#it was a successful movie?? which got the fucking show greenlit in the first place??

[astromechs]

"rogue one fans are jealous of andor's success"

my brother in christ, rogue one made over a billion dollars at the worldwide box office, what the fuck are you on about

[thejudgingtrash]

Now hold up I would personally love to hear a full rant on this supposed adaptation I have never heard of until now. Like, legitimately, I wanna know what you have to say about this cause you seem to be one of the most valid PJO blogs

Uhhh what??? Me one of the most valid PJO blogs??? What kinda crack have you been smoking WHAT afahsgjskdh.

But still thank you 😊🥺🙈

Alright, you wanted a rant. You got a rant. Fuck the positives let’s just straight up jump into my aggression.

WARNING: Massive rant with a lot of swear words. If you can’t handle the heat, feel free to ignore this. I personally haven’t worked in Hollyweird, but I had some behind the scenes stuff here in Europe going on for a short period and also the trusty words of my college professors. So here will be a lot of prediction and speculation involved. Yes, I know that I’m a huge hypocrite for voicing my opinions based on stuff that hasn’t been pushed through in months and that I could be easily proven wrong in a few weeks/months. Still thank you should you actually take the time to read through this tomfuckery.

If things are wrong, please DO correct me!

Links to further reads will be included partially.

TL;DR: Keep your hopes to a low, stop harassing people online and mAnAgE yOuR eXpEcTaTiOnS!!111!!

Okay. First things first:

DISNEY

DOESN’T

GIVE

A

SINGLE

FUCK

ABOUT

YOU

Disney is a fucking multi-billion dollar corporation with many, many, many studios, stations, brands and franchises worldwide. The Percy Jackson franchise is a dime in a dozen. Disney doesn’t give a single fuck about the PJO fandom in general.

Disney doesn’t give a fuck about you 20-something year old with your 9 year old blog discussing which toilet paper brand Percy uses. And Disney also doesn’t give a fuck about you 16 year old, writing the worst fucking Solangelo fanfic I’ve read so far on this hellsite. Like goddamn.

Trust me, they know you are interested. They know they got you hooked. They see the numbers, they see the like/reblog ratio, they see the Twitter engagement. They see you with #disneyadaptpercyjackson. They see the petitions, they see how excited you were for the musical. You don’t get to be a gigantic conglomerate like Disney with playing stupid.

Also to you fuckfarts saying oH nO I wOn’T wAtCh It I dOn’T cArE aBoUt NeW sTuFf. Congrats dipshit. You are STILL alerting followers and people about what’s happening and creating more buzz, giving more awareness and adding to the transaction costs. You really cheated the system, you little edgelord. Again:

You are nothing but a number. You are a fucking walking dollar bill. You are a consumer waiting for a new shiny product to fill the void in your life for 45 minutes weekly or by two hours at some point.

The PJO movies 1. & 2 happened for a reason. Because Fox saw a popular book series á la Harry Potter, Twilight (and The Hunger Games) and wanted a piece of that action. They wanted your fucking money. Them entirely fucking up and ignoring Riordan’s advice is on them of course. But still. The movies happened. (And also saw people saying they were flops. Reception wise: hell yes. They are awful adaptations (not per se awful movies, there’s a difference). But money wise?? They made together over 245 million dollars in profit. Of course, that isn’t today’s Marvel level but it’s still fairly decent. Also don’t forget that the second movie still got greenlit. Interest was still there despite part one. You disliking something doesn’t turn it into a flop)).

Again, Disney doesn’t care about you. THIS is what Disney cares about:

1. MONEY

2. PROFIT

3. ENGAGEMENT

4. TOTAL GROSS

5. CONVERSION RATES

11. …. “Artistry“

So in terms of money, we gotta speak about the on-going woke culture. You know, lgbtqia+ stuff, poc representation and all the good shit we want and need in our life, right?

Well, I got bad news for ya. Disney being money hungry has its massive downsides. Because where is the money? In the east. Well and what happens if we include the woke stuff? Possible censorships (even retroactively! You know Gravity Falls went through that), bans, etc.

