if you don't mind me asking, what aspects of s2 did you dislike? bc for me, although i liked it a lot better than s1 (mainly for the increased focus on sibling dynamic scenes). i also kind of realized that it had kind of a Lot going on, that although i appreciated, didn't get enough equal attention? idk

i agree that the dynamic scenes this season were pretty great. we got some great interactions between characters that didn’t have much last season (personal fave being klaus/allison/vanya and every individual combo in that trio). 

i personally love reading other peoples’ opinions on shows/movies, even if they don’t match my own, because a lot of the time they open my eyes to some stuff i haven’t seen, and i love to see work affecting others the same way it does me, even if it has a different outcome. 

so, i know  i said i wouldn’t, but since you asked, under the cut i’m going list out some of the stuff i wasn’t a huge fan of, and some of the stuff i really liked. 

(edit warning: this shit is LONG. but please don’t take this as me absolutely hating the season - I didn’t. there was some genuinely enjoyable stuff. but, in my opinion, it didn’t have the spark and intent that s1 did. it wasn’t the caliber of the season i fell in love with. i think it’s still rewatchable though, unlike a certain godawful season of a certain hit netflix show...... coughstrangerthings3cough)

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE

1. not enough characterization/development in most of the characters (this will be the longest point, so I’ll get it out of the way first) - for one, the siblings - save maybe vanya & allison - really... did not develop much this season, and weren’t explored as heavily as in the first season. hell, even in vanya and allison’s cases, i still think s1 did a better job at delving into their characters and psyche, even though they still had a bit of it in s2. but especially in the other siblings cases, i feel like SO MUCH of this season leaned into trivial things the fans liked, that it either (at least) took time away from or (at worst) was an active detriment to the characters’ development and plots. they said oh you like banter? we’ll give you unnecessary arguing and jokes that go on for 20 minutes too long when we could be delving deeper into these interesting situations we saw on the surface. here’s some fart jokes and forgettable music when we could be seeing more of how these characters are coping with the literal end of the world/being sent back in time/facing the prospect of never seeing their families again. 

in s1, we got luther’s immense internal struggles in living up to his “name” and only existing to please his father... diego finding his relationships through his jaded nature towards his siblings and himself, and grappling with feelings of inferiority... allison’s coping with the effects her powers have had on her life, and trying to become someone without rumoring everything into existence, which is a new feeling altogether that she isn’t quite sure how to cope with... klaus going through intense development as a simultaneously self-obsessed and self-destructive drug addict that gets thrown into a gruesome war for a year, only to watch the person he loves most die, grappling with his ptsd from war & his abusive childhood, and discovering new powers... five coming back home after decades of solitude and then being used as a weapon, trying to reestablish himself within the group while dealing with an eating feeling that he doesn’t belong in his body or in this group.... vanya, oh vanya, with her depression, anxiety, feelings of loneliness and betrayal, feeling invisible and utterly ordinary, gripping to whoever makes her feel special (and dealing with that fallout) before suddenly being slammed with unbelievably powerful abilities that she can’t control.

in s2... yes, we get lesbian!vanya who becomes truer to herself, and - through intense struggle - finds a way to harness her abilities so she isn’t so out of control and can finally feel extraordinary herself. but much of the latter was given up for a vast majority of the season bc she literally didn’t know who she was (there was a positive in that though, which i’ll list in my positives list), and so we lost a LOT of potential coping and learning time, which easily could have mingled with her sissy storyline! allison’s storyline i actually dug, i don’t have too much gripe with it except that i wish her throat injury didn’t just kind of magically heal, and they could’ve addressed it more. the end of ben’s story was interesting, but still lacked depth imo. as for the other siblings.... it all just felt like a TON of jokes that were funny at first, but quickly became stale and had me wishing they would take the story a bit deeper. that said, a lot of the gags, jokes, and quips were great, but they could’ve been incorporated WAY more intelligently, and allowed for characterization at the same time. loads and loads of banter, not being balanced with poignancy like s1 did very well.

we could have seen luther’s descent into the criminal underworld, and why he felt the draw and obligation to go that route. a more detailed look at klaus’ beginnings and relationship with the cult, his motivations (which s2 kept super shallow), more of diego’s life inside the asylum and even beforehand. but no, we got five and old five farting.

2. the music - man, the s1 soundtrack was iconic, was it not? effortlessly cool scene/music combos, countless iconic music moments, brilliantly and thoughtfully done. this season felt like they said “music? oh ok throw music EVERYWHERE” and it was just. not. good. instead of music that intertwined with each scene like it was a character itself, amplifying the tone and adding a new layer (like in s1), the music this season was mostly just distracting, forgettable, and felt like they were this close to just making a bunch of music videos. i even found myself hating a couple of their choices (the rest i just kinda... forgot). i did like the vanya/allison/klaus dance scene, but other than that.... eugh.

3. the handler - I HATE. HATE HATE HATE. when shows/movie franchises do shit like make a big deal of killing off a villain or lead and then just being like “hehe jk uwu” and bringing them back with some totally bs reason that they lived. a metal plate? really? and she magically awoke... how long after? not to mention how unbelievably lazy and lame it is. they could’ve done so much more with carmichael and the swedes, but they had to bring back... the villain we already had? don’t get me wrong, i LOVEEE kate walsh, but come on. it’s season 2. give us something fresh.

4. the swedes - in s1, cha cha and hazel had personalities, wants, desires that were all explored. we knew their motivations, their doubts, their fears. we liked to watch them. then the writers threw in the swedes... who were completely devoid of any and all characterization (they could’ve gone in my #1 point too heyo), personality, backstory, anything. it was so painful that when each one died, it was clear that we were supposed to feel something for the others, but did any of you really feel anything? no. because we didn’t know these characters at all. they were walking guns, pretty much. nothing substantial.

5. ben & klaus - being someone who loves these two characters so, so much (hellloooo, my old url?), this one breaks my heart. i was so unbelievably disappointed with them this season. all either of them were was horrible to the other. in klaus’ case, he just decided to keep ben’s presence a secret, not even telling the group ben loved them, or that he was there. he called him his ghost bitch, he used him as a personal pet, he lacked sympathy or compassion. we saw a glimmer of hope when he allowed ben to possess him, but that’s where ben’s issues start. seriously, possessing your brother past his breaking point, fighting him out of his own bodily autonomy, until he is in a state of complete exhaution? then saying he “regrets nothing”? and then the show playing it off as ~comedy~ bc that’s almost all they cared about this season... no... there was nothing in their relationship this season that compared to last’s. no moments of tough brotherly love, where ben tries to help klaus through his drug/alcohol desires or ptsd flashbacks, no moments of teamwork (besides the brief moments of consenting possession before that was ruined), no tender moments between brothers in general. all just REALLY FUCKING LOUD “comedy”, anger, resentment, bickering, and cruelty, all played for laughs. not about it son

6. “we’re not blood related!” - and, once again, getting played for laughs... for a show that became uncomfortably self-aware with trivial fan desires (but not the deeper stuff...), they sure do lack a lot of common sense of realizing what we don’t want

7. hazel (& agnes) - they went through the trouble of saving hazel and agnes just to have agnes die off-screen before the season started, and for hazel to die five minutes into his only appearance? lame. lame lame lame.

8. plot pace - i don’t really recall any moments in s1 that i thought “this scene doesn’t need to be here”, “this is moving so slowly”, or “this is being really rushed”. there was plenty of all three of those in s2. s1 was constant, everything was either towards the main goal or was filled with private and fascinating character moments. i love just watching characters live and do their thing if it’s done properly... but those scenes this season really weren’t very entertaining (save one or two), didn’t really seem to serve a purpose or hold weight, and didn’t give us any character insight.

9. klaus - the reason he’s listed specifically even after i mentioned him in the first point, was because of how personally saddened i was by his “arc”, if you could call it that. i know, him being my favorite (along with vanya) in s1 isn’t an original thought. but the writers, directors, and robert created a character so entertaining, charming, layered, and multi-faceted that it was hard not to fall in love with him. for all his goofiness, he then got a shit ton of characterization and development in the war, in dave, in his ptsd and discovering his power. his poignant moments were so powerful because of how different it was from his typical outward appearance. and fuck if he didn’t develop! this season, klaus felt... shallow. the cult stuff had no depth, no real reason to be there at all (the show really wouldn’t be much different without it, besides it being how five and allison found klaus), and it was kind of a throwaway point anyway, just another tool to get - shocker - more laughs. those touching, serious klaus scenes were completely absent in s2... he was just the ~quirky~ and/or ~high/drunk~ guy. there was literally no depth to his character at all this season. yeah, he crawled from behind the desk in e9.... and what else? nothing. robert did all he could this season, but something tells me even he was probably disappointed by just how one-dimensional klaus was. he was really no different at the end than he was at the beginning of the season, which is a no-no. 

10. klave - this is kind of an expansion of #9, but i was so disappointed by it that it needed its own spot. the only stuff that was supposed to be serious in klaus’ story - the klaus/dave stuff - was really not good. the moment the shopkeeper said “david?” in the store, i literally gasped bc i was so excited... but that was the last of any excitement i felt for the two, which, if you know me, is BONKERS considering how much i adore s1 klave. but this new young actor had ZERO chemistry with robert (fuck if rob wasn’t trying, though. it looked painful for him, but this guy really was just not well casted) (cody and rob were phenomenal together and had a fraction of the screentime this new actor had), and klaus being 30 and this actor/character being a kid was just... weird to watch. plus... so many white actors look the same, they really couldn’t find someone who looked like cody ray thompson? c’mon now ...... also, was there any point to it? at all? dave just wound up going anyway and there was literally no differences made in that situation. i think the writers thought they were catering to the audience by adding dave, but you need actors with chemistry (cody! cody!!!) and a good plot to do so.

11. s1 fallout - there really was none. that’s it. you’d think there’d be more after the explosions in the relationships of these siblings, but everything was just kind of glossed over.

12. sparrow academy - mostly here because... does this mean 7 more characters? meaning MORE time taken away from our og siblings, who already (mostly) didn’t develop well this season? i’m not gonna lie, i’m worried/

WHAT I LIKED

1. the chestnuts - i absolutely loved ray, loved allison, and loved their and their group’s work this season. the issue of race is so important all the time, but in the 60′s the tensions were so high and it would’ve been a joke if the show hadn’t addressed it or just kind of went with little racist remarks. these two had some of the most touching scenes of the season, and the sit-in scenes/every police scene had me incredibly anxious. that was well done, imo. which is proof that they still know how to do a good storyline, which makes me even more upset that the show was overall lacking that this season. i’m also so glad they didn’t go the “oh sry ray i still love luther’ route bc i literally don’t know if i would’ve kept watching. ANYWAYS im gonna miss ray sm :(

2. vanya & sissy - lesbian!vanya is all i want and more. vanya/sissy was all i want and more. these two, much like the chestnuts, breathed so much life into an often-dull season. so in love!!! vanya connecting with harlan even in just the most human ways!!! sissy finally standing up to carl (and carl d*ing god bless).... little found family oh my GOD!!! super devastated that sissy didn’t come back to the future with vanya, but because of harlan’s ending, something tells me we haven’t seen the last of them. oh and i am so conflicted about vanya’s amnesia, bc while i think so much more development could’ve happened without it, i also don’t think a lot of what happened with her and sissy could have happened, at least as quickly, if vanya was bogged down by guilt, anger, and lingering feelings of self-hatred and anxiety.

3. sibling dynamics - okay, this one is a contradiction, kinda sorta. i know i said the ben/klaus relationship was horrid. and i didn’t dig absolutely everything with all the siblings.... but they had some REALLY strong stuff this season. i know i’ve already mentioned it multiple times, but vanya/allison/klaus was everything to me this season. i knew i wanted klaus/vanya stuff happening, but adding allison to the mix gave it a whole new layer and they all just worked SO. DAMN. WELL. i just kind of wish it was vanya with her memories getting that bonding time, because i feel like the trio really could’ve gone in with how they all related to each other, their struggles, etc. but still, just some Happy Time was much appreciated. in addition to them, i really did dig a lot of almost every sibling dynamic this season. not every relationship got the attention it deserved, but it wasn’t too bad, it would be really hard to get all of that into 10 eps. plus, the fact that almost all of them grew so much closer was everyyyything. it’s odd, because good dynamics usually come with good development but uh..... nvm im keepin this section positive

4. the humor - another kind of contradiction, maybe. for some of the humor, i thought it went too long, was extremely heavy-handed, often took away from the plot, and some of it even degraded certain characters and situations (see examples throughout my points above). however, the stuff that didn’t fall into these categories was so, so good. some favorites: olga foroga, “think of batman, then aim lower”, “you look like antonio banderas with that hair” “thanks man”, i’m t h e  d a d d y  h e r e, “not everyone here likes you” “sounds ridiculous but go on”, klaus’ little pop culture quips to his cult, “being smart doesn’t make you interesting” “neither does that beard”, klaus calling ben to manifest and ben being like ”...nah”... there are plenty more, but these were the first i could think of in 60 seconds off the top of my head. some of it really was laugh out loud funny, which can be hard to do, especially consistently. if only they didn’t lean into it so damn hard, and put in WAY too much heavy-handed humor that it dampened the experience

5. old five - although i don’t love all of the stuff in the five/old five scenes, old five’s actor was fantastic! he got aidan’s mannerisms down really, really well. it’s always cool to see actors do that kind of thing when they play a character at a different age, or a character’s sibling, etc.

