#either a plotline gets incredibly in depth thought or none at all there is no in between | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

greensaplinggrace · 3 years

Note

honestly THANK YOU for saying all that abt baghra bc i thought i was going crazy from not liking her??? bc i haven't read the books and only summaries of them on wiki and like. i dunno why ppl like her actually even in the show bc this guy, her son, is like "i wanna make the world better for us grisha" and she's just like "no." even tho he sees that she's MAKING HERSELF SICK from suppressing her powers! she's literally like in bed coughing in the flashback yet seem much healthier at the little palace. also like after everything, after her disapproval, after the fold, after centuries of waiting for the sun summoner.. he never abandons her. he makes sure she's cares for. he doesn't harm her. and i have to wonder if baghra has ever thanks him for that, for just not leaving her alone. like i dunno how im suppose ro believe aleks is a heartless villain when he still cares for his abusive mom like this. like has baghra even told her she loved him (honestly she reminds me of a classic emotionally unavailable asian parent but maybe that's just me). also im wondering if baghra ever told aleks that he had an aunt.. bc like.. now that u bring up her isolating him it's like hmmmm...

not at me being like alina... why do u trust the bitter old woman who literally beats u with a stick and verbally abuses u every chance she gets.. just bc she showed a bad painting... like.. pls use two braincells to see that who u figured out as his mother... is also using his protection..

like baghra could've upped and left with alina. but no. she stayed bc she knew she was safe under aleks's protection.

alsoim just impressed that after his first friend tried to drown him and harvest his bones... he didn't go into hiding???? he still wanted to make a safe heaven for grisha!!! HE STILL WANTED TO PROTECT GRISHA EVEN AFTER HIS GRISHA FRIEND TRIED TO KILL HIM FOR HIS FUCKEN BONES. like... this is the guy im suppose to believe is the villain???

honestly i feel like part of the reason why LB's plotlines seem so bad and disconnected (and sometimes outright racist but that's another rant) and why darkles is disproportionately more violent and villainous in the later books is bc she didn't expect the darkling to be so popular and wanted to stick with her guns of making him the villain. but also wanted the money from aleks's popularity. but like you can't have ur cake and eat it too.

Well thank you for sending this ask! It's very sweet and very passionate. I'm glad you liked my post! I didn't put as much thought into it as some of my others lol. I kind of just talked. But it was nice to be able to finally talk about some of the problems I have with both her character and the fandom/author's perception of her.

HERE is the post this is referring to, in case anyone's wondering.

👀👀 You've hit the nail on the head for so many things, here!

Baghra is extremely emotionally unavailable, basically to the point of neglect. She's also verbally and physically abusive, traits which I doubt were only reserved for her students and not her son. Baghra claims she would do anything to protect him, but I've known a lot of parents who have that mindset and yet still harm their children because they think it's "good for them".

Aleksander stays at Baghra's side for years, and even when they're opposing each other she's never too far away from him. Idk if you've read the books but he does eventually hurt her. And as much as I don't like Baghra, I think his actions were horrid. But I'm also honestly kind of surprised it took him so long lmao.

Yeah I mean, in terms of isolation, let's not forget that she never wanted to introduce him to his father, either. Baghra's sense of eternity clouds a lot of her judgments on relationships, which means she views most people as dust and therefore teaches her son to as well. The problem with that is that he's a growing child, and he needs those social and emotional attachments for healthy development.

I would bet quite a bit of money that Baghra has either never told him she loves him or she has told him so few times it's practically forgettable.

And everything becomes more complicated because so many of Baghra's actions are understandable because of her life and her history, but the impacts they have on the people around her, especially Aleksander, are permanently damaging. And the fact that that's never gone over in critical depth in the books or how it's glossed over in fandom is just very disconcerting. Like, acknowledging Baghra's failings doesn't mean we're excusing Aleksander's actions, it just means we're holding Baghra liable for her own. Which the fandom should be doing, considering she's the epitome of an abusive parental figure.

And Alina trusting Baghra over Aleksander is even more confusing! Especially in the show!! This is the woman who beat her and abused her and tortured her friends when they tiny little children (and who probably still does so now that they're adults). This is the woman who mocks you and harasses you and insults you on a regular basis. Why does Baghra revealing she's Aleksander's mother make Alina change her mind?! Like fuck, I'd just feel bad for Aleksander. No wonder he kept it a secret, I would too! And that painting is enough evidence?! Really?! A random painting shown to you by this abusive mentor that's been making your life hell. That's what you're going to betray your new lover over?

The friends trying to harvest his bones thing is a good point, too. I think Aleksander, especially show Aleksander, is incredibly idealistic. I think he cares too much for others - those he's deemed worth his care (a sentiment given to him by Baghra). Despite everything she's tried to teach him about hiding and abandoning others and never caring and never doing anything to help or reach out or connect with people, Aleksander still continues to do so. It's likely because he never got it from Baghra growing up, and so is desperate for those emotional needs to be fulfilled elsewhere.

His turning point, when Baghra tells him it was understandable that those kids tried to kill him because the world is such a hard place for them - that's crucial. And the reason it's possible as a motivating factor is because of that idealism and that desire to help and that desire to be everything his mother isn't. Baghra tells him this trauma he just experienced was because of the oppression of his people, and instead of following her lead and accepting that, going into hiding and abandoning everybody to their misery, he goes I can do something about that. I can make it so this never happens again. Which is usually how trauma like that combines with one's core personality traits at a young age, especially when there's none of the essential support systems in place to aid in recovery (ie, the role Baghra should have been filling but wasn't, because she decided to exacerbate the problem instead).

And yeah, one of my biggest problems with the ham-fisted "beating you over the head with a sledgehammer of evil deeds" look-how-bad-this-character-is! portrayal of the Darkling in the later books comes from the impression I get that Bardugo doesn't trust her readers. She's so desperate to have us hate this character and think him an irredeemable villain, not trusting any of her readers to engage critically with a morally gray character, that it feels quite a bit like condescending fucking bullshit. Which ew, I know how to engage with literature, thanks.

She really does seem to look down on a large part of her fandom, and imo, the infantilization of the female characters in her books seems to carry over to her impression of most of her female readers as well. Which is why the Darkling's character arc gets fucking destroyed. But he's still a good cash grab, of course, so she'll shake his dead corpse in front of the fandom for money every time she wants something from it.

Also! Another reason I think her plotlines feel disconnected (I'm sorry Bardugo I respect you as a person, but shit-) is because the writing in SaB is just bad. I mean, nevermind the absolutely nauseating implications of the way she portrays the Grisha as a persecuted group who's situation is never actually fully addressed as it should be, considering Grisha rights is what her main villain is fighting for (imo for a series called the Grishaverse, LB seems to be pretty anti Grisha), but her characters and story alone are just wrong for each other. They don't fit together.

And the ending is one of the main pieces of evidence in that regard! You can’t say the ending where Alina isn’t Grisha anymore is her “going back to where she started” when she’s always been Grisha. She just didn’t know she was Grisha because she denied that part of herself that she was born with.

Alina is reluctant to move forward or change, she struggles with adapting, and she’s very set on the things she’s grown attached to throughout her life. She also has some latent prejudices against the Grisha, and so denies the possibility of being Grisha for those reasons as well.

Alina’s lack of powers in the beginning of her life because she willfully doesn’t learn about them to avoid change versus her lack of powers at the end of the book when she’s accepted them and then they’re stripped away from her by outer forces are two entirely separate circumstances. You can’t make a parallel about lost powers and lack of Grisha status bringing her back to the start when she was always Grisha and she always had powers and she simply refused to come to terms with it because of personal reasons.

The first situation is an internal conflict that indicates a story about growth and a journey of self acceptance. Denying herself the opportunity to learn about her heritage and to find acceptance with a group of people like her because she’s tied to the past and because of the way she was raised is the setup for a narrative that tackles unlearning prejudice and learning how to connect with a part of her identity that was denied her and learning how to grow independent and self assured. It’s the setup for a different story entirely. The second situation is an external conflict that centers around the ‘corrupting influence of power’... for some reason.

In a world where Grisha do not have social, political, or economic power and they are hunted, centering your heroine’s journey of self acceptance and growth around an external conflict about... the corrupting influence of power (in a group of people that don’t actually have any power?!) just doesn’t work. It is literally impossible to connect the two stories Bardugo is trying to push in Shadow and Bone without seriously damaging the main character’s developmental arc.

The only way a narrative like this would work, claiming that she has gone back to where she started, is either a) if the Grisha weren’t actually a persecuted group and instead were apart of the upper class, or b) if the one bad connection between the two instances is acknowledged - that Alina denied a part of herself crucial to self acceptance and growing up, and that losing her powers at the end has also denied her. It is a tragedy, not a happy ending.

Alina suffered because she didn’t use her powers. She grew sick. It was bad for her. This was not a resistance to 'the corruption of power and the burden of greed', it was her suffering because she couldn’t fully accept herself.

Framing the ending as a return to the beginning can’t be done if you don’t address how bad the beginning was for your main character. You brought her back to a bad point in her life. You regressed her. This should be a low point in her arc. It should be a problem that’s solved so she can finish developing organically or it should be something that is acknowledged as a tragedy in it’s own right, for the future the world (the writing) denied her.

This is a ramble and it makes no sense and I’m really sorry, but my point is that Bardugo put the wrong characters in the wrong story. The character arc required for organic development doesn’t match the story and intended message at all. The narrative doesn’t fit the cast. She's got two clashing stories attempting to work in tandem and she ends up with both conflicting messages that fans still can’t comprehend in her writing and an ending that doesn’t suit her main character to such an impossible degree that it’s almost laughable.

So yeah, there's a few reasons why I think the story and the plot feels so bad and disconnected. I hope you don't mind me making this answer so long! 😅 I was not expecting to write this much.

177 notes · View notes

nileqt87 · 3 years

Text

Thoughts on WandaVision by a non-Marvel fan

As someone who had only seen a single Marvel movie (The Avengers) and only watched Jessica Jones season 1 for David Tennant (while hating nearly every other character in it), which had none of these characters, I only watched WandaVision precisely because it dared to break the mold and be even remotely ambitious instead of doing the same old CGI cartoon fest over and over. And somewhat because of what Marvel has done to the film industry, television has completely and utterly overtaken film as where emotional, dramatic storytelling now happens.

And okay, I happen to have had a major TVLand addiction growing up and binged a ton of the shows referenced in WandaVision long ago (yep, those very same '50s-'80s sitcoms). I couldn't pass up the retro. Love at first sight. Combine that with what promised to be a tragic, human/non-human romance. Sold. I knew little else about the characters.

For a long time, I've seen female fans (in particular) comment on how part of the reason they write fanfiction for Marvel is that they have to read between the lines just to add the implied dramatic content of the relationship focus variety that never quite gets developed in canon (certainly not up to the standard of what a fic reader expects). I saw a few comments that pretty much described WandaVision as exactly that: a fix-it fanfic before tragic reality invaded Pleasantville. Wanda's whole Hex was essentially a glorified fix-it fanfic.

For this reason alone, I can only hope the success of WandaVision gets them to create a season 2 that is dedicated solely to Wanda trying to put her family (Vision) back together that does the tragic romance justice in a way that giving them side parts in other people's movies just isn't going to cut it.

I feel like Vision's ultimate resurrection or even Wanda's struggle with her grief is better left to her own headline story, whether be it film or television. Television is the only medium that is going to allow the actors to really sink their teeth into this sort of star-crossed, tragic drama and not have it relegated to a minor side-character plot. Either give Wanda and Vision their own movie (hopefully, with heightened focus on character development as a lesson learned from television) or wait to integrate the mind and body of Vision in another season that gives both of them center stage with room to develop it.

Them having their twins for real might also be worth a season 2 in a way that probably wouldn't even work on film, as showing such a feminine pregnancy storyline would be a helluva departure for a Marvel movie that goes from action set piece to action set piece.

I wouldn't even hate it if Wanda's sitcom comfort zone made a few more appearances, even if it is merely the occasional domestic fantasy or dream/nightmare, so there is a way to not completely divorce a potential season 2 from season 1's "gimmick". It could be merely as simple as her pointedly doing something Sam/Jeannie-esque with her magic. Cooking with floating kitchen items would be an easy nod.

Probably not what Marvel is thinking of doing, but as a non-Marvel fan, WandaVision has a real opportunity to pull in new viewers with very different tastes that have so far managed to give the films a wide berth. It would do so much better as a show.

Go the route of giving these characters their own headlined projects and Marvel could have a real juggernaut of a 'ship, as well. My impression was that WandaVision got a lot of fans talking about the characters and their relationship in a way that the previous films and comics had not; some even making comments they had barely paid attention to the characters before the show.

