OUAT vs. Other Fairy Tales: Compare & Contrast

[Camera One]

I finally got to see "Zootopia".  I had heard so many good things about it, but I was a little disappointed. 

Part of it was I had accidentally read that "Zootopia" had a surprise villain (I read it in one of the Youtube comments of that Disney villains video I watched a few days ago... darn it, I had avoided spoilers for more than a year!).  So I kept waiting for the "surprise villain" reveal.  Two thirds into the movie, there was really only one candidate left.  Which was a shame since I really liked that frazzled "assistant mayor".  Her plan was convoluted as hell, though.  Wouldn't the arrest of the lion mayor result in a new election?  Unfortunately this movie will go in with the bin of movies where I didn't like/wasn't convinced by the "shocking" twist.  When Pixar does this with so many movies, it becomes a new formula to follow.

I did like the concept of what the movie was trying to do, so in some ways, that villain reveal sort of lessened the impact.  People seeing other groups with prejudice and politicians using fear to get ahead is so topical and it was clever how they went about portraying that in an animal allegory.  

I guess at the end of the day, the main reason I didn't enjoy the movie that much was because I was sort of bored.  I didn't like any of the characters for quite a while.  I was looking at the clock and 30 minutes in, I was still not that engaged.  The sloth DMV was probably the first sequence that amused me.  By the halfway point in the movie, I did like the bunny/fox team, but too much of it was just boring running around dodging obstacles and bad guys.  

I did find Ginny's voiceover monologue amusing because I was thinking about the horrible monologues on "Once".  Plus, the fox had WALLS.  

Edited August 29, 2018 by Camera One

[tennisgurl]

I might have brought this up before, but has anyone read The Rumpelstiltskin problem by Vivian Vande Velde? Its a middle/high school level anthology story that are all re-imaginings of the Rumpelstiltskin story. I really loved it growing up, and I recently found my old copy and read a few stories, and they still hold up quite well. It has a lot of fun shake ups of the story, like a version where Rumpelstiltskin is a benevolent fairy, one where "he" is really an old wise woman and the princess and king are too dumb to realize that she helping them, one where its told from the king's perspective, and generally tries new perspectives, and tries to fill in some of the fairy tale plot holes. 

[CCTC]

On 8/29/2018 at 1:18 AM, Camera One said:

I finally got to see "Zootopia".  I had heard so many good things about it, but I was a little disappointed. 

Yes - I liked it, but not sure it lived up to they hype I had heard about it.  On the other hand, I watched Coco with not hearing much about it and it struck more chords with me (although the family hating music being so overdone did bug me  a bit).
Ginny does have a voice good for animation, and could see her doing more voice-over work in the coming years.

[Camera One]

I borrowed "The 10th Kingdom" from the library.  I can't believe I watched it 18 years ago when it first aired in 2000.  

I've only seen the first episode (first hour) so far, and I'm starting to remember why I didn't like it.  The characters are so annoying, and it was hard to get through even an hour of it.  I watched it back then because of the fairy tale angle and I also liked the main actress from something else.  

The trolls were beyond irritating, and so was the werewolf.  Virgina's father was idiotic with the wishes he got from the magic bean.  And no one being able to understand the dog was frustrating too.  The only slightly "clever" thing they did was the wolf going to the grandmother's house, but that quickly devolved.  

I did like the concept of there being 9 clearly defined kingdoms versus "Once" worldbuilding of everywhere being 5 minutes away.

Edited September 3, 2018 by Camera One

[Camera One]

I actually liked the second hour of "The 10th Kingdom" more.  The show seemed to be better once they were in the Fairytale Land.  I have qualms about shows set in a dystopian land.  Since it's 200 years after the "golden age" with the original fairytale characters, it's a bit sad to just meet their descendants.  

There were some clever references in this one, such as the beanstalk juice and soup.  I wish "Once" did more of this.  The Enchanted Forest in "Once" was more medieval times than enchanted fairytale land.  

It looks like in this "world", there is a price to magic, like with the shoes of invisibility.  There doesn't seem to be much attempt at character development or character moments on this show but there was a glimpse when the wolf said the main character wanted to be invisible so that's why she was tempted to wear the shoes.

The characters are a bit more palatable, though sometimes, they do still grate.  Such as with the dad and the greed of getting Midas' touch.  

It was neat that the Evil Queen had different mirrors for different purposes (spying, travelling, remembering, forgetting), and she could force people to go find a mirror.

I do like the concept of there being 9 clearly defined kingdoms and geographically distinct areas, vs. "Once" worldbuilding of everywhere being 5 minutes away and everywhere looking like the same forest.

Edited September 3, 2018 by Camera One

[Camera One]

I'm semi-watching this in the background, so I got through Hour 3 and 4.  

I'm surprised this type of thing aired on network television.  It's a little reminiscent of the "Once" spinoff, since it's the characters following an object they need and then encountering one complication after another, so it could get tiresome.  Nevertheless, I found these two hours reasonably engaging.  It helped that the annoying trolls got turned to gold, as did the dog.

