#fucking classic 'we didn't think about the plot or character development while coming up with this finale

[yallthemwitches]

sometimes i debate how much public reception affected the trajectory of jkr's characters. bc her favorites are obv severus and dumbledore and deathly hallows was quite set on making snape redeemable- but i think the movies and alan rickman achieved it better. but also technically cursed child is canon - like she signed off on that. but how much of that plotline was influenced by public reception of the books and movies? like the whole bellatrix and voldemort lovechild felt v much like fanfic plotline and i think i remember seeing that while the books were being released a lot of people suspected snape to be in love with harry's mom.

There is an AMAZING post regarding this idea specifically towards Sirius' Character development which I will link here, but I absolutely think that public perception/ major corporate influence probably swayed a lot of JKR's choices later on (despite her constant insistence that it was all planned from the beginning).

Tbh, I think when you have something so beloved and MASSIVE like HP, which is a money making machine for not just her but for powerful, greedy companies, I think it's easy to "lose the plot" literally and figuratively in order to keep all parties somewhat happy.

I don't think this happened too too horribly with the initial 7 books because I think for the most part at least the skeleton was there (though the above linked post will talk about the silent period between GoF and OoTP which coincides with the first movie coming out and I think there were a lot of decisions being made in that window for how the rest of the 5-7 books would pan out) Buuuuuut I think if we are talking post HP 1-7 it becomes (pardon my french): absolute n'importe quoi.

I won't mince words, anon. Cursed Child is absolute dogshit--and the only explanation I can come up with is that whoever greenlighted it couldn't see past the giant money signs in their eyes to actually notice "Hey, isn't this absolutely contradictory to the original story???"

When I think about CC, I often remember when Harper Lee's sequel of To Kill a Mockingbird was posthumurously published. If you weren't privvy to it, essentially Lee wrote a sequel that completely decimated the morals and themes of the originally classic novel but never intended to have it get published---in fact, she demanded that it never see the light of day for unknown reasons (authors have millions of reasons to not like their work!) but because of greed, her family waited until her death then sold the rights to the book for the cash grab of the century...effectively maiming the legacy of a beloved work.

Now, Harper Lee was dead and did not make the decision for a sequel to completely upheave her original masterpiece. JKR very much was alive for the making of CC (and Beasts franchise) and very much backed those projects.

Do I think this was fueled by money? Yes. Do I think the decisions made were also swayed by a "fan service" (aka keeping the riotous crowd happy)?" Yes. Do I think it all blew up in her face for the most part---but still made her a shit ton of profit? Yes yes yes. And I fear this will rinse repeat from CC to Beasts to this new HBO show which I still!!! do not understand why it's getting made.

I can't say that I feel too sad about it at this point tbh. There was a time in my life where I would have cut off my arm (both arms!) for jkr to write a marauders prequel but now...wow, thank FUCK she didn't. I'd much rather read @chdarling's The Last Enemy for the billionth time and call it a day.

Unfortunately, I think it all chocks up to money and power. We've seen this many times now---and it continually gets worse as production companies rely on sequels and spin-offs and retellings for film/tv /book fodder rather than original material. And why do they do this? Because it's guaranteed money in the bank. Every time.

[randomthefox]

The reaction of people getting outright pissed at S3 for butchtering SA2, giving a pass to the first two movies, reminds me a lot of the reception of Nocturne :)

I love this. "Dracula's Curse didn't have a story, and Curse of Darkness was bad, so it's okay to mangle those games and its characters, it's not like anyone cares! But ohhh noooo don't touch the Sacred Cows, those need to be respected! Even though RoB has even less plot than DC! But we like that game!" yeah lol how's it feel now

"An attempt to fix something that wasn't broken" yeah. DC and CoD weren't broken either. DC in particular would have made for a very solid story as it was. And the same goes for SA2, since we're in topic. This is the crux of the discourse about Maria: while as a character she is absolutely lovely in the movie, and they nailed the chemistry with Shadow, they changed so many details and the story is poorer for it.

Says something that the best sequence in the trilogy is still the relatively faithful adaptation of S&K's climax, with the only difference that it doesn't take place in space.

