tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63837098893113559212024-02-26T09:34:23.360-08:00Opinions Can Be WrongYour favourite things suck, and you're stupid for liking them.Robaneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18401996860805398644noreply@blogger.comBlogger362125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383709889311355921.post-87660392202059028462023-12-29T21:37:00.000-08:002023-12-29T21:37:51.513-08:00Hindsight: A 2022 Cinematic Retrospective<p>Everything Everywhere All At Once</p><p>This is one of those ones where I recognise why people liked it without fully connecting with it myself. I didn't quite engage with the film's message, for whatever reason, as much as I enjoyed the jumping between different realities and the general engagement with the idea of hopelessness. Michelle Yeoh, Stephanie Hsu and Ke Huy Quan are all great in it, though.<br /></p><p>Glass Onion</p><p>I recommended Knives Out back in 2019, and it's reasonable to say that <i>Glass Onion</i> also gets a review of "It was good and I enjoyed it." It's not as good as the previous, and at times it feels a bit like Rian Johnson was on autopilot making a Rian Johnson film, but the performances, especially Daniel Craig's, carry it. It's just at the point now where Johnson would be more subversive by <i>not</i> subverting our expectations — but maybe that would in itself be too predictable.<br /></p><p>The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent</p><p>Perhaps the most amusing idea behind this film is that while it's essentially a film about Nicolas Cage's memelike status in modern internet discourse, Cage himself apparently doesn't really get it and had to be persuaded to do the film. His presentation as a partly absent father is a bit lazy, and I think the ending in which he turns the experience into a film of its own is also a bit lazy, but the chemistry between Cage and Pedro Pascal is consistently entertaining to watch and the film is always at its best when the two of them are simply getting up to mischief. It probably needed less actual plot to drive it than it had.<br /></p><p>The Menu</p><p>Probably my favourite film of 2022, this was an interesting take on "classy horror" or psychological thriller supported by some strong performances. Anya Taylor-Joy is effortlessly sympathetic and Ralph Fiennes is chilling and tragic. Perhaps its message is a little overblown, but it's one I would easily recommend.<br /></p><p>The Banshees of Inisherin</p><p>A highlight of 2022, this dark comedy drama about two 1920s Irish friends who have a meaningless and increasingly bleak falling out over nothing significant (one arbitrarily decides one day that the other is too boring and stupid to be his friend) is a memorable reflection of the harm of feuding and pride. Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson both give simultaneously amusing and tense performances, and the cinematography of the idyllic landscape against the madness of the feud is striking. It's hard to say anything beyond recommending it, even divorced from any subtext about Irish civil conflict and the extent to which it comments on it. <br /></p><p>Halloween Ends</p><p>While still not great, this is arguably the best of David Gordon Greene's questionable trilogy of Halloween legacy sequels, perhaps suffering most from the fact that it barely needs to be a Halloween film. Laurie Strode and Michael Myers himself don't really need to be in it; on the other hand, I think it would have been more effective if Corey had been set up earlier in the trilogy. This would have been an ideal role for, say, the character of Allyson's boyfriend or one of her other friends. It does something mildly interesting with <i>Halloween Kills</i>' heavy-handed message about how communities create their own monsters by having Corey channel Michael's murderousness, but it's undermined somewhat by still insisting on a final confrontation between Laurie and Michael at the end. By the low standards of the Halloween sequels, and with some amusing nods to<i> Halloween III</i> being "the one without Michael Myers", it's possibly one of the better instalments. <br /></p><p>Weird: The Al Yankovic Story</p><p>As a big fan of Weird Al and a reasonable enthusiast for Daniel Radcliffe I was looking forward to this, and it's funny and at times clever if not as uproarious as it might be. By parodying the spate of rock biopics of the preceding years and twisting the facts so that, for example, Al dates Madonna and Beat it is a parody of Eat It, the film is essentially the film equivalent of a Weird Al song. It obviously suffers from being produced during the pandemic, with a small cast and some awkward editing, but I still found it reasonably entertaining. It's not as good as <i>UHF</i>, but making a Zucker Brothers-esque comedy like that these days is probably practically impossible. <br /></p><p>Im Westen nicht Neues</p><p><i>All Quiet on the Western Front</i> is one of my favourite novels, and I also hold the 1930 Hollywood-produced Best Picture winning adaptation in high regard. This new adaptation is perhaps too heightened for my taste, with a flair for the over-dramatic. The majority of the action plays out in the last four days of the war for enhanced tension, rather than over four years, and culminates in a pointless pre-Armistice attack not found in the novel. Nonetheless it is vivid and harrowing, and the friendship between Paul and Kat still grounds a great deal of it. While not, in my opinion, the best adaptation of the novel, being perhaps too concerned with the politics of the Armistice (something entirely absent from the novel), and arguably missing the novel's point, it's still probably one of the best First World War films of recent years, being certainly superior to Sam Mendes' <i>1917</i>.<br /></p>Robaneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18401996860805398644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383709889311355921.post-5383081578386129712023-06-30T21:01:00.003-07:002023-06-30T21:21:55.129-07:00"Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5ZxvCJ5Ld2Rn6rEDtyEzGh7JP_pwxeDp6iGOh2qJ0OKhlegPIjlqmKlKCksOu99dkyU2p9IkcwIg-Una-nSF2WhF8pCcOimOouyumCC_TZButsm4es0KBA9SYn_cnsCWGq9tBrUJBuPAn30LIwaX8Zj9oRvVrEqag466UkEqIXLcFxKiSGUqtW7WpEfxk/s768/screenshot_2023-02-02_at_10_ef8e7b5e.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="432" data-original-width="768" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5ZxvCJ5Ld2Rn6rEDtyEzGh7JP_pwxeDp6iGOh2qJ0OKhlegPIjlqmKlKCksOu99dkyU2p9IkcwIg-Una-nSF2WhF8pCcOimOouyumCC_TZButsm4es0KBA9SYn_cnsCWGq9tBrUJBuPAn30LIwaX8Zj9oRvVrEqag466UkEqIXLcFxKiSGUqtW7WpEfxk/s320/screenshot_2023-02-02_at_10_ef8e7b5e.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It's going to be my lifelong curse that whenever I talk to people about Indiana Jones I have to say "but I actually like <i>Kingdom of the Crystal Skull</i>. It's not a good movie, but..." And it's hard, perhaps even impossible, not to talk about <i>Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny</i> without talking about <i>Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull</i>, especially because, to my surprise, it's perhaps more of a sequel to <i>Kingdom of the Crystal Skull</i> than it is to any of the other films in the series. But <i>Dial of Destiny</i>, as the first (perhaps only) Indiana Jones film to be made after Disney's acquisition of Lucasfilm, feels very much like "the fourth sequel" much as <i>Crystal Skull</i> was "the fourth prequel", i.e. Lucasfilm's return to their secondary property after making a bunch of controversial Star Wars films, with all the associated expectations. And the utter loathing people apparently feel towards the, in my opinion, at times meek but never especially objectionable <i>Kingdom of the Crystal Skull</i> was similarly reflected in the leadup towards <i>Dial of Destiny</i> and all the baggage that Lucasfilm has newly acquired with its 2015-2019 Star Wars project. There's even a similar time gap between the release of <i>Revenge of the Sith</i> (2005) and <i>Kingdom of the Crystal Skull</i> (2008) as there is between those of <i>Rise of Skywalker</i> (2019) and <i>Dial of Destiny</i> (2023), pandemic-related delays notwithstanding. I'm not a fan of the Star Wars prequels, nor of the sequels, despite, controversially, having a soft spot for about half of <i>The Last Jedi</i>. Yet in 2008 I was excited for <i>Kingdom of the Crystal Skull</i> and I enjoyed it, and I still do. On the other hand, I was pretty nonplussed about <i>Dial of Destiny</i>. Despite the fact that I think he lost it a long time ago, not having Spielberg directing was one cause for concern, and I have to admit that the casting of Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who I see as a bit flavour-of-the-month the same way Shia LeBoeuf was in 2008, made me apprehensive. It was hard to get excited when I felt like I was just getting Indiana Jones fan fiction.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />This is normally the point at which, unexpectedly, I might announce that, having gone to see <i>Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny</i> with m'colleague, I loved it. But I didn't. I thought <i>Dial of Destiny</i> was too long and often boring, with sloppy editing, low-energy direction in a number of moments, and a reluctance to get into its character work until the second half suggestive of Disney lacking confidence in the project and having either done reshoots or filmed additional material to increase the running time.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><i>Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny</i> isn't bad, per se. But it's not good. There are the ideas and the potential for a good film here, but it's all too slow and lacking in energy to be anything more than mediocre. <i>Kingdom of the Crystal Skull</i>, whatever its faults, in my opinion doesn't drag. You might find it stupid and annoying, but I never find myself thinking "how long is this going to take?" There are multiple parts in <i>Dial of Destiny</i> when I found myself thinking "I'm bored", "this is taking too long" and "when's Marion going to show up?" (the first two being much like I felt the first time I saw <i>The Last Jedi</i>, as it happens). If thirty minutes were edited out of this film and a number of shots tightened up to improve their pacing it would make a big difference, but I suspect that the problem is at a production level. At its heart the film should be driven by the relationship between Indy and Helena, but probably because of studio executive insistence on this, that and the other being inserted into the story, it struggles to do this clearly until probably an hour into the film. That doesn't mean they don't have early scenes together, because they do, but in those scenes she's presenting a false face to Indy to try to trick him into giving her what she wants, and thus the real relationship isn't established until significantly later.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />This is the first point at which I've mentioned Indy himself, which is possibly because on this point I really don't have anything to complain about. Harrison Ford is (unsurprisingly) the best part of the film. He's obviously always enjoyed playing Indiana Jones - I suspect he brings a good deal of himself to the part, and feels comfortable in the role - and his age is no impediment to the strength of his performance; the screen lights up whenever he appears, which fortunately is most of the time despite what people feared about Helena stealing the show (which she doesn't). <i>Kingdom of the Crystal Skull</i> gave Indy a happy ending, perhaps a schmaltzy one, depending on your perspective. Indy found a son he never knew he had, reunited with Marion, and got married. Now it's 12 years later, Mutt's dead, he and Marion have separated again, and despite clearly not having lost his passion for archaeology Indy's been clearly nudged into retirement. Gone is the cozy post-middle-aged Indy of <i>Kingdom of the Crystal Skull</i>, who lived in the same comfy house upstate as he did in Last Crusade and still worked on an old fashioned sandstone campus. Now he lives in a small apartment, puts whisky in his morning coffee, works at a dreary postmodern 60s Manhattan college and grouses at kids listening to the Beatles early in the morning. How did Indy end up here? It's explicable, of course, but feels very much like <i>Dial of Destiny</i> saying "this is what old man Indy should really have been like": not the leafy tenured existence of <i>Crystal Skull</i> but a man out of time clinging to the past. <i>Crystal Skull</i> certainly made some attempts to address this, particlarly with Indy juxtaposed to a mushroom cloud and being accused by paranoid FBI agents of being a Soviet turncoat, but this is more personal.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />The problem with all this is that it all just takes far too long for this stuff to be addressed properly. It isn't until the sequence on the boat before the dive, probably well over an hour into the film, that Indy talks to Helena about Mutt and Marion, Marion herself doesn't show up until the very end, and a subplot about Indy's friendship with Helena's father gets somewhat dropped after a flashback about halfway through the film. Sallah comes back but this mostly feels like a nostalgic nod because he didn't get to appear in <i>Crystal Skull</i>. It all feels messy and competitive with different screenwriters bringing different ideas, or perhaps Disney executives mandating certain things be added. It feels doubly strange because the Mutt and Marion stuff wouldn't exist without <i>Kingdom of the Crystal Skull</i> and yet this almost feels, as I said above, like it's trying to respond to or even provide an alternative to <i>Crystal Skull</i>, to say "this is old man Indy done right". This film wouldn't exist without <i>Kingdom of the Crystal Skull</i> and yet it almost feels, perhaps fittingly given the plot, like it's intended to replace it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />The plot, like everything else, is a decent idea not fully realised by the screenplay, editing, action choreography, or some combination of these things. German physicist Jurgen Voller, played well but with wearying typecasting by the ever-reliable Mads Mikkelsen, wants to find the lost "Archimedes Dial" to identify a time fissure that will allow him to travel from 1969 to 1939 in order to kill Hitler such that a more competent leader might bring Germany to victory in the Second World War. It was very predictable that in an effort to appeal to the nostalgic that Indiana Jones would fight Nazis again, and by having a Werner von Braun type in that role the Moon Landing backdrop makes sense. My one issue with this is that all of the Moon Landing, Operation Paperclip and general Space Race, Cold War and Vietnam War stuff feels so perfunctory that it's almost not worth it being included, almost like the filmmakers wanted to do something with it but were scared of evoking the very overt 1950s dressing of <i>Kingdom of the Crystal Skull</i>; as such, once the film extricates itself from Manhattan, it doesn't particularly feel like it's set in 1969 at all, instead being just another Indiana Jones adventure in which he fights Nazis for a good chunk of it, with Indy just happening to be old. That is, until it isn't, and it again becomes about Indy feeling old and like he screwed up his life, and Helena having to prove to him that he shouldn't just let himself die in 212 BC.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />I will admit that the bizarre ending, in which the overconfident Voller brings himself, Indy, Helena and his men not to the eve of the Second World War but the middle of the Second Punic War, and in which Indy meets Archimedes himself, is refreshing for the sheer novelty value of getting to see a period of history very rarely realised in modern blockbuster cinema, even if there's a lot of uninteresting CGI. Voller's plan going disastrously awry and his realisation that he's made a terrible mistake are true to the series and satisfying to watch, and Mikkelsen plays the whole thing very well. I also like that (contrary to how a lot of people seem to be interpreting it online) the Archimedes Dial isn't itself a time machine and doesn't open up time portals or something, it just detects them, with an appealing element of predestination. I similarly appreciated that it wasn't another Biblical artefact, with this being playfully nodded to in the opening when both Indy and the Nazis are initially more concerned with the Spear of Longinus, which turns out to be fake.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />But it all just takes so long, becomes so repetitive, especially with Indy and Helena twice having to steal a comically small vehicle to pursue or outrun Voller, and at times feels like it is taking place in indistinct CGI world, that I found myself never being effortlessly entertained. The opening de-aged sequence, which is about twenty minutes too long, seems to very much take place in the same video-game state as the much-disliked Jungle Cutter sequence from <i>Kingdom of the Crystal Skull</i>. Waller-Bridge is perfectly fine as Helena but it just takes too long for us to really get to know her and for her relationship with Indy to properly develop, and that's what it all comes back to. For a film that's all about moving forward, not getting lost in the past, not giving up and letting obsession or regret consume your life, it takes a hell of a long time to get there. And that's frustrating because, a bit like (some of) the Star Wars sequels, it feels like it could have so easily been better but that Disney, somewhat paradoxically, didn't have the confidence to make a good film and opted to make a mediocre one instead.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">I'm prepared to change my mind upon rewatch, and rewatch I will, because this is, after all, an Indiana Jones film starring Harrison Ford, even if it is glorified fan fiction. But I'm almost inclined to say that "mediocre" is in some respects too high in terms of praise and that the film's editing and pacing issues are so egregious as to quite possibly ruin what could have otherwise been a perfectly good sequel. I was fine with <i>Kingdom of the Crystal Skull</i> being the last one. If you weren't, maybe this will be a more satisfying conclusion. If only it could have concluded about half an hour earlier.<br /></div><div><p style="text-align: left;"></p></div>Robaneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18401996860805398644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383709889311355921.post-60376198639496502742023-04-22T03:23:00.004-07:002023-04-22T05:30:28.407-07:00"Coffee Talk 2": First Impressions<div style="text-align: justify;"></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlhKGeTEp-djKHENyb-FryZOfUAWt6jm20oIb7wX19ljJCYF_fwMj0cyrjzDckOW6Ay3oGn3E39EvS89PBtA_f3qyI1Y13k61wXCEAF-Lr-dLuDr1VuYEwVFkdLODIlxEVzF8E4x7DJAVQTGStpvB6NOoKEZQyfyb-9jJFNbqZ-3rc3_vhe6sXxjLt9g/s1920/20230422195636_1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlhKGeTEp-djKHENyb-FryZOfUAWt6jm20oIb7wX19ljJCYF_fwMj0cyrjzDckOW6Ay3oGn3E39EvS89PBtA_f3qyI1Y13k61wXCEAF-Lr-dLuDr1VuYEwVFkdLODIlxEVzF8E4x7DJAVQTGStpvB6NOoKEZQyfyb-9jJFNbqZ-3rc3_vhe6sXxjLt9g/s320/20230422195636_1.jpg" width="320" /></a>
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It's a clear sign that I'm getting soft in my old age (or, rather, my thirties)
that <i>Opinions Can Be Wrong</i> has become a place where I'm not using my increasingly infrequent posts
ranting about how my favourite childhood TV shows have been revived badly or how
stupid people on the internet are and am instead waxing sentimental about
characters in an Indonesian visual novel. <i>Coffee Talk</i>, by Toge Productions,
which released in 2020 and which I played in early 2021, is one of my favourite
games of the last couple of years. That's probably for two reasons; one was that
it was a game about going out and meeting people that I, like lot of people, first
played during the isolation periods of the Covid-19 pandemic. The other is
probably that a number of the characters were regulars, and one was a writer who
came to the titular coffee shop to write fiction, just like I used to when I was
a regular at a Sydney bar that closed when the pandemic began. Coffee Talk is a
visual novel about making drinks for the customers in an urban fantasy Seattle
that come to your late-night café, chatting to them and listening as they chat
to each other. You have no control over what your character says: this isn't an
adventure game or an RPG. You only have control over what drinks you serve them.
Serve the right drinks and you might make their lives a little better and make
it easier for them to communicate with each other. Throw in pleasing pixel
art, ear-catching lo-fi music and a generally relaxing tone and, while the writing occasionally came across as a little naïve, the atmosphere was practically perfect for what it was trying to be.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1rdtPG7aNSgR6jOAaaysxgmO7AfbCk7Z5RUy6NV_Q9GSdgfjGlBdDkYRtHuBS0Yu2q5fi7NyB3jGfKhC8GNOnuVG1L5x7DCpGlyH-z3sHoIsar7a6rfspPc_hmpRASBKg-4rNvZF3ou-PyWHCdapl1tRBe6ai1ybuh8hYBmpiWSAbbyDO9MarU6UYSw/s1920/20230422171502_1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1rdtPG7aNSgR6jOAaaysxgmO7AfbCk7Z5RUy6NV_Q9GSdgfjGlBdDkYRtHuBS0Yu2q5fi7NyB3jGfKhC8GNOnuVG1L5x7DCpGlyH-z3sHoIsar7a6rfspPc_hmpRASBKg-4rNvZF3ou-PyWHCdapl1tRBe6ai1ybuh8hYBmpiWSAbbyDO9MarU6UYSw/s320/20230422171502_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>It felt natural that there should be a sequel to <i>Coffee Talk</i>. It's the kind of
premise that could be continued more or less indefinitely, with characters
coming and going. I think for a long time there'll be places where people
looking for good drinks and good conversation will go to spend a little while.
Thus it wasn't too much of a surprise when Toge announced in mid-2021 that the
game would have a sequel. Since then I was waiting patiently but with fairly
constant anticipation, as the game was delayed from a 2022 release to 2023 and
the Indonesian game development scene was shaken by the untimely death of
Mohammad Fahmi, the first game's creator. I played the <i>Coffee Talk 2</i> demo when
it came out, searched in vain for whether anyone had uploaded the trailer and
demo's lo-fi rendition of a classic Erik Satie piece anywhere, and wishlisted
the game when its "Coming Soon" page went up on Steam. When the day finally
arrived, after initially thinking "I'm not sure I'm actually excited", I found myself counting down the hours for it to release.
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So far I'm four hours into <i>Coffee Talk Episode 2: Hibiscus and Butterfly</i>, and
I think I'm about halfway through the game. However, I don't want to wait
until I've finished the game to get some thoughts down, and I don't want to
rush through it. One thing I noticed fairly early on is that while the visuals
are still of the same style, and the music is by the same artist, and still
excellent, something felt a little different. <i>Coffee Talk 2</i> doesn't have the
same writing team as the first game; this is, apparently, unrelated to the
passing of the original creator, who from what I've read had not been closely
involved in the sequel's development. While many of the characters' voices are
brought over very well, and largely feel like an evolution of who they were
before, it does feel different. The barista player character, in particular,
feels a lot more bubbly and a lot less uptight than in the first game, and
there's a rather more frequent use of exclamation marks in the dialogue which,
for a game without voice acting, rather affects the tone.
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQxxEwT-dLtCLc3INQ0WgKfbsSiuNKFnDoQCgICx5uiBSyGEN23mL1cRwYVN1wiOpPtaB6QiP6pcpZkcIiL-AqiQ-VcYp_LjldWRdooEmVb-ZV3HySk8A3M86j3aZF6qMVoSfXtMZ5O1GjIFwq6OloF2xm_w6TgNbR1rZ7UGxbRabBIewhmhUcXBg4ug/s1920/20230422195654_1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQxxEwT-dLtCLc3INQ0WgKfbsSiuNKFnDoQCgICx5uiBSyGEN23mL1cRwYVN1wiOpPtaB6QiP6pcpZkcIiL-AqiQ-VcYp_LjldWRdooEmVb-ZV3HySk8A3M86j3aZF6qMVoSfXtMZ5O1GjIFwq6OloF2xm_w6TgNbR1rZ7UGxbRabBIewhmhUcXBg4ug/s320/20230422195654_1.jpg" width="320" /></a>This, as it turns out, isn't a bad thing. I have to admit that there was a point on one of the
game's early days, the third I think, in which the game came close to losing me,
when it was focused on the new character Amanda, the extraterrestrial sibling of
the fan-favourite alien character Neil from the first game, who now calls
himself Silver. This almost seemed too much like fan fiction of the first game
to me, too much of a "wouldn't it be funny if this happened next." However, the
game quickly won me back when on the next day it drew a little attention to the slight change in
the characters' voices, intentionally or otherwise, and generally I think it
feels as if the characters' continuation makes sense from where they were at the
end of the first game, and that the new writers cared about the first game's characters (if, sometimes, a little too much, throwing in a few too many nods to continuity).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcTLUV8FLaRWM2M0QhXPMY6urL86u4Ww_SgSy70jvNq39oMVn5WatrvSRLh6Zks5045V56J6yh2jxU3J1jS8lGwEjkuREUEFFCFqo4jK0rWOMb50PR86Nr4kofhoR2rqm3iJWE8ooZCiwnsPnLhRThg5Kzpansqlxlf1Cvuo5aUtB9p3kRaUSPCUbBsA/s1920/20230422195714_1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcTLUV8FLaRWM2M0QhXPMY6urL86u4Ww_SgSy70jvNq39oMVn5WatrvSRLh6Zks5045V56J6yh2jxU3J1jS8lGwEjkuREUEFFCFqo4jK0rWOMb50PR86Nr4kofhoR2rqm3iJWE8ooZCiwnsPnLhRThg5Kzpansqlxlf1Cvuo5aUtB9p3kRaUSPCUbBsA/s320/20230422195714_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The one thing that really stands out is the absence of Freya, the main regular
from the first game, who is said at the start of this sequel to be out of town.
Freya was by far my favourite character in the first game, probably because she
reminded me a bit of myself. I know from the trailers that she shows up at some
point (I'm guessing she'll come back from her trip on the final day), and she's still the first character to appear when you start up "Endless
Mode" to experiment with making drinks, so I recognise her absence, as
conspicuous as it is, to be an intentional device, and one that was probably
necessary to give this game a bit of a different feeling. As such, ultimately I think
this was an effective choice on the part of the writers. Freya was such a major
presence in the first game that she almost had to be moved to the peripheries
here in order to create space for some new stories. In this regard, however, it's worth noting
that the game will probably make a lot more sense to people who have played the
first game, as almost every character from the original shows up in the sequel
and there are actually only a few new faces.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So far I think <i>Coffee Talk 2</i> is a decent sequel. By its nature it can't be as fresh as the first, and at times the writing isn't always entirely a natural continuation of the original game, but it's doing a pretty good job so far. Back in 2021 I tried to write a review of the first game that I never published because I felt like I was unable to say anything that other reviews hadn't already said. Perhaps after this I'll see if it's worth doing any kind of holistic retrospective on the two games and the general idea of a sequel written by new authors. In the meantime, I think I have a good few hours of <i>Coffee Talk 2</i> to go, and I have to say if anything it's just nice where I don't feel like I have to force myself to pace myself but nor do I feel unmotivated to play a little more each day. So far it's all pouring out quite smoothly.<br /></div><div>
<p></p>
</div>Robaneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18401996860805398644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383709889311355921.post-27703186636734177282022-12-30T22:12:00.000-08:002022-12-30T22:12:25.572-08:00Hindsight: A 2021 Cinematic Retrospective<p style="text-align: justify;">Due to a combination of lockdowns and apathy I barely watched any new films in 2021, so perhaps for the first time ever for that year the list of films I didn't see vastly outnumbers the list of films I did. <br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Didn't see: <br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Willy's Wonderland</b></p><p style="text-align: justify;">I think I wanted to see this initially because the premise (despite being based on the ongoing popularity of Five Nights at Freddy's with kids) isn't terrible and Nic Cage has done some good weird films in the last few years like Mandy and Color Out of Space but apparently this isn't much cop. <br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>I Care A Lot</b> (technically 2020)</p><p style="text-align: justify;">This is technically a 2020 film but I don't think it got a release out here until 2021. Rosamund Pike is usually good value so I wouldn't mind giving it a go. <br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Zack Snyder's Justice League</b></p><p style="text-align: justify;">I don't care if it's better than the theatrical release of Justice League; I still don't care. <br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>A Quiet Place Part II</b></p><p style="text-align: justify;">I also didn't love the original <i>A Quiet Place</i> enough to bother seeing this one. <br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Black Widow</b></p><p style="text-align: justify;">If this had been released before Avengers Endgame I might have cared but I'm only going to watch this if I feel some desperate need to catch up on Marvel films before, I don't know, the Fantastic Four film they say they're gonna make. <br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>The Suicide Squad</b></p><p style="text-align: justify;">I actually do want to see this since I've heard it's quite decent. <br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Don't Breathe 2</b></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Same with <i>A Quiet Place Part II</i>, I didn't need to see a sequel to this film about being silent either. <br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings</b></p><p style="text-align: justify;">I should really watch this because a friend of mine did stuntwork in it. I'll get around to it eventually. <br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>No Time to Die</b></p><p style="text-align: justify;">More like "no time to waste on another James Bond film I already know I won't enjoy."<br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Eternals</b></p><p style="text-align: justify;">What's this Marvel instalment even about? I once considered myself reasonably knowledgeable about superhero comic books but these characters are too obscure even for me. <br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Ghostbusters Afterlife</b></p><p style="text-align: justify;">I don't want to watch a serious tribute to an Eighties comedy film. Why has Ghostbusters become so sacrosanct? <br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Spider-Man: No Way Home</b></p><p style="text-align: justify;">I've heard this is good but seriously, didn't the previous Spider-Man film only come out about a year before? Too much Spider-Man for me. I don't care enough about the Raimi films to be excited about Maguire and his enemies coming back either. <br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>The Matrix Resurrections </b><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">There's only one good Matrix film and it came out in 1999. Not remotely interested.<br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Films I actually saw:</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It</b></p><p style="text-align: justify;">I knew this was going to be bad. James Wan didn't direct it and, like so many of the awful "Conjuring Universe" spinoff films, it was directed by a nobody whose only other noteworthy work was on another shitty Conjuring spinoff. I think the bits where Ed and Lorraine are in the woods investigating the case are the only decent bit in this piece of garbage that completely fails to have any of the tension or dread of the first two films. It's an absolute farce. <br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>The French Dispatch </b><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Wes Anderson does his Wes Anderson routine. Visually engaging, stylish and at times amusing, but sexist and oddly repugnant in its advocacy of the prescriptive and the doctrinaire, the celebratory nature of the concept at times strikes rather as fearful and conformist.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Munich — The Path to War</b></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Based on one of Robert Harris's (in my head) endless stream of World War Two thrillers, this is a relatively well-made period piece with a decent bit of tension for the fictional protagonists, but I thought the pacing was weak; it goes for two hours but felt to me like it went for about four. The highlight is Jeremy Irons as Neville Chamberlain and the film probably would have been a good deal more interesting if it was <i>just</i> about the 1938 Munich conference, Chamberlain's rationale, Hitler's psychology and the betrayal of Czechoslovakia without the go-nowhere spy thriller stuff added on. I didn't actually watch this until late 2022.<br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Halloween Kills</b></p><p style="text-align: justify;">After the mildly decent 2018 continuity reset, the Halloween franchise immediately reverts back to being about Michael Myers killing stupid people in ridiculous ways. Full review <a href="https://opinionscanbewrong.blogspot.com/2021/10/halloween-kills.html">here</a>. <br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Titane </b><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">By default my "best film of 2021", this Palme d'Or winner about a disturbed young woman who has sex with cars, murders people and impersonates a desperate man's missing-presumed-dead son was a visually engaging if at times slightly obvious portrayal of frustration, alienation and grief. Not for everyone, but I liked it.<br /></p>Robaneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18401996860805398644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383709889311355921.post-51566564674451664612022-10-08T18:24:00.008-07:002023-01-25T16:25:15.111-08:00"The Excavation of Hob's Barrow"<p style="text-align: justify;"></p>
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Full spoilers for <i>The Excavation of Hob's Barrow</i> within.</b> <br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">For some reason it's taken me a while to warm up to the idea of playing
adventure games made in Adventure Game Studio (AGS). I don't really have a good
justification for that beyond perhaps having played Yahtzee Croshaw's Chzo
Mythos games too many times as a kid and not being terribly interested in the urban
fantasy or cyberpunk genres, which seem to be a recurrent setting for a lot of
commercially released AGS games such as those developed and/or published by
Wadjet Eye Games. Regardless, the itch to play some more point and click
adventures struck me this year and on recommendation I initially played Clifftop
Games' <i>Kathy Rain</i>, followed by Wadjet Eye's <i>Shardlight</i> and, most
recently, Cloak and Dagger Games'
<i>The Excavation of Hob's Barrow</i> (published by Wadjet Eye), and while none
of these games are quite the sprawling puzzle-driven experience of, say, a
classic LucasArts title, they've all shared strong atmosphere and decent if not
always massively original approaches to story and characters.
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I was actually reminded of the approach of
<i>The Excavation of Hob's Barrow</i> when some promotional material for it was
shared by Airdorf Games, developer of <i>FAITH</i>, on Twitter, and given that
<i>Return to Monkey Island</i> had put me in the point-and-click mood it was
more or less an instant purchase. I like stories set in Victorian England and I
also enjoy weird fiction and folk horror, so everything I saw made me think that
<i>Hob's Barrow</i> would probably appeal to my sensibilities.<br /></div><div>
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;">
And indeed I spent a good part of a recent long weekend playing
<i>Hob's Barrow</i> and I found myself coming back to it each day wanting more,
which I think is about the strongest recommendation I can give. It's far from
perfect, but given that it was apparently developed in the developer's spare
time I think it's an admirable achievement. It took me about eight hours to play
through, and that was with a fair bit of wandering around following the game's
various objectives, but I wouldn't be surprised if it took less time for an
experienced player. Regardless, I think it was worth the twenty-ish bucks
Australian that I paid for it.
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;">
In <i>Hob's Barrow</i> you play as Thomasina Bateman, a "barrow digger" or, to
put it in more contemporary parlance, a Victorian-era
paleontologist-archaeologist who has come to the small town of Bewlay in northern
England at the invitation of one of the locals to excavate an ancient grave
site. As usual with this kind of folk mystery experience she faces a good deal
of obfuscation, superstition and reservation from the locals while getting to
know the town and countryside. Over the course of the game her own backstory is
revealed, and the mystery of the titular barrow, and her own involvement with
it, is uncovered.
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;">
The strongest element of <i>Hob's Barrow</i> is the atmosphere. The game is set
in a small rural town in the north of England, amid sweeping moorland and
beneath overcast skies. Rain and foggy evenings add to the feeling of both
quietude and sublimity of such a landscape. The music contributes to this
significantly as well, with a strong ambience pervading many of the scenes. The
game is also rendered in the kind of engaging pixel art that I personally really
love and which has become a convention of these kinds of games. It's only let
down on a few occasions when elements are scaled at different resolutions, which
creates a visual clash; old LucasArts games would compress sprites when they
were intended to appear at a more distant perspective, which looked crunchy, but
at least they still fit within the image because a pixel was still a pixel. When
you have low-resolution pixel art blown up to a higher scale to fit modern
screens, it doesn't work so well when some sprites in the "distance" seem to be
at a higher level of detail than the rest of their environment. Nonetheless, the
game has a decent amount of sprite animation, and isn't too reliant on the
fade-in fade-out technique that a lot of lower-budget adventure games use to
avoid having to animate complex actions.
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My biggest critique of <i>Hob's Barrow</i> would largely come down to the story
and characters. There's a curious recurrence in all the AGS games I've mentioned in
this review of having the protagonist be a young woman with an absent father or
father-figure, and for her relationship with her father to in some respect drive
her motivation or characterisation, and I find it also noteworthy that all three
of these games were written, as far as I'm aware, by men. Thomasina's father
William was a barrow-digger before her, but has been a silent invalid for
decades as a result of an unexplained accident during her childhood. Thus her
motivation begins with trying to carry on her father's legacy; it ultimately
ends with her trying to cure her father of his ailment. Perhaps it's just me,
but I find this parent-driven characterisation, while realistic, a little tired
as a character device.
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Similarly, the plot is perhaps too conventional for its own good. Thomasina is
invited to excavate the barrow by one of the locals, and it's ultimately
revealed that not only had her father excavated the same site previously, but it
was the cause of his accident. While the discovery is naturally disturbing
in-game for the character, it's a little neater than I like in this kind of
strange story. Further, it's ultimately revealed that certain locals have
brought Thomasina there for the very purpose of uncovering a powerful force that
was previously sealed away by her father, in the hope of releasing it so that it
will grant them power and plenty. If you've ever seen the original
<i>The Wicker Man</i> from 1973, elements of this conspiracy plot aren't too
surprising. Further still, while the game spends a good deal of time introducing the
town of Bewlay and its inhabitants, the dénouement with the actual barrow
excavation and the uncovering of its secrets is rather hastily done and doesn't
give itself too much time to build up a sense of dread and inevitability. When
friendly local Arthur Tillett reveals to Thomasina that he overheard her two
apparent allies discussing the plot to lure her to the town, it gives away a bit
too much too unambiguously (and too soon). Similarly, the game builds up and up to the actual excavation, only for the entire process to occur in a narrated cutaway, when having the excavation take several days and have its own complications would probably have heightened the tension. Further, once she enters the barrow itself and comes across
strange ruins and eerie purple lights, unfortunately I found it all rather too
much in keeping with a typical pastiche of a story by H.P. Lovecraft or one of
his imitators. The game's commentary mentions the ghost stories of M.R. James as
an inspiration, but I don't quite see it. A clearer inspiration is the point and
click horror adventure game series <i>The Last Door</i>.<br /></div></div><div>
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I also wanted to add that the use of the period setting feels a little
inconsistent. At times the characters speak and interact much as I imagine
Victorian-era people would, especially with an outsider. However, I can't help
but suspect that in reality an unaccompanied young woman arriving in town,
asking lots of questions, frequenting the local pub and getting about in
breeches would probably have caused a massive stir at the time. I appreciate
that this is partly the point of Thomasina's character but sometimes it makes it
difficult to take the setting entirely seriously. One thing I noted in
particular is that some of the characters are implausibly familiar with
Thomasina and vice-versa, using first names and nicknames; it's also not very
realistic, I don't think, that Thomasina, as an upper-class or at least
upper-middle-class woman of the time, would need (or even think to use) a maid
to introduce her to the local aristocracy. These are just nitpicks of course but
they stand out when at times the characters do seem to speak mostly in an
appropriate idiom and behave as people of the era would.
