#also let me know if y’all had different interpretations of the movies themes or even the themes of the original poem
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What are your thoughts on the ending of the green knight? Little disappointed with it.
Ahhh thank you, my anonymous hero, for giving me the opportunity to ramble about this movie. I saw it last night and I’ve been thinking about it pretty nonstop. Disclaimer before I get into this: I’m not a proper medievalist. I am, however, an English student with a focus on British literature, so I’ve read a few different translations of the original source material and studied it fairly in-depth.
That being said, my first reaction to The Green Knight was… well, that it’s not really Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Which is fine! Mostly. Every movie adaptation changes things from the source, but this one changed so much, so drastically, that I can’t really think about it as the same story. In the original poem, Gawain is a good (if inexperienced) knight who consistently keeps his promises and retains his honor right up until the very end of the story, when he lies about the green belt and refuses to give it to his host, Bertilak. The storyline of the movie seems to flip this? Gawain doesn’t start off as a good knight, or even as a knight at all, and in the movie he consistently fails to live up to knightly virtues throughout his quest. However, at the end he succeeds where the original Gawain did not, and voluntarily removes the belt (after that memorable flash-forward sequence).
To me, this is a fundamentally different story from the original. And I’m not mad about the character changes! A movie has to create a self-contained character arc in a way that the anonymous Pearl Poet did not have to. So to me, the movie seems to present the story of someone who must learn to accept death. Death (and rebirth) is certainly a major theme in the original, too, but I’ve always interpreted the og poem as placing more importance on honesty, chivalry, chastity, humility, and shame.
So the movie is telling a different story, with different themes. With that in mind, I guess it could make sense to skim over the 3 days of Christmas games and the kissing exchange in the original poem. However, even if it does make sense, I’m mad about it because I really liked the Christmas games and the kissing exchange in the original poem. I would’ve swapped out Gawain’s existential flash-forward sequence for a few good kissing exchanges in a heartbeat.
That being said, with the story the movie seems to be trying to tell I’m not terribly mad at the ending? Maybe? I’m still conflicted. I suppose the problem is that the themes feel very confused to me. The strongest one I can latch onto is the inevitability of death/ the importance of embracing the natural cycle of the world. With that in mind, Gawain’s vision of the future could be his realization that his life will, eventually, end, no matter what he does in the green chapel. His decision to remove the belt and face the green knight without its protection can then be seen as an acceptance of death, and the decision to die with honor and dignity. I’m not unhappy with where his character arc ends up here, considering he’s been framed as a screw-up since the beginning of the movie, but I’m left repeating #notmygawain because this is, again, a fundamentally different character arc from the original story. Again, I understand why they changed Gawain’s character for a movie. I just don’t like the changes very much.
I’m also not a huge fan of the cliffhanger (although I did love the final “Green Knight” title card!) mostly because all elements of cliffhanger are removed if you’ve actually read the original poem (or even just checked Wikipedia). Like, we know that the knight doesn’t kill Gawain. It’s not a new story. Although? I suppose this version of it is. So who’s to say whether he dies or not? I suppose the cliffhanger could work in the context of this adaption because, if we’re going with the ‘accepting death’ theme (which I’m still not sure about!), the outcome of Gawain’s decision doesn’t matter as much as the decision itself. We’ve seen him drift around the kingdom for almost 2 hours, breaking chivalric code, lying to his host, and overall being a pretty self-absorbed knight who’s terrified of his own mortality. The decision to accept death and embrace honor is the culmination of a character arc and seems like a fitting end to the movie. But I do wish we had gotten to see Gawain work more towards this growth through the events of his quest, rather than simply achieve it through a flash forward in time.
And I still think they should have left in the full three days of Christmas games.
Overall? This adaption was beautiful. Dev Patel is hot. And, more importantly (to me), this adaption felt right. The blending of Catholic imagery with pagan Celtic influences, the weird vibes, the use of title cards and the vaguely disconnected adventures was fun, and it felt more “Arthurian” than any other round-table-related movie I’ve ever watched. But I’m still not entirely sure what the story was trying to say, or if it said it. If you’re going to deviate from the source material this much, it’s my opinion that you’ve got to do it for a clear reason, to make a clear point, not just to subvert audience expectation. I’m not quite sure what the point of these changes were, or how the ending of the movie revealed the movie’s core thesis. It felt a bit more like a “gotcha!” from the director than a genuine end to Gawain’s story.
But, I mean, at least Dev Patel was hot.
#if this sounds wishy washy it’s because I’m still making up my mind#but thank you for the ask!#I’m seeing the movie again tomorrow hopefully I’ll be able to decide what I think about the ending by then#at the moment I’m not sure whether I loved it or hated it#it was so pretty! Dev Patel is so hot!#but like… the Christmas games. why would you cut the Christmas games?#let me know what you thought! I am desperate to hear how other people view this movie#also let me know if y’all had different interpretations of the movies themes or even the themes of the original poem#I’m not an expert I’m just an overly thoughtful English major with a new obsession#the green knight#sir gawain and the green knight
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Agathas casting + Sofia Wylie
hi I just chugged 2 redbulls, ranted to my friend for like an hour about this because the amount of absolute disrespect and just plain racism i've seen about the casting infuriates me. so here are some of the comments i've seen and my opinion/reaction to them (this is literally just a passionate brain explosion done quite late at night -10pm- and vv quickly so I apologise if some points are missing/worded weirdly!!)
“she isn’t how she looks in the books” || “i’m all for diversity but [🙄] why did they make the pale one a POC” || “it doesn’t make sense for agatha to be played by a black actress”
for those saying it doesn't make sense for agatha to be plated by a black women,,, what are you talking about!!! IT ACTUALLY DOES THO???? if anything it makes more sense and adds more weight to her storyline and character arc! her entire arc is realising she has been beautiful ALL ALONG. its just her low self esteem and the impossibly and very eurocentric high beauty standards that's she's up against at the school for good & in Gavaldon keeping her down. having agatha being played by a WOC is perfect because that is something we unfortunatly have to face on a daily basis. it makes for a wider range of people to see agatha and her experiences and be able to relate to someone whose place in society mirrors their own. and isn’t that great??? SHOULDN’T WE WANT THAT????yes. we should.
as a WOC myself, when i found out the news I literally called my friend at like 8am to be like “HOLY SHIT :DDDD” its exciting!! i know that a lot of people loved agatha because they could relate to her and that's great! but you still have that!! book agatha isn’t going anywhere. she's still there! like i've said before, Sofia as agatha allows MORE people to be able to relate to her character. This is an amazing decision and these kind of changes in the adaptation should be welcomed and encouraged. i
and also you can’t just pick and choose what characters can/cannot be black. that literally makes 0 sense and isn’t how it works. having agatha - one of the films lead- as a WOC is a big deal and suggesting that instead have the side characters have diverse actors infuriates me. why does it have to be a side character??? it makes as much sense for agatha to be black as it does any other side character and sofia is perfect!
ALso Soman (who first published SGE in 2013) probably just used whatever beauty standards at the time and ran with it. but hey, it's literally 2020 and if this year has taught us anything it's that times are changing! casting a diverse lead for a book that has a predominantly white cast reflects that change! its great! tbh before the casting news, i was very apprehensive about the movie because of some of the problematic themes and events that occur but this casting is the step in the right direction! it shows that at least on some level the people making the movie are all aware of its wrongdoings and adapting the movie to better fit and reflect a wider audience in 2020.which is what we all (or at least should) want!!
“She doesnt have straight black hair so she can’t possibly play agatha”
first of all her hair is gorgeous!!! and does it really matter that she wont have straight hair??? will you die if one fictional character doesn't have straight hair?? no. you won't. and she shouldn’t have to straighten, use relaxers or wear a wig to play the role. hollywood has a long standing history of making diverse (predominantly Black!!) actresses having to fit Eurocentric beauty standards LIKE having straight hair. and using relaxes can also be a really traumatising and degrading experience for black women and its unfair for people demand that she can only play agatha if she “fixes” her hair. and yea again it has some very racist undertones. but dudes this is HAIR we’re talking about people. it's such a stupid finicky detail to hyperfocus on that won’t even affect the plot or the movie in any big way. I for one would love to see Sofia play Agatha with her beautiful, gorgeous, natural hair!
we all have our different interpretations and visions of agatha and that's ok! but with that and the movie you have to be realistic. there is no way they could’ve casted the ‘perfect’ agatha. even if they did stick to her book descriptions. you can't please everyone and people will always have opinions and something to say about it
“I can’t see her as agatha because of her previous disney roles”
bruh it's called acting. and you know another famous actress known for the classic disney roles and is now an emmy award winning actress?? ZenDAYA. yea. stfu. we haven’t even seen them in their full costumes or anything, hell this is really the first big information that we’ve had! give it some time,,, lets see the rest of the cast, the costumes, the sets and THEN decide if “she's not my agatha” c’mon guys!! she's insanely talented (a triple threat at 16!!!) and criticising her casting of agatha based on one photo - which literally says nothing about her performance- does have some severe racist undertones no matter how many times you try to defend yourself using the classic “i’m not racist but-” excuse.
The people who casted her are literal professionals. they do this for a LIVING and have been for ages. SO ofc they would’ve casted the perfect person for the role. these are the same people who casted Harry Potter. pls just have faith in the process. they don’t want the movie to be a flop any more than we do. they picked her for a reason and i'm sure that in time we will see the exact same reasons they do
“I wanted asian agatha so i’m very disappointed in this casting”
I get it, I do but honestly,, c’mon dude A WIN FOR ONE OF US IS A WIN FOR ALL!! all minorities are all severely underrepresented in hollywood rn and idk about y’all but i’m taking this as a massive win for all us POC regardless of whether she's black, brown or asian.
“Sofias too beautiful” || “Agatha's supposed to be ugly >:(”
Agatha has literally been “beautiful all along”. the problem isn’t that she's ugly, its just that she's had impossibly low self esteem and doesn't see herself that way because of the impossibly high (mostly eurocentric) beauty standards she's held against. and with the ugly casting??? you really want them to put out a casting call specifically calling for someone ugly?? what would that even entail?? dudes The Lord of the Rings TV show tried that shit here in NZ a lil bit ago and it did NOT go down well lmao. you can’t just cast an ‘ugly’ person. also ‘hollywood’ ugly is still hot (e.g She's all That ) so idk what you guys were expecting????
pls remember Sofia is literally 16 (!!!!), she's so young and must’ve been SO excited to have gotten this role!! and if we can see all these comments, she definitely can so just be kind. ok
anyways,,,
Sofia is absolutely gorgeous and the perfect agatha and i’m very excited to see more of her ❤️
#sge#sofia wylie#school for good and evil#The School for Good and Evil#sge movie#school for good and evil movie#the school for good and evil movie#my post#Agatha of Woods Beyond#they've already casted her anyway so the only thing you can and should do anyway is be kind and supportive!
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Are there certain aspects of the phandom, or interpretations of the show that you a bit repetitive or even annoying? I understand it, but I find it kinda reductive when people say 'the show is about Christine's PURITY and X represents SEX with Y showing...' etcetc, like there's nothing to her character except her virtue, and I know Gillian Lynne said stuff along those lines but still..., Another one for me is a Christine's hair colour like yeah it's interesting but um ok. (Also Rierra ughstoppp)
Oh, I feel you on the whole “sex vs. chastity” interpretation. It is a theme and does underlie part of Christine’s conflict, but sometimes people act like it’s the only theme running through the story, and that’s when you get weird-ass opinions like this. Nope, nothing about Christine growing by letting go of her grief, nothing about the Phantom’s redemption, it’s just sex and passion, that’s all a woman’s growth is all about.
The “blonde vs. brunette!” debate is also so old; I enjoy examining the various shades Christine actresses get as a whole, but I got sick of it come the Stockholm revival, where all anyone talked about was Emmi Christensson’s wig change. It gets especially galling when people use it as the sole indicator of whether an adaptation is more accurate to Leroux’s novel, and yes, I have seen that, I have seen people claim the 1990 miniseries with Charles Dance is closer to Leroux because Christine is blonde, which is like... what. There’s more to book accuracy than a character’s hair color!
Random misconceptions are sometimes tedious, things like Christine’s age (no, she is not 16 except in the 2004 movie and a poor translation of the novel), what “slave of fashion” means (it does not mean you are into fashion), that ALW chooses every cast member of every production ever (he does not), Christine and the Phantom had sex sometime during the original show (NO).
This is more in regards to the phandom on social media other than Tumblr or Discord (ahem, Facebook), but boy am I sick of the “Raoul vs. Erik” debates. I’m so tired of people constantly pitting and contrasting them to each other. You know what’s a really fascinating area of study? Finding their similarities. Ooh... but it’s mainly because, come on, people have been arguing over this for literal decades, both sides are quite chill with each other because they know they’ll never agree, stop asking which “team” you are on, I am begging you. One day you’ll see me snap and go running in the streets, Homer Simpson-style, shouting, “Erik and Raoul are the same person! It’s a conspiracy, people!”