The road of enjoying the Sonic movies diverges at this point: time either to take the road of "oh no the movies are bad now because they fucked up SA2" or the road of "yeah well the video games are bad anyway I don't even like SA2 therefore the movie is good."

Yeah it's always funny when a shithouse In Name Only adaptation cuts its teeth on the more Classic games of a franchise which aren't really taken all that seriously even by its own fanbase. Creating an adaptation that completely wipes its ass with the source material, and people praise it and belove it because Movies > Video Games. So then they capitalize on the built in success and popularity of the big staple video game of the franchise, skipping over the logical and chronological options just to get right to the one that's the most acclaimed and beloved entirely for the sake of exploiting the status of that big popular entry to farm easy hype. And in the pre-release the hype is massive because people think that the game they hold in the highest esteem of all is going to be done faithfully and given the respect it deserves - apparently not paying attention to the fact that the previous adaptation did no such thing so why would this new one be any different.

Then it comes out and they're shocked SHOCKED that Sonic 3 did exactly the same thing that Sonic 2 did, only this time they did it to a game they actually care about. And I'm not gonna lie, it's very fucking cathartic to me. Seeing people acting like Sonic 3 is bad and that that's new, when the truth is they just have more esteem for Sonic Adventure 2 than they did for the Genesis games so NOW they care that the movies are doing the games dirty. When the truth is there is no difference between this movie and the previous two. They just made the same movie again. Sonic 3 is LITERALLY the EXACT same movie as Sonic 2, they just swapped some of the names around. There's no difference between the movies, but this time the difference is between the games the movies are ripping material from.

As someone who has hated the movies from day 1, watching the divide develop in the fanbase is going to be far more entertaining for me than the movies ever were lol.

[somelokivariant]

Writing skill or an interesting fucking plot? Ft the queen Margaret Atwood

I read the Handmaids tale for my gr 12 final (which was on my tbr for a while) and it low key sucked 🧍

Don't cancel me, the book wasn't b a d, I think it wasn't as good as it could've been.

The book felt dead. After I read it my mom was like "so what was it about" and im like gurl idek. There is no plot to summarize. It was a 300 page "day in the life" of a Handmaid (ig that's literally the title of the book-).

But you know how in grade three you learn the story arch with the conflict-climax-resolution? Atwood didn't follow that, (and I'm all for ditching rules for artistique purposes) but in this case it didn't do anything for the story.

Offred was right at the climax point, right in the smack of that dab, but because the entire book was at the same level of stakes, there was no stimulation and it fell flat.

Now ik we do get Offreds flashbacks, but I don't think they fully made the reader feel what we were supposed to. That contrast (between Gilead and the "before") that's supposed to intrigue us wasn't shown in an effective way. The mix of present (that was actually past because it was a tale, a retelling?) and the flashbacks just made things confusing. There were a couple times i was like, wait where are we actually? Where is offred physically rn??

That story arch is still in mind within the story, but it wasn't illustrated that clearly. It was like a faint idea behind the writing that didn't quite make it into the actual writing. (However this does show how good of an author Atwood is). The story telling was unorganized. It came off as a lot of yapping (listen I love yapping) but Atwood was writing to the point where the words lost their meaning. (Remember that this is all opinion guys. See side note from me is, poetic wordy classic writing is great, but when it's used properly. Writing like that is supposed to be a punch, it's supposed stand out. When you pull that move too much, it becomes dull and no longer strikes the reader. [Just like how the plot is so much climax that its dull too])

And this us where you could say the lack of order was supposed to represent Offred's state of mind and life and how out of control things became (and i'll say thats a totally valid point)

She coulve written about offered running away, her child getting stolen, and making it through the red centre whatever, and you would seen that increase, change and danger in her life.

The problem is Atwood has an INSANELY good plot. The world building was so good, and her characters were so complex and fleshed out. As a professional author 🤓☝️ I can tell so much thinking went in to building Gilead. But then she just didn't indulge as much as she could've.

She literally didn't do her own story justice.