IMO, the mere character descriptions sound like some of the most interesting and fleshed-out characters Marvel has got right now with real opportunity for real dramatic depth. And that's putting aside that Scarlet Witch is one of the most powerful characters on the entire Marvel roster. Making a whole television season about a character going through the stages of grief and about a woman who just wants the family she lost back (a woman who desperately wants a husband and children, no less) was very different territory for Marvel. Human/non-human, in addition to having the level of doom that makes tragedies very, very memorable.

There's tropey drama potential there that hasn't been mined with the non-human who becomes more and more "human" (it's the stuff of fairy tales and sci-fi both). Hayward or someone like him could easily be used as a character who doesn't see Vision as equal to humans, for example. Delve into the sort of existential questions about artificial life achieving consciousness no less feeling than a human's that stories like Data on Star Trek, Blade Runner and Bicentennial Man pose. That species difference without the magic of sitcoms could be mined for a gorgeously dramatic plotline. What it means to be human explored through the non-human--one of my favorite tropes.

And of course, it's the stuff of fairy tales--most notably Pinocchio (the once-inanimate learning to and desiring to become real by proving himself worthy and because it fulfills the greatest wish of the person who loves them most), combined with the interspecies romance elements of The Little Mermaid (tragic ending or not--see also the desperate acts taken to achieve this cosmically-denied togetherness, only for such a tragic ending to come of it in the original work).

Given that the MCU movies just lost a bunch of their A-listers, they need something big like this. Marvel needs philosophical and character-driven meat on its meager dramatic bones. Here are two actors who could carry something more ambitious and pick up an entirely different audience. Marvel could get an even bigger female audience with these two, IMO. And it wouldn't be cheap girl power pandering either (I say this as a girl). These characters are legit with incredibly warm, likable, endearing performances behind them. This chemistry works 100%.

I think White Vision having an existential crisis where he's questioning what he is if he has all the memories of a being who clearly can feel every human emotion (the idea that we are our memories), but at the same time knowing that he's only artificial life, would be an interesting lead-up to Vision being fully restored with his full consciousness in addition to the added memories of what he experienced inside the Hex.

A restored Vision would have to reconcile what Wanda did in her grief over him and her family. It's also a glimpse at the life Wanda wants with him, which included something that isn't biologically possible, though it likely is through her own abilities of creation. There's also the idea of balance that he's the one who might hold her back from the brink of going down any further dark paths as a figure of ordered stability for her, while she is key in the chaos of his becoming more "human". The to-be parenthood story is obviously hanging over them.

The situation with Hayward intending for White Vision to remain a mere machine that can be manipulated and used as a weapon in a way that an independently-thinking Vision can't be is also a path to go down. As I said, there's a potential storyline about prejudice regarding artificial intelligence, even if it has all the emotional capability of humans.

And on top of that, Vision is in a relationship with a human, even if it's one who could potentially be the key to restoring his consciousness through her own link with the original Mind Stone. It also furthers Wanda's role as a mother and creator if she can give him back his life in this way. While the heroic Avengers might not question them being "an unusual couple", who says everyone else would be so kind?

I really think he needs to be brought back. Wanda desperately needs him for her story to continue.

#wandavision #wanda maximoff #scarlet witch #vision #scarlet vision #wanda x vision #elizabeth olsen #paul bettany #marvel

28 notes · View notes

kingedwardviii · 6 years

Note

What are your thoughts on the narrative regarding David/Edward and Wallis portrayed in The Crown? Sorry if you’ve been asked before!

Hi! I was asked something like this a while ago, but it was before season 2 which kinda changed my view on the show a little bit.

I’m actually still working on a pretty substantial series of posts for my other blog about the various allegations in episode six of season two, which are a mixture of complete bullshit and things deliberately taken out of context. But here is my latest post, with actual citations, about the various Nazi related rumors and the problems with that narrative. The odd thing about The Crown is that unlike most fictional portrayals of the royal family, you get the feeling that the research was done but then kinda ignored to make the plot go in the direction the writers wanted it to.

Other than the fundamental issue of whether or not the Windsors supported the Nazis (tldr; they didn’t) after the jump are my pros and cons about the accuracy of their portrayal in both seasons. It has been about six months since I’ve watched any of it, so I might be missing a few things, though I did refer to some notes I had about season two.

Pros:

-There was an impressive attention to detail when it came to recreating their clothing, Wallis’s jewelry, and some of the details in how they decorated. A lot of research and effort must’ve gone into it, and I was happy to see Wallis’s cross bracelet, the pug pillows, and many of David’s real outfits replicated.

-There was a definite ring of authenticity to David’s letters home to Wallis, at least for the season one episodes. Since the season two plotline of him coming home during Billy Graham’s visit and being banished by Elizabeth was 100% fake, obviously the letters there weren’t based on anything factual. Apparently for reasons having to do with copyright, the letters in season one were rearranged and a lot of it was rewritten, but as someone who’s read the real letters and pretty much knows them backwards and forwards I was fooled at first into thinking they were real letters just cut up out of context. The nicknames were real, though I think the show implied they were more malicious than they actually were since David and Wallis had nicknames for *everyone*. He did call her Peaches, a detail other dramatizations have missed.

-Wallis and David could both be kind of petty, bitchy, overdramatic people, especially when it came to the royal family. This came from a genuine place of deep hurt which you need some level of background knowledge to understand, but that is certainly a very realistic aspect of their personalities and their dynamic as a couple that comes through when you read their letters from any point after the abdication.

-There aren’t really any fictionalized portrayals of David and Wallis that go into their life after the abdication, and even less so if you’re talking about after the war. I think The Crown did a good job showing their relationship in a realistic way, and showing the complexities of his feelings; though she didn’t get as much depth. It seems to be hard for some writers (both of fiction and “non-fiction” that is more like fiction) to wrap their heads around the fact that the Windsors, her especially, were bitter about living in exile, had their share of regrets, but also did genuinely love each other. They most certainly did not live happily ever after, and even had tension in their relationship over the abdication, but also showed a lot of affection for each other and tried to make their marriage work. Though I think some of this was the realistic chemistry and it’s more of a credit to the actors, who probably studied over old photos and videos quite a bit, rather than the writing or directing.

-Considering they got a relatively small amount of screen time, the depth that we got of his characterization was pretty impressive. Peter Morgan does have something of a gift for telling you a lot about a character in a relatively small number of scenes, which is noticeable with other characters such as Tony Snowden and Jackie Kennedy as well.

-David and Wallis Windsor were 100% the sort of people who would’ve thrown a birthday party for one of their dogs. I have no evidence something like this happened but if you read how they write about their dogs in their letters, it seems plausible.

Cons:

-Wallis’s character is not given much agency or a voice of her own. She gets less screen time as David and has no real relationship with the protagonist of the story, so this makes sense on some level, but I also feel like there were some missed opportunities there. For instance, along with David’s letters to Wallis, we have her letters back to him which are an incredibly important, but often ignored, source of insight as to her personality and her feelings towards her husband. The royal family seemed to view Wallis as a one-dimensional villain character, and the media at the time and even today treats her as more of a plot-point than a complex human being. Even though The Crown at least shows her as affectionate towards David (which is accurate) and not totally lacking in humanity, there is no real attempt to subvert or reexamine the incredibly misogynistic narrative the royal family and their supporters built around her and some of the inaccuracies I’m about to mention play into this.

-Wallis is shown as being present during the abdication flashback scenes in season one, even being in the same room as Queen Mary in one of them. She wasn’t there, she was out of the country during most of the abdication crisis and, crucially, Queen Mary refused to ever meet her at all, during or after the crisis. The closest they came was over a year earlier when Wallis, at a series of large events David had gotten her into, was in the same room as King George V and Queen Mary and was briefly presented to them. I am guessing this is just a case of bad historical research; any biography of the people involved, even a bad one, would’ve set them straight. But it creates a very misleading impression because they missed something very significant to understanding David’s attitude towards his family: Queen Mary considered Wallis so far beneath her she refused to even be in the same room as Wallis once she knew David wanted to marry her. After the abdication, the rest of the royal family mostly followed her lead, so at the time both seasons of The Crown are set, Elizabeth II has only ever met Wallis once (or maybe twice), fleetingly, when she was a little girl. This was also widely covered in the press, so Wallis had to deal with the fact that not only did her in-laws hate her and blame her for the abdication, but the entire world knew that. Also, though the show doesn’t touch on the tension between Wallis and David over the abdication (except perhaps that weird exchange at the party in season two), which is probably the right choice given the time period covered, to make a very long story short if you want to understand Wallis’s side of that story the fact that she wasn’t there when David abdicated and he didn’t tell her until it was already put into motion is pretty fucking crucial. Making her seem more involved in that situation also serves to make the royal family’s treatment of her seem more justified than it actually was.

-That they even referenced (much less treated as factual) the ridiculous story about Wallis sleeping with the Nazi diplomat Joachim von Ribbentrop is pretty disgusting. This is a somewhat distinct issue to the fundamental problems with the Nazi narrative as a whole that I covered in the post linked above. Not only is there no evidence whatsoever for this story, but it can be directly traced back to a misinterpretation of another false rumor that Wallis was overly friendly with Ribbentrop’s predecessor Leopold von Hoesch, Wallis at least knew Hoesch, who it’s worth noting was not a member of the Nazi party. Ribbentrop only met Wallis a few times, fleetingly, at parties. Of all the ridiculous “affair” stories, this one is the least credible (and none of them are credible), doesn’t really make any logical sense, but is also the most widely repeated. The reason for that is this particular story uses the decades of baseless slut-shaming that has been heaped on Wallis to give credence to the extremely flimsy narrative that she was some sort of Nazi agent. And because Wallis isn’t given a ton of agency or characterization, the viewer might find this allegation believable even though it seems to contradict what little we are told about her. Whatever pre-conceived notions you have about Wallis that might stem from misogyny, either through false allegations or taking an overly judgmental attitude to things that are true, will make you more inclined to believe the Ribbentrop story, and then that story in turn props up an entire narrative about her being a Nazi collaborator. It’s bullshit, but it gives people a more socially acceptable reason to hate her in this day and age and prevents any sort of feminist reexamination of how Wallis was treated.

-Though we see a few bitchy comments from the Queen Mother, by and large the royal family’s nastiness towards David and Wallis is downplayed in season one, and then given a completely bullshit justification in season two. The entire plotline of the episode in season two, as it pertains to David asking Elizabeth if he can return to England and her telling him off because for being a Nazi, is completely false. It goes to show how much of an impact that The Crown has had on how the royal fandom views David and Wallis that people now seem to genuinely believe Nazi sympathies had something to do with the royal family’s banishment of the Windsors. The royal family viewed the Windsors as negatively (or possibly more negatively) before the war, than after it, and their vendetta against Wallis started before the visit to Nazi Germany, even. Their complaints about the Nazi Germany visit, to the extent that we have documentation of them, center around it being a publicity stunt rather than it involving the Nazis. David and Wallis were allowed in Britain more often after the war than before it. In the 1960s, Elizabeth II finally agreed to meet Wallis, agreed to let the Windsors be buried in Britain, and actually invited Wallis and David as a married couple to an official engagement; this was the closest to a “reconciliation” that ever happened and all of it was after the Marburg papers were published (which if you skipped the link earlier, didn’t exactly say what Peter Morgan would have you believe they did), and after episode six of season two of The Crown is set. I am going to guess season three of The Crown will not cover any of that because they doubled down on the Nazi angle to such an extent that it’s not only incredibly historically inaccurate, but pretty much rules out any reconciliation between David and Elizabeth unless they want to retcon some of it. Elizabeth II was mostly following the lead of her parents when it came to her views on Wallis and David, and her parents were pretty open about their feelings: they were bitter and angry about the abdication and how it impacted their lives, and they also held a lot of backwards, sexist views about Wallis, views that were not kept secret either in public or private. To the extent that Elizabeth’s attitude towards them changed during the ‘50s and ‘60s, she became less hostile to them because of changing attitudes about divorce and women’s rights, not more hostile to them because of anything to do with Nazism.

-Around the time of David’s appearance in season two of The Crown, he was writing a book (Windsor Revisited, published in 1960) which he did go to Britain to research. Furthermore, at this point he’d already written his memoirs (A King’s Story, published in 1951) which were an international bestseller, so the idea of him coming to Britain to work on a book should hardly have seemed surprising or questionable to anyone. Also by this point David had basically given up on ever being given a position in Britain again; when George VI and Queen Mary died and nothing changed, he basically gave up because he realized the Queen Mother’s attitude was not doing to change and she would remain an obstacle even if her daughter was nominally head of the family.

