#also I think it was added later after the original trilogy released or something?
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I'm currently playing the Ace Attorney trilogy on Switch. Do you have any thoughts on Case 1-5? (I certainly do but I'll make my own post in due time.)
Case 1-5 is Rise from the Ashes, right? It's been awhile since my deep-dive into AA, but I remember really loving the intrigue of that case. It's not my most beloved case (that probably goes to Turnabout Goodbyes), but I remember really enjoying the twists and turns of how the story for Rise from the Ashes unfolded. I really love Ema too, although she unfortunately doesn't make a story appearance after this for a while in the mainline games. Also it's always fun to make fun of Edgeworth's garish bright red car, which makes its debut in this case...what a hideous car, he never gets rid of it either, I love it.
#I dunno quite how far you are so I don't want to say too much#but it's a really fun case with its own tragic twists and turns#also I think it was added later after the original trilogy released or something?#hang on lemme check something#yeah it got added to the DS release of the game it wasn't part of the original GBA version#which is why there's some neat mechanics and stuff that you will NOT see in the other two original trilogy games#but if you carry on beyond the trilogy or go into some of the spinoffs you'll get to play around w/ the mechanics again#anyhow that's me neat AA trivia for the day#my AA lore is a bit rusty bc it's been a few years since I was like hyperfixed on AA but it has a dear place in my heart#good series even the later games that I like to dunk on are fun to play and have neat characters#anyhow welcome to AA I hope you enjoy your stay bc it is a lovely game series#alynnl#I still don't have an ask tag
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I think this is my hyperfixation for the day:
How that terrible added scene with Jabba from the 1997 special release of A New Hope ever-so-slightly detracts from your viewing experience of the original Star Wars Trilogy
Okay, so I admittedly first saw A New Hope in 1997 in theaters, so my first experience with the series involved the Horrifyingly Bad Jabba Scene (HBJS), but my parents had told me there was a new scene with computer graphics added, so even at nine years old, I was able to clock the addition from a mile away. And the VHS boxset my grandfather gave us later that year was from 1995, so I believe it was the original theatrical release version. Either way, it didn’t have the Jabba scene, so I basically saw the Jabba scene one time in theaters and then didn’t see it again for like twenty years, so I feel more like someone who saw the original theatrical releases kind of the whole time if that makes any kind of sense.
Aside from the HBJS adding nothing to A New Hope storywise and being visually repugnant, I have come to firmly believe that it also kind of ruins this small, subconscious part of the viewing experience when watching the original trilogy. Think about it: for two entire movies, your favorite smuggler is low-key worried about the fact that some thug named Jabba the Hutt wants him dead. You have no idea what this guy’s deal is, but you know Han Solo has 99 problems and probably at least 48 of them are related to Jabba. It’s not a major mystery. Like, I don’t think anyone was sitting on the edge of their seat to find out who Jabba was, but he is kind of a shadowy figure. His name is mentioned like once or twice in A New Hope and once in The Empire Strikes Back, but the effect of his looming presence is massive for our non-Luke main characters.
And then the introduction to him in Return of the Jedi involves kind of a mysterious build-up. The droids take for-freaking-ever to get to the palace, and as soon as the palace doors open, you are greeted with visual after visual that is viscerally repulsive but none of it is Jabba. You still don’t know what this Jabba’s deal is, but you know everything in his palace sort of looks like it’s covered in a light layer of snot, so you know you’re about to see someone or something pretty heinous. And then you finally see him, and he’s just as gross as all the build-up has led you believe, but there’s also a sort of, “Wait, this is the guy who’s been causing so much trouble for four years?!” It’s like…a little surprising to see him in person after so long just hearing about him.
It’s not anything crazy, but it is a very satisfying realization of, “Ohhhh, this is the guy we’ve been hearing about this whole time!”
And all of that subconscious suspension and possible surprise gets a little ruined when you’re slapped in the face with literally any version of this:
Does it ruin the movie? No. But I really like little surprising moments in media and I do feel like waiting until ROTJ to reveal Jabba is just a lot more fun than whatever the added scene contributes, and I do feel like its existence actively takes away a little bit of that fun.
#star wars#star wars meta#jabba the hutt#han solo#a new hope#the empire strikes back#return of the jedi#jabba's palace#jabba
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Given how you mentioned the Disney sequels in my last last question, I'm curious what you think of the sequel trilogy as a whole 4 years later. Also what you make of the rey movie that's suppose to happen?
It's funny timing. I've been watching the Lucas sextilogy and Star Wars meta on YouTube. Particularly, So Uncivilized is a fascinating meta analyst, and I rewatched this tonight:
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As for my thoughts...
When I saw TFA opening night and noticed it rehashed everything and added nothing, I lost investment. By "lose investment," I don't mean I got bitter, unhappy, jaded, cynical, etc. I mean that I was in a fine mood, perfectly chill, had fun, but I no longer carried anticipation or expectations for future projects. I could tell this was not a good foundation and was an omen for future creative issues. Thus, when the second and third movies came out, I didn't feel disappointed, but their content meant I found increasing distance between myself, the characters, and the story. I didn't mind The Rise of Skywalker was bad. I got my recreation's use out of it. The direct relationship I had with it was the time I spent watching it once (1).
But even though I didn't agree with 90% of the trilogy's premises and executions, I made sure to see TLJ and Rise of Skywalker. After all, watching these movies was the door into some of the best media discussions I've had in my life.
I was invited to a winter party with about two dozen attendees. Most ended in the kitchen to debate TLJ, which had just released. We got so animated we had to do the old "pass the ball" trick, where only the person holding the ball could talk. It was one of the most in-depth, eye-opening, fascinating, multi-faceted, engaging media discussions I've had. Everyone had different but extraordinary insight to relay about subversions of expectations, underlying messages, contributions to the franchise, scene composition, editing, dialogue, characterization, symbolism, you name it.
When the final movie came out, conversations again were endlessly fruitful. No matter who I talked to, I could hear something new and enlightening about media through the lens of Rise of Skywalker.
There's nothing I hate about the movies. I don't think about them much. Star Wars to me is pre-Disney reboot. That's the territory my heart cares about. That's the territory that's Real. But I also have fun talking about Kylo Ren or Hux as any Star Wars nerd who likes those characters. I feel no bitter emotions, but positive ones, when anyone brings up TFA and thereafter.
My perspective, several years later, hasn't changed.
Now, I love how meta analysts have enhanced my perspective. I love people pointing out that the original and prequel trilogies introduced a huge number of ship and location designs, whereas the sequel trilogy... didn't. I love So Uncivilized's analysis that each movie in the sequel trilogy was a counter to a counter, until we ended up with a course correction of a course correction of a course correction of a course correction. Or, as he said, this sequel trilogy was intended to keep the franchise alive for another generation, but "to keep a creative work alive, you have to create things, and it's clear looking at this trilogy that nothing was built here."
Fans have endlessly talked about how there was no cohesion between movies in this trilogy and how its characterization and plot were a mess. How the movies were too reliant on old nostalgia. How showboating old characters prevented our new character trio from receiving agency and direction. I don't need to go there.
There's a reason we viewers remember the names of Kylo Ren and Rey and Poe and Finn. In their imperfect appearances, we saw characters that could have enlivened us to the same levels as Luke, Leia, Han, Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Padme. I like Kylo Ren. I like Poe. I like Finn. They are appealing concepts.
But. But. I think the sequel trilogy, and Disney's over-saturation of materials, will fade over time, whereas the original six movies (I said original six, nyeh) WILL stand the test of time as classics. Just because VI-IX have "Episode" to their title doesn't mean they'll get saved from the endless mire Disney has manifested unto itself; nearly all live action materials from the 2010s and 2020s will end in late-Star Wars Disnified goop, to be lost in collective memory over time. That's not intended to be an insult; I just think that one is a short phenomenon that'll fade once contemporary sensations satiate, whereas the others are proven longevity.
There's bias in the sense I haven't watched anything outside of VI-IX and Rogue One. I've never seen The Mandalorian, or Andor, or Ahsoka, or anything else. I haven't felt the need to, so I won't. Heck, I didn't know about this alleged Rey movie thing - your comment is the first I've heard. So I have no perspective there except, "This isn't material I think needs to exist, and I'd rather go back to (and produce things like) the old." Disney's commercialized mania isn't a success to me. No ill feelings, just simple personal disinterest. It's not part of the imagination fuel I use when I fuel my imagination on Star Wars. And the sequel trilogy is something I frankly already forget about when I imagine the vast, captivating, thrilling world of Star Wars.
The legacy of the sequel trilogy isn't its story. Yet. There's real value in the sequel trilogy, and I believe it. It's perfect for analyzing media. It's a perfect medium for discussion. What went right, what didn't go right, what was compelling, what was disappointing, what was misguided, what lost focus, what never had focus, I will always find these movies valuable for that. And the thing is, I think we'll be talking about that for a while yet. Because it's fruitful. It's endlessly interesting.
Whether or not it's good media content in and of itself, it's GOOD CONVERSATION CONTENT.
#long post#Star Wars#analysis#my analysis#non-dragons#I am too tired to tag every single movie and character I discussed#bluestarsaber#good topic
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Various trivia-type things that may or may not be interesting...
Prime/all
You will know this if you watch Boundary Break, but the HUD is a separate texture, and Samus only renders as a partial arm cannon. That first bit is why I can take these pics to begin with; I can just fly past the HUD texture.
I’m not sure if this is the case for the original releases of the games as well, since I am too lazy to download them, but at least in Trilogy, the main menu is also a 3D area that I can freelook in. Sure. Why not.
I know it's hard to see them in game because they’re busy trying to murder you to death. But, you have to understand. Flying space pirates in Prime look like sad little crane flies with jetpacks duct-taped to them. It's... so good...
You might think elevator scenes are prerendered, as they are in Dread. They are not. In fact, basically nothing in the main trilogy is prerendered. (I think maybe some of the ship-flying sequences in 3??? Maybe.)
(Edit: This applies to all the elevators in Phazon Mines!) Elevator A in Phazon Mines (the first one you take from security access, coded green on the map) faces into the wall of the meteor impact crater. You can see this while playing. What you can’t see is that it also has external modelling, for some reason. Not super detailed, but it’s there. Maybe it’s to cover being seen through the window from above or below...?
The external elevator is not present in the two distinct versions of this area used for the Artifact Temple or Temple Security Station rooms. Totally clean crater. Either it was added later, or it’s not shown to save on performance (I don’t think you would be able to see it from normal gameplay angles anyway).
Echoes
In this room in Agon, with the solar-powered portal, beneath the portal is some kind of ...room. It has full collision, for some reason...???
youtube
This isn't something I personally found, which is good, because it already haunts me enough. Please watch this video.
In Path of Honor (and its Dark World equivalent, Gateway Access) there is a whole Luminoth sculpture towering above that is basically impossible to appreciate from normal gameplay angles. (Yes, I swear that’s it in the second pic.) There seem to be similar ones in the actual Hall of Honored Dead/Sky Temple Gateway, though, so it was probably copy-pasted.
Also, in case you wonder how I take all these portrait-orientation pics... yeah. You can rotate the camera using freelook but the controls get super confusing so it’s easier to just rotate the entire screen. (Ctrl+Alt+[arrow keys] to change screen direction, enable “widescreen hack” in Primehack graphics settings)
Corruption
For some reason, Samus' entire body is fully rendered when in the ship, as well as when waking up after having the PED suit installed (above). However, her arms are tucked behind her body. The resulting pose is... um,
Using ship controls (which there are a surprising amount of) or testing the PED weaponry spawns a copy of the respective arm instead of moving the actual one. I assume this is to prevent clipping, since the camera is actually looking out of Samus’ chest, so if you did an actual lean forward... yeah, it wouldn’t work.
You may or may not have noticed that Samus’ reflection in the Scan Visor looks increasingly corrupted as the game goes on. As it turns out, this applies to her actual facial model as well. This game is pre-Other M, so her visor is always transparent, and you can see it in cutscenes (entering and exiting the ship e.g.) I believe the reflection in scan visor is made using flat images, though.
The back of the updated gunship isn’t modeled, but looking at how it looks with everything loaded in, there can’t be much room back there.
There is a creek with running water at the bottom of the gorge on the Norion base, for some reason. It’s not very high-res, but it’s there. The water is even animated. Honestly... there’s just so much stuff in these games that you would only see for like half a second while falling to your death, and at native resolution (which is significantly blurrier than what I take pics at) it’s even harder to see. I hope these environment artists were paid enough...
Recall that the Wii is basically a sad little Gamecube with some extra speed and weird peripherals duct-taped to it. (In fact, Corruption’s development started on a Gamecube with a bunch of extra RAM and a Wii-controller-related daughterboard taped to it. Or wired to it. I’m not an engineer.) So, it should be impossible for it to render all those absurdly-detailed pods in Elysia, right? Right!
...So it doesn’t. Not all at the same time, anyway. All those pods in the distance are fake (left is real, right is fake). The fake versions have fewer polygons (compare the rings) and no doors, and the textures are lightened on distant pods to simulate atmosphere. And of course, Corruption’s infamous bloom lighting doesn’t apply. (Thanks to Primehack’s glorious settings, I do have the option to reduce or eliminate bloom, but I don’t. Because I think it’s funny.)
This whole arrangement means I have to actually go in and out of pods semi-normally when noclipping around, so as to load the real version of the next pod. I was so annoyed when I discovered it.
The fakes are basically unnoticeable in normal gameplay, by the way. You would never be able to get close enough to see the discrepancies in any kind of detail like shown above. In fact, the accompanying color shift sells the distance far better than if they were all rendered perfectly. (Retexturing a model to simulate atmosphere was also used to make Ridley appear faraway in his cameo flyover in Phendrana Drifts in Prime 1 - he is blue.)
...Anyway, that’s all. Feel free to comment or send an ask if there’s something you’d like me to take a look at next time I’m in the area.
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AA7 Speculation Post: One Year Later
here we go again.
A year and a day ago, I made a speculation post about if/when we’d ever be seeing AA7. Obviously, my claim that AA7 would be announced in September 2020 did not turn out to be true, but later that year we did get a leaked calendar containing information on the new ports for Chronicles, and also plans for a new aa7, which I summarized in this post.
Now that we have Chronicles we can verify that the leaks contained legitimate information (as if a statement from Capcom saying they were hacked wasn’t legitimate enough). So that leaves us with one key question: is AA7 still happening? If so, when can we expect it? As well, what other information from the leaked calendar can we consider, especially with early sales data on Chronicles? In addition, what are the implications of this new survey on Chronicles from Capcom?
All of that will be discussed under the cut so that this doesn’t take up too much space.
Revisiting The Calendar
Once again, here is a rough translation of the calendar that was present in the leaks:
As a note, in this post, I’ll be referring to our new games as “Chronicles” to prevent this from being blocked by people avoiding spoilers.
So: this original calendar, generated before the pandemic, had Chronicles releasing in Q1 of FY2021 - and it’s also important to note that in Japan, each fiscal year starts in April 1st, so FY2021 is actually April-June 2021. This shows that Chronicles was pushed back about a quarter from their expected release date. However, Chronicles was a port of already existing games, therefore somewhat less work was needed on them - upscaling models and textures, adding in some new features like autoplay and story mode, and of course, the English translation and voicework were needed, which is still a lot of course, but less compared to development on an entirely new game. In addition to that, the pandemic hit AA7 in its early development stage, assuming this schedule was still being followed by the time the pandemic hit. That could cause more delays than expected.
So the original plan was for AA7 to be released in Q3 of 2021, which corresponds to October-December, aligning with the 20th anniversary of the series in October. While it’s a desirable goal, it’s quite likely the pandemic pushed it back at least a quarter, if not more, if not cancelled it entirely. ... haha.
We’ll only know the fate of AA7 for certain when it’s announced. Which it is possible it may never be. However, I have two theories for, if AA7 is getting an announcement, when it will be:
1) Sometime during September 2021, either in the leadup to or during Tokyo Game Show this year. These are for the same reasons as I outlined in my initial speculation post. It’s a popular time for Ace Attorney game announcements, after all. TGS, according to what I can find, will be held online this year from September 30th to October 3rd. If Capcom announces AA7 earlier in September through Famitsu, like they did with AA6 for example, then we can expect to get some information during TGS...
2) Sometime during a 20th Anniversary Event, possibly in October 2021. I’m assuming AA is planning something for the 20th anniversary - Chronicles wasn’t really marketed as a 20th anniversary release, for instance. If they can’t release a new game for the 20th anniversary (which at this rate, seems unlikely, as we’re about two months out from that with no word about it) then an announcement would be just as good at generating hype for it.
Naturally, if we reach this time next year with absolutely no news on AA7, it’s probably safe to say it’s been cancelled or at least delayed so severely that anything we currently know about it isn’t worth much.
There’s one more point of interest on the calendar: reconsidering the porting of 456. I feel that this depends heavily on how well the Chronicles ports are doing; if it’s not financially viable to keep porting games, then why bother? So, let’s take a look at that.
The Success of Chronicles
As I write this, it’s about two and a half weeks since the release of Chronicles worldwide. So... how did the games do? It’s a bit hard to tell, especially as I am not a game marketer and don’t know the expectations for Chronicles. What is obvious is that, if Chronicles does much better than expected, porting 456 and possibly even the investigations games seems likely. (If Chronicles, indeed, does especially well in the West, than a porting of the investigations games and localization of investigations 2 after ten years could very well be possible.) If Chronicles does absolutely terribly, it damages the chances of porting, and possibly of continuing the series. If it does terribly especially in the West, where the games are essentially new, it could damage the chances of any new games being localized at all.
So, a lot is riding on this, and I don’t know enough to tell how well it did. Here’s what I have found, however:
Nintendo Enthusiast reports on Famitsu sales of Switch games, and overall thinks it’s not doing so great. Chronicles ranks third on the list of Switch sales in its first week, with 14,460 units sold, over 4000 less than NEO: The World Ends With You, which was released on July 27th. Keep in mind that Chronicles was released in Japan on July 29th, which is two days later, and that these are only Japanese sales (where they’ve had Chronicles for years on both mobile and 3DS) and only Switch sales, where NEO:TWEWY is currently only available on Switch and PS4 (Chronicles has the additional platform of Steam, where there could be many more sales). In the next week, Chronicles ranked 22 overall, with NEO:TWEWY at 23, though of course they’re still a little less than 4000 units behind NEO:TWEWY overall. Slightly closing the gap, I guess.
How about overseas data, then? ... It’s hard to tell. I can find this report from gamespot which discusses the top 20 games sold in the US in July, and Chronicles is not on the list, while NEO:TWEWY is at 16. However, they don’t give any number for the units sold, and it seems that they aren’t considering digital sales for a lot of them, so it’s hard to tell how much of a hit that is.
However, let’s go back to Japanese sales for a bit, and look at the 2019 Trilogy re-release for a comparison against Chronicles. Allegedly, combined Switch and PS4 sales in the first week of the trilogy’s release only amounted to about 8000 units, a little more than half that of Chronicles’ Switch sales. It’s also important to note that the 2019 trilogy ended up being the only ace attorney game to sell over a million copies. Ace Attorney is not a big series; I’m sure Capcom takes this into account when considering sales data, especially for ports. If Chronicles does end up doing better than the trilogy overall, it’s definitely looking good for ports and especially so for Chronicles.
However, there’s more to this than just sales data.
The Survey
Capcom now has a user survey for Chronicles, which you can answer even if you’re partway through the first game. I believe it’s only open until September 30 2021, so if you think you can finish the game before then, I’d recommend filling it out once you’re done so that you can give the best feedback.
It asks you a bunch of questions like what platform you bought it on, why you bought it, your expectations, and all sorts of detailed questions on the various mechanics, difficulty and enjoyment of the trials and investigations, satisfaction of visuals, plot, characters, music, and even free response sections for what you liked and disliked about the game. It’s a very detailed survey that’s pretty long but I think is worth filling out. At the end they ask you to fill out some demographic questions (such as age, gender (male, female, other), country, what kind of things you like to spend money on, and what kind of games you like, what platforms you have to play games on). But what’s possibly the most interesting question is this:
“If a new [Chronicles] game is released in the future, do you think you would buy it?”
This means that, depending on the answers to the survey, they could very well decide to work on a third game to Chronicles.
This has huge implications for the future of the series. I’ll probably make a separate post on plot-related stuff later, but for now... let’s talk about logistics.
In my initial AA7 speculation post I said I highly doubted that they would ever make another Chronicles game. I also said that they probably never would be localized, so, guess who’s a clown now.
Right now the AA series is in a bit of a dry period, with no new games having been released in the last four years. As well, with Yamazaki (the director of the investigations games and AA5/6) having left Capcom, the next director of the mainline games is completely unknown. As described in this video, the main reason Chronicles ever came about was because Capcom went ahead with mainline AA5 before Takumi could come back from the Layton crossover. Now, since 2017, we don’t really know what Takumi is working on. It’s possible he’s gone back to mainline to work on AA7 (though of course, there is absolutely no evidence suggesting that he has, so definitely don’t take that as any sort of confirmation).
However, if we do get a Chronicles 3, it’s quite likely Takumi would return to work on that, as he directed the previous two games. In addition, if Chronicles ends up being such a success to completely eclipse mainline (from what I’ve heard, though I have no serious proof, Resolve is considered as highly rated as T&T by many Japanese fans) then the series could permanently go down the road of writing more Chronicles games, leaving mainline stagnant (which, let’s be real, it’s already stagnating). The success of that is uncertain considering how neatly our current Chronicles duology wraps up, but... we’ll have to see how things unfold in the future.
For now, I highly recommend filling out the survey to give your input to the series’ future directions. Maybe mention that you want localized investigations 2 somewhere in the free response section because uhh I forgot to do it in mine. do that for me.
TL;DR
Main takeaways from this post are:
- I personally expect an AA7 announcement either during TGS or a 20th anniversary event
- If Chronicles does extremely well, then 456 ports are likely to happen, and I personally speculate investigations ports (along with localized investigations 2) will as well.
- Fill out this Chronicles survey before September 30th to give your input on the games and possibly the future direction of the series. I recommend completing the games before you do, but if you think you won’t before September 30th, you can fill it out at any time.
- We Very Well May Get Another Chronicles Game. Who saw that coming. Not me.
Thanks if you read through all of this, let’s hope September/October doesn’t leave me looking like a fool again.
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All For One is the Father of Nana’s Son and Grandfather to Shigaraki
Before I get into the nitty gritty, I’d like to thank all the people who’s inboxes (and in one case dorm) I burst into to yell about this as I wrote it, and the people who proofread it (often overlapping). Your support has been greatly appreciated. This has been a theory I’ve been thinking about since chapter 235, and I’m happy to finally write it up. Based on dialogue, Star Wars, and similar physical features between the characters, I’ve come to believe that it is highly likely that All For One is the Father of Nana’s Son and Grandfather to Shigaraki.
Edit: it didn’t show up in the tags at first because of an external link for a source but that’s been fixed
Edit2: Added Part about AFO giving Shigaraki his surname!
Dialogue
The more I reread All Might’s final battle with All For One, the more one thing nags at me. Why (and how) does All For One know Nana’s full name (and also that cute smiling pose? Where did he learn about it?)? He doesn’t know the civilian name of All Might, despite saying directly to his face how much he loathes him. He also doesn’t know Gran Torino’s civilian name even though his surname is in his hero name, and Nana outright says his first name in All Might Rising.
Hell, he only barely recognizes him as “Shimura’s Friend..?”, despite him pretty much being the guy who grabbed All Might and got out of the fight. Why remember Nana Shimura’s full name and not the others?
