#her terror vs his longing; his running towards it vs her fleeing from things; all the dichotomies

[moonlightreal]

Winx Club season 8/23

In which the foreshadowing doesn’t happen.

23 Between the Earth and the Sea

Alfea!  Ooh, more potions class!  Tec and Aisha have five minutes to prepare an elixir, but Aisha is distracted.  “Are you online, Aisha?”  Aisha decides careful measuring doesn’t matter and dumps in the whole test tube, and the potion explodes in Palladium’s face.  Our girls have flunked the test!

Tecna is pissed. Aisha says at her pace they wouldn’t have had anything to turn in. “everything has to be perfect” vs “trust your instincts.” the two are glaring lightning at each other when the star case appears to break up their feud.

The Winx go outside to hear the wishing star’s message, and we get a ground-level shot of the round gazebo with a moat around it.

“Corallia is an ancient star belonging to the oceanic constellation.” Tec reports, and I guess that’s where we’re going.  But we didn’t hear the box’s riddle!  there’s always a riddle!

Team evil is watching.  Valtor is on his throne with Icy and Stormy perched on the arms and Darcy at his feet.  Heh, he looks annoyed at having all the girls crowd him. They overheard Stella talk about wanting to go to a beach on Corallia, and the Trix gloat that they always take missions seriously.  Good point, actually.  Icy wants to get to Corallia first, but then Valtor stands up and says he thinks the Trix could use a vacation.

Well that’s unexpected.  

Valtor wants to go get the star himself, since the Trix blew it last time.  Well I guess it is getting close to the end of the season, if he’s gonna leave the house now is the time!  He chuckles and walks through a portal.  

Icy’s pissed. Stormy floats herself up and lounges on Valtor’s throne, Darcy floats back to sit on the armrest, and here’s an interesting conversation.  Icy’s angry at being cast aside, but it turns out Valtor can dump them back in limbo anytime he wants.  The two of them are in Valtor’s good graces for getting him prime stars.

Icy just snaps, “You two keep quiet!”  She sounds angry but that is one weak comeback.

Cut to… ocean! Surf music!  Winxboarding!  Occurs to me suddenly that the boards, with their hand-hold bar, must be meant for really little kids, like almost-toddler age.  Older than that and the boards would just be skateboards with nothing to hold on to.  Is that the target age for my show?  I feel embarrassed suddenly… oh wait, no I don’t.  I love whatever show I love.

Cute byplay with Stella saying they should do this more often and Bloom saying, “what, embark on a life threatening mission to save the magic universe?” Stella’s happy with life threatening missions as long as it’s on a beach.  I dunno, has your life been threatened much?  Last episode was a dance contest.

Beach!  Bitey hermit crab comedy!  Stella comedy!  

Then the girls arrive at what looks to me like a forest of fungus that grows off the sides of trees, but the girls think it looks like a coral forest. Only it’s not underwater.  The star box compass wobbles around and then the box disappears.  No help finding this star!

Aisha wants to search in the water ‘cause she wants to swim, but Tecna points out that the compass only moved here on the island.  Musa suggests splitting the party but flora says better not since the Trix are sure to be around.

Then… surfer lumens!  Grass skirts, lies, and lil surfboards.  They’re happy to have guests and Tecna says Corallian lumens are famous for their hospitality.

Stella fashion spells the girls into the cute jacket-skirt-hat looks we’ve seen before.  Not an island look, so we know there’s no island doll line.

I totally have a Malibu Barbie.  Speaking of island doll lines.

The girls visit the surf lumen village and meet another bitey hermit crab.  I like bitey hermit crabs.  The lumens introduce their leader, Duchess Coraline, and the girls are presented with drinks and hammocks.  Bloom tells Coraline about their mission, and Musa says the star is hidden in a place where there’s “symmetry between light and shadow.”  So there was a riddle, my video must’ve glitched.

Aisha says in the sea there’s balance between the light above and darkness below, but Tecna wants to check out the volcano.  They glare.  Now Bloom says they can split the party.  Stella ends up climbing the volcano and she’s not too happy.  Bloom thought she’d be distracted on the beach.  Heh.

They get to the top of the volcano and there’s something bright inside… Tec says it’s Corallia’s star core.  Then some lava golems pop up!  (muggle spellcheck doesn’t know “golems.”)

Cosmix time!  Tec says they golems are just guarding their territory so we can’t hurt them, just distract them.  Stella gets that job.  Fighting… more lava golems come up.

Deep in the crater surf lumens guard the core.  Valtor walks out of his portal right next to them.  And says “Boo!”  Sigh.  Surf lumens flee in terror.  Valtor catches them in a spell bubble and throws evil magic at the core, turning it dark purple.  Hmm.

What if: Valtor is still running out of starlight and came to recharge himself because he doesn’t want the Trix to find out.  they’d totally take advantage of his weakness if they knew.

