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arlakos · 3 years ago

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Miraculous Rant

Actually, you know what, while im still mad from the previous post I made, lets go off on a rant. No punches pulled. Lets do this.

The lovesquare is the most terrible ship in this fandom. One girl is a hyper obsessed stalker who tracks her crush with her planner for 3 whole seasons, while the boy couldn’t learn to take a hint and stop flirting for 3 whole seasons until he decided to move on with another girl. Ironically that makes them perfect for eachother, but its in a creepy kind of way, not a loving kind of way.

Adrigami and Lukanette in the S3 Finale were wasted events and never should have occured because they were immediately axed in the first few episodes of the next season. I feel sorry for those that were hoping their ships could be real for at least a short actual while, and it makes me want to curse the writers for their story-boner for the status quo of teases

Despite what I said earlier, none of the girls are good for Adrien. Marinette’s stalkery and a borderline yandere, Kagami’s somewhat controlling and too similar to Adrien help him grow as a person, Chloe is a queen bee beyotch and honestly too much like a sibling to Adrien, and Lila is garbage. Fuck it, have Luka date Adrien and they can play some sweet music together (not like that you pervs, I meant they both play instruments).

Nino needs more love. Not only that, but there needs to be more Adrien/Nino bro moments. If Marinette and Alya can have moments together, why not the bros?

Chloe’s character is a mess, and is neither redeemable, nor notably evil. Her role as a villain in season 1 is very hamfisted, such as in the episodes Mr Pigeon and Kung Food. Not only that, Chloe also lacks any of the qualities that makes a good “bully villain�� or rival to Marinette, and her sympathetic moments (which are Written by Sebastien) are mostly overshadowed by the fact that Astruc wants her to be a bully, so it just makes her bipolar and confusing when her character is tugged between two writers.

Chloe should not have joined Hawkmoth in Miracle Queen, see my other post as to why I think so. TLDR, its kinda ooc for her to go full on 2d villain like Hawkmoth especially after Miraculer, plus Lila was being build up to be the main antagonist of S3

Chloe got kicked from the Team in Miraculer because people know her identity? Fine. Kagami gets to be Ryuko again despite being known to Hawkmoth in Ikari Gozen? Not cool. Ladybug shouldn’t be a hypocrite and be willing to break her own rules just because “Kagami is my friend and Chloe’s not”. Same goes for her breaking the rule with secrect identities with Alya, only for her to go on and on about the rules to Chat when he pries.

Zoe is a bland character who’s only notable trait that she likes Marinette, which automatically makes her worthy of a miraculous after two episodes and no actual development.

Astruc is a petty frick who makes episodes that give the finger to fans of the show that have a different opinion than him. Queen Banana, Miracle Queen, and Reverser are good examples of this (Reverser did Nathaniel dirty).

Master Fu is a shit guardian. Read my post for more.

FRICK THE FEAST EPISODE. Not only did is ruin Fu as character, it ruined all the good theories as to why the order fell, and wasted the idea of a new villain being introduced or even taking over as the main antagonist! Speaking of Feast, despite the sentimonster destroying an order when he wasn’t even big, he still go beat by 2 kids even when he was supersized!

Marinette is not a good Guardian. Her ability to choose heroes does not make her capable, and just because “tradition is stupid” doesnt mean that Marinette shouldn’t be tested like others before her!

Despite the Kwami’s being ancient magical buildings, they seem to act like kids a lot, and that annoys me when in S1 they are supposed to apparently be mentors to their wielders, like how Tikki was before she was mentally de-aged.

Lila is trash and should be removed from the show. The only reasons her lies work is because the writers dumb down every other character in the show and ignore the fact the people have smartphones with google.

The “Miraculous” Ladybug spell should require both Ladybug and Chat Noir to cast, because not only does the power have nothing to do with creation, but it also “destroys” anything created by the akuma, which thematically makes no sense. Also it would place more emphasis on the two heroes being equals and “two halfs of the same coin”

On that note, Ladybug has too many powers. Not only is she the only one who can purify akumas, and can cast a spell that can fix Paris time and time again like its no one’s buisness, but she also now gets a new suit and the ability to nullify Hawkmoth’s akumas. Like COME ON! Give Chat some powers too.

