of his head. spoilers inbound.

i'm a pretty big fan of video games. i don't know what my first was, but it was probably either banjo and kazooie or mario kart 64, at my cousin's house when i was very small. i think that video games as a medium are so interesting, since the fact that video games are inherently interactive changes the way that they tell any story. it's a shame that despite loving video games so much, i'm absolutely terrible at them.

i'm absolute dogshit at video games. whenever i boot up something new, i always play on easy mode because. i'm that bad. unfortunately, this means that a lot of video games are simply. impossible for me to beat. that's fine, as at the moment i live with my good friend lizz, who is certifiably Good at Video Games, and so we've been playing video games together for a little bit now. typically this means that she will actually play the majority of the game while i sit with her and watch, but occasionally i'll have a go, but she'll end up with the controller as soon as a boss fight or puzzle or a mechanic i just can't seem to grasp shows up. we recently played through the entirety of the kingdom hearts series together, and this was an absolute blast of a time. i'm glad to say that i adore kingdom hearts now, and it's become one of my hyperfixations, which you might be able to tell from my icon. but we'd finished the kingdom hearts series, and we were left to move onto something else. we'd also played final fantasy 7 remake, so in my wisdom, i suggested that we play another final fantasy game.

we looked through the ff games that were already purchased on our consoles thanks to lizz's uncle, and eventually, we decided that we should play. all of them. however to start, we were going to play final fantasy xv, 15, and work our way backwards through the mainline, single-player games.

i'd heard that xv wasn't very good, but honestly, i was still quite curious. one person who i'd been following on twitter for years was pretty obsessed with the main party members, to the point where i knew their names and what-not even though i didn't have much of an idea what the game itself was about. i remember watching a video by supereyepatchwolf a few years ago about how the game sucked, but i couldn't remember much of the details, and i knew, based on my obsession with kingdom hearts, that xv had started as a different game called final fantasy versus xiiv. i don't know all the details about versus thirteen, but i do know that it was originally helmed by the creator of my beloved kingdom hearts, mr tetsuya nomura, and that after many years, the vast majority of the game was thrown out, nomura wasn't in charge any more, and the whole thing was rewritten and reworked, which sounds like a fairly rough development cycle. but so what, i don't care about gameplay. i want to play the video game with those cute guys that i see fanart of on twitter, and lizz seemed happy enough to play through it with me.

and so we started final fantasy xv. i've been told that since the game was practically dead on arrival, they threw in a bunch of new content and reworked a lot of the early game before i got my hands on it. so my gameplay started with a scene of the four guys fighting some demon dude on fire and they're all old and grotty. whatever, that cutscene ends and we're put into a combat tutorial. that's over and we're on the road in what looks to be central america, pushing a car.

our four leading lads are noctis, the prince of the lucis empire, his best friend prompto, his bodyguard, gladio, and his chef and other things, ignis. i do quite like the main four members of the party in xv. prompto is quite easily my favourite, voiced by robbie daymond of goro akechi fame and with a bunch of fun little animations and quips that make him very likeable. he gets extremely excited at the idea of riding chocobos and has what i considered the best scene of the game, where he and noctis meet on a motel rooftop and discuss prompto's imposter syndrome, since he's only part of noctis' official retinue as his best friend. noctis is a fairly typical main protagonist, he's in love with a woman he hasn't seen in eight years and needs to go marry her or something, i don't care. gladio is a tough macho man with a mullet who wears leather jackets and wields a greatsword, and is apparently only 22, which is at least 10 years younger than i assumed. ignis is a strategist and chef, who takes on the most authoritative role and constantly tells noctis to not drive his car at night. i was not a fan of ignis at the start, but he grew on me, especially with how hard the game hit me with his personal arc. the four boys are off, driving to noctis' wedding in a different country across the desert when their car breaks down. we then run into the first issue of the game.

cindy is a mechanic. she also has her ass and tits out constantly, like your sleazy uncle's shirt with a naked woman was instead semi-alive as a video game person. she fixes your car and acts fairly sexual and it's just like. why do we have to do this. aren't we over overtly sexualised women in video games who have no reason for the way they dress other than the character designer was horny? whatever, i like women as much as the next guy, but cindy's design just. makes me feel so uncomfortable.

anyways you get to do a little driving around with the boys, until you stay the night before catching the boat to your fiance. overnight, you find out that noctis' kingdom has been basically destroyed by an invading empire called niflheim, and practically everyone noctis knows, including his father, are dead. you learn that noctis and his bride to be are also assumed dead, with noctis hearing his own death announcement on the radio. the game has a bunch of added cutscenes that are actually footage from the three-hour-long prequel movie that came out after the game, are extremely hard to follow and honestly i had no idea what i was looking at. anyways, noctis' family is dead, so it's time to do some hunting sidequests.

that brings us to the combat, i suppose. rather than the turn-based or even active turn-based combat that the series is known for, xv opts for more modern action rpg-styled combat. i was, naturally, terrible at this, but i managed to get around it with the fact that. it is almost impossible to die in this video game, provided you have enough items. the game allows you so much time to heal yourself that there's practically no way to have your entire party wipe unless you're doing absolutely terrible, and even then, your party members will probably try and heal you themselves before that happens. lizz tells me that the combat is boring, you just push the same button over and over and then you win. i do appreciate that, for someone like me who is terrible at reading enemy movements, there is a giant button that pops up on screen that tells you when to push the block button, but even then i was prone to fucking it up. whether that's the bad game design or my terrible gaming abilities is up to you to decide. anyways, the game is fairly easy but has annoying combat, your teammates limit breaks will only land about 50% of the time (or never, if you are gladio) and i was still bad at it, so i didn't have all that much fun.

instead of an active levelling system, the game will only tally your character's level ups when you either make camp or visit a hotel. camping is, in my opinion, the only saving grace of this game. each time you make camp, you get to see the characters doing fun little camping activities together and just hanging out, ignis will cook up a new meal in a dramatic fashion and everyone will compliment him and eat it off their coleman's branded plates, it's just very fun. you also get to see what pictures prompto has taken, which is one of my favourite gameplay features. prompto's passion is photography, and while i support him in this wholeheartedly, his picture taking skills are, quite frankly, awful. the game will randomly take shots while you're on the move, which leaves you with a delightful selection of awkward poses, characters hidden behind bushes, pictures taken while someone is half-dead in combat, and snaps where the natural lighting absolutely makes it impossible to tell what's going on. it's hilarious and going through prompto's collection of photos each night is honestly the best part of the game. we managed to wind up with a few shots that, even despite being scripted events, turned out absolutely terrible, and i will cherish those forever.

anyways, since noctis' father and fiance are dead, that leaves him the king of lucis. the only important person to make it out of the capital alive tells you to drive to the middle of nowhere, where he randomly springs on you. hey. go into a bunch of these dungeons and absorb a bunch of swords, this is your destiny as king and how you will defeat the empire. noctis goes, uh, alright i guess, and you're set loose again to wander around for a bit collecting the 'royal arms'. this plot point wasn't explained well but hey, whatever, we're collecting the glowy swords and that's fine.

