OUAT vs. Other Fairy Tales: Compare & Contrast

[Camera One]

1 hour ago, Shanna Marie said:

I watched the live-action Aladdin last night, and it was rather aggressively meh, like they were working really hard to make a movie that wouldn't overshadow the cartoon version in any way.

Really, I'm not sure why they needed to make this movie. They might have been better off taking the Cinderella approach, making a new film based on the original story with some nods to the Disney version rather than making a direct, live-action remake of the cartoon.

That goes for a lot of these pale live-action versions, though I enjoyed this one more than the "Beauty and the Beast" remake, which was about the same level of replication, with some limited and not-too-successful attempts to expand a bit.  I think without the deleted scenes, their attempts to flesh out Jasmine just wasn't very believable. "The Lion King" was even more shot-by-shot.

A version of "Aladdin" that had more similarities with the Arabian Nights story would have been more interesting.

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Jafar basically blended into the woodwork. I kept forgetting who that guy was supposed to be and mixing him up with the guards.

They tried to give him a backstory of starting out in the streets, like Aladdin did.  I wish these remakes would actually go the distance with these types of expansions instead of making it ultimately "in name only".

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I wonder why they didn't look to Bollywood to find Asian actors who could sing and dance and have some star power.

Really, I'm not sure why they needed to make this movie. They might have been better off taking the Cinderella approach, making a new film based on the original story with some nods to the Disney version rather than making a direct, live-action remake of the cartoon. The musical stuff was too big a clash with the setting.

It seems like they were somewhat inspired by Bollywood, especially with the closing number.  Though if they wanted to do that, maybe they should it set it in India instead of Arabia.  

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I did find it amusing that this film made Aladdin out to be some kind of chosen one because he was the rare Diamond in the Rough who could get the lamp. That reminded me of the Once Aladdin being a Savior.

I thought this was the case with the original Aladdin movie.  Hence, "diamond in the rough".  I still think it was a stretch that this qualified him as a "Savior", whatever that was supposed to mean.

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In other news, they're remaking Peter Pan yet again, with some hype about Jude Law playing Captain Hook. In the comments to every article about how "groundbreaking" they're being to have a sexy Captain Hook, there always seems to be at least one remark about or picture of the Once Hook already being the sexy Hook.

I don't think they could straight-up copy the animated Peter Pan without making major changes.  They do seem more willing to do that with the older animated movies.

Edited July 11, 2020 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

That goes for a lot of these pale live-action versions, though I enjoyed this one more than the "Beauty and the Beast" remake, which was about the same level of replication, with some limited and not-too-successful attempts to expand a bit. 

I like Beauty and the Beast better than this one. The cast is so much better, and there's less of a tonal clash between the setting and the music. Aladdin was pretty much a Robin Williams vehicle built around his personality, and you can tell how underdeveloped everything else in it was when he's not there.

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

They tried to give him a backstory of starting out in the streets, like Aladdin did. 

But he still had almost no presence. In a group scene, I kept forgetting which guy was Jafar. If he didn't have Iago with him, I'd forget who he was supposed to be.

2 hours ago, Camera One said:

I thought this was the case with the original Aladdin movie.  Hence, "diamond in the rough".  I still think it was a stretch that this qualified him as a "Savior", whatever that was supposed to mean.

I remember "diamond in the rough" being used in the original movie, but I didn't remember him having been prophesied as some kind of chosen one, but then I think I've only seen the original a couple of times, once at the theater when it first came out and then on TV after Robin Williams died. I watched this one because my pastor does a series of sermons during the summer based on movies (usually they have movie nights at the church that weekend to watch them, but that's not happening this year) and this is this week's movie (to be paired with the David and Goliath story). They specified this version, but I may go back and rewatch the original sometime.

2 hours ago, Camera One said:

I don't think they could straight-up copy the animated Peter Pan without making major changes.  They do seem more willing to do that with the older animated movies.

I don't know if this is going to be a remake of the cartoon, yet another version more or less based on the book/play, or some kind of twist on the story, like doing it from Hook or Smee's point of view. There was going to be a version that was from Wendy's perspective, but I don't know what happened with that one.

[Camera One]

24 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

I remember "diamond in the rough" being used in the original movie, but I didn't remember him having been prophesied as some kind of chosen one

There wasn't a prophesy in the animated one.  I don't remember if there was a prophesy in this latest movie.  

In the animated one, Jafar was looking for someone with the cave's requirement:

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CAVE: Know this. Only one may enter here. One whose worth lies far within. A diamond in the rough.

Then, Jafar uses simulated lightning to identify Aladdin:

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(IAGO runs faster. A lightning bolt streaks through the ring, passing into an hourglass below. The sands begin to swirl.)

JAFAR: Ah, sands of time--reveal to me the one who can enter the cave.

(The sand in top forms the Cave of Wonders. It falls through into a storm, but it shows ALADDIN) Yes, yes! There he is. My diamond in the rough!

 

[Shanna Marie]

16 hours ago, Camera One said:

There wasn't a prophesy in the animated one.  I don't remember if there was a prophesy in this latest movie.  

In the animated one, Jafar was looking for someone with the cave's requirement:

That's pretty much what's in the live action. I guess it's not technically a prophecy, but it was a specific requirement of the cave, which sounded kind of "chosen one" to me. But there's no bolt of lightning to find Aladdin. Jafar nabs him when he sneaks in to return Jasmine's bracelet that Apu stole, and I guess he has an "aha!" moment and drags him to the desert to get into the cave. So I guess there's less "prophecy" in the live action if he doesn't use magic to find Aladdin. I hadn't remembered that detail at all from the animated film.

I've been pondering why I can't seem to let Once go. It's been a couple of years since it ended, and I pretty much hated the last two seasons, but I'm still devoting way too much headspace to it. I think one reason is that I haven't moved on to anything else. Usually, I transition from one fandom to another, one obsession to another. This time around, there's nothing else that's captured my imagination. Part of that may be because I don't have cable, so I may be missing some of the kinds of things I usually get caught up in. I haven't seen the last couple of seasons of Doctor Who, haven't seen whatever's on SyFy. Most streaming doesn't work in quite the same way when they drop an entire season at once because I think the anticipation when you have to wait a week for the next episode has a lot to do with building the kind of focus I tend to get on whichever show I'm devoted to at a given time. It's during that waiting period when you come up with theories, analyze the characters and plot, etc. If you can just click on the next episode, you don't experience it the same way. You don't need to fill in any gaps. I understand Disney+ is doing an episode at a time, but I haven't got that yet (I'm barely watching anything right now, so I'm not compelled to pay for another streaming service). Still, with streaming everyone is watching at different times, so I don't think online discussion is working quite the same way.

But, from the sounds of things, there's not really anything going on right now that's likely to get my attention in the same way, something not too dark with some complexity and with characters I fall in love with and that makes me want to talk about it with other people. And so, I'm stuck on this one still. It's been a long time since I've rewatched Firefly. Maybe I could go get obsessed with that again for a while, but there aren't that many episodes, and I'd get all depressed about the cancellation again.

[Camera One]

2 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

Still, with streaming everyone is watching at different times, so I don't think online discussion is working quite the same way.

I've found that it was tough to sustain any discussion with a streaming show due to that reason.  If someone watches three episodes at a time, they aren't likely to post their thoughts about each one individually after each episode.  Plus, if people post their thoughts at all, they're gone by the time the next wave of people watch the show and comment. 

It's even worse when there's a single thread for an entire series, since spoilers abound and everyone might be at a different point.

