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niteshade925 · 2 years

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Best Sumeru theory I’ve seen so far

(https://bbs.nga.cn/read.php?tid=32870139). Below is my translation of the post:

I studied the English version of the Sumeru PV, and then reviewed the other few versions, and now I feel like Rukkhadevata may have done something big in Sumeru.

In the English version, the system created by Rukkhadevata was translated as “Akasha”. This word is a phonetic translation of the original word in Sanskrit, but the original meaning isn’t “another world outside of the material world” like how it appears in many other games, but it actually means “the sky” or the concept of space itself. In Sanskrit, Akasha is regarded as the origin and foundation of all beings and all things (since everything takes up a certain amount of space). Later, as ancient Indian philosophy was introduced into Western mysticism in the 18th-19th century, Western mysticism came up with the “Akashic Records”. Basically, in this concept, there is an “Akashic Record” in the purely spiritual “Akasha”, which recorded everything in the universe: past and present, all events, all thoughts. If you have a way to read the Akashic Record, you will be able to find anything you want.

Coincidentally, there is such a record in Genshin: the ley lines. One of the loading screen messages explained how the ley lines worked, I don’t remember the exact words, but I think it’s roughly “the ley lines recorded everything that has happened” (original text from the wiki: “A mysterious network that links the whole world together, within which flow the elements. It's said the Ley Lines remember all things that happen in this world, from the surface down to the deepest depths...”). So ley lines is half of the “Akashic Record” (since it does not record future events). Maybe Rukkhadevata, for reasons unknown, used their gnosis to create a thing that allows humans to access and retrieve information in the ley lines, and after Rukkhadevata died, the people of Sumeru started to use the Akasha system to tap into the knowledge stored within the ley lines more and more, without inhibition or moderation.

Also, if Akasha is really the “server” that connects to the ley lines, that can explain how the Akademiya turned knowledge into a resource and used that to govern Sumeru. Because if the Akademiya is only a research institution that stores knowledge and lets people write academic papers, then it should not hold a lot of power over the researchers. An organization like this relies on the “production” of knowledge from the researchers, but the lore did not mention the Akademiya giving grants to the researchers like in Fontaine, where if the Fontaine researchers don’t complete their research they had to appear before the court. But if Akasha is a “server” that lets users access the Ley Lines, then things are very different. The Akademiya can reserve the power to grant or deny access permission. It’s like if a person wants to write academic papers, but only the Akademiya can decide who gets to access the library, which library, and for how long. This way the Akademiya can hold authority over people.

In the “Travail” trailer, (Dainsleif’s) comment for Sumeru is “in the city of scholars there is a push for folly”. As we all know, messing with the Ley Lines in the world of Genshin never ends well.

Another interesting thing is in the “A Winter Night’s Lazzo” PV, Collei saw Dottore burning a tree. In his dialogue with Columbina, Dottore said that Segment was carrying out a “little experiment in ‘blasphemy’”.

So, if my guess regarding Akasha is correct, then the tree that Dottore burned could be Akasha. Because lore-wise, Snezhnaya will definitely collect all of the gnoses, and if the Fatui were to get the dendro gnosis, they must first destroy the Akasha “server” that is based on this gnosis. Destroying the legacy of the previous Dendro archon does count as “blasphemy”. Judging by the future direction of the lore, the Akademiya doesn’t seem to be a good organization, so if Akasha does have something to do with the Ley Lines, then the current Dendro archon has a good reason to destroy Akasha in order to prevent any future f**k-ups from the Akademiya.

So here’s my bold prediction, maybe Sumeru’s situation is similar to Liyue, where the Dendro archon consented to the actions of the Fatui, and even used the gnosis as a reward to force the Fatui to destroy the Akasha system.

#genshin impact #genshin theory #sumeru #akasha #ley lines #sumeru akademiya #fatui #greater lord rukkhadevata #lesser lord kusanali

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scarletooyoroi · 1 year

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My brain has been churning the recent Genshin happenings in lore and goddamn did something strike a chord. This will be particularly spoiler heavy, so! I will be stuffing this under a read more.

Let’s begin! Genshin 3.2 Spoilers and other archon quest inbound.

It dawned at the end of the Sumeru Archon quest that something particular was going on. A way this world, or rather, whatever is manipulating it from the high ground orchestrates it’s perpetual loom that more or less keeps humanity doomed. At the same time, some of these old actions are repurposed, very much like how a new ‘loop’ begins with destruction and creation.

