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frumfrumfroo · 4 years

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What are your favorite movies and TV shows outside of SW? I’m looking for new things to watch since SW was so disappointing

My tastes are pretty eclectic, so I will stick to just things that are either similar to sw or are in the reylo-esque romance wheelhouse and have happy endings:

Chuck. It is a goofy, light-hearted action-adventure show with extremely endearing characters and a very prominent central romance (seriously, heavy romance and there is a lot of payoff for it, you will be FED- it's kind of slow burn but also shockingly NOT slow burn, they are deep into it pretty much immediately). The main couple is the classic Stoic Badass gradually softened by an innocent they have to protect who is a liability in battle but full of the Power of Heart. Chuck is The Heart btw. He is of that vanishingly rare male Beauty (of B&tB) type. He's incredibly generous and open, Sarah is prickly and closed-off. It is Quality. Very much a gender-swap of your typical cliche anime couple lol. I would recommend stopping at the mid-season finale in season 4, because it's downhill from there. The beginning of season 3 is very rough, but it's definitely worth it to stay for the back half, imo. There are several great endings to choose from before things go to shit, so we don't need to talk about the finale. Probably the most tonally similar to SW thing possible without being high/space fantasy. More humour, more silly, but definitely has a spiritual kinship. Has the best THE BEST 'secret revealed' scenes I have ever seen in anything. If you're into that and were hoping for that in ep IX, you need to watch Chuck.

The Shop Around the Corner. 1940 romance/drama film. You've Got Mail is a remake of it. Jimmy Stewart being profoundly adorable, Frank Morgan (aka the Wizard of Oz), various amusing side characters, and an absolutely deathless double blind 'secretly in love with the workplace nemesis' plot that can and probably has been a great reylo AU.

Mirromask. Fantasy/coming-of-age film. Touted as a 'spiritual successor' to Labyrinth by the filmmakers (one of whom is Neil Gaiman) and let me tell you, that is extremely apt. Beautiful, magical, laden with symbolism and Mask Discourse, and has a great ship. I quote it regularly.

Speaking of which, I'm sure you've seen Labyrinth? If you haven't seen Labyrinth, drop everything and watch Labyrinth.

Legend (the Ridley Scott director's cut, not the theatrical cut). Sumptuous fairy tale, runs on proper fairy tale logic, stunning to look at and overall captivating. Tim Curry. Tim Curry as a lonely tragic lord of darkness who tries to seduce the heroine and has drippingly overwrought monologues.

Howl's Moving Castle. Fairy tale adventure/romance film. Beautifully animated, has the ending you want.

The Silence of the Lambs. Thriller/drama film. Actual masterpiece. Use it as a gateway drug to read the books and rejoice that Clannibal is canon and it is spectacular. Just SotL and Hannibal, you don't need to read the other two. Stan Clarice Starling and revel in that ending. Most triumphant 'villain'/heroine ship of all time (he is not technically a villain but for shorthand's sake).

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Terry Gilliam 1988 fantasy/adventure film. THE TRIUMPH OF IDEALISM OVER CYNICS I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH HOW HEALING IT WAS TO WATCH AFTER THE TROS BULLSHIT HIT. Jonathan Pryce's spiritual villain is basically Chris Terrio and it is cathartic to see imagination and sentiment conquer him.

Sabrina. 1995 romance film. Modern fairy tale with Harrison Ford. Rejecting what you thought you wanted all your life for the thing you actually need, growing up but still believing in magic, beautiful character development across all the leads. Could be (and is irrc) a fantastic reylo AU.

The Scarlet Pimpernel. 1934 adventure film. High romance, secret identities, play-acting, people who aren't at all what they appear to be, falling in love with your own spouse, Big Heroism, guile and wit and audacity. It makes me do little kicks like a happy baby. This is one of the 3-5 films constantly tied for my favourite film of all time. There is a good quality rip free on youtube. Watch it and fall in love with Leslie Howard (this is possibly my favourite acting performance of all time).

Oh, related note. Pygmalion 1938 or My Fair Lady. (The musical is based on this film and borrows from it heavily, including its much more romantic ending compared to the original play.)

The Mummy. 1999 action/adventure/romance film. Very tonally similar to sw. A fucking great time, A+ characters.

EVER AFTER. 1998 romance film. The flawless and perfect and best ever Cinderella adaptation. This is the most satisfying film in history, maybe, the ending is so good it is amazing it exists. Also, it has Richard O'Brien being slimy. Huge selling point. Grapples with identity and stewardship, is brilliant.

Fruits Basket. drama/romance anime. I haven't watched the new version yet, but it's following the manga so I know the story. The original anime didn't do the whole plot (because they caught up with the source material) but it's wonderful and I still recommend it. The central ship is (spoiler.........) a B&tB type where we eventually discover the main love interest both feels like a figurative monster and turns into a literal monster. He has an incredible speech about his relationship with people's fear, it makes me weep. I called the endgame from the first episode and always thought it was obvious, but there is a red herring love triangle dynamic. It's really not annoying, though, because it is a red herring. (I hate love triangles)

I am Dragon. Russian monster romance film. Beautiful, simple fable with a really great heroine.

Jane Eyre. 1943 Gothic Romance film. It's Jane Eyre, byronic hero x sensible heroine love story with much atmosphere and Gothic drama. I stan this version because I am an Orson Welles fangirl and I'm also not convinced it can be improved upon. Elizabeth Taylor's film debut btw.

Hellboy. 2004 action/adventure/romance film. Defying destiny, reconciling identity, monster romance. The complete package and a great time. Tonally similar to SW and probably thematically closest to it out of this whole list. Don't watch the sequel.

Beauty and the Beast 1987 tv series. Exactly what it says on the tin. Deals with the classic B&tB themes, but in a different way. He's not cursed and will never transform into an ordinary man. The first season is very episodic and 'case of the week', but the second season gets more into character drama. It's dated, but if you give it a chance you can get past some of the cheese factor and it's really a unique experience. Its concerns are SO atypical that it feels like something fandom would make rather than a mainstream network show. It was so massively, insanely popular with women at the time that a record of Vincent (the beast) reading poetry topped the album charts. Also Ron Perlman and Linda Hamilton. Stop at season two. Point of interest: George RR Martin wrote for this show.

Stargate (the movie not the series) sci-fi fantasy about a nerdy guy who accidentally a hero.

Possession. 2009... mystery/supernatural/romance. Okay. This is a whole thing. Lee Pace and Sarah Michelle Gellar. It's based on a Korean film I've never been able to find for some reason, but being Hollywood they ruined the romanticism and nuance of the original in the theatrical cut to make a shitty punative ending. However. If you buy it on dvd and go to the alternate ending (which follows the original story) with around 20 minutes left (scene after Lee Pace's character wakes from a bad dream-go to deleted scenes and select the alternate ending), you will get a very, very interesting character study/thriller/redemption about sincerity within deception, compassion, and a major question about second chances with a positive answer. It's kind of dark and kind of astonishingly idealistic at the same time. The heroine makes a very powerful choice, twice over. It's fascinating. If you're into the conflicted and uncertain period in reylo, the part where he is most ambiguous, and you wanted more of that and much darker shades to it, you might be really into this. Also, it should be noted, there is a MASSIVE height difference and they show it off. The film is flawed (and the seams show on the Hollywood rewrite) but idk, it's fascinating. Shocking to me that they even got to shoot the original ending. It is pretty balls to the wall with its themes on forgiveness.

I would recommend getting into kdramas because there is a wealth of female-gaze tropey amazing content, but always check the ending before getting invested. My all-time fave is the 1st Shop of Coffee Prince, but it's not sw related at all lmao. It has a happy ending with all the elements you'd want, but it's not satisfying in execution, so that's it's major flaw and I find that pretty common with kdramas. One that is maybe more relevant is My Love from Another Star, which has a hero who is a little bit like Ben in personality. The heroine isn't my favourite, though. It does have a decent ending.

Oh yeah- brain fart. Kurosawa films and classic westerns were both very influential on SW. Or you can combine both and watch The Magnificent Seven.

#this somehow ended up a wall of text??? I'm so embarrassed #anyway it should be fixed now #recs #anyway 40s movies are fantastic they used to CHURN OUT rom coms and even the bad ones are entertaining #and they were not in the romance ghetto they had prestige actors and directors #I don't know what happened and why this isn't done now because that shit was profitable #another edit:#I messed up my directions on Possession bc I first saw the alt ending on YouTube from the fridge point #but actually the full thing starts way earlier and covers more of the loose ends than I remembered #so I've fixed that now as well #(because I just rewatched it after writing this rec) and serious SERIOUSLY someone watch this movie and scream about it with me #I can't stress enough how important it is you switch to the alt ending and watch that INSTEAD of the theatrical cut but but but #If you do - OMG the ending is incredible #the coded conversation the subtle optimism #it is a meeting place where we Soft Reylos and the edgier villain/heroine stans can meet in the middle

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lost-eternity · 4 years

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Matchup Requests: CLOSED

Match up request for: @ imightsecretlybeadragon

Okie dokie. I match you with...

I love your tag name, hun

I had to ship you with Sherlock himself

I was originally considering Mycroft but he honestly can't handle spontaneity

That's more Sherlock's thing

Although the number of hobbies you have tried your hand at, only to drop most of them, tells me that you grow bored easily and hence need things to occupy your time

So does Sherlock. Except his methods of quelling boredom are not nearly as tame as candle making.

He'll keep you on your toes

I also considered Mary as a potential match but finding information on her online is incredibly scarce, for some reason. RIP

I believe that your ambition, drive, and willingly to throw reason to the wind and embark on thoughtless adventures is the perfect reason why you would mesh so well with Sherlock Holmes. You would totally be willing to jump out of windows or attempt crazy experiments with him instead of judgmentally staring as most would

As much as Sherlock enjoys John's company, he cannot handle people asking him questions all of the time

Either they need to be on the same level as him- or shut up and do as he says until he reveals his thought process in some theatrical way

While you may not be able to under exactly where that man's mind is at, you are definitely smart enough to understand the general gist and decide for yourself whether or not you want to follow through

Because sometimes Sherlock really needs someone to look him in the eye and say "no". Instead of passively being yanked around like a dog on a leash.

Both of you have a habit of becoming so engrossed in your work that you forfeit biological functions like sleep. Sherlock really appreciates your understanding in regards to this because he knows that you will not disturb him.

But when he is going on three days without sleeping or eating, your more nurturing side will step in, force him to rest and give that man some damn sustenance.

Which is why I feel like you would work very well with him. You know when to back off and give him the space he needs, but you aren't complaining like him because you also know when the is challenging the limits of what his human body can handle and will step in to make sure he actually takes care of himself

Like, dude. Take a freaking shower, you both look and smell like a writhing sack of horseshit

Sherlock would probably find your tendency to be loud quite intrusive. He claims that "even your thoughts are loud. I can feel you thinking. Stop that." And promptly kick you out of the room

Try not to be too offended by him

He is like a toddler. He doesn't know any better

But feel free to give him a scalding tongue lashing afterwards

Sherlock would never admit it, but he does genuinely care for you. And it can sometimes be hard to tell. He constantly berates and criticizes you. But only because he is worrying over your well being and gets super mad if you do sometimes that puts your life in danger. Sherlock can't even bear the thought of losing you, and like everything else he doesn't like, he chooses to ignore or "delete" it. So when that fear becomes a reality, he flips out, masquerading his concern as anger. Because he does not want to appear weak

His criticism comes from a well meaning place. He genuinely wants you to improve and do the best you can in life to become successful, he is just piss poor and phrasing. Instead his critiques come off as purely negative. You may have to remind him of this and he would be quick albeit awkward to correct.

If you show him a painting:

"No, the lines are all wrong. The focal point should be here, but because you used 45° angles, the focal point ends up down here."

Cue an unamused look from you

"What? Oh... uh. Y-your use of colour palate is... adequate...."

He's trying

Knowing Sherlock, you did not really ever "meet"

At least not how most people would

The first time you met, Sherlock had you pinned beneath him on the ground, demanding that you take off your clothes.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Let's start from the beginning

You were near Hyde park, cloaked in a heavy woolen coat to combat the biting cold of the winter-scape around you

With your hands shoved deep in your pockets in an attempt to warm them, you continued at a brisk pace, wanting to get back to your flat before the scheduled snowfall

That was when a dude on a motorcycle nearly careened into you. You jumped back and glared over your shoulder, fully prepared to tell him off. Instead, what you saw rendered you speechless

The guy who almost hit you was wearing a... bunny head mask. What the hell?

So distracted by this weirdo on the motorcycle, you did not notice another man in a black trench charging down the way. He actually did hit you from a full sprint.

The force of the impact knocked the air from your lungs and caused you to fall over, he taking a tumble shorter thereafter

The man, now having you stretched out beneath him, seemed entirely preoccupied. If he recognised the implications of your situation, he gave no indication to it.

He spared you a single glance before looking back after the motorcycle bunny guy.

"I need your jacket, now!" He demanded, not once looking at You

"Excuse me?" You asked.

"Jacket!" He demanded again. "Take it off!"

Were you being robbed?

If you were, this was one weird ass mugger.

Another man came jogging up, his breath short and strained as she rested his hand on his knees. He looked horrified then apologetic "Sherlock! Get off her!"

The rude trench coat fella scrambled to his feet, as if just now realising he had been on top of you. He must be Sherlock.

The second man continued. "I'm sorry about him, we aren't mugging you. We would just like to borrow your jacket for a few minutes."

"Watson, he is getting away!" Sherlock complained

You removed your coat, and handed it over, completely confused. What else were you supposed to do?

The cold air bit your exposed skin, sending goose-flesh across your arms as you shivered from the chill

Sherlock and his big ass coat moved at a dead sprint towards an ice-crusted fountain

Watson sighed and extended a hand to help you up. He shrugged off his own jacket, offering it to you.

You immediately refused his gesture, despite the sheer cold causing you to shiver.

Watson frowned slightly at the rejection, his forehead creasing

You watched as this Sherlock character leapt onto the fountain, nearly losing his footing as she scrambled across. The motorcycle man had almost reached the road, if he got there, he would be lost.

Sherlock pursued him, jumping over gates and pushing past pedestrians to cut him off on the main trail.

You did not think he would make it, but remarkably, he did. He stood before the motorcycle your jacket extended in front of him

Bunny guy did not hesitate to charge at him, probably planning to run him down

Your breath hitched in your throat as you gazed at the scene. Like a matador facing off against a bull... except Sherlock had no sword. No back up. Just a jacket. How in the world was he going to stop a guy on a motorcycle with only a jacket???

You watched in anticipation, the cold you felt completely forgotten as the motorcycle drew nearer and nearer.

Sherlock did not once hesitate nor flinch. He remained rooted in spot, his eyes steely with determination

The bunny suit man got within a single metre of Sherlock.

You thought for sure that you were about to witness a collision.

You were wrong

Sherlock threw your coat then rolled out of the way.

The coat hit the back wheel as it spun, getting snagged in the shifting gears and mechanisms.

It wrapped itself around the back wheel, seizing it up and causing the motorcycle to skid out, slipping across the ice before colliding into a nearby tree.

Sherlock was quick to pounce, restraining the bunny suit guy.

You were absolutely amazed. Both you and Watson seemed to have the same idea as you rushed over. Watson scolding Sherlock for pulling the stunt and you out of concern for your poor coat.

It wasn't long before the police arrived. Apparently bunny guy was some sort of expert thief turned murderer known for his iconic bunny suit. The cops have been after him for months and Sherlock had been the one to flush him out and trap him

You were mostly distraught over the loss of your jacket. It was a good jacket, now completely lost to the motors and gears on the cycle

Watson promised that he would buy you a new one. He even invited you back to his flat for some tea because he was worried you would catch cold if you walked all the way back to yours

You were going to refuse and just take a cab, then you learnt that Watson and Sherlock were flatmates.

How could you say no?

You just met some of the most interesting people on the planet, how could anyone say no to tea with them?

Sherlock seemed adamantly against the idea, complaining loudly about Watson "taking home too many strays" because "they ruin my work."

"You should have thought of that before you ruined my favourite jacket." You retorted

They were both taken aback by your wit

Watson appeared rather smug. "Yeah. You could have just used your own."

Sherlock seemed positively offended that anyone would dare suggest such a thing. "Not my coat! The coat is iconic."

Watson just rolled his eyes

Despite getting off on the wrong foot, you and Sherlock hit it off rather nicely

You were amazed by his observational abilities, but shocked him by understanding how he came to his conclusions before he even explained.

This was when Sherlock began to like you

And Sherlock doesn't like anyone

It kinda baffles John, really

Sherlock, finding you rather entertaining, is fine with you popping in for tea every once in a while.

He even let you assist on cases

This is where he really began to fall for you

He admires your intellect and thought process, considering it formidable albeit slower than his own

Let's be real, it's Sherlock

But things kinda start out rough

At first, when Sherlock first realises that he has feelings for you, he "deletes" them

It's scary admitting when you fancy someone

And not just scary. Dangerous. Especially for Sherlock.

He can't allow himself to be focused on anything except for work

Of course, the more time he spends with you, the more his feelings keep coming back, regardless of how often he deletes them

So he pushes you away

He lashes out

Becomes cold and distant, trying to make you give up

But you won't. You're having the time of your life with him and always comes back. No matter how many times he yells for you to go away. Its infuriating, actually

There will come a point where Sherlock has to make peace with his own attractions but it will be very difficult for the both of you

You will have to work with him through this

Cause Sherlock is not going to be an easy catch. And an even harder one to keep

But I have faith in you.

I hope you enjoyed dear, let me know what you think :)

#sherlock #sherlock holmes #matchup #ships #sherlock x you #sherlock x reader #match up #matchups #match ups #ship #bbbc #bbc sherlock #john watson #request #sherlock request #sherlock matchup #sherlock ship #sherlock match up

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mw-moriearty · 4 years

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Superman III is an Anti-Capitalist Parable and Way Ahead of its Time

No seriously. Here’s the skinny.

Superman III came out in ‘83 and was directed by Richard Lester, who also directed the markedly inferior theatrical cut of Superman II three years earlier. Lester had a very different approach to the Superman series than his predecessor, Richard Donner: he insisted, ostensibly at the studio’s urging, on taking the series in a more camp comedy direction rather than the Old Hollywood epic movie tone Donner brought to the table. It makes sense, then, that audiences would push back against the goofier, lower-stakes tone of III. They were used to the (comparatively) operatic tone of the original Superman and, to a lesser extent, its sequel.

Superman III was a financial success, but it was negatively received by audiences and by critics, a negative reception that helped send the follow-ups Supergirl and Superman IV: A Quest for Peace to the bottom of the trash heap (not that they needed much help).

But, unlike those two installments, Superman III, when watched today with an unbiased eye, holds up much better than its reputation would suggest. The emphasized comedic undertones don’t stand out so much in this era of light, bantery Marvel films.

And, what’s more, Superman III is probably one of the most plainly anti-capitalist superhero movies of all time. Its maybe not “woke,” but its pretty damn close.

At the core of the film, and perhaps its most controversial element, is the comic relief character played by comedian Richard Pryor. Pryor’s character in Superman III may not be the most nuanced character of color in film, but he is also certainly not the Jar Jar Binks minstrel clown some make him out to be. What he is, is a naturally-gifted computer programmer so brilliant that he is able to hack into a government weather-controlling satellite while completely blitzed and effortlessly design a supercomputer so sophisticated it gains self-awareness. It is obvious the only reason that he lives on unemployment and can’t keep a job rather than being the next Bill Gates and giving the millionaire villain orders is the deep institutional racism upon which capitalism is founded.

The film is well aware of this racism, highlighting it in ways both big and small. Pryor is blackmailed into serving the rich white Trump-esque antagonist, played by Robert Vaughn, after being forced by his ridiculously small paycheck to commit embezzlement (the only victim of which being Vaughn himself, who is so dripping with surplus wealth that he has an artificial ski slope on the roof of his skyscraper). Their first interaction is full of condescending microaggressions on Vaughn’s part, such as cringe-inducingly calling Pryor “my man” in a manner that brings to mind the dad in Get Out.

When Pryor travels to Smallville, Kansas later in the film, he is visibly aghast at how eerily lily-white the whole place is, particularly staring in horror at a trio of porcelain-tinted mannequins in a store window. I’m sure his discomfort would be echoed by many black men taking their first step in rural southern America. Later, to infiltrate one of the businesses that he plans to hack in the small town, Pryor wears one of the awful suits worn by the aforementioned dummies and puts on an affected “white voice” to earn the trust of the drunken redneck that watches the place at night, a fitting commentary on how black men and women are expected to homogenize and “act white” to be above suspicion in white America.

And what happens when Pryor convinces Vaughn to give him the resources to construct his incredible supercomputer? Why, Vaughn and his sister appropriate it for themselves and put its unique capabilities to nefarious ends, shutting Pryor out of any control of his baby and leaving him out in the cold.

