#they remind that in the grand scope of the universe....no one is a main character & all will befall to the cycle whether or not they like i

[fluffypotatey]

Macaque would be so furious if Wukong traded his soul for his. He would be back at the land of living absolutely livid, planning going back to diyu to demand a refund

ah but! the Diyu had been wanting Wukong's soul for over many a millennia :) they had been insulted and swindled by the ever immortal who dared to escape death (and won)

why, ever, would the Diyu dream of refunding it back?

[bigbooksbygeorge]

Explore Untold Realms Through the Pages of Big Books

In the boundless realm of the mind, where thoughts construct realities beyond the tangible, there’s a special kind of alchemy at work when one delves into big books. These hefty tomes are not merely collections of words on pages; they are portals to untold narratives, vast in their scope and rich in detail, offering an immersive experience that smaller volumes can scarcely match. 

As we turn their pages, we’re not just reading; we’re unraveling tapestries of thought, emotion, and insight, woven meticulously by those who penned them. Let’s embark on an exploration of how big books become incubators for our most creative thoughts, and how they stretch the canvas of our imagination far beyond the familiar horizons.

The Impact of Sheer Volume on Imagination

Firstly, let’s consider the sheer size of big books. Their hefty weight in our hands is a physical reminder of the extensive world that awaits us. Within these vast narratives, the depth and breadth of content provide a fertile ground for imagination to thrive. They present an elaborate network of plots, characters, and settings that demand our mental participation. The act of processing this volume of information itself can spark a cascade of creative thoughts, prompting us to envisage scenarios far beyond the ones described in the text.

Furthermore, these hefty volumes often challenge our intellect and emotional grasp, compelling us to draw upon our own experiences and knowledge to fill in the gaps. The more we read, the more we’re inspired to imagine, and the better we become at creating mental pictures that are vivid and filled with color. Big books, with their dense and layered narratives, beckon us to engage actively with the material, to ponder, predict, and question.

Character Development and Emotional Investment

Big books have the space to develop characters with extraordinary depth, allowing readers to forge connections that are as real as those in their everyday lives. We witness characters grow, stumble, evolve, and triumph through complex arcs that mirror the multifaceted nature of human experience. These profound connections make characters from big books unforgettable, leaving an indelible mark on our memory.

As we progress through the countless pages, we invest emotionally in these fictional beings, celebrating their victories and mourning their losses as if they were our own. This emotional investment is a testament to the power of big books to expand our empathic abilities, inviting us to imagine lives entirely different from our own. In doing so, they not only enhance our capacity for empathy but also our ability to visualize diverse perspectives and worlds.

The Intricacy of World-Building

The worlds contained within big books are often so intricate that they can seem as real as the one under our feet. The authors of these grand narratives craft universes with their own histories, cultures, languages, and laws of physics. The complexity of these worlds forces readers to exercise their imaginations in new and challenging ways with BBBG.

As we navigate through these detailed environments, we’re not simply following a plot; we’re constructing entire worlds in our minds. This act of mental creation is powerful, stimulating the imagination to operate on a grander scale. It’s akin to being an architect of a city, where each sentence offers a new building block for our mental metropolis.

The Enduring Allure of Subplots and Mysteries

Moreover, the extensive length of big books allows for the development of captivating subplots and mysteries that add layers of intrigue to the narrative. These storylines weave in and out of the main narrative thread, sometimes intersecting with it in unexpected ways. They encourage readers to become detectives, piecing together clues and trying to outpace the author in uncovering secrets.

This process of discovery keeps our imagination on its toes, always guessing, always envisioning what might lie around the next corner. Each subplot is a puzzle, and each solved mystery is a triumph of our creative faculties. In the labyrinth of stories that big books provide, our imagination finds its playground, ever eager for the next challenge.

The Role of Pacing in Imagination Stimulation

Additionally, the pacing in big books plays a crucial role in how our imagination engages with the text. Unlike shorter works, where the brisk pace might rush us through the narrative, big books often afford the luxury of a slower tempo. This allows readers to immerse themselves fully in the world of the book, taking the time to visualize scenes, emotions, and actions in high definition.

This leisurely journey through the pages gives our imagination the space to breathe and the time to paint the scenes in our mind’s eye with meticulous care. It’s in these moments of quiet contemplation that our creativity often strikes, inspired by the slow unfurling of the story.

Conclusion

In the bustling chaos of the modern world, big books stand as bastions of creative refuge, inviting us to slow down and indulge in the limitless potential of our imaginations. These tomes are more than just an escape; they are the gymnasiums where our creative muscles flex and grow stronger with each page turned. The patience required to consume these stories is richly rewarded with a depth of connection, a vividness of vision, and a nurturing of our empathy that shorter texts might struggle to match.

Through the intricate plots, the careful character development, the meticulously crafted worlds, the entwining subplots, and the measured pacing, big books offer an expansive canvas for our imagination. They challenge us to think, to feel, and to visualize on a grand scale. And in doing so, they remind us that our capacity to imagine is a profound force, capable of transcending the constraints of our immediate surroundings to embrace a universe of possibilities.

So let us not shy away from the heft of a big book, but rather embrace it with open arms and an eager mind. For within its pages lies the key to unlocking the full prowess of our imagination, offering us a kind of enchantment that is rooted in the cognitive, the emotional, and the infinitely possible. It’s a deep dive worth taking, a commitment that promises to return tenfold in the wealth of thought and feeling it evokes. As we close the back cover on one monumental volume, we find ourselves not at an end, but at a new beginning, our imaginations charged with fresh vitality and ready to leap into the next grand narrative.

Read More:

Children’s Big Books

[davidmann95]

I think you read these but I don’t think you’ve ever made a post about them specifically so what are your thoughts on Jupiter’s Legacy/Jupiter’s Circle? Any interesting comparisons between Utopian and Superman you took away?

I’m going to level with you: I have mixed feelings on those books when they do not especially merit them.

I was, once upon a time, in the exact right time, place, and demographic to think Mark Millar’s comics were the shit, and this hit juuuuuuust at the tail end of that. It doesn’t hurt that it’s the other end of the lynchpin of Millarworld as a shared universe with Wanted, because of all Millar’s sounds-cool-in-the-abstract big ideas, the world he ultimately built might be the biggest and abstractly coolest of all. “Superheroes USED to be real, but then the villains beat them and took over the world and fooled us all into accepting what we know as the ‘real world’, but their grip loosened (because of what went down in Wanted) and now weird things are starting to leak back in” is I’ll maintain to my dying day a rad idea for a shared universe with tons of room for development in all sorts of directions, even if as usual it doesn’t live up to the logline. And Jupiter is the Earth-2 to all that, where the heroes stuck around and eventually grew out of control.

In practice, the comic’s not very good. I believe Millar when he says he wants it to be his Watchmen, and in a certain sense I believe he’s right, just not in the sense he intends: it’s all his interests mixed together at the height of his...stylization, his real-world superhero fixation and love for Hollywood conventions and his kernel of sincere unvarnished love for old-school cape-and-tights adventures, all mingling in a kind of Kingdom Come meets Civil War mashup. There’s still little good moments, still cool ideas, still bits of the stuff that leave me inordinately nostalgic for the guy’s output at his peak, but I think the most telling thing is that a character quote in a promotional ad was “Is that why you hate me, dad? Because I’m the only thing you ever failed at?” and in the actual comic it was utterly mangled into “Is this why you’re always yelling at me, man? Am I the one thing in your perfect life you worry you maybe failed at?” - Millar doing his Millar thing wins out over telling the story in the best way possible every time. Meanwhile Quitely is trying his absolute damndest (except for the last page of #3, which he clearly had to rush out the door, which sucks because it’s ostensibly a huge emotional moment) and still pulling incredible storytelling tricks, but also this ate up 5 years of his invaluable time. Glad he’ll be able to cash out big time, but still.

Jupiter’s Circle meanwhile, while a prequel created purely as a stalling tactic to give Quitely time on the main book, actually has its moments. It’s still a Millar comic, and the ending involves an incredibly gross ‘twist’ that bars me from seriously recommending it, yet it’s also the last thing of his where I got the sense that he was really trying to accomplish something storytelling-wise rather than pinning together notions and setpieces in lieu of an actual formal pitch document. As much as ‘Mark Millar writes a comic about the not-Justice League being torn apart by domestic and internal troubles against the backdrop of the 1960s’ does pretty much everything you’d expect it to do in a negative sense too, there are real little moments of poignancy and heartbreak and wonder that remind you that once upon a time, he did some really good stories that were the springboard to *gestures broadly*. And it’s Wilfredo Torres drawing it with some filler by Chris Sprouse, so it’s comparably gorgeous to its big brother, plus there’s a scene where not-Superman is visibly uncomfortable having to be in a room with Ayn Rand. Speaking of whom, since you asked, the Utopian actually is in the context of the full story a solid tragic take on a Superman gone wrong, a ‘classic’ version who was on the verge of becoming a truly transformative figure for a new era who by betrayal, misunderstanding, and terrible circumstance was cowed into remaining a conservative guardian of the status quo.

All-in-all, much as it’s about what you’d expect from Mark Millar’s Grand Opus, there are bits and pieces of it that leave me interested. Maybe it’s just his initial interviews where he gives a sense of grand scope to it as a Star Wars/Lord of the Rings-esque classical sweeping epic for the superhero genre (specifically promising it was something far bigger than what it really ended up being) that even if I knew back then was bullshit still sounded cool, or the hints of something REALLY big coming that never fully paid off, but there are enough interesting ideas, good scenes, and potentially promising character dynamics that I’m sincerely interested what the Netflix adaptation will be able to do with it, and the theoretically upcoming trilogy-capper Jupiter’s Requiem set decades down the road will be the first comic of his in a number of years I’ll buy, even as it’s also in all likelihood the last. What can I say, I’m a completionist.

[blessuswithblogs]

Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood: A launch analysis

(note that there are some spoilers for patches 2.0-4.0 here if you haven’t played but want to)

Stormblood's first major content patch, 4.1, has been going strong for about a month now and most people have seen the majority of the initial cycle's content, so I feel confident in writing about something that's been on my mind for a while. Namely, taking an in-depth look at how Stormblood launched in mid-June and how it compares to its direct predecessor, Heavensward. I didn't want to commit myself to anything before enough time had passed to really get a feel for how things developed, but I think enough time has passed at this point to make a fair and honest evaluation.

