#Like somewhat recently I got a major spoiler for Critical Role and that was the final nail in the coffin I don't think I'll pick it back up

[raspberrybluejeans]

tbh one thing that im so grateful for tumblr being my primary social media about is that I'm able to experience so many stories without spoilers.

As soon as I'm interested in something I can blacklist the tag/word and then I don't see people saying spoilers and I get to experience the story myself!!

I don't think theres any other social media that lets you hide spoilers like that!! So everyone else has to rush and binge things but I can take my time and not worry about the story being ruined

[birdsareblooming]

Merlina’s True Nature

(This is a re-write to a past theory, but I felt it was written poorly so I’m redoing it.)

(I’ll also be discussing major spoilers for the game.)

Sonic and the Black Knight has gained a lot of popularity recently, almost a cult following. Even before Lancelot and Excalibur Sonic were added to Sonic Forces: Speed Battle, it was gaining a strange resurgence in fan-made content. Although maybe I just follow @silvermun​ too closely. Either way! It’s in the public consciousness again.

It’s mainly popular for it’s story, it’s gameplay being famously weird, and it’s story is something I feel it has over Sonic and the Secret Rings. They did much more research into Arthurian lore than they had too, and because of that, we got an interesting world and variations of known characters with their own appeal. 

Black Knight ranting aside, because of the resurgence a lot of eyes have been on Merlina the Wizard, an important character in the game. 

I loved Merlina before it was cool, but this theory came when I was surrounded by content for her, reaching a realization about her true nature, even... truer (?) than the Dark Queen.

⬇️continued below ⬇️

Now let’s start with the usual, a numbered list. 

1. Let’s discuss everyone’s counterparts.

This is important, I swear.

Shadow = Lancelot (Known as the most powerful one, raised in strange and magical circumstances, Hides his emotions but has his limits.) Knuckles = Gawain (Bold and brash, never turns down a challenge, but with a pure heart that keeps his word. Also “haha gawain and the green knight”) Blaze = Percival (Working with Silver/Gallahad to find a world-saving power. Royalty, powerful, and chivalrous.) Silver = Gallahad (Similar to Lancelot, but more pure. Working with Blaze/Percival to find a world saving power, and at the head of the search. Known for being pure, good, and kind.) Jet = Lamorak (Bold and daring rebel with a temper, constantly challenging Sonic/Arthur to friendly duels.) Amy = Nimue (Magically powerful woman connected to a lake ((See: Never Lake)), summons weapons.) Sonic = Arthur (Brings everyone together in a righteous cause, not perfect, but one of the best leaders and fighters ever known, came from small beginnings.)  

As you can see, they did immense research on who would fit who, It’s almost amazing how similar the characters can get. 

It got me thinking, Who’s Merlina’s counterpart?

Every other person in the game has one, the only one else who doesn’t (King Arthur) was a fake. And Caliburn, who’s a sword. (And if Caliburn did have a counterpart i’d be really hard to figure out bc apparently they were supposed to be a girl and the voice casters didn’t get the memo)

Merlina is an odd one out here, When surrounded by all the other Sonic characters. Secret Rings had a different precedent, only having three Sonic characters in it, not including Sonic, playing very minor roles. Meanwhile, Black Knight has seven, not including Sonic, most playing major roles. And this was made after the seering criticisms of Sonic 06 and the mass hatred of Elise.

So, let’s ask ourselves, if she IS someone, who would she be?

Well I think she IS someone. Similar to the list of people above, she has similarities to a Sonic character that I need to point out.

2. What do we know?

We don’t know a lot about Merlina, she’s not a talker, but what we know can reveal a lot. 

She’s a powerful wizard, connected to ancient magic, trying to clean up her Grandfather Merlin’s mistakes of the past, even if it’s in a slightly evil way. Obsessed with death, with a deep fear and hatred of it and endings. Despite everything, means well and wants to keep everyone in the story alive. 

Now, here’s the interesting part.

Think with me here, who in Modern!Sonic’s universe has a morally ambiguous Grandfather, who created a false version of a prophesied Sonic, Almost destroying the world, and eventually, attempting, and somewhat succeeding, in fixing his mistakes.  Someone who also has a theme of short-lived life and stories ending. 

I think at this point you know who I mean.

3. Connections

other than the above, here’s some other things connecting the two.

Firstly, the way they refer to their grandfather;

When talking about him to other’s, they use the “My Grandfather.” 

But once it gets more personal;

it becomes just “Grandfather.”

Let’s also talk about design.

It’s more of a difference than the other characters, however it’s the usual for “medieval-ifying” it.

4. Conclusion  

This has been a theory of mine for a while, and to finally get to explain it in an articulate way is nice. 

There are a few loose ends, like if I was better at reading and finding and writing sheet music, I’d do a study to see if my hunch about “Merlina’s Theme” being similar to “Recollection of the Ark” is true or if they’re just both sad piano songs. 

But in the end, Merlina’s story and character growth is her learning how to deal with death, and how everything dies someday, but that’s why we have to “live life” to the fullest.

Honestly, looking back at her character, her story becomes almost more satisfying with the idea that she’s Maria.

Also not to pull a “kimba” but their names are like, exactly the same like come on.

[daturanerium]

late night thoughts about caleb (minor mention of body horror and critical role spoilers)

it’s really interesting to me that most depictions of young bren/caleb getting his crystals (and a lot of his learnings at the academy) are framed as nonconsentual/torture. don’t get me wrong, i love the art and fic, but let’s look at if from another perspective: let’s take a quick jump into (my take on) young bren’s mind.

bren was chosen for the academy from a very young age. i don’t remember if this is confirmed, but i’ve got the age of fifteen stuck in my head. he was with Trent throughout the majority of his late teens, and surrounded by people who agreed with Trent’s worldview. your teenage years are where you start framing your own individual world views based on what you see and experience around you, right? that’s what it’s been for me. as a teen you’re a walking contradiction: a mix of clinging to your innocence and wanting to branch out and fight every injustice you see. and if you’re a smart of a man as Trent, you’d use that to your advantage. you’d spend your lessons early on teaching about the injustices of the Empire, about how criminals walk free and the only way to keep the peace is through total control. you plant those ideas in very early on, and then when the I’m-Invincible™️ older teen mindset comes in you start presenting options.

now, bren was from a small farming town in the middle of bumshit nowhere, the zemni fields if i remember correctly. he spent his first ten years there, but presumably spent most of his teen years in rexxentrum with trent and astrid and wulf. as someone who comes from poverty in such a classist society as the Empire i’m sure young bren had seen his share of injustices from an early age, even if he didn’t quite understand what was happening. his father, we know, was a soldier for the Empire, so it can be thought that he agreed at least somewhat with the Empire’s colonial mindset. there’s another really excellent post that talks about the empire’s propaganda and patriotism somewhere (I’ll link it if I find it) so I’m not going to get too into that now. pont being, bren already believes that something’s wrong with the world and the Empire can fix it when the academy finds him at age fifteen and brings him to Rexxentrum.

poor country boy goes to the big city! everything’s got to be better there, right? wrong, bren. poverty is everywhere. pickpockets and criminals and look, there’s a war going on! but hey, at least we can teach you some cool magic. who knows what you can do with it! and so bren spends the first four months learning magic, making friends, and watching the Empire go from a world of possibilities to a world of chaos. basically Harry Potter books 1-4 condensed into a very small timeline.

age fifteen. order of the phoenix. bren isn’t saying anything, but he knows he wants to change the world outside. he has all this magic, why can’t he use it to help the Empire? the country he loves is falling apart before his impressionable adolescent eyes. and then enter trent, who pulls him aside one day and says that he can help bren improve his already impressive talent and train him to save the world he loves. who wouldn’t accept? it’s dumbledore showing favoritism towards the golden trio. trent is offering bren (and his friends!) a way to save the world. of course he says yes.

and sure, training is brutal. books five and six. things get worse outside. maybe they have to speed up training a bit, maybe go a little harder, but it’s all for the greater good. bren knows in his heart he’s doing this for the right reasons. he wants to help the people of the empire. they just need a little stability, a little control. they’re like cattle, trent says. they just need to be herded in the right direction. that makes sense. bren is smarter then most of the citizens, he knows this. that’s why he and his friends were chosen to come to the academy in the first place, right? so of course it’s their duty to help the less fortunate. give them a little nudge. and what if they don’t want a nudge? wulf asks one day. you give them a bigger nudge, trent responds wisely.

and as bren moves forward in his training, he realizes that a lot of citizens won’t cooperate. a lot of citizens will fight back. why the hell would they fight someone who’s trying to help? surely these people can handle some rules. but apparently not. and, to top it all off, the war is getting even worse. maybe one day trent informs our golden trio that they might move on and become soldiers for the Empire against Jourhass. well, if that’s what the empire needs, astrid says with a sigh. trent smiles at her, then at wulf, then at bren. the empire needs you. and, of course, he’s right. so they shift their training accordingly, becoming more and more powerful with each passing week. it’s for the empire, it’s for the people, it’s for the world. and when trent approaches them with a new experimental surgery that could help them become more powerful, of course they accept. anything to help the Empire help the world.

bren broke at the age of seventeen. the deathly hallows. we all know this. but what we all collectively forget was that at this time, when everything crashed and burned, he didn’t just lose his family. he lost his friends, his mentor, and, most importantly, his morals. bren, up until this point in the story, believed that the Empire was doing good and that he was helping people by working with them. when he hears his parents’s screams coming from his house and not the screams of the traitors trent had made them out to be, everything bren was fell apart. he didn’t just kill his parents. he killed bren, too.

and that loss is why caleb doesn’t talk about it. who would want to admit that they believed the things the academy taught? how could he admit that he truly believed he was the hero? we didn’t see him really discuss the academy’s methods until very recently, and even that was closely guarded and filled to the brim with self loathing. caleb is mourning his past self, and he hates himself for it.

[spacejellyfish3]

So I just got out of the theater, and I have to say...

Dark Phoenix is really good. Not great, just really good.

The absolute best part of the movie definitely has to be Sophie Turner. She is transcendent, literally and figuratively, as Jean Grey. Turner walks this fine line between terrified and terrifying, and she does it so well that I legit had goosebumps. The sorrow and vulnerability of Jean lies in stark contrast to the ferocity and power of Phoenix, but both are handled masterfully by Sophie Turner. And when she switches between them, it’s simultaneously subtle and in your face. She owns this movie completely and utterly, which is surprising considering how dull she was in Apocalypse.

My biggest regret about the Disney/Fox merger is the loss of Sophie Turner as Jean Grey. I sincerely doubt that any other actor will be able to portray Jean Grey as perfectly as she was portrayed by Turner in Dark Phoenix.

Aside from Turner, I felt that many of the other actors do a fine job, even Jennifer Lawrence’s Mystique. There are some dull moments, yet the acting is mostly great. The only one I can justify as “bad” is Tye Sheridan as Cyclops, and this can be chalked up to many reasons including the lack of character development between movies, the mixed bag of a script, the role being quite thankless as a result of the visor hampering a performance, and the fact that EVERYONE IN THIS MOVIE IS TRULY AND UTTERLY OUTSHINED BY THE GIANT BURNING FIREBIRD THAT IS SOPHIE TURNER!

