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JIMYGOYAMS Day 2: The Princess Bride

An kind of analysis and review of The Princess Bride novel with comparisons to the classic movie.

Spoiler warning, especially for the book, I would think that everyone has seen the movie by now. Go watch/read both, they are worth your time and I recommend them both. Review over go read it. Just kidding, it’s shitty analysis time.

The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern’s Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure, the “Good Parts” Version Abridged by William Goldman (quite a mouthful) is a meta fairytale by author and screenwriter William Goldman. Goldman is most famous for writing the screenplays for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and The Princess Bride. Yes, he wrote the screenplay of his own book, which I think is quite interesting, and a good choice, but more on that later. The movie itself is embedded into popular culture as one of the most quotable movies of all time. I have seen and loved the movie myself dozens of times and know most of the lines by heart. In my nerdiness I even have an “Inconceivable!” pin and a “My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die” shirt. As I read those iconic lines of dialogue I couldn’t get the actor’s inflections out of my head. In some ways I was getting another Princess Bride experience out of reading this book for the first time. Yet the book is not quite the same, and uses different framing devices of Westley and Buttercup’s story in order to make meta commentary about different things.

Framed stories are (after a trip to wikipedia) a literary device that presents a contextual story for another story or multiple stories within it. It basically sets up the real story(ies) with the context of which it is being told by characters in a different story. It can clarify the narrative and give us insight into how the narrator views the events of the story. A common way this is used is when a character accounts what happened to them in the past, and we receive their opinions on the events that happened in the context that they already know how the story goes. In The Princess Bride book, the story of Westley and Buttercup is told as if William Goldman is abridging a historical book by S. Morganstern, which was read to him by his father when he was ten. Goldman gives the book to his son, and when the son doesn’t like it, he finds out that his father cut out the boring historical documentation and only left “the good parts,” the meat of the adventure and romantic narrative. So Goldman, in an attempt to connect with his son, sets out to abridge it like his father did and leave only “the good parts.” Throughout the story, Goldman inserts himself and his abridgement choices in italic glorified author’s notes (seriously, think my immortal but with slightly more relevance), contextualizing what was cut and giving more insight into his family life. All of this is a fabrication, just as fictitious as Westley and Buttercup and entirely his own creation. Florin, the country that the story is set in, is not real and the name is based on an old currency, as is Guilder, the neighboring country (as said in the wikipedia page for this book). So why is this complex frame story even there? Because meta. 

What the fuck even is meta???

Meta comes from the greek prefix with the meanings after, with, among, beyond, self, and is used today to talk about things that reference themselves (seriously wikipedia is a godsend, especially when I’m still writing this at 11:30). Meta has sprung into popular culture and has created the monster that is the self referential satirical humor of the age of the internet. It automatically raises the bar of pretentiousness of the humor or conversation in which people try to be smarter and therefore funnier than their peers. Yet it has been around far longer than the internet and is actually funny and can make a statement, like Goldman does. Meta when it’s not couched in pretentiousness and elitism is an interesting narrative device and is useful in deconstructing or analyzing something, but it doesn’t make anything automatically better. It is a tool and it can be used by good or bad craftsmen. If every character was like Deadpool and every TV show was a Rick and Morty rip off then it would get boring. This argument should be saved for another day so I won’t go into my opinions any further.

Goldman uses this meta framed story to discuss the world of publishing and copyright, and family. Goldman doesn’t publish his own reunion scene because it’s an abridgment and he’s only cutting stuff out and not adding things in. He can’t release it because the estate of S. Morgenstern has copyright allegations with Goldman. The whole abridgment process was taken up so that he can connect better with his son, which he has a somewhat tenuous relationship with. His relationship with his wife is not good either, and in the introduction (the real one, there are three in the 30th anniversary edition), which sets up the frame story, he almost cheats on her, but doesn’t because he’s so focused on getting his son a copy of the unabridged book for his tenth birthday. A main theme of the book is that life isn’t fair, and Goldman explains why Morgenstern wrote an ambiguous ending, even though Goldman thinks that the characters got a happy ending, but one not without troubles. This is not the same story as the movie, but who would watch a movie with commentary about publishing and copyright?                 

