deeply-retrospective

[deeply-retrospective]

A Quiet Place Part II Part II: Nitpicks and Things

               While I do love writing and the philosophies we can learn from them, I did do that on a previous post you are welcome to check out too, I am also not the brightest when it comes to picking up on details and things. I just like to observe a piece of media, collect my feelings, and then try to arrange them in a way to where it is coherent. That being said, I did find myself becoming particularly nitpicky with this movie. Sure, these are all problems I had with the film A Quiet Place Part II, but not all of them are large enough to constitute a ‘bad rating.’ So, this is just me rambling for fun, so see if you find it particularly ‘fun’ yourself and if any of these little weird bits stood out to you as you watched this PG-13 horror flick.

 Spoiler warning to A Quiet Place and A Quiet Place Part II

               For one thing, let’s talk about the nameless guardians of the peace: the monsters themselves. For the record, I have been avoiding media about criticizing these guys just for this post. I don’t think it takes a genius to see how these creatures don’t really make a lot of sense or at the very least are very aggravating. For one, they are super loud, wouldn’t their own excessive screaming and slashing hurt their hunting abilities? That and it just really annoys me getting jump-scared by these things, and especially sense all these noises are non-diegetic. I also find it funny how humans have a small margin for the noises they are allowed to make, but what about the natural ambience we hear? Do they put on that crazed-killer song and dance every time they hear a bird or a frog?  What about crickets or cicadas, would that not overwhelm them?

               And let’s talk about those wonderful weaknesses that they are so indestructible otherwise. They can’t swim and they can be overwhelmed by technological feedback. Isn’t not being able to swim a pretty major problem. Take for example how they hit Earth, it seems they landed in random places and the location where these films take place, rural New York, was just hit very hard in the ‘invasion’. But what would have happened if they all landed in any lakes or oceans (which is very probable)? And what about different continents? There is a pretty strong implication that at the very least China and the US are having a very hard time keeping quiet, but what about Australia or Greenland? The devastation and the numbers of these creatures aren’t super clear. But I can’t help but think these weaknesses wouldn’t be quickly seen and easily exploited. I would just live on a boat, to be honest. I would have near infinite food: fish. While I might need some things from land, I feel a life with few luxuries could be very easily if only for the luxury of making as much noise as I need as I cook. Come to think of it, why wasn’t leaving the mainland Lee Abbott’s priority #1? Again, assuming that minimal luxuries are considered for the luxury of surviving.

               Why didn’t the mangy dock-dwellers just use the boats to get food and a better means for apocalypse life? I imagine they were baiting people, or using people as bait, or scavenging, or something that wasn’t nearly as productive as getting on a boat and letting wind hit sails. Yeah, that really did bother me in hindsight.

               Second weakness is technological feedback, or just any noise that is overwhelming, I would imagine. This is a somewhat obvious one for an immaculate killer that only hears and not sees, and yet it was a pretty large revelation at the end of the first one. Why not stake out in some kind of concert stage, drawing them in with noises and then pointing two microphones together to make feedback once they are ‘in range’? That would solve the alien apocalypse problem pretty quickly, wouldn’t you think? I still find it hard to think that this family and with child with a hearing aid were the first to discover this hearing aid trick. How could the advanced island society not solve this issue? How could the government leave its population to fend for itself rather than weaponize the monster’s weaknesses like I’ve mentioned? Towards the end, a radio is weaponized now that it has been promoted to ‘feedback machine’ and like, yeah, that would have been a very helpful thing to at least try out while society could still work together for a solution. This doesn’t make any sense. But hey, the ends justify the means, and the ends are that you get to see a unique survival horror movie. As heated as I ma seem, I suppose I can’t say the negation of explaining these things is a sin on the film’s part. Maybe they’ll just do it in a future installment or something, I don’t really care all that much.

               The only main problem I can really pin against this movie that I find somewhat unforgiveable is the ending. Specifically, that it shares the same revelations and promises of future fights that the first film presented. Like yeah, that is a bit of a bummer. This may have been the case because they wanted to tease a future film, but would it be worth it? Two films that both promise a larger scale is to come? It just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.

                   I can understand why the girl may have been startled by the dead body falling back on the train, but why did it make such a loud noise? Would it have been more effective for it to not make a noise, as the visual cue was quick enough and put us, as the audience, in her shoes?

[deeply-retrospective]

A Quiet Place and the Meaning of the Continuation

So, here’s a quick thought I thinked while watching a movie in a theater. Due to the current pandemic we find ourselves living in today, I haven’t been to the movie theater in about a year. That is until my family decided to see A Quiet Place Part II and asked if I wanted to tag along, so I agreed as a knee-jerk reaction. While I found myself liking the first film, I was not all that excited to see the sequel. It was a very unique and memorable flick, but I felt that it did not have the star-power to be the next big franchise. But, I put all that aside and decided to take this sequel at its face, and there were a lot of things about it that I did like and a lot of things I did not. And I still am not sure if I would call it “necessary” to make into an overarching story.