So all of you talking about representation and artistic vision and being bold and brave and blablabla… Throw that into the fucking trash. We can probably be glad if we get Grover back as the token black kid and a few other minorities sprinkled here and there. Open gay Nico? Doubt it. Your afro-latino Percy head canon? Definitely keep that but unlikely to be realized. And also, if you think that Annabeth wouldn’t get turned into the blandest whitest “I dOn’T nEeD nO mAn“ radfem, I got some bad news for ya…

The likelihood of everything being dumbed down, toned down with the exception of a few adult jokes or being even partially censored (depending on certain regions) is very, very high.

Also what makes you think we’re even getting close to the Heroes of Olympus and Trials of Apollo saga? I doubt you will see The Seven for a long time unless Riordan really says fuck it and throws his final ace card into Disney’s filthy greedy mouth.

So if Disney doesn’t have the fandom’s interest at heart, what are they interested in? Well… MONEY. Also NEW engagement. They know your funky ass is going to tune in. They know people will pirate the shit (Me waving like a maniac), they all KNOW that. Again, they aren’t stupid.

So: MORE engagement. MORE money. How do we get even more engagement? By luring new people into the fandom. Who is most likely going to get lured into a family friendly show/movie series because let’s not forget that we’re talking about Disney+? The targeted audience of the books. Who is the targeted audience of the books? MIDDLE SCHOOLERS. 11 to 14 year olds. Disney wants those kids’ (well their parents’ hard earned) money. They want to sell products, in that case books + Disney Plus subscriptions + possible merch. There you also have the likely future rating for the fucking show. Sorry to disappoint everyone that was hoping for gritty Game of Thrones filled with 12 year olds (like seriously wtf?).

Now that that’s settled, let’s talk about the outlook on the show/movie and Riordan’s influence that you people clearly overestimate.

How much power or say does Rick Riordan actually have?

ZERO. ABSOLUTELY NONE.

He’s in the worst fucking lose-lose-situation you could imagine.

Disney owns the books and Fox owns the movie rights. Wait. Fox got bought. By whom you ask? DISNEY, what a coincidence! In Rick Riordan’s own words:

Disney has him by his fucking balls and could crush them at any minute. And if you think, that Disney is letting go of that sweet sweet intellectual property you are fucking mistaken. Riordan isn’t a J.K. Rowling who OWNS the Wizarding World. You have no idea what Disney are capable of with massive lobbying that goes so far to influence copyright laws in the States (LINK)

So you can stop harassing him about a fucking Netflix adaptation as well! Or petitions that do nothing but annoy people.

These negotiations take up YEARS to get the simplest stuff done. No need to shit your pants whenever Riordan’s tweeting stuff.

Still: would Disney be fucking mad to do this without him? Absolutely!

Should Disney involve him to prevent a PJO movie 2.0 scenario?

Yes, they definitely should!

But CAN Disney do this without him?

OF COURSE THEY CAN! THEY OWN EVERYTHING.

In Riordan’s own words:

Read carefully what he has written. He doesn’t say he’s going to halter productions, he’s saying HE WON’T BE A PART OF IT. This also makes me curious about WHO approached WHO in the first place (my guess Disney tried to make some amendments because Fox ain’t shit and trying to alienate the author again would be a goddamn stupid move). Disney has the fucking film rights. Of course they can pump out shit without involving him. They could pull a Fantastic Four (the awful 2015 version) just to keep the rights and for the fuck of it.

There are the following possibilities with Riordan’s involvement:

1. Riordan as a producer: Dude’s gotta be loaded. We know that. But backing the production costs many, many, many millions and I don’t know if he’s THAT loaded. Also film producing isn’t his forte.

2. Riordan as a screenplay writer: Now we’re getting closer to something. Yes, many productions these days have authors directly involved which is great! But also can go the other way around (J.K. Rowling and her Grindelwald fiasco. Author’s do NEED to learn when to stop intermeddling with their franchises, just saying) Book writing and screenplay writing are two very DIFFERENT disciplines. You don’t have the liberties of book writing when it comes to film. The screenplay is the guide for the entire production, the visuals, the set design, the whole atmosphere of the product, the very first thing that needs to be done so that directors, designers and lastly the casted actors know what they have to do. Everything has to come to a point in a very short time and there are many, many, many versions of a screenplay before a final raw draft gets handed out. If that isn’t in Riordan’s interest (which I can completely understand) then that’s simply not happening

3. Riordan as a guide: Directors, screenplay writers, etc. sit down with Riordan on a regular basis to show him the written screenplay, which actors they have in mind, the whole vision and he has a mini veto right.

