#the show has made a recurring gag about him not knowing pop culture things

[kurokoros]

everyone else’s opinions about Steve’s music taste is wrong, that man is canonically an (alt) rock bitch

[calliecat93]

Top 5 Things I Disliked About Red vs Blue: Season 2

When I decided to do this series, I knew it was gonna be hard to do lists for Blood Gulch. Not because I can’t think of anything I like or dislike specifically, but as I said before, BGC is mainly comedic driven. The worst I can say is ‘this isn’t funny’ and critique the earlier production standards. Which that’s kinda mean since they were working with what they had and trying to learn to do the show. As such, I have to reach on Dislikes for these and S2 was a tough one in that regard. I managed to come up with five, but GOD I had to stretch haaaard on it.

But still, I did it. Just remember, take this with a grain of salt. So here we go, Top 5 Things I Disliked About RvB S2.

#5. Doc

If you asked me which of the BGC to write out and never bring back… I’d probably have to pick Doc. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate him, but I’ve also never loved him. He comes off more whiny than funny, and most of the time he’s only funny due to the back and forth with O’Malley. Otherwise, usually… he’s just there. Even here in S2, while having a pacifist medic in a cast where several are trigger happy could lead to some funny stuff, Doc was just an annoyance. The situations he got into were funny, like getting knocked into the Warthog when the Blues unknowingly made it go rogue, but he was literally just there for the ride. Something IDT later season really improved aside form 16 and 17, which tbh I think is stretching it.

IDK, I just find Doc whiny and kinda boring. Even if he’s meant to be the annoying, disrespected nice guy, doesn't Donut kinda fit that slot already? Heck, they both even have the recurring ‘disappear for seasons and then suddenly comes back’ joke. The only times that I feel invested in Doc is when he has O’Malley, which is how he re-entered the plot here. I’m gonna save more about that in the S3 posts, but on his own? Doc just… doesn’t really work and I didn’t really miss him in between the Reds dumping him and him reappearing when O’Malley infected him. It’s also a flaw IDT recent seasons have really fixed, though they are trying. Plus I don’t hate Doc and some jokes with him do work (the gag of his naming made me giggle), I'm just… indifferent. But that’s why he’s at the top of the list since the most I can say is I find him whiny and not as funny,

#4. The Cyborg Subplot

So due to losing Lopez and because he’s Sarge, Sarge decides to turn one of the Reds into a cyborg to do all the stuff that Lopez did. He settles on Simmons. Now in and of itself, the subplot is fine. It leads to a good few jokes, like Grif trying to ruin Simmons’ parts after the surgery or a few gags like Simmons shooting his own foot and of course, faxass. While IDT the season would have been hurt without it, it has plenty of funny bits. Sow hat’s the problem. Well… like I said, cutting it wouldn’t have hurt anything. It kinda is just there to give the Reds something to do during the O’Malley and Tex stuff since otherwise, they’d just be standing around and taking… well, more than normal. Otherwise, it’s only significance plot-wise is Tucker tuning into their frequency, which is important in the finale when he picks up Vic and Sarge’s conversation.

So yeah, the subplot isn’t all that important. But it is still funny, so I don't mind it being there. But nowadays… how much so we see this come up? I mean Grif got mutilated by a tank and got another guy’s body/organs haphazardly stitched on. Simmons, while he possibly gave up those parts to Grif willingly, was otherwise forcibly converted into a cyborg. This… hasn’t really come up again. I mean the only time I think Simmons mentioned it in-show was as a brief joke in S11. Nine seasons later. I don’t think Grif’s side of it has come up at all ever again. Though… considering you can only get so many jokes out of this setup since everyone is always in armor, I do understand why. Though I feel with Simmons’ side at least, they could play with it some more, both comedically and maybe even storywise. But that may be my need for Simmons content talking…

So yeah, the subplot was okay. It’s at Number Four since I don’t hate it and it was funny. I just feel like nothing would be lost without it, especially since it pretty much never comes up again. Maybe one day though, who knows? At least the fanfic writers keep it alive XD

#3. The Caboose Forgetting Church Thing

Okay this is brief, but it does annoy me. During the whole trip into Caboose’s mind, Caboose’s memory of Church gets shot. As such, Caboose forgets who Church is. Makes sense, O’Malley killed the personification of Church in Caboose’s mind, so his mind would forget it. It also explains why Caboose got, well… for lack of a better way to put it, intellectually challenged later on due to having three AI’s in his brain and all the chaos that broke out. But Caboose forgetting Church lasts like… one episode? Maybe two? Anyways, Burnie explained on the commentary that it was just too hard to write out so they did one joke with it, and then just dropped it. Probably for the best... but then we have to figure out how this works in-continuity... damn it.

Really this is only on here because it forces me to try to figure out how this is possible in a show sense. Which yeah I probably don’t need to, but I am a continuity loser who tries to piece together these things. If I had to guess, maybe the memory of Church fixed itself somehow or Caboose was able to recall after being around Church for a little while. But I honestly really don’t know, and trying to think it through hurts my brain. It also did little to nothing either story-wise or comedy-wise, at least we got a few jokes out of the cyborg subplot. IDK, I feel like they gave up on it too soon. But then again this is the saga where they’ll break/ignore continuity for the sake of a joke and that’s just how these seasons worked. Hence why I put it smack-dab in the middle.

#2. Some Holdover S1 Issues

You can tell that there was a mass improvement in terms of production for Season Two. Pacing felt stronger, more was going on, characterizations began to settle in, and they even began to form more of a plot. They clearly had a much better idea of what they were doing now that they got through Season One and I think things like Matt becoming more involved in writing and production as well as Gus moving back to work on the show really helped as well. That being said, not everything got resolved. Most did, but there are still a few holdouts.