-The idea that the royal family was (or even still is) trying to cover up some sort of connection between David and the Nazis isn’t really backed up. Churchill, who had been a close friend of David for many years, did try to suppress Nazi documents that mentioned him, as did President Eisenhower, who was friendly with the Windsors, but also who was involved with capturing the deposits of documents to begin with and felt the Nazis didn’t tend to make very reliable sources. Bertie, on the other hand, said the documents probably should be published. Two of the men involved in sending the documents to the American researchers, insuring their publication, were closely tied to the royal family. One, John Wheeler-Bennett, who found out about the “missing” documents and insisted they be included in the publication with the help of American historians, was subsequently chosen by the Queen and Queen Mother to write the official biography of George VI and later was knighted by the Queen for service to the royal family. The other was Tommy Lascelles, and according to Wheeler-Bennett, he actually made the microfilms of the documents that were sent along and later published. More damaging than anything that has actually been published is this idea that there is more of it out there that the royal family is still concealing. Not only is there no reason to believe there is anything more out there or that the royal family has “covered” for David and Wallis, we know that the one chance they had to do so, they weren’t cooperative and may very well have helped undermine Churchill’s attempt to do so. And they really didn’t have a motivation; the narrative now is that David and Wallis were Nazi sympathizers or even collaborators, and perhaps that now is slightly damaging to the prestige of the monarchy, though it’s not like they didn’t have their share of questionable figures already and it’s not like other monarchies in Europe haven’t faced similar allegations, most of them more credible. But in the late ‘40s and ‘50s, if you read contemporary newspapers and magazines, the Duke of Windsor was still a relatively popular figure and polls suggested the public thought he should be allowed to live in Britain again. Even when he died in 1972, there was a large public showing of grief and sixty thousand people waited in line for hours to view his lying in state. For the main branch of the family during that period, it probably looked much better to encourage the public to think David was a bad apple and they kicked him out of the country so he couldn’t do any damage (especially if Wallis is blamed for corrupting him) than to say there was a decades long family feud where everyone (including George VI, the Queen Mother, and Elizabeth II) behaved badly and they kicked a popular member of our family out of both public life and private family events because of personal drama and attitudes about divorce that look more out-of-touch with each passing year.

-The back story between Churchill and David is largely left out; their one major scene together in season one seems to hint at it (one of Churchill’s lines suggests he’s helped David before and it didn’t end well), but the little bit we see of Churchill in season two doesn’t hint at it at all. And theoretically that would’ve happened first; even though the whole show is written by Peter Morgan it almost feels like two different writers, one of whom knows that Churchill was a friend of David for decades and his primary supporter during the abdication crisis and one who either doesn’t know that or is choosing to go in a different direction. I am leaning towards the latter idea since I feel like David’s plotline in season two was written entirely in response to criticism from people who largely don’t know that history who thought the show was being too sympathetic to David and Wallis. I’ve seen some of these same people treating this as a plot hole, wondering why Churchill would’ve had dinner with David “knowing” all of these supposedly horrible things David did, but in real life they did remain friendly and Winston and Clementine Churchill had even went to stay with David and Wallis in France during the period he was out of office. Though arguably there’s a lot of back story relating to David and Wallis in general that perhaps should be included but isn’t. Especially for a show that loves giving back story about characters to try and explain their actions.

-Wallis never smoked, but weirdly most period dramas seem to want to show her as a smoker. She didn’t smoke, she hated the smell of it, believed it was unhealthy, and was constantly nagging at David to cut back. But if you’re someone that just likes to watch period dramas about her instead of reading books, you’d probably think she did smoke because almost all of them make that mistake. Or it may be some sort of deliberate stylistic choice because smoking while dressed in period clothing with period hair and make-up looks cool. Plus in old movies, “bad girl” characters always smoked and that is usually how Wallis is portrayed.

-David and Wallis were in New York when he was informed of George VI’s death, which he found out about from the press rather than his family or the local consulate. They were also in New York when he was informed of Queen Mary’s illness and left to go see her. David’s sister Princess Mary, who doesn’t really exist in The Crown except a few off-screen references, was visiting New York at the time, and they travelled to Britain together to come see her. Princess Mary was the only person in the family who remained on good terms with David, and actually boycotted Elizabeth and Philip’s wedding when he wasn’t invited to it. Wallis was also in New York for the burials of both George VI and Queen Mary, not their house in France.

#Edward VIII #Duke of Windsor #Duchess of Windsor #this is a LONG one lol #The Crown

30 notes · View notes

baconpal · 6 years

Text

so heres the long super paper mario post

strap in for why super paper mario is fucking bizarre and why that’s pretty much awesome

gonna be a good amounts of spoilers, so if you’re on desktop then hit that read more, and if your on mobile, then here’s your punishment for using this god awful app

super paper mario is a game that is incredibly difficult to put into words, but it leaves such a powerful, lasting impression on me and i can’t come to say anything first other than I love it so much, and if you havent played the game, please just go do it now, even if you have to pirate or emulate or something, just let yourself play this game. It’s one of those games that I really feel I can just recommend to anybody

it’s difficult to think of where to start with dissecting this thing so i’ll just start with the art since lookin at things is pretty easy

ART/WORLD DESIGN

every world in SPM is completely unique, not just in what type of environment, but it’s art style, and this is premised with the fact that none of these worlds are capable of existing together and are completely separate, and NOT part of a cohesive universe (LOOKIN AT YOU ODYSSEY I STILL THINK YOU LOOK STUPID)

The hub and the first 2 worlds are mostly just slight variants on the same general style of simplistic shapes and colors, with world 1 delving into more linework type aesthetics, and 2 focusing more on impressions and silhouettes,

world 3 changes this completely with what is obviously an 8 bit kind of style, but instead of jarring over sized pixels, the world is composed of detailed tiles arranged to look like pixel art that imply a more real world, and not a gamey one,

world 4 focuses on patterns and big patches of color to give the impression of the vast emptiness of both space and the surface of a barren planet, before giving you the “Whoa Zone”, with a striking mix of wire frame and futuristic UI style to it

world 5 takes the idea of nature being crude and simplistic and humanity being sharp, angular, and extreme and flips that on its head, with humanity and the space they occupy being these absolute memes with no sense of depth, and the plant life existing in a system of clean cut caves with futuristic technology and elegant historic values

world 6 simplifies a kind of colored Japanese painting aesthetic, down to the funny cylindrical cloud clusters and brushstroke trees

world 7 depicts what is essentially hell (yes there’s hell in this game keep your pants on) as a squarish blur of bright greens and warm reds and purples, and depicts heaven as fluffy land of clouds and Greek temples

and lastly, world 8 is inverted greyscale, where light is black and darkness is white, its simplistic and striking and i couldn’t think of a better style for the final area of a game so focused on the concept of light and dark

MUSIC

I’ll just try and keep it simple, the musics fucking cash money

The game makes great use of motifs when it needs to, where specific themes and instruments are used in other songs to suggest relationships and put battles and travels into perspective

And when it ISNT doing that, it’s just fucking funky stuff, with a weird trend of BOING and PLOP and SPLISH noises in the percussion because fuck you i guess

There’s a lot of good songs that do lots of interesting things, any of the like 5 final battle songs are great things to point to, but i’ll just go ahead and say the main theme of world 8 “Castle Bleck” is one of my favorites that isn’t super highly rated. It brings in the types of instruments that have been associated with the villain the entire game, but also throws in 2 very important things; a sudden triumphant burst of almost JRPG styled chiptune that pushes away the constantly building tension, which is then followed by the sound of a clock ticking, which is a musical motif only present in the songs “Memory” and “Promise” which is played whenever the memories of the player’s little guide thing and the main villain’s past lives together are alluded to. This one song holds a lot of weight, as well as simply being a fucking cool song.

GAMEPLAY

This is, sadly, the one place I’ll not mince any words and say the gameplay is not amazing by any standard, it’s pretty much a classic mario game if it had RPG stats, items, and random abilities granted through the character and partner systems. The 3D flipping mechanic is nothing astounding, though it is very interesting to see how worlds are constructed

One of the biggest flaws people will mark the game for in its gameplay is that it’s tedious, and while I have to agree, that’s because I’ve already played the game before, and the tedium only comes from not being completely invested in the experience anymore. I’ll get some specific examples in a bit, but there’s a few cases of “tedium” that i believe are 100% intentional and drive the story in an interesting way

STORY/WRITING/GAME DESIGN

Thats a fuckin broad section, but its pretty much everything else i have to say on the game, and where the most spoilers and random praise is gonna be

I’m not actually gonna talk about the whole story, more just the strong parts of it, under the assumption you’ve already played it or understand a story as simple as “villain wants to destroy world, hero wants that to not happen”

The writing and characters are just flawless, everyone is fun to be around, especially the bad guys, who you see more antics of than your own party. There’s goofy running plotlines about O’chunks and mimi essentially getting grounded and being forced to write essays about why they fucked up at beating mario, and big stinky brother dimentio teasting and bullying them and sneaking them out to do his bidding when The big Count Bleck is away

The game is full of referential humor to not just mario itself but all kinds of games, there’s skeletons in hell who are clearly just Marios from the mainline games who died in stupid ways, there’s an actual dragon quest turn based boss battle in hell too, and chapter 3 has an otaku villain who tried to get with peach in a simulated visual novel

but the humor exists not just in references, but in simple good scenarios, with things like “Having a game show in a bathroom when everyone's life is at stake” and “locating an ancient manuscript to use as toilet paper” or “flying through black holes to find a convenience store” and things of that nature

It also interacts with the players emotions in many interesting ways, one of the more lauded being chapter 2-3, where mario is forced into working off a massive debt of fictional money, and is required to do hard, boring labor. There isn’t anyway to avoid doing both the hitting a block 100 times and the running on a treadmill for a few minutes thing, but the constant feeling of “there has to be a faster way to do this” drives the player to prod around, find the secrets, and slowly discover how to break the system wide open and get to the end, and i love it for that

This entire game is some sort of bait and switch, to put it simply, while it’s already a bit of a departure from both mario itself and the paper series, the first 5 worlds are pretty fucking tame stuff, other than the void, which is a giant black and purple spot that sits in the sky, always, every single world has the void growing in its sky, and it does grow, every chapter it gets bigger and bigger and takes up the sky, but where this truly culminates into the “switch” part is chapter 6, which starts itself by presenting you with the most TEDIUS sounding chapter possible, fight 100 enemies in a row, and nothing else, and for 25 straight fights, that is all it is, so you’ve locked yourself into it at this point, you know whats up, but the void in the background begins to grow to the point of being the entire fucking background, and every enemy you face speaks as if they know they’re all going to die, and by the 30th fight, one of the villains comes to stall for time as the void completely swallows the world, and the party is sent back to the hub. When they decide to go back in to world 6, its empty, the entire world is a white void with a single black line making up the ground, and colorless destroyed structures occasionally peaking out of the ground.

and you walk on this white void for so long and you just feel nothing but regret and fear and no matter how fast you make yourself go you feel like you’ll never find anything, but you do eventually get your plot item and escape

then, Dimentio, one of the villains you’ve seen the least of, appears in the hub world, the safest place in the universe, and kills mario

he just fucking kills him

he puts mario in a box and fills the box with explosions and mario fucking dies and goes to hell because fuck you mario

then you go through all of chapter 7 just to escape hell (called the Underwhere cus how could we possibly be allowed to take hell seriously) and join up with your full party before confronting the final world, which i’ve already stated i just love the design off

the game just takes the comfortable ride you’re on and throws it into the fucking sun and burns you alive and i love it so much, even the very end of the game doesnt let up, where the main villain is overtaken by that absolute madman Dimentio (Whose name is a play on both Dimension and dementia), who clearly was powerful enough to have done the whole “ending of the world” himself, but did it this way for the theatrics of it

there’s a lot i could still say about the game, but this post is absolute rambling and its 2 in the morning but as usual, i just wanted to shit my thoughts onto the internet to people could maybe learn somethin about either the game or me and how i think and look at and respond to stuff, and as always, anybody who read this whole thing is cool and i love you a whole heck of a lot

#long ass post #Super Paper Mario

86 notes · View notes

bforbookslut · 6 years

Text

Sasha Alsberg and Lindsay Cummings’ Zenith Is a Space Adventure With a Familiar Story and Tropes

I have given Zenith by Sasha Alsberg and Lindsay Cummings a ☆☆☆ rating. It is Book 1 of The Androma Saga series. It is Young Adult Science Fiction with some Space Opera and Romance. Harlequin Teen publishes it. It will be published January 16, 2018.

