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allhailbrokeloose · 2 years

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so uh.. ive watched a couple of series recently (actually not that recently but whatevs) which im most likely not gonna be obsessed with, but still i feel the urge to post my very important opinion somewhere. ⚠️its mostly not complimentary, so if you are a fan, dont read⚠️ ⚠️barely readable bc typing is fun, but editing is an actual job⚠️ ⚠️i violate italics⚠️ ⚠️not spoiler free ofc bc what do you think this is⚠️ ⚠️i bring up kp for no reason an unhealthy amount⚠️ and even skam one time. yeah i kno, im surprised too

the shows are big dragon, wednesday, and lita

there are three good things abt big dragon: 1) ost (heeey jeeeffff) 2) that one boob grab (you know the one) 3) isbanky (very cute and sings well). the rest imo is not good at all, but ig its ok for a bl (bc i have to say ive seen worse). ig im gonna need to read some fics bc i need 1) it to actually be hot and kinky 2) someone to explain me why would yai ever choose mangkorn aside from yin yang, red strings of fate, turtles and all the other animals. it also seems to me that lead actors have more chemistry outside of the series than in it, at least from what ive seen of them in the wild. afair there was sorta cliffhanger promising s02.. am i gonna watch it? you'll be surprised, but yes, isbanky is very much up my alley, im willing to suffer a little bit for a cute boy lol. but they seriously need to cut on the time freezing thing 🙄

wednesday.. oh where do i start.. my most prevailing thought was but.. but thats not.. thats not what being an outcast feels like.. i mean come on they gave her an unconditional punchbag of a best friend who is putting up with all her quirks no questions asked and willing to die for her, two (??!!! (and actually even more if you squint)) love interests, a high fashion dress (im like.. 🤦🏼‍♀️ i cant) and everyone else just generally look at her with admiration like she hanged the moon completely out of nowhere. i mean what is this? a mary sue fanfic? anyways i have to say that i really liked the first ep and i was very excited abt this series, but the more i watched the less i liked it.. the cast.. well i like original wednesday better and when i say original i mean 1991 movie (but not 1993 lol) and i mean christina ricci ofc.. catherine zeta jones is cool, but once again original morticia was better. i have no issues with gomez casting, but the best gomez was in the 60s b&w series. thing is rocking, zero complaints here. fester is almost there even tho its impossible to top christopher lloyd. and where is itt? did they gatekeep him for future seasons? the plot.. uh the plot is meh.. i only wanna say that i hate it when protagonists ancestor looks exactly like them bc its totally plausible and it just highlights how ruthless and pointless life really is lol. oh yeah oslo i had to pause and scream a long and loud NOOOOO during the kiss scene. its like idk so uncalled for do you guys have nothing sacred at all lol. otherwise i liked the music ofc Except dua lipa, i mean dgmw i listened to future nostalgia on repeat as much as the next girl, but its just not the song for this series im sorry.. they could have found a more suitable song with the same exact message.. anyways am i gonna watch next seasons? yes, but only out of respect for tim burton and the original franchise. i mean it wasnt terrible, it just wasnt what i wanted..

omg you guys the second cp in lita is like soooo gooood, so much better than the first one lol (i wonder if they do cp rivalry like we do in kp). which came as a surprise to me bc i started watching this series for the vegaspete bastard love child and unfortunately i was sorta disappointed.. dgmw hes very attractive and has unique facial features, but he cant pull off the ao3 alpha he was supposed to act out even next to one brain celled oblivious partner (no offence lol). idk maybe hes too young. or im just too old. ig its the latter bc i watched all four of them like they are an omega camp on roaming, ig im just not the target audience of this show 🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️. anyways imo the first cp was boring and i really didnt expect anything out of the series, but then second cp plot started and i literally lit up. they really do have chemistry inside and outside of the show, the acting is somewhat better, the only but for me is that the plot was unnecessarily too dark, especially after the mawkishness of the first half. i have to mention that i paralleled them with norhelm at some point which is so hilarious to me. in short i stan this cp but just in case they do individual stanning like we do in kp (meaning hating eo guts) then my bias is peat <333 one thing really squicked me - the author (was it a novel?) obv has a kink for infantilization and helplessness and sadly they put it in both plots and not as a prediscussed kink (which is ok), but as real life situations. its a huge yikes and a big no-no for me, but to each their own ig, im not gonna undust my moral compass for a bl. what else.. oh they should really stop with reusing footage bc im still seeing this fucking truck driving in my nightmares. and i didnt like the opening ost so much i had to skip it every time. well ig not everyone can afford an ost by slot machine or jeff satur 😏😏😏. oh yeah and the whole weather referencing was cute uwu

#if you read it poor you #its an imo and im not gonna change it even if you shower me with valid argumentation #i dont take criticism on my criticism #neither constructive nor any other kind #if you want to agreee on something on the other hand #feel free to chime off #oh but if you want to send anon hate go ahead #everyone receiving so much hate i feel left out and overlooked #not tagging it #ofc

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enigmamuse · 3 years

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hiya! I'm a huge paul dano fan so it looks like I have to dip my toes into more riddler shit--you're the only riddler stan i'm following--if you have any idea on where the hell I start or if there's a defininitive riddler collection or some shit I can pick up and you're willing to tell me, I'd be grateful! I've played the batman games, bought a few batwoman comics and love the nolanverse, thats about it, though.

Thanks for following & strap in bc this is kind of a long recommendations post. Idk if I'd consider this fully comprehensive vs. what I consider you might be interested in/giving you ground work for where to start.

BTAS (Batman the Animated Series) gave Riddler three featuring episodes - the writers supposedly found him difficult to write for. This is where they start making Edward more tech savvy - he’s an ex-game designer/programmer spurned by his boss. A whole darling, but certainly not as gritty as other versions. Not 100% necessary, but I do consider him a blueprint that a lot of modern Riddlers have to thank for keeping the character relevant.

Arkhamverse, particularly City, Origins, and Knight depending on which part of his story you’re keen on seeing. Origins is his backstory where he’s part of the GCPD, City is more standard Riddler antics, Knight he’s in a decline. There are Riddler content-specific videos online of gameplay if you don’t feel like grinding through every trophy though. Good if you like men with Issues.

Assault on Arkham is an animated movie connected to the Arkham games - taking place before the events of Arkham Asylum in the Arkhamverse. I think he’s very cute here.

Hush: I recommend reading the comic versus the animated movie, unless you like being disappointed. Or at least reading it first. Riddler’s role here isn’t the main focus for most of the story, but he’s still a key player.

Zero Year is not so much a “back story” like his childhood, but sets him up as a genius who worked for Wayne Enterprises, later taking over Gotham. One of my favs & shows off Eddie at his best (worst?)

The War of Jokes and Riddles (shortened to twojar) is unfortunately iconic. I’m not super into a lot of New 52 stuff, but twojar has some good riddles and shows Edward as capable, which earns merit in my book. They made him a chad though, which was kinda weird.

Batman Forever. I used to love watching this as a kid; it has aged decently. Edward again works for Wayne Enterprises & is obsessed with Bruce. Val Kilmer is not very good as Batman (opinion), but Jim Carrey is a fun Riddler, and I wish they kept his hair from the beginning of the movie. Not gritty so much as camp, but I hard suggest it since it’s the other live-action movie that you might want to compare the upcoming one to.

There are a bunch of other Riddlers like classic, 2004, 60s Gorshin, Telltale, etc. if you find yourself really into the character + I will probably post this and then immediately realize I’ve forgotten one of my favorites.

Readcomiconline has a good compilation of riddler comics if you’re looking for older content of him. They also have Hush and Zero Year available (listed under Batman Secret City/Dark City).

TL;DR If you’re looking for darker Riddler, I would recommend Zero Year, Hush (though it’s not technically riddler-centric), and twojar the most. IMO those are his most popular stories where they let him be more of a viable threat & puppet master, which I think is his best role. (twojar being the only one that’s unavailable online last I checked?) HBO Max has BTAS, Batman Forever, and the animated movies, as well as a free trial (might need to double check, I pay for mine;;) My other suggestion is watching Batman Forever as a reference point.

#long post #riddler #edward nygma #edward nigma #ask #josh-hobermans #the riddler

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shinygoku · 4 years

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Thunderbirds (2004)

A review by me, CutCat! This is 8-ish pages long!

Spoiler for the end of the film warning: Alan is in International Rescue. What a twist!

Totally Turbulent

Soooo, Tbirds ‘04 is one of those Infamous Adaptations, at least among those who enjoyed Thunderbirds (’65) and of more recent times, Thunderbirds are Go (’15). It’s one of those Bad Live Action Adaptations to a near sacred property, making it dubious contemporaries with Dragon Ball [Evolution], Avatar [The Last Airbender] and suchlike.

But wait, is it really That Bad?? Why is it as divisive as it is? What caused the film to be the way it is, and quite unpopular at that?

First I’m gonna make a long story very short by saying that a Live Action Thunderbirds movie was on and off production for many years, and that the script we ended up with is apparently better than another one that was pitched... but there are reports of cooler scripts further back that never made it, for various reasons. It’s almost a story of it’s own right but I’m only going by 2nd hand information at best, so I’d rather just link them at the end for Additional Reading if y’all felt so inclined.

With that out of the way, we have the Takes from the Andersons to look at. Sylvia had a very favourable reception to it:

"I felt that I'd been on a wonderful Thunderbirds adventure. You, the fans, will I'm sure, appreciate the sensitive adaptation and I'm personally thrilled that the production team have paid us the great compliment of bringing to life our original concept for the big screen. If we had made it ourselves (and we have had over 30 years to do it!) we could not have improved on this new version. It is a great tribute to the original creative team who inspired the movie all those years ago. It was a personal thrill for me to see my characters come to life on the big screen."

Whereas Gerry had a considerably blunter response at the opposite end of the scale:

"the biggest load of crap I have ever seen in my entire life."

As for me, a mere fan of predominantly the TAG series with limited but fond memories of the 90’s TOS reruns, I’d been inclined to ignore it and write it off as a DBE or TLA lost cause. But the combined effect of me deciding to check out unpopular media for myself, namely Dragon Ball GT and the live action Super Mario Bros. movie, and thoroughly enjoying both; and the other effect of TAG finishing but my fixation reawakening with the need to consume More, I dived deeper into the fan base than I had dared to before, in which I found more reasons to watch it and make up my own mind fairly.

Find out what I thought, and a review of the movie itself, below the Cut! ✂

Stormy Story

Ok, enough teasing, I see good things in the movie but not enough for it to be a secret masterpiece, not by a long shot.

1/3 Stars from Me. That’s Poor. (Compare with 2/3 being Good, and 3/3 being Excellent)

My main beef is unfortunately kinda the crux of the whole story, so while there were aspects I really liked, it had permanently set the bar low, and other issues were not helping matters. I’ll go into the problems after I sum up the plot.

[sitcom harp music]

14 Year Old Alan Tracy is stuck in a stuffy school with only his nerd friend to confide in. Something’s eating him up, and it’s jealousy over how his family are International Rescue, the secret rescue workers whole pilot the Thunderbirds, impossibly cool craft with capabilities vastly exceeding standard technology. Even when he’s allowed out of school and back to the Island, his envy and barely repressed resentment over not being a member himself causes him to go off and sulk and to try taking Thunderbird 1, the hypersonic jet plane, for a joyride.

His father and the leader of International Rescue, Jeff Tracy chews Alan out for almost compromising the need for the organisation to remain secret, lest their advanced technology falling into the wrong hands. Alas, said wrong hands are already working against IR: The Hood, a diabolical, cold blooded criminal with psychic powers and a grudge against Jeff. After successfully tracking the location of Tracy Island, he launches a missile towards Thunderbird 5, the Space Station where IR monitor potential disasters to prevent as much damage as possible, manned by John Tracy.

