The Magic Of Disney: My top 5 Disney Movies

Disney. Just saying the word makes you feel good inside. Or at least me. Whenever I go to our nation’s fair capital, no matter what kind of time constraints I’m under, the Disney store is getting visited. And something’s going to be bought. I have jigsaws of the character’s on my wall, lot’s of homeware, figurines and soft toys. Yet until very recently, it was something of a miracle to meet other adults who shared my enthusiasm for Mickey Mouse and Co.

Heres’ the thing. I went to see Zootropolis(Zootopia for you American readers) last week, and the screen was full of adults. Like seriously. I walked in, fully expecting it to be parents and children for the most part. In my brief first glimpse and subsequent lookarounds, I did not see a single child in the place. And it was busy.

So what is it about these animated marvels that appeals to so wide an audience? It’s long been known that they sneak in the adult humour as a little nod of appreciation to those parents who are “forced” to go see these movies with their young ones. But that’s not enough to pull adults into a movie of their own volition. Is it then that they can veer into darker territory on occasion, even if the horror of what happens remains off scene? Think of Clayton’s hanging in Tarzan, Mufasa being trampled in The Lion King?

But these are all extremely dark. Nobody goes to see a Disney movie if they want something gritty. I go to Disney movies because they make me smile. It’s not nostalgia either, as their new properties appeal to me just as much.

You know what, I’m going to stop myself. I’m way the fuck off track here. I sat down to write what my favourite Disney movies are, but wanted to prelude it with some reason for why I love them so much. And they make me happy and good, and I haven’t quite figured out why. I am about to write about my favourite ones below though, so maybe a little reason will be uncovered along the way! Short note, for the sake of not spending all day at a whiteboard doing pros and cons lists, I’m limiting myself to the core Disney movies – no Pixar, no Star Wars, no Marvel, and no live action. Let’s go!

5. The Emperor’s New Groove

Certainly the most shallow entry on the list, but deserving of it’s place here nonetheless. The Emperor’s New Groove doesn’t have some deep meaning. It doesn’t have a sympathetic hero who’s facing impossible odds or making hard decisions or working hard to achieve something. It has a selfish emperor turned llama by a disgruntled employee who wants the throne for herself, who makes the peasant he was about to evict bring him back home so that he can continue to be a selfish emperor. That’s it. That is the plot in it’s entireity. Pretty thin for Disney.

And yet, it’s absolutely bloody brilliant. And I think it’s for exactly this reason. The movie was more concerned with it’s running jokes and humor, using the plot and the setting as a playground for these devices. This is something I would usually rant about, condemning the state of modern storytelling. But it’s hard to do that when you’re short of breath from laughing, so it makes the cut.

4. Hercules

This one is here for so many reasons! It’s amazing soundtrack(“One Last Hope” and “I won’t say I’m in Love” are the two best of an amazing lot), it’s very Disney-esqu take on Greek mythology(quite a far cry from Kratos’ foray into the same area), it’s awesome Pegausus sidekick. As rich as Greek mythology is, it’s the last place you’d expect Disney to go with it’s stories involving eating babies and being gored by minotaurs, but Disney really knocked it out of the park. It’s a movie where the villains kind of make it – Pain, Panic, and Hades are incredible here. It’s got a really uplifting message of striving to find yourself and stay true to yourself. And it’s got Danny DeVito as a personal trainer/satyr.

It’s also got a real emotional blow when Meg dies. Hercules is so heartbroken, arriving just after she dies as Phil turns and gives that little head shake as he lands, and a slow mournful version of Go The Distance plays in the background. True, she comes back, but it doesn’t lessen the impact when we see it happen.

This one’s a no brainer. It made a very complex and cool area of storytelling, and made it completely it’s own. Ask any Disney fan for their top five list, and I’d confidently say that you’ll see this one show up again and again.

3.Tarzan

I mean this definitely has my favourite soundtrack of any Disney movie. Hands down. If this was a list of best soundtracks, this would be entries 1 through 5. But this movie also has what I personally think is one of the most outstanding morals of any Disney movie. That we must not be guided by what society and the world at large dictates we must behave like. Tarzan was pressured into going to England to be human, only finding out just how evil humans could be through Clayton. That scene is also definitely oe of the reasons this movie is on the list – scenes wherein a group of people come to each other’s aid like that are a huge Achilles heel with me, and almost guaranteed to have me punching the air.

Tarzan returns to his family, and does not try to repress himself any further. Jane realises that love and happiness are far more important than what we are supposed to do. Not to mention his goodnye scene with Kala being emotionally devestating (“No matter where I go, you will always be my mother”. “And you will always be in my heart.”)

The point is later reinforced when Jane and the Professor decide that they don’t want to return to so-called civilisation and find a much happier life among the trees with Tarzan.

It’s also on the darker side of the Disney spectrum, with a baby gorilla and Tarzan’s parents both being mauled to death early on, Tarzan killing Sabor with a pointed spear, and Clayton being hanged to death towards the climax.

I really can’t say enough good things about this movie. I absolutely adore Tarzan and will always be down for a rewatch of this Disney classic.

2. Treasure Planet

This has long been one of my favourite Disney movies. It’s spectacular. It seems to slip under the radar a lot, and performed very poorly at the box office, losing money for the studio. It did recevie generally good reviews though and with good reason.

The cast here are again top notch, with a very catchy song(“I’m Still Here”) as part of the soundtrack to boot. The visuals are spectacular, the characters were interesting. But the heart of the movie is the relationship between Jim and John Silver. Both characters are conflicted and uncertain about how they feel towards one another.

Jim, having had an absent father for his childhood and always resenting it. He finds a father figure in John, who though initially harsh, becomes a mentor and proud father-figure to Jim. We, like Jim, immediately suspect him as being the bad guy, but as time goes on and their relationship becomes solid, we come to let our guard down like Jim. And that’s when we find we never hsoudl have, as John is in fact the villain of the piece.

Though not to be a plot synopsis, that leads me to what has to be the most ambiguous Disney ending. Jim lets John away after his crimes, helping him to stage the escape. Mostly spurred on, I suspect, by the fact that John did choose Jim over the treasure at the climax of the movie. It’s hard to say whether this was the right decision or not. John undoubtedly cared about Jim, but he did fight him and his friends in favor of money, only making the right decision at the last second. And he’s not a good person. Yet he did help to make Jim the captain that he is at the end of the movie.

This ending will always leave me pondering, and I think that’s perhaps why it has always remined so high on my list. Not that it’s actually one of the studio’s better movies, but that it was one of the very few that made me leave the cinema thinking.

1. Zootropolis

Yep. It’s only just out but it’s already made it to the list. This movie was awesome! It was so so so good!

Where to begin with this. I mean right off the bat, thisis worldbuilding as it is meant to be done. There’s no character to relate to the audience here, to ask the questions we might have. Yet the rules of the world are quickly established – there’s more prey than predators, prejudice exists between prey and predators, there are set roles based on the type of animal you are, the town is divided into various environments to accommodate the different animals. All of this is delivered indirently, through what we see or the characters mention in passing.

The gags are also plenty and inventive here – there is a nudist colony which disgusts Judy, a DMV run by sloths, and though I won’t spoil it here, a very scary mob boss by the name of Mr. Big.

There’s an incredible sequence where Judy gives chase to a weasel through a part of the town inhabited by mice, where the small rabbit gets to play the part of a giant.

The movie is full of charm as it is primarily about the relationship between rabbit Judy Hopps and fox Nick Wilde. This is familiar buddy cop territory, and it’s executed flawlessly here. There is a bit of extra depth here however, as to work together these two characters have to overcome their prejudices. The blossoming of their relationship feels organic and heartwarming to the extreme to get there. And prejudice is right at the heart of this movie – showing that people are not what they must be perceived as, sometimes in funny ways as with the effeminate and lovable cheetah Clawhauser, but more serious at times as we see Nick as a child wanting to join the scouts but being bullied and muzzled by the so-called “prey” inside.

When the two characters fall out in the middle of the movie it is entirely justified. But some of the moments between the two that show how far they’ve come are what really makes their relationship bloom – the most important one being the one wherein Judy is being forced to hand over her badge, and Nick, having got what he wanted at the start of their misadventures, immediately comes to her aid and saunters of with her suavely.