6. time period bigotry - i’m really, really glad they didn’t gloss over the intense racism and homophobia of the era. it was mostly brought up with allison, vanya, and klaus, and all three actors did a great job in their respective roles when expressing their reactions to the hatred. the scenes were really hard to watch, but well done.

7. pogo/grace/reggie - don’t get me wrong, i still hate reggie with a burning passion. but i actually found his scenes with these two really interesting, and it gave us great insight as to why pogo was always so loyal to reggie, and how grace was more than just a face on a robot to hargreeves. (which actually makes lack of development in our mains even more infuriating... they clearly knew to put some in there, where is it for the rest of the sibs who got nothing this season!!!)

alright, i’m gonna stop here. i’m sure i can think of more for each section, but i’ve been thinking this out and typing for an hour (holy shit) and it’s 2am and i need sleep xoxo

The Three Three Musketeers (or Where The F*ck Did All The Stupid Hats Go)

I read The Three Musketeers and then I watched the 1973, 1993 and 2011 adaptations. Which one wins tho?

Adaptation is a fascinating concept, especially of texts which are frequently adapted or parodied. After I rewatched the 2005 Pride and Prejudice I was reminded how weirdly divisive the two dominant adaptations of that book are. A lot of people consider the 2005 to be an inferior betrayal of the 1990s BBC version. I actually prefer the 2005 because I think Matthew McFadyen’s Mr Darcy is a wonderfully complex character. McFadyen imbues Darcy with social awkwardness and anxiety, which Lizzie misinterprets as his pride. To overcome the “Lizzie doesn’t fancy him ‘til she sees his house” debate, director Joe Wright includes a moment where Lizzie glimpses Darcy alone with his sister. He’s comfortable, his body language is completely different, and he’s smiling broadly. That moment really sold me on the entire film because it made Darcy a full character and was a really simple addition that rounded out the story. I still like the 90s version but for me, it’s the 2005 that takes first place.  (Although an honourable mention for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies because it is an excellent romp.)

Look: adaptation is always a complicated topic. You can’t untangle one adaptation from another, because it’s pretty rare that somebody adapting a classic text like Pride and Prejudice or The Three Musketeers is not already familiar with existing adaptations. The most recent adaptation of any classic text is not simply an adaptation of that text, but the next step in a flow chart that includes all the previous adaptations and the cultural context of the newly created product. These three adaptations of Dumas’ 1844 novel are all texturally and stylistically very different, and two of them diverge significantly from the original text. What I found truly fascinating was what all of them had in common, and what each new era (these were made at around 20 year intervals) decides to add or remove. What do all these movies agree are the essential parts of the story, and what are some adaptations more squeamish about including from Dumas’ original narrative?

Before we dive in, no I have not seen every single adaptation of the story, that would be a dissertation level of research and I do actually have things to do right now (although, I will admit...not many.) I’m looking at these three Hollywood adaptations because they all had star studded casts (for the era they were made in), they’re all English language, and (crucially) they were all easily available on the internet for me to stream.

What are the essential ingredients of a Three Musketeers adaptation?

Firstly, there should be at least three musketeers. Secondly, D’Artagnan (Michael York 1973, Chris O’Donnell 1993, Logan Lerman 2011) should be a young upstart who is introduced part way through a sword fight. He should also have silly hair. He is also consistently introduced to the musketeers in all three films by challenging them each individually to duels at noon, one o’clock and two o’clock. 

The films all maintained some elements of the original “Queen’s Diamonds” storyline, and featured the Queen, Milady and Constance. The characterisation of these three varied a lot.

Our villains in each case are invariably the Cardinal, his pal Rochefort (who always has an eyepatch, although this trope is not in the book and is actually attributable to the way Christopher Lee is styled in the 1973 film), and Milady de Winter. Satisfyingly, at least two of the villains usually wear red because they’re bad. Red is for bad. 

All three are very swashbuckling in tone, have elements of physical comedy, and two of them include one of the three valet characters Dumas wrote into the original story, Planchet (1973 Roy Kinnear, 2011 James “ugh why” Corden). They also all bear the generic markings of the movies made during the same era, our 70s D’Artagnan feels like a prototype Luke Skywalker. The 90s version features a random martial arts performer. The 2011 version has CGI and James Corden in equal measure (read: far too much of both.)

What are the big differences?

I’m going to divide this category into three main segments: character, story and style. My own three musketeers, the three musketeers of movie making.

Character

D’Artagnan

D’artagnan in the book comes across as a pretty comical figure. He’s nineteen and there’s something satisfying about how similar Dumas’ caricature of a nineteen year old is to a modern character of the same age. He’s overconfident, has a simplistic but concrete set of morals, and falls in love with every woman he sees. If D’Artagnan were a 2021 character, he’d really hate The Last Jedi, is what I’m saying. He’d definitely have a tumblr blog, probably a lot like this one, but perhaps a scooch more earnest. He really loved The Lighthouse but he can’t explain why. Isn’t it nice to know that awkward nineteen year olds have been pretty much the same for the last three hundred years at least? 

In all three films he’s kind of irritating, but at least in the 1973 this feels deliberate. This version has a certain “Carry On Musketeering” quality to it and D’Artagnan is your pantomime principal, he’s extremely naïve and he takes himself very seriously. This is the closest D’Artagnan to the book, and the 1973 is, in general, the film which adheres most faithfully to that source material. 

The 1993, which is (spoiler alert) my least favourite adaptation, has Chris O’Donnell as the least likeable D’Artagnan I’ve come across. I’ve only seen O’Donnell in one other thing, the Al Pacino movie Scent of a Woman. He’s bearable in that because he’s opposite Al Pacino, and so his wide-eyed innocence makes sense as a contrast to Pacino’s aged hoo-ah cynicism. Rather than being introduced in a practice sword fight with his father, as in the other two films, D’Artagnan is fighting the brother of an ex-lover. This captures the problem with the film in general: this adaptation wants D’Artagnan to be cool. He is not. The comedy of the 1973, and indeed the book, comes from D’Artagnan being deeply uncool, and from his blind idolisation of the deeply flawed Musketeers who actually are cool, but not necessarily heroic, or even good people. Their moral greyness contrasts with D’Artagnan’s defined sense of right and wrong, but he still considers them to be role models and heroes. 

2011′s version also suffers from “Cool D’Artagnan” syndrome, with the added annoyance of that most Marvel of tropes: the quip. One of the real issues with this film is that the dialogue has a lot of forced quippery that doesn’t quite land, and the editing slows the pace of the entire film. D’Artagnan’s first interaction with Constance is a bad attempt at wit which Constance points out isn’t very funny. The problem is that Constance has no personality so there’s no real indication that she’s in any position to judge his level of wit. She’s just vague, blonde and there: three characteristics which describe an entire pantheon of badly written female characters throughout the ages. Cool D’Artagnan also means that Constance should be additionally cool, because in the book, Constance is older than, smarter than and over-all more in charge than D’Artagnan. 

Female Characters

Let’s go into this with an open mind that understands all these films were made in the sociological context of their decade. The 1973 version would absolutely not be made in the same way now. Constance is a clumsy cartoon character who is forever falling over and accidentally sticking her breasts out. This is not the character from the books, but does at least leave an impression on the viewer one way or another. 

In contrast, the 1993 has a Constance so forgettable I literally cannot picture her. I think she holds D’Artagnan’s hand at the end. That’s all I can say on the subject. 

The 2011 has Gabriella Wilde in the role, and absolutely wastes her. Anyone who’s seen her in  Poldark knows that she can do sharp-tongued beautiful wit-princess with ease. It’s the writing of this film that lets her down, in general, that’s the problem with it. The storyline and design are great, but the actual dialogue lacks the pace and bite that a quip-ridden star vehicle needs. This Constance is given simultaneously more and less to do than the Constance of the original book, who demonstrates at every turn the superiority of her intellect over D’Artagnan, but doesn’t get to pretend to be a Musketeer and whip her hat off to show her flowing golden hair like she does in the 2011. 

The best character, for my money, in The Three Musketeers is Milady de Winter. Even Dumas got so obsessed with her that there are full chapters of the book written from pretty much her perspective. In the book, she’s described as a terrifying genius with powers of persuasion so potent that any jailor she speaks to must be instantly replaced. My favourite Milady is absolutely Faye Dunaway from 1973. She’s ferocious and beautiful and ruthless, but potentially looks even better because the portrayals in the other films are so very bad. 

The 1993 version has your typical blonde 90s baddie woman (Rebecca De Mornay), she wouldn’t look out of place as a scary girlfriend in an episode of Friends or Frasier. 2011 boasts Milla Jovovich who presents us a much more physical version of the character, even doing an awkwardly shoe-horned anachronistic hall of lasers a la Entrapment except instead of lasers its really thin pieces of glass? The “yeah but it looks cool” attitude to anachronism in this film is what makes it fun, and Jovovich’s Milady isn’t awful, she’s just let down by a plot point that she shares with 1993 Milady. Both these adaptations get really hooked on the fact that Athos used to be married to Milady at one time (conveniently leaving out the less justifiable character point that Athos TRIED TO HANG HER when he found out she had been branded as a thief - doesn’t wash so well with the modern audiences, I think.) Rather than hating/fearing Milady, the two modern adaptations suggest that Athos is still in love with her and pines for her. This detracts from Athos’ character just as much as it detracts from Milady’s. Interestingly, and I don’t know where this came from (if it was in the book I definitely missed it), both films feature a confrontation between the two where Athos points a gun at Milady but she pre-empts him by throwing herself off a cliff (or in the 2011, an air-ship.) I think both these versions were concerned that Milady was an anti-feminist character because she’s so wantonly evil, but I disagree. Equality means it is absolutely possible for Milady to be thoroughly evil and hated by the musketeers just as much as they hate Rochefort and the Cardinal. If you want to sort out the gender issues with this story, round Constance out and give her proper dialogue, don’t make Milady go weak at the knees because of whiny Athos (both Athos characters are exceedingly whiny, 1973 Athos is just...mashed).

The Musketeers

These guys are pretty important to get right in a film called The Three Musketeers. They have to be flawed, funny but kind of cool. Richard Chamberlain is an absolute dish in the 1973 version, capturing all those qualities in one. Is it clear which version is my favourite yet?

Athos is played variously by a totally hammered Oliver Reed (1973), a ginger-bearded Kiefer Sutherland (1993) and a badly bewigged Matthew McFadyen (2011). They all have in common the role of being the most level-headed character, but the focus on the relationship between Athos and Milady in the 93 and 11 editions undermines this a lot. Athos should be cool and aloof, instead of mooning over Milady the entire time. The 2011 gives Athos some painfully “edgy” lines like “I believe in this (points at wine) this (flicks coin) and this (stabs coin with knife.)...” which McFadyen ( once oh so perfect as Mr Darcy) doesn’t quite pull off. 

Porthos seems to be the musketeer who is the most different between interpretations. A foppish dandy in the 1973, a pirate (!?!) in the 1993, and then just...large in 2011. I think the mistake made in the 2011 is that large alone does not a personality make. There are hints at Porthos’ characterisation from the book: his dependence on rich women for money and his love of fine clothing, but these are only included as part of his introduction and never crop up again through the rest of the film. Pirate Porthos in 1993 is... you know what, fine, you guys were clearly throwing everything at the wall and seeing what stuck. 

Aramis is our dishy Richard Chamberlain in 1973, followed by womanising Charlie Sheen in 1993 and then strikingly suave Luke Evans in 2011. I actually didn’t mind Luke Evans’ interpretation, his dialogue is forgettable but his sleek charm stuck in my head. For some reason, this version has Aramis working as a parking attendant for horses, it worked for me as a fun A Knight’s Tale-esque bit of anachronistic character development. Charlie Sheen has never managed to appear likable or attractive to me and so his role in the 1993 falls flat. In fact, in that edition there’s not much distinction between the musketeers as characters and they’re all just very 90s and American. As anyone who’s read this blog before will expect, I think Keanu Reeves as Aramis would have really upped this film’s game. In fact, Keanu Reeves as Aramis, Brad Pitt as Athos and Will Smith as Porthos could have been the ultimate 90s adaptation, throw in DiCaprio as D’Artagnan and Roger Allam as the Cardinal and I’m fully sold. 

The King and Queen

All three films try and do the “Queen’s Diamonds” storyline, but only the 1973 actually includes the Queen’s affair with Buckingham. The queen, played by Geraldine Chaplin, is a tragic romantic figure (she doesn’t have a tonne to do besides being wistful and sighing over Lord Buckingham). The king is played as a frivolous idiot by Jean-Pierre Cassel (voice dubbed by Richard Briers). He doesn’t really think of the queen as a person, more as a possession that he doesn’t want Buckingham to have. 

In the 1993 version, Buckingham doesn’t really feature, and it’s the queen’s refusal to get off with the Cardinal that prompts his fury at her. The book does touch on the Cardinal’s desire for the queen, but it’s placed front and centre in 1993. This is definitely the boobsiest version, with quite a lot of corsetry on show and a cardinal who hits on literally all the women. The king is shown as a stroppy teenage boy under the thumb of the cardinal, who just wants to ask the queen to the dance but doesn’t have the nerve. The king is, essentially, a Fall Out Boy lyric. 

