iwillbemeforever

[iwillbemeforever]

This movie mean so much to me. Because when the lockdown started, I tried to be upbeat about it.

But just like Bo Burnham, as it dragged out, my mental health spiralled too.

And for me, watching this was cathartic because I recognised myself in Bo Burnham. I ended up crying in the end because I felt it so heavily. I was not okay even if I pretended to be.

And it's what made me realised that I was not okay. And I needed to do something instead of pretending I'm all okay.

Inside by Bo Burnham has a very interesting distinction between the first and the second half of the movie

The first half of the movie is full of funny skits and different made up characters (the White Woman, the Unpaid Intern, Bezos, Socko) because that's what Bo does on stage. That is simply what he is used to, he thought this was going to be something fun and quick he could do in a few months, and it would just be a recreation his usual shows but from home, easy right?

Until he turns 30

It's easy to see that, after the intermission, there are no silly characters or skits anymore. The only ones are the Internet, which is a more complex character, and Bezos again, but as a small attempt of keeping with what he was doing in the first half of the movie. But most of the songs are so personal and deep in a way that was barely scraped in the ones in the first half (Look Who's Inside Again or 30, which are also in the middle, closer to the second half). This is not a fun and quick thing anymore, and i'm not only talking about the movie. The quarantine has been around long enough that Bo has had to spend his birthday stuck in his house alone. The panorama has changed completely.

The quick decline of his mental health and the signs of anxiety and depression are clear as day now, when before they were disguised between jokes and weird phrases. This is not a joke anymore. This is not two weeks at home and then everything is normal again.

He tried to hide behind skits and comedy, but even inside of his house, he can't do it anymore. Everybody knows.

Everybody knows

[iwillbemeforever]

I love your review because I completely agree with it.

Also spoilers here so please do move on if no one wants to read spoilers.

Yes, I absolutely hated that Peris was given a bigger role. Personally, I didn't think he landed well for Specials. Like he didn't look menacing or predatory as a Special.

I never realised about Tally's original intention to go to The Smoke. And what you said made perfect sense. Tally's intention was selfish. She wanted the surgery. So she was just doing it to get the surgery. But the movies changed that and made her more selfless than she actually is and..... that does ruin Tally abit.

Because it's her guilt that will get to her again and again.

It's also her guilt and shame that will be the reason that her brain rewires itself.

So to take something so pivotal from her, feels off. So you are absolutely right.

And yes, I do take offense to the fact that the Specials aren't established so easily. And this is weird. Because if they intend to proceed, the Specials should have been established properly.

I do agree that the pacing is really fast.... but I felt like they had no choice because it was a movie. So I'm really not sure how this would have been fixed.

But yes, I do agree with you completely!

Uglies - Movie Thoughts

On a whim, I decided to start re-reading the Uglies series a couple months ago -- so imagine my surprise when I found out it was getting a movie! Said movie is now out, and it was interesting to watch with the book being so fresh in my head.

Overall, it's... eh. It's not a complete train wreck, the way most critics seem to want you to think, but it is fairly bland and uninspired. It's a very watered down version of the book. It also has the misfortune of feeling like yet another a Hunger Games wannabe, despite the original book pre-dating that series by several years.

Spoilers for everything under the cut.

What I Liked

Based on reviews, I seem to be in the minority here, but I thought the cast was pretty good. People seem to hate Joey King as Tally, but I thought she was fine. Brianne Tju is easily the best in the cast, stealing the whole damn movie as Shay. Laverne Cox also gives an excellent performance as Cable, though I do think she should not have been given that role for other reasons (which I'll get into later).

I've also seen complaints that the characters aren't ugly enough. They talk about how ugly they are and point out their specific ugly features, when they don't actually appear that ugly. And I think everyone complaining about that is completely missing the point. The "Uglies" aren't actually ugly -- they're just normal people, who've been conditioned to think their imperfect features are hideous.

I was honestly unsure how the Pretties would be visualized -- in fact, I wondered if the book would just be fundamentally unadaptable because of it -- but they did a fairly good job. I think leaning on CGI and unnatural affectations was the right way to go. All the Pretties have this uncanny quality to them that suits the story perfectly.