I’m so tired of people pulling out the same old anti-Raoul arguments. “He didn’t notice Christine until she was in the spotlight!” (So? I’ve literally walked past my best friend because I didn’t expect her to be there and wasn’t looking for her.) “He didn’t believe Christine!” (I love Christine but she was hysterical and talking about a ghost, of course he wouldn’t.) “He forced her to be bait!” (He was in a sucky situation, doing the best that he can.) “He was gaslighting her!” (Not. The definition. Of gaslighting.) I’ve literally read people saying that Raoul was marrying Christine so he could be rich and famous, and I was boggled that people would have such a poor grasp of social class in the 1800s. (Y’all, Raoul is a vicomte and patron of the opera house, he’s already rich. And marrying Christine is marrying down, she’s not a frigging pop star.)
And this is probably because I have a YouTube account and upload videos of other casts, but it does get tiring to see people compared (often poorly) to Ramin Karimloo and Sierra Boggess. It’s annoying if people do it using some of the other “Big Four” casts (Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman, Gerard Butler and Emmy Rossum, Ben Lewis and Anna O’Byrne, though they’re to a much lesser extent), but the comparisons to Karimloo and Boggess seem to be most frequent right now. Heck, I don’t care if people prefer them, so long as it looks like they at least gave a different cast a shot (e.g. “Ramin will always be my top, but David Thaxton really brings a different element to the role”), but more than once I’ve seen someone hop onto a video and just go, “Yup, this just proves Ramin is the top, bye!” and I’m left wondering, “Why did you watch this. Did you really click on the video willing to give another cast a chance, or did you go there solely with the attitude that so-and-so is the best and will never, ever be beaten?”
EDIT: Just remembered this one - no, a new proshot is not going to come out. It’s not going to come out just because you love that cast so, so much and think they’re oh-so-deserving of a filmed version. It’s not going to make enough money to justify the cost, no matter how big you think the phandom is.
Also, some things that seem to always pop up: yes, I know Ramin Karimloo played Christine’s father in the 2004 film. Yes, I know he’s the only one to play all three of “Christine’s loves”, ooh how special for him. Yes, I’ve seen that video of Nick Pitera. I’ve seen that video of Lindsay Stirling.
Ah, those are the major ones for now; it’s pretty dependent on the “mood” the phandom feels (like right now the last one is pretty prevalent because the 25th anniversary concert was streamed a few weeks ago, but it always dies down). Makes me realize how long I’ve been here... the things I’ve seen...
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5, 6 (i already know this is some insane amount), 9, 10, 16, 23, 26 (house)
BAAABE :*
5. What is the perfect environment for you to write in?
my office cubicle apparently kdsjfnksd
no but genuinely anywhere i can zone out. i make faces & mutter to myself when i write tho so, anywhere where that wouldn’t draw weird glances lmfao
6. If you’re really concentrating, how many words can you write in a day?
bahahaha i think Farmer’s Almanac holds the record rn—10k, give or take.
9. Do you prefer to write AUs, canon divergence, or canon-compliant fic?
#selfintrospection, my pattern per fandom seems to be starting with canon divergence! I’m a side characters ho, y’all know this, so I always like to recenter the narrative & get a surer foothold in my own interpretations of character first. but after that.... no preference! I love (and have written) all three to great enjoyment heheheh just depends on where i wanna see ‘em fuck
10. Do you enjoy writing dialogue, exposition, or plot the most?
NFJDNFJDNFJD HOW CAN I CHOOSE
Exposition is sexy, and i get to be the most experimental & excessive & self-indulgent here w/ style choices.
Dialogue is sexy, ‘cause voices and humor and dirty talk and heartbreak and communication!!! I’m a movie ho so i’m all about that plot-driving script game ;;;;
Plot is sexy ‘cause that’s where you get to fuck around with all the canon themes, subvert & avert & redistribute them!!!!!!!! I’m a slut for that!!!!!!!!!
can’t choose won’t choose :’D
16. What is your most underrated fic?
LMFAO you know i’m gonna say Sword of the Yi Maiden ;) she’s basically like, our child ;;
23. If you had to remix one of your own fics, which would it be and how would you remix it?
well once i sort out the single dad!Song Lan universe, i’d loooooove to switch gears & swerve into single dad!Xiao Xingchen B) just for kicks. But where Song Lan is like, a high school lit teacher and A-Qing is our favorite local delinquent child. XXC gets called in for a parent-teacher conference, and he’s actually kind of dreading it at first because AQ honestly never had too many complaints about the English teacher, so if this Song Laoshi was suddenly going to betray his daughter’s trust and tattle on her XXC would def take AQ’s side.
But! Turns out SL’s calling him in to be like “hey, AQ never does homework but is fine with participating in class if i kind of trick her into arguing about it, so i figured she just really doesn’t like being told what to do. That’s fine! But that also means I don’t think she’ll respond well to me sitting her down to talk about her higher education options, so I figured I’d run it past the parent first to see if you have any thoughts about how we’re going to proceed.”
it’d be SO fucking funny... AQ stops skipping class or stops zoning out the moment she catches onto her dad’s little ~thing for Song Laoshi. She starts challenging him in class instead on every little thing (”yeah but don’t you think it’s inherently racist to require us to read conrad at all, if there are so many books out there written by actual African postcolonial authors”) but he’s just happy she’s engaging so they bond
they’re both super proud and near tears at graduation, and AQ is too but to hide her own embarrassingly feelings she’s like “don’t pretend y’all aren’t just crying ‘cause you can finally date each other now that it won’t be fucking WEIRD for me”
26. Which part of House was the hardest to write?
hmmmmm I think I had the most number of false starts w ch. 3!! i never save shit rip but at one point i straight up had like.... 13 pages all blacked out? Oh i remember, the scene where AQ first tests SL. I had that set in like, the breakfast stall, in a busy street, a quiet street, etc. etc. I was putting each of their conversations in different contexts too, just seeing how they would play out based on the surroundings??? i even thought about dropping AQ’s POV completely at one point but I’m very glad i didn’t. The current version is actually the very first opening for the chapter i ever wrote so, el oh el, i try not to think all that effort went to waste. It’s more like, I had some ideas, but i had to prove none of them would work before i could proceed with this one, y’know?
BUT TELL YOU WHAT I DID SAVE THO. The first draft of the Ch. 2 opening? After I wrote this i was like “yikes this is way too conventional a set-up for a flashback let’s just do it,” and wrote the current version on ao3 lmao. I kept the chapped knuckles thing~
Under the Cut:
((Behind the Scenes of Fic Writing Asks!))
Song Lan stood at the entrance of his room in the inn, fist clenched hard around Fuxue’s hilt as the rain came in. Night had been the herald, and now, the lantern at the top of the stairs to Song Lan’s left was flickering wildly, buffeted about by the stormy wind.
The inn’s owner, an older woman in her 50s, spoke a string of worried utterances as she hurried up the stairs to close the window. As her hands approached the latch though, Song Lan sensed bloodthirst. Fuxue went flying.
The woman screamed, but the harm was over; a mutated critter of a hungry ghost slumped against the window frame, pinned there by Fuxue’s cool blade. Instead of closing the window for her, Song Lan pressed two paper talismans on either side. He pulled out Fuxue and watched the hungry ghost dissipate.
“Daozhang, daozhang, gratitude,” the woman wept. “A few here and there is nothing, you know? But once they begin to stay, and bigger things start to come, and we have young ones in the house, oh, it terrifies me, what state this city has been falling into…”
Fuxue returned to its sheathe, and Song Lan still had his fly-whisk tucked in his arm. He gave the inn owner a polite bow.
“I will attempt an extermination tonight.”
“Daozhang is so reliable,” the woman said, tears instantly transforming into simpering gratitude. Her distress had been in part a show, meant to move Song Lan into action. Song Lan did not mind; this was his third night at the inn, after all, and the second time the inn owner’s requested a favor from him. It stood to reason that she would think he needs more affective convincing, even if she’s wrong.
“I may trouble you for tea upon my return,” he murmured. When the woman reached out to pat his elbow in a matronly gesture, Song Lan stepped back, disguising the gesture as a readjustment of his robes as he replaced the stack of talismans back in his sleeve.
“Of course,” she replied, hand waving in the air before lowering back down to her side. A spot of tension eased at the base of Song Lan’s neck. “The stove never stops burning in our kitchen, particularly when we have guests. Just give our door a knock if the evening chef isn’t around. We’ll take care of you.”
Song Lan was grateful. He’d need the hot drink when he returned from the rain—soaking in the deluge always left his skin feeling beaten and bloated. And the sensation, if untreated, never failed to transform itself into two long iron nails hammered deep into his skull and brain. The pain was best avoided if at all possible.
(Xiao XingChen knew this about him. Nothing’s ever eased the migraines faster than XingChen’s smile as he wordlessly pushed a cup of hot water or tea across the table. Nothing’s ever distracted Song Lan from the pain more effectively than wondering exactly what would happen, if XingChen’s fingers lingered and his own could touch, just lightly, those perpetually chapped knuckles.)
(Take better care of yourself, Song Lan had once chastised when blood came seeping up between cracked skin.
I forget to, XingChen had confessed, sheepish lines crinkling around his eyes.
Had Song Lan been anybody else, he would’ve said out loud what he wished he could’ve said out loud: I’ll do it then.
Had Song Lan been anybody else, he would’ve thumbed a layer of protective grease over Xiao XingChen’s dry hands himself, save them both the need for cheesy lines and impotent promises. Words often got him into trouble, he knew this; he much preferred the vows made in every shared action that was mutually fostered into consistency. But what did it say about him, that his hands flinched from touch and Xiao XingChen walked at a careful radius around him, that he couldn’t make a vow on any level that counted?)
The extermination was no reprieve from the discomfort, the dissatisfaction, the disassembly of it all. The sky was falling apart and so was his skin. Moderation was less a stranger to Song Lan than longing, but tonight, the berating of his body was not moderated at all.
A year of searching, over, just like that.
An opportunity to apologize, gone, just like that.
A promise.
A dream.
So do you like him then? You want to really build a family with him?
Gone. Just like that.
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*slams down paper* Give a thesis on Stanny boy. :D
I finished all my exams so LETS FUCKIGN GO!!! A lot of this is personal interpretation combined w hc character development 👌 I went kinda off topic bc y’all apparently like my analysis!! So here u go!!
1) sexuality hc: I love exploring queer themes w Stan sm ;;o;; I think he’s an incredibly relatable character and fandom tends to focus on his good morals so he’s the kinda character we’re more comfortable exploring like that :0 (unlike Eric who’s Problematic or Kyle who’s pretty morally gray and who has some questionable interactions w the ppl he’s had romantic interactions w)
And I love portraying Stan’s exploration into his sexuality as a very...slow kind of journey? Like Stan being someone who’s pretty ignorant but earnest, and appreciating when someone is able to help guide him (like Kenny or wendy)
But to the question: I hc Stan as bi!! Like a lot of ppl do :0 again w the slow journey, I see Stan as being the kind of person who would get into queer issues, and just being curious in general and asking questions, alongside wanting to explore w other people—like feeling a romantic/sexual tension w/ another boy but not knowing what it means, and only after he’s had someome start to guide him does he connect the pieces. Like Stan realizing “oh all those times I had a CRUSH on that guy I didn’t just admire him” sort of thing
And it’d be a very personal journey as well, I can’t imagine Stan being open or talking abt his sexuality while he’s still tryna figure it out, mostly bc he isn’t sure abt himself and he doesn’t feel secure enough to be open, plus he’s probably shy abt that kinda thing in the beginning.
And honestly I prefer Stan exploring his sexuality with Wendy or Kenny—I have a whole hc that he’d be uncomfortable with talking to kyle about it, not bc he has anything against Kyle—it’s just that Kyle sometimes gets too in his own head, gets uncomfortable with serious conversations, can sometimes leave Stan behind, and can think he knows Stan best/talks over Stan. I can’t see Kyle being someone patient enough to let Stan talk without adding in his own two cents and confusing or frustrating Stan, and Stan needs someone attentive and non-judgmental to talk things through
Wendy (esp w Wendy as a v knowledgeable queer person) is a good choice to help Stan out bc she’s very compassionate, emotionally sensitive, and wants to help.
