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thejudgingtrash · 4 years ago

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Annabeth is a good person,but not a nice or pleasant one,IMO.

YES.

That’s it. That’s the post. Pack it up everybody, we just cracked the case and cleared up one of the most compelling fights in the PJO fandom since forever. Good job everybody, clap it out and there’s the door! Don’t forget ordering the drinks at Starbucks, Mitch! They’re on me!

Okay, but on a more serious note: YES. YES EXACTLY.

And before some of you roll your eyes or grab your pitchforks – put your biases aside and hear me out for once. I like Annabeth. She’s my in my top three characters only second to Percy himself. I love Percabeth. It’s my favorite ship in the entire series and to be frank, the only ship that I care about PJO wise. Hell, I spend my time creating my own headcanons or writing my own fanfics with Percabeth being the star in them.

But that is not to say that I’m unable to see how certain things have developed over the years or where they stand now in regard to Annabeth. I’m not here to ignore things that have been said and/or done due to or in the name of Annabeth and I’m not here to vilify anyone that doesn’t like her. And I’m here to admit that I’m guilty of some of the things that may be addressed in this meta essay that you will read in just a second. However, I try my best to assure you, that I’m for once able to recognize my own bias.

Warning: a monster essay lies right upon you.

This should count as a paper of its own.

Back to the statement on top: I would go out even further to reframe your claim, anon:

Annabeth Chase is a good character but not a nice or pleasant person.

Annabeth is a wonderful character but she isn’t a nice one. Or at least not nice to everyone. She is (construction wise if I dare say) the best character out of the series. She has her positive traits (she’s caring, she’s emotional, she’s encouraged and volunteers, she fights for what she believes in, she forgives (even if doing so begrudgingly)) but she also has her negative traits (she’s stubborn, she’s brash, changing her mind takes forever, she is prejudiced, she baits others). That balances things out. She is branded as the intelligent kid but does irrational things (like I’ve just said a) she’s a kid and b) she’s not a robot). She should probably know better, but we all make mistakes and hopefully grow and learn from them. The clouds in the sky do blur and cover our visions sometimes.

Annabeth had clashes with other characters or was about to have fights due to her stubbornness or jealousy (Rachel, Reyna, etc.) and has of course her problems with the mortal world and her family but she also found new friends, some things cleared up throughout the narration and she was/is quite popular in Camp Half-Blood.

The thing is: she doesn’t have to be nice or pleasant (as a character). Or at least not all the time. Her character is humanized. That is what or who she is. Human. She does stand out as a character, not just because she’s the (future) love interest. She feels like someone you could meet in real life and either adore from the top to the bottom or declare as your biggest enemy. And that’s totally okay if you lean either way – liking or disliking her. Or even feeling indifferent about her. Also great!

To say that she has been the best character that Riordan has crafted is easy to say, because she has been sculpted after Riordan’s wife. He had a model he could rub some of real-life events or traits on. That’s not the problem. The problem truly doesn’t lie on Riordan’s side for the most part for once.

The problem is inherently on the fandom’s side. What the fandom does, how it acts and how it treats Annabeth as a character is the problem. The problems vary but it’s mostly the mischaracterization of Annabeth, starting fights and fan/ship wars, internalized misogyny (in some cases) and how some of the Annabeth stans lash out (ha, got firsthand experience in that field among many of my friends and mutuals!). There is a reason why many people are wary of people that have Annabeth or Percabeth related URLs.

The fact that we see Annabeth mostly through Percy’s lens and (until the Heroes of Olympus saga hits) we never really see her in chill everyday situations is essentially Riordan leaving the back door of the house open, ready for all of you asshats to rob his mansion in Boston. Because a frame on a character means that we don’t get to see the character in its entirety (unlike we do with Percy in PJO for the most part). That means a bunch of stuff is left open for interpretation which is the reason why Annabeth gets so many polarized headcanon and opinions tossed around. I think that is one of the true appeals of Annabeth. You can add on stuff and it necessarily doesn’t have to contradict itself.

We have people calling her abusive due to a (n admittedly stupid and unnecessary) judo flip and we have people that act like she’s never done anything wrong. People sorta use this excuse to form and shape Annabeth however they want and distort her characterization.

People in the fandom act like Annabeth is some weird prized possession. We perceive Annabeth mostly through the eyes of others (Percy, Apollo, etc.) and when we had some sort of insight in her ways (MOA, HOH) it felt… weird? Somewhat? Like Riordan left two bullet points of her characterization and told the ghostwriter: aight, fuck it up, gringo, see you on Tuesday and greet Fred the next time you see him for me.

There have been many posts lately (by Tharini, Simi, Sawasawako, Jewishpercy and Annie I believe?) that HOO Percabeth felt weird. That they felt weirdly constructed, that there was no conflict, no growth. It felt stagnating, like we’re turning back. We had five books prior where we had Annabeth and Percy slowly shifting from disliking to liking and crushing each other. True development. And when we finally got the cake it felt… dissatisfying. Like the cheap box stuff and not the delicious exquisite taste that we were promised.

I said it previously in my Percabeth ship roast, but let me repeat myself: many Percabeth related things are straight up fanon. Some of it is very old fanon so that’s been unable to distinguish unless you’ve read the books recently and subtract nearly 99,9% of things you see on Tumblr (and occasionally the other shitty parts of the fandom like Reddit, IG, Twitter. Although they mostly steal and recycle tumblr stuff oh well. But back to the topic).

The way people treat Annabeth is so strange. She’s either an innocent fluffy smush baby that’s never harmed a fly and all that she wants for Christmas is being Percy’s lapdog or she’s the devil incarnate, broke into your house, killed your parents Batman style, kicked your puppy and didn’t flush the toilet on the way out. I think this is what mostly makes people hate her or the ship Percabeth. And both extremes are wrong and right at the same time? She is multifaceted so both stereotypes are true and untrue and sorta cancel each other out in the same way.

The true reason why people dislike Annabeth is because the stans are doing the most. (The haters as well, don’t get me wrong, but oh boy. Piss of a stan and you’ll know what I mean). That isn’t inherently new. Are you guys old enough to remember the ship wars that have happened cross platform? Perachel vs. Percabeth? Oh boy, oh boy. I saw some kids on tumblr a few months ago trying to infiltrate both tags and start shit (and also fail). The fact that Rachel still gets used as the bitchy (ex) girlfriend in fanfics? It’s 2020 guys. I know this apocalyptic year is far from perfect and over but I think we can let this trope die, right? Right? I thought we’ve established that Rachel is a pretty chill charcter by now… right?

