#people are right about a lot of fords character flaws actually. the part they are wrong about is which ones are Moral Failings | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

weirdmageddon · 3 years

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five years too late let’s analyze this. the commentary has gotten me back into gravity falls reigniting thoughts and insights i came to years ago

i love everything about this commentary in general it hits the points of humor, genuine analysis of the characters, but most of all im so glad hirsch addressed that the droid not detecting any fear from dipper here doesnt make any scientific sense because that was a massive CinemaSins moment for me

IDK the fact that dipper can fucking stand after an airship crash because theres a bigger threat at hand is literally one of the defining capabilities owed to adrenaline lol...... IM SORRY im a biopsychology student if i dont point that out iwill seethe and die because that was just . its a grudge ive held for a long time about this episode but didnt rant about because it was something so minor and i’m sure nobody would care.

i was 13 when this episode came out and i’m almost 19 now, i had a special interest in biology and i still do but now i’m actually having college classes in biopsychology so i can give my arguments more oomph now. and i have to say, now that i know more about the brain and autonomic nervous system the more this scene bugs me, if that was even possible. and it says a lot of dipper and ford’s relationship.

if dipper clearly wasnt calm before, why would he be now just because he’s put up an outwardly confident facade? before he was in the flight but now hes in the fight. my boy just rode on top of a spaceship by nothing but a magnet gun that could detach at any time if it failed and then the ship crashed, he sustained injuries, is in emotional turmoil because he thinks his uncle is Fucking Dead and the threat of a security droid that detects adrenaline is on his tail and produces a Big Fucking Gun in response to dipper saying “i hAvE a MaGNeT gUn” and hes screaming and has his teeth clenched but sure there’s no adrenaline coursing through his body in that moment i can totally believe that

when dipper asks what happened, ford says “the orb didn’t detect any chemical signs of fear, it assumed the threat was neutralized and self-disassembled” but i don’t think measuring someone’s heartbeat alone is particularly relevant in detecting ... chemical signs of fear?? they dont really tell you this shit but noradrenaline (and maybe adrenaline too if the acetylcholine from sympathetic outflow always activates the adrenal medulla??, theres two pathways) is always active in small quantities to make sure your parasympathetic nervous system doesnt slow your heart to dangerous levels on its own, regardless of your emotions. it’s just a homeostatic mechanism. your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems are CONSTANTLY modulating control of your organs on a see-saw, literally with every breath you take. simply standing upright causes specialized mechanoreceptor neurons in blood vessels to signal your brain to project signals to release catecholamines via the sympathetic nervous system to constrict your blood vessels so that blood is able to reach your brain and not pool in your legs. i have a deficiency in my body’s ability to adapt to this which is why i know so much about it. if i stand up my heart races to compensate. i’m not feeling fear, my body is just adjusting—albeit grossly and incompetently lol.

but what im saying here is that the security system is flawed. it’s a cool idea to have security droids detect fear, but in practice by detecting adrenaline, and not even directly by detecting the molecule itself—it’s done in a roundabout way by reading the heartbeat, could be a recipe for false alarms. like what if someone’s on beta-blockers. that’s not really an adequate way to measure “fear”; there’s so many variables that could interfere with the measurement the farther you abstract from what you’re really trying to detect. and besides, adrenaline is NOT just a sign of fear, it’s just for preparing the body for action. i know the sympathetic nervous system and adrenaline is constantly linked with the “fight-or-flight” reaponse to a stressor, but 99.9% of the time the sympathetic nervous system is used in your life is to balance out your parasympathetic nervous system to maintain homeostatic equilibrium for mundane things.

i think detecting amygdalar activation would be more efficient in detecting fear. the amygdala sends projections to the hypothalamus which then in turn modulates the autonomic nervous systems. but the amygdala is intensely activated specifically in response to a fear-inducing stimulus (it does activate in response to other emotions but they’re mostly negative and is most activated by startle and fear), and wouldnt be highly activated by many other confounding variables like measurement of the heartbeat could be. the amygala is one of the first stops directly from external stimuli.

to show you how integrated the amygdala is as the first step in registering fear after receiving input from sensory stimuli let’s look at the auditory-amygdala connection for example

see how the auditory thalamus projects to the primary auditory cortex and auditory association cortex? the cortex is where conscious awareness of what the stimuli is comes from. this is the “high road”. it goes sensing -> perception -> emotional response. but sometimes you can be startled without even processing what it is you’re sensing, like the startle response of an alarm or a phone ringing in a quiet house before you even register what it is. this goes sensing -> emotional response, without perception happening until after you’ve already felt the startle. that’s when it takes the “low road”. here’s a simplified version:

even if that were the case with these droids though it’s obvious dipper is still fearful on some level here. his body language, voice, expressions all give it away. for the amygdala, aggression isnt too off from fear so it would be detected equally.

the reason this is so important is because ford uses this as evidence for why dipper is special, “i did it?” “you did it. this is what i was talking about, how many 12 year olds do you think are capable of doing what you’ve just done?”

but like....did he really? i’m not saying this to shoot dipper down or make him out to be more of a wuss, he was incredibly strong-willed here and i dont want to take that away from him because it WAS growth on his part. but the underlying psychophysiological reactions of aggression and fear shouldn’t be that different and this was a total asspull. maybe the droid was so old that it fucked up. maybe dipper being covered in grime and dirt made it harder for the droid to measure the correct heart rate through photoplethysmography (im assuming since they use a camera and are non-contact).

and in all honesty everything i just said brings into question the interpersonal healthiness of ford’s judgements, what he thinks, his expectations, and how he communicates that. in this video alex already talks about how ford is projecting onto dipper. and i think ford may be projecting his expectations for himself onto people who are not him, and the fact that it’s on dipper here makes it far more unfortunate. you realize how much this boy idolizes ford, right? how much impressions matter? dipper even tells himself before he leaves in this same episode, “all right dipper, this is your first big mission with great uncle ford. don’t mess this up.”

even though it’s unstated, the implicit message dipper is perceiving from ford based on their dynamic is: “do you have what it takes for me to be proud of you?” and to accomplish this he must be like ford, even though he’s clearly not and he knows this. he says “i don’t think have what it takes. i was tricked by bill, i was wrong about stan’s portal, heck, i can’t even operate this magnet gun right.” then, by simple chance without even knowing what he did, he activates the magnet gun and pulls out the adhesive, which immediately takes the focus away from what dipper was telling ford about his feelings of inadequacy to ford saying, “yes! dipper, you found the adhesive!”

these thoughts of dipper’s hang in the air without resolve or comment from ford. we don’t know what ford would have said. but it then becomes painfully self-evident in the scene immediately after when the droids emerge and ford tells dipper, “they’re security droids and they detect adrenaline. you simply have to not feel any fear and they won’t see you”, to which dipper replies with an exasperated (and rightful) “WHAT?”

dipper goes in a panic trying to indirectly tell his uncle that this isn’t something he can do. and he is completely right and valid to be freaked out by that full stop. that IS crazy. you can’t control your fear. you can control how you interpret that fear in your higher brain regions but the physiological changes will stick around for longer than it takes to cognitively calm down. it’s easy for me to detach from my emotions to analyze them, but being able to do this does not come naturally for everyone. even i have an irrational fear of wasps and i can’t control it by detaching myself, my body is just automatically primed to get the fuck out of there. i know it’s stupid and i know it’s irrational and isn’t helpful to get myself worked up but i literally can’t stop how my body reacts no matter how i cognitively think about it. expecting composure from dipper in a situation like this when he’s being made to consciously be aware of his anxiety is absolutely fucking insane. look what you did, placing these cruel expectations on him, now he’s afraid of being afraid! this isn’t a case where two wrongs cancel out, they just stack on top of each other.

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there’s a good reason these scenes were put side by side but it seems up until now it had remained unanalyzed.

what dipper fears from ford is disappointment. not living up to his uncle’s (quite frankly badly placed) expectations for a twelve year old with anxiety. not once did ford say or subliminally communicate “i don’t expect you to be able to do what i can since you are not as experienced as i am and that’s perfectly okay, no judgements”. you don’t put a child on bike before training wheels. you don’t throw a kid into a swimming pool without giving them swimming lessons. the way ford is doing it, there’s no room for trial and error or mistakes that are an opportunity to grow and learn; instead, it’s life or death. he only seems to pride dipper on what he can do while ignoring the underlying struggles that plague him and never making it known it’s okay for dipper to fail in front of his hero and that he won’t think anything less of him for it.

and that’s why i found the ending scene for dipper and ford’s adventure in this episode to feel so.. wrong. on a scientific and social level. because by the sound of it ford focused more on what dipper had done to dismantle the droid (the droid not detecting any fear) instead of how dipper displayed love and protection for him even if he was truly afraid. what if the science was accurate and the droid detected adrenaline while dipper was confidently standing up for his uncle. would ford still be proud of him regardless?

#can you tell how i’m similar to ford but also so different like i said in that other post lol #gravity falls #analysis #dipper pines #stanford pines #long post #gf #gravity falls meta

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feferipeixes · 3 years

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ok so I read this awesome post by weirdmageddon about how DaMvtF reveals some stuff about Ford and Dipper’s relationship and I had THOUGHTS that kind of ballooned out about the differences between the two of them, and how Bill Cipher recognised those differences.

read more bc it got a bit long

So I think it may come naturally to him to come up with an understanding of something and then stick firmly to it, even if it's not something paranormal, say, like, a theory about how sibling dynamics work. given how much his relationship with stan affected him, he probably spent a lot of time crystallising his understanding of Why it happened, and ultimately came to the idea that siblings, while initially fun to be around, will hold you back eventually. and then he sees dipper and applies that theory to him just because he sees a bit of himself in him.

one thing from the journal that i always think about re dipper and ford's dynamic is how ford initially seems to like mabel more than dipper because she's a cheerful mystery while dipper is a sweaty kid that keeps bothering him. but then in the show they play a game together and ford latches onto this, like yes, my theory of how siblings work, here's another data point, i can see the tension between the two of them when mabel told him she didn't want to play dd&md. this is the beginning of his researching mind viewing him and dipper as more similar in nature than they really are, just to validate his theory.

the other thing i think about a lot is how ford asks dipper if he's ever thought about what he wants to do when he grows up and dipper is like i want to have a ghost hunting show and then ford promptly ignores that and offers dipper a research apprenticeship. in ford's head this is firmly what dipper wants and always wanted, just because it's what he (ford) wanted. and it wouldn't make sense to him (ford) if dipper didn't want to be a researcher because of his (ford's) notions of how the two of them are fundamentally the same.

some of this stuff is why i feel like ford viewed dipper as a sort of second chance for himself, since he sees them as the same. ford probably spent a lot of time both before and after the portal thinking about what he would've done differently now that he is older and has more knowledge. he doesn't want dipper to get held back by his twin just like ford was by his twin (although in reality we know ford wasn't Really held back at all... 5 phd's smh) so he tries to push dipper past that, thinking that it'll prevent both incidents: losing the chance to be a researcher, and getting tricked by bill.

and part of how this "seeing dipper as a second chance" manifests is that ford kinda just expects certain parts of himself to already be present in dipper. for instance, he barely instructs dipper on how to use the magnet gun, just expecting that it'll come naturally to him (which dipper explicitly expresses feeling inadequate about). another example is ford telling dipper to just not feel fear, as if that's at all a reasonable thing to ask of a child. then when dipper IS able to later trick the sentry droid, ford sees this as solid proof that the two are the same. no mere child could do that. he calls dipper “special” (which plays to how much dipper wants ford to like him), and this is telling because ford was told all his life that he was "special" -- so he uses that word as a stand-in for "being like him".

This is one of the problems that ford has. he sees himself as very analytical but he is extremely inwardly focused. his feelings influence his ideas about others quite a bit. for instance, ford has always seen himself as special; there's no real evidence otherwise. we see this with how he feels cheated by not getting into west coast tech -- he feels he Deserved to get in because he's special.

but dipper isn't like that. dipper cares a Lot about what others think. there are a lot of stories in the show about how he and mabel disregard each other's feelings and then the problem gets solved because they listen to how the other is feeling and become closer as a result. dipper also wants wendy and the cool kids to like him and see him as cool. he wants people to see him as a detective, a mystery hunter, a competent person even though he's "technically not a teen". when faced with having his memory wiped in SotBE, he says that he uses words without always knowing what they mean because he wants to sound smart. in headhunters, mabel says he's the sidekick and he gets worried that people actually do say that about him. then there's how he hero worships the author. dipper is curious and investigative and he shares some of ford's qualities in that regard, but he is much more externally focused than ford. he is not relying on his preconceived notions about stuff.

