OUAT vs. Other Fairy Tales: Compare & Contrast

[daxx]

I’m watching the fanon shippers tearing apart the Supernatural writers/ creators/ actors because they didn’t get their ship. So familiar in a terrible way. Can’t people just accept what is written and move onto fic? It’s exhausting. 

Having my ship be canon just means they wrote crap that nearly ruined it for me that is now canon forever. It would almost be better to just have a fanon ship. Fic can still be the solution, attacking Misha of all people is just atrocious.

[KingOfHearts]

1 hour ago, daxx said:

Having my ship be canon just means they wrote crap that nearly ruined it for me that is now canon forever. It would almost be better to just have a fanon ship. Fic can still be the solution, attacking Misha of all people is just atrocious.

Something similar could be said of Captain Swan in S6 of OUAT. Honestly, if something like Swan Queen were canon, A&E would probably write it terribly. Fans are more than capable of writing fic that is better than whatever could've gotten written into the show.

[daxx]

31 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

Something similar could be said of Captain Swan in S6 of OUAT.

That is exactly what I was thinking of as I watch the Spn fandom destroy itself.

[Speakeasy]

1 hour ago, KingOfHearts said:

Something similar could be said of Captain Swan in S6 of OUAT. Honestly, if something like Swan Queen were canon, A&E would probably write it terribly. Fans are more than capable of writing fic that is better than whatever could've gotten written into the show.

I've never particularly seen the appeal of Swan Queen besides I guess wanting queer representation in a prime time fantasy show and/or to see pretty ladies making kissy kissy faces. I didn't think Parilla and Morrison had any trace of romantic chemistry. I found it hard to buy they were friends, honestly.

But there are some really good Swan Queen fanfics, the characters there might not really match up to the ones on screen in a lot of ways, but they're very engaging in their own right and they have intense chemistry.

[CCTC]

On 11/26/2020 at 10:40 AM, Speakeasy said:

I didn't think Parilla and Morrison had any trace of romantic chemistry. I found it hard to buy they were friends, honestly.

I did not on the first watch.  I did not necessarily on the partial rewatch last year before the show left Netflx, but I did notice some scenes that seemed to be written to give that fan base some very vague, slender hope.  The Henry has two moms I think also fed into some fantasies of them setting up house.  Still, it was pretty obvious they were going with Hook and Emma as endgame and Regina supposedly was in true love with Robin, and there was no real intention to pair them.

I thought they had good antagonistic chemistry, which in the world of TV clichés can lead to romance, but never saw any moment any of that even hint at romantic leanings.  I also thought their scenes as friends came off as false and never genuine.  While I don't think Snow should have necessarily forgiven her, I bought their friendship more - perhaps because it had a dysfunctional family vibe to it - that cousin or aunt you had a stormy relationship growing up, but still sent them a Christmas card and meet them for coffee.   The Regina - Emma conversations about co-parenting Henry etc always seemed a bit awkward and clumsily written.   It also did not help that if it was not discussing Henry - their scenes of support were largely Emma telling Regina she is a hero.

Edited November 29, 2020 by CCTC

[Shanna Marie]

I just rewatched the SyFy miniseries Neverland (it's on Amazon Prime). I think it was originally on around the time Once premiered, during a brief period when SyFy was trying for prestige. The cast is pretty astonishing for a semi-cheesy SyFy miniseries, with Rhys Ifans, Anna Friel, Bob Hoskins as Smee and Keira Knightley doing the voice of Tinkerbell, plus Charles Dance showing up as an Elizabethian alchemist.

