#(and how preachy. in a very annoying but more importantly out of place way)

[carlyraejepsans]

what is this intrafandom horrible taste you speak of. please, i must know the gossip

a certain videoludic transformative work of chromatic inclinations really gets on my nerves.

[kinetic-elaboration]

April 21: Mr. Robot 4x06

Very discombobulated at this point in the week. Watched Mr. Robot, though! My computer was also feeling tired and slow, so it was a little...stop and start lol.

This episode was...  okay.

I appreciate the ‘hostage’ theme of the episode. Three story lines all with essentially the same main event, not a lot else going on so we can focus on them. In general, I like how Mr. Robot doesn’t stuff too much into each episode but has long scenes and isn’t afraid to linger with a character for a while.

The strongest story line was Dom and Darlene. Dom’s been in kind of a holding pattern so far this season, imo. I always enjoy watching her but she hasn’t really moved at all so far: she’s a Dark Army mole and she doesn’t like it, that’s basically it. I wanted something interesting to happen now that she’s been put in the way of Darlene and Elliot and this ep didn’t disappoint in that regard. Her reunion with Darlene was everything I wanted it to be: emotional, scary, tense, unpredictable--it was a meeting with the highest possible stakes, and I just thought it was really well done. I’m glad they acknowledged their affair, also. I really needed to hear that.

Plus they both looked really hot.

I think Janice is simultaneously the scariest and the most annoying character on the show. And like the same traits make her both.

I liked Vera and Krista a lot, too. This was a pairing I never would have thought of, but it works very well! When Vera isn’t on the screen, I think he is a weak character, because like the idea or concept of him I don’t think seems worth it, but when I’m actually watching him, he’s so magnetic, such a character, and weird and unpredictable, that I enjoy him a lot in practice. Where Janice is scary and annoying, Vera is in that intersection between scary and funny. And Krista was actually a pretty good match for him tbh! They can psychoanalyze each other.

“Miss Krista, did you just call me a little bitch?” is easily a top ten line of the whole show.

I was not as into the Elliot and Olivia story. I’m a little... iffy on Elliot in general this season, honestly. He’s so closed off, following Angela’s death, that he’s also less... easy to identify with or even care about (?) and that’s just a hard narrative to tell. I think the show struggled similarly wit him in S2. Because his relationship to the audience IS a relationship between characters, when he needs to retreat from that relationship, he also needs to retreat from the audience, which can be frustrating. And I remain uncertain about the Mr. Robot narration thing. He is VERY preachy lmao. (Him getting cut off in his voice over by Elliot being kidnapped was truly hilarious though.)

I liked the relationship between Elliot and Olivia and even though I’m not at all surprised it took this turn, I am bummed out. They could have been good for each other!

I am very skeptical of this idea that Elliot has really crossed some kind of major line with how he treats Olivia here. Like... I can kind of see the argument: a lot of the rest of the damage he’s caused, both globally and locally, to people he doesn’t know and people he does, doesn’t have a strong proximate cause link to him: other people, including the casualties themselves, contributed to their own tragedy. Also, many of his worst actions lack intent and sometimes even knowledge. Here, he acted with knowledge and intent to do something unarguably terrible to a specific person to a specific end that was more important to him than the individual damage. And fair enough that she called him out on doing something terrible.

BUT the amount of effort the narrative puts into proving this was terrible of him, and perhaps even terrible in a different way than his other bad acts, not just through Olivia’s dialogue but through the Mr. Robot narration, was not convincing to me, at best. Like IS it worse than other actions of his that have led, indirectly or directly, to the death of several of his friends and uh literally a huge terrorist attack? I’m not sure lol.

He’s targeted specific people before, too. He’s hacked individuals who are doing bad things and blackmailed them. He’s used individuals for larger ends. As my mom pointed out, what he’s doing with Olivia really isn’t vastly different from a lot of his other actions: it’s just a little more. She’s a little more innocent, his actions are a little more directly harmful, etc. But I’m not convinced that this is the big deal the narrative wants it to be specifically because it actually seems very IC and because seeing it as The Line basically means ranking all of Elliot’s bad acts and saying this is definitely the worst one, which is a complex and ultimately pointless inquiry imo.

Maybe the narrative and I are on the same side, I mean, it’s good that Elliot seemed IC or this episode would have been very jarring. And maybe it is a line, idk. But it seems a little late to worry about lines or about whether Elliot might Secretly Not Be the Hero. Like even asking these questions, to me--is the hero worse than the villain? did taking down the villain turn the hero into exactly what he hates? is any larger purpose worth the casualties along the way? how many? if intention/greater purpose is what matters is there a difference between heroism and villainy at all or is it all a matter of ~ perspective ~? at what point do we turn into monsters for the greater good? etc.--is to turn down a Supremely Boring path. ARE humans secretly monstrous inside? Oooooh who gives a fuck. This is probably (definitely) residual bitterness about T100, which was solely interested in this question and milked it for everything it was worth for way longer than it warrants, but at this point, I just immediately think, ‘what a dumb (male) question that completely misses the point of everything interesting in life.’ Imo there just isn’t that much to say about this because if you really think all people, when pushed to extremes, are just Bad then you’ve said all you need to say.