Overall, I think that Stormblood had a much stronger launch period than Heavensward did, no doubt thanks in large part to harsh lessons learned back in 2015. I'll start with the bad part so I can get them out of the way: the first few weeks of Stormblood were a god damn mess in terms of server stability and functionality. Raubahn Extreme and the Unending Coil of Pipin will probably stick in the memories of lots of players who really just wanted to get to Kugane please please let me in to the instance please god. The main story quest instances were all of high quality and memorable, experimenting with implementing various group mechanics like stacking, spreading, and tethers in a single-player battle both to make playing through the story more interesting mechanically and to acclimate newer players to common to mechanics in level cap content. Regrettably, none of that actually matters if you can't get in to the damn thing in the first place. Server congestion was so monumental that, ironically, having to create an instance for each individual player instead of being able to consolidate them into groups of 4 or 8, made it nigh impossible to get into the main story quest battles at all for a majority of people. When faced with this obstacle, many players decided to simply progress by grinding out FATEs in the Fringes and the Peaks, and in some cases, managed to exploit their way past certain terrain features nominally impassible without flight or story progression to reach areas with higher level events and enemies. In a bizarre but touching display of cooperation, players with 2-person capable mounts who were experienced in exploiting the level geometry would ferry other less adept players across the thresholds so they could actually get to new places. For those fortunate enough to get into an instance and successfully complete it before the servers caught up with themselves and spat them back out again, sailing was mostly smooth from then on due to the natural if unintended throttling effect severely limiting the amount of players actually competing to get into subsequent instances. Not too much later, a potentially game-destroying bug involving Susano, the first Primal battle in 4.0, and entering his instances while sitting down would cause considerable consternation among the unlucky few who discovered it and paranoia in those who had heard of the bug but hadn't yet discovered the cause. This issue, at least, Square was able to identify and fix fairly quickly. Errant coding is a much less daunting challenge than several more million people playing your game than you really accounted for.

In time, these problems resolved, and it bears mentioning that the height of these issues were present only during the game's early-access period for pre-orders. I remember mentioning to someone that in the end, as annoying as they were, the congestion issues would create some lasting memories of the launch period. While small consolation, I feel that in that respect, I was right. Heavensward had its share of congestion problems, but they were largely mitigated by creating separate instances for each major expansion zone. Stormblood did the same thing, but the battle instance servers simply weren't prepared for the volume of traffic they received. Fortunately for us all, once these issues resolved, Stormblood proved to be a delightful experience in almost all respects.

The main story of Stormblood chronicles the liberation of Ala Mhigo and Doma from the Garlean Empire. The revolutions of these countries have been alluded to, mentioned, and hinted at since the early days of 2.0 (and in Ala Mhigo's case, 1.0). When Heavensward was announced and the late 2.0 story switched gears to heavily involve Ishgard and the Dragonsong War, a lot of people were sort of perplexed at this seeming nonsequitur. While Heavensward's story proved to be one of its stronger aspects, the fact remained that we were leaving the imperials up to their own devices indefinitely to go galavant with catholic elves and dragons for 5 patches. Stormblood returned us to the more down-to-earth realm of imperial occupation that underscored most of 2.0's main story. I don't necessarily want to spoil the entire story arc of Stormblood, so I will be vague when possible. In some ways, the narrative of Stormblood feels a bit unfocused, as the warrior of light gets punted around to opposite ends of the world to agitate rebellion in two different nations entirely. It does make a certain degree of sense, given that historically, huge expansive colonial empires were weakest when dealing with multiple fires at disparate locations, so the divide and (re)conquer strategy survives scrutiny, especially when one considers that the warrior of light has the semi-canonical ability to just teleport instantly over vast distances with aetherytes for a modest fee. The fact remains that one does get a feeling that in a perfect world, the writers would have liked a unique expansion for each nation's struggle. This was exacerbated pre-launch by a number of player's vaguely racist negative reaction to Hingashi and Doma as "stupid weeb shit". Given that Final Fantasy XIV is a primarily Japanese developed game, of course, the idea of anything in it being "weeb" is preposterously self-centered by western audiences. I understand the desire to focus on Ala Mhigo before Doma, but overall I think that the writers did a good job of combining the two rebellions into one more or less concurrent narrative. I mentioned earlier that many of the single player instances in the main story and job quests were very good and memorable, experimenting with a lot of different things to keep the experience fresh and engaging. The Dark Knight job questline in particular stands out and honestly I want to write a piece on that alone. I probably will. The leveling dungeons are also all of very high quality, ranging from the very memorable Sirensong Sea's introduction aboard the privateer vessel crashing into a haunted ship's graveyard straight out of Final Fantasy 5 to the heroic final assault on the Ala Mhigan capital alongside all of your Grand Company and Resistance Allies. The post 70 dungeons, though somewhat limited in number compared to 3.1, made the wise decision to include the 70 story dungeon in the Expert Roulette table to avoid the Heavensward problem of only ever doing Fractal Continuum or Neverreap. Jesus Christ, Neverreap.

The climax of Stormblood's story, I think, is one of the major ways it outshines Heavensward. Stormblood ends with a titanic confrontation with Zenos yae Galvus, the inexplicably powerful imperial viceroy that has been kicking dirt in your face the entire time. Zenos is an interesting existence within the FFXIV universe, because historically, the Warrior of Light Does Not Lose, while Zenos managed to defeat them twice - once without seemingly expending much effort. It was a necessary story beat, I think, because the player needs to be reminded that they aren't invincible, and having a legitimately dangerous Imperial foe to contend with is healthy for the story. It's easy to forget the scope and power of Garlemald on a personal level because the Warrior of Light has left a veritable mountain of crumpled centurions, prelates, magitek weaponry, and even legatuses (legatii?) in their wake. Giving the imperial war machine's vast power and influence a face in Zenos puts some stakes back in the story that have been missing since the third time you personally trashed Regula van Hydrus on Azys Lla. Initially, I was pretty offput by losing to Zenos, both because I felt like if I had the time, I could have beaten him in a battle of attrition and because I felt like the Viceroy had not earned the right to be as strong as me. The mythology of the warrior of light is justified by how difficult and effortful some of the endgame battles are to beat. When you earn the Final Witness title or clear Sephirot extreme or earn an Alexandrian chestpiece, when you defeat these enormous godlike beings made of pure magical energy and hatred for all human life and you especially, you feel that all the effusive praise you get from NPCs in the world isn't just the game trying to make you feel special. It's an honest respect for your legendary prowess and heroism. There's a moment in late Heavensward, when Alisae Levilleur returns to the story after being mostly absent since the final destruction of Bahamut, where she begs you to go to the Ixali homeland and prevent another summoning of Garuda. If you went through the whole Binding Coil of Bahamut beforehand, once she learns that you have departed to deal with matters there, she immediately relaxes and considers the matter cosed. She knows just how capable you are. She was there in the bowels of the earth with you as you cut your way through ancient machines, dragons, and bioweapons. It was a powerful moment of a character showing you genuine and heartfelt respect in a genre where, despite your status as Biggest Heroine Ever, you are still tasked by NPCs to pick up poop.

So, when Zenos brought me to my knees not once but twice, I was mad. By design, I'm sure. How was he so strong? How could he even hang with me, someone who makes a living killing gods and vengeful elder dragons? Your final confrontation with him at the end of the level 70 dungeon is satisfying because your soundly beat his face in and make him retreat, but not entirely. There's still more to go. Here we get into blatant spoiler territory, so if you want to experience this for yourself and haven't yet, you might want to clock out right about now. At the pinnacle of the royal palace, in a field of flowers, you confront Zenos for a final time, only to find him standing in front of Shinryu, wrapped up into a nice little package by the erstwhile Omega Weapon. After a conversation about the nature of the Echo and its relationship to Primal beings, he frees Shinryu from its prison, and in a single shot, Zenos's overwhelming power up until now is explained clearly and succinctly as his eyes glow with the telltale pattern of a Resonant. What felt inexplicable up until that moment was suddenly perfectly clear: the Viceroy has, in broad strokes, the same power that you do, augmented with imperial technology, the best training available in the modern world, and a lifetime of military experience. And now he's riding around inside another vengeful dragon god. The final battle with Shinryu is an incredible and much anticipated spectacle. The battle between it and Omega was the capstone of 3.5 and the major catalyst for Stormblood even happening, and now the game makes good on what it promised. It's also pretty hard? Like beating it with a bunch of randos in 290 artifact gear is not trivial. When you triumph, Zenos falls to the earth in a spectacular green comet, and now finally satisfied in meeting his match, the one person who understands him, he takes his own life. It's a somber moment, because as pumped as you might be to finally be done with this asshole, it also reminds you that behind this unfeeling monster of a person was a deep, abiding loneliness born of a life of experimental augmentation and violence. You don't feel bad about killing him, but as Lyse opines afterwards, you are reminded that none of us start out evil, and it is a difficult task indeed to escape the bonds of our forebears. With the Viceroy's death, Ala Mhigo and Doma are both free. Imperial forces are in disarray, scrambling to retreat back to the mainland of Ilsabard, with the Emperor feeling the sting of decades of wasted time and money more keenly than the death of his son. When confronted by the always enigmatic Elidibus about his grief, Varis surprises even the immortal, inhuman ascian with his response: he snorts dismissively and simply states that the throne is no place for a monster. It's a chilling exchange that sheds some light about how Zenos came to be what he was - the implication here is that Varis was going to have his own son surreptitiously disposed of at some point to ensure that he never ascended to the position of Emperor. Reasonable given what we know about the son's character, but callous and calculating enough to give even a Paragon pause. The conclusions to the 4.0 story is a strong conclusion. It doesn't neatly wrap up everything in a bow. There are still many stories to be told about reconstruction, repatriation, the establishment of new goverments, how old friends fit into a new world. Also there's Omega chilling out in a hole somewhere. Despite all that, it is a strong, decisive ending to the main story arc of Stormblood, closing with a touching rendition of the Ala Mhigan national anthem as Arenvald raises the nation's flag to recreate the beautiful Amano logo.