But what surprised me the most about this movie is its incredible tone. Dark Phoenix is a serious movie, and has very few jokes in it. This is actually very accurate to the original comic book storyline and a very rare thing to see in a comic book movie nowadays (the only “recent” comic book movies that do a serious and somewhat somber tone very well and consistently are Logan, Wonder Woman, and now Dark Phoenix). And the music is also fantastic; Hans Zimmer’s score is haunting and tragic yet uplifting and powerful. I loved it so much that I will tell you right now, in all honesty, I would’ve liked this movie way less (not that less, but more than you’d think) if the score hadn’t been as good as it was...

The action is also pretty good, with an incredibly awesome train sequence and okay third act. But this movie isn’t all good; there are issues with the script in terms of plot, dialogue, and theme, and there are some boring moments in the film, but these problems are minor. The actual major problem of the movie is that it’s a tad safe and not as grandiose and melodramatic as the soap opera of a comic book storyline The Dark Phoenix Saga is. And that the villain is pretty weak. But more on that in the spoiler review I might make after the movie comes out for everyone else. I do have one major nitpick with this movie, and while it’s big, I can ignore it in favor of the good stuff here (I’ll save it for the spoiler review).

The oddest thing about this movie is that I don’t feel angry about any of the changes made to the comic book story, and I’m a GIGANTIC fan of The Dark Phoenix Saga! So there’s that...

I don’t think the critics are being fair to this movie at all. Dark Phoenix currently has a 20% score on Rotten Tomatoes while Captain Marvel (which in comparison is WAY weaker in terms of tone, style, score, villain, and most especially the lead performance) sits at a 78%. Yeah...ok...

I highly encourage you guys to check this movie out for yourselves in theaters while you still can.

And two fun facts about Dark Phoenix:

1- DAZZLER’S IN THE MOVIE!!!

2- My birthday is on June 8th, and this movie comes out on June 7th. The Dark Phoenix Saga is my all-time favorite comic book storyline and what fully introduced me to comics in general. So this movie is basically an early birthday present for me!

[hamliet]

Endgame Review

My non spoiler review is that it emphasized everything the MCU does well... and also everything it does not so well. It was, in many ways, a beautiful, satisfying conclusion of a film that paid homage to the full saga over the past decade. Yes, I enjoyed it; after I really didn’t like Infinity War, I was expecting not to like it. However, I was so very wrong, and I did enjoy the film as a whole while I do have some (very serious) critiques. 

SPOILERS (though not very detailed) do follow. I’m tagging this and posting under a cut; please don’t read further if you want no spoilers at all.

All the major characters with their own films--Thor, Steve, Tony--got what seemed like fitting ends to their arcs, whether they lived or died. I cried a lot for all of them. Tony’s arc and Steve’s arc were especially beautiful, and the theme of grieving and moving on and what that looks like were explored best in their arcs (somewhat neglected in Nat’s and Clint’s, imo). Tony’s final moments were among my favorite in the MCU. 

Thor’s moments in the halls of Asgard, with his mother, were beautiful as well. Frigga, you deserved the best. And his moment with Valkyrie in the end, wherein he returned to the conclusion he had appropriately reached in TTDW that he did not want to be a king, meant a lot to me. 

Thor’s closure with his mother paralleled Tony’s closure with his father. A major theme throughout the entire thing was the valuing of children (including Peter Parker) vs. the abuse and utilitarian view of them that Thanos adopted. 

Steve’s ending was so, so beautiful. I don’t think there’s much else that can be said about that, but it was lovely. 

I also really loved the final battle. It was well directed, powerful, exciting, and of course contained so many Easter eggs. Having so many characters there was incredible. The entire film was well paced, also. 

What it did not so well, because unfortunately these are things that really irk me and it comes at a time when I’m especially irritable because of IRL shit and that the recent debacle with that misogynist Vader comic in Star Wars:

The weight jokes. Look, the first few jokes about Thor were amusing, and then it became annoying and reinforced the stereotypes about overweight people. You can encourage health in other ways, guys. 

An “ugh” scene re: a panic attack. While it did great with Nebula and Rhodey’s disabilities, I was not a fan of the scene where Thor has a panic attack and Rocket slapped him out of it. Thor’s panic attack had a real feel to it that, say, Drax’s complaining in GOTG 1 where Rocket says something similar (we’ve all lost people) did not, and so slapping him and telling him off when he’s having a panic attack and playing it for laughs was... frustrating because otherwise the film did a really good job with trauma and loss.

Uncomfortable racial elements. Clint seemed to have turned into a vigilante, killing a Mexican drug cartel and Japanese yakuza members. Did you really have to make them all the dangerous foreigners who didn’t even appear in one case, but just like, were mentioned, or in the other had a scene of begging for their lives and dying anyways? 

Sexism. This is by far my biggest complaint. It treated its female characters really badly. Captain Marvel wasn’t actually a very big role. Natasha and Nebula were the only ones with arcs and Natasha’s arc was downright offensive. I’m sorry, but her sacrificing herself for Clint was really insensitive and just bad taste, because while it was beautiful, it was also very very icky. See, Natasha’s arc in Ultron was entirely about how she sees herself as a monster because of her inability to have kids. That received a lot of criticism, but that did happen and is compounded by the fact that the reason she sacrifices herself for Clint was because he has a family to go back to, while she doesn’t. It can read as self-hate and as playing into the large view in society that women who can’t have kids might as well just off themselves. Plus, Clint’s focus was basically entirely about hyping up the manpain over his family and that was... no. I’ve seen this happen too many times with women in fiction and I’m getting less and less tolerance for it. 

There was also one ridiculous scenario where all the female characters team up that was so obviously pandering (”look how feminist we are now!”) that I wasn’t remotely amused. And there was a grief counseling scene where a man mentioned having a male partner. Like, it’s progress, but it doesn’t win you brownie points Marvel. 

Yet, to be honest, all films are problematic, and like I said, the conclusions to Tony’s and Steve’s arcs in particular were so beautiful and the final battle sent chills down my spine. It’s a good movie. I’m just critiquing this especially because Marvel hasn’t exactly built themselves the benefit of the doubt in regards to this, taking until 2018 to release a film with a POC lead and until 2019 to release a film with a female lead. How Marvel treated minorities and women was an issue I had with IW as well, so I was paying extra attention to that whereas I might not have otherwise. As I texted my friend, it is a good film, and I’ll probably see it again, but it was also pretty clearly written and directed by white men for white men. 

[armorbirdpress]

Armor Bird Reviews: Black Panther

Heyo, it's been so freaking long since I've done a movie review! But in the wake of all the positive reactions, hype, and feels surrounding the Black Panther movie, I knew for a fact that I HAD to give it a review after seeing it this past weekend. I’ve already posted this review on the PPC Board, so if you want to check it out, the alternative link is here!

Black Panther is a 2018 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name, and is the eighteenth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Directed by Ryan Coogler, and written by Coogler and Joe Robert Cole, it stars Chadwick Boseman as T'Challa/Black Panther, alongside Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong'o, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman, Daniel Kaluuya, Letitia Wright, Winston Duke, Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker, and Andy Serkis. As with any MCU movie, a lot of fanfare and attention has been drawn to this film, and I was dying to see it to determine if it lived up to all the hype; I am so very glad that we got tickets in advance to watch this movie, because otherwise all the seats would’ve been taken by the time we got to the theater - there were just that many people who wanted to see it. And just as well, because good golly, it is an absolute masterpiece. Spoilers under the cut!

Starting things off with the writing and characterization, I have to say that almost all the characters in the film were enjoyable and engaging to watch, and there were plenty of great moments from everyone concerned. T'Challa, despite being the obvious star of the show, actually feels kinda stoic compared to the liveliness of quite a few of the secondary characters which I'll get to a bit later, but he still has a compelling storyline, and while I was worried that he'd remain somewhat static throughout the movie, there were quite a few gut punches that ensured that he'd grow as a person and also as a ruler. The movie did a good job of demonstrating that he had big shoes to fill in a metaphorical sense, and also that even if T'Chaka had tried to be the best example that he could be for his son, his past mistakes would still come to light eventually and force T'Challa to reevaluate his worldview. This is especially apparent when it becomes known that T'Chaka, when he had donned the Black Panther suit, had been forced to kill the Wakandan traitor whose son would grow up to become Killmonger. It was a split-second decision driven by the impulse to save the life of the other Wakandan spy present, but the urge to keep up appearances for the sake of the nation ended up having far-reaching consequences that would've resulted in far more unnecessary casualties if T'Challa and later M'Baku and his tribe hadn't intervened. That kind of split-second decision is mirrored in the story in general, when T'Challa's lack of information regarding Killmonger's origin story almost costs him the throne and even his life, only being saved by the intervention of M'Baku and his remaining allies' delivery of the last Heart-Shaped Herb. Eventually, after fighting his way back to his own kingdom, he's forced to deal with Killmonger using the only remaining option left after the failure of diplomacy and civility, through violence and possible death. This history essentially repeating itself is one of the biggest contributions to T'Challa's character growth, and also his decision to make Wakanda a more publicly open nation willing to use its resources to aid the world at large in the end. It shows that he's realized how much impact even very short-term decisions can have in a sort of ripple effect, as well as the major setback of trying to lock Wakanda as a whole behind figurative closed doors: that sort of isolationism prevents you from interacting with the world around you and, like it or not, making the kinds of mistakes needed to move forward.

Naturally, since T'Challa sets a pretty high bar, the secondary characters and antagonists kinda have to settle for being second fiddle, but they all have traits of their own that help move the plot forward. The main antagonist, the aforementioned Killmonger, is interesting among the other Marvel villains in that instead of the typical "KILL EVERYTHING" or "take over the world" MO (or sometimes both) without many reasons other than "MWAHAHA I'M EVIL", he actually has a rather valid and understandable reason for his actions. The recent instances of black people being persecuted simply for their color, even in the modern day and age, are a strong force of motivation grounded in a sad reality, although the means by which Killmonger was planning to achieve that goal - by waging war on every other race - were undoubtedly going to cause as many problems as they'd solve if not more. Another interesting factor is how Killmonger's rule essentially divides up the entire nation; while Shuri (whom I'll get to later) is loyal to T'Challa through and through, and goes out of her way to help him and his cause, other characters like Okoye (initially) and W'Kabi simply serve the man in the throne whether or not he's truly fighting for the force of good. This actually threatens to tear the nation apart during Killmonger's campaign, and again, it's only because T'Challa and M'Baku's tribe join forces to stop him that things don't escalate into all-out carnage. As a wise man once said, hate begets hate - whether you think it's justified or not, the total extermination of people who are different than you, even if a few gave you grief in the past, is the wrong way to act, and only makes you like those very people who attacked you first. I have to give props to T'Challa for not falling into the same trap that his father did and offing Killmonger directly; instead, he attempted to show mercy, as well as a Wakandan sunset like in the tales Killmonger had heard as a child, but rather than spend life in prison with his reputation in shambles, Killmonger chose to essentially commit suicide and end the cycle. Even if he nearly caused an all-out civil war within the Wakandan borders, Killmonger is still a tragic figure, and that makes a big impact on all of us.

My favorite character by far, however, has to be Shuri. It's established very early on that she's not only a child prodigy, but also a youthful, spunky teenager with a wholesome sense of humor (and in at least three instances, a penchant for memery, trolling, and cringe-inducing puns on almost the same level as Chibi Yang). While she seems to be a light-hearted comic relief, though, she also plays one of the most critical roles in the story - rescuing the Heart-Shaped Herb that would later be given to T'Challa for his second wind - and her humor is offset by a dedication to her responsibilities as well as her intimate knowledge of the ins and outs of the Black Panther role as well as his loyalty to T'Challa regardless of the situation. It's probably this that leads to her being so important in helping T'Challa recover, and I'm proud of her for being both the heart of the movie (T'Challa, of course, being the soul) and a nuanced and lovable character in her own right.