I might be pushing this more on the show than it warrants and, again, just being bitter about a completely different show but some of the dialogue and a lot of Mr. Robot’s preachiness just really seemed to be inviting some kind of reckoning with that “who’s the real villain huh?” question. And I think Mr. Robot is above that. Morality has always been complex here and people and their motivations equally so: the intersection of the personal and the political, the devastation of unforeseen consequences, the constant presence and effect of manipulation, the complex interactions of different persons and groups with their own unique motives and their vastly different arrays of power--all of this has been present at every stage of the show. Elliot is the main character so he’s a particularly important cog but he is only one cog.

So, yeah, because it’s done such a good job overall, I’m probably too angry that 1-2 characters called Elliot out on being mean sometimes lol.

Also as my mom pointed out, it’s possible Elliot did not drug Olivia. Whether or not that matters is questionable. Now that she said it, I’m sure he did not. He doesn’t need her drugged--or even want her drugged, she’s much more useful lucid--he just wants her scared. Also, where is he going to get the oxy? This is the SAME DAY as the previous episode lol. When does he have the time? Either way, it was a cruel psychological trick, with very real consequences for her, but if he was only doing some social engineering, along the lines of what he often does, and if he could justify it by saying she wasn’t really drugged and that she “deserved” it in a sense for taking this job at all, and that it was worth it given the stakes--it all seems very in line with what Elliot does. And again...he’s done worse. If you’re not with him at the mid-point of the final season idk why you’re here.

My mom and I also talked a little about the Hacker personality and its relationship to Mr. Robot. What’s weird to me is that Mr. Robot seems to be the place where Elliot stores his rage and anger, but he ALSO appears to be the handler, for lack of a better term, of the Hacker. The Hacker is pretty obviously the most important personality--the only one that uses Elliot’s face, for example--arguably the oldest, too. In our discussion, we hypothesized that the Hacker is Elliot’s ideal vision of himself: stronger, tougher, bolder, more closed off, incapable of being hurt, prone to single-minded pursuits. I think he was the original personality, too. First he looks like Elliot. But more importantly, he’s so clearly the Protector, and that’s the paradigmatic reason to have a separate personality: to protect the person from their own trauma or abuse. He doesn’t seem to have a strong sense of Elliot’s past: consider the murkiness of the Window Incident throughout the show (was he pushed? did he jump? why did he jump? what immediately precipitated this incident?) or how he doesn’t remember Darlene in S1. This fits with him as an ideal, also. He‘s very similar to Elliot, but he doesn’t remember a lot of his worst trauma and he’s not open to new relationships that could cause him more pain. He can shut off absolutely everything else to accomplish a task, and that task is usually about fixing some kind of wrong or injustice: often sending (child) abusers to prison, but sometimes, y’know, solving the world’s inequality crisis or whatever.

Mr. Robot is Elliot’s anger but he’s also that voice in Elliot’s head giving advice, moving and manipulating his main alter, the counterpart to that alter--I think this is because he looks like Elliot’s father, and this weird duality reflects Elliot’s feelings about his father. He’s terrifying but Elliot is dependent on him, too.

So, here’s sort of how I see it at this point. Mr. Robot is a later-formed personality that for some reason hatches this fsociety plan, this major hack against ECorp focused on debt eradication specifically. He brings a lot of it together and then recruits the Hacker to the plan. The Hacker is necessary because he has skills, or personality traits, that are integral to the plan. In many ways, its great for him: he likes helping people and he likes throwing himself into big projects and this is both! Mr. Robot is always supposed to be the Hacker’s handler, in a sense, keeping him focused on the job, directing him, but the Hacker (unlike the other personalities) does not know he is an alter, and he takes increasing amounts of control. What we perceive as a fight between “real” personality and alter in S2-S3 is really, of course, a fight between 2 alters, and I’m still trying to wrap my head around it, but I do think ultimately it is about this alter taking too much control. I don’t get quite HOW Mr. Robot was supposed to wrangle him because he does not seem to be much of a better angel in the first 3 seasons, other than perhaps keeping him on task. BUT now the Hacker seems too much on task. He is solidified into an outsized version of all of these traits: he’s cut off from feelings, he’s protecting himself from everything, he will do everything for this mission, he has no morality outside of this mission, no second thoughts, etc. Cold and safe and focused on the Greater Good. I’m not sure how Mr. Robot as he’s seen in S1-S3 is supposed to mitigate that.