Audio mixing is a LOT better, especially when it comes to effects. The filter is still a little distracting, though better compared to S1. Not all the characterizations really set in. Grif and Donut are about 75% there and Simmons and Tucker are probably the least set in stone. The traits are there, like Simmons clinginess to Sarge and Tucker actually showing some competence when forced to, but nothing set in stone. Donut’s also on the right path with his hobbies and tendency to babble into TMI territory, but the voice is still off and his personality isn’t quite there yet. There’s some other, but I’ll touch on it in the Likes list. Some jokes could also still drag, like the whole switch joke where some of Church and Tucker’s back and forth went on a little too long.

We’re clearly making progress, but the mark hasn’t quite been hit. It’s still an improvement over S1 though, the pacing especially. This is nitpicky, but still it’s there. But hey it’s progress, and that is never a bad thing. So yeah, RvB is still evolving here, but the progress bar is loading steadily and trust me, by S3 I think we’ll be settled in… well, for the most part.

#1. Some Outdated Humor

The BGC was made from 2003 to 2007. Obviously, there’s gonna be some stuff that is outdated. Take the graphics themselves for example. Halo has evolved, so the game can look a little outdated, especially when you compare the original footage to the remastered footage. Let's put it this way, VIC is uncanny in the remaster… and is utterly horrifying in the original version. Thank God that the DVD is the remaster and I was spared of looking at that monstrosity. Visuals aren’t the only thing though, some pop culture references can also come off as outdated, like Creed joke in the RL vs Internet PSA. So can some of the humor that shows how stupid we were back only two decades ago.

There are… some jokes that are uncomfortable to listen to. For example, there’s the Grif shaming himself joked by saying he’s a girl and likes ribbons in his hair. It’s not the worst joke and clearly, it isn’t made to offend… but nowadays I think it could look offensive to certain individuals. It didn’t necessarily offend me, but it did kinda make me feel uncomfortable when I first watched it, but it could be me thinking it over too hard. There’s also the casual usage of the R word. Last season it came up a bit, but I noticed it came up more frequently here. Not excessively, but there were quite a few instances where it was treated as a casual curse word. Obviously back in 2004 we didn’t realize this was an offensive term, and I think they’ve even said that they regret the casual usage of it during the early years. You certainly would probably not hear that word used unless maybe to emphasize how terrible a character is, but even then I think they’d be more careful.

Now obviously RvB uses a lot of adult and offensive humor, especially in this era. I guess you can kinda call it the web version of South Park, only RvB has never really resorted to shock humor. It puts it above many, /many/ animated adult comedies in that regard. Still, when you run for this long, you’re gonna have some outdated elements. It’s not necessarily their fault, it just shows that times has changed. Still, it does make some stuff hard to look back on without cringing, and I imagine that the Founders would agree. So yeah… there’s just some stuff that wasn't fun to look back over and S2 isn’t the only offender, but this was where it stood out to me and took me out of the moment. As such, it is Number One.

(Top 5 Likes)

[dreamytfw]

I’m bored and impatient again, so I’m answering stuff from an ask game. OP here. I just want to say preemptively that the shipping questions only pertain to me and how I ship or don’t ship them. I don’t care what y’all ship.

1:What is your Supernatural OTP? Destiel.

2:What’s your opinion on John Winchester? I have a lot of strong feelings about that fucking dickhead.

3:Which season finale was your favorite/least favorite? Favorite: season 8′s was really good. Least favorite: season 10. We almost had Dean in space.

4:Which is your favorite episode? Either Changing Channels or The Man Who Would Be King

5:Which episode makes you cry the most? The episode where Ellen and Jo die ALWAYS makes me cry.

6:Which episode is the funniest to you? The Real Ghostbusters

7:What’s your opinion on Megstiel? I’m okay with it up to a point. That point is crazy!Cas.

8:When did you start watching Supernatural? The hiatus between seasons 7 and 8. I finished my Netflix binge something like the day before season 8 premiered.

9:Which episode title do you think is the funniest? The French Mistake. Gotta love Mel Brooks.

10:What’s your opinion on Garth? I loved Garth! Such a massively under-utilized character.

11:If you could bring back any character, would you? If so, whom? I’d like to finally get Adam out of Hell, but I don’t think that’s quite what you’re asking.

12:Who is your favorite angel? Cas. Duh.

13:Who’s your favorite archangel? Gabriel.

14:What’s your opinion on Wincest? Squicks me the fuck out. Sibling incest does in general. Like, we’re not supposed to want to fuck our siblings guys. That’s how we get Joffery and El Hachizado.

15:What’s your opinion on Lisa? (and Ben, if you want) Ben was kind of blah outside of his first episode. I really liked Lisa and how she refused to take any of Dean’s crap.

16:When did you start blogging about Supernatural? Uh... I think I jumped on board right away?

17:Do you think that Chuck is God? How old are these questions???

18:Do you have a favorite Dick (Roman) joke? If so, what is it? Not a joke, but I’m really weirdly amused that his actor does the voice of a recurring minor character in the Kingdom Hearts series.

19:Which is your favorite episode? We had this question before.

20:Who do you ship Sam with? Samena, but I really love fluffy snuggly Samstiel.

21:What’s your opinion on Destiel? OTP

22:Did you like the first or second Ruby better? iunno.

23:Who’s your favorite demon? Demon!Dean deserved a longer arc.

24:Do you read smutty fanfiction? I fucking write smutty fan fiction (I’m just bad at finishing and publishing it).

25:Do you think Destiel will become canon in season 9? (Regardless of whether you want it to or not) Christ this is old. Unfortunately they did not. But fingers crossed for season 14, aka their 10 year anniversary.