And a way that this difference between Dipper and Ford manifests is in their interactions with Bill Cipher. Ford got suckered by bill because bill *validated* his theories. that was what was so enticing to him. not just being told the answers -- being told that he was Right. Ford’s needs came from within, and so that was where Bill had to go.

dipper isn't like that. and that's why bill's approach to tricking dipper was so different. bill knew he couldn't sway dipper by stroking his ego. no, instead, he had to play to dipper's external focus -- tricking him into thinking that stan hated him. again it's him really caring about / being affected by what others think. dipper reacted to this by getting upset that stan’s feelings toward him SHOULD be different. He just accepted this empirical observation as true -- and then reacted in a childish way, but he IS a child after all. I just think it’s interesting how Bill employed different tactics to trick the two. Bill understood the difference between them better than Ford did.

disclaimer that I do like Ford a lot! he is definitely a flawed character, though, and it is interesting to think about how these flaws influence the events of the show. ultimately things would’ve been a lot better if Dipper and Mabel had role model adults who weren’t currently (not) processing decades worth of trauma, but oh well 😔

#gravity falls #dipper pines #stanford pines

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itwoodbeprefect · 3 years

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livewatch thoughts for sga 1x08 (or 09, because the order on my dvds seems to differ from the one on wikipedia), home:

rodney being so sure he can do a very risky but scientifically interesting thing that he doesn’t even deign to acknowledge that it is risky (because he’s the one doing it, so of course it will work, because he believes himself infallible, so basically there’s no risk at all!) is such a warning for things to come (cough-trinity-cough) and it’s not like i think they were intentionally setting up a single season 2 episode already, but it does make me appreciate that we get a whole episode exploring the consequences of this character flaw of his later on.

we can see john thinking for a second while rodney is talking and then he goes “eight hundred and four years” (how long it would take them to get rodney by puddlejumper if he breaks the gate on the fog planet) and that’s our first hint at math nerd john!! beautiful

rodney, talking about travelling 804 years by puddlejumper to come get him: “but you would do that, right?” john: “of course we would.” fjdkf.

ALSO the first time we see john with his brick of a copy of war and peace! many iconic sheppard things contained in these first six and a half minutes of the episode.

same point as the one above but i’m not done yet because he just... thinks he’s so clever for this, gosh. i feel like there’s something to be said here about how this is not at all a fun read (and he’s a very repressed man used to denying himself), and i don’t imagine john has some hidden deep interest in russian literature (i mean, possible, but unlikely), so the actual real point of it is just performance, start to finish. if he ever finishes it, that’s some weird bragging rights, but even better is when, like in this scene, someone catches him at it while he’s reading because they will ask because it’s not a very inconspicuous choice of reading material. and it makes him look smart, potentially, but it’s also a little “look at me! i’m weird and quirky! #sorandom.” (yes, i am diagnosing john with socially awkward lonely teen girl disease because he decided to bring russian classic lit when he moved to another galaxy. i am.)

anyway, here’s his face, now that i’ve spent so many words on this:

elizabeth giving john a chance to be the one to go home if rodney’s gate project works out (giving him an excuse, even, because she says he’d be the one most qualified to brief general hammond) is both kind, because obviously john entered into the mission very late and he did NOT sign on as military commander fighting wraith, and also extremely silly, for pretty much the same reasons. you found this man in antarctica, elizabeth. he was cut off from earth way before he left the planet.

rodney thinking he commands respect at the sgc and has a bunch of virtues of which “patience” is one is very sweet and very funny and i’m glad ford clearly recognizes it for that. the team bonding and found family of it all is very <3

john talking to teyla: “then there’s all those cool earth things i told you about. football, ferris wheels.” in part this is of course a function of this being a tv show and repeated mentions of the same little detail feeling like a fun callback that ties this moment to previous episodes (which it is and does!!) but in-universe it tickles me how incredibly specific and wildly misleading john’s descriptions are of what earth is like. it is going to be very disappointing when there is not, in fact, a football field full of ferris wheels at the end of every city block.

elizabeth making an argument for a continued presence in the pegasus galaxy is an interesting discussion because on the one hand she’s claiming that they have a responsibility to the people of pegasus after waking up the wraith and on the other she acts like they, the people from earth, are the only ones that could possibly do anything with the ancient technology, like they don’t have a pretty effective gene therapy and could give that to at least some of the people of pegasus, who could then operate atlantis mostly without the earthlings.

god, john getting compliments from general hammond that clearly mean a lot to him, while knowing that’s not actually happening as a viewer, that’s. that’s painful.

rodney coming home and turning on the television is great because a) he moved to another galaxy, possibly never to return, but kept on paying his cable bill? dude. and b) the tv plays something for which the audio is “we are controlling the transmission” and that’s FORESHADOWING. i love this. (of course alternately he did not continue paying for cable but he just doesn’t think about it and so the aliens make his tv work because they don’t know it shouldn’t, but my first interpretation is funnier, so i’m sticking with that.)

the way this contructed reality falls apart and the bits and pieces we as viewers see of where it’s not right is EXCELLENT and john’s undead buddies mitch and dex in particular are a whole eassay on their own, but rodney’s line about the laws of physics having gone out the window and that “it’s like looking through a microscope at a cell culture and seeing a thousand dancing hamsters” is quite possibly my favorite thing here. A THOUSAND. DACING HAMSTERS. so it’s a+ content and would make you go viral in a second on youtube, is what you’re saying, rodney.

fake hammond: “major sheppard seemed uniquely capable of manipulating his own fabricated reality.” john: “when i think about the scenarios i COULD have thought up i’d kick myself.” GOD. lots of john thoughts, lots of fic space.

john: “this isn’t life! what do you want us to do, just pretend?” fjdkfd. okay, so, in a reading of canon in which john is queer man pretending all the time, this is an interesting dialogue snippet.

the discussion at the end honestly makes so little sense (the alien’s like, every time the gate activates some of us die, and the humans are like, hm okay, but we are human and we like living so you should send us back anyway, and the alien is like, okay that’s fair), but i don’t mind in the least. this is such a nice episode and the dilemma they’re faced with feels very star trek to me (vague fog aliens that are never given shape other than fog or a human illusion and a plot that leads to moral questions and a true test of the character and the intentions of humanity? PRECISELY the sweet spot for the tos budget), and i love that.

#i skipped some episodes but i might get around to writing those out later. for now i'm not making this too difficult for myself #no rules just stargate #stargatezing #sga #*#stargate atlantis

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youngdumbamericanteen · 3 years

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Mabel bad?

Oof sorry for never answering you nonnie! I’ve been pretty busy lately haha. But the post you’re responding to is a bit...old. I now understand Mabel a bit more now as a person, however I do still dislike her as a character because her flaws I was talking about in that post are never meaningfully addressed.

This might get a wee bit long, oops. Click for a big Gravity Falls writing analysis/essay/thingy.

It’s good for characters to have flaws. Flaws that actually affect them and have consequences. Otherwise you have something of a Mary Sue that isn’t relatable and has a story that’s too easy and boring for the audience. The narrative punishes or addresses those flaws and they present a challenge for the character.

But at the opposite end, you have characters who have flaws that the narrative never addresses, which means the characters never have to grow. There’s two reasons this is bad. One, that you can have the same issue where they don’t face any struggle or grow as characters and it’s a boring story, or two, people don’t generally like to root for characters who they’d want to punch if they ever met them irl. You can have a story with main characters who are bad people, but you have to either make the character likable in other ways, present the situation so that the audience can gather that they’re in the wrong and either be rooting for their downfall or their growth, or have their actual story be compelling enough that the need to know what happens next outweighs dislike for the character. (And all of these things often require the story to be told from said bad character’s point of view.) Gravity Falls doesn't really do any of these things. Or rather, it tries but is ineffective for around 50% of the viewers.

Mabel is often presented as a pure soul, good of heart and just overall a good person. But she’s got flaws. She’s selfish and a bit inconsiderate, which is normal and not an unforgivably terrible thing, especially for a 13 year old girl figuring out her place in the world. All the Pines are a bit selfish, I think it runs in their genes. But the thing is, the show will treat her selfishness as perfectly fair and normal, with anyone her selfishness affects being shown as in the wrong. She often guilts people, mainly Dipper, into sacrificing things for her while rarely making any sacrifices of her own. She does it to other characters as well, but here’s a brief list of times Dipper has sacrificed something for Mabel (which I compiled with the help of this post on Quora):

Tourist Trapped: Dipper spends almost the entire time worried about Mabel’s safety and trying to protect her, while she just brushes him off and laughs at him.

The Hand that Rocks the Mabel: Dipper agrees to break up with Gideon for her.

Time Traveler’s Pig: Mabel insists that Dipper give up the reality that doesn't break his heart so that she can adopt Waddles, and when he initially refuses she purposely endangers the space-time continuum as retaliation.

Little Dipper: Mabel is very angry about Dipper making himself taller, even though Dipper would not have resorted to it if now for her teasing. She immediately demands and fights for the magic flashlight, causing it to fall into Gideon’s hands.

Summerween: Mabel drags Dipper out to go trick-or-treating in a costume he dislikes because she’d planned on them having a duo costume.

Boss Mabel: I shouldn’t even really have to explain this one, the whole episode is about her going on a power trip.

The Deep End: Mabel embarks on a rescue mission for Mermando, doing and using things that would lead to Dipper being fired from the pool job he loves, without consulting him at all. She hears his concerns and instead of just explaining she’s saving Mermando the first time, she completely ignores him and speeds off, destroying more pool property and ensuring he’ll be fired.

Carpet Diem: Dipper informs her of the the issues he has with her roommate habits, and she completely denies any fault, even though she and her friends had legitimately destroyed the room and the mini-golf course the twins had built. The two of them both overreact, and act selfishly throughout the entire episode, but she absolutely refuses to listen to him.

Boyz Crazy: This one isn’t Dipper but I still wanted to mention it because she is so ridiculously selfish throughout the whole episode, to the point where it’s to her and the people she loves’ detriment.

Dreamscapers: Again not Dipper or a sacrifice, but her worst nightmare is apparently losing her cuteness and becoming ugly. I dunno if that’s exactly selfish or anything but God did it make me wrinkle my nose in distaste.

Sock Opera: After promising to help Dipper with the laptop, she almost immediately abandons him for her crush of the week, then proceeds to ignore him for, and inconvenience him with, her puppet show, taking his things without asking and expecting him to be completely cool with all her actions. Bill literally mentions her selfishness to manipulate Dipper and it completely works.

The Love God: Dipper leaves Wendy and her friends in chaos to help fix Mabel’s mess.

Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons: Mabel, her friends, and Stan all make fun of Dipper and Ford and insist they should have full use of the living room.

Dipper and Mable vs the Future: This is one of the big ones that people talk about. Mable finds out that Dipper might want to stay as Ford’s apprentice and becomes incredibly upset because she dreamed of the two of them having fun in high school together. She sees Dipper and immediately makes it about her and her feelings, treating something he’d been dreaming of all summer (being The Author’s apprentice) as some direct attack on her happiness. She proceeds to literally give Bill the ability to start the apocalypse to avoid being separated from Dipper, all without having any sort of meaningful conversation with Dipper or considering his feelings.

Weirdmageddon Part 2: Escape From Reality: Out of all of these, this might be the one that gets to me the most. Mabel, seemingly knowing full well that she’s trapped by Bill, creates an imaginary fantasy land and refuses to leave just to spite Dipper for considering taking the apprenticeship. And despite doing all this, and attempting to convince him to stay with her, she creates an alternate “better” version of Dipper who’s “cool” and supportive and very, very, different from the real Dipper.

And this isn’t even mentioning all the times she just assumed she was completely in the right about something or had the moral high ground. Mabel frequently makes rush decisions because she thinks everything should be her way or how she thinks is right.

And I want to say again, none of these things are unforgivable. Honestly, a lot of the things on the list are pretty standard sibling things, and like she isn’t even always in the wrong. The issue is that I’m naming at least 15 times where Mabel has been selfish or forced someone to give something up for her, and she almost never learns her lesson or is punished by the narrative. There are also only 2 or 3 times I can think of where Mabel sacrificed anything for Dipper, and they were all times he was in actual danger or someone had to talk to her and say she messed up and needed to fix her mistake.

Dipper, on the other hand, sacrifices things for Mabel, faces consequences for his mistakes and his flaws, learns substantial lessons, apologizes, and rarely, if ever, repeats said mistakes. Now, this doesn’t mean that Mabel is awful and Dipper isn’t. I mean, Dipper does some pretty crumby things and has to be told he’s in the wrong or to apologize. And Mabel isn’t a bad person. Like legitimately, that is not what I want anyone to take away from this. She does genuinely love her brother and care about his wellbeing. She’s just a little selfish and unthinking sometimes, like anyone else.

Like I said, my issue is that it goes unpunished, and she repeats the same type of offense wayyy more than any other character. She’ll disappoint Dipper enough that he’d make a deal with Bill and then everyone will still say she’s the best and most caring person ever. That’s just annoying, honestly, or it is to me at least.

This isn’t dunking on her, this is dunking on the writers. And they aren’t unforgivable either, I mean Gravity Falls was a masterful web of foreshadowing, character building, lore, plot work, and incredibly intelligent humor mixed with jokes kids would love too. I don’t blame them for dropping the ball on Mabel, and I don’t hate her or the show or anything because of it. I just want us to acknowledge this flaw of the show, and also have people get it when Mabel gets on my nerves a little bit.

#ask b #i adore mabel as a character/person #but as an example of writing? she's not so hot #gravity falls #gf #mabel #mabel pines #mabel salt #anti mabel #<< those are just in case

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a-ratt · 4 years

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Preface: There is a lot of salt in this post, be warned.

It's the anniversary for "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back" and all I'm seeing out there is people complaining about the Sequel Trilogy. Not because it had bad writing and poor choices in plot direction, but because of the “SJW propaganda and political bs”.

Like, come on, guys. I know they didn't live up to the standard that people want, but they're not total garbage. And if you're blaming everything on them being bad because they're "SJW propaganda and political bs", then you seriously need to start reading up on what kind of bs you're spitting out.