The writing of the movie is also quite well done due to the points noted above and much more. Racism, prejudice, loyalty, and the impact of even the smallest things are themes that are prominent throughout the entire movie. I was very concerned that the sole major white character, Everett Ross, would turn out to be a villain (though thankfully that wasn't the case, and he gets an awesome support role in the climax that Han Solo would be proud of), and Ulysses Klaue IS a secondary antagonist, but it's interesting that ultimately, the conflict is waged by blacks, among blacks. This ties into the concept that there is no such thing as reverse racism - even if it's blacks persecuting whites, it's still way over the line if it isn't in self-defense. The conflicting solutions proposed by T'Challa and Killmonger - coming to terms with the outside world and reaching out to lend aid to it vs. only looking out for your own and forsaking all others to keep them from harm - are an uncomfortable mirror to a lot of real-world politics in recent years, but in true MCU tradition, it's the idealistic approach that wins the day in the end, although as expected for a conflict as intense as this, there are still quite a few casualties at the end of it all, and unlike many other instances in the MCU and beyond, most of these are impactful and placed tactfully enough to move the story forward.

I dont' even need to say that the graphics and visuals of this movie are absolutely gorgeous. Wakanda as a city is stunning, the various African landscapes breathtaking, and the vehicle design and choreography as masterful as a Star Wars movie. The costume and character design as well are splendid, and it is at this point that I'd like to call attention to the costume designer for this movie: Ruth E. Carter, who's also done work for such films as "Malcom X" and "School Daze" - plus she's African, and has done extensive research for this movie's designs, drawing from a wide variety of African cultures. Really, this entire movie is a feast for the eyes and absolutely worth seeing for that fact alone. My one gripe is that the war rhinos seen early in the movie and then in the climax are notably CGI, and could've been improved with some animatronic work like in the first Jurassic Park movie (or heck, they could even have used real rhinos, but IDK how much hassle that would've resulted in), but that's a minor quibble that doesn't detract from an otherwise spectacular feature.

I'm well aware that complaints about this movie have had to be filtered extensively on RottenTomatoes to prevent Internet Racism(TM) from marring the reviews unnecessarily, but that's a can of worms I'm not going into for the sake of my dignity. On my own terms, however, I do have one suggestion for improving the movie: instead of murdering Klaue just halfway through the movie, Killmonger could've just as easily pounded him into submission and forced him to work for him as a sort of Dragon (in TV Tropes lingo). T'Challa and Ross vs. Killmonger and Klaue would've been interesting to see, especially considering how threatening Klaue was with his cyborg arm and what it could do to both T'Challa and those poor innocent vehicles involved in the car chase in Korea. He'd have made an interesting secondary antagonist that could've opportunistically interfered with the warring parties and stirred up tensions just to tear down Wakanda out of spite. I'm not about to suggest an "Everett vs. Klaue" scenario - which was actually what Everett was planning in the first place when he entered this movie - but giving Klaue a bigger role before he gets offed would've made said murder more impactful and karmatic after all he's done. That's largely splitting hairs, though - I'm sure there are people who instead feel that Killmonger getting rid of Klaue early prevents competition. Who knows?

On a final note, here are two things I really want to see in future MCU films: 1) a movie with a predominantly Asian cast and setting, and 2) a movie starring Devil Freaking Dinosaur. I'll admit that both of these are kinda self-centered, but the first one in particular is probably more desirable at large because there aren't that many Asian characters at all in the MCU (Mantis from Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 and Colleen Wing from the Iron Fist TV show are probably the only ones I can think of off the top of my head, though I may have missed a few more), but one of the big things I'm noticing from the Black Panther release is that African-American and black children have come to look up to him as a hero in the same way that a lot of girls look up to Wonder Woman with the number growing since her own film release - so if the same thing could happen with an Asian superhero, that would be amazing. A quick look at the Marvel Comics online archives presents me with Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu, who has actually joined the Avengers in the comics and would make a very interesting and cool addition to their MCU incarnation. As for Devil Dinosaur, I don't even need to explain why he'd become beloved if he ever shows up in a MCU movie, even as a minor character... just keep him away from the palaeo-discourse and he should be fine.

All in all,

Black Panther

isn't a perfect movie, but it's very close to being one and I'm so happy for its success. While there are a few minor things I feel would've been worth fixing here and there, I don't see any obvious faults and certainly none that detract from how amazing it is. Do yourself a favor and give it a spin - I can promise that you'll be in for a visual and auditory treat from start to finish.

Grading Scheme:

96 - 100: A+

93 - 96: A

90 - 92.9: A-

87 - 89.9: B+

83 - 86.9: B

80 - 82.9: B-

77 - 79.9: C+

73 - 76.9: C

70 - 72.9: C-

67 - 69.9: D+

60 - 66.9: D

Below 60: E

Grades:

Writing: 9

Characterization: 9

Pacing: 8

Creativity: 9

Consistency: 9

Cinematography: 10

World Building: 9

Music and Sound: 10

Effects: 9

Engagement: 9

Final Grade: 91 (A-)

[weekendshowcase]

Any Love for the Super Friends?

by Antonio Garland

     Many critics and fans are divided about their opinions on the recently released film Justice League. Most say it was an alright film, while others disliked it. I saw the film shortly after its release and here are my thoughts and opinions.

    While this is a spoiler-free review, there is a minor spoiler. However, if you know the story of the Justice League and have already read recent reports on who would star in the film, you already know what it’ll be.

    The film takes place a while after Batman v Superman Dawn of Justice (BvS), with everyone still in mourning over the death of Superman. With their icon of hope gone, crime starts to rise and people are fearful without their protector. Sensing the people’s fear, the intergalactic tyrant Steppenwolf comes to Earth in search of three artifacts called mother boxes to assist him in his world-conquering scheme. Gotham’s dark knight Batman discovers this and decides to put together a team consisting of Wonder Woman, the Flash, Cyborg, and Aquaman, to help combat the approaching threat of Steppenwolf and his army.

    Story-wise I thought it was acceptable. Many critics said that the story was average at best, but you have to remember that the film is following directly behind BvS, which was heavily criticized for its plot. Naturally, being a sequel, Justice League had to carry over those story elements. Now personally, I thought the story in this film was better than its predecessor, but in its own right there were a few elements that I wish had happened differently, such as including certain characters and giving the main villain more motivation with his goals.

    Speaking of the villain, Steppenwolf threw me for a loop. I and many others believed that a similar villain in the Justice League mythos, Darkseid, would had been the main antagonist, though it turned out to be the lesser-known Steppenwolf. He was basically a generic “take over the world” villain with no in-depth elements. He was an entirely CGI character and I felt that his character would have worked better if he’d been an actual actor. Many of his scenes were just there to progress the story, like ordering his minions to attack.

     The “Mother Boxes” themselves, I felt, needed more buildup to what they could do. From how they’re described, they seem to be DC’s equivalent to Marvel’s Infinity stones. Apparently, these McGuffins have all these special abilities, such as supplying energy, terraforming and teleportation. While one makes a cameo in BvS, they just seem to come out of nowhere. There’s a flashback scene in the film that shows how they ended up on Earth, but it makes you wonder as to why no one on Earth would use their power.

    Speaking of coming out of nowhere, that’s my biggest criticism about the film. Not to compare, but Marvel’s cinematic universe had most of their characters established in films beforehand. When they finally came together in crossover films, it made them feel bigger like they earned the payoff. In this film, most of the cast were only in a few second cameos in the previous film, with brief introductions. If you don’t already know who these characters are, then you’re going to have a hard time sympathizing with them and you’re going to wonder why they’re so important. This made me think about Wonder Woman in BvS, who just came out of nowhere. Though she had a prequel film that came out later it would have helped BvS if she had been established (especially for newcomers).

    Regardless, the characters themselves were all likeable. Jason Momoa, who played Aquaman, was better than I expected. In the trailers, he gave off a 90s heavy metal guitar player vibe, which there are minor shades of that in the film, but despite a lack of background and having the least amount of screen time compared to the rest of the cast, he was still an interesting character that does have lots of interesting scenes. Ezra Miller portrays the speedster Flash, the main comic relief character. Honestly, I found none of his jokes funny; however, he didn’t bother me. Most of his jokes felt very forced. The one thing I found annoying about him was that he basically had the shortest time to explain his origin, having pretty much a single line that explained how he became fast. Cyborg, similar to Wonder Woman, comes out of nowhere. While he does have a major role in the plot, he seemed to be the least developed character. Ray Fisher, Cyborg’s actor, was alright. However, it didn’t seem like he was given much to work with. To me he just felt a little stale and somewhat forgettable.

    To be honest, I always had an issue with Ben Affleck playing Bruce Wayne/Batman, as I don’t feel that he’s the best person to play the role. He just feels like he’s out of his element in both this film and BvS. Now, I did like Batman’s first scene in the film, as it did help give it that superhero comic movie feel. For the rest of the film, Batman just felt average. Gal Gadot returns as Wonder Woman, straight from her standalone film. She was pretty much the most interesting character in the film to follow, as it added on to what she experienced in earlier films. She’s the first one to join the team and essentially takes the role of team mom. Most of the emotional scenes involve her and she has a great deal of character development.

    Time for that minor spoiler. Now if you kept up with the news for the film or know the mythos for the Justice League, then you should already know that Superman is in the film. Henry Cavill once again portrays the man of steel in the blue and red outfit. Many were wondering just how Superman would be revived following his death in BvS. Well, I won’t go into detail on how he comes back, but I will say that I had some issues with it. Personally, I didn’t like how his return was done, but even more so, it contradicts the events of the previous film. Actually, I wondered in general just why director Zack Snyder killed him off at all. As I mentioned earlier, you can’t have the Justice League without Superman. Post return, Superman’s lines were horrible. They felt corny and are cringe-worthy. However, his scenes that showed him using his abilities are something to see. Let me put it this way, Snyder purposely kept him out of the early parts of the movie due to what Superman can do. Had he been in it earlier, there wouldn’t be much of a film.

    The music was decent. I did like that cover of “Everybody Knows” by Leonard Cohen, sung by Sigrid. I like the song and was surprised to hear it. Hearing “Come Together” sung over and over in the trailers and commercials got old real quick. I do like the song “Heroes” by David Bowie covered by Gang of Youths.

    Despite a cluster of heroes gathering with little introduction, a short run time of two hours, underwhelming main villain, and a few loose plot threads, Justice League is a pretty good superhero film. It unfortunately doesn’t leave a lasting impression. However, if you’re into comic/superhero films, then you’ll find yourself liking this one. Just don’t expect to get blown away.

[animepowermakeup]

Hollywood “Ghost in the Shell” Film Review (with Spoilers)

After 7 months of stalling since its release, I finally watched the Hollywood rendition of Ghost in the Shell. I told my followers I would do a film review on it months ago but I could not bring myself to sit down and watch it right away. Keep in mind that I am a HUGE Ghost in the Shell fan of the original manga/anime and had very high expectations when watching this film. I watched it from the point of view as a fan but kept in mind the perspective of someone who was new to the series. This review will contain spoilers because a core problem of the film lies in its twist and- I think you know where I’m going with this. I will break this film down in different sections (no pun intended): Casting, the plot and character development, visuals, and what I liked and what could have been done better.