26:Have you ever had a dream about Supernatural/the characters/the actors? If so, can you describe what you remember? All the time. I used to be able to lucid dream to some extent, but since I’ve gone off my psych meds I can’t seem to do it as much anymore. The most recent one I had was the other night. I don’t remember it too clearly, but Sam and I said bye to Dean and Cas before heading off on some sort of mission or something.

27:Which episode is the scariest to you? (Horror-movie type scary) That episode where Sam got his throat ripped out this season was the first time Supernatural has actually scared me. Other episodes have been suspenseful, but I was legit scared during those mine scenes.

28:What’s your opinion on Sabriel? I don’t really see it. MAYBE unrequited on Gabriel’s side, but other than that I just don’t get the appeal.

29:Do you think End!verse will happen? If so, are you looking forward to it? Well, Lucifer’s dead now so I’m guessing no. If End!Verse does happen, Dean and Sam’s places are going to be swapped.

30:Do you have any friends off of the Internet that watch Supernatural? Yes.

31:Do any of your family members watch Supernatural? I got my dad and my brother to watch it, but they kind of dropped it. My mom is currently watching it and I regret everything that has led to this point in my life.

32:What’s an unpopular opinion or headcanon you have? The “romantic” subplots in the Scoobynatural episode were gross and the episode would have been better without them.

33:Do you like AU fanfics? DO I!!!!

34:Have you ever written/started writing a fanfic? See my answer to number 24.

35:What’s your opinion on Samifer? That... really depends on the vessel Lucifer is in. See, I’m a fan of selfcest so if I do read Samifer stuff, I always imagine it as Sam basically fucking himself.

36:If you have an OTP, at what point did you start shipping it? First time I watched. Literally that second episode Cas was in when he was standing in the kitchen with Dean and told Dean to show him some respect I was just like “...are they gonna fuck?”

37:Do you think Sam should have completed the demon trials? Nah.

38:Which director/writer is or was your favorite/least favorite? Favorite: I don’t know. I don’t really pay attention to the good writers because I’m too busy enjoying their content. Least favorite: Bucklemming really needs to be fired or relegated to only filler episodes.

39:Which actor would you most like to meet in real life? MISHA!

40:If you could be any character on the show, would you want to? If so, whom? If not, why? Nah. I kind of like being me. I’m the only person I know how to be.

41:Do you prefer cake or pie? Both ( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡°)

42:What is your opinion on Sastiel? Is it Samstiel or Sastiel because I just don’t know. I prefer it fluffy. For whatever reason I have trouble getting into smutty Samstiel.

43:Have you ever made a Supernatural reference out loud and received strange looks from some of the people surrounding you? Yes...

44:Have you ever cried over a non-OTP ship from the show? I’m not entirely sure what this question means... Like, have I ever cried over characters in the show that I don’t ship? Yeah. It’s Supernatural.

45:What is your favorite moment from any of the gag reels? “When did you forget how to act?” “Season 2?”

46:Superwholock? Please no.

47:What is/was your favorite Sam hair length? I really liked season 10.

48:What’s an unpopular ship you have? Meg/Bela. Don’t ask, I don’t understand it either.

49:What’s your opinion on Wincestiel? I prefer it as more of a love triangle where Sam and Dean are fighting over Cas’s affection than as a throuple.

50:Can you dig Elvis? Fun fact: I never finished that fan fiction. I loved every moment of it, but I got as far as Dean meeting Adam in Vietnam before I chickened out because I knew there was a bunch more pain on the way.

51:Do you listen to Carry On Wayward Son even when you’re not just watching a finale? I used to, but I’ve since been conditioned to feel pain every time that song starts playing.

52:What’s your opinion on Zachariah? Good antagonist.

53:Do you think Adam will ever get out of the cage? (not as Michael) Not at the rate we’re going.

54:Do you think Sam should have completed the trials? Why are there repeat questions?

55:How long would you survive as a hunter? I wouldn’t.

56:What’s your opinion on Calthazar? Foxhole love/friendly former fwb.

57:Do you have a Netflix account? If so, what’s your username and password? Wait a second, just the first part. I do and I’ve basically just been watching Supernatural on it the past month or so.

58:Have you ever participated in GISHWHES? I did the first year (the one with the pigeon rat mascot). It was fun, but it was stressful to the point where I don’t want to do it again.

59:What movies/shows have you watched because of (or by coincidence) Jared, Jensen, or Misha? Jared: House of Wax... kind of. I turned it off as soon as he got murdered because it was just awful. I also tried watching Gilmore Girls, but I dropped it after two episodes because every character in that show is either a terrible person or blah. The Supernatural Anime. Jensen: My Bloody Valentine, Batman Under the Red Hood. The Supernatural Anime (I know he only voiced the last episode, but he was in it so it counts). THAT ONE EPISODE OF WISHBONE AKA MY CHILDHOOD. Misha: the TSA short films, Karla, NCIS

60:If you could change just one thing about the series, what would it be? I’d make Dean better at using his god damn words.

61:If you were at a Con, what would be a question you would ask?(can be any of the actors) UUUUHHHHHHHH...

62:Why did you start watching Supernatural? Saw it all over tumblr. Got curious. It’s all been downhill from there.

63:What’s your opinion on Sam/Crowley? That’s a thing??

64:What’s your biggest fear for season 9? I honestly don’t remember what it was.

65:What’s your favorite (or at least a memorable) pop culture reference that has been made on the show? Them referencing themselves is always pretty great.

66:Just a random confession you have regarding the show/Asker makes up their own question.

[scripttorture]

(1/2) Hi - Thanks a lot for your alternative scenario to my Widowmaker question. :) I'm going to be working on a story involving intelligence/black-ops agencies, and one recurring theme I'm emphasizing is that the tortures done by multiple characters are inefficient, pointless and counter-intuitive. The protagonists' cruelty backfires horribly by hardening the resolve of their victims (and the victims' loved ones); guilty members 'betray' their team by reporting the atrocities to the public...

