#but especially that climax??? HOOOOOLY---

[imabiscuitinthousandworlds]

One of the many, many reasons I love Blade Runner is that it doesn't have this Big Epic Final Fight you've come to expect from literally any action film ever.

There's just Deckart and Roy - all others are dead, or not here - and it's just them and one was supposed to kill the other and has become the hunted.

Our main hero protagonist is at the end, he's beaten down, he's at the brink of death, he can barely still walk and is just fleeing as far as he can, as long as he can, and he won't be able to go on much longer and there's really only so far he can run before he's inevitably caught. There's no last minute saviour, no sudden burst of strength, no last attempt to fight. He's terrified. He's running, limping, for just a few seconds more.

And the antagonist - the one who was supposed to be killed, the one who was supposed to be sub-human and is living his life as a slave, in fear - he's going mad. He barely ever had anything, and he lost the few others he had - the only ones who understood when the world was against them. He has only minutes to live, minutes that not even his creator - his god, almost - could drag out, a human god who died by his bare hands. There's nothing left to lose and nothing left to do, but there's the person who hunted him down like a machine or an animal that's one rogue, the one supposed to kill him, entirely at his mercy.

And then they're on that roof, and I don't know what Roy might think, but I know Deckart was done with his life. I know he was convinced he'd die right here - that both of them would die on this roof in the rain.

And when Roy pulls him up? There has to be an explanation. Surely he'll kill him now. What else could he possibly want?

But Roy isn't out for revenge anymore. For as little as he's lived, he's seen so incredibly much. And he knows there isn't anything to be done. He'll die, he'll be forgotten, just another rogue replicant - like moments in time, like tears in rain.

"Time to die." No sadness, no anger, nothing. There's nothing more to it, not anymore. It's a fact.

It's when he's free for the first time.

He's no longer living in fear. He died on his own terms. He's as free as he could ever be, in the only way that was ever even a possibility. And as he dies, as he no longer lives as a slave, that white dove flies away through the rain - a symbol of freedom, finally let go.

And Deckart is left alone on that roof, bleeding, his hand broken, exhausted, still not quite away from the brink of death he's been limping along for the last, what, minutes? (How long was it? Can't have been long. But it sure felt endless.)

There's no winner. No one has been defeated, either. There's just one who died, as he was always meant to, and one who lived, but his world might be in shambles.

What is life worth when you're just waiting for death? Is it freedom when you can never settle down? Could there ever be a different ending?

Also I'm going absolutely insane over the white dove which is a symbol for freedom btw like DAMN!!!!!!! IMPLICATIONS!!! AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

#i mean im basically going insane over the entire film #but especially that climax??? HOOOOOLY--- #a biscuit's rambles #blade runner #blade runner 1982 #there is just SO MUCH in this film #and im only super obsessed with the last part at this point bc it stuck with me and otherwise i was following the plot along #just wait until i rewatch the film and start analyzing EVERY SINGLE THING IN THERE #this has REALLY made me realize how much i love film analysis actually #like yesssssss make me think about messages and symbols and metaphors and the creators' intentions #also the time at which it was made like i once read an article about how horror reflects societal fears #and now im applying that to all films that leave an impact on me #like what does it say about the era in which both blade runner and truman show were made? (human goes against god who is actually also huma #but also very much god) #LIKE!!! i mean it was a time of loooots of changes! really big changes! the world was going fucking nuts! #WHAT DOES ART SAY ABOUT THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE PEOPLE WHO MADE IT WHAT DO FILMS TELL US HOW IS SYMBOLISM USED #I AM GOING INSANE OVER THIS OK #I AM NOT FINE #I NEED TO REMEMBER HOW TO PUT THE FUCKIGN CHAIRS FOR A CONCERT NOT THIS NOT NOW AHHHHH #okay im normal again #(<- lie fy is still thinking about this and frothing at the mouth)

[animebw]

Binge-Watching: Re:Zero S2, Episodes 22-23

In which the climax gets off to an explosive start, the past burns down in flames, and Emilia sees herself clearly for the first time.

Burning Down the House

You know, as we’re closing on the end of Re:Zero’s second season, the thought occurs to me that I’ve never really discussed this show from a visual standpoint. There’s always been so much to talk about in regards to its writing and story structure and themes, so there’s never been a good opportunity for me to sidetrack and talk about its animation and overall production values. But that’s also because that, well, the production side of Re:Zero is probably the least interesting part of it. Not because it’s bad; in fact, I’d hazard to say it’s very good. But whereas Tappei Nagatsuki’s story is insanely layered and complex with so many moving pieces and complimentary ideas, White Fox’s adaptation of that story is about as simple as you can get while still serving and enhancing it. The animation is overall decent with a few dips in quality here and there. The character and world design is unique enough without being too outside the box. There’s a lot of CG assistance for background characters and big monsters, but it’s rarely too intrusive. And it’s all tied together by smart direction that constantly finds new ways to frame a scene and knows how to emphasize the most emotional moments for maximum impact. This especially comes in handy for the many long conversations, as the camera is constantly shooting the characters from different angles to emphasize their changing emotional state and break up the scene’s flow so it doesn’t just feel like seven straight minutes of two faces talking at each other. As a production, Re:Zero is good in a very straightforward manner that rarely calls attention to itself, covering for its weak points with strong direction and saving its resources for the moments that most need to stand out and bring the house down. It’s not the most impressive or unique production I’ve ever seen, but it does its job communicating the story and its emotions beautifully, and it doesn’t really need to be anything more than that.