(Going into hc-zone:) wendy might also fall into the thing Kyle does where she talks over Stan, in that she knows *so much* she thinks she can guess what Stan feels and kind of flood him with too much information unintentionally. It’s not a bad thing to try and inform him about gender stuff and bi/pan/ply/omnisexualities but Stan isn’t ready for all that yet. And I think Stan is also the kind of person who wouldn’t be super comforted by labels and facts the way Wendy is. Where Wendy likes having specific definitions to explain how she feels, Stan is overwhelmed by those labels bc he’ll overthink them and doubt himself
...which is why I prefer Stan exploring this stuff with Kenny, bc I have a really elaborate kind of relationship development between those two that could blossom if they let themselves grow closer, esp during times where Eric and Kyle are off doing Their Thing. Kenny being someone who’s incredibly sure of who he is, being a great listener, very emotionally sensitive, able to keep a secret, and able to read people well and handle situations between people. Ken is the type who can listen to Stan w/o judging him or making him feel overwhelmed, and knows when to ask questions and when to back off, etc. I have a whole thing abt how their developing relationship can be incredibly mutually beneficial but Yanno that’s for the next bulletpoint 👌 basically Kenny could be someone Stan can explore himself with, and not be pressured
And then there’s Stan’s gender identity which I also Love. I love nb Stan. Just in the kind of nb where he doesn’t want to give himself a specific label, he just wants to Be Himself, whatever that means. I hc Stan as primarily male-aligned nb, in that he’s most comfortable with being a guy or being perceived as a guy and generally presenting masc, but a lot of that is in Stan being more *socially* comfortable presenting that way, instead of him feeling more “like a guy.” I hc Stan to primarily use he/him pronouns but to also be ok w/ she/they depending on the situation. I think Wendy and Kenny would also help him w this, in hc’ing both of them as nb as well (though of course their identities manifest in different ways and they’re comfortable doing different things than Stan)
(Also I love Stan using goth stuff to explore his gender and presentation....using a more feminine name like Raven?? Being able to use nor androgynous ways of dressing?? I lov him sm ;;o;;)
(Plus I have a big hc I love where Stan tries to come out to his parents and he’s bracing for impact for the response and BOTH TIMES his dad STEALS THE SPOTLIGHT bc it’s like “ugh, what is it with kids these days coming up with FAKE TERMS for stuff that’s JUST NORMAL. It’s NORMAL to think about wanting to kiss other guys Stan duh” and Sharon and Stan just. “No....dad....straight men don’t want to kiss other men wtf” and later it’s “ok Stan I believe you about the bisexuality thing but this nonbinary thing?? Again it’s NORMAL!! To feel like a bit of both and want to be seen as a woman sometimes” and Stan’s just pinching his nose again.
He was afraid of becoming his father but. Not like this. Nb bi KINGS)
2) Otp: STENNY!!!!! I love stenny sm. (But I’ll get into that in a bit but first)
S/tendy is also really really cute, but imo it’s the pinnacle of school love. I feel like Stan and Wendy can be good together and genuinely like each other’s company, but I feel like their life goals and ambitions would stray, and they wouldn’t be completely compatible in a way that would be really sustainable as adults. It’s not a bad thing, and I think they could absolutely remain close friends w/o necessarily needing a romantic relationship
Anyways. I adore Stenny. A lot of it again revolves around some development hc stuff I have, mostly in how compatible and mutually beneficial the relationship can be. I like imagining them growing closer and more intimate w each other in a very private kind of way. Like them hanging out one on one, and eventually that evolves into texting, calling, sleeping over w just the two of them, etc, until they have this entire close relationship that’s all their own
And with compatibility, I think both Kenny and Stan are incredibly compassionate, sensitive, thoughtful people who can just sit and enjoy some silence. Unlike Eric and Kyle, who need constant mental stimulation—who need to be DOING things—Stan and Kenny can just...relax. And I think their sensitivity can also lead them to be able to support each other emotionally. Both of them can listen to each other, both of them are capable of having serious conversations and being patient through those conversations, both of them are perceptive and sensitive enough to recognize what the other is feeling and to have some idea of what to do about it. I think they’re both good at knowing how to take care of people (rather than someone like Kyle, who likes taking care of others but doesn’t really know how to do it very well; he’s like his mother in that way, he’s good at obvious stuff like injuries and crying but he can be kinda overbearing, presumptuous, and indelicate abt the quieter stuff but ENOUGH abt Kyle AHJSKDKF)
I think stenny is strong also in how the two can help one another. Kenny is realistic but careful and can provide support for Stan when he’s going through a rough patch. Kenny shows up to Stan’s room in the middle of the night with water and snacks and listens to Stan rant or just *is there* to show Stan he’s not alone. Kenny answers Stan’s 2am texts when Stan can’t sleep and stays on the phone with him all night to keep him company
And Stan is earnest in how much he cares abt his friends and would just...really easily show he cares w/o any judgement. Stan saves seats for Kenny, sends him “be safe!” texts when Ken goes home, offers his bed and his home to Kenny and Karen when they need a place to stay, and it never has an air of pity or self-righteousness about it—it’s just Stan genuinely being nice. And that kind of attention and care is a breath of fresh air for Ken, whos usually forgotten
And both of them are just. They’re a shoulder to cry on, or a pillar to lean against. And that’s smth they need—Stan to feel listened to, Kenny bc he takes on so much stress. They can be a rock for each other.
3) brotp: I love Stan making friends honestly ;;o;;
like I said in my kyle analysis I love the super best friends a lot ;;o;; they really care abt each other and don’t want to lose each other which is really nice. I just...love them being best friends + brotherly towards each other
But I also like Stan making friends outside of the m4—with the girls or the goth kids or even with someone like Tweek. (Though I cant really see him hanging out w “Craig’s gang” mostly bc there’s this air of exclusivity w the “groups,” like an established dynamic that no one really likes to cross, bc they’ve all jus Known each other for so long and have solidified those groups + dynamics—though I can see him also befriending the individual members of Craig’s gang, esp token or jimmy)
His friendship w the goth kids means a lot to me HONESTLY I love the idea of them remaining friends bc they vibe together well—esp when they get a better hang of mental health stuff, and they can talk abt gender and coping mechanisms and cool movies they’ve watched ;;o;; i think being with the goth kids could be a really important part of Stan forming his personal identity and while I don’t think they’d be *best friends* I can still see them as ppl he’d invite to his parties or to the movies and stuff
4) notp: s...st/yle, bc like I said in my kyle analysis I just. Can’t see it. I think kyle hurts Stan too much and that they need to work on their friendship, and that they’re much more compatible as friends than as anything else. I much much prefer a brotherly relationship where they’d feel weird even thinking about kissing each other lol
My other notps for Stan are less about me not liking the ship and more abt me like. Not wanting the characters w anyone else but who I already ship them with. I don’t like Stan with Craig or Tweek bc I can’t see those two w anyone but each other, for example. (Plus I have a lotta hc’s abt craig and his feelings for Tweek ;;o;; craig is a one man kinda guy lmao)
Though I do think Stan is extremely compatible with lots of characters. Idk why ppl ship Kyle w everyone when I don’t think kyle is v compatible with ppl—Stan is def someone who could date like. Just abt anyone. I don’t like Stan ships that aren’t stenny or st/endy but I can at least understand them. Stan is just really nice and approachable and can get along w a lotta people
5) First hc I think of: oh I love the hc that Stan sometimes writes his own music, but he’s kinda shy abt his voice so he doesn’t sing very often.
Or hc that he has a bit of a “dad bod” when he gets older. And the chubbier he is, the happier and more relaxed he is ;;o;; (Bc if Stan is too aware of his body and trying to work out to get the “perfect” figure, he’ll stress over it)
Or Stan growing up to breed service dogs ;;o;; (thank u magnus burnsides for this PERFECT idea)
6) how I relate to this character: I’ve kinda incorporated my own gender stuff into my interpretation of Stan (though I relate more to my gender-interpretation of Kenny)
But I think.....hm. It’s kinda hard to pick out a way I relate to Stan bc I’m so invested in seeing him grow and develop it doesn’t feel like it relates to me. Probably tho I relate to his weird balance of loyalty vs exasperation. Stan loves his friends and family and will do a lot for them. But my god. Sometimes they’re all so stupid. Randy being randy is obvious but remember when Kyle had a breakdown over the fucking Facebook farm game?? Stan is so tired
7) what gives me secondhand embarrassment abt Stan: uhhhh hm. Well, sometimes he’s kinda ignorant and goes along w what everyone else is doing, but honestly I don’t really cringe over Stan. He’s learning and trying and I can’t really fault him for that so much
8) cinnamon roll or problematic fave: cinnamon roll ;;o;; Stan is someone who’s usually pretty genuine and I love his role as the “straight man” in a lot of the stories. He’s been through a lot but I want him to just...be happy ;;o;; I love portrayals of Stan where he can be happy?? Like yeah he can be a cynic but he’s also really compassionate and I jus ;;o;;
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Why I Do What I Do, Part 2: Every Good Writer Reads
When I was little I read everything I could get my tiny fingers on. I read my way through my elementary school library– the librarian wouldn’t even bother sending me back to class after a certain point, because she knew that if she did I’d be back for another book by the end of the day. I read a lot, and I got fast at it, and I loved it.
I especially loved the Warrior Cats series by Erin Hunter. Gail Carson Levine was a staple for me; I never read Ella Enchanted, (because I didn’t know that had a book counterpart yet, I just knew the movie), but I loved Fairest. I can’t remember the title, but I remember a book about a girl who was a genius, but intentionally flunked all her tests so nobody would separate her from her only friend in her grade. I remember a book called Savvy, about a family with inherited preternatural abilities that don’t always work quite right. I read Girl in Blue over and over and over again. I loved Greek mythology and fairy tales and folklore, and I read that whole shelf of the library twice. Until I was twelve I loved every book I came across.
I can only remember reading one book that I didn’t like– I don’t remember the title, but it was a very slice-of-life novel about a teenage girl and her mom not agreeing on where the girl’s life should go, and bickering about what kind of sweater she should wear– and I hated that book. It took me three years to slog through it.
Everything else I chose haphazardly and read voraciously. Fantasy, sci-fi, action, school life, home life. I didn’t go to bookstores very much because there weren’t any close by, but when we did I spent hours picking one promising-looking book– because I knew reading was an expensive hobby, and I’ve been a little frugal since I was young.
A lot of it was probably escapism as a coping mechanism, but I just knew I was having a blast even when my neurochemicals didn’t really want to cooperate with me, or when getting out of bed was too much.
When we moved to California, I stopped reading as much, but I still read some in middle school. The Found series was great until I lost one of the books. I read a biblical fiction book, Lineage of Grace, which was an unexpected treat– and it should be mentioned that I first read the Bible in sixth grade, and understood next to none of it. I discovered my two favorite book series of all time in middle school (I think in eighth grade): the Monument 14 series by Emma Laybourne and the Unwind series by Neil Shusterman. Both of them have been my favorites for a long time, and still are.
In seventh grade, I saw an advertisement for the movie adaptation of Atlas Shrugged, and I asked my mom if she knew what book it was based on. She said she’d heard of it, but that I probably couldn’t read it because it was very long and very difficult to get through. So, being who I am as a person, that was the book I bought next time I found myself in a book store, and I read Atlas Shrugged in a month or two– I’m still proud of that because there have been several people (all grown businessmen, which grinds my gears even further, personally) who scoffed at me and told me that middle-schoolers can’t read that book, because they couldn’t. It pissed me off so much once that I dragged the offending man into a philosophical discussion of Ayn Rand’s point– I don’t agree with all of her philosophy, but I wanted to piss that man off as much as he had pissed me off. I was an angry seventh-grader, but I digress.
By high school, with three AP classes each year and accelerated classes as part of my high school’s trimester system, I was reading less and less “traditional” literature in my free time, except for my assigned reading for my English classes. Lucky for me, I loved most of those too. “Chronicle of a Death Foretold,” “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Jane Eyre, and everything written by Jane Austen (admittedly, I haven’t read much of her yet, but I’ll get there) were all instant loves. Catcher in the Rye was interesting, if not as much of a favorite as some others. Hamlet was good, if only because I appreciated something (anything) that I could interpret as homosexual or homoerotic (yes, I am talking about Hamlet and Horatio). The only thing I can distinctly remember reading and disliking was Romeo and Juliet– all the characters were a little too short-sighted for my tastes.
However, I discovered a new reading love in high school– and you may cringe when I say: Fanfiction. I fell in love with fanfiction, and I still love it just as much as Unwind or Pride and Prejudice or The Hobbit. I won’t spend a whole lot of time here talking about fanfiction and why I appreciate it just as much (if not more) than traditional literature, but I may give y’all an update down the road about it, because I am genuinely passionate about treating fanfiction as a genre of literature just like any other written piece. For now though, I will move on.
