#Desert Daisy Visuals

[desertdaisyvisuals]

WW1 and WW2 Aviation American History Documentary Film.

Directed by Akeylah Johnson and Dennis Boal.

Filmed on location in Eureka Springs, Northwest Arkansas.

Professional video services by @desertdaisyvisuals and The Lab Fx.

[pianokantzart]

I dunno if this really counts as desert themed, but in Mario Kart Tour Daisy has an outfit called the Thai Dress!

I am a fan of the Thai dress! Thailand is mostly made up of forested mountains and fertile planes rather than desert, yes, but since I imagine Sarasaland as a Mario-verse reimagining of the Ottoman Empire (particularly when it was at it's height in the 16th century) there is a bit of crossover in terms of style elements, with a heavy focus on fine silks and linens decorated with large intricate patterns and shimmering metallic threads.

Left: Daisy in what I think is a chakri dress Right: An üçetek entari, or three-skirt robe (it's 19th century rather than 16th century, but you get my drift.) The worlds of Super Mario Land were all over place in terms of where they took inspiration from, but most modern interpretations of Sarasaland focus on desert regions like the Birabuto Kingdom (which is heavily Egyptian themed, with Egypt having been a province of the Ottoman Empire for over 200 years) and the closest thing we have to a modern visual for Sarasaland is the Daisy Circuit– an active harbor, like how the Ottoman Empire carried out most of it's trade through the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf.

Uuuh... I forgot where I was gong with this. TL;DR: Daisy's Thailand dress is probably the closest thing I'll get to seeing her in 16th Century Ottoman Empire inspired garb.

[septembersghost]

chronic illness flare has turned me into a soaking wet paper doll of a person, but i have tag games to catch up on and that's a fun distraction 😊💕

tagged by jenn my sweetie @castiel

show your lock screen, last celeb photo, and last song listened to

oh this is probably going to be embarrassing. okay so my most frequently used device unfortunately doesn't have a customizable lock screen. i am very lucky to have a secondary device i use quite often these days which was a gift from a friend who didn't need it anymore, and that one had a really pretty floral/lyric from the archer for ages, but now... (if i hadn't saved this picture of taylor and benji, the lock screen and photo would've been a neat display of matched insanity, could've hit a trifecta with the song too but fob swooped in at the last second.) anyway...

♥♥♥♥

tagged by (polk! salad!) dani @valkaryah: share my top 5 songs I've been listening to.

according to my current replay playlist, and without repeating artists, otherwise this would be very skewed, it's 1. any day now - elvis presley, 2. heartbreak feels so good - fall out boy, 3. all of the girls you loved before - taylor swift, 4. look at us now (honeycomb) - daisy jones and the six, 5. all my ghosts - lizzy mcalpine (the way lizzy has not left my rotation for a year!)

♥♥♥♥

tagged by darlings @thebohemianbelle and @waxandwanewitchery: when you get this, you have to put 5 songs you actually listen to

similar to the above, but different!!! if i snagged this from that weekly replay playlist, it would essentially be all of the same artists because my listening habits have been in a cycle of comfort lately, but i'll choose five that i do listen to a lot that are also in the list and weren't represented. 1. golden - harry styles, 2. say you love me - fleetwood mac, 3. just one of those things - frank sinatra, 4. supercut - lorde, 5. easy to love - ella fitzgerald

♥♥♥♥

tagged by @bloodmoonlits 😘 my top 4 current albums (the taste on yours, i love seeing recognition for holly!) mine are going to be so predictable here please send help. (i am making an executive decision to exclude taylor from this, but red tv and lover are actually battling it out for a top spot at the moment 💖)

♥♥♥♥

tagged by @headfullofpresley and @castiel: talk about 8 shows as a way to get to know me better. this is unexpectedly hard because rarely are the shows i most dearly love ones that i would openly recommend to another human being haha 😳 so let that be a disclaimer here as i wrack my brain. in no particular order:

(1). better call saul: i will never be as deranged about anything on television as i was about this show, scheming times were had, tragedies were felt, cinnamon rolls were eaten. kisses sealed at city hall, flowers blooming in the desert. my unpopular qualms with the last few episodes/ending aside, it was such a gorgeously layered, meticulously crafted show, i loved those characters so much, it was SUCH a cinematic treat visually, and nearly every step was finely tuned and written in such a thought-provoking way. every step was perfectly acted. i could still talk about it forever. kim wexler queen of my heart, you will always be famous. you don't save me. i save me. (shout-out to the magnificent, and inarguably definitive, predecessor breaking bad.)

(2). penny dreadful: this show is a glorious horror, a mess of victoriana, a fanfiction potpourri of some of the most famous characters of literature, no sane person should invest themselves in it. unfortunately, i, not sane, love it to the bone (except for the terrible ending, you'll catch a pattern here), predominantly because vanessa ives means everything to me. the flame to which all moths gather. defiant martyr of my heart. no one will ever be like her!!! she is my fierce compassionate sickgirl heroine, fighting against the shadows of her world, her soul forever unbowed and true. even when she fears that lost, she holds close her dignity, her ability to love, her perseverance. the poetry with which the show, particularly the first two seasons, was written is unmatched. it's gothic horror in a frame that no one else on television has ever attempted, and it felt made for me when i first watched it in january of 2020. for though it is macabre and gruesome and dark and steeped in grief, it's also about beauty and devotion and resilience and connection. "i see no wildflowers here."/"then you need to look closer." and the everlasting heartbeat, no matter what john logan did to her, my vanessa. something yet remains. i remain.

(3). bates motel: fun fact, i only started bates last february, i've watched S1-4 more than once, and yet still have not finished S5. i keep trying but i don't want to do it! it's a rare one where i already know the ending is fitting, i just keep pushing it off. it's a very difficult show, it deals with heavy themes, there's triggering and horrific stuff in the pilot alone that would immediately stop me from telling people to watch (or at least give me pause), yet at the same time i think it unexpectedly becomes one of the most brilliantly done pieces of television i've ever seen. they have this audacious idea - what if we made a prequel of one of the most iconic movies of all-time? - and somehow not only pull it off, but end up making that story richer and more meaningful. we KNOW we're plummeting towards inevitable tragedy and still wish it could be diverted. we are fascinated and repulsed and aching for the bonds these people share, the desperation as they try to survive. every character is flawed in ways that the story tries to claw humanity out of, and it does something distinct in never shaming or vilifying any of the protagonists for the wretched things they do, never talking down to the audience saying we should be judging them or wishing ill on them, but rather examining WHY they are this way, why they act and react as they do, how they have been bent into these strange shapes. it exhumes your empathy and refuses to let you turn away from the difficulties of their world. the house looms forever like a breathing entity in the background. we will always end up in the basement, but how it comes to happen is the more important tale. and it has the incomparable powerhouse of norma bates, wonderful, awful, extraordinary, complicated, half queen, half little girl. she was like a miracle. as with vanessa, i will never forget her. (another pattern you'll see here: WOMEN.)

(4). remington steele: this was the very first "grown up" show i was ever allowed to watch with my mom, in syndication when i was a kid, and i just love it so much. it's such a delight. 80s glamour! mysteries and hi-jinks! THEE ultimate will-they/won't they romance, and she doesn't even know his real name! try this for a deep dark secret - the great detective remington steele? he doesn't exist. i invented him. follow - i always loved excitement, so i studied, and apprenticed, and put my name on an office, but absolutely nobody knocked down my door... i can recite the whole first season intro monologue, burned into my brain from age twelve. we just finished a rewatch a few weeks ago and i miss them already. laura holt is intelligent, beautiful, romantic, indefatigable, the closest thing the small screen has had to a classic noir inspired brassy leading lady, and was FORMATIVE for me.