Down on the beach Aisha tells some bitey hermit crabs what they’re looking for.  They go into the water and Aisha is “sure the prime star is at the bottom of the sea.”  so why not use Sirenix?  Hermit crabs bring back a boot, a vase, and an anchor.

Tecna lands to ask for help with the lava golems.

Then she sees a… shell?  I think it’s a big clamshell with purple patterns on it. It is symmetrical so tecna thinks it could be symmetry between shadow and light.  Aisha tries to pry it open.  Tec tries to magic it open. The shell is halfway between the sea and land.  When the girls realize this, the shell opens and the star is released!  Tecna gets it and it’s floating towards the star case when… a metal sphere clamps around the star, falls to the ground and starts to roll away. What the heck?  Tecna flies after it, but there’s Valtor!  He made star-grabber balls to catch the stars for him!  

Aisha grabs the ball with her morphix, because she’s great.

Oh no, the volcano’s erupting!  Valtor set it off.

Valtor does the choice thing again.  Save the star, or this island and the surf lumens.  Aisha hesitates, but Tecna says they need to save the island.  

Everybody transforms, but it’s too late!  Eruption!  Tecna takes charge, ordering Flora and Aisha to lumen village rescue while she and Musa go find Stella and Bloom, last seen at the crater.  Aisha and Flora do some good rescuing with their magic and the lumens get to safety.

The other four meet up and Stella tries to drop a shield over the volcano, but it’s too strong for them.  Tecna realizes they have to fix Corellia’s core, and that means going into the erupting volcano.

So they fly down. Tecna uses “virtual shell” to protect them from the smoke and “cosmix analysis” to see what Valtor did to the core.  She drops her shield with them in it over the core and the girls use cosmix power to fix the star core.  Yay!

The lava golems and lumens come to say thanks.

But we lost the prime star!  Aisha is upset.  Stella says they lost the battle but not the war and , ‘Valtor will never win!”  Well he’s already HALF won, Stel, you should be somewhat worried right now.

Tecna and Aisha have a moment on the beach about “where land and sea are in perfect balance” and they hug and it is very very shippy!

Valtor comes home with his star.  Only one more to go!  He gloats about how son he’ll have his wish granted, to be the most powerful sorcerer in the magic universe!

Icy, watching behind a pillar, snarls.

Next time: this is it, folks!  We’re going to a planet called Dyamond!  ...and the foreshadowing never happened.

[arcanistvysoren]

finally knitted my scattered thoughts about ryders together into a neat one-shot while waiting for early access to finish downloading.

 • In 2176 the big news is: the Jon Grissom Academy finally opens its doors to young biotics—and the twins part ways for the first time as Jo leaves for a place her brother cannot follow—to hone gifts she hasn’t asked for.

(They’re twins. It’s unfair. It should be both, or neither, not this.) 

Other news coming in is still angry, reeling in the aftermath of the Skyllian Blitz. Their father keeps a stoic front, but his fists clench whenever he listens to it too much. There’s an uncomfortable stretch of emptiness in Jaime’s stomach, now that Jo is gone, that he can’t quite find the name for. But he sees the news, and the clenched fists, and fills the empty space by enlisting.

• Somewhere else in the galaxy Jien Garson takes a job on a project that will change the course of history and both of their lives.

• We stood together, staring into that bright blue light, not knowing where it was going to take us or if we’d even make it through alive. It was the hardest step I’ve ever taken…

Their father tells them all kinds of tales of his glorious mission. Or maybe just the one tale, but they listen to it with voracity and pride. They learn not to share it quickly enough: it turns out not everyone’s father is a famous war vet; not everyone’s family gets to live in the heart of the Council space; and people might viciously begrudge you your father’s high standing.

• One day Joana gets into a scuffle at school and sends a classmate flying into a wall with a sudden eruption of blacks and blues and purples and magic. Afterwards, the thing she is most afraid of is not that she has hurt someone, nor the principle, nor their father—(not even this sudden thing tearing her up, although heavens know she never really gets a handle on it)—but that her brother will hate her.

Years later, she will still reflect from time to time that it should have been him that got it. He doesn’t disagree: it would have made life a whole lot easier for her—but he doesn’t mind it either. He doesn’t need biotics to feel plugged directly into the infinite expanse of space.

• His fate is written in his bones long before Jien Garson claws the right for humanity to be included in the Initiative from the stringently crossed arms of other aliens. It has always been thrumming through his heart whenever he looked outside and saw the stars, and a new planet below, and the endless spinning void. And his ribs would expand with the almost-painful awareness that they are floating through the unfathomable. The most beautiful terrible thing.

There is a particular sort of victory in standing on the surface of a new planet and being able to pull your helmet off. Where the air here hasn’t been made with humans in mind, and yet here they are, existing, and the breeze brushes against his skin, leaving dust specks of an entirely alien ecosystem on his tongue.

It’s a longing, he finds, universal of all living things: they’re a space-faring civilization, this is it, the future, and they’ve made it. But they still long for more uncharted depths and new horizons, and still shiver at the sight of stars.

