#Lost Utopia Films

[geminiagentgreen]

If you love Godzilla, giant monsters, horror, found footage, and got 20 minutes to spare, PLEASE look at this!

[charlie-grusin]

Project Monster ("The Gryphon", "Living with Monsters" and "Shelter 54") : Movietalk # 07

What follows is a post originally published on Letterboxd as a "review" for The Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim. It has been slightly edited to read as a standalone.

I believe there is inherent magic in the holidays the same way Werner Herzog believes in the inherent exotic beauty of nature. Before me now the sky is a gray blanket with no tear or end, and though these trees have not faced a wildfire in these parts they nonetheless look dead to the world – even after a sudden months’ worth of rains after an equally punishing drought cycle a lot of them still have that ashen-white smother to them. We have had days of fog (the kind multi-appendaged leviathans could migrate through undetected by the naked eye) but the snow hasn’t caught up to us – year after year it seems to arrive later when you least expect it – yet I also doubt when it does it’s going to look pleasant enough over a mug of Folgers. It always comes close to a wasteland out there, everything so blaring white it hurts to even look, yet all the same I hope it stays and goes on time. I hope we still remember this burning planet by the seasons.

But do not take me as that kind of antidepressant, for I too know my limits. Whenever I stand in that winter wonderland when it comes (if it comes), I can always hear some part of the mechanized world driving down the highway not too far from here (this, of course, could merely be false echoes carried by the winds – an imitative ambiance of the bitter cold – yet I choose to believe in the former). To be more precise I instead believe that the magic which exists this time of the year is only a result of our own creative endeavors – we summon the spirits. You know “Little Saint Nick” by the Beach Boys? That’s a pretty good song, those guys could never let you down, but you also know Johnny Mathis’s “We Need A Little Christmas”? (probably – you may’ve heard it blasting out the speakers as many times as Andy Williams and Mariah Carey this cycle but that’s beside the point.) That’s a jingle I can get behind. Why? Because unlike the many other Christmas tunes out there that seem to imply the Most Wonderful Time of the Year appears as naturally as a growth of poppy fields, this one affirms to us that Yes there is indeed some magic, but we must first nurture it from within ourselves – we must haul out the hollies and slice up the fruit cake before we can ever take the sweets of laughter. Even though it is first and foremost a Christmas Song, it’s perhaps the one I’ve come across that, after chewing on it for a loop or two, might not only be timeless but universal: if we can not find joy in the joys offered to us then it is imperative we make our own. All those who disagree, all others pay cash.

So naturally (and especially the case this year) I seek my own through giant monsters and nuclear annihilation. I may not be a perfect blue downer but I sure drive fucking nuts – ever tried reading Off Season on Thanksgiving and/or Christmas? Try reading Paul Ham’s Hiroshima Nagasaki.

The last time we were on the subject of Godzilla fan projects we talked about TAIYAKI’s “Gojira ゴジラ - blender animation”, a masterwork which still stands as such a high standard in the current fandom scene (if no one has yet to transfer it to tapes by now they really oughta should- like, now), and as part of that discussion I mentioned along with how the short replicated many elements from that budding era of tokusatsu infancy down to a T that it also successfully infused it with a healthy pinch of the analog horror genre, notably because I’d felt compared to the numerous other projects (original or otherwise) which have enveloped themselves from the analog cloth that “Gojira ゴジラ” was one of the few rare instances where its inclusion not only worked but made sense (the splice-n-tightening together of chronological events, the props of machinery making up for the near-absence of life... all things prevalent in Godzilla (1954) to begin with). To me a lot of analog horror in general doesn’t really cut it, and there is often the occasion where I find myself thinking how I missed when this shit used to be called “ARGs” or “online web horror series”. I guess they still are, in a way, but the connotations that ought to be abundant in something as seemingly potent (and popular) as the very name “analog horror” suggests are as spread and laid thin as anyone believing “liminal” and “eldritch” are still usable adjectives of praise. Some of it’s in the execution, some of it’s in what they’re even executing, but while it is still in ways a vibrant, youthful field it is also one which garners more than many mixed results... the kind that more often than not are blasted to unbelievably astronomical popularity in the Netosphere thanks to the likes of reaction-streaming and “analytical” FULLY EXPLAINED channels (the former unequivocally being one of the most despicable, repugnant species thriving in the rancid entertainment bubble and a bane of our existence undeserving the heat-death we need a little snappy happy ever after). But that is also not to say the genre is entirely a lost cause – like pretty much any other field of art which might seem at odds with our tastes, it is merely a case of seeking out the diamonds in the rough. And there are diamonds, my friends: Piggy Soda’s Dog Nightmares is top notch horror that brilliantly plucks at the nerves of the heartfelt all the while striking the same nodes of primal tension I haven’t truly felt since Marble Hornets, and UrbanSPOOK’s The Painter is a masterpiece of aggression which has successfully traced (and pushed) the very boundaries of horror that have once been laid in full through the cinematic lineages of Roger Watkins, Tobe Hooper, Fred Vogel and the rest of that extreme variety. We just gotta spot it... mine it... sieve it from the rocks and the crud and hold it out for all to see.

Like the creepypasta and ARGs before it, there has been a rise of a sub-sector in the analog horror field which has made for a fascinating crossover of online realms and mediums; once when it seemed that something like the nearly four-hour Seal of Nehahra or Altered Vistas’ adaptation of the TV Century 21 Daleks comic strips would only come and go like comets, now it seems that more creators (some of them younger, many of them wielding tools more accessible than ever before) are taking the reins to make their fervent mash-ups come true and set them out in due random course to wherever the internet and their corresponding fandoms shall take them. How many franchises have been played with in this new liberating free-for-all is not exactly certain (or rather I haven’t been keeping track at all, I’ll admit) but as I’m starting to understand it is becoming an increasingly intriguing one. Thus far there have been a plethora of Five Nights at Freddy’s analog horror series independently produced – this may not surprise you as much as there is an equal if not greater amount of its weight in pseudo-Backrooms ecto-matter clogging up the pipes – yet there has also become a growing number of analog series and/or found footage shorts based on the Jurassic Park and (you guess it) Godzilla series. It’s quite a ways from the likes of the NES Godzilla Creepypasta blog, yet at the same time not a surprising one: both franchises are strictly based in the science fiction genre and (in the case of Godzilla)have many fantastical elements often leaning towards pure fantasy, both hold strains of the horror genre reaching as far back as their original manifestations and (if this be too sacrilegious to admit) both of them also share a similar trait as part of their mass appeal as FNAF’s: they consist of vast rosters of strange beastly creatures possessing their own unique and oftimes colorful characteristics and traits. It’s possible the genre may see the same amount of intellectual parodies as its preceding modes of online horror have touched upon before (I write this in blind ignorance of the seemingly inevitable My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic analog horror series which surely must be out there), but since many of these aspiring projects have ventured into genres that have been heavily practiced in the visual and the mainstream (the kaiju/giant monster flick, in this case) one can but wonder where we may go from here. Perhaps analog horror can grow to become godfather to an open array of analog genres, each as pronounced as the next…

It is not a swift possibility, but after watching the shorts that compose Tarrell Christie’s Project Monster series thus far, I cannot believe in any further suggestion that denotes this as an impossibility (if we’re lucky it just might become inevitable). It would be easy to label it as another analog horror series but if the parenthesized subtitle (Found Footage) means anything, it’s that the exact genre limitations which Tarrell Christie plays with thus far are potentially near-fluid (though this could also imply directly to the kaiju genre as a whole, which encompasses everything from science fiction to fantasy and all in-between). “Shelter 54”, the most recent of the lot, can definitely fall under analog horror and further into all of horror’s many subgenres, but when we look back to “Living with Monsters” and “The Gryphon” we realize it is only a sewed-in patch of a larger and ever-growing canvas consisting of shades and flavors that have been dreamt of by many a vivid giant monster fan but which had yet been this thoroughly materialized. If you’re familiar with Matt Frank’s collection of synthesized Toho redesigns then you’d already get a gist of where Project Monster’s going with this: it is a combination tribute, a hybrid remix of not just the entire Godzilla oeuvre but of all the monsters (all of em!) all in one big colossal clash of alternate and meta-history the likes of which even God has never seen.

