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shihalyfie · 3 years ago

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About the Adventure: reboot, the likely reason why it exists, the question of target demographic, and whether I would recommend it or not

I think this reboot has been kind of a strange outlier in terms of Digimon anime in general, in terms of...well, just about everything. I also feel like everything surrounding it has kind of been giving us mixed signals as to what the intent and purpose behind the anime is -- well, besides “cashing in on the Adventure brand”, but looking at it more closely, that might be a bit of an oversimplification.

I’m writing this post because, having seen the entire series to the end for myself and thinking very hard about it and what it was trying to do, I decided to put down my thoughts. This is not meant to be a review of what I think was good and bad, but rather, something that I hope will be helpful to those who might be on the fence about whether they want to watch it or not, or those who don’t want to watch/finish it but are curious about what happened, or those who are curious as to why this reboot even exists in the first place, or even maybe just those who did watch it but are interested in others’ thoughts about it. I'm personally convinced that -- especially in an ever-changing franchise like Digimon -- how much you like a given work is dependent on what your personal tastes are to the very end, and thus it’s helpful to understand what kind of expectations you should go in with if you want to watch something.

With all of this said and done, if you want to go in and best enjoy this series, I think it is best to consider this anime as a distinct Digimon series of its own. The relationship to Adventure is only surface-level, and by that I mean it’s very obvious it’s doing things its own thing deliberately without worrying too much about what prior series did. Of course, I think everyone will have varying feelings about using the Adventure branding for something that really isn't Adventure at all, but we are really talking about an in-name-only affair, and something that’s unabashedly doing whatever it wants. So in other words, if you’re going in expecting Adventure, or anything that really resembles Adventure, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. But if you’re able to approach it like yet another distinct Digimon series, and the other aspects of it fit your fancy, you’ll probably be able to enjoy it much better. And, conversely, I think it’s also important to remember that this series seems to have a writing philosophy with a fundamentally different goal from most Digimon series, and since it’s understandable for most long-time Digimon fans to have their tastes built on those prior series, it’s fine and completely understandable that this reboot may not be your cup of tea, for reasons that probably don’t actually have much to do with whether it’s an Adventure reboot or not.

There are no spoilers in the following post. (Although I use some emphatic language for the duration for it, these are mostly just my personal thoughts and how I see the series and the overall situation.)

On what exact relationship to Adventure this series has, and why it’s an “Adventure reboot”

If you ask why they did an Adventure reboot, the easiest answer to come up with is “Adventure milking, because it’s profitable”, but that’s kind of an oversimplification of what the issue is. This is especially when you take into account a key fact that official has been very well aware of since as early as 2006: most kids are too young to have seen Adventure, and therefore have no reason to care about it.

That’s the thing: Adventure milking only works so well on today’s children, and Toei and Bandai know this. This is also the reason that the franchise started going through a bit of a “split” starting in around 2012 (after Xros Wars finished airing), when the video game branch started making more active attempts to appeal to the adults’ fanbase with Re:Digitize and Adventure PSP. (Although they were technically still “kids’ games”, they were very obviously aimed at the adults’ audience as a primary “target”.) The generation that grew up with Adventure and other classic Digimon anime was getting older and older, and targeting that audience would require tailoring products more specifically to them -- ultimately culminating in 2015 and the solidification of “very obviously primarily for adults” media in the form of both games (Cyber Sleuth and Next Order) and anime (tri.). Note that Appmon ended up getting its own 3DS game, but since it was targeted at kids, it seems to have been developed by a completely different pipeline/branch from the aforementioned adults’ games, so even that had a split.

So if we want to talk about full-on nostalgia pandering, that’s already being done in the adults’ branch. In fact, Appmon development specifically said that they felt free to not really care about the adults’ audience because that was tri.’s job. Of course, the hardcore Digimon adults’ fanbase is still keeping an eye on the kids’ shows, and it’s good to not upset them -- and, besides, even if we’re all suffering under the hell of capitalism, people who work in kids’ shows still tend to be very passionate about the content and messages they’re showing the kids, so they still put an effort into making good content that adults can enjoy too. But, nevertheless, adults are still the “periphery demographic”, and a kids’ show is not a success if the kids (who have not seen and do not care about Adventure) are not watching it or buying the toys. Appmon ended up being extremely well-received by the adults’ fanbase, but that all meant nothing since the kids didn’t get into it.

Most kids are not super incredibly discerning about so-called writing quality (it’s not like they don’t at least unconsciously know when something is good, but they’re much less likely to be bothered by little things adults are often bothered by), so there’s a certain degree you have to get their attention if you want things to catch on with them. Critical reception does matter a lot more when we talk about the adults’ audience, but for the kids, the more important part is how much you’ve managed to engage them and how much fun they’re having (especially in regards to the toyline). Moreover, there’s the problem of “momentum”; Digimon’s sister shows of PreCure, Kamen Rider, and Super Sentai have sometimes had really poorly performing shows (critically or financially), but have managed to recover it in successive years to avoid getting cancelled. Digimon never managed to get to that point, with sales nearly dropping to half with Tamers and again with Frontier. So in essence, Savers, Xros Wars, and Appmon were all attempts at figuring out what was needed to just get that “kickstart” again -- but things just never lined up for it to work.

So if kids don’t really care about Adventure, why would they do Adventure nostalgia pandering? The answer is one that official has actually openly stated multiple times: they want to have parents watch it together with their children. Both Seki and Kinoshita said this in regards to watching the reaction to Kizuna, and it was also stated outright as a goal for the reboot, but, believe it or not, there’s reports of this having been stated back as early as Savers (followed by an admission that maybe 2006 was a little too early for people who grew up with Adventure to be old enough to have their own kids). So the little nostalgia references in Savers, Xros Wars, and Appmon aren't really meant to magically turn the series into Adventure as much as they’re supposed to be flags waved at the parents to get them to pay attention, so that they can introduce their kids to Digimon and watch it together with them, until the kids eventually take an interest on their own and they don’t need to rely on that kind of standby as much. (I say “as much” because of course PreCure, Rider, and Sentai all are still very indulgent in their anniversary references, but they’re not nearly as reliant on it to the point of life-and-death.)

This is also why Kizuna’s existence and release date two months prior to the reboot is a huge factor in this. The reason tri. wouldn’t have done it is that it never actually reached a properly “mainstream” audience. It’s a huge reason I keep emphasizing the fact that tri. and Kizuna are two separate things with completely different production and release formats, because tri. being a limited OVA screening released in six parts over three years means that, although it was a moderate financial success that did better than the franchise’s other niche products, in the end, it didn’t actually reach the “extremely casual” audience very well. We, as the “hardcore Internet fanbase”, all know people who watched all six parts, and the difference between tri. and Kizuna’s release formats doesn’t hit us as hard because of international distribution circumstances, but even on our end, if you talk to your casual friends who barely remember anything about Digimon except what they saw on TV twenty years ago, you will almost never find anyone who got past Part 1, maybe 2 at most. (That’s before we even get into the part where a good chunk of them got turned off at the character design stage for being too different.) Sticking with a full six-part series over three years is a commitment, and if you’re not someone with a certain level of loyalty to the franchise, you aren’t as likely to put aside the time for it!

Kizuna, on the other hand, was a full-on theatrical movie with full marketing campaign that was aimed at that extremely casual mainstream audience, including a lot of people who hadn’t even heard of tri. (due to it being too niche) or hadn’t bothered to commit to watching something so long, and thus managed to “hype up” a lot of adults and get them in a Digimon mood. (Critical reception issues aside, this is also presumably a huge reason Kizuna isn’t all that reliant on tri.’s plot; Adventure and 02 both averaged at around 11% of the country watching it when it first aired, but the number of people who even saw tri. much less know what happened in it is significantly lower, so while you can appeal to a lot of people if you’re just targeting the 11%, you'll lock them out if you’re overly reliant on stuff a lot of them will have never seen in the first place.) We’re talking the kind of super-casual who sees a poster for Kizuna, goes “oh I remember Digimon!”, casually buys a ticket for the movie, likes it because it has characters they remember and the story is feelsy, and then two months later an anime that looks like the Digimon they recognize is on Fuji TV, resulting in them convincing their kid to watch it together with them because they’re in a Digimon mood now, even though the actual contents of the anime are substantially different from the original.

So, looking back at the reboot:

There’s a huge, huge, huge implication that the choice to use Adventure branding was at least partially to get Fuji TV to let them have their old timeslot back. Neither Xros Wars nor Appmon were able to be on that old timeslot, presumably because Fuji TV had serious doubts about their profitability (perhaps after seeing Savers not do very well). This isn’t something that hits as hard for us outside Japan who don’t have to feel the impact of this anyway, but it’s kind of a problem if kids don’t even get the opportunity to watch the show in the first place. While there’s been a general trend of moving to video-on-demand to the point TV ratings don’t really have as much impact as they used to, I mean...it sure beats 6:30 in the morning, goodness. (Note that a big reason PreCure, Rider, and Sentai are able to enjoy the comfortable positions they’re in is that they have a very luxurious 8:30-10 AM Sunday block on TV Asahi dedicated to them.)

Since we’re talking about “the casual mainstream”, this means that this kind of ploy only works with something where a casual person passing by can see names and faces and take an interest. This is why it has to be Adventure, not 02 or Tamers or whatnot; 02 may have had roughly similar TV ratings to Adventure and fairly close sales figures back in 2000, but the actual pop culture notability disparity in this day and age is humongous (think about the difference in pop culture awareness between Butter-Fly and Target). 02, Tamers, and all can do enough to carry “adults’ fandom” products and merch sales at DigiFes, and the adults’ branch of the franchise in general, but appealing to the average adult buying toys for the kids is a huge difference, and a big reason that, even if they’re clearly starting to acknowledge more of the non-Adventure series these days, it’s still hard to believe they’re going to go as far as rebooting anything past Adventure -- or, more accurately, hard to believe they’ll be able to get the same impact using names and faces alone.

This advertising with the Adventure brand goes beyond just the anime -- we’re talking about the toyline that has the involved character faces plastered on them, plus all of the ventures surrounding them that Bandai pretty obviously carefully timed to coincide with this. One particularly big factor is the card game, which is doing really, really well right now, to the point it’s even started gaining an audience among people who weren’t originally Digimon fans. Part of it is because the game’s design is actually very good and newcomer-friendly, but also...nearly every set since the beginning came with reboot-themed Tamer Cards, which means that, yes, those cards with the Adventure names and faces were helping lure people into taking an interest in the game. Right now, the game is doing so well and has gained such a good reputation that it probably doesn’t need that crutch anymore to keep going as long as the game remains well-maintained, but I have no doubt the initial “Adventure” branding was what helped it take off, and its success is most likely a huge pillar sustaining the franchise at the current moment.

Speaking of merch and toys, if you look closely, you might notice that Bandai decided to go much, much more aggressively into the toy market with this venture than they ever did with Savers, Xros Wars, or Appmon (Appmon was probably the most aggressive attempt out of said three). They put out a lot more merch and did a lot more collaborative events to engage the parents and children, and, presumably, the reason they were able to do this was because they were able to push into those outlets with the confidence the Adventure brand would let them be accepted (much like with Fuji TV). Like with the card game, the important part was getting their “foot in the door” so that even if it stopped being Adventure after a fashion, they’d still have all of those merchandising outlets -- after all, one of the first hints we ever got of Ghost Game’s existence was a July product listing for its products replacing the reboot’s in a gachapon set, so we actually have evidence of certain product pipelines being opened by the reboot’s precedent. (The word 後番組 literally means “the TV program that comes after”, so it’s pretty obvious this was intended for Ghost Game; in other words, the reboot’s existence helped ensure there be a “reservation” for this kind of product to be made.)

I think one important thing to keep in mind is that Toei and Bandai have as much of a stake in avoiding rehashing for their kids’ franchises as we do. Even if you look at this from a purely capitalistic perspective, because of how fast the “turnover” is for the kids’ audience, sustaining a franchise for a long time off rehashing the same thing over and over is hard, and even moreso when it involves a twenty-year-old anime that said kids don’t even know or remember. Ask around about popular long-running Japanese kids’ franchises and you’ll notice they practically rely on being able to comfortably change things up every so often, like PreCure/Rider/Sentai shuffling every year, or Yu-Gi-Oh! having a rotation of different series and concepts, or the struggles that franchises that don’t do this have to deal with. And, after all, for all people are cynical about Toei continuing to milk Adventure or any of the other older series at every opportunity, as far as the kids’ branch of the franchise goes, this is only capable of lasting to a certain extent; if they tried keeping this up too long, even the adults and kids would get bored, and there is some point it’ll be easier to try and make products directly targeted at the kids’ audience instead of having to rely on the parents to ease them into it.

So it’s completely understandable that the moment they secured a proper audience with the reboot and finished up their first series with this, they decided to take the risk with Ghost Game right after. And considering all that’s happened, this is still a risk -- they’re changing up a lot (even if not as much as Appmon), and there’s a chance that the audience they’ve gathered is going to shoot down again because they’ve changed so much and they no longer have the Adventure branding as a “crutch” to use -- but they’re taking it anyway instead of going for something at least slightly more conventional.

Which means that, yes, there’s a possibility this will all explode in their face, because the Adventure branding is that huge of a card they’re about to lose. But at the very, very least, Ghost Game is coming in with the “momentum” and advantage that Savers, Xros Wars, and Appmon all didn’t have: a brand currently in the stage of recovery, all of the merchandising and collaborative pipelines the reboot and Kizuna opened up, a fairly good timeslot, and a premise somewhat more conventional than Xros Wars and Appmon (I’m saying this as someone who likes both: their marketing definitely did not do them many favors). There are still a lot of risks it’s playing here, and it’s possible it won’t be the end of more Adventure or reboot brand usage to try to keep that momentum up even as we go into Ghost Game, but it’s the first time in a long while we’ve had something to stand on.

Okay, so that’s out of the way. But the end result is that we now have 67 episodes of an Adventure “reboot” that actually doesn’t even resemble Adventure that much at all, which seems to have achieved its goal of flagging down attention so it can finally going back to trying new things. This series exists, we can’t do anything about the fact it exists, the period where its own financial performance actually mattered is coming to an end anyway, and we, as a fanbase of adults hanging out on the Internet keeping up with the franchise as a whole, have to figure out how each of us feels about this. So what of it?

About the contents of the reboot itself

One thing I feel hasn’t been brought up as a potential topic very much (or, at least, not as much as I feel like it probably should be) is that the reboot seems to be actively aimed at a younger target audience than the original Adventure. It hasn’t been stated outright, but we actually have quite a bit of evidence pointing towards this.

Let’s take a moment and discuss what it even means to have a different target audience. When you’re a kid, even one or two years’ difference is a big deal, and while things vary from kid to kid, generally speaking, it helps to have an idea of what your “overall goal” is when targeting a certain age group, since at some point you have to approximate the interests of some thousands of children. Traditionally, Digimon has been aimed at preteens (10-11 year olds); of course, many will testify to having seen the series at a younger age than that, but the "main” intended target demographic was in this arena. (Also, keep in mind that this is an average; a show aimed at 10-11 year olds could be said to be more broadly aimed at 7-13 year olds, whereas one aimed at 7-8 year olds would be more broadly aimed at something like 5-10 year olds.) Let’s talk a bit about what distinguishes children’s shows (especially Japanese kids’ shows) between this “preteen demographic” and things aimed at a much younger audience (which I’ll call “young child demographic”, something like the 7-8 year old arena):

With children who are sufficiently young, it’s much, much more difficult to ensure that a child of that age will be able to consistently watch TV at the same hour every week instead of being subject to more variable schedules, often set by their parents, meaning that it becomes much more difficult to have a series that relies on you having seen almost every episode to know what’s going on. For somewhat older kids, they’re more likely to be able to pick and pursue their own preferences (the usual “got up early every week for this show”). This means that shows targeted at a young child demographic will be more likely to be episodic, or at least not have a complex dramatic narrative that requires following the full story, whereas shows targeted at a preteen audience are more willing to have a dramatic narrative with higher complexity. This does not mean by any shake of the imagination that a narrative is incapable of having any kind of depth or nuance -- the reboot’s timeslot predecessor GeGeGe no Kitaro got glowing reviews all over the board for being an episodic story with tons of depth -- nor that characters can’t slowly develop over the course of the show. But it does raise the bar significantly, especially because it prevents you from making episodes that require you to know what happened in previous ones.

The thing is, the original Adventure and the older Digimon series in general didn’t have to worry about this, and, beyond the fact that their narratives very obviously were not episodic, we actually have concrete evidence of the disparity: Digimon has often been said to be a franchise for “the kids who graduated from (outgrew) a certain other monster series”. Obviously, they’re referring to Pokémon -- which does have the much younger target demographic. That’s why its anime is significantly more episodic and less overall plot-oriented, and Digimon wasn’t entirely meant to be a direct competitor to it; rather, it was hoping to pick up the preteens who’d enjoyed Pokémon at a younger age but were now looking for something more catered to them. This is also why, when Yo-kai Watch came into the game in 2014, that was considered such a huge direct competitor to Pokémon, because it was aiming for that exact same demographic, complete with episodic anime. When Yo-kai Watch moved to its Shadowside branch in 2017, it was specifically because they had concerns about losing audience and wanted to appeal to the kids who had been watching the original series, but since they were preteens now, they adopted a more dramatic and emotionally complex narrative that would appeal to that audience instead. So you can actually see the shift in attempted target demographic in real time.

Adventure through Frontier were aimed at 10-11 year olds, and here’s the interesting part: those series had the protagonists hover around the age of said target audience. We actually have it on record that Frontier had a direct attempt to keep most of the kids as fifth-graders for the sake of appealing to the audience, and so that it would be relatable to them. You can also see this policy of “matching the target audience’s age” in other series at the time; Digimon’s sister series Ojamajo Doremi (also produced by Seki) centered around eight-year-olds. Nor was Seki the only one to do this; stepping outside Toei for a bit, Medabots/Medarot had its protagonist Ikki be ten years old, much like Digimon protagonists, and the narrative was similarly dramatic. The thing is, that’s not how it usually works, and that’s especially not really been how it’s worked for the majority of kids’ series since the mid-2000s. In general, and especially now, it’s usually common to have the protagonists of children’s media be slightly older than the target age group. This has a lot of reasons behind it -- partially because kids are looking to have slightly older characters as a model for what to follow in their immediate future, and partially because “the things you want to teach the kids” are often more realistically reflected if the kids on screen have the right level of independence and capacity for emotional contemplation. Case in point: while everyone agrees the Adventure through Frontier characters are quite relatable, it’s a common criticism that the level of emotional insight sometimes pushes the boundary of what’s actually believable for 10-11 year olds...

...which is presumably why, with the exception of this reboot, every Digimon TV series since, as of this writing, started shifting to middle school students. That doesn’t mean they’re aiming the series at middle school kids now, especially because real-life 13-15 year olds are usually at the stage where they pretend they’ve outgrown kids’ shows (after all, that’s why there’s a whole term for “middle school second year syndrome”), but more that the narrative that they want to tell is best reflected by kids of that age, especially when we’re talking characters meant to represent children from the real world and not near-immortal youkai like Kitaro. In fact, the Appmon staff outright said that Haru was placed in middle school because the story needed that level of independence and emotional sensitivity, which is interesting to consider in light of the fact that Appmon’s emotional drama is basically on par with that of Adventure through Frontier’s. So in other words, the kind of high-level drama endemic to Adventure through Frontier is would actually normally be more on par with what you’d expect for kids of Haru’s age.

But at this point, the franchise is at a point of desperation, and you can see that, as I said earlier, Appmon was blatantly trying to be one of those “have its cake and eat it too” series by having possibly one of the franchise’s most dramatic storylines while also having some of the most unsubtle catchphrases and bright colors it has to offer. Moreover, one thing you might notice if you look closely at Appmon: most of its episodes are self-contained. Only a very small handful of episodes are actively dependent on understanding what happened in prior episodes to understand the conflict going on in the current one -- it’s just very cleverly structured in a way you don’t really notice this as easily. So as you can see, the more desperate the franchise has gotten to get its kids’ audience back, the more it has to be able to grab the younger demographic and not lock them out as much as possible -- which means that it has to do things that the original series didn’t have to worry about at all.

Having seen the reboot myself, I can say that it checks off a lot of what you might expect if you tried to repurpose something based on Adventure (and only vaguely based on it, really) into a more episodic story that doesn’t require you to follow the whole thing, and that it has to break down its story into easy-to-follow bits. In fact, there were times where I actually felt like it gave me the vibes of an educational show that would usually be expected for this demographic, such as repeated use of slogans or fun catchphrases for young kids to join in on. That alone means that even if the “base premise” is similar to the original Adventure, this already necessitates a lot of things that have to be very different, because Adventure really cannot be called episodic no matter how you slice it.

Not only that, even though the target audience consideration has yet to be outright stated, we also have interviews on hand that made it very clear, from the very beginning, what their goals with the reboot were: they wanted the kids to be able to enjoy a story of otherworldly exploration during the pandemic, they wanted cool action sequences, and they wanted to get the adults curious about what might be different from the original. Note that last part: they actively wanted this series to be different from the original, because the differences would engage parents in spotting the differences, and the third episode practically even goes out of its way to lay that message down by taking the kids to a familiar summer camp, only to have it pass without incident and go “ha, you thought, but nope!” Moreover -- this is the key part -- “surprising” people who were coming from the original series was a deliberate goal they had from the very beginning. They’ve stated this outright -- they knew older fans were watching this! They were not remotely shy about stating that they wanted to surprise returning viewers with unexpected things! They even implied that they wanted it to be a fun experience for older watchers to see what was different and what wasn’t -- basically, it’s a new show for their kids who never saw the original Adventure, while the parents are entertained by a very different take on something that seems ostensibly familiar.

On top of that, the head writer directly cited V-Tamer as an influence -- and if you know anything about V-Tamer, it’s really not that much of a character narrative compared to what we usually know of Digimon anime, and is mostly known for its battle tactics and action sequences (but in manga form). In other words, we have a Digimon anime series that, from day one, was deliberately made to have a writing philosophy and goal that was absolutely not intended to be like Adventure -- or any Digimon TV anime up to this point -- in any way. And that’s a huge shock for us as veterans, who have developed our tastes and expectations based on up to seven series of Digimon that were absolutely not like this at all. But for all it's worth, the circumstances surrounding its production and intent don't seem to quite line up with what the most common accusations against it are:

That it’s a rehash of Adventure: It really isn’t. It’s also blatantly apparent it has no intention of being so. The points that are in common: the character names and rough character designs, some very minimal profile details for said characters, Devimon having any particular foil position to Angemon, the use of Crests to represent personal growth, the premise of being in the Digital World and...that’s it! Once those points are aside, it’s really hard to say that the series resembles Adventure any more than Frontier or Xros Wars resembles Adventure (which are also “trapped in another world” narratives) -- actually, there are times the series resembles those two more than the original Adventure, which many have been quick to point out. The majority of things you can make any kind of comparison to basically drop off by the end of the first quarter or so, and trying to force a correlation is basically just that: you’d have to try forcing the comparison. The plot, writing style, and even the lineup of enemies shown just go in a completely different direction after that. So in the end, the base similarities can be said to be a marketing thing; if I want to criticize this series, I don’t think “lack of creativity” would actually be something I would criticize it for. (Of course, you’re still welcome to not be a huge fan of how they’re still guilty of using Adventure’s name value to market something that is not actually Adventure. We’re all gonna have mixed feelings on that one.)