The overall production design was solid as well. I like how Uglyville is all gray concrete and muted tones, while New Pretty Town is shimmering golds. Then upon reaching the Smoke, all the colors of nature finally come through. I do think that could have pushed that last one a little bit more, but it still works well.

Apart from that, I don't really have much to shout out. It's competently written, well-performed, well put together. I know it doesn't sound like I have much praise, but it is a competent movie.

What I'm Mixed On

By far the biggest change from the book is Peris becoming a Special. And I'm torn on it. On the one hand, it does make him a bigger part of the story -- he's honestly not much more than an inciting incident in the book. It gives him and Tally a unique arc that's probably the strongest through-line in the story. On the other hand, the Specials as a concept are so under-cooked (more on that later) and the actor is so bland that it still doesn't quite land the way it's supposed to.

What I Didn't Like

The pacing of this movie is by far its worst issue. We are flying through this plot. There is no time for anything to breathe, for characters to develop meaningful connections, for the bigger moments to feel earned. Some things do make sense to condense -- Tally's journey to the Smoke would have been incredibly boring without her internal monologue, so condensing most of that into a montage makes sense. But I do feel we lost too much. That's where a lot of Tally's characterization comes out, where we can see her bravery and ingenuity -- none of that comes across in the movie.

A lot of important beats are rushed. Tally agreeing to help Dr. Cable is over in a flash. It feels like Tally's in the Smoke for all of fifteen minutes. Tally and David barely interact, so their relationship has no real stake. Everyone is kidnapped by Special Circumstances, and then rescued immediately after. I almost think a 5-6 episode mini-series would have worked better -- but that might have introduced the opposite problem, where everything takes too long.

The movie also has frequent montages that don't really work. It seems like they were trying to show the passage of time, but it just makes everything feel even shorter.

The beginning of the movie has an exposition problem, as well. It opens with a montage explaining the entire setting... before leading into several scenes that also explain the setting through dialogue. We get fed the same details about the surgery and the Rusties and the flowers at least three times at the start, and it gets grating.

As already mentioned, Tally is pretty severely underwritten. In the book, she has a distinct personality and a unique presence. In the movie, she's just the main character because she happens to be the main character. Her intelligence and resourcefulness are pretty much gone.

I also think changing her motivation for going to the Smoke did her a disservice. In the book, Tally goes to the Smoke so she can have her surgery, and because she's convinced herself that Shay needs her help. In the movie, Dr. Cable tells her that the Smokies have a weapon, and she will be saving lives by helping to find them. I think giving her a more selfless motivation robs her of her character arc. She always comes across as someone trying to help, who wants to best for other people, rather than someone who had to consciously learn that.

The Specials are barely even a presence. I'm not sure they were even directly called Specials. People who hadn't read the book would never realize that there was an entire separate status of person here. You never see their disturbingly beautiful faces or their terrifying strength. Considering how pivotal the Specials are to the overall story, especially in the later books, it's really odd not to see them properly established here.

Like I said, Laverne Cox gives an excellent performance as Dr. Cable... but I think they should have thought twice before casting a trans woman. It's not necessarily that there's a trans woman in the villainous role, but that there's a trans woman in the villainous role who specifically wants to force people to have surgeries to brainwash them. Like... did the optics of that really not occur to anyone? At all? I think Cox could have played David's mother, instead.

[iwillbemeforever]

Yup, this is me.

Me: oh hey that book series i was really into as a kid got made into a movie. I guess I'll check it out and probably be really normal about it.

Me ten minutes later:

[iwillbemeforever]

I never realised this and omg, they are right.

SO MUCH RESPECT FOR SCOTT WESTERFELD

Props to Scott Westerfeld for setting himself the task of writing a trilogy in limited third person perspective featuring the same character with progressively more personality-altering brain damage.

[iwillbemeforever]

THANK YOU.

HUNGER GAMES IS REVOLUTIONARY.

AND SO IS UGLIES.

DO NOT PIT THEM AGAINST EACH OTHER.

ENJOY BOTH LIKE THE CONNOISEURS THAT WE KNOW WE ARE.

Also re: Uglies - It's laughable when people dismiss it as "a Hunger Games ripoff" because like...

A) Uglies predates The Hunger Games actually (books I mean)

B) Why is it only certain genres get ridiculed for sharing similar messages/themes but not others? Like last time I checked there are a million and ten spy movies that are exactly the same for example, but heaven forbid we get two YA dystopian revolutionary stories?