Ever since Godzilla was called from the ice bucket to settle a score with that other king of the monsters, his journey since has been of many detours and little exits – he’s held beef with relatives, made a few enemies, adopted a kid to call his own and has made some sort of inner peace with being part-time humanitarian and all-around bastard terror – his every flux on film dictated in tune to the times more than anything resembling a chronology or (god forbid) a cinematic universe.* This hasn’t stopped anyone from attempting a plea towards an overall narrative cohesion, however: the Millennium series is amusing to examine on its own based on how nearly every installment was made as a direct sequel to the original, but before this was the Heisei series, which managed to draw an escalating chronicle of “VS films” from the once-seemingly conclusive end of Return of Godzilla, and more recently there was Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, Legendary-Toho’s televised method of crafting a throughline between the scattershot tones and ideas of the Monsterverse. These latter two have been the closest the series has ever flirted with the idea of upholding a material timeline, much of it opting instead to adhere to Godzilla’s past encounters from the Showa era as a kind of spiritual myth – if there is undeniable proof Godzilla exists, then that in turn proves a Mothra and/or King Ghidorah must also exist – and although Monarch has thus far shown the makings of a defined Godzilla mythosby weaving much of its drama from a post-WWII atomic-age world to the echoing ramifications of the present day, it still stands to see whether it will truly blast the Monsterverse’s stratospheres towards something wild and extraordinary beyond its growing interconnectivity to the films. Even if its future seasons should never go far it will not be a total lose – for one, it may still stand as a solid work of SF television as long as it manages to keep its own footing, and as long as blazed and daring minds such as Tarrell Christie’s dare to make the impossible, we won’t need to worry. We summon the spirits, after all.

* And this is one of the major reasons why Godzilla has stood as a One and True successful franchise for seventy years, really – the character is simple, flexible, malleable and all around invincible.

It all starts as simple enough as the conceit of “The Gryphon”: what if the two American live-action Godzillas (the Emmerich and the Edwards, the lizard and the elephant) teamed up to fight that unfought enemy from Jan De Bont’s earlier fell-through attempt at an All-American Goji? It’s not as far off a concept as, say, Vrahno’s “Zilla vs. Gorosaurus” which posits how two of the most saurian-looking kaijus on the planet may square off in a brawl (spoilers: in the gnarly Vrahno tradition), yet what wraps this short off in the nicest, most efficient of bows is quite literally in the delivery. Though it stands first and foremost as a respectful tribute to Godzilla’s American incarnations (instead of introducing G’98 early into the fight so he can be immediately dispensed with by the 2014 Goji for some overused joke/easing of the typical fan-hatred salivations the film opts to treat them as agreeable cousins open to go tag team on this Gryphon fucker), the added angle of the battle being documented through a variety of on-ground and in-the-sky video sources (some meeting unfortunate ends due to the collateral carnage) elevates it a notch higher as a tribute to the modern day American kaiju by using Cloverfield’s own found footage approach as its narrative frame, using every camera’s panicked operator to capture every turn of this Big Apple tide. True that this probably would’ve been a more complete tribute had it included the Jaegers from Pacific Rim or even the Cloverfield monster on top of everything else, but not only does their absence here not deter from the short’s overall effective charm, it is also an admittedly thankful thing they were (it doesn’t take much to reach an overabundance, especially when it comes to fan projects). No, all you really need is pure human panic and death while Godzilla, Godzilla and the Gryphon duke it out in New York by slamming, tackling, and tearing each other all the way up the Empire State to Mount Kilimanjaro in a quick-n-easy four minutes; the world comes later.

And come it does: if there is a star favorite among the current three it would certainly go to “Living with Monsters”, a seventeen-minute crash-course grind-fest through early modern monster history that not only unfurls more of the world of “The Gryphon” on that greater canvas but also indeed blows that stratosphere up to high heaven with what its world entails for any and every giddy and unsuspecting giant monster fan alive (if you were really concerned why there were Godzilla-like creatures existing on the same plane of existence in the first place don’t worry – now there’s freakin’ Gorgo). Whereas “The Gryphon” presented its found footage as matter-of-fact visual documentation brought to you by the series’ rendition of the Heisei films’ U.N.G.C.C. (United Nations Godzilla Countermeasures Center), we now have another piece in the presentation mix, a frame within a frame – subjectivity, a point of reference, an interpretive state of mind – for what we get here is an archived glimpse (the good old sequence meshing of monsters roaming across stock wartime-disaster footage) of an alternate ‘50s being besieged by giant monsters by way of a newsreel borderlining on the exploitative brought to you by- what’s this... Denham Pictures!? Indeed as the in-world copyrighted title card and historical key points make it clear right away, we are being granted all this through the veils of one Carl Denham – yes, that Carl Denham (a Denham who just so happened to find immeasurable success releasing a Raw, Uncut, Not One Scene Omitted jungle picture starring that most unusual eight wonder) – granting us an alternate history where all of cinema’s greatest monsters have appeared in this world (in a very meta twist of fate) through the very tidings which has inspired their mythical upbringings onto ours (as Kong was found by way of forced inhabitation and Ingagi, so too was Godzilla awakened through the testing of hydrogen bombs), a history in ways more in tune to our own than the likes of the one seemingly lips-sealed for the longest time by the Monsterverse’s own highly-secretive Monarch org: it is a cruel and sudden and most violent of existences to ever dare uphold any semblance of normalcy from which only a few may profit and of which many shall suffer (one moment you’re having a time of your life at a live dinosaur exhibit, the next being swept and torn in the debris of a tidal-wave as behemoths churn themselves away to crab-meat). And what a better way to illustrate this bitter truth than to have a few Max Steiner-types mickey mouse every moment of the action, the perfect cherry on the mondo top along with those lingering shots of the dead and dying left after a monster brawl’s wake! It’s shocking, revealing, befitting to the sensitivities of the era from which it sources its black-and-white griminess, and it is also one of the two greatest examples of that yet-to-be-discovered subgenre of analog alternate history alongside Alex Casanas (M4NTICOR3)’s “DEANDEMOCRACY”.

Yet this is not all to say that Christie’s latest, “Shelter 54”, is found lacking.** Rather it’s quite an advancement from the previous shorts, using the exact frame-within-frame as “Living with Monsters” with the simple premising of “The Gryphon” to finally bring us at last to some damn good analog kaiju horror. There’s definitely a whiff of Gemini Home Entertainment’s “MONTHLY PROGRESS REPORT” if you really lean in there, but do not let it be mistaken that on top of being a slight opportunity for the short to suddenly pull some deep cuts out of Godzilla: The Series (Skeetera? El Gusano Gigante?? apologies for my lack of knowledge I only have the Monster Wars DVD) that this is also a retelling of the doomed plant-human-hybrid Biollante myth which manages to tie along references to Hedorah the Smog Monster and (perhaps crazily, insanely enough) the Godzilla from Shin Godzilla (who appropriately shares much of the same attributes as Hedorah’s to begin with) to reel itself back on one of the most major underlying themes of the Godzilla franchise (something which compared to more familiar fan works of the fandom is an absolute rarity, an unsurprising few too far); much like how “Living with Monsters” was basically Mondo Kaiju, “Shelter 54” is told through the lens of what appears to be a U.N.G.C.C.-certified public safety film (one seemingly close to that icky true crime tone as that one major classic of the genre, “Will You Be Here Tomorrow?”) that, though showing all the major circumstances leading up to the creation of this universe’s Biollante and her tragic prolonging existence, ultimately wraps itself up with something as seemingly tidy as a public relations band-aid: we fixed up the shelters and passed a few regulations but we have yet to figure that as bad as it is to assault Mother Nature with our weapons and waste it is perhaps no different or even worse of an offense to take advantage of her with the intention of culling her to our very whims. We after all are an imperfect species – if the best of our highest minds can only lead to senselessness, then what says the world when they really try to save it? It’s a quieter, much somber short, and that’s because it had to be: it could’ve easily crept on you just to rattle you by the shoulders with some loud all-out assault, but this time it chose best to leave you hanging by the threads of unease, letting those spirits linger long towards the sunset and into the night.

