#i have no icons for delia

[pagetorn]

👀 but dead. @ Delia

RULE #2 DOUBLE TAP BITCH

[mistydeyes]

Hi! I was wondering if you could do a Task Force 141 and a reader that they never have seen out of uniform until one day they all go to a bar but the reader is late? Next thing they know the reader walks up to them dressed like they just walked straight out of the 2000’s?

(if you end up doing this request: thank you so much! I absolutely luv your writing!!)

thank you so much for requesting! i literally am in love with 2000's fashion like you'll be seeing me walking with low-cut jeans and a baby tee fr

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summary: After a tiring mission, the 141 invites you to drink away the night at the pub. However, you get into a lively argument about fashion when they question your choice in 2000's inspired attire.

pairings: taskforce 141 x platonic!gn!reader (codename: Storm)

warnings: swearing, slight bullying (they fr just don't understand fashion)

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"Didn't we tell Storm half-past eight?" Gaz asked, looking down at his watch. The pub was nearly empty as the men continued to add glass after glass to a growing pile. Despite reminding you with a string of texts, you still haven't made an appearance. "Still don't get why they had to change," Soap continued, choking down another drink, "Lt's still wearing his goddamn mask." The group laughed as their attention was directed to Ghost, still wearing his signature face mask. "They probably wanted a shower and some fresh trousers," Price commented and the rest of the group returned to a more interesting conversation.

As the group laughed at Soap recounting Ghost's out-of-character dialogue in Las Almas, their gaze fell on the pub's door as it swung open. The group smiled at the familiar face and gestured you over. You walked to the table quickly, feeling the attention in the empty pub. At first, you thought it was due to your late entrance but when you approached, you saw all eyes focused on your attire. It was like you walked out of the 2000s or robbed a Delias before your arrival. You felt a little self-conscious at the confused looks and wondered what all the fuzz was about. "What? Do I have a stain?" you questioned as you dusted off your low-cut, denim jeans. "No, it's just-" Gaz began to say but Soap interjected. "Why do you dress like that?" he asked and you raised an eyebrow. You looked down at your jeans and Von Dutch top. "But I normally dress like this?" you said with a curious tone. You dressed like this before joining the military and held on to the lively aesthetic of the early 2000s. You were embarrassed to admit but Britney Spears and *NSYNC were your fashion icons.

"Yeah," Ghost spoke up as he eyed the interesting font of your shirt, "you look like you could be an extra in a Spice Girls video." You rolled your eyes, grabbing at one of the half-drunk glasses on the table. "You've been quiet, Captain," you edged while looking at him, "what do you think?" There was a hush over the room as you waited in anticipation. "Clothes are clothes," he simply replied and the table roared with laughter. "Such a grandad thing to say," Soap loudly exclaimed and everyone clambered with sentiments of agreement. "Sorry I don't wear Wrangler jeans and black fitness tops," you mumbled. It was a subtle jab at your colleagues but Gaz took it to heart. "I have style!" he shouted as you shook your head in disapproval.

"Gaz, you look like someone trying to emulate an Instagram model or some teenager's Pinterest board," you argued and you were met by the howling of the tipsy men. "And Captain, I'm sorry but you look like a father going on holiday to the Swiss Alps," you directed towards Price as everyone realized this was becoming an insult fueled rage. Soap was still laughing wildly, shaking his head in agreement with your every word. "Oh you shouldn't be laughing, Soap," you said as you turned to him, "a navy blue sweater and black jeans are a fashion crime." He quickly turned red and looked embarrassed as he examined the mismatched colors. Everyone held their breath as you turned to Ghost. "And Lt," you paused, thinking of what you should say next, "you dress like you've never heard of color."

[herefortheships]

On media portrayals of older women

Commentary on Lydia's characterization in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. 🕷

This post was originally a response to a post from two months ago, but it got so big (and also I kinda moved away from the topic a little), I decided to make it its own post. It's a long ramble, basically, about my feelings around how women over 30 tend to be written and how disappointing it often is, especially now that I am a woman over 30 myself.

Before I get to Lydia and my issues with how she was written in BJBJ, I just want to say something. There is a blatant unwillingness to represent an older woman who isn't a mother or, at the very least, married or divorced, and often those women who are depicted as individuals outside of these roles, tend to be either toxic or unhappy characters (Cruella De Vil totally came to mind when I just typed that 😆 But even Cruella is married in the original story). As a matter of fact, the ex-wife or divorced older woman is often depicted as a cruel, bitter, or even evil woman (Miranda Priestly form "Devil Wears Prada" came to mind. Hey, another iconic fashion industry character lol). Single older women are often also depicted as "ugly", or flat out scary characters (Miss Trunchbull in Matilda came to mind).

It's like for many screenwriters it's impossible to visualize a mature woman who isn't or hasn't been married, and is childless.

The issue is not that they are given these roles; the issue is that their character arcs often seem to revolve around these roles and their identity is very focused on being either the mom, the wife, or the ex-wife. More often than not, female characters over 30 that are good are usually moms or struggling wives, and their identity is confined or greatly centered around her role as the mother or the suffering wife. (Chances are, if she's happily married, she's either not the protagonist or the story is over 💀). And if it is not centered around these, then motherhood is something adjacent to the story in some way, shape, or form.

Using the first "Beetlejuice" movie we have an example of a happily married woman in a leading role, Barbara Maitland. She's not an older woman, per se, but she is a happily married woman in a leading role. But what is one of her main concerns as a character? She can't have children. So she does have a motherly-adjacent struggle. At least Adam accompanies her in this story thread and it isn't just a struggle Barbara alone is facing; both of them are pretty balanced as far as their struggles go in "Beetlejuice". (I could have also used Delia as an example here, but she isn't exactly the main character as Barbara was in "Beetlejuice". That said, she is both a mother and wife.)

I'm pretty new to the Beetlejuice fandom (as in I was a fan who watched the movie a few times a year around Halloween, but never actually interacted with fandom or analyzed anything, until I watched BJBJ and became totally obsessed), and as a relatively new fan who has been here since September 2024, I'm not sure what the expectations around Lydia's future were throughout the years in the fandom. But, I'm positive a lot of fans never considered Lydia would choose to get married and to a pretty regular guy at that at some point and become a mother. I'm sure many fans shared Winona's idea of older Lydia being a goth spinster, living a pretty unconventional, but happy life, just doing her thing. She might have gone into photography and kept interacting with the dead and being her goth, "strange and unusual" self.

So it must have been pretty shocking to see that older Lydia is not only a struggling mother, but she is also anxiety-ridden and in an abusive relationship with some normie guy.

Lydia at least has something that separates her identity as an individual from her identity as a mother, in her show, but it's made clear that getting into making the show was considered by her as "selling out", a sentiment that came up in her conversation with Delia. I wish they would have gone into that a little bit more, because it's not entirely clear how Lydia felt about the show exactly and what her reasons were to do it in the first place. Lydia's interest in photography from the first film, and subsequently from the animated show as well (meaning this was an inherent and very characteristic part of her), is non-existent in the sequel.

While it's understandable that "life happens" and people just change over time, and a life of seeing and interacting with all sorts of ghosts must have taken a toll on her, Lydia's characterization was considerably far from the person she used to be, and it feels like a lot of it had to do with her mother role.