</div><p></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFp2Il2wAlvZXnQskiF2PifaAi07-zOUe0ke7fjOtcNOxtVWm5MIqzbfn1zTIJWtCkWtHmMbh0i9KSdrpQNzorZp3Rsq8rqTO7ELjzld1pPfLQWurCGefGVFvyIuxayV1D0gG_vIrhoXgTS3rg-ciDRPAoZraqJj067ymdmqqku2lg9Sjj3eluptx6MA/s1920/2022-10-09_1214_1.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFp2Il2wAlvZXnQskiF2PifaAi07-zOUe0ke7fjOtcNOxtVWm5MIqzbfn1zTIJWtCkWtHmMbh0i9KSdrpQNzorZp3Rsq8rqTO7ELjzld1pPfLQWurCGefGVFvyIuxayV1D0gG_vIrhoXgTS3rg-ciDRPAoZraqJj067ymdmqqku2lg9Sjj3eluptx6MA/s320/2022-10-09_1214_1.png" width="320" /></a>
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">
As far as gameplay is concerned, <i>Hob's Barrow</i> isn't a particularly
difficult puzzle game. The puzzles generally require more exploration than
lateral thinking, taking the opportunity to re-explore the environment after
certain conditions have changed. The town of Bewlay feels large enough and each
day there is a list of goals, which helps with keeping track. A seasoned
adventure game player won't be slowed down by any of this but it does given the
opportunity to let the environments feel well-used, which, given that the game's
atmosphere is its strongest feature, makes them complimentary of the broader
picture. I should also add that apart from some children's voices which are
clearly just adult women adopting squeaky tones the voice acting is strong
overall, as is the use of appropriate regional accents and slang.
</div><p></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghYHq5JVMk29YP3lsyhTeNzR5G60GRyBPi_u2HxpK5J1H06FOeYcl1PflF_NISkg6wNxOFjQGx8h_RcIMfRCEovC0tR4rcdtVgRPkZL4LtGQ34YDZY0WJGPGMkyv0VPlNxE4Q7cAX7af8UvbUlkSifKwU2D1Pg27eB-rEvbcUaANsKkU80_3QVgoectg/s1920/2022-10-03_0955_2.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghYHq5JVMk29YP3lsyhTeNzR5G60GRyBPi_u2HxpK5J1H06FOeYcl1PflF_NISkg6wNxOFjQGx8h_RcIMfRCEovC0tR4rcdtVgRPkZL4LtGQ34YDZY0WJGPGMkyv0VPlNxE4Q7cAX7af8UvbUlkSifKwU2D1Pg27eB-rEvbcUaANsKkU80_3QVgoectg/s320/2022-10-03_0955_2.png" width="320" /></a>
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">
Overall, despite my view that it's lacking a certain degree of originality in
terms of its story and characters, and has some issues with pacing, I enjoyed playing
<i>The Excavation of Hob's Barrow</i>. Folk horror is an interesting concept,
preferably when it isn't too needlessly Lovecraftian, and this game certainly
kept me invested. Further, as I've said above, I have to give the developers
credit for making this game as a side project. The main takeaway, I think, with
all of these points is that atmosphere can be a huge factor in the success of an
adventure game, and creating a world that players want to stick around in goes a
long way, even if other elements are very familiar.<br /></div></div><div>
<p></p>
</div>Robaneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18401996860805398644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383709889311355921.post-42929549784219393422022-09-24T02:54:00.020-07:002022-09-25T06:19:21.695-07:00"Return to Monkey Island"<div style="text-align: justify;"></div><p style="text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg02VG7v-LZUu2QiUXQgR7yglyhvbQmSY8kEP9vvQNaWp82uK7lItsBuE_2xDGUKox2UF7Dybi9Bwfbb2knuIdduk7qaOmBMpm856mJUh5NEqdadpxQi8bkwssPrmqdoBSFREKjJJNeOnrjlyZx36fNzb9LP_XAat337Ne35DC2e_Ue8w7VqIjXSmAyfg/s1920/20220924191604_1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg02VG7v-LZUu2QiUXQgR7yglyhvbQmSY8kEP9vvQNaWp82uK7lItsBuE_2xDGUKox2UF7Dybi9Bwfbb2knuIdduk7qaOmBMpm856mJUh5NEqdadpxQi8bkwssPrmqdoBSFREKjJJNeOnrjlyZx36fNzb9LP_XAat337Ne35DC2e_Ue8w7VqIjXSmAyfg/s320/20220924191604_1.jpg" width="320" /></a> </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Full spoilers for <i>Return to Monkey Island</i> contained within.</b> <br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"> </p><p style="text-align: justify;">I’m one of those people for whom Ron Gilbert and Dave
Grossman coming back to <i>Monkey Island</i> was a big deal. I’ve been a huge
enthusiast for these games since I was about four years old, having first
played <i>The Secret of Monkey Island</i> in 1993 and <i>LeChuck’s Revenge</i> not long
after, and playing each of the subsequent games in the series as they came out. <i>LeChuck's Revenge</i> is my personal favourite, and since I was old enough to understand that the development had changed hands
several times over the years I’d been aware of the desire for the original
designers to return, and with the announcement of <i>Return to Monkey Island</i> it
seemed like that was what was finally going to happen. When it did come out m’colleague
and I even did things as we would when we were kids, playing together and
passing the mouse back and forth.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYknos2ZPZ6GuA3cMfMl_SklE4O0K3DgVIovAzkVtR6z8blq_yGhGAqXeBbaZIAI0TbUZBzoGNEA38R4671GciB6oPi1UJbIYeAuXc_DNqyN4-tmnmPTKmMimEcKP6LeDVVEKDfAIFLJN_SyX4RBqR9agZipckDkYadqHkJDR_lAfMsLfsluACeY8xYg/s1920/20220924191705_1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYknos2ZPZ6GuA3cMfMl_SklE4O0K3DgVIovAzkVtR6z8blq_yGhGAqXeBbaZIAI0TbUZBzoGNEA38R4671GciB6oPi1UJbIYeAuXc_DNqyN4-tmnmPTKmMimEcKP6LeDVVEKDfAIFLJN_SyX4RBqR9agZipckDkYadqHkJDR_lAfMsLfsluACeY8xYg/s320/20220924191705_1.jpg" width="320" /></a>Playing <i>Return to Monkey Island</i> was a fairly intense
experience for me because of the significance it holds for me, but after
replaying it on Switch (my first play-through was on PC), and then again on PC, I think I’ve more or
less settled on an opinion: I like this game. I love parts of it. But it’s also
an absolute mess, with way too many ideas, uninteresting unfunny secondary characters
with too much dialogue who Ron and Dave clearly loved a lot more than I did,
plenty of elements that feel out of place even for a concept as ambiguous as
<i>Monkey Island</i>, an unnecessarily convoluted plot and an over-reliance on uncompelling
MacGuffin-hunting to structure the story.</div></div><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgICkHG6iq0W6GLCLT4PmbylvtZSwEghkvcssny-3be34TYkSl9VyOAh9C5IkxD6qWGBWmQEw56Cw9nM8vWt9gYpegek81u0NcbMUlB7mRnXP3faEfrxfJgFtqwpbx5YwKvcO73fOMN8UoLG2U7Wz77Nb6b95o5Z3Tb7blw8I-5fVoVNeVzz7VDXGNdmA/s1920/20220924192107_1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgICkHG6iq0W6GLCLT4PmbylvtZSwEghkvcssny-3be34TYkSl9VyOAh9C5IkxD6qWGBWmQEw56Cw9nM8vWt9gYpegek81u0NcbMUlB7mRnXP3faEfrxfJgFtqwpbx5YwKvcO73fOMN8UoLG2U7Wz77Nb6b95o5Z3Tb7blw8I-5fVoVNeVzz7VDXGNdmA/s320/20220924192107_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">By the standards of traditional puzzle adventure games, <i>Return to Monkey
Island</i> is very easy. It's certainly a good deal easier than Gilbert's previous adventure game, 2017's <i>Thimbleweed Park</i>, some puzzles of which stumped me for quite a while before I figured them out. I played <i>Return</i> on “hard” and didn’t need the game’s built-in
hint system whatsoever, although I admittedly solved a couple of puzzles more
by accident than because I grasped the logic behind them or found all the
necessary clues. As a result it also doesn’t feel terribly long, although the
original games weren’t either. It’s probably about the same length as the
second game, albeit with easier puzzles.<br /></div><p style="text-align: justify;"></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1UJdmiRAyzoV-Kde4vTVrU_USM1EJrCt90fiEcDN7VnXTGWFj_tlURdJ-SDJ21Bs_NXSfJXwkOCBvFYPKqLmUY3S1CulstrK1f905bztYPRmLT_lTg1mxNqaXGNSIpJVm-gMTSTuWGFfpdWZCA_cWDVsUGIi8Q93qqgPsekv0euX03bZgineN6tZAuQ/s1920/20220924113641_1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1UJdmiRAyzoV-Kde4vTVrU_USM1EJrCt90fiEcDN7VnXTGWFj_tlURdJ-SDJ21Bs_NXSfJXwkOCBvFYPKqLmUY3S1CulstrK1f905bztYPRmLT_lTg1mxNqaXGNSIpJVm-gMTSTuWGFfpdWZCA_cWDVsUGIi8Q93qqgPsekv0euX03bZgineN6tZAuQ/s320/20220924113641_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In terms of presentation, the visuals won’t be to everyone’s
taste, as pre-game discourse (and the now seemingly <i>de rigeur</i> online histrionics that accompany any pop culture artefact's fanbase) already established. While I didn’t have much of
an issue with the art style I do think some of the character design wasn’t
entirely successful and the animations at times lack a bit of weight and
momentum, especially compared to the other “2D” entries in the series. The
music, however, is as good as ever, with a number of tunes from the earlier
games appearing and some memorable new ones; my favourite new composition is the Brrr Muda
throne room tune.</div><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBRrqJYPwSkoT_wSNNputkJsZtwYLeqVFSBNaJkRRGoHS-1rNYQenH6WBymtYpxeYNI3eVP3EvfxBuTohybUtLiplaz6d2HhEjvK1TkJ5BhhAXxPAFErxfbff8rSvF3dyTQNPV8tJAdRfvueFapzCsBrcGUXJoPXC_iG_df51uRSLVJl0ufsqe-o97TA/s1920/20220924191837_1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBRrqJYPwSkoT_wSNNputkJsZtwYLeqVFSBNaJkRRGoHS-1rNYQenH6WBymtYpxeYNI3eVP3EvfxBuTohybUtLiplaz6d2HhEjvK1TkJ5BhhAXxPAFErxfbff8rSvF3dyTQNPV8tJAdRfvueFapzCsBrcGUXJoPXC_iG_df51uRSLVJl0ufsqe-o97TA/s320/20220924191837_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As a new entry in the <i>Monkey Island</i> series, <i>Return to Monkey
Island</i> at times feels strangely out of place. The unsettling Terror Island and
the icy Brrr Muda feel more like elements from a fantasy game than a <i>Monkey
Island</i> game, as does the game’s eventual hunt for a set of golden keys. None of
these islands are fleshed out; indeed there are rooms on Terror Island that
serve no purpose, and it is possible to find a sunken machine-themed island
which was otherwise cut from the game due to a lack of time to implement its
content. The very piratey world of the first three games in particular is not
to be found here, which is a bit of a shame. At the same time, the game
reprises locales in the shape of Mêlée Island and Monkey Island, which <i>Escape
from Monkey Island</i> already did, albeit many years ago, so the novelty of
returning to them is not as fresh. I think the game would have been better
served by taking place in entirely new seas, much like <i>LeChuck’s Revenge</i>, <i>Curse</i>
and <i>Tales</i>.</div><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCYZxgkXeKKHFK91dAwg21vSeG76O6-5TdkcNmGtlwbJTlXUlL_XcJFrbNWesOxOUhTeyBIZwHXrqQScQqhA3Ghqy9NsenohI-2BHmEK2FZ75WFrhSLYSkQl8U4wXlkvbO-szciltQpJ1hFmukB8VcZPJI2pjMZIp4r3brz4ZZtcvRM42adExaTFMtaA/s1920/20220924192138_1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCYZxgkXeKKHFK91dAwg21vSeG76O6-5TdkcNmGtlwbJTlXUlL_XcJFrbNWesOxOUhTeyBIZwHXrqQScQqhA3Ghqy9NsenohI-2BHmEK2FZ75WFrhSLYSkQl8U4wXlkvbO-szciltQpJ1hFmukB8VcZPJI2pjMZIp4r3brz4ZZtcvRM42adExaTFMtaA/s320/20220924192138_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Like the worldbuilding, the character work and plot of the
middle of the game also aren’t great. A lot of time and attention is devoted to
fleshing out new characters, especially the new Pirate Leaders and LeChuck’s crew, but despite the swathes
of dialogue devoted to them they’re not terribly interesting and most of them
you barely interact with after Part III. Madison, Lila and Flair in particular all feel rather interchangeable, and Trent is pointless. Only aspirational zombie cook/chef Putra and workshy demon lookout Flambe stick much in my memory. Returning characters similarly aren’t
amazingly engaging either. LeChuck has neither the menace of <i>LeChuck’s Revenge</i>
nor the ebullience of <i>Curse</i>, feeling like a relatively generic villain (although that may be intentional, but given the game's themes almost any criticism could be labelled as intentional or at least explicable). A
little drama seems to be building with Elaine and her disapproval of Guybrush’s
selfish actions, but this ultimately ends with her just offering him a warning
not to get too caught up in his obsessions rather than generating any genuine
conflict between the two of them. Indeed Elaine’s writing is so inconsistent
that at times I was wondering if it would be revealed that she wasn’t real,
wasn’t alive or wasn’t really Guybrush’s wife; in the end, however, it just seems that she's mildly concerned but ultimately not especially bothered by his shenanigans, and it all feels a bit tepid. Guybrush himself seems to be
more of the dopey incarnation from <i>Escape</i> and <i>Tales</i>, rarely exhibiting either
the wit and dry humour of <i>Secret</i> or <i>Curse</i> or the mischievousness of <i>Revenge</i>. The
earlier games, especially the first two, greatly benefited from the brevity of
writing necessitated by disc space limitations; this game has a “Writer’s Cut”
mode with “more blather, worse pacing”, but it feels like a lot of the blather
and pacing problems stayed in regardless. I completed my third playthrough with the voice
acting turned off so that I could read the dialogue at my own pace and this
improved things quite a bit, and I wonder if part of the issue is with the dialogue
not really having been written by Grossman to be performed aloud.</div><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi13w1s5BHb-1l_bpSj-nY9F4U0ITgquubuvFvfEHO4J6TiKLkeYzFxG46TlaBparztSpSIQpgznmPhOHMUMslrLjFUNPfeCs6wi8bfZrLlKJxVACrVFchYqI6Wkp7XYM22gtM642faFvktkUlMlyJU7NoTS2ruHV_2hnHnvjf4J0kQrRGA8sRbwQQ5wQ/s1920/20220924191916_1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi13w1s5BHb-1l_bpSj-nY9F4U0ITgquubuvFvfEHO4J6TiKLkeYzFxG46TlaBparztSpSIQpgznmPhOHMUMslrLjFUNPfeCs6wi8bfZrLlKJxVACrVFchYqI6Wkp7XYM22gtM642faFvktkUlMlyJU7NoTS2ruHV_2hnHnvjf4J0kQrRGA8sRbwQQ5wQ/s320/20220924191916_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And from the characters I move onto the plot. It’s perhaps
intentional, given the framing device, but the plot is also messy, with
Guybrush chasing his goal to Mêlée, to Monkey Island, back to Mêlée Island, to
a bunch of other islands and then back to Monkey Island again, and with the
involvement of an over-large group of new antagonists who aren’t very important and don’t
contribute much of significance to the plot besides providing a few narrative
explanations for things that were relatively incidental. Unlike the <i>Monkey
Island</i> games of old, in which Guybrush generally had a relatively broad general
goal to work towards with several sub-goals, much of this game apart from the
fourth part and the overall quest for the "Secret" feels very much like a series of small consecutive incidents in the
manner of the story pacing of an interactive fiction game, but without the necessary character work that makes this kind of thing compelling in the best examples of the genre. The game opens up in
its fourth part with Guybrush searching for five keys, but the very arbitrary-feeling MacGuffin-hunt
nature of this is also not massively compelling. Searching for map pieces in <i>Monkey Island 2</i> at least felt "piratey". While some have complained
that the game’s ending feels like a rehash of the second game, it’s probably
this part which has the most in common with it.</div><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg26lmFWQfL522jPubbgt3gSeuaPgbY3uxbCC-3WzDgQcLIrkPpiqpBANyb6pVscOU-LtiEwnMtzWna4Ut3-PuaBdm24nwKLOOiGz_ZLb4swPQDSl5G5HSyk-3hvSkDhp1uMcXiQtonSv3UHC5P-WzXIsdqY0ypTk91TvwLmwC1J55kLYHL-Jav-WecdA/s1920/20220924191217_1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg26lmFWQfL522jPubbgt3gSeuaPgbY3uxbCC-3WzDgQcLIrkPpiqpBANyb6pVscOU-LtiEwnMtzWna4Ut3-PuaBdm24nwKLOOiGz_ZLb4swPQDSl5G5HSyk-3hvSkDhp1uMcXiQtonSv3UHC5P-WzXIsdqY0ypTk91TvwLmwC1J55kLYHL-Jav-WecdA/s320/20220924191217_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Perhaps it’s time for me to get to the best part of the
game, the framing device and the connections this games makes to the mysteries
posited in <i>LeChuck’s Revenge</i>. This game purports initially to resolve the mysterious
ending of that game, and in the eyes of many it does; little Guybrush and
brother Chuckie emerge from the tunnels of an amusement park — but no, now they’re
just pretending that the couple they run into are their parents, and soon
enough it’s revealed that these two kids are not Guybrush and child-LeChuck at
all, but rather Guybrush’s son and his friend Chuckie playing at “the end of
Monkey Island 2”. My interpretation is that this doesn’t affect the ending of
<i>LeChuck’s Revenge</i> at all and is rather these two kids re-enacting what they
think happened at the end of that game, just like two fans playing that game and then speculating about what it all means or what would happen next — note that they’re not brothers in this
game and the Big Whoop amusement park from the end of that game which initially
appears here is soon replaced with some run-down beachside facilities that still seem
to exist in the pirate world. This opening really leaves the
player with multiple interpretations: you can still have the original <i>LeChuck’s
Revenge</i> ending standing with all its own ambiguity, and it’s just a coincidence
or an extension of fantasy and deliberate ambiguity that friend Chuckie here
looks like brother Chuckie from back then, that the couple look like Guybrush’s
parents from the second game and so on; it also leaves <i>Curse</i> intact if you want
to believe that they’re just re-enacting based on a story they’ve heard and
that in reality Guybrush was under a spell in LeChuck’s evil carnival; and then
if you want you can imagine (although I entirely doubt this was ever anyone’s original
intention) that when we saw those two little kids in the amusement park in the
second game it was actually just these same two little kids pretending the
whole time. I’ve already seen people saying “this reveals that the ending of
<i>Monkey Island 2</i> was actually Guybrush’s kid son and his friend pretending,” and I don’t
think that’s quite what we’re meant to take away from this, but the strength of
this device is that it leaves it entirely to the player’s imagination.</div><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3ldW7ZU9vmIhpViQCGX1fJTwHdNWal5xCd3e9sF4mcedtUrkL85BEObfNdNGE-1AvTnmZ34uAyfgymcnLvzhsTxfqlSVRhPnNZk_qzZHg87XfUZKdt9vpMatLbGen17Nu3gdNNK0_Beitrxa6baO4zfY3c0RufMbAhnt7PARLEJxewjYyc2lUUuCdLQ/s1920/20220924191752_1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3ldW7ZU9vmIhpViQCGX1fJTwHdNWal5xCd3e9sF4mcedtUrkL85BEObfNdNGE-1AvTnmZ34uAyfgymcnLvzhsTxfqlSVRhPnNZk_qzZHg87XfUZKdt9vpMatLbGen17Nu3gdNNK0_Beitrxa6baO4zfY3c0RufMbAhnt7PARLEJxewjYyc2lUUuCdLQ/s320/20220924191752_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And this ultimately extends to the entire story, as Guybrush
is telling the tale of how he went looking for the Secret of Monkey Island to
his son, and we can choose how much or how little it or any of the other games are
true. Guybrush emerges from the tunnels beneath Monkey Island at the end to find
himself back once again in the alley of Mêlée Island, much as Dinky Island led
to it in <i>Monkey Island 2</i>, and it’s much more explicitly an amusement attraction this time. However, even this is captured in the framing device, and you can choose to believe
that Guybrush really was in an amusement park, or that it was just a
deliberately weird ending he made up to amuse (or annoy) his son; all that the ending
confirms (arguably) is that Elaine and his son exist and seem to in some respect live in a pirate world with galleons and maps to lost treasure, which ultimately suggests an amusing and engaging
kind of recursion in which Guybrush is a pirate who goes to an amusement park
in which he pretends to be a flooring inspector who pretends to be a pirate who
lives in a pirate world which is secretly an amusement park and so on. There’s
no beginning or end to what’s “true” and Gilbert and Grossman both give a common
but often forgotten insight about storytelling (“what’s true or not doesn’t
really matter as long as it’s a good story”) and, I think, display a certain
degree of benevolent indulgence of (or perhaps bemusement at) some members of the
<i>Monkey Island</i> fan community’s slightly ridiculous obsession with the “canon”
and continuity of a series of silly pirate adventure games. And indeed while the
framing device reflects a general passing down of stories from one generation
to the next, like original fans of the early games who are now old enough to introduce them
to kids of their own, in some respects older Guybrush is also like Gilbert
and Grossman, and little Boybrush represents the fans, theorising about the
mysteries of the game and needing to be nudged toward the idea that maybe said theorising was
always the best part of the experience.</div><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBiurf2CtawOs9XX1mKLFIXgTeHDbIRPVtqNpPkfhsSuskdlvFdX4k3QNIi1WtadxMBkh92wkwGNCA84egG7DHKMQ4RbJnMPr4OIJ4E4uMAgfyMSkuSdYaRWZU0JbLDf4HblJYFAB8sXPk9g2B-h5eeE6SO7_tOVKfCa71JmnAmYwon97DhdvAr7iJNQ/s1920/20220924191515_1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBiurf2CtawOs9XX1mKLFIXgTeHDbIRPVtqNpPkfhsSuskdlvFdX4k3QNIi1WtadxMBkh92wkwGNCA84egG7DHKMQ4RbJnMPr4OIJ4E4uMAgfyMSkuSdYaRWZU0JbLDf4HblJYFAB8sXPk9g2B-h5eeE6SO7_tOVKfCa71JmnAmYwon97DhdvAr7iJNQ/s320/20220924191515_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Thus while <i>Return</i> is in some respects similar to <i>Revenge</i>, it’s
a much less cynical game than that one. <i>Monkey Island 2</i>’s ending could be
argued as a rather negative or pessimistic one, cruelly tearing away a
comforting fantasy or, if you want to be more metaphysical, implying that, like
Guybrush, we are all victims of a vast cosmic hoax with no perpetrator and that
everything we think is meaningful is actually a façade maintained by the crude
mechanisms of existence hidden behind the scenes. But if Big Whoop was nothing, then the Secret
discovered at the end of Return is everything, whatever the player wants it to
be, and as the letter from Gilbert and Grossman unlocked after completing the
game attests to it’s a viewpoint that, at least in some cases, comes with age. Further, somewhat surprisingly, <i>Return to Monkey Island</i> is quite comparable in
its message to another 2022 adventure game <a href="https://opinionscanbewrong.blogspot.com/2022/03/whos-lila-and-lynchian-mystery.html">I reviewed on this blog</a>, <i>Who’s
Lila?</i>, which also argued that the point of a truly great mystery was to be a mystery
and not necessarily to really be resolved. <i>Return</i> also re-asserts the message of the first
game of the importance of the journey over the destination. But perhaps the
most important thing about this device is that Gilbert and Grossman quite generously set the <i>Monkey Island</i> series
free from the notion that has plagued it for years that on some level it “belonged”
to Gilbert and his original co-creators and that only he could tell the true story. Instead, he and Grossman
say that all of the games are true because all of those stories are told.
Guybrush might be a guy who loves to have fantasy pirate adventures in an
amusement park or he might be a pirate who playfully embellishes the stories he tells his son with out-of-place nods to amusement parks and anachronisms, or both, or something in between. <i>Monkey Island</i> thus isn't any one story and doesn’t “belong” to anyone in
particular; it’s been shaped by Gilbert, Grossman, Schafer and their colleagues
who made the first two games, but also by the teams who made <i>Curse</i>, <i>Escape</i> and
<i>Tales</i>, and it’s been shaped by the fans and indeed anyone who’s played it over
the years. The game even offers an out, albeit an amusingly somewhat mocking
one, for people who hate the idea that the <i>Monkey Island</i> world might not be
real; you can use Stan’s keys to go back into the Monkey tunnels, climb back up
to the entrance and, to quote the game’s interface, “deny what I thought I saw downstairs
and return to the world I know.” That’s okay too — if a player really needs it
to be.</div><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbVcQ3JCHftZb4zcAfaZwEuRv4P0ispWYHgFutKvqGFh8GUsz6bR12lE1ewgYDybehw7QmSW5Bhvcg6iY9dNUuR0UGl9RAkVxNq6jOqkhdUNCIrMuSfXovLz8DaojJONXfVLswoBdyKdvPxOzj1celQHCA97yjJYtLYjDIeJbZWCtd_2Xr0bNxH2is0Q/s1920/20220924103720_1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbVcQ3JCHftZb4zcAfaZwEuRv4P0ispWYHgFutKvqGFh8GUsz6bR12lE1ewgYDybehw7QmSW5Bhvcg6iY9dNUuR0UGl9RAkVxNq6jOqkhdUNCIrMuSfXovLz8DaojJONXfVLswoBdyKdvPxOzj1celQHCA97yjJYtLYjDIeJbZWCtd_2Xr0bNxH2is0Q/s320/20220924103720_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Overall, <i>Return to Monkey Island</i> is a mixed bag. It was
never going to be, nor was it ever intended as, the nonexistent “true” third game in contrast to <i>Curse</i>, and to be quite blunt,
even if it <i>were</i> intended as such, it wouldn’t have succeeded, because <i>Curse</i> is a
better, funnier adventure game than this. But as a commentary on the series,
its baggage and what it means to both the many people who have worked on the
various instalments over the years as well as its players it succeeds
admirably. It’s both less than I hoped for and more than I expected. But it was
probably always going to be that way, and the game knows it. Whether that’s
enough is up to the player to decide, but the game knows that too.</div><p></p>
<p></p>Robaneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18401996860805398644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383709889311355921.post-61637458094409860962022-04-09T20:42:00.012-07:002022-09-30T22:50:15.407-07:00The "Return to Monkey Island" Announcement<p style="text-align: justify;">
On April 5th it was announced that a new entry in the
<i>Monkey Island</i> series of adventure games, "Return to Monkey Island", has
been in development and is due for release in 2022. For the first time in over
thirty years the game is being designed and written by series creator Ron
Gilbert and one of his two collaborators on the first two games, Dave
Grossman. M'colleague and I recorded some thoughts on the announcement which
can be heard here:
</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HSvnepCw840" width="320" youtube-src-id="HSvnepCw840"></iframe></div>
<br />
<p style="text-align: justify;">
I wanted to add something that only occurred to me after recording: that this
is, in a manner of speaking, a "Return to Monkey Island" in multiple senses.
The game may (or may not) involve player character Guybrush Threepwood's
return to the fabled Monkey Island. But it's also a return to the franchise
and is also Gilbert's (and Grossman's) metaphorical return to "Monkey Island"
as in the series itself. And this leads me to imagine that there's a good
chance that the game is going to be just as much about the idea of what a text
or series of texts is in the hands of its original creators as opposed to
continuations by others. But perhaps I'm overthinking it and it won't be about
that at all.
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
Speculation is rife online about how this new game is going to fit in the
game's admittedly messy storyline. Publisher Devolver Digital is marketing it
as "<span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto">the long-awaited follow-up to the legendary Secret of Monkey Island and
Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge" and also as "</span><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">a new game by Ron Gilbert that picks up where Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's
Revenge left off". However, Ron Gilbert has also tweeted that "</span><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">MI3 doesn't go out of canon. We were very careful about that. Murray is in
this game." The inclusion of this fan-favourite character from
non-Gilbert-developed instalment <i>The Curse of Monkey Island</i> suggests
that the game is set after that sequel. However, I have seen many people
online assuming that it is set between <i>LeChuck's Revenge</i> and
<i>Curse</i>.</span>
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">Personally I doubt that the game has been designed to be a mere bridge
between the second and third games, and that it's much more likely to be a
continuation of the storyline that doesn't contradict anything from the
non-Gilbert games without referring to them in any detail. It's noteworthy
that Devolver are using terms like "follow-up" and "picks up where Monkey
Island 2 [...] left off." They're not saying "a new game set between Monkey
Island 2 and The Curse of Monkey Island." I have a suspicion that the new game
is going to still be, technically, set after
<i>Tales of Monkey Island</i> and will simply treat the intervening games as more
of a digression, returning to the story as it was set up at the end of the
second game. Are Guybrush and LeChuck really brothers? Are they really
children in an amusement park (and perhaps games three to five were merely a
continuation of the fantasy)? What is the secret of Monkey Island? And does
any of it really matter? I have a strong suspicion that the answer will be "no",
and that the game will poke fun at fans who have taken the storyline of this
silly series of comedy pirate games so seriously for the last three
decades.</span>
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0"><i>The Secret of Monkey Island</i> created a fantasy that captured the
imaginations of adventurers all over the world.
<i>LeChuck's Revenge</i> gleefully tore it down. Perhaps a third game in
this story will propose a resolution to this conflict. Perhaps it will
encourage us to return to Monkey Island in the sense of going back to the
idea that we shouldn't worry so much about what's real and what's illusion,
and just enjoy the ride.</span>
</p>
Robaneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18401996860805398644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383709889311355921.post-56735935753626206972022-03-04T20:15:00.009-08:002023-04-28T20:07:29.820-07:00"Who's Lila?" and Lynchian mystery<p style="text-align: center;"><i> </i><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi6euzVg5lt-apcSX2ugccLAL9CH3AMp2EdxC6loHDcY9AFPXCXfBUJH_aWJDT3VqDBYunFmQpfhJCJT2bqBtqigMjW2NTEW6fgoyNsG2f5lo32ODXXYwPZhKF7PSc7Q4LBWCaKaQDmhSxJvHOHO9mNB00nei41sNRS2AkzLgoMez6K3QKLgr4p7fsrmg=s960" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi6euzVg5lt-apcSX2ugccLAL9CH3AMp2EdxC6loHDcY9AFPXCXfBUJH_aWJDT3VqDBYunFmQpfhJCJT2bqBtqigMjW2NTEW6fgoyNsG2f5lo32ODXXYwPZhKF7PSc7Q4LBWCaKaQDmhSxJvHOHO9mNB00nei41sNRS2AkzLgoMez6K3QKLgr4p7fsrmg=w400-h225" width="400" /></a></i>
</p>
<i>Who's Lila?</i> is a point-and-click adventure game with an emotion
mechanic heavily influenced by the works of David Lynch. It's about four and a
half hours of gameplay and I liked it. Can I get into the analysis now?
<p></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
Full spoilers for <i>Who's Lila?</i> and potentially a bunch of David Lynch
films follow.<br />
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
Initially, <i>Who's Lila?</i> appears to be an experimental adventure game
about the role that facial expressions play in how we interact with the world.
Saying something while frowning will contain a wholly different meaning to
saying it while smiling or with no expression at all. We are seemingly
controlling a possibly-neurodivergent young man named William Clarke who
struggles to convey how he feels and must force his emotional reactions when
interacting with others. A standard play-through of the game's narrative
establishes a few mysteries: what happened to Tanya Jennings, who was last
seen by William himself? Why, when William receives a phone call early in the
game, is he referred to as "Lila"? And, indeed, who <i>is</i> Lila?
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
It seems from following the game's directions that Tanya was a young woman
William knew; he murdered her and dismembered the body. Lila is William
himself or something inside William. In the end William is arrested and enough
evidence found to convict him of the crime.
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
However the game does not have one storyline but many: when you confront
Tanya's friend Martha, who is assisting the police, on the roof of the school,
it's possible for William to get thrown off the building by Tanya's boyfriend
Graves and end up in a surreal other-world. It's possible, after being
arrested, to confess to the murder, frame Graves for the murder, or confess to
being Lila and not William. It's possible to not bother going to school at
all: to go to the train station instead and confront Strupnev, the last other
surviving member of the Lila-summoning cult of which William was a member.
It's possible to explore the burnt-out ruins of the cult's headquarters. It's
possible to take the bus back in time to the night of the party at which
William and Tanya first met. Each of these storylines has its own end, after
which the game returns to the menu screen. Apart from some information
conveyed in some storylines which grants the player knowledge of how to find
others, and a few items carried from one storyline to the other, many of the
storylines can be played in any order.
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
As this might indicate, the game touches upon a number of philosophical
ponderings: the nature of time and possibility; the concept of identity as
merely a momentary perception of the self on the part of one's own mind;
whether consciousness and ideas have an existence in and of themselves which
humans merely access or perhaps imitate. The most central, however, is
implicit in the game's title itself: who's Lila?
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
"Augmented Reality" elements of the game suggest that Lila the character is a
kind of sentient idea which feeds on human attention, summoned by the cult of
which William was a member. The game of course mockingly addresses a number of
other common analyses of such characters, such as that Lila is a demon, or a
ghost, or a representation of the character's inner psyche. Detective Yu,
whose name is an obvious pun, seems to represent a player who wants the
mystery to have clear answers. In that sense Lila is the game itself, which
"feeds" on players playing it, thinking about it and discussing it. But
speaking to a hidden character in the game reveals that "Lila is the mystery
of who Lila is."
</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh8PhLy94kow0IA2SFmQsOY6DJE3HEyyY7TtFcn-41ZS49Ilx6qbvgpe7dGBXZlO22-3Qsmeoe6erwwD3yTBWrUPJtBZwgKPiEZIeLB6l-MhROltWTVeI5EtS6KIg-a-aQSUE8RTIAYl5nkBmQiGeeVAskiPeB-a91tnQodUXjeDgInZs99wEAEA2NwlQ=s960" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh8PhLy94kow0IA2SFmQsOY6DJE3HEyyY7TtFcn-41ZS49Ilx6qbvgpe7dGBXZlO22-3Qsmeoe6erwwD3yTBWrUPJtBZwgKPiEZIeLB6l-MhROltWTVeI5EtS6KIg-a-aQSUE8RTIAYl5nkBmQiGeeVAskiPeB-a91tnQodUXjeDgInZs99wEAEA2NwlQ=w400-h225" width="400" /></a>
</div>
<p></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
Before I go into this it's worth discussing the overt influence of the works
of David Lynch on the game. This influence is not at all subtle. There is a
<i>Blue Velvet</i> poster on Martha's bedroom wall, and William/Lila hides in
her closet like Jeffrey does in that film. The bin area outside William's
building resembles the yard behind Winkie's in <i>Mulholland Drive</i>. And at
several points William encounters a silent character who resembles but is not
quite identical to himself, identified as "The Stranger", whom the game's
developer has compared to the Mystery Man from <i>Lost Highway</i> but is
evocative of the many doppelgangers and not-quite-doppelgangers throughout
Lynch's works (the latter always being more effective, in my view, than the
former)[1]. And these are just the ones the
developer has acknowledged on social media; there are plenty more. For instance, the creatures like
Lila appear to travel through plumbing the way Black Lodge entities use
electricity in <i>Twin Peaks</i>. Further, at one point seemingly the "real"
William is encountered by the player (seemingly as Lila) in the form of a
hissing, clanking mechanism not unlike the presentation of Phillip Jeffries in <i>Twin Peaks</i>' third season.