** Though I can’t help but find it somewhat pale though this could be strictly preferential – I mean come on, analog alternate history’s right there!

[majingojira]

For now at least we have this:

(this is the third film in a series. All are pretty darn good)

i think if they're Gonna keep making Godzilla movies I would very very much like them to do a modern take on my favourite Kaiju, Biollante.

She is the result of a mad scientist, lost in grief, splicing his beloved daughter with a rose and then Godzilla's cells.

Her character was made during the end of the cold war (where fears of nuclear weapons that Godzilla was definitely a metaphor for was waning) and she was very much embodying more contemporary fears about genetic engineering.

I think she's haunting, her story is tragic- and I feel like they've been struggling to marry their human stories with their Big Monster fights in their movies and weave the two together, and Biollante does that perfectly.

Like that's a man's child, that's a little girl- this is a Frankenstein tale. It's gothic, it's horror yet it's still science fiction depicting (I think) very relevant debates about genetics, eugenics, war (she was killed by an American bomb while in the middle east where her dad was doing experiments).

Also look at this concept art:

[call-me-schmidt]

This goes so hard. Like, kaiju stuff seen from the ground level is a thing I find really cool and I like the way this one has all the different perspectives being shown through multiple different cameras.

Love that '98 Zilla is there, too.

[rivetgoth]

The fact that I’ve seen a few people try to analyze I Saw the TV Glow through a lens of it being about like, fandom and obsession with media and nostalgia being bad ?? is genuinely blowing my mind. Obviously there’s the fact that this movie is as unambiguously about being trans as it can possibly be without just saying outright “this is a movie about being trans” but I also think this is crazy because I would say it actually has one of the most unambiguously positive relationships with concepts like “media consumption” and “nostalgia” that I’ve seen in a movie.

Like, to say it’s a shallow interpretation of the film to call it “about media/fandom” (and especially a negative depiction of such things!) is putting it quite kindly because I kind of feel that anyone who utters such sentiments didn’t actually understand the core element of the entire movie: “The Pink Opaque” is not a show. Commentary the film makes about watching “The Pink Opaque” cannot translate to commentary on watching shows broadly because the movie spends half its runtime making it explicitly clear that “The Pink Opaque” may be a show that exists in a literal sense but is not one in a figurative sense. “The Pink Opaque” represents the possibilities of childhood and innocence. Innocence that still is not free from judgment—Owen gets told the show is for girls, Maddy’s friend accuses her of sexual harassment on account of her sexuality while they were watching it together—but it’s the moment in your youth (or any time! it doesn’t have to go away!) when the possibility of queerness and more explicitly queer utopia feels real to you. The external pressures to conform are still there but you can tune them out if just for a moment to envision a future and a life for yourself free of it and living authentically. I think this is an experience all LGBT people can relate to, but in the case of ISTTVG it’s very explicitly primarily focusing on queer femininity, predominantly transfemininity, but in Maddy’s case as well she is a queer woman (I’ve seen some interpretations of her as transmasculine but I disagree personally). Hence the on-the-nose nature of it being PINK.

What feels very genius about Schoenbrun making it about a show though is that it’s so generational, right? For all of us LGBT people who grew up in the age of screens that WAS where a lot of that early imagination going wild resided. The first time you explore a new name is on anonymous forums. The first time you explore your masculinity or femininity is with which character you relate to in a show, or which gender you select in Pokémon. Movies and shows with “queer subtext” or even without give young LGBT people the chance to envision relationships and futures for themselves, what many grow up and call “shipping.” You have your first gay crush while watching your favorite movies. You envy those of your true gender while watching your favorite movies. Amongst many other things when Maddy watches “The Pink Opaque” she’s given access to a world where two women share this intimate connection and overcome obstacles together. When Owen watches “The Pink Opaque” they’re given access to a world where femininity is a real option for their future.

The relationship these characters have to “The Pink Opaque” is a net positive and the movie makes that so incredibly obvious when Owen goes back to rewatch it later and finds that it’s nothing like how they remembered, it feels childish and immature and dumb. That is a bad thing. This is a bad thing. The movie wants you to see this as a bad thing. This is the result of repression, of conversion therapy, of violent coercion into normative lifestyle—That sense of limitless possibility is destroyed and the idea of accessing one’s transness, of imagining this utopia where you CAN be yourself and live as a woman, strong and beautiful on the other side of the screen as said in the film, is lost. Now you tell yourself it feels silly, it feels childish to imagine such things, it’s not nearly as deep and meaningful as you believed it was when you were younger and less inhibited, or it’s at the very least easier to tell yourself that. Owen’s feeling embarrassed is of note here. If it weren’t for these external pressures that have been internalized they very well may have been able to still enjoy the show, even as they’ve aged and grown and matured, even if their perspective has changed a little. But they can’t. Not yet, at least.

I feel kind of out of my mind seeing people try to approach it through a lens of commentating on media consumption because it’s so deeply missing the layers of what’s actually being said… and not even in a wildly obfuscated way. The movie is ABOUT the relationship these characters have to “The Pink Opaque” and how the loss of that is a bad thing. How you can possibly watch it and see it being about some kind of growth from obsessive media consumption is mind boggling to me. Seeing multiple reviews and posts in tags about it is crazy. One thing I really like about this movie is that it so confidently argues for a more positive interpretation of being obsessed with “fantasy” and the childlike wonder of the limitless possibilities of fiction. I think that’s a very very trans narrative, as I mentioned it feels tied deeply into Queer Utopia, and I find it much more bold of a stance to take. In a world where people tell trans individuals (and especially trans women) that their identities are works of fiction or products of the imagination or even caused by excessive media consumption, to embrace these things and turn them over and use them as a symbol of the whimsy and innocence and excitement that first ignites that spark as a positive, thrilling, beautiful thing is very cool.

[stebbinsgreyhoundfursuit]

⚠️‼️ARCANE ACT SPOILERS⚠️‼️

i just finished act 2 & while yes I'm sobbing I KNOW OUR FIRST REACTION WILL BE TO COME FOR JAYCE BUT LET'S PUT ON OUR THINKING CAPS THIS WAS ALL AN act OF PURE MERCY ,JAYCE IS COMPLETING VICTORS FINAL WISHES FROM SEASON 1, AND EMBRACING THE ONE THING THAT TIES ALL OF HUMANITY TOGETHER DEATH

BECAUSE FRIENDLY REMINDER THIS SEASON STARTS WITH JAYCE GOING AGAINST VICTORS WISHES & RESURRECTING HIM WITH THE HEXTEC HE PROMISED VICTOR HE WOULD DESTROY & CAIT GOING AGAINST HER MOTHERS WISHES & USING HER TECHNOLOGY TO TAKE AWAY THE AIR OF ZAUN AFTER HER DEATH .

