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kaypeace21 · 5 years

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‘Robin’ - is a codename, she’s Sarah Hopper, one of the numbers (Theory)

So I talked about why I believe Sarah was alive in a previous theory about a year ago, here, but after reading the prequel novel, more evidence was brought to light. So for those who haven’t read it, I’ll simply copy (from that post) all the proof Sarah is alive first, and explain after why I believe Robin is her.

In s1, Hopper first describes Sarah by saying “Sarah, my daughter … the galaxies, the universe, what not, she always understood all that stuff.” Then, in s2, when Hopper is referencing blackholes, he says “Sarah had a picture book about it, she loved it.” But, if Sarah had powers like Will and El, her extreme interest in the “blackholes” (*the void) and “the universe” (* the upside down) would make much more sense, since it’d be her way of rationalizing what she may have been experiencing/seeing- and making her less afraid of them.

I also have to point out that other posts have mentioned the fact that after her ‘death’, Hopper grieves on a very similar looking set of stairs (that appear to be in Hawkins lab). Is it possible someone tampered with the Hoppers’ memories or caused visual halucinations of her death-in order to kidnap her? Also the fact, that Hopper negotiates El’s freedom (gaining a daughter in the process) on a similar stair case (to where he lost his first daughter) could be more than simply symbolic.

When Terry goes to find Jane, we see her find Kali and a girl we are supposed to assume is El- but let’s be honest does this girl look anything like El? Or does she look more like Sarah?

Also, after Sarah’s ‘death’ Hopper states to Joyce “After Sarah, I saw her too and I heard her. I didn’t know what was real and then I figured it was all in my mind.”However in that same ep, Will literally uses all his strength and power to astral project and communicate with Joyce (to prove he was alive). El does something similar when trying to communicate with Mike, and Mike similarly confides in Will saying “Sometimes I feel like I still see her … sometimes I feel like I’m going crazy”.It’s very possible after Sarah’s kidnapping, and faked-death, she tried to contact her dad- but eventually gave up (which is honestly heartbreaking, if true).

However, I think the greatest evidence is in the symbolism, behind the fact that Will and El had stuffed lion-plushies while Sarah had a tiger doll.

As someone who wanted to be a writer, I can assure you this is most likely being used as foreshadowing or symbolism. So, I decided to look up mythology/symbolism based on these animals.

“Chinese guardian lions-are lion statues that are common guardians of villages (*Hawkins) and even private homes (*Castle Byers and El’s bed room). These lions can be a sign of protection of an individual or family. These lions are always depicted in pairs consisting of a male and a female, the female representing yin and the male yang, When, there is too great an imbalance between Yin and Yang, catastrophes can occur.”

I mean, that sounds pretty on the nose, don’t you think? XD

So, for consistency’s sake I looked up Chinese mythology/culture relating to tigers. “The tiger is personified by the constellation Orion (interesting given her interest in space). The tiger represents protection over human life (hmm?). Tiger charms were used to keep away evil and disease (that’s awful ironic if she died in the manner she did). In Buddhism, wearing tiger skins during meditations was believed to bring protection from spiritual interference and potential harm while exploring astral dimensions (ok, now I’m just screaming, since this makes too much sense XD).”

------So now for the new evidence, well... I totally called it about the tigers XD. In the prequel novel ‘Suspicious minds’, Tigers are referenced in relation to Kali (11 times!). Just some examples

Kali: “I was named after a goddess. She wore a tiger skin and was fierce in battle.”

Then Kali says to Alice (a women who can see future visions): “I love you, Alice. We can be tigers.”

This parallel (in relation to Alice) is fascinating because Kali actually uses her powers to fake Alice’s death- and to trick Dr. Brenner, and allow Alice to escape. The allusion was so realistic, that Terry could even touch the ‘dead’ Alice. So after Dr. Brenner realizes he’s been tricked, it wouldn’t be surprising after learning Kali could do this- that he’d use this power again, to his advantage. And Just like Kali & Alice are tigers together, so are Kali & Sarah (indicated by Sarah’s stuffed animal) their fates are forever linked.