• “Stay safe out there,” Jaime tells her the day she leaves for Grissom. His tone is light, teasing: they don’t really believe in wars yet.

“I promise,” she says. It’s a new territory, this separation, but it’s not like it actually severs them.

(Him signing up for the Initiative however…)

• “It’s a little bit like you’re dying,” Robert tells him after Jaime explains the whole thing. They’ve been roommates for two years, and he sounds wary and at a loss.

“You’ll get onto that ship, and go to sleep, and wake up the next day, only it’ll be 600 years from now. In that time I’ll get married, and have kids, and die, and my kids will have kids, my blood will distill. I’ll be thinking about you for years, wondering if somewhere in the future you’re missing me, even though you’ll be still asleep on your Ark. And when you do wake up enough to remember me, I’ll be a footnote in a database of ancient military obituaries. Not that you’d know. If you ever get back here, you won’t recognize a thing.” He shakes his head with a frown, trying to wrap his head around it. “That Ark is like a coffin. As soon as you step on board, you’re gone.”

• Come find me, Andromeda says.

It doesn’t seem like dying to him.

• Space is not something that Jo Ryder chose, the way her brother has. Space has called for Jaime and enveloped him. She has to wrestle against it like an elastic band, trying to fit it around herself, uncooperative and resistant.

Jaime looks at the stars with a smile and anticipation. Dreams of things bigger than she even, and she worries where it might lead him. But at least he knows what he wants. She lacks, and envies him this surety.

• It was the hardest step I’ve ever taken. Their father continues to rehash the same story, in private and in public. Joana isn’t dazzled it with anymore.

“I don’t want our last name to be dictating who we are,” she tells Jaime matter-of-factly, and sounds tired.

In another life, where they have not surrendered to the life of the military, she might have been a programming engineer, or a quantum mechanic, or an astrophysicist. (Numbers light up for her the way stars sing for him.) She might have been a CEO, or a broker, and he might have been a researcher, an explorer, a scientist—and in that life neither of them would get to go on the Hyperion.

He wonders sometimes how those Jaime and Joana are doing. If they’re any happier; if they’re happy at all.

• She graduates third in her class and promptly runs away to learn piloting from aliens: it’s glorious, because no one cares she’s a Ryder. She’s a human, she’s a gnat—more breakable than a turian, less biotics than an asari, all hormones and fire in her blood, still a new thing, an unproven thing—she loves it.

She has soft skin, a vulnerable artery in her neck, messy hair the likes of which they haven’t seen, and to the aliens she’s a novelty.

She has a brusque tongue, inhospitable eyes, an unpalatable roughness, and to the humans she’s objectionable.

(No one ever takes her just for the whole of her.)

Watching over a team of scientists she finds herself fiercely missing her brother.

• “I decided to go Andromeda,” he tells her merrily. His smile fades when he notices her face. “You will come with me, won’t you?” he adds carefully.

And she has to shut her eyes, to not see him, or maybe to commit him to memory, the whole of him. Because he’s leaving. Going where she can’t, or maybe doesn’t want to try and follow after all. (When she opens her eyes again, they are bright.)

“We do everything together,” he insists helplessly. “Say you’ll come with me.”

She shakes her head, and doesn’t say it, cannot say it. Looks at him askance, terribly betrayed, and still pulls him into a wordless hug. Clings to him, and he to her, but it doesn’t help at all.

• Being a Ryder is a legacy. Not as much as being a Grissom, she supposes, but in the military circles their name carries weight: her father, the right hand man, stepping into the maw of the unknown, dashing and unafraid. Girls and boys in her class swooning over the photos of the alpha strike team that first stepped through the Charon relay to Arcturus. Girls and boys asking utterly inappropriate questions about her father.

That’s how she discovers the first thing different between her and Jaime: when she is just too mad, when it is bursting out of her, too full, too much, splitting out of her spine with a spike of something violent and unfathomable. And she cannot feel her body, and cannot understand its signals, and it’s awful from that very first second, and she never really learns to cope with it.

• In the wake of the Battle of the Citadel, Joana meets Commander Shepard, briefly. Spots her on the Presidium, sitting out of the way, half-concealed from the passers-by. She doesn’t want to bother her, but knows she’ll be kicking herself later if she doesn’t.

“Commander?” she gathers enough gusto to approach her. The women turns her head, unsurprised—the way people who are used to strangers approaching them are never surprised anymore. (Joana’s seen the look enough times on her father.) She lets out a nervous exhale and steps closer. “I just wanted to thank you. For all that you did. Saving our asses.”

Shepard smiles around a humorless chuckle, her eyes trailing down below, to the chasm in the Presidium’s floor, where you could see parts of the ravaged Tayseri Ward and the keepers skittering about.

“Doesn’t seem like much of an accomplishment these days, does it?” she says. “We lost a lot of men.”

