#i now have a page of ideas and a cast breakdown in my notebook

[skullfragments]

Mawage...

Arguably one of the most iconic scenes of The Princess Bride, the Impressive Clergyman delivers a touching speech about love - which is unfortunately cut short by Prince Humperdinck requesting he "skip to the end". When he mispronounces her name as "Butterqwop", the Princess does not bother to correct him. However, this is Princess Aziraphale, and she would very much prefer you say her name correctly, thank you very much.

This was 1000% an excuse to recreate the amazing moment in the 1941 minisode where Furfur just cannot say Aziraphale's name and is swiftly shut up by our favorite bitchy side-eye.

I WILL be back with more Good Omens x Princess Bride (you may interpret this as a threat)

pt 1 pt 2

[thedeaditeslayer]

Tom Sullivan - Evil Dead (Retrospective Interview)

Below is a short interview with Tom Sullivan that covers working on The Evil Dead making props, stop motion effects and special make-up effects.

Much has been said about The Evil Dead over the years. An abundance of articles and books have covered the arduous low-budget shoot, and the creativity that came out of long cold nights in the wilderness of Tennessee. The dedicated cast and crew went to extreme lengths whilst making the classic film; including memorable instances like Ellen Sandweiss running through the woods until her feet were in pieces, Campbell having his soon to be famous chin scarred when a deadite hand grabbed him through the floor, and long nights in the cabin with no running water leaving crew to wash blood off their hands in scolding hot coffee. But just as impressive as the aggressive perseverance needed to finish the 16mm low budget opus were the imaginative and gory effects that have been etched into fans retinas for nearly forty years! The blood spewing, head-severing effects were created by Tom Sullivan, who had provided makeup for Raimi’s fund-raising short film Within The Woods. Sullivan signed up for The Evil Dead and created the numerous prosthetics and blood gags essential to dismembering a cabin of teenagers, helping bring to the screen a bloodbath of carnage that Stephen King famously called “The most ferociously original horror film of 1982.”  

 With only three weeks to break down Raimi’s script and create the necessary effects needed - and a further three months to create and film the stop motion blood and pus filled “Deadite Meltdown” at the end of the movie - Sullivan built a legion of makeup appliances, severed limbs, and some of the most iconic props in horror movie history. Sullivan, who tours with his Evil Dead Museum showcasing of many of the props, makeups and ghastly creations used in the Evil Dead movies, spoke with Project Louder about what went into creating such iconic pieces for 1982’s The Evil Dead.  

Project Louder: Let’s start with the most famous of all Evil Dead props, The Book of the Dead. In the script it was described as being made from an animal skin. How did you design the book and what was your process of putting it together?

Tom Sullivan: My book is different than the one Sam Raimi described in his script, “Book of the Dead”. His book had some kind of animal skin with a couple of letters from an ancient alphabet on the cover. As an illustrator that didn’t read like an evil book to me.  So, I proposed a book covered in human skin and a human face would make it more obvious it was human skin as opposed to just leather. I had made face molds of all the actors but Bruce Campbell. So, I coated Hal Delrich’s mold about 8 or 9 layers of mold rubber, let it dry, yanked it of the mold and glued it to a piece of corrugated cardboard. The pages were a stiff card stock that I bound together with grocery bag paper. The Illustrations were not to be seen in the original script but as an artist I had to draw on everything, so I based the drawings on DaVinci’s notebooks on anatomy.  The text is all made up on the spot. I call it Bullscript.

Project Louder: What was the process for makeup design, prep and application in regard to Theresa, Betsy and Ellen?  