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Most streaming doesn't work in quite the same way when they drop an entire season at once because I think the anticipation when you have to wait a week for the next episode has a lot to do with building the kind of focus I tend to get on whichever show I'm devoted to at a given time. It's during that waiting period when you come up with theories, analyze the characters and plot, etc. If you can just click on the next episode, you don't experience it the same way. 

I think that is really true.  Having to wait for the next episode lends itself to dissecting the show.  Message boards are sort of going out of style anyway.  A lot of discussion on Facebook and reddit, etc. are often very superficial, even for episodic shows.  

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I've been pondering why I can't seem to let Once go. It's been a couple of years since it ended, and I pretty much hated the last two seasons, but I'm still devoting way too much headspace to it.

I think we're all under that "Curse"/blessing.

[daxx]

22 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

I've been pondering why I can't seem to let Once go. It's been a couple of years since it ended, and I pretty much hated the last two seasons, but I'm still devoting way too much headspace to it. I think one reason is that I haven't moved on to anything else.

Same, my tumblr is still mostly Once, I read almost exclusively CS fic. I did read a few Lucifer fics last year, but there just isn’t the massive quantity of quality works. I don’t feel like discussing any other show. Idk why? 

[CCTC]

Not going to sat much about the live action Disney discussion, because it has all be said pretty well.  I thought the movies were decent, but were largely just efficient, and not as engaging as the the original animations.  Wish they would have done more of the Cinderella treatment (I heard the Jungle Book was also a good update) and not just do a too faithful remake.

Just really posting to say - wow did Disney get lazy in the last ten years in going for the paint-by-number cash grabs of feeding off old classics...  Even Mary Poppins II - while not a remake - closely followed the template of the original - jump in chalk drawing and animation- jump into pottery and animation;  dance with chimneys - dance with lights; feed the birds - lost things (which actually was a pretty song); kites at the end.  Toy Story 4 was not bad, and while a well-done movie was not really breaking new ground and did not really seem necessary.

[daxx]

2 hours ago, CCTC said:

Even Mary Poppins II - while not a remake - closely followed the template of the original

I did enjoy it a lot, but I think that’s more due to Lin and Emily than the actual movie. It was so obvious they were enjoying themselves.

[CCTC]

I liked Mary Poppins II, I just felt it played it pretty safe and that probably prevented it from becoming a future classic rather than just a decent movie.  I do appreciate while they followed the blue print from the original movie, they did write the songs to fit Emily's voice and did not try to make her try to imitate Andrews' style or voice.  Dick Van Dyke and Angela Lansbury also make any movie worthwhile.   They still have it.

Edited July 14, 2020 by CCTC

[Camera One]

6 hours ago, CCTC said:

Even Mary Poppins II - while not a remake - closely followed the template of the original - jump in chalk drawing and animation- jump into pottery and animation;  dance with chimneys - dance with lights; feed the birds - lost things (which actually was a pretty song); kites at the end.  

I too was struck by how each new song was pretty much a variation/parallel of a song from the original.  I think I appreciated that more when I read that the composer of the new one loved the original, and wrote the songs as a tribute.  They also did try to use some of the source book material.

So I can say I liked the songs, as well as the atmosphere and performances of "Mary Poppins II".  I think the weakest aspect would be the actual plot. The climax at the end with the clock tower was lame and ridiculous.   

[Camera One]

I saw part of a rerun of "Buffy" today.  It was the Season 5 episode "Into the Woods" and an argument between Buffy and Riley, and it sort of reminded me of Emma and her Walls™ and being the Savior™.

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RILEY: You keep me at a distance, Buffy. You didn't even call me when your mom went into the hospital.

BUFFY: Oh, I'm sorry. You know, um...  I'm sorry that I couldn't take care of you when I thought that my mother was dying.

RILEY: It's about me taking care of you!  It's about letting me in...  So you don't have to be on top of everything all the time.

BUFFY: But I do! That's part of what being a slayer is.

I feel this storyline was as annoying to watch on "Buffy" as it was on "Once".  

I think that was sort of how A&E pegged Emma after a while.  The difference is that the role of a Slayer is defined whereas it's unclear what a Savior even was.

Edited July 21, 2020 by Camera One

[Camera One]

I haven't watched "Tales of Arcadia" and apparently it's a trilogy of three TV series.  But an article about the third season caught my eye since it referred to Camelot and Lord of the Rings, and I read this:

spoiler if you actually watch this show:

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[King] Arthur may look like a superhero, but he is clearly a villain to the defenseless gnomes and fairies that he is imprisoning for existing. Likewise, Morgana is anything but an ugly and evil witch, initially using her power to protect those who cannot protect themselves.

Anyway, this reminded me of how "Once" also turned Arthur into a villain.  It also reminded me of the Maleficent movie where people were killing magical creatures.  

[Camera One]

I was watching this deleted scene from "Sleeping Beauty", which was an abandoned alternate premise where the Fairies put a spell around the palace to protect her, but she sneaks out.  It's interesting how these storyline elements are so often re-used.  This plot reminds me a little of "Frozen", where the protective parents make the daughter feel trapped.  It also reminded me of "Aladdin", where Jasmine leaves the palace in secret and in the live-action movie, she too pretends she's the ladies' maid to the princess, like in this Sleeping Beauty abandoned plot.  

[Shanna Marie]

They must have liked that vulture character that they didn't end up using because it's drawn a lot like the vultures in The Jungle Book. And I think there may have been some others in other films. There were the deputies in Robin Hood, and I think some somewhere else.

For the movie, I like what they did better, but I guess in a way this would have been better for Aurora. She was trapped, but at least she got to grow up with her parents instead of in a hovel in the woods.

I just picked up a bunch of classic Disney DVDs at Half-Price Books (I bet a lot of people got rid of theirs after Disney+ launched, but I don't trust them not to vault things, so I bought them), and now I kind of want to rewatch Sleeping Beauty. And The Jungle Book.

[Camera One]

7 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

and now I kind of want to rewatch Sleeping Beauty.

I'm always struck by how beautiful that movie is and I like the medieval-ness of it.  

I don't think the vulture would have fit with the tone of the rest of the movie.

[KAOS Agent]

On 8/22/2020 at 6:23 PM, Shanna Marie said:

They must have liked that vulture character that they didn't end up using because it's drawn a lot like the vultures in The Jungle Book. And I think there may have been some others in other films. There were the deputies in Robin Hood, and I think some somewhere else.

Disney reused tons of animation in Robin Hood (and other films) to save money on film. Here's a fun comparison of different scenes in Robin Hood and their counterparts from other films.

[Camera One]

I was watching this video about hard worldbuilding vs. soft worldbuilding.  Would A&E argue that they were aiming for soft worldbuilding?  I'd say A&E is just bad worldbuilding.  

[tennisgurl]

21 hours ago, Camera One said:

  I'd say A&E is just bad worldbuilding.  