See falling short on a movie coming from a book I understand, because they lose things all the time, but falling short on the book itself in the first place? The story had so much potential 😭.

When i was reading I think there were multiple parts where I thought she was making a point, but then she never reinforced it. Like she forgot talking abt that, she started an idea and never finished. (Again I'm sure some of y'all love that kind of writing, and love coming to your own conclusions on what the piece means). An example was early on in the book Offred talks about the white caps the handmaids wear, and how it blinds them and "it’s hard to look up, hard to get the full view, of the sky, of anything.” (34). And I was like Atwood better use this line, this better mean something later on for their character development. But then shE DIDNT, and it became more word fluff. If the book went on to have the handmaids look up, look at the sky, with optimism and hope, to get the full view and see how Gilead was corrupted, that shit would've been SO GOOD.

That's the level of shaping a tale i was expecting and I didn't get it.

Atwoods writing is very good. My teacher said shes very showy, hes right, she exploits how well she works with words, (which doeesnt always turn out to be a good thing, because she gets carried away). She's a yapper. I understand you have skill, can you direct it to the plot please? (/lightheartedly)

Someone asked bad writing + good story or good writing + bad story. I am would rather take bad writing + good story and I think this is an example of good writing + bad story

So as an author I think yes it's a very strong novel and writing. But as a reader I was so bored 😭. Atwood is a GREAT author and the Handmaids tale was a GREAT plot, I just didn't like the way she wrote it.

[fuckspn]

i really can’t get over the plan for the band kansas to appear in the supernatural finale. like obviously it’s hilarious because it means this show killed an entire band canonically but also it’s just. such a clear signal that the writers/producers were viewing the finale as “saying goodbye to the tv show supernatural” and not “wrapping up the story we’ve been telling,” because the only connection between kansas and the main characters of supernatural is a meta one (the use of “carry on wayward son” in the recaps before each season finale, and the girls in 10x05 singing it in their musical). in-universe, the band that’s most meaningful to the characters and that they bond over is led zeppelin, not kansas; dean and sam getting to heaven and finding the band kansas waiting to play a show for them would seem completely out of left field to them, because to them kansas is just a random band that wrote a song sam doesn’t even like. “everyone’s in heaven for a kansas concert at the roadhouse!” is the supernatural finale you come up with if you’re not thinking about the characters or the plot, but rather making a Grand Finale that requires minimal storytelling effort. like i would bet actual money the conversation/thought process behind the finale went something like this:

“supernatural is finally coming to an end, what should we do for the finale?”

“how about a huge reunion with all the beloved characters we’ve seen over the years? we could set it in heaven so we could bring back all the dead characters, maybe even set it in the roadhouse since we know fans loved it. maybe we could even book kansas to play carry on wayward son one last time.”

“perfect! but wait, how do sam and dean get to heaven?”

“idk, dean used to say he couldn’t live a normal life and sam used to want to quit hunting, so... dean gets killed on a hunt and sam dies of old age?”

“yeah, sure, fuck it. it’s all just groundwork to get to the big payoff of the heaven kansas concert anyway.”

whereas if they’d been thinking about where the characters were at story-wise by the end of season 15, it should have been more like:

“okay, so they’ve defeated chuck and finally gotten the free will they’ve spent years fighting for. what do they do with that?”

“well, sam was really messed up about losing eileen again, so his first order of business should be reuniting with her.”

“definitely. what about dean, though? he just watched cas die, and that always hits him hard.”

“you’re right, and he found out that cas loved him immediately beforehand. that’s gotta be fucking with his head.”

“okay, so we’ve gotta address the cas situation in some way. probably easiest just to bring him back to life, right?”

“yeah, we can figure out exactly how we want to play it later, but we can’t really wrap up dean’s storyline in 40 minutes if cas stays dead. hey, do you think they keep hunting now that chuck’s not forcing them to?”

and so on.

[screenduck]

A Review of Alien 3 (1992)

Spoilers, obviously.

