Got A Question For All You Trekkies Out There. A Very Important Question. Maybe The Most Important Question

In Broadchurch, every shot counts. No detail is unimportant, they all can belong to the law of Chekov’s Gun (the floorboards in episode 4 a prime example). What I find most interesting about these types of shots is the flashback explanation of Alec’s finding Pippa’s body in the river. 

The opening shot of the whole second series is clearly of the morning of Alec’s walk through the woods to the river in Sandbrook. As we can see he walks through bluebells only touched by sunlight.

There’s no rain. There’s not even a raincloud in sight.

And then we arrive at the flashback scene in ep 4, when Alec finally talks about the events of that day and our first look at that is this:

It’s not just raining. It’s pouring. A torrential downpour while the sun’s still brightly shining as our attention falls on Pippa’s body.

So why is it that Alec’s memories of that day is that it was raining when it’s clearly established that it wasn’t? 

Memory plays a fickle game on the mind. Every day we remember and recall things about a particular moment that simply didn’t happen but is a reflection of what we were feeling at the time. When I was eight my dad was in an accident and had to go to the hospital and the only thing I remember is seeing his empty chair in the darkened living room even though everyone has assured me that the house was bright and loud with a lot of people in the rooms. But all I could think of was my dad’s dark empty chair.

The sun may have been shining when Alec found Pippa’s body but to him over time, maybe even built up in nightmares, it’s always raining. Rain is seen as a cleansing thing, yes, but it also brings out the smell of decay and the heady scent of dirt. Alec was probably smelling the decay of water plants and the scent of the river for days afterwards. The memory and his nightmares have bled together so that he can’t distinguish between the two. It’s like in his mind it couldn’t possibly be such a beautiful day to find a young girl’s body in a river and so his memories deliberately try to make it dreary and cold, although the reality never changes.

The sun is always shining in those memories and it mocks him, I think. A last ironic laugh in the whole horrifying experience.

So how is that no one has ever made a documentary about the life of Clara Barton? I’m quite miffed about this, because she was such an inspiration. 

Mark calling Chloe the way he did at the end of episode 6 season 3 made me really angry as much as it broke my heart. Because if he had really succeeded in ending his own life the way he wanted, then his daughter would have had to live with that final conversation for the rest of her life. Chloe would have undoubtedly blamed herself if he really had died, wishing she’d gone to find him like she had wanted during their phone conversation. 

Frodo & Bilbo play Scrabble regularly and are VERY competitive

This right here is my favorite exchanges in Good Omens. In their discussion it took Crowley THREE YEARS to come up with a counter-argument.

Jack Sparrow is our inner bookworm

Exhibit A: When you finish a book and don’t know whether to hug it or throw it across the room. 

Exhibit B: When you spend the whole night reading a book

Exhibit C: When people ask if you can do anything other than fangirl and you say you can do this:

Exhibit D: When writers keep separating your OTP

Exhibit E: When the author is writing the next book in the series

Exhibit F: When you open the first page of the book you’ve been waiting for and you know it’s gonna kill you in the most pleasurable ways:

Exhibit G: When you see a bookstore and start “walking” toward it with your friends, family, etc running after you trying to catch you before yet again you’re lost to the land of fiction:

Exhibit H: When your favorite character dies:

And so on and on…

Chris Chibnall. For God's sake you need to give us a meeting between the Thirteenth Doctor and her daughter Jenny.