Star Wars and Koseki/Family Records
It’s no secret that Horikoshi is a huge Star Wars fanboy. There are so many Star Wars references ranging from obscure to blatant to “the official sub and dub had to change it for copyright reasons”. Perhaps the most prominent reference to Star Wars is All For One. His life support mask and revealing of Shigaraki’s relationship to Nana is quite reminiscent of Darth Vader, no? When a Darth Vader reference appears, it is often in tandem with him. In the original trilogy, Obi-wan Kenobi tells Luke Skywalker that his father was killed by Darth Vader. We all know that’s a lie, though one could interpret it as true to a degree. With the rise of Darth Vader, Anakin Skywalker could be said to have “died”. Through Gran Torino, we learned that Nana’s husband was killed. That’s it. That’s all we know. It’s possible that Nana lied about her husband dying literally. For all we know, her husband died the day she found out he was All For One. Adding on more Star Wars references, when talking over the outline for this with my friend, they noted how Nana and All For One as a couple could potentially mirror Padme and Anakin. In both examples, the latter (on the “dark side” or moving there pretty swiftly) killed the former. In any case, how could Nana cover up her husband’s death? Same way she hid her connection to her son. In the most recent chapter (281 at the time of this writing), we learned that Nana tinkered with the family records, known as Koseki. I had a difficult time getting information on these, but from my understanding, while they were relatively easy to get access to at one point, these days only family members are able to. Good thing, because according to this site (linked through tumblr) they contain “an individual’s full name; gender; birthdate and birthplace; parental relations (names of parents, relations to them, etc.); spousal relations (name of spouse, date of marriage, date of divorce, etc.); data related to the death of an individual (date, time, place of death); name of legal custodian or legal guardian; and data related to inheritance, such as the disinheritance of a presumed heir.” The same site also says “The information recorded in each family register is based on formal declarations made by citizens to their local government (municipality) at the time of a child’s birth, marriage, etc,” and that the information given to the municipalities is “submitted on a pro forma basis -there are cases in which an individual intentionally or negligently makes a false declaration’ that is subsequently incorporated as an entry in a family register,” lining up with Nana’s comment about tinkering with the family register.
Physical Similarities Between All For One, Kotaro, Shigaraki, and the First User of One For All
This is the part that got me started on this line of thinking. Over a year ago when chapter 235 was released, I realized that this shot of Kotaro looked… startlingly familiar.
(The anime version’s a little brighter than the scan)
Their angular features and rather defined noses were very similar, an oddity for a series with such a distinct cast of characters. In fact, the only characters with very similar features are usually related to one another (Mom genes are a joke for a reason). The BNHA discord I’m in agreed with me. Around a month later, I considered the possibility that the fact I’ve been drinking Nana/AFO juice practically since I joined the fandom may have influenced my judgement. So I sent two separate panels of Kotaro and AFO to a friend of mine. She’s not interested in BNHA, and the only context I gave to the panels was that they were BNHA panels I wanted her to look over. That was it. The conversation we had is screencapped below.
If people interested in BNHA and someone uninterested in BNHA could see it, then I was onto something. Recently, I remembered her response to the panels and that launched me into full theorist mode. Exceedingly late on August 25, I spent at least thirty minutes scouring the manga for panels of Kotaro and pre-injury All For One. looking for more physical similarities. And boy, did that search deliver.
Similar Profiles
Similarly Defined Noses
A friend even pointed out how, though it’s difficult to see with Kotaro due to a limited range of expressions, that All For One and Kotaro share a crinkle around the mouth. They’re correct.
You could even make a case that they look similarly broad shouldered as well.
This extends to Shigaraki as well, as in at least one panel in Volume 11, he’s drawn with a similarly defined nose.
All For One isn’t the only Shigaraki that Tomura Shigaraki bears resemblance too. It’s been said before that Shigaraki bears quite the resemblance to the first user of One for All, and it’s easy to see why.
Their hair is drawn in an eerily similar way. Their eyes too. Looking closely, I’m starting to think their noses look pretty similar too.
They also kind of look similar to All For One’s eyes (what’s visible of them) and nose too. While I can’t be certain, I’m willing to bet that if Horikoshi suddenly decided to draw All For One with longer hair (and show more of his face), he’d look quite similar to Shigaraki (and his younger brother) as well. People have speculated that Shigaraki is related to the first One For All user, and I agree. I believe that he’s his grand uncle, and I believe All For One is his paternal grandfather.
August 29 2020 Addition
I didn’t think to add this to the theory until after I posted so here’s the addition (which I’ll add to the main theory post later). Why did All For One give Shigaraki his surname? It could be argued that it’s a power play or something by replacing Nana’s surname with his own, but wouldn’t All For One take that opportunity to rub it in All Might’s face? Wouldn’t hearing “Oh yeah I also gave your master’s grandson a part of my name” after you found out he was her grandson from your enemy hurt like hell? You could write it off as a private middle finger but that doesn’t make much sense to me. All For One has the subtlety of a freight train when being petty. He could easily say it’s his name to anyone because he’s A) a minimum of a century old and B) known to have been born/raised during the time period when quirks were first sweeping the globe. Any records on him could have been lost/destroyed in the passing years or during the chaos. Hell, he could have destroyed them himself. It’s safe to say that there is no one alive but All For One and Shigaraki who knows the significance of the name “Shigaraki”. When the UA staff was researching Shigaraki Tomura and Kurogiri after the attack on the USJ, they concluded that both were using aliases.
While all we’re told outright is that they checked the quirk registry for the two, I’m inclined to believe that’s not all they did. Villains, for what seems to be the first time in history or awhile, attacked U.A. Highschool with murderous intent towards a teacher and his students. Said teacher also just so happens to be one of the greatest, if not the greatest hero of all time. There’s no way they’re just going to do a sweep through the quirk registry and call it a day. Yet they don’t find anything on the name “Shigaraki”. No one knows about this name, and he doesn’t say anything about it. All For One could have given any name to Shigaraki. So why his own? I don’t think it’s for one last middle finger to Nana - he’d make a huge show out of doing that to All Might. To me, I think it’s because they’re grandfather and grandson. Perhaps it was some twisted form of sentimentality? A twisted way of acknowledging a family member? It’s the only thing that makes sense.
#boku no hero academia#all for one#nana shimura#tomura shiragaki#kotaro shimura#tenko shimura#One For All#My Hero Academia#toshinori yagi#gran torino#bnha#theories#bnha theory#all might#torino sorahiko#bnha theories
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WIP folder meme :)
Thank you @isfjmel-phleg and @fictionadventurer for tagging me!! I don’t have everything in one place (it is a Huge mess at the moment) but here is a list of the main projects I’ve added notes to/thought extensively about over the past year:
ORIGINAL WORK/NOVELS (sadly most of them ARE untitled):
Project 1 (tentatively titled Garden of Dreams): about the kindness of strangers, finding joy again, the coming of spring
Project 2: a loose Snow Queen retelling in an original fairy tale fantasy world
Project 3: hero training academy in a post-war world where dragons and monsters are no longer the main threat; the kids who join the school must save the world by learning to take care of the earth and the people in it
Project 4: in an Southeast Asian-inspired country, a young girl from the countryside is forced into marrying the self-absorbed crown prince and decides to use the new power she has as the new queen to be kind and to do good
Project 5: a girl and her grandmother embark on a journey to defeat a returning evil
FILM/SHOW ADAPTATIONS:
Anne of the Island (miniseries)
Little Women, with more of an emphasis on the girls’ moral and character development: equal attention paid to all four sisters (in particular: Meg’s post-marriage joys and sorrows, Beth’s personality and her interactions with her sisters)
Mansfield Park, but you get more of Fanny’s perspective: things that she sees and observes (people’s behaviour and physical cues, nature, things that enchant her)--brief internal narration/monologues when she’s mulling over something beautiful or distressing, highlighting her social anxiety and shyness but also her emotional intelligence and the clarity of how she discerns right and wrong; we are Not making excuses for Mr. Crawford, OH and many things communicated visually (Fanny wears muted colours, whereas the other characters are dressed in brighter--sometimes even garishly bright--clothes)
THINGS I LIKE TO THINK ABOUT WHEN I DON’T HAVE ENOUGH ENERGY TO WORK ON ACTUAL PROJECTS
Star Wars sequel trilogy rewritten with All my bizarre ideas (including--please don’t laugh, this is a writing exercise I use for self-indulgence--friendship between Rose and Ben, Rey’s parents were part of the Resistance and were ordinary people fighting for what they believed in, Ben has a prodigal son storyline, Leia and Han are still together but they work on different bases, Finn is a storm trooper for MUCH longer and has killed as a storm trooper--when he returns undercover to start a storm trooper revolt he tells his old friends and colleagues that it isn’t too late to choose the right thing. There is No Chosen One, only ordinary people who choose to do the right thing (Rogue One style). Rey and Finn are both Force-sensitive; the story is about: 1) identity and belonging (Rey/Finn/Poe/Rose/Ben all ache for love and acceptance in their character arcs, all of them find that. Also none of them die, thanks), 2) personal responsibility and agency (Finn’s decision to give up the life of a storm trooper, Rey deciding to fight for the Resistance not because of her parents’ choices but out of her own volition, Rose choosing to forgive Ben even though he plays a larger role in my version in Paige’s death). Everyone is guilty of sin (Finn’s actions while he was a storm trooper, Rose holds deep hatred towards the people responsible for her sister’s death, Ben’s reason for turning to the Dark Side involved murdering his twin--I don’t know much about the Thrawn trilogy but I thought it was interesting how there are multiple sets of twins in the Skywalker family. In my version, Ben is responsible for the death of his twin sister when they’re both very young) and learns the full weight of consequences and of the freedom that grace and forgiveness and love gives them. Also I really like the idea of Rey, Finn, and Ben fighting off Main Bad Guy together at the climax of the third movie. He’s defeated by Rey (an ordinary girl, no Skywalker or Palpatine legacy attached), Finn (one of his former lackeys, who has turned to the other side, and is training to become a Jedi), and Ben (his former apprentice, who has returned to the side of light). Main theme: choosing love over hatred, kindness over cruelty, forgiveness over revenge
Rogue One modern AU where Cassian works at a bakery with his friend Kay. Jyn runs a book shop during the day and offers her services as a mechanic after hours. He makes cupcakes for themed events at her shop. Bodhi is her adopted brother. Chirrut and Baze were their professors in university, as well as old family friends, and they get first dibs on new releases at Jyn’s shop.
Agents of SHIELD but in the A:TLA universe; the Avatar cycle was interrupted, and Cal unwittingly helped Jiaying ‘create’ a new Avatar through extensive experimentation (Daisy is the ‘new’ Avatar, though her powers aren’t activated until later on. She has to deal with new strains of bending and mutations her parents made: Ward can shadowbend, for example)
the characters in Shadow and Bone but in Bayern
this one story I wrote in ninth grade: post-Civil War, Bucky is taken to the Avengers Tower to recuperate and becomes friends with everyone
Tagging @called-kept, @magpie-trove, @imissthembutitwasntadisaster, @madamescarlette if you would like to!!!
#i got a little carried away at the end slfjskl;djk ;#that's because i HAVE given the star wars idea much more thought than necessary. i have around eight pages of notes for that one#thank you for tagging me! :D#songbird and stories
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Would love to hear about your beefs with Lucas because I have beefs with Lucas
(Sorry it took me three thousand years to answer this, anon.)
They mainly fall under a few headings, with the third being the most serious and the thing that I am genuinely irl furious about at least biannually (and feeling unable to adequately sum up The Problem with it after yelling about it so often is a huge part of why this post has been in my drafts for such a long time):
1. His self-mythologising and the subsequent uncritical repetition of his bullshit in the fandom. Obvious lies like that he had some master plan for 10 films when it’s clear he did not have anything like a plot outline at any point. We all know the thing was written at the seat of various people’s pants, it’s blatantly self-evident that’s the case. There’s also plenty of public record about how the OT was written. Even dumber, more obvious lies, like that Anakin was ‘always the protagonist’ and the entire 6 films were his story from the beginning. This is preposterous and every time someone brings it up (usually with palpable smugness) as fanboys ‘not understanding star wars’ because they don't get that ‘the OT is not Luke's story’... Yeah, I just... I cannot.
Vader wasn’t Anakin Skywalker until ESB, it’s a retcon. It’s a brilliant retcon and it works perfectly, it elevated SW into something timeless and special it otherwise would not have been, but you can tell it wasn’t the original plan and there’s proof it wasn’t the original plan. Let’s not pretend. And Luke is the protagonist. No amount of waffling about such esoteric flights of theory as ‘ring structure’ is going to get away from the rigidly orthodox narrative and the indisputable fact that it is Luke’s hero’s journey. Vader’s redemption isn’t about his character development (he has almost none) and has no basis in any kind of convincing psychological reality for his character, but it doesn’t need to be because it’s part of Luke’s arc, because Vader is entirely a foil in Luke’s story. It’s a coming-of-age myth about confronting and growing beyond the father.
All attempts to de-centre Luke in RotJ just break the OT’s narrative logic. It’s a character-driven story and the character driving is Luke. Trying to read it as Anakin’s victory, the moral culmination of his choices rather than Luke’s and putting all the agency into Anakin’s hands just destroys the trilogy’s coherence and ignores most of its content in favour of appropriating a handful of scenes into an arc existing only in the prequels. The dilemma of RotJ is how Luke will define ethical adulthood after learning and growing through two previous films worth of challenge, education, failure, and triumph; it’s his choice to love his father and throw down his sword which answers the question the entire story has been asking. Vader’s redemption and the restoration of the galaxy are the consequences of that choice which tell us what kind of world we’re in, but the major dramatic conflict was resolved by Luke’s decision not the response to it.
And, just all over, the idea of Lucas as an infallible auteur is inaccurate and annoying to me. Obviously he’s a tremendous creative force and we wouldn’t have sw without him, but he didn’t create it alone or out of whole cloth. The OT was a very collaborative effort and that’s why it’s what it is and the prequels are what they are. Speaking of which.
2. The hubris of the prequels in general and all the damage their many terrible, protected-from-editors choices do to the symbolic fabric of the sw universe. Midicholrians, Yoda fighting with a lightsabre, Obi-wan as Anakin's surrogate father instead of his peer, incoherent and unmotivated character arcs, the laundry list of serious and meaningful continuity errors, the bad storytelling, the bad direction, the bad characterisation, the shallowness of the parallels which undermine the OT’s imagery, the very clumsy and contradictory way the A/P romance was handled, the weird attitude to romance in general, it goeth on. I don’t want to re-litigate the entire PT here and I’m not going to, but they are both bad as films and bad as prequels. The main idea of them, to add Anakin’s pov and create an actual arc for him as well as to flesh out the themes of compassion and redemption, was totally appropriate. The concept works as a narrative unit, there are lots of powerful thematic elements they introduce, they have a lot of cool building blocks, it’s only in execution and detail that they do a bunch of irreparable harm.
But the constant refrain that only ageing fanboys don’t like them and they only don’t like them because of their themes or because they humanise Anakin... can we not. The shoddy film making in the prequels is an objective fact. If you want to overlook the bad parts for the good or prioritise ideas over technique, that’s fine, but don’t sit here and tell me they’re masterworks of cinema there can be no valid reason to criticise. I was the exact right age for them when I saw them, I am fully on board with the fairy tale nature of sw, I am fully on board with humanising Anakin- the prequels just have a lot of very big problems with a) their scripts and b) their direction, especially of dialogue scenes. If Lucas had acknowledged his limitations like he did back in the day instead of believing his own press, he could have again had the help he obviously needed instead of embarrassing himself.
3. Killing and suppressing the original original trilogy. I consider the fact that the actual original films are not currently available in any form, have never been available in an archival format, and have not been presented in acceptable quality since the VHS release a very troubling case study in the problems of corporate-owned art. LF seizing prints of the films whenever they are shown, destroying the in-camera negatives to make the special editions with no plans to restore them, and doing all in the company’s considerable power to suppress the original versions is something I consider an act of cultural vandalism. The OT defined a whole generation of Hollywood. It had a global impact on popular entertainment. ANH is considered so historically significant it was one of the first films added to the US Library of Congress (Lucas refused to provide even them with a print of the theatrical release, so they made their own viewable scan from the 70s copyright submission).
The fact that the films which made that impact cannot be legally accessed by the public is offensive to me. The fact that Lucas has seen fit to dub over or composite out entire performances (deleting certain actors from the films), to dramatically alter the composition of shots chosen by the original directors, to radically change the entire stylistic tone by completely reinventing the films’ colour timing in attempt to make them match the plasticy palate of the prequels, to shoot new scenes for movies he DID NOT DIRECT, add entire sequences or re-edit existing sequences to the point of being unrecognisable etc. etc. is NOT OKAY WITH ME when he insists that his versions be the ONLY ones available.
I’m okay with the Special Editions existing, though I think they’re mostly... not good... but I’m not okay with them replacing the original films. And all people can say is ‘well, they’re his movies’.
Lucas may have clear legal ownership in the capitalistic sense, but in no way does he have clear artistic ownership. Forget the fans, I’m not one of those people who argue the fans are owed something: A film is always a collaborative exercise and almost never can it be said that the end product is the ultimate responsibility and possession of one person. Even the auteur directors aren't the sole creative vision, even a triple threat like Orson Welles still had cinematographers and production designers, etc. Hundreds of artists work on films. Neither a writer nor a director (nor one person who is both) is The Artist behind a film the way a novelist is The Artist behind a novel. And Lucas did NOT write the screenplays for or direct ESB or RotJ. So in what sense does he have a moral right to alter those films from what the people primarily involved in making them deemed the final product? In what sense would he have the right to make a years-later revision the ONLY version even if he WERE the director?
Then you get into the issue of the immeasurable cultural impact those films had in their original form and the imperative to preserve something that is defining to the history of film and the state of the zeitgeist. I don't think there is any ‘fan entitlement’ involved in saying the originals belonged to the world after being part of its consciousness for decades and it is doing violence to the artistic record to try to erase the films which actually occupied that space. It's exactly like trying to replace every copy of It's a Wonderful Life with a colourised version (well, it's worse but still), and that was something Lucas himself railed against. It’s like if Michaelangelo were miraculously resuscitated and he decided to repaint the Sistine Ceiling to add a gunfight and change his style to something contemporary.
I get genuinely very upset at the cold reality that generations of people are watching sw for the first time and it’s the fucking SE-except-worse they’re seeing. And as fewer people keep physical media and the US corporate oligarchy continues to perform censorship and rewrite history on its streaming services unchecked by any kind of public welfare concerns, you’ll see more and more ‘real Mandela effect’ type shit where the cultural record has suddenly ‘always’ been in line with whatever they want it to be just now. And US media continues to infect us all with its insidious ubiquity. I think misrepresenting and censoring the past is an objectively bad thing and we can’t learn from things we pretend never happened, but apparently not many people are worried about handing the keys to our collective experience to Disney and Amazon.
4. The ‘Jedi don’t marry’ thing and how he wanted this to continue with Luke post-RotJ, so it’s obviously not meant to be part of what was wrong with the order in the prequels. I find this... incoherent on a storytelling level. The moral of the anidala story then indeed becomes just plain ‘romantic love is bad and will make you crazy’, rather than the charitable reading of the prequels which I ascribe to, which is that the problem isn’t Anakin’s love for Padmé, it’s that he ceased to love her and began to covet her. And I can’t help but feel this attitude is maybe an expression of GL’s issues with women following his divorce. I don’t remember if there’s evidence to contradict that take, since it’s been some time since I read about this but yeah. ANH absolutely does sow seeds for possible Luke/Leia development and GL was still married while working on that film. Subsequently he was dead set against Luke ever having a relationship and decided Jedi could not marry. Coincidence?
There’s a lot of blinking red ‘issues with women’ warning signs all over Lucas’s work, but the prequels are really... egregious.
#sw#salt#more unhinged rambling#anyway dowload the despecialised editions#unsubscribe from Disney+#be free#usually we'd be having a big family thing for Boxing Day but you know#so God bless us all at home separately#I hope everyone had as happy a Christmas as possible in keeping with the situation#I should see if I can drag my brother outside to build a snowman
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Smokey brand Retrospective: Red Pill Me
Cinemacon has passed and there has been a lot of awesome sh*t revealed. On the top of that list, obviously, Spider-Man: Far From Home has me geeked to high heaven but there were a ton of other noteworthy reveals. There was some Batman reveals, a few Mission Impossible 7 and Top Gun 2 trailers, plus audiences ever got a surprise screening of Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Now, that would be great on it's own but cats even got a little sizzle real for Matrix Resurrections: The long gestating fourth Matrix film. Apparently, this thing is releasing in December. I am lukewarm at best. I have fond memories of the Matrix trilogy as a whole but, since it’s final release some twenty years ago, the Wachowskis have been revealed to be one trick ponies. They kind of suck at film making. I mean, i liked Speed Racer but i just generally enjoy Speed Racer. It helped tremendously that Christina Ricci was Trixie, too, but everything after that was kind of balls. I also really like V for Vendetta but that’s not real their movie, they just adapted it. I guess you can say that about Speed Racer, too. Anyway, in light of there near Shyamalan-esque track record with their films, i wanted to revisit the first three Matrix films and see if they hold up, to try and muster some sense of excitement for what comes next.
The Matrix
Of the trilogy, this is easily the best film. Everything about it is exceptional. The Matrix was a whole ass shift in the cultural zeitgeist. It was a lot of people’s first experience with accessible cyberpunk and I'll always love it for that. I’ll also love it for normalizing Hong Kong style action sequences and giving us the most breathtaking application of Bullet Time I've seen to date. The Matrix s why the theater exists. If you’ve never seen this thing on the big screen, you missed out on something very special. I had just just turned thirteen when it released and checked it out at the dollar theater. I had only ever seen anything like this, in anime. Seeing all of my favorite Eighties OVAs filtered through the big budget Hollywood lens was incredible. I even like the rather pedestrian narrative. I think the story worked for what the movie was trying to do. It’s a shame the Wachowskis have tried to rewrite history about the narrative as of late. I understand the underlying themes of identity and sexuality but come on? That’s some college film theory bullsh*t that got tacked on after the fact. Now, if the original script is to be believed, then, yes, all of that, but what we got is not so profound. This is a basic Chosen One narrative with Dope ass effects that were ahead of it’s time.
A fr as the cast, what can i say? These motherf*ckers were perfect. Keanu Reeves as Neo was inspired. It’s wild to say that because dude is a plank but it works. He’s the POV character, he’s who you see that world through. Making him a blank slate so to speak, helps with immersion and that is a world you definitely wan to be immersed within. This was my first experience with Carrie-Ann Moss and I've loved her ever since. Her Trinity fast became one of my favorite characters and I'm actually pretty excited to see where she is in the new film. Lawrence Fishburne as Morpheus was an interesting choice. I wasn’t mad and it worked perfectly but it was weird seeing him in such an active, action oriented, role. That said, for me, this movie is made by Hugo Weaving. He is absolutely monstrous as Agent Smith. He’s got this scene chewing energy that mirrors Christoph Waltz’s Hans Landa and we all know how much i love that Nazi f*ck so that’s really high praise. To this day, I've got his Humanity is a Virus speech memorized. It was just that f*cking good! The Matrix is an exquisite watch and it is absolutely mandatory viewing if you consider yourself a fan of cinema.
The Matrix Reloaded
Whoo, boy, talk about a drop in quality. Reloaded released four years later in 2003 and it screams Studio Mandate. I was a sprightly eighteen years old when this thing dropped and made it a point to see it opening day. I really enjoyed the first outing so i figured this one would be just as amazing. Indeed, i remember leaving the theater thinking to myself how decent of a sequel it turned out to be. It wasn’t better than the first but it didn’t sh*t the bed like most follow-ups do. Fast forward to present day and, after watching this thing again for the first time in probably fifteen years, it’s kind of f*cking bad. Like, as a cinematic experience, it’s pretty tight Everything is amped up. Tons more action, way more bombastic set pieces, stakes have been raised considerably; The Matrix Reloaded is everything you want in a summer blockbuster sequel. However, that’s it. Everything else is worse. The acting has become way too hammy and the new cast members fit into this narrative like a square peg in a round hole. Why is f*cking Niobe even in this thing? Who even is the Merovingian? Why is Mouse? The pacing is all over the place, too. Like, this thing stops dead in it’s tracks on several occasions but that’s not the worst of it.
The worst thing is the narrative. What the f*ck even is the story trying to be told in this movie? It doesn’t make any f*cking sense. The Matrix was, very obviously, a standalone film. That was a closed narrative. Neo’s story had been told. Everything after that is unnecessary. This movie is an exercise in the unnecessary. I appreciate all of how unchained and manic Smith is in this but, outside of that, what the f*ck was the point of this whole narrative? It’s filler. This movie is filler and it feels like it. The returning cast is serviceable and seeing Zion was interesting. I like how all the survivors are just sweaty black people. I literally hated everyone added to the cast though. Well, that’s not quite true. I rather enjoyed Collin Chou as Seraph. Dude was inconsequential but i love seeing Asian martial artists not name Li or Chan getting some shine. Also, Monica Bellucci is in this and i kind of just love her in general. Her Persephone is absolutely disposable but she looks damn fine in that plastic wrapped dress of hers. I literally can’t be bothered mentioning anyone else. They are that forgettable. This movie is that forgettable. And it’s arguably the best of the two sequels.
