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hermitcraftheadcanons · 4 years

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Hello Internet, welcome to GAME THEORY, where instead of putting a joke here I want to ask you a question. It's time to talk UNDERTALE.

Now I don't think I've ever gotten this many requests to cover a theory, (no requests times no requests is still no requests.) Anyway, across my tumblr dashboard, NO ONE has asked for this. And honestly, I'm disappointed. True loyal theorists will know that Undertale is my favorite game of all time.

Undertale is a game where every character, from goat mom to grind fodder has a sympathetic design and a unique personality, motivations, goals, fears. Whether you're saving or slaughtering them, the game makes you feel something every time you enter an encounter. But to me, one character stood out amongst all the rest. SANS. A skeleton named after the font, Comic Sans. ANYWAYS, Sans is, well, there's a lot of mystery around this guy. And before we get into it, let me put up a very special spoiler warning: UNDERTALE is a game best experienced blind. So if you haven't played it, pause your reading of this and come back after you've finished. I PROMISE YOU, I PROMISE you won't regret it. Alright, so everyone out of the pool and ready for the adult swim? Good. Because I'm feeling pretty determined to get to the bottom of Sans' mystery. So just to recap for those of you who haven't played the game and ignored the SPOILER WARNING, or just need a refresher, Sans is one of the two skeletal brothers who appears in the game. His partner is Papyrus, a loud, goofy trap lover also named after a font. But in the world of Undertale their origins are a big question mark. All you really know is what's given to us by a shopkeeper in Snowdin, who explains that Sans and Papyrus, quote, “just showed up one day and asserted themselves.” Weird, right? What's more is that, well, Papyrus is just kinda the goofy sidekick. Sans is much more complex.

He likes fart jokes, but he's also incredibly powerful and deadly serious. Not only is his boss battle the hardest in the game, he's one of the only characters who has knowledge and power over space and time. He can take shortcuts around the world through ridiculous routes. Even is walking through walls. He also acknowledges that he's only one of infinite versions of himself, making self-aware commentary of the various timelines that you've played through in the game. He can even count the number of times he's killed you. He acts like an arbiter of this world, passing out judgements on the player's actions in the game, even explaining the secrets of EXP and LOVE, or EXECUTION POINTS and LEVELS OF VIOLENCE, just to clarify. In short, he just doesn't quite fit in with the rest of the world of monsters. But then, what, or who, is he? Well, the idea that he doesn't belong in the underworld seems to be correct.

The evidence seems to point to the fact that he WAS, in fact, formerly a surface dweller. In the true pacifist ending of the game, as the group looks out onto the horizon, Papyrus asks Sans about the giant ball in the sky. Sans says, quote, “we call that the sun.” This is important because A, the usage of the word WE, and knowledge of the sun shows that Sans has a kinship or knowledge with other humans, and B, that despite he and Papyrus both being skeletons, or, supposedly, brothers, and apparently appeared in underworld at the same time, they CLEARLY have two very different histories. Why would Papyrus not know the name of the sun but Sans would?

We get further clues to Sans' origins as we hear him say multiple times he wants to "go home" or "go back." He says as much during his dinner date scene at the Mettaton hotel. He notices that the player wants to go home and says, quote, "I know the feeling." He then continues, "maybe sometimes it's better to take what's given to you." As though he ended up in the underworld by accident. AND in a genocide run during his boss fight he says, quote, "look, I gave up trying to go back a long time ago." End quote. And before you say he means going back to the surface world, that's clearly not the full story. His very next line of dialogue is, "and getting to the surface doesn't really appeal anymore either." Key word here is “EITHER.” Yes, he seems to hail from the surface and wants to go back, but based on his dialogue he no longer considers it his home. It's as though the surface world he once knew is gone, as though he's from a different time. It's pretty intriguing. So we're left with a being that appeared out of nowhere, presumably from being from the human surface, but from a different time period, who seemingly has the power to teleport. That's a lot of questions and not a lot of answers.

But here's where things get REALLY interesting. Sans has a hidden workshop that takes a fair amount of searching to find. You could say it takes a lot of DETERMINATION to unlock. Anyways, obligatory determination references aside, as you start to look for this easter egg Sans gives you a key to his room and says "it's time you learn the truth." After some searching you find the workshop which contains items that leave even more questions. A photo album featuring Sans and a bunch of smiling people you don't recognize, a badge, blueprints with illegible handwriting, and a broken machine hidden behind a curtain. In the latest update, one more detail was added. A hand-drawn picture of 3 smiling faces with the words “don't forget.”

So, what does it all mean? Well a lot of Undertale theorists have been linking these details to a feature to a character named W.D Gaster. A ghostly character who never truly appears in the game. Honestly, covering him is a theory all unto itself, and probably one best saved for another day. Even still, none of the Gaster theories I've seen have been able to explain all the details. In particular, the photo album, and the badge. And that's what kept nagging me as I researched Undertale. A badge? That one in particular really stuck out to me. Why would such an oddly specific item to be hidden in the huge easter egg of a room? Something that supposedly reveals the truth about Sans? Badges just aren't important in Undertale. Then it hit me. What if this badge isn't from Undertale? What if this badge is from a completely different series? And was, in fact, the most important badge in the history of gaming? One of the Iskall patreon badges.

Now, for those of you wondering what I'm talking about, the Iskall Patreon Badges are a pivotal item from Iskall’s patreon. You know, the one on Hermitcraft. Anyway, the Iskall Patreon Badges are a really important part of Iskall’s character. So I asked myself; what if the badge in Sans' drawer was ONE OF THOSE EXACT badges? Well first off, it made Undertale connected to my favorite youtuber, thereby making it even COOLER, but that's still a pretty big logical leap. I needed more. Let me tell you, as I started looking, more and more pieces started to fit into place.

In Hermitcraft Season 6, there are three Architechs. (This was before Stress joined in season 7.) These 3 were Iskall, Grian and MumboJumbo. And what does Sans happen to have in his other drawer? A photo album with pictures of Sans with people you don't recognize. Of course you don't know them, they're not characters present in Undertale. And note the word that's used here, PEOPLE you don't recognize. Not underworld monsters. So that's 2 items oddly linked to the Hermitcraft series.

But then, how do the blueprints and broken machine fit in? Well, in the final stretch of Hermitcraft, Iskall is the only one who hasn’t died since the Demise game, so he sells his own body to the highest bidder. Except, it comes with a cost. Everyone is poor. As a result, and with the help of ImpulseSV, the Architechs (minus Mumbo,) are forced to finally kill Iskall, ending his streak since the beginning of demise. I watched this episode in 2020 and I'm not ashamed to admit that when I first saw this scene, I cried. It's DEVASTATING.

Iskall says goodbye to his friends, his co-workers, this character you've grown to love and care about is suddenly promising to sacrifice his life. For all he knows, there is no possibility of him being able to come back after his Demise. It's this incredibly dark departure in the final moments of what was otherwise a fun, quirky, and colorful Season 6.

So what does all of this have to do with Undertale? A LOT, actually. But the first thing you need to know is that the hermits are known for their, let's say, unique written linguistic style.

That would explain the illegible handwriting on the blueprints. And the machine? I think a broken infinity portal is behind that curtain. Now that may seem like a stretch, but it actually explains a lot.

If Sans wound up in Undertale via whacky infinity portal hyjinx, it could provide a reason for why he's a skeleton. He used the machine as organic matter and suffered the consequences. Not killing him, but turning at least a part of him into a pile of bones. That could also explain why Sans has given up hope for going home. Remember the infinity portal is a time machine. By being in the underworld, he's not only in a different place, but based on how he talks, he's also in a different time, with no hope of travelling back to the time he came from. This could theoretically happen. It turned Scar into a wizard and completely disintegrated Welsknight, so the rules are… Flimsy at best.

But the crossovers between Hermitcraft and Undertale continue. In Grian’s episode, (EDIT IN TIMESTAMP) he mentions he’s amazed that Iskall only escaped his demise with a lost arm. He says Iskall had “a lot of determination to not die for real,” and that he’s going to continue to study this. Seems awfully similar to the same experiments happening in Undertale around the trait of determination, no? Especially since so much has shown that Sans was a key player in those experiments.

But I'm sure you also want physical evidence right? Well don't worry, because I have plenty. Take a look at Iskall and Sans side by side. Iskall’s left eye is replaced with a diamond loupe. Sans’ left eye glows blue when he’s mad. Both have extremely chill yet are known for their jokes and, dare I say, laugh.

In short, we have some incredibly strong proof that the Hermitcraft Cinematic Universe, (HCU) is somehow connected to the Undertale world, which brings us back to our initial question, WHO IS SANS?

Well, what if we took it one final step and said that Sans happened to be Iskall from Hermitcraft? Sent through the Infinity Portal at the end of season 6 to go to Season 7, carrying an Iskall Patreon Badge and his photo album. Not only do all the items in the workshop suddenly fit, but so does Sans’ behavior.

Remember, Sans can seemingly travel extremely quickly. And Iskall just happens to have an elytra, a device that allows people to travel hundreds of metres extremely quickly. This even explains why Sans bleeds when you finally hit him. He is, or at least, WAS, a human.

Oh and finally, Sans shares two out of five letters with the name Iskall. That's just a fun one. I thought it was worth mentioning.

But if there was any doubt, we have to look no further than the creator's previous work. Toby Fox, the man behind Undertale is actually DocM77, the creator of every hermit (besides Scar.) Now, if Toby Fox, the creator of Undertale, is also DocM77, creator of Iskall, we know they will most definitely share a universe. Which brings us back to Undertale. 2 faces, with “don't forget” written on it? It's Iskall, trying to remember his 2 friends. In short, Undertale is a continuation of Toby’s version of Hermitcraft Season 6, with Iskall never being able to get home, adopting the name Sans. The pieces all just seem to fit. Now all we need is an appearance from Ethoslab and we’ve got ourselves a true sequel.

But hey, that's just a theory. A GAME THEORY! THANKS FOR WATCHING!

#hcraft #hermitcraftheadcanons #iskall85 #iskall #TheScience!#posted 11.05.20 #long post #please note this is literally a copy paste of the actual script #with some changes #but yeah actual cred to Matt on this one

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leakinghate · 5 years

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Chasing the Ghosts of Season 8

Let’s skip the flowery intros and get to the point, because this is important.

Lotor’s vindication and reunion with Allura were originally part of VLD s8 and I can prove it. Most animation relating to this plot was excised, while other clips were re-purposed to make it look like he was dead all along: but some are still in there.

The removal of this plot line was one of the major factors in completely messing up season 8, and it was a change that was made very recently; no earlier than August in fact. There is a significant, non-zero chance that an unedited version of Season 8 exists in its entirety; completely finished.

The evidence is below the cut.

Trigger Warnings: Gore - that image and discussion of it, body horror, sexism, and major character death.

There’s something rotten in the house of Voltron, and by that I mean Dreamworks animation, because for reasons yet unknown the season 8 we got was not the one the writers had planned to give us.

The people involved likely can't talk about it due to NDAs, but I follow *most* of the cast and crew on social media, and from the way many of them were talking prior to the drop it’s obvious that whatever they'd recorded had led them to expect a very different season.

The almost total radio silence afterward is also telling.

So far as I can tell, AJ (Lotor’s VA) is the only one actively posting about it, and his posts have been expressing his distress over what happened to Lotor - a stark contrast to his excitement about the season prior to its airing. It’s very apparent that he thought Lotor would have a very different fate than he appears to. At the moment of the season drop he tweeted out “Lotor was framed”, and later didn’t seem to realize that ‘Allura’ was trending because she’d died.

Some of the other VA’s scarce posts lead me to believe that they’re having similar reactions: a now deleted post from Bex (Pidge’s VA) about having watched up to episode 6 consisted of an image of DOTU Lance captioned with “[internal screaming]”. Bex has since removed all references to VLD from her bio.

I’m certain that the VLD s8 we got was NOT the s8 that was originally planned. Or the one the writers and VAs had been alluding to in various interviews up until recently.

We know there were some very last minute changes to season 8. I guarantee you that Ezor was actually dead before the backlash over Adam in August, and you're kidding yourselves if you think that epilogue existed before then either.

Kihyun Ryu's 'last Shiro' tweet - that we now know to be from the wedding epilogue - was posted on September 13th, 2018. Less than two months ago these changes were still in progress. Less than a month before the first trailer premiered at NYCC these changes were still being made.

And those was absolutely not the only things which were changed. It was hinted we should pay attention to the s7 episode "the Feud" to spot some foreshadowing. Well? I've seen both that episode and s8 and I sure as heck can't find it.

This was beyond last minute.

JDS and LM were still talking in ways that would lead us to expect Lotor’s redemption roughly up to s7 in August; so whatever happened, it went down between August and November. Which is probably why s8 is so shitty; with such a terribly compressed timeline to make edits.

And edits they were, because with those time frames season 8 was either completely finished or very near to it when someone decided that things had to change.

I can prove it.

Do you know how?

Because the animation was recycled and altered to fit the new story, with only small parts made new for it. And because it was something else first, it’s still possible to partially reconstruct the original Season 8 from it.

Lets start with the big one, the one I’m sure you’re here to read: Lotor’s redemption and reunion with Allura.

One of the most frustrating things about season 8 is that it leaves the colony unexplained. The big question, the thing that results in Lotor’s murder at the hands of people he calls friends, and leads to a power vacuum that causes the deaths of untold billions of people. What was Lotor doing at the colony?

It’s never addressed or given an answer.

At least in the version of season 8 that we got.

Or is it?

Because they might have removed the conclusion to that plot thread, but they couldn’t get rid of it entirely.

In e8 ‘Clear Day’. Allura's suffers from several nightmares/dream sequences. They don't make any sense in context, and it’s never explained what caused them. Except, they make perfect sense, if you watch them as the first step towards understanding The Colony.

Allura sees herself standing in a Juniberry field on Altea. Her mother greets her and proclaims that Allura has arrived just in time, and that only she can save them, “Only you can protect us.”

A Galra fleet passes over head, raining down laser fire.

Allura suddenly finds herself the pilot of one of the white mechs. She plunges her spear into the ground, draining the quintessence, and then fires on the fleet; obliterating it.

But as she grins in victory she realizes that the quintessence she siphoned from the planet has turned her immediate landscape to ash, including her mother. Allura is horrified, but as her mother crumbles away her voice echoes, telling Allura she is so proud of her.

In case me describing it wasn’t clear enough: what just happened to her was that Allura was literally put in Lotor’s position, operating one of his mechs. The places and the people were those that Allura cherished deeply, so that she could understand how terrible Lotor felt about what he had to do. It literally puts Allura in Lotor's place: having to take the responsibility of destroying parts of something she loves in order to protect the whole.

And her mother? The Altean who was ‘sacrificed’ in this scenario? Praised her for taking the actions she did, because Allura was the only one able to do it. And the only choice was to save most of Altea, or none of it.

When Allura eventually does take the entity into herself we see the lights of Honerva’s mech’s faceplate lighting, then flash to a scene of Lotor in Sincline. He’s laughing, grinning as he did during s6′s finale, and as the camera zooms in on his face he shouts “Follow me!”

Briefly we see Voltron in front of the planets of Earth’s solar system, which is drowned out by a peculiar scene transition: an intense white light that appears to obliterate everything as though in an explosion.

None of these scenes are ever explained, but it’s reasonably comparable to the flash of images that Haggar sees in season 3 when she is first confronted with Zarkon’s memories. We’re left with the impression that we’re about to be enlightened, and the end of the episode reveals that Allura has passed out on the floor unconscious.

In this version of season 8, we never are told what exactly caused Allura to experience those visions. We can guess: was it perhaps the entity tempting her with its dark magic? Honerva attempting to place her under a spell?

But is the entity really dark magic? It’s different from the types of magic we’re used to, and the colors of it are certainly dark, but it in itself never actually causes Allura harm. Any harm she suffers after taking it into herself is caused by Honerva exploiting it.

Could it be a spell by Honerva? Unlikely. It took her almost two whole episodes of the paladins fooling around inside her mind for her to notice they were even there. If Allura had never taken the entity none of Honerva’s plans would have ever been found out. Yes, she did steal all the energy from the Atlas’ crystal, but she did that primarily to combat the Atlas and disable it. She didn’t need to get it from there, the energy her Komars were able to provide was all she needed.

So what caused those visions?

Lotor did.

Once he was free of the rift he was able to connect with Allura somehow and reach out to her. That was really him. Where he is now, trapped under Haggar’s control, he has no means to combat the witch. But Allura does. Everything he says to her? Is true.

The next episode, s8e9 “Knights of Light: Part 1″ begins with Allura awaking, Coran and Lance by her bedside. She’s been asleep for two quintants (days). She has apparently come up with a plan to infiltrate Honerva’s mind, but from whence she gets this plan is never explained. That’s because we’re missing an entire episode between these two. This is where Lotor’s redemption happens, where he and Allura finally reunite. God knows what else was in that episode, what else was happening while the paladins were waiting for Allura to wake. Lotor bids Allura to follow him, to finally allow him to tell his side of the story, and for some reason we weren’t allowed to hear it.

But from what we did get to see? It all but confirms @crystal-rebellion‘s Colony Theory. Albeit, the white mechs were built by Honerva, but Lotor was attempting to keep the colony safe in the only way he knew how. The Alteans who died did so willingly; to preserve the lives of all the others.

There’s a repeated narrative that the only person who encourages Allura to take action, to strive and push forward, is Lotor. Sometimes others accept it, but they never encourage her. Everyone else seems to consider her too fragile, or not capable of making her own decisions. They want to protect her and coddle her, don’t believe she should be taking any risks. They are supportive emotionally, but want to limit her physically. They care about her, but don’t truly trust her judgement or want her to be making her own choices.

With Lotor though, it’s different. He truly sees her as an equal, respects her judgement in her areas of expertise. This plot line revolving around the entity is a prime example. Lotor provides Allura with the information, that she has everything she needs to take down Honerva right in front of her; she just needs to utilize it. But from the moment Allura wakes the people closest to her doubt her decisions and choices.

And yes, those choices lead to painful consequences, but in the end they are proven to be the right ones, to have been necessary. Allura took a calculated risk, and it pays off - if she hadn’t they’d have never caught Honerva in time to stop her from destroying everything. They wouldn’t even have discovered her plan in the first place.

If Allura hadn’t made the choice to listen to and trust Lotor, by her own judgement, reality itself would have ceased to exist.

Both Coran and Alfor are given specific scenes this season where they judge and approve of Lance in his pursuit of Allura. But key, neither of them ever ask - or even mention - Allura’s feelings on the matter. The s8 we got, rather disgustingly, portrays this as the right thing. I believe the original s8 was meant to subvert this. Because Lance is everyone else’s choice for Allura, but when Allura was allowed to make her own choice? She chose Lotor.