The 2011 also seems to be really squeamish about the idea of the queen having an extramarital affair. It paints Buckingham (played with excellent wig and aplomb by Orlando Bloom) as a stylish villain, who’s advances the queen has rejected. Like the 1993 version, the King is a feckless youth rendered speechless by the presence of his wife. Both these versions want the King and Queen to be happy together, while the 1973 doesn’t give a fuck. 

The Cardinal and his Cronies

The cardinal is kind of universally an evil creepy guy. One of the characters from the 1973 version who actually left the least impression on me, played by Charlton Heston. I think he’s overshadowed in my recollection by cartoonishly evil Christopher Lee as Rochefort. Lee’s Rochefort is dark, mysterious and wonderfully bad, and so influential that all other incarnations’ design is based on him. The 1993 version had truly over the top Michael Wincott as a character I could honestly refer to as Darth Rochefort from the way he’s framed, while 2011 boasts a chronically underused Mads Mikkelsen in the role. 

Cardinal-wise, 1993 was my favourite with Tim Curry in all his ecclesiastical splendour. It was disappointing that everything about this film, including the Cardinal’s sexual harassment of every single female character, really didn’t work for me. Tim Curry is a natural choice for this role and gives it his campy all. 

2011 has not one but two trendy bond villain actors, with Mikkelsen working alongside Christoph Waltz who was...just kind of fine. I was really excited when he appeared but he didn’t really push the character far enough and left me cold. 

Story

The story is where the different adaptations diverge most completely. 1973 follows the plot of the novel, D’Artagnan comes to Paris, befriends the Musketeers and becomes embroiled in a plot by the Cardinal to expose the Queen’s affair with Buckingham through the theft of two diamond studs. D’Artagnan, aided partially by the musketeers, must travel to London to retrieve the set of twelve studs gifted by the King to the Queen, and by the Queen to Buckingham. He does so, the plot is foiled, he’s made into a musketeer! Hurrah, tankards all round.

The 1993 version drops D’Artagnan into the story just as the Cardinal has disbanded the Musketeers. I found the plot of this one really hard to follow and I think at some point D’Artagnan ended up in the Bastille? There was this whole plot point about how Rochefort had killed D’Artagnan’s father. In the original, and in the 1973 version, D’Artagnan’s entire beef with Rochefort is rooted in a joke Rochefort makes about D’Artagnan’s horse. I guess for the producers of this one, a horse insult is not enough motivation for a lifelong grudge. That is really the problem with the entire film, it forgets that the story as told by Dumas is set in a world where men duel over such petty things as “criticising one’s horse”, “blocking one’s journey down a staircase” and “accusing one of having dropped a lady’s handkerchief.” The colour palette and styling are very 90s “fun fun fun”, but the portrayal of the cardinal and the endless angst about D’Artagnan’s father really dampen the mood. 

The 2011 version, this is where the shit really hits the fan. We meet our musketeers as they collaborate with Milady to steal the blueprints for a flying ship (it’s like a piratecore zeppelin). Milady betrays them and gives the plans to Buckingham, they all become jaded and unemployed. D’Artagnan arrives on the scene (his American accent explained by the fact that he’s from a different part of France) and befriends the Musketeers. The cardinal tries to frame the queen for infidelity by having Milady steal her diamonds to hide them in Buckingham’s safe at the tower of London. Something something Constance, something something help me D’Artagnan you’re my only hope. MASSIVE AIRSHIP BATTLE. The king and queen have a dance. James Corden cracks wise. 

It seems like as time has passed, producers, writers and directors have felt compelled to embellish the story. I think, specifically in the case of the two later versions, this is because they wanted the films to resemble the big successes of the period. Everybody knows no Disney hero can be in possession of both parents, so D’Artagnan is out to avenge his father like Simba or Luke Skywalker. In the 2011 version, the plot is overblown and overcomplicated in what seems like an attempt to replicate the success of both the Sherlock Holmes and Pirates of the Caribbean franchises. Remember the plot of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End? No, me neither. 

Style

The style of these films grows increasingly wild along with the plots as time passes. The 1973 features a lot of slapstick comedy, some of which really made me cackle, and some of which was cringeworthily sexist (Constance’s boobs through the window of a litter.) That’s the 70s though! I love The Godfather but Diane Keaton’s character is unbelivably dull and annoying. Star Wars features a pretty good female character but she does end up in that bikini. The 70s seems to be a time of movies that were great except for their occasional headlong dive into misogyny. That doesn’t mean the entire movie is bad, it just means it’s suffering from the consequences of being made in the 70s. There were other consequences of this, I doubt many modern productions could get away with physically injuring so many of it’s cast members. From a glance down the IMDB trivia page, this film yielded a higher casualties to cast ratio than the My Chemical Romance Famous Last Words music video, and that’s a hard figure to top. 

The 1993 version is a Disney feature and suffers from having a thin sheen (not Charlie in this instance) of “Disney Original Movie” pasted over every scene. It looks like The Parent Trap might be filming in the adjacent studio a lot of the time. The vibrancy of the colours makes the costumes look unrealistic, while the blandness of the female characters means this movie ends up a bit of a bland bro-fest. Also occasionally the sexual and violent moments really jar with the overall tone making it an uneven watch. One minute it’s Charlie Sheen cracking jokes about trying to get off with someone’s wife, the next minute you see Milady throw herself off a cliff and land on the rocks. Weird choices all round. 

The 2011 version, as I’ve already mentioned, was trying to borrow its style from the success of Sherlock Holmes and Pirates of the Caribbean, with a little Ocean’s 11 thrown in. The soundtrack flips between not quite a Hans Zimmer score and not quite that other Hans Zimmer score, and after the success of Stardust it ends with a Take That song (for it to match up to the story it should have been Take That feat. Harry styles imho). Visually, there’s some fantastic travel by mapping going on, there’s far too much CGI (one of my friends pointed out that the canal in Venice seemed to be full of Flubber). Everyone is dressed in black leather, and there are not enough big hats at all. One of the best things about Musketeers films is that they’re an excuse for ridiculous hats, and in a film with a quite frankly insane visual style, I’m surprised the hats didn’t make it through. The cast, unfortunately, really lack chemistry which means the humorous dialogue is either stilted or James Corden, and the editing is just very strange. It’s one of those films that feels about as disjointed as an early morning dream, the one where you dream you’ve woken up, gotten dressed and fed the cat, but you actually are still in bed. 

Conclusion

Adaptations focus on different things depending on the context they were created in. The 2005 Pride and Prejudice is deliberately “grittier” than its 1990s predecessor, at a stage when “grit” was everywhere (The Bourne Identity, Spooks, Constantine). The Musketeers adaptations demonstrate exactly the same thing: what people wanted in the 70s was bawdy comedy and slapstick with a likeable idiot hero, the 90s clearly called for... Charlie Sheen and bright colours, and the 2010s just want too much of everything and a soundtrack with lots of banging and crashing. The more modern adaptations simplified the female characters (although the 1973 version definitely is guilty of oversimplifying Constance) while over-complicating the plot. There’s a lot of embellishment going on in the 2011 version that suggests the film wasn’t very sure of itself, it pulls its plot punches while simultaneously blindly flailing its stylistic fists. 

The film that works the best for me will always be the 1973 because it’s pretty straight down the line. Musketeers are good, Milady is evil, falling over is funny and the King’s an idiot. The later adaptations seem to be trying to fix problems with the story that the 1973 version just lets fly. The overcorrection of Milady and the under characterisation of Constance is the perfect example of this. If you want your Musketeers adaptation to be more feminist, don’t weaken Milady, strengthen Constance. Sometimes a competent female character is all that we need. A Constance who is like Florence Cassel from Death in Paradise or  Ahn Young-yi from Misaeng could really pack a punch.

I adored the energy of the 2011 adaptation, I loved how madcap it was, I loved how it threw historical accuracy to the wind. I thought the king was adorable, and I really enjoyed seeing Orlando Bloom hamming it up as Buckingham. I was genuinely sad that the sequel the ending sets up for never came, because once they got out of the sticky dialogue and into the explosions, the film was great fun. It was a beautiful disaster that never quite came together, but I really enjoyed watching it. I love films that have a sense of wild chaos, some more successful examples are The Devil’s Advocate, Blow Dry and Lego Batman. I think the spirit of going all out on everything can sometimes result in the best cinematic experience, it’s just a shame the script wasn’t really up to muster for 2011 Musketeers. 

I’m excited to see what the next big budget Musketeers adaptation brings, even if I’m going to have to wait another ten years to see it. I hope it’s directed by Chad Stahelski, that’d really float my boat (through the sky, like a zeppelin.)

I warned last time that we were now heading into a decline in The Legend of Zelda TV series’ quality. That was certainly the case from the mediocre “Stinging a Stinger,” which followed the contrasting and excellent pinnacle of the cartoon, “Underworld Connections.”

“Hitch in the Works” continues this trend, skirting dangerously close to becoming the most boring episode in the series. Thankfully, the episode is saved somewhat in the final sequence, but overcoming the filler beforehand is a trial that even Link would hesitate to pursue.

Doofing around

Link tells Doof about his plan to simultaneously drop his cleaning duties and win Zelda’s affection. It goes about as well as you’d expect.

There is a surprisingly ominous opening to this episode, with a castle door slowly opening and a suspicious shadow being cast across a dimly lit room as foreboding music plays. As it turns out, the mysterious figure is just Link sneaking around, navigating his way out of North Castle to go fishing before Princess Zelda can find him and force him to do chores. It’s a fun and compelling little opening sequence while it lasts, but things quickly become much less engaging from here.

Zelda inevitably finds Link and orders him to get back to his duties. Link avoided chores before in “Cold Spells,” wherein he faked a cold to avoid the labor. He doesn’t get off so easily this time, which is unfortunate for both him and the viewer as watching him bumble around the cellar is a chore in itself.

Allow me to quickly run you through the first half of this episode to save you time and boredom: Link does chores. Link meets a robot. The robot breaks. The robot belongs to a man called Doof, the castle handyman and Link’s friend. Doof fixes his robot. The robot makes a mess. Moblins arrive and break the robot. Link fights the Moblins. Doof fixes the robot again. The robot collapses yet again and Link is scolded by Zelda for goofing off. Link resumes his chores. We’re now halfway through the episode, but this robot seems important, right?

It isn’t seen again for the remainder of the episode.

Far too much screentime is given to Doof’s robotic cleaning servant, which contributes very little to the episode.

It’s not that I wouldn’t be open to seeing more slice-of-life scenes in this series; it could be a refreshing change of pace to watch Link and Zelda spend more time at North Castle, rather than adventuring in Hyrule or the Underworld. The problem is that nothing interesting happens in the first two-thirds of this episode, and certainly nothing that makes me think, “This is The Legend of Zelda.”

As for Doof himself, he is similar to Sleezenose in the previous “Stinging a Stinger” episode: a non-canon character with a single-episode appearance and very little to offer the series. Despite the amount of screentime Doof has, he has very little relation to the final Underworld sequence, which feels incredibly detached from everything that leads up to it. In other words, everything that occurs before the final five minutes of the episode feels like filler.

Zelda overhears Link’s plan to make Doof’s fake Moblins capture her and decides to play along.

After Link is done cleaning up the assaulting Moblins, Doof’s robot crashes into him, rendering Link unconscious. Zelda wakes Link up and accuses him of sleeping on the job, refusing to believe the castle was ever under attack. Link, still determined to get out of doing his assigned chores, asks Doof if he can use his magic and craftsmanship skills to make some fake Moblins. Link’s plan is to fool Zelda into thinking she is being captured, giving him an opportunity to “save” her, win her affection, and get out of his cleaning duties. Unfortunately for Link, Zelda overhears his plan, and when real Moblins attack again, neither of our heroes attempt any resistance against what they perceive as Doof’s manufactured minions. Following this error in judgment, Zelda is kidnapped more easily than ever.

Thank Hylia for Ganon, who’s about to save this episode from all of the tedium endured so far.

The princess bride

Ganon’s Jewel of Control is designed so that anyone who wears it obeys the evil wizard’s orders.

With the princess in his clutches, Ganon plans to use his new device, the Jewel of Control, on her. This is a necklace that forces the wearer to obey all of Ganon’s orders. Ganon announces to Zelda his plans to marry her so that he may become the new ruler of Hyrule, and while she initially and unsurprisingly refuses in disgust, she promptly agrees as soon as the Jewel of Control is placed on her. Like the Force Field Ring in “Doppelganger,” the Jewel of Control is another item that is exclusive to the TV series and not based on any of the items from the games, but it feels like a plausible enough device that may be used by a Legend of Zelda villain.

Link inevitably arrives to crash the wedding, but Zelda isn’t in a hurry to be rescued after becoming a slave to Ganon’s command. She insists on marrying Ganon, which confuses Link and puts a halt on his escape plan.

Having Zelda hypnotized into serving Ganon introduces an interesting dynamic for the series that, unfortunately, isn’t explored enough

Having Zelda hypnotized into serving Ganon introduces an interesting dynamic for the series that, unfortunately, isn’t explored beyond Zelda mindlessly agreeing to get hitched. If only the episode hadn’t wasted so much time before this point, the Jewel of Control’s influence on Zelda could have had much more potential. It would have been fun to see Zelda conform to Ganon’s orders as his new servant, stealing the Triforce of Wisdom from North Castle under the guise of the ordinary Princess Zelda, and being forced to fight Link. It’s an interesting concept that feels squandered and rushed by being crammed at the end of a dull and failing story, rather than being used as the core of the adventure as it deserved.