The Matrix Revolutions
Talk about going out with a thud. Man, i saw this with my best friend, rest in peace B, and we both hated it. He was an even bigger fan of The Matrix than i was so his disappointment was palpable. I’ll never forget his visceral reaction when that rainbow spread across the super happy Hollywood ending. Dude was hot and he had every right to be. The first Matrix set up this intriguing, immersive, world full of fanatic visuals, great piratical stunts, and a very through provoking premise. The second Matrix was your basic Hollywood sequel; More shine, less substance. But Revolutions? Man this is peak Wachowski fail. You saw hints of this messiah sh*t in the first, it’s literally a Chosen One narrative, but thy went all in on that sh*t in Reloaded. By the time Revolutions finished, this whole narrative was so far up it’s own ass, it didn’t know which way was up. It just f*cking ends. Everyone is dead and it’s over. The Wachowskis went heavy on the Jesus imagery, they were not subtle, and the f*cking conflict just ends. Robot don’t stop using people as batteries. Flesh and blood Humans still have to live in Zion. The only thing that’s changed is Neo’s dead and Agent Smith has been deleted. That’s it. The Matrix still exists, people are still trapped in it, and everything that happened in these films doesn’t f*cking matter. Literally right back at the start of the whole goddamn conflict. Revolutions is so f*cking disappointing, dude, by every measure of that metric.
Hugh Weaving is still pretty good as Smith and Keanu does his best imitation of white bread as Neo but, like, everything else is just so pedestrian. Plus, this thing is long. Like, unreasonably so. Why the f*ck is this movie two hours? The entire trilogy is kind of like that but it’s most egregious in this one. This story could be told in ninety minutes, just like Reloaded. Why the f*ck do i have an extra half hour of bullsh*t in this? Like, that whole “Neo Lost” arc was unnecessary, in both sequels. F*cking why? I don’t hate Revolutions. It’s not a “bad” film per say, it’s just disappointing. It’s the poster child for the law of diminishing returns. The Matrix Revolutions is the what happens when you let creatives with fresh egos, run amok with one hundred and fifty million f*cking dollars. So much spectacle but even less substance that Reloaded and that motherf*cker was a hollow mess. Still, The Matrix Revolutions is better than anything Michael Bay or Zack Snyder has ever made so i guess it’s got that going for it.
#The Matrix#The Matrix Reloaded#The Matrix Revolutions#The Matrix Trilogy#Smokey brand Retrospective#Keeanu Reeves#Carrie-Anne Moss#Hugo Weaving#Lawrence Fishburne
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10 Underrated Movies of the 2010s
1. John Carter (2012)
Before Snow White and the Seven Dwarves was even produced in 1937, Disney was considering producing an adaptation of Edgar Rice Burrough’s A Princess of Mars as Disney’s first animated film. During its pre-production stage, producers weren’t quite receptive to the concept. The story was about a man being transported to Mars, where its gravity gave him super powers, and he fought with four-armed green-skinned aliens. Back then, space ideas were the last things on people’s minds in the ‘30’s. They wanted something uplifting from The Great Depression.
Disney didn’t quite scrap the story; they shelved it for later and decided to go with Snow White and the Seven Dwarves as Disney’s (and the world’s) first feature-length animated movie. John Carter holds the award for the movie with the longest time spent in “development hell”. For the next 75 years, different directors and producers would try to bring back the classic tale of daring-do on the planet Mars. Growing up reading Edgar Rice Burrough’s novels, I was enthralled to hear that they finally produced a live-action film to be released on 2012 – and it was even near my birthday! March of 2012 marked 100 years since Edgar Rice Burroughs published A Princess of Mars. It was like all the stars were truly aligned for something great.
The movie finally came out and it . . . didn’t do well at all. It’s also notable for being one of the most expensive movies ever made – and it was all for nothing.
What happened?
Most of you reading this may even be unaware of the hero John Carter or A Princess of Mars. I find that the main issue was the problem of John Carter being largely unknown because it has been long overshadowed by Flash Gordon, Superman, Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, and literally everything else that owes its inspiration to John Carter.
Superman got its concept of gravity-granting superpowers from John Carter. Flash Gordon got its human-on-another-planet heroics from John Carter. Star Wars derived nearly everything from Flash Gordon. The domino effect goes on. The further you go, the more people forget the original inspiration, and we live in a world now where people don’t really care about who did it first, but who did it best.
There’s a particular scene in the movie John Carter where the titular hero has to fight monsters in an arena. Many critics were bored of the scene, claiming they saw it already in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones; which is ironic being that the arena scene was written almost a full century before Attack of the Clones. Scantily clad Carrie Fisher in Return of the Jedi? That’s a Deja Thoris reference from A Princess of Mars.
It can be difficult to judge a movie or story by itself aside from other derivative works. When that source material is some obscure adventure tale that is literally older than World War I, you should realize that probably not a lot of people have heard about it nowadays.
The film suffers from two other major points: the runtime and the combination of books one and two of Burrough’s original trilogy. A Princess of Mars is a rather simple tale of a man saving a princess on Mars. Its sequel, The Gods of Mars, goes into more complex matters as the evil Therns are revealed as a group of mysterious aliens controlling all culture and life on Mars for their benefit. The movie John Carter tries to combine the two, and I see why. Modern audiences are uninterested in seeing another adventure tale about a guy saving a princess. Ironically, that would have worked much better in the 1930’s, but the Disney board at the time was like, “Space? What’s that? Mars? What’s this newfangled spaceship business?”
John Carter ultimately had the unfortunate and unique experiences of being both too ahead and too dated for its time.
I still highly recommend it because the production value is amazing and it’s still highly entertaining. The score is fantastic (Michael Giacchino), and the performances are great, albeit with some cheesy dialogue. The screenwriters added more depth to the character of John Carter that really pulls some heartstrings, especially during one particular scene where he’s bashing hundreds of aliens to a pulp.Unfortunately, the poor performance of John Carter prevented its sequel and the planned trilogy from ever being produced. At the end of the day, I’m still content with seeing the world’s very first space adventure that ultimately inspired Star Wars finally put on screen.
2. Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)
I was frankly surprised when nobody else cared about a Solo movie coming out. Having read A.C. Crispin’s Han Solo Trilogy when I was a kid and having overall grown up loving the character, I thought ANY Star Wars fan would be pumped. That was the issue right away before the movie even hit theaters – Nobody. Fucking. Cared. The previous year’s Last Jedi left a sour, divisive taste in the Star Wars fandom. Toxic fans threw their hands in uproar and an entire debacle unseen since the prequel trilogy exploded. Like with Jake Lloyd in The Phantom Menace, fans had continually harassed and bullied Kelly Marie Tran for playing Rose to the point where she quit Instagram. YouTube videos nearly 30 minutes long were dedicated to bashing the film and “SJW culture” and “virtue signaling”. The entire debacle was a nightmare that makes me shudder to even think about. It was like everyone was tired of Star Wars by the next year.
Some people like to say that “Star Wars fatigue” wasn’t the thing because nobody was tired of Marvel movies. I disagree. First of all, I witnessed immediate responses to people’s reactions at the trailer. They said “I don’t care” and “Why do we need that?”. Second, Star Wars and Marvel are two completely different universes. Marvel has a nearly infinite range of various stories with various atmospheres and moods and characters. One Marvel fan can “specialize” in Doctor Strange while another mostly loves Thor. Star Wars follows the same group of characters over the same damn story that we’ve already known for the past 42 years.
Like John Carter, Solo had the same problem by being too confident and throwing too much money into its production. Solo also happens to be on the list of the most expensive movies ever made. Its poor performance and inability to make a return on the total costs scrapped the possibility of any more future standalone Star Wars films.
Further dissections of why it didn’t work out vary. Some people hate the droid L3-37 and claim unnecessary SJW content. I disagree with that too. In my rulebook, something in a story is not unnecessary unless it proves crucial to the plot; L3-37 is the reason why the Kessel Run worked. Were it not for her fanatic desire of starting a droid revolution, Han wouldn’t have survived. The idea of revolution is also crucial and foreshadows the coming Rebel Alliance. I wonder if people would have had the same reaction to L3-37 if the movie had been released years before the current political situation; if we would have just seen her as a cool, kooky and rebellious droid instead.
Solo: A Star Wars Story reveals that Han has always been around instances of rebellion, which he has tried to ignore. It isn’t until A New Hope that he finally gives in for good. I honestly don’t see why some people say it doesn’t fit with A New Hope when it clearly does. One of my favorite parts is when Q’ira tells Han, “I know who you really are.” From the trailer, you would expect her to say “A scoundrel.” But in the film, she says, “The good guy.” The film cements the idea that Han has always tried to look and act cool but deep down he gives in to doing the right thing, which separates him from the other scoundrels at the cantina. It’s because of this adventure that he ends up helping to blow up the Death Star later on.
Also, like John Carter, the score is absolutely fantastic. I could go on about it but that would derail the topic for another time.
3. The Gift (2015)
I ended up seeing this movie on a whim by myself after someone bailed on me at the last minute to hang out. I had nothing to do but wanted to do something and checked what was playing in theaters at the time at my local theater. The synopsis hadn’t told me enough about what was really going on while at the same time enticing me.
Jason Bateman though really surprised me in this role.I really don’t want to give anything away other than what you can find on the basic synopsis. Jason Bateman is married to Rebecca Hall and the two share a completely content life, until an old school friend of Jason’s starts visiting them. Joel Edgerton plays the school friend, and it’s quite amazing that he both wrote and directed this film too.
4. Prisoners (2013)
This movie was great – and absolutely nobody talks about it. I recall wanting to see a movie with my mom around fall of that year. We realized there was really nothing interesting in theaters. It was a lull where there was nothing really interesting playing. No blockbusters and no Oscar buzz. We chose Prisoners solely based on the fact that we like Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal, and I guess we also gathered the general sense that it was a mystery.I became glued to the screen during the entire movie.
The story revolves around Hugh Jackman’s daughter supposedly abducted by Paul Dano, who plays a mentally ill suspect. Jake Gyllenhaal plays the detective tasked with finding the daughter. With Paul Dano being unable to articulate his thoughts, everyone is left distraught on how to solve this case. Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal take drastically different routes in trying to find the girl.Out of everything on my list of underrated films here, this was the most nail-biting. Highly recommend. That ending. Whoo.
5. Source Code (2011)
This movie is a real mindbender. It might be so much of a mindbender that it’s the reason why people didn’t talk about it more. They probably just thought, “Huh?” and wanted to rewatch the previous year’s Inception again instead.Jake Gyllenhaal is on a mission to find a bomber on a train in a computer simulation. That’s how it starts at least. . .
Another movie I probably shouldn’t explain too much, but it explored themes about a post 9/11 world and the nature of self.
6. The Big Short (2015)
This movie was a hit and then everybody forgot about it. Heck, I know a bunch of you didn’t even see it. I find this really concerning. Brought to you by the director of none other than Anchorman, Adam McKay directed a very entertaining but distressing take on the Great Recession. It has an ensemble cast of Brad Pitt, Steve Carrell, Ryan Gosling, and Christian Bale.
The movie manages to translate complicated, bullshit concepts in Wall Street into layman’s terms. Every performance delivers, yes, but it was also staggeringly prophetic in what would come a year later in the 2016 election – “I have a feeling, in a few years people are going to be doing what they always do when the economy tanks. They will be blaming immigrants and poor people.”
This movie should have seriously started a riot. But it didn’t. Watch it.
7. Spectre (2015)
Many Bond fans hated Spectre, and it’s often compared to the supposed high-and-mighty Skyfall. I beg to differ. Spectre brought back the fun in Bond without also resorting to the really obnoxious misogyny. The Daniel Craig era of Bond films went back to Ian Fleming’s original intention of Bond being more of a “blunt instrument” than the tongue-in-cheek action hero he came to be known in the film series. And that’s okay. But you can’t help but be bored once and a while by the recent trend of “making things gritty in the new millennium”. Spectre brought back the evil Blofeld, Bond’s nemesis. Fans hated it because this movie implies that every other Daniel Craig movie has been tied to Spectre, ruining the standalone nature of Skyfall and feeling like Spectre was a shoe-in.
This situation requires a lot of explaining, but I’ll be brief.
The creative entities of Spectre and Blofeld were tied up in a copyright battle for almost half a century. Back when Ian Fleming was still alive, he was working on a script for Thunderball with a screenwriter named Kevin McClory. Long story short, there was a dispute on who created Spectre and Blofeld – Fleming or McClory. McClory won the dispute and MGM (the producers of the Bond films) were prohibited from using the names and characters of Spectre and Blofeld.
The last time we officially saw the character in name was in 1971’s Diamonds are Forever. Blofeld made a cameo in 1981’s For Your Eyes Only but was never mentioned by name, but you knew it was Blofeld because he was always the man with the white cat. McClory did eventually make his own version of Thunderball in 1983’s Never Say Never Again, which was an unofficial Bond movie yet it still starred Sean Connery (crazy, I know).
Fast-forward to when the Daniel Craig era started in 2006 with Casino Royale. Spectre and Blofeld were still under copyright protection of McClory. Instead of using the name Spectre, the writers had to come up with another Specter-inspired evil corporation. So they came up with “Quantum”, the evil company behind the plots of Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace.
BUT THEN, the McClory estate officially settled the matter with MGM in 2013, and Spectre and Blofeld could now be used. The writers jumped on it and that’s why to some Spectre feels like it was a shoehorned at the last minute.In my opinion, Skyfall had more issues being a standalone film. The villain Silva was supposed to be working alone and yet somehow create all these elaborate, time-sensitive plots that was just too much for one man with maybe a few henchmen to pull off. In Spectre, it’s implied that Silva used Spectre’s resources to help him plan his revenge. This would realistically make more sense. After all, it’s in the name: SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion. One would go to Spectre in order to enact revenge on someone if one didn’t have the means or resources.
And the whole Quantum being a part of Spectre thing – so what? Quantum was meant to be the same thing anyway. Lastly, there is some dispute on to the nature of Blofeld’s relationship with Bond. Bond suddenly has an evil foster brother now? Some complained about it. I thought it was fine. It gives a reason for Blofeld to go out of his way to torture Bond rather than just shoot him, which is a point always parodied in Bond spoofs. So again, it actually makes sense.
I thoroughly enjoyed Spectre. It was virtually not misogynist out of the new Bond films. It treated the main girl, Madeline, very well, as well as the “other” girl Lucia. Yeah, some of the action is dumb and more out of spectacle than realism. It’s still done with the same wit and style of the old Bond films.
8. Shazam! (2019)
Yeah. I get it. Everyone’s tired of the god-awful, insipid DC Cinematic Universe (except for Wonder Woman), which pales in comparison to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But Shazam! was finally a very fresh, funny, and lively DC movie. What makes it stand out to me was how it ended up revolving around the main character’s friends standing together with him, rather than just simply being an origin story of one superhero. Nothing felt like it fell flat. The humor was spot on. The action was good. You had a really pained, terrible villain. Some of the plot may be simple but it had a satisfying ending. Shazam! has the same kind of energy as Spider-man: Homecoming, but by doing its own thing and having its own theme of what a family really means. It revels in the genre by literally putting you in the shoes of a child’s wish fulfillment.
9. Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)
I saw this movie on a whim on Netflix. Nobody has made any fuss about it. I think it was fantastic. It’s a quirky sci-fi comedy with Aubrey Plaza playing a newspaper reporter investigating an ad someone put in the classifieds asking for a time travel companion. She goes along with two other co-workers, played by Jake Johnson and Karan Soni (who later becomes the taxi guy in Deadpool). I have to be honest – I don’t find Jake Johnson that funny. In most things I’ve seen him in, I feel like his reactions are forced. But his deadpan deliveries in this movie are on the spot. Mark Duplass was still relatively unknown at this time, and played the oddball guy who placed the ad and firmly believes he made a time machine.
The entire movie only costed $750,000! Movies today need to spend over $10 million in order to try and make something as compelling as this. This movie alone influenced the modern indie film industry by combining forces with Netflix. Maybe Netflix and chill wouldn’t have been a thing if it weren’t for this movie.
10. The Nice Guys (2016)
I saved my personal favorite for last. The Nice Guys is my favorite underrated movie that I have seen this past decade. It has everything I love in a buddy film; wit and style. Written and directed by Shane Black, this movie has some real zingers and hilarious deliveries. Ryan Gosling plays a jittery private detective, who unwillingly teams up with Russel Crowe, who beats up people for a living.
The story revolves around a missing girl who is a key witness to a grander conspiracy involving the automobile industry. This is one of those movies that never fails to make me laugh. I can rewatch the same scenes over and over and still crack up with laughter. My only gripe is that the final confrontation can be a bit unrealistic at times, which can be close to breaking that border of “Okay, is this witty satire like Coen Brothers or just outright comedy sketch like The Naked Gun?” So to me it felt a little imbalanced in the last quarter. Still, the rest of the movie really hits the right marks.
#ryan gosling#john carter#movies#theaters#brad pitt#steve carrell#sci-fi#movie#onmovies#film#oscars#shazam#shazam!#james bond#spectre#ian fleming#aubrey plaza#star wars#solo: a star wars story#solo movie#han solo#prisoners#edgar rice burroughs#barsoom#mars trilogy#a princess of mars#pulp fiction#disney#unederrated
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So! Another movie adaptation review. This time, I’m doing (*insert drumroll here*)...
PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME!
(This movie was recently added to Disney+ btw. Guess they finally remembered that it existed...I opted to not pay like Speed Racer though. Yo ho yo ho, a pirate’s life for me...)
It’s based on the Prince of Persia series (the Sands of Time Trilogy, not the two originals or the 2008 remake). So Disney got the rights to make this movie way back in...
2004? The movie came out six years later!
Anyway, they got the rights at that point. The producer apparantly worked on Pirates of the Carribean, so they decided to try and make a PotC esque franchise by taking cool elements from the source and making a good movie from it (though this time it was a game instead of a theme park ride). They also changed some stuff for the release date in hopes of launching a such a franchise afterwards.
So did they succeed?
Haven’t seen development for a second movie...so...I guess not. Come to think of it, outside of a likely mediocre VR game, there’s been nothing new for Prinxe of Persia in Ren years since the release of this movie and forgotten sands...
But I’m not here to discuss the issues of loosing what could have possibly-maybe-not really been another great franchise like Pirates’. I’m here to discuss whether or not it’s actually a terrible movie as many say it is.
This time, I’m going to try to break it down to pieces for the purposes of being comprehensible and sounding like I know what the fuck I’m talking about rather than just giving a likely subjective opinion...
ANYWAY LET’S GET TO IT!
1. THE STORY (spoilers ahead)
If you went to this movie believeing it would try to exactly copy the story of the first game, then I’ve absolutely no idea what to tell you. So I guess I’ll make a list of similarities and differences about such things
Similarities:
Persian Prince attacks city, gets Dagger, saves princess, runs from bad guys, fights bad guy, gets sent back in time to the start of the game (or movie in this case) and prevents the villain’s plan from ever really getting off the ground to begin with.
Said Prince is good at parkour and swordfighting.
Unfortunately, Princess doesn’t do much outside of being eye candy, occasionally share exposition, and take the Dagger from the Prince at one point (could they seriously not make her, like, be at least able to fight well? C’mon Disney, if you wanted to make this movie discount pirates, at least make the female lead more like Elizabeth and less like Sleeping Beauty!)
The King dies and then un-dies when the timeline gets reset or whatever
And now Differences! First, I will say that I understand some of these had to be made to adjust to the new medium (video games and movies aren’t experienced the same way, after all), but I’m still going to list them
The Prince has a name: Dastan.
He has two brothers, Tus and Garsiv
His uncle is the revealed villain instead of some random no-name Vizer
The movie is mostly in the desert city of Alamut and some nearby desert-y areas of Persia while the game takes place in India
The Princess’s name is Tamina instead of Farah
A lot of the side peoples like the Hassansins, Seso, and Sheik Amar were added to the movie
The Prince doesn’t release the Sands of Time in the start of the story. Instead it only happens in the Third Act
So, I’d say overall there was an alright job at changing the story to fit a movie setting more. You can’t really have a character that has much more human interactions as opposed to just parkour and fighting sand monsters not have some sort of name. The side characters help to establish decent side parts to the story.
Overall, I think the story is...okay. It’s not amazing, but I think it gets the job done in a reasonable fashion.
2. THE CHARACTERS
Now for the other important part. Before I get into the performance, I will say I’m disappointed in yet another instance of whitewashing in Hollywood. I would’ve definitely liked it if they could’ve avoided this issue, but for now I’ll tick off points for that and discuss the performances.
Jake Gyllenhaal does a pretty great job as Dastan. He’s a dashing rogue with some good lines and generally sells his performance pretty well despite the mediocre plot and story.
Ben Kingsley does a good job as the traitor uncle Nizam. While he’s not always as threatening as, say, the Hassansins, he does certainly have his moments in the film and his motivations are hinted at early in and make sense.
Richard Coyle’s Tus (left) and Toby Kebbell’s Garsiv (right) are mediocre. They’re not as interesting as Dastan or some other characters I’ll mention later, but I will say Tus as a character seemed a lot better and more fleshed out for the most part than Garsiv.
Tamina. Already said she’s a missed opportunity for a badass female lead. However, Gemma Arterton makes most of her interactions with Dastan pretty believable and I’ll admit that her attempts at trying to get the Dagger of Time back from The Prince are pretty neat and she almost succeeds two out of four times (actually nearly killed him in one of them, but he gets saved by:
Yeah, I know it’s a dead meme, but you get the idea.
And lastly, one of my personal favorite performances in the movie, Alfred Molina as Sheik Amar and Steve Toussaint as Seso. They’re not in the movie very long, but I have to say that they’re both my favorites in their own way. Molina’s Amar is quite funny and bizarre and makes for an entertaining supporting character, and despite the unfortunately limited speaking and screen time for Seso, his skill and general badassary are portrayed well.
I’d say most of the characters were good despite the many missed opportunities for the characters and the whitewashing issue. So! I’ll wrap up with a discussion on the effects and action (but not music. The soundtrack was pretty generic imo.)
3. THE ACTION AND EFFECTS
This is definitely the highlight of the film. The action, from the free running to the fights, is all done very well. One of my low key favorite scenes is just before the invasion of Alamut, where Dastan climbs the outer wall. Also, the effects when he rewinds time with the Dagger are amazing. (links aren’t working for me right now so you’ll have to find them yourself.)
Honestly, there’s a lot wrong with this movie between the whitewashing, the not-always-great characters and interactions, and the mediocre plot and soundtrack among other things. However, when this movie does something well, it does it pretty damn well. I think it’s a shame that this movie wasn’t completely able to break the “video game movie” mold, but for what it is, a swashbuckling action adventure movie, it’s good.
7.5/10
Honestly, if I had a decent mike, I could probably make a small YouTube series outta this instead of making a Tumblr essay...
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Hyacinthus Art Process! (Part One)
ART PROCESS BELOW!!! (forgive me if I’m salty, I was looking for the link for Step One for almost HALF AN HOUR)
Also end and forgive me I made the bunning Hyacinthus PURPLE. Luckily I change it but S T I L L I’m ANGRY ABOUT IT
Step One - Rough Draft
Okay! So I started this album around October 20th, 2020 on a Tuesday (lol).
When I was thinking of the song (while doing the covers of the last two), I really wanted to show that power and desperateness of Jamil (and how he indulges and relishes in it). I remembering see this pose by yama_kome and I really liked how they represented Jamil’s overblot.
Ever since I saw this incredible piece of art, I wanted it to be done in this kind of way. Now, since I’m releasing covers of Scarabia (Mystique and Cardenalia), I decided to do it this time for his overblot.
Besides, I wanted to change things up a little bit!
This took me a while to get (almost a day I believe?), but when there’s a will - there’s way.
Just to let you know: I was originally going to name the song Hyacinth but if you say all the Scarabia Trilogy’s Tracks in order - it wouldn’t sound right. So that’s why I changed it to Hyacinthus.
Secondly, I feel like if you say a flower’s scientific name than its common name - it gives that effect of a beginning, of a source and of an origin. I feel like the Overblots are a representation of their true feelings and emotions (in this case, Twisted Wonderland) so that’s partly the reason why I changed it as well.
Step Two - Rough Lineart
This dang lineart took me till Thursday, October 22nd. Here’s why.
1. I COULDN’T WING IT THIS TIME - there was a lot going through my head as well as references about what I wanted him to wear. Other ideas popped into my head such as, “Should I add some blot there?” or “What should I do for the shirt?”.
So many ideas, but few were added.
