#is aiming to tell some of them. The new eight-episode series is an adaptation of author Emily Spivack’s best-selling book of the Praying fo

[maximumwobblerbanditdonut]

Of the three European dramas so far remade for UK television by Eagle Eye Drama – the production company set up by the team behind streaming service Walter Presents – Belgian director Dries Vos has worked on two.

The first was Professor T, with Vos directing 12 episodes over its first two seasons. Debuting in 2021, the ITV series is based on the Belgian show of the same name and stars Ben Miller as a university criminologist with obsessive-compulsive disorder who assists the police in solving crimes.

Last year then saw the release of Channel 4 drama Suspect, an adaptation of Danish series Forhøret. It stars James Nesbitt as a detective retracing the final days of his murdered daughter to find out what happened.

Vos directed all eight episodes of Suspect, which has been recommissioned for a second season, and he has now directed all six parts of The Couple Next Door, the latest Eagle Eye adaptation, again for Channel 4.

A dark, psychological and emotionally charged thriller written by David Allison (Bedlam, Marcella), the series is based on Dutch drama New Neighbours and aims to explore the claustrophobia of living in suburbia, where you never quite know what goes on behind closed doors.

Eleanor Tomlinson and Alfred Enoch star as Evie and Pete, who move into a new house in an upscale neighbourhood and quickly befriend their neighbours, traffic cop Danny (Sam Heughan) and his yoga instructor wife Becka (Jessica De Gouw). The two couples then becoming increasingly close until events on one fateful night change all their lives forever.

In Belgium, Vos is known for comedy series and crime dramas such as Women of the Night and De Dag (The Day), which dramatised the events surrounding a bank robbery from the point of view of both the police and the robbers.

“But I’ve always wanted to do some kind of sexy thriller,” the director tells DQ. “I’ve always done these more heist stories like De Dag, for instance, but this was completely different. Eagle Eye talked about it in September 2022, when they had two scripts, and I started reading it and immediately felt it could be something. We then started working on it first at a script level, of course, and then we started shooting at the end of March this year.”

Having worked on remakes in the past, Vos adopted the same approach for The Couple Next Door that he used when working on Professor T and Suspect, which is to ignore the fact it is based on another series and to treat it as if it has been created from scratch.

“I never watch the original series. I never read anything about it,” he says. “For me, it’s just the same as if it’s a new script. Otherwise, you’re in danger of stealing stuff.

“If all this influence comes my way, I might maybe try to change my vision and I just want to be clear, so I always start by trying to search for some pictures, some stuff from other movies, some references. I had some pictures that I showed the writer – there were some stills from a movie I love with some koi carp, and we ended up writing some scenes with koi. We influenced each other the whole time. But if you watch the original series then you’re too attached to what you see. That’s not always helpful.”

With international dramas more accessible to viewers than ever – and Walter Presents doing as much as any other streamer to take local-language dramas around the world – remakes may seem unnecessary. But Vos still sees value in adaptations, believing the same story can evolve through the work of new storytellers in front of and behind the camera.

“It’s easily said, ‘Oh, it’s a remake,’ but you always try to invent it from scratch,” he says. “It’s the way you approach it visually [as a director] but also the way you’re directing those actors. They bring some other stuff with them as well. A writer brings some other stuff, so it’s good if you get the freedom to make it your own.

“If you don’t have that freedom and people just want to see the same as the original, there’s no point making a remake. It’s always got to be filtered through the eyes of a director or through the eyes of a writer so it’s got another perspective than the original.”

The Couple Next Door doesn’t just stand apart from the series it is inspired by, but from anything else Vos has directed in the past. “You evolve as a director, and you’re influenced by things you see and things you think are cool,” he says. “But what I always try to do is ask, ‘What is this show?’ What does this show need?’

“For instance, I like to play with genres, so this could be a romantic movie but also a fairytale or have some thriller elements, and I put them all in a box and shake it a little bit. Then I put my personality in it and there’s something new or a new visual language, or just the way you’re blocking actors or their language is different or whatever. There are so many parameters you can play with. You can still just remake something on a shot-by-shot basis, but what’s the point of it all?”

Taking a cue from De Dag, a key visual trick Vos uses for The Couple Next Door is the multiple perspectives at play as characters constantly watch each other. And it’s not just Evie, Pete, Danny and Becka, but also another neighbour, Alan (Hugh Dennis), who seems to have a particular interest in Becka.

“It’s a story about lots of people. My first instinct was like, ‘Ah, this is a story about Evie.’ But if you dig into it, it evolves a little bit more towards a story about Danny and Becka as well because they have problems in their relationship,” the director explains. “There is also some stuff happening with Pete and Evie at the same time, and so it evolves by having those two couples. In the first episode, we focus more on Evie but then some episodes shift a little bit more towards Alan. I always like to have more perspectives on the same story.

“Those perspective changes are really interesting to play with narratively, but also visually. It’s about the ensemble. When you finish episode six, you will have a complete storyline for everybody.”

The filming locations also added to the claustrophobic atmosphere. Location scouts discovered a cul-de-sac in the Netherlands with homes that create a suitably heightened atmosphere owing to the fact they look like they belong in American suburbia. Filming also took place in Leeds and in Belgium.

“It’s a completely strange setup but that’s why I love it,” Vos says of the exteriors location. “So having that and also having people watching through curtains and watching each other, that’s a cool thing to play with.

“It’s also a bit soapy – it’s got some soapy elements in there. But the series evolves to something completely different and completely dark by the end.”

Throughout the course of the series, it’s safe to say not everything goes to plan for the two couples, as Evie and Danny become drawn to each other over the course of the first episode. Vos used the camera to demonstrate the distances between characters, sometimes starting off distant and drawing closer, and on other occasions becoming more separated.

Of course, the actors are key to getting the right chemistry for the series, particularly Tomlinson and Heughan. Vos jokes that he just says “action… and then stuff happens,” but he also spent time with the actors to break down their characters and explain what he wanted from them.

“They went out for dinner, and there’s got to be a minimum level of trust,” he says of Tomlinson and Heughan. “It’s very interesting to see, but what I was doing was always on a gut level. You don’t have a lot of time because there are a lot of stress factors during shooting, so sometimes you have to decide on the spot.”

The challenges on the show didn’t just come down to finding the right locations to create the drama’s pristine appearance – further exemplifying the show’s theme that not everything is as it appears. In particular, “just finding the right tone was the biggest one for this series,” the director reveals, “I think it works and hopefully an audience will think the same.”

The right tone, one that blends psychological thrills with charged emotion, was still being sought on the last day of filming, and continued into the editing process.

“On the last day we were still like, ‘But what is it?’ Visually we found it while we were shooting but, still, story-wise, it’s only when it’s coming together in the edit that you get that feeling,” he says. “I also spent a year searching for the right music, because music on this series makes a difference. Music can change so much.

“Then when we were at a screening, Hugh Dennis said to me, ‘You found it.’”

Audiences can judge for themselves when The Couple Next Door launches on Channel 4 on Monday. It will also air on Starz in the US and Canada in 2024, with Beta Film distributing the drama internationally.

Can Vos envisage returning for a second season? “Let’s see how it evolves, and if people love it, let’s go for a second series,” he says. “But if it’s a flop or people hate it, then it’s over. Let’s just see what happens in the next few weeks.”

tagged in: Channel 4, Dries Vos, Eagle Eye Drama, The Couple Next Door

🤔 The director @driesvos pushed hard if his perception was a romance narrative in a swinger relationship. If his work has anything, taking this from this and that from that and mixing them with copycat moments from films, as we saw in “The Notebook”.

This reminds Quentin Tarantino’s words once said, “I steal from every single movie ever made”. But a shared bonding experience in a lusciously dark way does not seem romantic at all and life is not a fairy tale, there is never “A happily ever after”. This is not “The Notebook” 2 🫤 with a touch from the Psychological/Thriller film “Rear Window”

[moonlightreal]

Strange Fate linkdump: Questing, Empathy and Endgames

Huge long post!  Linkdump and many many thoughts that wandered through my mind while going through these links.

Last Lullaby stuff:

https://www.thebookseller.com/news/hachette-signs-new-l-j-smith

About the international licensing of The Last Lullaby in 2013.  Strange Fate is the big obvious lost book but it’s not the only one.

https://booknode.com/the_last_lullaby_0705503

French bookseller page about The Last Lullaby, with back cover blurb in English but no cover picture.  So whatever happened happened before an artist could be commissioned. The book seems to follow unscarred teen Brionwy rather than scarred child Crispy who we met in the Strange Fate chapter

https://spotlightreport.net/featured/burn-bright-presents-l-j-smith-interview

2013 interview about The Last Lullaby.  In this interview Crispy and Brionwy are two different characters, though I’d always had the impression that they were the same person and Brionwy was Crispy’s real name.  Maybe just because Brionwy is the name in the title and then it’s Crispy’s story, back in whatever first incarnation I read of it whatever incarnation that was.  And it’s poetic nfor the scarred child to have a beautiful name.  

So we have the short story Brionwy’s Lullaby about Brionwy in the harem and the Strange Fate chapter about Crispy in the ruins.  Two pieces.  Less than we have of Strange Fate, but there is a looooot of worldbuilding in Brionwy’s Lullaby.  Lots of worldbuilding but no hint of where the story goes next.  Do Brionwy and Crispy meet?  Is there some connection between them?  How does the story end?  In the Strange Fate incarnation of the story this future is traded for a happier timeline when characters in our time avert the apocalypse but as a separate story how would it conclude?

Honestly I’m sadder about this book than I am about Strange Fate; I loves me some YA dystopias and the whole dragons and vampires thing is just neat.  But this book’s as lost as lost can be.

Recent Stuff:

https://www.reddit.com/r/YAlit/comments/krlvr1/lj_smiths_night_world/

Reddit thread from two months ago.  The rabbit hole is real and nobody else seems to have found the bottom.

https://deadline.com/2020/05/greg-berlanti-productions-adapt-the-forbidden-game-novels-lj-smith-as-tv-series-the-vampire-diaries-author-1202944224/

Article about the upcoming Forbidden Game TV series.  Forbidden Game is a Simon & Schuster series, not Alloy, so while I’m sure Ms. Smith has no say in how the show will go she will at least get royalties!  However much royalties book authors get from TV shows, no idea how much that is.  

https://micky.com.au/the-vampire-diaries-writer-reveals-new-fantasy-horror-series-the-forbidden-game/

“LJ Smith has just revealed that its horror trilogy novels...”  Um.  Not quite.

I looked through half a dozen articles about the Forbidden Game TV series and none of them had anything from Ms. Smith.  I knew the chance that this would draw comment from her was only a tiny chance, but it seemed worth looking.  

Interviews and Stuff:

https://www.saltlakemagazine.com/qa-the-vampire-diaries-creator-l-j-smith-on-writing-and-losing-the-series/

2012 interview about Vampire Diaries

https://peoplepill.com/people/l-j-smith-1

Just a biography page.  

http://theliteraryconnoisseur.blogspot.com/2014/05/an-interview-with-new-york-times.html

2014 interview with a blogger.  Ms. Smith does seem to be an absolutely lovely person.

https://areiterowski.wordpress.com/2013/02/10/author-profile-l-j-smith/

2013 Blog post about Ms. Smith, ending with a quite long list of “things she’s currently working on.’ the medical stuff didn’t happen until 2015 though with six projects in progress it’s believeable that she didn’t finish any of them before being felled by illness in 2015.

http://luanatormesdemattos.blogspot.com/2013/11/interview-with-one-and-only-l-j-smith.html

2013 interview with a blogger.

Into the meta: Aubrey Clark and the ghostwritten books

https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/5760167.Aubrey_Clark

Books by Aubrey Clark.  Secret Circle and Vampire Diaries.  I assumed Aubrey Clark is a woman and the other book listed is by a man with the same name, but Aubrey is traditionally a male name and modernly a female name so who knows. Hardly the first time a dude wrote a series aimed at girls under a female name.

https://www.romance.io/authors/54558f9b87eac323ffb2cc31/aubrey-clark

Bio listing Ms. Clark as a she, and classifying her books as romances.  Says she’s been writing for eight years.  Just on the VD/SC stuff or did she write before?  Alloy hiring an existing writer to ghostwrite and that existing writer using a pen name so her new work wouldn’t be connected with her old work is perfectly possible.  I swear I read somewhere that Ms. Clark was Ms. Smith’s editor, or her “person” with Alloy, making her signing on as ghostwriter a bit of a betrayal… but I can’t find my source.

And how much of a betrayal is it really, if Ms. Smith got fired it’s not Ms. Clark’s fault if the series got offered to her, and who could say no to getting to write for a series you know?  It’s a job and a chance to be a published author and nobody should be judged for grabbing that candy if offered it.  

I wish we could hear what happened from Aubrey Clark’s side, just because the story of What Happened to Strange Fate is a mystery I to figure out… it’s easy for me to forget this mystery isn’t a Nancy Drew video game, it’s people’s real lives.  Ms. Clark is not the villain, she’s a writer in a situation we don’t fully understand but she’s just a writer like any writer.

http://debrasbookcafe.blogspot.com/2012/11/book-review-secret-circlethe-divide-by.html

Review of Secret Circle: The Divide

http://bookandbroadway.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-temptation-tsc-6-by-aubrey-clark.html

Review of Secret Circle: The Temptation.  The reviewer was not impressed.

http://yepireadbooks.blogspot.com/2013/04/book-32-temptation.html

Another review of The Temptation.  This reviewer was a bit more impressed than the last one.  I admit I ragequit the ghostwritten books after Ms. Clark started killing off characters, I don’t remember if I even hit book two…  

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/The_Vampire_Diaries_(novel_series)

Publishing history of Vampire Diaries

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304058204579495491652398358

2014 “Vampire Diaries Writer Bites Back.” we’ve all read this one...

https://uniquelygeekygirl.com/2013/05/20/1223/

2013 “LJ Smith vs ghostwriter” from a blog called uniquely geeky girl.  The next article on the blog is more about Alloy and its practice of hiring ghostwriters.

The Rise and Fall of Kindle Worlds:

https://the-digital-reader.com/2018/05/15/amazon-to-shut-down-kindle-worlds/

https://fanlore.org/wiki/Kindle_Worlds

https://www.thebookloft.com/fanfiction-and-kindle-worlds

https://www.hiddengemsbooks.com/amazon-closes-kindle-worlds/

https://gigaom.com/2014/08/17/amazons-fan-fiction-portal-kindle-worlds-is-a-bust-for-fans-and-for-writers-too/

https://www.wired.com/2013/05/kindle-worlds-fanfic-copyright/

http://www.roxannestclaire.com/barefoot-bay-world-kindle/kindle-worlds-faq/

https://www.bustle.com/articles/36237-amazons-fan-fiction-site-kindle-worlds-is-flopping-but-why

It rose, and it fell.  As far as I can tell Alloy is the only publisher to put its works out on Kindle Worlds, I guess because that’s what they were already doing with their hired authors!  Other authors seem to have opened their worlds individually and I guess not many of them signed on.  

