#but…the animatronics being something on-set for the actors to interact with

[void-tiger]

That moment when…

The short about the family glamping and getting attacked by dinosaurs is WAY Better than the actual feature film.

[readypanda]

Indigo Park Spoilers (and very long post) ahead

Since Indigo Park is the newest fandom I've been dipping into, I figured I might as well make my own analysis for the game. The question I'll be discussing today is,

WHAT EVEN ARE THESE THINGS?

(sry for bad picture quality lol)

The thing I find interesting about these mascots (Molly, Lloyd, and what we've seen of Finley) that kind of sets them apart from other monsters in the mascot horror genre is...they almost seem like they're just animals. (I'll go over evidence for this in this post)

Think about it. In other mascot horror games, we've gotten:

animatronics possessed by dead children

employees/kids surgically(?) turned into toys

people mutated by a giant ink machine

animals/people who have had their DNA spliced with a mutagenic chemical

A little girl somehow turned into a monster (I think??)(really sorry Amanda I don't know what you are)

etc.

(I'm not up to date on all these properties and I know there's many more, so forgive me if my lore understanding is less than adequate. you know how it is with indie horror)

The important note about all these is that for the most part, these mascots are intelligent, or at least have the capability of intelligence. Almost everything on this list was at one point human, in fact.

So why do I think Indigo Park is any different? What leads me to believe they aren't intelligent? (at least, the animal versions of the characters that we run from in the game. Whether they are separate from the versions of the characters Rambley interacts with is something I'll touch on later)

I think the most obvious piece of evidence in regards to Molly and Lloyd (again, not much info on Finley yet) is how Lloyd acts. He doesn't talk at all, he just stalks the main character and attacks like an animal might (with the exception of a couple times he stands on two legs or props himself up here and there).

As for Molly, I hear you saying, "But she talks! We hear her speak!" And yes, dear reader, you are right. Molly does speak. This would disprove my argument of the mascots being purely animalistic, if it weren't for this kill screen.

Now, do we ever actually hear Molly say something that isn't a repetition or couldn't reasonably be a repetition? Has she said anything to prove her intelligence at all? (genuine question here because I haven't examined every one of her voice lines lol. If I'm wrong about this then whoopsie!)

Despite the past 250 words of speculation, though, whether they act just like animals isn't actually that important. We'll see more of them in later chapters anyway (or Lloyd and Finley at least) so that will likely prove or disprove this point with time.

The more interesting question is, what are they? Like, physically?

When Molly dies, we clearly see blood around her decapitated head. At the very least that rules out animatronics or something mechanical. In addition, in the audio of the hidden tape you get when you show Rambley one of the collectables, you can hear two staff members complaining about being replaced by "new mascots" right after they "got a new raccoon costume." This could mean a few different things, but it seems to imply that the mascots we see in this chapter are meant to be replacements for actors in suits (for meet and greets, promotion, shows, etc) and/or replacements for limited, expensive, and cumbersome animatronics. If this is true, we can also probably rule out them being human. Unless Indigo Park also had a secret human experimentation lab, which I wouldn't put past them.

I think it's too early to definitively state what these mascots are, but based on the evidence of above, I have a theory.

My personal theory is that these mascots are just animals who have been changed or mutated in some way to allow the park to have more "realistic" representations of the characters (also probably to cut down on the costs of paying a human employee). That would explain why they act the way they do and why they are so violent. They literally are just wild animals who have been warped to represent these cartoon characters.

Another important caveat to this theory is that, if this is true, then the mascots who attack us in the game are most likely NOT Rambley's "friends" as he knows them. That would explain why he doesn't call attention to Molly chasing us or Molly's dead body (with the exception of one very small reaction when he talks about the mascots). You would expect him to seem a little more upset if he thought that was his friend, but maybe on some level he knows it's not really her, just a representation of her.

That brings up another question, which is a can of worms I won't fully open here: Do Molly, Lloyd, and Finley have sentient "AI" equivalents like Rambley? If not, does Rambley know his friends aren't real? I'll let you decide.

Anyway, that just about closes my thoughts on this silly raccoon game. Thanks for letting me ramble on about it, and thanks for making it to the end of the post!

Lemme know about your own theories in regards to what these things are, or if there's any key evidence I missed. Kinda threw this together lol. Most of it will likely get disproven by future chapters but hey, thus is the price of theorizing ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[inkabelledesigns]

Today Kat is talking about FNAF's storytelling. Warning, spoilers for the Ruin DLC under the cut.

So I have a small bone to pick with the FNAF Ruin DLC. And this may surprise you, since I don't interact with the Fnaf fandom in the slightest. You wouldn't think I'd even looked at this thing, but surprise, I did! I have friends who are into it, so I loosely keep up so I can understand what they're talking about. But also there is a small part of me that's started to enjoy it, as much as I don't like admitting to it. Fnaf FREAKED me out when the series originally started, I hated it with a passion, and the stuff that I like from it is mostly more recent games. Like my favorite characters are Ballora, Mr. Hippo, the Daycare Attendants, and most of the Glamrocks, I think that tells you most of what you need to know. Ironically, I have an interest in audio animatronics now, thanks to a lot of the TPM videos of Disney animatronics and how they work. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Fnaf has never been known for having award winning writing, and I know that nobody expects the writing to be great at this point, but I just, I can't deal with this glaring issue in Ruin. And let me say that I LOVED a lot of what Ruin brought to the table, the AR world was such an interesting concept and mechanic, and it gives us so much to think about in the way of Vanny. I loved Helpi, I loved how suspicious he and the Gregory mimic were, I loved Roxy, I LOVED LOVED LOVED Eclipse, oh my gosh yes. Heck, the telling of Monty's band backstory was SO CUTE too, really loved everything they did with the cardboard cutouts in this one, that was some effective storytelling. And I loved Cassie, she was such a fun character to follow, and her voice acting was top notch. There were a few areas where it was a little off, but that's not on the actor, that's on the voice direction. I'm delighted that she was so emotive and sassy! I too would be so done if I were trying to rescue my friend but kept getting hunted by broken animatronics.

But by the time we get to the end of the game, even though I loved everything else, the enemy we faced really left me baffled (and no it's not because of the book stuff, I have no issue with that today). Which led to this gem of a quote to one of my friends.

"The weakness of one of the most powerful enemies in all of Fnaf: concrete."

You're telling me this mimic robot can mess with Helpi and the world of AR, a mechanic that actively LETS YOU WALK THROUGH WALLS, but it can't clear a singular wall of concrete??? No, I don't buy it. I don't expect great stories from Fnaf, but this is a new level of not thought through. There is no reason this thing couldn't break out of its prison without us. Especially if it does comply with the book canon of being able to contort and fit into costumes with a variety of shapes, how can it not get out? Additionally, I really don't love the design of its mascot costumes. They don't look like they fit in this world at all. And maybe it's to try and push some new designs for a new game or DLC, but it just, isn't working for me. I mean the way the eyes on the lion one match the stylization of Glitchtrap's head, which was good, but that's my only good note. And that's not even getting into the millions of questions about HOW this robot has a bunch of FABRIC costumes that are mostly in tact in an establishment that was burned down FROM THE BASEMENT AREA. If it's been locked down there for so long, how does it have these in as good of condition as they're in? What were they used for before this? Could we have gotten any set dressing like posters of old characters down in this area to maybe foreshadow/explain this? Maybe a desk with prototype mascot designs? Just, SOMETHING so it's not out of left field. Some things are good when they come out of nowhere, but this did not do it for me.

I'll probably let this go over time and go back to my regularly scheduled enjoyment of mutuals posting and reblogging the daycare attendants. This has just been bugging me all week, and I wanted to talk about it. I acknowledge that I like a lot of things where the writing isn't exactly great, and it doesn't have to be the best in the world to be effective or enjoyable. But this actively killed the experience for me by the end. And I'm annoyed I feel that way, because the rest of this WAS really fun. I'd say this is one of the times I enjoyed FNAF the most, it just didn't stick the landing. Couldn't keep my suspension of disbelief.

[jess-themess05]

GUESS WHOS BACK AGAIN?

I have come up with yet another idea (and something else), I hope you enjoy it!

Idea 15: Vanessa is good at bedtime stories

This idea is inspired by a point I made during idea 2 that I wanted to attempt to elaborate on. This is actually based on the fact that Vanessa's voice actor, Heather Masters, was known for reading children's books before getting involved in FNAF (I am not kidding, check her interview with Dawko). 

It is logical to assume that most young kids would probably get more nightmares when their parents are not at home. As such it would be a good idea to learn how to calm them down. Vanessa, as a teenager, initially made stories using the video games that she plays as a base. This turns out to work a lot better than she expects, so she continues to refine and use it until she stops babysitting when she goes off to college. This will be important later.

Anyways, let us set the scene. It has been a few weeks since the Pizzaplex collapsed. The robots have been handling their new “jobs” at Silver Parasol fairly well. Roxy and Monty serve as sources of motivation for the team. They have also taken up smaller versions of what they used to do; RC car racing for Roxy and setting up a small putting green for Monty. Chica makes lunch for everyone, proving she can make other things besides pizza in the process. Freddy helps organize schedules with the management. The Daycare Attendant serves as a sort of mental health checker, working with Roxy and Monty. And of course the ALMIGHTY MAPBOT “gives out” (forces people to take) maps for the building to the people working there, except for Vanessa, whom he decided to forgive after she fixed his speech issues. All of the animatronics do still interact with children when employees bring their own or their friends' children in for various reasons. 

The VR games also turned out to be a hit, and with Fazbear Entertainment no longer taking any percentage of the profits, it is earning Silver Parasol a large amount of money. In fact, they have so much excess that they start making plans on buying a building to serve as a proper location for the animatronics. This idea was actually spearheaded by Vanessa because she feels bad that they don’t have a real “home” and wants to return the favor for them being so nice to her.

Speaking of Vanessa, after all these months, she can finally say with full confidence that she feels like her old self again. She is able to use knives, look at rabbits and not feel scared among other minor things. She has also become a lot more confident and outgoing than she used to be. Vanessa recently even went on an actual proper date with Luis.* It went really well, considering that they both are awkward nerds! So a lot of things are going well for our blonde…beneficiary? 

* Everyone is just surprised that it didn't happen sooner. Roxy and Monty even had a bet going on for when they would do it, Roxy bet over 4 months and Monty bet under. Roxy won, meaning she and Chica got to “redecorate” Monty. I will let you decide what that means.

However the same cannot be said for Gregory. He has recently started to have terrible nightmares, which he hasn't had since before his mother died. The reason that he only appears to be having bad nightmares now is ironically because he now knows that he is in a safe and STABLE living situation. Back when he was living on the streets, staying silent at all times was key to surviving and not being caught. This included being quiet when sleeping, so he just stopped having nightmares. This continued for the first month or so he was living with Vanessa since he still didn't completely trust her yet. But now that she has proven herself to be an actually really good person and safe to be around, the nightmares have returned in full force.

They start out consisting of what you would expect for a kid like Gregory. Vague things such as being abandoned. Then they start to be about things like being chased by hundred pound animal themed death machines. He could handle those ones easily enough. As the months go on, they get worse, more specific. They start to involve Freddy turning evil, Vanessa turning back into Vanny. They usually end at that point because the real Freddy, in his plush form, notices that something is wrong and would wake Gregory up. He then comforts him by simply reassuring Gregory that it was just a nightmare and giving him a hug. However, this method has been getting less effective as time goes on.

Something else that you have to know is this, most of the animatronics are not good at storytelling or making up stories. They are simply not designed or programmed for it since they are not meant to be doing any activities that involve sleeping. You would think that the daycare attendant would be good at this since he is supposed to help kids fall asleep. He does tell stories, but they are preprogrammed and all end with some variation of the theme, "Buy Fazbear Entertainment merch" . This is because he was originally intended to generate his own stories like DJMM can generate music. However FE couldn't risk him coming up with a story that already existed and getting sued so they attempted to make their own. Also some of the in-game logs indicated that he isn’t even that good at getting kids to go to sleep regardless (yes I know he was partially hacked, but something tells me that the getting kids to go to sleep problem existed before this issue). Basically, Freddy and the gang are not good at getting kids to go back to sleep beyond basic reassurance.

Then one night, he has a nightmare that is worse than all of the others. He is cornered in a dark storage room inside of the pizzaplex, surrounded by all of the animatronics including Freddy. Gregory knows that they aren’t themselves, their eyes glowing a distinct purple. In the center of it all, is Vanny. She is in that disturbing suit that he saw burnt before his eyes, her posture aggressive and towering over him. The shadows over her mask make it appear even more deranged than normal, and her knife in hand ready to kill him and make his death as painful as possible. Before Gregory can even react, Vanny grabs him by the neck and forces him to the ground and raises her knife into the air. As he struggles to breathe all he can hear is Vanny’s insane laughter, so unlike Vanessa’s it is almost impossible to believe that they were once the same person. Vanny raises her arm and then plunges it into his chest. As searing pain and darkness overtake Gregory, he wakes up with a horrible scream.