With TB5 crippled and John injured, Jeff and his other three older sons all scramble to the disaster zone via Thunderbird 3, the Rocket Ship. But with Tracy Island largely unmanned, The Hood moves in and aims to use the Thunderbirds to rob bank vaults while simultaneously smearing International Rescue’s good name. As the only Tracy brother left on Earth, it’s up to Alan and his 2 friends, Fermat and Tin-Tin, to foil the Hood and save his family, proving himself worthy in the process. He is also assisted by IR’s London Agent, Lady Penelope, and her driver/butler/lockpicker, Parker.

...

Ok, so that’s a summary you may read on the back of a DVD box, maybe it’s a bit long but whatever. Do you see what’s wrong with the story? The massive rift in the formula that should be within a template set by the hugely popular TV Series?

Critical Crux

For me, the main issue with the movie is that the Tracy family are thrown under a bus, or perhaps it’s more like being locked in a closet, in order for Alan to rise up and be The Hero. A show that was about each of them having different roles and personalities to the others, and the movie sees the best way to adapt the premise is to reduce 3 of them to cardboard cutouts who aren’t allowed to do or say anything meaningful, with the exception to this getting the dubious honour of getting a missile and exploding space station to the face.

I can’t clearly express how much this pisses me off! It’s downright insulting and baffling as well. They had pre established characters right there for the taking but go NO! Let’s make OCs to fill this newly created void instead and make the main Message of the film Friendship Teamwork.

Why does every child-skewed media hafta have the Friendship message? It’s a good one, sure, but nothing said in this film about it was fresh or original. Y’know what I see far, far less? Not just in Kid Flavoured Media, but all sorts? The importance of Brotherly Bonds between actual brothers!! I don’t subscribe to the massively misunderstood message version of ‘Blood is thicker than water’, but a story with the siblings actually pushed and stressed and coming out stronger at the end would have ruled!!

[For what it’s worth, the actual saying is “The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb”, i.e. the bonds you choose to forge are more important than happening to be born to certain people. This correct message is still compatible with literal siblings though!]

The other, somewhat lesser Large Issue with the movie is simply that we don’t see much in the way of Rescues with the titular Thunderbirds. We only get the tail end of the Oil Rig in Act 1, and then the ‘Birds are used predominantly to get to London and save 1 Monorail Car with TB4.

Watsonian Woes & Doylist Dilemma

When looking at Media, there’s 2 main angles to consider; Doylist and Watsonian. Doylist is the “real life / meta” angle, the structure of the story or interests of the author being in the plot, that kinda thing. Watsonian is the reason given within the story.

All stories have Watsonian and Doylist reasonings, the trick is to blend them in and not use a weedy Watsonian reason for something stupid happening.

Why bring this up? Because it’s still part of the Huge Problem I have with the film; the Doylist reason for all of IR being incapacitated so easily is so Alan can shine without fighting for focus in a large group. I don’t like it, but let’s go along with it for now.

Believe it or not, but I can accept that a Movie format isn’t going to be the same as an ongoing series. There’s way less time and you gotta hit certain beats. Ideally you also condense the essence of the show into the film while being more than just a long episode. They didn’t hit this note in my opinion...

But other than ‘It has to happen for he story to work’, there’s no damn reason for all the Non-Alan Tracys to be cooped up in the crippled TB5! They put all their eggs into one basket when a considerably more sensible choice woulda been to have a small crew, and the others remain on base. Because even without factoring in a worst case scenario where another missile hits them while in space, killing them all, which totally could have happened for all they know, there’s also the part about them being International Rescue! They gotta be ready to respond to other disasters should those develop. TB1, 2 and 4 were still available for use!

If I was Jeff making the boneheaded decision, I would have taken a second to think about it and have 1 of the Bros come up in 3 with me. Seeing to John shouldn’t be something 4 people are needed for, it would just get more crowded and the oxygen would be used way faster! Considering they all come close to asphyxiating, 2 less people would mean things weren’t so damn close to the wire! (Granted, the movie also has them falling into Earth’s atmosphere and burning up as a hazard, but the whole crew being there doesn’t affect that.)

Jeff! You’re the patriarch and supposedly most experienced dude in the whole movie! Why didja run into that trap with both eyes open? Stressful situation, sure, but in the Rescue Business you need to be able to listen to the cold, clinical angle. You’re risking more of your sons’ lives making such a rash judgement!!

Character Conundrums

This is the part of the review where I begin to really emphasise the differences between TOS and this movie. I’ll hold off TAG for now in the interest of fairness.

The movie is a mixed bag when it comes to the individuals within it. Some have been refreshing updates to stuffy 60′s tropes, but several draw the short straw, feeling even stiffer than their marionette precursors.

Alan - Hoo, boy. The plot follows Alan.... for the third time if you’re factoring in the Supermarionation movies, which was quite the baffling choice as Puppet!Alan is quite the obnoxious jerk. But whatever, new movie, new canon, new Alan. While the Alan of the 60′s was a bizarrely whiny brat of a character considering he was supposed to at least be in his early 20′s this Alan at least makes more sense to be annoying. But yes, he starts off as a sullen jerk with unclearly defined jealousy towards his own brothers and seemingly a lack of grasping the stakes behind International Rescue, viewing being one of the crew as a Cool Job rather than a gruelling, life-risking ordeal. Over the course of the movie (mostly Act 3) he becomes less of a berk and a better team player, even going as far as to save the Hood personally.

Jeff - One of the stronger characters in the movie, even with this poor choice I’ve gone on about already, haha. You get the real impression the job means the world to him, but still secondary to his sons. An update and improvement to the sometimes stodgy and holier-than-thou character from the 60′s, plus his proactive role makes him way less of a backseat driver.

Lady Penelope - Best character and a splendid update to the 60′s Socialite. This Penny is always a delight to see, although her ability to change clothes offscreen sometimes pushes plausibility, haha. She and Jeff also have very natural and endearing chemistry, so for this iteration at least, I’m up for shipping them, something I can’t say for TOS.

Parker - Remarkably true to the beloved puppet version and another highlight. His interplay with Penelope is some of the best dialogue in the whole movie, and was written by Richard Curtis in an uncredited role, or so I’ve read.

The Hood - A shockingly sadistic and cold blooded so-and-so. His Psychic powers have been given a huge boost, and the depths of his spite generates all the tense scenes the movie has to offer. His performance may be the best in the whole film, simultaneously over the top while also completely deadly.

Tin-Tin - Y’know, Tin-Tin is a funny character, in how she’s very different in all versions. I enjoy her in TOS, but her potential as an engineering assistant, mathematician and member of IR are quickly discarded to make her a secretary, which is further demoted to bringing coffee. Ahh, The Sixties! One of her other defining features was the sometimes bickering sexual tension with Alan. Movie!Tin-Tin is still the implied love interest [and the same age] with him, but she’s also an Action Girl extraordinaire, with abilities bordering on metahuman. She can trek through the jungle without slowing down, she can dive underwater for prolonged sequences, and has a variation of her Evil Uncle’s Psychic capabilities, but used for good. Notably, the Kayo of TAG takes significantly more from this Tin-Tin to the original, sadly sans Telekinesis.

Fermat - The only OC I’m gonna dignify with a section here lol. He’s basically mini-Brains, complete with the way he t-ta-tal- -distinctive speech patterns. But yeah, as the hypersmart and nerdy pal, I feel that his role is pretty superfluous, though his performance in the movie got me to soften up, he’s a good kid. Just one who, like, is part of the deal breaking issue I have with the whole film. In a way I think he’d have made a better lead than Alan lmao

Brains - Not much to say here, he’s also a dude in distress for a majority of his screentime. Seems to be older than his TOS self and a bit less subservient to Jeff, but also a father ....or Fermat is his clone. They never make that clear. He’s hit on by the Hood’s Female Scientist and it’s played for comedy, more on that later.

John - In TOS, his role was infamously minimal, as Gerry Anderson took such a strong disliking to the John puppet and the TB5 model that he exiled both into space with a few token shots per episode. So in comparison, this movie is far kinder to John! He has a nice, genuine chat with Jeff, without any mission to initiate said videocall. The movie is also quite mean to John in how he gets bombed by the Hood, his space station in tatters, his arm hurt and then near suffocation with Jeff and most of his brothers. Ahh, the conundrum of being John.

Scott, Virgil and Gordon - No, they don’t even get their own paragraphs in my review. Their lack of presence and importance in the movie is my giant gripe (have you noticed yet?) and it got to the extent that I feel they could have been combined into one character to save casting money. They get maybe 5 lines each, if that. I literally can’t tell Scott and Virgil apart (I know they have name tags on their uniforms, but in most scenes I couldn’t even read that) other than knowing 1 of them is taller. Which that one is, is a mystery.

The only one with a slightly distinctive appearance and air is Gordon, which is another can of worms because he seems to be the designated Doubtful Jerk Brother and that drives me mad!! In TOS he wasn’t as main a character as Scott, Virgil or Alan, but he was still a defined person with his own abilities. And his personality was as a slightly mouthy but the most lighthearted character! Why didn’t they carry that over?!

And yeah, Scott and Virgil are pretty much the Main Two of the brothers in TOS, so their roles being reduced to 1 token act during the oil rig rescue each [Gordon didn’t even get that!] is all the more mind boggling.

Hood’s Minions - Can’t be assed to write their names out, I refer to them as Heavy Dude and Science Woman. Heavy Dude is the Heavy, and his character consists of Dumb and somewhat Sadistic Muscle. Science Woman is first objectified (we see her ass first. Yes, really.) but then it’s ‘revealed’ that as she has Austin Powers level teeth, she’s uuuuuglyyyyy and her otherwise genuine attraction towards Brains is played for laughs with this angle. And that’s still female on male sexual harassment, which doesn’t fly with me. Eeeesh. Bad writing! She does Science Things for Hood.

The Rest - Kyrano and his wife are in this. Wife is Original but basically Grandma’s role, though she doesn’t even get a single word to say. Rip. Also the Hood has a few more generic mooks from somewhere, but seemingly only for part of the movie. Kyrano didn’t do much in the show except get bullied by the Hood and little has changed.

Tone Trouble

I feel like the movie has a bit of an issue with balancing a consistent Tone. Again, let’s look back at TOS. It was a Family Show, designed to not just appeal to little kids, but to also keep their parent and other adult amused. Maybe some of it was also the result of the times, but striking to me is that they allowed the characters to get pretty hurt, complete with red paint being applied to look like realistic blood. Some of the criminals, including the Hood himself, would be very vicious, how he treats Brains in Desperate Intruder comes to mind. There was even firefights resulting in death, like the memorable climax of Operation Crash-Dive, where Gordon has to shoot a saboteur in the back, into the open sea below the compromised plane. He then proceeds to hold the cut wires together with his bare hands. Don’t try this at home, kids!

So while I can understand some of that being removed from the Movie (and TAG), there’s still the irritating going down to a perceived kid’s level for the majority of the film, which is probably also a large reason for the massive structural change. But then, there’s shockingly dark implications here and there, and the haunting sight of the crew trapped on TB5 floating lifelessly in the dark, asphyxiating. But then, again, we have goofy choreographed fight scenes with juvenile stock cartoon sounds. And then, we have Hood force choking Alan?! It has been mostly consistent until Act 3, then the tone goes up and down more than the flying machines.

Revamped Rockets

I’m mostly talking about the main craft here, though I know the Pod vehicles got modified too, I’m not sufficiently a TOS Pod Buff to go over them.

TB1 - Looks real nice! Maintains and even enhances the sleekness, and the idea of a glass cockpit is much better than having 1 tiny window and a dinky TV screen to see by. Oddly dark inside the cockpit considering how much glass there is, though. Probably my fav of the Movie Fleet.

TB2 - Oof. Looks bad, man. Like, really ugly. What have they done to the glorious design that was the Original Big Green? The unofficial mascot from her importance and unorthodox style? They turned her into a stubby, too glossy, chunky bar of green soap. The thick ass legs are a good idea but it sure ain’t enough. Also, she carries 3 smaller pods insteada 1 big one.

