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starspray · 1 year

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Power & Desire: The Silmarils vs The One Ring

Can also be read on the Silmarillion Writers’ Guild

Every so often I see discussions in fandom about the Silmarils and the One Ring that end up equating them—treating them as though they are direct parallels to one another. This always happens by way of bringing the Silmarils down to the level of the Ring, often treating characters’ refusal to surrender the one Beren and Lúthien retrieved as the result of the same kind of corrosive possessiveness that the Ring induces, which renders its bearer literally unable to give it up willingly or destroy it.* This reading is not just wrong, it undermines the agency of the characters involved and undercuts the tragedy of The Silmarillion. The Silmarils and the One Ring are made by very different characters for very different purposes. They also act in the narratives of their respective stories very differently.

What do the Silmarils and the Ring have in common? They are both the titular objects of their respective books around which the major plot turns, it is true. They are both made by powerful individuals, and are desired by many different people, and when they are lost and/or stolen their makers are desperate to retrieve them. Characters die for them, and kill for them. At this extremely surface level reading they do, indeed, seem very similar. But the deeper you look at each object the more glaring differences show themselves, until you realize that they do not parallel, but rather oppose each other.

Due to the nature of each narrative it’s much easier to see the full nature of the Ring and the effect it has on people around it. It is an object created explicitly for evil and malicious purposes: One Ring to rule them all, and in the darkness bind them. Sauron makes it so that he can ensnare all others who hold rings of power, “for he made that Ring himself, it is his, and he let a great part of his own former power pass into it, so that he could rule all the others. If he recovers it, then he will command them all again, wherever they be, even the Three…”

The way the Ring works is that it sneaks into the bearer’s mind and starts to twist their thoughts to its own purposes. It wants to be used, and it wants to isolate its bearer. It makes itself desirable so that its bearer will do all kinds of mental gymnastics to justify the means by which to take and keep it. See Gollum’s insistence on his “birthday present.” See Bilbo’s tale of winning it in the riddle game. At the Council of Elrond he says: “But I will now tell the true story, and if some here have heard me tell it otherwise”—he looked slidelong at Glóin—“I ask them to forget it and forgive me. I only wished to claim the treasure as my very own in those days, and to be rid of the name of thief that was put on me. But perhaps I understand things a little better now” (emphasis mine).

You can see it in Isildur, too. The films misrepresent this scene: Elrond says nothing of dragging Isildur up Mount Doom to try to get him to destroy the Ring; he says that “whether we would or no, he took it to treasure it” but at that time there is no way anyone present could know what kind of effect the Ring would have on someone other than Sauron, because Isildur is the first person after Sauron to hold it. But Elrond telling the story has the benefit of Gandalf’s recent decades of research, and the reader also can see the red flags popping up almost as soon as Isildur touches it. He “will have [the Ring] as weregild for my father, and my brother” he claims, which is a similar kind of justification to Bilbo’s story of winning the Ring instead of finding it. Weregild is, per dictionary.com: a term used in Anglo-Saxon and other Germanic countries for “money paid to the relatives of a murder victim in compensation for loss and to prevent a blood feud.” It’s something paid to prevent further bloodshed. It would have been weregild if Sauron had handed it over after Anárion had died, as part of some kind of peace brokerage. But it can’t be weregild if you’re taking it off the dead body of your enemy; it’s too late by then. Isildur does have every right to it as a spoil of war, and no one disputes that right. But the fact that Isildur has to change it and further justify it even in his own mind is a sign that the Ring is already working on him. And if that is not enough (which it might not be—weregild is a very archaic term), Tolkien further illustrates the effects of the Ring taking hold on Isildur in the document that Gandalf discovers in Minas Tirith’s archives: “But for my part I will risk no hurt to this thing: of all the words of Sauron the only fair. It is precious to me, though I buy it with great pain.”

This effect of the Ring is not something that can be defeated easily. Only twice is it given up willingly: once by Bilbo, who needs all of the help Gandalf can give him, and once by Sam, who has born it for a very short time—and even then “Sam felt reluctant to give up the Ring and burden his master with it again.” There you see another justification—perfectly in character for Sam to want to spare Frodo, but also a thought that the Ring can latch onto and use, to twist for its own purposes.

And though Sam is able to return it to Frodo with relative ease, he tries to compromise: “If it’s too hard a job, I could share it with you, maybe?”

Frodo’s reaction illustrates just how far gone he is—made more tragic by his awareness of it:

“‘No, no!’ cried Frodo, snatching the Ring and chain from Sam’s hands. ‘No you won’t, you thief!’ He panted, staring at Sam with eyes wide with fear and enmity. Then suddenly, clasping the Ring in one clenched fist, he stood aghast. A mist seem to clear form his eyes, and he passed a hand over his aching brow. The hideous vision had seemed so real to him, half bemused as he was still with wound and fear. Sam had changed before his very eyes into an orc gain, leering and pawing at his treasure, a foul little creature with greedy eyes and slobbering mouth. But now the vision had passed. There was Sam kneeling before him, his face wrung with pain, as if he had been stabbed in the heart; tears welled from his eyes.

“‘O Sam!’ cried Frodo. ‘What have I said? What have I done? Forgive me! After all you have done. It is the horrible power of the Ring. I wish it had never, never, been found. But don’t mind me, Sam. I must carry the burden to the end. It can’t be altered. You can’t com between me and this doom.’”

And that is only looking at what it does to people who possess it. Saruman never comes near it, but the mere desire twists him from someone noble and wise and good into a miniature Sauron. Boromir also falls—he is a good man, an honorable and brave and ambitious man desperate to protect his home, and the Ring takes that and twists it until Boromir breaks and attacks Frodo. The Ring is a thing made with evil and malicious intentions, for explicitly evil purposes, and it cannot be taken and used for good—in fact it will take even the best of intentions and twist them to evil. Gandalf knows this, and that is why when Frodo asks if he will take the Ring his response is immediate and vehement:

‘No!’ cried Gandalf, springing to his feet. ‘With that power I should have power too great and terrible. And over me the Ring would gain a power still greater and more deadly.’ His eyes flashed and his face was lit as by a fire within. ‘Do not tempt me! For I do not wish to become like the Dark Lord himself. Yet the way of the Ring to my heart is by pity, pity for weakness and the desire of strength to do good. Do not tempt me! I dare not take it, not even to keep it safe, unused. The wish to wield it would be too great for my strength. I shall have such need of it.’

And Galadriel has a similar response when Frodo offers it to her. There is of course her famous description of what she would become were she to take it, but then Sam says to her:

‘But if you’ll pardon my speaking out, I think my master was right. I wish you’d take his Ring. You’d put things to rights. You’d stop them digging up the gaffer and turning him adrift. You’d make some folk pay for their dirty work.’

‘I would,’ she said. ‘That is how it would begin. But it would not stop with that, alas! We will not speak more of it.’

That is why the plot of The Lord of the Rings centers around the Ring’s destruction. Everything else—the battles, the politics, the power struggles, Aragorn’s rise to kingship—all of it is secondary. And the Ring itself is an active player. I will not go so far as to claim it has sentience, or any kind of active thought, but there is a significant part of Sauron’s will and his power held within it, and there is a drive to be found and kept and used—and ultimately to return to its maker.

The Silmarils, on the other hand, are the greatest creation of Fëanor at the height of his powers in Valinor:

For Fëanor, being come to his full might, was filled with a new thought, or it may be that some shadow of foreknowledge came to him of the doom that drew near; and he pondered how the light of the Trees, the glory of the Blessed Realm, might be preserved imperishable. Then he began a long and secret labor, and he summoned all his lore, and his power, and his subtle skill; and at the end of all he made the Silmarils.

As three great jewels they were in form. But not until the End, when Fëanor shall return who perished ere the Sun was made … shall it be known of what substance they were made. Like the crystal of diamonds it appeared, and yet was more strong than adamant, so that no violence could mar it or break it within the Kingdom of Arda. Yet that crystal was to the Silmarils but as is the body to the Children of Ilúvatar: the house of its inner fire, that is within it and yet in all parts of it, and is its life. And the inner fire of the Silmarils Fëanor made of the blended light of the Trees of Valinor, which lives in them yet, though the Trees have long withered and shine no more.