It is interesting to note that in the film there is a reunion scene, and that there is an unambiguous happy ending. By changing the frame story there are dramatic consequences to the themes of the film. Instead of abridging the story, the story is being read to a boy who is sick in bed by his grandfather. This calles back to how Goldman first encountered the story in his childhood, according to the book. This framing story, while similar, slims down the frame in order to make a better film. It also creates different commentary, as the boy, who is not sure about the whole romance thing, or the reading thing, nevertheless gets invested in Buttercup and Westley and wants them to get a happy ending. This is the audience surrogate character, and I think that it is more powerful when that audience is adults, rather than children. Adults have lost their belief in fairy tales and true love, but are still swept up in the spectacle and love conquers all story. As adults, we are given a place to escape and indulge in these notions, so a life isn’t fair lesson doesn’t fit here.

The movie is a cult/culture classic because it adapts to the methods of film and doesn’t keep any of the conventions that better served in the literary medium. Goldman is an interesting writer because he was prolific in many forms of writing including fiction, nonfiction, screenplay, and theatrical plays. Most of his nonfiction is an examination of hollywood and screenwriting, of which he is most famous for and prolific in. He is aware of the what conventions and tools work in each form of writing, and adapting the meta narrative of The Princess Bride was a smart choice for a tighter and more enjoyable movie. I still really love it, and with time I might say one is better than the other, but for now they are different enough to warrant some real thought into the matter. Usually the book is always better, but the adaptation of the material to fit the medium of film gives the book a run for its money.

[passions-project]

JIMYGOYAMS DAY 1: the announcement

Welcome to JIMYGOYAMS! The weird “art challenge” that no one asked for! (except me)

JIMYGOYAMS, short for June Is the Month You Get Off Your Ass and Make Something, is a variety art challenge that I made, and will complete, in the month of June 2018. Every day in the month of June I will post about something creative that I did that day, be it drawing, writing, painting, or even a video. Every summer I proclaim (mostly to myself) that, “I’m going to make (something/insert project or goal here) this summer!!!” annnd it never happens. Ever. 

So after being inspired by people like BestGuyEver, Digibro, everyone else I respect and see creating shit and I’m over here doing jack-shit with my summer so I’m thinking Fuck it, I have to do something. I tried that in starting this very blog back in January but it wasn’t enough, especially when college kicked into gear. In May of 2017 the youtube channel BestGuyEver made a video every day in may, calling the series MIAMAFV or MAYbe I’ll Actually Make A Fucking Video, inspiring my silly acronym JIMYGOYAMS. One year later, BestGuyEver posted a podcast that he did with other people who were inspired to make a video every day in their own challenges, which was the push for me to actually do this. I have even done some preparation (not much though), and here I am, June 1, 10:30 at night and I’m posting this before midnight. (uhh I tried) Off to a great start :/ 

Rules: (Posting=Accountability)

I must make a blog post of what I did that day and post it before midnight, PST 

Whatever is posted/featured in blog is FINISHED, no unfinished bs

These are not designed to take all day, just a way to devote myself to actually creating something every day (videos will take the week to make probably, I don’t know shit on that end)

Once I commit to this, no backing out unless serious emergencies. I will probably have work, but no excuses.

I can do as much prep as wanted beforehand (haha I didn’t do much), but most of the creating will be on the day (ex. pick reference photos, write scripts, do outlines, take notes, find prompts)

Share that shit 

Engage with comments, if I get any, criticism is encouraged, I am not good/great at any of the things that I’m doing. I just like to do them and I want to figure out what kind of creator I want to be, and if I actually want to be one or not.

Schedule:

EVERY DAY: Blog post with what I did, pictures if applicable

Sunday: draw, pen/marker, not just a line drawing, get some value/form/color

Monday: write a 100+ word story

Tuesday: paint, watercolor or acrylic

Wednesday: write a poem

Thursday: miscellaneous art day, not painting or drawing

Friday: post a youtube video (probably make during the whole week)

Saturday: write a review/analysis of something I consumed this week

Special days: June 1st and 30th are going to be an announcement and reflection respectively, so that it ends up with each art medium will be used 4 times, with the exception of thursdays. June happened to be the best month for me and it had 30 days so it’s the way it worked out. 

So with that out of the way, what we are left with is the why. Why am I doing this? Why am I trying to get on the map in any way possible? There are so many people, artists, out there why even try at all? It’s not like I am actually good at any of the art mediums that I like to create in. But that’s kind of the point, I need structure in order to get anything done, and I need practice to get better. I don’t exercise unless I can show up to a class or a team. I don’t do art, or at least anything over doodles and copying my favorite characters from the last anime I watched, unless I’m in a class (Exhibit A). I have never written consistently in my entire life, and even though I have done extensive planning, world building, and character development, I have never finished a story I’ve started that’s more than five thousand words, probably less than that. I’m a creative writing minor for fun, so I can take some actual classes and get some writing, hopefully good writing, under my belt. I feel that being a creator is part of my identity and that I need to create, but I never do. And I’m a jack-of-all-trades so I haven’t devoted enough time in any one medium to be good at any of them. So here I’m creating my own opportunity and structure to create something, anything, and maybe it something in this mess will turn out okay or even good. I want to figure out what I like creating, or even if I want to be an internet creator.     