             WARNING I will be going into spoilers about A Quiet Place and A Quiet Place Part II. I would recommend seeing those two films first to understand and engage with the following a little bit better.

             One thing this film made me really question, and the conceit of this particular essay, is when it is necessary to make a sequel. I have no English degree, but as I am taking some college level writing classes, the art of having a solid ending is a tricky but vital skill to master. While we may want these stories to continue on forever, and some characters and stories feel like they always will, it is going to be our perceptions of the characters that stick with us after we are no longer digesting that media. Will the ending have us imagining our hero’s next big adventure? Another ending style is one that feels more ‘finite’ and ‘contained’ to where the beginning and end give us a satisfactory glimpse of the character and the time and place they inhabit.

Take for example, an episode of The Twilight Zone like ‘Eye of the Beholder.’ While I’m not going to spoil it (I might even recommend it), I would like to ask people who have seen the episode if they would like to see a sequel, where the characters decide to go from the springboard that is the events of the original episode. And I believe a lot of Twilight Zone fans would turn down this offer, because the story we received is very fine-tuned to conveying a specific message and as it did that very clearly and concretely, why muddy the waters with new themes, events, and characters? That would be how I felt about A Quiet Place. You see, a lot of the first film centered on the novelty of its monster, an alien that hunts based on what it hears rustling about and surviving humans must change their lifestyles to accommodate for these unrealistic levels of silence. While the film toys with what this lifestyle might look like and showcases visceral horror and suspense in its silence, it is also very much family driven too. The 2018 film stars a real life married couple and is directed by the films father figure, John Krasinski of Office hijinks fame. And the family unit is a very strong theme throughout, such as how they stuck together and look out for one another, culminating in the film’s conclusion: the father sacrifices himself for his children that were being too darn loud. And with the surviving family now equipped to deal with this formally unmatchable threat, it seems like a sad but optimistic ending, knowing that humans cowering in fear is soon to be a thing of the past. And, I couldn’t help but wonder what this ending means now that we know it isn’t the ending because the story has continued.

Now, it’s not so optimistic. While the ending of the first film leads us to feel a sense that humans can fight back, the sequel makes it clear that it is possible, but not as foreseeable as they may have thought. The father, Lee Abbott, less remembered for his sacrifice to distract the monsters and now referred to in passing as another casualty of the monsters. His position in the family now reduced to its most fundamental characteristic: a position to be filled. This is how I felt about the arbitrary introduction of Emmett, a fellow survivor, and a new fighter to pave a better future for these children.

           And it was this dynamic that I felt most compelled to want to make a post about. It reminds me of how grief works. When someone passes away, their story is over in a sense, whether that be with a painless or a meaningful end. However, other people’s lives continue, and that was the key to this film when I was watching it. Remember how I mentioned that episode of The Twilight Zone? The writer has made his voice heard and the message is clear, but there’s this subtle hint that the characters will still have to live on and ‘deal’ with this world and the hand that they have been dealt with. And that’s what this film is to me, while it might be necessary and repetitive, it’s just the logical next step.

[deeply-retrospective]

Spine-Tingling Songwriting

Today, we’re going to dive into a pretty legendary band: Creedence Clearwater Revival, or ‘CCR’ for short. If you don’t know how I could call a band legendary that you may have never heard of, ask your grandparents, they might remember their music fondly. In fact, you might remember a particular jingle called Fortunate Son that always shows up to the old 4th of July barbecue. fun fact, the sentiment of the song is actually the opposite of what we associate it with today. It’s not about a strong and patriotic soldier, because that ain’t him. And that ain’t the song we’re talking about today, either.

               While Fortunate Son is a very popular anti-war song produced by the band born on a bayou, they were a very political group and produced many more anti-war songs, one of which was the notorious Run Through the Jungle. It was already pretty chilling on its own, with a chaotic, stormy intro and then slow, reverberated drumbeats. The song reeks a strong musk of mistrust and ever-present danger. And the lyrics are really creepy and ominous too.

Thought it was a nightmare,

Blowing far so true.

They told me don’t go walkin’ slow

The devil’s on the loose

‘Better run through the jungle.

               Now, I could probably just recommend this song on its own and let it speak for itself. But, then one day I noticed something about dialogue that changed everything about the song for me. Every time the iconic chorus is sung, it’s followed by someone or something speaking. In this case it progresses from ‘they’ (soldiers or generals), Satan, and Thunder Magic. It just adds another layer of creepiness to have these characters essentially talk to this soldier and then turn around and speak directly to you, the listener. See, let’s take a look at this part in the song, only we’re going to extend the range of the quotation marks and you’ll see what I mean.

