#because your ACTUAL criticism is that the film felt rushed. which it is! because it’s basically an abridged version!

[trans-elrond]

no ❤️

[tyrantisterror]

Saw Godzilla Minus One again and yeah, just as good if not better than I felt it was the first time.

But it does have me thinking - well, honestly, I've been thinking about this for a while - about how often critics of this series have bandied the argument that only certain Godzilla movies are "true to the spirit of the original," and others are not and thus are trash. It's always used as a way to not just praise the movie in question the critic is talking about, but to still paint most of the Godzilla movies as disposable garbage - which is really to protect the critic's status as an authority by emphasizing they do not challenge the popular assumption that Godzilla movies are by and large garbage, and instead only think certain Godzilla movies - a rare and specific few - managed to rise above their station as garbage to be worth something.

Godzilla (1985) is the only Godzilla movie to hold true to the spirit of the original.

Shin Godzilla is the only Godzilla movie to hold true to the spirit of the original.

Godzilla Minus One is the only Godzilla movie to hold true to the spirit of the original.

And I have... too many thoughts on this to put in a normal tumblr post, I should probably organize them into, like, an essay (god it's been ages since I actually wrote one of those, nowadays I just let myself ramble with only a thin grasp of a point). But this is bullshit, right? This is a bullshit thing that critics and especially fans, so many Godzilla fans do this. It's so fucking cowardly and pretentious, the act of a person without the bravery to truly stand up for art they love, a person who'd rather cover their own ass than be bold enough to fight for what others have ignorantly deemed trash.

Like, my feelings on Shin Godzilla are not negative - they're lukewarm, a "well it's not really for me but I get what they're going for" feeling. But so many people for so many years have held it up high and said, "Finally, a Godzilla movie that's not trash like all the other sequels, one that FINALLY lives up to the SPIRIT of the first, FLAWLESS, PERFECT FILM!" that I can't help feeling resentment for it, a sort of petty envy at how it is constantly held up so the people praising it can shit down on all the others that preceded it. I think I've been more harshly critical of it than I have most Godzilla movies specifically because so many people feel the need to praise it as flawless while shitting on the Godzilla movies that I like more - as if I need to find flaw in Shin Godzilla to prove my love for the others.

Which is cowardly too, in all honesty. We shouldn't need to burn one movie to praise another.

I love Godzilla Minus One. Objectively (or as objective as any critique I make can be) I think it's the best movie since the original, maybe even surpassing it (unlike the 1954 Godzilla, Godzilla Minus One has not jump cuts or other glaring editing mistakes caused by a rushed production time that didn't allow for proper film coverage). And while it may well be impossible to overcome nostalgia and topple the Holy Trinity of Godzilla sequels in my personal rankings, it might manage to fight its way into my top five Godzilla movies. It's an excellent movie, one of the best for sure.

...but people are ALREADY doing the "It's the first Godzilla movie that's true to the spirit of the original!" bullshit already, and specifically using it to tear Shin Godzilla down. I'm at least a little guilty of it - I mean, it was just an honest expression of my preferences, but still, there wasn't a need for me to express my lukewarm feelings on Shin while praising Minus One - and fuck, man, I already regret that.

It's a coward move. Fight for what you love even if people say you're cringe or uncultured for it. Fuck 'em, be the atomic freak you were born to be. You can't find your monster island if you don't.

[everygame]

Thank Goodness You’re Here!

Developed/Published by: Coal Supper / Panic Released: 1/08/2024 Completed: 7/08/2024 Completion: Finished it!

It seems contrarian for me to open this by saying this is definitely the best game of 2024 and it’s definitely going to be my favourite game of the year… but it’s true.

The thing, I suppose, that makes that kind of wild, declarative statement seem so difficult to declare is that… games are just so broad, aren’t they? Playing something like Thank Goodness You’re Here! is so unbelievably different from playing, say, my favourite game of last year, Hi-Fi Rush, that it doesn’t feel as easy to say as declaring one movie “the best film of the year.” I mean in that case, you still just sit there and watch a movie. There’s not quite the same… granularity of experience. I mean even if you were talking indie games, Balatro touches such a different part of my brain from Thank Goodness You’re Here! So how could I ever, really, compare them?

Well, you know what? Sometimes you gotta just stick your flag somewhere, and my flag goes in the top of a Yorkshire pudding, and when it unfurls it’s the flag… of Yorkshire. Which surprised me, because I’m Scottish, so normally it goes in the top of a Scotch pie, and it’s a Saltire, so I guess I really like Thank Goodness You’re Here!

To describe it, though, which is what you’ve paid for, Thank Goodness You’re Here is a non-evil Untitled Goose Game. You play, in some respects similarly, an agent of chaos in a small town: a tiny man with… jaundice(?) who has been sent to the town of Barnsworth to help the mayor, but end up in the tangle of everyone’s lives. You help them do things that sound explicitly rather simple like mowing a lawn to buying some soup… but it’s not simple at all.

Unlike Untitled Goose Game, your tiny man isn’t just a wee dick; you’re actually helping people, it just happens to be in a very anarchic fashion. You rise to the level of the town, rather than lowering it, so outside of a few smacky bum-bums, you never feel like you’re bullying anyone… well maybe that guy with the chimney. But the joke works.

It would be regressive to describe this game as “weird” or “crazy.” What it is, and what makes it so brilliant, is that it’s so British. If you love the era of British comedy that brought us things like Look Around You or Alan Partridge, you’ll feel right at home here, and I was genuinely laughing all the way through this. Mileage may vary: some jokes and sequences are unbelievably puerile, some are a little smutty; some are… disturbing, but there’s a joyful nature to this whole thing, and it’s all so rapid fire that if something falls flat, it’s not long before you’re laughing about something else.

I think also that the game has a near-perfect take on interactivity for this kind of story-based experience. Outside of special sequences basically all you can do is slap things or jump, but everything is reactive, and the level design is cleverly focused; your path through the game is a sequence of designed loops that you can’t deviate from, but as a result you don’t suffer from the kind of downtime you can struggle with in more open adventures and which can ruin immersion. 

Here you’ll never return to an area and discover it static, how you left it, and have to waffle around trying to find X or Y; you’re always moving forward onto Z. I can hear the criticisms, but at least for me this never felt restrictive; the only issue I really had was feeling that I had to put the game down regularly lest I finish it too quickly–though it’s surprisingly lengthy for something featuring so much bespoke art and sequences, at almost five hours.

To be honest, the game manages something that I wish designers of interactive experiences–think your Meow Wolfs, your Sleep No Mores–would learn from, which is how to always be guiding your player forward through a space and yet still allow them to experience it at their own pace. Sure, it has the benefit of being able to lock doors behind you, and there aren’t 300 other tiny men with jaundice trying to do everything in it at the same time (though I’d love to see that?) but I couldn’t help but be impressed with the flow.

(This may relate to me seeing Sleep No More before it closes just before playing this, finding it a hard to navigate mess of meaningless rooms in a warehouse and thinking it was fucking rubbish.)

The reason, really, that this is my game of the year already is that it’s trying to do something specific and it’s doing it as unbelievably fucking well as anyone probably could. Your dexterity won’t be challenged, your brain won’t be taxed, but they don’t need to be. Sure it’s a funhouse mirror, but if someone was to ask me “What’s the UK like?” from now on, I’ll probably just say “Play Thank Goodness You’re Here!”

Will I ever play it again? Absolutely. Not for a long time, I think, but I didn’t technically see “everything” according to the achievements, and I’d like to.

Final Thought: For categorisation sake, I would like to mention that I do think that Thank Goodness You’re Here! is largely specifically English, and Northern English at that, but there are enough commonalities and it features a big role for Davey Swatpaz that I think it’s fair to think of it as extremely British anyway. And speaking of the excellent casting, Matt Berry is in this and as always he’s brilliant. There are few games where I’d say “I really hope you run out and buy this” but there are few things that are such polished diamonds, and even though this was funded by Panic, who apparently have enough money that they can piss it up on a wall on the world’s most niche handheld (hey, I still bought it) smaller games are having such a rough time of it that when they’re good we should really, you know, reward that. Don’t just do it for me; do it for Tiny Tom. Or Big Ron.*

*pie size preference depending.

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[ape-apocalypse]

My Thoughts on Kingdom

First off, my general no-story-spoilers thoughts on Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.

I really really liked this movie! I loved all the characters, both human and ape. I really enjoyed the story, even if it was a little bit predictable, and I could guess along the way what was going to happen next (though that may just have been because I watched every single trailer and TV spot and could guess based off scenes I had seen). The animation on the apes was phenomenal, and the landscape was gorgeous. I love the world building and seeing the ape communities grow and have their own traditions and beliefs in this world.