It's sort of a prequel to the Peter Pan story, but a very different take, going with a science fiction angle instead of fantasy. Neverland is another planet. The "fairies" are the life form native to the planet, and they get the abilities that look like magic from a mineral the fairies mine. The pirates, "Indians" (they went with what seems to be a more authentic portrayal than the stereotypes in the original book) and later Hook, Peter, and the Lost Boys all end up there after getting zapped by a gizmo that opens wormholes. Or something like that. In this version, Hook is his name -- Jimmy Hook -- though he does eventually lose his hand in a fight with Peter. He doesn't start as a pirate. He's an Edwardian gentleman who lost his social position and is running a fencing school while also running a gang of orphan boys he's training as pickpockets and thieves. Peter is one of these kids, and Hook is a father figure to him, but they end up as enemies when Hook lands among the pirates who want the power the mineral can give them and Peter lands among the Indians trying to protect the fairies when they get brought to Neverland.

I'm still not sure how much I liked it, though it is entertaining. However, it really shows how unimaginative OUAT's version of Neverland was. They used the same kind of CGI sets mixed with a few location settings (Ireland instead of Vancouver) that Once used for magical worlds, but their CGI imagery was a lot more interesting. It really looked like an amazing, magical place with different distinct areas -- mountains, forests, snowy fields, etc. Definitely not a bunch of potted plants on a sound stage. I wonder why they didn't do much with CGI for Neverland and went with (boring) practical sets and the occasional bit of Vancouver forest. The visuals and most of the acting are worth seeing, though the story doesn't make a lot of sense.

[tennisgurl]

1 hour ago, Shanna Marie said:

plus Charles Dance showing up as an Elizabethian alchemist.

I AM SOLD ON THIS SENTENCE ALONE! 

That sounds like a pretty weird take on Peter Pan, but at least it sounds unique and its doing its own thing with the story. I might check it out, it sounds like one of those shows where you aren't really sure you liked it or even if it was good, but you admire its ambition and creativity. Was that made around the same time as their Alice in Wonderland and Wizard of Oz takes? I consider them both to be those kinds of shows. I don't know if they are really good exactly, but I appreciate them trying to come up with creative spins on classic stories and having some unique concepts and locations, even if they didn't all totally work. Tin Man and Alice took some really big swings, and while some were misses, I could appreciate that they bothered to try some new ideas and their locations were memorable and creative. Unlike the Once versions of Oz and Neverland, which were just boring variations on the same exact location, just more potted plants on the same old set that looked just like the Enchanted Forrest. Worse, they just didn't seem to be trying anything to add a new spin on those stories and famous magical lands except the old "the good guy is the bad guy and the bad guy is misunderstood" standby, nothing else to make it stand out. I really wish they had at least tried to make the settings more interesting and stand out more. Even if it was silly or didn't make sense, it would at least not be boring. And places like Neverland or Oz should never be boring. 

At least they added some GCI into Wonderland, especially in Once. Wonderland suffered a bit from the potted plant hikes due to budget, but they at least tried to add some variety to give it its own flavor. 

[Shanna Marie]

11 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

Was that made around the same time as their Alice in Wonderland and Wizard of Oz takes?

Yeah, I think they were all around that time. I know this one was on in December because I remember watching it with my Christmas lights on. I'd say this one is slightly more upscale than the Alice one. They weren't going for cheesy camp here. It was pretty serious, and for the most part was well enough done to get away with taking it seriously. The weak link was the actress playing Tiger Lily, but she was an actual Native American/First Nations actress, and it sounded like maybe English wasn't her first language, so she came across a little stiff. Then again, that might have been an acting choice, as her character wasn't used to speaking English. Her delivery was halting and without a lot of emotional inflection, but that's the way you sound when you're speaking a language you know technically but don't use often. Hearing Keira Knightley's voice coming out of Tinkerbell (she was CGI done in motion capture, with another person being the body for the mo-cap) was a little disconcerting because I just watched The Duchess and her voice was familiar from that.

I think all their budget went into the cast, but the cheap effects kind of worked for the setting, and I think Once could have done something just as fanciful within the same budget. They didn't even try with Neverland. Maybe the idea was that Malcolm didn't have a lot of imagination, and he was the one who created it, and that's why it was so dull?

[Camera One]

Beauty and the Beast is getting a prequel 6-episode musical series about the "misadventures of Lefou and Gaston prior to the film", written by A&E.