The movie completely drives home the message that we can be anything we want to be, no matter what the world tells us. That we have to pursue or dreams. And that it’s ok to fly. Which is only further reinforced by the ridiculously catchy and upbeat song “Try Everything” that was written for the movie.

And all of this is without even mentioning the stellar cast – Idris Elba, Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman, Alan Tudyk, and more.

If I have to make one complaint, it’s that the case itself was a little underwhelming. Once a clue was incovered about halfway through the movie it was blatantly obvious who the killer was. Though in fairness, I feel that if I go into a Disney move expecting a case with Sherlock level complexity, that’s on me.

Basically, if you haven’t seen this movie, get yourself to the cinema ASAP.

About the Author:

Rumored to have been born with a games controller in his hand, Noel Gleeson works as a Java Developer in Ireland and loves all things pop culture.

The Compensatory Element of Storytelling – Charm

This post comes off the back of my having finished rewatching BBC’s Robin Hood series. When we think of what makes a good story – which we here at WhatElseIsOn do a lot, it’s kind of our thing – regardless of whether it’s a book, movie or TV show, terms like character development, theme and story structure. There’s much more of course, but these will serve as examples. My favourite writer Chuck Wendig has said that a great story should do two things – make you think and make you feel. Optionally, make you laugh.

So why then do stories that do only one of these things entertain. Why do they gather massive followings? I’ll be honest, I don’t know the answer – I’m absolutely typing as I think here. But I have two shows that I have seen that seem to gain their followings almost entirely through charm – Chuck, and Robin Hood. And thinking about both these shows, what they lack in terms of making you think, they make up for with absolute bucketloads of charm.

Let’s take Robin Hood. Robin and his men(and woman), are all likeable. But they never change or develop much. If there is a hint of that happening in the show, the characters in question either immediately revert back to their old ways(as in, it generally takes about half an episode). Little to no development going on here. The action scenes are ridiculous to the point of them being farcical(for example, in the first episode, Robin saves Much from being thrown from the battlements by two guards by throwing a sword from the courtyard below lengthways into their helmets causing them to stumble back.) I shall avoid spoilers, but there is quite a drastic change in season two but it was really only implemented for a bit of drama. The villains in the show are about as two-dimensional as they can get – the sheriff is a full on moustache twirling guy one step away from doing an evil laugh atop the castle towers. The stories are basic, ninety per cent of the time revolving around Robin and the gang stealing a great deal of money that the sheriff has kept somewhere hard to get at in the castle.

So why then is it so beloved? And it is beloved – go to youtube, type in robin hood – there are countless fan videos made in the show’s honour. In this case, the spirit of the tale almost certainly helps – it’s the reason that the story of Robin Hood has been around for the last millenium. It’s the story of people taking a stand against those who would trod on the hardworking people of the nation – and we all know they’re about today in nicely tailored suits.

Then there’s the characters – they may not change over three years, but that’s because they don’t need to. They’re extremely likeable as a group. Whether it’s Allan never being funny, John being the Yoda of Sherwood(“Him, I liked”), or Robin being the most noble goody two shoes we ever did see, the shows just fun. It doesn’t matter that Robin shot an arrow that ricocheted off of three different surfaces to land in the Sheriff’s sandals between two of his toes so that he could be yanked upside down – what matters is it was satisfying and fun to watch. And we got that cheey as hell freeze-frame of the gang at the end.

Chuck is in the exact same boat. MAJOR SPOLER HERE – the series ends with Chuck trying to get Sarah’s memory back with a kiss because Morgan saw it in a Disney movie. That is in no way exxaggerated – that’s actually how the show ended. And you know what. It was absolutely epic. Again, zero character development here. The one time I can remember them actually changing a character was for comic effect.

It’s been a lot longer since I’ve seen Chuck, but much of the same elements were at play in that show. Ridiculous action sequences, cartoonish villains. It was all crazy. And, yet again, that show has a massive following, as evidenced by the fact that it still has enough momentum for there to be talks of a movie.

Guys, this was a bit of a directionless post. As I type now, I’m still considering whether or not to post it, but I think I’m going to. What really drove me to write this was the Robin Hood thing – I’d been talking with some colleagues about what we were watching, and I told them Robin Hood. I love Robin Hood. It’s a fantastic show. But everytime I find myself in the position of trying to sell it to someone, I find myself stalling. But you know what? It doesn’t need everything that great stories are supposed to have. Sometimes when you’r crafting a story, you’ve just got to let yourself, and your characters, have fun. You, dear writer, might never be able to shot an arrow into the air only to have it land between a guards fingers – but Robin Hood is not bound by the same rules you are.

Now go and be charmed by the outlaws of Sherwood.

About the Author:

Rumored to have been born with a games controller in his hand, Noel Gleeson works as a Java Developer in Ireland and loves all things pop culture.

Flashpoints – Blood Ties (Legends of Tomorrow)

Our heroes have lost one of their own, Vandal Savage is still at large and doing crazy crap and more than one member of the team goes AWOL! Blood Ties see our Legends of Tomorrow face Savage on a more financial front, with Rip and Sara targeting Savages vast fortunes that he amassed over the years. Meanwhile Ray and Professor Stein try to save Kendra’s life after her recovery takes an unexpected turn. Last but not least, Cap Cold, Heat Wave and Jefferson go for a joyride to Central City, mad for the sesh I’ll bet!

OK, so last time I said that I wasn’t sold on Vandal Savage as the powerful, commanding villain but rather as the creepy kind? Well our main storyline of this episode showed us creepy Savage and I have to say: I wasn’t impressed. Maybe it’s just the situations we find Savage in or something not shown yet, but I have yet to see or hear something that makes me think: ‘Wow, That guy means business!’

Aside from that we learn that Rip and Savage are actually old friends, with Hunter trying to kill Savage in Egypt before he was immortal, and Savage incorporated Rip into his cult as the monster who tried to slay him, so most of Vandals henchmen are aware of Rip.
Anyhoo, Rip and Sara try to destroy Vandals fortune to cripple his plan for world domination, but, tut-tut, they leave the rest of the team behind! We are shown that Savage has a cult of people dedicated to him and that’s how he’s able to maintain his influence through the centuries: by keeping them alive. How you ask? Oh just CARTERS BLOOD!
Well with the ickynes aside, we see Rip and Vandal come head to head for the first time really, and Rip ends their meeting by killing Savage…for the moment.

On an even more icky side The Atom decides to fly into Kendra’s bloodstream and blast bits of metal in her blood with lasers! Does that sounds like the premise for a fairly meh Video Game? Yes. Does something go horribly wrong? Yes. Does my summary fail to mention very important plot points? Undoubtedly.

See poor aul Kendra is still dying since she got stabbed. There are a few knife fragments in her blood and they can’t leave well enough alone, so she’s dying. And it’s up to Martin Stein and Ray Palmer to save her!

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut after destroying one shard and his suit getting pummelled by giant (from his perspective) pieces of metal Ray starts to feel doubt about himself (which he IS prone to doing every now and then) and through a rousing cliché Stein snaps him out of his self pity, Ray then returns to operating Firearms in a woman’s bloodstream. And the day hath been saved! Except Stein was lying about his motivational speech. But Ray forgives him so THE DAY HATH BEEN SAVED!

Ah, and now for part III of our exciting journey! The Rogues want to steal something as per yoosh, and they bring along Jefferson Jackson as their getaway driver! Cold and Heat Wave travel to Central City to steal a very valuable emerald! It just so happens that Jefferson is pretty cool with stealing an escape pod and joyriding to Central City.

So the plan goes off without a hitch only for Lenny to reveal his true motives: to give the emerald to his father! Turns out that Cap Cold wanted to give the jewel to his father so he wouldn’t go to jail, and he would then never turn into the abusive man he became. The only reason Lenny doesn’t kill his father is because his sister hasn’t been born yet. Despite the obvious, nearly universal risk this entails Cold, one of the most patient and calm characters acts fairly impulsively. At the same time it’s not hard to see why Cold does this, he still wants him and his sister to have a better life and childhood, even if it’s only better by a bit. Also, Cold has never been the type of guy to let an opportunity slip through his fingers so tis really not that unbelievable! Of course nothing changes for him, despite his hopes of feeling ‘different’. Turns out his father was a shite thief and got himself arrested anyway trying to pawn the emerald, as opposed to when he was arrested for stealing it! Oddly enough both crimes carried the same sentence!