A&E might try to say they were going for a soft world building (if they even know what the term world building is, which is in question) but its really more like lazy world building. As the video said, hard or soft world building should be used to set a mood or to immerse your audience in a story and in your world, but the world building on Once never seemed to set any kind of tone or go for making the story seem more real or more magical, it was all just random and totally based around whatever was happening in the story at the moment or what shiny had A&Es attention at the moment. Also, many, but not all, soft world building stories tend to be movies or shorter animated stories in my experience, where the strange magical atmosphere, that can often be almost dream like, add to the atmosphere and to the story and characters, and the fact that we focus on things like theme and character in a shorter story makes sense, it immerses you in a magical world and you dont really need all of the details. The examples given in the video, the works of the great Hayao Miyazaki, are great examples of soft world building, and something else that comes right to mind is the cartoon mini series Over the Garden Wall, which is very strange and dreamlike and full of strange characters and magical situations that can be both whimsical and creep, most of which are never explained, and that totally fits the tone of the story and its themes. While hard world building is more Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones, worlds with very rich backstories that go thousands of years and they explain in detail how things like religion, commerce, and society functions, and that makes those worlds more lived in, richer, and can allow us a certain amount of realism to a fantasy setting. With Once, we are stuck in the Enchanted Forrest for years, and we spend long periods of time in other worlds, where we really NEED more details about how this world works and since we spend so much time there, there is no reason not to give us more information except for pure laziness. How do most people see magic users? How does the line of succession work in this kingdom? How geographically big is this country?  Hell, we dont even know the name of the damn place until season four, and we only learn that to get another "shocking" reveal! That would all be very useful information for us to have to understand why characters are doing the things that they are or to understand the scope of what is happening, but we never know any of that, even really basic things like if religions exists in this world or if has a standing army besides black guards, but they are never strange or ethereal enough to make the story really work as a soft world building story that is filled with whimsy and wonder.  We know enough to keep it from being mysterious, but not enough to make it realistic. Once world building (especially in post season one) rarely went for a dream like magical quality that fills us with wonder and leaves room for boundless creativity and metaphor like soft world building should do, nor does it give us full immersion in a magical world with established rules, society, and history that we can learn about and can make the world more lived in like hard world building, its just lazy, almost non existent world building. 

I really like that channel, he does a lot of really interesting videos about world building and magic in fantasy stories. Ages ago I posted some of his videos about hard vs soft magic systems, which are very interesting in the context of Once and its use of magic. Much like in hard or soft world building, a lot really depends on the tone you are going for and what story you want to tell, and looking at both hard and soft world building and hard and soft magic systems are also interesting to see how they do or do not collide with each other. Like, often in hard world building, they tend to also be harder magic systems, and one interesting world building trend there is that magic is often less something really scary or mysterious, its just a thing that some people can do and its a well known part of society. Like, magic is just a thing that people do as a job or they study at school or do it for fun and its just fully integrated into society, which makes sense in a society where magic has well known rules, it would be just like studying chemistry or medicine, just its magic. Not always of course (LOTR is a soft magic system in a hard world building setting) but I feel like Once might have benefited from establishing more about their magical system and what it meant to its world, especially when they did their annual "people hate magic now because reasons" plots, they would really benefit from knowing how common magic was in this world, and what the common people thought about it. Essentially, hard magic is fun because you have very specific rules for what characters can do and how they do it and how the magic works, so your audience can reason out what characters can actually do and they can use magic creatively when they have limits. What makes soft magic fun is that magic can be mysterious and wild, and can make what magic does unpredictable and exciting or dangerous and give your audience lots of cool unique magical stuff to play with...which is very similar to what makes both hard and soft world building work. you can have something thats rich and complex and detailed (hard) or mysterious and ethereal and unique (soft) and both can be wonderful depending on what story you want to tell, while Once makes the bold move doing neither. Once is certainly a soft magical system, with rules that are basically a random mash up of all kinds of magic stuff with no rhyme or reason, but without all of the stuff that makes a soft magic system work. People just do magic stuff when its convenient for the plot, we have no idea what anyone's powers are (except for the Snow Queen and her snow family) and why sometimes they can do nothing with their magical jazz hands and sometimes they can curse whole worlds and almost destroy towns, its so poorly explained, but so lacking in anything really mysterious, it basically comes off as the worst of both worlds. The magic system is...potions sometimes? Curses sometimes? Magic books sometimes? Sometimes magic runs in families and sometimes its random? People move their arms around and magic happens? 

Here are the videos on Hard vs Soft magic, I find it really interesting, and makes me sad at how many ways Once failed at this. Like, wouldn't it be cool if the gang went to different worlds that had different magic systems? Like Regina gets sucked into a world with a really hard magic system that she didnt understand? Or Emma and Hook had an adventures in a really surreal magical world with rules that are basically random? what a sad, sad waste. 

 

[daxx]

While we are discussing our disappointments, I recently posted on tumblr how watching Lucifer makes me sad about OUAT. 

As much as I’ve been enjoying Lucifer and seeing Deckerstar get together, I feel an odd sadness and lost opportunity that we never saw Captain Swan’s first time. I mean we don’t even know for certain what season it was in, much less what episode. 😟

Most main characters when they meet their true love the first time is a big thing and is at least inferred. Idek what this show was on about ignoring it the way they did.
I can’t think of any other show that skipped the main ship getting together.

I tend to think season 4 after the “I’m a survivor” kiss they went back to Hook’s room. That seems the best choice for placement.

Idk, it’s just kind of sad.

[Shanna Marie]

On 8/31/2020 at 9:11 PM, tennisgurl said:

A&E might try to say they were going for a soft world building (if they even know what the term world building is, which is in question) but its really more like lazy world building. As the video said, hard or soft world building should be used to set a mood or to immerse your audience in a story and in your world, but the world building on Once never seemed to set any kind of tone or go for making the story seem more real or more magical, it was all just random and totally based around whatever was happening in the story at the moment or what shiny had A&Es attention at the moment.

Yeah, I don't think there was any worldbuilding involved in Once.

I took a course in college on "parageography," the geography of imaginary worlds. In other words, worldbuilding. I think what they're calling soft worldbuilding is what the professor called "a place where things can happen." He talked about Narnia in that sense, where it was a big mix of stuff from fairy tales, Greek mythology, Celtic mythology, children's books (like the talking animals inviting you to tea), and even Santa Claus. It was to fantasy what Neverland was to boys' adventure stories, a place that had all the stuff that would make for the kind of fun experience you've dreamed about having. The details of the world and how it worked and what the culture was didn't matter all that much. It mostly existed as a place where things can happen.

But things firm up where it intersects with the plot. There are pretty consistent rules on what Aslan can do and how he can get involved in events, and he's bound by those rules even when it works against him.

I think that's the key thing about worldbuilding, that no matter how vague you want to keep things, you have to know what's going and be consistent about any element of the world that affects the plot. You don't have to create entire languages and work out the history of your world going back for centuries, but you do need to know how the things that drive your story work. I think the worldbuilding also needs to be "harder" for the writer than for the reader. To the reader, it may look like a "soft" world, but the writer needs to keep track of things. Even if you don't plan it all out and build your world before you start writing, once you make something happen, that becomes a rule.

So, if you want to have a character ostracized and called wicked because she has magical powers, then you can't also have her living in a world ruled by good witches. If only a few characters in a world have magical powers, and almost all of them are evil, then it's a pretty good bet that most people would be opposed to magic. If just about anyone can learn to use magic if they're taught, then there should be a lot more people capable of doing magic at some level. There may be people with more power or magical talent, but most people should be able to do simple magic. There may have been some genetics with the Mills women, but then it was lucky Rumple just found Cora, who could do magic without coming from a magical bloodline. Then in the spinoff, both Ana and Jafar became powerful magic users just by being taught, with no indication of having latent talent. You don't need to build an elaborate magic system and work out the genetics of magical inheritance, but you should have at least a sense of who can do magic and how they get power if your story is about someone being taught to do magic. If you ever plan to solve a problem with magic or complicate matters with magic, you should have a sense of what your magic users can do, and you should probably have some limits in mind to make your story more interesting.

If royalty is a big part of your storyline, you need to know how the laws of succession work in your kingdom. Would the king's wife inherit the throne when he died, or would it automatically go to the king's daughter, who would be a queen, not a princess, the moment her father died, even if the queen consort refused to leave the throne and tried to keep the new queen from being crowned? You don't need the history of the kingdom going back twelve generations to the founding of the dynasty and a bio of each king down the line, as well as the laws of the kingdom all written out, but if your story is about the power struggle that happens when a king dies, you should probably have the laws of succession figured out.