Contrast to Heavensward, which ends the 3.0 story arc in an extremely "Tune in next time!!!!" series of events that honestly just sort of leave you feeling bemused. You fight your way through Azys Lla to get to the rogue Archbishop, who becomes the godly reincarnation of Ishgard's first King Thordan and his knights twelve to destroy Lahabrea, your longtime immortal masked nemesis, in an extremely anti-climactic and valor thiefy way. You end up fighting him because A. a realm-wide theocracy dictated by the decree of an egomaniacal elf-pope with a hateboner for dragons sounds fucking shitty and B. he became a Primal, and you are contractually obligated to kill those before they suck the world dry of Aether to sustain their untenable physical forms. There's a good moment after you win where a dying Thordan beholds you with raw terror and demands to know exactly what you are, that you could withstand the power of a thousand years of fervent prayer, the eye of a great wyrm, and the dormant power of the warring triad sleeping beneath Azys Lla. It looked a little silly because my Warrior of Light is a cute and well mannered midlander girl about as intimidating as a puppy in her Sharlayan Philosopher's Hogwarts factulty coat and witch hat but I imagine if you were like, playing as a roegadyn or a highlander wearing something slightly more threatening it could have been a stark shot portraying you in a much different light than what you're used to. Anyway, Thordan dies, Estinien runs in a full five minutes too late, realizes that the second eye of Nidhogg was in the Vault's basement all along, and resolves to put them both out of reach of man and dragon forever. Unfortunately, putting both of the eyes together makes Nidhogg's spirit rematerialize and posess Estinien's body, and he flies off to go take a nap back at the Aery before he resumes with the total destruction of the Holy See. And. That's kind of how it ends. Like there's a nice scene afterwards where Ser Aymeric signs some documents to officially become a part of the Eorzean Alliance and switch to a parliamentary system of government as Merlwyb almost shoots somebody by accident again. And then Elidibus goes to the moon and recruits the Warrior of Darkness to come down and fuck shit up and also Alexander activates in the hinterlands due to goblin hijinx. It ends on like 3 different cliffhangers which don't really feel earned and you get the feeling they didn't really know how to wrap this up until 3.3, which, admittedly, had a fantastic overall conclusion to the Dragonsong War arc and 3.4 finally did literally anything with the Warriors of Darkness in a pretty spectacular way.

Having a strong conclusion is not the only way that Stormblood compares favorably to its predecessor. Of much more concern to most of the playerbase and not my literary-analysis-obsessed-ass is the endgame raiding scene. Which is, also of my concern because I'm a literary-analysis-obsessed-ass who also raids. The initial Alexander raids in the Gordias sector are infamous among the community for basically killing the robust raiding scene that had evolved from the excellent Binding Coil of Bahamut. The idea behind them was sound, and was repeated and refined in Stormblood: they first released the normal difficulty raids that most players could do without exerting too much effort to get weekly drops for better gear and experience the story behind Alexander and the Illuminati, and then followed up with the Savage difficulty. Savage was more in line with the previous Coil raids, offering much harder, more complex encounters with greater rewards like the highest item level gear available and upgrade tokens for gear bought with tomestones. Sadly, the Gordias raids were bad. Well, maybe bad is a strong word, but they were not nearly up to the caliber of quality set by the Binding Coil. The normal versions of the raids were serviceable, but not very memorable, and the musical score was, uh, shall we say, divisive. The Savage tier raids were punishingly difficult exercises in frustration as players scrambled to relearn how to play jobs that had changed on fundamental levels and understand poorly defined and programmed mechanics like digititis and the gobwalker. On release, Savage Living Liquid was mathematically impossible to defeat before enrage witout very specific compositions optimized for damage above all else and the best possible available gear - these compositions weren't actually discovered until the delayed Chinese release, which had the benefit of hindsight and a more solid understanding of how jobs functioned in the post 2.0 world. Living Liquid was where raid groups went to die. When people finally got to Savage Manipulator, they quickly learned that the optimal way to get through it was to intentionally fail certain mechanics and die, then utilize the Free Company buff Back on your Feet to quickly revive that player and minimize time spent in the Weakness state. It was a trip, and people were not happy. During the anniversary stream, statistics about the number of players who had entered and cleared Savage instances came out. For ALexander 1 and 2, the numbers were fairly reasonable, but fell to triple digits for 3 and literally zero for 4. Post Heavensward launch was one of the roughest periods for the game, both because of the raid situation and because a lot of company money was tied up in delivering the giant bloated baby of Final Fantasy XV and the XIV team were working with a skeleton crew for a lot of the duration. Subsequent raid tiers in 3.2 and 3.4 gradually fixed a lot of the problems present in the Gordias sector, but the damage had been done.

Stormblood, however, has had no such issues. The Bend of Time: Omega Weapon raids have been very well received both mechanically and aesthetically. It seems that the developers erred on the side of caution this time around. Instead of introducing a bunch of largely random and samey Goblin robots to fight, Yoshida and the team went back to a bottomless well that has served them with distinction over the course of the game's lifespan: references to older Final Fantasy games that people loved. The first tier of Omega consists entirely of fights against demons of the dimensional rift from Final Fantasy 5, digitally reconstructed by the godlike Omega Weapon in a special dimensional space to participate in a grand experiment to see who The Strongest Fucker is. The Warrior of Light and the Garlond Ironworks find themselves caught up in this scheme during their investigations into the weapon's whereabouts after its battle with Shinryu. Midgardsormr, King of Kings, father of the first brood, and judgmental grandparent to the Warrior of Light also makes an appearance, seemingly with a deep connection to the mysterious Allagan supermachine. The raid tier culminates in a fight against the fan favorite villain Exdeath in one of the best fights in the game so far. With the possible exception of Alte Roite, who is kind of just there, all of the fights in this tier have unique, memorable mechanics to deal with, some of which are quite hysterical, like using an anti-gravity device provided by Nero to float above ground attacks, realize with alarm that you can't get back down, and then realize the boss will just do it for you, or strategically turning into a frog to get bonus limit break. The savage fights are obviously a step up in difficulty, but the developers decided to tone it down from Gordian levels and make the fights more accessible and clearable by more people. Which is not to say that they are easy fights - savage Halicarnassus and Exdeath require strong coordination and adaptation to survive. In order to entice more experienced players to take on these marginally-less-absurd challenges, the team has included mechanics and in the case of Exdeath an entirely new fight in the Savage instances that are quite fun and not present at all in the normal versions. This trend was actually started by Brute Justice in the Midan sector, who had a final hyper mode phase in savage that was absent in normal, though it was infamous for its incredible difficulty, even by Alexander Savage's standards. So, like with other aspects, they took this element of what came before and refined it and toned it down so now you can fight Neo Exdeath in glorious 3D.

The Omega raids are not flawless, by any means. While the Final Fantasy geek inside of me is vibrating constantly at the thought of more throwback fights later on, the more objective game critic side does genuinely prefer original content like what was found in Alexander, at least, in theory. Hardcore raiders are also quick to point out that they were kind of easy, but I'm not sure that their judgment of these matters is actually sound because only a small part of the population can sit down for 8 hours a day and ram their heads against the challenge and pave the way for the rest of us. Fortunately, the team expected this and has recently released The Unending Coil of Bahamut. The Unending Coil is a reimagining of the fights against Twintania, Nael Deus Darnus, and Bahamut himself condensed into one and made excruciatingly, preposterously difficult. This gave the hardcore groups a meaty bone to chew upon, and a clear didn't come nearly as fast as it did for Omega savage. There are tangible rewards for clearing it, as well - you get shiny dreadwyrm weapons which may have better stat allocations than their genji counterparts and the aptly named title "The Legend." They also released the Royal City of Rabanastre 24-person raid not long before at the launch of 4.1 for more casual players to enjoy and gear up with. Rabanastre has seriously ludicrous lore implications and tons of fanservice for the Ivalice Alliance appreciators in the audience, and in general is just much more fun and interesting than the Void Ark (though sadly lacking in Voluptuous Void Booty department). With the introduction of a radically new PvP mode in Birds of Prey where you get to ride around in giant robots, and rumors of the Forbidden Land Eureka making an appearance soon, the  Stormblood launch is enjoying much more support and longevity than Heavensward did.

Of course, the possibility remains that later patches in this cycle are going to be total trash heaps, but I think that it's fair to assume that they will not be those. The FFXIV is one of the best around at learning from mistakes and iterating upon good ideas until they are also good in execution. It's a game that has genuinely gotten better each time it has been updated, with some notable exceptions that were usually fixed pretty quickly anyway. At this point, I feel confident in saying that Stormblood is a superlative expansion with 4 more content patches to go promising a lot of really really cool shit. I'm super pleased, and it's probably my game of the year. It's extremely gratifying to watch the team grow and learn over time and create some really excellent experiences in every arena: social, mechanical, narrative and graphical. A haven for the bold is a great place to be right now.

[sweet-star-storybook]

Hey all, back at it again with the random posts, aha. I have been working on something that will formally address the month long art / comic hiatus I’ve been on, but that’s taking a bit longer than I expected. So as a break (I guess?) I took it upon myself to update what I call my Original Stories Timeline, i.e. a chronological list of all of my story ideas (as of October 2019 anyway). I have not posted this list anywhere, but I like to update it on my laptop every now and again.

There is a bit of ambiguity with some of the years that these were made, as sometimes there’s a difference between coming up with the title or lead character for a story versus actually making it a “thing” with an idea or scenes attached. As an example, Moth to the Flame technically began when I first drew Kiida in April of 2015, but aside from a snippet of reasoning for why she was an archer, the story as it is now did not start to take form until I drew Zander in December of 2017. Other times I flat out can’t remember when some of these stories were made, and digital files don’t always have the correct dates. 

For this post (and for curiosity’s sake), I wanted to add up and categorize them to see just how many stories I have in this brain of mine. It was actually quite a fascinating exercise, so I thought I’d share! I might as well list the titles for each category too, even if some of these are only titles at this point. I’ve renamed a few over the years and others are still working titles, but if any pique your interest at all, feel free to send me an ask about them! I love chatting about this stuff. :)

This got quite long once again so I’ll put it under the cut. Enjoy!

Stories that are old and/or need revamping: 6

Titles in this category:  Pasha & Marley (2003), Sonora (2004), Billy and the Rainbow Fish (2005), Spirit Fire (2006), The Darkest Light (2013), Polarity (2013).

These are stories that I’ve either had since I was a kid and would need overhauls to make them usable, or are simply dormant stories that I haven’t touched in a while and may need similar upgrades. This doesn’t mean that I will revamp all of them, but either way they serve as an interesting look at my progression as a story writer and character designer. My oldest story dates back to around 2003, and to put that into perspective, I was 8 years old that year.