Mayura’s feather’s shouldnt be able to be purified by Ladybug since they have no dark energy, and (thematically speaking) Chat should be given an ability that allows him to “vanquish” the energy in Mayura[’s feathers similar to how Ladybug can purify Hawkmoth’s akumas. At least it would develop a rivalry between Chat and Mayura, and would make Chat necassary against Shadowmoth rather than being replacable with any other hero.

The are too many temporary heroes. They should have just stuck with the 3 heroes from s2 and leave it at that. Sure, new heroes were cool, but the overuse has made the whole hero thing feel less special. It made sense for the first 3 to have them, but now it’s just like Oprah where everyone gets a miraculous. Except Gabe.

Chat Blanc was a stupid reason as to why secret identities cant be revealed, also Chat could have told LB who Hawkmoth once he returned back to normal was and the show would be over.

Hawkmoth should not be Gabriel. Frick the lore about Gabriel’s wife dying and him going evil to get her back, it makes the story feel too much like a star wars/Darth vader reference and leaves Gabriel acting bipolar, flipping from wanting to save his wife and doing this out of necessity to being a power hungry madman wanting to take over the world ( which is said in his canon music video). Having Hawkmoth be his own character means he can be an actual maniac who wants world domination and not just have villanous plot that rely on obtaining magical jewellery (perhaps doing other evil things/taking a more active role), while Gabriel being his own character means he can be a father that has become estranged from his son due to the lose of his S,O, and thus can have a plot about him reuniting with his son (I liked the end seen in Simon says, ok?)

On that same note, I think Mayura shouldn’t have been Nathalie. Considering Hawkmoth’s plans were repetitive as heck for most of the show, when I heard about the Mayura leaks back in Season 2 (when she was called “le Paon”) I was theorising that Mayura would actually being Hawkmoth’s boss, the villain the was responsible for giving him his Miraculous and the one who destroyed the Order of the Miraculous, and would take over as the main villain in season 3 due to Hawkmoth’s failures. However, that turned out not to be the case.

Not only that, but Mayuras power is a copy paste power with some modifications to make it complement Hawkmoth’s power, by basically giving his akuma’s magic pokemon.

Speaking of Hawkmoth’s power, for a miraculous that is supposed to be used for good, how can his power mind control people and make them become evil? More importantly, for a miraculous that is supposedly weaker than the main heroes of the show, having it be able to multiply and posses people to create an army is kinda strong.

Fuck the Maribat ship that the salt fandom came up with. Its trash, it was made to bash most of the Miraculous cast sans Marinette, and anyone thinks it is good are either those same salters or are the same people who think that Rey-lo and the Twilight Saga are masterpieces of romance.

Whew! I needed that vent. Hope you enjoyed it as as much as I did, and Tune in next time on the next episode of: Arlakos loses his Mind and Rants for 2 pages of writing!

#Miraculous Ladybug #Miraculous Ladybug Salt #Marinette salt #Adrien Salt #Everything salt #This whole show is a salt mine #Rant Time!#I love the show but I hate how its written

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bbclesmis · 6 years ago

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David Oyelowo on 'Les Miserables,' Making Directorial Debut With Oprah Winfrey

The Emmy- and Globe-nominated actor, who directs 'The Water Man' with Winfrey as co-producer, also discusses taking on the most iconic and tragic antagonist in literature and not wanting to be "the token person of color" on the PBS series.

David Oyelowo has always been a fan of the Les Misérables musical, but it wasn't until he picked up Andrew Davies' script that the star — who's been Emmy- and Golden Globe-nominated for his work on HBO's Nightingale and in Ava DuVernay's Selma — fully appreciated the villainous Inspector Javert. "There was so much more depth and complexity to this character than I ever realized from any iteration I had seen," he says. Oyelowo, 43, spoke with THR about executive producing and starring on PBS' six-part Les Mis miniseries (which debuted April 14) and developing his directorial debut, The Water Man, a fantasy drama co-produced by Oprah Winfrey — "or Mum O, as I like to call her."

Javert is one of the most iconic and tragic antagonists in literature and theater. How did you key into his psychology?

