OUAT vs. Other Fairy Tales: Compare & Contrast

[KingOfHearts]

There's a trend in Hollywood right now to take the most well-received character(s) of a movie and give them their own sequel, particularly in animated flicks. (Cars 2 being focused on Mater, Minions movie, etc.) I've seen TV shows do this as well. But, at least in my opinion, giving qwerty side characters the main focus is rarely organic. It harkens back to Robert Carlyle's line about how only a little imp Rumple can go a long way and that too much of him would make it less special. Alas, the show totally disregarded that statement, so we're stuck with plenty of Rumple, Evil Queen, and Wicked Witch.

The Wonderland spinoff doesn't fall under this category. (Which I'm grateful for.) The only character borrowed from the parent show is Cora, but she's only in it for one episode and she didn't get much focus. It made sense for her to be there and she served the plot. Honestly, the show didn't need her name to be as good as it was.

Sometimes side characters spinoffs do work (Fraiser, for example.), but it's definitely possible to have too much of a good (or scenery chewing) thing.

[Camera One]

Yes, that's another trend.  The Huntsman being given his own movie is a prime example.  Another would be Dora from "Finding Nemo".

 

I think that is sometimes possible for a movie, if it's a supporting character who doesn't have one quirk, and who didn't get much fleshing out in the movie itself.  

 

On a TV show, it's slightly different because the most "popular" character often ends up dominating the show itself, becoming the focus and overshadowing the main characters who were the focus at the beginning.  This has happened with The Evil Queen, Rumple and Hook, who are the most popular, and larger than life.

[Camera One]

On 4/24/2016 at 5:19 AM, KingOfHearts said:

Disney actually owns the rights to all the Oz books except the first one. If they ever did a spinoff with Dorothy, there would be plenty to work with.

What a waste of owning the rights.  I've always wanted to see the latter novels adapted.  Ditto for Disney bailing after the second Narnia movie, and then everything coming to a stop after the third movie.  

The Wizard/Witch of the East/West/Glinda origin story could have been great, but it was pretty lame.  I think James Franco could have been a good wizard if the script wasn't so bad.  The only thing I liked was them incorporating the China Doll.

I'm interested where "A Series of Unfortunate Events" goes in the new adaptations, since they never made a second movie after the Jim Carrey one.  With his involvement, it always goes a little overboard, but they did an interesting job of adapting three books at once (though I was disappointed at some of the nuances they skipped, though what else is new for book adaptations).

[Shanna Marie]

Supposedly, they're about to get back into the Narnia movies, picking up with The Silver Chair. That was always my favorite (a classic quest story), so I look forward to seeing what they do with it. The BBC TV adaptation of that one was decent, mostly because of Tom Baker as Puddleglum.

[Camera One]

Does Disney still have the rights to it?  I know it's weird, but I would love to see how A&E messes with Narnia.  I guess it's already been there-done that with Jadis, who has some similarities with The Snow Queen.  Maybe she's Regina's sister too.  Revealed when we visit Heaven in Season 9, when we get to see Cora again.

Edited April 30, 2016 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

Does Disney still have the rights to it?  I know it's weird, but I would love to see how A&E messes with Narnia. 

They do not. The last Narnia movie was distributed by 20th Century Fox.

[YaddaYadda]

I was watching a clip on YouTube last night with DB Weiss and David Benioff - Game of Thrones - (not that they did a stellar job with the writing last season, because I came a hair away from dumping this show, and praying that GRRM finishes his books so that I don't have to watch the show anymore) were explaining the reason why they have flashbacks this season, and how they are different because Bran is actually living the flashbacks, and he is part of them, witnessing what happened in the past as an active participant. They said that the reason they didn't do flashbacks before was because they feel it's lazy writing.

All I could think about was A&E because while the flashbacks really served their purpose in season 1, they've become extremely lazy, and dispense very little information. I also thought about the time travel adventure which could be looked at as a flashback but in present time, and how Emma and Hook were participants in the action.

[coops]

The flashbacks in season 1 were so good because they twisted or revealed sonething new about the fairy tales we knew. The show doesn't revisit fairy tales anymore, now it focuses on Disney's latest movies like Frozen or Brave which, I would imagine, but be rather limiting in terms of storytelling because there is only so much Disney will let the writers change. 

I think the show would be better off if they went back to fairy tales as opposed to parading around Disney's latest characters. Red Riding Hood, Rumplestiltskin and Hansel and Gretel were all in season 1 and they're not Disney films... there's still plenty of fairy tales the show can visit.