That they don’t understand or remember Adventure’s appeal: Unlikely. All of the main staff has worked on character-based narratives before, which have been very well-praised while we’re at it. The producer, Sakurada Hiroyuki, was an assistant producer on the original series, and I would like to believe he probably remembers at least a thing or two about what they were doing with the original series...but, also, he’s the producer of Xros Wars, which definitely had its own individuality and style, and, moreover, was more of a character narrative that people generally tend to expect from Digimon anime. (Still a bit unconventional, and it has its own questions of personal taste, but a lot of people have also pointed out that this reboot has a lot in common with Xros Wars in terms of its writing tone and its emphasis on developing Digital World resident Digimon moreso than the human characters.) All signs point to the idea they could make a character narrative like Adventure if they really wanted to. It’s just, they don’t want to do that with this reboot, so they didn’t.

That they misinterpreted or misremembered the Adventure characters: There’s been accusations of said characters being written in a way that implies misinterpretation or lack of understanding of the original characters, but the thing is, while I definitely agree they have nowhere near the depth of the original ones, there are points that seem to be deliberate changes. (At some points, they’re actually opposites of the original, and certain things that operate as some very obscure references -- for instance, Sora complaining about having to sit in seiza -- seem to also be deliberate statements of going in a different direction.) The lack of human character depth or backstory doesn’t seem to be out of negligence, but rather that this story doesn’t want to be a character narrative to begin with -- after all, we’re used to seven series of Digimon that are, but there are many, many kids’ anime, or even stories in general, where the story is more about plot or action than it is completely unpacking all of its characters’ heads. In this case, this reboot does seem to have characters that are taking cues from or are “inspired by” the original, but, after all, it’s an alternate universe and has no obligation to adhere to the original characters’ backgrounds, so it stands to reason that it’d take liberties whenever it wanted. (Again, the head writer outright stated that he based the reboot’s Taichi more on V-Tamer Taichi than the original Adventure anime Taichi. He knows there’s a difference!) Even more intriguingly, the series actually avoids certain things that are common misconceptions or pigeonholes that would normally be done by the mainstream -- for instance, the Crest of Light (infamously one of the more abstract ones in the narrative) is fully consistent with Adventure’s definition of it as “the power of life”, and, if I dare say so myself, Koushirou’s characterization (emphasizing his relationship with “knowledge” and his natural shyness) arguably resembles the original far more than most common fan reductions of his character that overemphasize his computer skills over his personal aptitude. In other words, I think the staff does know what happened in the original Adventure -- they just actively don’t want to do what Adventure did, even if it’s ostensibly a reboot.

That it’s soulless or that there’s no passion in its creation: Well, this is subjective, and in the end I’m not a member of the staff to tell you anything for sure, but there are definitely a lot of things in this anime that don’t seem like they’d be the byproduct of uninspired creation or lack of passion. It’s just that those things are all not the kinds of things that we, as Digimon veterans, have come to develop a taste for and appreciate in Digimon anime. That is to say, there is an incredible amount of thought and detail put into representing Digimon null canon (i.e. representing special attacks and mechanics), the action sequences are shockingly well-animated in ways that put most prior Digimon anime to shame, and the series has practically been making an obvious attempt to show off as many Digimon (creatures) that haven’t traditionally gotten good franchise representation as they can. Or sometimes really obscure “meta fanservice” references that only make sense to the really, really, really, really hardcore longtime Digimon fan (for instance, having an episode centered around Takeru and Opossummon, because Takeru’s voice actress Han Megumi voiced Airu in Xros Wars). If you follow any of the animators on Twitter, they seem to be really actively proud of their work on it, and franchise creators Volcano Ota and Watanabe Kenji seem to be enjoying themselves every week...so basically, we definitely have creators passionate about having fun with this, it’s just that all of it is being channeled here, not the character writing.

So in the end, you can basically see that this series is basically the epitome of desperately pulling out all of the stops to make sure this series lands with the actual target demographic of children, dammit, and gets them into appreciating how cool these fighting monsters are and how cool it would be if they stuck with them even into a series that’s not Adventure. The Adventure branding and names to lure in the parents, the straightforward and easy-to-understand action-oriented narrative so that kids will think everything is awesome and that they’ll like it even when the story changes, and the merchandise and collab events booked everywhere so that they can all be reused for the next series too...because, remember, they failed with that during Savers, Xros Wars, and Appmon (I mean, goodness, you kind of have to admire their persistence, because a ton of other kids’ franchises failing this many times would have given up by now), so it’s a bit unsurprising that they went all the way to get the kids’ attention at the expense of a lot of things that would attract veterans, especially since the veterans already have a well-developed adults’ pipeline to cater to them. This does also mean that this series is more likely to come off as a 67-episode toy commercial than any previous Digimon series, but it’s not even really the toys as much as they’re trying to sell the entire franchise and the actual monsters in the hopes that they’ll stick with it even when the narrative changes.

Nevertheless, here we are. The series is over. Ghost Game -- which, as of this writing, is looking to be much more of a conventional Digimon narrative, complete with older cast, obviously more dramatic atmosphere, and pretty much everything surrounding its PR -- is on its way, presumably thanks to the success of this endeavor. It’s hard to gauge it; we have it on record that they also intend it to be episodic, but remember that this doesn’t necessarily prevent it from having an overall dramatic plot or nuanced drama (especially since the abovementioned Appmon and Kitaro were perfectly capable of pulling off this balance). Nevertheless, it seems to be a lot more of the conventional kind of Digimon narrative we usually expect, so, as for us, adult long-time fans of the Digimon franchise (many of whom don’t have kids anyway), what exactly should we make of this? Well, as far as “supporting the franchise” goes, you’ll get much more progress supporting Ghost Game than the reboot; I highly doubt view counts and merch sales relative to an already-finished series will do nearly as much for the franchise’s health as much as the currently airing series, and, besides, it’d probably do us all a favor to support the endeavor that’s actually new and fresh. So when it comes to a “past” series like this, it’s all just going to come down to a question of personal preference and taste: is this a series you, personally, want to watch, and would you find it entertaining?

For some of you, it’s possible that it just won’t be your cup of tea at all -- and since, like I said, the majority of us here have based our expectations and preferences on up to seven series of Digimon that were not like this, that’s also perfectly fine, and in that case I don’t actually recommend you watch this. Of course, I’ve never thought that it was ever fair to expect a Digimon fan to have seen all of the series released to date; the more series we get, the more inhumane of a demand that’ll become, and I think this franchise becoming successful enough to have so many series that most people won’t have seen it all is a good thing. (It’s actually kind of alarming that the percentage of people who have seen it all is so high, because it means the franchise has failed to get much of an audience beyond comparatively hardcore people who committed to it all the way.) But I think, especially in this case, with a series for which adult fans like us were probably lowest on the priority list due to the sheer amount of desperation going on here, it’s fine to skip it, and if you’re someone who lives by a need for character depth or emotionally riveting narrative, the fact this series is (very unabashedly and unashamedly) mostly comprised of episodic stories and action sequences means you won’t have missed much and probably won’t feel too left out of any conversations going forward. That’s before we even get into the part where it’s still completely understandable to potentially have mixed feelings or resentment about the overuse of the Adventure brand for something like this, especially if Adventure is a particularly important series to you.

But for some of you out there, it might still be something you can enjoy on its own merits. I’ve seen people who were disappointed by the limited degree of Digimon action sequences in the past or the fact that the series has gotten overly fixated on humans, and had an absolute ball with the reboot because it finally got to represent parts of the franchise they felt hadn’t been shown off as well. “Fun” is a perfectly valid reason to enjoy something. It’s also perfectly possible to be someone who can enjoy character narratives like the prior Digimon series but also enjoy something that’s more for being outlandish and fun and has cool Digital World concepts and visuals -- and, like I said, it does not let up on that latter aspect at all, so there’s actually potential for a huge feast in that regard. I think as long as you don’t expect it to be a character narrative like Adventure -- which will only set you up for disappointment, because it’s not (and made very clear since even the earliest episodes and interviews that it had no intention of being one) -- it’s very possible to enjoy it for what it is, and for what it does uniquely.

#digimon #digimon adventure:#digimon adventure reboot #digimon adventure 2020 #digimon adventure psi #shihameta

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jerryb2 · 4 years ago

Photo

I mean….you all knew this was coming ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ : the Star Wars Art of one Mr. Drew Struzan.

And look, the man has done so much and has such a diverse portfolio that Star Wars is only one very small part of his career. If you want to explore some of his other works, then might I suggest that you check out his website.

As for me here, we’ll be sticking strictly to his SW art. Now, with that out of the way, here we go…

*cracks knuckles*

I have to admit that before I really started to dig into this, I didn’t realize just how many Bantam Era (and beyond) Star Wars books this man has illustrated. Nearly 50 titles, ranging from novels to comics, short stories & even an RPG supplement. 🤯

And so, after much consideration, I decided to just pull all the titles that feature his art off my bookshelf and take a few pics for you guys:

First off, I just want to point out that I don’t have every book he’s ever illustrated. Some of them are just harder than hard to find, are hilariously expensive, or I just don’t have an edition that features his art prominently - you’ll see what I mean. Right off the bat though, you can see that he was really hitting his stride in the mid-90′s, with all but a handful of these coming out between ‘94 & ‘99. One of the highlights from this time for me, is The Callista Trilogy.

I just want to stress that The Callista Trilogy is a highlight for me only because of its gorgeous cover art. 🤣 Other than that, this book series needs to go lay down.

Anyway, the designs are all really striking and even after all these years, absolutely iconic. And you can really see Struzan’s distinct visual style at play here; not a painting in the same vein as something from Dave Doorman, and not a simple trace. Rather, something that is stylized in a very particular, very subtle way, almost to the point where it appears photo-realistic at first glance. Beautiful.

Next up is this trio of trilogies (good use of words, me), collected in these Science Fiction Book Club (SFBC) hardcovers:

Once again, these covers are just striking, particularly The Black Fleet Crisis. This is actually what I was referring to when I said that I don’t always have the best editions for a Drew Struzan appreciation post. 😅

Because these are hardcover collections of paperback books, we actually miss out on a good bit of the art. For these SFBC special editions, the publisher just took all three and basically photoshopped the best bits of each one together. The one that suffers the most here is obviously The Corellian Trilogy, where they didn’t even try to blend everything together, and instead just separated everything into columns. I don’t personally mind it (and I do love having the hardcover editions of these books) but if you want to see the covers as they were originally intended, just pickup those mass market paperbacks. 🙂

There’s a lot more to get through, so I’ll just hit the highlights here; even though he didn’t illustrate The Thrawn Trilogy (that was Tom Jung, who I personally think did an okay-ish job at best), he did an absolutely amazing job with the follow-up, The Hand of Thrawn Duology in ‘98 & ‘99:

I’ve always loved these covers. And narratively speaking, they really do serve as one last hurrah on the Bantam Era. Oh, and also please note, Mara Jade on the cover of Vision of the Future, just as Zahn originally described her. ❤❤❤

If you step back and look at Struzan’s work as a whole, it’s all incredibly unified. I bring this up here because even though some of these are books relatively ��meh’ worthy, Struzan maintained a level of quality that belied the mediocrity contained within. And also to say that he was definitely busy, particularly in 1994:

That’s right - all of these released in ‘94, within a few months of one another. These covers man… *chef’s kiss*

And look I’m sorry, I just can’t help myself: The Crystal Star was a hilarious joke until we all realized they were serious about it. 😳

Alright, that’s a little on the harsh side; it’s not nearly as bad as most make it out to be, and Waru as a source for unlimited power (citation needed 👀😉) isn’t any more ridiculous than the 50 other post-Palpy, hair-brained Imperial schemes that everybody else cooked up, so I guess it fits. And besides, I really wanna be nice to Vonda McIntyre here, but this book was just so so boring. 😴

*clears throat* Moving on, here we have a couple Barnes & Noble hardcover collections of The Jedi Prince Series:

The same thing applies here; cover art photoshopped from across 6 different YA novels to get these. They don’t look bad, far from it. But rather this series has some things that people would rather forget about, namely a supposed son of Palpatine (spoiler: he wasn’t) named Triclops who had - wait for it - 3 eyes.

Like Tien. From DBZ. Yep. 🤦‍♂️

Moving further down the list, we have yet another pair of iconic cover designs, being I, Jedi (the only Star Wars novel written in the first person, and an appropriate riff on Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot - yes ladies & gentlemen, that is as clever as Star Wars gets) and The New Rebellion.

Classics, no doubt….but for reals, did anybody else ever wonder why the X-Wing on the cover of I, Jedi is missing an S-Foil? Or how that one slipped through??? 👀

Ah, at last we arrive at what is arguably Struzan’s most famous work; the covers for Shadows of the Empire & The Star Wars Trilogy: Special Edition.

It’s hard to overstate just how important Shadows of the Empire really was for Star Wars as a brand. In an era where SW books were already extremely popular, the Shadows of the Empire Multimedia Project basically served as a breakout hit and reignited interest in SW media across the board. This was in no small part due to the striking imagery captured on its cover - are you seeing a pattern here?

This success actually renewed Lucas’ interest in a theatrical re-release of the OT in 1997….which of course, feature more beautiful art from Drew Struzan:

These are my OG Special Edition VHS tapes from back in the day. I watched these so damn much as a kid. In fact, they’re basically the whole reason that I’m here, annoying the shit out of everybody today. 😁

After the Bantam Era concluded & the Star Wars publishing license went to Del Rey, Struzan did progressively fewer pieces for SW media. Here we see his contribution for the latter half of the Last of the Jedi YA series, and his kick-ass cover art for the Darth Maul comic:

And when I say that Struzan did progressively fewer pieces for Star Wars, I am of course omitting his turn as the poster artist for the freaking Prequel Trilogy:

Say what you will about the films, but these poster designs are nothing short of genius.

Look guys, it would be pretty easy for me to downplay Struzan’s Star Wars portfolio as just one small part of his incredible career. But my dudes, this is literally just the tip of the iceberg. The man has been a professional illustrator for over 50 years, and his art has delighted and inspired generations. From Star Wars to Indian Jones, and from Back to the Future to Blade Runner - Drew Struzan has played an integral part in shaping popular culture.

Here’s to you, sir. 🍻

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canary3d-obsessed · 4 years ago

Text

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 11 second part

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Absurdity)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Message from the Lan Clan

After dinner the Yunmeng bros go to talk to Jiang Fengmian in his study. They're quiet and respectful here, with no shoulder-shoving or arguing. This scene has such Brady Bunch energy, where Dad's Study is the Man Place where boys come to talk about Serious Things.

The boys tell Dad Jiang about the Yin Iron and he says yeah, I know. This is probably why he let them run off on their road trip without punishing them, but he could have, like, shared data with them so they might have actually achieved something related to the Yin Iron, rather than just wandering around the countryside bonding with Lan Wangji and Nie Huaisang.

He shows them a letter from the Lans that basically says the Lan Clan is in the shit, and he tells them they've got to go to the Wen indoctrination because otherwise they will also be in the shit.

He gives the boys a warning about the Yin Iron, which is that

1. it can be refined and

2. if you refine it carefully, it will not control you.

Awesome tip, will definitely use, thanks pop.

(more behind the cut)

Jiang Cheng wants to argue about going to the Wen party, but Wei Wuxian vocally gets on board, not leaving any opportunity for whining.

Wei Wuxian is only sucking up a little bit in this scene. He obviously has a lot of affection for Jiang Fengmian, but WWX doesn't play up to his favoritism nearly as much as he could. Compare, for example, how he leans into Yanli's preferential treatment of him.

Fight Outside the Cold Cave

Over on the Gusu side of the country province township, the disciples have gathered outside the cold cave that previously none of them knew about, and Su She is freaking out.

Most of the acting in The Untamed is naturalistic, but then there are occasional characters who are portrayed with a much more theatrical, broad style. Su She's villainy is not given a lot of layers; he's playing a type, more than a person.

Many of the villains in The Untamed are played this way, but not all. Wen Zhuliu, for example, is a genuinely horrifying bad guy while also conveying depth and ambivalence--despite having hardly any lines. And JGY is a masterpiece of a performance. For Su She, the directors or the actor have opted for "sniveling backstabber" as a type, which is unfortunate, because it robs his final scenes of emotional impact.

Lan Qiren tells the disciples to get to safety. He rushes forward, gamely getting his ass kicked by human cuisinart Wen Xu. He's not as effective a warrior as either of his nephews but he's a brave S.O.B.

Hanguang Jun to the Rescue

Before things can go completely pear-shaped, Lan Wangji sails in with his guqin.

The Blue Steel technique of the Lan Clan

Like many gifted learners, Lan Wangji's musical abilities are more advanced than his social skills. Here he musically makes the ground literally explode, almost as if it had been specially rigged with incendiary charges.

Lan Wangji is very pretty when he's worried, and his affection and concern for his uncle is touching. He's 100% not interested, as we will see, in Lan Qiren's whole "lets all die for the future of the Lan Clan while my nephews hide" agenda. He's on his own agenda of smiting the wicked and protecting the weak.

Notice how Su She is standing right next to Lan Qiren here, even holding his arm? The next thing that Lan Qiren says is to tell all the disciples to keep up as they run into the cave. Somehow Su She totally does not keep up, and he gets caught outside along with a bunch of other disciples.

Giving Up

Wen Xu and his men kill most of the other caught disciples, and then threaten Su She, asking him how to get into the cave. In fear for his life, he tells them. Not cool, Su She, but possibly forgivable. Although when you voluntarily join a, you know, battle cult, physical courage is kind of an important qualifier.

But this shit here...

They didn't fucking ask about the books, douchebag.

Su She was there in Lan Qiren's house when the two heads of his clan knelt to each other, each claiming the right to be the one to stay behind and die. And he heard Lan Qiren say that the ancient books are the foundation of the clan and that only if LXC and the books survive, will the clan continue. By giving up both men, and pointing out the book situation, Su She has totally earned his expulsion.

Lan Wangji Takes a Stand

Lan Wangji decides, for the first but not last time, to openly defy his uncle...and it's got nothing to do with Wei Wuxian. Lan Wangji is a hero, who follows the dictates of his conscience. His conscience is extremely filial and extremely orthodox, but he’s got a growing open-minded streak. This is going to cause a whole lot of conflicts for him over the next few years.

This time, however, he manages to skate out from under the whole disobedient, unfilial thing by citing Lan Yi's directive, which means Lan Qiren has to accept it because she's his predecessor and elder relative (She is probably not a literal ancestor, since she spent her life in a cave putting fucking headbands on fucking rabbits which probably didn’t leave time for having babies).

This is a pretty extraordinary moment for Lan Wangji and for Lan Qiren, because Lan Wangji just asserted his own form of authority to do the exact opposite of what Lan Qiren wanted, and Lan Qiren just sucked it up and let him.

It's also very different from western stories involving a holy McGuffin such as the Yin Iron. Lan Wangji's solution of "fuck it, just let the bad guys have it, it's not worth so many people dying for" is refreshing and surprising to me, a westerner raised on The One Ring, the Grail, the Death Star Plans, etc.

Lan Wangji steps out of the cave and uses a sword blast to save Su She, the ungrateful bastard, from getting stabbed by Wen Xu. Then he surrenders, and they break his leg to slow him down. This does not actually incapacitate him, because he is Lan Fucking Wangji, already a BAMF at like 17 years old. When they whack his leg, his chunk of Yin Iron falls out onto the ground.

That thing was in a magic bag of holding before. So...it just falls out when you whack him? If they whack him again will his guqin fall on the ground? What about candy?

Archery Practice at Lotus Pier

Meanwhile, back at Lotus Pier, the brothers are enjoying some quality time together before they head to the hostage-taking indoctrination.

Wei Wuxian is such a great cultivator that he can hit a distant target even when he jerks his bow upwards as he releases the arrow.

Jiang Cheng seems fairly pleased, and proud of his brother. He's competitive and fundamentally grumpy but not, at least here, a sore loser.

Club Ruohan

We go over to Da Club, where Wen Ruohan is yelling at Wen Qing for letting Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian go. He names them both, so they're becoming more and more known to their enemies. Which is not a good thing.

He menaces her with the zombie mosh crew, having them kill a dude in front of her and then saying her baby brother will be next in the circle of zombies if she tries any more stunts. Neither of them can imagine how much zombie ass her baby brother is going to kick, later in his (un)life.

Side note: What is up with WRH’s hair? Why bother pulling your hair up over your ears if you're going to leave an enormous curtain of it over your face? It's because he knows there's a wind machine next to his throne, isn’t it?

Leaving Lotus Pier

Jiang Cheng: when I ran off earlier in the year on my road trip you didn't pack a goddamn thing.

Wen Indoctrination

Is it even possible to stand next to this much active volcanic shit and not, uh, die? I live in the tornado part of the US so I don't know much about lava (yet. 2020 still has 2 months to go). But it seems like it would be hard to breathe the air. Also they appear to build houses on lava piles, which seems imprudent. I say that even as someone who plays The Elder Scrolls Online, which is full of lava towns and nonsense like “ash farming.”

Nie Huaisang is adorable at all times, but particularly here, when he's so happy to see his friend who *didn't* fuck his gege and then abandon him without an explanation.

Nie Huaisang: I'm so glad I can count on Wei-Xiong to be consistent and not vanish for months, or become a traumatized shell of his former self, or, like, horribly die.

Jin Zixuan isn't quite as happy to see Wei Wuxian.

Wen Chao enjoys the sound of his own voice way too much, and is malevolent and boring. On the plus side, he likes to stand with his hand stuck out in the air, which is fun for your resident photoshopper.

Nie Huaisang is so miserable every time he's holding a sword, or blade, or whichever we're supposed to call this. He's got his fan tucked into his belt, which is sweet. He is happy to give up his sword but don't you dare try to take his fan.

Meanwhile Wei Wuxian is worried about Lan Wangji, and Jiang Cheng isn't.

Lan Wangji shows up under guard, and takes his position at the front of the line, but without any extra disciples. The Wens let him change into snowy white robes after breaking his leg which will go well with arterial blood spray. He's focused and is determined not to interact with Wei Wuxian in this public context.