HELL EVEN SEASON 1 WAS VICTOR & JAYCE GOING AGAINST NATURE TO DENY VICTOR'S DEATH REMEMBER HOW HORRIFIED HEMINDINGER WAS . IN THIS SEASON THE CHEMIST DUDES WHOLE THING IS TRYING TOO FIND GLORIOUS EVOLUTION SO THE GIRL DOESN'T DIE & the same thing as last season WITH THE CREATURE HIM & VICTOR WERE KEEPING ALIVE EVEN IF IT WAS SUFFERING BECAUSE “THE SPECIMEN MUST SURVIVE” DO YOU REMBER HOW HORRIFIED VICTOR WAS OF THAT SHELL OF CREATURE

THATS VICTOR & ALL OF HIS FOLLOWERS . HE IS THAT SPECIMEN !THAT SHELL THAT MUST SURVIVE FOR THE BETTER OF HUMANITY! DO YOU NOT SEE HOW TERRIBLE THAT IS(for victor) !

JUST LOOK AT ALL THE HARM NOT ACCEPTING DEATH THEREFORE NOT ACCEPTING OUR HUMANITY DOES ,BECAUSE THE CHEMIST WON'T LET THE GIRL DIE , VANDER IS NOT ALOUD TO DIE & MUST SUFFER IN THE SHELL OF A BEAST THAT IS NO LONGER HUMAN & THE GIRL IS VEGGITABLE , CAITS MOM DIES & SINCE SHE CANT LET GO OF AVENGING HER MOMS DEATH THE PEOPLE OF ZAUN SUFFER, AMBESSA & MELS CONSCIOUS WON'T LET HER BROTHER DIE

SO LITERALLY EVREYONE SUFFERS & SKY DIES BECAUSE VICTOR WOULDN'T ACCEPT HIS OWN DEATH . VICTOR HAS BECOME A SHELL ! JUST A VESSEL FOR HEXTEC . HES " NOT COLD" HES LOST WHAT MAKES HIM HUMAN ! JAYCE ASKED SALO IF WAS IN THERE(ALSO ASKING IF VICTOR WAS IN THERE) THEN IMMEDIATELY OFFED HIM OUT OF MERCY CAUSE SALO WASN'T IN THERE

HE HAD LOST ALL HIS PERSONHOOD , A WHITE POLISHED SLATE OBVI THATS BAD ! ALL THAT MADE HIM !HIM! OF HIS PAST! OF HIS HUMANITY!JUST LIKE VICTOR AND EVERYONE IN THE CULT LIKE ITS FILM 1.0.1 THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS PURELY GOOD SOCIETY ESPECIALLY IN ARCANE THAT TELLS US TO EMBRACE THE BEAUTIFUL CHAOS OF HUMANITY ! LIKE ZAUNS ,AND VICTORS DEATHS SPEECH WHOLE THING !

THERE IS NO GLORIOUS EVOLUTION ! VIKTOR ISN'T A GOD !VICTOR ISN'T JESUS !HE'S HUMAN ! AND HUMANS DIE! JAYCE WHO LOVED VICTOR AND WANTED NOTHING MORE THAN THAN TO SAVE HIM HAD TO LET GO OF HIS OWN DESIRES & LOVE HE HAD TO SET BOTH HIM & VICTOR FREE .TO TRULY SAVE VICTOR AND THE WORLD CAUSE LETS BE HONEST HEXTECH & HIS "UTOPIA" ARE SO SKETCHY . HE HAD TO EMBRACE THEIR HUMANITY THAT INCLUDES DEATH . AND OF COURSE HIS THICKHEAD WOULD FINALLY UNDERSTAND THAT AFTER BEING STUCK WITH HEMENDINGER WHO KNOWS THE PAIN OF NEVER DYING & EKKO THE TIME MANIPULATOR LIKE I GUARANTEE YOU ALL OF THEM WERE IN ON THIS PLAN THIS WAS A RANT BUT PLEEEEASE JUST WAIT TILL NEXT WEEK BEFORE YOU JUMP TO CONCLUSIONS

OK BYEEEEEEEE

[jotadoul]

rubbing my forehead to cope with reading an article where the author claims Zaibach is like the USSR. unnngggghhhhhh only if the USSR resembled ridley scott's 1984 apple ad, lol.

well, aside from the deutschy name and being inspired by industrial revolution era england— a colonial power— headed by a protestant english symbol of western thought creating the world as he wants/understands it straight from the 1700s to 1996, i see the show as using his belief that god must necessarily have a hand in driving the natural world (Newton insisted that divine intervention would eventually be required to reform the [planetary] system, due to the slow growth of instabilities) extrapolated to him eventually viewing himself as such a god. but forgetting all of that,

Zaibach

i think the name is mostly nonsense, but fwiw the hebrew verb "zabach" primarily means to sacrifice or to slaughter, particularly in the context of offering an animal to God as an act of worship.

Metropolis (1927) concept art by erich kettelhut

Zaibach

Metropolis was made during the era of the weimar republic (the german reich.) things were really shit because of WWI, then oh! prosperity! while the resentment and hatred from the right boiled, then the great depression ended that prosperity, then the nazis came into official power. Metropolis is known for having been greatly edited (endlessly recut and with versions lost) such attempts in part were to remove the communist-sympathising subtext in a film about a false and fairly explicitly german utopia— inspired too by the tower of babel and 1920s new york skyline— for the wealthy elite... wherein those same elite plot and scheme to construct clever events to keep themselves in power and remove the need for workers at all by destroying them and relying instead on machines (see: the great worker riot of 2026.) don't get me wrong though— there's plenty to criticise about Metropolis, much of it coming from Lang himself.

there are 3 major, interconnected machines which run the city. this one is called The Heart Machine.

the "Heart Machine", which is the central dynamo that generates most of the power to the entire city. Every day it produces an average of 1000 megawatts of power that is transferred through various power nodes throughout the machine room complex. The machine has run non-stop for 25 years with the exception of pausing for preventive maintenance. Unlike most equipment build in the late 1900s to the 2020s, these machines were built not to be replaced. The heart of the city system was built by Fellar, Inc. and came with a price tag of 78.7 million M.

The Heart Machine is under the charge of one man, Grot, a worker who has maneuvered his way up through the ranks by "helping" uncover covert information about the workers. 

(from here)

Metropolis, osamu tezuka

also, if you're interested in the approach to design—

The film's use of art deco architecture was highly influential, and has been reported to have contributed to the style's subsequent popularity in Europe and America.

art deco had no goal or philosophy of restructuring society/lifestyle. it glamourised the industrial revolution, moreover the opulence that everyone but the workers enjoyed, seeking to symbolise wealth and sophistication and rejection of tradition. Art Deco design exemplified opulent consumption, crass commercialism, and the acceleration of contemporary life summed up in the Futurist credo "Speed is beauty." (here. also would like to add that most? all? in the futurist movement were italian fascists who went and died in the war, effectively killing the futurist movement too.) however, in america, whose infrastructure was impacted far less by the war than europe, the style continued almost seamlessly into the new international movement— such is the case with any decade and its trappings; there's no actual definitive beginning or end to an era, especially for poorer people (whose customs and ideas are upcycled by the wealthy.) all of this art was continued or discontinued more randomly than that. ftr though i'm using generalities as opposed to finer details here only for the purpose of discussing what/how things appear in Escaflowne.

the exterior of Zaibach is more art deco while the interior, as well as that of Escaflowne itself, are from the movement of the pre-WWI art nouveau— since they're both related to Atlantis/draconians, who within the series have the strongest association with art nouveau as if a symbol of their elegant idealism, that makes sense. art nouveau sought to establish a "synthesis of the arts" (Gesamtkunstwerk) breaking down the previously firm distinction between fine art and applied art— incorporating the lushness and assymetry of nature into architecture, stained glass, metalwork, etc. etc., allowing rooms and practical/functional objects to "become" art as well, with the same approach as illustrations. it also should be said that art nouveau pulled heavily from japanese prints, as seen previously in the orientalist """japonisme.'"""

hôtel tassel, the peacock room, myst III exile

Decorative artists experienced a rise in status following the turn of the century; similarly, a rise in wealth and social as well as technological progress gave birth to the widespread luxury industry. This golden combination solidified the Art Deco movement.