I know a lot of fans also appreciate this, too, don't get me wrong; Lydia as she is now is relatable to many women's experience, but what I'm getting at is that a choice was made to write older Lydia like this, and that choice is the same treatment that's given to too many older female characters in the media. They chose to make her a struggling mother, is the point I'm trying to make.

Her character has also become more reactionary; she isn't exactly in control about anything. Even making her show appears to be a reactive decision, too, rather than something she did because she genuinely wanted to. She's even taking medications to get through the day when she starts seeing ghosts (Nadja disappears after Lydia takes the pills, so one can assume she takes these pills to quiet down her psychic abilities and stop seeing ghosts; Rory's comment in the bathroom also supports this).

Lydia is indeed, overall, unhappy, and she has been for a long time. Not saying this is a bad thing; stories need conflict, and it would have been strange if she was living her best life at the start of the film. After Charles funeral we confirm that she wasn't exactly happy when Richard was around, either ("our relationship was over long before the accident", strange thing to say to Astrid when she's questioning her about why she cannot see her father). Things seemed to have ended amicably between them, but it looks like Lydia was not happy in that relationship by its end.

Lydia only seems to take control when her daughter is in danger, so that which spurs her into action is more linked to her mother persona over any other conflict that's more directly linked to her as an individual. If it wasn't for Betelgeuse's intervention, she might have even ended up marrying Rory, who, not only did she not love, he was also using her and being emotionally manipulative and abusive.

I know Lydia at some point became affected by seeing ghosts every other day through her life, as evidenced by the pills, but (and this is something I talked about before here) the way they ended the previous film, there was nothing to indicate that Lydia was in a downward spiral or that seeing strange things and dead people affected her negatively in any strong, life-altering way (unless Lydia was pretending to like the dark stuff before, and by the end she's more herself and admits to not like the creepy stuff; she does reject dissecting the frog in her science class, but then again, she asks the Maitlands to levitate her and pretty much do a ghostly possession in the house for the "Jump in the line" scene. But I digress. Lydia's character arc in the first film is an analysis for another post).

Moving on, Lydia's brief experience with Betelgeuse in the first film also does not justify her current emotional state for the reasons stated above and in that post I linked. Losing Richard also doesn't seem to be enough of a reason to have created the emotional issues Lydia is struggling deeply with in BJBJ, and it does seem that the movie pointed at that, but it was poorly done, when Lydia told Astrid she didn't have a relationship with him long before he passed away; she also didn't have a strong reaction to seeing Richard in the afterlife.

Whatever happened to Lydia that led her to this current state wasn't properly explored, is what I'm getting at, because the film decided to focus her character struggles mostly on her relationship with her daughter, over her own personal conflicts as a separate individual. Lydia as the suffering mom, struggling to connect with her daughter was the focus of her arc. Did we ever get to know exactly why she was willing to marry Rory despite clearly not loving him? (she even seemed disgusted by him kissing her and when he tried to kiss her lol).

Was it because she thought he was her only chance at being happy again? Was it because she thought she needed to be married for Astrid, to rebuild their family? Lydia's actions were entirely steered by Rory; he emotionally manipulated her so much, he made her believe she had feelings for him and start a relationship with him, even. Maybe it was him, the one who convinced her to start the show in the first place, to take advantage of her psychic abilities (which he totally believed to be bullshit, anyway, but he thought he could use her delusions/fake claims to attract fame and money), he was her producer, after all. (Actually I think it was him who convinced her?? Was she making her show before meeting him? Lol I totally forgot this bit. Fill me in because I've only watched the movie twice.)

By the end of the film, ironically, Lydia takes more control for herself when she sends Betelgeuse away (and I say "ironically" because, without Betelgeuse she would still be stuck in the same toxic situation she was with Rory. In fact, things would have gotten much worse as Rory would have gotten away with his plan. She also had no issues handling Betelgeuse during all scenes they had together; she would even raise her voice at him and act exasperated with his behavior--that is not typically how a person who is terrified or traumatized by someone acts around them, but ok...), and she makes a choice to be more focused in her life, assuming she did quit her job, which is up for debate, depending on when the dream sequence started.

Without Betelgeuse, Lydia would be stuck in a terrible relationship, where her life would have been ruined, and she would have also lost her daughter on Halloween night when Jeremy used her to get his life back. So it's really strange a choice (and poorly executed, again) to have Lydia's character resolution be sending Betelgeuse away like she's finally confronting some deep-rooted fear or trauma, when her character really wasn't explored individually all throughout the movie to showcase in what way exactly did her brief interactions with Betelgeuse over 30 years ago might have crumbled her emotional stability to that degree. The movie isn't clear if her depression and anxiety are related to losing Richard and therefore that's what she needs to heal from; or if it's more related to her past trauma around Betelgeuse, and then, that's what she needed to heal from.

There really should have been more of a focus on her as an individual apart from her struggles as Astrid's mother for her character to really have a good payoff at the end. And truly, if facing Betelgeuse was going to "fix her", then she's back at square one when he shows up on her bed at the end. Lydia's character and story are incomplete. More reasons why we need a BJ3.

What's truly going to heal Lydia is her finding herself again, as just Lydia; not the mother or the TV presenter. And she must get there herself, not have it all fixed for her by Betelgeuse yet again or another external force. She has to make a choice for herself. They need to show her picking up her camera again, and yes, enjoying the "strange and unusual". She needs to embrace her otherness and be herself again.

(And if she doesn't want to be alone... she shouldn't go after a guy like Rory or a normie. She needs another weirdo like Richard who loved scary movies, or, ahem, Betelgeuse, who has already proved he loves her more than any normie ever could.)

I can't stress enough how disappointing it is that mature women are mostly presented as moms or wives or even grandmas, without dreams and motivations of their own that are entirely separate from their (societal) roles. Mature men can be out there living adventures and doing all sorts of things, like James Bond for example. Meanwhile women are either divorced, mothers, wives, grandmas, aunts, etc and these roles are a huge part of what defines them as characters. And if it doesn't define them, they still are moms, wives, ex-wives, or grandmas. It's rare to see a single older lady doing her thing and being just a character and like, falling in love and going through a satisfying arc that has nothing to do with having kids, or dealing with estranged kids, etc. At least Delia was out there doing her thing in BJBJ; she was doing what she loved, while still being a mother and a grandmother, and a loving wife/widow to Charles. She was a realized character. And that's what I want to see, you know? I don't mind seeing an older female character who is married with kids (and even grandkids!), as long as she is also a fully realized individual when her character arc is wrapped up at the end.

If Lydia being behind the camera instead of in front of it in BJBJ is representative of her feeling lost in life, and her being in a toxic relationship and almost saying yes to someone she doesn't love or even remotely fit in with, then healed Lydia should be behind the camera again in BJ3, and saying yes to someone she does love and fits in with by the end.

I definitely want to see a Lydia who is more than Astrid's mom in BJ3; a Lydia who isn't easily manipulated and stepped on, and who has a firm grasp on who she is and a love for who she is. Yeah, I totally want her to end up with Betelegeuse (edit: And I am writing a post about why they are perfectly matched to complete each other's character arcs), but I also want to see her fully realized outside of the mother and (potential) wife roles.