It’s been a few weeks. The news are still full of fire and death tolls, and the adults send children off to play while they huddle around monitors, listening to reports of more deaths and destruction that keep coming like ripples. It was one attack, and then it was over in a matter of hours, but they keep cleaning out debris, finding bodies—Flux has been unearthed last night; dance floor full of dead things; you can only hope it was quick—it is only now that the weight starts gravely settling in.

The Commander’s eyes look old on her face. She feels that weight acutely. So does Joana: so much that she cannot breathe. The memorial wall deep in the guts of the Citadel is full of names of her former shipmates, former classmates, and she feels her skin crawling because hers isn’t on it.

• She slammed the door on her entire relationship with her father when she left their Citadel apartment for good. It ceased to be a home that day, but it still felt like losing a pieace of herself when the geth armada tore through that part of the Citadel, making rubble out of her childhood. The home they could have had on Earth was lost the moment their father put his career first and sold it off, choosing to juggle his carious postings instead.

The closes thing she has to a home she loses because she’s on leave, but the ship she’s been assigned to isn’t, and the geth ships blow it to pieces. All that’s left of them is a wall of names mourned, and names unmourned, and names nobody will soon remember.

So she comes back to her father, still angry and rigid, and says she’ll go. Because there’s no more homes to lose. Because the shadows of the dead are standing on her shoulders, and the guilt is unbearable, and she can’t look up because of the choking shame and terror and so yes she’ll go.

• “I signed up for the Initiative yesterday,” she tells Jaime calmly over lunch. Nothing’s been formally approved yet, but it will be in no time if her father has anything to say about it.

Jamie is caught off guard only for a moment, before pulling her into a hug with a wide smile, both of them saying nothing. He doesn’t say he’s relieved, and she doesn’t say she’s sorry. That she almost abandoned him, or that he’s almost abandoned her, or both of them were nearly abandoned together.

He tells her of his posting at Arcturus instead, and that joke he heard the other day in the mess hall, and she laughs, that little snorting laugh she’s been embarrassed of since she was fifteen. And he smiles; and he’s glad; and he will get to hear it for the rest of his life.

• “I’m a soldier,” Robert tells him when it is the final good-bye, and Hyperion stands ready to depart. “So I don’t really get it. But I get that you’re not one. And maybe you’ll find whatever you’re looking for there. Whenever you do decide to wake up.”

“So, tomorrow then,” Jaime smiles crookedly, and hears his roommate’s laugh for the last time.

600 years later, tomorrow, he’ll think back to that moment when the realization will dawn on him that he might be in love. That it took him going to another galaxy for it to happen—amongst all the other brilliant things.

600 years later Joana will stop running from her demons, and fall onto an alien soil, and she’ll finally look her past in the eye and cry over it and finally bury it.

• Jaime lies on the floor of not-really-grass—only sort of grass, everything-here-is-different kind of grass. Maybe they will plant their own some day soon—but not tonight. Tonight, he lies on the surface of a no-name world and looks up into the sky where the Milky War streaks far across, a thin vague brush stroke.

They’ll have to build hubs to begin tracing where’s Sol, and Iera, and Widow, and Aralakh, heart wistfully looking back. Other stars are occupying his vision now. He doesn’t know the name of any constellation. He will stretch out his hand and draw lines through the stars, through the spinning solar systems. And he will make up the shapes for them himself.

• A good story ends with a homecoming.

[soap-brain]

alright! i guess it’s time for the big jurassic world meta post that nobody asked me for or is interested in!! i have far more important things to do and i’m running on five hours of sleep but i guess it’s whatever.

@bottomkirk @trappist-1p @tari101190 lookie it’s the j-world meta post!

~major spoilers ahead~

so the thing i found so interesting about jurassic world was that it looks completely ordinary and boring, fourth in a series that was once spectacular and breathtaking, a spielberg movie that continues to beat a horse that’s at least dying, if not already dead. the storyline is almost completely unoriginal, the accompanying moral questions the same as in jurassic park (further described as j-park) - “have big monster for money” vs “maybe we actually Shouldn’t and it is Bad”. jurassic world (further described as j-world) add a teeny tiny spin with “maybe use big monster for military”. it’s an american action movie, what do you expect? j-world also keeps the storyline of “someone wants to steal the research”

so, storyline? unoriginal. the actual ‘monsters’, especially the indominus rex? kind of pale against the sheer magnificence and terror of the t rex in j-park. 0 awe effect. it looked ... boring and made up and not primitively terrifying like the t rex. it had some spikes though, and it could camouflage itself even though that was used as a plot device and then dropped like a hot potato. then there were lots of other plot holes that i’ll come back to later.

now towards what makes it surprisingly interesting: the characters.  they look basic, at first. surprisingly, we have a woman in charge of things even though it’s a hollywood movie, but that’s where representation ends. we have two boys of regular medium age as protagonists so that a larger audience feels included, and they do come across as “boys will be boys” at first. but there’s actually quite a lot more to that, as well as to most other major characters, so i’ll be looking at each of them.