Fëanor’s motives in making the Silmarils are not wholly clear—whether he had some foresight of the death of the Trees, or whether he just wanted to see if he could do it, or to show off his skills, or what. But whatever his motive is, it is not to enthrall or ensnare anyone. On the contrary—while the Ring seeks to isolate its bearer, the Silmarils, though “even in the darkness of the deepest treasury [they] of their own radiance shone like the stars of Varda; and yet, as were they indeed living things, they rejoiced in light and received it and gave it back in hues more marvelous than before.” They are at their most beautiful when out in the light, where they are most likely to be seen and enjoyed by everyone.

They are then hallowed by Varda. To hallow a thing is to to make it holy, and in the case of the Silmarils it also means that “thereafter no moral flesh, nor hands unclean, nor anything of evil will might touch them, but it was scorched and withered”. The mortal flesh bit is contradicted later when Beren handles one with seemingly no issue, but Beren is an exception to many rules, and what remains consistent is that nothing “of evil will” can touch the Silmarils and come away unharmed.

Like the One Ring, the entire plot of The Silmarillion is the great desire of various characters for the Silmarils. This begins with Melkor, whose lust for them inflames his desire to destroy Fëanor, and the friendship between the Valar and the Elves. But this should come as no surprise to the reader; Melkor has historically lusted after sources of power and Light, going often into the Void in search of the Flame Imperishable. The Silmarils themselves are not doing anything to Melkor; they are the objects of his desires, but not the source.

This pattern continues throughout the The Silmarillion. Fëanor and his sons swear their famous Oath, but the Silmarils don’t make them do it. Then Thingol tells Beren that he must retrieve a Silmaril before he can marry Lúthien, he is setting what seems to everyone present to be an impossible goal, especially after the Dagor Bragollach and the breaking of the Siege of Angband. I’m not saying that Thingol does not actually want a Silmaril; he is very happy to have it once he gets it, but it’s a very different desire from the kind inspired by the Ring much later. Then someone is the bearer of the One Ring, the last thing they want to do is give it up, as discussed above. But the Silmaril that Beren and Lúthien retrieve from Morgoth is passed around without any issue through many different hands. Nowhere is it even implied that Elwing, for example, has trouble giving it to Eärendil to take to the Valar, or to take with him when he sets sail in Vingilot.

Thingol’s desire for the Silmaril I mentioned above; it comes closest to mirroring the kind of obsession triggered by the Ring, but it is not the same. Although “as the years passed Thingol’s thought turned unceasingly to the jewel of Fëanor, and became bound to it,” which sounds a lot like Ring-esque obsession, it does not drive him to isolate himself, or to keep the Silmaril hidden away where only he can see or find it, the way Bilbo keeps the Ring in his pocket and never takes it out when others can see it. Thingol does become “minded now to bear it with him always, waking and sleeping,” but by its very nature that can’t be done secretly. There is also no use to the Silmaril the way there is to the Ring—it cannot turn one invisible, and it does not give one power over others. The Silmarils have a power—more on that later—but it’s of a very different kind.

An explanation can be found for Thingol’s obsession through a study of his character arc and his relationship with Valinor and the Trees (which is another essay unto itself). Thingol, along with Ingwë and Finwë, goes to Valinor as an ambassador, and when they return to Cuiviénen there is nothing in the text to indicate that he is more or less enthusiastic than his companions to convince the Eldar to go to dwell with the Valar, and he in fact leads the largest faction of the Eldar over Middle-earth on the Great Journey. It is only by chance (if chance you call it) that he stumbles upon Melian in Nan Elmoth, where “a spell was laid on him, so that they stood thus while long years were measured by the wheeling stars above them; and the trees of Nan Elmoth grew tall and dark before they spoke any word.” Famously, they remain lost in Nan Elmoth so long that Ulmo comes back to get the Teleri that have lingered to search for him, and under Olwë many of them depart, and those that remain give up the chance to get to Valinor—and that includes Thingol when he finally returns to them. Thingol does not choose to remain behind; he gets left behind. And when The Silmarillion speaks of Thingol’s desire to go to Valinor, it specifically says that it is the light of the Trees that he desires: “Greatly though he had desired to see again the light of the Trees, in the face of Melian he beheld the light of Aman as in an unclouded mirror, and in that light he was content.”

Fast forward to the Flight of the Noldor, and Thingol learns that Morgoth has destroyed the Trees (and murdered his friend Finwë), so that even if he were to reach Valinor, their light is gone forever. Fast forward to the Dagor Bragollach, and the Siege of Angband has broken and Beleriand is swiftly growing ever more dark and dangerous as the power of Morgoth grows. Then Beren comes, and the Quest happens, and now Thingol has a Silmaril. He no longer has to be content with the reflected light of Aman in Melian’s face, however unclouded a mirror it may be. Now he has the real thing, a real piece of Laurelin and Telperion at Mingling. Of course it might become an obsession.

Less readily explainable is the Dwarves’ decision to insist upon the Silmaril and the Nauglamír as payment, when Thingol commissions them to combine the two. They have been coming and going between their mountain halls and Menegroth for many generations by now, and there is no mention of any kind of prior dispute over payment—certainly not one that results in bloodshed. Yet when Thingol goes to take up the finished Nauglamír they “in that moment withheld it from him, and demanded that he yield it up to them, saying: ‘By what right does the Elvenking lay claim to the Nauglamír, that was made by our fathers for Finrod Felagund who is dead? It has come to him but by the hand of Húrin the Man of Dor-lómin, who took it as a thief out of the darkness of Nargothrond.’”

This does sound rather like the Ring-induced desires we see in The Lord of the Rings, although the Dwarves do not mention the Silmaril. It is Thingol who decides that that is what they want—whether he is correct in this assessment is, in my opinion, debatable. There is another form of treasure that warps people’s minds and desires—dragon gold. And the Nauglamír has just come from Nargothrond, that was for several years under the control of Glaurung. I have thus far only cited the published Silmarillion but at this point I do want to point out that in a previous draft of Thingol’s demise, the gold that Húrin brings to Thingol is, explicitly, cursed.

In the draft of the Quenta Noldorinwa found in The Shaping of Middle-earth Húrin and a few outlaws arrive at Nargothrond “which as yet none, Orc, Elf, or Man, had dared to plunder, for dread of the spirit of Glómund [Glaurung] and his very memory.” There they find the dwarf Mîm, who has come to Nargothrond and “bound [the treasure] to himself with many spells.” Húrin’s companions kill Mîm, “and at his death Mîm cursed the gold.”

This is the gold that, in this version of the story, Húrin takes to throw at Thingol’s feet, and it is this gold that Thingol then summons the Dwarves to make into the Nauglamír in which to hang the Silmaril. The text in this version is extremely explicit about the hold that the cursed gold takes over Thingol and also over the Dwarves who come to work with it. “Yet also they [the Dwarves] lusted for the Silmaril,” is added almost as an afterthought.

In the published Silmarillion there is no explicit curse, though the description of Nargothrond when Húrin comes to it is almost exactly the same as the earlier Quenta, and if one is familiar with The Hobbit, one might remember what else Tolkien has written about dragon hoards. When Bilbo witnesses Thorin’s dealing with Bard after Smaug is slain, the narrator says that “also he did not reckon with the power that gold has upon which a dragon has long brooded … Long hours in the past days Thorin had spent in the treasury, and the lust of it was heavy on him.” This is commonly called the dragon-sickness; its effects are varied in The Hobbit, affecting some more strongly than others—such as Thorin, and also the Master of Lake-town, who “being of the kind that easily catches such disease he fell under the dragon-sickness and took most of the gold and fled with it, and died of starvation in the Waste.”

One can thus infer that both Thingol and the Dwarves of Nogrod are also susceptible to the dragon-sickness, and also to fatal amounts of pride. This puts some of the blame on the Nauglamír, but still none at all on the Silmaril.