2. The DESIGNS. - So many interpretations and stuff were everywhere, and they all looked good. But the problem was the amount of time to put such beautiful details. That killed me.
To sum up one and two, my brain for ideas went brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr-
Steps of Lineart (at the top of my head - yes. I don’t write this in the time I’m doing it because it slows me down lol):
1. Face (was done already) - more specifically the side profile to the neck
2. Nose Piercing (yE-)
3. Mouth Piercing (hOt-)
*4. Braided Hair (*dies*)
*5. Veil on Face (then the pattern waaaaaay after)
*6. Dazzling-Jewelry-Neck (more sure about doing the neck first, but #6 and #7 can be interchangeable)
*7. Snakes (only the right of the art piece though/snakes nearest to braids or plaits)
8. Upper Body
9. Robes
*10. Chest
11. Shoulders
12. Right Hand - Fingers
13. Right Hand - Fingernails
14. Right Hand - Palm
15. Left Hand - Fingers
16. Left Hand - Fingernails
17. Veil on Body
18. Ear (YUP, I FORGOT THE BUNNING EAR-)
*19. Snakes (left of Jamil and his beautiful hair strand)
20. Right Earring
21. Left Earring
22. Thing on his head (nope, don’t know the name and I ain’t bothering)
*For numbers 4, 5, 6,7,10, 17 and 19 in particular, I had to do multiple layers to make the detail. I would say:
#4 - Two layers: One for the plaits and one for the line...thingy...
#5 - Six layers: It’s technically two, but I had made multiple to get the pattern I wanted. Sadly, I didn’t achieve it so I decided to stick with the one above.
#6 - Six layers: THE FULL DANG TRUTH. The diamonds were first (1), then the line separating the pearl and diamonds (2), Later the designs of the pearls + rectangular thingies (3), The triangle into multiple triangle thingies were next (4), Soon after was the circles into multiple circles + Two triangles overlapping each other (5) and then that last bit at the end of the neck (6).
There’s actually more due to the designs of the diamonds and pearls, but I’m not going that far into memory lane.
#7 - Eight layers: If you count them, that’s how much layers I had to go through.
#10 - Four layers (without counting the two (or three) patterns that you see up there): That darn pattern (1), Them s p i k e s (2), That thing it’s being held up in (3), that pattern near the spiky pattern (4).
#17 - Four layers: Just count, please. Going up and down with my eyeballs is killing me.
#19 - Seven layers: Not as bad (because it’s pretty small), but whatever. (1 - 3) First three ear piercings you see (you may see two though), that tail, long thingy (4) that crap Bubbles wear...them circles (5 & 6), and that diamond. (hehe cATER DIAMOND)
HI!!!
You better read that crap. I took a good while writing it. If you did, you earn my biggest respect and time in the inbox.
Step Two and a Half: Cleanup WITHOUT the Background
Ah. The nostalgia. That feeling when you forgot the flower you were supposed to be working on...
Words, text and speech can not even compare to the feeling I had when I rEALiZED, I foRGOT the BUNNING FLOWER-
Step Three: COMPLETE Cleanup
Perfection. Isn’t that nice?
Step Four: Coloring
October 22nd, 2020 at 11:03 AM...
Immediately when I thought of Jamil I immediately wanted to give him that w h i t e s c h e m e
The reason why I wanted to was because he hard more darker colors in his normal design, and besides - his power has something related to the meaning of white ;). Anyways, I made sure that the ivory (celestial?) theme continued to flow through the whole art piece. Basically, making this smol boy a goddess-
Also, I was thinking that this Overblot scheme would be his true form or something, but he kept it locked away maybe due to how much it takes up his health. Consider this idea though as 100% “Not-Fully-Developed-But-Getting-There” Idea.
I really wanted them snakes to be white. Sorry not sorry.
Plus, I wanted that veil black instead of white, but I was way too into it to ever think of that apparently. In particular, them f i n g e r n a i l s. I absolutely wanted Jamil to have that light peach color and all that so I did it! Makes my heart go UwU-
<>
Annnnnnnd cut! That’s Part One for you.
Hyacinthus [ Art Process - Part Two ] here!
Thank you for your continuous support!
#just#please#end me here and now cause I'm just like ://///////////////#it's easy to fix though so anyways-#TWSTxDAL art process#TWSTxDAL overblot#TWSTxDAL#twisted wonderland#date a live#scarabia#kalim al asim#jamil viper#twst kalim#twst jamil#this is the final one...:(((((#at least original Jamil's back again!#Requests are open - including Overblot Jamil HEHEH-#finally I queued this! Thank goodness...#now you guys don't have to wait! YAY!#but dang#ever since I've made music for scarabia I've started to love the characters in them espECIALLY JaMIL-#YE#UwU
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Star Wars Battlefront II: A New Hope. A Gamers Review.
The Star Wars Battlefront franchise established its name in the early 2000s when the games were released for the Xbox and PlayStation 2. What a time to be alive that was. The prequels were in full swing, The Clone Wars were just getting started on Cartoon Network and Star Wars was at the peak of its popularity with the Millennial generation. So, when we heard the news of Star Wars Battlefront being reborn and heading for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, naturally we were all excited. But once we popped the disk into the consoles, we were left wondering “Is this the same franchise that provided us with countless hours of fun so long ago?”. Star Wars Battlefront was a disaster. It almost ruined the franchise and left a lot of gamers sour.
Star Wars Battlefront I was incomplete when it was released. There was no story/campaign mode for single player gamers. The multiplayer mode was at the very least bland, with minimal characters and game modes. The game also only featured characters and maps based off the original trilogy, which alienated fans of the prequels and sequels (yes, there are fans of those eras). EA was flat out lazy. When you pair this with EA’s reputation of under producing games to then later force players to spend more money on numerous DLC packs (downloadable content), fans lost trust in the franchise. This is evident in many of EA sports franchises such as Madden NFL, Battlefield, and most notably The Sims franchise. Although many games are using microtransactions to make more money, many of the most popular games that offer a variety of game packs are free these days, most notably Fortnite and Call of Duty: Warzone. EA still charges $19.99 for the Star Wars Battlefront II game. Alessandro Fillari for Gamespot also mentions this in their review,
“Battlefront II plants itself in the same territory as free-to-play games, with much of its content and characters tucked away behind progression walls and randomized loot crates. This is an especially disappointing reality for a full-priced release.” Alessandro Fillari, Gamespot.com.
Although we agree here, I personally think his score of 6/10 overall is a bit harsh for the game.
This takes us to Star Wars Battlefront II. When I heard that there was a sequel coming out, I already had doubt in the second installment before it had even been released. I was wondering how is EA going to mess this one up? From my personal gaming experience, I believe Star Wars Battlefront II is a major improvement to its predecessor, but many previously devoted fans chose not to purchase the second game after the disappointment and disaster around the first installment.
CAMPAIGN MODE
Being provided with a campaign mode at all has been a huge improvement from the first installment, but let’s take a closer look at it. The Campaign mode on Star Wars Battlefront II is actually pretty good. It changes up the pace of the story by switching between third person shooting missions, where you navigate the map and take on the empire head-to-head with various weapons, to straight out dog fights in space. Flying Tie fighters and X-wing aircrafts in space is a nice touch to keep you on your toes while keeping the game fresh, because how many more first or third person shooter games do we really need?
In the story mode you play as Iden Versio, who starts as a high-ranking commander for the Galactic Empire. Since the story takes place right after the events of episode six, Return of the Jedi, the empire falls after the death of Darth Sidious and has left the empire desperate and looking to take the galaxy down with it. Iden Versio sees the error in the empire’s ways and pretty soon into the story she defects to the rebel alliance. This story setup allows players the opportunity to get to play both sides of the war, which I’m sure will be appreciated by some fans. One of my personal gripes is that the story mode itself is more on the short side.
Campaign mode score: 7.5/10
SINGLE PLAYER MODE
Single player mode is pretty standard. It consists of three modes. Battle Scenarios is a mode where you can customize games to play against the AI. You can also customize all the rules and choose which side you would like to play as. In arcade mode you can complete certain missions and objectives with special characters from both the light and dark side. There is also a pretty standard practice/tutorial mode. These are great additions to the game but can get stale and repetitive rather quickly.
Single player mode score: 6.6/10
MULTIPLAYER MODE
This is the games bread a butter. Multiplayer is vastly improved from the last installment. EA has listened to the fanbase and has diversified the game by adding the characters and maps from both the prequel and sequels to the game. One of the biggest flaws of Battlefront I was the lack of iconic characters such as Kylo Ren or Yoda being playable in the game. Battlefront II fixes that with modes like Supremacy, which is a capture the flag type game mode, that allows you to pick era of the franchise you would like to play in. Another online game mode is “Heroes and Villains”. If you ever wondered how Obi-Wan Kenobi vs Kylo Ren would turn out, or what Luke Skywalker vs Darth Maul would look like? Then this is the game mode for you. You can battle with Star Wars most popular and iconic characters using lightsabers, blasters, as well as use the force to fight your way to victory in a 4v4 battle royale.
David Jagneux describes this in his review for IGN,
“What’s great about Battlefront 2 is that it lets you play with all of its toys, no questions asked. Every character class and playable hero is available from the start, and the tedious unlocking grind from launch has been completely removed. Luke, Vader, Boba Fett, Rey – you name them, they’re all here.” David Jagneux, IGN.com.
David gave the game a solid score of 8.8/10.
Multiplayer mode score: 10/10
This brings me to the conclusion. Star Wars Battlefront II is a very good game, and I highly recommend it if you are looking for a great multiplayer game with a few single player modes to throw into the mix. When compared to the first Battlefront to come to the new generation of consoles it is a massive upgrade. I am usually hard on EA as I am not a fan of many of their games, but I have to admit that they have done great job capturing the essence of the original Star Wars Battlefront games for Xbox and PlayStation 2, which is something that many companies have had a hard time doing as of late, even with superior gaming consoles such as the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series One being released. You have to give props where they are due. Star Wars Battlefront II has my full recommendation and stamp of approval, it’s a fun game whether you are a huge Star Wars fan or are just looking for a diverse online/offline adventure.
Final Score: 8/10 with a great multiplayer mode!
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Three Years Blog Anniversary!
Well, would you look at that. In the blink of an eye, an entire year has gone by! It has now been a grand total of three years since I started up this liveblog, and ever since, it's been a whirlwind of an adventure that has introduced me to amazing shows, amazing games, and above all, amazing people! As has become tradition, it's time for us to gather 'round by the fire, bundle up in blankets, sip some hot cocoa, and reminisce about the shenanigans we got up to in the year 2019.
You know the drill! Click "Keep Reading" to see the rest! Let's go!
January kicked off with the closing episodes to Steven Universe's fifth season, and what a finale it was! In true SU nature, it managed to be wholesome, funny, terrifying, and sad all at once! Not to mention the finale episode specifically, which was rife with both fan service and a breath-taking final confrontation. It even prompted me to type up three whole Addendum posts just so I could get all my thoughts out there. Intermingling with these episodes were some rather poignant and touching episodes of RWBY's 6th Volume, which saw some great plot advancements for some of my favorite characters. And of course, there was one liveblog session early on dedicated to Fate/Stay Night, a series I began back in 2018. And that would end up being the last I'd liveblog about it. Following the technical difficulties of the Visual Novel crashing at an important moment, I lost much of my motivation to keep going at it, putting Fate/Stay Night on the bench... For now. But more on Fate/Stay Night later.
Then came February! Where I proceeded to do absolutely nothing at all. For 42 days, I fell into a pretty bad funk that I called depression, at the time. Well! I must be in a better mental space right now, because until it came time to make this post, I forgot all about it! Moving past the shame I felt for wordlessly abandoning my blog and discord community for over a month, come March I pressed right into a brand new liveblog: Kill la Kill! A frenetic, frantic, freaky series that serves as the spiritual sequel to what was, once upon a time, my favorite anime ever: Gurren Lagann. I was immediately charmed by it's absurdist humor and over-the-top everything. However, it wasn't long before I succumbed to my greatest flaw. I'm exceptionally picky about what I liveblog, and sadly, Kill la Kill didn't tick the boxes that needed to be ticked for me to stick with it. I eventually dropped the series after only three episodes.
Needless to say, I was getting desperate to reinvigorate my lost momentum. It was then and there, at the tail end of March, that I introduced the most significant change to my brand ever: Liveblogging itself was being benched in favor of a fanciful second attempt at running my video game focused Youtube Channel! While I would certainly continue to liveblog new episodes of shows I had previously caught up with, my efforts would be redoubled and focused upon something I hoped would shake things up for me. I put in the effort of buying a new, fancy, high-tech microphone, and set about to new projects!
First up was a tense and troublesome self-imposed-challenge: A playthrough of Resident Evil 2 Remake on its hardest difficulty, with the added stipulation that I can never access the item storage box! My knowledge and skills of that game were put to the test as I skirted by the dangerous zombies and mutants while carrying only the bare essentials on my person. That series lasted 7 videos, plus a Highlight Reel, over about a week. My new microphone really brought out my screams of terror. Yes.
Immediately following the conclusion of the REmake 2 challenge run in early April, a new series debuted: A blind let's play of Subnautica! A simply incredible sci-fi survival game set on a planet that's nearly entirely an ocean... But much to my surprise, it was secretly a horror game all along. Spanning 18 episodes + a highlight reel between April 5th and May 23rd, we descended ever deeper into the abyss, deciphered alien riddles, fled from toothy leviathan-class predators, established a lovely home base, and had a great ol' time overall. A truly remarkable game with a surprisingly good story, for its genre, and it left me eagerly looking forward to making a Let's Play of its sequel: Below Zero.
Simultaneously, beginning on April 10th, I embarked upon yet another adventure that was of such a large scope, I made my channel's primary time slot dedicated to it. The Phoenix Wright Trilogy! A collection of the first three Visual Novels in a wonderful, wonderful series about the titular attorney at law. It wasn't long before I fell in love with this series, big time. It had everything! Immensely satisfying mysteries for me to solve, memorable and lovable characters, great pacing, and it knew how to keep things fresh and interesting. Although I started out the Let's Play by saying I wouldn't read everything aloud, that proved to be a lie. As of now, the series is a whopping 78 videos long (I do expect it to reach 100 before all is said and done), and I have given voice to roughly 50 unique characters so far. The series really helped awaken my Let's Play chops by improving my speech, vocal clarity, and focus. Swapping between my first video ever (for Legend of Grimrock II) and the most recent Phoenix Wright video is a real night-and-day difference! Overall, it's very safe to say that the series has stolen my heart. Unmatched hype, dizzying plot twists, and delightful shenanigans burst from the seams, truly. The Let's Play is currently ongoing, though the end is within sight...
As the Let's Plays of Subnautica and Phoenix Wright Trilogy progressed, so too did the production quality of my videos. I got a better grip on editing, improving the design of my video thumbnails and taking more care to edit out needless and dull moments of gameplay. I even introduced a brief and stylish video intro, which was my avatar appearing over a dark background before it faded off into gameplay. That would be the image up above! However, as we move into 2020, I’ve begun to feel that it could do with a slight improvement... Wink wink!
Following the end of Subnautica came a new Let's Play involving yet another sci-fi horror game: Prey! Spanning 25 videos + a highlight reel between June 3rd and November 19th, it immediately gripped me with its stunning attention to detail, marvelously crafted environments, and boundlessly creative gameplay. It was a pleasure to explore the varied regions of the Talos One space station, blasting aliens, uncovering secrets, untangling the connections between the employees there, and making some seriously difficult moral choices. A truly impressive video game that's just begging for a second playthrough on my own time at some point.
July 20th saw the beginning of new activity on my blog. In a spur-of-the-moment decision that I didn't think out too well, I brazenly announced out of nowhere that I would be doing a re-watch of Steven Universe! I proceeded to liveblog the first 11 episodes of Steven Universe over a week, lovingly looking back at the series' origins, calling out moments of foreshadowing, and analyzing everything with the lens of all my knowledge about the show. And then... Nothing! Just as soon as it began, the project was dropped. I had hoped it would rekindle my interest in Liveblogging (outside of new episodes of SU and RWBY), but I had no such luck. You know I'm burnt out when even Steven Universe, my favorite thing ever, can't help...
By September 3rd, the Steven Universe Movie had finally released! Over a hype-as-hell two days, I liveblogged the entire film. It truly was Steven Universe at its absolute best! Touching, sincere, unexpected, and rife with some stellar songs that are STILL stuck in my head. It proved that the Crewniverse hadn't lost its spark since the conclusion of the original series.
November 5th was my 25th birthday! My family celebrated by all going out for an amazing sushi dinner. Good times! Sometimes, it's really hard for me to grasp that I'm actually 25... I'm a kid at heart, really! Or maybe it's that I'm a social recluse who enjoys watching anime a little too much. Regardless, I feel no shame!
November 10th saw the debut of RWBY Volume 7, and so far it has been an exceptionally strong season. I've long maintained the opinion that the show gets better and better every season, and Volume 7 has given me no reason to doubt that. One episode in particular became my second favorite in the series, right behind a certain one from Volume 6! I'm really enjoying how the characters, new and old, are playing off each other this go around, and the fights and art direction have been no slouch either. This season's a looker! I'm really looking forward to seeing how it ends.
Hot on the heels of the ending Let's Play of Prey, I immediately started up a new series on November 20th... Chrono Trigger! A legendary and widely loved JRPG from the SNES era of gaming that I had somehow gone all my life without playing. Better late than never to fix a mistake like that! I eagerly dived in and nearly immediately understood why it's heralded as an all-time great. The series is currently 13 episodes long, and each one is an endless stream of me being hyped and giddy. I’m already excited to record more!
December 8th saw the debut of Steven Universe Future, a very special epilogue series that's sure to tie a nice bow on the franchise as a whole. As of this post, I have liveblogged the first 8 episodes, and it's fair to say that while it's not holding back in giving the audience exactly what it wants, it's also doing something very unexpected and very, very interesting with Steven himself. Only time will tell how it all ends and whether every remaining mystery will be answered, but so far I have been more than satisfied with it.
And that brings us to the present! Wow, it felt like a lot less happened this year than you would think, huh? No, it's been jam packed with new adventures! I think I am very content with how the year has gone, and I hope you are as well. We'll be striding into the year 2020 with more Steven Universe, more RWBY, more Phoenix Wright, and more Chrono Trigger! Plus, it may very well be that we'll see the return of Made in Abyss and Madoka Magica, both of which (I believe) are getting continuation movies in 2020. I may or may not be entirely wrong about this. Forgive me if I am...
In the near future, the Phoenix Wright Trilogy will be followed up by a Let's Play of Fate/Stay Night! Indeed, the canceled Liveblog will be reborn in youtube video form! And following Chrono Trigger, well... It's mostly up in the air, though I do have a few good ideas. In particular, I recently got a Virtual Reality system set up... Wink wink!
So that's really all there is to it! Cheers, lads! Cheers to a good year, and cheers to the next year being even better! To our good health, our unbreakable friendships, and all the stupid bullshit we’ll get into together! 2020 has arrived!
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Five years ago, I began putting a book together—a collection of my writings themed around punk music/punk subculture. They were all written between ‘99 and 2014, and had previously appeared in my own zines that had since gone out of print, or other zines or online magazines that had gone out of print/gone dark; style-wise, they ran the gamut from CNF to lyric essay to music criticism. I decided to crowdfund and self-publish the book, but at that point I didn’t really know what I was doing in regards to either crowdfunding or publishing full books. The book was almost ready to go but the artist I’d commissioned never finished the cover art, and my crowdfunding campaign hadn’t been entirely successful, and I wound up not having enough money to publish it.
About a year after I realized I couldn’t do it the way I’d initially planned, the book was picked up by a small press. My plan was to buy enough author copies to fulfill the initial crowdfunded preorders, and hopefully sell even more than that. With the help of an editor, I partially rewrote some older pieces and wrote some new ones to flesh it out a bit more. They found someone to do the cover and interior art, and put up a preorder page; I got blurbs from some of my favorite writers. It was all basically ready to go. But shit happened, and the press folded, and the book was once again dead in the water. (I’m not naming the press here, because my intention here is not to call anyone out. The people involved in all that are friends of mine, and as a small press owner myself I understand that shit happens. The saddest part about that whole thing is that I don’t get to use the cover and interior art we had, because it was amazing.)
I’ve recently realized that I need to get the book out in some way, because I need to put it behind me. For one thing, I feel badly that the people who crowdfunded or preordered never received anything. For another, I just need to move on, and I can’t fully move on until I get it out into the world. So I’ve decided to self-release it. For right now, I’m only making a digital version. I know, I know, print is way better, but I don’t have the funds to print it right now, and I’m certainly not going to ask people to pre-pay for it a third time. I’ve redone it somewhat—took out some of the weaker pieces, added in some others I’ve written in the past three years—and I’ve used my own artwork for the interior and done the cover in a zine-y/Xerox art style. I’ve uploaded it to Payhip, for a sliding-scale, pay-what-you-want price. This way, people who already paid for it (or just can’t afford it otherwise) can download it for free, and other people who can/want to throw a few $$ my way can do that. Most importantly: finally, finally, five years later, What We Talk About When We Talk About Punk will be released unto the world.
—
Here’s what some rad people had to say about WWTAWWTAP in its original incarnation:
Love letters to way-too-late whiskey-drunk nights, stolen hearts and stolen kisses, small- town parking lots and bad decisions and even badder girls, WWTAWWTAP is a gritty and gorgeous series of riffs on living and loving punk. Like your very first show all over again, it'll set your blood on fire.
—Sarah McCarry, author of the Metamorphoses trilogy and editor/publisher of the Guillotine series
What We Talk About When We Talk about Punk distills wild nights of loud music, cheap whisky, and fugitive romance into a pure tonic. Jessie Lynn McMains’s voice is as indelible as a stick-and-poke tattoo and her autobiographical stories vividly capture the highs and lows of punk-rock youth. Pull on your leather jacket, grab a bottle of something, climb up onto the roof, and read this book.
—Jeff Miller, author of Ghost Pine: All Stories True
Wearing music like a jacket, that’s one of the things Jessie says about herself in these pages. I find that very admirable and inspiring. It gives a wonderful perspective to not only observe oneself in the moment, and in the past, but to feel the effect of that topic of study and passion on you, pressed against your skin. Jessie’s very subjective approach succeeds, and doesn’t fall into, impenetrable in-crowd self absorption, because she is smart enough to allow an adequate amount of objectivity and analysis to let her audience vibrantly see and feel her own experiences as if we are there with her. Music is a good reference point because lyrics, rhythm, and melody hit deep beyond the intellect into the emotions. You can always put on a CD, or vinyl record, or cassette and be transported to other places and times. These personal essays did this very thing to me, like listening to music. She becomes the jacket that we put on as we hear the lyricism of her stories.
We are always with Jessie in her writings. The hyper-awareness that she uses to capture her memories to be pondered again and again, as we read on, immersing ourselves in her writing, is crucial. We are reading something that is alive and learning it’s own lessons. We can picture her being transformed by her own documenting of her experiences, becoming a complex being, a well informed member of humankind. She is infused with the playfulness and philosophy found in music and she demonstrates the frightening willingness to view oneself through a microscope. I find this fascinating. Therefore, because of this heart-on-her-sleeve writing style, when we allow ourselves to engage with her words on the page, to be as vulnerable as she has allowed herself to be, we too are transformed. Her words have gone from jacket to skin. We are there feeling her sexually charged reaction to Rock and Roll. We experience the sensual allure of the human body. With her we dive head first into decadence, decay, nostalgia, and hope. Her bouts of loneliness and need for community are palpable. We are bruised by the violence, the drugs, the suffering. We are stifled and also warmed by the dying and the regenerating of a constantly changing musical style. We witness the passing of friends and idols. We share in her understanding of what it means to be an outcast, and more specifically, how it feels to be a female outcast, to be a mother and a rebel. Through the willingness to wear this book like a jacket, like a skin, we not only see who Jessie is but we learn about the daily life behind the music, of people, inspired by their own creativity and the creativity of others, trying to simply be, to live a life worth living. This isn’t just a collection of diary entries, a memoir, it is an opportunity to look at oneself. Why are you a punk? Or perhaps even more importantly, why aren’t you a punk?