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
Throughout Lynch's work there is always a sense of something which is more
intuitive than it is explicit. In some interviews Lynch refers to this as
"think-feeling" and associates it with "dream logic", the idea that things
which would not conventionally make sense in the cause-and-effect,
object-permanent world of what passes for waking reality are accepted
unquestioningly and appear wholly natural and correct in dreams. That is why
when people watch Lynch's films they often try to piece together "clues" to
explain what is happening in some rational, waking-world way. For example
there is a conventional interpretation of <i>Mulholland Drive</i> which
perceives the first two-thirds of the film, about Betty and "Rita", to be a
mere dream on the part of Diane in the final act, an interpretation I largely
reject. Similarly <i>Lost Highway</i> is interpreted as a parable about
jealousy, and <i>Inland Empire</i> as a metaphor, much like
<i>Mulholland Drive</i>, for the exploitative nature of Hollywood. And despite
the fact that I have stated that I reject at least one of these (partly
because it is just an effort to explain the story's events and not actually an
attempt to contemplate its ideas), this is not to say that these
interpretations do not lack validity, that the films do not address these
points at all; they do. But the dreamlike nature of the presentation has a
greater scope than those themes, which I think is not always grasped.
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
It is that reaching for a solution, an explanation, an interpretation which is one (but not the only one) of the main purposes of the dreamlike elements, because by resembling a dream Lynch
conveys in his films the impression of things implicitly, intuitively, making
sense, even if to the waking mind there appear to be gaps, omissions or
inconsistencies. An enthralling intrigue is created by the feeling that things
<i>almost</i> make sense, that there is key to all of this that, were it
merely discovered, would put everything into place, like the dénouement of a
detective novel. It is that feeling that these things make sense, that they
must make sense, but it is not clear why, that gives truly dreamlike
narratives their impact.
</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjP_IdgWGRK42IizJ-sbrF6dQhv2yoLm-0Laf-FiB9qMirkbANKzXSfPl9UNSi7xUfSOTDeZpZqOopadtELoXQYdGdCuJfxLQO6ZLKllyt4ApDLJODwtu3nmvVOa49A9PmLb1QoL_7dOlkNSfdoPd9_6XGutNKQTLpvQZrS-5SwJKfd6G6Dt-fVA2dW_Q=s960" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjP_IdgWGRK42IizJ-sbrF6dQhv2yoLm-0Laf-FiB9qMirkbANKzXSfPl9UNSi7xUfSOTDeZpZqOopadtELoXQYdGdCuJfxLQO6ZLKllyt4ApDLJODwtu3nmvVOa49A9PmLb1QoL_7dOlkNSfdoPd9_6XGutNKQTLpvQZrS-5SwJKfd6G6Dt-fVA2dW_Q=w400-h225" width="400" /></a>
</div>
<p></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
And thus the answer to the question "Who's Lila?" is that Lila is the mystery
of who Lila is. The mystery is the answer, it is the point. The question is
its own answer. And thus <i>Who's Lila?</i> functions effectively as an
interpretation of more or less any Lynchian mystery without, despite its heavy
and often overt influence, being a Lynchian mystery itself. This is not to say
that the game is not Lynchian at all, regardless of influence; it is, but it's
much more willing, perhaps even eager, to explain itself than one of Lynch's
own works, a few ambiguous elements notwithstanding. I was probably enjoying
the game the most during my first couple of plays-through in which, as far as
I could tell, by a wholly dreamlike reckoning it seemed that William, Tanya
and Lila were all the same person, and no further explanation was
necessary.<br />
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
It may seem a bit trite to simply say "the mystery is the point", and this
arguably does not in itself fully address the impact and significance of
Lynchian mysteries, but it is at least refreshing to experience a piece of
media which is willing to state that rather than trying to either explain
things neatly or, by contrast, explain them away metaphorically or
symbolically. There's more to go into concerning how the gameplay extends
outside the game itself, with the augmented reality elements, the "Daemon"
program which can run alongside it, and even the online sharing of hints and
datamining being part of the gaming experience, and that's not even getting into
how the game's visuals and control scheme relate to the experience. But others
will, I think, explain that better than I can right now.
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">_________________ <br /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
[1] A particular highlight for me was noticing in the interrogation scene that,
when William is shown Tanya's photograph by the police, Tanya, who at all
other times is shown as being exactly identical to Lila, is here shown as
strongly resembling her but not actually looking the same.<br />
</p>
Robaneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18401996860805398644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383709889311355921.post-1332672573748762732021-12-30T21:02:00.002-08:002022-01-06T23:06:44.107-08:00Hindsight: A 2020 Cinematic Retrospective<p>UPDATE</p><p>Understandably, I really didn't see many films in 2020 (let alone 2021) so this is a short one:</p><p> </p><p><b>Films I'm interested in but haven't seen as of writing:</b></p><p><i>Palm Springs</i></p><p>I've heard this is good even if it's a Groundhog Day ripoff. Redlettermedia didn't rate it though. Who knows. I don't want to have to subscribe to Amazon Prime in order to watch this.</p><p><i>Misbehaviour</i></p><p>I heard this was good. Just never got around to seeing it.</p><p><i>Wonder Woman 1984</i></p><p>Apparently this sucks, which is a shame since the previous one was decent. I still wouldn't mind seeing it. <br /></p><p> </p><p><b>Films I actually saw:</b></p><p><i>The Assistant</i></p><p>A rather uncomfortable-to-watch representation of workplace sexual harassment and the exploitation of young women in Hollywood, all framed through the experiences of an office assistant who notices what's going on but is powerless to do anything about it. An interesting way of framing the narrative and pretty chilling. Definitely recommended.</p><p><i>Horse Girl</i></p><p>Alison Brie plays a woman with an undiagnosed mental illness who thinks aliens are trying to communicate with her and possibly travels through time. She's good value as always and the nature of events is left sufficiently ambiguous to have a degree of mystery. The dream-hallucination sequence near the end is a particular highlight. I also enjoyed her character's obsession with a fictional paranormal mystery drama called Purgatory which appears to be a cross between <i>Bones</i> and <i>Supernatural</i>. Rather amusing.</p><p><i>The Invisible Man</i></p><p>An interesting take on the concept, presented as a story about gaslighting, stalking and controlling behaviour, with a satisfying ending. Probably the only unnecessary part is the explanation for how the villain's invisibility works. Elizabeth Moss is a little typecast in the role of "woman who is treated like crap by man or men" but she's a good fit for these parts. There are some decent twists, it's compelling and it takes an old idea and updates it effectively for modern issues. Another highlight.</p><p><i>Bill & Ted Face the Music</i></p><p>A decent-enough sequel to the original two Bill & Ted films. Full review <a href="https://opinionscanbewrong.blogspot.com/2020/09/bill-ted-face-music.html">here</a>. </p><p><i>I'm Thinking of Ending Things</i></p><p>Creepy film slightly let down by spelling things out too much. My thoughts in full <a href="https://opinionscanbewrong.blogspot.com/2020/09/the-dreamlike-and-im-thinking-of-ending.html">here</a>.</p><p><br /></p><p>Favourite of 2020:</p><p>I saw so few films it's hard to say, but oddly enough I feel like <i>Horse Girl</i> was the one that stuck in my mind the most. But it, <i>The Assistant</i> and <i>The Invisible Man</i> were all good watches.</p><p> </p><p>Worst of 2020:</p><p>I actually can't award that this year because of a lack of trashy superhero films and/or exasperatingly bad Star Wars sequels/spin-offs. Probably a good thing.</p><p> <br /></p><p>ORIGINAL VERSION <br /></p><p>This is all I got so far: <br /></p><p> </p><p>Interested in:</p><p>Palm Springs</p><p>Misbehaviour</p><p>Wonder Woman 1984 (apparently this sucks)<br /></p><p> <br /></p><p>I saw: <br /></p><p>The Assistant</p><p>Horse Girl</p><p>The Invisible Man</p><p>Bill & Ted Face the Music</p><p>I'm Thinking of Ending Things</p><p> </p><p>Best? Dunno.</p><p>Worst? Dunno.</p><p> </p><p>Happy 2021! <br /></p><p><br /></p>Robaneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18401996860805398644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383709889311355921.post-10801909207139736372021-10-31T05:08:00.006-07:002021-10-31T17:55:23.187-07:00"Halloween" Retrospective<p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkjsL4oZsg4Afgxio7KuxkB-oE4JJk7aSUsBT1dO2S6hmCzwxRcymA3XfFQMNFec1kD39BHONI-cx5xIq-EU2Gb_7P1_bCwWa3znVvWM6Oe9yBJIeSmDWbTotExJcT0htfuevLyO4-BVo0/s1920/Halloween.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkjsL4oZsg4Afgxio7KuxkB-oE4JJk7aSUsBT1dO2S6hmCzwxRcymA3XfFQMNFec1kD39BHONI-cx5xIq-EU2Gb_7P1_bCwWa3znVvWM6Oe9yBJIeSmDWbTotExJcT0htfuevLyO4-BVo0/s320/Halloween.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Recently I've watched or rewatched every film in the entire <i>Halloween</i> franchise, and immersed myself in some behind-the-scenes content, so clearly it's time I gave my completely original thoughts on the subject.<br /></div><div><p></p>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Halloween (1978)</b></div>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
Needless to say, the original and the best. While a bit slow by modern
standards, the film benefits from taking its time to set up the characters of
Dr Loomis, Michael and Laurie, and to establish the spooky October atmosphere.
Most importantly, something most of the others forget, we get to know Laurie:
she's a smart student but shy; she has a crush on a guy named Ben Tramer but
she's too nervous to ask him out; she has two friends named Annie and Lynda
who seem to push her around a bit, but she gets along well with younger kids,
like Tommy; she likes to follow the rules and seems to be afraid of getting in
trouble, such as in the smoking scene. We get to know Laurie, and all this is
interspersed with the haunting scenes of Michael following her around
Haddonfield. The way the film is shot enhances the menace of the Shape, the
music of course fills the night with anticipation, and Donald Pleasence brings
the touch of old-school class that these films always benefited from. A
classic for a reason.
</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><b>Halloween II (1981)</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
While one of the better sequels, this one suffers from the fact that, unlike
the original, there isn't really a clear protagonist. With Laurie confined to
a hospital bed for the first two-thirds of the film and Dr Loomis on a wild
goose chase trying to figure out where Michael is going, it's not clear who
we're meant to follow. Jimmy the paramedic is likeable and seems to be set up
in some respects as the hero, but the film never really commits to it; he
slips in a pool of blood and knocks himself out for the finale, which is back
to Laurie and Michael. That being said, the understaffed hospital is eerie,
the death of the trick-or-treat-er on the street is shocking, and the ties in
to the origins of the Halloween tradition are intriguing. Pleasence is again
great and the young cast are fun to watch, but other than Jimmy the hospital
characters are pretty forgettable and you're just waiting for Michael to kill
them. The gruesome deaths seem to be an obvious attempt for the film to rival
its own pastiche, <i>Friday the 13th</i>, and are in some respects perhaps
needless; more understatement wouldn't have gone astray. The revelation of
Laurie as Michael's long-lost sister is pointless and doesn't add the drama
that Carpenter seems to have thought the script needed. It's a decent sequel,
but a bit routine.
</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">
<b>Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)</b>
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
The one that has nothing to do with the rest of the franchise, this is
nonetheless an entertaining cosmic horror story which presages Carpenter's own
<i>In the Mouth of Madness</i> (1994), with a mystery in an isolated town
leading to the discovery of an apocalyptic plot, and a satisfyingly dark and
pessimistic ending. I don't know that Tom Atkins is quite the leading man that
some Carpenter fans seem to see him as, but Dan O'Herlihy is great as Conal
Cochran, and there is an atmosphere of dread and emptiness which compensates
for the limitations of the leading characters. This definitely justifies its
place as the hidden gem of the franchise; the shots of kids all across America
trick-or-treat-ing at dusk is the stuff that this franchise should be made of.
</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">
<b>Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)</b>
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
I didn't expect to like this one at all; in fact, I didn't even intend to
watch it, but I'm glad I did, because I definitely fall into the camp of those
who think that this is the best of the sequels. What makes all the difference
in the world is that Danielle Harris and Ellie Cornell are so sympathetic and
likeable as Jamie and Rachel. Even though I think the idea of Laurie being
Michael's sister is stupid, the idea of Michael having a niece is interesting
regardless of who her mother is, and the image of this remorseless killer
hunting down an innocent child is, appropriately, horrifying. Pleasence makes
a welcome return as Dr Loomis, the police are sensible and take Michael
seriously, and when things get out of control with the mob they don't get too
ridiculous. The image of the crashed ambulance in the river is fantastic and
says it all. I don't know, with the ending, if they seriously thought Jamie
would replace Michael as the killer, but I think anyone who thought it would
go that way was kidding themselves. What it really comes down to, however, is
that, like with Laurie in the original, we get to know the characters: Rachel
is a girl trying to have an ordinary life; there's a guy she likes but he's
not faithful to her; she wants to be protective of Jamie, but finds it
challenging to understand her problems. Jamie's a little kid who has lost her
parents and knows that her uncle is a serial killer; she's bullied by the kids
at school and is afraid of Halloween; she wants to be part of the family with
Rachel and the Carruthers, but it's hard to fit in. We don't even need Michael
Myers for any of this to work, and that's why it <i>does</i> work. Easily the
best sequel.
</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">
<b>Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989)</b>
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
Obviously a weak entry, it's mostly worth watching for, once again, Loomis and
Jamie. Rachel gets killed off too early and while I didn't find Tina, Samantha
and Spitz as annoying as some do, I don't care much about them either. At
first I thought Tina was meant to be the girl who picks up Rachel and Jamie
from school in the fourth film, but it turns out she's a completely different
character; too many perms. That girl was meant to be Lindsay from the
original, too. Anyway, Loomis' confrontation with Michael is enjoyable,
although I don't quite buy this film's explanation that Michael has a rage he
is trying to contain. Once again you feel for Jamie in her plight, and Tina's
sacrifice is a decent moment. All the "Man in Black" stuff is unnecessary of
course and the film should have cut it. It's more or less what you would
expect from a rushed sequel to the fourth film.
</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">
<b>Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)</b>
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
Despite having only so far seen the so-called "Producer's Cut", this is the
one where I don't really understand what they were going for. The opening and
closing have all this guff about a cult trying to use Michael Myers to bring
balance to the universe through ritual murder or something, whereas the middle
just seems to be about Michael being annoyed that Laurie's uncle's family
moved into his house. Paul Rudd gives a weird performance as Tommy but he's
Paul Rudd, you can't dislike him too much. Kara is an interesting concept for
a character as a single mother moving back in with her parents, but doesn't
have much to do; Danny seems pointless. The biggest problem is the way Jamie
is used, i.e. to have a baby and then get killed. Putting aside the vulgar
implication (or outright fact, in the Producer's Cut) that her uncle Michael
is the father of her child, it's a bizarre way to use the character who was
the hero in the previous two films; the sixth film should have been about
Jamie finally dealing with her uncle, not weird stuff about cults and the
invention of a whole new Strode family. Donald Pleasence's last outing, while
undignified for an actor of his caliber, is at least elevated by his presence,
while Danielle Harris' absence severely detracts from the film, although given
how bad Jamie's role is in this film it's probably better that she wasn't in
it. The idea of an insane psychiatrist trying to control Michael is
interesting, but it's not handled well here and wasn't handled much better in
the 2018 film. This is a bad film but the non-cult-related parts are at least
watchable as more Michael Myers antics.
</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><b>Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later (1998)</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
The first film to ignore the sequels, Jamie Lee Curtis makes a welcome return
as Laurie, but the film itself is pretty mediocre. All the best stuff happens
in the opening, with Michael attacking Nurse Marion's house, bashing in a
young Joseph Gordon-Levitt's face with an ice skate, and absconding with a car
that he later replaces in a spooky scene at a rural rest stop. Everything
else, however, falls a little flat. As would happen again in the 2018 film,
this film's Laurie feels nothing like that of the original or even the sequel,
with Ms Strode, or "Tate" as she calls herself here, just seeming like a
hard-drinking Jamie Lee Curtis who has panic attacks. The setting of a private
boarding school in a Californian Spanish villa compound feels very artificial
and lacks the ambience of the earlier films' suburban menace. The supporting
cast are all pretty forgettable and the entire thing feels very "Nineties",
with a bright lighting, lots of wide shots and an orchestral soundtrack. The
best bit is almost certainly Laurie decapitating Michael with an axe; the rest
is pretty routine and for a film that wanted to ignore several previous films
it commits some of the same sins.
</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><b>Halloween: Resurrection (2002)</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
It doesn't really bear mentioning that this is one of the worst if not the
worst film in the franchise, with a completely arbitrary premise and no
interesting or likeable characters. In fact the most likeable character in the
whole thing is probably Michael himself, as the scenes where he is on screen
are really the only times the pace picks up. The idea of filming a reality
show in the Myers house, while believable for the time period, offers nothing
in terms of interest, and none of the characters are, once again, portrayed in
enough depth to make them sympathetic. Sara is almost devoid of personality.
Other than that, seeing a young Katee Sackhoff get decapitated and some of the
ridiculous Busta Rhymes one-liners are really the only spare moments of ironic
amusement in a deeply tedious film.
</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><b>Halloween (2007)</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
Rob Zombie's remake of the original is visually appealing, with effective
cinematography, colour and lighting. I also don't find the characters as
annoying as some people make them out to be. The problem is that once again
there's no one to root for; we don't meet Laurie until about an hour into the
film, and she's just an ordinary girl without much detail afforded to her
personality. The film is more interested in Michael Myers, but by depicting
him as having the psychopathic traits characteristic of real-life serial
killers, like abusing small animals and perhaps confused sexual urges, the
film ultimately doesn't work when, after the first act, it transforms him into
the mute incarnation of death characteristic of the original. Zombie wants
Michael Myers to feel like Michael Myers, but by doing so he renders the first
half of his film pointless, because we can't see that kid in the character of
this faceless killer. The final chase in the Myers house is boring and we
don't care enough about Laurie to want to see her win. It's a messy remake
with some interesting ideas mishandled, and it's mostly carried by its
visuals, not its writing or character direction.
</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><b>Halloween II (2009)</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
This sequel to the remake only makes the flaws of the remake worse, as the
focus is now on the boring Laurie, whose trauma at the events of the first
film and horror at discovering her familial relationship with Michael lack
impact because, again, we don't get to know her well enough as a character.
The film needed more scenes like Laurie eating with Leigh and Annie Brackett
(played well in the previous film and here by horror alumnus Brad Dourif and
franchise stalwart Danielle Harris) and fewer extended dream sequences of Rob
Zombie's wife, and Laurie being chased around a hospital by a grunting,
roaring Michael. I had trouble getting through this one because I found it so
boring. It only really picks up at the very end when Loomis arrives to
confront Michael; other than that, and again the strong visuals, I don't feel
like this misery-fest has much to recommend it. I watched the theatrical cut,
and supposedly the director's cut is better, but I doubt I could face watching
this again any time soon.
</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><b>Halloween (2018)</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
Pulling the same trick as <i>H20</i> by ignoring previous sequels, this time
every sequel altogether, the 2018 film works by making Michael more mysterious
and therefore more threatening, but the characterisation of Laurie isn't, in
many respects, massively different to that in <i>H20</i>, nor is her
relationship with her child. We see the effects of trauma, but it could be
handled differently. The point I've laboured throughout this article is once
again true here, that the new characters aren't given enough characterisation
to make me care. I <i>want</i> to care about Karen and Allyson, but all we see
about them is their relationship to Laurie and her past. We don't get to know
them well enough in themselves. The podcaster characters and the
Loomis-replacement psychiatrist are slightly ridiculous, feeling like
caricatures in a film which is notionally trying to ground itself in the
relative realism of the original. The ending confrontation in Laurie's house,
and the scene of Michael's senseless massacre in the neighbourhood, are the
best bits of this somewhat awkward reprise.
</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><b>Halloween Kills (2021)</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
I've reviewed this in full
<a href="https://opinionscanbewrong.blogspot.com/2021/10/halloween-kills.html">here</a>, but suffice to say that this is more of the same as the previous,
struggling to find interesting characters outside of Laurie and Michael, and
delivering a weak and inept message. Like the film before it looks nice and
has a fairly strong atmosphere, but it's mostly worth it for the gore effects,
the presentation of Michael, and the flashback scene to 1978, and that's
mostly going to be of interest to horror fans and fans of the franchise
specifically. Yet the film tries to be more than that, tries to have something
to say about society, and doesn't really succeed. It's messy, as these films
often seem to be when they try to do too many things at once.<br />
</p>
</div>Robaneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18401996860805398644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383709889311355921.post-14588927891128534702021-10-31T01:11:00.005-07:002021-11-01T15:29:03.521-07:00"Halloween Kills"<div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg-3O8-Yiaa8sulZo3H5BaRSJckzwBwBbnARCqoH59xi9K55e3Pj0EBsbHEHYJsYns1uLeu9bmkZpzf8-DmaWP6XsvWUzIGIQ8qOas5H4fCkgbLJ2do0pB4fyaleJs7_Nx51U0qy-rvUW3/s1920/vlcsnap-2021-10-31-18h50m29s770.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg-3O8-Yiaa8sulZo3H5BaRSJckzwBwBbnARCqoH59xi9K55e3Pj0EBsbHEHYJsYns1uLeu9bmkZpzf8-DmaWP6XsvWUzIGIQ8qOas5H4fCkgbLJ2do0pB4fyaleJs7_Nx51U0qy-rvUW3/s320/vlcsnap-2021-10-31-18h50m29s770.png" width="320" /></a>
</div>
<p style="text-align: justify;"></p>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
To celebrate the spooky season this October, I made it a personal project to
watch a horror film every day for thirty-one days, the only rule being that
none of them could be horror films I'd seen before. I watched a variety of
pictures from the history of cinema, ranging from classic black-and-white
Universal monster classics such as <i>The Wolf Man</i> and
<i>Son of Frankenstein</i> through the fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties
and beyond up until the present day. About a third of the films I watched were
instalments of the <i>Halloween</i> franchise, of which previously I'd only
ever seen the first. Now I've seen all of them — every single one, with the
exception of some different cuts — and I intend to do a rundown of the entire
franchise as well. But to cap it off, film 31 on the 31st of October itself
was the latest instalment in the franchise, <i>Halloween Kills</i>, the sequel
to 2018's <i>Halloween</i>.
</div>
<p></p>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwEinXaUYLO9whYEi1JKqV2iWO5Yy749ktDLLh054pINtcz3vgHpnBqooo_IXoUKITsJHPWcoZ1Gn_PTwNMKIkhEQwuKRMdKVz9M4GMKAUgilLKPwP-kB-5IXFP2Ij8NEr8xTTM_c6T62b/s1920/vlcsnap-2021-10-31-18h47m57s613.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwEinXaUYLO9whYEi1JKqV2iWO5Yy749ktDLLh054pINtcz3vgHpnBqooo_IXoUKITsJHPWcoZ1Gn_PTwNMKIkhEQwuKRMdKVz9M4GMKAUgilLKPwP-kB-5IXFP2Ij8NEr8xTTM_c6T62b/s320/vlcsnap-2021-10-31-18h47m57s613.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I only saw <i>Halloween</i> (2018) for the first time a few days ago, as of time
of writing, and while well-made I felt like it suffered from the same problem
that most of the sequels excluding perhaps <i>Halloween 4</i> suffer from, which
is the lack of characters about whom I really cared; you end up watching the
film to see how Michael is going to kill people, and not because you
particularly care if the notional protagonists escape or defeat him. I
understand that the film wanted me to care about Laurie's daughter in that new
timeline, Karen, and granddaughter, Allyson, but probably due to the fact that
it was trying to introduce new characters as well as bringing back old ones and
reintroducing the premise of the entire franchise for new audiences I felt like
we just didn't get enough time to get to know them. I wanted to see Michael and
Laurie, and that was about it. Laurie, incidentally feels absolutely nothing like the character from the
original <i>Halloween</i>; I know the experience and forty years would change
her, but c'mon, she's just a grumpy Jamie Lee Curtis in a wig and makeup to make
her look more haggard than she actually is. A different
film might have been able to get me to care more about the new characters, but
I wasn't that invested in them, which I felt was the film's biggest drawback.
Its greatest strength was probably the way in which, by ignoring every previous
sequel, it took the character of Michael Myers back to his origins as a
motiveless, unreasoning personification of senseless violence and meaningless
death, which made the character disturbing in a way he probably hasn't been
since the original in 1978.</div>
<p></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I knew going in that <i>Halloween Kills</i> had not had a great critical
reception, but for films like these that doesn't mean much; <i>Halloween II</i>,
<i>III</i> and <i>4</i> all have bad reviews while also being, while not as good
as the original, reasonably strong horror films in their own right. Obviously
horror enthusiasts have their own tastes about these things and a lot of horror
viewers don't go in expecting anything too groundbreaking. The worst thing a
horror film (or indeed any mainstream film, really) can do is to be boring,
which several of the later sequels (<i>Resurrection</i> and the second Rob
Zombie one at the very least) are. <i>Halloween Kills</i> is relatively engaging
in this respect, but it falls into the same trap as the ones I mentioned before
of only really working when you're anticipating Michael's next appearance.
Laurie spends the entire film convalescent in the hospital, and the majority of
the other characters come across as buffoons who go out in hunting mobs trying
to track down Michael despite the fact that they seemingly also know that
practically everyone who ever runs into him ends up dead. This was a problem in
the 2018 film as well, actually, in which a lot of Michael's mystique seems to
be based on his presence in popular culture in general, having appeared, kitchen
knife in hand, in a film fairly regularly, every few years, for four decades.
Within the narrative of the 2018 film, however, as is pointed out, he's a
criminal who murdered five people forty years previously and one more person
fifteen years before that. He's not the unstoppable force of evil he's seen as
being within that film's narrative unless everyone in Haddonfield has been
watching the <i>Halloween</i> franchise.</div>
<p></p>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Similarly, in <i>Halloween Kills</i>, the narrative seems to exist in complex
conversation with the franchise as a whole. We see a flashback to 1978 to
explain what happened in this new timeline's version of events; Michael was
caught after he went back to his old house. Yet we see footage of Annie Brackett
in a bodybag taken from <i>Halloween II</i>, the event in this timeline being
represented by an image from a film the story of which didn't happen, and this
film seems almost to set itself up as the deliberate antithesis to
<i>Halloween II</i>. In that film, Laurie was taken to the hospital and Michael
hunted her down because, as a result of late night drunken desperation on the
part of John Carpenter, she was secretly his long-lost sister. In this film we
spend plenty of time at the hospital but Michael never goes there because he has
no reason to; it's pointed out to the audience very clearly that Michael doesn't
care about Laurie at all and instead wants, for whatever inscrutable reason, to
go home. But Michael being drawn back to his own home was already done in
<i>Halloween 5</i>, <i>6</i> and <i>Resurrection</i>; it feels to me as if
there's not that much new storytelling that either can be done or the writers
feel capable of doing. The angry lynch mob accidentally killing the wrong person
was done in <i>Halloween 4</i> as well.</div>
<p></p>
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</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Halloween Kills</i> thus becomes one of the many instalments of the franchise
in which you come to see Michael, reflecting his own pop-cultural scion Jason
Voorhees, killing stupid people in increasingly ridiculous ways, in this case
impaling them with broken halogen lamps, squeezing eyeballs out, and in one case
even hitting a car door into a woman's face so that she accidentally shoots
herself. This, coupled with a flashback to 1978 featuring a recreation of the
original Michael Myers costume and some very effective practical makeup work to
turn an actor into a near-perfect lookalike of the late Donald Pleasence, makes
the film at times feel more like a fan-appeal picture than anything really
interested in conveying the heavy-handed messages it depicts and then has its
characters spell out onscreen, which is to say that mob justice is not real
justice, that taking the law into your own hands usually only makes things
worse, and that fear and reactionism only play into evil's agenda. I'm not
against the idea that the film imagines, as Laurie expounds on in the finale,
that Michael is evil incarnate, he's the town's fear and short-sightedness
reflected back on itself, but this didn't need to be spelled out, and it becomes
somewhat absurd when we start seeing Michael taking out crowds of people in the
open street on his own, making him seem less like a Bogeyman or Angel of Death
and more like a supervillain. As soon as he emerged from the burning building at
the start to confront the firefighters I couldn't help but think "1978 Michael
would have ducked out the back door and snuck away into the woods while no one
was watching." We also sort of see Michael unmasked again in this film, and I
don't think the stunt performer's face works in these scenes; he just looks like
a grizzled action man, akin to the antagonist from <i>Don't Breathe</i>, when
the 1978 film deliberately depicted him unmasked with an "angelic" appearance to
further unsettle the viewer. For a film so slavishly devoted to recreating
elements from the 1978 original, I'm surprised that <i>Halloween Kills</i> (or
its precursor) didn't depict Michael unmasked like an ageing Botticelli angel,
with waves of curly grey hair and a sculpted jawline. Funnily enough, the stunt
performer who played Michael in the 1978 flashback, as far as I can tell,
retains something of this appearance, but we don't see his face.</div>
<p></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i></i></p>
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</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Halloween Kills</i> benefits from good direction and strong visuals; it's a
nice-looking film, Michael is intriguing and the gore effects are pleasing if
one is a fan of such things, although some of the kills are, I think, a bit too
brutal for a trilogy supposedly going back to the original's understated roots.
But there's not that much for Jamie Lee Curtis' Laurie to do and the task of
leading the film, which largely falls upon the characters of Karen and Allyson,
is a problem because the characters simply aren't that compelling for the
reasons I've stated before. The recast middle-aged Tommy is somewhat believable
but is more frustrating to watch than enjoyable because of his rash decisions,
and it's amusing and somewhat exasperating to see poor Nurse Marion get killed
by Michael in yet another timeline reset just as she was in
<i>Halloween H20</i>. It's actually somewhat weird that they got back the
original actors for Lindsay, Marion and Sheriff Brackett from the 1978 film but
not the actor who played Tommy (apparently they considered Paul Rudd to reprise
it from <i>Halloween 6</i>, which would have been funny, but he wasn't
available). Obviously that guy who played Tommy back in the day isn't the
leading man material they would have wanted for the Tommy role but as far as I
know he's still around doing conventions and stuff so it <i>is</i> odd that they
bring back several cast members from the 1978 film but not him. I know I'm not
the only one to say this but they really should have found some way to get
Danielle Harris into this trilogy; it seems like no one's been more of a
consistent ambassador for the franchise than her despite the fact that the two
different timelines she was in are no longer "canon".</div>
<p></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"></p>
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</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Taken on its own, <i>Halloween Kills</i> is a decent slasher/gore film, a not
very subtle or elegant "message" film about violence and mob rule and a fairly
weak character piece. I haven't even spoken about Hawkins, Cameron or Lonnie (another
recast character from the original) because there just doesn't seem to be much
to say. For such a messy franchise this doesn't really help; it feels like it's
in a love-hate relationship with the <i>Halloween</i> legacy, wanting to do its
own thing but also wanting to pay tribute to the original and re-do the sequels
with its own vision of what's "better". We all know Michael Myers will never
die, so it only leaves me curious about <i>Halloween Ends</i> in the sense that
I wonder to what extent the franchise will continue, just like Michael himself,
to wander around only to wind up where it began.</div>
</div></div>Robaneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18401996860805398644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383709889311355921.post-35369688186993106982021-10-07T23:26:00.003-07:002022-02-13T04:15:38.765-08:00"Life is Strange: Wavelengths"<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjts46PEGIfzMmVFEGWqjr1DoD0PonbRVuBjYCQqZrBhM9smGVAkQ2G771ohwfufKE8t9qoy-wxRhuZLl4T49Ckd2SHdBMSqgJKvesh9i9JdODtilfamiqg-2KR2p-GSUqfdgwqYWmI3EfC/s1920/20211004215208_1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjts46PEGIfzMmVFEGWqjr1DoD0PonbRVuBjYCQqZrBhM9smGVAkQ2G771ohwfufKE8t9qoy-wxRhuZLl4T49Ckd2SHdBMSqgJKvesh9i9JdODtilfamiqg-2KR2p-GSUqfdgwqYWmI3EfC/s320/20211004215208_1.jpg" width="320" /></a>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In my review of <i>Life is Strange: True Colors</i> I complained (as many
people have) that, as someone who comes to
<i>Life is Strange</i> significantly for the slice-of-life (is strange) stuff,
I would have liked more of that and less plot-driven investigation of the
game's central mystery. I guess maybe this was intentional because it feels
like a huge chunk of that element was reserved for the additional
<i>Wavelengths</i> DLC, which was released a few weeks after the main game.
</div>
<p style="text-align: justify;"></p>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8knIycal1p0HHuTl-UVyE3k_zyjZ3R2UwZO1k4Pe3NzpfS-k6kiPTDBcPKUOz_QT8Cz_y5X0PAuYXUK3I2FZXgFWA8hbzfflvANw9eTCGYmthqcTl12LbyERWgTgo6BlyS7jsyGRQvlFN/s1920/20211004215319_1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8knIycal1p0HHuTl-UVyE3k_zyjZ3R2UwZO1k4Pe3NzpfS-k6kiPTDBcPKUOz_QT8Cz_y5X0PAuYXUK3I2FZXgFWA8hbzfflvANw9eTCGYmthqcTl12LbyERWgTgo6BlyS7jsyGRQvlFN/s320/20211004215319_1.jpg" width="320" /></a>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">In <i>Wavelengths</i>, you play as Steph, fan favourite character from
<i>Life is Strange: Before the Storm</i> and supporting protagonist of
<i>True Colors</i>, over the course of her life working at the Haven Springs
record store, Rocky Mountain Record Traders, and its attached local radio station, KRCT. Even though it's set in 2018,
<i>Wavelengths</i> feels like the ultimate game for the pandemic lockdown era;
in the course of its three-to-four-ish-hour runtime you, as Steph, spend your
entire time in said radio station and record store. With the exception of the
ending cutscene, you see and interact with absolutely no-one in person, all of
your human contact occurring via phone calls, text messaging, dating apps and
a video chat. Time, lockdown and and budgetary limitations aside (it's a bit weird that you
never serve customers in the game), this is all strongly tied to the game's
central exploration of the self-perpetuating effects of loneliness and the
causes of self-destructive behaviour, as encapsulated in the character of Steph
and her tendency to run away from any situation in life which risks becoming too
serious, permanent, or intimate. I've heard it rumoured that at some point in the development there were going to be more face-to-face interactions and/or scenes outside the store and booth, but the lockdown made this impossible; if that's true, I don't think the game really suffered from lacking those elements, and is probably actually stronger as a result of it.<br /></div>
<p></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"></p>
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</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">On the surface, <i>Wavelengths</i> is your usual <i>Life is Strange</i> fare:
you wander around your environment, interact with objects to hear the player
character's thoughts on them, communicate with characters (in this case purely
electronically), solve simple puzzles and make choices which shape your
experience of the story. And yet in some respects <i>Wavelengths</i> really
invests in how this kind of gameplay evokes the experience of undertaking
routine, predictable tasks as you perform these actions in order for Steph to do
her job. This isn't exactly something new in video games, but it uses it to
really capture the slice-of-life element to which I referred in my opening. Ever
imagined what it would be like to run a local radio station? Well, a lot of it
involves queuing music, reading boring ad copy and sitting in a small room
waiting for time to pass.</div>
<p></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"></p>
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</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">I have to admit that <i>Wavelengths</i>, and Steph's presence in the main game,
were two of the things that motivated my interest in <i>True Colors</i>, and I
thought it was a sensible choice to take a beloved but relatively fringe
character from one of the spinoffs and elevate her to a bigger role. Being able
to actually play as Steph and get inside her head is better still, as the game
deliberately takes what we knew about her and complicates it.