you're introduced at some point to ardyn, the main antagonist. he's old, kind of groady and wears a fedora. he's a dick to you and talks about his automobeeel. apparently my friend miri thinks he's hot, she is wrong.

i can't remember what happens specifically but you're told that your fiance is still alive and in fantasy venice, and she's talking to the gods on your behalf to borrow their powers. there's a mission where you follow some purple trees that are electric, and you do that i guess. i enjoyed riding the chocobos around, but couldn't care much for the plot at this point. ardyn leads you to a volcano, where you fight a giant lava god. he tries to step on you and i, a denizen of the internet and with an active fear of foot fetishists, was extremely uncomfortable. noctis becomes friends with foot man and a lightning god who lived in those trees, and ardyn steals your car.

very upset by this, noctis and his gang risk everything to sneak into a military base and steal it back. because this is a video game, this works out fine.

there's a little mining city which is all about Girl Power, because all the Women run the Mining Industry like Girl Bosses, and you hang around there for a bit. because all the women are so Empowered, they wear bikinis all the time with overalls over the top. gladio decides he needs to fuck off for a bit, i have no idea what he does since i haven't played the dlc, and then he comes back with another scar. you hang out with his sixteen year old sister, who has a crush on the engaged and 20-year old noctis, and then you drive her to a lighthouse. when she's in your party, she can't really fight, but she gets a pink chocobo and i thought that was very cute. we turned out own chocobo white and lizz named him 'jones' after a mount she has in ffxiv.

eventually, you have a long boat ride over to fantasy venice. this is the part where the game stops being 'fun with a few issues in combat and a rushed and poorly told story.' the open world, which was a main feature with a bunch of little areas to find where noctis can fish, little hunting sidequests and random photo spots where prompto takes touristy photos, is now gone, and it will not return for the entire rest of the game. you can 'go back in time', but the open world was the most enjoyable part of the game, and it kind of really sucks that the main story doesn't let you have any more freedom like that.

after arriving in fantasy venice, you have a talk with fantasy hillary clinton and beg her to let your girlfriend summon a god into the middle of her city. hillary agrees, and you don't get to meet up with your fiance, because even if the game is constantly telling you how much noctis loves her, there is. barely any interactions between the two in the entire game. from what i can tell, they met when noctis was a child and they haven't seen each other in ten years but are still fantasy dog pen-pals. noctis marrying her was supposed to make an alliance or something like that, but her brother has betrayed her to the army. noctis' girlfriend is also an oracle, which means she can heal people, i guess? everyone talks about how important she is and she's constantly telling people that she needs to use her powers to help noctis but she's practically a non-entity.

as can be expected of most female love interests in a game primarily focused on men, noctis' fiance is killed while summoning a god for noctis to befriend. noct gets very mad about this, and turns super saiyan and kills the god back, but his girlfriend is dead and that's super sad you guys. there's a beautiful prerendered cutscene where she says goodbye to noctis but since we barely know her, and we've only been told over and over that they're in love without anything to actually well, show this, it didn't have much of an impact. fantasy venice is destroyed, and ignis is blinded while trying to help calm the giant raging god.

iggy's blindness and how the game makes you account for this and grow to care for him was one of the highlights, in my opinion, as well as crushingly depressing. while i'm not disabled and have no right to say if this was 'good disabled representation' or anything like that, i believe that the game handles it decently enough. the group falls apart as noctis is upset about his girlfriend, gladio is extremely mad that noctis won't care for ignis, and prompto just wants everyone to get along. there's a mission where gladio constantly yells at you passive aggressive things to noctis about how he's a cunt for running, which is obnoxious, but the character arc itself is fairly strong. when you make camp, ignis can't cook anymore, so everyone eats cup noodles in a depressing ass cutscene. ignis remains in your party for the rest of the game despite his disability, and he doesn't magically regain his sight like other fantasy media would do, which at the very least i think is good. i'm not sure what the opinion of actual disabled people is of the character, considering how often disabled characters are either turned into misery porn to make the abled audience be glad that isn't them and if ignis' arc falls into this trap, but i hope that it wasn't handled too poorly, as that would just be another terrible mark in this game's list of bad moves.

the characters eventually make it to the evil empire's capital, which is abandoned and filled with daemons. the characters learn that ardyn is super evil and taught the king of the empire how to turn humans into daemons, which has now happened to the entire city. the 'magitek suits', presumed to be enchanted armour that fights as the empire's infantry, actually house the souls of the human-turned daemons. honestly i like this as a plot point but the game handles it pretty terribly. there could have been more lead up to this, the explanation is pretty lacking, and prompto's Big Plot Twist is. terribly handled. turns out that prompto was born in the empire and was going to be one of those empty soldier daemons, but he was rescued by people belonging to noctis' empire. not that the game tells you that. instead, prompto goes 'turns out i'm one of ... them' and Does Not Elaborate. The game doesn't tell you shit, not about prompto's past, not about how he feels about this, not about how anyone else feels about this either because the other party members just go 'oh that sucks, good thing you're not evil' and the scene ends. robbie daymond tries so hard to sell these terrible, terrible lines, and it almost entirely fails, i'm so sorry prompto. fortunately because i'm a nosy ass, i read prompto's wikia page and knew the plot twist ahead of time, because i don't think i would have even registered it if i didn't.

anyways everyone in the evil empire is dead and ardyn starts talking about how he's immortal and an ancient king of noctis' country but the gods thought he sucked because he's too evil. i missed most of this because the cats got the zoomies and were dashing across the couch right in the middle of his speech so i can't tell you anything else. noctis tries to get a big magic crystal to fight him and instead. gets schlorped inside.

TEN YEARS LATER

yes then ten years actually pass while noctis is asleep. the game shows this by switching the head on noctis' character model to have a beard, but that's it, no changes in animations or whatever. the sky is permanently night and only one human civilisation remains, the rest destroyed by daemons. as a plot point, this ends up feeling. extremely worthless. why was noctis asleep for ten whole goddamn years? so we can wake up and go 'damn it sucks out here'. but it's barely even a like, incentive to fix everything, because you have a long talk with a former child you were friends with where he talks about how humanity is still going fine and everyone's okay and the world has moved on without you. it feels. pointless. when you meet up with your party members, they are exactly as you left them, only with slightly different character models. there is no change in the voice performance, the character's movements or how they talk to show that they've been without you for ten years. they barely mention it. i'm just. so confused as to why they decided that a ten year timeskip was the way to go? since nothing really changes, couldn't you have made it like, two years? one year? six months?? have the characters react a little more? something??? at least if it was only a year or so i wouldn't have to deal with the fact that noctis looks like norman reedus with his shitty facial hair now.