Another question is: why the ECorp hack? Why that target? This is very different than going after child molesters. It’s not just bigger, it’s a completely different type of evil. Also, while he has a personal stake in hating ECorp, he’s not directing his energies to the disaster at the plant specifically. We know what that looks like--it’s what Angela does in S2. Also, both Angela and Darlene seem much more upset about that than Elliot; for Elliot, it’s wrapped up in his complicated (to say the least) relationship with his father. Going after the debt ECorp holds is a pretty random target everything considered. He doesn’t seem deeply in debt himself.

BUT Angela is and we’re reminded of this often in S1. Could it have been about her?

I’m still not entirely sure why the plan originates with Mr. Robot, except that his skills--more people-oriented, for sure--would have been more useful in collecting the group in the first place. Also, the Hacker was shielding himself from Darlene’s existence altogether at that time, which would make reaching out to her, an apparent stranger, more difficult.

Anyway these are a lot of thoughts.

One more thing: I know I’ve previously been ambivalent at best about the last minute inclusion of a giant world-spanning, history-spanning conspiracy centered around a singular group of powerful international figures. It’s not satisfying--imo it’s less satisfying than whiterose, head of the Internet Mafia--but this is S4 and it’s easier to wrap things up when you have a singular bad guy so like I get it, I guess. But the way Elliot described it to Olivia today was definitely like Illuminati Time and I rolled my eyes a little.

NO idea where all this came from but it’s late and my eyes hurt. Still two more days this week ugh.... Can this week be salvaged in ANY way?

[whohastimeforcreativeurls]

The Last Jedi Review (no spoilers)

Last night, a meme enthusiast (https://timelloyd.tumblr.com/) and I saw Star Wars The Last Jedi. It was a belter of a film, and left me with a lot to process. For largely my own benefit in working out how I feel about it, I thought I’d write a review that’s as spoiler free as possible. Having said that, I went into The Last Jedi with a completely open mind, avoiding all spoilers and even all reviews lest my views of the film be tainted in any way by any preconceptions. It’s probably best enjoyed as such, going in with no spoilers and no predetermined ideas. I don’t generally write reviews, and this is, as I said, primarily to order my own thoughts and feelings about the film than it is to praise or damn it or influence anybody else’s opinions, nor is it to show off my stunted command of the written word.

Overall the film was great, I genuinely loved it, and it subverted nearly every expectation I had. It’s one of those films you come away from cinema still thinking about, likely for days afterwards. The ending is very open and I look forward to seeing where episode nine goes. However, it wasn’t perfect, rather it was excellent in spite of its flaws. To compare it to the other recent Star Wars films, the good moments were certainly miles better than The Force Awakens and Rogue One, and it’s a far more original and daring film than either of the others, but unfortunately the bad moments were far worse (for which I largely blame the script as the actual direction of the film was consistently on point), and I think it’s probably a less rewatchable film, although there are some scenes that I could and will watch again and again and again. I’d rate it 4/5, and I certainly recommend watching it. Out of all the new films I’ve seen this year (namely Beauty and the Beast, Logan, Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2, and Wonder Woman), The Last Jedi is easily the best of these (with the only possible exception being Logan, which is at least nearly as good). Also, very importantly, the Porgs aren’t terrible.

As most Star Wars films are, The Last Jedi is broken up into three stories, each of which follows one set of characters. These stories are brought together in the final act in a way that’s bound to satisfy the fans. These stories are best reviewed individually and are as follows:

Story A follows Luke, Rey and Kylo Ren. Luke and Rey begin precisely where they left off in The Force Awakens and have a great on-screen master/student relationship from the off, and Ren fits into this story well and his character is far more compelling than he is in the previous film, and his story in this film ends in a far stronger position. Other characters like Snoke, Chewbacca, the Porgs and R2-D2 also play a role in this story, but it is certainly focused on our trio of Force users. Story A does some of the best demonstrations and explanations of the Force that we’ve seen in the franchise and is beautiful and the strongest story in the film with a stunning conclusion. This story also contains some of the slickest humour in the film, and ultimately, despite a dark and sombre advertising campaign, this results in The Last Jedi in being the funniest film in the franchise in my opinion. Luke is cemented as my favourite character and Mark Hamill’s performance is possibly his greatest yet. I can’t begin to describe how much he steals the show, this really is Luke’s movie, and fans of the character will be very satisfied. There are so many stunning, breath taking, captivating, humourous and meaningful moments in this story. There is very little I’d change or criticise about story A, other than perhaps the development of Rey, and to a lesser extent, Ren, which were slightly odd in and arguably rushed in places, but each character has an incredibly satisfying conclusion. From the cinematography, to the acting, to the script, to the tone and themes, and especially the character development, this story is amazing. If there had been no B or C story, the film would have been just as good, possibly even better in my eyes. There’s a lot to unpack and a lot that happens in this story, and you’ll likely leave the cinema thinking about this one the most. It certainly leaves the biggest footprint on the film and the series as a whole. This story also likely has the most moments that will subvert the fans expectations, and playing the cards as close to the chest as they have done in the marketing for this film has certainly paid dividends. To quote Luke in the trailer, this is not going to go the way you think. I’d rate this story 5/5.