[impactrueno]

Can we talk about the Maitland/Deetz home for a moment? What are your thoughts on it? Did we go back to it in BB as a "Yep, we were here" moment, (as many online claim), or do you think it might be a possible setting for B3? Because it is very possible, in my opinion, that the town and old Maitland/Deetz house could be used for a plot in B3. Maybe a new family is already in it and they call Lydia back to it to deal with a new "ghost" problem, Ie Beetlejuice? (I just love the Maitland house and don't wanna see it scrubbed from future Burton projects. It's an iconic set piece and I wanna see it be brought back to that old hill in East Corinth again soon.) I've been collecting a myriad of images from the internet of the house and have been building it over and over in The Sims 4 (which doesn't allow for much justice to be done to the house) and even have images of the original second floor plan, the house elevations, and the original model of the house from 1988! (All sides of the house are visible, too!) Sorry, that was a bad flex, but I'm just...UGH!!! I wanna see the house used for plot in a possible B3 film, and I want someone to gush over it with me lol

i said this a couple of days ago but it's pretty much impossible for the maitlands to return, since alec baldwin and geena davis can't reprise their roles and tim wouldn't replace them. it's why they had to come up with the loophole thing, they had to justify their absence somehow. similar to the charles situation albeit for completely different reasons

if there's a BJ3, delia probably wouldn't come back either, which is a shame because she was SO funny in BJBJ. but it seems like she and charles got on the soul train and you don't come back from that.

that being said i don't see why the house wouldn't return. the model is still in the attic, and that's where beetlejuice lurks. he seems to be linked to the house in some way because lydia returning to winter river was a key opportunity for him, he was able to annoy her more directly that way...

it really is such an iconic house that it would suck not to see it one more time

[tyrantisterror]

So I Saw Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

...and listen, I went in fully expecting it to suck ass. I was expecting my nostalgia to actually make me hate it even more for sucking ass than I would have if I had never seen Beetlejuice before. I figured it would be a lazy, heartless cashgrab, with tired actors awkwardly forcing themselves to play a caricature of their old roles and young actors given nothing to work with beyond oooing and aaahing at references to a movie that was made before they were born, directed by Tim Burton, a man who hasn't made a good movie since at least 2007, if not even longer.

So I feel really weird about saying it was actually... good? Somehow? Against all odds, it was good?

Like, I assumed it'd be a lazy rehash of the original, but no, it has a very distinct plot from the first film. It takes Lydia and Deelia Deetz and not only allows them to have grown from where they were in the original film, but keep growing to the end of this one. It uses Beetlejuice himself sparingly, shows new aspects of the entertainingly weird and surreal bureaucratic nightmare afterlife of the original, and actually makes a really strong theme about escaping from manipulative and predatory relationships.

There are references to the original, yes, but overall far fewer than I expected - like, there were so many iconic gags from the first film I expected them to repeat in a "See? It's like the first one!" nostalgia moment that just... didn't get repeated at all. On the other hand, there were clear jabs at the stupid bullshit OTHER legacy sequels have been doing - like, you know how the trailer had the groan-worthy "serious" cover of Day-O? Yeah, in the movie itself, the "serious" cover is sung in-universe in what is clearly meant to be a moment of comedic tonal dissonance - the very idea of using that fun song in a serious context is the joke. They also have a "baby Beetlejuice" gag where the baby version of the pre-existing characrer in question is a horrid little ghoul who spends every second of screentime being as repulsive and awful as possible. It's like it knew what I, personally, expected from a shitty Beeltejuice legacy sequel, and decided to goof on those tropes for my entertainment.

It's not perfect or anything - it has a shitload of subplots which it mostly manages to juggle really well but has, like, just one too many, but that one easily cut-able subplot also revolves around having a Monica Bellucci frankenstein, and I'm enough of a freak to admit I can understand not wanting to cut the Monica Bellucci frankenstein even if it added nothing to the movie beyond the pleasure of seeing a Monica Bellucci frankenstein.

But, like, it was funny, it explored a fantasy setting that honestly is ripe for more exploration, and it had surprisingly more heart than I expected. Like, it actually had more sympathy for both Lydia and Delia Deetz than the original, which is one of the flaws of the first movie in my opinion - it understands that Delia is kind of a great artist instead of maing her just a joke, and that Lydia's anxiety and grief actually has some true pain in it beyond "lol teenage girls are so overdramatic amirite," and it lets those two actually form a really great bond while ALSO adding Jenna Ortega's character into the mix kind of seamlessly? It helps that all three of these women have great chemistry together as actresses - Winona Ryder and Catherine O'hara play off each other so well, and Jenna Ortega adds this great third point to the dynamic the former two had in the original film, it's kind of inspired? And Michael Keaton's Bettlegeuse is used just sparingly enough, as he was in the first film, to be funny and threatening without wearing out his welcome.

It was good. I can't believe I'm saying it, but it was good. I enjoyed it, and I'm still kind of baffled by the fact that I did so. I can't believe I'm writing this in 2024, but Tim Burton finally made a good movie again.

[iz1331]

More Funko Pop! ideas for Beetlejuice and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.

Be warned. It's a long-ish post.

I made one earlier:

Spoilers if you haven't watched Beetlejuice Beetlejuice or Beetlejuice. I'll add gifs and pics for reference later, but if you're a fellow Juice box and have watched the films, then you'll know them.

Here's a chart/guide for the types of Funko Pops:

Note: "A Chase is a rare variant of a common Funko figure, whereby its design differs slightly to the original figure it's based upon."

Beetlejuice (1988)

Pop! Deluxe: Delia getting trapped by her art statue (the first time when they were moving their stuff inside the house)

Pop! Common: Lydia with her camera and maybe also holding the polaroid of the "No feet" (hopefully, this is the design they'll release for the upcoming Beetlejuice Funko Pops that have been leaked)

Pop! Moment: Wedding clothes Betelgeuse and Lydia, they're first wedding, with that alien priest and the altered chimney (kinda repetitive using their wedding clothes, but they're freaking iconic outfits)

Pop! Ride, Moment or Premium: Betelgeuse's commercial, him as a cowboy, with the cow and lasso spinning and his sign

Pop! Common: Betelgeuse's cowboy outfit

Pop! Common: Betelgeuse in his robe, the one he was wearing when he met Lydia in the attic

Pop! Moment: Lydia dancing Jump In The Line mid air

Pop! Common: Juno

Pop! Commons or 2 Pack: Adam and Barbara Maitlands in their wedding outfits (possible Chase variants would be their decaying body, or Barbara with the zipper mouth or steel plate)

Pop! Common: Adam in normal outfit with a long nose

Pop! Common: Otho (possible Chase variant would be the outfit Betelgeuse put him in, the pale blue suit)

Pop! Moment: Betelgeuse about to be eaten by the Sandworm

Pop! Moment: Betelgeuse in the waiting room between the witch doctor and the shrinker hunter

Pop! Deluxe or Moment: Betelgeuse floating after the Maitlands dug him out of his coffin

Pop! Town: Lydia and the Winter River model

Pop! Common: Betelgeuse with a cigarette or at least just holding it (let me have my smoking Betelgeuse 😭)

Pop! Common: Lydia with the veil (the outfit she wore on their first dinner after moving in)

Pop! Ride: Barbara riding the Sandworm

Pop! Common: Sandworm

Those for now.