anyways after that there's a bunch of long and boring boss fights. you fight some dead kings for some reason, your party members get a little bit to talk about how cool they are and how much they love noctis, and then you meet up with ardyn. there's another boring boss fight and god this was only a few hours ago but it's already gone from my head. you summon the gods and the old kings to beat the shit out of him after you both go super saiyan again? there's incredible music but it feels barely earned and just kind of eh. anyways, noctis dies, which was the price of using the crystal of light or whatever the fuck. his ghost marries his fiance's ghost finally, and they smile as they look at one of prompto's pictures. you can pick any picture you want to go here, and then the credits roll, showing all of the pictures you saved of prompto's shots. showing me all the pictures at the end is honestly lovely, but it really only served to remind me of how much more fun the game was in the first half. and that's the end, of final fantasy xv.

so what did i think of the story? it's terribly cobbled together and struggles to get you to feel anything and play out all the plot beats. you feel awful for the countless employees who spent years working on the beautiful cutscenes only to have them be in this game, which sucks and the story barely gets through. there were parts that i enjoyed, mostly the thing about the daemons being people, but honestly the rest of it is a mess. it's hard to follow at the best of times and just awkward and terribly written at the worst. the ending is cheap, and it doesn't feel like you've actually accomplished anything. i left that game feeling numb and empty, sad that i'd wasted so much time to end up with such a colossal failure of a conclusion.

i had fun with the game when it was my four little guys running around doing sidequests and camping together. after the midway point of the game, there's none of that, and you're bogged down into a plot that just pushes you from point a to point b and boring overlong bossfight to boring overlong bossfight. the character moments between your party are a lot of fun, but the second you hit fantasy venice, everything is pretty much on rails and you can't do anything except what the game tells you explicitly to do.

should you play this game? no lol. if anything i've mentioned about the story interests you, you'll be better off watching a lore video or reading the wiki. if you do want to play it after all that, just don't proceed after the myrthril refining quest, it's pretty much all downhill from there. will i play the dlc? unlikely, i think lizz and i will just watch a cutscene movie of those.

this game left me feeling empty and numb and not in a fun way. i wanted, so, so hard to like this game, and it all crashed around me in a beautifully overproduced and confusingly written cascade. i love you prompto, but even your cute little freckly face and terrible photography can't save this trainwreck of a game.

tl;dr - final fantasy xv sucks. i hope that 13, our next ff game, will be better.

#ramble #review type thing #did you read all of this? im impressed #i did not proofread #so if its a mess #just pretend thats a meta commentary about the game itself #i wrote this for like an hour trying to understand the feelings this game gave me #final fantasy xv

[padme-amitabha]

I just watched a video countering a couple of Prequel bashers and, my god, the things the haters said should happen to Jake Lloyd! It's an abhorrent injustice that these disgusting people were catered to by the 2008 CW series. You know, however terrible they are, I'm almost glad for the sequels, because if there's one good thing that came from them, it was watching the Prequel hate coming back to bite these people hard.

Tell me about it. The people who bullied Jake Llyod are despicable. I think the actors in the sequel trilogy sometimes overacted and it came out as too forceful at times and I wasn’t a fan of Daisey Ridley’s wooden acting but that’s no excuse to bully the actors! Jake tried his best and did exactly what George instructed him to do i.e. play a simple good-natured kid. The sequels have been criticized but I think the acting is rarely brought up while prequel actors like Ahmed Best, Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman had to deal with this nonsense because people didn’t agree with their characters’ actions, how they were written and/or couldn’t handle character flaws.

Still Jake Lloyd showed more emotional range than the adult sequel trilogy actors (I mean is Rey even capable of other expressions than being wide eyed or smiling in inappropriate situations or looking like she’s trying too hard?). I understand getting teased at school because let’s face it kids are immature and they were probably just jealous he got the role in such a highly anticipated movie but what angers me is when grown men picked on him and bullied him like the man-babies they were AND had the nerve to blame it on George (who still defends the prequels and it’s characters). I know it’s hard for them to swallow this but Star Wars is George’s creation and doesn’t exist solely to fulfill their male power fantasies. I have seen their version of “fix-it” videos where they are like Anakin should have been born with the suit and basically making him a psychopathic soulless monster and also a demon child. The atrocious Darth Vader Marvel comics are still trying to please said man-babies but TCW started that trend. These days actors can gain sympathy and support from fans on social media but back then people rarely stood up for little Jake and Ahmed Best. What’s worse is some reporters continued to harass and insult Jake in interviews to the point it permanently damaged his mental health. They even harassed his mom and continued to make those awful podracing jokes after the car-chase incident. He didn’t deserve any of this. And people still continue to ridicule him. I have seen people joke about him being unattractive compared to Hayden Christensen which is just so shallow and mean. Anakin is a fictional character - he can be played by any actor as long as it is convincing. 

You’re right about TCW, that’s one of the reasons why I can never accept it (no matter how much I overlook the other terrible retcons). They were made to “fix” the prequels and even George was forced to change his characters a little because of the intense backlash. TCW caters to those horrible bullies and introducing that Ahsoka character wasn’t the best decision. You know, I once saw a video where fans voted for their favorite Jedi and she came in no. 2 and one of the common reasons they provided was because they found her attractive. Now female characters in a male dominated fandom have always been sexualized but the number of times TCW sexualized a minor is disturbing. And of course, Filoni’s blatant bias for his OC is extremely annoying. TCW caters to the fanboys’ ideals of toxic masculinity and are indirectly supporting these bullies. It started this trend of changing the prequel characters to make them more “acceptable” and “stereotypical” because fans can’t grasp the concept of complex and emotional characters and changing the “cheesy” romance to an abusive/unhealthy one to make it more “realistic”. Star Wars is more like a fairytale, even George said it’s a space opera. It’s meant to be dramatic and have mythical themes. But fanboys absolutely love these changes because now the prequels have been “improved” like this show was made specifically to please them and apologize for the prequels. They complain about how prequels ruined characters like Darth Vader because sometimes you should be able to use your imagination to fill in the gaps but TCW was that gap. The originals left so many valid unanswered questions like who was the Emperor (and how could he use force lightning), what was the clone wars, how exactly did Anakin fall from grace and who was Luke and Leia’s mother? The prequels answered them all and did a fantastic job at world-building. TCW is the unnecessary extension, we didn’t need to see their everyday lives and still if anyone was curious the 2003 CW was there to bridge the gap perfectly while staying true to the characters and keeping the tone consistent.

I agree with you on the sequels. I have never been invested in them in the first place to be outraged. I was bored watching TFA and its unoriginal plot, mildly amused at how ridiculous the TLJ was and just confused at how pointless and messy TROS was. So yeah the trilogy served those people right who thought a shallow unoriginal remake of ANH “revived” Star Wars after its creator “ruined” it and thought a director (whose other films are not very original either) could do better than one of the most creative and intelligent men in Hollywood.

Star Wars is so much more than these pointless action movies with stereotypical action heroes. George had combined elements from mythology, history, literature, science fiction, fantasy to create a beautiful story with symbolism, depth and a great message. The prequel trilogy and the original trilogy are two halves of that story and both are needed to complete the saga. Hollywood and these fans don’t deserve George Lucas. They disrespected him and his work.