(2/2) Any useful info gathered by agencies (American, Japanese, Russian & Turkish) is done nonviolently, so torture's done for sadism or to INTENTIONALLY demoralize. Any other ways could you suggest to portray 'enhanced interrogation' as needless and unconstructive? Don't wanna accidentally veer into apologia i.e. implying that torture fails and a time-bomb goes off because 'we didn't torture suspect hard enough'; and I fear that in pop-culture, 'moral appeals' alone won't be convincing enough.

You're right that popculture tends to dismiss moral appeals (usually by buying into apologistarguments) but I think whether they work in a piece of fiction depends on howthey’re written.

 A purely moral argumentis a lot less likely to have an emotional impact when the character it comesfrom is: privileged, unlikely to ever be in danger, has no experience with victims,has no family background connected to atrocities. Anyone who comes across asunconnected can be tarred by the narrative.

 The usual ways that isdone are either by showing the character as a desk jockey with no realpractical experience of the world, showing them as flighty with their head inthe clouds or showing them as using atrocities to score political points.

 Moral arguments comeacross more powerfully when they come from people who have seen and experiencedatrocities, whether it’s in the past or present.

 My English education isprobably gonna show a little here but I’m reminded of Sassoon’s war poetry andhow angrily some of it was directed against the British public and politics-

 ‘You smug faced crowds with kindling eyes,

Who cheer when soldier lads march by,

Sneak home and pray you’ll never know

The hell where youth and laughter go.’

 Moral arguments can beincredibly powerful things in fiction and art. I don’t think we should dismissthem.

 The problem withwriting effective moral arguments infiction is well essentially it’s about how you write.

 In order for somethingto have an emotional pay off it needs to be appropriately built up in the storyand supported by the narrative. And there’s no one simple way to do thateffectively.

 A ‘Big Speech’ can makepeople lose interest but only if it’spoorly written.

 I suppose the way Ithink about successful moral arguments is that you’re trying to write what TVtropes would call a ‘Crowning Moment of Awesome’ (I’d link to that but I’mafraid my readers may become stuck in an internet black hole from which theymay never escape.)

 Doing that effectivelytakes work. It means carefully balancing everything that happens in the storyup until that moment. It means judging howyou’re manipulating your readers’ emotions.

 Any big speech is goingto fall flat if it isn’t backed up by actions and by what happens more widelyin the story.

 The way I’ve tended todo that is by having characters take big personal risks to do what they thinkis right. Because I write a lot of pacifists and because pacifists seem to beparticularly prone to this sort of dismissal in fiction (that their beliefsaren’t practical, that it’ll all get better if they just kill the baddies,etc-) I made a deliberate choice to avoid ‘Big Speeches’ and instead show thesecharacters backing up their words to the hilt.

 Getting the emotionaltone right is key and it’s also one of the hardest parts of writing.

 There seem to a fewmain approaches with torture in particularly. There’s a very stark,minimalistic statement of what happened, similar to an Amnesty internationalreport. In a rich, descriptive narrative that can be incredibly shocking andhorrifying. It’s a sudden shift in how the story comes across and that createsan impact.

 Another strategy is to writealmost the way Alleg does. Keeping the pov very firmly with the victim andputting the reader as firmly as possible in their shoes. That means a lot moredescription but not purely of things like pain. It means appreciating thedetails people notice when they’re stressed and scared.

 Alleg picked up onthings like the cleanliness of the board he was strapped to, the general senseof the crowd around him, the fact some of them were drinking beers while theywatched. That his shirt was used as a gag. The incredibly young age of some ofhis torturers and the way they talked to him (as if it was all a sportingevent). The way Algerian prisoners responded to him, a Frenchmen, who had takentheir side and was suffering for it.

 Pulling back from realworld accounts there are a few other approaches I found particularly effective.They’re more to do with focus thandescription.

 Babylon 5 and Farscapeare two sci fis that have a lot of flaws (and I haven’t re-watched themrecently so I can’t swear that totally accurate portrayals of torture isn’toccasionally one of them-) but they’re all very good at giving the audience anemotional impact from atrocities they show.

 Babylon 5 is set on thetitular space station, a sort of diplomatic way point designed to be neutralground used to navigate political crisis’s. A central plot point is theon-going conflict between the Narn and the Centauri. At the beginning of thestory this is pretty much purely political, Centauri used to occupy Narn butNarn broke free and has since become much more powerful. Over the course of thestory this shifts drastically. The Centauri take over Narn again and begin apolicy of widespread slavery and genocide.

 We rarely see any of this. We do not generallymeet the victims.

 But the consequenceshit the narrative like a hammer.

 We see the Narnambassador go from being one of the most powerful individuals on the station toa refugee there. We see the Centauri ambassador become a pariah. We see attemptafter attempt to help the Narn people from all sorts of sides. It affects everything that happens in the story,warping it.

 Farscape is much morefocused on individuals.

 In Farscape the leadcharacter, Crichton, is tortured repeatedly (and unsuccessfully) by peopletrying to get information on wormhole technology from him. And the narrativetakes the time to show the ways it’s affected him. It does this in privatemoments, when he’s alone or interacting with the people he trusts. Graduallyover the course of several seasons he changes. To the point that going from anepisode in the first season to one in the last makes him almost seem like adifferent character.

 Like Babylon 5 it’sabout consequences. But it’s consequences on a very personal level.

 Unlike Alleg’s accountit’s not, necessarily, from Crichton’s point of view. Some of it is. Some of itisn’t. The audience watches the character deteriorate. But we don’t see himgive up and his responses to a large degree aren’t judged. Just presented.

 You’re showing torturefailing in multiple ways.

 Not resulting in usefulinformation. Negatively affecting torturers/bad guys and causing them to changesides. Making victims more strongly opposed to their enemies (and presumablyacting as a recruitment too and propaganda victory for their own side).