Allura once again ends s8e10 ‘Knights of Light: Part 2′ unconscious. I firmly believe we are missing more moments - if not an entire episode - with Lotor here, in s8e11 ‘Uncharted Regions’ - probably explaining somewhere along the way how exactly he is able to contact her in this manner.

Which, uh... as to my personal theory on how that is, well... what did Lotor and Allura do together that might have crafted a unique spiritual bond between them?

What did you two experience in the quintessence field Lotor?

But, those were happier times...

I also think this is the episode, this missing one, that that particular image properly belongs to. We now see it in the previous episode, as one of Honerva’s memories. But the reason we see it is that the paladins apparently see it too. The only problem is, they don’t react to it at all. They literally have a stronger reaction to finding out they can see Honerva’s memories in the first place. There’s no possible way that Allura saw the melted corpse of the man she loved and had no discernible reaction. We see her reactions to Lotor’s presence multiple times over the course of s7 and s8, and they’re always intensely emotional ones.

But speaking of that image, since we’re on the topic. That’s a very detailed image.

There’s details there you don’t immediately spot, because you’re too distracted by the horrific imagery of the corpse of a main character. A character who’s tragic, abusive childhood was the focus of almost an entire episode earlier in the season.

Details such as the motes of light floating up from his body.

Motes of light we’ve seen in exactly two instances before: from Zarkon and Honerva’s eyes immediately after they were restored back to life by the rift.

And from Zarkon’s body: vanishing after he died.

Yeah guys, I’m about to make that image much worse.

That’s not Lotor’s corpse, because he’s not dead.

He’s still in there, in that state, and he’s been in there for over three years.

Melded, physically and mentally, with Sincline by his time spent in the quintessence field.

What. The. Fuck.

As the season progresses it becomes much more difficult to tell what was supposed to be happening because of how badly it’s been chopped up, re-arranged, and edited.

But there is a very distinct difference between Sincline’s two appearances in action - that is, it’s only in the first one that it actually is in action.

The last time we see Sincline move of it’s own accord is e6 ‘Genesis’. From the moment he reappears Lotor is on the attack; he is stopped only two times, once of his own accord and once by Haggar’s mind control.

And that one time he stops himself? Is when he takes aim at Allura. She’s running across the ground, about to strike Honerva with her bayard, when he raises his right arm and takes aim. We see her in his sights, through his eyes. And the view zooms in on Allura’s face.

Lance sees what’s happening and dives in Red to stop him, but is blocked by one of the white mechs.

Yet. He lowers his arm and doesn’t take the shot.

Lotor never fires.

But immediately afterwards the white mech lingers too close and Sincline impales it with it’s tail. It’s not an aversion to killing that stayed his hand.

It’s that it was Allura.

This scene unambiguously shows that Lotor is both alive inside that mech and somewhat aware of himself. He’s become a robeast.

Yet after that episode the mech never moves again. It hangs lifeless in space during the battle at the pyramid; the white mechs having to do the fighting. The lights on it’s chest have gone out, only relighting when it is charged with quintessence from the Komar. For all intents and purposes, Sincline is empty.

Oh, and speaking of Sincline, up until s8e9 it’s only ever referred to as “Lotor’s mech,” but suddenly, in e11 ‘Uncharted Regions’ they’ve learned its name and Allura calls it “Lotor’s Sincline”.

I think that at some point between ‘Knights of Light’ and the second half of e11 ‘Uncharted Regions’ Lotor was to have been rescued. 'Uncharted Regions’ is one of the worst episodes this season for flow: it’s extremely choppy and hard to follow - flicking back and forth between scenes without anything really happening in them.

But the most telling thing?

‘Uncharted Regions’ begins with Honerva in her haloed mech searching Alternate realities for her ‘perfect’ one. We see several clips of her doing this, the mech floating in front of the pyramid, alone, with the spinning disk of its wings as a viewport.

Suddenly, almost exactly halfway through the episode, we get an image of Honerva kneeling inside the pyramid, in her Altean commander uniform, one uniformed Altean to either side. She says “The princess has awakened,” and then the scene changes.

When next we see Honerva she’s floating above the pyramid, the silent and immobile Sincline by her side.

The entire time this is happening there is combat going on around the pyramid, first with the coalition fighters and then with the Atlas itself. This sequence appears in episode as though it all happens successively in a very short period of time. But it doesn’t make sense like that. Why should Honerva stop what she’s doing, and exit her mech just to check if Allura is awake?

In this scenario why does Honerva even care if Allura is awake? By this point she’s apparently found her perfect reality and is prepared to move on to it? She doesn’t need Allura for anything, none of her plans require Allura. Why should she even bother to announce that Allura is awake, as though this is something she’s been waiting for?

This entire episode, including the fight scenes, has been chopped into little pieces and rearranged. Other scenes have had edits to their animation, or were re-done entirely. What we have in ‘Uncharted Regions’ is a frankenstein’s monster of an episode constructed of the tiny remnants of of at least two, possibly three, original episodes.

If you watch this episode carefully you’ll notice that there’s a clip out of order. The lights on Sincline’s chest are dark until it’s charged with the quintessence from the Alteans on the Atlas. But. The close up shot of Sincline the paladins see immediately upon exiting the wormhole in front of the pyramid has the lights lit up. This clip clearly is part of the sequence we see later in the episode just before the mechs combine. So when the crew on the bridge of the Atlas is shown reacting in horror, whatever they’re actually reacting to has been cut out.

These original missing episodes would have contained what I’m fairly certain was our big Alchemist vs Alchemist reprisal fight between Honerva and Allura; something we’ve been waiting for since season 2′s finale.

Why was such an anticipated fight removed?

I think it’s because the fight was over Lotor, and ultimately Allura would have rescued him.

Every time Allura uses the powers she obtained in Oriande it’s mentioned where she got them, and often that she has them because of Lotor.

She’s shown again and again restoring life and health.

What happened, what we’re missing, is her using the abilities she has thanks to Lotor, to save him.

Allura is supposed to storm that pyramid, infiltrate it, and rescue Lotor from the evil witch holding him captive. She’s supposed to find him in that horrible state we saw him in, and she’s going to heal him. She’s going to fight for him, to protect him, when no one else in his life ever has.

There’s also a clear switch. When Sincline is active and alight Honerva several times refers to it as ‘my son’ but afterwards, she stops and uses Sincline as a tool for her to reach an Alternate Reality and obtain a ‘new’ version of Lotor. With the exception of one shot, where, since we can’t actually see her speaking it seems that the audio and animation are sourced from different original scenes, Honerva ceases treating Sincline as Lotor after the lights go out.

The line that causes Honerva to snap s8e12 ‘The Zenith’ is when the little alt Lotor says “My mother is dead”. It’s framed like a deliberate callback, like it should be echoing something. But it’s a line we’ve never heard. I’d hazard that this final rejection, this line was spoken by *our* Lotor as Allura is rescuing him.

Lotor was not dead in there, he was alive, and he was saved.

There is a really good theory going around, my friend @tsunemori told me about it. I don't know who first came up with it, but I fully support it, because I noticed the scene in question was really off too.

But the theory is that that hospital bed scene? Was originally Lotor in the bed after they rescued him, and Allura was in Lance's place. Which makes total sense, because after that scene, when Lance takes Allura to the bridge? His height is all wrong, and he is hanging onto her for support instead of the other way around: it should be Lotor there.

Do I have any concrete proof of this one? No. But there is something off about that scene. It just doesn’t feel right.

So yeah, if I ask myself, “Is this a scene that might have been re-animated, the characters traced over and re-drawn as different ones?” I can absolutely see that. When looking for places where actual edits to the animation have been made you have to factor in several things: the complexity of the animation - how many characters, how many settings, how much movement, who is the focus/moving/talking.

This is both a pivotal scene, and an incredibly easy one to alter, comparatively. Two characters, one laying still in a bed and only getting a single one-syllable line - the other character’s name, which might have been taken from anywhere. Lance has a long string of dialogue, but he’s sitting beside the bed the entire time, and he moves very little.

I strongly believe this scene was either altered significantly or created whole-cloth for this edited version of s8.

Things that are much harder to alter, because they’d be much more expensive, are the fight scenes. It’s where I started looking once I suspected what had happened with season 8, and it’s where I started finding things.

S8e12 ‘The Zenith’ is one of the best episodes in terms of flow, and I believe that’s because it suffers some of the least editing.

We are however missing at least two scenes: a farewell between Allura and Coran - presumably as Allura boards the Blue Lion - and an explanation as to how Voltron followed Honerva into her destination reality after the rift closed on them. I believe both of these scenes were edited out because Lotor was key in them; several scenes in the following episode s8e13 ‘The End is the Beginning’ lead me to believe that he spent the final battle in the Blue Lion with Allura.

Two scenes during the fight stand out to me: the first, a split screen where Keith is mysteriously given a double width section as compared to the others. It’s especially noticeable, because he’s not even centrally placed and he’s scaled to a different size than his fellow paladins. In the entirety of the series we have never before seen a split screen cut among an even number of characters where one of them is given odd prominence like this. The screen is arranged so the characters appear in a color gradient, Keith is red-black and immediately to his left is Allura who is blue. If there was a missing section here, the color space would correspond to indigo/purple - and those are Lotor’s colors.

The second is a moment when Allura is speaking facing forwards and very clearly looks to the side and makes eye contact with someone. Now, VLD does have moments when the paladins will react in their own lions as though they can see each other, but this isn’t like that. It’s the way her eyes move, and look, she’s talking to someone who’s point of view we’re seeing her from. And that person is Lotor.

There’s also a peculiar moment in this episode where the same split screen is used twice; another thing which has never before happened in the series. It appears first about a quarter of the way through the episode as the paladins enter the stage for the final showdown and then again as they push Honerva into the glowing whiteness at its center. I believe that the second one of these is its proper place, and that the one that originally went in the first instance had Lotor included in it.

Finally, and this is going to take several images, so be warned. When the paladins appear before Honerva in the heart of it all, fading into view, they’re spaced very strangely.

There’s six of them, so you’d expect they’d be spaced something like this:

But they’re actually spaced like this:

(yes, I know Honerva would be blocking someone there. She moves. I just picked this cap so you could see all the shadows; there’s no point showing you the empty space)

It rather looks like there’s someone missing.

The last half of the final episode is so heavily manipulated that it’s difficult to say what actually happened. But we have two very strong clues from which we can reconstruct it.

Remember the leaks?

Now that we know the leaks were real, it begs the question, why was this scene one of them. Unlike the others, which were all from the epilogue, this scene is from roughly halfway through the episode.

Well, I believe we have the answer now: whoever leaked them chose those because they were the scenes they had on hand. These were the scenes that were not originally part of VLD s8, and were added only in the last minute edit.

This one in particular is another where I think it’s taken an actual scene and traced over it to make it into something else. Lance is far too tall here, and doesn’t look like himself hardly at all.

It’s also very clear from the framing of the shot where Allura is going down the line of paladins and hugging them that Lance should be getting a send off in sequence to the others, not apart like this.

No, I think Lance was animated over Lotor here, and the audio was spliced in parts from Lance’s actual goodbye scene and Allura’s “I will always love you” comes from somewhere else. That portion of the line is said in a distinctly different tone of voice than Lance’s name beforehand. There’s different emotions to it than the rest of their conversation, and I’d guarantee we’re hearing it out of it’s original context.

I don’t know what else changes in the ending, but I’m very certain that it was not supposed to be read as Allura dying.

The reason we now read it that way is that Allura and Honerva are seen greeting the spirits of people we know that are dead. I’m fairly certain this scene is either new, or it was only Honerva going to meet them, and of course, that Lotor wasn’t among them.

And I think it was Allura and Lotor who stayed behind to do the work of restoring all realities. My proof of this is one of the very best and strongest among my evidence: the very last closing shot of Voltron: Legendary Defender, after the credits.

The lions of Voltron take off to rejoin their new Cosmic Entities; Allura and Lotor. Whoever was responsible for editing Lotor out of this picture only actually slightly blurred him.

Thanks to @articianne for the outline!

If you play around with the image contrast and brightness it’s even more obvious that the both of them are there, back to back.

It only looks like Allura dies because the spirits but without them there? It looks like they ascended to a higher plane of existence or something.

They haven’t died at all. They’ve become, of all things, like Bob, the gameshow host from s7e4 ‘The Feud’. An ‘all-powerful, all-knowing interdimensional being’.

And y’know? Bob was perfectly able to interact with the paladins no problem.

I don’t understand why these changes were made. To me? This looks like a perfectly happy ending.

What else was cut I don’t know. But I found all this evidence by looking for the things that weren’t there, that a competently structured plot would lead me to expect would be. Chasing ghosts, as it were.

A short list of additional things I strongly suspect were cut?

Several scenes between Keith and Shiro.

A pivotal scene between Allura and Coran.

A follow up event with Pidge referencing her sacrificing her videogame to get Allura a dress.

A scene between Lance and Pidge, possibly referencing said videogame.

A resolution to Lance and Pidge competing to get Allura the best present.

A conclusion to Axca’s sub plot.

A Hunk and Shay scene, to explain how and why the Balmeras all show up in s8e12 ‘The Zenith’.

An additional scene with the blade for the same reasons.

Actually, y’know what? I’m not just going to leave this, because I have a strong suspicion what one of the other cut subplots was about.

You see, the other half of ‘Clear Day’ isn’t entirely filler - it’s specifically a callback to the season 2 episode ‘Space Mall’, and it’s not the only one in this season. The little shopping trip from s8e1 ‘Launch Date’ is also one. Specifically they’re part of a plot for Pidge about her feelings for Lance.

In ‘Space Mall’ Pidge and Lance spend their time scrounging up change to buy a videogame console. The game that they purchase is part of a series that Pidge later trades the only copy of the latest version of to get Allura a dress. During ‘Clear Day’ Pidge and Lance both spend their time trying to get the best present for Allura (hint hint, Pidge is the one who actually got the ‘”something sparkly”).

Now, as I’ve already covered, there’s missing content between ‘Clear Day’ and the next episode. Part of that content should have been what the other paladins were doing while Allura was unconscious. And in series, we never actually see Allura receive either of those presents that were bought for her. So where did they go?

I think Pidge and Lance spent the time waiting for Allura to wake up together, and they got to talking about how Lance has once again failed to acquire the sparkly thing Allura would like. Perhaps Pidge trades her mining helmet for Lance’s signed Blue Lion, and then it comes up how both times Lance went to get a present for Allura he ended up getting one for Pidge.

And that first time was the video game wasn’t it? A perfect place for Lance to find out what happened with the video game in s8e1.

So why did Pidge trade that game? To make Allura happy, yes, but also to make Lance happy. Because Lance likes Allura and Pidge wants them to have a good time, because Pidge likes Lance. Like, check e1 when Allura tells her she's going on a date with Lance, Pidge's reaction... isn't really a happy one.

I think this should have been the turning point for Lance, where he learns the difference between infatuation and sincere affection. I think very soon after this his relationship with Allura would end, and he would naturally progress into a different sort of relationship with Pidge.

As much as I love s8e7 ‘Day Forty-Seven’ I don’t think it was originally part of season 8. I also get the feeling that s7e2 ‘Shadows’ may be composed of scenes we were supposed to have gotten throughout the later half of season seven - though I expect that this change was made in a much earlier spate of edits, likely when s7 was re-done. It’s been confirmed that this happened, and that s7e4 ‘The Feud’ was made to ease the pressure on the exhausted animators who’d been working overtime to get the other episodes done in time. It’s never been confirmed what exactly was changed about season 7 or why, but I highly suspect it was to include more content with the MFE fighters, who the higher ups at Dreamworks might have been hoping to spin off into a sequel.

I suspect that the episodes were shifted forwards, because the first half of the season has no 'event' episode. s8e6 ‘Genesis’ should have been that, and what we're missing is the mid-season event. Which was where they would have saved Lotor. They excised an entire climactic fight between Allura and Honerva, reprising their battle from season 2. The alchemist vs alchemist fight that was repeatedly alluded to being inevitable, yet we never got.

It was animated and voiced to be Lotura and Lotor's vindication.

But someone wanted that changed.

We know when and why ‘The Feud’ was created, and because we were teased in several interviews to pay attention to it so that we might spot some foreshadowing, we can definitively say that the mucking around that was done to season 8 happened at a much later date.

In fact, the animation portion was likely completed all the way back in June. These are two bumper images that were used to advertise Season 6, which released on June 15th.

We haven’t yet seen this image of Lotor appear in the show (for what it matters, the full color one is the correct way around; Lotor’s hair always curls up over his right shoulder, the left can go either way), we have scoured every frame of him to find it, but it’s just not there (yes I know it looks like it should be from s5e4 ‘Kral Zera’, but trust me it’s not). Every other image that’s ever been used in these promotional bumpers has been from somewhere in the show, but this one is so far absent. Therefore it’s from a piece of animation yet to appear, and one which was made by the time these images showed up in June.

Now that we know what the truth is, I am sure we will get the full story eventually. It's only a matter of time before it filters out.

But right now is the key time if we want to convince Dreamworks to release the original season 8. Tweet at them, email them, snail mail if you have the time! Sign that petition!

The fandom response now will determine if we find out what really happened sooner rather than later - and later could mean years.

We are the only people who can make this happen. The cast and crew are all bound by NDAs, and publicly reacting negatively towards a show you worked on is practically career suicide.

It has historically been fans who’ve made a difference when companies interfere with their favorite shows. Fans have been able to effect change in the past, and they will again in the future; lets make sure this is one of those times. We need to fight to get the VLD we should have gotten in the first place.

Just remember to apply your energies in the right places. JDS and LM aren’t perfect people (no one is!), but this isn’t their doing. This is someone above them responsible for the mess that was s8. Dreamworks Animation is the culprit. There is a very real chance that the original season 8 is completely finished and able to be released, and we just might get it if we’re persistent enough.

Be polite, be reasonable, but be firm. Take this proof and use it. Show them that we know they changed things and that they can give us the original if they so choose.

The messages they inadvertently pushed with this slap-dash edit are vile and toxic, and people far more knowledgeable than I in those areas are speaking out about them. This needs to be fixed.

They need to say something. They need to tell us why they changed it. They need to give us the original Season 8.

Click here for Part 2: Seek Truth in Darkness

I, and any of you who enjoyed this meta, owe @nomadicism a huge thank you. She reminded me of that strange "Follow me!" scene, which prompted me to crack open 'Clear Day' for another watch... and I realized that Allura's dreams weren't nonsensical at all.