Tom Sullivan: Sam gave me the script three weeks before shooting began. As the make up and special effects artist all I could think was, “shoot me now”.  I had time to breakdown the script, figure out what effects and make up designs I needed, how I might do them and what supplies I would need. The original demon concepts were based on the Sumerian background. Not that I knew anything about Sumerians, but I had seen The Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston, so I just figured maybe the Sumerians were proto ancient Egyptians. I was hoping movie audiences were as ignorant as I was, and I was correct. So, I sculpted some designs for the deadites based on a hawk, a snake, and a dog. Sam thought it was starting to look like Planet of the Apes and I agreed. So instead of stealing from John Chambers let’s steal from Dick Smith. Ellen’s, Cheryl Deadite make up was inspired by Smith’s Exorcist make up of the demon. Betsy’s make up was the first make up I did for the film. It was black veins radiating out of her darkened eyes. That design became Shelly’s make up. Don’t waste good ideas. All of the ladies’ make ups were done in 4 to 6 hours sessions. They were built up from scratch. Only Scotty’s dog make up was a latex appliance. That was left over from the Sumerian Dog design. Don’t waste anything.    

Sam’s concept became the idea that the demons were mocking and revealing their victims. After discovering about the “latex point” during the making of Within the Woods, I was hesitant to use spirit gum on the actors. It tends to harm skin when actors have to wear glued on masks for long days upon days. So, I used latex rubber like contact cement. I’d put a thin layer on the contact surface of the mask and a thin layer on the contact surface of the actor. When the layers were drying but still tacky I would press them together. It’s important to clean the actor’s skin with alcohol to remove oils on their skin for longer adhesion.

Project Louder: The Kandarian dagger is another iconic design. What was the concept and build process?  

Tom Sullivan: The dagger was just a dagger in the script. I wanted to make it more memorable and read as a bizarre and disturbing weapon. I loved Ridley Scott’s Alien so I took a 1 ½”  piece of aluminum stock, ground it down with a sharp point, took a couple of handfuls of a ground paper mache called Celluclay added water, mashed it into a clay like substance and shaped it over the hilt of the dagger in the rough shape of the “chestburster” from Alien. I took the parts of a 12” skeleton model kit and stuck those into the Celluclay. When I ran out of kit parts, I bought a chicken, cooked it, ate it, boiled and dried the bones and stuck those into the hilt and instant horror movie prop. I got the idea for the dagger’s skull puking blood the night before we shot the Shelly Deadite death scene. I figured I could drill a hole from the skull’s mouth to the back of the dagger, stick a small, tube into the hole and have a production assistant blow blood through it for the take. I suggested the close up shot for the film when I showed up at the set. And Sam used it. He has excellent taste.

Project Louder: The Evil Dead never skimped on the blood. Would you care to share the Tom Sullivan blood recipe?  

Tom Sullivan: It’s Sam Raimi’s blood recipe. He taught it to me during Within the Woods. It is one bottle of Corn Syrup, 2 to 3oz of Red Food Coloring. 1 Cup Instant Coffee mixed with water into a paste. Mix well. It stains everything but is safe and non-toxic for your actors. However, I drank so much of this coffee syrup I haven’t had a cup in coffee ever since filming Evil Dead. So be warned!!  

Project Louder: The climactic stop motion sequence is masterful in is gore and execution. How did you approach such a complicated and time-consuming sequence?  

Tom Sullivan:  I love stop motion animation, so I was looking for an opportunity to use it in Sam’s film. Sam’s idea for the finale was for me to make some balloon versions of the Scotty and Cheryl Deadites and have them deflate while smoking. As I had been creating lots of gory effects for the film that seemed a bit lame for finale. I thought it needed an explosion of gore and as the special effects artist I wanted to throw guts into the audience’s lap. I did some storyboards of my concept for the meltdown and using George Pal’s great film, The Time Machine stop motion sequence of the Morlock decomposing via clay animation in that films finale, I sold Sam on the idea. He knew Bart Pierce, a filmmaker and stop motion animator and we met and designed the full sequence and started filming in his basement. I made the almost full-size clay models of the deadites over wooden ball and socket armatures made with large wooden beads. I made heads out of blood red dyed modeling clay sculpted into the muscles and then pressed into a mold of the deadite’s sculpture that had a more flesh colored clay. That was then removed from the mold, painted, wigged and ready to animate. To match the cabin set we used wood from the location and found out Bart’s garage’s ceiling matched the ceiling of the cabin. So, we used it. I am very proud of my work with Bart and I consider it my best artistic collaboration.