 I think the rest of itcomes down to how you construct the narrative and the emotional tone you put inthe story. I think I’ve covered emotional tone.

 With a story on thekind of scale you’re telling there are going to be characters who support andargue for torture. But you can use the story itself to show that they’re wrong.

 The easiest way to dothat is to show them as…well as delusional as torturers tend to be. Show themclaiming they were responsible forthings the reader knows other people(and non-torture methods) achieved. Show them coming out of a session where allthey ‘got’ was inarticulate noises and claim it was useful. Show their‘information’ being wrong and show that costing their side, in time and lives.

 You’re already doing anawful lot more in your story than most fiction bothers to. I don’t think you’reat risk of accidentally writing apologia.

 This kind of writingadvice is difficult for me because I don’t think there is a one-size-fits-allapproach to writing, narrative style or building emotional depth in a story.

 I think there are veryvery few things that writers should ‘never’ do and I’m very aware that myapproach to writing wouldn’t work for everyone. I spent years strugglingbecause I’d read all these writing ‘tips’ and ‘tricks’ telling me things I‘shouldn’t’ do that were key to someone else’s style and absolutely uselesswhen it came to mine.

 Figuring out what worksbest for the way you write is something only you can do. As is figuring outwhat would work best in the story you want to tell.

 I hope this helps. :)

Disclaimer

[robedisimo]

“It Rhymes”: Cascading Character Roles Across the Star Wars Trilogies [PART I]

[Disclaimer: PART III of this post chain contains speculation and theories about the upcoming Star Wars – The Last Jedi that, if correct, would count as SPOILERS. While it’s unlikely that my musings are 100% accurate, keep that in mind if your intention is to go into the film completely blind.]

1. Modern fiction and the monomyth

When questioned about the repeating themes and story beats in his two Star Wars trilogies, George Lucas once famously replied: “It’s like poetry; it rhymes”.

View it as a statement on conscious creative methodology or as a middling excuse for predictability, the result doesn’t change: the Star Wars franchise is a creature of recurring plot points and character types, echoing from one iteration to the next in a never-ending cycle of repetition. Which isn’t really surprising when you take into account Lucas’s outstated inspiration from Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, a 1949 400-page essay on the nature and journey of the archetypal hero throughout ancient-world mythologies.

The so-called “monomyth” outlined by Campbell’s influential study hinges on simple narrative categories so engrained into our collective fiction-churning society that we instinctively recognise them wherever they’re used, whether we realise it or not: if a piece of modern fiction incorporates these elements its flavour and texture are those of a “classic”; if it doesn’t, they aren’t. Simple as that.

It’s not even a matter of quality, either. Have these narrative elements endured the test of time because they’re demonstrably better than others? Are they incessantly repeated because they’re iconic, or are they iconic because they’re incessantly repeated? Whatever the case, we’ve seen them so many times in so many different – yet not-so-different – permutations that each new iteration feels like coming back to the same, familiar story, the One Grand Tale mankind has been telling itself for the past four millennia at the very least.

Virtually all pieces of contemporary fiction that proved able to take root in our collective subconscious – what we call “pop culture” – share these same archetypal themes, story arcs and character moulds: properties such as the original Matrix, the Lord of the Rings books and films and the ongoing myth-spinning relay that are superhero comic-books all tapped into that same potential for endless recycling of pre-existing narrative categories.

Yet none leaned into it so hard, and so successfully, than the Star Wars franchise. Its staying power as a modern mythology for the 20th century and beyond is peerless. Is its adherence to the formula uncovered by Campbell a stroke of foresight-imbued genius, or the lucky side-effect of a pedestrian imitation game? I’m afraid we’ll never know for sure, but the results are so self-evident as to make that point entirely moot.

2. Narrative roles in the Star Wars mythology: the Original Trilogy

What’s most interesting, however, isn’t just how Star Wars recycles age-old narrative tropes, but rather how those tropes cascade from one trilogy into another. The now three-trilogies-spanning franchise has shaped into a monomyth all its own, built on a singular story being told and re-told multiple times through a specific set of internal rules.

The first of those rules – I use the term loosely; I’m not trying to pass my musings as exact science here, merely pointing out patterns where they seem to arise – concerns the story and the narrative categories that allow it to function. These categories were established in the Original Trilogy comprised of A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, but as you’ll see they can be readily applied to later permutations of the franchise.

At the best of my current ability to analyse the topic, the main character roles that allow the plot of a Star Wars trilogy to hold itself together boil down to seven specific archetypes, loosely defined as follows:

the Selfless Hero – Pretty much what it says on the tin. The Hero is the main active force of good in the story, propelling the plot forwards through a series of choices primarily motivated by altruism. They’re less prone to take part in comedy scenes, and when they do it’s mostly through quipping rather than practical gags.

the Rogue – Coming from a dangerous background, their motives are often dubious. Unruly and undisciplined, they initially align with the “good guys” out of self-interest, and tend to be motivated (even in their positive choices) by personal feelings and attachments rather than by interest in a greater cause of universal good. Among the three protagonists they’re the most likely to take part in physical comedy.

the Warrior Princess – Strong and independent (often to the point of overconfidence) they nonetheless tend to require a lot of rescuing. As noble as the Hero but less misguided in their choices, they serve as the story’s moral anchor. They’re the least likely member of the protagonist trio to get involved in comedy relief.

the Mentor – The Hero’s first teacher and tutor. Killed by the Dark Knight by the end of the first chapter, to form a grudge between the protagonist and main antagonist and to act as an inspirational moral compass.

the Sage – A secondary instructor to the Hero, acting as a connecting figure to past lore greater than the story’s present concerns.

the Dark Knight – The story’s active antagonist, pursuing the protagonists and representing a physical menace. Caught in the middle of a personal character arc that puts them on an eventual course of collision with the Dark Lord.

the Dark Lord – The story’s passive antagonist, acting as a behind-the-scenes mastermind. Less physically involved in battle, they represent an almost incorporeal, abstract concept of evil to be defeated at all costs, portrayed with fewer human qualities than the Dark Knight, if any at all. Much like the Sage, their character is already formed and undergoes no meaningful variation throughout the trilogy.