If you ask me, a mix of scenario 2 and 3 is the most likely to be the most successful. That means, that Riordan needs to have a good faithful team, that sticks closely to the source material. That isn’t guaranteed! Again: look at the PJO movies. But of course, we don’t know the internals of these meetings.

So… now the final part. The whole fucking “Animation vs. Live action“ debate. Well, both sides have their pro’s and con’s. And both sides are filled with a bunch of fucking morons. I won’t try to get you to either side.

But to those that want are begging for a live action version with age-appropriate actors I have the following to say:

FUCK

YOU

IN

PARTICULAR!

WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU WANT CHILDREN TO GO THROUGH THE HELL THAT IS DISNEY AND THE SHADY SHIT GOING ON THERE SO THAT YOU CAN BE ENTERTAINED FOR SOME MERE MINUTES?!

Oh my god…. You people REALLY really want a fourth wave Me Too movement in 15-20 years. Not every Hollyweird kid has a helicopter parent hovering around them on set and many do get abused/robbed by their parents. And the people involved in the production! Of course, animation has still a chance of this happening but the risk is somewhat lower when it just comes to voice acting.

Tbh, I actually wouldn’t mind an aged-up cast again just to prevent this as best as possible. Unfortunately, child actors will always be needed.

I have nothing much to add to this, I’ll just drop a link to an old small post from me about that right here (LINK)

Personally I lean more towards animation but in the big picture I won’t care. (Also the whole animation is for kids and dumbs down the whole narrative for PJO is fucking stupid, boo boo the fool. You being in your late teens/twenties and grown out of the targeted audience is the cause of nature. Animation can be mature or would you show Attack on Titan or South Park to your 8 year old cousin?)

I’ll be just tuning in to see if this is as messy as I’d expect it to be or to be pleasantly surprised.

Also again: this process is a long one. It’s going to be exhausting, depressing, demanding, pushing.

From the meetings now that will take a very long time, to a screenplay, which can take YEARS in finalizing, to hiring staff, location hunting and set design (should they go the live action route), to casting, to costume design, to rehearsing/production, to filming, to dispersing, to editing, to fx, to finishing, to marketing, to publishing, NOTHING IS SET IN STONE! This is a very, very, very, wanky process despite contracts and everything on paper. Let’s not forget, Disney can afford some good lawyers.

And even if everything goes as smoothly as possible. Higher up people could see the final edit of everything with editors having scenes close to the books in an a/b/c/d cut and some producer says NO! I want an c/a/b/d version that again fucks up the dynamics of the books. Or something terrible: everything is shot and done and THEN it get’s postponed. Or even fucking worse: SHELVED to be NEVER RELEASED. Aka Henry Selick’s career after Coraline (Coraline from 2009 is STILL his latest release because of his fucked up Disney contract and them cancelling his shit). Millions of dollars wasted and we won’t get to see ANYTHING. This is all very possible and happens constantly in the film business AND at Disney. This is nothing new.

And there’s nothing we can do about it. No one cares about Riordan, no one cares about the books, no one cares about the fandom.

DISNEY holds the cards. DISNEY gets to decide. Neither Riordan, nor you nor me hold ANY power in this.

So kids… what have we learned today? In conclusion:

Keep your hopes to a low, stop harassing people online and mAnAgE yOuR eXpEcTaTiOnS!!111!!

That’s it. That’s all I wanted to say.

WHEW.

[gunnerpalace]

And I’m 💯 sure that you’re blocked and you can eat it.

But I would like to talk about this idea a little, actually. So, here are a couple of points:

The thing that a lot of modern-day “Bleach fans” don’t get is that as far as Japan is concerned, the only thing that really sells Bleach to the mass-market general audience is Ichigo and Rukia interacting. The hard truth those “Bleach fans” refuse to accept is that most of fights sucked, most of the mysteries sucked, and other than the two of them (and maybe Toushirou and Byakuya) most of the characters aren’t interesting to the average person. If you liked Bleach for any of those three reasons (or any other minor reasons), then you are in the absolute minority of nerds.