I wanna hit up some bullet points.

I. Teyvat as we currently know it holds no known reliable narrator with it’s history.

We’ve witnessed this twice now that it comes to be. Through the manipulation of the Irminsul, you can entirely rewrite the collective consciousness of Teyvat and its citizens. This goes for all great/empowered trees that connect with it as well. That shows for the longest time, we have to accept the grain of salt that all manners of greater history in Teyvat may of been rehashed quite literally in the public consciousness.

Examples such as--

It also lends much more credence to this one bit of conversation from Zhongli that felt as it came out of nowhere to me. Primarily, since someone as the God of Contracts, I’m certain he’d have his means of remembering if erosion was the sole thing to worry about.

So in terms of realizing that the Outlanders, rather, people outside the circle of Irminsul’s recording capabilities are an active force in the world, there’s many precious or pivotal bits of history and concepts that may be saved. It can’t simply be glossed over by what’s manipulating the greater powers to accomplish as such in the world. While the Irminsul is great force that has many means to protect the world from external threats, at the same time, what I’m going to follow up with will segway in what involves itself as a force to manipulate it.

II. Archons and a hidden purpose?

Watching Teyvat’s current structure, the relationships with gods and humanity, Gnosis thrust into secrecy, it really made me confused on what’s truly heads and tails. Learning of point one however, I believe I’m starting to get an idea of what’s happening here. In fact, seeing the Tsaritsa’s current plan with the Fatui in terms of Gnosis gathering, is leading me to believe that the act in itself was originally made for the worthiest/most noble in humanity take as a pilgrimage.

Dottore’s words had sparked a resonance in this matter. This conflicts so heavily with the imposed structure of humanity worshiping divine deities. While the structure as it current stands brings peace to the land, at the same time, the gathering of Gnosis feels as if it was a woven part of the world’s structure originally. I’d like to peer back to the Travail trailer that spoke these particular lines.

The Seven Gnosis would serve as this very treasure. Originally I thought the concept of these treasures would be Visions themselves. Yet due to the sheer number and the only coinciding factor would be one of the seven elements ingrained, that was too loose.

Putting Gnosis into the equation however, would allow one to become a force governs the seven symbols of Divine Authority that Celestia created. Information on this scale has been HEAVILY thrust into oblivion, with only the highest Fatui, the Archons and Celestia itself being privy to such information.

So with this frame, and how at large, Teyvat is a land that actively fosters battle prowess and development. (And through their many challenges, often reward people who take this path.) Could this infer that originally, the Archons would be the pinnacle test for whoever intended to claim this particular Gnosis? I genuinely would not be surprised if this is the case.

III. Descenders. Rule creators and potential catalyst for the world’s balance issue?

Another thing that struck me and for the most part, is heavily in the makings and open to change are the concepts of these traveler’s outside of Teyvat’s cycles bring able to impose their wills on this very realm by gathering enough power.

So in this vein, they are the ones that control the very laws that keep this world sustained. Now one interesting thing I’d want to consider is that if they’re the ones who hold the laws by the reigns, are they the same force that can dictate what can be Forbidden in the world? Such as the forces known as Forbidden knowledge? While the forces we’ve seem by far are certainly dangerous and for the most part should be eliminated, we’re also witnessing good figures and people such as Greater Lord Rukkhadevata falling into the realm of sacrifice.

The Greater Lord’s point here--

I’ve derived two meanings from this.

While on one hand we can naturally say that such knowledge would be poison, which understandable, all we’ve seen by far are examples of destructive, chaotic forces that practically tear down the setting..

What if on the other, Teyvat’s currently manipulated Divine Law by the Principles are forcibly making Teyvat view even potential good forces as ‘Forbidden Knowledge’? With history, and in turn, a lot of the public consciousness readily available to be swept by this system. What can come to prevent this? While I don’t believe the Abyss Order is this said helpful force, on the other hand, I do believe there’s a good truth resting down here that wants to give a healthier connection to Teyvat and the worlds out there.

To take it a step further, what if some ‘Forbidden Knowledge’ is a lot of Teyvat’s lost history? Good people, those were close to discovering the truth, acts and occurrences that would expose a greater scheme, were all filtered underneath this same umbrella?