William Morris, the founder of the art nouveau arts & crafts movement in england, was a staunch revolutionary socialist/anti-imperialist. he believed one should "have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful." according to him, the main goals of the movement were "to give people pleasure in the things they must perforce use, that is one great office of decoration; to give people pleasure in the things they must perforce make, that is the other use of it." during a time which saw the beginnings of mass-production, the intended effect of this was to restructure a person's relationship to even the mundane items in their possession (see: commodity fetishism) and in that process, exposure to and relationship to art.

art deco suffered heavily during the aforementioned great depression because the materials to make it were no longer affordable and the labour classes exploited for other means. so i view it as... dornkirk claims he did all the shit himself but we know he's building on these ancient ideas and amassing/hoarding resources to achieve this, and he's keeping these organic forms— as representative of the natural world and part of that world being humanity— for himself exclusively as he burns the world down. however, we're not moralising art here, just as fritz lang regretted focusing on the moral over the social. escaflowne is also a weapon of war and must be put to rest as part of van's own break from punitive tradition.

ultimately, what we see in Escaflowne is people— while retaining any surface-level, or even essential and difficult differences, made even more clear by the sheer amount of different cultures/customs to which we're exposed— changing the calamitous course of fate when committed to a common goal, quintessentially represented by communal, mutual love and respect. i would say that's much more communist than what Zaibach represents.

[blackfemmecharacterdependency]

Happy Science Fiction Day: Black Women in Sci Fi

January 2 is Science Fiction Day... Here is the blackfemmecharacterdependency masterlist for the sci fi content that can be found featured on this blog

Starting with the Basics:

Afrofuturism | Black Women in Sci Fi | Black Women in Star Trek | Black Women in Star Wars (Shows & Movies Masterlist) | Black Women in Doctor Who | Black Women in Sci Fi | Sci Fi | Science Fiction Day (Many of these might just be the same stuff. Idk right now.) Black Women in Sci Fi Playing Women I will be expanding on this person's work someday. Black Women in Sci Fi Playing an Alien (Alien Characters Masterlist)

Franchises

The Alien Series | Doctor Who | Star Trek: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Discovery, Lower Decks, Picard, Strange New Worlds, | Star Wars |

Shows I've Reblogged

3% | 4400 | The 4400 | Altered Carbon | Battlestar Galactica | Black Mirror | Blake's 7 | Brave New World | Dark Angel | Dark Matter | Dark/Web | Defiance | Electric Dreams | Eureka | The Expanse | The Fantastic Journey | Final Space | Firefly | For All Mankind | Foundation | Fringe | Gen V | The Gifted | Heroes | Humans | Intergalactic | Invincible | Jason of Star Command | Jupiter's Legacy | Killjoys | Kissing Game | Krypton | Lost in Space | Lovecraft Country | Minority Report | Misfits | Quantum Leap | Raised by Wolves | Sliders | Space: Above and Beyond | Stargate SG 1 | Supernatural | The Tomorrow People | Torchwood | The Twilight Zone | The Umbrella Academy | Utopia | Vagrant Queen | Warehouse 13 | Westworld | Y: The Last Man

Movies I've Reblogged

Alien VS Predator | Alita Battle Angel | Avatar | Children of Men | The Chronicles of Riddick | Class of 1999 | Cloverfield | Dune | Fast Color | Ghosts of Mars | Guns Akimbo | Jupiter Ascending | Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome | Men in Black International | The Old Guard | Repo Man | Robot Jox | Strange Days | Supernova | Valerian and The City of a Thousand Planets

Short Film

I Am

Definitely likely changing the way that this is set to have it be a character list like the other BFCD Masterlists, but for today, this all I got for the girlies. To be fair, it might need to be like the Monsters ones. Or, I might do a separate one that's characters later. Idk.

[onboardsorasora]

50. Disney Princess Film AU from this prompt list

No one prompted me for this– BUT I’d been talking about this with @purplesallthewaydown and then it was there as a prompt. So El, clearly I need to unleash this into the world.

Enchanted AU lets go– please….suspend EVERY disbelief you have. This will not make sense lmao

Daniel is Giselle, he’s in Monaco from the fairy tail land of Perth. He got here because he was driving around in his truck, singing a happy song and following a horse that just wanted to run and they ended up at the airport. The birds told him that the planes make humans fly like them and he thought that was as good an idea as any.

So he’s in Monaco, he’d been walking around, bumping into things because he’s doing tourist thing where you look up instead of in front of you. He comes to the pier and he’s tired, the birds in Monaco aren’t as helpful as the birds back home and he wants to go home. He’s singing an almost sad song and bumps into Max who is doing his normal daily run. They fall to the ground, Max atop Daniel naturally.

They’re both stunned, surprised, speechless. Max scrambles up and helps Daniel to his feet.

“Are you ok? Did I hurt you?” Max is checking Daniel over, making sure his oversized sweatshirt maybe didn’t get ripped or his knees didn’t get skinned since he’s wearing tiny shorts. He clocks the bright tattoos on Daniel’s thigh, maybe they glow a little with Daniel’s inner Disney Princess happiness?

“I’m ok. I just don’t know where I am.” Daniel smiles sheepishly, embarrassed. He hadn’t been able to find many other wild animals and the birds really weren’t helpful here.

“Oh? Where are you from?” Max is now concerned, because who truly gets lost nowadays with technology where it was.

“I’m from Perth!” Daniel says proudly, a wide smile on his face. “The birds guided me.”

Did his tattoos glow a little brighter?

“That’s in Australia right?”

Daniel shrugs in a very uncaring way. What did he know about geography when he enjoyed his days basking in the sun by his family’s ranch or hiking in the mountains or by the beach swimming with the mermaids?

Max presses his tongue behind his teeth as he thinks of what to do. Daniel gets distracted by a butterfly and starts following behind it dreamily, maybe she will guide him back home. He almost bumps into another jogger when Max grabs his arm and pulls him back into his space. They both blush.

“I’m Max.”

“Daniel!”

Max takes Daniel home, because it's the only logical next step. He can maybe book him a flight back to Perth if Daniel has no family around. It's a lot in terms of being a good samaritan, but Max is loaded and single and lives alone in the city and a race car driver on time off.

So they're in Max’s flat and he pulls out a laptop to check flights maybe, and gets distracted by Daniel literally curled around Jimmy and Sassy. He was talking to them softly and they were purring up a storm. Max has never seen this happen in his life. Sassy hates people and Jimmy takes 5 business days to allow pets.

He’s floored, flabbergasted, flummoxed. Just who was this guy?

Daniel is supremely happy, Jimmy and Sassy are wonderful hosts. They’ve told him that the birds here are in fact unfriendly, and mean. They told him that Max is wonderful but he’s often not home so they sometimes get lonely, but they’re happy together. So he starts singing to them, a lovely little ditty about nutsacks and ball hair and they cuddle closer to him. His tattoos glow brighter and the ship sails move a little because that's what they do when Daniel is happy.

Max is just staring at this all happening on the floor by his patio doors– what the actual fuck is going on?

So since Daniel is distracted with the cats, Max googles about any magic in Australia. And apparently…there's a lot. It's a utopia for magical creatures and some humans that live there are gifted, it's usually a good way to tell if someone is a good person or not– how strong their aura and aptitude. Considering Daniel was glowing and talking to his fucking cats, Max thinks that an ok sign.

“Uhm, Daniel?”

“Yes Maxy?” Daniel sung back, looking up from the cats.

“How did you get here?”

“Oh! It was like the most amazing thing!” Daniel clambers up and breaks out into song about how he had been gossiping with the horses and alpacas and then they went for a ride and the birds told him about the ‘airport’ which was a very weird place with birds for people. And he got on a big bird plane and fell asleep and got snacks and slept some more.