(5). crazy-ex girlfriend: they put a musical on television for me. immediate hit right there. many of the numbers are parodies/homage, cheeky and clever but still heartfelt. then it became one of the funniest, most poignant, most empathetic, most memorable explorations of infatuation, self-worth, and most significantly mental health that i have ever seen. there have been a couple of other musical concept shows (smash, notably), but none that achieved what cxg did. it's an extraordinary work and sometimes i can't believe it was allowed to exist, and got to flourish the way it did. rebecca bunch could so easily be called unlikable - selfish, impulsive, obsessive - and yet she is so lovable and so real through all of her flaws, how can you not root for her, laugh with her, sing with her, cry with her? how can you not want her to get better? you find, eventually, it was never even about the guys, though they're fun to explore in all their neuroses too. they're almost...irrelevant. "a diagnosis" will never not make me weep. the show is just so important. this is about the story of a woman who learns how to recover, how to build true friendships (#gurlgroup4eva), and how to embrace herself.

(6). that girl: another one my mom brought me up on, and there are other shows i could mention here (i love lucy, the dick van dyke show, the addams family) as far as prototypes of modern comedy go (there is a direct line from that girl to the mary tyler moore show to friends and new girl), but that girl is particularly dear to me because it was influential to my mom, and because ann marie is a character all her own. she's quirky, she's determined, she's got the greatest 60s fashion, she's constantly getting herself into situations, she's one of the very first sitcom heroines to be a "single girl in the city" and to directly confront sexism (in multiple ways, but especially in the workplace and in the entertainment industry), she is loved and adored by her boyfriend (one of the best and most patient of all fictional boyfriends), but she is not defined by don, they complement each other. marlo thomas, the icon that you are.

(7). pretty little liars: listen. i know. I KNOW. it's silly, it's ridiculous, it has a host of issues, but i was hooked. and the thing is, though the mysteries fizzled and the reveals didn't make sense, what mattered were those girls. female friendship was the heart of everything in that story, they stood by each other and supported each other through every danger, toil, and snare, and even when they messed up, they forgave each other and came back together as a team every time. -A hardly matters, but the liars are everything. young volcanoes. aria, hanna, emily, and spencer all mean so much to me for very different reasons, and spencer especially. my genius, tenacious, too-caring girl. down these mean streets a girl must go who is not herself mean.

(8). supernatural: sigh. would be remiss not to mention it, right? have, in fact, written what amount to personal essays and fanciful poetics on this blog explaining at length what it once meant to me, have delved into the folklore urban legend americana of it all, and while i have gained a certain distance from it since the palpable breakdown i had from its ending that we do not acknowledge, those entries would hold true. it was so formative that things which are on this list would not be here without it, and i know that. it's so inextricable that i can't tell what is a thread connected to it in my life and what isn't at times. premiered on my birthday and presented me one of the greatest loves of my life, who i will always carry with me. i would not quite be me without dean. i would not be here right now without dean, in more ways than one. and i do my best to be brave.

(honorable mentions to shows tam and jenn had on their lists: the x-files, tvd/the originals, the marvelous mrs. maisel; other honorable mentions: btvs/a:ts, bones, dexter, fleabag S2, gilmore girls, the good place, jane the virgin, nancy drew/hardy boys mysteries, orphan black, the haunting of bly manor, select episodes of doctor who, i am quite certain i'm forgetting a bunch!)

for this last one i am tagging @nerdfaerie​, @arthurwilde, @desireearmfeldt, @someoneoffthestreet, @freakwiththeknifecollection, @bcyoureallthatmakessense, @setyourfireonme, @dewintering, @joons, @thebohemianbelle, @beckybloomwood, @takeawaythepain, and @wickedhawtwexler, but also any of you who wants to do this, or any of the rest of these, please do, and then tag me!!! i love to see them! i apologize profusely for the pervasive brainrot. 💟

[blubbledia]

I watched - Super Mario Bros. - 1993

"This movie is good...and gay. Hear me out."

A friend pitched a headcanon for the movie that Mario is an older butch lesbian, raising Luigi after being kicked out by his family (Luigi is also a lesbian in this scenario). An inspired reading truly. You see Luigi's fumbling flirting with Daisy? Daisy infodumping about paleontology? C'mon.

It's so good as an adaptation too! Like, let's be honest, there was fuck all to work with story-wise. So the decisions they make regarding... literally everything are good. While so off-base from any kind of canon, it's just so fun. It's campy as hell. Alternate dimension Brooklyn of dinosaur people on a desert planet being consumed by the previous king who got turned into a fungus? Fucking Inspired. Brilliant. Master work.

They don't even have Peach! Who knows why? Who cares! Alright so honestly huge speculation on my part but it's probably in casting they knew Bob Hoskins wouldn't be a romantic lead even if he does have someone he is dating in the movie. Which makes it fall to John Leguizamo, they can work with that.

Does it have substance? God no. But it's visually delightful and silly throughout. Watch this!

[vorfreud]

films on youtube: part ii

Updated on September 29th 2021.

Below is a selection of films available on YouTube. As I try to update this list as regularly as possible (for this is a lenghthy process), please refer to the original post for the newest version. 

IMPORTANT NOTE: Apparently, Tumblr restricts the number of links you can have all on one post. Therefore, this list is divided into two parts. You can access part one by clicking on the link below:

PART I HERE.

For a visual reference of all the movies available, click here.

Titles are alphabetized by director, and organized by year of release.

Orphée (1950), Jean Cocteau

The Mother and the Whore (1973), Jean Eustache

My Little Loves (1974), Jean Eustache

La Chienne (1931), Jean Renoir

The Southerner (1945), Jean Renoir

The River (1951), Jean Renoir

The Golden Coach (1952), Jean Renoir

À Propos de Nice (1930), Jean Vigo

Zéro de Conduite (1933), Jean Vigo

Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Jean-Luc Godard

Masculin Féminin (1966), Jean-Luc Godard

Chronicle of Anna Magdanela Bach (1968), Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet

Class Relations (1984), Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet

Antigone (1992), Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet

Two Men in Manhattan (1959), Jean-Pierre Melville

Le Deuxième Souffle (1966), Jean-Pierre Melville

Down by Law (1986), Jim Jarmusch

My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown (1989), Jim Sheridan

Hovering Over the Water (1986), João César Monteiro

God’s Comedy (1995), João César Monteiro

Vai e Vem (2003), João César Monteiro

Underworld (1927), Josef von Sternberg

The Docks of New York (1928), Josef von Sternberg

Faces (1968), John Cassavetes

Minnie and Moskowitz (1971), John Cassavetes

Opening Night (1977), John Cassavetes

Just One Kid (1974), John Goldschmidt

King of Jazz (1930), Joh Murray Anderson

Song of Avignon (1998), Jonas Mekas

As I Was Moving Ahead Ocasionally I Saw Glimpses of Beauty (2000), Jonas Mekas

The Act of Killing (2012), Joshua Oppenheimer

…À Valparaíso (1963), Joris Ivens

Birds, Orphans and Fools (1969), Juraj Jakubisko

Sisters of the Gion (1936), Kenji Mizoguchi

The Story of the Last Chrisanthemum (1939), Kenji Mizoguchi

A Geisha (1953), Kenji Mizoguchi

Ugetsu (1953), Kenji Mizoguchi

Sansho the Bailiff (1954), Kenji Mizoguchi

Street of Shame (1956), Kenji Mizoguchi

Duel in the Sun (1946), King Vidor

Fires on the Plain (1959), Kon Ichikawa

The Ascent (1977), Larisa Shepitko

Dancer in the Dark (2000), Lars von Trier

The Upturned Glass (1947), Lawrence Huntington

Hamlet (1948), Lawrence Olivier

The Blue Light (1932), Leni Riefenstahl

Mädchen in Uniform (1931), Leontine Sagan

Rain (1932), Lewis Milestone

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946), Lewis Milestone

This Sporting Life (1963), Lindsay Anderson

if…. (1968), Lindsay Anderson

Au Revoir, Les Enfants (1987), Louis Malle

Jew Süss (1934), Lothar Mendes

La Terra Trema (1948), Luchino Visconti

Beautiful (1951), Luchino Visconti

The Leopard (1963), Luchino Visconti

Sandra (1965), Luchino Visconti

The Sunday Woman (1975), Luigi Comencini

L’Âge d’Or (1930), Luis Buñuel

Nazarin (1959), Luis Buñuel

Black Orpheus (1959), Marcel Camus

Limite (1931), Mário Peixoto

Spring on Zarechnaya Street (1956), Marlen Khutsiyev and Feliks Mironer

Vermilion Souls (2007), Masaki Iwana

La Haine (1995), Mathieu Kassovitz

Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), Maya Deren

Caught (1949), Max Ophüls

The Reckless Moment (1949), Max Ophüls

Black Narcissus (1947), Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger

Gone to Earth (1950), Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger

Gente del Po (1947), Michelangelo Antonioni

Il Grido (1957), Michelangelo Antonioni

L’Avventura (1960), Michelangelo Antonioni

La Notte (1961), Michelangelo Antonioni

Red Desert (1964), Michelangelo Antonioni

Zabriskie Point (1970), Michelangelo Antonioni

The Passenger (1975), Michelangelo Antonioni

Women of Ryazan (1927), Olga Preobrazhenskaya and Ivan Pravov

The Stranger (1946), Orson Welles

Black Girl (1966), Ousmane Sembène

Punishment Park (1971), Peter Watkins

Mamma Roma (1962), Pier Paolo Pasolini

World on a Wire (1973), Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Martha (1974), Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Chinese Roulette (1976), Rainer Werner Fassbinder

City of Pirates (1983), Raúl Ruiz

Time Regained (1999), Raúl Ruiz

Lucrezia Borgia (1922), Richard Oswald

Strangers When We Meet (1960), Richard Quine

Framed (1947), Richard Wallace

Mouchette (1967), Robert Bresson

Four Nights of a Dreamer (1971), Robert Bresson

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), Robert Wiene

Rome, Open City (1945), Roberto Rossellini

Paisà (1946), Roberto Rossellini

Germany, Year Zero (1948), Roberto Rossellini

The Flowers of St. Francis (1950), Roberto Rossellini

Europa ’51 (1952), Roberto Rossellini

Journey to Italy (1954), Roberto Rossellini

Repulsion (1965), Roman Polanski

Cul-de-sac (1966), Roman Polanski

Songs from the Second Floor (2000), Roy Andersson

You, the Living (2007), Roy Andersson

Two (1965), Satyajit Ray

Battleship Potemkin (1925), Sergei M. Eisenstein

The Color of Pomegranates (1968), Sergej Parajanov

Shozo, a Cat and Two Women (1956), Shirō Toyoda

A Day at the Beach (1972), Simon Hesera

Royal Wedding (1951), Stanley Donen

It’s Always Fair Weather (1955), Stanley Donen

Indiscreet (1958), Stanley Donen

Charade (1963), Stanley Donen

The Haircut (1982), Tamar Simon Hoffs

A Page of Madness (1926), Teinosuke Kinugasa

Badlands (1973), Terrence Malick

The Entertainer (1960), Tony Richardson

Daisies (1966), Věra Chytilová

The Outlaw and His Wife (1918), Victor Sjöstrom

Shoeshine (1946), Vittorio de Sica

Bicyle Thieves (1948), Vittorio de Sica

Umberto D. (1952), Vittorio de Sica

State Fair (1946), Walter Lang

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (1927), Walter Ruttmann

The Last Stage (1948), Wanda Jakubowska

Land of Silence and Darkness (1971), Werner Herzog

Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972), Werner Herzog

Rope of Sand (1949), William Dieterle

Wings of Desire (1987), Wim Wenders

I Was Born, But… (1932), Yasujirō Ozu

The Only Son (1936), Yasujirō Ozu

The Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family (1941), Yasujirō Ozu

There Was a Father (1942), Yasujirō Ozu

Late Spring (1949), Yasujirō Ozu

Early Summer (1951), Yasujirō Ozu

The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice (1952), Yasujirō Ozu

Tokyo Story (1953), Yasujirō Ozu

Early Spring (1956), Yasujirō Ozu

Equinox Flower (1958), Yasujirō Ozu 

Late Autumn (1960), Yasujirō Ozu

The Blue Sky Maiden (1957), Yasuzō Masumura

[saltminerising]

The big issue with last year's RoR apparel wasn't that it was survivor focused (that was cool), but it had to look like camouflage for Robin Hood's forest when Plague isn't that. Cool survivor themed accents or apparel that is camo for a rust colored desert or swampland would be neat.

Staff would do themselves a favor by having a clearly Plague specific coli venue in this aspect. Everything the flight has is....well, against ToS. So of course there is trouble. It is made by staff's visual depictions and Plague's lack of variety...from on site. They only have themselves to blame, and plague has reason to be frustrated. Give the flight some attention and on-site love and redirection through Coli or art updates  or lore, and there would  be more to work with.

Even so, all this accent drama sounds uninspired. Blood, bones, gore? Gimme a dragon hiding under plague tentacles..uh, vines. Gimme dragons with ragged apparel. Tough skin from being out. Dirty and defiant. Carrying weapons or bare essentials. Holding cans of bug repellent and covered in bug bites. Touting plants that are  of survival. Mushrooms for plague? Nah, try DAISIES, those monster weed flowers that grow no matter what! Blackberries, too. Mosquitos and fleas in little seed packets. "Disease Sower."  

While we're at it...make a wind inspired plague dragon skin. That would be one powerful and effective plague spreader.

Loads of side stepped possibilities here. It doesn't have to be...I dunno, leprosy or whatever you guys want to go for with all the blood arguments. 

[the-great-bbe]

The Gardens of Dorne, Water and Otherwise (or What The Hell Grows Down There?)

Dorne is what I would characterize as a hybrid Mediterranean-tropical desert. It’s simultaneously an “arid wasteland of red and white sand”, as well as having enough rain water and fertile river silt to sustain a civilization even during the summer. In terms of agriculture, Dorne grows olives, lemons, pomegranates, blood oranges, grapes, peppers and plums, as well as rice (notorious for needing lots of water, but possible to grow in a desert with proper irrigation).

That’s great for writing the agriculture of a desert kingdom in the vein of southern Spain, North Africa and Levantine nations such as Syria and Lebanon, as well as other tropical deserts like the Mojave Desert in North America and the Thar Desert in India and Pakistan. For stories that don’t feature Dorne, that’s the basics of what you need.

But what if your story takes place in Dorne? What do Sunspear and the Water Gardens and the lands beyond them look like in regards to flowers? Trees? Plant life in general? When people go courting what flowers do they present to their lovers? If girls are named Daisy and Tansy in the Riverlands, what are they named in Dorne?

