#fun fact: i forgot the name of this film entirely but remembered the plot

[pan-xichen]

Back at it again with the movie-inspired nielan AUs, this time please imagine with me a Stranger Than Fiction AU.

#okay for real though this would be so interesting?? #fun fact: i forgot the name of this film entirely but remembered the plot #which was really weird #anyway lxc accidentally writing nmj into existence and almost writing his death would be so comical to me like #oops im about to commit murder by willing it #obviously he wouldnt #i cant remember exactly? but im pretty sure the author doesnt fall in love with her protagonist #but lxc would definitely fall for nmj even if he accidentally created him #theyd find a way to break the weird cycle and let nmj live his own life lmao #it would be cute and funny and i cant stop thinking about it #mdzs #the untamed #cql #lxc #nmj #xichen speaks

[disabled-dragoon]

Disabled Characters That Shaped My Childhood

Is this similar to a post on my other page? Perhaps. But I don’t care. 

As it is disability pride month and this was essentially the entire reason for me making a second blog, I have decided to revise my list of disabled characters in the media that helped me accept my disability growing up! Probably won’t be all that good but eh, what the hell. 

Unfortunately I can only think of three characters from my childhood that I remember being featured prominently on TV growing up, but it is increasing! Slowly, but it is! So with that said......

Gabriella- The Little Mermaid, 1992-1994, Deaf

Possibly the first actually disabled character I can remember seeing on TV, I think Gabriella was the character that kicked off my interest in learning more about disability culture in the first place and I’m mad more people don’t remember her. 

She was my first real exposure to seeing disability outside of my home and the hospital, and yes, she might be deaf and I’m not, but she fascinated me and arguably catalysed my ongoing attempts to learn sign language. Her character was fun and loveable and I’m glad they took the time to kind of explain her deafness to the audience, then promoted the idea that actually she didn’t need to change herself to be wonderful. She was accepted almost immediately and was most likely the first introduction to sign language as a whole to a lot of children in the early 90s. The fact she kept coming back as a regular character was also amazing to see! 

Toph Beifong- Avatar: The Last Airbender, 2005-2008, Blind

Obviously needs no introduction....With the events of the last year, everyone had a chance to be reintroduced to the series that is Avatar and, by extension, the fantastic Toph Beifong! 

The whole series is one that focuses on overcoming oppression and marginalisation and, whilst it certainly is not perfect, the fact it had a disabled main character for the majority of its run and spin off is probably part of the reason this show holds a special place in my heart, even today. And the representation is not just limited to Toph either!

Remember the wheelchair bound “airbender” that the GAang comes across? Teo I think his name is. Or the armless villainess Ming-Hua in Korra? I do. And I wouldn’t be surprised if there are others that I’m missing but my point is, ATLA does a very good job to not use disability as a reason to make weak characters and I appreciate it so much. 

Toph was is the reason, I think, that I can laugh at myself today (in a good way, of course) and will always be my favourite character of the series for that very reason. 

Hiccup Haddock- How To Train Your Dragon, 2003, Amputee

Ah, How To Train Your Dragon. The guilty pleasure of my childhood. 

It was only a couple of years ago I realised the main character is, technically disabled, having one leg and all, and I never noticed despite watching it religiously when I was small(er). Maybe because they didn’t draw much attention to it after it happened, or maybe because I just did not have the attention span for movies...

But I appreciate it nonetheless, considering the whole movie series finished in 2019 I believe, so it’s still pretty relevant to the younger generations. And the fun colours and enjoyable theme of dragons that people are drawn to means that is a film people can be easily drawn to, and still gets attention. 

                       ~~~Honourable Mentions!~~~

1. Julia- Sesame Street, Autism

A little after my time but a treat to see nonetheless! Julia got a lot of attention when it was announced she would be joining Sesame Street, as the first regular character on the series to be diagnosed with autism. With so much more focus on autism and disability awareness in recent years, it’s refreshing to see children’s media starting to branch out more into exploring the concept of disability in youth and childhood!

2. Iron Man- The Avengers, Technically a heart defect

Okay, it didn’t last. I’m aware. And Iron Man and Marvel are...problematic at times, but arguably the comics and RDJs portrayal of Iron Man was a lot of people’s first introduction to the idea of sudden disability in later life, even if he had the money, resources, time and plot armour to overcome it. 

3. Hawkeye- The Avengers, Deaf

In the comics he’s deaf. Maybe not in the film series, but still. Pretty impressive. Not only is he sans superpowers, he has a disability, which in the world of Marvel you would expect him to be portrayed as weaker and incapable but he isn’t! 

4. Entrapta- She-Ra and The Princesses of Power, Autism

Okay. Yes. Still a bit out of my childhood, technically. But who didn’t watch She-Ra during the lockdown? I’m pretty sure it was confirmed(?) that Entrapta was written as being on the autism spectrum but correct me if I’m wrong. 

                                          ~~~~~~~~~~~

And END.

Sorry for a long first post, I just thought, in the spirit of the month, it might be nice to reflect a little on characters that potentially helped us in our childhoods, and characters that may continue helping children today. 

If I forgot any, or one needs to be added to the list, please tell me and why! 

Thank you!

And happy disability pride month!

#long post #disability pride #actually disabled #toph beifong #atla toph #httyd #httyd hiccup #the little mermaid #disability #disability pride month #she ra and the princesses of power #the avengers #sesame street #sorry for the long tags

[annethepancake]

Sherlock rant

I recently rewatched BBC Sherlock for Rupert Graves, and aside from the lack of Lestrade appreciation I have a lot of problems with this series. Here are my thoughts:

1. It was all a blur

My second first impression of the show: I don't remember anything but the characters. And some characters I just blatantly forgot, like Mary. And I loved Mary on my second watch! I really forgot that at one point John actually got married and I don't even remember when I watched the show for the first time. I can still recall most of HIMYM's events and I hated that series.

2. It’s overall not a detective/crime show

Watching Sherlock for the second time, I mostly turned off my brain and just let it play in the background because (1) there's hardly anything for me to solve with the characters, most clues are taken by Sherlock off-screen anyway (especially after season 2), (2) they focus way too much on the quirks of the characters that make it almost like a sitcom that got dragged on for way too long. A crime/detective show shouldn't allow me to turn off my brain.

3. The characters just kinda fall flat

Exploring the depth of human emotions is not a bad approach to a modernized version of anything, I’m not trying to pretend I’m better than someone who gets sentimental over fictional character (if you know my blog at all, you know I am not), but at least write good characters. Sherlock is hardly a multi-faceted person; in fact, he’s kinda like the Wattpad teen fic main character sometimes. He physically fights off some terrorists with a machete to save the damsel in distress? He gets high off his tits but still got everything right all the time? John is just kinda there for most of the cases. Jim is a poorly written antagonist. Irene is a lesbian but gets the hot for our main character, surprise surprise. The only interesting characters to me are the ones who act like normal people: Molly, Greg and Mary. They are the multi-faceted characters, ones who I can actually relate to without feeling inferior to them in any way. Write characters like them, stop trying to be smart about it and stop writing Wattpad fanfictions for Sir Conan Doyle’s original works.

I get that they try to make Sherlock more like a human with emotions, making him quirky and arrogant, then make him quirky and more likable. It’s hardly a convincing character development though. He’s given over-powered deduction skills, so edgy, so high and mighty all the time. When he is finally written as vulnerable, turns out he has plans for that too. I would love to see him get it wrong once and maybe get humbled by that mistake, but getting Mary shot and killed is hardly even his fault, he is only doing his job. And killing off Mary is overall a bad idea anyway.

4. They treated the fandom like shit

I was absolutely disgusted at the start of season 3 when the showrunners just straight up shat on their fans. I wasn't there with the fandom during the wait between season 2 and 3, but I believe it was a pretty long wait (2 years, I could barely wait 2 years for my comfort series, and they have like 10 episodes per season), and they were presented with the first actual mystery of the series: How did Sherlock survive the fall? After years of waiting and having fun theorizing, they were met with a mockumentary about them, starring the most hated character of the protagonist and the fans. Those are the people who actually cared about the show for god's sake. The fact that the showrunners treated fans like crap and there's still an active fandom for the show appalled me.

Now not only The Empty Hearse bugs me, but the entire show does as well.

Allow me to digress.

Doki Doki Literature Club is a great example of audience engagement done right (Sorry for using this example I’m not actually that invested in the other franchises). After the success of the first game, the story provoked so many fans into solving the mysteries of the characters, some of them went really, really far. And that’s because of the actual mysteries that the development team took effort to plant into the plot. There is actual pay-off for painstakingly following the clues; as far as I know, only two (2!) people in the world have come close to solving the mystery of the first game (or they actually did). The game developers value their fans and their intelligence enough to have planted those clues where they did, and it’s a genuine exchange between the fans and the creators. Now even though you haven’t actually played the game, when you hear of the name and you’re only kinda familiar with gaming (like me), you’ll probably know what it is. What started as a mere open-source game by an indie developer became a sensation which left millions of fans begging for more.

Looking back at Sherlock, there are tons of logical flaws for a self-proclaimed crime series, virtually no clues for the audience to solve crimes along with their favorite detective, and when there was actually a mystery (Sherlock jumped off the building), they plainly showed him alive and well minutes later. Do we really need to see things spelled on screen to know what’s going on? Are we supposed to accept that Sherlock Holmes is an all-knowing future-predicting genius now too? Not a great sign of respecting the audience there.

So far, the only thing left that’s interesting about this series is the characters’ dynamic. Which brings me to the next criticism I have for the show.

5. The plague that infested mainstream media

Why is there still an active fandom? Queerbaiting and targeted marketing.

Community marketing is proven to be one of the best marketing methods there is, if not the best, to lengthen the lifespan of a product or service. The way they do that for shows and films and video games is usually by planting seeds of possible lores and history inside the content. Look at Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, they are franchises that ran for multiple years with a ton of history and world building that provokes fans’ imagination.

Sherlock - well, Sherlock has sexually ambiguous men.

Sherlock has a formula for success. It was an adaptation of the most iconic detective novel in the world, funded by one of the biggest TV networks in the UK and possibly the world (don’t quote me on this). Making this series means you can appeal to such a wide group of audience even before airing. Adding in the quirky smart men who live together, you’ve basically guaranteed a prime-time show with millions of loyal fans all over the world.

Fans are not stupid, and queer people don't just find queerness everywhere they go. They know a gay subtext when they see one. Sherlock came back from the literal death for John, pretty gay if you ask me.

This show is very much not just about some guys being dudes solving crimes, they have relationship that’s deeper than friendship, and definitely not platonic. They deliberately wrote a sexually ambiguous Sherlock Holmes from the get-go - literally from the very first episode, then capitalized off of the targeted demographic, never a pay-off for their anticipation. Martin Freeman said in interviews that he could recognize Sherlock fans, them being generally women from 16 - 25. No shit Sherlock, this show targets them and capitalizes off of them, being quirky and gay as hell, of course the fanbase is generally 16 - 25 and female.

Sherlock queerbaited the fandom for years for the sake of marketing and there’s never a pay-off, nor was there any recognition to the community, and to add to all that bigotry, queercoding pretty much all of the villains? Why was a show aired in the 2010′s allowed to do this? Why did Mark Gatiss, an openly gay man, a writer of the show, allow this to happen? Why are millions of fans all over the world allowing all this to go on?!

6. Conclusion

Now I haven’t read the books yet, so I’m not at all qualified to criticize the adaptation quality of the TV series; I’m just talking about the TV series on its own. Despite my criticism, I think the first two seasons did quite okay. There are quite a few nice cases there, I like The Blind Banker and The Hound of Baskerville. They did those well because the focus was on the cases themselves, and the connection between John and Sherlock was only in the background. I, like many other fans, like to figure things out on my own, to read between the lines, and to not have things spelled out for me. With the next seasons bombarded with Sherlock and John bonding it seriously felt like mere fan service for me and even though I wasn’t there when the show was on, I still felt like I was robbed and my interest in the show was abused.

Sherlock is undoubtedly super influential in pop culture even now. It has to have done something right to be in that spot (capitalizing off loyal fans?). I’m not writing this rant to change someone’s mind about the series, by all means, I’m still gonna love the hell out of Gavin Lestrade, and absolutely lose my mind over Mary Watson. So do take my words with a grain of salt, I’m just disappointed that one of the most influential shows there is is just short of my expectations.

#sherlock #bbc sherlock #rant #criticism

[crashdevlin]

Centerfold 5- Waiting For You

Centerfold Masterlist

Author’s Note: Written for Meghan who requested some fluffy A/B/O smut and then I came up with an idea and ran with it. Smut will start after the plot is established. Also, this is gonna go toward my @spnabobingo​ squares. This chapter fills my Motor Oil/Cut Grass/Gunpowder square and is rated T for Teen.

Summary: Dean heads to Vegas with Sam to crash the AVN Awards in the hopes of meeting up with Taffy Rose.

Pairing: Alpha!Dean x Reader

Word count: 2069

Story Warnings: A/B/O dynamics, pornography, mentions of multiple partners, Sam being a bit of a creeper asshole

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dean was sure it was a bad idea. There were a thousand ways it could go bad, taking his soulless little brother on a trip to Vegas. But Lisa was pretty much done with him, hadn't answered the phone since he was a vampire, Sam's loss of soul was stressing him out, and he needed a break. The fact that the AVN Awards were going to be taking place the next day was a coincidence...mostly.

"So, you're taking your soulless brother to Vegas to chase down some porn star?" Sam asked, amused. "I can think of a dozen reasons why this would be a bad idea."

Dean sighed. "Yeah. Well, we're going because Vegas is tradition, soul or no soul, and Taffy isn't just 'some porn star'. Jenna Jameson is 'some porn star'. Lisa Ann is 'some porn star'. Taffy Rose is the woman of my dreams and the future mother of my children, okay? She just doesn't know it yet. When I find her and remind her who I am, she's gonna be mine."

"Yeah. 'Cause all the porn stars wanna settle down and have a bunch of pups with some hunter they knew for a week of high school in 1996."

"'95, Sammy, and she's gonna remember me. No way I'm the only one who remembers that." Dean sighed heavily and shook his head. "I mean, I was her first! No way she forgot about me."

Sam just shrugged and pulled out his phone to distract himself. Porn awards could be fun. He could find some willing woman to sink into. It'd been a few days since he got laid, he was itching for some relief. Some tiny thing with giant fake tits would be perfect. And if there was an entire category of omega actors, maybe he could find a nice omega to fuck.

Dean got two rooms when they got the motel. He was confident he wouldn't want anything to do with whatever Sam picked up at the AVN Awards and he didn't want Sam interrupting when he managed to get Taffy, Y/n, back to his room.

Dean had trouble choosing what to wear. Plaid seemed too hunter, too redneck, too Kansas to approach a Cali-based porn star at an awards show. His FBI suits and his old Homeland Security suit both seemed to strangle him with formality. The Pink Floyd concert tee was too casual. All of his tees were. It took a while but eventually he settled on his best jeans, the ones that made his ass look awesome, and his light grey Henley. Nothing that said he was trying too hard, but also not something that made him look like a lumberjack sans the beard.

Sam was already in the Impala by the time Dean left his room. Sam was in a dark red v-neck shirt and jeans and had obviously not agonized over his wardrobe. "Took you long enough, Dean. What, were you rubbing one out so you'd last longer than five seconds when you meet up with her?"

"No!" Dean exclaimed, but he couldn't help but think that was a missed opportunity. "Shut up. Let's go."

They talked their way in, it was second nature to lie to get into places they weren’t supposed to be, and the guard really had no problem believing that the two imposing alphas were bodyguards for some of the actors.

“All right. Let’s split up. If you find Taffy, call me...then, ya know...have at it,” Dean said, gesturing to the right side of the theater before taking off to the left.

Sam rolled his eyes and walked away into the theater. There were hundreds of attractive actors mulling around and they were all wearing various revealing, shiny outfits...all of whom Sam would be willing to nail. He stopped a particularly busty redhead and smiled. “Have you seen Taffy Rose? I’m supposed to deliver a message.”

The redhead looked him up and down like she wanted to eat him and licked her lips. “Taffy’s on the mezzanine with the other omegas. They won’t let an alpha through the door. I could go get her for you,” she offered, her voice seductive.

“That would be great, actually.” Sam let his eyes run down her body. “But don’t stray too far.”

She bit her lip as she walked away on six inch high heels. She was hot as fuck, her dress tight and riding up as she walked. Sam could definitely see her wrapped around his cock. She would be fun to play with. She would be more than satisfying. She would be-

Sam’s jaw dropped a little as a small woman in a light pink crossover dress with a pink plaid skirt walked out. She had nude colored Mary Jane shoes on, natural tits...and looked so completely out of place surrounded by half-dressed, silicone-filled women that it was like a beacon of light shined on her. Sam wanted her. Dean would forgive him for having a little fun before he delivered her to him, right? And if not, Sam didn’t care.

“Hi, Sunny said you had a message for me?” she said, approaching him. Sam loved the size difference between them. Even in heels, he eclipsed her.

“Taffy, right?” Sam asked, stepping closer. He’d seen the pictures, he knew exactly who she was, but he wanted to talk to her longer, get a bit more time to scent her. She was something floral and pretty.

“Yes? Can I help you?”

Sam stepped closer again and she cleared her throat. “You don’t remember me. You shouldn’t. I was, what, twelve when we met.”

“We’ve met?” she squeaked. She swallowed and took a step back. Sam could smell arousal leaking into her scent and he smirked. She was so easy. Dripping slick already. This is what an omega gets for staying unmated so long.

“Yeah. Back in Olympia. Seems like a million years ago, Y/n.” Sam stepped closer again and Y/n gasped as she backed away and her back hit the wall behind her. “Neither of us were presented back then. I didn’t realize how good you smell.”

“S-sorry, I...who are you?”

“Always knew you were pretty, though.”

She took a deep breath and put her hand on his chest, lightly pushing him away. “I don’t recognize you and you’re making me uncomfortable so if you don’t back up and say what you came to say, I’m gonna have to-”

“Sam, you soulless bastard, get away from her!” Sam rolled his eyes at his brother’s voice and stepped back as Dean ran up. “I told you to call me if you found her, dammit!”

Sam shrugged. “She’s hot. Had to try it.”

“Go...away,” Dean growled and Y/n shivered. He watched his brother’s large frame disappear into the crowd before he turned to the omega, his omega. “Taffy, sorry about him. He’s...got some issues right now. Mental...issues. Um...I…” His words faltered as he looked into her eyes. She was right there in front of him. “Y/n,” he whispered and she gasped.

She took a deep breath and stepped close. “Dean?”

“You remember,” he whispered, taking his own deep breath of her floral scent. There was a tinge of arousal to it and he almost whimpered.

“Of course I remember. I’ve been waiting to smell that special blend of motor oil and fresh cut grass and…” She leaned up and groaned as she sniffed at his neck. “...burning gunpowder. I’ve been waiting for you for half my life.”

“That’s what I smell like to you?” Dean asked, smiling. “And you know what burning gunpowder smells like?”

She licked her lips and let out a small giggle. “I got shot...in one of my films. They shot a blank at me, I recognized the smell immediately...so I started to hang out at the range every once in a while.”

He smiled proudly. His omega liked guns. Awesome. “I saw you in last August’s Playboy. I never thought I’d see you again and...there you were in the centerfold, lookin’ so much hotter than you did in high school. But somehow just the same. You looked, you look amazing. So beautiful and...somehow innocent.”

“I’m very good at that. It’s my signature look.”

“I don’t know how you pull it off, buck naked, but you do.”

“So...um...I…” She looked away, trying to clear her mind. “So...You saw my Playboy and had to come find me?”

Dean licked his lips and stepped closer. He wanted to touch her, grab her waist and pull her against his body, but he didn’t. Not until she was ready. “I saw your Playboy and I went home and watched every clip of every video I could find with your name. ‘Taffy Rose’, huh?”

“Well, I really like pink. Taffy, rose, they’re shades of pink.”

“I remember. I see you still favor pink clothes,” he said, gesturing at her dress. “It’s a cute dress.”

“It’d look better on your floor?” she guessed, looking up into his eyes. His cheeks burned at her words. “I’m sure it would. Your freckles still pop when you blush.”

Dean laughed. “Yeah, some things never change.”

“So, your omega didn’t mind you coming to Vegas to see me?” she asked, biting her bottom lip.

“No omega. No wife, no girlfriend. You?”

She giggled, setting her hand on his shoulder. “No wife or girlfriend for me either.”

“Seriously, Taffy.” His voice went soft. “You got somebody waitin’ at home for you?”

“Yeah.” She smiled as his stomach dropped, and ran her hand up his shoulder to the back of his neck. “I have a husky dog named Wolf. Real original, I know, but she was a rescue...already named.” She pulled his head down and bumped her nose against his. “No husband, no boyfriend...no alpha.” He gasped as she kissed the corner of his mouth. “I’ve been waiting for you, Dean.”

His head went a little dizzy at her words. “Y/n.”

“Have you been waiting for me?” she whispered into his ear.

“Betas only, baby. Never had a ‘mega. Only ever wanted you,” he answered.

She smiled bright as she pulled back and looked into his eyes again. “I’ve only ever really wanted you, too. I think about you all the time, Dean. Never thought…” She looked soft and innocent as she sighed. “I’m so happy you found me.”

“Me, too.”

“I might be getting an award, so I...I can’t leave yet, but...after the show’s over...why don’t you come back to my hotel with me?” He was just about to say ‘God yes’ when she finished with, “I can show you all the things I’ve learned over the past fifteen years.” His jaw dropped, words frozen in his throat. All he could do was nod. “Good. I’ve been dreaming of this since high school. Put my number in your phone. You won’t be allowed on the mezzanine with me, so I’ll have to find you after.”

Dean pulled out his phone and entered her number as she rattled it off, immediately sending her a text so that she had his number, too. She shined as she looked down at her phone screen to see the text ‘Hey mega <3’. “God, you’re cute.” She giggled and wrapped her arm around his neck again, pulling him down for a quick kiss.

What should have been a quick kiss, anyway, because he couldn’t let her go once he had her on his lips. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against him. She tasted just like he remembered. Her hands buried in his hair as he pushed her against the wall and licked at her tongue. She moaned as his hands moved down her back to grasp at her ass. He was panting when he pulled back. “Sorry. I...suddenly, I’m sixteen with no control of myself again.”

She giggled that laugh that he loved with all of his heart and patted his cheek. “Well, I just can’t wait to see you really lose control, Dean,” she said before spinning away from him and the wall, her skirt twirling as she headed back toward the mezzanine.

Dean sighed and watched her until she disappeared from his sight. She was so much better than he remembered. She was perfect. She was his.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Kitchen Sink - @emoryhemsworth​ @flamencodiva​ @wasabiwitteks​ @rainbowkisses31​ @rissbennett @mariekoukie6661​ @officiallyunofficialperson​ @dolphincliffs​ @mrs-meghan-winchester​ @gayspacenerd​ @foxyjwls007​ @ilovefanfic86​ @marvelfansworld​ @f-yeahfandoms​ @wonderlandfandomkingdom​ @hhiggs​ @sev3nruby​  @hobby27​ @paintballkid711​ @divadinag​ @thewhiterabbit42​ @fantasymyth-1 @queenoftheunderdark​ @cosicas-cuquis​ @superfanficnatural​ @letsby​ @supernatural-bellawinchester​ @onethirstyunicorn​ @swinchester27​ @chalicia​ @sunnyroadtrips​ @screechingartisancashbailiff​ @death-unbecomes-you​ @dayasvalkyrie​ Hunter Tags - @atc74​ @sandlee44​ @spnbaby-67​ @kalesrebellion​ @tumbler-tidbits​ @hoboal87​ @stoneyggirl​ @kbl1313​ @cookiechipdough​ @mrswhozeewhatsis​ @winchesterxfamilybusiness​ @holylulusworld​ @pretty-fortune​ @screechingartisancashbailiff​ @we-are-all-a-bunch-of-idjits​ @imperiusimpala​ @supernaturalenchanted​ Gaga For Green Eyes Tags- @typicalweirdbookworm​ @deanmonandnegansbitch​ @jadesupernatural​ @stoneyggirl​ @4fareader​ @squirrelnotsam​ @lyarr24​ @akshi8278​ @pretty-fortune​ @we-are-all-a-bunch-of-idjits​

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#cassie writes stuff #spn fanfic #reader-insert #a/b/o dynamics #alpha!dean #alpha!sam #omega!reader #pornstar!reader #dean x reader #SOULLESS SAM

[holyhellpod]

Holy Hell: 3. Metanarrativity: Who’s the Deleuze and who’s the Guattari in your relationship? aka the analysis no one asked for.

In this ep, we delve into authorship, narrative, fandom and narrative meaning. And somehow, as always, bring it back to Cas and Misha Collins.

(Note: the reason I didn’t talk about Billie’s authorship and library is because I completely forgot it existed until I watched season 13 “Advanced Thanatology” again, while waiting for this episode to upload. I’ll find a way to work her into later episodes tho!)

I had to upload it as a new podcast to Spotify so if you could just re-subscribe that would be great! Or listen to it at these other links.

Please listen to the bit at the beginning about monetisation and if you have any questions don’t hesitate to message me here.

Apple | Spotify | Google

Transcript under the cut!