Out of all the Writers in Hollywood, how do they get chosen to do high-profile work?  Josh Gad is also writing, so hopefully he injects something different into their scripts.

I mean seriously did anyone watch "Her Handsome Hero" and feel A&E were perfect for telling this story?  Plus they have only written one musical episode, so they don't have experience with this.  Why didn't they go with the Writers for "Galavant"?

If this precedes the film, there isn't much room for growth for Gaston.  Maybe for Lefou?  

Edited December 11, 2020 by Camera One

[Camera One]

I haven't watched "Wonder Woman 1984", but this headline reminded me of "Once": The Warped Morality of Wonder Woman.  

Edited December 27, 2020 by Camera One

[AnotherCastle]

Quote

Out of all the Writers in Hollywood, how do they get chosen to do high-profile work?

In this case, it might be because they are good buddies with Josh Gad in real life. The three of them were also working together on that Muppet show reboot that didn't get picked up by Disney.

[Speakeasy]

So I started ranting in the 'Shoulda happened this way' thread and it reminded me of another rant I wanted to post here.

The Camelot arc had some really good ideas-the whole idea of Arthur being driven to become a tyrant because he was obsessed by the idea of being hero, the idea of Camelot the perfect kingdom being a lie he forces on everyone because he wont accept an imperfect reality, the question-through Merlin- of what lines you can cross while being one of the good guys and whether noble restraint can do more harm than good, there's a bunch of great stuff in there even if it could have been handled better.

But it makes me SO ANGRY

And the reason it makes me angry is because it takes every opportunity to demean and disempower and belittle Camelot and it's characters. 

I must hate Monty Python and the Holy Grail, right? No, I love it...

It's possible that's totally inconsistent. 

I love lots of stuff that mocks King Arthur but I always think that the idea of something like Python is that you KNOW the original is an epic hero myth and the humour comes from the dissonance between that and the ludicrous actions in the movie. The original myth and its power are indirectly referenced through that.

Maybe that's nonsense.

But to me there's a difference between that and OUAT - in a comedy farce you mock the entire setting and the entire concept. you turn the world of magic and heroes into one of nonsense. In OUAT Camelot wasn't a joke and the greater world of the show was one of magic and heroes-its just that the heroes of Camelot were second rate ineffectual losers.

Which was pointed out. Repeatedly. When the Camelans arrived Regina said she could kill them all with a wave of her hand. We got Merida's flashback where she finds Arthur stabbed her father in the back - and rationally that's just something that happens in a battle but you're clearly MEANT to see this as evidence of his inferiority as a man, warrior and king - and wanted to steal the magic leadership helmet from the brave Scots cos he can't lead his men without SPECIAL ASSISTANCE. We get a knight cut down by Charming in the first half of an episode and the only impact is that he poisons Robin, poison being a coward's weapon - this knight being Percival the Perfect Knight. There's a clear parallel there in how Excalibur kills with a single cut and how Hook almost dues from that the implication being Arthur needs special assistance to take him... I mean hes only the archetypal hero-king in British mythology, he's clearly nothing next to Sexy-Ahab-by-way-of-Inigo-Montoya... When they lock him up Emma actually says 'he's NOTHING,'

So I'm basically left with the understanding that the has all been a big exercise in making Team StoryBrooke look good by making King Arthur and his knights look like useless, duplicitous, cowardly losers with a good few metaphorical jibes at Arthur's manhood thrown in for good measure, with the aim of making the men the writers approve of look more manly and virile by contrast.

Maybe this wouldn't have irked me so much if Guinevere and Lancelot hadn't suddenly become Sir and Lady Not Appearing in this Film before their arcs had a chance to finish.