As always, thank you to my many friends in the Lotura Discord. You give me the strength and encouragement to keep going. I couldn’t have done this without you.

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nerdsideofthemedia · 5 years

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Bumblebee was always the plan

After seeing a few comments on this, I made a part 2.

I’ve written about this before and I was hoping never to return to this subject, but hanging around RWBY communities has kind of forced my hand. Unfortunately, this probably won’t be the only controversial post I write about RWBY’s fandom.

Even though a huge chunk of the fandom has been convinced Bumblebee was going to happen, there were more than a few people who decided to ignore all the signs. Even after 6×12, there were still people trying to remain in denial, which is fine: you do you, but it’s amazing how then they got upset when BBers turned out not to be interested in believing in their lie. Now, I don’t intend to go through all the moments of foreshadowing for the relationship – there are tons of texts about it – but I am still going to address a few moments to prove that it was heavily hinted at, while also addressing the ignorance towards LGBTQ+ experiences.

The injury

To me, I think Yang’s and Sun’s injuries are everything I should need to prove the likelihood of BB as they contrast the two main Blake ships: Bumblebee and Black Sun. While heroes tend to save many people who are indeed just friends or sometimes not even that, there’s a reason why Superman and Spiderman usually include Lois Lane and MJ (or whoever the love interest is in said film) in the climax – it makes it more personal, raising the stakes. From this perspective, it’s easy to understand the importance given to either by comparing: what the injury was, who caused it, why and Blake’s reaction, thus allowing to conclude which couple was given more weight.

What was the injury? Yang lost an arm and suffered from PTSD. Sun, on the other hand, received a minor injury from which he had almost completely recovered from by the next episode and left no lasting damages. Point Bumblebee. Some have tried to argue that Sun was actually hit by an electric weapon, so he could have died, but, ultimately, what matters is what actually happens, not what could have been. As far as we know, he didn’t even get a limitation in movement.

Who caused it? In Yang’s case, it was Adam, while in Sun’s, it was Ilia. So ex-boyfriend vs friend whose feelings were not reciprocated. This one is a no brainer: again point Bumblebee as the first one is more associated with romance. Yang having her arm cut by Adam linked them. By the way, don’t forget Yang and Adam are foils for each other.

Why? Yang was trying to save Blake, while Sun… questioned Ilia’s being a Faunus. If you want to super charitable with him, I can give you: because Ilia was trying to intimidate Blake into giving her back her scroll. Honestly, it doesn’t really matter because neither scenario holds a candle to the first one. Point Bumblebee.

What was Blake’s reaction? When it was Adam vs Yang, she put herself between them and used her semblance to get the latter to safety. When Sun got injured, instead of putting herself between him and Ilia, she stood still and refused to comply with Ilia’s demand. If you feel tempted to say: well, that’s because Ilia’s not as dangerous as Adam, then I have to say: exactly! She could have been, but the writers decided not to do that. Pretty much like Sun could have been the one being associated with Blake’s ex, but he wasn’t. Again, point Bumblebee.

Bonus points:

The use of the Kuleshov effect when Adam says “I’ll destroy everything you love…”, Yang appears, “starting with her”. I can already hear the screeches “Love doesn’t have to mean romance”. Thanks dude, I know. This is where looking at the rest of the scene comes in: it’s why I compared the scene where Yang gets injured to the one with Sun. The writers could have chosen to phrase it differently like “I’ll destroy everything you care about”, but they didn’t. Also, in V5, they got the opportunity to associate that word with Sun and Blake, yet they went for… “classmate”. You know writers care about the words used, right?

By the way, some people tried to argue that Adam just immediately notices the deep love between Yang and Blake. While I don’t disagree that he understands that Blake cares about Yang, the point is for the audience to associate the word “love” with those 2.

More bonus points

Sun was there when Yang decided to go after Blake in V3 and put Weiss in charge of going after Ruby. This shows 2 things: 1) Blake means more to her than to Sun; 2) Yang prioritizes going after Blake over her own sister. That only changed during V4 and V5 because she felt betrayed by Blake for leaving, especially when she needed her as she was struggling with losing an arm and having PTSD.

After the fall, Sun looks at an injured Blake and Yang while the first apologizes to the latter with tears in her eyes. That shot exists for Sun to realize the connection between the 2 girls, not for him to see Blake injured, otherwise it would have been better if Yang had been kept out of the frame, not to mention that he had already seen her injured. If I had to get inside his mind, I’d say that is the moment he realizes how much Yang means to Blake and it’s the reason why he brings up Yang in V4 after his injury.

If you need proof of the romantic undertones of this scene, just tell it to a friend, but swap Yang’s gender and you’ll see just how much more impactful Yang vs Adam is in relation to Sun vs Ilia. Don’t forget to mention that Adam is Blake’s ex-boyfriend while Ilia is the friend whose feelings weren’t reciprocated. Also, Adam’s line “I will destroy everything you love… starting with him”, while our gender-bent Yang enters the scene.

Dance arc

It also accomplishes a few things:

It straight up shows us that Yang understands Blake better than anyone and can get through to her like no one else;

It has Yang flirt with Blake, phrasing her invitation to the dance as “If you feel like coming out tomorrow, I’ll save a dance” and winks;

Yang comments on how she’ll be turning heads, yet the only head she turns is Blake’s.

All of the rest of team wears a dress of their colors: Ruby-red, Weiss-white, Blake-black, yet Yang uses a white one instead of yellow. I think that was to create a yin-yang effect with her and Blake. (apparently this was the result of an animation problem).

Establishes the parallel between Bumblebee and Arkos as their scenes are intertwined, which happens again in V3

(After reading the comments on rwby wiki, I have to add: those were phrased deliberately that way. I know: writers care about how they word things... shock! If you think the "coming out" or the "turning heads" were phrased accidentally with Blake turning her head also accidentally, I'm sorry but you don't know anything about writing and filmmaking. There is no way the writers didn't know "coming out" is associated with LGBTQ+ and they didn't have to phrase that way. Also, there's this thing called "editing" where writers (and others) reread the script - if those weren't intentional, they would have been detected and changed during this phase. It's about other scene, but here you go).

Bumblebee also resembles Renora as the friendship turned more and one could easily make an argument there were no hints of romance for Renora until V4, yet no one bothers to as if there are huge double standards when it comes to straight and LGBTQ+ couples: whenever two characters of the opposite gender have an interaction that can be seen as romantic or platonic, it’s seen as the first, while if the same happens to same gender, they are put in the platonic category.

Songs

Ok, so Bmblb isn’t canon, but it was still written with Bumblebee in mind. It is full of references to bees and puns, the latter was probably like the third thing the writers put on Yang’s character sheet, which probably looked like this: 1) anger issues 2) semblance: absorb and dish out energy 3) loves puns.

Bmblb is undoubtedly a love song between Yang and Blake, unlike BS song Not Fall in Love With You which was a pop song written before RWBY was even a thing. Oh, and Like Morning Follows Night isn’t romantic, except for a few Sun’s lines, but Blake’s part never treats him more than friend. Once, I read a comment saying this song was written because Jeff hates BB and finds BBers annoying. Look, if that were true (and it’s a big “if”), then, not only Jeff would be pretty petty, he’d also be incredibly stupid (again, huge “if”), because he’d OK with queerbaiting, plus it’s pretty obvious BBers would get louder as it confirmed their ship.

Armed and Ready’s first 2 verses are about Yang losing her arm and replaying the scene in her mind and within those verses she mentions “there’s nothing I won’t do for her”, which often is associated with love (“and I’d do anything for love” – not the time to express my love for that Meat Loaf’s song? My bad).

All that Matters, which includes the lines “never thought you would stay forever/never asked you to commit your life”, that definitely have a romantic connotation. The entire song reveals just how much Yang feels for Blake, even though she feels betrayed.

Red Like Roses compares Blake to the Beast and Yang to the Beauty. Tale as old as time indeed.

I could go on, but seriously just read the posts I linked to before.

So, why did Bumblebee caught so many by surprise?

Well, that one is obvious: because it’s a LGBTQ+ couple. When it comes to those, most will remain in denial and interpret everything that can be romantic or platonic as the latter while they won’t do that for heterosexual couples. Again, Renora didn’t have to be framed as romantic until V4, yet most people did think of them that way and (almost) no one complained when they became a couple.

Yet, with Bumblebee, people chose to stay in denial until the very last episode of V6 (some even after that), though it was obvious 2 episodes before. A huge part of V6 was about Bumblebee: them mending their wounds and understanding their (and each other’s) feelings. Adam attacked Yang out of jealousy, tried to make her insecure about her relationship with Blake by claiming she had promised to stay with him and didn’t keep it and, then asked “what does she even see in you?”. In spite of this, there were still people trying to deny Bumblebee as if that question appears outside a romantic context.

After all… Blake and Yang were totally straight, right? Content warning for fragile egos: yap, we’re going to talk about heteronormativity and bisexual erasure.

What do heteronormativity and bisexual erasure mean?

In this context, heteronormativity means the assumption that everyone is straight until proven otherwise. By the way, some people like to pretend this is the skeptic’s position, but it’s not. An actual skeptic (which are much rarer than internet would have you believe, because it conflates skepticism with atheism) would assume ignorance when they don’t have the complete facts. Unless a character said they are only attracted to the opposite gender or something that makes it unambiguous they are straight, they might not be. Sorry, but I’m just a bit too old to believe in a “straight of the gaps”. Sure, most people/characters are straight, but if you assume everyone is, you’ll be wrong a bunch of times.

Bisexual erasure is the failure to consider bisexuality is a thing. To be fair, most people who do this, also fail to consider pan and asexuality. To them, people are either gay or straight. And, yes, most will recognize bisexuality exists when called out, yet still fail to consider it when making an argument. They’ll point out Blake can’t be into Yang, because she had a boyfriend as if that excludes interest in girls. Spoiler alert: not only it doesn’t exclude bisexuality, it can actually not even exclude her as a lesbian (I’ll return to this later).

Both of the comments above illustrate the problems I pointed out (with the second being pretty douchey and hilariously proven wrong now). The people above act if characters aren’t straight, writers need to show it right away. After all, don’t we all meet people by saying “My name is X and my sexual orientation is y”? Or make sure people see us check out people of the opposite/same gender or both genders to reveal our sexual orientation? Just me? Not even me? OK.

I think I’ve covered the fact that attraction to the opposite gender doesn’t exclude attraction to the same. Now, let’s take a look on Yang and Blake’s interest in boys.

The only time Yang expressed interest in boys was in episode 1×03, when she was ogling some shirtless ones. “Yeah. How do you explain that? Zing”. Hold your horses mate, here’s how:

Compulsory heterosexuality (yes, I intend to explain that too, so hold your tongue/fingers before doing a GoT impression saying “shame!” over and over again);

Episode 1×03 is pretty early on, so the writers may not have yet figured out the character’s sexuality, which is supported by an interview with Monty where, when asked about future LGBTQ+ characters, he responded they might already be there, they (and writers) hadn’t figured it out yet;

It was just a joke. I have to ask if you put so much weight on Yang being straight because of that joke, why do you not exclude her as being straight (or even bi) when she makes a joke revealing disinterest in Sun’s abs? Yang is totally straight because she likes guys with abs and when she doesn’t, it has no meaning. Sorry people, but if you put so much weight in one moment where she shows interest in guys for comedic purposes, then you have to put it in equal amount in the moment she shows disinterest in guys for comedic purposes. I may not like Sun, but eternally-unbuttoned-shirt-guy-with-well-defined-abs was definitely designed to be hot. So was Neptune, by the way, yet our flirty girl couldn’t have shown to be less interested in him even though he tried to flirt with her. Our straight girl!

Compulsory heterosexuality refers to the concept that heterosexuality can be adopted by people regardless of their personal sexual preference. Basically, heterosexuality is expected and we are raised to believe that is the normal, as a result many LGBTQ+ people believe to be straight until something or someone makes them question that. So no, not everyone who is LGBTQ+ knows it right away. Many figure themselves out during their teenage years, others find out much later.

About Blake’s sexuality, all we know is she dated Adam and might have had a crush on Sun at some point. Again, this does not exclude LGBTQ+, not even the L, since, again, she might have not figured herself out. I doubt she’s a lesbian, pan/bi is more likely, but it’s still a possibility. Oh, and asexual people can have relationships too.

I’m sure some may be thinking “she has only liked guys”, but 2 isn’t a big number (and only 1 was confirmed). Like I said, in order to assert she’s straight there needs to be evidence, which there isn’t. At most, you have evidence she probably likes guys, which again doesn’t exclude her liking girls (I may be sounding awfully repetitive, but trust me, this case warrants it).

Now, some people like to pretend to feel shamed when someone claims that “If Yang was a guy, you wouldn’t see them as just friends”. I agree with the argument because… well, it’s obviously true: most people think of relationships as involving 2 people of the opposite gender, even if they are aware others exist (didn’t we just cover that some LGBTQ+ go through a self-discovery process because of that?). However, it’s ultimately counterproductive. People who do this usually aren’t aware of it (and if they are, they’ll lie about it) and it can’t be proven, usually.

Of course, some let their masks slip away too much. The person who inspired this part of the rant constantly faked outrage when called out for their behavior. They did all of it: presumed straight until proven otherwise and pretended one can be only either straight or gay. Even after being called out several times, they constantly demanded evidence that Yang and Blake weren’t straight (this was before the end of V6, obviously), though they, of course, had to provide no proof they were. Still, when someone said the endgame pairings would be SunxBlake, YangxIlia and OscarxRuby, guess what evidence they asked for? If you guessed Yang being LGBTQ+, congratulations! You win the internet!

I think I don’t have to point out the ridiculousness of asking for that when neither Oscar nor Ruby have expressed any romantic or sexual interest in anyone, regardless of gender (in 6 volumes). According to the logic of these internet-skeptics (which means: believers in gut feeling, but in denial about it), Ruby and Oscar should be asexual and aromantic until proven otherwise. Yet, even then, the assumption is they’re straight. Again, LGBTQ+ needs evidence and absence of it means evidence of absence, straight doesn’t. No double standards at all.

I think it’s time to wrap this up: writers don’t have to tell a character’s sexual orientation in the beginning. And if two characters of the same gender have interactions that can be seen as either romantic or platonic, yet you frame them always as the second, while doing the opposite for pairs of different genders – that’s on you. And if you insist on faking outrage and shame when someone points all this out (yes, it’s fake – I know it, you know it, everyone knows it), and want to keep playing the “I’m not going to be part of the system” card (’cause it’s so brave to be part of the status quo) and throwing stuff on the ground, go right ahead. Throw a hot dog, a birthday cake, your cellphone, your computer even. In the end, it changes nothing: LGBTQ+ people exist and so should LGBTQ+ characters. If you have a problem with that and demand a ridiculous standard from them that you’d never do from a straight couple, here’s a hint: sometimes, you’re just not the target audience.

More RWBY posts:

Filmmaking and Bumbleby

Bumblebee was Always the Plan part 2

Faunus and the White Fang: The Portrayal of Racism

BB & Renora

Weird Post on Weiss’s Clothes

Foils: Adam and Yang (this one is in wordpress; it was my first one and I didn’t have Tumblr then)

Let’s talk about Adam Taurus (I didn’t post this one on Tumblr because the title and tags could lead Adam fans thinking this was about “his wasted potential” when really it defends the decision of killing him off and explains why it happened)

Original post: https://rwbytalk.wordpress.com/2019/01/31/sorry-rwby-fans-bumblebee-didnt-come-out-of-the-blue/

#bumbleby #Bumblebee was always the plan #rwby bmblb #let me 🐝 your bmblb #bumblebee rwby #heteronormativity #bisexual erasure #foreshadow #rwby lgbtq+#rwby lgbtq #yang x blake #Blake Belladonna #yang xiao long #rwby bumblebee #rwby writing

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hornyliverpudlianputz · 5 years

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The art of making The Monkees

I got an ask recently to do a post on the cinematography of The Monkees TV show. Well. I love an excuse to rant about all things film so here it is! (Thanks again for the ask anon!) To start. What is cinematography? Simply put, it is the art of film making. More specifically, it is all the work that goes into making each shot look exactly the way it needs to in order to convey the “artistic vision” of the director. Things like lighting, framing, focus, camera movement, frame rate, and filters. Everything shot with a camera has it. How does it apply to The Monkees? Well..

The Monkees, having started its run as a typical 60s sitcom, actually didn’t push a lot of cinematography boundaries. (Head is another story, but that is for a different post.) Towards the end of the second season it was starting to play around a lot with editing and writing, but not so much cinematography. That’s not to say the show didn’t have it, like I said everything shot with a camera has some amount of cinematography. So. What I can talk about are elements that The Monkees did use, because it has some great examples of some classic cinematography techniques.

Let’s do lighting first. Lighting is one of those things in film and TV that you don’t really notice unless it’s done badly, or if it’s very, very dramatic. Lighting tells us where to look in the shot, if it’s outside or inside, what the temperature is, and whether it’s day or night. Compare these two shots from inside the pad, facing the window: x x

In the first shot, it’s obviously supposed to be daytime while the other shot is clearly night. How do we know this? A combination of scenic design and lighting. The backdrop outside the bay windows has been changed in the second still to reflect a nighttime view. The lighting in the second shot is also much more shadowy and slightly dimmer. The first shot is very cleanly lit in its entirety, mimicking a room that is lit by a large bay window on a sunny California day. Then there’s this beautiful shot which has some thematic implications x:

Notice the shadows of the harp strings on Peter’s face. That could have been avoided by simply not lighting Peter directly from his right side, which means the fact that the shadows are there is deliberate. This is the point in the episode (”The Devil and Peter Tork” of course) where everyone realizes that Peter has apparently accidentally signed his soul away in order to play the harp. The vertical shadows on his face are not only ominous and unsettling, they also create an instantly recognizable image of bars, as in a cage or a prison.

Later in that episode during the “Salesman” romp we see some great examples of dramatizing the lighting using obvious color and glare. In fact, because of the crazy camera angles, we can actually see the lighting instruments being used on set x :

There’s also some great use of colored lighting for comic effect in “The Audition”, both when Peter has “hay fever” and when he is “sea sick” x

Notice how the other boys are arranged around Peter so that none of them get in the field of the colored light. You can also see some spill over from the light on Peter’s shirt, and obviously his hands are affected when he puts them near his head.

Now let’s talk filters. These can be used on either lighting instruments or the camera itself. The boys actually do a short bit with some of the lighting frames (these include both texture and color filters) in one of the “minute short” interviews, watch here. I’m going to discuss camera filters here, which are essentially the same thing except when used they cover the entire shot evenly rather than affecting only the area hit by the light. (For example, in the above bit with Peter a light filter was used, not a camera filter.)