#ask #sw prequels #anakin skywalker #Jake Lloyd #Ahmed Best #Natalie Portman #Hayden Christensen #George Lucas #prequel hate #negativity #the phantom menace #swpt #fandom bs #Star Wars prequel trilogy #anti tcw #padme amidala #jar jar binks #darth vader #anti marvel #anti disney star wars

[welcometomy20s]

January 10th, 2021

Action Button Review

Review

Tim Rogers reminds me of Hank Green. They are about the same age, they look about the same age which is a combination of young and old that feel eternal. They also have the same length of experience in writing in online spaces, interest in Japanese media, and apparently have Crohn’s disease? In summary, he might be the closest equivalent to Dave Green that exists in the real world. Well, I guess Dave Green is not apt, as Dave Green is not special in a way, while Tim Rogers is special, but his speciality comes from his failures rather than his counterparts' success.

Tim Rogers is a hypothetical Green brother who did not decide to publish that book. He’s a hypothetical Green brother who went to Japan instead of Alabama or Florida. Whose project crashed and burned rather than a surprise success. He’s forged in fire while the Green brothers are eroded by water. Both are wonderful people, but with a different ground of intensity and differing wealth of wisdom.

I encountered this series because I found a twitter post about a six hour review of Tokimeki Memorial, and a white middle-aged man talking about a dating sim for six hours with laudatory blurbs would always pique my interest, but since I didn’t know the guy, I went ahead and looked if he made other videos, and found he has four other review that were all about three hours or more. Now I knew that I had to watch all the reviews to prepare myself for this six hour review of Tokimeki Memorial.

Now, I wasn’t a stranger to three hour reviews of video games. I watched Joseph Anderson, Raycevick, Whitelight, matthewmatosis, and Noah Gervais-Caldwell. In fact, in the comments below Action Button Reviews, many people talked about a comparison to Noah Gervais-Caldwell (and Brian David Gilbert) and that was quite funny since I actually watched a recent Noah Gervais-Caldwell video.

His first two reviews were perfunctory, him opening himself up and trying out new things and polishing his review style, as he went through the Final Fantasy VII remake and The Last of Us. While I watched The Last of Us, I distinctly remembered and contrasted Noah’s The Last of Us Part 2 review with Tim Roger’s The Last of Us review. I liked Tim Roger’s defense of interactive movies (although he denies it!) contrasted with more cynical but ultimately positive connotation in Noah’s review. And Noah’s thesis pairs nicely with Tim’s observation that Ellie was the main protagonist all along. That fact makes Part 2 much more understandable, even the bad parts.

When I finished watch his first two reviews, I went ahead and also watched several of Tim’s videos on Kotaku, which were slightly shorter, the longest being just over an hour, which is a review of the best games in 1994, and does contain a short segment about Tokimeki Memorial, which his six hour review was my destination. To put in context, Tokimeki Memorial was #3. #1 was Earthbound, #2 was Final Fantasy VI, and #4 was Super Metroid. And I just watched a playthrough of Super Metroid basically on a whim, because it’s a monumental and a great game to play and watch.

And while the segment of the games that I knew to be great and monumental in my absorption of knowing video games was deeply personal and rightly claimed its stake that it deserved its spot, his segment of Tokimeki Memorial never got there. It was almost as if he was deliberately hiding behind something. In the end of 1994 review, Tim pitched an idea about a three hour Earthbound review, which probably was Tim’s idea of floating a departure from Kotaku, which would happen two months later, and I wonder if he was trying to deliberately throw a curveball by making a video of Tokimeki Memorial instead of the promised Earthbound review. This may be a far leap, I admit.

I went back and watched the video about Doom. It was much better in quality and in darkness. I was reminded of Film Crit Hulk’s writing of The World’s End and James Bond, another very long essay that was deeply personal and chapter for easier consumption. Few commenters noticed that Tim Rogers was just doing a dramatic reading of his written reviews on Kotaku and Action Button dot net, and how they liked that approach, and I found myself liking that approach as well. You might believe a video review needs more than just reading an essay out loud, but just the act of reading an essay out loud in the correct intonation and inflection adds ton to experience. And Tim Rogers sounds like he has decades worth of experience to present a dramatic reading of his essay very effectively, much like Hank Green.

I continued scaling the mountain to my goal. I went through his review of Pac-Man and was delighted by his reading of Namco games, and was impressed by the opening sequence, and just generally enjoyed it. I was getting excited to set a day aside and let the six hour review of Tokimeki Memorial watch over me and reduce me to dust.

And it sure did. That six hours was a harrowing experience. What Tim Rogers is best at is telling a story, and so to go through a let’s play was a wish I never made, fulfilled. In the end, I was left with nothing and everything. It was like finishing a really good book.

I wanted to watch it again, then again I never wanted to watch it again. It was almost a traumatic experience. Tim talked about there being endless variation of love, and the love Tim Rogers went through was not the fluffy yet melancholic one that I craved, but one akin to a devotion of an eldritch god. Love made in justification for one’s efforts in attending and maintaining a relationship. A love stronger than most kinds of love, but most draining and taxing as well. Tim Roger’s synopsis of Tennis Monster reminded me of Asking for It by Louise O’Neill, which is also about empathizing a quite hateable character because we kind of have to. Apparently one person knows the full plot because Tim Rogers rambled on about it as he was couch surfing in his house, and unbelieve as it usually is, I fully trust that the commenter is telling the truth.

I was like a heroin addict, who really wanted a different hit, like talking to friends or hiking, my mother wanted me to go hiking with her, and I didn’t because, after the pandemic started, all I wanted to be was inside. Outside felt diseased. The air outside felt contaminated to me, hard to breathe. I was stuck in this place.

Tim Rogers is an exceptional figure. He seems to be a movie protagonist, he reminds me of The Librarian, played by Noah Wyle. Tim has eidetic memory, as he has access every single autobiographical memory formed, but not other types of memory. We know that those types of memory are different because of people like Tim and people who are opposite of Tim, someone who has no memories of autobiographical memory but otherwise fine. These people tend to have very few emotions and have a hard time deciding things. Lack of emotions is correlated with difficulty in decision making.

So Tim is the opposite of that, Tim is full of emotions, complex emotions and he can make decisions and carry it out in a snap. He would be good at school, and he was, but he would be too focused on his grandeur to be under some authority, which is how he became who he was. His anti-authoritarian nature rings throughout his reviews, highlight the general Generation X vibe that Tim exudes but also the modern socialistic movement of Generation Z, which adds to this odd mix of old and new.

Not only does Tim have eidetic memory and intense work ethic that he never seems to move away from, therefore making a three hour video masterpiece at a clip that seems unbelievable for a seasoned viewer, he also has exceptional skills in fast math and language, he seems to be at least familiar with dozens of languages, and of course Tim’s experience is bounded by his decade of living in Japan.

I think this is why Tim naturally gravitates towards video games. When Tim says ‘welcome to video games’ there’s a natural supposition that Tim Rogers is the protagonist of video games, and I think he is. Tim wants to be in video games, because he needs to be in video games, instead of some almighty god cruelly deciding to plop him into a real life. He should be an video game adaptation of The Librarian and go on world-spanning adventure and romance impossibly beautiful girls instead of toiling the grime of what real life portends to. His life is dramatic, but impossibly mundane as well. It’s a simulacrum of a movie or a video game, which is pretty cool on its own.