I contrast it to an episode of Legends of Tomorrow which is also about Camelot, in which

Spoiler

The Legends find one of their superhero friends has/had set up a real Camelot in 5th century Britain with HERself as Merlin, she is in love with Arthur, but there's no love triangle because Guinevere is a knight, is his right hand woman rather than his wife, and prefers the company of ladies (such as the Legends' leader, Sarah Lance, who turns out to be Lancelot via a silly pun).

Arthur and a bunch of knights get mind controlled by the regular baddies and it's up to the Legends to break the mind control and fight alongside 'Merlin', Guinevere and the remaining knights against the forces of evil to free Camelot. They win the day, the Legends go on their way and off to continue the main plot.

So that's pretty different from any traditional version of the story. And the main cast have to save the epic heroes who are not up to dealing with supervillains from the future. BUT the knights are still treated as capable people who's story is worth something in its own right, at least one Legend gets really fanboyish about fighting alongside the Knights of the Round Table, and even though they couldn't beat the baddies alone they contributed. 

And there's none of that in OUAT's version of Camelot. At most Merlin kind of points them in the right direction to fixing their problems then dies. They are weak, useless people who mainly function as obstacles. They are failures in their own context meant to make the main cast look better by contrast. And it frustrates me far more than it should because I shouldn't care, indeed no one should care because the show has been over fir years but what's a forum like this for if not to scream into the void?

[Camera One]

6 hours ago, Speakeasy said:

The Camelot arc had some really good ideas-the whole idea of Arthur being driven to become a tyrant because he was obsessed by the idea of being hero, the idea of Camelot the perfect kingdom being a lie he forces on everyone because he wont accept an imperfect reality, the question-through Merlin- of what lines you can cross while being one of the good guys and whether noble restraint can do more harm than good, there's a bunch of great stuff in there even if it could have been handled better.

But it makes me SO ANGRY

And the reason it makes me angry is because it takes every opportunity to demean and disempower and belittle Camelot and it's characters. 

So I'm basically left with the understanding that the has all been a big exercise in making Team StoryBrooke look good by making King Arthur and his knights look like useless, duplicitous, cowardly losers with a good few metaphorical jibes at Arthur's manhood thrown in for good measure, with the aim of making the men the writers approve of look more manly and virile by contrast.

Yes, it was very insulting to Camelot and its characters.  I think part of it is when they are given completely free rein, they aren't taking the time or energy to really look at the source material.  They couldn't care less about delving into the characters of Camelot and attempt to remain true to their core traits and figuring out how to incorporate them organically into their new story.   So these well-known names are basically in-name-only, and they tried to squeeze a square peg into a round hole no matter what.

What then happens is they use these known characters and basically have them do the unexpected, or they use them as plot devices in their centrics for the "Once" protagonists.  

On a smaller scale, they did the same with characters of classic literature like Beowulf and The Count of Monte Cristo.  

[Shanna Marie]

I was watching Willow, the 80s fantasy film from George Lucas (apparently, he came up with this story idea before Star Wars when he tried to get film rights to The Lord of the Rings but couldn't and decided to write his own thing, then it got backburnered when he started working on Star Wars) and had to laugh when part of the setup was that they were checking every baby born in the kingdom for the mark on the arm that would mean the baby was the one prophesied to bring down the villain. A&E really don't have a lot of original ideas, do they? You know that as Gen-X Star Wars nerds they had to have seen Willow. I guess they did give it a twist, since the Willow baby was going to be a savior type and the OUAT baby was to be a great evil, and that seems to have been one time on this show that the prophecy was actually not as it seemed, since the great evil born that year wasn't about a baby, after all, but rather was about Fiona becoming the Black Fairy.

And then the prophecy turned out to be wrong, anyway, since she didn't kill the Savior in the Final Battle.

[Camera One]

I was thinking about the new A&E series "Epic" and trying to figure out how they can still create a fresh take on "Disney properties" (as described in recent articles).  "Anthology" suggests that episodes will be stand-alone?  But will they be set in the same universe?  