[pandora-evermore]

A Gentle Touch

Part 1

Written for @bithors 5k writing challenge. 

Prompt: “This is the part where you hold my hand.” 

Summary: You’ve spent the last three years of your life working on a revolutionary vaccine for the Roxxon Corporation, something that will shake the very foundations of the medical industry. Unbeknownst to you, there are those in this world who see a more military use for your miracle drug and would do anything to take it for themselves. When your lab is attacked and your whole world turned upside-down, your only hope rests on the shoulders of one very damaged super-soldier. 

Warnings: Violence, angst and other stuff in later chapters... 

A/n: I struggled so much with this and my concern is that it really shows. So, you know, be kind. I had three or four different ideas to go with this prompt and I’d started each of them before deciding on something different. I’m hoping I can turn this into a half-decent series despite my struggles. (Also, I swear I put a read more link in this thing but it's not showing up for me so if it's not here, I'm sorry.)

You jumped, clutching at a metal pipe for support as a loud bang rattled the heavy circular door to your lab. Men were shouting at each other in a language you didn’t speak. Heavy boots stomped back and forth out in the halls. People were screaming, crying, and all you could do was sit alone in the dark and wait for the inevitable.

You worked nights at an off-shore research and development site for the Roxxon Corporation in Lab number 394, a large rectangular room that housed more lab equipment than it had any right to. The bleached white walls were lined with bleached white counters, and the rows of florescent lights reflected off the bleached tile floors, casting everything in a sterile glow. Notoriously nicknamed The Vault, it was the most restricted of the onsite research facilities, requiring three separate types of verification in order to get in or out of the large, reinforced metal door, and only a handful of people possessed all three. In the centre of the lab, they had managed to cram three desks, two of which belonged to coworkers you’d never met, piled high with paperwork: official documents, notes, scribbles doodles, and perfectly balanced chemical equations. The third desk, however, had been your home away from home for nearly three years, a silent witness to your greatest breakthroughs and breakdowns. The Vault itself was equipped with a very advanced alarm system and quarantine protocol to prevent the spread of the viral cultures you needed for vaccine development.

You’d activated the quarantine protocol when the alarms sounded, sealing yourself within the vault, casting the lab into near blackness save for the amber alert light flashing steadily in the corner. You thought it had been a drill. It was always a drill. They ran them every couple of months to keep everyone on their toes. But then the screaming started. A concussive round of semi-automatic gunfire went off in the lab above your head, making your stomach turn and your ears ring. The silence that followed was worse. Somewhere in a distant part of your brain you were surprised the shots didn’t echo. You’d always thought they would echo. You tried to steady your breathing to the rhythm of the flashing amber light. One rotation. Two. Three. A strange sound like a pull and a pop startled you. Then the light went out, casting the room into total darkness. You clutched the pipe even tighter, desperate for support. They must have cut the auxiliary power. Now there was nothing to do but wait and wonder: who was alive, who was dead, and how long were you going to survive with the ventilation system offline?

The pipe in your hand twitched and shook itself free from your grasp and you hand to slap your hand over your mouth to stifle a scream. Squinting into the darkness you could barely make out the vague figure of what must have been a man -tall, broad shouldered, and scowling, the shadows twisting his features into something menacing. A monster in the night.

“Oh!” You exclaimed louder than you meant. In a heartbeat he closed the little space between you, towering over your frame, before backing off just as suddenly. A series of panicked questions fired through your brain as fast as the neurons carrying them. What was he doing here? How long had he been there? What did he want? Was he going to hurt you. The shadow where his eyes should be never left your face. He was watching you. Waiting. Maybe for you to work it out. He hadn’t killed you, or worse, yet so he couldn’t be one of them, but he certainly didn’t seem safe either. Did the monster speak? It was worth a shot. Mustering every ounce you had left of your courage, you asked the first question you could muster.