In college, I spent one semester knocking out all my prerequisites, which meant mostly math and science classes, and one English 201 (my AP classes let me out of 101 and 102). That English class was miserable, probably one of the most miserable classes of my life. Everything we read was misogynistic, at least semi-racist (of course, under the guise of “historical realism,” because we all know people of color were first seen in 1963), and depressing to top it off. Whatever literary, technical merit the works had as representations of the craft of writing was entirely washed out by the abysmal or just plain repulsive subject matter and themes. This English 201 class did teach me, however, that there is a world of difference between being good at writing and being a good writer. I hope to be the latter.
My last three semesters at my current college have been significantly kinder to me. My major, Creative Writing, means I get to take a lot of literature classes, even if my community college only has one writing class.
I’ve taken a Shakespearean literature class, and loved it. My teacher opened the class by calling herself a heretic, and that some of her opinions about Shakespeare (he was not an illiterate wool merchant, he had male and female sexual interests, he was a feminist despite him writing “Taming of the Shrew,” and he was absolutely insufferable to be around) are borderline psychotic, as far as some other academics are concerned. So, of course, I love her to death. I followed her to two more classes in subsequent semesters, both being one half of a British Literature sequence from the inception of the English language to modern-day. My favorite works from these classes are Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice (again, you’ve gotta love the queer representation, and the hilarity), Austen’s “Plan of a Novel, according to Hints from Various Quarters,” and Mill’s “On Liberty.”
I took a similar literature sequence for American literature with a different professor, but I took the “Civil War to Contemporary” section before the “First Contact to Civil War.” This professor is another whom I love to death– he majored in English with an emphasis in Queer and Gender Studies, and wrote his dissertation on video games as a form of literature (also, he’s written peer-reviewed academic essays on my favorite video game series, Bioshock). So almost everything between these two semesters of American ltierature had a focus on people of color, indigenous people, genderqueer and nonbinary people, and queer people. We read Passing by Nella Larson, and I met some girls in the class and we got so excited about the book that the professor told us he’d let us come in to talk about it to future semesters. I also loved reading Benito Cereno with the class, mostly for the discussion and the essay I got to write about it.
This semester, I’m taking a World Literature class, and I’m currently in the second half of that British Literature sequence– which means, after this semester, I will have taken every literature class my community college offers except one– as well as a philosophy class, my final semester of required Spanish, and a creative writing class.
You have two out of the three pieces of the puzzle of where I’m from now. You know about me as a person, and you know about what I’ve read. I’ll see you here, same time, same place, next week to tell you what I’ve written, and then we can move on to the present.
I can’t wait to see you guys again. I hope everyone is staying safe, healthy, and happy.
#reading#creative writing#where i'm from#fanfiction#literary canon#school#i think i might be getting better at taggin?#who knows tbh#if ur here from my ao3 say heyyyyy XD
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I’m going to try and summarize what bothers me about VLD from as objective a standpoint as possible. A lot of people, including myself, have already made posts pointing out specific issues, especially with regards to the messages it sends to abuse victims, so I’m not going to touch on that or any type of emotional issues here at all. I’m going to skip specifics except where needed as examples, and just talk about the nature of story telling itself. As someone who not only has used fiction for escapism, but who has studied story telling both in terms of literary analysis of novels and of religious texts, it’s a subject that I feel very strongly about.
Warning: long ass post.
Okay, a couple of disclaimers first.
One, I am a firm believer in the “don’t like, don’t read” mentality. If I don’t like something, I don’t talk about it, I just move on. Y’all have never seen a single discourse post about The Dragon Prince, right? Yup, that’s ‘cause I really didn’t like it. It goes for countless other things too. I don’t expend time and effort and energy on things I don’t like, that’s just wasteful. So, why am I harping on VLD? Because I really enjoyed it, despite a couple of what I felt were minor issues at the time, for most of its run. That’s why I -- and I imagine the same goes for many other fans -- am so bitter.
Two, I came late into the Voltron universe. I joined in a couple of days before s6 dropped, and only watched DotU as well as the other Western versions in the past couple of months. Haven’t had a chance to see the original Japanese anime yet.
Three, I’m not a shipper, in general. I don’t ship anything in VLD except Zarkon/Honerva. Romance/sexual stuff is just not my thing, I’ll take swords and explosions any day over that. So my saltiness regarding the series has nothing to do with ships.
Alright, so I think my major gripes with the series can be sorted into three categories:
1. Inconsistency of Story Type:
This is, of course, my own opinion, but through my time of consuming fiction, I think there are three types of stories:
Good vs. Evil: the most basic type of story. The good guys are good, the bad guys are bad, and everyone stays well in their lanes. Think Disney movies, typical Saturday morning cartoons -- the heroes are exemplary of good traits, the villains are one-dimensional and unrepentant, evil for the sake of being evil. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this story type imo, and there are several stories of this nature that I really do enjoy.
Grey Morality: a much more nuanced take on the concepts of good and evil, right and wrong. Due to the very nature of grey morality, there are varying degrees to which this can be implemented. Probably the most common one I’ve seen is where the heroes do some bad/questionable things, the villains/antagonists do some good things or have the right motives or are “noble” in some way; but overall, there is a sense that there are certain lines that shouldn’t be crossed, certainly by the heroes but also sometimes by the villains/antagonists too. An excellent example of this is Firefly. Another example, that puts a total twist on it by having the protagonist also be the “villain,” is Death Note -- even though the story resolves in a way that to the audience is, really, the only sustainable way possible, it still leaves neither the characters in-show nor the audience with any sense of victory. This concept is taken to the extreme by a series like Tenpou Ibun: Ayakashi Ayashi, where no one is right and no one is wrong, but at the same time everyone is right and wrong, and simply just human. There is no good and no evil, just context, circumstances, and choices.
Combination: this type of story starts with the Good vs. Evil dichotomy but, as the story progresses and the protagonist becomes more acquainted and involved with their environment, both the protagonist and the audience come to understand that the picture is actually much more complicated than that, and it evolves into Grey Morality. Bleach is a great example. We start with seeing the Hollow as evil, mindless monsters that need to be killed; we learn that they are actually human spirits that have transformed into “monsters” through pain and grief and, therefore, we pity them but also understand that it’s a mercy to put them down; we then find out that, actually, not all are mindless and they have a complicated society and culture of their own; and, eventually, come to accept them as (reluctant) allies against a bigger threat, understanding that they are creatures in their own right.
From the moment that Keith -- arguably the character within the main cast that had the most time/character development spent on him -- was revealed as being half-Galra (that is, half the “evil” race of the show), VLD promised to be that third type of story. Because there is no way that the writers would make one of their protagonists evil by default because of his blood in a kids’ show, duh, so by logical conclusion this means that that race is not all evil, after all. This was further emphasized by Lotor’s introduction to the plot -- a severe departure from his character in any previous incarnation -- and cemented by the episode, “The Legend Begins,” where we finally get to see the other side of things and the fact that not even Zarkon and Haggar were “born evil,” as well.
After the Keith reveal, we got shocked reactions from his teammates, notably and understandably Allura; got only an apology from her and not the rest for their treatment of him (which could have been better but, whatever, it was a step in the right direction, great!); and then... back to a weird strained relationship in working alongside Galra without another word on the subject.
Okay. Fine.
Then we get Lotor -- again, some of that initial resentment/treatment could be understandable to some extent, and eventually on the road towards, seemingly, genuine acceptance. Cool.
I won’t go into details about the colony episode, because that’s been done to death already, but, woah, major setback there. Back to the knee-jerk reaction of treating individuals of a race as complicit and responsible for the actions and perception of that race as perpetuated by a handful of individuals. And then -- flash forward to s8 -- we are welcoming Galra allies in our cause! Please join our Coalition! We want to help you!
Look. I’m not saying that you can’t retcon stuff; that you can’t go Good vs. Evil, develop into Grey Morality, and then reveal something and BOOM, jk, it was Good vs. Evil all along, gotcha! I’m sure that there is an author somewhere out there that has pulled that off effectively (I can’t think of any examples myself right now, but I’m sure it must exist somewhere).
I am saying that if you’re going to do that -- if you are going to pull the rug out from under everyone’s feet and sacrifice some crucial character development (and crucial characters themselves, let’s be honest) -- you better have a DAMN GOOD IN-UNIVERSE reason for doing so. And no, shock value or getting rid of a character because they were overshadowing the protags doesn’t count. Otherwise, your protagonists will look like giant jerks. Unless, of course, that’s what you’re going for, but I highly doubt that was the thinking here.
And then, we proceed to flip flop between “I knew it, the Galra are irredeemably evil, what’s wrong with these people?!” (I think Hunk -- HUNK, by far the most empathetic character -- said this at some point in s7?) and “Here, we can work together towards a brighter future” or some shit. You can’t do that. I mean you can, but you’re gonna get major backlash from your audience. Pick a fucking direction and stick with it.
For the past three seasons, it has really felt like the story line is being pulled into two different directions: 1) staying true to the original source material of Paladins = good, Galra/Drule = bad, and 2) providing the viewers with a groundbreaking, nuanced interpretation.
My dudes. You can’t have both. Trying to implement both of these approaches means having morally grey, nuanced characters operating within a narrative framework that is subject to an overarching principle of a strict Good/Evil dichotomy. Do you know how fucking hard that is to pull off effectively without diving headfirst into the pitfall of punishing your morally grey characters by default, simply because they happen to exist in a universe that cannot, by nature, support them???? I can think of only a handful of authors that have managed that and, I would argue, that the man at the top of the list only managed to be so effective and influential because what he wrote was, in essence, a mythology. Mythologies have a totally different set of concerns surrounding them. And even then, he went to great lengths, both in his works and outside of them in discussions/interviews, to note that the “evil” in his world could never have happened without it intentionally being part of the larger cosmological design, i.e. balance. I’m talking, of course, about Tolkien.
Why the fuck would you attempt to pull something like this off in a kids’ cartoon?! Avatar: The Last Airbender, since everyone loves that comparison, was defined by a black/white view that developed into a very simple grey morality, and it was this limited scope that allowed it to be presented so effectively. None of this sashaying back and forth.
Especially when this flip flopping is done for le dramatic effect/shock value, with seemingly no good in-story reason?? Of course it’s gonna fall flat.
2. Concept vs. Execution:
This is probably what drives me crazy the most about VLD.
As an idea, it was fucking brilliant -- anyone who has watched DotU, even with all the nostalgia, I imagine, can admit that it was very much a cut and dry 80s cartoon, with simple concerns; Vehicle Voltron attempted some nuances, but the Lion Voltron part of the show, which was by far the more popular part, was pretty stiff in that regard. VLD took that and introduced themes like: being biracial (Keith, Lotor, etc.), having to choose between duty and family (Krolia), having to choose between personal dreams and important relationships (Shiro), having to overcome deep-seated understandable prejudice and work with people you never thought you could come to stand for a greater cause and through that see that not everything is black and white and attain a greater understanding of the world (Allura), leaving home and learning to survive in a totally foreign environment in the worst circumstances possible (the paladins), dealing with disability, mental illness/ptsd while also dealing with issues of being in a position of leadership/power (Shiro), parental abuse (Lotor), substance abuse (Honerva and Zarkon), being a clone and coming to terms with that (Shiro/Kuron), learning to compromise and sacrifice personal integrity/morals for the betterment/survival of those you have made yourself responsible for (the paladins), and so much more than that. Lotor’s relationship with Honerva/Haggar had serious undertones of both Mother and Child symbolism, as well as Arthurian legend. The whole quintessence thing drew pointers from ancient and medieval concepts of alchemy.
The inclusion of any of these things, injected into a pretty straightforward and tame original source material like DotU, was inspired. What an absolutely fantastic take, with incredible potential.
... and it was the shoddiest, shittiest implementation and execution of any concepts that I have ever seen. Like... how? How did they manage to not be able to successfully see any of these themes to a close, and to actually offend the vast majority of their fanbase (regardless of background, age, race, sexuality, literally from all walks of life) by the way these themes were handled????
I’m sure time restraints, direction from above, etc., played a big part in it, but still. If you don’t have time to properly develop the interpersonal relationships between the core members of your main group of characters -- to the point that, say, Keith and Pidge? Hunk and Shiro? Did they ever properly, truly have any meaningful interactions? -- there’s no way you could properly handle all of this.
Don’t bite off more than you can chew.
Also? As stories are being fleshed out, they and their characters tend to take on a life of their own. The Lotor/Keith parallels? I totally believe and understand how it’s possible that it was unintentional. But when that happens, you go back and rework the rest of your plot to make sense with what you now have before you. You adjust and adapt. You don’t barrel on ahead headless and not acknowledging it, and you don’t force your characters into straitjackets just because you want to doggedly follow this one idea.