LJ Smith and Kindle Worlds

https://www.theawl.com/2014/02/the-writer-who-beat-the-system-how-one-woman-resurrected-her-sexy-vampire-brothers/

https://www.mhpbooks.com/fired-vampire-diaries-writer-takes-to-kindle-worlds-for-revenge/

http://floor-to-ceiling-books.blogspot.com/2011/02/l-j-smith-fired-from-writing-vampire.html

A blog post with some comments so you can read the state of the fandom at the time.

https://www.dailydot.com/parsec/fandom/vampire-diaries-lj-smith-kindle-fanfiction/

http://leegoldberg.com/tag/alloy-entertainment/

“Read the contract.’  This one is interesting because it’s the only one that isn’t in defense of Ms. Smith.  She should indeed read her contracts unless she wants to just be a fanfic writer, which… I don’t think I’ve ever heard of an author going from published to fanfic, but why not?  

Also, good question, where was Ms. Smith’s agent?  And where is Ms. Smith’s agent these days when someone should maybe be being the Strange Fate Police?  

Unrelated: I swear I read an article from Alloy’s perspective about what happened.  Maybe it was this one and I thought it was from Alloy when it wasn’t.  It is the only article not in support of Ms. Smith that I could find.

https://editingeverything.com/blog/2014/04/25/fanfiction-is-letting-lj-smith-tell-her-vampire-diaries-story/

https://www.tvovermind.com/vampire-diaries-lj-smith-fired-book-series/

https://thegameofnerds.com/2018/03/03/originals-10-facts-about-the-woman-behind-the-vamps/

https://dc.uwm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1952&context=etd

https://www.cbr.com/the-secret-circle-why-the-vampire-diaries-author-l-j-smiths-other-cw-series-failed/

I watched one episode of the Secret Circle series because I loved the books so much, but the CW style is not my jam.  But it is interesting to read the pitch for a fewer-character second season.

https://anovelbookblog.com/2014/06/12/leeching-off-the-talent-writing-for-hire-the-dark-side-of-publishing/

About the Secret Circle sequel novels and Alloy

https://www.jeanienefrost.com/2019/02/ghosts-in-the-machine/

Ghostwriting and plagiarism and ethics.

https://www.fanpop.com/clubs/stefan-and-elena/articles/94267/title/lj-smith-fired-from-writing-own-novels

This is the full letter from Ms. Smith about getting fired.

https://teleread.com/thanks-to-kindle-worlds-fired-vampire-diaries-writer-continues-her-own-series-as-fanfic/index.html

http://iswimforoceans.blogspot.com/2011/02/help-lj-smith-vampire-diaries.html

2011 blog post

https://indecisiveturtle.wordpress.com/2014/05/29/assignment-4-ghostwriting-in-the-vampire-diaries-by-l-j-smith/

A long blog post that goes into detail about the writing of some of the books, how to tell Ms. Smith’s style from the ghostwriter’s, sentence length and similes and stuff, all very academic!  I’ve retyped a couple pieces of Ms. Smith’s writing and I noticed she handles punctuation-with-quotes differently than I do, making it very weird to retype.  This is an interesting one.  Someone dived way deep!

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/10/19/the-gossip-mill

New Yorker article about Alloy

https://www.publishingcrawl.com/2012/05/29/the-not-so-secret-backdoor-to-publishing/

Article about Alloy and package writing

https://www.vogue.com/article/the-secret-circle-young-adult-witch-fiction

Just an article about the Secret Circle books and how they’re kinda bad but actually good.  Which they are.

That’ll keep y’all busy for a while!

Quest wishlist: I wish we could ask someone in the publishing industry about rights to series and rights to “publication canceled” books and how all that stuff works.  And I wish we could hear Aubrey Clark’s side of the story, but it just seems unkind to reach out to her to ask about this.

But the problem is… I call it “the quest for Strange Fate” because I’m melodramatic and like calling things quests, but what it the victory condition for this one?   The obvious: we win if we find and read Strange Fate, but I don’t think that will ever happen.  No matter how much we learn about what happened that won’t make Strange Fate appear.  

I do wish we could tell LJ Smith that plenty of authors these days have a Patreon.  If the people who still care about the lost books and the story of Ms. Smith could turn that caring into actual useful help for the people and maybe the books too that would be the best outcome.  That would be a successful quest.    

A darker timeline possibility: maybe S&S read Strange Fate and it wasn’t any good. Ms. Smith is a good writer.  But take a good writer and give her 20 years off from writing, and make those the 20 years where the teen experience of life changed radically, her genres of choice became big and popular and evolved and built up tropes, and language itself did… things…

I stan language but it’s a little sus how new lettery bois go brr everywhere I look.  I love it, but it’s humbling having to ask my niece what all the new words mean, and why so many of them seem to begin with S!

And Ms. Smith is sixty and has twenty years of rewriting Strange Fate, pulling it apart and tinkering until it probably doesn’t much resemble the book she started in 1998. Stir up all this in a pot and we’ve got a recipe for making a talented author drop a mediocre book.  Maybe S&S read it, said “it’s a dud, the fandom is 20 years old, let’s just not” and Ms. Smith retired from public life in defeat.  

This makes an unhappy sort of sense, but it doesn’t answer the question of why The Last Lullaby never appeared either.

Anyway. This has been a long post, lots of links and some thoughts on the philosophy of questing.

[suzie-shooter]

Random liveblog thoughts on episode one of the new Alex Rider series (I’m trying not to binge the whole lot at once. I will probably fail in this aim).

YASSEN! Idk why they’ve chosen to give him a massively identifying facial scar, presumably to indicate that he is a Baddie (TM) but you can’t help thinking it would be a bit of a disadvantage in his line of work.

The opening titles and theme are very New Blood. (Still bitter that never got a second series. So, I suspect, is Horowitz).

Introduction to Alex: casually breaking into his own school. Would that door not be alarmed?

“I’m not mugging you I swear, I’ll give it right back.” LMAO

Ian’s an arse. Hurry up and shoot him.

There’s a photo on the fridge that looks like a young Alex Pettyfer, and it’s making me laugh. As is the massive Russian dictionary in Ian’s office.

I’m liking this version of Jack. It’s almost enough to make me forgive the travesty that was Never Say Die. Also like that they’ve incorporated the fact she was about to piss off out of their lives.

“We should celebrate, we should have got a takeaway or something.” Ah yes, there’s Britain’s finest spy right there, can’t tell when he’s literally just been served one.

Let’s go to a Stereotypical Teen Party. Seriously who has parties like this? I’ve only ever seen them on the telly. Tom takes the opportunity for some quick mansplaining and is correctly vomited on.

“We have history together.” In what weird version of the British schooling system would two kids in presumably the same year only have one class together? Or have things changed massively since I was at school? Anyway, Alex trying to punch hugely above his weight here.

YASSEN. (why yes, I am going to flail every time he appears)

So despite the fact Stormbreaker says Yassen has no trace of an accent and Eagle Strike gives him the “faintest trace” of a Russian accent,  it’s still my favourite thing in the world that both adaptations now have given him the thickest accent going. I am a simple women with simple tastes.

While desperately wanting this series I was also very nervous about it, given it needed to deliver not only the Yassen of the books and film but the Yassen in my head. And frankly it’s delivered, I’ve only had new!Yassen for five minutes and I would already protect him with my life.

Ian: Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!

Yassen going for the insurance headshot there. Nice.

Ah, Blunt and Jones. And is that meant to be Crawley? It is! An upgrade from Jimmy Carr.

“We’re doing a forensic sweep, although we’ve just let you walk right through the crime scene without a minimum of protective footwear, so, you know...”

Is that Jack’s mini parked outside the house? Subtle callback to the film?

“If anyone asks, it’s the usual cover story.” Should that not maybe have been sorted out beforehand rather than shouting it in public?

Alex casually beating the snot out of a security agent. That’s...quite some pent up rage there.

Loving the classic roll under the descending shutter.

“I know krav maga.” “Well, I know shooting people in the head.”

Does the Department have nifty arty powerpoint slides on all their employees? Or only the dead ones?

I was wondering how they were going to pad out what’s a very short book into eight episodes, turns out it’s by making it verrrrrry slow. First episode covered what, the first 5 minutes of the film? As a huge fan I’m ecstatic, if I was a kid who was coming to it cold would I stick with it? I hope this is successful enough for them to make more, I really do. Because I already love it.

[papermoonloveslucy]

DINNER AT EIGHT

February 18, 1940

The Campbell Playhouse (1938–1940) was a live CBS radio drama series directed by and starring Orson Welles. Produced by Welles and John Houseman, it was a sponsored continuation of The Mercury Theatre on the Air. As a direct result of the front-page headlines Orson Welles generated with his 1938 Halloween production "The War of the Worlds", Campbell's Soup signed on as sponsor. The Mercury Theatre on the Air made its last broadcast December 4, 1938, and The Campbell Playhouse began December 9, 1938.

The series offered hour-long adaptations of classic plays and novels, as well as adaptations of popular motion pictures. When Campbell’s exerted more creative control over the selection of material, Welles left the show. 

Bernard Herrmann was the series’ composer and conductor. The opening theme was “Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-Flat Minor” by Tchaikovsky.

DINNER AT EIGHT was originally written by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber as a play which opened October 22, 1932, at Broadway’s Music Box Theatre, and closed May 6, 1933 after 232 performances.  

In 1933, (the same year Lucille Ball arrived in Hollywood), the play was turned into an MGM film by George Cukor. The role of Kitty (played by Lucille Ball on radio) was played by Jean Harlowe. 

The play was also revived on Broadway several times and was made for television. 

Synopsis ~ The Jordan family are planning a society dinner. The story concerns what they, as well as various friends and acquaintances - all of whom have their own problems and ambitions - do as they prepare for the event.

CAST

Lucille Ball (Kitty Packard)

Orson Welles (Host / Dan Packard / Larry Renault) was three months away from embarking on his masterwork, Citizen Kane, when this radio play was aired. Before Lucille Ball dated Ed Hall and Desi Arnaz, Welles was often seen on her arm at public events. Lucy and Desi later allowed him to reside in their guest house and starred him in an episode of “I Love Lucy”. 

Hedda Hopper (Millicent Jordan) was then broadcasting her own radio show “Hedda Hopper’s Hollywood” as well as writing a syndicated column.  She appeared on “I Love Lucy” and “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour.” As an actress, she did two with Lucille Ball: Bunker Bean (1936) and That’s Right – You’re Wrong (1939). Hopper was best known for her flamboyant hats.

Charles Trowbridge (Oliver Jordan) originated the role of Oliver Jordan in the Broadway production of Dinner at Eight although the role was played by Lionel Barrymore on screen. He did two films with Lucille Ball: Her Husband’s Affairs (1947) and A Woman of Distinction (1950). 

Marjorie Rambeau (Carlotta Vance) was only a month away from the premiere of her film Primrose Path, which would earn her an Oscar nomination in 1941. 

Benny Rubin (Max Kane) was heard on “My Favorite Husband” as well as doing an episode of “I Love Lucy” and several appearances on “The Lucy Show.” 

Clara Blandick (Hattie Loomis) had just created the role of Aunt Em in The Wizard of Oz, which is what she is best known for despite her many other credits. including four films with Lucille Ball, three of those in 1934 alone. 

Mary Taylor (Paula Jordan) had previously worked with Welles on Mercury Theatre of the Air. 

Edgar Barrier (Dr. Talbot) was previously directed by Welles in the 1938 film Too Much Johnson. 

Ernest Chappell (Announcer) served in the same capacity for TV’s “The Big Story” (1951-57)/  

THE EPISODE

Orson Welles introduces the show, Kaufman and Ferber’s play Dinner at Eight.  He tells the audience that we never see (or hear) the actual dinner in Dinner at Eight. He talks about his three leading ladies: 

Hedda Hopper “who was a distinguished actress before she branched out into her present career of acting and ‘columning’.” 

Miss Lucille Ball “is the beautiful and talented young lady who’s position in Hollywood is becoming increasingly more important.” 

Marjorie Rambeau “one of the first talents of the theatre who is carving out a new career in motion pictures.”  

Welles introduces Ernest Chappell, who does a pitch for Campbell’s Vegetable Soup. 

“Whether you’re having dinner at eight or supper at six.”

As the story begins, Millicent Jordan (Hedda Hopper) is on the telephone inviting people to her dinner party. Her husband, Oliver (Charles Trowbridge), comes in. She tells him how the guest list is shaping up. He suggests she invite Dan and Millicent Packard, although she thinks she’s a horrible woman. Paula (Mary Taylor), her daughter, comes in. She’s engaged to be married to Ernest but is still maintaining an active social life. She’s been seen nightly at 21.

MILLICENT: “Some day I’m going to find out what goes on at 20 -- and at 22, too!”    

Paula runs out. Hattie (Clara Blandick) comes in and she and Millicent gossip about that “Packard Woman”.  As Hattie leaves for her shopping trip, Millicent reluctantly phones Mrs. Packard to invite her to her dinner party. 

The scene cross fades to Mrs. Packard (Lucille Ball) hanging up with Mrs. Jordan.  She is in bed awaiting the doctor with her maid Tina. Mrs. Packard is eating chocolates, guessing what is inside each one. 

Meanwhile, Carlotta Vance (Marjorie Rambeau) barges in while Oliver Jordan is in his office on the telephone. She demands to know why the Customs Office says she cannot own six fur coats. They discuss Mr. Vance’s assets, including a theatre she is longing to sell - calling it a fleabag.  She is a stockholder in Mr. Jordan’s company.  He urges her not to sell.  They reminisce about their younger days, when they were courting.  He once proposed marriage. 

Dan Packard (Orson Welles) enters the office. He recognizes her from her days on the stage.  Before she departs, Jordan confirms that she is coming to dinner next Friday.  Jordan and Packard talk business. The Jordan Line Shipping is in financial straights and he wants a loan from Packard, who promises to consider it. 

Back at the Packards, Dan arrives to find Kitty still in bed. He complains that Jordan cannot handle his business and he aims to buy them out. Dan says he won’t go to dinner there and Kitty is not happy about it. She tries wheedling him and she mentions the dinner is for Lord and Lady Ferncliff.  He says he is going to buy out Jordan using dummy stock holders.  

Doctor Talbot (Edgar Barrier) arrives to examine Kitty. We learn that they are having an affair. The music swells and the scene transitions to...

Mrs. Jordan, still planning her dinner party, looking for one more man to balance her table. Hattie and Mrs. Jordan, suddenly get a brilliant idea for their final guest - movie star Larry Renault.

Meanwhile, Paula visits her paramour, Larry Renault (also Orson Welles). They are in love. She warns him not to drink so much. His agent Max Kane (Benny Rubin) has gotten him a part in a play. He tells her she should just marry Ernest. Renault has been married three times and is almost 40!  His second wife drove off a cliff and his third is now the biggest star in Hollywood.  Paula impulsively says she is going to tell everyone about their love - including her parents! 

Kane arrives and Paula leaves to find urges him to stop drinking and get in shape. Kane breaks the news that the play is off!  The new producer doesn’t want him. He’s been replaced by an English actor. Kane suggests he take a smaller role in the play. Kane suggest he humble himself to the new producer, but Renault is indignant. 