But of course Tim Rogers isn’t the only part of Action Button Reviews. In the ensuing five videos, Tim Rogers tries to do something. Video games are a wide net. There is so much to video games, something like Gone Home and Geometry Dash are included alongside Wolfenstein The New Colossus and Farmville. What makes a video game? Actually, the more interesting question is, why do we have the term ‘video games’? Why do we put all of this mess into a single category, as if there is some throughline.

Tim Rogers starts to do that. Tim Rogers boldly states that things like Doom and Tokimeki Memorial are intimately connected to each other. And that all video games are in conversation with each other, through deep and complex meta-narratives. Tim Rogers is a cartographer, trying to map out how video games are made whole.

I’ve always strived to be that kind of a cartographer, to showcase the weave of reality, of connecting two seemingly unconnected parts, and showing to a profound implication both existing, instead of one or the other. If you don’t know, I have been trying to write something out of my current obsession with Virtual YouTubers, and mostly Hololive, and while I think I stumbled upon the six hour video review of Tokimeki Memorial outside of my interest in virtual YouTubers, this video, as I expected in the back of my head, gave me plenty of thoughts about Hololive. Its rumination of cyberpunk and idol culture is so directly connected with the peculiarities of Hololive that I was quite astounded.

From the very beginning, I wonder how Tim Rogers thinks about Hololive, especially after he has done that six hour review. I’m sure he will have a lot of interesting thoughts about the prospect. I want to get in contact with him, maybe work under him. But then I don’t want to hang out with him. I want to be near him as he talks to a crowd at a party, but I don’t feel safe to be near him when there’s less than ten people nearby. I think below ten, I would be swept in some danger that I won’t be prepared for.

Tim Rogers and Action Button Review is a fascinating review series and if you have the time, I suggest you should take the journey. It’s well worth it, just to get a different perspective on video games and the world around it.

#action button #tim rogers #video games #web video #review

[waterbenderkat]

Thoughts and expectations for the live action remake of the series?

Oh boy— where to start with this? There is so much to unpack here, and I have a lot of thoughts.

I am very excited for the live action series. The fact the original creators are involved is a great sign, as well as the fact it’s a show and not an entire season being crammed into one film, and I think it is a great opportunity to help introduce this incredible story to a new generation.

This remake is not without reason, and I firmly believe that. My expectations are that the live action series will faithfully recreate the plot, characters, and world of the original series, while also while also expanding and adding something new to these same elements. Whether it be new emotional layers, delving deeper into lore, etc.

Overall, I am cautiously optimistic and beyond excited at the possibilities this presents.

Here are the things that I’m most excited about in regards to the remake:

- Live action bending fight sequences and visuals. We all know how the movie let us down with this, and there is so much potential for this to be truly epic.

- Inuit Katara and Sokka! Indigenous cultures rarely get to be represented, and this is an opportunity to put young Inuit/ native talent at the forefront of a fantastic epic franchise, as well as for Inuit kids to see themselves as the heroes in this kind of franchise. That is so special and I cannot wait.

- Opportunity to go darker. Live action is by nature more mature and dark when it comes to what you can do with fantasy elements, and I hope they grow the story with the audience, like LOK did. The show already gets dark for a family show, but let’s delve deeper into the emotions, trauma, and realities of war with this new medium and opportunity.

- Fleshed our story elements. I’m not sure what the structure of the show is going to be, but if the structure permits them more time I would love to see them delve deeper into certain story beats, as well as world building/ lore.

- Zuko’s scar in live action, as well as that scene. You know the one. Gosh, it’s going to be haunting and powerful.

- The final Agni Kai between Zuko and Azula. Oh, my jaw drops just thinking about the possibilities.

- Just all of the fight and action sequences.

- Live action child Aang. Not that the animated show doesn’t do a great job establishing his youth and trauma, but seeing an ACTUAL CHILD go through the losses and trauma he endures? Will be even more haunting, powerful, and emphasize just how messed up this entire situation is.

- Not to be a girl with this one, but, the outfits. And Katara’s hair.

- New epic music and orchestrations for the live action score, which take the melodies from pieces of the animated series’s score.

#waterbender asks #waterbenderkat

[jimmythejiver]

For the first time in a long time I went to the movies in forever and then to Target. At Target I see some Godiva bars on discount yellow tags and I was ecstatic until I read 70% Cacao, Dark, Salted Caramel and was deflated.

Anyway that's how I felt about seeing The Green Knight. What you thought this was about chocolate?

No see since the pandemic I've been back on my perennial King Arthur kick. I've for a long time since I was a young preteen thought, someday I too will write my own King Arthur epic and it'll be gay, magical, gangster and culty too, but for now I'll make up my own stories for practice and then with every story I got attached too, it got too involved and convoluted to the point that when it came down to actually writing a novel, I threw it all away and made a space opera I only planned in two weeks and wrote in a month. Anyway...so now I've been writing this very gay, magical, gangster and culty take on Final Fantasy XV with my boyfriend and just fell in love with Somnus Lucis Caelum who nobody has any insight about him than to make him the Mordred to Ardyn's Arthur, which is a strange flex, but okay, I thought about what if I wrote a Dark Age prequel about Ardyn and Somnus, but Ardyn becomes king and Somnus his shogun and they play games of seduction and power because I'm twisted like that. Anyway...I was like I'm never going to write this and I have to keep making up characters based on FFXV characters and King Arthur tropes because there's not a lot of stories that take place during the Dark Ages, it's always some Roman Empire story, or High Middle Ages and FFXV gave no room for either society to happen after the fall of Solheim and the rise of King Somnus...so we left with Dark Ages, y'all, the King Arthur comparisons are obvious, but Ardyn is no Arthur and Somnus is no Mordred, Aera is only Guenevere if you make up an affair with Somnus, Gilgamesh is no Bedwyr/Bedivere, but uh...they both amputees and the oldest companions to their respective kings so...I guess. Anyway making an ancestor of Cor Leonis and deciding well he's Owain/Yvain, or am Ignis type as idk Sir Cai/Kay I guess, they both cook, but Cai's more like Seifer Almasy than any FF character... Anyway I'm losing people.

My plan was to just scrap the FFXV prequel, leave my Somnus ideas into Overtime (a gangster and gods story) and just plan an actual King Arthur adaptation. I'd have King Arthur the treasure hunter, leader of a warband turned founder of Camelot who fights giants, giant cats and dogheads, but also fights King Claudas of the Franks and King Aelle of the Saxons and Cerdic a Briton who puts in his lot with the Saxons, etc. It'd been a a glorified turf war, meanwhile Arthur's gotta make alliances with King Pelles, The Fisher King and his strange cult he's founded because, why yes I find the ends justifies the means prophecy of the Holy Grail Quest very culty because Christianity then does not resemble it now. Meanwhile you got the secondary plots of Mordred, Gawain, Lancelot, Percival, Tristam and other's going on because they matter and too many modern King Arthur stories sideline the knights.