When I was little, I would sit near my best friend at church on Sunday, but not be allowed to talk to her until church was over, and it was exactly like this. She was good at churching and I was hyper and hated church. We are still best friends and these things are still true.

This interaction is like a thumbnail for the whole dynamic of these three boys: Lan Wangji outwardly ignoring Wei Wuxian while having many interior feelings about him; Wei Wuxian demanding attention and creating a bit of a scene, due to his very genuine caring; Jiang Cheng telling him to leave that boy alone for fuck's sake.

Lan Wangji: Stop trying to talk to me Wei Ying, I’m busy composing a song in my head about the two of us and our love for each other.

#fytheuntamed #the untamed #the untamed gifs #the untamed meta #wei wuxian #lan wangji #jiang cheng #lan qiren #su she #jiang fengmian #restless rewatch the untamed #canary3d-original #my gifs #the untamed spoilers

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fific7 · 3 years ago

Text

There May Be Trouble Ahead - Part 3

John Whittaker x Reader

A/N: This does not follow canon, it’s all lemon zest 🍋 because the world deserves more of the over-eager puppy that is the handsome Johnny Whittaker. And puppies need discipline.

The song excerpt is from ‘Let’s Face the Music and Dance’ which surely must be John’s life anthem? (It wasn’t released until 1936 but there’s that fiction writer’s licence again.)

Warnings: 18+ NSFW due to sexual content including oral between consenting adults*. Some drinking.

*Irl, please don’t go wild in the country without protection.

(Not my GIF, credit to owner)

As John followed you out of his bedroom, you asked him if you might use the bathroom and he took your hand once more, guiding you along the corridor and pointing at a door. Once inside, you looked around at the huge roll-top bath and large porcelain sink. You smiled, once again it all seemed very Victorian to your (you liked to think) very modern eye.

Coming back downstairs a little later on, you heard a murmur of voices from below you and paused on the half-landing, tip-toeing to the edge and peeking cautiously over the banister rail.

John and Sarah were standing in the large lobby, and you noticed that John had his arms crossed over his chest in a very defensive stance.

You heard Sarah say in her quiet voice, “I just don’t want you to get hurt again, Johnny.” You grimaced as she said “Johnny” and the familiar way she used it. “I mean I hardly have to remind you what happened the last time you met someone and got carried away, do I? She ran off with your Father!” Your mouth rounded into an ‘O’ as you heard those explosive words. A scowl appeared on John’s face, and he snapped, “Well firstly, you did just remind me! And secondly, at least the old man’s not around this time to run off with my wife!”

“Wife!” exclaimed Sarah, “She’s an acquaintance at best! Hardly appropriate to speak of her as your wife. You met her, what - a week ago?” “Took me less time than that with Larita,” shot back John. Now it was Sarah’s turn to pull a face. “I’m just saying to take it more slowly this time, Johnny, that’s all!” John started striding away from her and you pulled back from the banister in case either of them looked up and spotted you. “Well, thank you for the advice, Sarah. You can rest assured that this time I shall be doing things with less haste and more consideration.”

Through the banister rails you watched Sarah remain standing there for a moment, crestfallen, before following after John.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

John stalked into the sitting room, heading for a cigarette box on one of the low tables and opening it. Thankfully it wasn’t empty, so he took one out, tapped it a couple of times and lit it with the ornate table lighter next to the box. He drew on it before blowing out a long plume of smoke into the air. He heard heels making their way across the large rug behind him and hoped it was his guest, turning with a smile on his face.

Seeing that it was Sarah, his smile faded and he knew she’d noticed that. But why then did she have to keep on at him like some kind of mother hen? He sighed, “What other pearls of wisdom are you here to cast before me, Sarah?”

She tried a tentative smile, “I don’t mean to nag, Johnny. You know I don’t. It’s as I said, I just don’t want you to get hurt again.” He moved over to the large windows, gazing out over the landscape, “I don’t intend to, believe me. And I don’t intend to hurt my new lady friend either,” he replied, still smoking his cigarette and speaking over his shoulder to her, “I’ve met someone I truly like and I’m not about to mess it up.”

He turned back to the window and therefore missed seeing Sarah’s lips tightening into an almost-snarl as she heard his words.

And unbeknownst to him, the ‘someone’ of whom he spoke was currently listening just outside the sitting room.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

A quiet voice behind you made you jump. “Are you lost, madam?” You swung round. Oh, it was the butler, Furber was it?

“Oh no, it’s fine thank you, Mr Furber. I’m just looking for John and I think I’ve found him now.” You pointed theatrically - and somewhat ridiculously - into the sitting room, before giving him an embarrassed smile and disappearing through the door.

You saw that Sarah was now the one adopting the defensive body language, and she and John were staring each other down in what looked like some kind of Mexican Standoff.

Okay, you thought, here I go with my ‘Absolutely Innocent of Eavesdropping’ act.

“Oh, John - there you are! I thought I’d lost you for a moment,” and you gave him a big smile. “Hello, Sarah!” you added, now looking at her and still smiling, but it was a very much smaller one than John had received from you.

John reacted as you’d hoped he would and came rushing over to you immediately, hand going to yours. “Do you want to go, darling? We can, you know.” “Perhaps we should,” you said, “we don’t want to take up the whole of everyone’s afternoon, do we?” He grinned at you, “No, we don’t, darling.”

You hid a smile, thinking that he was perhaps slightly overdoing it with the ‘darling’s’ but you’d take them all. Because you’d caught a look of absolute fury on Sarah’s face for a split-second when she’d heard the first ‘darling’ leave his lips.

That’s more like it, girl! you thought gleefully, let out all that broiling jealousy and sexual tension hiding inside that calm little head!

If she wasn’t going to be honest about her true feelings and instead mess around playing silly mind games, then that really wasn’t your problem. You’d just met John, you liked him (much to your amazement, you had to admit) and you wanted to see where things led.

It had annoyed you, quite frankly, when you’d heard her dripping words of doubt into John’s ear as if she was merely a concerned bystander, instead of being an interested party herself.

And if she was going to play dirty, then you just might have to as well.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

John was feeling immensely relieved as he drove the two of them away from Flintham Hall. His darling (which was how he found himself thinking of her now) didn’t seem to have overheard that silly squabble of his with Sarah and they’d managed to take their leave fairly easily without too many entreaties from his Mother to stay longer.

Although she did seem a little quiet on the drive back to town. He shook off the thought, she was probably just a bit overwhelmed after meeting all of them in one fell swoop. It was quite a task, he acknowledged. He knew his family could be intimidating.

Arriving back and parking outside her flat, he was overjoyed when she asked him if he’d like to come in for either more tea or a small aperitif.

It seemed that he was still in her ‘good books’.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

You poured a pale sherry for each of you and handed a glass to John. He was lounging - entirely at ease - on your large cherry-red sofa, and you sat opposite him on the matching armchair. He looked slightly disappointed at that but took a sip of his sherry, saying “Mmm, that’s a nice Fino.”

You’d spent the whole journey back pondering whether to confess that you’d eavesdropped. Firstly, you felt guilty for doing so. One of your mother’s favourite sayings was ‘eavesdroppers never hear good of themselves’ if she ever caught you and your little brother listening at doors. And secondly, you didn’t want there to be any lies or omissions between you and John.

“Yes, it’s not bad,” you agreed. “Look John, I need to tell you something.” He sat bolt upright, “Oh no - you’re dumping me! Already!” he wailed. You laughed, “No, I’m not! But I do need to discuss something with you.”

He sat back again, still looking anxious, “Tell me!” he demanded. You drew in a deep breath, “I overheard your conversation with Sarah. I’m sorry!” you said quickly, “I really didn’t mean to, I was just coming downstairs… and then you were in the sitting room.” You grinned, “Furber caught me standing outside!” He also grinned, “Yes, he’s got a habit of appearing without warning! I suppose it’s the whole butler thing.” His expression sobered, “So you did hear us squabbling! And also the final scandalous fact about my ill-fated marriage.” He took another sip of sherry. “Yes, the sad fact is, my Father ran off with her. They’re living in sin and penury down in the south of France.”

“I’m sorry, John,” you said sincerely, “that must’ve been hard to bear.” He smiled at you, “It wasn’t the best. And of course Mother went absolutely mad and said it was all my fault. Which it was, of course. By that time, I’d realised that I didn’t love her but yes, it still stung.” You leaned back and looked steadily at him, “I suppose it was for the best. In an awful way. But tell me, what’s with Sarah?” He gave you a puzzled look, “What do you mean, darling?”

“Your relationship with her. Tell me about it.” He sighed, “Mother always wanted me to marry her. She saw it as the joining of two dynasties, nothing romantic about it. I think I told you we had a brother-sister thing between us? We grew up together so that’s just how it was. Then mater started putting pressure on me to get engaged to her and her parents weren’t opposed to it, so it was kind of understood between the two families that that’s what would eventually happen. But then… Larita. As I said.” Another sip of sherry. “When she left, it was obvious that everyone expected me to just pick up with Sarah again from where we left off. But she didn’t seem all that keen - wounded pride, I suppose and I don’t blame her for that - and to be brutally honest, I really wasn’t keen either.”

His dark eyes gazed over at you, “I never felt that spark with her, you know? She’s just like another sister.” You almost felt sorry for Sarah. “So it was just kind of… left on the side and no-one’s mentioned it again.” You nodded, and decided to take the plunge, “You do realise that she’s in love with you? And probably always has been?”

His face was a picture. “Umm.. what?” You nodded again, “Yes, John, believe me. Her indifferent demeanour is all an act. She wants you for herself.” You met his eyes, watching him intensely, “Does that change anything? How you feel about her? Because if it does, then I’ll just take myself off somewhere else.” He shook his head vigorously, “No! It changes nothing. Absolutely nothing.” He put his sherry glass down on the small table next to the sofa and came over to crouch down beside your chair, grasping your arm, “I’m sorry about it if that’s the case, I truly am. But it’s you I want, not Sarah.” He leant in towards you and the two of you gazed into each other’s eyes, then John’s lips softly met yours and you shared a sedate kiss.

Breaking apart, he laughed nervously, “I hope you don’t mind that I kissed you?” Shaking your head and running a finger along his jaw, you were smiling as you replied, “I don’t mind in the slightest, John.”

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

John was driving perhaps a little too fast along the country roads, on his way back home in the gathering dusk. He was a very happy man indeed, and he was singing at the top of his voice.

There may be trouble ahead

But while there's moonlight

And music and love and romance

Let's face the music and dance

Before the fiddlers have fled

Before they ask us to pay the bill

And while we still have the chance

Let's face the music and dance

He pulled the car to a grinding halt and leapt out of it, bounding up the steps and into the house. Furber, gliding along with a tray holding a decanter of sherry and four glasses, hid a smile and nodded at him, “Good evening, sir. Shall I bring an additional glass for you?” “Uh.. no, thanks Furber, I’m just going to my room. To.. uh.. lie down for a nap before dinner.”

Furber hid an even bigger smile. He knew the signs only too well. The Master was in love again.

John’s foot was on the first step of the staircase when Veronica’s voice cut through his pleasant thoughts. “John! Please join us!” His shoulders dropped… caught like a rat in a trap! Accepting defeat, he turned on his heel and trotted into the sitting room behind his Mother. The other three ladies were ranged around various sofas and armchairs and in the process of accepting glasses of sherry from Furber, who magically produced a fifth glass and now filled it for John. How does he do that? wondered John, does he keep supplies of spare glasses in his pockets? Hmm, maybe he does, I wouldn’t put it past him.

He took the glass and thanked Furber, settling into one of the squashy old armchairs and facing the four women who were all looking at him expectantly. He looked back at them, until eventually his Mother broke the stalemate, “Well, John? Where did you meet her? At the Art Gallery?” Marion sniggered bitchily, “As if! John’s never been inside an art gallery in his life, Mama!” Shooting her a poisonous look, John replied, “As it happens - no, Mother.” Marion snorted in triumph but John ignored her, continuing, “I nearly hit her in the head with a tennis ball.”

“Johhhhnnn!” wailed his mother, “That’s no way to impress a lady!” He sighed, “I do realise that, mater. I promise you I didn’t do it on purpose. But it was certainly very fortuitous.” He knew that he probably had a dreamy, faraway look in his eyes but he didn’t care. He noticed Sarah’s eyes on him, and he felt a sudden pang of guilt. But what can I do? he thought, the heart wants what the heart wants.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

Monday was dragging by and felt very tedious. You’d begun work on a small canvas by a fairly famous local artist and as you meticulously and gently rubbed at the grime which covered it, your mind drifted to last Saturday evening.

After that first innocent kiss, John had pulled you up off the armchair and slid his arms right around you, holding you close and kissing you in an increasingly passionate fashion. So much so that you eventually had to gently shove him away, smiling and catching your breath.

Most of the (admittedly few) men you had stepped out with had been appalling kissers, all wet lips and slobbering over you in indecent haste.

John might act like an overgrown schoolboy (or puppy, take your pick) but in the kissing stakes, he was well out in front of the rest of the field. His lips had hovered at your ear and you felt little huffs of his breath against it. “Your lips, your mouth, your eyes… you’re driving me insane,” he whispered, and you’d almost fainted at the sensuality of it.

You suddenly heard your supervisor’s sharp voice, and you looked up quickly at the older woman. She was in fact a very good mentor, her bark being worse than her bite as they say. She smirked, “You’re in a world of your own today, dear! I called your name at least twice before now.” Looking more closely at you, she gave a delighted laugh, “Oh my! There’s a man involved, isn’t there?” You blushed furiously and she crowed, “I was right! I knew it. Now, tell me all about him!”

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

After spending ten minutes telling your mentor all about John, you were slightly disappointed when she had a bit of a mixed reaction to the details you shared.

“My dear, he does sound very dashing,” she intoned, and you knew there was a ‘but’ coming, “but he also sounds a little bit… risqué.” You opened your mouth to jump to his defence, but she held up a hand, “I know you don’t want to hear this, but you do need to guard against making any impulsive decisions regarding him. He sounds as if he likes impulsive gestures, judging by the sound of the circumstances surrounding his marriage. And then his father running off with his wife! I mean, my dear, that is positively…” “Scandalous,” you supplied, “yes, I do realise that. But I truly believe he’s learned his lesson.”

She looked sceptical, “So you say, but please do bear in mind that he’s still probably inclined towards the impulsive, despite what he says. I’m sure your parents would never forgive me if I didn’t at least try and sound a warning shot across your bows!” You dipped your head and accepted her thoughts, “I am listening to you, honestly,” you assured her.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

John had taken to telephoning you every evening since the Saturday you’d spent together. “I just want to hear your voice,” he’d say say quietly into the phone. “It’s nice to hear yours, too,” you’d reply. When he phoned you on Tuesday evening, you could hear some excitement in his voice. “I’ve got us two stand tickets for the races on Saturday,” he said, his words tumbling over each other, “Oh say you’ll come! It’s not one of the big gold cup meetings but it’ll be so much fun!” You laughed, caught up in his excitement, “Yes, John, I’ll come.”

“Wonderful! Mater keeps telling me not to call you too much or pester you at work but I can’t help it!” “It’s fine, I don’t mind,” you said truthfully, thinking about how you now sat in your flat of an evening waiting for him to call. Not that you’d admit that to him, of course. Your feelings for John were definitely a bit like a runaway train at the moment, and you were trying to keep the brakes on but you were struggling to do so.

About half an hour after you’d hung up, your doorbell rang. Opening the door, you were less than charmed to see your neighbour Euphemia standing on your doorstep clutching a teacup. “Oh hullo,” she greeted you, “I wonder if I can borrow some sugar?” Mentally rolling your eyes, you said, “Of course, step in for a moment.” You took the cup from her and she trailed along your hall after you, following you to the kitchen. You knew exactly why she was here and as you poured out some sugar for her, she said, trying to sound casual, “So you have a new young man, then?”

Your back was to her so you smirked to yourself. “Yes, Euphemia, I do,” you said lightly. “Mmm,” she grunted, “What’s his name, then?” “John.” “John what?” Now she was beginning to annoy rather than amuse you, “John No-one-You’ll-Ever-Have-Heard-Of,” you said sarcastically, handing her the cup of sugar. “There you go, Euphemia! Now, so sorry, I’m right in the middle of something.” In other words, sling your hook. She had a very dissatisfied look on her face as she hadn’t been able to get all the information she wanted out of you. Just then, there was another knock at the door so you headed to it, Euphemia on your heels again. God, that woman!

Upon opening the door this time, you were delighted to see a much more welcome face. John was standing there, a very large bouquet of peonies in his hand. He gave you a big smile then immediately leaned in for a kiss, but pulled back suddenly mid-kiss when his eyes met Euphemia’s over your shoulder. “Oh!” he exclaimed, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise you had company.” You looked over your shoulder, saying, “Euphemia was just leaving, weren’t you Euphemia?” you said with a hint of menace in your voice. “Um… yes,” she nodded, “nicer to meet you, Mr… ?” You grabbed John’s arm and squeezed hard, “Bye, Euphemia!” She sulkily brushed past you and John and made her way down your steps.

You dragged John inside and quickly closed the door. “That woman!” you hissed, “She’s just been in here to ‘borrow a cup of sugar’ …in other words, trying to sniff out information about you!” John laughed, “Ah, now I understand! Here, darling… these are for you.” He handed you the bouquet, you exclaiming how pretty they were and beginning to look for a vase. “I remembered you said that peonies were your favourites,” he announced proudly. You were impressed! You two had passed a florists on the evening of your first date and you’d remarked how much you loved the big blowsy pink flowers.

“Anyhow, she’s not very pleased,” you said conversationally as you busied yourself arranging the flowers, “she didn’t get any information out of me at all apart from your first name.” You looked up at him, holding one of the blooms in your hand, “And as much as I’m pleased to see you and these beautiful flowers… what on earth are you doing here, John?”

You saw his face pink up, “I hope you won’t be annoyed but I couldn’t wait until Saturday to see you.” Your stomach filled with butterflies and you put down the peony, going over to where he stood and hugging him, before kissing his cheek. “You’re such a sweet boy,” you smiled at him. You felt his his shoulders relax. “Marion told me you’d get really fed up with me.”

You ghosted a kiss over his lips, “Oh, poor Marion… she’s not a happy bunny, is she?” John smiled a little sadly, “Disappointed in love. Her intended had no intention of marrying her and took off travelling.” “Oh, what a shame,” you sympathised. “It’s given her a slightly skewed view of life,” John shrugged, “she unfortunately tends to revel in other people’s embarrassing situations.”

He leant back from you, your arms still round him, “You’re not fed up with me, are you?” You smiled, “Not yet.” He landed a small kiss on your lips, “I’m pleased to hear that.” “Have you eaten?” “No… I had the sudden impulse to come haring over here to see you.” You stroked his cheek, “Then have a seat,” you waved towards your kitchen table, “and I’ll make you something.”

Your mentor’s words echoed in your head as you went to the pantry and took out some food items for John. “…he’s still probably inclined towards the impulsive…”

You felt a little soupçon of worry. It seems like she had possibly hit the nail right on the head.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

@paracosmenthusiast

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

#ben barnes #john whittaker #john whittaker x reader #john whittaker fanfiction #john whittaker imagine #john whittaker fanfic #easy virtue

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severnlight · 4 years ago

Photo

Make way for Pirate Queen Amidala!

(a story snippet is below the cut 😁)

Commodore Skywalker, the youngest person in his Majesty’s Grand Navy to ever achieve the rank, woke up in a cell. His shoulder was throbbing, and his soul appeared to be trying to leave his body by virtue of a skull-drilling headache. He groaned, and risked opening his eyes.

He found himself lying on a dingy scattering of straw — frequently used and ancient, by the smell of it. Cautious light filtered through the clouds of dust from above and bounced off the single item in the cell — a bucket that perhaps once had been green.

His stomach picked up the motions of a sailing ship just as his nose zoomed in on the salt spray over the other, less savory aromas. The wake was splashing on the hull just outside, and for the first time he could remember, the sound filled him with dread instead of comfort.

He’d been rescued from the wreck, then. Just not by the right party.

The Commodore groaned again and rolled to his other side, to relieve some weight from his shoulder. Something else entered his field of vision — a pair of boots, one the other side of the iron bars. The boots hugged a set of rather smallish feet, one of them tapping in sync with the pulsating pain just behind his temples. His breath hitched, and he lifted himself from the floor, careful not to make any sudden movements. His gaze slowly trailed up his foe.

A reedy timbre of a voice broke the silence.

“Oh my. How the mighty have fallen — was that the saying?”

The accent belonged to one of Naboo’s upper crust, just like His Majesty’s. The Commodore squinted his eyes when they reached the face of his jailor, and blinked rapidly. Was it possible?…

“You,” he stumbled forward and grabbed the iron bars because he needed the support. He hoped the gesture came across as intimidating. “You must be ‘Queen’ Amidala!”

The young pirate in front of him chuckled, and lifted her hand to her tricorne hat for a mock salute.

“And you, Commodore Skywalker, are at my service.”

He started at that, and ran his eyes over her. He noted several rows of chevrons, taken as trophies from various Imperial Navy Officer ranks, pinned to her hat in a pattern unabashedly dictated by nothing else than aesthetics. She had even managed a few golden chevrons, from a flag officer — in fact, it was the exact number the Crown bestowed on a Commodore, just one marker short of an admiral.

His grip on the bars tightened and he ground his teeth. The infamous Pirate Queen, who had cowed the Western Fleet into sailing only two remaining safe routes, the terror who had reduced several elite squadrons of his Majesty’s Black Armada to a scuttle of shivering incompetents piled on rickety rafts, was a waif of a woman — way too small for the stolen Navy jacket she was wearing — and in fact, not that much older than him. Gorgeous, too, in a way that derailed any further thought. His brain slipped the latter as a side note, and he threatened to drive a hot spike through it.

The ugly fact was that he, the Emperor’s chosen protegé, the rising star of the Imperial Navy, had fallen right into her trap, just like the line of pompous fools before him. And his prospects… well… he just hoped for a quick execution. The fact that she had bothered to pluck him from the sea and had not tossed him back after uncovering his identity was deeply unnerving. His gaze returned to her eyes.

“I may be your prisoner, but I am decidedly not at your service, pirate scum!” he grated the words, trying to project bravado that he did not feel.

The queen smirked and raised an eyebrow. From the shadows at her side, another pirate stepped forward — a sturdy woman with one hand gripping a whip, and another tucked in her belt next to a sword hilt.

“Should I teach him some manners, Your Grace?”

“That won’t be necessary, Cordé — I am sure we will find him perfectly amiable at the end of this conversation.”

The Commodore did not like being spoken to in third person, not at all.

“Why am I still alive?” he demanded. “What happened to the rest of my men? Where is my fleet?”