That said, in those rare moments where Re:Zero pulls out all the stops and kicks the animation into overdrive... hoooooly shit, does it kick ass. And now that we’ve reached the climax of this arc, I’m happy to say it’s living up to that bar. The two simultaneous brawls going on- the mansion fight against Elsa and Maylie, the sanctuary fight against Roswaal- are stuffed to the gills with some of the coolest, most ferocious spurts of action we’ve gotten from this show in a while. Garfiel catches Elsa’s blade in his teeth! Roswaal lays siege to the forest in a rain of fire! Maylie comes charging in on a giant ravenous hippo! Garfiel goes full beast mode and rips the hippo’s head off by leaping into the air and spinning it like a corkscrew! Puck goes supersized and lays down a storm of ice (”I just got bigger!” I swear to god if he went full Beast of the End I would’ve lost my shit)! And Jesus Christ on a cracker, Garfiel and Elsa’s final showdown is the stuff of legends. It’s brutal and bestial and bloody, like two feral wildbeasts determined to rip each other to shreds no matter what. They try to fucking bite each other to death, for crying out loud. It’s the single most ferocious fight Re:Zero’s ever had, and it. Fucking. RULES. I can’t think of a better clash for Elsa to finally meet her end in. It even manages to find some unique character beats between the two: Garfiel and Elsa are both fighting by the side of their “sister,” and while Garfiel’s determined to kill Elsa no matter what, Elsa says killing Garfiel will only be the beginning for her. She only loves people in death, unlike Garfiel who’s determined to protect the people he loves and keep them alive no matter what. And for all their ferocity, it’s Garfiel’s determination to rise above the blood and guts, rather than delight in them, that wins out in the end. Let Elsa wallow in death; this guy’s still got a lot of living left to do.

Let the Past Die

And that’s been the common theme underlying this entire season, hasn’t it? Our entire cast has felt trapped by seemingly inescapable dead ends that they need to move past and see the future beyond them. Betty, Roswaal, Emilia, Subaru, Garfiel, hero, villain or bystander, basically everyone has been locked in battle against a seemingly unchangeable fate set in stone by powers long ago. That’s obviously the most explicit with Roswaal and Beatrice, who live their lives by books that supposedly actually do tell the future, but that’s only the most literal manifestation of the fatalistic poison infecting everyone. Beatrice has faced 400 years of losing people and being left behind, following a script without ever thinking for herself, and she’s long since lost the ability to believe her situation could ever be fixed. She’s even happy at the thought that she might finally die and escape this endless, lonely torment. And I’ve certainly spilled enough ink already about how deeply Roswaal feels trapped by his past self and wants the whole world to be trapped with him (”All the wonderful things I know have happened in the past.”) One of them faces a future devoid of possibility, blank as the pages of her Tome of Wisdom. The other faces a future where only a set path can be followed, a path laid out in meticulous detail in his own tome. Both have spent centuries internalizing the idea that this is the only way things can be, to the point they can no longer imagine any future that deviates from the story their pages tell. There’s no path left for them to escape this pit on their own... which means it falls to the people who love them to pull them out.

And good lordy, has Subaru risen to the challenge. When he first confronted Beatrice, he couldn’t begin to fathom the pain she was experiencing. Now, though, he’s been through the fires of hell himself, and he knows that no future, however seemingly inescapable, is a sure thing. He knows that ultimately, the only thing keeping Beatrice from escaping her blank future is her own nihilistic belief that there’s no other way. She’s letting a blank book and a 400-year-old promise rule her, and if he needs to break that promise to give her the chance to live again, then nothing’s gonna stand in his way. The last 400 years of stasis have made Roswaal and Betty believe that this is the way things must be; it takes Subaru to point out that if they were actually trying, 400 years is more than enough time to find a better solution. All they have to do is let go of the belief that they can’t change anything, that the future’s set in stone. And if Ram has to throw Roswaal’s tome into the flames to drive that into his thick skull, then so be it. Holy shit, what a fantastic moment. I still have no idea why Ram loves this murderous clown, especially since he’s a member of the cult that destroyed her village in the first place, but power moves don’t get much cooler than ripping the literal embodiment of predetermined fate out of your loved one’s hands and burning it to ash so he has no choice but to see the potential future through his own eyes once more. But I swear to god, Ram better not have died in that final blast. She is too fucking good a character to die for this monster’s sake.