The synopsis reads:

Most know Androma Racella as the Bloody Baroness, a powerful mercenary whose reign of terror stretches across the Mirabel Galaxy. To those aboard her glass starship, Marauder, however, she's just Andi, their friend and fearless leader. But when a routine mission goes awry, the Marauder's all-girl crew is tested as they find themselves in a treacherous situation and at the mercy of a sadistic bounty hunter from Andi's past. Meanwhile, across the galaxy, a ruthless ruler waits in the shadows of the planet Xen Ptera, biding her time to exact revenge for the destruction of her people. The pieces of her deadly plan are about to fall into place, unleashing a plot that will tear Mirabel in two. Andi and her crew embark on a dangerous, soul-testing journey that could restore order to their shipor just as easily start a war that will devour worlds. As the Marauder hurtles toward the unknown, and Mirabel hangs in the balance, the only certainty is that in a galaxy run on lies and illusion, no one can be trusted.

Add to Your Shelf |

Follow Me: Goodreads | Instagram | Other Reviews

I haven’t been this early for a review in a really long time but I was super excited to read Zenith ever since I received it. I’ve always loved space stories because if I wasn’t a writer, I’d love to be an astronaut. Or marine biologist. Or historian. Maybe librarian. You get the gist, I love to be a lot of things.

But, you’re in for a wild ride with Zenith. You either love it or hate it.

I haven’t written a review this long in a while so bear with me.

As always, my reviews may contain spoilers. I say may because what’s a spoiler to you may not be a spoiler for me.

Oh boy, is this a difficult one for me to review. My review process is this: I finish a book, I sit on it for a few days and then head over to Goodreads to get a refresher. Usually, it’s a good thing because it reminds me of things I want to mention but have forgotten. But with Zenith, it opened a massive can of worms I wish I had never seen.

Initially, Zenith was going to be one of my 4-star rating books. It turns out, I’m the perfect audience for it. I love damaged and fucked-up characters falling in love and I love all the drama. I went into Zenith expecting a soap opera/drama and I got it.

But after reading Goodreads and learning all I can about the background of this book, it’s dropped to a 3-stars. I don’t hate it. Zenith is not a bad book but it’s not good either. Did it blow me away? No. But, hell it was entertaining.

So, this review will be different than normal and split into 2 parts: first impressions and after goodreads.

F I R S T I M P R E S S I O N S

I have never read a space opera before. I even had to Google what the genre is all about. And I loved what I found. As you probably know, I am a massive fan of Defy the Stars by Claudia Gray and until another mindblowing book comes along, that’s what I recommend whenever anyone asks me. And I expected Zenith to be something similar but more, for lack of a better term, extra.

And I loved it. I couldn’t put it down. It kept me up late at night and my eyes are probably rotten because I keep reading in the dark. I didn’t even realise it was 500 pages (cause my Kindle app doesn’t tell me so). It was dark and it was sensual, the writing clichés which some people might not like, were lyrical and poetic. The imagery spun was stunning.

Plot-wise, Zenith went in a multitude of directions. There’s the Androma, Dex and the Marauders plotline where the former two have to rescue the king’s prisoner son in the treacherous lands of Lord-I-can’t-remember (I’m not good with names here. I can’t even name you anything in Maas’s books because I never remember), but basically, they’re the bad guys. And then there’s the flashbacks (??!!) which are confusing but I just rolled with it. And then, there’s the evil queen of the bad lands who isn’t all that bad (or at least that’s what they want us to think) who wants revenge on the entire solar system for fucking up her kingdom and her parents’ lives and her life.

The Androma, Dex and Marauders line is resolved and then some. But the others just leave big question marks hanging in the air. But then again, Order of the Firsts, guys. It’s always like this because publishers want you coming back for more cause all they care about is the money.

Plus, they are all told in different POVs which can get confusing but it wasn’t a hard switch. It’s such a way of writing in YA that I’m used to it. I wish we could still get by on one voice only. I miss those damned days.

But to me, the characters make a story and I loved the Bloody Baroness. She’s dramatic and always very weepy and conflicted but oh, she’s so attracted to Dex. Let it just be clear that she’s very much like a copy of Celaena/Aelin but without the latter’s depth. She’s got death following her and her crew of pirates wherever they go and she’s torn up about it. Some people have an issue with the fact that she’s called something so vicious but is just a kicked puppy. But come on, this is a trope we’ve all seen before. Move along, shall we?

But, I did find it a little strange that although she hates killing, she kills everyone left, right and center in the name of protecting herself and her crew. Plus, she’s a fugitive.

Really weird and conflicting but at this point, I’m still rolling with it.

Dex is an arrogant prick. And while it’s my favourite trope when it comes to YA heroes, they usually come with some redeeming qualities. Dex has none. In fact, I’d say that I didn’t like Dex at all. He’s the perfect example of how not to write a YA hero.

And, the romance between Androma and Dex seemed incredibly forced. No chemistry. Just loads of trying-really-hard-to-create-UST.

The rest of the characters in Zenith sort of fade into the background. There are the Marauders which are very Six of Crows-esque, and the evil queen, Nor and there’s Valen, the prince they’re supposed to rescue. And a robot named Alfie that reminds me of Defy the Stars.

While Zenith attempts to fashion a unique space world, it feels too much like Guardians of the Galaxy and that bothered me about the worldbuilding. It didn’t feel utterly unique (unlike Defy the Stars. You can’t stop my love) and the entire time, all I could imagine was Peter Quill’s ship flying across the Guardians of the Galaxy space ala the movies. While there are references to unique “alien” features for example, in the pilot, Lira who has scaly skin that can heat until it burns her clothes off and it’s controlled by her emotions, nothing is taken a step further and explained.

And space opera and science-fiction are known for being detail-oriented.

But I still loved it. In all it’s campy, trying really hard glory. I thought it was a great first attempt and couldn’t wait for me.

A F T E R G O O D R E A D S

And then, I looked at Goodreads.

I was confused by all the awful ratings. And it spiralled from there.

It turns out Sasha Alsberg is a notoriously famous booktuber (I wouldn’t know. I don’t booktube) and people are concerned that this book being published is because of her connections to the higher ups.

But more than that, the editor tied to Zenith is notorious for having published The Black Witch. Which is a plague on the YA community. I don’t understand how….how could anyone have let that racist crap slide.

And it was only after this that I realised what I had thought to be extra, dramatic and campy writing ala soap opera style was just bad writing. In fact, one reason why I loved the writing so much was because it’s the same time of exaggerated and flowery writing that fanfiction writers love (and readers like me eat it up).

Plus, it tried too hard to replicate the success of Throne of Glass and Six of Crows, perhaps in the hope of becoming the next big thing. It’s basically fanfiction set in space, guys. While I am the type of market this book is targeted towards, meaning that I love my tropes, it’s just laughable. There are tons of books out there like TOG and SOC but they’re all unique in their own way. I’ve even managed to reference Defy the Stars more than once!

Not to mention, Androma has red.hair. Who else has fiery red hair? You tell me. Hint, I’ve mentioned the name several times in this review. Not a fan of self-inserts.

Also, I am not a fan of celebrity books and have yet to purchase/read one. While other writers struggle and work their butts off to even get noticed, celebrities get special treatment because they already have a fan base in place.

While I am still looking forward to see where both authors are going to take Zenith, I wait with all these thoughts in my mind. In film classes, we are taught that the author is not separate from his work (and I did a lovely paper on Alfred Hitchcock which I loved) and it’s true in this case.

I’m afraid that Sasha’s reputation has coloured not just my opinion, but the opinion of many other readers out there.

While Zenith is not bad, it’s not great either. I can’t shout about it from the rooftops. For one, it reads too much like fanfiction (and we all know the kind of fanfiction turn book that has hit the market these days) and secondly, it needs a shitload more work before it’s public-worthy. Zenith has great potential. It just needs a lot more polishing, preferably throwing the entire draft away and writing it fresh. And perhaps, Sasha should consider a pen name.

Thank you to Edelweiss and the publisher for providing me with an ARC copy in exchange for an honest review. This review edition may differ from the final edition.

#book review #zenith #sasha alsberg #lindsay cummings #young adult #science fiction #space opera #romance #threestars #2018 publications #arc review

3 notes · View notes

phoenixyfriend · 7 years

Note

I wanna try writing crossover fic but I don't really know what the pitfalls and problems are. Any open advice on the topic?

Wow, okay.

So I’m going to start off by saying that most of my recent crossovers have been sheer crack fic, so... I’m a bit out of practice with serious fic. I’ve been nothing but self-indulgent in recent years, so let’s see what I can do.

Note: I’ll be focusing on my preferred form of crossover, which is characters from one fandom encountering the world of another. Fusion fics (e.g. the Hogwarts AU) are their own category.

None of these are hard-and-fast rules, but they provide some... context, I guess.

The most common pitfall is favoritism.

Like, there are other pitfalls, of course, like going incredibly OOC or denying a character realistic development in favor of shoving them into a ship, but that’s the sort of thing that you will find in any kind of fic. As far as crossovers go, though, you’re looking at favoritism in regards to fandoms themselves.

This probably seems pretty obvious? But it’s everywhere. And I think you already know what I’m talking about and how to avoid it, but I’m going to go in depth anyway:

I’m not trying to say that you need to write it as though two fandoms are evenly matched in every way. A lot of people read into this advice as like... the characters need to be able to match each other in a fight? Which it isn’t, at all.

Like, if you’re writing a Naruto/Harry Potter crossover, for a very generic example, it’s not going to make sense for them to be equally matched fighters (unless Harry’s gone all Master of Death, is actually centuries old, etc.). It’s just not realistic, given their backstories; Naruto characters train from early childhood in almost nothing but battle-worthy skills, while even Aurors in HP train from late adolescence at the earliest, and focus primarily on wandwork, rather than an all-around fighting style like shinobi do. You could go ahead and say that the wizards then specialize in things that shinobi don’t (e.g. warding being more versatile than sealing, a wider variety of spells available for next-to-no effort instead of high chakra costs, etc.), but even that isn’t really necessary.

The story needs to afford both sides a certain degree of respect as entities, basically. Yes, your shinobi is a better fighter than the wizards are. But do they mistrust the shinobi? Probably, especially if the war is underway. Is that mistrust treated as irrational and villainous, or does the narrative afford the characters some degree of independent thought and respect for their approaches? Is your shinobi kicking ass for the sake of kicking ass, because you want them to look cool against the shinobi, or is there an actual plotline running through? These probably seem like silly questions, but it’s things I’ve seen happen and it is tiring.

Most damningly, does your interloper character immediately and effortlessly solve the problems of the locals? Does Harry adopt Naruto after seeing him mistreated by villagers, or Naruto steal away Harry after seeing how he lives at the Dursleys? Is Sarutobi or Dumbledore told off immediately and at length about what they’ve done wrong, and they just sit their and take it and admit their wrongs to the face of a stranger, or dismiss it in the manner of a villain? Is Snape or Mizuki publicly humiliated and then shamefully backs out of the fic for the rest of eternity? It’s an immediate urge for a lot of crossover writers and while it can be done without being cringe-worthy in its wish-fulfillment... it’s usually done poorly.(Much like in time-travel fics.)

Figure out ahead of time what your character’s reference points are.

When you enter a new culture and don’t immediately have a way of going home, you want to know what everything is, how it works, and how you can fit into the system until you can get out for good.

So who’s teaching the system, and how are they teaching it? How does the interloper interpret it through their own schema?

Using the HP/Naruto crossover concept again: Naruto being taught how the Wizarding World works by Hermione trying to be helpful to a stranger is going to be very different from Dumbledore trying to give a working rundown on the basics of the culture to someone he’s hoping to convince to join the war effort, and both are going to be very different from Lucius Malfoy trying to figure out a way to recruit someone who obviously has a very different set of values from himself (but may not be perceptive enough to realize how different they are, if Lucius is careful). Naruto is going to be introduced to different parts of the world in different orders, and going to have a very different view on each of them in the process.

Hermione will include more muggle information and history and how the muggle and wizarding world interact and, yes, social justice. She provides a generalist’s view on everything.Dumbledore’s will provide the most basic narrative of Tom Riddle and the shape of the war, with occasional explanations for other referenced concepts.Lucius will focus on individual people, influential people, will avoid so much as mentioning muggles or muggleborns; no need to show your distaste to a foreigner who might not approve if you just don’t bring them up in the first place, right?

Nobody fits in right away.

Your interloper will fuck up. Repeatedly. Someone will notice they aren’t local, will probably call attention to it, and your character needs to deal with it.

Also, there’s a good chance that the currency isn’t the same; please figure out how the character is eating, going to the bathroom, sleeping, and so on.

The rules won’t mesh. You can either handwave it, or turn it into a plot point.

Are magic and chakra related? Is magic just the spiritual half of chakra? Is it senjutsu? Are they unrelated? Fuck knows! It’s up to you! But once you’ve set your rules, don’t break them.

You already have a premise that involves people of differing power levels, backgrounds, and motivations meeting each other. You do not need another diverting element.