[Camera One]

I was reading this article about how the animated Mulan's storyline evolved in its development.  I find it interesting how formulaic their initial conception was, to follow a similar formula to some of the other princesses:

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In early production, the creative team struggled when conceptualizing Mulan’s character. “Mulan was originally conceived as a romantic comedy, like Tootsie,”...  She was conceived as a plucky tomboy outsider who wanted to avoid an arranged marriage, and she dreamed about life outside of her small village. Sounds familiar? Belle, Jasmine, Pocahontas, and leagues of other Disney heroines did the same thing.

“For a while, we got really sidetracked and started to make a film that’s been made before — by us — about a girl who’s unhappy and leaves home because of that,” Coates says in the same book. “Through that storyboarding process, we discovered that this was not a girl we liked. This is a willful girl who is leaving home because she is unhappy. That didn’t make us care for her.”

In a scene that didn’t make it into the eventual movie, Mulan’s destiny is literally carved out for her, in the form of one of the stone tablets in the family’s temple (which signifies her place in the family), declaring her intended marriage. She shatters that tablet, declaring that she will write her own future. The sequence sounds like it belongs in Pixar’s Brave, where the similarly determined princess Merida enters the archery contest that’s meant to determine who will marry her, and competes for her own hand, changing her fate.

“It was just so militant that it really isolated her, and turned her story into something non-empathic and very self-righteous,” Head of Story Dean DeBlois explains in the art book. “That was something we didn’t like at all.”

It's a little surprising it took them so long to realize that making Mulan unique required looking at the source material and cultural context she came from, and having her leave home because of her love for her father.

I mean, it isn't even necessarily cultural... Belle too sacrificed herself for the sake of her father.

It's a little funny that their original plan for Mulan had echos of Merida.

Well... "Once" didn't even bother with Mulan's father, so...

Edited September 6, 2020 by Camera One

[Writing Wrongs]

I watched the Making of Frozen 2 documentary on Disney Plus. It's really interesting how much work goes into these movies. The writer/director Jennifer Lee is so close to these characters and protective of them. It made me curious as to what she thought about Once's interpretation. I assume A&E had to get some kind of permission and storyline approval, didn't they?

[daxx]

4 hours ago, Writing Wrongs said:

I watched the Making of Frozen 2 documentary on Disney Plus. It's really interesting how much work goes into these movies. The writer/director Jennifer Lee is so close to these characters and protective of them. It made me curious as to what she thought about Once's interpretation. I assume A&E had to get some kind of permission and storyline approval, didn't they?

My understanding is that the Frozen portion of season 4A was very closely overseen by someone at Disney. It was rumored mostly, but it fits with the way the characters were used and not twisted at all in typical OUAT fashion.

[CCTC]

I apologize if this has already been covered, but I do have a question regarding Frozen 2 (which I assume is going to be "no").  Did they work into any of the events that happened on Once into the movie, such as what the parents were trying to do on their trip, a vague mention of Auntie Snow Queen, Anna and Kristof getting married?

[AnotherCastle]

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The confirmation of Once Upon a Time’s events not being canon came from Jennifer Lee, the writer and director of Frozen 2. During a Q&A session at an early press day for the film at Walt Disney Animation Studios she was asked about the events of the show in relation to the movie, and responded:

“No, that’s not canon. We didn’t see it. So I kinda made a point of certain things not to see so it wouldn’t affect us that way. Frozen 1 and Frozen 2 to me are one complete story and that’s really where we stay. So glad they had fun with that. I think they had a lot of fun with the characters.”

 

https://screenrant.com/frozen-2-once-upon-time-season-not-canon/

[Camera One]

I'm still surprised that the "Frozen 2" backstory was actually more nonsensical and convoluted than even Once's interpretation.

Now that "Frozen 2" has been out, people who are now watching Season 4 would have a different experience for the first time will believe the show changed the Frozen story.

Though I think it's possible to tweak the Season 4 flashback and still make it work with the ridiculous Frozen 2 mythology.  For example, have Ingrid, Elsa/Anna's mother and the other one grow up in the Enchanted Forest rather than Arendelle.  And set some scenes on that magical island.

[Writing Wrongs]

I liked Frozen 2. 

[daxx]

Supernatural filmed its last scene this week. Some of my family and friends are as into it as I was to OUAT or even more so. I was sad to see they aren’t auctioning off the set pieces or props but putting them back into the WB warehouses for use on other shows. 
I am very happy (And blessed) I was able to get some tangible pieces(rubber hook, some plastic coins and Storybrooke coffee stickers) of the show that pulled me back into fandom at a difficult time in my life. I feel bad my aunt and friends won’t be able to do the same.

I do hope they part out a few things for fans. But if they aren’t parting out the whole production it makes it less likely for lower income fans to be able to get a piece.

[tennisgurl]

So I have been re-watching the first few seasons of Arrow, after not having seen them in awhile (the show wrapped up earlier this year) and its really interesting how the show dealt with its lead character, Oliver, and his habit of killing tons of people in the first season in the name of justice, and how and why he changed his ways. It made me think of this show and its sudden stance of "heroes dont kill ever ever and if you do your soul is stained!!!!!" stance in the second season and how poorly handled this issue of killing in general was handled in the show. I dont know if Arrow (and its various spin off properties) totally nailed the whole issue and they did fall into some of the same traps that this show did (especially letting murderous bad guys still doing bad guy stuff live because they happen to share genes with a good guy) but it was a subject that was discussed quite a lot with a lot of different viewpoints and was treated as a complex issue with a lot of moral grayness, instead of just "killing is bad because heroes dont kill and thats bad because this ten year old said so." 

In the first season of Arrow, our hero Oliver is basically on a massive crusade to save his piece of crap of a home city, which is riddled with crime and corruption and even an evil conspiracy of rich weirdos with an Evil Plan after five years doing through all kinds of crap while he was missing presumed dead. He got amazing super badass fighting skills, which he uses to fight corrupt rich guys and drug dealers and various bad guys, often leaving a trail of bodies (usually random mooks) behind and generally being extremely brutal towards his enemies, and the show doesn't exactly treat his methods as bad at first. However, as the season goes on, we also see that he has massive levels of untreated PTSD, struggles with connecting to people, either the people he left behind when he disappeared or people he meets now, and while his crusade is out of a very real desire to help the people of his city, its also out of a LOT of anger and grief at everything that happened to him and others who have died on his journey, his massive levels of guilt and self loathing, and its clear that he is mentally in a really terrible place and that his brutal methods, including killing people, is taking a real toll on him. Eventually, after some character development and having to deal more with the consequences of his actions, to make a long story short, his best friend finds out about his secret identity...and is seriously freaked out, because he has heard of this vigilante guy and seen pictures of the crime scenes he has left behind, and while the people he killed were certainly bad guys, the amount of lives taken is really freaking brutal when its all laid out, and as Oliver tries to justify himself, he realizes how bad all of this sounds. Then his friend ends up dying soon after, and Oliver decides to stop with all the killing people to honor his memory. After that, Oliver had to learn how to take bad guys out without killing them (although still doing a lot of damage) and this also coincided with him becoming a much more well adjusted person, who opens up to people more, who starts working to help people in ways beyond just shooting bad guys up with arrows, and finding more in life than just being a brooding vigilante. He really worked to stop killing people (which really was kind of hard, dude is REALLY good at it) and in general tone the violence down, and while later he went more into the direction of "I dont want to kill people and will try to find a non lethal way to deal with bad guys but will if its absolutely necessary" than No Killing Ever, I think they did a lot of interesting stuff with the idea of a hero who doesn't want to kill. Later on, the show would at times I think go a bit too hard on Oliver, probably because Oliver never fully kicked that whole "I am such a bad guy no matter how many lives I save because I have a massive batch of complexes" heroic self deprecation thing that angsty heroes love to do, but I think a lot of what they did was really interesting and complex and how many ways they looked at how killing affects a person and when it is or is not appropriate for a person who is trying to do right to take lives. 