The cold, iron truth of economics is that you sell media properties in one of two ways: either by drilling down to a highly dedicated fanbase (e.g., moe-blob anime with extremely jacked-up Blu-ray prices) or by appealing to as wide and shallow an audience as possible (e.g., the Marvel Cinematic Universe). The interesting thing with Bleach is that those two audiences, by the numbers, are actually interested in the same thing: Ichigo and Rukia, and more particularly, IchiRuki.

Bold claim, I know. But you don’t have to look hard to see it. This is why the musicals were focused on them. This is why the LA movie was focused on them. And this is why both of those deemphasized other ancillary characters, especially Ichigo’s human friends like Chad—or Orihime: because they are essentially irrelevant to that largely singular fixture of the series and are forgettable other than to some hardcore nerd. (The only other thing that comes remotely close to being as iconic are the Soul Society fights, especially Ichigo vs. Byakuya.)

This is also why every time the property has been reinvented for a new market (again, e.g., the musical and the LA movie) the focus has always been on early Bleach: because it most showcases their interactions and establishes their foundational emotional connection. This is in large part why arcs that more and more deemphasized their interactions suffered increasingly worse sales, to the point that Bleach was consistently ranked 20th out of 20 in Weekly Shounen Jump’s ratings on a week-to-week basis. Less Ichigo and Rukia, and especially less Ichigo and Rukia together, means less sales. This is why TYBW and WDKALY sold abysmally, and I’m willing to bet that CFYOW’s numbers aren’t too great either considering it features neither of them at all.

This is furthermore why Studio Pierrot gave them so many moments, like the ice-skating and fireworks date that they used to send off the anime: because IchiRuki sells. And not much else does.

So, having established that, let’s talk about your idea.

Ichika and Kazui don’t make sense, because their existence in TYBW isn’t established. They simply appear, like the rest of the ending, with no buildup or explanation. In other words, there is no reason to invest in them as characters; they are simply designs walking and talking on a page. (And surprise, the only people who cared “about” them at all were people like you who were pleased as punch that it was evidence that Ichigo and Orihime, and Rukia and Renji, fucked. And even you lot don’t care about them, because there is nothing about them to possibly care about. You care about them as symbols and nothing more.)

However, what would make even less sense is to introduce them without having TYBW at all. For the anime to jump from Ichigo and Rukia having an ice rink not-date to having Ichika and Kazui running around in their places would be a bit like jumping from Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back in 1980, to Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens in 1983, instead of having Return of the Jedi. It really isn’t possible to overstate how much that big of a leap would lose an audience, whose reactions would be, “What the fuck is this? What happened?”

As I have previously calculated, animating TYBW would take about 4–5 seasons and about 3–4 years of production. So, unless you wanted to pull one of the strangest continuations ever in media history, you’d be waiting for that to wrap first, and presuming its financial success (which is dubious, for the above outlined reasons, and its relative historical print failure which got the manga cancelled).

Setting all that aside, Ichika and Kazui are not photocopies of Rukia and Ichigo; they are genderflipped photocopies of Renji and Orihime. There is a reason why, despite the best efforts of IH here on Tumblr Dot Com, the IR community has never warmed up to them: why would you take a cheap clone knockoff that can’t even trace the original properly when you could just have the original? This will likewise hold true for a general audience. If a random-ass person in Japan knows anything at all about Bleach, it’ll be Ichigo and Rukia. Going, “This isn’t them, but here’s the same great taste but less filling!” is going to get you a response of, “No thanks.”

Setting that aside, what exactly would be the premise? The Espada were retconned in from the aether and people were fine with them, since they were basically just the inverse and mirror of the Shinigami. But people didn’t much care when Xcution were retconned in from the aether. And they didn’t like it when Yhwach and the Sternritter were retconned in from the aether. And they really don’t care now that Tokinada, Hikone, and Aura were retconned in from the aether. Are you really going to have a fifth group of baddies we never even vaguely heard of before showing up? Or are you going to just recycle a set? “Oh, no, Aizen has escaped Muken and has made the Super Fullbringer Espada…” Please. The concept is tapped out: it either has to keep inventing new bullshit and pretending it was always around, or it has to recycle the same ideas but in a less exciting way. Or it has to be rebooted.