As far as the monomyth is concerned, the Original Trilogy is by far the most classical of the Star Wars iterations. Its themes and aesthetic – as alluded to in my choice of terminology – lean heavily into archetypal sword-and-sorcery elements: a farm boy with a greater destiny is led by a wizard to the rescue of a captive princess, held prisoner by an evil wizard-king and his right-hand black knight.

As such, it’s also easiest to make the OT’s cast of characters fall neatly into our grid. Here’s how (right-click and “show picture” or “open in new tab” to expand):

3. The Prequel Trilogy: recurring motifs and variation

Things get more interesting as we “backtrack forward”, as it were, to find ourselves in Prequel Trilogy waters. The prequels are a fairly different affair from Episodes IV through VI, but while the substance and setting of their narrative arc play to a different tune from what made the original Star Wars films what they were, the character types inhabiting that narrative are very, very familiar.

The formula we defined when looking at the Original Trilogy can be seen at play here with several overlapping points and a few key variations, first and foremost in the fact that this time around the Selfless Hero isn’t the main protagonist: the prequels’ focus, in accordance with their darker story arc, instead falls on the Rogue, personified by the younger Anakin.

Plot-wise – and also character-wise; more on this in Part 2 of this post chain – the Rogue is defined by change. They start in one position and often end at the opposite end of the spectrum. Han enters the Original Trilogy as a scoundrel and a street rat, and exits it as a decorated hero on track to marry into royalty. Anakin’s arc leads him from slavery – a position of absolute lack of power – to the heights of Force-infused might, from good to evil, and from hope to despair.

All that lays the groundwork for his transition into the Original Trilogy’s main antagonist, creating a precedent for the Hero and the Rogue falling on opposing sides of the good/bad moral axis as they trade their spot in one trilogy’s trio of protagonists for one of the four other positions in the character ladder. This will be a very important point as our analysis moves into predictive territory.

The other roles are filled in with ease... save for one: the Dark Knight category is, admittedly, a bit of a contended spot. In my mind, the Knight is the “villain with an arc”: their motivations – and even their ultimate alignment – change throughout the trilogy they inhabit, whereas the Dark Lord looms as an immutable agent of evil whose personal goals and inclinations are pretty much set in stone.

It could be argued that Palpatine ends up filling the role, as his arc as a villain is at least as well-explored as Vader’s was in the Original Trilogy films; still, as compelling as his final transition from Sheev Palpatine to a full-fledged Darth Sidious is, he only half-fits the bill. More importantly, his role in the prequels’ overarching plotline is clearly more suitably tailored on the “mastermind in the shadows” archetype, a dead ringer for the Dark Lord label.

So the Dark Knight spot is possibly meant to be left vacant, at least if we only take the films as our frame of reference. Instead, things get a lot clearer if we turn our attention towards the additional material provided by the – entirely canonical, unlike the rest of the now-scrapped Expanded Universe – Clone Wars and Rebels animated shows, where Darth Maul is not only revealed to have survived the end of The Phantom Menace, but also goes on to have a complex and extensive character arc.

I don’t agree with the entirety of Belated Media’s What if the Star Wars Prequels Were Good? YouTube series, but I absolutely concur that treating Maul, Dooku and Grievous as interchangeable pawns in Palpatine’s scheme was a major mistake that would’ve been sorted out by simply giving Maul a more developed story arc beyond Episode I. The Clone Wars and Rebels do exactly that and, wouldn’t you know it, his journey begins by killing the Mentor (Qui-Gon Jinn) and ends with him turning against his former master, the exact same arc followed by Vader in the Original Trilogy.

Now that’s what I call a Dark Knight. Our character role chart, thus informed, shapes up as follows:

At this point I’ve hopefully managed to provide you with a solid enough grasp of the system’s general bases. We’re going to need that as we head forward into a second tier of analysis: how plot mechanics interact with character dynamics.

[ NEXT – Thematic classes and the Sequel Trilogy ]

[ethanalter]

Rob Huebel talks 'Do You Want to See a Dead Body?,' 'Transparent' sex scenes, and playing Nic Cage

Rob Huebel in ‘Do You Want to See a Dead Body?’ (Photo: YouTube Red)

Everyone has their favorite conversation starters in social situations, whether it’s “What do you do?,” “Where are you from?,” or “What show did you just binge?” Rob Huebel’s go-to line, however, seems more like a conversation stopper. “Whenever there’s a lull in conversations, and no one else can think of anything else to say, my joke is, ‘Do you want to see a dead body?'” the comedian and actor tells Yahoo Entertainment. That tactic has apparently proven so successful in his personal life that he’s spun it off into a new web series premiering on Nov. 21 on YouTube Red.

Each episode of Do You Want to See a Dead Body? finds Huebel hanging out with a celebrity pal like Rob Corddry, Paul Scheer, or Danny Pudi and inevitably inviting them to view a corpse. Asked whether the idea for the series (or his original conversation-starting one-liner) was at all inspired by the 1986 body-hunting classic Stand By Me, Huebel indicates that it’s mostly coincidental. “I do love that movie and the idea of having an adventure with your friends,” he says.

And Huebel gets up to some pretty crazy adventures in Do You Want to See a Dead Body? In one episode, he has to rescue John Cho from death by quicksand. In another, he and Alexandria Daddario crawl into the bowels of an airplane — via the in-flight bathroom, no less — to find a dead body. “It’s a little bit like a cartoon, really,” he says of the show’s crazy flights of fancy. “The idea is that everyone is some weirdo version of their real selves. That’s more fun than just going, ‘I’m an actor, and you’re an actor.'”