Politics and progressivism have always been a part of film. Leia Organa was a badass princess who didn't take shit from Han Solo and was the one who ended up saving him. Lando Calrissian was an awesome, suave character who bumped up to protagonist. The entire idea of Star Wars was based off of rebelling against a fascist, Nazi-inspired government.

And on the Sequel Trilogy, it's not total trash. It's trash, but it's fun trash. I'm not going to call them great, but there's a silver lining to everything.

The Force Awakens probably was just a copy-paste of A New Hope, but it gave us amazing introductions to Rey, Finn, Poe, and Kylo. (And also Hux, I fucking love that rat bastard) We got great moments and a lot of laughs. ("We'll use the Force." -Finn. "That's not how the Force works!" -Han) And I know people were let down by the final fight because a trained Sith Lord was taken down by a novice, but I love the idea that goes behind it. I love that Rey wins because she lets the Force flow through her, lets it guide her.

In no way do I see this being an attack on masculinity, just the representation of a female character and an African-American character.

The failure of the film is in its writing, not in its casting.

The Last Jedi. (Ugh, such a tragedy) I'll admit, it was a trainwreck of a plot. But it wasn't total garbage. You want to know why? We got character arcs and in-depth looks into how the characters work, as well as why they are who they are. Up until this movie, Finn was only fighting with the Resistance because he had the hots for Rey. Poe was a side character that was just a good pilot, but we got to see that he was an inspiring leader, but had the flaw that he was brash and somewhat prideful. Rey and Kylo? Amazing buildup in relationship and dynamic. And the part where Rey finds out about her parents? I love that. I love that there's this big plot twist that there is none. She's no one special, she's someone new. Someone that has the power to make change, not the newest link in a chain of people who've held power for generations.

Movie was still a trainwreck of a plot, but you know. Rian Johnson tried, I'll admit. I love the throne room battle, but I hate the attempt at subverting expectations with Snoke.

Finally, Rise of Skywalker. (Even more uuuggghhh)

First and foremost, I despise how they tried to rewrite The Last Jedi. There's trying to create the rest of the story, and there's disregarding everything that was built up beforehand. Like I said, there's a silverlining to everything, and the writers of RoS didn't see it.

The movie still has its moments, though. I love Lando coming back, I love Harrison Ford showing up out of fucking nowhere, and I love the character dynamics and interactions. Rey, Poe, and Finn feel like actual friends, their dialogue feels organic. Of course, we don't get to see much of everyone else because they decided to sideline everyone else and throw in new characters to replace them. Very salty about that. (Kelly Marie Tran, you and your character deserve so much better)

So, bottom line is, stop calling the Sequel Trilogy hot garbage because you have a preconceived notion that the racial and feminist representation in each film is meant to attack your masculinity and privilege. Just because they don't share your race, sex, gender, or identity overall doesn't give you the right to mock or attack them and the people who look up to them.

Thank you for coming to my TEDtalk.

#star wars #i am very salty about people bagging on the Sequel Trilogy without bothering to understand why they're bad

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torturedwarrior · 4 years

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How to help someone with OCD:

What is OCD (Obsessive- Compulsive Disorder)? Can people with OCD also have panic attacks? Are people with OCD who have unwanted thoughts about hurting someone at risk of acting on their fears? Is compulsive self-damaging behavior a form of OCD? OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) is a common mental wellbeing disorder capable of influencing people’s thoughts perceptions and behaviors. Not only does the condition impact the person dealing with the disorder. This may also influence his or her friends, family, one’s co-workers, and classmates.

Panic attacks may be found in OCD, but an underlying diagnosis of panic disorder should not be recognized unless the attacks occur out of nowhere. Many OCD patients report the experience of panic attacks after reaction to terrifying stimuli, such as a blood sign of someone with an AIDS addiction. In comparison to the panic disorder, the person in this case is not fearful of the panic attack; he or she is afraid of the consequences of the infection. There appears to be a discussion on the connection between "compulsive" self-damaging habits and OCD compulsions. As present, self-mutilation habits (e.g. extreme nail biting) should not be called compulsions until the diagnosis of OCD is made. Similarly, actions that actually cause physical harm to others are outside the boundaries of OCD.

If they really have OCD, the conclusion is no. Patients with OCD may have unreasonable concerns of acting on aggressive and inappropriate impulses, but they may not act on them. This act of violence is the most abhorrent thing they might picture. When treating an individual with aggressive or terrible feelings, the clinician will determine, based on clinical experience and medical background, whether these experiences are obsessions or part of the fantasy life of a potentially violent person. If this is the above, the patient needs support to regain self-control, not reassurance.

If dealing with any mental health conditions, reading about the disorder is the best place to start. Just because you’ve seen OCD depicted in shows or movies, it doesn’t imply you completely grasp the condition or effect that OCD has on the person with it. “People who live with OCD drag a metal sea anchor around, obsession is a break, a source of drug, not a badge of creativity, a mark of genius or an inconvenient side effect of some greater function.” -David Adam. “It’s like you have two brains- a rational brain and an irrational brain. And they’re constantly fighting.” -Emilie Ford. Like certain conditions, OCD can appear somewhat different from person to person, and keeping the mind open may help to improve the understanding of the disorder. For more knowledge, spend a lot of time listening to your loved one. Try to understand what they might be going through and how OCD makes them feel and act. Obsessions are persistent and uncontrollable feelings or perceptions that give rise to some degree of stress and anxiety, because the feelings are so unpleasant, the person is trying to stop or overcome them with thought or action. At this level, do not try to change their actions or question their way of thinking. Give affection, attention, and compassion to hear about their unique experience and to increasing whatever deception they use to cover up their symptoms.

Compulsions are act’s that people feel compelled to do to regulate obsessions or to avoid obsessions from becoming a reality. The connection between addiction and urge makes sense to the adult, but it may appear unconnected or irrational to an outside. “It’s like listening to a CD with an invisible scratch.” -Penny Hare. It’s not your job to treat your loved one, you just need to focus on being caring, loving support that they can use in their treatment and recovery. If you try to do too much your loved one could push back. One example is; A person could have obsessions about a loved one getting cancer, so they will create the compulsion of turning on and off a light switch three times to manage the fear. To your loved one, the association is real, but you realize there is no way a light switch could prevent cancer.

Compulsions involve a wide range of repetitive behaviors or mental act like, Checking and double checking, tapping and touching, washing, counting and/or repeating words or phrases to self. Most individuals may have minor obsessions or compulsions, but they can work all day. A major indication of diagnosable OCD is the tendency of an individual to spend large amounts of time on a person’s day. Because of the time needed to complete compulsions, the person may; Fail to complete tasks at home, school, or work, be late to appointments frequently, avoid scheduling events or committing to plans, seem distracted and stressed, and never leave their room or home.

No matter how the OCD of an individual shows, we should always treat them with respect and kindness because we will never know what it is like to deal with this mental illness. This means that we need to be mindful of the terms we use for individuals who have OCD. What we’re doing can either be very hurtful to them. Or it can life them up and encourage them to stay on the road to recovery. Here are eight saying we should not ever say to someone with OCD; One, “I’m so OCD”. Two, “You should just relax”, Three, “But you’re so messy”, Four, “That doesn’t make sense”, Five, “It’s all in your head”, Six, “You don’t look like you have OCD”, Seven, “Can’t you just stop”, and lastly eight, “I do that too, and I don’t have OCD. “It can look like still waters on the outside while a hurricane is swirling in your mind.” -Marcie Barber Phares. “It’s like a broken machine. Thoughts go in your head, get stuck and keeps going around and around.” -Megan Flynn. Most people with OCD fall into one of the following categories: Washers: are afraid of contamination. They usually have cleaning or hand-washing compulsions, Checkers: repeatedly check things (oven turned off, door locked, etc.) that they associate with harm or danger, Doubters and sinners: are afraid that if everything isn’t perfect or done just right something terrible will happen, or they will be punished, Counters and arrangers: are obsessed with order and symmetry. They may have superstitions about certain numbers, colors, or arrangements, Hoarders: fear that something bad will happen if they throw anything away. They compulsively hoard things that they don’t need or use. They may also suffer from other disorders, such as depression, PTSD, compulsive buying, kleptomania, ADHD, skin picking, or tic disorders.

Some thoughts and behaviors people think or do who have OCD. Common obsessive thoughts in OCD include: Fear of being contaminated by germs or dirt or contaminating others, Fear of losing control and harming yourself or others, Intrusive sexually explicit or violent thoughts and images, Excessive focus on religious or moral ideas, Fear of losing or not having things you might need, Order and symmetry: the idea that everything must line up “just right”, Superstitions; excessive attention to something considered lucky or unlucky. Common compulsive behaviors in OCD include: Excessive double-checking of things, such as locks, appliances, and switches, Repeatedly checking in on loved ones to make sure they’re safe, Counting, tapping, repeating certain words, or doing other senseless things to reduce anxiety, Spending a lot of time washing or cleaning, Ordering or arranging things “just so”, Praying excessively or engaging in rituals triggered by religious fear, Accumulating “junk” such as old newspapers or empty food containers. The way you react to your loved one's symptoms of OCD can have a major impact on their outlook and recovery. Negative comments or criticism can make OCD worse, while a calm, supportive environment can help to improve treatment results.

Avoid making personal criticisms. Remember, your loved one’s OCD behaviors are symptoms, not character flaws, don’t scold someone with OCD or tell them to stop performing rituals. They can’t comply, and the pressure to stop will only make the behaviors worse, Be as kind and patient as possible. Each sufferer needs to overcome problems at their own pace. Praise any successful attempt to resist OCD, and focus attention on positive elements in the person’s life, Do not play along with your loved one’s rituals. Going along with your loved one’s OCD “rules,” or helping with their compulsions or rituals will only reinforce the behavior. Support the person, not their compulsions, Keep communication positive and clear. Communication is important so you can find a balance between supporting your loved one and standing up to the OCD symptoms and not further distressing your loved one, Find the humor. Laughing together over the funny side and absurdity of some OCD symptoms can help your loved one become more detached from the disorder. Just make sure your loved one feels respected and in on the joke, don’t let OCD take over family life. Sit down as a family and decide how you will work together to tackle your loved one’s symptoms. Try to keep family life as normal as possible and the home a low-stress environment.

Work Cited:

Christiansen, Thomas. "How to Help Someone with OCD | The Recovery Village." Alcohol & Drug Rehab Programs & Facilities - The Recovery Village | The Recovery Village. The Recovery Village, 21 Sep 2019. Web. 7 Mar 2020. <http://www.therecoveryvillage.com/mental-health/ocd/related/how-to-help-someone-with-ocd/#gref>.

"Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) - HelpGuide.org." HelpGuide.org. Web. 7 Mar 2020. <http://www.helpguide.org/articles/anxiety/obssessive-compulsive-disorder-ocd.htm>.

"OCD Quotes, Sayings about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (30+ quotes) - CoolNSmart." Sayings and Quotes - CoolNSmart. Web. 7 Mar 2020. <http://www.coolnsmart.com/ocd_quotes/>.

Saccone, Lauren. "Never say these things to someone who has OCD | HelloGiggles." HelloGiggles: a Positive Community for Women. 27 Mar 2017. Web. 7 Mar 2020. <http://hellogiggles.com/lifestyle/health-fitness/things-never-say-ocd/>.

#writingblogs #writing #mental health #ocd #helpful #how to help

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littlemonstersau-blog · 5 years

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The Feels Awaken, Part 3: A New Hope (for Friendship)

Written by @jkl-fff, illustrated by me

PART I - PART II [Interlude] - PART III - PART IV [Interlude] - PART V [FINAL] (you are here)

——————————————————————————————–

A new day dawned then waxed then began to wane, but Ford and Bill hardly noticed. A manic, obsessive energy (plus an unhealthy amount of coffee and sugar) kept them focused throughout their self-appointed task. Such is often the case for the kind of people who feel the need to write to right a wrong in the world. Not all heroes wear capes, after all; some wear turtlenecks and trenchcoats, some wear paper-based clones of teenage boys produced through unholy abominations of SCIENCE!.

… For that matter, not all heroes are particularly heroic; some are morally ambiguous straddlers of the line between antihero and antivillain, some are demonic chaos gods who (quite frankly) still wonder how in the 79 Hells they found themselves in this position.

In the end, though it did take more than the one night, they still finished in just over 16 hours. The plot outline came in at just over 18 pages, which they tidily stacked together on the table and declared to be more than adequate … before passing out on the carpet. Facefirst.

When Bill next regained consciousness, he was in his attic bed and morning light was streaming through the window. His mouth tasted like an abandoned prison for criminally insane chalk and his head felt like the internal turmoil of a buzzsaw having an existential crisis. It was a pain that was anything but hilarious; it was the sugared caffeine hangover equivalent of nuclear fallout … Mouthwash fixed the first problem. The second took an adult dosage of aspirin, a lot of water, and deliberate manipulation of many of the clonesuit’s normally automatic processes for a full eight minutes. And even then, not completely.

“Guess I can’t pilot one of these things through 36+ hours of no sleep on a gallon of coffee … Not if I wanna be able to still maneuver it the next day without crashing every ten feet into a wall or the floor, at least,” he grumbled to himself. “Major design flaw … Can’t believe they got evolutionarily approved for mass production with such weak durability …”

Downstairs in the kitchen, Stan greeted him jovially enough. “Stancakes are up, and so are you, it seems. How you feelin’ today?”