Let’s not lose our heads, though

When Link’s rescue mission goes south, Ganon summons the Gleeok for a rematch against Link.

Ganon has an ace in the hole to deal with Link’s interruption and unleashes a familiar face (or three) from “Kiss ‘N Tell,” the Gleeok. The heads of the Hydra-like hellion aren’t as talkative this time around, roaring in anger rather than blathering amongst themselves. It makes sense, of course: Link made a mockery of the Gleeok last time they met, and there is no time for goofs as vengeance burns in all six of those eyes. It may not sound exciting to watch Link repeat the same fight as before, especially after already watching him battle the commonplace Moblins and Stalfos to reach this point, but there is one aspect of this fight that makes things incredibly entertaining.

After avoiding the beast’s incoming flames, Link zaps the Gleeok three times. A successful series of Crissword zaps usually results in enemies vanishing back to the Evil Jar, which is the case here — but only the creature’s body disappears. The Gleeok’s heads remain, flying through the air, chasing Link, and spewing fiery breath in his direction. This is a special moment, as this is what happens when Link fights the Gleeok bosses in the original Legend of Zelda game.

This time, the Gleeok enters its second battle phase, with its detached heads flying furiously at Link.

Fighting a Gleeok is a little more graphic in the game — at least technically. The simplicity of the game’s sprites and animations help keep the gory details of Link’s battle vague on the screen, but the game’s manual says, “Heads that Link cuts off from its body fly around in the air.” Rather than having Link sever the Gleeok’s heads with his blade, which may have been too violent for a children’s cartoon, the TV series cleverly gets around this by instead having Link using sword zaps to make the Gleeok’s torso disappear.

With the heads furiously flying toward Link and relentlessly hurling flames at him, Link decides to avoid confronting them directly. Instead, he runs toward Ganon, luring the heads to crash into their master and explode upon impact, allowing Link to take Zelda and escape back to the surface.

There aren’t any new enemies introduced in this episode, but there is something very familiar about the monster who presides over Ganon’s wedding ceremony. This Grim Reaper-like figure looks almost identical to the Magician from The Adventure of Link’s artwork, with the purple cloak, white skin, red eyes, and lined face making the appearance uncanny.

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The wedding scene from the “Hitch in the Works” episode of the TV series.

Official Adventure of Link artwork of the magician (courtesy of Zelda Wiki).

From a Zelda lore perspective (within a non-canon story notwithstanding), it could also be interpreted as a Wizzrobe with a scythe. Either way, the creature is never addressed by a name or title, so it’s assumed to just be a generic creature that resides in the Underworld. The influence of the visual appearance is very clear, however, and makes sense considering that the TV series’ production team was likely given many materials to work from, including official Zelda game artwork. It feels like a fun little homage, even if the context is vague.

Hitch your wagon elsewhere

Ganon looks about as bored as me watching this episode. At least he made the right decision to shake things up toward the end.

There isn’t a whole lot more to say about “Hitch in the Works,” especially as the majority of the episode is very forgettable. Zelda doesn’t get the chance to engage in any action this time around, and even her role as a mind-manipulated damsel is dull and underplayed. As is a common problem within the TV series, the dialogue isn’t particularly inspired, either. Link delivers the most lame and slapdash comeback ever when arriving at the wedding and giving his reason why the couple should not be wed: “Yeah, I got a reason. And here it is: Back off, Ganon!” Speaking of Ganon, however, he remains the best part of this series and is the saving grace of this episode.

We still have another poor episode to go before the series picks up in quality again, but let’s not end this review on a downer. After all, I may have been a bit harsh on “Hitch in the Works.” That’s right, I lied: There is one magical moment aside from the Underworld battle. I don’t need to describe it to you. Just observe the animated GIF below.

https://zeldauniverse.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/tv-series-episode-10-hitch-in-the-works-link-shield-bomb-jump.mp4

"Thankfully, the episode is saved somewhat in the final sequence, but overcoming the filler beforehand is a trial that even Link would hesitate to pursue." The Legend of Zelda TV series retrospective: Episode 10, ‘Hitch in the Works' I warned last time that we were now heading into a decline in The Legend of Zelda…

Ways I would change Solo

My other Star Wars changes

Prequels

The Clone Wars and Rebels

Original Trilogy

Sequels

Rogue One

Solo wasn’t really a bad movie, I think it is a fun movie with great potential. The problem is they focused more on the future and not in the now, a movie about Han Solo does not focus on Han Solo and it’s not necessary at all and the story is very forgettable, and it really is just a cash grab. There is nothing remarkable about the movie and the only two characters who stand out as 100% only enjoyable to me are Enfys Nest and Chewie. The rest of the characters just feel like unnecessary adds or barley passable imitations. So these are ways I would change Solo to make it a great movie

Make the movie about Han. It focused too much on other characters that don’t matter.  Solo suffers from the fact that it really isn’t an origin movie about Han, but rather a movie about how he got his stuff. Which I think is in part because Lucasfilm planned to make Solo a trilogy till it completely and utterly failed at the box office and became the most financially disappointing Star Wars movie in all of the franchise’s history. It focused too much on Qi’Ra, Beckett and L3. The movie should have been about Han. from the streets, to Imperial and to Scoundrel. The movie should have been focused on Han and his relationships with Chewie and Lando. Showing Han leaving the Imperials for freeing Chewie and the two of them work together from that day. Putting a greater emphasis on Lando would have been a smart move since he’s returning in IX, and adding Jabba and Boba mention would have made sense since Lucasfilm had really wanted to do a Boba Fett movie and testing the wasters in Solo would had been better than adding that random cameo with Darth Maul, a character who literally couldn’t have anything less to do with Han or the OT. Why is Darth Maul in a movie about Han Solo? I really feel like they should not have brought Maul back in Solo. He had his return in The Clone Wars and he got his final death in Rebels. Bringing back Maul was dumb. The majority of casual audiences do not know Maul survived TPM, they just shoehorned Maul in for sequel bait and nostalgia. The problem is they focused on the future instead of focusing on their movie.When it comes to Solo, Maul shouldn’t even be there. Han does not believe in the force and believes a lightsaber is a ancient weapon from archaic times and all he needs is a good blaster. From Han himself “I’ve never seen anything to make me believe there’s one all powerful force controlling everything.” I really feel like no one on board understood Han Solo as a character and their inability to make a Han Solo movie about Han or any aspect of Han’s character is what ultimately failed the movie.

Make it a mix between Ocean’s 11 and The Good The Bad And The Ugly. The original trilogy was influenced by Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai.  Rogue One is a Dirty Dozen type war movie. Solo’s problem is it’s just a movie. An easy fix is to make it a heist film first and then make it a space western.  Solo turned into a heist film about 45 minutes into the film. Until then you just had Ehrenreich bouncing around doing stuff. It wasn’t boring but we wasted so much time with him enlisting in the empire, joining Beckett’s gang, having Beckett’s gang die, owing Beckett a favour, meeting his long lost lover and then we finally have our plot. There’s definitely a better way to get the gang together than the convoluted way we got. 20 minutes in, we should know exactly what the stakes are for the rest of the movie.

Han Solo picks his own name. Han is a rebel without a cause. He doesn’t care where he came from, so a random Imperial Officer should not be given Solo his last name. This is Han’s story, he should tell the officer that he’s Han Solo. Han not calling himself Solo was a really bad sign.

Give Han’s original Legends Backstory and how he met Chewie. Han wanting to escape his life in the gang works better in Legends and while I don’t see anything wrong with his bond with Qi’Ra, I just felt like it was really dumb for Han to want to go back to Corellia for her and just see her 20 minutes later. Show his Imperial career more. Have him be revealed as an Ace Tie Pilot, but something changed all that, Chewie. I strongly feel like Legends Han meeting Chewie was more impactful and emotional than what we got in the actual movie. Han saving Chewie from being executed by his Imperial superiors is better than Han being thrown into a pit and speaking Shyriiwook.

More Lando. Basically focus more on Han and Lando’s friendship and surprise everyone by basically pull a Jack Harkness and have Lando kiss Han and Qi'Ra simultaneously. Show us why Han and Lando have a strong friendship, show don’t tell. Have Han and Lando being smugglers in arms. And finally Lando would not leave he would patch himself up and return to help Han in the end. We really needed to see why Han sees so much reverence in his friendship to Lando in ESB. What we got from Solo makes Lando’s betrayal unsurprising. We needed to see why Lando was willing to sacrifice an old friendship to save Bespin from the Imperials, the emotional weight of Han and Lando’s friendship wasn’t there in the movie, it needed to be there so their relationship friendship should’ve been one of the core elements of the movie.

Make Han and Qi'Ra just platonic and childhood friends. I didn’t like the romance and thought Han and Qi'Ra just worked as childhood friends. It really rubbed me the wrong way that Han’s first instinct when seeing Qi'Ra again was wanting to make out with her…when Qi'Ra has been abused by Vos for years and Qi’Ra was uncomfortable about it in Lando’s cape closet. It would be more tragic imo if being betrayed by Qi'Ra that she just wants to kill to the top and stay ahead of the food chain at the cost of old attachments, which this would help turn Han into the cold smuggler we know from ANH

Take out that god-awful “I’m not saying that full name” line Cause Han calls him Chewie and not Chewbacca! Get it? It’s one syllable in the difference. Out of all the connections in the movie, that is the very worst.

Beckett is killed instead of Val. Val was rather mistrustful and skeptical of Han, imagine if only Val, Han and Chewie made it out alive. Val would have no choice BUT to stick with Han and she would grow to trust him, Beckett was a boring character and we all saw his betrayal coming. You could’ve easily changed places with Beckett. But Val would not betray the gang. Val would’ve joined Enfys Nest, while Qi’Ra would’ve been the one to betray Han and co.

L3-37 stays on the slave planet by choice. A minor one but after L3-37 liberates the droids, I think it’d work better if she stayed on the planet to live among her “people”. Her whole shtick was she didn’t like being a slave, there was no logical way she’d get back on the Falcon after freeing all the droid so they had to kill her off. A less cheap and more rewarding pay-off would be she tells Lando she’s staying. They hug, have a moment and she gets to finish her arc. Too many characters die in this film just so the plot can progress (Okay 3, but that’s 3 more than you have to kill). Sure this means you lose the connection in A New Hope where C3-PO mentions the Falcon’s odd dialect but I think we can manage without it. Also, now Han gets to do the Kessel run without any droid help. It shows he’s a great pilot and has what it takes. That’s kinda what we needed to see.

Qi'Ra and Aurra Sing would be partners and lovers. One of the most deadly bounty hunters during the Clone Wars is fridged for Beckett’s reputation. She doesn’t even get a dignified death, not even on screen. Not even a duel. She is pushed to her death. So instead of that bullshit, Aurra would be Qi'Ra’s right hand and lover and together they would kill Vos together. 

Make Dryden Vos more of a legit threatening villain. Paul Bettany used to play really fucking evil gangster characters and that’s what I was hoping Dryden was going to be playing, but he was barely there. Make him cruel, and a clear danger. Prior to the meeting, show him execute an underling for insubordination and have him say “sorry for the mess” imply his abusive relationship with Qi’Ra and show that Qi’Ra wants out, but not in the way Han might think. She wants to kill Vos and take power for herself! And make his death at the hands of Qi'Ra and Sing mean something. Show that Sing is sick and tired of seeing Qi’Ra be hurt by that scum and will say “the Crimson Dawn would be better in your hands, just say the word and he dies” Qi’Ra would say “when the time is right, my pet” 

When the betrayal happens, Aurra Sing leads the Crimson Dawn to attack The Marauders, so we get a climatic scene of Enfys Nest fighting Aurra Sing, while Han and Lando deal with Vos, however when Qi’Ra’s betrayal is revealed, show Qi’Ra killing Vos and leaving Han and Lando to fend for themselves against Crimson Dawn forces. Han and Lando fight them off and Han goes after Qi’Ra and Chewie.

Han would face Qi’Ra. Qi’Ra will boast that Han is too emotional and too good deep down inside and that he doesn’t have what it takes and this was never about him and finally before Qi’Ra can pull out her blaster, Han shoots first. This would be a way of letting the past go and Han embracing his scoundrel ways.

Han’s farewell with Enfys remains the same, but Han also bids farewell to Val to thank her for everything, but Val thanks Han for letting her see to let go of her hatred as she learned that Enfys was just a child and knew that Becket allowed his greed and hatred lead him to his death.

Val would contact L3 and together with Enfys Nest and L3, Val would be a big help to the Rebellion

Han and Lando play one last game of Sabacc and Han wins, thus winning him the Falcon and Han and Lando part off as friends.

Solo ends similar to how it ended with Han and Chewie flying off in the Falcon with a hint to his future with the Hutt Cartel and his rivalry with Boba Fett, thus giving a sign for sequels without making the movie built on sequel baiting.

How “The Umbrella Academy” Surprised Me

In many ways, good and bad.

This is a spoiler-free review of season one of The Umbrella Academy

I remember when The Umbrella Academy comics came out. It was 2007 and I was a broke thirteen-year-old living in suburban Australia (a cultural wasteland!) so I never actually read them, but as a rabidly obsessed My Chemical Romance/Gerard Way fan, I managed to fold The Umbrella Academy into my identity anyway. I’m not sure exactly how that works, but hey. Adolescents are powerful creatures.