The Queen sized him up and down with unnerving confidence. Her re-branded jacket was decorated like her hat, with bits and bobs pilfered from Navy rank insignia — a sizable collection of ribbons arranged by color, several medals, and, to complete the ensemble — not one, but three stars of valor — the highest distinction of an award in the fleet. To see them on a pirate… He drew his eyebrows together, pursing his lips.

Her melodic voice broke his consternation.

“The rest of your — might I add, ‘very fine’ fleet, now forms my vanguard, Commodore. Thank you.” The hair on the back of his neck rose, while the pirate put a hand to her chin, and tsk-ed, as if he had somehow come up short upon closer inspection. “And you are alive because I am not wasteful.”

Her hand shifted from her chin into a theatrical arc.

“Allow me to present your options: I can either ransom you to your Emperor, who I expect to find most generous in securing the return of his strategic genius — that is, if you still deserve the title.” Here, she issued a mock pout and skewered him with her uncommonly expressive pair of dark eyes. “I am sure His Imperial Majesty will be nothing but magnanimous after you explain just how you lost his favorite secret fleet on her maiden voyage.” Something in the Commodore’s chest tightened. “Or,” she gripped one of his cell bars, not too far from his own hand, and he could sense her guard tensing a few steps away, “you can cooperate with me on a small trifle of an ask, and I will let you, what’s left of your men, and two of your ships go.”

The Commodore swallowed, hard.

“A trifle.” he echoed with a pause, “Of an ask?”

“That is correct. Think about it.” She gave him a pearly smile, released the bar and waved her fingers at him energetically, then turned to leave.

“Wait!” his heart was thumping so loud in his throat that each new word was a struggle, “What ask?”

“All in due time, Commodore.”

She had reached the stairs leading to the upper deck, and he noticed that her coat, while haphazardly retro-sized to fit the width of her shoulders, still reached well below her knees. And, it bore an unmistakable singe mark in the shape of a dog’s head, on the lower left side just in the back. His eyes widened. The eight chevrons, the three golden stars for valor — “Hey!” he raised his voice and rattled the iron bars: “That is my coat!”

She paused, and turned back with a smile that sent the dust particles in the air dancing.

“Was. It was your coat, Mr. Skywalker.”

He watched her small feet ascend the stairs of a Pirate ship now helming his fleet, under his coat, his chevrons and his stars, and sank down in the corner of his cell, pondering just how one man’s fortune can change so profoundly in a day. The Commodore cursed in every language he knew, as his headache pressed on in its best effort to end him. He wished it luck.

#my art things #my fanfic #pirate queen amidala #commodore skywalker #anidala #pirate au #tumblr snippet #got some new procreate brushes and this happened

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night-unfurls-its-splendour · 4 years ago

Text

The Critique of Manners: Part III

~Or~

A Somewhat Indecisive Review of “Emma” (Miramax, 1996)

I have a feeling this review is gonna be a little harder for me to write. Everyone knows that recaps and reviews are most entertaining when the writer has an intense dislike (or intense feeling of any kind) for the drama they’re reviewing. It falls to other writers to pan or praise this film as they will, but I simply don’t have many particularly strong feelings about it at all. I have neither that repulsed dislike for this movie such as I did for Emma 1997, nor that disappointed frustration as for certain aspects of Emma. 2020, but neither do I have a deep, profound love and appreciation for it as I do for Emma 2009.

Written and Directed by American Screenwriter, director and actor, Douglas McGrath, Emma (1996) is rather what one expects it to be: a 90’s romance film. Perhaps it’s because I had expectations due to the era in which it was made, but I think I have a tendency to excuse some of the problems with this film. There are many unnecessary additions (for comedy’s sake usually and often quite cringe-y) and one definitely can’t claim that the dialogue hasn’t been tampered with. I don’t normally side with the “I do so miss Austen’s biting wit” crowd but, by ‘eck I felt it this time. That’s because Austen’s Biting Wit™ just doesn’t suit a fluffy 90’s chick flick (which this film is in a way that other big screen Austen adaptations of the time just aren’t – and I think approaching this film from the 90’s chick flick perspective is probably the best way to digest it.) This version, more than any other (except perhaps 2009) brings the concept of Emma-as-Matchmaker to the fore with a particular emphasis precisely because it’s a concept that fits well with the rom-com style of filmmaking used here.

The bones of this review, like my review for the ITV version, were written six years ago following my initial viewing only a select number of portions survive from that review (which is still on IMDb).

As with all my reviews I'll be comparing the script, characterizations and plot to the book and commenting on the authenticity and attractiveness of the costumes, and suitability of the houses and sets.

Let’s dive in.

Cast & Characterization

Emma is arguably the easiest of Austen’s works to read because of Emma’s generally good (if condescending and overly self-confident) character, and Mr. Knightley’s sober, mature but exceedingly pleasant manner. I had my doubts about Gwyneth Paltrow playing an Austen heroine, but I at least had faith in Jeremy Northam’s ability to portray the mature Mr. Knightly. My expectations were not entirely disappointed in either case.

My prevailing feeling about this film is that it’s not so much set in Jane Austen’s Regency England, but in an American fantasy of what Regency England was like. Perhaps the biggest factor that reinforces this impression is (of course) the casting choice for our leading lady, Gwyneth Paltrow.

Freckled, ruddy and thin as a twig, Gwyenth didn’t quite, to my mind, fit the physical description of Emma, who is supposed to be “The picture of health” according to Mrs. Weston. Add to this the Regency beauty ideal of a soft and shapely figure with regular features. Fair hair was generally preferred (and I have always imagined Emma as blond, although I’m given to understand that Austen’s idea of pretty generally favored dark hair), so I can’t fault Gwynnie there. What I can fault though is her so-so British accent.

I recently learned that the reason McGrath thought Paltrow would be a good choice was because she’s the only Texan he’d ever met who’d managed to entirely throw off her native accent; I guess he decided that if she could do that she could do any accent work? I guess? Seems questionable to me.

You know Joely Richardson was considered for this part? Gorgeous, refined (British) GODDESS Joely Richardson was passed over because Gwyenth managed to shake an embarrassing accent.

I hate American directors.

I’m not sure if it’s just part of the accent, or her attempt to sound upper class, but on this most recent re-watch it hit me for the first time how very nasal many of her line deliveries are. She also has this problem with looking (and sounding) sort of vapid and… just what is happening here?

Is she having a stroke at the end there?

A bigger problem than Emma’s casting, however, is her characterization.

Part of the above mentioned script tampering is in lockstep with some of the issues with Emma’s characterization here. Her very teenager-esque swings from vowing to never make another match again to immediately trying to think of another guy to set Harriet up with, and her getting carried away in potential scenarios “But if he seems sad I shall know that John has advised him not to marry Harriet! I love John! Or he may seem sad because he fears telling me he will marry my friend. How could John let him do that? I hate John!” (Especially when you never even really get to meet John Knightley in this version? Ugh, pass me with this shit) is so bizarrely childish it’s a little hard to stomach. She spends the movie going back and forth between mature and manipulative to childish and naïve and it just… doesn’t work for me. Emma can be all of these things but the transition from one extreme to another here seems a bit disjointed to me.

Knightley was a bit of a disappointment to me in this version. That’s not Jeremy Northam’s fault because I can’t think of a better choice they could have made. McGrath showed much better judgment with his choice for Mr. Knightley than he did with Emma.

My biggest problem with this interpretation was how laid back he was when he was supposed to chastising Emma. Their quarrels became more like mere disagreements so the proposal line of lecturing her and her bearing it as no other woman would have isn’t entirely earned. Even in the big scene at Box Hill where Knightley is really supposed to lay into Emma, he starts off pretty solidly, but by the end so doe-eyed and apologetic it fails to deliver the sting of rebuke that is Emma’s biggest learning moment in the story. Perhaps they were trying to go for a more disappointed feel (the kind that makes you feel worse than being shouted at because you really respect the person you let down) but it just didn’t come through for me.

Also of note is the fact that, (I assume) because John Knightley isn’t really allowed time to be a character in this film, McGrath took some of John’s introverted tendencies and transplanted them into his more convivial older brother (“I just want to stay home, where it’s cozy.” – I mean I feel that, but this isn’t something George Knightley would say.)

Onto the less central characters

I question also the choice of Toni Colette for Harriet Smith. I mean I actually liked her performance more on this watch than previously but I just don’t think she’s pretty enough for Harriet, and she looks a bit clumsy (though that might have more to do with her costumes.)

I also noted that McGrath bumps Harriet’s comprehension skills up just a scooch. Emma never has to explain the “Courtship” riddle to her, Harriet figures it out on her own after a while, while she never manages to in the book.

Now we come to the crux of Jane Fairfax, played by Polly Walker. I don’t care for this choice. My issue is the simple fact that she just isn’t believable to me as a demure, wronged character like Jane Fairfax. Seriously she looks like she would sooner throw Frank across the room than take his cruel teasing, and not in the subtle way that Olivia Williams managed to. They never even utilized her by including some of Jane’s more pointed returns to Frank’s jabs, which they even managed to squeeze into the massively cut down TV movie.

Speaking of Frank; Ewan McGregor, though generally delightful, was so under-used. Frank and Jane’s plotline always kind of gets shafted in Theatrical release adaptations of this story. It’s not as bad here as it is in say, the 2020 adaptation (they were in that version so little I actually forgot what their actors looked like), but it’s still pretty stunted.

I find it interesting that Ewan McGregor himself thinks his performance in this movie isn’t good; and I’ll agree it’s not his best (certainly it’s no Obi-wan Kenobi) but I thought he did a pretty good job with obviously unfamiliar material

Also if the Davies screenplay of ’97 made Frank’s character too caddish, I think this version didn’t make him caddish enough. I mean he’s hardly around enough to really develop his flirtation with Emma, and they merged Strawberry Picking and Box Hill into one sequence so we never see Frank’s ill humors. I can perhaps excuse this, since it seems like a nuanced story really wasn’t what McGrath was going for here, I think. This is a lite version of the story; schmaltzy fluff for teenage girls’ movie nights. Frank’s ill humors wouldn’t really have fit the tone of this version at all.

Interestingly enough, though it’s taken me a long time to make this decision, I think Alan Cumming might be the definitive Elton? He’s the only one who doesn’t immediately read as a slime ball from the get go. I mean he’s got all the warning signs that Austen wrote into him, but no more than that. He’s not slinking about greasily or obviously pandering (at first), so Emma’s uneasy realization of what’s really happening here isn’t a hundred miles behind the viewer’s (maybe just fifty).

There are as many Mrs. Eltons out there as there are adaptations of this story, and they’re all pretty great (funky accents aside), but other than the 1997 take, this one might be the least great to me. She’s not nearly pushy enough, because Mrs. Elton would never let Emma prompt the conversation when she could do it herself.

Also, I think McGrath misunderstands Mrs. Elton’s brand of New Money vulgarity. He has her talking with her mouthful, clanking her utensils on her plate as she eats, putting biscuits which she’s bitten into back onto communal plates, which I think even Mrs. Elton would know not to do. Table manners are pretty basic; the couth that Mrs. Elton lacks is of a more nuanced social kind – for instance, what is and isn’t considered gauche to talk about (like how big one’s brother in law’s house is or how many horses he keeps.)

(A sudden thought has just occurred to me: is Mrs. Elton just a more mean-spirited Hyacinth Bucket from Keeping Up Appearances? “It’s meh sister, Mrs. Suckling! That’s right, the one with an estate in Warwickshire and the two barouche landaus!”)

Sophie Thompson’s Miss Bates is chatty and one of better takes on the character, but lack of necessary background hinders her impact on Emma’s story. The comedy in her scenes is some of the best and actually made me laugh, although I think she was just way too giggly.

Miss Bates’s mother, Mrs. Bates, is played by Sophie Thompson’s real-life mother Phyllida Law in a completely coincidental quirk of casting. (I noted in this film how very much Emma Thompson, Sophie’s older sister looks like their mother.)

My only other serious issue with characterization in this adaptation is the representation of Mr. Woodhouse. He is somehow simultaneously more cheery and more disagreeable than he is in the book. His chiding about the cake at the Weston’s wedding seems more like a scolding rather than an anxious admonishment. In one of the first scenes, during Mr. Woodhouse’s “Poor Miss Taylor” speech, he says he cannot understand why she would want to give up her comfortable life with himself and Emma, to have “mewling children who bring the threat of disease every time they enter or leave the house,” and he says this IN FRONT OF ONE OF HIS TWO DAUGHTERS.

Of course in the book, Mr. Woodhouse does lament Miss Taylor marrying, leaving and even having children – but this is all in the context of the danger childbirth presents to Miss Taylor (And the fact that he can’t stand losing a companion). These are his complaints – not the children themselves. In addition, his elder daughter has quite a fine number of children, all of them very young, of whom Mr. Woodhouse is very fond. He’s a character that needs to be carefully handled because, much like his daughter, it’s very easy for him to become unlikeable.

For the rest of the time, though, he just sort of cheerily laughs and is very at ease, when Mr. Woodhouse, as a chronic hypochondriac should be made anxious by just about everything.

Sets & Surroundings

One thing I find interesting about this adaptation is that the houses they chose to use are all of a very neo-classical Palladian style, which I believe (given her disdain for the contemporary trend of knocking down England’s great houses just to rebuild them in a more fashionable style) Austen may have disliked to some degree.

One such house is Came House in Dorset, which was used as the Woodhouse’s estate, Hartfield. Now Hartfield is, I think, described as a well-built modern house so this could be pretty accurate (although Modern could refer to the red bring, boxy style of Georgian architecture, such as the houses used in the 1997, 2009 and 1972 versions.)

Another, Claydon House in Buckinghamshire played the role of Donwell Abbey. I think this might be the worst exterior ever used for Donwell, from a book accuracy perspective. Utterly Georgian, with its’ square façade, Claydon house sort of directly contradicts Austen description of being “Larger than Hartfield, and totally unlike it, covering a good deal of ground, rambling and irregular…” not only is the architecture totally wrong, so is its’ situation, in Georgian fashion, perched on a hill, when Donwell (a very old building) is supposed to be “Low and sheltered”.

Mapperton House is maybe the grandest house yet used for Mr. Weston’s Randalls (I’ve already covered in my review of Emma (2020) why this is a problem – although in this version, as in the 1997 adaptation, there’s no full panic over the snow, so this is less of a problem, but a house like this is still too grand for the reasonably sized Randalls of the book), but it fits the usual 15th-16th century house type that always seems to be used for Randalls.

A myriad of other great houses were used for interiors, however other than Crichel House (Dorset), which was used for Donwell’s interiors, I can’t find information on which ones where used for what. They include Breakspear House (Harefield), Coker Court (Somerset), Stafford House (Staffordshire) and Syon House & Park (Middlesex).

I really appreciate the interiors which were all very colorful and even included doors and molding painted the same color as the walls which is a very Georgian decorating convention, although it looks odd to the modern viewer.

Costumes & Hair

As a rule, the costumes (Created by Ruth Myers) in this movie are pretty damn good, composition wise, but the arrangement leaves a lot to be desired. Myers talked extensively of wanting the costumes to be colorful and bright like the water colors of the time, which she achieved brilliantly. What I find funny is that she talked about using color as if it would be controversial from a historical accuracy point of view, which couldn’t be further from the truth.

The evening wear is generally excellent

My only question around evening wear here is… what’s up with the waistline on Harriet’s ball gown? Why is it going up in the middle? Toni Collette (who actually gained weight for the role, since Harriet was described as “Reubenesque”) verged on looking a little dumpy throughout the film and awkwardly bumping up her waistline in the middle really didn’t help.

I’m pleased to report that is is the one version where Miss Bates’s evening-wear is allowed to look like evening wear. Even Maiden Aunts wore shorter sleeves and lower necklines at dinner or balls. They fussed her up with some lace gloves and frilly fichus but it follows the conventions of the time. I appreciate that immensely, though I have the sneaking suspicion that it’s because of Sophie Thompson’s age.

At 37 Thompson was an unconventionally young choice for Miss Bates, a character who previously had only been cast as older than 50 (Prunella Scales, who would play the role later in 1996, was 64). Indeed, Douglas McGrath almost passed Thompson over for the role on account of her age, but reconsidered after seeing her in spectacles. It seems possible to me that since Thompson was considered young they dressed her “young” as well.

The daywear is where the costumes start to really fall apart. There are a lot of looks here worn in the day that are VERY not day/outerwear appropriate, especially on Emma, most especially the yellow dress she’s wearing while driving that carriage (which, btw is inappropriate on a whole OTHER level). Can we just talk aboutt he cognative dissonance of bothering to put a bonnet on her when her arms and boobs are just hanging out like that? Like, it would almost have been less egregious to just leave the bonnet where it was.

But then there are a lot of Emma’s day-wear looks that are perfectly suitable and appropriate. What I find ironic about that is that most of the short-sleeved, low-necked “Evening-gowns as day-wear” looks are worn OUTSIDE in the sun and most of the long-sleeved, sun protecting, day-wear appropriate looks are worn INSIDE. She’s also got a profusion of dangling curls in day-time settings that are also more evening-wear appropriate (to match the dresses, perhaps?)

I’m also pleased to report that even in day-wear Miss Bates gets a break from brown in this version. Her clothes are nice, but not fancy like Miranda Hart’s in Emma. 2020, and I like to think that nice thick shawl with lace overlay is the one mentioned in the book that Jane’s friend Mrs. Dixon sent along home with her for her aunt.

My only problem with Mrs. Elton’s kit is that it’s all perfectly nice, but none of it is overly-nice. There’s no extra trim, no unnecessary lace, not even any bold colors. I hope Myers and McGrath didn’t take Mrs. Elton’s line in the book about her fear of being over-trimmed seriously.

Let’s talk outerwear. There’s a lot of going into town with JUST a shawl on in this movie (usually over short sleeves), and I’m sorry but I don’t think that’s how outer-wear worked in this time period. A shawl is good enough when you’re taking a turn in the garden but not for going out in public into town, unless maybe you’re wearing long sleeves, or perhaps paired with a SPENCER.

Never mind Mrs. Elton’s line about a shocking lack of satin at the end of the movie, I’m more concerned about the shocking lack of spencers. There are precisely three in this film. I counted (and the sleeves on Emma’s look like maybe they’re too long for her?) Mrs. Elton sports the only redingote in the film.

Jane Fairfax is, as always, in her classic Jane Fairfax Blue™,

although she has some nice white gowns at some points too.

Now, onto

Definitely a bit more colorful than the 97 adaptation. Mr. Knightley benefits most from the addition of colors other than green. He’s even got some smashing waistcoats and a very nice blue evening coat (I couldn’t get very good shots of them though). The problem is; those trousers? NOT. TIGHT. ENOUGH.

Also… you all see it, right? I circled it in red so you should. Yeah. Knightley is dancing in boots. WTF RUTH? Please! You’re better than this! Who dances in Prussians like that? I ask you! (Frank also wears boots to the Cole’s dinner party so that’s two strikes.)

I’m not sold on Frank’s looks. His day-wear is a bit sedate for such a confirmed dandy (I believe he’s called a “coxcombe” in the book?) and his evening wear… well he apparently only has the one look.

And speaking of Frank’s look in this film, I’d like to know at whose doorstep I should lay the blame for what Ewan McGregor himself has called “The Worst Wig Ever”; and why the hair designer in charge decided to model Frank’s aesthetic on a theme of “Chucky meets the Mad Hatter”.

This hairstyle not only looks dreadful, it’s not at all fashionable or authentic to this time period! Fashionable mens’ hair styles at this point were all relatively short. A Beau Brummel coiffeur, or a short Roman style, or a fashionable head of curls like Mr. Elton’s! Not this farmer chic. Robert Martin’s hair is more fashionable than Frank’s!

The tune they chose for Emma and Knightley’s dance is a baroque melody (so a hundred or so years out of fashion) called “Mr. Beveridge’s Maggot” and as is pointed out in the video linked above, and is the same tune and dance used for Lizzie and Darcy’s big dance in Pride and Prejudice (1995).

I get why it was used in P&P because, slow, stately baroque tunes are often used as on-screen short hand for snobbish character like Mr. Darcy. It’s not super intense either, like the baroque tune used in P&P 05, which was chosen for more romantic effect. So why use this kind of “stuck up” tune for what should be a romantic dance? Maybe because it was used in the 95 P&P which became, almost instantly, one of the most popular Austen adaptations?

Quick note on the dancing and music in this movie. I’m not an expert on English Country dance (I’ll outsource that by giving you the usual link to Tea with Cassiane’s analysis on YouTube) but I’ll add my two cents - I know Cassiane gave this a pretty favorable three full dance slippers but I think the way all of the actors and dancers move looks very poorly rehearsed and kind of sloppy. I think everyone just spread out way too much.

Douglas McGrath’s Script

I have to say one of the things this film did very well and brought to the forefront is how insular Emma’s life is. The opening credit sequence brings this to our attention right away by showing a spinning globe which, once it slows down is shown to be, literally, Emma’s whole tiny world. Hartfield, Donwell, Randalls and Highbury. That’s it. It’s perhaps not a very subtle device, but it does get the job done and very succinctly too.

I would now like to talk about my issues with the script of this movie; I have some problems with it. Very different problems than it’s 1996 counterpart though.

First let’s go over the comedic device that jumped out to me most in this movie: the awkward pause.

I think it’s only used twice but they both bothered me.

First there’s the pauses while Emma and Mrs. Weston grill Knightley on whether he considers Jane Fairfax romantically. It’s all written as very “OoOoOooo” with Knightley answering their interrogations and then sitting between them awkwardly as they stare him down as, none of his answers giving either Emma or Mrs. Weston satisfaction. This is one of the most teen rom-com moments of the film to me.

Next there’s all the quiet stretches while Emma and Mrs. Elton have tea at Hartfield. I don’t like the use of awkward pauses in this case because (as I mentioned in Mrs. Elton’s characterization section) it’s so ludicrous to me that there are pauses in this conversation at all. Surely the point of Mrs. Elton is that she loves to hear herself talk and her conceited obsession with the idea that everyone around her must only benefit from hearing her opinions. There should be no conceivable reason why Emma should have to prompt conversation like she does in McGrath’s version of this scene, except to derail Mrs. Elton’s constant self-important yammering.

Watching it this time around I found myself wondering exactly what McGrath wanted to do with this film. I mean I’ve been attempting to decipher exactly whether the changes made were conscious and based on artistic vision, or whether they were changed because the source material just flew over McGrath’s Hollywood Director head.

I mean he gets the important plot points across, but there were other scenes that I had issues with: namely, the Archery scene. This is a pretty intense part of the book because Mr. Knightly goes from astonished, to indignant, to truly vexed with Emma in a short period of time. But this scene in the movie is very casual. The part where Emma’s arrow goes wide and into the general direction of Knightley’s dogs, and he takes an opportunity to make a quip and says “try not to kill my dogs” particularly annoyed me. My issue is that this totally ruins the tension of the scene; and why are Knightley’s dogs sitting BEHIND THE TARGETS ANYWAY? Knightley is a sensible man, and one who knows better than to let his dogs rest in a place where stray arrows could hit them!