‘Secrets’- Alec/Ellie

“Secrets” Ellie sometimes worked on the nights Alec didn’t. They had worked through their odd shifts together for the past few months and had set up a sort-of system that left their respective families running smoothly—or more smoothly than had been tried before. On those nights she came in the front door to general mayhem and disaster: Fred’s toys strewn everywhere, Tom and Daisy seated in front of the telly playing fifa, and Alec generally dozing off on the couch. She didn’t mind most nights when that happened. It was a relief hearing the house noisy and creaking like it had before her life had fallen apart; it brought her some semblance of normalcy. Tonight, however, she slipped through the door to find that there was no mess of toys on the floor, no Fred sleepily babbling to himself, no Tom and Daisy shouting their way through their game, and no Alec seated on the couch. The lights were all off save the kitchen’s, from which she heard the clanking of pans and utensils. Almost concerned she removed her shoes and shrugged off her coat. “But wouldn’t be that be too much vanilla? If it’s real?” Daisy’s voice put her at ease as she approached. Silently Ellie reached the doorway of the kitchen and found that Alec’s daughter was seated on the edge of her kitchen chair in the corner watching her father. “No.” Alec himself was standing at the counter nearest the sink, mixing something in one of Ellie’s silver mixing bowls that she hadn’t seen in months. He was focused entirely on his task (whatever that was) and paid no mind to the fact that Ellie was home. To Ellie’s surprise she came to realize that there was music playing in the background—and not just any music. Classical. Cello and piano, harmonizing together. She had rarely listened to such music herself but tonight for some reason she found the song beautiful. “What’s all this, then?” She was tired (it had been a difficult case to wrap up) but it always buoyed her spirits when coming home to her odd ragtag family. Daisy turned to her with her wide sunny smile. “Dad’s trying to poison us tonight.” “Oi,” Alec protested, twisting slightly to glare at his daughter. His arms, Ellie noticed, was speckled brown. Curious she stepped closer and looked over his elbow. “I’ve made these plenty of times before and you haven’t died yet.” “Yeah, but that was years ago,” Daisy protested with a smirk. “In your old age you may have mixed up the recipe.” “Just for that you’re not getting any. You’ll have to watch us all die from them.” Alec’s sometimes downright black sense of humor was well-known in this household. Ellie rolled her eyes. “Brownies, Hardy? Really?” “Why not?” he countered. Baffled by the out-of-character actions of the man she knew so well she turned to Daisy, who sat with one elbow locked over the top of her chair. “I bought Dad a CD today,” the girl explained; her smirk had not lessened. “He came here and started listening to it and now here we are.” “Making brownies.” Ellie’s tone still conveyed her confusion but she chose to leave it be for now. As long as they didn’t turn out completely inedible she wouldn’t ever turn down chocolate. Which reminded her… “Why do you have the cocoa powder out?” A pause. She frowned as she lifted it up. “When did I even buy cocoa powder?” “Proper brownies are made from scratch, Miller. That bagged shite you buy from the store is just that: shite.” He was back to concentrating on his job, mixing in a cup of flour to the mix. The song in the background changed in pitch, picking up in pace. Ellie frowned again as her ears picked up a tune that sounded vaguely familiar. “Wait, I know this song. Where have I heard it?” “Probably on the radio,” Daisy replied. “It’s ‘Secrets’ by OneRepublic. This is The Piano Guys version of it, they like to mesh up songs and add their own twists to them.” The case of the said CD scraped lightly against the table as her long fingers dragged it closer so she could read the back of it. “Um… ah, yeah, they call it ‘Beethoven’s 5 Secrets’.” She tilted her head as she listened to the swell of the full orchestra in the song. “It’s cool, I guess.” From Daisy that meant the song was beautiful. Ellie couldn’t help her smile and stealing a quick glance at Alec she saw his own eyes were soft hearing his daughter’s admission. She nudged him in the ribs with her elbow, a wide grin pulling at her mouth. “Never would’ve pegged you down for a classical kind of guy.” In the dim lighting it was hard to see the flush of red that started to creep up his neck but she knew him well enough now to see the change. “Good to know I can still surprise you, then.” “I was always hearing classical music growing up,” Daisy commented idly, playing now on her phone. “I always thought it was Mum who decided to play it but she threw all of the CDs out after…” She stumbled to a halt, horror flashing over her face as she looked up. “Oh, God, Dad, I didn’t mean to say that,” she groaned, her own skin