I liked that the characters helping old women and animals actually ended up being rewarded, unlike in "Once".  I thought Virginia was a bit daft for freeing the birds in the cages who were tweeting at her to help them, but it ended up paying off.  I did laugh when the bird got annoyed at helping them.  Snow on "Once" should have cooperated with the animals more.  

The massacres with the Huntsman killing all the gypsies, including the children, and the troll king killing citizens made everything a bit bleak, though.  

Overall, this show had a lot more fun with the fairy tale tropes than "Once".  I actually felt I was watching fairytale land.  When the woodsman said he would give the magical axe to them if they could guess his name (but he would chop off their head if they couldn't guess correctly before the wood pile was chopped), I had to laugh at Virginia's father yelling "What's up with you people?  What sort of twisted upbringing did you have?"  

Even though I hated that all the famous characters were in the past, it was still fun to see the Dwarves' cottage.  The "history" of the golden age with the 5 women "who changed history" was intriguing.  

I got some shades of Emma and her walls, when the wolf said to Virginia she won't get hurt but also won't get love.

[Camera One]

I finished the fourth hour, and it was pretty bad.  I did find the stuff about the Peep family diverting the magic water from the magic well to be fun, but the rest of the episode was basically "Child of the Moon" if Red had actually killed a bunch of chickens and then made jokes about everyone looking very succulent as her friends tried to defend her.  The Wolf joke was already played to death and it was trampled to the ground by the end of this hour.  

[Camera One]

I wasn't too fond of the fifth episode.  The kissing town just didn't feel very fairy-tale like, as their never-ending following of the mirror continued.  There wasn't as much cleverness to tie this to the fairy tales.  The casino felt like a casino.  The Wolf's lies and antics continued to grate, though not as badly as the last one.  

I did like the tourist attraction that the Snow White coffin became up on the hill, though.  

The Evil Queen wasn't as powerful as Regina, which was a good thing, but I still don't get why she didn't get the Huntsman to kill the Troll King.  At first, I thought the Huntsman was restricted to the Disenchanted Forest, but apparently not.

By this point, I was starting to get tired of some of the brutality with the Huntsman killing people and the Queen murdering that innocent family who happened to find the dog turned into the prince.  I was annoyed that Virginia stopped the others from killing the Huntsman previously, since he came back to cause problems in this episode.  

The singing ring was cute, though.

The sixth episode was a bit better, without the wolf.  I liked seeing the world of the dwarves in the ninth kingdom, but I hated that Virginia's father destroyed all those mirrors.  The characters act so stupidly a lot of the times which makes the show very frustrating to watch.  It was nice to see some conflict between Virginia and the father reveal itself during their hike, though this show's writing of character arcs and character moments just wasn't very good.  

I liked seeing the vision of Snow White, though it wasn't necessary for her to tell the entire story that we already knew.  Another stupid action was when Virginia's father threw the mirror that Snow White gave into the water.  

[Shanna Marie]

21 hours ago, Camera One said:

I did find the stuff about the Peep family diverting the magic water from the magic well to be fun, but the rest of the episode was basically "Child of the Moon" if Red had actually killed a bunch of chickens and then made jokes about everyone looking very succulent as her friends tried to defend her.  The Wolf joke was already played to death and it was trampled to the ground by the end of this hour.  

That whole episode was pretty much a waste. While the idea of the Peep family was fun, the whole episode was pretty much just about getting that mirror back, and then they immediately lost it after making a dumb move.

18 hours ago, Camera One said:

The kissing town just didn't feel very fairy-tale like, as their never-ending following of the mirror continued. 

The weird thing is that while everything else in the world was medieval-like, that one town looked like it was in the 30s or 40s. Even Once didn't have cultures quite that vastly different within walking distance.

18 hours ago, Camera One said:

I hated that Virginia's father destroyed all those mirrors.  The characters act so stupidly a lot of the times which makes the show very frustrating to watch. 

The father was just such a painful character throughout. They could have shortened the series dramatically (or done something more interesting) if they'd got rid of him because half the trouble they got into was because of him making really dumb choices, usually out of greed.

And then there was the silliness that it apparently didn't occur to them until Snow White specifically gave Virginia the mission that maybe they should have helped the enchanted prince before his kingdom was stolen. There was the war and all the other stuff going on that looked pretty bad (and far more interesting than our main characters constantly losing that mirror out of stupidity), and it had nothing to do with our main characters, who were oblivious about it, aside from knowing that the prince had been enchanted. That all should have been the main story, with being able to go home the reward. Otherwise, we're just spending hours chasing that mirror.

At least with the Wonderland spinoff, they only spent the first half trying to get Cyrus -- and then things got more complicated.

As for how this got on network TV, as I recall it bombed pretty badly. I think they were trying to set up a regular series, but it never went anywhere. That series may have been part of why it took so long to get a network interested in the Once Upon a Time concept. And it had a lot of the same problems -- a clever premise and some interesting bits, but terrible pacing and plotting.