<i>Before the Storm</i> presents her as an imaginative student, wise beyond her
years with a variety of interests and a big heart. <i>True Colors</i> presents
her as charismatic and confident, to the extent that I almost felt that the
Steph of <i>True Colors</i> was difficult to recognise as the same character
from <i>Before the Storm</i>. So <i>Wavelengths</i> really goes into examining
how Steph changed over the nine years between when those two games take place,
and how her struggles to deal with the experience of loss shaped her approach to
life.</div>
<p></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"></p>
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</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">Initially, I expected <i>Wavelengths</i> to just be a humorous "here are a few
days in the life of Steph" thing where you hung out at the radio station,
listened to indie music and said silly stuff on the air. But it actually goes
into a lot more than that about what it's like to feel unsure of yourself and
your life's direction, to push people away, and to carry around unresolved
grief. I really didn't expect this relatively short piece of DLC to have as much
emotional weight as it did, but I honestly found it quite powerful, perhaps
moreso than the main game, in which the central drama was so totally
foregrounded in the marketing.</div>
<p></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"></p>
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</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">A bit like <i>Before the Storm</i>'s "Farewell" DLC, <i>Wavelengths</i> differs
from the main game in that there's no mystery and the narrative is pushed
forward not by any kind of plot contrivance but rather by the characters' own
trajectory. In this case, it takes the shape of understanding why Steph is who
she is, in a way tied into the original <i>Life is Strange</i> (a game in which
Steph didn't actually feature, as she hadn't been invented yet when that game
was made). The game begins by asking if you've played the original, and if so
whether you chose to save the town or not. I've obviously played the original multiple times and chosen both endings at least once, but originally decided to go with the
"didn't save the town" (i.e., saved Chloe) ending, and I certainly did not
expect that to feature the way it did, with Steph in that decision's course of
events dealing with the death of her mother in the storm implicitly caused by
Max Caulfield's use of time travel in the original game. The second time I went with "saved the town", in which Steph's trauma is instead the murders of Rachel and Chloe.<br /></div>
<p></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"></p>
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</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">I think the first option I chose was a pretty clever move on the part of the developers because one
advantage the "Sacrifice Arcadia Bay" ending has always had is that it doesn't
really show you significant consequences for Max's choice. It's implied that
everyone in the town was killed (and <i>Life is Strange 2</i> confirmed that
very many of them were) but you never really saw the consequences of that unless
you played <i>Life is Strange 2</i> or now; here I was transposed from the shoes
of Max, sacrificing the town to save Chloe's life, in the original, to Steph's,
dealing for years afterwards with the thought of her mother having been killed
in the freak weather event of the original game.</div>
<p></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"></p>
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</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">As a way of exploring more from the original game's narrative I really think
this was a pretty decent move on Deck Nine's part, as you find Steph scared of
getting close to anyone for fear that she will lose them unexpectedly like she
did her mother (or Rachel and Chloe, but more on that below), and with even her friend Mikey from
<i>Before the Storm</i> being pushed away. We see via text message that Steph does socialise with Gabe, Ryan and Charlotte from <i>True Colors</i>, but by
setting the entire game inside the record store we get the sense that that's
where she spends a lot of her time, shut away from everyone, keeping them at a
distance, on the other side of the glass, caught between staying in Haven
Springs as part of some seemingly half-hearted effort to get a new start and
feeling the pull to again run away and do something new (which moving to Haven
seems to have been in the first place).</div>
<p></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"></p>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">Like all of the <i>Life is Strange</i> games it's testament to how well they
engage with a certain kind of player (like myself) that I can have so much to
say about a four hour piece of downloadable content, but the empathetic writing
and the simultaneous presentation of what seems like an escape from reality with
the less pleasant causes and consequences of that escape are more than powerful
enough to make the experience worth contemplating. <i>Wavelengths</i> succeeds
in this real-life stuff while also expanding upon what was only implicit in
<i>True Colors</i>, namely that Steph was flaky and tended to drift from place
to place, avoiding putting down roots. This explains why. And I wonder if this
was set out from the start, and is why we were given less stuff about
her backstory in the main game, or, if what I've heard is true, that the
decision for the DLC to be about Steph's life was made later in the game's
development, and that it's just a happy accident.</div>
<p></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i></i></p>
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<i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiEwFHVvX32-GXmpNiQvtz-Kv6hdGOq_tn6VR7gH92TR0FUYueD5l7txDRklffgPdCJMq9K1nFj1Rggqg7XKgZcSe3J6_pdSvPDTkLmgZNCsn8smBJsG-HqIXFJAOqXYSxGLSOd0pykF-N/s1920/20211007195200_1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiEwFHVvX32-GXmpNiQvtz-Kv6hdGOq_tn6VR7gH92TR0FUYueD5l7txDRklffgPdCJMq9K1nFj1Rggqg7XKgZcSe3J6_pdSvPDTkLmgZNCsn8smBJsG-HqIXFJAOqXYSxGLSOd0pykF-N/s320/20211007195200_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></i>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Wavelengths</i> takes place over four seasons, starting in Spring shortly
after Steph has decided to stay in Haven Springs and ending in winter on New
Year's Eve of 2018, a few months before Alex's arrival in the main game, which
is shown in the final cutscene. Each season is about thirty to sixty minutes of
gameplay depending on how slowly you choose to take them, as you're free to wander
around the record store, banter on the air and chat with the girls Steph
rather futilely matches with on a dating app. It's all pretty mundane stuff, but that's
what I'm here for. Spring is basically an intro to the radio station's
mechanics: playing and queuing records, answering the station phone, helping
people make decisions by rolling a D20 and reading ad copy, that Steph can
choose to either take seriously or mock. Summer starts building upon the game's
themes, with the last day of Pride Month causing Steph to reminisce about the
experience of growing up as a gay woman in the northwest of the USA. Autumn (or
Fall if you prefer) becomes much more somber, with a more direct representation
of the consequences of <i>Life is Strange</i> the first on Steph's life. I have
to say that the developers did a pretty good job here of demonstrating how the
events of the first game might have impacted a character who hadn't been
invented when the first game was developed, and I sure as hell felt bad for her. Finally, Winter concludes with Steph maybe finding a little solace after the
rather difficult feelings brought up by the previous season, although still
dwelling, appropriately, on the lonesome image of her popping champagne by
herself at midnight, alone in the record store.</div>
<p></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"></p>
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</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">I like to play <i>Life is Strange</i> games slowly, one chapter or episode a day
whenever I'm coming to one fresh or doing a replay, and while
<i>Wavelengths</i> realistically is too short for this to be a sensible approach
if you want a big hit of gameplay and/or of the character in one go, I did find
it to be quite evocative of the "nostalgic" experience of life that the series
has always captured so well, in which you know the ending is coming, and you
want to see it, but at the same time you don't want it to end. I felt pretty
deflated when <i>Wavelengths</i> did end, not because I didn't like it but
rather because I enjoyed my time as Steph and wanted more, just like I did with
<i>True Colors</i> proper. In fact, I think I probably enjoyed
<i>Wavelengths</i> more than the main game given its slice-of-life focus and
intensity of the kind of indie music that has always been so fundamental to the
franchise's atmosphere. Being able to actually queue up the records every season
and have them play in the background is great, and the official album or single
artwork for each release is even rendered in the series' distinctive
impressionist-watercolour art style. I would have liked more songs, especially
in Spring where the auto-DJ defaults to crappy country and western library
music, but I appreciate that that was kind of the point, and as the game goes on
and Steph customises the playlist further, the automatic music becomes much more
in keeping with her style.</div>
<p></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"></p>
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</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">Another significant feature of this DLC is the return of Steph's friend Mikey,
also from <i>Before the Storm</i>, with whom she plays tabletop RPGs, this time
over video chat, another pre-emptive retroactive nod to the years of lockdowns
and working from home. It's good to see the character return and he's used
effectively to demonstrate Steph's genuine and lasting friendships and how she
doesn't always need to run away. There are also very, <i>very</i> brief voice
cameos in Steph's recollections of Chloe and Rachel, both voiced by their
<i>Before the Storm</i> voice actors, but this is pretty perfunctory, not that I
really expected more. I think it's better to keep this stuff limited, especially
as Steph is a character retconned into the story by the prequel; this implies
that after <i>Before the Storm</i> she and Mikey would hang out with Chloe and
Rachel sometimes but seemingly left before Rachel disappeared (and, depending on
your choice, Chloe was murdered). It's a nice touch without going into too much
detail if you haven't played the original game. I think either way it works,
although the version in which she lost her mother to the storm is probably a
little more believable than the loss of two friends with whom, by the time of
the original game, she was presumably (had she been invented yet) no longer
closely in touch.</div>
<p></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"></p>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">I suppose <i>Wavelengths</i> gives <i>True Colors</i> the greater longevity and
development of its secondary characters that I thought it needed, but despite
featuring one of the same characters and taking place in part of the same
setting it almost feels more like a separate experience in its own right,
independent of the central game. I think it demonstrates a direction that the
series could continue on further, i.e. focusing more on the day-to-day and
exploring characters' lives in detail, and working that into a narrative in its
own right. In the event that Deck Nine makes another <i>Life is Strange</i> game
in a few years, I wouldn't object to it taking a healthy dose of inspiration
from <i>Wavelengths</i>. I've played it through twice now, and I feel that
there's probably still more optional dialogue I could unearth, but it kind of
feels melancholy to think that now I really, truly have completed
<i>True Colors</i>. I don't even want to finish writing this review because that means it's really over. <i>Life is Strange</i> is notorious for leaving its fans
with that feeling, and this is no exception. I return to the same question I
asked of <i>True Colors</i>: what do these games offer us that is missing in our
own lives? And would we really be happier if we could be like Steph, feeling
isolated and alone in a small-town radio station? What do
we actually want, and where do we want life to take us? If something like <i>Wavelengths</i> has so much appeal, I
think it speaks more powerfully than ever to the series' connection with the
desire for what is simply a more emotional life, and a more emotionally
experiential one, in which we can feel something, rather than just being.</div>
Robaneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18401996860805398644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383709889311355921.post-40861958015076227532021-09-23T04:07:00.008-07:002021-09-23T23:26:51.721-07:00"Life is Strange: True Colors"<div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXV-DYAnXE72Sda2s36vAKWxzzKXIynrDXY3Pubo3U-RDsXoZ8PmOPmj0QiPzzR29Vk61i87GUdAdtJp51yXXcl0IVD29SELQOgxubcdxSpOMTdysleuGetOon7NhLIuxbKOKPdwp1r84b/s1920/20210923210449_1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXV-DYAnXE72Sda2s36vAKWxzzKXIynrDXY3Pubo3U-RDsXoZ8PmOPmj0QiPzzR29Vk61i87GUdAdtJp51yXXcl0IVD29SELQOgxubcdxSpOMTdysleuGetOon7NhLIuxbKOKPdwp1r84b/s320/20210923210449_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Shouldn't it be "Life is Strange: True Colo<u>u</u>rs" in the PAL market?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Spoilers</b>, for the entire <i>Life is Strange</i> series, obviously. <br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAGYON4ClJBT2zIgGK6m1KuvuSM2lY78enAQlyyHOItn_i_bCrMJF2sboFTH9eAjpQeolCbdyXqHxlXBiz7a-wJHrxuGMur67CxZIRhct8m_8uO9VOaPy5LrlKuYcDzNuh4Xem7YJTCR-k/s1920/20210918184853_1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAGYON4ClJBT2zIgGK6m1KuvuSM2lY78enAQlyyHOItn_i_bCrMJF2sboFTH9eAjpQeolCbdyXqHxlXBiz7a-wJHrxuGMur67CxZIRhct8m_8uO9VOaPy5LrlKuYcDzNuh4Xem7YJTCR-k/s320/20210918184853_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Anyway, I've always intended to publish a review of the original <i>Life is Strange</i>, one of my favourite story games (or pieces of interactive fiction) of the last decade. Yes, there's very little challenging gameplay, and the ending feels a bit rushed, and some of the dialogue reads like what middle-aged French men think American teenage girls talk like, but it has great atmosphere, strong voice acting and likeable characters. Some people don't like Chloe and I always found Max more relatable, but ultimately I thought that <i>Life is Strange</i> was moving and a lot of fun. That being said, I completely understand the school of thought that says that a huge part of the game's appeal is that it's a kind of "emotional intimacy simulator" above anything else which is why it has such a cult following and weirdly large fanbase of adult men. Nonetheless, having played the first game and enjoyed it as much as I did, naturally I played the sequel (by the same developers) and the prequel (by different developers), and now it's time for <i>True Colors</i>, the not-quite-second-sequel, developed by the developers of the prequel and featuring one of their characters.</div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_ZBvypWTMQkOsWtZiitw6gf9AA4uxFFP-XuHf3WXTOa7YzSTk3KRV-A0zr2GXZFOcJYtKn0fzGW30CYYuCS9Hbw53Fss4eAGTzMLBTG1zfBhuRpWOyzi3pwnWfjP_HIcrel-krzB3dGYn/s1920/20210918210101_1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_ZBvypWTMQkOsWtZiitw6gf9AA4uxFFP-XuHf3WXTOa7YzSTk3KRV-A0zr2GXZFOcJYtKn0fzGW30CYYuCS9Hbw53Fss4eAGTzMLBTG1zfBhuRpWOyzi3pwnWfjP_HIcrel-krzB3dGYn/s320/20210918210101_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>True Colors</i>, developer Deck Nine's second foray into the <i>Life is Strange</i> franchise, has the same strengths that I think form a big part of the series' appeal overall: nice atmosphere, good voice acting, and strong characters. It also has the same problem that their previous entry, the prequel <i>Before the Storm</i>, had, namely that it feels a bit unfulfilled and leaves you wanting more, the latter not necessarily being a bad thing, but like <i>Before the Storm</i> it feels like it could have been bigger. It's almost certainly the nicest-looking of the series so far, although given the tiny budgets of the original game and <i>Before the Storm</i> that isn't too surprising, but I still think lighting, environment and music-wise the original game had the best atmosphere.</div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLL3-jHtDoKIVKNaxlb9FlnWcAng7z27g21w0ea4_KiWTR13hOpM3Mmsm2VIf5sbWC9CCyBhvDRjSka_sWYYfKtZnpmDtCVnrhViNN2ZpfjCTtXiBQ3Ze22-9QWO791MDKjVaeJu5cXO5j/s1920/20210918211336_1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLL3-jHtDoKIVKNaxlb9FlnWcAng7z27g21w0ea4_KiWTR13hOpM3Mmsm2VIf5sbWC9CCyBhvDRjSka_sWYYfKtZnpmDtCVnrhViNN2ZpfjCTtXiBQ3Ze22-9QWO791MDKjVaeJu5cXO5j/s320/20210918211336_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A lot of reviews I've read have already pointed out the same things that I was feeling about the game: that it looks nice, that the characters are good but it feels like we don't spend enough time with them, that the gameplay is pretty simplistic, that the twist is stupendously obvious and predictable, and that the game feels very eager to evoke the beloved original game. It certainly feels like the game is trying to be conspicuously unlike <i>Life is Strange 2</i>, with that game's child protagonists, rotating cast of secondary characters, and heavy representation of American racial politics. In <i>True Colors</i> you stay in one place, the small cast of supporting characters is entirely consistent from the first to the last chapter, you play as an adult and you can romance one of your friends. The most political message in the game is the uncontroversial "big ruthless mining corporations are bad". The community in which the game is set is very "liberal" as Americans like to put it, with a local marijuana dispensary and and seemingly a pretty clear acceptance of LGBTQIA people, but that seems to have finally reached the point in at least some parts of America where it's no longer questioned by the average person. You play as a young woman of Asian heritage, but this scarcely comes up; it's almost completely confined to the background. And all in all, for better or worse, it feels rather safe, not interested in evoking anything like the divisive second game.</div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuj2688J8X6OCEA2Mrf54yobP7IGr6-AhVFG_qDLSkgpfmsy69c5cfg-AZklsvc_P4n5SNrTlj6k6bPAl_RZ9qLgWlnR9e3Z3p65pNjXOQdn6iHYFGyTRb7WvLt7ykRQR9-jmNDPCWeJ79/s1920/20210918211457_1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuj2688J8X6OCEA2Mrf54yobP7IGr6-AhVFG_qDLSkgpfmsy69c5cfg-AZklsvc_P4n5SNrTlj6k6bPAl_RZ9qLgWlnR9e3Z3p65pNjXOQdn6iHYFGyTRb7WvLt7ykRQR9-jmNDPCWeJ79/s320/20210918211457_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And to focus on the negatives first, I think the biggest problem with <i>True Colors</i> is that it's trying to feel like <i>Life is Strange</i> the original, without that much of its own identity. You're a young woman who is an outsider but with connections in an atmospheric small town with a dark secret under the surface. There's a murder, and you try to investigate. One thing <i>True Colors</i> seems to try to expand upon is <i>Life is Strange</i>'s nascent theme of corporate greed and ruthlessness, the dangling plot thread of the original game's malevolent Prescott Foundation here replaced by the payoff-and-coverup-happy Typhon Mining Company. And the theme of governmental corruption is present here as it was in <i>Before the Storm</i> with the police and town council under the thumb of the criminally negligent corporation.</div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUb6VN3i9no42JiwD7026eEwXr2PBRQHwGASTw1a9u6QapCGyndZO-5nbShWjMBJ2vSzLQ2jzqhNEPixMjfXlZ6eqwmvIL3vWgsDW-KmMFeWXzWeBWgFpJKH3VYOFJBDHr4W3krZoj9VLI/s1920/20210918213413_1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUb6VN3i9no42JiwD7026eEwXr2PBRQHwGASTw1a9u6QapCGyndZO-5nbShWjMBJ2vSzLQ2jzqhNEPixMjfXlZ6eqwmvIL3vWgsDW-KmMFeWXzWeBWgFpJKH3VYOFJBDHr4W3krZoj9VLI/s320/20210918213413_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">All this probably wouldn't matter if it weren't for the fact that, as I've said, we just don't get to spend as much time with the characters as might be beneficial. To be fair, I don't have a huge amount of patience for long, story-driven games if I'm not engaged with the characters and story, and I rarely am, but the thing that has always separated <i>Life is Strange</i> from other narrative-heavy games in the market is that, apart from the element of one character typically having some kind of supernatural power, and some sort of mystery or crime to investigate, they're all fairly grounded in real-world slice-of-life stuff which, as a boring overeducated man in my thirties, I find entirely more interesting than fantasy and science fiction adventures.</div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNDHLu6zCTTkaL5DLcyjlELFWvoAKDW_x2BWOGsNZJPtow5apB6Vob6-tZFio7ERck4BPJ7Q6yA9ugpfJq3kqAZKUQffJs2-vHrBP5Px6Dd5Q51wu8eyneKe88iYMxVkWrfPQE3NdekD1Q/s1920/20210919133253_1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNDHLu6zCTTkaL5DLcyjlELFWvoAKDW_x2BWOGsNZJPtow5apB6Vob6-tZFio7ERck4BPJ7Q6yA9ugpfJq3kqAZKUQffJs2-vHrBP5Px6Dd5Q51wu8eyneKe88iYMxVkWrfPQE3NdekD1Q/s320/20210919133253_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>True Colors</i> at its best maintains this; some of the most enjoyable parts of the game, in my view, are simple things like showing the local bar proprietor that, despite your lack of experience, you've got what it takes to check on the regular patrons; or hanging out in your apartment playing foosball with your friends; or rocking out at the annual town festival. All of this stuff, along with an extended Live Action Roleplay sequence, are where the game really shines, and I can't help but find myself wondering whether a Life is Strange game really <i>needs</i> a central mystery (murder or otherwise) or even too much of a supernatural element. <i>Before the Storm</i> certainly downplayed the latter, with vague suggestions of Rachel Amber having some supernatural potency, and Chloe's intense and disturbing dreams, being the only intrusion of the otherworldly into a fairly grounded narrative. I find myself wondering whether <i>True Colors</i> would have been better if it had just been the story of Alex Chen's life in Haven Springs, Colorado, and what that was like after ten or more years in the foster care system.</div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1OaX3YIt8iO5b1UjpTjlcq6EMFMTLdgqyb7CJWh_bxYqAePsqOJl9E7GFPRJwmRHXSGk1iX-Uz0Oqny6G5UWHsrX5hYL1t2mSmOX0tgfRJl9KuTnUDAWQ6EL2DF0os7_9xpSmAvZhJXX5/s1920/20210919132842_1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1OaX3YIt8iO5b1UjpTjlcq6EMFMTLdgqyb7CJWh_bxYqAePsqOJl9E7GFPRJwmRHXSGk1iX-Uz0Oqny6G5UWHsrX5hYL1t2mSmOX0tgfRJl9KuTnUDAWQ6EL2DF0os7_9xpSmAvZhJXX5/s320/20210919132842_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">That brings us to the details of the game proper, which I've avoided going in depth with in my ruminations to this point, namely that in the game you play as Alex Chen, orphan and supernatural empath, who is reunited with her brother Gabe after eight years of separation, in the paradisal town of Haven Springs, Colorado. Gabe has lived in the town for a few years while growing up and trying to find Alex; he spent years in juvenile detention after stealing a car in his teens, which caused them to be separated. On Alex's first day in town, however, Gabe is killed in a landslide caused by mining blasting while they're trying to rescue his girlfriend's son, Ethan, and Alex spends the remainder of the game trying to determine why the blasting happened even after Gabe had called in to stop the detonation.</div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjijpehpHgQixJKHaVQl_DNZDOgIiDU2xSjvFy1KbaKqFZabsyvYCspnjW_eMCrfQH8EXTsdxN2MigFsX9XZQJTJlVUpwGhDCh9ntd_WqZTX3e9IdWMV5gD9AyPmDeA9KLAD3-ufihEhwQb/s1920/20210920174343_1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjijpehpHgQixJKHaVQl_DNZDOgIiDU2xSjvFy1KbaKqFZabsyvYCspnjW_eMCrfQH8EXTsdxN2MigFsX9XZQJTJlVUpwGhDCh9ntd_WqZTX3e9IdWMV5gD9AyPmDeA9KLAD3-ufihEhwQb/s320/20210920174343_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The problem with all this is that it's very predictable. And a story doesn't have to surprise me to be good; of course not. But the fact is that yes, the mining corporation was negligent, because they were desperate to cover up another accident that happened twelve years prior before the inspectors arrive, an accident which involved your (and formerly Gabe's) boss/landlord, town hero Jed Lucan, who was blatantly obvious even from the first trailer of the game as being the main culprit. When I played the original <i>Life is Strange</i>, as predictable as it is in hindsight, I was completely blindsided by the revelation that the affable but allegedly somewhat unprofessional photography teacher Mark Jefferson was the true villain, to the extent that I recall audibly saying "Oh, shit," when he was revealed at the end of the penultimate episode as the culprit. With this in mind, it was all too obvious starting <i>True Colors</i> that Jed was in a similar position to Jefferson: the seemingly trustworthy, warm, welcoming figure who turns out to have a dark secret made all the more obvious by how personable and nice they are. And I kept saying, out loud, as I was playing, "There was a mining accident," "Jed is the real killer", "Jed's behind it", and of course I turned out to more or less be right.</div><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqdq94bRjxK6c6TpitsHCb3wsNVLG_6iQELA31FMot719m1O24LTZ_rR0ka9eNnPc4bCRMWQS_yhXAJYsTQkqrAYsvPmOu6O7wFOWp0JoG_YuHFECG6UVNPb83x4REKS60t2ReE35l2LXs/s1920/20210919205623_1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqdq94bRjxK6c6TpitsHCb3wsNVLG_6iQELA31FMot719m1O24LTZ_rR0ka9eNnPc4bCRMWQS_yhXAJYsTQkqrAYsvPmOu6O7wFOWp0JoG_YuHFECG6UVNPb83x4REKS60t2ReE35l2LXs/s320/20210919205623_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>The reason I spell all these spoilers out is not to rag on the game, because I still really enjoyed it. The problem is that I think we needed more of this "normal life" stuff and less of the mystery, because, and I hate to say it, it's not that interesting. Arguably, Alex needs closure over why Gabe was killed, but other than that it's not particularly intriguing. It's already clear that the mining company is negligent and desperate to present itself as a positive force in the community despite that. The game shows us, as others have pointed out, images of things like Alex spending time with her new friends Steph and Ryan (Steph having been a fan favourite side character in <i>Before the Storm</i>) and other goings-on around town, and like many others I found myself wishing that I'd had the opportunity to see those moments rather than focusing, as episode two does for instance, on the investigation into the misdeeds of Typhon. Maybe that would have turned the game, as some have argued, into a "dating sim", but who cares? Even though probably the main theme of the games tends to be about what motivates us to use power, and what is really meant by the idea of using power "for good", I think the appeal of <i>Life is Strange</i> has almost always been its atmosphere and representation of real life relationships to a much greater extent than the mysteries. That being said, I understand that in the past, when <i>Life is Strange</i> games were released episodically, there was much fan speculation about what was going to happen next in the plot, which drove enthusiasm for the series; I only came to it after the original, the sequel and the prequel were all fully released, and thus I was able to play them all sequentially without waiting. So that's never been something I've expected of the series, and in any event it seems like players are almost always disappointed when they spend months speculating and the plot resolution typically ends up being something a lot less intricate and grandiose than they were anticipating.</div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIriEOhUhKO0QDY5l2H1WUbCpycyfhZGrlmjThd82v6x7wpbFdhhiRBcR2PWunFKa26FjYea_OMdj1rOyCNCNpBL9VugaX17PDrpAkCK2BMSw3UwHOOGlrwbQlEZBuXZH0bplh94gQLW5t/s1920/20210919140152_1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIriEOhUhKO0QDY5l2H1WUbCpycyfhZGrlmjThd82v6x7wpbFdhhiRBcR2PWunFKa26FjYea_OMdj1rOyCNCNpBL9VugaX17PDrpAkCK2BMSw3UwHOOGlrwbQlEZBuXZH0bplh94gQLW5t/s320/20210919140152_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"> It feels like much of the filling-in about character backstories is
fleshed out through unlockable diary entries linked to the collectible
character memories, which, as I elaborate upon further below, I didn't
even realise were in the game until near the end of my second
playthrough. I knew the memories were recorded, but not that you could
click on them to get diary entries about them. I wonder if this was intended to be in the game proper but they didn't have the time or money to do cutscenes or interactive sequences for them, or if they were always intended to simply sit in the background because the developers couldn't figure out how to fit them into the game. <br /></div><div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicKMyBTXSXz6Vi3E_-gSpWahDU21NQzXHfqnMglVVM7-CwHwORmb50y1Og3dqKX2pHKEg0mjrbgATbTGjO4B0r17Vm6l12YMRREDqbwFaYBlvzm8UcRhW-1irNuHARKsqOAkfn2JBAvFNE/s1920/20210920122653_1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicKMyBTXSXz6Vi3E_-gSpWahDU21NQzXHfqnMglVVM7-CwHwORmb50y1Og3dqKX2pHKEg0mjrbgATbTGjO4B0r17Vm6l12YMRREDqbwFaYBlvzm8UcRhW-1irNuHARKsqOAkfn2JBAvFNE/s320/20210920122653_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>True Colors</i> also sells itself, as so many modern adventure games in the interactive fiction mold do now, of having "choices"; it's always been the complaint that in <i>Life is Strange</i> the choices that you make don't really shape the plot much, they just sort of affect your relationships with the game's characters to a certain extent. And I think that's fine because back in the original <i>Life is Strange</i> I felt that your inability to really shape events beyond your relationships with the characters was kind of the point; Max could change time, but she couldn't change people, only exploit her abilities to manipulate them in a way about which she clearly feels guilty. But that's the thing; <i>Life is Strange</i> the first's mechanic was time travel, an element which none of the subsequent games have had. So there's no reason in subsequent games for player choice to be such a big deal. In the original the whole point was you could agitate over your choices depending on what you thought was the best outcome, second guess yourself and revert them, only for the game to show you that it often didn't really matter, or that often there was no "good" outcome, just one set of consequences or another, and that the only real power Max needed was the ability to accept the consequences of her decisions.</div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdv5y0htHv1mp5yTbWa8hNR_aesGJrA7Svp23WK6QsQ6NOLjRnQd1QtGaA6kxwyDvIs0Ghmw3X-GSCiG7qhPufrCfMfgXjdPNMhvd6HtOOGmmC62xI5wAES83Bt7QyArpdYvHu5xxUZ6PB/s1920/20210920174502_1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdv5y0htHv1mp5yTbWa8hNR_aesGJrA7Svp23WK6QsQ6NOLjRnQd1QtGaA6kxwyDvIs0Ghmw3X-GSCiG7qhPufrCfMfgXjdPNMhvd6HtOOGmmC62xI5wAES83Bt7QyArpdYvHu5xxUZ6PB/s320/20210920174502_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In <i>True Colors</i>, Alex's power is that she can see and experience the emotions of others, to the extent that if they're felt strongly enough she's effectively able to read their thoughts, and become overwhelmed by other people's feelings. Obviously, a bit like Max's ability to see what the consequences of her decisions will be and then go back, Alex's ability to clearly identify what others are feeling and why potentially gives her the power to manipulate people. And yet one of my most satisfying parts of the game was when I was offered the choice to either take away the overwhelming anger of Gabe's grieving girlfriend Charlotte or leave her to deal with her grief, and of course I chose the latter, because it seemed to me that is was neither Alex's responsibility nor her right to take Charlotte's feelings away from her. That was a choice that I felt made sense because it related to how Alex used her powers. It seemed to be saying that often the best way to use power is to not use it at all. On the other hand, taking Deputy Pike's fear away from him in the fourth chapter works out for the best; is it supposed to be that his fear is holding him back, while Charlotte's anger is a necessary part of her grief? I'm unsure. In any event, at many other times the "important" choices aren't related to this and seem like they'd fit more in the original time-travel-driven storytelling of the first <i>Life is Strange</i>, because they didn't tie into Alex's power. <i>Life is Strange 2</i>, by contrast, worked in having choices because it so substantially affected the relationship between Sean and Daniel. The choices in <i>Before the Storm</i> always felt the most pointless to me because we know ultimately that they won't avert anything that happens in the original game. But the idea of a game about "player choice" and its consequences still seems so tied to the original game's grounding in time travel that it seems to be presented as an important gameplay mechanic and narrative device in all subsequent games, including this one, simply because "that's what <i>Life is Strange</i> games have" and not because it tied into the first game's wider themes and techniques. And I can't hold Deck Nine, developers of <i>True Colors</i> and <i>Before the Storm</i>, solely guilty of this, because Dontnod did it too in <i>Life is Strange 2</i>, and they were the developers of the original game. The artifice is particularly obvious in this game which, unlike all of the three previous, was released in one go, with the effect that the chapter divisions, featuring a page comparing the player's choices to that of others as a percentage, feels arbitrary, and almost like the game was divided up into five chapters simply because "<i>Life is Strange</i> games are in five bits with a choice breakdown at the end of each" even though this game didn't have an episodic release schedule.<br /></div></div><div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_F2DtWoiNa0FVmr6fDfYxfuL9dv5PtlkGFwOgiCJnXGWPcPo0Ohrnfn9cgkVj2pTjZxCi14GymakVCoye9jT8feBBR2sWFQpmdJMfMFxb1Nte8zlvxmqw78pEpkxdyCmhpHkGvz_QAi4R/s1920/20210919151437_1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_F2DtWoiNa0FVmr6fDfYxfuL9dv5PtlkGFwOgiCJnXGWPcPo0Ohrnfn9cgkVj2pTjZxCi14GymakVCoye9jT8feBBR2sWFQpmdJMfMFxb1Nte8zlvxmqw78pEpkxdyCmhpHkGvz_QAi4R/s320/20210919151437_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And given that <i>True Colors</i> is notionally about our experience of
emotions (fear, sadness, anger, joy), it feels like the game could have spent less time worrying about consequences (something far more relevant to the time-travelling Max of the original <i>Life is Strange</i> than the emotion-reading Alex) and
done a lot more with exploring how our emotions define us; why is it
okay for us to take Pike's fear but not Charlotte's grief? To what extent does Alex potentially manipulate Ryan or Steph into developing feelings for her by reading their emotions and then knowing exactly what to say (something Max's doppelganger accuses Max of doing through time travel in the first game, incidentally)? The idea that
Jed is so in denial about what he did during the mining accident that
his emotions are buried beneath Alex's notice is interesting, but worth
exploring to a much greater extent. What's the connection between emotion and thought? There's a lot more that could be
done here, and given that the <i>Life is Strange</i> series has thus far not
shown an interest in direct sequels, it's a shame that we presumably
won't see Alex's story explored further. <br /></div></div><div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZszJAoxOOzOywfXBdeyykXRRXxf-F98R7HSrBs9v_6ZYB2aap6YnaB0Z4aJKii1E96i1xIL7WsBHqIeFNTgYADv8PslsY-UHs0RrTujgNetpri8n2cpBgK8LYlPk0LfaeMDor16cKLlo_/s1920/20210919144613_1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZszJAoxOOzOywfXBdeyykXRRXxf-F98R7HSrBs9v_6ZYB2aap6YnaB0Z4aJKii1E96i1xIL7WsBHqIeFNTgYADv8PslsY-UHs0RrTujgNetpri8n2cpBgK8LYlPk0LfaeMDor16cKLlo_/s320/20210919144613_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Once again all of this just seems like I'm ragging on <i>True Colors</i> or that I didn't like it, which isn't the case; rather, I'm frustrated, because I feel like this is a game with so much potential that just doesn't get completely fulfilled. As I've said, visually, the game is very impressive, the voice acting is top notch and the characters are really enjoyable to watch. As someone who essentially likes <i>Before the Storm</i> despite its numerous flaws, I was pleased to see the return of fan-favourite character Steph from that game and to see her used in a more substantial way. The other main supporting character, Ryan, is well-acted too, although I didn't connect with him as much after the first episode. Sometimes the consequences for the game's mandatory plot elements feel refreshingly realistic, like when Alex steals corporate data in Chapter 3 and then, appropriately, gets arrested for it at the end of Chapter 4. And I was also pleased to see that the game, as other recent-ish narrative games like <i>Night in the Woods</i> did, has games-within-games, for that element of skill-based challenge which these no-lose story-driven adventure games of the modern type (i.e. without inventory puzzles) otherwise usually lack.</div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9GwVBWcrXpHt2BvVObFW8urnXDoyxPxMK6RUSwd8VwBES-DAgLWSgLx4w3pdhnBJ3dhpIkdXwu4eJ5c7Ay47zwP4Wes_JIS6jYFdTChL_n3c-XGPZPUUwbq6y1nsCrBtuXqIEgMPUMZqe/s1920/20210919150251_1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9GwVBWcrXpHt2BvVObFW8urnXDoyxPxMK6RUSwd8VwBES-DAgLWSgLx4w3pdhnBJ3dhpIkdXwu4eJ5c7Ay47zwP4Wes_JIS6jYFdTChL_n3c-XGPZPUUwbq6y1nsCrBtuXqIEgMPUMZqe/s320/20210919150251_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I think the best parts of the game are when you're wandering around Alex's apartment above the bar and walking through the town of Haven Springs proper, getting to know the various residents and helping them out. Another standout moment is in the third chapter in which you cheer up Ethan by going LARPing with him, a logical extension of the amusing tabletop roleplaying segments in <i>Before the Storm</i>. A similar enjoyable sequence is when Alex and Steph perform the Violent Femmes' "Blister in the Sun", as overplayed as it is, at the Spring Festival, because this is the stuff that the appeal of these games is made of, just like iconic scenes from the first game such as Max reminiscing at Chloe's house. That's what makes <i>Life is Strange</i> memorable, and this game certainly has its share. If only there were more.</div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUwYZ6CZRfSPDl6odS2trWvirWhI8X1bT0SoE7FKj4Uyyy0jzhL2IeJfkQlHghwCGN5dFFl9NI4h1D_i8FIEWLcXMYS4cBsSXYZp6sqfNFgqc-giohn1NquGxR1SMNEbxvxqUffv9ResoT/s1920/20210919181715_1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUwYZ6CZRfSPDl6odS2trWvirWhI8X1bT0SoE7FKj4Uyyy0jzhL2IeJfkQlHghwCGN5dFFl9NI4h1D_i8FIEWLcXMYS4cBsSXYZp6sqfNFgqc-giohn1NquGxR1SMNEbxvxqUffv9ResoT/s320/20210919181715_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">One thing I noticed about this game is that it's arguably less surreal than the original or <i>Before the Storm</i>; its dream sequences, for instance, are much more like Sean's dreams about his father in <i>Life is Strange 2</i>, as Alex recalls her childhood and speaks to Gabe as if he were still alive. They're much more conventional than Chloe's bizarre and disturbing nightmares about her late father in <i>Before the Storm</i>, or the Lynchian dream sequence in the final episode of the original <i>Life is Strange</i>. That being said, another appealing moment was in the final chapter of the game in which Alex dreams that she's back in her psychiatrist's office from the beginning of the game, only for it to be revealed that the psychiatrist is just a tape recorder sitting in an empty office chair. There's also the amusing sequence in which, while LARPing with Ethan and tapping into his emotions, Alex sees the world through the eyes of a child's imagination, and they really are fantasy heroes on a quest in a magical land and not just running around the park wearing silly hats. I could have done with more moments like this in which the artifice of the world, reflective of the extent to which the mining company has clearly tried very intentionally to turn the town into an idyllic refuge, is made clear. The exploration in the final chapter of Alex's childhood is quite harrowing, but I think, as others have suggested, it might have worked better had those moments been interspersed throughout the game. I think it's very easy to miss, for instance, that it's implied as early as the first chapter that Gabe originally came to Haven Springs looking for their father, and that it's not pure coincidence, as it seemed to me at the time, that the late John Chen met his end in the very mining accident for which Jed was responsible. In fact, this is outright stated early in the game, but only in Riley's online memorial post for Gabe, and in the diary entries connected to Alex's unlockable memories which I only realised even existed as readable content at the end of my second playthrough. Anyway, In particular, I think the use of these dream sequences is a bit anticlimactic because the one about Alex's mother's death is captured much more neatly in the optional dialogue about the photograph in the first chapter of the game, and that the stuff about Alex's life in the orphanage, the climax of the dream sequence, is all stuff we already know if we've bothered to read the game's flavour text, i.e. that Alex was moved into foster care multiple times but always ended up back in the group home. Incidentally, I don't know how the foster care system works in the USA, but is it really realistic that Alex is <i>still</i> living in the group home at the age of 21? Don't people become adults at 18 in the States? Wouldn't she have been moved on? Anyway, it feels to me like the only really essential part of the flashback sequence is the scene revealing that Alex and Gabe were actually abandoned by their father, and that the rest was a little overdone.</div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGAeVXkoWmAaa-90SfsiFiEDcxECrGCCCV_lJ8oxPUf6wWahLNKCWGTHdWHaw5zZRIQq1bysn4Pa9zDlgk177fht_mKsO0eDvkjBWVSYbUD30gXgigVFJf70Lc7iVL9yp8yoxNnpx9d5RK/s1920/20210923204449_1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGAeVXkoWmAaa-90SfsiFiEDcxECrGCCCV_lJ8oxPUf6wWahLNKCWGTHdWHaw5zZRIQq1bysn4Pa9zDlgk177fht_mKsO0eDvkjBWVSYbUD30gXgigVFJf70Lc7iVL9yp8yoxNnpx9d5RK/s320/20210923204449_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This discourse is becoming very long, so let's finally talk about endings. <i>Life is Strange</i> had two endings. <i>Before the Storm</i> really only had one with very minor differences depending on your final choice, but that was arguably appropriate given that it was a prequel. <i>Life is Strange 2</i> had multiple endings depending on how the player had driven Sean's relationship with Daniel; I must admit that when I played it I got an ending I didn't expect (Daniel helped Sean escape to Mexico and then turned himself in to the authorities). In any event, I could see that <i>True Colors</i> was going to go the way of having a fairly unambiguously happy ending (although I kind of wondered if the game was going to pull the rug out from under me at the last minute, but it didn't). It all depends on whether you choose to stay in Haven Springs or leave, and if you chose to be with Steph, Ryan or neither. In my first playthrough, being the <i>Before the Storm</i> apologist that I am, I naturally chose to get close to Steph throughout the game and, given that I didn't think Alex would much fancy living in the town where both her father and brother had been killed, at the end she and Steph left for a life of adventure. Seemed sensible enough. The only shortcoming was that Ryan was left alone, but given that I didn't connect with him that much anyway I didn't see that as too great a loss. So the ending felt a little insignificant. In my second play-through, I chose to stay in Haven (still with Steph) and there wasn't much more to see than what Gabe's memory describes to you in the flash-forward you see before the choice is offered. Even though you can fail to convince the local community that Jed tried to kill you, you can't fail to cause Jed to confess, which seemed really odd to me, because this is something that does actually relate to how the game explores emotions, with Alex unpacking all of Jed's feelings about the accident. So at the end of the day, the conspiracy between Jed and Typhon is revealed and justice is more or less served. At least Steph sticks up for you no matter what. It kind of feels like the <i>True Colors</i> developers, having had such success with the fans with Steph in <i>Before the Storm</i>, didn't want you to ever see her in a bad light, but as I've said I don't think choices ever actually need to be that important in the game except where they relate to the game's central premise, so I thought that was fine.