—John “Jughead” Pierson, podcaster (“Jughead’s Basement”), musician (Even in Blackouts, founding member of Screeching Weasel), author
Jessie Lynn McMains weaves the threads of her own life with a typewriter ribbon on a loom fashioned from melted records and empty 40's. The end result is fascinating, an ultrapersonal look at a life shaped by punk, forged by punk, fired by punk. What We Talk About When We Talk About Punk has music at its core and surrounding it on all sides, but its main muscle is the reaction to that, the response. Thoughts thought while listening to a perfect mixtape that takes you far away from the blah street you've found yourself living on (and a secret peek at the science behind that perfect tape), the thrill when a cute girl comes into your crappy job and gets why the 1" button on your jacket is so important. Notes scrawled on diner napkins and on the back of show flyers, now compiled into book form!
—Ocean Capewell, author of The Most Beautiful Rot and High On Burning Photographs zine
At 16 I cut my hair with a razor and dyed it black, looking at my reflection in the mirror that night I was convinced I was the spit of Richard Hell. When I think back through my own punk history, the bands, the friendships and the crushes; the obsessions that took over my life, led me to zines and the community I was desperately searching for, I can see with perfect clarity how I arrived at this point. As an adult woman these things are intrinsic parts of me. And that’s what Jessie’s writing does, it kicks you in the gut then hands you a cold beer. She knows. Jessie is the real deal; she is the girl Cometbus, one of the great zinesters of our time. If you want me, I’ll be in my room listening to my tapes.
—Cherry Styles, writer, editor/publisher of The Chapess
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You can download it here. Then listen to the official soundtrack here. (Pretend it’s on a tape, okay?)
xoxo,
the writer formerly known as Jessica Disobedience
#what we talk about when we talk about punk#jessie lynn mcmains#ebooks#punk#indie lit#writers on tumblr
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Transcript of our Wolfman 2010 Podcast
Unknown Speaker 0:12
Welcome to Tentpole Trauma, the podcast where we look at movies that came with hype and high hopes, but left with crushing disappoint either critically at the box office are both. Free from the weight of expectations, we seek to examine these underperformers under a new light parsing through the good, the bad and everything in between the hopes of gaining a better understanding as to why they failed to find their audience.
Unknown Speaker 0:43
Warning, there will be spoilers. So if you haven't seen the movie that we're discussing today, I suggest you stop the podcast and go watch it. Then when you come back and listen, you'll get more out of the discussion. This episode we examine the 2010 remake of The Wolf Man.
Unknown Speaker 1:23
I've been a universal horror fan for as long as I can remember. So I was pretty excited back in 2010 when the Wolf Man remake got rooms I've been following the production I knew Benicio del Toro was playing the Wolf Man, which I thought was great. I knew the original director left and was replaced with Joe Johnston, who I liked but didn't think was that inspired of a choice. But still, I was really excited to see it even after numerous delays. The first signs of real trouble were the extremely tepid reviews and tepid is a kind descriptor, but I maintained my enthusiasm and on opening weekend dragged my pointedly disinterested girlfriend to see it. The movie started promisingly enough with a pretty cool werewolf attack. But as the stilted drama set in, I could feel the audience snickering and turning against the movie. And more importantly, I could feel my girlfriend turning against me for dragging her to see this thing. We didn't last much longer. Still, over the years, I've maintained a certain affection for the film, even buying it on blu ray to have it as a, as I call put on in the background kind of movie, something that's visually pleasing that you can just look at not really pay attention to it. Over the years, I've even tried to get friends and family to watch it with me and perhaps reevaluate the film. But usually I'm just met with a healthy serving of side eye and skepticism. So am I insane for liking this maligned movie? I guess that's a question we'll have to address today as we deep dive into the 2010 remake of the wolf, man.
Unknown Speaker 3:19
All right, this is Sebastian, and I'm here today with Jennifer Hello, and Chris.
Unknown Speaker 3:25
Hey, how's it going?
Unknown Speaker 3:26
And we're gonna be talking about the Wolf Man remake from 2010. Directed by Joe Johnston, who did Captain America The Winter Soldier, and he did the Rocketeer and Jurassic Park three, and written by Andrew Kevin Walker, who wrote seven and some other stuff. So you know, there's kind of a pedigree there. I already in my intro talked about my experience with this film. Jennifer, do you have any previous experience with this film?
Unknown Speaker 3:57
Yes, I do. My first exposure to this film was through you insisting that I watched this film, I think it was probably around 2012 or 2013. Does that sound right?
Unknown Speaker 4:10
It sounds right.
Unknown Speaker 4:10
Yeah. And I remember just not really, not really getting that into it. I was just kind of I wasn't, I didn't hate it by any means. But I just was kind of like, okay, that's, it's that was fine. But then watching it for the podcast. I had a different experience this time, which we'll go into also watching, both theatrical and the unrated version made a big difference. So But yeah, I did not see it in the theater. I it's not really I'm a horror person but, and I like universal monsters. The creatures more my guy, but I'm not you know, not super
Unknown Speaker 4:58
Wolfie Okay, Chris.
Unknown Speaker 5:01
Um, yeah, so my experience with Wolf Man was, I saw Dracula in high school loved it thought it was great. I thought it was like a great goth movie that everybody seemed to be into. And goth was a big thing. And then Frankenstein came out, which was, I guess, and unofficial sequel to that it still had the same vibe had a good director and a bunch of golf production design. And that was not
Unknown Speaker 5:32
just to be clear, we're talking about the Coppola Dracula and the Kenneth brown a Frankenstein.
Unknown Speaker 5:37
Exactly. And so I was kind of following that thread. Because I love Dracula, even though I it's flawed. And then Frankenstein came out, which I didn't love as much, but it was still a good time. And then Wolf Man came out. And I believe it was touted as like the third of a trilogy of, you know, the same type of pedigree we're gonna make, we're gonna give this treatment to these three monsters. And I believe, I don't know why I didn't see it at the time that it came out. Maybe because the reviews were bad or I was busy or something like that. But it took until now that Sebastian was doing this podcast that I was like, Oh, I guess it's time to watch it. And, and I've seen it for the first time.
Unknown Speaker 6:22
All right. Well, before we get into your feelings on the movie, let's just kind of dig in. This movie had a troubled production. It was originally going to be directed by Mark Romanek, who's a pretty cool director. Yeah, one one hour photo. Mm hmm. And
Unknown Speaker 6:38
lots of great music videos, too.
Unknown Speaker 6:41
That's right. And I was working at cinephile at the time and Benny not to name drop but Benicio del Toro would come in. And he was a huge Wolf Man fan. And he was really excited that he was going to get to play the Wolf Man. And I'm a huge Wolf Man fan. I love the 1940s original, so I was excited for him to play it. But it took a long time for the movie to come out. Because there were just you know, Mark Romanek, ended up leaving at the last minute, and there were like delays, Joe Johnson took over and had to just work with whatever they had. And you know, then it ended up with the release ended up being delayed, for whatever reason, so it ended up like taking two years for you to come out. But that's a little background on the movie. So let's just get into it. It starts with the universal logo. So this is definitely they're setting it up that this is a universal monster movie. In the the theatrical version. Yeah, it's cool. And the theatrical version. It's pretty easy. It's just black and white, but in the unrated version, you get a sort of more old school like 1940s universal logo.
Unknown Speaker 7:51
Yeah, I love that. It's really up. It's updated, but feels old school and it's like, it's really the right way to go iPod.
Unknown Speaker 7:58
Yeah, it sets the tone. I don't know if they intended this to be the first of the quote unquote, dark universe that they were trying to do. A few years back, they would keep saying, you know, they, they I think they set it with this movie. Then they set it with Dracula Untold. Then they set it with the Tom Cruise mummy. They were really hoping to do a marvel universe of universal monsters, which I would have been game for. But they
Unknown Speaker 8:23
shouldn't that should have been the tagline.
Unknown Speaker 8:27
But they couldn't seem to get that going. Anyway. So this isn't really the beginning of the dark universe because there is no dark universe. It starts off with some Danny Elfman music, which reminded me a lot of the 1979 Dracula that came out in the disco era with Franklin gela Mm hmm. It really borrows some themes. for that.
Unknown Speaker 8:48
To me the score just sound doesn't sound like Danny Elfman at all it very it to me, it just sounds like they're ripping off the score of the Coppola Dracula, you know, with that sort of luxurious string arrangements. And it's a strange like, I remember thinking like didn't then I think he is he a Czech composer for the Coppola Dracula, and he had died. So I was like, who composes because it sounds exactly like him. So and I was shocked to see that it was Danny Elfman because it doesn't sound like his trademark, you know, score at all.
Unknown Speaker 9:22
It doesn't sound like a kooky circus.
Unknown Speaker 9:26
Not at all.
Unknown Speaker 9:27
No, I think he was intentionally trying to evoke that apparently, he was originally hired to do the score. And then they tried to go with another score, I think and then they went back to his score. Anyway, it just sort of typical of the sort of troubled production of this, this movie. And anyway, moving on, it opens with the quote from the original the, you know, man becomes a wolf when the wolf Bane bloons that's straight from the original and it's pretty stylish in a sort of computer generated way. Yeah which is a which is a thing I think this movie it can either be a plus or a minus to you like it's very you know they're going for that really God thing but it's pretty computer CG golf.
Unknown Speaker 10:14
Yeah, agreed 100% I think
Unknown Speaker 10:17
that's the problem. That's what that's something that makes the Bram Stoker Dracula standout is that they went with a lot of old school visual effects and just you know, the feel of the whole thing was purposely sort of antique whereas this the production design works but the filmmaking techniques are very modern and in their hidden Miss You know, sometimes they work and then sometimes you see Oh, that's just a Morph cut that just, they just put in there because they could.
Unknown Speaker 10:46
Okay, so we get the opening attack, which is, you know, we later find out is Larry Talbots. I'm gonna call him Larry just because I think that's funny. Larry Talbots brother getting attacked on the Moore's there's sort of a voiceover from Emily Blunt, which didn't feel added anything to it really. And you know, we get this whole attack, which is pretty cool, but I feel like it It feels very rushed.
Unknown Speaker 11:13
The whole beginning feels rushed. Like, well, the voiceover from Emily Blunt in the theatrical version is she's writing a letter to Larry. Right. Yeah. So she's and you know, we're getting this this backstory. And that was, like the beginning. I just felt like, Is it me? I don't know what, what just happened? What is going on here? Like is it just it felt it feels like we just, it zooms by and not in a good way. Just wait way too much too fast. And it just feels like it's just kind of thrown together. And that Yeah, I was completely just baffled at that some of the things that were going on,
Unknown Speaker 11:56
well, in the unrated cut, you get a little more of the attack, and we get this whole scene of Larry acting. He's supposedly on stage in London, he's performing Hamlet or something. And Gwen does not write a letter to him in this version, she actually comes to the theater and he's backstage and he sort of got a cool bathrobe on he sort of rock starring out and she floors him to come check because I think his brother is missing at that point. But he sort of puts her off but she kind of gives him a guilt trip. I felt like compared to the theatrical version, where all you get is this voiceover from Emily Blunt. And you're suddenly right at the right at Blackmore Manor, I felt like the unrated version was an improvement.
Unknown Speaker 12:49
Yeah, I see, having watched both of them, I definitely can see how the pendulum swung hard both ways. You know, like, the Extended Cut is way too long. There's way too much intro, you know, it'll take like half an hour before like that Gypsy attack happens. So I understand why they cut a lot of that stuff, because it's just needless exposition. But now hearing Jen's reaction to it, I think, you know, they obviously cut maybe too much, because they're, they're really just, you know, trying to keep it tight and compress everything so that it gets going. But I will say having watched the Extended Cut that man, it's kind of a slog and a drag to, to get to where the movies going,
Unknown Speaker 13:30
you're sort of coming at it from the opposite end of Gen where you felt like the extended was taking too long.
Unknown Speaker 13:35
Definitely. And in you saying that it's a troubled production and that the you know, the director got swapped out at the last minute totally makes sense, because this feels very, you know, made by committee where nobody had a strong vision. And they were like, Okay, well, it's too long. Well, now let's make it too short or whatever. And, you know, no one actually said I understand the story. We're gonna make this happen. This is you know exactly what it's gonna be like, it definitely feels that way where there's not a strong vision hand at the helm.
Unknown Speaker 14:06
I wouldn't want more. This was like, in this case, it just for me, I was like, I felt so much more like, Oh, this is what they're doing. Because I remember even being like, is Larry an actor? like is that what he was doing? Because it's like literally like just like a quick flash of him on the stage or something. And I'm like, wait, and setting up also with Emily Blunt. Like, because throughout the film, I was like, Okay, I know she's supposed to be you know, it's complicated, but she's, you know, supposed to be kind of a love interest. And I just wasn't really feeling it. But then with this at the beginning with her coming there, there was this more to their relationship, and I actually was more invested, so to speak, but yeah, so anyway, the the unrated worked worked for me, especially in the beginning.
Unknown Speaker 14:51
I wouldn't say that in any version, their relationship is is a strong point of the movie, but in the theatrical cut, you get nothing zero, you're like, I don't care at all, at least in the unrated cut you you have some reason to care. They've had some scenes that are meaningful. Yeah, in the in the theatrical, there's nothing.
Unknown Speaker 15:15
Um, well, this is just kind of a general note on just about the action and how the wolf, you know, plays out in his attacks. Like, it's something, there's movies like Jurassic Park, or, you know, other werewolf movies, which gives you that sense of, you know, a wild animal attack. And, you know, if you've ever been around, like, you know, an angry dog or anything like that, you get that sense, where it's like, oh, my God, like anything can happen. But when he attacks it, it feels more like a bus hit. And then an animal attack, you know, because he just comes in out of nowhere and just slams. It's like, half jumpscare, half bus hit. And it just, I don't know, I just feel like it doesn't, it doesn't work. It's not a unique way of, you know, having him attack and it just doesn't feel scary to me.
Unknown Speaker 16:02
It feels more like a superhero thing. Yeah. And I feel and I think that a lot of this movie has that kind of feel where it's almost more of a superhero movie, even though the superheroes, you know, killing people. It just has a more modern superhero vibe to it in a weird way. If that makes any sense.
Unknown Speaker 16:21
Absolutely. This is relates to a point that I have with just the story in general that I feel like they set up a lot of things that never pay off. Like, why haven't be an actor, why, you know, have the meet backstage at the beginning. It's just, there's, there's so many weird threads in this story that just don't seem to pay off. And, and I feel like I feel the story being stretched. And like we were saying, the right amount of information is somewhere in the middle between the theatrical and Extended Cut. But there's just so many ideas in this story that never pay off that they were trying to, like, give love to some and then not enough for the others. It's just kind of a mess. I think
Unknown Speaker 17:07
with the him being an actor, I totally know. There's definitely things I agree with you Chris that never come to fruition, but I feel like part of the him being an actor is like they're trying to paint this picture also, which I think again, is more represented in the unrated version, is that he is such an outsider to the town, as at this point, like he's totally like a fish out of water. Like, you know, and I think like even at one point Anthony Hopkins is this you know, kind of says something along the lines of like, oh, coming back to the you know, small town or something along the lines of that, you know, so I think they're trying to make him like just as uncomfortable they're like not wanted there you know, even without even before all the other stuff happens that that's I mean, but yes, there's so many things that are set up the door really pay off but that's that's all I could gather from from going into his acting career.
Unknown Speaker 18:02
Maybe it's also to say that his Mid Atlantic accent is because he's an actor and has been away for so long. That's right. Oh, he's in New York. That's where he picked up this weird accent. Like, I also
Unknown Speaker 18:12
think that's what it how it was in the original, which didn't really play into anything in the original film either. But I think they just that's why because that's the character gotcha as as known from the 1940s film, you know, in the unrated cut, we get a scene on a train with the great Max von seido like why do you cut Max von side obviously, Larry is looking at a picture of his mom and then Max von seido sitting across from him and Max von seido. Has this silver wolf cane, which to your point Chris doesn't end up paying out in any real way in the movie. And it's only in there and I think this might be the the overall answers your question as to why things don't pay out and why they're in there is because in the 1940s movie, he's the Wolf Man is killed by his father with a wolf head cane just like that. Okay, so it's
Unknown Speaker 19:13
a setup without payoff as like a twist to the old be the people who knew Okay,
Unknown Speaker 19:20
yeah, the cane is not the strongest point of this movie. Okay, so we get to Blackmore Manor, which is the Talbot estate, we find out at that point that his brother's dead. You know, I think the production value whatever you feel about this movie, I think the production value is pretty great. All the locations are really cool. I love the look of the manor. It looks like a you know, kind of like a rundown Downton Abbey. Yes. With lots of leaves in the interior and my squeaking, lots of squeaking. We get Anthony Hopkins and he's you know he's doing you're pretty much like standard late period Anthony Hopkins performance. But it's one of those cases where he's Anthony Hopkins and he, he's totally watchable. It's you know, it's he's not doing anything. He seems kind of half asleep in a way. And he's not doing anything spectacular, but he's just great because he's Anthony Hopkins.
Unknown Speaker 20:16
totally true. Totally agree. Yes. I just Yeah, he's just kind of being creepy and just yeah, doing doing his thing. And it's a great I think opening scene to having him come in there looked up. Definitely rundown Downton Abbey. Lots of spider webs just kind of in disarray. But yeah, it's that I was happy, happy just to spend some time with with Anthony.
Unknown Speaker 20:42
You know, Anthony Hopkins at 50% is still better than most people's on 100% Absolutely.
Unknown Speaker 20:48
Yes. Yeah, the productions that design is definitely stellar. I mean, it's got that golf feel and it's definitely the I think the best thing about it, you know, I mean, the cinematography as well with the high contrast lighting and the smoke everywhere, everything looks right. You know, they they definitely spent the right amount of money and, and have the right fuel going. It's the other stuff. It's the story and the acting that to me don't work. And Anthony Hopkins can do no wrong. Of course, he's definitely phoning it in and like you said it, his phoning it in is already better than most people's full throttle. But can we talk about Benicio for a second? Like I feel like he is not giving me much of anything. And I'm also trying to think of what other lead roles he's had where he's knocked it out of the park. Like he's always great as the crazy sidekick. And I think maybe he's not capable of pulling off the lead in a movie like this where there's not a lot to Larry. I mean, he's just this mopey guy. He's supposed to be an actor, but like, I feel like I get nothing from his character.
Unknown Speaker 21:53
He's definitely trying to, I believe, especially with his haircut and everything, which is not terribly flattering on him. He's got a sort of like almost bowl cut,
Unknown Speaker 22:04
like a Caesar cut. Yeah, that was was that the style at the time? Was that cool?
Unknown Speaker 22:08
Or it was? I don't think so. He looks a little puffy. And he's kind of looks a little overweight. So I think he was trying to actually invoke Alon Chani Jr, who played the Wolf Man in the original. I mean, he was a huge, huge fan of that movie. But I also think he might be a little checked out because I think he was very supportive of Mark Romanek. And when I think he was a little upset that, you know, they switched out directors, and, you know, he may have been sort of checked out. We need
Unknown Speaker 22:45
to have a term for that, like, you know, like Marlon Brando with Island of Dr. Moreau when an actor gets ditched by the director, and then just phones in the movie, like, Can we call that something? Well, but I don't know.
Unknown Speaker 22:56
I don't I wouldn't compare those two because Brando and Island of Dr. Moreau is crazy. Right? Right. Like, does whatever
Unknown Speaker 23:04
you want. Well, he Benicio should have done that, you know, that would have been more interesting.
Unknown Speaker 23:08
Yeah. I think he's got his moments. I think we know when he's getting ready to change and stuff. I think he does good. But I agree, when we're doing the sort of straightforward stuff and he's just trying to be sort of, you know, mysterious romantic lead. It doesn't really work. And I don't think that that's his, his wheelhouse. No,
Unknown Speaker 23:28
I was fine with it. I just I think but also, I'm just like, such a fan of his I really like him a lot. So I'm, I'm just giving him a pass. Like, I don't know, I was fine with it. I wasn't looking at him and his performance that critically, especially once I got to see the unrated version and got to spend some more time with Larry lots and lots of more time with Larry so I knew what was uh, what was really going on with Larry. But yeah, I thought I thought his performance was was fine for for what it is.
Unknown Speaker 24:01
Okay, so moving on, he goes to the village to see his brother's body which is being kept in a slaughterhouse. I don't know if that was common for the time or if they just thought it would be a kind of a cool touch. But we get sort of a you know, quick shot of the body and I feel like the gore effects are good. Overall, in this movie, they make a real attempt to lean into the our rating, which I appreciate a lot of the times it's sort of CGI gore and violence, but you know, they don't hold back which I like about the movie.
Unknown Speaker 24:36
I thought that scene was gross like I in my notes I wrote yuck because it was just that's how I felt because I mean, it's our I yeah, I had the same question. I was like as this is how it was done. I was like are they just really hate Ben and they hate the tall but family and they just throw them in here and that the slaughterhouse because this is this is gross. I mean, and they're like you really feel it because it's like, Benicio is like just covering His face and I'm like buying it I'm like, this place stinks. This is this is nasty. And I thought also when they pull it back it was it was good good like it may be the first time it made me kind of jumps is like oh, like it wasn't ready for for that like, though there was some serious wolf chowing down on Ben.
Unknown Speaker 25:19
Well, and I think you might have a point about the town's folk, because in the next scene, we go to the pub, and the town's folk are sort of talking about the brother's death. And you know, Larry's there at the, in the corner at a table and he's, you know, hearing them talk. He looks a medallion that he found on his brother, which isn't very well explained. The townspeople are blaming the Gypsy, and we you know, we get a werewolf story. You know, a lot of this reminded me of the pub scene and American Werewolf in London. Absolutely. Now in the unrated version, one of the guy starts talking smack about the family, you know, talk smack about his mom going crazy. And Larry, the scene ends with Larry throwing a drink on the guy, which, again, I felt this made the scene better in the theatrical cut. It's just the scene. He doesn't interact with him at all. He's just sort of sitting there. So I felt like the unrated cut at least shows you Oh, he doesn't get it. He doesn't like the villagers. They don't like his family. This is probably why he left and puts a nice button on that point.
Unknown Speaker 26:26
Yes, I agree. Because Yeah, and the theatrical he's just sitting over there kind of just sulking and listening. And the townspeople are also alluding to the fact that it might you know, it might not have been a beast it could it like they're kind of talking about seems like they were I think they're talking kind of about like jack the Ripper or something like that. I do remember they're kind of talking about that there's there's a mentally unstable, you know, man that could have done this or something.
Unknown Speaker 26:52
Right. And wasn't a Hugo Weaving, like was his last case was the Ripper. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 26:57
yeah, he was. Yeah, he was on the Ripper case, which Yeah, Larry kind of needles him with because obviously, they never caught jack the Ripper. So
Unknown Speaker 27:06
and I think like they were also kind of alluding to Larry's mental state, which we learn more about later.
Unknown Speaker 27:13
So this this whole pub talk, and you reminding us that you know, this happened in American Werewolf in London. And how it's, it's pretty much the same scene, same beats, you know, beware don't go out and blah, blah, blah. And it's like, trying to be spooky warning. But I feel like it there's no twist on it. You know, in Frankenstein, and in Dracula, the mo was, let's go back to the book. Let's go back to the source. Let's let's do it really was in the book that in because it's never been done. beholden to the book, The way we're gonna do it. And that was what they were thinking. Whereas with Wolf, man, what was the mo here, you know, to be beholden to the old movie, because they're just retreading all these cliches without adding anything new to them. I feel like they're, they're just, you know, are here's the tip here, we're gonna do the Wolf Man story, the way it would be as if it were a cliche. And you're like, well, so why All right, I guess we get some better special effects. Get some good actors get some good lighting and production design, but there's no imagination, there's no umph to it to me.
Unknown Speaker 28:21
Well, they're I think they're just trying to update the whole thing for a modern audience who don't want to go back to the 1941 and watch it. But to your point, they're kind of taking from just werewolf movie history and kind of throwing it all throwing it all in there because they don't have a book source. They do. You know, there is no novel of the Wolf Man. The 1940s movie was the original version of it. So you know, I kind of see what they're doing. I feel like they're just trying to sort of update Yeah, Gothic werewolf movie as an abstract, not as a specific thing. Got it. Now in the unrated cut, we get a dinner scene with dad, Gwen, Larry and the Kim fail sheet See, doesn't get introduced at all, or he gets really barely introduced at all in the theatrical version. He's just sort of standing in the background. And they dine on baked eel, which is just about the grossest thing I can imagine. I can't think of anything that I'd like to eat less baked eel. And they talk about the superstitious villagers. And we get a real sense that there's tension between dad and Larry here, which I like and it gets really uncomfortable for Gwen and she leaves. I appreciated the scene because it set up more of the dynamics dramatically.