One couldn't earn the way Javert comes to an end in such a dramatic, violent and self-inflicted way without a very clear runway and emotional, psychological and spiritual journey. The biggest clue to me was that he was born in prison to criminal parents, yet he is now a man who detests criminality to an obsessive degree. You go, "Well, it's fine to hate criminality, but to be so obsessed with Jean Valjean — what's going on there?" Victor Hugo actually based Jean Valjean and Javert on the same person, this gentleman he knew who had both sides within himself. To that extent, Javert transposed all the criminality he loathed in his own upbringing onto Valjean, and that justifies his obsessive pursuit of him. But when he recognizes that this man isn't just criminal, he is worthy of redemption, he is someone who somehow has been able to transcend his criminality; he realizes that this pursuit has been futile. The criminality that he loathes is still within himself, which is why he chooses to destroy himself.

Did you and Dominic West know each other before this?

We didn't know each other well. He's such a lovely guy and incredibly funny. I had to do as much as I could to stay away from him while we were shooting. For me, I need to inhabit and feel every tendril of the character, and I couldn't entertain the idea of being jokey-jokey with him and then go into the level of acrimony between us. There's such a cat-and-mouse element to Javert and Valjean's relationship that was so satisfying to play. As an actor, a lot of the time you are trying to find the subtext to a scene, to imbue it with interest. With this, it was absolutely inherent. These characters had so much history that was always present in every scene they had together. But we've become great friends ever since.

Was using the music from the stage adaptation ever a consideration?

It never was, no. We all discussed that if we're going to do this, there has to be a real reason why this should exist so soon after Tom Hooper's [2012] filmic musical. We wanted to make it a much dirtier, grittier, immediate, politically prescient version. Being a producer, I didn't want to be the token person of color within it. I was very clear that we need to have that be something organic and truthful to the time. We've done a terrible job of representing just how many people of color were inhabiting Europe at that time. And not just in subjugated roles. Anyone who's read Tom Reiss' The Black Count will know that Thomas Alexandre Dumas was a general in the French army in the late 1700s [one of the highest-ranking men of African descent ever in a European army]. So, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that Javert was indeed someone like me. You want people to see themselves onscreen.

I've read that you've specifically asked your reps to seek out roles where you might not be first in mind. For this miniseries, did your casting come first or did you initially come on as an executive producer? Did you feel like you had to fight for the role at all?

I signed on as an actor first. They approached me and I was actually the first person to be cast in it. But yes, what you mentioned is absolutely true. Early on in my career I felt the need to say to my representatives, “Put me out for roles that are not race specific.” Because the truth of the matter was, the more interesting roles were inherently going to white actors. I am just so elated to now be going into a phase of my career where I am being approached with those kind of roles. It's not something necessarily I'm going to seek out. So yeah, Les Mis is something I was approached with, and that is incredibly gratifying because a decade ago, 15 years ago, I just don't know if that would have been the case.

As an EP on the series, was there a time where you felt like you had to take off your actor hat and fix a problem? Or did you feel like it was generally smooth sailing throughout the shoot?

It was pretty much smooth sailing. Tom Shankland, our director, had such a handle on the piece. You couldn't ask him a single question that he didn't have an answer for both on the basis of the script and the book itself. I was so impressed by him. Our producer Chris Carey also was just a monster when it came to making everything work in a beautiful way. For me, my primary function was just keeping on it when it came to representation within the piece. I think that is when sometimes things slip within the cracks. We all go to the movies and watch TV in the hope of seeing ourselves represented. We all have bias, we all lean into things that are more akin to our own experience. And of course, I have a bias toward seeing people of color in something like this. So it was very helpful, I think, to have me around to say, "Guys, let's remember the nature of the piece we're doing. We need more extras of color here. Let's not forget what we're trying to do here." Some of the development of the script I was very much a part of, and then a lot of the distribution and the marketing and the release dates and all that kind of stuff. Postproduction is a big side of getting a six-hour piece to be its best self. I got my hands quite dirty with that process as well.

This spring, your slate is pretty packed in addition to Les Mis. You had Relive debut at Sundance, you're in production on Peter Rabbit 2, and you have Come Away and Chaos Walking in post. How are you doing?