Weaving together points two and three. I imagined that Teyvat is originally a realm that holds a certain Law as unchanging, and whatever it is, is a source cause to these constant wars for a pinnacle amount of ‘Seven’ to reach the heights. Or, for someone to go beyond even that. Over the course of countless Millennia, new Descenders/Rule Changers (whether with good or bad intention), it’s lead to a complicated mess of not only pervasive chaos that will never give Humanity nor the good Divine on Teyvat true peace.

Alongside of that, it allows for whoever managed to reach those heights initially, and for them to take advantage to have a constant stream of ever growing power in their hands. That, or the means to continue their search for a particular unknown by the eons of existence here, taking away the purpose of gathering ‘The Seven’ away from humanity and all of its complications at the same time.

The Vishaps may of warred to be the Seven Sovereigns initially. Over time, it lead to the PO’s and soon Celestia’s arrivals to deal with this. Then over time there may have been a time where humanity was thrown into the burner wars for the Seven, only for the Archon Wars to take it’s place, and to create the current system we see today.

Still, that does throw in the question again if Archons are supposed to be the Test givers for a noble soul who can exercise all seven of the concepts they embody, or at least a good natured understanding.

Also omg if you read all of this, congrats, have a cookie.

#| OOC Musings #This got LONG #but man did it make me explore a lot of old stuff too. It was fun!#i'd love to know ur thoughts #or if this was a fun ride in general

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mrpenguinpants · 3 years

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Hey so that Dainsleif quest huh 👀

[Spoilers for those who haven't played it yet ofc]

These are just some disorganized initial thoughts for your consideration:

So I'm pretty sure his "travel companion" that he keeps mentioning is our twin

Does that mean our twin has gone to the exact same places as we've been going?? Dainsleif seemed to be familiar with all the locations we visited in Mondstadt but I suppose that could've been from an even earlier journey

And the possibility that the Abyss is trying to mislead us bc we hadn't encountered any abyss mages since Dvalin 🤔🤔🤔 what do they want??? We know (kinda) that our twin is watching our progress and that they're the prince/princess of the Abyss so like are they trying to keep us from getting in the way of their plans so as not to accidentally hurt us? Though something tells me we're gonna get tangled up in it one way or the other lmao

Dainsleif said that his goal is to oppose the Abyss so perhaps he's got his own secret plans to try to stop our twin (as is also supported by what he said at the end of the mortal travails video about proving ourselves worthy of stopping "her"/Lumine probably)

Also turns out I'd been pronouncing his name wrong the whole time lmao I had been saying dains-leaf instead of dains-lif

No Vision as confirmed by his full character model

Also his eyepatch is more of a phantom of the opera mask lmao

Important observation he looks like post timeskip Dimitri from a distance when I had to meet him in Dvalin's Lair I legit thought he was Dimitri for a sec XD

Anyway those were my thoughts about the new quest lmao my internet was cutting out the whole time while I was trying to play like dsfkdksjf pls I just wanted to talk to blond eyepatch man

Important part of this post:

I took a lot of pictures of Dainsleif if you want to use them as references (or appreciation). The pictures are under the read more tag so if you don’t want spoilers, don’t read anything and skip to the read more.

Also, he calls you and your sibling “idiots” through money.

He asks for 500 mora and (this is probably just a coincidence but considering Zhongli tips Xiangling 888 mora I’m sus). The number 250 [二百五] or ( èr bǎi wǔ) means “idiot”.

If someone calls you 250, they can say (nǐ shì wǔ bǎi) or “You are [250]”. But if you give someone 500, this can be taken as saying two people are stupid (250 + 250 = 500). I mean, that’s probably not how it works but I think it’s funny to imagine Dainsleif being too polite to call us stupid.

---

I know right? When I saw the leak for it and seeing it confirmed in patch notes, I was so confused. Wha-Why are you here so early? I wasn’t expecting you for another 5 years at least. I’m happy to see you and your beautiful model in game but at the same time I was so worried that we were going to get crumbs of interactions. Same thing with Guizhong in Zhongli’s story quest. Genshin please...finish your stories (that’s fucking hilarious coming from me considering I still have a part 2 to Childe that I need to write), but I’m honestly just happy that he’s in the game. But yes 👀👀 more lore food.

