weedrow

[weedrow]

Fabulous Mutations

Lawrence had parents who asked him how he felt. He had teachers who saw his potential, and friends who invited him to gatherings among peers. 

Mundane.

Not one of them understood. His parents didn’t really listen. His teachers were morons. His friends were shallow.

In a world blaring with noise, he was drowned out unfairly. He knew truths about the universe that no one realized, and no one cared. Population and apathy ballooned, taking up space that used to be filled with principles and civility. Now it is a society of livestock, to be used and discarded by the farmers. This was the closest the earth got to hell. Not during disasters, diseases or genocide, but here. 

Lawrence needed to fix it. Start from scratch. It was already most of the way there… it only needed a push…

Dale woke to a bird hitting the window. 4:38 was illuminating the corner of the room, intruding on his restful sleep, haunting him with responsibility. He tried to sleep for 22 minutes as was permitted by his alarm. 

His day’s responsibilities lurking so near, pulled him from lull.

Preserving his wife’s peace, Dale turned his alarm off and creaked to his washroom to begin. Continuing to his kitchen, he heard something outside his house, just the other side of the wall. A rustling of leaves. Though he knew it was a rabbit; the dark of the house questioned whether it was not truly a figure… waiting… watching… The dark’s rhetoric proved effective. In staggered movements, posturing to the dark that he wasn’t afraid, he unlocked the door and looked for the sound. He saw a figure, hunched under his window making a wet crunching noise. Panic filled him as his eyes adjusted, and its shape was recognized properly. A dog. Eating something. The bird. The skinny creature remained, carefully chewing the carcass. It looked at Dale, and was unafraid. Must be a pet that was lost or abandoned. Doing its best to survive, though ill equipped. Dale leaves it to what it will. It wasn’t Dale’s business.

He drank his coffee with milk, ate half of a blue-berry muffin, and read until sunrise; it was time to wake his family and go to work.

John was a fat fuck. He hated himself excessively for this. The fat man lived with his grandmother, an excessively generous and patient woman who did not wish to hurt anyone. She wanted John to succeed, but hated that pressure might discourage him. She gave him all the tools he could want for anything he might be interested in. Making videos online, making movies or animations and even at times, entrepreneurial pursuits. Anything that tickled John’s fancy. And she gave him an excess of time, thinking eventually he would find his motivation to act. 

Fabulous Mutations is a trilogy of films that concluded 10 years ago. Despite its runtime of 12 hours total, The film series was an enormous success, becoming the highest grossing films by every metric, and beloved by those who watched it.

Dale, Lawrence and John went to a special release of the trilogy of fabulous mutations which played the full 12 hours, back to back to back. Dale Went for an activity. Lawrence because of its name. And John as an excuse to consume an excess of film, an excess of food, and partake in too much sitting.

Lawrence sees Dale enter the theater. He might be a good target for the first push. He dresses nicely and holds himself with unfounded confidence. He is someone who just sits there and does something because people do things. And he will forget about the movies and it will mean nothing. It’s gross. 

Lawrence detects John next, cutting it close to the movie starting. He seems to have taken his time getting here. Dale did nothing to appall Lawrence compared to John. Lawrence watches, disgusted yet fascinated by the excess lumbering to his seat, arms spilling with his freshly purchased excess. 

A disgusting show of all the flaws of now: Consumption and isolation. He has been allowed his excess, without a soul to express their disgust.

Disgusting.

He would be a worthy subject. The lovely punctuation of such a repulsive soul.

The films conclude 12 hours later. John leaves the theater, struck with inspiration to finally do something grand! To turn his life around and become who he always wanted to be! So when he gets home the first thing he does!... Is slosh into his seat at his computer. Granted he did spend a small break, smoking weed from his window and talking to his grandmother about how inspired he is. Of course afterwards returning to playing the game he screams at. The same game he has spent thousands and thousands of hours on. Thousands of hours more than he will ever spend expressing himself through the arts he is so very Passionate about.

Lawrence follows John out of the theater, with a vision given by the films. They spoke directly to him of meaning, destiny, bravery, and to take what he should rightfully have.

 He understands the mission clearly. Kill the excess.

He follows John home, tailing from a distance to avoid detection. Not that it mattered with John’s incredible ability to be entirely focused on himself constantly.  The bloat helps.