For the things I did not like, I definitely thought the pacing was off. Weirdly the story and the pacing felt a lot like War to me, and much of my criticisms about Kingdom are similar to what I thought of War. The ending is a little underwhelming, and I think they were taking too much focus on setting up for future movies, but I didn’t hate it, just didn’t feel wowed like the end of the previous films. But overall, I thought it was a great movie. Not as good as Dawn which is my favorite among the Apes films, but definitely a worthy successor to Caesar’s trilogy.

I definitely plan to see the movie again and think it will further develop my thoughts but those are my initial thoughts after one viewing. I give a three out of five stars.

Onto the spoilers... read at your own risk below the cut

To elaborate on why I feel like Kingdom is very similar to War, here’s my basic breakdown: an inciting incident sends the lead ape off on a journey, he encounters a strange ape and a human who come along on the journey, he loses an ape companion, he is captured by the main antagonist who does a big monologue on the fate of his species is in his hands alone but otherwise doesn’t do much else and ends up with an unsatisfying death, lead ape brings his people home. This fits well for me because much of my criticism for Kingdom is the same criticism I had for War, especially with poor pacing and an underwhelming ending. I think, since both movies involve a physical journey with lots of side characters and a big looming antagonist who doesn't get much to do, War and Kingdom would have been better served as mini-series, where they had more than 2.5 hours to tell their story. But for being confined to a film, they are still enjoyable, even when suffering the same flaws.

I thought the story was good, even if predictable. I could guess most of the story beats as they came but still enjoyed them. There was a definite pacing issue; it felt rushed once Noa got on the road to finding Proximus. One thing that did surprise me was the relationship between Noa and Mae. Halfway through the movie, I was thinking that I wasn’t really feeling a bond between them and was the writing not working. Once I reached the end of it, I realized oh, there wasn’t supposed to really be a bond between them. I actually kinda like that, I like how driven Mae is for her mission of reclaiming human society. 

The movie ends with the question of can humans and apes truly coexist. Both Mae and Noa don’t have that answer at the moment, all they know that they want their own people to survive. I hope that this is setting it up to go into more depth in future films. If they don’t pick this question up in a sequel film, then it really will be a dangling thread and I think this is one reason some reviewers say that the themes of the movie feel muddled, because they don't get a definitive answer. But I’m OK with this debate not getting resolved in this first movie, since it feels like it will be the theme of this trilogy.

One major criticism I have is it feels like characters were under-utilized. Raka was fantastic, probably my favorite character in the movie. I was really disappointed that he got swept away into the river, presumably to his death, so quickly. Now personally I don’t think he’s dead; I know orangutans can’t swim, but we didn’t see a body and the credits end with orangutan sounds rather than chimp or gorilla sounds. So I would not be surprised if he popped up in a future film. But I didn’t really feel emotional when he was swept away in the water. Likewise, I think that Proximus is severely underused. If you’ve seen his scenes and trailers, then you’ve seen the majority of his screen time. I am not surprised that he ended up being a one movie villain, since I think the next movie will have humans as the main antagonists, but I was pretty disappointed that that was all we got of him. I didn’t mind him dying by the birds, I actually liked Noa and his clan singing the eagles song together, but I am sure a lot of people will dislike that ending for him.

Those criticisms aside, there is also much to love. The attack on the eagle village is an incredible action scene. Despite me knowing that it would end with Noa’s family captured and Koro dying, it is where I felt the most tension in the film, with Noa walking through the action, dazed and confused while there were so much happening around him. The humor was on point. I often forget that these films can have a good amount of humor, like Koba with his fake silly ape routine for the two humans in Dawn and Bad Ape’s silliness in War. so, this film did great on humor that kept me chuckling. Mae teaching Noa the word “shit” had me howling. I like Noa’s growth being connected to his father’s eagle, and whether he can call the bird to him or not. Again, I knew he would, because I had seen him in the trailer with the bird on his arm, but I thought it was well played with the bird pecking him in the very beginning of the film and then it coming willingly to him at the end.

Of course, the visuals are gorgeous, though they felt more on level with Dawn rather than War, which always had the best CGI among the Andy Serkis trilogy. I loved seeing the development of the apes; they're talking and showing more emotion than apes of the last trilogy, so their personalities really stand out, even if having so many characters meant they didn't each get as much spotlight. Soona and Anaya are my precious adorable babies and I will throw down with any writers or directors who dare to harm a single hair on their heads.

All in all, it's not a movie that I love and adore, but it was a really good film, despite some flaws. I think many of the flaws will be forgiven when/if they are allowed to do a full trilogy where they can resolve dangling threads and flesh out characters even more. But even if no other movies follow up, I still enjoyed the film and loved seeing a glimpse of post-Caesar ape societies.

[andromeda3116]

What did you think about the serenity film? I thought it was awful. I hated almost everything about it. Going to one of your recent posts about "it's canon, but we ignore it because it's badly written" is kind of how I feel about serenity. All I wanted from a follow up film was a Mal and Inara hook up, and what I got was a bunch of characters that completely lost any character development they underwent in the series.

so this ask is years and years old but i honestly never forgot about it so much as i never really knew how to answer

bc like... if what you were wanting was an answer to the ships, then, yeah, i can see the severe disappointment. absolutely nothing is solved vis á vis mal/inara except bringing them back to the place they left off, but.

what they were trying to do, with serenity, was solve the most pressing question -- i.e. the "wtf is up with river" question -- in two hours and change. every other character detail and aspect had to take second fiddle to that because that, had they had a full series to work with, was supposed to be the plot thread.

so everything else took a backseat. mal/inara, simon/kaylee, everything with shepherd book and his story, any characterization for jayne, anything else about the independent movement, all the rest of the concepts and plot threads -- they got sacrificed for the sake of wrapping up the biggest, most important question of the series.

and i get that! i get that that was what they really had to do with the time that was given to them! and so i forgive some issues by dint of --

well, these are explicitly Extreme Situations. so everyone -- particularly mal -- is acting in Extreme Ways.

actually, upon rewatch -- and knowing the deleted scenes, which i do kinda think are critical to understanding the gravity of the scene -- i actually do like jayne asking mal how many of his soldiers besides zoe came out of serenity valley --

because that was the last time that mal was fighting an ideological war, and everyone else died there.

jayne's point is not to attack mal, exactly, it's to ask how many of us are you going to get killed for your ideals this time?

these are the characters that we love, but pushed beyond the extremes that the original show really showed us. and i get why that would be jarring! because we didn't exactly see that they would go this far! because the show didn't last long enough to set this up!

but that's the nature of a situation where a movie has been made to wrap up a show that got canceled too soon.

so, i appreciate serenity for answering the biggest questions and wrapping things up, but i feel like it shouldn't have been necessary, at the same time that i -- tangential to this ask -- recognize that one of the reasons firefly does survive to this day is because it didn't last long enough for the whedonism to ruin it, but i do still feel like it wasn't really earned, character-wise, and felt jarring because of that. it does feel like they were forced into unnatural situations, because they kind of were, and that it was rushed, because it kind of was, but that was a necessity of the situation.

the characters and the story deserved better, not just from the network -- which was obvious at the time -- but also from the creator. this idea and these characters and this concept all deserved better. they had so much potential to be so amazing, but they weren't given the space to actually pan out, and that sucks.

[almalvo]

STAR TREK: DISCOVERY | S1E7 "Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad"

[I will react to each episode individually and in full, raw reception and then post as is unrevised here onto my tumblr for the full span of every and all NuTrek episodes and series that have been and will be released. If this falls under your field of interest - I welcome your company in joining me. Enjoy the ride.] -------

man the intro just continues to remind me fucking ingenius the Star Trek introduction was period. Love it. forever. and always. wonder when we will see these scenes play out when we will see that big plant tentacle monster from the intro or when we will see the two hands touch etc

things are flowing so fast rn in burnham's evaluative speech at the start of this episode. even though not much has happened. and no offence but, i do not think shes earned this kind of audience? because theres like. still hardly much to like nor connect with these characters? imo. idk. idk if its just me, maybe it is. but i definitely dont really have much investment in any characters yet. actually, the one character i resonated MOST with was mega-sized space waterbear, no cap. (oh mossie i miss you i hope we can see you again) trek party lol. ok ill say this one thing DISCO has a lot of filming inconsistencies between shots. like, lets say burnham's hands will be up holding her face. but then next shot, her hands are down at her seat. then switch back and her hands are back up. that sort of thing. happens a lot all the time. stamets. happy drunk. lovey dovey. cute. ash and burnham? idk. every time lorca says saru, i just catch myself thinkning "sulu" cute mega-organisms gormagander wow. space whale sounds. amazing. is it prego. … who ANDORIAN?/ IS THAT AN ANDORIAN OML ITS HELMET SO CUTE oh nevermind its scarier. MUDD. but yes that is an andorian helmet wow so cute give me one. stella.