You know, I was talking about the archons a bit with @maagdalen and, I may have been misunderstanding or reading the wrong message, but they brought up the idea that what if the archons’ personality is based on their regions country's? So for example, Venti’s personality adopts the German mentality because Mondstadt was modelled after Germany? Obviously, I have no idea if that’s true because I’m not from or am German but in the context of Liyue and Zhongli. I can definitely see some sort of connection.

But some food for thought:

“But cyro archon is very viable since she's suppose to be a kind hearted person that needed to be cold for the sake of freedom. or peace. something like that.”

“Sorry, but this is stupidly Russian style. No matter what you say, people will always be dissatisfied. Of course it's not that bad...but it's something to think about.“

But yess, @svnflowery said the same thing. That Dainsleif was Lumine’s “guide” the same way Paimon is our guide. I actually think that’s an interesting idea. That Lumine has gone to the exact same places as we’ve been through. It actually makes me wonder (since we can play as both her and Aether), that Lumine went through the same story line as Aether. She met Venti, Zhongli, everything that’s happening right now. She’s already been through, then when she reached the Khaenri’ah chapter she failed. So she decided to spin the clock back and change destiny. I mean, this is me spit balling and I don’t think this happened but it’s something to think about.

You know funny enough, hasn’t Venti been asleep for a while? Either way, he doesn’t really strike me as the type that truly wants to be an Archon. He says in his voicelines as well that “that’s a problem for Mondstadt to deal with”. So it would be easier for the Abyss Order to mess some things up. While Zhongli has been alive for 6000 years and I highly doubt Abyss Order can do anything to him haha. If we’re going on that “Lumine has already been through this journey” she could be trying to re-make or lead us on the same path.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Dainsleif was our guide, then when Lumine spun the clock back and aligned herself with the abyss, that’s when they split. That could be a reason why he’s trying to oppose the abyss order but really I think it’s because the Abyss Order’s goal is to basically set the world on fire (or something like that). I always pronounce character names wrong and I don’t understand why people make such a big deal out of it. You know who I’m talking about, my pronunciation isn’t completely shit to the point you don’t know. So why do you keep yelling at me??

Also. The most important part of his quest was it was “Aether’s version” of the “We will be reunited” trailer.

It even showed the crushed dandelion flower and the ruin guard footprints. IT’S OUR SISTER.

I knoww, I was searching for his vision and got weird pics but that’s alright, I LOWKEY HATE THE OPERA MASK SO MUCH. GIVE ME ACTUAL MASK. THERE GOES THE “SEPERATE COLOURED EYE” ART OF KHAENRIAH PEOPLE. Yo, knock off Dimitri let’s go.

I love Dainslief’s english voice but I hate Xiao’s en voice. What a dilemma. I usually play in chinese but wow does Dainslief sound old. Jp is slightly better but I hear grandpa vibes. Korean isn’t bad and I actually don’t mind korean xiao so korean we shall go. It’s weird. I like Dainsleif english voices, Xiao chinese voice, paimon korean voice haha. Jp is usually just good all around but I have preferences. But tyty for telling me your thoughts! I’d love to hear about the Xiao quest that just dropped. Beautiful boy

sweats

yeah about that...xiao scammed me. I wonder if his speech changes based on what you say. i kind of doubt it though.

I’m looking at his outfit from every angle while Xiao stays pretty in the back.

I like that you can see his magic arm there.

While on this side you can’t.

I swear this is for research. IM TRYING TO SEE IF HE HAS A VISION. IM INNOCENT!!

he also has some sort of weird...blue thingy on his foot?

Im using Xiao as a personfication of me BUT TELL ME YOUR SECRETS

#genshin #genshin impact #genshin lore #genshin impact lore #genshin spoilers #genshin impact spoilers #genshin khaenri'ah #genshin impact khaenri'ah #genshin lumine #genshin impact lumine #genshin aether #genshin impact aether #genshin dainsleif #genshin impact dainsleif #lumine #aether #dainsleif #genshin 1.3 #genshin impact 1.3

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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New British comedy TV series from 2020: BBC, Channel 4, Sky, Dave, Amazon, Netflix

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2020 in British TV comedy brought us Maisie Williams as a kickass survivalist in a pickle, and a new parenting comedy from the hugely talented Simon Blackwell and Chris Addison starring Martin Freeman.