Pryor is much more than a victim through all of this, however. I already mentioned how he took the initiative to bolster his paltry computer programmer’s paycheck by using a clever scheme to embezzle from his greedy millionaire boss. He also doesn’t let said boss kick him around, either. Though his circumstances leave him with little choice but to be a cohort in Vaughn’s schemes, when push comes to shove, he stands up for himself. He refuses to allow Vaughn’s order for complete control of the oil tankers to be irreversible, he fights for his fair cut of the loot when Vaughn starts profiting off of his brilliance, and in the end he stands by Superman against his bourgeoisie bosses. He even saves Superman’s life on multiple occasions, using both his computer smarts and eventually a fire ax to come to the big guy’s rescue.

Given that Pryor has at least as much screen time as Supes throughout the picture, one is left wondering, who’s the real hero here? Why, its the guy running around in the frilly pink tablecloth, of course!

And Pryor’s not the only example of a downtrodden minority not being allowed to live to their full potential in a white supremacist patriarchal capitalist society. Perhaps the most interesting character in the film is the villain’s girlfriend, who is initially presented as a vapid, gold-digging bimbo until we learn that this is all an act on her part and she actually is a computer-wise, philosophy-reading secret genius herself. She only plays the part of the brainless trophy girl because life has left her few other options. It is a very fun subversion of the typical villain-moll dynamic, and it is a shame we don’t get more of this character, though she like Pryor is ultimately disturbed by Vaughn’s increasingly villainous actions and bails on him in the end.

But lets talk about Vaughn’s villain, and how he’s emblematic of the film’s ideas on rich white privilege as a whole. This is a guy who is so used to getting everything he wants that he sics a freaking hurricane on Colombia just because the country is competing with him in the coffee export industry. If that ain’t capitalism at its finest. He even repeats the tired adage “it is not enough that I succeed, others must fail,” misattributing it to Genghis Khan like an idiot. I mean seriously, who does this sound like?

This is the guy who gives us probably the most immortal line from the whole movie.

And that’s only the tip of the white entitlement iceberg. There’s also the running joke of the old white couple who win the Daily Planet’s vacation lottery and get sent off to Colombia, where we are treated to the wife saying things like, “look dear, a native wedding!” Cut to the most conventional looking church wedding ever. After this parody of cultural voyeurism, we have the couple later threatening to SUE Daily Planet Editor-in-Chief Perry White because A HURRICANE RUINED THEIR VACATION. What a couple of Karens.

The whole film is about the struggle between the working class and the rich. I’ll paraphrase one of the Smallville locals who, after seeing the chaos caused by the gasoline shortage brought about by Vaughn’s forced oil monopoly, says “I don’t know what’s going on, but I guarantee you, someone’s getting rich off of it. Someone’s always getting rich off of it.”

Oh yeah, and Superman is in this movie too a little. There’s a plot wherein Vaughn tries to synthesize an artificial kryptonite in an effort to kill Superman and prevent him from foiling his dastardly deeds. But, this being a kryptonite forged in the capitalist machine, its a lazy, half-assed copy that doesn’t even work right (leading to the above line).

That doesn’t mean that the kryptonite has no effect, though. Indeed, the symptoms of this knockoff kryptonite are fascinatingly similar to the effects of living under the crushing wheels of the capitalist regime.

We actually see Superman, through this physical manifestation of the exertion of capitalist oppression, deteriorate into a selfish, depressed, bitter shadow of his usual self. As this happens, the colors of his costume subtly grown more dark, drab, and dingy. Superman becomes concerned only with doing what is best for himself without regard to anyone else, giving up the whole “saving people” thing and even letting himself be coerced by the moll into ripping a giant hole into an oil tanker in exchange for a little nookie (the subsequent disturbing image of a massive oil spill creeping across the surface of the ocean is maybe the film showing its hand a little bit). Many socialist and anarchist thinkers have raised the thought that this exact selfish mindset is the natural effect of being socialized in a capitalist society.

Let’s be clear, this isn’t just “evil Superman”. This is Superman so crushed by self-loathing and the futility of his actions that at the lowest point in his decline we see him looking like this:

Indeed, this sad, alcoholic Superman very deliberately mirrors another character in the film: the aforementioned drunken yokel, who is also the former star quarterback of Clark Kent’s high school graduating class. This is a character who found, after graduating, that his celebrity status in school translated to nothing in the adult world, leaving him woefully unprepared for a real life where he is a functional nobody. Cue binge-drinking and pining for the glory days.

This all culminates in the movie’s most iconic scene, wherein Superman crash-lands in a junkyard and splits into two separate individuals: the above Superdick, and plain old Clark Kent. They then proceed to beat the shit out of each other.

Obviously, we aren’t meant to read this scene as literal; it isn’t actually, physically happening. It is a clever visualization of the internal struggle between the character’s two halves: Clark and Superman.

In fact, this very conflict is the heart of Superman’s story throughout the picture. This is examined in the form of Clark’s re-kindled relationship with childhood sweetheart Lana Lang. After the always tragic will-they-won’t-they of Superman and Lois, Clark and Lana’s romance is refreshingly positive and healthy. The obvious reason for this is that, unlike Lois, Lana isn’t just interested in the Superman persona. She loves Clark for Clark. He can be himself around her. Indeed, any romantic incursions between Superman in costume and Lana are portrayed as downright toxic, as in the unsettlingly realistic scene where Superman, first beginning to feel the effects of the faux kryptonite, makes several forceful, sexually aggressive advances on Lana in her own home. The obvious fear and discomfort on Lana’s face during this scene is incredibly telling. She isn’t interested in an inhumanly privileged, aggressive thug in spandex. She likes Clark Kent, the regular guy.

So it is no accident that in this climactic junkyard scene, Clark comes to represent the character’s “good side” and Superman the “bad”. Because this is not simply a struggle between Superman’s good and bad halves, it is a struggle between Clark Kent, the spectacularly unspectacular working man, and Superman, the ridiculously naturally privileged enforcer of statist status quo. Proletariat vs. bourgeoisie. And Clark Kent, the proletariat revolutionary fighting his way out of the bourgeois Superdick’s corruption, wins.

Not that Superman then becomes a perfect champion of the working class for the rest of the film. He does defeat Vaughnald Trump and blow up the evil computer, but he also remains something of a parody of typical movie “white savior” figures. This is mostly clearly shown in the denouement where Superman, obviously thinking he is providing some great act of charity, drops Richard Pryor’s character off at a dirty coal pit far from his home and recommends him for an entry-level computer job there. Pryor understandably decides he’d rather not slave in a coal mine in the middle of nowhere for the rest of his life, and chooses instead to walk the nine miles to the nearest bus station. There is also the final scene where Superman (who in evil mode had straightened the Leaning Tower of Pisa earlier in the film in an extreme act of pettiness) returns to Italy and “fixes” the tower, smiling and waving in smug self-satisfaction at the locals below, oblivious to the poor souvenir salesman who has just finished making his setting up his new display of now-straight replica towers.

tl;dr, I think that Superman III deserves reevaluation not as the moment where the Superman franchise began its descent into crappery, but instead as a flawed but biting satire on privilege and capitalist corruption in America.

That’s my two cents.

#superman #superman 3 #richard donner #richard lester #christoper reeve #capitalism #blm #fuck capitalism #Donald Trump #richard pryor #movie review #blog post #white privilege #socialism #anarchy #my two cents #tldr

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hall-of-merlin2 · 4 years

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Magic, Monsters and Merthur - 1x02 - (Magic)

Episode 2! Whoop!

It’s a shame that the magic is my favorite subject in this “analysis”. It doesn’t get interesting until much, much later. But I do rant a bit, so a warning for that ahead of time.

Short version of what we know already - two prophecies for the world, we got the bad timeline. Magic is a living being that blessed humans, but humans didn’t like that it didn’t give them god-like powers, so they made their own blessings and then fought something that shouldn’t even be fight-able, and won.

Somehow.

And... Immediately I’m making more changes to what I put in certain sections... Merthur is not only Merthur, it is also all characters, the Monsters isn’t just the magical creatures, it’s also the villains, and the Magic isn’t just the magic, but also about the history of Camelot, and certain tidbits about universe-expanding.

It’s either this or I make yet another post after all of the “original” ones, just called “Random Observations”, which I don’t think is necessary.

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09:11

This guy always intrigued me. The Knights of Camelot have a very limited fighting style, usually one sword and one shield, no shield if it’s not available and very minimal theatrics or hand-to-hand combat. Also not very good with several opponents, they’re best against a single strong enemy that they can clash with endlessly. They’re quick, but not incredibly, they’re durable, but still have limits, they’re strong, but flawed in certain areas. Versatile, but at so many things that they end up just being average at everything.

This guy, on the other hand, is officially a knight. And his fighting style – his armor and weapons too – are from a completely different continent. My question is how he adopted this style, where he adopted it from, how he ended up close enough to Camelot to hear of the tournament and then enter it, and how the fuck he got himself knighted. We don’t see many people like this in the future, and it’s not because Uther doesn’t allow them, he’s clearly rooting for this guy to win, but there’s still an abundance of knights that fight like Camelot’s – versatile, but average.

I just want to know why we didn’t get more different styles, why Gwaine or even Lancelot, Percival too, ELYAN, people who first fought with what they had, not the fancy swords Camelot provided them with, didn’t have their own styles of fighting independent from what knighthood had forced upon them. I know Gwaine still has some of his brawler instincts, using words more than fists to win a fight with wit, I’m not sure that Lancelot had professional knight training, but he should have picked up a few cheeky tactics from his time traveling around the whole island, I dunno where Percival came from but… Have you seen him hold a sword? He looks so awkward with it, it’s so small in his hands! He definitely needed a giant mace or a club that he could bash people over the head with. And Elyan! He was a blacksmith, you cannot tell me that while he wasn’t in Camelot he didn’t pick up even the tiniest wind of swords being made differently – with curves, sharp or dull edges – and didn’t try to make and practice with one himself! Maybe he knew of the “quota”, of how swords are generally made, and maybe he was taught to make swords in this specific way and he didn’t want to deviate…

But do all of these travelers, while traveling through places that have never even heard of the name Camelot, always found the perfect run-of-the-mill Camelot knight sword to fight with?

I just don’t believe it.

More variety in sword fights dammit.

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39:36

So… There’s a spell that can… Revive stone?

Surely the dog wasn’t made into stone to make that statue, that would be magic and you know how the big bad thinks of it. That’s just literal stone, and there’s a whole spell that just… Makes stone into a living being? How the hell does that work.

…the afanc uses the same principle.

So making living things out of dead material seems to be a trend, with several different spells usable. Which is cool, it’s probably just an exchange of life-force between the summoner and the summoned, would be simple if not for the “a life for a life” thing that the Cup of Life is based on.

To create a life a life must be taken – but it only applies to humans?

I think I go more indepth into the Cup of Life in… Oh fuck in another season. But yeah, it’s life-force exchange, so… it’s either only humans are considered “lives” which is just bullshit and I don’t accept it or it’s literally taking ANYTHING to create that life and the “a life for a life” thing is absolute ridiculousness thought up by somebody.

It’s just taking anything, anything at all, and using the life-force in that object, paired with the one that the summoner has to create literal life.

Clay? Usable.

Stone? Usable.

Another human? That’s going overboard for a bit of drama.

So Arthur could have lived if there was like a flower used to revive him.

The anthill theory is valid! Merlin needs to chuck one into Avalon as soon as possible.

(The anthill theory is… again, something that someone more clever than me thought up. There was a talk about Avalon and the equivalent exchange of lives that it proposes, how a beetle is worth a worm and three worms makes a cat and four cats makes a prat, or something along those lines. Then it was suggested that ANY life works, which then spiraled into an idea that if Merlin would just throw a whole anthill into Avalon, he could bring back Balinor, Will, Lancelot, Gwaine, Elyan, and anyone else he wanted. It was a fun little idea, but it seems to have more value than I originally thought.)

Also… Quite of a rant incoming.

This scene makes me sad – because Merlin is losing his instinctive magical abilities. He has enough wit to understand that this is possible and this is how the shield works, but not confident enough in himself to just… Force the stone to turn into what he wants it to. He’s confined himself to spells and that makes me sad because he could actually probably revive more than stone, more than plants or wildlife when they die, but probably even people. (This is yet another idea proposed by someone more intelligent than me, I just took it and ran.) And it wouldn’t even be considered necromancy, Merlin would literally be a human Cup of Life but without needing to take anything from anything because there’s just so much power within him already.

This is why I wanted to study and document and theorize about the Magic of Merlin. Not because there wasn’t enough told, not because it was barely used, not because it’s lame and I want it to be cool. It’s the direct opposite of all those things – these was so much shit told about the past and the Old Religion and the Faction Wars and so many amulets and necklaces and spells were used it’s actually incredible how fleshed out it is! And it being a key point of nearly episode did not make me miss it when there were pure dramatic episodes. Magic in Merlin is cool, what isn’t cool is that they didn’t do anything with it. I don’t mean that it wasn’t used for plot points and fun episodes, I mean that that was it – just a running gag, a convenient way to think of new ideas and keep the episodes going, it was never Magic just for the sake of being Magic. There wasn’t a magic reveal until the very end, where it didn’t matter what happened after, we weren’t going to see it. There wasn’t a kingdom that just accepted magic and didn’t kill people for having it, Merlin never went to such a kingdom for reprieve, there wasn’t a secret sorcerer underground that Merlin and other sorcerers could consult to help on various tasks or just talk and be happy that there’s so many of them despite everything. Magic wasn’t the wondrous and mystical and amazing thing that the show made it out to be, it was incantations pronounced correctly and rituals that could kill you if you messed up one thing and magical items that weren’t even that magical, the most mysticism that’s come out of them being “You don’t know what we will actually do if you use us, beware the consequences” which is bullshit and not magical at all. Magic was made out to be this scary and dangerous thing, and seen by people as something evil in a world where royals could literally cut off food for their people during a plague – that was seen as more normal than someone probably not magical talking to possibly magical people once.

It’s just… Why are people so afraid to make magic this overpowered, convenient plot point that’s just fun to see without putting a thousand limitations and incantations and rituals and complications and consequences on top of it just so it’s “used sparingly” and “not for messing around” and “for a greater purpose” rather than just being something you can fill 5 pages of a book that’s lacking action with?

Let Magic be fun. Let it be mystical, understandable but still something that people question the legitimacy of in real life terms.

Let it be the genre it was supposed to be – pure, colorful, tooth-rotting fluff fantasy.

But if no one else is gonna do it, I will.

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The Monsters

The Merthur

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imagitory · 5 years

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Review: The Lion King (2019) [spoilers]

NAAAAAANTS IGONYAMA BAGITI BABA -- !

Ahem. So...I just got back from seeing the new Lion King remake, and I guess it’s time to talk about it. For those of you who wish to avoid spoilers... *exhales heavily* how do I say this kindly, um -- you don’t need to go see this. Like, really, you don’t. Not to rain on anyone’s parade, but you would miss absolutely nothing watching the original instead of this one, and honestly, I think it’s fair to say you’ll have much more fun watching the original too. As much as I haven’t loved Disney’s line of recent remakes, I at least found something in most of the films I saw that I could praise, but with this one? I don’t recall ever being so utterly bored sitting in a movie theater in my life.

If you would like a more detailed opinion, here’s a cut!

The Good!

+For once, Disney decided to hire a cast full of singers that don’t require autotune, including Donald Glover, Billy Eichner, and of course Beyonce, as well as quite a few lovely people in the chorus like Brown Lidiwe Mkhize (who sang The Circle of Life). Even some of the performers with weaker singing voices like John Oliver were able to hold their own well enough.

+The voice acting overall wasn’t bad. I’ll have to leave it at that, though, since this is supposed to be the positive section.

+The Circle of Life and Can You Feel the Love Tonight? were well-performed, though I will be getting to other issues I had with them later.

+Zazu was actually given a bit more pathos rather than just exclusively being comic relief. He not only tries to protect Nala and Simba from the hyenas, but he also rushes to go get the lionesses when Simba’s in trouble, makes a distraction for Nala so she doesn’t get caught by Scar, and even helps a little more in the final battle. I won’t act like he was an improvement on the orginal exactly, as the best compromise would’ve been to have him be both funny and supportive, but at least there was an attempt to give him some depth.

+As much as I’ll critique the animation further down, I will give the animators credit for its realism. A lot of hard work was obviously put in, and it shows.

The Not-So-Good...

+The number one problem with this movie is, as I feared, the animation. I can respect that this is my opinion and many others might find some charm in how “real” everything looks, but I’m sorry -- musicals =/= realistic . Musicals are supposed to be over-the-top. They are supposed to be theatrical. Hell, even the Broadway production of The Lion King understood that to tell this story without animated lions, you had to treat it like a folktale. The story was never about lions -- it was a human story told with lions. The ideas of family -- responsibility -- duty -- leadership -- grief -- hope -- these are human values. The Lion King was inspired by Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It also has ripples of the Moses story, given that it revolves around someone running away from their home and responsibility, only to realize their true calling and go back to save their people. And you know something? I am positive that the filmmakers knew full well how ridiculous these National-Geographic-esque animated creatures would look suddenly bursting into song -- that’s why they tried at every single opportunity to depict the musical sequences in wide, impersonal shots that barely correspond to the rhythm or mood of the song at all. Unless it’s The Circle of Life, which is literally a shot-for-shot recreation of the original sequence accompanied by a song sung by none of the characters on screen, the only way that these supposedly “realistic” creatures could communicate energy or emotion during the song sequences was by running and climbing things. And in the end, it just looks lazy and dull. There’s no energy in either the shots or the editing. Hakuna Matata and I Just Can’t Wait to Be King suffer the most because of this, as those songs were so dependent on bright colors, spontaneity, and enthusiasm, but none of the songs are done justice with this animation.

+Another issue with the animation is in the characters themselves. As realistic as it looks in the textures of the fur and the way the animals move, it is utterly lifeless in practice. I swear to God, there are points where these animals looked stuffed, they’re so blank and hollow. You know those live action movies, like Cats and Dogs, where they would have real dogs and cats play the characters and then just “fix” their mouths with post-production CGI to make it look like they’re talking, even if their eyes and faces still end up looking so blank that it never looks like they’re saying what’s coming out of their mouths? THAT’S THE ENTIRE MOVIE. It didn’t matter how good the voice acting was, because it was invalidated by the lack of expression of the characters who were supposedly saying the lines. The only character in this movie who seemed to have any emotion in his eyes was Scar, and that was because his animated model was apparently given permission to narrow his eyes more, presumably to look more “eeeeeviiiiiiil~.” Even the hyenas were just given hollow black eyes that only ever looked alien and inhuman most of the time (clearly to remind you that they’re the bad guys) -- there were no emotions other than “mwehehehe we’re gonna eat you” on their faces the entire movie. But yeah, think of all the really emotional scenes in this movie. Think of Mufasa seeing Simba hanging on that tree -- the fear in his face as Simba almost loses his grip on the branch -- the pain and fear in Simba’s expression when Mufasa puts him up on a small ledge, only to get yanked backward by the wildebeest and disappear from view -- the struggle in Mufasa’s body language as he tries to climb up the edge of the gorge -- the betrayal and horror in Mufasa’s expression when Scar reveals his true colors -- the desperation, disbelief, horror, and grief in Simba’s face when he finds his father and screams at the open air for help. ...Yeah. Now imagine all of those scenes being acted out by EMOTIONLESS PUPPETS. That’s even what Mufasa looks like when he’s thrown backwards off the cliff -- a puppet. A scene that has left people in tears almost made me snort with laughter because of how bad it looked!

+The animation’s realism also, as others pointed out when the trailers first came out, made it very difficult to pick out individual characters. When Nala grew up, there wasn’t even a way to tell that she was the youngest of the lionesses -- they all looked like clones of each other. There’s a bit where one of the hyenas (I guess he’s supposed to be Banzai, but I guess he’s been renamed something else?) confuses Scar for Mufasa at a distance and I almost burst out laughing because it was like the movie characters themselves even realized how identical all of the lions look. Simba’s face “turning into Mufasa’s” in the water had no emotional impact at all because you could barely tell that anything had just happened.

+Geezus, and I thought that Beauty and the Beast took too many ideas from the original? Oh boy. This movie took so much from the original, it was like the filmmakers copied something they found on the Internet for a school assignment and then added and switched around a couple of lines just so they wouldn’t be accused of plagiarism. There were quite a few points while watching this where I was going, “Oooookay, and this is where Simba sees a lizard. ...Yup, there it is. He’s gonna try to roar twice. ...Yup, and...yup. And on the third try, he’s going to roar loud enough for it to echo, and we’ll cut to the top of the gorge. ...Called it. And wildebeest in three, two, one...” Now, of course, knowing what’s going to happen shouldn’t reduce suspense -- if anything, when something suspenseful is done well, it doesn’t matter if you know what happens, because now you’re excited to see those things happen. But in this? How could I be excited when they recycled almost every joke, almost every shot, almost every scene, only with half the energy and sincerity? Even Beauty and the Beast tried to throw in some twists now and again, even if I didn’t end up liking most of them...the only things I can think of in regards to “changes” were some extra scenes that didn’t add much of anything, such as Scar leaning even more into his “Claudius” role and trying to court Simba’s mother Sarabi. Oh, and on that note...