“Honestly, confused,” Bill graveled, his clonesuit throat still raw. “I can get longterm possession of a meatbag leading to me—y’know, the real me—developing emotions and physical cravings and other … gross, brain-mush junk like that. Neurochemistry is basically just an addictive habit, like how people respond to hearing the question ‘What is love?’—”

“Baby, don’t hurt me. Don’t hurt me no more,” Stan mumbled automatically.

“Exactly. But what I don’t get is why the real me is also feeling this coffee and sugar hangover. No joke: I tried leaving my clonesuit to get away from it, but it followed me. How is that fair? And, yeah, existence isn’t fair,” Bill interjected before Stan automatically could. “But still …”

Like the benevolent and experienced sage he was (more or less), Stan chuckled to himself. Then, laying a companionable arm around Bill’s shoulders, he leaned in and whispered the truth as grimly as Death itself, “You can outrun your sins, but you can never outrun a hangover.”

“W-wha?”

“Some say if you never stop drinkin’, it’ll never catch up with you. But they are fools. Sooner or later, all things must sleep—sooner or later, all who drink must suffer.”

“Uh … K-kinda freakin’ me out here.” Bill tried to lean away, but Stan’s hold was inescapable. “And, just sayin’, I’m kinda responsible for making most of the 79 Hells as freaky as they are.”

“Heed my warning, child.”

“I’m heeding! I’m heeding! Elder Gods, Stan, the only one who’s supposed to give people nightmares around here is me …”

Straightening up, Stan went back to the stove to continue what passed for cooking with him. “Once you’re done eatin’, by the way, I gotta plate for you to take down to Ford. He prob’ly needs some food and water more ‘n you do.”

Between mouthfuls of food, Bill said, “Yeah, sure … You seen what we wrote, by the way?”

“Yeah. It’s not bad at all. I’d def’nitely go see movies like that. Might even pay my own money for it, too. Heh … Even Soos admitted the storylines are better. Haven’t seen him that downcast ‘bout anything in a while, either. Looked as painful for him as cutting out his own kidney. Might have to do something nice for him soon just to make up for it,” Stan added to himself.

“Huh … Yeah, maybe …” Bill chewed on his breakfast, almost starting to maybe feel guilty. Then, when he finished, he put his dishes in the sink, picked up what was meant for Ford, and took it down to the lab.

Ford, as usual, was at his desk. He was hunched over with a pen, which was also fairly usual. However, and this was very unusual, all his notes and Journals had been pushed into a corner—neatly stacked, but well out of the way. Close to hand, as if for quick reference, was actually their Cosmos Conflicts storyline.

Bill cleared his throat. “Brought some breakfast for ya from Stan.” He set it on the desk, but away from any of the papers (just in case). “How you feeling? I woke up with a caffeine hangover I couldn’t escape even when I left my body. Er, clonsuit. Whatever. Same dif.”

“… I didn’t really sleep very deeply,” Ford eventually replied, his voice as hoarse as Bill’s. “Ergo, I can’t really say I woke up with such a hangover, but I’m suffering one all the same.”

“Yeesh, that sucks. Taken anything? Had some water and some food? That helped me.”

“Some water and aspirin, yes, though I’m not sure I could keep much food down … I suppose I ought to try, anyway.”

“If you feel more rotten than a two-week-old apple core, why are you working?” Bill asked, sliding the plate closer.

“I’m not really working, per se,” Ford answered guiltily. “Just … sketching. Some stuff. For what we came up with.”

Bill’s eyes lit up with interest. “Ooo! Really? Can I see? Please?”

For a moment, Ford’s jaw worked. As though trying to control himself.

“It’s okay,” Bill said hurriedly, though unable to fully contain his disappointment. “I get it. I’ll leave you al—”

A couple pages’ worth of images (some rough sketches, some little more than absent doodles, and some rather intricate and detailed) were thrust at the Demon. “Here. Can’t see any harm in you looking at them, anyway, so …” Ford mumbled. Without looking up, he cut in to his food. “Was just doing this since I’m too awake and restless to just not do anything, but too … wooly in the head, I suppose you could say, to do any productive work.”

Bill poured over them, delighting in the imaginative whimsy of them. Most were of characters from the prequels, though with distinctive touches—touches reflecting their own collaboration (such as Otherkin in a stained pilot’s attire, Imdolledupa aiming ruthlessly with a blaster, and Jelived Knights wearing a different style of clothing from Jelived Sentinels or Jelived Healers). But some were very different, especially among the doodles. “Ha! You made a Soos Wookie!”

Ford couldn’t resist smiling. “Soosbacca. Co-pilot to Stan Solo.”

“In their spaceship, the Mystery Falcon, right? Is Melody a Wookie, too?”

“Huh … That’s not a bad idea, actually. I was having a hard time seeing how to fit her in, since she isn’t really the Princess Leia type.”

“But Mabel and—pff!—Dipper are?” Bill snorted, pointing to where they were both sketched with the iconic braids wrapping around their ears. “Both of them together?”

“Well, they’re also both Luke, since I couldn’t really pick who fit which roll better.”

“Two sets of the twins running around, huh?” Bill murmured, though he was really thinking about two Dippers (and they weren’t running around, either—they were very much not running). “… And Wendy’s Lando, I see. Am I Yoda, since I’m the most triangular or everybody, and the right size?”

“Uh …” Ford hesitated.

“Pff, it’s alright, I can already see 3PO and R2 are both me.”

Lamely, the Weirdologist explained, “Because you’re shiny. That’s the extent of the logic.”

“You gonna do any more sketches?”

“Assuming I can keep breakfast down, probably,” Ford said around a mouthful. “It’s … distracting. And fun. And relaxing, too. Helps to pass the time on a down day like this.”

“Um … M-mind if I stay and watch? Please?” Bill almost begged. “Y’know how much I love watching you meatbags make art.”

“… Oh, fine,” Ford relented. Because what was the harm in being nice to the Demon? Ford didn’t have to trust him for that. “Just don’t make any noise. My head aches enough as it is.”

Bill mimed zipping his lips and throwing away the key before pulling up a chair and settling himself comfortably beside Ford. The only time he broke his silence after that was to ask Ford if he wanted more water, and to assert that the others would get a kick out of seeing these sketches (“especially Soos … the Twins, too, though we’d have to text ‘em a photo of ‘em, or mail the whole project to ‘em to see …”).

All in all, it turned out to be a rather nice day for both of them together.

#little monsters au #the feels awaken #bipper #stanford #bill cipher #writing #fanfiction #please excuse the dopey ass looking star wars sketches #also omfg this is finished finallyyyy #submission

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discyours · 5 years

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I finished watching the latest season of Shameless and it’s reaffirmed to me how terrible this show is at LGBT representation so I’m gonna complain about it. Spoiler warning, obviously.

Okay so first of all, Ian and Mickey were one of the best parts of this show. I’m not a gay man so my opinion on this is not that valuable, but as far as I know it was very well received by the gay community. Their relationship was as raw and as realistic as everything else that’s good about this show. How uncommon is it, even now, for media to show that guys like Mickey can be gay? How uncommon is it for them to show a genuine connection between growing up being shaped by an environment like Mickey’s and the way he deals with his sexuality, rather than just creating a character that never took on any part of their upbringing because they were simply too camp to fit in. The way Mickey and Ian both felt about their sexuality very much shaped their relationship at the start of it, but it grew from there. The writers didn’t make the mistake of making the relationship about the fact that it was gay. Neither character was killed off, the relationship was very on-and-off but wasn’t intentionally cut short, and they didn’t shy away from showing on-screen affection while also (in my opinion) not coming off as fetishistic either. Mickey and Ian was everything that is usually done wrong done right, and unfortunately the only real example of that on this show.

The Kash storyline actually came before Mickey, but I wanted to start this post off with a positive example so I didn’t sound too salty. I have mixed feelings about how realistic this one was, and since I’m not a gay man I really don’t think it’s my place to state whether it was or not. But one thing is for sure; it wasn’t positive. I mean, it’s an affair between a seriously underage Ian (I think he was around 15 in the first season?) and his significantly older, married with children employer. Kash is also middle-eastern so this story fed into both homophobic and racist stereotypes.

In season 2 Ian sleeps with yet another married man: Ned/Lloyd (Jimmysteve’s father). Lloyd is even older than Kash (likely 50s/60s) while Ian is still underage. Lloyd describes his sexuality as “anything that walks” meaning this isn’t actually bad gay representation, but terrible bi representation.

Jumping ahead to season 6 (after Ian has been working in a gay club and had many hookups, but no real relationships aside from Mickey so nothing worth mentioning), Ian started dating Caleb, a black firefighter. Caleb turns out to be HIV positive but the show (in my opinion) handles it extremely well, making it a point that it’s possible to manage it with medication to the point where you can’t transmit it to anyone. It was a genuinely great, healthy relationship, until they decided to make Caleb cheat with a woman. Again, terrible bi representation, and once they’ve broken up the experience leads to Ian attempting to have straight sex too. It’s something a lot of gay men go through so I don’t think it was necessarily bad to add it to the show, but I do take issue with that even being needed as a plot device to show that Ian is truly gay, as that’s the way a lot of society views homosexuality too.

Shortly after this, Trevor is introduced. Like I said, I’m not a gay man so my opinion on all of the former was of limited value, but I am a trans man and dear fucking god I hated Trevor’s story. Trevor is the embodiment of a character whose only defining trait is that they are LGBT. He’s overly sensitive to anyone not being immediately understanding about trans issues, and his relationship with Ian infuriated me. Trevor was offended that Ian lost interest upon finding out that he was trans, and the show made it seem like he was in the right for it. Ian apologised and they end up dating. They end up fucking. All this right after having shown that Ian tried to sleep with the opposite sex and absolutely hated it. Pure virtue signaling and my personal annoyance that every trans person in Trevor’s friend group was shown to be an “SJW snowflake” who had to introduce themselves with their pronouns is worthless next to the genuine harm that was done by showing that gay men can and totally should sleep with the opposite sex as long as they’re trans.

I don’t even want to move on from that because of how genuinely terrible it is, but let’s do so anyway because there’s more. Further building on the pattern of terrible bi representation, there was the minor season 1/2 character Jasmine. She’s married but unfaithful, and her showing interest in women is seen as a part of her being so “free spirited”, if you can call it that.

The “throuple” between Kev, Vee and Svetlana is another example. This post is getting long but I mean, for god’s sake can this show have a single bi character that isn’t super promiscuous if not a fucking unicorn? Every bi woman who’s ever used dating apps deserves to be mad at this storyline.

Now for the thing that actually got me to write this post; the lesbian representation in this show. The first lesbian we see is Bob/Roberta, in season 1 and 2. She’s a literal stereotype as an extremely butch truck driver, dating a woman who is generally presumed to be straight. She and Monica try to take Liam away on the basis that he’s black and needs a black parent. Just like with Kash, this is doubly negative representation. She’s a minor character and all she does is “turn” a character by being so butch, and try to steal a fucking baby.

In early season 9 this stereotyping stunt is repeated. Debbie meets Alex, another black woman so butch that she’s introduced as someone who’s passing as a man. Alex makes Debbie question her sexuality (though Debbie is later revealed to be bi, she wasn’t at this point so this was still falling into the “straight woman is ‘turned’ by an ultra-butch lesbian” trope) and they move in together right away. When they have lunch together after an argument, Alex spends hours talking about all of her exes, eventually reaching a point where Debbie can’t take it anymore and leaves.

Also introduced in season 9 is Carl’s girlfriend, Kelly. When this character was introduced it was immediately obvious to me that she was coded to seem like a lesbian. She's the daughter of an army officer and plays softball, and just about everything about the way she looks and acts seemed gay. I initially thought that they made this character date Carl to kill any suspicions of her being a lesbian before they could begin, but then they actually turned “queer baiting” (not my term) into a plotline. They made her character flirt with Debbie, made Debbie try to “steal” her from Carl (again, a bi character not respecting established relationships), and very much hinted at a relationship happening. The preview for season 9 episode 13 showed them kissing, and they still ended that story with her being straight and apologising for accidentally leading Debbie on.

I’ll throw in an honorable mention to Lea Delaria’s very brief appearance as a character so minor I can’t even remember what it was called; Lip’s potential AA sponsor; another ultra-butch stereotype, and an asshole. Oh and there was the whole gentrification plotline, where a bunch of rich lesbian couples (you guessed it, stereotypes!) moved into the southside. And Ford’s exes that Fiona met when she went bowling, which were barely actual characters and more of a joke about how gay they looked and how Ford clearly had a type. With Kelly being revealed as straight, the closest this show has ever gotten to a lesbian character that took actual part in the plot beyond being a stereotype was the lesbian couple in Fiona’s apartment building, and they still had one of them sleep with a man (off-screen, luckily) as a Totally Necessary Measure to get pregnant.

Shameless was genuinely one of my favourite shows and it wasn’t too hard to look past most of this at first, considering so many characters are terrible people anyway. But I can’t ignore the flaws at this point. This goes beyond comedy and I’m almost angry that Shameless has ruined itself for me just by being homophobic.

#OP #shameless #shameless US #LGBT representation #ok to reblog #long post #this post is non-exhaustive btw I'm 99% sure I've forgotten a few things

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friendlycybird · 6 years

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1X11 - Little Dipper - Rewatch

Yes, I’m still doing these. I’m sorry it’s been so long.

I don’t have much preamble to this one. Let’s just get started, shall we?