MUDD is so vengeful. what interesting implications for TOS. DUDE WTF the end of DISCO. man a time plot huh ok lets see how this goes a remix of stayin' alive runners said left. let me guess. burnham will later predict them coming from behind her. and then be like "huh. why did i already know this" there is something off about the delivery of these lines from so many of the actors lorca's actor feels pretty grounded same as saru which is good. something feels so weird with the line delivery. idk if it sthe actors or if its the way the filming is that just makes it feel less effective acting?? idk i think its cuz theres a lot of organic quality missing in a lot of the actors getting a decent amount of screentime? i dont want to sound rude ofc i just feel something is off yeah. man. a time jumping Mudd. now THAT'S terrifying. Poor stewart. he didnt deserve to get thrown. "went his own way"? u sure you didnt kill him. Mudd's actor is also pretty grounded. the lines roll off well and not awkwardly. Nice Stamets. this is too fast. Muidd gets shot in the back and then Stamets has a comedic line delivery that seriously needed a pause or soemthing, but we switch imediately to ending the scene and returning after what felt like a commercial break or seomthing.

yeah the pacing of the show is just RUSHING so much like WHY. it just eats up so much of any weight this show couldve had in even its smallest things. i know i sound so critical but its built up a lot and its already the 7th episode into the 1st season. Stamets actor feels pretty good too but i think its just awkward screenplay and awkward lines and weirdo af pacing/film style that ruin things. they need to let this show BREATHE more. it s such a shame they didnt. maybe not the best director. also too many zooms. the show feels so experimental, but i dont know if necessarily in a good way. i sound so pickky but bro im saying what im seeing,. ok sorry this just now, stamets talking to burnham when he says hes the one "missing from mudd's timeloop" is actually pretty bad. bad editing super inconsistent between shots and why are there like a billion camera cuts? we dont need THIS many angles to talk about one single conversational exchange no offence. this scene was pretty bad. weird screenplay, weird delivery, bad editing stamets even sounded like there was a shot with his mic off i could hear the environmental reverb why is this happening. with such a beautiful visual and constume budget such as this. also yes. that is A GORN IN LORCA'S OFFICE. oh my god that means maybe the gorn from SNW DO look humanoid fully matured. ugh cant wait to see what that means. mudd is so merciless. man lorca died like a bug so many times. wtf. why is stamets out of focus- WHAT. WHAT IS THAT. THE FUCK WAS THAT im sorry no this wasnt funny cuz it was supposed to be funny in that way im sorry but just now

when stamets tells burnham that "shes never been in love" at the party in the time loop, she says in the WEIRDEST most… sry ngl, badly acted type way, replying "why would you say that to me" that i had to actually PAUSE the episode and rewatch that again to confirm what i saw. just finished the rewatch of this one scene. wtf was that. sorry that was so poor. its soooo awkwarddddd. and flatttt. what is this ADR though. stamet's ADR in this episode is some of the worse. also sorry that lens reflection of that one green party light that hit right onto burnham's face during this exchange, its almost as if i HEARD the cameraman's thoughts going "ah shit this stupid light" as the camera moved downward to get as much of that green spot out of the direct line of her face. okay, Mr. God-Named-Stamets. is that an apron that isnt a one sided dress. dance in the hallway. ok. this wa so fast. this tone feels very not in sync with the course of this plot? where did this dance thing come from. i think im feeling such a dissonance rn when stamets is on screen because he feels like hes NOT stamets. idk its like, i get that charcters/people are hopefully more than 1-dimensional, and that we get to learn about them more as time passes, but like this kind of feels like stamets just wasnt properly developed and we the audience just didnt get enough proper exposure to him to recognise who really is his person? if that makes ANY sense to anyone. ok no offence, this episode probably is the most trash in terms of script. harry mudd, time loop, saving the ship from destruction, but then also stamets is an omniscient constant, while also flat cardboard af awkward love revelations between ash and burnham?? idk. maybe in a different writers' room, this coiuld be made compellingly and cohesively. but right now. this episode is NOT. IT. im sorry so why does it feel like its deterioriating a bit. the show had me in the beginning cuz how freaking DIFFERENT and UPGRADED it looked (gorgeous btw) compared to ALL the series that came before it in Prime-Timeline. but no matter how i fought it, my emersions been finally broken by the consistently questionable factors that keep loudly making themselves known in this show. too frequently bad deliveries from actors weird af editing bad cinematography even my great efforts to ignore it all and benefit of the doubt, it was too much. which is, based on everything ive ever watched ever, a BAD thing. also, oml lorca is so small in this episode - which actually i like. he feels so insignificant in this episode haha, small fry dying every single time. also i hope i see more creative deaths in this show, cuz everytime someone dies is them dissipating in dusty colour. come onnn, we can do better than thattt.

also just fyi, understand that i am NOT advocating for a super "serious/dire" star trek, weve had a bit of that in random episodes thoruhgout the franchise and moveis too - so no, i also absolutely love silly mad crazy trek plots too, but like. DISCO i think is probably handling this in a way that is the worst ever in Star Trek so far, even among its whacky insane moments. I am keeping to the series and going to stick it through all the way to the end of course. but yeah, i was never here to just be some blind non-insightful talking head that just admired this show unconditionally. if you thought so, then you should try again. i will say whats good, but likewise whats bad. and right now, the good things are things that i have already said, but the bad is really kicking up a storm right now. captain mudd. amazing. its so off-balance, this show. some deliveries are great, pacing is great. but then its like so sporadic and everywhere too often etc yes. delivery is REALLY weird and super weak in too many scenes. idk. maybe construction of the show itself is just weak in too many areas. so so strange. with a show that LOOKS genuinely this good. im just so perplexed. the shows construction feels so amateurish i guess? in not a very good way. "nobody beats Mudd, huh." a businessman is correct, lorca. these camera zoomes are really distasteful. like lorca over here making some consistently really solid deliveries, and the stupid camera cuts and zooms and unnecessary movements just cheapen it all. it makes me so angry. this show needed a better writers' room and better directing. and terrible ADR. its liek they use different mics every 2 lines. i can HEAR the discrepancies, even without my audiophile headphones.

im so mad and sad by this. because the threads of the issues i was sensing since episode 1 are now kind of unforgiveable. i can no longer look over them. so im here really speaking about them in this reaction this time. no offence it kind of feels like nothing much happened this whole episode. and im literally 3 minutes away from finishing this episode. im sorry im not impressed with this ending in how mudd was caught. i feel like this show didnt know how to quite handle the crazy nature of Trek. Bad editing yeah. i keep consistently seeing how for example Mudd is talking, and the camera cuts to a different angle shot of the same line delivery that has to get repeated and edited in, but i can physically see Mudd's jaw still moving in speech despite his dialogue halting from the ADR of the other camera shot. THIS ^ stuff KEEPS happening. and it shouldnt. its super BASIC stuff relatively speaking. and there wasnt this much of an obvious degree of this problematic editing in even older series of trek. so strange. 'i hate how it lifted me out of immersion of this show, this list of issues. you know, id LOVE to see ANY scene of conversation withOUT the stupid slow-creep zoom. listen, i KNOW that this is very often used everywhere in media, but it doesnt mean "always'. in this case DISCO does it poorly. ok episode over. i am not convinced over ANYTHING that just happened. its a 44 minute long episode, but it felt brief as fuck. it didnt feel like it had much substance at all - and im NOT talking some kind of "moral message" shit - things do NOT have to have a real message to be good. and this episode was actually not. it felt so criminally underwhelming. like ok, stamets had augmentation that let him resist the time loop.... and? so what. so what about that. nothing significant happened except apparently blossoming love story between Ash and Burnham, which- Ash x Burnham?

bullshit.

bro that was terrible. and they got zero chemistry no sorry no. get outta here.

burnham had more chemistry with the fucking captain than ash. (i dont support either one dw.) ok. well. ima continue the trip ofc. but mmmmm stupid peripheral things are really not doing this show justice. i fear that DISCO is a show that couldve been great but just wasnt even good. bad writing, bad directing, bad editing, bad delivery - i am far from being sold than I was in episode 1. i gave the excuse of the first episode feeling so brisk because it was an exposition….. but the show quickly tired out my benefit-of-the-doubt with how i see that ep 1 wasnt so much a mere exposition, but that its kind of ACTUALLY what this show IS. i cant lie. im p nervous for this show. SNW was fucking good, so i just hope that this show improves to SNW's level where all these questionable issues resolve at some point, more or less.

guess i'll see.

[seeingthestarsmakesmedream]

Barbenheimer.

I know, I know, it seems like I'm a late bloomer, but we have actually seen BARBENHEIMER on the premier day. (It was fucking awesome, but let's get back to this later.) But then came a week long hiking holiday, than a rush with work to make it according to the schedule etc etc. Plus I wanted to see Barbie one more time with other friends too (which happened last week), so I only sat down now to reflect about these two movies.

One of the most important thing with this whole shenanigan, that this was a peak cinematic experience. I knew at the time that I'm gonna take a flight in two-days and spending a whole week with my best friend in Portugal and I didn't even give a shit about that :D On the premier day I was so friggin excited about the evening that I couldn't work. I don't remember when was the last time I was THIS HYPED about cinema. Maybe Avengers: Endgame? I'm not sure. Probably way before.