+...The original movie was about an hour and a half long. This one was two hours. You want to know how they stretched that run-time out? Largely by adding in extended nature sequences. Perhaps if you really like the “realistic” animation, you might enjoy the gratuity of it, but some of them just got ridiculous. Remember how in the original, Scar caught a mouse and kind of taunted it? Now we get almost a whole minute just watching the mouse running around and doing nothing before Scar even shows up. Remember how we got a short, smooth transition from Pride Rock to Rafiki’s tree with a rainfall and soothing music? Have one that’s twice as long and is devoid of any of the epic, solemn atmosphere. Remember how we got a cute little giggle when Timon and Pumbaa sang The Lion Sleeps Tonight, only for it to get interrupted by Nala’s arrival? Now that song is treated like a full musical number with lots of danc -- sorry, walking around aimlessly, because it’d be stupid if animals actually danced or something. Remember how Simba collapses into some leaves, which sets loose some dust which in a ten-second-long cut scene is blown through the wind into Rafiki’s hand? Now it lasts almost two whole minutes and involves a tuft of Simba’s fur landing in a river, being picked up by a bird, becoming stuffing in a nest, being tossed out of the nest, being accidentally eaten by a giraffe, being shat out by that giraffe, being picked up by a dung beetle -- OH, COME ON. NOW YOU’RE JUST SEARCHING FOR EXCUSES TO DRAG THIS MOVIE OUT.

+I love James Earl Jones, but he should not have reprised his role as Mufasa. I’m sorry, but the man is 88 years old now, and he just sounded so tired. He didn’t show even half of the energy and enthusiasm he had playing the part the first time. If he was Simba’s grandfather, that’d be one thing, but he’s not. Half of what makes Mufasa’s death so tragic is how alive and young he seemed and how close his bond was with his friends Rafiki and Zazu and his family Simba and Sarabi, but thanks to Jones’s low-key performance and the lack of emotion in Mufasa’s animation, all of that is lost.

+Just like with Jafar in the recent Aladdin remake, this movie tries to give Scar some depth, but the halfhearted attempt only serves to take away what made Scar a great villain in the first place -- namely, his dry wit, ruthlessness, talent for manipulation, dynamic attitude, arrogance, immaturity, and most of all passion. Combine this not-deliciously-evil-but-definitely-not-sympathetic characterization with such bland animation that neither conveys energy or intrigue, and we’re once again left with a very forgettable, uninteresting villain. Come on, Disney, you used to be so good at writing villains -- just because you’re trying to make a more “realistic” story doesn’t mean your villain can’t crack a smile every-so-often, geezus!

+If Sarabi was chasing off hyenas with the lionesses, how in the world did she and the lionesses get back to Pride Rock fast enough for them to be lounging around when Simba came to get Nala? Scar and Simba’s interaction isn’t nearly long enough to encompass Sarabi finishing up with the hyenas and returning home. This is a problem that comes from how much this remake copies from the original -- because it wants so many scenes to play out identically to the original, it gives any subtle line changes the writers do make the potential to create plot holes.

+Oh yeah, and the joke of Simba pouncing on Zazu really doesn’t work if we see Simba getting ready the entire time and Zazu makes it easy for Simba by spinning around in circles looking at nothing. One would think Zazu was trying to let Simba pounce on him.

+There’s no kind way to put this -- Timon and Pumbaa were just flat-out INSUFFERABLE in this. Not only were their deliveries of lines from the original movie pretty awful, but they also added in a bunch of new, often fourth-wall-breaking jokes that just made me hide my face in my hands and groan. In Hakuna Matata in particular, they act offended by Simba not being more excited when they first say the phrase, ruin the joke of Pumbaa farting by having him say it and Pumbaa then being upset that Timon didn’t interrupt him, AND give Simba a hard time for continuing the song until it fades out by saying that Simba’s “gained 400 pounds” since they started it! This isn’t even touching on how TERRIBLE Seth Rogen was as Pumbaa while singing -- like, I know that’s supposed to be part of the joke, but Ernie Sabella was “a bad singer” by being over-the-top, not by being off-pitch and painful to listen to! Not to mention that Sabella packed so much more characterization into his line deliveries -- the chasm of quality between Sabella and Rogen’s performances all the more highlighted to me the difference between an actor and a voice actor. You can’t just get away with speaking your lines in an ordinary voice when you’re voice acting -- you need to emote solely with your voice, as your face is not doing any of the work, and with animation this emotionless and bland, one really needed to have given 120% in their voice work for it to be even passable. (And honestly, none of the actors stood out well performance-wise...not that they should have to singlehandedly bear the burden of depicting their characters’ emotions just with their voices: this is an animated movie, not a radio drama!) As if breaking the fourth wall for no reason, telling bad jokes, and singing poorly wasn’t enough, Timon and Pumbaa also come across as infinitely more selfish and mean-spirited. They say they’re outcasts, and yet there’s a whole friggin’ community of animals in their jungle home. Simba actually hears Timon and Pumbaa selfishly decide to “keep him” because having a creature bigger than them around might help them out. Timon flat-out tells Simba to only look after himself and no one else. Whereas in the original film, Timon and Pumbaa almost raise Simba like adopted parents, having fun with him and genuinely showing concern for him -- here, Timon and Pumbaa act more like a pair of frat boys who adopted the “new kid” in college and induct him into their friend circle, even though, yeah, Simba first meets them as a cub and they’re already adults. Rather than just laugh at the thought of “royal dead guys watching them” for a quick moment, they openly roar with laughter at Simba, dragging it out even when it’s very clear Simba is hurt by their amusement and not even bothering to apologize. At least in the original, Simba acted like it was funny and then left abruptly, but here? Simba never laughed or showed any amusement, so it came across as Timon and Pumbaa bullying him. Oh yeah, and speaking of bullying, remember how there was that one-off pop culture reference where Pumbaa gets mad at being called a pig? Now that’s been replaced with Pumbaa saying he doesn’t like bullies -- seems like that would’ve been a lovely thing to set up earlier, maybe to give that line some emotional pay-off, but nope! There’s no joke AND there’s no point. But you want to know what made me hate these two beyond reason in this movie? You want to know what finally pushed me over the edge? They broke the fourth wall beyond repair by -- rather than randomly putting on a hula skirt and dancing goofily, because of course we’re a SERIOUS animated movie, one that’s so REAL -- singing Be Our Guest from Beauty and the Beast, French accent and all. ...Excuse me for a minute. *buries her face into a pillow and screams in rage*

+By the way, those other animals who live in the jungle Timon and Pumbaa are from and therefore invalidate their assertion of being “outcasts”? Completely pointless. They don’t even come with Timon and Pumbaa and fight for the Pridelands! You could have cut them completely and lost nothing.

+As much as Hakuna Matata was the most irritating of the numbers, I Just Can’t Wait to Be King and especially Be Prepared were just pathetic. I Just Can’t Wait to Be King largely suffered, again, due to the “realism” of the animation, but the slow editing and even the vocals slowed the whole sequence down and sucked out any energy or excitement from the piece. I’ll give credit to Nala and Simba’s voice actors for their vocal quality, but there was still none of the spontaneity and recklessness in their voices that the song requires, so it just came across as Disney karaoke, rather than anything professional. But Be Prepared was easily the worst of the lot. It would be a challenge to try to evoke the level of dread and demented thrill you get from the original song sequence, but here, the filmmakers didn’t even try. Not only do we only get part of the song, but Scar’s voice actor Chitwetel Ejiofor barely sings a word of it and brings none of the dynamic, power-hungry, conniving, almost hypnotic mania that’s supposed to define Scar in that moment. He’s mostly just shouting like an old man yelling at a kid to get off his lawn -- there’s no attempt at persuasion or temptation in his voice at all. And just like in most of the other musical numbers, the only way Scar’s character model can emote during his song is to climb on things. Even in songs that were performed well, there were notable problems. The Circle of Life was basically animated on autopilot, replicating every single shot without taking any time to show any genuine emotion anywhere, whether when Zazu and Rafiki greeted Mufasa or when Simba sneezed away the dust in his face...and Can You Feel the Love Tonight? Haha, yeah, right -- more like “Can You Feel the Love in the Mid-Afternoon”! It was absolutely comical, hearing them sing “tonight” when the entire sequence was done in daylight!

+I’ve always liked The Lion King, but...wow, after seeing this remake and how much they tried to lean into the “hyenas as outsiders” idea in this, I have to acknowledge that there are some uncomfortable elements to this story. In the original, we solely focus on Shenzi, Banzai, and Ed with other hyenas in the background, so them being outside the Pridelands could just be seen as the case of a few bad apples, rather than it being an indictment on an entire group. But here, in this version, Shenzi is depicted more seriously as the leader of all the hyenas and it’s established that the war between lions and hyenas has gone on for a long time. Basically this movie turns Shenzi into Zira from The Lion King 2...and yeah, that makes it so that the hyenas -- as the outsiders -- should theoretically be slightly sympathetic, right? You know, to show that it’s wrong to cast others out because they look or act different from you? Nope! Nope, they’re all just evil! They’re manifestations of greed and hunger with no potential for redemption whatsoever. They’re not like our good, pale-colored lionesses who all look the same -- they’re dirty, and conniving, and they seek to creep out of the shadows and leech on everything the lions hold dear. I could very, very easily see how some vile, disgusting people could embrace such a narrative in this current climate, seeing themselves in the lions trying to “take their land back” from the shadowy, evil hoard of creatures who have come from outside to tear down their way of life. I can’t act like this adaptation added something that wasn’t at all in the original movie, as, let’s be honest, it plagiarized most of it...but perhaps because of how they reused this story and in some cases leaned into some elements of that story, this remake has very, very bad timing in when it was released. Those elements of the story probably wouldn’t have been read into it back in the 90′s, given the relative stability of the political landscape, but now? Now I could see how people could read it that way. It’d be like trying to make a movie like Independence Day, where national monuments get blown up, right after 9/11.

Looking back on what I just saw, I’m still absolutely stunned. Never before have I felt like my time has been more wasted than when I decided to sit down and watch this movie. I’ve tried to find shreds of praise, but whenever I try, it feels like I’m grasping at straws, only to fall back into a big pool of “blah.” I have never been so bored by a movie in my life -- and if there’s anything Disney, and especially Disney musicals, should never be, it’s boring. I would still say Maleficent makes me the most angry of Disney’s recent remakes, considering that that one openly insulted the original it was based off and this one is just clearly so up the original’s ass that it’s obnoxious...but this one was easily the biggest disappointment. I went in with almost no expectations, and yet still came out disappointed in the result. That, I think, says a lot. I could see someone who simply wants to see some cute animals and ride a bit on the nostalgia train enjoying this...but forgive me, but that bar is way too low. Disney is capable of doing so much better -- the true Lion King, the 1994 classic that broke records and surpassed all audience expectation, is more than enough evidence of that.

Overall Grade: D-

#the lion king (2019)#the lion king #disney #the lion king spoilers #opinion #oh boy here i go #reviews #disney remakes #remakes

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living-dead-parker · 5 years

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Theatrical Chaos - P.P

Summary: Requested by @justanothermarvelfanaccount - First off, your stories are incredible and I absolutely LOVE reading them. Also, if you have the time, could you possibly write a peter parker x reader where reader works at a movie theatre and can get them into free movies before they come out? Maybe peter and the rest of the science squad can wreak havoc in the theatre and tony has to bail them out. Thank you!!

Hope y’all enjoy the science squad once more!! I also took some liberties from the original request, but tried to follow it as much as possible!!

Warnings: cussing, spoilers for Halloween (2018) but that came out over three months ago so it should be acceptable at this point to speak about it

Word Count: 1.8k

Gif is not mine!

Getting a job was not really something you wanted to do. But, you gotta make money somehow. Sure, Tony likes you enough to just give it to you if you ask, but you don't like buying into his rich man capitalistic ways. That and you have too much pride, despite having asked him for hundreds of dollars. So, you got a job at a movie theater. Gross. The only benefit is the family discount and you get to watch movies for free. So, when you lean against the warm popcorn machine -curse the owner for these extremely cold conditions!- and you notice the familiar faces of your five bestest friends in the world coming into the theater, your frown turns into an upside down frown.

"Y/N! We're gonna watch the Halloween movie!" Shuri says.

"You mean the best comedy of 2018? Bc damn!" Harley says excitedly.

"Oh, must be fun, fuckers. While 'lil 'ol me is stuck working. How rude!" you add as you move over to the counter. The theater you worked at was one of the cheaper ones that show movies that left the bigger theaters months ago. Just last week you found out you'd be getting Bohemian Rhapsody in five months!

"Can we get some popped corn and some carbonated water with high fructose corn syrup?" Michelle asks, speaking in her deeper voice. A running gag among the group to throw off people at retail stores. Totally unnecessary, but totally worth it. Except not when it's being done to you.

"Yeah, can you throw in some of the circular colored chocolate sweets with the 'm' on them? And a red iced drink with cherry flavored syrup for taste?" Ned asks.

"Just say popcorn, Coke, M&M's, and Cherry Slushie for fuck's sake!" you groan as you begin working on their order.

"Yeah, can you throw in the tortilla chips with the classic cow byproduct classified as Nacho with a green pepper garnish on top? And a tea, preferably one of the iced varieties, raspberry to be exact," Shuri adds. You roll your eyes as you continue working on the order. Harley and Peter were the only ones to order using proper language and totally not fucking with you by telling you they meant something completely different than what you heard -which they did not!

After twenty minutes, their order was complete and you were sending them on their way to enjoy the movie. You still have another hour and a half until you were off, so they'd be done by the time you're off. You watch as they walk away, Shuri hitting Harley on the back of his head, causing the rest of the group to laugh.

You were manning the concession stand for a few minutes before being told to do your final theater inspection. This just meant going into every showroom and staying for five minutes to make sure everything was fine. So you begin, going from showroom one all the way to showroom ten. Upon reaching showroom ten, you see Peter, Ned, Michelle, Shuri, and Harley sitting in the dead center. There were only four other people in the room with them; a couple in the very back -most likely doing something they shouldn't be because they looked very guilty- and another couple in the front who look angry at each other.

"Okay, but why can't he just let her take a shit in peace?" Shuri asks loudly. The couples didn't seem to mind the comments being hurled by the teens, and in fact seemed to find them extremely funny.

"Hey," Peter begins, speaking in a mimicking type of voice as it cuts to Michael banging the restroom stall in the movie.

"Occupado!" Harley cuts in with a fake high-pitched voice as the camera pans to the Dana in the restroom, looking around cautiously and screaming.

"Sorry," Peter says through a muffled laugh as Michael begins to kill Dana.

"Let's have some fun, this beat is sick!" Michelle sings as Michael begins to smash Dana's head against the restroom stall door.

"I wanna take a ride on your disco stick!" Harley sings along. Harley seemed to be the one cracking up the most, laughing at everything, making the most comments, screaming from laughter at random times.

It came as a surprise to you but nobody was telling Harley or the others in the group to shut up. Maybe it was mostly due to the fact that the movie came out a few months ago, so for sure these people have seen it already one way or another, or just did not care enough about it to get upset. Plus, the couple way at the back seemed to just need some privacy to get to doing their business. You're supposed to report that kind of stuff when you see it, but you decided to turn a blind eye because they were being quiet and there was no one in their row. They weren't bugging anyone.

As the movie goes on, Harley and Peter seem to be making the most comments, laughing the most at everything. Michelle and Shuri stopped paying too much attention after a while, which you found funny. Ned would just laugh, but he seemed sort of into the movie. The kind where you don't care but you're being forced to watch it so you might as well just watch it.

"Hey fucker," Harley begins as the scene where the prison bus is flipped over and the small kid is exploring what happened after his dad had been missing for a few minutes now. "If an old man in a bus that just flipped over tells you to run, you fucking run!"

The kid did not run. No matter how much Harley screamed, he did not run. In fact, he died. He's gone. Michelle and Shuri boo at the fact that he didn't run. Peter just giggles as the scene transitions and the movie continues. Over the course of the movie, Peter and Ned hold hands and make jokes to each other. You can hear Peter -loud and clear, you might add- tell Ned that he can beat his meat with a knife any day. When Peter catches your playful glare, he blows a kiss your way. You pretend to catch it and then throw it on the ground before stomping on it. Peter playfully glares at you to which you pretend to ignore.

You should've left long ago, but then the movie reaches a pivotal moment. Michael discovers Allyson and he begins to chase after her. Suddenly, a revamped version of Michael's theme song begins to play and Michelle goes on about how the song is a 'certified bop' and how it deserves all the Grammy's. Harley stands up -literally stands up! Nobody stops him either- and begins to Milly Rock to the beat of the song. Shuri and Michelle stand up as well and join in on the dancing, doing all sorts of dumb dances.

Ultimately the movie nears its end, and when you check the time, you see that you have 20 minutes left until it's time to clock out. With that thought in mind, you decide to leave the room and head back to the concession stand to finish cleaning your station, help some customers, and eventually clock out. Ten minutes go by in a flash and the group of teens are rounding the corner and into your line of vision. You hand a bucket of popcorn to some random teenager who wouldn't stop trying to flirt with you.

"Hey, maybe I can come back later and we can catch a movie together?" the kid asks. You roll your eyes and grab the small nozzle that you use to spray butter into the popcorn.

"Beat it or I'll cover you in butter and tell the girl that you came with what you said," you tell him as you aim the nozzle to the little jerk. He mutters something about you being a bitch before leaving. As if you didn't already know you were a mega bitch.

The teens watch it all unfold and Peter can't help but want to punch the kid. He does refrain but the immense need to do it fills his mind. Maybe later, when the punk comes back. They all approach you as you begin to clean up once more.

"How may I help you today?" you ask as you give them all your fake smile. Harley pushes past everyone and looks at the menu, making you roll your eyes.

"Yeah, I'll take three buckets of popcorn, and one thicc bih," Harley says before winking at you.

"The only thicc bih here is Peter," Michelle comments. Shuri and Ned nod as Peter turns in a circle to show off the junk in his trunk. He really does have a bubble butt.

"Thank, I grew it myself," Peter says proudly as he winks at you.

"Mr. Thiccums getting too confident. I'll be off in five, let me just clock out and get changed," you say to the group of teens. They nod and move over to the mini arcade area as you begin clocking out of your register. With a quickness like never before, you head to the employee restrooms and quickly change back into your street clothes. When you head back out to the main lobby, you see people crowding the arcade area.

Worried -since your friends were there last- you head over to the arcade area and your face flushes at the sight in front of you. Tony Stark -genius billionaire playboy philanthropist- was attempting to pull Harley's arm out of the claw machine.

"Harley, I need you to let go of the stupid-" a violent groan escapes Tony's lips, followed by a yelp, "-stuffed animal! I can always buy you one!"

"Fine!" Harley screams and within a few seconds, his arms is coming out of the claw machine, red marks all over his arm. Your brows furrow in confusion. How did this all happen so fast? You were only in the back for about 15 minutes. From the corner, you notice Shuri, Michelle, and Ned laughing as they record. Soon, Harley is charging at them, screaming about how he'll punch them for laughing at him. Peter holds Harley -and some chuckles, admittedly- back. Harley screams for Peter to let him go.

In a bold move, you step into the arcade room and push past everyone. You're still on the premise, so you gotta do something about it. You sigh and clear your throat before yelling at the group of yours.

"Hey, fuckers," you say loudly to get their attention. They all turn and pull away from each other. You even notice Tony flinch a little. Ned may be the mother bear in the group, but you were the mother bitch. Nothing got through you. "Stop with your fighting and screaming now or I'll give you a reason to scream!"

The group goes quiet as they nod. You turn around and begin the walk out of the theater, Tony and the others in tow. Surely, this would make the news much later.

Please leave some feedback or requests! Also plz send in asks or come talk to me!!

#peter parker #peter parker x reader #peter parker imagine #peter parker reader insert #peter parker x you #peter parker x y/n #spider-man #spider-man imagine #spider-man x reader #science squad #tony stark #ned leeds #michelle jones #Shuri #Harley Keener #requested #shit post imagine

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okimargarvez · 5 years

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HURT- open wounds - 22

Original title: Hurt.

Prompt: Luke’s dark thought, destiny, contrasted love.

Warnings: sexual content, dark thoughts.

Genre: angst, drama, romantic, smut, dark, mistery, frienship.

Characters: Penelope Garcia, Luke Alvez, BAU team, O.C.

Pairing: Garvez.

Note: multichapter.

Legend: 💏😘😈🔦🐶❗🎈👻.

Song mentioned: La tua vita intera, Tiziano Ferro.

Hurt- Masterlist

GARVEZ STORIES

Note: this is the last chapter. This story is ended!

Chapter 22-

-This story will end today, in some way. It's clear by now.- Penelope stands up and approaches him, without touching him. Luke can see her shiny eyes, but also the stubborn expression.