Evidence Sarah Hopper is ‘Robin’

Now , my theory is that at the behest of Dr.Brenner she was tasked to follow El and Will ( and gather intel), and make sure the plan to take them to whatever lab he is now operating in, goes according to plan. And before you say, that’s ludicrous... Dr. Brenner has already used numbers to track and bring in those he suspects have powers.

Last week the first chapter of the number 6 comic came out. Here it was established that number 3 (was given a fake mom and ) was tasked at spying/observing Francine (to see if she had powers). She attracted Brenner’s attention, since before her parents won the lottery, they had only been off by one number, on multiple scratch off tickets . In the comic, He (number 3) actually believes he’s doing a good thing . Now you can call it stockhold syndrome, but both the prequel novel and the comic imply the other numbers (aka the ‘Indigo children’) are treated much differently than El & Kali (11 & 8). And this is because, 1-7, and 9-10 have much weaker powers. The prequel novel states this to be the case “ Eight wasn’t allowed to know there were other children here. They were all ordinary so far. He worried they’d infect her...Child shows gifts that require isolation from those who might weaken her...”. The book also implied that torture and traumatic events can strengthen powers, and that it was utilized more so on them- why Kali tells El to tap into her anger when using her powers. The comic alludes to this as well, the other numbers get to interact with one another, have lunch and talk, and even the guards are nicer and less dehumanizing towards them. Although, It’s mostly a facade.

So what number 3 tells Francine (number 6), may be how Sarah/Robin is seeing this mission. “ It was about protecting you. You can hate me if you want... it doesn’t change the fact that this is the safest place for people like us. Can you honestly say you’d rather be at home right now? Because I’m sure as hell glad they got you out of there.”

When Francine’s parents found out about her powers they became abusive when she couldn’t use them properly, and since both number 3 and 1 agree that this is the safest place- this is sadly probably a common occurrence for super-powered kids. So even though, Sarah didn’t have such an experience she probably has heard plenty of horror stories from the other numbers- and wants to protect these 2 kids.

So when she says this to Steve, it’s a joke- but she’s probably trying to subtly figure out if he’s also close to Dustin’s other friends (ie. Will & El)

- other evidence includes the fact that the new prequel novel ‘Stranger Things: Darkness on the Edge of Town’ confirms that Sarah’s birthday is on the 4th of July (the same time period s3 will take place in)! And I just find that really suspicious.

-Also, Sarah and Robin have similar facial features, and hair and eye colors. The comic even doubles down on the fact that El was supposedly blonde (yes, people’s hair color/texture can change... but it’s still suspicious). Robin’s wrists are also both covered- so she could easily hide her tattoo, and she’s referred to in her character bio as simply an “alternative girl.” And frankly, with such a huge ensemble cast it makes no sense just to add her , simply to be a love interest.

-The one flaw in this theory, is that in ‘Stranger Things: Darkness on the Edge of Town’ if we takes the dates accurately- Sarah would be about 15 (and Robin seems to be closer to Steve’s age). However, since the other prequel novel got El’s birthday wrong-it’s still a strong possibility. Even if Robin isn’t Sarah, she is alive and we will see her again- whether that is in s3 or s4 though... is yet to be determined.

* all the edited gif/pics aren’t mine- and are simply being used for visual evidence.

#stranger things theory #will byers #el hopper #kali prasad #stranger things robin

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douxreviews · 5 years

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Quantum Leap - Season Four Review

Since season three was mostly leaps of the week, they made an attempt to shake things up with season four by playing with the formula a bit.

But as always, Quantum Leap is at its best when it does arc episodes about Sam and Al, as they again did in the premiere and the finale. There were a few other strong episodes as well.

4.1 "The Leap Back" (June 15, 1945)": In the fourth season premiere, Sam got to play a brand new character: Dr. Sam Beckett. For the past three seasons, we've been leaping with a Sam who had partial amnesia and was completely disconnected from his real life. Here, he was finally dynamic, brilliant scientist Sam, and surprisingly, married Sam.

Mimi Kuzyk did a terrific job as Sam's wife Donna, another brilliant scientist who kept her existence a secret from leaping Sam because she knew that it would make it harder for him to complete his missions. That was darned selfless of her, and that made her feel worthy of him in short order, since our Sam is quite a guy. I also thought Donna waiting for Sam gave us an obvious parallel to Beth, who waited years for prisoner of war Al to come back from Vietnam.