Lawrence lingers near John’s house for some time, looking for his in. Lawrence is nearly detected when John has a conversation with his grandmother on the porch. Lawrence hears the impact the films had on John. He feels like a new man, seen, and that he has been inspired to create his own great film. 

Lawrence sympathizes with such a vision. That is afterall what distinguishes the people who live and operate as men ought to, and ceaseless discharge.

But John returns to his cove, and minutes on the computer turn to hours. Not a word typed. The hours creep into morning. Still dark for now, but sunrise is soon. John finally goes to sleep. A spirited agent, too lazy to rise.

Lawrence opens John’s unlocked window and flutters inside. 

Staring at John, Lawrence can’t help but believe that John has done this to himself. Lawrence eviscerates John, from one end of his ribs, to his belly button to the other end. John isn’t strong enough to resist. His grandmother is deep asleep.

Dale read about the murder the following day. It wasn’t Dale’s business.

The movies really touched Dale. He didn’t know how to be a good enough father. The film depicted a mother that felt the same, but did her best regardless. Some days, it was simply having a conversation. This was not particularly groundbreaking, but it resonated with Dale, which made him think.

Dale wakes his children up much earlier than they usually rise. He packs a soda for each of them, and they walk to the park. The kids, while tired, never reject an opportunity for adventure, as their father before them made a point of doing. 

Filled with the scent of early morning, they watch the sun rise, drink their sodas and talk to their dad. The first in a long line of adventures and sodas together that his children will treasure, more than Dale could know. And it will cause a ripple effect so long as there are people to be affected by this fabulous mutation.

[weedrow]

Feeling good right now. Might feel bad later idk. Might try on a pretty dress

[weedrow]

"The universe always pushes you in the right direction and I feel like... all of these moments have come together too coincidentally. I feel like I'm finally alive!!" His eyes glint with a sad joy. A sadness that has crept into his every expression from a lifetime of brilliant plans that never worked. "But I won't ever leave you like my father did. So I need to know that you are okay with me leaving your mother. I need it to be okay with you."

With too many beers in my gut, I was entranced. The love story he was weaving caught me. He's always had a way with words and with people. I agreed enthusiastically trying to match the meaningful mania that made life seem kinder than it is. But I insisted that he must remain a part of my life. That was necessary.

He continued "Thank you. I need you to tell your siblings tomorrow while I tell your mom. You know me better than anyone, you understand what I'm trying to say. I hope I can be as incredible as you when I grow up." The compliment given was not accepted. While he may see it as my mentor giving me the validation to feel proud and satisfied with how far I've come... it rots on his tongue. I know how hard it is to move. I know how hard it is to speak. I know how hard it is to be alive. If I am doing so much better than he is now, what chance do I have? But these thoughts don't belong in a love story. They're wrong to feel this moment, so I just take it as the bitter compliment it is. After all what did it matter? He trusted me to relay this incredibly sensitive message to my siblings. Those who lie beneath me in the ranks of my father because I have been the one to suffer the worst of his apathy. The worst of his impulse. The worst his soul. I suffered to be his son. His first son. His favourite son. All of it has been worth something if he trusts me so, as a confidant. As a true companion.

The next morning I find him telling my siblings without me present. He said he needed to tell it. He had let me down again. But I love him too much to let go. I can't let go. Even when he leaves me all alone. Again and again. No matter what, I will find a way to find his pathetic smile, beautiful.

[weedrow]

The importance of logic in writing

Not enough people realize the fundamental issue of logical consistency within storytelling. With any story that is incredible that even you yourself love, there is a line of logic that connects the elements that you like. That connect that which is excellent. Even the most iconic lines in anything have logic connected to it that makes it so.

In Star Wars, "I am a Jedi, like my father before me." Is not potent because of vibes or vacuous ideas of truth or soul, it has a logic. Luke Skywalker is a heroic figure who has to wrestle with his inner darkness that pulls him towards quick effective ways to get what he wants, but they are down the path of darkness. Of evil. And his father had been faced with this precise issue and had fallen to it. Despite this, Luke has faith in his fathers goodness. In his ability to return to the light. So this line is referencing the great hero his father once was before he fell to the darkness. And it also reveals his ability to falter, yet his firmness in his choice to the light.