Vanessa wakes up when she hears the noise and upon realizing that it came from Gregory, immediately rushes over to his room to see what’s wrong. Both Vanessa and Freddy are very concerned, because Gregory has NEVER cried or screamed before. Sure, he’s looked freaked out before, but never has he ever appeared to be this scared. Vanessa slowly and quietly moves to his bed and sits down to try and calm him down. Eventually Gregory’s crying is reduced to occasional sniffles Freddy is at a loss of what to do, so Vanessa decides to, hesitantly, ask Gregory if he would like to hear a story. Gregory at first wants to refuse because he is a big boi . However he looks up at Vanessa’s face that shows genuine concern, and with a sniffle says yes.

Vanessa starts telling a story about a kingdom and princess, one who brought joy and hope to all who saw her, who could almost literally brighten someone's day. She tells of how this princess was deceived by a stranger in purple, who then locked her inside her own castle dungeon and spread evil throughout the kingdom. But it was done in such a way that no one noticed anything was amiss. The differences were simply too subtle for anyone to notice.

Everyone except one person, a knight. One smaller than most, but no less brave. He was the only one to realize that something was wrong and ventured into the kingdom to figure out what was wrong and fix it. He quickly found some assistance in the form of a large yet friendly bear, who had somehow managed to avoid the corruption that had befallen the other creatures.

They discover that the kingdom has been corrupted and learn of a way to get rid of it using 3 keys or sorts. So the 2 go on an adventure to find these keys and save the kingdom. They encounter a multitude of trials and tribulations on their journey as the bear and knight bond and work together. In the end though they find the 3 keys, unlock the dungeons to free the princess and defeat the corruption, saving the day! And thus the 3 of them, the kind bear, the brave knight, and the imprisoned princess all lived happily ever after

By the time Vanessa has finished speaking, Gregory has fallen back asleep hugging both her arm and Freddy close. Freddy is just looking at her with that dad-like “I’m so proud of you” type expression instead of saying it since he doesn't want to wake Gregory up. Vanessa rolls her eyes but accepts the gesture. Upon seeing that she can’t go back to bed since Gregory has effectively latched onto her, she decides to just spend the night with him.

And thus, with no more nightmares to trouble them, the 3 of them have a rest filled night and will proceed to have many more. For although healing might take a long time and be full of setbacks, the end can make it all worth it. :)

YEAHHHH HELLOOO :D

oh oH THIS IS SUCH A CUTE CONCEPT!!! before the main idea lemme comment on the events after the plex collapsing >:)

the animatronics helping in their own way is just very fun to imagine, roxy and monty serving as motivators? the dca works as a mental health checker? that’s all amazing and i personally would like to think the 3 of them combined (4 if you count the daycare attendant as 2 people) as well meaning. but destructive. like forcibly removing someone from their computer cause their break was THREE MINUTES AGO YOU NEED YOUR STRENGTH!! GO EAT LUNCH!! and are dragged away

okie okie now main thing! i think that gregory only getting nightmares once he’s in a safe environment is both very sad but kinda realistic! it’s really just due to a fear of having it all ripped away, like you mentioned with the abandonment issues. it makes sense the rest of the glamrocks wouldn’t be the best at dealing with nightmares, and vanessa being the only/best person to provide comfort is really fitting, these two have had many traumatic experiences together, so it’s best for them to heal together aswell!

and the story is just- AHHHH it’s adorable :] really solidifies the fact that they aren’t going anywhere, and of course allowing gregory to relax with a distraction in the form of a bedtime story, it’s just really sweet!!

hehehe thank you again for sending your ideas!! :D

[kate-likes-this]

Pedro for EW (11-20/20)

By Chancellor Agard • Photographer: Radka Leitmeritz Related: photoshoot / list of articles 

Human connection. It’s vital. Especially in a year like 2020. Especially for Pedro Pascal. So it’s ironic that the 45-year-old’s highest-profile success to date is working with an adorable animatronic puppet, inside a chrome helmet he famously can’t take off. "It is why I wanted to do this show. Selfishly, I knew [the Child, a.k.a. Baby Yoda] was likely to make people fall in love with the show," says Pascal of tackling the title role on The Mandalorian, the Emmy-nominated hit Star Wars series, which returned for its second season on Disney+ in October.

The Chilean-American actor has an eye for choosing projects where he’ll stand out, from popular network procedurals including The Good Wife, The Mentalist, and Law & Order to his breakout roles as the charming — and horny — Oberyn Martell on Game of Thrones and, soon after, DEA agent Javier Peña on Net­flix’s Narcos. But it’s the stoic bounty hunter safeguarding a frog-egg-eating 50-year-old toddler that’s made him a house­hold name. The new season of The Mandalorian followed Pascal’s galaxy-traveling warrior as he searched for the home of the Child, generating countless memes in the process.

Playing the Mandalorian has been one of the hardest and most unique experiences of Pascal's career to date. At this point, it's no secret that he wasn't physically under the helmet as much as he would've liked in season 1 and recorded his dialogue in post-production to match what his doubles, stunt actors Brendan Wayne and Lateef Crowder, did on set in the armor. Giving a largely vocal performance was a challenge for a physical actor like Pascal, who is almost unrecognizable when you compare his turns on The Good Wife and Game of Thrones, for example, because of how he carries himself. Yet, being on set way more in The Mandalorian season 2 didn't make his job any easier because he still had to figure how to make Mando compelling while also being as economical as possible in his physical movements and vocal performance.

"I'm not even sure if I would be able to do it if it weren't for the amount of direct experience that I've had with being on stage to understand how to posture yourself, how to physically frame yourself into something and to tell a story with a gesture, with a stance, or with very, very specific vocal intonation," says Pascal, who believes his collaborative relationship with creator Jon Favreau and executive producer Dave Filoni, a.k.a. his "Mandalorian papas," also helped him inhabit the role in season 2. 

Speaking of collaboration: Working with comedian Amy Sedaris, who plays gruff Tatooine mechanic Peli Motto, was one of the highlights of The Mandalorian’s sophomore season. “I followed Amy Sedaris around like a puppy. [I was] like, ‘Hey again. I’m not leaving your side until you wrap,’ and she’s like, ‘Cool,’” Pascal says. “I love the Child — it really is adorable — and it is so fascinating to see it work, but somebody who makes you spit-laugh right into your helmet will always be my favorite thing."

Pascal longed for those kinds of interactions during quarantine, which proved difficult for the actor who was living alone in Los Angeles. But he lights up, is even giddy at times, when the conversation turns to bonding with the Community cast right before a charity table read back in May (he filled in for Walton Goggins), or FaceTiming his friends to celebrate Joe Biden and Kamala Harris' election victory on Nov. 7. "Ahhhh! Ahhhh!" Pascal exclaims, reenacting the joyous calls with buddies like Oscar Isaac that Saturday morning. "It was screaming and jumping and dancing and crying…. I very arrogantly took screenshots of everything and [shared them], like, 'I am a part of this!'"

"I'd be less nervous playing tennis in front of the Obamas than I was seeing a reunion of these people that I think are brilliant and have this incredible chemistry with each other and stepping in and having really, really, bad technology in this new space that I had moved into. I really resented having to actually participate acting-wise because there were instances where it was way too much fun to watch."

His appreciation for those around him has only grown during the pandemic. Before flying to Budapest to film The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent with Nicholas Cage, Pascal leaned on his bubble for support. Community's Gillian Jacobs, for example, hosted him for an outdoor socially distanced pizza night every Saturday in the early weeks of lockdown. (He suspects that's why he was recruited for the sitcom's table read when Goggins couldn't participate.) 

"The friends that got me through it are absolutely everything to me and very beautifully marked in my head. I've got old friends and new friends that literally did nothing short of parent me through the experience," says Pascal, who has "survivor's remorse" for being in Europe right now. "I feel guilty not being [in the States] with my friends through [this tumultuous time] but also grateful that, individually, I was able to gain a little bit of separation from the stress of it."

Those tight bonds helped redefine, or at least clarify, what success means to him. "I want to make sure that my relationships are right, and I want to make sure I'm nurturing meaning in a sustaining way, and that won't necessarily be related to getting good jobs and making lots of money," he says. But he'll take them — as he did for both of his 2020 projects, about which he's thrilled. And how could he not be, starring in two of the year's most feverishly anticipated properties?

Besides The Mandalorian, Pascal appears in Patty Jenkins' superhero epic Wonder Woman 1984, which has endured a Homeric journey to its release (read: several pandemic-related delays). Thankfully, the odyssey is almost over because Warner Bros. recently confirmed that it will open in both theaters and on HBO Max on Dec. 25. Pascal is stoked audiences will finally see his turn as the villainous Maxwell Lord because playing the greedy dream-seller pushed him out of his post-Game of Thrones action role comfort zone.

"With Wonder Woman, [Gal Gadot and Kristen Wiig] are doing the action, baby, and I'm doing the schm-acting!" he says, hilariously elongating that final syllable. "I am hamming it up!" (Indeed, Pascal reveals Cage inspired his performance in one particular scene.)

But Pascal felt he was up to the challenge because everything he needed was right there in the screenplay, which Jenkins co-wrote with Geoff Johns and David Callaham. "I didn't have to take something and figure out how to put more flesh onto it. I had to achieve getting into the skin of what was being presented to me," he says, contrasting the experience with playing a DEA agent for three seasons on Narcos. "For me, Colombia was almost the central character, and then I was allowed to make him depressive and to tonally interpret what the character was. And in this case [on Wonder Woman 1984], there was just so much for me to meet rather than to invent."

He continues: "That was an incredible delight and challenge because Patty Jenkins is a director who loves actors and when she sees she can ask for more, she does. And there isn't anyone better, in my experience, to give more to."

[pascalsky]

Pedro Pascal is flying high on The Mandalorian, but defining success by his earthly bonds

The Wonder Woman 1984 and The Mandalorian star is one of EW's Entertainers of the Year.

Human connection. It’s vital. Especially in a year like 2020. Especially for Pedro Pascal. So it’s ironic that the 45-year-old’s highest-profile success to date is working with an adorable animatronic puppet, inside a chrome helmet he famously can’t take off. "It is why I wanted to do this show. Selfishly, I knew [the Child, a.k.a. Baby Yoda] was likely to make people fall in love with the show," says Pascal of tackling the title role on The Mandalorian, the Emmy-nominated hit Star Wars series, which returned for its second season on Disney+ in October.

The Chilean-American actor has an eye for choosing projects where he’ll stand out, from popular network procedurals including The Good Wife, The Mentalist, and Law & Order to his breakout roles as the charming — and horny — Oberyn Martell on Game of Thrones and, soon after, DEA agent Javier Peña on Net­flix’s Narcos. But it’s the stoic bounty hunter safeguarding a frog-egg-eating 50-year-old toddler that’s made him a house­hold name. The new season of The Mandalorian followed Pascal’s galaxy-traveling warrior as he searched for the home of the Child, generating countless memes in the process.

Playing the Mandalorian has been one of the hardest and most unique experiences of Pascal's career to date. At this point, it's no secret that he wasn't physically under the helmet as much as he would've liked in season 1 and recorded his dialogue in post-production to match what his doubles, stunt actors Brendan Wayne and Lateef Crowder, did on set in the armor. Giving a largely vocal performance was a challenge for a physical actor like Pascal, who is almost unrecognizable when you compare his turns on The Good Wife and Game of Thrones, for example, because of how he carries himself. Yet, being on set way more in The Mandalorian season 2 didn't make his job any easier because he still had to figure how to make Mando compelling while also being as economical as possible in his physical movements and vocal performance.

"I'm not even sure if I would be able to do it if it weren't for the amount of direct experience that I've had with being on stage to understand how to posture yourself, how to physically frame yourself into something and to tell a story with a gesture, with a stance, or with very, very specific vocal intonation," says Pascal, who believes his collaborative relationship with creator Jon Favreau and executive producer Dave Filoni, a.k.a. his "Mandalorian papas," also helped him inhabit the role in season 2.

Speaking of collaboration: Working with comedian Amy Sedaris, who plays gruff Tatooine mechanic Peli Motto, was one of the highlights of The Mandalorian’s sophomore season. “I followed Amy Sedaris around like a puppy. [I was] like, ‘Hey again. I’m not leaving your side until you wrap,’ and she’s like, ‘Cool,’” Pascal says. “I love the Child — it really is adorable — and it is so fascinating to see it work, but somebody who makes you spit-laugh right into your helmet will always be my favorite thing."

Pascal longed for those kinds of interactions during quarantine, which proved difficult for the actor who was living alone in Los Angeles. But he lights up, is even giddy at times, when the conversation turns to bonding with the Community cast right before a charity table read back in May (he filled in for Walton Goggins), or FaceTiming his friends to celebrate Joe Biden and Kamala Harris' election victory on Nov. 7. "Ahhhh! Ahhhh!" Pascal exclaims, reenacting the joyous calls with buddies like Oscar Isaac that Saturday morning. "It was screaming and jumping and dancing and crying…. I very arrogantly took screenshots of everything and [shared them], like, 'I am a part of this!'”

"I'd be less nervous playing tennis in front of the Obamas than I was seeing a reunion of these people that I think are brilliant and have this incredible chemistry with each other and stepping in and having really, really, bad technology in this new space that I had moved into. I really resented having to actually participate acting-wise because there were instances where it was way too much fun to watch."