</div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidkRWi_8mbqXNqxhOeDqfwjKBO2uptjbLj615-rMIcMYbO8CYSNO-rp6gqCiz1sbBeu_U2EmeN5xr3wL7g2vlX4RK3lrqQ3Cyvmh-2BeXBmnijIynhuyim8i5QdclP2Lv_eHsBIJeTV3HJ/s1920/20210919204540_1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidkRWi_8mbqXNqxhOeDqfwjKBO2uptjbLj615-rMIcMYbO8CYSNO-rp6gqCiz1sbBeu_U2EmeN5xr3wL7g2vlX4RK3lrqQ3Cyvmh-2BeXBmnijIynhuyim8i5QdclP2Lv_eHsBIJeTV3HJ/s320/20210919204540_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But I'm left at the end of this thinking: what is it that <i>Life is Strange</i> games offer their fans and is that what they set out to achieve? Are they intended to be mystery dramas offering some kind of meditation on the consequences of our choices and how we manage and utilise anything about ourselves that might be extraordinary? Or are they slice-of-life emotional intimacy simulators that appeal because so many of us are so starved for, or unable to see, the depth and beauty that might exist in our real lives? And is the former what their developers want them to be, while the latter is what they've become? Is it really the fault of the game if it leaves us with a sense of longing because for a little while it was so good at allowing us to pretend that we were another person with a stranger (and more emotionally connected) life than our own? Surely in that regard it's a success.<br /></div></div><div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4Ht3fvk6j3ioHsOH9wqmTZLXyFvvEDDwtR8C92qChRHuBSXKGVpFubjVmFOgvJUONr1d-t_6ErnRor-O2BnE9oKPfmzVzhRmlMCYNsmKjBt8xn2vIui_LEK_2MLGw_-7mVdV_jVtPYpHU/s1920/20210923205354_1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4Ht3fvk6j3ioHsOH9wqmTZLXyFvvEDDwtR8C92qChRHuBSXKGVpFubjVmFOgvJUONr1d-t_6ErnRor-O2BnE9oKPfmzVzhRmlMCYNsmKjBt8xn2vIui_LEK_2MLGw_-7mVdV_jVtPYpHU/s320/20210923205354_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Indeed, I suppose it's testament to my appreciation of <i>True Colors</i> that the first thing I did after finishing it was to play it again; you can easily get close to thirty hours of gameplay out of two complete run-throughs if you take your time, and given how much dialogue there is that can only be seen on one play-through or another this definitely pays off. That was more or less what I did with both the original <i>Life is Strange</i> and <i>Before the Storm</i> as well, although I've only played <i>Life is Strange 2</i> through once; I found it too dark to want to repeat. The game almost certainly <i>is</i> too expensive for the amount of "content" in it, and the fact that the Steph DLC (unreleased at time of writing) requires an additional payment. But while I don't expect a <i>Life is Strange</i> game to offer the "40 hours of gameplay" that seems to have become de rigueur among a lot of AAA video game players, I do wonder if it's time for the franchise to step up into a more 25-ish hour base game experience with more of the slice-of-life stuff that clearly a very large part of its target market is in for. I don't know, really. A lot of story-based games aren't actually that long. Is <i>True Colors</i> really as short as people are saying, or does time just fly when you're getting to pretend that you have feelings?<br /></div></div><div><p></p></div>Robaneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18401996860805398644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383709889311355921.post-63817153602557177382021-03-22T04:09:00.010-07:002021-05-08T18:27:58.315-07:00Thoughts after a history symposium<div style="text-align: justify;">One accidental benefit of the tragic and in many cases avoidable circumstances which have resulted in large portions of the world being obliged to work from home in 2020-21 is that conferences and academic symposia have moved online and thus become easy to attend from the comfort of one's own home. I myself am presenting at a couple of literary conferences in mid-2021, one of which I most likely would not have been able to attend had this situation not arisen. And I was very fortunately, as far as time differences allowed, able to attend a free history symposium over the weekend of 18th-21st March hosted by the University of Louisiana. I'm not a historian; I have a PhD, but in English literature. I've never studied history at a tertiary level, and only get involved in it as a hobby. As such I was very glad that the hosts of the conference "Napoleon and his Legacy: Warfare, Politics and Society" made attendance so easy.</div><p style="text-align: justify;">I was initially attending to see the roundtable discussion of podcasters who specialise in the Napoleonic Wars, fan that I am of Everett Rummage's <a href="https://twitter.com/AgeofNapoleon/">Age of Napoleon podcast</a>. And yet the two other sessions I was able to attend in full given the time difference, and which particularly interested me, were the opening and closing keynotes given by Professor Michael Broers and Professor Emeritus Charles Esdaile respectively.<br /><br />I don't make much of a show of my interest in European, and particularly Napoleonic, history on this blog because it's rarely terribly relevant. Of the two academics in question, I only own one book by Broers, <i>Europe under Napoleon</i>, and one by Esdaile, <i>Napoleon, France and Waterloo</i>. I believe that Broers has something of a reputation as a Napoleon enthusiast, not just of the era but of the man himself; in the <a href="https://openlettersreview.com/posts/napoleon-the-spirit-of-the-age-1805-1810-by-michael-broers">Open Letters Review</a>, Steve Donoghue accuses Broers of engaging in "damage-control for the pestiferous little Corsican" in the second volume of Broers' work of Napoleonic biography, <i>The Spirit of the Age</i>. Esdaile has a reputation very much on the opposite side, with none other than political-strongman apologist Andrew Roberts <a href="https://literaryreview.co.uk/the-emperor-of-spin">referring</a> to Esdaile's work <i>Napoleon's Wars: An International History</i> as "the Case for the Prosecution".<br /><br />Professor Esdaile's closing address in particular attracted considerable discussion, as those who do not cast Bonaparte in a favourable light often do. The usual questions were asked of why he was so intent on criticising Napoleon. Yet the answer is perfectly clear. For those unfamiliar with it, Bonaparte was, for all of his alleged military and administrative genius, a particular expert at PR and propaganda, making himself appear not only particularly gifted, competent and fair in general, but also personally responsible for numerous achievements which are either exaggerated or were largely the work of other people.<br /><br />Putting aside the issue of his personal achievements and any other qualities like his supposedly enormous energy, (sometimes) charming personality and reformist approach, it is fairly clear, deep down, why Napoleon appeals: he won a lot of battles. He made a number of pithy remarks. He adopted a unique and distinctive aesthetic. Furthermore, he positioned himself, and was positioned by others, as the "fun" and exciting rebel opposed to both the French aristocracy, pampered, decadent and foolish, and the British, who can easily be portrayed as the boring, fusty establishment — while also ruthlessly expansionist — sitting on the sidelines for much of the era paying (or pretending to pay) other countries to fight France on their behalf. It's little wonder that for years after his death, French political activists, often young liberal-minded students who had never lived under his authoritarian regime and would probably have opposed it if they had, would, in times of turmoil, call out "Vive l'Empereur!" and dress up as him to protest and riot. Napoleon doesn't represent oppression, conscription, taxation, broad governmental power, soldiers thrown into the meat grinder of terrible battles like Borodino or Waterloo. He is two fingers up to the regime in power.<br /><br />I don't think Napoleon was a particularly nice person (in fact I think he often comes across as self-absorbed and tiresome, and his "friends" and associates probably walked on eggshells around him), and I think above all his greatest crimes are the thousands of pointless deaths of soldiers that must be laid at his feet, just as much as they may have equally been the responsibility of other European potentates who refused to let his empire become hegemonic in Europe. This, of course, is in addition to the sexism he institutionalised in the Civil Code, the racist policies and colonial atrocities for which he and his administration were responsible, and his fundamentally anti-democratic subversion of the popular will in his usurpation and centralisation of power within himself. And even if it is true (which it may or may not be) that he may have been no worse than other political and military figures of his time, and even if we are for some reason inclined to overlook or justify all the death, misery and oppression originating from him, Napoleon may be interesting, sometimes even funny in his ridiculous pomposity just as, at times, he seems remarkable in drive and strength of will. But I do not think that he was an especially extraordinary man except insofar as he was extraordinary in his capacity to make himself appear extraordinary. If the Napoleonic Wars were, as their name and some of their causes suggest, about making war against Napoleon himself just as much as they were about determining the balance of power in Europe after the French Revolution, then they were finally won, six years after Waterloo, on St Helena, where Napoleon, in the instant of his death (and as a consequence of much reputation-management beforehand) transformed into the very genius he wished for people to think of himself as by virtue of the lasting, often quite absurd, legend that arose around him. The British did the worst thing they could have possibly done by imprisoning him in such a remote and inhospitable place. Rather than defanging him, they proved to the world that he was so dangerous, and therefore in the eyes of many so incredibly formidable, that he had to be sent far away so as to do no harm. The British made him "great", far more than he did himself.<br /><br />This is, I think, the argument that Esdaile was making at the symposium I attended, or at least it's the idea that many Napoleonic scholars and historians seem to miss; that one must be very suspicious of all "facts" to see where the truth really lies. Napoleon is only one example, but a particularly good one due to the enormous extent to which he, his supporters, and historical writing, have most likely transformed him into something he was not. It seems unscientific to allow a man whose entire goal was to make himself look good get away with it simply because, as a result of what he may represent, people want to let him do it.<br /></p>Robaneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18401996860805398644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383709889311355921.post-35077405404648639482020-12-20T21:05:00.011-08:002021-01-23T06:14:43.377-08:00"The Mandalorian" Season 2<div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXxK3trwENcJj2zXi_gwhHDmb5uKpQzKF4bKz3OovlUYIDabRDNwmS4Ebv1e0MDhqvaApzpmZ1HAu21hF-Z3ygNj3Y3XQPsjZhiNR9uk9PmT0SgM-8BcpuMXM52tI4DspQGjuPIZazZF0g/s1920/1.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXxK3trwENcJj2zXi_gwhHDmb5uKpQzKF4bKz3OovlUYIDabRDNwmS4Ebv1e0MDhqvaApzpmZ1HAu21hF-Z3ygNj3Y3XQPsjZhiNR9uk9PmT0SgM-8BcpuMXM52tI4DspQGjuPIZazZF0g/s320/1.png" width="320" /></a></div> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj077r68xc5F34X3o6el70tUp-A_-EqZGAcjFJ16DW0afUHhThyXdlCTEbDpjj5oBnI3EV9XkTSQqoPPGl6cwhFtdUSkMFnBDZwJ7n6O7n36b-Usri9CuiwWa-RmbVuAobfU2tHgM8DqK6R/s1920/2.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj077r68xc5F34X3o6el70tUp-A_-EqZGAcjFJ16DW0afUHhThyXdlCTEbDpjj5oBnI3EV9XkTSQqoPPGl6cwhFtdUSkMFnBDZwJ7n6O7n36b-Usri9CuiwWa-RmbVuAobfU2tHgM8DqK6R/s320/2.png" width="320" /></a></div>Imagine if the Sequel Trilogy had had a sensible release schedule (i.e. one every three years, as was done with the Originals and even the Prequels) and in late 2020 we were still a year away from Episode IX, or perhaps even two years if Michael Arndt had been given the time he needed for his original Episode VII script. Instead the Sequel Trilogy is done, and increasingly feels like ancient history, and the fresh hot new Star Wars content we got was the second season of <i>The Mandalorian</i>, i.e. the one where they went completely the other way from the first season and inserted tonnes of shit we already knew.</div><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPiqqb5ShEiXz7xipGs7pjy_OJjtLjZcE8An7mzw-aJc1XnJQLfGD8JkU5n9J3JsTVby4CjCVMBcTarQu_poOhVNQYTwyFEIKSHbKXsuHAafN5VqbjmV9t7jcHB_5M4jAFgySgC7Lnvu2g/s1920/3.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPiqqb5ShEiXz7xipGs7pjy_OJjtLjZcE8An7mzw-aJc1XnJQLfGD8JkU5n9J3JsTVby4CjCVMBcTarQu_poOhVNQYTwyFEIKSHbKXsuHAafN5VqbjmV9t7jcHB_5M4jAFgySgC7Lnvu2g/s320/3.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I won't get ahead of myself. I was reasonably excited for the new season of <i>The Mandalorian</i>. Season one was solid, simple fun. It wasn't the most dramatically groundbreaking storytelling of all time, but it was well-acted, benefited from solid writing, and actually did push visual boundaries in its use of the Stagecraft virtual set technology, which allowed the show to take place in lavish sci-fi environments while looking considerably more real than any green screen could. As I said in my first impressions article, the biggest strength of the first season was probably the writing/production/directing talent behind it, with Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni, and many of those with whom they worked, having backgrounds in family and/or children's entertainment, leading to a tone and style of storytelling more appropriate to Star Wars than a lot of what we got in the Sequels.</div><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGjnrN5P9UXqEZ-ep7mPaYZzpVeHwV_9_n-VdqDLAbkBFn2K0LBQ6mau4cbG9u1JIa0LcmvZVRo6NVnMDlAR6SPk3wrZWQ7aooL1FXAEBosiCiS0xKTxYFqrh0__MElBtpxbUpH2RApAza/s1920/4.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGjnrN5P9UXqEZ-ep7mPaYZzpVeHwV_9_n-VdqDLAbkBFn2K0LBQ6mau4cbG9u1JIa0LcmvZVRo6NVnMDlAR6SPk3wrZWQ7aooL1FXAEBosiCiS0xKTxYFqrh0__MElBtpxbUpH2RApAza/s320/4.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I was hoping for more of that in Season 2, and to its credit, Season 2 was never exactly any more complex than Season 1. Much of it still kept the storytelling straightforward and took as its strength existing genre plots in a Star Wars setting: slay the monster, infiltrate the base, survive in the wilderness, that kind of thing. At the same time, it had more of a narrative thread than the first season, with Din Djarin, the titular Mandalorian, seeking the Jedi, the "people" of his young charge The Child, aka "Baby Yoda", real name later revealed to be Grogu. This was presumably something that was easier to accomplish than in the first season which was, I believe, repurposed from a film script, which is why episodes four to six feel like isolated digressions from the main plot in that season.</div><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid80pGGmbdK-w1jVMKKdTG__ogCF0SoOJkH41Lcg-lPH1IjK66_3fYua0Q81DGuEokQgNbZCI2pH1DUAAnx1b5h0iZgwvsRhHzs_XjTEdc_MopDpACgM0xweXT0VDnXNYqFaNquYu0jNJI/s1920/5.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid80pGGmbdK-w1jVMKKdTG__ogCF0SoOJkH41Lcg-lPH1IjK66_3fYua0Q81DGuEokQgNbZCI2pH1DUAAnx1b5h0iZgwvsRhHzs_XjTEdc_MopDpACgM0xweXT0VDnXNYqFaNquYu0jNJI/s320/5.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But at the same time I felt that this through-line made parts of the season feel a little like Mando was on a never-ending video-game quest: go here to talk to this person, who sends you to talk to this person, who sends you on to this person. Mando talked to the cyclops guy who sent him after Cobb Vanth who didn't actually have any info for him but by coincidence he met the frog lady who sent him on to Bo Katan who sent him to Ahsoka who sent him to the planet Tython where Grogu was kidnapped which led him to hunting down Moff Gideon.</div><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHAtQDLilTVx-kPABh8mmTEyj9gLxxPrUgYixESVkj5EZ9YEF-HNZKFnl201tOsvVQZNCHH5xB0iqdGzWg71DmY-IeTk3n1EwimlzVvSOqtp9pLJIfRG_p_5Q8PyDtcv5JTPYXVysVib2L/s1920/6.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHAtQDLilTVx-kPABh8mmTEyj9gLxxPrUgYixESVkj5EZ9YEF-HNZKFnl201tOsvVQZNCHH5xB0iqdGzWg71DmY-IeTk3n1EwimlzVvSOqtp9pLJIfRG_p_5Q8PyDtcv5JTPYXVysVib2L/s320/6.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There's nothing wrong with this per se, but it does feel a little bit mundane. Go here, talk to this person, follow that lead to the next person, and so on. Behind it all, admittedly, you have Din's character driving the narrative, which is to say his desire to protect Grogu and his devotion to the Mandalorian creed and thus his duty to return Grogu to his people. But on the surface it feels a little bit strung-together, and at times there were episodes where I just didn't feel terribly invested in what was going on because I expected the latest encounter to just direct him to yet another stepping-stone. This was also not helped by the fact that several chapters (11, 12, 15 and 16) all involved Din and one or more allies attacking and/or infiltrating an Imperial base or ship. Some of the episodes melted into each other in my head.</div><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuBHE4kQQSInbC16az2HSTGDweGUAHfUA1WM82nnsQX_S89XXNebujXo1MoJ-xAo1WaczEM2GhSQ-xLAxWOqc0aSPbZfKSyc3EAnoHbMuiz9ogVMEhmwnyQFDJIDP6VOsnkULOpSa4pXNO/s1920/7.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuBHE4kQQSInbC16az2HSTGDweGUAHfUA1WM82nnsQX_S89XXNebujXo1MoJ-xAo1WaczEM2GhSQ-xLAxWOqc0aSPbZfKSyc3EAnoHbMuiz9ogVMEhmwnyQFDJIDP6VOsnkULOpSa4pXNO/s320/7.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The other issue is the amount of references this season had to other Star Wars media: we had appearances by a character from a novel I haven't read (Cobb Vanth is from the <i>Aftermath</i> novels, I believe), two characters from the <i>Clone Wars</i> and <i>Rebels</i> cartoons (Ahsoka and Bo Katan), and two from the main films themselves (Boba Fett and, of course, Luke with R2 in tow). I'm sure for many viewers, only Luke and maybe Boba Fett were familiar, and of course even I, Star Wars nerd that I am, don't go in for the novels and didn't actually know the Cobb Vanth character. Nonetheless, compared to the first season, this glut of appearances by existing characters had the same effect which such franchises often have of taking a supposedly large and busy world and making it feel small. I feel that Boba Fett didn't need to appear and that Ahsoka's use, while appropriate, would have made more sense had the show established (as both <i>Clone Wars</i> and <i>Rebels</i> repeatedly demonstrated) that Ahsoka is no longer a Jedi, having refused to rejoin the order after the Council's failure to support her when she was framed. I also thought it was strange that there was no role in Ahsoka's appearance for her main actor, or voice actor as the case may be, Ashley Eckstein, given that she has brought the character to life for so many years in both <i>Clone Wars</i> and <i>Rebels</i>. This seemed especially odd given Katee Sackhoff's live action casting as Bo Katan, having voiced her in the cartoons.<br /></div><div><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiffBKq6E9qT5iD1SJWdSH1_ZCbnnhMfy18hCVVHNXmzCkKTFVBoQD8MfyOC-ReLQxJ-TkigkzAcUeV4dQrKNY3G0UMoOSJ9L2amQSUI5SPPHpM6hbpvV58z3cGIiVTPNw_AKZ9yWfbvQm7/s1920/8.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiffBKq6E9qT5iD1SJWdSH1_ZCbnnhMfy18hCVVHNXmzCkKTFVBoQD8MfyOC-ReLQxJ-TkigkzAcUeV4dQrKNY3G0UMoOSJ9L2amQSUI5SPPHpM6hbpvV58z3cGIiVTPNw_AKZ9yWfbvQm7/s320/8.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I felt like, given the story they were telling, at least the inclusion of Bo Katan and Luke made sense; as the last known legitimate ruler of Mandalore and the last of the Jedi respectively, they're the only characters who really qualify within the Star Wars universe for the roles for which they were needed. It does seem odd to think that, <i>Rebels</i> included, Bo Katan has now been deposed as ruler of Mandalore <i>twice</i> and has had to have the Darksaber given/restored to her by another Mandalorian (Sabine in <i>Rebels</i>' case). And I do honestly hope that this story plays into a third season of <i>The Mandalorian</i>, assuming that it is made. But if this is the case, I would actually like the show to explore the Mandalorian creed a little further, if their society, as seems to be the case, is turning into some kind of Galactic punching-bag that, despite their martial prowess, is constantly being conquered and victimised by other, more powerful, factions.</div><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgztBegRWzTpVxekO2UbBfdcIsOlSjKyNIdSELkq75BQsdWOlTPVua_ebPV5xRH1RJYf4rSQnqtr3Md6gvna4psWsKvhkLC-Oaiy6HVGuEgAR_qlW9UNeXoObUSXK3rx4hA-QXl_o12kblo/s1920/9.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgztBegRWzTpVxekO2UbBfdcIsOlSjKyNIdSELkq75BQsdWOlTPVua_ebPV5xRH1RJYf4rSQnqtr3Md6gvna4psWsKvhkLC-Oaiy6HVGuEgAR_qlW9UNeXoObUSXK3rx4hA-QXl_o12kblo/s320/9.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This leads to the other issue I had with the second season of <i>The Mandalorian</i>, one which admittedly was carried over from the first: the lack of "fun". Star Wars is, in my opinion, at its best when it is driven by fun, likeable characters, with an undercurrent of spiritual or philosophical meaning. The perfect example is in <i>The Empire Strikes Back</i>, the two central plot lines of which encapsulate both sides of this: the bantering tension between Han and Leia on the one side, and the quasi-Buddhist and pantheist teachings of Yoda to Luke on the other. To me, this is what makes Star Wars work: it's fun, with something a little more serious and contemplative underneath.</div><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMBTR_J2y4HyPcN0o6OwWq9wfvULyfvxIcjuSb84eQH0K_DPzXxOcIfSze3-YwhWp_beIB675Cag2IBdSjXp5mIhxqoXclklRcM7PDWtSXxaC3eBQIK69kALYoZhmrlygOU_-bWlLyuW30/s1920/10.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMBTR_J2y4HyPcN0o6OwWq9wfvULyfvxIcjuSb84eQH0K_DPzXxOcIfSze3-YwhWp_beIB675Cag2IBdSjXp5mIhxqoXclklRcM7PDWtSXxaC3eBQIK69kALYoZhmrlygOU_-bWlLyuW30/s320/10.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The Mandalorian</i> suffers, I think, from having these elements but not quite taking them far enough. Din Djarin is a very serious character who lives by a reasonably strict code of personal and cultural ethics, although admittedly this season did give him some lighter dialogue occasionally. Most of the characters he meets are pretty serious too, with pretty serious goals. That doesn't mean there weren't some lighter characters, like Cobb Vanth, or the Mythrol, or to an extent Cara Dune. But often these are just one or two characters, and there's not much room for lightness between them. I was disappointed that, for instance, Chapter 9 didn't have a third character for Din and Cobb to bounce off, as none of the town locals were afforded any substantial characterisation; someone like the Weequay bartender could have been used for this. Obviously Grogu offers a bit of this in a similar manner to one of the droid characters, but a bit more between characters who actually talk wouldn't have gone astray. In the same way I would have enjoyed a little more contemplation of the significance of the Mandalorian creed and its different interpretations, as represented by Din and Bo Katan respectively. This wouldn't mean a deep exploration of the fictional creeds themselves, but more of the idea of what a culture's code of ethics means in a broad and diverse reality. Admittedly we get a little bit of this in Mayfield's appearances in Chapter 15.<br /></div></div><div><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNwzRLigusFicNLiVWnnU8IADtUQEd7NkgXx4wh2jj6fd0pA0AzWTq-z9wrnq96d0rps92ume3DCcKB1qit8rkBDX5aO4V1mgcK1MUJxgKmHDwSfT51C5MpjhESHCoub3kxB4WlDEZy0lp/s1920/11.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNwzRLigusFicNLiVWnnU8IADtUQEd7NkgXx4wh2jj6fd0pA0AzWTq-z9wrnq96d0rps92ume3DCcKB1qit8rkBDX5aO4V1mgcK1MUJxgKmHDwSfT51C5MpjhESHCoub3kxB4WlDEZy0lp/s320/11.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I do wonder, however, if all of these issues stem from, as is now apparent, the fact that Season 2 of <i>The Mandalorian</i> was a cross-promotional exercise in marketing upcoming Disney+ shows, including an Ahsoka show and a Boba Fett show that was literally announced in a post-credits scene in the manner of a Marvel film. I do feel that this probably interfered with the writing and obliged the show to set up certain things and include certain characters that weren't strictly necessary. And it's a bit disappointing that the show seems to have so briskly been forced down that path rather than being allowed to stand on its own. I was hoping that past examples of this not working in the case of, for instance, the recent DC Comics films, might have encouraged Lucasfilm to recognise that just because something works for Marvel doesn't mean it works all the time. The original season of <i>The Mandalorian</i> worked through decent marketing and a level of quality that sustained interest over eight weeks. Lucasfilm and Disney's need to market their new content through the existing, proved, brand of <i>The Mandalorian</i> belies a lack of confidence in the swathe of new products they are apparently intending to present on their service in the next couple of years. As above, I'm disappointed to see that the Ahsoka show in particular is going to be a live action one, and possibly continue the search for Thrawn (and thus the story of <i>Rebels</i>) in that medium rather than its, in my view, natural home in animation with the voice actors from the previous shows. Its setup in live action in <i>The Mandalorian</i> actually makes me less interested in it.<br /></div></div><div><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh96PJ0MsgwhNU9WNvfrXoQjAkt6YRrojW2lvocTZyjs6eeZDxy0vph0ZBoJ06it0qrAs9QTjurlhdKeOIAS_YawbJcs1Dp8W3aY8vO6VriNA6Ur21bxyu_4I2Y-WDsgR4l-a0OfM-tPj52/s1920/12.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh96PJ0MsgwhNU9WNvfrXoQjAkt6YRrojW2lvocTZyjs6eeZDxy0vph0ZBoJ06it0qrAs9QTjurlhdKeOIAS_YawbJcs1Dp8W3aY8vO6VriNA6Ur21bxyu_4I2Y-WDsgR4l-a0OfM-tPj52/s320/12.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">You may have noticed that in all this I've spoken very little about Din or Grogu, our two notional protagonists, in any depth, and this is because I feel like the season didn't quite give them the narrative they needed. We already knew from the first season that Din was protective of Grogu and wanted to do right by him. The Ahsoka episode implies that the bond that has developed between them is stronger than Grogu's existing connection to the Force, and this leads to a nice moment in the season finale in which Luke tells Din that Grogu wants his permission to leave, but these are some pretty sporadic moments when otherwise I felt like we were continually having our attention placed on that episode's guest characters. We see at the start of the season that Din has developed from the previous; for instance, he's lost his antipathy for droids. But he already intended to return Grogu to his people at the end of the first season, and at the end of this season that's what he does. It doesn't feel like he developed too much more past the previous season, or that his relationship with Grogu did either, beyond him becoming more aware of it. Pedro Pascal's performance is always strong as the stoic title character, although sometimes I felt like his dialogue was uncharacteristically chatty or wry, but this perhaps linked to his increased willingness in this season to remove his helmet, suggesting that he is outgrowing the strict form of the creed by which he was raised. I just would have liked to have seen these parts given greater focus.</div><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNoh9Iu-QWkRNjcHYS60TVNoU1L2i6tG79HwCOuZQ_wzn-9T7P9Y02P-mUtwWWLDMj3cmjum2EdSy7KVoPuS1qxyUrnu0KGGHysZcESTJ4K-3xsO2xITixBCetcTQnnnD1TUP55lwS1BWb/s1920/13.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNoh9Iu-QWkRNjcHYS60TVNoU1L2i6tG79HwCOuZQ_wzn-9T7P9Y02P-mUtwWWLDMj3cmjum2EdSy7KVoPuS1qxyUrnu0KGGHysZcESTJ4K-3xsO2xITixBCetcTQnnnD1TUP55lwS1BWb/s320/13.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">One other thing I would like to discuss with the season is its greater emphasis on having a relationship with the Original Trilogy. The first season clearly presented a Galaxy in the aftermath of the Empire, with Stormtroopers in dirty armour and Moff Gideon in command of only a small contingent of men. In this season we see more of this, perhaps leading towards the eventual rise of the First Order in the Sequels, and perhaps the experiments with Grogu are, as others have also discussed, intended to foreshadow the cloning techniques which will be used to create Snoke or resurrect Palpatine, i.e. trying to spin something out of two of my least favourite parts of the Sequels.</div><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisEePKEQy8Hk6X0LNGSNn_vZLs1qzUg4lvTk4rm1qgwOLV6m3RXgAJYFczv3LXbnsEqLBmOa7WhdBxqxDYXxtTEWx3g0cNAJDEzT2PnEoG17EUPG_ZS2l4W5mfnTjWT0u-4nxAyrNjjChj/s1920/14.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisEePKEQy8Hk6X0LNGSNn_vZLs1qzUg4lvTk4rm1qgwOLV6m3RXgAJYFczv3LXbnsEqLBmOa7WhdBxqxDYXxtTEWx3g0cNAJDEzT2PnEoG17EUPG_ZS2l4W5mfnTjWT0u-4nxAyrNjjChj/s320/14.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But we also hear characters talking about the destruction of the Death Stars as relatively contemporary events, and see a thirty-ish-year-old Luke Skywalker voiced by the (as of writing) sixty-nine-year-old Mark Hamill. Compared to the Sequels, which were set a plausible thirty years after <i>Return of the Jedi</i>, it feels very odd to see actors who were in some cases probably not even born when some or all of the Original Trilogy was first released playing characters discussing these events as if they're recent history. To me it makes the setting feel a little unnatural and awkward, and at times I found myself wishing that the show was set after <i>The Rise of Skywalker</i> rather than after <i>Return of the Jedi</i>. In addition, the inclusion of Prequel actors such as Temuera Morrison and Prequel-era spinoff characters such as Ahsoka and Bo Katan makes the show to me actually feel more <i>distant</i> from the Original Trilogy rather than closer, and creates a dissonance between what the setting of the show is meant to be and what it feels like it is in my gut, i.e. more like a continuation of <i>Clone Wars</i> and <i>Rebels</i> than something with a meaningful relationship to the Original Trilogy. Obviously this isn't some huge issue with the show, but it does feel odd.</div><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7zmrtvNQ91pn9znmgEgBnMBQ89MyVpKlwloerd0XXHFm9gzBXP1c35kLaof9BKJbilIyluDrIz04Dim8py0BVxKSg8L629rzGlYD6tsYYWwqcXoTO_m8R8o-znGGOacxRqytqw83KIS-7/s1920/15.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7zmrtvNQ91pn9znmgEgBnMBQ89MyVpKlwloerd0XXHFm9gzBXP1c35kLaof9BKJbilIyluDrIz04Dim8py0BVxKSg8L629rzGlYD6tsYYWwqcXoTO_m8R8o-znGGOacxRqytqw83KIS-7/s320/15.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I might as well talk a little bit more about Luke's appearance at this point. Yes, the CGI face on a stand-in's body is weird, but it's also strange, albeit unsurprising, to see how people have reacted to how Luke enters the action, effortlessly cutting down Dark Trooper droids to save the day. As audience members we're obviously meant to appreciate this, but it's dissonant to think that from Din's point of view he has no idea who Luke is — nor, apparently, do any of the other characters. And so the "cool" factor of seeing Luke in action, body double notwithstanding, is to me undermined by the fact that it doesn't service Din's story in any particular way. The comparisons people have made with the popular, but meaningless, scene of Vader killing the Rebels in <i>Rogue One</i> are a double-edged sword; a fan favourite character without any immediate relevance to the actual protagonist's narrative showing up to steal the limelight in a display of power, and I was actually disappointed that we didn't get to see Din and company using their limited effective resources (presumably the Beskar staff and the Darksaber) to defeat the Dark Troopers.</div><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBio1ul-OQM7QmlK178YydcfLpieLXa1M4k0fg0gyY0s16EBcuBqlijBYftQ43mvJ-VsHi2NSThcXeWcXxI0wsrv_3ZCclg1EJoCImFT6JIzrU125RkWY5ZZCZwOSpKGf-fEQ2P5VKu16j/s1920/16.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBio1ul-OQM7QmlK178YydcfLpieLXa1M4k0fg0gyY0s16EBcuBqlijBYftQ43mvJ-VsHi2NSThcXeWcXxI0wsrv_3ZCclg1EJoCImFT6JIzrU125RkWY5ZZCZwOSpKGf-fEQ2P5VKu16j/s320/16.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It's also worth noting that Luke's appearance here, hailed as some kind of "true" appearance of the character by certain commentators, potentially feeds exactly into how he was portrayed in <i>The Last Jedi</i>, as a "legend" whose raw power engendered both pride and fear. And while it does counterbalance Vader's <i>Rogue One</i> appearance, and the visual reference seems obvious, this is not, personally, how I see Luke: I don't see his character growth encapsulated by him cutting down droids with a lightsaber. Remember that Luke's defining character moment in <i>Return of the Jedi</i> was him <i>throwing his lightsaber away</i> rather than letting his destructive impulses control him. That doesn't mean he shouldn't fight; quite rightly, in this episode, he is using his power to defend the lives of people less powerful than himself. But it shouldn't be praised, as it seems to be by fanboys, as some kind of triumphalist display of might. This is why the received wisdom online that Vader massacring helpless men at the end of <i>Rogue One</i> is some kind of amazing scene is stupid because most of its advocates seem to just revel in the scene as a celebration of ruthless violence and not perceive Vader as evil or cruel (and, in fact, the scene in question seems to frame Vader as "cool" more than as terrifying or monstrous). Similarly, people seem to be glorying in Luke's destruction of the Dark Troopers simply as an impressive display of force rather than seeing it as something potentially sinister. I wonder if the episode would have been better served by presenting Luke's appearance as more a kind of defense; it all depends on how we're meant to interpret the scene. Ultimately this is just me being frustrated with Star Wars fans who seem to view the franchise through what I see as a warped, simplistic lens of "power levels" and action for its own sake. It isn't necessarily a problem with the episode itself, just how it's being interpreted.</div><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnTZy812o8Ih_NdXv6mKJ0vCryfwnYW4-gUXiXUz5DySWVavl8yReXN0PRes6plvUjaZPom9vKpmTFe_cmWxQFBE5Qplc7MfwwBwbZa5mDmI4X6xdAeQTjVbw-qogOWtIYy7ur77w1czbI/s1920/17.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnTZy812o8Ih_NdXv6mKJ0vCryfwnYW4-gUXiXUz5DySWVavl8yReXN0PRes6plvUjaZPom9vKpmTFe_cmWxQFBE5Qplc7MfwwBwbZa5mDmI4X6xdAeQTjVbw-qogOWtIYy7ur77w1czbI/s320/17.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So that was Season 2 of <i>The Mandalorian</i>. One more thing I should praise is Ludwig Göransson's score, which manages to be distinctive and memorable while almost never referencing anything by John Williams. It's watchable enough television — I appreciate that the episodes aren't too long — and it's quite strong as Star Wars spinoffs go, although my heart is definitely staying with <i>Rebels</i> for now. But it feels like too much of this season was dominated by the need to introduce supporting characters to get their own spinoffs, and not enough was carried by the central protagonists. I would have also liked to have both a bit more fun and a little more of a spiritual or philosophical exploration of the characters' beliefs. If a third season is in the works, and I think it is, I hope it is allowed to stand on its own a bit more, and maybe give more attention to our helmet-headed hero, and rely less on franchise references and cross-promotional marketing.<br /></div></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDv_A3K5iqUVeqDKIYUgr11F2CgLZ3PtQYtB9Km441fZ1YnkNcZJgrJnsh0aoIEgPbRs9pY2UWfbvPXM93D91RYh3qDMlbZkGtrerrnvvrJKzJf4pgu9vMMnPpUIivNl0hUf9cJb_6aw7n/s1920/18.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDv_A3K5iqUVeqDKIYUgr11F2CgLZ3PtQYtB9Km441fZ1YnkNcZJgrJnsh0aoIEgPbRs9pY2UWfbvPXM93D91RYh3qDMlbZkGtrerrnvvrJKzJf4pgu9vMMnPpUIivNl0hUf9cJb_6aw7n/s320/18.png" width="320" /></a></div><p style="text-align: left;"></p></div>Robaneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18401996860805398644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383709889311355921.post-39637148476632923072020-12-11T04:08:00.005-08:002021-03-18T18:09:20.900-07:00"The Good Place"<p style="text-align: justify;">My foray into "Netflix shows everyone else has already watched" continued with <i>The Good Place</i>. I'm pretty sure everyone knows the initial premise, about a woman waking up in a supposedly heavenly afterlife which turns out to not be all that it appears. And while the first season at times suffered, I felt, from budgetary issues (in fact the whole series does), overall it was a nice little character piece and exploration of the idea of an afterlife. It had overtones of a few shows I like, such as <i>The Prisoner</i> (a protagonist kept in an affectedly idyllic place with a dark underside) and <i>Red Dwarf</i> (four characters with clashing personalities trapped in an inescapable situation, high-concept focus on philosophical questions). I managed to avoid discovering the end-of-season twist, but I did know there was a twist of some description, and it was pretty predictable: they're not really in any kind of heaven at all, but a subtle and ironic hell.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The second season of the show evolved the premise in a seemingly natural way, with demonic architect Michael reforming and seeing the error of his ways and, evocative of sci-fi, artificial life form Janet developing an ever-greater sense of humanity. At the same time, the relationship between the two primary protagonists, Eleanor and Chidi, was able to develop further as well. I never found the secondary protagonists Jason and Tahini to be particularly complex, but I don't think that was ever the point, although I did feel like the jokes involving them were a bit repetitive.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The point I'm trying to reach is that as interesting and charming as <i>The Good Place</i> was, I always felt like it lacked a certain degree of imagination. Even in the first season, while the heaven was intended to be false, the representation of a "neighbourhood" of good people taking part in structured activities often seemed to me to not be the main "torture" aspect — that was the clashes of personalities between the four human characters — and the rest of it just suggested that the writers couldn't imagine what an afterlife would be like apart from wish-fulfilment. Similarly, I felt this sense of "sloppiness" evident during the plot in Season 2 in which Michael, trying to hide the failure of his ironic hell from his superiors and attempting to reform, allows "Vicki", another demon, to run the neighbourhood. But we never really see Vicki or the other demons even trying to torment the four humans; they seem to just take Michael at his word that he's doing it. I get that it would have gotten in the way of the show's focus on the philosophy of ethics, but it felt a bit fast and loose to me. Perhaps the intention was that the demons were lazy and stupid, which is why they allowed Michael to get away with it, but this needed to be articulated more clearly. Similarly I felt that in addition to the conflict between the characters Eleanor should have noted that one point in favour of the Good Place actually being the Bad Place was because it's just a bit naff.<br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">All this aside, <i>The Good Place</i> was good enough in its first two seasons but, I felt, started to get a bit disoriented in the third and fourth. I became lost with experiments and points systems; I understood what was happening, but was not entirely sure why I cared. This wasn't because there wasn't a goal, which was first to save the souls of the main characters, and then to save those of all humanity. But I felt that the characters had undergone virtually all of the development necessary for them by the end of the second season, and that they didn't have much further to go. As a result, I often found like the narratives of the third and fourth season were more plot-driven than character driven and were less compelling because they were based on imaginary premises.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">This leads to the finale; having finally, truly reached the Good Place, they discover that it's much as Heaven is described by Talking Heads: a place where nothing ever happens. With the infinite ahead of them, humans sink into a torpor, with no passion or drive. When they have decided that they are satisfied with the afterlife, they can pass on to a kind of nothingness, which I've seen perceived both as some kind of final nihilistic act of self-destruction or as a Buddhist "letting go" of possessiveness. If nothing else, it was an interesting thought experiment for how an end to eternity might be reasonable.<br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">And obviously the whole premise functions as an analogy for human life, especially modern life, which can, moreso than ever, be long and pleasant in an unprecedented way. Hence in the show's afterlife humans are still, essentially, human except that they can't be killed and seemingly can't be permanently physically or psychologically injured. They still need, or at least want, food, sleep and intimate interpersonal relationships; they still perceive the world through sensory experience. And their desires are still based in a modern, liberalist, individualist and even consumerist framework. The show does not represent a spiritual or post-mortal existence as transcendental or incomprehensible. This is fine; changing it would fundamentally alter the message of the show. But at times I also found it limiting. It made the philosophical discussions of the show, however well-intentioned, inherently constrained by the limitations of the imagination of the writers.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Ultimately I feel like <i>The Good Place</i> suffers from the same problems as <i>Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt</i>, which is to say that both of them went for too long or the writers didn't have enough ideas to sustain them for as long as they did. Again, this is often a shame because these shows can be carried past the point of exhaustion by the charismatic performances of well-cast actors, which both shows possessed. But that's not quite enough, and I wonder if it raises questions with the whole nature of the streaming-era series, which has been touted previously as the successor to the film as the high point of writing and production. A good film, like a good novel, is made and then it's done. Unless meticulously planned, a television series has to sustain itself for a potentially variable number of seasons, not all of them necessary for the fulfilment of a thematic purpose. And if these shows want to deal with serious and substantial issues, I feel like they really need to seem as if each episode is a necessary piece of the puzzle or step of the journey. But, again, these were all shows that started in the mid 2010s, and the more coherent one-and-done limited series have come later. Maybe the learning is already starting. Unfortunately outside of the Good Place we don't always have the luxury of infinite experimentation.<br /></p>Robaneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18401996860805398644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383709889311355921.post-85064041479787976342020-12-06T00:54:00.011-08:002020-12-20T14:44:09.126-08:00"Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt"<div class="separator" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs-A3_tX52ausy_O0emxi-_QolgSVtHnl8a-7wXWDs7ZzMP_zRNEFg7CGADg4Qis7Nel0qfGT93lpwBMRrj1KLr8jiZ_OEcuiNJRmNns4zAHcuTztlURReF7N0S_z2ka8ShWtAuu4-PBlX/s1920/1.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs-A3_tX52ausy_O0emxi-_QolgSVtHnl8a-7wXWDs7ZzMP_zRNEFg7CGADg4Qis7Nel0qfGT93lpwBMRrj1KLr8jiZ_OEcuiNJRmNns4zAHcuTztlURReF7N0S_z2ka8ShWtAuu4-PBlX/s320/1.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Why the hell am I writing an article
about <i>Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt</i>? I just marathon-ed the whole thing in
just over a week, interactive special included, and I think it's worth
discussing, if only briefly, because of its quality as something more
"watchable" than "exceptional". Does that make sense? I'm not a believer in an
approach to entertainment in which you just "switch your brain off", but I'm
still capable of watching something I don't think is particularly spectacular
while at the same time being engaging enough to keep one suitably entertained.