“I’m Larry Renault!  I don’t go to managers with my hat in my hand!” 

At the Jordan home, Carlotta and Millicent talk about the party, including the invitation of Lord Ferncliff, who everyone calls “Stinky”.  When Mr. Jordan comes home, she confides to Oliver that she has sold her Jordan stock.  It seems she isn’t the only one who has sold Jordan stock that day. 

A phone call informs Millicent that the Ferncliffs are going to Florida and can’t come to dinner after all!  Just then, Paula comes home to tell her mother urgent news about her engagement to Ernest. Oliver says he is feeling unwell, and wants to go to bed instead of having dinner. Millicent is at wits end with the party cancellations and her family’s drama!

END OF ACT ONE

Ernest Chappell returns to urge mothers to get their child’s recommended serving of milk by adding it to Campbell’s Tomato, Celery, and Asparagus soups. 

ACT TWO

That night, Renault is drunk. Kane brings up Mr. Stingle, the new producer of the play. Renault bullies Mr. Stingle calling him a hack. Stingle abruptly leaves.  Renault blames Kane, who tells him he’s washed up in show business. 

KANE: “You’re a corpse and you don’t know it! Go get yourself buried.” 

Kane leaves and Renault pours himself another drink - the last one in the bottle. He’s visited by a hotel manager who tells him he’s being evicted from his suite.  He calls the operator and tells him not to put any calls through. Larry turns on the gas.  

At dinner, introductions are made. Seems as if Mrs. Packard already knows Dr. Talbot. Mrs. Jordan says that Lord Ferncliff’s absence is due to ill health. Carlotta brings her little dog, which she wants fed lobster.  She inadvertently announces that Lord and Lady Ferncliff are vacationing, not ill at all.  Everyone wonders where Larry Renault is.  Paula enters and Mrs. Jordan decides they shouldn’t wait for Renault.  

Paula is distracted.  She phones the hotel to speak with Renault and they refuse to connect her. They mention the police and then Paula goes silent.  The police would like to speak with her.  

END OF PLAY

Ernest Chappell, having addressed the women at the intermission, addresses the men in the audience, touting the hearty comforts of Campbell’s Soups. 

Orson Welles returns for an interview with the female guest stars.  Welles insists that her participation tonight will lead to something vile in her column tomorrow!  He points out that her character spent a lot of time on the telephone in the story. Welles attributes the modern gossip column to the invention of the telephone, who he jokingly credits to Don Ameche!  

The Story of Alexander Graham Bell is a somewhat fictionalized 1939 biographical film of the famous inventor that starred Don Ameche as Bell and Loretta Young as his wife Mabel. Coincidentally, the film also featured Charles Trowbridge (Oliver Jordan in tonight’s radio play).

In scripted banter, Miss Rambeau recalls happier days when there were no columns, which gets Hopper hopping mad!  Welles begs Miss Ball to intervene.

LUCY: “On behalf of Kitty Packard, I think Mrs. Jordan and Mrs. Vance ought to call it a day - both of them. Just because a girl likes to have a bit of fun and not sit around like a piece of furniture or something you’d think butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths---”. 

Welles interrupts the cat fight to bid everyone goodnight, but not without a reminder that next Sunday, Only Angels Have Wings, starring Joan Blondell. 

‘DINNER’ TRIVIA

This is one of four characters named Kitty that Lucille Ball has played.  Others were in Follow The Fleet (1936), Without Love (1945), and The Facts of Life (1960).

In the 1933 film version, Elizabeth Patterson plays Miss Copeland, secretary to Oliver Jordan (Lionel Barrymore). Patterson went on to play Mrs. Trumbull on “I Love Lucy.” 

A clip from the 1933 film was included in “Toast of the Town’s 30th Anniversary Tribute to MGM”, a program that also featured its star Lionel Barrymore (Oliver Jordan), Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.

Paul Harvey, who played the New York Times Art Critic in “Lucy the Sculptress” (ILL S2;E15) had his greatest success on Broadway as Dan Packard in the original cast of Dinner at Eight. His role was taken in the film by Wallace Beery. 

A 1955 CBS television version of Dinner at Eight featured “Lucy” cast members Eleanor Audley (as Carlotta Vance), Pierre Watkin, and Tristram Coffin.  She is seen above on “I Love Lucy” with Peter Bucco. 

In the 1989 TV movie of Dinner at Eight, Kitty Packard (the character played by Lucille Ball on radio) was played by Ellen Greene, famous for playing Audrey on stage and screen in Little Shop of Horrors. In that musical she sings about “Lucy”!

The 1966 Broadway revival of Dinner at Eight was at the Alvin Theatre (now the Neil Simon), the same theatre where Lucille Ball did Wildcat five years earlier. 

Season 4 episodes of “Here’s Lucy” were sponsored by Campbell’s Soup. The DVD includes a commercial that features Dodie Goodman and Eddie Bracken. Coincidentally, Bracken is credited with introducing Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz when they were starring in the film version of Too Many Girls in 1940, the same year as this radio broadcast. 

Campbell’s Soup was immortalized in paint by artist Andy Warhol in 1962. Twenty years later he used Lucille Ball as his muse. 

The 2002 Broadway revival of Dinner at Eight at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theatre starred Emily Skinner as Kitty (the role played by Lucille Ball on radio). Skinner played Lucille Ball on Broadway in The Cher Show which played at....yes...the Alvin Theatre!

[introvertguide]

Spartacus (1960); AFI #81

Our next film that we reviewed is the bleak but powerful story of Spartacus, (1960) the Kirk Douglas answer to missing out on Ben Hur. According to some background viewing on the DVD and on YouTube, Kirk Douglas wanted to be the lead in Ben Hur and was angry when his part was given to Charlton Heston. He bought the rites to his own Roman Empire epic that he believed would rival his missed opportunity and Spartacus was adapted for the screen. Although Spartacus did not win the awards that Ben Hur did, the film won a Golden Globe for best Drama as well as 3 technical Oscars and a Best Supporting Oscar for Peter Ustinov. Spartacus is now generally considered the superior film (OK, specifically by me), mainly because it does not go in the direction that the viewer would expect for a movie of the time. Before I go any further, let’s spoil the story for those who just want to talk about the film without having seen it:

SPOILER WARNING! THIS MOVIE DOES NOT END LIKE ONE WOULD EXPECT SO THIS IS A LEGITIMATE WARNING! THIS REVIEW WILL RUIN THE ENDING SO WATCH THE MOVIE FIRST!

The movie starts with eight minutes of music and establishing shots, making sure that the viewer knows this is an epic. We see our main character, a slave named Spartacus (Kirk Douglas), is so uncooperative in his position in a mining pit that he is sentenced to death by starvation. By chance, he is displayed to a sniveling Roman businessman named Lentulus Batiatus (Peter Ustinov), who – impressed by his ferocity – purchases Spartacus for his gladiatorial school. He tells his instructor Marcellus (Charles McGraw) to watch over Spartacus specifically because he thinks "he has quality". Amid the “training”, Spartacus forms a quiet relationship with a female slave named Varinia (Jean Simmons). She falls for Spartacus when he refuses to rape her for the entertainment of the guards claiming that he is not an animal. When she says “neither am I,” he respects her and realizes that she is kept for her physical abilities just as he is. Spartacus and Varinia are subsequently forced to endure numerous humiliations for defying the conditions of servitude, but their bond grows stronger as they suffer together.

Batiatus receives a visit from the immensely wealthy Roman senator Marcus Licinius Crassus (Laurence Olivier), who aims to become dictator of the stagnant Roman republic. Crassus buys Varinia on a whim and, for the amusement of his companions; arranges for Spartacus and three others to fight in pairs to the death. It was promised to the training gladiators that these death battles would only happen at the Colosseum. Crassus offers enough money that Batiatus can’t refuse, but this sets the rebellious attitude of the gladiators. During his fight, Spartacus is disarmed and his opponent, an African named Draba (Woody Strode), spares his life in a burst of defiance and instead attacks the Roman audience, but is speared by an arena guard and then finished off by Crassus. The next day, with the atmosphere still tense over this episode, Batiatus takes Varinia away to Crassus's house in Rome. Spartacus kills Marcellus, who was taunting him about his love, and the fight escalates into a full blown riot. The gladiators overwhelm their guards and escape into the Italian countryside. 

Spartacus is chosen as leader of the fugitives and he decides to lead them out of Italy to the sea where they can leave the country. The growing army of slaves and gladiators plunders Roman estates all over the countryside, collecting enough money to buy sea transport from the pirates of Cilicia. Spartacus and his group encounter numerous other slaves who wish to join, making the procession towards the sea as large as an army. One of the new arrivals is Varinia, who escaped while being delivered to Crassus. Another is a slave entertainer named Antoninus (Tony Curtis), who also fled Crassus's service. Spartacus feels mentally inadequate because he is uneducated, but he proves an excellent leader and organizes his diverse followers into a tough and self-sufficient community. Varinia, now his informal wife, becomes pregnant by him, and he also comes to regard the spirited Antoninus as a sort of son.

The Roman Senate becomes increasingly alarmed as Spartacus defeats the multiple armies sent against him. Crassus's populist opponent Gracchus (Charles Laughton) knows that his rival will try to use the crisis as a justification for seizing control of the Roman army. To try and prevent this, Gracchus channels as much military power as possible into the hands of his own protege, a young senator named Julius Caesar (John Gavin). Although Caesar lacks Crassus's contempt for the lower classes of Rome, he mistakes the man's rigid outlook for nobility. Thus, when Gracchus reveals that he has bribed the pirates to get Spartacus out of Italy and rid Rome of the slave army, Caesar regards such tactics as beneath him and goes over to Crassus.

Crassus uses a bribe of his own to make the pirates abandon Spartacus and has the Roman army secretly force the rebels away from the coastline towards Rome. Amid panic that Spartacus means to sack the city, the Senate gives Crassus absolute power. Now surrounded by Romans, Spartacus convinces his men to die fighting. Just by rebelling and proving themselves human, he says that they have struck a blow against slavery. In the ensuing battle, after initially breaking the ranks of Crassus's legions, the slave army ends up trapped between Crassus and two other forces advancing from behind, and most of them are massacred. Afterward, the Romans try to locate the rebel leader for special punishment by offering a pardon (and return to enslavement) if the men will identify Spartacus, living or dead. Every surviving man responds by shouting "I'm Spartacus!". As a result, Crassus has them all sentenced to death by crucifixion along the Via Appia between Rome and Capua, where the revolt began.

After the battle, Crassus finds Varinia and Spartacus's newborn son hiding amongst the dead and takes them prisoner. He is disturbed by the idea that Spartacus can command more love and loyalty than he can and hopes to compensate by making Varinia as devoted to him as she was to her former husband. When she rejects him, he furiously seeks out Spartacus (whom he recognizes from having watched him at Batiatus' school) and forces him to fight Antoninus to the death. The survivor is to be crucified, along with all the other men captured after the great battle. Spartacus kills Antoninus to spare him this terrible fate. The incident leaves Crassus worried about Spartacus's potential to live in legend as a martyr. In other matters, he is also worried about Caesar, whom he senses will someday eclipse him.

Gracchus, having seen Rome fall into tyranny, commits suicide. Before doing so, he bribes his friend Batiatus to rescue Spartacus's family from Crassus and carry them away to freedom. On the way out of Rome, the group passes under Spartacus's cross. Varinia is able to comfort him in his dying moments by showing him his little son, who will grow up free and knowing who his father was.

So just to really hit this spoiler home: the slaves who escape are all slaughtered in battle or crucified along the road into Rome, the senator who tries to help them commits suicide, and Spartacus kills his close friend and is himself crucified to the sound of his slowly dying army. His one consolation is he sees his wife leaving with his child under the same man who turned him into a gladiator in the first place. Kubrick really knows how to end on an up note (sarcasm). This is not that surprising since Trumbo adapted it and he was not feeling like a happy ending was in his future. It was probably very cathartic for him to write out the script. 

This movie brags of having a cast of thousands and that is no lie. My mom commented during the battle scene when all the armies are marching out that “nobody was unemployed during the making of this movie.” There was no green screen or CG effects, just 8000 members of the Spanish military dressed up like Roman soldiers and marching in formation. There were apparently many gory scenes that were cut out of battle towards the end and only a shot of Spartacus cutting off a man’s arm remained. When envisioning the project, Kubrick had no intention of holding back.

I did learn from the DVD extras (this is released through Criterion so there are tons of bonus extras and commentary) that Kubrick considered this the only film in which he felt he did not have complete creative control. He fought with Trumbo about the lead character being too perfect. Spartacus was a rebellious slave with no formal education and a huge chip on his shoulder. Why would he be so nice and understanding when so few people had shown him any kindness? The studios also did not like that somebody who had been shown to be so good would end up dying so badly. Kubrick really distanced himself from this film as he got old because he considered it the one example of a movie that he helped create that wasn’t really his. 

One specific scene that both Kubrick and Trumbo agreed on but the studios did not like was the famous “snails and oysters” moment between Crassus and Antoninus. This is a famous moment in the history of homosexual representation in American film and involves two of the most well known actors of the time, Sir Laurence Olivier and Tony Curtis. Antoninus is tending to Crassus during a bath and Crassus asks a series of questions about moral actions. He asks if Antoninus eats oysters and snails and asks if eating one is morally superior to the other. Crassus concludes that it  is a matter of taste and not a question of morality. During the questioning, Antoninus continually refers to Crassus as master while oiling up the man in a bath. Crassus is blatantly hitting on Antoninus and the only reason it got past the studio censors is that it was the villainous Roman tyrant. This scene would have been cut at the time if it would have gone any further, I think. Very interesting moment in movie history. 

More than any single scene, Kubrick was constantly fighting about his need to put in his special touch of over perfectionism which translated to demanding a lot of takes. This really slows down production when you are trying to direct and you are dealing with so many people. He is reported to have done a dozen or more takes for each dolly shot of the dead bodies on the battle field with specific instructions for every single extra that lay on the field. I am all about sticking to your vision, but that might be going a little bit too far when you are using studio money. I do love the final product, however, so I am probably not allowed to complain too much about the director’s process. 

So does this movie belong on the AFI list? Of course. It is an epic historical drama that won 4 Academy Awards. It stars some of the biggest names in movie history including the great Kirk Douglas in possibly his most memorable role, it was directed by the iconic Stanley Kubrick, and this movie marks the end of the blacklisting of writers who had been accused of being communists. This is a piece of cinema that strongly represents the time of its creation and should definitely be studied by groups like the AFI. Would I recommend it? Across the board. It is a great movie that actually moves through its 3+ hours. I found myself taking less notes during the movie and simply enjoying the entire viewing. I even watched again with commentary without a single gripe. Fantastic movie and a real tribute to the great actor Kirk Douglas. RIP and thank you for the entertainment. I am Spartacus!

[recentanimenews]

All You Need is a White Piece of Paper and Pen: A Conversation with Monster and 20th Century Boys Creator Naoki Urasawa

Editor's Note: This is a republication of a feature by Cayla Coats that originally appeared on Crunchyroll News on 2/6/19.