- PEDRO PASCAL ON SHOOTING THE COMMUNITY TABLE READ.

His appreciation for those around him has only grown during the pandemic. Before flying to Budapest to film The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent with Nicholas Cage, Pascal leaned on his bubble for support. Community's Gillian Jacobs, for example, hosted him for an outdoor socially distanced pizza night every Saturday in the early weeks of lockdown. (He suspects that's why he was recruited for the sitcom's table read when Goggins couldn't participate.) "The friends that got me through it are absolutely everything to me and very beautifully marked in my head. I've got old friends and new friends that literally did nothing short of parent me through the experience," says Pascal, who has "survivor's remorse" for being in Europe right now. "I feel guilty not being [in the States] with my friends through [this tumultuous time] but also grateful that, individually, I was able to gain a little bit of separation from the stress of it."

Those tight bonds helped redefine, or at least clarify, what success means to him. "I want to make sure that my relationships are right, and I want to make sure I'm nurturing meaning in a sustaining way, and that won't necessarily be related to getting good jobs and making lots of money," he says. But he'll take them — as he did for both of his 2020 projects, about which he's thrilled. And how could he not be, starring in two of the year's most feverishly anticipated properties?

Besides The Mandalorian, Pascal appears in Patty Jenkins' superhero epic Wonder Woman 1984, which has endured a Homeric journey to its release (read: several pandemic-related delays). Thankfully, the odyssey is almost over because Warner Bros. recently confirmed that it will open in both theaters and on HBO Max on Dec. 25. Pascal is stoked audiences will finally see his turn as the villainous Maxwell Lord because playing the greedy dream-seller pushed him out of his post-Game of Thrones action role comfort zone.

"With Wonder Woman, [Gal Gadot and Kristen Wiig] are doing the action, baby, and I'm doing the schm-acting!" he says, hilariously elongating that final syllable. "I am hamming it up!" (Indeed, Pascal reveals Cage inspired his performance in one particular scene.)

But Pascal felt he was up to the challenge because everything he needed was right there in the screenplay, which Jenkins co-wrote with Geoff Johns and David Callaham. "I didn't have to take something and figure out how to put more flesh onto it. I had to achieve getting into the skin of what was being presented to me," he says, contrasting the experience with playing a DEA agent for three seasons on Narcos. "For me, Colombia was almost the central character, and then I was allowed to make him depressive and to tonally interpret what the character was. And in this case [on Wonder Woman 1984], there was just so much for me to meet rather than to invent."

He continues: "That was an incredible delight and challenge because Patty Jenkins is a director who loves actors and when she sees she can ask for more, she does. And there isn't anyone better, in my experience, to give more to."

In 2021, he rejoins the good guys as an aging superhero and father in Robert Rodriguez's kid-friendly Netflix drama We Can Be Heroes. The inherent optimism of the Netflix film's title also complements Pascal's hope for the new year. Says Pascal, ”If [fear] can take a little bit of a backseat and not be the main character in everybody’s life, that would be great.”

SOURCE

[blood-falling]

📃🏳️‍🌈? im not sure what all ur into so i say take ur pick!

Thank you, Ava.

The plot of the Markiplier original YouTube Series begins with a set of old friends, Celine, her brother Damien, William J. Barnum, and Mark.

Mark marries Celine, William goes to war, And Damien becomes the mayor.

One day Mark invites these friends (and you the viewer, a District Attorney as helped into being promoted by Damien), and his Private Investigator Abe, to his Manor for a get together, celebrating something nebulous. Everyone gets drunk and parties, then the next day, Mark drops down from the ceiling. He is dead.

Everyone stays to investigate, and Celine makes her appearance. She is a seer. She has been mistreated by Mark and runs off to find comfort with William. She guides you to faze into the future, where you get a lead in the form of the groundskeeper. You and Abe and the Chef go to investigate him, where the Groundskeeper states there is only one thing that will make him go inside. That happens.

There is trouble brewing, the finger is pointed at William by Abe, and a fight breaks out, resulting in Abe being lethally shit, then you.

We see Mark lying dead, and he asks "It's not fair, is it?" Then, we see Damien and Celine. They say they can help, if you let them in. You do, and you meet William, who seeps into denial. Then, you look in the mirror. You are now the Mayor. You are now Darkiplier.

Then, we visit William and Abe in their own little pocket of time. Abe has been ruthlessly tracking "Wilford Warfstache", who now apparently has odd abilities. He takes him in for questioning and discovers that he is in fact dead, and Wilford guides him into moving on.

And we come back to myself, and Celine. In our own pocket of time, close, but not the same as Wilford's. We live in a cabin during a brutal winter. A single, pink flower grows in the snow, which Damien finds while chopping wood. He comes come and tells Celine, who goes out with her shotgun to hunt.

The day loops, and Damien takes notice, after hearing Wilford faintly in the woods. Celine goes to investigate, and Damien goes to bed, but something is not right. He has no reflection, and something is calling him, that sounds like his sister. He goes out, following the voice to the lake, where he is dragged down and meets Mark, the Actor.

Mark wants Damien to be the villain to his hero, and won't take no for an answer. Celine breaks through and Damien decides to take the role, to let Celine rest. The cabin floods. And Damien steps out.

Then Actor has his little "fun" scenarios, where he plays hero in a choose your own adventure series, where both I and Wilford appear. Then, Wilford makes an animatronic to process his grief. And now... We wait for In space with Markiplier. I apologize if any details are inaccurate, it is... Difficult to rewatch, sometimes.

As for headcanons... Well, I myself am some nebulous sexuality, but I lean towards masc partners, and I suppose I am gender fluid, being that I have Celine and Damien as components to my being.

Wilford is trans and pan. We are partners.

Abe is also trans. He mentions having a bat mitzvah.

That's really all I have, since I've not closely interacted with the others.

My sincerest gratitude for indulging me.

[operationfazbear]

Timeline

OKAY

So the link I posted to my timeline wayyyyy back is broken, so I’m just sticking it directly here. 

It’s not complete (Will it ever be complete) and stops off right before security breach, but I’m waiting until the game comes out before I actually start forming opinions about it. 

--

1963:  Afton and Henry meet for the first time, begin discussing plans for a future restaurant.  -- 1966:  Afton and Bethany meet for the first time, agree to start seeing each other more  Bethany introduces Afton to the rest of her family, Abria’s first appearance in the story  Afton kills Paige and tries to combine her remnant to an endoskeleton he constructed, it doesn’t work. Her spirit is now stuck with him  Afton kills Mark and tries the same thing; gets the skeleton to writhe around a little but nothing else. Mark is now stuck with Afton as well -- 1968:  Bethany (Mrs. Afton) becomes pregnant with Michael, she and Afton get married  Afton and Henry meet up again, begin discussing the old plans for the place they talked about in college. Henry mentions how he went on with the plans and the skeletons  have already been built. Afton asks to be included in the project and Henry agrees Building is found that will hold the place Security Puppet is built  Underground testing facility is built, as well as first drafts of what would become  the Circus Baby robots Mark possesses Security Puppet -- 1969:  Michael is born early in the year First Fredbear’s opens Henry has minor springlock failure that permanently damages his right leg. -- 1972:  Sammy is abducted by William in the Spring Bonnie suit. Restaurant shuts down for the time being while the investigation goes on William convinces Henry to shut the investigation down and open the restaurant back up. Henry reluctantly agrees William begins noticing that Security Puppet seems slightly sentient and always goes crazy when he’s nearby. Begins  trying to sabotage his creation.  -- 1973:  Bethany becomes pregnant with Elizabeth (Ice cream girl) Charlie keeps asking people in the Spring Bonnie suit about her brother. William gets tired of it and lures her outside to kill her, after making sure Security Puppet can’t follow (Henry reprogrammed it to make sure it watched Charlie specifically, against William’s wishes). Paige helps the Puppet escape so Mark could control it outside to Charlie.  First Fredbear’s closes permanently Elizabeth is born  Security Puppet is scrapped -- 1975: William brings up the idea to try again, that making a new place might get his mind off his dead children, Henry reluctantly agrees  Andrew Wills is hired Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy animatronics are built and go into testing phases  Lacey Phillips (Concept Artist) is hired to help with Circus Baby designs Circus Baby animatronics are designed and built Circus Baby’s Pizza World also begins construction  Underground Facility expands -- 1976:  Bethany becomes pregnant with Ben (Crying Child) William suffers his first (Yes, first) Springlock failure Ben is born  2nd Fredbear’s opens Samuel Meller (Phone Guy) is hired -- 1978:  Circus Baby’s Pizza World goes on trial run. Elizabeth is killed and the robots go underground for rental William begins the controlled shocks on the robots, Baby especially  Baby gains sentience  -- 1980:  Two performers Lucas and Matthew wearing the Spring Bonnie and Fredbear suits are caught in a Springlock failure and die, Fredbear’s closes for a few months  Ben’s nightmares begin Baby begins trying to  escape -- 1983:  Bite of 83 happens  First five children (yes there are two groups of them) are abducted  Second Fredbear’s closes  Murder accusations are being pinned on Henry Henry asks Afton to kill him, Afton refuses and declares he was just as responsible for Ben’s death as Michael was  Henry tries to kill himself but fails, makes accusations worse for him. Eventually goes into hiding  Bethany tries to reason with William and get him to stop verbally abusing Michael.  William, not happy with Bethany disagreeing with him, kicks her out of the house. She stays with Abria for the night  Restraining order set on  Bethany that keeps her from seeing Michael, Bethany leaves for New York -- 1984:  Construction of toy animatronics begins  Plans for Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza begin Underground testing facility expands  -- 1985:  First Freddy’s opens Abria’s investigation begins  Charlie inhabits the Puppet  -- 1986:  Abria finds some hair sticking out of one of the withered animatronics and takes it to be tested. Chased out of the back room by Afton’s assistant manager, Blake Roberts.  William begins suspecting that Abria is after him for something and begins trying to keep her off his tail. Enlists in the help of Blake to help him Abria is switched to the night shift, snoops around before the night begins and finds entrance to underground workshop. Requests switch to the dayshift  Baby and friends begin breaking consistently. Technicians are hired to fix them Michael gives Abria a key to the underground facility. She finds the blueprints for Circus Baby and friends -- 1987:  An employee named Nathan Pike takes the night shift for the second time. nearly dies and is constantly plagued  by nightmares. Pleads a switch to the dayshift Jeremy Fitzgerald is hired  Nathan tampers with the bots to try and get them to stop attacking people; fails and makes it worse Fritz Smith is transferred to the Nightshift (Afton hates him because he smokes so he’s hoping he’ll die) Bite of 87 occurs  Second batch of kids is abducted, murder is pinned on Nathan Blake messes with camera footage to keep the blame off Afton  First Freddy’s closes  Toy animatronics are scrapped -- 1989:  Baby has been persistently trying to escape and Afton is getting fed up Makes Michael a late night technician to keep the animatronics at bay Michael is scooped  Michael rejects Ennard and becomes a walking flesh gremlin  -- 1990:  Afton opens another Freddy’s location, uses the old models from the Fredbear location (they now have two ghosts stuck in each of them, they take turns controlling them) Afton Asks Andrew to test the Spring Suits to see if they’re still usable, trips the locks and kills him (Blames him for Elizabeth’s death, because this man doesn’t know what personal responsibility is.)  -- 1991:  Afton tries to suit up and kill another batch of kids, but Paige, Charlie, and Mark all trigger the locks. Afton is now sickly, weak, and slowly dying from rusty metal being IMBEDDED INTO HIS FLESH Samuel (Phone Guy) takes the night shift (and the record for how long someone remains on it) and gets mauled by Chica on his last week, somehow survives the attack and  manages to drag himself out of  the restaurant with a messed up leg and scars  all over his face and chest; presumed dead by the company. -- 1992:  Constant complaints of the robots stinking and weird fluids leaking  out of  them Abria takes the nightshift for a couple weeks Frustrated, the spirits stuck with Afton begin fully haunting him -- 1993: Michael takes the nightshift for the remainder of the time it’s open as he tries to find a way to free the spirits Freddy’s  closes for reasons that surprisingly aren’t murder this time  Paranoid by the spirits haunting him, William goes back to the abandoned building and destroys the animatronics, setting the rest of the spirits loose. He hides in the Spring Bonnie suit and dies in it this time  -- 2020:  Plans for Fazbear’s Fright begin, run by the Evans siblings: Lydia, Zach, and Dylan (Dylan is Phone Dude)  Michael begins trying to sabotage the project  -- 2021:  Building is bought and actors are wanted Lydia tracks down Abria and asks her some questions. Abria gives her the binder full of information from her investigation  Springtrap is found Dylan is killed by Springtrap in the attraction. His body is stuffed in a vent and found by Zach Lydia begins working in the attraction as the fright guard before it officially opens  Lydia goes down to the now abandoned underground facility and discovers some old blueprints and some sketches from Lacey   Michael burns down the attraction (did not know Lydia was in there. She lived, just has some bad burn scars on her arms now) Spirits of the children are set free aside from Mark, Paige, Charlie, Afton, Elizabeth, and Michael Henry learns about Fazbear’s Fright and goes to do something about this once and for all -- 2022:  Henry buys back the rights  to Fazbear Entertainment and opens a new Freddy’s with the promise of helping new entrepreneurs get a start  Michael hears about this, not knowing who started  this and  goes to try and sabotage this too.  Michael and Henry see each other for the first time in years. Henry explains his plan to Michael and Michael agrees to help.  Per Henry’s instructions Michael gathers all the  robots that appear in the alley behind the restaurant  After a week the plan is executed. Henry sets the establishment ablaze, setting the rest of the spirits free, except Afton who goes straight to Hell Michael and Henry also parish in the fire, at last able to be with their lost family -- 2029:  In attempt to distance themselves from the past and cover up Afton’s atrocities, Fazbear Entertainment sells the rights to a small game company, who begin development of an interactive experience based off the ancient pizzeria  Development officially starts. Team consists of Mackenzie Wood (Tape Girl), Jeremy, and their managed Dale  A client (Vanny) sends in a few things for the team to use in the game; old circuit boards that unknowingly contain pieces of William’s remnant  Glitchtrap starts appearing  Jeremy notices the appearances and tries to let Dale know about it. Dale doesn’t listen. Work continues as scheduled.  -- 2030: Things start steadily going wrong as the appearance of Glitchtrap persists.  Jeremy’s nightmares begin  Game progress slows; Fazbear’s Entertainment getting antsy  Nightmares worsening, Jeremy tries killing himself with the paper shredder (it’s implied. I think) Mackenzie takes over testing; learns about the coverup  Mackenzie notices Glitchtrap and begins documenting her findings and hiding them within the game’s code; Glitchtrap attaches itself to the tapes  Mackenzie tries to destroy him, but can only manage breaking him apart for a bit.  -- 2031: Testing moves on to new studio with a new tester, Nikki, hired for the job Nikki unknowingly sets Glitchtrap (Afton) free when she assembles the tapes  Afton rejoins with Vanny; begin looking for new recruits  (will be added on to later)