Stories that are just titles / a smattering of ideas right now: 10

Titles in this category:  Fletcher (2016), The Dragons of Kitevale (2016), King Ace (2017), Ochako & Mai (2018), Psychanimate (2018), Mage Lights (2019), Trickster’s Gambit (2019), Switching Gears (2019), The Owlands (2019), Goodnight, Starlie (2019).

I always have too many of these for my own good, but this happens a lot if I have stray character designs that I think could maybe go together, and then before I know it the gears start turning in my head to add something more. I’m also really good at coming up with titles and logos to make me love the idea even more, even if there’s not much else to it. I guess you can blame my affinity for wordplay and clever puns for that, haha. Coming up with titles is really fun, but at this point I don’t know what kinds of stories these will be if I choose to develop them, so I gave them a separate category. Making this timeline reminded me of how many logos I still need to make!

Short films / animatics that I could also make into short comics: 7

Titles in this category:  The Aurora’s Child (2016), Blue (2016), Harpy (2017), Hearth & Lantern (2017), Leif & Shel (2018), The Healer (2019), In Your Orbit (2019).

My background in animation has afforded me the skills of writing for animation, specifically short films. I have always loved short films that communicate their story through little or no dialogue, and using the character’s actions and emotions to do the talking instead. Unfortunately my dreams of making a short film during school did not come to fruition, but that doesn’t mean the ideas have to go away, regardless of what form they take. I’ve made too many at this point to stop now anyway! I will likely do both a comic and an animatic for each one I decide to flesh out, as I want to practice both kinds of storytelling and they each have their advantages. Plus I could potentially make a comic anthology of these shorter stories in the future. Much like the animatics, the comics would likely be “silent”, in that they communicate more with action than dialogue.

Things I call “illustration worlds”: 2

Titles in this category:  Fruit Bats (2017), Lucky Stars (2019)

This one is a bit strange to explain, honestly. I picture these as more of a series of character interactions rather than a cohesive narrative, i.e. snippets of ideas carried out in a bunch of individual scenes, portrayed via illustrations. I am reminded a lot of the character interactions that exist in concept art for games and movies (the ones from Spyro: Reignited Trilogy come to mind). These illustrations would feature characters that could be in any sort of environment or setting, and we learn more about their personalities through each one, whether it’s a simple domestic scene or a fantasy world. There may not be anything much deeper than that, but there doesn’t have to be. A great deal of energy and expression can still be shown with these, and I love illustrations that have their own little stories contained within them. I could even compile them as a series of themed illustrations, hence why I still gave them titles (and once again, titles are fun).

Novels / story ideas I don’t plan on making into comics: 2

Titles in this category:  Shining Trigger (2014), A Mightier Pen (2017)

I’ve always loved writing long-form prose ever since I was a kid, and based on how many words these posts end up having, I can’t say much has changed! As such, I’ve always wanted to write a novel someday, but it does require a different skill set than script writing. With my background in animation and my new love of comics added in, I’ve done a bit of both. I might do novelizations of some of my comics later on, but these stories are, for the most part, better suited as written prose in my mind. They focus more on the characters and dialogue, rather than an imagined visual design. Not to say that novelists can’t paint detailed pictures of a character or world’s attributes, but it is communicated differently via words than pictures, especially when you consider the mind’s eye of a novel reader. That “design” has to be malleable enough for the mind’s eye to interpret, but clear enough so the reader knows what it is. I’d have to make sure that any reader could picture what I’m describing with my writing alone, and that’s a difficult balance to strike for a primarily visual storyteller such as myself, but a challenge worth taking nonetheless.

Large comic stories that have big worlds, a lot of characters, etc.: 3

Titles in this category:  Starglass Zodiac (2015), Id Pariah (2015), Feather Knights (2017).

I call these “The Big Three”, as they are the stories that will take the most world building, character creation, and story development to complete. They will have multiple chapters, expansive lore, several character arcs, you name it. I am very excited to tackle all of this development of course, but I want to make sure these are given the time they need to come to fruition. These projects will take me years to complete, which is why I choose to balance them with smaller projects in between. The potential these stories have is not something I want to squander, so even if the production moves slower, I feel it’ll be worth it in the end.

Smaller comic stories with fewer characters, simpler concepts, etc.: 5

Titles in this category:  Moth to the Flame (2015), The Onomancer (2015), Demon Exchange (2018), Take Wing! Emilia’s Tale (2018), Ashes (2018).

This is worded kind of strangely, but this category is meant for stories that have a smaller “scope” than the larger comic stories I mentioned. That doesn’t mean I love them any less or that they’ll be less developed, but they are far simpler in concept and rely less on the development of a massive world and lore and more on individual character experiences. I feel like any creator needs these smaller projects to tackle every so often, especially when tackling the behemoths gets tough. These stories will also have a faster turnover when it comes to completion, and I hope to complete one of these stories in the near future. These will also help me practice writing good foundations for stories, like proper character motivation, pacing, and relationship development that would translate into investment for the reader. There’s a great degree of skill required to do this correctly for any kind of story, but starting smaller in this regard is usually better.

Smaller stories that are supplements or spin-offs of other stories: 3

Titles in this category:  Counting Hearts (2019), The Serpent and the Sun (2019), Riders of Eldrigar (2019).

I know it probably seems a bit early to be thinking about stuff like this, but I do like thinking about the extended stories or supplements that I could add to my pre-existing projects, especially with characters or ideas that would best be told separate from the main story, be they backstories or another perspective on something. I also like the idea of stories that could exist in the same worlds, but can function independently of them as well. It’s a lot of fun to see how these could connect with each other, like having your own equivalent to a cinematic universe. This category currently only has smaller supplements to my comic stuff rather than fully fledged sequels, but who knows what might happen later on? I need to make the beginnings of these stories first!

And with that, the grand total is: 38!

-me after reading this total and spending way too much time on this post-

In all seriousness though, while it is a bit daunting to see just how many things my brain keeps tossing at me and how much that number has increased in recent years, it does make me excited for the future, even if I panic about time a lot. It tells me that I always have stories to tell, and new ones could be right around the corner. I’ll always have something to work on at least! I might periodically update this post as I edit the timeline as well, but for now, thanks for coming along on this little journey with me! :D I hope it was at least entertaining, haha.

[tpf1138]

Where to even begin with this one…

The Fountain–what was meant to be Aronofsky’s splash into mainstream, Hollywood filmmaking–was originally supposed to be a hundred-or-so million dollar epic starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett that spanned thousands of years, set everywhere from Mayan ruins to outer space, and with three intertwining stories depicting the eternal struggle between life and death.

A project this ambitious for a mega-budget studio film was simply not meant to be. Brad Pitt left the project to star in the safer, more generic Troy, and the film was subsequently shut down. But like all of the protagonists he’s written, Aronofsky doesn’t give up so easily, even if it means his downfall. He rewrote the script to accommodate a lower budget, got Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz to replace the original leads, and ended up getting the damn thing made.

And the result was one of the most divisive films of all time. When it premiered at Cannes for press and critics, it was met with a choir of boos. Meanwhile, when it was premiered in that very same festival for regular audiences, it received a standing ovation from the crowd. When it finally released for the public in theaters, it bombed at the box office and received none other than a 50% consensus rating on Rotten Tomatoes. And now, as more than 6 years have passed, it’s garnered something of a cult-following.

To many, it’s considered Aronofsky’s one true failure. To others, it’s a fascinatingly ambitious failure that’s more admired than enjoyed. And for weirdos like me, it’s a modern masterpiece. For today’s spoiler-filled installment of The Darren Aronofsky Retrospective, we take a gander at the director’s much-maligned, increasingly-loved, almost totally misunderstood gem, The Fountain.

“Our bodies are prisons for our souls. Our skin and blood, the iron bars of confinement. But fear not. All flesh decays. Death turns all to ash. And thus, death frees every soul.”

In case you didn’t figure it out the last two times, the main theme connecting every one of Darren Aronofsky’s films is of obsession, with each one representing different types. Pi dealt with the direct obsession of mathematics and patterns, and how they related to the construction of the universe. Requiem for a Dream was about the visceral obsessions caused by drug addiction, and how those very desires and euphorias ended up deteriorating the mind.

Meanwhile, the obsession at the center of The Fountain might be the most outlandish one Aronofsky has ever put to screen: The three protagonists of The Fountain are each on an existential quest to defeat Death. No, not the Grim Reaper, but the very concept of Death itself. No more dying, no more grief, just the comfort of existence outside of the great beyond. And you thought Ellen Burstyn was off her rocker for trying to fit into a skinny red dress.

The film is broken up into three separate stories, each one intercut and connected with the others in a style that was definitely a clear inspiration for the 2012 film Cloud Atlas, and with each segment starring Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz in the lead roles. The one set in the 1500s follows a Spanish Conquistador named Tomas (Jackman) who is searching for the fabled Tree of Life so he could save his beloved Queen (Weisz) from the Inquisition. 500 years later, in the present day, a doctor named Tommy Creo (Also Jackman) is attempting to search for a cure for his wife Izzy’s cancer before she (Also Weisz) eventually succumbs to the disease. Another 500 years later, an unnamed astronaut (Credited as Tom, played again by Jackman) is floating in the far reaches of space in a biosphere holding the Tree of Life. As he journeys to the mythical nebula of Xibalba, he’s haunted by memories of a ghostly Izzy, who continually goads him to look back at the past and “Finish it.” Whatever that means.

When the film originally released in 2006, the main criticisms leveled against it regarded its ambition. That it attempted to tell this grand, epic story spanning a thousand years that dealt with the metaphysical and the existential, using a mixture of Judeo-Christian and Mayan religious texts to give the story a grand, majestic, mythological stature… and that the movie ultimately crumbled under the weight of its myriad ideas. And here’s the thing: The critics are, in a way, kind of right. At 90 minutes, there was no way it could really expand on its concepts in a way that would satisfy those hungering for something with a surplus of philosophical depth, nor would it be able to capture the full breadth and scope of a story set within a 1000 year time-frame.