If you posted your stuff on FFN back in 2010-2013 and it wasn’t the typical cutesy Percabeth story (Goode High, the gods read TLT, punk/prep Percabeth, college AU, etc.) people would’ve come for your fucking throat. Not because the story or the narration was shit. But because the pairing wasn’t Annabeth and Percy (in the sense that Annabeth had to be paired with Percy. I mean Percy gets shipped with everyone and their mother but for Annabeth it was strictly Percy. As annoying as this whole Connabeth thing is – the people behind it actually had a point. She never had a different love interest unless it’s a Percy centered story and he goes off dating Athena, Artemis and Zoe at the same time for some odd reason. Yeah, FFN Percy ships are something). Or it wasn’t the action filled canon compliant story or it wasn’t an AU that was popular.

People were really stubborn, snobbish and wanted their stuff in the four five boxes that were the most popular ones and that’s it. People have been bullied off the site in many fandoms, so it’s not a PJO-only thing but it’s still sad that it happened. (Off-note: most of these FFN tropes are still alive and well and thriving on AO3. Don’t be so snobbish and pretend that every piece you’d find there is a holy grail. There’s a lot of trash you have to waddle through. Same with Wattpad, Tumblr or anywhere else where fanfics get posted. Also had this discussion with Annabeth stans. Sigh).

And Tumblr back then? Forget it, wasn’t much better.

That view has sorta changed (at least for people that have been in the fandom for several years or have managed to find a way to navigate through it) but some of the negative sentiment from back in the day has survived. Be it by new fans coming in or from old fans that never let their stance die. The aggression feels differently and somewhat not. (I don’t know if the anon function had been abused that much back in the day. I was an observer not a participant in the fandom).

Crack a joke at Annabeth’s expense (Kal’s famous “Annabeth is a Republican” post or Dee Dee’s and many others “Annabeth has the education of a second grader, chill with the college plans, girlie” stance) and you have people insulting you, making callout posts, unfollowing and blocking you (based on only that? Okay, honey), making aggressive counter-posts, etc. in a minute. If you respond with “It’s a joke, it’s not real” you have a 50/50 chance of either getting blown off or embarrassing them so that they apologize for once.

This isn’t just about jokes. You can make a headcanon that’s not the cozy cute convenient mainstream saga and people would react the same way. Or art piece (no, not including the whole Tannabeth Blackchase shtick done by Viria and others) or fanfics.

People project so much onto the unfinished canvas that is Annabeth Chase that any form of negative sentiment as little as someone not liking her to straight up criticism, regardless of how tiny it may be, seems like an affront. Like an invitation to a fight. Like an insult to them, their character, everything they believe in. Let me state something:

You are NOT Annabeth Chase. Annabeth Chase IS NOT you. Annabeth Chase is NOT real. Her feeling cannot be hurt. Someone criticizing, disliking, joking about her or even insulting her will not bother her. Someone making a statement about her is not an insult to YOU.

Let me repeat that:

Annabeth Chase isn’t real. Annabeth Chase isn’t you.

So think a little before you act? I get it when you’re a kid and new to fandoms or haven’t been up with fan cultures in the past and are back in the scene. But if you’re in your late teens or even older as an adult and you’re unable to understand that you aren’t what you like – you aren’t the extension of a fictional character – I feel incredibly sorry for you. Because that’s just incredibly sad. Someone disliking something you like isn’t an attack of your character. It shows you that you are you and the other person is a human just like you. That they just have different taste. Disliking something you like isn’t a crime, you know? But me feeling sorry for the way some of y’all act won’t mean that that’s even remotely okay. Especially if you’re no longer in the intended audience for PJO age wise and should know better.

This isn’t a “white stans” only thing. I’ve seen and witnessed firsthand how people of color, mainly women of color, act the same or not even worse when it comes to her character. People have projected their problems and real-life occurring events into her character (I’m sure that she isn’t the only character nor that this is the only fandom where this is happening) and in some cases like I’ve said cannot separate their own personality from the fictional world. Fights with woc happened because of Annabeth fucking Chase. So many things have happened in the fandom the past few months, mostly due to people being forced staying at home because of the quarantine but I’d say it’s 10% on quarantine and 90% on people for acting up like this.

So here’s a little story: There was the act of Riordan blowing the fandom up because of his own stupidity and being unable to apologize for his mischaracterization and lack of research (the whole Piper fiasco) back in June (?) and admits the upset fandom, people on Twitter, Tumblr and Discord legit thought that none of that mattered and that the outcry was destroying Annabeth Chase’s birthday. That’s right. People thought that Annabeth Chase’s non-existing birthday because she’s a fictional character had a higher priority than the rupture and prevalent racism in the fandom. Okay. This isn’t a great look, Annabeth stans. And this of course pissed a lot of people off. I made a post about it and someone not only berated three other people on said post but no, we had a mighty argument which had disrupted many friendships in our circle which haven’t recovered until this very day. We both had our parts in it and no one is innocent. But the cause of this still remains Annabeth Chase or how people prioritize her non-existing well-being. Anyway. I’m getting agitated just thinking about it.

Let’s go back to the characterization thing with Annabeth. Let me remind you:

Annabeth Chase is an asshole. There I’ve said it in a post ages ago (too lazy to look it up, sorry) and I’ll say it again. And that’s not me insulting her. That’s me actually loving that about her. Annabeth is one of the very few unapologetic female characters that really showed all young readers across the world that you can be a girl, a badass, smart, strong, standing up for yourself and what you believe in. You don’t have to be nice. You don’t have to hide your feelings. You don’t need a man in all cases but it’s also okay to accept help and defeat.

A large reason why I think she’s an incredibly important character in children’s literature/YA because many other novels (mostly (sadly)) have the “Oh, I’m a white skinny dark-haired girl that likes unconventional things like READING. I’m not like the other girls, that take care of themselves and pamper themselves by enjoying shopping and wearing make-up. No, I’d rather be one of the boys but a sweet cute little boy and not the jock fuck that drank vodka shots out of a filthy shoe once. Despite me calling myself hideous every man in a 10-kilometer radius falls in love with me and tells me I’m oh so sexy and by the way I’m only 16 years old” shit going on for no goddamn reason.

Yes, I do blame Twilight for this mostly in recent years, but this trope isn’t by any means knew. Pretty sure that you could even use classics as Pride and Prejudice and dissect them in the same manner (Bold statement: Lizzy Bennet is the OG Bella Swan. There. Go fight somewhere in the corner, people). The new wave of YA focuses on girls belittling themselves and only starting to believe in themselves because someone else (mostly the male love interest) tells them they’re worth it. And these books hit the mainstream because they’re incredibly bland and picture perfect white.