[spearfeld]

So I just got done watching Alex Strangelove

I have really mixed opinions about this movie. I’m gonna give my full review under the cut, as well as address some of the arguments that this movie accomplishes what Love, Simon couldn’t. Beware of spoilers for both Alex Strangelove and Love, Simon.

This is a long one, so be warned.

Okay, first I’ll give me general overview of Alex Strangelove. This movie is a HUGE mixed bag for me so buckle up, I guess.

Basic plot synopsis: Alex and Claire have been dating for a while but haven’t had sex. They keep making plans to try and have sex, but Alex meets this boy named Elliot, who is gay. Alex and Elliot end up forming a connection that causes Alex to rethink his sexuality.

First off, let me start by saying that I actually enjoyed this movie. At least, I enjoyed the end of it. And I enjoyed a good chunk of the middle as well. But there was a lot in this movie that either just didn’t need to be there or shouldn’t have been there because it was straight up offensive.

But let’s start with the stuff that I did like. I liked the relationship between Alex and Elliot. A lot. It was cute. Like, Simon and Blue levels of cute at points. Elliot is such an interesting and fun character and he has a lot of chemistry with Alex. Every scene the two of them were on screen together I was smiling. I would have liked to have even more of them in the movie, because he kind of disappears after the first act and a half and doesn’t show up again until the end.

I also enjoyed a lot of the interactions between Alex and Claire. There were some that were kind of problematic but for the most part, they were pretty cute. And I liked their friendship by the end of the film.

There was also this one line that was handled really well. Claire’s mother has some sort of cancer (a fact that like...never really does anything for the plot of the story? but whatever) and while Claire and Alex are having a fight, she tells Claire, “You can stay mad. But what I do know is...We’re not gonna be on this earth forever. And being angry is an exhausting way to spend your day.” Which is already a pretty good line on its own, I guess. But this line has a lot more weight behind it because Claire’s mother is like, literally dying of cancer so she knows better than anybody that her time is limited. I just think that was handled really well.

Okay, before I address the things I liked about the ending, I want to talk about all of the stuff I didn’t like about this film. And let’s start with the big one. The grandaddy of all issues with this film.

The character of Dell.

Dell is the worst fucking character I have ever had the displeasure of watching on screen. He’s completely unsympathetic, he’s an asshole, lowkey homophobic, transphobic, self-centered, all around a terrible human being. Absolutely the worst. I would have given this movie 4 or 5 stars if this character did not exist. Straight up.

Let’s break down all of the terrible shit this character says and does in this movie:

When Claire tells Alex’s friends that they haven’t had sex yet, he tells Alex that he’s just “lost his dick.” Basically saying he’s not a man anymore because his girlfriend just, idk said a thing about them that’s true? I mean I guess it’s their private life and she shouldn’t have been blabbing about that but like for one is it really that big of a deal? Anyway, insinuating that he’s less of a man by saying that he no longer has a penis is INCREDIBLY transphobic. Because you have to have a penis to be a man, I guess.

He then transitions into homophobic comments, calling Alex gay because he hasn’t had sex with Claire yet. He tries to pass it of as an honest suggestion, but the tone in his voice, the delivery from the actor, it’s really clear that Dell is making fun of Alex for this. Which is beyond fucked up.

That’s not the only problematic stuff he says, either. This kid says a BUNCH of fucked up shit. Like SO much. I’m gonna do my best to try and summarize it but it’s a LOT:

He has this whole scene where he basically makes fun of trans and non-binary people, poking fun at this genderqueer character by calling them out and saying, “Hey, Sidney. Are you into vagina or dick?” “I’m attracted to the person.” Whatever the fuck that means.” 

In the same scene, when Alex tells him he might be bi, he decides to whip out his dick and show Alex, and when Alex reacts negatively to seeing the unsolicited penis of a person he does not consider himself attracted to, Dell insinuates that see he can’t be bi because he’s clearly not into dick. There are so many things wrong with that? First, you don’t just randomly whip your dick out to people, that’s just not a thing you do, Dell. That’s literally sexual harassment. Second, just because somebody is gay or bi or whatever doesn’t mean that they’re into fucking everybody of that gender. Third, genitals does not equal gender. Somebody who identifies as gay doesn’t necessarily have to be attracted to penis genitalia specifically. Because not everybody who is a boy has a penis, and not everybody who has a penis is a boy. It’s honestly just remarkable how homophobic and transphobic this movie about gay characters can really be. (And people think this is better representation than Love, Simon??? But I’ll come back to that.)

He also makes an offhand comment about the fucking NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Love Association, aka a pedophile organization), but I’m not even going to get into that.

There’s also this really pointless and painfully unfunny subplot, I guess if you could call it that, where Alex’s friends get this exotic frog that acts as a psychedelic if you lick it. Dell licks it, and then promptly loses the frog, and spends the rest of the party tripping balls. And it just leads to interruptions of genuinely sweet scenes with Alex and Elliot with scenes of Dell tripping out and hallucinating and shit. It was kind of funny the first time when he made an offhand comment about a singing garden hose and then it showed a yodeling hose animatronic. But after that it’s just painful. Really painful.

There are some other smaller problems I had with the movie, just some weird awkward lines and things that I didn’t necessarily like their inclusion (Claire keeps telling Alex to shut up while they’re having sex; I think that’s supposed to be funny because he’s babbling but like? Clearly that’s the kind of sexual being that Alex is and she shouldn’t try to put that down???? Communication is important in sex and like it’s about having fun with your partner not these set expectations of what it’s supposed to be like stop watching porn and actually go out and experience something for once anyway I’m rambling) but they don’t really hinder the experience nearly as much as literally every second that Dell is on screen.

Anyway, let’s get into the ending. Because I honestly really liked the ending.

Spoiler alert, but Alex eventually settles on the label of gay. I understand the arguments against this, how he initially identified as bi in the movie and that a) this robs us of potential bi representation, which we are severely lacking and b) it reinforces the stereotype that bisexual is just a stepping stone label to straight or gay, lending to bisexual erasure as a whole. I totally agree with this arguments. But I also try to keep that in the back of my mind while watching it so I can actually just enjoy the gay representation we do get. Those arguments are totally valid, but I don’t think it ruins the movie for me.

Anyway, so the way the movie ends, is Alex falls into a pool chasing after the frog (this literally was so pointless oh my god) and has a flashback to a memory where he got a boner looking at other guys at summer camp and when he comes out of it he realizes he’s gay. Then Claire finds him and he tells her he’s gay. Claire is understandably upset by the fact that her boyfriend of three years was actually gay the entire time, and feels hurt and confused. Eventually, however, they talk about it and they come to an understanding. Claire accepts Alex and accepts the situation, Alex tells her that he does love her. They talk a little bit about attraction and how Alex had been lying to himself for a long time. It’s a really well done scene for the most part (Claire does suggest it’s a phase which aaaaa but like, overall the scene was well-handled).

After that, Claire and Alex stay friends, and form an actual genuine friendship which I think was really neat. Claire is honestly the MVP of this movie because of what she does at the end. So Alex and Claire decide to still go to Prom together, but Claire invites Elliot. And honestly, the movie could have ended there with him and Elliot dancing and I would have been happy, but it actually keeps going for a little bit. Alex kind of freaks out because everybody is staring at him. He runs off to the bathroom and Elliot comes and talks to him, eventually getting upset and hurt by the fact that Alex seems to be embarrassed to be seen with him in public and says he’s going to leave, but Alex ends up swallowing his fear and kissing him on the dance floor in front of everybody (a bit over dramatic but tbh so was the Ferris Wheel scene in Love, Simon so). It then cuts to a really heartwarming scene of Alex and Claire on their webshow where Alex starts to talk about his experiences understanding his sexuality and coming out, and it pans out, showing a bunch of other videos of other people talking about their experiences with their sexualities and coming out and such. (I’ll admit; I got pretty teary-eyed at the end there.)

And that’s Alex Strangelove. A pretty good movie that I feel gets completely and utterly ruined by that one character. Overall I think I liked the good things about the movie as much as I detested the bad, so I give the movie a 3/5 overall.

Now, to address the comparisons to Love, Simon.

There was a tumblr post circulating a little while ago, who I’m not going to name the OP because I don’t want them to get blasted with hate or anything (honestly they’ve probably already gotten a lot for that post even though they explicitly said that it wasn’t a hate on Love, Simon post. Don’t send people hate guys. It’s not cool.) This tumblr post had a few key arguments to it, with the thesis of it being that Alex Strangelove accomplished what Love, Simon couldn’t. What was Love, Simon trying to accomplish that it failed at? Well according to this tumblr post:

Love, Simon does not address sexualities other than “straight” and “gay” whereas Alex Strangelove talks openly about bi, pan, ace, etc.

Love, Simon is lacking in sexual content, taking, in their words “the sex out of sexuality,” whereas Alex Strangelove is a film that deals heavily with the concept of sex

Love, Simon is a very dated movie with how it handles certain things, and Alex Strangelove is a fresh and modern take on the concept of sexuality and discovery.

Okay, first things first. This person is comparing two completely different movies that are trying to accomplish completely different things. Love, Simon is a family movie. Alex Strangelove is most definitely not.

Alex Strangelove sets out to tell a story of discovery, of acceptance of ones self and of others. It is a film about coming to terms with one’s sexuality. Love, Simon is a film not about discovery and acceptance, but courage to speak the truth. Alex discovers more about himself and his sexuality as the film progresses; Simon already knows he’s gay, he accepts it, he just hasn’t felt any desire to actually come out and tell anybody about it.

And side note; but Love, Simon’s lack of sexual content I feel is a good thing. Not only because it’s a family film, but because gay people are often fetishized or sexualized in movies, even movies about gay people (see: the Eating Out series, Another Gay Movie, even indie art films like Shortbus and Call Me By Your Name.) They all deal with sexual relationships between gay characters, and while that’s find because gay people are sexual beings just like straight people are, it’s by no means all we are. And only showing those kinds of relationships as representation is harmful because it only reinforces the stereotype that homosexuality is inherently sexual. This is the reason why gay characters and relationships weren’t allowed on TV or movies, especially in kids programming, for the longest time. It’s why Legend of Korra had to stick an ambiguous confirmation in the last scene of its show, by Willow and Tara from Buffy the Vampire Slayer weren’t allowed to even kiss on screen or confirm that they were in a romantic relationship until they had been together for basically an entire season or two, and it’s why Love, Simon is the first mainstream romantic comedy featuring a gay lead ever. Gay people are too often sexualized by the media and saying that this was a point against Love, Simon is missing the point of the movie entirely, if you ask me.

I think that Alex Strangelove’s purpose is that of teaching teens more about exploring themselves sexually and discovering things about themselves and how that’s natural and okay and how you need to be honest with yourself if you want to truly be happy and free. Love, Simon, in contrast, is a story for people who already have gone through that process, already know who they are, and now just need to learn that it’s okay to be open about that, to tell others, to be your true self. Completely different messages, completely different movies. 

The argument that Love, Simon didn’t accomplish what Alex Strangelove did is inapplicable because they were never trying to accomplish the same task.

Also, the last argument that Love, Simon didn’t give us any lead POC roles, uhhhhh did you watch the movie? Nick and Abby, two of the main leads who appear in all of the promotional material, are black. Bram, the person that Simon ends up with at the end of the movie, is black, and Jewish, and gay. Then there’s also Ethan, another black and gay student at Creekwood, and Ms. Albright, the black drama teacher. And, it’s a very minor role I don’t think he actually even has any speaking lines but Martin’s friend Suraj is Indian. That’s like most of the main cast? But anyway.