Warnings: discussions of incest, date rape, rpf, war, 9/11, the bush administration, abuse, mental health, addiction, homelessness. Most of these are just one off comments, they’re not full discussions.

Meta-Textuality: Who’s the Deleuze and who’s the Guattari in your relationship?

In the third episode of Season 6, “The Third Man,” Balthazar says to Cas, “you tore up the whole script and burned the pages.” That is the fundamental idea the writers of the first five seasons were trying to sell us: whatever grand plan the biblical God had cooking up is worth nothing in face of the love these men have—for each other and the world. Sam, Bobby, Cas and Dean will go to any lengths to protect one another and keep people safe. What’s real? What’s worth saving? People are real. Families are worth saving. 

This show plugs free will as the most important thing a person, angel, demon or otherwise can have. The fact of the matter is that Dean was always going to fight against the status quo, Sam was always going to go his own way, and Bobby was always going to do his best for his boys. The only uncertainty in the entire narrative is Cas. He was never meant to rebel. He was never meant to fall from Heaven. He was supposed to fall in line, be a good soldier, and help bring on the apocalypse, but Cas was the first agent of free will in the show’s timeline. Sam followed Lucifer, Dean followed Michael, and John gave himself up for the sins of his children, at once both a God and Jesus figure. But Cas wasn’t modelled off anyone else. He is original. There are definitely some parallels to Ruby, but I would argue those are largely unintentional. Cas broke the mold. 

That’s to say nothing of the impact he’s had on the fanbase, and the show itself, which would not have reached 15 seasons and be able to end the way they wanted it to without Cas and Misha Collins. His back must be breaking from carrying the entire show. 

But what the holy hell are we doing here today? Not just talking about Cas. We’re talking about metanarrativity: as I define it, and for purposes of this episode, the story within a story, and the act of storytelling. We’re going to go through a select few episodes which I think exemplify the best of what this show has to offer in terms of framing the narrative. We’ll talk about characters like Chuck and Becky and the baby dykes in season 10. And most importantly we’ll talk about the audience’s role, our role, in the reciprocal relationship of storytelling. After all, a tv show is nothing without the viewer.

I was in fact introduced to the concept of metanarrativity by Supernatural, so the fact that I’m revisiting it six years after I finished my degree to talk about the show is one of life’s little jokes.

 I’m brushing off my degree and bringing out the big guns (aka literary theorists) to examine this concept. This will be yet another piece of analysis that would’ve gone well in my English Lit degree, but I’ll try not to make it dry as dog shit. 

First off, I’m going to argue that the relationship between the creators of Supernatural and the fans has always been a dialogue, albeit with a power imbalance. Throughout the series, even before explicitly metanarrative episodes like season 10 “Fan Fiction” and season 4 “the monster at the end of this book,” the creators have always engaged in conversations with the fans through the show. This includes but is not limited to fan conventions, where the creators have actual, live conversations with the fans. Misha Collins admitted at a con that he’d read fanfiction of Cas while he was filming season 4, but it’s pretty clear even from the first season that the creators, at the very least Eric Kripke, were engaging with fans. The show aired around the same time as Twitter and Tumblr were created, both of which opened up new passageways for fans to interact with each other, and for Twitter and Facebook especially, new passageways for fans to interact with creators and celebrities.

But being the creators, they have ultimate control over what is written, filmed and aired, while we can only speculate and make our own transformative interpretations. But at least since s4, they have engaged in meta narrative construction that at once speaks to fans as well as expands the universe in fun and creative ways. My favourite episodes are the ones where we see the Winchesters through the lens of other characters, such as the season 3 episode “Jus In Bello,” in which Sam and Dean are arrested by Victor Henriksen, and the season 7 episode “Slash Fiction” in which Dean and Sam’s dopplegangers rob banks and kill a bunch of people, loathe as I am to admit that season 7 had an effect on any part of me except my upchuck reflex. My second favourite episodes are the meta episodes, and for this episode of Holy Hell, we’ll be discussing a few: The French Mistake, he Monster at the end of this book, the real ghostbusters, Fan Fiction, Metafiction, and Don’t Call Me Shurley. I’ll also discuss Becky more broadly, because, like, of course I’ll be discussing Becky, she died for our sins. 

Let’s take it back. The Monster At The End Of This Book — written by Julie Siege and Nancy Weiner and directed by Mike Rohl. Inarguably one of the better episodes in the first five seasons. Not only is Cas in it, looking so beautiful, but Sam gets something to do, thank god, and it introduces the character of Chuck, who becomes a source of comic relief over the next two seasons. The episode starts with Chuck Shurley, pen named Carver Edlund after my besties, having a vision while passed out drunk. He dreams of Sam and Dean larping as Feds and finding a series of books based on their lives that Chuck has written. They eventually track Chuck down, interrogate him, and realise that he’s a prophet of the lord, tasked with writing the Winchester Gospels. The B plot is Sam plotting to kill Lilith while Dean fails to get them out of the town to escape her. The C plot is Dean and Cas having a moment that strengthens their friendship and leads further into Cas’s eventual disobedience for Dean. Like the movie Disobedience. Exactly like the movie Disobedience. Cas definitely spits in Dean’s mouth, it’s kinda gross to be honest. Maybe I’m just not allo enough to appreciate art. 

When Eric Kripke was showrunner of the first five seasons of Supernatural,  he conceptualised the character of Chuck. Kripke as the author-god introduced the character of the author-prophet who would later become in Jeremy Carver’s showrun seasons the biblical God. Judith May Fathallah writes in “I’m A God: The Author and the Writing Fan in Supernatural” that Kripke writes himself both into and out of the text, ending his era with Chuck winking at the camera, saying, “nothing really ends,” and disappearing. Kripke stayed on as producer, continuing to write episodes through Sera Gamble’s era, and was even inserted in text in the season 6 episode “The French Mistake”. So nothing really does end, not Kripke’s grip on the show he created, not even the show itself, which fans have jokingly referred to as continuing into its 16th season. Except we’re not joking. It will die when all of us are dead, when there is no one left to remember it. According to W R Fisher, humans are homo narrans, natural storytellers. The Supernatural fandom is telling a fidelitous narrative, one which matches our own beliefs, values and experiences instead of that of canon. Instead of, at Fathallah says, “the Greek tradition, that we should struggle to do the right thing simply because it is right, though we will suffer and be punished anyway,” the fans have created an ending for the characters that satisfies each and every one of our desires, because we each create our own endings. It’s better because we get to share them with each other, in the tradition of campfire stories, each telling our own version and building upon the others. If that’s not the epitome of mythmaking then I don’t know. It’s just great. Dean and Cas are married, Eileen and Sam are married, Jack is sometimes a baby who Claire and Kaia are forced to babysit, Jody and Donna are gonna get hitched soon. It’s season 17, time for many weddings, and Kevin Tran is alive. Kripke, you have no control over this anymore, you crusty hag. 

Chuck is introduced as someone with power, but not influence over the story, only how the story is told through the medium of the novels. It’s basically a very badly written, non authorised biography, and Charlie reading literally every book and referencing things she should have no knowledge of is so damn creepy and funny. At first Chuck is surprised by his characters coming to life, despite having written it already, and when shown the intimidating array of weapons in Baby’s trunk he gets real scared. Which is the appropriate response for a skinny 5-foot-8 white guy in a bathrobe who writes terrible fantasy novels for a living. 

As far as I can remember, this is the first explicitly metanarrative episode in the series, or at least the first one with in world consequences. It builds upon the lore of Christianity, angels, and God, while teasing what’s to come. Chuck and Sam have a conversation about how the rest of the season is going to play out, and Sam comes away with the impression that he’ll go down with the ship. They touch on Sam’s addiction to demon blood, which Chuck admits he didn’t write into the books, because in the world of supernatural, addiction should be demonised ha ha at every opportunity, except for Dean’s alcoholism which is cool and manly and should never be analysed as an unhealthy trauma coping mechanism. 

Chuck is mostly impotent in the story of Sam and Dean, but his very presence presents an element of good luck that turns quickly into a force of antagonism in the series four finale, “Lucifer Rising”, when the archangel Raphael who defeats Lilith in this episode also kills Cas in the finale. It’s Cas’s quick thinking and Dean’s quick doing that resolve the episode and save them from Lilith, once again proving that free will is the greatest force in the universe. Cas is already tearing up pages and burning scripts. The fandom does the same, acting as gods of their own making in taking canon and transforming it into fan art. The fans aren’t impotent like Chuck, but neither do we have sway over the story in the way that Cas and Dean do. Sam isn’t interested in changing the story in the same way—he wants to kill Lilith and save the world, but in doing so continues the story in the way it was always supposed to go, the way the angels and the demons and even God wanted him to. 

Neither of them are author-gods in the way that God is. We find out later that Chuck is in fact the real biblical god, and he engineers everything. The one thing he doesn’t engineer, however, is Castiel, and I’ll get to that in a minute.

The Real Ghostbusters

Season 5’s “The real ghostbusters,” written by Nancy Weiner and Erik Kripke, and directed by James L Conway, situates the Winchesters at a fan convention for the Supernatural books. While there, they are confronted by a slew of fans cosplaying as Sam, Dean, Bobby, the scarecrow, Azazel, and more. They happen to stumble upon a case, in the midst of the game where the fans pretend to be on a case, and with the help of two fans cosplaying as Sam and Dean, they put to rest a group of homicidal ghost children and save the day. Chuck as the special guest of the con has a hero moment that spurs Becky on to return his affections. And at the end, we learn that the Colt, which they’ve been hunting down to kill the devil, was given to a demon named Crowley. It’s a fun episode, but ultimately skippable. This episode isn’t so much metanarrative as it is metatextual—metatextual meaning more than one layer of text but not necessarily about the storytelling in those texts—but let’s take a look at it anyway.

The metanarrative element of a show about a series of books about the brothers the show is based on is dope and expands upon what we saw in “the monster at the end of this book”. But the episode tells a tale about about the show itself, and the fandom that surrounds it. 

Where “The Monster At The End Of This Book” and the season 5 premiere “Sympathy For The Devil” poked at the coiled snake of fans and the concept of fandom, “the real ghostbusters” drags them into the harsh light of an enclosure and antagonises them in front of an audience. The metanarrative element revolves around not only the books themselves, but the stories concocted within the episode: namely Barnes and Demian the cosplayers and the story of the ghosts. The Winchester brothers’s history that we’ve seen throughout the first five seasons of the show is bared in a tongue in cheek way: while we cried with them when Sam and Dean fought with John, now the story is thrown out in such a way as to mock both the story and the fans’ relationship to it. Let me tell you, there is a lot to be made fun of on this show, but the fans’ relationship to the story of Sam, Dean and everyone they encounter along the way isn’t part of it. I don’t mean to be like, wow you can’t make fun of us ever because we’re special little snowflakes and we take everything so seriously, because you are welcome to make fun of us, but when the creators do it, I can’t help but notice a hint of malice. And I think that’s understandable in a way. Like The relationship between creator and fan is both layered and symbiotic. While Kripke and co no doubt owe the show’s popularity to the fans, especially as the fandom has grown and evolved over time, we’re not exactly free of sin. And don’t get me wrong, no fandom is. But the bad apples always seem to outweigh the good ones, and bad experiences can stick with us long past their due.

However, portraying us as losers with no lives who get too obsessed with this show — well, you know, actually, maybe they’re right. I am a loser with no life and I am too obsessed with this show. So maybe they have a point. But they’re so harsh about it. From wincestie Becky who they paint as a desperate shrew to these cosplayers who threaten Dean’s very perception of himself, we’re not painted in a very good light. 

Dean says to Demian and Barnes, “It must be nice to get out of your mom’s basement.” He’s judging them for deriving pleasure from dressing up and pretending to be someone else for a night. He doesn’t seem to get the irony that he does that for a living. As the seasons wore on, the creators made sure to include episodes where Dean’s inner geek could run rampant, often in the form of dressing up like a cowboy, such as season six “Frontierland” and season 13 “Tombstone”. I had to take a break from writing this to laugh for five minutes because Dean is so funny. He’s a car gay but he only likes one car. He doesn’t follow sports. His echolalia causes him to blurt out lines from his favourite movies. He’s a posse magnet. And he loves cosplay. But he will continually degrade and insult anyone who expresses interest in role play, fandom, or interests in general. Maybe that’s why Sam is such a boring person, because Dean as his mother didn’t allow him to have any interests outside of hunting. And when Sam does express interests, Dean insults him too. What a dick. He’s my soulmate, but I am not going to stop listening to hair metal for him. That’s where I draw the line. 

 Where “the monster at the end of this book” is concerned with narrative and authorship, “the real ghostbusters” is concerned with fandom and fan reactions to the show. It’s not really the best example to talk about in an episode about metanarrativity, but I wanted to include it anyway. It veers from talk of narrative by focusing on the people in the periphery of the narrative—the fans and the author. In season 9 “Metafiction,” Metatron asks the question, who gives the story meaning? The text would have you believe it’s the characters. The angels think it’s God. The fandom think it’s us. The creators think it’s them. Perhaps we will never come to a consensus or even a satisfactory answer to this question. Perhaps that’s the point.

The ultimate takeaway from this episode is that ordinary people, the people Sam and Dean save, the people they save the world for, the people they die for again and again, are what give their story meaning. Chuck defeats a ghost and saves the people in the conference room from being murdered. Demian and Barnes, don’t ask me which is which, burn the bodies of the ghost children and lay their spirits to rest. The text says that ordinary, every day people can rise to the challenge of becoming extraordinary. It’s not a bad note to end on, by any means. And then we find out that Demian and Barnes are a couple, which of course Dean is surprised at, because he lacks object permanence. 

This is no doubt influenced by how a good portion of the transformative fandom are queer, and also a nod to the wincesties and RPF writers like Becky who continue to bottom feed off the wrong message of this show. But then, the creators encourage that sort of thing, so who are the real clowns here? Everyone. Everyone involved with this show in any way is a clown, except for the crew, who were able to feed their families for more than a decade. 

Okay side note… over the past year or so I’ve been in process of realising that even in fandom queers are in the minority. I know the statistic is that 10% of the world population is queer, but that doesn’t seem right to me? Maybe because 4/5 closest friends are queer and I hang around queers online, but I also think I lack object permanence when it comes to straight people. Like I just do not interact with straight people on a regular basis outside of my best friend and parents and school. So when I hear that someone in fandom is straight I’m like, what the fuck… can you keep that to yourself please? Like if I saw Misha Collins coming out as straight I would be like, I didn’t ask and you didn’t have to tell. Okay I’m mostly joking, but I do forget straight people exist. Mostly I don’t think about whether people are gay or trans or cis or straight unless they’ve explicitly said it and then yes it does colour my perception of them, because of course it would. If they’re part of the queer community, they’re my people. And if they’re straight and cis, then they could very well pose a threat to me and my wellbeing. But I never ask people because it’s not my business to ask. If they feel comfortable enough to tell me, that’s awesome.  I think Dean feels the same way. Towards the later seasons at least, he has a good reaction when it’s revealed that someone is queer, even if it is mostly played off as a joke. It’s just that he doesn’t have a frame of reference in his own life to having a gay relationship, either his or someone he’s close to. He says to Cesar and Jesse in season 11 “The Critters” that they fight like brothers, because that’s the only way he knows how to conceptualise it. He doesn’t have a way to categorise his and Cas’s relationship, which is in many ways, long before season 15 “Despair,” harking back even to the parallels between Ruby and Cas in season 3 and 4, a romantic one, aside from that Cas is like a brother to him. Because he’s never had anyone in his life care for him the way Cas does that wasn’t Sam and Bobby, and he doesn’t recognise the romantic element of their relationship until literally Cas says it to him in the third last episode, he just—doesn’t know what his and Cas’s relationship is. He just really doesn’t know. And he grew up with a father who despised him for taking the mom and wife role in their family, the role that John placed him in, for being subservient to John’s wishes where Sam was more rebellious, so of course he wouldn’t understand either his own desires or those of anyone around him who isn’t explicitly shoving their tits in his face. He moulded his entire personality around what he thought John wanted of him, and John says to him explicitly in season 14 “Lebanon”, “I thought you’d have a family,” meaning, like him, wife and two rugrats. And then, dear god, Dean says, thinking of Sam, Cas, Jack, Claire, and Mary, “I have a family.” God that hurts so much. But since for most of his life he hasn’t been himself, he’s been the man he thought his father wanted him to be, he’s never been able to examine his own desires, wants and goals. So even though he’s really good at reading people, he is not good at reading other people’s desires unless they have nefarious intentions. Because he doesn’t recognise what he feels is attraction to men, he doesn’t recognise that in anyone else. 

Okay that’s completely off topic, wow. Getting back to metanarrativity in “The Real Ghostbusters,” I’ll just cap it off by saying that the books in this episode are more a frame for the events than the events themselves. However, there are some good outtakes where Chuck answers some questions, and I’m not sure how much of that is scripted and how much is Rob Benedict just going for it, but it lends another element to the idea of Kripke as author-god. The idea of a fan convention is really cool, because at this point Supernatural conventions had been running for about 4 years, since 2006. It’s definitely a tribute to the fans, but also to their own self importance. So it’s a mixed bag, considering there were plenty of elements in there that show the good side of fandom and fans, but ultimately the Winchesters want nothing to do with it, consider it weird, and threaten Chuck when he says he’ll start releasing books again, which as far as they know is his only source of income. But it’s a fun episode and Dean is a grouchy bitch, so who the holy hell cares?

Season 10 episode “fanfiction” written by my close personal friend Robbie Thompson and directed by Phil Sgriccia is one of the funniest episodes this show has ever done. Not only is it full of metatextual and metanarrative jokes, the entire premise revolves around fanservice, but in like a fun and interesting way, not fanservice like killing the band Kansas so that Dean can listen to “Carry On My Wayward Son” in heaven twice. Twice. One version after another. Like I would watch this musical seven times in theatre, I would buy the soundtrack, I would listen to it on repeat and make all my friends listen to it when they attend my online Jitsi birthday party. This musical is my Hamilton. Top ten episodes of this show for sure. The only way it could be better is if Cas was there. And he deserved to be there. He deserved to watch little dyke Castiel make out with her girlfriend with her cute little wings, after which he and Dean share uncomfortable eye contact. Dean himself is forever coming to terms with the fact that gay people exist, but Cas should get every opportunity he can to hear that it’s super cool and great and awesome to be queer. But really he should be in every episode, all of them, all 300 plus episodes including the ones before angels were introduced. I’m going to commission the guy who edits Paddington into every movie to superimpose Cas standing on the highway into every episode at least once.

“Fan Fiction” starts with a tv script and the words “Supernatural pilot created by Eric Kripke”. This Immediately sets up the idea that it’s toying with narrative. Blah blah blah, some people go missing, they stumble into a scene from their worst nightmares: the school is putting on a musical production of a show inspired by the Supernatural books. It’s a comedy of errors. When people continue to go missing, Sam and Dean have to convince the girls that something supernatural is happening, while retaining their dignity and respect. They reveal that they are the real Sam and Dean, and Dean gives the director Marie a summary of their lives over the last five seasons, but they aren’t taken seriously. Because, like, of course they aren’t. Even when the girls realise that something supernatural is happening, they don’t actually believe that the musical they’ve made and the series of books they’re basing it on are real. Despite how Sam and Dean Winchester were literal fugitives for many years at many different times, and this was on the news, and they were wanted by the FBI, despite how they pretend to be FBI, and no one mentions it??? Did any of the staffwriters do the required reading or just do what I used to do for my 40 plus page readings of Baudrillard and just skim the first sentence of every paragraph? Neat hack for you: paragraphs are set up in a logical order of Topic, Example, Elaboration, Linking sentence. Do you have to read 60 pages of some crusty French dude waxing poetic about how his best friend Pierre wants to shag his wife and making that your problem? Read the first and last sentence of every paragraph. Boom, done. Just cut your work in half. 

The musical highlights a lot of the important moments of the show so far. The brothers have, as Charlie Bradbury says, their “broment,” and as Marie says, their “boy melodrama scene,” while she insinuates that there is a sexual element to their relationship. This show never passed up an opportunity to mention incest. It’s like: mentioning incest 5000 km, not being disgusting 1 km, what a hard decision. Actually, they do have to walk on their knees for 100 miles through the desert repenting. But there are other moments—such as Mary burning on the ceiling, a classic, Castiel waiting for Dean at the side of the highway, and Azazel poisoning Sam. With the help of the high schoolers, Sam and Dean overcome Calliope, the muse and bad guy of the episode, and save the day. What began as their lives reinterpreted and told back to them turns into a story they have some agency over.

In this episode, as opposed to “The Monster At The End Of This Book,” The storytelling has transferred from an alcoholic in a bathrobe into the hands of an overbearing and overachieving teenage girl, and honestly why not. Transformative fiction is by and large run by women, and queer women, so Marie and her stage manager slash Jody Mills’s understudy Maeve are just following in the footsteps of legends. This kind of really succinctly summarises the difference between curative fandom and transformative fandom, the former of which is populated mostly by men, and the latter mostly by women. As defined by LordByronic in 2015, Curative fandom is more like enjoying the text, collecting the merchandise, organising the knowledge — basically Reddit in terms of fandom curation. Transformative fandom is transforming the source text in some way — making fanart, fanfic, mvs, or a musical — basically Tumblr in general, and Archive of our own specifically. Like what do non fandom people even do on Tumblr? It is a complete mystery to me. Whereas Chuck literally writes himself into the narrative he receives through visions, Marie and co have agency and control over the narrative by writing it themselves. 

Chuck does appear in the episode towards the end, his first appearance after five seasons. The theory that he killed those lesbian theatre girls makes me wanna curl up and die, so I don’t subscribe to it. Chuck watched the musical and he liked it and he gave unwarranted notes and then he left, the end.

The Supernatural creative team is explicitly acknowledging the fandom’s efforts by making this episode. They’re writing us in again, with more obsessive fans, but with lethbians this time, which makes it infinitely better. And instead of showing us as potential date rapists, we’re just cool chicks who like to make art. And that’s fucken awesome. 

I just have to note that the characters literally say the word Destiel after Dean sees the actors playing Dean and Cas making out. He storms off and tells Sam to shut the fuck up when Sam makes fun of him, because Dean’s sexuality is NOT threatened he just needs to assert his dominance as a straight hetero man who has NEVER looked at another man’s lips and licked his own. He just… forgets that gay people exist until someone reminds him. BUT THEN, after a rousing speech that is stolen from Rent or Wicked or something, he echoes Marie’s words back, saying “put as much sub into that text as you possibly can.” What does Dean know about subbing, I wonder. Okay I’m suddenly reminded that he did literally go to a kink bar and get hit on by a leather daddy. Oh Dean, the experiences you have as a broad-shouldered, pixie-faced man with cowboy legs. You were born for this role.

Metatron is my favourite villain. As one tumblr user pointed out, he is an evil English literature major, which is just a normal English literature major. The season nine episode “Meta Fiction” written by my main man robbie thompson and directed by thomas j wright, happens within a curious season. Castiel, once again, becomes the leader of a portion of the heavenly host to take down Metatron, and Dean is affected by the Mark Of Cain. Sam was recently possessed by Gadreel, who killed Kevin in Sam’s body and then decided to run off with Metatron. Metatron himself is recruiting angels to join him, in the hopes that he can become the new God. It’s the first introduction of Hannah, who encourages Cas to recruit angels himself to take on Metatron. Also, we get to see Gabriel again, who is always a delight. 

This episode is a lot of fun. Metatron poses questions like, who tells a story and who is the most important person in the telling? Is it the writer? The audience? He starts off staring over his typewriter to address the camera, like a pompous dickhead. No longer content with consuming stories, he’s started to write his own. And they are hubristic ones about becoming God, a better god than Chuck ever was, but to do it he needs to kill a bunch of people and blame it on Cas. So really, he’s actually exactly like Chuck who blamed everything on Lucifer. 

But I think the most apt analogy we can use for this in terms of who is the creator is to think of Metatron as a fanfiction writer. He consumes the media—the Winchester Gospels—and starts to write his own version of events—leading an army to become God and kill Cas. Nevermind that no one has been able to kill Cas in a way that matters or a way that sticks. Which is canon, and what Metatron is trying to do is—well not fanon because it actually does impact the Winchesters’ storyline. It would be like if one of the writers of Supernatural began writing Supernatural fanfiction before they got a job on the show. Which as my generation and the generations coming after me get more comfortable with fanfiction and fandom, is going to be the case for a lot of shows. I think it’s already the case for Riverdale. Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t the woman who wrote the bi Dean essay go to work on Riverdale? Or something? I dunno, I have the post saved in my tumblr likes but that is quagmire of epic proportions that I will easily get lost in if I try to find it. 

Okay let me flex my literary degree. As Englund and Leach say in “Ethnography and the metanarratives of modernity,” “The influential “literary turn,” in which the problems of ethnography were seen as largely textual and their solutions as lying in experimental writing seems to have lost its impetus.” This can be taken to mean, in the context of Supernatural, that while Metatron’s writings seek to forge a new path in history, forgoing fate for a new kind of divine intervention, the problem with Metatron is that he’s too caught up in the textual, too caught up in the writing, to be effectual. And this as we see throughout seasons 9, 10 and 11, has no lasting effect. Cas gets his grace back, Dean survives, and Metatron becomes a powerless human. In this case, the impetus is his grace, which he loses when Cas cuts it out of him, a mirror to Metatron cutting out Cas’s grace. 