Betelgeuse as a snake, Betelgeuse w/tombstone, Beej w/shrunken head and Here Lies Betelgeuse (Deluxe) are already rumoured to be the new designs from the leaked next line up.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)

Pop! Commons or 4 pack: Delia, Astrid, Lydia and Rory outfits at Charles' funeral

Pop! Moment: Lydia and Betelgeuse in the attic after she summoned him (the Winter River model in between them, Beej floating on the other end of the table)

Pop! Moment: Lydia, Rory and Betelgeuse therapist scene

Pop! Town: Astrid with the Winter River model

Pop! Common: Delia holding the asps

Pop! Common: Rory in his poor excuse of a wedding outfit (possible Chase variant is him wearing that shirt Betelgeuse put on him, "I ❤️ Delores") 😆

Pop! Common: Rory holding the cardboard boxes over his head

Pop! Moment: Betelgeuse injecting Rory with the Truth Serum

Pop! Common: Wolf Jackson in his suit holding a paper cup filled with coffee

Pop! Common: Wolf Jackson in his leather trench coat holding a gun (possible Chase variant would be when he was covered in cake when he fell into it) 😆

Pop! Common: Delores when she was alive (possible Chase variant would be her wearing the plague doctor mask)

Pop! Common: Betelgeuse when he was alive, the one he wore while grave robbing (possible Chase variant would be after he got poisoned, foam on the mouth)

Pop! & Buddy: Lydia or Betelgeuse with Baby Juice (I'm sorry 😭)

Pop! & Buddy or Moment: Lydia with miniature Betelgeuse playing the guitar

Pop! Common: Bob disguised as Betelgeuse

Pop! Moment: Lydia at the set of Ghost House sitting on her chair, and across from her is Betelgeuse in an audience chair, munching on pop corn

Pop! Moment: Sandworm chase scene with Lydia and Astrid

Pop! Deluxe or Moment: Betelgeuse sitting on a stool, microphone on hand about to tell his backstory

Pop! Moment: Lydia and Betelgeuse in the attic, Lyds holding the Handbook for the Recently Deceased and Beej holding their marriage agreement contract

Pop! Common: Betelgeuse with his hands together in a prayer position (possible Glow in the Dark Chase variant would be him getting caught on fire)

Pop! Deluxe: Betelgeuse reading a newspaper while sitting behind his desk

Pop! Common or Deluxe: Delia screaming in front of the camera ("Why?")

Pop! Common: Astrid in her school uniform

Pop! Commons: Astrid and/or Lydia holding Betelgeuse's new and updated flier

Pop! Common: Richard

Pop! Common: Jeremy Frazier (possible Chase variant would either the clothes he died in or his James Dean costume)

Pop! Common: Betelgeuse wearing the Immigration staff uniform, complete with hat

Pop! Common: The Janitor (love me some more Devito Pops!)

Pop! Common: Father Damien (preferably in the robes he wore for the wedding, Burn Gorman is freaking hilarious in this film 😆)

Pop! Common: Baby Juice (Betelgeuse Baby or his inner child)

Pop! Common, Deluxe, Super or Jumbo: Inflating or blown up Betelgeuse

Pop! Moment: Lydia and Betelgeuse in bed together after the nightmare dream (freaking indulge me, let me daydream 😭)

Pop! Common or Moment: Betelgeuse and Lydia in the attic, a wall with a bomb drawn on it and the tip of Betelgeuse's thumb is lit

Pop! Commons or 8 Pack: Bob, Al, Brad, Chuck, Dave, John, Phil and Tom the Shrinkers

Pop! Common: Betelgeuse in his El Matador outfit (might become an Exclusive, to be honest, a lot of the designs above are Exclusives types, too)

Every scene that Betelgeuse and Lydia are in together is worth being made into a Pop! Moment, the "Let's go, honey", "We're like Bonnie and Clyde, but without the bullet holes", "I'm gonna make you so happy", "You want me to marry you; I thought you'd never ask", "That was you stalking me; If stalking means trying to remarry the love of my life, then I'm guilty as charged, c'mere", half of these I don't even know how to make into a Funko scene, but all of them are just too good 😭 I WANNA MAKE EVERY PART OF THE WEDDING A FUNKO POP MOMENT!

Anyways, that's it for now. Some of the scenes I have in mind probably can't be executed properly in a Pop! Moment.

[ibleednavyandorange]

Things I personally can't wait to see in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice:

1. Beetlejuice's reaction to Lydia having a kid and any interactions with Astrid.

2. If Lydia comes up with any nicknames for him, so she doesn't have to keep saying his name if they do intact interact a lot. (Hoping for "Beej")

3. Beetlejuice calling her "Babes" Al la the cartoon and/or making her laugh with his antics

4.Delia and Lydia's relationship and how it's grown, or if it's still slightly estranged

5. Any mention of Adam and Barbara or Lydia still being into photography

6. More Michael Keaton screen time! 17 mins in the original was iconic, but I'd love to see what else he does with the character with more time to improve and play around with the script.

7. BLOOPERS - I've hoped for not only a sequel but one with a blooper gag-reel for YEARS

8. A Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian easter egg of some kind- whether it being that Charles died (rumored to be eaten by a shark) near Hawaii or someone in the waiting room in a Hawaiian shirt...just SOMETHING for those of us that have waited forever for a sequel.

9. The reaction Beetlejuice will have to his Ex looking for him. (I'm hoping for another "EEeeeEeee!") Also curious about more backstory

10. A in memoriam acknowledgement for Sylvia Sydney and Glen Shadix a.k.a. Juno and Otho in the credits.

💜💚💜💚💜💚

[devildarling08]

Do you have any beetlejuice musical headcanons? Also what headcanons do you have for NPMD?

HII IDK WHY I NEVER SAW THIS.

Hmmmm Beetlejuice musical headcanons,,

- It’s so obvious that Adam and Barbara adopted Lydia, and take her in as their own child <3

- I definitely like to think that Beetlejuice stays around and serves as an uncle figure towards Lydia. (Kinda like in the cartoon)

- Beetlejuice owns a “kiss the cook” apron

- Adam and Barbara are high school sweethearts <33

- Lydia owns a black cat

- Delia is intrigued by Hot Topic whenever Lydia takes her to the mall

- Lydia is a lesbian guys I do NAWT think she likes men

- The iconic house goes ALL OUT for Halloween >:)

- Lydia is an artist and enjoys sketching/writing stories

NPMD headcanons I have yet to think about actually :0. It’s crossed my mind but I haven’t gotten around to making an actual list.

[hoodoo12]

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

I finally saw sequel. I have thoughts. As this is long + I believe my opinion my not be to everyone’s liking, it is below a cut. Read at your own risk.

Frankly, I did not like it. It was messy. It had a wide variety of plot points that weren’t well developed or resolved. The characters (Lydia and Delia were the exceptions) were one dimensional, with very little for the audience to relate to. But to me, it’s biggest flaw was its forced pandering. It banked on nostolgia and delivered a contrived, formulaic movie.