The dialouge is very jarring because it flips back and forth beetween being alright, and period appropriate and then it will just spring a very modern turn of phrase and pull you completely out of the setting. I know this is something that’s been brought up with the 2009 version as well but maybe it’s because the actors in that version have (in my opinion) better chemistry that it simply doesn't stick out to me as much.

The comedy in general in this movie just makes me cringe a lot of the time (Sophie Thompson’s “oh sorry, napkin” bit notwithstanding). Like the soup thing when Emma and Harriet meet Mr. Elton after visiting the poor, and the random kid that gets tossed into this scene with Emma… just doesn’t work for me.

Wikipedia describes McGrath’s tweaks on Emma and Knightley’s banter (which really weren’t changed that much, textually) as “Enlivened” to make the basis of their attraction more apparent, which… I’m sorry but nothing about the exisiting banter isn’t lively if delivered in a lively manner. And I wouldn’t exactly call Gywneth’s performance lively, because she has to concentrate to keep that accent up.

I mentioned already that what McGrath essentially did with Emma was take Austen’s story, and remove the nuance (Such as lightening Frank’s infractions in his relationship with Jane and, while not totally contradicting, but also not highlighting the economic commentary of the story that is thematic in Austen’s novel) in order to make a straight up 90’s comedic romance film (Which, if you doubt this, look no further than Rachel Portman’s Oscar Winning but very dated score).

My Question is why? Why bother when the SAME STORY had been adapted into a HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL, modernized rom-com THE PREVIOUS YEAR, which actually, even while being set in the 90’s, did the story greater justice, with far more insight and quality?

Emma (1996) was always going to be over-shadowed by Clueless. At the end of the day this whole movie was kind of a futile effort because despite excellent production quality, the actual contents are watered down and, in my own opinion, pretty roundly mediocre.

Final Thoughts

When I first watched both of these versions I came at it from a very one-or-the-other perspective. I forgave McGrath’s film because it was light and colorful and I’d heard Davies’ version praised so highly at that time as the only faithful, definitive version (only to be let down by it in almost every possible way). But coming right down to it now, it’s hard for me to really excuse McGrath’s effort because a version of Emma that doesn’t take itself seriously enough is almost as bad as a version that takes itself too seriously.

It never fails to jump out at me how diametrically opposed these interpretations are, from the characterization right down to the tone and lighting.

McGrath’s Emma is light in every sense of the word, where Davies’ is dark and ponderous. McGrath’s Knightley is laid back where Davies’ is aggressive and ferocious. Frank, in McGrath’s version, is let off easy by the narrative playing down his moodiness, while in Davies there’s an overshadowing dark-cloud of off-putting caddishness.

Ribbon Rating: Tolerable (58 Ribbons)

The more I watch the 1996 adaptations of Emma (invariably back-to-back) the more firmly I am convinced that Andrew Davies’ made for TV film was (in some ways) a direct response to McGrath’s motion picture.

Tone: 7

Casting: 7

Acting: 5

Scripting: 5

Pacing: 4

Cinematography: 4

Setting: 5

Costumes: 6

Music: 5

Book Accuracy: 6

#jane austen #jane austen emma #regency #period drama #costume drama #classic literature #emma 1996

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x0401x · 4 years ago

Text

Jeweler Richard Cobalt Short Story

The Checkered Half of Edward Baxter’s Life

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He met him for the first time when attending a boarding school in Switzerland.

He had no plans for homecoming even as summer vacation came about. It was better to stay in Switzerland as things were noisy at home, his father had told him on the phone, and he was not a fourteen-year-old innocent enough not to catch onto the meaning of “I’ll have to look after you if you come back and this would reduce the time I have for my research” that lay underneath.

There was no helping it, so he secluded himself in the library. However, the library was full of children like him, with no place to return to. He gradually started feeling depressed.

Switzerland, which Queen Elizabeth also loved, had many picturesque tourist attractions. There was no lack of places to have a fun time from dawn to dusk and a pipe organ concert was being held at a church in town, which was quite close to the school, so he imprudently thought that it would be safe even at night.

Since he had an unnecessarily exemplary daily conduct, it was easy to earn permission for exiting the campus. The question of where he was going was disregarded, and it was hard for him when a nuance drifted about, saying that he should go play around a little, if anything. He already knew by then that he was most likely a child who did not specialize much at behaving like a child.

The summer city was brimming with sightseers. Made of brown bricks, the cityscape that looked like those from fairy tales was decorated everywhere with pink and white potted flowers. The city seemed to have many watersides, with restaurants lined up by the river shores, a big black dog that was probably someone’s pet dragging its leash around and waggling, looking like it wanted him to play with it. Just when he thought of playing a little, its owner apparently called for it from afar, so the dog turned its body around and rushed away.

The city was fun at night. Being able to get the feeling that he was with someone even without being accompanied was just what he needed.

He only realized that he was lost long after he had started losing his way. He was certain there was a church in that area where a concert was taking place, but while roaming around, what came into his field of vision was nothing but apartment complexes, garbage dumps and tunnels with no signs of life. He had apparently entered a residential area where the public order was not too good, but did not know how to get out. As he decided to just go back the way he had come from, there were people standing behind him once he turned on his heels.

“Yo.”

He was able to tell right away that they were around seventeen to eighteen years old because the boys were wearing parkas and baseball caps. With such looks that one would not see so often in a waterside of bustling terrace cafés, they spoke while chewing gums. Just as an earl would sometimes do, he pretended not to have heard them.

“Shortie, what’cha doin’ out here? Where yer papa and mama?”

“They not around? You alone?”

“Then don’tcha have a wallet with ya?”

“You’re as pretty as a doll, huh. Can’t talk?”

“Young Master, could you please spare us a blessing?”

Cold sweat beaded on his back as he wondered what would happen if he refused. He had begun having boxing lessons, but the classes were strictly separated by age and body weight, so he could not think of it as training for fighting opponents who were clearly older than him.

Just when unpleasant memories started whirling in his head as he pondered what he should do, what he had to do, what he was supposed to do to cut his way through a time like this all by himself, someone most certainly grabbed his arm from the side.

“Hey, Edward! Edward, isn’t that you?”

For a second, he did not know who the owner of that familiar voice was.

Brownish blond hair and light blue eyes, a knit vest and black slacks. Shiny leather shoes and an armor-like smile.

“Je... Jay!”

“Yeah, yeah. It’s me, Jay. I’m happy you remembered.”

The one who went around the boy from behind and hugged him from the shoulder was his cousin, Jeffrey, who was two years older than him. Even as the boy stared at him with eyes that asked why he was in a place like this and how he had gotten here, Jeffrey maintained the same-old theatrical face that he pulled off so well and hid behind his back the one who had the status of a younger brother to him.

“What’re you doing in this place? You’ll be late for the meeting if you don’t hurry. Won’t your uncle be mad if you make him wait any longer? He’s a really scary person.”

“I-I’m sorry. I will be going right away.”

“That’s it, so bye!”

Tightly hugging the shoulder of the one that he was supposed to protect, Jeffrey left the scene. Perhaps due to him handling the matter with such a lighthearted and loud voice, there were no signs of the two chasing after them.

“That was terrifying.”

“We’re leaving this place.”

“All right.”

Jeffrey walked in long strides from the semi-darkness where a fishy smell drifted about to the main street lined with the glow of light poles. The boy walked keeping his body close to Jeffrey’s, as it did not seem like the latter intended to let go of the shoulder that he was firmly holding onto otherwise.

“Honestly, good thing I was around.”

“How...?”

“‘How’, you ask? I’m your super hero, so isn’t it obvious that I’d rush to you when you’re in trouble?”

“Not that; what is the truth?”

“I meant it as the truth, though... Kidding. It was just a coincidence. If I’m not wrong, today’s the day that summer vacation started for you, right? My school was a bit faster to give us leisure time, so I planned to ambush you and make a surprise. But when I visited your school, they said you’d gone out all by yourself, so I was the surprised one,” the older cousin said cheerfully.

He was a man with a big heart, the kind that constantly changed his voice tone and facial expression as he spoke, who was always smiling and accepted first-thing the evaluation that he was charismatic yet shady. Moreover, he continuously took his little brother, who had been born to free-spirited parents and was younger than him, under his feathers. For the boy, his existence was much more than that of an older brother.

At the words “I’m the only one here”, the boy realized that he was relieved. The earl and the even older cousin from whom he would have to conceal this were not there.

“You okay?”

“Yes, but the earl and Brother Henry are not here.”

“Father was in Cannes, I guess. Henry is following him to make appearances. Looks like it’s a busy season for the high society.”

“How awful.”

“I wonder if they’re getting caught up with playing around. Aah, but Henry is a serious guy. Piano practice might be more fun to him than a casino.”

“I think I understand how he feels.”

“That’s right. Let’s go to Cannes with him someday too. Let’s live it up in a casino or something.”

“If I become penniless from buying too many books by then, what will we do?”

“Leave it to me. I might be like this, but I’m hoping to enter the financial business. I’ll lend you as much money as you want. With damn high interest.”

“You little—”

They shoved each other around as if to hug one another, and by the time they had all but arrived at the main street, filled as it was with human presence, the boy finally released a sigh. That was dreadful. He was not very used to being threatened. At school, he had already grown somewhat used to having his appearance mocked or people using the words “I’ll throw the trash away for you” as an excuse to touch his body, and had come up with countermeasures to some extent, but troubles outside the school were always beyond hypothesis.

As he gave an abrupt shudder upon recalling being sandwiched from front and back by two older boys, something landed on top of his head with a tap. It was Jeffrey’s hand.

Patting his golden-haired head in light rolls with the palm of his hand, the boy who was two years older grinned at him. “Well, first things first, you should start with not getting lost.”

“You were watching me?”

“I wasn’t. I ran around here and there because of that. It had me out of breath, but I was a prize-worthy elite actor for not letting it show, huh? I want a trophy.”

“Then how did you know I was lost?”

“You’re not the kind of kid who’d go to a place like that on purpose, Ricky.”

At that moment, the boy had the sudden realization that his cousin was a child merely two years above him, and so he was supposed to be protected, not to be protecting someone else. Fearing kidnappings, everyone in the earl’s estate had an enormous amount of money on insurance payouts. The fact that he would rather be someone who had next to no worries in going outside of school than have the presence of the bodyguards who would be tagging along with him in normal circumstances made the boy shiver again.

“Hum... Jeff, is everything all right for you? My apologies for that. Your guards—”

“You’re still on about that? Y’know, you could just leave it as ‘that was terrifying’. I lost my guards. I mean, it’s no fun with them. I think I’ll get a call from Father lecturing me again, but isn’t it kinda disturbing to have two old men in suits clinging to my back even when I go see my dear little brother’s face?”

He had probably taken that measure due to foreseeing that the bodyguards would scary his cousin, the boy realized. Before he sank into an apologetic sea once more, Jeffrey found a random shop at the side of the road and took a seat in the quiet interior. He ordered two lemonades. As he was striking a lighthearted talk about how they were perfect for Switzerland in the summer...

“Hum.”

“What?”

“Who was that Edward from just now?”

“Uh? Aah, no one. I let it out of my mouth without much thought.”

Jeffrey did not say, “It’s because they might memorize your name if I were so stupidly honest to call you Richard”. His consideration from not wanting to say it and expressly scare his cousin, as well as his carefreeness of not deeming it necessary to be said, were comfortable for the boy.

Edward, Edward, he repeated in his heart the unfamiliar name, and after drinking just a little bit of the lemonade, the boy whispered intermittently, “It’d be good if you had a name like that too.”

“Uh?”

As he said, “Like Edward”, Jeffrey laughed.

“Isn’t that ‘Jay’?”

“That was just because I didn’t manage to say ‘Jeffrey’...”

“Hmm,” Jeffrey interjected with an indifferent attitude, sucking onto the straw of his lemonade.

Aah, it’s the face of someone who’s planning something fun, the boy noted, and as he laughed a little, his older cousin showed a smile three times happier than that.

“Then give me one.”

“Uh?”

“You can give me a name like that too. Let’s make them secret names between us.”

“For Brother Henry too?”

“Keep it a secret from Henry.”

The smile of his cousin, who laughed without any maliciousness, was as sweet as nectar. The boy displayed a facial expression of sincere reassurance, then began turning over the name dictionary inside his head with “not this, not that either”. No matter what, his favorite names either were related to individuals from classic literature or leaned towards Japanese people, but none of them suited Jeffrey’s face.

The boy made up his mind about the fact that a basic name would be best and raised his head, peeking at his cousin’s eyes. “James.”

“‘James’?”

“James.”

“Huhu, roger that, Edward. I’m James, yeah? Aah, what’s my family name? Anything but ‘Bones’, ‘kay? I don’t like martini that much.”

“Jeff, you already drink?”

“We’re talking about James now and Jeff has nothing to do with it.”

While he jokingly raised the lemonade’s straw, spinning it in twirls like a magic wand, the boy observed him as if looking at a gemstone that emanated a dazzling shine. He was a wonderful person who could do anything and who showed concern for the boy – more than that, the boy considered him someone special and could not come home to anyone else in the world, no matter where he searched. He was a treasure that the boy most definitely could not exchange for anything, not even if an ancient king came up to him with an elephant loaded to the brim with pearls, rubies and emeralds on its back, and whenever the boy was in bad health, he would always think that, if they were ever pulled apart to places where they could never see each other again, he would cry profusely.

He was the one who promptly contacted the boy whenever anything happened in general, driving away the latter’s nightmares, so the honor of granting a name to someone like that gradual and silently filled the boy’s heart, turned into a word and overflowed, “Ya’aburnee.”

“Hm?”

As Jeffrey had apparently not heard it well, the boy repeated the word for him, “Ya’aburnee. The word is cut between the ‘ya’ and the ‘aburnee’. The accent is on the first vowel.”

“‘Ya’aburnee’, huh? It’s pretty yet has a mysterious ring to it.”

“It is Arabic.”

“Learned a new word again, huh, you damn prodigy?”

“I am no prodigy.”

“I meant an ‘effort prodigy’. ‘Cause you’re a hardworker. Okay, my secret name is James Ya’aburnee. Edward, what about you?”

“Uh?”

“What’s Edward’s family name?”

Taken aback, the boy hung his head after a moment of indecision, looking depressed. When Jeffrey asked what happened, the boy timidly raised his face. “Hum... The two are real brothers, so they have the same family name.”

As he said so with a voice that sounded like it was fading, Jeffrey’s eyes widened just slightly, and after nodding with a “hun-hun”, he grinned. That smile of Jeffrey’s was even now said to be difficult for his parents to distinguish whether it was fake or not, but the boy was able to tell the difference. If a dimple appeared on his left cheek, it was not a fake smile. Jeffrey himself had told him that.

There was a dimple on his elder cousin’s left cheek.

“Heeh~! That so?”

“It is so.”

“Then James and Edward are really just like us.”

“Uh?”

“I mean, we’re real brothers, right? That’s how I think.”

As Jeffrey ill-manneredly drank the remaining part of his lemonade in slurps, the clerk made a disgusted face at him. The headline on the magazine that she had in hands read, “How to Date Rich Men”, and so the boy felt like saying something rude to her, such as, “I think the person you just glared at is probably richer than the ones in that magazine”. It felt like he could do anything that the boy usually was unable to. He was cheerful, bright and warm at heart.

As he sat quietly without saying anything, Jeffrey smiled subtly and gently rested his hand on the boy’s golden-haired head. “Wanna go back to school? Or not?”

“I want to be together for a bit longer.”

“Okay. Then let’s do that.”

Holding hands with his “little brother” of two years bellow him, Jeffrey escorted him to a hotel near his dormitory, converting into a parent and calling the boy’s school to request permission for him to spend the night out, and after checking into one of those cheap inns that was would be crammed with skiers in the winter, the two immersed themselves in conversation on their bed the all night long.

Jeffrey talked about their homes and families. About his friends. About financing, which he was studying. About drama theory. About how he felt like throwing up from agony when preparing for an assignment where he completely slipped into the role of a prime minister who had only managed to rescue 150 civilians alive out of 300 that had been taken hostage by terrorists. About how he cracked up when he was told, “Everyone will stop trusting you” after he showed off too much the chameleon acting that he had mastered in drama class.

Jeffrey’s talks were not tiring – all topics were interesting, adding gemstones of lustrous gleam to the boy’s heart one after another. In return, the boy talked about the satisfying life he led in at the Swiss lodging house. About the bright sunlight, the climate that was warmer than England’s, the ever-white snowy peaks overlooked in the distance, the lively teachers who were like sportsmen. About how he not have many friends, but believed that it was due to him not conducting himself like a child, so there was no helping it, and how he would not mind it much if he did not have anyone, as long as he had Jeffrey.

As he was sprawled on the bed while resting his cheek on one hand, Jeffrey tipped Richard’s head back down. “You shouldn’t please me so much. Or else we won’t be able to stay away from each other.”

“What is so bad about that?”

“When you start hating me, I don’t want you to think, ‘I hate him but I can’t let go of him’.”

“I believe something like that will never happen. So that is okay.”

“There you go again saying something that makes me happy... Y’know, Ricky, people have this thing called a ‘rebellious phase’.”

“It seems I do not.”

“Plus, it’s pretty scary afterwards; I read a paper that said reactions also happen.”

“I do not have that, but thanks.”

After rubbing each other’s heads into a mess, they resumed the talk about Edward and James. Where the two of them lived, if their relationship was a favorable one, if they had any other acquaintances and what they usually did to pass the time. Dreams and jokes mixed up with the human drama built up amidst their sleepiness, and so they became yakuza, lived in Japan and fought over whether or not to put wasabi on sushi, but were the good-natured kind of duo that would always make up immediately. They did not endeavor illegal activities and instead were yakuza who respected the old-fashioned thinking of “humanity and justice”, of lending a helping hand to people in trouble, and did not bear tattoos as they were a little scary. Amongst the yakuza, there was a pledge called sworn siblinghood, but since they were blood-related siblings, so there was no need for such a thing.

By the time they had started to doze off, the boy woke up with a start. Jeffrey was not making a drowsy face. His bottomless eyes, which appeared to be looking into somewhere far away, even so maintained their focus immersed on Richard’s face.

“Hey, Ricky, what’s the continuation to that story?”

“Hueh?”

“What happens to Edward and James in the distant future?”

Amidst the sensation that he seemed to be airily drifting towards the world of dreams, the boy tilted his neck. He had no idea why Jeffrey was asking something so obvious. His mouth moved in a natural manner, “They continue getting along forever.”

“I see. Go rest already,” Jeffrey said, getting up from the single-person bed, giving him a pillow and putting a blanket over him, then tucked himself into his own bed and attempted to sleep.

He did try to fall into slumber, but upon noticing his small cousin staring at him with eyes that seemed to be imploring for something, he took his pillow and went back to the boy’s side. Like two hatchlings huddling their feathers onto each other, the two children slept while dreaming about the future.

The next morning, Jeffrey took a still sleepy-looking Richard back to school, scattering an amiable “I’m leaving him in your care” all over the place, shaking people’s hands here and there and returning to his angry-faced bodyguards’ side. Gossip ran about like gale amongst students with time to spare, saying that the second son of an earldom – a brilliant honors student even within a famous public school from England – had apparently come to see a sibling of his who was in this school, which became a rumor in the whole school at one point, but said rumor, like a mirage faintly surfacing over a lake in the summer, was gone before autumn came around.

“Let’s decide on your name.”

“Eh?”

“Calling you ‘Seigi’ would have a bad effect in a situation where there are only enemies. If I call you by a completely different name, there is the possibility that you would not be able to react, so I believe a name somewhat similar to your own is safer.”

“Then, ‘Seigi’, ‘Seigi’, ‘Seigi’... Make it ‘Seiji’.”

“Too close. Some people might mishear it as ‘Seigi’ instead. Think of a surname. I will call you by that.”

Richard had started saying odd things about perhaps having to throw fists at an accessories shop that was disseminating fake turquoises. For me to come up with a fake name. Indeed, revealing our true names even if by accident could be a dangerous situation.

I squeezed up a knowledge that I didn’t have, deep in thought. Something that sounded kind of similar to my real name. Yet was a different name. Hmm.

“‘Nakata’, ‘Nakata’, ‘Nakata’... ‘Yamada’, Yamada? No, ‘Tanaka’ is also... Ah~, I wonder which. Yamada or Tanaka?”

“Then let’s make it Yamada. Yamada Seiji-san. I will be counting on you. I am Edward Baxter.”

“Where’s ‘Richard’ as the base for that?”

“I will be in your care.”

“My pleasu~re.”

Wearing a red open-necked shirt that looked like it could show up in contests for rare clothing articles, I sat on the Jaguar’s passenger seat. However, in terms of outfit eccentricity, I didn’t feel like I could beat the man sitting next to me. White, white, white. It was thoroughly white from top to bottom, the hairstyle pulled all the way back. It was a bit of an underground person look.

“I’m checking just in case, but what kind of setting is this Edward Baxter-sensei from?”

“A messenger from the Great Universe who miraculously predicts fortunes and foresees the fate of gems.”

“Uh. Got it. I’ll do my best not to laugh.”

“Obviously. Laughing at a messenger of the Great Universe is insolence.”

“Hahaa~”

The Jaguar sped up like always. If this car had a voice, it felt like it would frantically cause a stir, asking, “Mister, aren’t you too different from usual?” but the Jaguar was reticent and loyal.

As the vehicle kept running, my nervousness increased a little. I wanted to say something, but Richard’s profile was rock-hard. It would feel awkward if I discussed about tea and snacks that had nothing to do with it here and now. But I wanted to talk. I was able to come up with just one thing when wondering what I should say.

“Is there... a family in the setting of that Baxter-sensei? Or does he not have any, since he’s a messenger of the Great Universe? Sorry. You didn’t think that far, did you?”

When I asked that, Richard briefly made a strange face. Unlike his usual refreshing smile, that expression could only be described as a “suggestive grin”, with a gaze that didn’t appear to be looking at me but at something in the distance.

Then he stated, “He has no relatives whosoever.”

“Roger that.”

And so, the two of us headed to the shop of shady history. Edward Baxter-shi, who claimed to have not a single relative, seemed to be making a just slightly sad-looking face within the glass of the windshield. However, Yamada Seiji courteously pretended that he was not at all seeing the weakness of a messenger of the Great Universe.

He had no idea what Nakata Seigi made of it, though.