There are a few different approaches, but they've pretty much done them all before:

• keep the general personality of the characters but just add elaborations to the backstory
• throw in a major unexpected element that twists the entire story... a "what REALLY happened" 
• re-frame the villain as the protagonist to see their "side" of the story
• create a sort-of sequel to reveal what happens next after the known story
• do a mash-up to reveal a surprise connection to another well-known story
• merge the Disney version with other versions (with or without doing much research)

Take Cinderella for example.  In Season 1, they threw in a mash-up ("Rumple"), a "what REALLY happened" (with the first-born contract), and a sequel (their baby).  In Season 6, they gave a backstory to one of the stepsisters Clorinda, plus revealed "what REALLY happened" within the Disney Cinderella story that we didn't know.  And then in Season 7... well, it was all of the above and the kitchen sink filled with soggy beignets.

So they will surely tackle Cinderella again.  What's next?  Cue the horror music.  

 

Edited January 31, 2021 by Camera One

[daxx]

I will probably give this a try, There’s a dearth of anything fairytale at the moment. I think an anthology is the ideal show for them to tackle since no need to do in depth world building, no timeline to tackle or canon to keep straight. Just single episodes, these guys do have fairy good imaginations. I enjoyed Amazing Stories. 

[Camera One]

11 minutes ago, daxx said:

I will probably give this a try, There’s a dearth of anything fairytale at the moment. 

I hope it's on ABC so we can all give it a try.  All of us can have something new to dissect to bits and probably make fun of.

[KingOfHearts]

Knowing A&E, there's going to be at least one episode that ties into the Once universe somehow. There will probably be numerous references like they did with Lost.

Edited January 31, 2021 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

5 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

Knowing A&E, there's going to be at least one episode that ties into the Once universe somehow. There will probably be numerous references like they did with Lost.

Yep, lots of wink wink wink wink wink wink wink get it? wink wink wink wink wink.

[KingOfHearts]

5 hours ago, Camera One said:

Yep, lots of wink wink wink wink wink wink wink get it? wink wink wink wink wink.

And every Once actor they can get making an appearance... but mostly Lana.

[daxx]

9 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

And every Once actor they can get making an appearance... but mostly Lana.

I predict even if they get a bunch of OUAT actors Jmo won’t be in the same episode as Lana or Colin, pretty sure she’s done with all those nasty troll shippers. They are all over Adam’s post on Twitter, mostly very bitter SQ.

 

if you want to see some. 

 

Edited February 1, 2021 by daxx

[Camera One]

The trailer for the new movie Cruella is out.

It looks very stylish.  Though it almost looked like a film about Harley Quinn or a female Joker.

In a future show, A&E will probably have a variation where Cru-ella started off as Cinder-ella, transformed by the cruelty towards her by her stepmother and stepsister who loved Dalmatians.  Because evil isn't born... it's made.

Edited February 17, 2021 by Camera One

[Speakeasy]

4 hours ago, Camera One said:

The trailer for the new movie Cruella is out.

It looks very stylish.  Though it almost looked like a film about Harley Quinn or a female Joker.

In a future show, A&E will probably have a variation where Cru-ella started off as Cinder-ella, transformed by the cruelty towards her by her stepmother and stepsister who loved Dalmatians.  Because evil isn't born... it's made.

Cruella never had a chance to be good and I blame her parents for her behaviour 100% . Who the fuck calls their child 'Cruella'? What did they expect to happen?

[tennisgurl]

17 minutes ago, Speakeasy said:

Cruella never had a chance to be good and I blame her parents for her behaviour 100% . Who the fuck calls their child 'Cruella'? What did they expect to happen?

Yeah, they were kind of asking for trouble with that one. They couldn't just call her Evelina McVillian and get it over with? Its kind of like how Mufasa and Scar's parents, according to the novelization, named Scar "Taka" before he changed it to Scar (because of his scar...get it?) which means Trash in Swahili. Gee, I wonder how he ended up being so bitter and resentful towards his brother and family?