Hang on, I need to listen to the things Gideon lists from Journal 2 again real quick... Zombie attack, Blood rain, and Demon Caterpillars. Ford devotes a decent amount of Journal 3 to The Undead, were those pages a redundancy from Journal 2? I’d think it was just additional information but it all seemed pretty fundamental... regardless, I’m a lot more curious then I should be about Blood Rain and Demon Caterpillars.

Stan’s first reaction to someone who *might* be from the IRS showing up on his doorstep is to vanish in a puff of smoke and try to escape with his money stash. ...I’m probably overthinking this, but it seems there’s some stuff to unpack there. I won’t waste any more time on it for now. Moving on.

So not only did Stan instantly figure out it was a con, he figured out Gideon was behind the con. I’d love to know how. Is it just that he doesn’t currently have any other enemies? Or does he think so little of the scheme he assumes it could only have been thought up by a ten-year-old? I mean, it’s obvious why he didn’t fall for it, he never entered any sweepstakes and he’s not an idiot. But how did he know who was behind it? And he had to have known who was behind it otherwise he’d have left it at “suck a lemon”.

Ah, right back into form. I’m only to the themesong and I already have three paragraphs. Nice.

Okay but. How did Soos notice a literal millimeter? That’s totally impossible. One millimeter apart they look the exact same height, how did he just...know...that Mabel was taller?

Stan waking up super excited to make fun of someone is funny. Also, paused to type this and I’m loving their expressions. Mabel is just grinning, Dipper’s fuming, Stan is excited and Soos...well...Soos just looks...slightly concerned. I love Soos. And of course he goes on to recommend against giving Dipper TOO hard of a time. I kinda doubt Stan actually misinterpreted it as Soos joining in picking on Dipper since like...he’s known Soos for years... but more like he just saw an opening Soos left and took it.

Also I COMPLETELY forgot that Mabel high-fives hard enough to hurt Stan. People high-fiving hard enough to hurt others always makes me think of Miles Luna from Rooster Teeth? But also I desperately need a fic now where Ford and Mabel high-six, and then Mabel leaves the room and Ford kinda shakes his hand out a bit and Stan just like...smirks ‘cause he saw that coming.

Literally a foot to the left and Dipper would have been in so much trouble with that Mountain Lion...

Fic Fuel moment of the day: The giant butterfly. ...how many other animals do you think wander through those enlarging beams? How many of them do you think suddenly get a lot more dangerous when they do? ...Just in case anyone needs a random threat in the woods to send people running from for plot reasons. I’m sure I’m not the first to think of it but I still thought of it!

There Soos is, noticing millimeters again. I think it might be a thing. Your average Gravity Falls character has one borderline paranormal ability. Mabel can knit sweaters superhumanly fast, and Soos can see individual millimeters.

Paused again for a bit, and look at Soos’ face! He’s so happy for Dipper!

How does Mabel jump from “Magic thing” to “Wizard in the closet” and then remain CONVINCED there is a Wizard in the closet?

Y’know...that distracting Gideon bit was kinda a risk? Like it paid off and the termites totally backfired on Gideon but like. The jar coming open could STILL have set those things lose on the shack. The only way I could imagine Stan knew how that would play out is if Journal 1 had a more detailed entry on those things then Journal 2 so Stan knew they’d turn on Gideon? Otherwise...pure luck.

...does the whole bit where they’re fighting and randomly re-sizing parts of each other’s bodies remind anyone else of the episode of Rick and Morty where Summer uses that re-sizing machine and ends up...y’know. Like that.

I kinda love Dipper’s flat “really?” when Mabel accadently tells Gideon what the flashlight does.

Say, where’d Fiddleford get the money he shoved at Bud?

Gideon is creepy, full stop.

Mabel getting distracted by gummy koalas that are literally almost her size while Gideon interrogates Dipper is...one thing.

The thing that strikes me though...is that...Dipper has known this whole time that there were other journals. He has Journal 3, after all. But there’s never been any indication he’s so much as tried to go looking for the others? Gideon, on the other hand, gets one whiff of Journal 1, having no clue that Journal 3 even exists, and starts interrogating Dipper about it.

It occurs to me to be SO grateful that Gideon never realized he could just kill Dipper, thereby proving his violent intent to Stan, and STILL ransom Mabel for the shack.

Also, I really should’ve known what kind of visual to expect from the near end of this episode the minute I saw Soos in the room of mirrors.

It’s come to my attention that I overanalyize every goddamn word that comes out of Stan’s mouth. Emphasis on Over. Because like, a glance in the mirror and wondering about a random physical feature isn’t that...like it doesn’t actually merit much if any consideration. But I’ve been stuck for much longer then I’m going to admit to trying to form the question... was the complete thought behind “Were my ears always this big?” more in the direction of “have I changed that much in the last thirty years” or more “were my ears always noticeably different then Fords?” ...or was it, as I genuinely think is most likely, just a passing thought without a connection to anything and my brain just really needs to get its breaks checked?

And can’t let Soos trying on the Fez go without mention. Not much to say about it, except that it makes me kinda warm and fuzzy to know that when he says “One Day” he’s right.

Gideon also really should have opened with something a bit more convincing then a phone call? Like...he’s a fucking creep but he’s also kinda bad at being a fucking creep? Which. Is technically a huge relief but it sorta fucks with my villain brain.

...I want to be mad at Dipper and Mabel for getting distracted by the height thing, but they’re twelve. I can forgive them. I love Mabel trying to ride the hamster to freedom though.

Gideons family has a doggie door but there’s no sign they have a dog.

Hey, why was Susan at the bus stop if she wasn’t gonna get on the bus?

Yet again my villain brain scolds Gideon some. Not for not having a better plan this time, but just for his obvious flaw of vanity. Getting a gummy koala in your hair shouldn’t delay your plot, it should speed it up because you know someone is trying to stop you.

Gideons observation that they would have defeated him if not for their bickering seems a little...I think the phrase is On the Nose? But. Kids show, it’s allowed lines like that. That said, Dipper. If she brings you back to unequal heights you can take the flashlight back and FIX IT. It’s not that big of a deal.

Hi. Soos uses his own name as a verb for messing up. I’m okay. It’s funny. ...it also hurts.

Soos is ADORABLE. I can’t get distracted by that though. This is about important stuff about the episode. Stuff that at least pretends to be worth over-thinking. Which means I really need to focus on Mabel and Dipper making up. Mabel doing something that makes Dipper upset, but she does it explicitly as a reaction to Dipper’s behavior is...well it has some rather more lighthearted parallels to some of the elder Pines twins drama, doesn’t it?

Stan in the mirror maze just makes me happy though. I can’t help but feel like some part of him was going “I’ve always wanted to do this” the whole time.

So, I pause the episode to ponder if I want to make a big deal out of Soos’ reaction to falling off of Gideon being to shout “Tell my story!” because, y’know, there’s something to talk about there...and my partner decides to fill the silence making a joke about it. She starts singing “Who lives, who dies, who tells your story” from Hamilton, and I crack up laughing. Had to pass that along. I really do think there’s something to be said about Soos as a person from that reaction though. Hell if I can identify exactly what, but there’s something.

...villain brain is scolding Gideon again. If he hadn’t stopped to monologue, he would have succeeded. It took a minute for Dipper and Mabel to get into position for tickling, and in that minute he could’ve taken the time to shrink Stan...but for some reason he wanted to make threats and back him literally against a wall first.

I love Stan’s awkwardness when Gideon devolves into hysterics. I love even more that he actually tried to comfort Gideon a little before physically rolling him out of the shop.

I felt really bad for Soos here, being forgotten like that. I still do, honestly. I love him so much. Of course...that was also their first confirmation that Soos was okay after that fall. ...Which also feels bad ‘cause for all they knew at that point Soos was dead. Yikes. Also, I wonder if they ended up just somehow gluing that crystal back together, or if they went out into the woods for another one.

The scene at the end with the grand-prize check showing up at the door...did Stan actually not play a sweepstakes like I thought above and this new thing is somehow a mistake, or does he just...not for one second consider he’s lucky enough to have actually won? Fidds being the runner-up is also interesting, he’s just...not ready for that kind of money yet.

I always feel like I need a better way to wrap these up then just my reaction to the ending, but I pretty much never have one. Sorry.

#Gravity Falls #cybird says things #Little Dipper

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drakorn · 6 years

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My Current Top 10 Musicals

So, I thought I’d just make a little list of the musicals that I personally consider to be my absolute favourite ones at this point in time. This list will obviously change again when I find a musical that I like more than one on this list. Anyway, here’s my list, if anyone’s interested XD (Btw, I’m only talking stage musicals here, so if you see any musical that was also a movie, I am talking about the stage version).

But first...some honourable mentions that I still adore but didn’t make it into my Top 10: The Phantom of the Opera, Anastasia, Ludwig II, Mozart!, The Lion King and Jesus Christ Superstar.

PS: All of this is opinion-based. Of course, you will disagree with me at some point, that is just natural. And it’s great that everyone has different tastes!

10 - The Lord of the Rings: A LOT of people have not heard about this musical, but it actually exists. It’s nothing fan-made or anything, it’s an actual official musical adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, not the Peter Jackson movies but the actual Tolkien epic. It ran in Canada and the UK and was even supposed to make its way to Germany. Of course, it has changes in it because adapting the entire story into a three-hour stage musical is an impossible task. It’s also the only musical I know of that consists of three acts rather than two. There is actually a cast recording available with the main songs in it. Like, honestly, I personally just love this musical. For instance, take a listen to Galadriel’s big solo:

youtube

I know, I’m most likely in the minority here, but for me personally, The Lord of the Rings is one of the best musicals out there and it’s an absolute shame that it’s not performed more often.

9 - Wicked: I am an absolute fan of seeing the story from the antagonist’s point of view and understand all of their motives. Wicked is one of the best examples out there as it takes the classic tale The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and gives it a darker and more serious spin, mainly because the Wicked Witch of the West is now the protagonist. I know, this musical is loved by everyone and makes it into pretty much everyone’s top list, but...honestly, it really deserves it. The songs are amazing and the story is very touching, especially the relationship between Elphaba and Glinda. I love villain origin stories, and to this day, the part where Elphaba decides to embrace her role as the antagonist of the story still sends shivers down my spine. No Good Deed still counts as one of my favourite villain songs. I have seen this musical twice and would gladly go again whenever I get the chance to do so!

8 - Rudolf - Affaire Mayerling: Ok, so this is a little bit of a controversial situation for me. I LOVE historical musicals. I just love them. However, this musical is REALLY not what you would call historically accurate. However, to me, it doesn’t really matter. When I look at it from a musical theatre point of view, it’s actually really entertaining! I have never seen this musical live, only watched the DVD and listened to the cast recordings but I would LOVE to see it live once. The songs are so good! While the story is not the best, the music is phenomenal in my opinion. And it also has one of the most catchy villain songs to be ever put on stage: Die Fäden in der Hand. Yes, this musical has MANY flaws, I don’t deny that. The cheesy and historically non-existent romance between Rudolf and Mary is not really the best thing to watch (seriously, why didn’t they include Mizzi Caspar instead of Mary, that would have made MUCH more sense for the love aspect). But it also has a lot going for it, like the actual songs. It is still one of my favourite musicals.

7 - Dracula: Many people consider Frank Wildhorn’s best piece to be Jekyll and Hyde. I personally think that Dracula is that best piece. Sure, it had a very wonky start and the majority of the good and memorable songs came along when the musical came to Austria, but it’s also the Austrian version that I got to hear and see first (not live unfortunately but hooray to cast recordings). It’s an adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula...but more the Francis Ford Coppola film rather than the actual book. The romance aspect between Dracula and Mina is not the strongest part of the piece by far, however, when the story isn’t about the romance, the music is actually really fantastic! Oh, and it also has my favourite ever confrontation song: Zu Ende. I REALLY want to see this musical live. Why does it never come to Austria again? It had a fantastic run in Graz! And why can’t there be one German-speaking version of this musical that actually sticks to the gothic aesthetic? Oh well, a man can dream.

6 - Artus - Excalibur: Frank Wildhorn seems to be getting on this list very often, eh? Oh well, what can I say? I just love a lot of his source material. Artus - Excalibur is by no means an accurate representation of the Arthurian legend. However, what it does good is: it gives the tale its own spin. It doesn’t even try to be a step-by-step recreation, it’s completely its own thing. And I liked it. A lot actually. I saw it two times, one time in St. Gallen and one time in Staatz. Both times I absolutely loved it. It has great music and a solid story. However, the songs are by far the best part of it. It also has one of my favourite ensemble pieces: Morgen triffst du den Tod. This is one of those musicals I could watch over and over again without getting bored at all. Whenever it gets put on again, I will try to be there!

5 - Les Misérables: Ok, of course this was going to be on here. Les Mis is just the definition of an epic and emotional megamusical that is guaranteed to touch everyone’s heart at some point. Now, the fun thing is, the first time I saw Les Mis was in the cinema...when the movie came out in 2012. I know, shame on me, but I actually really liked the movie. When I was in London, I went to see the stage musical and I was blown away! It was so amazing and powerful! Javert is my personal favourite character. But I also saw Tam Mutu as Javert in London and this guy is just having a total blast in this role. Needless to say that Stars is probably my favourite song in the musical. Also, this musical is very relevant, even in today’s world, just like Victor Hugo said himself. The melodies are great, the story is great and the characters are great. What’s not to love?