All the advice on this list is something you can take or leave, but for fuck’s sake, please consider if your Harry really, really needs to be a master of eighty different magical disciplines and quasi-immortal and a nearly-became-a-Dark-Lord-but-had-the-willpower-to-resist and with a tragic marriage behind him and any number of things in that vein.

...You probably know what my issue here is, and if the other readers don’t, they can ask, but yeah. You don’t need to pull a Dark!God!Character.

Your faves might not get along with your other faves. Your faves will not be liked by everyone from the other fandom. They may need to work on it, or they may not ever get along. Don’t force it, and don’t make out everyone who dislikes your fave to be a bad person for it.

This is just... basic storytelling, I guess, but I see it in fic a lot, and it’s tiresome. I know Toz already knows this, but please, please, please take it into consideration, everyone.

I think that’s all I’ve got in me tonight. It’s probably not super helpful, but... yeah. Have it.

#Phoenix Babbles #crossovers #Phoenix Answers Asks #noshitnoms

100 notes · View notes

jordoalejandro · 6 years

Text

The Seventh Annual List of Movies I Saw the Past Year

Boy, let me tell you, I saw some movies this year.

And here they are, all the movies I've seen that have come out since-ish the last Oscars ceremony (2/26/17), ranked into a neat little list.

40. All Nighter - I didn’t hate this movie or anything, but there’s definitely not enough comedy or story to really be worth it. You sorta get the idea pretty quickly: an unmanly guy pairs up with his ex-girlfriend’s manly dad and the odd couple goes on an adventure from place to place. The problem is, every place they go, nothing really funny or unique or particularly entertaining happens. The characters don’t have a ton of interesting growth. There are subplots and side characters that don’t add anything. J.K. Simmons delivers a few good, sarcastic one-liners, but that’s about it for the whole thing.

39. Roman J. Israel, Esq. - This film doesn’t really go anywhere because it seems like it doesn’t know where it wants to go. It feels like it wants to be a legal drama and a morality tale and a societal commentary and a thriller (plus, it includes a romantic subplot) but it just kinda rolls along, not committing to anything, not even, really, a story. I was about an hour in when I checked the time and realized: I have absolutely no idea what this movie is about. And I don’t mean thematically. I couldn’t put into words a summary of the plot at that point. (I'm honestly not sure I could put into words a summary of the plot at this point, either.) It gains only slightly more minimal focus in the back half but the film as a whole never achieves any sort of traction. Denzel Washington saves the movie from being a complete loss by being compelling, as always, but otherwise, there’s just a lot of surface level dramatic ideas and not much else.

38. Baywatch - I will say it at least has a couple of good laughs, maybe even a few more than some of the other comedies higher on this list, but it doesn't have nearly enough to make up for its shortcomings. The story is generic and its connective tissue is fairly weak -- you just kind of hop around from one thing to the next. The whole thing comes off more like a loosely stitched together series of skits and vignettes than a cohesive story. The humor is often uninspiring or just plain cheap, lowest common denominator stuff, and it rarely feels organic to the plot. The character motivations are unfocused. The action isn't really clever or well-directed. To me, at least in terms of writing and filmmaking, this just read like a lazy, lazy movie.

37. The Florida Project - I don’t care for Dead Poets Society. I find it overdramatic and dull, but whenever Robin Williams shows up, he gives a little life to the movie and sparks my attention enough to keep me going. That’s Willem Dafoe in this movie. He’s the almost-saintly manager of a motel who cares far too much about his tenants, many of whom often don’t deserve his level of patience. He's the best part of the film, or at least the most bearable part, but he’s on screen only every now and then. The majority of the film is following rambunctious children around as they try to make the best of their dreadful, near homeless situation. It's not that I hate kids, but I just don't find everything children do to be delightful. Quite frankly, I found these ones annoying. And if you don't buy in and want to spend time around these energetic tykes as they spit on cars and eat ice cream and burn down abandoned apartment buildings, then you're not in for a good time, especially because the rest of the film is about the harsh realities of being an addict caught in a cycle of inescapable poverty while caring for a child you can barely support. On the bright side, the film looks great, and it does have a very natural feel to it that leads to, at times, some good performances (though it also leads to some scenes where you are starkly reminded that this is still, with the exception of Dafoe and a couple of scenes with Caleb Landry Jones, a cast full of very novice actors at work). The movie feels like it's trying to evoke empathy for its characters, but for me, the whole thing was just exhausting.

36. Rough Night - The film moves well, at least -- it doesn't ever really feel like it's lagging -- but there just aren't a ton of laughs here, and it's not like the story is incredibly original either. Honestly, the funniest scene actually happens in the middle of the end credits, which isn't a good sign, but at least I was laughing out loud at something. The movie's entertaining enough to get through but still not great.

35. Their Finest - The first of three British films I saw this year revolving around the Dunkirk evacuation. It's fairly slow and not very funny for what is, ostensibly, a comedy-drama. Also, there's a very strange act three choice that doesn't ruin the movie, per se, but does cast a weird shadow over all the proceedings. This all sounds bad. It's not as bad as what I just wrote about it. There's some stuff to like in here. It's just not good either. It's... okay.

34. Going in Style - A serviceable heist comedy. It’s well put together. Flows fine. The humor isn’t particularly sharp and the story follows pretty predictable beats. There’s just nothing really spectacular or unexpected about it. Everything just feels sort of phoned in, making it feel fairly unnecessary as an exercise. I caught it on HBO, which is a fine place for it. You’re flipping around, you come across it, you can waste 90 minutes being mildly entertained and then immediately forget about it.

33. King Arthur: Legend of the Sword - Guy Ritchie’s energetic filmmaking is able to make even nonsense stories at least watchable (though I felt some of the action scenes relied far too much on CGI and became cartoony). And the story is pretty much nonsense. It's filled with a lot of dull mystical stuff that doesn't add enough mystique to really be worth it. I know Merlin and all that magic is part of the Arthur legend, but it's not like this film is a faithful execution of the old lore anyway. Ditching that stuff and going a more grounded route might've helped, or at least allowed the story to be streamlined a bit. Another way to help the story might be to drop some of the film's many side characters, none of which are compelling enough to truly stand out, and developing some of the remaining ones better. But really, at the core of it, there just isn't a strong enough plot here. The good guys and the bad guys run around, and fight, and run back, and fight some more. It feels like it might possibly be going somewhere but then it sort of peters out and ends. Like this review.

32. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales - It's not horrible, but definitely the weakest entry of the series. The directing and writing are just not up to par. The dialogue and humor often felt forced, and there were a lot of unnecessary plot elements. The film looked great, but the action sequences were not as crisply directed as I’d like, doing a poor job of establishing and tracking action and relying too heavily on CGI. Also, sadly, the Captain Jack Sparrow character is starting to feel like diminishing returns a bit. He was such an enthralling character when we first met him, but now, five movies in, he doesn't have the same life to him. (It doesn't help that Johnny Depp seems to be sleepwalking through things at this point.) There’s still some inventive stuff here, and fun locales, and the film is entertaining enough as a whole, but it's just not as good as you want it to be. The world that was established in the first entry of this franchise was so great, with tons of potential in it. I wish it could get back there and tap into it.

31. Fist Fight - This was funnier than I thought it was gonna be. The story doesn’t work great but the film still flows based on its performances. Most of the heavy lifting is done by Charlie Day -- who can seemingly elevate and sell any quality of comedic material with his physicality and energy -- though Ice Cube turns in a solid performance as the no-nonsense counterbalance, and Jillian Bell and Tracy Morgan, who have smaller supporting roles, add something each time they're on screen, too.

30. Downsizing - An interesting idea in search of a better film plot. The setup is clever -- it raises a lot of fascinating hypothetical questions -- but then the story wanders. It touches on a lot of other subjects that could be interesting in their own right (the inevitability of class systems in utopias, abuses of new technology, end of the world vaults) but have very little actual connection to the idea of downsizing itself. Reading a synopsis of the back half of the movie sounds like the first draft of a better end product film. Like, imagine an alternate universe where Downsizing is a really good movie, getting awards and such, and I tell you, "Did you know in the first draft there was a whole plotline where he meets a political refugee and they travel to Norway and there's all this stuff about a doomsday vault?" and you'd say, "Oh, wow, that's weird. I'm glad they changed that and Downsizing became the beloved film we all know and love." And I say, "Yeah. It was good catching up with you. I like talking about behind-the-scenes facts of popular films of the time." And you say, "Agreed. We should talk again soon," and we go our separate ways but we don't really talk again for months. I mean, you know how it gets with our schedules. Who really has the time? ... Anyway, Hong Chau, though her character is the aforementioned, strangely included political refugee, does excellent work with her role, bringing humor, strength, and some real depth to it.

29. Handsome Devil - A decent, charming, coming-of-age story with some good cinematography, fine music choices, solid acting, and a few laughs. The story is a little too formulaic, though. It treads on familiar ground without offering too many surprises, and comes to something of a flat ending. It also felt a little rudderless at times. It could've used some more focus, especially in terms of some character motivations.

28. Snatched - Though the plot doesn’t offer many surprises, it’s entertaining, with a handful of laugh out loud moments. Goldie Hawn is great, delivering that combo of sweet and funny that reminds you why she was one of the biggest comedic actresses in the world for a while there. Amy Schumer gets a few laughs herself and there’s a good supporting cast here (namely, Wanda Sykes, Joan Cusack, and Ike Barinholtz) that made this an enjoyable watch.

27. Darkest Hour - The second of three British films I saw this year revolving around Dunkirk (you might be able to guess what the third one is going to be), and boy, was this film verrry British (read: dry). Still, it's shot well -- some shots look like beautiful paintings -- and it's better and more entertaining than it deserves to be seeing as it mostly feels like a vehicle to showcase Gary Oldman’s acting. He does an excellent job, though I think he's aided tremendously in some scenes by makeup and prosthetics. I say some scenes because I found myself waffling on his look. Half the time, he looked like Winston Churchill, the man himself. Other times, it very much looked like Gary Oldman in an Austin Powers Fat Bastard suit. Chalk it up to lighting and camera angles in certain scenes, I guess, but it often pulled me right out of the movie.

26. Kong: Skull Island - Visually interesting, though not wholly interesting as a story. It's sort of a paint-by-numbers, people-dying-on-a-monster-filled-island film, not dissimilar from the first two-thirds of Peter Jackson's 2005 King Kong, except John C. Reilly is in this one, delightfully reprising his role from Step Brothers (he's the best part by far and makes the movie worth it almost by himself). One thing the film does that made it sit a little weird with me was make nearly all of the characters good people. They're a mostly likable bunch, and, at worst, confused about their horrible situation -- John Goodman and Samuel L. Jackson are the de facto human villains, but they never feel like bad guys enough to root against them -- so it's less than enjoyable watching them die horribly. (Toby Kebbell's character is particularly, almost pointlessly tragic). I know it's weird saying I want less character development in a film, but if these characters are meant to be fodder, then less is more. Giving them depth doesn't make me root harder for them -- I'm always going to root for humans to not be eaten -- it just makes me more depressed when they're inevitably torn apart by birds.

25. John Wick: Chapter 2 - I feel about this one the way I felt about the first one: a few cool world elements, not really any story to speak of, and some really well choreographed and shot action sequences. Which is all to say: John Wick: Chapter 2 is a fine sequel. The problem is, without story, you can kind of just watch all the action scenes on YouTube and not really miss anything. This isn't to trash the film. It knows what it's here for and it does it exceptionally well, but for me, without a strong story to go with it, it's never going to be in my upper echelon of action films.

24. The Shape of Water - The film looks great, features a wonderful score and some excellent acting, and has just enough humor to carry me through the very silly story. Listen, here's the problem: if you don’t quickly buy into the woman/fish monster romance and feel for the two characters, then the movie becomes ridiculous. In part because it’s all very silly, and in part because I don’t think it was presented well enough. By the time Sally Hawkins' character is making her grand plea for love, I just haven’t seen enough happen in the relationship to accept that she’s head over heels for a fish monster. I know you shared some eggs, but... dude's a fish monster, girl. It crazy to type that out, but that's the bar the film had to clear to continue on with its story, and, for me, I don't think it did. The movie's still enjoyable, but more in a “what the hell is going on” kind of way than a "this is a romantic masterpiece" kind of way.

23. Table 19 - Surprisingly decent. The comedy isn’t particularly sharp (though there are a few good laughs) and the drama is a little overwrought (though there are some touching scenes), but the movie as a whole is sweet and easy to watch. There’s some good character stuff here and really solid acting from all the leads, most especially June Squibb, who brings such easy, natural likability and vulnerability that you can’t help but feel fondness for her.