We finally got a lengthy visit to the actual Quantum Leap Project, with interior decoration that made it look as if Al's handlink exploded. We finally met Gooshie, Dr. Beeks and Ziggy, who changed gender in this episode. As Sam became reacquainted with his life and his wife, he and Al reversed roles and Al got to be the leaper who had to fix what once went wrong (and in Al's lifetime, 1945), while Sam's glee as he got to be the hologram was adorably funny. "Revenge is mine. Thus sayeth the hologram!"

Of course, Sam had to re-leap to save Al, so the status quo was too quickly re-attained. Honestly, I would have loved seeing Sam at home and observing and Al leaping for a few episodes.

4.6 "Raped (June 20, 1980)": You'd think an episode about a man occupying the body of a young woman who'd been raped would be uncomfortable, awkward, preachy, and/or cliched — but no. Instead, it was one of the best episodes of the series, because they did it right.

Sam leaped in because Katie, the victim, was having difficulty testifying against her attacker. Scott Bakula's performance as Sam in Katie's body was terrific; calm and matter of fact, Sam fought on Katie's behalf, refusing to accept the way the townspeople and police kept blaming the victim.

Although I always dislike the way trials on television seem to happen instantly after a crime, the strongest scene was Sam testifying on the stand by simply repeating Katie's own words, as Al held her hand. Even though the reason Al did that was so that Sam could see her, it was also a physical way of showing Al and Sam showing their support of Katie. Excellent episode.

4.7 "The Wrong Stuff (January 24, 1961)": Quantum Leap took on animal experimentation as Sam leaped into a test chimp, and they did a good job acknowledging all aspects of a difficult topic. This is the only episode in which Sam leaps into a non-human. I really liked the little nod to Planet of the Apes when Sam tried to write a note.

4.22 "A Leap for Lisa (June 25, 1957)": The lesson of "A Leap for Lisa" is that whenever they go back to the well and do an episode about Al's past, it's a winner. I'd mostly forgotten this one and it was such a pleasant surprise, the best episode in the season, with the possible exception of "Raped."

Sam leaped into 23-year-old Al and it appeared that he was supposed to save Al's married girlfriend Lisa from dying in a car crash, but Al was so bemused by encountering his younger self in the waiting room that he arrived late, in time to watch Lisa die. Sam's interference changed history so that Al would be convicted of the murder of his commander's wife, Marci, and at one point, when probability went up to 100% that Al would die in the gas chamber, the hologram of Al vanished and was replaced by another observer named St. John (Roddy McDowall, and I loved that they brought in an A-list actor to play the part). When Sam solved the murder, young Al had to leap into his earlier self in order to save himself, Lisa and Marci.

It was so much fun to see Al talking to "Bingo," his younger self, in the waiting room. It was also fascinating that Sam initially leaped into Al in the middle of a From Here to Eternity erotic dream on the beach, too. Has Sam ever leaped into someone dreaming before? Did that happen because his mind is linked to Al's?

What's also fun is how this episode inadvertently relates to Star Trek. Charles Rocket's character was called "Commander Riker," a character on Star Trek: The Next Generation; Terry Farrell, who played Lisa, would join the cast of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine the following year (1993), and of course, Scott Bakula went on to star in Star Trek: Enterprise in 2001.

Honorable mention

4.11 "The Play's the Thing (September 9, 1969)": A nice episode about ageism. I liked how Sam saw nothing wrong with being a younger man in love with an older woman, and how he immediately and passionately defended Jane's choices and helped her achieve her dreams. Anna Gunn from Breaking Bad had a nice supporting role as Jane's daughter in law.

4.15 "A Song for the Soul (April 7, 1963)": Scott Bakula in an African American girl group, as he backed up the daughter of a preacher who wanted to break into the big time. (The daughter, not the preacher.) This one was sweet. Plus I think it was the first time Sam leaped into a black woman. I particularly liked the sedate gray outfit Al wore in church. (Well, "sedate" for Al.)

4.16 "Ghost Ship (August 13, 1956)": Despite an occasional uncomfortable resemblance to Airplane!, this was a good one about a plane stuck in the Bermuda Triangle. It also featured a very young Carla Gugino.