-I know. That's why I'm afraid.- the voice trembles, but refuses to give up. He hugs her, caresses her back and whispers sweet and comforting words.

-Hun, darling, look at me.- he takes her face in his hands. -I'm afraid, we are all afraid. But I can't promise you anything other than that I'll do my best, I'll be careful, because nothing will happen to me. Because I don't want to lose you, I don't want to lose the opportunity to stay with you and now we have to take care not only of Roxy, but also of Twisty...- he smiles, even a few tears fall from his eyes. -It's a great responsibility.- the last word is cut from her lips.

-Yes, it is. So be sure to bring your ass back home tonight, otherwise I'll go out with that man of the billiards that always flirts with me...- Luke laughs and grabs her by the wrists, bringing her closer to him again.

-Oh yes?- he knows he still has only a few seconds. They have to go and save Diana. They kiss again, then get out of the bunker. He must concentrate on the mission, he can’t think of Penelope in a fixed way, because this could distract him and make him commit some imprudence.

The blonde woman now feels powerless, because she can only wait for the facts to unfold, there is no information that can be useful to him, she has no way of preventing things from going as they should, but she has a terrible, dark premonition that digs in her bowels. She feels the desire to vomit, scream, cry. She hasn't had a chance to tell him how much she really loves him. Now, thinking back to the first months, how she behaved, trying to keep him at a distance, then realizing that she fell in love with him, all too soon... she is not being able to do without him. Now, she feels like an idiot. It started in such an absurd way, it is absurd even that Luke can really love her... yet he does. Please, Lord, let everything work out for the best. I know I ask You too many favors, but in that house there are so many good people who don’t deserve to die, including one in particular, and... and I promise You that I will be able to clearly demonstrate to him what I feel for him, if You let him come back in one piece.

Lindsey poses the detonator and he handcuffs her and takes her outside. He feels less the burden on his heart. The helicopter trip goes by very quickly. As soon as it comes down, he runs into Garcia's room, nobody notices, but even in that case, he doesn't care. Maybe she heard his footsteps, because she waits for him on her feet. She hugs him hard, doesn't want to let him go. -Love, it's ok. It's over. I told you it would be over. Spencer won. We won. Lindsey is in our hands, Cat is in prison and Diana is safe. Do you want to see him? Soon Reid and JJ will arrive too.- he raises her chin, she puts her lips on his, but in a moment the kiss becomes more ravenous.

-I... I need it... it's so wrong, isn't it?- he doesn't let her replicate, he shakes his head and leaves the room, followed by her. A great promise lies on her head, yet here again she can’t find the courage to keep it. Then she sees all the others, already waiting, including Reid's mother and decides to postpone it later. She wants to enjoy this moment, because as JJ said many years before, they have so few good memories in these rooms. They see so many horrible things, the darkest points that the human mind can reach... so it is also good for the atmosphere of the building to be charged with positive energy. The elevator doors open, here is Spencer; Emily sends Diana forward, they exchange a few jokes in a low voice, then the hug. How much she misses her parents right now. She has never yet spoken to Luke about them, or rather not about their death and her feelings of guilt about it. She hasn’t yet told him a lot of things, all those that she didn’t want to say. Things must change. She had made a promise to him (apart from that to the Almighty): that once the story of Reid was resolved, they would have told the team about their relationship. That they are together. And now she will have to keep it.

She's thinking about this when she gets a text from Emily. She just says to go to hers bunker and so she hurries. But inside there is... Derek. There really is Derek Morgan, beautiful as always, even if that long beard makes him strange, he still remains the most attractive male specimen of the entire universe, her chocolate thunder, her statue of a god carved in... sorry, Luke.

She strives to regain control of her mind, then he comes out with his -Hey babygirl.- and that smile. It's too long since she heard that voice, that nickname, then she melts, sending to hell any effort to look like a normal person. Not with him, although there is Prentiss to watch the scene.

-Oh my God, oh my God, it's you!- she hops around in his arms. -It’s really you! You smell...- she closes her eyes to better enjoy the moment -…like… you smell like hope and happiness! It’s really you.- then they separate, but keep holding on to his arm.

-Yes, it's me, it's me, but listen.- he takes her face in his hands. -You gotta focus, ok?- Penelope knows he is perfectly right, so she tries to listen to him.

-Yeah. Anything. Anything.- she nods. -Focus... focus on what?- Emily lifts a cell phone and shows it to her.

-This text.- it says that Reid got out of prison and wants to see Derek, and that he must write to her if he wants to get the address of the security house where his mother was put. But it is signed with her name.

-Oh crap.- the blonde's heart leaps and she thinks exactly what her colleagues had already suggested. A trap. In fact, when she saw Luke enter her bunker shortly before, something, like a little voice, told her No, it's not over yet, but she didn't want to be right. The bad guys were in prison and the good guys were safe. What could happen? Now the answer is there, before her eyes. They move back to the meeting room.

-I know we are all tired, but we might have a new load on Mr. Scratch.- that damn bastard is one of the criminals he has to thank for letting him know Penelope and true love, at more than forty years old. It is the asshole that led him to combine his path with that of the BAU, finally accepting to become a full-time profiler. He didn't believe he would make it, but now here he is. He faced so many different cases, most of it had nothing to do with Scratch or his modus operandi, yet he did it brilliantly, he managed to make his own contribution... in these people gathered here, plus Spencer who is not present because he is enjoying his new-found mother, he has earned a family. They aren’t just colleagues, but this is not something that happens everywhere, unfortunately. For example, it didn't happen with the members of the task forces, except with Phil... And you saw the result of having a friend in the middle. Friendship and love make you vulnerable to attacks. But looking at the blonde woman next to the chief of the unit, he consciously accepts to risk again, to mix the work with personal facts. But this time it will be different. There will be no ghosts of women to torment him and ask him why you had to send my husband, among all those who were available. Phil didn't even have the qualification to work on such a mission. What happened to him is your fault. Your fault.

-Somebody did a bang-up job of cloning my cell phone to send Morgan a fake text luring him to a non-existent safe house. And whoever that somebody is has mad skills.- but he is not the only one who is staring intently at Penelope. In fact, even that other man, the only one who doesn't know in person, the elusive ex-special agent Derek Morgan, is watching her carefully. Luke doesn't want to be jealous anymore, he doesn't want to repeat what he did when he saw a guy flirts with her at the bar or he saw her talking to Sam, her ex. He doesn't want to redo those mistakes. He trusts her, knows she doesn't love Morgan anymore, he's just her best friend and he has to be able to accept it.

-The kind of skills Scratch has.- Walker says.

In any case, he can't stand it. He has to get in the way, shooting even a useless question, but he must ask it, provoke her, remind her who is her boyfriend in this room. -Were you able to trace where the hack came from?- immediately he sees the expression of his woman stiffen. She looks up at the sky, assumes a very theatrical pose. She is reciting this part hopefully for the last time.

-Do you see what I have to put up with?- she asks to Morgan, but pointing towards Luke. The former agent frees his crossed arms.

-Alvez- he says. It's a strange thing, to be called by that one, who until he saw him was just another ghost, a fading creature, just a name, not a real person and now he is too much. -You always get a location, with this one.- and he puts his hand on Penelope's shoulder, literally squeezes it , while he looks at Latin in a... malicious way. As if, despite having been the last to see them, so he shouldn't know anything about them, instead he has understood everything. And in this case the situation is serious, because it means that the love he feels is printed directly on his face. Or that the blonde had talked to him, about the two of them, well before they officially got together. He will ask her as soon as he can. But right now he can't help but feel jealousy, pure jealousy, or rather the extreme intense desire to go there and take those fingers off his woman's body, to be able to pretend he is more at a distance, shouting, not just to Morgan, to others too, how things really are. But of course, he can't. He confines himself to a slightly mentioned smile, which blends perfectly with those of the others, next to him. And to put just a hand on the gun. Not that he is going to use it, but... it reassures him. -You guys are all good to go.- he adds, finally returning with folded arms.

-Obviously Morgan can’t come with us. He is a civilian now.- too bad, in case there will be ever a terrible accident... But no! He is married, with a small child. Luke, take control of your mind again. Penelope now loves him. But she hasn't said it yet. But she made it clear. It's enough? No, but it must be.

-We will miss you out there.- JJ says. Even Derek doesn't seem very happy.

-I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss it out there in the field with you guys. I think about it every day. But between my old friends and my new friends- he clearly points towards Luke -you guys are gonna go out there, you're gonna handle your business, you're gonna make people feel safe, and then you're gonna come home. And that's all that matters.- he is forced to admit that he is right. It's the only thing they have to do. But once this Scratch story is solved, they will have to give them at least a mini vacation; he will take Penelope to the mountains, where his grandparents had a chalet, they will stay there with Roxy and Twisty, they will enjoy walks and dinners by candlelight and after dinner under the stars...

-Let's saddle up.- the leader says, bringing him back down to earth. It's not over yet, but it will be soon. They all come out except the two best friends, he can't help but throw a last look at the blonde and in that look there is both the renewal of her promise (I'll come back home alive) and a slight warning (Don't forget who is the man you will wait with open arms).

Penelope asks Derek to accompany her to her den, even if for a moment she is tempted to tell him everything, about her and Luke, because she needs to let off steam with someone, to let her terror out. Scratch is a terrible adversary, he has almost destroyed Hotch's life, forced him to hide for Jack's sake, made him relive Hailey's murder, kidnapped and tortured Tara's brother, he knew perfectly well that Agent Alvez had joined their team... he knew too much about them, with too much warning. There was certainly a mole in the Bureau and their next mission would be to find out who it was. But right now she could only sit there, greet her best friend and then, in her bunker, listen to conversations among her colleagues. Limit herself to this.

Listening to Morgan talking about his baby, about the fact that he started walking... she has an extreme desire to cry, but this time with emotion. She had never thought of him as a father, but clearly he is perfect in this role. She should have known when he insisted on taking the baby Henry in his arms. And she can't help but wonder if Luke would be a good father too... a useless thought, since she is out of time, but they have Twisty and Roxy, and they are such a wonderful family too.

-I'm so proud of you.- he says, stroking her cheek. -I love you, always.- but then he changes his tone. -But do you think you can try to be a little friendlier, with Alvez?- bigger fear responds in her place, making her raise her eyes to the sky.

-Oh my God.- she really thinks If you would know what is the truth, and how really friendlier I’m with Alvez, you wouldn't reproach me. She has nothing to laugh about it.

-Hey, hey, hey. Look at me. He seems like a pretty all right kid.- and he smiles. You knew how much it is! He's like you, but he doesn't just play with double meanings... he makes them become concrete. He is intelligent, insightful, clever, mischievous. Sexy, jealous. Sweet, insecure, he has so many shadows that follow him, as you, but I think he has a little less of your willpower to overcome them. That is why I am there, and I will help him.

-He… I... it's complicated. I'll try. I make no promises.- already, enough promises, because so much fails to respect them. Suddenly the thought that they are already out hits her, they are in danger and that something horrible could happen at any moment. It doesn’t abandon her even while she greets his chocolate thunder, receives his kiss in the air and sends a bigger one back to him, remains to stare at the area until she realizes that he has really gone (again). And then she walks towards the bunker and connects with the others. -All right, Boltron, sound off.- a joke, to play down. She listens to someone's voices up to her. Ok. So far so good, they are still all alive and... She doesn't have time to finish thinking. Suddenly she hears a skid, braking noises, and doesn't understand what's going on.

Then she hears Emily ask -Is everyone ok?- and the others answer in the affirmative. Not even ten seconds pass. An even louder sound destroys her ears, so much so that she is forced to take off her earphones. She tries to contact them, but no one shows signs of life. So she sends a team of ambulances to the crash site and only then, she allows herself to faint for a moment.

But this is a luxury that she can’t afford too long. The phone rings, she replies, is one of the paramedics. -Mrs. Garcia, we're bringing them to the...- but besides the address, he doesn't want to say more, about for example the conditions of her colleagues. So she drives up to there, passing every second from the most absolute discomfort to the optimism that characterizes her. She also calls Derek, to warn him of what happened and Spencer. Both said they will reach them as soon as possible. But she doesn't have time to wait for them. Then she parks, enters, asks the reception, all automatically, trying not to think. If she would did, she would stand motionless, too afraid to feel something she wouldn’t be able to overcome. They tell her the floor where they are hospitalized. The first she sees is Rossi. He wears a neck brace, but otherwise he is standing and seems to be fine.

-Penelope...- as soon as he hugs her, her armor collapses miserably. -Quiet, we're all fine, it's all right...- and yet something in his tone doesn't convince her. And the suspicion becomes atrocious after she enters their rooms and sees everyone except Luke. Why isn't he with others? Yet she doesn’t have the courage to ask anyone. She sets foot in the last and here is the answer. The body lying on that bed is completely covered with a white sheet. Dead. He can't be gone. He can't have abandoned her. She approaches a few steps but doesn’t dare to lift it. Not yet. -Why, Lord, did You have to put him in the middle?- she doesn’t notice at all that someone else has entered and remains on the threshold to listen to her. -It was my mistake, a lack of mine. I'm the one who doesn't have the courage to tell him how much I love him, how much I can't be without him and now... I'll have to try, but I don't think I'm able to do it. No. I know You have heard it said so many times, that they say that time helps, that what doesn’t kill you strengthens, makes you fat...- she doesn’t hear a slight chuckle behind her. -But I am very sure: I will not be able to recover. So, don't send me another handsome man to replace him, because I realized that no one replaces anyone. Derek is Derek and Luke is... he was...- she can't finish the sentence. -In short, I won't fall for a third time. I will always remain faithful to him, for what still remains for me to live... my only priorities will be Roxy and Twisty. I will never find another man so handsome, so interested in me, and above all...- huge male hands appear on her hips. She doesn't scream, because she seems to have recognized the scent that wrapped her. She is afraid to look down, but she forces herself to do so. She can no longer let her fears dominate her life. And she recognizes those hands. But it can't be...

-Hello.- he just tells her. Exactly the same word he had said to her the first time he saw her. -Hello, I'm Luke Alvez, from the task forces. I’ll collaborate with you in the case of Cullen...- she had ignored the hand he held out to her and merely glancing at him and raising her eyebrows, she had claimed -Penelope Garcia, computer technician. Now excuse me, but I'm very busy...- and she was gone, walking away on her vertiginous heels. -Penelope, love... are you okay?- it is not a hallucination, but this doesn't make less painful what she has felt. But she must be sure. She walks away and lifts the white sheet. Crumpled and wrinkled skin, different stitches... she lets it fall back down. It is an elderly person.

-Luke, I thought you were... dead.- the man makes a sign that he knows, he wraps his arms around her body to keep her closer. He too had the same terror. -It would have been my fault, because I can't tell you... show you.- it's ridiculous, she called thousands of people like that, she said that word to many people. She lifts on her toes and takes him by the face. He believes she wants to kiss him, but her intentions are different. -I love you.- she finally says. -I love you.- she repeats, as if the fact that she had worked so hard to pronounce it had opened the dam of her fears. -I love you and I understood, after all these years, that those two words are often not enough, that all that is between us is more important, that you were right: to stay awake waiting for your love to come back, is the biggest I love you that you can say.- she smiles, absorbs Luke's smile and now yes, he finally lays his lips on hers. Then she takes his hand and they leave the room.

-Pen, it's risky, the others are around here. They could see us.- he wants so much to get rid of this secret, but he will always and always put what she wants and what she needs, in the first place. Penelope sighs, increasing her grip.

-I know, but I'm not afraid anymore.-

_________________________________

TAG LIST: @shyladystudentfan @norge-the-great @avengerquake123 @reidskitty13 @eclipseflower123 @lovebennycolon @pegasus-scifichick @theshamelessmanatee @beana83 @ilovegarvez @martinab26 @hideourscars @ gracieeelizabeth27 @iliketomakecreampie @hepensadocosaspeores @arses21434 @sillygirlspy @mymidnightnightmare @teyamarra @mydreampenelope @lilises-blog @cosmicmelaninflower @thinitta @extremeobsessions101 @agentbishop @hellodawnwrightfan @kiki-krakatoa @amieatingevidence @ leftlamphumanfestival @ella1239me @flufflehufflepuffle @the-ellen-stuff I tagged just who liked at least a chapter of this story. Tell me if you want to be removed from the tag list ^^

#garvez #criminal minds #cm #penelope garcia #luke alvez #BAU team #penelope x luke #luke x penelope #garcia x alvez #alvez x garcia

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keepingupwithlinmanuel · 5 years

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Lin-Manuel Miranda Tells Us How Fosse/Verdon Pulled Off His Secret Cameo

No one — and yet, perhaps everyone — expected Fosse/Verdon executive producer and live-tweeter Lin-Manuel Miranda to show up onscreen at some point during the show's run on FX. It took all eight weeks, but in last night's series finale, Miranda finally made an appearance. In one of the show's many layered twists, Miranda played Roy Scheider, the Oscar-nominated actor cast as Joe Gideon, Bob Fosse's screen alter ego, in Bob Fosse's non-biopic biopic All That Jazz. (Even he knows that's a lot to unpack.)

Truth be told, Miranda was determined take on a role — any role — at some point in the series. "My side joke was, 'Well, who am I playing? Kander? Schwartz?,'" Miranda said on the afternoon that the finale aired. "It was a general 'put me in, coach!,' like I do on any and all things." Ultimately, it was executive producer, director, and longtime Miranda cabinet member Thomas Kail who made the final decision. "Tommy looked me up and down and said, 'Maybe Scheider.' Cut to me getting measured for my sparkly top."

In the episode, we see Miranda as Scheider (and Miranda as Scheider as Gideon) in two different sequences. The first, a rehearsal, finds Gwen (Michelle Williams) and Nicole Fosse (Juliet Brett) watching Bob (Sam Rockwell) stage a scene where Gideon has a tender dance with his young daughter (in another twist, that role is played by Austyn Johnson, who played Michelle Williams's daughter in The Greatest Showman).

The real Nicole Fosse choreographed this small pas de deux, an aspect that Miranda calls "very meaningful." "The way Nicole describes it is, 'What we know as Fosse choreography was a language in my home that my mother, my father, and I spoke,'" Miranda explains. "To get to work with her directly was really amazing." (And in yet another touching moment, Nicole's real-life son Sean plays a production assistant who gets to shush his onscreen mother and grandmother.)

The second sequence is the filming of the movie's finale, Gideon's death song "Bye Bye Life." Unlike other re-creations of iconic numbers from Fosse's career, Miranda didn't have to learn the original choreography, "just the moment where he's going up and down the aisles." In the scene, Scheider encourages Bob to take an on-set bow for himself, and Miranda took that opportunity to give credit to his creative team. "I said, 'Give it up for Tommy Kail and Nicole Fosse!,' and they jumped up and danced up and down the aisles as everyone cheered." It was a special moment for Miranda to orchestrate and witness. "I'm sure people who didn't know who I was were like, 'How does this day player get to order around the director of the show?'"

That Fosse/Verdon has afforded Broadway geeks the chance to have "a weekly water cooler moment" where there never was a water cooler moment (at least since Smash) has given Miranda great pride, and it's been amplified by his weekly live tweeting. "It's a joy to get to connect with other people who love these musicals and love the work that this couple is responsible for. I saw my live tweeting as a 'produce-orial' task — as a producer, you'll do anything," he concludes. "Some days, that's just tweeting every Tuesday night, and some days, that's putting on a chest hair merkin." And a sequined button-up.

A few days before the episode aired, Miranda got on the phone to talk about his cameo — which he wasn’t even sure if people would catch. “I think most people are not going to notice because the work of our makeup and costume departments are so good they’re gonna think, Oh, some guy is playing Roy Scheider. When I watched the cut, I didn’t think it looked like me,” he said, laughing. “We didn’t ever want to go like, Oh, here’s a cameo! None of the people cast in this show have been like that, and we’ve got serious musical theater luminaries in there — you’ve got Bianca Marroquín as Chita [Rivera] and Ethan Slater as Joel Grey — but it’s never like, wink, nudge. It’s just that’s who’s playing the part. And I think this was in a similar vein.”

The appearance happened thanks to a “running joke that came to fruition,” Miranda explained. “There are so many theatrical heroes that pop up in the lives of Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon — Hal Prince and John Kander and Stephen Schwartz, all people we genuinely love. So my running joke was, am I playing Schwartz? Am I playing Kander? It was sort of my way of nudging [director Tommy Kail], and then Tommy was like, ‘You don’t look unlike Roy Scheider.’” Once they settled on which parts of Jazz would make it on screen, though, Miranda faced a costume-centric challenge: “Cut to me realizing, oh, that ‘Bye Bye Life’ outfit is really tight… and then I got to the gym because I realized, crap, I have to be in ‘Roy Scheider in All That Jazz’ shape for the two scenes I’m doing!”

And here’s Tommy’s take:

And tell me how Lin-Manuel Miranda, your Hamilton collaborator, another executive producer on the show, wound up in the scene playing Roy Scheider.