Thought I heard a rumbling

Calling to my name.

Two-hundred million guns are loaded,

Satan cries “take aim,

Better run through the jungle, (X3)

Boy don’t look back, you see.”

               See what I mean? Spine-tingling, I’d say. Let’s move on to the last verse to really hit home the point and because I think it’s really good one, too.

Over on the mountain

Thunder magic spoke

“Let the people know my wisdom,

Fill the land with smoke.

(turns to the listener) Better run through the jungle…”

               All in all, they’re a really cool band and I should cover them again sometime. Not all their songs are as spine-tingling.

[deeply-retrospective]

An Abstract Love Song and an Equally Abstract Interpretation

One experiment that I like to do is look at song lyrics as if they’re poems and see if they work as good poems as well as songs. It’s a very eye-opening way to see how repetitive, redundant, and nonsensical these songs can be when spoken aloud without prose. Not that there is anything wrong with liking a song that isn’t T.S. Elliot caliber. In fact, this ‘essay’ is about just that. Much like Bill Nye had us do in the past, I would like you all to consider the following.

It’s so good

It’s so good

It’s so good

It’s so good

It’s so good

Heaven knows

Heaven knows

Heaven knows

Heaven knows

Heaven knows

I feel love

I feel love

I feel love

I feel love

I feel love

               Now, I want you to take this song that a high school student would receive an unapologetic ‘F’ for if written for English class, and listen to this: This is the first verse and chorus of one of my favorite love songs of all time. Probably like third place, I think. This is I Feel Love by Donna Summer.

               You, dear readers, could call it a day at this point, knowing the one idea that the rest of this little essay is going to explain and just be a whole tangent. I just wanted to write a tangent about music because it fascinates me and sometimes, I want to talk about it, so now you know what you’re getting yourself into if you continue to read. And so, on we go.

                 You may have heard this song and may even know it. It’s somewhat popular as a disco groove and I think it might even be insulting to assume people just don’t know this song. “I Feel Love” is one of the two songs Donna Summer is known for, that and “Hot Stuff” (Both of which appeared on the Just Dance roster at different points).

               I actually have a confession, I am a fan of Donna Summer, to the amusement of my family. I just like her songs, and it comes from an era of music that I am particularly fond of. For instance, I think that “She Works Hard For the Money” is a totally underrated 80’s girl-boss anthem/workout jam, and “Heaven Knows” is such a cheerful celebration song that I can never skip it and it always makes me smile. But for the purposes of this essay, we’re just gonna take a look at “I Feel Love” and why I think it’s so good (aka my arbitrary interpretation and visualization).

               “I Feel Love” is a prime example of a Disco tune playing strictly to its advantages, it’s just music with some filler lyrics that go with it, but the lyrics don’t propel the ‘narrative’ as much as the sounds of it. The music is very strange, techno in nature, of course. It’s very clean, following a formula and a format and pattern. Some say it sounds alien, I can concur. But I also think it sounds very intentional, very methodical. You could even say it sounds… Procedural.

               Hear me out.

               One of the primary reasons that I listen to this song and like it so much is that when I visualize it, I think of surgery, and then all of the pieces line up for me. The bizarre instruments and sounds sound a sound an awful lot like surgeons and surgical tools to me. Now if you’re feeling a bit squeamish, I don’t mean an actual literal surgery, but more a metaphorical one and that brings me to the lyrics: the incoherent ramblings of a person being put on anesthetics. More specifically, the groggy ramblings about love, in particular.

               This is kind of what I mean when I say that music adds an extra dimension of depth and adds poetry where language is sparce. You may be able to find examples yourself of songs that convey to you feelings and emotions through sounds and music more than the words themselves. I know some examples of songs being hilariously misused in places just because people liked how they sounded and not what they were actually about.

               But hey, now let’s wrap up whatever I mean when I say a song about love can also be about surgery at the same time. It reminds me of what people mean when they say ‘love changes people,’ and that’s the kind of metamorphoses I imagine because of this song. It’s because of love that people change their appearances, their religions, or just life goals in general. When I think of this song and how this person ‘feels love’ while being changed and recreated by this love, this is what I imagine. Not that this is a secret, hidden meaning, or anything, because of course not. I just can’t help but imagine that when she sang this song, breathed life into a collaborative effort of songwriters and producers, I wonder if it ever crossed her mind why someone would like this song. Not that it mattered, I suppose it was to sell albums and singles. all they need is people to like it. Maybe that’s why this song can’t have a meaning: so that you find your own and fall in love with it. Was she upset when people didn’t like her song? Maybe it just wasn’t their style.

               Anyways, if you stuck around this long, let me know if this was a fun thing to read, because it was fun to write. I have other songs that I really like and different reasons why I like them, kinda like this one. But yeah just let me know.