To add to that, there was also a fresh batch of comedians playing exaggerated versions of themselves in self-penned sitcoms, including Katherine Ryan, Mae Martin, Sara Pascoe, Kayleigh Llewellyn, Lucy Beaumont and Jon Richardson.

Here’s the skinny on all those new shows and more. Here’s what arrived in 2019, and here are the new British TV dramas that arrived in 2020.

Breeders

After their excellent 2014 relationship comedy Trying Again, Chris Addison and Simon Blackwell (Veep, The Thick Of It) teamed up on a new series, this time about the trials of parenthood. Martin Freeman and Daisy Haggard played parents in this ten-part half-hour comedy, a co-production between Sky in the UK and FX in the US. Watch the first trailer here.

Bumps

Available to stream on BBC iPlayer

A Comedy Playhouse commission for BBC One, Bumps comes from Psychobitches and Tracey Ullman’s Show writer-actor Lucy Montgomery (pictured) and The Life Of Rock With Brian Pern‘s Rhys Thomas. The half-hour pilot is a modern family comedy that centres on Amanda Redman’s character Anita, a divorcee in her sixties with two grown-up kids, who decides to have a third baby with the help of an egg and sperm donor. Playing Anita’s daughter Joanne is Lisa McGrillis (behind the brilliantly dim and tactless but very sweet Kelly on Mum), who discovers she’s pregnant at the same time as her mother.

Code 404

After 2019’s pilot, Sky ordered six episodes of this sci-fi comedy starring Daniel Mays (Line Of Duty, Vera Drake) and Stephen Graham (Boardwalk Empire, The Virtues), written by Mongrels and Not Going Out’s Daniel Peak. It’s a buddy cop drama set in the near future, which sees crime-fighting duo DI John Major (Mays) and DI Roy Carver (Graham) first separated, then reunited thanks to the wonders of modern science. Series two is on its way.

Feel Good

Stand-up Mae Martin co-wrote her autobiographically inspired six-episode series with Joe Hampson, which formerly went by the working title Mae and George and is now called Feel Good. It aired on E4 in the UK and Netflix around the world, and follows Martin’s life as a comedian and recovering addict, and the complications of her new relationship with girlfriend George. Friends’ Lisa Kudrow guest stars. A second series is on the way.

Hitmen

Comedy double act Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins get in on the Killing Eve game as contract killers in this new Sky series. Unlike Villanelle though, these two are decidedly unsmooth operators. Their hits are, according to the press release, “inevitably derailed by incompetence, bickering, and inane antics.” Sherlock’s Amanda Abbington co-stars, along with Francis Barber and Johnny Vegas. Series two is on the way.

In My Skin

Kayleigh Llewellyn’s autobiographically inspired 2018 pilot is now a four-part comedy series for the BBC. It’s the raw but ultimately uplifting story of teenager Bethan’s attempts to conceal from her schoolfriends a chaotic homelife with a mother sectioned in a mental health facility and a dad in the Hell’s Angels. Here’s a clip from the Comedy Slice to whet your appetite.

Intelligence

Available to stream on Sky and NOW TV

Last year saw Rob Lowe in Lincolnshire, now prepare for David Schwimmer in Cheltenham. The Friends actor and director starring in a six-part Sky One comedy as a “maverick NSA agent” working in the UK’s Government Communications Headquarters. He’s joined by series writer Nick Mohammed, in the role of an inept computer analyst tasked with tackling cyber-crime. Series two is on the way.

Kate And Koji

Filmed in Herne Bay, Kent, this six-episode ITV comedy stars Brenda Blethyn as Kate, the owner of a seaside café who strikes up a friendship with asylum seeker Koji, played by Jimmy Akingbola. Those two are joined by The Inbetweeners’ Blake Harrison, playing Kate’s nephew, and Meera Syal as the local GP in a timely modern story with a heart.

King Gary

Available to stream on BBC iPlayer

Murder In Successville and Action Team’s Tom Davis and James De Frond teamed up again to write and direct prime time BBC One sitcom King Gary, which debuted in 2020 and was swiftly recommissioned for a second series. You may have caught the pilot episode, which aired over Christmas 2018, introducing Davis’ character – London builder Gary King, a man-child who loves his family, his suburban community, and really loves a B.B.Q – his parents played by The Fast Show’s Simon Day and Doctor Who’s Camille Coduri, and his unforgettable wife Terri, played by the very funny Laura Checkley.