I felt the same excitement I felt when I was 4 year old and I was only at the cinema once a year. (Only with a little bit more knowledge and movie buff attitude now ;) ). And sharing and experiencing it with others.... Standing in the mass, large groups in pink, one group of guys (around 15 of them) in black suits? They had a photoshoot after Barbie during the credits :D The anticipation, the knowing smiles, the whole 'yeah, this is something BIG'. It was awesome. And this was two "independent" film, not part of any franchise. So yeah, as a cinema lover, it was beautiful and worthed every minute of seven month of waiting since they dropped the atombomb ( ;) ) on us with the 2001: space odyssey-styled trailer (I don't even need to explain that I waited for Oppenheimer. It's a Nolan movie. He directs something, I'm going to the cinema. It's that simple. :D )

Are they the greatest movies of all time? No. Are they really-really great? Yes. Was seeing them together epic? Absolutely. One of my friends said that the fact that we saw not one but TWO extremely good movies in one day at the cinema is the rarest experience ever.

I don't want to go deeply in details, because everyone else did it before me. and it would be a little novel at the end, but some comments here:

For first watch Barbie was good but a little bit cheesy and over the top with its messages. I was plot-oriented here focusing mainly on the story.

For second watch it was hilarious. My best friend and I were cracking up the whole time. Greta Gerwig is sooo smart (Noah Baumbach is also great. Two of the greatest contemporary screenwriters... and they are married. I love this fact for years now.) So many fantastic one-liners with extreme amount of subtle or not so subtle critics on society... hell yeah. It is perfectly balanced how it takes itself seriously and how makes itself a parody. The I'm Just Ken fight sequence with the 80s music/90s boyband look, how it is in the same time a silly little musical parody and a proper message about incel-culture, growing-up, manhood, believing in yourself and in your community (it doesn't matter if it's a friend group, a family, anything just be a group of people you can trust).... and they are literally fighting on a plastic beach with plastic toys.... incredible.

The barbies are empowering each other, without jelousy without any hidden reason. They are just nice and happy for each other? During the story they listen to each other and help everyone? Group together, making plans, executing it, and at the end reflect on their previous behavior and mistakes and learn from it??? That's what we want to see! Thanks Greta ;)

3. On premier day we had 25 minutes between the two movies. Rewire our mindsets and let's go.

4. Oppenheimer was good. Far from the best Nolan movies but still masterly crafted. It isn't a classic Nolan-movie in the way that here he doesn't really play with time. (Yes-yes there are multiple episodes in time waved together, but come on, this narrative method is not uncommon in other movies too, and our Chris here usually does ten times crazier tricks with times in his films.) It's a great biopic, you are curious even if you know that the bomb exploded (three times....), because the method and the precision how it is told is professional. Always nice to watch movies where the director clearly knows their craft. (I mean it for both of these movies). And honestly what made it even better for me that the final take of the movie (in my opinion) is that we as humanity and Oppenheimer with the Manhattan-project fucked up. They did something huge in scientific sense and something unbelievebly terrible with CONSEQUENCES. He may be the protagonist but I don't think he is a hero. Regarding their achievements.

5. Also hey, hungarian scientists, good to see you guys! Leó Szilárd and Ede Teller. Yay!!! Whatever were their life-choices, it makes my heart proud to see them in a big budget movie.

So yeah. That's it. Go, see these movies if you haven't before! They are worth it.

[dans-den]

The Super Mario Bros. Movie Review

Hey everyone Dan here and today I'll be reviewing the very much hyped and anticipated Super Mario Bros. Movie!

Warning!: may contain spoilers!

This movie has been hyped to hell and back as everyone thinks this is the second coming of Jesus, that may sound like an exaggeration but people were extremely excited to see this film thinking this would be like movie of the year, to which I say "cool your jets" because this movie might be great but it's definitely got its flaws. I'll be going over the Mario movies strengths and weaknesses and how they can improve if they go through with a sequel.

I want to start off by giving props to Nintendo, specifically Shigeru Miyamoto who made sure the movie was of good quality rather than a shameless cash grab. Let's be real, if Illumination was left to their own devices, they would have made this movie like the Lorax or the Minions which would have sucked for the brand. I'm glad the Nintendo team worked directly with Illumination to make sure we get the best Mario movie experience we can get. Nintendo seems to have learned from the old Mario movie from the 90's making sure this one is fully animated which I think looks great and has kept faithful to the source material the best they can in this medium. Miyamoto has been busy these last couple years in collaboration with Universal bringing Nintendo to the theme parks and to the big screen. I understand because of this he hasn't been involved with the Nintendo games as much but honestly that's not too bad considering the new products we've gotten now. I'm glad he was directly involved with this movie making it as great as it is and I do hope this leads to future Nintendo movie endeavors for stuff like Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Captain Falcon, etc. Who knows? maybe this is the start of the Super Smash Bros. Cinematic Universe.

Now this is the biggest criticism I've seen about this movie and that is, the plot. Now the plot isn't anything complex or story driven to the max, it's a simple story about two bros discovering a new world and fighting an evil threat. This movie is taking the Sonic Movie approach where they're not trying to make it exactly like the games in terms of story, they're just treading the waters and seeing how it goes. Sonic did this and did this well enough to get a sequel where they were able to expand on the lore and bring out more characters from the Sonic universe. Mario has its atmosphere, but hasn't gone deep into its stories and lore just yet. I think the story is good for what it is, though it does seem messy at times like its about rescuing Luigi then its about rescuing the Mushroom Kingdom/Peach, it's like they couldn't decide on a plot so they merge two plots together. It's not even done like a plot A and plot B, it is done like merging two plots as one which can get messy at times. Now my major complaint with the story/plot is its pacing. Everything happens so fast that I can't really take it all in or process what's happening. I felt the movie was (much like the games) rushed to meet a deadline and the pacing is barely done well enough to make it comprehendible. Now I see why the movie came out so soon, the pacing is just too fast like this was made for kids with ADHD (though I also have that too but even I could barely follow). I felt they should have made the movie at least a solid 2 hours so that the pacing would be better and we can take it all in better.

The cast was another concern for this film was the cast, specifically Chris Pratt as Mario. I was also concerned about it and after seeing his performance, he actually didn't do too bad of a job. His Mario reminds me of the Super Mario show accent where they sound like they're Italians from Brooklyn rather than just straight up Italians like in the games. I was afraid it would be Chris Pratt being himself as a character but he did manage to give his Mario personality which is good. the weakest performance came from Seth Rogens Donkey Kong. That one was just Seth phoning it in and did not give enough personality to Donkey Kong which is a shame since I love Donkey Kong. Everyone else did a good job at playing the characters especially Jack Black as Bowser. Jack Black killed it as Bowser and I'm here for it! Peaches is a hilarious song and I expected no less for the Tenacious one himself.

I will say, the Mario movie did one thing well above all and that's the references/cameos. The movie did an excellent job paying homage to the Mario games as well as other beloved Nintendo games such as Donkey Kong and even the Jump Man game that Mario originated from. My personal favorite is the DK Rap from Donkey Kong 64, I played that game all the time when I was little on my cousins N 64 back in the day and I couldn't help but sing along a bit. I know Nintendo tries to tap in on your nostalgia, but there is a reason it works. Nintendo is a powerful brand and even though I'm not a fan of the current stuff they're doing in the gaming industry, but I still enjoy the Nintendo history especially as someone who has owned the SNES, N64, GameCube, Gameboy Advance, Nintendo DS/DSi, Nintendo Wii and even the Switch (that I rarely use). I've had a lot of good memories with their games and systems and I felt all those memories when I saw the references and cameos in this film.

Overall it was a fun movie and definitely a great video game adaptation of our favorite plumbing duo. I will say that I do think this is one of the better video game movies in recent memory. I hope we get more animated video game movies like this from Nintendo and this can be another gold standard when adapting a video game into a movie or even a television show.

Rating this I'd give it:

8/10

I do think this is better than the first sonic movie or detective pikachu, but not quite up there with something like Sonic 2 and that's only because Sonic 2 had a chance to explore the lore of the Sonic universe. Hopefully the Mario movie gets a sequel to do the same thing which may be even better than Sonic 2 along with ironing out the kinks in terms of pacing and story telling. That's all I got for you guys.

See ya!