Love, Simon and Alex Strangelove. Two good movies (though my preference still lies with Love, Simon) with different goals in mind. Two movies that really can not be compared past the fact that they both deal with gay characters and relationships. This is a similar issue with the seemingly popular comparison between Love, Simon and Call Me By Your Name, the last gay-led movie that became popular. Love, Simon is a romantic comedy about coming out, whereas Call Me By Your Name is a tragic drama about a boy who falls in love with a man and enters an intense, passionate, but not entirely healthy relationship with him. They both have gay leads, but they are by no means comparable otherwise. You wouldn’t compare Titanic to Star Wars, just because they both have straight lead characters, so why would you compare Love, Simon to Alex Strangelove, or Call Me By Your Name or whatever just because they both have gay lead characters. There’s a logical fallacy somewhere in there that I can’t exactly pinpoint because I’m running on three hours of sleep, but yeah.

So that’s my opinion. I know this is a fucking long post and I applaud any of you who read it all the way through. I just wanted to get my thoughts out and hopefully this helps somebody understand both of these movies better. :)

[acerosedrop]

The Three Caballeros Disney Parks Masterlist

Because the Caballeros remain some of my favorite Disney characters of all time, and I’m a huge fan of the parks themselves, I decided it would be fun to compile this mini masterlist to showcase these characters in the various parks throughout the world and throughout the years. 

All of these videos feature either Jose and Panchito or all of The Three Caballeros together in the Disney parks, whether it be a ride or show, and I tried to find videos that either focused on them exclusively or were filmed in a way that leaves them decently visible throughout. Now of course this dosen’t even come close to being a definitive list, and for some of these shows better videos certainly exist, but think of this more as a jumping off point if you want to see more of the Caballeros in the parks.

If you feel that there’s a video or show that I should add, or one that could replace an existing link, feel free to ask or message me about it with the video attached so I can give it a watch! And I say this very firmly, but I do not own any of these videos and do not claim ownership of any of this content. All videos and the rights of these videos belong to their respective owners. I simply had the pleasure of compiling all of this footage together into something that’s hopefully convenient. Enjoy the list!

(Quick heads up, all of these links are for Youtube videos which can and will autoplay, so be aware when you click on them)

Disneyworld

Animal Kingdom’s Discovery Island Carnivale (x)

Epcot’s Gran Fiesta Tour (animatronics ending) (x)

Epcot’s Gran Fiesta Tour (animation ending only) (x)

Mickey’s Most Merriest Celebration (x)

The Mickey Mouse Revue (English) (x) 

* If any of you guys know where to find better footage of the english Mickey Mouse Revue PLEASE send it to me, this was the best footage I could find and with how fast the Caballeros section goes the person couldn’t film it in it’s entirety, the whole point is for Panchito to fire his guns off as different animatronics pop up in different places around the theatre and when you can’t see the whole theatre it’s less impressive.

Disneyland

Mickey’s Soundsational Parade (full parade) (x)

Mickey’s Soundsational Parade (Three Caballeros float) (x)

¡Viva Navidad! Street Party (Caballeros centric) (x)

¡Viva Navidad! Street Party (Performer centric, starts at 1:05:48) (x)

World of Color, Season of Light water show (x)

* Disclaimer, the second Viva Navidad video is just one of the better ones I can find that shows off the street performers from the party, as its near impossible to film both the characters and dancers at the same time, and you should totally watch it because their a big reason why the show is as fun and amazing as it is. Plus I think the music sounds better in the second as well.

Tokyo Disneyland

Dreamlights Electrical Parade (x)

Dreamlights Electrical Parade (Christmas version, different music) (x)

Huli Huli Ohana Bash (Just another glimpse at their old costumes, but still a cute Stitch parade) (x)

Lets’s Party Gras! show (x)

Party Gras parade (1992, at 14:50 see the old Panchito design) (x)

Soryo Kobu castle show (x)

The Mickey Mouse Revue (Japanese) (x)

The Mickey Mouse Revue (English? I can’t for the life of me figure out if the section is actually in English or if old audio was just inserted in) (x)

Tokyo Disneysea

Be Magical! character show (x)

Fashionable Easter event (7:10 to 18:50 just Jose and Panchito, probably my favorite set of alternative costumes for them) (x)

Fun Guest Interactions #1 (x)

Fun Guest Interactions #2 (x)

Happy Halloween Harvest parade (just Jose and Panchito’s performance taped, parade starts at 4:00) (x)

Happy Halloween Harvest #2 (x)

Happy Halloween Amigos! atmosphere show (x)

Minnie’s Tropical Splash (x)

Disneyland Paris

Disney Dreamers Show (x)

Disney FanDaze Max Live! show (x)

Goofy’s Skeletoons Street Party (x)

Misc.

Disney Sing-Along-Songs, Heigh Ho (x)

Short History of the Three Caballeros Animatronics (x)

15 hours worth of videos later and I can say with all the certainty in the world, Tokyo Disney’s character actors for Jose and Panchito really like each other’s tails. And butts

[grivessillus]

Sonic The Hedgehog

There is something very wrong with that film.

I boycotted it on principle. All that changing design shenanigans. But also. I felt something was deeply wrong with it.

So it was on TV when I was in the room.

And yes. There's something deeply wrong with it.

They changed that terrifying design for Sonic. But the rancid, wrong, sick, drivel, that it came from is still there.

It's a G, maybe. All ages.

But there is no way you would show some of that to children. There's a nasty undercurrent that is fit for nothing.

The part were the lady's sister says she should leave him. It's the perfect excuse, the stuff with Sonic. In front of her daughter. And him.

If anyone was getting decked in that film. That sister was. In fact. She's constantly cruising for a bruising. She's vile. She doesn't fit. In anything.

No person with any sense would show that to a child. It's horrible and cruel to any age.

That film as a LOT nastier before the uproar over the design.

Under this bland film is a nasty film. And on top of the bland is a actual wild, wierd, and wacky, Sonic film. Bits of it are really like it should be.

Jim Carrey as Dr Robotik is perfect! He gave it all. He's wild and crazy and evil. He looks like he came from a Sonic film. The staff etc. They are fine.

But then you cut to the bland cover. Then nasty stuff comes up.

And the redesign. It's still creepy. It looks off. You can make really convincing CGI and animatronic characters. He has no reason to look so floaty. He does not interact well with the set, etc.

He is also. A obnoxious, collosal, twat. He spends nearly all the time pissing about. He gets help. Then wrecks the plan. On purpose. He's utterly moronic!

There's little to no reason to help him.

There's sass and attitude. And there's being a unlikable ass. He's a ass.

Why couldn't they set it in Mobius. CGI and animatronic animals and actors. That's were Robotik looks like he belongs!

Or just make a cartoon!

There's no excuse for substandard films for children. If anything. The quality should be higher. Don't warp young minds.

It's a very wrong film.

Please stop making them. Reboot it. Don't keep this going.

[sleemo]

The Dark Side Awaits

The cast and director of Star Wars: The Last Jedi give us the lowdown on new creatures, new cast members and who might be going to the dark side. 

— SciFiNow Magazine #139

[ I transcribed this myself so please credit + link back to me if you’re sharing/quoting anything from this piece ]

Most film franchises like to play their cards close to their chests, but Star Wars is in another league. It’s understandable that the franchise known for pulling off one of the greatest shock twists in movie history wants to keep plotlines on the down low, but by goodness it makes it hard to write about them. 

So here’s what we know about Star Wars: The Last Jedi – Rey goes to Luke Skywalker to seek Jedi training while Finn, Poe Dameron and General Leia’s Resistance continues to fight against the First Order, led by Kylo Ren, General Hux, Captain Phasma and the mysterious Supreme Leader Snoke. So, basically, exactly where The Force Awakens left off. 

There are hints and suggestions at where the story may go. We know that Finn and new character Rose end up at a giant casino, and we know that Benicio del Toro and Laura Dern have joined the cast. But other than that, everything is tightly under wraps. And, as far as del Toro is concerned, that’s exactly how it should be: “The fans want that wrapping paper around that Christmas gift,” he says. “Don’t give it to them without the paper. They don’t want to see it when they walk in the room. They don’t want to know.”

For Kelly Marie Tran, a newcomer to both Star Wars and movies in general, who plays Rose, her casting in The Last Jedi came with mind-boggling levels of secrecy. She wasn’t even allowed to tell her family that she’d got the part, or even that she was filming in London, in case they put two and two together. “I told everyone... I was doing a small indie movie in Canada. I would send pictures of Toronto that I got from Google to my friends saying ‘this is where I am!’. It was a weird time.” 

Security was similarly tight on set. “Everyone is in these tinted-window cars, transported from one part of the set to another,” Tran explains. “And you’re wearing these like black robes. They’re like secrecy robes, so no one can tell who you are. It’s insane the amount of security there is.”

Tran’s Rose is a mechanic in the Resistance. “She’s kind of this nobody. And she gets pulled into this adventure, is sort of forced into this thing and spends a lot of the movie with Finn. And they get to go on a lot of cool adventures together.” 

As for Benicio del Toro’s character, apparently named DJ, he’s even more of a mystery. “Maybe you could find him in a Bob Dylan song or a Tom Waits song,” del Toro says, typically enigmatic. “Or maybe in a Dostoyevsky novel. You’ll find DJ in one of those stories. You don’t know what he is. But that’s the idea... You don’t know if he’s good or bad.” 

For John Boyega and Daisy Ridley, who play Finn and Rey, it was time to jump back into the deep end. “I think I left doing The Force Awakens feeling like a better actor,” Ridley says. “And then I went into [The Last Jedi] and felt like it was all beginning again and I was like, holy crap, I’ve learned nothing!”

Boyega, meanwhile, went into The Last Jedi with very clear ideas of what he wanted to do with Finn, who, he says, remained a bit of an enigma throughout The Force Awakens. “You’ve got your foundation for the character,” he says of Finn in The Force Awakens. “Now you’re moving onto the next project and you’re trying to, you know, make more of the character. You can’t make more of someone you don’t really know. And so for me the fear that I did have going into VIII was that I hope that we get more of a sense of where [Finn] belongs... The story for him in this movie is him making that decision himself as to where he will belong. Where he wants to identify himself. And I think that’s very important.”

While the lead cast remain the same, the director has changed. JJ Abrams, who directed The Force Awakens, has handed the reins to Looper director, Rian Johnson. 

Boyega was quickly won over by Johnson’s approach: “Rian is kind of blessed with the challenge of trying to make it different and trying to make it unique and expanding the universe. And so for me that was something that I found very interesting that Rian was doing. There were a lot of LucasFilm officials on set. Sometimes I would see in their eyes that they would be like [Boyega affects the look of a worried studio exec]. And I’d be like, yes, that’s good. Because it means that [Rian’s] taking risks.”

LucasFilm producer Kathleen Kennedy approached Johnson about directing The Last Jedi while The Force Awakens was still filming. He tells us that after reading The Force Awakens’ script and watching Abrams’ dailies, he realised that there was a follow-up story that he wanted to tell: “It makes me very happy that [The Last Jedi] felt unexpected to the actors,” Johnson says. “That to me is a compliment, but I don’t think it would ever be good to start a storytelling process by saying ‘let’s be unexpected, what will they never see coming?’ That’s never where you want to begin. I think, to me, unexpectedness is a byproduct of telling a story honestly. So I started with the characters and I said: ‘Where does it make sense for these characters to go in my mind?’ And that’s going to lead you in unexpected places if you let it. But hopefully, when it leads you to unexpected places, it’s the sort of thing like in life where you never could have predicted it but it seems inevitable after it happens.”

He says that there was no set-in-stone story for him to follow when he came on board, which may come as a surprise given the recent kerfuffle with Star Wars directors. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were removed from the Han Solo movie (now titled Solo: A Star Wars Story) midway through shooting because LucasFilm and Disney weren’t happy with their work, and Colin Trevorrow dropped out of Episode IX, to be replaced by JJ Abrams. 

You might think LucasFilm wants to keep tight control of their directors, but that doesn’t seem to have been Johnson’s experience. “No, there isn’t an outline somewhere on a piece of paper that says ‘this, and this, and this’. To me, that means that as we create these movies... there aren’t bases that we have to tag. We can find our way forward chapter by chapter. And it’s going to come to a satisfying conclusion, but it’s going to get there through an organic process of going forward in a way that makes sense at each step; which I think is really exciting for a movie like this.”

Benicio del Toro was, like many of the other actors, surprised by just how flexible Johnson’s approach was, especially considering it was the biggest of big budget films. “I had ideas and comments and suggestions of how I think what the story was trying to tell could be sharper... And so when I sat down with Rian, who had written the script, I was amazed that he didn’t hesitate to explore changes in the story. Or things about my character. Usually, in my experience, when I have worked with writer-directors, they protect their writing. They’re really rigid with the writing... So when I saw Rian was really open to first of all listen and then to engage in conversation and to make decisions quick, I was like: ‘Wow, is this for real? Is this like a trap?’ But he sustained that through the whole shooting.”