We spoke with Huebel about his hatred of long lines, filming ugly married sex on Season 4 of Transparent, and our shared awe of Nicolas Cage.

One of the recurring gags in Do You Want to See a Dead Body? involves waiting on line. Is that a pet peeve of yours in real life? For sure, that’s something I hate! [Laughs] No, I think that’s just a dumb way to run into someone; people always do that on TV. It’s like, “Here I am on line, and there you are!” It’s an easy starting point. But you’re right, there is a recurring thing of people getting ahead of me in line. Like the episode with Rob Corddry where we’re waiting at the Redbox kiosk. There’s a huge line for this thing and the joke is that they’re all waiting to rent John Wick: Chapter 2.

So do you pull the “Do you want to see a dead body?” joke when you’re waiting on line in real life? I’ve definitely thrown it out loud enough for other people to hear just to f**k with them and get a reaction. If I see a friend of mine at the grocery store or something, I would definitely throw it out loud enough so that some mom would hear it and freak out. I think that would be pretty funny. [Laughs]

Huebel and Alexandra Daddario in ‘Do You Want to See a Dead Body?’ (Photo: YouTube Red)

Did you decide on the 15-minute runtime for each episode, or was that mandated by YouTube? We originally made this as a pilot for Comedy Central a year ago, and we did it as a half-hour with two stories back-to-back. When we took a step back to look at it, we realized we could just easily break these up and make them 15-minutes long. And when we sold it to YouTube, that seemed like a better idea. We wanted it to be something totally binge-able. If you were on a train or plane or on the subway going to work, you can power through three or four of them. I didn’t want to make anything that was like, “You have to see this one to get this next one.” I like having stuff that’s totally evergreen and disconnected from each other.

There’s not a lot of pop culture riffing going on in the show. Is that something you wanted to avoid? Not a lot. We wanted every episode to be totally different and feel totally different. Our main thing, too, was to write for the guest. Whether it’s Rob Corddry or Judy Greer or Michaela Watkins, we wanted to write specifically for that person. There are certain [pop-culture] things, like in our Randall Park episode. He’s trying to solve a mystery that starts off with the body in a giant crater, and it’s a naked man who is totally unhurt. So Randall goes crazy trying to solve the mystery, and it becomes sort of like The X-Files. And there’s a nod to The Sandlot in Corddry’s episode. My friend, Nick Jasenovec, who directed a lot of these, threw that in there because he was obsessed with the baseball scenes. It comes out of nowhere and has no significance, but we put all this weight on it, and it pays off with the dog f**king everything up.

You had a major storyline on the most recent season of Transparent, where Len joined Sarah and the Pfeffermans in Israel. Did you actually shoot on location? No, we ended up having to do a lot of L.A. for Israel. I think Gaby Hoffman went over there and shot a bunch of stuff. Originally, the plan was for all of us to go, and then it just got very complicated. I was really looking forward to it, but maybe we’ll get to go again sometime. Like when the Brady Bunch went to Hawaii!

You were part of some risqué sexual sequences this season as well. Was it nerve-wracking doing those scenes? For sure. Amy Landecker is one of my favorite actors in the world, and she’s really good at making everybody else feel comfortable, which is good for those scenes because you’re pretty much naked and it can be very awkward. At the time, my wife and I had just had a baby, so I was getting no sleep at all! All of it was just a total blur to me. One cool thing that Transparent does is manage the set so that there’s nobody on there who doesn’t need to be there, so you feel really protected and safe. I’m mainly disappointed in myself, because I’m in such terrible shape! It’s so gross for me to watch. But the show really embraces the harsh reality of what life is, so I guess I did my part to show the ugly side of married sex, you know. [Laughs]

Amy Landecker, Alia Shawkat, and Huebel in Season 4 of ‘Transparent’ (Photo: Amazon)

Since you’re a parent now, has that affected your opinion of the unorthodox way that Len and Sarah approach child-rearing? There’s a running bit on Transparent that Sarah is this child expert now, because she cooked up this thing called “Kids on Top,” which is this really absurd parenting approach where the gist of it is that you let your kids do whatever they want, and somehow they’re going to learn to be well-behaved. It seemed made up to me, but I’m told that it’s a real approach and people actually do this! To me, that’s hilarious because as a new parent, I would never ever do it. There’s no way! We have a one-year-old now, and if I let her do whatever she wanted, she’d stick her finger in an electrical socket or swallow butter knives, so that seems like a really foolish approach. But I think they’re going to keep this going next season, with Sarah having a lot of success with her books and website. So I’m eager to see how they write that.

The season ends on a cliffhanger with Len possibly impregnating Alia Shawkat’s character. Can you tease how that’s going to play out? I’ll say this: I don’t know why they would put that in there if we weren’t going to pay that off in some way. It seems like it would be too disappointing to just say, “Well, she’ll just take Plan B.” So I think we’re going to have to deal with that in some shape or form.

Can you confirm or deny that you’re playing Nicolas Cage in a movie called Action #1? A friend of mine, Alex Fernie, who directed a lot of Do You Want to See a Dead Body?, also directed this movie. It’s about Nic Cage’s copy of Action Comics No. 1 getting stolen, which happened in real life. As I understand the backstory of the movie, they were going to get Nic Cage to do it, but at the last minute he didn’t want to play himself. So they came up with this genius idea of every time you see Nic Cage in the movie, he’s played by a different actor. So I play Nic Cage, Rob Corddry plays Nic Cage, Missi Pyle plays Nic Cage — I think there are like about 10 different actors that play Nic Cage in the movie. I got to go and do my best Nic Cage impression for a few days. It was a dream come true!