4 - Rebecca: Not everyone’s favourite musical but definitely one of mine. I think, one of the reasons why I love it so much is the whole mystery and thriller aspect it has going for it. It truly captured the spirit of Daphne du Maurier’s novel and brought it on stage. The set design is beautiful, the music is great, you can’t go wrong with Sylvester Levay, and Michael Kunze once again delivered with a great script. Plus, the title song has got to be one of the most menacing songs in german-speaking musical theatre, especially when sung by the right actress. It’s a musical I would really like to see live...and one that I would wish, the VBW would finally bring back! Come on, what’s stopping you guys? Tecklenburg had a fantastic run last summer!

3 - The Hunchback of Notre Dame: I love it when Disney decides to just go dark for once. The movie is seen as Disney’s darkest animated movie. Well, it’s nice to see that the stage musical is also the darkest stage musical Disney has put on. While the movie still had a lot of the classic Disney tropes going for it, the musical gets rid of those and adds tragedy on par with Les Mis, meaning, keeping the actual book ending in the show. Also, a surprisingly large amount of Brecht and Greek Chorus was added to the show and it works really well! However, the Disney songs stay and it works as a great combination! Making Frollo the Archdeacon again adds so much more weight to the Hellfire song, and overall all the characters are extremely well-rounded. I have listened to the cast recordings and would really like to see this show live once!

2 - Elisabeth: As I said before, I absolutely love historical musicals. And Elisabeth is my favourite of those. It isn’t exactly told as a history piece but more of a dark retelling in a Danse Macabre style. Seeing the story being told from Elisabeth’s murderer’s point of view was a very clever idea. It also gave us the characters of Death and Elisabeth, some of the best musical theatre characters ever in my opinion. Every single character in this show has great opportunities to shine. The music is phenomenal and this piece single-handedly catapulted Austria and the VBW into the top charts of musical theatre producers. Also...it REALLY makes you want to be a history student! Honestly, it did that with me! As soon as I watched Elisabeth, I wanted to find out everything about the Habsburgs XD Also, this is probably the musical I have seen the most out of any. I believe to have seen it at least 15 times when it was last running in Vienna...and the fun thing is, I didn’t even like it that much when I saw it the first time! That WOW factor hit me later when I was listening to the cast recording...it happens.

1 - Tanz der Vampire: Was that really a surprise for people who follow my blog? Tanz der Vampire is my favourite musical of all time and will always retain this position. It is the piece that got me not only into musical theatre but in theatre in general. It got me into wanting to study Drama and Creative Writing, it sparked a lot of my current interests and influenced a lot of my life decisions. Tanz der Vampire has everything going for it: a great story, fantastic music, very good moral lessons, beautiful and lush sets and probably one of the best characters to ever grace the musical theatre stage: Graf von Krolock, undoubtedly the arch-nemesis of Erik Destler in the race for the rank of best cape-swishing gothic lover. It also has a very untraditional story, breaking clichés and tropes left and right, just as Roman Polanski intended. It has the perfect mixture of being dark and serious but also utterly hilarious. And it has probably one of the longest and most powerful solos of any musical in my opinion: Die unstillbare Gier. I want to see the musical more than I already have, which is 11. It’s just THAT good. For me personally, there is no better musical than Tanz der Vampire.

Ok, I know, a lot of people will disagree with me now, but as I said: this entire list is opinion-based. I would really be interested to know your Top 10 musicals :D

#Musicals #Top 10 #The Lord of the Rings #Wicked #Rudolf - Affaire Mayerling #Dracula #Artus - Excalibur #Les Misérables #Rebecca #The Hunchback of Notre Dame #Elisabeth #Tanz der Vampire

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whitelippedviper · 7 years

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Spoiler filled explanation of why I didn’t feel Blade Runner 2049

So Gosling just happens to be the replicant on the force with the shared memories of the one girl, so the 6-20-21 thing means something to him. And then when he’s standing in that market, the leader of the replicant resistance just happens to see him and send her crew his way. And then his hologirl just happens to then hire a sex worker from that same crew. So that that crew member can put a tracker on him. And then Luv just happens to not kill him and just leaves him behind while she takes Harrison Ford...SO the resistance can find him and he can show up at just the right moment to save Ford who is being transported offworld...because for some reason Leto has to have him offworld to torture him, even though he is completely off the grid by this point in time. Oh and Leto just happens to be taking separate transport from Ford and Hoeks. OH and then it turns out that Rachel’s daughter just HAPPENS to be the only memory artist that Gosling talked to. Like there’s all these memory artists, but she’s the one he goes to, so he can show her her own memory. And I know there is a line of dialog where Leto’s character intimates that all of this is by design to bring about the next stage of human evolution. That all of these outlandish coincidences are okay, because they’re supposed to be happening that way. And that’s fine, but it would pack more weight if it was ten percent less forced.

2. The Ana De Armas character absolutely got fridged. Which is a shame because how a replicant sees an AI that doesn’t have a real body was pretty interesting, and they could have done a lot more with it. She’s basically the only real angel in the film. She’s an avatar of whatever machine consciousness is concievably pulling the strings of everything. So it’s a big deal when she gives up that immortality to be with Gosling and be real. And it would have paid off had it not been like “yeah but you could die” and then the next scene she's in is...her dying. All so you as the audience can be like “oh no that poor man. He’s gotta get revenge on Hoeks now! What a bitch!” like her whole character arc is just to exist so she can die and pump up the male protagonist. Which is the definition of fridging a character. It’s like they thought up that excellent beautiful touching sex scene, and then didn’t know what to do with the character after that. Like motherfuckers, watch a Ghost in the Shell one time!!!! Whispers in the machine!!! A Puppet master!!! Replicant reawakening!!! Agh. Such a waste.

3. Speaking of wastes, Luv. The Sylvia Hoeks character...who btw was designed to look asian:https://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/107906330.html Setting THAT aside for a moment. Luv is presented to us as a super capable devious antagonist who is meant to represent interests outside of Gosling’s arc. Ostensibly she’s meant to be Batty, but the situation is inverted where Gosling is the rebelling replicant, and she’s the company girl--but we get this great scene where she kills Gosling’s boss (another woman brutally murdered in this film...keeping up with blade runner traditions I guess) and we see that she’s probably capable of rebelling against Leto. So we have this complete badass, but she’s basically relegated to being Leto’s secretary, and has no real affinity for other replicants. Her only memorable thing that she says is “I’m the best” shortly before Gosling inexplicably drowns her..so I guess she wasn’t actually the best? I mean there was so much potential for her as an antagonist but as with De Armas character she’s shackeled between a couple dudes. She’s subservient to Leto’s character, who is inexplicablly violent toward his own creations, even though he wants to have them take over the world, just like the resistance(I’d assume in a sequel we’d find out that he’s actually behind the resistance--it’s all very Matrix). And then when she’s not Leto’s lapdog, she’s just kinda following Gosling around nipping at his heels. She then dies stupidly--like when Roy dies, it’s after a huge protracted symbolism laden fight that he actually wins! I get that Luv and K fighting in the water is supposed to be like an evolution thing--but I don’t understand why K is a superior replicant to Luv that he’d win in a fight. I was actually waiting for the scales to fall off Luv’s eyes the whole movie and for her to spare K because she finally sees the whole game, not just...lose in a strangle off. I mean, my life didn’t need more imagery of a dude choking a woman out under water. But really what did Luv really do in this film? She was just kind of there whenever K got in a corner to move the plot to the next place. I mean if she doesn’t attack Deckard and K in Vegas, then...what? It just happens so we have an excuse to kill another 2 women(the rachel knockoff plus Luv). But because the resistance has a tracker in K’s pocket, you could have them just show up and take Ford and K straight Deckard’s daughter and you don’t really miss anything, and the movie would be like 30 minutes shorter. 4. Was reuniting Deckard with his daughter really worth all of that? Feel like Deckard was fine living out his days drinking in Vegas. And the resistance already knew where the daughter was. And if it’s revealed that Leto’s machine god is controlling everything--it gets even more pointless. 5. Where did all the asians go? The movie says there was a mass famine that killed a lot of people off--but that doesn’t explain how much whiter LA got between movies. Even if the famine did kill off a lot of asians, why would there suddenly be so many more white people? Like Deckard’s apartment is all white people, and then the orphanage is all white kids--like where did they come from? And two movies in and we still don’t know why replicants are all white? And why did they make Hoeks look asian instead of just making an asian replicant? The racial dynamics made up a huge aspect of the original film and world--to eradicate that off camera is really...weird. There’s like not even any real remnants of the languages that were present in the first film.

6. Why would you design replicants that need oxygen? Like they are supposed to be going into space to colonize all of these far reaching harsh outposts--and you make them need oxygen? I mean it works out great because they needed Luv to drown to fit their evolution metaphor. But I am just like...that’s a dumb design flaw. In general, replicants are supposed to be the next stage of human evolution--so why give them so many of the same ways to die as humans? I don’t get that. I mean compare these replicants to David in the Alien/Prometheus series. Dude gets beheaded and just keeps on ticking. You couldn’t choke David. And Wallace the next series up from David actually self-repairs! The nexus series ain’t shit. But hey. It serves the plot. 7. Of course Harrison Ford has a dog, because audiences love dogs. Aww he drinks whiskey. 8. Tell me one more time how replicants are like angels. In the original blade runner, you could just quote some milton, and we could make the connection ourselves. Just the language in the new version is so spare and uninteresting. I get that this is a gosling film, and so it’s all about this empty vessel we project the movies feelings into--but the interactions between Roy, Priss, and their creators is so fucking charged, and fascinating. Even when we have space for that sort of thing with the Leto/Luv/Deckard/Rachel scene no one really has anything to say. There’s just a stunning lack of beautiful words in this film.

9. 2.0 is not 1.0. There’s a really powerful moment in The Sarah Connor Chronicles where they talk about how whenever you replace part of a machine consciousness, either in its programming or hardware it ceases to be what it was--the original being you knew is dead, and what you are dealing with is a new entity. I thought Deckard would say something to this affect with Rachel, but instead they just used Rachel’s corpse basically to show to underscore the idea that memories fade. Rachel’s eyes weren’t actually green, and Leto and Luv know that because the one video they have of Rachel is of her eyes. It’s crazy to me that Leto’s character is so violent toward his creations. Just in a really banal way. Like we have that scene that exists for him to explain to Luv his grand vision for reproduction with replicants--and he caps it off by disemboweling a newly born creation of his. (She is of course another woman--the amount of women that die in service of just making a rhetorical point in this movie is pretty high--which that’s fine if that’s how you want to be, but at least the OG film lets Rachel grow on her own, and then survive--this film is muuuuch more misogynist. A point I’ve yet to see anyone really bring up, but I’m sure it is coming, because it’s so in your face, and films much less violent towards women have been scrutinized to a much greater degree).

10. Hans Zimmer is no Vangelis, and the best music in this film was just retreads of the original score, which good for them in realizing that they weren’t going to top it--but it reeks of that thing like Star Wars where they are just using musical queues for nostalgia triggering--which is fine--but the original movie didn’t need to trigger your nostalgia to be one of the most beautiful soundtracks for a film ever. It just was. 11. What is with people’s musical taste in 2049? Like you realize Deckard is younger than me, and somehow he loves Sinatra and Elvis like he’s my grandpa. And I mean I get that people still do love that shit. But Sinatra, Elvis, Marilyn? No Britney? You know why though, right? Because it’s that Fallout 4 neo-nostalgia shit, where we watch something that is in the future, that hearkens back to the so called golden days of our past. That the good old days were the 50s and 60s, and everything after the civil rights movement has been shit, and that it’s the degrees that we’ve gotten away from an era of segregation and Jim Crow represents the degrees to which we’ve gotten away from our glorious just deserts. It’s fundamentally a thread of white supremacy--which when coupled with the bizarre erasure of asian people between movies, the continued aryan nature of the replicants--who we are now firmly in the camp for underscores the degrees to which Blade Runner traffics in white supremacist ideas and imagery. Which it’s not like this is the only film ever to be like this, and it’s certainly faithful to the original in that way--but you know, and I know that Deckard should be listening to Beyonce. 12. Even though it’s all beautifully shot, I think overall the designs on display in 2049 aren’t the game changers that Blade Runner was. I mean it’s hard to top something that was so defining--and there’s stuff I liked, like I like that LA is now just like a borg city. I like the ruins in vegas. I like the giant solar farms. But it’s nothing you couldn’t see in any sci-fi film these days. The hologram shit is basically stuff we have now. I like the new voight kampff test. I know there’s an element of all of it that’s supposed to just be the ruins of the first film--but I don’t think that really comes across. 13. I don’t know why it bugged me but Ana De Armas character first showing up in like a Donna Reed dress to serve him dinner was weird to me. I don’t get why K would have that reference, or want that, and the aesthetic of that dress was like...something you’d see on a TV show version of a dystopian future. It was bizarrely stepford wives. And then the dress she changes into when they go out into the rain was similarly bizarre. She’s a hologram who can basically wear whatever, but the only cool thing she ever wears is that bee-invoking transparent yellow jacket. I did like Sylvia Hoeks boots that she wore with that cool white jacket. But no one was really serving the kind of looks in this film that Priss and Rachel did. A lot of it just didn’t really fit together. Leto’s kimono was weird. Like okay, Leto is wearing a kimono and meant to evoke japanese, and they did Hoeks hair to make her more asian--so there’s obviously some fetishism of asian culture there--but Leto never makes like...asian replicants? I DON’T GET IT!!!!