Casting

I will not focus too much on this portion since a lot of you may be tired of hearing about it but it is still important to include. No, I did not approve of Scarlett Johansson playing the role as the Major and no, the plot did not justify her presence in the film. In fact it worsens the case for her but I will discuss that in “The Plot” section. Batou’s actor is fine (as he is the only character that many fans have made speculations about his original character being caucasion based on different accounts) along with most of the other Section 9 members. Kuze is white yet I never liked Kuze as a character to begin with, even in the second season of Stand Alone Complex (that’s a topic saved for another day). However, I heard many people defend the casting by saying “It’s okay if the Major is white because there are so many POC characters”. You mean POC supporting and background characters? You can hire all those people for the background but not consider one of them for the foreground. Making Ishikawa a black Austrailian will not make up for the Major being white. To me it seemed like a cheap, baited shot at diversity and erasure of Japanese people and their role in the industry.

The Plot/Character Development

The plot is simple. Too simple. Major Mira Killian is a full-prosthetic cyborg who was "saved” by Hanka robotics and now works at a counter-terrorist organization called Section 9. She finds herself on the trail to hunt down a hacker by the name of Kuze only to discover that her past may not be what it seems. Some action stuff happen and frankly it gets a bit muddy from there but in the end she discovers she’s, in fact, not Mira but actually Motoko Kusanagi *gasp* who was a girl who ran away from home and was basically kidnapped for the 2571 experiment which is the action of placing a human brain in a robotic body. So Mira wants revenge but in the end she decides to stay where she is while embracing the fact that she is really Motoko.

Now the core problem with this film is the plot twist that Mira is Motoko. They went through all the effort to actually cast an actress to play the real Motoko and even her mother yet only cast Scarlett Johansson because she’s “well-known” and would “bring in more revenue” as well as appeal to a Chinese audience (for the Chinese market, not Japanese). Obviously their plan failed since this movie bombed in the box office.

Another big issue I had was that they stripped away any complexity from the original source material. The 1995 Ghost in the Shell movie was so thought provoking and unafraid to challenge its viewer. The true Motoko Kusanagi was a symbol of philosophy and “the next step” in our human evolution. She transcended herself and her peers in all aspects and was willing to learn more about the world despite what little she knew of her past self. Mira simply gets butthurt about being lied to and when given the chance to join Kuze, she turns it down because despite everything, she still thinks Section 9 is her home or something like that. Honestly, it was rather forgettable. 

The writing was so dumbed down to the point of characters literally explaining every little thing that was going on in every scene. A good writer can convey ideas without always having to explain them. So I get it. The modern American audience can only handle so much but that is no excuse when you have astounding sci-fi films like Ex Machina or Interstellar which are extremely well-written films that make their audience actually think critically. Everything was laid out to you like a book for middle-school readers.

So character development for Mira goes like this. She’s unsure of herself in the beginning, she feels betrayed in the middle, and she has closure in the end (I guess). Now her character is so bland that it was hard to sympathize with her which is a key component in writing a character. We sympathize with Motoko in the original film because, despite how strong and powerful she may be, she expresses her human side and shows moments of vulnerability and questions her own existence right after encountering the Puppetmaster. But in the end, she was able to free herself and move beyond the physical world. Mira, on the otherhand, already begins showing doubts in herself since the beginning of the film. In fact, she doubts herself in every scene until she realizes that they were somewhat true. It’s not that dynamic for her character arc and there was only a “turning point” after meeting Kuze (and by watching him shoot at her coworkers? Like she literally stood there while he fired at them. I just thought that was weird. She like trudges away after that happened).

The most development Batou got was Aquafina bottle cap eyes.

All the other characters were simply props and the only other character who had any dynamicism was Dr. Owlet, I mean, Ouelet, who was the lady who basically brought Mira back to life and knew about Mira’s past. She sacrificed herself to save her from this bad dude called Cutter but frankly, it wasn’t that impactful.

To wrap up the characters, I felt nothing for them which is a shame because I LOVE their true characters from the original manga/anime.

The Visuals

3D technology is a wonderful invention but constant and heavy use of it is not always a good idea (unless you’re James Cameron’s Avatar). Every shot in this movie was riddled with 3D enviornments while attempted to blend it with real ones. Sure the geishas in that one scene were practical effects but that’s the only case of it in this film. I don’t know what it was but I did not get the Blade Runner feel that they tried to achieve and I even recently rewatched that movie the other day.

One of my main criticisms in regards to visuals was the constant bombardment of fanservice. Now I’m not talking about seeing Johansson in a nude body suit every couple of scenes, I’m talking about the scenes recreating exact shots from the 1995, 2004 film and Stand Alone Complex show. I could pinpoint and reference everything as they appeared to me yet it did not make it any better. To me, these sequences did not translate well to live-action. The moment I especially thought looked awkward and out of place was the recreation of the tank battle. Like from the actions to facial expressions, it was all ripped from the movie and it did not look right at all. I believe it’s the fact that there are things that should remain animated and not recreated in real life. The fanservice was more like “Hey if you’re a fan of the Ghost in the Shell series, our movie has those same scenes that you love!!” well if that’s the case, I’d much rather be watching the anime than something that was trying too hard to be memorable like it. The anime is memorable not only because of what took place in it but how it was made in terms of technology at the time and how it still stands to date.

There’s a distinct difference between taking creative liberties with original source material and simply ripping scenes and making them look too forced for the sake of “appealing to veteran fans”.

What I Liked

There are two things that I liked. The songs created by the original composer Kenji Kawai (which was just 2 songs) and the cameo of Gabriel/Gabu, Batou’s basset hound from Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. This movie simply made me want to go watch the original movies/read the original mangas/books.

So all in all, what could have saved this film? 

Well after watching it, nothing really. Even if the Major was casted to be Japanese, that could not have saved this film. The writing was too bad to work with, the visuals were gaudy, and they tried too hard to be like its source material while failing in every aspect. It wasn’t memorable and if there’s any silver-lining, it was better for Johansson to take the fall for this film than say Rinko Kikuichi because at the end of the day, Johansson can still sit on a pile of cash despite how good or bad the film turned out. 

I give this film a 3/10 and that’s me being nice. It was “better” than Hollywood Dragon Ball but no better than The Last Airbender or the Netflix Death Note.

[husid]

Uncle Huey’s 2019 Oscars Post!

A confession: I love the Oscars. 

A confession, extrapolated: I am an unabashed Oscars fanboy, who legitimately looks forward to the Academy Awards all year long. I love the opening montage where the host skewers self-righteous Hollywood stars, I love the cringeworthy banter of presenters pretending to have a non-scripted conversation (as if they were actual actors!), I love the montages reminding us why we should keep liking movies, I love seeing which recently deceased actors (it’s always the actors) cause people to break the “no-clapping-until-the-end” rule during the In Memoriam clip (Hollywood’s version of “you can only bring Valentine’s Day Cards to class if you give one to everybody”), I love the wildly reactionary vitriol thrown towards the Academy every time they make a decision about anything, I love the Academy reacting one-year too late to everything, I love the politics, I love the self-seriousness, I love the acceptance speeches in which you can tell the actor deeply resents his or her family, I love seeing the loser shots and trying to decide whether they’re legitimately happy for the winner (spoiler: they’re not), and I love seeing the same tired, rehashed Twitter jokes about how long the Oscars telecast is. 

Reading back through that paragraph, I realize how disingenuous my love for the Oscars sounds, but I do love the Oscars, if for no other reason than I really fucking love movies. And while I’m no critic, I do fancy myself a semi-educated film buff, and with that, as well as an uncredited extras role in The Flintstones In Viva Rock Vegas! that I ask that you indulge me in the first annual Hu’s the Boss Oscar Preview!

In the interest of full disclosure, this is where I tell you that I’ve only seen 11 of the movies nominated (Avengers: Infinity War, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Black Panther, BlacKkKlansman, Bohemian Rhapsody, The Favourite, Isle of Dogs, Roma, Solo: A Star Wars Story, Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse, A Star Is Born), but whether it’s the utter predictability of some films (Green Book), or familiarity with a director’s work (Vice), I feel reasonably confident in my admittedly underinformed predictions.

You might have heard that the Oscars will not have a host this year, for the first time since 1989, and we all remember how that went! (I was 2 years old, I definitely don’t remember how that went, but the internet does, and yikes, it wasn’t good. Side note: I’d sooner tell my own grandmother that her matzo ball soup was overseasoned than do anything horrible enough to warrant Julie Andrews calling me an embarrassment in an open letter).  How did we find ourselves in this predicament? Blame the Academy. Well, also the internet. Maybe Kevin Hart too. President Obama as well. Let me explain. 

While in office, Obama had the opportunity to sign an executive order mandating that Amy Poehler and Tina Fey host every major awards show, but failed to do so. Given President Trump’s current feelings towards S&L, it feels like that window has closed. The Oscars are generally hosted by a mainstream comedian, and this year was shaping up to be no different, with Kevin Hart signed on to host. But then the unthinkable happened. The internet internetted, and found that Hart had performed some homophobic material back in 2009 and 2010. The backlash got real loud, real quick, and the court of public opinion sentenced the Academy to 10 years without Kevin Hart as host, with the possibility of parole once we realize that every comic who started writing before 2010 has included something homophobic in one of their sets. So you can blame Kevin Hart, whose jokes were clearly offensive; you can blame the Academy for either not vetting their host, underestimating the research capabilities of internet denizens, underestimating the outrage of the general public (hard to imagine, given the public reception of most of the Academy’s decisions of late), or, depending on your viewpoint, bowing too easily to internet outrage; or you can blame the outraged, for not understanding the evolution of standup comedy, or for making a stand when one may not be warranted.

I’ll leave it to you to draw your own conclusions on who’s to blame for Hart not hosting, but I can tell you who’s to blame for there the absence of a host, period: Critics. Not since Billy Crystal hosted the Oscars for a 73rd consecutive time has any host be universally lauded. The host isn’t funny, the host is too mean, the host is too sophomoric, the host disappears for extended periods of time, etc. It’s been a thankless job for years now, and that was before a dissection of your extended comedy catalog became a prerequisite. Personally, I’d love to see the hosting job go to an up-and-coming comic and let them roast Hollywood for a bit. It would be a way to take the self-reverential mask off of Hollywood for a couple hours, and provide a massive opportunity for an up-and-comer. But ratings dictate that stars and stars alone must host, so I’m not holding my breath.

Ok. That sound you just heard is me jumping off my soap box. Back to movies.

“The field is wide open this year” is a great way to build up buzz for an awards show, but when it comes to Best Picture, it’s also a euphemism sugarcoating the fact that there were truly no great movies this year. Personally, I think nearly every contender has at least one seriously fatal flaw, and that, coupled with the rare lack of a huge late PR push for one movie above the others (a la The King’s Speech, The Artist, Argo, Birdman, etc.) mean that “wide-open field” isn’t just lip service, it’s true. Just not for the best reasons. Still, it makes for an exciting awards show, if you’re into that sort of thing, and probably means that the Academy won’t be on the hook for buying into one film’s hype and looking terrible for it down the line (Shakespeare In Love over Saving Private Ryan, The King’s Speech over The Social Network, Birdman over Boyhood, etc.). But these things aren’t always predictable, and maybe in ten years we’ll be talking about what an underappreciated movie Vice was in 2018.