These are a little trickier to spot as any color filter over a camera is designed to be subtle, but they do use a texture filter in “The Chaperone” and it’s in a really classic way (I can’t get a good source on this gif, but it’s not mine):

Notice how the image is a little “fuzzy”? It’s not because the camera is foggy, here’s a shot from immediately before this (same problem as above, no good source but not my gif):

See? No fog. That texturing technique was very commonly employed in the 60s to “soften” a shot or make the mood more romantic, usually when a very pretty girl had just entered the room and a main character sees her. Here the point being made is that the General is instantly smitten with “Mrs. Arcadian” because he thinks “she” is very pretty. The cinematographer used a camera filter to cue the audience with a technique they would have been familiar with to hammer the joke home.

Camera movement. This covers a few new terms so you get a vocab lesson with examples! A “static” shot is one where the camera is still. It’s not moving at all, it is simply focused in one area and all the action happens within that frame. This and the next type are probably the most commonly used shots in The Monkees. (Like I said, they didn’t push too many boundaries on this front.)

A “pan” or “panning” shot is one where the camera is stationary, but swivels from side to side on a fixed point, usually following a subject walking across a room.

“Tilting” is doing the same but vertically rather than horizontally. So the camera is in a fixed position but “tilts” up or down to follow something that would otherwise move out of frame.

A “tracking” shot is one where the whole camera moves, usually on a dolly or tracks (hence the name) to follow action sideways. This is typically used in large areas, like when a subject is moving down a street. (In this case, the Monkeemobile)

A “dolly” shot is similar to a tracking shot, but instead of moving the camera side to side a dolly is used to “push in” or “pull out” on the subjects. This is used in place of zooming in/out.

A “crane” shot is one where the camera is physically put on a crane to lift it either away from or towards the subject. This can also substitute for zooming in/out.

This variant on a crane shot was accomplished by putting Davy on the crane with the camera which is both hilarious and cool:

Here’s a behind-the-scenes picture that makes it more obvious x:

Finally there is the “handheld” camera which is exactly what it sounds like. A camera person will physically handle the camera, usually on their shoulder, and track the subject themselves. This is typically gives a jerky, “homemade” feel to the shot. The Monkees uses this technique frequently during romps or in the early episodes during dancing scenes, because the bouncy shot makes the viewer feel like they are being jostled.

Next we have framing and/or focus. I’m putting these two in the same category, partially because they are very similar and partially because I don’t have any good examples of The Monkees actually “using” focus. Focus, firstly, is exactly what it sounds like. Focus determines which object or subject is in “perfect” focus and which are in “acceptable” focus. Obviously this affects exactly what the viewer is looking at in a frame. When the focus is “raked”, it’s visibly changed from the foreground to the background, or vice verse. Like I said, The Monkees don’t really play with focus that much, so I’ll leave it alone.

Framing, on the other hand, is a different story. Framing is also exactly what it sounds like, it’s how ever the shot is “framed” in terms of what subjects are in it. Usually it’s characters who are talking or reacting to events. But framing also includes zooming in/out, and The Monkees frequently used this for comically dramatic effect.

Here, for example, in “Too Many Girls” it’s used as a gag reveal:

Or in “Royal Flush”:

In this bit of course, Mike zooms himself in:

There is also a “tilted” frame, which is different than a tilt shot. A tilted frame is where the camera is physically tilted so the frame is on a diagonal. This is usually used to create a sense of unease or “unreality”. The Monkees use it in “Captain Crocodile” when they do the “Frogman and Tadpole” bit, to emphasize the point that this is completely fictional within The Monkees universe. x

Last but certainly not least, frame rate. The Monkees plays with this quite a lot, especially early on, so it’s a big one to cover. Frame rate describes how many frames (the still images on a film strip) are moving past the “eye” per second. The film standard is 24 frames while the TV standard is 30. (I have no idea why they are different.) Because the industry standard will always be to play the film at a rate of 30 fps, a camera person can speed up or slow down the end result by shooting fewer or more frames.

This is called “undercranking” or “overcranking” in reference to when film cameras were hand operated with a crank. When a shot is “overcranked” deliberately, you end up with more than 30 frames captured per second of real time. When this is played back at a 30 fps rate, you see the results in slow motion.

The opposite, “undercranking”, means that you have captured less than 30 fps in real time. When an undercranked scene is played back at a 30 fps rate, the image speeds up. Sound familiar?

Now. Having said all of that I do need to make a point about The Monkees specifically. Cinematography in general is basically the reason that “blocking” exists. (Blocking is essentially choreography for not-dancing, it is worked out beforehand exactly where actors will stand/move within a scene and at which cue they move on.) Blocking needs to happen mostly so that lighting and camera movement can be planned in advance. Lighting especially, shadows in the wrong place can really mess up a shot, but also if the specific type of camera equipment to do a certain shot isn’t on set, the shot can’t be done. The camera operators also need to know who their mark is and how/where they will be moving so they can properly do their job.

This means that physical improvisation is very, very difficult to actually do. Verbal improvisation is no problem, but when an actor is moving around unpredictably it takes a damn good camera operator to keep them in frame. Not to mention the fact that lighting is now a total crapshoot. But, you may say, The Monkees is known for improvisation! Correct. What happened with The Monkees is basically “planned improvisation”. What I mean is, the camera/lighting crew went into the scene knowing there would be improvisation. I assume this was typically employed during romps, but who knows in the second season.

There was an interview (or maybe commentary I don’t remember) where someone talked about Micky letting the crew on set know that he was going to be improvising during that scene. He told the lighting crew to lights the set as evenly as possibly, and the camera crew to be ready to follow him “up”. I believe it was actually “The Chaperone” romp because it’s the only one I can think of where Micky goes climbing around like a maniac. And when you look at some of it, it’s clear that the camera person was having a little trouble following him around.

Watch here when he jumps off the balcony:

You can see when he lands the camera person overshoots slightly and Micky goes partially out of the top of the frame.

Compare to this scene from “Monstrous Monkee Mash” when Mike falls down the stairs, which was likely scripted (if it’s not I am very impressed with the camera operator) x:

The only time that Mike goes out of frame is when his leg gets caught on a step, which was likely an accident. The camera moves exactly to a set point that was probably planned in advance. In the second gif, Mike stands abruptly but remains nearly perfectly in frame. Again, probably because it was planned in advance.

But I digress. Point is, even though The Monkees didn’t experiment too heavily with cinematography in their heyday, they did put it to excellent use both practically and comically.

#the monkees #cinematography #long ass post #gifs not sourced are mine #finally got this done #giphy stopped loading?#like halfway through?#so now half the gifs are shitty quality #sorry every one

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nellynee · 5 years

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Breaking down Trolls: The Beat Goes On, opening statements.

I don’t care if none of you want it you’re getting it anyways

So before I start digging in episode by episode I’m going to address the elephant in the room

The big, voice acting elephant. The big dumb voice acting elephant.

Because here’s the deal with the Trolls franchise right now. It was planned to be a franchise, from day one, barring any unpredictable blows in totally bombing in the box office. And while financially it makes sense to pack as many big name blockbuster singers into your unprecedented animated musical throwback for marketing purposes, it makes less sense when you start already planning to adapt it for cheap netflix spinoffs you couldn’t possibly afford to upkeep said voice cast on.

Because that recasting, for better or worse, did alienate a large portion of the audience. Some love the tv show, some came around to it after getting used to the voices, and some are movie purists. For myself, I’m somewhere between came around and a movie purist.

To make it clear, there’s a reason the Trolls tv show has shown a moderate amount of success. A huge amount of success when compared to most of its other Dreamworks TV adaption brothers and sisters (HTTYD not withstanding of course). And that reason is enthusiasm.

It is obviously B-grade schlock, but it’s fun B-grade schlock. Its very apparent that most of the people making this show are having some kind of fun making it, mostly because it is B-grade, entertain the small children, not a lot of corporate beat down schlock. The writing team gets creative, the colors are wild and bright, there’s a decent number of pretty catchy songs percentage wise, people enjoyed themselves here.

So... the voice acting.... This is actually why I’m able to forgive it some. Because when it comes to voice acting, there’s a lot of effort and enthusiasm put into it. It matters a lot less with the background cast. We saw so little of them from an audio perspective, and the actors in the original movie did a decent enough job at stylizing their acting that a similar enough tone and attempt at stylization does a really good job as substitutes. Bridget is obviously not played by Zooey Deschanel not because of any deficit in tone, but because Deschanel’s performance was just that good. The background cast in The Beat Goes on are all Perfectly acceptable.

But we’ve got those two great big outliers don’t we, the ones that bothered everybody.

Poppy bothers me a bit less. Despite the fuss that was made, Amanda Leighton makes a really concentrated effort to mimic Anna Kendrick as best she can, and the attempt made is just a bit of inflection away from being uncanny. It’s a bit like listening to Dan Castellaneta mimic Robin Williams. The personalized take on a character is either missing, or different, but it’s close enough that it’s not really that bothersome. Poppy’s voice is functional for me, it’s more her characterization that causes me some dissonance, but I’ll get to that, trust me.

But Branch. Branch.

You poor, poor boy.

I’m going to go into this a lot in episode break down, but at its core, the writing team grossly mischaracterized Branch in many ways. And the result in casting left them with two totally different voices, both of which would be right for the right character type, but of a type of which movie Branch only fit in superficially and only pre movie at that. While I plan on breaking down how dirty they did the boy as we go, that is, quite simply, the problem with Branch in the show.

Not to say that the acting, or even the character is bad. But it is a thing totally removed from the character of Branch ala the Movie and Holiday special. To the point really where I don’t think I can consider the show canon on any other level than superficial worldbuilding, thus, why I’m writing this in the first place.

(Also, before I begin, I might as well cover the first thing first, the theme song, of which I have to say... It’s good. Actually pretty good. Don’t watch the show? Don’t care, watch the theme song at least once. I mean it’s not outstanding in it’s editing or animation, but it gives a really good idea of the quality of its original songs.)

#dreamworks trolls #trolls 2016 #trolls the beat goes on #trolls movie #trolls branch #meta

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per-ineptia-ad-astra · 5 years

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Star Trek Episode 1.11: The Menagerie, Part 1

AKA: Spock Goes Rogue, Shows Vacation Photos

Did you think we were done with the pilots yet? Ha ha ha, no. We will never be done.

You remember how, back in Where No Man Has Gone Before, I mentioned that there was a first pilot that NBC was interested in but didn’t like enough to greenlight the show? That pilot was called The Cage, and was quite different from the eventual show in its design. It was also very different in cast, with Leonard Nimoy and Majel Barrett being the only cast members to stick around for the rest of the show. Nimoy still played Spock, but a much more emotional, earnest Spock, while Barrett played Number One, the second-in-command who was actually much more like Spock, being cool, intelligent, and seemingly emotionless. Instead of Kirk the captain was Christopher Pike, played by Jeffrey Hunter, who made for a much more serious and gloomy kind of leading man.

Now, as mentioned, that pilot didn’t get approved, so they went on with the second pilot, and then with the main show, leaving The Cage to be an interesting what-could-have-been side note in the show’s history, but nothing more than that. Or at least, it would have been, if the show hadn’t run into a problem with production delays while doing the first season, on account of all that time-consuming effects work. To help catch up, they needed an episode that could be completed in much less time than they were usually taking. Come to think of it, didn’t they have an entire story, already shot and edited and everything, just sitting around unused?

And so Roddenberry hit on the idea of re-using the scrapped pilot to fill out season one. It’s an odd example of being a clip show (that is, an episode of a TV show mostly comprised of clips from other episodes) from a production standpoint, but not from an audience one, since they had never seen the old footage before. Of course, the pilot was so different that they couldn’t just drop it in as it was. It was weird enough when they did that with Where No Man Has Gone Before, and at least that one had the same captain. So a framing device had to be invented, something that would allow them to justify showing the pilot in the context of the show. That framing device combined with the longer running time of The Cage—an hour and a bit compared to TOS’s usual fifty minutes—made for two episodes, resulting in the only two-part story in TOS.

Our episode begins with the Enterprise in orbit around a large planet that’s a nice purple color. A view from the planet’s surface shows us a walkway and grassy courtyard between rows of buildings, under a purple sky with a ringed planet on the horizon. A nice change from the planets we’ve seen so far, which have mostly been bleak at best and desolate hellholes no one would want to live in at worst. Well, Miri’s planet was okay. Shame about the plague, though.

Anyway, this planet is clearly quite inhabited, as lots of people in Starfleet uniforms are walking about, including a redshirt woman who pauses and looks around with a rather...confused expression on her face. It kinda looks like she’s just suddenly found herself outside and isn’t entirely sure how she got there.

But a moment later, the thing she was looking for arrives: Kirk, Spock and McCoy beaming down into the courtyard. The woman greets them and says that the commodore is waiting to see them, and wants to know why they suddenly changed course to come visit him. Now it’s Kirk’s turn to be confused, because according to him, they got a message telling them to divert to the base immediately. But the woman says the base sent no such message. Well, that’s a mite strange.

Kirk is soon talking to said commodore, Mendez, who says that no, they definitely didn’t send anything like that to the Enterprise. But Kirk insists that Spock received a message from the former captain of the Enterprise, now-Fleet Commander Pike, and Kirk has rock solid faith in Spock so as far as he’s concerned, if Spock says there was a message, there was a message.

Before Kirk can offer to duel for Spock’s honor, Mendez says that he’s not doubting anyone here, it’s just that it’s impossible that Pike could have sent that message. When Kirk asks why, Mendez is surprised he hasn’t heard since it’s been all over the subspace chatter. Apparently Kirk hasn’t been keeping up with his social media lately. Judging by the commodore’s tone, it’s not happy news.

He takes the three of them upstairs to the medical section, because sure, why not stick a hospital directly on top of your space navy headquarters. On the way, they talk about Pike; Kirk only met him once, but Spock served with him on the Enterprise for eleven years. According to Mendez, Pike was doing an inspection of an old cadet ship when a plate ruptured, exposing the people on the ship to delta rays. Which are a real thing, but probably not one that has much of anything to do with this. Anyway Pike went into the danger zone to rescue all the cadets that were still alive, but judging from the grim warning Mendez gives before he opens the door to Pike’s room, he didn’t come back in great shape.

They enter the room, to see a man sitting with his back towards them. When Mendez addresses him, he slowly turns around, revealing that his chair is in fact a mobility device encasing him up to his shoulders. The little that we can see of Pike himself doesn’t look real good.

[ID: A man in a hospital room with a large window looking out onto a cityscape. The man is in a kind of pyramidal chair that encases him up to his shoulders, with five round lights arranged on a panel in the front, four silver and one yellow. The man has pale hair, drooping eyelids, bubbled skin on the lower part of his face, and a huge purplish-red burn scar curving from his left temple down to his jaw.]

Kirk, Spock and McCoy look back with muted reactions—which could be called underacting, but I call it sensible, because the last thing you want to do when seeing a person who’s been injured and disfigured is scream about it, that’s not good for anyone’s mental health. Mendez goes over to Pike and says hey, you remember these guys, they wanted to come see you. In response, the yellow light on Pike’s chair flashes twice. Mendez says two flashes mean no. So, he doesn’t remember them, or he doesn’t want to see them? Mendez seems to think it’s the second one, because he asks if Pike won’t make an exception, but he only gets another no. Looks like they’ll have to leave. Kirk asks if there’s anything he can do for Pike, but he also gets a no.

As they turn to leave, though, Spock asks Pike if he can stay for a moment. The chair light flashes once for yes, so the other three exit, leaving Spock alone with his former captain.

Spock says that Pike knows why he’s come. It’s an awkward conversation. “It’s only six days away at maximum warp, and I have it well planned.” Two flashes. “I have never disobeyed your orders before, Captain, but this time, I must.” Two flashes. “I know. I know it is treachery, and it’s mutiny. But I must do this.” Two flashes. “I have no choice.” Two flashes. One suspects that if there was a “goddammit, I said NO” button, Pike would be using it.

That’s not Jeffrey Hunter playing Pike here, incidentally—he declined to come back for the second pilot after the first one didn’t get picked up, and was way too expensive and busy for them to hire him back just to get covered in makeup and sit motionless in a pyramid chair. So the older Pike was played by Sean Kenney, suffering through what had to be one of the most boring acting jobs ever.

After the titles, night has fallen on the purple planet, and still Kirk and Mendez are arguing. Kirk says that Spock claiming to have received a message is all the proof he needs, but as the commodore points out, the record floppy discs tapes show no sign of that message being sent. Kirk suggests the tapes could have been altered, but Mendez says fact is that Pike could not have sent that message and Spock’s the only one who seems to have seen it anyway. Kirk points out that if Spock wanted to see Pike there’d be no need to fake a message, he could have just asked for leave. “WELL THAT’S TRUE OF COURSE!” Mendez yells, and then kind of peters out awkwardly.

The question is, if the Enterprise was nefariously diverted to the base by someone, why? There was nothing urgent going on where they were that anyone would want to get them away from. Mendez calls down to the computer lab to see if there’s any way that message could possibly have been sent from the base, but the guy on duty says that no, they’ve checked and double-checked everything possible. Mendez tells him to start checking the impossible. Dammit, why do these Starfleet types keep saying that? What is anyone supposed to do with that order? “Well, I guess we’ll go look for unicorns in the server room.”

As the computer chief gets up to go set leprechaun traps or whatever, Spock enters from the door behind him. We can tell he's up to no good because he's in stealth mode, creeping suspiciously past a partition in the back of the room and coming up behind the computer guy, who gets nerve-pinched before he even knows what's up. Spock leaves him on the floor and sets to work tampering with one of the computers. Hands-on hacking, that's how they did it back in the day.

Upstairs...downstairs? Adjacent? In another building? Wherever the commodore's office is relative to the computer lab, the redshirt woman from earlier has stopped by. Mendez introduces her to Kirk as Ms. Piper. (She's a civilian? I guess? She wears a uniform but has no rank on her sleeves.) Piper says that she recognized Kirk immediately because a mutual friend described him to her—yet another one of Kirk's old flames, evidently, judging by the way he reacts. Before we can go too far down that old road again, though, Mendez nudges Piper to make her report.

Piper says that their investigation turned up very little, except that Spock served with Pike for several years and was very loyal to him, which we already knew. Kirk butts in to say that a Vulcan “can no more be disloyal than he can exist without breathing” which applies both to Spock’s former commander and his present one. This strikes me as a rather odd thing to say. What do you mean he can't be disloyal? Can Vulcans not dislike or disagree with people that they serve under? Do they just become bound to obey anyone with a higher rank than them? Because that has all kinds of unpleasant implications. It could be that their culture simply places a very high priority on loyalty, but Kirk makes it sound like it's built into them. But then I guess Kirk is a bit on the defensive right now and he might be overstating things. Or he could just be wrong.