With Annabeth it’s different. She shows up for the job and is done with it. (Brie Larson would probably be the perfect in real life version of her. You either like or dislike her. Or you really don’t care). That is what is so refreshing about her. Her unapologetic nature. Can it be off-putting? Yes. Is it annoying? Yes! Hell, every time I read The Lightning Thief, I want to rip her goddamn head off. And it’s just so well written. Her shift from mistrusting Percy but secretly still believing in him to her opening up. Wow, Riordan did something right there.

Annabeth Chase isn’t a young character. She has existed along with PJO for 15 years. She’s on her way to the second decade. I’m pretty sure that with the success of Percy Jackson (and Harry Potter) many lives have been warped and shaped.

But when I say the problem lies mostly in the fandom, it doesn’t mean that Riordan’s completely innocent. The only problem that I have with Annabeth lies not truly with her but the fact that Riordan is only able to produce three variations of female characters:

The sweetheart (Hazel, Silena, Calypso, Hestia)

The strong feminist (Annabeth, Piper, Thalia, Reyna, Artemis)

The bitch (Drew, nearly every female goddess in the goddamn Riordanverse next to every female monster)

And these female characters only know three endings:

End up married with a mortgage, three kids, two dogs and a cat somewhere in Connecticut by the age of twelve

Get dumped into the hunt

Chill on Mount Olympus and only come down to be a nuisance and/or give a cryptic message before going back and doing a godly rave party or something

We know Annabeth as the badass strong female first (or the bitchy character we’re supposed to actually like. Choose your approach), the blueprint so to speak, so some of the other characters feel almost pale in comparison and almost not needed? Doesn’t mean that other characters can’t behave similarly, but it feels kind of redundant especially if their character arcs end in a rather anticlimactic way (Thalia, Reyna). The new additions are the much needed woc as the main story with PJO was inherently white (anyway stan black!Percy and Grover, folks). So it’s not to bash on the new characters, it’s more Riordan’s fault more than anything.

Since Riordan only knows three female character arcs it feels like he tried to copy the formula several ways with different nuances. Some more or less successful. This is where fandom actually comes in handy and helps create more distinguished and fleshed out characters in form of headcanons or fanfiction.

But even in these cases people still make it about Annabeth when it’s time for characters of colors to shine. Remember that whole spiel and discussion that broke out when people (Kal, diver-up, Caitlyn, Bee, reynaisalesbian, etc.) joked about or criticized that Annabeth thinks that she’s having it harder because she’s a blonde? In front of Hazel and Piper? If she would’ve been a real person that’s an invitation for getting decked. And then all hell broke loose because Annabeth stans couldn’t accept the fact that in the real world and/or in fictional worlds the woc/coc have it harder? That the white woman wasn’t the victim that needed the coddling? Yeah, that was mad pathetic.

I hope you people get my point?

Well fuck. I wrote so many things and have the feeling I’ve said nothing. Anyway, I hope I made sense. This is way too long.

TLDR: Chill about Annabeth please. She’s an important character but that doesn’t mean that everyone has to like her, regardless of being a character in the books or a reader/fan of PJO in real life. She isn’t nice or a sweetheart all the time. She also isn’t the monstrous asshole that some try to make out of her.

Peace out.

#Mel answers #pjo #percy jackson #Annabeth chase #percy jackson and the olympians #Percabeth #pjo Meta #Heroes of olympus #hoo #trials of apollo #toa #hazel levesque #piper mclean #reyna avila ramirez arellano #rachel elizabeth dare #pjo fandom #coc #rick riordan #riordanverse

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imaginativecrime · 5 years ago

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7 reasons The Witcher series is a mess (or damn I need to vent)

Unpopular opinion time! For the record, I’ve read the books, played the games, hell, I’ve binged the Polish movie and series (because my love for Michal Zebrowski and Zbigniew Zamachowski is undying, sue me), and I was super hyped. Then I spent the entire series yelling at the TV, so I made a handy numbered list of the reasons why I personally consider it mediocre at best.

Because I’m fucking disappointed and I’ll never not be bitter about it. Fact.

Be warned, there are all sorts of spoilers below.

Let’s look at some of the issues that affected the show as a whole:

1) Adaptation is hard work - but you have to do it right

Adapting a story from one medium to another is difficult, you inevitably have to change things to make it suitable to the new form of expression and also, everybody wants their adaptation to be unique, to emphasize points they think are important, to reflect on the current times, you name it. But changes in an adaptation should make sense and lend themselves to the storytelling.

Many changes in the series were arbitrary, nonsensical and contributed absolutely nothing. One such example is the Battle of Sodden Hill, a terribly executed “siege” with not enough extras to fill a classroom instead of a battle of 100 000 people. Writing out Redania, Aedirn and the Brotherhood of Sorcerers from the conflict doesn’t seem to have a point to it, while the delayed arrival of the armies of Temeria and Kaedwen is both unexplained, unlikely and underwhelming, not to mention that it completely undermines the Nilfgaardian threat as a whole. This, of course, is just the tip of the iceberg of all the things that are wrong with Sodden Hill in the series.

Or take Foltest and his affair with Adda. It is perfectly clear in the books that after seven years of wizards, witchers and all manner of frauds coming and going while Foltest is obsessed with breaking the curse instead of killing his daughter, even the very last blind and deaf peasant knows about his shenanigans. It’s only logical, too. The story is relayed to Geralt in no uncertain terms at the very beginning. Now in the show the whole episode is too short to set up a murder mystery that requires Geralt’s incredible detective skills (uhuh) to unravel. What is worse is that you cannot make a big reveal of something that your audience actually has previous knowledge about. So why even bother to have Foltest deny it and have Geralt beat it out of Ostrit?

Which brings us to point two:

2) We all know which way to Temeria, don’t we?

Even if you have popular source material, you cannot expect everyone to know it. An adaptation has to consider people who are just getting their first introduction to the sandbox. When your lore is as rich as that of the Witcher, you need time and careful effort to set up your world. The show made a total shit job of this one. As in the above example, sometimes the show ignores that we, as an audience, know things.

Another example is Vilgefortz. We know him, his plans, abilities and allegiances, we have very specific expectations of his character. Besides completely failing these expectations (and doing a very unconvincing early reveal of his true colors), the show goes as far as taking Vilgefortz’s iconic sentence (You mistake stars reflected in a pond for the night sky.) and putting it in Fringilla’s mouth. Like did they actually think we wouldn’t notice? Or not be pissed?

At other times the show expects us to fill in its glaring blanks exactly by knowing our lore and characters. One obvious, overarching example of this is the issue of the separate timelines, that sometimes left even fans a little confused. Also, fun fact: one of my friends (who has no idea about anything in the Witcher’s world) for instance needed some time to realize Pavetta wasn’t, in fact, a grown-up Ciri, and he remains to this day very confused about Blaviken.

Basically, we are on a swing here, which is actually made even worse by another thing: bad pacing.