However, I realise that the concept of ethnography in Supernatural is a flawed one, ethnography being the observation of another culture: a lot of the angels observe humanity and seem to fit in. However, Cas has to slowly acclimatise to the Winchesters as they tame him, but he never quite fit in—missing cues, not understanding jokes or Dean’s personal space, the scene where he says, “We have a guinea pig? Where?” Show him the guinea pig Sam!!! He wants to see it!!! At most he passes as a human with autism. Cas doesn’t really observe humanity—he observes nature, as seen in season 7 “reading is fundamental” and “survival of the fittest”. Even the human acts he talks about in season 6 “the man who would be king” are from hundreds or thousands of years ago. He certainly doesn’t observe popular culture, which puts him at odds with Dean, who is made up of 90 per cent pop culture references and 10 per cent flannel. Metatron doesn’t seek to blend in with humanity so much as control it, which actually is the most apt example of ethnography for white people in the last—you know, forever. But of course the writers didn’t seek to make this analogy. It is purely by chance, and maybe I’m the only person insane enough to realise it. But probably not. There are a lot of cookies much smarter than me in the Supernatural fandom and they’ve like me have grown up and gone to university and gotten real jobs in the real world and real haircuts. I’m probably the only person to apply Englund and Leach to it though.

And yes, as I read this paper I did need to have one tab open on Google, with the word “define” in the search bar. 

Metatron has a few lines in this that I really like. He says: 

“The universe is made up of stories, not atoms.”

“You’re going to have to follow my script.”

“I’m an entity of my word.”

It’s really obvious, but they’re pushing the idea that Metatron has become an agent of authorship instead of just a consumer of media. He even throws a Supernatural book into his fire — a symbolic act of burning the script and flipping the writer off, much like Cas did to God and the angels in season 5. He’s not a Kripke figure so much as maybe a Gamble, Carver or Dabb figure, in that he usurps Chuck and becomes the author-god. This would be extremely postmodern of him if he didn’t just do exactly what Chuck was doing, except worse somehow. In fact, it’s postmodern of Cas to reject heaven’s narrative and fall for Dean. As one tumblr user points out, Cas really said “What’s fate compared to Dean Winchester?”

Okay this transcript is almost 8000 words already, and I still have two more episodes to review, and more things to say, so I’ll leave you with this. Metatron says to Cas, “Out of all of God’s wind up toys, you’re the only one with any spunk.” Why Cas has captured his attention comes down more than anything to a process of elimination. Most angels fucking suck. They follow the rules of whoever puts themselves in charge, and they either love Cas or hate him, or just plainly wanna fuck him, and there have been few angels who stood out. Balthazar was awesome, even though I hated him the first time I watched season 6. He UNSUNK the Titanic. Legend status. And Gabriel was of course the OG who loves to fuck shit up. But they’re gone at this stage in the narrative, and Cas survives. Cas always survives. He does have spunk. And everyone wants to fuck him.  

Season 11 episode 20 “Don’t Call Me Shurley,” the last episode written by the Christ like figure of Robbie Thompson — are we sensing a theme here? — and directed by my divine enemy Robert Singer, starts with Metatron dumpster diving for food. I’m not even going to bother commenting on this because like… it’s supernatural and it treats complex issues like homelessness and poverty with zero nuance. Like the Winchesters live in poverty but it’s fun and cool because they always scrape by but Metatron lives in poverty and it’s funny. Cas was homeless and it was hard but he needed to do it to atone for his sins, and Metatron is homeless and it’s funny because he brought it on himself by being a murderous dick. Fucking hell. Robbie, come on. The plot focuses on God, also known as Chuck Shurley, making himself known to Metatron and asking for Metatron’s opinion on his memoir. Meanwhile, the Winchesters battle another bout of infectious serial killer fog sent by Amara. At the end of the episode, Chuck heals everyone affected by the fog and reveals himself to Sam and Dean. 

Chuck says that he didn’t foresee Metatron trying to become god, but the idea of Season 15 is that Chuck has been writing the Winchesters’ story all their lives. When Metatron tries, he fails miserably, is locked up in prison, tortured by Dean, then rendered useless as a human and thrown into the world without a safety net. His authorship is reduced to nothing, and he is reduced to dumpster diving for food. He does actually attempt to live his life as someone who records tragedies as they happen and sells the footage to news stations, which is honestly hilarious and amazing and completely unsurprising because Metatron is, at the heart of it, an English Literature major. In true bastard style, he insults Chuck’s work and complains about the bar, but slips into his old role of editor when Chuck asks him to. 

The theory I’m consulting for this uses the term metanarrative in a different way than I am. They consider it an overarching narrative, a grand narrative like religion. Chuck’s biography is in a sense most loyal to Middleton and Walsh’s view of metanarrative: “the universal story of the world from arche to telos, a grand narrative encompassing world history from beginning to end.” Except instead of world history, it’s God’s history, and since God is construed in Supernatural as just some guy with some powers who is as fallible as the next some guy with some powers, his story has biases and agendas.  Okay so in the analysis I’m getting Middleton and Walsh’s quotes from, James K A Smith’s “A little story about metanarratives,” Smith dunks on them pretty bad, but for Supernatural purposes their words ring true. Think of them as the BuckLeming of Lyotard’s postmodern metanarrative analysis: a stopped clock right twice a day. Is anyone except me understanding the sequence of words I’m saying right now. Do I just have the most specific case of brain worms ever found in human history. I’m currently wearing my oversized Keith Haring shirt and dipping pretzels into peanut butter because it’s 3.18 in the morning and the homosexuals got to me. The total claims a comprehensive metanarrative of world history make do indeed, as Middleton and Walsh claim, lead to violence, stay with me here, because Chuck’s legacy is violence, and so is Metatron’s, and in trying to reject the metanarrative, Sam and Dean enact violence. Mostly Dean, because in season 15 he sacrifices his own son twice to defeat Chuck. But that means literally fighting violence with violence. Violence is, after all, all they know. Violence is the lens through which they interact with the world. If the writers wanted to do literally anything else, they could have continued Dean’s natural character progression into someone who eschews the violence that stems from intergeneration trauma — yes I will continue to use the phrase intergenerational trauma whenever I refer to Dean — and becomes a loving father and husband. Sam could eschew violence and start a monster rehabilitation centre with Eileen.

This episode of Holy Hell is me frantically grabbing at straws to make sense of a narrative that actively hates me and wants to kick me to death. But the violence Sam and Dean enact is not at a metanarrative level, because they are not author-gods of their own narrative. In season 15 “Atomic Monsters,” Becky points out that the ending of the Supernatural book series is bad because the brothers die, and then, in a shocking twist of fate, Dean does die, and the narrative is bad. The writers set themselves a goal post to kick through and instead just slammed their heat into the bars. They set up the dartboard and were like, let’s aim the darts at ourselves. Wouldn’t that be fun. Season 15’s writing is so grossly incompetent that I believe every single conspiracy theory that’s come out of the finale since November, because it’s so much more compelling than whatever the fuck happened on the road so far. Carry on? Why yes, I think I will carry on, carry on like a pork chop, screaming at the bars of my enclosure until I crack my voice open like an egg and spill out all my rage and frustration. The world will never know peace again. It’s now 3.29 and I’ve written over 9000 words of this transcript. And I’m not done.

Middleton and Walsh claim that metanarratives are merely social constructions masquerading as universal truths. Which is, exactly, Supernatural. The creators have constructed this elaborate web of narrative that they want to sell us as the be all and end all. They won’t let the actors discuss how they really feel about the finale. They won’t let Misha Collins talk about Destiel. They want us to believe it was good, actually, that Dean, a recovering alcoholic with a 30 year old infant son and a husband who loves him, deserved to die by getting NAILED, while Sam, who spent the last four seasons, the entirety of Andrew Dabb’s run as showrunner, excelling at creating a hunter network and romancing both the queen of hell and his deaf hunter girlfriend, should have lived a normie life with a normie faceless wife. Am I done? Not even close. I started this episode and I’m going to finish it.

When we find out that Chuck is God in the episode of season 11, it turns everything we knew about Chuck on its head. We find out in Season 15 that Chuck has been writing the Winchesters’ story all along, that everything that happened to them is his doing. The one thing he couldn’t control was Cas’s choice to rebel. If we take him at his word, Cas is the only true force of free will in the entire universe, and more specifically, the love that Cas had for Dean which caused him to rebel and fall from heaven. — This theory has holes of course. Why would Lucifer torture Lilith into becoming the first demon if he didn’t have free will? Did Chuck make him do that? And why? So that Chuck could be the hero and Lucifer the bad guy, like Lucifer claimed all along? That’s to say nothing of Adam and Eve, both characters the show introduced in different ways, one as an antagonist and the other as the narrative foil to Dean and Cas’s romance. Thinking about it makes my head hurt, so I’m just not gunna. 

So Chuck was doing the writing all along. And as Becky claims in “Atomic Monsters,” it’s bad writing. The writers explicitly said, the ending Chuck wrote is bad because there’s no Cas and everyone dies, and then they wrote an ending where there is no Cas and everyone dies. So talk about self-fulfilling prophecies. Talk about giant craters in the earth you could see from 800 kilometres away but you still fell into. Meanwhile fan writers have the opportunity to write a million different endings, all of which satisfy at least one person. The fandom is a hydra, prolific and unstoppable, and we’ll keep rewriting the ending a million more times.

And all this is not even talking about the fact that Chuck is a man, Metatron is a man, Sam and Dean and Cas are men, and the writers and directors of the show are, by an overwhelming majority, men. Most of them are white, straight, cis men. Feminist scholarship has done a lot to unpack the damage done by paternalistic approaches to theory, sociology, ethnography, all the -ys, but I propose we go a step further with these men. Kill them. Metanarratively, of course. Amara, the Darkness, God’s sister, had a chance to write her own story without Chuck, after killing everything in the universe, and I think she had the right idea. Knock it all down to build it from the ground up. Billie also had the opportunity to write a narrative, but her folly was, of course, putting any kind of faith in the Winchesters who are also grossly incompetent and often fail up. She is, as all author-gods on this show are, undone by Castiel. The only one with any spunk, the only one who exists outside of his own narrative confines, the only one the author-gods don’t have any control over. The one who died for love, and in dying, gave life. 

The French Mistake

Let’s change the channel. Let’s calm ourselves and cleanse our libras. Let’s commune with nature and chug some sage bongs. 

“The French Mistake” is a song from the Mel Brooks film Blazing Saddles. In the iconic second last scene of the film, as the cowboys fight amongst themselves, the camera pans back to reveal a studio lot and a door through which a chorus of gay dancersingers perform “the French Mistake”. The lyrics go, “Throw out your hands, stick out your tush, hands on your hips, give ‘em a push. You’ll be surprised you’re doing the French Mistake.” 

I’m not sure what went through the heads of the Supernatural creators when they came up with the season 6 episode, “The French Mistake,” written by the love of my life Ben Edlund and directed by some guy Charles Beeson. Just reading the Wikipedia summary is so batshit incomprehensible. In short: Balthazar sends Sam and Dean to an alternate universe where they are the actors Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles, who play Sam and Dean on the tv show Supernatural. I don’t think this had ever been done in television history before. The first seven seasons of this show are certifiable. Like this was ten years ago. Think about the things that have happened in the last 10 slutty, slutty years. We have lived through atrocities and upheaval and the entire world stopping to mourn, but also we had twitter throughout that entire time, which makes it infinitely worse.

In this universe, Sam and Dean wear makeup, Cas is played by attractive crying man Misha Collins, and Genevieve Padalecki nee Cortese makes an appearance. Magic doesn’t exist, Serge has good ideas, and the two leads have to act in order to get through the day. Sorry man I do not know how to pronounce your name.

Sidenote: I don’t know if me being attracted aesthetically to Misha Collins is because he’s attractive, because this show has gaslighted me into thinking he’s attractive, or because Castiel’s iconic entrance in 2008 hit my developing mind like a torpedo full of spaghetti and blew my fucking brains all over the place. It’s one of life’s little mysteries and God’s little gifts.

Let’s talk about therapy. More specifically, “Agency and purpose in narrative therapy: questioning the postmodern rejection of metanarrative” by Cameron Lee. In this paper, Lee outlines four key ideas as proposed by Freedman and Combs:

Realities are socially constructed

Realities are constituted through language

Realities are organised and maintained through narrative

And there are no essential truths.

Let’s break this down in the case of this episode. Realities are socially constructed: the reality of Sam and Dean arose from the Bush era. Do I even need to elaborate? From what I understand with my limited Australian perception, and being a child at the time, 9/11 really was a prominent shifting point in the last twenty years. As Americans describe it, sometimes jokingly, it was the last time they were really truly innocent. That means to me that until they saw the repercussions of their government’s actions in funding turf wars throughout the middle east for a good chunk of the 20th Century, they allowed themselves to be hindered by their own ignorance. The threat of terrorism ran rampant throughout the States, spurred on by right wing nationalists and gun-toting NRA supporters, so it’s really no surprise that the show Supernatural started with the premise of killing everything in sight and driving around with only your closest kin and a trunk full of guns. Kripke constructed that reality from the social-political climate of the time, and it has wrought untold horrors on the minds of lesbians who lived through the noughties, in that we are now attracted to Misha Collins.

Number two: Realities are constituted through language. Before a show can become a show, it needs to be a script. It’s written down, typed up, and given to actors who say the lines out loud. In this respect, they are using the language of speech and words to convey meaning. But tv shows are not all about words, and they’re barely about scripts. From what I understand of being raised by television, they are about action, visuals, imagery, and behaviours. All of the work that goes into them—the scripts, the lighting, the audio, the sound mixing, the cameras, the extras, the ADs, the gaffing, the props, the stunts, everything—is about conveying a story through the medium of images. In that way, images are the language. The reality of the show Supernatural, inside the show Supernatural, is constituted through words: the script, the journalists talking to Sam, the makeup artist taking off Dean’s makeup, the conversations between the creators, the tweets Misha sends. But also through imagery: the fish tank in Jensen’s trailer, the model poses on the front cover of the magazine, the opulence of Jared’s house, Misha’s iconic sweater. Words and images are the language that constitutes both of these realities. Okay for real, I feel like I’ve only seen this episode max three times, including when I watched it for research for this episode, but I remember so much about it. 

Number three: realities are organised and maintained through narrative. In this universe of the French Mistake, their lives are structured around two narratives: the internal narrative of the show within the show, in which they are two actors on a tv set; and the episode narrative in which they need to keep the key safe and return to their own universe. This is made difficult by the revelation that magic doesn’t work in this universe, however, they find a way. Before they can get back, though, an avenging angel by the name of Virgil guns down author-god Eric Kripke and tries to kill the Winchesters. However, they are saved by Balthazar and the freeze frame and brought back into their own world, the world of Supernatural the show, not Supernatural the show within the show within the nesting doll. And then that reality is done with, never to be revisited or even mentioned, but with an impact that has lasted longer than the second Bush administration.

And number four: there are no essential truths. This one is a bit tricky because I can’t find what Lee means by essential truths, so I’m just going to interpret that. To me, essential truths means what lies beneath the narratives we tell ourselves. Supernatural was a show that ran for 15 years. Supernatural had actors. Supernatural was showrun by four different writers. In the show within a show, there is nothing, because that ceases to exist for longer than the forty two minute episode “The French Mistake”. And since Supernatural no longer exists except in our computers, it is nothing too. It is only the narratives we tell ourselves to sleep better at night, to wake up in the morning with a smile, to get through the day, to connect with other people, to understand ourselves better. It’s not even the narrative that the showrunners told, because they have no agency over it as soon as it shows up on our screens. The essential truth of the show is lost in the translation from creating to consuming. Who gives the story meaning? The people watching it and the people creating it. We all do. 

Lee says that humans are predisposed to construct narratives in order to make sense of the world. We see this in cultures from all over the world: from cave paintings to vases, from The Dreaming to Beowulf, humans have always constructed stories. The way you think about yourself is a story that you’ve constructed. The way you interact with your loved ones and the furries you rightfully cyberbully on Twitter is influenced by the narratives you tell yourself about them. And these narratives are intricate, expansive, personalised, and can colour our perceptions completely, so that we turn into a different person when we interact with one person as opposed to another. 

Whatever happened in season 6, most of which I want to forget, doesn’t interest me in the way I’m telling myself the writers intended. For me, the entirety of season 6 was based around the premise of Cas being in love with Dean, and the complete impotence of this love. He turns up when Dean calls, he agonises as he watches Dean rake leaves and live his apple pie life with Lisa, and Dean is the person he feels most horribly about betraying. He says, verbatim, to Sam, “Dean and I do share a more profound bond.” And Balthazar says, “You’re confusing me with the other angel, the one in the dirty trenchcoat who’s in love with you.” He says this in season 6, and we couldn’t do a fucken thing about it. 

The song “The French Mistake” shines a light on the hidden scene of gay men performing a gay narrative, in the midst of a scene about the manliest profession you can have: professional horse wrangler, poncho wearer, and rodeo meister, the cowboy. If this isn’t a perfect encapsulation of the lovestory between Dean and Cas, which Ben Edlund has been championing from day fucking one of Misha Collins walking onto that set with his sex hair and chapped lips, then I don’t know what the fuck we’re even doing here. What in the hell else could it possibly mean. The layers to this. The intricacy. The agendas. The subtextual AND blatant queerness. The micro aggressions Crowley aimed at Car in “The Man Who Would Be King,” another Bedlund special. Bed Edlund is a fucking genius. Bed Edlund is cool girl. Ben Edlund is the missing link. Bed Edlund IS wikileaks. Ben Edlund is a cool breeze on a humid summer day. Ben Edlund is the stop loading button on a browser tab. Ben Edlund is the perfect cross between Spotify and Apple Music, in which you can search for good playlists, but without having to be on Spotify. He can take my keys and fuck my wife. You best believe I’m doing an entire episode of Holy Hell on Bedlund’s top five. He is the reason I want to get into staffwriting on a tv show. I saw season 4 episode “On the head of a pin” when my brain was still torpedoed spaghetti mush from the premiere, and it nestled its way deep into my exposed bones, so that when I finally recovered from that, I was a changed person. My god, this transcript is 11,000 words, and I haven’t even finished the Becky section. Which is a good transition.

Oh, Becky. She is an incarnation of how the writers, or at least Kripke, view the fans. Watching season 5 “Sympathy for the Devil” live in 2009 was a whole fucking trip that I as a baby gay was not prepared for. Figuring out my sexuality was a journey that started with the Supernatural fandom and is in some aspects still raging against the dying of the light today. Add to that, this conception of the audience was this, like, personification of the librarian cellist from Juno, but also completely without boundaries, common sense, or shame. It made me wonder about my position in the narrative as a consumer consuming. Is that how Kripke saw me, specifically? Was I like Becky? Did my forays into DeanCasNatural on El Jay dot com make me a fucking loser whose only claim to fame is writing some nasty fanfiction that I’ve since deleted all traces of? Don’t get me wrong, me and my unhinged Casgirl friends loved Becky. I can’t remember if I ever wrote any fanfiction with her in it because I was mostly writing smut, which is extremely Becky coded of me, but I read some and my friends and I would always chat about her when she came up. She was great entertainment value before season 7. But in the eyes of the powers that be, Becky, like the fans themselves, are expendable. First they turned her into a desperate bride wannabe who drugs Sam so that he’ll be with her, then Chuck waves his hand and she disappears. We’re seeing now with regards to Destiel, Cas, and Misha Collins this erasure of them from the narrative. Becky says in season 15 “Atomic Monsters” that the ending Chuck writes is bad because, for one, there’s no Cas, and that’s exactly what’s happening to the text post-finale. It literally makes me insane akin to the throes of mania to think about the layers of this. They literally said, “No Cas = bad” and now Misha isn’t even allowed to talk in his Cassona voice—at least at the time I wrote that—to the detriment of the fans who care about him. It’s the same shit over and over. They introduce something we like, they realise they have no control over how much we like it, and then they pretend they never introduced it in the first place. Season 7, my god. The only reason Gamble brought back Cas was because the ratings were tanking the show. I didn’t even bother watching most of it live, and would just hear from my friends whether Cas was in the episodes or not. And then Sera, dear Sera, had the gall to say it was a Homer’s Odyssey narrative. I’m rusty on Homer aka I’ve never read it but apparently Odysseus goes away, ends up with a wife on an island somewhere, and then comes back to Terabithia like it never happened. How convenient. But since Sera Gamble loves to bury her gays, we can all guess why Cas was written out of the show: Cas being gay is a threat to the toxic heteronormativity spouted by both the show and the characters themselves. In season 15, after Becky gets her life together, has kids, gets married, and starts a business, she is outgrowing the narrative and Chuck kills her. The fans got Destiel Wedding trending on Twitter, and now the creators are acting like he doesn’t exist. New liver, same eagles.

I have to add an adendum: as of this morning, Sunday 11th, don’t ask me what time that is in Americaland, Misha Collins did an online con/Q&A thing and answered a bunch of questions about Cas and Dean, which goes to show that he cannot be silenced. So the narrative wants to be told. It’s continuing well into it’s 16th or 17th season. It’s going to keep happening and they have no recourse to stop it. So fuck you, Supernatural.

I did write the start of a speech about representation but, who the holy hell cares. I also read some disappointing Masters theses that I hope didn’t take them longer to research and write than this episode of a podcast I’m making for funsies took me, considering it’s the same number of pages. Then again I have the last four months and another 8 years of fandom fuelling my obsession, and when I don’t sleep I write, hence the 4,000 words I knocked out in the last 12 hours. 

Some final words. Lyotard defines postmodernism, the age we live in, as an incredulity towards metanarratives. Modernism was obsessed with order and meaning, but postmodernism seeks to disrupt that. Modernists lived within the frame of the narrative of their society, but postmodernists seek to destroy the frame and live within our own self-written contexts. Okay I love postmodernist theory so this has been a real treat for me. Yoghurt, Sam? Postmodernist theory? Could I BE more gay? 

Middleton and Walsh in their analysis of postmodernism claim that biblical faith is grounded in metanarrative, and explore how this intersects with an era that rejects metanarrative. This is one of the fundamental ideas Supernatural is getting at throughout definitely the last season, but other seasons as well. The narratives of Good vs Evil, Michael vs Lucifer, Dean vs Sam, were encoded into the overarching story of the show from season 1, and since then Sam and Dean have sought to break free of them. Sam broke free of John’s narrative, which was the hunting life, and revenge, and this moralistic machismo that they wrapped themselves up in. If they’re killing the evil, then they’re not the evil. That’s the story they told, and the impetus of the show that Sam was sucked back into. But this thread unravelled in later seasons when Dean became friends with Benny and the idea that all supernatural creatures are inherently evil unravelled as well. While they never completely broke free of John’s hold over them, welcoming Jack into their lives meant confronting a bias that had been ingrained in them since Dean was 4 years old and Sam 6 months. In the face of the question, “are all monsters monstrous?” the narrative loosens its control. Even by questioning it, it throws into doubt the overarching narrative of John’s plan, which is usurped at the end of season 2 when they kill Azazel by Dean’s demon deal and a new narrative unfolds. John as author-god is usurped by the actual God in season 4, who has his own narrative that controls the lives of Sam, Dean and Cas. 

Okay like for real, I do actually think the metanarrativity in Supernatural is something that should be studied by someone other than me, unless you wanna pay me for it and then shit yeah. It is extremely cool to introduce a biographical narrative about the fictional narrative it’s in. It’s cool that the characters are constantly calling this narrative into focus by fighting against it, struggling to break free from their textual confines to live a life outside of the external forces that control them. And the thing is? The really real, honest thing? They have. Sam, Dean and Cas have broken free of the narrative that Kripke, Carver, Gamble and Dabb wrote for them. The very fact that the textual confession of love that Cas has for Dean ushered in a resurgence of fans, fandom and activity that has kept the show trending for five months after it ended, is just phenomenal. People have pointed out that fans stopped caring about Game of Thrones as soon as it ended. Despite the hold they had over tv watchers everywhere, their cultural currency has been spent. The opposite is true for Supernatural. Despite how the finale of the show angered and confused people, it gains more momentum every day. More fanworks, more videos, more fics, more art, more ire, more merch is being generated by the fans still. The Supernatural subreddit, which was averaging a few posts a week by season 15, has been incensed by the finale. And yours truly happily traipsed back into the fandom snake pit after 8 years with a smile on my face and a skip in my step ready to pump that dopamine straight into my veins babeeeeeeyyyyy. It’s been WILD. I recently reconnected with one of my mutuals from 2010 and it’s like nothing’s changed. We’re both still unhinged and we both still simp for Supernatural. Even before season 15, I was obsessed with the podcast Ride Or Die, which I started listening to in late 2019, and Supernatural was always in the back of my mind. You just don’t get over your first fandom. Actually, Danny Phantom was my first fandom, and I remember being 12 talking on Danny Phantom forums to people much too old to be the target audience of the show. So I guess that hasn’t left me either. And the fondest memories I have of Supernatural is how the characters have usurped their creators to become mythic, long past the point they were supposed to die a quiet death. The myth weaving that the Supernatural fandom is doing right now is the legacy that will endure. 