Now on to the awards, where I’ll give my two cents on each nominee for Best Picture, then a brief thought on each subsequent category declaring my best guess for the actual winner and my personal favorite. In the interest of full disclosure, I’ve watched the Golden Globes and the SAG Awards, and usually pay a lot of attention to movie/Oscars buzz, but I’ve generally tried to avoid Oscar prediction articles for the sake of this post. Again, I don’t claim to be a film critic, but I do have lots of opinions on movies, so take everything with a grain of salt. To further highlight any conscious or subconscious biases I have,  I’ve put the films I have seen in bold in each set of nominees.

THE OSCAR GOES TO

Best Picture

Nominees:

Black Panther – A wildly entertaining and legitimately good movie, but it’s not even the best Marvel movie ever. This feels more like an acknowledgment from the Academy that it respects superhero movies, than a legitimate contender for best picture.

BlacKkKlansman – Given the wild true story the movie is based on, it probably didn’t even need Spike Lee’s direction to shine, and yet I left somewhat underwhelmed. Everything was solid, but very little really stood out, aside from costume design and a few warranted but ham-handed references to our current political climate.  Spike is one of the most provocative filmmakers of the last quarter-century, but with a story that I expected he’d be able to knock out of the park, I didn’t fell like I gained an interesting perspective or was shocked by anything; a rarity for one of his films. Maybe that’s more reflective of the times we live in, or maybe I just set unfair expectations for Spike, given the subject matter. Either way, despite enormous potential, this had all the trappings of a good-but-not-great movie.

Bohemian Rhapsody – Rami Malek’s performance and the final Live Aid scene alone catapult Bohemian Rhapsody into this year’s contenders. Unfortunately, that was all that was Oscar-worthy about this movie. The rest was a by-the-numbers music biopic that tried to pack way too much into 133 minutes. It’s no wonder this movie took so long to get made and so many writers/producers/directors/actors were involved and uninvolved at one point or another (Sacha Baron Cohen was originally slated to play Freddie Mercury), because there’s a lot to untangle between  the rise and “fall” of the band, Mercury’s sexual awakening, and his HIV diagnosis, all while the real-life remaining members of the band did their best to ensure that we got a PG-13 version of Queen history devoid of any real dirty laundry. The final result was a watered down, factually dubious mishmash that doesn’t go deep enough in any direction to have a true lasting impact. Those music scenes though, still make it one of the best music biopics ever filmed.

The Favourite – Of all the Best Picture nominees, the Favourite and Roma were easily the least digestable for mass market audiences. Period pieces aren’t for everyone, especially ones that have little in the way of plot, and take place exclusively on the grounds of an 18th century British palace. But the Favourite managed to be thoroughly entertaining thanks to top-notch set design, Oscar-worthy performances by Olivia Coleman, Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone, sexual intrigue and two hours of steady, if a bit slow, mischievousness. 

Green Book – I have not seen it. Obviously the reviews are positive, but no one has yet convinced me that this movie isn’t entirely formulaic. I haven’t seen this movie, but I’ve seen this movie, and I’m pretty sure it’s fine.

Roma – A beautiful movie about an underrepresented social class in an underrepresented era in an underrepresented country. It’s shot well and acted well, and the camerawork makes up for a meandering plotline. It probably is the class of this category, but I can’t help but think that it might be 15% worse if it wasn’t shot in black and white. That was clearly a conscious choice by writer and director Alfonso Cuaron, who, between Gravity and Children of Men, among others, has more than proven he knows how to make a film beautiful, regardless of subject matter. But the Artist won Best Picture for its two-part gimmick of being black and white and silent, and I’m not entirely sure that Roma’s colorless palette shouldn’t be considered gimmicky as well.

A Star Is Born – The most classic Best Picture fodder on this list, by leaps and bounds, and not just because previous versions of this movie have been nominated for Best Picture, among a host of other awards. But Hollywood loves a movie about the entertainment business, not to mention a story about underdogs and redemption. This was a really well done movie across the board, and while I thought the Grammys scene was a little over the top, I now realize that was an integral scene to the previous three versions of the movie, so its inclusion is a lot easier to justify here. Aside from the acting, which was exceptional across the board (Andrew Dice Clay!), I think the most impressive part about this movie was that it was a big-budget film about superstardom, yet managed to feel very intimate, and resisted using tired crutches of story narration/plot forwarding by way of TV/radio news reports or newspaper headlines – something Bohemian Rhapsody was unable to pull off.

Vice – I have not seen it, which is odd, because of every movie nominated, it’s probably the most up my proverbial alley. The initial mixed reviews were a part of my missing it, though I imagine my love for Adam Mckay’s masterful balance between humor and the depression of irresponsibly-wielded power in the Big Short and Succession (to say nothing of his comedy genius displayed in Anchorman, Talladega Nights, Step Brothers et al.) would make me a more likely candidate than most to appreciate Vice. Alas, that’s all I’m able to really opine on.

Will Be: If there wasn’t a strong anti-Netflix bias in the Academy, as has been reported, I would go with Roma, but I fear that the safest choice here is Green Book, and in the absence of anything truly groundbreaking, that’s going to be the pick.

Should Be: I’m on the fence between Roma and A Star is Born. To me, Roma’s lack of plot and failure to explore its main character in depth separate it from A Star is Born, which really has no obvious flaws.

Actor in a Leading Role

Christian Bale – Vice

Bradley Cooper – A Star Is Born

Willem Dafoe – At Eternity’s Gate

Rami Malek – Bohemian Rhapsody

Viggo Mortensen – Green Book

Will Be: Having only seen two of these movies, it’s hard for me to make a real educated guess, but it’s also hard to imagine that Rami Malek won’t be rewarded for flawlessly playing one of the most eccentric entertainers in music history. All I know for sure is that Willem Dafoe will not be winning.

Should Be: Malek. Malek’s apparent real-life persona is shy and understated –essentially the exact opposite of Freddie Mercury’s – making his transformative performance that much more jaw-dropping.

Actress in a Leading Role

Yalitza Aparicio – Roma

Glenn Close – The Wife

Olivia Colman – The Favourite

Lady Gaga – A Star Is Born

Melissa McCarthy – Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Will Be: Glenn Close. When an actress from a movie you’ve never heard of keeps racking up awards, it’s a pretty safe bet the Academy will follow suit.

Should Be: I’m going to stick with Close, given how much consensus this pick seems to have. Of the movies I saw, I think Colman and Gaga are both very worthy. I can’t quite figure out Aparicio’s nomination. Given that she had never acted before, she was incredible, but the lack of dialogue and depth that the script afforded her puts her performance in stark comparison to the other women on this list. Close is the biggest lock in any of the acting categories.

Actress in a Supporting Role

Amy Adams – Vice

Marina de Tavira – Roma

Regina King – If Beale Street Could Talk

Emma Stone – The Favourite

Rachel Weisz – The Favourite

Will Be: Amy Adams. This is a really tight race that could legitimately go to anyone. With five very deserving nominees, the biggest differentiator is the fact that Adams has been nominated for an Oscar five times before, with no hardware to show for it. In situations like this, the Academy has shown it’s not above the unofficial lifetime achievement award.

Should Be: I’m a huge fan of every actress in this category, though my two favorites – Adams and King – are nominated for movies I haven’t seen. Given that, my pick would be Emma Stone, who portrayed innocence, quirkiness, resourcefulness, wittiness, ruthlessness and helplessness in one winkingly dry performance. Weisz was just as game from an acting perspective, but the script gave Stone a lot more to work with, making her performance more memorable.

Actor in a Supporting Role

Mahershala Ali – Green Book

Adam Driver – BlacKkKlansman

Sam Elliott – A Star Is Born

Richard E. Grant – Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Sam Rockwell – Vice

Will Be: Mahershala Ali. The Academy loves him, and with good reason. In a tight race, the fact that Rockwell deservedly won this award last year for Three Billboards probably disqualifies him. Elliott was exceptional in A Star Is Born, but had a considerably smaller role than the other actors on this list. I thought Driver was good, but not Oscars-good, and obviously I haven’t seen Grant’s performance, but the buzz is very positive, despite being in a movie that not a ton of people saw. There’s definitely a cynical side of me that thinks Ali is the most justifiable selection among all the minority Oscar acting nominees, and its hard to imagine there aren’t at least some voters who are still trying to erase the scars of #oscarssowhite (to say nothing of minority representation over the course of film history) by essentially casting a vote for inclusion. But ultimately he may just be the best choice in a tight category.

Should Be: Ali. I’ll be rooting hard for Elliott, both because he tends to be my favorite part of any movie or show he’s in, and because it’s nice to see the older guys finally win one. Since Ali and Rockwell already have a statue, there may be some sentimentality votes going his way, and his career in mainstream American cinema spans much longer than fellow elder statesman Grant. Again, I haven’t seen Green Book, but I know Ali is as game as any of the actors in this category, and had the biggest role of anyone in the category. That’s good enough for me.

Directing

Spike Lee – BlacKkKlansman 

Pawel Pawlikowski – The Cold War

Yorgos Lanthimos – The Favourite

Alfonso Cuaron  - Roma

Adam McKay – Vice

Will Be: Alfonso Cuaron. There’s talk of this going to Spike as a “my bad” award from the Academy for never having even nominated him for best director (not giving him even a nomination for Do the Right Thing borders on criminal). But he did receive an honorary Oscar from the Academy in 2015, and that, coupled with BlacKkKlansman being just a good movie make me feel like this isn’t Spike’s year. Vice is a very hype-typical movie that isn’t getting much hype, and Cold War is the only movie on this list not nominated for Best Picture. That leaves Roma and the Favourite, and the Academy has proven it loves Cuaron’s work, not to mention Roma is the most unique, visually stunning film on this list, which are usually two of the major criteria for this award.

Should Be: Cuaron, for all of the reasons listed above, but I wouldn’t be upset with Lanthimos taking it.

Adapted Screenplay

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

BlacKkKlansman

Can You Ever Forgive Me?

If Beale Street Could Talk

A Star Is Born

Will Be: I really have no clue on this one, but I’m confident that The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and If Beale Street Could Talk are the first two out. The remaining three are all unlikely to win in the other major categories so voters might simply choose their favorite of those three to ensure they win something. If that’s the case, my guess is the most popular among them is A Star Is Born.

Should Be: I won’t rehash my thoughts on BlacKkKlansman again, and I haven’t seen Beale Street or CYEFM, but when considering adapted screenplays, I like to vote based on degree of difficulty jumping from the source material to the screen. That’s why A Star Is Born falls short for me, given that it was adapted from three previous versions of ultimately the same movie. To me, that makes the writer’s job easier, not harder. I definitely have a Coen Brothers bias, so my vote goes to The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, which managed to take a collection of short stories written over the course of 25 years and transform them into a series of visually stunning, dialogue-rich (aside from Tom Waits’ story) vignettes that somehow formed a (great) movie.

Original Screenplay

The Favourite

First Reformed

Green Book

Roma

Vice

Will Be: First Reformed is getting buzz for this award, and it might be a way for voters to give some gold to a movie than many felt was snubbed in other categories. My take is that if voters loved the screenplay so much, it would have been nominated for those other categories. So the most likely pick here is Roma, a movie about an upper-middle-class family in Mexico City with a relative dearth of dialogue or plot lines that somehow ends up being as captivating as any other movie this year.

Should Be: I thought The Big Short’s screenplay was incredible, so if Vice is comparable in both style and quality, I’m sure I’d love it. But critics are saying otherwise, so I’m going to go with The Favourite, whose screenplay managed to make a thoroughly beguiling and darkly humorous film out of what could easily have been just another dry period piece.