---

    This article is brought to you by JAPAN HOUSE. JAPAN HOUSE is a cultural project that aims to nurture a deeper understanding and appreciation of Japan in the international community. Through outreach projects centered in its three locations in Los Angeles, São Paolo, and London, JAPAN HOUSE aims to drive further intellectual exchange between Japan and the world.

***

Naoki Urasawa is one of the modern masters of manga. The artist behind series such as Monster, 20th Century Boys, Master Keaton, and Pluto, his work has earned countless accolades from critics, including the prestigious Eisner Award (think the Oscars of the American comics industry). Urasawa-sensei’s work is currently on display in an exhibit titled This is MANGA - the Art of NAOKI URASAWAat JAPAN HOUSE Los Angeles. This is marks the first solo exhibition of his work in North America, and is truly a landmark achievement for mainstream acceptance of manga as an artform.

I had the huge privilege of being invited by JAPAN HOUSE to attend the exhibition and interview Urasawa-sensei. The exhibit was, without exaggeration, quite breathtaking. As a lifelong fan of anime and manga, seeing Urasawa-sensei’s impeccable art framed and displayed with the same care one could find at an art museum was truly wonderful. Images from my visit will follow below, but if you have the chance to see the exhibit in person before its closing on March 28th, please do so. Urasawa-sensei has to be one of the most thoughtful creators I have had the pleasure of interviewing–every answer he gave seemed like a selection from a well-researched written essay! I’m extremely grateful to Japan House for giving me this opportunity to speak with one of manga’s living legends.

Our first question is about how you began as a manga artist. You graduated with a degree in Economics from Meisei University. Did you originally plan to work in the financial industry? What led you to becoming a manga creator?

I think very early on the idea of becoming a manga artist wasn’t on my mind. I started writing manga when I was about four or five years old and when I was eight I drew my first full story to completion. It’s interesting, because at that age I sort of understood the depth of what it meant to create manga, so I could really feel the deep gulf between what I was doing and what a real manga artist was doing. I didn’t want to publish manga for the sole purpose of just making money–I could see that there was a lot of manga that had been commercialized and you could smell the money in it. That really wasn’t what I was interested in.

It’s funny, when I was really young, when I would visit my uncle he would tell me, “oh wow, Naoki, your drawings are so amazing! You could become a manga artist!” That’s when I thought, “oh man, this guy doesn’t know anything about what real manga is.” That’s why I never really thought of pursuing the path of a professional manga artist. I studied economics and thought I would work at some company somewhere.

Colored panel from Monster above a display case with drafts of spreads

We’re going to move into some questions about your specific works. Your manga Monster is set in Cold War-era Germany. What made you decide to tell the story there instead of Japan?

A little while back, I wrote something called Pineapple Army, and it was originally set in New York. But my editor at the time felt that the reader demographic for this particular magazine was males aged 40 and over, and they’re probably more likely to be engaged by stories set in Europe. That’s why, after a turning point in the story, the setting moves to England, the same setting of another series I worked on called Master Keaton.

I think in Japan, our medical industry was influenced by a lot of German technology at the time, so when we think of medicine in Japan, a natural association is Germany. So when I began to write Monster, the protagonist is a doctor and setting the story in Germany seemed natural. As I developed the story, it made sense to place it specifically in post-war Germany so the story could incorporate the neo-nazi movement into the story.

That’s so fascinating. I think a lot of American readers probably missed the connection between the Japanese medical industry and German influence. I think they’ll be very interested to hear that.

When you have your medical records in Japan, often doctors will write them in German as well so that the patients can’t see what the doctor is writing down. That’s just another small way Germany shows up in the way we practice medicine.

The ‘manga tent’ was one of the coolest aspects of the exhibit. You could walk through it!

Moving on to your series Pluto, what led you to pursue a retelling of Astro Boy?

Within the story of Astro Boy, Osamu Tezuka wrote that the character of Astro Boy was built in 2003. So in 2003, to celebrate the birth year of Astro Boy, the rights holders opened up the property and many different manga artists reimagined the story of Astro Boy in their own style. Lots of artists were doing tributes and illustrations or short one-off manga to celebrate his birth year.

“The Greatest Robot in the World” is a very popular arc in Astro Boy, so I asked, “isn’t anyone going to remake this? It’s a great story that needs to be developed more!” Of course, no one had the courage to take on such a big task. My editor asked, “hey, why don’t you do it?” and I said, “oh no, I couldn’t possibly do that, that’s crazy!” Of course, here we are now.

Was the goal with Pluto always to tell a darker story that referenced contemporary events, or did these themes arise organically through the course of writing the story?

I think that the idea of Tezuka’s work being lighthearted is a common misconception–his stories are actually very, very dark. I think when it’s been animated and adapted into many different formats, the general consensus about Tezuka’s work is that it is “pure” and “family friendly.” Astro Boy even aired on primetime TV in Japan. In this way, his work has sort of been reimagined as very wholesome and safe content, but if you really look at Tezuka’s work on a deeper level, it’s very dark. If you aim to properly adapt or remake any of Tezuka’s work, you will naturally end up with a very dark story.

Costume for the character ‘Friend’ from a live action adaptation of 20th Century Boys

Are there any other stories from other artists that you would like to retell in the same fashion as Pluto?

(Solemnly) Never again.

(Everyone laughs)

I’m a very big fan of Tezuka’s work, so I think that sheer amount of respect really affected me as I was working on Pluto. That enormous amount of pressure that I felt both from outside and within myself began to affect my health, and that’s a big reason I don’t want to do that again.

Many of your works could be considered part of the mystery genre. What about the way mystery stories are structured appeals to you?

I think a lot of that comes down to what we perceive as being fun or intriguing. You could take a lot of popular TV shows–I’m sure you all have been in the situation of saying “oh, I have to find out what happens next!” and you binge through Episode 1, 2, 3, 4. Every story that is able to do that to its audience has an element of mystery. You can even take a love story–if you’re binging it and you’re curious about what happens next, then I think there’s a strong element of mystery there. That’s the core of what makes a narrative so intriguing.

Colored panel from Pluto

Unfortunately we only have time for one more question, so I would like to ask a pretty broad, open ended one. What can manga do as a medium that no other art form can?

Let’s take another format–the movie, for example. You have a massive budget and so many different people involved. It takes years to gather all the sponsors, get the casting just right, there are so many players involved to create just one product.

With manga, all you really need is a white piece of paper and pen. No other medium lets you translate your imagination into visuals as fast as manga. Manga can take you to the other side of the universe in an instant. Manga can take you to the distant future with spectacular technology or to the far past when there were dinosaurs. I truly believe that no other medium allows creators to express their ideas as efficiently as manga.

That’s a beautiful place to end, thank you so much Mr. Urasawa.

© 2000 Naoki URASAWA/Studio Nuts

“20th Century Boys” was originally published by SHOGAKUKAN

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[bbclesmis]

Variety: ‘Les Miserables’ Team Talks Importance of Victor Hugo’s Tale as ‘Story for the World’

When Victor Hugo wrote the 1900-page tome “Les Misérables” in 1862, he gave the world a transcending and sweeping tale that dissected the division of class while breathing life into complex characters spanning decades. Unfortunately, no matter what your stance on musical theater, much of that tome has since been lost in Broadway and big screen iterations.

Given that the book is one of the longest ever written, that comes as no surprise.

Enter the incoming six-part PBS Masterpiece limited series “Les Misérables,” a music-free offering aiming to introduce the novel’s intricate themes and plots to new and older audiences alike in a more intimate setting. Dominic West, David Oyelowo and Lily Collins star in the ambitious Belgium-shot production, which already aired across the pond on the BBC.

Retelling a classic that’s been told so many times certainly comes with its challenges, but Hugo’s story was one producers and scribe Andrew Davies felt was important to tackle in today’s political climate. Here, Variety talks with Davies and executive producer Faith Penhale to discuss those challenges, recreating memorable scenes in a new way, and why now is the time for “Les Mis” to return.

Penhale: We all felt that we knew the book and thought there was an opportunity to tell the story as Hugo intended with a serialized adaptation. Instead of having 90 minutes or two hours at most to tell the story as a musical or film, we had six hours to really dive into all of the themes and all of the characters as Hugo originally intended. It’s a vast novel. One of the beautiful things about working on a television adaptation, and in the serialized form, is you get the space: You get the opportunity to really tell stories with the breadth and the depth that you just don’t always get when you are working within a much shorter timeframe. That was one reason, and also if you really dig into the story of “Les Misérables” and look back at when Hugo wrote the book, he wrote it with a very clear intention in mind. He wrote it to really tell the story of the underclass who were living with no safety net. He wrote it not just about France, but he wrote it as a story for the world. Some of those themes and questions that he emphasized in the story really resonate today in the challenging times we live in. It also felt as though we had the opportunity by having the story to really connect with today’s modern audience.

Davies: There are parallels between Paris then and London or America today. There seems like a widening of the gap between rich and poor, a society where we have seen homeless people begging in the streets as opera-goers step over them. It just seemed that it was a good time to do it again. I guess another reason why is I wanted to show the book as a whole as distinct from the slice of it that we get in the musical. I started working on this before I ever saw the musical so I already had my version in outline before I went to see it. And I was kind of startled by how shallow and partial the presentation of the book in the musical was — how little drama in fact there was in it. It seemed like there was a big opportunity and a chance to either introduce the story to people who didn’t know it or to show people who only knew the musical there was a lot in the book that they haven’t seen.

Specifically what got lost in the translation to the musical that you’re able to bring back here?

Penhale: Fantine’s story is one that really struck us. In the novel you get a sense from the beginning of a girl who has her life ahead of her, who she has a sort of optimism of a young woman embarking on the rest of her life. As you follow that story and [learn] what happens to her you begin to really feel and understand the story of a young girl living with fallen circumstances where society and all levels are working against her. I’ve never felt that story has been really brought to life in a way that we’ve been able to do with this adaptation. You’re really able to get under the skin of these characters.

Davies: Recreating [the early bits with Fantine] and putting it on the screen it felt a bit like the world of a Renoir painting. Renoir, Degas, working class pleasures. Boating on the Seine, open-air picnics, pretty girls and wealthy students. … The other bit that I find particularly engaging and moving was Jean Valjean’s relationship with Cosette. A man who had never really learned to love finding out what love was all about through adopting this little girl, and how intense and happy their relationship was. And then having to let her go, which in a way is emblematic of something all fathers know about, certainly I do. Watching Dominic play that relationship and having to let his daughter go was very powerful for me.

How did not having the musical requirements open up casting?

Penhale: We approached this as a really premium, quality piece of drama and for us where this was hugely exciting is we could really think about the casting in terms of who are the most exciting actors working at the moment and who was right to come into this. It was an enjoyable process of looking for the best actors.

What other challenges did you face in bringing this story to life for the small screen?

Penhale: One of the biggest things you feel when you take on an iconic piece of literary fiction is this huge responsibility to deliver the story really powerfully and well for the audience. There are iconic moments in “Misérables” that everybody knows, everybody is aware of. Everybody knows of the barricades. You have to be able to really deliver that to the audience. So part of it is that we set the bar very high for ourselves. You have to do that really well and you can’t disappoint.

Davies: There were huge moments in the book and they were what I set out to dramatize. They were also what I was interested in — bringing out all of the interesting connections in the way the characters link up. The chronology of the book is quite eccentric and I thought it would be valuable to straighten it out and begin the story with the aftermath of The Battle of Waterloo.

What did shooting in Belgium add to the project?

Penhale: Another challenge is you don’t have a limitless budget to draw on and so you have to have conversations around how are you delivering this authentically and cinematically. That’s a process. [Director] Tom Shankland had a clear sense of how he wanted to portray the world on screen and how he could achieve that and hats off to him for doing the most epic and cinematic job, but at the same time really focusing on performance. We took the decision early on that we wanted to shoot on location as much as possible near to where the story might have played out, so we shot in northern France and southern Belgium so that we could basically capture the feel of these French towns and the French countryside and make it feel as real as possible.

Was six hours enough time to properly tell this story?

Penhale: Six hours is a great length for the story. This will cover 17 years, you have a lot of time to cross and a lot of characters that grow with you.

Davies: As it turned out, that last episode ran an hour and 20 minutes in the U.K. Even then a lot of scenes had to go down in time in the edit; it could’ve been eight hours easily.

How else might themes of “them” versus “us” play out in the wake of Donald Trump’s wall or Brexit?

Penhale: “Les Misérables” tells the story about a whole sort of society finding a voice and speaking out and challenging the establishment. That’s essentially the skirmish that you see that leads to the barricade. It’s about a whole community of people standing up for what they believe in and fighting for a better world. You just have to look around, even beyond Britain or America. It’s a global phenomenon at the moment and much talked about in the news, the connections between those who are making decisions and those who have to live with those decisions on the day-to-day. There is absolutely a rift and gulf between the establishment and the society that people are living in in the world, and this absolutely echoes the sentiment and challenges that we struggle with today.

PBS Masterpiece’s “Les Misérables” debuts Sunday, April 14 at 9 p.m.

x

[pass-the-bechdel]

Teen Wolf full series review

How many episodes pass the Bechdel test?

82% (eighty-two of one hundred).

What is the average percentage of female characters with names and lines for the full series?

35.07%

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 40% female?

Twenty-eight.

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 50% female?

Seven.

How many episodes have a cast that is less than 20% female?

Two.

Positive Content Status:

Impressive and uplifting: it’s a show aimed at teens and young adults, and it recognises and takes full responsibility for representing a positive and progressive outlook to its audience. It’s a show full of complex, powerful, smart, skilled, wonderful, diverse female characters, and male characters who are emotional and vulnerable and honest and supportive with one another without judgment, and queer people living openly and happily without fear. I have had relatively minor quibbles, and I wouldn’t call it perfect representation, but it is easily the strongest example I currently have of the kind of positive representation I value (average rating of 3.18).

Which season had the best representation statistics overall?

Tough call, but season six part one edges out the competition by virtue of the highest percentage of female characters for the series (42.52%), which helps it to also score six episodes with 40%+ and three with their casts balanced or female-led at 50%+. It also turned in a 90% pass on the Bechdel.

Which season had the worst representation statistics overall?

Season two, which featured both of the series’ under-20% female cast episodes, and turned in a total percentage of 26.5%, with only 58.3% on the Bechdel. It’s saving grace: the second-highest positive representation score of the series (3.41).