I went to a very large and impressive botanical garden yesterday, and took some photos that might help writers visualize Dorne in its splendor. The desert plant life ranged from North American (specifically the deserts of Southern California, Arizona, Texas and Mexico), Central and South American, South African, Middle Eastern, Western Asian and South Asian. And since Dorne is a fantasy mishmash of different areas, I think it’s fair game to say there’s Old Man of the Andes cacti growing alongside Middle Eastern date palms and north Mexican agave plants!

Photos below the cut:

Perhaps girls in Dorne are named Poppy, Marigold, Sage, Orange Blossom and Agave. Perhaps lovers don’t send each other roses, but instead rosette succulents and dwarf palm saplings. Perhaps fragrant jasmine and colorful irises grow alongside the citrus groves and rice fields as they need steady water but thrive beneath the burning Dornish sun. Perhaps the gardens beyond the Water Gardens aren’t fields of delicate flowers like the Reach, but a rainbow of spines and thorns and sweet smelling nectar against red and white rocks.

Dorne might be arid, but it can still be green, and all the other colors of the earth

[cinematicbeauty]

the infinite dream.

Stars shining in the sky, blinking their magnificent glow down on us for eons. They have been there and have witnessed countless of humans live and die. Living through their dreams and dying facing their fears.

Ever since the dawn of ages, dreams and hope were one of the few constants that tethered humans to ambition and their intended future.

Jay Gatsby, a fictional character created by author F. Scott Fitzgerald, dreamt of becoming a wealthy and educated man to win the heart of Daisy Buchanan, Gatsby’s subject of infatuation. He then proceeded to change his identity from his poverty-riddled background to one filled with riches and prosperity.

My dreams are not as big or as powerful as Gatsby’s, but they are still my own. Personal ambitions and inspirations have always been a part of me, ever since I was a dreamy curious child.

I knew I wanted to make a change in the world, regardless of who I impacted, as long as it was a positive one.

My father enjoyed watching the Indiana Jones films, and that was how I came to love archaeology. That, and through playing a video game called Tomb Raider, which centralized around a British protagonist whose family salvaged artifacts from around the world.

Indiana Jones and The Lost Ark || dir. Steven Spielberg, 1981

I wanted to venture out to the deserts and other terrains, where the veil between the ancient and modern world becomes blurry. Discovering and unearthing items that were hidden for centuries, even millenniums, and preserving their significance to the cultures that they belong to was a passion of mine.

Personally, I enjoyed preserving items that were of value. They always hold a special place in someone’s heart, regardless if that person is living or not. It contains a culture of someone’s life, and in most cases, one that is either rarely seen in our world today, or not at all.

After my archaeology phase, I had a sudden fascination towards criminal cases and criminology in general. I have books ranging from the most notorious criminals ever recorded in history to infamous unsolved cases lined up in order on my bookshelves back in Malaysia.

I have always found the human mind interesting and the complexities of how it works. Made me want to practice Criminology once, even. How these criminals and felons worked were just morbidly fascinating to me. This is also probably another reason why I tend to lean on books, films, and even television shows that showcases such actions, and the knowledge they offer.

Dexter || prod. Daniel Cerrone, Sara Colleton, et al. , 2006-2013

Se7en || dir. David Fincher, 1995

Knowledge is power.

To know and understand the things going on around us is definitely something that all of us should be able to do. Dissemination of knowledge comes in a myriad of ways and sources. My personal favorite, is through books and films.

That is where the idea for this blog came about. To just have a safe space to converse about films.

Although a good plot is substantial to the amazing quality that a film would be able to produce, there are also different matters that have to be accounted for. Sound designs, cinematography, color grading, etc.

The Shining || dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1980

Blade Runner 2049 || Denis Villeneuve , 2017

Such films would bring hope, inspirations, and dreams to many. One of the most powerful ways something could give an impact on someone is through visuals and audio, and film ticks both of those boxes.

It made me want to actually study how film works, and have it as a passion to digest and indulge them during my free time.

I do hope that you, readers, would enjoy films as much as I do through my blog.

[tokiro07]

Nintendo would never do it cus they’re cowards but I want Odyssey 2 to be like a grand tour through Mario history rather than either a retread of Odyssey 1′s stages or a bunch of new ones (though the latter would definitely be appreciated). Interestingly, you could actually line a lot of them up thematically and it would work out

Bonneton -> Luigi’s Mansion as the ghost-themed level (probably either like Dark Moon where there were several mansions or 3 where it’s one big mansion with multiple themes for each floor); boss is King Boo, with cameos from E. Gadd and Polterpup at least, and maybe even some of the more iconic ghosts from the series

Tostarena -> Sarasaland as the desert level; boss is Tatanga, with a cameo from Daisy

Steam Gardens -> Donkey Kong Country as the jungle level; boss is King K. Rool, with cameos from the various Kongs and maybe even Stanley the Bugman

Forgotten Isle -> Yoshi’s Island as the tropical level; boss is either Kamek or Raphael the Raven, though Burt the Bashful and Prince Froggy may either cameo or act as mini-bosses

New Donk City -> Diamond City as the urban level; boss is either Wario or Captain Syrup, though Waluigi and several Warioware cameos are present as NPCs

Bubblaine -> Delfino Isle as the beach level; boss is Petey Piranha or Bowser, Jr.

Mount Volbono -> Subcon as the visually abstract level (I know it’s more like the fire level in context, but I’m not sure any generalized Mario setting would fit super well); boss is Wart, though Birdo and possibly other bosses like Mouser show up

Lake Lamode -> Rogueport as the secondary water level (though Rogueport isn’t particularly water themed, it can be expanded fine, I think); boss is either Grodus or Crump, though the Shadow Sirens will probably appear; Mario’s partners from at least Thousand Year Door will cameo, and perhaps the original Paper Mario too, whether in new 3D models or all being flat (the latter would be pretty funny, honestly)

Peach’s Castle -> Beanbean Kingdom as the castle level; boss is Fawful, with a cameo from at least Prince Peasley, but possibly Starlow and other Mario & Luigi characters too

Nimbus Arena -> Star Road as the sky level; boss is Smithy, and has cameos from Geno and Mallow

The Moon -> pretty much anything from Mario Galaxy might work as a way to mess with the physics, but I’m partial to Honeyhive Galaxy on the basis that it would bring back Queen Bee, whom Nintendo seems quite fond of based on Mario Kart 7; since I’ve already used the alien boss Tatanga in Sarasaland and there’s not really a good boss associated with Galaxy aside from Bowser, I’m actually going to put the Broodals here since it’s a space level and they come from the moon

I can’t think of anything good to replace Shiveria as the ice level or Crumbleden as the weird out of place dark level or Bowser’s Castle as the Japan level, but I don’t think any of those are explicitly necessary. I’m sure there’s settings I’ve forgotten or elements that can be taken from Mario games aside from what they’re necessarily best known for (like TYD’s Boggly Woods, Super Paper Mario’s Underwhere, Snowman’s Land from 64, etc.), but as long as the expanded Mario cast is given the opportunity to cameo at the least or actually contribute to the plot at most, I’ll be happy

It’d also be neat if the Tennis games somehow got their own explicit level focusing on Waluigi, possibly bringing in Lucien from Aces as the boss and featuring cameos from the various human characters (possibly also including the Golf players)

I can’t think of a good place to put Foreman Spike, so put him in Diamond City I guess

As a final pie-in-the-sky idea, they could also finally visit the Waffle Kingdom that Luigi visited offscreen in TYD and let us meet Princess Eclair, but I imagine that since that was only ever intended as a joke, Nintendo is never, ever, ever going to revisit at all

The main problem with this idea is that a lot of these locations are probably on the same continent as the Mushroom Kingdom, so it’d probably feel a lot less grand than the globe-trotting map of Odyssey 1, but I don’t rightly care, that was just a glorified level selection screen anyway

[desertdaisyvisuals]

Photographer - Akeylah Johnson for Desert Daisy Visuals

Location: Northwest Arkansas, USA

[irinapaleolog]

The Rise of Skywalker Does a Terrible Disservice to the Women of Star Wars

Besides Reylo, one of the great marketing tools of the Star Wars sequel trilogy was its emphasis on girl power, as well its subversion of class dynamics. The films showed that women -- even poor, destitute women with no connections to powerful men -- could play the same role in the franchise as every cocky flyboy or adopted son of a moisture farmer. Unfortunately, and despite the press tour assurances from the cast and crew that Rey and her gal pals are here to lead a new generation of fans into the new world of gender equality, The Rise of Skywalker makes sure that none of the women of the franchise gets to live happily ever after nor establish any lasting romantic connection.