Ok enough is enough; this has been annoying me since I watched this episode: WHY?! WHY DID SAVAGE HAVE A BIG SUPER-SECRET CULT MEETING, INVOLVING BLOOD DRINKING IN. A. HOTEL?!

Considering the amount of people at the dance alone and the amount that were actually at the ceremony, surely there was about a hundred and fifty people who were just on holidays or something! Like until he showed up on The Flash, about 6 people in the world knew about Vandal Savage, so why not have a bit of discretion! Hell, surely at one of these (im gonna say 130 or so) meetings in history some Macaulay Culkin type kid snuck into the meeting hall and though; ‘Oh Jesus; better call the shades!’ Like I would love to hold a meeting with aspiring Super Villains and go over the Do’s and Don’ts.
One of my buttons: Sloppy Supervillany.

What can one garner from the title of tonight’s episode? Well the most obvious link is the ties between Savage and Carter, that his blood is pretty snazzy and immortal-y. The more nuanced connection with the title is the connection to Kendra and Carter; she feels his pain through his blooooooooood! Not to mention the blood motif permeating this episode with Ray literally travelling into Kendra’s bloodstream and Lenny, his family ties to his sister and the blood debt he owed his father. It’s actually a great title, it’s a little bit of a pun, its a little ham fisted and it’s also quite nuanced! Bravo writer, Bravo!

 
STRAY THOUGHTS:

• That’s right Heat Wave, you ARE thick!

 

• Soooo Sara Lance is Sherlock? I’m guessing that’s why she’s such a good detective!

 

• ‘Dude’s an expert swordsman, probably as good as me, not to mention a demi-immortal!’ He proceeds to be defeated, soundly, with like one kick and flip.

 

• Aaaaaahh jaysus Rip don’t you know anything about women?! Don’t call them an ANIMAL!

 

• Compared to how shrewd Lenny is as an adult, Kid Lenny is a dope!

 

About the Author:

The lovable slacker type, Colm Sheppard is into all things comic book. He enjoys good food, good stories and lengthy anecdotes.

Flashpoints – Legends of Tomorrow (Pilot Part 2)

HAWKWARD!

Yes. That’s how I want to begin. Shut up.

Anyhoo, so tonight’s episode of ‘Legends’ (Not named after what my friends call themselves) was enjoyable, sloppy, smooth, and a little ridiculous all at once! Legends of Tomorrow is still trying to find its feel and it shows, they have some solid ground to build on, and they have a strong cast, but tonight, we got to see that the show is still jumbled and cluttered. But still with enough action, jokes and Captain Cold I can sit through an hour and find myself thoroughly entertained!

The title of today’s episode refers to a single, sexy throwaway line from Captain Cold, and any further association with Russia and the colour white is a figment of your imagination!

Tonight our motley crew of super powered friends (Insert abbreviation here) must track Vandal Savage to Soviet Russia, where he has defected to; because that’s apparently something you can do as an immortal! Savage is in the midst of using a number of Soviet engineers and scientists to re-create Firestorm, after he first observed his power back in the 1970’s. Well while Savage is being General Eiling, the team attempt to break into his top secret lab and steal the prototype Firestorm matrix, but not before they break into the pentagon to extract some useful information on Savages operations!

Things are getting heated between the two gals this week on top of it all! Kendra’s become possessed by the Hawk-goddess warrior-woman thingie and Sara has to teach her to control the dark part of her, which she does by training! But in a slapstick reversal of fortunes Sara gets a bump on the head and turns into a strangler! Ah but then using Sara’s training Kendra manages to reach out to her killer comrade and the two work on their inner anger together!

Yes, if it wasn’t obvious, I felt this plotline was utterly generic. Which is disappointing considering how much promise Sara Lance had been showing until now! The set up makes sense; the duo team-up makes sense on more than one level! I felt let down by the predictability showcased here, rather than giving the gals a chance to ‘spread their wings’ *wink!* they end up cooped in on the Waverider hitting each other with sticks while all the men just make a big mess.

Well, since the beginning of the series we have been given one undeniably consistently enjoyable thing: Captain Cold. Undoubtedly he is the writers favourite, I mean just look at him! Cold can pretty much do anything, nick wallets, charm an icy soviet femme fatale, win our hearts and even fill the role of team leader. (He is also the most competent member of the team so far, sorry Ray!)

While he stole the show this week he was also given the emotional storyline last week, trying to fix his broken life. I’ll not deny that I love Captain Cold, but he does seem to be a glory hog, and that’s well and good for Cold, let’s not forget that this is an ensemble show! In summary: I love it, but Cold needs to take a back seat for the sake of the show, else it might just end in tears, poorly spread out and developed tears!

Captain Cold has been enjoying the spotlight but his partner, poor Heat Wave has been sidelined for three episodes running, but that’s all about to change! Rip has to deal with a crashed Chronos, and who better to be back-up in Soviet Russia than a maniac with a flamethrower hmmm? Oh…wait… so Heat Wave… ah, ok. No, no I understand, yeah. *sigh*, that was the episodes storyline; they thought that Rip should have more to do in this episode than Mick Rory in his entirety.

I get it, Heat Wave is a very basic, nearly Two Dimensional character, but please, don’t try and then attempt to build on his character by including him in a not-so enjoyable and impactful story!

While Rip has to deal with the consequences of his technically treasonous actions he brings along Heat Wave as back up, When his Time Lord *ahem* Time Master, master, master Druce tries to convince him to stop fiddling with time, Rip considers the offer. Mick gets to say ‘Sorry gurl, it’s a trap!’ and that’s pretty much the best he does this week!
And yes it is a trap, a fire-fight ensues and well…it all just felt like set up for the actual impactful story of the week!

Yes, Jefferson and Professor Stein are at it again, after the aforementioned fire-fight Jacks had a pretty serious abdominal wound, blood and being unconscious and all, but it wasn’t that serious, or else he wouldn’t have given out to Stein for being the annoying voice in his head who won’t shut up. To be fair, in that particular instance Stein was in the right, but that doesn’t excuse how much of a dickhead he was to Jackson! Anyway, so they have their little tiff and then during the mission Stein goes all crazy again and by risking himself kinda saves the day? I mean he is in soviet custody being forced to make an army of nuclear men for the Russians and Vandal Savage. Eh, he tried and that’s the main thing!

So what do I think is going to happen in weeks to come? Well I see a big climactic fight between The Legends of tomorrow and Savages team of counterparts that he will inevitably collect/ create by the end of the show! Either that or The Flash travels back in time and fixes everything, I’m just spitballin’ here!

JOKES…TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE JOKES

• Kendra and Sara can only survive on a ‘wing’ and a prayer!

 

• ‘Gideon; Bone me!’

 

• ‘Set the Druce loose aboot this hoose!’

 

• Jaysus lads, Stein nearly dropped the ball! ZING!

 

• I like to imagine that when Rip told Cold to run this went through his head: ‘So be it… So-vi-et!’

About the Author:

The lovable slacker type, Colm Sheppard is into all things comic book. He enjoys good food, good stories and lengthy anecdotes.

Flashpoints – Legends of Tomorrow (Pilot Part 1)

The year is 2166, and wouldn’t you know it, life is pretty shite! Vandal Savage, longstanding DC supervillain has taken over the world and does so through that oh-so reliable means: through force. The Time Masters, who protect the flow of time and the creator of the time sphere/ also Time Master Rip Hunter need to decide; what’s more important, keeping time safe or keeping humanity safe…

As I’s sure you can imagine, Rip Hunter just goes off and does his own thing, as lovable English rogues are known to do. To combat Savage throughout history, Hunter gathers together a group of extendible yet very skilled people from the year 2016, and no, I wasn’t one of them sadly. So, armed with his English accent, a time machine, Gideon, and a Men In Black device that lets him kidnap people (yeah he might have done that…) Rip travels 150 years into the past!

Great story right? Well as you might expect it’s a crossover special, with our Legends of Tomorrow trickling in from all over the DC TV universe, and hopefully we’ll be treated to even more in the epic crusade that has patched together B, C and D listers together and woven them into the Justice Leag- Legends of Tomorrow!