[ParadoxLost]

So I stumbled upon Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale theatre from the 80's.  I don't ever remember seeing it as a kid but I don't think we had premium cable when it aired. 

I watched parts of Snow White and Vincent Price as the Magic Mirror is delightful.  I was not sure I could watch these episodes (like 26 of them) for an hour each because it is an 80's kid show so I went looking for a guest cast list to catch the ones or parts with the bigger names.

They have this daffy clip show episode called "Grimm Party".  In this episode, the Brothers Grimm put Duvall on trial "for blatantly tampering with the classic literature known as fairy tales, willfully updating and changing the stories of these classic tales... and the Brothers Grimm  on behalf of Hans Christian Anderson and all others involved in the existence and preservation of fairy tales ask you how do you plead." {this is acted like the Brothers Grimm are Hans and Franz}.

I have some candidates to put on trial :P

But in all seriousness, I'm surprised I've never heard of this show.  There are probably at least 3-6 A list actors per episode and a lot of them were so high up that list that 30 years later most of them are still extremely highly regarded (too many to list really).  BTS talent includes Tim Burton, Francis Ford Coppola, and Erik Idle.

And Giant having an existential crisis.  And James Earl Jones in silver body paint  as Genie.  And I am dead.  ROFLMAO.

You are probably going to be subjected to a why didn't OUAT find that humor, that romance, or do that fairy tale in the near future.

[Camera One]

I finished the last hour and half of "The 10th Kingdom" and there were a few sprinkles of "Once".  Spoilers about the ending below.

The first half of this final disc was another waste of time, as the characters entered a swamp en route to the palace.  I did like Virigina getting the poisoned comb from the tomb of the Original Evil Queen.  But of course, they're not supposed to drink the water but they still do.  Snow White's spirit must be knocking her head against the wall for choosing these bozos.  I agree it was ridiculous that Valerie and her father never actively considered helping Wendell to become human again.  They were only going to the palace to find the mirror to go home.  

I did enjoy the coronation, since there were a lot more references to fairy tales, from Old King Cole, to the Riding Hoods and Cinderella.  If Cinderella could still be alive, I wish the other princesses could have been as well.   I wish Cinderella et al hadn't been so gullible and tricked by the Dog King, though.  

I'll have to say the talking animals were really cute and I loved how helpful they were (like the talking mice who spoke German).  "Once" would have been way more fun if we got that.

I expected the trolls would learn that the Queen actually killed their father, and they would help the heroes, but nope.

The evil Queen being Virginia's mother was rather idiotic and unnecessary.  Virginia's mother could have been stuck in this land and they could have saved her and the story could have worked just fine.  I wonder if A&E watched this movie, since Virginia's mother said Virginia (aka Emma) was UNWANTED and the "Ugly Duckling".  I guess Wolfie the remorseful bad boy was the Hook of this story.  And the Queen was very much Cora.  Cora/Queen even got to be all soft and tender in her death scene as she called Virginia "My little girl, my little girl".  You forgot, "You would have been enough", lady.

That really left me cold, and I had to roll my eyes with the scene of Virginia crying beside the dead Queen, and later Virginia telling the Queen's body that "I knew that you really loved me".  Even after finding out her mom tried to drown her in the bathtub?  Really?  The Queen was so ruthless in this whole miniseries, murdering multiple innocent people, that I was appalled we were supposed to feel something for her, as if we would be moved by seeing Virginia tearfully mourn her.  At least the Huntsman died too... he was so despicable. 

Edited September 5, 2018 by Camera One

[profdanglais]

6 hours ago, ParadoxLost said:

So I stumbled upon Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale theatre from the 80's

I remember this show! It was great. I think we watched it in school, for some reason. Where did you find it? 

[ParadoxLost]

15 hours ago, profdanglais said:

I remember this show! It was great. I think we watched it in school, for some reason. Where did you find it? 

the whole series is on youtube

[Camera One]

I watched the special features of "The 10 Kingdoms" DVD and there wasn't much there since it was older.  There was a print article interview from the writer or director.  I had forgotten that he had also made the successful miniseries "Gulliver's Travel" and that had resulted in a number of these big event TV miniseries.  The writer said he worked on "The 10 Kingdom" for years.  

The DVD also had the map of the 10 Kingdoms that appeared briefly onscreen in the movie, accompanied by some descriptions which someone typed up in the Wiki.

Assuming this material was from the writer, it looks like he did create a world, but didn't use all the kingdoms.  I don't remember the 8th Kingdom mentioned, but apparently, it was ruled by the Ice Queen.  They also never mentioned that the 6th Kingdom where Queen Rapunzel once ruled now contained Sleeping Beauty and they were under a 100 Year spell.  There were some interesting facts about kingdoms that were referenced like the land with the King with no clothes, the Elf kingdom and Cinderella's kingdom (where divorce was high leading to high populations of wicked stepsiblings).  I kinda wish we got to see that in lieu of Kissing Town, or some of the other pointless diversions made.  

Compare this to the complete lack of worldbuilding with A&E.  