Instead, Episode IX leans heavily into the tired trope of the "strong female character" that has to resign from silly notions like love and family to live up to her full potential. Adding insult to injury, the film removes all agency from the women, and instead thrusts them onto a straight-and-narrow path of contrived choices foisted upon them by male characters or by the Force -- which, in J.J. Abrams' movie, acts not as the power that propels life in the universe, but like the mean Catherine de Bourgh of Pride and Prejudice.

Let's start with Leia Organa, whose call for help in The Last Jedi was ignored by the entire galaxy. However, Lando Calrissian, who has been hanging around on Pasaana doing who knows what, just has to say the word for an entire legacy fleet to appear out of nowhere. Then there's the handling of her Jedi training, which she gave up because she felt the Force might corrupt her unborn son -- a narrative choice that comes out of left field but that mirrors the real-world dilemma of women giving up promotions for fear that their careers might get in the way of parenting.

But we could argue that Leia's arc in Episode IX is clunky because Abrams had limited footage of the late Carrie Fisher. But what about the characters portrayed by living actresses?

There's Rose Tico, played by Kelly Marie Tran, who had a major role in The Last Jedi with an interesting arc of her own. Unfortunately, a vocal segment of Star Warsfans loathed the character and harassed the actress until she left social media. Things looked brighter when Abrams announced Tran would rejoin the cast in The Rise of Skywalker and that her role would be even better. She was billed as a general, an essential part of the Resistance; Tran went on a press tour and talked about the great feminine energy of the set. The comes The Rise of Skywalker, where Rose appears three times, speaks four lines, and is sidelined to the "really important job" of tech support, with her connection with Finn never addressed. In The Rise of Skywalker, Rose doesn't get romance, connections, friendship, a job, or a story of her own -- something that should please the most toxic fans.

Then there's Jannah, played by Naomi Ackie, another "strong female character." The twist this time is that, like Finn, she's a former Stormtrooper who mutinied and defied an order to kill a bunch of villagers. For a few seconds, her story is hopeful and fascinating, and teases the line from the trailer that "good people will fight if we lead them," that free will and the power of the individual are concepts that exist in Abrams' Star Wars.

How foolish of the audience to hold such hope. Jannah and Finn explain theyweren't the ones who decided to spare the innocent villagers; it was a feeling. The Force takes care of silly dramatic concepts like agency, choice and heroism. Jannah is not a good person because of her actions, but because the Force willedher to be one. The only funny thing about this depressing predeterministic twist is that it also works as an apt metaphor for the actions of the characters in The Rise of Skywalker, who do things not because they make sense, but because the script -- the Force -- says so. To add another nail to the coffin, The Rise of Skywalker Visual Dictionary hints at Lando being Jannah's father, yet another woman of Star Wars whose story doesn't matter unless she's related to a legacy male character.

Moving on, Keri Russell plays Zorii Bliss, a spice runner from Kijimi who essentially wears Leia's slave outfit, only with thermal underwear. Zorii's only purpose in the story is to provide a tragic background for Poe Dameron, as well as a potential love interest. She's also a glorified MacGuffin holder (twice!), and one of the many characters that Abrams fake-kills to ignite an emotional response from the viewer in a desperate effort to make Poe sympathetic. Zorii's role could have easily been filled by Rose, who was an actual tech whiz with a questionable past and a potential massive beef against Poe. After all, he's directly responsible for her sister's death.

Let's move on to Rey (Daisy Ridley), who is retconned from being a resilient orphan scavenger strong in the Force... to receiving her powers from a male bloodline. Now, to be perfectly clear, there's nothing wrong with overly dramatic space operas where everyone is related to a royal family, but this "reveal" goes against the premise of The Force Awakens and the heart of The Last Jedi, which proposes that anyone can be a hero.

There were no hints at all about this "twist" -- not in the movies, in the animated series or in the ancillary material, which makes it feel like a last-minute decision designed to appease those fans who accused Rey of being an overpowered Mary Sue, overlooking one of the most common Mary Sue tropes: their tendency to be secretly related to important canon characters.

Another Mary Sue trope exploited in The Rise of Skywalker, but that wasn't even touched in the previous two movies, is the female character sacrificing herself for the greater good, only to be saved at the last minute by a man, which is exactly what happens here. This double-whammy of "being powerful because of grandad" and "getting to live because of a man" is particularly egregious, and caters to no one, because of what happens right after Ben Solo sacrifices himself. We'll get to that in a moment.

Then there's the Force vision scene. Rey already had a trippy Force vision in The Last Jedi, a deep dive into an array of feminine symbology that she wasn't afraid to confront, from which she emerged heartbroken but stronger. In The Rise of Skywalker, this moment is undercut and shows Rey terrified of the darker, sexier, powerful version of herself, which is a hard pill to swallow. Rey explicitly says that she has nightmare visions where she and Kylo Ren are the evil Empress and Emperor of the Galaxy, linking the fulfillment of her desires to the galaxy's apocalypse. In Episode IX, romantic love is a flaw that the "strong female character" should overcome, but sex is pure evil.

Her visceral rejection of her dark side is also a 180 turn on her chill acceptance of her darkness in The Last Jedi. In the real world, women are taught from a young age to hide their negative feelings, to smile and live to be pleasant to everyone, to not be loud or angry or intense. That mentality only makes things easier for everyone in the world who is not a woman, and runs contrary to the quickly angered but enthusiastic scavenger of the previous two movies. However, by the end of The Rise of Skywalker, Rey has transformed into this Cool Girl version of Ideal Femininity/Strong Woman Character.

Ben Solo's death right after his redemption and first kiss should have been treated like a tragedy at least by Rey, and at least for one minute... but she does not react at all. The camera cuts from Ben's clothes folding as he disappears to Rey's neutral expression as she flies back to the Resistance. His death, and any emotional reaction that it might have caused in the protagonist, is not mentioned at all, which is baffling, to say the least. After a brief reunion with Finn and Poe, Rey immediately regresses on-screen to a lonely child on a desert planet, sliding down a Tatooine sand dune and negating her evolution for the last two movies, just so Abrams could throw in a homage to himself.

For the sake of argument, let's take Rey's reveal of her villainous ancestry at face value, and let's imagine that Disney had prepared this reveal from The Force Awakens: Her ending is still insulting, because it forces her to pay for the actions of her grandfather, despite having suffered as much as anyone from his evil ways. Palpatine's murderous pursuit of his son's family was what caused Rey to grow up heartbroken and abandoned on Jakku.