Stop pitting two bad bitches against each other, etc.

[iwillbemeforever]

SAME SAME SAME. I ENJOYED MYSELF.

The pace was a little fast but it's everything I wanted as a fan.

I’m so pleased about the Uglies movie. I’m genuinely so pleased. The hoverboards fold into boogie boards. The colors and the hoverstruts and the near augmented reality nature of Pretty Town. The gorgeous scenery on the journey to The Smoke. The way we can see people balancing and nearly falling off their boards sometimes. The sound effects with the Specials was a bit goofy but honestly I don’t even care. It looked good, it kept the major plot beats from the book, and I had fun. And that’s all I care about.

[iwillbemeforever]

THISSSSSSS

to every critic who claims that the Uglies cast is too attractive to be playing the "ugly" characters and it doesn't make sense for them to calling themselves ugly for having completely normal facial features:

[iwillbemeforever]

This scene was perfect. This is truly Tally and Shay.

"And everyone is exactly who they're born to be. They're free."

Brianne Tju as SHAY & Joey King as TALLY Uglies (2024)

[iwillbemeforever]

You know I watched Julie and Julia movie.

And in that movie, Paul said that he and Julia were eating as friends but by the end of the dinner, he suddenly realised that it was Julia. It has always been Julia.

And I realised that how fortunate I am to understand how this feels.

Just like Paul, I knew it was you. And it has always been you.

When had I realised?

The moment I looked at my previous relationship and I said to myself, ah, it should have been like this instead. What a waste.

And from now onwards, I will no longer make that comparison with you because it is a waste.

You are golden.

You are the best I will ever have.

How fortunate am I to even have found you.

I do hope I don't regret saying this haha

[iwillbemeforever]

YUP. SOUNDS ABOUT RIGHT

HIS FUCKING FACE

He's like 😐

[iwillbemeforever]

xiaohua’s hobbies over the years: gardening, cooking, reading, having a cup of tea in the evening while watching the scenery, feeding the puppy (hulijing), and now — teasing the puppy (xiaobao). 🤭

[iwillbemeforever]

There's a saying somewhere on the cn fandom that 如果角姐是戀愛腦，李相夷便是師兄腦 (if jiao liqiao is love brain, Li Xiangyi was shixiong brain) and like it's so true tho. Like we as a random do not talk about just how much Li Xiangyi/Li Lianhua loved his shixiong, even outside the obvious "spending his remaining 10 years with the one goal of finding his shixiong's remains and immediately giving up on fighting against death after finding sgd to the extent where dfs had to bring out the big guns to get llh to continue living for a while".

There's way too many stuff I could talk about but I'll briefly talk about Wenjing. As depicted in canon, Wenjing was sgd's 18th birthday present for lxy, made from Yun Metal (not that lxy knew it at the time). The name of the sword itself says a lot about lxy's love for his shixiong. Wenjing (刎頸）refers to the phrase 刎頸之交, aka "a friendship/relationship one would slit their throat for, referring to friendships where one would willingly and gladly lay down their life for the other". Li Xiangyi is the one who names this sword, and he directly references this phrase when naming the sword. One could say wenjing was a symbol of just how much sgd meant to lxy.

So how much does wenjing mean to Li Xiangyi/Li Lianhua? Going off canon, lxy was a bit of a peacock, and he liked to show off things he deemed impressive, yet for things that were actually really important to him, such as his love for cheap candy, he kept close to his chest. So what about Wenjing? It's a beautiful sword, and very well made, but Li Xiangyi never showed it off to anyone and kept it extremely private, because in his opinion, sgd's gift was something he wanted to keep just for himself. As top of the Jianghu, a lot of him was shown to the public and under public scrutiny, everything about him placed on the spotlight, placed on a pedestal, yet lxy was possessive enough over this sword to keep it to himself, like a secret only his shixiong and himself would know.

And then there's lxy always keeping wenjing on him even during his years as llh. As lxy, he had shaoshi as a sword already, and he didn't need another sword on him, not really, because he's proven that even disarmed he's not defenseless, but he kept wenjing on him anyway, because it was probably a symbol of his shixiong's love for him. And as llh, he would continue keeping the sword on him, despite being a wandering doctor who supposedly knew no martial arts and would be too poor to have such a beautiful sword.