So many have always sidelined Mordred as a final boss eldritch abomination in mortal flesh conceived of sin and give him no personality, or complex motives, or even just a relationship with Arthur. I also have noticed the general sidelining of Lancelot, or give him a chad villain upgrade if you must include him at all, and the villainizing of Gawain to the point that you don't even have to have Mordred, or Agravain as a catalyst shit stirrer in court, just slap Gawain's name on Liam Neeson in a top knot and you're good. Mordred can just be a child offscreen until last act...fuck that, while Morgan Le Fay can either be a villainess plotting her cabal through men, or a well-intentioned, ineffectual idiot. Fuck that.

Now Hollywood just be doing King Arthur first acts that suck ass, only for said director to get rewarded failing upwards by giving this same jerk the Aladdin remake. The tonally shitty, crammed in blockbuster mess of a cliche heroe's journey that sucks.

With that background I was excited for The Green Knight. I read an illustrative version as a kid, I read Tolkien's translation as a teenager, I read Simon Armitage's superior, but with liberties taken translation. I was prepped to go knowing that indie, or not they were going to make changes to weave the disjointed poem together. I'm excited that because this movie exists Project Guternberg's finally thrown Jessie Weston's prose rendition up on their website. I'll be reading that at some point when this blows over.

The movie adaptation makes a lot of...choices, many I wouldn't love, but would forgive had their been a payoff. There was none.

The journey was fine, the cinematography was a breath of fresh air after crappy slo mo, glossy action scenes ruined another. Guys, I don't think I want to see a Zack Snyder Excalibur, it'll marginally be better than Guy Ritchie, but that ain't saying anything. Leave Excalibur to the post-Star Wars 80s where it is impeccable for it's time. I liked Green Knight's breathable pacing, it's color palette's in the forests and mountains made up for the muddy grey of every Ridley Scott send up in the castles and villages in every other Dark Ages/Medieval story in the last I don’t know since the shitty 00′s. For all the dark tones when there was blues, greens, yellows or reds, they were vibrant in this movie to contrast the gloom of Britain. The soundtrack was good. This isn't all what makes a movie, but it enhances it so let's get to the story and what I did and didn't like.

Things I Liked: Gawain is still a novice in his career The Costume Dressing Everyone pronounces Gawain's name different. I pronounce it like Gwayne, or Guh Wayne, but here you got Gowen (like Owen), Gowan (like Rowan), or even Garlon who I'm pretty sure is the Fisher King's heir in some versions of that Arthurian story, so uh... The reference to Arthur slaying 960 men with his bare hands (Nennius for the win!) The Waste Land that is implied to be a site of a battle (an important aspect of the Arthurian landscape) The Fox companion No long grisly, drawn out hunting scenes. The Fox lives! No misogynist speeches

Things I'm Mixed: This being a dream, is the magic real? Are the giants? Is the Green Knight a figment of Gawain's imagination from a spell Morgan casted in him to hallucinate? Is Lord and Lady also figments? It's...a way to interpret the poem, but lazy and I don't see why it's got to all fantasy, or all dream...this movie makes it too vague you're stuck picking one camp than to accept it's a fantasy with dream and hallucinatory sequences.

Things I'm Meh: Morgan Le Fay as Gawain's mom. Look I fucking hate Morgause as a character and these two get merged and steal each other's aspects so much at this point the difference is who did they marry, King Urien or King Lot? Both are attributed to being Mordred's mom, Mordred is Gawain's brother...both practice magic depending on certain incarnations, both love and hate Arthur their brother and are in conflict with him. Saint Winifred. I actually liked this sequence, but I don't appreciate her as the tacked on wife in the later dream sequence as like...a contrast between the wife you should marry than the whore next door you don't respect anyway? I don't even know what lesson I'm supposed to get out of the damn dream sequence, or any of it? That Gawain should've married his girlfriend and then he'd be a just ruler? That he shouldn't be king? That he'd never have to make the same heartless, impartial choices? I don't know, he seemed like a king doing king shit because guess what? It never gets easier. Wars will be waged. The world didn't become better because he married the right woman, respected her and lived in obscurity. The world didn't become better because he made her his queen. We certainly don't know the world would be better Gawain had his head chopped off and dead XP They never reveal the Lord and the Green Knight as one and the same because of this shit.

Things I Hated: Arthur withdraws from the challenge because he's old. In poem he takes it on and Gawain takes it so he don't have to and he finds himself more disposable than the king. Gawain only takes the challenge because of arrogance. Arthur and Gawain had no prior personal relationship. I'd not have hated this so much if it wasn't compounded by it cancelling out the first two things. Gawain is portrayed as having no respect for his woman, or any woman, maybe his mother? He has to be pushed by Winifred to regain her head. Gawain is portrayed as arrogant, covetous and ready to pass the buck, or the bare minimum than have any honor or decency. It didn't matter the kid in the wasteland was shithead bandit, the way Gawain acted towards him, when he gets robbed, it almost feels like he deserved it and Gawain doesn't learn a damn lesson. I'll admit him taking the sword to cut his ropes and cutting his hands was a neat sequence, it shows him go from stupid, to almost clever and having will to survive...you know traits he had in the poem, but he stops showing these traits or growing. Basically Gawain has to be dragged kicking and screaming to help people and shows no fortitude when facing temptation, or when showing respect towards others, it's exhausting. You don't make this kind of journey story without character growth. Why are you skipping this? Also is it just me, or is this like when you take Frank Miller Batman and transport him onto a Bill Finger story? This is at best Thomas Malory Gawain (and this is charitable) transported on the earlier Pearl Poet's story. Stop it. It's not tonally correct and goes at odds with the story and the set up characterization you'd need to tell it. Speaking of which, you know how I get through the oof... of Liam Neeson Gawain in Excalibur? By pretending he Agravain instead. Here...I don't even think Gawain could pass as Mordred in spite of his covetous nature, lust and entitlement. Why? because I don't think even Mordred is this dumb to warrant this hubris. Essel being invented as a tacked on love interest just to be shit on utterly and for what? I don't think I have much commentary here as there is no Essel I'm aware of to compare, or stack up. I just notice this trope of like...usually if you include a sex worker in Hollywood she often has a heart of gold, she often has her own sense of values that goes at odds with society, but is more true and less hypocritical than a privileged lady’s. I thought that's what they would've done with the added trope of back at home sweetheart to contrast and pit her against the despicable femme fatale of Lady Bertilak and her adultery and her ladyship...and I'm glad they didn't...but you did nothing with Essel than to shit on her for existing when you made her exist, you know. Lady Bertilak being portrayed as the seductress devil incarnate. Look I know adultery is a touchy taboo, but uh her and Gawain hit it off in the poem, dammit! Her values and his values come to clash, but here it's played off as Gawain is stupid and covetous and Lady Bertilak wants to prove something because...? If my brother's theory that she's a figment of Morgan Le Fay's magic, then I'll take this as a lesson of Gawain is impulsive and covetous and his mom knows it, but he don't want to fuck his mom, but he wants her power, and Morgan wants to teach him a lesson... I guess. Hey we don't have misogynist speeches in this movie, but we'll make sure to have the movie drip with it with no point, or commentary. Pass. Lord guilting, extracting and initiating the same sex kiss and only once. Poem automatically better that Gawain don't have to keep being reminded to keep his part of the bargain and he does it willingly more than once. What he doesn't do is give up his belt...gods how did we get more homophobic as a society that the homoeroticism here is worse? Catholics of the middle ages officially had no issue doing same sex, passionate kissing until it lead to sex. The Ending: The gods damn ending. In the movie as is, Gawain waits to uphold his end of the bargain and get his head chopped off. He imagines, even though we don't get any fuzzy or distortion to indicate this is a dream, but I already knew this was coming, he runs away and comes home, is regarded a hero, he sees his lady, takes her from behind and if you saw Brokeback Mountain (I didn't, but DJ has) you know this is a sign of disrespect to women. He gets her knocked up, pays her off for the kid she wants to keep, he is crowned king, marries the ghostly saint lady he helped retrieve her head earlier from a lake in the movie (this right here is the damn tip off). There's no more dialogue by this point and everything is montaging, so you know by now it's a dream, though nothing is out of focus. He rules as a heartless king, his whore son dies from war he waged, he has a daughter, his wife dies. Gawain then takes off the belt that would've saved his life and his head falls off. This would've been the one good twist, except... In this sequence of events he never had his head cut off so uh... now we back in present day. He decides not to bitch out, Green Knight in a sexy way is like "now off with your head," movie cuts to credits with no resolve...uh what the fuck? What the fuck? This is not good. You wasted the one twist in your dream when idk, you could've...