flushing as she realized the potential hurt her words could cause. It did hurt him, Ellie could see that, but Alec had never allowed his hurt to affect his daughter. “It’s fine, darlin’,” he assured her, and his voice was even enough to mask the damage done by those words. He glanced over at Daisy with that smile he gave only her, a brief quick flash of white before he went back to finishing up with the batter. “They were just CDs, after all. You’ve helped me start my new collection.” Daisy’s expression calmed a bit. Her fingers unclenched from her phone. “Soppy again, Dad,” she informed him with learned teenage disdain covering up her own guilty feelings. There was a story behind those lost CDs, one it seemed that Daisy knew some extent of, but the set of Alec’s mouth told Ellie it was better for her not to ask about them yet. Instead, she briefly slipped her arm around his slender waist and murmured she was going to take a shower and went on her way upstairs. Fred was asleep in his bed already; Tom, sitting in his room with his computer in his lap, explained to her that the CD that Alec had started to listen to had played a piano/cello instrumental of ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’ and the youngest Miller had fallen asleep right there amidst his toys on the living room. Ellie made a mental note to try and play that song every night from then on. Her shower, while quick, was gloriously refreshing and served to soothe the frayed nerves that had sprung up during the course of her day. When she made her way into her bedroom, she found Alec waiting for her on the bed clearly waiting for her. “Shouldn’t you be waiting on your brownies?” He shook his head. “Daisy volunteered to take them out when they were ready.” She could smell them cooking already and they were already making her mouth water. She could feel his eyes on her as she changed into her pajamas; she knew that expression well enough she could see the sharp light in his eyes as he looked her over. Joe had never looked at her with the same hunger that Alec did. He had never loved her with the same intensity. She felt more than heard him stand and walk up behind her; mere seconds later he was wrapping his arms around her middle and pulling her close, and she hummed in satisfaction as she felt his lips at her neck, the scruff of his beard tickling the crook of her neck. “Hope the kids weren’t too much trouble today.” “Never are,” he assured her with just an edge of that husky growl she had quickly learned to appreciate. His touch was steadily growing lower and lower and she smiled to herself. “You’re going to embarrass your daughter if she ever walks in on us doing this, Hardy.” “She’ll learn to knock before entering, then.” His tone was dismissive. She saw that he still had speckles of batter on his arms that he had missed wiping off and felt a thrill deep in her stomach wondering what she could do to clean the rest of it up off him. Damn it, she couldn’t let them do anything yet. The kids weren’t all in bed yet. “What about Tom?” she managed to ask. His ministrations paused as he realized where she was getting at. By the slight intake of breath she heard at her ear she knew he saw where she was coming from even if it was frustrating and she mildly disappointed when he drew back slightly. She turned instead to face him. “After brownies?” she asked hopefully. “Aye.” It was going to have to do. They settled for laying on the covers of the bed in their usual positions with Ellie braced against the headboard and Alec’s head in her lap as she stroked his hair. She could hear the strains of classical music floating up from downstairs, the deep mournful rumble of a cello oddly spiritful in the calm atmosphere of the household. “What classical artists do you like, Alec?” she asked suddenly. The use of his name let him know the seriousness of the question. He was quiet for a moment. “Depends. My mum always listened to Bach. Mozart. I think I liked Beethoven the best, though. Loads of others, I can’t remember them all. I had all those mixed tapes, with a lot of different artists on them.” “And what’s the correlation with baking brownies?” She saw a flash of a small grin on his face, softened with remembrance. “I was always watching Mum bake while she listened to classical. She said that what we love can be incorporated into everything we do. She’d always ask me if I could taste her love for her music in her food. I’d always tell her I could.” He was quiet for a long moment, thinking, then finally explained why Daisy’s words had hurt him so much earlier. “I’d bake Tess anything she wanted while listening to that music. I never told her why and she never asked.” Love. Simple, pure love. Ellie marveled again at the simplicity of some signs of it in life. It was, after all, the simple small things that mattered the most. She was sure that she was going to hear that CD played more often and she found she didn’t really mind that at all.