[moveslikeanape]

oh no worries at all! i post a lot and nobody can catch every single post on their dash anyway haha. i'm sorry you were having internet issues, i hope things are working better now.

aww, that's adorable how oliver basically named himself. reminds me that my dad used to have a cat named iam (pronounced the same way as "i'm"), who was named that because when he first got him he asked the cat what his name was, and his meow sounded to my dad like he was saying "iam".

oh yeah, i guess it's true that playing the events and leveling up your cards definitely can get time-consuming, and you need to level them up a lot to win the battles! there are people who post videos of the story on youtube as well as wiki pages that have transcriptions of the text, so that would be another option if you were really interested in the story but couldn't keep up with the game. were there any particular character designs you liked best? i love riddle's, of course, but i also really like idia's design.

yeah, unfortunately my first reaction to moana 2's announcement was confusion because i saw it on twitter, thought "uhh, that's weird, what about the show that's supposed to come out this year? they usually announce movies so much further in advance too", and actually wondered if it was a fake tweet for a second... i was excited about the show but i agree that this has the same vibes as those old direct-to-video sequels, which were very hit or miss. also agree about toy story 4 lol, i basically just remember that they went to a carnival and that's only because woody's dreamlight valley house is a carousel. and i remember the ending, but that's because i wasn't a fan of the ending. in my opion toy story 1-3 were a perfect trilogy.

raya is one of those movies that i feel very mixed on, honestly. i really like raya's personality and character arc, but i always thought the movie had a lot of writing flaws that made the story and its message feel rushed and confusing. i think a big reason why some people like it is because raya and namaari are... very shippable lol, so much that i believe raya's voice actress once said she'd like for them to get together in a sequel. but i agree about the animation being gorgeous!

exactly LOL, and i'm glad for those who did genuinely enjoy wish, but i think even they should be able to admit that it's a flawed movie and that others aren't "anti-disney morons" for criticizing it. a lot of the criticism is coming from people like me who love disney movies and expected better from them, and that's why people are so passionate about creating fanfiction and art based on the ideas shown in the concept art as well. somehow the concept art did a better job of reminding people of the classic disney movies we all love than the actual film did.

i think what i like about the trolls movies is that even though they are a bit cheesy and childish, they just feel very self-aware and fun. they also have some really nice stylized animation where they try to make everything look like it's made from felt/fabric/craft materials in general.

i would absolutely love if disney filmed their musicals and put them on disney+! in general, i've always thought that more broadway musicals should do that for people who can't travel or afford the tickets. also, with princess and the frog i feel like sometimes people forget that a live action remake would have us watching a bunch of CGI animals almost the whole time... i mean, tiana and naveen are frogs for 90% of it and then there's ray and louis too. i'd much rather see how disney could bring it, and the emperor's new groove as well, to the stage.

it's too bad your book didn't seem to mention why they changed terk! do you happen to know if they gave a reason for removing tantor? i imagine it was because they thought having an elephant character was too difficult to pull off, but i agree with you that it would've been really cool to see how they did it.

Internet seems to be all better now, thank you!

Awwww, that's such an adorable story! I love fun cat names like that, especially when they're so unique that no one else could possibly some up with it. Also love cats that have such distinctive meows/sounds.

Ooo, I'll have to look into those videos and wiki pages, thanks for the heads up! As for the designs, I think my favourite is a toss up between Leona and Kalim, although leaning a bit more towards Kalim. I definitely would have an easier feeling about Moana 2 if it weren't coming so fast. I could see how they could maybe do a decent job and make whatever the series would be a decent movie if they dedicated the time to it, but the time between the announcement of the series to it becoming a movie is just way too short, no way this is getting the proper treatment it needs.

Totally agree about the rushed feeling of Raya. The story should be the number 1 focus. You can add fun stuff (jokes, cute characters, etc...) once they story is tied down and if there's room for it, but if you rush the story to fit anything else in, you've just ruined the movie. No matter how visually stunning, it's not going to connect with the audience if the story is struggling.

That's so neat about Trolls, I love animation styles that go for a certain look, and making it look like the world is made of crafting materials is genius! I'm going to have to watch them someday!

Completely agree with you about PATF and ENG... one of the many things that annoyed me with the Lion King remake was calling it live action... it was made to look realistic, but it was still all animated! They really need to stay away from live actioning any mostly animal cast movies. making the animals so photo realistic takes away so much of the heart, its so hard to emotionally connect with the characters story when their facial expression permanently bland/bored.

I didn't see anything about Tantor in it, but then again I only just quickly browsed through it. Someday I'll find time to read it, lol. I'm assuming it was to avoid making an elephant. Would have been neat to see if they had, or maybe they could have made him a different non-gorilla animal (kind of like how the baboons became a giant spider). I'm thinking their focus was too much on the main "wow factor" of the show... the vine swinging/gymnastic elements.

[ultraericthered]

OK. With all that said....

you do need to understand the movie itself was not good

And the movie was not bad either. It's a middle-of-the-road kind of flick where you have to decide for yourself whether you found it good or bad, or if you enjoyed it in spite of whatever its quality is. Sure, you weren't a fan, but you cannot say it was objectively entirely bad.

We only got a glimpse into the backstory of the king, which wasn’t enough

How little or much we got out of Magnifico's backstory really wasn't that big an issue, as Disney villain backstories tend to not matter stacked against their villainous goals and deeds that drive the plot in the present day, and their evil characteristics that make them so fun to watch. The Magnifico folly is that we needed just enough out of the backstory to establish a proper motivation for his character and the decisions he made that led to him corrupting himself with the tome of forbidden magic and going mad with the power it gave him. In the finished film, such motivation feels really unclear because they sped by the backstory exposition the way they did. Pacing matters.

If you turned your brain off and watched the movie then it would be better I suppose

but for what was meant to be the pinnacle of Disney’s career, their stories and animation and movies, it fell so flat.

I don't think I ever heard the movie described as such. You could say it's a culmanative work of 100 years of animated stories (that are frequently musical), but not "the pinnacle of Disney". Disney wasn't even doing movies when they started out 100 years ago, so in that respect Once Upon A Studio is far more the tribute to its history and career than a random throwback movie that came out a bit after it.

The king was shoehorned into being the villain, the reveal felt too rushed and far too soon, and it felt like he was jumping too far to conclusions when he didn’t even know what the mysterious light was or if it truly was a threat.

See what I said about the need for motivation establishment, but I don't see how he was "shoehorned into being the villain" when he was set up as the bad guy from the start. That's like arguing Gaston got "shoehorned into being the villain" because he was just some vain, boorish, misogynistic jerk at the start rather than a true evildoer.

The way they did it you can’t tell if that was the case or if he was just unhinged in the beginning

It was very clear that he was not unhinged in the beginning. His early scenes made it a point to show him as an well-meaning, easygoing, charming guy who at least makes an effort to think with rationality, deliberately to contrast with what he'd decline into becoming later.

We know that she cares, but why? Because she was brought up to believe in the king? Her father whom she lost taught her to care and be good? She’s just nice? It’s all too vague

This is a silly criticism. Asha is far from the best realized character, but she is the heroine in a simple fairy tale, and many of that type tend to be Good Guys Just Because. Snow White is "the fairest of them all" because she just is, etc. Not everything is all that deep.

The care and love put into Wish just doesn’t seem to be there, which is saddening.

Your Mileage May Vary. Some viewers found a lot of love, care, and heart put into the movie by the people who actually worked on it. It's the corporate mandates and post-production slapdash editing that is really to blame for turning out a lesser product than was wished for.

Wished for. See what I just did there?

with all the negativity Disney's wish has received lately it genuinely feels like people are just looking to hate one something. Disney gets critiqued for not making original stories. So They make a princess fairytale movie. Disney gets critiqued for not having evil Disney villains. They give it an evil Disney villain. Disney gets critiqued for having overcomplicated plots. They make a sweet little movie about wishing on stars. But then it's "too safe" the villains evilness is "forced" and the movie is "self indulgent" for all its references even tho it's literally Disney's 100th anniversary movie.

Do y'all just not know how to enjoy things like a classic Disney fairytale movie without only seeing what you'd rather it be? Wish was a fun, sweet, cute little movie but because it's not the greatest film they've ever made it's a "disappointment"? Idk it feels like Wish is being held to a way higher standard then all of their other films from the last 5 years and after seeing the film I just don't see what's got y'all this upset.