Well, when I was first thinking about the show, I mean years ago, like when we were talking about Sam, I mean the next idea I had for casting—I was like, you kind of look like Roy Scheider. I mean, you’re not as attractive or sinewy, but we should do that. And he was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then we kind of got closer and he was like, Hey, remember when you mentioned that? I was like, yeah, no, I remember. He’s like, well what do you think? And I was like, I don’t know. Do you have a SAG card? And so he did. So I made him read for the role.

Was that basically you auditioning him, like Bob is auditioning Ann to play herself in the movie?

That’s right. Um, no, Lin was offer only. So we also wanted to keep it a secret. We thought that’d be fun to have it sort of just be a part of the fabric of that last episode. But it felt like—you know, Lin loves musical theater in such a profound way. And so there was something really exciting about letting him participate as an actor. He obviously has these other skills and these other talents, but we loved letting him, you know, wear a chest merkin.

That wasn’t real?

That was not real. Chris Fulton and Debbie Zoller, hair and makeup. They really rocked it out, and the chest merkin lives on.

Is it in your possession?

I can’t talk about it too much on this particular podcast, but let’s just say it exists.

Well, I will look forward to when you’re on Chest Merkins Today, getting into the details.

That’s right. But we did break it here. We did break the news here. There’s the clickbait: “Miranda Wears Chest Merkin.”

#lin manuel miranda #tommy kail #fosse verdon #vanity fair #TheaterMania #entertainment weekly

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per-ineptia-ad-astra · 5 years

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Star Trek Episode 1.13: The Conscience of the King

AKA: The Devil Hath Power to Assume A Pleasing Shape: A Thesis

Our episode begins with a man being stabbed, which as dramatic openings go is certainly a bold one—though the reaction of the man being stabbed looks rather more like he just hit his funnybone than got knifed in the chest. The man doing the stabbing—a gray haired chap in nonspecific Fancy Old Clothes—puts a bit more effort into it, looking down at the blood now covering his hands with some amount of consternation.

Before the audience at home can start wondering if they accidentally tuned in to Masterpiece Theatre by mistake, we see Kirk, watching this from some comfy seating nearby, because it is, of course, actually a play. Macbeth, to be precise. The guy sitting next to Kirk tells him to watch Macbeth, presumably for a more serious reason than because Macbeth is the main character of the play so you’re kind of supposed to be paying attention to him.

Macbeth goes about his business, exiting through a nearby flat that I have to say looks like it was made for a middle school production, and monologuing to Lady Macbeth, as one does. In the audience, Kirk’s friend, still serious and intent on the scene before him, says that he knows that man’s voice. It’s the voice of Kodos...the Executioner. Judging by his tone I’m going to assume that he’s not just talking about another credit on the guy’s IMDb page.

After the titles, we see the Enterprise circling around a planet while Kirk gives a captain’s log, telling us that they diverted from their planned course to go check on one Dr. Thomas Leighton—Kirk’s friend at the play-- who claims he’s discovered a new synthetic food source that could end the threat of famine a nearby colony is dealing with. But we then immediately see that things are not quite as they seem. Down on the planet, Kirk is talking to Leighton, and he’s not happy. It seems that in fact, the real reason Leighton had the Enterprise diverted was so that he could tell Kirk about the actor that he thinks is this Kodos guy. In fact, he’s very sure Macbeth is Kodos, so sure that he lied to Kirk about the food discovery just to get him to come over there—which, as Kirk points out, has put both Leighton and Kirk in trouble. Kirk also points out this guy probably isn’t Kodos because Kodos is dead. Oh. Hm. Yeah, that does tend to complicate things.

Leighton thinks there’s still a chance Kodos is alive because the body that they found was too badly burned to be really sure. Kirk says this whole thing has been over and done with for years but Leighton wants to reopen the case. And quite a serious case it is, too—4,000 people dead. (It is, incidentally, some not half bad exposition; despite both characters effectively reiterating things they already know to one another, it comes off as pretty natural.) Kirk asks Martha, Leighton’s wife—well, I presume she’s his wife, and not just a random woman hanging out at his house—to talk some sense into him, but she says she can’t, he’s been in a snit about this ever since the actors showed up.

Kirk repeats that Kodos is dead and he’s satisfied with that, but Leighton says he’s not. He remembers too well what Kodos was like, what he did—and as he says this, he turns his head to the camera to reveal that his right eye and most of the right side of his face are covered in a black patch.

[ID: Leighton, a white man with short brown hair and one brown eye seen from the neck up and looking off to the side grimly. He has a black fabric covering over the right side of his face, extending into a patch that covers his eye.]

Leighton pleads with Kirk to help him. Less than ten people ever saw Kodos in person—somehow--and Kirk and Leighton are two of them. Leighton needs Kirk to help him expose this actor for who he really is. But Kirk insists that Kodos is dead. Which is not really surprising; what would you do if someone invited you to come see a play and then leaned over and said, “Hey, you see that actor there? I’m pretty sure he’s actually Hitler.” You could be forgiven for a certain degree of skepticism. But Kirk’s tone throughout this scene indicates that things run deeper than that. He has a history with Kodos. This is personal to him. He’s not just dismissing Leighton because his claim goes against something that is commonly known to be true; he needs to believe that Kodos is dead and gone, and is personally unwilling to entertain any idea otherwise.

Seeing that he doesn’t have Kirk’s support on this, Leighton dramatically announces that if Kodos is dead then there will be a ghost in his home tonight--he invited the actors over, because this whole thing is a puzzle, and dammit, Jim, a true gentleman leaves no puzzle unsolved! And seldom have the words “I invited them over for a cocktail party” been said so ominously. Kirk doesn’t much care, though, and heads back to the ship, grumbling about the trouble he’ll have entering this in his log—although compared to the kinds of things Kirk usually has to describe in his log, you’d think this one would be pretty easy.

But it seems Kirk is perhaps not so certain of things as he claimed, because we find him looking up Kodos in the library files, along with this suspicious actor, one Anton Karidian. The computer helpfully informs him, and us, that Kodos (I don’t know if that’s his first name or his last name or if he just went by one name, like Cher) was governor of a colony on the planet Tarsus 4, twenty years ago. The ‘executioner’ bit came in when he invoked martial law and killed half the colony, which does have a way of earning you a certain negative reputation. When backup from Earth arrived to sort things out, they found a body, but as previously mentioned it was too badly burned to be definitively identified, so it was just assumed that Kodos was really most sincerely dead.

Karidian, on the other hand, has been the director of this company of actors for the past nine years, traveling about as part of a galactic cultural exchange program. Also he has a nineteen year old daughter named Lenore. Man, this whole voice-operated computer thing sure is convenient. It’d be a lot harder to dramatically frame Kirk looking all this up on Wikipedia.

Before the computer can go into Karidian’s complete life history and theatrical appearances, Kirk interrupts and tells it to compare Karidian and Kodos. But the computer can’t, because there are no identification records on Karidian. Nor is there any information about Karidian before twenty years ago. It’s as if he just sprang up out of nowhere, right after Kodos died. Hmm. Leighton’s not sounding quite so paranoid anymore.

Kirk calls up side-by-side photos of Kodos and Karidian. They do look quite similar, albeit Karidian is a lot more gray in the hair. Suspicious—but just looking like a dude isn’t evidence that you are that dude. They could be distant relations or something.

[ID: An over the shoulder shot of Kirk looking at a small computer screen on the table in front of him. The screen is showing two images side by side, one of a red-haired white man with a goatee, the other an older white man with gray hair and a mustache.]

There is, in case you were wondering, absolutely no information given about how Kirk was involved in this whole thing or what he was doing on Tarsus 4 in the first place. Originally I believe the episode was supposed to say he was stationed there as a young midshipman, which would make sense, but that got cut out, and the later information we get about Kirk’s age would make him thirteen at the time—and Starfleet might recruit young, but they don’t recruit that young. So the question of just how Kirk got from Iowa to Tarsus 4 is, like so many things, left up to the EU. And the question of what impact that traumatic event had on Kirk is left up to fanfiction, because lord knows the show will never revisit it again.

While Kirk is sitting there glumly staring at the pictures, Spock walks in on him, which is what happens when you use a random conference room to do your morbid internet searches instead of doing it in your room like a sensible person. Kirk asks Spock what he thinks of Leighton, if he’s the sort of man who’s prone to bouts of fantasy. Spock says that Leighton’s a good, reputable scientist, not presumably known for any tendencies to accuse random people of committing genocide. He also tells Kirk that they’re ready to leave orbit, but Kirk says to delay that for a little bit—he’s got a cocktail party to go to.

Down at the party Kirk is mixin’ and minglin’ with the actors, but Leighton himself is nowhere to be seen. Martha tells Kirk that Leighton went out to town, presumably to get more chips or something. In the meantime, everyone seems to be out on the patio, conveniently out of camera range, but as Kirk wanders into the house he encounters that most rare and stunning of creatures, a woman. Kirk immediately turns up the good ol’ Kirk charm and introduces himself, chatting with the lady about her performance. She says her father is the leader of the company, which would make her Lenore, the daughter of Karidian the computer mentioned. The nineteen year old daughter. Maybe, uhhh, turn down the flirting there a bit, Kirk?

Kirk says he was hoping to meet Karidian himself, but Lenore says that her father has a strict rule about never meeting anyone personally or attending parties. He’s the leader of a theatre company and he never meets anyone personally? That’s got to make networking a challenge. If Kirk can’t talk to Karidian himself, though, he might as well talk to Karidian’s daughter. He asks about their travel plans, compliments her on her performance as Lady Macbeth (personally I think it’s a mite weird for a nineteen year old to be playing Lady Macbeth opposite her dad as Macbeth, but stranger things happen in show business I guess), and says he’d like to see her again—not necessarily professionally. Lenore says she’d like that, but they must keep a schedule, to which Kirk points out that she doesn’t have a schedule right now, convincing her to go out for a walk with him. I’m just gonna sit here and pretend that Kirk isn’t chatting up a nineteen year old. It does help somewhat that she doesn’t look or act like a nineteen year old in any way.

So they go out for a stroll ‘n’ flirt, and Lenore comments on how Kirk is a bit different when he’s not around a lot of other people that he has to act all captainy for. Then she goes in for a kiss, but Kirk is distracted at the last second by the sight of a body crumpled against the rocks nearby. That’ll kill the mood, alright.

Kirk runs to investigate. It’s grim news—the body is Leighton, and he’s dead. And he didn’t bring any chips back.

Next thing we see, Leighton has been brought back to the house, where Martha mournfully lays a cloth over his face. Aw, dangit, guys, you’re not supposed to move the body until CSI gets there! We’ll never find out who killed him now. But it does seem that he was indeed killed, which raises the question of why someone would kill him if his suspicions about Karidian weren’t true. The obvious answer that maybe his suspicions were true hangs in the air, but all Kirk says is that he’ll try to find out what happened. He gives poor Martha a rather perfunctory hug before she exits, leaving him alone with Leighton.

After a moment, Kirk calls up to Uhura and asks her to put him through to John Daley, the captain of the Astral Queen—a ship that Lenore mentioned the company was planning to hitch a ride on. Turns out that Kirk and Daley are buddies and Daley owes Kirk some favors, which Kirk is about to cash in on. He asks Daley not to pick up the theatre company, saying the Enterprise will do it instead, and Daley is perfectly happy to abandon his passengers without any questions. Looks like Kirk’s up to something.

He goes back up to the ship, where Spock soon comes over to tell him that they’re ready to leave. But Kirk says to hang on for a minute, because they’re due for a pickup. Spock’s naturally a bit confused about this, but right on cue, Uhura says that Lenore’s just come aboard asking to talk to Kirk. Man, it sure is easy to get onto the Enterprise. All you have to do is invite yourself up.

Kirk tells Uhura to have Lenore come up to the bridge. Spock wants to know how in the heck Kirk knew Lenore was coming. Kirk is not helpful.

[ID: Kirk sitting in the captain’s chair on the bridge and saying, “I’m the captain,” while Spock stands behind the chair with a rather confused look on his face.]

Lenore enters the bridge, all dressed up in...uh...I have no idea what this is. Looks sort of like a bathmat wrapped around her torso.

[ID: Lenore, a smiling white woman with blonde hair half piled up and half hanging loose, walking through the doors of the turbolift to the bridge. She is carrying a pocketbook with a dappled pattern and wearing sparkly translucent tights and a furry gray dress-like thing with a boxy shape, which extends from partway down her arms to just below her hips.]

Lenore tells Kirk that, oh dear, it seems that their ride isn’t coming, and they don’t have time to wait for another ship if they’re to keep their schedule, so could they hitch a ride on the Enterprise, pretty please? Which is a touch strange because in my experience lead actresses are not the people who make the transport arrangements. But I suppose the episode would have gone rather differently if it was instead a beleaguered stage manager who called up to say, “Listen, who do I need to bribe to get us a ride on this ship because I have got a goddamn SCHEDULE to keep and I will fight off Klingons with a STICK if that's what it takes to get us there in time. You've got to have SOME room up there. You need us to stay in the cargo bay the entire time? Fine. Solid. I'll rig up hammocks. Whatever it takes. I am NOT KIDDING about this schedule.”

Kirk dithers, saying it’s against regulations to pick up actors. Well, actually, all he says is that “the regulations are very clear” which could just mean that they’re not supposed to pick up anyone, but I’m choosing to believe that Starfleet has a specific mandate against actors. Lenore says that she’ll make a bargain: if Kirk will be so kind as to give them a lift, the company will put on a special performance for the crew. Well, I mean, it’s against the rules, but who can turn down free theatre? Not Kirk, who says it’ll be something nice for the crew; they’ve been doing boring patrols for quite a while and are starting to get a bit stir crazy.

After a bit of banter, Lenore leaves. Kirk seems quite pleased with himself, but Spock is, understandably, wondering what the hell just happened. His confusion only increases when Kirk tells him to set a course for the Benecia Colony, which as Spock points out is eight light years off course. Kirk, suddenly a lot less jovial now that Lenore’s gone, snaps at Spock to follow his orders. Which Spock does, but not without the Eyebrow of Disapproval.

Kirk gives a log musing on the situation—how he has a lot of questions right now and he’s not entirely sure he wants them answered. Some time later, as they’re underway to the colony, he takes over Spock’s chair to consult with the library computer some more.

Specifically, Kirk is wanting some information about the eyewitnesses Leighton mentioned—the small number of people who actually saw Kodos. Which he says out loud, to the computer, which responds to him, out loud, while he’s on the bridge in front of everybody. Smooth going there, Kirk. Great job keeping this investigation of yours a secret.

Apparently there are only nine people who can identify Kodos, which strikes me as a bit odd considering the guy was the governor of a whole colony. One would presume he would be pretty recognizable to most of the people in that colony, unless he went full evil overlord from the beginning and holed up secretively in a castle or something. Not to mention the people who must have known him before he became governor. But no, there were just nine people—and one of them was Leighton, so there’s only eight people now. One of them is Kirk, a few more are names we don’t know, and then there’s one K. Riley.

That catches Kirk’s attention. Would that be Kevin Riley, who’s currently assigned to the Enterprise? Yes, it is—somehow, totally by accident, two of these nine people wound up serving on the same starship. It’s a small infinity out there. (Riley is referred to as being in the ‘Star Service,’ yet another proto-name for Starfleet.)

Kirk calls Spock over and tells him that he wants Riley to be transferred down to Engineering. Spock points out that Riley came up through Engineering—he’s now in Communications; I don’t know how the qualifications for those overlap but evidently they do—and without an explanation he’ll surely take this sudden transfer as a punishment for something. Kirk only says he doesn’t want to talk about it.

But Spock’s had enough of all this weird behavior. It’s time to get a second opinion, and that means talking to McCoy. Spock and McCoy might disagree on just about everything it is possible to disagree on, but there’s one area where they can always find common ground, and that is Dealing With Jim.

McCoy’s a bit reticent about this one, though, since he hasn’t been around to see Kirk’s recent odd behavior and also is a bit preoccupied with having a drink. Which leads to an odd bit of dialogue: “My father’s race was spared the dubious benefits of alcohol.” “Oh. Now I know why they were conquered.” There’s no other mention in the series of the Vulcans ever being conquered, so it’s anyone’s guess what McCoy is talking about.

Anyway, McCoy figures that Kirk probably just invited the actors up because he took a liking to Lenore, which admittedly would not be terribly out of character for Kirk. He’s also not impressed by the news that Kirk had Riley suddenly transferred, since after all he’s the captain and he can do that if he pleases. But then, I doubt McCoy keeps up with any of the various crew movements that don’t immediately concern the medical department, so Riley’s transfer probably doesn’t stand out as anything especially unusual to him.

Meanwhile, Kirk is taking Lenore for a stroll around the ship, stopping in the observation deck to look out at the stars—although for an observation deck, it has some really tiny windows. Lenore recites “star light, star bright” and when Kirk says the rhyme is very old she says it’s “almost as old as the stars themselves.” Right, I guess growing up with a traveling company of actors didn’t leave much time for science class.

They swap innuendos about how full of surging, throbbing power the Enterprise is (yes, really), and then Kirk tries to tease out some information about Karidian. But Lenore deflects, saying she wants to know about the women in Kirk’s world and if the Enterprise has changed them, “made them just people instead of women?” one of those lines which was so obviously written by a man that it might as well have been accompanied by A DUDE WROTE THIS in flashing letters on the screen. Kirk says that no, the women are still women. What a relief.

While all this nonsense is going on up on the observation deck, Spock is alone on the bridge, brooding. Yes, alone. Sure, it’s nighttime by the ship’s clock, but one would expect there to be a night crew. Maybe Spock chased them all off for better brooding conditions. He asks the library computer—which is really getting a workout in this episode—to call up the histories of Riley, Leighton, Karidian, and Kirk, and to check them all for similarities.

Evidently he finds something there, because next we see him talking to McCoy again—still at night, but hey, I don’t think either of them sleep, except when being drugged by salt monsters. Spock is explaining to McCoy exactly what happened on Tarsus 4, finally letting us in on the details of the situation. Apparently a fungus destroyed the colony’s food supply, leaving eight thousand colonists with barely any food. Kodos responded by declaring martial law, and began to separate the colonists, deciding who would live, rationing the remaining food—and who would be executed, to free up resources for the rest. Apparently he had some ideas about eugenics, and used them to determine who was fit to keep living for the benefit of the colony and who wasn’t. Yeah, uh, that’s...that’s not going to win you the politician of the year award.

The result was, as could be expected, brutal. Relief ships showed up, but not in time to prevent half the colony from being executed. As we’ve already heard, they found a body, but couldn’t determine for sure if it really was Kodos. And now this Karidian guy has shown up, and funnily enough, his personal history begins rather abruptly and immediately where Kodos’s left off. It rather strongly points to Karidian being Kodos, and also rather strongly points to him being really bad at making up a new identity. You gotta backdate some records, invent a bit of personal history, some fake relatives, man, c’mon.

So now Spock thinks that Kirk is suspecting Karidian is Kodos, a point on which Spock agrees with him. But things are worse even than that, because Spock has also discovered that that list of nine eyewitnesses isn’t just down to eight: it’s down to two. All of them but Kirk and Riley are dead, and not only that, but every time one of them died, the theatre company was somewhere nearby. Looks like there’s something rotten in the state of...whatever state we’re in. McCoy seems to agree, because he’s looking a good deal more serious now than he was earlier.

We don’t get to hear much of what McCoy has to say about the matter, though, because the next thing we see is Riley, sitting alone down in Engineering and looking supremely bored. And yes, if you’ve been wondering, this is in fact the same Riley that we saw back in The Naked Time, taking over Engineering and relentlessly singing at everybody—a rare case of a recurring character in TOS who wasn’t one of the main cast. In fact, this was entirely accidental; the character wasn’t written as Riley, but when Bruce Hyde was cast for the part they realized he’d already had a named appearance on the show and figured, what the heck, might as well make it the same guy--which is either a monumental coincidence or a really small casting pool.

Of course, that does mean that Riley mysteriously went from being a helmsman to being a communications officer who started out in Engineering. But hey, it’s the Enterprise, where people move around and show up in weird places all the time. Why do you think McCoy constantly reminds everyone that he’s a doctor? He’s probably afraid that if he doesn’t repeat it enough he’ll wake up as a botanist one day with no explanation.

At any rate, Riley’s pulling the night shift down in Engineering, and given his history, one has to wonder if the poor guy is taking this unexplained demotion as an overdue punishment for the Incident, or perhaps even, considering where he was reassigned, as a cruel joke. One thing’s for sure, he certainly doesn’t look very happy. He’s also still wearing a gold shirt, even though both Communications and Engineering are Operations, which is red, so I don’t know what that’s about.

Riley is so bored, in fact, that he calls up to the rec room just to have somebody to talk to. He laments his current position to the few people hanging out up there, who also assume that he’s been reassigned as punishment, though Riley protests that he has no idea what he did. But luckily for him Uhura is hanging out in the rec room playing her lyre, and she agrees to play him a love song to take his mind off how dark and empty and lonely Engineering is.