Exhibit A

This is fanart for BestGuyEver (if I manage to send it to him) of a pun that was in a Pro Crastinator Podcast episode, one of the earlier ones I think. This fucker took me 9 months to make, from getting the idea, to finishing it today. It wasn’t like I worked on it much during the last 9 months, I got the idea for it in September, and then started the outline and pencil drawing in December. Then I went back to school and worked on it for a few hours on some fridays until May, where I had about a third of it done in colored pencil. I did the rest in the past week, and there isn’t much shading on it. This is the most creative thing that I’ve done in the past nine months besides a simple poem in January, which is the previous post on this blog. So yeah, I need to make a structure to create in. Here’s to a whole month of creating. Maybe someone else will be along for the ride.

-MageMage

(I like to think of myself as the moon moon of internet creators, but less popular)  

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Yo I wrote a poem. It’s okay. I want all my creative stuff to be on this blog tho. It’s for evolution and narrative purposes.

Your smile-

It’s too bright.

I can’t bear to look,

It burns like the sun.

My sun-

I orbit ‘round you,

Closer and closer,

A collision course,

An eventual heat death.

Not a bad way to go,

Never, when it’s you.

Not when it’s your smile.

My love-

I can’t help but stare.

I gaze into your too bright smile,

And accept my eventual blindness.

…..

Here’s a poem I wrote about an interesting metaphor.

I haven’t written, or published (online) in a long time so forgive me. 

I know it isn’t great, but what the heck. 

[passions-project]

A quick update:

I’m still alive! School started and I have a harder course load this semester. However, I still want to do some writing! The Nerd Bio may go on hiatus for a bit since it is such a long and detailed project, and I want to do more research. If anything, a star wars part 2.2 will come out about the new saga (the force awakens, rouge one, and the last jedi) seeing as they are more relevant to today (ish, I’m still late). I will also be posting some one part, shorter (hopefully) posts in the future. 

If you want me on your dash occasionally, give me a follow.

Thanks for sticking with me,

-Maya 

[passions-project]

Nerd Biography Part 2

Every artist has influences. We are a conglomeration of all of the things we love, and what we aspire to be. Some things influence you in the moment, then fade from relevance, but others stay with us through our lives. Maybe I haven’t grown up enough to leave fantasy worlds behind, but I’m not sure I want to. If the side effects of growing up are that you get boring and unimaginative, then I’d rather not.

Part 2: Star Wars and the Wonder of Film

I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know that Darth Vader was Luke’s father. I can vaguely remember that my father put in the first movie, the original Star Wars, telling me I had to see this. He told me stories of moving back to America a bit after Star Wars had taken off and hearing about it everywhere. He saw it in an empty theater with his brother and was blown away from the very first shot. Star Wars: A New Hope blew me away too. The opening shot gets me every time. I wanted to be as sassy as Leia, as dashing as Han, and as heroic as Luke. Carrie Fisher is a beautiful human and an inspiration to everyone to take no shit and to be a badass. What a wonderful woman. I loved everything about the film and I watched all the other ones in the saga soon after. As a kid, I even loved the prequels because I WAS A CHILD OKAY. THE POD RACING IS GREAT AT EIGHT YEARS OLD. I was the right age to for poop jokes to be the height of comedy and the spectacle of lightsaber duels to captivate me. For a few years we would watch a Star Wars movie a month. I’ve probably seen each movie over fifteen times. I loved Star Wars, but at a base level. It took time for me to appreciate them beyond what I saw on the screen.