Edited February 17, 2021 by tennisgurl

[Speakeasy]

12 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Yeah, they were kind of asking for trouble with that one. They couldn't just call her Evelina McVillian and get it over with? Its kind of like how Mufasa and Scar's parents, according to the novelization, named Scar "Taka" before he changed it to Scar (because of his scar...get it?) which means Trash in Swahili. Gee, I wonder how he ended up being so bitter and resentful towards his brother and family?

Ha! Lions are dicks

Though interestingly I think that might be a reference to Shaka Zulu-who I have been told was named after some kind of gut parasite by his abusive stepfather. He grew up to be a very angry man but he did also expanded the Zulu nation to something like ten times it's original size... Scar never learnt to channel his anger like that, sadly 😉

[Camera One]

I wonder how the movie is going to make us root for someone who wanted to kill dogs.

I assumed Cruella was a nickname other people gave her, and maybe she reclaimed it proudly as her own.  

A more interesting approach would be to explore why Anita would have become friends with her in college.  I had always been curious about that.

They could have gone the "Wicked" route and made them roommates in college.  Maybe Cruella was a cat person and Anita's dogs called her cat.  

Or maybe Cruella was a cat breeder who was responsible for all the evil cats in Disney movies like Lucifer from Cinderella and the Siamese Cats in Lady and the Tramp.  

 

[Shanna Marie]

On 2/18/2021 at 9:58 AM, Camera One said:

I wonder how the movie is going to make us root for someone who wanted to kill dogs.

Yeah, "puppy murderer" is hardly a rootable trait. And it's not like the puppies could have had anything to do with whatever tragic past she had, so it's hard to justify her outcome, no matter what her past was.

On 2/18/2021 at 9:58 AM, Camera One said:

I assumed Cruella was a nickname other people gave her, and maybe she reclaimed it proudly as her own.  

One article I saw mentioned another name for her, so her parents didn't name her Cruella. Supposedly, the movie takes place during the 70s punk scene, so maybe the name has something to do with that?

[Camera One]

21 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

Yeah, "puppy murderer" is hardly a rootable trait. And it's not like the puppies could have had anything to do with whatever tragic past she had, so it's hard to justify her outcome, no matter what her past was.

I've figured it out.  She was only pretending to want Dalmatian coats.  Actually, she was stealing the Dalmatians because Roger and Anita were secret animal abusers with a mean streak (they bullied her when they were all children).

[KingOfHearts]

On 2/19/2021 at 7:15 PM, Shanna Marie said:

Yeah, "puppy murderer" is hardly a rootable trait. And it's not like the puppies could have had anything to do with whatever tragic past she had, so it's hard to justify her outcome, no matter what her past was.

It would seem they'd have to whitewash her story like they did with Maleficent. I can't see them doing an honest to goodness villain backstory where she becomes the unapologetic puppy murderer we love to hate. Disney has become pretty allergic to straight-up villains that aren't "complex" or "tragic." They can't make Cruella too evil and they can't make her too sympathetic if this meant to be a prequel to 101 Dalmatians. This movie really isn't something anyone wants. 

I personally like what the live action remake of 101 Dalmatians did with Cruella and even the OUAT version where she was just flamboyantly evil. I don't really need to see her background because there was never meant to be a lot there to begin with.

[CCTC]

I just watched the finale of WandaVision.

If it would have been Once

Spoiler

the townspeople would have either been thanking Wanda at the and telling her how great she was and that she had finally become a hero or Agatha would have had some last minute redemption and she would have become mayor of the town. 

I enjoyed the series.  I think I know just enough Marvel to enjoy some of the Easter eggs but not so thoroughly that I noticed every inconsistency with the Marvel universe or had expectations outside what was actually happening specific to this series. 

Spoiler

I know some people were not happy about the resolution of Pietro, but did not know enough of the character outside this show to expect any multi-verse reveal,

 

[Camera One]

The more shows I watch after "Once", the more I do notice that flaws are so similar, especially into the second season and beyond.  It's just magnified in "Once" big time.