Star Wars is a big departure for Johnson, who isn’t used to handling films that are so special effects-heavy. The team on The Last Jedi have been keen to keep as much as they can physically real, rather than being overly reliant on digital effects. Why make a CGI creature when you can give the actors an amazing puppet to act opposite on set? Johnson admits that he found the CGI-heavy elements most tricky. “Honestly, the most technically challenging stuff are the space battles because those are the ones where, aside from the cockpits, nothing is real,” Johnson says. “The practical effects, and especially the creature workshop, was much more fun.” He tells us that, rather than letting him see the creatures as a work-in-progress, Neil Scanlan and his team would only allow Johnson to see them in full flow. “They would put on music and they would have all of the creatures interacting with actors in like a little scene... And I would walk through this scene, and that’s how I reviewed the creatures. That’s how I saw them for the first time. It was incredible.”

Kelly Marie Tran was similarly blown away by the creatures. “Everything is so real and visceral. I remember acting with an animatronic creature and getting emotional because it was so real! I was like, ‘man I think that creature might have stolen the whole film from me...’” she laughs. 

But creating the creatures wasn’t straight-forward. Johnson points out that “you’re trying to do the work of evolution in a month with a design team, it’s not easy”. He talks about designing the Fathiers, horse-like creatures that he described in the script as “graceful creatures, very wise-looking and sympathetic; kind of like horses, kind of like greyhounds”, but which, at one point in the process, ended up looking like “a koala bear with horse ears”. 

While most of the storyline and set-pieces are kept tightly under wraps, John Boyega did hint at an effects-heavy action sequence he took part in. “There’s a really a big whole chase sequence, kind of like in the mirror of what happened with Finn and Rey when they went into the Falcon. But now it’s Finn and Rose. And that whole sequence, it took two weeks to film, in which both of us were on a rig for two weeks. And that was... Yeah, that was excruciating,” he laughs. “Excruciating pain. But the excitement and the adrenaline and the kind of fear that you have to show when the cameras are rolling... It makes it really, really fun.”

Finn seems to have a lot of action lined up in The Last Jedi, as Boyega talks about “loads of Stormtroopers flying around on rigs getting blown up” and Finn’s reunion with Captain Phasma, who he left for dead in the last film. “That’s the last time he saw his ex-boss,” Boyega says of Phasma. “And unfortunately he has to go back to work in this film. And they do meet. It’s not the best reunion in the world.” Boyega describes Finn as being on the First Order’s “no-breathe list”.

“Finn is now a known kind of space terrorist,” he says. “They see him as a rogue. So that causes a lot of tension. He can’t just go through space the way he used to.”

For the returning cast, the action is something they have become used to, and Daisy Ridley was surprised by how much stronger she was this time around. “First time around, it was the first time I ever physically trained for anything,” she says. “And I thought I’d reached my limit of what I could do. And then second time around, you’re like: ‘Oh... okay, I think I can do a bit more than that.’ So physically I felt much stronger and my stamina was higher on everything.”

But while action is, and will always be, one of the main cornerstones of Star Wars, the cast frequently talk about how Johnson is doing something a little different this time round. 

Gwendoline Christie, the woman beneath Captain Phasma’s helmet, explains a little about Johnson’s approach on The Last Jedi: “Rian was creating something in terms of tone that is slightly different from what we’ve had before. It’s driven by story and by character. And relationships. That’s not to say that you won’t get everything else you want in terms of an incredible Star Wars film. But, that is where I feel the focus is. 

“What we’re demanding as an audience is more interesting and more evolved storytelling, which involves seeing people exploring humanity in a way that transcends good or evil.”

This takes us to what seems to be The Last Jedi’s key theme, which pops up again and again while we talk to the actors and director: the thin line between good and evil. Johnson sees all Star Wars movies as coming-of-age tales. 

However, while it is normally the hero who’s coming of age, The Last Jedi is slightly different. “In this story,” Johnson says, “I think Rey and Kylo are almost like a dual protagonist. You identify with Rey, but also you identify with Kylo in a way that you never did with Vader. I know I do. Because if these movies are about adolescence, Kylo is that anger of adolescence and that rejection of the parents, and wanting to screw over your dad; and that’s something that all of us, to some degree, can identify with. And the idea of there being a bad guy who you identify with as much as you do the protagonist in some way, that’s really interesting.”

The next question, of course, is who’s to say who the bad guy is? It’s a question that Daisy Ridley finds interesting. “It’s funny how Adam [Driver, who plays Kylo Ren] talks about it. He said it’s not the difference between good and bad, it’s the difference between good and right. Like his character thinks what he’s doing is right. He doesn’t think he’s the big baddie. So the lines get blurred anyway. Good people make bad decisions. Bad people make good decisions. What Rian has done is this wonderful thing of morally questioning people in a way that makes you see them in a more three dimensional way, or just in a way that you haven’t seen before.”

Boyega agrees, and it’s clearly a topic he finds fascinating. “You know, in war, you’re not always going to be on the side of the good guys,” he says. “If the good guys are getting killed off, I’d probably be like: ‘You know what? I’m going to go get a job at the Empire base and just have a peaceful life.’ So the characters are challenged right now. They have to make these decisions as to where they stand. Even General Leia and Poe Dameron. If they’re going to stand for the Resistance, it has to be for a significant reason. Rian came and made this really challenging. And that’s what I really love.”

But whatever the storyline, everyone involved still had one main responsibility: They had to make a Star Wars film. “We’ve had lots of long conversations trying to define what makes something feel ‘Star Wars’,” Johnson explains. “At the end of the day, I think you have to just trust your internal compass. And for me, because Star Wars was my life when I was a little kid, I’ve had this world in my head since I was four years old. It’s not to say that I have the right version in my head. But I have a version that is mine.”

The Force Awakens received some criticism for cleaving a little too close to the A New Hope template but Johnson recognises the pull of wanting to recreate something you loved. “It’s very interesting, the idea of the inescapable draw of nostalgia, because it’s there and it’s impossible to deny the emotional reaction that I have walking onto the interior of the Falcon,” he admits. But he’s keen not to resort to pure homage in the telling of his Star Wars movie. “I guess I’d be hesitant to use the word ‘homage’ because that makes it sound like it’s just kind of turning the crank and replaying an old tune because we all like it. But telling a story that brings new things and pushes everything forward in an interesting way, that is in this world that we all recognise, there’s something very powerful about that.”

The nostalgia and the pressure to live up to that nostalgia is something everyone involved feels. Even Benicio del Toro felt the pressure: “I better not drop the ball. I mean everybody here is on their A-game. It makes you go for it.”

Fellow Star Wars newcomer Kelly Marie Tran feels similarly strongly: “Everybody involved wants to do this franchise justice because Star Wars is its own world. And so many generations have grown up with it and so many people love it. And we want to continue to make something that’s important, that’s different, but that has all the elements that people loved from before.”

Both del Toro and Tran tell us that they were surprised and impressed by how diverse the movie is. “I feel very emotional about it,” Tran says. “Because I know what it was like growing up not seeing anyone that looks like me in movies.” Gwendoline Christie talks about the importance of a female character like Phasma who’s not only a villain, but also not remotely defined by her femininity or sexuality.

John Boyega praises the film’s ethnic diversity, but is also thrilled that the cautious Finn doesn’t fit the traditional male hero mould. “I would like to see the redefining of what a leading man is,” he says. “Why does he always have to be fearless and can take bullet wounds like it’s nothing?”

And for anyone complaining that this diversity is making a statement, or pushing an ‘agenda’, Tran makes a point that’s been there since the very birth of Star Wars. “I think it’s such a special thing that Star Wars gets to do. We are elevated out of [our] world, we’re more than just our skin and what we look like and what we associate ourselves with. We’re all just human beings trying to make the world a better place.” 

So regardless of where the characters’ moralities are going, we can still be sure that Star Wars, as a whole, is on the side of the good guys.

— SciFiNow Magazine #139

[blookmallow]

hello everyone i realized i wasnt gonna get through today without finding something to keep my brain busy so ive been designing a horror theme park in my head all day here r my ideas so far

- there would be two main theaters, a ghostface theater and a pennywise theater (except. imagine they have creative names, ) 

- ghostface theater is a 3D show theater modeled in the like NOW SHOWING: STAB (FILMED IN STABOVISION) tacky retro horror aesthetic from the second movie 

it would show a park-exclusive Scream 3D short, and also would sometimes be used for upcoming horror sneak previews and other shows, along with indie horror spotlights 

sometimes a ghostface park character would sneak in among the guests and sit next to you (all the main slashers would be around as characters to do autographs and pictures and stuff but i think it would b fun for them to also like. peek out of windows or sneak into shows so you never know where they’re gonna be) 

- ghostface also gets a corresponding gift shop for Scream as well as just all things retro horror, vintage posters, art stuff made from horror vhs tapes like these, stuff like that

- the pennywise theater is a circus tent that houses a stage show, decorated with vintage style PENNYWISE THE DANCING CLOWN posters, old dusty flickery carnival lights, creepy pennywise fortune teller machines, etc 

the stage show features highly elaborate puppetry culminating in a HUGE deadlights pennywise about to consume the audience until the Losers appear at the last second to vanquish him, encouraging the audience to shout him down with them to help defeat him 

- also has a babadook photo spot made to look like the pop up illustrations (and sometimes a babadook character actor visits for pictures) 

- nearby there’d be a midway with carnival games, maybe those balloon squirter clown games with classic pennywise, something for Us maybe a mirror maze or something. a sandwich shop called The Sand Witch

- im neglecting most of the major slashers bc i dont really care about them lmfao maybe freddy kreuger gets a funhouse or something. all i remember about him is the wiggly arms and the blood geyser thing 

- id want to do themed outfits for workers like disney where like everyone in the pennywise area are circus performers and scary clowns, some are vampires some are zombies etc 

- i cant think of what to do with childs play, id absolutely want to have a darkride for something but i cant think what would translate best. it’d be cool to have like an interactive animatronic chucky somewhere, like you can ask him questions and stuff (however that roz animatronic and california adventure works, like how she comments on specific guests on the way by so clearly someone’s controlling it but it still sounds like her) 

- i dont generally care about fnaf at all but i think it’d be great as a real freddy fazbear pizza place with the animatronics performing “normally” (but slightly Wrong. big inspiration from these voice acting clips where they’re just a little glitchy and sometimes its like ‘wait what did he just say’) but at certain times there would be staged “glitches” where the robots suddenly go rogue and like. the lights go out or a curtain falls when its “not supposed to” or something and one of the animatronics DISAPPEARS!! and its like “uhhh NOT TO WORRY, FOLKS, EVERYTHING’S ABSOLUTELY FINE...I...uh...[stage whispering into a walkie talkie] where is he. FIND that bear, NOW-” [freddy’s little song starts and you see his face flickering in a window right behind them]

maybe have actors planted as “guests” who get dragged off 

- then theres the shining’s Overlook Hotel and the Bates Motel and my first thought was to do some kind of walkthrough haunted house attraction in the overlook but maybe those are better suited to just being themed actual hotels connected to the park. definitely want the overlook hedge maze though

- anyway also a graveyard garden ft a garden of poisonous plants and a garden of carnivorous plants complete with an animatronic audrey II and other monster plants but also would have real poisonous/carnivorous plants as well 

- and a little witch apothecary shop in there with like. witchy themed candles, teas, bath stuff, etc. an Oddities Emporium somewhere that has weird morbid collectibles from around the world, bones and preserved jar specimens and stuff. some things would be like real collectors items or intricate reconstructions some would be like, models/soap that looks like an alien head in a jar/etc 

- there would be a Dracula’s Castle attraction designed like a classic haunted house ride ft the universal monsters, and a corresponding vampire themed fine dining restaurant with live music at night (or. un-live) 

- maybe some kind of mad science lab themed bar with drinks in test tubes and beakers and stuff

- jigsaw escape room challenge themed for Saw but obviously not ever putting guests in any real danger, im trying to think of how you could recreate the. like. it’s like an escape room puzzle, but when you figure out the answer there’s that moment of “oh fuck. oh god fucking fuck no” when you realize what you have to do, how could you recreate that in a fictional/for-fun setting where the guests know they aren’t really in danger and you’re not actually putting anyone at risk. like maybe gross but safe challenges. i dont know. maybe some kind of system where if you “die” you’re out of the game and there’s some prize if you “survive” to the end so someone might have to “sacrifice” themself but no one’s actually getting hurt 

it’s like how do you balance “you wanna scare people” with “you want them to understand they are in fact actually safe” 

- a special effects workshop that showcases some behind the scenes makeup and practical effects, makeup artists doing horror face paint/etc for guests

- a ghostbusters themed blaster ride (the ones where you shoot targets n get points) (we have ‘ghost blasters’ at the boardwalk here lmao im not gonna pretend that wasnt where i got this idea. look up ‘sally corp ghost blasters’ if you’re interested in that) 

- i really want to say ‘and a Mrs. Lovett’s Meat Pies restaurant’ but would that be Too gross. like obviously it wouldn’t be a Real Cannibalism Restaurant lmao but would the theming put people off too much 

anyway thats what i got hire me to design your theme park i have no experience and no capability of actually realizing any of this but boy do i have ideas 

[ladystylestores]

TV writers, like all of us, are developing a love-hate relationship with Zoom

Enlarge / ATX TV’s panel on writers’ room Zooms: From L to R, top row: IndieWire’s Ben Travers (moderator), Sera Gamble (Netflix’s You), Dan Goor (Brooklyn Nine-Nine). Bottom row: Melinda Hsu Taylor (Nancy Drew) and Beth Schwartz (Sweettooth) 

Every week now seems to bring news of another Hollywood project being delayed. Sometimes this is because you can’t make money in an empty theater, but it’s just as often due to production halts in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. While most of that industry hits pause for now, one crucial segment has not—the writers. Like many of us, they’ve instead become intimately familiar with the inner workings of on-the-job Zoom calls.