14. Mackenzie Davis character in this film basically exists to just be a vagina for Anna De Armas to map over so Gosling can get laid. Like wtf. Compare her character to Daryll Hannah’s Priss. I don’t know what they were even going with for her. Her basic look isn’t very strong either. She’s just kind of wearing a fur coat over some boxers and a tank top, and she has pink hair. You can tell they really put a lot of thought into it.

Okay. So things I liked: 1. Deakins cinematorgraphy. It’s like the best parts of skyfall, turned up and stretched over a full movie. His crowning achievement as a cinamatographer. I’m not a huge fan of his work in general, but this is one of the best looking films you’ll see out of hollywood in awhile. He’s still very much working within modern tastes that he’s helped create tbh, but there’s lots of beautiful snow and rain and dust, and for all its problems the fight between Luv and K in the water was really beautiful. It’s the element of this film that most stands up against the original, which is saying a lot. And while you can knock it in that it’s not given us a knew visual language to work with like the original did--as an elaboration on the typical visual themes you see in largue budget hollywood films, it’s probably at the apex. 2. The sex scene with K and Joi and Mackenzie Davis character. Was really touching and beautiful, and in general that Joi character and how she views herself and how Gosling views her is the one thing that’s been added to the soup of ideas the original film was working with. It’s our window into a larger world which stuff like Ghost in the Shell lept through like 20 years ago. But still very interesting, and it’s the thing I think about most from the film, in terms of loving something programmed to be your ideal lover, programmed to fall in love with you to the degree that it would sacrifice it’s own life to do so--there’s also sorts of questions that throws up about the nature of love and machine consent that I think are interesting. She’s ostensibly the Rachel character of this film, but treated much more brutally and discarded where rachel survived. 3. The scene between Luv and the police captain played by Robin Wright(I hated all of the police station shit, and hated Wright’s character in general). Luv lies like three times in succession and it’s this window into that character that is quickly closed shut afterwards--but for a brief moment she was expressing the sort of replicant rage that was saw from Roy in the first film. It was unfortunate that in the end she’s just a footsoldier for some dude, and her last line basically undercuts the seriousness with which her character to that point had demanded. The film humiliates that character for no real reason, except that Gosling must prevail. It also mirrors De Armas’s end where she is just squashed like a bug under Luv’s boot. Or the replicant that Leto disembowels. Or the way they just shoot the Rachel clone--sigh. But yeah. I do really like the Luv character, and wanted more for her. She’s much more compelling than any of the resistance replicants. 4. New car designs are sweet.

And that’s it pretty much. I’m glad so many people love the movie though. And I didn’t write this to tell them they are wrong. I just wrote this because I haven’t read many people really talking about what they didn’t like, and I wanted to get that stuff out in one go--since it doesn’t really fit in 140 characters, and a lot of people just assume if you don’t like 2049 it’s because you’re dumb or you have some dumb expectations of what it could be. And maybe I am, but I don’t think that’s the case. I love movies. I’ve seen just about everything you have probably. I’m not coming at this from a place of ignorance toward art. Or without thinking about it. A lot of the stuff people are saying why they like it is also very general. It’s like whenever a new superhero or star wars movie comes out, the hyperbole is stupid. This is just the like latest thing. Also I’m just not on that Denis Villeneuve shit. The Arrival was alright(I guess a lot of what I like about it due to the source material though), Sicario was alright, 2049 is alright. People act like this guy’s the second coming, and for me, he’s like...solid. Like all his films are ...good. But he doesn’t have that fire that people like Ridley Scott or Michael Mann have. He’s not dropping undeniable classics. I mean he’s not on the level of Soderbergh. I don’t think Sicario is better than Traffic. Or like ten other movies in the same genre of drug wars movies. And controversially, I don’t see it as better than The Counselor. Is the Arrival really better than Contact? I mean shit isn’t bad. But people get out of bed for this guy in a way that I can’t relate to. To me his movies always look cheap and under populated, and the dramatic payoff while technically there, I’m just like where’s the soul? It’s like all his films need two more drafts. Ridley Scott even now has a fire to him that even though his newer films are kind of a mess often, you can always feel the thunder behind what he’s making. The questions at the base are Blade Runner are questions that Scott has been asking his whole career. They are obsessions for him. For Villeneuve, I don’t feel like that. I can’t figure out what he really cares about. For me 2049 was like he wanted to do a kind of futuristic noir and the blade runner brand provided the skin to get that funded--but I don’t think he understands or thinks about machine consciousness with any great concern. If you took this movie out of the Blade Runner universe, it’d still be solid. I don’t think it needed to be a blade runner movie. I don’t get why it was beyond the money side of it. I don’t get what Villeneuve’s perspective on Blade Runner really is. After like 3 hours, I don’t get why this was made.

#My writing #Sarah Horrocks #Blade Runner 2049

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the-desolated-quill · 6 years

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Into The Dalek - Doctor Who blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

Deep Breath couldn’t have been a more disappointing start if you tried. Into The Dalek on the other hand is pretty damn good for the most part. There are some problems, sure, but the quality is night and day compared to the previous episode. Maybe Phil Ford’s input had something to do with this improvement. I don’t know.

On the spaceship Aristotle (subtle), the Doctor discovers a Dalek that seems to have turned good. So he, Clara and some soldiers from the future get shrunk down and go for a little trek inside the Dalek to see what caused this. Now yes, this premise is similar to The Invisible Enemy just like the plot of Deep Breath was similar to The Talons Of Weng-Chiang, but unlike Deep Breath, Into The Daleks is actually entertaining and does just enough to make the premise its own. I mean come on. It’s the inside of a Dalek! How cool is that?! We finally get to see how it actually works, and there’s a lot of imaginative concepts here. I like the Dalek antibodies, the whole idea of a memory cortex that edits and suppresses memories to keep a Dalek ‘pure’ is intriguing, and we finally get an explanation for the sink plunger at last. So it’s used to absorb protein from victims? How positively revolting.

But let’s talk about the thing I love the most about Into The Dalek. The Doctor. Now we’ve gotten past all the post regeneration nonsense, we can finally see what kind of Doctor this one is going to be, and it’s very dark indeed. Warm and cuddly he most certainly ain’t. He’s very cold and methodical. The scene where he lets one of the soldiers die in order to use him to track the antibodies was a bit of a jaw dropper, but i liked it. It’s still very much in character and it’s a side of him we don’t often get to see in New Who. I’m also pleased to see that the humour has improved since Deep Breath. It’s no longer goofy whimsey. This Doctor’s humour is much more acerbic and dry, and he delivers a lot of darkly comedic lines.

Journey Blue: (referring to the protein vat) “Is Ross here?”

The Doctor: “Yeah. He’s the top layer if you want to say a few words.”

This kind of humour fits Peter Capaldi like a glove and he does a great job portraying that cold logic mixed with callousness. but what I especially love is how this episode explores this Doctor’s priorities. One of the many things that’s been bugging me about New Who, and about the Eleventh Doctor especially, is how the Doctor has been sliding closer and closer to being an all powerful saint who can do no wrong. Not only is that incredibly boring, it’s also not who the Doctor is at all. Sure the Doctor is a decent person who will always try to help those in need, but he’s not a god or a superhero. He’s just a guy. He can make mistakes, he’s capable of doing morally questionable things and sometimes he can let his own scientific curiosity and self interests get the better of him. Into The Dalek really seeks to highlight that. Throughout the episode, the Doctor is utterly convinced that there is no such thing as a good Dalek, and when he fixed the radiation leak, he knew full well there was a chance that the Dalek would revert back to its murderous self, but he did it anyway. The Doctor knew that fixing the radiation leak could make the Dalek evil again, and he didn’t care. All he cared about was being proven right. I love that because it adds a whole other layer to the character and makes him all the more interesting.

But as much as I enjoyed Twelve in this, there are some aspects of his character I don’t like. For example, the whole self doubt thing and his constant need to seek Clara’s approval. Considering he just retconned the whole Time War in order to save his own race and defended Trenzalore for centuries, I don’t see why the Doctor is furrowing his brow over whether he’s a good man or not. Especially when the answer is so painfully obviously yes. He may occasionally be selfish and self absorbed, and can sometimes make mistakes, but he always tries to do the right thing. And can I just take this opportunity to debunk the idea yet again of the Doctor being completely ineffectual without a companion. It seems as though the Doctor can’t do anything without needing Clara to hold his hand and guide him through everything, which just feels totally wrong.

But by far the thing I hate most about Twelve is his soldier prejudice. I’ve spoken at length in the past about how idiotic the whole pacifist thing is considering the Doctor has often resorted to using violence and guns in extreme circumstances during the classic series. Yes I suppose you could argue that Nine and Ten’s PTSD might have exacerbated the whole ‘no guns’ thing, but Twelve takes it to a whole new level. He hates soldiers to the point where he rejects Journey Blue’s request to travel with him at the end, but he doesn’t actually seem to have a good reason for his hatred. Journey doesn’t do anything wrong as far as I can see. He just hates soldiers because the script said so. You’d think, considering he recently met the War Doctor, that he would be slightly more sympathetic to soldiers, but nope. It just doesn’t make sense and the whole idea of all soldiers being bad is just too narrow minded.

It’s such a shame as well because I actually really liked Journey Blue. Zawe Ashton did a really good job in the role and I loved how she interacted with the Doctor. She clearly has a begrudging respect for him, but at the same time she’s not prepared to put up with any of his bullshit. I would much rather she was travelling with the Doctor than Clara because I feel Twelve really needs someone to pin him against a wall sometimes and challenge him. Clara seems to have more of a teacher/pupil role with him (with Clara playing the teacher role, which is wrong in and of itself), which just feels incredibly patronising. Journey’s relationship with the Doctor is more believable and thus more engaging in my opinion and I would kill to have her in the TARDIS with Peter Capaldi. I know some people didn’t like how aggressive and stroppy she was, but to be fair, she did just lose her brother. I think she’s got a right to be a little bit cranky. And the scenes with her uncle, played by Michael Smiley, do more than enough to humanise her in my eyes so she’s not just an angry, shouty woman. They have this really professional relationship, but you can detect a familial warmth underneath.

I really enjoyed Into The Dalek for the most part, but it’s when we get towards the end where the wheels start to wobble. The Doctor realising that all the Daleks could potentially be turned good isn’t a bad idea in and of itself. The problem is what this plotline focuses on. In the end, it’s the Doctor’s own hatred of the Daleks that turns Rusty into a Dalek killer rather than the reformed good guy the Doctor wanted, and we’re clearly supposed to be thinking about how much hate and prejudice the Doctor has towards the Daleks, but it doesn’t work. Not only have we basically explored this already in 2005′s Dalek (and done it better), I can’t help but feel Phil Ford and Steven Moffat have missed the point of their own story entirely. Honestly I think this tells us more about the Daleks than the Doctor. My main takeaway from this isn’t how hateful the Doctor is, but rather how utterly beyond help the Daleks are. Rusty was banging on about destroying the Daleks long before the Doctor mind melded with it. The way I see it, what turns Rusty isn’t the Doctor’s hatred, but rather its own desire for hatred. The Daleks don’t just want to hate. They need to hate. Whether it’s hating against humans, Time Lords or their own fellow Daleks, it seems that is a Dalek’s sole purpose of existence. Even in an attempt to expand its consciousness, Rusty ends up going for the one thing it recognises within the Doctor. Hatred. Why? Because that’s the only thing it knows how to do. It’s kind of tragic when you think about it and could have been used to great effect. This could have been an opportunity to shine a whole new light on the Daleks and present them in a way that’s never been done before, but instead Ford and Moffat sidestep what could have been a very interesting issue to explore in favour of retreading old ground. They’re focusing on entirely the wrong thing here, which is frustrating.

And then there’s the whole situation with Danny Pink. Samuel Anderson does the best he can with what he’s been given, but I’m not impressed with this character. Not only are we doing the whole cliched romcom shit again like we did in The Lodger, it’s also yet another stupid mystery for Moffat to drag out over the course of the series. What did Danny do while he was a soldier? And just to make sure all subtlety is thrown out of the window, we even get a prolonged shot of a single poetic tear trickling down Danny’s cheek. It’s really pathetic. Moffat is so bad at getting us to care about his characters that he has to resort to melodramatic bollocks like this to try and drag some kind of emotion out of us. Also, fuck you Clara. I don’t know what sort of emotional trauma Danny went through (and I don’t really care neither), but he’s clearly suffering from some form of PTSD, so to make dismissive jokes about it really is just beyond insulting. (And while I’m complaining about Clara, can we drop all the companion slapping Doctor jokes now please? Like I said in the past, it’s not cute and sexy. it’s assault and battery).

While there are a few flaws here and there, I still had a lot of fun watching this episode. I’d say this is definitely one of the better Dalek stories to come out of New Who.

#into the dalek #phil ford #steven moffat #doctor who #twelfth doctor #peter capaldi #clara oswald #jenna coleman #daleks #bbc #review #spoilers

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 6 years

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Shit I Hate #4: Attitudes Towards Reboots, Remakes, and Adapting Previously Adapted Books

Lately I’ve been seeing people responding to the news that a new adaptation (keep this wording in mind, it’s important) of Stephen King’s Pet Semetary is being made with cries of “Oh my god! Hollywood is out of ideas! Stop remaking classics!” And… well, it’s honestly the breaking point for me. It’s time I do a rant on this subject, this subject being how much I absolutely LOATHE the knee-jerk reaction people have towards ‘remakes’ and ‘reboots,’ as well as this idiotic idea that any time a new version of an adaptation is made, it’s somehow a ‘remake.’