None of this is to say that the Silmarils are not desirable. The entire plot of The Silmarillion hinges on their desirability. But in this they are passive objects, unlike the Ring that actively seeks to ensnare new bearers whenever it can. What power lies in the Silmarils lies in the light of the Trees that lives inside them, and that light was made by Yavanna, and is holy and life-giving. The people of Sirion believe that “in the Silmaril lay the healing and the blessing that had come upon their houses and their ships,” and that seems to play a much larger part in their refusal to surrender the Silmaril to Maedhros than the fact that it is an heirloom of Lúthien and Dior. Considering the state of the rest of Beleriand at this time, there seems to be some truth to that belief. It is with the Silmaril also that Eärendil and Elwing are able at last to pass through the barriers around Valinor and come to the shores of Eldamar.

And, much later, it is the light of that Silmaril that Galadriel captures in the phial she gifts to Frodo, and though that phial might be considered as much a reflection of the light of Aman as lives in Melian’s face, there is real tangible power in it—power that works against that of the Ring (and the Witch-king) in the Morgul Vale as the Witch-king and his armies pass by:

There was no longer any answer to that command in his own will, dismayed by terror though it was, and he felt only the beating upon him of a great power from outside. It took his hand, and as Frodo watched with his mind, not willing it but in suspense (as if he looked on some old story far away), it moved the hand inch by inch towards the chain upon his neck. Then his own will stirred; slowly it forced the hand back and set it to find another thing, a thing lying hidden near his breast. Cold and hard it seemed as his grip closed on it: the phial of Galadriel, so long treasured, and almost forgotten till that hour. As he touched it, for a while all thought of the Ring was banished from his mind. He sighed and bent his head.

Later in Shelob’s lair Frodo brings the phial out, and

for a moment it glimmered, faint s a rising star struggling in heavy earthward mists, and then as its power waxed, and hope grew in Frodo’s mind, it began to burn, and kindled to a silver flame, a minute heart of dazzling light, as though Eärendil had himself come down from the high sunset paths with the last Silmaril upon his brow. The darkness receded from it, until ti seemed to shine in the center of a globe of airy crystal, and the hand that held it sparkled with white fire.

Frodo gazed in wonder at this marvelous gift that he had so long carried, not guessing its full worth and potency. Seldom had he remembered it on the road, until they came to Morgul Vale, and never had he used it for fear of its revealing light. Aiya Eärendil Elenion Ancalima! he cried, and knew not what he had spoken; for it seemed that another voice spoke through his, clear, untroubled by the foul air of the pit.

And this is only the light of the Silmaril that Galadriel has caught in the water of her mirror, not the Silmaril itself—a fragment of a fragment of the light of the Trees. It stands and acts in opposition of the Shadow, whether of Morgoth or of Sauron.

All of this has been to say: one can compare the roles that the Silmarils and the One Ring play in their respective stories, as each lies at the center, but there the similarities end. The Silmarils are desirable for their goodness; the Ring is desirable for the malicious power that it promises any prospective bearer. As objects of power they are the antithesis of one another, and for a reader to treat or regard the Silmarils as they would the Ring is, quite frankly, wrong. The motives of a maker matter in Middle-earth, and whatever his deeds later, one cannot equate Fëanor at the height of his power in Valinor to Sauron at the height of his in Mordor.

Bibliography:

1. The Fellowship of the Ring, “The Council of Elrond”, “The Shadow of the Past”, “The Mirror of Galadriel” 2. dictionary.com, entry: weregild 3. The Return of the King, “The Tower of Cirith Ungol" 4. The Silmarillion, “Of the Silmarils and the Unrest of the Noldor” 5. The Silmarillion, “Of the Ruin of Doriath” 6. The Silmarillion, “Of Thingol and Melian” 7. The Silmarillion, “Of Eldamar and the Princes of the Eldalië” 8. The Shaping of Middle-earth, “The Quenta” 9. The Hobbit, “The Gathering of the Clouds” 10. The Hobbit, “The Last Stage” 11. The Two Towers, “The Stairs of Cirith Ungol" 12. The Two Towers, “Shelob’s Lair”

#look i wrote a thing #meta #tolkien meta #silmarils #the one ring #lord of the rings #silmarillion

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davros42 · 5 months

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Rewatching Classic Doctor Who, some episodes I haven't seen in years, some of the animated reconstructions I haven't seen at all.

And some episodes I haven't seen since last week.

The Daleks (now in glorious Dalekolour™)

I'll warn you up front, I'm generally not a fan of colorizations/special editions/re-edits so expect a bit of a grumpy post. But I'll try to be fair, I promise.

The episode starts with some extremely dodgy animation instead of the original linking material. It also starts with the intro in color, switches to black and white (apart from the credits which are in color) and then fades in the color and... why? An unnecessary and distracting flourish. The Wizard of Oz did this better nearly 90 years ago.

The colorization itself is quite good, I assume they were working off production documents (the Daleks are in their original colors, of course) but regardless the whole palette is a good match for SciFi film and TV of the era, as opposed to something more muted, moody, or modern. Compare and contrast with Forbidden Planet (1956), Queen of Outer Space (1958), or Star Trek (1966). The upconversion to HD video (and 50FPS?) went as well as it could, some parts of the episode are soft focus with lots of film grain but so was the original.

The music and sound design however is terribly distracting. Not an improvement on the original in any way, it's wildly out of place both stylistically and technically, at points directly in competition with the dialogue. Also, the Daleks received extensive re-writes and in some cases were re-voiced by Nick Briggs which is.. odd. I do have to admit enjoying the inclusion of the cloister bell in the initial fluid link sabotage scene, however, even if was a retcon.

Some of the re-editing was ok, some was intrusive. Constant cutaways to b-roll as if you were likely to forget something that happened 5 to 10 minutes earlier (or just might get bored watching a take longer than a minute) were a major distraction. Some of the digital additions, for instance adding footage to the Daleks' screens, worked well. Others, like William Hartnell "dodging" a Dalek beam that hadn't been there 60 years ago were forced. The digitally animated TARDIS dematerialization is actually worse than the original analog video mix effect. The pace is extremely quick now, much of the tension and suspense of the original story is lost along with the "Dals" origin of the Daleks, for better or for worse. But all in all, it's all right I suppose. I wonder if I would have been easier on it if I hadn't just watched the original.

The "And then the story continues.. for 60 years" teaser was nicely done. A great mix of moments from the First Doctor's stories including some tidbits from missing or rarely seen stories. Hat's off to whoever got the clip of the Beatles from The Chase in there.

Next up: The Sensorites, for real this time.

#doctor who #classic doctor who #first doctor #ian chesterton #barbara wright #william hartnell #carole ann ford #jacqueline hill #susan foreman #william russell #doctor who rewatch #the daleks #serial B #Ted Turner must pay for his crimes #colourized #colorized

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the-bunnys-code · 4 months

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Eclipse's design for the film! It's a little rough around the edges right now in terms of the fine details for a piece of artwork, but this will serve as a great reference for now! A more polished reference will definitely come someday, probably as a continued edit of this one.

I actually had a bit of a journey with this design, part of which may or may not have been experienced by the original designers. It honestly wouldn't surprise me if the same thought process was had when creating the original Eclipse. Full story under the cut:

Let's begin with what I had to work with. First, I took a look at Eclipse's canonical design and identified which parts were from either Sun or Moon's designs.

From top to bottom, we have some of Sun's rays, Moon's hat, Sun's right eye and arm and Moon's left eye and arm, and Moon's pants pattern gradually fading into Sun's pattern.

Beginning with what I knew I had to tackle first, of course the Daycare Attendant I am working with is not ruined, just mildly damaged from a fight, and even then, they are repaired and decide to remain Eclipse (for the most part.) With that in mind, I decided to create the first design as if they were completely repaired, something not seen until the end of the film. I could always wear them down a bit later, it would be easier to do it that way than the other way around.