So what do we learn just from cobbling together TV spots and trailers? Well it’s a patchwork really, the executives took the characters that work best in a team dynamic, gave them a heavy hitter to… hit, and all this time not calling it the Justice League. Hopefully Legends can shed some light on the mysteries of the DC timeline, and maybe straighten some things out (with regards to the Reverse-Flash) and give us a story that we haven’t seen before!

So does the two part Pilot do any of that? Well yes and no, because it’s a pilot it does get bogged down in getting its story told, and the assembly of the team left a little bit to be desired in terms of pacing and character exploration. That being said it was fun (and VERY inappropriate) to see Professor Stein get his way and get his partner on board (Get it?? Because he drugged Jefferson Jackson and brought him aboard the time ship!)

The pilot is ultimately testing the waters, both in terms of the show and the story itself; at no point does the show attempt to explain time travel in a very technical way, and its somewhat unbelievable that at no point one of the less *ahem* scientifically academic characters goes ‘But like…can you explain that in Leaving Cert physics terms please?’ There’s a lot of stuff to grasp there, just saying.

Still the pilot does deliver a coherent story, there’s a beginning, middle and end, and because there needs to be some personal stakes in the matter somebody needs to die to motivate the team, y’know go all Phil Coulson! And even probably the coming back to life part too, so Horray on good narrative! Meh on who you killed off!

So, let’s talk about our Legends, their likes and interests, though crime/heroics is usually their preferred M.O. Last year we got a fairly lengthy introduction to our main brains: from Arrow, we got Ray Palmer aka The Atom! From The Flash we got Martin Stein aka Firestorm, and also his partner Jefferson Jackson!

Atom and Stein are actually a bit too similar for their own good, they both joined the team for the same reason; to make a mark on history, they’re both scientifically gifted and they both have like…projectile attacks! (Laser beams v. Flamethrowers) Though there are very enjoyable differences. Ray is excitable and puppy like in his innocence, while Stein seems to be becoming an adrenaline junkie.

In between the two is Jefferson, who is against the idea of putting himself in danger, but still has that little dab of hero in him! Jeff hasn’t really gotten to shine as much as the other characters, for now he is Arthur Dent to Steins Zaphod Beeblebrox.

On the more criminal end of the totem pole we have White Canary, a former assassin who came back to life after her sister Laurel (Ugh.) in typical Laurel fashion resurrected her with a half arsed idea of what to do. Sara Lance now don’s the white canary identity and kicks all kinds of ass! Sara seems much more the go with the flow type, and she even gets super high in 1975 for the craic like! I see her as the ‘Urverybody be cooooooooool’ person for the time being.

Speaking of cool (and also not) we also have Captain Cold and Heat Wave, who unlike the rest of the team, have each other’s backs but still insist of stealing stuff, there like the two bully’s or silent guys who remain on the sidelines for a good portion of the video game/ movie, and then kick serious arse when they are roused from their apathy! Though they actually dove into the action pretty quick! Poor Mick is taking a back seat to Lenny, who is working up a charming friendship with Sara and already butting heads with the would-be-leader The Atom!

Lastly we have the hawks, repeatedly reincarnated lovers (ooooh saucy!) and the eternal prey of Vandal Savage Kendra Saunders and Carter Hall are winged warriors who are probably the warrior archetype of the team. I feel like Legends will go through their story more than anyone’s save Rip, though *Spoilers* one of the hawk heroes dies fighting Savage! Yes we lose Carter less than 3 episodes into the series, though as I said: ‘What a fecking cop out!’ I mean killing off the quasi immortal dude is just the easiest way you could have gone; there is quite literally a 100% chance he’ll come back. Buuuh.

Our Legends all come together under the guidance of Rip Hunter! An English time master and loving husband and father, Rip assembled the Legends to fight Savage after the devilish dictator killed his wife and child! A fairly standard motivation, but I can see it maybe conflicting a little bit with the hawks motive for killing him. I have to say that I quite like Rip, though the Doctor Who parallels drawn for him might be his characters undoing.

Our big baddie of Legends of Tomorrow is Casper Crumps Vandal Savage who spend 5000 years trying to take over the world and succeeds in the year 2166, prompting Rip Hunter to defeat him before Savage rises to power. Savage spends most of the Pilot having his plots foiled by those meddling kids! I do feel like Vandal won’t be the powerful, intimidating villain like Damien Darhk judging on what I’ve seen so far, he’ll be more of the very creepy and ominously powerful type. While he does a good job of being a villain, Savage has yet to WOW! Me.

Another Baddie we faced was Chronos, one of The Atoms arch-enemies from the comics, re-imagined as a bounty hunter who looks suspiciously like the elves from Thor: The Dark World. All I can really say is that he had a cool lookin’ gun!

Well that’s that, Legends is off to a good start, though it suffers from typical problems you’d expect from an ensemble cast in a pilot, but I sure am excited to see where the show will take us!

 

STRAY THOUGHTS

• Rip’s stealing of a time machine against his super-powered contemporise reminds me of another fictional time traveller who Arthur Davrill worked beside…

 

• Is it me or is there a brooding super/anti-hero in every bar fight ever?

 

• Drinking age in US: 21, Jefferson’s age: 20, STEIN DONT GIVE A MINOR ALCOHOL!

 

• Hey guys, Guys, remember that bag guy from Arrow, he’s totally not in this!

 

About the Author:

The lovable slacker type, Colm Sheppard is into all things comic book. He enjoys good food, good stories and lengthy anecdotes.

“Ready for another adventure, Miss Carter?” – Agent Carter Season 2

Agent Carter’s back! Happy days!

Even as a part of the cinema-dominating Marvel Studios megabrand, being a female-led, not-particularly dark and gritty spy-drama set in the 1940s, the chances of Agent Carter lasting past it’s first year looked grim , so to see Peggy and co return for another season is an extremely welcome surprise.

It’s now 1947, and the story has moved from New York to Los Angeles. And coming with the change in location is a change in genre: while the first season of Agent Carter was a spy series, with all the double-agents, gadgets, alibis and infiltration you’d expect, the new season has more of an LA detective noir vibe, like Chinatown, LA Confidential or a Raymond Chandler novel.

And the noir-ish mystery our heroine will be gumshoeing around trying to solve? In the middle of summer, the body of a young woman has been found… encased in a giant block of ice.

All the classic California detective tropes soon come into play: seedy affairs, goons in suits and fedoras like the opening of a Batman cartoon, a conspiracy of businessmen and politicians running the show (though, because this is still a Marvel series, they’re also a HYDRA cult), a bought-off crooked police force…and there’s even a Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard aspect to the season’s big villain, Whitney Frost – an aging Hollywood actress who’s slowly being edged out of the business. (Well, I say aging but she’s like maybe 40 – the classic problem of pop culture and it’s lack of room for older women again…)

The series’ subtle transition away from being a straight-up spy story is smart writing: Peggy spent most of last season trying to hide away so many of her own secrets, but they had all been gradually revealed by the season finale.  So now, instead of risking repeating themselves by giving her a whole new set of secrets to hide this year, the writers have moved her into a more investigative role: now she’s trying to sniff out other people’s secrets rather than covering up her own.

Last season she was fighting for respect, to exonerate her friend, and to protect Captain America’s legacy – but this season, Peggy is just doing her job. Which is to protect people, investigate crimes and hit bad guys with heavy things (and sometimes sacks of money) – which is what she wanted from the start.

But because that arc has been wrapped up, her personal story this season moves from “Peggy needs to fight against institutionalised sexism to prove herself as an agent” to “Peggy’s love interest is getting married to another woman, and she’s starting to fall for a new man” – which is a plot with way more potential to feel like a reductive “female protagonist’s romance troubles” cliché.
Luckily Agent Carter the series  and Agent Carter the character are both better than that: when Peggy first meets Sousa’s new fiancé, Violet, rather than descending into jealous sniping, the two hit it off and quickly become warm and friendly to each other. And later, Peggy makes a point of telling Sousa how sincerely happy she is for him. Peggy Carter doesn’t let her private hurt ruin her friends’ happiness, and she damn sure doesn’t fight with other women over any man.

Meanwhile, when she meets and feels an attraction to the newly introduced Doctor Wilkes (Reggie Austin), she keeps him at a distance both for professional reasons (he’s a major witness in her case) and personal ones (she knows she’s still processing the news of Sousa’s engagement).