TB3 - Like TB1, pretty much the same design but streamlined a little. Docks with 5 sidewise instead of like pen going into its lid.

TB4 - I’m mixed. I like the idea of giving her a glass canopy and extendable arms, but the movie’s version is so boxy she looks more like a small yellow Greenhouse with the rear half of the old Four, haha. The arms also look a little stiff, can they bend? Now, if there was a sleek, glass hulled, variable armed, demolition charges-loaded Four, that would be my favourite possible version ;3 Four is my fav craft in TOS and TAG, for what it’s worth.

TB5 - I say it’s quite a visual improvement over TOS and the odds and ends jumbled look that had, though I do appreciate a bit of Chunkiness. This one really needs to have better defence too, TOS 5 may’ve been able to tank that missile lmao

FAB1 - I know that she would have been a Rolls Royce in the film, but BMW said no, so that’s not a point against the movie. And failing the classic image, it’s cute that it’s a Ford Thunderbird, though I’d have preferred one with those 50′s/60′s stylish fins personally lol. Her ability to fly is new here unless you count the Dream Sequence in Are Go (’66) and the water mode was also seen in that before this, and she gets the job done, though we don’t get to see as many gadgets and gizmos in the course of the film.

Unlikely Uniforms

I really don’t understand these. Why are they off white with minimal accent colours? What was wrong with the blueness of their suits and the broad stripe of a secondary colour? I sure ain’t saying the 60’s costumes were practical or even that fashionable, but they were very distinctive and striking!

Not only that, but for some strange unexplained reason, their uniforms all correspond not to their own speciality, but to which craft they’re currently piloting. Even if they’re all in the same Bird...! So like, four out of five are wearing identical looking red accented suits while locked in TB5. I already find the elder brothers to be the Similar Squad, and their microscopic name tags don’t help!

Why don’t they wear their own coloured uniforms all the time? Then ya don’t need the name tag at all! And the silly implication from the way there’s apparently a whole set of Craft Specific uniforms is that there’s piles of clothes that ain’t getting used in all of them, like the tiny TB4 probably having 6 whole sets on board at the end of the film.

Between that, no blue and the outfits looking like Generic Sports Wear, the only nice thing to say is the THUNDERBIRDS down the sleeve is a cool touch. Which should really say International Rescue or IR...

Mingled Misc.

Yeah, The conflation of Thunderbirds and International Rescue is a tad irritating but it’s actually something I can overlook. It’s not a dealbreaker and it makes sense the Dumbass Public would misunderstand and call them the wrong thing.

Jeff refuses Alan early access into IR and cites “No shortcuts”. Then at the end he echoes this when he is making Alan an official member, saying he did it with no shortcuts. The whole faffing scenario was a giant shortcut!!! Fuck training and being a suitable age, am I right?!

Amazingly I didn’t cover this already, but when Alan shortcuts his way onto the team he’s made pilot of ... TB4. That’s why he’s in yellow accents in the pic. Gordon is seemingly the main pilot of TB3 instead, but the movie doesn’t deign to make that clear. While I appreciate that the 14 year old with no Astronaut training isn’t put in charge of 3 instantly, I resent the careless removal of characterisation. Obviously movie Gordon never served with WASP or won the gold medal in swimming or had a massive hydrofoil crash to nearly kill him but ggggghgggaaahhhhhhhhh

Also what’s with the implication that Four is the Babby’s First Machine? She’s a highly specialised craft that would require different training to flying or Space shit! How dare you?! The most charitable link is that Alan stood around in 4 as Tin-Tin did most of the work herself, but I guess it coulda as some level of experience.

Ford Sponsorship - Gets a bit much! It’s one thing for all the cars to be Ford, but them seemingly owning the News is like an unpleasant look into a world where corporations run everything.... hahahaahaaaaaa........

Marvellous Music

Something the movie really excells at is the tunes! The remix of the Thunderbirds March is good in it’s own right and very welcome, and the new music is all solid. Special mention to Busted’s outro song for slapping so hard even people who hate the movie leave warm youtube comments about the song. I have a habit of listening to it set to TAG footage myself, haha

Sincere Summation

Look, I’ve come off negative in this, but I honestly have a lot of respect for a lot of the parts of this picture. Hood, Penelope, Parker and Jeff are fantastic, the physical models and sets have a lot of care and loving detail poured in, the music is all bangers and other little nods and homages to the show shine brightly. The director got a lot of good work in and I hold him no ill will.

I think the problem is in the Writing and probably Studio Mandates, I’m not 100% sure, but things often get snaggy when the studio you’re working under gets bought out by a bigger company partway through. Again, I’ll refer to the info I’ve seen instead of trying to relay it in my own words.

And they made a real bad call snubbing Gerry as a Creative Consultant. Some of his venom towards the film may be from that, as well as his alleged preference to Team America: World Police as a theatrical homage. And I’ve seen that before and wouldn’t really say that’s true to the spirit of Thunderbirds, but yeah...

I’d be interested in any future Thunderbirds Movies, if that’s ever on the cards again. I’d probably be even more up for continuation of the TAG series, or newer new Captain Scarlet with International Rescue involved. Either way, I want new footage of the Birds taking off again, be it puppet, people, CGI, or something new~

Extra Reading

https://securityhazard.net/2017/05/19/thunderbirds-2004/ Full movie review, warm reception. Contains photos of set pieces and costumes.

http://groovyfokker.blogspot.com/2013/02/thunderbirds-arent-go-unfilmed-versions.html Insight into some of the past issues developing a Movie, but gets some basic information wrong (Since when is Gordon the youngest and TB3 orange??)

Thanks if ya’ve been reading the whole thing! <3

#Thunderbirds 2004 #Thunderbirds #Thunderbirds TOS #Thunderbirds Movie #Movie Review #can't really tag it with TAG because I deliberately kept that minimal lol #I care so much about Tbirds so I had much to say #I hope the links don't mess up it appearing in the tags :v

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basscannonjack · 4 years

Note

1-100 SPEED RUN

Ama. How could you do this to me

1: when you have cereal, do you have more milk than cereal or more cereal than milk?

Lactose intolerant, only eat cereal dry

2: do you like the feeling of cold air on your cheeks on a wintery day?

yes, but not for too long

3: what random objects do you use to bookmark your books?

i just try to remember lmao

4: how do you take your coffee/tea?

don’t like coffee, drink tea plain or with some sugar

5: are you self-conscious of your smile?

not as much as I used to be!

6: do you keep plants?

I have one (1) cactus that I haven’t killed in the 9 years I’ve had it

7: do you name your plants?

sometimes!

8: what artistic medium do you use to express your feelings?

music or writing

9: do you like singing/humming to yourself?

ALWAYS

10: do you sleep on your back, side, or stomach?

I generally fall asleep on my stomach and wake up on my back

11: what's an inner joke you have with your friends?

I HAVE YOU NOW

12: what's your favorite planet?

Neptune, probably!

13: what's something that made you smile today?

my SON asking me ALL THE QUESTIONS

14: if you were to live with your best friend in an old flat in a big city, what would it look like?

oh god, probably a bit of a mess

15: go google a weird space fact and tell us what it is!

the ISS was launched on the day of my birth, so it’s been in space *literally* my entire life

16: what's your favorite pasta dish?

just plain ol’ chicken alfredo

17: what color do you really want to dye your hair?

keeping it silver baybeee

18: tell us about something dumb/funny you did that has since gone down in history between you and your friends and is always brought up.

oh man, there are so many, but i’ll go with the time that Roman got coke to fizz through my nose by making me laugh too hard

19: do you keep a journal? what do you write/draw/ in it?

no journal, only very similar looking notebooks to doodle and write in

20: what's your favorite eye color?

hazel!

21: talk about your favorite bag, the one that's been to hell and back with you and that you love to pieces.

my Bag of Holding! snapped the clasp on it a few years back though

22: are you a morning person?

not at all!

23: what's your favorite thing to do on lazy days where you have 0 obligations?

SLEEP

24: is there someone out there you would trust with every single one of your secrets?

Ashe, of course

25: what's the weirdest place you've ever broken into?

I had to break into my own safe at my old job, does that count?

26: what are the shoes you've had for forever and wear with every single outfit?

I’d say my boots, but I just got a new set, so the older ones

27: what's your favorite bubblegum flavor?

Spearmint or wintergreen

28: sunrise or sunset?

Sunrise

29: what's something really cute that one of your friends does and is totally endearing?

I just love seeing my friends blush

30: think of it: have you ever been truly scared?

yes, I won’t go into detail

31: what is your opinion of socks? do you like wearing weird socks? do you sleep with socks? do you confine yourself to white sock hell? really, just talk about socks.

SOCKS SOCKS SOCKS I used to collect weird socks, now I just have a bunch of fun dress socks lmao

32: tell us a story of something that happened to you after 3AM when you were with friends.

driving everyone home at 4 am and seeing other people on the road and going “you should be in bed!” at them

33: what's your fave pastry?

lemon meringue pie

34: tell us about the stuffed animal you kept as a kid. what is it called? what does it look like? do you still keep it?

Teddy a winnie the pooh bear that I still have!

35: do you like stationary and pretty pens and so on? do you use them often?

I adore new pens

36: which band's sound would fit your mood right now?

uhhhh I’ve been listening to a lot of Rise Against and ABBA lmao

37: do you like keeping your room messy or clean?

messy

38: tell us about your pet peeves!

nearly anything my brother does

39: what color do you wear the most?

black or blue

40: think of a piece of jewelry you own: what's it's story? does it have any meaning to you?

my claddagh ring from my grandmother, i don’t have much else from her

41: what's the last book you remember really, really loving?

not the last book but there was one about a girl having a single dragon finger that I remember reading so many times that I unfortunately don’t know the name of, or the Tamora Pierce Lioness series

42: do you have a favorite coffee shop? describe it!

Don’t like coffee!

43: who was the last person you gazed at the stars with?

James <3

44: when was the last time you remember feeling completely serene and at peace with everything?

I do not :’)

45: do you trust your instincts a lot?

not as much as I probably should

46: tell us the worst pun you can think of.

I’ve been changing my username to a different halloween themed pun for all of October, I’m all burnt out

47: what food do you think should be banned from the universe?

Balut, it icks me out

48: what was your biggest fear as a kid? is it the same today?

heights, and yes :’)

49: do you like buying CDs and records? what was the last one you bought?

I got a record player fairly recently, I have some P!atD ones, Foo Fighters, and Imagine Dragons

50: what's an odd thing you collect?

rocks

51: think of a person. what song do you associate with them?

Bitch by Meredith Brooks for my eldest sister

52: what are your favorite memes of the year so far?

the ones we’ve made in our server

53: have you ever watched the rocky horror picture show? heathers? beetlejuice? pulp fiction? what do you think of them?

all of the above except Pulp Fiction, I’m not really a movie person but I *am* a musical person

54: who's the last person you saw with a true look of sadness on their face?

my dad

55: what's the most dramatic thing you've ever done to prove a point?

Cotton Eyed Joe in six inch heels

56: what are some things you find endearing in people?

honesty and passion in an interest

57: go listen to bohemian rhapsody. how did it make you feel? did you dramatically reenact the lyrics?

I just vibe and belt, y’know

58: who's the wine mom and who's the vodka aunt in your group of friends? why?

can they both be me

59: what's your favorite myth?

the soup with a rock in it!

60: do you like poetry? what are some of your faves?

Where the Sidewalk Ends was always a good one

61: what's the stupidest gift you've ever given? the stupidest one you've ever received?

a coffee cup drinking horn for my dad, and some painted rocks from my brother

62: do you drink juice in the morning? which kind?

it would be apple juice if I did

63: are you fussy about your books and music? do you keep them meticulously organized or kinda leave them be?

not at all

64: what color is the sky where you are right now?

greyish, the sun is just about to rise

65: is there anyone you haven't seen in a long time who you'd love to hang out with?

My eldest sister

66: what would your ideal flower crown look like?

ROSES

67: how do gloomy days where the sky is dark and the world is misty make you feel?

give them to me, I love them

68: what's winter like where you live?