“I kind of feel for every aspiring TV writer at home right now due to the pandemic,” said Sera Gamble, showrunner of Netflix’s You (formerly of Supernatural and The Magicians), during this year’s online-only edition of the ATX TV Festival. “They’re trying to write while doing a bunch of other stuff; well, congrats, you’re now in showrunner training. I’ve frequently had to sit down in the past and rewrite a script in a moment that felt like a severe crisis, and sometimes it was a severe crisis. But it feels like that times 10. I have to reset expectations every morning: I wake up, wait a minute before checking my phone, check in with loved ones, and then take the problems of the day as they come… [I tell my writers] ‘You can’t solve what you can’t solve, so what can we get done in the next hour?'”

For this late-addition panel to this year’s ATX TV Festival, Gamble (virtually) joined Dan Goor (Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Parks and Rec), Melinda Hsu Taylor (Nancy Drew, Lost), and Beth Schwartz (Sweet Tooth, Arrow) to take streamers “Inside the Writers (Zoom) Room.” For some, the change came abruptly. Hsu Taylor and her staff had nearly completed both writing and production on the latest season of Nancy Drew when suddenly they had to convert everything to be remote-friendly (she credits doing a Zoom birthday for her son around that time for helping her grasp the basic logistics and experience). Other writers started wholesale in a digital world, like the staff of Brooklyn Nine-Nine. They were five weeks into story-breaking at the time of this panel and hadn’t been together in-person at all while working on the upcoming season eight.

No one had a choice, of course. As COVID-19 continues to surge in the United States—the country passed the 2-million-case mark within the last two weeks—all walks of life must adjust. And when any in-person interactions come with potentially life-threatening risk for the foreseeable future, suddenly Zoom calls sound downright preferable.

“Right when we went home, there was a little bit of a relief,” Gamble said. “We were social distancing in two separate rooms for weeks before we went home just so people could have six to 10 feet between them. At one point, I asked a writer’s assistant to track how often ‘coronavirus’ was said—it was every two minutes. So at least if we went home, we’d be able to work.”

The work

Logistically, certain things have been trickier for TV writers in this shared Zoom existence. Larger writers’ rooms pushing 10 people or more may have difficulty translating into a single Zoom chat, where not talking over each other and reading the room become harder. So, You and Brooklyn Nine-Nine now opt to have multiple, smaller Zoom calls focused on more narrowly defined tasks, and only the showrunner will hop between conversations. That magic writers often like to refer to—the creative spark, the inner-staff interactions where a lunch convo might solve a plot problem later that afternoon—has also proven harder to recreate in these digital work spaces.

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“It’s more efficient, but it is weird and less fun,” Goor said. “There’s less joking around. We did every possible Zoom joke we could do that first week—changed all the backgrounds, mine was my mom’s water colors. We did background videos of each other… so I guess we found new ways to waste time, now that I think about… But it’s nice to feel a reaction to a pitch, and it’s much harder to do that over Zoom. I find myself talking myself out of story ideas.”

Early on at least, Zoom has also surprised writers with a few positive benefits. In writers’ rooms where some staffers have been with a show much longer than others, Zoom may take away some unspoken hierarchical barriers and put everyone on equal footing. “There’s something democratizing about these squares that are always present and equally sized,” Goor said. “For new people, it might be easier to speak up now. ‘Oh, and April, what do you have to say about this?'” Zoom also inherently leads to less workday interruption: fewer bathroom breaks, less losing the room to endless joke-offs, and skipping longer lunch routines like the Brooklyn Nine-Nine staff’s elaborate Wheel of Fortune-style approach to selecting takeout.

But perhaps the biggest change? The pandemic has given everyone in the writers’ room a more holistic perspective on life—episode four of season whatever no longer gets to be anyone’s most important thing. Add it all up, and many writers now have a much more traditional work day.

“Comedy hours are usually bad, and they’ve become so much better,” Goor said, noting how he now typically works 10am to 12:30pm, takes lunch, and resumes from 1:30p to 5:30p. “Routinely for the first few seasons, we’d eat dinner [in the writers’ room] and be there till 8pm or 10pm or 11pm for a table read. We’ve adjusted. It’s partly because it’s impossible to look at Zoom for that long, but it’s partly so people can be with their families, be healthy, and experience life.”

Focusing at home versus when you’re physically in a space for a specific task can be a new challenge, but these TV writers continue to find approaches that work for individual groups. Hsu Taylor and the Nancy Drew staff start each session with a three-minute meditation to intentionally tell their minds that work time has begun. “I know some people are checking their email because I hear clicking,” she said. “But I think most like this. ‘OK, I’m doing this now.’ I’m telling my mind and body to be here for the next few hours.” And some former tasks that would force writers to split their attention now don’t exist, like having to be on set for script tweaks during an episode you may have written.

“With production being down,” Schwartz said, “you can really focus on the scripts instead of being all over the place.”

Welcome to the nerdiest, most-inside-baseball TV event this side of network upfronts. (Held in downtown Austin most years, like in 2017 when FX’s Fargo headlined)

Nathan Mattise

Years later, this ATX TV installation still represents the best use case we’ve seen for those ol’ B&W and tiny TVs.

Nathan Mattise

The end product

Whether good or bad, our new reality has absolutely already impacted what we’ll eventually see on screen. You, for instance, centers on a bookstore manager creepily obsessed with an aspiring young writer. To put it succinctly, the show frequently has characters at least kissing. But for the upcoming season three, that may be one aspect needing to change, no questions asked.

“We can’t put people in danger—TV shows aren’t worth that,” said Gamble. “So we’ll change what we can and keep an eye on the lines we don’t want to cross. We won’t do the show and have it be shitty because there was a pandemic. We’ll be measured and try to maintain the spirits of the show. But it’s a conversation, scene by scene by scene.”

The COVID-19 pandemic necessitates shifts in logistics, too. Where you can film and who can you film obviously feeds into what scenes a writing staff can write. The writers noted productions in Canada and New Zealand, like Nancy Drew and Sweet Tooth, will happen first since those countries have navigated COVID-19 better than the US. And with mandated quarantine for travelers to those places, local actors could have a leg up for roles, too.

For Goor and the Brooklyn Nine-Nine team, new logistical concerns start with babies. No explicit spoilers, but two characters had one last season, and the team suddenly has to look at animatronics and maybe less overall on-screen infant time (“There’s going to be a run on those bespoke fake babies,” Gamble joked).

“It’s hard, because we’re doing stories on the work-life balance for these people. This goes in so many different directions and we still don’t know where [the pandemic] is going, so it’s hard to write for it,” Goor said. “Is it safe to shoot outside? Originally, we wanted everything to be a bottle episode, so we can shoot on the stages, [and] it’ll be controlled. But now, is it better to do all exteriors? Because it seems like it’s healthier and safer for people. How many extras can you have? Can you use kids? And since there will be waves of productions, with movies and pilots starting, too, availability for guest cast will be a lot harder. Five-episode guest-star arcs are now harder.”

All these decisions ultimately bleed into the business of TV, too. For writers, maybe the option of participating in a writer’s room remotely suddenly becomes more commonplace, democratizing the career for people outside of NYC and LA (and those cities’ sky-high rents). And not having to commute regularly or be in one physical space would mean writers’ rooms could welcome writers with physical disabilities more easily, thus bringing wider perspectives to a host of shows.

“I think there’s a reason we do [in-person writers’ rooms], and it’s not just to spend studio money on all that rent—it’s good for creativity and production,” says Gamble. “But it will be easier to say, ‘We should just meet on Zoom on some days.’ And for the disabled community, if an agent were to call and pitch me somebody and explain why someone could rarely or never be on set, well, I know that works now. If this all leads to a crop of great writers breaking into the business, that excites me.”

ATX TV Festival 2020 continues to post its panels on YouTube throughout June (including a panel with the staff of The Mandalorian available this weekend). The entire discussion “Inside the Writers (Zoom) Room” is available below.

You can watch all of ATX TV’s “Inside the Writers (Zoom) Room” panel on-demand now.

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[justanothercinemaniac]

Epic Movie (Re)Watch #187 - Jaws

Spoilers Below

Have I seen it before: Yes

Did I like it then: Yes.

Do I remember it: Yes.

Did I see it in theaters: Yes.

Was it a movie I saw since August 22nd, 2009: Yes. #446

Format: Blu-ray

0) This is one of my favorite films of all time, one I love so much and is so important to me it is practically a part of my DNA. This recap will reflect that.

1) This film gets off to an INCREDIBLE start for within literally the first minute two key elects are established: the phenomenal use of point of view shots and John Williams’ iconic score.

2) The first kill.

Susan Blackline’s performance is absolute incredible as Chrissie Watkins. The screams of terror she gives and the horrific pain across her face are gut wrenchingly visceral. To get the effect that she was being pulled across the screen the filmmakers hooked her up to a rig underwater which would pull her, creating a violent effect which makes an impression on the audience. Everything in the few seconds of terror is wildly strong, but it is made even more powerful when juxtaposed against the eerie and haunting silence after Chrissie is pulled under the water.

3) Roy Scheider as Chief Brody.

Director Steven Spielberg wanted to cast someone who would represent an average joe. Charlton Heston showed interest in the part but Spielberg knew if he cast the acclaimed actor then the shark wouldn’t stand a fighting chance. Scheider is not Heston, he’s not some big shot action star with glamorous looks. He looks like that guy you’d meet at a bar. You don’t see an actor when you look at Brody. You don’t see Scheider struggling with lines or with motivations. You only see Brody, the man who cares for his family and his town. The man who is very much defined by his fear of the water. Scheider plays Brody with absolute honesty, heart, and humanity, making him the perfect protagonist to follow along in this film.

4) Brody’s walk through town really helps to establish Amity as a character. Because that is exactly what the town is: a character. As important as Brody, the shark, or Quint is the town of Amity. You overhear bits of conversation, you are able to start identifying its citizens and see what makes them unique. You understand their interests, their priorities, their fears. All of it helps define Amity as a character which I think is great.

5) Murray Hamilton as Mayor Larry Vaughn.

Hamilton plays the spineless politician well, but not without later empathy. The trick to Vaughn is he can’t come across as senseless, just thoughtless. You understand his motivations, you understand that he thinks he’s actually doing what is best for the town. But it is motivated by greed and money which is placed over the importance of human life. If Vaughn were a good mayor he’d be more concerned with the lives of his citizens as opposed to their wallets.

6) This scene on the beach is what I like to refer to as, “the calm before the storm.” (The “storm” hits at three minutes thirteen seconds if you decide to watch.)

By establishing Brody as the protagonist and having the audience see things the way he does, there is an intense tension to the scene. A cloying, piercing, subtle, and understand tension. This is born out of skilled cinematography (I still can't believe some of the tricks they used in this scene), editing, pacing, and again the fact we’re pretty much seeing things as Brody does. It speaks to something the film does incredibly well: there is always tension (via practically perfect pacing) until the very end. Something can always go wrong.

7) This line has unexpectedly become one of the most memorable from the film, for some unique reasons.

Bad Hat Harry is the production company of director Bryan Singer who named it after this line.

8) According to IMDb:

Several decades after the release of Jaws (1975), Lee Fierro, who played Mrs. Kintner, walked into a seafood restaurant and noticed that the menu had an "Alex Kintner Sandwich." She commented that she had played his mother so many years ago; the owner of the restaurant ran out to meet her, and he was none other than Jeffrey Voorhees, who had played her son. They had not seen each other since the original movie shoot.

9) This image is now referred to as the Jaws shot when in actuality it is the reverse Vertigo shot.

It comes from tracking the camera forward and zooming out. There’s a shot in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo which moves the camera backward while zooming in. Either way, it is an effective and unsettling visual which let’s you know something is up.

10) Quint’s intro is incredibly telling of his character.

His eccentric behavior is very telling of how sort of crazed he is, while his defining confidence/arrogance is also very defining. The man is able to easily capture the attention of an entire room full of people as well as the audience, bringing them all to silence.

11) Roy Scheider and Lorraine Gary have a very nice chemistry with each other. It’s loving, trusting, you can tell they really care for each other and how long they’ve ben with each other. It gets you invested in their relationship and - by extension - Brody’s family.

12) Horror films usually need to have some sort of sense of humor about them.

Ellen Brody [after she told Brody that their son could sit in his boat since it’s just at the dock, but then she sees a picture of a shark tearing up a boat]: “Michael! You heard your father! Out of the boat NOW!”