(disclaimer: i’m horribly bad with names, so i’m just not gonna use any names bc i already forgot them tbh)

let’s start with the first character we see: the mom. she seems normal at first, but if you look closer see she’s immature, emotionally distant and decidedly emotionally abusive of the older son, while also having some serious issues with herself. we first see her packing the car. kind of weird that the younger son doesn’t bring his own luggage, seeing how he’s allegedly so excited to go to j-world. instead, he’s looking through dias of dinosaur drawings in his room, decidedly unexcited to go somewhere where he later can barely stand still. almost as though he’d rather stay away from the mom. then the older boy says goodbye to his girlfriend, and the parents’ reaction really shocked me. because i understand gentle teasing; my family does that a lot. but the boy’s parents’ reaction is not teasing. it’s belittling and shaming, absolutely not taking him serious as a person and laughing about him. and they drag the younger boy into doing the same. next, the airport scene: the mother makes a huge deal out of letting the boys fly on their own, flapping around the younger one, being exaggeratedly tearful and scared. watch the scene and look at her facial expressions. completely exaggerated. all her attention is focused on the younger boy and she practically ignores the older one. shouldn’t she at least hug him? next, her phonecall with her sister, the aunt. it turns out that the aunt doesn’t actually spend time with the boys. the mother then starts crying - bear in mind she’s in a public setting just having stepped outside of a meeting. and yet she starts to actually bawl over the fact that her sister isn’t spending time with her nephews. now, we know they aren’t particularly close - the sister hasn’t seen the boys for seven years, which is one hell of a long time. meaning, the two of them have very likely not met up at all during that time. the mom then begins saying some things that the sister doesn’t want to hear; we’ll get to that later. the call ends. we see the mother again, briefly. she’s panicking over why her boys won’t pick up the phone, even though she doesn’t have a reason to assume they are in any danger. dinos are already so implemented into regular life that j-world is like a zoo resort. the mother has no reason to think anything is wrong, and usually when kids don’t pick up during an activity that you specifically believe is lots of fun, it means that they are having lots of fun. but from the way she stresses over that, we can assume she’s very controlling of her children (also they have to call her every day. in the age of texting and whatsapp, that’s maybe a bit much). also: if she stresses that much about her boys technically being with her sister, she obviously doesn’t trust the sister much; yet she sends her children to stay with her for a while week. the last time we see her it’s during the reunion scene, where she’s crying again and also for the first time showing some warmth towards her older son.

now to the father. he’s clearly emotionally completely uninvolved and uninterested. while the mother loads up the car and gets the sons, he sits at the steering wheel, already completely ready to go away and get the kids gone as soon as possible, being annoyed when they take too long. and not annoyed in the “you’re gonna miss your flight”-way. he also participates in belittling the older son. then we see him during the reunion scene (which i generally have problems with). all of a sudden, he’s warm and amicable and hugs both his sons, even ‘allowing’ his older son the ‘emotional vulnerability’ of hugging.

so let’s look at the boys. the older one is completely emotionally numb and only physically present when with his parents. he’s completely given up and withdrawn into his shell - listening to music, being on his phone when spoken to, exclusively interested in girls, especially his girlfriend.  the way he says goodbye to his girlfriend is a bit much, too. he’s only going away for a week, yet they make such a huge thing out of it. so either “kids will be kids” and “he’s in that age, you know” apply here, or there’s something else, and man, if my parents treated me the way his parents treat him, i’d be fleeing into every direction i could, too. he’s completely disillusioned in regards to his parents’ love for him - he can’t wait to get out of the household (see his conversation with his brother about their parents possibly divorcing each other. to paraphrase “who cares? i’ll be out of there in two years anyways”). it’s all he can think about, getting away from home. he also does his best to be uninterested in his surroundings, completely shutting himself off from the outside world, including his brother. they’re obviously not very close, and it’s very likely the older boy thinks his brother is in on the familial bullying towards him, even though the younger boy probably just doesn’t know better.

but the younger one isn’t as illusioned as the older one thinks. he realizes his parents’ abuse / emotional neglectment as well, and he flees into his world of dinosaurs. i know that his character is a play on the dinosaur phase that’s allegedly a big part in all boys’ childhoods, but my cousin went through his dino phase, and he sure as hell couldn’t talk about all the topics the younger one knows stuff about. the kid is around twelve, yet he’s talking about dna, genetech, can correctly sort complicated chemical structures - there’s some serious hyperfixiation with a hint of academic brilliance there. add to that his almost non-stop talking about his special interest and inability to pick up on social cues (see especially the scene where he greets his aunt, who he hasn’t seen for seven years, who he probably has no actual memory of, yet he runs to hug her), and you have a pretty good possibility of him having a form of asperger’s. considering the family, it’s likely undiagnosed, ignored and even ridiculed.