References

I got all of these for free from Google Scholar! 

Judith May Fathallah, “I’m A God: The Author and the Writing Fan in Supernatural.” 

James K A Smith, “A Little Story About Metanarratives: Lyotard, Religion and Postmodernism Revisited.” 2001.

Cameron Lee, “Agency and Purpose in Narrative Therapy: Questioning the Postmodern Rejection of Metanarrative.” 2004.

Harri Englund and James Leach, “Ethnography and the Meta Narratives of Modernity.” 2000.

https://uproxx.com/filmdrunk/mel-brooks-explains-french-mistake-blazing-saddles-blu-ray/

#transcripts #supernatural #supernatural podcast #<60mins #this is first and foremost a podcast about cas and misha collins

[tfw-no-tennis]

mtmte liveblog issue 22

oooh man, its time to feel some EMOTIONS!

I'm BACK after a hiatus, which was due in part to me getting my 1st dose of the covid vaccine! woohoo!

anyways, starting here w/issue 22....we have a great cover w/thunderclash, the legend himself

oof. the covers made me forget how much I don't like the art this issue...I hate to be mean to the artists but this art style just isn't doin it for me chief

god I love this issue though. the framing device of rewind’s movie is so so fantastic

tailgate listing off all his fake awards/accomplishments....ily 

rodimus my boy, you're a prime in my heart

the ‘not a decepticon’ label for cyclonus is so much hvbhkjfbskjf

I literally wanna comment on every single panel bc I love all the characters so much but then id be here forever...that being said whirl ily sm 

hvbjdfbhsfjhdfshja BRAINSTORM ‘according to perceptor - ships genius’ hvhdkjhbfhjs ily dumb gay idiot

and then the cut to perceptor after brainstorm like, blew up his lab vjbkdsfnbksjf dude

GODDDDDD drift ‘your name...defines you. it’s your soul expressed in syllables. hm? oh, yes, sorry. it’s drift.’ GOD he’s so fucking funny. I love early story hippy drift

god I cant stop thinking about how good this whole issue would be as an animated show...like, specifically rewinds film, it would be SO FUCKING GOOOOOOD mtmte show WHEN

rewiiiiind ;_; I fuckgin love rewind god. fellow video editing enthusiast....

ohhhh rodimus being embarrassed about his big speech at the beginning of mtmte....my boy I love u so much

gjhnbgehjsrkfbjksf magnus being suspicious of rewind oh my god. magnus ily but please, look at the lil guy, he’s a good boy, most of the time

the fuckgin footage that magnus removed hbvhakjbfhskf god. wasn't that intended to be footage of magnus dancing? I love him

minibot squad.....

and here it begins, the mystery stick rung question...

poor rung oh my god he’s just trying to polish his lil spaceship and people r throwing shit at him. taking Ls as per usual it seems

hand grenade tag hvbfjksdnfbkjdf love that callback

noooo rungs ship :( 

magnus’s censorship vhbhadkjfhdbhjsakjhfn

oh man I forgot about how they met that race of Transformers But More 

the one-upsmanship hbvkajsbehfjks

whirrrrrl lmao I love whirl sm

goddddd whirl just killing that other alien and ending the 16 million yr long civil war bvkjsdbfhjjkafs so fucking much

oh god oh god the ‘are you happy’ page, I'm not emotionally equipped to handle this like, ever

but I will say I feel like it would be EVEN MORE oof if it were milne or someone drawing it bc I feel like this art style takes away from some of the impact bc the expressions aren't really that...expressive? idk how to put it

anyways. every single answer destroys me!!! like even the happy ones, like chromedome and rewind and tailgate - well, in present time, none of those three are doing so hot, so that makes this just hurt 

and rung....that is so fucking depressing. jesus. this guy is so fuckng sad, somebody get him a friend stat

and swerve...ouch. this readthru I've really noticed how much early-mtmte swerve is not-so-subtly like, crying out for help bc he’s so alone and shit. jesus 

also brainstorms response is just plain ole sad w/context, but at this point in the story without context, it just seems very foreboding lmao. I'm realizing this readthru that brainstorm is very sketchy and ominous in a particular ‘is he evil?’ mad scientist sorta way in early mtmte

and then everyone else is also just so OOF in their own unique sad ways, but I think the worst out of everyone is drift....GODDDDDD. especially considering that at this point in the story, drift is this kinda goofy hippy guy, so seeing him just sit there with his face in his hand, not even answering the question...AND knowing that shortly after this he’ll end up banished...IT FUCKING HURTS M8!

meanwhile, the more upbeat ‘quest to see rungs alt mode’ continues...with an ‘alt mode party’ vhbadkjsdfnabskjf it looks so silly with a bunch of cars just sitting around a table lmao

I cant even tell who everyone is bc they so rarely turn into cars n shit lmaoooooo 

rodimus with the bucket on his head hbvhakjbfskjf I CANT

everyone’s reactions to thunderclash...i fucking love it

the fact that TAILGATE doesn't hate him, even though we’ve seen that tailgate tends to dislike people who are universally liked/who have achieved a lot of impressive things

rodimus you petty thot vbdkjbfdjhsakjdf ily

RODIMUS IS SO FUNNYYYYYY ‘I'm not making all these sacrifices and leading these guys into battle and being inspirational - I'm not doing that because it makes me look good’ RODIMUS VBHSKJDFNBKSJF

thunderclash talking about magnus’s article on typefaces....hdbksjfsdbkjgfb bro

AND THEN MAGNUS HUGS HIM....HGBSKJFDSHFKD I CANT

POOR DRIFT bvhajkdfbhjkjsfd rodimus saying he ‘rehabilitated him’ oh my god

the whole spectralism thing...im sorry I cant get over how funny all this is vbakdjfbksjf thunderclash rlly b out here charming rodimus’s entire crew

and then ratchet comes in, calling tc ‘thunders,’ and tc immediately notices ratchets new hands (somehow) hvbkjfhbskjf truly amazing

it cracks me up that rodimus is all 😒😒 at thunderclash, even though as we come to find out, tc really IS That Perfect, and him complimenting rodimus isn't sarcasm at all lmao

AND THEYRE LOOKING FOR THE KNIGHTS OF CYBERTRON TOO HVSDHFJBSHKHDFJS OF COURSE

the vis vitalis being a life support machine spaceship is a really cool concept tho

‘rescuing some orphans from an exploding sun’ I fucking cant

evil guy: [holds a gun to thunderclash’s head] 

rodimus: :D finally something doesn't go his way!

he’s so petty I’m..........dkdjhfdabhduifadijgl

and its the aliens from earlier! oooh

GODDD I forgot that swerve used rung in mystery stick mode to SCHWACK the guy

rung casually dropping the fact that the functionists like, experimented on him...there's a lot of implications there, and that'll certainly be explored more later...

the fact that his ID card says ‘rong’ hvbhjakhdsbfakhsjfn 

oughufadkfujbsfk the circle of light throwing wrenches n shit at skids...guys cmon vbhsdjkfnslfd

the circle of light is like ‘wtf you all have trauma and a bunch of weird unhealthy coping mechanisms this is wack byeeeee’ lmao

skids calling the lost light his home is rlly sweet tho

cant believe the religious space hippy cult is being so rude about a film made by a guy who died like a week ago. unreal 

cd finally figured out how to make the pffft sound, good for him

AUGHHHHH the fact that rewind used ‘little victories’ as the title of the film and that's something that chromedome said in the video ;_; I'm fucking inconsolable 

rodimus, despite his obvious posturing for the camera during the whole issue, comes off as surprisingly genuine when he says that he hasn't thought about his own future much, but wants the crew to have a happy ending....im gonna cry

‘who knows what's around the corner?’ tailgate, PLEASE don't say that, oh my god, 

OUGHHHH GROUP SHOT 

OHHH mannnnNNNNN i love this issue SO MUCH. what a good fun emotional rollercoaster wrap-up to mtmte s1. god. 

like, this issue has it all - humor, drama, crippling sadness, intrigue, worldbuilding...it’s so excellent 

and getting to see rewind again hurts so bad but also I love him

ok quick mtmte s1 retrospective...god s1 is so fucking good. I'm gonna have to read more to say which chunk of mtmte I liked best but s1 is so fucking excellent that it might be my favorite. though its hard to pick bc there's so much good stuff later on too...whatever, the point is s1 is so so good

the plotlines and characters are fucking stellar. like I cant even believe how well Everything works, its very impressive. I cant really think of anything major that made me go ‘yeah could've done without that plotline/character’

I love how dedicated jro is to connecting everything. I've mentioned it before but basically every single moment in the series has payoff - what you initially think is just a funny moment, or a fluffy character establishment bit, ends up ALSO being an important plot point later, in some way

an example would be here w/rung and his alt mode - it just seems like a fun little B-plot for this issue, and seems to pretty neatly conclude with the reveal that rung was eventually classified as an ‘ornament’ (lmao)...but we later on get to see a lot more about this, both here and in the functionist universe 

and like, stuff like tailgate’s autobot lessons w/magnus - at first that can be seen as purely character establishment stuff, showing that magnus is a strict rule-lover and tg is a loveable try-hard good boy - but that becomes plot relevant in remain in light, with tailgate saving the day due to his knowledge of the autobot code (and its also character relevant, with magnus’s arc in remain in light). 

and I know this is like. a normal regular thing in writing, but I'm just very impressed about how cleanly jro pulls it off, and how many things he’s juggling at once, especially in early mtmte - it’s very ambitious!

and we gotta remember, this is a comic book. I've read a lot of comic books, and the quality is all over the place. a lot of writers bite off more than they can chew, and the story ends up kinda scattered as a result. 

another thing I see a lot in franchise writing like this is a lack of strong early character establishing due to the author assuming the readers are at least somewhat familiar with the characters already - which can be totally fair depending on where it is in the continuity, but other times it can come off as lazy

in mtmte, the cast is extremely well fleshed out, and not only that, the cast itself is unique in that there are a lot of relative unknowns (franchise-wise) - which I think was an absolutely brilliant move, because then jro was able to essentially create The Definitive Version of these characters - characters like swerve, brainstorm, chromedome, rewind, tailgate...mtmte is their baseline characterization, because they haven't really appeared in much else

this also allows for deviation from the franchise norms - again, a comic book classic is good writing being stifled by a need to stick to a certain status quo regard the characters, the world, the powers, relationships, etc

(I've mostly read DC comics, and some marvel, so I'm thinking superheroes w/all these comic comparisons)

so mtmte had a good recipe for genuine creativity in that the characters were relative unknowns, the plot was basically ‘space road trip,’ the status quo of ‘autobot vs decepticon war’ had been demolished throughout the entire franchise...so jro was able to take all that and run, and it turned out so fantastic

and luckily it isn't over yet! so many comics suffer from premature cancellation...and sadly mtmte/ll isn't exempt from this, as we’ll see later, but I've seen some awful ones, where comics are forced to wrap up in like 2 issues while in the middle of an arc. yikes. 

but another comic staple...one of my least favorite things about comics books in general...something that was basically responsible for driving me away from comics after reading a bunch...the dreaded crossover event

yep, even mtmte isn't immune to this unfortunate plague on the comic industry. crossover events are the absolute worst, and I'm saying this as somebody who adores crossovers (in concept more than execution usually). they SHOULD be my favorite, but unfortunately they p much always completely suck

they're essentially a ploy to get you to read the other ongoing titles, but they usually only serve to bog down whatever story you're reading to the point where you don't even wanna read that one anymore, let alone read all the other ongoings. at least, that’s been my experience 

it doesn't help that reading orders tend to be hard to find/keep track of, and that you need to go read the other series to know what's going on. I just hate it, like, I came here to read THIS series, I don't want a bunch of other series showing up too - even if I was reading two series, I wouldn't want them crossed over, because they're separate stories! augh!

I'm totally losing my focus here but my point is...crossover events suck, and mtmte unfortunately is involved in one. I have not read dark cybertron, and I'm not about to. I've heard nothing but bad things so I have no desire to inflict that upon myself 

soooo ill be reading through the tfwiki articles for those issues to give myself a better understanding of what went on - which is more than I've ever done in the past - and maybe ill even make a single post summarizing my thoughts on what I read in the wiki, lmao

but yea ill be skipping to the mtmte s2 stuff next 

phew ok I'm super tired, my vision keeps blurring out and stuff lmao. its time for bed, I probably have more thoughts but ill save them for later. for now...peace out!

#lj rereads mtmte

[sealers100]

PART 2: A (brief) review of every Donald Sutherland movie (so far)

Wowee welcome back. Yes I’m still on this shit and I intend to finish it because this is probably the most fun I’ve had in quarantine apart from working night shift at a waffle house. (I wish I was kidding) I will admit this one might not be as long as the last post but I promised to deliver so here we go for part two.

Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors

I had way too much fun with this movie! The story was unique and entertaining with a creepy twist without being so scary I can’t sleep at night. It’s got not only Donald, but also Sir Christopher Lee AND Peter Cushing! Like you can’t get any more badass than that. The acting is pretty great and the music goes hard (there’s a whole segment about a musician and I’m nerding out). Donald is maybe 29 or 30 years old and its one of his earliest (his 4th) film credit and oh goodness his segment is just too much. This is definitely a must see for any Hammer Film fanatics or Sutherland fans, You’ll love it!

The Dirty Dozen

Talk about a throwback to my childhood. Again an old army movie I remember watching with my parents (however watching it again I probably shouldn’t have). The movie itself its great if your into things like Tora Tora Tora! and Kelly’s Heroes. Not a whole lot of Donald in it but what we do get it so worth it. For a “serious and professional” actor, he plays silly and weird soooooo well. I will admit this one isn't nearly as lighthearted as Donald’s scenes might make it seem. It’s an actual war movie with heavy emotions and lots of violence and is quite sad at the end (no spoilers don’t worry). It might not be one to make you cry but you can’t help feeling bad for his character. Personally I loved it but its a classic in my household so I’m a bit biased. 

Start The Revolution Without Me

I quite literally choked on my coffee watching this one. Gene Wilder and Donald made a surprisingly hilarious pair and it worked so well!!! I already can’t get enough of Gene so of course this one is probably one of my all time favorite movies across the board. Basically its a switched at birth situation and takes place during the french revolution. I won’t give away too much but if you liked anything by Mel Brooks you’ll love this one. I really can’t say much without spoiling the funny bits but if you’re having a bad day, do what I did and curl up in your onesie with a bag of popcorn and let the laughter ensue.

Act of the Heart

(tw: self harm/suicide mention) Let me start out by telling you how hard it was fro me to find this damn movie and how ecstatic I was when I finally got to sit down and watch it. For anyone who doesn’t know me, my background is in vocal performance and I did a lot of work with the episcopal church in college as a soloist for churches, weddings, events and stuff so getting to see Donald as a CONCERT DIRECTOR just made my little heart explode. I was constantly geeking out at the musical parts and even got a bit of concert anxiety for the main character, Martha Hayes. She falls in love with him but of course he’s a priest (again) but this time he actually leaves the ministry for her. The movie itself is good (and the music gets my seal of approval as well) but there’s a quite a bit of triggering stuff so this one might be a bit difficult to watch for some. I will say some of these movies are quite hard to find and I had to scour the interwebs for them so if anyone wants a watch for anything on either of these lists, don’t be afraid to message me.

Little Murders

Okay so this one will be quite short because Donald is in it for a whole 10 minutes but he should have gotten a fucking oscar for it because I have never been so amazed and shocked by one of his roles as I was with this one. The movie is great if you’re into Elliot Gould (and his hair omg). But jesus Donald stole the ENTIRE MOVIE for that one brief scene. You can find clips of it on youtube just go watch it. Hell I’ll probably post it on my blog later. It’s honestly the best thing ever, and I want it played at my wedding. 

Steelyard Blues

What is it with directors and casting Jane Fonda as a prostitute? I’ll never know but Donald probably had a hand in that decision because he’s the executive producer. The movie is not great by any means but its definitely not boring. Again something about him being silly and dumb he just does so well and its so jarring in this one how silly he can get. I quite enjoyed it actually and its a real change of pace for him because while I like his character, I don’t have a whole lot of sympathy for him like I did for character’s like Casanova. I mean really he doesn’t hold back in portraying Jesse Veldini as an absolute fucking moron but I think we’re supposed to laugh at his misfortunes because they genuinely are funny (I think I just like watching him suffer) And it’s really entertaining. Again, I think Donald could have easily had a career as comedic actor but it’s nice to see how easily he can switch moods.

S*P*Y*S*

Another Donald and Elliot movie and this one is pretty hilarious too. (I’m loving these funny feel good movies) The two of them are CIA spies who aren’t stupid but definitely got the short stick in their agreement with the Russians. The plot makes sense but the way it’s gone about doesn’t really click. The Dynamic between him and Elliot is always fantastic and fun to watch so it makes up for the lack of sense this movie makes. Sorry this one couldn’t be longer but there would be much to say without writing a synopsis and I’m too tired to do that for any of these.

Day of the Locust

WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT! I mean jesus christ this movie was a horror show. The film itself is fine, its a great movie, but oH mY GoD!!!! Let me start by saying I didn’t watch the final scene with him in this movie because its fucking brutal and I just knew it wasn’t gonna be the kind of thing I’d needed to see. (Or anyone) Yeah I’d issue a few trigger warnings for this movie. OKAY so Donald’s character is named Homer Simpson (I’m not kidding) and my god I thought I had low self esteem, he’s literally the saddest most miserable and lonely character I think I’ve ever seen him play and he gets used by Faye Greener (Karen Black) who can go sit on a cactus for all I care, I hate that she’s the main character and the way she treats Donald is HORRIBLE AND I HATE IT. God this movie messed me up for a straight week afterward and I’m still not over it. He cries a lot in this one and just stooooooop please I can’t take it I know his character isn't accurate to the book its based on but it just makes me feel bad for him seeing Donald’s character slowly being destroyed by the toxic people around him icanttakeitanymoremovingon.

The Eagle Has Landed

I don’t know the first thing about the animosity between the Irish and the English all I know is that they don’t get along sometimes and Donald’s character this time is I think a NAzi SymPathizer?? I could be wrong but he does help them try to kidnap Winston Churchill (weird). There’s a strangely deep romance between him an a 19 year old girl (uh?) but it doesn’t really come to fruition. Overall it’s a hell of a spy movie and with fantastic performances from Robert Duvall (no I wasn’t able to recognize him) and Michael Caine. It’s a fun movie and Donald’s accent is of course, awful (just the way I like it) and steals the show yet again. 

The Disappearance 

Interesting fact, Celandine (the main character’s wife) is actually played by Donald’s real life wife, Francine Racette. So it makes for quite an interesting dynamic between the two characters that feels very realistic. This is a hitman movie that takes place in I think Montreal (hard to imagine a lot of Canadian hitmen) And has a surreal feeling about it through the whole movie. Again this was a difficult one to find at first and there is actually two version. One being 80 minutes and the other being 100min. I’m not sure why it was split like this but I’ve seen both versions and they aren’t missing anything they’re just structured differently. It does feel a bit weird watching love scenes knowing that she is is actual wife but it does feel very realistic. Overall the movie is pretty good if you want to see lots of him and his wife. Don’t worry I’m sure their relationship is a lot better than what’s portrayed in the film! 

National Lampoon’s Animal House

If you don’t know the story of Donald and this film, here it is. He was originally offered 2% of the films earnings to be in it. Thinking it would be a flop, he refused and asked for his usual flat rate of 45,000. The film was a his and his 2% could have easily been upward of 1.2 million, and this was back in 1978. He later quoted this as one of his biggest regrets of his career. Overall his scenes are quite short but oh so funny. (This list is either very serious or very funny) I like to imagine he put a lot of himself into this role. I definitely had some professors like him in college.

Threshold

Come to think of it, I watched this one so long ago I think I forgot to put it on the last list I did. I was really surprised by how genuine this movie felt. Like everyone really put a lot into this movie but it didn’t get nearly the recognition it deserved. Its a medical drama so that probably why, but it’s got an adorably young Jeff Goldblum and I can’t help but love him and Donald in every scene they’re in together. They play off each other pretty well most of the time and I didn’t really see anything wrong with this film other than it might have been on the lower end of filming budgets but it wasn’t a bad movie. It deserved better.

Ordeal by Innocence

I wish I could say the same for this movie. On it’s own its an alright film. On it’s own the soundtrack is fine too. But when the put the two together It was jarring as hell. The acting and story were okay and could have been fine alone but the soundtrack really broke any chance this film had of being taken seriously. I would have loved to seen it just on it’s own. Donald’s character is for once a genuine kind of ass that I really don’t like but it’s Agatha Christie, all her characters are assholes. This film really had potential but it shot itself point blank in the foot with the music.

A Time to Kill

Jumping forward to the 90′s, this movie is a classic based on a John Grisham novel and wow did I get invested! Donald isn’t in the film a whole lot but he does feel like an integral part of the plot and I really enjoyed him and Matthew Mcconaughey on screen together. Along with Samuel L. Jackson and Sandra Bullock. This movie is just fantastic and I normally don't like court dramas. Now what’s also interesting that not only is Donald in this one but so is Keifer. Sadly these two don’t share any scenes together and I don’t think they really got to work on set together except maybe once. Also Keifer’s character is a horrible racist. If anyone gets in your face about confederate flags being “heritage, not hate” show them this movie, Kiefer will take care of that one..

Space Cowboys

And last but not least, possibly my favorite one on this list. Everyone in this movie has the best film dynamic!! It’s funny, it’s endearing, and even kinda sad at times. The whole film feels genuine between all the lead characters, especially with them al being easily over the age of 65. As for Donald, He’s a smooth talking, dirty old man who hits on anything that moves but I’m sorry it just cracks me up. I don’t think this one should be taken too seriously but I just can’t help but fall in love with this movie. Cowboys, Space, Clint Eastwood and Tommy Lee Jones mean-mugging while Donald laughs and chases after women just makes my day. 

Okay this one might have been a good bit longer than the last one so the reviews had to be a bit shorter this time. I would do some research for a lot fo the more serious film on these two lists just because I don’t have the time to issue trigger warnings for every film. I may put out a part three, at least I’m going to try to but I’m working 12 hour days lately so I don’t have as much time to watch stuff as I used to but I’m sure some of your guys do. If you’re having trouble finding a film don’t be afraid to let me know and I’ll do my best to hook you up with some *quality* content. I know I’m having a hell of a hard time finding his older credits and the movie Blood Relatives (at least a version in english) Let me know what you guys think, if you agree or disagree with my opinions. Have fun watching!

#Donald Sutherland #still not tagging every movie #I may end up with a dedicated side blog one day who knows #movies #film

[ziracona]

What has been your favorite ilm chapter to write? Your least favorite? Do you have any interesting fun facts that were in cut pieces? I love this fic and the research put in is astounding. You put so much love into this. I'm glad to have been a reader :)

Thank you so much for asking this, and I’m really happy you have liked it! : ) Researching all kinds of wild stuff has been one of the most fun parts. (I’m holding the start of the answer to each question you asked, bc I talked about the first one for a while lol).

I do have a favourite chapter! I think to read, it would be a lot harder question, and there’d be a bunch of chapters tied, but as an author, my favourite chapter is most definitely Speak for the Dead. I have a lot of favourite moments and chapters, but that’s the one I’m most proud of. There’s a really rare thing in writing I call “script perfection,” which is not like, a perfect script in comparison to other scripts, it just means the version of the script that got shot/published was the best version of that particular script there ever could have been. It’s incredibly rare, and very hard to do. Even with films and shows I love, usually there will be seconds, sometimes minutes, off and on, that are the best version of those seconds there could have ever been. And the rest of it is great! It’s maybe the second or third or eighth-best it could have been, and that’s still super impressive--like man--eigth-best is still so close to 1st, eigth best is freaking phenomenal. It’s something to be really proud of. But that’s as high as it almost ever gets. For anything. Only extremely rarely is an entire script at 96% or above on script perfection. (I would say for reference that Galaxy Quest and The Incredibles are two such films).

It isn’t the most important part of a script or a story at all. Not by a huge amount. The quality of the story itself is. I have plenty of films that never hit 90% or above script perfection that I still prefer over films that did (like, Galaxy Quest is an amazing film, and I’m in awe that it hit that level of refinement, but I still like The Two Towers, which definitely did not, better. Because Sam’s speech at the end of it is enough to power me for a whole year). But it’s still such a rare thing. And god, it’s hard. Any kind of media is done on some kind of budget (be it financial or energy or both), and time constraint, and also it’s just not easy to do. Again, true-final-draft achievement (which is probably a better name for this bc it’s less confusing) is far from the most important or valuable aspect of a film, or play, or book, and it’s not necessary to make a story amazing. But it’s still always /so/ cool to see. It’s cool to see a nine minute continuous stretch of it even, on screen. And out of all the chapters I’ve written, the only one I think hit true-final-draft at least 96% or above, was Speak for the Dead. And that’s not embarrassing or anything. It’s wild. And I’m super proud of that. I’m proud I got even one. Because a lot of even my favourite books don’t. They just have perfected scenes, and a lot of them, but are not the best draft they could have been. Which does absolutely nothing to negate their worth as phenomenal books, but. I’m really, really proud of Speak for the Dead, and very happy with myself for having been able to do that at least once. I kind of treasure that.