[Spartan Girl]

Does anyone read Disney's Twisted Tales series? Each book is basically an A/U of a certain Disney movie (like what if Aladdin never found the lamp, what if Aurora never woke up, etc). It's a pretty cool series.

The latest one, Part of Your World, is The Little Mermaid if Ariel hadn't stopped Eric from marrying Ursula/Vanessa. Don't worry, it doesn't go full Hans Christian Andersen, but it's still pretty intense. And this version of Ariel really makes you realize how wasted she was on OUAT.

[CCTC]

10 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

The latest one, Part of Your World, is The Little Mermaid if Ariel hadn't stopped Eric from marrying Ursula/Vanessa. Don't worry, it doesn't go full Hans Christian Andersen, but it's still pretty intense. And this version of Ariel really makes you realize how wasted she was on OUAT.

I am a little older, and I remember in the 70's there was a cartoon version of Little Mermaid played every year where they did go full Hans Christian Andersen with the ending.  Can you imagine if Disney would have done that at the end of their animation feature how the kids would have reacted if Ariel had

Spoiler

turned to foam

at  the end?   I feel like this was usually shown with the annual showing of Rikki Tikki Tavi.

Disney did have a animated short that did retain the book ending of Sleepy Hollow.  Most of the movie is Crane and his comical horse getting chased with a lot of comic relief and then

Spoiler

they never made it to safety (or at least strongly implied).

They used to play it on Wonderful World of Disney many years around Halloween.  I definitely had some issues with the headless horseman for a long time because of that production.

Edited September 6, 2018 by CCTC

[Shanna Marie]

23 minutes ago, CCTC said:

 I feel like this was usually shown with the annual showing of Rikki Tikki Tavi.

I think I remember that! I remember Rikki Tikki Tavi a lot more, but I have vague mental images of The Little Mermaid, now that you mention it.

I definitely remember the Disney Sleepy Hollow. I watched it every year at Halloween when they aired it, and I think they showed it in school a few times. A few years ago it was on one of the movie channels at Halloween (though, oddly enough, not Disney). There's a bit of emotional whiplash because it goes pretty abruptly from funny and silly to full-on terrifying. I remember being quite frightened by the Headless Horseman as a kid, and even as an adult it gave me a bit of a chill.

[profdanglais]

6 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

I remember being quite frightened by the Headless Horseman as a kid, and even as an adult it gave me a bit of a chill.

Same. The part where he's going through the dark woods and the reeds thump on the hollow log used to terrify me. 

[CCTC]

4 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

I remember Rikki Tikki Tavi a lot more

I do too -- I am not sure if it was played more consistently every year or continued to be played after they stopped playing Little Mermaid or I just liked the Mongoose, but I have stronger memories of this one.  That production could be a little tense - those cobras were scary and the final battle was a little intense -

Spoiler

baby in peril -- led to believe Riki did not survive etc., luckily he did.

[Camera One]

Not sure where else to put this. 

Quote

Brigitte Hales‏ @InkTankGirl

I’ve discovered a new level of terror in this career: writing a script you know for sure Spielberg is going to read.

Maybe there will be a tad more oversight from the higher-ups for "Amazing Stories"?  

[Senna]

On 9/4/2018 at 9:11 PM, ParadoxLost said:

So I stumbled upon Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale theatre from the 80's.  I don't ever remember seeing it as a kid but I don't think we had premium cable when it aired. 

I loved Faerie Tale Theatre as a child! I was too young for the tv airing, but my library had many of the episodes on vhs. My favorite as a kid was The Dancing Princesses.

I bought the whole series on DVD a few years back, and would especially recommend Sleeping Beauty with Bernadette Peters and Christopher Reeve, and The Princess and the Pea with Liza Minnelli.  Both of these are hilarious. There are many other enjoyable ones too.

[Camera One]

Apparently, "Fear The Walking Dead", with the "Once" alum writers as showrunners is falling in ratings due to the decision to kill off a character, reaching new and sustained lows in 4B.  Ian Goldberg and Andrew Chambliss are showrunners, and ex-Once writer Kalinda Vazquez wrote the lowest rated episode so far.

[ParadoxLost]

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

Apparently, "Fear The Walking Dead", with the "Once" alum writers as showrunners is falling in ratings due to the decision to kill off a character, reaching new and sustained lows in 4B.  Ian Goldberg and Andrew Chambliss are showrunners, and ex-Once writer Kalinda Vazquez wrote the lowest rated episode so far.

Nothing Once writers do better than snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

[Camera One]

I watched the latest "Mary Poppins Returns" trailer.  It has a lot of iconic imagery, and Emily Blunt looks the part, but the trailer didn't really capture the magic.  The whole plot looks like a retread.  I hope the full movie itself will be better.  

You can bet your bottom dollar 8B would have had Mary Poppins in it.  Except she's Mother Gothel's twin sister, out to steal Hope and Snowflake.

Edited September 18, 2018 by Camera One

[CCTC]

Yes - the Mary Poppins trailer does not look bad, but it looks like the film is unnecessary and they are simply following the same pattern as the original movie which will just heighten the comparisons.