Thats I think the key if a show wants to go hard on the "Heroes Dont Kill" thing, it needs to have context, and there has to be a concrete reason as to why the hero wont just kill the bad guy who is about to blow up that bus full of school children and their puppies when they have the chance. It can be a philosophical issue, like if your hero is a pacifist, it can be fear of what that can do to a person and how that can hurt them mentally and emotionally, which especially can be important when establishing motive for killing (usually killing someone for revenge is much more morally questionable than killing someone in defense or because they are such a huge threat) it can be a religious issue, when their religion prohibits the taking of a life, it can be about a traumatic incident, usually seeing a person die or killing someone accidentally, there are any number of ways to deal with this issue and to explore the complexities, and that can be a really compelling story to tell. Unfortunately, Once handled it in a really stupid, confusing, and even insulting way. It was also painfully inconsistent, so when Emma kills Cruella to save her son its considered a Bad Thing and the start of her falling into darkness, but when Charming killed Percival, even when he could have easily been disarmed, its not a big deal at all. Snow killing Cora was Very Bad, and I think they were trying to do the "she killed her for revenge so its bad" thing, but its all so muddled because Cora was very much an active threat and was about to probably destroy the town, and the actual angst is mostly just about Snow killing her and the narrative is just so hard on her, way more than, say, Regina or Rumple, despite her many murders of innocent people, we end up just being confused as to what lesson we are supposed to take. Worse, there is no real reason why killing is considered bad besides "heroes dont kill" because reasons. We dont know why killing is so bad, no one has any tragic backstory as to why they dont want to kill people, no one has expressed any philosophical or religious views that make them want to avoid killing, they dont want to avoid it because they believe so strongly in the importance of life (or they would be a tad bit more salty at the various semi reformed villains), no one is worried about becoming evil or jumping off a slippery slope, the closest we get is Emma slipping into the Dark One territory, which is more about her magic than her as a person (and that was deep into the Emma Must Suffer plots) we just never get any real examination of why people have this mantra. Plenty of fictional heroes kill and dont angst about it! In classical mythology, heroes were pretty much heroes BECAUSE of their battle prowess! Its not like I think good guys should kill people, I think that they should at least TRY to avoid casualties, but sometimes the fight against evil gets bloody, and sometimes killing someone who is a massive threat can save more lives than saving this one life. How many people are dead now because Snow didnt execute Regina when she had the chance and instead let her go with a slap on the wrist? Thats actually a decently interesting moral question, but its never explored. 

[Camera One]

This article of "suggestions" is sort of unintentionally funny:

https://www.tvguide.com/news/shows-like-once-upon-a-time-what-to-watch-next-disney-plus-netflix/

[daxx]

13 hours ago, Camera One said:

This article of "suggestions" is sort of unintentionally funny:

https://www.tvguide.com/news/shows-like-once-upon-a-time-what-to-watch-next-disney-plus-netflix/

None of those are even remotely like OUAT. 😂 I mean Vampire Diaries? Really? 

[CCTC]

Different concept, but I think people who liked OUAT might like Grimm.  Generally, I thought it was stronger when it was just focused on the crime of the week.   It did have some similarities to Once in some of its overarching mythology was not always thought through and there were a couple of characters they tried to have their cake and eat it too in whether they were pure villain or someone who should be redeemed.

[Shanna Marie]

There were a lot of comparisons between Grimm and OUAT when they first launched. They started at around the same time and were both about fairy tales. Tor.com even did a weekly score sheet between the shows to pick each week's winner. People eventually quit comparing them because they were very different, though they both went off the rails in the long run and both had that problem of falling in love with their villains and making them heroes without any real redemption. I think Grimm actually ended up being way grosser in the way they went about that.

They were much more similar in the first season, since Emma was solving "cases" and figuring things out the way Nick was on Grimm. It might have helped if Once had done more like Grimm did, with cases of the week within an arc framework. That way, there was something going on rather than spinning wheels until they got to the arc finale. We'd get some clues about the arc and/or the Big Bad each week, but there was still a case, which kept Nick busy. He was doing more than sitting around going "We've got to stop them! But how?" or coming up with grand schemes that failed until the finale.

Funny that this should come up when I was just thinking in terms of Grimm for the other topic above, how other shows dealt with the "heroes don't kill people" issue. On Grimm, that ethical question was woven into the premise of the series. Historically, the Grimms just killed the creatures. It was a running gag on the show that when they looked up how a past Grimm had dealt with a particular kind of creature, the last line in just about every journal entry was "and then I cut its head off." But Nick, our hero, hadn't grown up being trained (indoctrinated) by the Grimms, and he was a cop (a good one), so he wasn't keen on the idea of just killing the creatures, and he couldn't get away with just killing them, since most of them reverted to human form at death. If he killed one of them, he'd better either be able to fully justify it as self-defense or defending someone else without bringing up the creature element, or he'd better do a really good job of getting rid of the body and the evidence (he didn't know in the early days that his boss was in on the secret and pulling strings to cover for him). As a result, he got a lot more creative about dealing with creature-related situations, and he dealt with them fairly, which led to him gaining the respect and friendship of a lot of them. He was still feared because of the history of the Grimms and the whole "cut off its head" thing, but word eventually got around that he was fair. He never outright said anything like "heroes don't kill" (for one thing, he'd have laughed at the idea he was a hero), but I think in the early seasons they did a good job of seriously considering when killing is justified. He killed when he had to, and it affected him, but he tried to avoid it, if at all possible. That was a much more reasonable and moral approach than they took on OUAT, where they made pronouncements like "heroes don't kill people," but didn't address how else to deal with situations where harm was imminent and sometimes randomly had heroes killing people without a second thought or pang of guilt.

Sadly, when Grimm went off the rails, Nick became more of a standard action hero who was more prone to killing without thinking and faced few consequences.

[scarynikki12]

Grimm also had a witch who liked to rape men and got away with it. She wasn't declared Dictator of the Universe like Regina but her rape of Nick was rewarded by ending up with him which was just as infuriating.

[Camera One]

I only got a few episodes into Season 1 with "Grimm" before it was removed from the streaming service that came with my cable package.  Unfortunately, I found the show a tad boring.  I had hoped to continue watching, though I was very unengaged.  I'm not looking forward to seeing him get raped.

[daxx]

I tried watching Grimm, I got most of the first season but it didn’t interest me enough to keep going. Guess I’m glad given the situation mentioned above.