22. Logan - Hey kids! Remember Wolverine and Professor X, your favorite X-Mans? Beloved characters you've known and grown up with for the last two decades? How'd you like to watch them suffer for two hours? What? Why are you crying? We all die. More often than not, sad and alone. Why are you crying harder? ... Look, there's a lot to like here, including some interesting ideas about legacy and what being a hero means, and some decent action (though a lot of it is repetitive - a problem the Wolverine movies have all suffered from), but there's just so much misery. I get that it's a modern western about the gunfighter's last fight and that those don't end happy for most involved, but I don't know if these characters deserved such a glum farewell.

21. Kingsman: The Golden Circle - It's fun, just not as fun as the original. Maybe there was something surprising or exciting about the first one that made it work better than this one, or maybe it was just better overall in terms of story, directing, and originality. The action scenes felt even more CGI-y and less grounded, less clever, and sometimes less necessary or organic to the plot. And the plot wasn’t as tight or investing. As a whole, it just didn’t match up. That's not to say it was bad, just slightly disappointing. Bringing back Colin Firth was a great idea though. His charm and presence is, I believe, really the core of this franchise, and his absence would have left a large hole in this film.

Okay, documentary break before we hit the top 20.

Long Shot (IMDb link, which contains some spoilers right at the top of the page) is surprising, emotional, a little funny, and overall, a stunningly good documentary about a man charged with a crime he claims he didn't commit and the lawyer who works to clear his name. If you don't know about the interesting turn it takes about midway through, don't look it up, don’t watch the trailers, don’t click the link above. Just go into the film blind. It’s more fun that way. It's short (only 40 minutes), watchable, on Netflix, and worth the time.

Break over. Back to the list.

20. The House - The plot isn’t as fully baked as it could be and that prevents it from becoming a truly good film, and while it has a lot of funny scenes and moments, it doesn’t follow up enough to keep any kind of real comedic momentum throughout. I’m a big fan of the three leads (Will Ferrell, Amy Poehler, and Jason Mantzoukas), however, and I’d watch them and the solid supporting cast do just about anything for 90 minutes. You put them in front of a camera and they’ll find something funny to do on screen, as they often do here.

19. Star Wars: The Last Jedi - At one point in the theater during the film, I leaned over to my brother and whispered, “This is the strangest Star Wars film I’ve ever seen.” I think I still stand by that. (And, considering the history of this franchise, that’s saying something.) The Last Jedi is such a weird Star Wars film in that there’s so much going on. There’s the classic Star Wars stuff done really well (your space battles and lightsaber battles and what have you). Then there’s like, by my count, maybe four or five new things added to the Star Wars lore, and each one, while they make sense if you stop and think about it after the film, is at least temporarily jarring in the middle of things. I mean, I try not to get too into the weeds with all the canon and such, but there are certain things we've come to learn from all the movies we've seen up to this point that when you just throw in a bunch of these new rules to the universe... I don't hate it. And maybe my reaction to it will improve on repeated viewings. I'm just saying that each time it happened in the theater, it pulled me out of the movie. So, you've got the good stuff and the weird stuff going on in this film. Then there's the just plain bad stuff. And there's a decent amount of it, too. For one, the entire casino subplot is ridiculous, feels pointless, and has an irresponsibly high count of goofy CGI characters. It's almost prequel-level bad. But the main plot itself is somewhat ridiculous: the idea that the entire Resistance's plan after things go awry is to slowly, defenselessly roll away through space for a very long time hoping to not get attacked is nuts. What's more nuts is that it works. There's no real reason the bad guys wouldn't have sent in some waves of fighters to wipe them out, or, I don't know, taken their giant ships and gone around? It's not a one lane highway. It's space. There's room. Conflict within the Resistance comes from a strange place, too. Laura Dern's Vice Admiral Holdo is cagey about her plans for no real reason when there’s only like a hundred members of the Resistance left, which would seem like a good time to drop all pretense and just get everyone on the same page. Oh, also, here's another insane thing: the aforementioned casino plot falls apart and leads to the near wiping out of the Resistance because the characters double parked. Search your memory of the film's plot. You know it to be true. The Last Jedi feels sort of like it was written by one of those fans who has a dedicated YouTube channel of Star Wars theories, who loves the series but has wildly differing and/or new ideas about how things should work, and who then gets hundreds of millions of dollars to make his dreams reality. (It even weirdly feels in conflict with ideas from its direct predecessor, The Force Awakens, which leads me to believe this new trilogy was only lightly outlined ahead of time, which makes me worry tremendously about Episode 9, but that's for another day and not entirely on the shoulders of this film.) Listen, all this being said, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed some of the new things and some of the continued things. And the film looks and sounds fantastic. It just had problems. And, on a grand scale, well... it was strange, man.

18. The LEGO Batman Movie - I’ve always enjoyed the LEGO video games because they’re light-hearted fun and generally work as sort of parodies/meta-commentaries of big franchises. The LEGO Batman Movie absolutely works on that level. It’s well written: funny and somewhat insightful. It's well acted, too. Will Arnett, Ralph Fiennes, and Michael Cera all turn in great voice work performances. That said, here's a maybe unpopular opinion that sure makes me feel old: the LEGO movies are way too noisy. I don't care for the animation style. There’s so much color and fast movement that it’s very hard for me to really focus on these films without feeling like I’m about to get a seizure. I like the various pieces that go into these LEGO films (writing, voice acting, and such; pun absolutely not intended) but I find I don't like them as much as a whole because of that animation style.

17. Get Out - I'll just get this out of the way at the start: I'm not one for horror movies. I don't care for them. I don't like the feeling of being tormented for an hour and a half. I don't understand why people pay money to get that feeling. Get Out is more psychological horror, for sure, but even the few jump scares/violin screeches was more than I care for. Still, I powered through because this was an expertly done, tightly written psych horror film with bits of humor and social commentary. I'm glad I saw it. I don't want to watch it again.

16. Logan Lucky - Steven Soderbergh makes interesting films. Even if there are issues with the story, what you're getting from the film in shot composition, cinematography, editing, music and all that: it's interesting. The movie isn't perfect. The story isn't as tight as, oh, let's say, something like Ocean's Eleven, and it gains and loses its momentum a few times. But it's clever, and funny, and has a few pretty good surprises up its sleeve. Overall, entertaining, and it'll scratch that itch for a good heist movie that you get every now and then.

15. I, Tonya - An excellent, tragic, dark comedy. Fascinatingly directed: quick cut, stylish, constantly breaking the fourth wall, and told almost like a sports documentary with dramatic recreations. And because it’s framed like this, it becomes a fun example of the unreliable narrator (or, in this case, three narrators), plus a really captivating way to do a biopic while skirting some the clichés of the genre. Margot Robbie, Sebastian Stan, Allison Janney, and Paul Walter Hauser all deliver strong performances.

14. Wonder Woman - Far and away the best DC Extended Universe film, on par with some of the early Marvel films. It's a pretty good origin movie, bookended by a sloppy DCEU tie-in. Some bits and pieces of the story don't work very well -- most of the attempts at comedy feel forced and unnatural, and there are some subplot threads involving her group of war buddies that are touched upon and then completely forgotten -- but the plot is otherwise solid. The film looks good and sounds great, too. The fantastic "Is She With You?" theme from Batman v Superman by Hans Zimmer and Junkie XL returns here, sampled by Rupert Gregson-Williams and expertly employed during the excellent World War I battle sequence. The action in that sequence is done especially well -- it really is the high point of the film -- but the action in the rest of the movie doesn't match up as well for me. The final battle against the big bad in particular was sort of a letdown. Wonder Woman suffers from the same problem a lot of the action scenes in the DCEU films do: overuse of CGI, creating characters that feel way too cartoony and light. Now, if you'll indulge me even more than you already have for a second, I'm going to tell movie executives what they should've done. Man of Steel -- without getting into a discussion of the quality of that film -- should have been the first DCEU film, to establish the tone and style. Wonder Woman should've been second, to reintroduce us to this character and lay some groundwork for her arrival in the big crossover film to come. The third film should've been a Batman/Suicide Squad story, which would introduce this universe's version of Batman without being another standalone film entirely about Batman, and would lay some more groundwork for the crossover. Also, this film, unlike Suicide Squad, should be a good film. That's important, too. Now, after you've finally introduced Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman, you can do your big Batman v Superman film, which doesn't even mention The Flash, Cyborg, or Aquaman (or, like, just a post-credits sequence, if you must). Hell, if the Joker in the Batman/Suicide Squad movie is well received, maybe he can even factor into the plot of BvS. Maybe he's even the villain? Creating chaos and causing the heroes to turn on each other fits well with the Joker's style. You could even still introduce Lex Luthor, planting the seeds for his inevitable evil turn as the villain in a later team-up film. Listen, we're just pitching ideas here. No bad ideas. Then you do a Flash movie, an Aquaman movie, a Cyborg movie, and follow that up with Justice League (which, as you might be able to tell from its lack of inclusion on this "Movies I Saw" list, I haven't seen yet, but which was met with such a resounding meh I'm not feeling super confident about). In this new version, Lex Luthor's been stewing in crazy since the events of BvS and unleashes his master plan. Better round up the team! See? Someone give me billions of dollars and creative control of one of the most valuable intellectual properties in the world. I got this! ... Sorry for hijacking this review of Wonder Woman to rant about the DCEU, but this is the only movie I saw this year from it and I had to get some thoughts out.

13. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri - A darkly comedic, powerful movie about the pain of unresolved grief and the pain misguided anger from that grief can lead to. It does draw a little too much humor from the easy well -- like, too many jokes at the expense of Peter Dinklage’s height -- but it’s generally smartly written. Really, what this is is a movie that isn’t interested in painting any of its characters as black or white, providing a showcase for some really talented actors to portray characters with some depth and gray areas. Frances McDormand is a powerhouse, and Sam Rockwell and Woody Harrelson are getting their much deserved recognition, but Peter Dinklage, Lucas Hedges, Caleb Landry Jones, and Samara Weaving also turn in really great supporting work.

12. Black Panther - First of all, this film has some of my favorite production design of any film this year. The costumes, the sets, the hair and makeup: all fantastic. Wakanda feels like a real, lived-in country. It's very cool. I also love the use of music in this film, from the licensed songs to the score, it sets a great tone. As for the movie itself, I really liked the story, but I do feel like it was let down by its action sequences. The casino scene and its ensuing chase was excellent. It was well choreographed and clearly shot. But almost every other action scene didn't live up to that one. The others were overly dark, or made too frequent use of close-ups making them sometimes incomprehensible. The final fight between Black Panther and Killmonger -- aside from being dark and hard to follow, especially because both characters are similarly costumed -- was reminiscent of the poorly done, overly CGI'ed DCEU fights I've railed about before (like on this list a few spots ago). Also, while I think the film did a good job of surrounding Black Panther with a lot of unique, interesting side characters and villains, it didn't give him enough personality. He's sort of the emotional baseline of the piece, never really wavering too much, while more exciting character stuff happens around him. (Here's a quick list of characters upstaging Black Panther in his own movie: Killmonger, Nakia, Okoye, Shuri, M'Baku, and Klaue.) It's not the worst decision, allowing the supporting cast breathing room for growth, but I do wonder if perhaps he could've been given a little more to do.

11. The Post - Steven Spielberg got me again. I've been hesitant about most of his recent directorial pieces, namely Lincoln and Bridge of Spies, but like those two, The Post won me over. Well written, well directed, superbly acted by the whole cast and, in particular, Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks, who really shine in this. If I have any gripe, it’s that sometimes the film, through writing or filmmaking choices, is just too blunt in showing off its themes of female empowerment or importance of a free press. We get what the movie is about. We’re watching it.

10. Call Me by Your Name - This was a very European film in that not much really happens and there’s lots of long shots of people riding bicycles and scenes of people chatting at the breakfast table and one of the biggest dramatic beats is a character getting a nosebleed. Which is all to say, it’s a really well-made film, very understated and beautifully done, but if you’re not able to get invested in a methodically paced, European, gay, romantic coming-of-age film, you’ll find yourself struggling through the two hours. I got invested and found myself enjoying it, even if just for the scenery and acting. And the film is well acted all around. Timothée Chalamet is fantastic, basically carrying the film on his shoulders, expressing subtle emotions or vulnerabilities often without even saying a word. Michael Stuhlbarg does excellent work in a supporting role, providing a sort of quiet, gentle presence through most of the film and then delivering a stunning, heart-wrenching monologue near the end that takes your breath away. Armie Hammer does very well in his role, but, to be honest, he feels miscast. His character is supposed to be 24, only slightly older than Chalamet's Elio and with only those handful more years of wisdom, but Hammer feels too much an adult. Social Network era Hammer might have been able to pull it off, but current day Hammer is unmistakably a grown man who oozes confidence without really trying, and it’s hard to fully buy into him in this role, even if he does a great job with it. You can perhaps chalk it up to the movie being told through Elio’s eyes, and in his view, Hammer's Oliver is that full grown man, but I think I still might’ve preferred a different actor for the role. This is a film for a very niche audience but that audience will love it. And I will add this: similar to last year's Manchester by the Sea, even if this isn't the best movie of the year, it's had some staying power in my brain. I'll find myself thinking about things that happened in it, or moments from it will pop back into my mind every now and then, more so than most of the films I've seen this year. What does this mean? Well, for one, it means this has moved higher up my list a few times now before settling here. Perhaps it also means I'm thinking of the movie more fondly by remembering just its highlights and if I watch it again, I'll be reminded of the slower parts I didn't care for. Or maybe it means I'll like it more the second time if I revisit it down the road. Not sure. But, at the very least, it doesn't hurt for a movie to be memorable.