then let’s consider the aunt. she’s the slightly unscrupulous business woman, her life perfected to a t, everything punctual and perfect. listen to the speech she gives to the investors during the lab tour: it sounds like a power point presentation. the epitome of someone who’s pretending to be the “strong woman who don’t need no man”. she also obviously doesn’t hold her family ties in high regard - her work is far more important and she has no active desire to interact with the boys, hence why they run around with her assistant. she does hold some kind of misplaced affection / misunderstood sisterly duty for her sister though, but they obviously don’t have the best relationship, if you consider their phonecall. the aunt doesn’t want kids, probably doesn’t like them, either. she has definitely been teased harshly about that, in the way of “oh, you don’t know real work until you’ve had kids, but it’s so worth it :))” of the middle-aged white soccer moms on facebook. but the aunt doesn’t want kids. she doesn’t want a family, she doesn’t want a boyfriend, and, depending on how you read her phonecall with her sister and her conversation with owen at his cabin, she might even be asexual and have been heavily teased about that and ridiculed by her family. the phonecall ends when the boys’ mother begins using the same arguments her mother has used towards the sister. normally, that wouldn’t be cause to end a call, but the j-world sister is suddenly very interested in doing just so, and instead of asking her sister how work is, or whether she’s alright or any other meaningless platitudes, she just says bye and is gone. please also consider that the boys’ mother clearly (subconsciously or consciously) tries to manipulate j-world sister into spending time with her children by starting to cry on a phonecall during a meeting about how she wanted this to be “family time” with an aunt who was never interested. and then j-world sister later says “now you’re beginning to sound like mom” and ends the call. there seems to be some kind of correlation between that.

next we have owen. ex soldier with probably a lot more baggage than is good for him, living some kind of dream of being a gun-slingin’ raptor cowboy. he certainly considers himself to be an expert and like he’s some kind of super ranger and savior in need of a damsel in distress.

and that’s the point.

you have all these different people living in their dream worlds:

the mother lives in her dream world of being a highranking business woman who fabulously manages to juggle jobs and kids

the father lives in his dream of being a serious adult and a proper man without all the emotion-showing.

the older brother lives in his dream world of “soon i’ll be out of here” and “i don’t care about my family anyways”.

the younger brother lives in his dream world of dinosaurs.

the aunt lives in her dream world of being 100% in control of the situation, managing the huge theme park perfectly.

owen lives in his dream world of being the cool gunslingin’ raptor whisperer, some kind of cowboy fantasy where he has pet monsters instead of pet horses. major delusions of grandeur here.

the multimillionaire investor (purple shirt) lives in his dream world of the world being his oyster and everything being exciting and a game.

the military guy lives in his dream world of soon establishing some kind of übermilitary with intelligent dino-soldiers.

the one controller dude (the one in the j-park shirt) is living in his dream world of rebuilding the glory of the first park.

and they all fail horrifically.

the mother has some kind of emotional breakdown, hopefully realizing she’s an abusive shit, but at least realizing that her children mean something to her other than just being trophies.

the dad (hopefully) realizes that he should love his children and it’s not cool at all to be distant and cold.

the older brother realizes that he can’t be some kind of lone wolf and that he does need his brother, his family.

the younger brother realizes that his idolized dinos are actually monsters.

the aunt realizes that she isn’t in control and that she went too far, and that she can’t do everything on their own.

owen realizes that when worst come to worst, all he can do is try to survive. the dinos aren’t as trainable as he thought. he isn’t some kind of dino-alpha.

the multimillionaire investor hopefully realizes that life isn’t a game.

the military guy, who thought raptors were the next super soldiers, tries to reason with one of them and gets eaten.

the controller dude realizes that no matter how hard he idolizes j-park, genetically engineering monsters actually leads to genetically engineered monsters that aren’t family friendly.

and all the protagonists realize they need other people in their lives. not necessarily each other, that’s bullshit (please dear god, tell me where this weird-ass owen+aunt romance subplot came from, and why they say they’ll “stick together”. it makes 0 sense - they have nothing in common and why should their relationship magically work just because they survived a raptor attack?), but they realize that on their own, they’re not as invincible as they once thought.

but all that doesn’t meant that the movie isn’t still not precisely good and lacking quite some good sense, so let’s take a quick look at that.

the events of j-park are canon, so we can assume that the events of j-park 2 and 3 are canon as well, meaning dinosaurs (ie the ‘cool’ dinos people want to see, aka the one with many teeth and all) have already proved themselves to be actual monsters; nevertheless, a park opens with the same objective and it’s not like, idk, illegal. also it opens on the same island as the first one was set to open on. their idea on how to make it safe so that the dinos don’t hurt anyone? uhhh idk make more and more dangerous dinos i guess.

that being said: cloning / genetic manipulation / bioengineering / whatever the fuck they call it is apparently legal and ok and completely fine and there’s no problems with that whatsoever in that world.