COLD

69: what are your favorite board games?

Monopoly and LIFE

70: have you ever used a ouija board?

no thanks

71: what's your favorite kind of tea?

raspberry or orange for fruit and mint

72: are you a person who needs to note everything down or else you'll forget it?

no, but I do write things down anyways

73: what are some of your worst habits?

I lose things all the time

74: describe a good friend of yours without using their name or gendered pronouns.

STARDUST SOULMATE

75: tell us about your pets!

I have a Min Pin named Lily

76: is there anything you should be doing right now but aren't?

Sleeping

77: pink or yellow lemonade?

pink

78: are you in the minion hateclub or fanclub?

*insert ick emoji*

79: what's one of the cutest things someone has ever done for you?

decorated my band locker to celebrate my birthday

80: what color are your bedroom walls? did you choose that color? if so, why?

beige, but I hung up a bunch of posters!

81: describe one of your friend's eyes using the most abstract imagery you can think of.

when the sun hits very rich dirt where a tree used to be

82: are/were you good in school?

best in class in math with a 101.8 but I also rarely did homework so uh

83: what's some of your favorite album art?

Too Weird To Live, Too Rare To Die

84: are you planning on getting tattoos? which ones?

Dragon on the shoulder blade, roses on the left arm, Exalt on the right

85: do you read comics? what are your faves?

webcomics! Barbarous, currently

86: do you like concept albums? which ones?

:? not sure what that means

87: what are some movies you think everyone should watch at least once in their lives?

TREASURE PLANET

88: are there any artistic movements you particularly enjoy?

nope!

89: are you close to your parents?

my dad!

90: talk about your one of your favorite cities.

don’t really have a favorite, in all honesty

91: where do you plan on traveling this year?

I was supposed to go see Ashe for their birthday but maybe next year!

92: are you a person who drowns their pasta in cheese or a person who barely sprinkles a pinch?

CHEESE CHEESE CHEESE

93: what's the hairstyle you wear the most?

uhhh it’s usually short enough to do nothing lmao

94: who was the last person you know to have a birthday?

I have a friend’s bday tomorrow!

95: what are your plans for this weekend?

WORK

96: do you install your computer updates really quickly or do you procrastinate on them a lot?

bit of both

97: myer briggs type, zodiac sign, and hogwarts house?

INTP, Scorpio, Ravenclaw

98: when's the last time you went hiking? did you enjoy it?

last year? maybe the one before? I did! but my heart didn’t

99: list some songs that resonate to your soul whenever you hear them.

How Far We’ve Come, Matchbox Twenty

The Call, Backstreet Boys

I2I, from the Goofy Movie Soundtrack (lmao)

100: if you were presented with two buttons, one that allows you to go 5 years into the past, the other 5 years into the future, which one would you press? why?

the future! I’ve had my time in the past, no changing it now

#ama i love and care about you so much darlin'#but this pains me #my dear sunchild

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calliecat93 · 4 years

Text

Stat Trek Episodes 64-66

Plato’s Stepchildren: And just when I thought that we made it past the stupid. This was utter cringe. The idea isn’t bad, powerful God-like beings wanting to keep McCoy due to his medical skill and screwing with the crew loke play things. Maybe it’s just my beed for McCoy being seen as important talking, but that could have worked. But the way they do it is just... goofy, and not in a fun way. The episode is also famous for the kiss between Kirk (a white man) and Uhura (a black woman) which at the time was a big deal since interracial relationships were very much still controversial back then. I can give the episode points for bwing brave enough to do do that... but as the characters were FORCES to do so non-consentually, it feels incomfortable than progressive unfortunately. Again, 60’s. But the episode was just cringe. Heck it made me look back at The Squire of Gothos, an episode I ranked very low, and have a bit of a better opinion on that one. Not a bad plot idea in theory, but the execution ruins it. 1/5.

Wink of an Eye: Very much an improvement over the last one and overall perfectly fine. Man poor Kirk, gets put into an accelerated state where everything is frozen around him aside from the aliens involved and the leader is trying to force herself on him. The man just cannot catch a break. I really like how during the scenes where the crew is frozen, the shots are in an angle. It creates an unsettling effect, like something feels just off-balance. It helps make things feel unsettling. There’s nothing too nktable about the episode, we’ve had these ‘alien forces take the Enterprise/interest in one of the crew’ stories, but the execution is perfectly fine. Especially love how Kirk acted like he was submitting finally... and promptly steal Deela’s weapon right off of her, haha! Nothing grand, but perfectly serviceable. And again, it’s an improvement of the last one. 3/5.

The Empath: So I had actually watched this ahead of time weeks ago. I’m a sucker for Triumvirate feelings, what can I say? I had enjoyed it the first time around, and I did so again here. Asmittedly there are some plot holes, like was tormenting the trio for Gem to heal REALLY the only way the Vians could solve the problem? I also found out that this was a fan-submitted episode which is really cool and makes sense since it DOES feel like a hurt/comfort fic. A good one though. Of course the best part is our main trio and especially after the Vians tell Kirk that he has to pixk between Spock and McCoy as to who gets tortured. McCoy makes the decision for him, hypoing him and then doing the same to Spock when he intends to hand himself over. This was when McCoy became my favorite character because he willingly sacrificed himself to protect his best friends knowing that he’ll die painfully by doing so, and even took the moment to tell Gem that the two will take care of her. Which in turn taught Gem the power of self-sacrifice for others and the powerful feelings behind it. And even then, McCoy refuses to let her because if she does, she’ll die and he will NOT let others be harmed especially for his behalf. God I love him. Then what happens when they find him again... yeah that image of Kelley’s dead stare while hanging in chains still freaks me out. Then he lays there dying with even Spock concerned and trying to make him as comfortable as possible. It really shows the bond that the three have and why I love their dynamic so much. The actress for Gem was also freakin’ fantastic, conveying so much emotion through expression and body languge without saying one word. Freakin’ excellent acting. It’s not a perfect episode, not even the best written objectively. But I love it for demonstrating those character relations and some good character moments, McCoy especially. Oh and it has bucket loads of shipping material for Spirk, Spones, McKirk, and McSpirk so everyone wins! 4/5.

Was hoping to get five episodes done, but I failed. So here’s the current plan. There are around 12 episodes remaining. I am going to do three a day (barring any weather issues), then next week we plow through the movies. I did Motion Picture a while ago, so counting the reboot films that’s eight in all. HonestlyS3 has... not been the best ride. There are a few good episodes, but... let’s just say that it’s gonna be easier to pick the least favorite episodes over the favorites. It’s not horrible, but I can definitely see why the show got cancelled after this. And as I’ve reqd the summaries, I know there’s more stupid to come. But hopefully we geta couple of gems (as a Spones shipper I’m greatly looking forward to All Our Yesterday XD). We’re gonna do three episodes a day, then S3 episodes list post, then overall series post, and then we dive into the films. May overlap into early March, but ah well. Just means getting to watch these characters a little more.

#st watchthrough #star trek tos

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litandflicks · 4 years

Text

Scoob!

Laura’s Rating: 3.5/5 Stars

I am a die-hard Scooby Doo fan so I was obviously hyped to see this movie when I heard it was in production. I enjoyed the movie but it’s probably my least favorite of the Scooby Doo movies.

The Analysis:

I was obsessed with Scooby Doo as a child. I watched every episode of the original series I could get my hands on. My parents now groan and recount how I made them watch the same DVDs over and over again until they could barely stand it. One of my favorite pastimes was making my Dad watch Scooby Doo (after he had come home from a long night at the firehouse) and then scolding him when he inevitably fell asleep. The point is that I’m a huge fan. However, this movie was a bit disappointing for me. While this movie was cute, it was nothing special in my opinion.

The plot of Scoob! was decent and there are some cute lines and fun scenes. I always love when a movie for kids can also be entertaining to adults, but unfortunately I don’t think this is a great example of that. The plot and characters feel a bit juvenile. I think that the target audience of this film would love it, but I wish it had appeal to a wider range of viewers.The characters are voiced by a menagerie of talented actors and actresses including Mark Wahlberg, Zac Efron, Amanda Seyfried, and Ken Jeong. Special shout out to Frank Welker, who voiced Fred Rogers in the original series and was the voice of Scooby Doo since 2002 and in this film.

Despite a new origin story for how Shaggy, Scooby, and the rest of the gang meet, this movie does remain true to its Scooby Doo roots in a couple of ways. Dick Dastardly is the main villain, a character who has appeared in various Hanna-Barbera series since the 60s. Dee Dee Skyes, Dynomutt, and the Blue Falcon also have Hanna-Barbera roots and the latter two appear in a 2013 direct-to-DVD crossover with Scooby. My favorite part of the movie: Scoob! has an awesome reanimation of the original 1969 Scooby Doo! Where Are You theme song (a side-by-side video is definitely worth a watch on YouTube).

Old references provide the platform for a new and reimagined Mystery Inc. gang that will appeal to younger generations. Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy, and Scooby each have a more defined and important role in the group that highlights their specific talents. The movie also emphasizes the importance of friendship and loyalty, and has a heartwarming ending. Scoob! doesn’t have any major flaws, but it failed to excite me like I had hoped. Adults can probably pass on this film, but anyone with young children or siblings should certainly watch this for family movie night.

#moviereview #movies #scooby doo #scoob #film

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megashadowdragon · 4 years

Text

on lukes moment of weakness and how it is fitting for luke among other comments

Personally I TOTALLY believe that George's Luke would have been VERY similarly to Rian's Luke.

And here is the reason why.... Luke has almost always been George's insert (lucas pronunced luke S ) and it makes total sense for Luke to be "exiled" and secluded away just as George became with Star Wars after the backlash of the prequels. But at the end of it, he comes back and stands up for what makes Star Wars what it is. Which is what Luke does for the Jedi and themes of Star Wars by the end of TLJ. He has learned from his mistakes, atoned for them, found redemption, confronted those he has failed, inspired hope, and learned to show compassion once again.

Now while George may have done it differently, I do believe that Luke being in exile was a metaphor for George's own relationship with Star Wars and its fandom.

www . reddit . com/r/StarWars/comments/ebb4f3/lukes_momentaneous_thought_of_killing_ben_solo/

I know I'm stepping on dangerous territory here by talking about The Last Jedi, and I only do this because I think this is an interesting take on a key moment of the movie. Just bear in mind that I do not intend to make my point-of-view the absolute truth of it. After all, this is just my opinion.

We all know very well how divisive Episode VIII was, with many people pationately hating that movie. One of the main reasons of complaint is the fact Luke Skywalker had attempted to kill his apprentice and nephew, Ben Solo, because he sensed the Dark Side to be too strong in the latter. Luke Skywalker, the only person in the entire galaxy that saw there was still light in Darth Vader, tried to kill his relative. When even Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda had lost all hope Anakin could be saved, Luke helped putting him on the path of redemption, helping Vader turn back to the Light and fulfill the prophecy of the Chosen One. It seems to be an insult that this same character gave up on his nephew so easily and tried to kill him.

I believe things must be analyzed more carefully.

I've just finished marathoning the Skywalker Saga (by the way, I STRONGLY recommend the Ersnt Rister order: IV-V-I-II-III-VI) and noticed something very interesting while watching Return Of The Jedi.

During the final moments of Luke and Vader's duel aboard the Death Star II, we see the young Jedi Knight wants to avoid fighting his father so as not to fall in the trecharous web of Palpatine, who wants to turn the young Skywalker to the Dark Side. Luke is hiding beneath the Emperor's throne. Vader chases him and, through the Force, reads Luke's thoughts to lure him into confrontation:

You cannot hide forever, Luke. Give yourself to the Dark Side. It is the only way you can save your friends. Yes, your thoughts betray you. Your feelings for them are strong. Especially for... sister! So, you have a twin sister!