3) Hold your Roach for a moment

The first season wants to cram too much into its limited time and it has a severe negative impact on worldbuilding and character development. By bringing in all three timelines from the beginning, the show has to juggle time allotted to each.

To be frank, Ciri’s timeline at this point consists of a lot of running and screaming, which in itself hardly merits all the time we spend with her. It could have been utilized in part to provide us with a view of the war from ‘below’, to show that beyond the high politics and heroic battles there are burned villages, dead peasants, people who lost everything, cripples, deserters, ruined fields, and so on. Instead, we get one refugee camp of neat tents, actual beds, food and complaints about Calanthe (though not of dead husbands, lost homes or winter). Though I guess it should come as no surprise that the shock value of paint being made from a woman’s reproductory organs (that never happened in the books) is more important than actual large scale human suffering.

Now giving Yennefer an extended back story is great. But by that level of extension once again time is being consumed that is taking other opportunities away. Opportunities like giving Geralt himself a bit more background, clarifying points for fresh faces in the audience, giving characters more time for meaningful interaction. Because there is not enough time to let the story breathe and progress naturally, episodes are often rushed, choppy, and shallow.

4) Reverse worldbuilding, aka welcome to nowhere

Another serious issue with worldbuilding is what I suspect to be a deliberate departure from the game visuals and aesthetic. One of the things I adore most about the games is that it built heavily on Eastern European history and folk tradition. Nothing compares to the feeling when you ride into a village and you feel right at home because things are inherently familiar, or you go out into the woods and hear the exact bird song you are used to.

Netflix is very careful not to even offer a whiff of this particular identity to its show, but it doesn’t seem to have a clear artistic vision beyond that. Thus while landscapes are nice enough, other settings such as cities, taverns, ballrooms and the like are horribly bland in that “this is how we imagine the middle ages in Hollywood” way and look exactly what they are: sets. While one is not likely to quickly forget the red rooftops of Novigrad or the wild beauty of the Kaer Morhen pass from the games, there is nothing memorable about the locations presented in the series. (Even more bewildering is the depiction of the elite boarding school of Aretuza as a creepy dungeon with elf skulls everywhere. I cannot even begin to address this one unless it is all in caps.)

Point being that the show lacks an actual visual identity that would distinguish it from any other dime a dozen medieval fantasy.

5) My kingdom for a decent wardrobe

Sadly enough, the bland and flavorless visuals have a terrible effect on something else: clothes and armor. While some costumes are well done, there are way too many examples of the opposite. One very obviously is Nilfgaardian armor, which looks like fossilized trash bags with sad dick helmets. The fact that armor in the show is treated as the equivalent of cardboard is doing no one any favors. Please do your homework next time. Please?

Another inexplicable departure from the books and games is the appearance of the nobility, and most jarringly, sorceresses. That dress Yennefer picks out the first time? It’s literally the drabbest, ugliest thing I’ve ever seen, and the others are not much better. When it comes to period-accurate choices, the range is just so wide: we are talking cambric, velvet, silk, cloth of gold and silver. We are talking luxurious furs, embroidery, colorful feathers, bright dyes, coats of arms and jewelry. Brooches, necklaces, bracelets, rings, hat badges, belt buckles, hairpins, you name it. People wore their wealth. Making them look like sad orphans will not make them look any more medieval.

Peasant clothes also had their decorations, though to a lesser degree than nobles, obviously. But I guess it’s too much to hope that those would get any attention when queens are dressed like they lost a bet.

6) I see your people and I raise you mine

Including people of color in the casting choices caused a lot of heated debate amongst the fans, but at least it means that the show cares about minority representation, right? Right?

The world of the Witcher has its own minorities, and what we have seen of them so far is so incredibly pathetic that I haven’t the words. For one thing, they look so terrible that elves in the Polish series actually look better, and that was so not a high bar to exceed. To make matters worse, they again seem to lack any sort of distinguishing visual identity (except for the Dryads. I’m also willing to make an exception for Chireadan, as he actually looks right and he’s a settled elf.)

Sadly, unlike the games, the series also fails to establish even the beginnings of a compelling narrative for its minorities, which definitely needs to be in place by the time Thanedd happens at the very latest. What is more, we seem to be given something called the Great Cleansing, which is plenty obscure but comes across as a Night of Broken Glass sort of thing (though that could be just me). While still salvageable at this point, this shift in narrative is cause for some concern, and so far doesn’t make much sense.

7) Your villains are not my villains

Unlike the books and games, the Witcher series sadly doesn’t seem to excel at presenting opposing sides without the need to vilify one (which again, makes me worried about what they are going to do to the Scoia’tael later).

Nilfgaard is now an Empire of Evil (TM) that lives for killing and religious fanaticism, Fringilla is a psychopath, and Cahir... Well, Cahir is a thousand shades of wrong all on his own. Stregobor and Istredd are now assholes of a whole different caliber, and even poor Eyck of Denesle gets to enjoy his five minutes of fame as a madman frothing at the mouth instead of a paragon of knightly virtue.

This is going so well.

#the witcher #the witcher netflix #the witcher spoilers #the witcher netflix spoilers #review #crit #i am so disappointed in you #I'm legit afraid of s2

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bigskydreaming · 8 years ago

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LOL I’m watching that post I made about only the white actors coming back already make it to the triple digits. And rolling my eyes because a quick perusal of some of the reblogs already shows that a bunch of them are white S/terek or S/tydia fans who seem to be under the impression that the six years their portions of fandom have spent ignoring or vilifying the various actors of color on the show has absolutely nothing to do with Jeff and the show’s continued sidelining and mistreatment of them.

Sigh.

It’s like.....S/terek fandom has so much influence that despite most of said fandom spending the last three years loudly shouting about how much Jeff sucks and nobody should watch the show ever because he refuses to make S/terek canon, the show is STILL relying on baiting the ship in order to get people to watch as well as using its social media to hype up that part of the fandom.

So.....okay cool, you’re a white S/terek or S/tydia fan reblogging a post about how Teen Wolf’s treatment of its cast remains racist as shit down to the very end...on your page that’s otherwise nothing but gifsets about two white faves, plus the occasional ‘omg I’m so glad Jackson’s back’ or ‘wow cool, glad they got Ethan to come back’.

Umm. So. Like, yes? Davis is trash, his casting decisions are trash and all the actors of color on the show deserve better. Awesome. Glad we’re all on the same page there.