3. The Female Lead:
Let me begin by saying that I really, really wanted to like Allura, and the way she was written was one of the biggest turn offs and disappointments for me. I won’t go into specifics regarding her, as there many posts that already address the problematic nature of how she treats people of her race vs. anyone Galra, but I will just look at her character development as a whole.
Perhaps the easiest way for me to voice my frustrations here would be with a comparison. Let’s look at my favorite female protagonist of all time, Nakajima Youko, from Juuni Kokuki (aka. The Twelve Kindgoms).
Youko starts off as a very meek high school girl, from a typical modern Japanese family. Class representative, top grades, is scared of conflict and wants to live up to everyone’s expectations of her, which makes her very submissive, a total coward emotionally, mentally, and physically. She seeks to please everyone and, as a result, harms her own development by never giving any thought to her own desires and ends up bullied by everyone around her. Magic happens, shit goes down, and she is whisked away to a different world that is parallel to our own, along with two friends from school; ripped from her home, her family, with absolutely no way back. This other world has a different language, people who end up in there from our world are treated like garbage and are slaves, has a medieval level of tech/advancement, and Youko with her friends has to figure out how to survive. She finds out she is actually queen of one of the realms in this world, which makes her a target of various groups. She is betrayed by literally everyone around her, everyone she places her trust in, including the two friends that got transported to this world with her.
She goes from meek and mild to bloodthirsty and brash; lashing out at everyone around her, plotting to kill those that offer her a helping hand, becoming unreasonably suspicious and racist and way out of line. Understandably so, but the narrative doesn’t, for one moment, present this as okay. Some more stuff happens and she finally snaps out of it, comes to a couple of realizations, and has major character development. She develops the attitude that, yes, people have betrayed and hurt her, but their actions towards her and their opinion of her is none of her business. It will not stop her from acting in ways that are in line with her own morals; if people choose to betray and use her, that’s on them. She will simply do what she must, and treat everyone as an individual according to their actions. This doesn’t mean that she adopts a pushover mentality -- it just means that she loses her knee-jerk reaction, and doesn’t rush to conclusions. She becomes a badass warrior and queen, strong and just, and, frankly, one of the most well-developed female characters I have ever seen.
Do I think this is the only way to write a strong female character? Of course not. But I’m convinced this is what the writers wanted to do with Allura, this kind of progression and path, from being angry, lost, and alone to being a confident, capable, magnificent ruler. And, imo, they totally missed the mark.
I think that the writers were so focused on giving us a “strong” modern female character, and getting as far away from her DotU damsel in distress depiction as possible, that they ended up writing her as, basically, a bully. Sure, they tell us -- both through other characters’ words in the show and through interviews -- about her diplomacy, peaceful nature, leadership quality, open-mindedness, etc., but they never show it to us. In almost every key moment in the series, she has been written to be combative and suffering from tunnel-vision.
And a huge part of this is that they simply didn’t give her any room to grow. Youko’s character started off at maybe... 5% of her potential? She was honestly so “weak,” I thought about dropping the series. But by the point the anime ended (because the story itself is unfinished and unlikely to continue, unfortunately), I’d say she’s at around 70%. That makes for an extremely dramatic, fulfilling, and believable character development. The VLD writers started Allura off much higher than that. Too high. From the get-go she’s a highly accomplished martial artist, has incredible physical strength due to her Altean heritage, a seemingly natural affinity for leadership and for appealing to people, she’s very attractive, well spoken, had a loving and supportive family, is a princess, had a brilliant alchemist for a father, has access to the universe’s greatest super weapon -- I mean, yes, she’s had to deal with immense loss and grief and come to terms with it in a very short period of time, and lost her father a second time so to speak with Alfor’s AI -- but overall, everything has been set up and handed to her in a nice package. Other than overcoming her hatred towards the Galra and idealization of Altea/Alteans, really, there’s nothing left for her to do that would be defining for her character.
That’s not to say that characters that are extremely accomplished from the start are a bad thing. But in their case, their emotional and mental development and maturity is that much more important, because that’s all that’s left to work with. The writers didn’t really give Allura any significant room to grow in terms of any of that. (And no, I don’t consider her new alchemical powers from Oriande as her growing; she expended no effort for that, it wasn’t really a trial at all for her; it was like me playing a video game on casual mode with the “killallenemies” console command enabled). Her overcoming her racism towards the Galra, beginning with Keith and BoM and continuing to do so with subsequent Galra allies, had a TON of potential and I had been so excited to see where it would go; but that fell flat, totally forgotten by the story.
In contrast, you have Lotor -- we see him struggling to claw his way out of the hand that fate has dealt him, to grow beyond his family’s influence and abuse. Both on and off screen, even described by his own enemies in great detail, we see just how much he has had to fight and to earn everything he has and he is, even things that shouldn’t have to be “earned” in the first place. He’s lost Daibazaal and Altea, both his father and his mother, he’s too Galra for anyone who’s not and not nearly enough Galra for anyone who is. Literally nothing has been handed to him. The juxtaposition between him and Allura, had Allura been given more breathing room by the writers, could have been fantastic and I would have shipped the hell out of it, like I do in DotU. She’s had everything he’s ever wanted (loving family, supportive father, Alfor himself, exploration, alchemy), etc.; envy would have been extremely appropriate on his part, and very interesting to work through, but that was never explored either.
So, I feel like what ended up happening was that a huge imbalance in how these two characters came across was created, made only more evident when their relationship with each other was what was front and center. And, at least for me, this is what makes me completely unable to see Allura’s side of things, and I freely admit it -- I simply don’t understand her or her actions, because I don’t feel like I’ve been shown enough of her inner workings as a character to be able to care about her in the slightest. I can definitely see where the writers were going with her, or where they thought they were going. But unless they actually meant for the character that is, for all intents and purposes, their female lead to be a racist, abusive, immature person playing at being an adult and at being the leader of a coalition spanning galaxies, who has no problem condemning millions of lives to death and devastation at a whim of her emotions because they are Valid™, and who wades dangerously close to “Mary Sue” territory many times due the way the narrative frames her... then all I see on screen is an unfinished character. Unfinished, because the writers didn’t take any opportunities in the narrative for the flaws and issues she does have to be addressed and overcome, opportunities of which there were plenty! I absolutely don’t mind that she has flaws -- flawed heroes are amazing. But, you gotta do something about them, i.e. address them and work through them. Otherwise your heroes remain static in a plot that is evolving and that’s not a good look.
And, you know, I honestly think DotU Allura is a much stronger female character. She works for everything she gets. She works her ass off. She has to fight to not only be allowed to be part of the team and fly a lion, but even just to do everyday common things like be out in the fields or swim or whatever; forget practicing martial arts. Coran literally ties her up at one point to prevent her from participating. Nanny is a constant battle for her. Over everything, from her clothes to her manner of speaking to where she’s going. But she doesn’t stop, she doesn’t give up. And she fucks up, BIG TIME, several times, she does TONS of stupid shit. But she learns, acknowledges it, gets called out on it, tries again, and keeps on trying. DotU Allura’s biggest battles, in my mind, aren’t with Lotor or the Drule forces or Zarkon, but with her own team and those she considers family, and her struggle for the others’ acceptance of herself and her skills within the group. And for that, she is a much stronger, more solid female character than VLD Allura, despite all superficial appearances and frilly pink dresses and 80s voice acting.
Again, like I said in a previous post, I don’t conform to the view that creators owe their fans anything. Write things however the fuck you want. You want to kill Allura off, fine. Do away with Lotor too? Cool. I completely understand people who want happy endings in fiction because, it’s true, reality fucking sucks; there are several fictional works I turn to whenever real life is too much. And I would be lying if I said that I don’t crave stories where characters like Lotor are given happy endings; of course I want my favorite characters to be okay. But overall, I’m the type of person who, as long as things make for an effective, compelling narrative, I’ll be content with it, regardless of whether the ending is tragic or happy or anything in between.
So you want to kill off your morally grey character and your female lead, who is also one of the only women on the team, who is also a princess figure, who has also been completely visually redesigned in such a way that you know women of color will relate to her? That’s fine by me, go right ahead. But do so in a way that is meaningful and makes sense within the larger narrative you created, and isn’t some empty, sensationalist gesture.
And also be aware of your fanbase. This is a reboot -- that comes with certain expectations attached, as a number of the viewers will very likely be fans of the old series, watching out of curiosity, nostalgia, etc. Expectations like, the princess lives, the heroes aren’t assholes, etc. (and I’m referring to expectations from DotU and other Western iterations, rather than the original Japanese series). You don’t have to conform to these expectations -- personally, I’m a big fan of tropes being subverted -- but you need to be aware of them. You need to know the rules before you break them, and if you break them, you better break them damn well.
Imo, VLD ultimately failed to deliver on these fronts, and pretty much fell prey to what a lot of series do -- it couldn’t handle the shift from being primarily episodic in nature (i.e., each episode is self-contained, with a clear beginning, middle, and end, while operating under a distant general goal, like defeating Zarkon; so, s1 and s2) to becoming a more complex narrative unraveling a hidden agenda (s3 onwards). Kind of like how the paladins made no provisions for how they would handle things after Zarkon’s defeat, it feels like the writers didn’t really have one solid plan for how to develop past that point as well.
tl;dr: Whoever is responsible for the way VLD turned out should write a book: how to offend your entire audience in eight seasons or less.
#okay i think this is my last personal post on the matter#i think i've vented about everything that's been bugging me for the past couple of seasons#i'll still reblog and comment on things i find interesting#but i'm gonna focus my energy on constructive stuff#like plucking the hairline of lotor's wig and writing fanfic :)#talk: v
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Bunny Reviews: Star Wars The Last Jedi *SPOILERS*
**spoilers abound!** You’ve been warned…
So I finally saw The Last Jedi today after DAYS of scrolling through my dash and seeing every possible reaction along the spectrum of outright loathing and disgust to adoration and glee. So basically, I went into the film nervous, skeptical, but hopeful.
To give some background, like many of you reading this, I’ve been watching Star Wars since I was a toddler laughing as my dad acted out scenes as Jabba and the Emperor. My sister and I staged lightsaber battles when we were 8 and my library bag was filled with books from the now “Legends” era. I love Star Wars, I love its characters, and I’ve enjoyed it through its many iterations, including the prequels (I will defend them to death so don’t start), the animated shows (I still remember how awesome those first shorts were), the comics, the EU books, and The Force Awakens.
Now that we’ve established that, here is my opinion of The Last Jedi in a nutshell: It’s a beautifully shot film with some poignant character moments draped over an uneven plot and some disheartening characterization choices.
Okay, that’s out of the way *exhales*
Now let me say this: I get it. There’s a lot of good in this movie, a lot of genuinely evocative material and solid performances to praise here…but I also understand the complaints because this movie does have A LOT of problems. So here’s my (fair as I can be) take:
The Great (like I teared up and it was so GOOD)
- Mark Hamill’s performance. Whatever script he was given, he still shone and gave this role his all–as always. He was wry, anguished, conflicted, and strong, and you believed every single nuance of emotion he imbued this film’s Luke. The gravitas and dedication he brought to this character intensified my already deep love for Luke Skywalker, and nothing can change that. I felt his despair, his bitterness, but there was also fierce pride I felt when he chose to take a stand and defend what he believed to be right, leading to…
- Luke vs. Kylo. Any fight that starts with Luke Skywalker giving you sass is a win in my book, no matter how it ended. I just enjoyed seeing Luke as I know him best: self-assured, unflappable, and utterly human. The fight was well-shot and I have to say I got chills when Luke declared “And I will not be the last Jedi” and then cutting to the shot of Rey being a Force boss. Everything right with this movie can be encompassed in that one sequence about courage, persistence, and hope, which is at the heart of Star Wars.
- Carrie Fisher. Every scene with her carried more weight knowing she is no longer with us, and her last conversation with Rey especially made me tear up. We do indeed have all we need. Her Leia remains in this film as beloved, strong, and defiant as always, maybe a bit worn and weary, but still every bit a Princess–our Princess, and this film allowed her to captivate us once more.
- Luke and Leia’s reunion. I wanted MORE of this, so much more, but this quiet scene of a brother grieving with and loving his sister was beautiful.
- Yoda shows up. Guys I NERDED OUT here, like to have Frank Oz come back and play ROTJ!Yoda was the perfect surprise I needed. And to have him show such understanding and affection for Luke during one of his lowest points felt fitting and was another lovely character moment.
- Luke’s final scene. Context aside, the way his passing was framed against the double sunset and the Force Theme wrung tears out of me and I couldn’t help it because it’s LUKE and all of my love for this character just streamed out in this moment.