But she’s eventually won around despite herself – both she and the audience are a lil’ bit charmed by the warm, funny and capable Doctor. As a black physicist who fought in WW2 and then had to face huge prejudice and barriers to find any work in a field that he’s clearly very gifted in, there are clear parallels between Wilkes and Peggy. He seems to be being established as a recurring character and love interest – which makes his (apparent) death at the end of episode 2 all the more impactful.

(It’s cool though, he comes back in the next episode as like a science-ghost, or something.)

Bringing Wilkes back as an intangible presence for the rest of the season gives him a reason to stay a part of the story and interact with the main characters even after the initial plot of the murder at his laboratory has been wrapped up. “How can we get him back to our world?” can now be an overarching plot that runs through the whole season, and connects the character to all the weird super-science stuff that Peggy investigates.

As for the other supporting characters, Thompson (Peggy’s asshole perma-frowning colleague/new boss, aka that one guy from One Tree Hill) and Dottie (the Soviet super-assassin who used to be Peggy’s next door neighbour) are kept off in New York, away from the LA-based murder mystery plot.

It’s a nice little nod to/ holdover from the depiction of workplace sexism within the SSR last season that while Peggy is still in her same position as an agent, both Thompson and Sousa have been promoted to Office Chief positions.

Thompson stays in New York, separated from the main LA murder mystery plot, and is on his own separate-but-connected story path: After taking the credit for Peggy’s investigation at the end of last season, he’s started down  a slippery slope – and now the Dad from That Seventies Show is grooming him to be part of a HYDRA conspiracy that goes all the way to the top. (Which, incidentally, is my favourite place for conspiracies to go.)

So oh yeah, HYDRA are back, too. But as suggested in The Winter Soldier and the latest season of Agents of SHIELD, it’s the arm of HYDRA that’s secretly made up of 1% business executives and corrupt politicians.

The bad guys have also switched genres with the move to California: instead of Nazi superspies, they’re now a nice LA noir-style evil conspiracy of rich white guys for Peggy to take down (or maybe fail to take down, to extend the Chinatown reference – since we know that they’re still around as of 2014’s The Winter Soldier.)

Thompson being on the bad guy’s payroll is an interesting way to keep his character around, and I’m sure his story will intersect with the other’s later in the season. (I’m calling it now: around episode 7 or 8, he’s going to realise he’s “in too deep”, have a crisis of conscience brought on by Peggy’s good example, and become a mole on the inside for the good guys.)

Aside from Evil Businessmen HYDRA, our villain for the season is Wynn Everett’s Whitney Frost (aka Madame Masque). The original comics, she’s a female rip-off of Doctor Doom who eventually becomes Iron Man’s crazy, obsessive ex-girlfriend. Sooo… there’s room for improvement here.

Madame Masque really benefits from being re-imagined in the 1940’s and being pitted against Peggy instead of a male character: in this version, she’s a massively successful Hollywood actress (“We put our pearls on one string at a time, just like everybody else.”) who’s being slowly edged out the door because of her age. (She’s in around her late thirties, a comment on Hollywood’s lack of opportunity for older women that is just as true today as it was in, y’know, the nineteen-forties.)

As well as allowing some pointed commentary on the gender politics of Golden Age (and Modern Age) Hollywood, this new version of Whitney Frost is also heavily inspired by the story of Hedy Lamarr (the 1930’s Hollywood mega-idol who secretly invented the technology that’s the basis of Wifi and GPS in her spare time – a fascinating story I can’t recommend enough you google).

Like Lemarr, Frost was originally a scientist, who invented radio signalling systems that were vital to the Allies in the war, and became an expert in our superscience Maguffin for the season, the shadowy, blackhole-ish Zero Matter.

And also like Lamarr (whose story had a sad, Sunset Boulevard-esque end), it looks she will increasingly lose touch with reality, as Peggy sniffs around the murder of Frost’s husband’s mistress and as the production studio executives try to push her out of the film business.

Similarly to Doctor Wilkes and Peggy, Frost found meaning in doing what she did best to help the cause during World War 2, but unlike the other two – who were able to continue their meaningful work in some ways after the war – something apparently happened that pushed Whitney out of the lab and led her to become a Hollywood actress instead. Setting Madame Masque up as a woman like Peggy who hasn’t been able to hold on to the meaning the war brought to her life, creates a really interesting parallel

So, a lot of exposition in this first piece on Season 2, but these first three episodes are really are about introducing the new characters, the new personal dynamics, and the new LA noir-ish status quo for the season.

But now “The board is set, the pieces are moving”, as Gandalf always used to say, and we can dig into more of the thematic stuff in the coming weeks.

I’m so happy this series is back.

 

Stray Thoughts:

• “Love the hat.”

 

• This series has such a distinct and creative visual style, as opposed to so many of the other action series on television right now (cough)AgentsofSHIELD(cough). There are so many nice little touches that sell the 40’s setting and adventurous tone: the location shots of real footage from 40’s LA, complete with pillarbox screen and skipping “film stock” quality. The use of actual non-clichéd music from the time, and the Indiana Jones-style plane-travelling-over-a-map scene. See, other TV series? You can play around and have fun with your presentation a bit, and still not lose the drama of your serious moments. It’s possible…

 

• And outside of just the period-establishing visuals, that slow-motion shot of Peggy just thwacking Dottie with the bag full of coins was soooooo satisfying, and comic-bookey in just the right way.

 

• “Aside from danger, my middle name is charm.” – Aaaaaayyy, Jarvis is back! It’s Jarvis everybody!

 

• “I have no desire to spend the rest of time as a disembodied voice.” – And he’s feeling meta this year!

 

• Not sure about that Fatty Arbucle joke. On the one hand, I felt clever cos I got it, but on the other hand, I felt squeamish cos…I got it.

 

• “Who’s that clown?” (Camera pans to a sad-looking clown in the waiting room)

 

• This week in Peggy is the Best Spy: She knocks out Dottie with a bag o’ change! She runs the interrogation like a pro! She palms a keycard and sneaks into the lab! She beats up crowds of henchmen, not a bother! She disdains 40’s-era racism the same way she does sexism! She finds the hollow floorboard and realizes the evidence is fake! She sneaks into the bad guy’s boardroom and bugs ’em! She waltzes into Madame Masque’s dressing room and starts grilling her like it ain’t even nuthin’!

 

• ” Even the great Eleanor Roosevelt was turned away at our threshold.” “Well, I’ve seen old Ellie’s threshold, I believe you’ve made the right choice.” – Oh yeah, and Howard Stark’s back! (Also, eww.)

 

• As the series moves towards the 1950’s and the start of the Cold War proper, elements of America’s Communist panic and the Red Scare are starting to crop up – with the show now set in 40’s Hollywood, I wonder how and when it’ll engage with McCarthyism, the Hollywood “Communist” trials and the whole dawning era of “Are you now or have you ever been…?”

 

• “Are you gonna punch all of LA?” “Maybe. I could do with a hobby.”

 

• “It’s the flamingo isn’t it?” “It is indeed the flamingo.”

 

About the author: A lifelong TV addict since his first episode of Sesame Street, Cian Sheppard works as an English teacher in Poland and thinks you look very nice today.

I Can See My House from Here!

Guys, this is a sad, yet also amazing day. Our co-blogger and friend has struck out solo. Having joined us after a New Years pub chat almost exactly a year ago, his Father Ted posts have kept you guys coming back for more and more over the last twelve months.

He’s gained a bit of the bug from these posts and has started his own blog over at https://theflaninthehighcastle.wordpress.com/ which you should all go and check out! He intends to write some posts about Doctor Who in the near future and if anything fresh and interesting strikes him from Father Ted that’ll get penned as well.

Ger, any post you want to write for whatelseisonblog in the future would be met with the warmest of receptions, and we wish you the best of luck at theflaninthehighcastle!

Here’s to you pal!

An Almighty Apocalypse – Thoughts on “You, Me and the Apocalypse”

 

Guys. Woah. I’m kind of glad I left two amazing shows from last year until now. Both Fargo, which I’ve mentioned in previous post, and now You, Me and the Apocalypse. I watched You, Me and the Apocalypse this weekend. Here’s the thing – although I love this stuff, as evidenced by this blg, I’ve never been one for binge-watching. After an episode or two I tend to get up and do something. But this – this I couldn’t stop watching.