It is clear that something or other is happening with regard to Bleach for this “anniversary” event, but the evidence, in my eyes, doesn’t match what you would see for TYBW being animated, let alone for some kind of Boruto-style series.

The event has been marketed in a rather low-key fashion, which is weird considering the 2020 Olympics are a once-in-a-generation event which provide the perfect hype vehicle (and which Shueisha has been using to push other WSJ properties). If you were working on a large or risky project, you’d want a lot of hype—either to prepare the audience, or to maximize your initial buy-in and returns if it’s going to flop (e.g., Anthem). Being cautious indicates both the scale and risk are small.

The emphasis on the voice actors who are appearing at the event are all for classic and popular characters: Ichigo, Byakuya, and now Rukia. You know what fans don’t like? Having a bait-and-switch pulled on them where their classic faves are affiliated with something, only for them to be radically deemphasized in the actual final product. (Just look at the three recent Star Wars movies for some proof of that one.) It is far more likely to be something focused around them.

MegaHouse is making new Bleach figurines this year. But the designs they’ve chosen so far are… Fake Karakura battle Armored Yoruichi (who I’m excited for), and Hueco Mundo style unreleased Grimmjow. If you were going to make merchandise for TYBW or a next-generation show, it’d make a lot more sense for that merch to be… actually related to those events, rather than “classic” designs, now wouldn’t it? To go to the Star Wars well again, they weren’t trying to sell Qui-Gon Jinn or Lando Calrissian toys with The Last Jedi.

To me, all the evidence indicates that whatever it is will be some sort of “Greatest Hits” OVA or something like that, with a focus on the Aizen era of the series. Maybe a lot of the “best” battles redone in really high quality. Maybe a video game. Maybe a reboot of the series from the start. Hard to say. But it doesn’t look an awful lot like TYBW, let alone a next-generation effort.

Now, I’m not saying that either of those things are impossible. I’ve been wrong before in this life (for example, I didn’t think Putin would invade Crimea), and I will be wrong again. I could be wrong about this too. I can only speak in probabilities.

But what I will say with confidence is that committing to TYBW would be fairly dumb as a business decision given everything that is evident about what makes Bleach sell.

And committing to a next-generation series at this stage before doing TYBW would be even dumber.

And doing a next-generation series without doing TYBW would be even dumber still.

Now, stupid people are in ascendancy worldwide in all kinds of endeavors, so it’s not outside the realm of possibility that someone greenlit something so dumb. But if they did, I don’t think it’s going to do so hot.

So, good luck, I guess.

[secret-diary-of-an-fa]

Black Christmas Review: Do Not Open Until FUCKING NEVER

TRIGGER WARNING: Rape references. Don’t blame me- they’re in the fucking movie.

2019 has been a year of great horror films, from the delightful evil superhero romp of Brightburn to the psychologically rich and textured Ma to the politically incendiary Us. Unfortunately, you can’t win ‘em all and Black Christmas rounds out the year by shitting itself and falling into a drooling heap on the floor. If someone put a gun to my head and told me to give them an impression of it in just one sentence, I’d call it an hour and a half of drunken virtue-signalling masquerading as a slasher film with unexplained and entirely superfluous supernatural elements. Luckily, I don’t have to sum it up in one sentence. I can take as many sentences as I like to smash this piece of cinematic garbage to pieces.

The plot (such as it is) involves four sorority girls in the last year of uni being stalked and killed by a cult of mask-wearing frat-boys. At first, it’s not supposed to be apparent that it’s a whole cult rather than just one individual, and you’re not meant to realise its frat boys until pretty late into events. In fact, the movie actually treats these facts as minor surprises. Unfortunately, the direction is so woeful and choppy that you realise what’s up long, long before the movie gets to the punchline. I mean, they literally show a scene of frat boys going through some occult-looking hazing ritual involving black cloaks and Latin muttering in the first twenty minutes, but the film’s been running for over an hour before the characters put two and two together and arrive at a plot point.