In contrast with the other better received, more lauded fan service movie of the summer--Deadpool & Wolverine--Beetlejuice Beetlejuice reeked of desperation. Burton made sure to include everything from the first movie that people remembered and that had become iconic. The Maitland/Deetz house and the miniature town in the attic. Sandworms. Shrunken head guy. The red wedding dress. Lydia’s hairstyle from when she was in her mid-teens. If it was in the first movie, it was in this one. Even every possible iteration of Jeffrey Jones to an absolutely gross amount. 

The things that were interesting--Beetlejuice’s backstory, Lydia’s issues--were not explored to any real depth. They should have been! It would have added to the lore of the whole franchise. Instead, only the superficial and tropey hints were given, so the ‘real’ climax could take prescedent . . . the wedding. It was the pinnacle in the first movie, so it had to be the pinnacle in the second. Naturally, a Sandworm shows up to swallow people, because hey, it looked so good in the 1988 that it had to be repeated in 2024.  A deus ex machina in the form of a technicality in the Handbook for the Recently Deceased prevents it from being official. Musically, I was looking forward to a Danny Elfman score. Instead, BJBJ became a jukebox musical. Speaking of musicals, love it or hate it Beetlejuice The Musical The Musical The Musical was clearly the reason this movie was made after being shelved for 30+ years. With its success, Warner Bros. knew it could make money with a movie sequel. That’s the reason it was finally greenlit. 

I didn’t laugh at this movie. It simply wasn’t clever enough. Nothing was fun or enticing enough to make me want to see it again. It tried to straddle that sweet spot of keeping everything the same while offering something new, and it failed.  Beetlejuice was lightening in a bottle, and this simply was not.

[kevinsreviewcatalogue]

Review Double Feature: Beetlejuice (1988) and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)

Another double feature, and once again, it's a classic movie and its nostalgic, decades-later sequel. How do they fare?

Beetlejuice (1988)

Rated PG

<Originally posted at https://kevinsreviewcatalogue.blogspot.com/2024/09/review-double-feature-beetlejuice-1988.html>

Score: 5 out of 5

While Beetlejuice wasn't the first movie that Tim Burton ever made, it was the one that made him a goth icon, turning his name into a byword for a particular kind of style that has at least one foot in the horror genre and is often rich in gothic flair but combines it with a strong dose of comedy and whimsy. In this case, he takes a classic horror movie premise, that of a family moving into a new house only to find out that it's haunted by ghosts that don't want them there, and turns it completely on its head by making the ghosts the protagonists and using that setup as the basis for a riotous comedy, powered largely by the force-of-nature performance of Michael Keaton in his comic prime as the titular villain. It still stands as one of Burton's best movies and one of the best comedies of the '80s, especially for the less raunchy end of the genre (even if I wouldn't by any means call this a family film, inexplicable PG rating aside), powered by an all-star cast and an early version of Burton's unique style that was already apparent here. It's a movie where, the moment you see it, you don't need to ask why it's a classic, you just know.

Our protagonists are Adam and Barbara Maitland, a young couple living in the idyllic small town of Winter River, Connecticut who have just died in a car accident. What's more, when they get to the afterlife, they find a tangled bureaucracy that tells them that they have to spend 125 years in their house before they can move on, which means that they have to watch as a new family, the Deetzes, move in from the city and renovate their beautiful home into the modernist art project of the stepmom Delia's dreams and the Maitlands' nightmares. As such, they make it their mission to scare the Deetzes out of the house, easier said than done given the Maitlands' easygoing nature, the fact that the Deetz family's yuppie patriarch Charles sees dollar signs in a possibly haunted house, and the fact that the Deetzes' gloomy teenage daughter Lydia can see them and ain't scared of no ghosts. Out of desperation, the Maitlands turn to the "bio-exorcist" Betelgeuse (pronounced "Beetlejuice") for help, only to get far more than they bargained for.

The secret to Burton's success in his glory days was that, while his movies were spooky, they were very rarely scary. Burton is a man who has a clear affection for classic horror movies and injects their style into his own work, but doesn't necessarily try to replicate the actual terror, instead using that style to make comedies and dramas about offbeat people who are actually pretty normal once you get to know them. In this case, he made what's basically Poltergeist as a comedy, with the ghosts getting as much character as the living humans. Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis make for a great comic duo as the dorky yet lovable ghosts who are utterly clueless at being horror movie ghosts. They lift macabre imagery from contemporary '70s and '80s horror movies as they try to frighten their home's unwelcome new inhabitants, but John Carpenter and Tobe Hooper they ain't, and they come off as just lovably pathetic instead as they can't even get Charles and Delia to acknowledge their existence. They're Clark and Ellen Griswold as ghosts, slowly but surely melting down in frustration.

They're not the real reason everybody remembers this movie, though. It is, after all, titled Beetlejuice and not Adam & Barbara, and Michael Keaton walks away with the entire film. Beetlejuice being a comic character may have softened his nastiness and kept this rated PG, but he is otherwise presented as an absolute creep, a guy who sexually harasses every woman he meets, ruins the lives and unlives of everyone of any gender he meets, and looks like a disheveled drunk who isn't allowed within a thousand feet of a school, which only makes his plans for Lydia come off that much worse. (Apparently, the original version of the script made it explicit.) He's a whirlwind of chaos and destruction who, for all his comic presentation, brings the film the closest it comes to being actually scary, like if you took the lower-class lout character from other '80s comedies and recast him as a supernatural villain. There's a reason why Keaton, before his turn towards drama, was one of the biggest comedy stars of the '80s, making both the slapstick and the dialogue feel effortless as he makes both the Deetzes' lives and the Maitlands' afterlives into Hell on Earth.

The other character who's become synonymous with this movie is Winona Ryder's Lydia Deetz, who likely inspired the goth phases ("it's not a phase, Mom!") of an entire generation of teenage girls in the '90s. Her look was instantly iconic, and fortunately, Ryder didn't just let the costume department do all the work for her character. If Lydia comes off in 2024 as something of a cliché, then that's because she helped create the cliché, the archetypal moody teenager of any number of family comedies past and present combined with an interest in the supernatural and a heart of gold beneath her creepy exterior. She's Wednesday Addams as a teen in a yuppie family that doesn't understand her, a few years before Christina Ricci made that character her own, to the point that the only thing that surprises me about the show Wednesday is that it took Burton so long to get the chance to take a crack at a proper Addams Family adaptation. Her parents, meanwhile, serve as her utter antithesis, with Jeffrey Jones making Charles a man who desperately needs to get a clue (especially once his reaction to a haunted house is to turn it and the town around it into a tourist attraction) and Catherine O'Hara having the time of her life as Delia, a full-of-herself artist who it's implied married Charles for his money and whose aesthetic tastes are a comically grotesque parody of everything that people make fun of modern art for. From the moment you meet them, you understand immediately why the Maitlands want them the hell out of their home. If this movie has anything on its mind other than its horror parody and its visual flair, it's making fun of yuppies, and while it's mostly the obvious jokes about how they're a bunch of pretentious dilettantes, they serve the film's style quite well.