Of the Disney characters, I could see Mary Poppins actually being evil not that big of a stretch.  She was always gas-lighting the kids (we did not jump through chalk paintings - I heard she does this even more in the books) and was a bit manipulative in reaching her goals, could be judgmental, and had a large ego. 

I do like the movie and Julie Andrews did a good balancing those character traits with her charm and showing she does care for the family, Burt etc. and made the character likable.  The rest of the cast was also good (I know Dick gets flack for his cockney accent) including the kids.  Plus there is the right amount of humor and some genuinely touching moments to prevent it from being too corny or sappy.

[Shanna Marie]

7 minutes ago, CCTC said:

Of the Disney characters, I could see Mary Poppins actually being evil not that big of a stretch.  She was always gas-lighting the kids (we did not jump through chalk paintings - I heard she does this even more in the books) and was a bit manipulative in reaching her goals, could be judgmental, and had a large ego. 

The books are a lot darker than the Disney movie. Book Mary isn't young and pretty, but she is smug and vain. She's also really cranky, not at all sweet. There's a reason PL Travers hated the movie. It's a good movie, but it's not at all a faithful depiction of the books or the character.

[KingOfHearts]

11 hours ago, Camera One said:

You can bet your bottom dollar 8B would have had Mary Poppins in it.  Except she's Mother Gothel's twin sister, out to steal Hope and Snowflake.

I am forever bitter Mary Poppins was not Rumple's mother. 

[CCTC]

36 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

I am forever bitter Mary Poppins was not Rumple's mother. 

This made me realize, I have retained very little memory of the whole Black Fairy story-line, except she was responsible for Gidiot. 

His father spent time as a Victorian (or Edwardian?) fictional character, so Mary Poppins is not much of a stretch and she might have been more memorable.  It would have involved tweaking time the fictional London time periods a bit, but her flashbacks could have contained London resident Cruella.   She could have been coolly efficient with a stiff upper lip and quiet, smug air of superiority, rather than having another campy sorceress with cleavage of evil. 

[Shanna Marie]

I rewatched Tangled this afternoon (I'm sick and don't feel like much other than watching movies), and even though Once did two versions of Rapunzel and a Rapunzel-like figure (Alice), I think Emma comes closer to fitting this story than the actual Rapunzels did. We've got a princess separated from her parents soon after birth due to the actions of an evil woman. The princess is inherently magical. The parents aren't reunited with their daughter until she's grown. She ends up with a charming rogue who has a "crime" identity that's different from his real name and who has a sad backstory and who gives up his life of crime when he gets together with her. He even dies, sacrificing himself for her, but I guess Emma didn't save Hook with her magic. You could even say that Emma's WALLS were metaphorically a kind of tower that she was locked up in.

[Camera One]

I watched the trailer to the netflix series "The Dragon Prince".   EggBaby: The Sequel. 

[Camera One]

I was reading this article called "Frozen: The Problem With False Feminism".

I remember when I first watched "Frozen" I wasn't that impressed, after hearing so many rave reviews how it was a completely different Disney Princess movie.  So she has some good points, though she is very hostile to the movie.  

As I've said before, "Once" actually made me like "Frozen" more because it actually deepened the characters of Elsa and (to a lesser extent) Anna.

I think some points also apply to "Once".  The headwriters are always patting themselves on the back about all the strong females on the show, but I think that is incredibly misleading.  For example, Regina was manipulated by a male character for years, and her entire vendetta was because she lost a man.  A lot of the "strong" females on this show were two-dimensional and thinly developed.  Just because they threw in an abrasive Merida and Dorthy didn't automatically make them strong females.

Edited September 30, 2018 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

I think some points also apply to "Once".  The headwriters are always patting themselves on the back about all the strong females on the show, but I think that is incredibly misleading.  For example, Regina was manipulated by a male character for years, and her entire vendetta was because she lost a man.  A lot of the "strong" females on this show were two-dimensional and thinly developed.  Just because they threw in an abrasive Merida and Dorthy didn't automatically make them strong females.

The role of feminism in modern film is a hot button issue, but I have to laugh when movies like Frozen and Beauty and the Beast get criticized for the handling of their female characters. Why? Because whether you're apathetic or passionate about feminist representation, OUAT does a horrible job of it. Belle is an idiot, Emma is this hero who gets sidelined most of the time, Regina is a psychopathic rapist who can't accomplish anything unless its handed to her, Zelena is also a rapist, Snow is preachy wallpaper, and several of the female side characters are either damsels in distress or abrasive. It's not that the male characters are perfect, but it's the fact A&E brag about how "progressive" it is that really makes it eye-roll worthy. I personally take no issue with Hook, but Rumple is the kind of guy who would sexually harass someone over a long period of time and get away with it. He abused Belle for years without consequence, and ultimately became a "good guy" in spite of that toxicity not being dealt with in a meaningful way.

Characters on the show fall into one of two categories - remorselessly evil or so "good" they're useless.