Unknown Speaker 29:46
Yes, I appreciated this as well. Also with his, I believe he called him his manservant, the Kim Valle. Seek. I that was another thing we're like in the future. conversion. I was like, when did we meet this guy like it happened so fast with him and that the electrical version I was like, Wait, what? What's going on here? And you
Unknown Speaker 30:09
want to know who he is yours that guy?
Unknown Speaker 30:11
Yeah, no, you definitely want to know who he is. So yeah, I appreciated more of him. The seek is another thread that just never pays off.
Unknown Speaker 30:20
Did you see in the unrated cut when he picks up the guitar and starts ripping on some Soundgarden,
Unknown Speaker 30:26
I would have loved to have seen that.
Unknown Speaker 30:28
Now, in the theatrical version, they cut right to the manor. And, you know, there's this sort of awkward scene where Larry goes to Gwen's door and he's like, Hey, I'm here. And I know, when you've seen the unrated, you can see that this is a scene they threw together to sort of set it up that they've met. Yeah, at this point, because, you know, she's in the theatrical she's only written him a letter. But there is this weird thing where the letter she wrote, keeps coming up, again, in the unrated version, which didn't happen in the unrated version. So when a mess, yeah, like as an editor, I think it's interesting to have you on this conversation specifically, Chris, because you are an editor. And you've probably been involved in some projects where they've had to sort of cobble things together from different versions definitely
Unknown Speaker 31:21
obviously just left in and they're like Foghat who cares. And you know, I'm sure it made sense in like, probably like, the first, you know, maybe two and a half hour cut of it, and then they just kept chopping away. And then who knows who they brought in to do a hack job, but I'm sure a lot of those threads were left in and they just, instead of, you know, in that in specifically in that scene, if you look where he meets, I think it's the theatrical cut where he meets her for the first time in the hallway. A lot of his dialogue is on her. So it's just ADR him saying, like, I got your letter, very nice to meet you. And you can totally tell that they just ADR, those lines into shoo in that he is meeting here for the first time there. So yeah, this, it's definitely a mess. And there's a lot of those things that I think people just wouldn't notice on our first viewing. But now we're analyzing it. Yeah, you're like, Oh,
Unknown Speaker 32:16
no, I wouldn't if I only watched the unrated cut, I probably wouldn't have noticed it. It's just because I'm familiar with both versions. What what I find kind of weird about it is that you would assume the unrated cut was closer to say the assembly directors of the assembly cut and then they whittled it down. But she talks about the letter in the later scenes in the unrated cut so it's almost as if they made the decision to cut it down while they were still filming
Unknown Speaker 32:47
it. Maybe it was like a bigger even bigger thing where she wrote him a letter then went to visit him then you know, like so it's probably a thing on the thing on the thing. And then they were just like, let's all just cut it out. And
Unknown Speaker 32:58
I think that would have made sense since actually Chris because it would have like that she could have written him first and then he didn't respond and then she went in person, because you know, he wasn't responding. The other thing that I wanted to point out about when she does when he goes to her door, is that her maid or lady and waiting or whatever you want to call her is Yara Greyjoy Did you notice that? No way from Game of Thrones? Yeah, I was like, Oh my God, that's the Greyjoy sister tiara,
Unknown Speaker 33:28
which was like can you miss her? She disappears I think
Unknown Speaker 33:31
you might get her on one more scene like but very very brief.
Unknown Speaker 33:34
That's like the only reason for me to go back and watch
Unknown Speaker 33:38
Yeah, we're giving away your hand Chris
Unknown Speaker 33:42
and just to touch upon Emily Blunt now you know i think you know she's well cast in this movie. I guess she does a really good job considering what she's been given which I think is a pretty thankless role. There's not a lot to it but I mean, she gets some moments to cry and stuff and I you know, I think she delivers I think a case could be made for the her being the best for sure in the movie. I agreed.
Unknown Speaker 34:08
Let me bring up one more point about just the brothers story in general like why I don't maybe this is originally in you know, in the original Wolf Man, but it just makes no sense to have this brother standing in the way of a the love story, all of it just like why doesn't Why don't they just give the story to Benicio and have him be in love with her. And it's like this trifecta between him and Anthony Hopkins. It just seems to be a step too far.
Unknown Speaker 34:34
The brother is just a plot device to get him
Unknown Speaker 34:37
but he's so important because it's like oh, that's Emily Blunt's you know, fiance and all this stuff where it just seems like they could have figured out a different way of doing it. You know, it seems like
Unknown Speaker 34:47
a gothic romance kind of thing. You told Oh, the dead brother, you know, okay. It adds a layer of you know, sadness to it.
Unknown Speaker 34:58
They just need to do it. It was I agree they just needed to get him as far as like the why why that's important is just like because it comes to you know, to light later about you know how much she hates his father and how much he hates this town and like wouldn't come back so it's like and and again if we you know if we do believe that there was a letter and then there was her going there and you know, I mean there could have always been some sort of kind of thing between them because yeah, it's the whole Gothic like, you know, longing and all that stuff. Yeah, but yeah, it's just I think it's totally just to get him back home and to just make it the most dysfunctional family ever. We pretty much and worst dad award of all time. Yeah, we'll come to find out later.
Unknown Speaker 35:47
And I will say this. I don't think that Benicio del Toro and Emily blonde have sizzling on screen chemistry. On speaking of worst dad award, we get another scene with Talbot and his dad and Anthony Hopkins looking out the telescope to the moon. Again, the telescope is a reference to the original film. His dad in the original film, who was played by Claude Rains is fascinated with his telescope, but the telescope never comes into play later. So it's yet another sort of reference that doesn't have a real point in the story.
Unknown Speaker 36:25
That scene I do love that Anthony Hopkins takes the time to blow out almost every single candle that he has in the room which I'm like you know what fucking a that's realistic you know like with the production design like this year like how many freakin candles does this guy have and they show him like you know what, it's time to go to bed this was a ritual we used to have I would you'd have to sit here open up this thing blow inside put it out and it's actually a fun callback when you see him in his sorry spoiler when if we just jump ahead to his little man cave or wolf cave thing? There's like 8 million candles there and I just kept thinking like how long is it gonna take him to blow these in his gave man it will take a long time.
Unknown Speaker 37:06
It was the family crypt I believe
Unknown Speaker 37:08
Okay, I'm surprised he didn't make his poor Kim fail manservant Yeah, blow out all these candles. But I thought also Chris I noticed the candles as well. And I was also really impressed with like, some of the cool like lantern type devices they have like candles as well like kind of these like kind of mini torch type things. I don't know what you would call it but I was like I thought that was really again with the production design. The attention to detail was was really cool.
Unknown Speaker 37:37
You know that blowing out all the candles thing was was all Hopkins I was like, I need to blow out all these.
Unknown Speaker 37:45
Okay, Anthony, go ahead.
Unknown Speaker 37:48
All right now in the unrated cut, we get Larry going to Gwen's room. But it's a different scene than in the theatrical and he apologizes for making her uncomfortable into over dinner and gives her items of her brothers. It's you know, it's not like a great scene or anything, but it definitely helps sort of, you know, you feel that her character is more endeared to him by it, as opposed to in the theatrical where you don't really understand why she would be endeared to him at all, because they don't even really have any real scene. So again, I feel like it's a better scene. Then we get to one of few sequences in the film where Larry is having a flashback. It plays like a dream sequence but he's not sleeping he's awake. And he's just sort of having these traumatic flashes of
Unknown Speaker 38:42
maybe he took the spice
Unknown Speaker 38:46
and he's playing with his brother and the mother's watching you know they wake up at night and something sinister is going on in the house like in the hallway This is
Unknown Speaker 38:54
where we see the blood come out of the sidewalk I remember that being a very cool image
Unknown Speaker 38:58
Yes, yes, I believe that's where we see that it's all done in this very stylish Gothic kind of look, but it feels a little like they're trying hard to be trippy and spooky and I don't know if it's they kind of go like a little too far I think with some of the techniques, but he goes out into the garden we get a cool topiary had some cool topiary hedges a gorilla which I appreciated the topiary a gorilla, for sure you know in the movie looks expensive. They didn't spare any expense, which is why it's appropriate to do for Tentpole Trauma because they spent a lot of money on this movie and it bombed so I feel that it's appropriate for this podcast no
Unknown Speaker 39:42
doubt and I will say that the night scenes all look like they're shot at night, you know, and the lighting is great. And you know, there's no Day for Night here at all. And kudos to those cinematography for making it look appropriately scary.
Unknown Speaker 39:56
Yeah, I mean, I think the cinematography is is impeccable. I forget who the cinematographer was. I feel that it fits in with the Coppola Dracula and the Kenneth brana. Frankenstein, at least in that regard where you know, you know, it's high high production value update.
Unknown Speaker 40:15
Interesting. The cinematographer is Shelley Johnson. And he was also the cinematographer for Captain America The First Avenger. Okay,
Unknown Speaker 40:25
yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Because that same director, right
Unknown Speaker 40:28
buddies with Joe, but also what to Chris's point about, you know, bringing up a new agreed with that as well bringing up the superhero feel to some of the film anyway.
Unknown Speaker 40:38
Yeah. And Joe Johnson also did the rocket tear, which was also sort of a throwback, superhero 1940s type of things. So it's kind of his wheelhouse. I can see why he was hired for this when Mark Romanek left the production.
Unknown Speaker 40:51
He was also a special effects guy, right? Did he work on Star Wars? Yeah, stuff. So
Unknown Speaker 40:57
yeah, he was like a Spielberg protege, a guy who came up through Spielberg. Yeah, we get to see a quick shot of a D aged Hopkins with a goatee and the dead mother and it's sort of framed to look like a suicide. She's got a straight razor in her hand, you know, but I think at this point, nobody's really thinking that that is a suicide. The mother having, you know, spoiler the fact that the mother was killed by Hopkins, is really not a surprise at all. You know, even on first viewing, you're like, she didn't kill herself. It's kind of one of those performances by Hopkins where, you know, immediately he's a bad guy, you know, sort of like the sort of like the jack nicholson shining, where you're like, yeah, of course, he's gonna go crazy. He's clearly crazy.
Unknown Speaker 41:49
Yeah, even if you don't know exactly what his deal is, you know, he killed her, like you don't even if you don't know how it went down, you know what I mean? Like, there's more more to be revealed, but you immediately know that he's, he's the villain.
Unknown Speaker 42:03
And in that scene, Benicio, I feel like gives nothing right after you see his mother dead. Like, that was one of my notes. When you see that happen? You think, you know, I'm, I'm reliving this childhood trauma, and it cuts to him. And he's just like, Oh, yeah, I remember that. And I'm like, Whoa, what's going on here? Why didn't anybody direct this guide? Or? I don't know. That's an example of my of a moment where he he failed to deliver for me,
Unknown Speaker 42:29
I feel like it's a little unfair to judge his performance. Totally. Because the the editing is so suspected it but I feel like a lot of the especially the scenes where he's having these flashbacks, they could have been, like, put together from something else. Like I would have to have read the script to know if this was all intended to be in there. From the beginning.
Unknown Speaker 42:50
Maybe I'm reading too much into Larry. And maybe I'm just too much of a Binney SEO defender. But I also think that, you know, as we find out more, you know, sorry, spoiler alert, that Larry spent some time in asylum. Yeah. And they did a lot of bad things to Larry, I don't know if he is even able to have the proper emotional responses at this point. Because I mean, you see what goes on in the asylum. It's bad news. So maybe Larry's just tapped out like this is, you know, like, this is all the reaction that he can muster. Or maybe he just saves it all for the stage.
Unknown Speaker 43:31
Alright, so then moving on, we go to the brother's funeral. There's, you know, more Gothic imagery, then Larry and Gwen haven't have a moment by the waterfall. He talks about his father's cruelty. And then that's, as you were mentioning, Jen, where we get our first mention that he was put in an asylum, and then after that sent to America, this sort of waterfall setting will also come back into play at the very end.
Unknown Speaker 43:58
Yeah, that's where he says, Gwen says, Ben said that you guys played here as children. And Larry says it was our refuge. So we
Unknown Speaker 44:05
find out that Glen is leaving. You know, whatever. This is all happening super fast. It just feels like the scenes are really cut to the quick here. Then we get Lawrence goes off to find the gypsies because he's learned that his brother was involved with them or something like that. And you know, I like the Gypsy camp. It's pretty cool. It's you know, it's about what you would expect from a big budget movie Gypsy camp. Geraldine Chaplin, the daughter of Charlie Chaplin, is the gypsy woman
Unknown Speaker 44:36
I know she's also I know her from Do you guys know the movie with Holly Hunter home for the holidays? Do you remember that at all with like, Claire, I've heard of her name. Well, I highly recommend it. It's really good Robert Downey Jr. and Holly Hunter. And anyway, it's a fun holiday film, but that's where that's where I reckon
Unknown Speaker 44:52
Downey Jr. was in Chaplin.
Unknown Speaker 44:55
Oh, interesting. Yeah, good connection.
Unknown Speaker 44:57
Also on this scene, we get a quick Rick Baker cameo Rick Baker's the famous makeup artist who did design the way he designed American Werewolf in London and lots of Famous Monsters he designed just did he work on this? He did. He designed the werewolf. We get a quick cameo of him here. He's the guy that's just kind of on lookout and he's watching and then he gets slammed by the werewolf really quickly.
Unknown Speaker 45:24
I also wanted to bring up that before we get Larry going to the Gypsy camp, which by the way, we all know is not a good word, but that's just how they use it. And the film. Yes, just disclaimer. I was it's a little puzzling that Larry's Dad, I made a note of this because he's like telling him me like, you know, yeah, you should stay inside because it's going to be a full moon. I don't want to lose you too. And then he says all of that and then it's like cut too. We see Larry riding off to the Gypsy camp like you know, whatever, dad, because he of course he's not going to listen to him. So I guess as I'm talking it through now I'm thinking like, maybe it was some sort of reverse psychology to like to get
Unknown Speaker 46:04
him to go out. It is weird though. The way it cuts right from him saying Don't go Don't go out and I don't
Unknown Speaker 46:11
want to lose you too. And then yeah, he's there he is galloping away another great cut.
Unknown Speaker 46:17
We get the prerequisite in a universal monster movie. We get villagers with torches they show up for the bear because they're they blame the gypsies bear for the attack on Larry's brother. The bear is very clearly not a real bear. It's a CG bear. But you know, we don't want them torturing. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 46:36
well, did you hear what he said? He says to somebody says like he doesn't all he does is dance. And I was like, Oh, that's sad to like dancing berry circuses.
Unknown Speaker 46:48
Yeah, but that's like
Unknown Speaker 46:49
somebody said that he's supposed to be an old like bear that's like about to be put out to pasture. Right? Like, I think the pub people are like, there's no way that bear could have done this. He's so old. And yeah, you feel a lot of sympathy for that bear even though he's CG.
Unknown Speaker 47:02
At least they don't have the bear fight the werewolf and get torn apart. Well, that would be more so I
Unknown Speaker 47:07
will say the claws through the policeman's mouth is pretty cool. That was one of the cool dads. I love that shot
Unknown Speaker 47:13
high. high praise for that, Chris. Yes, that that. I love that. I love that kill.
Unknown Speaker 47:19
Yeah, that's, you know, that's what happens the way the werewolf attacks that camp. And you know, we get that shot and a bunch of other pretty fun gore moments. This is when the movie really comes alive. For me these scenes. There's a lot of fair criticism to be had of the film when it's trying to be dramatic, but I feel like when we get to werewolf faction, it's pretty good werewolves. Action. I mean, yes, yes. Guilty of maybe being a little too CG at times. But you know, I don't know. I'm just happy to see a wolf man werewolf running around killing people. You know, I like the way the werewolves run on all fours. At some points. It's a little goofy, but I just like it.
Unknown Speaker 48:02
That's great. It's almost like, you know, in Transformers when they transform to the different mode to go faster. You know, it's like, yes, it's almost like a cheer moment. Like, you know, if the movie were better, you would definitely be cheering at that part. Because you're like, I need to go fast. I don't do this boop, boop. And then it's just great.
Unknown Speaker 48:19
I love it too. It's It's It's total chaos when when wolf wolf thing happens, but it's like chaos in the best way. It's like it's exactly it's like for all the the slow burning that's going along. It's like you really get a payoff. And I love this scene in particular, because you have people screaming, it's the devil. Yeah, the devil. And then yeah, it's just total chaos. And then like he, there's like the little boy or the little girl that like loses or mom or dad or the mom's looking for them and like the kid wanders off or there's just like, it's Yeah, just so much so much happening. And like it's really intense. And like, you're Yeah, you're just kind of on the edge of your seat, literally. Sure.
Unknown Speaker 48:57
But in the in the Extended Cut, it takes like, what 4050 minutes to get to this point. Is it Yes, definite reason why they cut it.
Unknown Speaker 49:06
At this point. You know, we get to sort of see that Larry has a hero in him. He grabs a gun and sort of goes to help people being attacked. There's this one kid who runs off he goes to help him the kid runs off into this like Stonehenge. Yes. Like I don't think it's literally supposed to be Stonehenge in
Unknown Speaker 49:27
England or there's just mini stone hedges like all around the corner in the countryside. I have the same
Unknown Speaker 49:32
exact same thought I was I just was like, is there just one that we know of here in the states are there there are many, many of these.
Unknown Speaker 49:40
Makes me want to live in England even more. I'm a druid No, you can just have a mini Stonehenge in your neighborhood. How cool would that be?
Unknown Speaker 49:49
You know the neighborhood stonehedge you know,
Unknown Speaker 49:51
and it's super foggy and gothy which I love. I'm a sucker for that kind of imagery. I don't care if a computer is doing it. I love it. That's the point where we get that Lawrence's attacked by the werewolf and bitten really savagely on the neck. So we know he's now bearing the mark of the wolf. And the villagers show up and drive the wolf away with their guns. And they bring Larry to the gypsy woman. And you know, everybody's basically telling her to kill him, but she won't do it. She tells them, he can only be released by someone who loves him. And we're all wondering who's
Unknown Speaker 50:33
this his dad doesn't love him let
Unknown Speaker 50:36
him fail. But stitching up of the wound was pretty gross in a good way. That was great. Like what she's stitching it up that was
Unknown Speaker 50:42
with one of those long curved needles.
Unknown Speaker 50:45
fishing hook. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 50:46
that was that was cringy. And a good way
Unknown Speaker 50:49
not to bring it back to Bram Stoker's Dracula again, but there's I feel like with Dracula, you almost get more bang for your buck. Because Dracula can be Dracula. He can be a bat and he also becomes a wolf. And the wolf in that is almost more interesting, because he can do way more things. Even as sex. Yeah. Which is more than you can say for this, you know, but I mean, I guess this is again, doing the classic wolf thing, but I would have liked a little bit even more craziness with with the wolf here, where, what else could he do? You know, but I know they're trying to keep it classic.
Unknown Speaker 51:24
Yeah, but then you'd be dealing with angry werewolf, right? Tell you what you can and can't do with a werewolf. And if you don't think that they'll do that, think again. Because horror fans can be really pedantic about what their movie monsters are allowed to do. If you ever want to find out go wander into a zombie conversation because there's a lot of strong feeling and a question
Unknown Speaker 51:47
Where did the term like isn't lichen, right, that lycanthrope? Like and throw? When did that become coming to use? Because I know what it was that underworld? Is that? Is that where they use it the most? But, you know, was it always around? Well, they call them lichens. Okay. Right.
Unknown Speaker 52:04
I think it's been around since the 1800s. I didn't research it. I don't know. But it's it's a term that's been around a while it's been around before,
Unknown Speaker 52:12
because it's in one of the books where she's researching. And I was like, oh, there's that word again. But like, when did pop culture? When did the movie start using it? Because I don't remember it from the 80s. It definitely
Unknown Speaker ��52:22
no, it was definitely being used in the 80s. It was, it
Unknown Speaker 52:26
was it seems like instead, like you know how they go the Batman instead of Batman. They're like, let's say let's call them this. And so we don't have to call them werewolves now. And it just seems like like let's latch on to a new term.
Unknown Speaker 52:38
Yeah, it's a kind of it sounds sort of scientific. So it Yeah, sound smart. Right. When you say it?
Unknown Speaker 52:44
Well, it was first, the first mention of the word according to Wikipedia, was in 60. Ad.
Unknown Speaker 52:51
Whoa, wow.
Unknown Speaker 52:52
Yeah. Okay. So it's a it's a it's a Greek word, apparently. And it's translation. It's leukosis, which is Wolf and anthropos, which is man says Luke can throw pa or throw PA. That's where it comes from. The definition of it is that it's a form of madness involving the delusion of being an animal usually a wolf with corresponding altered behavior. But yeah, so it's been around for a long time. I don't know when it was, like, like subset I don't know when it was first mentioned in films, but it's it's a term that's been around a long, long time. It's used in movies and stuff earlier than you think. I wouldn't be surprised if it's used in the original Wolf Man or werewolf of London, which was the first official will universal were watching not American. Were right London, werewolf and of London. But um, yeah, good research. Interesting fact. So Lauren, Larry is brought back to the manor. When comes back, and like Glenn keeps coming and going. In the movie. It's like, just stay put, when
Unknown Speaker 54:02
the funeral is over. What is she doing? Like leaves?
Unknown Speaker 54:05
And then she comes, you know, it's just like, Why are Why are they moving her around so much in the story, just have her stay there. Who cares? It's a weird, baffling you know, sort of plot thing that keeps happening. You know, Larry's his head is swimming from I don't know, you know, being infected with lycanthropy. And we're getting these sort of dreamy, you know, heroine visions. You know, we get the sort of Gollum looking wolf boy,
Unknown Speaker 54:35
so Gollum. Yes. I wrote down the same thing.
Unknown Speaker 54:39
It looks like they just took the like, they took the Gollum model. Just through some, just, He really looks like Gollum. And you know, we'll later learn what that will boy is and it all it's, it's all fine, but it just seems kind of, you know, thrown together to add some scares or whatever.
Unknown Speaker 55:00
And then this is an again this is this is when Kim sale seek showed up and in the theatrical version, I was like wait, who is this guy again? It was just so like in the unrated. We get so much more of him. Anyway, so he shows up he comes in with a tray. And then you know Larry's like oh take when I thought you were leaving and Gwen's like this place is it's possible to escape. And this is, you know, this is Besides, this is the least I can do. Yeah. And then we see Larry, starting to heal.
Unknown Speaker 55:30
Then we pass over the spot where Anthony Hopkins and Emily blonde pass each other on the stairs. And he just I was just about to bring that up. I love I mean, talk about classic, awesome Anthony Hopkins where he's just eating the apple and just gives her the creepiest stare in the world. I love it.
Unknown Speaker 55:47
Well, that's only in the unrated cut. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 55:50
How could they cut that? But I mean, come on, like,
Unknown Speaker 55:53
yeah, I mean, in in the unrated cut. This whole section is much better because it's really montage in the theatrical and the unrated. They kind of let it breathe a little like, you know, we get that scene, like you said, where they pass each other on the stairs. And you can tell while he's eating the apple that he really doesn't want her there.
Unknown Speaker 56:11
Now, does that make sense with I'm sorry to skip to the end again. But he said, is he supposed to be in love with Emily Blunt? Okay, because there's a certain point where he's like, your brother was gonna take her away from me and blah, blah, blah, and I can't deal with her being away. I was like, wait a minute, what was was he into her the whole time? And I was totally confused.
Unknown Speaker 56:30
No, Chris, I felt the same way. But I think and maybe I'm wrong, but I think it was just because she kind of reminds him of Gen Y.
Unknown Speaker 56:40
Right? Because then the statue of his dead wife looks exactly like Emily Blunt too. Right. So yeah, okay. All right. I guess that makes but
Unknown Speaker 56:48
I had the I had the I had the same thing though, too. But then again, I was like, Okay, this is Gothic, like anything go right. Like the dad could be in love with her too as Emily Blunt. You know, it was like, damaged, you know, like that movie damaged.
Unknown Speaker 57:00
Yeah, you know, now that you're bringing it up, I think maybe you might have a point. And I've seen this movie more times than you guys. And I never that never really sunk in to me because it's so sort of thrown in there. But yeah, I think you know, he does have sort of some weird thing for her because she reminds him of his his dead wife.
Unknown Speaker 57:20
Maybe Anthony Hopkins was like remember legends of the fall? That's the only type of movie I'm going to do where everyone falls in love with the girl all three brothers.