“But why are the frat boys hunting and killing sorority girls?” I hear you ask, expecting (foolishly) a Machiavellian plot twist or grand scheme. Unfortunately, the answer is just “because they’re sexist”. It‘s one of those films where the bad men are bad because they’re men and for no other reason. They main dickhead even bangs on and on about how he and his cult are motivated merely by the fact of their manhood. It’s boring, trite and insulting. Say what you like about Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers and Freddie Krueger: at least they had an ethos. Well, maybe not an ethos, but interesting reasons and neuroses motivating them.

The only undeniably good male character in the film is a weak-willed, stammering berk who looks like Moss from The IT Crowd on prozac and who serves no other purpose than for the director to hold up a model of the supposed ideal for the modern man: i.e. a fucking pussy. Fuck sake, large sections of Hollywood, there is a happy medium between ‘ineffectual puppy dog’ and ‘murder-rapist’. The world isn’t divided into ultra-macho, hateful Alphas and spineless Betas without discernible character. Quite a few are just people. Well, in real life, most of them are just morons (which is presumably how this film got greenlit), but when you’re writing a movie script it’s important to favour verisimilitude over strict realism. Black Christmas ignores both an makes every bloke in it a 2D caricature of a sexist that might have been current in, say, 1954.

The female leads are good, but they feel like they belong in a completely different project. It often seems like they’ve wondered in from an above-average English-language telenovella: the kind of thing that you can watch after being defeated by Xmas Dinner while your sherry-addled brain slowly turns to cheese, but in a nice way. Then horrible things start happening to them and it’s impossible to take it seriously because they talk like a cross between Juno and Kevin Bacon doing an advert for a mobile phone network.

The script, meanwhile, contrives to be a predictable drudge and a horrible surprise at the same time. On the one hand, there’s a lecturer in an early scene who seems a big creepy and it’s really obvious that he’s going to turn out to be the head of the cult at the end, then he does. No twists, no real character development: he’s just the obvious candidate and the writer was a lazy hack. On the other hand, before the shit hits the fan, the main characters do a musical number about rape while dressed in sexy little Santa outfits. There is a reason for it (sort of) but not  a justification. It’s probably the most schizophrenic thing ever committed to film. It wouldn’t be so bad, but the tune is kind of a jam. I’d listen to if they put it on a Xmas album.

Speaking of the script, the method used by the Cult of Random Sexists is to receive supernatural powers from a possessed bust of the university’s founder. When the bust is destroyed, the girls are able to mount a successful counter-attack... which is just stupid. There’s a handful of them, versus a seemingly limitless number of frat-jerks, all of whom are bigger than them and some of whom have motherfucking longbows. Which also begs the question, “why the fuck did they need the bust in the first place”? Their goal was to murder four unarmed lassies with no combat experience who didn’t know they were being hunted. I’d like to think that if I ever had to execute four people who were weaker, less well-equipped and less knowledgeable than me, I wouldn’t need to ask a magic statue for help. Especially not in America, where guns are really fucking easy to get hold of. Also, the magic statue doesn’t seem to do much other than allow those under its spell to fight with basic competence: they can still be killed by stab-wounds and blunt-force trauma. Maybe the statue didn’t do shit. Maybe the magic was inside them, all along. How fucking Xmas-y.

I think I’d find Black Christmas’s whole performatively woke tripe a little less tiring if it was remotely original. After all, a film in which the real monster is sexism is a very important cultural artifact. But Black Christmas isn’t a film singular; it’s another film: a cookie-cutter cash-in with the same basic villain-archetype as everything from Colossal to an episode of Supergirl. This shit is tired. It’s old hat. The point has been made as well as it’s ever going to be made, and since it’s not a sufficiently complex or compelling point to bear repeating. I think we’re all on board with the fact that ‘sexism is bad, m’kay?’. I just don’t feel like you can stretch that into a whole sequence of theoretically-unrelated films unless you also have something slightly more substantive to say. Or you have some idea how sexism manifests here in space year 2019 (spoiler warning: special clubs with knives and robes are a bit outdated: nowadays its all about the alt-right, an-cap web presence and books by cheesy pick-up artists).

So anyway, that’s Black Christmas: a waste of acting talent that thinks that all men are evil but doesn’t have the imagination to think of a better evil motive than sexism itself. Give it a miss, unless you’re planning on firing it out of a clay pigeon launcher and taking pot-shots.