Edited September 30, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Rumsy4]

I really don't get why there are some people bent on dissing Frozen. Not every movie needs to be the epic of feminism or have flawless writing to be a good. I don't agree with the article. The writers seems to go out of their way to nitpick the movie and tear down any hint of praise for it.

These days there seems to be a trend where people feel the need to justify why they like or hate something by bringing in some aspect of social justice spiel into the picture. Sometimes it's okay to say that you didn't really feel the movie and move on. 

[Camera One]

On another note, I just got the soundtrack for the Frozen Broadway musical.  I can't help it... when the parents tell Anna and Elsa they're going away.  I'm thinking they're going to Rumple to ask him to rid Elsa of her magic.  This show is like Nimue in my mind.  I'm waiting for the song about how Belle chose a rock over Anna.

Edited October 1, 2018 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

I'm watching the Harry Potter series for the first time. I'll have more to say about it once I've seen more of the movies, but Voldemort said this line - "There is no good or evil, just power". I know someone on OUAT said that same quote. Was it Cora? Rumple? Anyone remember? 

Edit: Found it. Cora says something very similar, "In the end, it isn't good or evil that wins, but power."

Edited October 1, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[tennisgurl]

On 9/30/2018 at 5:44 PM, Rumsy4 said:

I really don't get why there are some people bent on dissing Frozen. Not every movie needs to be the epic of feminism or have flawless writing to be a good. I don't agree with the article. The writers seems to go out of their way to nitpick the movie and tear down any hint of praise for it.

 

Its what people like to do to popular movies, especially animated or comic book movies. Especially ones that have gotten praise for feminism or inclusion. Its like an internet cycle. Like with Wonder Woman last year. First, everyone loved it and called it an amazing work of feminism and inclusion, and then the think pieces begon a few weeks, later, asking of the movie was really that good, or if we were all idiots for thinking it was good,and that it was actually super racist and sexist or just stupid in general, and start bragging about how edgy they are to have such a radical opinion going against us sheeple, and then the fans kind of even out for awhile, with a few people still picking on it from both sides,but people mostly move on, and then, a few years later, it becomes the best thing ever again. Rinse and repeat. 

[KingOfHearts]

I've been watching The Heathers TV show. It's terribly bad, but Heather Chandler is very close to Regina. She wears a larger than life wardrobe, she has an outstanding victim complex, and she's a relentless tyrant. Halfway through the season, she has an actual conversation with the voices in her head. They all complain about various problems in her life, all blaming other people. Then her conscience steps in and says the commonality between them all is herself - she is the problem. Afterwards, she goes on a full-on apology tour with a binder full of the horrible things she did to other people. Some of it is just insults Redeemed!Regina would say and others are diabolical sabotage plots. Of course, most are surprised and others slap her in disgust. She ends up taking a handicapped girl she abused out to dinner, and you can see her holding back her old habits but ultimately connecting with her. Of course, this all happens after Heather has become a social pariah and fallen from the pedestal she once stood on. But she previously tried to be "good" on the show just for attention and it failed. In the present, she genuinely wants to be a better person.

The writing is laughably bad, but somehow it works better than Regina's redemption regardless of the difference in the crimes' severities. It's the remorse and better intentions that make all the difference. I've seen crappy TV shows do better than A&E when it comes to villainous characters. I would love to see Regina just go around Storybrooke on an apology tour with notes.

Edited October 7, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

Did anyone else watch the live-action Aladdin movie teaser trailer?  Did anyone else think loser ex-Savior who used the shears to cut away his destiny but Jasmine needs him to save Agrabah!

[Spartan Girl]

17 hours ago, Camera One said:

Did anyone else watch the live-action Aladdin movie teaser trailer?  Did anyone else think loser ex-Savior who used the shears to cut away his destiny but Jasmine needs him to save Agrabah!

No, I've repressed that shit. But I hope this live action version is way better.

[Camera One]

I just thought of a great adaptation for "The Wizard of Oz".  I have created a false trailer below, hoping to attract investors.

------------------------

IN A LAND FAR AWAY.  A LONG TIME AGO.

WIZARD: In the West, the Wicked Witch's power grows.

Shot of the Witch's guards mistreating the people in Winkie Country.

WIZARD: If you want to go home, you must go and KILL the Wicked Witch of the West.

Shot of Winged Monkeys tearing the Scarecrow apart, dropping the Tin Man from high, shoving the Cowardly Lion into a pit and carrying Dorothy away.

DOROTHY: You are a wicked monster.  

WICKED WITCH: When I was a child, I almost drowned.  I lost my parents.  So I have a deep fear of water.  Am I a monster?

Shot of Dorothy throwing a bucket of water on the Wicked Witch, who melts.

THE WINKIES: You are a murderer - a MONSTER.  You are JUST as bad as The Wicked Witch.

THIS CHRISTMAS

Shot of Dorothy running into the Forest crying.

FROM THE WRITERS OF ONCE UPON A TIME

Shot of Dorothy offering her heart to MOMBI THE WITCH.