#housekishou richard shi no nazo kantei #the case files of jeweler richard #jeweler richard #richard ranashinha de vulpian #nakata seigi #tsujimura nanako #jeffrey claremont #novel #web short stories #richard #WOW THIS HURT #THANKS I HATE IT #my translation

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suzdotranslation · 3 years ago

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[Interview TL] USHIROMUKI - Double Ishida Web Interview

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For those who were unaware, USHIROMUKI is a special theatrical reading event which features two familiar entertainers who shares the same name; Ishida Akira (The seiyuu and manzai actor respectively). This interview took place before the DVD release!

due to the naming similarity, spoken lines will be coded by their initials and some will be colored accordingly, see below for guide:

Akira (actor): AA -> orange color Akira (seiyuu): AS -> red color

Is this really a fan letter addressed to NONSTYLE? The lamenting of Ishida Akira

―To start this off, were you both aware of each other before this opportunity considering the name similarities?

AA: Actually I did know about him for quite a long time. There were times when I've been told something like "Hee~, so you're named Ishida Akira, how cheeky~". Though as soon as I wrote my name's kanji(明) he immediately said "Then, I guess you're forgiven".

AS: What do they mean by that (laughs).

AA: That person probably thought the name "Ishida Akira" would definitely refer to "that" Ishida(彰)-san. But I also thought to myself "What's so cheeky about it (Ishida Akira)!" (laughs). Also, it might be because my usual partner (Inoue Yuusuke) had "井上(Inoue)" in his name, we often got a fan letter addressed for NONSTYLE[1] but mistook our name as Ishida Akira and Inoue Kazuhiko-sama (laughs). *Inoue Kazuhiko (Hatake Kakashi in NARUTO, Nyanko-sensei in Natsume Yuujinchou, etc.) were often casted in the same series alongside Ishida Akira.* [1]: NONSTYLE is the name of Ishida/Inoue owarai duo

AS: Ahahaha (laughs).

AA: It was such a confusing moment that I responded with "Is this really written for us?" and laughed it off (laughs). But I'm actually happy when we're given an opportunity to talk about this (project). I immediately reply "I'll do it! I'll definitely do it!" as well.

―Akira-san looked like a person who would enjoy comedy-shows but generally speaking, how was your impression of Akira-san on TV screen?

AS: Ah, I thought about how hard-working this person must've been.

AA: I'm so embarrassed!

―What part makes you think he's a hard-working person?

AS: Isn't it awesome that he could spend a lot of time on-stage alone to simply do manzai(one-man act) practice.It made me think it would’ve been weird if someone like him didn't manage to get an award out of it, he definitely deserved it. That's why I thought the 2008 M-1 Grandprix results were really spot-on. Also, for some reason I felt somewhat happy when I heard his name being called in during the result's announcement. I’m somewhat surprised since it was the first time I found someone that shares a similar name as I do so I instantly thought "Such a me(Ishida Akira)-like name!".

―"USHIROMUKI" was chosen as the title based on both's common point from what I've heard. How did it lead to this decision?

AS: I remembered when before I entered the practice room, someone asked "What do you think about yourself?" to me. To be frank, I thought of myself as quite a timid person. I often hesitate on something even during crucial times, and I'd rather not try off new things. But when I called myself a "Negative thinker"-type quite shakily, Ishida-san surprisingly replied "I thought the same too". Although honestly, seeing the show title named like this got me thinking, "Is it really fine to have such a negative-sounding name for a show?" (laughs).

AA: I've been seeing people saying 'positive'-sounding stuff quite often recently and, it's not like I disliked it. When you say these positive things, it does make people want to do their best. But surely, there are those who would feel pressured to match these expectations no matter where they are. For example, I'm an extremely cautious type of person and on top of that, were also struggling while making my way here. That's why the title "USHIROMUKI" feels very personal to me as well.

―When talking about common points, being "not good around people" seems to be mentioned a lot here. Are there times during practices when any of you both felt something like "Ah... this person isn't good around people isn’t he..." toward each other?

AS: I do realize we didn't meet each other to eyes a lot... (laughs)

AA: Yeah we didn't do as much (laughs). Even during the closing party we only took a little peek.

AS: There was a scene on stage where we really had to meet eye-to-eye, it really made me feel anxious. Even if we've met and practiced together so many times, while managing to keep the story feeling in a nice mood, it always feels weird when we were told "keeping eye contact in this scene would be a good idea!" and such because whenever I started doing it I just... I just can't! (laughs).

AA: Maybe to the audiences, it feels like a 5-seconds scene but for us it really felt like an eternity. However as we both aren't good with people in general, we're slowly learning to get over it alright! We were able to enjoy the closing party's hot pot together in the end after all! ...although we still haven't met each other to eyes as always (laughs).

Which type of “Negative-minded”? Let's hear the opinion from both sides!

―Negative-minded people tend to be a man of few words, though there are also other varied types. Have you two ever thoughts about what type of "negative-minded" person you are?

AA: In my case, I see people who go to a drinking place and say stuff like "I definitely won't be able to see you next time!" would become really chatty in that place. But I think even in my next life, I'll always become super-careful towards people I talked to. That's why I always do my best when I'm talking with fellow entertainers, I'm quite shy even. I always immediately thought that they're "Testing me". In the first place, my confidence isn't that high, so I tried not to leave a bad impression on others, so much that it makes me nervous when speaking, it's been like that since school days.

AS: For me......, now that I think about it recently, my shyness might've shifted into a new genre instead. Instead of thinking "Let's be calm and careful towards people in my life so I won't give them a bad impression about me." like Ishida-san, in order not to make someone have a bad impression toward me I would give them a shut-out first thing first so it won't be too much of a hassle.

AA: A shut-out (laughs)

AS: Recently I've been thinking that I might've been not actually shy towards people than I initially thought. Think of it as a stubborn old-man who lives among his pile of trash (laughs), no matter what you think it's definitely going to bother people around them, and when someone says "You should clean up a bit." they'll refuse to and insisted that "Everything here is important stuff!" or something. Surely when I was in a situation where I can't be stubborn, I would find myself stuck in a corner. There was no one I could depend on at the right timing, so nowadays I couldn't even solve it myself...

AA: The past (grief) keeps escalating each time, it makes you stuck in a situation you can't escape from (laughs).

AS: Then again, it's alright to see it from a fan's perspective as well I think. Think about it like if you were to buy a dog and someone says "How cute!" to them, they would still run away when they got bitten by a wild dog right? For the people who have overcome that, they're definitely a very special type of people. For me if I were to become a pet, I think I'm the type that would be hard to handle (smiles bitterly), though there might be people who find the idea quite interesting. But leaving that aside, you're still dealing against a wild dog, surely there aren't many people that would be eccentric enough to care about them... somehow I felt like this interview only gives me demerit so far (laughs).

AA: Well rather than being told by someone else, this is all coming from Akira-san so it sounded like a confession instead (laughs).

―But I think it's precisely because of that, when both of you teamed up it makes for the path of success of this performance! Frankly, how did you feel about the responses?

AA: Performing live... really makes you feel alive, huh.

AS: Yeah, there were a lot of excited audiences too after all.

AA: There were a lot of things I started to understand after I stood on the stage too. I thought to myself, "Ah these lines would look nice when I said it during this music timing!" and when I finally experienced it myself, it made everything much easier. The performance started in Tokyo and ended in Osaka already, but I really felt the differences between both venues. Realizing that, I tried to adapt to it, and I eventually got to be in shape at the end (laughs).

AS: ahaha (laughs).

AA: In the end I even manage to match the sound of said lines, it's good enough that I can start doing little tricks in between it, even for myself I did thought it felt a bit underhanded though.

AS: Oh not at all, I don’t think that would be something underhanded. After all in the audiences' perspective, the synchronization between the music and the feelings is important to amplify what they felt towards it (the performance). I think it's a good idea to match it up if it feels right to do it.

AA: I've never really done anything besides manzai, so doing all this was really fun and interesting. When I was told to do acting for the first time there are also some occasions where I was told to "try to match it up along with the music", out of 31 performances I only manage to succeed on two performances only (laughs). You can't be picky in this type of thing that I understand, but this time I think I manage to say all the nice lines and manage to get the feels just right.

―We know that Akira-san had a lot of experiences with theatrical reading already, but how was the reading with Akira-san feels like?

AS: Ishida-san's lines made me feel "Ahh! it's so easy to follow!". Previously, Ishida-san did say if you can match the tune of the music with your lines then it'll be good, but to be honest I was going through the whole scene while unable to listen to my surroundings as much. Then again by including things like reading, music and videos together, I felt a sense of unity with Ishida-san who worked hard to get those feelings across.

AA: Ah I'm glad. But honestly Ishida-san's reading is just really good, even when I thought "Ahh these lines sounded pretty hard", when Ishida-san gets to say it, the lines become much easier for me. It's amazing how it manages to drag out my emotion towards the lines, it always made such a good learning material. Because of that during the actual performance, I gradually was able to understand the objectives for each line, sometimes I would think "I see, so I should've gone with these tones to raise the feelings during this scene!". Also, since Ishida-san always improvises himself on each show, it makes everything so much fun.

―Speaking of, Akira-san had a regular work partner (Inoue-san), but to the blunt, how does it feel to be partnering up with Ishida-san (for this work)?

AS: Manzai and reading were two completely different things I think. It has different goals as well, right.

AA: Both Akira-san and Inoue-san had a pretty wide range so they're a bit similar, but Inoue-san said his lines naturally without anything as backsound. Though it manages to make his lines conclusive, it gives no room to "feel" it. Which is why it was easy to play the straight-man part for him. But with Ishida-san, in addition to his wide range, his voice was mostly powerful with plenty of variations as well, it made me feel like "If we can make it through, there would be lots of stuff we can do after this for sure!".

AS: Thank you so much. Somehow it made me a bit uncomfortable though (laughs).

Next time is a manzai reading opportunity!? The common points between reading and manzai are...

―This time you were teaming up to do a reading, but if there's by any chance you both were able to work together again what things that you would like to do?

AA: What do you want to do?

AS: I would've preferred doing something not related to stage performances, but the choices are pretty limited I think. I can't do theater acts, and doing manzai-like roles is out of the question. Theatrical reading is the most I could do.

AA: Ahahaha. Then, how about doing a "Manzai reading"?

AS: Is there such a thing like manzai reading!?

AA: I never tried it before so honestly I wouldn't know either (lol). But, wasn't this time basically just exchanging conversation between each other? I thought it's a bit of waste by calling it "only" a stage reading. If we leave the script we held and move around it's practically an act, right.

―In Akira-san's opinion, what are the common points between reading and manzai?

AA: Hmmm... "USHIROMUKI" for me especially, seemed to be quite similar in that terms. The point where each person's words clash with each other to reach into common objectives, I think the only difference is that the other one leaned more into comedy. Ishida-san's tension keep arising and hard to be shaken off so I had to lessen mine, it's practically the same as manzai. That's why I enjoyed the clashing exchanges the most. Sometimes I tend to overdo it that I sometimes ended eating up Ishida-san lines as well.

―For Akira-san, you added more movements than regular reading for this one. What is your main intention in doing it?

AS: Usually when I do reading, I try to project some kind of image simulation inside my head. With moving even with a slight gesture it would make the scene easier to be expressed as well as knowing when to tone it down. Since we still have to match the mic placement as well, it's important to have a sense of unity on the stage.

AA: I'm completely inexperienced when it comes to theatrical reading that I first went "How do I get it right?", but during the first day right after the shooting is over I got told "Akira-san is reading into the script too much, we can't take any pictures if you didn't look at the front! Please learn from Akira-san as well!" and stuff like that. That's why I tried mimicking Akira-san the next time... but it was a mess (smiles bitterly).

AS: Well of course that happened. Even I had my share of bitter memories in the past. There was a time when I was able to look at the script and act it out during practice, but during the real show I got carried over by the audience's emotion so much it piques my interest, and I let my eyes off the scripts which ended up making it a huge failure.

AA: Is that true!? so things like that do happen to Ishida-san as well huh.

AS: Well obviously, if you did it all so suddenly (laughs).

AA: I guess so, before the actual show I actually consulted about it and say "I think I will try mimicking Akira-san today." in which they answered with "You definitely shouldn't do that!!". Though I was told to never do it even during practice, I always went "No, I'll DO it!" in the end and made a total mess out of it. The next day I immediately said "I'm so sorry!" and apologized earnestly to everyone (laughs).

―Seems it will be fun to watch the DVD after knowing all these episodes after all. Looking back, can you tell us which part you thought to be important that you would go "I wanted to see this part!".

AS: I'm not sure how much reading the audiences have done toward the show, but I was thinking there would be one occasion where people who have seen some scenes on repeat will go "This part seemed rushed huh" or something. There's nothing we can do when it comes to stuff like this, so I think finding out the flaws (as you watch) would be an fun thing to do in my opinion. Once they paused a few times, I wonder if it would end with them thinking "I saw good things there." (laughs).

AA: So it's enough to watch it up to 2-3 times huh (laughs). To people who have already watched more than thrice, they would be able to enjoy it even without seeing the clips since the voices alone will be enough.

AS: Ahahahaha!

AA: And then everyone definitely wouldn't mind (the flaw)! Remember to watch the clips only up to 3 times!

#type: interviews #topic: ishida akira

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weekendwarriorblog · 3 years ago

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THE WEEKEND WARRIOR 6/25/21: F9, WEREWOLVES WITHIN, THE ICE ROAD, FALSE POSITIVE, I CARRY YOU WITH ME and More!

Well, June is quickly coming to an end, but that means it’s officially summer. No, for real this time. Summer started June 21, and that means we have the latest attempt to revive the box office, and really, if this doesn’t do it, then we’re sunk. Doomed. It’s over, and Jeff Bock, the Streamer Relations guy, has won. We’re in the endgame now. Go to the movies this weekend, and don’t let Jeff Bock win!

Before we get to the theatrical releases, the 20th Tribeca [formerly Film] Festival ended over the weekend, and it certainly “looked different” as we were reminded every time some local celebrity introduced a movie on the festival’s virtual platform. As far as the movies I saw, a few are mentioned below but generally, the documentaries once again outplayed any of the narrative features, which was pretty much the same with other festivals this year. Besides the Rita Moreno doc that I reviewed last week, I quite enjoyed A-Ha the Movie, a documentary that covers the famous ‘80s “one hit wonders” travails since their first hit album and the ubiquitous “Take on Me.” It’s a great doc that really shows what can happen when you try to keep the band together even when you stop travelling or even talking to each other. Also Bitchin’: The Sound and Fury of Rick James was another great musical doc about a funk/soul singer who I really never knew very much about, so it was quite educational. I also liked 7 Days quite a bit, and that was one of the better narrative films at the fest.

It felt like there were two very different Tribecas. There was one for the elitist journalists who were allowed to attend all the in-person screenings and parties, and there was the one for the rest of us -- where we were just sitting at home watching stuff on our TV sets, just like we did with Sundance and SXSW. And make no mistake, as someone who has been covering Tribeca since Year Two (where I *bought* all my tickets), it definitely felt like I was being pushed aside by the current Tribeca regime who just wants to be seen as something exclusive just for certain people, including as a woke festival catering to the underrepresented (but not really… if that was the case, they would have given free tickets out to people who live in the areas of the city where they set-up their pop-up screenings). I only know a few locals who received the better in-person badge -- pretty much the entire staff at IndieWire, for instance -- but as someone who has covered the festival for years and received a Hudson Pass for the effort, it definitely felt like I don’t really need to cover Tribeca anymore. It’s just not the elite festival it thinks it is, and as far as I’m concerned, it will never be Cannes, it will never be Sundance, and it will never even be SXSW. It continues to be a festival with zero identity that caters to the rich, white New Yorkers that already get special treatment wherever they go. I’m not even sure how much of it even takes place in Tribeca anymore, since the premier location for movie premieres seemed to be at Hudson Yards, which is about four miles North of “Ground Zero,” the area affected by 9/11 that precipitated the need for something like the Tribeca Festival in the first place. I feel that this year’s festival was an even bigger disappointment than last year’s virtual only, but that’s because they’ve finally just given up on the press they don’t feel are worthy of covering them. So yeah, not for me.

It’s hard to believe that F9 (Universal Pictures), the ninth movie in the “Fast Saga.” is finally being released in North America, since I felt like I reviewed it five years ago. Actually, it was only a month ago, but it just seems like forever since I’ve been so busy this month.

In case you have no idea what to expect and wanna know: Vin Diesel is back as Dominic Torreto, and this time we meet another member of his real family, brother Jakob (John Cena), who is now working with the criminal spy organization Cypher. Most of the gang are back, except for Dwayne Johnson’s Agent Hobbs and Jason Statham’s Deckard Shaw, who you may remember went off to make Hobbs and Shaw a few years back. In fact, that last movie was the last movie in the franchise, which was supposed to act as a tie-over between 2017’s Fate of the Furious and F9, which was originally supposed to come out in 2020. Got all that?

Hobbs and Shaw opened with around $60 million in early August, which is generally one of the few weekends in the late summer where a movie could still open big. That was the lowest opening for the franchise in over ten years, because ever since 2009’s Fast & Furious, every single movie has opened over $70 million and closer to $100 million or more. 2013’s Fast and Furious 6 and 2017’s The Fate of the Furious didn’t quite hit a $100 million opening, but still, it’s a pretty good barometer of how big the franchise was in the before-times. James Wan’s Furious 7 still sports the biggest opening with $147 million in early April 2015, hampered by the year-long delay after one of the film’s stars, Paul Walker, died in a car crash a year earlier. Walker’s death may have helped drive audiences to the movie with the same morbid curiosity way as Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight back in 2008. (Furious 7 grossed $353 million domestically, which is also a high watermark for the franchise domestically.)

The Fate of the Furious grossed slightly less than the previous two installments and then Hobbs and Shaw ended up with $173 million, which is nothing to sneeze at… unless your movie ended up costing $200 million, which that one did. We’re talking about very expensive movies here, and one presumes F9 is up there in that $200 million range, but it bodes a couple questions. Was the success of the franchise since Fast 5 mainly due to “franchise Viagra” Dwayne Johnson and was that helped by the addition of Statham? With the two of them gone, does that take away from the movie’s potential or do people like Diesel, Tyrese Gibson’s Roman, Ludacris and the other long-timers like Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster enough to make this an opening weekend must-see?

There might some questions whether theaters in bigger cities like New York and L.A., where F9 would generally do big business, will be as full as normal -- even with full capacity finally being allowed. The other question is whether Universal may have released this movie overseas too far in advance of the States. Think about it. When you start to think about movie piracy and where a lot of that comes from, it goes right to China, and a movie like this at a time like this when people are cautious about running to theaters, well if you walk down the street and someone is selling a copy for 5 bucks, why wouldn’t you buy it? That’s the reason why studios release movies day and date across the globe, or at least they try to. Piracy used to be a big thing hurting the movie business, but that seems to have been forgotten.

Reviews for the movie have been mixed -- I already reviewed the movie over at Below the Line -- but about the same as the last two installments, so those won’t necessarily stop people from going to the movies, since this is a classic summer popcorn movie where it feels like everyone should go see it opening week. Like in the past, F9 will open Thursday night for previews, but it seems to getting more Thursday night previews than normal -- I’ve seen five to six screenings in many locations -- and that might because Universal realizes how important this release is and how many people will be looking to see if it can revive theatrical.

I think I’m going to say that F9 will make around $72 to 74 million this weekend, which takes it back to Fast & Furious days, but I do think audiences will like the movie more than critics, and because of that, the decision to make two more movies will probably be warranted.

I was very excited to see Josh Ruben directing another movie so soon after last year’s Scare Me -- a terrific horror-comedy you can watch on Shudder -- and his latest film, WEREWOLVES WITHIN (IFC Films), based on the Ubisoft game, is just as funny AND scary. It stars Sam Richardson as Finn Wheeler, the new park ranger arriving in the small and remote town of Beaversfield, which seems to have just as much politics and backbiting as the biggest of the cities. He quickly becomes friends with the bubbly postwoman, Cecily (Milana Vayntrub), as she introduces him to the quirky townsfolk… oh, yeah, and there is something brutally mauling them to death.

The premise for Werewolves Within seems fairly simple, and maybe that’s because it is based on a VR game where I assume you have to figure out who is the vampire, so that’s pretty much what’s going on as Finn, Cecily and seemingly the entire town wind up locking themselves up in the Beaversfield Inn trying to figure out who is killing the others. Thankfully, there are more layers built into the ongoing relationships between the townsfolk.

Ruben’s got a lot of things going for his second feature film, the first thing being a super-funny script by Mishna Wolff, but also the amazing cast he put together that not includes Richardson and Vayntrub with some brilliant chemistry but also the likes of Michaela Watkins and Michael Chernus, who can never do wrong in my book. Those two elements alone would make Werewolves Within worthwhile, but Ruben ably takes on the challenges of a much bigger cast than his previous movie and finds a way to keep the viewer constantly on edge and interested in what will happen next, especially to some of the characters who are not as jovial or friendly as Richardson’s Finn.

But what works best about the movie is that there are plenty of unexpected twists, maybe some more obvious than others, and the fact you never really know who might die next or house keeps the movie quite entertaining. It also shows off Ruben’s great skills at combining horror and humor, something that’s very difficult for even the best directors, but when you’ve got it -- as Ruben proved so perfectly with Scare Me -- then you might as well use it to its fullest.

It’s hard to describe how well the humor works without using jokes ala something like Shaun of the Dead, but it’s more of a light-hearted charm that one wouldn’t expect to go so well with the dire situation in which the characters find themselves. It doesn’t hurt that many of the characters are so unlikable that getting their comeuppance adds to that humor. If you’re expecting a lot of werewolf transformations or even werewolves plural, you might be slightly disappointed, but it’s nice that a movie can be its own thing without trying to copy other films in the horror subgenre.

Either way, Ruben is 2 for 2 with his second attempt at comedy-horror, which ventures just far enough away from Scare Me to make me think that he’ll continue to be a great voice in the much-maligned and hard-to-muster horror subgenre.

Werewolves Within just debuted at the Tribeca Festival, and it will be released in theaters this Friday and then be On Demand and Digital starting July 2. I’ll also have an interview with Josh Ruben over at Below the Line a little later today, too, so check that out!

Not getting a theatrical release in the United States unfortunately is Jonathan Hensleigh’s THE ICE ROAD (Netflix), starring Liam Neeson as a truck driver in Winnipeg, whose special skill is driving that truck across the frozen lake up north. When a diamond mine collapses in the very north side of Canada, it’s up to him and a crew of other ice truckers to drive their big rigs across the frozen lake to save the men trapped in the mine.