It’s also a special chapter to me, because I had it only very loosely outlined/planned for at all, and it kind of came together on its own, and everything just came together and fell into place just right, and this chapter I had been really unsure of before starting turned into my favourite one in the entire fic. I like what I write, and I enjoy reading it myself, but there’s a line in Speak for the Dead where Tapp is trying to explain everything to Meg, about himself and his past and his family, and he’s been going through this like, awful mass of confusion and trauma and guilt and regret that’s all come to a head in this one day, and he’s found out who Amanda is and can’t deal with that and the person he knew, and the way Sing died, the choices she went on to make, and there’s so much even he doesn’t understand about how the world is falling apart around him, but somehow he figures it out enough to say it to Meg. And he has a line: “You’re supposed to stay late and work the extra eight hours overnight to catch the killer so somebody doesn’t die; you’re not supposed to go home to your family and give your kid a hug. It’s not as important, in an equation. It was my responsibility. And I didn’t get that the other job had its own set of rules. That the cop’s supposed to let the bus with his partner fall, but the dad’s supposed to let the fifteen people go and save his kid—he’s supposed to go running through crowded subway tunnels chased by gunmen, consequences be damned, to get them away from where his kid’s hiding. I didn’t get it. I don’t know why. I loved him right, but I didn’t act like it, because I thought I was doing the right thing. But if everybody’s just numbers, you lose anything that matters, no matter how high the numbers go up. And you don’t realize until it’s way too late that you do just as much good really helping one person you signed on to protect as you could have ever done bouncing off the lives of a hundred people who go on to be the next Jigsaw.”

And like. I fucking love that line. God. It’s such a hard thing to articulate, what he’s going through in that moment, and I try, but I think I often don’t do as good a job. But every time I read that last line it’s like a gut punch. And I really love it. How the fuck could you possibly feel after going through the experience he’s just had? It’s such a specific, indescribable kind of big, whole-world-view devestating.

There’s also a lot of really sweet moments with Meg, and Adam drugged and injured but trying really hard to help, and it’s a super understated chapter in a lot of the moments? Tapp’s one of my favourites to write, because of the way he thinks. He tries so hard to be lawful good in a world where there’s just no law at all anymore. And he’s older by far than anyone else, and thinks about the world that way. Honestly, it’s one of the most serious chapters. It’s less graphic than say Proven or The End of the Line, but it deals with some very not remotely fantastic and not pretty themes. It’s heavy. But I like the way it tells itself. I enjoy working in references when they make things fun, or better, or more meaningful, and I got to do that a lot. Plus, it gave Ace and Tapp a bunch of one-on-one time they didn’t really get on-screen as much in any of the rest of the fic, but I really loved it. The way they try to look after the people they care for, and how they understand each other. I just really fucking loved that chapter. Also, Tapp beat someone to death with a reverse bear trap that was still attached to his head so he could save Meg from dying in a way that would be super lastingly traumatic, and if that’s not the most metal thing I’ve ever heard? I really love Tapp. And I love that he sticks to the things he does. Meg never learns what Amanda was going to do to her, not in fic, not after. And Tapp does change how he does things are talking to Meg at the end of that chapter. Tapp’s the one who immediately says they can’t go public with any information on Rin until she’s passed on, even though it could really help them prove their case and hypothetically better protect the world, because he’s not willing to see a kid forced to revert to being violent and feral against her will in self-defense, or locked up in a government black site to get that. He did good. Life has not been kind to this poor man, but thankfully, Meg Thomas has.

Least favourite? Way harder. Hmmm. Always whichever one I wrote most recently 😂

In complete seriousness, I don’t think I have one? I have like 6 I consider “slightly-less-interesting” than the rest, but I don’t have one I hate period, or just dislike a lot. Uhhhh. If I had to pick one right now, I’d say Core Essentials, because I haven’t read it in over a year and don’t remember it as well as many others, and of the small number of chapters in the “Damn, been a hot minute, huh?” group, it’s the one I remember the least. This rating may change next time I actually read it, lol.

Hmmm. Interesting fun facts in cut segments. In the original draft for Shrouded, Claudette went into Philip’s basement and got a really good look at the other side of the wall, through one of the cracks, and saw the Entity and almost gave herself a panic attack. The other side of the basement wall was described as looking like the sun, like just looking at light, but only at first, and then there was movement like a snake coiling or some huge creatuer deep underwater sliding across your vision, too big to see, but alive in there in the middle of the light, and moving around, and it horrified her. It was extremely creepy but pretty cool.

The original draft for The Wraith included Philip experiencing fragmented audio memories from Signifying Nothing/his time with Vigo & co. while he was mostly unconscious. It was really cool and I forgot because I haven’t read it in forever, but it hinted at /way/ more of the plot to those past events. I really liked the draft, but ended up changing it into what was published because I’d never done anything with his memories before, and I didn’t want to disorient the reader too much (probably a good call, but it was still a neat scene in the OG form).

It’s not in the fic, but canonically, after leaving the survivors camp at the end of The Wraith, Philip came up with his plan to leave himself a message in the bell, and then called the Entity. Trying to talk his way out immediately failed, and it was shitty to him and pissed him off, and Philip had considered what might work on something like the Entity before calling it, and knew he was dead either way, so he tried to fight it. More to see if it would work than anything. He knew he would forget it even if he did, but sometimes impulses lingered, and it was possible if it worked, it would help him think of it again. He used his blood and drew a protective symbol against demons on his palm without it noticing, then rushed it, and it wasn’t scared of him so it didn’t give a fuck, but he smacked it with the charm and that actually succeeded in burning its talon (very little, but enough to cause it actual pain) and it flipped out and got extremely angry, and immediately stabbed him through the skull, which is why he returned with that chunk of his mask gone and has a scar on his forehead now. Originally, I was considering writing some of the events between The Wraith and Dawn from Philip’s POV, but decided it was much better sticking with the survivors and their uncertainty completely. Got to live in the anxiety baybeeee.

I’m sure there’s more but you activated my trap card asking about Speak for the Dead - a special interest- and I already made this long, so I should stop for now. Thank you again so much for asking! I hope my answers made sense are we’re at least kinda enjoyable to read. 💙💙💙

#ask #anonymous #in living memory #in living memory (fic) #writing #ilm spoilers #this was so fun and im glad i had an excuse to go writing meta haha. the one part of college i miss :’-) #thanks! 💙 it was really sweet. and fun to answer! #long post

[singularname]

ooc: First anyone can comment on this post or like it. If you want to ask me questions my ask box is open. I am more than willing to answer questions you may have.

A more cohesive list of my comments and thoughts on cats 2019, let it be known it is still hot garbage and still does not belong in the jellicle junkyard. Before I go on, I want to say, Cat’s is my favorite musical. I RP Munkustrap. To critique any version (and their are lots) you have to love The Musical. Any other critique is objectively a person who will rate it badly. Cats was never going to do well, it never has despite its run length through tours and different countries. Cats has never been viewed well by critiques, and is hugely hated in the theater community which is why when you see and read those reviews you have to know they have a preconceived notion of what cats is, and that is that its weird and therefore they cannot like it.

The three biggest critiques I see of the movie (and the show for the first one) is their is no plot, which I will discuss in this review how their in fact is one, how its horny and if you thought the movie was horny well John Partridge is knocking at your door asking if you’ve had your sexual awakening yet, and that the CGI is bad, which yes it is. My goal is to show why some of these are a bit unfounded but also let you see why a person who likes the musical is so disappointed that this movie only perpetuates that this musical is a joke.

Now onto the review. It is around 10k words, so negatives are under the cut.

Positives:

Robbie tried really hard, but sadly he wasn’t enough. He had a few off beats such as his initial intro, and his smile at the end that was weird. But he was good, and he made the shit show of gumbie cat and tugger’s song slightly better by joking with jenny any dots which was one of the best jokes in the whole movie.

Jennifer was a good Grizabella. Anyone making fun of her snot has forgotten Anne Hathaway singing I Dreamed a Dream, and should rightfully shut up.

The rewritten plot was bad, but the song that fit the best with the adaptions made for this horrid movie, besides Skimble’s song which I will talk about in a second, was Bustopher Jones. In the original his number is all about how well respected he is, but people remember his song is a story to make him seem better, we should not be surprised he is dumpster diving for food at all, sorry of a reality hit for old busty but its the truth.

Ian was a good choice for Gus, it was very similar to John Mills’ portrayal with only a bit more backstory. What was missing was a back and forth between someone, such as Jellylorum. Monologues are great but having a scene partner is better because that energy helps momentum and you feel things. Gus is arguably the slowest song, and it needs some livelness and no Misto’s little magic trick was not enough.

Mungo and Rumple were good. I hate the debut version of the song and they made me like it. For those wondering why we didn’t get the fun jazz number and got this slow moving one its because it came from the Debut on West End. The issue with the slow moving one is it falls in the middle where the pacing is already slow packed with more slow songs so it can seem a bit boring. I also wish Rumple kept her accent up.

The idea of the rundown theater/ballroom was really good. It allowed for a very similar feel that the junkyard presents with props and such for the cats to use. The issue is it was not our set the entire time and we are constantly taken out of it.

Skimble’s number was probably the best in the entire movie. It had the feel of the original with freshness from the tap which was genius. The tap dancing added the sounds of the railway in the same way the cats original make the train whistle noise. And the guy tapping was one of the originators of the Mad hatter in The Royal Opera House’s Alice in Wonderland so he was good. The issue with Skimble is the cut to the train and rail station which I will get to.

Negatives:

Three categories

Plot ( songs, characters, dance ), Technical ( movie stuff, CGI, proportions ), Anything I forgot.

Plot

Lets start generally. People say their is no plot even though Hooper attempted to “give” it a plot he failed. Their was no reason because all Hooper did was not only drop his plot halfway through, but he didn’t adhere to his own rules, nor did he need to add a plot at all. The dialogue was clunky at best, and not funny.

So the plot that Cats has always had is said almost immediately after the opening numbers. It is said by a grey cat that unless you know the musical you don’t know the name of but considering his prominence in the musical you know he’s important. He has solos in most songs, and even more in the movie. In the stage show this plot is seen through with a few interuptions. But here is he plot of the stage show for you. The jellicles come together for a ball where a cat will be chosen to be reborn. At times you get this threat, a cat by the name of macavity who you never seen he’s just scary. The cats ask who will it be, and the reason the songs are sung is because the cats are suggesting names of who it could be hence “i have a gumbie cat in mind...” This goes on for a bit their are two songs that don’t seem to fit in this formula, technically three, Grizabella’s songs (not memory), Peeks and Pollicles, and Growltiger’s Last Stand. Grizabella’s songs are to point out who she is and how she is distinctively not a jellicle, or no longer one. Peeks and Pollicles is entertainment they got a whole night to waste before dawn. The same can be said of Growltiger, but it is also paired with being Gus reprising a role more or less. The last two are for entertainment, just like the Jellicle Ball song where jellicles literally describe what kinds of cats they are, its also a bit of a mating dance but hey they are supposed to be cats. So we get to Macavaty he has threatened to appear quite a few times, he is scary, that is all we know. His song is sung as a cautionary tale to the audience and the kittens, he then finally appears and fights and hurts the protector among a few others and takes The Leader Old Deuteronomy. The cats are a bit distraught, then elvis cat struts in and is like what about Misto the magic guy. He then proceeds to say what Misto can do before Misto officially appears as Misto, he has been their all along though using his powers subtly to help the show progress he’s confident if their is something he is unsure about its where his powers come from. Misto brings Old Deuts back, and then Grizabella makes one last plea to the cats IN FRONT OF THEM explaining what happened and such. She gets the touch she craves and Deuts chooses her no words needed. Her plea isn’t part of a competition, it is one to be accepted being chosen is a secondary thing to that. Then we the audience get addressed formally like we did at the beginning a la “are you blind when your born” but this time its like “so you’re not a cat, so now you get us a bit more.” Then it ends.

The movie takes this fairly simple plot of party, guessing who could be chosen, we have to wait a bit before the choice can be made, threat appears, leader who makes the choice disappears then comes back, makes the choice, and turns it into a farce. Something that TS Eliot would hate. TS Eliot didn’t want his cats to be pussy cats, he wanted Hot Gossip. He didn’t want something cartoonish, which is why Andrew was given the rights in the first place. The thing is poetry should not ever be spelled out for you, is up to you to interpret, and these songs and plot is pieced together straight from Poetry. Hooper fucked with that vision, I mean Macavity falling at the end shows this perfectly, that was something you see in a damn cartoon.

The plot Hooper added didn’t work because he dropped it like halfway through. It was no consistent and because their were so many breakaways to the barge letting you see the barge instead of just thinking these cats are in perilous danger it ruins the steaks of not having them there. The plot was bad.

Additionally, and I’ll speak more on this a little later, when the cats are taken away you lose chorus cats. The only cats that are not in the entirety of the show are Bustopher Jones and Growltiger who are generally played by the same actor as the true range for them is that of an opera singer which you would never know looking at this movie.

Songs

Overture: It was weird. I thought the throwing a cat out of a car was a bit harsh and unnecessary. Also the choreography didn’t work. The camera did not know what to do. Additionally, their was some very bad CGI with opening said back. The individual cats did not get their little moments like they do in the stage show which only made them all blend together.

Prologue: Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats: It was drastically cut. Not all the cats get their correct solos, or solos. Some were duets which takes away from the individuality of certain cats. It again like the overture was messy with choreography with the camera not knowing where to go or who to look at. The beauty of the cinematography of the 98 production is you got to see the full stage when dancing happened so your eye could find a focus, you could focus on what you want. We are robbed of that with the choppy cutting and the camera telling us who to focus on. Its poor film choice. Cats a musical that is more music based than les mis you can’t just cut back and forth in a duet or in a song to who is singing like you can with les mis ( which hooper also fucked up ). Also what was with only like five cats singing the solos. I’m sorry this is when we are supposed to meat the chorus, this was like a bad choir rehearsal.

The Naming of Cats: Blink and you’ll fucking miss it. They make such a big deal about a second name but then ITS CUT! They don’t name any second names, only boring first names. Like why even include the fucking song if you aren’t going to tell us character’s names or second names. This would have been a perfect moment with the sloppy cutting to at least let us put names to faces. Everyone walked out of that theater not having a clue that the silver dad cat was Munkustrap cause as important as he is his name is said once in a song, that isn’t about him. This song was pointless in the movie because they cut so much of it. 

Invitation to the Jellicle Ball: So much is cut. So much. We don’t get solos from more than Munk. Its such a sad song with how much is cut and how important it is. It gives us Victoria’s solo which is also cut in favor of a Pas De Deux, which I get you got two great ballet dancers as your leads, but like let her have her damn moment since your so focused on making sure she is the focus of the movie.

Also my second fault to Munk, aside from him having no confidence or the write key in his first line “Are you blind when you’re born.” His solo here is weirdly paced and he doesn’t speak with confidence like he is telling a story, it sounds like he is speaking fast, and just not caring what he is delivering. If your audience conduit is confused the whole time, like this chick is, then don’t rush the deliverance of what the plot is.

This song also tells us the point of the musical and invokes the question “who will it be” which traditionally leads to the cats singing songs about different cats who may or may not appear suggesting who they think could be chosen. The competition which is completetely stupid, having each cat sing their song does not work. Most of the songs are songs sung by other cats about cats. Hence the opening line of the next number.

Gumbie Cat: Rebel Wilson cannot sing well. She has decent pitch. But she cannot sing well, nor does she understand the character. She calls Jenny lazy and fat. The stage version she’s essentially the opposite. Jenny is not a fat joke. She is busy cat who doesn’t get out much, but she does alot of good.

The cockroaches and mice. Besides bad CGI aside, this concept was poorly executed. It was a good concept, a good theory but the execution made it bad. In the stage production the cats in the junkyard portray the mice and cockroaches because its an act its like a play within a play. Here we get badly CGIed kids in mice costumes that ever version of the damn Nutcracker has done better. We get tap dancing cockroaches. However unlike with Skimbleshanks’ number, we do not get to focus on the tap or the clarity of the tap because of the poor filmography which I’ll talk about later.

This number was pretty much ruined by Rebel making a joke out of the whole. Additionally, she zips off her fur. Like its not a coat, or a bigger bit of fur its her literal fur. Its just wrong and it looks cartoonish which again TS Eliot did not want for his cats poems.

Rum Tum Tugger: Jason was a smart choice, but he also did not care about the number. He wasn’t giving it all he had. He has the vocals for it, but he wasn’t giving it. The dancing in this number suffered, none of the kittens or cats in general seem to be loosing their shits over him. They seem more happy about the damn milk.

Many critics say the movie is horny, let me tell you this number has nothing on John Partridge or any person who has ever played Tugger. I mention John because he is the only one who really went their with the hip thrusts and the kittens were the only ones willing to get up in there. Their was no fear the in 98 version, here they all seemed scared to show anything more than emotion. In a song that helps define some of the chorus cats we don’t get any definition from them.

Alot of people hate some of Rebel’s jokes, but the one that Robbie teased her about was well timed and much better than the rest of the jokes in the movie. It seemed natural and not forced. It also kind of goes with the traditional relationship of Jenny and Munk, and how they view Tugger.

This is the only time we see Tugger til the very end with Munk’s song. Because he sings a song, and its not for the competition it already fucks with the plot that Hooper set forth and thus doesn’t really fit into the narrative that Hooper is trying to weave. He should have left it. Originally the song is a mix of the adult cats and the kittens talking about Tugger and having Tugger more or less clarify for them. Its a waste of his character to be honest, and a waste of Jason’s actual talents.

Grizabella the Glamor Cat: Why do we need to know her specific backstory. Her costuming and song should be enough to tell the audience what we need to know. This is classic example of telling not showing, which is a big no no in writing.

Also because of how the beginning of this movie has gone we have no connection to the damn cats singing this song. Two of them typically have had parts in two other songs by now, and one of the cats is a “psychopath” as t-swiftizzle has said and doesn’t appear til much later in the movie. Like why do these cats care. The apprehension from the stage show is not there.

Kudos to Robbie for keeping the strange relationship up where he is hairs standing on end, but still admonishing the rudeness. However it didn’t seem to have an effect. These actors are so scared to touch each other, why would they make fun of and scratch at a cat they aren’t supposed to like. The song had very little agency because of how it was performed and who performed it because we had no connection to those cats prior. Jennifer tried but damn its hard to carry a whole shit show on your back even if Robbie is trying to help.

Bustopher Jones: I said it above and I’ll say it again, this was probably the best integrated song into the plot, while the shit plot still existed. However James Cordon’s jokes did not land. He didn’t carry himself as a distinguished cat in those deliveries which would have helped the character. I didn’t mind the junk and garbage surfing because it gives you a bit of a realistic look on what he probably does at the clubs and such. Think of him like a bit of a dirtier version of lady and the Tramp.

Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer: Again I said it above, this number objectively wasn’t bad. They took a song that I found grating and made it fun to watch and sung pretty well. However again it doesn’t fit into the contrived plot that Hooper was trying to form. Having Victoria there seemed very stupid, I will say more about how she is a poor choice for an Audience insert later. But she did not need to be there. The glory of Mungo and Rumple’s song is that no one is there, and they are taking a mick out of everyone who thinks they are Macavity. Whether it is the West End debut version, or the faster brassier verseion of the 98 show, they are alone making fun of the fact that they fooled everyone, and explain why they can do it through their song.

Old Deuteronomy: It was fine, decent. Until Judi Dench opened her mouth. I am bitter that Tugger didn’t sing the song with Munk but considering how much of the song was fucking cut what would he have sung? That is another issue this musical had, they cut so many songs, and left in songs that weren’t needed or added songs not written by TS Eliot originally at all. You miss the softer side to Tugger by not having him sing or even be here.

Judi Dench, she’s a great actress, she was not a great Old Deuteronomy. This has nothing to do with the fact that she was a woman. I would have been happy if it was Julie Andrews or Maggie Smith ANYONE, but Judi Dench. Judi can’t sing, the talk singing she did was pitchy at best. And the issue is Old Deuteronomy is one of the more powerful singers in the show. Not only that, Judi just did not command any presence. It wasn’t that she was small, it was just that she didn’t draw you to her, the camera had to do that. She molded into the background and none of the cats aside from Munk interacted with her, which made her seem like a stranger and not a cat that these other cats love and trust.

Jellicle Ball: I am crying for Gillian Lynne. This in the stage show is what many call the orgy number. It is more or less a mating dance and where we get the lovely victoria having her second big solo, followed by a lovely pas de deux with Plato who later becomes Macavity which I find intriguing.

In the movie we get Jason asking if its okay to party then they try to bring up the tempo by cutting the music awkwardly. This song just does not work with the choreography given to it. I am sure the Les Twins are great dancers, but first why couldn’t their cat names have been Coricopat and Tantomile they seemed to serve a similar purpose. Second why were they in this. The shoes ugh, but the hip hop does not match the song at all. The stick out and are just awkward.

Instead of this being a beautiful dance, with amazing choreography we get a very strange dance circle after the choreographer attempted to have the dancers dance on the softer notes and down beats, which does not work in a song with very hard up beats, and that isn’t a ballet number. The choreography over all just didn’t fit and seemed ill timed at best.

Also all of the damn lyrics were cut. The Jellicle Ball essentially explains what a jellicle is, which is what Victoria wants to be yet its not fucking explained to her, its poorly explained through dialogue and even then she doesn’t know. Like why take out the lyrics of this number. It made no sense.

Grizabella’s Reprise: Unlike the first song being in front of people, this song isn’t. But if I recall cats are watching. This is where we get the first inklings of memory. This is her plight. Its ruined by Victoria.

Beautiful Ghosts: I will say straight up I am not a fan of T-Swiftie her songs are petty at best, and this one is no different. This song was not needed. We did not need this blatant reason for Victoria to connect with Grizabella, we didn’t need it forced. The beautiful thing about the stage show is the touch and connection between Victoria and Griz is that it happens at the end of the show, and ITS NATURAL and is in combination with Jemima/Silabaub.

The song’s words are written by Taylor, and everyone is saying it fits so well with the musical and it doesn’t. We have no reason to feel bad for Victoria, yes she was dumped out of a car, but we know nothing about her past, and the song doesn’t do anything but allude to what happened. It is the epitome of “I had bad shit happen to me my whole life, but at least your life was good.” It is a song that completely lacks empathy. Sympathy is when you say “well it could be worse” and the last thing Grizabella wants is fucking sympathy. She needs someone to feel with her, not say it could be worse. This song is horrible with a horrible message and sung by a person who can sing well. BUT, its sung by the wrong character, and with the contrived plot that is being forced down our throats, it does not fit into the plot because we don’t know anything about Victoria at all.

Also it greatly irks me that everyone was okay with adding a song that wasn’t based of Eliot’s poems. Every single song in the stage production is a variation of one of Eliot’s poems whether published or not. It is a butchering of his work in a whole new way saying “here we’ll make it better” which is a huge insult to a poet.

The Moments of Happiness: Is it even in the movie? IDK, if it is its probably pitchy and sing talked all the way through, and does nothing for the story or anything. I think it might be when Deuts is looking out the window. But like the song is an addressing to the cats, kind of like an introduction or a toast for the Ball. 

Magical Gus/Gus the Theater Cat: Ian was a smart choice, like John Mills he was a smart choice. BUT, the number felt long. John Mills’ number ran long and we didn’t get all of Mungo and Rumple’s song and Growltiger’s last stand was cut. Gus’ song is the slowest in the show. What helps the song have life in the stage version is Jellylorum singing with him. Actors in my opinion do better with a scene partner, and boy did this song need. It was slow and boring.

Growltiger’s Last Stand: We were robbed a good song. And what we did get, the one line we got was contrived and Growltiger’s song was reduced to a shitty villain song, on a shitty barge, to help this shitty plot. The worst thing is that this whole barge plot WASN’T NEEDED. We do not need to see people in danger to know they are in danger. It is better to not know than to know. This is the whole issue with upping Macavity’s role in the whole musical. A villain is better when they are unknown that’s why scary movies work.

I understand the original Growltiger song is racist, but they already cut songs, and they have shown no issues in changing lyrics, so they could have done. Growltiger originally is supposed to be a reenactment of a play that Gus did. The cats all help. This is another example of ruining the relationships the chorus cats have with each other, and robs them of characterization for us to see. Because remember in the stage show every cat is on stage 90 percent of the time, minus Bustopher, who I believe doubles as Growltiger because of the ranges and such needed. When we lose the cats we are introduced to the chorus becomes nameless faces and it makes me wonder why they are even there because they have nothing that makes them stand out.

Also because so much of Growltiger was cut we loose Griddlebone which is a fucking shame. We loose that tragedy of a tail. We loose a glorious opratic number. All for the sake of a shitty villain plot that had no real steaks at all because it all seemed so contrived and fake.

Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat: Possibly the best number in the show as it stayed the truest to its original form. It didn’t have much cut song wise. My issue with the song lies in the cinematography of it. This song I say rings the truest to the stage show because at the beginning we clearly see a formed railway track of beams. We get the lovely tapping to simulate the train which adds onto the other train sounds that are made in the number.