[KingOfHearts]

They should only use flashbacks for important centrics. A backstory episode for the Big Bad or if an important time in a character's life has to be played out. (Like in Tallahassee.) When you have flashbacks explain every little thing that happens, you don't leave much room for ambiguity or the audience's imagination. A&E always talk about how every viewer should interpret the show in their own way, but it's so literal that you can't do that very much. We could piece together Emma's young adult life after Neal. We didn't need to be spoon-fed how she became a hard-boiled, independent bailbondsperson.

Flashbacks often take away screen time from the characters at large. In a flashback, you can only show one or two main (or guest) characters. In the present, you normally have everyone available to do something. Centrics are alright, but they're abused. They're an excuse to not balance the ensemble.

From what I remember, the flashbacks in Lost started getting tedious in Season 3 unless it was about a new character. In Once's case, I would agree with the GoT people - it's lazy writing. 

Edited May 2, 2016 by KingOfHearts

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

I loved the Nikki/Paulo send-off episode in LOST. I hated all their other appearances in the Show. 

Me too. I love how Lost stopped taking itself seriously for a moment. I wish we could get a meta episode of Once that made fun of itself a little. It tries to with some one-liners, but there's so much material to take advantage of. Maybe 4x21 was supposed to be that way with Isaac (The Long Live Regina button, #NoSpoilers, etc.). But, that was more of A&E patting themselves on the back than looking at how crazy their show is and making something out of it.

There was a particular moment in one of the middle seasons of Lost where the background characters start getting annoyed that they're not let in on what's happening. They say outright there's a clique comprising of the main characters. I really liked that. I wish we could see some of the Storybrooke citizens commenting on the action or doing their own thing al a Nikki/Paulo while Team Hero is off saving the day. The writers pull so many new characters out and say they've been living in Storybrooke the whole time. Why not do something convoluted to show where they were during major events? (Or how they have some ridiculous tie-in with them.) So many fun possibilities.

Having background characters shipping would be funny. I especially adore how Zelena ships CaptainSwan. 

[InsertWordHere]

4 hours ago, sharky said:

Lost did this once -- added characters that were completely useless so they killed them off in one of the worst episodes of the entire series. 

Add me to the list of people who loved the way LOST handled those deaths. They listened to feedback and gave us one of the better episodes in the series. It wasn't the episode they were killed in that was the problem, it was the episodes beforehand that suddenly had these new characters being part of the action as if they'd been there all along.

1 hour ago, KingOfHearts said:

IMO, Nikki and Paulo got a better send-off than any Once character since Graham. At least the Lost writers owned up to their writing mistakes. A&E always try to sweep them under the rug.

The funny thing is, "Expose," the LOST episode in question, was actually written by A&E.

Quote

 I wish we could see some of the Storybrooke citizens commenting on the action or doing their own thing al a Nikki/Paulo while Team Hero is off saving the day.

This is my dream episode. The main characters running around in the background trying to find the latest MacGuffin and the secondary characters just having a chill day. I wish they had done it with Ruby instead of saying she's been in the EF since the season 3 finale.

Edited May 4, 2016 by InsertWordHere

[sharky]

1 hour ago, InsertWordHere said:

Add me to the list of people who loved the way LOST handled those deaths. They listened to feedback and gave us one of the better episodes in the series. It wasn't the episode they were killed in that was the problem, it was the episodes beforehand that suddenly had these new characters being part of the action as if they'd been there all along.

Ah, yes. I seemed to have mashed that entire storyline into one episode. Don't mind me! I just have to go do a Lost rewatch.

[Rumsy4]

1 hour ago, InsertWordHere said:

The funny thing is, "Expose," the LOST episode in question, was actually written by A&E.

A&E wrote some of the most boring LOST episodes (Fire + Water, Dave). They also wrote for Hurley quite a bit, IIRC, so I shouldn't be too hard on them. I do remember Carlton Cuse mentioning in a podcast that Eddy really really wanted to do backstories for background characters like Frogurt and the Flight 316 crew. So, they had him write the mobisode on Frogurt. lol

28 minutes ago, sharky said:

Ah, yes. I seemed to have mashed that entire storyline into one episode. Don't mind me! I just have to go do a Lost rewatch.

I think many people do that. That's why that seems such an unpopular episode. Although I think worst episode title universally goes to Jack's tattoo backstory episode (Stranger in a Strange Land). Funny, Selfless Brave & True in ONCE was also set in Thailand, and was such a dud.

Edited May 4, 2016 by Rumsy4

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

I think many people do that. That's why that seems such an unpopular episode. Although I think worst episode title universally goes to Jack's tattoo backstory episode (Stranger in a Strange Land). Funny, Selfless Brave & True in ONCE was also set in Thailand, and was such a dud.