And yet, the film is a masterpiece, at least in the eyes of this overly romantic critic with a penchant to deeply respect anything of enormous ambition. Why? Because even with all the religious and philosophical mumbo-jumbo weighing on the film, they are ultimately not the main focus. What appears on the surface to be an odyssey through time, the cosmos, and the cycle of life itself, is in actuality one of the most deeply personal films of all time, next to classics like The 400 Blows and 8 1/2, as well as modern works of brilliance like The Tree of Life, Synecdoche New York, and Holy Motors. What may seem at first glance like a 2001: A Space Odyssey quickly reveals itself to be something more emotionally rich: A profoundly personal depiction of grief and its effects on the human psyche.

To understand what makes The Fountain such a personal endeavor for Aronofsky requires a small tidbit of backstory: One of the inspirations of the film was actually Aronofsky’s own experiences with dealing with mortality. In interviews, he’s stated how, in 1999, both of his parents were diagnosed with cancer when he was just thirty years old. Upon this discovery, he was forced to come to terms with his own mortality at a relatively early age, and then got the idea of a man attempting to save a loved one from an illness. He shared his idea to Ari Handel, a college friend who would later earn a PhD in neuroscience and become Aronofsky’s co-writer for the film, and the idea eventually blossomed into the story of a man attempting to cure the ultimate disease: Death.

As stated before, the initial criticisms were that of a film that didn’t know how to properly convey its numerous ambitious ideas. In reality, what these critics didn’t know was that this wasn’t a film about unlocking the secrets of life, death, and the meaning of the universe. Rather, The Fountain is a film about how we process death, and the existential crises that happen not within the vast reaches of the cosmos but within our very own subconscious.

The film has three protagonists, each one attempting to stop the process of dying from stealing away a loved one. Tomas must find the Tree to rescue his Queen, Tommy must discover a cure to save his Wife, and Tom must reach Xibalba to restore the Tree. But the authenticity of the stories is constantly toyed with as the film progresses. At first, we seem to accept that there’s some kind of Cloud Atlas thing going on where the soul of the Conquistador passed down to Tommy the neuroscientist, who may in fact be the younger version of the Tom we see in the future storyline (given the flashbacks to his wife). But then, we see that the Conquistador story is actually part of Izzy’s book. So that leaves the present-day and future storylines as the “real” canon, right? Soon, it doesn’t seem that way when Tom the astronaut starts having visions of the Queen of Spain urging him to “Finish it” as well.

When trying to figure out what this all means as someone expecting a film similar to 2001 where there’s philosophical, cosmological subtext to be found, there will inevitably be disappointment. Upon seeing it for what it actually is, however, it’s an emotionally rewarding experience. Izzy’s book (Which is titled, what else, The Fountain) depicting Tomas the Conquistador’s search for the Tree is much richer when seen from Izzy’s point of view of writing it. The casting of Jackman and Weisz as characters in the story is key to this as well. Izzy is clearly writing the book as a means of coping with her own mortality, and leaves the last chapter blank so Tommy can finish it and learn the lessons she did himself.

This leaves the future storyline, which is much more enigmatic in its nature. There are many good theories on what the space-set story represents, but the one that makes the most thematic sense is this: The story of Tom the astronaut is the final chapter of Izzy’s book, the one that Tommy is “finishing”, in which Tom ends his journey by learning to literally give up his quest and find peace in death. The result is a multi-layered depiction of grief that creates a strong emotional arc for the central character of Tommy.

Tommy must deal with the grief of his wife’s death by literally looking back into the past–both figuratively with Izzy’s book, and literally with the lesson Izzy was trying to teach him–in order to finish the pain of his grief. Meanwhile, in order to actually do so, he has to end it himself by finishing Izzy’s book and killing off Tomas, a character Izzy clearly meant to represent Tommy. But that wasn’t enough.

The creation of Tom the astronaut means many things to me. It’s ultimately the most direct visualization of the grieving process in the film: A single man, alone in the vast nothingness of space, with nothing else to keep him company but the Tree, a reminder of how he failed to save her, and a symbol of his unwillingness to let go of his lover’s memory. He traverses to Xibalba, a golden nebula where stars are born, its glow wrapping around Tom and his biosphere, teeming with a liveliness that he ultimately rejects in order to go further on his journey. As he ascends, he’s haunted by memories of Izzy & forced to confront the vastness of the cosmos and, as a result, the enigma of what lies beyond the grave. Finally, he reaches the star at the center: A dying star that, as Izzy pointed out in her research of Mayan culture, represents the Underworld in their mythology. To Tom, on the other hand, it’s the physical representation of the truth behind death that he must exploit to revive the Tree, and thus, defeat Death itself.

Instead of doing that, however, he sees the Queen of Spain, who was supposed to just be in Izzy’s book meant to teach Tommy his lesson, and in that moment he finally understands: He says, “I’m going to die,” with a sense of relief and deep satisfaction in his trembling, quivering voice. And through the lessons of the past, Tom can finally accept his destiny in the future.

However, the most fascinating thing about Tom’s journey is not how he comes to embody Tommy’s emotional arc. There’s actually more to it than just that. For example, if you were reading Izzy’s book, wouldn’t you find it odd that as you’re reading this fictionalized account of a Conquistador during the years of the Spanish Inquisition, you’re introduced to a character in the far future that’s never been referenced to before, haunted by memories of a character never seen before? But then, a realization: The memory that haunts Tom is Izzy, who is definitely not a fictional character in this movie’s universe. So imagine yourself reading this book, and in the final chapter, this character who you’ve never met before is mourning the death of the author of the very book you’re currently reading.

At that point, it becomes absolutely clear: Tom is not an embodiment of Tommy’s grief. Rather, Tommy literally wrote himself into the story. Think about it, in order to complete both the book and his emotional arc/grieving process, he had to insert himself into the narrative in order to externalize his grief and overcome it. If that’s not an apt metaphor for an artist like Darren Aronofsky making a deeply personal experience about coping with mortality, then nothing is.

The Fountain isn’t a film about unlocking the secrets of the universe. It’s a film, like his feature debut Pi, about learning to live without them. Search for order, and only chaos will infect your life. Embrace the chaos, however, and the world feels like it has more order than ever before.

So that’s ultimately what makes The Fountain something akin to Aronofsky’s 8 1/2, but how does the film employ his signature techniques?

If you’d seen just Pi and Requiem for a Dream, you’d almost be totally unaware that this was an Aronofsky film. Whereas those films were gritty and kinetic, The Fountain is vibrant, fantastical, and more gradual in its pacing. The film marks a huge evolution for Aronofsky’s style, displaying the first real proof of his incredible range as a director. He has a Danny Boyle-esque way of being able to assimilate into almost any kind of genre or style of filmmaking while retaining his own signature, distinct stamp on the project.

As different as the film feels at first, there are numerous techniques that remain the same. Matthew Libatique returns as Aronofsky’s director of photography for the third time in a row, saturating the film with a majestic, golden color palette. Meanwhile, the lighting and production design litter the film with little touches to each story that subtly connect the stories in interesting, visual ways. Some are much more noticeable, like a shot of a Mayan ruin turning out to be just a painting in the present-day storyline; while others are much more subtle, like a grouping of Christmas lights in the background that makes a present-day scene resemble the starry scenes with the biosphere in the future storyline.

This kind of attention to detail was what brought us into the mindset of Pi‘s protagonist and connected the stories of the four protagonists in Requiem for a Dream. The Fountain‘s aesthetic, on the other hand, accomplishes both. Much like the golden nebula that Tom must traverse through to confront his mortality, the colors give even the most mundane settings a kind of ethereal beauty and, in its own strange way, menace. It’s almost as if the world is being engulfed by the nebula itself, representing the protagonists’ ever-remaining fear that death is constantly encroaching towards all that he holds dear.

Aronofsky once again totally submerges us into the mindsets of his characters, while also simultaneously being aware of their flaws. As gorgeous as the visuals are, they actually represent a kind of paranoia for the protagonists. It’s almost as if Aronofsky is saying that death is not a dark presence, but a beautiful force that we as humans shun by default.

Of course, just a visual approach to the characters isn’t enough, and Aronofsky’s other staple of directing actors to their highest potential is evident here as well. This is easily the best performance(s) of Hugh Jackman’s career: Always sincere, always passionate, and effectively conveying that he’s playing the kind of men who are so single-minded in their pursuits that when one of them, in this case Tommy, finds a serum that can possibly prevent aging, he outright dismisses it because it can’t cure his wife’s brain tumor. And we totally buy into it because Jackman does not shy away from the fact that, as sincere and passionate as his three characters are, they’re almost reprehensible in their own way.

Instead of finding peace with the situation and comforting his wife during her final moments, Tommy constantly goes back to work so he could find a way to cure the incurable. On top of that, he seems outright dismissive of his own wife’s research. The scene that really brought the message home that Tommy is kind of an asshole was the one in a museum about Mayan culture, where Izzy is telling him about Mayan concepts of “Death as an act of Creation”, and he simply reflects them off, making candid, snarky asides rather than thinking on them like his wife clearly wants him to.

Further conveying this is in the scene of Izzy’s death, in which he continues to cling to his clearly-deceased wife. He performs CPR, repeats “Don’t die! Don’t Die!” as desperately as he could, and–in an almost cruel detail by Aronofsky–he performs mouth-to-mouth on her. This particular detail is not portrayed in a flattering light, as he’s almost slobbering all over her in his attempts to sustain her life. If scenes like that aren’t enough to convey that Tommy is completely imperfect, I don’t know what is.

And yet, Jackman’s Tommy isn’t totally deplorable either because of his aforementioned sincerity and passion. If he is acting purely on his own interests without regard for his wife’s own peace of mind, it’s solely because he loves and cares about her that much–almost too much–and it’s conveyed wonderfully in Jackman’s performance.

One of the best scenes in the film is the one after Izzy’s funeral, where Tommy is now alone in his home and remembers that his wedding ring is missing, a symbol of his own ignorance. Refusing to let go of Izzy, he literally tattoos a ring on his finger so that he can never lose it again. And when Jackman cries, he really goes for it. This isn’t the typical Hollywood sob where a single tear streams down the actor’s cheek. Instead, Jackman sniffles and wheezes through the scene in pure despair, his eyes turning completely bloodshot and his face whimpering like a baby that hasn’t been breast-fed in weeks. It’s a performance that comes purely from the heart, and the perfect kind for a project that’s as personal as this.

And before you ask me about the visual effects of the film, they pretty much speak for themselves. I mean, just look at these screenshots!