I quite liked this movie that definitely marks a return of Hensleigh to some of those great action movies he wrote in the ‘90s, like Die Hard with a Vengeance, but this is also a significantly better action movie than some of the ones he’s directed, like the 2004 The Punisher. The sad fact is that I’ve been pretty disappointed with Neeson’s recent film choices, particularly in the last year when disappointments like The Honest Thief and The Marksman managed to get theatrical releases even during the pandemic. The Ice Road is a much better movie, maybe because Hensleigh wrote and directed it himself, but also he had much better source material in the docuseries, Ice Road Truckers, and he clearly did his research into these 18-wheelers on these dangerous trips across iced-over lake that could crack at any time. Hensleigh uses this idea well to tell a story where much of the movie takes place on that dangerous ice.

There are elements to the story that might not work quite as well, such as the decision to have Neeson’s brother Gurty (Marcus Thomas) be suffering from such horrible PTSD that it makes him almost a bigger hindrance than a help on the trip. On the other hand, the movie does have the always great Laurence Fishburne in a smaller role and the real breakout has to be Amber Midthunder, the bad-ass Indigenous Tantoo who proves that she can drive as well as the guys. I also found that Hensleigh’s use of the corporation as the ultimate antagonist in sending these truckers to their potential deaths more for the money than to actually save lives works well to add to what would have been a simple rescue mission.

The Ice Road is a pretty solid (ugh, bad pun) action-thriller that has some elements of other similar movies but then really throws the viewer for a loop with the amazing on-ice truck driving stunt work, that keeps one invested while really putting it ahead of some of Neeson’s other recent action fare.

You can read my interview with Hensleigh over at Below the Line.

Next up are two very different movies that played at the 20th Tribeca Festival over the past week

Heidi Ewing’s I CARRY YOU WITH ME (Sony Pictures Classics) finally gets a theatrical release after getting its Oscar qualifying run way back in December and premiering at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2020! Based on the true story of Mexican immigrant lovers Ivan and Gerardo, who travel from Mexico to New York City and are reunited after decades apart and many struggles to rekindle their romance.

This is an interesting movie for Ewing, best known for her award-winning docs like Jesus Camp, because it’s not an easy story to tell or movie to make, covering a span of decades, and using flashbacks to tell the individual stories of how these two men discovered their homosexuality while surrounded by a toxic culture who hates them for loving each other. We meet Iván as he’s cooking in a Mexican restaurant in New York before we flashback to Pablo, Mexico in 1994 when he’s younger (and played by Armando Espitia), married with a young son, but when he meets Gerardo (Christian Vázquez) at a gay club and the two click, he’s put in a place where he has to keep his sexuality hidden if he doesn’t want to lose his son. As the romance blossoms, Ivan realizes that he needs to go to America if he really wants his culinary skills (he even went to school) to be used, because in Pablo, he’s relegated to being a dishwasher.

Ivan decides to make the dangerous trek across the border with his best friend Sandra (Michelle Rodríguez -- not the one in F9) with the promise to return to Gerardo. Things don’t necessarily go as planned but decades later they’re reunited, and struggle to make it in New York City as restaraunteurs. As you watch their story unfold, you can fully understand why Ewing might want to tell this story, co-writing the script with Alan Page Arriaga, but there are still elements of documentary in this narrative beautifully shot by Cinematographer Juan Pablo Ramírez AMC.

Unfortunately, those elements of documentary are what really confused me, because there are moments in the present day when the real Ivan and Gerardo are playing themselves, but then there are times when the two main actors are made up to look older, and I couldn’t really figure out what was happening at times, maybe due to some of the more dream-like nature of the storytelling.

Even so, Ewing has created a terrific character piece and quite a warm and wondrous love story, even if it’s plagued by violence and discrimination due to their roots and their homosexuality. I couldn’t help but think that I might have liked Moonlight more if it wasn’t told in such a linear fashion, separated into three chapters. By using the flashbacks to keep the viewer fully focused on what’s happening, Ewing creates something more on par with Cuaron’s Y Tu Mama Tambien that feels just as authentic as if Ewing were a gay Mexican herself.

Probably the weakest part is the second act where we watch Ivan trying to get to America, because that’s been done in so many other movies, including Cary Joji Fukunaga’s earlier film, Sin Nombre, and that feels a little less unique or special compared to the rest of the duo’s story.

It’s a shame that I Carry You With Me wasn’t able to build any awards traction, partially due to Covid and the long gap between festival appearances. Either way, it proves that Ewing is a lot more than a “mere” documentary filmmaker, able to mix those skills with that of a sharp narrative filmmaker with a keen eye for storytelling. This is a particularly strong character piece and a beautiful love story based on two real men, unlike anything I’ve seen in recent memory.

Honestly, I’ve given up on figuring what Sony Classics is doing in terms of their theatrical releases. I guess this could be opening in New York and Los Angeles or in more cities. I have no idea, because no one tells me anything. But I also wanted to share the review by my friend J. Don Birnam that he wrote out of the New York Film Festival last year. He has reasons to be able to connect with this material much more than I can, which is probably why his review is so damn good: http://splashreport.com/nyff-film-review-i-carry-you-with-me-an-inspiring-story-of-triumph-by-rarely-depicted-peoples/

Not quite as good is John Lee’s horror-thriller FALSE POSITIVE (Hulu/A24), starring Ilana Glazer from Broad City, who also cowrote the screenplay with Lee. It’s a very different non-comedic role for Glazer in which she plays Lucy, a pregnant woman, who finds her pregnancy turned into a nightmare, as she puts herself in the hands of the nefarious ob/gyn Dr. John Hindle, played by the great Pierce Brosnan, who happened to be her husband’s (Justin Theroux) medical teacher.

Man, did I want to like this psychological thriller, because I think Glazer is just the best in Broad Street, and the fact that she co-wrote this and is trying to do something unexpected out of the ordinary just thrills me to the end. That being said, her character Lucy seems to be a rather standard powerful NYC woman with a good job where she’s better than the rest, who ends up going through a torturous experience as an expectant mother who isn’t able to trust her own doctor. Part of the conflict comes when Julie is told that she is having more than one baby, but she has to choose between twin boys or a single girl, because she’s told that she won’t be able to take all three of them to term.

It’s an okay premise dealing with the many worries that women must have while pregnant, and things get crazier and crazier as Julia begins seeing everything, and while Glazer isn’t bad while playing a straight-up no-humor dramatic role, it’s hard not to see her more as a Debra Messing type when she has her hair straightened out to look different.

The horror elements are decent whether it’s the body horror idea of having a number of dead baby fetuses inside you, which is pretty creepy, and Lee doesn’t do a bad job with the trippier parts of the movie, though I feel like it overuses and leans on the use of blood to step up the horror, and it doesn’t work that well. There are also aspects to the story that feel somewhat predictable only because there are only a few way things can go the way things are set-up.

It’s obvious that Glazer and Lee wanted to make social commentary on the male-dominated field of childbirth with some of the weirder aspects of the movie, like the Stepford Nurses that constantly surround Brosnan’s Dr. Hindle. Having them there smiling eerily always boosts Lucy’s suspicion that her husband might be cheating with one or both of them. Still, there are too many aspects of False Positive (including the fact it was produced by A24) that makes one think that this is another attempt at the kind of “elevated humor” that’s been done so much better by the likes of Ari Aster and Robert Eggers.

Ultimately, False Positive is okay, it certainly tries hard, it’s maybe not quite as good as I hoped or expected of what might have been a perfectly fine vehicle for Glazer. I certainly had high hopes for what she might do with a pregnancy thriller, that this movie just never quite delivers.

False Positive debuts on Hulu this Friday.

From Sweden comes the horror film THE EVIL NEXT DOOR (Magnet) from filmmakers Oskar Mellender and Tord Danielsson, which follows a new stepmom Shirin (Dilan Gwyn), who has moved into a duplex with her partner Fredrik and his young son, Lucas (Eddie Eriksson Dominguez), but they soon learn that strange things start happening that seem to be coming from the abandoned house next door.

I’m always open to see what’s coming from the Scandinavian countries, because there’s been a lot of particularly good genre over the years -- Let the Right One In, for instance -- but I got the impression right away that originality was not going to be in the cards for this one, which immediately has the small boy having an imaginary friend, who you know is either an evil spirit or one of the spirit’s previous victims. Sadly, that’s the case here, and without the originality of some of the original horror films it's emulating, The Evil Next Door just seems like an international copycat.

If you’re even a modicum fan of modern horror, you’re likely to have seen many better versions of this movie, which is just kind of bland overall, but constantly resorts to scenes of a woman walking through the house acting scared and the cheap scares that inevitably come. This one even uses the eerie “next day” chapters that have been used in so many other horror movies, including the Paranormal Activity movies.

Mellender and Danielsson certainly come off as capable filmmakers, and they could do far worse than the incredibly dramatic and emotional performance by Gwyn -- the movie does get slightly better as it goes along -- but the feeling that you’ve seen it all before and know what to expect completely detracts from appreciating any of the finer aspects. For instance, there’s some decent creature design work but even that sometimes goes for the expected in terms of the spirit’s look. The filmmaker’s skills are also evident from the use of music and sound design, which is crucial to a movie like this working in any fashion, but it’s hard to fully appreciate it when you feel you know where things are going.

The Evil Next Door just feels like a movie made by fans of the far superior “Conjuring” movies who managed to cop some of the tricks to scare the viewer, but without fully understanding why those movies work due to original characters and storytelling ideas. These are decent filmmakers, but I’d really like to see them do something more unique or original.

If you live in NYC and feel like going up to Harlem, Questlove’s documentary, Summer of Soul, is opening a week early, this Friday at the AMC Magic Johnson in Harlem, New York, and it’s also opening at El Capitan in Los Angeles. It will open in theaters elsewhere and on Hulu NEXT Friday, July 2, so I’ll write more about it in next week’s column.

Debuting on Apple TV+ Friday is Drew Zanthopoulos’ documentary FATHOM (Apple TV+), which follows scientists Dr. Ellen Garland and Dr. Michelle Fournet as they study the whale songs of the humpback whale and try to figure out ways to communicate with them and understand whale culture. Oddly, this is one of quite a few whale documentaries coming out over the next few weeks.

Another movie that I just don’t have time to review just now is Eytan Rockaway’s gangster thriller, LANSKY (Vertical), which stars Harvey Keitel, Sam Worthington, John Magaro, AnnaSophia Robb and Minka Kelly. Worthington is down-and-out writer David Stone, who gets a call from the legendary gangster Meyer Lansky (played by Keitel), who has been of the grid for decades but worth a fortune. Stone meets with Lansky as the FBI closes in on the Godfather of organized crime, and he’s told about Lansky’s time with Murder Inc. and the National Crime Syndicate.

Other movies out this week, include:

SILENT NIGHT (Samuel Goldwyn)

SISTERS ON TRACK (Netflix)

TOO LATE (Gravitas Ventures)

Next week is the 4th of July (on Sunday), and we’re getting FOREVER PURGE (Universal) and THE BOSS BABY 2: FAMILY BUSINESS (also Universal!!?!?)... I guess someone really wants to dominate the box office again, huh?

#The Weekend Warrior #F9 #Werewolves Within #False Positive #I Carry You With Me #The Ice Road #Movies #Reviews #Streaming

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britesparc · 4 years ago

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Weekend Top Ten #470

Top Ten Films to Watch on Star on Disney+

We’ve been watching a lot of Disney+ lately. This is partly due to the fact that our family movie nights have become, almost accidentally, a quest to watch every bit of Star Wars content on the service; so far, we’ve watched the entire Skywalker Saga and are now moving onto the spin-off movies. The younglings have become addicted: Daughter #1 is getting stuck into The Clone Wars, whilst Daughter #2 is demanding we jump straight into The Mandalorian. As for the Princess to my Scoundrel, well, she and I have been thoroughly enjoying WandaVision, which by the time you read this, will have finished. Sob! Nothing to do but gird our loins until the arrival of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier in a couple of weeks! At least this excellent TV programme appears to have whetted my wife’s appetite for watching more of the MCU movies. Maybe soon I can make oblique references to Mary Poppins, y’all, and someone else in the house will actually know what the hell I’m on about.

Well it looks as if there’s going to be even more use out of our Disney+ sub as the months roll inexorably on, what with their new Star channel. This is where they’ve shoehorned all the mucky films they bought from the naughty boys and girls at Fox; sweary adult dramas, sexy bits, and scenes of explicit wrist-slapping abound. So now we have this toybox of grown-up content to savour! What to watch? What not to watch? I’ve already started at the most obvious place by diving into some vintage Arnie with Commando, one of the funniest action movies ever made. It did not disappoint.

So where to next? Re-watching semi-forgotten classics, films I’ve not seen in literally decades? Or checking out things that slipped me by (there’s an entire list to be made of “films I read about in Empire in the ‘90s, got really excited about, but never saw”). Do I watch the crappier Die Hard films, or cheesy action movies (er, like Commando, I guess)? Or dive deep into prestige fair? Or just watch Spy Hard for the Weird Al theme tune, practically the only bit of the film I remember? The options are virtually endless.

So that’s what this week’s list is: ten films I intend to watch on Disney+ very flipping soon. Or, y’know, just play Zelda until Falcon starts.

9 to 5 (1980): there was a lot of talk of Dolly around the New Year, and my wife and I even watched a documentary about her. As a result, I had a scoot around to see if it was possible to buy 9 to 5 as a birthday or Valentine’s gift for my better half; it’s a film neither of us have seen in years if not decades, and we’re both big Grace and Frankie fans too. Alas, it’s a difficult film to get a hold of; there doesn’t appear to be a Blu-ray readily available. Praise be, then, that it’s now on Disney+; a terrific comedy film, with a nice bit of feminist bite. I’m not sure if it’ll feel dated or – post-#MeToo – oddly prescient. But I’m really, really looking forward to watching it again.

Crimson Tide (1995): I do love a good tense thriller, and I seem to remember this as being a particularly great tense thriller. This feels like one of those “they don’t make ‘em like this anymore” candidates; a claustrophobic two-hander with no real action, almost a theatrical chamber piece, but made with huge stars and a big-time director (the late, great Tony Scott). I saw it once, on video, when it came out, so it’ll be great to revisit.

The Color of Money (1986): another minor classic that I’ve not seen for decades, and a film I remember even less well than Crimson Tide. It’s cool to revisit (or discover for the first time!) films by great directors, and this is Scorsese we’re talking about. Cruise as a freshly-minted movie star, still taking risks; Newman as a great elder statesman. I’ve genuinely no idea what it’s like, it’s been so long, but I’d love to see it again. Just wish The Hustler was on D+ too!

Quiz Show (1994): I’d mentioned before that there are loads of films from the ‘90s that I read about as an eager young film fan but never saw; this is one of them. An apparently-great drama about corruption at a hugely popular TV show in ‘50s America, with Ralph Fiennes in a very early Hollywood role. I think I’d enjoy it.

Looking for Richard (1996): another of those ‘90s films…! This fascinated me as a teen, and I’d love to see it: a documentary about Richard III, made by Al Pacino, featuring people talking about Shakespeare (got a lot of time for that) and also scenes of the play performed and filmed. It’s a real curio; also weirdly came out around the same time as McKellen’s Richard III. Maybe something was in the water? We’re due another big Rich in my opinion.

Jennifer’s Body (2009): a follow-up from Juno writer Diablo Cody, a horror centred around high school and female sexuality, this has always seemed like it might be a dark, delicious delight; it wasn’t very well received at the time, but has grown in cult status; as has its star, Megan Fox, who I’d argue has not had the easiest time within Hollywood. Anyway, I really like the look of it, and it’ll be cool to check it out.

Tombstone (1993): I love a good Western, and I seem to remember that this is a very good Western. A story of Wyatt Earp that goes beyond the famous gunfight, my memories of this are very vague; I know that there’s a very good Val Kilmer performance as Doc Holliday, and of course Kurt Russell as Earp himself. I might try out that “watch along” feature and watch this, remotely, with my dad.

Romancing the Stone (1984): I probably haven’t seen this since the eighties so I’ve got no idea if it’s really any good, but I do remember enjoying its Indy-inspired adventurism and – in particular – Danny DeVito’s bad guy. Douglas is always great value as a leading man, although from what I’ve since read this is really Kathleen Turner’s show. It’ll be interesting to see if it holds up, but hopefully it’ll be a good stop-gap until they finally get the Indy films up on the service.

Good Morning, Vietnam (1988): another film that I want to revisit, even if I remember it a little better than others on this list. My memory is that it’s utterly fantastic, a really stark look at the realities of Vietnam during the time of the war, and also a phenomenal, very human performance from Williams. Also I remember it being very funny when he does let off some steam (sorry, bit of Commando creeping in there). And really, it’s Williams I want to see again; that earnest, real, pained but beautiful Williams we get in his very best performances. It’s very likely I’ll cry just watching him on screen. God, I miss him.

Independence Day: Resurgence (2016): I needed some crappy sequel to talk about, and here it is. I can’t overstate how much I loved the first Independence Day in ’96, so the (apparent; I’ve not seen it) terribleness of this sequel hit me like a sledgehammer. It can’t be that bad, can it? Is it not at least so-bad-it’s-good? I mean, the trailer made it look atrocious, and it’s killed off Will Smith – the best character! – off-screen, so odds are not good that it’s a hidden gem. But I’ve got to know.

This was actually a pretty tough list, and I had to knock off some films that I’d love to rewatch (Conan the Barbarian, The War of the Roses), as well as stuff like Idiocracy and Office Space that I’ve never seen. Also Kingsman: The Secret Service, which is a fairly recent release that slipped me by, and I’m not sure why I’ve never gotten round to seeing; I blame the kids! Also, there was going to be some xenomorph or xeno-monkey action on here, but frustratingly all the Alien (and Predator!) movies are missing, and the recent Planet of the Apes trilogy – which I’ve also never seen! – is only served by its middle instalment. Yeah, I can watch the seminal ‘60s original again (and I may!) or the indecipherable and strange Tim Burton version, but what about, y’know, the trilogy that everyone raves about? I assume this is due to pre-existing deals keeping the films elsewhere (elusive…), but the sagas of Alien, Predator, and the complete Die Hard package are – I believe – being kept until most profitable (mark my works: Die Hard at Christmas). Anyway, it’s a bit frustrating, that, as I’ve never seen Covenant or The Predator, and I’d love to watch the whole lot from the start anyway.

I guess I can console myself by also watching the one Die Hard film I’ve never seen, namely the critically-acclaimed A Good Day to Die Hard. I mean, I’m assuming it’s critically acclaimed. I guess I’ll find out.

#top ten #movies #disney+#star #films #fox #dolly

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asrasotherbottom · 5 years ago

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Giveaway Prize #1

For @apprentice-nox! A little ~kinky~ smut between Nox and Julian! Content warnings: Bondage, Blood Word count: 2103 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nox observed Julian quietly for a moment. He was in the shop’s backroom, bent over old dusty books and piles of scrolls. They could see the tension in his shoulders. “Ilya…” they said, swinging one leg over his lap, “you work too much, you know?” Julian blinked a few times, processing the change in his view.

“Well what can I say, I’m a bit of an intellectual,” he replied with a smirk.

“Is that so, Mr. Majulian?” Julian turned bright red before Nox let out a gentle laugh and kissed him squarely on the lips. They loved the way his cool lips felt against theirs. Julian futilely tucked a lock of purple hair behind their ear, watching it fall right back to where it was. Nox knew Julian was as smart as they come, but they couldn’t resist a little teasing. They ran their thumb across his bottom lip, causing his eyes to flutter shut.

“I think you could use a break.”

“Ohoho, what sort of break do you have in mind?” He had a grand, playful smile on his lips. Nox took his chin in their hand, tilting his head up. They looked at him as if appraising him; his cheeks flushed under their gaze. They pretended to think for a moment.

“Oh, I might have a few...” they leaned in close, whispering into his ear, “ideas.” A shiver ran down his spine. Their hand gently stroked the back of his neck.

“What, erm, what kind of, uh, ideas did you have in mind?” He swallowed hard. Nox gently traced their nail along his jaw; he leaned into their touch.

“A little rope,” they paused, “a lot of rope, a blindfold, a little hot, a little cold, and-” Nox leaned in and gently bit the side of his neck. “-a lot of this.” When they looked at him, Julian’s eyes were closed and he was biting his lip. He exhaled a shaky breath and looked up at them.

“Please...yes.” Julian was already melting into their touch and they could feel his cock harden slightly under them.

Nox removed themself from his lap and intertwined his fingers with theirs. His gaze never left them as they led him up the stairs to the living area. He sat down on the edge of the bed, patiently waiting for what Nox had in store for him. They stole a quick kiss to his lips before reaching for a large bundle of rope. Nox picked it out, purple, to match their hair -- to remind him that he was theirs.

Julian started undressing with such eagerness, he nearly threw his boot across the room and Nox had to duck a flying glove. They couldn’t help but smile at him. When he was entirely undressed, they looked him up and down approvingly for a moment. His hot red blush spread all the way to the tips of his ears.

“Oh, Ilya.”

“Hmmm?”

“Oh...the things I’m going to do to you.” He let out a whimper and bit his lip. They beckoned him to the center of the room, twirling a piece of rope around their fingers. Nox gestured up to the hardpoint on the ceiling.

“I checked it before I came down. Interested?” All of his hair stood on end. Julian nodded eagerly and stood in front of them. Nox expertly started to weave the rope around his chest; he was mesmerized by how deftly their fingers moved.

“Mmm darling, you could be a surgeon with those hands.” They ran one of their nails up his throat, stopping under his chin.

“Don’t tempt me unless you mean it.” Their voice was low, a soft growl in his ear. He swallowed hard and managed a theatrical grin.

“I’d never lead you on, darling. I do mean it.” Nox smirked and leaned in, running their teeth along the lobe of his ear. A low moan came from the back of Julian’s throat.

Nox made quick work of the chest harness, attaching it to the mount. They set to work on knotting rope around his arms, binding them behind his back. Julian gave them a quick tug, nodding in their direction. He knew they were the best rigger in Vesuvia. Their ropework was second to none, and he loved them all the more for it.

They trailed kisses down his chest and stomach as they knelt down in front of him. He shivered when he felt their warm face press against his body while they wound ropes around his hips. Nox playfully kissed his hips and the inside of his thighs as they tied the harness. They could never get enough of the feeling of his cool skin warming under their lips.

“Ready Ilya?”

“Yes.” They attached the hip harness to the mount, pulling his feet off the ground until he was laying back, completely suspended off the ground. Nox smiled to themself as they ran some rope around his thighs and behind his back, keeping his legs spread wide open.

“One last thing.” They held up a silky red blindfold and cocked their head to the side.

“Oh yes please,” Julian answered eagerly. They placed it over his eyes and stepped back to appraise their work. Julian was already half hard in anticipation.

They leaned over and kissed him on the lips, letting loose strands of their hair tickle his face and neck. Julian loved to be blindfolded and suspended, waiting eagerly for each new touch from his lover, unable to see or feel their motions or where they may go next.