With multiple shows, it is so common to give each character one major character trait/theme, and just beat the dead horse every time each character has a centric.

Shows also love spending half a season on something, and then resetting for the second half, or for the next season, and it feels like the rinse cycle. 

It sometimes makes it hard to watch/start a new show or a new season.

[Shanna Marie]

I finally broke down and got Disney+, so I'm catching up on stuff, and I finally watched Frozen 2. I liked it a lot, though it suffered from plot holes in much the same way as the first one did. I think a lot of what I liked was the autumn scenery (I like fall a lot more than snow and ice, especially after what we went through a couple of weeks ago -- I'm in Texas, so I'm still getting over freezing in the dark) and the fact that there wasn't really a "villain." There was bad stuff in the past that had consequences in the present, but they weren't fighting anyone in particular. I also felt like the characters were allowed to be smart. They were dealing with the consequences of past stupidity, but I don't think anyone did anything quite as boneheaded as some of the stuff in the first one. There wasn't a song as big or iconic as "Let it Go," but to be honest, that was never my favorite. I liked the music in the second one better overall, and it was more spread out. The first one put a bunch of songs in the first half and almost nothing later.

But the whole dam thing was a massive plot hole. A dam isn't exactly something you can spring on someone as a surprise. A dam like that takes years to build, especially in a non-industrial society. If the Not!Sami people or the elemental spirits had an issue with it, you'd think they could have said or done something about it before it got built or at least before it was finished. Elsa and Anna's parents remain The Worst, especially since it seems they should have known something about what was going on. Their mom seemed to have been old enough during that incident to know something about her people's history, so why didn't she share that with her daughters? Did she not let her husband know that the dam had been a bad idea and not something they wanted?

But at least there was more reason to them heading out to sea to look for a way to help Elsa than there was in the Once version. It sounds like they'd figured out the issue and were trying to get to that place to get answers, so they had a specific plan. On Once, it was more like they headed out to sea because the script said they had to, not because there was any particular thing they wanted to find. And it seems there was more reason behind Elsa's powers than it being a forgotten family trait. Because of that, I don't think Elsa was ditching her responsibility. She was actually taking on her real responsibility of being the balancing force among the elements. In a sense, they divided the role of queen, with Elsa taking on the magical part of the job and Anna taking on the day-to-day management, which she's probably better suited to, anyway. I thought we'd learn something about Kristoff's background, since he seems to have been an orphaned foundling. With him having the same sort of relationship with the reindeer as the Not!Sami guy, I thought we'd found his family. And his 80s power ballad with the reindeer as background singers cracked me up.

In just about all these fairytale sort of films, it's weird how sparsely populated everything is. There's usually the city around the castle, but then there are no towns or villages. In real Norway, there would have been villages up and down the edge of the fjord. But in most fantasy films, the characters go on these epic quests and seldom run into any kind of civilization. Once did the opposite there, with lots of villages (each with its local franchise of Ye Olde Tavern), but with the royal palace strangely isolated instead of a town having grown up around it.

And I couldn't help but think again how unenchanted the "Enchanted" forest was on Once. You'd think if something has gained a reputation for being enchanted, to the point it's given that name, then it would be a place where magical things happened. But all that seems to be in that place is the Dark One and the sorceress Evil Queen in the general vicinity, and it seems to have earned that reputation before Regina started showing her powers off. So why was it the Enchanted Forest? The dwarfs' fairy dust mines? There should be magical things in the forest, or magical things happening.

[Camera One]

15 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

But at least there was more reason to them heading out to sea to look for a way to help Elsa than there was in the Once version. It sounds like they'd figured out the issue and were trying to get to that place to get answers, so they had a specific plan. On Once, it was more like they headed out to sea because the script said they had to, not because there was any particular thing they wanted to find.

Interesting thoughts!  I will reply to some other parts later, but about this, I thought Elsa's parents went out to sea to find Rumple again to find out how to help Elsa?  It's been a while since I've rewatched 4A, so I don't remember exactly.