Unfortunately, while the music of Uhura distracts Riley from his predicament, it also distracts him from some other things—like the fact that someone else has crept into Engineering, with nefarious plans for the delicious dinner of fruity space cubes and milk that Riley has set aside. Although evidently the props department phoned it in on this one, because the villainous stranger is carrying that classic TOS prop, the Completely Unaltered Modern Spray Bottle, and as a result it looks rather like their plan is to poison Riley by putting Windex in his milk.

[ID: A tray showing a partly covered dish of red, yellow and green cubes, and a glass of milk. A gloved hand is reaching in to spray something into the milk from a clear spray bottle. From offscreen, Uhura is singing, “Tomorrow, a stop along the way...” ]

I mean, I guess that would do the trick.

Shortly thereafter, Riley remembers that he does in fact have food waiting, and decides to whet his thirst with some delicious milk while listening to Uhura. It’s a lucky thing for Riley that he did decide to do that when he did, and that Windex is such a short-acting poison, because the comm link is still open to the rec room when he starts gagging and choking and spluttering for help. Then he falls out of his chair, spilling milk all over the console in the process. Man, Riley just can’t help but make a mess of Engineering, huh.

Help soon arrives, presumably, because the next thing we see is Riley unconscious in Sickbay, while Spock and McCoy look on seriously. Spock says that McCoy has to save Riley because if he dies, Kirk will be the only witness left and he’ll be targeted next. And also because Riley is a person and his life is valuable, or something, presumably, I guess. Of course it looks like whoever’s doing this is trying to take out all the witnesses, so unless they’re just really determined to do things in a specific order, Kirk’s going to be the next target regardless of whether Riley makes it or not.

But as Kirk’s log soon tells us, Riley’s condition is not looking good, and McCoy is struggling to find an antidote for Windex poisoning. Since the substance is in use aboard the ship—all those giant windows, y’know—McCoy tells Spock that it’s possible someone just made a mistake and poisoned Riley’s milk by accident. As you do. But of course neither of them really believe that, and Spock wants Kirk to be notified immediately, not even letting McCoy finish his report first.

So the two in blue go off to confront Kirk in his quarters, where he’s brooding over some paperwork. Spock tells Kirk that they know about the whole Kodos thing. Kirk is feeling tetchy, though, as a murder threat is wont to make you do, and accuses Spock of prying into Kirk’s personal business and generally being out of line, which quickly turns into a shouting match. But while Kirk may be able to fend off Spock or McCoy individually, both of them working together is too much for him. Too much for any mere mortal, really.

Kirk backs down just a bit and points out that they don’t have any proof of anything, but Spock tells him to cut that bullshit out (but, y’know, in a more Spock-like manner). He wants to know why Kirk is risking his life, knowing that he’s surely going to be the next target. Kirk says that he’s interested in justice, but McCoy asks if he’s sure it’s not vengeance, and Kirk admits that he’s not.

He goes on to talk about how he cannot be certain Karidian really is Kodos, and that he must be certain before he can accuse anyone of something like that. After all he only saw Kodos once, twenty years ago, and human memory becomes distorted over much shorter periods than that. Kirk does not want to rely only on logic for this: he won’t be satisfied until he knows in his heart that Karidian is Kodos.

And if he is certain, what then? McCoy asks. Nothing done to Kodos now will bring back the people he killed. No, Kirk agrees, but…

[ID: Kirk looking seriously into the distance and saying, “But they may rest easier.”]

It’s quite the scene. Kirk is obviously struggling with this dilemma, and with his own memories of that terrible event. He knows there’s a weight on his shoulders to do something, but that weight only makes him more determined to be certain before he acts—while also making him all the more uncertain. William Shatner primarily gets remembered for all the hammy shouting he did as Kirk, but he was fully capable of pulling off the quieter scenes as well, when he had something to work with.

After the break, either the conversation is still ongoing, or Spock left and came back just to repeat what he already said, I’m not sure. At any rate, McCoy’s gone off somewhere and Spock and Kirk are still hashing it out when Spock hears an ominous humming noise. They both immediately recognize it: it’s a phaser on overload, getting ready to blow, and that’s seriously bad news.

Spock starts tearing about the room while Kirk puts out a call to evacuate the deck, because if that phaser goes off it’ll take out the whole thing. Then he pushes Spock out the door to go lead the evacuation while he keeps looking for the phaser. The hum is getting louder and louder as Kirk throws books around desperately, until finally he spots it—it’s in a tiny alcove in the wall, behind a transparent frame. What possible use that alcove could have besides hiding phaser bombs in is a mystery to me.

Kirk grabs the thing out, and evidently it’s too late to turn it off now, because after a moment of grappling with it he runs out of the room and chucks the phaser in a convenient nearby chute, labeled ‘Pressure Vent Disposal.’ Spock comes running back in time to stand there and wait for a tense few seconds before there’s an explosion somewhere far below, still strong enough to knock them both against the far wall. Crisis averted—just. Man, good thing that chute was there.

Elsewhere on the ship, Karidian is hanging out in his temporary quarters, wearing quite the elaborate high-collared robe, as actors do when they’re relaxing. But the tense music tells us that this is not any ordinary hanging out, it’s very ominous hanging out. Kirk soon comes in, determined to have a talk. He’s in quite the mood after that little incident with the phaser, understandably—Kirk’s not much bothered by a threat to his own life, but a threat to his ship and crew? That will sure spur him to action. He’s not here to beat about the bush, either, just straight-up asks, “Are you Kodos?” Blunt. I like it.

Karidian reacts very little to this, which in itself is telling, because if you’re not an infamous mass-murdering eugenicist, then one would expect that your reaction to someone walking into your room and accusing you of being one would be surprise. And confusion. Just a general sort of, “What? No. What the fuck, no?”

But Karidian only asks if Kirk believes that he is Kodos, and when told that he does, says that he’ll be Kodos if it pleases Kirk to believe that. Because he’s an actor, and plays many parts. My dude, that’s not how acting works. You don’t have to just pretend to be anybody that someone accuses you of being. Hell, there’s probably a union rule about that somewhere.

Unsurprisingly this non-answer doesn’t much amuse Kirk, nor is he amused when he asks what Karidian was twenty years ago and Karidian just says, “Younger. Much younger.” So he gives Karidian a piece of paper and tells him to read it into the wall comm, so they can compare it to a recording of Kodos that they have on file, which Kirk says is a “virtually infallible” test.

This is a part of the episode that didn’t hold up so well over time. We’re repeatedly told that Kodos was never positively declared dead because the body was too burned to be identified. That made sense in 1966—or at least, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt that it did—but we’ve gotten a lot better at forensics since then, so it’s a bit hard to find that believable. What, no DNA test? No dental records? Facial reconstruction? Nuthin? The whole computer voice comparison thing is obviously supposed to come off as cool future tech but in a modern context it just seems rather silly.

I’m not real inclined to hold this one against them as an actual criticism, though, since it’s not like the writers could possibly have known otherwise at the time. That said, even putting aside the modern context, the crux of this whole ‘only nine witnesses’ thing doesn’t really hold up too well within the episode. I already mentioned how weird it is that apparently there are only nine people, out of the four thousand or so surviving colonists, that could identity the governor of the colony, but even allowing that one it still doesn’t make any sense because there are photos of Kodos. We saw Kirk looking at one back near the beginning of the episode! If there’s photographic proof of what the dude looks like, why the heck are these eyewitnesses so important? It’s not as if they can’t prove he did the crime unless they have people who can say they saw him doing it—that’s not the kind of crime you can cover up, and anyway, no one ever expresses the slightest bit of doubt that it was Kodos himself who did it. Everyone knows that. The question is what he looks like, and that’s not a mystery. Eliminating the eyewitnesses would do nothing because someone could still figure out who the guy was by looking at a picture of him! That you have! In public access library files!

The weird thing is that plot-wise there was never any need to show that photo at all. It just came up and Kirk went “hm” at it and that was it. They could easily have just not shown that there were any photos of Kodos, and then we wouldn’t have this problem, but they did, and here we are.

Anyway, Kirk gives Karidian the paper, and tells him to read it out. What, without even a lawyer present? You can just walk into someone’s room and make them take a possibly self-incriminating identity test? Man, space law is tough.

Karidian doesn’t look happy about this—unsurprisingly--but he’s not got much choice, so he takes the paper and begins to read from what is evidently a speech that Kodos gave. “The revolution is successful, but survival depends on drastic measures. Your continued existence represents a threat to the well-being of society. Your lives mean slow death to the more valued members of the colony. Therefore I have no alternative but to sentence you to death. Your execution is so ordered, signed Kodos, governor of Tarsus 4.”

As he reads, he slowly looks away from the paper and stares into the distance, clearly no longer reading the words but remembering them, and the look on his face says that it is a sharp memory and a haunted one.

Kirk does not fail to notice this, and points it out to Karidian, who deflects by saying that he just learns lines very quickly. Kirk’s not buying that, and asks whether he didn’t instead “play the part in front of a captive audience, who you blasted out of existence without mercy.” At that, Karidian starts going into a spiel about how Kirk is just an example of a modern technology-driven society that lacks humanity, which he defines as being about striving to survive with our own resources. Which is an odd definition of humanity, but okay. He insists that Kodos only made a decision that had to be made, that those four thousand people had to die so the other half could live, and if the supply ships hadn’t turned up early, his actions might now be remembered as heroic. I dunno about that, man, it��s pretty hard to get people onboard with killing four thousand innocent people. Unless you convince them that they’re terrorists first.

Seeing that Kirk is not impressed with this argument, Karidian asks (loudly) why Kirk doesn’t just kill him now, if he’s so sure that Karidian is Kodos. Just execute him on the spot, eh? That sounds like something Kodos the Executioner would suggest! Got him!

But while Kirk might not be hewing real close to due process at the moment he hasn’t gone that far, so instead he presses Karidian on how there are no records of him prior to the date of Kodos’s supposed death. Karidian doesn’t really dispute this, choosing instead of muse about how he’s grown old and tired, memory failing him and grateful for it, and doesn’t really care about being alive anymore. Out, out, brief candle, and all that.

Then he asks Kirk if he got everything he wanted, and Kirk quietly says that if he had gotten everything he wanted, Karidian might not leave the room alive.

With that, Kirk turns to go, but before he can leave, Lenore emerges unexpectedly from a side door and ushers Karidian to go rest. Then she tells Kirk that “there’s a stain of cruelty on [his] shining armor” and accuses him of only using her as a tool to get to her father. Which, well, that is what he did. Kirk insists that it started out that way but that he wound up wanting a more genuine relationship, which is not really great consolation.

Lenore says that Kirk has no mercy in him, to which Kirk responds that if Karidian is Kodos, Kirk has shown him more mercy than he deserves. And if he isn’t Karidian, Lenore asks? Then the players will be let off at their destination and no harm done. Lenore protests that Kirk has no right to decide whether harm was done, and maybe that’s true—but her case is looking rather thin at the moment, because like with Karidian himself, her lack of reaction to her father being accused of being Kodos leaves little room for doubt. She makes no attempt to dispute Kirk’s claim, let alone respond to it with the kind of anger, shock and confusion that would be expected. I mean, let me put it this way: if I heard someone accusing my dad of being a mass murderer I would not be like “you have no mercy in you! you could have spared him this!” I would be like “WHAT the FUCK are you TALKING about.”

Elsewhere, away from all this high drama, McCoy is in Sickbay making a medical log about Riley. Apparently Riley’s recovered, but Kirk wants him restricted to Sickbay for the time being so he doesn’t have any encounters with Karidian, who, as McCoy helpfully adds, might be the guy who murdered Riley’s family. Unfortunately, Riley is right in the next room and overhears all of this. Whoops. I mean, on the one hand, this is what happens when you don’t have keyboards, but on the other hand, ya probably could have been just a wee bit more careful there, Bones.

Kirk gives a log telling us that Karidian is under surveillance, and that “strategic areas” are on double guard, but that the scheduled performance is still going ahead. Which seems a bit odd, but then I guess at least if the guy’s onstage you know he’s not off somewhere murdering somebody. Or some four thousand bodies. Evidently the Enterprise doesn’t have an auditorium that can seat four hundred people, though, because only a few people get to actually watch it in person—everyone else has to watch it being broadcast on a screen.

Lenore comes out on stage to inform the audience that they’re performing Hamlet, and also, please make sure you turn your communicators off during the show. She calls it a “violent play written in violent times when life was cheap and ambition was God.” Man, if I wrote that in a paper my Script Analysis professor would have laughed me out of the room.

Meanwhile, Kirk and Spock are examining the results of Karidian’s voice test. Is this virtually infallible computer test actually being done by the computer? No, it just printed out a couple of pieces of paper with soundwave patterns on them for Kirk and Spock to look at. Technology, ain’t it wonderful. Spock says it looks like a match, but Kirk says it’s not an exact match. Well, no, it wouldn’t be, the guy was twenty years older the second time. But Kirk says they’re dealing with a man’s life and no machine can make that decision. WELL THEN WHY DID YOU MAKE HIM TAKE THE TEST.

Over in Sickbay, McCoy is about to go to the play and stops in to remind Riley of something—to stay put, presumably—only to discover that Riley has vanished. Poor McCoy, he just can’t make anyone stay in Sickbay. They really need to put a door with a lock on that place.

McCoy immediately calls up Kirk and tells him that Riley’s gone, and that he might have overheard McCoy talking about Kodos. Right after that, security calls Kirk to tell him that someone broke into a weapons locker and took a phaser. Great job, security. Kirk puts out an alert for security to find Riley and keep him from murdering anyone, which I’m sure they’ll do quickly and competently.

Kirk slips backstage while Hamlet is having his encounter with the ghost of his father, as played by Karidian. Y’know, when I was in college, a group of traveling actors came and did a performance of Othello at our theatre, and their set design was just a white cloth running around the stage and a few chairs at the back. It worked incredibly well and the production was phenomenal. I’m just saying, just because you have a low budget and have to pack all your equipment around with you doesn’t mean your plays have to look like this.

[ID: A stage set with a cheap-looking ‘stone’ wall to the left, with windows facing into the red curtains. On the stage are Karidian, wearing a black belted robe with a silver cape slung off his right shoulder and holding an abstract metal mask in front of his face, and a man wearing a blue robe, bright red undershirt, enormous gold medallion, and what looks like a pink feather boa wrapped around one arm. Karidian is saying, “...when thou shalt hear.” ]

Backstage, Kirk spots Riley, sneaking up behind a flat with a phaser at the ready. Man, only five scenes in and already things are derailing pretty badly backstage. Could be worse though. At least nothing's on fire. Kirk tries to tell Riley to calm down and not kill someone on a suspicion, but Riley—despite presumably being a lot younger than Kirk when he saw Kodos—has none of Kirk’s hesitation about the issue. He remembers what Kodos looked and sounded like and he’s dead certain that Karidian is him.

Evidently he’s not all that ready to take justice into his own hands, though, because once Kirk gets over to him—crossing right in clear view of the audience, dammit Kirk! If you can see the audience they can see you!--he’s able to easily take the phaser away, and Riley leaves with little fuss.

Karidian takes his exit, and Lenore is waiting to tell him that he’s doing a great job, but Karidian is quite agitated. He tells Lenore that he’s being tormented by a voice from the past; there was “another part he played, long ago” and “now that same curtain rises again” because as we all know actors speak entirely in theatrical metaphors. But Lenore says no—after the performance, the last two people left who can harm him will be taken care of. Oh.

Judging by Karidian’s reaction, Lenore did not keep him in the loop about her witness-murdering activities. He grabs her and starts yelling, demanding to know what she’s done.

[ID: Karidian standing backstage behind some castle set pieces, holding up his hands and yelling, “More blood on my hands?” at Lenore, who is wearing a pink and yellow dress, and looking away with dismay.]

Dammit, Lenore! I just got the last damn spot out!

Lenore insists that it had to be done. She’s buried the ghosts of the past, and now there is no more blood on her father’s hands. That’s an interesting concept of justice you have there, Lenore. Karidian is distraught, and exclaims that Lenore was the only thing in his life not tainted by his crimes. Now he has nothing.

For some reason no one reacts to this rather loud confrontation taking place just offstage, which is also mysteriously bereft of, say, actors. You'd expect someone to have a reaction to this. Probably the stage manager. “GODDAMMIT I told you to stop talking backstage. The audience is going to hear you. They're going to SEE you if you don't quit hanging around blocking traffic back there. That is NOT THE PLACE to have a nervous breakdown. Lenore I don't care if you're having a dramatic revelation about your murderous role in covering up your father's past misdeeds, if you miss your cue I WILL SHOOT YOU MYSELF.”

Lenore is still grinning unnervingly and talking about how everything’s fine now, she’s taken care of everything, now no one can harm her wonderful, brilliant daddy. Kirk, who’s been listening in the whole time, has had enough, and tells them both to come with him. Lenore says they will after the show, but Kirk tells her the whole ‘the show must go on’ thing doesn’t apply to murder investigations.

She doesn’t take that one too well, and when Kirk summons a security guard (from...somewhere) she grabs the guard’s phaser and runs out onto the stage, sending the audience diving to the floor in panic. Kirk, Karidian, and the extremely useless security guard come after her, but stop as she turns the phaser on them. When Kirk tells her she’ll never make it off the ship, Lenore, who is clearly no longer on speaking terms with normal reality, says that then the ship will just go on drifting through space with Karidian’s ghost giving performances forever. Then she starts quoting Shakespeare, which is never a good sign.

Kirk tries to get close to her, but Lenore moves to fire—and Karidian dives in front of him. The phaser bolt hits him square in the chest and he goes down as Lenore screams in anguish. As Kirk steps forward to take the phaser away she collapses to the floor, kneeling over her father’s body, sobbing and feverishly babbling more Shakespeare at him while the audience stares in confused horror.

Well that brought the play to a rather abrupt halt, and so early on too. Still, I'm sure they could salvage it with a concerted effort. “Shit. Shit, did one of the actors just murder another one of the actors? Okay, no one panic, I've seen worse. Just keep going. Act like it was meant to happen. The audience won't know the difference if we play it cool. It's Hamlet, everyone dies anyway.”

Sometime later, McCoy comes to visit Kirk on the bridge to give him Lenore’s medical report. Apparently she remembers nothing and thinks Karidian’s still alive. McCoy says she’ll receive the best of care, which I hear has really improved in the Federation since they got rid of the brain-melty chair. He asks Kirk, “You really cared for her, didn’t you?” Kirk dodges the question, giving orders to leave orbit instead—but he gives McCoy a look which the doctor takes as an answer before he leaves the bridge, and the ship carries on through space.

It’s a weird way to wrap up the episode, if you ask me. This was a story about Kirk having to revisit a horrible event in his past, and struggle with questions of justice and revenge and what he has the right to do, and what the fallout of his suspicions could be for an innocent man if he is wrong, and if redemption is ever even possible for some crimes. I don’t expect them to wrap all that up in the last minute and a half, but it’s jarring to me that they went, “You know what we really need to focus on here out of all of that is the romance angle.” Perhaps I am biased, but why that should be considered inherently more interesting than everything else going on here is beyond me. Not to say that Kirk’s feelings about Lenore are not complicated and painful and probably quite worth examining, but there’s no question asked about how he feels about Kodos, a horrible figure from Kirk’s past risen again to haunt him, only to prove more complex than was thought, who then dies in a way that could offer no real catharsis for anyone.

I suppose you could say that McCoy was just way off the mark about how Kirk was feeling and didn’t ask the right question. But I’d like to think that McCoy--who has a medically educated understanding of the complexities of trauma, who has very strong feelings about the taking of life in any circumstance, and who has been through a scarring experience or two himself--would know better. Still, on the whole, it was a fine outing for TOS, giving us some interesting characters, great little character bits with our mains, and tackling some serious questions, even if the acting allegories got a little bit overwrought.

TREK TROPE TALLY: None once again. Next time, we’ll be getting our first look at some classic enemies in Balance of Terror.

#star trek #star trek TOS #star trek TOS season one #1.13 The Conscience of the King #recap tag #star trek TOS recaps #1.13 The Conscience of the King recap

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tumblunni · 5 years

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Misc headcanons for Directator's assistant director yokai sidekicks!

* I think the Nosirs are actually brothers but for these guys i think theyre just a bunch of unrelated employees who share a uniform. Maybe draw them with variations in height and weight and stuff to tell them apart? And they probably have different hair under the hats.

* this yokai species is a water element fishman thing possibly based on The Shadow Over Innsmouth. Cos ive been doing a lot of thinking on why the heck they have those weird face markings and with the bulgy eyes they kinda do match the description of the early stage Deep Ones in that story. Either that or theyre kappas who hide their weak spot under caps. (Cappas?)

* their only power as yokai is super strength. They probably surprise people a lot by being so powerful, cos they never really bother to fight unless their boss is in trouble. Its mostly just an 'ultimate assistant' power that helps them carry lots of stuff for maximum efficiency.