[privateraelle]

your honest thoughts on the motherland finale?

oh boy jsdfks i knew this ask was gonna come up one way or another so i guess i might get it out of the way now. that finale was bad. disappointing. i've never said a single bad thing about motherland. like. ever. i've always trusted the writers and eliot to handle things like they did with s1 and s2 and even though s2 was a bit messy, it was good. but what happened last night was one big messy clusterfuck. i was sad, mad, on the verge of tears because of how bad it was. i've always been the biggest "trust the writers" idiot and i kinda wanna eat my hand now cause sdjfkds i trusted the writers and they fucked me over but it's okAY i'm fine i'll get over it cause someone whom i adore very much can write me a fix fic. anyway this show has been my comfort show for 2 years and it has given me one of the best experiences i've ever had. it has also introduced me to people that are everything to me and i won't ever forget how good it has made me feel, always. so, this is just constructive criticism of something i love.

so, my thoughts, no specific order, just things that won't leave my mind and won't let me and my brain process how stupid everything was:

no closure for any character. like. at all. it's literally an open ending and i know eliot was maybe hoping he would have more chances for the show to get picked up by another network but??? what the fuck was that. there are so many questions that stay unanswered and so many things that make no sense AT ALL and for what. what happened after everybody became a witch? did they end conscription? if that's not the case, why would raelle and scylla go back to the army willingly knowing they wanted to escape? leaving those things to the imagination of the audience is not good storytelling mister, it's bad writing and it's so unserious. when tally got her sight back, they could've shown the audience the characters' future instead of doing whatever they did in that final scene. they should've provided a solid conclusion to the show, they knew it was their last season and they didn't deliver.

so many unnecessary scenes of silver and hearst and his fucking sister which surprise!! is still out and didn't make a final appearance. she was introduced as a new character and her purpose was what exactly? being a mean sister? yeah, okay i guess. unnecessary. they wasted so much time on useless scenes of the camarilla being bad™ when it added absolutely nothing to the plot (hearst singing???? jesus fucking christ what was eliot on), instead of giving us things we genuinely care about. like haha the main fucking couple they forgot existed til ep 8.

that's the next thing i'm gonna talk about. raylla was done so fucking dirty this season. i know all about tay's accident and i'm so glad she healed completely but there was no reason to keep them apart for so many episodes after she was back to filming?? i wasn't mad about raelle reuniting with the unit first, like, not at all. i loved it. but scylla being kidnapped for no reason at all and them not reuniting til next episode was a big dick move and again, unnecessary. their reunion was spoiled in the actual trailer of the season which made it even more anticlimactic and dull, thank god amalia and taylor put their whole souls into them or i wouldn't have felt a single thing. don't get me started on how they have butchered raelle and how they took a lot of fucking liberties with her character. you're telling me raelle was okay with not knowing where scylla was for a whole ass WEEK and she was just straight up chillin' and not losing her shit? nah, i don't think so. anyway, their scenes are cut short and have the length of a tiktok video. when was their last meaningful conversation as a couple?? idk probably in s2 cause they haven't had those in s3, not even in the first episodes where all they gave us were lil amalia/taylor touches n glances. the proposal and the wedding felt rushed, ridiculous and like something they did to shut people up. "they got married what more do you want?" an on-screen relationship with actual fucking scenes that show how the characters feel towards each other, maybe, idk could be wrong. they were not treated like the main couple this season and it's been a hard pill to swallow but it's true. the finale was just scylla holding raelle and carrying her around and that's it. gregorio and tally, a couple that got together LAST EPISODE got a kiss and a worried hug and we got!! nothing!! haha yeah. not even an ending for them. the setup was there. the lighthouse, raelle and scylla running together and living near the beach. instead we got them standing next to each other like they're best buds. welp, at least they're not dead, right?

scylla's treatment was also bullshit. they did an exceptional job on making her part of the unit just to throw her under the bus last minute and sideline her character at the end. that last scene felt empty without her. i know the show's always been about the unit, i agree. but scylla's part of the unit now. she should've been there. instead, she just carried raelle around, and did nothing. what a waste. amalia knows her way around stunts, they should've made her fight and show us what she's actually capable of. but whatever.

anacostia's death pissed me off so much. it was anticlimactic and pretty avoidable if you ask me. i remember last night when watching the ep, i didn't even react to her death because it felt so ??? stupid?? that i was like "haha dude she's not dead". and she was? what the fuck eliot. it didn't make sense for the plot, it was just a big fuck you to us all and a stupid attempt at pulling a plot twist. it wasn't a plot twist, it was absurd. the audience didn't even have time to mourn her. if they wanted to kill someone and make the audience feel something, they should've gone for petra. i know miss ashley would've delivered a performance. but anacostia's death was pointless and mister sterling what's his name wasn't the person she should've died for. if they wanted to kill her so bad, she should've died protecting the unit.

can someone explain to me how making everyone a witch solves the world's problems? what was eliot thinking? forcing everyone to be the same, erasing their identities and differences and giving the camarilla (remember!! bad people who hate witches!!) actual power to fight them and kill them seems pretty stupid to me. also the big epic moment didn't feel like one. it felt pretty dull.

okay, some positive feelings:

i really missed arlen's nicte. i'm really glad she made a last appearance. nicte is my bestie i love her.

the whole raylla/adigail convo about the lighthouse and the ocean. beautiful.

raelle healing scylla and refusing to let anything happen to her.

izadora is a fucking beast i'm so glad she's not dead. the scene of her laughing in alban's face. GOLD.

abi being the last steward <3

and that's pretty much it. i'm sure i'm leaving sooo many things behind but this is as much as i can think of right now. i'll be mad for a few days and then i'll start giffing to numb the pain i guess sjfds.

[zalrb]

how did you develop your critical thinking skills? like you can just watch a show or movie and just have analyses and know if something is well-written, not fleshed out, or rushed, or if this character is out of place, how do you do that?

uhhh, well, i'm a writer first of all, i took creative writing courses in undergrad, then i did my master's in creative writing, so that doesn't only mean writing, it means reading other people's work and critiquing it, i've also interned at a lit agency, i'm also an english and cinema major, which isn't to be mistaken with "film school" where you learn how to make a film, this was we will study cinema, study theory, like notes from my horror film class would be like:

so we'd study film scholars/theorists like Metz or Mulvey or Barthes

so when writing an essay, it would be like how a film communicated a theory most of the time, other times it would be like how a film relates to the point xyz theorist made so this is the first few lines of an essay i did about do the right thing

but i had to relate it to

just wanted to make that clear since there seems to be some confusion about what i actually did in my program with anons and frankly, i hated most of my cinema classes LOL.

in undergrad i was also on the editorial board for the english department's academic journal, which was valuable because we had a staff advisor who would tell us what to look for in an essay and what qualified essays to be As or Bs or Cs.

so basically, i wrote/write and read a lot and that develops your critical thinking skills especially critiquing other people's work and especially interning at a lit agency because my job was to go through the slush pile and read unsolicited manuscripts and determine whether or not they merited a read from an agent, the first week i was there i had to explain to my boss why i chose certain manuscripts and why i didn't choose others until he and the other agents felt comfortable to just let me make the decisions without questioning me, and in creative writing workshops you have to be able to back up a criticism otherwise you're just being a dick or you're being lazy, which means you need to think critically about why you're responding to something a certain way. and then on the other hand as a writer being workshopped, you have to know your story and characters and be able to answer questions that are asked of you and your work.

and then there's just things that are instinctive and natural, i like breaking things down, i like studying media and literature, i like discussing it with people, i like watching movies, i like watching tv, so that all comes together.

[writingaboutdisney]

This will get long, so I decided to reblog instead of just comment. Because I disagree with pretty much every point up there. Also, under a readmore because of how long it is. I'm sorry to subject you to this lol.

There's certain things that I think are a matter of opinion. That means that even if the youtubers are backing it up with facts, what they're saying won't apply to everyone, but it's still a valid criticism for others. Especially without more details to some of your points, it's hard to get into specifics. That's why I was just focusing on the box office numbers, and that even though the critics don't like it, most of the audience does.

I'm not going to cover every point. Some of these I'm curious about, some I can chock up to differences of opinion. So like, Valentino being annoying? If you don't like the goofy side kick type characters, yeah you'll probably find him annoying. But if you do like, say, Olaf, you'll personally enjoy him. I actually found him to be less annoying than Olaf, personally.

Other points that fall into the "Depends on a person's tastes in film" category would include the music being okay at best, too many references to old movies, and the animation style being lackluster (Which i'll still bring up later because there is some more to talk about with this imo.)

As for what I'm curious about, why is Asha considered boring? I've seen some criticism for her, mainly people thinking she's "adorkable," but I haven't heard her called boring yet.

I have seen more criticism for Magnifico being "boring." I think he's a lot more complex of a villain than a lot of people give him credit for. In fact, I'd argue he's the most complex villain we've ever got in Disney. We see he has a tragic backstory, and we see how that might influence his actions, but it also does not excuse them. He's not trying to grab power for power's sake, nor is he redeemable just because he has understandable motives. It's a rather fresh take on a villain that I was excited to see. But a lot of people seem to miss this about his character and not understand his character arc, which is why I think they find him boring.

Which leads me to the point about them sacrificing story for easter eggs. I will say this, the story felt a bit rushed. But, if you watch older Disney movies, like Snow White, Sleeping beauty, etc, they feel slightly rushed too. They're shorter. Yet, they can fit the entire story into the movie, and while you're left saying we should have had more ... did we really NEED it for the story to work? And I'd argue, no. Wish is able to give us enough details about the characters that the story holds up and can be followed. Extra run time to explore things further would have been nice, but it isn't needed. It goes back to some of their old habits of storytelling, where objects in the background can help tell us about a character, lighting in a scene can help set the mood, etc. It's a more subtle method of storytelling. And it may not be everyone's favorite, but that doesn't mean they did a bad job. They were just doing something different than what they've done in their recent movies. I enjoyed it, because I like the older Disney movies. It may not be for everyone, but that doesn't make it terrible.