But as has been definitively proven countless times over the past several years, he is also trash who loves ratings and free marketing and lots and lots of hits on social media. And its like huh, weird, random thought, but maybe, MAYBE if those very loud, very vocal portions of fandom who’ve so successfully milked scenes AIMED SPECIFICALLY AT PLEASING THEM AND ONLY THEM out of the show by being so ride or die for their crack ship over the past five years had allocated even a QUARTER of that much time or energy towards talking about how awesome Kira, Braeden and Danny were, like...back when they were actually on the show, then its almost like trash-but-obsessed-with-ratings-and-good-publicity Jeff might have had like.....some inclination before now that you all gave a shit about those characters and actors and made him think, hey, maybe I better put some actual fucking effort into getting them back too, instead of just the big faves and then whichever random white actors I personally liked the most?

LOL, I don’t mean to come across as though I’m still sore about that whole ‘let’s throw Danny under the bus and scream gaybaiting at the show for Motel California and teasing us with a gay sex scene that like....contains the actual gay characters on the show’, but oh wait, I’m still super sore about that and just kinda laughing here because sure, NOW you guys miss him?

But hey, like I said. The important part here is that we’re all agreed that Jeff is a very bad man who makes racist casting choices and good on you for recognizing that This Is A Problem. But its definitely not one that has anything to do with any of us, because like, we’re just fans! It’s not like we have any power! We’ve certainly never shouted ourselves hoarse before about what we’re owed and that this show would be NOTHING without its fans and it needs to appreciate the time and effort and energy put into fandom!

But srsly, thanks for the notes! They’re super helpful!

#TW

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airshipcity · 7 years ago

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everything but 7 for animorphs

came back to bite me in the ass, as i knew it would

name ur politically correct ship that no one ever questionsuh. oh boy. cake?? not a strong advocate but their moments of butterflies and happiness brings me joy

now name ur trash shipratmance. this should come as a surprise to exactly no one

and ur really trashy im-going-to-hell shipdavid/taylor, honestly, because they could fucking wreck shop if they collaborated against the animorphs (or anything) and actually MANAGED to work together, but i absolutely LOVE the idea of their dynamic being “quickly figure out exactly how to rile each other up and push all the right and wrong buttons, to the point that their alliance becomes a weakness in and of itself for the animorphs to exploit”

who is your cinnamon roll fave who everyone lovescassie, because i like to pretend no one ever posts cassie hate and never have and never will. i live in a world where cassie is appreciated and loved and critizised for her actual mistakes and misjudgments but not vilified for being wrong sometimes or having a moral compass

who is your sinnamon roll fave who everyone loves to hate/hates to loverachel, possibly?? maybe marco?? they’re both good but definitely more sinnamon than cinnamon, possibly even burnt and bitter cinnamon rolls who have been through far too much

who is your trash fave who is so problematic they probably have hate tumblrs dedicated to them if i saw a dedicated david hate blog i would clap like a hungry seal and promptly follow them and then i would immediately link it to you so we could be deeply amused together

what is the fic you want to write/read but can’t because it is too full of Sinremember back in the day, years ago, when i wanted to make an entire zombiemorphs au??? centered on ratmance????? That One

what is the most sinful fic you have ever read/writteni’m not saying it’s the one where jake and cassie do the do and morph a lot in the process, but it’s probably that one (read, that is. i absolutely did not write that one, i only write unprompted silliness and far-too-serious au junk in this fandom)

what is the worst thing you want to become canon (character death, trash-ship etc)david returning properly, which INDUBITABLY counts as a worst thing but i want this so bad that i’m literally writing it myself just to scratch my own self-indulgent itch

what is your most sinful headcanonmarco and david made out on exactly one occasion, and they’ve both sworn each other to holy silence on the matter. it was horrible and they both know it. both blame each other for the taste of unclean teeth and eggy breakfast.

what is your cutest headcanontobias made off with a bag of his old clothes in his talons to bring to rachel’s place, for emergency purposes (and so rachel doesn’t start every human-tobias-requiring mission with shopping new brand clothes for him). rachel sometimes puts one of tobias’ messy old t-shirts on a mannequin she’s got. then she pretend-dances with it and has random conversations with it when she’s cleaning her room etc. tobias caught her once while she was hugging it and burying her head in the mannequin’s shoulder and decided to give her an hour of space before finally flying over to her window and asking her out on a nice burger date where they could maybe hold hands and lean on each other

what is your heart-breakingist head canonthe same t-shirt was curled into a nice, soft pile by where rachel slept the last few nights before the big showdown. clearly used as a kind of makeshift teddybear to hold onto. cassie cries when she finds it, and tobias just flies off because he can’t stand to think about how he should’ve found the time to give her a proper last hug

what is ur crackiest crack shipi mean, this is probably still david/taylor. or erek/marco. i’m going for erek/marco actually

what is ur marginally less cracky crack shipdavid/marco, re: the marco impersonation thing that resulted from david committing Mysterious Shenanigans that left marco tied up in a closet iirc?? i rest my goddamn case

what is ur favourite ridiculous audragon age inquisition au, where they’re ALL inquisitors w marks due to being at the wrong place at the wrong time, but they’re a complete band of apostate misfits who accidentally keep finding these rifts and have to fight demons and demon possession so they can close them. except they have to be covert about it so visser three corypheus doesn’t hunt them down to end them. (david is a rogue, but the shitty kind who knows how to make traps but is shit at setting them up bc he never warns his team so they all walk into them and david just laughs and calls them idiots. he’s easily goaded by visser three corypheus into traps as well though. also he keeps offering to help pick locks but he’s shit at that too, he just likes to show off that he’s Different and Better even though he absolutely, evidently, isn’t.) also taylor in the role of calpernia. cassie’s a spirit healer and mostly does buffing and only fights offensively when she must but marco is somehow almost always the first to fall in battle. cassie spends so many revive spells on marco every week. rachel bonds DEEPLY with leliana over clothes and fashion and comes along to orlais all the time, and insists on having morrigan teach her how to become a bear. rachel bereskarn is a terrifying sight to behold

#animorphs blogging #long post #i could go on and on about damorphs but i'll cut it here #krakendra #animorphs spoilers

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cinephiled-com · 6 years ago

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New Post has been published on Cinephiled

New Post has been published on http://www.cinephiled.com/interview-brink-goes-behind-scenes-trump-mastermind-steve-bannon/

Interview: ‘The Brink’ Goes Behind the Scenes with Trump Mastermind Steve Bannon

When Steve Bannon left his position as White House chief strategist less than a week after the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally in August 2017, he was already a notorious figure in Trump’s inner circle, responsible for bringing a far-right ideology into the highest echelons of American politics. Unconstrained by an official post — though some say he still has a direct line to the White House — he became free to peddle influence as a perceived kingmaker, turning his controversial brand of nationalism into a global movement. Alison Klayman’s The Brink follows Bannon through the 2018 mid-term elections in the United States, shedding light on his efforts to mobilize and unify far-right parties in order to win seats in the May 2019 European Parliamentary elections. To maintain his power and influence, the former Goldman Sachs banker and media investor reinvents himself — as he has many times before — this time as the self-appointed leader of a global populist movement. Keen manipulator of the press and gifted self-promoter, Bannon continues to draw headlines and protests wherever he goes, feeding the powerful myth on which his survival relies.