two boys (16 and 12) know how to fix up a car all by themselves, even though i sincerely doubt they’ve ever been shown how to.

convenient loss of signals. possibly due to .... *spins wheel* the signal bocking capacities of the dinos. i get that it’s a dramaturgic effect, but please, at least make it make sense!

she prances over grass and sticks and stones in pumps. she outruns a fucking t rex in HEELS. stiletto heels!! have you worn heels before? do you know how much you’ll break your ankle?? no matter how “trained” or whatever you are ... you do not do that in heels wtf. it’s pretty damn impossible.

a highly trained team of swat-esque personnel. *shoots rocket launcher at bigass dino* *misses by like ten meters* *shoots rocket launcher at far smaller target that’s fare more agile* *bullseye*

i’m not too sure the indominus rex could’ve actually, y’know, reached the place where the implant was.

*raptor attack* people run screeching in circles for half an hour, not trying and definitely failing to get cover.

how is the indominus rex so super strong that it can break through steel and concrete walls, but a meagre t rex can fuck it up that badly. you’d think the strength would also be in its jaws, but ... apparently not.

why did they try to get the pig out of the raptor cage??????

why did the younger boy photograph uuuuhh like that? also, why did he have such an ancient camera? they’re clearly in the age of holograms and glass computer screens, and his camera almost looks like it’s using film, while his brother has a smartphone (that also looks pretty old but whatever)??

owen: “o shit there’s a bigass dino monstrosity loose that i know can’t be killed by bullets!! better grab my mediocre rifle, i’m sure that’ll help”

owen: “oh heck there’s this poor dino here that’s dying (from three and a half scratches). man, me and my mediocre rifle wonder whether there’s something we can do to put it out of its misery. man, better pet its head.”

raptor: “o shit a new alpha in town!!! better than the human!!” *two hours later* “oh man i sure love my human alpha. i’ll now turn on the new alpha, the one i obeyed for the past hours, for my human man”

and lastly i’d like to give a shoutout to the product placement team. good job guys, i really understood now that i have to buy starbucks, mercedes and coca cola. appreciate the heads up.  (aka this was worse product placement than in i, robot and what did they do that for? also i think i may have missed the odd brand that i don’t know)

also i’d like to point out that they didn’t even get themselves a higher-ranking chris :(

tl;dr: fuckign j-world, man

please remember to rb my indominus rex pastel edit of “cool girls don’t look at explosions” or whatever, it’s a good post

[antibunny]

A Random Godzilla Thought

This is an idea I’ve been bouncing around in my head. I might turn it into a video later.  How would I improve on the long running Godzilla movie series? Like if I could go back in time and have control over Toho throughout the production of the series.  Let’s just start at the beginning. 

Showa Era:

Gojira/Godzilla: Change nothing.  This is pretty much perfect. I wouldn’t even change the American edit, because inserting a famous actor like Raymond Burr (and deleting the Tuna subplot) were very important to getting this series accepted globally and making Godzilla what it is today.  I would later like to see a master edit including the best of both versions.

Godzilla Raids Again:  This is an important part of the Godzilla mythos, but never got a proper stateside release. American studios at the time thought audiences wouldn’t like a sequel, so they redubbed it “Gigantis the Fire Monster,” and removed all references to Godzilla.  All we really need here is a proper global release. It establishes the second Godzilla, and frames him in a different light as a monster who’s less motivated by rage and destruction, and more wants to fight other strong monsters.  This resonated with Japanese audiences who at the time felt themselves trapped in the cold war between the US and Soviet Union, much like Japan was trapped between two battling monsters in the movies. Its message was a more positive one though. That in spite of this hardship Japan will survive.

King Kong vs Godzilla: Move release date back and establish a stand alone Toho Kong movie first.

King Kong escapes:  This is actually a pretty fun monster movie, and would be a good time to establish this new version of Kong. Release it before King Kong vs Godzilla. Establish it as the same Kong who’d later appear in King Kong vs Godzilla.  Improve the Kong costume with larger hands, less shaggy fur, a better sculpted chest, and a more expressive face. Give Kong more to do in the final battle with Mechanikong.

King Kong vs Godzilla:  NOW release this movie. Other than the improved Kong suit there’s not really much that needs changing. This was a solid entry in the Showa series.

Ebirah Horror of the Deep: Rename to Mothra II: Red Bamboo. Do not include Godzilla. Make this a stand alone Mothra movie, Godzilla can be a surprise cameo at the end only popping up to challenge Mothra and foreshadow the next entry.

Mothra vs Godzilla:  Nothing needs to change here. Solid movie with Godzilla challenging another one of Toho’s powerhouse monsters, Mothra.  Remember that in Japan Mothra is the second most popular Kaiju right after Godzilla (yes even more than King Kong).