DOES DOROTHY DESERVE REDEMPTION?

DOROTHY: Crush it.  Do it.  Get it over with.

MOMBI THE WITCH: And put you out of your misery? I don't need to destroy you. You're doing it to yourself. And along the way, you'll bring down that perfect little family you fought so hard to reunite. And then Uncle Henry will be mine.  Because he's my long lost son who I gave up to give myself my best chance.  And your mother tripped me when I was a child.  And you told everyone the secret that I abused a child which ruined my life.

DOROTHY AND THE BLACKENED HEART OF OZ

COMING CHRISTMAS 2019.

Edited October 14, 2018 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

@Camera One I lost it at "from the writers of Once Upon a Time".

[daxx]

I watch supernatural and last weeks season premiere was bad. A bunch of nonsensical retcons obviously there for plot reasons. One of the Facebook pages I follow asked what everyone thought. So we all told them. Then of course there is that one person trying to shame everyone for their negativity and going on about how wonderful and perfect the show is and we should stop watching if we don’t like it. Sigh. Whatever, I may stop following that page. I don’t need this nonsense again.

[KingOfHearts]

3 hours ago, daxx said:

Then of course there is that one person trying to shame everyone for their negativity and going on about how wonderful and perfect the show is and we should stop watching if we don’t like it.

You know if A&E wrote that show, that one person would be the only person they'd listen to. Just ignore the hundreds of other tweets and comments.

Everyone seems to be freaking out that The Good Place has lost its charm and that it's too boring/slow now. I remember OUAT getting the same complaints in 3A, but looking back I believe the criticism went a little over the top. We're only four episodes into the third season of TGP and people are already claiming its going to be the worst season yet. It's not even bad, but it's not all about the wacky hijinks in the afterlife. I do feel like the show is treading water just a little, but it's far from taking a nosedive. 

[companionenvy]

SPN and Once actually share a decent number of flaws, although I'd say that for the most part, SPN averages out to comfortably mediocre, and generally only flirts with character assassination and the occasional unwarranted shaming of either Sam or Dean without going over the line. But there are definite shades of Once in their failure to deal adequately with Mary Winchester's return - they handled her decently enough for the first season, I thought, but then stuck her in the AU for all of last season, and now seem inclined to waste her on an unnecessary romance rather than dealing with her issues with, you know, being back from the dead and building a relationship with her adult sons. Or, son, at the moment, as Dean is otherwise occupied :(. But I've barely been able to tolerate the SPN boards these days, as they've become dominated by a contingent who absolutely hates Sam, but believe the showrunners hate Dean/Jensen and are trying to sideline him. Which...I just don't see, at all, so conversations tend to get unpleasant. 

I haven't been loving this season of TGP as much, but I think some of the backlash has been excessive. I'm willing to give it time, and the episodes have still been good enough for me to avoid going into total doom and gloom territory. I think the problem for me -- and this is relevant to Once -- is that this maybe seems like one memory-wipe too far. I loved where our guys were at the end of last season, and I'm going to be really upset if they don't get back their memories of at least the reboot that ended with their encounter with Gen/Jen, if not the other 800-odd versions. 

At least it is better than Once's tendency to give its characters elaborate sets of fake memories without giving them any discernable emotional reactions to them. 

[Rumsy4]

19 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

We're only four episodes into the third season of TGP and people are already claiming its going to be the worst season yet. It's not even bad, but it's not all about the wacky hijinks in the afterlife.

I agree. I wasn’t too impressed with the last episode, but it’s hardly bad. TGP has been so good, that a mediocre episode seems like the worst ever. It’s possible that the show will go downhill, but it’s too early to tell.

Westworld started out really good, but went off the rails in season 3. They went too arcane, like LOST on drugs. And bizarrely enough, one of the co-creators claims she never saw LOST. Maybe she ought to have—to avoid its pitfalls and to stop reinventing the wheel. Whatever its flaws, LOST was groundbreaking television, and it’s odd when people making the same genre of show claim to have skipped it. But maybe she was flubbing, because there was one scene in the recent season that screamed “LOST callback”.

[CCTC]

I think I stopped watching Supernatural the second or third time one of the brothers came back from the dead/hell etc., somehow changed and with a secret.

I have some doubts TGP can maintain the premise long term and would be better served to just having a few seasons and think some of it has gotten a little repetitive,  That said, I agree it is far from bad, still better written and acted than most sitcoms and still is clever and has some good laughs.  If this ends up being its worst season, it will still be a very watchable show.

I think I started posting here around season 5, when most people thought the show was most likely a lost cause, but I agree these boards can tend to focus on the negative of shows that are still pretty decent.  Even on this board, there were probably times I was critical of Regina when she did not deserve it (then again...).