I loved Alison Klayman’s award-winning 2012 documentary Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, and it’s hard to imagine two more contrasting subjects than beloved Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei and extreme rightwing strategist Steve Bannon. I was very curious to sit down with director Alison Klayman and producer Marie Therese Guirgis to talk about this riveting and personal look at the man who some say is largely responsible for Donald Trump’s surprise 2016 victory.

Danny Miller: I was absolutely fascinated by this film. Marie Therese, I know you once worked with Steve Bannon when he was in the movie business, but I’m still shocked that he agreed to do the film. On the other hand, with his massive ego, I can imagine that he loved all the attention. Was it a long process to get him to agree to be the subject of this documentary?

Marie Therese Guirgis: Not really. I mean, the reconnection of our relationship took a while, but I certainly didn’t reconnect with him with the idea of asking him to be in a documentary. I did it because I knew him and I was so angry and sad about his role in the Trump campaign and presidency. Later, when the idea for the documentary came up, he said no four times. His very first comment was “No, you’ll destroy me!” since I had just spent months telling him how angry and disgusted I was. But in the end, he agreed to do it.

Was he still in the White House at that point?

Yes. I think it was April when he finally decided he’d participate in the film, and he was there until August.

Wow, do you think the film could have happened in the same way if he was still part of the Trump administration?

Well, normally I would say absolutely not, but now that we know more about the chaos that was happening there back then and how much time Michael Wolff, who wrote Fire and Fury, was able to spend in the White House, I think it might have been possible.

As appalled as I am by his actions, I do find him a much more interesting character than Donald Trump. In many ways he’s worse than Trump because he’s not an idiot and he knows how to make things happen, but I also found his self-awareness kind of refreshing, even his ability to admire an interviewer who had asked him really tough questions instead of vilifying her as Trump would have done. Is that how he felt with you, Alison? Did he respect what you were doing even if knew you didn’t share any of his beliefs?

Alison Klayman: For the most part, I did feel like he respected me, but on the other hand, I don’t think he was thinking about me all that much, which is what I preferred. I don’t think he knew that much about me, to be honest, although he claimed to have watched my film about Ai Weiwei. But throughout the process, I felt like he treated me like a respectable filmmaker.

Marie Therese Guirgis: When I first talked to him, I mentioned a bunch of different directors but said that Alison was the person I’d really like to use. He was like, “Whatever you say, if you think she’s the right person.” So, I don’t think he really vetted her very much but I know that his team looked into her.

Did he set any ground rules for filming at the outset?

No. My whole pitch to him was that he would have zero control. Alison would have total creative control, even I wouldn’t have any say in the final cut.

Alison Klayman: I never would have agreed to make the film if he had any ground rules.

Although he did seemingly order you out of the room a few times.

I feel like my job is to always be pushing to get more access and it was important to me in the film to make sure I showed times where I was told to leave. In truth, that didn’t happen all that often, and it was never very dramatic, you know, like a soldier coming up and knocking my camera down which happens to some filmmakers. He’d always phrase it like, “Did you get everything you need?”

Yeah, he seemed very skilled and friendly in the way he did it, but I always thought in those moments, “Ah, now they’re really going to get into it!” I was especially surprised at all of the meetings you filmed between Bannon and those right-wing leaders from around the world. Did you have to get all of them to sign releases?

Yes. And the fact that they all did was very satisfying to me!

Do you think he presented you in a way that made you more appealing to them?

I think the fact that he was so comfortable with me probably conveyed something. There was never any misrepresentation, like that we were part of Breitbart or something, and no one asked me any questions like some kind of political litmus test. I think in some films you might have more of a relationship with the person you’re filming and put in time with them away from the camera, too, but that didn’t really happen here. And that was partly because of the way I felt about him and his agenda.

Marie Therese Guirgis: But remember, too, that Steve Bannon is not the type of person to just sit around and shoot the shit with someone and talk about what movies he’s seen. He just doesn’t do that.

And yet he does seem very image conscious. There were those few times in the film when he got very angry at someone. I’m guessing those may not be his favorite parts of the film?

Alison Klayman: I actually think is that he was very open, but there were people around him that worked for him were more protective of him — as they should be!

Marie Therese Guirgis: Yeah, they were the ones who were more likely to be obstacles to what we were trying to do. I remember at one point telling Alison to just text Steve directly about things that she wanted because he was usually game.

Some of those meeting were astounding to see, like the meeting with the French National Front people and other groups like that. Again, I can understand his motivation for being in the film but I would assume those people would not want to be filmed by an American documentarian.

Alison Klayman: In a way, Bannon was my biggest champion. He would just say, “Oh, let her film, she’s fine!”

Marie Therese Guirgis: Remember, he has a very big ego. And he also has a self-deprecating humor which differentiates him from Trump in a big way. I think the whole process of making the film appealed to him on some level — that he was traveling with his very own entourage that included a talented filmmaker.

Alison Klayman: Right, I think it made him feel very important.

Did you ever have the sense that he was trying to win you over to his side?

That didn’t feel like the dynamic but I did think he wanted me to like him. And he was aware of getting things that would be “good for the film,” that’s the tactic I’d often take with him.

Marie Therese Guirgis: That was usually a good way to ask him for things, to say it would help the film. I think the fact that he had worked in the movie business made him a more interesting subject because he understood it. My original pitch was that the film was going to be critical of him, he knew I didn’t agree with his views, but that it was going to be prestigious with a quality director. He was very drawn to that.

Are you prepared for any criticism you might get that you’re “humanizing” Steve Bannon? I always think those discussions are odd, as if such people are not, in fact, actual human beings, and you’re hardly giving him a platform here to espouse his views, but I’m sure some people will still worry about him being the subject of a film.

Alison Klayman: I think for the entire year of filming and then the time it took to edit, I went to bed every night thinking about that — thinking about who was going to attack me from that vantage point, and also from a right-wing vantage point! We knew we were entering a minefield but I thought it was worth it for what we could show with the kind of intimate access we had. There’s certainly no scene that exists to be like, “Oh, look, he loves his father,” or anything like that. This is definitely not a humanization project, but of course, with a film like this, you’re going to see certain sides of people that you didn’t know about before.

Do you think there’s any chance the film will get on Trump’s radar?