Now before I go any further I need to tell you something. Usually when I do posts like this for the blog, I strive to make them spoiler free. This is going to be opposite of that. Look left – spoilers. Right – more spoilers. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Nope, it’s a whole load of spoilers dropping from the sky. I really want to discuss this with you guys, so if you haven’t seen the show, know that I absolutely loved it, really want to discuss it with you guys and come back here and read this afterwards. For those of you who have seen the show – read on and discuss!

So usually here I would open with a synopsis of the show, but I assume if you are still reading at this point you have seen the show, so instead I’m going to launch right in to what I loved about it.

First off, the characters. The cast was stellar, and I can’t think of a single character who I felt was broadly drawn, or a caricature, or anything other than a real person. Even the villains felt very real (sometimes they were even the heroes we had been following.) Father Jude was my absolute favourite. I admit, on intially seeing him, I thought they were going for a cheap laugh. A smoking, drinking, swearing priest. But he was, in fact, a very believable character, who’s character was instrumental in demonstrating the show’s stance on religion, which I think was delivered brilliantly to the audience without being preachy. Some characters don’t change much throughout the show, but most of the main cast certainly do. Jude realises his mistake in believing that faith and the Church were interlinked in one of my favourite scenes of the whole series(more on the religious side later, but I know I wasn’t the only one roaring with triumph when the cardinal reminded him that “This meeting was held in the strictest confidence”. He looks pensive for a moment, ready to nod in agreement, and turns around with a rather epic “Go fuck yourself.” Rhonda becomes necessarily hardened by the end, really culminating in her calmly shooting a man in the head for his truck. Leanne, through her time with Rhonda, learns that she has been wrong all her life, and renounces her life as a white supremacist by the end. Gaines cared only about the political fallout and was willing to let people die oblivious rather than cause panic by revealing the truth. But Scotty convinced him that everybody deserves the chance to say goodbye, and he became more humanised by the end of the show. This was a real character-driven show, and all the better for it. The impending apocalypse only provided a backdrop for these characters journeys, and there was justifiably little focus on it considering it was the core of the show.

Even the villains were justified in their actions. We saw the steps that led Gaines to tell the world that Project Saviour had succeeded. Ariel spent his entire life being told that he wasn’t good enough by a mentally ill mother. The cops chasing Rhonda genuinely believe her to be a dnagerous and wanted criminal. There’s no cackling villain with a goatee who wants to see the world burn here. Except for maybe the evil grandma, but we really don’t know anything about her.

It’s also worth pointing out that in just ten episodes, which I watched over a day and a half, the show moved me to tears twice. Once when Jude died for his beliefs, and when Rhonda and Spike had to say goodbye to Rajesh as he waited for his death. Worse still was the ensuing scene, where Spike tried to get his mother to look away from the live feed of her husband’s death. For her to come so far to be reunited with her family, only to have it torn away from her so quickly was heart wrenching. Add to that the fact that Rajesh died somewhat repulsed by his wife after witnessing her killing a man, and it makes the reunion that much worse.

So now let’s move on to the shows stance on religion and faith. It very much brings to the fore the fact that the Church and faith are two different things. We all know that this is referenced several times in both Jude and Celine’s story, and Jamie and Frankies, but the absolute most hard-hitting scene for it is the one where Jude renounces his faith. A quick reminder(although I doubt that anybody who has seen the show could forget it) – Jude is meeting with Benedict and three cardinals in a clandestine meeting, the pretence of which is to get a status update on Jude’s analysis of the possible false Messiahs. When the Cardinals reveal that they want to proceed with presenting one of the candidates as the second coming of Christ to placate the masses, Jude gives up the priesthood. He dismisses the four men with him – “So am I really the only one amongst you with the balls to stand up for the truth?” and “It’s time to admit. The faith has failed. Christ is not returning.” “No. You’ve given up on him. But I have not.” – and renounces the Church and the priesthood, but not his faith – “Yes I’m done. You’re right. I’m a liar. And a hypocrite. I thought I was doing God’s work but he’s out there. Not in here. And I was a fool to think that he was. I want to be a good man.” “Father I want to remind you that this conversation was held in strictest confidence.” “Go fuck yourself.” Both the fact that this was the thinking of the cardinals, ad the fact that they killed Jude for his strong faith showed them as politicians and little else. They had no faith, and they cared more about the public perception of the Vatican than about God.

The show further concretes that there is a God – from the voices in Frankie’s head, to Celine’s meeting God in the pub bathroom, to Jamie parting the Thames river a la Moses, proving that he was the Messiah – fittingly Jude’s son was the second coming of Christ for which he died. It’s the most wonderful of sentiments – that a person’s faith and there worship of a corrupt organisation are two entirely different things.

And now guys, the bit I really want to talk about. That ending. Endings are hard. I mean I loved Fargo – a lot as you guys know – but the ending was really anticlimactic. You, Me and the Apocalypse pulled it’s one off perfectly. Can we first talk about the show’s opening credits? Ariel(who we believe to be Jamie, right up until the closing seconds of the series) narrates to us, from the Bunker under slough, what is happening to the world. Comet coming, going to destroy the world. So we learn episode by episode who made it to the bunker in the end. With another face revealed every week we’re left to wonder how these character’s meet. Who else is off camera? How do they come to be in a bunker under Slough? Why is Rhonda crying? Why is Celine delerious? Why is Scotty wounded and nervously eyeing a box? Why is Dave in a tux? And all to the backdrop of “I can see clearly now” playing cheerily in the background. I think it’s one of my favourite openings ever, and an ingenious storytelling device. But the thing we’re assured of, right from the opening minutes of episode one, is that Jamie makes it there. He’s telling us the story after all! At the beginning I did wonder if it was Ariel – but after he stole Jamie’s identity, got found out, and was left in a wrecked car I breathed a sigh of relief. Jamie’s OK! Only he’s not. As we see a naked Jamie outside the bunker, having been attacked by Ariel. Jamie is left to witness the end of the world with Rajesh outside. And those closing moments, the exact same as the opening we’ve seen ten times already with just a few extra seconds added as Ariel smiles sadistically, all while “Happy Together” plays us out.

Not everything is answered. There’s still a lot of mystery surrounding the grandmother, and we have no idea who’s in the box, or why the monkey is evil. But you know what? That’s ok. We know that these characters are going to have problems in that bunker. And we’re not going to see all of that. The most we’ll ever get to do is speculate what might have happened in the bunker in Slough. Or rather, under Slough.

I’ve seen this called a bittersweet ending. But I’m struggling to see the “sweet” side of that. Frankie and Layla are left with an imposter for a husband and father respectively. This being the same man who was quite willing to leave Frankie to die in order to save himself and Layla. As opposed to Jamie, who willingly put his life at risk to ensure Layla got to the bunker with them. The grandmother(who’s name I don’t actually know – did I miss it or was it never mentioned?) is going to kill those she can’t support and use Frankie as a bloodbank. There’s a hostage in the box who warns against the evil monkey. Celine is going to be left to raise a child by herself(assuming that the grandmother doesn’t kill her as she’s not related to her.) And Spike and Rhonda are left without their husband and father, just like Layla and Frankie. This is the exact polar opposite of a happy ending – and it’s all the better for it.

I suppose in the interest of balance I should try to list a few flaws. I do have them, but guys they’re so minor.

My biggest problem with it for a long time was the fact that everybody was related. I was working on the assumption at the time that these independent stories all happened to end up at the same bunker. But having discovered, of course, that it was orchestrated by the matriarch of this family, that issue becomes pretty null and void. Other than the fact that early on, they’re just telling us that everybody is related to everybody else.

I did feel that early on in Ariel’s story the show fell back on the “hackers are basically Gods” trope. Hacking into the NSA, organising prison breaks in very little time, tracking people down using camera’s all over the world. It’s a plot device that has often irked me, but not enough to detract from the show I think.

And the fact that early on I sometimes felt that the show strayed away from the fact that it was a serial show – in particular for Rhonda and Jude’s stories. They sometimes felt a little “adventure of the week” to me, and provided little in the way of plot development.

But guys – these are tiny, irrelevant points. The show rocks. It’s got a great diverse cast of characters, some awesome humor, some really emotional moments, and a really thrilling and engaging set of stories. I wonder what I’d do if I had 34 days to live?