As a distinguished almost-twenty-five-year-old (I’d like to acknowledge that I took a small break here to have an existential crisis) my walls are free of band posters and my eyes are no longer encircled with that thick black eyeliner that always managed to look three days old and slept in, but I still got kind of a thrill when I learned that The Umbrella Academy was being adapted into a Netflix show. It was something I had always assumed I would end up reading, back in the depths of my emo phase (which is probably more accurately defined as a My Chemical Romance phase) but then just kind of forgot about. So, great, I’m simultaneously being reminded that this thing exists, and freed of the nostalgic obligation to go seek out the comic and read it. As much as I love reading, comics have just never been my thing.

Then the trailer came out. Honestly, it kind of killed my enthusiasm. It just looked kind of generic. Apocalypse. Superpowers. Bold characters. Lots of action. My takeaway was a big ol’ “Meh.” Frankly, without my pre-existing attachment to Gerard Way and the very idea of The Umbrella Academy, I highly doubt I would have given it a chance - not because it looked inherently bad, but just because I’m a hard sell on the kind of show it appeared to be.

But it’s Gerard Way, man. I had to watch at least one episode.

The Umbrella Academy centres around the famous-yet-mysterious Hargreeves family. The seven children - six of whom have special powers - were adopted by Reginald Hargreeves, a cold and severe patriarch who didn’t even deign to name them. He made them into “The Umbrella Adademy,” a crime-fighting squad of tiny children who would later dissolve after a tragic incident. Now they’re grown up, and Dad’s dead. His spare and tense memorial is what brings the adult Umbrella Academy back together, and this is where the show kicks off.

We’re treated to a rather clumsy beginning; a gripping opening scene followed by an unimaginative montage. We get a glimpse of each of the Hargreeves’ regular lives, leading up to and including them learning of their father’s death. It’s a heavy-handed introductory roll-call, complete with on-screen name cards. It’s a baffling waste of time, considering we don’t learn anything in this montage that isn’t later reiterated through dialogue or behaviour. We don’t need to see Klaus leaving rehab to know he’s an addict. We don’t need to see Allison on the red carpet to know she’s a movie star. It dragged, even on a first watch not knowing that the whole thing would be ultimately pointless, and I’m surprised no one thought to cut it and let us go in cold with everyone arriving at the mansion for the memorial - an opening that would have both set the tone and let us get to know the characters much more naturally. Maybe it feels like I’m focusing too much on this, and that’s only because it gave me a bad first impression - and I want anyone who reacts the same way I did to stick with it. It really does get better.

The further we got from the montage the less gimmicky it felt, and I started to sense some sort of something that I liked about this show. Stylistically it was interesting, and there seemed to be an underlying depth; room for these characters to be more than brooding ex-vigilantes with daddy issues. I was intrigued enough by the end of episode one to keep watching, and was gratified as the series went on and truly delved into those depths. There was a memorable turning point for me around episode five, where Klaus (the wonderful Robert Sheehan) was given space in the runtime to visibly, viscerally feel the effects of something he had just been through. It sounds so obvious, and so simple, but it’s something that is frustratingly glossed over so often in fiction. You know. Fallout. Feelings.

It wasn’t just that moment, though. Prior episodes laid the groundwork, developing not just Klaus but all the Hargreeves. Each character feels real and grounded, each of them uniquely good, uniquely bad, uniquely damaged by their upbringing. It’s this last point I particularly appreciate, this subtle realism in the show’s execution of abused characters. We see how siblings growing up with the same parents does not necessarily mean they got the same childhood, endured the same abuse, or that their trauma will manifest in the same ways. And certainly, it’s important to see the different coping mechanisms each of them have developed. Furthermore, there is a lot more to each of these characters than just their trauma. There are seven distinct personalities going on, and I have to applaud the writers for this commitment to character. It was largely this that kept me hooked (I’m such a sucker for good characters), and to my own surprise very invested in the way things unfolded.

I love the tone, which found a cool rhythm after the pilot. The pacing was decent and the character development balanced well against the plot. I like the little quirks that remind you of the show’s comic book roots, like Pogo, the talking ape and Five, the grouchy old man in a teenager’s body.

Weirdly, I like the apocalypse stuff, which they managed to put their own spin on despite it being such a played-out trope at this point. I like that the show found small ways to go in unexpected directions, even if the overarching plot and big twists weren’t all that surprising. And most of all I love that in a world saturated with forgettable media, I woke up today still thinking about this show.

Even if not all of my thoughts were so generous.

See, for everything I love about this show, there are also quite a few things that rubbed me up the wrong way. I can’t list them all without going into spoilers, but I think it needs to be said that there are like, a fair few problematic elements in this show. I couldn’t help but notice that while women and people of colour are the minority in this cast, they also seem to cop the worst abuse. Only two of the Hargreeves siblings are female. One of them has no powers and the other’s power is influence (a non-physical power). Their “Mom” is literally a robot created for the sole purpose of caregiving; she dresses and acts like the epitome of a submissive 50s housewife. The Hargreeves sisters are also the ones most likely to be left out or ignored when it comes to making decisions, with one of them even literally losing her voice at one point (yikes!). Beyond that we have some truly disturbing imagery of violence being inflicted on women of colour almost exclusively by white men, and the fact that the only asian character is um… well, he’s literally dead. Before the show even starts.

Overall the problem is not just insufficient diversity, with white men taking up most of the screen time, dialogue and leadership actions, but the way that the few female and non-white characters are depicted.

These are all depictions that, in a vacuum, would be innocuous. I mean, just looking at the root of many of the show’s problems exemplifies that - the root being that all of these characters were white in the source material (uh, a problem in itself, obviously). It wasn’t a problem, for example, when Dead Ben was not the only Asian character but just another white Hargreeves sibling. And wouldn’t it be nice if we lived in a world where you could race or gender-swap any character and have everything mean - or not mean - the same thing. But life is more complicated than that. Art is more complicated than that.

Honestly, I’m not sure if we should give props to the developers of The Umbrella Academy for diversifying their cast when the fact is they did so - and I say this gently - ignorantly and lazily. Race-swapping willy-nilly and leaving it at that ignores a lot of complex issues surrounding the nuances of portraying minorities in fiction, and leaves room for these kinds of harmful and hurtful tropes to carelessly manifest. So many storytellers don’t want to hear it, but let me tell you writer to writer that it does matter if the person being choked is white or black, male or female, trans or cis. It does matter who’s doing the choking. Camera angles matter. Dialogue matters. It’s all a language that conveys a message - about power and dominance and vulnerability in the real world. Because art doesn’t exist inside a vacuum, as inconvenient as that might be. Having the empathy to recognise that will actually make us better storytellers.

In shedding light on these issues, I am not dragging this show. I am not condemning it. And although it is problematic in itself, I’m not even saying it’s problematic to enjoy it. I’m pulling apart the lasagne, looking at the layers, poking and prodding at the individual ingredients and saying, “Hey, the chef probably should have known better than to put pineapple in here. Maybe let’s not do that next time.” I’m also saying, “When I get a mouthful with pineapple in it, I don’t enjoy that. It’s jarring and unpleasant. But it doesn’t ruin the whole meal for me.”

I’m getting better at allowing myself to dislike something on the basis of its shitty themes. To not have to justify myself when something is problematic in a way that just makes it too uncomfortable for me to watch. That wasn’t the case here. I won’t lie; the bad stuff was no afterthought for me. That kind of thing really gets to me. It does ruin a lot for me. But in this case, the show redeemed itself in other ways; mostly by just being a compelling story with characters I liked. I’m trying not to justify that too hard either.

So I liked The Umbrella Academy, and I hope it gets a second season. I also hope that the creators will listen to people like me who want to be able to enjoy their show even more and create more consciously in the future.

And please let Vanya be a lesbian.

The Umbrella Academy is out now on Netflix

Watch this show if you like: witty characters, iconic characters, complex characters, mysteries,  dark themes, superpowers, vigilantes, comics, dark humour, epic stories, shows about families, stylistic TV shows, ensemble casts, character dynamics, dramedies

Possible triggers (don’t read if you care about spoilers): suicide, child abuse, claustrophobia, addiction, violence, violence against women, violence against women of colour, death, torture, incest, self-harm, pregnancy/childbirth, kidnapping/abduction, blood, mental illness, medication/themes of medication necessity, blood, manipulation/gaslighting, homicide, forced captivity, guns, hospitalisation, medical procedures, needles, PTSD, prison rape reference (1).

Please feel free to message me if I failed to include a relevant trigger warning and I’ll include it.

in which some metafictional stuff happens

Inspired by some chat I was having with @sybilius and also an amazing ‘80s AU fic by @morgan-arthur although this can’t actually be blamed on either of them. Not least because it seems to be set in the ‘70s sometime instead.

so anyway, here’s a thing where Blondie and Tuco are draft-dodging, card-playing hustlers, and wow did I get involved in building up the situation for this. Also some racial stuff, hence the tagging. 

(edit: Tumblr in its infinite wisdom blocks the fic when I had the tagging in. I’m of the opinion that any fic where the POC protagonist is contemplating their own participation in screwed-up racial dynamics for the sake of pulling a fast one ought to be tagged racism, but I also want people to actually be able to read the thing, so no tagging.)

Ugh. 

Anyway, I feel that you can’t have Leone if the GBU characters are wandering around, so...

“Badlands,” Blondie says, holding the grey film can easily, as if it weighs no more than a dream; and Tuco privately seethes. 

They’ve been so careful about this little hustle, never entering a town together or winning too much from the same people. Blondie will show up at a bar’s back room first, play a few hands, let everyone there get a sense of him as a discreet, careful player, with a damn-near perfect poker face. 

Enter the sucker: one loud-mouthed, louder-dressed Mexican, twirling a mustache and flashing a roll (hundreds, wrapped around ones). Sometimes the other players will play it straight, and those nights they more or less break even. Other times, well...maybe he takes his time ordering the tequila, and gets to the table to find too many smiles, quiet sniggers behind the cards. And a couple too-good-to-be-true rounds to be sure of roping him in, with Blondie betting the most. 

So he wins those, and takes all the money, and tells them he’s quitting while he’s ahead. With a free round of tequila for everybody, to show there’s no hard feelings. If that’s not good enough, he has his gun; and there’s always Blondie’s if the situation got serious. So far they haven’t needed either, because the hustle they sell is never about the money. It’s something better, even more important, for the kind of men who hate the border and everything from south of it. Giving them the chance to look down on this cringing, incredibly superstitious foreigner who’d obviously love to play on, but santa maria, the Virgin Mary, she whispers in my ear and tells me no, go home now...  

(a joke in many layers; he’s from Brooklyn, not romantic Sonora, but even Blondie doesn’t know that part. There might be less dangerous ways of making a living; but none that won’t be just as insulting, Tuco figures. And the hours suit him fine.) 

Only apparently their reputation’s preceded them this time, because there’s no reason on earth that Bill Carson would just so happen to have a hot film print sitting in the trunk of his car. Blondie’s got next to no vices that Tuco’s ever noticed, but every man needs a couple, and his are Westerns. 

“Adequate stakes?“ Carson asks, with a hopeful, driving need in his voice- the jitteriness of a barely controlled addict, on something stronger than the whiskey he’s gulping like coke. Maybe there’s something to work with, then. If the stakes were worth it. 

“An old film,” Tuco says dismissively. “You tell me what I want with an old film, eh?”

“Badlands is New Hollywood,” Blondie says, not letting go to Carson’s pleading tug. “They’d never made anything like this before.”

Now that’s simply not true, Tuco’s well aware; he can date and place their progress across the country simply by what movie was playing when. 1967, Texas, Bonnie and Clyde. 1968, Colorado, and such a handsome bastard in Ace High. By 1969 they’d reached Las Vegas in time for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and spent more time sneaking into theatres than counting cards, the way he remembers it. There have been plenty such films before. 

Then again, he doesn’t know what it is that Blondie’s looking for, every time they sit before that silver screen and watch the pictures flickering by. To him they’re just a tolerable way to pass the time, a chance to rest his feet and fill his belly with hot buttered popcorn; but for Blondie, movies are meat and drink and eucharist all rolled into one, a gaping hole in the world’s tightly woven net, a wound that leads out somewhere that everything is upside-down, and their petty struggles for one more win, the indifferent hamburgers at forgettable lunch counters, sweaty nights at plastic-wrapped motels, all become the stuff of legend. 

But Blondie does have such a fine poker face; and that makes it worthwhile putting up with his foibles. “All right, all right,” Tuco says, a little more impatiently than usual; and lays down the covering stake. 

They win. Of course they win; and Bill Carson watches them take his prize with a strange kind of satisfaction, a relish that makes Tuco’s flesh prickle. All gamblers say they’re in it to win; not all of them are, though, and it fills him with unease when they play a man who begs the world to take everything he has. 

“Fucker had it coming,” he says afterwards, in the night-cold air of the alley (desert air is cruel like that, he’d discovered early on, while pretending that he’d known it all along). “But no match for us, eh Blondie?”

That’s breaking ranks. Even now, standing in front of the battered station wagon that will lead them to the next town, and another and another, they are not supposed to talk of their connection- but Blondie merely shoves an elbow into his ribs, a lackluster motion with no energy behind it. Talking’s no use, the man’s transfixed. 