The Last Jedi Sin #12

I was hesitant to name this post this title because I know how easily it turns people off to reading the post, but honestly, that is what this is and honestly, this one is really worth the read.

It is The Last Jedi Sin #12.

12. Plot-Driven Characters

Up until yesterday night, I didn’t know how to describe what was bothering me so much about TLJ in the respect I will be talking about in a few. It was just “wrong” and “unconvincing” because honestly, what Rian chose to do to these characters is rarely done.

Why? you ask

because this isn’t how you write, Rian!

When I was a Senior in HS, I had skipped a grade, but was taking college classes nonetheless. One of the classes I was taking was English 101 from a local college for dual high school and college credit. At the same time, I was taking English 102 from another local college. One of the first things I learned in my college classes, after y’know…being told them for years, was that good stories are driven by strong characters. This was reinforced when I elected to take Screenwriting 101 when I was a Sophomore in college. The plot is something that happens as a result of what a character does or fails to do. Of course, sometimes you have to push a character to push forward the plot…that’s a necessity of character development, but it has to feel natural and the plot has to feel like it was meant to happen. It has to make sense. The build-up to the climax has to feel as seamless as possible and plot is really to bend around the characters…

Not the other way around.

Did Rian not get that memo? Did like…no one tell him?

What bothers me so much, and is, in fact, The Last Jedi Sin #12 is that the whole movie of The Last Jedi is the plot driving the characters and not the characters driving the plot. It’s hard to describe, but I’m going to do my very best.

In The Original Trilogy, the protagonists and antagonists have a certain dynamic. Vader and Sidious have a master-apprentice relationship, but almost like equals. Luke, Han, and Leia have the friendship dynamic. Luke and Vader, however, have a very different dynamic because they are father and son and are the “Functional Skywalkers” of the Trilogy. (This is not meant to sideline Leia…it’s just that her dynamic with her father was not established until late into VI so the dynamic was overshadowed by Luke and Vader’s that was established as early as the end of IV, but formally established in the middle of V.) 

Vader and Sidious wanted to control the whole galaxy and worked their asses off to destroy the Resistance. Luke, Leia, and Han were members of the Resistance and Resistance heroes; Luke was a Jedi and was bestowed a legacy upon him. The dynamic that really pushed forward the entire saga was the relationship of Luke Skywalker to Darth Vader. 

The plot of the entire Star Wars OT was to redeem Anakin Skywalker, establish Luke Skywalker as a hero, and bring balance to the galaxy, all of which was accomplished, but could only have been accomplished through the dynamic that was Luke being the son of Darth Vader, taking the legacy of his father upon himself, believing in the goodness of his father, and being the strong, emotional, loving, faithful character he was. It could only have been accomplished because Darth Vader still had a heart and cared for his son more than he ever could care about power. 

The entirety of the Prequels was the fall of Anakin Skywalker. The PT was, truthfully, so character-driven, it may have been character-driven to a fault because they were so focused on getting Anakin’s descent to the Dark Side satisfying and “right” that other things seemed to be pushed to the background. The main villains in the PT weren’t the most intimidating, except for Palpatine/Sidious, dialogue was clunky and awkward, but for the most part, the Prequels did a decent job at clearly displaying the internal struggle of Anakin Skywalker to remain good in the face of his dark tendencies, intense emotions he couldn’t control, and disdain for the Jedi Council. 

Even TFA was a pretty character-driven story. JJ knew what to do, as much as few have faith in him. 

The Force really Awakened when Finn saved Poe from the clutches of Kylo Ren and chose to finish Poe’s mission by bringing BB-8 back to the Resistance. Along the way, he met Rey, a girl whose emotions were very strong, had a very hard life, and wanted nothing more than a family. TFA repeatedly reminded the audience that Rey needed to return to Jakku because of her family, but because she found a family in the Resistance, she went full speed ahead into helping them and finding the belonging she sought ahead of her. Kylo Ren’s intentions in the movie were clear: to find Luke Skywalker and presumably to kill him. Why? We allegedly find out why in TLJ, but it’s unbelievable at best. He also desired to “finish what his grandfather started”, which was always a very confusing motivation because we all know Anakin Skywalker defected and murdered the Emperor as his last act in his life.

I digress.

How does TLJ differ from the OT, PT, and TFA?

Aside from the fact nothing in the movie should have logically happened, which I keep saying again and again…things just inexplicably happen to these characters and they just respond to it. 

Like, the Resistance is suddenly on its last legs, so now Poe is a trigger-happy fly-boy and causes the death of lots of people.

Rose Tico sees Finn leaving the Resistance cruiser, so she tases him with no questions asked, thus resulting in this stupid side-quest on Canto Bight.