Does that make sense either?
</div><p style="text-align: justify;"></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
I heard of <i>Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt</i> back in (I think) 2015 after I
finished watching <i>30 Rock</i>, but I didn't watch it at the time because it
seemed too removed from what I'd just been watching. Having been able to watch
the whole thing now consecutively, it's an odd experience, because while the
premise of the show is interesting, it doesn't feel to me as if it ever quite
met its potential.
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"></p>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtR64TwjJxpAGVmIXZrpU767jGrkFaFjHlNhRP8mLii6eq5CALFvcx4NddRZ3lt9MUxxaD3kYFbn9_9UWJ1sL1offtSux8itbVuNdvYACGlOCjbRngIXfCHQCXO_f5lkLir79gPOiOqW8Q/s1920/2.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtR64TwjJxpAGVmIXZrpU767jGrkFaFjHlNhRP8mLii6eq5CALFvcx4NddRZ3lt9MUxxaD3kYFbn9_9UWJ1sL1offtSux8itbVuNdvYACGlOCjbRngIXfCHQCXO_f5lkLir79gPOiOqW8Q/s320/2.png" width="320" /></a>
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">
The idea of a protagonist who has been kidnapped and imprisoned for fifteen
years is a very dark one, and quite heavy for a sitcom, but I appreciate the
idea of the show that it was about people, and women in particular, not having
their lives defined by trauma and patriarchal abuse. Yet at times I felt as if
the show either couldn't figure out how to treat these issues in a sufficiently
sitcom-friendly way, or couldn't think of enough ways to do it, because to me
the show, after the first season in particular, felt very unfocused, to the
extent that this theme didn't receive the level of attention it deserved due to
its need to juggle them against the narratives of the other main characters.
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh27T8BNfap5IYg_1hOhSbs8HYidWKKoauVIDOc89kRxF8D61Ckh1XSXo5JpSRvBLLrpOtGgUWFLV4kH0VHtgdEsfUByQ80SQbkXq3d_0Dk5ovF5UjQ4khgvAa6afkEyUwu7VxrRslMaMTj/s1920/7.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh27T8BNfap5IYg_1hOhSbs8HYidWKKoauVIDOc89kRxF8D61Ckh1XSXo5JpSRvBLLrpOtGgUWFLV4kH0VHtgdEsfUByQ80SQbkXq3d_0Dk5ovF5UjQ4khgvAa6afkEyUwu7VxrRslMaMTj/s320/7.png" width="320" /></a>
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">
The show has four main characters: Kimmy, whose narrative is to overcome abuse
and trauma; Titus, who needs to overcome his own selfishness and defeatism;
Lillian, whose main motive is to resist the gentrification of (I think) Lower
Manhattan; and Jacqueline, who wants to find meaning and purpose in the shallow
world of the New York upper crust, as well as reconciling with her Native
American heritage, although the weirdness of a white woman in that role is a
whole different thing. Regardless, those are a <i>lot</i> of different character
stories to fit into episodes of a half-hour sitcom, streaming or not, some of
them quite complex and serious, and in my view,
<i>Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt</i> never <i>quite</i> got to grips with everything
as well as it could.
</div>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
The premise of Kimmy's story seems absurd but is sadly realistic, with many
women having been subject to extended kidnapping and abuse and/or cult
religious indoctrination, in this case both. It's a lot to get into. I noticed
that the cult element is, with the exception of episodes about the Gretchen
character and parodies of Scientology, mostly dropped after the first season
(apart from the weird episode about going to church). It's sometimes unclear
to what extent Kimmy bought into the cult brainwashing and to what extent she
perceived herself before her rescue as a victim of kidnapping, and I think at
times that muddles elements of that story, but that's possibly intentional.
</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0ZYWLtM8nVpQUrQ_HKlYH999e2oi8iFxWsYKee-e1o9ncSUOZDgphHqstrtSwFjCVWnFBO0KHocPjRX1Naapo3h-SzpdOs1Gcpki85HiiuWSjHpb46OBx5gxDVSccNfURSNWdDgQle-3l/s1920/6.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0ZYWLtM8nVpQUrQ_HKlYH999e2oi8iFxWsYKee-e1o9ncSUOZDgphHqstrtSwFjCVWnFBO0KHocPjRX1Naapo3h-SzpdOs1Gcpki85HiiuWSjHpb46OBx5gxDVSccNfURSNWdDgQle-3l/s320/6.png" width="320" /></a>
</div>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
But it could also be symptomatic of what at times feels like a "first
draft" quality of <i>Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt</i> which I find suggestive of
either a lack of ideas or a struggle to handle the core premise in an
effective way in a sitcom. It's possibly worth comparing to <i>30 Rock</i>,
which was on network TV, generally ran for twenty-ish-episode seasons and had
time to focus on the interconnecting stories of Liz, Jack, Tracy, Jenna and
Kenneth. <i>Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt</i> doesn't have the core premise of
being focused on the humorous clashes of large personalities. While Kimmy and
Titus are both larger-than-life characters, this is not typically used to
generate conflict; in fact it's so rare that I was startled when, in Season 3
Episode 8 ("Kimmy Does a Puzzle!"), Kimmy becomes so frustrated with Titus's
selfishness that she loses her temper at him and moves out (for all of five
minutes or so).
</p>
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</div>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
None of this is to say that sitcoms all have to play to the same formula; of
course they don't. But without this kind of structure, I think it can be
difficult for a show to have much focus. Watching
<i>Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt</i>, at times it was almost exasperating how
divorced the different characters' stories often felt from each other, with
some episodes giving more or less an entirely different story line to Kimmy,
Titus, Lillian and Jacqueline each. Given that the show's core concept is
Kimmy and the overcoming of trauma and abuse (in addition to the fact that the
show was, as I understand it, written as a vehicle for Kimmy actor Ellie
Kemper) it seems odd that the show so often feels distracted from her story.
</p>
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;">
I think often the show was most successful when it (rarely) used the existing
characters to enhance each other's storylines; a good example might be in Season
3 Episode 2 ("Kimmy's Roommate Lemonades!") in which Lillian and Jacqueline are
competing over a local political issue and discover that Kimmy (who is involved
in her own separate story line in the episode) is the district's only registered
voter — of course she is, because she's the only non-cynical member of the local
community. This kind of writing in which the character's stories overlap and
intersect feels a lot more effective than each character going off on their own
or perhaps pairing up with one other. A lot of the time I found myself getting
impatient when the stories were digressing onto individual plot lines and
wishing it would focus more on Kimmy. I also found myself wondering if certain
plot elements and gags were written because they couldn't think of what else to
do or a more elegant analogy for a theme, such as Kimmy joining Jacqueline's
spin class in Season 1 Episode 11 ("Kimmy Rides a Bike!") or the parody of old
90s Mentos commercials in Season 2 Episode 6 ("Kimmy Drives a Car!"). While I
understand that the former plays into the idea of fraudulent men manipulating
women and pitting them against each other, the actual concept still feels clunky
and sitcom-y; the latter feels almost entirely pointless, intended to be funny
purely by being a reference to something old and cheesy.
</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqzWI0pHppbbqual8kFOYFrx6zQ1PMrxOqctFXj0MituBZ8b2lF5TGe7Y24ez4WwCwI4x3L9w28cpEN8w36Itre_F4LuwD8KddiLg0NKGoWbMgvGD9iGUYTchtO0iIOuRlUkF84nZ124kh/s1920/3.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqzWI0pHppbbqual8kFOYFrx6zQ1PMrxOqctFXj0MituBZ8b2lF5TGe7Y24ez4WwCwI4x3L9w28cpEN8w36Itre_F4LuwD8KddiLg0NKGoWbMgvGD9iGUYTchtO0iIOuRlUkF84nZ124kh/s320/3.png" width="320" /></a>
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I think the show also did reasonably well in demonstrating a number of its core
ideas: abuse does not define you; being optimistic and resilient is undervalued
in modern society (while not being a universally healthy approach to life);
abuse and harassment are endemic to society, not restricted to isolated
individuals; reactionism typically arises from ignorance and emotional
immaturity; encouraging people to be compassionate and kind will produce a
better world. At the same time, I thought there were issues that it treated very
oddly for a show that started as recently as 2015: a white actor playing a
white-passing Native American character; a Vietnamese character being called
"Dong" and having a thick stereotypical accent; Asian protestors being depicted
as irrationally outraged over a play and then enjoying it so much that they
"offend" themselves; and university students being obsessed with
intersectionality. At times the show feels like it's entrenched in a Gen X
social worldview in which certain perceived problems in society are horrific and
need addressing (as they indeed are) but that others are "taking it too far".
And that gives the show a weird vibe at times, such as in Season 3 Episode 6
("Kimmy is a Feminist!") which implies that Kimmy's college friends only care
about the things they do because they're young and trying to find a sense of
belonging by parroting cliché intersectional talking points, rather than
considering that maybe they're important too.
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9uYeWcIE1snE80ff0XRndx4Wu4gFReoozozc8BjfwkiVxIax2KKYmwbixza7RH_o5BwhOJ54Xnb6vCv3sgTpsf146EwcknOudGt-dSwKoCyZ3n0ARp3tbMEhVlPB9EsLe1WmdgmgYOgp6/s1920/4.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9uYeWcIE1snE80ff0XRndx4Wu4gFReoozozc8BjfwkiVxIax2KKYmwbixza7RH_o5BwhOJ54Xnb6vCv3sgTpsf146EwcknOudGt-dSwKoCyZ3n0ARp3tbMEhVlPB9EsLe1WmdgmgYOgp6/s320/4.png" width="320" /></a>
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It almost seems odd to think about a comedy like
<i>Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt</i> ending after only four seasons, but I
couldn't help but feel by the third season that the show had either started to
run out of steam or was struggling because the foundations set by the first
two seasons weren't strong enough. I think season one on its own would have
been quite solid as a one-and-done Netflix experience, like the commendable
Norwegian single-season Netflix sitcom <i>Home for Christmas</i> (which now has a second season, so this comparison didn't age well), or the
single-season US Netflix comedy drama <i>Living with Yourself</i>. I think in
<i>Kimmy Schmidt</i> this seemed especially possible with the closure provided
by the final two episodes of the first season. However, as it played out, I
think the show would have had more of an impact if it had focused more on
Kimmy's story and used the other characters to support that rather than
trying, as felt more and more common as the show went on, to play as a
traditional sitcom ensemble piece. I'm almost inclined to argue that the
premise would have worked overall as a comedy-drama, and a more light-hearted
approach like a sitcom would have been better served by one of the unused
ideas for Kimmy's backstory which was later touched upon in Season 4 Episode 9
("Sliding Van Doors") in which Kimmy was in a coma for years. But maybe I'm
being defeatist myself in thinking that a sitcom wasn't the best way to tackle
the issues that <i>Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt</i> wanted to address. Yet I
think that when the show does address these issues it does it well; I just
felt like it didn't focus on them enough.<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXzfwrZownBVqJyM0z1Y15AsW6xu6mYk-dZFJPTBDG5WL-H66G4m79ek4uP4kbxDXX0uSQ7-LomEN102sVAJAsXaWbtHQ8d0avmJKi_EmbyWHvPSs26Y0AQ_RhRsrRj86NBG2XrT662GvL/s1920/10.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXzfwrZownBVqJyM0z1Y15AsW6xu6mYk-dZFJPTBDG5WL-H66G4m79ek4uP4kbxDXX0uSQ7-LomEN102sVAJAsXaWbtHQ8d0avmJKi_EmbyWHvPSs26Y0AQ_RhRsrRj86NBG2XrT662GvL/s320/10.png" width="320" /></a>
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<p style="text-align: justify;">
I will say that Ellie Kemper and Tituss Burgess are both great in the lead
roles. The Kimmy character is one that I've thought in the past would be a
good sitcom role, i.e. a character whose defining trait was being positive,
upbeat and eager to help and befriend everybody, and maybe a little naïve,
without (as such characters often are) being stupid and completely gullible.
And the show also does a good job of showing that positivity isn't everything,
and it needs to be moderated with a healthy acceptance of negative emotions.
But I think the show would have been stronger if it had focused on these two
together more. As a matter of fact, this is why I think the 2020 interactive
special was in some respects more enjoyable than the actual series finale,
which I found to be rather anticlimactic, because not only did it keep Kimmy
and Titus together, but it focused on Kimmy's character and her story as the
driving force of the plot and thematic exploration, and used the other
characters more in supporting roles. I still at times found the cutaways to
the other characters to be a bit exasperating, especially Jacqueline stalling
outside Titus' trailer on the film set, but Daniel Radcliffe is always good
value. John Hamm is also good fun in all of his appearances throughout the
series. I also enjoyed the recurring gag (which culminates in the special) of
sentient androids becoming a mainstream part of society. When
<i>Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt</i> was good, it was good: funny, charming,
empowering and insightful. But at other times I found it to be slow,
unfocused, clunky and tone-deaf, and a few times too often I think I found
myself mousing along the thumbnails in the Netflix timeline so that I could
anticipate when the story of an episode would get back to Kimmy.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0csWF_jxX9wc0uvODV-dOI5jyOWMZb09Dai3SjEl5klgssMGDiw7L_3cJl3cqQJ4rTyShSF8Y-P0Mlsst5T10cr9OSTwJpfjj6UPge96t-7cFOBIqNYAL4twoR1irzYQaVxNkZuCLj1BH/s1920/9.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0csWF_jxX9wc0uvODV-dOI5jyOWMZb09Dai3SjEl5klgssMGDiw7L_3cJl3cqQJ4rTyShSF8Y-P0Mlsst5T10cr9OSTwJpfjj6UPge96t-7cFOBIqNYAL4twoR1irzYQaVxNkZuCLj1BH/s320/9.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I don't mean to be too down on <i>Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt</i>; I watched the whole thing, after all, and am spending the time writing this blog post about it. I think that a lot of what it addressed and had to say was important and relevant. And maybe I'm not giving the show enough credit, and the thematic consistency of the plots would emerge were I to apply more critical rigour to what I watched. I just think it also is a good example of where a show can maybe not recognise its own strengths or have a degree of mismatch between premise and mode. It was, I think, the first significant sitcom to be released on Netflix, and it was originally developed for network television, so it really stands between the worlds of traditional TV and streaming services. Maybe in that respect it's a good example of what does and doesn't work in the current era; for instance, I appreciated that the show was less likely to have guest stars for a single episode, instead letting their stories play out over a few, and having a stronger sense of continuity than is typical in, for instance, syndicated shows. But from a thematic perspective, I think focus is important and I think that was something <i>Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt</i> demonstrates the need for, if only due to its (at times) noticeable absence.<br /></div><div><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"></p></div>Robaneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18401996860805398644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383709889311355921.post-21021705120592312532020-09-11T06:23:00.010-07:002020-09-11T18:30:33.261-07:00"Bill & Ted Face the Music"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVisanqgmhYNzn0MhZf2_4eCPa2bKROUA5gIpnoEJIsWRyccPA5ADjkPmPS6sMLI-Bb540haiRQzbevDkU0E5AdktyUYQ3CNMOYao-OaEBqEYK8gNZIkzPTcTbbbDd0xTGRGRVLFiAs_cl/s1920/vlcsnap-2020-09-11-23h13m18s979.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVisanqgmhYNzn0MhZf2_4eCPa2bKROUA5gIpnoEJIsWRyccPA5ADjkPmPS6sMLI-Bb540haiRQzbevDkU0E5AdktyUYQ3CNMOYao-OaEBqEYK8gNZIkzPTcTbbbDd0xTGRGRVLFiAs_cl/s320/vlcsnap-2020-09-11-23h13m18s979.png" width="320" /></a></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD1vRWNRdt3BBCeeB11aSinHJ3UqUADSe-FCnze5ON88wbczUDN9AXDTwKMw2McQ5zPI_nNp8hiESP00-LEsqKczLRX9Gqj063nXq4hXUrOYm_NFmgZbiESWpuDd2_Ue4URwcIYR2CY8-o/s1920/vlcsnap-2020-09-11-23h12m12s073.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD1vRWNRdt3BBCeeB11aSinHJ3UqUADSe-FCnze5ON88wbczUDN9AXDTwKMw2McQ5zPI_nNp8hiESP00-LEsqKczLRX9Gqj063nXq4hXUrOYm_NFmgZbiESWpuDd2_Ue4URwcIYR2CY8-o/s320/vlcsnap-2020-09-11-23h12m12s073.png" width="320" /></a>When I was a kid, <i>Bill & Ted</i> was one of those things that I was aware of without having ever seen. All I really knew was that "Bill & Ted" was a comedy film about two guys who travelled through time in a phone booth, like Doctor Who (and when I was a kid I didn't know much about <i>Doctor Who</i> either). I also knew that they said "excellent" a lot, which resulted in them kind of morphing into a blob in my mind with Wayne and Garth from <i>Wayne's World</i> (which I've still never properly watched). In my Twenties, I watched <i>Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey</i> at a movie night, but not having seen the first one I wasn't really into it. Since then, my biggest exposure to <i>Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure</i> was because I'm interested in the history of the Napoleonic Wars; clips of Napoleon from <i>Excellent Adventure</i> get used as GIFs a lot when people are making jokes about that era online. That was pretty much it. So a few months ago, when I friend of mine said "Check out the trailer for the new <i>Bill & Ted</i> film!" I was like "Uh... okay."</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2I9kf7LFvNBPSX24VMihLEItuQlCqwNgHHoqGmX8YI8HKWvY8MhFinvTg6kCFHtw75ohNxQ6f6on5kDRr9KNfmvezh-vBEN6JzT23LWZL87S5bhQ8qDj8oSLoljR4AnKcgy5NV4Kas_jN/s1920/vlcsnap-2020-09-11-23h17m50s600.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2I9kf7LFvNBPSX24VMihLEItuQlCqwNgHHoqGmX8YI8HKWvY8MhFinvTg6kCFHtw75ohNxQ6f6on5kDRr9KNfmvezh-vBEN6JzT23LWZL87S5bhQ8qDj8oSLoljR4AnKcgy5NV4Kas_jN/s320/vlcsnap-2020-09-11-23h17m50s600.png" width="320" /></a>The trailer seemed amusing enough, so when it came time that <i>Bill & Ted Face the Music</i> was actually going to be released in theatres (pandemics notwithstanding), I thought "I'd better actually watch <i>Excellent Adventure</i>, and rewatch <i>Bogus Journey</i>." So I did. And those two films, as I expected/remembered, were amusing, light pieces of comedy which benefit from a spirit of fun; things happen in these films because they're funny, without much effort being needed for explanation. Thus Billy the Kid can become friends with Socrates, who can only speak Classical Greek (so no one can understand what he's saying, and he can't understand them) and Napoleon, accidentally displaced from 1805 to 1989, is perfectly happy to eat ice cream, go tenpin bowling, and hog the slides at a water park.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdRlGKn9lqgJLPz5gQq9HT8SZ8lZM4l8dHyOLLOY67hJvxW-Brt5uAeoMlRMFmVgGLbgjmaSZyxSiQwcFcgtqkTCxcpSkhZgPnO9G88gNJ7LhDGpiqcRQSgLiliTqBtFwSOnw912ffVMyQ/s1920/vlcsnap-2020-09-11-23h14m21s779.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdRlGKn9lqgJLPz5gQq9HT8SZ8lZM4l8dHyOLLOY67hJvxW-Brt5uAeoMlRMFmVgGLbgjmaSZyxSiQwcFcgtqkTCxcpSkhZgPnO9G88gNJ7LhDGpiqcRQSgLiliTqBtFwSOnw912ffVMyQ/s320/vlcsnap-2020-09-11-23h14m21s779.png" width="320" /></a>In many respects, I actually found <i>Bogus Journey</i> to be a good deal better than <i>Excellent Adventure</i>, not only because it's more visually interesting and creatively shot and directed, probably due to a higher budget, but also because of William Sadler's amusing turn as Death, which works very well with the cheerful, likeable performances of the young Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves, back when both of their careers were quite different. Based on the trailers, I figured that <i>Face the Music</i> was probably going to be more or less a trip down memory lane of the comedy concepts of the original film, just with the addition of Bill and Ted being middle aged and having daughters. I wasn't really expecting anything new.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYPMZTE4lUEbZ5lX34SvQsTMptuWIv1fqHBLN8hXah5vRkimfs628mj6egN5l3CK-1KDT6J1FhdV_-WBqlxrNJ42WrhmIP-OLwNLIE7Jyzo8RUsdjFJY7ncjEg_KIIIsCV0G7mPBPdJu3j/s1920/vlcsnap-2020-09-11-23h12m21s976.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYPMZTE4lUEbZ5lX34SvQsTMptuWIv1fqHBLN8hXah5vRkimfs628mj6egN5l3CK-1KDT6J1FhdV_-WBqlxrNJ42WrhmIP-OLwNLIE7Jyzo8RUsdjFJY7ncjEg_KIIIsCV0G7mPBPdJu3j/s320/vlcsnap-2020-09-11-23h12m21s976.png" width="320" /></a>And, for better or worse, that's what <i>Face the Music</i> is. The plot is essentially the same as both of the originals, except instead of having to pass their history assignment or play in the Battle of the Bands, Bill and Ted have to compose and perform "the song to unite the world". They travel through time and the afterlife in pursuit of this goal. They're hunted at one point by a killer robot sent from the future. Meanwhile, their daughters, Thea and Billie, have a mini <i>Excellent Adventure</i> and <i>Bogus Journey</i> of their own, assembling historical musicians and inadvertently making a detour to hell. In the end they reunite (including with Death) and play the song at just the right moment. And all, as expected, is well.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQRmN5fEWfHC50uEk-b54vatulWytluGUCQaMMSoISUnmPUctXHy6Ml-4n8ferSrQTjA0MJrWkjgesAN6mTSD2_7dfMlded1zgix3qptaUqbNgtk-0hU-HkAkG7ISFijuDkRBbYZRs-UHl/s1920/vlcsnap-2020-09-11-23h16m58s972.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQRmN5fEWfHC50uEk-b54vatulWytluGUCQaMMSoISUnmPUctXHy6Ml-4n8ferSrQTjA0MJrWkjgesAN6mTSD2_7dfMlded1zgix3qptaUqbNgtk-0hU-HkAkG7ISFijuDkRBbYZRs-UHl/s320/vlcsnap-2020-09-11-23h16m58s972.png" width="320" /></a><i>Bill & Ted</i> isn't the kind of film series that you criticise from a story or character standpoint: Bill and Ted are silly and so are their adventures. Really, the issues with <i>Face the Music</i> come largely from a production perspective, although I will say that, writing wise, it would have been nice if writers Solomon and Matheson (creators and original performers of the characters) could have done something new. Production-wise, though, I thought the film was visually a bit cold, not only in the way it's shot but also in terms of effects. There's something too clean about modern lenses and digital recording that especially makes flat wide shots look like something from marketing material rather than cinema. Similarly, the use of modern CGI tends to be quite sterile and lacking in grit; I would have rather have seen more of Bill and Ted's own homes and environments different to the polished CGI-enhanced future and hell locations.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5T5xOyNbfZVG5xhw_zw1Hs7CluVz4N6ODrCbpM02i5Kkc_6PdTCF2AfEhk_5ReD6TJFtb7UZ-8lxebGErJKDMZzKXtbvjPS9x18j1mQeboib2wExVJbkDkjD3cx1qPKDlnxbmRzRHm4BT/s1920/vlcsnap-2020-09-11-23h12m30s650.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5T5xOyNbfZVG5xhw_zw1Hs7CluVz4N6ODrCbpM02i5Kkc_6PdTCF2AfEhk_5ReD6TJFtb7UZ-8lxebGErJKDMZzKXtbvjPS9x18j1mQeboib2wExVJbkDkjD3cx1qPKDlnxbmRzRHm4BT/s320/vlcsnap-2020-09-11-23h12m30s650.png" width="320" /></a>That aside, <i>Bill & Ted</i> <i>Face the Music</i> is fine. It's reasonably funny, quite funny in parts, and the premise of the two leads trying to hunt down the future song from various older versions of themselves is entertaining. I actually wish that this had been used to a greater extent; perhaps the best, most Bill-&-Ted-esque moment in the film is when the two, desperate to ensure that their hostile future selves won't know what they're up to, put buckets on their heads and fall out a window in order to deliberately give their future selves unclear memories of the past. Most of the best moments come from these interactions with various future selves and how they try to trick each other, and I think more of this wouldn't have gone astray. As a number of people have stated, Alex Winter seems more familiar as Bill than Reeves, with his latter-day John Wick-esque action man persona, not seeming as comfortable as Ted; he just feels a little bit too sad, although he gets some funny moments arguing with his future self.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhKlMshsgC2xjqKEvUZySw5NYpcqNVpup08WzlO-wF1KYsQk-eUKnD-UpvEUZM56CHyYiaD8iTzZdiFTMrEAJ_lrdeDKIovxw1wLkp7DZ2Feu9f4eqiebRTCOaf5cYOMeNLlhpw6-hCieo/s1920/vlcsnap-2020-09-11-23h19m15s119.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhKlMshsgC2xjqKEvUZySw5NYpcqNVpup08WzlO-wF1KYsQk-eUKnD-UpvEUZM56CHyYiaD8iTzZdiFTMrEAJ_lrdeDKIovxw1wLkp7DZ2Feu9f4eqiebRTCOaf5cYOMeNLlhpw6-hCieo/s320/vlcsnap-2020-09-11-23h19m15s119.png" width="320" /></a> other major aspect of the film involves the daughters, Thea and Billie, and while this is enjoyable in itself, in many respects the two characters are more sweet and likeable than they are laugh-out-loud funny, and I think it's a shame they weren't afforded more moments to be outright humorous. Every Bill & Ted film now has its cutaway story, the role occupied by Napoleon's hijinks in the first film and by Evil Robot Bill and Ted in the second, so it feels appropriate to do something similar here, and using the time machine for actual musical purposes makes sense, although with Mozart showing up in this one after Bach in <i>Bogus Journey</i> and Beethoven in <i>Excellent Adventure</i> I think they've run the full gamut of well-known Early Modern German musicians. It's nice that Bill and Ted discover that their daughters can lead the composition of the "song to unite the world", and the film benefits from a heartwarming and positive ending. And that's not hugely different from the originals, so, again, it's appropriate, although as I say it's more "nice" than particularly funny. Probably my only complaint is that I wish there had been a little more William Sadler as Death. It was nice for Ted's dad to show up once again.<br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiDSNTnh2YAEHVZ9DJQ3vMZlU7zuEWuGI6jso6ccAEQEg9AEGO6OiXWU8jiT1hCqLLCfkTSvQqi9SHBBS2iWGqghBvGlKhP2Sp2P_HXXRSQkidhDKlCbR-JLVheDw-jH3d2skwZO7xfMKm/s1920/vlcsnap-2020-09-11-23h13m02s076.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiDSNTnh2YAEHVZ9DJQ3vMZlU7zuEWuGI6jso6ccAEQEg9AEGO6OiXWU8jiT1hCqLLCfkTSvQqi9SHBBS2iWGqghBvGlKhP2Sp2P_HXXRSQkidhDKlCbR-JLVheDw-jH3d2skwZO7xfMKm/s320/vlcsnap-2020-09-11-23h13m02s076.png" width="320" /></a>I don't know how I've managed to write over one thousand words on <i>Bill & Ted Face the Music</i>, but there you go. It's a silly, sometimes funny, sometimes just "nice" film with some strong performances and some iffy visual qualities. That's about all it needed to be. Was it everything a third <i>Bill & Ted</i> film could have been? I don't even know if that's a meaningful question. I think it lived up to the existing standard of the original films. Surely for a sequel made nearly thirty years later that more or less constitutes success. We wouldn't necessarily suffer from more films which showed the potential for people to like each other and get along. Who knows? Maybe this will turn out to be timely and after everything people have gone through lately they might start seeing things more like the Prestons and Logans. Maybe we really have seen a little glimpse of the future. Maybe.<br /></p>Robaneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18401996860805398644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383709889311355921.post-86359079955739541922020-09-09T05:28:00.008-07:002020-09-11T19:20:04.121-07:00The Dreamlike, and "I'm Thinking of Ending Things"<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3NNeePpfgoTGnhbzj8fviLqinPYLqzDQx_D23GaWIJ-X-Xz5wTd7xs_XN1ErR2bw9MOd3qvdjCJAN5cRZotxDX9eynFB20sV5hSZsw06ksJhyphenhyphen9DyuqKj4oGjeS8AtLM-2yacvWSt9-eZ6/s1920/ITOET.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3NNeePpfgoTGnhbzj8fviLqinPYLqzDQx_D23GaWIJ-X-Xz5wTd7xs_XN1ErR2bw9MOd3qvdjCJAN5cRZotxDX9eynFB20sV5hSZsw06ksJhyphenhyphen9DyuqKj4oGjeS8AtLM-2yacvWSt9-eZ6/s320/ITOET.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>SPOILERS</b> for various things follow. <br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">When, as I do, one watches a lot of weird horror films and a lot of David Lynch films, one becomes acclimatised to certain things. I'm always looking for the Weird Itch to be scratched, and lately I've only really been able to do so through literature, namely the weird fiction of Thomas Ligotti and Jon Padgett, and to a certain extent the postmodern oddness of Pynchon's <i>The Crying of Lot 49</i>. So when I heard of the new Netflix release <i>I'm Thinking of Ending Things</i> described as functioning on "dream logic", I was immediately intrigued.</div><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Those who've watched <i>I'm Thinking of Ending Things</i> know what happens in it, and those who haven't probably are best served by not reading any kind of plot summary, so I'll refrain from including one. Suffice to say it's unsettling and dreamlike, a narrative of eerie delusion not unlike the works of Lynch. However, the film it most reminded me of was 2017's <i>Ghost Stories</i> (not to be confused with <i>A Ghost Story</i>), in that a disturbing sequence of events is ultimately revealed to be an elaborate morbid reverie on the part of a comatose or dying person, a tradition dating back through things like <i>Jacob's Ladder</i> to the classic Ambrose Bierce short story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" and probably beyond.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>I'm Thinking of Ending Things</i> was almost everything I wanted it to be: intentionally disjointed, dreamlike, discomforting, a musing on the collapsing of identity and reality, as well as being stylish and powerfully-acted — right up until the end. To me, the final sequences somewhat damaged the ambiguity of everything that came before, as it becomes wholly apparent that the protagonist is actually a figment of another character's imagination, and that said character appears to have been living out either an elaborate fantasy throughout his life or just as he dies.<br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Such narrative conceits are entirely valid. There's nothing wrong with them, even if, considering the examples I've listed above, they're a little tired. Apparently the novel on which this is based makes this concept even more
obvious, although I haven't read it. I'm generally reluctant to watch
films based on novels without having read the novel first, but I felt