Tuco curses under his breath, lights a cigarette to warm his hands and curb frustrated appetites. They’d plotted this one for weeks, planning and quarreling by turns, how to dupe the famous spendthrift Carson. He’d been dreaming of a month of steak dinners, real hotels with pile carpeting, enough money to let them rest a while and not have to do any thinking at all. 

Instead they were taken in themselves, just as broke today as they were yesterday, with a head muzzy from too much tequila and his stomach crying out with hunger. He has to be drunk, Tuco concludes, or he’d never have let Blondie dictate terms; not when they could have held out for money or a car or something practical, not a damned film that they can’t even watch.

(Briefly, he envisions reaching out and pulling the narrow length of Blondie’s black necktie into a choking knot; and the image fills him with too much bleak satisfaction.)

“You there,” somebody calls. Standing at the edge of the alley, where the street lights can outline his silhouette to maximum effect; it’s a nice theatrical gesture, Tuco notes, and tucks that one away in his memory for later.  

“You want us to put out, you’d better be prepared to pay up!” If that won’t get Blondie’s attention, nothing will. It doesn’t. 

The interloper comes closer, and Tuco recognises him now; the fourth member of their poker quartet, the one who’s spoken even less than Blondie. His mouth moves more than Blondie’s, but his eyes are just as verboten. “I have something you two might be interested in.”

“We’re not,” Blondie says, dropping the precious film into his game bag; and Tuco watches him move it from hand to hand, ready to toss onto a soft bulging trash pile if the situation degenerates into a fight. 

Angel Eyes smiles, at the both of them, and Tuco wishes he wouldn’t. “I have a projector. Someplace quiet to watch it, too. Sounds to me like we need each other.”

Blondie considers, pronounces. “Done.”

“Hang on here,” Tuco says, more for the sake of the protest than anything else. “Blondie, it’s late, this is new territory for us. We need to find somewhere to sleep tonight, get out bearings and pick up some dinner.”

“I’ll take care of that,”  Angel Eyes says, an offer that’s halfway to a command. “Only fair recompense.”

“Do us both good,” Blondie says, now staring at Angel Eyes with that same lust he’d just been lavishing on a second-hand film can; and Tuco does not ask himself the source of that sudden raging heat that grips his body tight. Doesn’t ask what it means for their unspoken trust, if someone else can wedge a way between him and Blondie; doesn’t ask himself how long this deal with a devil can be expected to last, or how it’ll end. 

All he allows himself to know is that he’s warm now, and somebody’s offered them dinner, and just now, there’s nothing more he wants out of life. 

“Tuco will probably fall asleep, but never mind that, I’ll wake him up if he starts snoring,” Blondie says. 

There’s a flicker in Angel’s expression, then. “For a poker player, you sure don’t pick up on tells.” 

wouldn’t it be just my luck, to be the bystander in a tale of love at first sight? 

“It’s your call, Blondie,” Tuco says, letting the tension drip into his shaking voice (it’s cheap, and he’d make himself a damn sight cheaper, to hold what he has). “Who are you spending the night with, huh?”

“Who’s to say I can’t spend it with both you idiots?“

“And where do you get off,” Angel Eyes asks. “Calling me an idiot?”

“If you weren’t, you’d have won the film yourself and we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” Blondie says. He takes one of his little cigars from a shirt pocket, lights and inhales. 

Not with the slightest trace of desire. There’s a devastating, effortless charm to it, the glorious self-sufficiency of a man who wants absolutely nothing from life, and will never need to ask. Illusion, the ideal poker face, perfect and complete. 

Tuco sucks in a breath at the sight, same as he always does; besides him, simultaneously, Angel Eyes does precisely the same. 

They don’t even need to look at each other, to share the next inexorable thought. 

That one’s going to be trouble.

Tarantulas: the Deadly Cargo

 I tend to associate this movie with Killer Fish – probably because I originally watched them on consecutive days, but they’ve got many other things in common.  Both feature dull 70’s actors facing off against small animals that aren’t nearly as dangerous as pop culture would have us believe.  Both go out of their way to avoid showing us anything genuinely exciting or cool.  Both have boring, contrived climaxes, and both have titles that are technically accurate but dismally forgettable.  If this one had dropped the Tarantulas and just called itself Deadly Cargo, that would be ten times better already.

A couple of crooks fly out of Ecuador with no idea that their cargo of coffee beans and illegal immigrants is, for some reason I cannot even begin to fathom, infested with spiders.  A bad engine and the aggressive spiders lead to a crash landing in Finleyville, California.  This is a sleepy little hick town that depends on the citrus industry, and they clearly haven’t had an emergency in about twelve years but they do their best to rise to the occasion.  Unfortunately, their attempts to help only unleash the deadly arachnids on their community.  Eventually, the townspeople find that the spiders have made themselves at home in the town’s fruit warehouse.  If they cannot be somehow removed, the oranges will be unsalable, and Finleyville will go broke without a crop.

No shit.  The greatest threat presented by the spiders in this movie is to the town’s economy.  I don’t know why I find that so funny.  Most spider movies present us with the horror of a slow venom death, often while playing up the omg, it’s touching me! angle. Giant spider movies give us huge monsters that can entangle and devour us. Tarantulas: the Deadly Cargo threatens that not only might we be bitten by spiders, we won’t be able to afford health insurance afterwards!

The economic angle is the key to what this movie is.  It’s trying to be something, and the first time I watched it, I wasn’t paying enough attention to pick it out.  On the second viewing, when the owner of the orange-packing plant refuses to shut down operations because of a few spiders, it clicked – this was a Jaws ripoff!  It’s got the shark and the Fourth of July Weekend and the whole thing!  There’s even a Little Alex Kitner, in the form of a kid who climbs a truck to see one of the spiders after the driver assures him it’s perfectly harmless.  Deadly Cargo has changed enough details that it could have been an interesting variation on this formula, but by the time the movie’s over its choice of shark stand-in has pushed it into a couple of corners it just can’t get out of.

I’ll come back to that – first, it’s Spider Nerd time again, and I actually do have to give Deadly Cargo some points for research.  Characters present a dead spider to some sort of scientist, who identifies it as a Brazilian Wandering Spider, Phoneutria nigriventer.  This species can be dangerous to humans, but usually only to small children, and they’re one of the few spiders capable of delivering a ‘dry’ bite that’s intended to scare rather than to kill. They’re sometimes called banana spiders because of a reputation for hanging out in shipments of fruit, but I don’t think they’ve ever been found hiding in coffee beans.  Why would a spider hide in coffee beans?  Spiders like small spaces to crawl into, such as those you find in between bunches of bananas or oranges in a box.  Coffee beans are too small to create spider-sized hidey holes!

The Nondescript Scientist also notes that Phoneutria isn’t a tarantula – another reason why the word Tarantulas should not have been in the title.  It also got a snort out of me because almost all the spiders we see in this movie are in fact Mexican Red-Knee Tarantulas (there are also a couple of Chilean Rose-Hairs).  These are the same spiders we saw in Ator: the Fighting Eagle, and are the spiders of choice for horror movies because they are docile, easy to handle, and don’t bite.  So yeah, if you ever actually see one of these in real life, you can just push it the hell over.

As long as I’m talking about the spiders in this movie, I’d like to know how they got into town so fast.  One minute the spiders are at the crash site in the middle of empty fields, the next they’re harassing the faculty at the School for Autistic Children (are you already cringing?  Wait until you see the kids marching in lockstep to an obnoxious whistle).  Spiders move at like one mile per hour.  Did the plane explosion just spray them across the entire state?

Plane explosion?  Yeah, of course there’s a plane explosion in this movie, and it’s fucking annoying because they came so close to not having one. After the crash the plane develops a fuel leak – but the town’s fire chief immediately notices it, and directs people to dig a trench the fuel can flow into so it won’t pool.  He goes around making sure nobody lights a cigarette or anything, and for a moment I really thought this might be a movie in which common sense prevails… but then some jackass on a motorcycle drives straight into the trench.  Seeing a giant fireball in a movie has never left me more disappointed.

I have digressed, though.  Let’s talk about the climax of the movie, which is one of the places where it most strongly resembles Killer Fish.  Killer Fish had the whole cast trapped with piranhas all around their boat.  Tarantulas: the Deadly Cargo has them all in a warehouse full of spiders, as a power outage simultaneously shuts down the noise that had paralyzed the creatures and locks the doors.

This situation is so forced that it probably requires more explanation.  The spiders must be removed from the oranges so that they can be shipped, but the townspeople cannot just spray the fruit with insecticides, because their buyer specifically paid for chemical-free (somebody does try to argue that he didn’t pay for spider-free, which amuses me more than it should).  Therefore they paralyze the spiders with the sound of angry wasps and go around shoveling them into buckets of booze.

Like Banana Spiders, Spider-Wasps are actually a thing – the family pompilidae lay their eggs inside living spiders so that the larvae will hatch surrounded by something they can eat.  What I can’t find when I looked these up is any reference to the spiders being paralyzed by terror when they hear the wasps coming.  This seems pretty counter-productive from the spiders’ point of view – if you hear your deadliest enemy closing in on your, wouldn’t it be far more effective to run and hide, rather than roll over and present your belly to be ovipositored?

So that’s all ridiculous, and then we don’t even get a real sense of anybody ‘winning’ at the end.  The supposed moment of triumph isn’t the spiders being out of the oranges, it’s the trapped people escaping through the roof.  In Killer Fish the piranhas ate the human villain and Kate escaped with the jewels. Deadly Cargo doesn’t have a human villain – the greedy plant owner looks like he might be able to fill this role, but no, he’s later treated as vindicated when they almost lose the orange crop!  This means the only ‘bad guys’ here are the spiders, and dropping their helplessly paralyzed bodies into poison just doesn’t feel like a victory. Neither does watching boxes of oranges go out on a train.  It’s just lacking something.

It doesn’t help that the end of both movies also just leaves the killer animal problem lying there.  In Killer Fish the whole area is still infested with piranhas – what does that mean for the tourism industry?  Is there any way to get rid of them?  In Deadly Cargo we can’t possibly be a hundred percent sure all the spiders are gone. Some might still be hanging around in somebody’s fruit bowl.  Someone in another part of the country might find a hairy leg in their organic marmalade. We never knew how many spiders there were, so we can’t be sure they’re all gone and not out invading ecosystems where they have no natural predators.

Another big part of why Deadly Cargo is so unsatisfying is not only does it lack a villain, the good characters are never well-defined enough for us to really identify with any of them.  There’s a young couple and a fire chief and the plant owner, but I can’t remember any of their names.  The only people we get a sense of are the spider victims, who are introduced just enough to tell us that they either deserved to die (Mrs. Beasley, cheating on her husband) or didn’t (Little Alex Kitner).  We can’t even feel for the girl weeping over her dead brother.

There’s a heap of other silly bullshit in this movie. Like the guy who opens a trapdoor in the ceiling and then just stands there screaming like an idiot as three or four spiders fall on him – a shot that probably looked way cooler in the director’s imagination.  Or the straight-faced implication that the spiders could sense the warehouse full of oranges from four miles away and headed directly for it.  Most of this is just mildly amusing rather than laugh-out-loud funny.  I’m sure Jonah and the bots could make a diverting episode out of this, but I don’t know if even they could make a memorable one.

I’d love to see a whole ass ranking of red songs and your reasoning, ugh that album ooft like there are some songs on that album that i fucking adore but then there are the ones that i’d skip without a second thought

agreed! red is one of her most powerful albums to me but it’s also the one with the most skips. it’s curious.. anyway here’s my ranking and its gonna be dramatic and also littered with spelling/punctuation/grammar errors bc i can’t read and i don’t plan to. enjoy if u can

State of Grace: Her most well constructed song. It captures the essence of the album better than the title track does and I think it does that bc views the relationship from the most human perspective possible, the most realism that you can like.. feel it, with fondness and love and pain and violence and hope and honesty but it doesn’t feel messy. Like to say that this track is ‘bittersweet’ would be too black and white. I think its bc the central idea of the song is “I never saw you coming”which is neutral in the most powerful way and literally DRIVES me insane. And GOD her use of tone and volume and a simple chord pattern (basically two alternating chords) is soooo powerful it’s both simultaneously striking and incredibly delicate. Just hands down the best track on the album and one of her best songs of all time because it manages to be complex but so simple at the same time. Academy award.

All Too Well: I feel like it’s one of her best pieces of storytelling, it’s incredibly raw so I feel like it’s less “clean” than state of grace. It really feels like the climax of the album if we’re putting it in a sort of story line. I don’t think there’s anything else I could clearly say about this except you call me up again just to break me like a promise so casually cruel in the name of being honest!!!!!!

Treacherous: tenderness. I said this once before but she plays so well with almosts and maybes and nearlys and halfways on Red and I feel like this track is a good example why because its not a climactic or explosive event but its like the moment just before you fall which I love! rights! 

Begin Again: I feel like this track should be further down in the listing (like about 8) but its like one of the few hopeful and genuinely sweet songs on the album and the change in tone is nice. And so is “you throw your head back laughing like a… little kid. I think it’s strange that you think im funny cause he never did” its MADDENING. It’sat 4th because I have a heart and don’t hate love and hope.