Overall Series Quality:

An absolute delight, end to end. It’s outrageous, it’s bombastic, it is, at times, ridiculous. But it embraces this about itself, it owns it and loves it and revels in it, and it maintains itself with remarkable consistency and never shows any sign of being embarrassed to be just exactly what it is. In a way, that’s another point in favour of the positive message it sends to its audience; there’s no reason to consider Teen Wolf a guilty pleasure, something to hesitate or equivocate before admitting your enjoyment, for it never hesitates or equivocates about itself. It’s an honest and uncomplicated kind of pleasure, and I, unabashedly, love it.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) under the cut:

“You’re not a monster,” Scott declares, at the triumphant conclusion of the Teen Wolf series finale, “you’re a werewolf. Like me.” It’s a reiteration of the same line he uttered to his new beta, Liam, back in season four, and it’s a thoroughly earned mission statement for the show, a declaration that being different is ok, even if others have made you feel like an outcast for it, even if it’s difficult, even if it hurts. The way you are is ok, you have value as you are, and you are not alone. It’s easy to be cynical about that if it isn’t a message you personally need to hear, but for the youths in Teen Wolf’s target audience - especially the large queer contingent - it’s a crystal-clear affirmation that could not be more important, and not one made lightly. After all, it’s easy to make statements that sound glossy and progressive, but if you want people to really take it to heart, you have to earn it. Don’t just say it; demonstrate it. Whatever else you might think of this silly schlocky show, it didn’t just walk the walk with its representation: it strode out with pride. 

With a show that performed so admirably, it’s hard to know what to discuss in summary: the female characters really are so varied and wondrous, so complex and realistically flawed and none of them ever shamed for being different to the rest (because different is ok). The male characters really are so refreshingly low on toxic masculinity, or alternately, they have the limitations and the damage of toxic masculinity so thoroughly exposed through their narrative arcs that there’s no question about the show promoting emotionally healthy openness as a masculine ideal. The queer characters really are so numerous and loved and never made to suffer for their identities (though, if one is quibbling, there was certainly a preponderance of queer males compared to a pretty limited supply of queer females, and don’t think I forgot how they teased us with the idea of queer Stiles early on but never canonically delivered). At the end of the day though, I have discussed the above all over the individual episode/season posts, and what I really want to talk about now is how well they packaged their lesson of diverse acceptance for a young audience, because that target intention is where the show’s progressive ethos really shone.

Not all teen-targeted shows take it upon themselves to teach good morals, and to suggest that they should can come off as infantalising; as if young adults are still children, needing to be taught fundamental behaviours. Setting aside the fact that in some cases they really, really do need that (otherwise they become maladjusted adults who still really, really need those lessons on fundamental behaviours such as accepting other people for being different, et al.), the result of either option is often a bit of a disaster: you get teen shows that ignore their moral responsibility and consequently teach/reinforce incredibly damaging and even dangerous ways of thinking, or you get teen shows that treat their audience like morons while preaching in an embarrassingly out-of-touch fashion. For this reason, I have rarely enjoyed shows targeted at young adult audiences (even when I was part of that demographic) and I normally avoid such programming. As such, I am not a connoisseur of teen shows, but of the ones I have indulged Teen Wolf is absolutely the standout, not only for just getting me on pretty much every socio-political and entertainment level available, but for the attitude it takes toward that aforementioned target audience: specifically, how very in-tune it is with the way the demographic thinks and acts.

Whether a bad teen-targeted show is of the morally-irresponsible kind or the morally-preachy kind, the core problem is the same: they promote shame. It might be shame in the form of peer pressure, encouraging wild, foolish, and inconsiderate behaviour because ‘that’s what teens are like’ and making their young impressionable audience feel like weird losers if they don’t mirror the actions and attitudes depicted on their favourite shows, or it might be shame in the form of heavy-handed judgment, the idea that any experimentation or pushing at the borders of authority are absolutely BAD AWFUL things that only BAD AWFUL people do. For Teen Wolf, being in-tune with the audience means understanding that there are certain things that teenagers are extremely likely to do regardless of whether they have permission, and approaching those things as part of the audience’s reality within that spirit of understanding, focusing not on shame but rather on promoting positive and responsible behaviour. It’s really not rocket science, but somehow it’s still a wonderful anomaly. Instead of depicting teen sex as a taboo or a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t world full of dirty sluts and naive virgins, Teen Wolf is sex positive, even-handed across the spectrum of sexual activity and promoting enthusiastic consent and open discussion of boundaries. Instead of depicting teen drinking as either the worst of crimes or a guaranteed gateway to regrettable actions or something you just gotta do in order to have fun and fit in, Teen Wolf encourages making your own decisions for your own reasons, and watching out for your friends to make sure everyone gets home safe. It certainly doesn’t depict a conflict-free world where no one ever makes a bad choice or does anything stupid or selfish; it just doesn’t approach normal human behaviour with an air of judgment. There’s just no shame.

What makes this really significant is that it’s part and parcel of the whole acceptance ethos: it’s not just werewolf metaphors or telling kids that gay is ok. In order to really craft a message about not feeling ashamed to be who you are and how you are, you need to let the message touch all parts of the story, and all parts of the character’s lives, not just the big obvious points of contention. It’s a great way to be morally responsible with your impressionable audience without getting preachy and trying to tell them how to live: just encourage them to be considerate and wise about their choices by showing them how it’s beneficial for everyone, demonstrate, don’t just tell. Not rocket science at all. The other thing is that it really doesn’t need to be thought of as a ‘lesson’ at all; it’s just people being depicted in a non-judgmental fashion as they try their best to do the right thing in whatever situations they encounter. Sometimes they mess up, and sometimes they repeat mistakes, and sometimes they get overwhelmed, but they’re trying and they’re growing as people, and that’s the best you can ask of anyone, whether they’re supernatural teenagers on a tv show or not. Really, it’d be nice if more entertainment media spared a thought to reinforcing fundamental moral principles in their everyday content, because the world sure as Hell is full of maladjusted adults who are still absorbing and entrenching bad attitudes normalised in their television consumption. There’s no reason we should only expect this level of attentiveness from stories aimed at young people. That said, if this show were not targeted at young adults, it probably also wouldn’t be as good, because the reality is that the majority of ‘grown-up’ programming makes little to no effort to challenge the perceived social status quo. We’re probably lucky they kept the teen part of Teen Wolf when they adapted this story for television (the original 1985 film of the same name is NOT progressive or accepting, and I can’t recommend it - the show kept mercifully little beyond the basic idea of a teenage werewolf).

What Teen Wolf has done - and certainly not by accident - is create an entertaining safe space. For all that Beacon Hills is full of supernatural horror and grisly murders and nightmare fuel and sometimes, straight-up Nazi ideology, on an individual personal level it is a place without shame, a place where even when the characters feel backed into a corner with no good options, we can see that they have support, they have friends and family and slightly-nutty lacrosse coaches who have got their backs in a crisis, they have intelligence and skills and the hard-won knowledge of experience that will help them find a way; there is always an element of virtue shining within every moment. They still feel desperate sometimes, and hopeless, and alone. There are still a lot of bad things in their world, and sometimes that stuff is too big and too terrifying to bear, and the real world is like that too. You don’t have to be a teenager - or a werewolf - for that struggle to resonate, and you certainly don’t have to be either of those things in order to value a fiction in which being judged, marginalised, or mistreated for being the way you are is not a concern you have to add to your roster of ills. There are plenty enough terrible things in the world still, and sometimes what we really need is a little space to believe that there’s some inherent good left, too. Even if no problem is ever completely fixed, even if there will always be hate and evil and horror out there, waiting. You are valuable as you are, and someone’s gonna have your back. 

This is exactly the context in which Scott utters that final triumphant line “You’re not a monster, you’re a werewolf. Like me”, echoing that same thing he told Liam when he was miserable and afraid of what he had become and what it would mean for his life. It’s a sentiment that Scott earned from his own misery, his own fear, his own battle with having his life upended irreparably against his will. Scott is being for the new generation what no one was for him; he’s taking his hardships and forging them into a lifeline for those who come after, so that they don’t have to struggle as hard as he did. He’s doing better, one step, one person at a time. The parallel there isn’t hard to draw; the affirmation can’t get any clearer. You can’t have real representation - on any level - if you don’t have unconditional acceptance, and you can’t have unconditional acceptance if you don’t let the demonstration of it permeate your narrative. You can’t just say it. You have to be the change you want to see in the world. Unlikely as it might seem, schlocky and silly as this show was with its Steampunk doctors and Demon wolves and mountain aaaaassshhh, it was also a show dedicated to demonstrating - in varied and delightful detail - the kind of young people it hoped to be reflecting as they stepped out into adulthood. It’s easy to be cynical about that, but it isn’t useful, and there’s a kind of shame wrapped up in cynicism. Teen Wolf, to its utmost credit, was always far too busy embracing its own quirks to ever let cynicism in. I miss it already.

[ladystylestores]

Your Tuesday Briefing – The New York Times

An outbreak in Beijing rattles China

Some residential compounds in Beijing were under lockdown on Monday and tens of thousands were tested for the coronavirus as the government rushed to contain a new cluster of infections.

The outbreak has jolted China, after President Xi Jinping had said that Beijing should be a fortress against the pandemic. It pointed to challenges that governments worldwide will face as they reopen economies.

Details: City officials said Monday that they had tracked down 79 infections in Beijing over the previous four days, including 36 confirmed cases on Sunday. Nearly all of the cases appeared traceable to the Xinfadi food market, which was shut down over the weekend.

Disease experts said limited bursts of infections were likely to become part of the “new normal” for China. Still, it led to the firing of two local officials and the manager of the food market.

Travel returns in Europe, but what next?

Europe’s internal borders, closed three months ago, are opening again as politicians and scientists warn of potential new waves of coronavirus infections.

France, Germany and Switzerland were among the nations that welcomed arrivals from the European Union on Monday — joining Italy, Belgium and other countries in a new phase of balancing public health, economic realities and public frustrations.

Context: Lifting internal border restrictions has important financial implications and deep symbolic resonance. Open borders are at the heart of the European project to build a unified and free continent.

Details: Of about eight million known infections and over 430,000 confirmed Covid-19 deaths worldwide, about two million cases and more than 170,000 deaths have been in Europe.

Also: As statues fall in Europe in symbolic revolt against the histories of slavery and colonialism, local leaders and historians are working out how exactly they should be remembered.

In other news:

Britain’s leader agrees to trade talks with E.U.

In his first direct talks with European Union leaders about Brexit since Britain left the European Union, Prime Minister Boris Johnson agreed on Monday to try to reach a trade deal by the end of the year.

“The faster we can do this, the better,” Mr. Johnson said. Negotiations have been at an impasse during the pandemic, and both sides agreed to intensify talks in July and August.

Bigger picture: Europe wants a comprehensive agreement, but Britain wants a more modest free trade agreement, with side deals to handle issues like fishing. The transition period will last until the year’s end and both have said they are open to a no-deal outcome. But a brutal break would be economically disruptive.

It would probably be worse for Britain, which sends more than 40 percent of its exports to the European Union and gets more than 50 percent of its imports from the bloc.

If you have 5 minutes, this is worth it

In Russia, migrant workers come last

As the coronavirus batters Russia, migrant workers from Central Asia have been hit especially hard — first losing their jobs, then often being refused medical care if they became ill. Now, they are unable to return home because of a reduction in flights. Above, migrants from Central Asia in cramped housing in Moscow.

Despite the country’s reliance on them, the crisis has highlighted the inferior status of migrant workers. Desperate to get home, migrants have been banging on the doors of their embassies in Moscow.

Here’s what else is happening

The Philippines: The journalist Maria Ressa and a former colleague at the news site Rappler, which Ms. Ressa founded, were convicted of cyber libel by a court in Manila. It was another blow to press freedoms in a country where journalists have been threatened and bullied.

U.S. rights: In a stunning victory for the L.G.B.T.Q. movement, the Supreme Court ruled that the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits sex discrimination, applies to gay and transgender workers and protects them from workplace discrimination.

Ireland politics: Four months after an election, Ireland’s two main parties agreed on Monday to govern together for the first time, opening an unpredictable chapter as the country handles the coronavirus pandemic’s economic fallout.

U.S.-Russia spying: A court in Moscow sentenced an American, Paul Whelan, to 16 years in prison on espionage charges. Mr. Whelan, who served in the Marine Corps until 2008, was arrested in 2018 after being handed a flash drive that he says he thought contained pictures of churches but was instead loaded with classified information.

Snapshot: Above, a barbershop in Rajkot, in Gujarat, a state in western India. From our series “The World Through a Lens” comes a collection of portraits from Gujarat, a place that defies easy generalizations, says the photographer Michael Benanav.

European soccer: As clubs try to take stock of the damage of the coronavirus shutdown, this summer’s deals could herald a transformation in the balance of power.

What we’re reading: This list from Vox on habits that people want to keep post-lockdown. More working from home is an obvious one on that list, but there are also some thoughts about less consumerism and slowing down.

Now, a break from the news

Cook: These chocolate chip cookies are about as adaptable as cookies get. You don’t even need chocolate chips — pack them with dried fruit, nuts or a chopped-up chocolate bar.

Watch: The comedian Dave Chappelle’s Netflix special “8:46” addresses police brutality, the death of George Floyd and nationwide protests. There aren’t really any jokes, our culture reporter writes, but instead “a raw accounting.”

Read: Take a look, or perhaps a second look, at Robert Frank’s eye-opening book of 83 photographs, “The Americans,” published in 1959. Frank had crossed America by car, seeing it as an outsider, a Swiss who left Zurich in 1947 in search of broader horizons.

At Home has our full collection of ideas on what to read, cook, watch and do while staying safe at home.

And now for the Back Story on …

Confronting South Korea’s beauty standards

Frances Cha’s novel “If I Had Your Face” is an unflinching look at how four young women pursue their dreams and ambitions in Seoul. Ms. Cha confronts South Korea’s social norms, including its impossibly high beauty standards. Here’s what she told our In Her Words newsletter:

What inspired you to write a book about contemporary South Korea?

I wanted to write about the people I encountered every day in Korea. I have read “The Joy Luck Club” so many times that both my covers have fallen off. And reading it, I realized it was possible to have an Asian protagonist and explore themes like filial piety. I wanted to write a story about young women that is very specific to modern Korea.

Explain the connection between filial piety and elective plastic surgery.

Filial piety — “hyo” in Korean — is the age-old historical and traditional virtue of deep respect and support and love toward one’s parents and elders. To say “he is a hyo-ja” or “she is a hyo-nyeo” means someone is a good son or daughter, exhibiting and living by respect that is born of gratitude to your parents. I know many friends of my parents have lived with their in-laws for many decades, supporting and providing for them, despite the fact that these relationships are often strained.

The cosmetic surgery industry is practically its own character in your book. Can you help us understand more about the obsession with plastic surgery in South Korea?

When I tell people I’m Korean, people always ask if I’ve had plastic surgery. Plastic surgery runs very counter to American and Western ideas about remaining true to yourself — that you shouldn’t have to change anything about yourself because of anyone’s judgment.

But in South Korea, there are very real and practical reasons people have plastic surgery. I ask readers to reserve their judgment on that. The reality in 21st-century South Korea is how you look does matter, especially if you don’t come from wealth and status. Until recently, job applicants had to submit a photo with their job application.

That’s it for this briefing. Here are some thoughts on emotional resilience in a crisis. See you next time.

Isabella

Thank you Melissa Clark provided the recipe, and Theodore Kim and Jahaan Singh wrote the rest of the break from the news. You can reach the team at briefing@nytimes.com.