I also didn't find Amaya to be useless. She was an interesting character in her own right. She helps the heroes take on Magnifico. She's someone in power who sees how things are going poorly and is there to support her people, which contrasts nicely with her husband as he goes off the deep end. She helps Dahlia get access to the magic book she needs to research how to defeat Magnifico. At the end of the movie, she's the one with experience ruling the kingdom who can help everyone heal after what happened. I won't say she has the biggest role in the movie, but she's certainly not just sitting in the background serving no purpose.

As for the magic system, this is the point i'm closest to agreeing with. I don't think the plot holes are too big to be excused, however, because things feel a bit rushed, some things pop up in the middle of the story when it would've been nice to know them before. For example, Magnifico is the only person allowed to use magic in Rosas, and that's not something I realized until the middle of the movie. Other forms of magic are illegal. It kind of came out of nowhere, but it does fit with his personality and the world itself, so again, it wasn't such a big plot hole that it was inexcusable. I'm not sure what other plot holes people are talking about when it comes to magic, but if you give me an example I could give you my thoughts on it.

Star was not only made for merchandising. That is actually just ... blatantly untrue. Star was always meant to be in the movie long before he was the small, adorable, merchandisable thing we ended up with. I have the art book and I could show you some pictures later if you like, but they went through a lot of different design options for him before finally landing on the one they picked. A lot of them are far less cute, some have him looking human, some more like Jiminy Cricket. That's who he was inspired by btw, he's supposed to be a guide for Asha like Jiminy was for Pinocchio. And he does work in that compacity. He contributes a lot to the story. The story wouldn't exist in anywhere near the same way without him. So I'm not sure why people are saying he's just for merchandising.

As for the animation ... like I said, i got the artbook. And while it's an opinion on whether you find it to be better or worse than other movies coming out, I do know the team put a lot into this. This is Disney's first stylized CGI movie. It's the first time they've blended 2d and 3d animation into one medium like this. I'm not saying it's everyone's cup of tea, or it's perfect, but I do feel like people are being extremely hard on it. Again, if it's not your thing, that's okay. This is just a point I disagree with and I personally find the animation to be beautiful. I'm really glad we got something that wasn't the giant heads and eyes we've been getting ever since Tangled lol. I think this was a step in the right direction animation wise.

As for the teens, I don't really see it as overcrowding. THis might also be a personal opinion I suppose? But they're based off the seven dwarfs from Snow White, and just like Snow White, while they do play a role, they're side characters. They're not meant to steal the show. THey're meant to be Asha's friend group who helps her out when she needs it. I thought they struck a nice balance of giving them unique personalities while still making sure they didn't take up too much time since the movie was about Asha. But maybe that's just me.

TLDR: I think a lot of people are taking personal preferences and using that to say the movie is a bad movie in general, when really it was just a bad movie for them personally.

So Wish came out...

I haven't seen it, but with so many videos on why it's terrible, I'm starting to hear some of the same stuff pop up.

Music is okay at best. Lyric pacing is terrible.

Too many references to old movies, not enough attention to the story.

Asha is a boring character.

Overcrowding. Having the seven dwarves as Asha's allies made for seven characters with no real purpose.

Magnifico is a boring villain. Which is a shame, cause as someone who has no intention of seeing the film, he seems like he's the most interesting character.

The queen has literally no purpose whatsoever.

The magic system is never clearly defined and creates plot holes too big to excuse.

Valentino is annoying.

Star was only made for merchandizing purposes.

Animation style is lackluster compared to other movies made by other studios coming out today.

Honestly, I worry that this is going to become one of those cases where "bad press is good press". So many people are talking about the film, and the people who made the videos obviously went to the theater to see it. I hate to contribute to that, but I felt like summing it up. I doubt Wish is going to make the same comeback as Elemental did, but who knows? Even if it starts making more money in the box office, I don't see its ratings going up.

[ethernetchord]

lets talk: popular iwwv criticism

(disclaimer: i know criticism is subjective and thats why im doing this, i wanna look at some common points made against iwwv and dissect them just a little bit in the opposite direction. also none of this is directed at any individual- it’s all based on the general talking points i’ve seen surrounding the book.)

SPOILER WARNING !!

lack of exploration into james and oliver (+ gay characters feel performative)

i’ve seen loads of people say that oliver and james’ relationship felt very performative, a way of including the queer romnce which clearly is very important to the plot but not actually giving it any space in the novel, nor developing it to the same extent which meredith/oliver was.

oliver and meredith had a very strictly physical relationship and while he did love her, he wasn’t in love with her the way he was with james. the juxtaposition in the way that oliver/james is delivered and the way meredith/oliver is delivered is, i believe, far too repetitive to not be intentional. i actually realised upon re-reading how much focus there really is on meredith’s sexuality, even in subtleties in the book. meredith and oliver get more blatant sex scenes, get more physical parts because oliver was (to an extent) using his attraction to meredith to distract himself from his infatuation with james.

we also have to remember that oliver and james didn’t get their real moment of honesty about their relationship till extremely late into the book. i’d honestly see it as more ‘performative’ to then after or in the middle of kind lear throwing in some wild sex scene between the two. it wouldn't have fit.

“why didn’t james and oliver get together earlier then >:(((“ because the slow burn between them, the subtext, the subtle-ness, the yearning, they were all crucial to the decision which oliver made at the end. the fact that they burned so bright for each other but (oliver particularly) were so desperately repressed, that was what made this such a tragic romance. yes its tiring to read stories about queer people being repressed, yes its tiring to see the bury your gays trope. but like oliver says, it goes beyond gender.

if oliver’s second love interest was a girl, and treated this way, we’d be a lot more on board with these tropes- but the fact that james is a man, and this therefor becomes a queer relationship, makes it feel performative. i can’t convince you of anything- but i like to believe that their relationship being treated like this not only makes it so much more “heart wrenching because why! why couldn’t it work out, why couldn’t it be better!” - not because its a queer relationship but because they were soulmates.

alexander wasn’t performative. not in the slightest, rio just didn’t make being gay his entire identity. same goes for colin. just because they’re queer doesn’t mean it needs to be the only thing about them. this isn’t a lgbt novel- characters dont have to be gay just for plot. they can just be gay.

i’ve also seen people complain about not just making oliver bisexual. guys. did you read the book? he was bisexual. he was emotionally and physically attracted to both meredith and james. guys that’s literally what bisexual means.

i'm totally on board with the coming out scenes! and realisation of feelings and all that stuff- but again, not an lgbt centric novel and also- these were things oliver probably did and realised far before this book. remember that its set in 4th year, at an art school. he knew he was fruity ok. not every queer character in every queer book have to have these grandious coming out scenes or realisations. the lack there of doesn’t equal performance.

the ending was rushed and bad

believe what you will, but i don’t think james is dead. there’s a little too much ambiguity in that ending, in the extract he leaves oliver, in the “his body was never found.” so if your main quarrel with the ending is that “bury your gays” situation- please know there’s a chance- and that giving it that chance opens up so much more discussion and reader response.

yes, the ending is sad. but it’s not rushed. “but that is how a tragedy like ours or king lears breaks your heart- by making you believe the ending might still be happy until the very last second.” doing king lear, doing macbeth, doing romeo and juliet, the plays are chosen not only for reader convenience (they’re plays readers will most likely be familiar with) but also because they all, so very deeply, foreshadow a “bad” ending. killing james, makes sense. as much as people don’t want to hear it, from an authorial perspective- from the reader’s perspective and as a human being it makes sense. why do keep arguing that he “should’ve stayed alive for oliver” or that “if he really loved oliver he wouldn’t have done it” - why are we limiting a character’s entire existence down to their love interest. yes, they were best friends, yes they were set up as lovers but that doesn’t mean that that would be enough to keep james around. james was a fragile character- he was always checking with oliver if he had upset him, he was always worried, overthinking, james wasn’t strong minded- and he was suffering. the only person he had left to depend on was in prison, he was plagued with the guilt of causing the death of a classmate and letting oliver take the blame, if he did kill himself, it sure as hell doesn’t have any reason to sound forced.

“its not nearly as good as the secret history!!!!”

to be honest here buds, why the fuck do we keep comparing them so insistently. they are not the same book. iwwv wasn’t trying to be tsh 2.0, yes there are similarities because hey! guess what! books in similar genres tend to do that! always comparing it tsh when they have different motives, different plots and vastly different execution makes no sense. the only reason that they are compared is because tumblrtm dark academics like to group the two together. and yea- makes sense, but stop trying to belittle iwwv because it isn't as grandiose as tsh, because it’s a little more literal, because it’s not as intertextual as tsh. half the people saying iwwv isn’t as good as tsh are practically just subtly going “shakespeare isn’t as complicated as ancient greek huehue” stop forcing the two together and let them be separately appreciated.

the characters were flat/archetypes/etc

sigh. okay.

these characters are actors. this book shows us their transition from themselves entirely into a conjunction of the roles they’ve played and the stereotypes they’ve portrayed.

