Latest Posts by anera527 - Page 5
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.
Watching the DW episode The Doctor’s Daughter and I only just realized that the music that plays during the scene when the Doctor is talking about Gallifrey and the Time War to Jenny is a slower, melancholy version of ‘This Is Gallifrey; Our Childhood, Our Home’ and I was NOT PREPARED for the stab to my heart.
“what are you reading?”
“its a…online book.”
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.
im asking luke lovers on here this and i'd love to hear your thoughts on it: what rian did to luke in tlj was a character assassination, but what do you think realistic character development from luke would look like. how would he have handled what went down with kylo, and where do you think he would have been when the events of tlj took place? would he even have exiled himself? would he have stopped using the force?
Okay first of all, I am honored you considered me for this!!
Honestly?? I don’t think it would’ve gone anything like what the ST mapped out for him. Despite my love for TFA, I was always kinda squicked out by the fact that Luke just…ran away. So, here’s my take:
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Can we just talk about this one moment in Schindler’s List(1993)? The guards have stolen all of the children away and have loaded them onto trucks to be taken to death camps, and when the mothers realize this there is a literal stampede to reach the trucks before they leave.
A wave of women break the line and rush the Nazi guards standing there. A whole group of desperate mothers, screaming for their children. You can’t tell me this never happened in the camps during the actual Holocaust. The camera angle is messy and it shakes, which means that the cameraman was amidst a sea of waving children, and there are quite a few moments where it looks like the women who get too close are run over by the trucks without any hesitation. It’s a very raw moment in a very raw movie.
Why Red Dawn(1984) is a good movie
•The movie shows guerilla warfare accurately, and the various ways a small group of people can successfully attack a larger group.
•The Wolverines are the main characters but they are NOT always shown as the Good Guys.
•The Soviet Union is the invading army but its soldiers are shown to be just regular human guys several times throughout the film.
•The movie is not your typical America-Is-the-Best war film. The Wolverines are not soldiers, they have not been trained, they don't make impassioned speeches about how they are the Good Guys and that America Is the Best.
•Several of the characters show signs of serious psychological trauma as the storyline progresses, one of them turning into a danger to his fellow Wolverines and another who by the end of his storyline finds his surviving the war to be impossible.
•6 OF THE 8 CHARACTERS DIE. WHICH SHOULD HAPPEN IN A WAR MOVIE.
Congratulations to the writers of the Dirty Dancing remake, you've convinced me that the original was actually amazing all along.
Peggy Carter and Ellie Miller are related. Just saying.
I always thought this shot in Age of Ultron looked familiar. The picture on the bottom is the closing scene of John Wayne’s film “The Searchers”, which ends on a rather bittersweet note with his character Ethan Edwards standing outside while everyone else is inside. The similarity isn’t just in how the scenes in both movies were shot, however.
“Ethan Edwards is a throwback to an older time, a more violent age when the frontier was still wild. He’s a loner, a desperado who’s broken his fair share of laws and isn’t above shooting a man in the back. He isn’t cut out for family life like Martin, and now that his mission is over he’s outlived his purpose.”
'Nuff said.
Dear Avengers fandom:
Here’s the thing about Steve Rogers; he is not a delicate little flower. He is not really at all about patriotism, and you could even argue he’s not really about America, at least not exclusively. He is an extremely charismatic and intelligent leader, though he does sometimes have his faults when it comes to that. He’s a complex and compelling character, and when you distill his characteristics into a single, innocent, naive, cookie-cutter narrative, it honestly weakens the interesting aspects of who he is.
He is not completely ignorant about sex, sarcasm, or swearing. Steve Rogers frequently has sex, often initiates it, has an extremely dry sense of humor, and swears a lot, especially under stress. While he loves America, he’s slightly cynical because of how much it has changed since his time, and how he never asked to defend a time period that isn’t his.
His main things, however, are nobility and loyalty. He does what he thinks is right, even if it goes against the government, even if it involves violence or killing. He does what needs to be done, even if he doesn’t want to do so. He’s only human, after all.
I know that MCU Steve is different than comics Steve, but using the lack of MCU development to distill his character into an unfairly flat one is simply not something that should happen.
I did a doodle. Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes Issue #60.
Wish Jodie the absolute best as the Thirteenth Doctor! You’ve shown us what you can do as Beth Latimer in Broadchurch with Chris Chibnall as the writer-- give us more of your brilliance now!