I began from the bottom working up, layering Moon's design over Sun's and erasing the lower half of the pants until I had a nice fade between the two. This involved coloring over some stars with blue and then erasing once more to get the pattern you see now. Next, I erased Moon's right arm, making it so that the arms corresponded to the canon design. From there, I moved to the vest. For those who have not been following this project (or just missed the post in which I discussed it,) I added a vest to the Daycare Attendant's designs for two reasons: The initial reason was because I had designed the other animatronics to look more furry than robotic by removing the obvious creases between their joints and other articulations, but when I applied this same effect to the Daycare Attendant, they looked rather... bare. I added the vest to not only make them look a little more modest (sorry, I can't think of a better word for what I mean at the moment) but to also lightly imply their past as a member of the theatre, which is actually discussed more in depth later in the film. This is what the vest looks like in both Sun and Moon forms:

I decided to apply the same effect to the vest that the pants had, so I erased a little bit of the blue vest from the bottom to give it a gradient. It sort of came out looking like a sunrise!

As you can see, I also added little sun and moon emblems on the vest for both of them respectively. I wanted this to reflect the shape of Eclipse's head in a way, so I started working on the face to establish that.

Eclipse's canon face/head is a little different than what I did. They have Moon's hat at the very top of their head with 6/9 (nice) of Sun's rays pointing out from either side. My Daycare Attendant has seven rays to make up for the fact that they're big and wide as I wanted them to be floppy rather than rigid, and Moon's hat is rather big as well. Before I even started, I sort of had an idea for how I wanted Eclipse's head to look. Where did I get that idea from? This, actually:

This is the Utilidoor navigational decal for the Daycare... whatever that means! But that is what the Wiki said.

I like the way this thing looks, so I followed along more with this than Eclipse's actual design. I might try making it look more like canon someday in terms of ray and hat placement, but I like how it's obvious as to what Moon's hat is from the front. I also have to keep in mind that, as I said, my Sun's rays are floppy for expressive purposes. They sort of mimic cat ears in many cases, specifically the two on either side of the top one. I think that maybe a lack of one of those on Eclipse's design sort of signified that they were beaten up and had been through some tough stuff, kind of like how a stray cat maybe has a shorter/cut/missing ear or has an irritated ear folded over. I kind of like that for Eclipse's design.

With the shape of their head completed, it was time to shape their face a little more. I started with the eyelashes by making them so that they weren't perked up like Sun's but weren't droopy like Moon's, overall just a nice meet in the middle. For this reference alone, and just to make a cute detail, I made it so that they were grinning with teeth to sort of also be a midpoint between Sun's open mouth and Moon's close smile. It also makes them look a tad bit mischievous, but that's just a bonus! There was one thing that kept bugging me though, and it was the fact that the right side of their face was Sun's color and the left side was Moon's color. it's an eclipse, shouldn't the part of their face that's moon-shaped be moon-colored and the other part be sun-colored? On a separate layer, I decided to color it this way to see how it looked:

...

I went back to the original coloring that was more closely inspired by the canon design. I could probably go on for a bit about some ideas I have about why this looks as wrong as it does, and it probably has to do with the imbalance of certain colors, but I don't want to think about it too hard right now. This is the part that I wonder if the original designer(s) went through, which would be very funny if they did (but also wouldn't surprise me if they didn't for some other reason.) Lastly in terms of their face, I kept the eye colors that corresponded to the colors of each design that covered each side of their face, and what do you know, it's just like the canon design too!

With that all said and done, I finalized the design with the emblem that reflected the shape of Eclipse's head, having four rays peeking out from behind a crescent moon.

And that's how I put together Eclipse's design for this project! Thank you for reading!

#fnaf sb ruin #fnaf ruin #fnaf eclipse #ruin eclipse #fnaf ruin eclipse #fnaf sb #fnaf daycare attendant #fnaf security breach #fnaf dca #character art #character refs #the bunny's code

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destinyc1020 · 3 months

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anon is technically right, b/c tom is actually using motion capture CGI, so alot of the movements that spiderman does is actually tom which is why his stunt work is impressive. The frustration is the over use of CGI especially when certain scenes where it is used it is not needed when they can literally be recreated on set. Covid-19 of course plays a factor which why the CGI was overused ( but I disagree with anon they werent implemented all that well, the cgi was noticeable and not good at all and this is more a byproduct of the lack of time that vfx/ cgi teams of implementing it in post production they clearly rushed it to get to the december release date- CGI / VFX is hard work it requires tons of time in post)

Batman and Dune are perfect exmaples of films doing a mixture of practical effects/ sets and CGI and perfectly blended them together.

Also back to the fact while Some spiderman movements are difficult its for this very reason why you have stunt men/ women individuals who can actually recreate some of spidermans movements this is what some of them specialize in. Spiderman outside of swinging around NYC, his movements are within the realm of possibility which is understandable since peter parker is human who also has limitations. His movements still needed to be grounded in some realism.

The complain is just CGI overuse and the way vfx teams writ large particualrly at marvel are not given the time to perfect them.

In terms of the spiderman/ goblin fight. I liked the girttier fight choreography but Im not sure it was executed all that well from a directorial persepctive really weird cuts, out of focused shots, clearly seeing punches not land ( its supposed to give the illusion that they are) but for marvel its certianly one of the better ones imo. Marvel fight scenes tend to lack creativity, I commend nwh for doing something grittier and using that to reflect the emotional state of peter parker.

Wow.... some of you all sound like you're in film school lol 😆

I think my main issue is just the OVER-use of CGI in films for scenes that could have easily been done on a set or irl. 👀

But maybe for some worlds in the MCU, it's just easier to CGI smthg as opposed to actually trying to build a set. 🤷🏾‍♀️ I have no clue.

I do kinda agree with you though about stuntmen. Tom is able to so a LOT of his own stunts, which, I'm sure is a God-send lol 😆 And I know Greg and his other stunt double guy help out a lot for scenes that are just too dangerous for Tom (the actor) to do himself.

But I do wonder if CGI is putting some stuntmen out of business? HW would rather just CGI smthg and not have to pay a stuntman .... I wonder if there's a little bit of that going on too? 🤔

Kinda like how the studios wanted to AI actors faces and bodies indefinitely and not pay them. 🙄

Any way to cut corners... smh

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carboardserpent · 8 months

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what are your reasonings for liking chick hick describe in vivid detail

Oh boy where do I even start.

Okay so...

Chick isn't the first character like him that I've gotten attached to. The other one is Guzma, from gen 7 of Pokémon.

They're very similar in a lot of ways. They're the big scary antagonist with anger issues and they cause a lot of destruction which may or may not harm people (or cars?) around them. A lot of people might only see that about them.

But if you go looking, there's a lot more depth to them. Daddy issues, for one. We find that out in the Cars comics. Chick's father was abusive, no two ways about that. Nothing was ever good enough for him except first place. He got angry with Chick for stopping to help one of the other racers, claiming that he should be doing everything in his power to win, not wasting his time on others (I'm paraphrasing, that might not be exactly what was said).

The fact Chick stopped to help shows us that he wasn't always bad. He was a good kid, and I firmly believe that. It was his father who told him over and over again that he must "win at all costs" that did the damage. When you spend your whole life trying desperately to please someone who cannot be pleased, that's bound to end up reflected in who you become.

I believe that he's violent on the track because that's what he thinks he needs to do to win. Just like his dad told him. And he's insufferable off the track because of an inferiority complex: He's never won. He has a rival that always beats him, and the entire racing fanbase (millions of people) dislikes him for how reckless and destructive he is. That, of course, only gets much, much worse after the end of the first film.

Now those millions of people all hate him. He let his anger get the best of him. He wanted to beat his rival one last time before Strip retired. We know at the point he crashed Strip that he knew he couldn't win. Lightning was miles ahead. He didn't crash Strip to try and win. He specifically said, "I am not coming in behind you again." That's the inferiority complex coming through. When you go your entire career and never get more than second place because of one specific man, yeah. You're gonna be bitter about it.

Then, when Lightning stopped, that meant Chick won. He wasn't expecting to win, but he did. He won, and as a result, his dad would be proud of him. Right? Well, we can't know for sure, but I don't think so. Not because he crashed Strip, no. But because Lightning LET him win. So despite everything, despite being universally hated by millions of people, he still couldn't make that one man proud of him, which is what he's been trying to do his entire life.