Meet The Richardsons

Airing on Dave and available to stream weekly on UK TV Play

Married comedians Jon Richardson and Lucy Beaumont starred as heightened versions of themselves in Meet The Richardsons for Dave, written by Beaumont and Car Share’s Tim Reid. Inspired by Beaumont’s appearances on Richardsons’ Ultimate Worrier series for Dave, the series comically documents the couple’s parenting and relationship woes.

Mister Winner

Following a successful Comedy Playhouse pilot, Spencer Jones (Upstart Crow) returned as the hapless Leslie Winner for a six-episode series on BBC One. Joining Jones will be Shaun Williamson and Lucy Pearman, in a loveable comedy about “an eternally optimistic klutz with his heart in the right place”. If you’ve yet to see Jones’ excellent BBC iPlayer short series The Mind Of Herbert Clunkerdunk, get involved without delay.

My Left Nut

Available to stream on BBC iPlayer

Coming to BBC Three is an autobiographically inspired three-part comedy-drama from Irish writers Michael Patrick and Oisin Kearney, adapted from their acclaimed stage play. Starring Sinead Keenan (Little Boy Blue, Being Human) with newcomer Nathan Quinn-O’Rawe, it’s the story of a Belfast teenager who discovers a lump on his testicle but finds himself unable to tell those around him. A relatable, entertaining teen comedy with an important healthcare message.

Out of Her Mind

An established name on screen and the live circuit, comedian Sara Pascoe is the latest comic to write and star in her own sitcom (joining the ranks of Roisin Conaty, Aisling Bea, Josh Widdicombe and more). Her as-yet untitled series is being produced for BBC Two by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost’s production company, Stolen Picture. It’s about “family, relationships and biology,” according to the press release, and will combine eccentric characters with surreal interludes and factual segments. Read about the best Netflix stand-up specials here.

Sandylands

Following on from 2019’s Isle of Wight-set family comedy The Cockfields, Gold has commissioned a second three-part original sitcom. This one’s also set on the UK coast, and tells the story of a successful Londoner who returns to her home town and reconnects with old friends and old crushes when her local businessman father disappears at sea. Sanjeev Bhaskar, David Walliams, Sophie Thompson, Hugh Bonneville and Natalie Dew star.

Semi-Detached

The pilot episode for comedy Semi-Detached, about a hapless fortysomething aired in January 2019, followed by a full series. It was written by actors David Crow and Oliver Maltman and boasted a strong comedy cast including Lee Mack, Ellie White, Samantha Spiro, Clive Russell and Patrick Baladi. The twist with this one is that all the action unfurls in real time.

The Duchess

In addition to her Netflix stand-up specials, comedian Katherine Ryan made a six-part autobiographical comedy for the streaming service. Though a familiar face on screen, this marks the first scripted series Ryan has written and executive-produced. In it, she plays “a fashionable disruptive single mother living in London”, inspired by Ryan’s own experience raising her daughter in the capital after moving here from her native Canada.

The First Team

Iain Morris and Damon Beesley, aka The Inbetweeners creators, have written a six-part half-hour sitcom for BBC Two. Formerly under the working title of Afternoons, it’s now called The First Team and details the off-pitch adventures of three Premier League footballers playing for a fictional side, “three young men who just happen to have a very stressful job in the public eye,” according to the writers. The cast includes Arrested Development‘s Will Arnett as the team’s eccentric American chairman, alongside Theo Barklam Biggs, Shaquille Ali-Yebuah, Jack McMullen, Jake Short and Chris Geere.

The Kemps: All True

Remember how much everybody loved that Bros doc? Well now BBC Four comedy is planning to capture that same lightning in a bottle with mockumentary The Kemps: All True, following the travails of another pair of pop star brothers in Spandau Ballet’s Gary and Martin Kemp. The one-off comedy from Brian Pern‘s Rhys Thomas will track the brothers as they record a new studio album. Read more about it here at the BBC.

The Trouble With Maggie Cole

Stream episodes weekly on ITV Hub

Commissioned in March 2019 by ITV under the working title Glass Houses is a six-part hour-long comedy series starring Dawn French, Mark Heap, Julie Hesmondhalgh, Vicki Pepperdine and more. It’s about the aftermath of a loose-lipped radio interview with French’s Maggie, the village gossip who spills her neighbours’ secrets on air. It comes written by Shameless and Benidorm’s Mark Brotherhood and aired on ITV1 in March.