4.19 "Moments to Live (May 4, 1985)": Sam leaped into a star of daytime drama, and Kathleen Wilhoite and Pruitt Taylor Vince kidnapped him for embarrassing reasons. Well written with good acting, and I'm glad that they (mostly) didn't play kidnapping and mental illness for laughs.

What didn't work

There were a few episodes that I thought were poor, and a couple that made me outright uncomfortable. Starting with...

4.12 "Running for Honor (June 11, 1964)": Al as a homophobe? Yes, I get that even somewhat recently, a majority of people were against gays in the military, but I'd like to think that anyone who dressed the way Al did would be a bit more open-minded. At least Sam was understandably disgusted by his attitude and what happened in the episode changed Al's mind, and I doubt anyone would do an episode like this today. We've come a long way in 25 years.

4.13 "Temptation Eyes (February 1, 1985)": Another attempt to do something new, although I don't think it worked. Tamlyn Tomita played a genuine psychic who fell in love with the real Sam, he fell for her, and they actually got to spend a few weeks together. But the acting and writing were poor and cliched, making it more of a miss than a hit. And that's too bad, because I'd always thought it would be nice if Sam got a vacation in the middle of all that leaping.

4.14 "The Last Gunfighter (November 28, 1957)": My word, this one was terrible. It was like they wanted to do an old west shoot-out but couldn't, so they did it anyway. What town in 1957, even one with a corrupt sheriff, would allow two old men to have a gunfight in the center of town? Innocent bystanders, anyone?

4.18 "It's a Wonderful Leap (May 10, 1958)": Another unsuccessful attempt at something new, this time with Liz Torres from Gilmore Girls as a genuine guardian angel. What bothered me more than I can say was Al doing fat jokes along with even worse Latino jokes. Liz Torres deserved better than this.

4.20 "The Curse of Ptah-Hotep (March 2, 1957)": Intended to be a rip-off of King Tut's tomb and Howard Carter with mysterious deaths, but with the budget of a one-hour TV show, anyone with any knowledge whatsoever of archaeology would find this episode painfully bad. I mean, the mummy comes to life and everything. And John Kapelos, who is usually pretty good, played an Egyptian archaeologist (the John Rhys-Davies role in Indiana Jones) with an accent that sounded like a cross between Russian and Spanish. I haven't finished rewatching the series yet, but this might be my least favorite Quantum Leap episode ever. Certainly my least favorite in season four.

Bits and pieces:

-- Notable actors (other than the ones already mentioned): Neal McDonough, James Morrison, Glenn Morshower, Joseph Gordon-Levitt at the age of ten, Harry Groener, Eriq LaSalle, Bob Saget and Amy Yasbeck.

-- Famous people: There was a little boy named Donald Trump in a New York City cab with his father in "It's a Wonderful Leap." I saw it coming and said out loud, "No, no, please don't."

-- As usual, there were a number of homages to movies, including The Rainmaker, The Defiant Ones, the Indiana Jones movies, and A Few Good Men.

To conclude

Although there were still many strong episodes in season four, I think seasons two and three were a bit stronger. Am I wrong?

Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

#Quantum Leap #Sam Beckett #Al Calavicci #Scott Bakula #Dean Stockwell #Doux Reviews #TV Reviews

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funnythingshere0-blog · 6 years

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Why Janelle Monae's 'Dirty Computer' Film Is a Timely New Sci-Fi Masterpiece

New Post has been published on https://funnythingshere.xyz/why-janelle-monaes-dirty-computer-film-is-a-timely-new-sci-fi-masterpiece/

Why Janelle Monae's 'Dirty Computer' Film Is a Timely New Sci-Fi Masterpiece

Janelle Monáe wasn’t made for these times – no wonder she’s always got her eye on the future. From an early age, she’s been a sci-fi/fantasy fan, grooving on The Twilight Zone and Star Wars as a kid. Yet for the 32-year-old musician and actress those genres have never been about escapism but, rather, a means to express how it feels to be an outcast. That’s partly the reason why she adopted the android persona Cindi Mayweather for her terrific early-2010s albums The ArchAndroid and The Electric Lady: She’s not role-playing so much as she’s telling us who she really is.