Anyway, Piper points out that look, they have to consider everything, and the results on the unicorns haven't come back yet. What they know for sure is that Pike couldn't have sent that message because his condition means he's under constant observation. Mendez says that Pike's chair is built to respond to his brain waves, so he can move it around a little or flash the light, but that's all he can do.

This is something that has always bothered me about this episode, to be honest. It seems weird that they're able to build Pike a chair that can respond to his brain waves but not so well that he can any do more than scoot around a little, but you know what—fine. Let's take it as a given that this is indeed the limit of the technology and medicine of the setting. But no one could think of any way that you could use that little bit that he can do to communicate any better than just yes or no? Really? He can make a light flash—y'all ever hear of morse code, aka a whole system of communication that requires nothing more than a light that can turn on and off? What about a letter board with lights so he can spell out words? If he can mentally activate a light, could he not mentally activate buttons for a text-to-speech device? Or at least a small set of pre-recorded messages? I mean, we have paralyzed patients in real life, right now, who can communicate better than poor Pike even though we have way less advanced technology, because we put some thought into how best to use the technology we do have. At least it's not like they also have people with telepathic powers in this setting—OH WAIT. THEY DO.

At any rate, Mendez reiterates that Pike couldn't have even asked for the message to be sent; his mind is fine and active, but his body can't really do anything anymore, and because everyone in this dang hospital is terrible at their jobs he can't communicate more than yes or no.

In the computer lab, Spock is playing with some wires to make a voice saying 'starbase operations' speed up and slow down. This would seem to be part of the process to synthesize a voice giving new orders to the Enterprise. That, or he was just doing it for fun. On the Enterprise Uhura receives the fake message, saying that they're getting new orders which are top secret so they're going to be fed directly into the ship's computer. This strikes both Uhura and the random guy who I guess is in charge at the moment—a goldshirt named Hansen; don't get attached he won't stick around-- as odd, so they request confirmation.

Before Spock can send that confirmation, he's interrupted by a guy coming in and demanding to know what he's doing in a secured area. He's tampering with the computers, what does it look like he's doing? Spock says he has clearance, but the guy doesn't buy it, and tries to pull him away from the computer. This results in a brief shoving match between the two, like two siblings fighting over the X-Box, before Spock remembers that oh yeah, he can do that thing that makes people go unconscious and stop bothering him.

With that problem temporarily solved, Spock is able to give Uhura confirmation by way of a convenient tape that has a recording of Kirk saying, “You have confirmation” on it. Then he puts in another one that tells them to direct all messages to Spock. Oh, well that's handy.

Spock then tells them that their course for this mission will be computed and laid in automatically, so even the helmsmen won't know where they're going. Also this is top secret so don't discuss it with anyone. Also we're leaving in an hour, so make sure you go to the bathroom beforehand.

Meanwhile, Kirk is sitting by a monitor watching Pike in his room. And y'know, while we're on the subject of Pike here, you'd really expect a completely paralyzed patient under permanent full-time care to have a room that was actually designed to fit their needs as well as possible, wouldn't you? But no, they just crammed his chair into a regular hospital room, complete with a bed taking up half the space. That's just mean. “Here's a bed, you can never use it again, but you'll have to look at constantly!” Maybe that's why Pike is currently facing the camera and flashing 'no' over and over.

McCoy comes in and says he's tried questioning Pike, who's apparently really agitated. Then he goes on a passionate rant about what good is medicine anyway when they can't use it to help this man, trapped with a perfectly functional brain but no way to reach out to people. It's very heartfelt; you sort of get the impression that DeForest Kelley knew he didn't have much to do in this whole story but damn if he wasn't going to do the most he could with what he did have.

Kirk isn't impressed, though; in fact he just keeps staring at the monitor with no sign that he heard McCoy at all. The two of them question what Pike is saying 'no' to; it's an answer but they have no hope of guessing the correct question. But Kirk seems less focused on the plight of Pike and more on this whole mystery about the message. Either someone at the base sent them that message, or someone on the ship lied about receiving it—and he's starting to wonder if, in fact, that someone was Spock.

McCoy doesn't buy that at all; even regardless of how well they know Spock, he says, Vulcans can't lie. Later evidence throughout the show points more towards “Vulcans really want people to think they can't lie” but McCoy doesn't know that yet. And while, yes, Spock is half-human, he so fully identifies as Vulcan that McCoy doesn't see any chance of him acting or thinking like a human; he'd be ashamed to do so.

But Kirk's getting riled up. Someone is messing with his ship and he really hates it when that happens. At this point everyone is under suspicion as far as he's concerned—he'd even suspect McCoy if he thought McCoy knew how to fake a message like that. McCoy is perfectly willing to admit that he could absolutely run off and do some wild bullshit if the mood struck him, but he still insists that Spock wouldn't.

The argument has just about escalated into a shouting match, but it's abruptly derailed by a message on the intercom telling McCoy to report to the transporter. Apparently he's needed on the Enterprise because of a medical emergency, but the guy on the line doesn't know what it is, just that they need McCoy for it. McCoy seems less than impressed by this—reasonably enough, considering that apparently someone managed to get themselves so injured the remaining medical staff can't deal with it while in a safe orbit--but he heads off, promising to let Kirk know what's up when he finds out.

Some indeterminate time later, Mendez is showing Kirk a sealed dossier with TALOS IV—TOP SECRET FOR EYES OF STARFLEET COMMAND ONLY on the front. Mendez asks Kirk what he knows about Talos 4, and Kirk says he only knows what everyone knows—General Order Seven forbids any ship from ever going there for any reason. In fact, Starfleet is so serious about this that it warrants the death penalty—the only one there is left anymore, apparently, but Mendez says that only Fleet Command knows why. Hold on a minute, can Starfleet really enforce the death penalty? They're not actually the government, they're like...the space navy. Do they really have that much power? It'd really suck if we as a society decided to abolish the death penalty, only for Starfleet to come in and be like, “Yeah, we just need it for this one thing though. We're not gonna tell you what it is. Just trust us.”

Apparently this whole business is so secret that even the super-duper secret file Kirk has in front of him doesn't explain what's up. Mendez unseals it and we see the terrible contents.

[ID: A paper inside a red folder which reads: TOP SECRET. For eyes of STARFLEET Command only. Subject: TALOS IV in third quadrant of vernal galaxy. Known facts: Detailed information cross referenced with 3XY phagrin level-mass computer. The only Earthship that ever visited planet Talos IV was the U.S.S. Enterprise commanded by Captain Christopher Pike with Half-Vulcan Science Officer Spock. Recommendations: Be it hereby noted that said following instructions be incorporated into STARFLEET policy--NO ONE WILL EVER VISIT TALOS IV. The following officers have visited Talos IV and recommended that no human should ever visit it again--Captain Christopher Pike--Half-Vulcan Science Officer Spock.]

And that's it. It gives information that's relevant in the context of the episode, but it's difficult to see why those specific facts would be in any way useful to anyone else. It's basically Exposition: The File. Also, what's with the weird obsession with pointing out that Spock is half-Vulcan? Is that really so relevant that it needs to be mentioned constantly in case anyone forgets? Why is he so important to this document anyway if he was just the Science Officer at the time? Spock is important on Kirk's Enterprise because he's the Science Officer and the First Officer. Being First Officer is the bit that makes him right below the captain in the chain of command, just being Science Officer doesn't make him really relevant to big Starfleet policy decisions.

Kirk and Mendez briefly restate the important bits of the document, for the sake of the audience that didn't have highly detailed screens and a pause button, but before they can get into it they're interrupted by a shout from Piper. She'd been watching—well, kind of staring blankly at, to be honest—the exciting live video feed of Pike's quarters, looked away for just a moment, and when she looked back Pike was gone. Evidently he only moves when you’re not looking at him, like a Weeping Angel or Watson in that one Sherlock Holmes game.

While Kirk and Mendez sit there not emoting about this, a message comes in on Mendez's terminal. The Enterprise is leaving orbit, and refusing to acknowledge the base. That's significant enough news for Kirk to turn grimly to the camera before commercial.

Up on the Enterprise, Hansen remarks that it's odd to be heading out with no navigator at the helm, but Spock tells him the Enterprise knows where it's going. I guess Sulu is just gonna get to sleep in today. Come to think of it, one wonders why they need navigators on duty all the time if the computer can do such a good job of it.

Uhura says that they're being hailed, but Spock tells her to keep maintaining radio silence. Then he makes an announcement over the PA: their mission is secret, he's in charge, and Kirk was assigned medical rest leave until they get back. Now everybody go about your business. Nothing to see here, carry on, carry on.

Of course, Spock can tell most people on the ship not to question his orders, but there's one person undeterred by any secret mission or Starfleet orders, and certainly not deterred by Spock: McCoy, who's just come up on the bridge demanding to know what the frell is going on around here. He can't find the source of that emergency that called him back up to the ship, and now Spock is saying Kirk needs medical rest leave? What is this nonsense?

Spock calmly admits that there are some things McCoy hasn't been told, and asks the doctor to come with him. The two of them go to...uh...someone's room, where, much to McCoy's surprise and consternation, Pike is hanging out in the corner, his light still flashing 'no'. Before McCoy can really get into a good rant, Spock plays him a message from Kirk saying that McCoy is to take care of Pike, ask him no questions, and obey Spock's orders. We've still yet to get an explanation as to how Spock is managing to make these fake recordings, anyway. I guess audio editing software has just come a long way by this point.

I'm really not sure what McCoy is supposed to be doing for Pike anyway. You'd expect a patient in his condition to need considerable life support, but we never see any more of him than his head sticking out of that chair, and there was no sign of any other medical equipment in his hospital room. I guess his chair just takes care of all his biological functions? If so I don't know if McCoy can do a whole lot more than maybe put a blanket over him or something.

Spock leaves McCoy (who's got a 'I may be quiet right now but you better believe I haven't given this one up yet' look on his face) to ponder this and goes back up to the bridge, where Hansen tells him that there's an object following them that's suspiciously the size of a Starfleet shuttlecraft. Which makes this the first appearance, in airing order, of said shuttlecrafts, though it’ll be a bit longer before we see any of the actual Enterprise ones. Hansen wants to know if they should turn around or at least stop so the shuttlecraft can catch up to them, but Spock says no, full speed ahead and no contact.

So the Enterprise trundles on through space, followed by a shuttlecraft occupied by Kirk and Mendez. Mendez is trying to make contact with the Enterprise, ordering them to respond to his message, but he's having no luck. By now they're sure that Spock is indeed heading to Talos 4, but they've got no chance of catching up to the bigger ship, and if they go any further they won't have enough fuel to get back to the base.

Spock seems to be thinking along the same lines, because we see him talking to the ship's computer, first asking it to confirm that the object following them is a shuttlecraft, and then asking how long the craft has before it has to return to base. The computer tells him that the craft is already past the point of no return. I'm not sure how it knows this, but the Enterprise computer works in mysterious ways.

Sure enough, the little shuttlecraft that could(n't) soon runs out of fuel, leaving them to coast. Which they will presumably do forever or until they bump into something, because that's how space works, but probably we shouldn't think too much about how space works while watching Star Trek. Kirk angrily stalks around the cabin and tells Mendez that the commodore should never have come anyway, but Mendez cheerfully tells him that he's high-ranking enough that he can do what he wants.

They've got life support for now, at least, but only two hours until the oxygen runs out. Kirk glumly ruminates that he almost hopes that the Enterprise doesn't come back for them because if they catch up to Spock he'll be court-martialed into the next galaxy. Or, if he makes it to Talos 4, executed. I guess the punishment for going to Talos 4 is Federation-wide, even though it's hard to see the Vulcans being onboard with the whole death penalty thing. It's a bit difficult to disentangle Starfleet, the Federation, and the individual planets in the Federation at the best of times but this episode is really making things confusing.

Mendez wonders what reason Spock could have for taking Pike back to Talos 4—according to the reports, the planet has nothing of benefit to offer. Kirk says there Spock has to have a logical reason, but Mendez says maybe he just went mad. You know, like people just do from time to time.

Spock, for his part, seems to still be quite calm and rational about all this, but McCoy's doing his best to change that, standing on the bridge and loudly wondering just who could be in that mysterious shuttlecraft. As usual Spock ignores him; he's busy with locking a tractor beam onto the shuttlecraft, then having the Enterprise come to a halt so they can pick it up.

Then he tells Security to send an armed team to the bridge, tells the transporter room to get ready to beam Kirk aboard, and puts Hansen in command. Which seems odd—well, for the obvious reason, but also because I'm pretty sure there are more people in the chain of command between the First Officer and a random goldshirt we've never seen before or since. Heck, where's Scotty? He's high-ranking enough to take command if both Kirk and Spock are away. Did they leave him behind too? Even Hansen seems confused by this. Poor Hansen—he's having a very confusing day.

Spock then turns to McCoy and says that, since McCoy is the senior officer present, Spock is presenting himself to the good doctor for arrest. This absolutely blindsides McCoy, who had probably been wondering if Spock had finally called a security team on him to make him go away. Spock confesses that he never received orders to take command and has in fact committed mutiny, then waits calmly as the security team arrives. McCoy, for his part, is completely flummoxed, and just kind of stands there in shock for a moment until Spock gently reminds him that he's supposed to be doing something.

This is but a little moment, but a nice bit of characterization. I think McCoy, out of all the main cast, is the one that feels least connected to the identity of being a Starfleet officer. He's a doctor, dammit, and he's fine with fussing at people or even pulling rank in that capacity because it comes out of the perspective of being their doctor. That's how he identifies himself—being in Starfleet is just kind of something that happened to him. But this is asking him to act as a ranking officer, to exert command over someone else in an entirely non-medical sense, and he is clearly neither familiar nor comfortable with that role. I don't think he would be regardless of who he was dealing with here, but the fact that it's Spock he's being asked to bring the hammer down on just makes it even worse. Sure, McCoy will badger and pester and tease Spock, and just this far into the series we haven't seen their friendship develop much, but the fact that McCoy is stunned and dismayed rather than being gleeful over the opportunity to do something like this pretty clearly shows that he does respect Spock and has no desire to see him genuinely brought down.

But eventually McCoy manages to tell the security team that Spock is under arrest—and then, adorably, has to ask Spock himself if confinement to quarters will be enough. Spock says that will be fine since he's not planning on making trouble, and calmly walks away with the redshirts.

Meanwhile Kirk is telling Scotty to beam the two of them up and stick the shuttlecraft in the hanger. Wait, so Scotty is here. I guess he just couldn't be bothered to walk up to the bridge to be in command for the five minutes or so until Kirk got back?

Hansen clearly wants none of this either; Kirk has barely stepped off the platform before Hansen is rushing forward to transfer command back to him. Kirk takes it back and asks where Spock is, and Hansen says he's been confined to quarters. Mendez is shocked that he was only confined to quarters. Look, Mendez, everyone's doing the best they can right now, okay, it's been a very hard day.

Before they can start getting into that, though, Uhura calls down to say that the engines are coming back on. Kirk says to belay that and stop the ship, only to be informed that the ship is now under computer control that they can't disengage from. Scotty is outraged by this and storms off to go yell at the computer until it behaves. Kirk tries to override the computer controls himself, but the computer says that it can't disengage until they reach Talos 4, and any attempt to do so will screw up the ship's life support.

So it looks like they're stuck for the long haul as the ship carries on towards Talos 4. In the meantime, they're going to hold a preliminary hearing for Spock. As a way to kill time on long trips I generally prefer a good podcast playlist, but you guys do you.

The hearing convenes, with Kirk and Mendez sitting in judgment, accompanied by a couple of security guards and a redshirt with a computer who I guess is gonna be the stenographer or whatever. Kirk begins by reminding Spock that he has the right to representation, but Spock says he waives that right. In fact, he's waiving his right to the hearing itself, and wants to go straight to a court-martial. Kirk is like “What? No.” When pressed to provide an actual reason, he says that a court-martial for mutiny requires three officers of command rank, and since Scotty is presumably still busy swearing at the computer they've only got Kirk and Mendez. But Spock points out that actually, there is another such officer aboard: Pike. Because despite his condition, Pike is still technically on active duty. Mendez says they “didn't have the heart to retire him.” Oh, oh you didn't have the heart. Well I'm sure that's a great comfort to the man. He's stuck in a mobile iron lung for the rest of his life and can only say yes or no because no one could be arsed to find a better way for him to communicate, but at least his name is still on some paperwork somewhere.

But Spock's rules-lawyering checks out, so it looks like they'll have to hold a court martial after all. By Starfleet regulations a court-martial is required to be spiffier than just a hearing, so they move to a different but nearly identical room, put dress uniforms on, and stick a couple of flags in the background. Also they've dug out a large bell from somewhere so Mendez can hit it with a mallet at important moments. Scotty and McCoy are now in attendance as well, though for some reason only McCoy had to wear the dress shirt. I don’t really know why they brought those two, honestly; I mean I always like having them around but they really have nothing to do except sit there and look glum. And, of course, Pike has been brought in too. They didn’t dress him up, though.

Spock is still waiving his counsel and has pled guilty. Well, that sorts that out, I guess. Mendez points out that if the vessel makes it all the way to the Talos system there will be another charge brought against him that carries the death penalty, which Spock is aware of and doesn't seem real bothered about.

Mendez demands to know why Spock is doing all this, and Spock responds by requesting the use of the room's monitor screen so he can show evidence to explain himself. Maybe he's prepared a powerpoint? No, evidently, for the screen shows video, a shot of the Enterprise itself that sweeps in to focus on the bridge. But not the bridge we know—this is the Enterprise thirteen years ago, Spock explains, under the command of Captain Pike. The set design is clearly different, though still reminiscent of the one we know, and the crew are wearing heavier shirts similar to the ones from Where No Man Has Gone Before.

On the screen, we see Spock telling Pike that something is headed towards them, but before we can find out what it is, Kirk turns the screen off and asks Pike if that guy on the screen was really him. Pike says yes. You can understand Kirk’s confusion though; young Pike and old Pike look so unalike it’s almost like they were played by two different actors or something. Kirk says this is impossible—ships don't make record tapes in that much detail. Presumably they also don't usually make record tapes that include shots from outside the ship, unless all starships are constantly being followed by a camera ship like on Deadliest Catch. They probably also don’t make record tapes with multiple camera angles and close-ups at appropriately dramatic moments. So what are they looking at? Spock says he can't tell them yet, and Pike confirms that this isn't a record tape from that voyage.