In this moment, we see Luke's face and he's completely terrified by the idea Darth Vader found out about his sister. It is something new and Luke fears for Leia's well-being. Also, we hear from Vader's words that he cares a lot about his friends, the people he loves. Vader continues:

Your feelings have now betrayed her too. Obi-Wan was wise to hide her from me. Now his failure is complete. If you will not turn to the Dark Side, THEN PERHAPS SHE WILL!

Now we have something different. Since he was brought before the Emperor, Luke had been constatly confronted by Palpatine and Vader with the idea of him turning to the Dark Side. When Vader talks about the possibility of that happening to Leia, it's not a threat directed to him, but to someone he loves. In this moment, Luke loses it completly and attacks Vader viciously, totally enraged. The Sith Lord can't stand the power of his son, fuelled by hate and falls to the ground, defeated. In this moment Luke is prepared to make the final blow, but then he hears Palpatine laughing and clapping. This makes him go back to his senses and realize what he's been doing. He then turns off his lightsaber and refuses to kill his father.

"I'm a Jedi, like my father before me" and so on... we know what happens, so let's fast-forward to The Last Jedi.

When Luke is confronted by Rey, who demands him to tell what had happened between him and Kylo Ren, we learn how things unfolded through Luke's perspective:

I saw darkness. I sensed it building in him. I'd seen it in moments during his training. But then I looked inside, and it was beyond what I ever imagined.

In this moment of the flashback we see Luke's hand reaching out to his lightsaber, almost unconsciously. He then proceeds:

. He would bring destruction and pain and death, AND THE END OF EVERYTHING I LOVE BECAUSE OF WHAT HE WILL BECOME, AND FOR THE BRIEFEST MOMENT OF PURE INSTINCT, I THOUGHT I COULD STOP IT.

Here it is again. Like in Episode VI, we see Luke reacting in a similar way by the notion of something posing a threat not to him, but to the people he loves and cares about. Luke feared Ben would destroy everything he cherished, just like Vader had threatened by turning Leia to the dark. And, just like in the OT, it was a passing shadow:

It passed like a fleeting shadow, and I was left with shame and with consequence. And the last thing I saw were the eyes of a frightened boy whose Master had failed him.

I've already written way more than I expected, so I'll just conclude here. I've realized the act Luke commits in the Sequels is the same (or at least VERY similar) as from the OT: he attempted to kill Vader then his nephew, out of fear of seeing what/who he loved destroyed. He repented and managed to stop himself in the act in both situations. And he was ashamed. So, at least regarding this point of the movie, I see the same Luke Skywalker.

(luke had more to lose now then he did before

another example which I saw dont remember where I saw it but I saved the comments unfortunately I didnt put in the links:

edit: (now I remember www . reddit . com/r/StarWars/comments/9a3hdl/)

Luke considered killing Ben for about two seconds in a vulnerable moment

Sort of like he almost got baited into killing Vader by a few mocking words, and cut the hand off his own father in blind rage.

Luke is still just a person. If we've learned anything in Star Wars it's that the Jedi are not superhuman paragons of virtue and perfection, no matter how they might appear to the unwashed masses in the SW universe. They have the same flaws, temptations, failures, etc as anyone else. Yes the Force can help them overcome some of this, but they're far from perfect. Luke could have, and I agree should have grown in a positive way, but it's not impossible or even unbelievable that he didn't. He just had his life's labor wiped out in front of him and blamed himself for it. All those years of finding lost Jedi knowledge and artifacts, being what he believed to be the last Jedi in the universe with the responsibility to restart the order on his shoulders alone. All those lives that he took under his protection and guidance as the Master of the new order, wiped out in one night. Because of him (at least in his mind). Everything he was working towards for years just totally undone in a few hours and it was all his fault.

So he leaves and says fuck the whole lot of it. He lives by himself, stews in his misery and regret, retreats into himself and rejects the most foundational principle of the whole concept of being a Jedi: to help people. He's the most powerful Force user alive and he's wasting away by himself on some desolate rock, swearing off the rest of the galaxy because he thinks that he's a failure, that he wasn't strong or good enough, that he can't win, that it's not even worth it to try anymore, and that even at the height of his wisdom and power, it was all undone, and by himself no less.

another comment

Stuff has changed, I mean he’s quicker to come to his senses. I wouldn’t call that his flaw though. His flaw is one of his greatest traits, his care for his friends and family. It’s a flaw cause it causes implusive actions, lashing out on Vader, leaving Yoda, a single thought that he could stop a horrible fate in Ben.

I personal struggle with a temptation in my life, a temptation to do something my faith says is wrong to do. I may have overcome it some days, but other days, whether the same circumstances or not, I might fall into it. Temptations are a constant battle, not a one and done thing. Flaws are similar, you don’t just grow past a flaw after one instance.

Because a day may come when you will brought face-to-face with that temptation or flaw again, but the circumstances will be different, and it won’t be so easy to overcome.

You mentioned Toy Story in a post, and that’s a decent example when it comes to one facet. Woody might not get jealous when another flashy toy comes along that gets more attention like Buzz did.

A better example of the nagging of a temptation, like Luke dealt with, is in Lord of the Rings. The Ring is a constant temptation to the bearer and those around them. At least by the film, Frodo may have resisted the urge to use it under the tree, but he still was tempted to use it at other times, and it was a constant battle. Same with Bilbo. Bilbo held the ring for 60 years. And the temptation of it held him greatly. He drops the Ring in Bag End, letting it go. If he was viewed similarly to how people viewed Luke tossing the saber, that’d mean he freed himself from it’s grasp and from the temptation to take and use it. We see in Rivendell that isn’t the case for him. He has a moment of wanting to take it back, and even at the end of his time in Middle Earth, he inquires about it, although more innocently curious.

That would be more similar to Luke’s case. To fall to the dark is a constant temptation that Jedi should always be aware of, and if you get close at one point, there’s the possibility that it’ll happen again, and if you aren’t prepared or it comes in a different form, you’ll either fall or get really close.

That turned out longer than I meant it, but I see this idea and..it’s just not the case.

another comment

Just because you get older doesn't mean you necessarily get wiser and better.

Jedi are still people (and some aliens, but you get the meaning), and the prequels (and even the OT) showed that even the oldest and wisest among the Jedi were capable of mistakes and misjudgments.

I think it's unreasonable to assume Luke should have become incapable of making, or even repeating mistakes and succumbing to emotion.

Right because people only get better as they get older and we grow past our flaws and doubts permanently right?

You guys are weird.

Luke overcame that moment of doubt before he almost struck Vader down and you think what ....... Luke got some kind of videogame like powerup where that character flaw would never come back again?

Some of you have a very black and white (boring) opinion on life and human growth.

Spoiler: People have flaws, we don't all overcome those flaws.Your boy Luke is no exception.

Consider what nearly proved to be his downfall in Return of the Jedi: for all the Emperor's taunting about the Rebel Alliance's imminent demise, it was Darth Vader who finally pushed his Berserk Button by discovering that Leia was his twin sister and suggesting that if Luke didn't change sides, he and his master might have better luck turning her. Then, when Luke went berserk, it totally worked: he curb-stomped Darth Vader and still didn't go evil in the end. His father's killing off the Emperor also put an end to a whole lot of the Empire's evil and birthed the New Republic.

Flash forward thirty years, and once again someone is threatening everyone and everything Luke loves, and killing the guy would surely preempt a whole lot of trouble. In his heart of hearts, he doubtless remembers what Yoda taught him about how easy and seductive the Dark Side is, but he also remembers how Yoda's mistake of hiding the truth about his lineage from him nearly brought his downfall. He also remembers how killing the Emperor solved so many problems the way he'd better not try to solve them this time... Well, what's so tempting about that?

Luke had more to lose at this time. He knew what a relatively free, peaceful Galaxy looked like, and had other students to care for besides Ben. Instinctively, he was acting out of concern for them. Luke makes an important point when he gives Rey the truth: it is a split second. Luke is a hero, but he's human. He was impulsive and acted on instinct in his youth, so the fear of Ben turning is enough to push him to the edge for a second.

hopeforben . tumblr . com/post/623000635980333056/theres-a-significant-portion-of-the-fandom-that/embed

@emeraldspiral

@daughter-of-water

@someoneintheshadow456

#star wars #star wars the last jedi #luke skywalker #star wars meta

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theshinsun · 4 years

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4, 5, 7, 10, 13, 15, 16, 17, 23, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 36, 39, 40, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 59, 60 [Which do you prefer between Knb and Haikyuu?] for the ask you recently reblogged please?

4. what are you looking forward to?

I'm looking forward to school starting again, even if it's just a weird hybrid of online/flipped classes, I miss my teachers and like, being productive. also if I'm in class I can't be worked borderline inhumane hours right…. right??

5. is there anyone who can always make you smile?

yeah, my roommate. she always either knows how to cheer me up, or blunders around trying to find the right method to the point that it's funny and I end up smiling anyway. she's really awesome like that.

7. what was your life like last year?

it had a lot of ups and downs. I had a great job, but the people I worked with eventually made it toxic and awful. I was doing really well in school, but stressed all the time, had an awesome relationship but kind of ruined it w my anxiety, and had serious roommate issues that made me afraid to leave my bedroom or even come home, sometimes. I remember a lot of very high highs and very low lows especially in the fall/winter of that year.

10. are you good at hiding your feelings?

well, yes and no… I don't tend to show a lot of emotion to begin with, but what I do show, I'm basically incapable of hiding, and apparently I'm a terrible liar bc my face gives me away.

13. how do you feel right now?

I'm pretty alright… kind of anxious, kind of tired, but that's just been the status quo lately tbh.

15. personality description

already answered, so I suppose I'll elaborate. I'm simultaneously like, the most confident and the most self-doubting person I know... like there are certain things I'm super certain of and times when I feel no shame, and there are others where I'll just shrivel into a ball of anxiety and mortification and never come out. in the same vein, I'm simultaneously very trusting and open and very wary and cautious with people… it really depends on the situation and the person I think, I'm a very "you get out what you put in" person.

16. have you ever wanted to tell someone something but you didn't?

yeah, I’m still holding onto things I’ve wanted to tell certain people tbh… I used to be a lot more forthcoming and not worry about the consequences of what I had to say, but now that I’ve seen what power words have to ruin relationships and impact people I tend to hold back quite a bit.

17. opinion on insecurities

I have… many, but I understand that I shouldn't and am working on the ones I do have. I think feeling insecure can lead to some of the most ugly, toxic emotions and responses in certain people, so I'm trying to be conscientious of that.

23. fear(s)

um let’s see… jump scares, the dark (sometimes), corners I can’t see around, drowning/suffocating, pain, failure, losing control...

27. things I hate

wet socks, sunburn, acne, willful ignorance, bigotry, excessively negative people… uh… idk hate's a strong word that's all I've got

28. I'll love you if…

if you are genuinely, authentically yourself. if you’re the kind of person I can feel comfortable and at ease with. if you show me patience and compassion and make an effort to know me and let me know you… then yeah you’re never getting rid of me.

29. favorite film(s)

The Road to El Dorado, Into the Spider-verse, Howl’s Moving Castle, Spirit, Life of Pi, The Truman Show, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

30. favorite tv show(s)

Haikyuu!!, Kuroko no Basuke, Avatar, Bojack Horseman, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Beastars, Dragonball Z

31. 3 random facts

already answered so here's three more

1. lately I've been carrying a fanny pack with the trans flag (there's an unfortunate but very tempting pun in there) and it's still got the security tag bc they forgot to take it off in the store so now every time I walk through the doorway to like, a drug store, I set off the alarm. I would get it taken off but it was sent to me from Chicago lol.

2. I've got a lot of outdoorsy skills bc of my gym class in high school, like rock climbing, kayaking, building fire, etc. I'm not super adventurous in my daily life but while I was in that class, I did all kinds of things.

3. for awhile I worked at a cat cafe, and helped take care of the 12-15 rescue cats we'd have there at any given time. I stand by that it was the best job I've ever had, but the people I worked with, not so much.