Foreign Language Film

Capernaum – Lebanon

Cold War – Poland

Never Look Away – Germany

Roma – Mexico

Shoplifters – Japan

Will Be: We can pretend Cold War has a chance, but the award has all but been handed to Roma already. If it’s the only movie on this list that managed to be worthy of a Best Picture nominee, logic would dictate that it’s the only movie worthy of winning Best Foreign Language Film

Should Be: Having only seen Roma, I don’t have any great insights to add here, but I’m still confident in saying it deserves this one.

Best Animated Feature

Incredibles 2

Isle of Dogs

Mirai

Ralph Breaks the Internet

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Will Be: Despite winning two of the last three years, Pixar doesn’t have the stranglehold over this category that it once did. In most years, Incredibles 2, Isle of Dogs or Ralph Breaks the Internet would have a great shot to win, but this is simply Spider-Man’s year.

Should Be: I liked Isle of Dogs, but Spider-Man was probably my favorite movie of the year, and quite possibly the best. Sorry Pixar.

Cinematography

Cold War

The Favourite

Never Look Away

Roma

A Star Is Born

Will Be: Roma. Sweeping cityscapes, countryscapes and beachscapes (are those things?) + historical time period + black and white = Oscar.

Should Be: Roma. Sweeping cityscapes, countryscapes and beachscapes (are those things?) + historical time period + black and white = Oscar.

QUICK HITTERS

Production Design

Black Panther

The Favourite

First Man

Mary Poppins Returns

Roma

Will Be: Roma

Should Be: The Favourite

Costume Design

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Black Panther

The Favourite

Mary Poppins Returns

Mary Queen of Scots

Will Be: The Favourite

Should Be: The Favourite

Death, taxes, and a Victorian(ish)-era drama winning Best Costume Design are the only certainties in life.

Visual Effects

Avengers: Infinity War

Christopher Robin

First Man

Ready Player One

Solo: A Star Wars Story

Will Be: Avengers: Infinity War

Should Be: Ready Player One

This pick is based entirely on the trailer and my 1980s and 90s nostalgia.

Original Song

All the Stars – Black Panther

I’ll Fight – RBG

The Place Where Lost Things Go – Mary Poppins Returns

Shallow – A Star Is Born

When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings – The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Will Be: Shallow

Should Be: Shallow

Along with Roma winning for best Foreign Film, this is easily the biggest lock of the night. It’s also a really good song.

I don’t really have anything of substance to add for the rest of the categories, and if you’re somehow still reading, you’re probably not anxiously awaiting my take on all the documentary shorts I haven’t watched.

Happy Oscars Night, everyone! Looking forward to seeing you again next year, when we’ll get to predict the winners of the Academy’s new categories:

Worst Performance By A Best Actor/Actress Loser At Time of Award Announcement

Most Terrifying-Looking Live-Action Genie

Best Performance By People Trying to Bring Matt Damon Home

The Wes Anderson Lifetime Achievement Award for Contributions to Whimsy

Worst Acting Performance by a Musician Who Now Thinks He/She Can Act Because of Lady Gaga

Worst Singing Performance by an Actor Who Now Thinks He/She Can Sing Because of Bradley Cooper

Best Use of “That Guy” (Andrew Dice Clay!)

[jamesharringtoncreativeworks]

Hi Jim,

  I read a few of your other pieces about character creation and was hoping you could expand more upon how you create a character based on a historical person. I’m trying to do something similar right now, and am really having a hard time. You said that you wanted the character to be as close to the historical person as humanly possible, so I just wanted to know how you accomplished that.

Thanks, Danny

Danny,

I don’t know how much more I can say on the subject without retracing what I’ve already said, but I’ll do my best. In my writings, I’ve incorporated a few historical people as main characters… Let’s take a look at them.

  From left to right, Federico II Gonzaga, Pope Leo X, and Mary Jane Kelly.

Each of these characters presented their own problems in character creation and each had different levels of detail.

Federico and Pope Leo X were both portrayed in Divinity, and for those who have read it, Divinity is basically a story criticizing the church of that time, and by default, institutional religion in general.

Basically, I wanted to show the problems with blind adherence to strict interpretations of doctrine that was, in my opinion anyway, used way outside of its purpose. To do this, I posed the question; What would happen if an angel appeared in 16th Century Europe? What would happen if she were wounded and in need of help? How would people react to what she had to say or how she behaved? Would they take her in and help her, or would they fall back on what they’d been taught, not considering that those teachings might be wrong, and thus assume that she was actually a demonic presence?

To frame the story, I needed to choose the right time period and the right church leader. Yes, the Pope was a villain in the book. I wanted to be careful as I didn’t want to portray someone in a negative light who didn’t deserve it. There were plenty of Popes from the time period I had in mind that did their jobs and were, on a scale, considered benevolent.

Pope Leo X shows up on many of the ‘Worst Popes’ lists out there. He’s was extremely indulgent, driving the church deeply into debt, and then prayed on the ignorance of the faithful in order to sell indulgences to pay down that debt. He was not a priest and he’d had his hands very deep in the pockets of politics of the time.

My portrayal of him is based on that. I presented Leo X as a man who would view an angel potentially going around countering the teachings of the church as dangerous. Especially given that this was a time when the Protestant Reformation was really taking off. Other than his dealings with the church and some backstory of growing up as a member of the Medici family, there isn’t much on his personality traits. So basically, I had to envision what someone would be like who made the decisions he did. What I came up with was an intelligent, well-spoken individual, who was, unfortunately, too easily seduced by power and luxury. He lived by the silver spoon and would go to great lengths to preserve his way of life.

Federico II Gonzaga is a lot more complicated. Aside from allowing the armies of the Holy Roman Empire to pass through his land unmolested, and sack Rome, there really isn’t much on him. I had to dig a little deeper to find more info on him. He was somewhat subversive and underhanded at times, and he had very poor military experience. He essentially was a young man who was thrown into a role he was not equipped to handle. He was deep in the politics of the church, however, given a more passive nature and his manipulation of the system, I was able to portray him a little bit more as a skeptic of what was going on around him.

The lack of information on the personalities of people from several hundred years ago is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, with limited information, you have a lot more freedom. However, if you value history the way I do, you have a responsibility to dig as deep as you can and uncover every scrap of information you can find to make sure you get the character right… and even then you’re more than likely way off.

So let’s take a look at Mary Jane Kelly. (Spoiler Alerts for Soul Siphon. If you don’t want to know about Mary Jane’s character yet, skip ahead.)

Now… obviously I took a LOT of dramatic licenses here… If you don’t believe me… these three pictures portray the same person:

  Mary Kelly was a little easier to deal with for a few reasons;

Outside of her death, she was a relatively insignificant person on the stage of history and it’s likely that her name wouldn’t show up in any historical texts otherwise.

We do have historical accounts of her personality. However, those accounts are based on hearsay and the testimony of a few people who knew her. A lot of it was based on conflicting stories that she herself had told. So there you can pick and choose which ones sound feasible and which ones do not. Example: According to her, she had a brother in the military. This is likely. A lot of people served back then. On the other side, she also has a number of brothers… I think the number was 7. Arguably less likely, especially from the same mother. Not helping matters was that sometimes it was 7, sometimes it was 2 or 3, or sometimes just one and a sister. Needless to say, I kind of dismissed that.

I wasn’t going to portray her as she was back then. My character was the historical person, still alive in the 21st Century. In other words, she’d have 150 years of new experiences and development.

So here’s essentially what I did with her. From what historical accounts we can find on her, she was an Irish-born brothel worker with a sharp tongue. She was known for being quarrelsome and had earned the title of ‘Black Mary’,  which suggests that she knew how to handle herself in a dangerous neighborhood. She was also known for getting drunk and singing Irish folk and patriotic songs… so perhaps I could add some of the cultural characterizations and stereotypes to her behavior. I also based some of her personality on my own experiences with Irish culture, people I’ve encountered, and friends I have from the homeland itself.

So with that information, I was able to build the character personality around those traits and behaviors. However, that original build would have been appropriate for portraying Mary Kelly as she was during the late 1800s. I had an additional hurdle to overcome with her in that she was going to have an additional 150 years of development.

So what would a character like that be like? Well contending with immortality, having to watch friends die, as well as having full memory of her murder, I tried to create a character who voluntarily isolated herself from the rest of the team and shies away from forming bonds out of a fear of loss or abandonment. I then created a backstory where she spent years protecting other prostitutes and brothel workers. When she finally located Jack the Ripper himself, she set out to kill him, only to lose her chance when he attempted to escape to American and drown when his ship wrecked. She later discovered that her failure to catch him sooner resulted in more deaths at his hands.

I used that backstory, coupled with the harsh life she lived, to create a bitter character who was justifiably mad at the world. So when our hero meets Mary, she’s harsh, rude, and extremely condescending. She continuously objects to the main character joining the team and gives him a wide berth. I’ve gotten emails from people who read her character and ask why she’s so mean… and I always smile because I can usually tell where they are in the story.

Truthfully, readers aren’t meant to like Mary at first. I’d actually understand if they didn’t like Mary at all. However, I did want people to understand her. I wanted to make a character that wouldn’t necessarily change, but people would at least grow to understand and even empathize with. You may not like her abrasive personality or attitude, but at least you’d develop an understanding of how she got that way in the first place.

So in the end, the major hurdle is whether or not these people would actually be like the characters I created. Honestly, I have no idea. I used their historical profiles and what personality traits I could find to build a character that is as close as anyone could reasonably get without actually knowing the person. That being said, I fully recognize that I could be completely off. One, because as I said, I never met these people. Two, because I’m exposing them to fictional situations. Given that, it would be impossible to predict how they would react, even from someone who knew them personally.

So I guess in the end, my advice is simply to be careful. Do your due diligence and… I’d personally avoid anyone living or recently deceased. It’s true that you can’t slander the dead, but you’d be surprised at the legal loopholing a famous person’s family can do if desired. If that’s what you want to do though, I’d contact a lawyer first to see what your options are and what you should or should not consider saying about said person.

If they’re from an ancient time period, any surviving family members would have a much harder time making a case against you, and many would first have to be able to trace their line back to said person which isn’t always easy to do in a way that would be accepted by most legal systems.

Anyway, I hope this helps, but let’s open it up to the readers. Does anyone else in the WordPress community have experiences with creating a character from a historical person? Feel free to share your experiences and the steps you took in creating said character in the comments.

Thanks, Jim

  Readers,

Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.

jimthewritingwizard@gmail.com

I’ll use those comments to select my next blog post.

I have been writing for several years, have 4 published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.

Please note, I only do one of these a day and will do my best to respond to everyone, but it may take some time.

Also, feel free to check out my works of Fantasy and Historical Fiction, Available on Amazon and where ever books are sold. See the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/James-Harrington/e/B00P7FBXTU

Note: If you have read my books, PLEASE log into Amazon and post a review. I really love to hear everyone’s thoughts and constructive criticisms. Reviews help get my book attention and word of mouth is everything in this business!

Thanks friends!

Catch you on the flip side!

-Jim

The Hurdles of Creating Characters from People of History Hi Jim, I read a few of your other pieces about character creation and was hoping you could expand more upon how you create a character based on a historical person.