Her Own Eyes

And then, at last, there’s Emilia. Emilia, the girl who’s past ate at her like an open wound. Emilia, the girl who thought herself too weak to ever stand on her own. Emilia, the girl who has proven that she’s worth so much more than she ever believed. Over the course of this season, we’ve seen the silver-haired half-elf grow from a scared girl, paralyzed by her past, into someone worthy to sit on Lugunica’s throne. We’ve seen her face her trauma head-on and live to tell about it. We’ve seen her open herself up to people after closing herself off for so long. We’ve seen her realize that she’s capable of great things, that she’s worthy of the love she’s shown, that she doesn’t have to be bound by mistakes she made long ago. And over the course of the last two trials, we see what it looks like when someone like Emilia finally has the courage to soar. This time, she accepts Mother Fortuna’s love without question, no matter how deep her grief runs. This time, she believes that her friends will be there to catch her when she falls (”You won’t break?” “If I was alone, maybe. But they won’t let me be alone.”)  This time, she promises to help and protect her loved ones just as they’ve done for her. This time, she faces down an endless stream of terrible futures (many of which Subaru will find himself in during future arcs, no doubt) and comes out the other side still believing things will turn out alright. She faces the grief, she faces the pain, she faces the fear that once bound her in place, and still finds the courage to keep walking forward. After all the misery she’s endured, at long last, Emilia has become the hero that this world deserves.

And it is nothing short of beautiful. I can’t count how many times watching her self-actualization made me tear up. She calls Betelgeuse her father! She accepts and lets go of the perfect found family she once had and carries both of her true parents’ love for her onward! She even shows kindness toward the witches and offers to share a tea party with them the next time they meet! And Jesus Christ, I was not prepared for Emilia’s kindness to wring tears from the witches themselves. She made Echinda cry! The Witch of Greed herself, cruel and capricious and calculating, reduced to tears by the warmth of Emilia’s love for the people she lost! And Minerva openly weeping in relief when she realizes how far Emilia’s come (”For once, her evil schemes did something right.”)! God, that fucking destroyed me. If even the embodiments of sin itself can’t help but cry over her, what choice do I have? Emilia is living proof that Roswaal is wrong: the past doesn’t have to bind us forever. We can forge our own future, overcome the worst parts of ourselves, find new love when our loved ones are taken from us. Emilia lost so much- her parents, her home, her community- but when she walks out of the trial chamber for the second time and sees the people of Arlam and the Sanctuary alike waiting for her, giving her all the support they can, there’s no doubt in my mind that she’s gained more than she could ever lose. No longer is she an outcast defined by the world’s hatred of her; now, she’s become a part of that world at last, ready to live a free life and forge a better future for everyone she can.

And there’s no better image to sum it all up than Emilia diving into the sea of her dream world, opening her eyes to stare her reflection in the face just before she hits the water... and noting that her face looks less like Mother Fortuna than she thought.

After living in the shadow of her past for god knows how long, Emilia is seeing herself clearly for the first time.

Goodbye, Sanctuary. Hello, the great wide world beyond.

Odds and Ends

-”There’s no way I could ever be that person to you!” AND SHE JUST YEETS HIM OUT ASJKDHASKJDHAKSD

-”Sorry, my priorities suddenly became very clear to me.” stop bullying Otto ffs

-”So, if we’re friends, you’ll totally let us go, right?” Lmao, Petra’s adorable.

-okay but why the repeated focus on Frederica’s boobs tho

-”I’ll leave the rest to you two young folks.” skdjfhsdkjfh Emilia plz

-”S-stay super-duper close forever and ever, okay?” Listen, if you told me in the past I’d get this emotional over fucking Betelgeuse, I never would’ve believed you.

-And the way her voice shifts back to its normal register once she recognizes Echidna’s there... ow.

-”He’s just gonna laugh as he sends em flying!” “No no no no no no way!” dkfjhsfsdjfs fucking hell this show has such great jump cuts

-”Taste the spirit of science!” This is a good time to remember that Subaru’s VA also voices Senku in Dr. Stone.

-’You’ll like her. She’s really fun to tease.” D’aaaaaaaw.

-”Just come back alive or I’ll throttle you.” Otto, I appreciate you.

-WOAH WHY IS REM IN EMILIA’S FUTURE VISION

-”I’m uh, y’know, a terrifying witch who’ll make your hair stand on end!” dskjshdf Minerva’s great y’all

-”That part of you is nothing like your mother.” ...I swear to god, if Emilia is actually Satella’s daughter, I don’t know how I’ll handle it.

-Wow. Echidna’s grave is beautiful.

-OH FUCK WHY IS THE BLIZZARD HERE

-”If I just keep killing you until you die, you die.” Garfiel, have you perchance met a boy by the name of Emiya Shirou?

-Egh, not sure we needed the attempted rape in Elsa’s backstory. At least they didn’t show it exploitatively *cough Kara no Kyoukai cough*

-Ooh, so Puck’s met the Melancholy Man too? Iiinteresting.

One more session to go. God, I’m not ready. See you next time for the grand finale of Re:Zero season 2!

#anime #the anime binge-watcher #tabw #re:zero #re zero #Re:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu #re:zero starting life in another world