I would consider Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986) tied for my favorite movie of all time, both spectacular genre-defining films that leave you on the edge of your seat the whole time. I think any film fan would agree that these movies are some of the best ever made. And when you make a sequel to an already incredible movie that's as good, if not better, you're putting pretty high expectations for whatever comes after it. So when I first heard what happens 10 minutes in to Alien 3, it's safe to say I was already really pissed.

So, possibly unfairly, I came into this movie already mad about it before I'd even seen it. I even started the movie with a counter prepared of how many times I wanted to stop watching. At the end the counter reached 11, although I might have missed a few.

Let's start with appearance. I think that the set design, cinematography, and costume design continues the Alien franchise's track record of impressive visuals. Some specific examples were that the outfits of the Weyland-Yutani people at the end gave the exact impression of what we know the company to be, and the prison cafeteria had a futuristic style while still feeling human and realistic, which most sci-fi movies don't have. There were two versions of the xenomorph in this movie, one was the classic life size suit with incredible detail that we all know and love, and the other was a small puppet that was filmed in front of a blue screen and layered onto the scenes to look like its 7 foot counterpart. The former looked amazing, as always, but the bluescreened puppet looked horrifically out of place and weirdly green. The lighting didn't match up at all and it was so obviously bluescreened. But, in the movie's defense, this was the 90s.

When it comes to the characters, let's get one thing out of the way: Hicks and Newt are dead. I think this was a horrible choice and the biggest flaw of this movie, but more on that later. I think Ripley's character in this movie is consistent with her past iterations and still shows fantastic character development, with the help from the incredible Sigourney Weaver, of course. During the cafeteria scene where she's told she's at a table of people who...aren't too fond of women, to put it lightly...and she just sits down, I absolutely loved that choice for her character. But when it came to her relationship with Clemens, it felt very forced and passionless. Their "romance" didn't feel like it had any tension or lead up, and I didn't see a powerful connection between the two. Clemens himself was a decent character, but has nothing of interest to really point out. As for the rest of the prisoners of Fury 161, they're all terrible people. And they prove to be time and time again. They have no redeeming qualities and frankly made me really uncomfortable the whole time. This is fine in some contexts, but to me it destroyed the element of suspense and thrill in them being chased by the xenomorph, because I didn't care about them. When they were killed by the xenomorph I usually felt no strong emotions, and when I did, it was happiness. When Murphy was chopped up by the fan, I thought nothing other than that it looked cool. I consider this a major fault because this movie is basically based on the thrill and suspense surrounding the xenomorph, and I think that was ruined by my apathy towards the victims.

Finally, the plot. As stated previously, in the first 10 minutes (confirmed at around 7:25) it's established that Hicks and Newt died when their EEV crashed onto Fiorina 161. Along with these characters, this marks the death of all of the character development from Aliens and the importance of much of the plot. The most important thing to Ripley in Aliens was Newt's life, and now that that's lost, everything feels pointless. To me, it ruins the movie, because it so thoroughly fucks up the importance of the movie before it, which was incredible in almost every way, and it puts a somber and hopeless tone on the whole movie that never gets resolved. I find it hard to care about anything that happens in this movie because it feels like nothing matters in the franchise anymore. Aside from that, I think the plot is generally fine, it's a pretty basic xenomorph chase plot similar to Alien. It's obviously not executed as well, but it's decent and continues a lot of the same tropes established in the previous movies that are significant in the franchise. What I also disliked about the plot is the sexual themes with the prisoners. It made me really uncomfortable and felt generally unnecessary, although it did give Ripley some character development. It also, as stated previously, caused me to feel no empathy for any of the characters as they died. The ending was interesting in a lot of ways, and I liked how we saw the creator of Bishop's line of androids and his character.

Outside of the context of this franchise I would probably give this movie a 4/10 or a 5/10, because by itself it's surprisingly mediocre. But when you factor in what's been established in previous movies, it feels like a huge decline in the franchise and a betrayal to the glory of Alien and Aliens. With this in mind, I give this movie a 3/10. I didn't cover everything in this review because the movie is a whole 2 hours and 24 minutes long, but if you haven't watched it I recommend getting a mug of hot chocolate and preparing for disappointment.