[tennisgurl]

Grimm probably hit its stride about midway through season one and managed to be consistently good (well, mostly) for a few more seasons before it went totally off the rails. Its funny that a show that was initially compared to Once so much at first, even if they didn't really have much in common, they ended up falling apart in similar ways. Both become obsessed with a female villain who became a hero despite her terrible deeds and rape of a major character (which neither show considered to be a big deal), both pretty much collapsed their own mythology, both started to overly rely on soap opera antics with long lost relatives, convoluted villains schemes, and god awful love triangles. I would say that Once got worse, with its ret-cons and bizarre morality and Regina conquering the multiverse being the happy ending, but it was sad watching Grimm fall into so many of the same traps. Grimm was also one of those shows that did much better in case of the week episodes with the greater serialized story happening in the background for the most part, and when the serialized stuff went to the foreground, it started to fall apart, as it was clear they didn't have much of a plan. Its too bad, because it was a fun show with a lot of likable characters and interesting mysteries, they did a good job exploring the world through the cases that Nick solved. I really think that Once needed to spend more time on individual cases and stories for Emma to solve more often, them abandoning that to focus on big plots that drag out forever was a terrible idea. One off stories can be used to keep the show from spinning its wheels, develop characters, and world build, but when a show becomes too obsessed with serialization (especially without a well thought out plan) it runs the risk becoming a bogged down mess where everyone is frantically running from plot point to plot point, never giving the characters, or the audience, the chance to breath. 

Also, much like in season one of Once, the show did a great job of creating a fairy tale like atmosphere, contrasting the regular world that the main character is used to with the supernatural goings on right underneath, especially using the woods around Portland to recreate a Black Forrest style fairytale world right around a major city, which just made for a greater contrast. Also like Once, it lost that magical feel eventually and just become a generic city/town without any feeling of magic underneath. 

[CCTC]

2 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

I really think that Once needed to spend more time on individual cases and stories for Emma to solve more often, them abandoning that to focus on big plots that drag out forever was a terrible idea.

I thought the Land of Untold Stories had a good set-up for that and thought that is maybe where they were going, but alas, that whole plot line was quickly dropped, except for an occasional untold character seen in the background as an extra at the bar etc.

I know there was a Lost episode that focused on a never seen couple that did not advance the overall arc got a lot of negative flack at the time, but I did not mind it.  If a filler episode is well written and interesting, I would rather have a handful of those than episodes twisting themselves incoherently to have something to do with what will be in the finale.  As mentioned earlier, Grimm's episodes tended to drop in quality at the end of the season when they focused on the big arch rather than the monster of the week, and the X-files best episodes were the monster of the week vs the ones more centered on the shows mythology.

[Shanna Marie]

I think this is getting to "A-Bomb Spoiler" territory for Grimm, per the site rules, so I'm going to use spoiler protection here.

10 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

I would say that Once got worse, with its ret-cons and bizarre morality and Regina conquering the multiverse being the happy ending

Spoiler

Overall, Once was worse because of ret-cons, bizarre morality, and Regina. Adalind did at least have some redemption. She actually felt bad about what she'd done and made some sacrifices to try to undo it, and although she had a positive outcome, she wasn't ruling the universe. But where rape was concerned, I think the way Grimm dealt with it was far worse. Their situation was very similar to Zelena with Robin, in that she posed as his significant other, had sex with him, and conceived a baby, but then it got more twisted than in Once. I guess it was pretty bad that Zelena had already killed Marian and Robin ended up being killed by Zelena's boyfriend, but Adalind raped Nick to take his powers away from him, then his significant other had to go through all kinds of hell to reverse the spell, and that process changed her into a kind of monster so that she became a villain who murdered Nick's mother and tried to destroy everything that mattered to him before she got captured and reprogrammed into an assassin who no longer wanted anything to do with Nick. It was like she got raped as badly as Nick did, but was treated as a villain. And meanwhile Nick fell in love with his rapist and they ended up raising their baby together. It was all so icky on so many levels. I hated that they demonized his existing significant other in order to elevate the villain (though I guess in real life, Juliette won, since those actors ended up married to each other), and I hated the "fall in love with the rapist" thing. That's a terrible trope, no matter which gender is in which role. But aside from the rape issue, Adalind was actually an interesting character. I might not have minded a redemption arc if they'd skipped the rape and baby part, if she'd just had a change of heart, maybe wanting to protect her first child, and teamed up with the good guys and earned her way to goodness that way. Some of the mythology did bog down, but there was still good stuff happening up to the end, and the final arc was very satisfying. They were also better at working with an ensemble and having different character combinations.

8 hours ago, CCTC said:

I know there was a Lost episode that focused on a never seen couple that did not advance the overall arc got a lot of negative flack at the time, but I did not mind it.  If a filler episode is well written and interesting, I would rather have a handful of those than episodes twisting themselves incoherently to have something to do with what will be in the finale.  As mentioned earlier, Grimm's episodes tended to drop in quality at the end of the season when they focused on the big arch rather than the monster of the week, and the X-files best episodes were the monster of the week vs the ones more centered on the shows mythology.

I think they could have done more one-offs without it necessarily going as far as the never-seen couple type episode -- though I actually would have loved to have seen that kind of thing in Storybrooke, the episode that's mostly about Granny, Archie, the nuns/fairies and the dwarfs having to deal with something while the main characters are in the background dealing with something else. Or even focus on a Storybrooke resident we don't know and let us see the town and the main characters through their eyes. What do they think of everything? Just the OUAT equivalent of the X-Files monster of the week episode could have worked. Let Emma the sheriff have to deal with trying to nab Goldilocks on breaking and entering while we're waiting to be able to wrap up the arc story. Maybe the Charmings are doing research in the library with Belle while Emma does her job, and maybe Emma finds something that might help while investigating the other case. That would have been better than entire episodes of "oh no, what will we do? We have to have hope!" without actually doing anything. It's funny, with The X-Files, I used to look forward to the mytharc episodes because I enjoyed the development of that storyline, but I eventually realized that it was going nowhere and they had no idea what they were doing. The mostly standalone MOTW episodes were far more entertaining.

[Camera One]

24 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

I actually would have loved to have seen that kind of thing in Storybrooke, the episode that's mostly about Granny, Archie, the nuns/fairies and the dwarfs having to deal with something while the main characters are in the background dealing with something else. 

That would have been great.  The ironic thing is that "Lost" did an episode like that in Season 3, and guess who wrote it?  Yep, A&E.  I think it stresses that they were just staff writers doing what they were told, and not especially brilliant with their own ideas. The fact that A&E had zero interest in giving more than a line or two every few episodes to supporting characters like Granny, Archie, Blue, Dwarves, etc. shows their lack of interest in fleshing out an ensemble.  It looks like A&E got their foot in the door by seemingly using the "Lost" formula by giving centrics to supporting characters, but they completely lost interest after Season 1 once their show became a hit, and these supporting characters became glorified extras.  

Edited September 19, 2020 by Camera One

[Camera One]

On 12/24/2019 at 12:34 PM, KingOfHearts said:

Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker was almost A&E levels of fanfic-y. (Not quite there, but close.) 

  Reveal spoiler

Kylo Ren gets a quickie magical redemption from Leia after becoming pretty irredeemable in The Last Jedi. He gets a visit from his ghost dad (er memory or whatever) like Regina did in 5B, and everything's cool. At least he wasn't victimized. I just think Ben Solo had a ton of potential that Rise of Skywalker (and the trilogy) wasted.

Palpatine coming back made about as much sense as Zelena or anybody else on Once Upon a Time being resurrected. I was actually pretty offended when Rey called herself a Skywalker. You can't just take someone else's last name. The whole point of the movie was Rey not being afraid of who she was, but then at the end, she denied her own identity. Making her related to Palpatine was such an OUAT twist that added nothing to the plot and was just for shock value. There was zero foreshadowing. 

What they did with the Sith reminded me so much of the Dark One mythology. "I am all the Sith" is very much Rumple or Emma being all Dark Ones in one. They even went so far to say if Rey killed Palpatine, she'd be the next Emperor/Empress, which was soooo much like the Dark One. Palpatine was basically Nimue/Clippy!Rumple.

In some ways, the movie was very OUAT-ish, both for better and for worse. Fun adventuring and wish fulfillment and all that. But there was also a lot of WTFery I'm sure A&E would think was just amazing.