However, one of the few things that differentiates The Fountain from the rest of Aronofsky’s filmography is that Tommy might be the only Aronofsky character who doesn’t end with cruel punishment, instead reaching salvation and ultimately finding peace with himself. Much like Pi, The Fountainis ultimately about what we sacrifice in our search for coherence in a chaotic universe. Except whereas Pi‘s protagonist had to sacrifice every semblance of his humanity in order to gain peace of mind, Tommy undergoes a transformation and an arc that brings him to a literal embracing of death so he could regain peace of mind.

Looking back, this sort of development makes sense considering this is a story about personal introspection, and ultimately, an existential crisis doesn’t mean squat if the character doesn’t evolve from it. The same can be applied to Aronofsky himself, who clearly has a deep connection to what’s on screen. And the manner in which Tommy undergoes this realization is yet another virtuosic “montage” not unlike the one employed at the end of Requiem for a Dream.

Another staple of Aronofsky’s films is what I like to call “The Crescendo”, the final moments of an Aronofsky film in which everything continually builds and builds in intensity with the help of a Clint Mansell score and symphonic editing; bringing together numerous working elements into one cohesive whole. The final 10-15 minutes of The Fountain–set to what is perhaps the best track Mansell has ever composed, “Death is the Road to Awe”–is one of Aronofsky’s best “crescendos” alongside Requiem for aDream‘s finale.

Much like how Requiem constantly cut between numerous different stories at completely different settings in order to unify all four protagonists’ misery, The Fountain accomplishes that feat on a much grander scale. As Aronofsky cuts between the three separate time periods in segmented fashion, Mansell’s music steadily amps up in rhythm and volume as the time periods blur together. A Mayan temple guardian sees a vision of Tom the astronaut, Tomas the conquistador sees the star of Xibalba as soon as he drinks of the sap of the Tree of Life, Izzy takes a seed from the newly bloomed Tree and gives it to Tommy, etc. But what’s just as effective is that the score contains a period of absolute silence right before maybe loudest, most sudden orchestral cue in the history of cinema, right when Xibalba’s star blows into supernova. Aronofsky’s films usually end in a manner much like an explosion; The Fountain is the only one of his films that ends with a literal one.

As disorienting as it this finale is, the formalistic grandeur is enough to wash over you and allow a sense of awe at what’s transpiring on scene. It’s so deftly directed that it ultimately doesn’t matter whether you really “understand” it or not. Just letting Mansell’s lucid tones and the evocative visuals do the work is practically all that’s needed to “get” it.

Perhaps it ultimately doesn’t matter what The Fountain means, because what matters most is 1.) What it means to Aronofsky himself, and 2.) If it still works as a stand-alone experience. For my money, The Fountain is Aronofsky’s most beautiful, poignant work, and my personal favorite of his films. Normally when discussing a divisive film, I’d tend to point out that many will most likely disagree, but the fact that more and more people are discovering The Fountain‘s true meaning speaks to how exquisitely layered and resonant the film is. The Fountain is utterly brilliant, and perhaps in twenty more years or so, it will be recognized for the utterly gorgeous masterpiece that it is.

Of course, that doesn’t change the fact that it was deemed a failure back in 2006. And as such, as misunderstood as the film was at the time, Aronofsky still needed something of a “comeback” film to pick himself back up from the commercial and critical failure that The Fountain brought. His solution for a comeback film: A film about the obsession of comebacks. Typical, typical, Mr. Aronofsky.

Stay tuned next time, for a look at Darren Aronofsky’s Mickey Rourke vehicle: The Wrestler.

[josephlrushing]

10 Things That Make the Old Star Wars Expanded Universe Better Than the Sequel Trilogy

Last week the final entry in the Skywalker Saga – Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker – arrived on BluRay in stores (it has been out for digital purchase for a few weeks), and I thought it might be worthwhile to look back at the Sequel Trilogy and compare it to the original Star Wars Expanded Universe (EU) that was ‘purged from canon’ when Disney took over the franchise.

I have a long history of loving Star Wars that goes back to seeing the original movie more than a dozen times in theaters mostly using paper route money, but I am going to be blunt here: The Rise of Skywalker ‘broke’ Star Wars for me. This is the first movie I have not bought as soon as it was released — dating all the way back to the initial 1990 VHS offerings of the original trilogy.

I forgave the Prequel Trilogy many sins due to the strengths of several characters, the intricate look at the fall of the Jedi, and of course the amazing lightsaber choreography – and I count Revenge of the Sith as my third favorite Star Wars movie. In 2015 I was hyped to ride along with the sequels, being right there in Star Wars shirts for the opening night showings – and once again, I forgave The Force Awakens for the same-ness and fan service and rejection of ideas forged and honed across decades because I saw promise in the new characters and actually liked some of the ideas plucked from the expanded universe.

Similarly, I forgave The Last Jedi for its treatment of many characters, lack of cohesive motion in the larger arc and overt desire to be different at any price, simply because I did enjoy a few things and continued to care about the central characters. And even while watching the in-your-face spectacle of The Rise of Skywalker I had very positive feelings … which began to fade rapidly the moment I left the theater and started thinking about the film. The final movie betrayed the characters, the four decades of history built across movies and extended lore, the fans who had brought the franchise such success, and by revealing that there was no ‘master plan’ and that things done in one movie could simply be undone in the next at the whim of the director, they betrayed Star Wars.

So rather than giving time and more money to re-watching The Rise of Skywalker, I have been reading old books and re-playing old computer games, and have been reminded at how incredibly rich the Expanded Universe once was before being trashed by Disney. The good news? You can still read these books and play these games – and I recommend that you do!

Here are 10 things from the Expanded Universe that are better than the Sequel Trilogy.

1. Kyle Katarn – one of the strongest characters in all of Star Wars … and that includes the main movie characters. Katarn sought an education, and therefore ended up at the Imperial Academy, but during a mission began to experience Force visions and encountered and spared Jan Ors and others, but his leadership set him up as a decorated Imperial Officer once he graduated the academy. Just before he graduated, he learned his father had been killed – he was told it was Rebels, but a later encounter with Jan Ors revealed it was actually an Imperial assassination. This leaves him with a lack of trust of both the Empire and Rebellion – but he sees the good in taking on those who killed his father while thwarting Imperial plans. His conflict has him constantly struggling between the Light and Dark sides of the force. He is a richly developed and complex character with a natural arc and a series of relationships that are allowed to grow throughout the games. And sorry to say… HE stole the Death Star plans!

2. Luke’s New Jedi Academy – in The Force Awakens, Luke has a new Jedi Academy, and then, something goes wrong and there is mass destruction and Luke quits. In the EU, having a ‘rogue student’ happened enough that it was practically a trope – yet the reason it happened made perfect sense: training older force-sensitive people without a dedicated master-apprentice relationship could easily lead to unpredictable ends. But it is the depth and breadth of students, their struggles, and stories and how they interact with all of the main characters that make this burgeoning new Jedi Order so intriguing

3. Grand Admiral Thrawn – a blue Chiss Imperial military officer who started out as part of the Chiss Ascendency before rising to be a key leader during the reign of the emperor, Thrawn (full name Mitth’raw’nuruodo) took ships into command into hiding after the Battle of Endor. Years later he returned and brought together the remnants of the Empire to threaten the very existence of the fledgling New Republic at a time when it was struggling to gain the confidence and respect of star systems. Thrawn is a great strategist and an intriguing character far beyond anything we saw in the sequels.

4. Mara Jade – she started out as the Emperor’s Hand, a skilled and trusted assassin, set on destroying Luke Skywalker for killing the Emperor. We first met her as the dangerous protege of smuggler Talon Karrde, in the ‘Heir to the Empire’ novel that also introduced Thrawn. She was the first really strong and complex female character in the Star Wars universe aside from Leia – and indeed it was Leia who initially placed trust in Mara. She quickly became a fan favorite, and her inherent Force sensitivity naturally put her on a collision course with Luke. In the end, she and Luke get married and have a child together before she is tragically killed trying to protect her son Ben from Han and Leia’s son Jacen who had become a Sith apprentice. She replaced Kyle Katarn as the primary character for the Mysteries of the Sith stand-alone expansion to Jedi Knight in 1998 and is responsible for saving him from his fall to the Dark Side at the end of that game.

5. The Dark Forces / Jedi Knight series – the mid-1990s were pretty much the birth of the first-person shooter computer/video game. id Software released Wolfenstein 3D in mid-1992, with the juggernaut Doom releasing at the end of 1993 and dominating the gaming world of 1994. As a result, there was a glut of ‘Doom clones’ released from 1994 – 1997, most of which were mediocre and forgettable, but others such as Heretic, HeXen, Blood, Rise of the Triad and Duke Nukem 3D became classics. Perhaps the best of all of these was Dark Forces in 1995 – it had missions rather than just levels, which made sense for the mercenary Kyle Katarn. And like ‘real’ missions, you either succeeded or failed the entire thing, without the ability to save along the way. The story was cohesive and engaging, and for the first time, you were dropped into the Star Wars universe in an immersive way. Improving upon this milestone was 1997’s Jedi Knight, complete with FMV (full motion video) cutscenes and deep characters and … lightsaber combat! While Dark Forces introduced the third dimension to levels, in Jedi Knight we got a new level of scale and scope with massive sprawling levels of staggering height and innovation. Kyle and Mara Jade returned in 1998 for Mysteries of the Sith, and then in 2002 Raven Software took over with the Quake III engine based Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, featuring a huge leap in narrative development and incredible lightsaber combat. 2003 brought Jedi Academy and a return to the mission structure of Dark Forces (but with choice of mission order), and Jedi Knight’s customizable Force Power allocation. Jedi Academy refined the lightsaber combat – and remains the best lightsaber combat system to this day (sorry Jedi Fallen Order!). Alas, NONE of the characters or events are part of the new canon.

6. Han & Leia’s Relationship – from the earliest Expanded Universe novels, the relationship between Han and Leia has been central to pretty much everything. And for good reason – pretty much half of what propels Empire Strikes Back to be such a great movie is the growth of that relationship which fully forms in Return of the Jedi. And as expected after those events Han and Leia get married and have children – but there is so much else happening that things are never so simple. In books such as the Jedi Academy trilogy, we see the Solo children return from their exile to begin integration into Jedi training and life with their family. At the same time, we see that Leia struggles to balance life as a Jedi Apprentice, leader of the New Republic, mother, and wife. She is drawn to diplomacy and leadership … and Han bristles at all the formality and often struggles at feeling like Leia’s arm-candy. He embraces opportunities to leave Coruscant on diplomatic missions, though Leia seldom trusts his motives and occasionally fears for him falling back into his scoundrel ways. It is a complex relationship built by two complex characters – and they never simply fall apart due to the struggles or failings of their children.