Truth Seekers

Simon Pegg and Nick Frost’s latest collaboration is a comedy horror series for Amazon Prime Video. Filming began in September 2019 on Truth Seekers, which follows a group of paranormal investigator hobbyists who film their ghost sighting escapades for the online community, and stumble into some very strange business that could end life as we know it. There’s a great comedy cast including Pegg and Frost, including Susan Wokoma, Julian Barratt, Samson Kayo, Morgana Robinson, Kate Nash, Kevin Eldon and Malcolm McDowell.

Two Weeks To Live

Written by Cheat’s Gaby Hull, this six-episode Sky comedy is the story of misfit Kim, a young girl raised to survive in the wilderness, who re-enters society on a secret mission to honour her dead father’s memory. Game of Thrones’ Maisie Williams plays Kim, who becomes entangled in a prank-gone-wrong plot involving gangsters, a bag of cash and the police. With Kim’s survival skills, don’t expect her to come quietly…

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Here are all the forthcoming British TV dramas on their way in 2020.

The post New British comedy TV series from 2020: BBC, Channel 4, Sky, Dave, Amazon, Netflix appeared first on Den of Geek.

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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The New Mutants and Its Nightmare on Elm Street Influences

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This article contains mild The New Mutants spoilers.

The New Mutants is an odd duck. The writing was on the wall back in 2017 when 20th Century Fox first pushed the film off its original 2018 release window. Apparently the delay was the result of the studio wanting to make it more of a horror movie via reshoots… reshoots that then never happened.

Even so, those horror elements are still on bonkers display in Josh Boone’s final cut of the film, now available on Blu-ray and VOD. Even without knowing Boone was vocal that the Nightmare on Elm Street movies were cornerstone influences, it’s clear his mutant mayhem wants to live on the same block.

To be sure, these aspects are more muted than they should be, which is the result of the film’s biggest problem: tonal inconsistency. New Mutants veers wildly between young adult drama, youthful hijinks, and a nigh ‘80s slasher sensibility where very few characters actually get slashed. If reshoots had actually upped the horror quotient, this could fit nicely as a continuation of the Elm Street Kids’ travails. But even in its bizarre current form, there is something there to appreciate, particularly for fans of Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors.

Nearly 40 years after Robert Englund first growled his way through a Freddy Krueger movie, many fans still think of the first Wes Craven-directed A Nightmare on Elm Street when they look back on that series. But for horror fans of a certain age, 1987’s Dream Warriors was the only Nightmare on Elm Street movie that mattered. It’s the one where Heather Langenkamp’s Nancy Thompson returned, and a gang of street-wise ‘80s teen movie archetypes found themselves locked in a mental hospital with Freddy picking them off one pun at a time. And as these victims found ways to fight back in their nightmares, they became the “Dream Warriors,” just as their film turned into a superhero movie with a body count.

The high concept of a monster fighting the Breakfast Club inside of Nurse Ratched’s hospital is still incredibly appealing today. And it’s emulated from top to bottom in The New Mutants. Not that Boone and his stars have exactly been coy about this fact; Dream Warriors has been name dropped by the filmmakers ever since the first trailer introduced us to the movie’s versions of Rhane Sinclair (Maisie Williams), Illyana Rasputin (Anya Taylor-Joy), Sam Guthrie (Charlie Heaton), Roberto da Costa (Henry Zaga), and Danielle Moonstar (Blu Hunt).

Even way back in 2017, Boone told Collider that Dream Warriors was one of New Mutants’ big influences. “I do love Dream Warriors,” Boone said at the time. “I loved the first [movie] as well, but this is very much a rubber reality horror movie for the first about 75% of the movie and then it becomes something else.”

And unlike many X-Men adjacent films, the characters from early New Mutants comics are more or less recognizable in their live-action forms here. Nevertheless, how they’re introduced is pure Dream Warriors.

After a dubious opening sequence in which Hunt’s Dani Moonstar survives a “tornado,” the young girl is committed to an isolated sanitarium along with other teenage mutants. Their chaperone Dr. Reyes (Alice Braga) swears they’re being groomed by an unseen benefactor who we’re led to believe is Charles Xavier… but her evasiveness about the details suggests something more sinister.