About the Author:

Rumored to have been born with a games controller in his hand, Noel Gleeson works as a Java Developer in Ireland and loves all things pop culture.

“This will begin to make things right.” – Some thoughts about Star Wars: The Force Awakens

(Full spoilers. But c’mon, you’ve seen it at this stage, right?)

“Hey Cian, what did you think of the new Star Wars film?”

Well first of all, it’s pretty funny that the very first line of dialogue in it (“This will begin to make things right.”) is such a straight up acknowledgment that the last 3 Star Wars prequel films were awful.

I loved the film overall, but a criticism I’ve heard from a few people is that it mirrors the first Star Wars film from 1977 too closely. And that’s hard to disagree with: from the lost droid with the plans, the young person in khaki pyjamas on a desert planet, angry loud-breathing guy dressed all in black, the death of the cranky old fella in the third act and especially the last big fight to blow up the Giant-Planet-Laser-That’s-Totally-Not-The-Death-Star-Guys-Seriously – it all feels really, really like A New Hope.

But I think that echoing of the original film’s structure was kind of a necessary evil for director JJ Abrams and the giant evil holograms of Disney business-guys that he has to bow to.

Cos like, if this literally megabillion dollar deal that Disney did with George Lucas is to pay off the way they want, then they have to hammer the message home as quickly and as strongly as possible: “No, this isn’t that weird Star Wars from a few years back with all the tax talk and sulky teenagers and Jar Jar Binks – this is the good old Star Wars you remember – please like this and give us your money!”

So I can forgive that lack of originality in the story of this film, cos we know there’s gonna be tens and tens of these films down the line (probably long after all of us are dead), so it makes sense that Disney played it safe and went with the familiar for The Force Awakens: it’s just them getting people in the door and mentally associating this new relaunched slew of Star Wars movies with the warm feelings audiences have for the 70’s original films, and distancing themselves further from the disappointing early-2000’s prequels.

So yeah, besides the samey-feeling plot, I really really enjoyed the film:

The three new leads are all likeable characters, and (much harder to do, I think) they also all feel like they genuinely like each other. I especially like the camaraderie that develops between Finn and Poe (the spaceship pilot, not the Tellytubby) – they don’t share much sceentime together, but the actors really get across the sense that their characters take a liking to each other soon after meeting. What really sells the friendship and makes it endearing is the way it seems to kinda pleasantly surprise Finn (who was stolen from his family as a child and raised to be a solidier, so he probably doesn’t have too many other pals).

I also really appreciated that the film established upfront and early that our three heroes are genuinely nice, good people (which is something that weirdly has been forgotten in a couple of other recent megabudget escapist films):

Rey chooses not to sell the little droid that’s asking her for help, even though it could set her up for life. Finn literally spends his life training as a soldier, but then deserts the army when he’s asked to execute unarmed civilians. And Poe in the middle of a firefight/escape attempt, takes time to bond with Finn and thinks to give his new friend a proper name.

I liked these early establishing moments because they made us think “Oh, okay, these are decent, kind people.” – they’re not just the heroes of the story because the script says they’re the protagonists – which was often how it felt in (sorry to bring them up again) the prequels.

And speaking of the leads, I really like that this mega-mega budget blockbuster film A) seemingly had a black actor as its lead and B) went beyond that and played a bait-and-switch in the marketing – despite Finn being the character shown holding a lightsabre in the film’s poster and all the marketing, it’s actually Rey who’s our Trainee Jedi Luke Skywalker-figure for the new trilogy. Hurray for a female lead character!

Rey herself is a fun character – but there’s a lot of mystery around her: around who she is, why she was left alone on the desert planet in the first place, who her parents are, what connects her to the original Star Wars cast. I found those mysteries made it hard to connect with her as a straight-up audience identification figure in the same way you could immediately understand and project yourself onto Luke Skywalker in the original film.

Still, while Rey’s fuzzy past and motivations make it hard to connect with her as a character, it’s still clear from the film that she’s decent, athletic, self-reliant and moral. That is, she’s a good hero and role model.

I teach kids, so I’m (almost against my will) pretty plugged in to the games that are being played around the playground these days. It’s nice to see that girls have a cool, capable hero to be when the kids are playing Star Wars now, and that they’re not all stuck just being Princess Leia anymore.

…Not that there’s anything wrong with being Princess Leia. Which brings me nicely to my next point:

Sooo…in the new film we catch up with the heroes from the original Star Wars trilogy; Leia and Han Solo have split up, and now Han’s depressingly still trying to be a smuggler. Luke tries to set up a school for Jedis, but quit and ran away sulking when he failed and all his students died. Even R2D2 has basically been in a coma for years…

Doesn’t that make the heroes of the old films… kinda failures? Like, CGI Lupita N’yongo drops some lines about how history always repeats itself in cycles, and there’s always an army of Dark Side guys waiting in the wings, and also that time is a flat circle, but really….

If 30 years after their major victory, there’s still an evil Empire with giant armies of stormtroopers and massive spaceships, run by an evil Emperor (sorry, excuse me, “Great Leader”) and his right hand man: a Skywalker who’s joined the Dark Side, and they can still blow up planets with their Death Star (sorry, excuse me, “Star Killer”)… then what did Luke and his friends actually change or achieve? In the end…kinda nothing.

(Okay, one thing has changed: they’re all older now – and they’ve become a new generation of old authority figures: Han’s now the cranky but mysterious Obi-Wan Kenobi figure, Luke’s a self-exiled Jedi teacher just like Yoda, and Leia’s replaced one of those Rebel general guys with the super-70’s hair and massive moustaches.)

Of course this is all just good storytelling and the film-makers rolling with the reality that all the original stars are 35 years older…but still, it sure must be depressing from those character’s perspectives. No wonder Luke looks so down in the dumps at the end.

And coming back for a second to what Lupita N’yongo’s tiny old space-lady character says: if history in the world of Star Wars is a never-ending cycle and the bad guys always come back to set up a new Evil Empire, then doesn’t that mean that each and every Star Wars hero eventually ends up as a failure?

I wonder if in 2045 we’ll be settling in to watch Star Wars Episode 18, and seeing an old and bitter Finn grumble about how he has to help his long lost half-nephew save the galaxy from the evil Autocracy and their MurderSun. Meanwhile Poe has mysteriously disappeared/ ran off sulking somewhere in Wales because BB8 has joined the dark side, and everyone on the hologram-internet will be making bitchy comments about Rey’s weight.

 

 

Stray Thoughts:

• Ooops, forgot to talk much about the villains: I thought the handling of Kylo Ren was really smart. The film-makers had a bit of a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” problem with inventing a bad guy for the new series: any evil, heavy-breathing red-lightsabered dark lord that came after Darth Vader was just going to seem like a pale imitation. So they just leaned into that and made it a big part of the new villain’s character: Kylo Ren absolutely is a wannabe pale imitation of Darth Vader.

 

• Nice to see Dohmnall Gleeson’s Space Hitler character slink off at the end to return in another film – he’s an actor I really like.

 

• And in other Irish connections: it turns out Luke Skywalker has been hiding out on Skellig Micheal all this time!

 

• Sooo…it’s mentioned once or twice that Kylo Ren joined the dark side because he was “seduced” by the Supreme Leader (who’s totally nothing like the Emperor from the first Star Wars series, we swear guys). And that choice of words kinda got me thinking… this series of films sure do focus a lot on creepy robed old men “seducing” handsome innocent young men in their twenties, don’t they? Anakin and the Emperor in the prequel films, Luke and the Emperor again in the originals, and now Han and Leia’s son and the Supreme Leader. I’m just saying, there’s an awful lot of “seducing” going on…

 

• Aaay, Admiral Ackbar’s still alive! I’ll bet he’s alerted people to so, so many traps in the last thirty years. And he’s buddies with Miles from “Lost” now too!

 

• A weird thought: The Force Awaken is the first Star Wars film to have it’s episode number (7) match up with it’s release order (the seventh film in the series).

 

• Say what you will, at least the First Order is more progressive in it’s hiring policies than the Empire: they’ve got black stormtroopers, Indian women in their control rooms, and Brienne from Game of Thrones as one of their commanders. The bad guys aren’t just all white British lads this time! Hurray?