Rey longed for family and love her entire life; she jumped at the opportunity to establish a real connection with Han Solo, Maz Kanata, Finn, Leia, Luke and Kylo Ren, and in The Rise of Skywalker she looks longingly at the Pasaana children, clearly wanting a family of her own. Rey marveled at the green of Takodana in The Force Awakens and at the water of Ahch-To in The Last Jedi. Just like Anakin, she hated the desert. So why does the plot force her to go back to Tatooine to take on the Skywalker name, a planet where none of the Skywalkers, Organas or Solos were born; that Anakin and Luke longed to escape; where Shmi Skywalker was enslaved twice and then killed; and where Leia became Jabba's sex doll? Wouldn't it make more sense for her to head to verdant, watery Naboo, where both Palpatine and Padmé came from, the place where the latter wanted to raise her Skywalker twins?

But, no, Rey doesn't get to live where she would be logically happier, or where it makes sense; she goes where the fan service is stronger, and the twin suns of Tatooine were unparalleled -- until now. When an old woman asks Rey her family name, she answers "Skywalker," which doesn't hold up to close examination. Luke Skywalker refused to train her, Leia's name was Organa, Ben and Han were Solos, and she's standing on the Lars' buried homestead. And although it makes sense that she would lie about her true ancestry, denying the Palpatine name still reeks of burying her darker side, which worked really well for the Jedi Order.

Compare this ending of a lonely girl on a barren planet lying to strangers about her family name to the ending of The Return of the Jedi, where Luke, Han, and Leia are surrounded by life and celebration, and everyone is radiant with love and living family. Or compare it to the ending of The Last Jedi, where a Force-sensitive boy is looking up at shooting star. Or even the final scene of Revenge of the Sith, which takes place in the same spot after the fall of the Republic, the death of Padmé and the rise of Darth Vader -- but at least in that little spot there's love, family, life and hope.

Directed and co-written by J.J. Abrams, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker stars Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong’o, Domhnall Gleeson, Kelly Marie Tran, Joonas Suotamo, Billie Lourd, Keri Russell, Anthony Daniels, Mark Hamill, Billy Dee Williams, and Carrie Fisher, with Naomi Ackie and Richard E. Grant.

[pollylynn]

Title: Fleeting WC: 900

She is not just a muse. It is a little known fact, but she is an artist in her own right, and mist is her medium—steam, fog, condensation of breath or the warmth rising up from a cup of coffee, a merrily boiling pot of pasta, the pounding, scalding water of the shower. Anything that leaves her with a fleeting cloud on a smooth surface to work with, she makes art of. 

Her fingers are quick and certain—expert of course. She excels in this as in all things she sets her mind to. He has watched from afar, holding his breath, as she has sketched from memory the stark, gorgeous, leafless winter trees of Central Park on the latticed panes of her living room window. He has sat shoulder-to-shoulder with her, pretending not to notice that she’s doodling a child’s daisies and daffodils on the curved surface of a copper Moscow Mule mug. 

In the beginning, she would slap at his hands every time he’d huff a breath on to the passenger side window and make a move to swoop his initials across the glass. Every time, she’d tweak his ear—or worse—if he dared to make baby footprints with the side of his fist and the delicately applied tips of his fingers. 

He’d assumed it was out of some in-character, by-the-book neatnik thing. He had grumbled under his breath that she was probably the kind of person who obsessively wiped fingerprints off her phone screen. But on their first stakeout—the first one she’d asked him to, not the first one she’d been ordered to ask him to—he’d watched in absolute amazement as she’d created a passable scale model of the solar system, Pluto included, in their mingled breath as it gathered inexorably on the windshield. 

He had realized then that there was another explanation for her habitual violence in response to his artistic endeavors: Kate Beckett, Artist in the MIst, Simply does not like to share her canvas.  

Or she didn’t like to share it, once upon a time. 

He has a different view of the artist these days—a far more intimate view.  He has let his arms go limp at her command and watched in awe as she takes him by the wrist and uses his fingers like brushes to paint a childhood landscape in the fog on the glass shower door as she tells him the story of her family vacation the summer she turned eleven. 

He has pressed right up behind her at the en suite’s double-sink vanity. He has rested his chin on her shoulder and held her fast around the waist as he reads out loud the dirty limericks she writes for him, in the fog on the bathroom mirror—because she’s not just a visual artist, of course. She encroaches on his territory, however fleetingly, with regularity. She writes him unabashedly passionate love letters and poems so sweet and tender they make him ache all the way to the soles of his feet. 

He has felt his heart pound with positive teenage joy when he approaches to swap her dwindling cup of coffee for something fresh and full, only to find her breathing frost flowers on to the windows of the loft so she can write KB loves RC in a swooping heart with a fletched arrow piercing it on the diagonal. He has loaned her his strength from time to time, reaching past her to finish the final n, the final a in Johanna when the sadness overtakes her. 

He has had the rare and wonderful privilege of a thousand brief glimpses of timid messages that she swipes away with a shy hand, just after she’s absolutely certain he’s seen them. He has come to keep a close eye on the things she says in this most ephemeral of media, when she wants to talk about something, but she doesn’t want to talk about it just yet—Dating, Babe, Home, Our Bed, A Month, There’s No Wrong Time  Either. 

He has come to love how playful she is in this way, and how contemplative, bold, open-hearted, even in the moments when he knows that’s hard for her. He has come to be the number one fan of the artist and to eagerly look forward to the next time inspiration strikes.Most of all, he has fallen every bit as much in love with Kate Beckett, Artist of the Evanescent, as he ever was with Kate Beckett, NYPD. 

And now he is standing on the curiously deserted New York street where she isn’t. He is standing at the rear of her abandoned car, trying to convince himself that he should be grateful there’s no body in—there are no bullet-riddled door panels, and no blood rising out of saturated upholstery to pool on the seats. 

Logic, cold and implacable, is trying to take the reins and steer him in the direction of what is there, rather than what is not. His eyes dart around in search of anything. But then the streetlight catches the car’s back window. He moves just so and the streetlight catches it, two words in all caps, sketched into the mist to leave him nothing more than their ghost—HELP HER!

The streetlight catches the sloppy, sadistic message in the mist, and he is enraged. 

A/N: Kate Beckett definitely draws in fogged-up surfaces. Hmm.

images via homeofthenutty

[hitchcockfanpresents]

I'd love to hear what your Top 5 Hitchcock films are and why you love them!!

Alfred Hitchcock or The Master of Suspense was one of the founders of masterful cinematic filmmaking. Starting out in the silent era he quickly was recognized as a genius director and a force to be reckon.

Here’s a list of 5 Hitchcock classics that need to be watched. This excludes his more well known films like Psycho, Vertigo, The Birds, although great masterpieces there’s just so many others that need to be seen.

The only problem with this list is that there’s just too many great masterpieces to choose from, so let’s just blame Al for that. Here’s five Hitchcock film recommendations not in any particular order.

Strangers on a Train (1951) It’s dark , suspenseful and funny with a classic plot. The use of miscommunication between characters is used constantly with Hitchcock films and here as well. Bruno and Guy’s meet on the train is comedical and eerie at the same time. Bruno misinterprets the situation which leads to murder. This could’ve been avoided if Guy was more direct and assertive, but instead he laughs Bruno off as being not serious. This quick misconception will define the rest of the picture that will pressure Guy to possibly commit murder. Highly recommend it to anyone that’s never seen a Hitchcock film or is just tired from re-watching Psycho.‬

Rope (1948) - Another Farley Granger Hitchcock collab, it’s dark, suspenseful and dramatic. Two college students try to follow their philosophy professor’s theory about “innate superiority” and murder someone inferior to be proven right. It’s tense we know the body is in the box the whole time at any moment they can be caught, but act cool as the wind. Hitchcock takes a spin from the cliche of dancing on someone’s grave, instead they’re serving a fancy dinner on their victim. One of his more experimental films, staged as a theatrical setting the use of very long continuous shots made it that there were as few cuts as possible which meant if an actor messed up their line they would have to start over from the beginning of the shot which could’ve been up to 10 minutes. Also it has James Stewart so go watch.