Edited October 17, 2018 by CCTC

[Shanna Marie]

I don't remember which season I gave up on Supernatural. I think it was when it was put on opposite something else I liked more, and I watched that and recorded Supernatural, but then I realized I had all these recordings stacked up that I never got around to watching, so I quit recording it. I think my main issue is that I felt the show got broader in scope than it was really equipped to handle, and it's a similar problem I've seen in a lot of those "there's all this stuff going on in our world that most people don't know about" situations, like also with Buffy and Angel. In the earlier seasons of Supernatural, when it was more like The Hardy Boys meets The X-Files and it was just two guys riding around in an old Impala and fighting monsters, it worked for me and was kind of fun. When they started having an apocalypse a season and instead of monsters and the occasional demon it was about God and Lucifer and demons and angels on an epic scale, it broke the bubble for me. There was no way to pretend that this was all going on in secret in our world, and I didn't feel like they'd thought through the cosmology (a similar problem to when Once tackled the afterlife and gods). Plus, I consider it a bad sign anytime a show starts getting too self-conscious about its own role in society and goes too meta. It was funny when the characters were put into TV universes. It was amusing when it turned out that a guy who thought he was writing novels was actually writing their adventures with supernatural input. But when they started having conventions about them in-universe, started mocking the fans, had the actors appear as (fictionalized versions of) themselves when the characters found themselves running into the TV series, I was less inclined to bother following the series. Though I did watch the Scooby Doo episode.

I guess one good thing about the "bubble" environment of Once (until season 7) is that there was no reason for the outside world to have any clue what was going on in a town they couldn't see, so no matter what happened in that town, you could maintain suspension of disbelief and the pretense that maybe there was this strange town in Maine and we just didn't know about it. It wasn't like an obvious apocalypse was going on in the middle of Los Angeles.

At least Once never got to the wacky self-referential episode where the characters found out that there was a TV show about them and they were reading fanfic about themselves or going to conventions about their show and seeing the actors who play them. They got close with Isaac's booksigning, I guess. I'm almost surprised that Henry didn't run into fans other than Lucy in season 7. It's hard to believe they could resist there at least being a cult fandom around Henry's book, even if it wasn't a commercial success.

[KingOfHearts]

5 hours ago, Rumsy4 said:

Westworld started out really good, but went off the rails in season 3. They went too arcane, like LOST on drugs. And bizarrely enough, one of the co-creators claims she never saw LOST. Maybe she ought to have—to avoid its pitfalls and to stop reinventing the wheel. Whatever its flaws, LOST was groundbreaking television, and it’s odd when people making the same genre of show claim to have skipped it. But maybe she was flubbing, because there was one scene in the recent season that screamed “LOST callback”.

TGP is actually inspired by Lost. (The creator even met with Damon Lindelof to talk about the show.) So we'll see what happens. I'll take TGP's afterlife over Lost's flash sideways any day.

[ParadoxLost]

I think the fundamental problem with Supernatural is it lost its sense of humor.  It just gradually shed the MOTW and meta and otherwise humorous episodes for repetitive versions of the apocalypse and Angels vs Demons.

In OUATs case, its similar to the general decline in number of episodes that the show seemed to be interested in enough to put forth an effort.  It slid from good season to good arc to the premieres and finales will be good to a novelty episode to nothing to speak of.

Both shows share in that they did/will keep going as long as there is money to be made despite the declining quality and creativity,  SPN is different in that showrunners have bailed  to do other things, like Timeless and the Magicians.

9 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

At least Once never got to the wacky self-referential episode where the characters found out that there was a TV show about them and they were reading fanfic about themselves or going to conventions about their show and seeing the actors who play them. They got close with Isaac's booksigning, I guess. I'm almost surprised that Henry didn't run into fans other than Lucy in season 7. It's hard to believe they could resist there at least being a cult fandom around Henry's book, even if it wasn't a commercial success.

 I liked"The French Mistake" and "Fan Fiction" .  I actually enjoyed most of the lesser book and convention episodes too.  I probably liked it because I found the humor in making jokes about the show and the fandom because it was true enough to be funny.

I will agree that its a good thing OUAT didn't go there.  But a lot of that is because A&E never showed any sign that they had a clear enough understanding of the show or the fandom to make fun of it without it coming off as malicious.  Their tendency to insert characters to reprersent themselves and then live out their hero fantasies vicariously was enough the know I didn't want a meta episode.

But OUAT is actually more self referential than SPN at its core. They just stopped at this is a show about characters in a book and skipped the third layer of played by actors on TV.  A lot of the problems with the show were that they didn't do a good job of taking the character off the page and make them a fleshed out person.  Instead, Regina doesn't get a happy ending because the Author made her a villain.  Snow has to have an endless well of forgiveness because the Author made her a hero.   The story should have been about challenging those notions.  Instead it was a given that was an excuse for any behavior that served the plot.

[Rumsy4]

Now that I have some distance from the show, I feel like I've been in a mutually codependent relationship. Something like Belle and Rumple. I never could pull away because of the hypothetical great writing the show seemed capable of. The writers started heavily relying on audience manipulation starting from Season 2, but it grew worse in Season 3B, and never recovered. That's when the show became completely about pandering to Regina. A&E started writing everything around her (and Rumple from then on).