How I'd fix it: No dream sequence at all. No Incident At Owl Creek twist. Gawain comes home a hero and survivor of this game and ordeal. He wears this belt of shame. He becomes a well-renowned knight, but he bears a shame. One day he goes to take off his belt and his head falls off because he cheated to get this belt and to survive this encounter. There. Done. Improved your high concept movie that couldn't play any of the lessons straight from the damn poem without making everyone an asshole for no reason! Ugh! But nope you had to end it on we don’t know if Gawain lives or dies...because...it's dream magic made from his momma's witchcraft...?

Last Thoughts So then post-credits scene because Marvel because Pirates Of The Caribbean existed. A white girl who looks nothing like Gawain's daughter we see who didn’t pay off, or any child I can remember through this whole movie picks up King Arthur's crown that dream Gawain inherited and puts it on her head. Who is this girl? Are we gonna have an indie equivalent of of the Marvel Movie Universe/Universal Horror Monsters thing with ancient British legends? We gonna get a Life Of Saint Patrick next that crosses over? I don't know. What is this?

[latveriansnailmail]

Favorite Movies as of 2021

Subject to updating because surely I’ve missed a few. This is not supposed to be a list of meritorious films but rather just a list of movies I genuinely enjoy. It runs from Shakespeare to Bill & Ted with heavy doses of 80s fantasy, superhero schlock, and pretty much anything with Kurt Russell in it. Enjoy.

1- Harvey No contest, my favorite of all time.

2- Big Trouble in Little China It’s always a great joy to introduce a new viewer to this film.

3- Flash Gordon (1980) In which they totally lean into the camp and low budget.

4- The Thing I watch this annually upon the first major snowfall.

5- Titus (Taymor) One winter break Titus would be on one of the movie channels each day when I woke up, so I watched it daily for a month and it didn’t get old.

6- Death to Smoochy “Are you alright?” “I’m a little fucked up in general so it’s hard to gauge.”

7- Blade Runner (The Final Cut) So there’s this dude Deckard and he hunts robots but it turns out HE’S a robot, oh so very clever, little film

8- Tombstone I recently learned that Kurt Russell directed this film in all but name.

9- The Dark Crystal Immersive fantasy, though I’m sure it appears plain, drab, and simple now after the Netflix prequel.

10- Somewhere in Time I’m a romantic, I guess. Thus all the John Carpenter movies.

11- Grosse Pointe Blank So good, I used to think I liked John Cusack.

12- The Producers (musical) You heard me. Wilder and Mostel were great but the musical version had decades to mill over and expand the premise.

13- To Be or Not To Be (Brooks) Surprisingly suspenseful.

14- The 13th Warrior Saw it again recently and it holds up. Horror, only it happens to viking warriors who would rather chop the horror down than run.

15- The Mighty Thor I mean, Black Panther is objectively the best of the lot but subjectively this is my personal favorite superhero flick. I must have seen it a half a dozen times at least.

16- Lost Boys A billion Chinese can’t be wrong.

17- Die Hard A Christmas tradition. As a postman, it’s cathartic for me to watch Christmas get blown up a little before all the hugging and sentiment.

18- The Blues Brothers Deadpan hilarity cut with performances by legends of blues and soul.

19- The Sting The best heist film. It keeps you guessing until the very end and no twist feels arbitrary or leaves a hole.

20- Interview with the Vampire Fun fact, I looked like Pitt’s Louis when I was a young man in the goth scene.

21- Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure “Be excellent to each other!” “Party on, dudes!” *air guitar*

22- The Seventh Seal See? This list has its high points.

23- Revolutionary Girl Utena Note: Read the entire manga, watch the entire anime series, and read Adolescence of Utena BEFORE watching this or you’ll be left confused. Dazzled but confused.

24- The Nightmare Before Christmas So good I got the tarot deck.

25- The Last Unicorn It’s still a damn shame they never made that live action remake. Christopher Lee was set to reprise King Haggard.

26- Chasing Amy Honestly changed my life.

27- Excalibur It’s weird though how they’re always in armor. Wedding? Armor. Dinner? Armor. Deathbed? Armor.

28- Ginger Snaps A cut above any other werewolf movie I’ve seen.

29- Top Secret! My sense of humor distilled.

30- Clash of the Titans (Harryhousen) Yeah it’s dry but then there’s the monsters.

31- Monty Python’s the Meaning of Life People are not wearing enough hats.

32- Shadow of the Vampire Nosferatu nearly made this list but it’s hard to pinpoint a definitive cut. Try instead this film about the making of Nosferatu with an actual vampire as the vampire.

33- Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust Look, we as a culture had the unfortunate experience of Twilight. This is the same premise but actually good.

34- The Last Supper This film challenged and changed me as a young man more so than any other work of art.

35- The Princess Bride The perfect film, but I’ve seen it so much it’s down at 35 now.

36- Blazing Saddles What can I as a white guy say? Just watch the movie.

37- Streets of Fire Always suspicious to me how Final Fight premiered within a year of this movie.

38- Gremlins More Christmas havok. Yum?

39- The Beastmaster Forgotten and underappreciated.

40- Ladyhawke A thing of beauty.

41- Willow C’mon. It’s Willow. I have nothing to justify here.

42- Speed Racer I know you heard it’s bad but hear me out: it is the strongest narrative I’ve ever seen on film and it’s exactly the way you played with your toy cars when you were little.