I don’t know. I wonder if he’ll even watch the trailer. A lot of people have said that it would make sense that he’d see it eventually but I can imagine him fast-forwarding it to see how many times he’s mentioned. I bet it would irritate him that it’s not about him. And yet it’s also interesting that even though this film was made after Bannon left the White House and when Trump was so critical of him, Bannon still goes out of his way to not talk trash about Trump.

He’s smart enough that he probably wants to keep on using Trump as long as he possibly can.

And he needs Trump’s base. But the rhetorical gymnastics he had to use to defend Trump and not expose him as an idiot was kind of amazing to watch.

youtube

#Alison Klayman #Steve Bannon #The Brink #Interviews #What's Hot

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samanthasroberts · 6 years ago

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15 Biggest Pop Culture Disasters of 2017: Kendall Jenner, Megyn Kelly, the Oscars, & More

If there’s any sort of running theme among the year’s biggest pop culture fails, it’s a mind-boggling lack of self-awareness. The biggest entertainment disasters were born out of a clusterfuck of delusion, hubris, apathy, and, in most cases, an almost unforgivable deafness to the conversations defining this moment in our culture.

So while we’ve spent much of this last month cheering the output that challenged, invigorated, and, of course, entertained us this year, let us also grand marshal this parade of shame—in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, there will be lessons learned heading into next year. Here are 15 flops from the past year, be it commercial bombs or tone-deaf cultural grenades, from the worlds of music, TV, movies, and celebrity culture.

Kendall Jenner’s Pepsi commercial

The solution to institutionalized racism, millennial apathy, police brutality, and Trump-era anger? A nice cold Pepsi, and a tangential Kardashian to deliver it. The message of the resistance-themed Pepsi commercial was so laughably obtuse and reductive, and the reaction so brutally eviscerating, that the company immediately removed it from the internet and actually apologized to Jenner for its misguided creative direction. Seriously, though: Think of the sheer number of people who had to OK this ad before it was released. It’s mind-boggling.

Sean Spicer at the Emmys

Notoriously cowering former White House press secretary Sean Spicer finally embraced the spotlight at the 2017 Emmy Awards, making a cameo appearance during host Stephen Colbert’s monologue ruthlessly attacking President Trump. Spicer giggled and soaked up the attention and applause, an ovation for a public figure who lived out his short tenure in relentless disgrace and disgust, cheering him for “gamely” participating in the roasting of his former boss. But for many viewers, the booking of Spicer was a shameless absolution of a man who was toothlessly complicit in spreading lies by the Trump administration to the American people; the worst example of the entertainment industry’s instinct to bend any moral for a cheap laugh.

“As a father of daughters…”

This entire recap of the year’s disasters could be populated with the horrifying misconduct of the litany of Bad Men exposed this year—from Harvey Weinstein to Kevin Spacey and beyond—and the ways in which various institutions mishandled the behavior and fallout. No reactions to these revelations were more infuriating than the famous male figures, ranging from Matt Damon to Ben Affleck to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who clarified that they were horrified because they are fathers who have daughters. It’s a sign of how clueless men are and have been in processing these scandals and the nature of this predatory and misogynistic culture. As Hunter Harris perfectly wrote in Vulture, “Only a sociopath needs a daughter—or a sister, a girlfriend, a wife, or even just a lady standing in front of him at Starbucks—to make him queasy enough at the thought of a sexual predator in his industry to do something about it.”

Mariah Carey at New Year’s Eve

Maybe it was a simple mistake made in a very public forum. Maybe it was an ominous warning of the year that was to come. Nonetheless, Mariah Carey’s interminable avalanche of live disasters during the New Year’s Rockin’ Eve telecast was excruciating to watch. One of the greatest singers of all-time standing on stage pissed off, first saying she couldn’t hear a backing track to sing along to, then not bothering to lip sync the next song before storming off. It was an inauspicious way to start the new year, especially when you consider the optics of it: a woman helpless as the world, albeit in this case just the Times Square stage, burned around her, then vilified for refusing to smile through the carnage. The fallout was hardly handled elegantly with Carey’s team and the production company engaging in a public she-said-they-said over who was to blame.

The launch of Megyn Kelly Today

At Fox News, Megyn Kelly was a marketable if polarizing star presence, known for her prosecutorial manner in lines of tough questioning—always admirable, even if you didn’t necessarily agree with the direction. NBC found it admirable enough to spend $15 million to woo her away from the cable news network, rearranging its entire morning news lineup to launch a full hour of Kelly-led programming. Confusingly, however, it eschewed the attributes that made Kelly so popular at Fox. Instead, a manufactured, awkwardly fitting personality emerged that was crucified by critics at each tonal whiplash segment transition, especially during painful interviews with liberal celebrities who couldn’t bother to hide their disdain for the host.

La La Land Oscars gaffe

The phrase “Oscars mistake” is typically employed to groan about a film voters crown Best Picture that critics or fans don’t necessarily think deserved it, not for a situation in which the literal wrong winner is announced. That a gaffe both so monumental and so careless happened at the 2017 Academy Awards—Warren Beatty was handed the wrong envelope and, confused, announced La La Land as Best Picture instead of Moonlight—is already excruciating and embarrassing. But, again, the optics of it all make everything worse. The La La Land team had to cede the stage after the gaffe was clarified, about as awkward a moment as an award show can produce. But the filmmakers behind Moonlight, a film about the marginalized black and gay experience, were denied the emotion that comes from a watershed cultural moment like winning Best Picture, and the chaos overshadowed the power of the moment, let alone their speeches. While it was deserved to a measure, the amount of attention given to the La La Land team’s graciousness after the mistake only further magnified how problematic the incident was.

Marvel’s Inhumans

It’s bad enough when the phrase “worst thing Marvel has done” is used to describe your new TV show, as it was for ABC’s fall foray into the Marvelverse. But the launch of Inhumans became more dire in light of the investment made in the series and its hubris in assuming audiences would consume it anyway, despite its middling quality, just because it’s Marvel. The big-budget bet included a release in IMAX theaters of its first two episodes ahead of its ABC launch, a theatrical run that garnered a pitiful $2.9 million.

Matt Damon

It’s been quite the year for Matt Damon, who needs to fire any publicist whose advice isn’t simply, “Stop talking.” His response to the Weinstein scandal has been disastrous bordering on offensive, with the actor running out of feet to put in his mouth as he attempted to add nuance to the conversation but instead came off as defending bad men’s behavior. But even if you reluctantly put all that aside, the films he was promoting during those calamitous interviews, Suburbicon and Downsizing, have underperformed at the box office and divided critics. All that on top of the way he kicked the year off: in a riotously silly man-bun white savior-ing Chinese history in the epic box office bomb The Great Wall.