We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together: one of the BESTTTTTT pop songs she ever put out. It’s so different to her usual sound, so purposefully pop-py, so overly done in a bit of an ironic way with an on-the-surface one dimensional meaning/hook, and classicly catchy that like you have to like appreciate how deliciously bitter and IN jake gyllenhaals face it is.  Like WITH SUM INDIE RECORD THAT’S MUCH COOLER THAN MINE!! FELT THAT

Holy Ground: state of grace’s little sister. This shouldddd be higher especially because of that GENIUS“tonight I’m gonna dance” bridge, but if I don’t listen to this song for a week I almost completely forget how it sounds. And I definitely don’t know a single lyric in either of the verses. 

The Last Time: I know i’m an idiot for putting it here, and that everyone else hates it but I really think this duet fits nicely within the narrative of Red. like  Taylor takes the backseat in her own song and it’s slightly forgettable buuut the guitar interlude into the bridge into the final chorus and the ‘this is the last time i’m asking you’s is one of the most compelling things ive ever heard. i’m gonna say it, gary lightbody RIGHTS  

The Moment I Knew: feels speak-now-y. incredible narrative. still can’t remember a single word of the verses it no matter how many times I hear it tho, probably bc i dont listen to it often bc its so saddd

22: not as good as wanegbt but still a firm step forward into classic pop. also I love her (slightly forced)accent in this one it’s just so fun.

I Almost Do: another track that does well with almosts (clearly) and maybes! I feel like it has a speak now-y vibe and feels like the last kiss of red if that makes sense… its kind of boring but also good yknow.

I Knew You Were Trouble: It’s not bad….it has a nice tune. I just know I wouldn’t have noticed it if it weren’t a single. I appreciate the melodrama though.

Red: it’s meant to be the defining song of the album but it feels like… heavy handed lyrically. Less subtle than taylor usually is. And the melody is not as compelling and feels a bit mumbly. Its not bad tho!

The Lucky One: this and girl at home aren’t bad songs but they fade together in my mind and have the same sort of energy to me because they’re not like.. compelling or catchy? This one is okay though bc its about ms Joni....everybody loves pretty everybody loves cool

Come Back…Be Here: it’s a good song but I don’t like the breakdown after the bridge. Feels like a skip at times, hits a like a bus at others. It’s odd.

Girl at Home: sounds fearless-y.kind of charming. Not enough to stick in my mind though.

Sad Beautiful Tragic: you could literally play me any song and tell be its SBT because I have no idea what the fuck it sounds like. by pavlovian response by brain just fires off the command to hit skip when that intro comes in. does it have an intro? I wouldn’t know.ITS SAD

Everything Has Changed: it’s tooooo generic sounding. I know it’s a fan favourite and she DOES say “green eyes and freckles in your smile” but the ed sheeran sound in this is too much.

Starlight: I do not give a fuck about the kennedys.

Stay Stay Stay: I feel like this clashes with the vibe of the album in a way wanegbt and 22 managed not to do…its just like… not good. yes i hate fun.

Junkfoodio Rambleosa!

This is almost all I have left of this most recent junk food splurging madness. This write up might be slightly longer than usual as a result, but not as long as it could have been. I might be able to squeeze yet another ramble out of what's left. You're welcome. Or I may simply decide enough is enough and forego any more food musings. You're twice as welcome. Some of these may not be all that new/exclusive/limited/whatever by the time this hits the wonders of the internet press, but they are new to me as of this writing. If they've been out awhile, this is simply the first time I stumbled across them while out and about. So let's just get to it. -Thomas' S'mores Mini bagels! A slight chocolate smell, as if they were lightly dusted with cocoa (they're not) but no real s'more flavor. There's a light chocolate flavor in the aftertaste, but it's not enough to make these memorable or worth seeking out. -How will the Thomas' S'mores English Muffin fare, then? To begin, it's a sickly cocoa color, so at first glance at least it appears that it may be chock full of flavor. It smells like a doughy s'more, so that's a good start. The flavor is definitely closer to a s'more than the mini bagels, but it doesn't quite get it right. Again, it's too... doughy. If that makes sense. Maybe s'more just isn't a flavor that translates to bread products. These were still enjoyable overall, though, and were good all warm and toasty with a dab of butter. Definitely the one to try. -Triscuit Ginger & Lemongrass! Is there a greater food complexity than Triscuits? It seems we all wake up one day after reaching a certain age, and we just instinctively, and suddenly, like Triscuits. If this rule doesn't apply to you, then a-ha! You are an android, and you have failed my fail proof method of sussing you out. This particular Triscuit could prove problematic. I'm of a mind to think it will either be heinous, or not so bad. So far, Triscuits have been pretty consistent in making their off color ventures relatively successful, so the odds are in their favor. Everything about this particular version turns out to be... faint. There are very faint notes of ginger and lemon upon opening the bag, but you must take a deep breath in. There is a very faint ginger and lemon taste when chewing, but it recedes rather quickly. These work okay enough, and I enjoyed them as is, but this is one Triscuit that truly begs to be topped with something, where the faint ginger and lemon aspects would play a small part to a whole. These may also work well crumbled into a soup of sorts. -Triscuit Fig & Honey! These gave me an audible "Oh!" moment when I first saw them on the store shelf. I never knew I needed this until it was presented to me. Unfortunately, I was slightly let down by the experience once I opened the bag. There is a light fig aroma to be detected, but it could also be perceived as an earthy tone. It's not that it's bad, it's just not the sweet kick I was expecting to take in. The first few bites are also the same, a light fig/earthy presence that doesn't impress or dissuade. Then the honey note kicks in, and it has a burnt or old aspect to it that doesn't play well on the tongue. I suppose Triscuit was due for a misfire, but I wouldn't have guessed this would be the one. Overall, it's still an okay snack, and it too may best be served with an accompanying topping, but I'm less inclined to explore that option than I was with the Ginger & Lemongrass ones. -Utz Grilled Hot Dog potato chips! Oddly enough, upon first whiff these remind me ever so slightly of the Crab Chip that Utz (and others) produce. Which is peculiar for a hot dog flavored chip. If you're not familiar with the crab chip, it's a chip made with Old Bay seasoning. If you're unfamiliar with Old Bay, then you are not from, or have never visited, the East Coast. It's a staple seasoning blend, and over the last few years it has grown quite noticeably, and one can find "crab seasoning" on all sorts of food items. It was fun at first to see someone put it on a chip, and it's not bad on a chicken wing, but purists will maintain it's strictly for seafood, with crabs (obviously) being the absolute number one use. Followed very closely by shrimp, then followed by every other type of seafood. But I digress... heavily. Taste wise, the first thing I notice is salt. These are quite salty. The second thing I noticed was a heavy smoke flavor, which isn't the most pleasant thing to get from a chip, but I must admit it does make me think of something being grilled. The last flavor that is at play here is mustard. Underneath the salt and the smoke is a clear and distinct mustard element. I like the mustard part actually, and am sad it comes after the too much salt and smoke parts. I can't say it distinctly reminds me of a hot dog, but a grilled something or other element is there. -Utz Cheeseburger potato chips! Will these best the not quite right hot dog chips? Let's see. First whiff gives me a very faint ketchup odor, but one that is overpowered by a pickle aroma. Taste wise, I would have to say the same. They taste like a dollop of ketchup that was mixed with some pickle juice, and at the tail end there is also a salty cheese element that comes out. I don't get any smokiness like the hot dog one, so the cheeseburger or grill element is missing. As they stand, it's a weird ketchup/pickle/cheese chip. It's not gross, but they're rather forgettable, and after eating a few I noticed that again, these are quite salty. It left out in a bowl with no labeling, I imagine most would think they're either a pickle chip, or some kind of cheese and onion flavor. -Little Debbie PB Rounds! A fudge dipped peanut butter sandwich cookie. Well, isn't that cute? They've scored the top in the method of a traditional peanut butter cookie. It also tastes like a peanut butter cookie dipped in chocolate, so there's nothing else to add about it. It was good, and if you like peanut butter cookies dipped in chocolate, give this one a spin. My one complaint is that the cookie parts were a little too thick. This needed to be an ever so slightly thinner treat. Well, now that I think about it, I have another complaint. The peanut butter is a little too sugary and fake. It won't stop me from finishing the box over some time, but I do wish it was slightly less artificial as well. But it's a snack cake from Little Debbie. It's going to be fake, and at worst a bad Little Debbie treat is still alright enough to eat, so why am I complaining? -Keebler Lemon Cream Pie Fudge Stripe cookies! Almost nothing to say about these. They are exactly what they promise to be. A lemon cookie with some icing. They're good, and if you like such things, they're worth a taste.   -Hostess Summer Berry Donettes! Smell like blueberries, taste like raspberries and have the color of some kind of sangria Kool-Aid. They are however, quite tasty with a very nice moistness level. They don't seem as thick as other donettes I've had. They seem a little flatter and a litter rounder. Or I'm just crazy. I like these a lot. -Pop-Tarts Frosted Chocolate Sugar Cookie. No exclamation point. Pop-Tarts deserve no exclaims, certainly no acclaim. Dry. Dusty. Tasteless. Sad. Drywallesque.  I imagine these are merely left over World War I rations Kellogg's repackaged and then painted pictures on. Oh, yeah. For whatever weird reason these have villains from the DC comics realm plastered on them. The one I begrudgingly took a solitary bite from had someone named Cheetah on it. I don't know who that is, but she looked like a sexy Thundercat and was in a bikini. That's the only exciting thing about this travesty of a treat. But aren't Pop-Tarts meant to be for kids? Why are you pasting nearly naked, top heavy cat ladies on a kids food item? They're eating a Pop-Tart, for crying out loud! Their young little lives have already been messed up enough! Don't warp their brains, too. Shame at you Kellogg's. -Jolly Rancher Green Apple Pop-Tarts. They did it. Those crafty bastards actually did it. Foil wrapped HATE that you can buy for roughly three bucks a box. With the added stank of a green apple candy flavor, the worst candy flavor. I tried one, and if I saw these in a bunker I was to live in after a nuclear fallout, I'd go back outside and take my chances instead. To be honest, if I even see these on a store shelf again, it might cause me to spontaneously diarrhea all over the store and anyone therein while simultaneously setting fires in the hopes it erases these foul and vile things from the planet. If the judge and jury at my impending trial has tasted one of these, there is no way I'll be convicted. Eat this damn thing at your own peril. -Jolly Rancher Cherry Pop-Tarts. To be fair (immediately previous comments excepted) there are a couple of the fruit Pop-Tarts that are just barely passable as an edible entity that I can get through without too much fuss. This isn't one of them. Of the three here, it's the one that didn't make me want to decide to live solely on plain oatmeal, but there's a tartness to it that I didn't find appealing. I haven't had a Jolly Rancher candy since I was kid, and have no recall of their flavor, so maybe this tartness is in fact a component to the candy they were able to get into the tart. If so, good for them. For me, this tastes like a lemon/cherry Pop-Tart which leans too heavily on the lemon. Maybe that sounds good to others, and were it a real pastry I'd probably like it, but in Pop-Tart form,  I'll pass.   -Strawberry Nut M&M's! A tasty little devil, with flavor profiles in perfect proportion. Unlike some of the specific seasonal fare M&M tries, this one seems like someone actually worked at getting the balance right. If you like peanut M&m's and you like strawberry flavoring, this is a good match. The only complaint is I felt more than a handful was too much with this one. This is a snack best done in small doses, so a bag may last you a little while. -Krispy Kreme Glazed Birthday Cake Mini Crullers! Well, I can't say these don't taste like a birthday cake. The problem is they taste very much like a stale sheet cake one would get at the not so great grocery store you never really go to, but it's on the way to work and you have to bring something for the office party and you just don't have time for anything else. -Twizzlers Key Lime Pie twists! They do taste like a key lime pie, surprisingly enough. However, the gummy/chewy aspect of these make them a bit gross somehow. It's just not right. Softer than a normal Twizzler, it's like having a glob of melting putty in your mouth. I give them credit for getting the flavor right, but a solid pass for the experience as a whole. -Twizzlers Orange Cream twists! These taste like orange medicine. Do not like. Don't want. Moving on. Nope. No moving on. That's a wrap! I've said all I can say and my brain is on full sugar crash mode and barely functioning. Seems I forgot the obligatory sexist comment about some female celebrity, though. Hmm. Um. Tonks (Natalia Tena) from the Harry Potter movies can Hufflepuff my Slytherin anytime. Good enough? Way too much? Eh. I'm going to bed.

Episode: Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets

Yeah, that was an episode of a show on television.  I think my feelings are best summed up as follows: *shrug* 

I had two major problems with it, really:

First, every time we see more of the angels, they just look more mundane and contemptible.  These are the creatures that the demons were terrified of, that could not be killed by anything but each other, that you'd break your fist on their face. Who now get outmaneuvered by a human using their own powers, which are “magic” now that can be used by any Tom, Dick, or Lily.  I mean, a hundred years and change of study should totally put her on a comparable level as immortal beings with the same powers.  Also, no wonder Zachariah and his ilk had no problems colluding with the demons without anyone being the wiser, heaven was apparently always a mismanaged shitshow where angels could just pop off and dally around on Earth for their own purposes with nobody noticing, even when all the angels were supposed to be in heaven.  (No, show, hanging a lampshade on it doesn't make it magically make sense.  Also, why were Ishim and the other angels from the flight on earth now, after Hannah rounded everybody back up to heaven post-fall?)