P.S. • We’re listening to “The Daily.” Our latest episode is about taking stock of where we are six months into the coronavirus. • Here’s today’s Mini Crossword puzzle, and a clue: Inbox message (five letters). You can find all our puzzles here. • Jamie Stockwell, a deputy National desk editor, will expand her role to include Race/Related, a cross-desk team aimed at producing thoughtful stories about race.

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12 Celeb-Led Shows We’re Excited to Watch on Quibi

At any other moment in time, we might have groaned about yet another streaming service to sign up for. But with self-isolation in full effect across many countries around the world, this might just be the perfect time for a new platform to debut, with a whole slate of original scripted and unscripted content. Launching April 6, Quibi shows offer “quick bites” of TV—each episode clocks in between seven and 10 minutes, and is available on mobile only.

From Chrissy Teigen to Liam Hemsworth to Nicole Richie to Lena Waithe, Quibi’s bite-sized appeal has attracted a slew of celebrities for its initial lineup of content. Dramas, comedies, documentary series and reality competitions have all found a home on the platform, which is offering a 90-day free trial to those who sign up at Quibi.com before April 20. The Quibi app is now available for pre-order in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, and costs $4.99 with ads and $7.99 without ads. Read on for the shows we’re most excited to see, all of which drop on April 6.

Chrissy’s Court

This Judge Judy-esque show features Chrissy Teigen taking on the role of judge in small claims court. “Have you been injured on the job, even if was your own fault? Did your roommate steal your clothes and try to sell them back to you? Did your ex borrow your phone and return it with a cracked screen?” she says in the show’s teaser. “You may be entitled to a cash settlement. Call this number and get the justice you deserve.” Her mother, Vilailuck “Pepper Thai” Teigen, maintains order in the court as the bailiff. A new episode drops daily and aside from the laughs, each new day in court delivers a bold statement necklace worn by Teigen over her black robes.

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You Ain’t Got These

In an age in which sneakers have become a status symbol, Queen & Slim writer Lena Waithe explores social issues through the lens of sneaker culture with guests like Billie Jean King, Hasan Minhaj, and Jemele Hill. “Sneakers are the only economic good that unites the richest of the rich and the poorest of the poor,” says Minhaj in the series trailer. “The dude who’s bagging your groceries is wearing a pair of Jordan 3s White Cement… and so is Jay-Z.”

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Thanks a Million

Executive produced by Jennifer Lopez, this reality series features some very famous faces—including Kristen Bell, Nick Jonas, Yara Shahidi, Karlie Kloss and Lopez herself—giving thanks (by way of $100,000 in cash) to someone who made a profound impact on their lives. Those unsuspecting individuals will then keep the chain of kindness going by paying half of that amount forward to someone else. Across ten episodes, $1,000,000 will be put in the hands of everyday people.

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Nikki Fre$h

Starring and executive produced by Nicole Richie, this show offers a satirical look at the world of wellness and socially-conscious pop culture. As Nikki Fre$h, Richie’s goal is to create a new brand of “conscious trap” music for “teachers, rabbis, Virgos, but mostly moms and gays,” and to also care for the planet’s “plants, bees and interspecies.” According to the official release, “Nikki Fre$h will interact with real life seekers and consciousness experts to learn ways to better serve our bodies and our planet — while comedically exaggerating those solutions to the edge of sanity.”

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NightGowns

This eight-episode series takes a peek behind curtain as drag queen Sasha Velour adapts her critically-acclaimed Brooklyn drag revue into a full-on stage production—and the biggest drag showcase of her life. “Part behind-the-scenes documentary, part lip-sync spectacular,” each episode will focus on one performer from Velour’s ensemble as they prep for their individual showcases.

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Most Dangerous Game

Liam Hemsworth plays a terminally-ill man desperate to provide some funds to support his pregnant wife before his death. So he accepts an offer—extended by the deliciously evil Christoph Waltz—to participate in a deadly real-life “hunt to kill” in which he’s the prey. The series also stars Sarah Gadon, Billy Burke and Zach Cherry.

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Survive

Sophie Turner’s first post-Game of Thrones project tells the story of two plane crash survivors forced to “combat the elements and their personal demons” when their plane crashes on a remote mountain, killing everyone else on board. The series co-stars Corey Hawkins (Straight Outta Compton) and is based on a critically acclaimed novel by the same name.

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Fierce Queens

“Ask yourself one question: why do they call it the Animal Kingdom, when it’s clearly run by queens?” asks narrator Reese Witherspoon. This documentary nature series explores the fabulous females of the animal world, from ant queens to speedy cheetahs, who call the shots in the wild and sit at the top of the social hierarchy. From the award-winning BBC Studios Natural History Unit, this series delivers the most dramatic natural history stories from a fresh female perspective.

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Although a release date hasn’t yet been set for the following, these are shows we’re keeping an eye out for.

Just One Drink

Oscar winner Laura Dern plays a bartender serving customers “in various states of emotional disrepair” in this series of one-act vignettes from Oscar-nominated writer Nick Hornby, whose previous critically-acclaimed work includes Brooklyn and An Education.

Beauty

Starring and executive produced by supermodel Tyra Banks, this docuseries “aims to expand and redefine the definition of beauty” by exploring and challenging traditional beauty standards throughout the world.

Empires of Luxury

Crazy Rich Asians author Kevin Kwan teams up with acclaimed filmmaker Eddie Schmidt for this look into “the elite families behind the world’s most exclusive luxury labels.” While these brands have kept their businesses in the family for generations, the show chooses to shine a light on the the millennial members of the family guiding the brands toward the future.

Pillow Talk With Demi Lovato

Demi Lovato sits down for “candid, unfiltered conversations” with a slate of celebrity and expert guests, covering everything from body positivity and gender identity to activism and wellness over the course of the 10-episode series.

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Whether you’re standing in the theater lobby or curled up in bed, deciding what to watch next is often the most difficult part of any pop-culture junkie’s day. And with dozens of films in theaters on any given weekend, plus virtually endless layers of streaming purgatory to sort through in search of your next binge-watch, there’s more out there—and tougher decisions to make—than ever.

Fortune’s here to help you navigate the week’s latest offerings, boiling all the entertainment out there down into three distinct recommendations: should you see it, stream it, or skip it? Find out below.

SEE IT: ‘Cats’ (In theaters)

What you have to understand about Cats is that it’s certifiably insane, from its Jellicle whiskers to the tip of its Jellice tail. I’m referring here to the beloved Andrew Lloyd Webber stage musical, one of Broadway’s longest-running, as much as Tom Hooper’s gleefully demented movie adaptation. From day one, Cats has been one of the strangest megahits in any storytelling medium; it’s necessary to know this, and accept this, before reading any further.

Describing the plot of Cats makes you feel like you’re on bath salts (though not as much as does seeing it play out on screen), but the broad strokes are essentially this. Over the course of one night in an unnamed, eerily empty neighborhood, a group of cats take turns introducing one another—with names like Rum Tum Tugger and Mr. Mistoffeelees—as they debate which one of them will get to die, ascending to another plane of existence known as the Heaviside Layer, where they’ll be reborn into a new life. As a story, it’s pure fever dream, the kind of thing even Roald Dahl’s editor wouldn’t have let him get away with; but the strange non-plot of Cats functions, in a theatrical setting, as an ideal delivery system for visual splendor and powerhouse vocals.

Hooper’s tackled musicals before, notably in 2012’s Les Miserables, where he spent 158 minutes on extreme close-ups of France’s most impoverished, and he fully throws himself into the task of translating Cats, a much more experimental piece of work, to the screen. There’s a newly created audience surrogate, Victoria (newcomer Francesca Hayward), who’s tossed via burlap sack into the neighborhood of the Jellicles, a tribe of cats on the eve of making their “Jellicle choice.” Across the sung-through story, she meets a mewling menagerie of contenders for said choice, including bumbling Jennyanydots (Rebel Wilson), stately Gus the Theatre Cat (Ian McKellen), and portly Bustopher Jones (James Corden), plus the aforementioned Mistoffeelees (a gawky Laurie Davidson), and Rum Tum Tugger (Jason Derulo, who sings and simpers gamely but seems to be missing a little something). Presiding over all is Old Deuteronomy (Judi Dench and, no, I don’t know who named these cats), who’ll enjoy the festivities then select the lucky (?) feline in question.

The real draw of Cats involves seeing the all-star cast, which also includes pop sovereign Taylor Swift and vocal legend Jennifer Hudson (who gets to belt out “Memory,” the production’s lone showstopper), made over with the help of CG effects, called “digital fur technology” (though it’s basically just expensive deepfakery), into cat-human hybrids. The effect is deeply upsetting; though the actors are covered in fur and sporting twitchy tails, their proportions are still human, so the actors appear discomfitingly sensual while dancing and serenading one another. They have cat ears, but also human teeth; whiskers, but also fingernails. Some wear jumpsuits, while others go for a more paw-naturel look; the movie directs attention to the strange sense of faux-nudity that results by having Idris Elba’s villainous Macavity wear a hat and fur coat (which begs questions we shouldn’t dare to ask) but later make a surprise scene entrance after disrobing, to which the other cats react with a fairly hypocritical degree of horror.

In watching this digital fur extravaganza at work, entranced by the sheer scale of its visual chaos, I found myself wondering what else Hooper and his team could have done. The tactic most employed by Disney, the imperial overlord Universal’s bravely going up against with this freaky little musical (note this week’s skip it), has been to pursue photorealism in its animated productions. Earlier this year, it turned The Lion King into an uncanny-valley catastrophe, sapping the story of all emotional and dramatic resonance in the process. People simply did not want to hear human voices coming out of the mouths of Planet Earth lions, which is very understandable. Hooper’s techniques with Cats, through which his furry creations sing and dance maniacally into their versions of heaven or hell, bring the whole affair closer to Gaspar Noe’s Climax by way of The Aristocats. While Cats is by no means going to be a guaranteed hit with the little ones, who may be terrified by it or confused by its sexuality, it’s an absolutely unhinged piece of blockbuster filmmaking, worth beholding in all its tawdry, queer, bombastic glory.

It’s the kind of risk studios just don’t take any more, perhaps much more of one than executives ever intended it to be. The film cost some $100 million to pull off, and the amount of uncertainty Cats brings with it into the multiplex—did those oh-my-god-they-actually-did-it trailers turn people off, or the opposite?—makes it the most exciting box-office curiosity left in the calendar year. Will it break records or bomb? The experience of watching Cats—howls of stunned laughter from many, with a few Swifties cheering her grand entrance and the majority of us struggling to even once pick our jaws up off the floor—is one of the most strange and mind-melting you’re likely to have in a theater when it comes to studio content of this size and scope. I’d recommend going for much for the same reason the play’s stuck around so long—whether it’s a masterpiece or one of the worst things you’ve ever seen, it’s resolutely its own thing, a deranged freak-fantasia worth falling into for a couple of hours, if just to say you did. That is to say, it’s Cats.

STREAM IT: ‘The Witcher’ (Netflix)

Netflix’s latest original-series gamble is aiming for Game of Thrones-level complexity in its sketching of a dark-fantasy realm where mythical creatures lie in wait but monarchal power struggles loom just as large.

And based on its first season, The Witcher (adapted from the beloved book series by Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski) is well on its way. Comprising eight episodes, a smaller number which clearly allowed showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich to focus on thoughtfully tracing an ambitious array of story arcs, the series hangs around the impossibly broad shoulders of Geralt of Rivia (Henry Cavill, great at veining these strong-and-silent types with a gallows humor).

A stone-faced loner who roams the dangerous Continent in search of monsters to slay, Geralt is no hero, and he’s often perilously close to going over the edge in his bloodletting. The character’s most distinguished by his unwillingness to diverge from his own moral compass by getting involved in court politics. In this, he’s reminiscent of Clint Eastwood’s tumbleweed-drifting Man with No Name or Raymond Chandler’s private eye Philip Marlowe, a sword in hand rather than a revolver. But Geralt’s on a path toward destiny, as protagonists in high-fantasy fare such as this often are, and he’s soon to become entwined in the fates of two distinctly powerful women. There’s Yennefer (Anya Chalotra), in training to become a powerful sorceress at a mysterious academy, and Ciri (Freya Allen), a young princess in hiding after her kingdom was ransacked and her parents slain. All three characters are afforded their own storylines, weaving their way across the Continent and finding themselves transformed in a myriad of ways by its darkest, magical elements.

Further detailing the epic, sweeping nature of The Witcher‘s story would be to deprive audiences of unexpected, rather graceful reveals that the scripts tease out in due time. What there is to say about The Witcher is that it represents one of Netflix’s most fully formed forays into genre territory yet. The fights, especially in a cinematic and sprawling pilot, are of a kinetic and impressively top-shelf variety, Cavill’s Geralt moving like a man possessed as he rends flesh from bone and engages in some surprisingly balletic bouts of swordplay. And the production design is similarly well-executed, quickly establishing the Continent as a grungy, bloody landscape for these characters to navigate. But it’s the strength of the storytelling that bodes most well for The Witcher as a new destination for those done licking their wounds after that fateful final run in Westeros.

SKIP IT: ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’ (In theaters)

… even though you’ll see it

“If this mission fails, it was all for nothing,” characters tell one another throughout Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. That’s popcorn-prose concentrate, the kind of dramatic hyperbole that Star Wars has been coasting on since the very beginning. And while it’s traditionally been a fake-out—there’s always another mission, another battle to be won, even after ones that end with your hero encased in carbonite—such sentiment has never felt as profoundly hollowed out as it does by the end of Rise of Skywalker, a graceless franchise finale about nothing more than missions succeeding that itself feels like a staggering failure of vision, conceptually as well as on basic storytelling fronts.

Director J.J. Abrams’ anxiety in making Rise of Skywalker surely fell along those same all-or-nothing lines. By his own admission, he’s bad at endings, and there was tremendous pressure riding on Abrams to bring home the story of the Skywalker clan, a nine-movie saga that’s never loomed larger in the pop cultural imagination. The Rise of Skywalker may well be the last Star Wars movie to feature the heroes Abrams helped forge in his nostalgic The Force Awakens—Rey (Daisy Ridley), Finn (John Boyega), and Poe (Oscar Isaac)—and it’s almost certain to be the final outing for original cast members the series is now starting to outlive. Carrie Fisher died after shooting her scenes for The Last Jedi, and this entry (once intended to be Leia’s movie in the sense that The Force Awakens was Han’s and The Last Jedi was Luke’s) is to be her last screen credit. This just makes the magnitude of Abrams’s failure all the more devastating. One last adventure? Hardly. In a pivotal entry for the franchise, he chooses not to tell a story, instead drowning the developments this trilogy’s second film put forward in a soupy mess of fan service and stilted, unoriginal plotting.

When The Last Jedi hit theaters two years ago, it offered a thematic depth hitherto unseen in Star Wars movies; in the hands of writer-director Rian Johnson, it tangled head-on with questions of hero worship and inheritance that have always been intrinsic to the galaxy far, far away. But the answers it provided—that one must relinquish the past to chart a future, that our heroes will disappoint us, that the Force is not the lineage of a select but a spiritual energy belonging to all of us—were bold and unexpected. In this, it was a shocking follow-up to The Force Awakens, Abrams’ play-the-hits remake of A New Hope, and ruffled feathers with a small but loud contingent of fans, who disliked the film’s treatment of Luke and focus on supporting characters (the most hated of whom, perhaps not coincidentally given the way these Internet mobs tend to go, were women and minorities).