Louis C.K.’s I Love You, Daddy

In September, Louis C.K. premiered I Love You, Daddy at the Toronto Film Festival. It’s a film in which C.K.’s protagonist, Glen, in a very Woody Allen-ish plot, has a 17-year-old daughter who enters a relationship with a 60-something man who is a legendary filmmaker. In one scene, a character played by Charlie Day vigorously mimes masturbation, not bothering to stop when a female producer, used to such things, enters the room. What was purposefully provocative in the film now borders on lunacy after The New York Times confirmed an industry open secret: that Louis C.K. had masturbated in front of upcoming female comedians. Suffice it to say that I Love You, Daddy’s theatrical release was canceled.

Kathy Griffin’s Trump mask fiasco

When Kathy Griffin was made aware of how ghastly and in poor taste the photo of her holding a bloodied, decapitated Trump head was—which happened instantly—she apologized for the offense. But few celebrity controversies have spiraled this out of control this quickly. Griffin was immediately let go from nearly every entertainment job she held, and, in response, she staged a misguided press conference in which she alleged that the Trump family was targeting her. It’s a classic case in disastrous damage control, but it shouldn’t have damned Griffin the way it has. It certainly says a lot about the latent misogyny in the industry that, as recent months have brought to light, famous men are guilty of truly horrific behavior that for so long was excused—yet an atoning Griffin still can’t get representation or a footing back into the industry she made her name in. The one good to come of this: Griffin’s fed up with all of it, too, and she’s naming names.

Fyre Festival

The best thing to happen to Coachella’s reputation is the worst thing to have happened to the hoodwinked revelers who shelled out upwards of $250,000 for a luxurious VIP concert experience on a private island in the Bahamas. Rich kids arrived only for it to instead resemble, as one fooled attendee attested, a refugee camp. The entire thing was organized by rapper Ja Rule and out-of-his-element entrepreneur bro Billy McFarland under false pretenses, with no infrastructure in place to support, house, or feed the thousands of concertgoers who paid premium prices only to be met with an unfinished tent village, packs of feral dogs, mountains of trash, no-show artists, and not enough food to go around. A breaking point for the increased lunacy surrounding the culture of music festivals, or merely a cautionary tale for how not to ruin the next one?

Tulip Fever

Maybe it’s schadenfreude that Harvey Weinstein’s swan song as a Hollywood mogul included this long-gestating, notorious disaster of a period film, riddled with false starts and re-castings and shuffled release dates and, most notably, Harvey Weinstein’s constant tinkering. Perhaps the lowest moment in the botched release of the film, which starred Dane DeHaan and Alicia Vikander and earned a Rotten Tomatoes score of just 9 percent, was when Weinstein himself penned an essay defending it, citing the fact that Vikander’s mother’s friend called her to say she enjoyed the movie as evidence.

Kid Rock’s “Senate run”

The music industry’s resident American Jackass dialed up his reign of terror this year with the threat of a Senate run, to be launched on his tried-and-true values of cheap beer and racism. In the end, it was nothing more than a barely veiled publicity stunt. Nonetheless, breathless headlines blared the preposterous idea, and, considering the trajectory to public office mapped out by Donald Trump, seriously considered it. Of course, we can hardly fault anyone for, against their better judgement, giving credence to the nonsense that Kid Rock says. We still can’t get over his bigoted use of “gay” as a pejorative—let alone his embrace of the Confederate flag.

Baywatch vs. Rotten Tomatoes

A bad movie is a bad movie. That’s fine and inevitable, and Baywatch was a bad movie. But shining a spotlight on this turd in particular came reports of industry insiders pissed that critical reviews decimated the movie’s box office haul, as well as that of the fifth Pirates of the Caribbean movie. It’s not the fact that these movies were shit you could smell from miles away that made audiences not want to buy tickets. It’s Rotten Tomatoes! If you ever want to know how little Hollywood studios think of you, the audience, just read this quote: “The critic aggregation site increasingly is slowing down the potential business of popcorn movies. Pirates 5 and Baywatch aren’t built for critics but rather general audiences, and once upon a time these types of films—a family adventure and a raunchy R-rated comedy—were critic-proof.”

The Mummy and the Dark Universe

Tom Cruise’s The Mummy wasn’t just supposed to be a franchise reboot cash-grab using a familiar property and a big Hollywood star. It was supposed to launch an entire shared cinematic universe, dubbed the “Dark Universe,” for Universal, filled with monsters including Russell Crowe as Dr. Jekyll, Javier Bardem as Frankenstein, and Johnny Depp as the Invisible Man, as well as Sofia Boutella’s Ahmanet from The Mummy. It was a whole big plan. They all posed for a photo together and everything! But following disastrous box office returns for The Mummy, not to mention abysmal reviews, plans for the interconnected Dark Universe, at least as far as they were in motion, were scrapped and its architects, producer-writers Alex Kurtzman and Chris Morgan, jumped ship for other projects.

Source: http://allofbeer.com/15-biggest-pop-culture-disasters-of-2017-kendall-jenner-megyn-kelly-the-oscars-more/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/12/27/15-biggest-pop-culture-disasters-of-2017-kendall-jenner-megyn-kelly-the-oscars-more/

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adambstingus · 6 years ago

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15 Biggest Pop Culture Disasters of 2017: Kendall Jenner, Megyn Kelly, the Oscars, & More

Kendall Jenner’s Pepsi commercial

Sean Spicer at the Emmys

“As a father of daughters…”

Mariah Carey at New Year’s Eve

The launch of Megyn Kelly Today

La La Land Oscars gaffe

Marvel’s Inhumans

Matt Damon

Louis C.K.’s I Love You, Daddy

Kathy Griffin’s Trump mask fiasco

Fyre Festival

Tulip Fever

Kid Rock’s “Senate run”

Baywatch vs. Rotten Tomatoes

The Mummy and the Dark Universe

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/15-biggest-pop-culture-disasters-of-2017-kendall-jenner-megyn-kelly-the-oscars-more/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/181456618922

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allofbeercom · 6 years ago

Text

15 Biggest Pop Culture Disasters of 2017: Kendall Jenner, Megyn Kelly, the Oscars, & More

Kendall Jenner’s Pepsi commercial

Sean Spicer at the Emmys

“As a father of daughters…”

Mariah Carey at New Year’s Eve

The launch of Megyn Kelly Today

La La Land Oscars gaffe

Marvel’s Inhumans

Matt Damon

Louis C.K.’s I Love You, Daddy

Kathy Griffin’s Trump mask fiasco

Fyre Festival

Tulip Fever

Kid Rock’s “Senate run”

Baywatch vs. Rotten Tomatoes

The Mummy and the Dark Universe

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/15-biggest-pop-culture-disasters-of-2017-kendall-jenner-megyn-kelly-the-oscars-more/

0 notes