like seizing the moment. In any event, they can make for quite moving ruminations on the nature of regret, self-loathing, and the fragility of a sense of self and presence in the world in the space of our short lives.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">However, I can't help but feel that Dreamlikes, as I'm terming them, of this stripe, exist in a certain degree of contradiction with their presentation. The Dreamlike tends to be crafted from a consistent set of elements: a shifting sense of time, place and character, the intrusion of otherwise unconnected elements from waking life, the expression of a world which seems to only exist in the immediacy of experience, flowing into a new shape from moment to moment.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">There is a reason why Lynch is a master of the Dreamlike, and why many other usages of the mode fall short: they never fully engage with this sense of immediacy. In so many Dreamlikes, things are symbolic, they are clues, they are hints to some terrible secret lurking just below the surface which, when pieced together, demonstrate to us the tragedy of human experience. And yet this in itself provides a somewhat comfortable narrative in which things ultimately make sense: the ghost our hero saw is actually the living person in the waking world trying to revive them, the rambunctious friend is actually a projection of suppressed elements of their own personality, and so on. Note the amusing parody of the conclusion of <i>A Beautiful Mind</i> at the end of <i>I'm Thinking of Ending Things</i>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">What a more Lynchian Dreamlike achieves is the much more unsettling and yet more accurate representation that, in dreams, things largely <b>do not make sense</b>. The "story" of a dream may have a certain direction, but is accompanied by or even assembled from largely disconnected and even random elements floating upon the surface of, or nested deep within, our minds ("We are like the spider. We weave our life and then move along it."). And this is, in many respects, a more powerful reflection of reality, because, in many respects, reality does not make sense either.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Just as the dream assembles itself without our control (putting lucid dreaming aisde) from the countless images firing in our resting brains, life is pieced together through the interaction of an <i>external</i> world over which we, as beings with agency, have no external control, and an <i>internal</i> world, the organic jumble of lenses, sensory, psychological, cultural, biological, etc., through which we experience it. In most Dreamlikes, things ultimately come together: there is a stabilisation. But in reality, as in dreams, there is only constant transformation; Jon Padgett's narrator in his short story "Origami Dreams" observes that even death "is only a transition into yet another borrowed reality." This is why the ending of the third season of <i>Twin Peaks</i> has, to my mind, more allure than any narrative revealing a protagonist's dying or deluded imaginings (as another example of the latter, consider also <i>Shutter Island</i>), in that it evokes what I see as the true impact of the Dreamlike in general.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">None of this is to say that <i>I'm Thinking of Ending Things</i> is not worth anyone's time. It's certainly worth watching for its own merits and arguments about loneliness, anxiety and fantasy. <i>Ghost Stories</i>, incidentally, is worth it for similar reasons. And I will also say that its use of the Dreamlike is effective in rendering a representation of the constantly rearranged, borderline delirious quality of deeply-involved fantasies and delusions. But things do ultimately settle into a state of equilibrium. I just wish that writers and directors utilising what I have here termed "the Dreamlike" were more willing to engage with what I see as the power it possesses that I feel only Lynch has truly tapped into in the cinematic field. Almost all of the Dreamlikes I've seen have used the mode to produce evocative, through-provoking, unsettling and challenging works, but the mode has the potential to go even further. There is always the inherent opportunity to exceed presenting difficult interpretations of reality, in order to query the notion of interpretability itself.<br /></p>Robaneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18401996860805398644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383709889311355921.post-85032158306796103972020-07-13T04:05:00.000-07:002020-07-13T18:04:30.826-07:00"LOOM"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig7d4c6zrkImSIcwUiOYiQRt1RfGaR9_Y6xLOq7xx7iRL1Z41RhiBvahBjKSAWr48WZgrQ9cV1mD8WeDvSm8SKJuDF_uoh3OLeS_1x3knqheY2_3RNyB3RrUonTOzcvZueOKk6BrC1ae9q/s1600/0.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig7d4c6zrkImSIcwUiOYiQRt1RfGaR9_Y6xLOq7xx7iRL1Z41RhiBvahBjKSAWr48WZgrQ9cV1mD8WeDvSm8SKJuDF_uoh3OLeS_1x3knqheY2_3RNyB3RrUonTOzcvZueOKk6BrC1ae9q/s320/0.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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When I was a kid, my dad "borrowed" and never gave back (i.e. stole) a CD of LucasArts games from his work, a disc for Macintosh computer featuring <i>The Secret of Monkey Island</i>, <i>Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade</i>, and, if I recall correctly, <i>Pipe Dream</i>. The first of these would go on to be one of my favourite games of all time (bested only by its own sequel). But another game on that disc was <i>LOOM</i>.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheRcKv8btgG_zjsIrpZ8H_pHYGQaPqMti1OJ5wlX2zsptkEPLxFq7A8ltQZxzo7uSIGBYjXUWH8m102r4sHNhWyQaUb8Oi3rR2SmTiOKn6jO5PvbWTlf8cKi5sqnnV_j6kHkdfhMxkEChS/s1600/1.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="845" data-original-width="1600" height="169" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheRcKv8btgG_zjsIrpZ8H_pHYGQaPqMti1OJ5wlX2zsptkEPLxFq7A8ltQZxzo7uSIGBYjXUWH8m102r4sHNhWyQaUb8Oi3rR2SmTiOKn6jO5PvbWTlf8cKi5sqnnV_j6kHkdfhMxkEChS/s320/1.png" width="320" /></a>These days I think of myself as someone who knows LucasArts adventure games, but the truth is the games I really know are The <i>Monkey Island</i> series, and the other ones I've played and finished are the two <i>Indiana Jones</i> games (<i>Last Crusade</i> and <i>Fate of Atlantis</i>), <i>Day of the Tentacle</i>, <i>Sam & Max Hit the Road</i>, and <i>Grim Fandango</i>. I've played a bit of, but never finished, <i>Maniac Mansion</i> and <i>Zac McKracken</i>, I don't think I've ever played <i>The Dig</i>, and the one time I tried to play the full version of <i>Full Throttle</i> its unintuitive (in my view) puzzles annoyed me so much that I stopped. But I always forget about <i>LOOM</i>.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ_yMDnATdVQTDNOpyLaC7awkmvhf-1aXuV2gw3twpiAqDT9i3HhbcyW_rwixOTz34Noef94z3XxrV9ERQp1_UsjAtXcRVl5PU1VZs4Hvaf8-Qs8rp2mIe8yDeL2j3juH5C1Ked-_RQC31/s1600/2.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ_yMDnATdVQTDNOpyLaC7awkmvhf-1aXuV2gw3twpiAqDT9i3HhbcyW_rwixOTz34Noef94z3XxrV9ERQp1_UsjAtXcRVl5PU1VZs4Hvaf8-Qs8rp2mIe8yDeL2j3juH5C1Ked-_RQC31/s320/2.png" width="320" /></a>I definitely played <i>LOOM</i> as a kid, albeit without the copy protection information allowing the player to leave the opening island, and saw m'colleague playing the rest of it later in my youth, but I'd never played the full thing until this last week in which I decided to sit down and experience the full adventure of Bobbin Threadbare of the Guild of Weavers. The game has a point-and-click interface in which Bobbin must use his magical distaff to interact with objects in the world by playing various "drafts", i.e. magic spells. There are no dialogue trees and there's no inventory.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht3NCny56beIrBIzlZgeSFSMCIOF4sGNSPvltZ9Q1Ei1fGlullSUBXsH0mAhja5nPLBXHQFNpXypURJgsPUlQK-trWoZ0grUznX6DEllQJZkIpL0jh7PSyEckobTj0f-YOclEK6abY4cBO/s1600/3.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht3NCny56beIrBIzlZgeSFSMCIOF4sGNSPvltZ9Q1Ei1fGlullSUBXsH0mAhja5nPLBXHQFNpXypURJgsPUlQK-trWoZ0grUznX6DEllQJZkIpL0jh7PSyEckobTj0f-YOclEK6abY4cBO/s320/3.png" width="320" /></a>The two things people generally say about <i>LOOM</i> is that it's easy and it's short. I'm not entirely sure of the first part — as with all LucasArts adventure games I feel like some puzzle solutions suffered from not clearly indicating that it was even possible to <i>try</i> certain actions, let alone accomplish them. The second part I definitely agree with. The game feels as if it has only just established its world and cast of characters when it rushes to its dénouement. Maybe it was because I was only familiar with the first section, but the opening Loom Island portion of the game, in which you are introduced to the distaff mechanic, I always assumed was a mere prologue to a much larger experience, but it isn't really. After you escape from Loom Island, the game only has one other "open" section, Crystalgard, which really only features a single puzzle, and it then becomes more or less a linear sequence of set pieces until the end.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8lF8_vzrtq7yqK1t5a42QU4jHExakzqFNhFE5pQbSpWoWLjYYdoQn4jycnHXYV-eMNmGYcPYORLB1aw1kTTlEIxr7qcWoUyP9Lq1Ppu9pjz767_LClt5xZBpz8V0l_xeFfglwuqlFvU1z/s1600/4.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8lF8_vzrtq7yqK1t5a42QU4jHExakzqFNhFE5pQbSpWoWLjYYdoQn4jycnHXYV-eMNmGYcPYORLB1aw1kTTlEIxr7qcWoUyP9Lq1Ppu9pjz767_LClt5xZBpz8V0l_xeFfglwuqlFvU1z/s320/4.png" width="320" /></a>So <i>LOOM</i> feels a little bit underdone, especially compared to the LucasArts games which came out around it, namely <i>Indy</i> 3 and <i>Monkey</i> 1. We don't get to spend much time with any characters, and the plot moves extremely quickly. The whole thing almost feels more like a proof-of-concept for a larger experience that never came to fruition, and I suppose given that it was designed with the idea of two sequels which were never developed this makes sense, but again the linearity of the second half of the game emphasises a sense of unfulfilled potential, in which there could have been much more room for experimentation.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVGcOzV_wIzGyAiG336WoYE8H_5bCYxsOFJmAaO8XAsXodPIhOVT9-59AiKFVo7XtQ7Iz5Xr7lM-zY8jSEBzdST6ZaDRpJlwH6qKcMrmhX7vHO3ugmtQXpYbQ0PPi9NYV6HJLRTF7IwSLi/s1600/5.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVGcOzV_wIzGyAiG336WoYE8H_5bCYxsOFJmAaO8XAsXodPIhOVT9-59AiKFVo7XtQ7Iz5Xr7lM-zY8jSEBzdST6ZaDRpJlwH6qKcMrmhX7vHO3ugmtQXpYbQ0PPi9NYV6HJLRTF7IwSLi/s320/5.png" width="320" /></a>Like all LucasArts games, one thing <i>LOOM</i> does well is atmosphere. Partly this is due to its Tchaikovsky-derived soundtrack and early-90s LucasArts' ever-pleasant pixel visuals. However, it's also enhanced by the world that it imagines. <i>LOOM</i>'s world is truly fantasy, with much magic and no visible modern technology, but it doesn't just present itself as a pseudo-medieval pastiche; there are no kings, knights or bedraggled peasants, just guilds of different artisans who all use magic in their own unique ways: shepherds who render themselves invisible to stealthily guard their flocks, blacksmiths who craft weapons of exceptional quality, clerics who dabble in necromancy, glassmakers who make scrying spheres, and the weavers, who warp the very fabric of reality itself. The guilds have distinctive outfits, unique visual styles and appropriate names. Thus the game presents itself with a fantasy world which truly feels "fantastic", a world of high magic and possibility, not just medieval Europe with wizards. One thing I especially appreciate is that the game does not use invented languages or similar, instead creating names from suitable arrangements of English words.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSzlvqJ5mYFeHoPA1IbolVPI1NXAVajvyaV-QFUICm68UmeakmwZvphSSGtEZGX9ke4MLGfg2Zt_nLJ5s4INKjo-8EMCkd7xYQlEsfdEgAr_pvmvj5XHZJTp-uRK98hzKmQ4xY_7tb4BVg/s1600/6.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSzlvqJ5mYFeHoPA1IbolVPI1NXAVajvyaV-QFUICm68UmeakmwZvphSSGtEZGX9ke4MLGfg2Zt_nLJ5s4INKjo-8EMCkd7xYQlEsfdEgAr_pvmvj5XHZJTp-uRK98hzKmQ4xY_7tb4BVg/s320/6.png" width="320" /></a>Of course, in some respects, this refreshing potential only makes <i>LOOM</i>'s short and simple nature feel more unsatisfying. However, I'm immediately intrigued by the bits of story we hear about the past; when did the Age of the Great Guilds come into being, and how? What were the First and Second Shadows that seem to have threatened the world previously? Maybe this is revealed in the audio drama which accompanied the game's EGA graphics release (I've listened and it doesn't add much), but it creates a sense of wonder, of a world we can both understand (the professions are relatable, albeit magical), and speculate about regarding its broader story. Perhaps it's a shame that there were never any sequels to <i>LOOM</i>, but equally perhaps there's no harm in it being left to fire a player's imagination thirty years later. That's also something to say in favour of the LucasArts adventures; unlike some games of their era, they're still actually <i>playable</i> without immense frustration. And perhaps with the benefit of hindsight we can interpret <i>LOOM</i> less as a sprawling puzzle game in the vein of <i>Monkey Island</i> or <i>Myst</i>, and more as an early graphics-driven example of a visual novel or interactive storytelling with a puzzle element, which of course has only become more and more common as game development tools have become more accessible.</div>
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With that in mind, then, I think <i>LOOM</i> is worth thinking about in two ways: firstly, it's a taste of what was to come in player-driven audio-visual experiences. Secondly, and strikingly, however, it's a good example of what fantasy <i>could</i> be and, in my experience, still rarely is: something truly distinctive and imaginative, while simultaneously having a grounded narrative. Imagine what could be made with today's tools yet with the simple, but powerful, spellbinding of <i>LOOM</i>? And thirty years later it feels like it's still waiting to be the creative inspiration it deserves to be.</div>
Robaneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18401996860805398644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383709889311355921.post-53108331079448398632020-06-24T05:33:00.003-07:002020-10-10T21:02:41.462-07:00Hindsight: A 2019 Cinematic Retrospective<div style="text-align: justify;">
If you'll excuse the inevitably rapid senescence of this contextual gag, back when you could go to the cinema I went and saw a bunch of films. Many, if not most, if not all of them, are your usual Hollywood fare. But let's begin at the beginning, shall we?</div>
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<b>Films I didn't see in 2019</b></div>
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<u>The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part</u></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzL0py3jxsYSXWl0EcaSZKaCDeKhAGEyC2BmAY2d6wJQhvjK52e4CZ_J8tR1O9E2IUhiiaoJGzwiXDHgx4_LwsMAPIcqFd9p6rboB9vNPWlcintlj2qA3lGUzB8aokc644mSXOfuJ78mKt/s1600/01.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="100" data-original-width="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzL0py3jxsYSXWl0EcaSZKaCDeKhAGEyC2BmAY2d6wJQhvjK52e4CZ_J8tR1O9E2IUhiiaoJGzwiXDHgx4_LwsMAPIcqFd9p6rboB9vNPWlcintlj2qA3lGUzB8aokc644mSXOfuJ78mKt/s1600/01.png" /></a>This didn't half bomb, did it? I only saw the first one shortly before the trailer for this one came out, and it looked reasonably amusing, I suppose. But then it came out and no one cared. I'm kind of curious as to why this did so badly at the box office, but all the articles I've read on the subject are rather wishy-washy. My gut instinct is that it was a combination of poor marketing and too great a distance of time between the first instalment and this. Market saturation has been blamed but I don't think anyone cared about Lego Batman or the Ninjago (?) movie. I think they just waited too long and didn't push hard enough. They probably didn't give the public enough of a reason to be interested in seeing the continuing adventures of Emmet, Wyldstyle and friends.</div>
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<u>The Curse of La Llorona</u></div>
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I think I've given up on the spinoff parts of the <i>Conjuring</i> franchise after <i>The Nun</i>. Heard it was bad, didn't even bother. It's always directors with absolutely no experience doing these things, isn't it? Writers/script editors who are just dumped in the director's chair because James Wan and now David Sandberg are too busy making expensive films.</div>
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<u>Dark Phoenix</u></div>
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Heard this was bad too, but admittedly I've never bothered to watch any of them at the cinema since either <i>First Class</i> or <i>Origins: Wolverine</i>, whichever came last. Might check it out one day if I'm really desperate for some X-Men. Wasn't this directed by the same guy who wrote <i>X-Men 3</i>, which was also about the Dark Phoenix storyline and was also bad? God knows what Fox were thinking there. "Give him another chance, eh?"</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpsZh_H6X1fg6tK9Co65V4pZIRtDsYfIQpxerCUsXwXwn0LLz15Po-EVOr9n4Fr5u8-Xw3VDLIQzJD6we2lbb2uuxnh8MzMq9kyFKzYV5J92Ym-M8xPGN8LlWiaea24FYFDlvGmTK-kRsI/s1600/02.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="100" data-original-width="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpsZh_H6X1fg6tK9Co65V4pZIRtDsYfIQpxerCUsXwXwn0LLz15Po-EVOr9n4Fr5u8-Xw3VDLIQzJD6we2lbb2uuxnh8MzMq9kyFKzYV5J92Ym-M8xPGN8LlWiaea24FYFDlvGmTK-kRsI/s1600/02.png" /></a><u>Annabelle Comes Home</u></div>
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See my remarks re <i>La Llorona</i> above. Even the presence of Wilson and Farmiga (which I assume was brief) couldn't entice me back. Plus they recast the role of Judy, yet the original actress is going to be in <i>Conjuring 3</i>, I believe. Hard to make it feel like an effective side story.</div>
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<u>Zombieland: Double Tap</u></div>
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It's been obvious for years that a sequel to the original <i>Zombieland</i> was on the cards because the Facebook page has been maintaining a steady if low rumble of marketing for a long time. But in 2009 when the original came out I was 19 and the revived zombie apocalypse craze was at its height with the <i>Left 4 Dead</i> games and the like. Ten years later, my interest is just not really there.<br />
<b>Update:</b> Yet I watched this a few days later. It's pointless, the cast surely all have better things to do, it has none of the freshness of the original, the plot is sloppy and lacking in structure, and virtually none of the alleged emotional moments are afforded any weight, yet I laughed and had a good time watching it. Perhaps it could have made more of the significance of the "evolved" zombies, of the relationships between the main characters, and the dramatic potential of the new characters, but evidently that wasn't really the point. Completely inessential, but surprisingly fun.</div>
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<b>Films I wouldn't mind seeing</b></div>
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<u>Ophelia</u> (maybe)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I don't think this is actually meant to be that good, but it'd be nice to see Daisy Ridley in a more serious role.</div>
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<u><br /></u>
<u>The Lodge</u></div>
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The trailers looked a bit silly but it got good reviews. And even "okayish" horror films are often more engaging or at least more atmospheric than "okayish" films in bigger-budget genres. I hope to check this out at some point.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Update in 2020:</b> Having now watched <i>The Lodge</i>, I can confirm that it was an entertaining watch overall, engaging in an interesting navigation of predictable and unpredictable genre elements and leaving you, as the viewer, simultaneously sympathetic for and horrified by the actions of both parties in the film's central conflict. It feels like they were going for a <i>Hereditary</i>-esque vibe while also intersecting different types of horror tropes with each other. In this way, appropriately enough given the comparability to <i>Hereditary</i>, it shares some qualities with <i>Midsommar</i> (see below) in terms of creating a constant sense of unease and disquiet through the use of disparate horror elements. Worth a watch. <br /></div>
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<b>Films I did see</b></div>
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<u>The Favourite</u> </div>
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Technically a 2018 film, but I saw it in 2019. Everyone knows it was good. I just want to point out what an odd rarity it is to watch a contemporary film in which the historical background is the War of the Spanish Succession. Not my favourite Lanthimos, that's probably <i>The Killing of a Sacred Deer</i> (although I haven't watched <i>Dogtooth</i> yet), but it lived up to the hype.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<u>Captain Marvel</u></div>
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It was decent, like most of the Marvel superhero films. See my review <a href="https://opinionscanbewrong.blogspot.com/2019/04/captain-marvel-and-shazam.html" target="_blank">here</a>. </div>
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<u>Us</u></div>
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Like a number of people who saw <i>Us</i>, I fall into the "I wish he hadn't revealed what was going on with the doubles" camp. Other than that I thought it was pretty thrilling, maybe even better than<i> Get Out</i>, although they're both very much cut from that quasi-Twilight Zone mould. Plus this one had Tim Heidecker in it. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<u>Shazam!</u></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
More fun than <i>Captain Marvel</i>, if a bit sloppy. Full review <a href="https://opinionscanbewrong.blogspot.com/2019/04/captain-marvel-and-shazam.html" target="_blank">here</a>. </div>
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<u>The Wind</u></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigi2y8X4QFXXRCpcONo-XNuundY7yFLo_l2ruzJ2cLH5r_C64mFtUgWZMCUYedhhpKOxGfY3TLcctDHPSIqOipMe3QaBW4O9QNeS94wnRQKMSjmO65cc9Ys51u0a57f3kMEFTCKtiDGYdc/s1600/03.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="100" data-original-width="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigi2y8X4QFXXRCpcONo-XNuundY7yFLo_l2ruzJ2cLH5r_C64mFtUgWZMCUYedhhpKOxGfY3TLcctDHPSIqOipMe3QaBW4O9QNeS94wnRQKMSjmO65cc9Ys51u0a57f3kMEFTCKtiDGYdc/s1600/03.png" /></a>This originally came out on the festival scene in 2018 but didn't get a cinematic release in the States until 2019 and only got a DVD release here. It's a sort of dual narrative, with a present storyline interspersed by flashbacks, and this structure is laboured somewhat excessively in my view, but the present narrative is a great highlight with a terrible, crushing feeling of isolation and paranoia. This was brought to my attention by the tie-in game by <a href="https://twitter.com/airdorf" target="_blank">Airdorf</a>, maker of the excellent <i>FAITH</i> series of horror games, and I'm glad to have seen it.</div>
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<u>Avengers: Endgame</u></div>
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Meh. Full review <a href="https://opinionscanbewrong.blogspot.com/2019/04/avengers-endgame.html" target="_blank">here</a>. </div>
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<u>Tolkien</u></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It's a tepid biopic without much focus or direction. Is it about Tolkien's romance with Edith, his friendship with G.B. Smith, his writing inspiration, or his experiences in the war? The film doesn't seem to be entirely sure, and doesn't deliver much insight about the man. A particularly obvious issue is the fact that the film leads up to him starting <i>The Hobbit</i>, which is to say the work of his with which general audiences are familiar, and completely omits the decades of narrative writing he did, admittedly mostly for his private interest at the time, beforehand. If anything, the story of <i>The Fall of Gondolin</i> is the most immediately relevant tale of Middle-earth for his early life because it's the one he wrote first, but the film either can't mention this because of copyright issues or won't because it's scared of alienating the general audiences who probably wouldn't have gone and seen this film anyway. His life simply wasn't that interesting, and the film avoids real issues, such as much of the influence of Catholicism on his life and how that affected his writing and relationships. I know lots of people have said that, but a lot of people who have said that are, I suspect, Catholics who want to indulge in conspiracy theories about why the Church would be passé in a light biopic (as if any of us need more reasons). But I'm not religious and am certainly not a Catholic, yet it still stood out to me. It's just not much of a film.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho4fUkWUheNDpKeT8XmHCq1JgQnyGN4OG5hMP8gud1Rv_6qcBX8xYXQP8rfBHOl4o93qzikNS8icgLiEXNRFQ2iIoyZZ06X6Qz3G_Stv-iLF9ieCuYU9F5UQFnwzF2Ti3KVL5PhNDZ7zUT/s1600/04.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="100" data-original-width="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho4fUkWUheNDpKeT8XmHCq1JgQnyGN4OG5hMP8gud1Rv_6qcBX8xYXQP8rfBHOl4o93qzikNS8icgLiEXNRFQ2iIoyZZ06X6Qz3G_Stv-iLF9ieCuYU9F5UQFnwzF2Ti3KVL5PhNDZ7zUT/s1600/04.png" /></a><u>2040</u> </div>
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This is my local item, a nice little documentary about how already-existing technologies, if implemented more effectively and widely, could drastically improve the Earth's environmental conditions right now. I do feel like it was a bit soft, putting too much onus on the community and not enough on governments and industry or business, but it also implies that that is an additional benefit, i.e. that community environmentalism might foster the, ahem, withering away of such things. I appreciated that.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<u>Toy Story 4</u></div>
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I was intrigued about this being a story reuniting Woody with Bo Peep, but I didn't feel like this added anything new to Toy Story, which more or less wrapped itself up neatly in the near-perfect third film.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<u>Spider-Man: Far From Home</u></div>
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This was pretty good, confirming Tom Holland as most likely the best cinematic Spider-Man and presenting an effective continuation of the "cinematic universe" after <i>Endgame</i>. Mysterio was handled appealingly and his illusions made for some engaging set pieces, and the balance between the Peter Parker stuff and the superhero stuff was funny and reasonably heartwarming. Probably better than <i>Homecoming</i> and almost certainly the best of the three cinematic universe pieces of the year. </div>
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<u>Midsommar</u> </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhby_uF-NpoGOYqnEYEWw1Ae8XqRAOMjLmXTYtB_iB0VcoX0GRsXNL-PW0gA4NWk3cw_xKjBI34ZQxvQpOfxtVY39UZmMc3ueoX-Or3iTA7kDlk5YwKsRzZRJOsh2CfiDgZEm4o_Vwg7Y0A/s1600/05.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="100" data-original-width="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhby_uF-NpoGOYqnEYEWw1Ae8XqRAOMjLmXTYtB_iB0VcoX0GRsXNL-PW0gA4NWk3cw_xKjBI34ZQxvQpOfxtVY39UZmMc3ueoX-Or3iTA7kDlk5YwKsRzZRJOsh2CfiDgZEm4o_Vwg7Y0A/s1600/05.png" /></a>It's good! But so was <i>Hereditary</i>, and while <i>Hereditary</i> felt in many ways like a moodier, classier take on the classic familial deal-with-the-Devil tale, <i>Midsommar</i> was a little too familiar having seen the original <i>The Wicker Man</i> not too many years ago. That being said, it's visually striking and the representation of passive-aggressive mind games and gaslighting does give it unique qualities. Probably the best stuff, however, is the opening and the occasional flashbacks to the horrific family annihilation sequence that starts the film.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<u>Once Upon A Time in Hollywood</u></div>
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It's okay? Yeah, it's cool that Tarantino still has enough clout to do his own thing, and parts of this, such as the cowboy show scene, were fun, but I found chunks of it a little too slow for its own good, and in my head it's completely melting into the Coen Brothers' <i>Hail, Caesar!</i> from 2016. But I get that the film is good (and also bittersweet) simply because it exists, even if it didn't blow my mind.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<u>Joker</u></div>
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<i>Taxi Driver</i> with clowns. See my full review <a href="https://opinionscanbewrong.blogspot.com/2019/11/joker.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<u>Jojo Rabbit</u></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Taikia Watiti takes what sounds like an incredibly disturbing novel about the Holocaust and turns it into a relatively light-hearted and life-affirming comedy. This was a fun watch, but it suffers from, in my opinion, the general issue with Watiti's films, which is that they become unfocused. The first act, with Jojo at the camp, is strong and clear, but after he goes back home things become rather more fragmentary just as the narrative actually gets going, with Jojo negotiating between his Nazi brainwashing and the presence of a Jewish girl in the house. As I say, it's quite funny, and Stephen Merchant's scene is great. It just feels a bit sloppy, Scarlett Johansson is hardly giving her all, and the young lead feels a touch out of his depth.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYzlNnXfFT9I1rbOAW7LASPMXrThN1Xh8xQClriTqns_DWPt84Heso9VCZndRrpyHHLkB71GriYvRF8iyGpI0rcNXYhxsPZQ2cRWzIfM4aFysjkVJAY0S-HL0X6M68iMwWbI63rLUUlycY/s1600/06.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="100" data-original-width="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYzlNnXfFT9I1rbOAW7LASPMXrThN1Xh8xQClriTqns_DWPt84Heso9VCZndRrpyHHLkB71GriYvRF8iyGpI0rcNXYhxsPZQ2cRWzIfM4aFysjkVJAY0S-HL0X6M68iMwWbI63rLUUlycY/s1600/06.png" /></a><u>The Lighthouse</u></div>
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Much like<i> Midsommar</i> to <i>Hereditary</i>, <i>The Lighthouse</i> is perhaps not <i>quite</i> as good as<i> The Witch</i>, although it's still very tense and stylish. It just perhaps plays its "the characters are insane" concept a little too heavy-handedly. Dafoe and Pattinson play off each other very well, and the depiction of isolation, drudgery, sordidness and "cabin fever" are well realised. Visually it's also very tight and suffocating, in almost a square aspect ratio and entirely in black and white. A touch overplayed, but gripping nonetheless. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<u>Marriage Story</u></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>"Being aliiiive! Beeing aliiiiive! Be-ing a-liiiiiiive!"</i> Anyway, this is quite an engrossing character piece, although it's slow and, once again, I wasn't super impressed with Scarlett Johansson, but it was certainly the Adam Driver performance I preferred of the two I saw in 2019. In fact, Driver is the highlight in my view, although Laura Dern and Alan Alda both give memorable performances too. Not being either a divorcee or a child of divorce, I'm not sure this had the impact for me that some people have described, but it's still both moving and funny; however I think my attitude towards <i>Joker</i> might be applicable to this if you've seen <i>Kramer vs. Kramer</i>.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<u>Knives Out</u></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Whaddya know, Rian Johnson continues to be a good writer-director. Full review <a href="https://opinionscanbewrong.blogspot.com/2019/11/knives-out.html" target="_blank">here</a>. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<u>Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker</u></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It's dumb and squandered the best parts of <i>The Last Jedi</i> to make what is basically a DC fiasco in a galaxy far, far away. My extended thoughts are <a href="https://opinionscanbewrong.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-rise-of-skywalker-initial-manic.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<u>1917</u></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIyak3BJ6NerMRTaRFGhOETgMBrUhQ7Dh7Y8v-wivI_V1qGL1P-0HQRFnHK02YoNUOxlqyrlhGa6xXCfEYCNyl3bUIQKkMdS3gaPNZTT6jBkLVJfG_3L6qsQi0zEyp_TE-gOwgNDV_drer/s1600/07.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="100" data-original-width="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIyak3BJ6NerMRTaRFGhOETgMBrUhQ7Dh7Y8v-wivI_V1qGL1P-0HQRFnHK02YoNUOxlqyrlhGa6xXCfEYCNyl3bUIQKkMdS3gaPNZTT6jBkLVJfG_3L6qsQi0zEyp_TE-gOwgNDV_drer/s1600/07.png" /></a>Watch out for those wicked Jerries! It's like watching someone play a video game, the Germans are cartoonishly evil, and the characters are pretty thinly-written, but it's visually engaging, fairly historically accurate in terms of costumes, props and the like, and you do feel the men's desperation. Definitely one of the stronger war films of recent years, and good to see the First getting some attention rather than the Second.</div>
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<br />
<u></u></div>
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So that brings us to...</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
<u></u></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Worst 2019 film I saw</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Easy. <i>The Rise of Skywalker</i>. And not because I think "Disney ruined <i>Star Wars</i>" or something; I mean I overall like... half... of <i>The Last Jedi</i>, for goodness' sake. No, it's because <i>Rise of Skywalker</i> was sloppy, lazy and dramatically inert.</div>
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<b> </b><br />
<u></u></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Best 2019 film I saw</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Maybe <i>Knives Out</i>? Nothing stands out as a particular highlight; a number of strong items such as <i>Midsommar</i> and <i>The Lighthouse</i>, plus some better-than-average Hollywood fare such as <i>Spider-Man</i> and <i>Shazam!</i> are at least worth mentioning. I guess more good ones are better than a bunch of crap and only a single highlight, maybe. Maybe I just need to watch a wider variety of films.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">Update: I might be that guy and award "best of 2019" to <i>Under the Silver Lake</i> for its engaging portrayal of paranoid conspiracy theorising on the part of an understimulated layabout, although I thought it was a little too long. <br /></div>
Robaneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18401996860805398644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383709889311355921.post-75799400768207769262019-12-18T16:34:00.001-08:002020-01-03T15:14:06.219-08:00The Rise of Skywalker: Initial (manic) reactions<div style="text-align: justify;">
SPOILER WARNING</div>
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Pictures to follow.</div>
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I changed my mind about both <i>The Force Awakens</i> and <i>The Last Jedi</i> upon rewatch, the latter admittedly to a greater extent, so I can't necessarily trust my reaction to the latest instalment of Star Wars, but I also can't deny it when one of my reactions, unlike those previous two, is "I'm not sure whether I even want to see it again."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
On the simplest level, my reaction to <i>The Rise of Skywalker</i> is that I was bored and bewildered simultaneously. The film is paced utterly frenetically, with almost no room for character development, and it's hugely plot driven to an embarrassing extent, with little real sense of natural conflict. As a result, it doesn't feel much like a Star Wars film at all, which both of its predecessors, in my view, did in their best moments, especially <i>The Last Jedi</i>.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It's been argued that the Sequel Trilogy had nowhere to go after Episode VIII, but to me it was fairly obvious: how will Rey fulfill her role as leader and inheritor of a great legacy? How will Kylo Ren be redeemed? What's noteworthy about this is that in this structure the conflict between the Resistance and the First Order is not particularly important; it's just dressing for the story of two young people who find themselves in positions in which their decisions will affect the fate of many: not a bad place for a narrative, in my view.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>The Rise of Skywalker</i>, however, either doesn't recognise this or doesn't want to, because while the film touches upon these points amid its relentless Macguffin-driven plotting, it pays them so little attention and breathing room amid the endless journeying and changing of location that they are practically lost, and in this regard the film, in contrast to, to make an obvious comparison, <i>Return of the Jedi</i>, cannot deliver a clear and satisfying resolution for its primary hero and villain.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The film has a handful of good moments, mostly centred around the bond between Rey and Kylo, and Kylo's moment of redemption, but these are soon over. In its inability to construct a character-driven drama, the film lurches from place to place in an exhausting fashion, struggling to give Poe and Finn some depth by giving them single conversations with irrelevant secondary characters who contribute nothing to the story. The film also suffers in its use of the legacy characters, with the exception of Han. The presence of Leia, achieved using old footage of Carrie Fisher, is unnecessary and encumbers the writing, and Luke's scene has absolutely no presence or gravitas, especially in contrast to Yoda's appearance in <i>The Last Jedi</i>.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The film is also frustrating in its cowardice and laziness, undermining the previous film by presenting Rey as Palpatine's inexplicable long lost granddaughter and using Palpatine as its villain rather than driving its narrative through meaningful conflict between Rey and Kylo. Instead of taking a mature approach in continuing the previous film's narrative it tries to create a new and arbitrary threat which also undermines the previous trilogy. The story structure and writing feel "off", out of kilter with the other films in their heavy focus on exposition, and consequently lack emotional impact.</div>