Story B follows Poe Dameron predominantly, but also features Leia and the new character Vice Admiral Holdo, as well as Hux and his new right-hand man to a far lesser extent, as well as C3-P0 to a very minor degree. This story featured some nice action sequences, and every scene Carrie Fisher was in was tantalising, and if nothing else this story does justice to the character of Leia. I also enjoyed how the Resistance are not presented as infallible, and make several mistakes and blunders, and at several points make things worse for themselves, which makes the Resistance more believable and human. Poe Dameron is allowed to shine in this story as well, and his character is developing very nicely, especially given his lack of opportunity in The Force Awakens. I also enjoyed some of the comedy moments, and that Ade Edmondson was indeed in the film in this story, but somewhat disappointed he gets seemingly no comedy moments of his own. Story B certainly isn’t as strong as story A. While some action sequences are spectacular and jaw dropping, others are gratuitous and uninspiring. Some character moments are odd, to say the least, with a great deal of the drama being the result of characters being dishonest or of poor judgement. I was less endeared to Hux and Snoke in The Last Jedi than I was in The Force Awakens, and this is due to the points that the plot took their characters too, but ultimately all ends satisfyingly for them, even if not quite how I’d expected. Some of the dialogue is a little over the top, even by Star Wars standards, and did make me cringe from time to time. A lot of this story is very slow, and outside the action sequences (which as before stated are somewhat hit and miss), very little seems to actually take place, and it does run the risk of being a little dull, but overall, it’s a solidly okay story. Inoffensive, if at certain points unremarkable. Also, just to lay my cards on the table, one slightly divisive character moment for Leia was, in my eyes, an absolute showstopper and I loved it. I’d rate this story 3.5/5.

Story C follows Finn, BB8, and the new characters of Rose and the Man in Black. I did not like this story. It added very little, if anything to the plot, and I did not like the new characters. I found Rose to be nice but superfluous and the Man in Black to be annoying to almost Jar Jar levels and disappointingly underdeveloped, despite a good performance from both actors. I found myself less endeared to Finn and BB8, as Finn’s character progresses oddly and hurriedly, as does the relationship between him and Rose, and BB8 is less quirky and charming than in The Force Awakens and instead is something of a tool in every sense of the word, simply showing up to solve problems whenever the plot demanded while showing little character of his own. It was very different in tone and themes to the rest of the film, and felt more like a mediocre filler episode of Star Trek than a suspenseful plotline in a Star Wars film. Ultimately, filler is probably the best word to describe this story, as well as preachy, underdeveloped, as well as superfluous in terms of what it actually adds to the plot, and everything that it could have added is ultimately undone by the actions of other characters and made redundant. Do feel free to disagree. At two and a half hours in length, The Last Jedi would have benefitted from spending less time on this story and more on the other two, or possibly even cancelling this story and leaving Finn with Poe and co rather than sending him off on his own lacklustre adventure. Finn does have a very good and suspenseful character moment at the end of the film which did have me on the edge of my seat and mirrored the start of the film nicely, but this too is ultimately undone by the actions of others and undermined by a very cliché and preachy messaged. My opinions on this story may change as I re-watch the film, but for this first viewing at least, it hit almost all the wrong notes for me. Unless my opinion changes from rewatching, I’ll likely end up skipping scenes from this story in future viewings. I’d rate this story 2/5.

The Force Awakens followed the Star Wars formula to the letter, and ended with the audience knowing quite well what to expect from the sequel. The Last Jedi completely breaks the mould of the franchise, takes a lot of risks, subverts almost every expectation I had for the franchise moving forwards, and I loved that. I think this film has enough that’s new and daring to appease those who were underwhelmed by the safety of The Force Awakens and Rogue One, with enough reverence for the original trilogy and prequels to satisfy the old school fans. The Last Jedi also has an incredibly open ending and I can’t wait to see where Star Wars goes next. I’m actually somewhat pleased that the next chapter in this trilogy will be directed by J.J. Abrams, because despite all the excellence of The Last Jedi, as I’ve said, I think The Force Awakens was more watchable, more of a traditional Star Wars, even if damnably safely so. Having said that, I am very curious to see where Rian Johnson’s new trilogy will end up taking the fans. Also, I will probably end up buying every piece of Luke Skywalker merchandise I can afford to.