Unknown Speaker 57:27
Well, yeah, it's a real crime against cinema that that Apple moment was cut out of the theatrical a great people needed to see that on the big screen. So Lawrence is better sort of miniseries just kind of seems like he's been on a like five day bender.
Unknown Speaker 57:45
Got a stiff neck right, that scene?
Unknown Speaker 57:47
Yeah, the doctor comes and checks him out. And you know he's healing miraculously which the doctor is clearly unnerved by Hopkins. Dad is kind of being nice to Gwen but it feels sort of threatening now that I'm thinking about it. Maybe he's attracted to her as you pointed out, just a basic like Okay, it looks like he's on the mend kind of part of the story. But we know better. He you know, he's looking at his wounds and he's seeing how how much healing he's gone through. And then Kim fail when they get the real scene with Kim fail seek. And Larry where he's the Sikh is in the dining room or something and he's like loading up
Unknown Speaker 58:33
cleaning the he's cleaning the gun or
Unknown Speaker 58:36
elephant gun or whatever it is.
Unknown Speaker 58:38
Yeah, he was cleaning guns
Unknown Speaker 58:40
and you'll we learn that he's been there. The Sikh has been there since Larry was a kid. His name is Singh. Yes. You know, he shows. Larry is the silver bullet that he's made. Well, he
Unknown Speaker 58:53
says, and then Larry says to sing now that you thank you for remembering his name. He says, Are you preparing for a war? And then sing says Do you believe in curses? Mm hmm.
Unknown Speaker 59:05
Yes. And that's it. This is when we really it's really driven home that sing is the man servant. And everybody needs a man servant. I think
Unknown Speaker 59:14
I need man's servant.
Unknown Speaker 59:16
Now incomes one of my favorite character actors, especially when he's playing a villain Hugo Weaving. He shows up as the inspector not really a villain in this case, but he is an antagonist. Weaving is just basically doing Agent Smith from the matrix here but he's doing like Agent Smith of Scotland Yard basically, it's pretty much the same performance. He goes to the manor to question Lawrence about the going the wolfy goings on. You know, Hopkins is sort of like gatekeeping but Larry's like no, go ahead, let them in. I'll talk to them. So they have the sort of scene in a in the park. Where we even starts off by saying, you know, I've been following your acting career, Mr. Anderson, and you know, starts off sort of ingratiating himself, and then the questioning becomes more pointed. You know, he's bringing up Larry's time in the asylum, and then he brings up how, oh, he's an actor, so maybe he's playing another role, you know, or, you know, this implication that, uh, you know, an actor would be more, you know, likely to be a murderer. And, you know, I think that's when Larry sort of needles him about not catching jack the Ripper.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:38
Yeah, but he's no, he's no Van Helsing from when actually when Anthony Hopkins played Van Helsing, he did bring a little bit more craziness to the role where it's like, everyone's kind of stuffy in this movie, and I feel like this would have been the opportunity for him to bump it up a notch and be like, a little bit different than this like stuffy straightlaced Scotland Yard guy, you know, in Anthony Hopkins, Van Helsing literally humps, Billy Campbell in Dracula, you know, and it's like, Yeah, he plays him totally crazy. And I feel like this movie could have used a little bit more like passionate melodrama over the top, you know, acting just to just to make it more a little bit entertaining. Yeah. Jen, like you're saying like, Alright, so if Benicio is, is a mopey guy who's like, all inward and whatever, you need something to balance that out. Like there needs to be a little bit of Yeah, agree. You know that other flavor?
Unknown Speaker 1:01:29
Yeah. And there's definitely no performance in this that goes, it's sort of in the crazy direction of, of Anthony Hopkins, and Dracula, or of Gary Oldman, and Dracula. Yeah, nobody's nobody's boring it on to that level. The movie could have benefited from a little more. Hey, agreed. Then now then there's some more hallucinations outside. There's another scene with Glenn, where he teaches her how to skip stones. Were you guys swept into the romance of this?
Unknown Speaker 1:01:59
Honestly, that's the one moment that they actually have that I feel like feels human. And I was like, I guess that's it. They're in love. That's it. That's all we get.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:07
That's all it takes Chris. That's all it takes.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:11
Stones a love that will stand the test of time, right?
Unknown Speaker 1:02:15
Oh, I think I might be skipping ahead. But there's that other moment where he she says something to him and then there's a big close up of her lips and he's just like losing control because she's so sexy and alluring and yeah, I feel like that's the one deep moment of sexuality in the movie that I feel like could have been threaded throughout the entire thing. Everybody is just driven crazy because of because they're Woolfson you know, tie it to sexuality and then this whole thing that peeked out for a moment there maybe that was from Roman x you know idea but like they didn't really go go there with it. It's just like this odd one moment where it's like oh, I got to get away from you Emily because you know you're driving me crazy.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:56
He sends her away again Yeah, right that point
Unknown Speaker 1:03:00
go skip some rocks.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:03
But no, he has like yeah, I think that is in the moment, Chris because it's like we're getting his Wolfie hearing and then I think he's like Wolfie horniness
Unknown Speaker 1:03:12
with it's, it's it's very, it's just a few See, it's like a another scene. Okay, it's right. It's right around that area. It's a different scene, but
Unknown Speaker 1:03:20
it's close by where he's like, yes, zooming in on her like her pouty lips and like, kind of, I think maybe even like her chest area or something like her neck
Unknown Speaker 1:03:28
or something. He's like, like the nape of her neck. And he's like, looking at her pulse.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:32
Yes. That's the point of the movie, as Anthony Hopkins will later say is like, it's so good to be the wolf. Let the wolf free. Like, you know, that should have been been nice to struggle the entire time has been like, well, like, it feels good to be the wolf. But no, I can't I know, I can't but where's that touched on in a second? But, you know, I feel like if that's your thesis of the movie, that's the reason why the main bad guy loves being the wolf. And I feel like that's an interesting concept, you know, and they touched on that in what Emily's Hulk. He knows like, the craziest things I like when I Hulk out and yeah, so I feel like that could have been explored and brought to, you know, a satisfying the Matic point.
Unknown Speaker 1:04:13
I think he's got a complicated relationship with his wolf Enos because he's like, I think, you know, he would maybe if he didn't have such the past that he did and the family issues that he did, he might be able to lean into it more, but I think it's because of all this family stuff that's happened and like all this, like, you know, all the stuff that happened to him or whatever, he doesn't really get to enjoy being a wolf. Like we just get, because usually I feel like with the wolf, man, there's usually some enjoyment and then there's remorse. Afterwards, you know, like when they come back down or whatever, it's like going on a bedroom, you know? Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 1:04:50
But it's definitely while it's on and it's always been a sort of metaphor used in at least in movies. It's often been a metaphor for alcoholism. Yeah. You know drug addiction beat yeah yeah right and I think to Chris's point like a probably would have been strengthened better if we got some sense of being you know for for beneath CEOs care we get it from Hopkins but oh yeah like from beneath to his character that this is can be fun and exciting and exhilarating and you know you get a rush out of becoming this monster and killing
Unknown Speaker 1:05:26
I don't think he allows himself to have that
Unknown Speaker 1:05:29
so you know the villagers are sort of you know gathering up in there you know they've they they think they know what's going on here and they want to take Larry in they have this really creepy priest with them. They show up at the the manor we see them sort of in montage making silver bullets and stuff. We see that the full moon is coming so we know that you know, Larry is gonna wolf out soon. We get a quick sort of scene with Hugo Weaving at the time. Totally not buying into this werewolf shit. He keeps asking for a pint of bitter please.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:03
Right? Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:05
And the lady in the pub is not having it because her husband was killed by the wolf. So she's like, you should be out there looking for this killer. And he says all he wants is his beer. Yeah. And yeah. And she's, she's like, so bent out of shape. He was like I you know, there, there are rules. I can't just hang around here, you know, rules that will keep us from a doggy dog world. And then he's just like, you know, where's my pint of better? I skipped today, the scene where the they show up at the manor with a priest. And Hopkins comes and fires at them with his his gun. And he's like, oh, sorry, I meant to hit you.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:41
He apologizes for missing. Right. It's pretty great. And it's sort of you know, you're it's a weird kind of moment, because he you know, you haven't really seen him sort of stick up for Larry. Yeah, but now he's like, he's sticking up for him. And you know, he's like, my men servant is hiding in the on the roof. And he's a crack shot. Yes. But he's not really there. Seek is not on the roof. It's a bluff. Right.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:03
And that's when he says to Larry, he's like, that's what he says. He goes, you're not the only actor in the family.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:09
Yeah. So it does pay off. It does pay off. So
Unknown Speaker 1:07:13
yeah, basically, we're all just heading towards Larry turning into the Wolf Man, which is what we sort of been waiting for. Basically, dad knows it's coming and he lures Larry out to the family mausoleum. He's got it all set up with candles and everything. And you know, the mom's sarcophagus is there, which is a pretty sweet sarcophagus. Later in a hallucination, we see it sort of, you know, it's this carved marble thing and we see it move and say something to me. It's
Unknown Speaker 1:07:42
technically a wife Kane, isn't it? Kind of Yeah, keep
Unknown Speaker 1:07:46
that's where he keeps his wife. Every good wife deserves a mausoleum. That's right. Anyway, so you know, they go down into the crypt, and we find out that and this is a little confusing, because he like closes a cage door. And you think that he's the dad is going to lock him in? Mm hmm. But I think it's just to separate them like he doesn't we don't see Larry breaking out of anything, so he's not locked in there.
Unknown Speaker 1:08:14
Oh, it's because he's gonna turn into a werewolf too. Yeah, right. That's where that's where he goes all the time to keep everyone safe, right?
Unknown Speaker 1:08:22
Yes, right. Yes. But usually thing has to come in a lot. I think he gets he has to lock it from the outside.
Unknown Speaker 1:08:28
Yes. That's you know, that's what he says is saying locks me he says that later. He says Singh locks me in every time I change. But you know, I don't want to be locked in anymore. The wolf must must outright and so it's just a little the way it's sort of blocked is a kind of confused, confusing to me, because we see him close a cage kind of door between them. But neither of them is actually trapped in there. Because then Larry starts to change. We get the first real werewolf transformation that we see. It's good. It's see again, it's very CG. You know, and I know I from what I know about the movie about the production. Originally they wanted to do practical transformations and Rick Baker was really excited to do that. But because Roman EC left under such short notice, Joe Johnston didn't feel he had the time and you know, I remember people who were fans of Wolf Man having a lot of problem with that at the time. Let's do CG needs to be needs to be practical and I mean, I agree it would have been better if it had been practical but
Unknown Speaker 1:09:43
absolutely i mean that's that's your money shot right there. That's why people come to see the movie is to see you know, the transformation and if then to that if you're going to make the Wolf Man update you got to do I'm not saying it shouldn't have been maybe it should have been a mix of CG and yeah and practical, but they should have, you know, it's like, oh, I don't have time to do that. Well then don't do the movie. Yeah. Like, I feel like that's, that's an important section of the movies is the transformation. Right? And if you can't be, you know, American Werewolf in London, right, then why bother
Unknown Speaker 1:10:14
here? Yeah, yeah, I get it, I get why it happened. It is a disappointment. And if they had pulled off something really spectacular, it would have been a selling point for the move. Yeah, yes. But, you know, and, and this is, you know, key. This is pertinent to the point of this podcast, I think, you know, the transformation was shown a lot in the trailers. And I think, you know, it was very clear from the trailers that it was CG, and I think that that turned a lot of people off. Yeah, they saw that and they were like, yeah, just looks like a CG mess.
Unknown Speaker 1:10:47
I'll give you the moaning sounds so painful, like waves like,
Unknown Speaker 1:10:52
just like, God Damn, that sounds painful, man. Like,
Unknown Speaker 1:10:56
he's bringing it there, Chris. He's bringing it. He's coming alive.
Unknown Speaker 1:11:01
And I and I like the things that they focus on in the transformation. I like they show his hand getting all gnarly. Yeah, they show his like, leg getting bent back like a wolf. scenary. Yeah. So it's like, I feel like they knew what to focus on.
Unknown Speaker 1:11:18
They just write the concepts there. Yeah, the
Unknown Speaker 1:11:20
concept was there. They just you didn't have the time to execute it in the way that would have been the most effective.
Unknown Speaker 1:11:27
And along with what Chris said, with the moaning I think the sound was really good for the transformation, too. There's a lot of the like the crack, you know, here the bone. Yeah, it's gross. And then yeah, like, I always love like, when the feet come out, like the shoes and stuff to like, just everything just busting out and just like, yeah, does gnarled and knuckled and, yeah, it's just a it would have been It's a shame. I agree with what you're both saying, if it could have been a mix of CG and practical, I think that would have really been been something that could have been a standout for the film, but, but I think also, yes, that's something that our fans want. But our fans also have, you know, set the bar high with like you're saying with like, American Werewolf in London, or the howling? Like you have, like, you know, these transformations. Can we talk about the way he looks though? Because, yeah, I think I think he looks great. And I know you love him to Sebastian because he looks like
Unknown Speaker 1:12:23
Hold on, though. When we first were watching it together. You said you didn't think that the the wolf man looked very good.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:31
I came around to it though. I came around to it. Well, because of
Unknown Speaker 1:12:35
why did you
Unknown Speaker 1:12:35
because because I think as we talked earlier about the effects, like there's certain times where it looks better than others. Like there's certain lighting, there's certain things like it just there's times where he looks better. there's times where he truly looks like our action figure, which is what I want him to look like, we have a wolf man action figure. And he looks I mean, I think he's identical to that. But then there was like, the first maybe it was the first shot of him. When we watched the theatrical version. I was just kind of like, I don't know. And it could also be just because like it was more of the the maybe the movement of him as well like being more like, like we said, like more superhero esque or something. I don't know, but later, I don't know. I grew to be like, Alright, no, I'm into this. Like, I like the way he looks now. But yes, you're right. In the beginning, I was like,
Unknown Speaker 1:13:26
Well, I mean, I brought it up. The reason why I brought it up and wanted you to restate your feelings on that is because you're not alone. There's a lot of people who don't like the look of it. I have friends in the horror community who weren't into the design, and I like the design the reason why I like the design is because it evokes the original Wolf Man. It's an update of the original Wolf Man. And it's also a sort of take on the Oliver read werewolf from
Unknown Speaker 1:13:57
Curse of the werewolf,
Unknown Speaker 1:13:58
right Curse of the werewolf the hammer werewolf movie it's sort of a combination of those two more the Oliver read werewolf and in his clothing,
Unknown Speaker 1:14:07
I love the clothing and for me that that kind of makes it I mean, I don't I'm not aware of you know, the various looks as you guys are but to me it feels like the correct way to update the classic werewolf you know, and when he's got bad vest and shirt on and just the the shape of his head and the way everything looks. Yes, it's, you're like, that's, that's perfect. You know that that? That's him?
Unknown Speaker 1:14:31
Yeah, I love that too. And it's that that sort of vest look is sort of similar to what Oliver Reed is wearing in the curse of the werewolf. Yeah, I love the costuming of it. I really like the look of it. I understand like at first glance it seems maybe a little awkward. But it works for me his he doesn't really have an extended snout like a lot of modern werewolves do it's sort of you know, more compact like the original Wolf Man.
Unknown Speaker 1:15:00
I think it's what I like about it.
Unknown Speaker 1:15:01
I like that too.
Unknown Speaker 1:15:02
Well, to me, there's a difference between just a werewolf and the wolf. Ah,
Unknown Speaker 1:15:06
wow. Okay,
Unknown Speaker 1:15:08
the Wolf Man looks more like a man. Yeah, he's a specific type of werewolf. He's
Unknown Speaker 1:15:14
right, man. You know, recently recently, I discovered I think I watched like on YouTube or something about special makeup effects for thriller, and they were mentioning how that is actually aware cat, right? Oh, because he's, you know, they got the long whiskers and it's a flat face as well. And I'm like, Oh, that's why that that stands out to me as well. Is that that? That look is very cool, too. And yeah, and I think I'm on your wavelength Sebastian, where I think it's cool. The design is always cooler when it's more man than wolf.
Unknown Speaker 1:15:46
Yeah. This is when we get the first Howl, which I think sounds pretty great. You know, who was involved in making the howl?
Unknown Speaker 1:15:54
I do. But I'll let you deliver x interior. No.
Unknown Speaker 1:15:58
You did the stuff for Dracula?
Unknown Speaker 1:16:00
No, it was David Lee Roth and Gene Simmons. The clap
Unknown Speaker 1:16:04
the two classiest people in the world. Yeah. I
Unknown Speaker 1:16:07
don't know. And you know, it's fitting that we're discussing this now because Eddie Van Halen just passed away the day before yesterday and was sad, really sad. super sad piece Eddie. So yeah, I mean, I don't know how much of David Lee Roth and Gene Simmons there is actually in the howl but they were apparently brought in to record some howling for the howl. So the villagers try to trap the Wolf Man with this like deer and that sort of dugout trap. But you know, it doesn't go well for them. One of the guys gets pulled into the trap and the Wolf Man messes him up pretty bad. There's some good slashing and gore
Unknown Speaker 1:16:49
we haven't talked about because I think this might notice is I don't know if this is the first one this might be the second one because there's there's definitely a couple throughout the film, the wonderful decapitations this film deliver? Yeah. And yeah, it definitely happens. I think it might happen also at the first Gypsy wolf out but it definitely happens during this time with the little pit or whatever. You totally the decapitation.
Unknown Speaker 1:17:13
No, it happens. One of the guys who is one of the river Yeah, no, he goes into like quicksand or something. Yes. Um, he's one of the guys. He's the guy in the Extended Cut that he throws the drink at
Unknown Speaker 1:17:25
that he has probably his beef with. Yes, yes. Yes. That's why I was talking about was so satisfactory because of now knowing what goes down in the pub. I'm like, Oh, that. That's why Paul had some meaning behind it.
Unknown Speaker 1:17:37
Yeah, that that guy runs into what looks like quicksand. And he gets stuck there and the Wolf Man, Wade's out to where he is and swipes off his head with a claw and it goes flying. And it's extremely satisfying. Yes, I really like this whole sequence. It's action packed and gory and fun. And this is basically why you come to a wolf man movie, in my opinion.
Unknown Speaker 1:18:02
Yeah. I mean, I always could use even more blood. Like when, you know, granted, there's a lot of killing and maiming. But like there's not a lot of splashing of blood like that's to nitpick. You know, I just would like a little bit more splashes
Unknown Speaker 1:18:17
more blood.
Unknown Speaker 1:18:18
Okay, so then we get the scene, but that's in every werewolf movie where the werewolf wakes up and the next day and he's all covered in blood and rags. He's a human again. I've all been there. Yeah, we've all been there. You know, he's sort of near the manor. I don't know. He's like out in the backyard. I don't know where he is. But he's
Unknown Speaker 1:18:36
inside a tree tree. He's He's in a tree like the trees like hollowed out and he's like, curled up in there.
Unknown Speaker 1:18:42
Yeah. And dad is there basically like laughing at him like, Oh, you did some terrible things.
Unknown Speaker 1:18:50
Yeah. reminded me of your two terrible Mariel
Unknown Speaker 1:18:57
these clearly delighting in the fact that like he's been on that Lawrence has been on a murder rampage.
Unknown Speaker 1:19:03
This movie had been more successful that you've done terrible things could have been like a classic line. Yeah, you know, if everybody knew this movie, people would be quoting that left and right, you know, after that, nyan that bachelor party you've done.
Unknown Speaker 1:19:17
But yeah, he basically dad basically gives him up to the villagers who knocks him out, then, you know, they they haul him to London to back to the old asylum. And you know, they've got the total cliche German doctor, clearly based on Freud. They put him in this chair, which is pretty amazing. I have no idea if this is based on anything real but they dunk him in a big pool of ice. And like what looks like an electric chair, but it's just an ice dunking chairs a
Unknown Speaker 1:19:47
great image though. Yeah, and like whoever Who cares if it works, it looks like straight up torture, but it looks so cool. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 1:19:54
we go back into sort of montage mode here which I'm not crazy about. It's you know, he's He's getting tortured. Like at one point he's got like a bit nice teeth and he's like, jabbering, like, I also think that we're supposed to pick up on the fact that time is passing here. Yeah. Which, Jen, I know you had a problem with it because you're like, there's this place is just got nothing but full moons.
Unknown Speaker 1:20:20
I said the same thing like they never show a not full moon. Like, here
Unknown Speaker 1:20:25
it is. I think the montage is are supposed to serve as a feeling of passing of time without like, you know, doing the cliche thing of showing like a calendar whipping by really sad. You know, I mean, it's
Unknown Speaker 1:20:38
a month goes by because he's got a turn at some point. And I believe that they're trying to set up the fact that they all do think that he's really legit crazy. Yes, because he's acting crazy. And so that you know, the payoff later will be everyone thinks he's crazy. And then he's not aware. Well, yes,
Unknown Speaker 1:20:53
Hopkins shows up to hang around his cell as Lawrence is sort of straitjacketed. And then we get the story of, you know, how dad became a werewolf, which was he was, you know, out in the Himalayas or something. And he went to a cave, and the Gollum werewolf boy was in the cave. And that werewolf boy bit him and that's, you know, how he became a werewolf. If you're wondering why that's the story. It is similar to the setup of the story in werewolf of London. The original werewolf movie from that was actually before the Wolf Man
Unknown Speaker 1:21:35
sounds vaguely racist.
Unknown Speaker 1:21:36
Yeah, probably.
Unknown Speaker 1:21:38
There's some feral Asian kid man. Goddamnit.
Unknown Speaker 1:21:42
Yeah, it was racist. We'll just assume it's racist if it's old. And this is when we get confirmation in a flashback that dad killed mom as a werewolf. which is surprising to no one. And, you know, we get to look at the Anthony Hopkins werewolf and the Anthony Hopkins Wolf, man, it's it's pretty good. It looks more like it's CG than makeup to me. I you know, it's just for a flash. So who knows? My guess is probably Anthony Hopkins was not keen to put on tons of makeup. So he's probably you know, they probably had to do it like that, because he wouldn't go for it.
Unknown Speaker 1:22:24
Well, it's also where we learn that this is when Larry says to dad, like you should just kill yourself. And he's like, I consider that but life is too good.
Unknown Speaker 1:22:34
Yeah. I like I like Wilson is awesome. Yeah, yeah. But he but he gives Larry a straight razor and it's like, yeah, kill yourself. And then, you know, so yeah, he gives Larry the razor and then he we see Hopkins leaving this the Siloam. And he's he's jamming down on the harmonica as he walks out.
Unknown Speaker 1:22:56
Yeah, I said to even said to you, I was like, Who is playing the harmonica in this asylum? And you're like, that's Hopkins like he's just like do to do on the little mouth harp going down the
Unknown Speaker 1:23:08
hallway. A little john popper?
Unknown Speaker 1:23:13
Yeah, the character is musical. He's always playing the piano. And I know that Anthony Hopkins always plays the piano and like, anytime he can put it in it, put it into a movie, you know, he even writes the the pieces and then so he'll play some noodle on the piano and there'll be like, leave it in. What is that? He's like, I wrote that. And then so though, he does that a lot, because he's pretty accomplished pianist. Oh,
Unknown Speaker 1:23:37
cool. So that's totally cool. Okay, yeah. Nice. All right, cool. Well, that's good to know. Then we go on to what may be the best scene in the movie, which is the very ill advised nighttime asylum lecture. I mean, at first I'm like, why are they doing it this this at night, but then the doctor says like, I'm doing this to show you He won't turn into a werewolf. Yeah. Oh, good. But yeah, so they're in like a you know, theater, operating theater or whatever. And they will and Bernice CEO, and he's in you know, like, it's strapped down chair. It definitely at this point, we're veering into sort of dark comedy, because the the doctor is, you know, lecturing with his back turn to Benicio about how he's not going to turn into a werewolf and how he's just crazy. And Benicio is like, you need to go get out of here. I'll kill all of you. And and nobody's listening. And then so the doctor is lecturing, and he starts to change behind him. And the guys in the theater are like pointing like like, Look, look behind you. And he just keeps talking. Oh, good. It's pretty funny.
Unknown Speaker 1:24:51
Best don't The only thing that bothers me is that he doesn't kill everyone. I want everybody in that room that it should have been a pile of bodies, man, like That was the only minor quibble with that. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. All those fuck all those guys.