And on the note of aesthetic tastes, while this wasn't the first movie that Tim Burton directed, it was the one that made him into "Tim Burton", and it still stands as one of the greatest demonstrations of his distinct and oft-imitated style. It is a special effects showcase, starting with a playful homage to '50s giant monster movies in the opening credits and continuing on with the varied looks of the ghosts we see later in the film, especially as the Maitlands explore an afterlife reminiscent of the worst DMV you've ever been to run by a scene-stealing Sylvia Sidney as a salty, seen-it-all bureaucrat who's Not in the Mood for Your Shit. The music, too, does wonders to set the mood, from Danny Elfman's legendary score that sounds like an '80s New Wave remix of a classic horror soundtrack (as befitting a former member of Oingo Boingo) to the heavy use of Harry Belafonte in some key moments. The look and feel of the film matches the tone of the writing and story, spooky but playful, which makes the jokes that much funnier once they start rolling almost immediately. That said, it's always grounded in something resembling reality, in this case a version of small-town New England drawn less from Stephen King than Norman Rockwell. It's what makes the supernatural mayhem hit that much harder (incidentally, the reason why King himself set so many stories in small-town Maine, before his own style was copied to the point of cliché), and honestly, I think it's the difference between this and other early Burton films on one hand and his late-period decline on the other. A lot of Burton's humor, here most of all, was rooted in the juxtaposition of classically gothic imagery with life in modern America, often suggesting that it was in fact the former that was more level-headed and "normal" than our society that, in its obsession with status and the appearance of normality, can often turn quite whacked-out in its own way. Burton kind of lost sight of this with his later films, but in his earlier movies like this, he was a master at it.

The Bottom Line

Like any great comedy, it's hard to describe in words without ruining the best parts, so I'll just leave it at this: Beetlejuice is still a classic after 36 years. It's a simple movie, but that just means it can sharpen its focus and deliver a hell of a spoof of supernatural horror.

----------

And now, for the sequel...

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024 A.D.)

Rated PG-13 for violent content, macabre and bloody images, strong language, some suggestive material and brief drug use

Score: 3 out of 5

If Beetlejuice was Tim Burton at his best, then Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is, for better or worse, an encapsulation of late-period Burton, both his continued strengths as a filmmaker and the points where he's lost his touch. The plot is perfunctory, a mess of multiple different storylines butting heads with each other, with Monica Bellucci seemingly only being here as the villain because Tim Burton has a Type while an actual, more interesting villain was wasted. It felt like screenwriters Alfred Gough and Miles Millar had tried to cram an idea for a Beetlejuice TV series, or multiple different first drafts from different writers over the course of over three decades, into a feature film, with lots of plot threads that went nowhere and were wrapped up far too hastily for my liking. The first movie wasn't exactly that deep, but this makes it look downright intellectual. But when it comes to the things that Burton's name is associated with, from creepy visuals to a twisted sense of humor, this movie roars to the point that I was able to largely shut off my brain and enjoy it. The returning cast is great, not least of all Michael Keaton demonstrating that he hasn't lost a step even after he became a dramatic actor, while Jenna Ortega gets another opportunity to demonstrate why she's one of the biggest young stars of her generation. The humor is as on-point as it was last time, and while the special effects have a much bigger budget than they did before, they haven't lost the practical, handmade charm of the original. There's more of a focus on horror this time, but much of it comes proudly paired with the comedy, from deaths straight out of Looney Tunes to a running gag about the fate of Charles from the first film that I'm surprised got by with a PG-13 rating. As far as nostalgia-bait sequels are concerned, this one did most of what it needed to, if little else.

The film starts with a grown-up Lydia Deetz, now the host of a talk show dedicated to the supernatural, and her teenage daughter Astrid, a student at a boarding school who believes that ghosts aren't real and that her mother is either crazy or a grifting hack, being called home to Winter River, Connecticut after Charles Deetz dies gruesomely in a plane crash. (He survived the actual crash; shame about the shark in the water around the crash site.) Meanwhile, in the afterlife, Beetlejuice is still plugging away at his bio-exorcist gig, while Delores, the evil witch he married in life who's still pissed at him after they killed each other (the feeling is mutual), escapes from her prison thanks to some carelessness and proceeds to go on a soul-sucking rampage hoping to take her revenge on her ex. Along the way, Lydia's douchebag boyfriend and producer Rory proposes to her out of the blue, Astrid meets a cute boy in town named Jeremy who's into the supernatural, and Delia... doesn't actually get to do much, but any excuse to get Catherine O'Hara back in full form is good in my book.

There are a lot of plot threads going on here, enough that I think I might have missed a few of them, which kind of highlights the biggest problem this movie has, that it's overstuffed with plot and doesn't really have much of an actual story. Even by the third act after everything's started to come together, the plot about Lydia rescuing Astrid from the afterlife with Beetlejuice's help and the plot about Delores hunting down Beetlejuice barely have anything to do with each other, with the former settled in an anticlimatic fashion only to promptly segue into the next as Delores literally barges in. An important plot point hinges on Lydia, a woman obsessed with the supernatural and the dark side of life, being clueless about a grisly true-crime story in her own childhood hometown. This movie does a lot of things right, but its writing is not one of them. It tries to do far too much plot-wise, and it largely faceplants every time it asks me to focus on such. It's a shame, because, while Monica Bellucci had almost nothing to do in this movie beyond look creepy and sexy in that distinct Burtonesque way (see also: Lisa Marie, Helena Bonham Carter, Eva Green), she did it well, and I wanted to see more of her. A better movie would've found a way to incorporate Delores more directly into the plot, perhaps by having her use Lydia or Astrid to get to Beetlejuice, and given Bellucci more of a chance to shine.

Fortunately, this movie didn't forget to do the same for its other top-billed stars. Michael Keaton still has it as a comic actor, and Beetlejuice is still the same force of nature he was before, a guy who's about as profane as the PG-13 rating will allow and feels eager to punch through its bounds. Catherine O'Hara's Delia, like Delores, doesn't really get much of a plot, but she does at least get to make for some hilarious comic relief, still the same shallow yuppie arteeste she was in the '80s and one whose knowledge of the reality of the afterlife has simply given her false hope of finding Charles again. Winona Ryder and Jenna Ortega together get most of the dramatic arc of the film as the mother and daughter Lydia and Astrid, both of them turning in solid performances and Ortega in particular feeling very much like the heir to '90s Ryder in terms of being the one you cast when you want someone who can play a moody teenager really well. (One missed opportunity, though: I think the funniest version of Astrid would've been to make her the biggest girly girl imaginable, one who embraced a life in pink as her own form of rebellion against her goth mother. Not only would it have made sense given the tension between the two, it also would've done a great job of sending up Ortega's typecasting.) The supporting cast, meanwhile, was a who's who of fun bits, from Justin Theroux as Lydia's vapid boyfriend and spiritual guru who feels very much like a male version of Delia (maybe Lydia hasn't escaped her mother's influence as much as she thought) to Willem Dafoe as a Hollywood action hero who died doing his own stunts and now gets to be a loose cannon cop for real in the afterlife chasing Delores and Beetlejuice.

And when it comes to Burton himself, he brings a lot of this movie's best parts. Once I accepted that this was gonna be one of those movies where the plot made no damn sense and wasn't worth following, I stayed for the humor and the style, and this movie largely sticks to what worked last time even if they've got more money to throw around for the effects now. Jeffrey Jones' very public disgrace (I'll spare you the details, but let's just say he was really lucky he didn't land up in prison) means that this movie takes every opportunity it can to piss on Charles' grave with some of the most backhanded "tributes" I can imagine, his over-the-top death rendered in a stop-motion animated sequence being just the start. The afterlife is once again full of cool-looking ghosts whose appearances let you know right away exactly how they died, and while the balance of comedy and horror this time leans more towards actually trying to be scary, the kills are still goofy and cartoonish enough that it manages to remain lighthearted and fun. As a visual stylist, Burton has always been distinct even in his lesser films, and while there's nothing here that's particularly groundbreaking, it's always at least fun to watch.