33. something you want to learn

I really want to learn to skateboard or surf. it's been a dream for a long time and I have (suspiciously acquired) both, but my balance is shit and I have no patience for new skills lately, so...

36. 3 dreams you want to fulfill?

already answered so here's three more

1. someday I want to have a pickup truck, I've been looking at, like, bright orange Tacomas and stuff, but of course I'd need a license to be able to drive one

2. I'd like to have a garden again, or maybe have a plot in a community garden. I've been growing nasturtiums and things on my balcony while in school but it's not quite the same

3. still waiting on the day I can get top surgery tbh. I just… want to be able to be shirtless at the beach and wear tank tops with nothing underneath, okay?

39. favorite sport(s)

ahahahaha… favorite sport you say. to play or to watch? 'cause I generally don't like to do either, tho I do like watching the folks who play volleyball on the beach. and considering one of my favorite shows is about volleyball and it was the sport I sucked at the least in school, maybe we’ll go with volleyball? but in general I’m not a sports person.

40. favorite memory

I have a vague memory… of helping my mom in the garden of my old house when I was a little kid, mostly just digging in the dirt in the spring and being outside with my family… it's not very clear or specific but I think those days were some of the happiest of my life.

52. something I'm talented at

I'm good at learning the lyrics to songs, I've got over 1000 downloaded in my spotify library and I'm pretty sure I know the words to at least most of them. in a similar vein I'm good at learning the scripts to movies, and just… memorizing things in general especially audio.

53. 5 things that make me happy

already answered so here's some more!

1. songs with a light, strummy acoustic feel and creative lyrics… I've got a whole playlist for that vibe there's just something about songs like that that make me really calm

2. I really like being hugged or cuddled by my friends, just being in close proximity and hanging all over each other, makes me all warm and fuzzy inside tbh

3. I love driving with the windows down (I can't drive so I mean riding passenger lol), especially in the canyon by my house, through the forest and by the beach.

54. something that's worrying me at the moment

I’m so afraid things won’t go back to the way they were. ...that applies to multiple aspects of my life, not just with this pandemic but school, work, friends, relationships… it seems like I’m always chasing the past and dreading the future, so much that I can’t ever be satisfied in the present moment, and that’s something that’s been on my mind a lot.

55. tumblr friends

@hadenxcharm, @spaztictwitch, @kurokonobaka, @taigainside, @hybristophilica and you could be too! all you gotta do is message me tbh I'm easy

56. favorite food(s)

strawberry cheesecake, fried shrimp, key lime pie, tuna steak

59. why I joined tumblr

I joined in 2012 bc my friends told me to, had a brief recession where I didn't use it at all, and a pretty lengthy sidetrack through the RP community, and then I came back bc of the friends I'd made here, and the unique-ness of the platform that I kinda can't find anywhere else. I'm stuck here just like the rest of y'all.

60. ask me anything you want (which do you prefer between KNB and Haikyuu?)

now this is a tough one… bc I really love them both a lot, and tbh in terms of quality of writing, art/animation, thematic music, character development and general story, I think Haikyuu!! has KNB beat, buuuuuut…. in spite of its flaws, I have such a soft spot for KNB and I keep coming back to it over and over again even as it falls into relative obscurity. It's the only thing I write for anymore and I'm still, somehow, utterly obsessed with the characters I first fell in love with over five years ago. KNB has problems, for sure, but the things it gets right (like setting a mood, strong emotional beats and character relationships) it knocks out of the park. I don't know if I could ever choose one over the other in terms of like, "you can only read/watch one of these and have to give up the other forever", but in terms of which has had the biggest impact, and still hits me the hardest, I'd probably have to go with KNB… but it's not by any means an easy choice.

#shin speaks #answered #sorry this took forever it was... a lot of questions and I've also been working pretty insanely lately #thanks so much for asking!!#<3

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almasexya · 4 years

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Monster Monday: Rodan, Giant Pteranodons from Beneath the Earth

Last time we saw Godzilla in 1955 he was put on ice in his first sequel, but what we didn’t know is that this was going to be both a literal and metaphorical nap. After Godzilla Raids Again, Toho shifted focus from their big radioactive lizard and started making special effects movies starring other kaiju. From a distance of 60 odd years it’s difficult to say what caused this change, but sufficed to say that we won’t be seeing Godzilla again until 1962, and we’ve got quite a lot to cover before then.

Released in 1956, Rodan represented Toho’s first color kaiju movie, though it’s still presented in a full screen aspect ratio. This will be my second run with Rodan, a movie that is unfortunately pretty hard to find in the states as of this writing in 2020. There was a DVD set containing both it and 1966′s War of the Gargantuas, but like most of the non-Godzilla kaiju movies Toho released, it’s out of print and vastly overpriced. My blu-ray copy of Rodan is a bootleg, and if you want to snag one for yourself, feel free to shoot me a private message.

Rodan is one of the few kaiju stories that is set up as more of a horror movie or thriller than the giant monster romping you might expect. The plot centers around two residents of a small mining town, Shigeru Kawamura, a miner (Kenji Sahara) and his lover Kiyo, (Yumi Shirakawa) who are drawn into a tense mystery involving missing and injured miners, many covered in injuries impossible for a normal human to inflict.

To say much more would be to spoil one of the better kaiju plots of the era, but you can bet a giant monster shows up and starts wrecking the countryside. It can almost be said that how we reach the section where the giant monsters appear is more interesting than what happens afterward, as Rodan’s appearance marks a sudden gear shift that more or less pushes the protagonists out of the picture, replacing them with the stock scientists and military officers that take up space in countless giant monster movies. Akihiko Hirata (you’ll remember him as the tortured Dr. Serizawa from the original Godzilla) does show up in a small role as a biologist, but he doesn’t have much to do aside from spout off the usual scientific inaccuracies (strangely, Rodan is placed at 2 million years old, completely ignoring the more reasonable time period put out in Raids Again).

That being said, this is one of the more tense kaiju movies out there, and Ishiro Honda really sells it; the cast spending the first 45 minutes or so in bleak, gloomy mines with the threat of a monster attack around every corner. Akira Ifukube also provides his usual bombastic score, which strangely doesn’t get reused in nearly as many of the later kaiju movies as much of his other work from this period does. The musical cues during the early sections are also suitably atmospheric and grim, which complements Honda’s dark, claustrophobic shots.

Eiji Tsuburaya’s Rodan suit also deserves special mention - in my opinion it’s the best the character has ever looked, with an aggressive, avian face and nasty looking spikes across its chest. The downright dopey looking Rodans we’re in for in the future are put to shame by this suit, and I wish we’d have gotten to see more of it. The stiff Rodan prop used in the flying scenes is less exciting, but unlike the hand puppets of the previous two films, it at least looks like what it’s supposed to represent.

While I may enjoy the gloomy first half more than the more traditional second, Rodan is still a great kaiju movie that’s worth a watch today. It’s exciting to see where Rodan came from, and its ultimate fate is even given a bit of an easter egg in 1964′s Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, which sees Rodan returning from his own hibernation.

Next week we’ll take a look at Toho’s first alien invasion movie, The Mysterians!

#rodan #monster monday

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tisthenightofthewitch · 5 years

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Ghost: A chat with Tobias Forge; is an instrumental album in the future?

Tobias Forge of Ghost has had an incredible year and it just keeps getting better. We were fortunate enough to speak with him about albums and arenas shows.

Ghost has been incredibly busy in the last year and a half. Between a new Cardinal, a new album, three dead Papas, a new Sister Imperator, multiple Chapter videos, three tours and two singles, all that’s missing is a partridge in a pear tree and Ghost has a holiday song to add to their repertoire. Tobias Forge, the leader of the band, is the busiest of them all adding countless interviews to the list of to-dos.

Given that information, we were extremely grateful when he agreed to talk with us for a bit to chat about Seven Inches of Satanic Panic, the differences between theater and arena shows and the chances of a full instrumental Ghost album.

The Interview

1428 Elm: Thank you so much for taking time from your very busy schedule to talk with us. Congratulations on the new single! Can I ask you what inspired those two songs? Any particular artists?

Tobias Forge: I can’t really talk about it that much. It’s 50 years old and I’m 38. I am personally a big fan of this style of music. I’ve always been.

1428 Elm: Would you say that Papa Nihil had any particular artists in mind when he did this music?

Tobias Forge: I don’t think he wrote anything but I think that the songs are very much in line with what was going on at the time. I definitely believe that he was influenced by the rock movement in the later 60’s. But it also does have sort of a Motown feel at times, so it wasn’t as psychedelic as some other bands were in 1969. They still had that mid-60’s sort of cheerfulness to it that for the most part was gone by then. Things got kind of darker in 1969.

1428 Elm: I can definitely see that. While “Kiss the Go-Goat”‘s theme is said in the lyrics, what would you say that “Mary on a Cross” is about?

Tobias Forge: I would say that a lot of music from that time because essentially the parent generation in the 60’s, were the people that were in their 20’s who were born in the 40’s, and their parents were born in the early 1900’s. So, the parents’ generation of the 60’s were extreeeeeemely conservative.

That’s why you have all these very subtle, sometimes not so subtle references because we’re familiar with the lingo, but back then it was very hidden from the parent generation who didn’t know what Mary Jane was for example.

Rolling Stones “I pledge myself to Mary Jane,” stuff like that. There’s so many innuendos, codes, like “Back Door Man,” “A Whole Lotta Love.” The 60’s was completely fused by playing with the lyrics just because they couldn’t rock it out. And I like that, I find that very interesting. And it takes a certain skill. Yeah, so that one, as most things from that time, has a subtle meaning.

youtube

1428 Elm: With psychedelic rock and almost pop influence rock added to Prequelle, are there any other genres that Ghost would like to experiment with? The dream genre that could be melted with Ghost’s sound?

Tobias Forge: I think we’ve sort of touched upon most of the things, most of the genres that I liked. You can just balance it in a different way, maybe. I guess the only thing that we haven’t really done and I’m not sure if that could be a Ghost album, but is more like soundtrack, orchestral music. I like that a lot. I like when bands have a string arrangement for a song.

At least, if you have that in the background it sort of makes the song swell. But I’m not always super buzzed about a big orchestra and full heavy metal being played together at all times. There’s a lot of symphonic rock from the 90’s and 2000’s, a lot of them and it just becomes too much. It’s such a dense soundscape as is and you also add a full orchestra as well.

It sounds dramatic but not a whole lot of room to breathe so I’m not sure if I would make orchestral arrangements, like full orchestral that I would have the whole band playing along with it. It would be paced out differently. I listen to a lot of 70’s prog rock from Italy and a lot has orchestral music, very experimental.

1428 Elm: Would you ever consider a full instrumental Ghost album?

Tobias Forge: Absolutely. I love instrumental music. I always entertain having instrumental tracks. In the future, it may be 1 out of 10 but it’s always nice.

1428 Elm: You guys made the saxophone cool again with “Miasma.” You’ve talked on the next album about Ghost going back to its harder roots. Is there a past album looking back that you’re wanting to emulate or get that same emotional feel from?

Tobias Forge: No, not really one album. I always say that each new album is like a reaction to each of the previous so since like Prequelle is not a hard rock or heavy, heavy metal album, the natural reaction to that will be to write something that isn’t, I don’t want to use the word soft, it will be different from Prequelle.

The same way Prequelle was different from Meliora etc. I’ll write a record that we don’t have yet because otherwise what’s the point? But I definitely have an album in mind with slightly more rippage [chuckles].

1428 Elm: Past albums have very strong themes and then the music takes you on a journey. Do you already have the theme in in mind?

Tobias Forge: Yes.

1428 Elm: I know you can’t say (damn!). Even from one tour to the next, your performing locations have changed quite a bit. How was the energy performing a stage show in a theater different than that of performing in these massive arenas you’ve been doing lately?

Tobias Forge: For me, the three most important things are:1) is that we can bring the same production to every place even though technically the arena might not be dramatically bigger than playing in a theater because we’re not playing the round. We’re not playing to arena capacity.