“I chose an android because the android to me represents ‘the other’ in our society,” she said in 2010. “I can connect to the other, because it has so many parallels to my own life – just by being a female, African-American artist in today’s music industry. … Whether you’re called weird or different, all those things we do to make people uncomfortable with themselves, I’ve always tried to break out of those boundaries.”

In her dazzling new short film Dirty Computer, tied to her forthcoming album of the same name, Monáe makes explicit how those boundaries still try to hold her down. She’s no longer an android, though — she’s a human being ready to be seen for exactly who she is. The 46-minute film is visually arresting and filled with sterling electro-pop from the upcoming record, but its dense thematic nods to sci-fi landmarks aren’t meant simply as fun spot-the-reference Easter eggs. With the revelation that Monáe has come out as pansexual in her new Rolling Stone interview — “Being a queer black woman in America,” she tells writer Brittany Spanos, “someone who has been in relationships with both men and women – I consider myself to be a free-ass motherfucker.” — it’s impossible not to view Dirty Computer as the artist’s emotional, feminist updating of the dystopian concerns that have always swirled through science fiction. But if you’re not as conversant in sci-fi tropes as Monáe is, fear not: We’re here to unpack the film’s ideas and imagery, which only underline their potency.

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Dirty Computer opens with an ominous voiceover spoken by Monáe, who coldly informs us of the bleak reality we’re about to enter. “They started calling us Computers,” she intones. “People began vanishing – and the Cleaning began. You were dirty if you looked different. You were dirty if you refused to live the way they dictated. You were dirty if you showed any form of opposition at all.”

It’s a familiar sci-fi tenet – the use of icy exposition to explain the rules of the story’s darkly futuristic world – that’s been seen in everything from Terminator 2 to A.I. Artificial Intelligence. But in Dirty Computer, it’s also a continuation of Monáe’s musical exploration of life as an outsider. A devotee of Metropolis, the 1927 Fritz Lang silent film about a society in which technology has overwhelmed humanity, Monáe has always sided with the machines. Like Blade Runner, with its sympathetic depiction of Replicants, servant-like androids that are treated as second-class citizens, Monáe’s albums see the robots as more soulful than their human counterparts.

Soon, we’re introduced to Monáe as Jane 57821, who has been taken to a facility to be “cleaned.” The antiseptic environment and the depersonalized names – people reduced to a string of numbers – recall the similarly grim outlook of Star Wars mastermind George Lucas’ first film, THX 1138, in which human beings have devolved into sterile, efficient drones devoid of emotion. But in the world of Dirty Computer, it’s not so much emotions that need to be cleaned as it is the “wrong” kinds of human feelings.

The mini-film is neatly structured around a narrative spine involving two anonymous white male workers erasing her memories, the movie occasionally cutting to those “memories,” which are individual music videos for the album’s singles. And what quickly becomes clear is that Jane has been designated for cleaning because of her verboten lesbian romance with Zen, a free-spirited beauty played by Thor: Ragnarok star Tessa Thompson.

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The clips for the Prince-esque “Make Me Feel” and the Grimes-assisted minimalist pop of “Pynk” are colorful and delightfully choreographed, but they’re even more vivid because they show happy, sexy moments from Jane and Zen’s brief love affair. It’s a heartbreaking rejiggering of the premise of the Oscar-winning sci-fi indie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, in which Jim Carrey undergoes an experimental procedure to have his memories of his beloved (Kate Winslet) excised, causing him to relive each memory one last time before it’s wiped away. But in Dirty Computer, that erasure is additionally tragic because it isn’t by choice, as a totalitarian society forcibly makes Jane comply with its homophobic beliefs.

Of course, the film – or, as Monáe calls it, an “emotion picture” – also heavily echoes The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood’s chilling 1985 novel about a conservative future society, which was adapted into a 1990 film and is now an acclaimed, Emmy-winning Hulu series starring Elisabeth Moss as an enslaved woman compelled to serve as a child-bearer for the government’s elite. That series’ examination of its society’s cruel treatment of “others” – gay people, non-Christians – reverberates through Dirty Computer‘s music videos, which defiantly celebrate nonconformity, femininity and sexuality in all its permutations. (In one memory, Jane and Zen enjoy a wistful polyamorous relationship with a man named Ché, played by Jayson Aaron.) And like with The Handmaid’s Tale, Monáe wants to make damn sure we notice the real-world parallels of this nightmare scenario: During “Pynk,” one of her backup dancers proudly sports a pair of panties with the inscription “I grab back,” a smack at the Pussy-Grabber-in-Chief Donald Trump and his sexist policies.