9. Baby Driver - This film requires some buy-in that I think most of Edgar Wright's films haven't necessarily needed, possibly because films like Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz have a certain... British whimsy to them? Or possibly because this is the most real world of all his films. I'm not sure, but I could see how some people might resist its charm. I happen to think it's a really likable film, and I bought in right at the fantastic opening scene, which quickly establishes the tone for how the rest of the film is going to go. The movie as a whole is expertly put together. The music and editing flow perfectly, the action is shot well -- Wright is, I think, underrated from just a pure director of action sequences standpoint -- and the dialogue is snappy and clever. The story is maybe a bit simplistic but it's told well. Overall, and maybe most importantly, it's pure fun, all the way through.

8. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 - A truly excellent follow-up to the first film. It's funny, it has solid action, and, of course, it features some great music. Interestingly, as a sequel, it has a very Empire Strikes Back feel to it in that it's more interested in building and exploring relationships between the characters than really doing a thorough story. This even leads to it getting surprisingly deep and emotional at times. There's some great acting from the cast, especially Bradley Cooper, who continuously impresses me with his voice work as Rocket, and Michael Rooker, who gives gruff Yondu some depth and heart. The team has a wonderful chemistry, even with the new additions.

7. The Big Sick - Man, this was really well done. It touches on some compelling, rarely dealt with subjects, gets dramatic and emotional, and does so all while still telling a great, comedic love story. Very funny, very earnest, and very sweet. I'm not sure how you could not like this film. Great performances here from Kumail Nanjiani, Holly Hunter, and Ray Romano.

6. Lady Bird - Such a wonderfully done indie movie that feels deeply personal while being universally relatable. It's told with a humanist approach. There aren’t villains in this film, just people in different places in their lives, with different needs and desires and difficulties. And because the story is told through the eyes of a teenager -- an age where you often can’t see beyond your own troubles -- those others' difficulties are revealed in these beautiful, subtle little ways. It's smartly written -- funny, dramatic, and touching -- and excellently acted from top to bottom (not just Saoirse Ronan and Laurie Metcalf, who have, deservedly, received most of the plaudits, but down the list: Tracy Letts, Lucas Hedges, Timothée Chalamet, Beanie Feldstein, and Stephen Henderson all round out the cast and bring something to the table). Well done all around.

5. Thor: Ragnarok - So, I guess I'm a Marvel fanboy now. I try not to do that. I really want to be able to objectively critique things I watch or play, but sometimes it just happens, like with Rockstar Games, or James Bond films, or Judy Blume novels (I'm a big time Blumer, I hit up all the cons). With the MCU, I don't know for sure when it happened but I know when I realized it. It was last summer around Comic-Con -- not long after seeing another Marvel film that, spoiler alert: is going to appear shortly on this list -- when I was discussing with a friend the leaked Avengers teaser footage and the new trailer for this film and we were geeking out about both of them. It was then that I realized, "Oh yeah, I guess I'm all in on the MCU." Now, I like to think I'm not crazy, seeing as how most of these films are being met well by audiences and critics, and I still want to believe that if they release a stinker, I'll be able to recognize it. But, well, I have four MCU films in my top 12 this year, and if they keep doing a good job, I'm going to keep stacking the tops of these movie lists with them. Thor: Ragnarok is hilarious. Absolutely the funniest film of the year for me. Plus, it looks fantastic and the action is well done. It is at both times a Marvel film and a Taika Waititi film (read: oddball New Zealand-type humor) and the two meld together surprisingly well. It's charming, though it is maybe missing the sort of emotional core that elevates it to the top-top of the MCU list -- it's really more a straight comedy than any other entry -- but it's still near the very top.

4. The Disaster Artist - How should one feel about The Room? Should we respect that someone made an effort, no matter how bad the end results? Tommy Wiseau created something, which is more than a lot of people can say. Should we also take into account that we might be gawking at someone who isn't playing with a full deck, whether because he's an immigrant, or possibly not super bright, or possibly because he was in a near fatal accident at one point -- something The Disaster Artist acknowledges in passing -- that could've affected him in who knows what way? Then again, this is mostly speculation, and it might all very well be a post hoc attempt at trying to make sense of why Wiseau and his works are the way they are. And who am I to create a sad story for Wiseau? To declare, on his behalf, that it's not right to judge his work, and to protect him from the strange fame he's been handed? He is an adult, after all, who appears to have, if not full, at least more than partial grasp of his situation. Perhaps he's just an eccentric weirdo. Hollywood is full of them. Most just don't have millions of dollars of mysterious origin to allow them to see their plans go anywhere. This is some of my conflict with The Room, which is insane, and hilarious, and an amazing case study of all the wrong ways to make a movie, but afterwards leaves you with that slightly dirty feeling that you've been laughing at someone who isn't in on the joke. The Disaster Artist, which is an intentionally hilarious and superbly-made film, does a great job of playing with this conflict. James Franco, doing excellent work as both director and lead actor, invites you to laugh at Wiseau's absurdity while also asking you to sympathize with him as a man with the audacity to chase after a dream, even to such a preposterous degree. It wants you to dislike him when he acts like a raging egomaniac, but understand that he's doing it out of a place of fear and insecurity. When, during The Room's big premiere, it becomes an unintentional comedy and finds the entire theater audience essentially laughing at Wiseau, is that him receiving his just deserts, or an unfairly brutal moment for a tragic figure? Maybe it's a little of both, and maybe it's okay to accept it as such. (P.S. See The Room before watching The Disaster Artist. It's been said you don't need to, but to really appreciate what's happening, you need that frame of reference.)

3. Spider-Man: Homecoming - This was a delight. It excels at everything it tries to do. As a superhero movie? Yeah. It's very good, with several engaging action sequences. As a John Hughes style, high school comedy? It's great. The humor works and it really nails the vibe -- the kids are all well cast and do a fine job and there's a real air of authenticity to it. As a dramatic work? Yeah. The stakes, though not dealing with the end of the world, still feel important, and the film has some surprising emotion to it. Tom Holland is fantastic. He basically has to carry this high-budget, blockbuster film and does so with tremendous charm and charisma. Michael Keaton's Vulture is a strong villain -- menacing, grounded, and fascinating. Robert Downey Jr. and Jon Favreau are used sparingly but the few times they pop up are always fun and useful for advancing the plot. Plus, on top of it all, the film features a great score from Michael Giacchino. I loved everything that was going on in this film. I had a smile on my face pretty much from start to finish.

2. Dunkirk - What a stunning film -- visceral, emotional, a powerful story about heroism, whatever that means to you in a particular moment. For some people, it's about rising to the occasion when called upon. For others, it's doing your duty. For some, it's just surviving. The film is wonderfully directed, with some spectacular cinematography. The acting is good, though no role is deep enough to really offer any actor a whole lot of meat. Kenneth Branagh gets a few good line deliveries in. Mark Rylance's character's main trait is his stoicism, and he does a lot without saying much. Tom Hardy speaks even less than Rylance, but he does a lot of outstanding acting without words and using just his eyes. The story as a whole isn’t very deep, either, but it's made much better and more interesting by the way it’s told and edited (similar to another Christopher Nolan film, Memento). Story isn't really the main selling point anyway. It’s more an event to experience than a full story and it works amazingly well as that.

1. Coco - A visually dazzling, beautiful story about family, love, and music. Clever, funny, inventive, and touching. Granted, I have a soft spot for themes of family, remembrance, eternal love and the sort but this had me tearing up several times including, and especially, during the finale, which is one of the most emotionally moving moments in any film this year. I haven’t done an official ranking or anything, but it’s one of my favorite Pixar films ever, and my favorite film of the year.

Let's do some individual awards.

Best Actor

5. Kumail Nanjiani, The Big Sick 4. James Franco, The Disaster Artist 3. Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour 2. Tom Hanks, The Post 1. Timothée Chalamet, Call Me by Your Name

Best Actress

5. Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water 4. Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird 3. Margot Robbie, I, Tonya 2. Meryl Streep, The Post 1. Frances McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Best Supporting Actor

5. Michael Stuhlbarg, Call Me by Your Name 4. Bradley Cooper, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 3. Richard Jenkins, The Shape of Water 2. Woody Harrelson, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri 1. Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Best Supporting Actress

5. June Squibb, Table 19 4. Holly Hunter, The Big Sick 3. Hong Chau, Downsizing 2. Allison Janney, I, Tonya 1. Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird

Best Director

5. Joe Wright, Darkest Hour 4. Craig Gillespie, I, Tonya 3. Edgar Wright, Baby Driver 2. Lee Unkrich and Adrian Molina, Coco 1. Christopher Nolan, Dunkirk

Best Screenplay

5. Seth Grahame-Smith and Chris McKenna & Erik Sommers and Jared Stern & John Whittington, The LEGO Batman Movie 4. Eric Pearson and Craig Kyle & Christopher Yost, Thor: Ragnarok 3. Jordan Peele, Get Out 2. Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird 1. Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani, The Big Sick

I guess if there's one thing to be gleaned from this year's list, it's that I don't like action scenes with an overreliance on CGI. I get that it's a part of every movie now -- and for that matter, really almost every action scene uses at least some CGI at this point -- but this year, in particular, stood out as having a lot of bad examples. It's disappointing.

If there's two things to be gleaned from this year's list, it's that I don't like action scenes with an overreliance on CGI, and... The Last Jedi was strange, man.

Enjoy the Oscars, everyone!

- - - - -

Annual Lists of Movies I Saw the Past Year

#Reviews #Annual Lists of Movies I Saw The Past Year

0 notes

rawinternets · 6 years

Text

Star Wars Episode 2: A rediscovery

OK... at this point, I’ve reviewed in series:

Rogue One Ep4: A New Hope Ep5: Empire Strikes Back Ep1: Phantom Menace

And boy, I am not excited for Episode 2. Still, I’m ready to give it a chance.

What happens when I do this is, I watch a movie that improves upon the effort in Episode 1. You can sense here that George Lucas took a lot of the criticisms to heart, maybe even ceded some control to others whom he trusts. Jar Jar is significantly toned down, the spectacle is there but the mystery and darkness is turned up a bit.

Still, we have a mostly flat movie. Only one “9″ scene and really it’s just the visuals, which have always been Star Wars’s strength. And, we are introduced to George Lucas’s Awkward Teenager Fantasy of a Space Romance (tm) featuring a horribly directed Hayden Christensen and a bewilderingly amenable Natalie Portman. Like, at no time at all in this movie does it make sense that Padme should be falling for this petulant, whiny, and kind of creepy kid... unless we simply assume that she kind of sucks, too.

Despite John Williams again trying to save the day (and this romance) with a score that soars to beauteous heights with Across the Stars, the film definitely fails here. The infamous “sand” line, etc etc etc all to come.

Lastly, we get an incredibly hokey and just inexcusably bad Gladiator style setpiece. 1′s and 2′s abound. The end result is a film that kind of flops on the main plot points and otherwise just plods the prequel plots forward, setting up an ep3 that might well have been made into three movies since it’s the only prequel that is interesting or ties to the originals in any satisfactory way.

On to the scores.

Average score: 5.48 Standard deviation: 2.07

Scroll. 7. This whole scroll made me say, “I guess...” Like, fine, I guess Count Dooku is a necessary new Sith character. I guess the Republic needs to create an army to help the Jedi... None of it makes me that excited. Appropriate omen for the rest of the movie.

Approaching Coruscant. 6. Very pretty ship. Very pretty cloudy day on Coruscant. Terrorist attack! Holy shit! Hollywood dramatic death of the decoy getting killed, bad directing/acting by Amidala. I wrote, “woof.” talk about botching an interesting idea.

Palpatine and Jedi. 7. More expository scenes here. “Dooku was behind it.” Sure, whatever. Keep republic together, sure, whatever. Yoda is fine. Samuel L is bad (must be the directing...). Palpatine scheming is just sort of Meh.