* theres probably variants of this yokai for every type of minor job ever. I feel like its just the thing you turn into when youre a very normal dude who just wants to continue your normal job in the underworld. This trio are 100% content working for Directator and their idea of a peaceful afterlife is just the same as their regular life! No aspirations for bigger superpowers or anything, just gimme that magic ability to be even better at the job i love~

* not sure about names for the trio yet except one of them should be jerome cos thats a nice name. Their origin story is just that theyre unrelated employees who worked under Directator when he was human, and sorta bonded together into The Directator Protection Club. They were his most loyal assistants who stayed with him even as the studio made flop after flop, and even followed him into hell in the end. (Died trying to save him from a studio fire) They were all kind of aimless young adults for one reason or another, who didnt have much good in their life aside from this job and didnt have any positive familial figures except this strange little family they found together. So theyre not blood related but they treat each other like siblings and see Directator as a cool uncle figure that they all look up to. And theyre all roommates together now in the yokai world so basically yeah they got adopted in all senses except the Actually Saying It Out Loud sense

* Aside from their general shared personality of Being Cute And Enthusiastic And Supporting Their Boss i feel like maybe there are some small differences you notice after a while? From the titanic episode it seemed like one of them was kinda dopey innocently hero worshipping the boss and one of them was a sassy trickster who loved a chance to mess with the heroes, just based on the different way they animated them obeying the order to toss the heroes off the bungee jump. And one of them was shown dressing as a lady waitress in one of the scenes in the first episode, so im gonna grab that opportunity and say she's a trans girl. They all dress very similar while on the job just cos its practical clothing for work, but you can tell her apart by a small ponytail at the back of their identical hairstyles. (Probably the cute flame ponytail style like ghoulfather!) Off duty she likes to dress a bit more femme, but her bros still support her as a woman no matter how she dresses. The only way to get these perpetually smiling doofuses to start a fight is to mix them up and misgender her! (Well, that or be mean to the boss also. Theyre just very ride or die for each other!)

* There actually are more of these yokai aside from the main three, Directator has picked up a few more employees over the years since he died. He can probably summon infinate hordes of them like ghoulfather can do with his mafia goons! Its just that these three have the main emotional bond with him so he trusts them to do all the most important jobs.

* they have an ultimate transformation that is just them on each other's shoulders in a trenchcoat. Their acting skill is so good that everyone universally believes this is a new form and they even gain boosted stats!

* in battle maybe their ability would be some sort of adaptability thing to reflect how theyre such multitalented helpers? Like 'all attacks are treated as non elemental' or 'changes elements to match the last hit taken'?

* also probably in battle theyd have combo abilities with directator, like he's able to revive them automatically whenever he gets a critical hit or something. I feel like them having low hp and frequently knocking themselves out in the process of protecting him is very in character

* directator remembers all their birthdays and throws a super theatrical big ol party~! They also celebrate the day each of them got hired and the day they made their first successful film in the yokai world, and then every time they have a new success too. Basically they love excuses to show how much they care for each other! Best buddies cinema club 4ever!!!

* Even though Directator can now poof up illusions of any set and costumes using his powers, he still prefers to let the assistants make all the most important critical stuff for each movie. He just feels sad that his newfound powers would be taking away a fun bonding experience that they used to have. But also obviously working your ass off to make everything on a short deadline ruins the fun of making arts and crafts together, so he's grateful he can take some of the work off their shoulders.

* the shape of directator's powers as a yokai came from not from his egotism but from his dying wish being to ease the burden on his employees who were always so loyal to him. He also likes to use his illusions to help them out with stuff even when theyre not working, though he still has to say lights camera action and etc so its a lil funny. Like 'oh no assistant number 3 is going out on a date and her dress is ruined!' then he runs in with one of those clapboard things and is like CUT! TAKE TWO! *poofs up an illusion dress with a star wipe transition* Keeps pausing the scene and telling her boyfriend to show more emotion, lol. Like overprotective dad cliche but its more 'are you hammy enough to be worthy of my niece?? Show me your best death scene!' Also has an entire orchestra follow them around and do a soundtrack to their date. 'Darling it'll be a sensation! Directator's secret masterpiece: the film only you get to see! Cmon boys this is our most important production yet!' Very well intentioned but predictably he ends up ruining the date by trying so hard to make it perfect for her, and she's like 'aww dont worry boss, if that guy cant handle my family then he's not the right dude for me anyway' *hugs and end of episode* *but also yknow..he still learns his lesson and interferes less in his friends's lives next time*

* maybe two of the trio have the same names? Like "here's my supreme team: Ashley A, Ashley B and Jerome!"

* give them a special attack where they just three hit combo Directator with a big ol wholesome hug of admiration and all his stats go up. 'Boss you really brightened up our lives!' 'And our afterlife!'

#directator #mr movien

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therealkn · 5 years

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David’s Resolution - Day 18

Day 18 (January 18, 2019)

Blade: Trinity (2004)

“In the movies, Dracula wears a cape, and some old English guy always manages to save the day at the last minute with crosses and holy water. But everybody knows the movies are full of shit. The truth is, it started with Blade, and it ended with him. The rest of us were just along for the ride.”

In 1997, Batman & Robin was released to theaters and... well, a lot of people didn’t like it. In fact, many say it’s one of the worst movies ever made. The first part is true as it was slammed by critics and audiences upon release and has cultivated a considerable notoriety for its badness; the second part is false because trust me, it is FAR from the worst ever made. If you unironically consider Batman & Robin one of the worst films ever, please tell me what your criteria are for determining whether a film is “one of the worst ever”, because I think that criteria is lacking. But one thing that is for certain about Batman & Robin is that it, along with the failure of Steel that same year, more or less killed DC Comics’ hold in the box office. They struggled for several years with other films until finally seeing success again with 2005′s Batman Begins, which was a critical and commercial success and started Christopher Nolan’s “Dark Knight Trilogy” of Batman films.

In between those Batman films, however, Marvel Comics decided to take another shot at movies after some... not-so-great films. And we got Blade. Hell yeah.

Telling the stylish and action-packed tale of the half-vampire Blade (Wesley Snipes) who hunts down vampires and does so in the coolest way possible, Blade - released one year after Batman & Robin - was a critical and commercial success, Marvel’s first in the box office. This was impressive not only because it was a comic book movie and people were questioning the viability of the genre after Batman & Robin, but also because it was an R-rated comic book movie featuring a more obscure character instead of someone more well-known to audiences. Blade was a pretty cool, stylish, badass movie and while X-Men and Spider-Man would become bigger and more famous successes, I’d like to think that Blade started Marvel’s new era of superhero movies and influenced their approach to making future films, especially when it came to looking into more obscure properties to adapt to film like the Guardians of the Galaxy.

And then there was Blade II, released in 2002 and directed by my guy Guillermo del Toro. This was a sequel that was even better than the original in practically every way. The villain was cooler and surprisingly sympathetic (not being mean to you, Stephen Dorff, you were great in the first film, but I’m just saying), the story has some neat twists to it, the characters are great and memorable, the action’s exciting and one-ups the sequences in the first movie, and it has Del Toro’s distinctive visual style for days.

And then came Blade: Trinity, which cocked the whole thing up. In order to properly prepare for this film, I watched the other two films (I’ve seen them before, which is why I’m not writing full reviews for them). I had actually tried to watch this years ago but only got as far as the first act because younger David somehow thought it was that bad. That’s the younger David who would have probably disliked watching sex, lies, and videotape.

This movie’s premise is simple: the vampire world has decided that in order to destroy Blade, they hit the Godzilla threshold and awaken Dracula (Dominic Purcell), the very first vampire ever to exist, to help them fight. And this time, Blade’s not doing it alone. Okay, he wasn’t always alone, as he had his mentor Abraham Whistler (Kris Kristofferson) in the other two films and- oh, they kill off Whistler in the first act, wow, that’s some bullshit. Well, now Blade has become part of a group of vampire hunters called the Nightstalkers, and accompanying him is the wisecracking Hannibal King (Ryan Reynolds) and Whistler’s daughter Abigail (Jessica Biel). Okay, the stakes are raised - pun unintended, promise - and this is going to be the biggest challenge yet for Blade.

Speaking of Ryan Reynolds... he’s the best thing in this movie ,getting that out there right now. His character, Hannibal King, could best be described as “Deadpool Lite”. He calls his vampire ex a cock-juggling thundercunt, which is one of the greatest insults of all time and that alone makes him great. I can see why some people would find him annoying or grating, but I like to think of it as a dry run for his playing the Merc with a Mouth, which is funny considering that around this time, Reynolds was hearing about the Deadpool character. In fact, after this movie, Reynolds would begin the twelve-year-long journey of bringing DP to the big screen, which would involve playing a character named Wade Wilson in X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

I’m sorry, this movie is not great. It’s just a big disappointing letdown. One of the problems with the movie is with Blade. Not the character himself, he’s still pretty cool and Wesley Snipes is great. I mean that this doesn’t feel like his movie. In the other two movies, it was pretty clear he was the guy in charge, especially in Blade II when he made it clear to the vampires he formed a truce with that he was not someone you screw with. But in this one, he just kinda gets shunted off for several other characters. To their credit, Marvel would get better at ensemble films (The Avengers, ‘nuff said), but in this one, it just feels sad. We watched this movie because we want more of Blade. But it feels like they put him in the back seat to focus more on other characters. He’s the title character for fuck’s sake, and yet he feels like he’s a side character in his own movie. Just like what happened with Tom and Jerry...

What doesn’t help either is that the film is one of those “too many things happening for its own good” films. The movie’s got too much going on and it feels confusing. What’s this film about? Is it about Blade fighting Dracula with the Nightstalkers? Is it about the vampire world finally getting the law to crack down on Blade? Is it about the vampire’s plans to completely subjugate the world? It doesn’t seem to know which one it wants to focus on, which really hurts considering that this is supposed to be the biggest threat that the vampire hunters of the world ever faced, and yet Dracula seems like less of a legitimate threat than Deacon Frost in the first movie or the Reaper virus in the second. And it’s not the only third film in a superhero film series to have this problem, as X-Men: The Last Stand had this same problem with too much happening. Again, Marvel at least got better at juggling multiple plotlines in superhero movies with their cinematic universe, so there is that.

There’s a lot of other problems big and small, and a good chunk of them can probably be traced back to Wesley Snipes. The production of this film was pretty screwed up, and a lot of it is due to him. David S. Goyer, who wrote all the Blade films including this one, ended up directing it when no one else wanted to take the job. Snipes was unhappy with Goyer’s decision to direct, and both he and Kris Kristofferson were unhappy with the script, which is probably why Kristofferson’s character is killed off early on. (Reminds me of what they did with RoboCop’s partner in RoboCop 3, another third movie in a series that sucked.) Not only that, but Snipes was hostile to Goyer as well as Ryan Reynolds and Jessica Biel; at one point, Hannibal King says “He doesn’t like me, does he?”, which was not Hannibal talking about Blade, but Reynolds talking about Snipes. Snipes also apparently refused to leave his trailer for any scenes that didn’t show his face, so his stunt double did a lot of the Blade scenes. His working relationship with Goyer got so bad that he called him a racist several times for no reason and refused to speak to him, communicating only in Post-It notes. The fact that the final film got finished and is... watchable... is pretty impressive.

This film, sadly, killed off the Blade franchise. New Line Cinema’s problems with Wesley Snipes led to them making a short-lived TV show on Spike TV with someone else playing the Daywalker, and then Snipes got sent to prison for tax evasion and the Blade character’s film rights reverted to Marvel during his prison term. He’s been in talks with Marvel Studios to bring the character back, but so far they’ve said they have no plans for the character in the future. Here’s hoping we get more Blade in the future.

I should also mention that the version I saw was the unrated cut, which doesn’t really add more violence or swears or other things cut for an MPAA rating as all the Blade movies were rated R. It has some more plot and character stuff, but that doesn’t help the movie much when compared to the theatrical version. The biggest change is the ending, which includes the infamous shot of Blade’s opening eyes being superimposed over his face when Snipes refused to open his eyes in the scene.

This movie’s a mess, plain and simple. It is without a doubt the weakest film in the Blade trilogy, which sucks because it could have been better. If they had trimmed some of the plotlines and focused more on Blade than his companions, it would have been better. Like Mimic 3, I don’t hate the film, I just find it disappointing with how it could have been better. For what it is, it’s still watchable, but it’s just a muddled mess of a movie. Not sure if I’d recommend it. I’d definitely recommend the other two Blade films.

Also, if any of you are hoping for me to review more Marvel movies as part of this resolution, you may be out of luck, sadly. I’ve seen all the Marvel Cinematic Universe films, as I had to catch up in time for Avengers: Infinity War, as well as all the X-Men films and spinoffs and the 2003 Hulk, which I actually really liked, even more than some MCU films (to which someone will say “it’s okay, you can just say Thor: The Dark World”). ...Although I haven’t seen the Amazing Spider-Man films yet...

Next time: How about a GOOD comic book movie from 1997?

#David's resolution #Blade: Trinity

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theostry · 6 years

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Teen Wolf Scripts liveblog: Season 1 Episode 2

Second ep of the first season, appropriately titled:

Teen Wolf Scripts!

Back again, Wolfiends. Another lengthy post consisting of screenshots of the Teen Wolf script alongside my own rambling commentary. I’m not here to review the show; finer minds than myself have got that covered. Nor is it a photo-recap; that has been done by crazier bastards than myself.

I am here, as no doubt we all are, holding up my empty bowl to Jeff Davis and saying in a pitiful voice, “please, sir, I want some more.” Now, eat your gruel and count yourself lucky because this batch has raisins in it.

Excerpts have been selected based on the following criteria: 1) It did not make the final cut; 2) It was substantially altered; 3) It offers extra detail not apparent from the show, such as description and direction; and 4) I felt like including it.

Fun times (and, obviously, a hell of a lot of spoilers) below the cut.

Okay, let’s get started!

WhaaAAAAT?

We open on a doozie here. Is this a sign that the elusive Greenberg may actually exist? Like, in corporeal form? Not just a figment of Coach’s fevered imagination?

The lacrosse sequence we’re shown was more montage-y than the script suggests and we don’t see Coach pass the ball to anyone directly, but here’s the first player to try for goal:

Greenberg?

Or actually, it might have been this guy (confusing montage is confusing):

Greenberg (’s hairy leg)?

Oh but now here is where coach is telling Greenberg to take a lap, and THIS GUY starts running.

GREENBEEEEERRG!

Coach is doing more actual coaching than I had thought him capable of, that’s nice.

I don’t know what these “slap checks” and “cross checks” are, but to me it just looked like two guys in plastic armour smashing into one another. But what do I know, I’m not a sportsball expert.

Also, goats.

Sorry, sorry. I meant

*lurk*

Well there goes my headcanon that wolf-puppy Scott just wanted to pway wif his best fwiend!

I love this scene a lot, and I’m glad they made it more scary and dramatic than this, with the jumping up on lockers and crouching in rafters and such. Why go around something when you can go over it, amirite?

Hello, gorgeous!

A STRANGE SILHOUETTE.

I don’t know who you think you’re kidding, Jeff Davis. By now I think we all know that, like “a figure” and “someone watching”, this is a synonym for

Now 100% more grabby!

That part isn’t news, but— Pffffft Melissa.

LMFAO

Come on though, Melissa’s not that old. She knows perfectly well what it means, she just does this because it amuses her to make Scott squirm and huff.

Then Allison pops up to tell him that she too is excited to come and watch him play.

He didn’t get the line, but his face said it for him.

Meanwhile, someone’s creeping on Allison!

HOW VERY ALONE

NOT A SOUL

Until——

Just kidding. The script doesn’t say who it is. I guess we’ll never know. Or, canon confirmation that Derek Hale OR WHOEVER does not possess a soul

In math class—

Yeah, buddy. Us too.

Ah, Lydia

Is LAX a hip new abbreviation for Lacrosse? Or have airports somehow become a high school sport? I hope not, I would lose so badly.

Now I want a spin-off series of webisodes about Allison Argent versus the Totally Evil Popular Girls.

Curious. Both the spinning business and the ever-tantalising ‘OMITTED’. Don’t omit things, Jeff Davis, it’s rude!

Well that didn’t happen

That didn’t happen either

UM NO JEFF THAT IS DEFINITELY NOT WHAT HAPPENED. THAT IS LITERALLY THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF WHAT HAPPENED.

No theatrics here!

Pity this bit got cut. Not a huge difference to the scene — we still got Derek’s casual disregard for others’ property and heavy-handed metaphor — but Derek’s control is a big deal to Scott, and that could have done with more emphasis.

*Curiosity intensifies*

Good to know that half-second sight gag was planned from the start.

Huh. I always thought he’d said “there were bite marks on the lady.” Also, he didn’t mention Allison here on screen.

*Curiosity intensifies further*

Good instincts, Scotty! I wonder how much that was his burgeoning wolfy-sense, and how much was just genre-savvy.

Ooh, that’s different - on the show Scott is not only surprised to see Stiles approaching the car, but desperately trying to signal him to stop.

This is not an Ok, go face. This is a face that says Stiles, no. At least they rhyme?

The Sheriff is the Sheriff again. Order is restored to the universe.

The only ‘squealing sound’ I remember in this scene was from Stiles’s long-suffering Jeep.

And now— oh. Oh holy hell. Look at this.

yes yes we saw that part but Scott’s gone he’s run off

What the figgins no he hasn’t!

Oooooh Scotty no this is stalking behaviour. Do not eat your Stiles, that is bad manners.

Not the Jeep! Stalking your BFF is one thing but assaulting an innocent Roscoe is just bang out of order. No wonder Stiles abandons his calm entreaties to yell at him, you can’t hit a man in the Jeep and expect him to keep his temper.

I’m biting my nails are you biting your nails

SDKJHADFKLASDFA EXTENDED KEYSMASH!

I KNOW BUD IT IS VERY SCARY

THAT’S GOOD STILES DRIVE OUT FROM UNDER THE RAMPAGING WEREWOLF WHAT COULD GO WRONG

RAMPAGING WEREWOLVES ARE VERY PERSISTENT AREN’T THEY

well he wasn’t going to hit him what do you think he is an Argent

SDFLKJHGFLKLSDJFH

WHAT THE HELL

SOMEBODY CALL TYLER AND DYLAN AND FILM THIS SCENE, STAT!!

It’s like all those times when--

O_O

YEAH NO FashgfadsUCKING KIDDING, JEFF!

*deep breath*

Add that to the list of places the Argents have canonically lived. Unless it’s a reference to [Coach Finstock voice] cream cheese.

*Curiosity levels approaching critical*

A ball-peen hammer? Oh, Coach.

A crack? In his helmet? What and how?

Sensible, random Lacrosse (LAX?) player. Your captain is a douche.

Aw, we didn’t get Scott’s serial killer POV here.

Bahaha he never even went for a ‘slap check’ (whatever that is), he just growled at him from five feet away.

Interesting indeed, Coach! He doesn’t reply to Stiles in the show. This way it gives the impression that he’s going to be doing some investigating, maybe Scott will have to be more careful around him.

Lol, the referee never called the goal. Coach argued with him, then blew the whistle himself, and the refs just went with it.

That’s a different take - that in his heightened state the sight of Argent coming towards him triggered his flight response. We didn’t see Argent walking onto the field until after Scott was long gone, so there was no suggestion that Scott was reacting to him at that time. We do see an ominously thoughtful look on Chris’s face!

Awwww sweet. You hold onto that brief second, wolf boy.

I WONDER who it’s gonna be, say it with me now—

Oh hey! We’re on first name terms with our stalker now.

wait--

what

Aaaahahaha no he doesn’t, as if Derek Actual Hale would smile and greet someone. Jeff you’ve been smoking again.

(Or, more likely, trying to seed the aborted Jackson Hale plotline.)

Another ripper of a script! Some fun extra moments -- and nail-biting ones -- as well as a few where the production obviously decided to go in a different direction. We got Scott marvelling at Derek’s control, Melissa trolling her son like the A+ parent she is, Scott having extremely good spidey-senses for a canid, Derek as a luring lurker who lurks, even when the script tells him not to, this man cannot be stopped, not to mention everybody’s favourite Greenberg, with an actual face! Or leg. Whatever.

All outshone by the Jeep attack scene. Why, oh why, Jeff? Do you hate us?

Nahhh. On reflection, I can see why they cut it. This episode showcased Scott’s lack of control over his wolfy side, but we already had a fair bit of Feral Scott -- on the lacrosse (sorry, LAX) field and peeping into Allison’s window -- so that point was made. And we’d already had him attacking Stiles specifically, in that excellent locker room scene. But the visual of Scott wolfed out and roaring to the sky from atop the Jeep would have been something to see. Not to mention that moment of terror as Stiles finally sees what his friend has become, in the clear light of day, no helmet or darkness to obscure him.

It would have been the perfect punctuation to Scott’s complaint from just prior: “Stop enjoying this so much!” Stiles still thinks he’s in a superhero origin story. But Scott is stuck in a nightmare horror.