For me, that honor goes to Fire + Water. I hate that episode with a burning passion. The character assassination on Charlie was ridiculous. Similarly, The Cricket Game is probably my least favorite Once episode for what it did to Regina.

I do wonder if it was A&E's idea to make Jack related to Claire. That familial connection added nothing to the story and was only explored a little in the flash sideways. I think it was mostly played for Shocking!Twist! That's right up their alley.

Edited May 4, 2016 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

A&E has learned nothing from "Lost".  They fall into the same mistakes, while ignoring many of the characteristics which made "Lost" a great show.  The problems of "Once" is similar to the problems with the last two seasons of "Lost", when they began to ignore character stories, supporting characters and mythology, instead focusing on plot plot plot and shocking plot twist.  The dark forces had the upperhand, while the protagonists just reacted.  In my rewatch, I stopped halfway through Season 5 and pretended that was the ending.

Many of the episodes A&E were given were relatively uneventful, but I liked a lot of them since they slowed down and gave characters moments and room to breathe.  They also wrote for a number of the supporting characters such as Hurley, Charlie and Sun/Jin.  Which is really ironic considering they show on "Once" that they really have no interest in the supporting characters or "normal" people.  To me, the only really bad episode they wrote for "Lost" was "Fire + Water", which was the worst of the Season 2 crapshoot.  

They were just staff writers, so I think the blame lies more on the showrunners for the Season 2 problems on "Lost".  Lindeloff & Cuse did all the good flashbacks in Season 1 so in order to write more flashbacks, they pretty much regressed every single character.  And that was what "Fire + Water" did for Charlie, who once again had a heroin subplot.  This type of repetition should never have happened, yet A&E still do it time and time again with flashbacks on "Once".

Edited May 5, 2016 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

 And that was what "Fire + Water" did for Charlie, who once again had a heroin subplot.  This type of repetition should never have happened, yet A&E still do it time and time again with flashbacks on "Once".

That episode was an eggnapper episode. Making a character do something stupid and morally questionable just for the sake of doing it. Then later, all conflict is fixed with a hug. That wasn't the only eggnapping in Lost, but it was by far the most notorious. 

Edited May 5, 2016 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

It's interesting timing that there's now an online campaign by fans to get Disney to give Elsa a girlfriend
http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/disney-fans-start-campaign-to-give-elsa-a-girlfriend-in-frozen-2-w205318

Sounds like the same type of comments we saw for "Red Slippers". 

In this case, one of the arguments I've read is that the message in the movie is Elsa doesn't need a boyfriend so she also shouldn't need a girlfriend, to be strong.

Edited May 5, 2016 by Camera One

[legaleagle53]

And Disney is adding more live-action movies based on fairy-tale characters, including sequels to Maleficent, The Jungle Book, and Mary Poppins (that sound you just heard is P. L. Travers spinning in her grave), as well as the following:  Cruella, A Wrinkle in Time (which I hope is better than the made-for-TV crapfest a few years ago), Dumbo, and Tinkerbell.

[Camera One]

I kinda find it funny to read about all that hush hush stuff on "Games of Thrones".  On this show, people die multiple times and no one would bat an eye if Hook comes back to life.  In fact, I would be really surprised if Monday has the actor's exit interview, unless it's going to be the season finale when he says his official goodbye, though more likely the series finale.  

Edited May 7, 2016 by Camera One

[Writing Wrongs]

Alice in Wonderland-Peter Pan prequel in the works:

http://variety.com/2016/film/news/alice-in-wonderland-peter-pan-prequel-movie-director-1201771726/

Quote

 based on the premise that the Alice and Peter characters were a brother and sister who had to deal with their older brother perishing in an accident and their parents’ despair over the tragedy — leading them ultimately to journey to Wonderland for Alice and Neverland for Peter.

Say what now?

[Curio]

I'm surprised OUAT didn't come up with it first.

[KingOfHearts]

This sounds as unfocused as Brenda Chapman's other movie, Brave. I wish we could stop with the Peter Pan movies. I'm fine with Alice in Wonderland, because there are so many possible interpretations. But mashing it up with Neverland sounds hokey. 

[Dianthus]

I've never actually read Lord of the Flies (nor is anywhere near the top of my 'to read' list), but I understand it's a bunch of boys stranded on an island. So I was considering a LotF/Peter Pan sort of mash-up. Would that even work? Would there be a place for a Capt. Hook type character (good or bad)?