Unknown Speaker 1:25:06
Yeah, I mean yeah, they did promise everyone would die and not everyone died
Unknown Speaker 1:25:10
and the transformation they do like show his like jaw like snapping and like eath rolling into weird place. Yeah, that was cool it like oh we'll save some weird transformation stuff for this time so that you know you see different anatomy changing
Unknown Speaker 1:25:26
yeah and the first transformation is done in that crypt and it's sort of dark and there's candlelight so you know yeah this is like bright You know, this is a brightly lit Yeah, nothing operating theater and he's, you know, they're really showing you the change.
Unknown Speaker 1:25:40
I think that change looks really good here. Actually, I was I was really like, I was super super into this and just really ready for Larry to fuck everybody up. And it just it looked so much the change. I just I liked it so much better in this in this scene. And I don't know if it was pot, you know, partially because it was leading up to something it was going to be very satisfying. You knew it was going to be
Unknown Speaker 1:26:02
just the sweetest plum. It's all about the scene and wanting to see him go apeshit on all these doctors it's it's a lot of fun. There's a funny moment where one of the one of the doctors is trying to get out and the guy's at the door and another guy's in the door and not letting him out. And meanwhile, Larry's carving through people left and right.
Unknown Speaker 1:26:25
The guy at the door is like like mopping the floors. Yes. Like I think it's locked. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 1:26:33
The most it's not my job.
Unknown Speaker 1:26:35
There's some like slightly poor wirework here where you can tell like when he actually throws the the main doctor out the window. Yeah. And it's just like there's no way to him at all. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 1:26:47
the gravity
Unknown Speaker 1:26:48
so it's out the window instead of actually being thrown. But you know, it's nitpicky, you know,
Unknown Speaker 1:26:54
it's this. It's the satisfying though. It's still all satisfying.
Unknown Speaker 1:26:57
Yes. Yeah. Oh, and I just love that one part where he I think he's got a big chunk of a guy in his mouth. Yeah. And he just he looks at it. That's when he spots the actual doctor. And then the piece of meat just drops and he's like raw.
Unknown Speaker 1:27:11
It looks like a liver.
Unknown Speaker 1:27:12
Yeah. Is that is a great shot, like that is so good.
Unknown Speaker 1:27:16
And they throws the doctor out the window and he lands on the Oh, yeah, that spiked fence, you know, which is always good.
Unknown Speaker 1:27:23
skewered.
Unknown Speaker 1:27:24
Yeah, somebody skewered on a spiked iron rod fence is always a winning proposition. So Larry escapes from the asylum, he basically goes on sort of a rooftop chase scene. They have the seat, they have, you know, the sort of prerequisite scene where he like, gets on a gargoyle and howls at the moon. You know, it's an easy lay moment. But I'm an easy lay for gargoyle perches, pretty much like that. whenever it's in a movie, we get Hugo Weaving has clued in to this and he's sort of chasing him on ground while the Wolf Man is running across the rooftop, we get a really, you know, this sequence really sort of highlights this running thing where he's running, you know, along the roofs, and then he drops into the onto all fours and starts around all fours. Again, this moment feels to me kind of like a superhero movie moment, you know, because he's going from rooftop to rooftop, you know, and I can see why maybe some people you know, who are expecting a more sort of straightforward, grounded horror movie might not like this stuff, but I like big budget spectacle. And this is where the movie is sort of delivering on that
Unknown Speaker 1:28:45
for sure. Why Why would you have an issue with this just because it's too CG and too fantastical. It's just
Unknown Speaker 1:28:50
not a horror movie thing. It's you know, it's it's like a like I said, it's like a big budget, it's more of a sci fi or superhero thing
Unknown Speaker 1:28:59
because to him like jumping off of rooftops, or just to be like a big sort of animal loose because me isn't that what American Werewolf in London ends like that. So,
Unknown Speaker 1:29:09
right, but not done with $100 million in computer. Right, right. Right facts. Okay, I didn't
Unknown Speaker 1:29:15
have a problem with it. I was enjoying it. And I just was like,
Unknown Speaker 1:29:19
you're kind of you know, you're more of a horror fan than a sci fi or superhero movie fan. So like, I
Unknown Speaker 1:29:25
was okay with that. Okay, no, didn't bother me at all. No, I was just like, like, it's been like, it's, it builds up so much to this moment, where I kind of feel like, you know, I know we talked about earlier that, you know, Larry doesn't get to fully enjoy his wolfing. But I feel like for a minute here when he's like going all around London and do I mean, I think he might might be enjoying this rooftops for a minute, you know, like being able to, like okay, maybe this isn't all bad. You know, like there's, you know, the superhuman strength that he has. But yeah, I just, I mean, it's such a such a climax that it comes to With everything that happens at the asylum, and then he's just like, you know, he's just he's just going balls out. So I think they deliver. They
Unknown Speaker 1:30:09
there's a fun sort of little bookend to the scene where he sort of jumps down and he's in, you know, I don't know, Piccadilly Circus or something like that. A train, there's a train car that gets derailed, and it like runs over a dude while it's getting derailed. And you see the guy like, pretty great and falls over on its side, and it's full of people. And the Wolf Man like jumps on top of it. And he looks in through one side window, and there's a really cool shot of him, like looking in through the glass, and then breaks through the glass and like falls into the train car and then start slashing away at people really messing them up. I think the action is pretty well done. Could it be a little better, maybe. But I think for the most part, and this might actually be one area where Joe Johnston was a pretty good choice to come in. Because I don't imagine Mark Romanek would have really cared very much about these action sequences, Drew and Johnston does. I mean, he's not like known for being a great action director, but he's solid, you know, he did Jurassic Park three, which has some fun sequences. So you know, he comes from the Spielberg camp, so he knows what he's doing with action.
Unknown Speaker 1:31:19
And the action is not the sticking point here for sure.
Unknown Speaker 1:31:23
Lawrence goes on his werewolf bender. And he ends up under a bridge as we all have been after a bender by London Bridge, in fact, and he drinks some wakes up in the morning and he's back in his tattered bloody clothes. And he like drinks some really gross water from a puddle. And then we learned that Gwen apparently owns an antique shop or something in London, which is not set up at all. No, but she's she's going to her open up her store for the day. And Larry has I guess, figured out I mean, it says her name on the if you look at the signage on her store,
Unknown Speaker 1:32:06
wait, wait, is this where we learned that? That Mary Poppins and Wolf men are in the same universe?
Unknown Speaker 1:32:10
God? Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 1:32:13
Yeah, so she goes into her antique store that hasn't been set up. And he's like sleeping under something in their table or some table. And then, you know, they have a scene, he tells her that he knows his father was the original werewolf and she wants to help him. We get more sort of romance moments here, which don't necessarily
Unknown Speaker 1:32:36
that's in quotes, romance, right? No, but
Unknown Speaker 1:32:39
we get it, we get a kiss here.
Unknown Speaker 1:32:41
All right. It was so hot, I forgot.
Unknown Speaker 1:32:45
Anyway, Hugo Weaving shows up and, you know, he shows her the newspaper drawings of the wolf carnage. And, you know, he basically detains her, you know, they figure out that Larry's been in there and they they think he's hiding behind a mirror. And he like shoots the mirror and, but behind the mirrors like this pan's statue, like a statue of the god Pan. I'm a pan fan. Not a Peter Pan fan
Unknown Speaker 1:33:13
and pan Greek god Pan, one half goat the other half man.
Unknown Speaker 1:33:19
Yeah, so yeah, the mirror gag is cool. In the and now in the unrated cut. That's where we get the scene of Larry walking around London. And there's a paper boy selling papers like Wolf Man kills everyone. And Larry buys all the papers from him sort of weird comedic moment that doesn't really fit but you know, and we get this montage as both of them make their way back to the Blackmore mansion, cheese on a train and a horse and stuff. But poor Larry's, he's just hoofing it the whole way. That's right. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 1:33:55
I'm in through the Moore's looking very for Lorne.
Unknown Speaker 1:33:58
Yeah. And there's, there's like a solid five to 10 shots of him, depending on which version you watch it like just walking. If they didn't do that, everybody like would it just work? could look. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 1:34:12
yeah. You can't when Gwen is trying to find Geraldine Chaplin's gypsy woman. So she does eventually meet her in a barn. And you know, there's this whole sort of scene where she's talking about how much you know, she wants to save him. And it's kind of like uncomfortably anti feminist sort of moment. You know, where it's like I can change him that kind of thing. Like I can change the abusive boyfriend, right oh man, which was a little uncomfortable there.
Unknown Speaker 1:34:46
Also at this time, though, there's there's a total souped up scene going on with Hugo Weaving. Yes, it right in the carriage and loading up a silver bullets. Yeah, he's a believer now.
Unknown Speaker 1:34:57
Yes, he's turned turned a corner on This Wolf Man, this werewolf business and he's ready to like lay down some silver bullets.
Unknown Speaker 1:35:04
Wouldn't all of London have turned believers after a giant Wolf Man just came marauding like in Piccadilly square. I mean come on what's going on fake
Unknown Speaker 1:35:14
fake news Chris fake news.
Unknown Speaker 1:35:18
There were crazy urban myths going around London in that period there is a famous sort of monster called Spring Heeled jack that would like supposedly come jumping down from roofs and like attack people and then jump away into another roof doing impossible things so that kind of stuff actually happened in London and there was never any explanation for it. I'm sure I'm in all parts of the world but they're famous stories from London of crazy crazy stuff like that so so Larry makes it back to the manor just in time for the full moon but poor Kim fail seek manservant is dead. He's a corpse sort of hanging on the wall. So I guess we're to assume that a pop killed him didn't have any more use for me. Yeah, that was
Unknown Speaker 1:36:08
why I wanted to see what happened to him I mean what
Unknown Speaker 1:36:11
well they sort of set him up as a badass so
Unknown Speaker 1:36:14
yeah, he's a great shot and then like way he's just dead
Unknown Speaker 1:36:18
it is off screen and we don't get I mean we can only assume that it you know it was dad we'll find out when he did it you know Yeah, but it's Yeah, he deserved he deserved it on string screen kill if he was going to
Unknown Speaker 1:36:32
die He Larry gets the key off of the dead seek that unlocks his case full of his trunk full of silver bullets. The dog who we haven't mentioned I forget his name but he gets a nice sort of a big dog he gets a nice jumpscare here and one thing I appreciated there's a shit is about to go down in the manner but Larry lets the dog out Yeah, he lets him go
Unknown Speaker 1:36:57
this the wolf and also let the deer go at 1.2 and chase a man instead of a deer yeah
Unknown Speaker 1:37:02
the deer with when they first try to trap him with the deer he doesn't kill the dog
Unknown Speaker 1:37:06
is Samson By the way, Sam Samson Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 1:37:09
Nice. Larry. Here's dad in the parlor playing the piano laying it with bloody fingers. Yes. Little shot. Very Yes. It's the Sikhs blood on his fingers. I don't know. Somebody's blood.
Unknown Speaker 1:37:20
Well, there's a there's a dead guy on like the chair.
Unknown Speaker 1:37:23
All right. It's the it's like the inspectors pal.
Unknown Speaker 1:37:26
You go weavings right hand guy. Yeah, man. We get sort of Hopkins doing the supervillain speech. It's pretty great Hopkins ham. So yeah, they they kind of have their big confrontation moment. Hopkin hits him with the cane that point it's a little bit repetitive just because I feel like we already kind of got the supervillain speech from dad at the asylum and we're just kind of getting more of that Hopkins starts throwing shit around and this is I love
Unknown Speaker 1:37:54
when he throws that chair it's so badass
Unknown Speaker 1:37:57
but but it's totally what you were saying where the wire work is kind of like suspect like it just kind of flying off
Unknown Speaker 1:38:04
but Hopkins man just like the look on his face and the way he's so nonchalantly does it it's ridiculous but awesome at the same time
Unknown Speaker 1:38:11
I didn't I didn't have an issue with any like I just like buy in that these like wolf dudes have all the strings in the world so like anything is gonna be like just like nothing you know? It's like no, I like it in concept it's
Unknown Speaker 1:38:23
just like technically if you're if you're really paying attention to it yes, it looks a little like somebody yanking a wire and pulling a yeah pulling a piece of furniture off exactly right. So they both wolf out and they do the thing where they like charge at each other and like smash chests to definitely a host matrix C type of werewolf wire fight for for a minute, and it ends with Larry. decapitating dad just great good decapitation, it's you know kind of CG looking but it's it's a pretty good death. And doesn't he doesn't his head like fly into the fireplace?
Unknown Speaker 1:39:05
I know he kicks
Unknown Speaker 1:39:06
him into the fireplace okay yeah, he
Unknown Speaker 1:39:08
kicks him to the fireplace right but
Unknown Speaker 1:39:10
the head actually we see the head kind of de wolf Yeah, it starts like going back to dad but another thing about dad wolfing out and then having the big fight which I appreciated because I was able to differentiate as to who was who was the dad shirtless?
Unknown Speaker 1:39:26
Thankfully only as a werewolf Yeah, that's shirtless. So gwenan Hugo show up and yeah, the Wolf Man bites Hugo which is a setup for a sequel that'll never happen. I think they're you know, the sequel was gonna maybe be Hugo Weaving as inspector werewolf or whatever.
Unknown Speaker 1:39:46
I would have watched that.
Unknown Speaker 1:39:47
Yeah, me too. I totally would have watched that. We do get Hugo Weaving in Joe Johnston's next movie, Captain America because he plays the Red Skull. So I guess maybe they liked working together. Who knows. And you know, the manner burns down because that's what manners always have to do in our movies. The Wolf Man chases going out into the woods with the torch wielding villagers following after them because you got to have that universal monster movie. You know, the woods look cool. She's sort of hiding behind some trees and there's lots of fog. And he sort of, you know, chasing, chasing, you see him in the background. He chases or to the waterfall where they had that moment, but not the place where they skipped stones, the waterfall,
Unknown Speaker 1:40:31
where the where the brothers had there was a refuge
Unknown Speaker 1:40:33
refuge.
Unknown Speaker 1:40:35
Yes. He's sort of like, tackles or pushes her down to the ground. But she's like, No, me, you know, me good acting here from I mean, she's good. The whole movie. Oh, yeah. She's great, really good moment here, where she's sort of trying to convince him to kind of recognize who she is, even though he's in wearable form.
Unknown Speaker 1:40:55
I liked that. You could see her in his pupils, by the way that I thought it was. I mean, I know it's kind of hokey or whatever. But I appreciated that.
Unknown Speaker 1:41:02
Yeah, I mean, the whole thing is kind of hokey. But yeah, it's the scene you need to have, yes, the werewolf movie. villagers are coming, basically, you know, he's gonna kill her. But then he, she gets through to him, and then he, you know, he stops, then they hear the villagers coming. And then she shoots him because she's got a gun with her with silver bullets, presumably in it a little. I mean, I would have preferred the cane. But, I mean, why didn't she have the cane? And then, you know, pulled out the knife and stabbed him in the heart or something. And then he, you know, transforms back into Larry and dies in their arms. And they have this sort of, you know, sad, doomed love moment, which, you know, honestly, no one cares about.
Unknown Speaker 1:41:49
I cared. You care? Yeah, I did. Actually, I did. I did actually. Well, that that moment was like, I mean, it was because he, he like kind of he starts to after she shoots him, and then he kind of like turns over to a side. And then he kind of I think he grabs her arm, like a little, a little bit of a jumpscare. But then you can see he's coming back to being Larry. And then he says, that's when he was like, thank you. And he was like, it had to be this way. You know, it's like he was this, you know, now he's tortured guy and I don't know, I I actually didn't care.
Unknown Speaker 1:42:22
I cared. He dies, and Hugo shows up and we see that he's got the cane and you know, again, they're sort of I think it's sort of, you're supposed to sort of think, Oh, this this is he's going to be in the sequel. And then you know, they show the moon and there's more of Emily's voiceover and then we're out. And you know, we've got sort of horror movie style Wolf Man and credits, which are pretty cool. They're, you know, they're stylish and cool.
Unknown Speaker 1:42:50
I can't help but think of, you know, Dracula, where Amina chops Dracula's head off. And, you know, they're this sort of lovers souls that are always meant to be so that makes sense to me that, you know, she should be the one to kill them. But I just feel like they're trying to shoehorn that same story into this by by the Gypsy saying, it has to be someone who loved him. I'm like, Well, does she even say like, oh, for his soul to be fine, or I mean, like, what's the point of that? Like, would he have lived if anybody else shot him with silver bullets? Like, why does it have to be someone who loves him? It just it seems like they're just really forcing a story at this point.
Unknown Speaker 1:43:26
I think. I think they are sort of going to that. Well, they're, you know, I think there's figuring Hey, it worked for Dracula, you know, right. It'll work for the wolf. Man. I definitely think this movie is is trying to capture the magic of in some ways of that Coppola Dracula, that's definitely what it's aiming for. Right. I mean, some people hate the Cobo Dracula, so right. No, it's not like that movies universally loved either. Sure, sure. It's more people like it now than they used to. But I remember back in the day, nobody was hankering for more of that. Well, there's a lot of problems. You know, everybody was just like, Look, you know, sucked, you know, and like, actually, it's, it's not like it was that beloved at the time.
Unknown Speaker 1:44:08
It made money though. That's why they made so
Unknown Speaker 1:44:11
and this movie didn't. So on that note, you know, my sort of feelings about why this movie tanked. Like I said, I think that trailers unfortunately, by showing the CG transformation, I think turn some people off. I think that Benicio del Toro is not the kind of actor or leading man that brings in money, you know, like he's just not. If this had been Brad Pitt or somebody I think it would have probably stood a better chance even though like Benicio, and I know he was really passionate about doing this. I think that probably didn't help. And I think that, you know, when it came out, the reviews were pretty abysmal. And I think that is largely due to the sort of editing, I think that the editing is bad. And I think that sort of hurt the movie critically, I don't know if if they had released, the longer version in the theaters, if that would have been received any better probably wouldn't have been. Because I think like Chris fairly pointed out that I think a lot of the problems are in the script, unfortunately. Yeah. So you know, I don't think it was going to do that well with critics, either way, but if it had been more embraced by fans, then maybe there would have been some word of mouth and it wouldn't have tanked nearly as badly, but even a bigger sort of issue. And I think that we're seeing this with all of these universal these attempts at these universal monsters is that, I don't know if people care about them. You know, like, they've tried now with Wolf Man, they've tried with, you know, a new Dracula. They've tried with the mummy with Tom Cruise. And it's like, there, none of them are hitting it. It's too bad. Because obviously, I'm a fan. I love the universal monsters, but I just don't think that they're big money movies. Now, you know, the recent Invisible Man that just came out, did it smart, because it's a low budget movie. It's contemporary. It's not hinting on your love of the Invisible Man. To sell it. It's, it's just giving you a movie with an invisible man and calling it the Invisible Man. And it's like a, you know, whatever, a $5 million movie as opposed to 100 million dollar movie. So it's, you know, 150,
Unknown Speaker 1:46:32
right?
Unknown Speaker 1:46:34
Yeah, or whatever, if you bring the budgets of these things way down and do these sort of scaled back attempts at rebooting these series and do them, you know, in a modern setting, which isn't to my preference, because I like the cool Gothic setting, but you know, you could probably do Gothic for cheaper than 100 and 50 million How
Unknown Speaker 1:46:56
do you know how much it costs to make shape of water? Because that's, I mean, that's clearly got some creature going on.
Unknown Speaker 1:47:02
Yeah, I mean, but it was probably, you know, 50 million or something, but the shape of water wallet had a lot of design and really rich design and everything. It didn't have a lot of action. The action is what costs a lot of money. Yeah, for a lot of these things, you can have something look great and have it be period and stuff but as long as you're not throwing in like massive action sequences, you know, you're not going to reach that hundred million dollar mark or whatever.
Unknown Speaker 1:47:31
But also how much did Anthony Hopkins get walk away with here? I feel like he you know, he was commanding some money
Unknown Speaker 1:47:39
the costs were high you know, and I think something like shape of water, though it's not like cheap it's not you know, Michael Shannon isn't gonna demand $50 billion
Unknown Speaker 1:47:51
right felt like they weren't holding back on the budget on anything here. I feel like they were just like open the floodgates and just make the best movie we can and
Unknown Speaker 1:48:02
there's a lot of good things here though. I like it you know there was the It looks good like I mean it's just it's it's kind of it's it's a bummer and I you know I would love to see the the universal monsters live on I haven't seen an attempted a creature film and that's why I was thinking of shaper water but now I don't know it's it's it's it's weird because like I said, in the beginning my first watch I was kind of ambivalent about the whole thing and then watching closely, the theatrical and the unrated version. I just came to like to film a lot more
Unknown Speaker 1:48:39
Yeah, I think if you were to see this bar if you were to see this movie, you know at a bar with the sound off you'd probably be like this movie looks incredible. Oh my god the Wolf Man Anthony Hopkins is in this Emily Blunt you think this is the greatest movie and then you'd go home rented watch it with the sound and go wait this movie sucks like what what happened? You know because the production design the cinematography all there so so many of the elements are right but then the crucial elements like the story the editing and the direction fail and that's it's kind of like right down the middle where you got half good half bad and then it just doesn't come together and knowing that you know every everybody it went forward with last minute director change will pull the rug out from any production I think so. Just look at solo or and you know, like I mean, like they brought it into port it's not a terrible movie. I you know, it was watchable.
Unknown Speaker 1:49:39
You mean the Wolf Man or
Unknown Speaker 1:49:40
the wolf? No, the wolf sorry the Wolf Man was watchable and is a fine enough movie but especially with the watching the Extended Cut was a bit of a drag.
Unknown Speaker 1:49:50
So you prefer the you prefer I prefer
Unknown Speaker 1:49:52
the theatrical cut because it just gets to the point, you know, gets to the gore and gets to the but I understand why you would watch the Extended Cut, if you were just you want to luxuriate in the feel of the movie because the feel of the movie is, is good, you know, they got the gothic horror thing, you know, we've gone over it and yeah, I just I think that it's just too boring. And they needed to add some more interesting twists and add a little bit more, you know, modern lies juice to it, yeah, in order to in order to make it stand out.
Unknown Speaker 1:50:23
And then also, to piggyback on that Chris was, you know, I feel like, because, and you brought this up to Sebastian, it's like, Who is it really for? Because, like you said, it's not, like, there's elements of it that aren't something that a horror fan is going to really be into, you know, because of more of the action type. Like, the sequences and it's just, I don't know, I didn't I don't know if it was really defined for a person, so or it could have become like, I had a cult following. He other than, you know, having like, the basis of being the Wolf Man, but the actual film didn't have like that thing that it's like, oh, you know, this is what horror fans like, loves. I mean, you kind of have that because you love the way he looks. But like, if if, you know, if, like we said earlier, if like the transformation could have been kick ass, then like, that would have been something that people were talking about, you know, if it would have been at the transformation, or, like, if there would have been some real hamming it up, like, we would have got like full Hopkins, like, you know, being really Machiavellian, like over the top or something like that. there needed to be something that had people talking.
Unknown Speaker 1:51:40
Well, I think your point of, you know, who is this for? It's not quite, you know, hitting the target for horror fans. It's not quite hitting the target, because there's too much sort of slow drama scenes. Exactly. Or for fans of big spectacle action movies, or sci fi or whatever stuff with big money and big production designs not really hitting that target. And it's not really hitting, it's definitely not hitting the target for people who are into period dramas. If that's what you're going for, so ivory,
Unknown Speaker 1:52:17
it is not
Unknown Speaker 1:52:18
I think, you know, it's, you know, yes. They didn't know who they were making this for, which I think is going to be a theme that we find a lot in this podcast.
Unknown Speaker 1:52:29
They made their made it for podcasters in 2020
Unknown Speaker 1:52:33
to dissect
Unknown Speaker 1:52:35
this will be great for them.
Unknown Speaker 1:52:37
That's who this is made for. All right, well, um, that wraps up our discussion of the 2010. Wolf Man, thank you for joining me. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 1:52:47
yeah, thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:53:01
That about does it today for Tentpole Trauma. If you like what you heard, check out our social media presence on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Just look for Tentpole Trauma. That was easy, wasn't it? If you like us, hit subscribe, and leave us a sterling review on iTunes. If you dare. If you really like us, head over to patreon.com and get involved in one of our fabulous tiers. You'll be glad you did. Want to communicate with Tentpole Trauma, send an email to Tentpole [email protected] we'd love to hear from you. And who knows, one day you may even get your email read on one of our shows. Well, thanks for listening, and we'll see you real soon.
#movie#unrated version#anthony hopkins#theatrical version#wolf#dracula#wolfman#emily blunt#benecio del toro#frankenstein#universal monsters
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