“How long have you been standing there?” You whispered, nearly smacking your hand to your forehead at your own stupidity. How was that the most pressing question?

A heartbeat. Two. You could count them by the thrumming in your ears before…

“A while.”

Success!

“And are you –”

“I’m not here to hurt you.”

Another bang against the door cut off your reply as the walls chipped and dust and less-than-savoury remains drifted down from the ceiling. Another wave of nausea rolled through you.

“Buck,” a voice crackled through his comms. “Buck, what’s your location.”

I’m in the vault,” the man, Buck apparently, sighed, pressing his finger to his earpiece. “Someone,” he cast a sidelong glance at you, “activated the quarantine. And you really don’t need to shout, Steve.”

The back of your neck grew hot under his penetrative gaze.

“Well, what would you have done?” You hissed, keeping your voice much lower than he was bothering to.

He cocked an eyebrow, but he didn’t reply, listening instead to the voice on the comms.

“Head for the rendezvous,” he said after a moment. “I’ll meet you there as soon as we’re out.”

You strained your ears to hear the reply but there was only silence on the other end. Suddenly, something rammed against the door, making the metal groan and quake in protest.

“I’m good, Steve. I won’t be long.”

“Fine,” Steve relented, clearly not thinking it was fine at all. “Just don’t get lost.”

“Try not to jump out of any more planes while I’m gone.”

“That was one time and –”

A female voice interrupted through the comms. “Hate to break up your little bromance guys but we’ve got incoming.”

“Get out while you can,” Buck warned as another bang dented the door. “I’ll get the formula and meet you there.”

“Formula,” you hissed indignantly. “Which formula?”

“Yours.” He cast a glance at the buckling door before turning his full attention to your desk. He threw open the drawers, grabbed loose-leaf pages, notebooks, file-folders, rifling through them only to cast them aside. Your stomach rolled uncomfortably. He was touching your stuff. You needed to sit down. Another bang. You could see the metal starting to give way. You gripped the edge of the lab counter to steady yourself. Suddenly the room was spinning, the initial adrenaline wearing off.

“Hang on. Hang on. Hang on!” The words burst from you as you ran forward to catch his hand before he touched something else.

He froze like a startled cat deciding whether to scratch. His back straight. His eyes dark and angry. You flinched back almost instantly.

“Don’t.” He rolled his shoulder, shaking his head as though he was trying to clear some intrusive idea.

“I –” You tried to think, praying he wasn’t in the midst of some violent mental break, “I thought you said you weren’t going to hurt me.”

“Look,” he leaned close, his face inches from yours, his blue eyes bright, intense, burning. “I get that you’re scared. I do. But right now, your choices are me or a team of Hydra operatives and I guarantee they won’t be gentle. Now, where’s your formula?”

“How do I know you’re not just going to kill me as soon as I give it to you?”

His face twitched into a grimace. “You don’t. But if I’d wanted to kill you, I would’ve done it already and taken it anyway.”

Another burst of insolence shot through your brain. “You wouldn’t be able to find it without my help.”

He snorted. He actually snorted. “Sure.” Another bang, the seal around the top of the door popped and thick tendrils of grey smoke slipped into the lab. “We’ve got about thirty seconds before the bust down that door. So what’s it gonna be?”

You stared at him for a moment, trying to clear your head. What choice did you have, really?

“Right,” you finally nodded, ducking under your desk. Fumbling with your keys, you unlocked a hidden compartment and pulled out a large green binder. “Formula. Check. Can you get us out of here?” You tried to make it sound like you didn’t secretly think he was going to grab the binder from your hands and leave you to fend for yourself against the oncoming hoard but the tremor in your words gave you away.

Buck nodded, “Get behind me and whatever you do, stay close.”

“Right.”

The men outside were shouting again.

“They’re setting up their explosives.” Buck explained. “When that door opens, hit the ground, and when I say run, you run. Understand?”

“I understand.”