It's a very, very good question. I literally was in Sydney doing Peter Rabbit. We then went to London last week, and I'm now here in New York. Then, I leave here to go into preproduction on my directorial debut, The Water Man, in about three days. I have an incredible wife who makes it all work. We actually run our production company together. We have four children and they are with me a lot of the time. We scheduled the shoot for The Water Man over the summer holidays so that they can be with me. I really, really love what I get to do, and I don't take it for granted at all. I'm just trying to have as much fun and tell as many great stories as I can, while I can. But my wife and I have a two-week rule. We're never apart for more than two weeks, and so that means a lot of flying, and a lot of crazy scheduling.

You must have a lot of frequent flyer miles.

I have an enormous amount. So if you ever have any trips that you're planning, please hit me up because I have plenty.

Why did you select The Water Man for your directorial debut?

I was looking for a film that was akin to the ones I loved growing up — E.T. or Close Encounters of the Third Kind or films like The NeverEnding Story, Labyrinth, The Goonies. They don't have to be $200 million extravaganzas, but they can have a fantasy element and be grounded in realism and truth with poignant themes. This script by Emma Needell was on the Black List. I fought hard and thankfully got it, and myself and Oprah Winfrey — or "Mum O," as I like to call her — came on as producers to develop it. Another director was going to direct it, but he fell out. My fellow producers turned to me and said, "Well, you've been working on this passionately for five years. Do you want to do it?" I took two weeks to really mull that over.

What was the deciding factor in those two weeks that made you say, "Yes, I will; I’m ready"?

Realizing that I was passionate enough about the story to dedicate as much time to making a film as is necessary. And the fact that the story is just so moving to me. It's about an 11-year-old boy who's on the hunt for a mythical figure who he believes can save his mother from an illness. I also love the fact that it is an adventure movie. Basically, this boy teams up with this girl and they go into a forest hunting for this mythical figure called “the Water Man.” So it has elements of Stand by Me and Pan's Labyrinth, both films I deeply love. I'm always looking for opportunities to scare myself, and this is the most dramatic example of that I have had in my career thus far. So I jumped in.

Was there ever a seed earlier on where directing first sprouted in your mind?

Very early on. It's something I've always wanted to do. I remember seeing Kenneth Branagh's Henry V and that being one of the earliest moments. I thought, “Whoa. That guy directed that and is in it. How on Earth is that possible?" And then he did it again with Hamlet. I think the seed just kept on being replanted of the idea of doing it one day. So when the opportunity presented itself, it had been long gestating.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/david-oyelowo-les-miserables-making-directorial-debut-oprah-1213657

#les mis bbc #bbc les mis #david oyelowo #javert #Interviews #articles #the hollywood reporter #pbs

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jimblanceusa · 7 years ago

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Colson Whitehead on “The Underground Railroad,” the book that was hard to write

Penguin Random House

“The Underground Railroad” by Colson Whitehead

A year ago, when Oprah Winfrey started singing the praises of “The Underground Railroad,” you could have said that author Colson Whitehead was having a big moment. Then he won the Pulitzer Prize for the novel. And the National Book Award. And made the long list for the Man Booker Prize.

A year has passed since his novel about a woman named Cora’s escape from a cotton plantation on a magically real subterranean rail line appeared on shelves, and the prizes and accolades are still causing a strange feeling for Whitehead — happiness.

“They all just lift my general depressive mood into one that perhaps resembles other people’s,” Whitehead said. “Basically it’s all come together in this really great constellation of great news. Usually I wake up at 4 a.m. worried and terrified, and instead I’m waking up saying, it’s a brand new day.”

What did he wake up worried about before all of this success eased his mind? “The usual anxieties of existence, whether it’s the mortgage, ‘is that student OK; he was acting weird yesterday,’ ‘are the kids OK?’ ”

Whitehead, 47, got his start as a writer at the Village Voice, and his books have made him a darling of the critics since his first novel, “The Intuitionist,” a story about the improbable nuance big-city elevator inspectors employ in their craft, earned praise in a prescient review from The New York Times. “Literary reputations may not always rise and fall as predictably as elevators, but if there’s any justice in the world of fiction, Colson Whitehead’s should be heading toward the upper floors,” critic Gary Krist wrote in 1999.