The Bottom Line

"Nothing particularly groundbreaking, but at least fun to watch" sums up my thoughts on this movie in general. It's kinda dumb and needed a top-to-bottom rewrite, but as a showcase for a great comic cast and a lot of spooky and cool special effects, I had a good time. Check it out.

[itsawritblr]

So . . . I was sent these.

A couple of you know I used to have a Beetlejuice x Lydia blog. Used to be into the fandom big time, since the movie first opened in 1988. Then, for reasons I won't get into, I lost interest in all things Beej.

But some people still read my Beej fics on AO3. And one of them sent me these photos from Beetlejuice 2. They also sent me the link to the article they appeared in.

So for you few Beetlebabes who still Follow me -- you know who you are -- here's the article.

“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice”... Beetlejuice returns in first look at Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder

Nick Romano

Wed, March 20, 2024 at 9:00 AM CDT

It's been 36 years, but once again, the juice is loose.

After reprising Batman in last year's The Flash, Michael Keaton returns to another iconic role in Entertainment Weekly's exclusive first look at Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the sequel to director Tim Burton's cult hit.

Winona Ryder and Catherine O'Hara also reprise their roles as Lydia and Delia Deetz, respectively, while Burton's Wednesday star Jenna Ortega plays Lydia's daughter Astrid, and The Leftovers star Justin Theroux plays Rory. Further details on Rory remain under wraps for now — unlike the titular "bio-exorcist."

The original Beetlejuice (1988) followed the recently deceased Barbara and Adam Maitland (Geena Davis, Alec Baldwin), who enlist the aid of the mischievous demon Beetlejuice/Betelgeuse (Keaton), to expel the current living residents of their home, the Deetz family. All hell, subsequently, breaks loose.

The sequel picks up decades later with a death in the family. "That's all I will say," Burton tells EW in an interview. "There's something that happens that sets things in motion." Could that be the death of Lydia's father, Charles Deetz (Jeffrey Jones)? The director plays coy: "We'll see." One thing's for sure, Beetlejuice comes back into play.

Burton describes getting Keaton back in the classic costume and makeup as "a weird out-of-body experience."

"He just got back into it," the filmmaker behind 1989's Batman (also starring Keaton) and 1993's The Nightmare Before Christmas recalls. "It was kind of scary for somebody who was maybe not that overly interested in doing it. It was such a beautiful thing for me to see all the cast, but he, sort of like demon possession, just went right back into it."

Burton says he and Keaton have talked about a sequel on and off over the years. "Unless it felt right, he had no burning desire to do it," the director recalls. "I think we all felt the same way. It only made sense if it had an emotional hook."

Many concepts were floated around, some dating all the way back to the '80s, including a treatment set in Hawaii. "We talked about lots of different things," Burton says. "That was early on when we were going, Beetlejuice and the Haunted Mansion, Beetlejuice Goes West, whatever. Lots of things came up."

What they needed, however, was time. His actors, including Ryder and O'Hara, had all moved on to other projects after the original came out, and "nobody," Burton notes, "was really pushing for it." The filmmaker also admits he didn't initially (and still doesn't to some degree) understand the success of the first film, so he wasn't motivated to move forward with an idea that didn't excite him.

The hook he was looking for, as it turns out, revolves around Ryder's Lydia and bringing together three generations of Deetz women, including O'Hara's Delia and Ortega's Astrid. "I so identified with the Lydia character, but then you get to all these years later, and you take your own journey, going from cool teenager to lame adult, back and forth again," he explains. "That made it emotional, gave it a foundation. So that was the thing that really truly got me into it."

Other details on the film itself are being kept secret for now, other than the presence of Monica Bellucci (Spectre), Arthur Conti (House of the Dragon), and Willem Dafoe (Poor Things) among the cast. (Dafoe previously disclosed his role as a B-movie action star who died and became a police officer in the Afterlife.) Burton feels "a bit jinx-y" about revealing such things, given that he's still shaping the movie in the editing phase. But he does confirm he'll be using stop-motion animation to bring a lot of the classic Beetlejuice effects to the screen. "It needed a back-to-basics, handmade quality," he says. "It reenergized why I love making movies."

And what about that title? Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. "It's been, what? Thirty-five years. So it didn't feel like Beetlejuice 2 to me," Burton says. "It didn't feel like that kind of a movie. The other one I thought of, because one of my favorite Dracula movies is Dracula A.D. 1972, was Beetlejuice 2024 A.D. But this was a nice simple one."

Just don't say the name one more time, or you risk summoning the man himself.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice will hit theaters on Sept. 6.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Addendum: Was sent the link to this, too.

I'm . . . fearfully optimistic . . . .

[thelanternlight]

I thought Beetlejuice Beetlejuice was a LOT of fun! It was spooky, visually stunning, creative, and a true successor to the original. Definitely a great movie and a new, very fun classic to add to the seasonal rotation. I say that as if the original movie wasn’t wholly beloved by me but it so fundamentally was. And is. Beetlejuice remains one of Tim Burton’s masterpieces because it was SO strange and unusual, and one of Burton’s most original concepts. When audiences first saw it in the 80s (and me in the late 90s/early aughts) we, or me specifically, had never really seen anything like it. On paper a story like Beetlejuice shouldn’t have worked. But not only does it work but it’s a cinematic milestone and one of the main works that goths and gays and weirdos point to when they talk about films that helped them understand themselves, even to accept themselves. I cannot overemphasize the importance of Beetlejuice. And in so doing I also cannot underscore its brilliance and meaningfulness in the ‘weirdo community’ without specifically calling out Catherine O’Hara who outperforms herself again and again, and who has been an icon and patron goddess of said community since the 80s, or before. Her continuation of Delia in this sequel adds to that glittering repertoire.

The one thing I can say that could have been better was that there’s a lot of ideas thrown into this movie. I’m not going to spoil anything here since it’s still in theaters but I thought some characters needed to be omitted and some storylines simplified. Having so many moving parts meant that the movie felt rushed and the audience doesn’t have time to really sit and absorb or process important moments. These are old friends that we’ve loved for decades and that have meant so much to us. We needed to have time to really understand where they are, how they’ve evolved, how their relationships work now. The movie does attempt to provide that element of reunion but it’s so fast that it’ll require a second or third rewatch to keep up with them. The one thing I will deliberately spoil (or not really) is that Beetlejuice does not get a grand entrance. He just turns up at some point. That was a missed opportunity.

However, I really appreciated that with Charles Deetz, originally played by Jeffrey Jones who undoubtedly was not invited to reprise his role due to past scandal, we knew he’d be killed off (because of the trailers) but I loved that he was still included. Again, not going to spoil anything but I liked that Charles got the acknowledgement the character deserved. With Otho, of course Glenn Shadix is sadly no longer with us, and instead of recasting him or somehow reinventing his character the movie just left him as we remember him. I think that was a classy move, to simply not even try any reductive reproduction.