The Good (it’s solid, thumbs up)
- The female characters. This film is still very much Rey’s story, and I still appreciate the innocence, compassion, and thoughtfulness Daisy brings to this protagonist. And now she is joined by more of Leia, Admiral Holdo (a role that really surprised me–in a good way), aaaand…
- Rose Tico! I love Kelly Marie Tran, and her Rose is adorkable, caring, and endearingly noble. It’s unfair that we haven’t had another Asian lead in Star Wars until her, but I’m glad she’s here now. I like that she does get a bit more narrative heft with her love for her sister and desire to see the oppression of the First Order end. And she’s an animal lover! And frees exploited creatures! She is actually the best.
- Finn’s arc. I will disagree with some people by saying that he actually has an arc, but I believe he does. In TFA, we meet Finn as a former child soldier escaping from the First Order and trying to just survive. He’s inspired and encouraged by Rey and is determined to stay with her and protect her, and so he helps out the Resistance towards that goal. But he hasn’t actually joined in the Resistance–he still believes their cause is pretty futile because he KNOWS how vast and awful the First Order is. And so in TLJ, he has to process all of that and decide whether he wants to commit to this effort for the long haul. In being exposed to others like him also exploited by the First Order and working with Rose and Poe, he comes into his own and chooses for himself to be part of this, and that’s a big step for him. It could have been executed better, but there was a discernible change by the end of the film, and we see a Finn who is more settled in his decisions and less afraid. He has never been a coward, and now he’s showing more courage in choosing to stand against those who used and harmed him.
- The opening sequence. It was frenetic, desperate, and moving, similar to the feelings I got during the opening of the new Star Trek film during Kirk’s birth–the same sadness and sacrifice permeates this scene.
- The cinematography. I have to give this film props for some gorgeously framed shots and good use of color and atmosphere. There were a lot of moments that stayed with me simply because of how they were captured.
- The acting. Everyone here is dedicating themselves to these characters, and it shows. This is a truly solid cast, and I appreciate them so much. There is a true sense of camaraderie among these characters, and they have good chemistry together. I also have to give a shout-out to the visible diversity evident in the different worlds visited, the Resistance pilots, and even the casino scene. That matters, so keep it front and center.
- The PORGS. Y’all knew this was coming but how could I NOT mention my precious smol birbs with vacant, souless eyes and pudgy tummies? I just…love them (and we got to see baby Porgs OHMYGERSH)
The Problems
- This does not feel like a proper sequel to The Force Awakens. There are so many major plot points and themes developed in TFA that are either tossed out or wrapped up messily in TLJ. Rey’s parentage being a significant struggle for her character and alluded to symbolically through her connection to the Skywalker lightsaber and other motifs? Nope, she’s an abandoned nobody (Kylo’s words, not mine) and we should all just leave that question in the past like it doesn’t matter who would make you think that? Snoke being a major villain player behind the scenes? Nope, he’s axed off in the height of anticlimax before we even find out who he is and where he came from (not all of us should need to read EU books to understand a movie plot y’all). Rey and Finn having an immediate connection with romantic dimensions? Nope, let’s throw in a last-minute love triangle! (everyone LOVES those). You can really feel the tension of the writing and directing problems plaguing this sequel trilogy because it’s so apparent in the lack of continuity. It’s like several interpretations of Star Wars got mashed together and this is what happened…
- Luke Skywalker. Oh Luke, what have they done to you? Look, I am not against seeing Luke struggle with failure, despair, even loss. We’ve seen it, and it can certainly be part of a character’s journey. I could even appreciate it in this movie…if it was detached from the larger context and motivations of this character as established by previous canon. In TLJ, I’m supposed to accept that Luke Skywalker, who could not even bring himself to kill his father because of his compassion, would attempt to kill (even on “impulse”) his unarmed nephew because of his dark potential? I’m supposed to believe that Luke, stuck in a depressed and bitter stupor, would exile himself for more than a DECADE and abandon his beloved sister and friends while KNOWING they were suffering? I’m supposed to accept this bitter, Logan-ized version of Luke for two hours and then watch him die without ever truly forming a connection with Rey or reuniting with his loved ones? He dies alone, and I’m not okay with that. Yes, characters change, but it’s not always necessary to make a character suffer and harden to make them interesting. We’ve already seen Luke fail. We’ve already seen him suffer. I didn’t need nor want to see Luke, defined by his compassion and optimism and openness, portrayed as cold and closed off from the world and calloused from pain. As I said, Mark played him beautifully, but he deserved a much better story than this–and I think the fans did too, leading to…
- The overall treatment of the original trio. So TLJ is on one level about accepting failure and making peace with the past while moving forward. But the thing is, the sequel trilogy has so far piled SO MUCH FAILURE onto our original heroes that the original trilogy begins to leave a bitter taste in hindsight. Every single thing these characters we love fought and struggled for is rendered broken and scattered here, and then they die with their aspirations tragically unrealized. Star Wars is predominately a space fantasy opera with hope at its center, but it takes a fatalistic edge when you look at what they did with Luke, Han, and Leia. Not only do we NEVER get to see these characters all reunited, but their sendoff is tragic and more bitter than sweet. Han is separated from Leia and killed by his son. Luke lives alone for years in self-loathing and bitterness, and after his glorious re-entry into the world and knowing another Jedi is out there, he still dies alone. Leia loses her husband, son, brother, the Republic and only really gets to say goodbye to one of them. This is depressing as hell and not the note you want to end on for some of the most iconic characters in cinema. And if this all was meant to service the theme of “failure is part of life,” it did it in the most unwieldy way possible by reaching the suffering threshold that tested the limits of not only these characters, but also fans. It honestly would have been better if these characters were dead from the outset, legacy intact, and the sequel trilogy focused entirely on the new characters.
- The fact that the entire Canto Blight subplot could be excised from the movie and little would change. It gave us more time with Rose and Finn, which was good, but it didn’t further the plot, especially given that it takes up a good 20-30 minutes of screen-time. It felt unnecessary, and I wish it had been better woven into the main plot rather than as a side adventure.
- With that comes also the issue that the Resistance plot…doesn’t really make much sense. So this handful of ships are just cruising along on fuel and the First Order is just…not destroying them all? Like they HAVE smaller ships to destroy them with…why not just be done with it already? Why are all the Resistance’s plans failures because of simply poor logic? That undermines one of the main themes of the movie because this failure doesn’t hold much weight if we know it’s mostly plot contrivance rather than a genuine character struggle! Like…many of the conflicts in this movie feel engineered by plot need rather than organic.
- The Rey/Kylo dynamic. This was by far one of the most problematic aspects of the movie for me and the part I found most disturbing. In a year that saw the visible emergence of neo-Nazism and the #MeToo movement, the way the scenes of Kylo and Rey were framed felt downright uncomfortable. Kylo is a space Nazi–let’s just own that. He already contributed to genocide of several planets, believes in the First Order’s cause which has oppressed so many vulnerable peoples, and uses manipulation and torture to reach his ends. And Rey knows that. He tortured her in what must have been only a few days ago in this timeline AND murdered his father and her new father-figure. Not only that, but in THIS movie we see Kylo manipulating her further by calling her a nobody, outlining everything wrong about her, and then coercing her to join him. What kind of messed up BS is that? I’m angry about this because this is not okay. Luke tried to save Vader because he believed love could turn his father’s heart. Though it proved that Vader still had the capacity for good, it didn’t absolve Vader of his previous crimes. Rey barely has any real connection with Kylo and then suddenly in this movie wants to redeem him and put the rest to the side. This is not the same situation because it is framed with a romantic tension in this case as if we are also supposed to feel really bad for Kylo and want him to get together with Rey on Team Good. Do I see Kylo’s complexity? Yesss….but he also made choices that brought him to this place, and the movie made Rey look foolish in light of diminishing the weight of Kylo’s previous atrocities. The Light Side is NOT equal to the Dark when the Dark is defined by its selfishness, corruption, and persecution of others–don’t use the Force to make your “both sides” argument.
- That’s not how the Force works! Okay, so apparently the Force really DOES give one unnatural abilities because there were many scenes in this film that strained my credulity–think mountain of salt, not the grain. Even my mom (not too big of a Star Wars fan) was like “She [Leia] CANNOT survive in space like that–that seemed unbelievable.” That and Luke’s astro-projection were jarring plot conveniences that did not feel consistent with the logic of the Force that had been established so far and also felt kind of cheap in the way they were used. Using the Force does have limits, but here Force abilities were treated like a crazy AU mod.
- This film rides on plot conveniences rather than characterization. The story works by stringing set pieces together without giving enough heft to the characters’ development. The side characters and even Rey’s arcs are left strangely underdeveloped alongside these big battles and scenes framed as epic (like Finn’s battle with Phasma), leaving some moments oddly hollow. I honestly can’t say much about what Rey’s arc was…failure? Letting go of the past? Becoming a Jedi? Not enough was explained to chart a significant internal change in her, an issue that plagued other characters like Poe as well, who suddenly was framed as this hot-headed aggressive man in contrast to his buoyant but level-headed presence in TFA. Leading to…
- The treatment of the POC characters. There were a lot of moments that felt sadly tone-deaf for our current time. We didn’t need to see Rose tase Finn for laughs and then see both of them get stopped by white police telling them to put their hands up. We didn’t need to see Poe slapped and shot by white superiors and alluded to as this seductive “bad boy,” fitting neatly into certain Latino tropes. We didn’t need the total erasure of Finn’s backstory and past trauma, which was completely unacknowledged in this film, which spent more time lecturing him about being a coward (again–he’s not). As a woman of color, these moments irk me because it’s been so normalized to treat POC this way, and I don’t like seeing a franchise that boasts about its new progressiveness take advantage of that goodwill by sidelining its few main characters of color.
The Whole Nutshell
There was much of TLJ that I enjoyed, but by the end, I left the theater in much of the same state that I arrived: confused, conflicted, and yet hopeful. I’ll be honest and say that this was not the sequel to TFA I would’ve liked to see, and it will probably go down as the most mixed bag of Star Wars movies for me. The fact that my father, decades-long Star Wars lover, said this movie “was disappointing and didn’t emotionally connect to him” speaks volumes. This is the only Star Wars movie he has EVER described in that way–he didn’t even say that for Phantom Menace! Again, reactions to TLJ span widely, but even that is telling.
Considering everything that has been going on behind the scenes, I think TLJ represents a failure to realize a cohesive vision for the next chapter of this space saga, and a failure to understand and honor the characters who built it. There’s a solid movie still in there, and it has its flashes of brilliance and beauty, but its overshadowed by the continuity issues and divisive characterization decisions. It’s better than what I expected, but it’s not one I’m looking forward to re-watching anytime soon.
Bunny’s Grade: 6/10
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A Movie Review: Annihilation
(Hey y’all, I wrote a movie review of this thing that came out like a month ago and it was fun so have this and I will do more- probs Thor and Black Panther coming up next cuz those have been my faves)
WARNING: SPOILERS
Alright. So, let me start of with a slight disclaimer: I have read the entire Southern Reach Trilogy. The reason I begin with the fact that I am a fan of the books is because I feel that reading Annihilation has very much informed how I feel about the film Annihilation. Although I went into the movie knowing that it was going to be very different from the book, I still couldn’t help but compare, and I was a bit disappointed. So, when you are reading this review, keep that in mind. This is not going to be a spoiler-free review: THERE ARE SPOILERS HERE. If you have not seen the movie, and are here to find out if you should go or not: Go and see it. If you have read the books, go and see it. If you have not read the books, still go and see it. I think Annihilation is worth the watch for anyone who enjoys science fiction, and it is for SURE something that needs to be experienced. Me telling you about the film won’t be the same, not by a long shot.
I don’t usually do movie reviews. In fact, this is my first one. So, let’s try out a little formula, which i will then immediately break because I need to review Annihilation a little differently. I’m going to look at it in terms of a few things. 1) How did I personally enjoy the film? Did I like the characters/ setting/ mood/ story, etc.? 2) Did the movie do what it set out to do? So, in the case of Annihilation, did it make me feel really freaking weird? And 3) Would I recommend this film, yes or no, and then an explanation of why. More in depth than my recommendation at the top, obvs.
Okay, here we go!
1) How did I personally enjoy Annihilation?
I’ll start off by saying that Annihilation is NOT a masterpiece, at least not to me. I’ve seen quite a few reviews saying that it is, but it didn’t quite get there for me. Now, that’s not to say that it was bad. On the contrary, I think it was good, and after taking about a month to incubate, re-read the book, and think in depth about the film, I will say that it is even a little bit more than good (I do need to re-watch it when it comes out on Netflix for sure). It was a solid sci-fi film with some excellent elements- for example, the visuals were AMAZING and really fit the overall tone, but with enough problems that took away from the overall experience. If I had to give it a rating, let’s say out of ten, I would say this is a solid seven or seven and a half. Now, I will instantly temper that by reminding you all that I am a HUGE fan of the book, and that has 100% colored both my enjoyment and interpretation of the film. Let’s talk a little bit about why (and here is where I diverge from the template I developed five minutes ago for myself).