13) The scene with the two fishermen trying to catch the shark COULD be pointless but it fits perfectly in the film’s pacing. It also ups the stakes considerably, showing off just how strong the shark is. It’s also our first like at clumsiness leading to tension. The fisherman is slipping as he tries to get out of the water, he can’t get his foot up which is VERY real and very frightening as the audience expects/hopes he’ll get up time and time again.

13.1) Before I forget: the filmmakers named the animatronic shark Bruce on the set. This was because Steven Spielberg’s lawyer at the time was also named Bruce. Later, when Finding Nemo needed to name it’s lead shark, they decided to name it Bruce after this little bit of trivia.

14) Richard Dreyfus as Matt Hooper.

Dreyfus rounds out the trio of Brody, Quint, and Hooper nicely. You are able to see his intelligence and passion in every moment of screen time, as well as a wonderfully snarky sense of humor. He is confident in himself but not arrogant like Quint, commanding many of the scenes he’s in. The first truly great showcase of Dreyfus’ acting talent comes from when he is examining the remains of Chrissie Watkins. He is able to make the audience feel just as gut wrenchingly sick as he is which is not an easy feat. This film is only as great as it is in part because of its excellent cast, and Richard Dreyfus is no exception.

15) Mrs. Kintner’s confrontation.

The pain shown off by actress Lee Fierro is all too powerful and honest. Parents are not meant to bury their children and yet she has had her son die in one of the most awful ways imaginable. Her confrontation with Brody is heartbreaking and wonderful because of this honesty, making it one of the (if not the) saddest moments in the film.

15.1) Fun fact: Mrs. Kintner’s slap across Brody’s face was real and had to be done with every take. I believe Roy Scheider said it was difficult acting like the slap surprised him after a while.

16) The son where Brody’s son mimics his father at the dinner table is an excellent example of what helps this film transcend the standard horror movie: it has an incredible amount of humanity. You get to know the people of the town too the members of Brody’s family. Their fear is all too real, but there are these quiet moments. Moments of sympathy, of connection, of pure character that just get you more invested in everyone. And the more invested you are in Brody’s family, the higher the stakes become for the audience.

This trend of humanity continues in the following dinner conversation between Hooper and Ellen Brody, where Hooper’s backstory is flawlessly and organically told within the context of the scene and Brody’s fear of water is further developed. These aren’t tropes, it’s not the oversexed (and sexist stereotype of a woman) blonde who dies first. It’s people. Normal, every day people who die. THAT’S what makes the film so scary. THAT’S what makes its heart so pure. It’s humanity is pure.

17) I do love the nice bits of humor in this film, which are usually born out of character interaction.

Brody [after Hooper says they need to look for the shark]: “Yeah, but I’m not drunk enough to go out on the water!”

Hooper: “Yes you are.”

Brody: “No I’m not.”

Hooper: “Yes you are.”

Brody: “I can’t do that.”

Hooper: “Yes you can.”

18) Hooper’s wealth is interesting, because occasionally character’s born into high privilege are shown as dicks and douche bags. But not Hooper. Hooper is intelligent, he doesn’t expect handouts, and yes he takes advantage of the opportunities he has but he doesn’t belittle people without those opportunities. His later outrage at Quint comes from Quint’s judgment of Hooper, not from Hooper’s judgment of Quint’s social status. It kind of all helps make the character unique.

19) Hooper’s dive.

This was actually reshoot in Steven Spielberg’s pool. As the director explains it, after a test screening he got, “greedy,” for one more good jump scare and so redid this scene to accommodate  that. Personally I think the director succeeded. The tension is born out of slowing down the pacing not speeding it up, while I jump every time Ben Gardner’s head just comes floating out of the boat because you are NOT expecting it. I think it’s the scariest moment in the entire film and I love it for that.

20) Mayor Vaughn’s total dismissal of the FACT that the shark is a threat, going so far as to prioritize harmless graffiti instead of something which has killed three people, is what makes him not only ignorant but negligent. He’s being a coward in his decision, because if he admits the shark is as big a problem as it is then he’ll ruin the summer. He even goes so far as to insult Hooper’s intelligence, that of a man who literally studies sharks for a living. It’s the moment the audience truly hates him the most.

21) The Fourth of July.

If you remember note #6 (the calm before the storm), what I talked about there applies here. But amplified tenfold. The look of total terror on the faces of the first family to enter the water relates to EXACTLY what the audience feels. You know this is not going to go well, you know something is lurking under the water we can’t see, and it makes the tension all the greater.

22) We as the audience are trained to ALWAYS attribute POV shots with the shark, meaning the use of POV before we see the false fin makes us believe that fin IS the shark. But we know something is off because there is one key element missing: music. We never get the shark’s POV without John Williams tension filled score, so to have the former without the latter speaks to some form of deception in the back of our minds. And then when the shark DOES attack, when it is in the pond, the music returns.

23) The death of Michael’s boat instructor is the first slight glimpse we get of the shark but it’s so submerged in water it’s barely anything. But it speaks to the idea that with each kill you see the shark more and more.

24) This line is wildly powerful in reminding the audience of Mayor Vaughn’s humanity.

Vaughn: “Martin, my kids were on that beach too.”

25) Outside of his introduction, I have yet to really talk about Robert Shaw as Quint.

Shaw is able to play Quint as an aggressive jackass and alcoholic quite well (unfortunately as the result of some “method acting” on Shaw’s part). He has this wonderfully tense rivalry with Hooper (again, through some “method acting” with Richard Dreyfus) and dominates every scene he’s in. Shaw commands the screen, making sure you pay attention to him at all times. This helps make Quint a perfect standout character in the film and absolutely amazing.

26) According to IMDb:

Robert Shaw ad-libbed the "Here lies the body of Mary Lee" line after director Steven Spielberg prompted him to give Brody's wife (on the dock) a hard time. Asked later where he quoted it from, as it would require getting a license and release from the author to be used in the film, Shaw said that was unlikely, as it was off an old grave marker in Ireland.

27) The dynamic the trio has on the boat while hunting the shark is incredible.

It is RIPE with conflict, with Hooper and Quint already having a rich rivalry and Brody not exactly the most patient with their bullshit. Story is conflict and that is what makes it interesting. It’s never boring when they’re on the boat, they’re always butting heads and are clearly tense because of the shark their hunting. All in all, it’s an important dynamic that helps make the film great.

28) THE SHARK IS REVEALED!!!

Roy Scheider improvised this now iconic line:

Much like Ben Gardner’s head, the shark jumps out at the rare time when you’ve let your guard down. There’s no build up to it, there’s no waiting for it to happen, it just freaking appears out of nowhere and the look Brody has on his face when he sees it is comparable to how the audience feels: one of absolute terror. And as soon as the shark shows itself, you know shit just got real. The ensuing encounter with the shark is beautifully tense and paced, taking hold of you and never letting go. It’s totally amazing.

29) Steven Spielberg makes his only cameo ever in a film he directed as a voice on the radio calling for Brody and talking with Quint.

30) Hooper and Quint comparing their scars is further excellence on the film’s part of showing off humanity. It’s not like they study sharks at a zoo or in a closed environment. It’s real, it’s dangerous, their lives leave scars on their body as well as their mind. As you’ll see next.

31) The USS Indianapolis.

I get chills every time I watch this scene, holy shit. The writing of the USS Indianapolis scene - as I remember from a documentary on this film - was the result of pure collaboration. Almost everyone contributed a bit to the monologue, from the writers to actual survivors to Roy Scheider even. And it’s absolutely incredible. Robert Shaw is captivating, nailing the speech in an extended shot. The audience is never bored by the story and it is INCREDIBLY important to understanding Shaw’s character (even though he botched it the first time by trying to actually get drunk and do it). In a film filled with incredible actions and scares, this is by far my favorite moment and I think the strongest few minutes in the film. Just…wow.

32) Following the Indianapolis story with a shark attack helps support the film’s perfect pacing. There’s no filler in between. You go from one captivating moment to the next with total smoothness. It’s great.

33) The shooting star in this film was an accident but now a Steven Spielberg trademark.

34) So the shark was originally in much more of this film. The big reason Steven Spielberg and the other filmmakers used the phenomenal device of point of view shot was simply because the damn animatronic was not working. This meant that they could use it very limitedly but damn if it isn’t just placed in the perfect moments for the rest of the film.

35) I mentioned in note #12 that little moments of clumsiness help drum up the tension. At no moment is that more true than when Brody very momentarily squeezes Hooper against the stern of the ship and he has to climb out, almost slipping in the water in the process. It’s very short but VERY memorable.

36) It is Quint’s hubris which almost gets them killed, by pushing his boat too far and getting it stranded in the sea with the shark. It is this literally fatal mistake which gets the captain to finally put his ego aside and trust Hooper’s skills.

37) Well, if this isn’t VERY telling of the intense fear Hooper has before going down in the shark cage I don’t know what is.

Hooper [trying to clean his goggles]: “I’m out of spit.”

38) The shark cage.

This is another moment of wonderful tension in the film and it comes from SLOWING DOWN THE PACING. We know that the shark is down there and the longer we wait the higher the tension gets. And then it shows up almost out of the blue, knocking into the cage and almost killing Hooper. Almost being the key word, although that wasn’t always the case.

Originally Hooper was meant to die as he did in the source material (where he had an affair with Brody’s wife) and the only reason he survived in this film was because of good footage. To get film of the shark underwater with the cage, the filmmakers had a second unit out in the ocean with a miniature shark cage and a little person in it posing as Hooper (so that way the shark would seem bigger in comparison). One day Spielberg gets a call from this unit and hears that they got the most incredible footage they’d ever seen of the shark destroying the cage and the director asks if the little person was in the shark cage. He wasn’t. The footage was too good not to use so they let Hooper live!

39) Quint’s death continues the film’s trend of very real mistakes drumming up tension and having an organic result (slipping on the watery deck, his hand getting crushed by a canister so he falls into the shark’s mouth, etc.). And the look on his face as he dies is uncomfortable, horrific, and amazingly acted.

39.1) Quint's name comes from the Latin word for "fifth". Quint is the fifth person killed by the shark. That is all.

40) The final killing of the shark is very much cause and effect, Brody is clearly making this up as he goes and that is where some of the tension comes from. According to IMDb, however:

Peter Benchley (author of the original novel) was not happy with Steven Spielberg's ending where the shark is killed when a compressed air tank explodes in its mouth, claiming it was unrealistic. Spielberg defended himself by saying he will have held his audiences' attention for two hours and they would believe anything in the end no matter how unrealistic or unbelievable the ending really was. Spielberg even thought of an ending where after the shark is blown up, Brody would look up to see several shark fins.

41) You want to know why this film is perfectly paced? Because as soon as the shark dies all tension is gone, meaning that it was literally the moment of greatest tension. There is such an incredible sense of relief we feel as the audience upon it blowing up that is shared by the character’s. It makes Jaws more than a storytelling experience but also an emotional one as well.

Jaws is a masterpiece of cinema. Perfectly paced, acted, with an amazing sense of adventure and horror, it is absolutely incredible. The film takes hold of you and never lets go. Every second is interesting. Every moment is finely acted. Every decision is wonderful. It is just an amazing film and everyone needs to see it!

[deathnotefilms]

Director Adam Wingard talks a bit about creating Ryuk for the film.

Ryuk had an actor onset during filming, which was edited in post-production to include CGI effects and have Willem Dafoe voice-over the lines.

Quotes from Wingard about Ryuk’s development:

The starting point, for me, is that there were pre-existing, live-action adaptations of Death Note, and in those adaptations, the way they approach Ryuk was in a fully-CGI kind of way. That was something that I wanted to avoid. I wanted to bring him to life in a way that we'd never seen before, which meant getting something on set as much as possible.

My original instinct was, 'Let's create a big puppet.' Ryuk is this 8-foot-tall being. There's really no one who can be that tall. So we thought we'd actually just build something and actually have it on set in an old-school way. We actually went down that road. We had a prototype, animatronic version of Ryuk. But it only got us so far, so we kind of scrapped that. We figured we'd take a 7-foot-tall actor, named Jason Liles, put him in the suit... for most of the shots, we expanded in the movie anyway, just to give the actor Ryuk's height and size.

What we did was basically cut out the on-set creature's face and had Jason wear these red LED glasses, so at least we could see a representation of his glowing eyes, knowing we were going to replace that later with some CGI, and then voice it over with Willem. On set, Jason Liles is basically doing all of the mannerisms of Ryuk. He's speaking the lines to the actors, so that they're actually working off of somebody. They're not just working off of nothing. That really helps their performances. And ultimately, a character like this, what really brings it to life is how other people interact with it.

For me, it was really important that [Dafoe] felt free to be able to try a lot of different things, and give it a different attitude, depending on how he felt in the moment. And it really came together very quickly. Ultimately, that character really starts from the laugh and works its way up from there. It almost starts at the laugh, you know what I mean? Once we heard the laugh for the first time, we were all in.

I also should mention one thing. It wasn't just a straight ADR session with Dafoe. We actually did a full motion-capture session with him, so that his face is absolutely Ryuk's face. The motion of the CGI character is Willem Dafoe, so it is his performance that you are seeing on screen.