Then we get to Cars 3. At this point, Chick has had YEARS of being hated by the entire racing community. He's probably incredibly depressed, clutching to the one cup he has like a lifeline and living purely out of spite. He made a TV show so people couldn't just put him out of their minds. He made it a good show, so even if they hated him, they would still watch it. They made his life miserable, so he's not going to let them forget about him. I think he leans into the hate because otherwise it would smother him. How could it not? Everyone expects him to act like a dick, so he does. He's even worse than he used to be. At this point, it's his entire identity.

Under all that, though, I think he's probably hurting and lonely. I don't think Strip's crash was supposed to be as bad as it was. I think all he wanted was to cause him to spin out into the infield. Harmless. But it went wrong, and he leaned into it to save his already fragile ego. It was easier to admit he was brutal than it was to admit he made a mistake. Especially when his dad was watching.

But you know, most of that is just speculation and some headcanons to fill in the gaps. It's why I love him so much, though. I thought about the effects of his actions and what impact that might have on him, but I also tried to figure out why he did those things to begin with. That's important for understanding a character; the why. This is where I ended up.

Thank you for asking, though, because I can not gush about this guy enough. I have so many Thoughts(tm) about him.

#cars fandom #cars pixar #pixar cars #cars 2006 #disney cars #chick hicks #cars 3 #i love him so much

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hoghtastic · 2 months

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Translation of Johanne Milland's interview for Femina.dk

( Note: Translation of the available excerpt online. If the rest of the interview is released in the future, the respective translation will be added. )

JOHANNE MILLAND BURNED HER CANDLE AT BOTH ENDS

❝ I've gotten better at being ordinary ❞

Johanne Milland has burned too much, loved too much and not known her limits. Four years ago, it culminated in early burnout, stress and anxiety — a tough period that taught her something about balance.

When Johanne Milland stepped out of her front door this morning, there was a man lying on the ground in front of her. At first she thought it was a homeless person who had gone to sleep, because people just walked past him. Until he looked at her and asked, "Can you help me?" — I started to get him on his feet and looked appealingly at the people who passed by, as in: "Would you like to lend a hand here?" No one responded. Not even if the man was bleeding from the face - he had clearly fallen. This kind of thing just makes me so furious! says Johanne and clenches her hands tightly on the table. The man said he belonged to a care center in Sundby, so Johanne called them and asked if they could do something. They knew him, yes, but said she could call the sociolance (social ambulance) or a taxi, there was no help to be had there. The man would prefer a taxi, so Johanne got him into it and sent him home. She talks about the episode in response to my question about what can get her out of her chair. — In situations like this, I get a wild inner fire. I get so angry and upset when people are treated unfairly that I have a really hard time controlling myself. It is the inner fire that has made Johanne Milland one of the new great talents on both the film and musical scene in record time, but also the one that burned her up almost four years ago. So today she reins it in, the fire. She doses it. — The "old" Johanne was very melancholic in the way that I often lost myself in pictures of my life that I created myself. My inner emotional life and imagination have always been very strong and I used it as an invisible friend. I have lost that a little because I have become more balanced and less "up and down" in my emotional life. I've gotten better at staying… ordinary. Does it make you feel good? To be more ordinary. Hmm, there are some things about the old Johanne that I would have liked to have kept, but you go crazy always driving out there at 180 km per hour. I haven't responded to my limits, and when you don't do it for a long time, your body tells you to listen, otherwise things go haywire. But I've always been quite a pushover, and I've liked it. There was something safe in the fact that something hurt. Why, do you think? Oh, I've spent a lot of thought trying to figure that out! Maybe because there is a sense of security in remaining upset, if you have been [like that]. If you become happy again, you have something to lose. It's just easier… A slightly reversed logic. Yes, but there is also something in this way of living that I think has made me a good actor. Living a lot in a "state". I got burned out early on, but it also gave me a lot because I threw myself headlong into everything and worked really hard in everything I did. It has been both good and my biggest challenge, but that's how I am as a person: I run really fast or I don't run at all. I really love a lot, otherwise I don't love at all. It has cost me something, but these are the blows you take.

A LITTLE ABOUT JOHANNE 28 years old, born and raised in the small Funen town of Frørup outside Nyborg. Graduated from Den Danske Scenekunstskole - Musicalakademiet in 2019, moved to Copenhagen soon after, where she immediately got roles in major musicals, e.g. "The Bald Barber", "She Loves You" and "Atlantis".

In 2022, she played the lead role of Liv in the film "The Venus Effect", and was nominated for both a Bodil and a Robert for her performance. Since then, she has recorded the TV series "Graverne" and "Kald mig far" — the latter with Alex Høgh, with whom she is now a couple.

From March 7, people can see Johanne in the lead role of Ella/Cinderella in the musical interpretation of the old fairy tale in Tivoli Concert hall. Rasmus Seebach provides the music, Line Knutzon has written the script, and designer Søren Le Schmidt is responsible for the show's dresses and costumes.

Control and gaslighting

It is not because Johanne Milland had a traumatic childhood or great sorrows that she had to run away from. On the contrary, she was rounded off by a safe upbringing in the small village of Frørup outside Nyborg, with a mother who stood in the kitchen and baked buns, and a father sitting on the sofa watching football. — I was "the red-haired child", the sprightly, temperamental one, where my sister was more shy, I was the outgoing one, the one with gunpowder in her ass. I've always had a show gene, I wanted to show off, be looked at, have recognition. I also wanted to be the one to decide, and because I was this rider of justice, I was also busy telling people how to behave. Johanne pestered her parents for years about joining Nyborg Voldspil, and at the age of 15 she finally got ➤

permission. She quickly became part of the large amateur theater community in Funen, and from there things went well with big roles and many tours. — I really got some blows for being such a decisive ass there, so I shut down that part of myself and became a pleaser — I wanted to be part of the community. In continuation of that, I met my first boyfriend at HF (Higher Preparatory Examination) in Odense, where I went, and got into a relationship which was very unhealthy. Although I was really a strong-willed girl, I didn't know my limits when it came to love and I totally lost myself. Unfortunately, I didn't realize how unhealthy it was until it was too late, says Johanne. Only several years later does she discover that she has been under control and gaslighting in the relationship. — We didn't understand how to be lovers and look after each other, as you do in a relationship. I have learned that now. That you are a team in a relationship. He wouldn't be with me or talk to me in public even though we lived together and I was really in love with him so it was very, very difficult. Because I didn't feel okay as just me. He controlled me by, for example, deciding what I should and shouldn't wear, what movies we should watch — little things. The relationship lasted only a year and a half, but it allowed to define who Johanne was for several years afterwards. — I entered the Danske Scenekunstskole in Fredericia and moved to Fredericia, and when I was in my second year, I told him it was over. I just couldn't take it anymore. We both got other partners, but he still haunted my life. He was a drug, I was addicted to him. Addicted to what he didn't give me. And it wasn't because he was a bad person, because he didn't even realize what he was doing. He didn't understand. How did you break free from him? — At that time it had been on and off so much, that I could finally see that it was not healthy for me. And I just wanted to be happy — I was so tired of being sad. Tired of being a victim. Tired of putting myself in that situation time and time again. One of my girl friends told me she couldn't recognize me. That I wasn't myself. You can't see that when you're sitting in it, and since then I've understood that it can actually make things worse when someone close to you says that to you. The mechanism is that if you are told that "you must leave him, he is not good for you, you have changed", then you will want to stay even more. It strengthens the bond with the person who is not necessarily good for you. She continues: — That's what happened to me. And I have learned that if you have to have that conversation with someone who is subjected to control and gaslighting, you have to turn it around and ask if that person is okay, if there is anything you can do. I myself am very careful about how I talk about it if I meet someone in similar situations.