Hey, also, remember when Cas was mostly fallen and carved a banishing symbol into his own chest, activated it, and survived?  But hey, I'm sure the same thing on the wall after one healing and a bit of a beating when he's supposed to have his powers would totally do him in, because angels really are just that pathetic now.  C'mon.

Second, remember how this season was supposed to be scaling back from nigh insurmountable odds and impossible situations?  Except now killing Billie is going to have COSMIC CONSEQUENCES (dun dun dun … even though killing Death himself didn't).  Not to mention that now the angels have flashed back to tell us that nephilim can make entire worlds die!  Gasp! It's like Jesse except even more ridiculous, and the writers then knew damn well what they were doing when they sent him off to Australia never to be heard from again.  So much for scaling back, apparently.  

In more general thoughts, the episode had something of a running theme of Cas always thinking he's making the right decisions with disaster following.  The supposed resolution at the end capping off the whole thing has Cas daftly declaring he'd be fine with his decision if it killed him – but that ain't exactly “cosmic consequences”.  Heck, it's not even a bond he made that he broke, the consequences would not necessarily fall on him rather than the Winchesters or reality in general.  If it's all foreshadowing into some kind of arc with Cas' personal issues actually going somewhere, it could be interesting in theory.  Considering the show's recent history with Castiel-related plots, however, I suspect it might have just been coincidental mentions and a conclusion completely lacking in self-awareness.  Not to mention the childishness of how the characters handled the conflict was just bizarre, and how it seemed even more blatantly manufactured than the whole deal with Billie was to start with. 

I did like Lily's story well enough, with the exception of the aforementioned nerfed angel powers and soul divisibility rearing its head again.  Including that she survived in the end, although it does raise the question of what she'll do now after living for revenge for so long.  I can even forgive that she didn't go specifically after Ishim though he was the one maliciously after her, both for the drama of the twist of the conflicting stories and because I could see her needing to work up to killing him because of their history.  Ishim's story of simultaneously having been obsessed with Lily and yet still holding humans in contempt is also an interesting one, including how he projects that outward onto Cas' attachment to the Winchesters.  

Still, overall, it was a bit boring and generally forgettable.  At least aside from the implications it had in terms of established unfortunate trends and the season's potential future focus on Lucifer's spawn.  

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales Review (2017)

               I have a lot of affection for the first few Pirates of the Caribbean movie. The fact that Gore Verbinski, the director of the Ring (of all things) decided to make a movie based on a Theme Park ride and not only was it not terrible, but it was, rather, fun, and vibrant in a way that many blockbusters of the time weren’t, was a massive surprise. It can be hard after so many poor sequels to remember just how clever that original film felt. It was a classical swashbuckler blended with some looney tunes comedy, several bizarre central performances, a distinct look and a touch more darkness than I expected. The two subsequent sequels by the same director demonstrated diminishing returns, but they both had bursts of the original films energy. Sadly, even with the exit of Gore Verbinski and most of the original cast, Disney decided that they couldn’t let this cash-cow of a franchise die, and the fourth film in the series, On Stranger Tides, was a boring mess filled with disappointing new characters, bland action sequences and a plot so forgettable that I had to look up a synopsis to remind myself of the basic events. Despite a general critical drubbing, On Stranger Tides managed to make an extraordinary amount of money at the box office, which is how we ended up here, with an inelegantly named fifth installment in a series that should have ended a long time ago.

               Despite my general sense that this is a franchise that has grown long in the tooth, I couldn’t help but feel a tad excited about Dead Men Tell No Tales. Firstly, I’m a big fan of Javier Bardem, and although he’s an odd choice for the franchise, I thought he could make for a solid villain. Secondly, the creative team promised a capper to the series which would tie back into the original trilogy and delve deeper into Jack Sparrow. Thirdly, the rather fun trailers also promised that whether the plot worked or not, there would doubtlessly be some interesting set pieces this time around. Finally, while the film came out to poor reviews, fans in general have embraced it, with a relatively high cinemascore and a decent IMDB rating. I hoped that was a sign that at the very least it would be a fun sit.

              Unfortunately, I was wrong to get my hopes up. This movie is an utter disaster. I can’t overstate just how much of a mess it is. Let’s get the few good things out of the way. Firstly, the soundtrack, which has mostly been pulled directly from the original film, manages to elevate a few bits here and there. Secondly, there are individual shots and ideas in this movie that are really cool on a conceptual level. For example, some of how Salazar’s undead pirate horde looks (with their disembodied floating body parts) is neat, and the way his ship bends and springs like a trap as it attacks feels fresh. I also like a couple of the film’s action beats.

               Unfortunately, on an execution level, nothing else really works here. Johnny Depp of course returns as Jack Sparrow, but absolutely all the roguish enthusiasm of his initial performance is gone. This version of Jack doesn’t seem to have the wherewithal to manipulate anyone, instead simply marching through the events of the plot in a drunken sexist muddle. The film gives Johnny Depp and his character nothing much to do, and he does little to elevate any of the material. Geoffrey Rush, in contrast, is clearly trying, but is provided with easily the stupidest subplot of the entire franchise. More prominent than either of those two series mainstays is new characters Henry Turner (Brenton Thwaites) and Carina Smyth (Kaya Scodelario), who act as the Will Turner and Elizabeth Swan surrogates this time around. Unfortunately, they bring absolutely none of the original casts charm to the proceedings. Brenton Thwaites attempts (and fails) to pull off the Orlando Bloom smolder while simultaneously fumbling the action sequences, pathos and romantic comedy. Meanwhile, Kaya Scodelario’s character is seemingly conceived as a pirate version of the hot scientist stereotype. Nothing about her personal arc makes much sense, which is particularly egregious since I think she’s supposed to be the emotional core of the film. Mainly the script has her state some exposition as all the male character sexualize her. David Wenham, who famously played Faramir in Lord of the Rings, portrays a British general named Scarfield who has a remarkable amount of screen time for a character who has absolutely no impact on the plot or any of the characters. The most interesting new addition to the cast is, of course, Javier Bardem who, in a career low-light, provides a performance so odd and off-putting that it honestly reminded my wife and I of Tommy Wiseau’s infamously bad acting in the Room. What’s most insane about all these various performances is the fact that, as uniformly bad as they are, none of them seem to belong in the same film as the others. Even Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush, who have now collaborated on five of these films, don’t feel like they belong in the same world.

               Part of the reason for that disconnect is just how laugh-inducingly messy this film is. I would not be surprised if there was an hour of material left on the cutting room floor. I’m going to get into this a little more specifically in a later spoiler section, but I think it’s fair to say that there is never a sense of logical narrative progression throughout this film. Instead, things seem to happen because that’s how it is in the script, rather than any natural order. This is the type of movie where a character will be in a prison cell surrounded by British troops, he’ll make a cursory gesture towards a means of picking the cell’s lock, and then 5 minutes later you’ll smash cut to that same character having escaped and travelled across the ocean. Important objects repeatedly fly across the world to various locations with no narrative explanation at all, in one occasion with a throw-away line so egregious that I laughed out loud. Whole storylines are set up out of nowhere, and many of them seem to be drifting towards some type of narrative conclusion before simply disappearing from the film. Other awful segments appear randomly as short vignettes that are never mentioned again moments after they occur. Some of these feel so amateurish that it’s hard to believe there was a script at all, especially since they could have been excised completely with no impact on what passes for the plot. Meanwhile, the story centers around multiple magical artifacts whose abilities are loosely defined. The villains, likewise, are provided with no cohesive mystical rules, instead demonstrating new random powers even during the final encounter. The lack of thought placed into world-building feels genuinely lazy.

               The action and many of the visual effects aren’t even consistently good. The first three Pirates movies all had a few rollicking and beautifully choreographed action sequences. Dead Men Tell No Tales, in contrast, is much more in line with In Stranger Tides. The various action scenes feel stilted, and more like a series of gags than a dance. A perfect example happens about a third of the way through the film, when Jack Sparrow is nearly guillotined, and, for various reasons, the guillotine ends up spinning around him, with the blade nearly cutting off his head before retracting repeatedly. That shot feels like it goes on for a full minute, and then happens again later, in case you didn’t get it the first time. The gag doesn’t crescendo into anything else, rather it just occurs in isolation since someone found the idea amusing. Later action sequences are just bizarre conceptually, including an undead shark sequence that I think would have functioned as a “jump the shark” moment for the film franchise if that hadn’t already happened several installments ago. The final action sequence is a cacophony of CGI that is both boring and incoherent. The worst visual effects are saved for the film’s lone flashback. In that sequence Johnny Depp is put through the same de-ageing process we’ve seen in various Marvel movies, but, in motion, it looks especially creepy this time around, with the placement of his head not fitting right on the film’s body double. I genuinely found it unsettling.

               As for the much-hyped connections to the original trilogy. They are there, but this movie is so bad that, frankly, I think it existing as a coda to the Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann story makes the original trilogy actively worse. The emotional moments of the finale which were clearly meant to move people who liked those films feel so unearned here that I was actively angry at the end. This anger is aimed not just at this film’s status as an obvious cashgrab, but rather that it taints the earlier installments as much as it does. Not only do I hate this film, but it made me like the originals less, and that’s a massive shame.

2/10

SPOILERS

              Sometimes a spoiler section is intended to allow a deeper analysis of a film. Sometimes you just need to rant a little bit. I really need to rant after watching this. Let’s just start with the film’s massive structural problems. Here’s just one example of an issue. About two-thirds of the way through the film after escaping from the undead sharks to a random island, our heroes are captured by a new set of characters we’ve never met before. To get back at Jack for an unexplained wrong he committed in the past, these captors, who I guess randomly live on the island, try to force him to marry an unattractive overweight woman who we are told has at least one STD. The movie subsequently grinds to a halt for what can only be described as a sexist “redneck wedding in a fish skeleton” sequence. The characters are then rescued, and that entire encounter is never brought up again. That lengthy scene, which is terrible, could have been cut with absolutely no negative impact on the film. Likewise, another terrible scene, with a sexist astrologer, breaks up an otherwise competent action sequence with some dumb jokes and then, once again, is never brought up again.

              This issue extends beyond individual moments like those. There is a whole series of scenes with a British Navy captain chasing down Jack Sparrow with the help of an utterly bizarre witch character. Salazar later offhandedly destroys the British ship before they even encounter our leads. Once again, about 15 minutes of the film could have been cut here, and there would be no impact on the story. The witch character, likewise, is set up as a major figure, with a really elaborate introduction, and then is never brought up again.

               That’s not even mentioning how fast and loose this film is with its mythology. Jack’s compass, which has obviously been a part of the series from the start, will now summon Salazar to find him if he attempts to get rid of it, an ability that is neither important plot-wise nor explained. The script then teleports that compass across the ocean; We first see it being bartered off at a bar near the start, then in what narratively seems to be a day after, it ends up with the witch on a different island, who then simply gives it to a third character. The only explanation for why she has it is an off-handed shrug of a line about how she has her ways. Meanwhile, the second artifact, the trident, not only controls the ocean, but also if broken cures every curse (which feels like something that should have come up in a prior film). I’m not sure why we needed this artifact to serve two such separate functions, especially since from a narrative perspective, everyone’s motivation for finding it revolves around the curse-curing. It just feels like a contrivance which allows for an elaborate final action sequence. This narrative laziness extends to Salazar, who has a random assortment of mystical abilities. His curse not only affects his crew, but also birds and sharks. Even his boat twists and transforms into various form. At one point, the figurehead of his ship comes to life for an action beat that doesn’t pay off. Then, as if those weren’t enough abilities, we learn right at the end with a super clumsy line that he also can possess people, but that he can only ever do it once. I wonder what mystical force explained to Salazar “hey you have a magical possession ability, but YOU MAY NEVER USE IT”. It’s especially hilarious since there is no plot-reason for the possession beyond a need to keep Henry involved in the finale. It all feels like things are being thrown at the wall to see what sticks, and no one noticed that none of it had.

               But the thing that makes me mad is how much this film impacts the prior trilogy. The finale of this movie centers around Henry curing his father Will, and letting him loose from the curse of the Flying Dutchmen. But the core emotional arc of the original trilogy revolved around the sacrifice Will made not only to save Elizabeth and the pirate fleets, but also his father. His being “cured” this way cheapens what was one of the few good parts of At World’s End.

              Even worse than that, however, is how this film treats Barbossa. The entire twist that Carina Smyth is in fact his daughter is played out in the most hilariously contrived and emotionally manipulative way possible. On top of that, it adds yet another massive coincidence to a narrative already built on them. To provide a real-life parallel, it would be a little like if the random friend your coworker brought over to a party turned out to be your long-long brother. Additionally, making the most boring character in the movie the daughter of the best one doesn’t make her better, but it does ruin a lot of what makes Barbossa such a unique and compelling character. Barbossa’s personal code has been at the heart of his performance in the last few movies, and the moment he learns about Carina, all that development is thrown out the window. His self-sacrifice at the end feels cheap and completely unnecessary, not only from a writing perspective, but also within the context of the film. There were a dozen ways to handle the problem he kills himself to solve which wouldn’t have involved throwing himself into the ocean. It’s such a wasted moment. The only positive thing about his death is that if they make another one of these cinematic monstrosities, Geoffrey Rush is out.

               I think I’ll join him and sit the next one out myself.