Rey hands Luke his lightsaber and he rejects it (which he never would have done), so she follows him around for days with literally nothing happening for the most part.

Kylo Ren and Rey have an inexplicable Force-Bond.

Like absolutely, a lot of those things happened because of what a character did, but these things just happen to these people. They react to it and we move on from it. It kinda dies as a concept as soon as someone reacts and by the end of the movie, the characterizations of all of the characters are basically unrecognizable, there was no plot, and we’re right back where we started…a return to normalcy.

Like Finn is exactly where he would have been without the trip to Canto Bight. Poe is exactly the same character. Rose Tico had little to no characterization in the first place. Kylo Ren is just as dark, if not a little darker. Luke’s character was assassinated. And Rey’s character regressed. Like…there was no point to this movie. 

I said at the beginning that “strong characters drive a plot”. With what was just said and is true, none of those characters are strong, especially the one that so desperately needs to be- Rey. Rian Johnson altered their characters from TFA and changed them so that it would fit his narrative. That is an astoundingly stupid move. Because not only are these characters now weak, but they are not even themselves anymore! So these characters, who we didn’t come to see, are not experiencing any character development, in a movie with no plot, are doing nothing. I’m literally watching a movie about nothing with nothing happening!

The Last Jedi was boring in every single way but visually because there was no plot. There was no character development. There was no point except super cool visuals. 

What drives a story is character development and a convincing plot based off of the characters, neither of which The Last Jedi had. 

It has tHiNgS happen, but nothing that actually pushed the trilogy-long plot. 

A lot of stuff happened in the Empire Strikes Back, like Lando in Cloud City with Darth Vader, Luke continues to train with Yoda and learn the ways of the Force, Han and Leia’s relationship happens, Han gets frozen in carbonite and given to Jabba, and whatnot. But what pushes the plot forward was the reveal that the Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker, Luke Skywalker’s father, is still alive as Darth Vader. But had Lando not kinda “sold out” his friends to Vader, which led to Han being frozen in carbonite, Luke would have never left Jedi training to save his friends and fight his father, which led to the reveal that he was his father. Most of things that happen in this movie support the advancement of the trilogy-plot.

BUT NOTHING HAPPENED IN THE LAST JEDI. 

The reveal, which could have been the turning point in the movie, making Rey a Skywalker or even a Kenobi, was shot to shit and actually regressed the plot because just when we thought we were getting somewhere, after the shitty central conflict of the Resistance running out of fuel and the slow-motion cat and mouse chase, Finn, Rose, and DJ’s failure and sell-out, we got literally nothing. Nothing supported any kind of plot because there was no plot to begin with. Rian was- objectively- trying to rip off ESB, but failed because he so desperately wanted to subvert fan expectations that he actually sacrificed his plot and characters so that he could be “edgy” and “different”. 

Just when the Kylo-Rey dynamic was beginning to really be grounded and justified, Rian decided “hell fucking no” so whatever plot he was trying to go for, whatever character development he was trying to push forward, whatever he was trying to have happen, literally crumbled in front of the audience’s eyes. 

The whole reason ESB was so good and the dynamic going into ROTJ was high-octane was because of the dynamic between father-son Vader-Luke. There were high stakes in place, there were risks involved, there was faith being tested with the legitimate possibility for validation, and Vader’s possibility of redemption. Luke and Vader’s lives were in jeopardy because of their relationship.

There is no dynamic between Rey and Kylo because they, yeah maybe sorta understand each other a little better, but they still hate each other. They allegedly have no relationship with one another whatsoever, so where are the stakes?!  Kylo betrayed Rey after getting her hopes up. Like I honestly don’t know what to say about this. 

I fear for the franchise because I don’t know how it can be saved at this point.

Rian Johnson wrote not only himself, but JJ Abrams into a corner.  

You can’t write a compelling narrative where nothing happens and the characters simply respond to what happens to them. You can’t write a compelling narrative based on no stakes and no character development. People get bored when nothing happens and nothing progresses. I’ve had children tell me that TLJ “finished the same way the last movie did”. If children, Disney’s target market, can see it, that’s catastrophic. 

This isn’t how writing works, Rian.