The summer before The Force Awakens was released, I saw the Clone Wars television show. I had finally admitted that the prequels were pretty shit, but the Clone Wars was the prequel story I actually wanted. Anakin was brash, heroic and never settled for a loss, even when that was the best course of action. His relationship with Obi Wan was one with actual chemistry and comradery. Ahsoka, Anakin’s padawan, was a great addition to bounce off of Anakin and Obi Wan as a young jedi still learning in a time of war. Her departure is heartbreaking, and a great catalyst for Anakin’s descent to the dark side and distrust in the Republic and the Jedi Order. Also, they actually portray the Clone Wars as a complex conflict, and show its harshness. Many of the clones are given personality and are fully aware of their position as disposable soldiers. People die, sacrifices are made, and Grievous is actually a formidable villain who can kill jedi. The Clone Wars fixes the prequels for me. It is not a show without flaws however. Jar Jar shows up occasionally, the anthology sometimes jumps back in the timeline without letting you know, and there is some childish humor if you're not into that. Separatist droids are still dumb as fuck, but Darth Maul comes back so it’s all worth it. If you are a Star Wars fan I highly recommend the Clone Wars. It’s on netflix. On the technical side, the animation is pretty great, and the fights, regardless of scale are well directed. Characters are treated with nuance and the three episode arcs are a great package for longer adventures. I have yet to see Disney’s Rebels, but I will get around to it eventually. Don’t let your love for Star Wars stop at the original trilogy, there are a lot of great stories out there.

Another thing that salvaged the prequels for me was Belated Media’s What if Star Wars Episode 1-3 were Good? Youtube series. In this series, the prequels are edited to make Obi Wan the main character, Naboo becomes Alderaan, Darth Maul doesn’t die in the first one, and the plot makes actual sense and has thematic weight. For me, these videos represent the potential within the prequels, unhampered by CGI clusterfucks and boring space politics scenes that never end. Seriously, go check them out. (link)

The Force Awakens brought in a new chapter for the Star Wars saga, and it brought controversy along with it. However, this is already way too long, so I will save the new chapter for another day. I want to take the time to craft an interesting critique of the new age of Star Wars, and it could be even longer than this. I’m trying to set up a dialogue about the things I love, and therefore want to dissect and think critically about. Send your thoughts my way if you so desire!

Check out part one (here)!

Thanks for reading!

-Maya

[passions-project]

Nerd Biography Part 1

I am very interested in the ways that people are shaped by the things they loved as a kid. In an attempt to understand myself better I peeled back the layers of repressed memories and embarrassing middle school fashion to what I was nerdy about before I even knew I was a nerd. Thus the Nerd Biography was beget into the world, kicking and screaming at my lousy writing skills and jokes.  

Part 1: The Early Years of Books and Harry Potter

I was born during the time that parents played their children classical music to make them smarter. The idea the Mozart or Beethoven piano suits could raise the IQ of children is the epitome of pretentious experts preying on parental insecurities. Nevertheless, my parents subjected me to  classical music as a child and it brings a strange form of deja vu listening to it now. The far more important influence on my early life was the fact that my parents read to me. My mother prided herself on her various character voices, and my father would tell me bedtime stories of his childhood. One of my first memories is being very upset when the library was closed and I couldn’t get more books. Jimmy Zangwow's Out-of-This-World Moon-Pie Adventure is an amazing children’s book. Go experience it for yourself.

Once I decided that I could read on my own (I had to figure out that I liked it first) I devoured books. One of the very first things I read on my own was the Harry Potter series. My mother had read them to me and when I learned to read in kindergarten I started to read them myself with her help. I have read the series over ten times, and love it to death. I connected to Hermione a lot because of how smart and brave she is, and also to Luna for being in my head so much. I wanted to be a wizard and play quidditch and battle Lord Voldemort so badly. Two summers ago I reread the whole series as a young adult and the magic was still there for me. I also listened to a great storywonk podcast, called Dear Mr. Potter, analyzing the series book by book. It cemented my opinion that these stories about a wizard boarding school in england battling the incarnation of evil were great books, and that nostalgia wasn’t clouding my judgment. There are so many great world building details and characterizations and I can’t help wanting to create something like that to escape to where I can be a hero. Even after growing up (somewhat) I still want to be a hero, even though the world has gotten much more complicated now. I loved growing up with Harry, Ron, Hermione, Luna, Fred, George, Ginny, and all the rest, watching their own world getting darker and more complicated. Harry Potter has influenced me in so many ways, and taught me to imagine beyond what is possible in this reality. It gave me a love for stories like nothing else and I will be forever grateful.

I am not unique in my experience with Harry Potter, and I’m so glad to be a part of a generation inspired by JK Rowling to create. I’m just trying to put my own thoughts out into the universe and seeing if anything comes back.           

[passions-project]

I’m starting a blog

fuck it. I want to create stuff on the internet and I’m already here so why not. The need to create something of my own has been slowing eating at me for months now. In a way it has always been there, but now I’m getting off my ass. Let’s go 2018.