So technically, sometimes, if the capacity of the area might be similar to a theater, which is like 3200 people or something, but the main difference is that we can have the stage. With very few exceptions, regardless if you live in a small market, the little town that no one plays in, you will get the same show as they would get in New York City or LA, which is very important for me. I think it’s extremely important that if you pay money to see it, you should get the same thing.

Which leads me to: 2) when we play the theaters, there was a constant day to day basis, “Oh, you can’t use pyro. We can’t do confetti. Oh, by the way the curtain doesn’t work. Oh by the way we have this big theater production here so the stage is part occupied.” So we had to change the set almost every day.

I am not a big fan of surprises. I don’t like that at all. I want everything to be identical every day just because the show gets better if it’s done the same way, more of less. There’s wiggle room for a human touch on the show; of course the show gets different if you have 30 ft of stage one night and then there 6 ft of stage and it’s like that every day.

It does make a difference on the band because you have to move differently. These are details, I’m talking shop here in a way that people might not think about.

1428 Elm: This is extremely interesting!

Tobias Forge: Back in the day, American hockey rinks were smaller than European ones because of the action. Americans like action, so the rinks were smaller which led to more fights, more physicality. If you came to a European rink, they were bigger which was harder for anyone used to an American rink. Same thing goes for us and the stage.

One of the most important things, I absolutely HATE sitting crowds. Not on the bleachers or if you’re sitting on the side, that’s fine. You always want the most energized and enthusiastic people standing in the front. One big, big, big downside for theaters, in my opinion, is that they have seats all the way up to the stage and that really screws up the energy of the show.

Because you want people in the front who are supposed to be there. You don’t want people who can pay for it. You don’t want someone in the front sitting, eating popcorn. It becomes really awkward in terms of being in front of the crowd.

1428 Elm: As someone who went to two different shows in two different cities, I like to eyeball the crowds to see the difference and it’s shocking to see from one city to the other just how different the crowds can be and it makes a difference.

Tobias Forge: Oh yeah and it really does differ from city to city. And that’s one thing when we were repeatedly doing the theater circuit, which has its upsides don’t get me wrong. I definitely prefer theaters but a lot of that city temperament was sometimes lost because of the theaters because you ended up having the front section that were generally the people who were economically the ones that could pay for it.

It’s a Friday night and you come to a city that’s known for a vibrant crowd and still you have people in the front who act like they’re watching a movie. They are sitting back and then you have the people who are wanting to rock out and they are ten rows back. But unfortunately that’s part of the economics of theaters and that’s why I was very adamant about moving away from theaters.

Luckily the promoter felt, let’s try it and see how it works out, and I think the upsides are vast. I’m just happy that we’re able to bring the same show and you get the energy in the show and it feels way better now.

1428 Elm: Well the show looks incredible and I hope you have an amazing rest of your tour and a good rest in 2020 since you all have been go go going for quite a while.

Tobias Forge: Yes, well, there’s a new record so there’s not a whole lot of rest but it’s certainly paced in a different way.

Tobias was an absolute delight to speak with. If you are like me and want to have a fully instrumental Ghost album one day, let the band know your support. I think it would be an amazing change to the Ghost formula.

1428ELM.COM

#Tobias Forge #Tobias Interview #The Band Ghost #Ghost Band #Cardinal Copia

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dark-infatuation · 4 years

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...you know exactly what we came here to ask. - X, Gem & Mun

Yes dear, I am well aware~

1. What’s one animal you wish you could have as a pet but can’t?

Once upon a time, I would’ve said a dragon~ Now, I suppose any sort of big cat. A melanistic lion would be quite magnificent, don’t you think?

2. Favorite thing to wear to sleep?

Usually, it ends up being flannel pajama pants, with or without a shirt, doesn’t matter. But, I do have a set of silk pajamas that feel rather nice

3. What song really gets you going?

That’s a good question. I’m not very up to date with modern music. But the song ‘Endgame’ from the musical Chess is very good.

4. Where do you usually eat your meals?

Preferably, at the kitchen table. Though I do admit I have a habit of sitting on the kitchen island to eat

5. Favorite meal: breakfast, lunch, or dinner?

Breakfast

6. Most embarrassing habit?

Uh, yes, well, I have been disconnected from society for quite some time, and I’m afraid my slang isn’t very up to date. I try not use slang as a general rule, but there are occasions where I can slip and say something that truly shows my age

7. Chocolate or fruity candy?

Chocolate, no question

8. Soft or hard tacos?

Soft

9. Worst way to break up a fight?

Participating in said fight, solves nothing

10. Best thing to say in an elevator of strangers?

Shift a pair of demon horns onto my head and boom “Going down?”

11. What color/design are your bedsheets?

Plain black, though the comforter has a nice black and white patterning I’m not sure how to describe. Swirls mixed with paisley?

12. Any hidden talents?

I don’t think it’s hidden anymore, but I can play the piano quite well

13. Favorite thing to drink out of (mug, glass, etc.)?

Mug

14. Socks or bare feet around the house?

Bare feet

15. Favorite board game?

Monopoly

16. Do you sleep with the fan on or off?

Off, I’m cold enough as is

17. Heat on or keep it cold with lots of layers?

Depends on my mood, but usually ends up being both with how big the manor is

18. Do you sing in the shower?

Yes

19. Favorite song to belt out at the top of your lungs when you’re alone?

......‘Poor Unfortunate Souls’

20. Last thing you cried about?

.....Everything, really. Everything that happened that night.

21. At what age did you first have alcohol?

When we were 7, but it was also a very different time back then.

22. Relationship status?

I’d say I’m taken, wouldn’t you, Xanthias~?

23. What’s the most amount of money you’ve spent on a single item of clothing?

Oh I can end up spending quite a lot on my suits. I think my most expensive one was...somewhere in the $30,000 range?

24. What do you typically wear to formal events?

Suits

25. Favorite memory?

............I’d rather not say. Time has made the moment bitter, but...it had been quite beautiful while it lasted

26. Gum or breath mints?

Mints

27. Favorite shoes?

I don’t have a favorite. I have very few pairs, and all of them are the same.

28. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

The list, my dear, is longer than I’d ever care to admit

29. What is the natural state of your hair?

Usually in my eyes, which is quite annoying

30. Have you ever had braces?

31. Most dangerous thing you’ve ever done?

Go to that stupid party

32. Most embarrassing thing your parents have caught you doing?

Our parents were never around to catch us doing anything

33. Last time you had an orgasm?

This morning, isn’t that right, Xanthias~

34. Celebrity crush(es)?

None, I’m not sure who the modern celebrities are

35. Windows or Mac?

......Pardon?

36. How old were you when you learned to ride a bike?

...I’ll be honest, neither of us ever learned

37. Makeup or natural?

I’ll always prefer a little makeup, no matter the body

38. What color do you wear the most?

Black

39. Favorite season?

Spring

40. Umbrella or rain coat?

Umbrella

41. Have you ever fallen out of a tree?

Yes, quite a few times as a child

42. First car you ever owned?

A Ford Model T

43. What time do you usually go to bed?

That relative

44. Are you a competitive person?

Yes

45. Least favorite color?

I’m not sure I dislike any color, though perhaps yellow

46. First pet you’ve ever owned?

Does Samuel count?

47. Sweet or salty?

Sweet

48. Favorite pasta dish?

Chicken and broccoli alfredo

49. Favorite kind of chips?

Are Pringles still around? I like those

50. Talk about something you’re passionate about.

I -- suppose I’m rather fond of music. I used to hoard records, still do, actually. And I used to write my own songs, for the piano. Never wrote any of them down, however. I didn’t like them to feel so concrete. I liked to experiment with my music

51. What are some of your hobbies?

I...I’m afraid I haven’t allowed any to flourish.

52. Caffeine? If so, what kind?

Coffee or tea

53. Favorite kind of pizza?

I don’t believe I’ve ever had it...?

54. Fast food or sit-down restaurant?

A sit-down restaurant

55. Lots of acquaintances or a handful of close friends?

Close friends

56. Something that ruins your appetite?

In terms of food? Or mannerisms? For food, any type of squash I dislike, and in terms of mannerisms, open-mouthed chewing tends to repulse me

57. Favorite labels about you?

‘Mysterious’, ‘terrifying’, ‘attractive’. I’m aware that’s not the intention of the question, but those are still labels

58. Are you a religious person?

59. Night out with a bunch of friends in public or night in with one friend having deep conversations?

Deep conversations with a friend

60. What size shoe do you wear?

How is this relevant...?

61. Favorite thing about yourself?

I...suppose my charm. It can be quite useful

62. Have you ever told someone you loved them first?

Yes

63. Have you ever had sex on the first date?

Yes

64. Heroes or villains?

Villains

65. Favorite fruit?

Pomegranate

66. Least favorite fruit?

Plum

67. Favorite vegetable?

Broccoli

68. Least favorite vegetable?

...Is squash a vegetable?

69. How many plates can you eat at a buffet?

Usually just one or two, plus a dessert

70. Favorite dessert?

......Admittedly, I will eat virtually anything with chocolate, though those dark chocolates filled with raspberry creme are divine

71. Do you play any sports?

Not at all

72. Age you learned how to swim?

I can’t remember my exact age, but we were children

73. Tell a funny story.

You’ve never seen Damien pine, when we were kids, he had a crush on a boy. His face would get so red whenever he could so much as see this boy, and he’d get that dreamy look on his face, and not watch where he was going, so one tiiiIIIIIIII -- THAT’S ENOUGH

74. What’s one interesting thing about your culture?

My culture? I don’t -- I’m not sure -- I don’t know all that’s happened in the world, I don’t know how culture has possibly changed over the years, I can’t confidently say what would be ‘interesting’ about modern culture

75. What’s one annoying thing about your culture?

......One thing I have a feeling hasn’t changed is that we claim to be inclusive, yet racism and homophobia and hate crimes prevail

76. What job would you be terrible at?

Anything that required a bedside manner

77. Would you rather watch a TV show or a movie?

A movie

78. What’s your favorite compliment to give?

My dear, I am not a pick-up line generator with a sole goal to get into someone’s pants. My compliments, when I give them, are sincere, and vary from person to person

79. What’s your favorite compliment to receive?

I can admit I can be rather vain. Anything complimenting my looks I enjoy

80. Has your opinion changed on something recently?

Technology. It really has come a long way, hasn’t it?

81. Do you always order the same thing at a restaurant or order something different each time?

I tend to be a creature of habit

82. What’s something you’ve always wanted to try but haven’t yet?

Hmm...I’ve always wanted to try and learn to draw. A friend of mine used to be quite good at it, and I’ve always been a little jealous of his seemingly innate skill

83. If you could learn to do anything right now, what would it be?

Switch between male and female bodies myself

84. Favorite physical feature about yourself?

My scar. As painful as it was, it’s quite beautiful, don’t you think?

85. Least favorite physical feature about yourself?

My dear, as a whole I despise this body. It’s not my own, it’s broken, but...it’s all I have

86. What’s one amazing thing you did that nobody was around to see?

I summoned the...thing, that’s in this body with us. Of course, only Damien was around to see it, and it...ended unpleasantly, but it was quite the feat.

87. If you could change your height, would you?

For my female body? Yes, I’d like to make myself a little taller in that form, but I’m quite content with the male body’s height

88. What’s something you would rate 10/10?

Music, any kind

89. Heels or flats?

Heels

90. What’s something you wish you had more knowledge about?

There’s a lot of things I wish I had more knowledge about, the list goes on

91. Would you want to be famous?

I used to be, in a sense. The public eye is quite taxing. Nowadays, I prefer the shadows

92. What’s something you would get arrested for?

Murder

93. What’s your spirit animal?

I’d like to think it’d be a lion

94. What’s the luckiest thing that’s ever happened to you?

You, Xanthias

95. Are you the type to have an organized mess, or no mess at all?

There’s a fine line between ‘organized’ and ‘organized chaos’. It depends which of us is doing the organizing

96. Do you tend to make decisions based on the past, present, or future?

I try to take all into account

97. Are you a planner or a more spontaneous person?

I’d like to say I’m a planner, but history tends to disagree

98. Thoughts on the oxford comma?

A needed grammatical tool

99. What do you hope never changes?

Having other people with me. After experiencing company for the first time in...60 years, I don’t think I could go back to isolation

100. How would you celebrate your 100th birthday?

I’m afraid that’s already come and passed. I can’t even remember my birthday, so undoubtedly it was uneventful, and spent alone.