All the while, each of the kids is plagued by nightmares, both when they’re asleep and awake. And the waking terrors are of their worst fears come to life. So, yes, this is basically a Freddy movie without Freddy. That in itself could be viewed as damning, both to horror fanatics who want more thrills and superhero fans who like their popcorn buttered the same way every time, but even with its (many) foibles, there is charm in New Mutants’ rough edges. Here is a movie decidedly not a product of the all-too-familiar blockbuster assembly line.

For instance, Boone takes his Dream Warriors aesthetic and runs with it via multiple visual references and plotting echoes, all of which feel unnatural for its superpowered fantasy. In one early scene, a character briefly entertains suicide while standing atop a menacing Gothic tower, not unlike how Freddy forced Phillip (Bradley Gregg) to throw himself from one in Dream Warriors, earning the label of “suicide” by other characters; in a more overt fashion, New Mutants’ Roberto sits in a wheelchair in another scene, just like the one Will (Ira Heiden) used in Dream Warriors; and the character is later seduced into a watery illusion by a dream girl who is not what she seems, a la Joey’s haphazard “wet dream,” as Freddy coins it, in the direct Dream Warriors sequel, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988).

All of these knowing nudges from Boone and his co-screenwriter Knate Lee are there for Freddy’s Children to catch. Yet they can also both improve and hinder New Mutants. In the plus column, they feel unusual and original for a movie about comic book characters; on the other side of the ledger, few of these “scares” actually go far enough to be frightening. Thus the movie feels strangely unfinished, even after spending years on a shelf. In fact, there are several scene transitions where you know something is missing from pickups that were never filmed.

And yet, that low-fi messy quality may add to its rough hewn, uneven charm for a certain set. Like all of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies, this isn’t high art. But the fact it goes for these horror moments with complete sincerity is kind of refreshing. Like Dream Warriors, New Mutants and its cast take their plight seriously, probably too much so. But after a decade of most superhero movies relying on a smug self-deprecation—a persistent invisible smirk at the camera which promises we know it’s nonsense—New Mutants’ emotional earnestness will appeal to a smaller cult audience.

In this vein, the strongest aspect of the film is likely any scene involving Williams’ Rahne and Hunt’s Dani. The former has the benefit of being played by the lone actor to nail her thick accent, as well as the rich horror trope of being a hard-believing Catholic. Like many a teenager from a religious home, Rahne fears Hell, which Bone and Lee’s screenplay embrace in the thematic sense with Rahne also being a glorified werewolf who fears her “evil” mutation.

In the more literal sense, Rahne also struggles with her attraction to Dani. It’s a romance that doesn’t feel tacked on by a studio note or an afterthought for social media; like Boone’s earlier work, it’s presented as a sincere puppy love story. But even that has echoes in the Nightmare on Elm Street saga, with the second film, Freddy’s Revenge (1985) attempting to tell a subtextual gay love story–one full of shame and literal self-mutilation where the main character transforms into Freddy when he’s attracted to his buddy.

New Mutants does this element better by removing the “sub” in “subtext,” and the shame. Rather it commits to a sweet romance just as earnestly as it commits to a sequence where Rahne’s dead priest returns to haunt her with a demonic voice that sounds a lot like Freddy’s warble. Yet this, too, mirrors a locker room attack in Freddy’s Revenge.

Despite the tonal dissonance between these two elements both aspects embrace the LGBTQ+ undertones in X-Men comics better than most actual X-Men comics, and in their own way are reminiscent of how goofy ‘80s slasher movies could become comforting outlets for marginalized groups.

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That New Mutants tackles these delicate aspects as brazenly (or some might say as tastelessly) as those ‘80s slashers is kind of wild. It also ensures that New Mutants will eventually find an audience. Perhaps not the audience who superhero movies are so methodically engineered for in the 21st century, nor in the mainstream commercial audience Fox almost quaintly thought this approach would appeal to. It certainly isn’t critics with the movie’s ungainly, batshit tendencies.

But as with Dream Warriors before it, here’s a film in which young people use superpowers to fight the man and topple authority while seeing each other in a way they, nor any superhero movie, has before. It gives this bloody mess teeth… and claws.

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