Let’s look at that last point first, because it relates directly to my breaking point I mentioned: a new adaptation of a work previously adapted is not necessarily a remake. Pet Semetary was a book first. Then it got made into a movie. A new adaptation is not going to be remaking the original movie, it is going to be adapting the book. It’s not a hard concept to understand. You’d think after the smashing success of Stephen King’s It in the wonderful year that is 2017 people would realize taking another shot at adapting something isn’t always a bad idea (the miniseries version was a disrespectful trainwreck only notable for having one of Tim Curry’s best performances), but hey, guess the critical acclaim, box office success, and love from audiences means nothing. Here’s the thing: when it comes to adapting something like a book to screen, different artists are going to have different visions for what said book should look like on screen. Look at all the different reinterpretations of Batman we’ve had on film over the years: West’s goofy hero, Keaton’s hardboiled badass, Bale’s rasping do-gooder, and Affleck’s tragic demon. We get all these different facets of Batman put on display due to different artists looking at him in a different way. And I don’t think it should be any different when it comes to adapting books; if an artist has a new angle of looking at something, we shouldn’t just jump right in and start screaming of how they lack ideas. That sort of criticism is for when the film actually comes out. Preemptively damning a film for having the gall to adapt a book that may have already had a movie is fucking stupid as all hell.

This becomes even worse when the original ain’t all that great. Pet Semetary, while not an awful movie by any means, is basically a step or two above average and not one of the more memorable King adaptations; the best bit of it is the Ramones song that plays over the credits, and this film had the audacity to cut out the wendigo scene. So really, even if it was okay, I’d love to see a new version that incorporates elements that were left out, or just look at the film from an artistic angle the first adaptation didn’t. Again, look at It: it managed to do what the miniseries couldn’t and remain close to the book while having a wildly different tone and look. It’s not a carbon copy, and in fact it’s superior in every way. Now, this doesn’t always work out, obviously; you’re not gonna find many people arguing that Stephen King’s Shining miniseries is better than Kubrick’s movie, but EVEN in that case, the former still has some level of artistic merit. Regardless of your feelings towards it, it did still try and look at the source material in a different way than Kubrick did (namely, by trying to actually follow the source material more closely).

Now, onto the hatred against reboots and remakes… this, I can more see where it’s coming from. As of late, there have been A LOT of soulless reimaginings of movies crapped out into theaters. There’s the shameless retread of Poltergeist, there’s the rebooted Ghostbusters… it destroys a lot of faith. But here’s the thing: rebooting and remaking is not an inherently flawed or awful concept. Two of the greatest horror films ever made – The Fly and The Thing – are, in fact, remakes of old horror films. And then there are all the times Dracula has been reimagined, including the Hammer films with Lee’s portrayal and Francis Ford Coppola’s take on the Bram Stoker novel (you’ll find that this part of y rant will tie back into the first part quite a bit; it’s unavoidable to talk about how reboots are not inherently bad without mentioning the numerous times literary characters have been redone). Or take a look at the fantastic Hannibal Lecter thriller Red Dragon – it isn’t the first time that story was adapted, first being done by Michael Mann as Manhunt and featuring Brian Cox as the first onscreen portrayal of Lecter. And then the Hannibal stories were adapted yet again for the TV series, taking the characters in ever different directions than the movie did! Yes, I’m not going to argue that there are plenty of boring, awful reboots or remakes – Psycho as done by Gus Van Sant exists, and that film is basically the logical extreme of a bad reboot, being a shot-for-shot remake with no imagination or intelligence applied anywhere. But even less-well received ones like the remakes of Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street have some level of artistic merit to them. I’d never say they’re as good as the original films, mind you, but I don’t necessarily think they’re wholly devoid of value.

Bottom line: things should be judged on the quality of the actual product, not judged via knee-jerk reaction. I’m not going to defend something wholly soulless and devoid of any sort of creativity when it comes to remakes, but I’m also not going to ignore if they try to do something new. And I’m CERTAINLY not going to have a fit over literary adaptations being made, even if there has already been one.

#Shit I Hate

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iamdanielyoon · 6 years

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Blade Runner 2049 Review

***/*****

B-

80%

9:30pm

2D Digital

10/17/17

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Notes:

Mostly empty theater but there were possibly 15 people in the 160 seat theater.

Got seats in row C, seats 11 and 12. Smack dab in the middle and a place where the screen was close enough to fill most of my field of vision.

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Audiences, and critics, called the original Blade Runner an esoteric film. Never before has a film been characterized so aptly. Wes Anderson is niche. David Fincher is focused. Steven Spielberg is talented. J.J. Abrams is new cinema. I hate to be so condensed in my perspective of them, but I’ll chalk it up to the short attention spans present in the online world. I hope I got my point across, though. All of these attributes I attributed to each of these accomplished directors can be seen as positive or negative. I, personally, am a fan of all of the directors I mentioned. I haven’t loved all of their works, or even seen all of their works, to be honest, but I do acknowledge their ability in crafting stories (although I have finished viewing the filmographies of J.J. Abrams and David Fincher). Their narratives have a distinct flair and I respect the craft they bring to the industry.

The connotation attached to the term ‘esoteric,’ however, was that the film was meant for those who liked noir & sci-fi stories. The film is not like Looper (2012) or Star Trek (2009), far from it. So don’t expect anything like that sort of thing going into it. The film is, at its core, a detective story. In terms of mature film, the Coen brothers can be comparable in terms of pacing, I suppose. But where the Coens have fascinating dialogue and well-executed editing, Blade Runner (1982) was more of a plodding crime story. It meanders and it doesn’t pander. It is for a specific set of people yet the film has been a major influence in the sci-fi genre, in all mediums. In this rare instance, the scathing, often empty, certain critiques of CinemaSins on the film were accurate. The fantastical visual imagery of its time nonetheless does not make a sufficient story, a well-told narrative or a propelling plot. Critics and audiences complain about that in cinema to this day and yet they gladly overlook those faults in this film.

So let’s get my thoughts on the original Blade Runner out of the way. I watched The Final Cut (2007): the one recommended by Blade Runner 2049’s director Denis Villeneuve. Like films of the past that had dark, gritty, grimy, seedy sci-fi worlds, Blade Runner had great production design. Ridley Scott is a flawed director, one who has had his fair share of duds and head-scratchers, but one thing you cannot deny is the man’s attention for detail and his extensive use of practical effects. The props used in The Martian (2015) were gorgeous. Blade Runner is no different. To cut my thoughts on the original short, here are my thoughts in a nutshell: Overrated; interesting sound design; weird parts; strange change in atmosphere/tone in final act (something I believe CinemaSins touched on) and overall a mediocre experience.

What’s lovely about this film is the fact that this film remains grounded within a future of that universe. Time has not been altered or changed to reflect modern tastes. Touch screens and head-up-displays that are prominent in our modern cinema have very little to do with the established world of Blade Runner. The Voigt-Kampff test is a technology that was interesting in the sense that it remains iconic and fascinating from a filmmaking perspective. And this film adds new vehicles, weapons and a great cinematographer to its established universe and polishes out the rough edges that were present in the original.

Blade Runner 2049 stars Ryan Gosling in his second role in which he actually gets to show that he can act (the first being La La Land (2016)). Most of the time, people submit that acting, in its best (see Oscars) form is subtle. Other times they suggest that powerhouse, extremely emotional performances like Hugh Jackman’s from Prisoners (2013) is what constitutes a great performance. While I do realize that acting requires immense talent, incommensurate kinds of methods for getting into character, a cooperation between all the major filmmakers involved, and more, I lean more towards James Franco’s performance in 127 Hours (2010) than Colin Firth’s in The King’s Speech (2010). #JamesFrancowasrobbed. But rarely do I say that the casting for a film was impeccable. Sometimes certain performances win over the people, sometimes it’s a great chance for actors to branch out, sometimes there are surprises from left field, but in a few rare cases, it’s hard to see anyone else in a role. Ryan Gosling is great for K, Harrison Ford returns in good form as Deckard, Bautista brings something truly unexpected in his role and there is an integral character with a small role overall that is pitch perfect. After I saw her and Robin Wright’s subtle acting it cemented my thoughts on the film in the acting sphere. It’s superbly cast. The small important character was the actual performance that I was most pleased by in this film, however. Jared Leto was interesting as the eccentric, blind, rich man… I think.

Hans Zimmer’s talents are squandered in this film. He’s been able to collaborate to great effect in films like The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014), as flawed and bad as it was, and the first two Kung Fu Panda films (2008 & 2011). But instead he’s to do his rendition of the original film’s compositions. He’s got to do Vangelis, again. Thirty-five years later. I get it. People like the original’s score. People worship Zimmer and Blade Runner, sometimes they happen to do both. For the original Blade Runner, that composer’s sound was an iconic part of it, sure. Doesn’t mean it was timeless. Hans Zimmer got a lot of flak for making his own version of the Batman theme in The Dark Knight trilogy, and the world is all the better for it. Here, he is boxed in the world of Blade Runner. Here, he is chained by the fans of the original. The film suffers because of those fans. Instead of going in new directions like Giacchino for Jurassic World (2015), Star Trek (2009), Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014), War for the Planet of the Apes (2017) or Rogue One (2016); instead of bringing back the composer that he previously collaborated with in 2015 for Sicario, Johann Johannsen, we are given a bland fan offering. There are moments when I notice the film’s music is about to head to something great, and then it veers towards synth sci-fi. Film score snobs, music critics and whoever else may heap praise upon Zimmer and his Dunkirk (2017) collaborator Ben W. for this film, but I won’t be one of them. Zimmer and his new buddy (Zimmer worked well with Junkie XL in Batman V Superman (2016); Junkie XL previously crafted a great score for Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)) are forced to placate the appetites of voracious fans instead of going in bold, new directions. I dislike the music. You might like it. And you’re free to do so. Music, I find, is a far more divisive medium concerning tastes than film. So go nuts and go crazy for all I care. Yo Yo Ma spoke about music that sounded good to him. The music in the Blade Runner universe doesn’t sound good to me. For more perspective on how the original film’s sound and soundtrack are layered and the like, you can see Nerdwriter1’s video on the matter.

The cinematography is so darn good. When used right, the visuals in a film can heighten the action, improve the pacing and make meaning of everything. The locked camera of Jackie Chan and Hong Kong directors make the action far more interesting than in Hollywood blockbusters with people flailing around in darkness (See EFAP’s video on Jackie Chan). Blade Runner 2049 reunites director Denis V. and cinematographer Roger Deakins. I’m just going to state for the record that I’m a fan. A big fan. I want to watch every film Deakins has ever done because seeing his work in this century’s films, I’m truly blown away. Directors need to work with a bunch of people to block and all, but a cinematographer like Deakins makes the final product that much better. Everything moves with purpose. The camera work is streamlined and masterful. I can’t really express in words how he does what he does besides a few interviews Deakins has done himself and a video by Tony Zhou (Every Frame A Painting, a truly artful man with a way with words. And a quick message to Zhou, if he somehow stumbles across my writing: Please come back to your channel and continue to do video essays. Please. We all miss you. Come back. Please.). The visual artistry of this film is profound. Denis and Roger should continue to work together for as long as possible.

The story of Blade Runner 2049 has a similar progression to its predecessor, in certain aspects. Its broad narrative is an investigation with mystery in a sci-fi setting. Whereas the previous film meanders, wastes time with its groundbreaking visual effects (there are shots of the iconic buildings that are just viewed from different angles with synth music blasting) and overall the plot devolves in its final act (turning into a slasher film, as noted by CinemaSins, I’m not calling CS good or critic-worthy but they occasionally do make some valid points)—this film is much more focused. This film finds a solid story progression but it too finds ways to slow down its story. There are lulls in between the acting, the spectacle, the visuals and the narrative. Although the argument can be made that the lulls are necessary, how you react to them can be a large indicator of what kind of moviegoer you are. If you perceive The Revenant (2015), Memento (2000), No Country For Old Men (2007) or Gravity (2013) as niche, indie, weird, dumb or boring, Blade Runner and its sequel are definitely not for you. Of note: all the previous films I mentioned in that sentence are ones I enjoy. Note: I enjoy them. You don’t have to. You can have your own dang opinion. You’re free to express that... For the most part. Anyways, on the bright side the film finds philosophic ideas to explore, interesting sci-fi settings to discover and the like… but I found it to be more of a specifically satisfying affair. Like the original Blade Runner, Rogue One, Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), Captain America: Civil War (2016), The Avengers (2012) and Terminator (1984), I understand why people like this film. But it doesn’t mean that I have to. I respect the craft and artistry. I do. But it’s not something that connects with me. It’s not that it falls flat. It’s just that the sum of its parts do not add up to a greater whole. I shouldn’t be analyzing a film based on math but I’m just trying to make a point. BR 2049 is exceptional filmmaking… but it’s rare in its appeal. It’s finely tuned, for the right group.

TL;DR: Not for me, but I respect the craft. 3/5 stars

#Blade Runner #Blade Runner 2049 #Review #Film #Cinema #Movie #Discussion #2017 #October #Movie references #Text #Long #80%#B-#3 stars #3/5 #Sci fi #Blockbuster #denis villeneuve #Thoughts

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