Ghidorah the Three headed Monster: This movie is very important.  It marks so many things. The return of Mothra, the return of Rodan, now as a heroic monster, the arrival of one of the most constant villains King Ghidorah, and most importantly the transformation of Godzilla from villain to anti-hero who’s desire to fight the strongest of monsters would be a force for good.  So what to change?  The entire assassination story that doesn’t really support the monster story at all.  The entire human story of this movie needs a major rewrite. If they can’t be made to support the main event, then cut their story down and give their screentime to the monsters.  Additionally drop the line that one of the Mothra larva died. It’s more useful to have 2 Mothras as this would allow both moth and larval forms to be available in any given future movie.  Which leads to my next point.  Have Mothra attain her moth form midway through the movie and join the final battle fully grown.

Son of Godzilla: Don’t make it.

Godzilla’s Revenge:  Don’t make it.

Godzilla vs Monster Zero: A pretty solid movie, but too similar to Destroy All Monsters. Rewrite the second half of the movie so that the Xilians don’t take control of Godzilla and Rodan, but instead simply leave them stranded on planet X to support a conventional invasion backed by King Ghidorah. Therefore the second half of the movie is about stealing a saucer to get back to Planet X and bring back Godzilla and Rodan.  Meanwhile more monster action can be provided by Mothra trying alone to fend off the invasion, creating a big damn heroes moment when Godzilla returns.  Additionally the end might leave up in the air if Godzilla survived a solo fight with Ghidorah.  Adjust the timing of the final battle so that Ghidorah flees when the Xilians lose control of him.  Ghidorah may even destroy a few UFOs himself on the way out, showing that Ghidorah is still untamable chaos. This would serve to not waste the monster control plot point needed in Destroy All Monsters later, and preserves King Ghidorah’s reputation, while making the battle feel more costly.  The movie ends on a parting shot of Mothra and Rodan looking over the ocean as if the question of Godzilla is still alive down there.

Destroy All Monsters: Push this movie back for a later release.

Godzilla vs Gigan: Do not include King Ghidorah in this movie. Gigan should be made fearsome enough to convincingly take on Godzilla one on one. Don’t waste Ghidorah. Obviously bring in a question of if Godzilla is even alive early in the movie to make it a triumphant return when he shows up.

Godzilla vs Hedorah: Honestly, nothing wrong with this one. It’s a bit weird in places, but it’s also a callback to the dark and poignant nature of the original Godzilla.

Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla: This movie is fine.

The Terror of Mechagodzilla: Rename to Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla II: Up the ante with a surprise appearance of Mechanikong as a second Kaiju threat for Godzilla to face.

Godzilla vs Megalon: Rename this to Jet Jaguar: The Rage of Megalon.  Remove Godzilla from it entirely. If Toho wants a Jet Jaguar franchise it needs to stand alone in its own movie first. Give Jet Jaguar a finishing move that allows it to take down Megalon solo.  Remove the Kenny.

Destroy All Monsters:  Time to finish the Showa series not with a whimper but an explosion.  So far we’ve removed some of the sillier elements from the Showa series, while allowing just enough to stay that the movies can be fun, but still take themselves seriously.  We’ve also removed some of the bigger stains on the series.  Destroy All monsters goes much the same with a few changes to the cast. Son of Godzilla is absent.  Mothra is an adult. King Kong is added. Gorosaurus is removed (as he was only included in the original as a Kong replacement)  It also becomes a full blown Earth monsters vs space monsters throw down, so on the side of space monsters, Gigan, Mechagodzilla, and Mogera are added.  The fire dragon may still only be a ship, but it is redesigned to look like an actual dragon. Pushing the movie back a few years should allow for a better effect to this end.

While all monsters are under alien control Kong was left largely ignored because he’d been keeping to himself on his own island. This leaves Kong to battle the now rampaging monsters under alien control giving us a good mid movie action scene, and finally a callback to King Kong vs Godzilla.  Put more of the city destruction by rampaging monsters directly on screen rather than on monitors and TV screens.  During the 2nd act Kong destroys Mogera on his island before swimming toward Japan to find the source of the invasion that’s threatened his home.

The 2nd act will feature a brief rematch between Kong and Godzilla before the Kilaaks lose control of the monsters, leading to an awesome standoff between the united Earth Monsters and the space monsters Ghidorah, Mechagodzilla, Gigan, and the Fire Dragon (which joins the fight earlier).  During the final battle Ghidorah again turns on his masters firing a blast that destroys the Kilaak base on Mt Fuji, once again showing that Ghidorah is a force of destruction that can’t be controlled, before he turns to face off against the united Earth Monsters. 

This final battle would conclude with the destruction of Mechagodzilla, Gigan, and Ghidorah (permanently with no running away this time), particularly with the final battle being a team up between Godzilla and Kong against King Ghidorah, as most of the other Earth monsters are exhausted from fighting the other space monsters.

This all ends much the same way, with the monsters triumphantly returning to their homes, and the total destruction of the Kilaaks and space monsters, putting a final cap on the Showa era, and letting the Godzilla series rest for a decade before the start of the Heisei era.