So what makes your version of Cage distinct from the others? I brought a certain level of Cage Rage. There’s a couple scenes where I do full-on rage mode with Nic Cage freaking out and going off on people. And that is my favorite version of Nic Cage, so to be able to do him not even at level 10, but level 11 is pretty exciting. I don’t know if he’s the best actor in the world, but he’s the best performer in the world. He is so fascinating, thrilling, repulsive, and endearing and incredible to watch.

I got the chance to meet him at the Toronto Film Festival earlier this year. He had a cowboy hat on and everything. Oh my god, Nic Cage in a cowboy hat. You’re so lucky! That’s the very best Nic Cage. [Laughs]

Do You Want to See a Dead Body? premieres on Nov. 21 on YouTube Red. Transparent is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.

[cinedave]

REVIEW: Paddington 2 - Complete and Utter Magic!

I’ve always hated the stigma around going to the cinema alone but understand why many prefer to see a film with company. For them, it adds to the experience and makes in more memorable. In truth I see most films solo but that doesn’t make their experience any less memorable for me. I still strongly remember seeing the first Paddington film 3 years ago. I’d had such a bad day going into it but the film was such a wonderful feel good experience that I left feeling fantastic. Part of me almost missed that in the run up to its sequel; knowing I was unlikely to feel the same again.... only I did. Earlier that day I received a rather horrible that email from a random stranger in the US (getting my email address from a website) about how he hated my writing in a few vile sentences. Needless to say, I wasn’t feeling my usual self afterwards so I went for it. That evening I went in to Paddington 2, hoping to find that same magic once more. To find a film that would make those feelings go away.... and I did. The marmalade connoisseur bear is back with another outstanding broad appealing family film. This is the kind of film you’ll have to work extremely hard not to fall in love with.

The London dwelling bear, Paddington Brown (Ben Wishaw – Cloud Atlas, Spectre) wants to buy his Aunt Lucy an antique book for her birthday. When their neighbour and fading actor Phoenix Buchanan (Hugh Grant – Every 90s dithering English guy) believes the book is more than it seems, getting it will a become a hard time.

The returning director and co-writer Paul King clearly has no shortage of love for his work as he effortlessly recaptures the feel of his first film’s well made and creative simplicity. There’s nothing complex about the story, being a straightforward mcguffin affair with steady easy to follow plot points. Neither is there anything to understand about its open book of a central character; a young bear trying to be kind and polite in a world that often isn’t. That allows the film to develop into excellent situational based material whether that’s a small comedic barber shop scene or the film’s feature attraction of Paddington being sent to prison. The strengths of characters and dialogue shine through and make us care about what the feature cast are doing rather than where they’re going. Its tone is pitch perfect. It’s silly but never stupid, balancing slapstick with smart wit. It’s heartfelt but never sappy, creating meaningful emotional moments throughout the film but never sustaining sadness by remaining upbeat. A manliness warning; a couple points will have you fighting back the tears so tell your girlfriend you’ve got a sore eye before the film starts.

One of the many returning strengths is the excellent visuals and inventive transitions between scenes. A standout early sequence depicting Paddington and Aunt Lucy inside the featured book is a beautiful homage to the card cut out animation of the 1970s TV show. It turns the film into a stunning blend of reality and Paddington’s imagination blended seamlessly before our eyes. While there some our interesting adaptations on first film sequences there’s plenty of originality and the film always feels like it’s got something else up its blue duffle coat. There’s more action you’d expect too, from a standout early chase of Paddington riding a Wolfhound like The Lone Ranger to a rather elaborate CG heavy climax. The latter in particular is a testament to the film’s quality because despite being a clear step out of the film’s comfort zone it doesn’t feel out of place. Admittedly, by that point you’re so entranced within Paddington’s world that he could be fighting off sharks in space with a light sabre chainsaw and you’d happilly roll with it.

Paddington 2 is essentially a comedy sequel and as such comes with some repeating and recurring material. There are more great film references along this journey. The aforementioned prison scenes have many excellent visual nods to The Grand Budapest Hotel. There’s a genius little Chaplin inclusion and several others to spot. A number of gags and minor characters are cleverly recycled and adapted from the first film. However, that does bring me to my one solitary criticism. Maybe it’s a bear thing but Paddington 2 does a Ted 2. It needlessly brings Peter Capaldi’s Mr Curry back is a minor villain and times it feels like the film is merely making excuses to fit him in.

Thankfully Curry is not only villain as Hugh Grant is an utter camp delight as Phoenix Buchanan, throwing himself wholeheartedly into the role and every costume change along the way. All the returning Brown family impress with each their own small but rewarding character arc. We have son Jamie trying to be cooling before realising that it’s ok to be himself. While daughter Judy is budding journalist, playing ideally into the investigations into clearing Paddington; joined by mother Mary’s (Sally Hawkins – Blue Jasmine) craving adventure after a summer of illustrating it in stories. Finally we have Hugh Bonneville’s (Downton Abbey) Mr Brown being given a mid-life crisis have fun with... and indeed he does. Add superb supporting roles and cameos from British talent like Brendan Gleeson, Jim Broadbent, Richard Ayoade, Jessica Hynes, Joanna Lumley and many more to create this lovable local community.

They’ve really got something here with this franchise as this sequel denounces notions of being a one off success. Despite some pop culture references they carry a real timeless feel that, dare I say it, sets that out to become modern classics. These are the kind of films young adults will be watching now then happily again with their kids somewhere down the road. It may be too soon to judge but this sequel does feel like it has surpassed its original. While I hope that I’ll be a bit happier going to see the already confirmed 3rd film; it’s comforting to know it will raise my spirits if required. A bear is for more than just Christmas adverts. Young or old, this film will take good care of you.