And while this is happening, Max is sat in his couch wide eyed as this man dances around his apartment, singing. And birds started hovering on his patio, unable to do more because it's screened in. Daniel flutters to a stop on the couch beside him and hugs Max close because he’s so happy and Max has been so nice to him. And his mom said that sometimes people want to try to take advantage of him but Sassy and Jimmy promised that Max is good, and he believes them.

And Max is….poor thing. Max is completely out of his depth. He’s thunderstruck. But there's a part of his brain that wants to keep Daniel, and he doesn’t know what to do.

Part 2

[dgcatanisiri]

I'll be honest here, I legitimately enjoyed Section 31. And the big thing there is that I genuinely do find it hard to actively hate things Star Trek. The things I hate are when it actively goes against its own values, like the racist mess that is Code of Honor, or the victim-blaming attitude that unfortunately permeates Voyager's Retrospect.

What I see with 31 is that the plotline of the originally planned first season got condensed into this hour and forty minute production, a story that would have had around ten episodes to breathe and explore compacted down to about the span of two.

And, as a result of that compacting, the things that I think a lot of fans would have wanted from a Star Trek product labeled Section 31 were unfortunate victims of that - the exploration of this dark underbelly in the utopia of the Federation, the question of IS 31 actually a necessary evil, or is it a bunch of people using "for the greater good" as an excuse to just do whatever they want, how do you justify this in the grander Star Trek universe... All of that unfortunately was pushed out because the general storyline of this film was too busy having to introduce elements that couldn't get the development they really deserved already.

Still, I saw good things in what it did with Georgiou - it built on the fact that the reason she was able to come back to this period of time was the Guardian of Forever deciding that she was not the genocidal emperor of the Terran Empire. Georgiou talking about there being no benevolent dictators felt like what was the core of her development, the things that probably would have been better explored in more time, but it still speaks to her development in how she says it. Georgiou as introduced in Discovery would have been dismissive of the very idea. Georgiou here says it as something that she is speaking from experience, which she does, considering the events of Terra Firma Part 2. Regret of it having been tried and being unable to enact it without seeing her supposed allies turning on her.

What I think would have helped here would have been to have this as a limited series, rather than a movie. As things tend to go, Star Trek often needs time to find its feet when trying new things, which these TV movies focused on individual characters rather than a core cast of characters is for them - every Trek movie before this was centered on the various Enterprise crews.

I'm not gonna say that it's top tier, must-see Trek, the new vital aspect of the franchise that must be viewed by everyone. But I'd still rate it around the middle of the Trek movies that have been made. And I'm okay with it being in the general tapestry - to me, it felt like a filmed Georgiou-centered novel from the banner of "the Lost Era," the time between Undiscovered Country and TNG, which is what it is.

Would I have liked more? Yeah, absolutely. I do think that there's more to the concept than we were given here, but, again, I think the fact that this is basically taking what began as a season of TV and condensing it into a TV-movie took out a lot of those elements. Maybe a name change, so that it wouldn't give people the idea that it was going to be ABOUT 31, would have helped temper some expectations. Maybe a theoretical followup would do the kind of things that people were expecting of it, since it would be a story broken with the awareness at the start it's only a movie, not a series.

Star Trek is open to experimenting with its style and format. And it's also got room for a quote-unquote "mindless action movie." I mean, we had Star Trek Nemesis, which I will say I rank below this film - at least this was trying to maintain a character thread that actually existed, rather than having to build it up. This was paying off seeds planted for 31 back in the lead up to Georgiou's departure from Discovery, while Nemesis had to outright create both Shinzon and B4 in that film. I'd even say it's at least trying to ask questions, which is more than 09 Trek was really doing.

I'm not saying that it's perfect, that it is without flaws, that it pulls off everything it tried. But I see an effort, and when it comes to Star Trek, I will often appreciate effort and attempts, even if they fall short. Because that is one of the things that I love about Star Trek, the idea to reach for things and trying to achieve something, even when they do not accomplish that, because it's worth trying.

Again. It's not perfect. But there's always been imperfect Trek. Trek has room for imperfections and misfires. Trek is about making mistakes and learning from them, to see what can be accomplished.

[oxyfilmidentity-fa23]

Race in the Imaginary: Nowhere (1997) dir. Gregg Araki

"L.A. is like... nowhere. Everybody who lives here is lost. " -The opening quote of Nowhere

"In general, these films worry that the most violent and degraded acts are possible to those who do not inhabit a home or homeland." -Helen Addison Smith, "E.T. Go Home: Indigeneity, Multiculturalism and ‘Homeland’ in Contemporary Science Fiction Cinema"

Gregg Araki describes his film Nowhere as "Beverly Hills 90210" on acid. Nowhere follows a number of uniquely-named, all somewhat inter-connected teenagers (Lucifer, Dingbat, Egg, Jujyfruit...) in Los Angeles over the course of one day as they engage in an aimless cocktail of drugs, sex, polyamory, BDSM, and parties. The world of the film is in constant flux between reality and fantasy (and it is very, very, very queer). Everything is extremely heightened: there are lengthy, gratuitous sex scenes, a seemingly unlimited access to space, an abundance of drugs, and vast, artistic bedrooms that real teens would only dream of.

In my interpretation, the film's world is an external representation of the teens' imaginations and their feelings of an endless, indestructible youth. While this world is a step above reality for the viewer, it is real to the characters. However, this overindulgence is not without it's consequences. The first half of the film is a sort of queer, sex-positive utopia seemingly free of prejudice in which the teens can have sex with whoever they want, go wherever they want, and so on. This all seems to crumble in the second half of the film, as the teens' endless consumption unravels into overdose, sexual assault, suicide, violent fights, and broken hearts. Araki does not seem to be prudish or critical of this queer nomadic lifestyle, though. He seems to posit that this imaginative world is sadly incompatible with the "real world" of capitalist society at the turn of the century.

Now for the sci-fi. Unbeknownst to every character except Dark, the day on which this film takes place is sort of Judgement Day; the last "normal" day before aliens come to take over the planet.

Dark is the main character of the film, and offers some narration through diary entries and videos he takes of himself and his friends. He is played by James Duvall, a multiracial actor. Dark becomes increasingly unhappier as his girlfriend Mel spends more and more time with her girlfriend Lucifer, who he hates. He grows weary of their indulgence sexually-open arrangement, simply wanting to fall in love and be committed to one person that will anchor him in a world he feels lost in. As he gets more disconnected from Mel, he finds himself infatuated with Mongomery, a boy who goes to school with the teens but who Dark knows little about.

At the same time as Dark's discontent with his lifestyle grows and he finds himself falling in love with Montgomery, he sees a bunch of giant alien creatures roaming around the city, abducting people. Dark is the only character able to see these aliens, which seems to be no coincidence alongside the fact that he is the only character verbalizing any anxiety about the future and the teens' lifestyle. In one diary entry, he says: "I feel like I’m sinking deeper and deeper into quicksand, watching everyone around me die a slow, agonizing death. It’s like we all know, way down in our souls, that our generation is gonna witness the end of everything. You can see it in our eyes."

In the final scene of the film, Dark returns home after an empty night of partying and a fight with Mel. Montgomery appears at his window and tells Dark that he was abducted and tested on by the aliens. The two boys lie together on Dark's bed and confess their love, promising to never leave each other. Just when it seems like Dark has found what he has been longing for, Montgomery goes into a violent coughing fit and explodes, leaving a bug-like alien in his place that crawls out of Dark's room, and the movie ends.