As a fan of Captain America, I enjoyed Civil War (the film). But I don't particularly care for it as a showing of who Cap is, or who Jack Kirby and Joe Simon intended him to be when they created him in the 1940s. I understand the Accords and I can understand the way differing opinions would divide the Avengers into taking sides on the issue 8n the film. But in the movie it was a very limited character scope. And I understand that too, you can't have a huge ensemble cast the size of what the comics boasted in one film. But the movie(s) focus a bit too much on Steve's relationship with Bucky, and by doing so I think for Civil War the filmmakers shot themselves in the foot a bit. Captain America has always stood for the American people. What the country is supposed to be rather than what people say it should be. You see time and time again in his very long comic book history that he hasn't always done what government officials want him to do. He's a physical representation of what America's best ideals are. He's always kept the "little guy" in mind. And that is portrayed beautifully in First Avenger and Winter Soldier. My problem with the movie Civil War is that it's too small. It features only the Avengers. In the comic books it's the whole Marvel universe. The Avengers, the X-men, the Fantastic Four, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, etc. And they're all taking sides. Sue Storm and Reed Richards separate for a time because they support opposing sides of the issues the comic storyline takes. It's ugly and it's harsh seeing that happen but it's true to life. Families are torn apart by differing viewpoints. Friendships collapse. Tony and Steve case in point. They've been friends since the 60s, when Cap was introduced back into the comics with the Avengers. And in the comic storyline of Civil War, I'm not going to claim that either of them were wholly right or wrong when it came to their taking sides. Tony stood by the government. Steve didn't, believing that the American government would trample upon the rights of its citizens. And they fought. Badly. They both drew blood. Cap's concern has always been civilans. The people of America. And by having Steve focus so much on Bucky in Civil War, you lose a fundamental part of what was so important in the comic. Steve's confrontation with Tony in the movie takes place in a vacant, "safe" place for a fight between superheroes where minimum damage is done and the least amount of lives are lost. On the other hand you have the comic where that final confrontation between them takes place amidst dozens of other superheroes wreaking havoc in the streets of New York. People are hurt. People die. And when Steve has Tony pinned to the ground with the shield raised to deal the killing blow (and he was intending to kill Tony then) it wasn't his sense of honor or morals that stopped him. It was a group of firefighters and cops who tackled him and physically dragged him away from Tony. That shocks him back to his senses. He realizes that in his desire to "win" the debate who which side of the superhero community was right, he had (in)directly caused civilians to be hurt or killed. And he turns himself in and orders his team to stand down. That is what is lacking in the movie. That is what is so disappointing to me about CA:CW. For MCU Steve he doesn't see the repercussions of what his actions have caused because in the movie the fighting is contained. He doesn't have to deal with the idea that his own actions have led to civilian casualties. He never turns himself in because there is no moment where civilians physically intervene to stop him. MCU Steve still has the moral "high ground", when in contrast comic Steve realizes that fighting never brings anything but pain for the innocents caught in the crossfire. Captain America has always stood for the little guy. Please, let the MCU remember that in their next movie.
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…
As someone who has studied Psychology and "mental illnesses" I love the fact that we see him express himself at her level. He makes himself more personable by shedding his jacket and his shoes and therefore makes himself more "human". Then he places the cigarette on the ground on her opposite side so that if/when she decides (and that's very important, too, him allowing her the choice) to pick it up it won't be in his direction.
And she responds! She takes off her own jacket and although she doesn't say a word you can tell she's still listening to him.
Maybe I'm stating what is completely obvious and I'm just somehow missing it, but I don't think Ian has anything to do with Trish's raping. I think he's got a hand in distributing the pornography around for the kids to see, which is why he wanted that laptop so badly.
This. This right here. This is the Star Trek “creature” that when I was five scared me shitless. Doomsday Machine is probably my favorite ST episode of all but there’s just something about this planet killer that still sends a shiver down my spine despite looking like an oversized bugle chip. It looks so utterly non-human, just this giant hunk of cold rock and it pursues you with a gaping fiery maw. Yeah, nightmares abounded if I watched this episode too close to bedtime when I was a kid. As Kirk so aptly says at the end of the story, “I found one quite sufficient.”
In s2 of Broadchurch when Sharonville Bishop was trying to paint the picture that Alec and Ellie deliberately framed Joe to get him out of the way, couldn't the prosecution have fired back with the footage of Alec telling Ellie it was Joe? Of course Alec had turned off the voice recorder but there ARE surveillance cameras in that room, right?!?! Body language is more telling than words anyway so wouldn't Ellie's distress clue them into the fact that she genuinely didn't know?
TobyMac. He was my first foray into modern music and he remains my favorite artist to date. If I need a way to solidify my faith or simply find inspiration I can always find it with him.
These guys are brilliant and my favorite Shakespeare to watch. Definitely worth the laughs.
Experimenting with colors and photo editing. I have to say, Richard looks utterly gorgeous in blue and gold.
Also, I wasn’t sure if it was ‘earthy’, or ‘earthly’ pit. I’ve seen both used.
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.
ok so Leia was heading to Obi-wan before the Battle of Scarif, and before she ever knew she or anyone would have the plans. It wasn’t just a last resort, “vader’s bout to get us we gotta go somewhere” decision. the fact that she was going to Obi-wan is probably the reason she was with the rebels and not on Alderaan.
so think in the context that a) Bail was knowingly sending his daughter, who has the genes of one of the most powerful force users ever, to go get a Jedi, b) Bail knew that he was sending the biological child of Anakin to Anakin’s former master and friend, c) Obi-wan definitely would knows who Leia is, d) Bail knows that Obi-wan is keeping an eye on Luke.
I’m not saying Bail Organa knowingly sent his force sensitive daughter to the only fully trained Jedi he knew how to get in touch with and also her force sensitive brother, but Bail Organa knowingly sent his force sensitive daughter to the only fully trained Jedi he knew how to get in touch with and also her force sensitive brother. Because he and Mon Mothma decided things had gotten to this point.
Headcanon: Alec Hardy has a secret love of folk music and he’ll never turn off anything by Peter Paul and Mary, Mady Prior, or Jim Croce. One of his favorite songs was ‘Time In a Bottle’ until he and Tess divorced. Ellie Miller owns several cds by the band Journey and she listens to Queen when she can, although Joe never cared for them so she had to limit when she listened to their music.
They realize each other’s likes in music when they never move to turn those bands off when they play on the radio.
I swear, I think the reason why Chibnall included the sharing-a-bed scene in Broadchurch S2E4 was because he'd happened upon a load of fanfic depicting that very happenstance in a sexual manner and he thought that he'd fuck with us.