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I shouldn't be surprised that a film cowritten by Chris Terrio, who worked on some of DC's worst recent offerings, felt this way, but it's frustrating to see this writing inflicted on characters who may have had some potential for a satisfying resolution in more subtle hands. I feel particularly sorry for Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver, who are given roles with none of the relative meatiness of the previous film outside of a couple of scenes still compromised by the grotesque focus on Star-Wars-mythology-based exposition. Their characters are not allowed to reach satisfying dramatic conclusions, only endings produced by the inertia of the plot; Rey wielding two lightsabers to disintegrate Palpatine with his own lightning means nothing when it's not clear what character journey is being completed in that moment.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The film wants to do something interesting with showing Rey's temptation by the dark side, and a noteworthy highlight is when Rey, in her desperation to save Chewie (she thinks) uses Force Lightning and seemingly kills him. However, this is lumbered with the unnecessary associations of Rey being a descendant of Palpatine rather than the situation symbolising an ordinary human desire for control in difficult circumstances. As a result the film pointlessly rehashes the thesis presented in <i>The Last Jedi</i> that lineage is not important, but in a rushed, clumsy and unsatisfying way. Rey's temptation by Palpatine to assume the leadership of the dead Sith Order is a complete reprisal of his temptation of Luke in <i>Return of the Jedi</i> but without the tension and drama which that film possessed due to Luke's relationship with Vader; by eliminating Kylo from the scene by that point no relationship exists to inform Rey's decisions apart from her distant affection for Finn and Poe, which this film fails to provide with much chemistry despite trying to cram a madcap adventure for the three of them into the film's middle act. There's simply not enough motivation for Rey to want to join or lead the Sith, and thus the climax is weightless and lacking wholly in tension.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Similarly, the redemption of Ben Solo, born of Rey's kindness and his mother's sacrifice, is somewhat effective, largely due to the conversation with Han, but this is just a brief moment in a film too lacking in clear character arcs for the development to be wholly effective. I criticised <i>The Last Jedi</i> for not giving its critical character moments enough structural focus; in <i>The Rise of Skywalker</i> they don't receive enough composition at all. The film has the seeds of interesting ideas within itself, but they are completely drowned by the mindless obsession with plot and excessive action.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
As irritating and frustrating as the other two films in the Sequel Trilogy could be, when I was watching them I always at least felt that I was watching a film with some degree of structure and vision. With <i>The Rise of Skywalker</i> I felt more like I was viewing a studio-mandated mess in the manner of <i>Suicide Squad</i> or <i>Justice League</i>. The Star Wars film it reminded me of the most, sadly in my case as I consider it the worst of the Disney-era projects (perhaps until now) is <i>Rogue One</i>: characterisation dumped in favour of plot-driven setting-hopping and fanservice. Despite, say, Canto Bight, I dearly wish Rian Johnson had accepted the writer/director job after Colin Trevorrow was let go; even if what we'd received was flawed, even annoying at times, it probably at least would have been measured and thoughtful. Maybe I'll change my mind if I can face watching this again, but Lucasfilm and Abrams let down not fans or audiences but their cast and themselves in this stupendously botched finale.</div>
Robaneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18401996860805398644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383709889311355921.post-52668443161843904732019-11-30T23:49:00.000-08:002019-11-30T23:52:48.559-08:00"Knives Out"<div style="text-align: justify;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXoU3Ij5POUHebVQWyWGdDQQOtRnsYKI8hedImj9bpPgr0cleW01KnyGaQvcPYZiDPBE0xu2cauDOgzhFsWm0gqo35bGPq82VRlTuwW4Dyx-EkfMeIyg09kR7LyYC4S_EGqRqFIxGuJRtW/s1600/vlcsnap-2019-12-01-18h44m53s445.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXoU3Ij5POUHebVQWyWGdDQQOtRnsYKI8hedImj9bpPgr0cleW01KnyGaQvcPYZiDPBE0xu2cauDOgzhFsWm0gqo35bGPq82VRlTuwW4Dyx-EkfMeIyg09kR7LyYC4S_EGqRqFIxGuJRtW/s320/vlcsnap-2019-12-01-18h44m53s445.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You, your friends and your Johnson.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
"It's good and I enjoyed it." I can see this being my review of Rian Johnson's 2019 murder mystery in my as-yet-unwritten "Hindsight 2019" film recap, and while it's never as much fun praising a film as it is explaining what I disliked about it, I have to admit that as someone with more than a soft spot for half of his 2017 outing, <i>The Last Jedi</i>, I'm pleased to see that audiences and critics seem to be enjoying Johnson's newest film. It's a quirky murder mystery with an all-star cast, strong direction and excellent cinematography. So what am I going to say about <i>Knives Out</i> that isn't just me saying what everyone else has already said?<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht1uMiXX-FhpYxYSki95xD8dCnP0V4IN8r34hJwdyhHXzKlN9StlokvIu3YkkJEIkAEk2xLscGz8ALPbbrnKXzRHU6PmTHaAG9-VqWYjkynG1sn6o_7dyVmXkW-4q-Nuq0YIuNtYX3JYyH/s1600/vlcsnap-2019-12-01-18h43m42s905.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht1uMiXX-FhpYxYSki95xD8dCnP0V4IN8r34hJwdyhHXzKlN9StlokvIu3YkkJEIkAEk2xLscGz8ALPbbrnKXzRHU6PmTHaAG9-VqWYjkynG1sn6o_7dyVmXkW-4q-Nuq0YIuNtYX3JYyH/s320/vlcsnap-2019-12-01-18h43m42s905.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wasn't I going to do a "Halloween sequels"<br />
review project one of these days?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Ever since <i>The Last Jedi</i>, Johnson has developed an often-mocked reputation for "subverting expectations", although in that case it was mostly the expectations of media-manipulated unimaginative Star Wars fans, not average cinema-goers. I wouldn't want to spoil any of the plot of <i>Knives Out</i> but it still conforms to this pattern, changing direction on a number of occasions. Spoilers beware, so don't read on if you care, but it starts, seemingly, as a fairly conventional murder mystery, then becomes a story about the killer covering their tracks with only the culprit and the audience in on it, and then it becomes a sort of moral drama, and then it goes back to being a murder mystery again. What this means is that, given the length of the film, it maintains a sense of pace and structure without the kinds of conventions that usually prop up detective mysteries.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-lZiqvnbx-V7wdjJ03CvEsQSrJXXpH9WA0Nvcri5PXS4ZGrXr-psvy6h4sQvASjK_YP9EVnY_RQAgIMHecje8rHmCMRWSvFZfN8zwaMZPI8wYD3Pl0R5Sqs_7vxkRrQTdhF2uRHtGVrv4/s1600/vlcsnap-2019-12-01-18h44m09s914.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-lZiqvnbx-V7wdjJ03CvEsQSrJXXpH9WA0Nvcri5PXS4ZGrXr-psvy6h4sQvASjK_YP9EVnY_RQAgIMHecje8rHmCMRWSvFZfN8zwaMZPI8wYD3Pl0R5Sqs_7vxkRrQTdhF2uRHtGVrv4/s320/vlcsnap-2019-12-01-18h44m09s914.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Please just end the Bond franchise after <i>No Time to Die</i>.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
As a result there's no major need for the film to string an extended series of crimes together which occur during the investigation, to involve an extensive hunt for clues, or to rely on any particular character being too obvious or too conspicuously implausible as the villain. This does have the effect, in the <i>denouement</i>, of making the plot revelations a little confusing to follow. Johnson takes a relatively light touch with his storytelling, beginning the narrative in the middle of the investigation and keeping expository flashbacks relatively brief and quick, and while for most of the sequence of events this keeps things pacey, admittedly there are a couple of times in which information can be a little unclear. In addition to the final revelations, there is one secondary character who becomes relatively important late in the story whose role was not made sufficiently clear, in my opinion, early on. There is a level to which I appreciate the story expecting the viewer to pay attention, but I did feel that this could have used a touch more emphasis. This only means, however, that the film will reward repeated viewings.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-RJLeOYeSgpwn5AveUFhYW3tgawtRIaEM85m9ekT2n8ZL1As6Nh2pBvKUmK4hHfmMnkmlRvXCfYLSyUomBOoTgJV7T3P9lw0XvICWSYWSe6sQOfkE4oQvTNJTJ1WhgsX6xJuC9ALEgGtf/s1600/vlcsnap-2019-12-01-18h43m52s341.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-RJLeOYeSgpwn5AveUFhYW3tgawtRIaEM85m9ekT2n8ZL1As6Nh2pBvKUmK4hHfmMnkmlRvXCfYLSyUomBOoTgJV7T3P9lw0XvICWSYWSe6sQOfkE4oQvTNJTJ1WhgsX6xJuC9ALEgGtf/s320/vlcsnap-2019-12-01-18h43m52s341.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I was initially very confused about who she was meant to be.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
It's also worth discussing the film for its political message, something much more explicit than Johnson was mindlessly accused of including in <i>The Last Jedi</i>. It's hard not to see that he must have been influenced by the nonsensical and repugnant "culture war" discourse surrounding his Star Wars episode when writing this, as several of the younger characters toss about online political jargon, with one of the elders pointedly observing that they don't have a clue what the kids are talking about. This kind of bickering between wealthy, privileged whitebread elites is strongly juxtaposed to the kindness and compassion of Marta, the deceased's nurse. The racial and cultural screaming match of US politics is contrasted to one woman's simple humanity, and Johnson cleverly has this recognised not by the East Coast literati of the deceased's family, but rather by the broad-Southern-accented detective played with much relish by Daniel Craig. The film's message, ultimately, is rather radical: personal kindness is more important than partisanship. The justice served in the film, as a consequence, goes beyond the spirit of the law and functions on a human level.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjZqvu_cCN7oanZzKuwYC8wkcnI6VwhIAB_5_y0UvrDHxAav8j0ZGOAjPD6e1mw_4G0t7tsUiza0oSxdQZ6layc4P5D_C8Ked6BKJSb4-moAiO0agBLVM9VGmj5-Q0Vf9VahweOEKRMfmJ/s1600/vlcsnap-2019-12-01-18h43m33s171.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjZqvu_cCN7oanZzKuwYC8wkcnI6VwhIAB_5_y0UvrDHxAav8j0ZGOAjPD6e1mw_4G0t7tsUiza0oSxdQZ6layc4P5D_C8Ked6BKJSb4-moAiO0agBLVM9VGmj5-Q0Vf9VahweOEKRMfmJ/s320/vlcsnap-2019-12-01-18h43m33s171.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"That's actually hilarious."</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I'd probably argue that of the three film's of Johnson's I've seen, the other which I haven't otherwise mentioned being <i>Looper</i>, <i>Knives Out</i> is the most effortlessly, consistently enjoyable. Much of it is carried by the performances of Craig and Ana de Armas, but the rest of the large cast has fun in fairly simple whodunnit-archetype roles; Christopher Plummer, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson and Toni Collette are all entertaining to watch, and you seemingly can't go wrong with Chris Evans. Humour and lightness suit Johnson well, and his rigorous approach to scripting, which I felt made <i>The Last Jedi</i> at times over-intellectualised, works aptly here for reasons of pace and plotting. Oddly enough, the night before watching <i>Knives Out</i> I'd been complaining to two friends that mainstream audiences never watched anything but superhero films anymore, so I was pleasantly surprised to find myself in a full house to see this. I could almost see Johnson occupying a weird space somewhere between Tarantino and Wes Anderson with more films of this stripe. What if Rian Johnson saves mid-budget Hollywood? Wouldn't that be the ultimate triumph?</div>
Robaneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18401996860805398644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383709889311355921.post-72508702496842818192019-11-23T20:02:00.004-08:002019-11-23T20:05:37.506-08:00"The Mandalorian" First Impressions<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUrJIiuLs3784ItdETLr2gsrKK8bkGhop0g1ys67Ywe7oyAhhMlOAyyiYwSLOJ9zDoGByQ67-RFMli4iurfHBDwDhytRvFc7z-sAmDz7yWEQ_XiiuYNuWMIlJXP0nbN7MGPcs8NebtcQCZ/s1600/1.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="756" data-original-width="1470" height="164" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUrJIiuLs3784ItdETLr2gsrKK8bkGhop0g1ys67Ywe7oyAhhMlOAyyiYwSLOJ9zDoGByQ67-RFMli4iurfHBDwDhytRvFc7z-sAmDz7yWEQ_XiiuYNuWMIlJXP0nbN7MGPcs8NebtcQCZ/s320/1.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Supposedly Lucas himself invented the name,<br />
so sadly not an instance of EU daydreaming "gone on".</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Talking about <i>Star Wars</i> on the internet at any time since about 1999 on virtually any platform, let alone a small personal blog, is little different to standing on your verandah on a hot summer night in the tropics and trying to out-chirp the cicadas, but one has to write about what takes one's interest in the moment, and while I'm sure it would be enormously more productive for me to review, I don't know, some small independent project in need of love and attention (like <a href="http://thesiecle.com/" target="_blank"><i>The Siècle</i> podcast</a> or something), I just watched the first three episodes of Disney's new effort to please developmentally-arrested dudebro fanboys and didn't mind it, so let's talk about <i>The Mandalorian</i>.</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXtx8H62UEsKBNZm1NlSvqL9uUhs4LP4-HU0VKx_bkNqNhK-Ke0dEax9tjfxNiOyjCFF-SSZ58TQjMEnIMxaw0SWZYZe8aOGG0NH3YP0lW92GLWSVdFWFPujD57w3bryJyrhT1Zm7CcAeq/s1600/2.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="756" data-original-width="1470" height="164" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXtx8H62UEsKBNZm1NlSvqL9uUhs4LP4-HU0VKx_bkNqNhK-Ke0dEax9tjfxNiOyjCFF-SSZ58TQjMEnIMxaw0SWZYZe8aOGG0NH3YP0lW92GLWSVdFWFPujD57w3bryJyrhT1Zm7CcAeq/s320/2.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Squeeze his legs together and he fires.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Of time of writing there are three episodes (or "chapters") of <i>The Mandalorian</i> out, and of course YouTube is awash with, spoilers beware, videos about the significance of aliens of a certain variety, references to the Prequel Trilogy and the cartoons, the old Extended Universe and anything else one would care to imagine, but the question which is of most important relevance is why the show seems to be decent. At the very least it's worth considering what the explanation is for the tone and style of the show and what it seems to have been designed to resonate with.</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtHmqKIkyfvhfKfoJ8cVGTHKcxvGCxswDTYShHexNoaMj1XqeXAicY8_NsAcYiyKG72GahglxWP1XyLFPMrTzKtlzwjCQrZLngD5pZX4ceznrptRNKXU3Pxr8PcVuAtIBIi2woXe9sjF-X/s1600/3.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="756" data-original-width="1470" height="164" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtHmqKIkyfvhfKfoJ8cVGTHKcxvGCxswDTYShHexNoaMj1XqeXAicY8_NsAcYiyKG72GahglxWP1XyLFPMrTzKtlzwjCQrZLngD5pZX4ceznrptRNKXU3Pxr8PcVuAtIBIi2woXe9sjF-X/s320/3.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This blue dude looks like he should be studying<br />
with Wesley Crusher at Starfleet Academy.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Probably the most obvious reason I can think of is that it has some very reliable people behind it. Jon Favreau, as writer-producer, has always been very good at making "solid" entertainment: not necessarily mind-blowing, but rarely (in my experience) too annoying or dull either. Along with Favreau are creative types like Dave Filoni, who ran <i>Clone Wars</i> and <i>Rebels</i>, and Christopher Yost, who wrote <i>The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes</i>, which for three-quarters of its existence was a very consistently enjoyable Marvel superhero cartoon with clear storytelling for kids and lots of references and fan-pleasing for nerds.</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5fE3JF8r7wfz5qv7AMKGIKKOAj3lnMI3RNRsnMRtN1zMvr2rlgzgZTGK_PnJdr4qPc8kFzoPxFwPgVSJU7Fjt_KoLavvhvRqxaitEpJPc7BQFfi_YfnJz3SDrG8z7QiZi-8b_TYcDImfW/s1600/4.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="756" data-original-width="1470" height="164" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5fE3JF8r7wfz5qv7AMKGIKKOAj3lnMI3RNRsnMRtN1zMvr2rlgzgZTGK_PnJdr4qPc8kFzoPxFwPgVSJU7Fjt_KoLavvhvRqxaitEpJPc7BQFfi_YfnJz3SDrG8z7QiZi-8b_TYcDImfW/s320/4.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Uh... streets in The Galaxy are built to a template,<br />
like kit homes."</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
And I think this speaks volumes about what <i>The Mandalorian</i> is, and why it seems to have struck a chord with <i>Star Wars</i> fans: it's a live-action kids' cartoon with cinematic production value and a "Mature" rating. It's essentially a realisation of the dream of any kid who's thought, "I wish that thing from my childhood could be brought back in a way where I wouldn't be embarrassed watching it as an adult" (in my case it would probably be <i>Inspector Gadget</i> or something). <i>The Mandalorian</i> is basically a kid playing with his Boba Fett action figure with a slightly different coat of paint and a Star Wars visual dictionary lying open on the floor. The only difference is that this has more explicit murder, abduction, unethical scientific experiments, massacres and war trauma. But at the end of the day it's just kids' TV for adults.</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvNv7n9YmAnIJ9zjuY_MpxbkDeiN8TA7rotJ4SMO_OYlMfkk918DF4ws0-MBIQ86Ua2aeUlKnD41Cuywt9mH3Jr_JAtQA5pnsfYQfyX1lgm8BbgYVHlYxAm6VRGzq6oLB3QltX3slNKWBA/s1600/5.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="756" data-original-width="1470" height="164" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvNv7n9YmAnIJ9zjuY_MpxbkDeiN8TA7rotJ4SMO_OYlMfkk918DF4ws0-MBIQ86Ua2aeUlKnD41Cuywt9mH3Jr_JAtQA5pnsfYQfyX1lgm8BbgYVHlYxAm6VRGzq6oLB3QltX3slNKWBA/s320/5.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Everyone's already even made the<br />
Rick & Morty reference.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
None of this is a point against <i>The Mandalorian</i>. Star Wars has always been a family-oriented concept, and I think unashamedly playing around with the setting in a way focused on the franchise's core strengths (in the Originals) of likeable characters, fun action and cool designs is entirely appropriate. On that note, however, character is probably where the show could stand to develop further. While the titular protagonist benefits from an expressive physical and vocal performance, a lot of his appeal seems to rely on him looking "cool" onscreen, along with having a token tragic backstory as every Star Wars protagonist has, and this could become uninteresting if not handled well. It remains to be seen.</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhULI86n9c8eEDOXBxwtVb_P4Mt75_DGZP9Lo57Kc9yjjXChk2HICVpdhkfRUDRyBqvZidv4YumLiszQJn4EBCBKnCqDgRlq1aj9IFq8VFRIGgZ1sThDIkXkZV6Rz4TSrgA98s_SpTHstYM/s1600/6.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="756" data-original-width="1470" height="164" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhULI86n9c8eEDOXBxwtVb_P4Mt75_DGZP9Lo57Kc9yjjXChk2HICVpdhkfRUDRyBqvZidv4YumLiszQJn4EBCBKnCqDgRlq1aj9IFq8VFRIGgZ1sThDIkXkZV6Rz4TSrgA98s_SpTHstYM/s320/6.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Where's my eye?"</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I enjoyed the first episode of <i>The Mandalorian</i> and enjoyed parts of the second and third ones. The first episode's strengths came from some effective narrative choices not made elsewhere. For instance, the title character simply zaps a big monster rather than fighting it to get his ship away from the ice planet, and teams up with the IG droid without much fuss, something making it a bit less predictable than the following episodes. My biggest gripe is some of the fan service (see alien mentioned above and a certain previously-uncommon bounty hunting tactic) and the fact that I'm not too intrigued yet about where the story is going. I'm mostly just in it to see Star Wars-y stuff happening on the screen with the camera focused on a guy who has a cool helmet. Hopefully the helmet isn't still the most memorable thing after all eight episodes are done.</div>
Robaneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18401996860805398644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383709889311355921.post-1155966084442560042019-11-17T01:46:00.002-08:002020-09-29T03:33:13.796-07:00"Joker"<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLHG-Fql88RhvH_p0y41MSJCEoYUCr6NiaqbFDmuvwuX7SD53q6TA5mqov6gtzcDw1sUNMvFVfpA_KbfuYlq4SBkzzB0b9kgyHLNPX4FmyGNs-9S29IJFz1troe1zgc0k0Bb2pCpMv1XgL/s1600/vlcsnap-2019-11-17-20h34m23s464.png" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLHG-Fql88RhvH_p0y41MSJCEoYUCr6NiaqbFDmuvwuX7SD53q6TA5mqov6gtzcDw1sUNMvFVfpA_KbfuYlq4SBkzzB0b9kgyHLNPX4FmyGNs-9S29IJFz1troe1zgc0k0Bb2pCpMv1XgL/s320/vlcsnap-2019-11-17-20h34m23s464.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Are you aware that we live in a society?"</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I seem to recall finding the news that DC and Warner Bros. were making a standalone <i>Joker</i> film unconnected to their wider "Extended Universe" (unofficial title, apparently) project utterly laughable – so now there were two Jokers; one the useless Jared Leto version, presumably now abandoned, and a more "realistic" version to be played by Joaquin Phoenix. But it was worth putting aside preconceptions, because not every superhero film has to be part of a cinematic project; indeed the success of this film at the box office has shown that Warner Bros. was wise to do so, extricating the concept from a mess for which <i>Aquaman</i> and <i>Shazam!</i> were only mildly able to continue <i>Wonder Woman</i>'s ability to rise above.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhes6IMjg0iTLYIis5ZfaZdHDSNazPoU36xtuOw0d5qYj8Y_JSFcRVPW1mkQRQbYr-jBAnHL7O-js17GDCd02VJpYZKML8kUrmlSsBRz6LawZumOKIeVSkTPoLSW_gDQp2aMVRP_-RRGd6-/s1600/vlcsnap-2019-11-17-20h35m47s768.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhes6IMjg0iTLYIis5ZfaZdHDSNazPoU36xtuOw0d5qYj8Y_JSFcRVPW1mkQRQbYr-jBAnHL7O-js17GDCd02VJpYZKML8kUrmlSsBRz6LawZumOKIeVSkTPoLSW_gDQp2aMVRP_-RRGd6-/s320/vlcsnap-2019-11-17-20h35m47s768.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Hey clown! Why do you live in a society so much?"</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In saying all this I have to admit that while I enjoyed Phoenix in <i>Her</i>, the only film I can recall ever seeing him in due to my extremely patchy and sporadic knowledge of cinema, I didn't have much interest in a Joker origin story. I've always been fond of that dismissal provided by the Clown himself in his own pseudo-origin, the <i>Killing Joke</i> comic book, that his past was "multiple choice", a concept exploited effectively, of course, by the characterisation of the Heath Ledger incarnation in <i>The Dark Knight</i>. And I've also always had my own conception of the character that's never been fulfilled, even in the die-hard "definitive" animated version voiced by Mark Hamill. I've always thought that the Joker should find <i>everything</i> funny, even when it's at his own expense. But that's a dream which shall continue to be only so.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwhv3iYw8JjGk79R8zSU48_NJS2MOia8qOwNEexfeEA3l_Awn3sxFN5BEkufkKlxbRDUFYCQ-V9G5lCUJwmUEtXLw2XJ4sYbih6kW0HfqB5eIsRsRyoE5jWSFled8yOTnho2_dEUBukxHS/s1600/vlcsnap-2019-11-17-20h36m26s553.png" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwhv3iYw8JjGk79R8zSU48_NJS2MOia8qOwNEexfeEA3l_Awn3sxFN5BEkufkKlxbRDUFYCQ-V9G5lCUJwmUEtXLw2XJ4sYbih6kW0HfqB5eIsRsRyoE5jWSFled8yOTnho2_dEUBukxHS/s320/vlcsnap-2019-11-17-20h36m26s553.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"And this wiseacre claims that we live in a society!"</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
There's not much to say about <i>Joker</i> that hasn't been said already, to be honest. People seem to either think that it's brilliantly unique and refreshing for a very old and tired Batman character, or that it's just a derivative pastiche of Scorsese films of days gone by, something the filmmakers were quite openly inspired by. I must admit, having watched <i>Taxi Driver</i> not so long ago it was hard not to see <i>Joker</i> as pure simulation in that mold, and thus I tend more to fall into the second camp of opinion. It felt to me like a psychological thriller for people who probably don't watch many psychological thrillers and haven't experienced some better, older examples of the genre, but that's fine, really. If it could have the same impact on someone who probably wouldn't watch that kind of film as <i>Taxi Driver</i> had on me, there's no real harm. I have little knowledge of the alleged political controversies surrounding the film, and no interest in them; I daresay they are the usual manufactured internet media clicking-points.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW4DuoUO6BGwicDLVGQ7w-2mCJnX5UGKYpSF00XBaaytCjSKd-oC0WUTU9bS99yppWf8aYiUB5Ow7TqzFolaxRd5b3c08AnPq9VcUOw2eGxLVONgK9E_UuqKU_aQi5Fe6btfxHhmgmDp39/s1600/vlcsnap-2019-11-17-20h36m41s136.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW4DuoUO6BGwicDLVGQ7w-2mCJnX5UGKYpSF00XBaaytCjSKd-oC0WUTU9bS99yppWf8aYiUB5Ow7TqzFolaxRd5b3c08AnPq9VcUOw2eGxLVONgK9E_UuqKU_aQi5Fe6btfxHhmgmDp39/s320/vlcsnap-2019-11-17-20h36m41s136.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Remember, remember, we live in a society."</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
But with the media in mind I might as well at least discuss the film in a broader context and in regards to where I thought it succeeded. My favourite part of the film, much to the surprise of my theatregoing companion, was the moment in the film in which the Joker's alter ego, Arthur Fleck, is watching De Niro's character's talk show and fantasises about being invited onto the stage as an audience member to talk about his life and experiences, to fulfill his perceived destiny to make people happy. This part in particular struck me as a unique moment which seemed somewhat rare in this kind of film, something I've only ever seen in contemporary media represented in the indie computer game <i>Actual Sunlight</i>, which features a recurring element of the player character, a severely depressed office drone, fantasising about being interviewed so that he will have an audience for his, as he sees it, uniquely interesting opinions and worldview.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">(<b>Update:</b> Oh wait, this aspect was ripped off from another Scorcese film, <i>The King of Comedy</i>. Which I've now seen and was also a million times better than <i>Joker</i>. So no points scored there.) <br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiIYUkB8nnKdn5Km6xzrbtHD5FteHiMg311UGjDBUmeJyzzthEFGzEeCNQYxYFARdymwBrLVZqac4uw6IwpZDYzqjLTuqOm2Uho-8EOOJVa_4IuVry1J9AfqC8MJVA71gWp-iAUZYYEMTJ/s1600/vlcsnap-2019-11-17-20h36m48s302.png" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiIYUkB8nnKdn5Km6xzrbtHD5FteHiMg311UGjDBUmeJyzzthEFGzEeCNQYxYFARdymwBrLVZqac4uw6IwpZDYzqjLTuqOm2Uho-8EOOJVa_4IuVry1J9AfqC8MJVA71gWp-iAUZYYEMTJ/s320/vlcsnap-2019-11-17-20h36m48s302.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Bruce Wayne, you don't even know<br />
the society you live in."</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I think imagining oneself being interviewed and having a captive, sympathetic audience to which one may disseminate one's (supposedly) unique personality is a common daydream, and I was struck by the effectiveness of this moment early in the film. It characterises the Joker as a man who fundamentally craves attention, who sees himself as "special" and who only needs the everyday people to recognise his quirky uniqueness to feel complete. Indeed, I was so struck by the perceptiveness of this moment that I was disappointed that I felt like nothing in the film after that quite lived up to it for me, and I dearly wished that when Joker finally appeared on the talk show for real that he had been able to adopt the confidence and sympathy of his fantasy only to reveal that, as a result of his own mental health issues, society's negligence and a willingness to succumb to his negative impulses, a desire to inflict violence and cause chaos had emerged through his achievement of his dream, fantasy or delusion.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO-I69NvhJ411LI2gf9iLp4tDwDxzBQo3EaJcO1ka7eBCjDl90z54iLLGe0o5reLFAecUsTF1EyaSUHdjnHrdRikXc8JtzWwp3SP59TAQWWVT-RcRdsSyKJh_AkXqFXWIeWULSF-rTPHCz/s1600/vlcsnap-2019-11-17-20h36m54s940.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO-I69NvhJ411LI2gf9iLp4tDwDxzBQo3EaJcO1ka7eBCjDl90z54iLLGe0o5reLFAecUsTF1EyaSUHdjnHrdRikXc8JtzWwp3SP59TAQWWVT-RcRdsSyKJh_AkXqFXWIeWULSF-rTPHCz/s320/vlcsnap-2019-11-17-20h36m54s940.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"We all live in a society."</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
But it was not to be. I know I'm too immersed in the Batman lore from years of watching films and cartoon shows, playing Batman video games and reading comic books, but I never quite saw the Joker in Arthur Fleck; his ranting fury on the talk show didn't say "Joker" to me, his insistence on not being political soured by his focus on how society ignored him. This was not the elemental agent of chaos depicted in <i>The Dark Knight</i> or in the many incarnations voiced by Hamill. However, I'm obliged to recognise that my own heavy preconceptions coloured my impression.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisfHYtywgThCPoR3NBRNweIt4xXUDC6-6XXSu_9oL48WoM6rJS1OAlXyn1GcZvfJ2VByvkkEeH-oFIC_nvYHLhwB8rJuaOEbCxllUXEAAfUwVwbWpAWCIyhtgCjT300maoT11l5emdaqOl/s1600/vlcsnap-2019-11-17-20h38m04s083.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisfHYtywgThCPoR3NBRNweIt4xXUDC6-6XXSu_9oL48WoM6rJS1OAlXyn1GcZvfJ2VByvkkEeH-oFIC_nvYHLhwB8rJuaOEbCxllUXEAAfUwVwbWpAWCIyhtgCjT300maoT11l5emdaqOl/s320/vlcsnap-2019-11-17-20h38m04s083.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Travis Bickle lived in a society too,<br />
and look what happened to him."</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
What I do think is interesting in regards to all of this, however, putting aside how "Jokery" I thought Phoenix's "Joker" was, is how this film sits as part of a recent trend of films dealing with the relationship between mental health issues and contemporary media. Both 2014's <i>Welcome to Me</i> and 2017's <i>Ingrid Goes West</i> (which incidentally features a secondary character who is obsessed with Batman) explored how modern culture's media- and social media-driven fixation with the pursuit of fulfilment through public attention can react explosively with poorly-treated mental health issues, and as a further exploration of that theme <i>Joker</i> is at least functional as another remark in the conversation. Whether it, or indeed any of these films, gives a reasonable answer, is another matter; then again, perhaps there is no wholly reasonable answer. I'm certainly inclined to listen to arguments which hold both views: that the film advocates a more social approach to mental health care, and that it unfairly implies that people with mental health issues are violent criminals just waiting to emerge. Phoenix's performance, if not the direction or story in particular, at least invite discussion of the film as part of that recent thematic trend in filmmaking.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9N5lRjE-soDhoNAd5_vzbrnDzfRX8v8MA_SpvHIkHSo_8c31wq0z9sD89Lf_OidYFMIaNb2H_KommO_I2OyrWNFM-aqSMI1F3IBVbe_kQvRUHEIHKlYdO1E_wGe0JRZygJJ0OUnUfauPK/s1600/vlcsnap-2019-11-17-20h37m21s855.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9N5lRjE-soDhoNAd5_vzbrnDzfRX8v8MA_SpvHIkHSo_8c31wq0z9sD89Lf_OidYFMIaNb2H_KommO_I2OyrWNFM-aqSMI1F3IBVbe_kQvRUHEIHKlYdO1E_wGe0JRZygJJ0OUnUfauPK/s320/vlcsnap-2019-11-17-20h37m21s855.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Can you introduce me as...<br />
someone who lives in a society?"</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Joker</i> is an adequate film with some interesting moments and, as many have said, a strong core performance. I merely thought that it hit its peak, for me at least, much too early. My chief recommendation, as I made to some friends today, is that if you've never seen <i>Joker</i> but you've also never seen <i>Taxi Driver</i>, watch <i>Taxi Driver</i> first (also watch <i>The King of Comedy</i>). And watch <i>Welcome to Me</i> and <i>Ingrid Goes West</i> too; they're both worth your time, maybe more than another chin-in-hands frowning over DC's eighty-year-old clown.</div>
Robaneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18401996860805398644noreply@blogger.com0