Dirty Computer‘s sartorial choices don’t just reference Trump – along with the movie’s production design, they also pay homage to sci-fi hallmarks. Occasionally, characters wear the iconic wide-brim, super-tall hat made famous in Alejandro Jodorowsky’s druggy, cosmic 1973 cult film The Holy Mountain, which, like Dirty Computer, deals with personal freedom and sexual liberation. The drab, smock-like outfits worn in the cleaning facility mirror the impersonal wardrobe in movies like THX 1138, which sharply contrast with Dirty Computer‘s music videos, where Monáe doesn’t just flaunt her reliably stylish fashion sense but also represents for the Afrofuturism that was the linchpin of this year’s cinematic sensation Black Panther. And the facility’s monochromatic color lighting and minimalist design hark back to the work of visual artist James Turrell, who has been an inspiration for everything from Drake’s “Hotline Bling” video to the interior of the alien vessel in Arrival.

The mystery of identity and the fluidity of reality are often twinned obsessions in sci-fi: Who are we? And is what we’re experiencing real? Movies as varied as Total Recall and The Matrix have played with these themes, but Dirty Computer delves into them with a poignancy rarely felt in the genre. As Jane’s memories are cleaned, she starts losing essential parts of herself. And it’s not just scenes of her and Zen hanging out in clubs or enjoying warm canoodles on the beach; Dirty Computer‘s lyrics are often personal manifestos about accepting oneself. In the slow-burn R&B number “I Like That,” Jane/Monáe pays tribute to her offbeat essence: “I’m always left of center/And that’s right where I belong/I’m the random minor note/You hear in major songs.” In the film, Monáe’s character is trying to assert her individuality, which makes her the enemy of a soulless regime – a common tension in dystopian sci-fi.

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But who will come out on top: the individual or the regime? In sci-fi films, the victor is usually the individual, which offers a reassuring message to viewers that we have the power to vanquish our oppressors. On occasion, though, the big, bad society ends up triumphant in these narratives. That was certainly true of Terry Gilliam’s bleakly funny 1985 film Brazil, in which a sensitive dreamer (Jonathan Pryce) believes at the end of the movie that he’s escaped from being tortured – only for the film to reveal that it was merely the man’s fantasy and that he didn’t get away at all.

Famously, that downer ending inspired angry disagreements between Gilliam and Universal executives, who demanded that the fantasy be depicted as real so that audiences assumed Pryce’s character had indeed escaped. Dirty Computer tweaks Brazil‘s controversial ending by first offering a tragic finale. Jane is shocked to discover that Zen, now freshly “cleaned” and remembering nothing about her, is working in the facility. By the time Jane is able to stir Zen’s memories, though, it’s too late: Jane is sprayed with a mist that will complete her virtual lobotomy. As the film ends, Jane is reduced to being just another bland, smiling worker, prepared to help clean other dirty computers.

Except … we realize we’ve been fooled: Jane and Zen have held onto their identities and break their lover Ché out, ultimately escaping the clutches of this repressive society. As she’s about to make her getaway, though, Jane slowly turns back to the camera as if to savor her victory. In that moment, Monáe can be heard singing on the soundtrack, notably declaring, “Love me, baby/Love me for who I am.” And then Jane/Monáe exits, a free woman.

Sure, it’s a predictable happy ending – but for Monáe, it’s packed with personal resonance. And like with so many of the great sci-fi films she worships, she’s using the genre to craft spiky political and social commentary.

“I thought science fiction was a great way of talking about the future,” Monáe once said. “It doesn’t make people feel like you’re talking about things that are happening right now, so they don’t feel like you’re talking down to them. It gives the listener a different perspective.”

On Dirty Computer, Janelle Monáe plays with the conventions and totems of dystopian sci-fi to speak her truth and promote a cultural shift toward a more inclusive and loving society – no matter what repressive government (whether real or fictional) is trying to crush that spirit. Monáe is speaking to the present, but for her, the future is now.

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