Mendez says this evidence is automatically invalid since they have no idea what it is or what it came from, but Kirk says he wants to see more. And no, it doesn't have anything to do with Spock being his friend! Kirk is totally impartial in this matter! Really!

So they turn the screen back on and resume watching. Spock explains that they were on patrol at the time when they detected something coming toward the ship at the speed of light. Not another cube, hopefully. Pike declines to engage defensive maneuvers and proceeds full speed ahead, and they soon find out what the approaching thing is: a radio wave. You guys can't tell the difference between a radio wave and a physical object coming at you? I hope they upgraded the Enterprise's sensors sometime in the ensuing thirteen years.

Specifically, the radio wave is an old distress signal (there's a lot of those bouncing around the galaxy). It was a survey ship, apparently, the S.S. Columbia, that got in trouble and had to make a forced landing—somewhere in the Talos star system. This was eighteen years ago, which is how long it took their distress signal to carry this far. Not terribly useful as a distress signal, was it.

Spock exposits—loudly—that the Talos star system is unexplored, but they know it has eleven planets, and the fourth one is Class M, meaning it has an oxygen atmosphere and it would be possible for the survey crew to have survived there—if they made it through the crash landing. But with no guarantee of survivors Pike isn't going to divert course to check it out, because there are injured crewmen aboard so they have a pressing need to make it to the colony they're headed for. He gives the conn to his first officer, a dark-haired woman working the helm, and leaves the bridge.

Pike heads through the corridors, inexplicably passing by a man and woman in modern-looking civilian clothing.

[ID: A man and a woman, seen from behind, walking through the Enterprise corridors. The woman is wearing a pink sleeveless shirt with a white pleated skirt, and the man is wearing a blue and black striped t-shirt with blue shorts.]

He enters his quarters, calls up one Doctor Boyce and tells him to come by, and then flops moodily onto the bed. One thing hasn't changed in thirteen years—the total lack of blankets in the Enterprise quarters. Everyone just sleeps on a bare mattress. In their boots.

All of about five seconds after being called, the doctor comes in, carrying a rectangular case with him. Pike protests that there's nothing wrong with him, but Boyce has a different kind of medicine in mind, and proceeds to put together a martini from the contents of the case. He's reckoned that Pike has more on his mind than just getting the doctor's opinion about the distress signal in his log, and quips that “sometimes a man will tell his bartender things he'll never tell his doctor.”

You can definitely see ideas here that would eventually evolve into the character of our own good Doctor McCoy—the ship's doctor who is also a personal confidant for the captain, with a liking for serving drinks and philosophizing. But, while I'll grant it's hard to tell since we don't see all that much of him, Boyce feels distinctly less interesting. He's more passive and neutral, less emotional and...well, he's just not DeForest Kelley, dammit.

Boyce coaxes Pike into talking about what's really bothering him: a fight on Rigel 7 that killed three crewmen and wounded seven others, discussed in just enough detail to tantalize the prospective network. Pike is beating himself up for letting the whole thing happen, though Boyce doesn’t think he could have done anything differently. He's tired of this whole bloody captain thing anyway, tired of having to make dangerous calls and be responsible for life and death. He's so tired he's thinking about resigning altogether, maybe going back home and hanging out with his horses. When Boyce expresses disdain for such a boring life, Pike fires back that he doesn't have to do that, he could—he could become an Orion trader! Boyce is incredulous of the idea of Pike “dealing in green animal women slaves” and Pike says the point is that being a captain isn't the only life available. Um—sorry, Pike, just, uh, hold up, go back a minute there—did you just put out slave trader as a possible career option? We just, uh, we just not gonna talk about that? Just a little?

But Boyce seems less concerned with the ethics of Pike's potential career choices and more with the fact that he doesn't see Pike being happy as anything but a starship captain. “A man either lives life as it happens to him, meets it head on and licks it,” he says, “or he turns his back on it and starts to wither away.” That’s right, life is just a bunch of things that happen to you and if you don’t like it you die. Real men don’t make choices about their future! That’s quitting talk!

Pike comments that he’s starting to talk more like a doctor than a bartender, to which Boyce replies that they both get the same kinds of customers: “the living...and the dying.” Well that’s fair enough for doctors, but if you’re a bartender and your customers are dying I feel like you’re doing your job very wrong.

Mercifully this dreary conversation is interrupted by a call from Spock: they’ve gotten another message, a follow-up to the distress signal saying that there are indeed crash survivors on Talos 4. We cut to the bridge, where a computer prints out a paper copy of the message for a crewman to read out loud. Wow, this future technology really is something. The message says that there are survivors, the planet is habitable, and they can get food and water, but unless...unleeeeeess? Unleeeeess? We don’t know, because the message stops there.

This is enough to convince Pike that they’re going to check out Talos 4 for survivors. Which is a bit odd: one would presume the second message is also about eighteen years old (because if they could send a quicker message why not do that in the first place) which means either there’s no survivors left at this point or if there are they’ve survived almost two decades so they’ll probably be okay for a few more days, whereas the injured crewman on the Enterprise might not be. But who am I to question the judgment of a Starfleet captain.

As the helmsmen lay in the course, the camera draws back from the scene and into the trial room. Mendez, it seems, has had enough. He turns the screen off and tells Spock alright, very good, very creative, don’t know how you did it--but this isn’t a theater, it’s a court of space law, which is like regular law but in space. Spock calls in Pike for backup, asking him to confirm that they’re watching events that really happened rather than something Spock made up, which Pike does. It’s the real deal, Spock says, and if they’re not convinced by the time they’ve watched the whole thing then he’ll unlock the computer control and turn the ship around.

Mendez is outraged by this and is ready to end the trial here and now. Kirk still wants to hear the rest of the story. It’s up to Pike to be the tiebreaker. He sides with Kirk, naturally, since after all we’ve still got a lot of footage left to use.

With that pointless bit of padding over, the story continues. The Enterprise of the past has arrived at Talos 4, and preliminary studies indicate that the planet is indeed safe for human life. A helmsman spots reflections on the planet’s surface that look like metal, possibly the remains of a spaceship. Pike assembles a landing party, including Spock and the helmsman, but not the first officer, who he wants to stay behind because they need an experienced officer on the ship in case things go bad on the planet. They can’t afford to lost their second most important person, after all! Only the first most important person can take that risk.

The landing party gets ready to head out, putting on heavy jackets and shoulder holsters for gear first, because this was before Starfleet instituted the Just Go Down In Your Shirts Or Whatever, It’ll Probably Be Fine policy. They beam down into a dusty landscape filled with rocks, with the only sign of life being a few grim-looking plants. Mountains loom in the distance under a greenish sky filled with thick black clouds. It’s not a welcoming kind of place.

Phasers at the ready, the group moves through the rocks. From this perspective you can see that Spock is limping, meant to be an indication that he was also injured during whatever happened on Rigel 7, but it’s never elaborated on in the episode. They hear a strange humming sound and follow it to its source, a plant with bright blue vibrating leaves. Pike and Spock are intrigued by it, and Spock actually grins with enjoyment, a weird thing to see. It’s a remnant of the different writing for the original pilot and how Nimoy’s character choices differed when he was playing against the more serious Pike versus when he was playing against Kirk, but since they wound up using the footage it’s canon now and we just gotta deal with that.

Leaf enjoyment over, the party goes back to wandering through the canyon until, what ho, there are some survivors over there. They’ve got a base camp among the rocks made of scavenged materials and spaceship parts. There’s quite a few survivors in the camp, all older men (white, natch) wearing extremely ragged clothing. They’re stunned and overjoyed to see the Enterprise crew, and ask if Earth is alright, evidently not trusting in humanity to not destroy the planet when left alone for eighteen years. Which, I mean, that’s fair.

The conversation comes to a sudden halt when the crewmen catch sight of an incredibly shocking phenomenon: a woman. Unlike the other survivors she’s young, and while her clothes are still ragged, they’re ragged in a suspiciously tight and skimpy way instead of the random shreds everyone else is dealing with. Also, since she’s been living in a makeshift shipwreck colony on an inhospitable planet for almost two decades, naturally she’s wearing makeup and her skin and hair are pristine. And she walks seductively to boot.

[ID: A survivor’s camp made from scavenged equipment, with a few survivors in worn clothing standing around. In the center of the image is a white woman wearing a ripped, sleeveless blue shirt with a very low neckline and a brown skirt made of some kind of scavenged fabric. She has short, puffy blonde hair and is looking at the camera with a somewhat dazed expression.]

The lead survivor introduces the woman as Vina and says that she was born right before they crashed. So she’s only eighteen. Doesn’t she look it? Pike keeps on ogling at her, because that’s not creepy at all.

While this nonsense is happening, the view draws back again—but not to the conference room in the present this time. Instead, the scene is being remotely observed in a cave by three figures in shapeless gray robes. They look pretty much human except that the tops of their heads are bulging and covered in veins. Because they are Very Smart, you see. They watch dispassionately while the survivors and crewmen mingle, before one of them nods and the other two head off.

Meanwhile the crewmen are helping the survivors pack up their camp, while Pike gets on the phone to tell the Enterprise they’re going to start beaming people up soon. But, like the alert professional he is, he’s distracted mid-sentence by a woman looking at him. Vina tells Pike that he appears to be healthy and intelligent, a “prime specimen.” The lead survivor next to her passes this bit of creepiness off by saying that Vina’s lived her whole life with a bunch of aging scientists. Yeah, sure, that’s definitely how scientists talk.

Boyce comes up to make a report to Pike, telling him that the health of the survivors is good...too good. The leader tells them that there’s a secret for why their health is so great, but they weren’t sure if Earth was ready for it. They seem to have made their decision now, though, because he sends Vina off with Pike to show him the truth. Naturally, Pike lets Vina lead him off alone, without anyone else in the party for backup.

Vina takes Pike to an especially big rock some way away from the camp, where she insists that the secret is, even though Pike can’t see anything. She says that he will understand, and that he’s a “perfect choice.” Then she vanishes. Back at the survivors’ camp, so do the survivors and all their equipment, leaving only a stunned landing party standing among the empty rocks.

Before Pike has a chance to react to the mysterious disappearing girl, a door in the rock slides open and the two Brainheads from before emerge. One of them holds out a little metal cylinder that sprays Pike with orange gas, knocking him unconscious. The landing party realizes something’s up and they all race after Pike, arriving just in time to see him being taken by the Brainheads, who close the door before anyone can get through it. They immediately try to take down the door with phasers, but all they succeed in doing is destroying the suspiciously plaster-like rock facade on the front of it. No matter how much they shoot at it, the door itself remains untouched.

Back in the present, the court martial attendees watch Past!Spock make a call to the Enterprise informing them of the situation, before Kirk shuts the screen off again. There’s been a message for Mendez, conveniently timed at a good stopping place. The message is that Starfleet has observed that the Enterprise is receiving transmissions from Talos 4, which is against the rules. That’s right—the call was coming from Talos 4!

Anyway, Kirk’s being relieved and Mendez is ordered to take control of the ship and do whatever he has to to turn it around. Mendez points out to Spock that by deliberately having contact with Talos 4, Spock is inviting the death penalty—not just for himself, but for Kirk too. Spock’s okay with the first part, but upon hearing that Kirk is now under the gun as well he jumps up and says that Kirk didn’t know about any of this, okay, it’s not his fault. But Mendez says that because Kirk is captain, he’s responsible for everything that happens on the ship.

Spock is ordered to return the ship to manual control, but he declines. Respectfully. Mendez puts the court in recess and everyone leaves except for Kirk and Spock, and the security guys. Kirk demands to know what the hell Spock is doing, and Spock tells Kirk not to stop him or let Mendez stop him. Both Kirk’s career and Pike’s life are on the line. Also Spock’s career and life, but whatever. He even calls Kirk ‘Jim’, so you know he’s serious.

Kirk stands there for a moment, grim-faced, obviously struggling inside, before ordering the redshirts to take Spock away. They do, and Kirk is left standing there, deeply troubled, alone in the empty room as the credits start to roll. Credits with background images that contain a couple spoilers for the next episode. Nice going, guys.

It’s difficult to really draw a conclusion here yet, since we’re only halfway through the story, so I’ll save my thoughts until we’re done.

TREK TROPE TALLY: None for this episode. As the end credits said, we’ll see this concluded next time, with The Menagerie Part II.

#star trek #star trek TOS #star trek season one #1.11 The Menagerie Part One #recap tag #star trek TOS recaps #1.11 The Menagerie Part One recap

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buildridernews · 6 years

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[Review] Kamen Rider Build - Episodes 38-41

It's time for an actually timely review for once! I seem to be bucking the whole "I'm consistently halfway into the month when I decide to catch up on last month" trend.

Episode 38: "Mad World" (マッドな世界)

So we ended last month on two big cliffhangers. For starters, Evol now has what he has declared is his final form, which is kinda neat - typically you only see the "final form" term applied to the main Rider, and its origins are with the final boss of a video game, so here it's 100% on point.

But we also discover that having Sento be possessed by Evolt resulted in his brain being kind of jumbled back together, meaning he remembers being Katsuragi Takumi. It seems like this would be an obvious thing to have come up at some point, in retrospect, but of all the times for it to happen...

As everyone makes a hasty retreat from an overpowered Evol, he decides to take a moment to do some kind of ssspace magic, turning some Fullbottles into these black and gold variants - thanks to magazine reveals, we know these are called Lost Fullbottles...

Anyway, Katsuragi proves to be an unsettling one for everybody to be around since he doesn't entirely trust Ryuga, he makes half-hearted apologies to Misora for using her, and he has a real emotional argument with Gentoku which I'm sure will be elaborated upon in the Rogue spinoff. This scene was interesting since they do some cool editing to alternate between showing Sento's actor and Katsuragi's actor in the same outfit.

When it comes to the whole presentation of Katsuragi being "brought back", there's ways this could go that could be a little bit... clunky, and I don't know if I can properly put into words why. I guess the best explanation I can think of is, it'd be real weird to me if this involved his face turning back to normal as well, because then you'd have to figure out a reason for why he'd want his face changed back that isn't insulting to Katsuragi (since the point of this subplot is to redeem him). Basically I'm glad we just got Sento's actor with a different personality.

So what the hell is Evolt doing right now? Well, to keep that actor involved, Evolt just decided to take on Soichi's appearance because I guess he can do what he wants. That's probably gonna be used to trick us at some point. He's decided that Namba has an ultimatum to answer to: Let him rule the world as a whole while Namba is just a prime minister of Japan, ooor he dies. At the same time, he gives Utsumi an offer to join him since he's a very useful scientist... which both seem like things that wouldn't meet in the middle, but just you wait.

Things get interesting as Utsumi tries begging for help from Gentoku, everyone else (minus a bitter Kazumi) is getting involved, and Katsuragi is staying in the lab working on the block item Sento pieced together before. When it comes time for Utsumi to approach Evolt in Pandora Tower about the ultimatum, Utsumi instead unleashes some Hard Guardians, the gear bros, and suddenly even the other Riders show up! I gotta imagine this was in reference to the talk he had with Gentoku since Kazumi is indeed nowhere to be found. I would have liked to see the moment where Katsuragi agreed to all this but it was interesting to see him try fighting. Especially since he specifically had trouble with a form SENTO invented. Cute.

Then something unexpected happens: Evol takes out the gear bros! They got powered up earlier in the episode with the implication they would die from any further nebula gas dosage, but I figured this was a seed planted for several episodes from now. Nope, one falls, the other switches into Hell Bro mode, then takes a hit from Evol to protect Great Cross-Z. He dies realizing that fighting for the sake of others actually feels pretty good, after seeing how Cross-Z seemed to be stronger for a previously unknown reason.

So, I feel like the gear bros are characters I can completely see others getting attached to, and I HAVE seen that, but they ultimately didn't do much aside from look cool. And if I'm being critical, I'd say they have 3 things that make for a weakly written character: If you make them too cool then they're flawless and boring, if you make them too stoic then there's not much room for personality, and if you focus too much on them being a duo then they have no idividuality - they're just the gear bros, which I've always called them since I can never remember their actual names. They had their moments, as few as they were, but I kinda leave these two deaths with a shrug and "Huh, didn't see that coming."

Then shortly thereafter, Evol kills Namba! And it's so beautiful becaue not only does Utsumi watch it unfold in terror on a tablet, where he can't do a thing besides watch from the camera Namba was recording from, but Evol also fakes him out with a laugh and a hug then turns him to fucking dust. It's so brutal, enough to make a man crack.

And I think he might've, considering Utsumi's memories of being a brainwashed Namba boy flash before him as he laughs maniacally and gladly joins Evol. With a duplicate Evol Driver, he uses a clever pair of Fullbottles to transform into Kamen Rider Mad Rogue, which we will see in more detail next episode! But it's a real cool suit. It's basically all of Night Rogue's suit with color changes, which makes for an interesting Rider suit. Plus, y'know, bringing us aaall the way back to when people found the BatEngine sound on the belt and wondered if Night Rogue would become a Rider.

Episode 39: “The Genius Can’t Be Stopped” (ジーニアスは止まらない)

And so, Mad Rogue takes on everyone with pretty great ease, which isn't surprising since he's a new Rider. Despite not wanting to take part, Grease shows up to help them escape, and once we're back at the cafe/lab we see that Katsuragi still isn't trusting of Ryuga. He's pretty much decided that Ryuga is part of Evolt, and even though Ryuga keeps telling him he's now fully human... he has these strange visions that appear to be from Evolt's memory of destroying Mars. Which is weird since one of them is from the perspective of someone seeing Evol. But maybe that's intentional.

Katsuragi has created what he believes is the ultimate bottle, combining the ingredients of all 60 Fullbottles to form the Genius Fullbottle. Misora isn't impressed, however, because Katsuragi lacks a certain heart that Sento had, which bothers him. He's left with even more to think about as a weakened Gentoku tries desperately to move so he can go fight and redeem himself for his sins.

Katsuragi goes out to fight Mad Rogue, but as he tries using the Genius Fullbottle, it won't activate - something is stopping him. As he takes a quick beating, Great Cross-Z jumps in, giving a wonderful speech about Sento was A DAMN HERO OF JUSTICE and making Katsuragi really come to terms with what Sento had that he doesn't. It's something that will use the Rider system for good, and put a stop to Evolt, so he has no choice. With Katsuragi literally standing face-to-face with Sento in his head, he puts his trust in this person to do what's right. Sento's back, baby.

With his new gadget, Sento transforms into Build's final form: Genius Form. A suit covered in 60 Fullbottles, which happen to be uniform enough to make one red side and one blue side. Super fun transformation.