The issue is the fact that they take us out of the ballroom. There was no need for that. I will talk more about it later. But this number shows us the real issue with scale in this movie and how they have no clue how to address it at all. The cats at one point look like they are two inches tall, and at another point look like the scaling is correct. Their are many many bad bad jump cuts when they are on the actual railroad tracks. One was so bad you couldn’t even see the cast anymore. The scale is very off because it makes you question are they the correct portions when standing, or are they they correct portions when on their hands and feet.

The stage show manages to show everything this song showed within the confines of the junkyard, and it was completely feasible to do in the fucking ballroom but Hooper didn’t do that. When you have a big budget do not add unnecessary shots. That is what made the 98 version so great. They had a huge budget but didn’t over complicate the base show. The emphasized the dancing and singing and let those shine, and let the actors tell the story instead of letting the camera work and new shots tell the story.

Also the actor that played Skimble was Scottish I wish he let that come through. It would have made certain words and inflections just that much better.

Macavity: The Mystery Cat: In this stage show this song is a duet. In the movie is sung by T-Swizzle in order to get money from all her little fans. Taylor is an okay singer, i have heard better, and I have heard better for Bombalurina, both in seeing the musical live, and in the 98 version. They framed the song to be the one Macavity sings to show why he should be chosen but their are not cats to be chosen, remember that was the plot. Yeah its easy to forget.

Here’s the issue with how this song and its subsequent fight is worked out. The song’s lyrics are not changed so they talk about how bad Macavity is which in the frame of a competition to show your best qualities and why you should be chosen it does not fit. We know he was not going to get chosen, we knew from the beginning because it was shoved in our faces. Cats 2019 is a great example of a poorly written villain.

The song in the stage production is a cautionary tale told by two people who have likely had relations with Macavity. They are not only warning us the audience about him, but also the kittens who wonder who he is, who have never seen him. When you keep the context of the lyrics in with this new plot frame it doesn’t fit and only explains why he wouldn’t be chosen.

Additionally because its not a duet, and its sung by a cat we have never seen before, nor have any frame of reference for it doesn’t mesh well. Like why should we care?

Also the catnip. That is so pointless. Macavity is a magical cat, his powers to deceive and hypnotize are seen through his choreography in the fight seen with Munkustrap and Alonzo. But no we have to have magical cat nip spread by Bomby, Mungo, Rumple, and Griddlebone. Why even mention Griddlebone like this with the inclusion of Rumple if we do not get the song where we actually see just why she is an agent other than some lacky. Like this diminishes her character so much. ( And yes her inclsuion in the stage shows that don’t do growltiger like the 98 movie does also bug me this is not just a movie gripe, but the movie takes the stance to show us to her, but she is not the glorious white cat that is also so very evil, she is a wimpy little black cat who is scared that she is called out ).

Macavity’s fight seen mainly with Munk is taken away from us and given to the dumb barge cats fighting Growltiger. Again we have no real steaks in this fight. However we don’t see the barge cats again so why did it matter that we saw them off Growltiger? In the stage show, we actually see Munk, our silver tabby dad fight Macavity. It is a show of raw power that both he and Macavity have. It shows how dangerous Macavity is. It shows what cats do. They fight. We do not get this. We do not get see why all these other cats defer to Munk because his role as the protector is diminished to “I am dad cat hear me roar.” Losing this fight we loose alot of the connections we see between the main cats and the chorus cats. They all help each other, and want to fight. We see them care for a hurt Munk in the stage show. All that is gone and diminished to poor jokes, and twirling chains on a barge that looks about as real as a toy bathtub boat.

In the stage show, Macavity is scared away in this number. Which means he is still a threat but not for now. Not for the rest of the fight. Additionally this number we get the fake out of Deuteronomy coming back because that is how the fight happens. Macavity stole Deuteronomy just moments ago and to see Deut’s come back, we get a false sense of hope and a true feeling of Macavity’s madness. We don’t get that in the movie.

The movie boils him down to a bad villain in a cartoon. Which is the exact opposite of Eliot’s wishes. It is exactly the opposite of what Eliot wanted and why he was so scared to actually give away the rights to his poems.

Mr Mistoffelees: A song traditionally sung by the most confident cat in the musical Tugger, is sung by a character assassination in progress. This version of Mr. Mistoffelees tries to fit into the contrived plot of competing for a Jellicle Life and it fails miserably. A number that is traditionally loved by so many is utterly ruined by the lack of confidence in the entire delivery of the song. I will talk more about Mistoffelees’ character later.

But this song is riddled with so many starts and stops that we don’t actually get a climax to the song. And look Jason is back as Tugger, but his part is taken by Victoria, and the number just doesn’t work. I do not care what you ship. The number does not work the way it was sung or staged. Also Tugger shows back up in this number and when you think he is going to sing the a part its sung by Victoria, it cuts to her, and I was disappointed.

When Tugger sings the song, he tells you of a cat with powers. Powers that we see used throughout the show in subtle ways. Its not shoved in our damn faces. its used in helpful ways. In stage productions he opens the car for Jenny, He lights the stage lights for Peeks and Pollicles. Its all these subtle things, but he knows he is good at magic. Tugger knows this. Tugger sings it.

Victoria and Mistoffelees singing the song rips that all away. Mistoffelees has no confidence in himself though he used magic through the show, it was shoved in our faces. Victoria suggesting he can bring Old Deut’s back is completely pointless because the only magic she has ever seen Misto do is bad magic that only half worked. Now granted she has this insane ability to see the best in everyone and see them ALONE so like who knows.

But the number is ruined because their is no continuation or build up. And no conjuring turn come on. Also Robbie tried, but he is no Tugger. It feels weird coming from him. Like yes he encourages the cats, but like we also never see the other side of being parent, because they cut Peeks and Pollicles which I will discuss at the very end of the song section.

Beautiful Ghosts Reprise: I have no clue if this is before or after Memory. But Victoria’s agency in this number is so stupid. All her interactions with Grizabella were in private where no one saw. Her touching Grizabella means absolutely nothing to us as an audience for many reasons which I will go into later. But here it means nothing because Victoria means nothing to the Jellicles as she isn’t one.

Memory: If you have an issue with the snot go watch Anne Hathaway sing I dreamed a dream and come back to me okay. Tom Hooper has a fetish about that kind of stuff or something.

But snot aside IT FITS THE SONG! Grizabella is supposed to be sad. This is her moment, her chance to cry out for someone to touch her her. Her chance to be accepted again.

We get back to the contrived plot cause she sings a song for a chance to win. But the song does not fit into the contrived plot because even if we are following the shit plot, because of Beautiful Ghosts it seems more like she wants to belong again rather than a chance to go to the Heavy Side Layer hence why Beautiful Ghosts is a pointless song even more than it already was.

In the stage show, Jemima sings with Grizabella. She is a chorus cat mostly but this is her moment to shine. Victoria gets it which fine, but also takes away from the Jellicles accepting Griz because Victoria is not a Jellicle herself. Why on earth should these cats listen to her? They have no reason to. Also because not only was the initial touch done in private, because all these characters don’t interact with each other the touch is rendered meaningless which almost renders the song meaningless. Which is a shame cause Jennifer killed it.

Journey to the Heavyside Layer: It was fine. I could have done without the Macavity bit at the end that was literally pulled from a Tom and Jerry Cartoon, which again Eliot would have hated. Yes its acted by a real person, but its cartoon like in nature ( just like jenny zipper her fur off ) which is the antithesis of what Eliot wanted to become of his poems.

The Ad-dressing of Cats: Why was this song kept in? Out of all the songs this one more or less directly addresses the audience. They had Judi Dench break the fourth wall and stare directly into the camera which was uncomfortable, and not done well. I have seen staring straight into the camera done well in exactly one piece of film and that is Mr. Robot. Here it was weird and uncomfortable. No one seemed to know what to do. The chorus was stronger than Judi so her words were overpowered. She was pitchy at best, and just downright awful in this song.

Then she tells Victoria she is a Jellicle which... like yeah finish out your contrived plot Hooper, but all if it was pointless. And it ruins the “Victoria is the Audience stand in” because the song actually addressed directly to the audience was not addressed to our stand in. It does not match the opening at all which is also addressed to the audience in the stage show. The book ends don’t match and its weird.

When I say book ends, at the beginning the number asks questions about cats can you do this can you do that. At the end it asks you “so you get what a cat is now right?” Its a pretty clever way to begin and end a show. But the movie got lost and forget what it was doing so here it seems weird and out of place.

Peeks and Pollicles: A number that was cut. This number is one of my favorites in the musical because it helps waste time til the end. It allows the cats to interact with each other and Old Deuteronomy. It is one of the best numbers to see the interpersonal relationships between our chorus of cats and our main cats.

This number not being in takes all that away and does not let us see personality in any of the chorus cats. Even Mungo and Rumple fall flat because we do not get to see them not be evil or talk about being mischievous.

This number also provides context for what a Peek is. In Macavity the word Peek is said but if you have only ever seen the movie you have no idea what that word is. In the stage show we learn that it is a term for a type of dog. Additionally, when we take this song out, we also lose some plot context of the cats and the junkyard putting plays to help act out the songs of who they think it will be. And in this case what looks like to be a rehearsed play that the cats are determined to mess up and make our silver tabby go from silver to grey.

Dance

There was so much sacrificed for the sake of cinematography. A musical based in dance had barely any dancing shown because of quick cuts. And what was shown was often clunky and didn’t actually look feline. Nor did it match the music because the choreographer tried to hard to be like the greats who choreographed the nut cracker and other ballets. He also ruined Gillian Lynne’s choreography.

They looked like trained dancers when they danced. Which yeah is good, but they didn’t look like cats. Their hands were often turned up, when to make them slightly more catlike they should be turned down. None of them got comfortable with being on the ground. They all seemed so very very stiff which is the exact opposite of how a cat should be.

None of them understood how to dance like a cat.

The tap dancing in Gumbie Cat as opposed to Skimbleshanks is astonishing. The tap dancing in Gumbie Cat is messy and hardly focused on, when its the star of the stage show. It looks contrived and like they were trying to hard to recreate a scene from a famous black and white film. Also this is a CGI comment but if you look hard enough you can tell that the cockroaches are like the same three dancers copied and pasted over and over.

Contrast that to Skimble with his clear taps. Now the actor who played Skimble is known for tapping. He is a member of the Royal Opera House, which is a ballet company in England. His tapping was made famous when he originated the role of the Mad Hatter, with some brilliant choreography that he was given. His tapping hear shines. It is just a really good example of tap. And its a shame it had to share the stage with the cockroach crap.

The opening numbers was not given what it deserved by the cats jumping everywhere. The opening is a highly for the choreography of the show. Its supposed to show you what you can expect. In the movie it was just alot of jump cuts, and Misto fucking it all up, sorry not sorry. I did not fall for the cute factor. Additionally the choral portion was not choral. They did not line up thus when they line up at the end at Trafalgar Square, we have no reference to them doing this before. Its a shame.

Tugger did not dance sexually enough. I know I know I shouldn’t say this. But most actors who play Tugger try to do some variation of John Partridge’s version, with less hip thrusts. Jason didn’t even try, and thus none of the kittens were enthralled with him. It made the point of his song pointless. Additionally Tugger is one of the strongest dancers in the show in my opinion. He dances in every number and adds his flare. Because Jason is in the movie all of 5 minutes we don’t see this.

I am sure the Les Twins are great dancers. But none of that was showcased. They were pigeon holed into this and tried to fit and failed.

So much choreography was cut because so much of the songs were cut. Jellicle Ball has so many lyrics that are danced and they are cut. So much dancing was cut in favor of showing us Grizabella running away. In the musical that is subtle and you know WHY? its supposed to be it is not supposed to completely take our attention of of the magic that is happening with the dance. That is why Griz is chased away because she draws your attention to her. We didn’t need the camera doing that, and thus ruining the flow of the number.

Characters:

Munkustrap: Not much bad about him. He had a few off beats. He tried. Thought their are times where he looked bored, and his face was not good at hiding it.

Victoria: One face wonder, she is like the Maddie from dance mom’s of this movie. She’s got a Maddie face, and it made it hard to think she had any emotion at all because she didn’t emote. Also white cats are more often than not deaf which the musical often shows as mute because Victoria has no solos. For her to speak was jarring. The speaking was jarring in general but most of the lines coming from her was off putting.

Her not being a jellicle outright ruined any agency she had in the movie. She had more say in things like Misto and Griz than she should have had. The solo she was given was petty and very very condescending to Griz.

She was a bad audience stand in because in trying to keep her original stage role they tried to mix it with this new plot role and it just did not work. And made you forget what they were doing with the plot because the plot was so contrived.

I don’t get why she had to have stripes and spots. She’s a solid white house cat, not some fucking snow leopard.

Misto: He was ruined. He has forced us to see his magic, then doubts himself when asked to use it. He is not confident in himself and a bumbling fool. In the stage production he is confident. The only thing he doesn’t understand is where his powers come from. This is seen wonderfully in the 1998 version where he looks at his hands as he is shooting sparks from them. His character was ruined.

Skimble: Like Munk nothing wrong. But we don���t see him interact with the regular chorus cats so it begs to wonder why is he even trying to show them anything. They don’t seem to know him. Their is no connection between the cats with songs named after them and the chorus aside from maybe Misto.

Tugger: He was not John Partridge. Just watch 98 cats and you will see what you are missing when it comes to who Tugger is.

Jenny-any-Dots: She was mischaracterized by Rebel as being fat, lazy, and old. Her character of being a respectable busy cat who seems lazy to her owners is assassinated. Like their is a reason Munk likes her but that reason is gone in the movie.

Old Deuteronomy: Judy Dench was bad. She couldn’t sing, and commanded no real authority or presence. Robbie could only do so much to give that to her. But she did nothing to earn it.

Admetus/Rumpus Cat: Sadly gone from this movie, though probably because Rumpus would have been more cartoonish than Macavity was and they were already hurting Eliot’s legacy enough. Also I’m not sure we could have handled the camp superhero of Rumpus Cat in this shit CGI.

Alonzo: Was he there? I don’t know. The chorus cats were all a singular blob that did not stand out and had not individuality and personality. He interacts with Munk alot but we didn’t see that.

Asparagus: Not present, granted he wouldn’t have been present anyways because Gus was only present for his number (and that awful barge seen) but in the 98 version and most stage versions he is the chorus version of Gus the Theater Cat. In 98 he is argued to be a son of Gus, or just a younger version of Gus. Because remember what I said in the stage production every cat is on stage for about 90% of the time.

Bombalurina: She’s apparently psychotic in this version. Which she’s not, but also in the stage version she’s not either. Instead of being someone who survived the influence of a less than pleasing purpose she is henchman number one. The Smee ( but more coordinated ) to Macavity’s Hook.

Bustopher Jones: Was decent. James was good, but he also missed the mark with his jokes and they didn’t land well. We saw a more realistic version of him instead of the show’s idealized version which I was fine with. But his lines were wooden and not good. Hence why this show should not have spoken lines.

Cassandra: Was apparently there? She looked purplish I think or maybe that was Demeter. I don’t know but she was rude, and more catty than show Cassandra. But we don’t really know who she is because beyond the Glamor Cat song she along with Demeter disappear into the background with cats that don’t matter.

Coricopat and Tantomile: Replaced with Plato and whatever the other philosopher was played by the Les Twins. They didn’t fit in. Shoving hip hop into cats has been proven to not work, hip hop tugger anyone? So why they tried again here, I don’t know. But they failed. We loose these lovely mystical twins, and get stuck with twins in converse? Like why? What brought on that costume choice, why did that slip through?

Demeter: Could be Cassandra. We don’t know. She’s just a mean girl and not a traumatized cat who is the first to think a sign of danger is Macavity. She was robbed of her duet cause t-swizzle needs all the fame. Munk doesn’t get his moments with her cause VICTORIA! Ugh.

Electra, Etcetera, Exotica: Were any of them there? The world may never know. The movie didn’t show us faces to put with names like the 98 version did. So if they were there who knows. You probably would have no seen or heard them since most solos they had were covered by like four other cats only. And the rest of the chorus cats was a brown grey blob because those are the only cat colors apparently.

Grizabella: We did not need to be told her back story. The song alludes to enough. Jennifer did great though. I just wish her moments were not in so much seclusion. It ruins her final song. We are robbed of young Griz in the opening number.

Gus: Ian did great. He was the right choice, the went a John Mills route. But his number dragged. Ian also didn’t have any connection to anyone in the cast. Like when Misto talks to him his reactions make it seem like he does not care who these cats are now. It makes him seem stuck up rather than reminiscent.

Jellylorum: Apparently was a kitten? Sigh. She is supposed to give Gus as a suggest and sing his song with him as a duet to kind of play off of each other. It gives the number some action and liveliness. Even with all the cuts, the number still dragged.

Jemima/Silabaub: First her name varies depending on where you are watching the stage show. Whatever she had was given to Victoria. Apparently this is because that cat was based of ALW’s wife. Which like fine, but like Hooper can you at least be more cohesive with your plot if you are going to cut a character out?

Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer: We see no real personality from them. Sorry but we don’t. We just see them scheming with each other because they are “evil.” We don’t get the story that the show or the 98 musical gives us. A moment i love from the 98 version is when Macavity does come Mungo ducks and covers his head with hands. It just shows that even Macavity’s own guys, cause Mungo is mentioned in the song not Rumple ( which leads me to think she came later or pulled him out of that ), but it shows just how scary Macavity is. And we don’t get that in the movie. In the movie we get them not knowing Macavity’s plan, which like what use are you then?

Plato: Commandeered by the Les Twins he is ruined. In the show he has a pas de deux with victoria and its a bit sexy and still gorgeous with the gorgeous famous overhead lift that the show is known for. He also doubles as Macavity cause again all the cats are on stage for about 90% of the musical save for a few.

Pouncival: Not there as far as I can tell. Which is a shame Pouncival is a cutie pie in the 98 version.

Tumblebrutus/Carbuckety: His name varies depending on what stage show you are watching. He is the one who tumbles alot. He may have been there, but because of the crappy cinematography whatever tumbling there was, we didn’t see.

Growltiger: Ruined to a poor attempt at a pirate on a toy boat barge.

Griddlebone: Ruined, and demeaned to a low lackey instead of a lavish cat who does with movie Macavity wishes he could.

Macavity: He became a cartoon villain as opposed to an actual threat. He wasn’t ginger, and his eyes were weird he was the only one with weird eyes. He wasn’t scary, any agency he had as a threat was ruined by shoving his badness in our face. They could have just had the cats disappear. Its like Tom Hooper saw a scary movie saw what made it scary, the unknown, and decided I’m not going to do that. Also any thing that would have shown his strenght is gone because hsi fight was taken away.

Any cat in the chorus is just a blob, or not CGIed. LOL. Part of this is because the cast does not interact with each other. In the stage production touch is important. Interpersonal relationships are important. We don’t get any of that. We are not used to touching and nuzzling thus when we see it is awkward. Not to mention the awkard rubbing noise we get when it does happen, it doesn’t help. The cast aside from the named cats, and munk have no personality, they fade into the back and its such a shame because each cat is so unique and different. Granted we wouldn’t know that since when they explain that in the stage show, they cut it out in the movie.

Technical Stuff

The first four songs are pretty much ruined because it takes just about that long to get accustomed to the strange CGI. The CGI is bad, I have seen better CGI cats in video games. Honestly I know makeup is time consuming, but it is cheaper than CGI. Better cats make up that isn’t just the theater makeup can be seen in Doctor Who. What made this CGI so jarring is the lack of noses and lips that looked like cats. We know via BTS pics that the actors wore make up. So why they couldn’t put noses on, or the line straught down to the mouth then curled up the ends of the mouth to give us a muzzle is beyond me. It looks like bad photoshop. I will never understand that decision.

I don’t care that dicks were CGIed out. That is not what made cats “sexy” in the first place. The dancing made it sexy. The CGI was equal to that of movies in the 90s and poorly made video games from the early 2000s.

From a film standpoint it was poorly shot. Tom Hooper does not know how to shoot dance. And it shows. He does so many swift cuts and pans that we don’t get a good view of what the choreography is.

We are too often forced to see things that are already obvious because of other tactics like shadows and voices. We do not need to see a cat disappearing via Macavity. We do not need to see so much yet our focus is taken from the group ruining whatever connection the group had to eachother and us the audience in order to show us bad dialogue and special effects to show capturing. I said it earlier its like Tom Hooper saw scary movies and said I wont do that I’m gonna do it like Tom and Jerry do, but that’s an insult to Tom and Jerry. Or he has never seen a horror movie in his life.

Their are far to many unnecessary scenes paired with jump cuts. We never get a sense of the group of cats as a whole because not only are they seperated from the only cats we know the names of, but we have to see where those cats are since we have to know they are in danger. No one knows of the thread, except like once, which is when Griz arrives. Its like the chorus doesn’t care, even though Hooper does his damndest to make sure we the audience care, but we don’t even our audience stand in doesn’t. These scenes are mainly Growltiger’s barge, and taking us out of the ballroom for Skimble’s number.

Now onto proportions. They are all over the place. A watch would strangle a cat, a ring would not fit around their wrist. They at some points can just reach a door knob, while at other parts barely reach a foot off the ground. The cockroaches and mice did not size down well. Skimble’s number had so many issues with size and cinematography which is a shame cause it was one of the best of the movie. The cats can walk on the tracks like with 3 feet on either side of their own. Yet we all know that is not correct. They look two inchest tall in comparison to the tracks. Yet we see them inside the train and they are like child sized. Then we have weird cuts to wide shots of the bridge which doesn’t help with proportion as one wide shot is so wide the cats nearly disappear. Another proportion issue was the stage in the ballroom it was a normal stage and they measured to it like a normal stage. The moon looked like something out of 1920s black and white film so was proportioned for a normal human, but the chandelier was big and felt oddly proportioned in the ballroom. Like it should not have been able to fit through the whole in the roof.

Tom Hooper did not know what he was doing with this movie. It is very clear he had no vision and did no know what the show was about hence why he had to push his new plot in while keeping everything the same so it seemed like hot garbage which is exactly what it was.

Tom does not know how to film dancing, and he has been notorious for cutting songs and such with Les Mis and he did it again. He cut songs, and then added a song which he did with Les Mis too. He messed up guys.

Back to the CGI for a minute besides the overall choice being bad because all the did could be done with practical makeup and would have looked better. It was poorly done. Their ar emoments when their is just color on the actor’s hands, when their is no color, when their is fur. Judi’s main is curled under her chin so it looks like a really bad fake beird. If you are in the background you may not be CGIed at all. There wer emoments where the connections did work such as feet on the ground, and Munkustrap helping Victoria off the car looked weird cause Victoria’s fur slid around but not with her body. And that is just a few things I noticed. The tails were good but like, it took away from the dancing.

Their was real awkward sound design. First of all the butchering of Andrews music to fit certain aspects like Tugger asking for the party to be turnt up. It was weird and didn’t fit. Additionally any moment where nuzzles or touches happened were awkwardly silent with a sound that sounds like the rubbing of a plasticky material together. None of which is helped by they never actually touch eachother because their is somoene blocking the camera. A show that has a character essentially scream “touch me” lacks touch one of the most basic cat interactions.

Breaking the fourth wall was jarring because it didn’t happen throughout. The 98 version gets away with it because they do it from the beginning. But this was weird. It was a poor choice, and an example of wanting to keep the original but it not coming across because of choices made prior.

Other Stuff and Random Thoughts

The movie was really confused at what it wanted to be. It wanted to have the original plot, but also this new plot which was forotten half way through and remembered again. Continuity was a huge issue with this movie. Victoria as audience stand in doesn’t work because the audience is addressed at the end. The jokes didn’t land. And the subtle jokes in the stage version are all but erased.

Cats would have never done well, even with an extended timeline and good CGI. If it was a perfect movie it would not have done well because it is Cats. Cats has never done well with critics. Its biggest fans are often children because they get the story because it is such a simple story. This movie forgot that, but also tried to make it easier to follow, but they failed cause it was confused.

This movie is a huge disservice to TS Eliot. Eliot did not want pussy cats, that is why he didn’t give the rights to Disney. It wasn’t that he didn’t want animated cats like in Aristocats. He didn’t want his cats to be like Tom from Tom and Jerry, which Macavity became more or less. Their were cartoon moments in the movie, and its a disservice to the Poet. Adding to his works with a new song is a disservice. Making the choreography so contrived because the new choreographer wants to show he has subtlties like Balanchine of Nutcracker fame was a disservice to Gillian Lynne.

The movie lost the vision of what cats is and was. It lost the vision of what a cat is because the cats did not act like cats. We never saw a true cat fight, or the cats interact with each other in ways that weren’t awkward. We never saw them being cats yet we are told that they are cause Judi told us so. They never acted like cats or moved like cats. Simple hand turning downwards instead of upwards, or bending of the legs, holding yourself a little differently that makes all the difference.

The move wasn’t aboslutely terrible, but it was pretty bad. I still think its garbage, and I don’t think its worthy of the title Cats because it was hardly that. A bigger budget does not mean cool CGI, and more shots, it means improve the basics to the very best. The Corridor Crew on Youtube say it best, if you can do it practically do it because it will always look better. This movie missed so many marks.