❝ There are some things about the old Johanne that I would like to have kept, but you go crazy always driving out there at 180 km per hour. ❞

❝ Even though I was really a strong-willed girl, I didn't know my limits when it came to love, and I lost myself completely. Unfortunately, I didn't realize how unhealthy it was until it was too late. ❞

The anxiety Johanne had moved to Copenhagen and was sitting on the toilet in her small apartment in Valby when the anxiety attacks started. — I remember that out of the blue I thought a really bad thing about myself. Like: "You can't do anything, you're not good for anything." I had never done that before. Suddenly my whole body froze and I sat like that for a long time, completely in a panic. I had to say to myself, "Now move one foot, travel, go outside. You must get some fresh air. It will probably get better." Johanne had to fight outside in the fresh air, where things went completely wrong. — I called my mother and said that something was very wrong. I immediately made an appointment with a coach because I thought that this just needed to be talked through and it would go away. But it didn't. From there it went downhill with Johanne. Anxiety pounded around her body, and the stress symptoms ➤

appeared as palpitations, sleeping arms and legs, flickering eyes. — I got so bad that I had to move home with my parents, and for at least three months I couldn't go outside the door without holding my mother or father's hand. They were really good at getting me out and at least getting some exercise so we did a lot of bike rides. But I would totally panic if I couldn't see them all the time. And if I walked alone on the road, I was afraid I would walk out in front of a car. I still have obsessive thoughts as a result of it, it's really uncomfortable. What obsessive thoughts are these? It could be anything. That I die from my work. I know none of that is true, so I have to say, "Well, that was the thought" when it comes. I got hold of the book "Your Self Healing Mind" and it and the best psychologist in the world simply saved my life and changed my view of anxiety. What my journey has taught me so far is that when you suffer from stress and anxiety, your brain is your biggest enemy, and the more you fight it, the worse it gets. I'm still practicing not taking the fight, because I can't win. My thoughts always win.

It was during that period that the film "The Venus Effect" — Johannes' first major film role — was filmed. She had agreed with her mother that if she couldn't, then she couldn't, and then it was just too bad. She had to take it one day at a time and see how it went. — I called the caster and told her I had stress and anxiety and she grabbed me right away, it was so amazing. They might as well have said, "Well, we'll find someone else," but they were so top notch and understood what I was going through. They let me stay in Funen when I didn't dare take the train, and they made sure I got some body treatments, which helped a lot. We talked about trying to use that in the film, because at that time I really needed to feel the ground beneath me, the trees and the grass, so I really WAS my role, Liv. In that way, it actually ended up being a huge gift, says Johanne, who noted the big difference between making a film and making a musical: — On a film set there can be long breaks between takes and it is very normal for the players to "zone out" during their breaks. In the same way, there is no time for that in musicals. The rehearsal period is more compressed and we have to achieve a huge amount during the rehearsals. It's also very social, so you're very intense for months at a time. It's enormous fun and demanding in a different way, but I had difficulty finding a breathing space because I didn't use my breaks to relax, even though I needed to, she says.

❝ I have so many wounds from past relationships that I can only process with another human being. And Alex is really good at healing my wounds. ❞

#alex høgh andersen #johanne milland #interviews #translation #femina.dk

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gemsofgreece · 10 months

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You remember the dreadful situation with the 12 year old girl from Kolono who was forced into pr*stitution? Okay a movie now reminded me of it and it's called "Sound of Freedom". It's a heavy but important movie about child trafficking but there's something strange going on...cinemas refuse to release it and sabotage it like turning off air conditioning, online shows sold out places when in fact they are empty, movie glitches so people in general leave the theatre.

It's almost as if people in power like Hollywood don't want us to see it and the problem is that this movie who brings awareness to this topic is viewed as "conspiracy theory" when it's not.

I don't know when society has come to this but nowadays they try to normalise it and a small country like Greece has many evidence of it...

I had to do a little bit of research about this. I believe there must be a conspiracy theory behind all the sabotage accusations, at least up to a degree. Here's why: the film was produced by a Latin American subdivision of 20th Century Fox. Disney bought Fox and - perhaps unsurprisingly - they shelved the movie. Clearly, Disney did not want to tackle any of this. However, the filmmakers gathered donations and they were able to buy the movie's release rights back from Disney. They then approached Angel Studios, a new production studio which operates with equity crowdfunding and Sound of Freedom is only its second theatrically released movie. They are a small and new company, which explains why the film was released in few cinemas and there was not much press about it.

As for the sabotage itself, I doubt it is true because in such cases, the powerful people have a way to operate much more quickly and effectively. Either Disney would not sell the movie at all or Hollywood would have somehow prevented the movie's release from the beginning. They would certainly not wait for viewers to see half the movie and then start filling the theatre halls with smoke or whatever else is claimed in those videos. Don't forget that one who has seen half the movie has ways of seeing the rest of it by buying, renting it, streaming it or even pirating it after all. My point is, nobody is effectively prevented from watching the movie this way. If they wanted it, they would simply not allow it to be released. The Head of Angel Studios said there is no truth in such claims and that on the contrary more theaters start playing the movie ever since its surprising initial commercial success.

And again, the truly powerful do not operate so stupidly. On the contrary, they can use this to their advantage. According to Wikipedia, guys like Mel Gibson, Elon Musk and Donald Trump have all endorsed the film. Trump will also host a special screening to which the filmakers and cast are invited.

This story is unrelated to Greece but Greece is in a dire situation as proven by this crime you mentioned. Anon refers to an uncovered crime of child trafficking, when a 12 year old girl was repeatedly forced into prostitution with the parts ignorance - parts tolerance of her family. Her pimp was a friend of the family, a seemingly lawful small market owner who somehow has too many connections to wealthy people and actors.............. makes you wonder. Her case moves slow as a snail and too little information is on the press lately. 25 men have been arrested but there are rumours that there are many more and those caught were the easier targets.

#sound of freedom #tw child trafficking #coals of greece #anon #mail #hide

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callisteios · 9 months

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How do you make personality quizzes? I adore your questions and results and been wondering how do you make them work.

ummm you know how in maths class they would ask you 'how did you solve this?' and you have absolutely no fucking clue? yeah

most important thing is that i have a theme that i a. know stuff about and b. have ideas/inspiration about.

e.g. greek gods, a topic i know a fair bit about and am very passionate about is an easy one for me.

i like to try and write results first (but i don't always), pick a tone and go with it. funny/sad/surreal etc. if doing a character quiz or whatever that's easier cause you've got set results, you just need to decide what they mean to you first. e.g. zeus is always presented as like the evil one but to me he's a loser ceo who has way too much responsibility and too many chaotic relatives. so write something to that effect. repeat.

it's harder when you're doing something a bit nebulous. for my what are you the god of quizzes.. that took some time. you just got to let creativity strike i guess?

questions are usually easier. i generally don't stick to the theme the entire time, i think it's fun to mix things up. it's especially fun to play with people's expectations. you can spend ten questions asking people their favourite films and still come away with a decent enough understanding of them to tell them something fun about themselves. people like to be surprised

but again the main advice is just, be creative/be inspired. don't force the questions, i think my worst quizzes are the ones where i've just asked stuff for the sake of having a question. it hasn't told me anything new about the person, it hasn't amused them, it hasn't taught them anything. so yeah cut if you're just going through the motions.

also try to break convention where you can, the entire reason i started making quizzes was because i would always take greek god quizzes and get SO PISSED OFF. they all have the same questions

favourite animal [animals commonly associated with the gods ]

what is your temprament [Stormy like the SEAS? peaceful like NATURE? MUSICAL? PASSIONATE?]

do you more value LOVE or LOGIC?

so do not write a quiz where a person who understands the topic can easily game their way into getting the desired answer. even if someone isn't trying to manipulate their result they're exactly aware of what you're thinking. it's dull and uninteresting. write questions about things you know, if all you know is embroidery ask them what their favourite stitch is, if you're a geologist what's their favourite rock, if you like music then what's the best genre. as long as you're interested they should be too

sorry i know most of that was what NOT to do. but like i said at the beginning, i sort of sit down, zone out for a few hours, and find myself with something mostly finished.