[njawaidofficial]

Critic's Notebook: 'The Strain' Series Finale Ends With Both a Bang and a Whimper

http://styleveryday.com/2017/09/19/critics-notebook-the-strain-series-finale-ends-with-both-a-bang-and-a-whimper/

Critic's Notebook: 'The Strain' Series Finale Ends With Both a Bang and a Whimper

[Warning: Spoilers ahead for the series finale of FX’s The Strain.]

Sunday night’s TV offerings had a little something for everybody. Most eyeballs were probably focused on either the Emmys or Sunday Night Football, but the programming slate also included Fear the Walking Dead for zombie lovers, the premiere of The Vietnam War for documentary enthusiasts and Ballers for Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

Sunday also marked the end of FX’s The Strain, though if you’re like me, you probably didn’t see or hear much conversation about the conclusion of the vampire saga, which points to how easy it is for a show to go from buzzworthy to functionally irrelevant, while still lasting a reasonably successful four seasons, in a saturated TV climate.

It’s become hard to remember, but when The Strain premiered in 2013, there was a lot of hype behind it. FX was hoping The Strain might be its version of The Walking Dead, an apocalyptic horror monster mash with blockbuster aspirations and also pretensions of quality. The Strain arrived with literary pedigree, coming from a decent series of books by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan. As elevated and reliable as genre auteur as you could hope to find, del Toro was directing the pilot and Lost co-mastermind Carlton Cuse was serving as showrunner. Off his season of House of Cards and a couple movie roles, Corey Stoll was one of Hollywood’s most in-demand leading men, and the supporting cast included actors bringing Alias (Mia Maestro), Lost (Kevin Durand), Game of Thrones (David Bradley) and Lord of the Rings (Sean Astin) credibility.

I really like the pilot for The Strain. It’s slow-moving, but also mighty creepy and when the strigoi (as the show preferred to rebrand vampires) began attacking people with their phallic tongue/sucker things, there was a visceral response that felt much in keeping with del Toro’s body of work.

The series inched along for most of its first season, picking off only a couple humans per episode and leaving some doubt on the strigoi’s commitment to overwhelm New York City with sufficient speed, and, as it meandered, people kept being distracted by silly things instead of the show itself.

There was also Stoll’s wig. It was not a good wig. It was not a purposeful wig. It was written off of the show in the second season amidst claims that they needed Stoll’s Dr. Ephraim Goodweather to have a look that he could change when he became a wanted man in an increasingly vampire-friendly city. Still, the wig became a running joke and a narrative, something it probably wouldn’t have become if the show had been hooking viewers in different ways.

There were the billboards. One of the series’ best vampire-related conceits was the idea that the “strain” of vampirism was carried via white blood worms that, once loose, could crawl into your skin or, more primally, into your eyes. A series of billboards including blood worms crawling into an exposed eye became topics of controversy and conversation in Los Angeles, but maybe the grossness of the billboards kept people from talking about the similar grossness of the TV show?

Then there was Zach, son of Eph and quick-to-become-a-vampire Kelly (Natalie Brown). In no time, Zach became a poster boy for bad cable child characters, a pouting whelp who couldn’t stop whining about his dad not playing catch with him, even as the world was ending. Ben Hyland, the original Zach, was not especially good and between the first and second season, he was replaced by Max Charles under the ostensible claim that they wanted an actor more able to track Zach’s journey into darkness.

It didn’t work, and I guess complaints about Zach are, unlike the wig and the billboards, complaints about the show. The writers got hung up on Zach being important to the series’ endgame because he was important to the endgame of the books, but by the third season and especially into the fourth, the show had nothing to do with the books anymore and Zach had evolved not into a crucial piece of the narrative tapestry, but into one of the worst characters ever to be integral to an otherwise decent program. Things around Zach got darker and darker and Zach pouted more and more aggressively. Like really aggressively. How aggressively petulant did Zach get? He detonated a nuclear device in New York City in the third season finale because his dad wanted to kill his vampire mom. Now that’s pouting. 

After reaching that crescendo, Zach’s four-season plotline was basically: The Master, serving as a surrogate father to Zach, gave him a cute slave girl to clean his quarters. Zach fell in love with her, but she already had a boyfriend and so, having been put in the friend zone, Zach pouted and let her get eaten. I don’t think I’m doing a good enough job explaining how bad this was as a multi-episode arc for a major character in what had already been announced as a show’s final season.

Then, in the finale, Zach detonated another nuclear weapon, this time underground. The first detonation was out of pique, the second was out of love. My favorite hacky Twitter punchline is the one that goes, “In the end, the real [enter show/movie title] was love.” And that’s what The Strain went with for its series finale. The vampires thought they could use human connections and relationships to spread their “strain,” but they failed to properly gauge that our human capacity for love would also be their undoing, because Zach was willing to choose his father over the vampires and blow them all up, safely beneath the city.

This had always been part of the show’s DNA, so I’m only going to somewhat fault The Strain for this and for the repetitiveness of ending consecutive seasons with a bratty kid blowing up a nuke.

What can’t be escaped and what caused the show to have such an unsatisfying finale is that it killed off its two best characters with weeks to go before the end. Anybody who lists favorite characters in The Strain without Setrakian (Bradley) and Eichhorst (Richard Sammel) in the top two positions (in either order) isn’t trustworthy, and I get that their rivalry, dating back to the Holocaust, wasn’t necessarily the endgame of the show and had to be completed early. But that meant we reached the finale and what we were left with was pouty Zach, wig-free Eph and an odd narrative reversion to pretend that the romance between strangely accented exterminator Vasiliy Fet (Durand) and sexually fluid hacker Dutch (Ruta Gedmintas) was meaningful enough to be an endgame relationship. It really was not. We got to the last scenes of the finale and I guess I was pleased that Zach blew up The Master and the sun came back out, but a happily-ever-after for Fet and Dutch meant nothing. When we met Dutch, she had a girlfriend and then she was with Fet and then with Eph and then with Fet, even though Fet had been with some new character I didn’t care about at all as recently as two or three episodes ago. And that’s before we get into how I’m pretty sure Miguel Gomez’s Gus only survived to the end because the writers kept forgetting he was there.

I guess it was an appropriate end in that, at its best, The Strain was a show that often featured great elements, but never knew what to do with any of them. That’s the sort of thing that happens when you have a three-book series as a template and abandon the books and then go from a three-year plan to a five-year plan to a four-year plan. The last season had these spectacular conceptual ideas related to a society in which vampires treated humans as cattle, but other than some prematurely truncated material in a fertility clinic/blood farm, it ducked away from any complicated speculative fiction allegory or imagination and concentrated on a couple separate road trips in search of the bomb and associated parts, as well as Victorian England vampire flashbacks that were just an excuse to keep Rupert Penry-Jones’ Quinlan around, while also letting him wear a bit less makeup for a few weeks.

The legacy of The Strain ends up being not a huge hit for FX, but also not an embarrassment the network should avoid discussing at parties. Instead, it was a show with some cool ideas, a couple great characters, one all-time awful character, some properly disturbing effects and no idea of how to bring it all together. And that’s how you end up airing your series finale opposite the Emmys without anybody noticing.

The Strain

[jamesharringtoncreativeworks]

Hi Jim,

  I read a few of your other pieces about character creation and was hoping you could expand more upon how you create a character based on a historical person. I’m trying to do something similar right now, and am really having a hard time. You said that you wanted the character to be as close to the historical person as humanly possible, so I just wanted to know how you accomplished that.

Thanks, Danny

Danny,

I don’t know how much more I can say on the subject without retracing what I’ve already said, but I’ll do my best. In my writings, I’ve incorporated a few historical people as main characters… Let’s take a look at them.

From left to right, Federico II Gonzaga, Pope Leo X, and Mary Jane Kelly.

Each of these characters presented their own problems in character creation and each had different levels of detail.

Federico and Pope Leo X were both portrayed in Divinity, and for those who have read it, Divinity is basically a story criticizing the church of that time, and by default, institutional religion in general.

Basically, I wanted to show the problems with blind adherence to strict interpretations of doctrine that was, in my opinion anyway, used way outside of its purpose. To do this, I posed the question; What would happen if an angel appeared in 16th Century Europe? What would happen if she were wounded and in need of help? How would people react to what she had to say or how she behaved? Would they take her in and help her, or would they fall back on what they’d been taught, not considering that those teachings might be wrong, and thus assume that she was actually a demonic presence?

To frame the story, I needed to choose the right time period and the right church leader. Yes, the Pope was a villain in the book. I wanted to be careful as I didn’t want to portray someone in a negative light who didn’t deserve it. There were plenty of Popes from the time period I had in mind that did their jobs and were, on a scale, considered benevolent.

Pope Leo X shows up on many of the ‘Worst Popes’ lists out there. He’s was extremely indulgent, driving the church deeply into debt, and then prayed on the ignorance of the faithful in order to sell indulgences to pay down that debt. He was not a priest and he’d had his hands very deep in the pockets of politics of the time.

My portrayal of him is based on that. I presented Leo X as a man who would view an angel potentially going around countering the teachings of the church as dangerous. Especially given that this was a time when the Protestant Reformation was really taking off. Other than his dealings with the church and some backstory of growing up as a member of the Medici family, there isn’t much on his personality traits. So basically, I had to envision what someone would be like who made the decisions he did. What I came up with was an intelligent, well-spoken individual, who was, unfortunately, too easily seduced by power and luxury. He lived by the silver spoon and would go to great lengths to preserve his way of life.

Federico II Gonzaga is a lot more complicated. Aside from allowing the armies of the Holy Roman Empire to pass through his land unmolested, and sack Rome, there really isn’t much on him. I had to dig a little deeper to find more info on him. He was somewhat subversive and underhanded at times, and he had very poor military experience. He essentially was a young man who was thrown into a role he was not equipped to handle. He was deep in the politics of the church, however, given a more passive nature and his manipulation of the system, I was able to portray him a little bit more as a skeptic of what was going on around him.

The lack of information on the personalities of people from several hundred years ago is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, with limited information, you have a lot more freedom. However, if you value history the way I do, you have a responsibility to dig as deep as you can and uncover every scrap of information you can find to make sure you get the character right… and even then you’re more than likely way off.

So let’s take a look at Mary Jane Kelly. (Spoiler Alerts for Soul Siphon. If you don’t want to know about Mary Jane’s character yet, skip ahead.)

Now… obviously I took a LOT of dramatic licenses here… If you don’t believe me… these three pictures portray the same person:

Mary Kelly was a little easier to deal with for a few reasons;

Outside of her death, she was a relatively insignificant person on the stage of history and it’s likely that her name wouldn’t show up in any historical texts otherwise.

We do have historical accounts of her personality. However, those accounts are based on hearsay and the testimony of a few people who knew her. A lot of it was based on conflicting stories that she herself had told. So there you can pick and choose which ones sound feasible and which ones do not. Example: According to her, she had a brother in the military. This is likely. A lot of people served back then. On the other side, she also has a number of brothers… I think the number was 7. Arguably less likely, especially from the same mother. Not helping matters was that sometimes it was 7, sometimes it was 2 or 3, or sometimes just one and a sister. Needless to say, I kind of dismissed that.

I wasn’t going to portray her as she was back then. My character was the historical person, still alive in the 21st Century. In other words, she’d have 150 years of new experiences and development.

So here’s essentially what I did with her. From what historical accounts we can find on her, she was an Irish-born brothel worker with a sharp tongue. She was known for being quarrelsome and had earned the title of ‘Black Mary’,  which suggests that she knew how to handle herself in a dangerous neighborhood. She was also known for getting drunk and singing Irish folk and patriotic songs… so perhaps I could add some of the cultural characterizations and stereotypes to her behavior. I also based some of her personality on my own experiences with Irish culture, people I’ve encountered, and friends I have from the homeland itself.