The heavy footfalls behind the door faded away into silence. One second. Two seconds. A sound like thunder tore through your ears as the heavy door creaked and groaned and finally game way under pressure, falling inwards with a crash. All at once there was chaos. You threw yourself to the ground as a team of men in black tactical gear burst through the opening. Buck launched himself at them, striking out with just his fists against a hail of bullets. You slammed your hands over your ears. They were shouting. The room was filled with the scrape of metal against metal and the sickening squelch of metal against flesh. Then you heard it.

“Run!”

You jumped to your feet, your vision locked on the clearest path through the door. You took off, not bothering to check to see if he was behind you.

“This way,” you heard him shout. Casting a furtive glance over your shoulder, you saw him coming up on your left, passing you with a few easy strides to lead you to the stairwell.

“Why does it have to be stairs?” You puffed, not meaning for him to hear as he jumped them two at a time.

“Because you work in a basement!”

Damn.

You kept pace behind him, binder still clutched tight against your chest, until you reached the top, where he waited a moment to let you catch your breath.

“You good?”

“Most days,” you quipped, getting agitated.

“Let’s go.” He took off down one of the main corridors, leaving you to trot dutifully behind. You were dizzy with questions, every nerve in your body burned, overstimulated. You wanted to stop. You wanted to sleep. You needed something to focus your mind. A thought nibbled at your brain.

“Hey!” You called, louder than you meant, hoping to get his attention.

“Yeah?”

“How did you even get into my lab? It was under quarantine. Airtight. Nothing could get in or out. And if you were in there before I activated the protocol, I definitely would have seen you. You’re not exactly a ninja.”

Silence. Maybe you were pressing your luck? Just because he agreed to get you out doesn’t mean he couldn’t change his mind at any moment.

“I have a very particular set of skills.” He took a sharp turn down another hall lined with large windows set in wide panes. The moon outside glistened full and bright and menacing on the blood-spattered tile.

You couldn’t help the panicked laugh that bubbled up out of your chest. “Shut up. Everyone’s seen Taken.”

Great. Well done. Sass is a sure-fire way to get yourself killed. You waited for him to snap at you, or glare, or something.

“Not everyone,” he chuckled.

He rounded another corner. Suddenly, he turned to you, grabbing you by the arm and tucking you into a window alcove.

“Whatever you do, don’t look down that way.”

“What? Why?”

“You’re gonna have to trust me on this one.”

Raising his stolen gun, Bucky fired three shots into the glass. The sound burst through your eardrums like thunder, making you jump and grip the frame for support. Spiderweb cracks spread out across the glass but it didn’t shatter. You cast a furtive glance over his shoulder and were met with the sight of something dark and red pooling across the moonlit floor. Bile rose in your throat and you had to swallow hard, snapping your eyes closed in a futile attempt to stop yourself from collapsing in a fit of panic. You didn’t want to see. You didn’t want to know. And you certainly didn’t have time for this.

“Hey,” Buck coaxed, nudging your foot with his boot. You opened your eyes, startled to find him staring at you so intently. “You gonna make it?”

You shook your head, you could feel panicked tears welling up in your eyes. “Nope. Nope. My coworkers are dead. There are people trying to kill me. You might be trying to kill me. And now I’m crying so I don’t even get to die with dignity like they do in movies.”

He smiled a soft half-smile. There was something about it –sad and warm and comforting all at the same time. He didn’t look as evil when he smiled. Saying nothing, he pulled his left arm back, the moonlight glinting off the metal plating on his hand, and struck the glass, sending shards flying out over the cliff.

“You know we’re like a thousand feet up, right?”

“This is nowhere near a thousand feet.”

You stared out through the shattered glass and down to the rocks below, the inky sea roaring over them in a menacing spray of salt and foam. It wasn’t until Buck Blue-eyes snapped his fingers in front of your face that you realized he was staring back at you, expectant, with his arm outstretched.

“This is the part where you hold my hand,” he murmured, voice steady as he cast a furtive glance down the whitewashed halls, now spattered with blood. “I’ll keep you safe.”