This is worth mentioning because The Rise of Skywalker feels, more than a film, like a feature-length capitulation to those who disliked what The Last Jedi did with the Star Wars mythos (which was, at the end of the day, to make a real movie with it). Where The Last Jedi zagged, Rise of Skywalker zigs, choppily, back inside the pre-existing template to which Disney and Lucasfilm clearly now believes these movies must adhere. It is in fact comical how frantically it rushes to undo Johnson’s progression of these characters, crowding them unnaturally into the same space to combat criticisms everyone spent too much time apart in the last film and entirely sidelining Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran, the series’ first Asian-American lead who was brutally harassed online after The Last Jedi) with so little explanation it feels just as racist and sexist as the chatroom vitriol she was subjected to. The Rise of Skywalker also works overtime to retcon The Last Jedi‘s biggest twists. One deformed bad guy with Force powers is down for the count? Let’s introduce another. The question of Rey’s parentage got answered, unexpectedly, with the revelation her family name didn’t have to matter so much? Well, let’s revisit that actually.

From the first words in its opening crawl (“The dead speak!”) to its final frame, The Rise of Skywalker spends its whole runtime chasing ghosts. As teased by the trailers, Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) is back, for reasons the script scarcely attempts to rationalize, and he brings with him a fleet of Star Destroyers capable of wiping out entire planets in one blast. You thought the First Order was bad? Get ready for the “Final Order.”

That’s truly the order of business in The Rise of Skywalker. It’s a movie slavishly devoted to hitting beats from previous films without basic narrative sense, to the point where it feels less like a natural ending to this franchise and more like bad fanfiction. The only way the characters progress is through ill-advised romantic pairings. One interminable (and ultimately pointless) lightsaber battle takes place amid in the wreckage of a destroyed Death Star. The finale involves outgunned resistance fighters making one last stand to blow up a massive bad-guy space base. Beloved characters are imperiled constantly, but there are no real stakes when even the already-dead ones are back for sizable roles. Familiar desert planets pop up, along with Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams), for maximum fan pandering.

There’s a real difference between a director and an artist, and nothing demonstrates this better than the massive step down The Rise of Skywalker takes both thematically and visually after The Last Jedi. There’s little by way of distinctive or striking visuals; the entire film is hued a murky blue, with an ill-advised focus on strobe lighting. Furthermore, it’s a Star Wars movie with absolutely nothing under its surface, which is a damning trait for a movie in this franchise. Abrams is a great producer, but his weaknesses as a filmmaker have never been this exposed. In attempting to give a noxious portion of the Star Wars fanbase what they asked for, his finale feels like a cheap and derivative product, the ultimate end-result of Disney’s written-by-committee modus operandi, so craven about resurrecting Star Wars that it comes off like grave-robbing. This is Star Wars broken under the weight of its own importance, eating its own tail for lack of any original voices to better nourish it. It’s nothing short of a tragedy.

More must-read stories from Fortune:

—Why these high-profile book adaptations bombed at the box office in 2019 —’Tis the season for holiday movies—and Hallmark and Lifetime aren’t afraid of Netflix —Whistleblower cinema is back in a big way —How some artists are building their careers through Spotify playlists —As 2019 draws to a close, does the movie star still have a pulse? Follow Fortune on Flipboard to stay up-to-date on the latest news and analysis.

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A while ago, I finished an interesting written by my colleague Jason Schreier over at Kotaku called Blood, Sweat and Pixel, telling the stories and problems of 10 different AAA and indie developers faced when creating their games. One of the chapter was all about Destiny, and it got me realize how much one of the biggest commercial successes of recent years, was a flawed title that took almost three years to get on solid grounds, numerous studio creative changes, but yet became something that involved a huge community of players all around the world including myself (proud hunter right here). Despite somewhat lukewarm criticism and negative feedback from early adopters, this shooter like no other has found its way, after a series of free updates, 2 DLCs and 2 expansion packs (The Taken King and Rise of Iron). Now almost 3 years after its first release, comes the sequel, Destiny 2, a way to fix many core issues from the original and hopefully start off fresh.

To say that the first Destiny was criticized by the press and players is something lots know already. This merge between MMO and FPS had lots of flaws during the past three years: a story badly written and incomprehensible unless you visited the Bungie site (to read Grimoire cards), grindy, too expensive with all the DLCs, and let’s not forget about the plethora of bugs that whether were abused for good intention or not is a different story (I’m looking at you all Raid cheesers). Nevertheless, players stuck around, and devout Guardians continued to voice their discontent at the game, in hope that Bungie will listen, but it seems they had other plans: create a sequel that will become a fresh start for everyone. Now clocking more than 35 hours of play in Destiny 2 (a shy number in comparison to my 923 hours on the first Destiny), trying a plethora of activities, finding new loot, I’m pretty sure there is still much to discover, but at least I can say one thing: Destiny 2 deserves your time, because it finally fixes some of the core issues of its predecessor.

Throughout my reading of Blood, Sweat and Pixel, I learned the main issue behind Destiny’s rather lack of story. Months before the first planned release of the game, Bungie studio executives had asked that the script be rewritten, due to a lack of clarity from the original one. Too linear, according to them, this new change of order had consequences on the development of the game, as one could imagine, and sadly Bungie gave birth to game that was praised for its shooting mechanics but pretty much nothing else. As sad thing, coming from the studio that create epic stories of challenges and rise to power (the Halo series), but throughout the 3 years of the first Destiny, The Taken King and Rise of Iron became a testing ground to put some sense in the lore of the game and its rich story (and plus we got amazing content creators like My name is Byf decrypting and explaining the lore better than the game makers). With Destiny 2, the studio had the chance to start on a good foundation, almost reminding us of the days of Blizzard’s World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, a clean wipe for everyone, so they build upon what worked and what needed to be fixed.

Destiny 2 takes place a small year after the SIVA crisis introduced in Destiny: Rise of Iron. Crota and Oryx are just bad memories (or good memories for you accomplished raiders), and the game recounts a short summary of your past exploits in the previous version, if you played it. It recalls the date of your rebirth on Earth Cosmodrome; the day you triumphed over the Darkness in the heart of the Black Garden, your first victory in the Vault of Glass raid; the day you reached the Lighthouse on Mercury; when you became an Iron Lord; and so on. It is also an opportunity to remember with whom some of these accomplishments have been done, and like many Destiny players around the world probably believe: the experience is not necessarily to know how you play, nut with whom you play. This small introduction was therefore quite moving, I must admit, enough to almost shed a tear among those who spent hundreds of hours on the first opus. The newcomers though, will be introduced to the universe of Destiny by a summary of the previous events in a well done, if not better than actually playing the first game. Destiny 2 did well to differentiate between the veterans and the beginners, adapting the numerous dialogues of the game; incorporating the enormous – hidden – lore of the series in an easier way for new Guardian, who can thus discover a brand new world. The others, who have known the horrors of The Dark Below, fought the blight of the Takens and saw the snowing peaks of Felwinter are treated as they should: as Destiny Veterans.

The script of Destiny 2 is finally quite simple in its own way. The last city on earth, still standing since its creation, is suddenly attacked by the Red Legion, an elite faction of the Cabal Empire. Encountered in the first game, the Cabals had until then constituted only a vague threat; a few outposts on Mars were filled with exhausted troops, but never truly a representation of the terrible power of this military empire. The Guardians are rapidly outnumbered and the city falls into the hands of the invader; the player, in a final desperate attempt, tries to attack the mothership and falls head-to-head with Dominus Ghaul, the leader of the Red Legion. You then understands that Ghaul’s aims is to seek out the power of the Traveller, a divine entity that has been dormant for centuries, after protecting humanity and to whom the Guardians owe their powers. What happens next is that Ghaul encloses the sphere god in a sort of gigantic harness, which has the effect of depriving all the Guardians of their Light, becoming vulnerable and mortal, and are eliminated one after the other, while the few survivors are forced to retreat.

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In short, Destiny 2 tells the story of the Guardians’ long struggle to get back their City, free the Traveler, and triumph over the Red Legion while getting back their lost powers. Without telling you too much, know that the adventure will lead you to four corners of the solar system, like the first episode, but this time to organize the resistance or counter-attack. Overall, the game has some solid good writing and offers some of the most epic moments of the series, probably because of a switch in creative writing leads, including Senior Narrative Lead Jason Harris. Well served by numerous cinematic and plenty of dialogues with new and old characters, the plot progresses at a good rhythm and remains clear, from the beginning to the end. Screenwriters also had the good idea to include the point of view of the other side; with a set of cinematics that show what’s going on with Ghaul while you progress through the story, and obviously helps understand the Red Legion’s intentions, and their final goal. If it never really surprises, this campaign has the merit of being straight to the point and even emotional, recalling what the studio did better back in the early 2000s, as we remember the epic stories of Halo to Halo Reach. The first moments of this defeat against the Red Legion reminded me of Halo Reach’s eight campaign mission New Alexandria, in which the Noble-6 landed wounded and almost unarmed, in a city invaded by the Covenants forces. Destiny 2 however, retains its own identity, avoiding to pour the theme too much into the suffering of humanity, with dramatic moments, well served by an excellent soundtrack done by Skye Lewin, Michael Salvatori and others… Some tracks are fit of epic movies, and I can’t stress on how amazing they are in terms of composition but also variety, so I’ve included a sample of one of my favorite one which you can hear below. Plus, I’d like to thank whoever was in charge of the sound effects this time, as the weapons aroused my senses, like the low throbs of the Graviton Lance pulse rifle, or the volley of rockets coming out of the Wardcliff Coil rocket launcher.

While Destiny 2 is all about a fresh start, the game still uses key characters known to fans, such as the trio of Zavala, Ikora and Cayde-6, but also introduces some new ones, all rather well done, starting with my personal favorite called Failsafe. The latter is an AI, one of the only survivors of a golden age mission on Nessus (roughly 500 years before the event of Destiny), which now suffers from a multiple personality disorder that makes it rather amusing. Sometimes jovial and helpful, Failsafe can be more squeaky and sarcastic without any logical transition. On Io, the player will meet Ashar Mir, an awoken scientist whose personality is closer to your grumpy uncle than a helpful nerd, then on the EDZ (which we’ll explain more later on), you’ll meet one of Bungie’s first ever gay characters, Devrim Kay. These characters aren’t just there for show, but important to each planet as they give the player many information about the places but also dedicated quests. In the end, the Destiny 2 campaign finds a certain balance here, with its epic clashes, its moments of doubt and its hard blows, without taking itself too seriously. It’s a formula that may not please everyone, but the regulars of the studio production will recognize the Bungie tone, which likes nothing more than drop fun jokes even when the end of the world is near.

Dominus Ghaul, leader of the Red Legion

It easily took me around 10-15 hours to see the end credits of Destiny 2, which followed a sort of linear path that is at the choice of the player. Technically, Destiny 2 guides the player to concentrate on key story quests, but you have the choice to do other things like sidequests called Adventures. On the other hand, since some story missions are only accessible when the player has reached a certain level, it was necessary for me to go into PvP or Strikes (matchmaking cooperative missions with three players) to get enough experience and obviously better gear and weapons.

While the first Destiny was finally quite simple in its unlocking system, players gradually unlocked new planets, and from space he could choose a mission, whatever it was, or go for a stroll on the planet of his choice to do patrols or just farm for ressources. Bungie has thoroughly reviewed the way its game was built, and now every Destiny 2 planet has several landing zones, but also different missions and quests, which are all up to the player to decide what to prioritize. Story missions are even located on the map, so you have to go there to activate them, but you’ll end up finding other things to do on the way, such as Adventures, which act as smaller scripted set of missions, or explore Lost Sectors, (secret zones which house mini-bosses and loot boxes), or a plethora of public events that guardians in the area can join, and of course returning patrol missions. Destiny 2 broadly resumes the basis of what its predecessor did, but constantly enrich the experience, like The Lost Sectors, for example, are only an evolution of these small dark caves in which sometimes there were no real interest in discovering.

The planets themselves follow the same logic of evolution of Destiny 2. Larger in size, they are also richer, with vast areas filled with varied visual elements, enemies, secret chests and all sorts of loot to discover. The game makes the effort to propose even more complex levels to invite the player to explore each planet, and succeeds on all front with some interesting verticality notably on Nessus and IO. If the first Destiny had us visit Earth’s Cosmodrome, the Moon, Mars and Venus, Guardians in Destiny 2 will visit previously mentioned IO, Nessus, and Titan, one of Jupiter’s satellites. Gone are the Russian plains of the Cosmodrome, as we discover the lush forests of the European Dead Zone, well known to PvP enthusiasts; in fact, several maps of the first Destiny were located precisely in the EDZ, like the Widow’s Court. In general, each destination has its own identity, almost making it a character of its own: Titan is a hostile planet, abandoned by humanity, home of methane research centers and arcologies.

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The latter have unfortunately been invaded by a well-known enemy of the players, the Hive, which almost gives a sort of Alien movie side to Destiny 2. Nessus on the other hand reminds me of Venus, full of warm colors and impressive alien vegetation, home to vast vex ruins. IO finally is know as the last thing the Traveller touched before the Collapse, a “religious” place for Warlocks, and home of the biggest vex building you’ve ever seen.

You will spend plenty of time on these new planets as the game offers many missions. If I liked them to be higher in count in comparison to the first Destiny, I must admit that the developers have learned the lessons of the past. Destiny 2 stands by itself with the current content, even though expansions are planned for the months to come. With a total of 35 hours of play with the core game, I still have a lot of things to do and endless grinds, as the most hardcore of us fans will seek to reach the highest power level of 350, and without the need of replaying missions and other tedious tasks from the original game. Because yes, if anything, Destiny main problem was this weird cycle of having to replay story missions with different modifiers such as harder difficulties (Heroic missions). Numerous games do the same like the Diablo franchise, but these mechanics were not something that players really liked, and throughout the Destiny cycle these were pushed to the side. Instead the Destiny 2 introduce different weekly and daily activities that surely will have you venture in the same locations of the games, but without a feeling like you’re doing the same thing every time, namely Milestones and Challenges. The later are small secondary tasks that are dependent on either the game mode you are playing, or which planet you’re on. For example, it could be a task to kill 75 Fallen enemies on Titan, or maybe kill 5 Guardians with heavy weapons in the Crucible. There’s basically 3 challenges per activity (Crucible, Raid, Strikes) as well as per planet, giving you the chance to build XP and rewards faster. The other more important tasks are Milestones, which are usually more complicated, but will give you larger rewards such as powerful gear (usually higher power level than the one you have), and usually are linked to the most challenging part of the game like finish the Raid, Nightfall Strikes, newly introduced Flashpoints and Lord Shaxx’s Call to Arms (I’ll get back to all these later in the review)

All this mention about loot made me realize that we should probably talk about its new system, and especially how it affects the character that adorns and wields it. Like in the first Destiny, players will be able to pick one of the three classes: Titan, Warlock or Hunter, which will each have, after several hours of play, three different sub-classes. While most expected a new class or at least sub-classes to be added in the game, Bungie’s choice makes sense as it would be too random to add it at this point. Instead Bungie introduces redesigned subclasses, especially on the front of the starting ones like the Titan’s Sentinel, Warlock’s Dawnblade and the Hunter’s Arcstrider, which ultimately are an evolution of respectively the Titan’s Defender, Warlock’s Sunsinger and the Hunter’s Bladedancer.