Suspicion (1941)- Hitchcock’s love of playing with the audience’s emotions can be seen clearly here. From the beginning we are unsure who this stranger on a train is. He seems cheap not wanting to pay for a first class train seat then taking money from Lina’s purse. Suspicion grows the more we learn about Jonnie. When he marries Lina it seems that it’s only for the money. We say seems a lot because the director never really shows a definitive answer what Jonnie is thinking. However when Jonnie is confronted about losing his job, he lies. This raises doubt in our character, if he’s a thief, liar and a con without a reliable job then could he be a murder as well? This will come up continuously later when Jonnie’s friend ends up dead or when they are driving at the end. Suspicion not only rises within Lina, but the audience as well.

North by Northwest (1959)- a Cary Grant and Hitchcock classic adventure thriller. Like Strangers on a Train, Hitchcock’s use of misdirection and mistaken identity are capitalized on to confuse the protagonist and audience about who’s who and what’s going on? The story takes an ordinary New York businessman and puts him into a world of government secrets, espionage and a cat and mouse chase scene starting in New York and ending in South Dakota. The use of multiple settings shows a vast and diverse American landscape Ranging from the clutter of the streets of New work to the open dessert of Indiana to the mountain tops of Mount Rushmore. As Roger Thornhill begins he is a native New Yorker. He walks and talks like one. When he’s in the streets he naturally steals a cab from another New Yorker. He is at home. However when he gets suspected of murder he has to leave his home he becomes changed and has to adapt to survive. When he’s in the midwestern Indiana desert in a suit, hair combed, freshly shaved running from the crop duster we see how far he’s come from home. Furthermore the chase scene with Cary Grant (Thornhill) in the cornfield is another classic example of great use of the landscape and misdirection. We are unease by the setting and expect something to happen at any moment. We see cars pass by and nothing happens. A stranger appears from nowhere and nothing happens. The stranger then points out how it’s strange that a plane is crop dusting where there’s no crops. The threat soon appears clear not from the ground, not from the obvious, but the air. Thus another clever way of misdirection used on the director’s part. Not only making it a fascinating chase scene, but iconic as well. In addition the later Mount Rushmore chase scene on top of the presidents heads adds to the films diverse landscape making it just as iconic. Thus making both scenes some of the most iconic moments in cinematic history. Highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good adventure suspense thriller.

Lodger (1926) Although a silent picture, although a slow start, the build up is worth it. It is one of Hitchcock’s first films‬ as a director, his first English movie, and his first cameo appearance. This film embodies the wit, visual inventiveness, horror and suspense story elements that would be passed down in his later works. The lodger is a simple serial killer story about Jack the Ripper. The film twisted as it plays with your emotions on what to believe. We feel fearful of the lodger he looks suspicious. Then we feel sympathetic for the lodger when we find out he lost his sister to this serial killer, (the Avenger or Jack The Ripper) and made a vow to track him down on his mother’s death bed. Suspicion based on fear is a theme common throughout this film. We are suspicious of the Lodger because of the way the story and this character is presented to us. Daisy’s boyfriend is suspicious of him, not cause of fact, but jealousy and the fear he might lose her. Daisy’s parents are suspicious of him, not cause of evidence, but appearance. The entire bar of people are suspicious that he’s the Avenger because of hear say, not proof. The only one not suspicious of the lodger is Daisy mainly because she actually got to know him and talked to him without judgments or biases. This all done while building up suspicion. Like Hitchcock’s “Suspicion” (1941) we are on a rollercoaster of doubt.

[wits-writing]

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (Movie Review SPOILERS)

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, directed by J.J. Abrams with a screenplay by Abrams and Chris Terrio, has the most fun being a capital-A Adventure movie of any Star Wars movie in a while. The majority of the movie’s first two acts is comprised of a treasure hunt for a Sith artifact. The main trio, Rey (Daisy Ridley), Finn (John Boyega) and Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) are in a race against time before Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) and the First Order launch their final strike, with the artifact being the one thing that could help the Resistance strike first. That part of the story, on a pure visuals and spectacle level, has some of the best action beats in all of Star Wars, including a speeder chase to rival the classic one from Return of the Jedi.

Enhanced by Dan Mindel’s cinematography and John Williams’s expectedly excellent score, if that quest was all there was to the movie, I’d be more than happy to call this a satisfying movie and conclusion to the story that preceded it in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. However, that’s not all there is to it and what else there is takes away from what does work in favor of a more convoluted narrative. One that I find more frustrating the more I’ve thought about it, even as I tried to enjoy what I could from it as it played out. To explain why, I’ll need to go into some spoilers, but I’ll save the big one for the end of the review.

[Full Review and SPOILERS Under the Cut]

The Rise of Skywalker had two possible directions for how it could close out the story that was set into motion back in 2015:

Focus on being a finale to the Sequel Trilogy itself

Focus on being a finale to “The Skywalker Saga” as a whole

While doing a bit of both was unavoidable in a situation like this, TROS defaults to the Door Number 2. It gets in the way of closing out the narrative of characters that aren’t as directly connected to the Jedi/Sith conflict that drives the “Skywalker” narrative. It’s a problem that goes back to this movie’s central hook, a move I’ve been skeptical of since the first trailer dropped; the return of Emperor Palpatine.

One smart thing about Sheevy-boy’s presence in this movie is that they don’t treat it like a twist. In fact, it’s the first thing seen in TROS’s title crawl. Everything that comes after that is where things start to come apart at the seams in irrevocable ways. He doesn’t have a real dynamic with any of the new characters, to the point they retcon in connections. McDiarmid doesn’t seem particularly awake, he’s been brought back to serve as a glorified lore-delivery service and to artificially escalate a conflict that didn’t need it. He shows up, gives Kylo Ren the “Join me and we can rule… etc.” spiel and exposits the previously mentioned retcons about how he’s been the true puppet master all along. If you’re framing this story as the end to the nine “Episode” movies, the Emperor who started this whole thing by pulling strings from the shadows coming back to reveal he was still doing that in these new movies makes a little sense. Taking this only as an extension of The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, two films I feel work as wonderful companion pieces, it’s clumsy and reductive.

When it comes to the journeys of the characters that have been here for the previous movies, it’s a mixed bag. Poe’s been going through a sort of crisis of faith since the last time we saw him. Watching the First Order overtake the galaxy between movies, he’s lost his belief that the Resistance was ever worth being a part of if no one’s willing to stand up alongside them. He goes through this doubt as the story takes the audience into a look at his background. We meet an old friend of his, Zorii (Keri Russell), who resents him for ever joining the Resistance in the first place. Her scenes with Poe put his internal conflict of what he thinks versus what he wants to believe in place. The way this internal conflict gets to resolve makes Poe’s story feel the most complete of the main trio in this movie.