So with that information, I was able to build the character personality around those traits and behaviors. However, that original build would have been appropriate for portraying Mary Kelly as she was during the late 1800s. I had an additional hurdle to overcome with her in that she was going to have an additional 150 years of development.

So what would a character like that be like? Well contending with immortality, having to watch friends die, as well as having full memory of her murder, I tried to create a character who voluntarily isolated herself from the rest of the team and shies away from forming bonds out of a fear of loss or abandonment. I then created a backstory where she spent years protecting other prostitutes and brothel workers. When she finally located Jack the Ripper himself, she set out to kill him, only to lose her chance when he attempted to escape to American and drown when his ship wrecked. She later discovered that her failure to catch him sooner resulted in more deaths at his hands.

I used that backstory, coupled with the harsh life she lived, to create a bitter character who was justifiably mad at the world. So when our hero meets Mary, she’s harsh, rude, and extremely condescending. She continuously objects to the main character joining the team and gives him a wide berth. I’ve gotten emails from people who read her character and ask why she’s so mean… and I always smile because I can usually tell where they are in the story.

Truthfully, readers aren’t meant to like Mary at first. I’d actually understand if they didn’t like Mary at all. However, I did want people to understand her. I wanted to make a character that wouldn’t necessarily change, but people would at least grow to understand and even empathize with. You may not like her abrasive personality or attitude, but at least you’d develop an understanding of how she got that way in the first place.

So in the end, the major hurdle is whether or not these people would actually be like the characters I created. Honestly, I have no idea. I used their historical profiles and what personality traits I could find to build a character that is as close as anyone could reasonably get without actually knowing the person. That being said, I fully recognize that I could be completely off. One, because as I said, I never met these people. Two, because I’m exposing them to fictional situations. Given that, it would be impossible to predict how they would react, even from someone who knew them personally.

So I guess in the end, my advice is simply to be careful. Do your due diligence and… I’d personally avoid anyone living or recently deceased. It’s true that you can’t slander the dead, but you’d be surprised at the legal loopholing a famous person’s family can do if desired. If that’s what you want to do though, I’d contact a lawyer first to see what your options are and what you should or should not consider saying about said person.

If they’re from an ancient time period, any surviving family members would have a much harder time making a case against you, and many would first have to be able to trace their line back to said person which isn’t always easy to do in a way that would be accepted by most legal systems.

Anyway, I hope this helps, but let’s open it up to the readers. Does anyone else in the WordPress community have experiences with creating a character from a historical person? Feel free to share your experiences and the steps you took in creating said character in the comments.

Thanks, Jim

  Readers,

Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.

jimthewritingwizard@gmail.com

I’ll use those comments to select my next blog post.

I have been writing for several years, have 4 published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.

Please note, I only do one of these a day and will do my best to respond to everyone, but it may take some time.

Also, feel free to check out my works of Fantasy and Historical Fiction, Available on Amazon and where ever books are sold. See the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/James-Harrington/e/B00P7FBXTU

Note: If you have read my books, PLEASE log into Amazon and post a review. I really love to hear everyone’s thoughts and constructive criticisms. Reviews help get my book attention and word of mouth is everything in this business!

Thanks friends!

Catch you on the flip side!

-Jim

The Hurdles of Creating Characters from People of History Hi Jim, I read a few of your other pieces about character creation and was hoping you could expand more upon how you create a character based on a historical person.

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Hi Jim,

  I read a few of your other pieces about character creation and was hoping you could expand more upon how you create a character based on a historical person. I’m trying to do something similar right now, and am really having a hard time. You said that you wanted the character to be as close to the historical person as humanly possible, so I just wanted to know how you accomplished that.

Thanks, Danny

Danny,

I don’t know how much more I can say on the subject without retracing what I’ve already said, but I’ll do my best. In my writings, I’ve incorporated a few historical people as main characters… Let’s take a look at them.

From left to right, Federico II Gonzaga, Pope Leo X, and Mary Jane Kelly.

Each of these characters presented their own problems in character creation and each had different levels of detail.

Federico and Pope Leo X were both portrayed in Divinity, and for those who have read it, Divinity is basically a story criticizing the church of that time, and by default, institutional religion in general.

Basically, I wanted to show the problems with blind adherence to strict interpretations of doctrine that was, in my opinion anyway, used way outside of its purpose. To do this, I posed the question; What would happen if an angel appeared in 16th Century Europe? What would happen if she were wounded and in need of help? How would people react to what she had to say or how she behaved? Would they take her in and help her, or would they fall back on what they’d been taught, not considering that those teachings might be wrong, and thus assume that she was actually a demonic presence?

To frame the story, I needed to choose the right time period and the right church leader. Yes, the Pope was a villain in the book. I wanted to be careful as I didn’t want to portray someone in a negative light who didn’t deserve it. There were plenty of Popes from the time period I had in mind that did their jobs and were, on a scale, considered benevolent.

Pope Leo X shows up on many of the ‘Worst Popes’ lists out there. He’s was extremely indulgent, driving the church deeply into debt, and then prayed on the ignorance of the faithful in order to sell indulgences to pay down that debt. He was not a priest and he’d had his hands very deep in the pockets of politics of the time.

My portrayal of him is based on that. I presented Leo X as a man who would view an angel potentially going around countering the teachings of the church as dangerous. Especially given that this was a time when the Protestant Reformation was really taking off. Other than his dealings with the church and some backstory of growing up as a member of the Medici family, there isn’t much on his personality traits. So basically, I had to envision what someone would be like who made the decisions he did. What I came up with was an intelligent, well-spoken individual, who was, unfortunately, too easily seduced by power and luxury. He lived by the silver spoon and would go to great lengths to preserve his way of life.

Federico II Gonzaga is a lot more complicated. Aside from allowing the armies of the Holy Roman Empire to pass through his land unmolested, and sack Rome, there really isn’t much on him. I had to dig a little deeper to find more info on him. He was somewhat subversive and underhanded at times, and he had very poor military experience. He essentially was a young man who was thrown into a role he was not equipped to handle. He was deep in the politics of the church, however, given a more passive nature and his manipulation of the system, I was able to portray him a little bit more as a skeptic of what was going on around him.

The lack of information on the personalities of people from several hundred years ago is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, with limited information, you have a lot more freedom. However, if you value history the way I do, you have a responsibility to dig as deep as you can and uncover every scrap of information you can find to make sure you get the character right… and even then you’re more than likely way off.

So let’s take a look at Mary Jane Kelly. (Spoiler Alerts for Soul Siphon. If you don’t want to know about Mary Jane’s character yet, skip ahead.)

Now… obviously I took a LOT of dramatic licenses here… If you don’t believe me… these three pictures portray the same person:

Mary Kelly was a little easier to deal with for a few reasons;

Outside of her death, she was a relatively insignificant person on the stage of history and it’s likely that her name wouldn’t show up in any historical texts otherwise.

We do have historical accounts of her personality. However, those accounts are based on hearsay and the testimony of a few people who knew her. A lot of it was based on conflicting stories that she herself had told. So there you can pick and choose which ones sound feasible and which ones do not. Example: According to her, she had a brother in the military. This is likely. A lot of people served back then. On the other side, she also has a number of brothers… I think the number was 7. Arguably less likely, especially from the same mother. Not helping matters was that sometimes it was 7, sometimes it was 2 or 3, or sometimes just one and a sister. Needless to say, I kind of dismissed that.

I wasn’t going to portray her as she was back then. My character was the historical person, still alive in the 21st Century. In other words, she’d have 150 years of new experiences and development.

So here’s essentially what I did with her. From what historical accounts we can find on her, she was an Irish-born brothel worker with a sharp tongue. She was known for being quarrelsome and had earned the title of ‘Black Mary’,  which suggests that she knew how to handle herself in a dangerous neighborhood. She was also known for getting drunk and singing Irish folk and patriotic songs… so perhaps I could add some of the cultural characterizations and stereotypes to her behavior. I also based some of her personality on my own experiences with Irish culture, people I’ve encountered, and friends I have from the homeland itself.

So with that information, I was able to build the character personality around those traits and behaviors. However, that original build would have been appropriate for portraying Mary Kelly as she was during the late 1800s. I had an additional hurdle to overcome with her in that she was going to have an additional 150 years of development.

So what would a character like that be like? Well contending with immortality, having to watch friends die, as well as having full memory of her murder, I tried to create a character who voluntarily isolated herself from the rest of the team and shies away from forming bonds out of a fear of loss or abandonment. I then created a backstory where she spent years protecting other prostitutes and brothel workers. When she finally located Jack the Ripper himself, she set out to kill him, only to lose her chance when he attempted to escape to American and drown when his ship wrecked. She later discovered that her failure to catch him sooner resulted in more deaths at his hands.

I used that backstory, coupled with the harsh life she lived, to create a bitter character who was justifiably mad at the world. So when our hero meets Mary, she’s harsh, rude, and extremely condescending. She continuously objects to the main character joining the team and gives him a wide berth. I’ve gotten emails from people who read her character and ask why she’s so mean… and I always smile because I can usually tell where they are in the story.

Truthfully, readers aren’t meant to like Mary at first. I’d actually understand if they didn’t like Mary at all. However, I did want people to understand her. I wanted to make a character that wouldn’t necessarily change, but people would at least grow to understand and even empathize with. You may not like her abrasive personality or attitude, but at least you’d develop an understanding of how she got that way in the first place.

So in the end, the major hurdle is whether or not these people would actually be like the characters I created. Honestly, I have no idea. I used their historical profiles and what personality traits I could find to build a character that is as close as anyone could reasonably get without actually knowing the person. That being said, I fully recognize that I could be completely off. One, because as I said, I never met these people. Two, because I’m exposing them to fictional situations. Given that, it would be impossible to predict how they would react, even from someone who knew them personally.

So I guess in the end, my advice is simply to be careful. Do your due diligence and… I’d personally avoid anyone living or recently deceased. It’s true that you can’t slander the dead, but you’d be surprised at the legal loopholing a famous person’s family can do if desired. If that’s what you want to do though, I’d contact a lawyer first to see what your options are and what you should or should not consider saying about said person.

If they’re from an ancient time period, any surviving family members would have a much harder time making a case against you, and many would first have to be able to trace their line back to said person which isn’t always easy to do in a way that would be accepted by most legal systems.

Anyway, I hope this helps, but let’s open it up to the readers. Does anyone else in the WordPress community have experiences with creating a character from a historical person? Feel free to share your experiences and the steps you took in creating said character in the comments.

Thanks, Jim

  Readers,

Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.

jimthewritingwizard@gmail.com

I’ll use those comments to select my next blog post.

I have been writing for several years, have 4 published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.

Please note, I only do one of these a day and will do my best to respond to everyone, but it may take some time.

Also, feel free to check out my works of Fantasy and Historical Fiction, Available on Amazon and where ever books are sold. See the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/James-Harrington/e/B00P7FBXTU

Note: If you have read my books, PLEASE log into Amazon and post a review. I really love to hear everyone’s thoughts and constructive criticisms. Reviews help get my book attention and word of mouth is everything in this business!

Thanks friends!

Catch you on the flip side!

-Jim

Hi Jim, I read a few of your other pieces about character creation and was hoping you could expand more upon how you create a character based on a historical person.