 

On 1/2/2020 at 7:06 PM, Shanna Marie said:

RE: The Rise of Skywalker (I seldom successfully manage to deal with quotes in spoilers or spoilers in quotes)

  Reveal spoiler

I'm glad I wasn't the only one who immediately thought of the Dark One with the bit about how Rey would basically become Palpatine and have all the Sith in her if she killed the Emperor. But this actually makes Return of the Jedi make a little more sense to me, if he was trying to do the same thing with Luke then. It's always bugged me that Luke spends most of the movie killing Jabba's henchmen and random stormtroopers, most of whom probably were drafted or clones rather than being true believers, and that's okay, but it's the worst thing ever that will send him straight to the Dark Side if he kills the person who's actually responsible for all this, the person whose death might actually end the war. But if it's not just that Luke will end up on the Dark Side for killing him, but rather that he'll be filled with all the Sith, then not killing him makes a lot more sense. Unfortunately, Once never came up with any kind of explanation for why it was totally okay for Snow and David to kill random Black Knights who might have had their hearts ripped out, but executing Regina, a mass murderer who was responsible for all the problems, was a terrible thing to do.

 

Wow, you guys weren't kidding.  I finally watched "Rise of the Skywalker" 

Spoiler

and I actually laughed when the Emperor said "That's what I want.  Kill me and my spirit will pass to you.  All the Sith live within me".  Not to mention all the Black Hoodies floating around like the Dark Ones in Storybrooke, LOL.   It was similar with the whole schtik with Rey being tempted by the Emperor to exact her revenge on him which would turn her Dark forever, while at the same time, all the other heroes were killing anonymous enemy soldiers left right and center.  

I'm not the biggest fan of "Star Wars" even on a good day, but I couldn't feel this movie at all.  Maybe it was because I couldn't remember much of the other two sequels, and I should have rewatched before this?  I thought (maybe misremembering?) that Rey was sort of likeable in "The Force Awakens".  It felt like the character was sleep-walking through this entire movie with the angst about being a Palpatine.  What was with Rey kissing Kylo Ren and not bothering with follow-through on Finn's "secret" love for her in the end?

Kylo Ren's "redemption" was laughable, as you said.  Kylo Ren died, but Ben didn't.  Huh?   At least Kylo Ren didn't separate from Ben and they had a love fest, I guess.

I'm not even sure where all the reinforcements came from at the end.  They were inspired by what, exactly?

I feel rather annoyed at these last three movies, where they basically killed off the originals and presented "the next generation".  I almost think I would rather not have revivals, if this is what they will do.  Seeing Ghost Luke, Memory Han and Ghost Leia was about as moving as hearing Belle's voice from the great beyond.   I couldn't care less about the next generation.

Looking at the movie itself, it made me think of "Once" since they were chasing one object after another, but in such a clunky way that it didn't feel like a smooth storyline.  I could see the strings on the puppets as they maneuvered to their next sub-goal.  I didn't get a sense of wonder at any of the planets they visited, either.  J.J. Abrams has really lost his touch.

 

Edited September 20, 2020 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

Spoilers for Rise of Skywalker:

18 hours ago, Camera One said:

Spoiler

What was with Rey kissing Kylo Ren and not bothering with follow-through on Finn's "secret" love for her in the end?

 

Spoiler

Per the novelization, Finn actually wasn't confessing love. He was going to tell her that he could sense/use the Force, so he was a potential Jedi. There was supposed to be a scene later in the movie where he told her that, but it got cut. Along with the part of the scene between Lando and that ex-Stormtrooper girl that suggested she was his long-lost daughter who'd been kidnapped by the First Order and forced to become a Stormtrooper. As it came out in the movie, it looked like Lando was hitting on her (because Billy Dee Williams basically comes across like he's always flirting), but there were about five lines that were supposed to be in the scene that changed the entire meaning of it.

18 hours ago, Camera One said:

Spoiler

I'm not even sure where all the reinforcements came from at the end.  They were inspired by what, exactly?

 

Spoiler

That's another thing in the novelization that wasn't explained well in the movie. Supposedly, there were pockets of resistance all over the galaxy. They didn't come to the aid of the Resistance at the end of the previous movie because the First Order was jamming their distress signal. Lando and the Falcon went out beyond the satellites that were jamming the signal and broadcast the "it's on!" signal so all the rebel sympathizers would show up. The timeline is kind of sketchy, but instantaneous travel has always been a thing in this universe. Except when something slower is required by the plot.

18 hours ago, Camera One said:

Spoiler

 I couldn't care less about the next generation.

 

Spoiler

I rather liked the new trio. I just wish the films had better utilized them. The actors had a nice rapport, and the moments around them felt genuine. But they tended to split them off too much. I guess that was also a problem with the original trilogy. After the fun adventure in the first movie, they were barely together for the rest of the trilogy. I really would have liked to see the movie that came between the previous one and this one because it looked like the relationships had really progressed. Poe and Rey only met at the very end of the previous movie, and yet they had a very "old married couple" rhythm to their arguments at the beginning of this one. I can see why not doing a jump would have been an issue because of how limited they were with what they could work with from Carrie Fisher. It would be cool if they'd do the novel that fits in that and shows how these relationships were built. In a book, they wouldn't be stuck with the few bits of scrap footage of Carrie Fisher and could do whatever they needed to do with Leia.

18 hours ago, Camera One said:

Spoiler

Looking at the movie itself, it made me think of "Once" since they were chasing one object after another, but in such a clunky way that it didn't feel like a smooth storyline.

 

Spoiler

 

It really struck me how dumb the plot was on my third viewing. It didn't hit me at the theater, but when I watched it on DVD, I noticed the huge, gaping plot-holes that were very Once-like, where most of the movie was focused on finding the Magical Object That Will Save Us All but which shouldn't have been necessary. They found the Emperor's GPS thingy that would lead them to the Emperor's secret base in the Emperor's throne room. Duh. Wouldn't that be the first place to look? They needed a magical knife to point them there? Why bother with all the running around to get the knife with the directions that then had to be translated, etc.? I mean, wouldn't you go to the Emperor's throne room to look for the Emperor's gizmo? And how did they have the knife map that perfectly matched the wreckage? How stable was that wreckage in an ocean with all the high waves, wind, and rain? That whole scavenger hunt was just a delaying tactic to keep the final battle from happening at the beginning of the movie. And, also like Once, the fix is simple and glaringly obvious. Instead of the knife scavenger hunt quest, send them off to try to find potential allies while back at the base they're doing some kind of analysis to figure out where in the wreckage the throne room would be. They go to the one planet to find Lando, then the other to find Poe's friend, and then they get the word about the wreckage and go there to get the navigation gizmo.

I think mostly the problem is that this trilogy was like one of those group writing exercises where it starts with one person writing a scene, then has to pass it over to the next person to write the next scene, and he goes off in a different direction, but when he passes it back to the first person, he tries to force it back to what he wanted to do as though he'd written the middle scene. And thus we get the sudden "Rey is a Palpatine!" thing because the fanboys freaked out about the idea that Rey might just be a random person with Force talent rather than someone meaningful and important. The fanboys seem to have totally forgotten that the Jedi were celibate, so throughout history, all the Jedi were random people with Force talent. The Republic went to hell largely because Anakin broke the rules and got married. The Skywalkers were an aberration in having a kind of dynasty. Every other Jedi would have come from nowhere and had no heirs. I'd love to learn where Rian Johnson was going with things without JJ Abrams coming in and taking things in a different direction.

 

[Camera One]

I'm going to try to keep things general though there may be minor spoilers.