His eighth book is sober yet luminous, dark yet hopeful. In “The Underground Railroad,” Cora flees with the aid of a real, covert rail line that hides beneath the towns and fields of the 19th-century South. All the while, a ruthless slave-catcher named Ridgeway — a pitch-perfect arch-villain — traverses south, north, west and back again searching for Cora, driven by the nagging knowledge that her mother was the only one who ever got away. The flight and chase work into a pace that makes the book an impossible to put down literary thriller.

Whitehead recently wrapped up a European book tour and returned home only to continue touring the U.S. at a blistering pace. He’ll be in Denver Monday night to talk about “The Underground Railroad” and writing at The Denver Post’s Pen and Podium visiting author series, which is sold out. Ahead of his visit, Whitehead talked to The Post about doing terrible things to his characters, advice he offers to young writers and what made him finally decide to write the book that had been on his mind for 17 years.

Q: You had the idea for “The Underground Railroad” years ago, but you weren’t ready to write it yet. What made you decide you were finally ready?

A: In terms of the structure and having to do such a thorough investigation of slavery, I didn’t feel ready when I was 30, and as the years passed I felt I would be a good enough writer to pull it off in terms of story, and more mature.

I’d been avoiding it for so long, and not to get too self-helpy, but (I thought) I should write the book that’s hard.

Q: I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say terrible things happen to people — at the hands of other people — in this book. How did you handle writing about such visceral brutality?

A: The challenge was doing the research and realizing that what I’d have to put Cora and the rest of the characters through. I hadn’t done (a book on) something like slavery before, so I hadn’t done something terrible to my characters. … Before I started writing it and gearing up — that was the hard part.

Q: As Cora moves from state to state in the book, she is escaping one horrible situation only to find a new one that’s somehow worse. Does that journey mirror how racism plays out today?

A: If you end up writing about race and racism in 1850, you end up writing about race and racism now. (The chapter on) South Carolina has an examination of government intervention … but there’s also the darker side of government control in terms of eugenics and medical experiments. The white supremacist chapter, North Carolina, takes a lot of the racial terror of the Jim Crow period to its logical conclusion, which overlaps with Naziism and finds a final solution for a group that you demonize. So it’s about race now, (but) I think it’s about the demonization of the other, so it’s not just race, it’s about anti-semitism, anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant rhetoric.

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Q: “The Underground Railroad” is going to be a television series — directed by Barry Jenkins, the director of “Moonlight,” no less.

A: My agent sent it out to film producers when the book came out … (Jenkins) was early with good ideas, and that was before “Moonlight” had even gone to festivals. I think the contracts finally came through when he finally won the Oscar.

Q: Last year on “Fresh Air,” you said you tried to watch “12 Years a Slave” but couldn’t get through it because it was so hard to watch, even though you were writing about the horrors inflicted upon slaves at the same time. Are you going to be able to watch the series based on your novel?

A: I know these characters, and everything that happens happens in a way that makes sense to me. I imagine I’ll be able to muster up the courage.

Q: You’re coming to Pen and Podium to talk about both your book and about writing. What do you tell young writers when they ask you for advice?

A: I got out of college in ‘91. There’s a big recession. And it seemed like there weren’t a lot of jobs for young people. I guess, find your place in the marketplace. When I started out, you could work in newspapers, and obviously newspapers have shrunk, and there aren’t as many jobs for young people. … There are opportunities to write for free, which is a shame. But the media environment is always changing … the appetite for media, for news, doesn’t ever go down — it’s just outlets popping up and replacing each other. I kind of lament that there isn’t a place like the Village Voice where you can start out and just get better and better.

Q: You were writing a book about the digital economy when you decided to write “The Underground Railroad.” Will you ever return to it?

A: There are parts of that book I should resurrect, but I’m probably not the best writer to write about that nowadays. There’s probably some bitter millennial who is better keyed in to write about that nowadays.

from Latest Information http://www.denverpost.com/2017/09/22/the-underground-railroad-colson-whitehead/

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janetoconnerfl · 7 years ago

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Colson Whitehead on “The Underground Railroad,” the book that was hard to write