I say all this out of love because Cats is my favorite musical. But this movie failed. I wish it could be chosen to be reborn, but I’m afraid what we’d get. So I’ll stick with the stage production, if you can see a tour or any of the productions around the world do it. If not watch the 98 version, get the DVD because the one on youtube cuts out some good parts like Tugger playing bagpipes.

I wanted this movie to be good. I wanted to be proud to say I like Cats and I can’t unless I specify the stage version, because this version is not deserving of a like from me.

So I’ll repeat what I said at the beginning of this review, Cats 2019 is garbage that does not belong in the jellicle junkyard. Granted, no one from the 2019 movie or who has seen it would get that reference, but that’s okay. Us real fans know. We’re the true fans we get it. We will love this musical, but I say we cannot love this movie for so many reasons, and I hope I have laid out a few of my own.

#ooc: out of cats #cats 2019 #cats 2019 review #cats the musical

[mst3kproject]

The Incredible Petrified World

When choosing episodes that never were, it is always tempting to just pick crap movies I enjoy watching, like Lady Frankenstein or The Giant Claw, and ignore the unwatchable bilge – but this blog is about films that were or should have been on MST3K, and they riffed their way through quite a bit of unwatchable bilge over the years, from The Robot vs the Aztec Mummy to dreary dubbed Hamlet. I would therefore be sadly remiss if I neglected truly wretched movies entirely, and so we come to The Incredible Petrified World.  It’s a Jerry Warren movie that serves very well to emphasize that Teenage Zombies might be his best work, and it stars John Carradine from The Unearthly and Phyllis Coates from Invasion USA.  It’s also one of the most difficult movies I’ve ever had to sit through, right up there with Invasion of the Neptune Men, so brace yourselves because this is gonna hurt.

A Dr. Wyman (evidently this is before the Blood Beast ate his brain) has invented a special deep-diving bell, and it’s time for its first test in the Caribbean. The expedition consists of three scientists and a reporter – the former are two identical-faced men and a brunette, and the latter is a blonde.  Don’t expect me to remember their names.  Halfway down, the cable snaps and they plummet to the seafloor… but when they come to, they realize there’s light in the windows.  They’ve somehow entered a series of underwater caverns, which are inexplicably full of air and light!  After wandering around eating up time I could have spent watching a better movie, they encounter a man in a fake beard who says he’s been down there for fourteen years. For some reason this guy decides to kill them all, but at the last minute a volcano erupts, squashing him so everybody else can be rescued.

Interspersed with all this are scenes of Wyman’s brother and his collaborators, helping in the search for the missing scientists and building their own diving bell for a follow-up mission.  These parts seemed weirdly disconnected from the rest of the movie, and I wondered if they were shot and added later because somebody thought the movie was going to be too short.  But then at the end, all these characters appear together on the rescue boat.  I guess the writing just sucked.

Oh, man, fuck this movie.  It really is the dumbest, dullest thing imaginable.  The whole thing is just a bunch of scenes that wander across the screen but never amount to much, so in that spirit I’m going to make a bunch of observations and not worry about whether they add up to a review.  Here goes.

The actual beginning of the movie is some footage of an octopus fighting a shark, while a narrator tells us that the sea is the wildest and most hostile place on earth… although his words aren’t nearly so poetic.  In fact, the narrator sounds like he’s reading the script aloud for the first time, while wondering if he remembered to lock his car.  He drones on and on about the things that lurk in the depths while we see dull footage of fish swimming around for nearly four minutes.  I already want to turn this off and go do something fun, like sweep the floor. Even worse, none of this has a crumb to do with the rest of the movie, which is set not at the seafloor, but in a cave, where there are no sharks or octopodes.

The diving bell looks about as solid as a beach ball and is significantly bigger on the inside than the outside.  Everything in it is controlled by two switches on the wall and an oscilloscope. The dialogue is at pains to note that the second bell, the one built by Wyman’s brother, is identical to the first. This means they can use the same set.

All these undersea caverns have nice level floors for the characters to walk on, which is good because the women wore heels for their descent into the murky abyss.  At one point they encounter an Australian perentie lizard, which is only seen in a cutaway because it’s stock footage from the other side of the world.  I don’t know how long they’re supposed to have spent wandering around in the caves but since the search was eventually called off it must have been a couple of weeks at least.  Despite this, nobody’s clothes get dirty.  The women’s hair and makeup always look perfect, and the men never need to shave.  Come to think of it, how does Beard Guy know he’s been down there for fourteen years? He’s in a fucking cave.  There’s no day or night to pass the time, and he doesn’t wear a watch.

Beard Guy apparently tells the characters that he and Mysterious Skeleton were sailors on a ship that sank, and that’s how they ended up in here. The two men suspect that he isn’t telling the truth.  It turns out Beard Guy is the one who killed Mysterious Skeleton, although it never tells us why – maybe he’s just crazy, or maybe he got really hungry one day. If there’s a dark truth to how he ended up in this place, however, the audience never learns what it is.

Much of what we see is just filling time.  One of the guys says they can make fishing spears out of some of the equipment they had in the diving bell, and then we have to watch them do it. There’s a bit where a guy back on land is driving somewhere, and we hear a news broadcast on the search, which is fine, but then we also have to listen to the weather report as well. Characters wander through rocks, and then wander back through the same rocks shot from a slightly different angle.

There is an attempt at subplots.  The blonde woman is the bitchy one and the brunette is the nice one.  The former has just broken up with her boyfriend and threw his engagement ring into the ocean.  One of the men confesses his love to the latter.  Both of these ideas come out of nowhere, are given three or four lines, and vanish into the mist, never to be heard from again.  Beard Guy, whose ‘beard’ looks more like a stuffed animal glued to his face, tries to rape the blonde while the men are gone.  Since the movie was made in the fifties he doesn’t get very far before he is buried by falling rocks.  If this had happened so the men could heroically save her, it would have annoyed me, but the utter pointlessness of the scene we did get is worse.

The erupting volcano is exactly like the erupting volcano in The Land that Time Forgot, in that the volcano only exists to end the movie at an arbitrary point.  At least it’s not here to steal the happy ending this time.  Footage of the actual eruption is upside-down for some reason, maybe because we’re under the ground.  What sense does that make?  Did the writer think the earth is hollow and volcanoes on its inner surface point down instead?

The dialogue is unsalvageable.  There’s an entire conversation between John Carradine and some other guy about why the cable broke on the first diving bell, and not only is everything they say nonsense, they can’t even make it sound like anything but.  Characters on Star Trek talk complete bullshit all the time, but at least they mostly sound like they believe in it.  John Carradine and his co-star have absolutely no idea what they’re saying, and don’t care enough to try.  Something about making the diving bell too strong.

It pretty much goes without saying that The Incredible Petrified World doesn’t have anything to say.  The entire story, insofar as it goes, is completely without point or plot.  It barely even has a premise.  Various characters take turns moaning and wailing about how they’re gonna be down here for the rest of their lives, but then they recover and get on with things after all.  The men discuss survival strategies and the women complain.  Nothing develops.  The blonde supposedly has an arc, in that at the end she says “my life will be changed from here on out”, but this is the most told and least shown character development of any movie ever.

It’s a complete mystery to me why anyone bothered making this movie.  Most movies have something going on: they want to tell a story, to examine an idea, to showcase an actor, to sell soundtrack albums, to leech money from nostalgic fans of an old cartoon… sometimes these ambitions are cynical but they’re still there.  Even really, really, legendarily bad movies have goals. Foodfight wants you to buy name-brand instead of generic.  Manos: the Hands of Fate wants to prove it’s not as difficult or expensive to make a movie as Hollywood would have you believe.  The Hottie and the Nottie wants to convince you that Paris Hilton can act.  All these movies are miserable fucking failures but you can tell what they were going for.

The Incredible Petrified World isn’t even going for anything.  It just takes some bad actors, stands them in front of the camera for a few minutes, and then lets them go home.  There is literally nothing beneath the surface, and the surface is so insubstantial it barely counts. It’s movie dark matter, adding to the mass of the universe but otherwise completely fucking inert.

#mst3k #reviews #episodes that never were #the incredible petrified world #poor john carradine #fuck this movie #60s #non hamlet reviews that mention hamlet

[rantsaboutponies]

Season 9 Retrospective

One last ride.

If this final season proved anything, it’s that nothing matters anymore. I mean, it’s kind of been that way for the last few, but this one crystallized that. The final score (W-L-T) was 1-5-20; the sheer amount of “meh” episodes is staggering.

I wonder how this show will stand the test of time. If it had aired for just those first two seasons, it probably would have been a classic, “canceled too soon” series that maintained its small but passionate group of fans for decades to come. That’s not going to be the effect, though, if you keep a series going well after the point that it should have ended. If you continue out of momentum for six or seven years past its expiration date, you’re going to end up driving your fans away by creating an atmosphere of apathy, and indeed, that’s exactly what happened. Sure, diminishing returns are still returns, but you’re going to reach a point where the majority of people have dropped off, and that’s when not even your financial responsibilities will justify your existence anymore. It might ironically turn out that the longer the show runs, the less it will be remembered. For a recent example, look at what happened to the Transformers movies. From the fiscal side, you had what looked like a good thing going; it was just a whole bunch of people complaining that these movies sucked, which didn’t matter to you as long as you were still making money. And then the fifth film came out, and you lost $100 million. Everyone who was still continuing to give these movies a chance had officially run out of patience. (I guess continuing well past anyone giving a shit is something Hasbro has yet to learn from.)

Anyway, enough rambling. This final ranking is going to be tricky, since there were just so many Tie episodes that I really didn’t give a shit about, but #1 is going to be easy because there was only one Win in the entire season. That would be...

#1. “Student Counsel”: Once again, putting Starlight and Trixie in an episode together will basically guarantee hilarious dialogue. I don’t know why they’re not getting their own spin-off.

And it’s a pretty steep drop-off from there...

#2. “Between Dark and Dawn”: I guess seeing more of the sisterly relationship between Celestia and Luna was halfway interesting (even if it wasn’t that different from what we saw in “A Royal Problem”). The fact that they seemed to forget about the main storyline at the end was kind of dumb, though.

#3. “Twilight’s Seven”: You know what, at least it was different. A heist? Sure, why not?

#4. “The Last Laugh”: There’s something ironic about this show having an episode about how it’s bad to move from doing something creative (and that you love doing) to a mechanized, monotonous process of doing the same thing and losing the passion and interest you once had. I wonder if the writers were aware of what they were doing here.

#5. “The Summer Sun Setback”: When you get right down to it, this plot wasn’t too different from the finale. This one was just smaller and focused on a single event. Either way, at least Tirek and Cozy Glow had fun fucking with them a little.

#6. “A Horse Shoe-In”: Some of the teaching auditions were kind of fun, but this wasn’t a Starlight/Trixie episode that had a ton of humorous dialogue. Very disappointing.

#7. “The Point of No Return”: Twilight doesn’t freak out about minor stuff anymore! That’s why she’s going to rule Equestria very, very soon. If I lived in Equestria, I’d be terrified for my future.

#8. “Common Ground”: I kind of wish the moral here could have been, “It’s possible not to have the same interests as someone else and still have a healthy relationship with them,” but with this show, we’ll have to settle for, “If you look really, really hard, you’ll be able to find an aspect of their interest that you like enough to keep yourself entertained.”

#9. “Sweet and Smoky”: “If you’re useful, people will stop making fun of you.” The lesson of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”, now in dragon form!

#10. “She’s All Yak”: “Tell me about it...stud!” I never got on board with the “Yona is best yak” train (I mostly just found her obnoxious), but I absolutely agree with the “Jesus Christ, please stop trying to kill her!” crowd.

#11. “The Big Mac Question”: This was probably the most in-one-ear-and-out-the-other episode this season. I don’t even remember what happened. Big Mac married Cheerilee, right?

#12. “Frenemies”: I’ll be honest, this is the episode that aired while I was at Everfree Northwest, and I wasn’t really paying attention. The only thing I remember about it is “Gregory’s Bell”. As far as I know, that was actually in the episode proper.

#13 & #14. “The Beginning of the End”: Weird that Sombra never came back. Nope, he’s totally super-duper for reals defeated this time.

#15 & #16. “The Ending of the End”: I’ve mentioned this before, but big, epic battles do absolutely nothing for me when there isn’t any substance to them. If some super-powerful being is fighting some other super-powerful being, it’s no different from a normal being fighting another normal being. Scaling it up doesn’t make it more interesting. The plan involving undermining everypony’s trust in each other was a good idea, but they forgot that every single background character in this show is dumb as a box of hammers and changes allegiance on a dime, so that was never really going to work. Plus, the fact that it was Discord the whole time was just...ugh.

#17. “Dragon Dropped”: Oh, really, Rarity? Now you care about Spike? Geez. We can’t end the show without Spike continuing to be a punching bag. (But he’s buff in the last episode, so it’s fine.)

#18. “The Last Crusade”: Given how a few of the later episodes on this list, I’m surprised it didn’t turn out that Scootaloo’s parents were secretly testing her the entire time. “We just wanted to make sure that you really meant it when you said you didn’t want to move!”

#19. “Uprooted”: After Sombra destroys the Tree of Harmony, the Student Six have to work together to...decide how best to memorialize it. I just wanted to remind everyone how moronic the premise of this episode was. That’s all.

#20. “The Last Problem”: God, this framing device sucked. Without it, this episode might have been higher on the list. As it was, it rendered the entire thing pointless.

#21. “Daring Doubt”: Wow, it turned out the villain wasn’t really the villain the whole time! Please ignore any contradictory information that may have cropped up in previous episodes.

Did you notice that there were three unrelated episodes this season whose titles began with “The Last...”? Talk about uncreative.

#22. “Going to Seed”: Children really don’t need more outlets encouraging them to believe adults who lie to them for their own gain and/or pleasure. There really needs to be a show that teaches, “There are people out there who profit from lying to you.”

#23. “2, 4, 6, Greaaat”: This and the next one on this list are the double-header of “It’s okay to trick and manipulate someone if you think it’ll teach them a lesson they need to learn!” episodes.

#24. “She Talks to Angel”: Notice in both of these cases (Rainbow Dash’s in the former, Fluttershy’s in the latter) that these were not, in fact, lessons that they needed to learn! Twilight and Zecora just got to be smug assholes and pat themselves on the back at the end. Yippee.

#25. “A Trivial Pursuit”: Remember, this was the episode immediately before Celestia told Twilight how qualified she was to run a country. This was a mere seven episodes before the finale. Character growth is super easy if you just say that it happened! Also, as a major trivia buff, this was just insulting on every level.

#26. “Growing Up Is Hard to Do”: This episode really brought back the name of my blog. After so many that I didn’t care about, it felt good to have a nice long rant again, and boy, did this one deserve it.

So...what will G5 bring? Different characters? Different stories? Different writers? At this point, who knows? Maybe I’ll be there to find out.

#my little pony: friendship is magic #my little pony friendship is magic #my little pony #friendship is magic #mlp fim #mlp #fim #my little pony spoilers #mlp spoilers #spoilers #season 9 retrospective #retrospective

[bigskydreaming]

someothermontra replied to your post:

Why did (do?) the Magivians film you with rage?

Don’t quote me on this because I don’t watch the show or care about it, but iirc it’s Margo (or her actress) who is the WOC. I’m not sure if Kady or her actress is white or white passing. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yeah I mean, you’re as likely to be right as I am there, if not more. I had to hunt to remember the name Kady at all, and I’m PRETTY sure she was the one with the hedge witch plot, but maybe she wasn’t the WoC in the main cast and it was Margo? Margo was...Elliott’s friend, right? And he was the gay guy I was talking about? Wait why am I asking you, you just said you don’t watch the show or care about it lol okay I’m just talking to myself from here on out. Like that’s ever stopped me. Hmm okay, honestly Penny and Julia are the only ones I remember clearly and am sure of. Like, I remember that the main blond guy’s name was Quentin but very little else about him because he’d come on screen and I’d sigh aggressively like dude I don’t care about you at all, I recognize that you’re trying fairly hard to get me to but I just don’t, there’s no spark, I’m sorry its not me its you nah its probably you tbh. Wait I already said that.

I mean, I know there was that blond girl, but I can’t for the life of me remember what the fuck her name was? I just remember that she and Quentin were love interests and then something happened halfway through the season where he had a threesome with Elliott and Margo I guess it was? And then I was ticked off for the rest of the season because the threesome was literally only ever brought up again to cause drama between Quentin and the blond girl and it felt gross and exploitative because at that point Quentin was like....he’d self identified as straight at least once early on, which is why we knew the threesome with another guy was supposed to be out of the ordinary for him except it was only treated as out of the ordinary BY Quentin in the context of like ‘oh but I didn’t mean to cheat on umm fuck why can’t I remember her name uggggh this is gonna bug me.’ 

But yeah anyway my point is it pissed me off the entire rest of the season that nobody ever brought up like.....soooooo do you have any kind of reaction, response, thoughts, feelings, ANYTHING about the fact that you slept with a guy and by all previous accounts that’s definitely not a usual Friday night for you and thus SOME kind of reaction to like....one’s first or likely first same-gender sexual encounter...would usually be at least expected to be touched on? Even if just a little bit? But noooooope. So I distinctly remember already being annoyed by that when that season’s Bury Your Gays happened with Elliott and his new LI just a couple episodes later...esp when that STILL didn’t prompt any kind of actual dialogue between Quentin and Elliott or even Margo about oh yeah, so about that thing that happened that actually does or should have significance to me beyond just omg we were on a break no we weren’t yes we were ugh SHUT UP Ross. Wait where did that come from. Ugh I should probably like, sleep soon.

Anyway, I know Quentin ended up bi and in an actual relationship of sorts with Elliott later? Or at least that’s what I heard? So apparently, that did at least get revisited and explored after I dropped the show, but whatevs, I’m still pissed. It shouldn’t be too much to ask that if you have an otherwise straight-identifying character cheat on his girlfriend with a guy for the sake of boyfriend/girlfriend relationship drama halfway into a season, like.....you can’t find ANY room anywhere in the back half of that season to have that guy at least spend ONE scene acknowledging that this has implications for him beyond just the cheating and even if he can’t unpack it all right now like, at least code into his storyline some indication before the end of the season that it WILL eventually get revisited and won’t just be totally swept under the rug? Because there was nooooone of that.

Oh and also I remember that after he cheated and had that threesome, the blond girlfriend slept with Penny specifically to get back at Quentin and make him jealous...like I think she even said something along the lines of now we’re even to him? Because I def remember my eyes narrowing into slits and being like oh hahaha okay, so you’re just going to use that other dude you’ve spoken maybe five other lines to all season JUST to fuck with your boyfriend or notevenboyfriendanymore and like, who gives a fuck that Penny’s like...actually into it right? Cool cool, that’s fun.

OH! NOW I REMEMBER! Okay, so I don’t know if Kady’s actress is a WoC or white-passing or white, tbh I’m having trouble picturing most of the characters right now, like visually, and I don’t think I ever recognized that actress from anything else. But I FEEL like, and maybe I’m misremembering still, but I feel like the confusion there was because Kady’s mom was one of the hedge witches and I think she was definitely a WoC, Latina I wanna say? And I almost feel like I vaguely recall posts talking about the fact that they cast a WoC to play her mother but Kady’s actress was white or at least of a different background than the actress playing her mom, and there was a whole thing there, kinda like with what happened on TW when they cast a Latina actress to play Malia’s bio-mom, but just in reverse here? Oooooooooor its possible I’m totally pulling that out of my ass and inventing it wholesale from like....misassumptions and random stuff from elsewhere in the series. 

But I remember that Kady’s mom was like....brutally killed off halfway through S1 and Kady didn’t even know about it for awhile, and I feel like I remember that as some of the racist crap they pulled that season because the mom was a WoC, and that all got intertwined with how Kady’s storyline was all about her being exploited by people using her mom as leverage and then her mom was unceremoniously killed off and nothing changed for Kady or her situation because like, nobody even knew or acknowledged it? Idk. I need to not try so hard to remember that season because everything that comes back to me just pisses me off hahahaha I forgot it all for a reason clearly ugggggh its just the worst. That show, man. I hate it so much lol. That writer’s room was like HOW CAN WE DOUBLE DOWN ON BEING AWFUL THIS WEEK!?!? I mean. That’s like....just my opinion and stuff!?!?!? LOL.

#someothermonstra

[groundramon]

i just watched detective pikachu too what are your thots on it!

I enjoyed it actually!!  More than I thought I would.  I’ll give my slightly more spoiler-ish review under the cut:

I’m not a big fan of adult humor shoved into movies just for the heck of it but I felt like the adult jokes in the movie were actually written with intention and care rather than “oh shit our script is bad…we need to make the adults laugh, let’s make a cocaine joke!”  Maybe part of it is that that’s exactly where my brain went too with that shit and it was humor based on important plot points, and the dialogue didnt feel awkward (well it did but it was supposed to because tim was in a tizzy).  Another part of it might be ryan renold’s just natural inclination towards those kinds of witty roles but tim’s actor (IDK HIS NAME SORRY) played off the same energy and made them flow okay too.  All in all, I can completely agree with the statement that Detective Pikachu is what hollywood video game-to-movie adaptations should be.  It feels very hollywood while also not being an insult to the Pokemon franchise, which is a very delicate balance although in retrospect it’s not that hard bc pokemon and hollywood both just want to make money.  I just have low expectations.

Seeing Braviary made me rlly rlly happy!! he looked so good!! I saw rufflet in the trailer ofc but I never saw Braviary and he looks super cool!  I really loved the treecko on the window at the apartment building as well.  The torterra were another cool surprise.  I can agree that most Pokemon in the movie are in at least one of the trailers in some form tho.  But seeing their full performance in the movie is much more fun imo!  Overall the CGI was really great, there was like…one scene or two scenes where I noticed slight awkwardness between Tim/Pikachu when they were interacting physically, but it was pretty minor (like when Pikachu was unconscious, Tim wasn’t cradling him as baby-like as I would, he seemed more tense and less careful than I’d expect).

The bulbasaurs made me cry and my mom liked the mr mime scene.  I saw that one post a lot and still didn’t believe it until I saw it.  He’s fucking dead now I guess.  ALSO I FEEL SO BAD FOR MEWTWO just let him be free and happy!!! he just wants to chill with the bulbasaur and the morelull!! goddamn!!! I wanna do that too, just fuck off to the woods and hang with some bulbasaur and morelull, tbh

Plot-wise I think the villain was the most relatable villain in the entire Pokemon franchise because I, too, would do anything to become a Pokemon.  Idk why he thought it was necessary to do that to other people tho.  Like he could just charge money to do that to people?  And he’d get paid AND not get arrested?  People would pay to do that.  I would pay to do that.  Is it ethical?  No.  I just thought his motivation for that part was kinda weak.  Typical weak hollywood twist villain tbh.  But god his actions were great, i wish I could copy paste his goal onto an actually good character.

Girl character is girl and romance is cliche.  Would’ve been more fun if she stayed a psyduck and Tim had an ethical dilemma as to whether or not it’s okay to fuck a psyduck with a human-level consciousness (a pussyduck, if you will).  And I hate it when fictional scenes make me think of the ethical-ness of inter-species breeding so that’s saying a lot.

The story’s main pull was the relationship between Tim, his father, and Pikachu, and the mystery they had to solve, and while the plot is kind of rough, the emotion behind it makes it all worth it imo.  It’s a typical hollywood film, I’m only 18 and barely watch any movies but I’ve literally seen this story done before.  But to do it with Pokemon, and to do it with actors who really seem to care…that’s what made it worth it.  You’ve seen the story before, but it’s still a cute film.  It’s not bad or obnoxious even though the story is pretty rough.  It can still make you emotional even though it’s kinda cliche.  It’s just…fun.  Turn off your brain because it’s Pokemon and Pokemon never has a good story, and you’ll just have a lot of fun.

I wish I was in rhyme city when that all happened so that I could ask mewtwo to keep me a pokemon

Oh I was also surprised by the amount of gen 5 Pokemon, although I was in the trailers too.  I’m gonna count up all the Pokemon I remember seeing now - I’ll probably forget a few gen 1 pokemon since it’s definitely gen 1 heavy and I was mostly looking for non-gen 1 pokemon, but hopefully I still got them all.

Gen 1: Bulbasaur, Charmander, Charizard, Squirtle, Blastoise, Pikachu, Jigglypuff, Growlithe, Arcanine, Machamp, Polywhirl/wrath…? (I think but I dont remember aaa), Gengar, Snorlax, Magikarp, Gyrados, Eevee, Flareon, Pidgeotto, Pidgeot, I think there were Pidgeys but I couldn’t really tell…, Mew (picture only), Mewtwo, Ditto, Psyduck (…duh), um…I think that’s it?TOTAL COUNT: 24+ (again I might’ve missed some)

Gen 2: Noctowl, Aipom, Snubbull, SneaselTOTAL COUNT: 4

Gen 3: Treecko, Ludicolo…I think that’s it…TOTAL COUNT: 2

Gen 4: Torterra, um…..?? seriously wait, is torterra the only one? I gotta google this hold on-

…i forgot lickitung, cubone, doduo, dodrio, and rattata in gen 1. and primeape. i also forgot togepi and actually a fuck ton more. i remember all of those tho not some of the other ones. f. i dont remember primeape tho and also i mostly remember doduo and dodrio from the trailer oops

I FORGOT MOTHER FUCKING MR MIME

this post is cancelled but looking on bulbapedia tells me that the totals for each gen pokemon (species, not how many appear) are:

Gen 1: 32

Gen 2: 7, but bulbapedia says 6, i saw several noctowl towards the beginning of the film tho and bulbapedia doesnt have noctowl listed

Gen 3: 4

Gen 4: 3 (lmao)

Gen 5: 8

Gen 6: 4

Gen 7: 2

Overall a kind of weird distribution imo.  I realize the first chapter of Detective Pikachu (the game) came out before gen 7, but still, it’s kinda weird to me personally.  Gen 5 only has a major lead compared to every gen except for gen 2 and gen 1, but still.  The fact that it’s the second most represented gen (more than gen 2, even!) is interesting to me.  Maybe cuz the film was made in the US? so Unova? //shrug emoji//

But anyways yeah, i thought it was good!