Still though, B2 is truly a wonderful movie and an absolute joy. Like I said this has immediately made my annual Halloween must-watch list.

[fiendishfangs]

A review on Beetlebuse…it was good. Things aren’t always going to be as good as the original but i genuinely enjoyed it and it delivered. Makes up for its flaws. Watch it and judge for yourself.

—————————————

I absolutely ATE UP that wedding scene like WHY?!!. I love the dynamic between BJ and Lydia the whole movie, only complaint is that he didn’t get more scene time again and felt like empty in that one scene where he leaves and then comes back? Just weird in between scene to cut.

Delia being absolutely iconic. Having a good laugh and vibing to the music going off. DOLORES WAS STUNNING MONICA BELLUCCI AAH. I’ve never seen a man be so pathetically and debatably questionably in love and it hurts me to say it. Lydia not having it at all was really so funny and exactly what I expected. I love them with my whole heart. Really they would be so good together and that doesn’t even have to mean romantically. I like their respective relationships in every version.

Disclaimer: I don’t like bashing I really don’t unless things are bad. But there is absolutely no way I support ALL Beetlebabes shippers/shipping. You can however ship characters non romantically just don’t push it. If your sole purpose is to ship a minor with an adult in a romantic/inappropriate way then I’m sorry that’s not up for debate. ((She is an adult in the new movie keep that in mind and keep it separated))

[herefortheships]

I can’t believe I read someone on Reddit mention they’d like it if BJ3 introduced new characters and let the Deetz go. Are you kidding? Lydia is essential to Beetlejuice. Story can go on without the Maitlands (as proven by both the sequel and the toon), maybe without Delia and Charles, heck maybe even without Astrid! (Though I want her to stay lol). But not without Lydia! Lydia and Betelgeuse are a unit, and an iconic one at that. Plus Betelgeuse is in love with Lydia; it has pretty much become the character’s main motivation. I almost created a Reddit account right there to answer to that 😂.

I’m a lurker but I don’t have an account lol. I feel like the smart people in the fandom and the most devoted are here on tumblr, anyway; redditors are casual fans, mostly. I like to see what the takes are in the casual fandom sometimes, so I lurk 😆.

[themosleyreview]

The Mosley Review: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

I am truly overjoyed! It seems that more films are returning back to the magic of practical locations, effects and using CGI when it is absolutely necessary. When I see a master storyteller that started out that way, come back to their roots and show us why we loved them in the first place, my heart flutters as we are witnessing something truly special. That is what happened here and it was gorgeous return to the darkly comedic and macabre world created from the mind of Tim Burton. Burton returns to his most beloved film by fans and it didn't disappoint. Not only does it continue the same level reverence for the odd, but it also adds more to the lore by exploring more of the spirit realm and I loved every second of it. I loved that all of his tricks and styles were on display, especially during a discussion about the fate of a certain character. The way its done was a visual feast. This film was a bit overwhelming with the amount of characters, but I could never say I was bored. The amount of busy work each character gets could've been separated into their own vignettes, but it's all weaved together and wrapped up in a fun way. I do wish the threat for the titular character was more central and the driving force of the film though.

Winona Ryder returns as Lydia Deetz and I loved that she continued to embrace her supernatural gift. She is more tormented this time around and heartbroken as she had a loss that damaged her relationship with her daughter. Jenna Ortega was bratty, snarky and sometimes mean as Lydia's estranged daughter, Astrid. Their relationship was interesting to watch become patched in the most difficult way. She had the same attitude as Lydia when she was younger, but less morose and more angst. It worked all the way through and I loved when she finally starts to connect with her Mother on something they share. Catherine O'Hara was just as crazy, unpredictable and fun as Lydia's mom and Astrid's grandmother, Delia Deetz. Every moment with her was comedic gold and how darkly artistic it gets was great. Justin Theroux was good and slimy as Lydia's boyfriend, Rory. He was good for the purpose of where Lydia was in her life, but I almost felt he was the weakest part of the ensemble. Not in performance, but just as a supporting character that sometimes detracted from the pacing. Willem Dafoe was truly having fun as the dead action star, Wolf Jackson. I loved the throw back style of the 1950's detective he was portraying while hamming up the most hilarious and cheesy dialogue an old school detective would say. Arthur Conti was good as Astrid's first crush, Jeremy Frazier. It was a fun sliver of a possible teen romance in this weird world. Monica Bellucci still takes my breath away when she graces the screen and as the villainess, Delores LaVerge, she was truly spectacular. I loved the lore behind her relationship with Beetlejuice and I liked her creepy presence. I just wish we focused on her more as the driving force of the film instead of being lightly sprinkled around. Speaking of Beetlejuice, Michael Keaton returns as the ghost with the most and he hasn't skipped a beat. He continues to be that disgusting and loveable trickster we all love. He was hilarious, smart and very creative in his quest to get away from his ex-wife, Delores. I love that we finally get a confirmed backstory for the character and the amount of fun he has telling it was right on brand. The chemistry between him and Lydia never died and it was magical to see them together again.

Composer and Tim Burton's muse, Danny Elfman returns and brings back the iconic score and themes. I loved that he kept the gothic and whimsical tone of the film alive with his insanely playful score. The mixed soundtrack of jams that work in the playful nature of the spirit world was excellent and there is a prolonged musical sequence that was a bit bloated. Like I said before, everyone has something to do and that made the film more busy than it needed to be. For me, I would've gotten rid of Rory and left Lydia's heartbroken story as is anchor point for her and Astrid to reconnect. Even with all of its flaws, it still was a welcomed return to form for Tim Burton and fun excursion back into the world of Beetlejuice. Let me know what you thought of the film or my review in the comments below. Thanks for reading!

[princess-of-the-corner]

FUN FACT!: While Ash's Dad does NOT appear in any of the three films set in the "I Choose You!" continuity, Ash DOES mention some advice he got from him in "Secrets of the Jungle", with "Distant Blue Sky" confirming that ICY!Ash's Dad is still involved in his life, even if he doesn't have as much of a presence as Delia does.

Indeed, in the I Choose You Continuity's final appearance in the "Distant Blue Sky" special, Ash receives his iconic original series/League Expo Hat as a GIFT from his (still unseen, as work called him away while Ash was helping the spirit of a dead child move on to the afterlife) father.

All we get regarding MAIN series Ash's Dad is that Ash MIGHT be a better trainer than him (getting to Viridian City far faster than his father did), with "Pocket Monsters: The Animation" describing him as a washed out trainer who left on a Pokemon Journey and never bothered coming back.

So, we have two opposite extremes for Ash's Dad (possibly overworked salaryman who nonetheless loves his son, and deadbeat manchild who walked out on his family), although given that Ash and Delia don't ever MENTION the man after episode 2 (wherein Ash's grandfather was also mentioned in the Japanese version, implying that Ash comes from a long line of washouts), I'm guessing that Pocket Monsters: The Animation is closer to what Ash's dad would ACTUALLY be like if they ever crossed paths.

If I had a nickel for every time an anime series I watched wanted to convince me that the MC's dad is still there he's just too busy working but is written so out of the picture that everyone assumes he's just some asshole who walked out on his wife and kid, I'd have two nickels.

Which isn't a lot BUT-