[Camera One]

I read it in high school.  It's not really a fantasy novel.  It's a depressing look at the darkness of human nature, where the group of boys devolve as they try to survive and organize themselves, but end up fighting and hurting each other.  

The Wonderland/Neverland combo could be interesting, if they actually explore those worlds.  Though wouldn't it be kind of disjointed if one sibling goes to Wonderland and the other one goes to Neverland?

Edited May 15, 2016 by Camera One

[Camera One]

I'm curious where you guys encountered the term "steampunk".  I had never heard of it until I read the forum after the finale and looked up the term.

[InsertWordHere]

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

I'm curious where you guys encountered the term "steampunk".  I had never heard of it until I read the forum after the finale and looked up the term.

I think I first saw the term in an online discussion of the His Dark Materials trilogy. Doctor Who has also visited a few steampunk-ish worlds. 

[OnceUponAJen]

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

I'm curious where you guys encountered the term "steampunk".  I had never heard of it until I read the forum after the finale and looked up the term.

I'm pretty sure I first saw the term when looking into cosplay. Also in relation to fiction/fanfiction.

[profdanglais]

AFAIK it's a pretty widely used term in cosplay/comics. I can't remember the first time I heard it, but I think it may actually have been in relation to the film Wild Wild West. 

[daxx]

I saw a cool cosplay at comicon and heard him refer to them as steampunk pirates. Looked it up online after that.

very popular in cosplay and interior decor strangely enough.

[RulerofallIsurvey]

I got into making jewelry several years back and would see findings, etc, called Steampunk.  They looked cool, so I had to find out what it was.  

[Senna]

Probably either anime or fantasy fiction for me.

[Shanna Marie]

The concept of steampunk has been around for a long time. I've got an article around somewhere in which the origins were discussed. The term itself (though not the stories) was a joking spinoff of cyberpunk. It's a whole literary subgenre. It's kind of like Jules Verne stuff, only instead of looking forward based on the imagery from his current time, it's current writers envisioning that kind of Jules Verne-ish world. I could go on and on, since that's what I write, but there are a lot of variations -- alternate history, alternate world, post-apocalyptic with society having reached a kind of quasi-Victorian level. I love the idea of using that imagery around fairy tales.

[Rumsy4]

I don't remember when I first heard the term. It may have been cosplay related. I've read books with steampunk elements. More recently, I read a most amazing steampunk fanfic (Lightbearers), which has made me want to read a full-fledged SP novel.

[Curio]

2 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

More recently, I read a most amazing steampunk fanfic (Lightbearers)

When I saw the airships in the Season 5 finale, I wanted so badly for Hook to hijack one of them.

[tennisgurl]

Steampunk does love them some airships. I actually recently bought an anthology book filled with Steampunk stories. Its just called Steampunk, and has a pretty wide variety of stories and variations of the genre. If your interested in Steampunk, I think its a good place to start. 

I find it funny that Penny Dreadful, another TV show about fictional characters meeting up and having adventures (which also has Victor Frankenstein as a major character) is doing its take on Jekyll and Hyde at the same time this show did its take on the story. Now, Penny Dreadful has a really different take on it, quite a bit darker (its a much darker, and better, show) and with a Victorian feel. In the show, a lot of Jekyll's anger comes from being a constant victim of racism, being half Indian in this version, and he seemingly created his potion to cure the inmates at Bedlam. He has not even turned into Mr. Hyde yet, but its clearly coming. I am interested in seeing what Once does with Jekyll and Hyde next season, even though I cant imagine they would get as dark as Penny Dreadful ever does.  

[OnceUponAJen]

Robert Downey's Sherlock Holmes films have struck me as steampunk-ish too.  I found an article: 

http://steampunkchicago.com/articles/the-steampunk-in-sherlock-holmes-film/

[Writing Wrongs]

Golden Compass has some nice airships. Hugo is kind of steampunky.

Edited May 18, 2016 by Writing Wrongs

[Rumsy4]

^^ I was going to add Hugo. That movie is one of a kind amazing. 

[Selina K]

I'll fly my geek flag here for a minute.  I first heard of steampunk in the early 90's when I was playing a lot of role playing games and we did an adventure in a system called Space 1889.  It had a similar sense of the Land of Untold Stories. Very Victorian with lots of clockwork type machines.  if you can stick some unnecessary gears on it, it's steampunk.

[Shanna Marie]

25 minutes ago, Selina K said:

if you can stick some unnecessary gears on it, it's steampunk.