 

• RIP Han Solo: Harrison Ford’s been eyeing the door on this series since at least The Empire Strikes Back – nice to see he got his wish in the end. (Unless they bring him back as a ghost or flashback in later films – “Just when I think I’m out they pull me back in!”)

 

About the author: A lifelong TV addict since his first episode of Sesame Street, Cian Sheppard works as an English teacher in Poland and thinks you look very nice today.

“Nothings sad ‘til it’s over. Then everything is.” – Hell Bent (Doctor Who)

“Hey Cian, what’d you think of the Doctor Who finale?”

Em, well mostly I was just surprised that Clara’s not dead after all. Or she’s alive again. Either way, false alarm everybody!

Woof, this is a dense hour of television. I can’t think of an episode of Doctor Who more unfriendly to new viewers and first time watchers than “Hell Bent”: it’s an instalment that gives up on accessibility and focuses on a deep dive into plot points from the series recent and not so recent history.

It’s definitely not a standalone episode. You really need a hefty dose of background context to get the most from it. (And I’m saying that as someone with only very basic knowledge of the original pre-cancellation 60’s to 80’s run of the program: I’m sure there’s still tonnes here I’m missing.)

First among the long list of plot points this week’s episode wraps up or pays off in some way is Clara’s two-year character arc as a kind of Apprentice Doctor.

Clara’s arc through Series 8 and 9, as she went from the Doctor’s friend to basically being a hero just like him, was highlighted most by her time as a substitute Doctor in last year’s “Flatline”, and by the opening parts of “Death in Heaven”, with Jenna Louise Coleman’s eyes being shown instead of Capaldi’s.

It was a character arc that seemed to have wrapped up two weeks ago in “Face the Raven”, which ended with Clara playing the Doctor role within the narrative (doing something dangerous and reckless to save her friend) and dying for it. (As that episode pointed out, it was the kind of situation the Doctor puts himself in all the time, the only difference being that he has the luxury of being able to regenerate after he dies, get up and walk away.)

As touching and earned and right for the character as Clara’s death in ”Face the Raven” was, it did kind of end up sending a weird and off-feeling message to the audience of children (and, um, older children…) that were watching: the message that “Trying to be like the Doctor is bad and dangerous and will get you killed” – which is an odd moral for, y’know, an episode of Doctor Who to give.

So I was quite glad to see the ending of “Raven” re-written here, as Clara gets brought back from the moment of her death by some vague Time Lord technology. At the start of this episode Clara is dead. By the end of it, she’s been made immortal, has stolen her own TARDIS, taken on a companion of her own and is off to travel in time and space. (Which is a pretty dramatic reversal of where I thought this episode was going…)

Some of the best moments of the last two years of the show have come from Clara and the Doctor’s dynamic: the idea that they are best friends and equal partners, rather than the uneven power dynamic that there often is between the smart heroic Doctor and the pretty girl companion who asks him loads of questions.

Clara, on the other hand, for a variety of reasons and plot-gymnastics, has basically known the Doctor all his life, and been there with him (if not directly responsible for) some of the biggest moments of his recent history. She’s the Doctor’s equal and respected partner, not his companion. That’s why my favourite Clara line is still “You’re not my boss, you’re one of my hobbies.”

(This dynamic between them is great, but only when the writers remember to include it, and don’t just write Clara as a generic companion – I’m looking at you, guys who wrote the fecking Lake episodes and the one about the evil sleep dust…)

And Clara ultimately gets a send-off worthy of both her as the Doctor’s friend and equal, and her status as a kind of Doctor-in-training: in the end we see a human character rising to the same position within the narrative as the Doctor: now she’s an immortal hero bouncing around time and space in the last eternal second of her life, with her own time machine and companion.

She’s just as much a protagonist as the Doctor is now, and you can imagine the spin-off series where she and Ashildr go off and have 50+ years of their own time-travelling immortal heroic buddy adventures.

(And what a nice writing touch that the thing that eventually gets her out of the “the Doctor’s gonna erase my memories” situation, resolves the plot, and lets her run away in her own time machine to finish her transformation into a Doctor-figure, is the most Doctor-ish trick in the book: reversing the polarity of something.)

I think this rewriting of Clara’s original death scene works and doesn’t feel like a cop out because this new ending feels so in tune with the character and the ethos of the programme: “Clara tries to be like the Doctor, and eventually she does” is a much nicer and more satisfactory ending than “Clara tries to be like the Doctor, and eventually she dies.”

The next plot point from Doctor Who’s past with a strong influence on “Hell Bent” is the moment from 2010 where the David Tennant Doctor decided to erase all his friend Donna’s memories of him, over her clear, repeated and tearful objections.

So that’s a moment that has rightly gone down as probably the most straight-up unlikeable and dickish thing we’ve seen the Doctor do in the new series, and he never really received much comeuppance for it. (In fact, the story mostly treated it like it was fine and not an awful thing for someone to do.)

That there was no karma or retribution for that oversteppping and violation hangs over this story: the last act is basically an echo and restaging of the Tennant/Donna scene from years ago: Clara’s got some information in her head that’ll kill her eventually, so the Doctor unilaterally decides that to keep her alive he’ll erase all he memories of the last few years and their time together, and he makes this decision even when Clara makes it really clear that it’s not what she wants.

But of course this time the scene plays out differently: Clara’s relationship with the Doctor has always been a more equal one than his friendship with Donna, and she basically forces him to listen to her and accept her point of view:

“These have been the best years of my life, and they are mine. Tomorrow’s promised to no-one, but I insist upon my past, I am entitled to that. It’s mine.”

So that’s basically a 5-year over due “Cop yourself on you selfish dick” to the Tennant Doctor, worked into the climax of a story that also features Clara’s departure, the return of the Time Lords, Maise Williams showing up again, time travel to the end of the universe, the wrapping up of several long-running plots, and the Doctor having his memory erased…

(I told you there was a lot going on in this episode).

 

 

Stray Thoughts:

• Sooo.. The Doctor was the Hybrid in the end? Or the Doctor and Clara together were? Or Maise Williams was? Or Paul McGann was? Eh, whatever…

 

• “The Time Lords have got a big computer, made of ghosts, in a crypt, guarded by more ghosts.” “Didn’t hurt, did it?” “Little bit.”

 

• I really liked the line the evil head Time Lord had about the Doctor, that “words are his weapon” – because it kinda clarified why I find the Doctor and Doctor Who so enjoyable: he’s a superhero who doesn’t use violence to solve his problems. At the end of the day, in 99.99% of Spider-Man stories, you can imagine a pretty clear three-act structure to how the plot will play out, and you can be similarly sure that the third-act will be resolved by Spider-Man punching the bad-guy really hard, or in some other way winning a physical fight. Same goes for Batman, and Superman (I assume – who the hell reads Superman comics?) But because writers can’t just have the Doctor punch his way out of every situation, the way he beats each episode’s bad guy has to be more creative and though-out than “hit the Dalek until he falls down.” – There has to be a creative and semi-unique solution to the problem each monster presents.

 

• It also means that solutions that genuinely aren’t possible in other superhero stories are possible within the story-telling world of Doctor Who: Spider-Man, as much as he may try, can never convince a villain to stand-down, re-evaluate what they’re doing, and give in without a fight. That simply can’t happen within the bounds of the story, because a Spider-Man story is built around the draw of two men in goofy costumes kicking the shit out of each other – that’s the whole attraction the selling-point, so the fight is inevitable. But because Doctor Who stars a hero who uses words as his weapon, he actually can sometimes convince a bad guy to just stand down without a fight, and it can be a satisfying climax to the story, as it was in this season’s (absolutely phenomenal) “The Zygon Inversion”.(Also, let’s be honest: a super-smart, quippy hero who’s greatest weapon are words is a complete power fantasy for booky people like me who are straight-up terrible at sport…)

 

• So the grumpy bald white-guy Time Lord general gets shot and regenerates into… a black woman. I really like how in the last few years the series has been sneakily making the regeneration rules more and more inclusive and progressive: gradually laying the groundwork for the idea that the Doctor doesn’t always have to be a white British man anymore.

 

• “What’s his plan?” “I think he’s finishing his soup.”

About the author: A lifelong TV addict since his first episode of Sesame Street, Cian Sheppard works as an English teacher in Poland and thinks you look very nice today.