#stormy speaks #stormy answers #what did u think sol!!

[johannesviii]

Mad Dogs And Englishmen

Some highlights of the last EDA I’ve read (Mad Dogs and Englishmen).

I took these screens while reading, along with my reactions. As usual, this is full of spoilers.

I opened this book two months ago or so, started to read it, and put it down. I wasn’t in the mood for something silly, because some unpleasant things were happening in my life at that time.

The trouble is, even more unpleasant things happened, and kept happening, and two months later, I was like: fuck this, I need something silly right now. Let’s read the book with the talking dogs.

I read it in two days.

It doesn’t have the amazing, joyful worldbuilding of The Scarlet Empress, and it’s not as experimental and surreal as The Blue Angel. It doesn’t even seem to have an actual message. But it’s fun, it never takes itself seriously, it has a ton of entertaining characters and situations, and some scenes are completely hysterical to picture in your head. Exactly what you need after The Adventuress of Henrietta Street, and exactly what I needed in my life right now. 9/10

I don't doubt this for a second.

Also, I love the fact they didn’t care if the 100th novel had a bright pink cover with a dog wielding a laser gun on it.

I want to read that other book, now.

The what

I really like this idea of a book that took a lifetime to write.

Professor Alid Jag and Doctor Stellus Pontin officially have the best names.

Tag yourself I'm Stellus

Oh noooooooo

Okay, so... this story starts with accidental murder.

A typical day for Eight.

Good morning, Fitz! Eight has already accidentally killed someone!

Anji must be so tired of this bullshit.

Implying you are competent.

Well I'm sad now

Okay WHAT

That was lovely, and I kinda teared up??

I like this character!

HERESY

I’m still not used to this, by the way.

I can confirm.

Anji and Fitz are like “oh no, here we go again”.

azsdfghhgfggff

Wait wait wait, wasn’t this in the audio Find And Replace?

I don’t know why, but imagining this scene cracks me up.

It's like discovering Lord of the Rings is now suddenly all about possums.

Was that ever in doubt

I was just joking about the Lord of the Rings parallel, guys...

Is... is that the in-universe version of Narnia?

Welcome to the TARDIS, Flossie!

I hope nothing too horrible happens to you.

EXCUSE ME, THIS IS TERRIFYING

Okay oh shit where do I even start:

Emily is a companion we’ve never heard about before.

The Doctor forgot she existed.

However, ‘1960s teenage gear’ and the fact she doesn’t recognise Eight suggests she was a friend of One, or maybe Two. We don’t really know the Doctor’s age at that point, but there’s a good chance she’s been there for at least 800 years.

I keep joking about people getting lost in the TARDIS forever. Suddenly that joke sounds horrifying.

It gets worse. This is Eight’s original TARDIS, but some disturbing shit happened to it over the course of the EDAs.

So, presumably, Emily was there when it got turned into a small cube and slowly regrew for an entire century. There’s a good chance she was reconstituted with the rest of the TARDIS after being destroyed/crushed/killed when the TARDIS was similarly destroyed/crushed/killed.

It gets even worse.

Remember the Edifice in The Ancestor Cell? That gigantic bone-like version of the TARDIS where everything looked either dead, ossified or disturbingly deformed? Well, she was somewhere in there.

Sweet dreams.

Well, that’s Classic Who’s budget for you.

So we have the in-universe version of Lord of the Rings, Narnia, and now this guy. That could be various authors, actually.

Mental picture:

IT HAS BEGUN.

This is so fucking weird.

Hmmmm.

There’s a good chance they can watch the episode A Christmas Carol, then.

Wait, do they have human pets? That’s a disturbing thought in an otherwise weird and funny concept.

Of course he is.

Hilarious but still fucking weird.

Asfdfssgsdfsdfsfdfsshdgfff

gfdsstjsyjyfghfff FITZ, NO.

I mean yeah, it’s true, I know you’ve been in far worse situations, but you’re enjoying this a bit too much.

AQZDSTGSGFWSGFSGFAAAFFF FITZ NO

Oh. Great. They filmed Lord of the Rings with dogs.

Well I prefered the LotR version anyway.

I’m still not used to this whole dog-with-hands thing either.

No, you’re not.

Oh. I forgot about her.

Same, Fitz, same.

I like Flossie. Can we keep Flossie?

“We are poodles, Doctor. Of course we know of such things.”

This fucking book is hysterical.

Oh no you didn’t.

Ooooh they're gonna meet the author!

Don't make me sad in a book with talking dogs

I SAID “DON’T”

“lugubrious precision”

STILL TOO FUCKING SOON

That it, that’s Fitz in a nutshell.

Meanwhile, Anji wonders if she really wants to go home.

Okay, okay, I know this is a very long screen, but I love this dialogue.

Oooohhhh, okay, that’s how he fits in the plot.

I love this.

Oh, so Freer rewrote the book? Who’s Freer anyway? Why is he doing this

You're acting stranger than him, Doctor.

Fitz what the fuck are you wearing

What is her role in all this?

FITZ. NO.

(I think this book has the highest amount of “Fitz no” moments in all the EDA range... so far)

Flossie is brilliant and I love her.

She’s brilliant AND hilarious.

I LOVE THIS WHOLE FUCKING SCENE

Meanwhile Anji has just discovered the best timeline.

I guess this guy is Georges Lucas in this timeline.

Whoops!

The guy who writes the in-universe version of Narnia featuring Iris and her bus instead of a wardrobe based his Iris Wildthyme character on Baba Yaga. This is the best thing ever.

Have you really

SUDDENLY, MORE TALKING DOGS

I can’t fault her logic.

FLOSSIE NO DON’T EXPLAIN EVERYTHING

To be honest I would have done the same but still

Hold on, what

(I’m sorry this was way too tempting)

Wait, what’s going on? What is the animator’s role in that timeline then?

Well, that was embarrassing, Doctor

What

WHAAAAAT

Holy fuck

DON’T TALK TRASH TO MY SON

WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT

IS BRENDA SOOBIE SECRETLY IRIS WILDTHYME

This is all getting very complicated, especially for a book about talking dogs.

Alid Jag isn’t dead and he’s using a human as a puppet

What the fuck is going on

It’s a bus, isn’t it.

I FUCKING KNEW IT.

I concur, too

The in-universe equivalent of Harryhausen brought his entire army of stopmotion creatures to attack the in-universe equivalent of Lucas and I absolutely love it.

Meanwhile, Tyler is still faceless.

I feel like there’s other, parallel adventures going on somewhere on this train. What’s up with the hat full of kittens?

This goddamm book, I swear

I LAUGHED SO FUCKING HARD

No, actually.

azertytresdfghfdfg what

Fitz is like “oh no not this bullshit again”

Not sure if this is a very good or a very bad idea.

Pfffft “Imperial Poodles”

The Hoth battle, except better.

So wait, is he the Master or just a guy who likes to be called ‘the master’?

Is... is he just an annoying fan of the book who wants to rewrite the canon to put all his headcanons in it

Laughed way too hard, again.

And not a single fuck was given by Eight that day.

Only in a Magrs book!

Oh, ok then.

They are so casual about it.

Oh, so that’s how he got his face back.

I laughed.

AND NOT A SINGLE FUCK WAS GIVEN THAT DAY²

Pinking shears that can cut through space and time. Just accept it, Anji.

NO IT WASN’T

Don’t give him ideas!

“When he was a very old man”

Eh eh

FUCKING SAME, NOËL

The main villains are all the people who were supposedly dead at the beginning of the story asdfghgfdfghgfdfg

Does anyone care what Fitz thinks

Ok.

Donna would be happy to know the Planet of the Hats and the Planet of the Boys probably exist, then.

Okay okay I know this is supposed to be a cool explanation but the resulting mental picture is hilarious

Don't spoil us the ending, Noël

This fucking dude invoked a poodle during a black mass. I can’t.

Why is this book so funny

THIS IS A TRAINWRECK

It’s Lord of the Rings again!

Thank you Captain Obvious!

Well, yes, sort of

Aww Iris noooo don’t cry

STOP MAKING ME SAD

THIS IS TOO CUTE, STOP

THIS FUCKING BOOK STARTS AND ENDS WITH ACCIDENTAL MURDER

Actually, Narnia would be a lot more fun with a double-decker bus.

So, in the end, Flossie is still alive at the end of this book, and even if she won’t stay in the TARDIS, she gets to travel with Iris instead! Even better!

I'm so happy for her :D

HE REALISED IRIS IS LIKE HIM

I’M SO HAPPY

THIS IS A GREAT ENDING A++

I TAKE IT BACK, THE LAST PAGE IS EVEN BETTER

THANK YOU MR. MAGRS FOR THIS GIFT

#Mad Dogs and Englishmen #Eighth Doctor Adventures #Eighth Doctor #Fitz Kreiner #Anji Kapoor #EDAs #doctor who #long post #an EDA liveblog full of useless comments #capslock #body horror tw #(very minor) #gif #EMILY THOUGH

[couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name]

What do you think of the PJO films?

Okay, but seriously- if you went in with absolutely zero knowledge of the books, the first one would be pretty okay. Decent enough to keep you entertained but ultimately a very forgettable fantasy adventure that came in the wake of Harry Potter Is Ending Soon So Let’s Try To Be Cool. The second one though??? Very Bad. 

I once compiled a list of everything Wrong™ with the movies…Haven’t gone over it in a while but I’m pretty sure it was close to like fourteen pages? 

What happened with the first one was they essentially went ‘Greek gods. Stolen lightning. Character names. Cool.’ and then created their own mess? Percy’s like, a junior in high school, and Annabeth and Grover and Luke were all played by 30 year olds. None of the characters matched their descriptions- from small things like eye color, to big things like Luke’s scar and, like, personality traits. They cast Pierce Brosnan as Chiron solely because someone was dicking around instead of writing the script and like, just drew Pierce Brosnan as a centaur. Mr. D was missing in action, as were all the other campers with names, as were??? The cabins??? Everyone was living in single tents except for like Percy and Luke, who had a bunch of stolen electronics, it was weird. Instead of going to the Oracle and receiving a quest, the trio just kind of sneak out with literally no plan? Luke told them they had to find “Persephone’s Pearl’s” that were hidden across America because that was the only way they’d be able to leave the Underworld (Instead of, you know, Percy’s Literal Father Giving Them To Him So He Can Save His Son okay). They kept in the Medusa scene, but there was no spell cast on them, they just wandered in like dumbasses. The fought a hydra in Athens, Georgia??? It was very bizarrely handled??? Percy and Annabeth had too much sexual tension, with Annabeth knowing him for literally less than an hour, and only having one conversation with him, during which she said ‘I definitely have strong feelings for you’ like what??? They made this whole subplot where the gods didn’t use to abandon their children, no, it’s all Poseidon’s fault because he loved Percy So Much that he forgot to be the god of the sea so Zeus banned the gods from seeing their kids??? There was no big three oath. Hades??? Dressed??? Like a poorly aging rock star???? Persephone was not only in the underworld for some reason (It!! Was!! Summer!! She’s!! Above!! Ground!!), but she complained that Hades was crazy mean and abusive to her??? Literally no one who worked on this movie ever read a single mythology book I swear. Grover sacrificed himself and like, implied banged Persephone, and Luke stole the lightning bolt for no reasons mentioned. They had a fight on the empire state building, during which both Percy and Luke actually FIRED the master bolt (which…shouldn’t be possible), and then Percy literally…stabbed Luke through the neck with a trident and tossed him into a river. I’m still???? I’m still. 

There were a few funny moments that redeemed it- while he didn’t play a very good Book Grover, Brandon T. Jackson was funny enough and kept things moving. The Lotus Casino scene was probably the best part of the movie, because since they aged the characters up, they didn’t feel the need to make it PG, so they literally just got high it was great. The marketing was a mess, though, I remember- a bunch of dramatic Harry Potter-pandering trailers, long slow shots up the Empire state building, interviewers trying to sexualize the end scene between Poseidon and Percy while Kevin McKidd was visibly dying inside as he desperately pointed out he was playing the child’s father…A Mess. A forgettable mess.

But then…the second one. Oh God. 

So they like. Somewhat listened to fan complaints about the first movie? And they attempted to fix what they could…but sloppily, in ways that kind of made them worse. Annabeth’s randomly blonde now, don’t question it. Clarisse has always been here and she and Percy have always been rivals, don’t question it. Luke is somehow still alive and somehow got a scar on his face, don’t question it. Mr. D is here, don’t question it. Stuff like that. It could’ve been handled a lot better, but when you saw that going in it was like, ‘oh! They’re listening! Maybe this one will be better!’ but HA. The plot was once again, baseline- the have to find the golden fleece. They somehow invented, like, Ancient Greek transportation devices??? Like, beam me up scotty, but as a portable disc. Wild. Tyson was handled so…so bad, from his casting to the fact they didn’t want to spend cgi on a cyclopes so they made ‘spray-able Mist in a can’ to give him two eyes. The movie was doing that thing where they kept throwing in future references that had nothing to do with the plot but solely for the audience, but it wasn’t well thought out- like, it came out during the gap between Mark of Athena and House of Hades, so they had Luke throw out a line like “I crawled through Tartarus!!” thinking it was a fun line for the fans, but it just made people Very Upset. Nathan Fillion appeared, made a Firefly joke, and then gave a very unconvincing plea about him wanting Luke to be saved. The Princess Andromeda was a tiny ass yacht instead of a gigantic luxury cruise ship that can hold an army, and they had camp demigods on board that like…weren’t supposed to be there. Percy’s entire character went out the window, he spent the entire film moping about ‘maybe I’m not a Real Hero’, and Annabeth spent the entire movie waiting for him to act first. Grover didn’t get kidnapped until half way thru, and he only spent a few hours with the Cyclopes. They cut out basically everything else and invented an abandoned amusement park for the cyclopes to live on. They….this gets me so mad still, they literally RE-WROTE Greek Mythology just so Percy can have an ‘I’m-like-my-daddy’ moment. They also rewrote the Great Prophecy, which like, okay, with the cast I could understand changing the ages- but then they changed ‘the hero’s soul’ to ‘the evil’s soul‘ and the person sitting behind me in the theater actually yelled out in protest. The Golden Fleece Was Not Golden. And there was this whole scene with Kronos and Percy and Luke near the end….A Mess. 

The only good parts I can remember are Stanley Tucci’s like, five minutes of screen time as Dionysus, and for some inexplicable reason, Luke yelling ‘Get off my roof!’…literally nothing else comes to mind. It’s like, where they tried to make up for the first movie, they let everything else drop? So while the first movie was a Bad Adaptation but a relatively average children’s fantasy film, this one was just. Not even good as a standalone movie. There was no good storytelling flow at all, and things were very poorly explained or ignored. 

You probably didn’t want this long ass thing filled with arguable spoilers, but, sorry. I Am Very Salty About These Films. They had so much potential and just. ugh. 

#percy jackson #rick riordan #the lightning thief #the sea of monsters #pjo #asks #molly mumbles

[alexanderwrites]

Hack Job: Why Were Hacker Movies Ever A Thing?

Lately i’ve been thinking about that weird and almost completely failed subgenre of movie that attempted to light up the LCD screens of our hearts, but instead faded like a broken computer screen: the hacker film. Now, I could ask what good the sub-genre has ever done for us, but the answer to that is clear and just a few inches above this block of text. The genre birthed this iconic Matthew Lillard role from the movie Hackers, in which he plays a (wait for it!) hacker named...erm...Cereal Killer. Because....he likes Cereal? Sure, lets go with that! He’s a character described by June Diane Raphael on an episode of the podcast How Did This Get Made? as “Disgusting”, and she is not completely wrong. He is disgusting, bizarre and the strangest character Lillard has played, and i’m including Shaggy in the live action Scooby Doo films. He’s a character that must be experienced, and once experienced, never forgotten. I mean - you’ve seen what he fucking looks like. 

But my point remains: outside of Cereal Killer (I am bolding his name because he is an Important Man), the genre has offered up very little to the world. I admittedly know nothing at all about hacking, and I don’t care at all about Hacking, like, i’d presume, 90% of people currently residing here on earth. But I cannot imagine that people who love Hacking (or Hacker Fuckers, if you will) queuing up to see Hackers, a film that thinks this is what the internet looks like:

Now, i’m no city-slickin’ mouse-clickin’ hacker, but I don’t think that’s what the internet looks like. I could be wrong, and character actor Fisher Stevens (I was about to write “beloved” character actor, but then I remembered Short Circuit) could be skating through a flashing pillar of internet right now. It’s a cool thought! Hackers came along in 1995, when future optimism was higher than it had been in years, as everyone believed the tech-bubble would never burst (spoiler alert: it did!) and that the new millennium would bring a world of positive changes and possibilities. The poor, innocent souls of 1995 could never have possibly imagined the true horrors waiting for them on the other side of the millennium...

But before Fred Durst became a thing in a hat that you had to look at, technology was booming, affordable and exciting. You got transparent Macs that allowed you to see through into the mechanical nonsense inside it. The new fangled e-mail gave us (I don’t know why i’m saying “us”. I was 3 years old in 1995. Babies don’t get emails) all the opportunity to open your email and then close it again as many times as you liked! So this is what producers saw when they started making movies like Hackers. They put their strongest marketing minds together and came up with “People got computers now. Make comPUTER FILM!”. Those wild bastards actually went and did it! And weirdly, Hackers was kinda ahead of its time. It might’ve been wildly inaccurate in almost every possible way, but it paved the way for a wave of (well, like 3) films. The Matrix wouldn’t be released for another 4 years, and Swordfish a further 2. If it did incite a trend, it was the only trend started by Director Iain Softley, his later film K-Pax tragically failing to kick start a new genre of films in which Kevin Spacey eats bananas with their skins still on.

Good stuff! Hackers does feel like a film that is unsure of whether it’s trying to replicate fads or start them off. I mean, characters rollerblade everywhere for no apparent reason in the film. That might be something Hackers do? I’ve never seen Mr Robot, so I cannot categorically say that Rami Malek doesn’t rollerblade his way around town like a Starlight Express extra who really hates computers. But I doubt it. So with the rollerblading, and the way....ugh...Cereal Killer dresses, it seems like the film is offering you up its own funky ideas that you could follow on from if you want to get murdered on the streets. Did its aesthetic style have influence? Was the game Jet Set Radio from 2000 and its rollerblading theme influenced at all by Hackers? Did Eminem see Johnny Lee Miller’s bleached blonde hair in the film (quick deeply important side note: his character is named Dade. DADE.) and think “huh. that would really compliment my insufferable personality!”? We’ll never know. The film is a weird exercise in style and trends, and the soundtrack, crammed with The Prodidgy and Underworld, is proof that at least the soundtrack department had its finger on the pulse. And, it could be argued that the film’s costume department at least came up with some creative cyber-punk clothing, and were bold enough to make Penn Jillette look like this:

The thing is, I liked the weirdness of it all, I like this misfires in capturing modern life, and inaccuracy doesn’t bother me really if a film is fun enough. I’m not a stickler for realism. I didn’t sit down to Face/Off and complain that it’s totally unbelievable that John Travolta is a human person. That’s not the issue. The issue, really is that with all the giant screen Playstations, pounding trance tracks and references to Coca Cola (weird, I thought Mountain Dew would be the Hacker’s choice), the film is in troubled water because of the fact that Hacking is unbelievably, deeply fucking boring. It is not interesting in seeing someone go clickety clack on a keyboard and make occasional faces to indicate that “oh no! the mainframe is busting my chops!” or “Huzzah! I clicked the mouse really fast just now!”.

Thankfully, the film has some fairly decent editing which intersperses the clickety-clacking with some long exposure, sped up shots of New York City just in case you forgot it was the 90′s. The fact that they need to cut away to exciting, zooming shots that have nothing to do with anything highlights the fact that the Director and Editor knew exactly what i’m talking about: HACKING IS FUCKING BORING (if you’re a hacker reading this, please don’t hack me). And they’ve built an entire film around it! A whole nonsensical plot which involves (as far as i can remember) big ships and evil corporations that want to sink the big ships is built on Hacking. Thank god this film is so wildly ridiculous, which keeps it from being entirely boring. It’s smart in that it knows to not make the film actually about hacking, but then you kind of ask yourself the question: why is this film about Hacking at all? Why is it called Hackers? Maybe a better name would’ve been ‘Bladin’ Teenz’, as an ode to their endless rollerblading. It’s a fun film, but a dumb film and proof that films entirely about hacking cannot really work.

The Matrix was a wise film. Exploiting that hip, late-90s techno excitement that everyone was buzzing over, it featured a hacker at its centre who really doesn’t do much hacking at all. In fact, Morpheus might as well have said “You Hack? Dude fucking grow up. Come on, i’ll make you a treat”. Sure, you’ve got the iconic green gibberish that turns up on the computers and would inspire a million shitty screensavers, but again the hacking is intercut with other action going on in the film. You have characters typing away and yelling shit like “I’m nearly in!” or “i’m not nearly in!” or “I am unsure of whether I am, in fact, in, nearly in, or not nearly in!”. But that is manageable and minimal, and in the end there’s so much more to remember about The Matrix that I don’t think anyone, when asked what it’s about, would say “Oh it’s about Keanu Reeves hacking on his dell”. It understood this caveat, and created its own style which would influence every single music video ever produced over the next 5 years.

These are screenshots from the video for Don’t Wanna Let You Go by 5ive, a very bad UK Boy-band that had 4 singers and 1 rapper, all of whom it’s safe to assume have passed away. 

The Matrix had the style, and the smarts to sidestep bland hacking scenes. You know what film doesn’t understand that hacking is boring? Fucking Swordfish.

Fucking Swordfish. A film so aesthetically ugly and repulsive in every way that it does the unthinkable and makes you hate Hugh Jackman. But it commits the biggest sin of all by giving John Travolta a teeny tiny beard - a decision which we still feel the fallout from today, whenever a new red carpet photo arrises of John’s new chin abomination. 

Looking like a cup of concentrated Michael Bay piss, the film leans heavily into stylishness - or lack thereof. Hugh Jackman is basically...sigh...DADE in the movie, and Travolta is regularly outfitted with funny sunglasses. It borrows a lot from Hackers, but while that had a naive, 1995 goofy charm, Swordfish is an aggressively stupid and oblivious movie, that gives us a LOT of Hacking. Like...so much Hacking. The Most Hacking. Oh, The Fucking Hacking. Its a reminder of just how boring Hackers or The Matrix could’ve been if they’d fallen into the wrong hands, and a big, horribly colour-corrected reminder that films about hacking really aren’t the best. Instead of cutaways of cityscapes, Swordfish tries to build the tension during one hacking scene in the grossest way possible: by having Hugh Jackman’s character receive forced fellatio while he works, and while John Travolta smiles. It doesn’t make a boring scene exciting, it makes a boring scene fucking disgusting (the movie’s grossness doesn’t stop there. Halle Berry was heavily pushed into taking her top off in the movie, and promised extra money if she did it.). The Hackers method of randomised cutaways feels a million miles away during these scenes, and you will be willing to pay any earthly sum to make the scene unfolding in front of you stop. Maybe that’s how hackers should make their money from here on in: stop hacking, and just start blackmailing people by forcing them to watch Swordfish. Fucking Swordfish.

The movie was also a bit of a death knell for a subgenre that never really took off. People realised “Oh, this is dull and crap to watch!” when it came to hacking, and technology moved on rapidly that there was a lot more to do with it than watch some guy slapping the keys of his iMac. I find it a really interesting subgenre to look back at, because i’m a huge fan of outdated technologies, fashion styles, turn of the millennium culture, and really quite poor films (besides The Matrix which holds up nicely). Hollywood has tried to make a manner of subjects interesting. Stock markets. Fishing. White people who buy zoos. Some work, some don’t, and it’s all about the way the subject is handled. Because of their reliance on technology, these hacking films feel so dated that maybe Hollywood doesn’t want to risk dipping its toes back into the cyberwaters again. I kind of hope they don’t, because I would literally rather never see a film again than have to even know that a film about Anonymous is being made. I don’t want an ‘edgy’ modern movie that’s made for Banksy to watch while he plunges his hands down his pants and goes to town. I want silly old Cereal Killer and towers of nonsense computer language dammit! I want rollerblading, coke-drinking cyberpunks! Oh well. Whatever happens to the genre, at the very least, we’ll always have Dade and The Gang....

#hackers #johnny lee miller #matthew lillard #the matrix #swordfish #technology #film trends #film