In Pride and Prejudice, "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." An iconic line of all literature, that again has a logic that flows throughout the entire book. The conflict consists primarily of Elizabeth and Darcy struggling with their preconceptions of one another and their own pride. WOAH PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (I don't give a single fuck what people think about Pride and Prejudice. It is a masterpiece.) And this conflict is seemingly contradictory to this line, except it is to accentuate the perspective of Elizabeth. She could easily have simply gotten married to Darcy and lived with wealth comfortably for the rest of her days. But instead she stood behind her beliefs and principles, because Darcy had shown himself to be contemptable. However her standing true to herself and holding Darcy accountable brings the entire story together, as Darcy then swallows his pride and goes out of his way to fix the harm he had done to a dear friend and an innocent woman. A classic piece of feminist literature, showing the power women have and must use to advocate for themselves so they may have a good life. That a woman should not be beholden to the approval of men simply because a wealthy man would be in want of a wife. The line outlining this universally acknowledged truth regarding gender dynamics is thus directly confronted and challenged, for us to find at the end a story of truth, pride and prejudice.

Then even in stories that suck, the best lines will have a line of logic that people love it for. Let's go with a horrific show for many reasons, a prime one being logical consistency (That's a bit of a sly move as any flaw in a movie can be formatted into logic). In Obi-Wan Kenobi the show, the final confrontation with Obi-Wan and Darth Vader, Vader says "I am not your failure, Obi-Wan. You didn’t kill Anakin Skywalker. I did." A line that has numerous flaws. One being that this is not the character of Vader nor Anakin, rather speaking from a perspective of some fan who does not understand the characters, using vague terminology of killing Anakin, without establishing his separation from that identity beyond 'ohh he's evil now so he's not anakin good guy he's vader bad guyyyy' which is weak as hell. Then it has no source for this dialogue, "I am not your failure" speaking as though he knows Obi-Wan's thoughts rather than speaking on his own perspective. Do you remember their last fight on Mustafar? Do you remember all the things they talked about, about democracy, the empire, the dark side and the light. Their relationship of brothers being reduced to one of enemies. With "I loved you" hitting hard. That is also with a slough of issues throughout the movie.

Yet this line of dialogue still maintains some relevance that stands as the reason people love it. It refers to an understanding of guilt and responsibility that Obi-Wan has, that of course he would have. He was his mentor and family, and he was not there to recognize the signs of Palpatine seducing him to the dark side. He was not there to pull him back when he was on the brink. So then for Vader to specifically go for the jugular, trying to taunt Obi-Wan into making a mistake by saying he himself murdered the man Obi-Wan cared so dearly for, it follows. The tragedy of Anakin turning into Vader being accentuated and put in the face of an audience, with cinematic lighting, and the mask cracked, acting as a bridge between the humanity of Anakin and the evil of Darth. There still is A line of reasoning and logic there, even if you have to ignore some of the most horrendous writing known to man to see it.

This leads to the conclusion of the entire affair. Logic is essential in storytelling. Without it, you can just as easily say "Sad man was really sad and killed himself" and that would be meaningful, yet it isn't because there is not the logic lying within to make it so. The tissue to connect it to something that resonates with an audience.

Then comes the difficult part. How to make a story that is logically consistent. Well that simply comes down to drafting, redrafting and redrafting again, with a keen sight for ensuring all you are attempting to do is founded and earned. Premise to conclusion, set up to pay off. Same ideas, different words.

It is worthwhile holding a logical standard that can be verbalized as such. The logical through-line of a story is immensely simple to understand and explain to people to make better stories and better standards, but you must care about it and you must practice. But it will all be worth it once we arrive into a golden age of storytelling, where society only gives validation and monetization to stories which have merit worthy of us as a human civilization. The civilization built on the shoulders of giants. We owe it to ourselves, our ancestors and generations to come. Have a high standard in storytelling.

[weedrow]

Interstellar: Bad science

Interstellar is one of those movies that you'll hear "movie dude" talk about. The one who says their favourite director is Wes Anderson and they love Greta Gerwig because that's what makes them seem like movie guys. I mean Interstellar is directed by THE Christopher Nolan! How could he be wrong??? And even Black science man glazes the science of the movie.

And you know maybe some of the science does work! But the scientists certainly do not. And the logic of the film that holds said science together DEFINITELY does not.