So, Genius Form has grown on me, and it's certainly had time to. The form got leaked like 6 months ago, and... man, I dunno how that happened since we didn't get proper confirmation that it was legit until more toy catalog stuff came out. That was a leak that made me go "Oh I hope no one got FIRED for that".

Anyway, next episode.

Episode 40: “Ending Revolution” (終末のレボリューション)

Once Mad Rogue tries to fire away at Build, he finds that he's severely outmatched. Build is damn near bulletproof and can move at speeds he can't keep up with. Not only that, but we learn that Build's new bottle can actually get rid of the effects of the nebula gas, which I assume is what he does here to weaken Mad Rogue - otherwise I dunno why they showed it. He unleashes a finisher, then is rescued by Evol. But not before Evol randomly hits Kazumi just to take the Fullbottles his former comrades used to transform into Hard Smash.

So this is a thing we got mention of in episode summaries a while back. These episodes deal with "Lost Bottles", which is a term also brought up in the show by Evolt. I THINK what's going on here is some miscommunication between the show writers and toy developers, because the black and gold bottles are officially called Lost Fullbottles in promotional material for the summer movie and are being called Lost Bottles here. The reason why I think it's miscommunication is simple: Katsuragi referred to the Genius Fullbottle as the Genius Bottle. I'm decidedly going with what sounds like the proper designations.

Back at the cafe, everyone is still processing the fact that Sento is Sento again. He seems to remember all of Katsuragi's memories up until the Skywall incident, so there's that. Gentoku is going through some identity crisis of his own as he has decided to become a gag character - he's dressing informally for once and-- I kinda like him better this way. And I'm glad the sound mixing department knew that the scream from his transformation item was made for comedy.

After a whiplash change in tone, Sento is thinking about the Lost Fullbottles that Evol referenced, when suddenly the voice of Katsuragi pops up in his head with some answers - Katsuragi never made these bottles, but they were made by his father. Sento decides to go to Hokuto, and it just so happens Kazumi also wants to go there to sneak into Faust and retrieve his comrade's bottles. Ryuga, for once in his entire life, recognizes these are all stupidly risky ideas and just gives Kazumi his (apparently now repaired) Dragon Sclashjelly in case he needs it.

While at his mother's old house, Sento finds an odd photo in his father's belongings: A woman by the pier with a boat. I thought this woman was familiar, and it's because she's one of the victims from one of the first episodes who smuggled them to another location by boat! I remember how nice it was to see a victim used that way. However, Sento finds it odd that his father had a photo of this woman in his belongings since he SHOULD be dead, and a Guardian - which would not have been around at the time he was alive - is seen in the background.

Meanwhile, Kazumi does something stupid and sneaks into Faust in disguise, only to be caught and be given more nebula gas - enough that he might die if he loses a fight. He manages to escape, but is cornered by the Hokuto prime minister, who's become Evolt's latest experiment: A Lost Smash. This is a combination of a Hard Smash and some Clone Smash, and he considers it to be this monsters' final form - so it's cool we get that kind of lore for these monsters! She uses Kiba's old Fukurou Fullbottle to transform and beat the crap out of him, only for Build then Mad Rogue to enter the mix.

As Grease feels like he's on the ropes, he thinks about the idealistic speeches Build always gives and about how he's letting it get into his head - using the Dragon Sclashjelly in his own belt, he suddenly gains TWO Twin Breaker weapons, along with a significant power boost!

So, this is another talking point, because if there's anyone that fans wanna see with a new form, it's Grease. He is truly the Necrom of this show, except Necrom's eventual power-up was a whole new weapon, whereas Grease just gets two of the same weapon he had before. So that's a little disappointing. But hey, Necrom did get a new form in some post-finale material - here's hoping they keep the V-cinema thing going and you get a Grease movie!

So, Grease overpowers Mad Rogue, sending him running, and Build uses the power of his bottle to deliver a Rider Kick to our new Lost Smash to safely defeat her and undo the effects of the nebula gas. After she wakes up, it seems like she's come to her senses and the effects of the initial Skywall incident have worn off, so she's become a decent person again. Evolt shows up, however, to proclaim that he's going to use the Lost Fullbottles to create a new world!

And then we get a most unexpected twist if you didn't think too much about the previous photo of the boat woman. She talks with Ryuga and Sawa and she remarks that she did indeed know Katsuragi's father, because he was just there the other day... which means he is very much still alive.

Episode 41: “The Best Match Truth” (ベストマッチの真実)

Picking up where the show left off, Evol tries taking on Build in his new form, and Build manages to catch him before he can switch to his strongest form, which gives him an edge. He does some kind of change to Evolt's body genes, but we don't know why just yet - all we know is he's excited about it.

Hot off the heels of the realization that Papa Katsuragi is alive, the boat lady passes on a USB device to give to Sento, which contains several documents on his inventions, but for now we're getting details on the Lost Fullbottles. I did a post about it, so I'll just say the key parts here: Gathering 10 of the black Lost Fullbottles causes something that defies the laws physics, which certainly raises the stakes. Also later we learn about the origin of Best Matches which is beautiful and tragic, but I also talked about that in a post. Good stuff.

This episode also provides us with a proper recap of the show so far, with the meta commentary I love from the cold openings, and it kinda tosses out a fact I hadn't even caught onto: Every Smash has been a person connected to the group in some way, be it a loved one, a possible witness to an event, or even one of them, like Sawa. But that brings into question who the guy from episode 1 was.

We don't have to wonder for long, as Sawa manages to get enough info on him to know that he was connected to Katsuragi's dad. Sawa arranges a meeting between him and Sento, which he hopes will get him closer to his father.

Meanwhile, we've learned just what effect Build's new form had on Evolt, as he tells all to his masked ally in Faust's lab. It seems that up to this point, Evolt has just mimicked human emotions, but Build's attack has basically caused him to gain actual emotions. Now he's feeling high on life and it seems like he's just being quirky... but there's some implications to that.

Sento meets with the man, but he reveals that he was sent to attack Sento as another Lost Smash, proclaiming that he'll be killed if he doesn't follow orders. Build finishes him off safely, and he starts to learn the truth, until Evol shows up and kills him instantly, then explains that Build's attack gave him emotions. Then Evol attempts to turn Build into a Smash using a bottle he has, but Build's form neutralizes it, allowing him an upper hand. As he successfully starts overpowering our main villain, Evol's rage begins to build up, then he disappears.

That's when Build makes a sudden realization, which the show pretty quickly passes by despite how alarming it is: If Evol has emotions now, that means he can gain a higher Hazard Level and become stronger and stronger.

Finally, Evolt returns to Faust's lab with two more Lost Fullbottles taken from Build during their fight, which means he's up to 6 - only 4 left to go before something unfathomable happens. Then we end on the proper face reveal for Evolt's lab buddy: Katsuragi's father... who I will probably have to start calling by his first name eventually. BUT NOT TODAY.

So that was one hell of a month of episodes! And this latest one tells all, what with the Lost Fullbottles and the motifs of the Best Matches explained. It's actually kinda sad the show's almost over... only a couple more months now.

Next review, however, will be something different.

Yeah. See you Next Build.

#kamen rider build #reviews #feed

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knightofbalance-13 · 7 years

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AKA Insult The Audience and Characters While Wasting Time

http://delvindeep.tumblr.com/post/164570714739/ive-been-thinking-about-the-world-of-remnant

i’ve been thinking about the world of remnant series and how they could have implemented that worldbuilding into the series proper. here’s a few ideas

Which are all just the same version of “one guy asks another guy for exposition” same as literally every other show in existence which WOR is able to subvert and avoid the pitfalls of the ordinary exposition.

dust: the story literally opens in a dust shop. show ruby buying some, having a chat with the shop owner. “is this for raw use, miss, or ammunition?” “yeah, it’s for my baby.” “your baby?” “the scythe” etc. if you actually need us to know the history of its use and how humanity doesn’t know where it came from, give it to us in one of port’s lectures. we don’t have to hear the whole thing; just a couple of key lines, then it fades into background noise as jaune starts hitting on weiss again or some shit because that’s apparently more important than establishing your lore

Except why would Port or anyone be teaching them such basic elements of dust when they are already in an advanced school for this sort of thing and thus would have already had this drilled into their skulls years ago? That’s insulting to the characters for thinking hey are that stupid and insulting to the audience for believing we wouldn’t catch onto that. Also, i guess you’re fine with a shit ton of flaws in the animation since they had to waste time getting lines for the teachers and the students as well as animating all of that. Unless you want to nix a fight scene or a plot point because RWBY is already stretched for time as it is.

kingdoms: did we even need this one? the show already tells us there are four kingdoms called atlas, mistral, vacuo and vale, that atlas is militaristic, that huntsmen academies train huntsmen (no shit) and that life outside the borders is dangerous. see, they know how to do it already!

Except we don’t know WHY Atlas is built that way, we know nothing about Mistral Vale of Vacuo, we don’t know why their actions of treating Huntsmen like soldiers is so looked down upon and why peopel are so on edge with them. That excludes a lot of the tiny details that really enrich the lore such as Atlas having risen up from the snow to become the new captial of the Kingdom or how Vacuo has a different morality than the other two kingdoms due to the harshness of their area. COngrats, you wasted time and money for a much worse, more boring, more drap version of what we already got.

grimm: instead of starting with the dust shop scene, start with some redshirt nomads. one complains that he doesn’t feel safe travelling at night, another makes fun of him, they start arguing, someone else steps in and tells them to shut up because fear and anger will draw the grimm, which it does. if it’s important to know that they don’t attack animals, show some animals, which the grimm ignore after killing all the humans. the shit about older grimm getting smarter is already in the show, the shit about them evaporating when they die is in the show, and the shit it being impossible to keep them captive is contradicted by the show

Okay then, fork over about a thousand dollars to cover the cost of the voice acting and animation. or better yet, do it yourself so that the CRWBY don’t have to stretch themselves out even further. Oh, and listen as the fans complain on and on about there being no new episodes or anything because there is no WOR to tide them over, thus weakening their suspension of disbelief, thus forcing you to maker more detailed lore, thus more time, more gaps, more annoyance and so on until the show is dead.

aura: this is all in the show already. pyrrha gives jaune a hamfisted exposition dump about aura that he shouldn’t need.

Except what exactly it is, what it does, what Sembelnces are, the types of Sembelnces asd well as build up for Salem.

vytal festival: work the origins of the festival into ozpin’s speech instead of that stupid attempt at explaining the colour names

The listen as people bitch on and on about the color names as well as the info they will inevitably forget about since that means they’ll get it a whole yera before needed. Also, that takes longer so cough up more money or time or have a shitter product.

huntsmen: nothing of substance here that we didn’t already know

Except that Huntsmen aren’t the noible heroes that we see which helps ease people into the tonal shift of Volume 3 as well as humanizing the product.

ccts: look, let’s be honest. the only reason this is here is to explain why cinder’s plan is going to work. like, was there even the slightest question about what was going to happen when they ended the episode with “if one tower goes down then they all do”

the point is, it shouldn’t be so difficult to hint at what the villain is up to that you have to shove it into a side series. just stop having your villain be vague as fuck about everything for the sake of cultivating mystique

Then spend an entire season having the villain detail every single step of their plan with the complexities and all the twists and see if there are still people around. Also, that doesn’t explain why the CCT is so important so you still have to do that so fork over more money or time.

four maidens: this is more of a standalone short than supplemental infodumping, so i dunno if it should count. not that it would matter anyway because the maidens subplot already comes out of fucking nowhere

So9 impliment it into the story which already has fast pace for no reason, kill the pacing and the mood as well as remove the story book element about them. Also, personally work on the series to make up for the week of time they lost because there is nothing there to fill the gap, fork over the money to cover up the removal or personally take responsibility for it.

vale: mostly boring geographical waffle that is unlikely to ever be important. no elegant way to work it into the show, but on the other hand, you don’t need to

Thus the world feels flatter and emptier with no explanation for what happened when teh series gave the tone of doing so, thus losing audience interest and something that made the series unique.

the other kingdoms: we know everyone’s headed to mistral. presumably they’ll be spending some time there. show us the culture when they arrive. are we ever gonna visit the other two? if so, do the same for them. if not, it doesn’t matter much

Wow, you must have some deep pockets or as much free time as possible to be willing to foot the bill for all of this new footage and audio and voice lines and brainstorming and editing that this would all entail. Surely you wouldn’t ask a studio to bankrupt themselves just to do stuff you’d never ask of any other show right?

between kingdoms: it’s in the show! grimm running wild outside the kingdoms is in the show! bandit attacks are in the show! grimm moving in afterwards is in the show! it’s all there already!

Except the specifics of the grimm attacks, why people move outside pof the kingdoms, why there are bandits, how they get supplies and their interactions with the Grimm.

faunus: you know when oobleck is talking about the faunus war? you know when he stops for a minute to ask if any faunus have been discriminated against, and velvet raises her hand, and he’s like “oh, that sucks. anyway, back to what i was talking about”? you know how that part was a total waste of time? cut it. talk some more about the origin of the human-faunus conflict before everyone starts going on about night vision. you could even work some development for blake in there. oobleck asks if anyone knows how and when faunus exploitation began, and blake gives a long, bitter, opinionated answer

Ah yes, because one minute of dialogue to segway into a plotline can be cut out and around ten minutes of exposition about fanaus history, biology and interactions with the humans can be shoved into that space. Except no, it can’t be so that’s more money and/or time you must be willing to give up to add in what no one asked for. As well as teh all teh angry fans who will yell at you for thinking they were stupid enough to think the characters didn’t know that as well as making all the characters into people with the memory of a fruit fly.

schnee dust company: i feel like this could have been a character moment for weiss. she probably never met nicholas. the only sdc she’s lived with is the one run by jacques. finding out that it was once an honest business run by a good, brave man could be a big turning point for her. “i want to be out there overseeing expeditions like granddad did. i want to change this company back to what it was.” and bam. now being a hunter isn’t just about annoying daddy anymore

Except that why she would even fight against her father in the first place, why she would consider the schhnee name noble at all or how she would miss all this, make the plot hole with her mother even fucking bigger than before, makes Weiss look like an idiot for not looking into her family’s past and, again, kills her motivation so we have a walking contradiction in the show as a main character.

And that’s not even getting into how there are some people who PREFER WOR over ordinary exposition.and thus changing that pisses them off as well as kills the pacing of RWBY. Thus changing something for an, at bets, equal result as before.

Yeah great job on the suggestion.

#rwde bullshit #delvindeep

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d-dumais-blog · 7 years

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Keijo!!!!!!!! Review: I Like Big Butts & I Can Not Lie

Keijo is awesome! It’s insanely stupid and yet, somehow it succeeds at nearly everything it attempts. Keijo’s success is quite honestly an anomaly. A quick glance at premise, studio, and staff would suggest this show should have been forgotten before it even finished airing, and yet somehow it stuck around and resonated with fans, particularly in the West, in a way that no one involved saw coming. Its success in the West isn’t only a surprise to me, it appears to be a surprise to license holder Funimation that currently has NO merchandise available for purchase. No posters, no key chains, no announced bluray release. So let’s talk about why it works and why I love it so damn much.

Let’s start with the basics; this show is not for everyone. Keijo is a show about girls fighting each other in bathing suits using only their boobs and butts atop a variety of floats in an Olympic sized pool. Yes it is as dumb as it sounds. Yes there is an obscene amount of fan service focusing primarily on the girls’ butts. I completely understand why some people might be turned off by its objectification of the women portrayed. You might consider the show sexist, and you might consider me sexist for my enjoyment. A quick note on that, I’m a fan of all fan service both male and female. I’m a straight male with a particular affinity for the female rear end, check the title of this review, but you bet I appreciate some well drawn men in various states of undress. Anime has the opportunity to unrealistically portray human sexuality and I think artists are free to draw all manner of people however they’d like. I hope this helps you to understand why I won’t be talking about the sexism debate that surrounded this show.

Keijo’s fan service is excellent, and a show so focused on fan service would never succeed unless it was good, really good. The show focuses on a few girls, but has a great ensemble cast full of all sorts of girls of varying shapes, sizes, age, and color. Two points of clarification, there are very few different colored women, none of which are black, and that’s a bummer, and two while they vary in age all girls in the series are over eighteen years of age which we’ll discuss further down this post. Back to the subject at hand, how to properly handle “tasteless fan service.” Keijo’s fan service is omnipresent, leaking into every scene. This means it’s not a major shock when a butt fully envelopes the screen, it’s expected and not even that distracting. This differs from a majority of shows that feel the need to randomly insert their characters in compromising positions so that the viewer gets a better look at their body. It’s low hanging fruit but let’s compare this to Sword Art Online, it makes an easy comparison because pretty much everyone has seen it and most know its flaws. SAO II episode one while introducing new female protagonist Xion pans up her body while she lays down in a sniper position. The camera literally stops and does a quick zoom on her ass before finishing the shot. It’s disgusting, it’s distracting, and it feels completely out of place in a show that intends to be about technology and coping with grief.

The other most important thing about the fan service, aside from the age, is the fact that all of the girls are complicit in the fan service. They might be shy, and a bit embarrassed, but they are never forced into a compromising situation against their will. There seems to be this prevailing idea in anime that anime characters are cuter if they are pure, but we also need to see them without clothes on because of course we do. This results in a number of horrible tropes that need to stop, the most prevalent, light novel guy walks in on light novel girl changing. It’s almost always the establishing shot for their relationship over the series and I just hate it. The other trope is somehow even worse, girls in fan service shows need to stop being raped! People generally consider Asuna’s rape scene in the second arc of Sword Art to be the beginning of the decline which is absurd considering Silica was sexually assaulted by a plant in the first twelve episodes and no one seemed to care. It’s so gross and so often over looked. There’s nothing wrong with a girl being okay showing her body, and if an anime character is going to be undressed, I hope that character is willfully undressed. This goes a long way to help make your characters actual characters and not simply objects. I think the girls are surely still being objectified, but there’s a difference between looking at a Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition and looking at leaked celebrity nude photos. The context matters and Keijo gets the context right. Our secondary protagonist Miyata even admits that she started Keijo because she wanted a cute swimsuit made custom for her and I think that’s something all of the viewers would also like!

This show did far better in the west than in Japan, and that’s largely thanks to the way it was adapted. Xebec isn’t exactly known for its great adaptations; in fact I’d argue they generally suck. Their best known for To Love Ru and Shaman King; two shows that don’t do a lot to improve upon their source material. Most recently they were responsible for the horribly bad Clockwork Planet. Apparently that’s actually a pretty good light novel, which should be no surprise considering it’s written by Kamiya Yuu, the celebrated author of No Game No Life. I can’t speak to the actual quality of the Clockwork Planet books because the first episode of the show turned me off of anything that has to do with it. Point being adaptation is not a strength of Xebec, hell Xebec doesn’t honestly have a ton of strengths aside from their willingness to get smuttier than other studios if that’s your thing.