On the other side of the spectrum, Finn’s story feels emblematic of the movie’s problems, similarly split between two focuses. One of them is a barely present arc about his connection with Rey. There are multiple points in the movie where he says he “needs to tell her” something and it never resolves. Between those moments the only scenes between Rey and Finn are her rebuking his offers to talk about her problems. It’s a disappointing display for two characters whose friendship has been a motivating factor for both since The Force Awakens. The other side of Finn’s story comes late into TROS’s runtime, the discovery of other Storm Trooper deserters. Getting to not feel alone about what he did anymore would have been a great starting point for his story in this movie, but it’s introduced so late in the game that it feels tacked on to introduce the, admittedly cool, leader of the deserters, Jannah (Naomi Ackie). Nothing about Finn gets to coalesce by the end of this movie, he’s left with two loose threads and nothing tied up.

The good stuff from Poe and Finn’s arcs gets sidelined throughout the movie to focus on new wrinkles added to the story between Rey and Kylo Ren. A lot of my problems with Palpatine’s involvement in this plot most heavily effect this part of the story. After taking his place as a Supreme Leader, de facto head villain of this trilogy, by the end of the last movie, Kylo’s arc goes backwards and he’s someone else’s attack dog again. Promises from Palpatine to rule over a “Final Order” if he’s able to deliver Rey to the Emperor drive him. We replace a villain like Kylo, who’s been choosing the Dark every step of the way despite “the call to the Light”, with a mustache twirler. All of this to serve the start of a redemption for him and a retcon to Rey’s backstory that feels more in service of the “Skywalker Saga” than her personal narrative.

[Major SPOILER after this point]

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Rey begins the movie in the middle of Force training based on the books she found in The Last Jedi, frustrated with her inability to connect with the full legacy of the Jedi. It’s all framed under this idea that she’s somehow “afraid of who she is” and that’s before the full retcon… er, reveal.

[Final SPOILER warning, for real!]

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Rey is revealed to have been Palpatine’s granddaughter the entire time. This decision from Terrio, Abrams and everyone else credited with the story for this movie shifts the focus of her story. She’s no longer uncertain of her place yet ready to forge it for herself, but instead she gets to be conflicted about the potential for falling to the Dark being in her blood. I was willing to give this a chance, like everything in this movie, but there’s nothing more there beyond the same temptations to the Dark Side we’ve seen in the Star Wars movies before. The final fight between Rey and Palpatine works overtime to add dramatic heft and make it feel like a culmination of nine movies, while utterly failing to be the culmination of this trilogy or just The Rise of Skywalker.

I’m frustrated while writing this, because I can acknowledge strong points to The Rise of Skywalker, some scenes on their own are the best put together in the history of this series. But I keep coming back to how what got shoehorned in for this final entry in the Sequel Trilogy left me feeling empty.

If you like what you’ve read here, please like/reblog or share elsewhere online, follow me on Twitter (@WC_WIT), and consider throwing some support my way at either Ko-Fi.com or Patreon.com at the extension “/witswriting”

[aion-rsa]

Ewan McGregor Updates on the Star Wars Obi-Wan Kenobi Series, Possibility of a Standalone Season

https://ift.tt/3hn5P6f

While an update on the Disney+ Star Wars Obi-Wan Kenobi spinoff series has been overdue for quite some time, new comments from its role-reprising headliner, Ewan McGregor, seem to imply that the show’s 2021-scheduled production still has the high ground over the proverbial Dark-Side-turned apprentice of delays.  

McGregor paints an auspicious picture about the Obi-Wan Kenobi series in a podcast interview with Empire, which is the latest example of the dribs and drabs of updates that have been slowly surfacing about the long-gestating project. Indeed, set to work under the auspices of director Deborah Chow (The Mandalorian, Lost in Space), the actor is clearly excited to return to the role he played in the 1999-2005 Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, continuing to build upon a legacy started by Alec Guinness’s portrayal in the Original Trilogy. As McGregor lauds of his impending return:

“I’m more excited about doing this one than I was doing the second and third one [of the prequel films] that we did before. I’m just excited about working with Deborah Chow and the storylines are going to be really good, I think. I’m just excited to play him again. It’s been long enough since I played him before.”

The update arrives shortly after a seemingly off-the-cuff comment to ET Online in which McGregor expresses his (for now unconfirmed) belief that the Obi-Wan Kenobi series will be a single-season event, stating, “As I understand, it’s a standalone season. We’ll see. Who knows?” Yet, possible limited nature of the series notwithstanding, McGregor’s elated Empire comments also point to the technical breakthroughs the show will utilize, which stand in contrast to industry standards from when he last played Obi-Wan; something that should excite cynical Star Wars fans who remain unimpressed by the artificial nature of the prequels’ blue-screen-centric visuals. As he explains:  

“The first three [Star Wars films] I did were really at the very beginning of digital photography.” He adds, “We had a camera with an umbilical cord to a tent, it was like back to the beginning of movies where the camera didn’t move very much because there was so much hardware attached to it. Now we’re going to be able to really create stuff without swathes of green-screen and blue-screen, which becomes very tedious for the actor.”

While McGregor’s excitement over reprising Obi-Wan can be attributed to the 15 years that have passed since the release of climactic 2005 Star Wars Prequel Trilogy closer Revenge of the Sith, it might also be explained by the delays that have hit the project. After all, it was initially set as a theatrically-aimed feature film; a plan that was eventually nixed after the underwhelming performance of 2018’s Solo: A Star Wars Story exposed the finitude of the franchise’s box office clout. Thusly, the project took shape as a serial offering for the Disney+ streaming platform, as confirmed at the D23 Expo back in August 2019 with the official announcement of the Obi-Wan series and McGregor’s return. However, the series hit a snag in January 2020 with the dismissal of writer Hossein Amini, resulting in the heralded production being put on hold until January 2021; a move that actually proved fortuitous with the eventual COVID outbreak. While the following April saw Disney tap Amini’s screenwriting replacement, Joby Harold (Army of the Dead, Underground), the project has been in stasis as the script was rewritten.   

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Yet, there is an aspect of the excitement that ties into the (arguably) redeemed status of director George Lucas’s Star Wars prequel films—The Phantom Menace (1999), Attack of the Clones (2002) and Revenge of the Sith (2005)—after they were the contemporaneous target of derision from Original Trilogy purists, and have since quietly become accepted in the wider mythos, especially as the era of those films were provided poignant context in the celebrated animated series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Plus, the subsequent (some might say cash-grabbing) evolution of the franchise under its eventual Disney ownership—with the Sequel Trilogy and the attempted spinoff movies—helped the Prequels shine a bit brighter in hindsight. As McGregor explains of this redemptive phenomenon:

“You know, our films weren’t much liked when they came out, by my generation who loved the first ones. I think people of our generation wanted to feel the way they’d felt when they saw those first three movies when they were kids, and George [Lucas] wanted to take our ones in a different direction, he had a different idea. It was tricky at the time, I remember. But now, all these years later, I’m really aware of what our films meant to the generation they were made for, the children of that time. They really like them. I’ve met people who, they mean a lot to them, those films, more so than the original three, and I’m like, ‘Are you kidding?’”

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That, however, is the extent of what is known about the currently-untitled Disney+ Obi-Wan Kenobi series. With the long-set rescheduled production start of January 2021 still hopefully on track to avoid any COVID-caused complications, it shouldn’t be much longer until we see McGregor fill some crucial gaps in the arc of the eventual sagely desert hermit destined to help Luke Skywalker take his first step into a larger world. In the meantime, your next Star Wars serial fix is imminent with The Mandalorian Season 2 set to hit Disney+ on October 30.

The post Ewan McGregor Updates on the Star Wars Obi-Wan Kenobi Series, Possibility of a Standalone Season appeared first on Den of Geek.

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