Thank you so much for the ask <3 I'm going through a reasonably horrible period at the moment so it's really nice to hear that you like my quizzes!!! i hope this helps you, make a quiz if you ever feel like it! it's actually quite fun. and if you do make one make sure to send it along !

#ask #deaddovehasbeeneaten #i like your url!#im going to stop apologising for writing painfully long answers to asks #i put them under the readmore and i have already demonstrated my incapabilty to not be verbose #it's fine #im NOT sorry

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heyclickadee · 11 months

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Okay, while I’m waiting five years for this frame to render, here’s some thoughts I’ve been having about the whole practical effects vs digital effects debate.

See, on the one hand, I freaking love practical effects. Poorly done practical effects, well done practical effects, practical effects that haven’t aged well, practical effects that hold up and probably always will. Practical effects my beloved. There’s just something about having a thing actually be there, interacting with the light and the environment, having real weight, that I absolutely love. I absolutely want to see more of them in film.

On the other hand, I kind of bristle a bit when people argue that digital effects are easier, because…they’re really not. They’re cheaper a lot of the time, but that’s because the studios aren’t paying digital effects workers fairly. And they take up less space, of course, or maybe take up space differently. But they’re probably just as much work as the practical effects. You’re still having to come up with solutions to get things to look right, having to hit things with proverbial hammers until they behave, and definitely having to throw a whole bunch of math and art at a problem until it works. If there’s a cg dragon on screen, I promise that someone had to design that dragon, that someone else had to sculpt it (which isn’t less work even if it is happening on a computer), and then there’s the texturing and the rigging and probably coming up with solutions to get the rigging on the wings to work because dear lord is rigging the worst, and that’s besides animating, lighting, and compositing, and trying to get it to look like it belongs in a scene with everything else.

In fact, the reason why so many digital effects look iffy, especially on television, is because they’re a lot of work, but studios often won’t shell out the budget to allow the cg artists the time to do them properly. The cg animals in the cg Lion King look weirdly weightless and expressionless? Its not because cg is inherently bad (even though I think remaking The Lion King was inherently unnecessary, but that’s another story). It’s probably because the animators and riggers were either given the bad direction, or because they weren’t given the time to go back and refine the animation and give it the weight it needed and ended up having to rely on Maya (or whatever program they were using) to do a lot of the tweening, or something similar.

And there are also times when practical effects just will not work, sometimes because of safety or sometimes because cg is actually better suited for the situation. And there are even situations where audiences will assume an affect was digital, and then for it to turn out to be practical. So, for me, it’s not a debate over which kinds of effects are better. Its more about:

1. CG artists needing to be compensated fairly.

2. Studios and directors needing to not automatically default to cg effects.

3. Using the right kind of effect for the situation.

For example: The Dark Crystal: AOR needed to be puppetry and practical effects. A realistically rendered Dark Crystal universe would have been a complete disaster; that’s a fully built up from the ground fantasy universe that feels lived in because, in a way, it kind of is. They used digital effects here and there to touch things up or help with compositing (Lore, for example, is a puppet, but they used digital compositing to erase the puppeteers), and there’s a couple weird moments that are cg, but it’s the puppets and the practical effects that really shine. Alternatively—Prehistoric Planet. I’m sure there were practical effects used in some situations, but the animals in Prehistoric Planet needed to be cg, and realistically rendered cg, because the conceit of that series is that it’s a nature documentary. Now, do I also want to see a version of Prehistoric Planet that’s all puppets? Yep, but it would be a very different thing with a different result and feel.

So anyway, tl:dr: Digital effects and cg aren’t inherently bad; they do still require a lot of work; I think it should be less about getting rid of cg in favor of practical effects and more about knowing when to use cg, when to use practical effects, when to use various kinds and styles of animation, when to use everything together, depending on what kind of story you’re telling and what you’re trying to achieve instead of cg being the default.

And pay cg artists more.

#rambling #I don’t know what this is

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lillianofliterature · 5 months

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Hello, just came in to ask if you have any tips or things to keep in mind when writing LOTR or The Hobbit characters? I'm fairly new to the fandom, and I get distracted during movies easily so I miss things a lot 😅 hope you've had a good day so far!

Hi there Anon! I'm so sorry I didn't get to you sooner, I've been online quite sporadically (and inconsistently) since my last fic was posted.

I think the best advice I can offer is to try to picture the characters saying or doing the things you're writing them saying and doing. Sometimes I'll write a pretty generic set of dialogue in a rough draft and can't figure out what's wrong with it, and it usually ends up being out of character. In some cases, it might definitely be something they would believe or say, but just not written in their voice (simply not worded the way they would say it).

Thus comes reworking the verbiage, adding the time-period or societal effect of the speech (for instance, Frodo Baggins will not talk the same way Harry Potter will due to their being from different realms AND different time periods; medieval-esque characters won't speak like modern characters; and in the same vein, elves (i.e. Thranduil, Legolas, Elrond, and so on) will tend to have a more eloquent and graceful speech with bigger, fancier words than men/dwarves/hobbits (Aragorn, Eowyn, Samwise, etc.) who will speak with simpler words and language as they do in the films). Now, in the books, the old english language is always very intelligent and intricate, as was TOlkien's style, but the films are easier to replicate.

Sometimes I just look up specific scenes online to get a refreshment on their tone/speech/quirks so I don't have to wait and comb through the films entirely.

The best advice I can give you is to not be hard on yourself by trying to capture everyone perfectly. Even the most straight-forward and rigid character can do something unexpected! As a simple (and silly) example, Aragorn might like the taste of cotton candy and have a sweet tooth that rivals the hobbits, despite seeming like the stew-and-mead kind of fellow. Frodo might be terrible at cooking, despite being a hobbit, because perhaps his best friend Samwise always cooks for him anyway. Gimli might love cats despite them having a similar disposition as elves (they're furry and they purr! even Gimli can't resist).

Those little details are so inconsequential (although adorable) that it can fit all their known traits while also not being expressed by Tolkien himself. As long as you're adding something that doesn't directly go against the basics of that character and their foundational motives, beliefs, and morals, you will write and express them very well.

I hope this helped and made sense! A lot of my characterization comes from having watched the films quite obsessively since I was twelve and it just kind of happens naturally the more you work (and obsess) with the characters. They tend to tell you what to say or write after a while.

I fully believe in you and your skill, and hope for the best!

Xx Lillian <3

#writing advice #anon #anon asks #tolkien #lotr #lord of the rings x reader

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walks-the-ages · 1 year

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what would you propose for movies that include flashing lights?/gen

Maybe certain screenings can have toned down lights, or ones that don't flash?

Also, I genuinely don't know, how is Avatar racist?

For movies that have flashing lights there's a few things, in order of ease/credibility:

1) All films that have sequences of flashing lights need to have mandatory warnings, not just certain brands of movie theaters picking and choosing when and where to put up homemade, paper signs

2) all warnings should have some kind of approximate time stamp for the sequence, not just a generic warning of "watch out, flashing lights! -- When? How often? Who knows! Just watch out!"

3) timers should be given to those who need them that will vibrate or give some kind of signal that the sequence with flashing lights is going to start momentarily, something to actually tell people in advance "hey, cover your eyes or look away in the next 30 seconds."

An alternative would be having lights on either side of the screen go into a gradient from green to red (or some other color that would be easier to see for people who are also color blind, I know there's a few different kinds of color blindness that can effect different colors) as it gets closer to the scenes in question, so as the lights slowly turn from green to orange people know once it goes red, they need to close their eyes.

4) special screenings that do not have flashing lights at all, or edited out/toned down through filter effects, but these would obviously be less accessible since most places would probably not have them available at a moments notice-- and places would probably try to charge more for it.

5) all movies and shows, as part of their final editing and vetting processes, should go before a board of medical professionals AND test audiences who can rate their discomfort with any light sequences shown.

As for the racism in the Avatar movies, please feel free to search my blog (idk if I tagged them in a way that's easy to find) but actual literal native tribes are calling to boycott the movies,

James Cameron has said some extremely shitty, victim-blaming shit about the genocide of native American tribes, he himself says the movies aren't about genocide or colonialism and instead are just about environmentalism, not casting native people in the roles in favor of white actors, and last but certainly not least, uh. Jake's hair. Jake's hair in the new movie. And Spider's hair.