The novel is narrated by the main character, known only as The Biologist. We get not just her words, but her inner monologue, her thoughts, feelings, experiences, all described to us very intimately, as if she were telling us herself. She is also an unreliable narrator- we know as little as she does, and her recollection is influenced by her own perspectives and biases. The movie is NOT narrated by the Biologist, who is named Lena in the film, though it is told from her perspective. We get a glimpse into her life, her thoughts, her feelings, as she is the lens through which we enter this world, but it is nowhere near as intimate and in-depth as the novel. They changed her character drastically and, while I think I would have very much liked Lena in another film, the fact that she was supposed to be The Biologist kind of ruined her for me. The Biologist is what made Annihilation the book so entrancing and hypnotic for me. We went on a journey with her, we learned things, and then we left her behind to go into the other books. She was our guide- this is not so much the case in the film. And that detracts something.
However, stepping away from The Biologist (Lena), the other characters were great. I think that all of them were colorful, bright, and simultaneously dark and twisted in just the right ways. I connected to them all, they felt real. And they all did a superb job in their roles. The actresses were very well cast- even Natalie Portman, who played Lena, did an excellent and evocative job. She did succeed in moving me and making me feel things, and I know I would have enjoyed her character a lit more had I not read the novel.
My feelings about the overall story are similar to those I have for the character of Lena. I think it was very well done, well executed (except for the end but a bit more on that in a second), but knowing the books took away my enjoyment. The story also was seriously lacking, in my novel-ridden opinion, especially in the end. Lena’s “defeat” of Area X seemed very, very lackluster to me: one of the best aspects of Area X in the novels was that it was a thing that could not be stopped, it was a thing to accept rather than fight. And in the novel, The Biologist does just that. But the film goes a totally different direction, and the “destruction” of Area X, while it is perhaps an artful metaphor for self-destruction (a running theme in the movie), really left me feeling, well, bleah. They do manage to save it right at the very end, with Lena meeting up with the “other version” of her husband and both of them revealing that they are not, in fact, themselves. It brings back that feeling of “Area X is here and we cannot stop it”, but it was seriously lacking when compared to the path of the novels, and my expectations. Despite the obvious flaws, the plot was exciting enough to keep me on my toes and keep me interested all the way through- something that not all movies I have seen recently can do.
Something that Annihilation got right, at least, was the mood. The atmosphere. The movie takes us into Area X, and the sights and sounds were right in line with what I expected. A beautiful, twisted, alien-yet-familiar world that both awed and terrified me. Perfect. The movie also added in creatures, monsters, something not in the book which I very, VERY much enjoyed. I would like to take a moment to give a shout-out to the bear- a monster that I am pretty sure was a representation of the Moaning Creature from the novel. It didn’t have a jumpscare, it wasn’t even loud- most of its scene was quiet. But it unnerved and disturbed me in a way that a movie monster has not in a very long time- namely because it had a human voice. A decaying bear, skull visible, with human eyes, a human tongue, and a roar that sounds like the dying screams of its last victim? Pure nightmare fuel, at least for me. I loved it. I was apprehensive about there being actual monsters in the movie, given that the unseen horror aspect of the novels was a huge part of their overall feel, but the bear/Moaning Creature was perfect for this film and I need to acknowledge that.
2) Did the movie do what it set out to do?
I would say so. It’s very rare for me to walk out of a theatre and not know how I feel about what I just watched, but that sensation is what I had expected from Annihilation. I went through cycles of loving the movie, hating it, being grossed out by it, being unnerved by it, all in the span of a few hours. So yes, the movie achieved its goal in making me feel something. I also know that the film did not set out to be a replica of the book, rather a take on it, so I cannot fault the movie for not being a carbon-copy of the novel. And it was a good take. But it didn’t leave me with the same feeling that I had when I read the novel. Horrified? Oh yes. Awed? Sure. Creeped out by that fucking zombie-bear? Hell yeah. But there was something missing. Alex Garland captured the surreal familiarity of an alien world on earth, and he did it well, and I almost wish I hadn’t read the books because then maybe I would have enjoyed this film a LOT more than I did.
But there was something missing. I remember my first experience reading Annihilation- I devoured it in a little more than two hours and sat in shock on my now-girlfriend’s bed trying to digest what I had just consumed. There was the horror and the awe, yes. But there was something else, and that something came from the tone of acceptance and resignation- which was oddly… I wouldn’t call it cheerful, but it wasn’t sad or angry. It just was..? And it was that feeling of ..? that defined my experience with the novel, and with the two after it (though Authority was a bit more defined by a feeling of “wow this is SLOW”).
I cannot say that the movie didn’t get where it wanted to go, because it did. It was a solid sci-fi movie with some disturbing imagery and elements and it was a good take on the novel. It just didn’t get me where I wanted to go, and that is wholly the fault of my viewing it through the lens of the novel.
3) Would I recommend this film?
Yes, I would. Whether you have read the book(s) or not, I think this one is worth the watch. Based on the reviews, and based on my own viewing, I will say that this isn’t a movie for everyone. It is super trippy- if you have epilepsy or some other condition triggered by bright, flashing lights or colors, I would suggest that you stay away from this one, as there are a few sequences near the end that get really bright and flashy- and will leave you with a LOT more questions than it answers, so if you are alright with that, go and see it. The reviews seem very polarized. People either loved it or hated it, and there doesn’t seem to be too much in-between (like me). But with all films, and especially a film like Annihilation, I would say that you need to see it for yourself to figure out how you feel about it.
Final Recommendation: Annihilation is a trippy, beautiful sci-fi film that carries itself pretty well despite it’s flaws. A big part of how I judge movies is if it is strong enough to get past its problems, and Annihilation fits the bill, I think. Go and give it a watch: I’m not sure when it is coming out on Netflix, but with visuals like this, maybe seeing it on the big screen would be worth your while.
#movie review#annihilation#i was bored and this happened#and I really liked it#so there will be more#read it or don't!
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Week 8: October 31
Happy Howl-o-ween everybody, LOL! This week’s theme was Reception Contexts and Media Rituals; it digs into the interpretation of media and connection it has with different contexts. Sullivan sums it up as “Our media experiences occur during specific times and in a particular physical space…” (Sullivan, 2013, pg. 162). Not only do we look into physical spaces, but we also consider time, interpersonal relationships and interactions. Sullivan explains that space, time, and social environments contribute significantly to how we make meanings from media. It can be from where we consume a movie and who we consume that can alter the overall message and outcome. For example, my boyfriend’s dad loves to stir the pot, and by that, I mean to piss everyone off, jokingly, of course. Whenever we watch a show or a movie, and something funny or crazy happens, he pauses and replays the clip over and over, AND OVER. To the point, I stop paying attention, or go on my phone, or leave the room. This not only affects my overall enjoyment of a film but also my understanding of critical messages.
Now that we have gone over the three elements that situate our media reception, I want to dig into media reception and the domestic sphere. I want to begin by asking you a question. When you are “home,” what is your media rituals? For me, when I live at school, I wake up to check my phone, go to classes, and on my downtime, I watch Netflix. That changes when I am back home with my family. I still wake up, check my phone, run errands, or on downtime; we watch the show Survivor or a throwback movie with my family. What’s interesting is, the Sullivan textbooks states that “home is arguably the most importance “space” for understanding media reception” (Sullivan, 2013 pg. 167). It is true when they say home is where the heart is, our downtime, memories, experiences, and adolescence are all created out of our own versions of “home.” Not only that, we share our home with people we love that range on an individualized scale. To reveal this understanding, scholars like David Morley and James Lull participated in an act called naturalistic observation. It is the best way to investigate and learn people in a natural setting. What was revealed was that TV watching, or having it on impacts our social relationships. It creates. A focal point for conversations, or it can even create conflict. This immediately make me think about social settings in my home. To be specific every year my mom hosts Thanksgiving dinner. It is a mix of family, and friends; to keep everyone interested and social my mom always has a sport playing on the TV; like football. She mainly does it to keep the men away from her kitchen, but hey it still gathers everyone in the living room to chat and catch up on life.
Keeping my Thanksgiving example in mind I want to move on to mass media and gender specifically Dorothy Hobsons research. She conducted numerous interviews in 1980 with “working-class” housewives in Britain (Sullivan, 2013, pg. 168). It was noticed that women listened to more radio stations than anything else, because the content was altered towards their interest like childcare and cleaning. What also really interests me is that women actually avoided listening to TV at home, because it was mainly targeted toward a male audience. Interesting, because when we look back to my Thanksgiving example, my mom would put football on (a dominant masculine program) to keep the men out of the kitchen. As much as. women still sit around and “watch”, it appears to be more of a conversational aspect than it is pure interest for women.
I am enjoying the topic of “home,” and how every little aspect can make up out interpretations. So, I am going to continue along those lines with media technology in the home itself. A scholar by the name of Roger Silverstone introduces the idea of a moral economy when thinking about the inner meaning of home. Sullivan’s textbook explains his notion as “a sense that the household is both an economic unit, which is involved, through the productive and consumptive activities of its members…” (Sullivan, 2013, pg. 175). What makes up this economic are three elements that flow from the transactional system. They are appropriation, objectification, and incorporation. Let me give you the low down of what these mean:
· Appropriation: this is the actual act of possessing a communication technology and placing it in your household.
· Objectification: this is how exactly the item is placed in your environment, whether it’s for a bedroom or a common area. For example, the TV I bought myself before going to University wasn’t for a common area, but rather my room for myself.
· Incorporation: lastly, this is the purpose of what you would be using the technology for. For example, my parents have a TV in both their bedroom and living room. One TV is for a social setting when they want to watch with others, and their bedroom TV is meant for their personalized use (Sullivan, 2013, pg. 175).
This area of my blog relates perfectly with the assigned reading for this week by Kihan Kim, Yunjae Cheong, and Hyuksoo Kim. Their piece is titled The Influences of Sports Viewing Conditions on Enjoyment from Watching Televised Sports… The authors compare audience experience at home versus in a theatre when watching sports. All external sources were taken into consideration such as lighting, crowed, and noise, which all play a role in how audiences understand and enjoy the game. It was noticed that people were became fans of the game faster in a theatre than they would at home. My take on the results is it all depends, for me personally if I get a good group of people, I love together to watch an intense and exciting game than I become a fan really quick. I suffer from really bad anxiety, so I don’t like being in crowed or around loud noises. So, going to theatre to watch a game would not interest me at all. To prove my points, I look back to the NBA final game that occurred this summer. I watched with a big group of friends and family at my house with a big TV. We had food, drinks and conversations. I had an amazing time. But that’s not to say others can’t have a better time at a theatre, but because of my appropriation, objectification, and incorporation I felt more at “home”.
Well that’s all I got for you today guys, I hope you have a wonderful Halloween. I know I’ll be dressing up as a kid to get my free candy, but hey you didn’t get that trick from me. Have a good week y’all!
References:
Sullivan, John L. Media Audiences: Effects, Users, Institutions, and Power. SAGE Publications Inc., 2013.
Kim, K., Cheong, Y., & Kim, H. (2016). The influences of sports viewing conditions on enjoyment from watching televised sports: An analysis of the FIFA World Cup audiences in theater vs. home. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 60(3), 389–409.
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All Photos Courtesy Warner Bros.
Praise Zeus, Wonder Woman is finally here and it’s even better than we hoped it would be. While it’s a standout superhero film all on its own, there’s something inherently special for women to see Diana of Themyscira, an iconic female and feminist role model, onscreen for the first time.
io9's Katharine Trendacosta, Alex Cranz, Cheryl Eddy, and I sat down to discuss every aspect of this groundbreaking superhero film, including Steve Trevor’s role as a male ally, and what the film’s success could and should mean for the DC Expanded Universe. No boys allowed! (Except in the comments.)
Beth Elderkin: All right, ladies. Welcome to Themyscira! How’s everyone feeling?
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Katharine Trendacosta: I am feeling great and not like I need those hours back again, which is such a relief.
Cheryl Eddy: I agree with Katharine... I don’t think it was a perfect movie, but I had a really good time watching it.
Alex Cranz: Yeah, I was genuinely concerned before the premiere that people were so eager for a success for DC—and for women superheroes—that people were being unnecessarily kind to Diana. They were not! Her movie is good!
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Beth: I mean, it’s a huge deal. This is the first time we’ve gotten a superhero movie of this magnitude that stars a woman. Going beyond your experience as a moviegoer, or even as a comic book fan, how did it feel as a woman seeing this character in her own movie on this scale?