While the aliens in Nowhere are not necessarily representative of a racialized Other according Addison Smith's analysis of Sci-Fi films, the impending doom of an alien invasion and Dark's isolating anxiety is quite in line with Addison-Smith's reading of home and homeland. Araki's identity as Japanese-American director and Duvall's as a multiracial American actor are factors in this reading of the film. Since this film is thus told from a mixed/multiracial perspective, the its anxiety is not surrounding the (white/Western) fear of "losing" a home to outsiders, but the fear of not belonging to any one home in the first place.

Addison-Smith writes:

"For many people in self-avowedly multicultural nations such as the United States, their status as migrants, be it forced or economic, recent or later generational, means that 'home’ has become a complex, multiple and sometimes fraught notion. That such multiple belongings to place is not confined to recent migrants can most immediately be seen in the labelling of many ethnic groups through the joining of two place names (African—AmericanJapanese-American)" (28).

Araki uses Los Angeles as an unstable home in this film (note the opening quote at the top of this post). He plays upon the notions of transplants to the city, and the stereotypes that the city and its inhabitants are vain and superficial. The characters move throughout the city at will, with no connection to any particular space. Actual homes are places of confinement and depression (both the suicides in the film occur in character's bedrooms).

I read that Dark's ability to see the aliens is a representation of his sense of displacement and anxiety for the future. When Montgomery enters his room and the two share an extremely intimate, tender moment, his room finally begins to feel like home, rather than its previous role as a space for his lonesome brooding and masturbation. But when Montgomery explodes as is replaced by an alien, Dark's vision of home and someone to share it with also figuratively blows up in his face; home feels impossible.

Finally, Montgomery's objectification by Dark's infatuation and his identity as a white queer man seem to be an inversion of both romance and Sci-Fi tropes. Montgomery seems to occupy both the role of the "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" in Dark's desire to be saved by him, and the racialized alien Other in his mysteriousness and his constant affiliation with the aliens. Addison-Smith writes, "An alien is easy to identify, and particular judgements about them are thus easily drawn from their appearance alone, so rooting their ‘racial nature' in their biology" (27). Montgomery definitely stands out in this world. He has different colored eyes, is always dressed in white, appears to Dark miraculously by a sign that reads "God help me," and, unlike very other character, is quiet and keeps to himself. He is alien and even an angelic figure to Dark, a unique representation against Addison-Smith's notions of the racialized alien as either invader or teacher.

The entire movie Nowhere is on Youtube! I think it's really great, but there's a ton of trigger warnings (sexual assault, drug abuse, suicide, eating disorders, physical assault, gore). The quality is also very bad. Proceed with caution.

[flnderseekers]

heyyy! i'm bird (s/th) and i'm joining you guys with top actor turned public enemy, do jihan, who is filling the role of genesis in the rising star subplot. aka... he's the guy who played the role of terra's founder in the blockbuster biographical film! and then lost his fucking mind! without further ado...

born oct 1 2993 (30 yrs old)

libra sun / aries moon / capricorn rising... interpret this as you wish

an extreme attention-seeker from birth. the boy who cried wolf x1000. would fake injuries (and consequently fake glitches), would lose shit and spin elaborate stories of being robbed, would throw insane fits when he didn't get his way like... something was (and is) fs wrong with him but his parents kind of brushed it off under the guise of him just being a bad ass kid, being brushed off by his parents fueled his behavioral issues, you know how it goes

he was (and is) a bored, lonely kid with a tendency to latch on to anything that made him feel something. in early teens, the “anything” became acting - he had a natural talent for it (as proved by the outrageous shows he put on earlier in life) and having an outlet to express big emotions in a way that didn’t result in him being reprimanded or eye-rolled was cool!

so it goes, time passes and by age 18 he was playing supporting roles in daytime dramas; a few years pass, he’s proved his worth, and he was a top star appearing in emotionally loaded films. his name was known. he got a 5.0 star rating, the public counted days on their fingers - he broke a record, a record that he still holds, for the most days spent consecutively at the top.

throughout it all, his pr team held a firm grip on him. he had aged out of the worst of his attention-seeking behavior, but he had never really learned to bite his tongue and smile; his excessive, hungry existence was a threat to his reputation. because of this, he very rarely did interviews or any type of fan meetings—if you asked his pr team, this was because he was a method actor, always preparing for the next role, and a loud public appearance would disrupt his character immersion. like... pretentious as all get out but, well, he was a damn good actor, so his loyal fans begrudgingly dealt with his minimal public appearances

ten years being relatively liked came to a crescendo in 3022, when the biographical film where he stars as the creator of terra was released - it was a hit, his performance was praised, but for the FIRIIIRIST TIME!!! he opened his big ass mouth. tldr is that he did extensive research on kang suho / terra, deep-diving, days without sleep, head in the books type shit and sleep deprivation + the discovery of information he'd have been better off not knowing resulted in extreme paranoia and a sense of obligation to "wake society up". what i mean is, he no longer saw terra as a utopia and he became extremely fearful for his own life......... and he convinced his pr team to let him do a talk show...... promised he'd behave himself...... and dude started ranting and raving about "the evil nature of terra", "kang suho's dark intentions", "life or a lack thereof?" and YEAAA the hosts were thrilled to have a top star losing his fucking mind on live tv (now THAT'S entertainment!) but his reputation tanked. fast.

here we are now... dude's still regarded as being mentally unwell. he's no longer a top star, HASN'T been for two years now. it doesn't matter that he's a good actor, what matters is that he's trying to disturb the peace / spreading slander, what matters is that he shit on the name of the man who enabled him to play his biggest role to date. so now no one wants to cast him... boohoo... good news is, he's always been incredibly frugal so he's still living on money from the good ol' days.

as far as his personality goes, he talks an awful lot now that he doesn't have a bitch in his ear telling him to be quiet (re: his former team has turned their backs on him). plays devil's advocate as often as he feels he can get away with... and then some. no outright malicious motives, but he likes seeing what gets people worked up. will piss people off and then (attempt to) be the one to calm them back down. spends a lot of time at home, but has been spotted getting drunk and going on long tangents at bars in the city on occasion. well-mannered at his best, volatile at his worst. as mentioned before, he clings to anything that makes him feel something, and in recent times, that "anything" has been the idea that terra isn't what the people are being told it is. want to get existential? he's your guy.

[oh-contraire]

Coming back to fandom

Okay so it's been like 15 years since I've been properly excited about a fandom, so I didn't expect to be sitting here in my 40s, supposedly a serious adult with a real job and a real life (such as it is), having fallen even more deeply in love with Good Omens, a show based on a book that I've loved for over 20 years, a story that's always been there for me, this lovely little comfort read with a life-affirming message, and that has now eaten my entire brain and made it abundantly clear that I'll be stuck right here at least until season 3 comes out and gives me that beautiful everything-is-as-it-should-be cathartic resolution and I can finally rest and go back to real life (ha!)

I certainly didn't expect for this silly show about angels and demons to help me figure out this late in my life that I'm non-binary, to have all those parts of myself that I didn't quite understand suddenly start to make sense. I didn't expect to actually start to really own my queerness - which as a perpetually single person at my age, who's straight-enough-passing to not have to hang it all out there, while simultaneously being lucky enough to exist in a group of friends where queerness is basically the default and you'd almost have to come out as straight (old goths are the best) - is such a powerful experience, and is helping me figure out what the next part of my life will be and what the hell I'm doing around here.

The last time I was in a fandom, I was young (well, compared to now). I had parents who were still alive, who I was close to, and who I could share my excitement with. I've got beautiful memories of travelling from Australia to Europe with my mum in 2008, the last time we'd ever do that, of spending a couple of days of our precious holiday at Cardiff Bay watching the post-hub explosion scene in Torchwood Children of Earth being filmed, of her sneaking away and getting GDL's autograph for me on a random piece of paper, when I was too mortified to even consider it. I'll never watch Family of Blood or Utopia without remembering how I saw it for the first time with my dad, randomly flicking through channels and not really knowing what we were in for, and both of us experiencing that incredible, literally jaw dropping moment when Derek Jacobi was revealed as the Master, how I teasingly called him Father of Mine for years after that because it was such a wonderful shared moment for both of us (and because I was a totally cool and normal grown adult even then).