34 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

I rather liked the new trio. I just wish the films had better utilized them. The actors had a nice rapport, and the moments around them felt genuine.

I didn't dislike them.  It's been so long since I've watched the last two movies, but I had a nagging feeling that I *did* enjoy watching these characters maybe in "The Force Awakens".  I remember being annoyed that Rey was separated for "The Last Jedi".  Yet they were more physically together in this one, yet it became dreary and not as fun.  Finn and Lando had more of a playful vibe, but it lacked substance... it felt like empty banter.  I think I disliked the new group more as the trilogy went on, because it seemed like they were bringing down the original characters to elevate the new ones.  I might have found the movie more fun, if the new characters had interacted with Luke, Leia and Han without them.

Spoiler

all dying or being character-assassinated or pushed to the background (I know Carrie Fisher wasn't available in the third movie, but she wasn't well used in the first two either).  

I was thinking about how I would just hate to watch a revival of "Once Upon a Time" in 20 years, and we get to see Emma, Hook, Snow and Charming dying, while Regina Jr. becomes the new Savior and Queen of Everything.

I seriously don't think "Once" taking on Star Wars for half a season would have been any worse than "Rise of the Skywalker".

Spoiler

The dumb plot of this movie could have been worked in... The Emperor was clearly a previous Dark One and he comes to Storybrooke to tempt Rumple, Emma and Hook, followed by Rey, Finn and Poe, who abrasively vow to kill all Siths.  The Emperor resurrects Mother Gothel and her Coven so more hoods could invade the town.  Then, Rey gets shaky hands aka a Savior! and realizes that Emma is an ally.  We find out Regina was the one who sold Finn and a group of orphans to become stormtroopers, and she was also the one who taught Kylo Ren magic, when she adopted him for a year, so it she who must get through to him and save the entire multiverse, as Regina Skywalker (spoiler alert, she was Anakin's secret half-sister).

 

Edited September 21, 2020 by Camera One

[tennisgurl]

I finally got to see Tell Me a Story, which is quite good and does a pretty solid job at the whole "fairy tale but in the real world and no magic" story, and I was surprised to see Murderella herself, Dania Ramirez, as one of the main characters. Even more surprising to me though is that she is actually pretty good. She isn't delivering, like, an amazing Emmy worthy performance or anything, but she is perfectly solid as a badass with a dark past and all that stuff that I think they might have been going for here, certainly miles better than on Once, and, unlike when she was Murderella, she is perfectly capable of showing emotions beyond bland and pissy. It retroactively makes me feel bad for her, I dont think that she is really a bad actress, but she got stuck playing a terribly written role. I can imagine that an actress, especially a working actress not especially famous, would be thrilled to take a leading lady role on a show on a major network, and especially one as iconic as Cinderella, and it really sucks that the show fell apart as soon as she joined, and that her character was so poorly written. Maybe a really great actress could have sold the part more (a lot of the shows success was based on how their first main cast was so good they could raise above the less than great material) but I lean towards either her being miscast or the writing basically tanking the character. I was really unsure, watching the show, if it was the writing or the acting that made her such a crappy character, but now I lean more towards it being the writing. Very few actors could make a character with such inconsistent and awful writing any good. 

[Camera One]

I still haven't watched the live-action "The Lion King", but I'm surprised they are definitely making a follow-up movie.
https://deadline.com/2020/09/the-lion-king-sequel-barry-jenkins-moonlight-director-disney-1234586787/

Quote

They are keeping the logline under wraps, but I’m told that the story will further explore the mythology of the characters, including Mufasa’s origin story. 

Would it be Mufasa's origin story, or more Scar's origin story?  If the movie focuses on Simba, maybe he finds a horrifying secret about his father.

[Camera One]

I rewatched the animated "Mulan", and saw "Mulan II" for the first time.  I have avoided most of the straight-to-video sequels, with their Saturday-morning cartoon quality animation, but after seeing some of the recent lacklustre live-action unoriginal "remakes", maybe a new story with the characters, however lame, might be more "fun" to watch.  I was thinking about how the proposed live-action sequel about Mufasa's backstory might be more interesting than the first live-action (which I hope to see soon).  I'd actually like to see a sequel to the live-action "Aladdin', and even "Beauty and the Beast", even though I think I liked that one least out of all of them.

Watching "Mulan II" felt a little like watching "Once Upon a Time"... a fan fiction possible "what happens next".  This movie had bad songs, questionable plotting, and sometimes Mulan didn't even look like Mulan from a distance, but there were elements of interesting possibilities.  For example, how whether a rule-following Shang might clash with a free-thinker like Mulan.  It was handled horribly in this movie, but I could see "Once" trying something like that.  Despite how bad the movie was, it was nice to see the main voice actors returning to this sequel (with the exception of Eddie Murphy).

Spoiler

I found it interesting that "Mulan II" didn't really have a big bad villain.  I suppose they sort of character-assassinated Mushu to make him so selfish, since he was the main antagonist.

 

Edited October 4, 2020 by Camera One

[Camera One]

I was watching this behind-the-scenes featurette about a deleted song from Alice in Wonderland, which was later reworked for Peter Pan.  I hadn't realized the actress who voiced Alice, also voiced Wendy.

Someone in the comments was suggesting that Alice could have gone to Neverland, and I thought that would have been an interesting mash-up... if Neverland and Wonderland were part of the same world.  Or if Alice was later Wendy when she got a bit older and moved to the city, and she got brought back to Wonderland, except now, it was Neverland, as transformed by Peter Pan.  

The parallels in the video about Alice's song, and Dorothy's "Over the Rainbow" is also interesting, and reminds me of the talk we've had about Alice, Dorothy and Wendy all from the "real world" and visiting a fictional land.  They could have become friends or worked together.  Rather than Dorothy and Alice coming from a "fictional" version of Depression-era Kansas or Fictional Victorian World or whatever.

[Camera One]

I had never watched the animated "The Swan Princess", and I watched it the last two days.  Spoilers ahead.

It's interesting how non-Disney movies from the 1994 has animated characters that look more unnatural than "Snow White" in 1937.  Their lips were sometimes not even moving when they sang.  The story made little sense... they announced plot points without explanation or reason, like how Odette's spell would be broken if the Prince made a "vow of everlasting love", and she would die if he made a vow to another.  Huh?  Was the phrase "true love" copyrighted or something, LOL?  The transitions to the songs were sometimes very awkward and random antics were just thrown in halfway through.

I did find it interesting that Odette rejected the Prince initially because he couldn't say why he was attracted to her other than because of her looks.  Though that sort of went nowhere.  And the evil sorcerer was banished instead of executed because the King at the beginning was too "kind".  Her dad dies in the middle but he was never mentioned again.  Did A&E write this, LOL?  The villain also says a line pretty close to Regina's at the wedding.  "Once" should have adapted the Swan Lake ballet.

Still, it was good to get a fix of a fairy tale.  I suppose it was still engaging enough for me to watch it the whole way through.  

Edited November 12, 2020 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

56 minutes ago, Camera One said:

Still, it was good to get a fix of a fairy tale.  I suppose it was still engaging enough for me to watch it the whole way through.  

I'm pretty sure Emma's look in 3x21/22 was based on Odette, which I find interesting. While I believe she always represented the ugly ducking that turned into a swan, she never really fit the "swan princess" the costume designers could've been alluding to. I'm actually surprised the show never did a take on Swan Lake.

Edited November 12, 2020 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

I watched a trailer to the 2020 straight-to-video sequel to The Swan Princess, and the CGI looks really bad.  Anyway, it feels like a mash-up since they travel to Fictional Ancient China Land.