7. New Republic – one of the biggest complaints I have with the Sequels is how they immediately splintered the Republic and Rebellion against the overwhelming First Order. In the Expanded Universe, we saw the New Republic quickly gain popular support but at the same time, those who saw financial or power gains under the Empire were slow to come on board and would harbor former Imperial leaders and assist the Imperial Remnant in strikes against the New Republic. Others appreciated the key role Luke and the Force played in toppling the Empire, didn’t trust the Jedi to be leaders and so there was another point of conflict as the Jedi Academy grew – of course, having the occasional powerful Dark Jedi or Sith cause havoc fed into this distrust! But the point is, in the Expanded Universe things moved forward in a way that made more sense, was ugly and messy and full of power-plays and distrust associated with all politics, rather than a convenient splinter that allowed us to get back to the ‘pitiful rebellion’ status for the Skywalker-Solo gang.

8. The Solo & Skywalker Children – in the Sequel Trilogy we get only Ben, but in the Expanded Universe we have four main children: the Solos have the twins Jacen and Jaina as well as younger son Anakin, and the Skywalkers have a son Ben several years later. All are Force-sensitive and have many adventures through the years, becoming integral parts of the New Jedi Order as well as carrying many elements of all of their ancestors and parents. The ability to blend a variety of character traits and present them with different scenarios provided for a wealth of stories and relationship building.

9. Dark Jedi – the Prequel trilogy showed us the possibilities of ‘gray Jedi’, ones who rebelled against the blind dogma of the Jedi but were not interested in the ways of the Sith. Qui Gon Jinn was one such Jedi, and it seems that Count Dooku was also such a Jedi. Other books and games took the concept further – Jedi who embraced the Dark Side without adopting the ‘Rule of Two’ or other Sith traditions. Often they were Fallen Jedi such as Exar Kun or Ajunta Pall from the Old Republic, and Jerec from the Empire. But other times they were simply untrained Force users who were swayed by power to become thugs or tools of Dark Jedi, or like the Reborn Warriors were infused with the Force Powers of other and became twisted with rage and hate. Wherever they came from or how they chose to pursue power, they made for interesting stories beyond the ‘good vs. evil’ tropes of the main Star Wars movies.

10. Knights of the Old Republic – not just one of the greatest role-playing video games of all time, this is the embodiment of a series of comics, novels and tabletop games depicting a period of galactic history thousands of years before the events in the films. This is a rich period of history before the Sith Order adopted the ‘rule of two’, where the Republic and Sith Empire battled for control and Mandalorians and others were major forces. This period featured legendary Jedi and Sith with names we’d never heard before, allowing for incredible character and plot developments.

I could mention others such as Rogue Squadron, or the super-weapon Sun-Crusher that was dumped into a black hole, and other great characters such as scoundrel-hero Dash Rendar from ‘Shadows of the Empire’, Talon Karrde, Corran Horn, Admiral Daala, and many more. OK, maybe Rendar is a throwaway stand-in for Han Solo – but it is definitely better than the sudden reveal of Poe as a smuggler-scoundrel-turned-hero with a heart of gold. There are so many fun characters and ideas – even in some poorly written books – that it is a great look into the myriad ways we all envision this galaxy far, far away!

What about you – what are your thoughts about the Sequels in general, and ‘Rise of Skywalker’ specifically after a few months have gone by? Are you a fan of the old Expanded Universe? What are your favorite and least favorite parts?

from Joseph Rushing https://geardiary.com/2020/04/07/10-things-that-make-the-old-star-wars-expanded-universe-better-than-the-sequel-trilogy/

[theconservativebrief]

Since 2002, Sony has released six different Spider-Man movies. During that span, there have been three different Peter Parkers (played by Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, and Tom Holland), three different Aunt Mays who have gotten progressively younger (Rosemary Harris, Sally Field, and Marisa Tomei) two different Mary Janes (Kirsten Dunst and Zendaya), and three different Green Goblins (Willem DeFoe, James Franco, and Dane DeHaan).

Most of those movies bleed together and reduce the same conflicts into clichés. So even in the wake of the splendid 2017 charmer Spider-Man: Homecoming, it’s hard not to feel like another Spider-Man movie on the horizon is more of a taunt than a treat. It’s difficult to shake the fear that a new one might sink into what is now a well-established web of indistinct existence, becoming yet another Spider-Man movie that was made only because studio executives know that people will reliably buy tickets to go see a Spider-Man movie, no matter how terrible it is.

The best Spider-Man movies convincingly tap into the spirit of the character, his divine earnestness. He’s not unbeatable. He doesn’t have a magic hammer. He doesn’t have a magic suit. He’s just a kid who wants to do the right thing, who will risk anything to save all of us.

And no Spider-Man movie should ever leave its audience asking: What made this one different?

Rest assured, true believers: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse won’t let you down.

The new animated movie is a sleek and soaring, a wonderful paean to the spirit of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’s legendary webslinger, embodying the relentless hope and optimism of its hero in such a classic way. But it also unearths exhilarating new ground — by way of spectacular deviations from the norm that the Marvel Cinematic universe and live-action filmmaking don’t always allow for — that makes it feel like something tremendously innovative, while still traditionally Spidey.

Into the Spider-Verse centers on Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore), a character who has lived a full life in Marvel’s comic books but doesn’t exist in the live-action MCU.

Morales is a biracial kid — he’s half Puerto Rican and half black — living in a universe that’s parallel to the main Marvel universe. Peter Parker’s Spider-Man still exists in this parallel universe, performing daily acts of heroism just like you’d expect; in fact, the only thing that really sets it apart from the main universe is that Morales exists in it.

By fate, Morales obtains his own powers that are similar to Spider-Man’s, but they create for Morales an entirely unique set of trials, triumphs, and tribulations. The tried-and-true themes of power and responsibility are present, but they manifest differently for Morales because he’s living in a world where Parker’s Spider-Man already Lives.

Parker is a sterling example of what it means to be a hero, and instead of Morales having the freedom to carve out his own kind of heroism, he feels the pressure to carry on Parker’s legacy.

Consequently, his story is less focused on wielding his power with responsibility, and more on his responsibility to embrace his power. Morales must learn to accept his own greatness and overcome his personal insecurities in a world that can cruelly remind any of us at any time that we aren’t that special.

It’s a tall order, and one that’s complicated by Morales’s young age. But Into the Spider-Verse impressively never loses sight of the fact that Morales is just a kid, just like Parker was when Lee and Ditko first created Spider-Man. Though Homecoming got at that idea, there has been a tendency in previous Spider-Man movies to age Parker up — as if being a kid and balancing, school, heroism, and family wasn’t as valid as being an adult superhero.

Into the Spider-Verse is quick to dispense with that notion. Screenwriters Phil Lord (who co-directed the film) and Rodney Rothman seem to inherently understand that the wide array of joys, fears, and uncertainties that all kids experience, and that all adults are familiar with. Into the Spider-Verse treats its characters’ emotions with care and validity, all the while trying to solve a puzzle that has long stumped people of all ages: Who am I supposed to be? And the scarier follow-up: What if I don’t deserve that identity?

There is no Spider-Man without the classic saying, “With great power, comes great responsibility.” (Some trivia: the original quote is actually, “with great power there must also come great responsibility.”) The credo was born out of Uncle Ben’s death, a death that Peter Parker could have prevented had he not had a lapse in judgment and a moment of selfishness.

But when we meet Miles Morales in Into the Spider-Verse, he doesn’t yet have the emotional maturity to understand the concept.

Morales, just as he was when writer Brian Michael Bendis and Sara Pichelli created him in 2011, is a geeky kid pre-pubescent tween. Like Parker, he’s an accomplished student, but he wants to hide that part of himself. He attends a posh school for the gifted and rich, but he wants to go back to being a normal kid, at the regular high school, with all of his friends. When he gets bit by a spider and obtains new powers, he initially interprets them as sudden-onset puberty. But fate clearly has other plans for Morales, and when he witnesses the death of Peter Parker, it’s up to him to take on the mantle of Spider-Man.

While Into the Spider-Verse screenwriters Lord and Rothman might be better known for their comedic work (they previously collaborated on 22 Jump Street, and Lord directed The Lego Movie), the two have written a thoughtful, nuanced story that explores Morales’s uncertainty over whether he deserves the powers he has, as well as the guilt and grief he feels over Parker’s death.

It isn’t just the spider powers that Morales questions; the privilege of attending the great and gifted school is also an obvious weight on his mind.

As he’s frequently reminded by his loving policeman father (voiced by Brian Tyree Henry), he’s very blessed. But in a world where so much happens by chance, Morales seems uncomfortable with the idea that he might be the only one who benefits from his privileges. He’s also wary of taking them for granted.

Making things more complicated is Morales’s Uncle Aaron (Mahershala Ali) who deeply cares for Morales but for some reason is not on speaking terms with Morales’s father. It’s implied that Uncle Aaron partakes in shady dealings. But Aaron can connect with Morales in a way that adults don’t. He appreciates and nurtures Morales’s creativity, something that Morales’s father has never done enough of. And though Aaron isn’t as book smart as Morales and didn’t attend the gifted school, he lives a comfortable enviable life in the city and seemingly travels a lot. So it seems only natural that he becomes Morales’s role model.

But when Uncle Aaron inconveniently disappears, Morales’s story begins to center on the grueling emotional toll of finding one’s identity, and of understanding how power and responsibility are inextricably linked. Morales has no friends his age. He and his father don’t have a particularly close relationship. And with his new powers, he’s having to deal with life-changing circumstances on top of being a kid.

Morales’s vulnerability is a key reason why Into the Spider-Verse succeeds. What made Spider-Man so special when Lee and Ditko first created the character was that his story assured young readers that their fears, emotions, and joys were every bit as valuable and as valid as those grown-ups. Spider-Man was an acknowledgment that growing up is exhausting, and sometimes hurts more than scuffles with supervillains. That it’s incredibly painful when, no matter the reason, you can’t tell anyone who you really are.