Obiwan and Anakin. 8. Not too bad, to be honest. Ewan does well, he’s turning up his “Alec Guinness” knobs quite well.

Jarjar / Padme, re-meet Anakin. 7. Damn, Amidala friendzones Anakin immediately. Anakin less good in this scene vs. with Obiwan. But the tension here actually makes sense. I wrote, “I’m OK with it.” Jarjar, man. Boo.

Worm assassination attempt, city chase. 6. This was supposed to be a big sexy setpiece and I was not loving it. Pretty imagery - very bladerunner - but Anakin’s “not another lecture” and subsequent arrogance during the chase scene means I really can’t understand how the Jedi didn’t see this coming. He’s a total prick. On top of that, one basejump from a speeder down 500 feet to another moving speeder *might* have been excusable, but two? And Obiwan catching a lightsaber out of nowhere? Plus, we get bad alien cutscenes. They go to a bar and there’s robot football on in the background, and that’s just a SMH / facepalm type stupid easter egg. Wasn’t into the cigarettes / “death sticks” line that much either. Anakin as a detective is a “meh.” Just... lots of falling flat going on here.

Jedi Council and Palpatine. 8. Obiwan tracks down the bountyhunter-assassin and Anakin gets to guard the Senator. So, I actually think this is starting to set up Anakin’s turn pretty well. Palpatine is subtly sowing confusion, discord in Anakin’s mind. The council shows serious flaws in trying to spy on Palpatine via Anakin. Palpatine can appeal to Anakin’s ego. Again, the Jedi really were pretty stupid, which I guess we just have to believe (and call-forward to Episode 8, Luke’s POV).

Jarjar becomes senator. 3. Copy-pasting my notes: “bad. why is anakin monologuing? padme is just sitting there. anakin temper tantruming for no reason. anakin a little rapey.”

Refugees. 3. I skipped over this scene accidentally and that would have been appropriate. Anakin and Padme stilted banter is bad. “At least we have R2! ha, ha, ha!” Good music (as always, JW).

Diner. 5. Obiwan goes to see an “old friend.” They give a big alien a mustache and have him talk like a Chicago line cook. Gimme a big “meh!” Gotta go to the outer rim to meet some cloners. hurray.

Library. 7. Jedi archivist arrogance. The mystery deepens - no system is there where the cloners are supposed to be! zomg. But this is all fine, and almost decent with deepening the mystery.

Padme and Anakin refugee dinner. 7. Kind of as painful as watching someone’s first date at a bar while waiting for a friend. “Attachment is forbidden but we’re encouraged to love unconditionally” and a bunch of other hoke. Anakin is persistent. Still, not a bad scene.

Jedi training w/ Yoda. 7. A little hokey how Yoda asks the padawan kids to guess at why there’s no system in the archives. A bad yoda chin scratch. A little hokey, but good.

Back on Naboo. 4. Good music. Dialogue between Anakin and Padme continues to be pretty rough. “Keep our faith in the republic.” More politics. Lake country. Anakin and Padme tension is dumb.

Camino. 7. Bad name, cool scene. Good mystery unfolding... why is Obi-Wan expected? What are all these soldiers doing here, who ordered them, what’s going on? Kind of clunky revealing dialogue and the CGI is a bit out of hand but also decently cool. I wrote: “I’m OK with the secret army storyline.”

Lake country on Naboo. 2-6. Padme is smoking hot. Beautiful scenes here, but then we get this gem: "I don't like sand. it's coarse, rough, irritating... gets everywhere. Here, everything's soft and smooth." Anakin is such a douche. Padme lets him kiss her, but why? Not sure i'm buying this shit. Love song (Across the Stars) is amazing. Beautiful waterfall. But then they dissect their first kiss. mehhhhh. Let's talk politics at a picnic? No. "Make people agree." Anakin is authoritarian and sort of evil. How could she fall in love with this dude? Then he surfs a cow. No. Now they’re rolling around in the grass. No. No thanks.

Django and Boba on Camino. 8. One of the better and subtler scenes maybe in the whole series for acting. Obi-wan and Django do a great job of dancing around each other verbally while sizing each other up.

Anakin-Padme Dinner / Wooing. 3. God, I wish I didn’t have so much to say about this tripe, but I do. I guess i'm fine with wooing Padme with Jedi tricks... But I still don't really buy the love story. And now we get lines like: "I'm in agony. the closer I get the worse it gets. The thought of not being with you." Suuuuuper creepy. “Haunted by the kiss you should have never given me.” “You are in my very soul tormenting me.” Honestly! This is like The Room. "THEN YOU DO FEEL SOMETHING!!!" Just a bad scene overall. Now Anakin is getting nightmares. "Your presence is soothing." Meh. Natalie Portman - did I mention she’s smoking hot? Anakin's mother is suffering in his nightmares, so he’s leaving to help her. Padme will go with him!? what the fuck. Bad lines too. Also callback to Luke leaving to help Han and Leia... I don’t know. Bad.

“Collect call.” 7. I believe this is the scene where Obi-Wan calls back to the council and Yoda or Samuel L. says their powers are diminished for not being able to see the creation of this clone army. Decent plotline, OK.

Django Fett vs. Obi-wan fight. 6. Decent. Too much ledge-hanging and Jedi are too super-duper-heroey. Tracking Django is fine but looked hokey.

Tatooine. 4. A fancy ship lands at Mos Eisley... man, they’re really going back to this well a lot. We see the stupid slave owner bug guy again and long story short, Anakin’s mom has been taken by the Tuskan Raiders. Time to kill some things.

Obi-wan tracks Django. 6. Asteroid field again. Depth charges again. Supposed to be a good action setpiece but I’m distracted because there’s not supposed to be any cool noises in space. Fine with Obi-wan faking his death to avoid Django. Very pretty scenery and Obi-wan sneaks around some. Whatever.

Anakin on the mother hunt. 1-7. Clever shadow of Anakin-as-Darth on the side of the building. Back to good music from Ep1. Finds his mom, and we’re back to bad dialogue. “Ani? Ani? Ani? Ani?” ... should feel something here, and don’t. The actor chemistry is just so bad, and I blame George. Still, Anakin going HAM is a good slip to the dark side. Hebrings his mom back dead, and proceeds to monologue shittily to Padme. "Life seems so much simpler when you're fixing things. I'm good at fixing things.” Awful. “Why'd she have to die? Why couldn't i save her? I know I could have?” what the FUCK. Terrrrrrrrrible. "I killed them. I killed them all." "I'm a jedi, I know I'm better than this." OK, finally at the very end as he breaks down, some sort of decent turn in this scene.

Count Dooku. 4. Jesus, how long is this movie? We get a random weirdo trying to create a new treaty with the trade federation to oppose the Republic. TWIST! This is what the rebellion does, but they’re somehow good! Sigh.

Yoda and Windu. 4. “Pain, suffering. Young Skywalker is in pain.” Whatever.

Funeral, message. 4. Here’s what I wrote and I remember none of this: “Clete is fine. Not really buying the whole anakin thing with mom. anakin stay where you are and protect the senator! padme is a mess too.”

Senator scheming. 5. So blatant. Sometimes this plotline is really well done and sometimes is sucks. Could have given this a 3-5.

Dooku and Obi-wan. 7. OK, we have an exposition-y scene where Dooku tries to recruit Obi-wan to his side. This scene saved by two very good actors giving a good performance.

Jar Jar in Senate. 2. The worst thing the franchise ever did gets to deliver the vote that gives Chancellor supreme powers. Jar Jar is a f***in’ tw*t. And Chancellor creates the Grand Army of the Republic.

Padme and Anakin on planet. 1. Oh, right. Anakin was going to go find Obi-wan or some shit. Padme saving the day with her senate powers! mehhhhhh. C3PO and R2 engage in dumb banter, but not as bad as jarjar. We’re now on some kind of shop floor ... that’s a No. Padme is now running through stampers. No. Bad. Dumb. No. Anakin also dumb. No. bad. My reviewing devolves into 2-year-old level angry language. We see machines making machines. C3PO hangs off a ledge. R2 flies around... come on. Wow, this is so bad. Padme falls into a fucking steel boiler. NO. NO NO NO. Anakin’s lightsaber is cut in half and we get a terrible "Obi-wan's gonna kill me." BOOOOO. And now droids and the fucking bountyhunter show up. God, that was worthless.

Padme and Anakin pre-Gladiator. 2. Anakin gets to deliver this gem: “I’ve been dying each day since you came back into my life. I love you.” I don't feel this makes any sense. Except I guess it’s clear now, as i said at the beginning of the review, that Padme kinda sucks. “I truly deeply love you.” Why?

Gladiator Death Battle. 1. HOW LONG IS THIS MOVIE? Also: GOD, THIS IS HORRIBLE. The only good part is Obi-wan with some sarcasm, otherwise we have unnecessary zerg monsters and midriff-revealing claw slashes and general dumb gladiatorial action. The “bad feeling” line was terrible, worst of the series. And where did Padme get her fucking keys?

Jedi save the day. 3. The Jedi look very hokey and stupid, to be honest, and they don’t look like very good fighters at the end of the day. Scores 3 for light sabers but otherwise it’s a 1 or 2 scene. What’s the end game here? Get surrounded and killed? Django vs. Mace Windu who cares. We get terrible Anakin and Padme cheesing, terrible C3PO humor, bad Jedi vs. Droids action, just all around shit.

Clones save the day. 5. Yoda arrives with clones to save the day. At least the plotline is somewhat nuanced - who is fighting who, who is good and who is not. This ambiguity is good. But nobody wanted to kill Dooku until he was already escaped? Sort of mediocre action. Soundtrack just sounds like the matrix. Why is yoda so into the fighting? He’s trying to protect the Republic, which he knows is eroded. The jedi sure fucked up.

Death Star Plans? 5. So having seen Rogue One, this doesn’t make any sense at all (continuity errors!) ... but the DS was actually a design from the Trade Federation, apparently? Not into this. George Lucas sucks and Dooku sucks.

Dooku Chase. 7. God, I can’t wait for this to be over (the movie and the review). Padme falls out of the transport - OK. Obi-wan and Anakin argue and it’s good. Finally some good acting out of this guy.

Dooku fight. 7-9. Notwithstanding that Dooku seems like a very unnecessary character, this climax is decent. Anakin’s an idiot apparently, and force lightning is apparently a big sith weapon. OK light saber fighting until double-lightsaber fighting, at which point it’s hard to follow the action. George is too busy focusing in on faces. And Yoda shows up. Huzzah. Fun to watch him with the light saber, maybe a bit too much spining around and Yoda ParkourTM, but why is he shouting? Aren’t Jedi supposed to stay calm? What happened to the Quigon meditation approach? Dooku esacpes. bleh.

Dooku Sidious meeting. 8. It’s all going to plan, yes, yes. Who the fk is Lord Tyranus? Very good music. War has begun, cool. All to Sidious’s plan, no surprise.

Yoda and Windu. 7. "Victory you say? Not victory. The shroud of the dark side has fallen. Begun the clone war has." Meh.

Clone Deploy. 9. The visuals of Star Destroyers lifting off and a huge army deploying is pretty cool. This is the highlight of this movie, which is sad.

Secret Marriage on Naboo. 7. Very pretty shot, no dialogue is good, anakin has a fake arm, bad kissing. definitely not an “8″.

Credits. 6. The tone of the ending music (traditional theme) is too upbeat. Should have taken a page (pre-emptively) from Rogue One’s book and used a quiet, somber theme. Gets there after a minute or so. Bleh. So glad this is over.

VERDICT

Not memorable, not unique, and basically a handful of scenes could have done the job here instead of what felt like 5 hours of filler. Happy to forget this movie ever happened. It grades out on the histogram as mostly 7′s and an even distribution around 4 or 5, but really, the 7′s were often due to boredom or “meh” type scores. Very flat movie in experience, with only downside and very little upside.

REVIEW LINKS:

Introduction: Star Wars, a rediscovery.

Rogue One: 6.92 / 10.00 (stdev 2.06).

Episode 4: A New Hope. 8.00 / 10.00 (stdev 1.34).

Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back. 8.00 / 10.00 (stdev 1.29).

Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. 5.00 / 10.00 (stdev 2.08). But probably worse than that, actually.

Episode 2: Attack of the Clones. 5.48 / 10.00 (stdev 2.07).

Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith. 7.00 / 10.00 (stdev 1.77).

Episode 6: Return of the Jedi. 7.90 / 10.00 (stdev 1.91).

Episode 7: The Force Awakens. 6.57 / 10.00 (stdev 2.01).

Episode 8: The Last Jedi. 6.31 / 10.00 (stdev 1.89).

Verdict: Star Wars, A rediscovery.

1 note · View note