#wraithik-vampire #Dark

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weekendwarriorblog · 4 years

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30 Minute Experiment: Work #30ME

So I’ve already gone through a couple Pink Floyd titles and one from The Cult, so I might as well start working my way through The Godfathers’ Birth School Work Death in terms of topics for this 30 Minute Experiment. (For anyone just joining, the idea is that I pick a topic and write about it for 30 minutes straight, without interruptions. When the time is up, I post. No edits, no re-reads, probably many regrets.) Okay, let’s do this...

It will surprise absolutely no one that I’m a bit of a workaholic and I’ve been one for most of my life. I think my first job must have been when I was 14 or 15 or so when I got a bicycle and started delivering newspaper, a job that I quite liked because it was a quiet suburban neighborhood in Westport where not a lot happened. (I do remember one day being flashed by an older woman who came to the door wearing absolutely nothing not realizing I was on the other side leaving her newspaper.)

One of the weird things going on in this pandemic is that after losing a writing gig I had just started, it gets harder and harder to push myself to do the much-needed work I have to do, whether it’s doing these #30Mes or writing my weekly Weekend Warrior column or cleaning or working on some of my long dormant screenplays or even writing to my imprisoned penpal (who I just got a letter from so I need to get back to him fairly soon.)

At a certain point, everything seems like work, even if it’s just scheduling time to hang out on Zoom with friends or family, which is something I did far less of in the days pre-pandemic (Can we maybe start a new numbering system so that 2020 is Year One and every year that follows would be 1 Post-Pandemic for 2021, etc? It feels suitable.)

But this whole time and even over the past four years I’ve been spending a lot of time trying to find some form of steady work, and sadly, things were so unstable pre-pandemic that it’s only gotten harder as more of my movie-writing colleagues are losing jobs and there are far more opportunities. I mean, anyone who reads my Weekend Warrior every week (or EVER!) will know that there are still movies being released, even if not all of them are getting any kind of theatrical release. Some of them are even quite good.

I was talking to one of my colleagues last night about the work situation and how everything just came to a stop in March when most of us had things planned or in the works, which unfortunately revolved mostly around movies.

But the current situation has become a great equalizer in terms of people needing to cover a lot more smaller indie movies, TV series and streaming stuff if they want to keep their jobs. I’m pretty sure that the job market is going to look very different in a few months as the country starts slowly reopening, and I think the people who don’t want to do the actual work like going to see movies and having varied tastes, won’t survive. They’ll just give up and go take one of those regular 9 to 5 desk jobs that are out there.

Believe me, I’ve been ready to make that transition for a couple years as I lost a lot of freelance outlets, some being closed, others just going in a different direction. It’s tough out there, and it’s really hard for me to take any sort of dog-eat-dog mentality when it comes to work, because I don’t like seeing my friends struggling. That hurts me almost as much as my own struggle (which I’m happy to say has taken an interesting and slightly positive turn this week).

Sure, I’m definitely ready to be done with this and to get back to work, even though it’s been some time since I’ve had any steady work hours -- probably the Tracking Board where I was doing a 9 to 5 shift five days a week -- and I’m going to have to get back into some of the good working habits. I already try to go to sleep at a reasonable hour and don’t stay up past midnight playing video games (or Android games) or doing some of the other distractions that would keep anyone else from getting work done.

I mean, if you read today’s Weekend Warrior, you’ll see that I spent a lot of time watching and writing about a bunch of movies just so that people will have some idea that there is good movie entertainment still coming their way which hopefully they’ll look into it. I don’t want to too far down the tangential wormhole of the movie biz right -- I’ll have plenty of time to talk about that over the next few months -- but the pandemic equalizer that I mentioned hasn’t really helped the smaller indie movies as I’d hoped since people still would rather throw on Netflix or Hulu or HBO and binge watch some show or another.

I have a LOT of stuff that I’ve been meaning to watch but my desire to keep my brain in gear and stay motivated in terms of my writing has led to things like this experiment, which I’ve done a pretty good job keeping up with. If I really look at this to see how it helps me in terms of earning a living, I think I can say fairly that it’s a daily job that forces me to think and write quickly, which is something that’s important for most of the better writing jobs out there. And it only takes 30 minutes a day, so it’s not like it’s taking me away from any of the time-wasting activities I’d love to do instead.

Sure, I’m definitely trying to use this time productively even if the “work” I’m doing doesn’t do much to help me financially, although I will say that doing this stuff helps me both mentally and emotionally, which is half the battle when you’re dealing with a job and people you have to work with. I learned that the hard way at a few of my recent jobs post-CS, but I’m not going to get into all of that. I believe very strongly that sometimes you just have to do something to maintain your own mental health even when it’s not the best decision on the grand scheme of things.

I do miss having some of the structure of a job in my life even though I feel my calendar is just filling up with other things, even if it’s just doing things to help support my friend’s own mental and emotional health by taking part in their activities. Believe me, as much as the monotony of the day-to-day may have been getting to me a few weeks back, I feel like I’ve moved past that, and now I’m so focused and disciplined about getting things done, who knows? Maybe I’ll even have a few screenplays done by the time I’m allowed to go to a movie theater or press screening again.

I can only imagine how much harder this is for my friends and family who have gotten used to going to an office five days a week and have built their entire lives around that structure. Of my immediate family, only my sister and her husband and kids were doing anything in that vein, since both my brother and I have always been homebodies for the most part.

Right now, I’m not sure if I could even deal with going on the subway every day to go to a job, but thankfully, more businesses are figuring out how to stay running while allowing employees to work from home. At least as a writer, I don’t necessarily have to be anywhere, although as I’ve said before, I still prefer to see movies on the big screen... preferably without my own name watermarked across it. (This is done to avoid piracy, obviously, since it can be traced right back to me.)

Although I’m slowly inching towards a point in life where most people are ready to retire, I think I’ll be good to keep working in some capacity or other for at least the next ten years. The down time in between jobs these past few years has made it far easier for me to be thrifty so it’s no like I’m trying to support a ridiculous comic book habit anymore and have less need for consumerism.

I can’t remember if I discussed during the “money” topic but I do feel better when i know i have money just in case I want to do something fun when that’s allowed again. There have been too many times in recent years where I’ve had to decline an invite to go somewhere just because I was worried about how even spending $20 might affect my ability to eat for that week. (Yes, things got that bad!)

I guess we’ll see where things go in the next few months, but I don’t think you’ll meet another person who is more than ready to go to work for 40 to 60 hours a week once again, since I’ve also gotten better at scheduling my time. I mean, it’s still not great but when it comes to working, especially as a writer, I feel that I’m always getting better at facing new challenges, and I do hope some will still come my way.

I have about five minutes left to go in today’s #30ME, and I’m not sure if I have that much more to say about “work” right at this moment, but I do want to say that if you got far into today’s ramble, I hope you’ll drop me a line with some suggestions and opinions. It doesn’t mean I will change what I’m doing since as I’ve said, these are more for me than anyone else, but it would be nice if someone is reading them and maybe it changes their opinion of me (hopefully in a favorable way).

That’s it for me today but I’ll be back tomorrow..maybe talking about the “Birth” or “Death” part of that Godfathers song.

#30ME #30MinuteExperiment #Work

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the-working-class-guide-to-films · 5 years

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Once Upon A Time In Hollywood

AKA ‘Quentin Tarantino makes a film that is criticised for pretty much everything, sexism, racism and violence. But the real issue at heart is that Tarantino wastes too much time in making a NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL HOLLYWOOD, sacrificing the talents at hand to make a truly incredible film’.

OUATIH is an epic film. It’s a film that does hark back to the Golden Age of Hollywood. No CGI was involved. It was filmed in real locations instead of behind a green screen, there was a sense of reality involved, not like today’s mainstream movies. Tarantino clearly has a love of that era. Unsurprisingly we saw this in the the design, costumes, location as you would with any film that took place in a different time period. Surprisingly for a Tarantino film, it reflected that era too, the film itself feels like a film straight from the 60′s. Very slow, lacking in action. I think that this is probably Tarantino’s passion project, you can see how much craft, care and love has gone into this. The film reflects that, though I’m not sure fans of Tarantino will enjoy it.

I don’t have many gripes about the film. Yes it’s overly pretentious, that’s fine. One of the things that truly exasperates me about films is the length of a film. I get so annoyed when a film lasts longer than it needs to be. The run-time is super unnecessary, especially considering in the first hour nothing really happens. It sets up the characters but does it so slow it does become boring. I’d say at least 20 minutes of the film are shots of the cars driving, or the characters walking to a destination. We get it Quentin, you want it to feel real. This could easily have been cut. Moreover, the actual story was quite short. All the main cast were fantastic, but each of their stories were short and this was disappointing. In fact, not a lot really happened. The moments that weren’t brilliant were quite disappointing, and unfortunately there weren’t many of those moments.

Like I said, there are brilliant moments, most of which comes from Leonardo DiCaprio, who plays Rick Dalton. An actor who was at the top of his game but who recently has become a bit of a joke, doing bit parts and drinking too much. It was pure enjoyment watching him lose his shit in his trailer, in the end scene with him in the pool, and of course, the scene with ‘that was the best acting I’ve ever seen, in my whole life’. And big shout out to Julia Butters, a 10 year old who was a total boss in the movie. Brad Pitt was great, his character seemed like a more reserved Aldo Raine from another Tarantino film, Inglorious Basterds. I’d only ever heard of Sharon Tate because she was married to a rapist, Roman Polanski, and murdered by a bunch of loonies, The Manson Family. I wasn’t even aware she was an actor, never as much as seen her in anything. Tarantino came under fire for the lack of screen time that Margot Robbie, playing Tate, had on screen. Whilst she wasn’t on screen long, this isn’t always a bag thing. Look at Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs, one of the most memorable roles, yet was on screen for just over 16 minutes. The amount of time clearly shouldn’t be an issue, as Gandalf once said, ‘all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.’ and Robbie certainly gave a fantastic performance worthy of recognition that seemed like a wonderful portrayal of a women whose life was cut short. Maybe the amount of screen time reflected that?

Whilst I do think the portrayal of Bruce Lee could be deemed as problematic, especially since there have been so many good things said about him, I do think Tarantino comes under unfair criticism. I’m no fanboy of his, but this film certainly has brought the critics out despite not really having any foundation to do so. I’ve discussed the whole Sharon Tate fiasco. But also, Tarantino comes under stick for the use of violence in his films. Which is crazy, especially since America and Britain, and most developed countries, have been involved in genocide since the beginning of their history, hundreds and hundreds of years before the introduction of cinema. In OUATIH there is hardly any violence up until the end of the film. Why he constantly gets asked this I don’t know. It seems like people are so quick to jump on a bandwagon that they don’t actually know what they’re talking about, nor have their own opinion on the matter.

4/5 I came out of the cinema initially slightly disappointed, but ever since I keep thinking about it and there’s more and more I like about it. Whilst I do have a gripe about the first hour and the length of the film it was refreshing to see an epic film that didn’t rely on CGI or special effects. A Golden-Age style film set in the Golden-Age of cinema. Whilst this may not be violence filled that we are used too, it was still enjoyable. The acting was fantastic, the scene where Pitt is at the Manson home is incredible, and the ending is Tarantino at his finest. It’s probably a film that you’d have to watch twice to really enjoy and digest.

#movies #movie review #film #Film Review #cinema #cinema review #new #ouatih #once upon in hollywood #once upon a time in hollywood #quentin tarantino #leonardo dicaprio #brad pitt #margot robbie

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