Did... Did you notice how Jake, who is a white man (now in the body of a Na'avi), and Spider, who is also a white guy, are literally the only characters in the entire movie to have """dreadlocks"""?

Did you notice that? Because hooo boy does it stand out when you compare Jake in Avatar 1 to Jake in Avatar 2. Literally every. Single. Other. Na'avi has braids, and Jake also sported identical braids in the first movie.

But now, in the second movie, Jake suddenly has big noticable "dreadlocks", and Spider has matted white-person "dreadlocks", for literally no reason except James Cameron suddenly wants to also appropriate Black hair styles.... On his white characters.

But yeah search Tumblr or my blog and you will find plenty of posts from actually Native people going into depth about the racism in these films. But yeah, James Cameron himself has said some really shitty things as the first thing you can look up.

Oh and I've been reminded the entire thing is just Jake being a White Savior 100000% and also Neytiri and any other Na'avi women in the second movie just exist to be sexy or to cry and sob and scream in anguish.

#Avatar #Avatar 2 #avatar the way of water #james Cameron #avatar racism #anti native racism #epilepsy discussion #walks talks #walks replies

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mosie-b · 6 months

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Film Adaptations and Their Devotion to Source Material

Call me crazy, but I genuinely prefer when movie adaptations have nothing to do with the book. I don't mean when a movie mucks up the source material like 1984 'Dune.' I'm talking gutting it and making something new from its concepts, like 'Bladerunner.' It's a phenomenal movie but has nothing to do with the book(which is also phenomenal.) Both works have the same foundation: A hired killer named Deckard hunts down a group of escaped androids through future California. But they both take it in very different directions that better complement the medium through which the story is told. Personally, I prefer 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep' over 'Blade Runner' (cuz I like reading,) but If some hack tried to make a new adaptation, I'd strangle them to death with my own hands. It would be ass, downright atrocious. It just wouldn't work. It's harder to confuse an audience visually in the way the book does. I just don't think scenes like Deckard killing the first target or the whole ordeal in the ersatz precinct could land as well in a movie.

Let's contrast with a more faithful PKD adaptation. 'A Scanner Darkly' is a great movie that is only able to get away with being so close to the source material because it blends live action with animation by means of rotoscoping. It's eerie. Everything except the characters and what they're doing feels foggy and immaterial. It's able to visually complement the tone of losing your life and mind to drug abuse. Its animatedness also makes it easier to recreate the fantasy numbers that the various characters play in their heads throughout the story. With that all said, I feel the movie just isn't as good as 'Blade Runner.' 'A Scanner Darkly,' despite being a good adaptation, is fundamentally limited by its devotion to the source material. Like the rest of PKD's work, there is almost an unadaptability that, while cleverly disguised, still dampens the overall effect of the story and creates a vague dissonance between the medium and what it's actually trying to show. I should say book-wise, I prefer 'A Scanner Darkly' over 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.' I feel it's a much better story. But when ported to film, it can't compare to something like 'Blade Runner,' which was always meant for the silver screen, that's how it was written, that's how it was designed. Like sure, you can get off with the vibrations from a Dual Shock 4, but a Magic Wand is a much better-curated experience. Was that a gross metaphor? I just mean 'Blade Runner' was intended for the screen, while 'A Scanner Darkly' was intended for the page. So, if a book is chronically literary, maybe consider just gutting it. Idk if any of this has made sense, I haven't been able to sleep, and have a flight in 4 hours kill me now :3

TL;DR Often, movie adaptations of books fall short of what can be done because they attempt to bend the medium of film to contort to the rules of books. Just gut it and make the movie from scratch

#philip k dick #do androids dream of electric sheep #blade runner #a scanner darkly #books and reading #film adaptations #film #tired ramblings

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isaac963 · 9 months

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Just saw the Barbie Movie today, and what an achievement of a film. So layered so complex, simultaneously tongue-and-cheek and angrily relevant. While many have pointed out the central themes of the issues faced by women, I think there is another message Margot Robbie, Greta Gerwig, and co-writer Noah Baumbach are telling audiences. Both Gurwig and Baumbach are members of the Writers Guild of America, and Baumbach even skipped the premier in protest. I think their professional frustrations with the major studios was on full display in this film.

A live action Barbie film was first announced in 2009 by none other than Universal Studios. After the project faltered, it went to Sony pictures in 2014, with Amy Schumer slated as the lead. Yet, creative differences between parties involved lead to that project fizzling out, and the rites reverted back to Mattel in October 2018. Those involved on the creative leadership side of the film all departed. Mattel then approached Margot Robbie, who not only signed on as the lead, but helped produce it with her and her partner’s production company LuckyChap Entertainment. Robbie pitches the film to Warner Bros, who green light it, and then taps Gerwig to join the project as Screenwriter, and eventually Director. Written over the pandemic, principal photography began March 22, 2022, wrapped July 21, 2022, and was released nearly a year later July 9, 2023 to critical and audience acclaim. 14 years in the making on a property picked up and put down by many, it’s surprising this film came to fruition, and we were given a gem. It’s also clear that MANY hard working people brought this film to us.

Barbie makes reference to many other films and classic film genres. It begins as 2001: A Space Odyssey, it uses narrative voice over, The Matrix gets a shoutout, 300 (not a direct reference, but the Ken battle has a lot of slow motion that I would argue is alluding to 300), even a choreographed old Hollywood dance number. And though Barbie, being the pop culture icon that she is, could surely stand in its own limelight, so why would Gerwig and Baumbach do this? Why allude to other films in your own film, why make that creative choice? I don’t think it was just to be funny, or meme-y, the film does so much of that, to great effect, without alluding to other works of film. I think they’re telling us Barbie is also about film, and the rotten state of the film industry. From that perspective, what else does this movie do that other films just don’t do anymore, and why do it this way? Every set piece was practical, built on a sound stage, every prop was practical, every accessory crafted, every backdrop was painted and lit, and it ALL looked amazing. The transition from Barbieland to California, all of those moving set pieces (the rocket, the boat, the snowmobile) were PRACTICAL made of plywood, foam, paint, and RIGGED to move. Surely, doing that in green screen would’ve been easier, and used less materials, why do it this way? I think it’s a rebuke of the studio executives.

To me, it says cinema is first and foremost an art form, and incredible things are possible when you let your artists tell the stories they set out to tell. It can be incredibly lucrative when you trust your creative professionals to do well and properly compensate them for it. Cinema, second most, is a business, but executives don’t make films. Workers do. The workers who built that dream house, hung those lights, sewed those costumes, applied that makeup, delivered that catering, swept and mopped at the end of the day. They made a film that’s now made over $700 million dollars (and still going) for a studio that invested only $145 million. How much of that went to salaries is not public knowledge. 1,100 people were credited from cast to catering, nearly all of whom will receive no further compensation for the extraordinarily profitable film. On top of that, executives are trying to find ways of replacing some of them with AI.

Which brings us to Mattel’s depiction in the film. Though it says Mattel on the building, I think Gurwig, Baumbach, and Robbie mean all corporations. Warner Bros., Amazon, Netflix, all of em will put profit over people, profit over art, EVERY time. They want to twist tie all of us into our Barbie boxes, make us forget we have agency, make us forget that we’re not commodities to be sold. They may have the patents and the copyrights, but Barbie belongs to everyone, our experiences with Barbie belong to us. Pantone 219 c, a color on the visible light spectrum belongs to everyone in spite of what Mattel will say (I love ya Stuart Semple)! “Do you guys ever think about [the stupid rules we’re told to follow before] dying?”

I feel the film makers were truly conveying the dissatisfaction of the workers of Hollywood, people everywhere really. Proud to work hard and honestly, but angry at their exploitation. The patriarchy marring Barbie’s dreams, just as Hollywood marred the dreams of movie makers.

10/10 Go see this movie.

#barbie #sag aftra #warner bros #margot robbie #filmmaking #movies #review #movie essay

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