I never expected to fall straight back in love with Doctor Who after that, 15 years later, having lost both of my parents to awful illnesses, having tried to pretend that life, however fine it all was for the most part, hadn't had this constant undercurrent of existential dread, a horrible sense that from now on it would just be a series of losses, that all the things I loved would just fall away until there was nothing important left, that I could scramble for those little crumbs that felt like renewal or purpose but that ultimately felt hollow in the face of what seemed like an increasingly bleak and relentless world of serious things like work and mortgage payments and obligations and the whole thing of pretending to be a real adult doing Important Things.

I never expected just how healing, how utterly cathartic it would be to see 14 come back after all these years, older, tireder, after experiencing all that loss and grief, and to see them love so deeply, to see them find a new home, a new family, and to finally find a way to be actually, truly happy. I cried so much during that episode, and it felt like actual hope for the first time in years, like it helped to heal some part of myself that thought it would never be properly healed.

I'll never stop being in awe of how stories can do that. These silly little TV shows about angels and demons or time travel and the universe, which are really about humans and life and death and love and everything that's actually important, and which bring to the surface those deep truths that are hard to see among the minutiae of everyday life.

Stories are so powerful, and I'm so happy to feel excited about them again, and to have them weave their way back into the fabric of my life. So, thanks to RTD and @neil-gaiman for helping me find this feeling again, and thanks to fandom for continuing to exist while I figured out that this was one of the big parts that was missing from my life! <3

[silamander]

Shoutout to Lost Utopia Films Godzilla found footage series for keeping me satisfied until the next Godzilla movie. Their take on Biollante is so disturbing I fucking love it.

[xtruss]

The Real Ancient Roman Plot That Inspired 'Megalopolis'

Historians characterize the Catilinarian conspiracy as the beginning of the end of the Roman Empire—which director Francis Ford Coppola compares to modern-day America.

— By Gregory Wakeman | September 26, 2024

The Roman Forum was a hub for ever day ancient Roman life. It was here that Cicero delivered a famous speech denouncing Catiline in 63 B.C. Photograph By Andrea Frazzetta, National Geographic Image Collection

Francis Ford Coppola has been working on his epic sci-fi fantasy drama Megalopolis since the early 1980s.

Fresh off the success of Apocalypse Now, Coppola became fascinated by the story of Lucius Sergius Catiline, who in 63 B.C. sought to forcibly overthrow the consuls of the Roman Republic, co-led by Marcus Tullius Cicero. This attempted coup d’etat is known as the Catilinarian conspiracy.

Coppola wanted to set the conflict of two ambitious men with very different ideals in modern New York, so that he could draw parallels between the beginning of the end for the Roman Republic and the contemporary United States.

At a Q&A in New York before the premiere of Megalopolis on September 23, Coppola remarked, “Today, America is Rome, and they’re about to go through the same experience, for the same reasons that Rome lost its republic and ended up with an emperor”

Coppola was so adamant about highlighting the similarities between the Roman Empire and U.S. that he named the film’s leading characters after Catiline and Cicero.

In Megalopolis, Giancarlo Esposito plays Mayor Franklyn Cicero, who runs the decaying city “New Rome” and clashes with idealistic architect Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver). When Catilina is given permission to rebuild the city using Megalon, a material that allows him to control space and time, he recruits Cicero’s daughter Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel) to make a sustainable utopia.

A painting by Italian painter Cesare Maccari portrays Cicero denouncing Catiline in the senate. The conspiracy to overthrow Cicero inspired Francis Ford Coppola's film Megalopolis. Photograph By ICOM Images/Alamy Stock Photo

Why Cicero And Catiline Were At Odds

The Roman version of Cicero was “a new man, meaning, he was the first in his family to enter Roman politics,” explains Josiah Osgood, professor of classics at Georgetown University and a specialist in Roman history.

Catiline was a patrician from a distinguished family. He had fought alongside Roman general Sulla, helping him win Rome’s first major Civil War, before then rising through the political ranks.

In 64 B.C., Catiline stood to become one of Rome’s two consuls. The highest elected public positions in the Roman Republic, the consuls served one-year terms and were elected each year by the Centuriate Assembly. Accused of corruption, Catiline was defeated by Cicero.

“Normally, a new man wouldn't win the consulship,” adds Osgood.

An embarrassed and desperate Catiline ran for consulship again in 63 B.C. “By now he and Cicero were sworn enemies and Cicero did everything he could to stop Catiline,” says Osgood.

Catiline’s campaigns had also left him in debt.

“Roman elections were extremely expensive because they were extremely corrupt,” says Edward Watts, professor of history at the University of California, San Diego. “They required you to borrow a lot of money and outlay a lot of cash to try to buy support from people. The idea being you win the consulship, you can then get a command somewhere or govern a province, then make that money back. But if you lose, you're screwed.”

What made these defeats even worse for Catiline is that, in that period, “some older families with a deep history had fallen on hard times,” says Richard Saller, an American classicist and former president of Stanford. “Catiline resented new upstarts like Cicero, who he was having a hard time keeping up with financially.”

How Was Catiline Defeated?

With Cicero backed by wealthier Romans that lent out money to make their own income, Catiline adopted a more populist and radical message, insisting that he would cancel debts and relieve the debt crisis. When Catiline lost another election, he retreated to northern Italy, formed an army of veterans from the first Civil War and farmers in debt, and planned to march on Rome so that he could become consul by force.

But in January 62, B.C., he was defeated by the Roman Republic in the Battle of Pistoria. Roman historian Sallust would write that “Catiline was despicable, a real menace to the Republic, who represented all that was wrong with Rome” because of his pursuit of demagoguery, says Osgood.

With Megalopolis, Coppola focused on Catiline’s ambition to release the lower classes from debt in order to make him a sympathetic figure. In his director’s statement for the film, Coppola explains, “I wondered whether the traditional portrayal of Catiline as ‘evil’ and Cicero as ‘good’ was necessarily true … Since the survivor tells the story, I wondered, what if what Catiline had in mind for his new society was a realignment of those in power and could have even in fact been ‘visionary’ and ‘good’, while Cicero perhaps could have been 'reactionary' and ‘bad’.”

Saller acknowledges that accounts of the Catilinarian conspiracy are “Cicero centric” and “from a historian’s point of view there are reasons to think there are biases.”

In 1969, Robin Seager argued that “Cicero really manufactured the conspiracy and drove Catiline to violence, but his view is not broadly accepted,” adds Saller.

Coppola’s Message For A Modern Era

After the Catilinarian conspiracy, Cicero was briefly driven into exile because of how he administered justice to members of the coup, in particular killing associates of Catiline without a trial. The conspiracy exposed how extensive poverty and debt was in Roman society, created a climate of paranoia in the Senate, and is ultimately regarded as the first step to the Civil Wars that ended the Roman Republic and built the Roman Empire.

Both Watts and Osgood can see some similarities between the late Roman Republic and the current political rhetoric of the U.. ] “I think there’s been a significant loss of trust in the integrity of systems,” says Watts.

But Saller remains skeptical about such parallels. “The constitutional situation in the U.S. and Rome are very, very different. One of the things that Rome did not have was anything like our Supreme Court. Whatever problems we may think we have with our current Supreme Court, the Roman Republic had no institutional way of resolving differences between leading senatorial generals in their contest for power.”

Ultimately, Esposito believes that Megalopolis is a cautionary tale: “There's a line in the movie, ‘Don't let the now destroy the forever.’ That’s such a powerful thought to have right now. The film is a call for hope, for us to think larger than just ourselves.”