Cheryl: It was very satisfying.
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Alex: It’s not the first time. This is just the first good film.
Katharine: Yeah, I present to you... Catwoman.
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Beth: True, that movie did have a $100-million budget.
Alex: Katharine, no. Shh. But yes, Catwoman, Elektra, Supergirl, and Tank Girl, all comic lady movies. And all films that were disasters either critically, financially, or both.
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Katharine: It is shocking and upsetting, though, that all of those characters got movies before Wonder Woman.
Alex: But where Wonder Woman really sets itself apart is how gleefully violent it is. I love that this was a superpowered woman just fucking shit up for a big chunk of the film’s two-hour running time.
Cheryl: I think it was longer than two hours? That’s one of my few complaints, that it was too long. But that’s par for the course.
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Katharine: Yeah, I don’t know for sure what Zack Snyder was involved in, but that really long fight scene felt like the end of his last two DC Expanded Universe movies.
Alex: Only you could tell what was happening.
Beth: So, obviously we have to talk about the core of the film, Wonder Woman herself. I liked Gal Gadot in Batman v. Superman, though you don’t see much of her in it… but I’ll admit I was worried how she’d do in the starring role. But to me, she was Wonder Woman, mind, body, and soul. I was thoroughly impressed. What about y’all?
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Cheryl: I thought she nailed it, really and truly.
Katharine: It was a good idea not to go with a really recognizable actor for this.
Cheryl: Completely agree.
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Alex: Gadot has so much damn charm.
Katharine: I loved that they made the other Amazons mimic her accent, instead of making her get rid of hers.
Cheryl: ME TOO OMG.
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Alex: It was a true delight. And I liked how young Wonder Woman was for much of this film.
Beth: One thing I loved about Gadot’s performance was how earnest it was. Diana was innocent but not naive. Like that scene in the street, where she’s taking everything in with a combination of disgust and wonder… and then she spots the baby!
Katharine: I liked that moment and I thought they did just the right amount of fish-out-of-water stuff. It would have been really easy to go overboard on that stuff.
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Beth: Which would’ve fallen into the “Born Sexy Yesterday” trope.
Katharine: Or just turned this movie into Thor.
Beth: What were your favorite fish-out-of-water moments?
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Cheryl: I liked the shopping scene with Etta Candy, and also when she sees snow for the first time.
Katharine: It’s the baby moment for me.
Alex: I just loved her entirely foreign concept of war and why it was waged. It was so beautifully naive, like you wanted to wrap her up and kind of protect her from the awfulness of the world... until she beat a man with a tank.
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Beth: This is the first DCEU movie where the lead character is allowed to be joyful. And it feels so overdue.
Katharine: Joyful, but the movie wasn’t devoid of darkness. It actually balanced that stuff.. My god, why did it take this long?
Alex: Because girls are icky, Katharine.
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Beth: Anyone else feel an extra tinge of happiness when Diana spared Doctor Poison? Different circumstances than Man of Steel, but still… I don’t think I’ll ever be okay with Superman murdering Zod.
Alex: Completely different! And I mean, Diana kills people.
Katharine: I’m sorry, Beth, I was busy getting mad that they had decided Diana was the Goddess of Love instead.
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Alex: Let’s talk about the erasure of Greek goddesses in this film. Because Diana has always been an embodiment of the Pantheon right?
Katharine: And specifically truth.
Alex: But this film kills them off screen, and never acknowledges that she’s supposed to be representative of all of them. Instead, she’s just another god.
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Beth: I mean, she’s technically the last one right? If Ares is dead now.
Alex: Apparently!
Beth: I don’t know if I’d classify her as a love goddess. Her strength came from her love—not for Steve, though that was surely part of it—but it was her love of humanity and her need to do the right thing.
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Katharine: I’m still mad, because Hollywood has one setting for goddesses and it’s always love.
Alex: Whatever Katharine, I loved her line about love. I didn’t interpret it as her being the Goddess of Love, but simply as her saying there are alternatives to war.
Katharine: I gave them the first moment, but once they went back to that well, I was very worried.
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Cheryl: I wasn’t mad at that, but I think it’s because my first exposure to Wonder Woman was the 1970s TV show, and it’s there in the theme: “Stop a war with love.”
Alex: Well, I think they make it very clear she’s a goddess of compassion... of compassionate love.
Beth: Exactly, being a goddess of love and a goddess of compassion are two different things. Love just has fewer syllables.
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Alex: Yeah, her saying compassion would not have had the same impact.
Beth: Let’s shift gears for a bit and talk about Steve Trevor. I loved Steve in this film, and Chris Pine’s performance was, in my opinion, kinda revelatory. I’d argue this might be one of the best portrayals of a male feminist ally that we’ve ever seen in a mainstream film—especially a superhero film.
Katharine: I forgot that Chris Pine was that charming. He’s basically just been famous for doing a great Shatner take for so long, I actually forgot there was another actor there.
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Alex: I confess to hating Chris Pine for over a decade, so I was really surprised to like him in this. He knew when to take a back seat.
Katharine: He’s leaped ahead in the Chris rankings.
Beth: Oh, he’s miles ahead of Chris Pratt for me now. It’s almost like the two of them have had a Freaky Friday situation, where Pratt is the typical leading man dick and Pine is the supportive male hero.
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Katharine: Chris Evans better keep an eye out. When Pine tried to seduce Doctor Poison, I was like, “Yes. This is your role, Steve.” Diana does the fighting, you are the Honey Trap.
Beth: And he did such a good job of it too. I love how he wasn’t bumbling or incapable, nor was he cocky about his skills.
Katharine: Or all angsty about it.
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Alex: He was that hyper-competent love interest that usually falls in love with Chris Pratt.
Beth: That “shield” moment in No Man’s Land was my absolute favorite in the entire film. Steve wasn’t forcing Diana to change her fighting style to suit his needs—he recognized what she needed and provided it for her, no questions asked or thanks needed.
Alex: I mean, Steve had his moment of fuckery, but I loved that Diana was immediately like, “I AM DONE WITH YOU.”
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Katharine: The fact that their conflict was based pretty much entirely on them having different world views actually made it interesting. Rather than him being, “The world looks like this, put this dress on and shut up.”
Beth: He recognizes that just because his worldview is different doesn’t make it more right than hers. In fact, he knows that his world is screwed up.
Katharine: I did love that for once it was the dude’s backstory that was cut. Because he briefly mentions having run from the war for too long and then says something like maybe he and the rest of humanity doesn’t deserve to be saved. Like, clearly there was something in his past they meant to bring up to make that hit home better, but, eh. He’s just Steve Trevor, so who cares.
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Beth: I kind of like it better without it. I feel like I knew just enough about him to understand his conflict.
Alex: You know what was really revelatory about Steve Trevor? The moment she saves him from the plane. Any other film it would have been his story from then on. It would have been about him using these women to win the war, and teaching them how everything was different. And the movie never ever ever went that direction.
Beth: That reminds me of my next big talking point: Patty Jenkins’ direction. In particular, how she handles “The Gaze.” There are a lot of shots in here that could and likely would have been exploited for titillation in the hands of another director, like Zack Snyder with Sucker Punch. But I admired how Jenkins handled the fight scenes and choreography, as well as Wonder Woman’s superhero poses. Jenkins didn’t subvert the male gaze, apart from the Chris Pine bathing scene, because she didn’t need to. She simply made it not matter.
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Alex: This was not a sexual movie at all—despite some Grade-A off-screen banging. We never see unbridled lust on screen.
Beth: To me, and this might sound weird on its face, the movie felt like the difference between stripping and burlesque. Both of them have similar elements, but they serve different purposes. A character like Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises is shot one way, focusing on her assets for the audience, but Wonder Woman was thankfully never exploited. Her body wasn’t hidden, it was celebrated—as well as her looks, because come on, she’s a gorgeous woman—but it was on her terms and for her purposes, not for the male audience. And I think Jenkins was a big part of that.
Alex: I know a lot of people were concerned about Jenkins because her last film was small and not about action at all. But the woman shot really good action and it wasn’t just all in the hands of animators. I mean the final fight is just a cartoon, but the Amazons versus the Germans was not!
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Cheryl: Her direction of the actors, especially Gadot’s performance, as well as the “moments” like the baby and the fight with the shield, were great.
Katharine: This was a movie which embraced the simplicity of its story for the sake of its characters.
Alex: I think we’re gonna see a lot of comparisons, inevitably, to Snyder, and what I loved is Jenkins can actually direct actors and bring emotion into a film. But she also can nail those loving straight from a picture book shots that are Snyder’s bag. She out Snyder’d Snyder in the best possible way.
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Beth: Snyder’s contribution to the film appears to have worked out well, as a story creator and producer, and his recruitment of Gadot was spot-on. I feel like putting him in the director’s chair is where the problems arise, as well as when his direction overly inspires other films in the franchise.
Alex: No doubt that final fight was in the works long before the film was tinkered with, but you can see Warner Bros/DC’s attempt to keep Wonder Woman from being as dour as Batman v Superman. Like the great ice cream gag—that’s a moment that was clearly shot after the rest of the film to brighten things up. And it worked.
Katharine: Ice cream and superheroes have been a fruitful pairing in live-action.
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Alex: If Batman v. Superman had to happen so we could get Wonder Woman enjoying an ice cream cone, I am okay with that.
Beth: Speaking of awesome scenes: No Man’s Land.
Cheryl: People in the theater were cheering so much.
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Beth: I love how Steve’s like, “You can’t go over there, it’s No Man’s Land.” And Wonder Woman basically replies, “I AM NO MAN!” I’ve seen people saying that might go down as one of the best scenes in a superhero film we’ve ever gotten, and honestly, I agree.
Alex: It didn’t end! It was a constant WONDER WOMAN SMASH, which is all I wanted.
Beth: I never wanted it to end!
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Alex: Though admittedly things slowed down so much immediately afterwards that I got a little whiplash. There was a pacing problem in the script that the director just couldn’t resolve.
Beth: I don’t know, I liked the drinks and dancing. It made the tragic bombing of the town so much worse.
Alex: I liked it, but I still felt a little snoozy.
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Beth: What else do you wish had been done differently? My biggest beef was Ares, because I didn’t feel like the big reveal was earned.
Alex: Ares is a bad villain rooted in Christian symbology that makes no sense, but that’s a comic problem.
Katharine: I liked the shape of the villain. Yes, the weird Christian-Greek mashup is a comics problem and I don’t like that, but I actually did like the idea of Ares not being who we thought. I didn’t like... his entire speech at the end.
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Alex: You know what was actually bad about all the Greco-Roman stuff is how firmly they shut the door on all of it. Diana is banished from Paradise Island, her entire god family is dead, it’s just done. Now she basically exists for Justice League.
Katharine: The best thing about this film is that it stands on its own almost entirely, unfettered from the baggage of the rest of the DCEU.
Cheryl: Setting it years in the past was a good choice.
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Alex: Yeah, it didn’t fall into the Captain America: The First Avenger trap. Ares didn’t even do a “worse is coming” death croak.
Cheryl: I get why they framed the story with the photo seen in BvS, so I was okay with it even though it was so obvious.
Katharine: The fact that Bruce Wayne wasn’t literally there was nice. Honestly, I kept expecting the camera at the end to pull out and the rest of the goddamn Justice League to be sitting there listening.
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Beth: I’m so glad it didn’t.
Katharine: So glad.
Beth: I’m also glad there were no post-credits scenes. I don’t care about the rest of the Justice League, I only care about Diana.
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Alex: Well, I care about Aquaman.
Beth: I’m hoping I do, too.
Cheryl: Same.
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Beth: Speaking of which, how does this movie make you feel about the future of the DC Expanded Universe?
Cheryl: Will that future include Wonder Woman 2? Because otherwise...
Alex: It better.
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Katharine: I think that this is proof that the DCEU should have been doing standalone movies with other directors the whole time.
Beth: I’m honestly shaky about Justice League. I already feel like it could be a lost cause, and we’re simply having to look beyond it at this point. The trailer gave me little confidence.
Katharine: Yeah, I’m mostly looking forward to Aquaman. He and Wonder Woman are the ones having the most fun in the Justice League trailer.
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Alex: I have hope. Slap a Blue Lantern Ring on Diana, because Wonder Woman gave me hope that the ship can be righted, and we can get some good damn movies out of the best superhero comics.
Beth: This has been so awesome, and I’m hoping/betting this movie does well enough to keep DCEU going on the right path… with a sequel. In closing, what one word would you use to describe Wonder Woman? Mine is “refreshing.”
Katharine: “Punchy,” in both senses of the word.
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Cheryl Eddy: “Love!” Just kidding... I would say “entertaining.”
Alex: She fucks.
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