“we were so easily manipulated - confusion made a masterpiece of us.”

“for us, everything was a performance”

“imagine having all your own thoughts and feelings tangled up with all the thoughts and feelings of a whole other person. it can be hard, sometimes, to sort out which is which.”

“far too many times i had asked myself whether art was imitating life or if it was the other way around”

“it’s easier now to be romeo, or macbeth, or brutus, or edmund. someone else.”

are you seeing it now? this focus on their archetypes, this focus on the character they are; the way they see themselves not merely as human but as a walking concoction of every character they have turned into and out of. they depend on their archetypes to give them meaning. rio uses these archetypes to remind us of the submersion of her characters. they weren’t flat, their intentional lack of dimension due to their pasts is what makes them so intricate. furthermore, there's an evident subversion- the tyrant becomes a victim, the hero becomes a villain (they all become villains really), the ingenue becomes corrupted. like mentioned before, i think we forget ourselves easily reading this book but there is a great deal of emphasis on this being their last year- which is so important. the damage has been done and a lot of the issues people have with the content (or lack thereof) in this book has to do with the fact that it’s all things that would have occurred in books focusing on previous years at delletcher.

“it didn't live up to expectation” (also leading on from read tsh to this and being ‘disappointed’)

i cant argue this because its entirely subjective. whatever expectation was created for you, i cannot know that and appropriately respond however- if you liked the secret history and understood the secret history then there's a good chance you also liked and understood this book- even if not to the same extent but you must be able to recognize the authorial approach and its significance. i think a lot of ppl read iwwv (and a lot of “dark academia” texts and films) and hope to be able to romanticize the aesthetic or the concepts and then are disappointed when they are presented with mildly unlikeable and overwhelmingly human characters who aren’t easy to romanticize.

a great majority of these books are criticisms of the very culture you’re trying to romanticize, and the only time you’re willing to admit that is when boasting about the ‘self-awareness’ of the people indulging in them, and then a moment later complain about those same qualities because they don’t serve this idealized expectation.

bad rep for arts/liberal arts/ humanities students as being pretentious/cultish

as a humanities student with a great love for eng lit- all of these things are indeed pretentious and cultish. not all the time and not always and not every person- but it is a common theme. academia is overwhelmingly obsessive and extremely white-washed. people become so fast to believe that they are indulging in finer arts and are therefore a higher standard of person. academia is problematic. and the recent influx of people interested in it is good, very good because hopefully, we’ll be more diverse, more open-minded, more accepting. that's what i hope at least. if you know, as an individual, that you’re not a pretentious academic who places themselves above non-academics then that's wonderful- but there are dangers and negative sides to academia that need to be understood so that we can see to not perpetuating them.

i cant refute all points, mostly because there's a lot of good and well-explained criticism because no book is perfect. and my intentions are not to belittle anyone's opinion. these are merely opposing arguments, food for thought and to be fair- a critical look into why not everything is always going to be what we expect of it and why every ‘problem’ can be assessed.

[cookinguptales]

The way you talk with certainty about "original scripts" and stuff is giving Pepe Silvia tbh. Cmon. The season we saw is the season the writers wanted us to see. 4x09 only doesn't make sense to folks who had cemented their expectations already and still refuse to integrate the episode we actually got, an ep which does make total sense in the order of events we saw and the season we all watched. Sure, some people would have liked to have seen a more satisfying conclusion to Marwa's arc. That's fair. But I'm failing to see how that warrants the mental gymnastics to explain why your expectations were not met.

One more thing...you mention that the narrative doesn't tell us that Nandor's actions toward Marwa are wrong, but I'd argue that 4x08's narrative DOES show us that Nandor is being a huge dick and what he's doing is wrong. That's kind of the whole point of his subplot in that episode. It's 4x09 that doesn't dwell on that, because hey, that's not the focus of the episode (and I get why it rubs people wrong. It just doesn't for me). It's ok to not have liked 4x09 and it's ok to not have liked where they went with Marwa's story (even if I personally think people are putting way too much emphasis on her as a side character and how that's a huge part of the disconnect people are having) but what it definitely doesn't do is support a theory that the writers haphazardly threw together the season without a care in the world for the story or its continuity. At minimum, let's put some respect on Wally Baram & Aasia LaShay Bullock's names, two women of colour writers on wwdits whose job it is to ensure continuity and edit the season's story.

Anon, I get that you may not agree with my ideas, but you're welcome to ignore them. I feel like I've made my case well and I believe in what I've said. There's an element of anger and personal attack in this that I don't think is warranted. I don't think I'm disrespecting any writer by talking about rewrites and writing decisions and by criticizing where I don't think things came together.

We literally know that they reimagined parts of this season partway through filming. They have told us that. I don't really understand why you're acting like I'm showing up at the writers' house with a knife for saying it, or for saying that I think the rewrites show.

I think the fact that 4.08 was starting to explore the idea that Nandor had made Bad Life Choices re: Marwa was exactly why 4.09 felt so jarring when that was all tossed aside and never fully elaborated on before they put her on a bus. There's a reason why people were so interested in that plotline in 4.08 and so disappointed in 4.09. It was a very ignominious end for a character who was finally starting to come into themselves -- who wasn't just a side character.

Besides which, WWDITS has always gone to great lengths to humanize their recurring side characters and give them interesting character arcs. I think discounting Marwa as a side character and saying that's why her poor writing is understandable actually is disrespectful to the world that the writers have built thus far. I am judging Marwa's writing against characters like Jenna and Gregor and the Guide and Sean and Charmaine and hell, even Simon the Devious. WWDITS has great recurring side characters, usually!

Like the reason why I had high expectations for this writing team is because they'd always met those expectations in the past. And this time they didn't. I'm upset because this was a conscious decision and the season they chose to show us. I'm upset because the writing feels rushed and at times half-baked, not something I'm accustomed to thinking about this show, and because I think the rewrites show.

I get that you seem to have a hard time with people criticizing the writing decisions in this show -- and make no mistake, I am criticizing decisions. But no, I'm not going to feel bad about this here, and I don't particularly appreciate the weird attempted guilt trip by naming story editors and telling me that I'm disrespecting them as WOC by criticizing the writing decisions in a tv show.

Like... you are very welcome to your own opinions, anon, and I'm glad you enjoyed the show you got. But no, tracking writing decisions and trying to piece together how the writing room came to those decisions (with, yes, the rewrites they have admitted to in mind) doesn't make me some weirdo indulging in mental gymnastics who's being disrespectful to the writers.

(Now some of my meta? That is mental gymnastics and joyfully so. Having fun on these monkey bars, tbh.)

[random-film-bee]

‘Seven Samurai’

Okay, first and foremost, this movie was WAY too long. While I really did enjoy this film and I appreciate the details, it could have and should have been a full hour shorter. No movie except Lord Of The Rings should ever be allowed to be this long.

Impression:

With that said, it was an enjoyable watch. I liked how fleshed out the characters were and how they each had their own distinct personalities and little growths throughout the course of the movie. I especially liked Kikuchiyo, mostly because he felt the most developed and his character growth was the most in your face out of all the characters. At first, I really did not like him. But he grew on me and even managed to make me genuinely laugh on occasion. Him going from a rude crazy man, to someone full of compassion and guilt was really beautiful to watch. He was the key member that kept everyone together in my opinion. At first with his speech about how farmers became corrupt because of samurai which kept them form leaving, to the moments following their friends’ deaths when he rallied their spirits with the flag, he was really critical to the group. His death hit me the hardest. However, I think there is some beauty in him dying defending the people in the village, when he was born from a similar situation, but there was no one like him there to defend it. He got to be the hero he wished had been there for him as a kid. Still depressing though, no lie.

However, I really couldn’t care less about the romance between the younger samurai (forgot his name) and Shino. I could have gone without that and saved myself like 30 min of screen time. It wasn’t necessarily bad, but it felt not only unnecessary but kind of rushed. If a romance was going to be added I wish it was more fleshed out so I would have actually cared about it. Considering the film was over 3 hours though, I understand not allotting more time to it.

Interpretation:

I think the film aims to showcase the strength in unity. By that, it includes people of all backgrounds which comments on the unfairness of classist divides. At this point, samurai and farmers were in completely different social standings and would not have much to do with one another. Despite this, the seven samurai help the farmers. As Kambei said, “If you think only of yourself, you’ll only destroy yourself” driving home the concept of unity and acceptance. Even within the samurai themselves, 3 of them weren’t true samurai (the young follower, Kikuchiyo, and the log cutting guy) but they were accepted as one and they formed a untied front with close bonds despite their many differences. Kikuchiyo exemplifies the lesson of unity being better than alienated acts of selfishness. When he works side by side with the villagers and other samurai, he saves plenty of lives. However, when he went off on his own in search of glory by killing bandits and taking their muskets, he brings the bandits to the village and inadvertently gets multiple people killed.