This is entirely different in Keijo, the adaptation is immaculate, and makes it far more appealing to a western audience. For starters, the anime skips the entire first arc where our two female leads are still in high school and under the age of 18. The girls first appear in their bathing suits in the anime after entering the Keijo training school. In the manga there are multiple battles that take place before this while the girls are learning Keijo for the first time at the stadium event shown at the start of the first episode. This arc is also gross for western fans for a number of reasons on top of age. For some reason at this point in the manga guys are allowed to compete in these non official Keijo matches. Guys of course only compete for the opportunity to rub up against girls in swimwear. Girls who, I’ll reiterate again because it’s important, at this point are underage. There’s also a ton of guys in this manga, which is weird considering there’s really only one in the anime and he’s less of a creep more of a sports fan. The men in the Keijo manga come to watch and gamble on Keijo and are depicted as perverse onlookers. Nozomi’s teacher is one such male who has a gambling addiction and comments on his underage student’s physique more than once. The anime made the right decision removing him from the series. This first arc also has an extremely uncomfortable and short lived love interest in the form of Nozomi’s brother. They might actually be cousins, the translation I read wasn’t exactly clear on that, but still something western audiences always frown upon. His feelings are never reciprocated by our star Nozomi, but the whole situation is uncomfortable, especially since he’s eager to jump in and battle her in her first mock Keijo match. There’s also more preliminary try outs the anime totally skips and that’s to the show’s benefit because again the girls are underage, and it cuts out a plethora of characters that don’t matter at all. The adaptation also does a great job with its references, choosing series that are particularly popular in western fandom. Attack on Titan and Fate/Stay Night are popular around the world, but really struck a chord in the states and Keijo very obviously references these shows multiple times to great effect. Other references to Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, One Piece, and Dragon Ball are all also greatly appreciated and largely absent from the manga.

Keijo performed very well in weekly viewership numbers, both legally and illegally, but was quickly written off by most. Everyone who watched it seemed to enjoy it, but wrote it off as “just another fan service show” and that’s unfair. It stands out among its peers, and should be celebrated as such. It was ranked the fifth most popular show according to Myanimelist, beating out shows with more popular appeal in pedigree like Occultic;Nine, Izetta the Last Witch, and season 2 of Ajin. It also beat out several truly spectacular shows in Sound Euphonium season 2, Flip Flappers, and the fifth season of Natsume’s Book of Friends. This wouldn’t have happened if it was “just another fan service show.” If you’re still in need of proof that season had just another an service show, it was Brave Witches, a fairly tasteless follow up to a reasonably successful show about young flying military girls who don’t wear pants for some unknown reason. People talk about Keijo as if it’s like Brave Witches, and no one talks about Brave Witches because no one cares. It might be easy to right it off if you don’t watch a lot of fan service shows, but let me tell you Keijo is special. I’ve lived in Trash Mountain for some time and am an expert in awful anime fan service, please don’t compare Keijo to that garbage; it’s far too good for that. Keijo is excellent! End of statement, no caveats no excuses, it’s really great. The show is easily the best thing director Takahashi Hideya has ever helmed. It’s arguably the best series Xebec has ever produced solo, inarguably the best this decade. I love Keijo, and I hope someday fans look back on it with the respect it earned.

8.5/10

#keijo #keijo!!!!!!!!#anime #fan service

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milady-milord-lj · 7 years

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Community Re-Watch Season 1: Introduction to Film and Football, Feminism, and You

Community Re-Watch: Season 1

Hello Everyone! We're going to try something a little bit different in this go-round, and that is to watch in the intended order, rather than the order in which the episodes aired. As a result, we're getting "Football, Feminism, and You" this week instead of next week. Enjoy!

Introduction to Film

Commentary by Dan Harmon, Gillian Jacobs, Danny Pudi, Donald Glover

They thought John Michael Higgins was awesome. They absolutely loved him. Danny said he was sorry that he didn’t get to work with him.

Donald says that he loves watching the beginning of the series because they hadn’t quite found themselves yet.

It’s interesting how Dan treats Donald as a peer, even this early on in the series as Dan and Donald talk a little bit about Community's tonal shift from the early episodes to later episodes in the season.

One of Dan’s favorite bits in the episode is when Pierce is trying to use voice recognition on his phone and failing spectacularly. Dan says that in this bit, they were showing that Britta is “the cool one.” He notes in a roundabout way that the audience seemed to push back on this (“Wait a minute! I get to decide who the ‘cool one’ is!”), and they came up with the idea to “beat on her” a little bit to make her ‘Charlie Brown’ instead of ‘saddling her with status.’

Gillian response is basically, “I don’t care what you do. You can call me an ugly lesbian all you want. But don’t take my coat!” (She’s referencing Britta’s leather coat in this episode.)

Donald admits that he finds it funny when Pierce calls Britta (and by extension other people) mean names, mostly because Pierce obviously has a whole bunch of problems himself.

Both Dan and Donald agree that what makes it funny is that Pierce is bagging on Britta for being “ugly” even though it’s obvious she’s pretty. Or, as Dan puts it, “It’s better than him sexually harassing people all the time.”

Gillian remarked that she had to write Abed’s check and rip it out of the checkbook very quickly so the pacing of the table scene wouldn’t be broken.

Donald and Danny say that their favorite joke in the episode is when Jeff times Pierce on how long it’ll take him to say something offensive.

Dan complains that the cootie catcher/fortuneteller at the beginning doesn’t look like real paper. Gillian notes that Chevy’s doodle has changed from the naked woman to ‘weird eyes.’ Dan re-iterates that NBC made them change it.

Dan notes that the lower vocal register Yvette uses in her first scene in Professor Whitman’s class is the last time you’ll hear it (at least in first season), because she slowly starts sounding more and more like Miss Piggy. Danny jokes that the switchover marks the point at which the show finds itself.

Donald notes that the stunt lady who falls off the desk during the “stand on your desk” scene is a real pro. He remembers that she got injured and started bleeding after taking the fall for the third time. He was so concerned that she was hurt that he asked if she was all right. She told him that she was fine. She’s paid to get hurt and be okay with it.

Dan says that “the thing that’s wrong with the show at this point is that there’s nothing wrong with the show at this point.” He clarifies that the characters don’t really know each other that well, so the character dynamics feel off, even though they really aren’t considering that all of these people are still strangers at this point.

Gillian notes that this episode is the only time she wears a watch onscreen in the entire series (or at least during season one). Donald says that he discussed with the costuming people about his wearing a watch during season one, and they decided that he would no longer wear a watch starting with season two.

Seems like everyone likes Iqbal Theba (Abed’s Dad and the principal on Glee). Gillian notes that the cast loves quoting all of his meanest lines to each other.

Dan notes that during the scene where Britta and Abed’s Dad argue, there was something like 75 different colors of tape on the ground so the actors could hit their marks during the scene.

Dan and the cast admit that they don’t hate Glee. They’re jealous of Glee. Donald notes that Community and Glee shoot on the same lot. He says the Glee cast is really sweet and nice to them. He also comments that Community is kind of Glee’s dirty, disreputable cousin.

After talking a bit about Jeff’s “Mork from Orc” suspenders, Gillian admits that she only recently learned that Mork and Mindy was actually a spinoff from Happy Days. (Yes, it’s true. Mork’s — and consequently Robin Williams’ — first television appearance was on an episode of Happy Days.) Dan is the only one who actually knew that information.

Dan says the scene between Troy and Pierce talking about Troy’s girly sneeze had to be cut down a lot. He talks a little bit about the cut scene, where Pierce says that Troy has lost his status and that he’s become a joke to other people, but in a way where you get the sense that Pierce is really talking about himself. Both Donald and Dan say that the cut bits showed some really good acting from Chevy.

Dan says that in the beginning, the scripts were 29 to 31 pages, but they had to cut the scripts down because they usually ended up cutting eight minutes out of the show during editing. He notes that the script for “Modern Warfare” was 23 pages. Usually, the scripts average about 25 pages.

They talk a little bit about Gillian’s costuming in the episode. Gillian says it’s to show Britta’s “skanky-ness.”

Donald says he loves the end of the episode with Abed’s video. He also notes that the episode’s ending was not the original ending.

Dan said the concept of the episode was for Abed to capture Jeff’s encroaching phobia that the study group was becoming a family and that he had been cast as the dad and Britta had been cast as the mom. The problem is that the intended “joke” where Jeff is the unwitting father figure did not come through in the episode at all. Gillian noted Dan had told her the intent during shooting, so she doesn’t have an objective take on whether he succeeded.

Donald jokes that Community is all about “dad issues.” He adds, “It’s a lot like Lost in that way.”

Donald remarks that the scene where both Britta, and eventually Jeff, storm out of the study room after Britta confronts Abed about how he is spending the money she loaned him struck the cast as a pretty dark ending to the scene.

Dan dislikes the sweater that Joel is wearing during the denouement where Britta and Abed’s dad have their final argument and Abed shows his film.

Gillian says that the scene where Abed shows his film is a re-shoot, and that it took eight hours to complete. It was originally shot in the cafeteria.

Dan says that some people from Channel 101 put together Abed’s movie.

The woman who “played” Abed’s mom in Abed’s film was a random photo chosen out of a book.

Danny says he likes that the episode is kind of dark.

Dan comments that it’s obvious that Jeff and Britta totally don’t get Abed’s film, while Abed’s dad does. He’s proud of the fact that Jeff and Britta are fundamentally petty characters.

Danny says that he likes that the show was willing “to go there” so early on in the run. Donald adds that he enjoys the fact that you’re learning about characters’ backgrounds from the start, and that even though it’s sad also it’s funny.

Dan somewhat responds to critics who were upset that “a half-Indian” guy was cast as an Arab. He says Danny was cast because he was the best person for the part, although he gets why people were upset. Donald jokes, “But truthfully, it’s because none of us can tell the difference anyway.”

Dan says the whole point of the first season was to remove the “will-they-won’t-they” element between Jeff and Britta. He states that it was meant to be cynical.

Donald and Danny say that everyone involved in the crumping scene in the closing tag was very sore the next day. Apparently they did numerous takes of it.

Dan says that Joe Russo didn’t think the closing tag was funny and pushed to air a commercial instead. Dan says he and Joe ended up getting into a fight over it.

Football, Feminism, and You

Commentaries by Dan Harmon, Joel McHale, Alison Brie, Donald Glover, and Joe Russo

Dan says that this is the first episode where the Dean interacts with the group and it’s the first time he’s in the study room. Alison says she likes his entrance and his comments that “there’s one of every kind of you.” Donald notes that it’s a pretty self-aware statement.

Dan notes that the episode was shown “out of order” on NBC in that it was filmed earlier, but shown sixth.

Joel says one of his most favorite lines of the season is “They’ve been called animals their whole lives.” Joel says it’s the way Jim Rash says it that sells it.

Joel jokes that Annie is dressing less conservatively with the “plunge neckline” top she’s wearing in this episode. You can practically hear Alison rolling her eyes as she notes that Annie is still in her “gross Annie phase” costume-wise.

Joel really likes his coat in this study room scene.

Donald is having a hard time wrapping his head around the characterizations in this episode, because apparently the episodes in filmed order was careful about building the relationships between characters and the acting had evolved. But he finds it jarring when watching the episodes in the ‘as-aired on NBC order.’ His actual comment, “It’s almost like watching a completely different cast.”

Britta’s characterization as “the cool girl” actually got the hardest push-back from the women in the writers’ room. According to Dan, Hillary Winston (one of the writers) point-blank said that Britta was not someone she’d want to be friends with. Dan said that rather than correcting it, he decided to make that unlikeability part of her character and to explore what that meant and how it affected the other characters. Dan adds that in the end, Hillary Winston was basically the driving force behind Britta’s season one arc and eventually become the biggest champion for Britta in the writers’ room.

Joe says that this episode is one of his top five episodes of the season, in large part because this is the episode where they figured out how to group the characters together; how to make the A and B stories work together; and how to set up group problems that need to be resolved by the end of the episode.

Alison says that the two bathroom scenes in this episode were shot back-to-back. The Shirley-Britta scene was shot first, and then the Annie-Britta-Shirley scene was shot second.

Dan says that Yvette’s acting in the first bathroom scene was great.

Donald and Alison joke about “foreshadowing” in the first bathroom scene. For Donald, fixing the sinks later in the season. For Alison, copying Britta’s robotic voice in “the chicken fingers” episode.

Everyone basically loves Jim Rash. Apparently, the scene between Pierce and the Dean in the Dean’s office is really what sealed the deal for everyone.

Dan says he almost deleted the line “Seal and Seal’s teeth” (when talking about what color the Human Being should be), because it felt too much like Wisconsin racism where the white students talk about the black students. He just thought it was too creepy, but when it got a big laugh during the table read, he decided to keep it in the script.

Joe says Dan had a deliberate strategy to pair Jeff up one-on-one with each of the characters in the B story. Funny enough, this episode was supposed to be about Jeff-and-Troy. Reaction from the other people in the commentary (sans Dan), “Well, whoops!”

Donald says that Troy doesn’t really say much in the episode until Jeff starts manipulating Troy into playing football. He thought it was deliberate because Troy is 1) kind of dumb and 2) doesn’t really make decisions for himself. Dan admits it’s because they were trying to figure out the character, until they decided to go with, “Troy is Donald being funny.” The big thing, Dan says, is that Donald is a talented guy, and they have him playing a dumb jock, which put the character and Donald into too much of a box.

Donald says that he likes the fact that after this episode, Troy never plays football again. He likes the fact that Troy goes from football jock to “let’s eat this big cookie!” Alison points out that it’s because Abed replaced football in Troy’s life.

Joe says the original concept for Troy was that he was a big, dumb white football player. However, during the casting process they realized that it was too-on-the-nose stereotypical because it was something they all had seen before. So they decided to open up the concept. Donald got the part based on his work with Derrick Comedy. Joe said that once they got Donald, they decided that the original concept was too limited for someone of Donald’s talent, so they deliberately worked to open up the character so they could take advantage of what Donald could do with it. Joel agrees that Troy changed a lot over the course of the first half of the season. Dan remarks that at least with Troy and Annie, they had a good excuse because the characters are both 18, so they’re still finding themselves.

During the football field scene, Joel points out the pregnant woman playing football in the background.

The back-and-forth between Joel and Troy on the football field was written by Dan at 7 in the morning and sent to the set at the last minute to Joel and Donald. In short, they got the pages shortly before they shot the scene. Alison remarks that the same thing happened for Jeff and Annie’s big fight scene.

Donald says that he considers his scene with Joel on the football field to be his first real acting on a television show. He also notes that it was really, really hot that day and it was made worse by the fact that they’re wearing these heavy sweatshirts.

Joe says that it took Donald 39 takes before he could hit one of the other actors in the head with a football. Looking back, he says that they probably should have gone with a digital effect. Donald says that when they were done shooting the scene, he was in so much pain he was crying and was wearing ice packs on his arm. Joel says that the really weird thing about the whole shoot was that Donald kept overthrowing the football so it kept going through the uprights instead of hitting the actor.

Donald Glover makes a joke about being Danny Glover’s son. Then he realizes that someone might take him seriously and states for the record that he’s not Danny Glover’s son.

Dan says the scene where Shirley confronts Britta about being a bad bathroom friend had to be severely cut down for time. Alison remembers the cut jokes where Britta talks about the other girls calling her “Brooba” and “Titta” because she got boobs before all the other girls.

Alison says that Troy’s out-dated weirdly conservative rap scene was the last scene shot for the episode. And they had to film the whole thing in 20 minutes.

Dan loves the fact that Alison is a fast talker and can still be understood. He says he tends to write a lot for people, but not everyone can get those lines out, so he had to learn how to write shorter for the actors.

Donald remarks that when he talks to people about the show, people are happy with the fact that the student population pretty much looks like the kind of population you’d see in a community college.

Dan admits that Jeff’s line, “I think not being racist is the new racism” is kind of a personal axe of his to grind. That sometimes overcorrecting for racism ends up becoming a form of racism in and of itself. He says it pretty much sums up the Dean’s administration for Greendale.

Joel admits that during the Jeff-and-Annie fight scene, Alison actually made him feel terrible.

Alison said that this was the first episode where she had a lot of dialog and a good storyline. She notes that they got the script pages for the Jeff-and-Annie fight scene 20 minutes before they shot it. She felt pressure because “this is now really real, this is where I have to make it happen.” Joel jokes that when he got the pages he was thinking, “I can’t do it. There’s no way I can do it.”

Alison gives a shout-out to Jeff-Annie shippers. She says that from their perspective it’s weird that this scene gets used in so many Jeff-Annie fan videos because it’s kind of a nasty scene. Dan points out that there are only so many shots of Jeff and Annie actually looking at each other during season one, so there’s not a lot to choose from. Alison thinks it’s Annie dramatically turning away that’s the key. Donald says his favorite Jeff-Annie video is the one that includes a shot of him and Gillian turning away from Jeff and Annie, mostly because he can’t figure out where those scenes come from. Alison jokes that the funniest thing about the fan videos is that the cast has watched every single one of them.

Donald says that Alison can cry really well, and it’s really believable. He jokes, “I’d hate to have you as a daughter. Or a girlfriend. Because you would get whatever you want.” This leads to everyone joking about Alison’s “Disney eyes.” Alison points out that in “English as a Second Language” Joel was the one who added the “her eyelids flutter but never close” because he’d witnessed it way too many times.

Joel says he loves the Greendale football team.

Dan says that he got some crap about Greendale having a pep rally because community colleges don’t do that. Donald says it’s obvious to him that Greendale spends its money on the wrong things, like pep rallies and dances.

Dan says they had a hard time ending the episode. They had to reshoot the ending.

The closing scene between Jeff and Annie was shot several weeks after they wrapped filming on the episode. Joe says it’s because they realized they needed to wrap the Jeff-Annie storyline after they were done editing the episode.

Alison points out that this episode was the third episode shot.

Joe states that the first five or six episodes of a series is difficult because there’s a lot of re-shooting and repositioning of the characters because everyone’s still in discovery mode. As the series goes on, the days get shorter. This prompts Alison to joke that she’s still waiting for those shorter days to happen. Donald counter-jokes that they get shorter because they know going in how long they really are.

Everyone loves the Human Being. Alison said they had a different person in the costume for the debate episode and she was unhappy and went to Joe to complain because the person in that episode was too stocky, buff, and confident. She likes it better when the person behind the mask kind of hates himself.

Dan says that his most favorite thing about the closing tags is that they cut out just as the joke starts to happen.

#jeff x annie

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