43- Angelheart You’re supposed to know that de Niro is Lucifer. The rest is mystery and the final reveal set up a trope that’s been done into the ground nowadays.

44- The Hunger More atmosphere than plot, but hey, vampire Bowie!

45- Zoolander My partner’s favorite.

46- Faust (Murnau) You will be shocked to see what was possible to achieve in film in 1926.

47- A Muppet Christmas Carol but a cut that includes the fiance’s song This finishes out my traditional Christmas films.

48- Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein Y’know, I’ve got two Branagh films on here and neither are what you would expect given his catalog. The other one’s Thor for crying out loud.

49- Highlander I noticed in recent editions of Vampire: the Masquerade that it’s still possible in that game to hide a katana in a trenchcoat. This movie is why.

50- The Name of the Rose One of only a few instances where I prefer the film to the book. That book loooooong.

51- Robocop (1987) Of all the damn science fiction, why must we be in Robocop?

52- The Prophecy Now we’re getting into films I demoted since the last time I updated this list. This film’s a slow burn unless you get turned up for angels and Christopher Walken like I do.

53- The Warriors Would be higher if the opening wasn’t so slow.

54- Legend Tim Curry kills it as Darkness.

55- Black Panther Objectively the best superhero movie and the Academy backs me on that one.

56- Wonder Woman I do wish they’d trot out Vandal Savage as a Wonder Woman villain.

57- Captain America: The Winter Soldier Just rewatched this one earlier! It is heavily marked by the height of the War on Terror.

58- Blade The ancestor of all modern superhero movies and a solid vampire flick to boot.

59- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Nostalgic for me? Maybe, but I hold that this is the first comic film worth a damn because they stuck with the comics when they wrote it.

60- Captain America: the First Avenger This movie is a real test of character. If someone doesn’t like Cap it’s because they think goodness is unrealistic.

61- Four Rooms Really just rooms 3 and 4.

62- Reservoir Dogs Hey, two Tim Roth films in a row!

63- Event Horizon Do you see?

64- What Dreams May Come Kind of an emotional ringer, especially after William’s death.

65- Monty Python and the Holy Grail Have I watched it into the ground? Yes. Is it still hilarious? Yes, and it gets funnier the more you study Arthurian myth.

66- Pulp Fiction I’m kinda over this now.

67- The Crow People who liked the comic passionately disagree with me but I still like this one.

68- Akira Still.

69- Ghost in the Shell Still, though the farther you get from 13 the less titties you need in your art.

70- Beetlejuice Why not? Let's just tack this on there.

Honorable Mentions:

Fight Club A suburb film but one I grew out of, as should everyone. If you meet a man who’s passionate about Fight Club, run!

American Psycho Ditto. I grew out of this but it’s still excellent.

What’s Eating Gilbert Grape A horrible caricature of my brother’s life. I don’t get along with my brother any more.

Rocky Horror Picture Show Not actually a good film if you watch it straight with no commentary. Still, it’s a cornerstone of queer culture.

Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2 Of all the superhero films, this is the one that resonated with me the most. I was in a weird place at the time. It still resonates with me now because I’m a foster dad.

[bleachandgrenadine]

Hopeful Predictions for the ATLA Netflix Adaptation, What They Need to Get Right, and How They Can Make it Work.

[Long Post]

**I had this post in my drafts, and after the announcement that Bryke are leaving, what better time to post this? All hope is not lost, maybe this is a good sign that it won’t go off the rails with Bryke’s shitty writing ability and bad ideas.**

Before I get into it, they pretty much need to take extra care to get everything right, because the show is nearly perfect and it is so beloved. To adapt what is widely considered one of the best animated TV shows of all time into a live action series, will be no easy feat. So here’s what I think they can do to make it the best it can possibly be. Their budget is unknown, so granted they’d need a fairly high budget to make this all work. Hopefully they do because the pressure of high expectations is on them.

The episodes will have a longer run time. Likely 30-48 minutes give or take, with some of the heavier plot-advancing episodes being closer to an hour or more. Some of the more ‘filler’ or rather side adventure episodes may be a two in one type of deal, or will simply be expanded on from the original 22 minutes to 30 minutes or so. Hopefully they will do this by adding more character moments to improve upon their development, and give the episodes a more significant connection to the main plot.

It shouldn’t be a copy and paste remake. They need to have a balanced and objective view on what elements need to be the most faithful and what can be changed and improved/expanded on. For example, I think they could add a bit to certain backstories and expand on some historical elements and lore. (For the love of god though don’t take the retconning lore from book 2 of Korra.) I’m actually going to add to this and make a Part II of things I’d like to see fleshed out.

Up the maturity of the tone a *little* bit. The majority of the audience and fans watching are going to be older, so tweaking it some may be appropriate. Many of the more mature themes and action in the original had to be censored to air on Nickelodeon. Not saying make it overly serious and dark, but adjusting it with higher stakes and suspense would make sense in the live action.

Casting. Casting accordingly to the characters’ ethnicities is a given, of course. But it might be difficult find child actors of the same age as the characters with the range needed to fill the role, including martial arts and stunt work. So I’m predicting that the cast may be a little older, and they might even age up the characters as well.

Additionally, it’ll probably take more than a year to film all three seasons, so if they cast 12-16 year olds it’ll be obvious that they’ve gotten older. SO they may have to extend Aang’s deadline to master all four elements. Idk maybe the comet is two summers away. We’ll see how they handle it.

Humor. The cartoon had, well, cartoonish moments that don’t translate well into live action if you try to recreate them. In the cartoon you had bigger and exaggerated expressions/movement accompanied by music and cartoon sound effects, not all of was like that but you know what I’m talking about. I think a good way to approach the comedic moments is *kinda* like how Marvel does it in terms of timing, delivery, how other characters react to it. This is just my personal two cents.

Bending and martial arts styles. One of the problems we saw in Shyamalan’s film was exactly how NOT to do fight/bending choreography. In the show, every movement has a purpose, and the element they’re bending has an equivalent reaction. In the film we saw a lot of over the top fancy dancy movements with no equivalent reaction. This is something most action and superhero movies get right, so they better not fuck this up.

Culturally accurate costuming but keeping the color palette of the original.

Speaking of color palette, I hope the director doesn’t go for the dark and washed out look. Don’t be afraid of saturation and a bit of stylized cinematography. It’s a fantasy world! Make it pretty!

CGI and special effects are another technical thing that could make or break this show.

Leave out the fan service, pandering, and shipping bait. If you’re not going to include certain things from the original (that are inconsequential to the series) don’t try to allude to or reference it or put in a little Easter egg. It’s awkward and more often then not disrupts the flow of whatever scene it’s thrust into, like it’s almost always an afterthought to please fans.

Script/dialogue: There was a lot of great dialogue in the original. (Iroh’s quotes should not be changed too much, that’s a given) I have a feeling that the writers may try to keep it close to the original, but I am hopeful that the end result is more depth, maturity, complexity, and more organic interactions between characters.

That’s all I got for right now, look for Part 2 soon!

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