Into the Spider-Verse builds on that legacy in a way that allows Morales to be frightened, to feel unsure of himself, perhaps even to act unhelpful and callous at times, while never losing sight of his bravery and humanity.

A major challenge that all live-action superhero properties face is that it’s expensive and sometimes impossible to translate a lush two-dimensional comic book illustrations into three-dimensional live-action sequences. Superhero television shows typically don’t have the budget required to keep up with comic artists’ imaginations. But even the biggest blockbusters sometimes contain scenes that look like a bunch of fight scenes were thrown into a blender.

That’s where Into the Spider-Verse has an advantage.

Animation allows Rothman and his co-directors Bob Persichetti and Peter Ramsey to make their scenes even bigger, even better, even more eye-popping than the comic book pages that inspired them. They aren’t bound by the physical limits of stunt performers or the kinds of sets that human hands can build, nor are they dependent on CGI. If they can draw and animate it, they can do it.

And they have capitalized on that freedom to create fight scenes that are nothing short of spectacular.

But even more dazzling than the fight scenes are the risks that Into the Spider-Verse takes and the envelopes it pushes. The movie obviously doesn’t want to look like any superhero movie — animated or live action — that you’ve ever seen.

The movie pays homage to classic comic book style in the way that it plays with where your eye is trained to go. Some sequences zoom in to speed up time, or expand to show how small our hero is amid the grand scope of the universe. There’s also some fun stuff that happens with verticality and space, as every frame seemingly contains a trapdoor that could, at any moment, plunge the action into the space below. And it all culminates in a gorgeous, dimension-shattering set piece that tumbles, swirls, and opens up several worlds within worlds, all with pockets of stunning animation that beg to be explored.

Because of a nefarious plan involving a super collider by the movie’s villain, Kingpin, Morales eventually learns that there are multiple parallel universes in existence. That’s why the Peter Parker who died in Morales’s world can still exist in another. (It’s an idea that’s already been executed in the comics, and it nicely leaves the door open for characters to cross between parallel universes, should Marvel and Sony ever decide to bring Morales into the live-action Marvel Cinematic Universe.)

But Into the Spider-Verse also uses the multiverse explanation to experiment with different styles of animation, and to crumple the boundaries of what a superhero movie looks like. Each universe we has its own distinct aesthetic; one character from a future timeline is drawn in a jagged animé style, while another character from a past timeline becomes an peckish homage to noir-style comic books (Nicolas Cage providing the voice also helps). All these different styles are then contrasted with the sleekness of Morales’s world.

There are moments where it feels as if the movie was bitten by a radioactive comic book, and is transforming right before our eyes. It’s a glorious sight to see.

With its risky visual storytelling and tender script, Into the Spider-Verse earns the greatest honor that one can bestow on a Spider-Man movie: It somehow makes you want to see more Spider-Man movies. Including at least a few more for Miles Morales alone.

Spider-man: Into the Spider-Verse will be released in theaters on December 14.

Original Source -> Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse makes Spider-Man feel original again

via The Conservative Brief

[davidmann95]

So, what's the deal with Kingdom Hearts? I mean, it's a Disney/Final Fantasy crossover, right? Hard to see why would that cause such dedicated whatever.

I’ve had this in my drafts for a while, and given today’s the series’ 17th anniversary it seems like the time to finally get back and finish it. Simple answer: the music slaps and you just want the soft children to get to go home.

Long answer: Even now people joke about the baseline absurdity of a universe in which Donald Duck can go toe-to-toe with Cloud, and while I think 17 years in we’re past the point where it’s time to accept that this is just a part of the landscape for these characters, yes, that does remain objectively bonkers. It’s not a natural, intuitive combination like your JLA/Avengers, this is Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe-level “well, I suppose they both exist in…the, uh, medium of visual storytelling” stuff, other than I suppose that they both tend towards fantasy in this case. And then that whole wacko premise got hijacked by Tetsuya Nomura for an extended epoch-spanning drama driven by labyrinthine, (occasionally literal) dream logic mythology where it’s genuinely impossible to tell at this point what’s being thrown in by the seat of the creators’ pants and what was planned out since day one, pretty much casting aside the franchises that were in theory the main appeal as relevant parts of the plot even as you still hang out with Baymax from Big Hero 6. Step back even a touch, and there will always be a whiff of derangement about the entire affair - it’s simply baked in at this point.

My controversial opinion however: it’s actually good. There are structural issues and awkward moments and aspects ill-served, I’d never deny that, but even diehard lifelong Kingdom Hearts fans tend towards prefacing appreciation with at least two or three levels of irony and self-critique. I suppose it’s in part a response to the general reaction to it I mentioned before, but no, I absolutely think these are genuinely good, ambitious stories build on a foundation that’s still holding strong. An important note in service of that point: Winnie the Pooh, maybe Hercules, and with III Toy Story aside, I have basically zero childhood nostalgia for any of the properties involved. Wasn’t a huge Disney kid outside maybe very very early childhood, and only dabbled with Final Fantasy after the fact (still intend to play through XV someday though). It won me over young, yes, but on its own.

The building blocks help: the characters designs are great, the individual Disney settings in their platonic representations of various locales and landscapes make perfect towns packed with quirky locals to roam through on your quest, the Final Fantasy elements are tried and tested for this sort of thing, the original worlds each have their own unique aesthetics and touchstones and come out lovely, by my estimation the gameplay’s fun adventure/slasher stuff even if it’s had ups and downs over the years, the actors largely bring it, it all looks pretty, and as noted, the score is as good as it gets. They’re games that look, sound, and play good made up of component parts that unify into a sensible whole. And for me, the scope and convolution of the plot that so many leap at as the easy target - with its memory manipulations and replicas and time travel and ancient prophecies and possessions and hearts grown from scratch and universes that live in computers and storybooks and dreams - is half the appeal; I live for that kind of nonsense. Not that folks aren’t justified as hell in taking jabs at it, but I’ll admit I often quietly raise an eyebrow when I see the kind of people I tend to follow having an unironic laugh at it given *gestures toward the last 40 years of superhero comics*.

All that through is ultimately window dressing. The most powerful appeal of Kingdom Hearts is I suppose hidden if you’re going by commercials and isolated GIFs and whatnot, and even the bulk of the content of the average Disney world, charming as they are. It’s deceptively easy to pick out something else as the fundamental appeal too; even if I’d call them incredibly well-executed examples of such the character archetypes it deals in are relatively broad, and while it handles the necessary shifts in its tone from fanciful Disney shenanigans to apocalyptic cosmic showdowns for the heart of all that is with incredible skill - and that might be its most unique aspect, and certainly a critical one - a lot of that comes down to raw technical ability on the part of the writers, appropriate dramatic buildup, and demarcation between environments and acts of the story.

The real heart of the matter, to speak to my typical audience, is that Kingdom Hearts in a profound way resembles 1960s Superman comics and stories inspired by the same: it’s 90% dopey lovely cornball folk tale stuff, until every now and again it spins around and sucker punches you in the goddamn soul with Extremely Real Human Shit. Except here instead of being lone panels and subtext, it builds and builds throughout each given adventure until it takes over and flips for the finale from fairytale to fantasy epic.

That can probably be credited directly to Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi suggesting to Tetsuya Nomura to try treating this weird gig seriously instead of as the licensed cash-in it seemed destined to be, since if this didn’t have a soul the target audience would recognize it. But in spite of that seriousness, it’s perhaps its most joyfully mocked aspect in its entirely unselfconscious dedication to making Hearts and Feelings and Light and/or Darkness the most important things in the universe that lets it do what it does. It’s childish in the most primal way, absolutely, but what that translates to is that there aren’t cosmic or personal stakes that swap places as major or subsidiary at any given point, because in this world they’re always literally the same thing. There’s no major relationship where the fate of a primal power or a last chance at salvation doesn’t ultimately hang in the balance depending on how it shakes out, and there’s no prophecy or ultimate weapon or grand scheme that doesn’t have direct, fundamental ramifications on the life of an innocent or the memories that define them or whether they’ll ever be able to find a place to call home. ‘Hearts’ is an all-encompassing theme, whether in strength of will or redemption or questions of personhood or the ties that bind us, and by making it a literal source of power, it lends personal dimension to the unfathomable universal and the grand weight of destiny to whether or not someone can come to terms with who they want to be or apologize to those they’ve wronged. It’s a world where emotional openness and personal growth ultimately works the same way and achieves the same results as doing calisthenics in five hundred times Earth’s gravity does in Dragon Ball. and it’s tender and exuberant and thoughtful enough where it counts to take advantage of that as a storytelling engine.

That’d be why Sora works so well as the main character, because he straddles the line most directly between those poles. He may stand out as a spiky anime boy when actually next to Aladdin and the rest, but when it comes down to it he’s a Disney character, just a really nice, cheeky, dopey kid who wants to hang out with his friends and go on an adventure and believes in people really really hard. As the stranger in a strange land he’s a tether to a wider, sometimes more somber and weighty world when he’s sticking his head into the movie plots, but when he’s in the midst of stacked-up conspiracies and mythic wars that make all seem lost, he’s the one whose concerns remain purely, firmly rooted in the lives of those connected to him. Other characters get to go out there into bleak questions of self-identity or forgiveness, but while he might wrestle with doubt and fear Sora’s the guy who holds the ship steady and reminds all these classic heroes and flawed-yet-resolute champions and doomed Chosen Ones what they’re fighting for by just being a really good dude.

Given superhero comics are my bread and butter it doesn’t come up much, but Kingdom Hearts is really about as foundational to the landscape of my imagination as Superman and company, and while 100% that’s in part because it came into my life early it didn’t take hold by chance. It manages its stakes and its drama in a way and on a scale unlike just about anything else I’ve ever seen (even prior to getting to the weird mythology stuff that’s so profoundly up my alley), and somehow the aesthetics and gameplay and dialogue and all the million and one details that needed to come together to facilitate that story joined together into something that’s become one of the most curious, beloved touchstones of its medium. It’s a small, lovely bastion of warmth and sincerity in a way that only feels more like a breath of fresh air with time, playing out over decades a bunch of kids’ journeys to try and find the people they love most and help them and go home together when everything in the universe seems to be against them. It’s special in ways that will for me always be unique and meaningful, and I’m glad it seems to have plenty more in it before it’s through.

And seriously THAT MUSIC.