And finally, llh chose to destroy shaoshi instead of using it to end himself (it's canon he literally said to shaoshi "using you to end me is rather inappropriate"), but despite wenjing later being revealed as, in fact, a sign of sgd's betrayal and hate of llh, llh never destroyed that it. He did throw it into a cliff face so no one could ever reach it again (low key excalibur situation hmn), but in my mind, it wasn't ever an action of hate against sgd, not a rejection of his gift, but rather llh throwing wenjing away from himself before he could actually get really mad and destroy this gift from his shixiong. He might have left wenjing behind when he went off to die, but we all know Llh's love language is abandonment.

[iwillbemeforever]

I LOVE HIM SO MUCHHHHHH

tag your traumatized man comfort character

[iwillbemeforever]

This is also why I love Uglies. It asks that hard hard question. And I thought about it long and hard as a child. Yeah. The themes of this book series is just amazing.

I love Uglies, it's a great series and I want to see more fan content, but I am dreading the movies because almost every take I hear about the series misses the point

Obviously there is a lot of commentary and so much of it was ahead of it's time, but the main question of the series is what are we willing to sacrifice for peace?

[iwillbemeforever]

Oh, how this has made me look at my own fear.

I never realised how afraid I am at my own vulnerabilities.

I am afraid to let you in.

I am afraid to give you the keys to my soul.

I am afraid that you will break my heart.

I am so very afraid.

Although I trust you, I am not used to letting someone in.

I am still figuring this out.

I hope you will be kind to me.

I know I have loads to learn.

I have to learn to communicate better.

And maybe perhaps one day, I will let you in.

Perhaps that is a llie.

Perhaps I have already let you in.

And the truth is, I am just pissed with myself for allowing someone in.

And now, I'm sitting there, watching you hypervigilant. Just in case, I have to grab the keys away from you.

But... I will admit there's a part of me that I just want to give everything to you.

If you want to hurt me, so be it.

I think I'm tired of being hypervigilant.

I'm tired of fighting myself.

But I'm trying.

I'm learning.

I hope this will be enough for you.

I do miss your dumbass.

[iwillbemeforever]

It does annoy me a little that I feel so much. It does annoy me that I'm aware that I care about you so much.

I can write about it here on the internet.

I will say that you matter to me so much.

I would give you the keys to my soul.

You could command me to do whatever you wish.

It is yours.

I can say all this here.

And yet, when I'm in front of you, I dare not say.

I dare not say how much you matter to me.

I dare not say how much you have influenced me.

I dare not say.

But I think you know.

I hope you know.

Perhaps one day, I will find the courage to.

And I hope by the time I find the courage to, it will not be too late.

[iwillbemeforever]

I wonder.

I wonder, if in time, I will regret this post. I hope not but only time will tell.

But for now, when I do look back, I find that... perhaps it was always you.

Although I do enjoy your company and I trust you completely right now, I am aware that we met at the right time.

Of course, I have wished before that we met earlier and perhaps, we could have been less lonely from the start.

But I'm looking back and I find that we were both very different people in our younger years.

So if we met when we were younger, we would have found each other odd. It wouldn't have worked.

It took us growing up together in the beginning of our adulthood. You were there for me. I was there for you. We watched each other grow.

The people that we grow into. Now, those people can connect. And it's exactly when we connected.

I don't remember falling for you.

All I know is, I cared about you more and more. You grew more and more important to me. Soon, you became the closest friend that I ever had. And I became worried because I never want to lose you.

Even in friendship, you were enough for me. You were more than enough for me. It was enough to keep me warm.

I didn't think this would ever happen. Your friendship was already enough for me.

But maybe I'm fearful and pessimistic. So I'll enjoy it every bit till the end.

Of course, I don't want it to end.

You're my best friend. You're the closest friend I ever had.

You have entered my world and coloured it, different.

Even if you are no longer in my life, you have coloured it different. You will haunt me. You will always mean something to me. You have changed me.

And it was an honour to have been your friend and partner. However brief that was.

Of course, I wish it not to end. But life has made me a little fearful and pessimistic.

Cheers,

From me.