To start, the world is ending because of a mysterious Blight, that is gradually infecting every different species of crop, and is gradually killing humanity from starvation. Blight is not a real life disease, as implied by mysterious, but taking it for what is said in the film, it is able to cross contaminate every single crop eventually to wipe em all out. That is brutal and the kind of thing you could base an entire story about (See The Windup Girl, Paulo Bacigalupi for a brilliant depiction of this), and this Nolan has seen it fit that this is a scenario that could lead well into a journey to the stars, to visit new planets and commit INTERSTELLAR TRAVEL HOLY CRAP IT'S THE FUCKING THING!!! However... for the entire population to leave earth, they need a sustainable food source. Duh. What is that food source? I mean it can't be crops or else they'd bring the disease with it surely. And if not, why hasn't earth come up with any plans or methods to reduce the spread of diseased crops? What kind of disease is this that crosses different species of crops and drives them to extinction? And again, how is leaving earth going to solve this problem? From a scientific perspective, I don't know if this is possible or what way you could make it work. From a writing perspective, this is foolish. We have not been given any reason to think leaving the planet would help anything at all. And this is the premise of the bloody movie, so as you can imagine, it's all down hill from here.

The next point to mention would be the enormous lack of thought and care put into the characters and their intellect. Cooper is a pilot, AND an engineer. The latter profession being entirely irrelevant to this film beyond some vacuous smarts, that Cooper is supposed to have. His daughter Murph, has a "ghost", who is pushing books off her walls. Cooper does not give her ghost a moment's thought, and instead tells her “Fine. Murph, you wanna talk science, don’t just tell me you’re scared of some ghost - record the facts, analyze, present your conclusions.” (Principles that have no grasp over this film whatsoever). This has many issues. Such as after coordinates to "The best kept secret on the planet" mysteriously appear on the floor of Murphy's room. Cooper's conclusion to this? "I don’t want to term it ’supernatural’ ... but … it definitely wasn’t scientific” He bases this on nothing at all. He has two pieces of information.

1. Murph thinks there is a ghost trying to communicate with her

2. The same room has coordinates leading him to a duper secret NASA base.

He has not recorded facts, analyzed, and has only presented a conclusion. A non conclusion at that, simply finding that there is no conclusion that makes any sense. For being a science man, this is a bonkers fuckin' line. And later when he is given more information, when Murph finds a message saying simply "Stay" he disregards it and doesn't give it a second thought. Furthermore, seemingly the day after discovering a mission to leave into space with a very low likelihood of returning, he leaves. He has not had the time to understand the science of their plan, of the wormhole, of the planets they're investigating, of the brand new spaceship they're taking that he's expected to pilot, or ANYTHING as is further seen as he continually asks questions he should know such as the nature of the wormhole being a sphere.

Dr. Brand is a scientist and put on this mission. She also has a huge bias on this mission and as such cannot be trusted to make objective choices, because she is in love with one of the astronauts who came through the wormhole prior to see if they are survivable. As the film tells us, her lover, Wolf has more promising data but has seemingly been compromised as he is no longer broadcasting any signal. Mann however, the leader of this venture is still broadcasting but less promising data. Brand says "...love isn’t something we invented - it’s observable, powerful. Why shouldn’t it mean something?", implying that love is more than a human biological process that exists to maintain human life. But what exactly is one unit of love? She says it's observable and powerful so how much love can power a lawn mower? How much is needed to crush a mountain? Pretty quick you can probably figure out that this line of dialogue is VERY unscientific, and with the added context that she is in love with the person she's trying to convince the crew to go visit, you realize that she is a very dangerous person to be on this mission. She is not committed to this mission, and she is quite frankly stupid. But it gets worse as she doubles down when Cooper pushes back against her statement:

"We love people who’ve died ... where’s the social utility in that? Maybe it means more - something we can’t understand, yet. Maybe it’s some evidence, some artifact of higher dimensions that we can’t consciously perceive. I’m drawn across the universe to someone I haven’t seen for a decade, who I know is probably dead. Love is the one thing we’re capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space. Maybe we should trust that, even if we can’t yet understand it."

This is based not on data, nor analysis, just conclusion. Best faith interpretation, she is a bad person, and she's trying to emotionally manipulate this crew into doing her will. Worst faith interpretation is that she is a moron. Both are terribly indicative of the writing that went into this film.