At least he got his perfect moment.

Exeunt

#teen wolf #TW scripts #theostry liveblogs the TW scripts #teen wolf season 1 #S01E02 #second chance at first line #long post

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frederator-studios · 6 years

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Meet D.R. Beitzel, Creator of “The Bagheads”

DR Beitzel is a cartoonist, creative producer, and Pennsylvania fellow living a NYC dream. His day job is playing video games in a Times Square skyscraper; his evenings are occupied writing funnies and drawing comics for the likes of MAD Magazine, McSweeneys, and his own Phatypus Comics. And like several of his idols before him - Matt Groening, anyone? - he’s now making the petite leap from comics to cartoons. His GO! Cartoon “The Bagheads” is a historically accurate depiction of trash take-out travails with former roommates and his competitive clashes with his older brother. He maintains that the Goat (”Goooat”) is its sole foray into the cartoonish make-believe. He studied politics, so you know that he has 0 capacity to - dare I even suggest it!? - fib.

Sooo, where’d you study animation?

I didn’t! I first went to a community college in central Pennsylvania. It was full of a bunch of cool people - unfortunately not Donald Glover or Alison Brie, but fortunately also not Chevy Chase. Then I went to University of Pittsburgh and studied communications and political science.

Poli- what now?

Yeah... it was the Obama era. I thought “It’s all uphill from here! We’re just riding this political train into the Promised Land!” Reality hit hard. Back then, Jon Favreau was writing Obama’s ‘Yes We Can’ speeches, and I was all riled up. I wanted to be a speechwriter.

At one point a local city councilman asked me to write some remarks for him to use on Martin Luther King Day. I was idealistic and had a head full of steam, so I wrote this fiery, passionate stemwinder that drew on self-sacrifice and righteousness. I even referenced "Letter from Birmingham Jail”. The thing was, it was for a pancake breakfast at a rural Pennsylvania fire hall. So, I'm pretty sure he went out and said something like, "Thanks for coming. Go Eagles”. I was young and naive, and didn't realize that every speech didn't have to be "Ask not what your country can do for you ..."

When did you decide to NOT work in politics?

When I met a real life politician. (I laugh) No, really! He was a hometown representative - I’m from the Pennsylvania boonies. And he was a Republican, which was fine; I was just looking for a foot in the door. But when he found out I wasn’t, he asked me if I was a double agent. Like he actually suspected me of being in cahoots with the Dems to get dirt on him! So weird. And then finally, it came down to either an unpaid internship with a politician or a paid gig without a politician, so I chose to get paid.

Chasing that dollar. What was the paid gig?

I started out as a freelance editor for fashion and fitness blogs. The biggest perk - and irony - was that I was working in sweatpants from my couch. I got jobs at some TV and radio stations. At the end of college, I did do one unpaid internship, which was the best free work I ever did. It was at WQED, the PBS affiliate in Pittsburgh where Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood was filmed back in the day. They still had a bunch of the sets just hanging around the hallways - and I even got to meet Mr. McFeely, who was exactly as nice as you’d hope. Eventually, I decided to leave Pennsylvania and move to New York, probably for the cheap rent. And I’ve been here ever since, working with mobile games. I even got to visit the old MAD Magazine office when I did a comic with them. It was covered in original art from some of the all-time greats.

What kinda stuff have you done for MAD Mag and others?

For MAD, I did a comic parody called “Captain Red America”. He’s like Captain America but only represents conservative states, so a lot of his enemies are things he doesn’t actually believe in. So, when he fights the super villain Climate Change, Cap can’t fight back because he doesn’t believe in climate change, so it just beats him up. I also did some writing for McSweeneys. They have some of the funniest stuff published anywhere, and I always wanted to write for them. I love doing comics, too, because if I have an idea, I can just put it out there—there aren’t really stakeholders involved. Recently, I just finished a Valentines comic for Bushwick Daily, a local Brooklyn blog, about the types of people you meet on Tinder.

How was transplanting to NYC - did you always want to move there?

Ehhh… I’m one of those unwilling New Yorkers who loves to hate it. The city has its upsides; it’s the best comedy scene. When I first arrived I joined UCB, which I think is mandatory when you move to New York - they just issue you a membership with your MetroCard. I always brag that I got to see Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson perform their Broad City stage show before it became a TV show. I love that community, and part of me wishes I’d have stuck with it longer, but I was getting pulled in a bunch of different directions, including a new job.

Oh yeah? Where at?

At Nickelodeon! I got the opportunity very randomly, about a month after I arrived. My (soon-to-be) boss called two people in for interviews, and I guess all that theatrical training from UCB paid off, because I was able to fake being a functional person long enough for her to hire me. It’s a really fun place to work: talented artists, toys everywhere, and sometimes wide-eyed kids are touring the office or testing games for us and you remember what we’re all doing there. The downside is that we’re in Times Square, so when I venture into the street I’m guaranteed to get a face-full of armpit. But playing video games is part of my job - I produce apps and games related to Nick shows.

That is the Dream. What’s your favorite game you’ve worked on?

Probably TMNT: Legends. We had a tremendous team of real fans, and the game looks great. Plus, I got to go visit Montreal where the team is based. I highly recommend that everyone spend years developing a game with a blockbuster studio, so you can visit, too.

Did you choose the cartoon life, or did the cartoon life choose you?

Wow, I really need to get “Cartoon Life” tattooed across my stomach. It was mutual selection. As a kid, I’d go to my grandma’s house and draw through all the paper she had. I looked up to Sergio Aragones of MAD. I was always drawing in the margins of the handouts at church - that’s the only way I’d sit still. But in high school, I stopped drawing for a bit - I guess I was partying too much, or maybe I just lost all my pencils in one of my oversized neon Tommy Hilfiger jackets. Then, I got back into it in college, drawing editorial comics at my school newspapers. I get inspired by people like Matt Groening. He was grinding out “Life in Hell” for like 40 years - well after he became a TV tycoon with The Simpsons and Futurama - just for the love of it.

How did you come to pitch for GO! Cartoons?

Just a random Google search, looking for places to send some stuff. I only barely met the deadline. I put together a thumbnail pitch and sent it on in.

Did “The Bagheads” change much from pitch through production?

The core story was always a brother and sister arguing over trash take-out. But it fluctuated in length quite a bit. There were a lot parts I added and then we condensed or cut out. There were intros, flashbacks - at some point, probably dragons and ice zombies - a lot did have to be trimmed down. Which was tough, because as you can probably tell, I’m a pretty big blowhard.

Who inspired the Bagheads, and were they always, you know… bag headed?

The Bagheads were always bagheads. As a little kid, I used to doodle baghead people with my brother, who inspired me to start drawing at all. We’d draw the guys from Guns ‘N Roses, but with bags over their heads—I have no idea why, but probably because I was kid who was crappy at drawing and couldn’t draw faces. Anyway, it became a running gag between us, we called them Guns ‘N Baggies. And over the years since, I’d draw those types every now and then -- a muscle baggie, an old baggie, whatever. So when I was getting ready to submit to Frederator, I knew the character’s personalities, but I didn’t know their appearances. So I reached into my childhood and pulled out the Bagheads.

What do you enjoy the most about Elbow and Artemis?

Well, what I enjoyed most about the short in general was working with so many talented people to bring it to life. I gotta give a big shout out to Eric, Kelsey, Michelle, JoJo, Sylvia, Paul, Bill, Kevin, Stephen, our cast and everyone else at Frederator and Salami Studios who made this happen. I did not do this alone - nowhere near it.

As for Artemis and Elbow, I’ve always liked duos with friendly antagonism, like Ren and Stimpy, Bugs and Daffy. Those good-natured conflicts where you’re kinda buddies, but you’re also kinda at each other’s throat. I like that Artemis and Elbow’s personalities create conflict: she’s hyper-competitive, he’s lazy. And then there’s their poor clueless dad, who’s working too much and constantly worried about the safety of his kids but doesn’t realize the biggest danger to them is each other. Those relationships can serve up a lot of fun, simple stories.

What inspired Nuke Man Jones, who’s still pulling off the eternal dunk as we speak?

Harlem Globe Trotters, for sure. They basically have superpowers. I was really looking for things that Elbow might see at a high altitude and I wanted something silly. Nuke Man is stuck up there in Earth’s orbit now, cursed to never complete that dunk like some Sisyphean baller fate.

The billion dollar question: do the Bagheads have bags for heads, or are they wearing bags over regular people heads?

Ya know, I’m gonna opt not to answer that one. The question of the bags can remain an unanswered mystery if it gets a series. It’ll be like The Leftovers for kids.

How about some favorite cartoons?

I mean, my Top 10 would just be The Simpsons, Seasons 1 through 10: that’s my all-time favorite TV, right there. South Park can’t get enough love—those guys have turned out classic after classic, and they’re the smartest gross-out humor in history. Looney Tunes, Ren & Stimpy, Beavis and Butthead - Mike Judge is a genius. Jim Henson and The Muppets, even though it’s not a cartoon; puppets count, right? MAD Magazine stuff like Sergio Aragones features or “Spy vs. Spy,” which was an inspiration for this Bagheads short.

I’m also really inspired by old school newspaper comics. It breaks my heart that they’re disappearing. Calvin and Hobbes is gorgeous and the most inspiring thing to me. I just read the entire series again, and it’s as good as ever. I appreciate that Bill Watterson refused all the licensing and merch deals people wanted to make for it. I read once that he left something like $400 million on the table.

That’s amazing.

Yeah. Once, I made a parody album cover for a local comic shop’s art show, and I made one based off of Notorious BIG’s “Ready to Die” cover: Notorious HOB’s “Ready to Live”. People wanted prints so I started selling them, and then it dawned on me that I was breaking the spirit of Watterson’s anti-commercial stance. So I stopped selling them, and just told people, “Sorry, they’re gone!”

What do you like to do outside of your work*? (*everybody else’s play)

I like to connect with my inner hillbilly - errr, inner hippie - whatever it is. I go to the beach and state parks pretty often. And I love stand-up: I just saw Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock, Amy Schumer, Jeff Ross and Kevin Hart at Radio City Music Hall. It was insane.

What are you working on now?

At the moment, I’m investing all my resources in trying to score “Black Panther” tickets. Otherwise, I'm working on a musical animated series idea with two musician friends, Jeff and Matt. It's really cool and is somewhere between Hamilton and Freaks & Geeks. I'm also working on a comic strip about animals in a post-human world. It's really cartoony, except the president is a photo-realistic opossum whose speeches are just incoherent, ear-piercing screeches. I'm not sure where that falls on the fiction/non-fiction spectrum. So much for giving up politics!

youtube

Great talking with you D.R., thanks for the interview! Looking forward to all of your future endeavors. And I’ll be sure to vote for you if you ever return to politics / being a spy for those wily Pennsylvania Dems.

Everybody: keep up with Phatypus Comics on Facebook and Instagram, @phatypus! And here on Tumblr: @phatypuscomics

- Cooper

#The Frederator Interview #frederator #frederator studios #go! cartoons #interview #cartoon #comic #animation #comics #cartoons #new cartoon #The Bagheads #phatypus #phatypus comics #DR Beitzel

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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The Eric Andre Show: Why This Ritzy Season Is “The Best Yet”

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Eric Andre has made reinvention a staple of The Eric Andre Show. What started as a lo-fi spoof of the celebrity talk show circuit has evolved and devolved over four seasons. In season 3, Andre’s refreshed look featured a Katt Williams-esque perm. In Season 4, Andre completely let himself go: He neglected to bathe and turned the set into what he called “ratty and disgusting and gray, like a Soviet prison.”

After four years off air, The Eric Andre Show returns to Adult Swim on Oct. 26 with a complete 180. The new set is bright, colorful, and ritzy. “I wanted the set to be Liberace inspired,” Andre told Den of Geek ahead of the season 5 premiere. “I just wanted to do everything the opposite.”

The changes to the show are not only cosmetic. Andre’s longtime sidekick Hannibal Buress quits the show after the first episode, and is replaced by a clone. Eventually the clone also quits.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is with a heavy heart that i announce that the yin to my yang, the wickedly funny @hannibalburess ends his reign as co-host tomorrow night at midnight @adultswim. Love you HB. It's been an amazing decade with you.

— Eric Andre (@ericandre) October 24, 2020

Structurally, The Eric Andre Show mostly remains in tact. He may look more glamours, but Andre still opens every show by manically recking his set. The man-on-the-street pranks are as gross and random as ever. He even got his good friend, Grammy nominated rapper/singer Lizzo, to put on the green suit for Bird Up.

These antics do come at a price. As he told Jimmy Kimmel in a recent interview, Andre landed in the hospital with a concussion after stunt in which John Cena throws him through a bookshelf went wrong. Andre bounced right back. A comedian who masters the art of reinvention can have a long and prosperous career, so long as he’s not snapped into pieces by a WWE superstar.

Though it comes in the midst of a nightmare of a year, Andre’s career is prospering right now. In June he debuted his first ever stand-up special which is available on Netflix. His long gestating feature-length prank film, Bad Trip, was originally slated to premiere at the canceled SXSW 2020, and have a theatrical release shortly after. Those plans changed with COVID-19 upheaving the movie theater industry, and Netflix picked up the film and plans to release it next year, according to Andre.

Over zoom, we spoke with Andre about the return of The Eric Andre Show and what he has in-store for season 5.

Before we get into The Eric Andre Show season 5, you had your first stand-up comedy special drop on Netflix over the summer. Your closer absolutely killed. How did you come up with the mom / phone bit?

There was this Knitting Factory show years ago in Brooklyn, and I did it to my mom. I would prank my friends with that autotech shit, just to scrambled brains. And then I was like, ‘Oh, my mom would be perfect to do it to.’ And I’m on the east coast. Usually when I do a stand-up show in L.A. she’s in bed because she’s three hours ahead. But I was in her time zone. She’s in Florida. So I pranked my mom, and it worked so fucking good. And the audience was going fucking bananas. And then I tried to prank her again at a different show. I tried to recreate it, and she already knew the gag. So she’s like, “Okay, you’re pranking me again.” So I was like, “How do I keep this up?” Because it just worked so well. And then I just started doing it with people’s moms in the audience.

I used to do it in the middle of the set, but it would bring the house down and I couldn’t recover. I couldn’t go back to my material afterwards. So I really had to start doing it at the end. And it’s just such a great… and it’s G-rated too. Everyone relates to mom confusion. Everybody’s mom, at some point, or many points throughout their lives, is very confused, doesn’t get a pop culture reference right. So everybody can relate to mom confusion, and auto-correct, and auto-fill, and all those things that scramble mom’s brain. So it’s a good G-rated dismount after a bunch of R-rated material.

It’s been a long time since The Eric Andre Show has been on air. And in that time, a lot of really, really bad TV shows have debuted. Is Bird Up is still the worst show on TV?

I hope so. I hold that trophy high. So fingers crossed that we continue. Maybe I shouldn’t reveal. We got Lizzo in the Bird Up outfit this season. We did Lizzo up.

How’d you convince her?

We were friends with her before she was famous, so she’s good friends with my director. So Lizzo being famous is crazy to us. So we just texted her. I’m like, ‘Lizzo, come do the show,’ and she was like, ‘Cool.’ That was probably the easiest casting. She was really good at it. She may be much better at it. She flourished. She got in that outfit, she brought her flute.

In the trailers it’s pretty obvious that there’s a crazy new set design for season 5. What were your inspirations behind the look and feel of the new season?

So I basically did everything the opposite of season four. So the previous season, season four, I lost weight. I got pale, I grew out my hair. I didn’t brush or wash my hair. I didn’t wear deodorant. I got really stinky. I didn’t wash my suit once, I grew out my fingernails. And the set was really ratty and disgusting and gray, it was like a Soviet prison.

In season five, I wanted everything the opposite. It was a ritzy and rich set, I wanted the set to be Liberace inspired. I got rid of all my body hair, I waxed my pubic hair, I shaved my armpit hair, I bic’d my head bald. I would tan every day. I bleached my teeth. I got my fingers and nails manicured, pedicured. I would put on a ton of brut cologne every morning. I gained weight. I just wanted to do everything the opposite, season five from season four. So that’s how we got to the look.

I know sometimes it can be difficult for actors to gain or lose weight. How was it for you?

I’m not very good at it. My body doesn’t want to. I wasn’t good at losing it, I wasn’t good at gaining it. I am far from Christian Bale. He also has a team of nutritionists that calculate how to fucking do it. But I was eating peanut butter jelly sandwiches and pizza every night before bed. That’s my go-to. And I got pretty puffy. I probably put on 20 pounds, but it was inconsistent. I couldn’t nail it. It’s fucking hard. And you’re depressed, and you’re irritable, you’re cranky, you’re sugar crashing. It’s fucked up. It’s not good for your body. I’d never do it again. No more body modifications, I don’t think. Life’s too short to put your organs through that.

Does having that extra weight help you throw your body around during those opening scenes?

It doesn’t. You’re huffing and puffing, it’s hard to tie your shoes. It stresses my body. I didn’t even gain that much. I can’t imagine Christian Bale gaining 60 pounds, that guy’s going to die soon. It really stresses your body out.

What was it like editing and putting the finishing touches on this season during the pandemic?

It wasn’t ideal. We started editing before COVID happened. So that was good. We got a good chunk. We got into our groove with the season before COVID happened, and then we finished remotely from home. But we were already in the groove, and it’s not our first rodeo. It’s the best season yet. We knew what bits were working and what wasn’t. So it wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t insurmountable.

With the man on the street bits, do you think that there’s going to be a heightened sense of shock value because it’s airing now?

It’s hard to remember the before times, but I don’t know. Maybe, that would be an added bonus if it feels heightened stakes. But yeah, it was filmed before the quarantine.

I remember you telling us in a past interview that you had a couple of close encounters on the set of Bad Trip with some of the pranks, particularly the barbershop scene. On the set of season five, did you have any close calls or interesting stories from season 5?

There’s this one where I’m a news reporter and I’m in Newark, New Jersey, reporting on the street. There’s this passed out businessman, stuntman behind me that looks like he jumped off a building and tried to commit suicide. And then he started getting up, and I go to my news camera team. I’m like, ‘This guy, if he doesn’t stay injured, I don’t have a story.’ Boom. And I started kicking him on the ground. The guys bleeding out the back of the head, kicking him on the ground. I’m like, ‘Stay down, motherfucker. I need this story.’ All these people came out of coffee shops and this one guy was like, ‘I’m going to fucking kill you.’ And I was like, ‘No, if I don’t get this story, I don’t get the promotion I need, this man is my big break in news.’ And he’s like, ‘I’m going to fucking kill you.’ And we had to, we pushed that guy to the limit before he clocked me, and then we had to cut and reveal.

When it comes to the guests on the show, I always think back to James Van Der Beek calling the experience a “fever dream.” Were there any interactions off the camera with guests this season that stuck out to you?

It’s way more exciting on camera for my show, than off camera. Oh, the best was, I forgot about this, so we had Robin Givens on the show. She’s an actress, she’s been around for a few decades. She was married to Mike Tyson at one point. And I’m lighting her up, so we’re dropping cockroaches from the ceiling, and we have maggots coming out of food. The show is like a haunted house. So she’s freaking the fuck out, and her publicist, or her agent I think, is fucking pissed. I didn’t know this at the time. I’m in front of the cameras interviewing her. My second AD told me, her agent is running around, we don’t let any of their agents or publicists on the stage while we’re rolling, because we don’t want them to stop the interview.

So my second AD and my first AD are running this woman around, her pissed off agent, they’re running her around in circles. She’s like, “End this interview now, how do I get to the studio?” My second AD goes, “Go through that door, take a left, take a right,” and then they’re just sending her around in circles. She comes out, ‘I went through that door.’ They’re like, ‘All right, go outside, here’s a shortcut, go through the elephant door, go here.’ And they’re just sending her around to locked doors and around the building, just running laps around the building, while I’m dropping maggots from the sky in front of Robin Givens. She was so pissed. Yeah. We definitely got the release form ahead of time on that one.

Are you guys at the point where, for the most part, the guests know or at least have some sense of an idea of what they’re stepping into? Or are you still catching people off guard?

We purposely try to get guests that have no idea what my show is, who I am, what Adult Swim is. Every once in a while we do, but we just light their ass up. You know what I mean? I think even if you know the show, when vermin and pestilence are exploding out of the desk, you’re still going to have a great reaction. So it’s foolproof in that way. But yeah, we definitely try to not get hipper, younger guests. We try to stay over 40. So there’s a definite age limit to my fan base. Not all the time, some middle-aged bands and even older fans, but for the most part the fan base is millennials, gen Z

With your stand-up special, the movie Bad Trip eventually coming out on Netflix, and now the new season of The Eric Andre Show, those are three very different mediums you’ve worked across recently. Is there a medium right now that you find the most creatively fulfilling?

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To me it’s not the medium, it’s the idea. With The Eric Andre Show, obviously I have pure creative freedom. I’m in the zone with it the most. I think standup is the hardest. The movie was no small feat. But yeah, any and all mediums.

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