Nox used a simple spell to cool down their hands. They tested a finger on their arm and, satisfied, placed both hands on his chest. Julian let out a loud gasp and arched his back, straining at the ropes.

“Oh, do you like that?” Julian whimpered and nodded his head. They ran their icy fingers down his throat, feeling his pulse race under their touch. They bent over and bit the side of his neck, pulling gently on the skin between their teeth. One bite turned into two, which turned into a dozen bites down his neck and chest, some accompanied by small beading droplets of blood.

Julian was futilely trying to thrust his hips; he was hard and Nox could see a drop of precum dripping down his shaft. They warmed their hands up and trailed hot fingers down his body and onto his thighs, eliciting moans of pleasure from him. They nipped at the insides of his thighs, sending a shiver down his spine. Their nails dug into the sides of his thighs, drawing a thin stream of blood. He moaned at the top of his lungs and tilted his head back.

He couldn’t see the satisfied smile on their face, but they loved the way that he was putty in their hands. They worked their hands over his cock, gently at first, drawing low gasps from the back of his throat. His whole body shuddered as they took him into their mouth, slowly working their way up and down along his length. The feeling of their warm lips against his skin was all he could focus on as he gasped in pleasure.

Nox looked up and saw Julian biting his lip, exhaling deeply through his nose. They knew he was very, very close. They took their mouth off of him, standing back for a moment. He tried gently to thrust his hips, straining against the rope. He wanted to cum, but they were not going to let him finish so easily. They slowly walked in a circle around him and leaned over his head.

“Please…” His voice trailed off.

“Not yet. Patience, Ilya, patience.” Their voice was calm, but they had a devious smile on their face. He couldn’t feel anything but their hair brushing against his face and neck, before it disappeared as they stood up again. He was in darkness, but he could feel the sting from the scratches and bites down his body and the throbbing of his cock. He felt a set of nails running down his side; he arched his back and exhaled sharply.

Nox took their time this time around. They wanted Julian begging for release by the time they were through. They ran their hands through his hair and tugged his head back gently. They planted warm kisses on his throat as well as sharp stinging bites. Running their thumb over his cheek, they kissed his nose tenderly.

“Everything alright?”

“Mhmmmm.” Julian was engrossed in the suspense of where and how they were going to touch him next.

Satisfied with his answer, Nox rubbed their hands together, cooling them down once again. They brushed their thumbs over his nipples, making him suck in his breath sharply. They trailed cold touches down his sides and over his stomach down to his hips. Julian was biting his lip and moaning softly. Pressing a cold hand to the inside of his thigh, they gave him gentle bites all along his legs. They teased him, running their tongue along his shaft once, before standing up again. Julian was a mess of whimpers and moans.

“Please, can I? Please?” Nox leaned in close to his ear and whispered.

“All in due time.” He whimpered in reply.

They grabbed his chin firmly and kissed him hard. They heated their hands up and pressed them down along his chest this time. The heat amplified the burning from all his little wounds. Julian gasped and strained against the ropes as he arched his back. Nox cooled their hands down.

They pressed a cold finger to the metal bar in their tongue until it was ice cold. Quickly, they returned their hands to room temperature, and leaned over to gently cup his balls in their hand. They pressed their tongue to them and in one motion brought their tongue all the way to the tip of his cock. The ice cold metal surrounded by their warm wet tongue was more than Julian could handle. He arched his back and nearly yelled out his lover’s name as he came hard.

Nox couldn’t help but smile as Julian hung there panting for a moment. They reached out their hand and cradled his cheek, so he knew where they were.

“Can I take the blindfold off now?” They asked him.

“Yes, please.” They gently removed it, letting him re-acclimate to the light of their surroundings. He smiled up at them with soft, tired eyes.

“Can I start getting you undone?” Julian nodded silently. He was already looking longingly at the bed on the far side of the room. They untied the ropes around his arms as well as the ones around his legs. He lazily started to stretch them out while Nox worked on releasing the hip harness from the hardpoint. When he stood up, his legs were shaky for a moment. Julian recalled the conversation they once had together when Nox insisted that the chest harness stay attached until he could stand again. As he was working on getting his sea legs back, they untied the harness around his hips.

Nox stood up and kissed him very gently. “Are you alright?”

“I’m always great with you around.” He gave them a smirk and then nodded in earnest. He graciously accepted a glass of water, and was soon ready for them to finish untying them. With a few graceful movements, the chest harness was unattached. They walked Julian over to the bed and sat him down in front of them to finish untying the harness. Julian leaned on their shoulder when it was done, and they gently kissed his head, his hair tickling their nose.

“Let me get you some more water and a damp cloth.” They looked down at some spots on his body that were still forming droplets of blood.

Returning, they handed him water and a slice of pumpkin bread they picked up earlier that morning. Nox bent down and wiped away any remnants of blood, making sure that nothing was still bleeding or so deep that it needed bandaging. They settled back into bed, and Julian curled up against them in their arms, careful to avoid laying on their hair.

“Was everything alright tonight?”

“Excellent, dear, as always. You take such good care of me.” He buried his face in the crook of their neck, muffling his voice.

“Oh Ilya... I love you.” They were smiling again, even if he couldn’t see.

“I love you too.” As soon as he got the last word out, Julian fell asleep in their arms, where they both stayed until morning.

#apprentice-nox #apprentice nox #julian #julian lemon #lemon #i hope you enjoy!!!!!!#mine

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aion-rsa · 5 years ago

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The Creeping Reality of V for Vendetta

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It's not the Fifth of November yet but that doesn't mean we can't consider how V for Vendetta's dystopian future is closer than ever.

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Remember, remember the fifth of November, the gunpowder, treason, and plot. I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot.

These are the words that have accompanied hundreds of Guy Fawkes Day celebrations ever since that eponymous Catholic failed to blow up Parliament in 1605. But for many millions the world over, the poem is now synonymous with V for Vendetta, a shockingly subversive studio movie that was released in 2006. More than a decade later that film’s success at celebrating radical political ideas can still be felt by the fact that a movie which glorifies terrorist action (blowing up Parliament and Big Ben) is considered a classic in many circles, and is routinely viewed at the beginning of every November by movie fans the world over. It’s almost a fitting bit of irony that the film’s iconic visage of uncivil disobedience—the sleek and sexy reworking of a Guy Fawkes mask on Hugo Weaving’s face—has similarly become ubiquitous with anarchists, counterculture subversives, and online hackers, who all wear the trademarked Halloween item… that they helpfully purchase from the very capitalist friendly Warner Brothers’ merchandising arm on Amazon.

Nevertheless, the film is always worth remembering on Nov. 5 (or any other day), because director James McTeigue and the Wachowskis’ best screenplay to date succeeded at shrewdly adapting the V for Vendetta graphic novel to the big screen. Alan Moore purists might forever remain skeptical of such praise since by reimagining a seminal anti-Thatcher ‘80s hit piece, the Wachowskis essentially reworked the entire narrative as a brutally anti-Bush allegory (and reconfigured Weaving’s V and Natalie Portman’s Evey as a surprisingly convincing star-crossed pair of lovers from The Phantom of the Opera mold). In the process, Moore’s V went from being the poster child for anarchy to a defender of classical liberalism.

But on its own cinematic terms, V for Vendetta combines slick R-rated action movie set-pieces (that are appropriately theatrical for a comic book adaptation) alongside some pointed criticism of the U.S. government circa 2006, specifically in regard to the War on Terror and the persecution of minorities in right-wing media (remember folks: as recently as 2004, a president ran a successful national campaign by pledging to make a constitutional amendment that banned gay marriage). The film may have unintentionally also endorsed the use of torture for political radicalization, but that’s neither here nor there.

Watch V For Vendetta on Amazon

Just as sweeping as its brava rebranding of Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture,” V for Vendetta remains a pop culture artifact about the anxieties felt on the left in the waning years of George W. Bush’s presidency. And with it being so specifically fitted to those critiques, it should in theory seem very dated in the third year of President Donald Trump's tenure in the White House.

Yet, if one looks around, it becomes apparent that we are tiptoeing ever closer to the dystopian future that V for Vendetta warned so vehemently against…

A Government for the People That Watches the People

One of the most chilling (and familiar) beats of dystopian hell envisioned in V for Vendetta is the Orwellian presence of a Big Brother. The film’s cartoonish dictator, High Chancellor Adam Sutler, is clearly meant to resemble Adolf Hitler. However, the filmmakers also selected John Hurt for the role of the tyrant who stripped away his country’s civil liberties. This canny casting recalls George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four since Hurt starred in the actual 1984 adaptation of that book.

And like that story’s infamous Big Brother, Sutler’s Britain is under constant surveillance by roaming trucks that are eavesdropping on every dinner table, phone, or digital conversation amongst its citizens. This is an obvious allusion to the U.S. PATRIOT Act, which provided extraordinary freedom to government agencies to pursue suspected terrorists in October 2001 (less than two months removed from the shadow of 9/11). And its encroachment on civil liberties was as disquieting in 2006 as it is in 2019—after it was extended twice during the Obama administration.

As a U.S. senator in 2005, Barack Obama spoke precisely about reforming the law: “We don’t have to settle for a PATRIOT Act that sacrifices our liberties or our safety—we can have one that secures both.” Yet elements of the PATRIOT Act were only allowed to temporarily expire in its June 2015 extension due to the maneuvers of Senator Rand Paul. Meanwhile Obama, a president I greatly admire, continued to run afoul of civil liberties groups and privacy advocates.

In fact, it was during his administration that Edward Snowden, a former contractor for the National Security Agency, unleashed a cascade of classified documents that showed the NSA was secretly utilizing a global system of surveillance that was gathering massive amounts of information about the private correspondence of both American and foreign citizens. Initially, the White House’s reaction was to brand Snowden as “not a patriot” (he currently lives outside the reach of extradition in Russia) and to suggest that the American people simply needed to become “comfortable” with the NSA’s mass bulk collection of millions’ phone records.

But eventually the Obama White House reversed course, first by appointing a panel to quell concerns of “distorted” information in the press about the “drip, drip” and “Big Brother” perception the U.S. government ascertained overnight. Subsequently, Obama pivoted closer to the side of civil liberties (especially after a U.S. federal judge ruled the bulk collection was probably unconstitutional). In June 2015, the NSA lost the carte blanche authority to collect millions of Americans’ phone records via the White House supported USA Freedom Act (the NSA now needs a targeted warrant from the FISA court).

So, all is well that ends well in this particular case, right? Maybe, except Snowden is still living in exile and considered a traitor by many government officials, the PATRIOT Act persists, the aforementioned parts that Paul was able to see expire were reinstated by the USA Freedom Act, telecommunications companies can still stockpile Americans’ bulk data, which the FISA Court allows access to with a secret warrant, and it is so easy to imagine a scenario where a president less constitutionally minded would not choose to introduce a bill after an intelligence agency was caught with its hand in the wiretapped cookie jar. Or one who would seek to expand its powers further when the PATRIOT Act comes up for renewal again.

In fact, given many of the strongest political winds at the moment, it seems that for every step forward, we’re about to take 50 goosesteps back.

Video of V For Vendetta - 3 - Control Through Fear

The Spread of Misinformation

Another hallmark of any good dystopian yarn is a state-run media arm that inundates and brainwashes a public via the spread of propaganda. Hence one of the most exciting moments in V for Vendetta is when the titular anti-hero invades and commandeers what is clearly intended to be a stand-in for Fox News, using their ability to infest every home in England to now instead offer a rousing cry of “vive la révolution!”

Of course even in 2006, it was unfair to conflate Fox News with being a government-run puppet of the Republican National Party or the Bush administration. In many ways, the tail wags the dog with Fox News setting the Republican Party's agenda, especially now that its standard-bearer prefers getting his news from Fox & Friends as opposed to his own intelligence agencies. By contrast, V for Vendetta simplified mass media misinformation for the sake of narrative brevity. Indeed, the point about the dangers of media misinformation are only more pronounced now than they were 10 years ago.

read more: The Best Dystopian Movies and TV Shows

As broadcaster Edward R. Murrow once prophesized in 1958, “For surely we shall pay for using this most powerful instrument of communication to insulate the citizenry from the hard and demanding realities, which must indeed be faced if we are to survive.” At the time, Murrow was musing about the decline of broadcast news during a period where there were only three channels on television. Today with the increasingly endless variety of media resources in a post-internet and post-social media world, the dissemination of lies and falsehoods is greater than even the Wachowskis’ paranoia could imagine during the pre-iPhone naiveté of 2006.

With more information than ever at folks’ fingertips, the desire to insulate one’s self in a media echo chamber has ironically become only more desirable for millions.

To use V’s veiled punching bag of Fox News as an example, a University of Maryland study in 2010 found that Fox News viewers were more misinformed about factual information than those who consumed their primary news stories from any other major resource. Also, misinformation is arguably more dangerous to public discourse than even uninformed voters, because the misinformed are often more confident in clinging to discredited information.

Nine years later, it’s now a lot easier to fall down the rabbit hole of innuendo and ideological fanaticism (i.e. lies) than it was in the age when cable news reigned supreme. The more people become insulated in partisan echo chambers, the easier it is to create the effect of a brainwashed society hinted at in V for Vendetta—government run or otherwise.

Consider that Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster and once frequent Fox News commentator, showcased this bizarre resistance to reality among a group of Donald Trump supporters. Preferring a particular political candidate for president was their right, but when Luntz emphatically proved the future Republican nominee Trump lied about how many Syrian refugees President Obama attempted to bring into the U.S. in 2016—for the record it was 10,000 refugees while Trump falsely asserted it was 250,000—the reaction was apathy, including comments like “he’d let in as many as possible” and “what is in his heart?”

Luntz further found that only three of the 29 Trump supporters sampled believe that Obama is a Christian. One even insisted that he believed Obama was sworn into office in 2009 on a Quran. Also the general consensus was to prefer news from far right-wing leaning media like Breitbart (a site that willfully sided with the Trump campaign over its own reporters, even in an incident of alleged physical assault) and talk radio while anything considered “mainstream media” was to be viewed with hostile skepticism and outright denial. This was years before a fanatical Trump supporter, who watched the president call all non-right-wing media “the enemy of the people,” mailed several pipe bombs to CNN in addition to those of nearly a dozen of Trump's political opponents and critics.

Additionally, Steve Bannon, the former executive chairman of Breitbart News LLC, was hired by Donald Trump to be his campaign's CEO, further muddying the waters of collusion between political leaders and the partisan, extremist media they court--although after Bannon fell out of favor with the mercurial president, Breitbart happily threw him to the wolves and fired the fallen Trump advisor from his returned chairman role, all to curry favor with the veritably lying and tweeting president.

In this current climate of media tribalization, it is far easier for a demagogue like Sutler to lie his way to power and to then retain it.

Video of Opening scene from V for Vendetta

Persecution of Minorities

V for Vendetta begins with a blunt and on-the-nose depiction of the kind of politics that High Chancellor Adam Sutler and his Norsefire Party represent. Roger Allam’s Lewis Prothero is obviously meant to be a cross between Howard Beale and Joseph Goebbels when we hear his televised voice before even realizing we’re watching Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving’s robed introductions.

From the very first frame, Prothero, and by extension the political party he represents, hisses his disdain for those inherently responsible for all of the problems in the world: “Immigrants, Muslims, homosexuals, terrorists, diseased-ridden degenerates, they had to go! Strength through unity, unity through faith!”

read more: The Best Sci-Fi Movies on Netflix

Drawing a parallel between the nativist bigotry represented by V for Vendetta and the current disintegration of the Republican Party is like tracing with a ruler. While V for Vendetta’s fears about the persecution of the LGBT community turned out to be thankfully unfounded in the Obama Years with “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” repealed and gay marriage now the law of the land, everything else Prothero espoused hatred for is again in the national conversation… except with even less nuance. This includes how the Trump adiministration is targeting people who identify as transexual as Other, beginning with banning them from the military.

It would almost be redundant to bring up how Donald Trump—the preferred president of David Duke, a former Grand Wizard of the KKK, and Neo Nazis everywhere—suggested in 2015 that we should ignore the Constitution and founding tenets of this country by creating a religious litmus test for entry while banning all Muslims (which he has now made a restricted version of the law of the land via executive order). So let’s just focus on what the man who once inferred he did not know what the KKK represented. While on CNN in 2016, the GOP candidate said, “I think Islam hates us.” For the record, this also insinuated merit to Anderson Cooper’s question about whether Trump believed Islam was “at war with the West?”

Let this sink in: The President of the United States insinuated that a religion of 1.6 billion people (that’s roughly 23 percent of the global population) is at war with the United States. It certainly gives his voters a boogeyman to fear in the shape of nearly three million fellow American neighbors. In the 2018 midterms, he shifted the focus back to his original boogeyman when he turned the media's attention to an “invasion” of South American refugees from a crumbling caravan a thousand miles away walking through Mexico on foot.

V for Vendetta features flashbacks of Sutler rounding up British Muslims, and gay and lesbian citizens to be taken to camps. While Trump has not suggested anything quite that drastic for Muslims (yet), he campaigned pretty damn close to it in regards to undocumented immigrants. And then he acted on it as president, supporting and then attempting to defend a policy designed to ruin immigrant families by locking children in cages. This makes good on a campaign launched by the claim that a majority of undocumented migrants are “rapists,” which in turn led to millions of Trump supporters chanting “build a Wall.”

One imagines that if Prothero was a real person, he’d have been in the bleachers right next to them, talking about how he also agrees about shipping off minorities in a “humane” way to a place where they’d be “happy.”

“He’s Completely Single-Minded and Has No Regard for Political Process”

Ultimately, however, the easiest way to glimpse our ever growing flirtation with Sutler’s future is to see how parts of our culture already march to the sound of the fictional character’s bark. Midway through V for Vendetta, V surmises that Sutler’s career began with “a deeply religious man and a member of the conservative party. He’s completely single-minded and has no regard for political process. The more power he obtains, the more obvious his zealotry and the more aggressive his supporters become.”

Obviously, the Wachowski Siblings, as well as Alan Moore before them, were revisiting the rise of Adolf Hitler in a modern context. I would not suggest that it is a 1:1 comparison, but so much of how V describes Sutler could be used at this very moment to detail the popularity of Donald Trump.

In terms of political process, one only has to look at the Republican president’s woefully dishonest campaign promises and then often fractured policy, be it rounding up illegal immigrants or now claiming he has the power to revoke birthright citizenship without a Constutional amendment, despite it being enshrined in the 14th Amendment. In 2016, he ranted and raved about how he plans to immediately deport 12 million people living in America without due process, a claim he echoed in 2018 by playing ignorant to due process. Even Bill O’Reilly once called him out on that fact, pointing out in 2016 that under the Constitution, anyone detained on American soil (i.e. not just crossing the border) has the right to be processed in our judicial system—a harrowing (and impossible) feat if it is to be immediately implemented around 12 million times. Yet Trump just shrugged the facts off, repeating, “They’re here illegally,” as if repetition and magical thinking will make it constitutionally sound or at all humane.

Then again, Trump’s entire rhetorical approach has already been documented as operating on a fourth grade reading level, and it is as effective as the emphatic leader of V for Vendetta’s fictional conservative party. Increasingly, folks cheer when he suggests attacking cornerstones of American life like the freedom of the press. Much like how Sutler reacted to a political TV parody that made him look the fool, the Donald let his thin skin show when he suggested, with the utmost earnestness, that one of the things he wants most is to “open up libel laws.”

Even if the Supreme Court settled long ago in 1964 that you need to prove an organization reported inaccurate information it knew to be false with malicious intent, Trump would like to be able to sue “The New York Times [when they write] a hit-piece which is a total disgrace or when The Washington Post, which is there for other reasons, writes a hit-piece. We can sue them and win money instead of having no chance of winning, because they’re totally protected.”

His whining about the press suggests a chip on his shoulder worthy of when Sutler had a late night comedian disappeared into one of Creedy’s black bags.

Yet these are applause lines for supporters who are indeed embracing V’s visions of a dystopic 21st century where the more power Trump receives, the more aggressive they become. With almost every Trump rally during the heated primaries, there seemed to be another attack, another beating, and another protest devolving into chaos. In January 2016, Trump told an Iowa crowd, “There may be somebody with tomatoes in the audience. If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you?... I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees.”

Two months later in North Carolina, a black man was sucker punched by a Trump supporter as he was being escorted by police out of the facility, and it was captured on video. Despite visual confirmation of an unprompted burst of violence from a white supporter toward an African American protestor, Trump lied to his supporters when he said, “It was a guy who was swinging.” He then condoned the violence by saying, “I thought it was very, very appropriate… that’s what we need a little bit more of.” He then later would not refute the alleged attacker’s claims that the protestor was a member of ISIS.

After his ascendency to the White House, many emphatic supporters of Trump have become more violent instead of less so. When a visceral orgy of far-right politics converged on Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017, Neo Nazis, Neo Confederates, and card carrying members of the KKK celebrated an event titled "Unite the Right," including a number of supporters dressed in President Trump's preferred golfing attire as they marched with torches and chanted "The Jews will not replace us," word-for-word the same cries made by Nazis at 1930s rallies. The following day, one such far-right extremist drove his car into a crowd of counterprotestors, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer. The following week, Trump gave rhetorical cover to racist supporters by saying "there were very fine people on both sides." A year later, a Trump enthusiast sent bombs to Trump critics. A year after that, a far-right terrorist opened fire in a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, killing 22 people and injuring another 24.

Eventually, this is going to devolve into something even more tragic and reminiscent of the 1930s.

How is this anger growing right now in a country that actually has seen a growth in job creation, GDP, and access to healthcare while a decrease in the deficit and unemployment over the last six years of Obama's presidency and then increasingly so in the Trump years? There is an obvious racial and deplorable component for a number of voters in this country from the David Duke mold. Still, there are also reasons for justifiable anger with a cataclysmic income inequality gap and stagnant wages, the undeniable stench of money in politics, and the ever modern and unending anxiety of the new century: the threat of terrorism. But demagogues like Sutler and Trump are exploiting these fears and frustrations with such ridiculous ease, and building it on a foundation of hate, nationalism, and bigotry, that it seems almost fictional.

But if you think all of this is slanted, partisan hooey, watch V’s impassioned plea for the people of England to set aside their fear and face an ugly reality inside their culture. Then admit that it is not prescient for the direction our country is headed in.

Video of V for Vendetta: The Revolutionary Speech (HD)

So yes, Americans are closer than ever to achieving the dystopian future imagined for England in V for Vendetta. That’s something to remember, remember for the fifth of November.

A version of this article first ran on March 17, 2016.

David Crow is the Film Section Editor at Den of Geek. He’s also a member of the Online Film Critics Society. Read more of his work here. You can follow him on Twitter @DCrowsNest.

Read and download the Den of Geek NYCC 2019 Special Edition Magazine right here!

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