The biggest problem with these character moments that are riddled through the film is that they are RIDDLED throughout the film. Only Dr. Mann acts consistent according to his character, and no one realizes this. People think he was suicidal or trying to kill himself in his final moments, but truthfully he finds that his death is immanent, yet if he is able to get himself help, he can help with the mission to find a new home for humanity. He finds upon waking up that the crew are uninformed on the plan to create a colony rather than rescuing the people on earth being the primary plan, and are very against it. They are a liability. Yet he is consistently speaking in argumentation and reasoning that is solid, appealing to the other characters. Even his death, isn't his fault. Somehow the crew are able to disable the automatic docking to the space station, yet they are unable to turn off the ship's power in any meaningful way. Why? Because plot. And if this is the best they have for their best character, to use him as a minor antagonist only to throw him out, what can you expect of everything else.

Possibly the most glaring issue in the entire film is the moment that screws up the entire mission: When they decide to go to the planet that has time dilation. They have a choice of three planets, two of which would take upwards of a year to get to, and one that has time moving at the rate of 1 hour on the planet is 7 years on earth. It doesn't matter what you think, going to this planet is a stupid idea. 8 minutes is the equivalent of a year. So if landing on the planet, collecting the data and perhaps the person on it, and taking off takes any more than like 20 minutes, you're wasting about as much time as if you'd just gone for the farther planets in the first place (Which are the planets they need to look at anyway). They have literally no reason to risk it. And after that, they commit immense sins of stupidity, starting with landing in the first place when they see no land to populate and they see no person or ship to emit the data. They need to take off immediately upon this discovery. Instead they land, and start walking really slowly to find data that is submerged in a wreck under water. Then they lose a man, and are stranded full of water, which will take 45 minutes to an hour to prepare for flight. Then there is a couple minutes of conversation with Brand and Cooper, and a wave is coming! They're fucked! But oh phew it's only a few minutes to clear out the engines. Not sure what happened to the extra 40 to 50 minutes but alas. That'll be a whole hour making it so 7 years are gone. Not that bad! BUT NO!!! They get back to the ship and there was mysteriously like 3 whole hours they were down there for??? So it had been 23 years since they landed on the planet. So even though that is nonsense and makes NO goddamn sense, they still SHOULD NOT HAVE GONE ONTO THAT PLANET IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!!

Murphy is possibly the worst part of this film that seems beloved. Cooper's daughter is respected as a genius by other characters in this movie. She gets a job at NASA, she is the one to eventually "Solve gravity" (teeheeheehee solving gravity) and she gets to be the right hand man of what seems to be the smartest person on the planet who is tasked with saving humanity. Before this as a child, she gets into a fist fight over whether or not the moon landing is real. She doesn't argue with them, she doesn't try to reason or use evidence, she uses her fists. I don't know about you guys but to me that sounds like she might be struggling with the intellectual of things. Then when she learns her dad might be leaving she gets mad even though she has no idea what the mission is nor when he will return. She gets more upset when she realizes that Cooper does not know when he will return. Then after he leaves, she is spiteful that her father left for 25 years before sending one spiteful message berating her father for leaving and not coming home. The big question is why? She doesn't struggle with abandonment issues beyond this relationship, so what is this? And I will mention that for many many years at this point she has worked with Professor Brand, Mr. Nasa man himself. So she would be intimately familiar with this mission and all the facets of it, including her fathers intentions to leave to save the planet. So what's the deal? She's just angry for no reason. In all the 25 years she hasn't once come to terms with this separation at all. Also in these years she has become distant with her own family, only to now come back and berate her brother, and shame him with the death of Tom's first child to his face. Why? Cuz his kid is coughing. But she doesn't once rationally explain what is happening to his son, she simply tells him that they all have to leave the house immediately, this house which is his entire life, his livelihood and his family. If you want someone to sacrifice something like that you better give some great reasoning which SHE DOES not.

And possibly the biggest fuck you to the audience is after Cooper returns from the black hole, he goes to say goodbye to Murph and they have a "heartfelt" moment, but he doesn't once ask where his son is. He has simply forgotten about Tom. Why? Because he's not Murph. That is the only reason. He is just a shitty father who forgor.

Oh also somehow Cooper sends the data of a blackhole through a watch using morse code. Don't ask how that works, it just does. Despite the thousands of hours needed to just sit there in front of the watch recording every single twitch and how long it is and to then translate all of that data for hours and hours and hours. It's impossibly difficult way to understand a black hold but whatever.

I have a couple thousand other reasons this film is bad but I've already yapped with minimal formatting. If I get better at writing shorter I may return to this. But Interstellar is bad. Real bad. I hope your day is going well!