And if you're really clever, you find a plot reason for people to be wearing things with gears on them. :-)

[KAOS Agent]

There was an episode of Tiny House Nation where the woman wanted them to build her a steampunk tiny house. It was at least slightly different from their typical styling. Episode 3.04 of Castle, aptly named "Punked", featured a steampunk club. If you want a high budget (but mostly crappy) steampunk movie, Wild Wild West with Will Smith and Kevin Kline would be one to watch. 

Edited May 18, 2016 by KAOS Agent

[Shanna Marie]

There was a lot of steampunk-ish imagery, including an airship, in the movie version of Stardust.

I felt like there was some post-apocalyptic steampunk sort of stuff going on in Firefly, where they had spaceships but also tended toward Victorian dress and manners, with a mix of high tech and Old West on a lot of the planets. The Warehouse in Warehouse 13 had a rather steampunk aesthetic. Apparently, they even hired a steampunk artist to make some of their props.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen had a steampunk vibe to it, but was another mostly crappy movie. I'm still in awe of how they managed to take that situation and those characters and make such a dull movie out of it.

[Rumsy4]

I think the movie Brazil is sort of post-apocalyptic Steampunk. 

I found a list of steampunk films here.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was godawful.

[Dianthus]

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Wild Wild West both sucked ass. So disappointing.

I watch Grimm as well as Once, and I was thinking about last week's ep of the former in light of the finale. On Grimm, there's a character named Adalind.

Spoiler

She's a reformed villain too. She was talking to somebody else, and said that Nick (the hero) had been nice to her when he didn't have to be. Later on, one of the baddies was trying to get her to spill on Nick's location. She told him no, and when he said they'd find him, she said not because of her. Adalind gets it, but Regina seems to think it's her due. The others didn't have to be nice to her, but they are, and she mostly just spits in their faces anyway.

[Writing Wrongs]

Teaser trailer for Beauty and The Beast:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c38r-SAnTWM

[Camera One]

The castle seems a little too CGI.  The interior sets are very nice, though.  My main worry is how they will do the Lumiere, Cogsworth, etc. without making it hokey.  Plus attempting to wash my mind of ideas such as "I love the dark parts too".

[Faemonic]

I think I was playing Final Fantasy IX which was sort of medieval sword and sorcery but the discovery of magic steam powered technology was making monarchs wage war or something. That was when I first heard the term. The Three Musketeers (2011 film) is basically what steampunk does, compare it to more traditional Three Musketeers movies.

 

Oh, I watched Lindsay Ellis's review of the Phantom of the Opera, it's a two-parter, the first examining the character of Erik from the novel to right before the musical by Lloyd Webber and then after. The sequel, Love Never Dies, is so bad that it shoots the moon and comes back to can't not watch.

 

The main reason for this being, while Andrew Lloyd Webber may have identified...a lot...with Erik the Phantom and unappreciated musical genius and  penchant for chestnut-haired ingenues, the character development was spot on. Ellis put it best, how just because someone had a sucky life doesn't mean they're not   a villain if they treat people like puppets or make demands without acknowledging another person's agency. Erik learns this. That's the show. 

 

The sequel positions Erik as the main character protagonist hero thing, but he's still a colossal megalomanaical jerk and now has no reason for it

because he's got a successful business and supportive friends and the Girys (both of them) fawning over and enabling him in out of character ways and argh. He already did the baby dance with Christine! They made a baby! They sing about the details of the baby dance for ten minutes!

 

 

But villainy is inherently interestinger and sexie also so nyah.

[Camera One]

There's that campaign to #GiveCaptainAmericaABoyfriend, and former Once actor Sebastian Stan is half the proposed coupling.  

This will never happen, but it would be fun to see A&E ruin comic books for good by spending half a season in Comic Book World combining the DC and Marvel universes.  

[Writing Wrongs]

Maybe a Little Mermaid live version coming:

http://deadline.com/2016/05/disney-mulling-the-little-mermaid-live-action-version-1201762354/

Ugh. OUAT will be pointless soon.

Edited May 25, 2016 by Writing Wrongs

[KingOfHearts]

Isn't there already a live-action Little Mermaid coming out from another studio? I'm far more interested in one that is a more faithful adaptation of the Hans Christian Anderson tale.

It's safe to say at this point Disney is just bringing every popular animated feature in their library to live action. I saw the Beauty and the Beast teaser trailer the other day and that's the only one I'm really hyped about. It looks gorgeous and I love the cast already. That movie actually seems like it could work with real people. I just hope whatever CGI they use for the servants isn't distracting. It seems like that would be tough to pull off.

Edited May 25, 2016 by KingOfHearts