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This does not mean that the subclasses haven’t really changed since the original Destiny, but on the contrary, have completely different skill trees. While the logic is still to have a cooldown ability of a grenade, your subclass skill, and a Class Ability Modifiers on top of your Super, the changes are dramatic for Destiny veterans, which will need to revisit their strategies. In my case, as a Hunter, I had to learn the hard way that gone are the invisibility perks of the Arc class, but instead, the Arcstrider is an agile high-risk subclasss with numerous tricks to lower your cooldown timers for all abilities. On that front, cooldowns are no longer subjected to the stats of your armor, since the trinity of Discipline, Strength and Intelligence have disappeared, instead relying on your nodes activated in your skill tree. This is a great thing for skilled players, especially when it comes to PVP, as they will be able to reload their skills fairly quick and inflict more damage because of the way they play, instead of betting on the armor stats like in the previous Destiny.

On the other hand, improving your character still depends on your loot and gear. The good news at least is that the system is much clearer than in the first game (and trust me, I’ve seen numerous changes in the past three years). In Destiny 2, loot can be found almost everywhere and in all activities, with revised drop rate on all front, so it won’t take you days before you find a legendary engram. The same thing applies in crucible, where I got my first exotic after a mere 8-10 hours of. On top of that, the original Destiny reputation system has been scratched, in favor of a system of tokens that are more interesting. The Vanguard have their own led by Zavala, Shaxx for Crucible, but also each planet’s key character has their own “ranking” system. Basically, the more you do task that help each person, the more you get token which you can hen redeem and level up your “allegiance” to eventually unlock Legendary Engrams, which decrypt into a series of themed weapons and armors (shaders and other cosmetic loot as well). Plus you can now join actual clans with all your friends (the old groups), which has its own reward system on a season basis, as well as buffs throughout period of time.

The new loot system is redefined to reduce endless grind

In short, the possibilities of the new loot system are numerous and if you were already addicted to that in the first Destiny, then the sequel will probably eat all of your spare time as you hunt for the best. There is however a small change that will not please all Guardians and especially devotees of the RNG gods: the rolls on weapons are no longer random. If in the first Destiny you could have three completely different scout rifles for example, with their own perks, and the most hardcore of all Guardians would keep on playing until he gets that god-roll. With a fixed roll for each weapon, this hunt is over, but at least we don’t need to spend a bunch of glimmer (the in-game currency) and farm for resource to upgrade everything anymore. Another small detail that also makes a big difference in terms of weapons and gear, is the addition of the mod system. First of all, since weapons now are split into kinetic (non-elemental weapons), elemental weapons and heavy slot, your loadout is now more strategic than before, since you can literally equip anything in all three spots. Are you more of a long range shooter? Then put on a Kinetic scout rifle, an elemental one in the second slot, and maybe a sniper rifle in the heavy slot. The choice is yours, and once you start playing around with the mods, which can drastically alter a weapon core to the point of turning an Arc rifle into a void one, the possibilities are endless. Finally I’d like to end a note on the front of the weapons with the simple fact that I’m glad to see that overused original Destiny weapons like Sniper Rifles and Shotguns are now considered heavy weapons, which changes drastically the way Guardians have been playing online competitively, and I welcome the new weapon types which are the submachine guns and grenade launchers (Machine guns on the other hand are gone).

Speaking of competitive gaming, Destiny 2 offers its dedicated PvP game modes, known as the Crucible. At launch, it allows the player to choose between two dedicated playlists: Quickplay or Competitive. The first is undoubtedly the more casual, with a compilation of classic game modes like Control and Clash; while the Competitive playlist focus on more complex modes. It’s thanks to the latter that two new game modes have been introduced. The first is directly inspired by Counter-Strike, known as Countdown, requiring a team to place a bomb on one of the two spots on the map; while the other team must either defuse the bomb or kill their opponents. The second game mode – Survival – pits two teams in a classic death match, except each side has a limited number of respawn.

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Even though it’s lacking custom games, or the ability to just play specific modes, Destiny 2’s crucible marks a real good evolution when compared to the first game. The first reason is that since weapons have fixed rolls, it brings an easier way for developers to put balance in the game, even when it comes to each class strengths and weaknesses. If, at first glance, the Striker Titans or the Warlock Dawnblade seems dangerous, they are counterbalanced by weaknesses and key changes which shouldn’t be overlooked. For example, a Titan Shoulder Strike does not kill instantly, but actually can slightly imbalances its wielder, who must yet quickly chain the charge with a headshot in hope to defeat his enemy. Very often, the defending guardian has enough time to respond even before the Titan may have deal the fatal blow.

The other important change in the game’s crucible is the change to a 4v4 system, which is closer to what competitive shooters are opting for nowadays (with the exception of Overwatch of course). This decrease of set teams has helped Bungie to shrink the size of their Crucible maps, but turning them more complex and full of key clash area

The bravest of all guardians can now try their skills in the Trial of the Nines

All this would be a real pleasure if there were no defaults, and sadly the first one is important for me: when it comes to design, some maps seems like they were done better than others. Without really being bad, Vostok is a map located near the Iron Temple, which is too large and sadly constricts Gaurdians to clash in the middle area, within the corridor path in the mountain. Players are also scattered away from each other at each respawn, which often results in a second, fast but painful death, alone against two enemies that are going in a rotation. The second issue is that even though weapons are rather balanced on paper, auto rifles seems to be everywhere, due to their higher than normal reach and unbelievable accuracy that makes the use of slower weapons such as Scout Rifles or Pulse Rifles obsolete (unless you have the Mida Multi-Tool). Yet, I’m not worried on that front, as Bungie has always been very responsive and quickly balancing the Crucible, so I’m pretty sure it will happen soon.

Back in Destiny, the Trials of Osiris was the ultimate test for PVP, pushing guardians to go through an intense challenge of winning 9 games in a row of elimination mode, to eventually be granted access to the lighthouse on Mercury for some of the hottest armor and weapon loot (all themed after ancient Egyptian mythology). This time in Destiny 2, our challenge is the Trial of the Nines, which change every week, with a challenge to pass through 7 consecutive wins, and discover some strange prophecies from mysterious Nines.

The new Levathian Raid bring all the best from the previous edition in one package

Before we wrap this up, shouldn’t I talk about the raid? This ultimate test of teamwork still requires squads of six players, in order to overcome the numerous events in a large scale mission and eventually beat the final boss. This first raid – since I assume more will come with the upcoming announced two DLCs – is really well done. Directly linked to the lore of the Cabals, the Leviathan raid took the best of the four previous original Destiny raids and merged them into one. This raid is staged with relay systems as was the case for the Oryx one, and even a stealth phase like the Gorgons Maze of the Vault of Glass. The game also added two features that makes the job harder for those used to cheese things around. First of all, the Raid are now free of checkpoints, meaning there’s no way of coming back to any part of it after returning to orbit. The second key thing added is on the front of respawn mechanics. Each player has one resuscitation token for each area in the raid, and once the token has been used, he cannot revive anyone else. This makes things complicated, because if one member of your party stays dead for more than 25 seconds, then the whole team is wiped.

Finally, take the time to thoroughly explore the raid as it seems that the developers have hidden many secrets and some of them have yet to be discovered. Note that it is now possible to use a matchmaking system, and join another squad to do the raid via something called guided activities, led by “shephards” which should allow solo players to do all activities more easily.

Destiny 2 was reviewed using an Xbox One digital copy of the game purchased by the writer. The game is also available on on PlayStation 4 and coming soon on PC via Battle.net. We don’t discuss review scores with publishers or developers prior to the review being published.

Without aiming to revolutionize the recipe, Destiny 2 does exactly what you’d expect of it: to correct the numerous defects of a game which had the base of becoming a legendary experience. A while ago, I finished an interesting written by my colleague Jason Schreier over at Kotaku called…

[recentanimenews]

INTERVIEW: All You Need is a White Piece of Paper and Pen: A Conversation with Monster and 21st Century Boys Creator Naoki Urasawa

This article is brought to you by JAPAN HOUSE. JAPAN HOUSE is a cultural project that aims to nurture a deeper understanding and appreciation of Japan in the international community. Through outreach projects centered in its three locations in Los Angeles, São Paolo, and London, JAPAN HOUSE aims to drive further intellectual exchange between Japan and the world.

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Naoki Urasawa is one of the modern masters of manga. The artist behind series such as Monster, 20th Century Boys, Master Keaton, and Pluto, his work has earned countless accolades from critics, including the prestigious Eisner Award (think the Oscars of the American comics industry). Urasawa-sensei’s work is currently on display in an exhibit titled This is MANGA - the Art of NAOKI URASAWAat JAPAN HOUSE Los Angeles. This is marks the first solo exhibition of his work in North America, and is truly a landmark achievement for mainstream acceptance of manga as an artform.

I had the huge privilege of being invited by JAPAN HOUSE to attend the exhibition and interview Urasawa-sensei. The exhibit was, without exaggeration, quite breathtaking. As a lifelong fan of anime and manga, seeing Urasawa-sensei’s impeccable art framed and displayed with the same care one could find at an art museum was truly wonderful. Images from my visit will follow below, but if you have the chance to see the exhibit in person before its closing on March 28th, please do so. Urasawa-sensei has to be one of the most thoughtful creators I have had the pleasure of interviewing–every answer he gave seemed like a selection from a well-researched written essay! I’m extremely grateful to Japan House for giving me this opportunity to speak with one of manga’s living legends.

Our first question is about how you began as a manga artist. You graduated with a degree in Economics from Meisei University. Did you originally plan to work in the financial industry? What led you to becoming a manga creator?

I think very early on the idea of becoming a manga artist wasn’t on my mind. I started writing manga when I was about four or five years old and when I was eight I drew my first full story to completion. It’s interesting, because at that age I sort of understood the depth of what it meant to create manga, so I could really feel the deep gulf between what I was doing and what a real manga artist was doing. I didn’t want to publish manga for the sole purpose of just making money–I could see that there was a lot of manga that had been commercialized and you could smell the money in it. That really wasn’t what I was interested in.

It’s funny, when I was really young, when I would visit my uncle he would tell me, “oh wow, Naoki, your drawings are so amazing! You could become a manga artist!” That’s when I thought, “oh man, this guy doesn’t know anything about what real manga is.” That’s why I never really thought of pursuing the path of a professional manga artist. I studied economics and thought I would work at some company somewhere.

Colored panel from Monster above a display case with drafts of spreads

We’re going to move into some questions about your specific works. Your manga Monster is set in Cold War-era Germany. What made you decide to tell the story there instead of Japan?

A little while back, I wrote something called Pineapple Army, and it was originally set in New York. But my editor at the time felt that the reader demographic for this particular magazine was males aged 40 and over, and they’re probably more likely to be engaged by stories set in Europe. That’s why, after a turning point in the story, the setting moves to England, the same setting of another series I worked on called Master Keaton.

I think in Japan, our medical industry was influenced by a lot of German technology at the time, so when we think of medicine in Japan, a natural association is Germany. So when I began to write Monster, the protagonist is a doctor and setting the story in Germany seemed natural. As I developed the story, it made sense to place it specifically in post-war Germany so the story could incorporate the neo-nazi movement into the story.

That’s so fascinating. I think a lot of American readers probably missed the connection between the Japanese medical industry and German influence. I think they’ll be very interested to hear that.

When you have your medical records in Japan, often doctors will write them in German as well so that the patients can’t see what the doctor is writing down. That’s just another small way Germany shows up in the way we practice medicine.

The ‘manga tent’ was one of the coolest aspects of the exhibit. You could walk through it!

Moving on to your series Pluto, what led you to pursue a retelling of Astro Boy?

Within the story of Astro Boy, Osamu Tezuka wrote that the character of Astro Boy was built in 2003. So in 2003, to celebrate the birth year of Astro Boy, the rights holders opened up the property and many different manga artists reimagined the story of Astro Boy in their own style. Lots of artists were doing tributes and illustrations or short one-off manga to celebrate his birth year.

“The Greatest Robot in the World” is a very popular arc in Astro Boy, so I asked, “isn’t anyone going to remake this? It’s a great story that needs to be developed more!” Of course, no one had the courage to take on such a big task. My editor asked, “hey, why don’t you do it?” and I said, “oh no, I couldn’t possibly do that, that’s crazy!” Of course, here we are now.

Was the goal with Pluto always to tell a darker story that referenced contemporary events, or did these themes arise organically through the course of writing the story?

I think that the idea of Tezuka’s work being lighthearted is a common misconception–his stories are actually very, very dark. I think when it’s been animated and adapted into many different formats, the general consensus about Tezuka’s work is that it is “pure” and “family friendly.” Astro Boy even aired on primetime TV in Japan. In this way, his work has sort of been reimagined as very wholesome and safe content, but if you really look at Tezuka’s work on a deeper level, it’s very dark. If you aim to properly adapt or remake any of Tezuka’s work, you will naturally end up with a very dark story.

Costume for the character ‘Friend’ from a live action adaptation of 20th Century Boys

Are there any other stories from other artists that you would like to retell in the same fashion as Pluto?

(Solemnly) Never again.

(Everyone laughs)

I’m a very big fan of Tezuka’s work, so I think that sheer amount of respect really affected me as I was working on Pluto. That enormous amount of pressure that I felt both from outside and within myself began to affect my health, and that’s a big reason I don’t want to do that again.

Many of your works could be considered part of the mystery genre. What about the way mystery stories are structured appeals to you?

I think a lot of that comes down to what we perceive as being fun or intriguing. You could take a lot of popular TV shows–I’m sure you all have been in the situation of saying “oh, I have to find out what happens next!” and you binge through Episode 1, 2, 3, 4. Every story that is able to do that to its audience has an element of mystery. You can even take a love story–if you’re binging it and you’re curious about what happens next, then I think there’s a strong element of mystery there. That’s the core of what makes a narrative so intriguing.

Colored panel from Pluto

Unfortunately we only have time for one more question, so I would like to ask a pretty broad, open ended one. What can manga do as a medium that no other art form can?

Let’s take another format–the movie, for example. You have a massive budget and so many different people involved. It takes years to gather all the sponsors, get the casting just right, there are so many players involved to create just one product.

With manga, all you really need is a white piece of paper and pen. No other medium lets you translate your imagination into visuals as fast as manga. Manga can take you to the other side of the universe in an instant. Manga can take you to the distant future with spectacular technology or to the far past when there were dinosaurs. I truly believe that no other medium allows creators to express their ideas as efficiently as manga.

That’s a beautiful place to end, thank you so much Mr. Urasawa.

© 2000 Naoki URASAWA/Studio Nuts

“20th Century Boys” was originally published by SHOGAKUKAN

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com