“This is going to hurt,” you grimaced, gripping his hand tightly.

“You may want to shut your eyes.”

You did as you were told and with a sudden yank, the floor was pulled out from under you and you were plummeting fast through the air. A scream bubbled up through your throat and out your lips before you could stop it. You felt Buck’s hand slip through your fingers as you hit the surface like a bullet, swallowed up by the icy depths. You choked, a spastic breath that burned as the fluid filled your lungs, the muscles in your throat desperate for air. You kicked out, struggling for the surface but only succeeded in taking in more water. The world turned, fading to dusky shadows, then nothing.

[clarke-griffin-did-nothing-wrong]

Netflix’s Death Note

About to beat this dead horse till it explodes.

First things first, so you know what you’re getting into: I loathed this movie. My very soul burned while watching it. It zipped past The Lightning Thief and The Last Airbender in terms of bad and now rests solely at the bottom with Riverdale. 

Next, I’ll start with what I liked about the movie. 

Ryuk’s design was phenomenal. I could understand why Light wanted to piss himself after seeing him. Top notch work.

Also, the first scene where Little Bit-- I mean, Light Turner tried to threaten a bully by claiming child abuse and gets punched in the face. Kenny was a dick but that made him my favorite character.

I’m going to judge the movie objectively though I will throw in references to the anime just as an example of how a thing could have been handled better.

The characters were all terrible. I don’ t care about the casting, that’s no excuse for how unlikeable I found everyone. Light was whiny and so SO annoying. He was also so SO stupid. He didn’t just leave breadcrumbs right to his doorstep, he left entire loaves! Mia was an obvious sociopath. I don’t think I was supposed to like her so that’s fine; just putting it out there. Also, can we agree how weird it was that they literally got off on using the notebook. Death Note and chill should not be a thing. 

L was... different. I wanted to like him but I didn’t understand how he was supposed to be the world’s greatest detective. He was an emotional wreck. He felt more like if Near was merged with Mello, smart, yes, but to on edge to be of any professional use. Watari had no real presence. He felt like a prop that was just lying around waiting for his cue with Light. I really did not buy L’ s breakdown over him. They didn’t feel as close as the movie wanted me to think they were. 

The movie had zero interest in keeping its rules consistent. I pretty much have all the anime rules memorized but I decided that the movie could make up its own, I didn't care. They did, but they failed to enforce them properly.

For example, it’s clear that when a name is written in the note, the person dies, no ifs, buts or what ifs. Light himself goes through great pains to avoid writing his own name when describing an action using words like “her boyfriend” and “the Kira suspect”. Fine. But then it pulls conditional deaths out of its butthole and just plops it in the finale. No one said anything about that being possible, how are you going to hinge your entire finale on new rules?

We also have the note’s ability to control people being really arbitrary. Light wrote that Watari would be obsessed with finding out L’s true name and tell Light everything he knew, but this somehow translates into Light being able to dictate his every move down to telling him not to sleep. 

Ryuk’s motivations, abilities and connection to the note are also really weird. At first you get the sense that he’s just a crazy sonuvabitch that wants to watch the world burn but you’re never really told why. The movie establishes him as an ancient being that’s been lurking around since ancient Japan but has no interest in explaining why he’s in America or why he suddenly has the need to watch humans mess with each other. The anime establishes him as a god that’s just bored so he drops his book and hopes for something fun. The movie purports that he has been passing the book around for a while. It also tries to have me believe that he is an agent of chaos (at one point he chides Light for worrying about rules) but then he was the one that wrote the rules in the book (he clearly states this when Light tries to use the rules against him: “. It just seems easier, to me, to control someone into using the book how you want to if they only know what you tell them. Seems stupid to write out all the rules in the book and then get upset when they read them.Who do you think wrote the rules”)

The book also seems to affect him... allegedly. It's never stated outright but when Light threatens to write his name, Ryuk threatens right back that no one has been able to write more than two letters of his name suggesting that he killed them before they could finish. This is weird on two fronts: 

1: Ryuk’s name is already in the book. The only reason Light knew his name was because someone wrote a warning about him.

2: If Ryuk can kill the owner of the book, then why is it that he spent 90% of the movie trying to get Light to give the book to Mia?

And it isn’t clear if Ryuk can use the note himself! He wrote the rules himself, that is stated but he also said to Light that he would influence the next person to receive the note to write Light’s name. Why not do it himself?

It felt like Ryuk was just the genie to this oddly shaped lamp.

The ending was the worst part. It’s clever if you don’t think about it at all.

The idea was that Light thought up a clever plot in which he would escape his death that was plotted by Mia. This involves creating a conditional death for her as a bargaining chip so that she would only die IF she took the notebook. They would both fall and he would land safely in the water (physics disagrees but okay) and she would land on the shoreline. She would rip out the page that his name was written in out of the book while falling and this page would float into an open fire (physics still disagrees but okay). Light would be rescued by a paramedic that was also a criminal and the Death Note would be rescued by a pedophilic mailman and kept for two days before giving it back to Light and committing suicide.

It’s the first instance we see of Light being anything like the anime Light; cold, calculating and meticulously planning every detail so that he always survives and the Death Note is always returned to him. In fact, this might have been an origin story on how the whiny little teen became the god known as Kira.

But.

Analyzing his entire plan, it hinges on coincidences and rules that he probably just made up. Number one, he lucked out big time that there was a criminal paramedic in the police database and a mailman that would be around that area at that time to be in his plan. This whole thing wasn’t planned over the course of two days (the movie explains that the Death Note can control someone’s actions up to two days before the death) it was done in the span of about ten minutes maximum and had MAYBE half an hour to be carried out. The anime made time a huge factor with the note and so we were always on edge that Light’s plan would be carried out in time or what would happen if something happened too soon and he was caught and we were almost always in on the joke so we knew what would happen in how long. The movie has no presence of time and so we are just there to be strung along. In fact, Mia wrote that Light’s heart would stop at midnight but we have no idea when midnight is! Back to the plot, Light planned something based on new information in ten minutes and had thirty to have in come true, fine, whatever. L caught up with Light and chased him for a good while. It was a huge coincidence that he managed to get away and get to where he needed to go in the right amount of time. If he had done something smart then I’d give him points, but the only reason he managed to get away from L was because, a guy that just so happened to be a Kira follower, wandered out back. It wasn’t preordained, it was plot armor. Light wrote that all the shit would go down in Mia took the Death Note but what if their weak ass love story was real and she didn’t take the Note? would they just get caught by the police? Would they still fall? And Light’s name is still in the book and the conditions were carried out a few minutes after so would ha have died anyway? Finally, the movie never explained that the Note was able to control physics. He could control people and put them in the right place at the right time if possible (that’s what the anime handled much better too. It really hit home Light’s moral gray area because he couldn’t just find criminals lying around in a shed somewhere ready to be used, he had to kill innocent people to get what he wanted sometimes) but the fact that he wrote that the page with his name would fall into a fire and burn... for context, he was at the top of a Ferris Wheel in a park filled with people with a few open flames, on of which was near him. He didn’t say Mia fell with the page and it fell out of her hand into a fire, he said she rips it out and it fell from the top of the Ferris Wheel all the way down into a fire... and it works! With that kind of power, I fail to see why he hadn’t already won.

This movie was miserable from start to finish. One thing I will say is that it TRIED to make it on its own. It didn’t intentionally leave out explanations that only fans of the anime would get, it rebuilt the lore... somewhat and used that instead. Seriously, what is Ryuk’s purpose. We don’t even know if there are more death gods!)

You know, it really could have quenched half the hate against itself by being a sequel and not an adaptation. There were more Shinigami that could drop notebooks in America and there were more orphans at Whammy House to replace L. They could have just made it a sequel and, it would still be bad, but no one would be complaining that they butchered Light. 

This movie was bullshit and I have more problems, particularly with L but I’ll put it in another post.