[Shanna Marie]

16 minutes ago, Camera One said:

I thought Elsa's parents went out to sea to find Rumple again to find out how to help Elsa?

Maybe, but Rumple didn't do anything much to help Ingrid, aside from the gloves and the urn, so why would they have thought he'd have more to offer? "Let's go back to the creepy guy who wanted our old ribbons and then just gave us the urn I had to use to imprison my sister, maybe there's something else he knows that he didn't tell us then" isn't my idea of a worthwhile plan to risk orphaning your daughters and abandoning your kingdom for. It's definitely not as strong a plan as "Maybe there's something to that song my people had, and they did know about magic, so that place in the song might hold the answers if we can get there," especially since they had maps and it sounded like they'd done some research before heading out. And they turned out to be right, while Rumple didn't actually know anything more about Elsa. He was just the convenient go-to guy for all magical questions, even though he was seldom very helpful.

[Camera One]

1 hour ago, Shanna Marie said:

"Let's go back to the creepy guy who wanted our old ribbons and then just gave us the urn I had to use to imprison my sister, maybe there's something else he knows that he didn't tell us then" 

Good point.  Though that's the mindset of 99.999999% of all protagonists on "Once Upon a Time".

[Camera One]

2 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

I think a lot of what I liked was the autumn scenery

I did like that too.  Visually, it was very pretty.

I liked most of the new songs too.  Except for Elsa's new ballad.

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I also felt like the characters were allowed to be smart. They were dealing with the consequences of past stupidity, but I don't think anyone did anything quite as boneheaded as some of the stuff in the first one.

But the whole dam thing was a massive plot hole.

Their mom seemed to have been old enough during that incident to know something about her people's history, so why didn't she share that with her daughters? Did she not let her husband know that the dam had been a bad idea and not something they wanted?

I think the two points you mentioned pretty much made the whole story unconvincing to me.  In the first movie, at least I understood why the characters were doing dumb things.  The whole secrecy with the mother and what happened in the dramatic flashback made no sense.  

And without buying the story, I couldn't feel emotional at the major points, like when Anna thought Elsa had died.  I couldn't relate to Elsa's new role.

I can't say I remember the details of this movie anymore, but I can't really recall when the characters were all that smart, either.  

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I thought we'd learn something about Kristoff's background, since he seems to have been an orphaned foundling.

That's "Frozen 3" when we find out what *his* parents did and the sordid history of the Rock Trolls.

Edited March 7, 2021 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

3 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

"Let's go back to the creepy guy who wanted our old ribbons and then just gave us the urn I had to use to imprison my sister, maybe there's something else he knows that he didn't tell us then" 

Good point.  Though that's the mindset of 99.999999% of all protagonists on "Once Upon a Time".

But at least most of them are in walking distance. They're not having to make an arduous journey to go get useless information from someone who doesn't actually know anything but won't be honest about that and will only give them the useless information after they give up something of value. "We might as well ask the creepy magical guy in that castle on the hill" is different from "We might as well get on a ship and sail for a couple of weeks to get to the creepy magical guy who gave us useless info before."

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

I liked most of the new songs too.  Except for Elsa's new ballad.

Confession time: I'm not a huge fan of Idina Menzel's singing. She has some weird technique quirks that bug me, so she spreads her vowels and goes nasal when she's belting, and then sometimes she uses this odd little girl type voice. Kristen Bell is a much stronger singer, so I tend to prefer Anna's songs. I never thought "Let it Go" was all that great, so I did enjoy the moment in the sequel when Elsa rolls her eyes upon seeing that memory.

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

I can't say I remember the details of this movie anymore, but I can't really recall when the characters were all that smart, either.  

Well, maybe not utterly brilliant -- though I did think that Anna's idea of using the rock giants to smash the dam was pretty clever -- but no one did anything as boneheaded as putting Hans in charge ten minutes after meeting him (and getting engaged to him five minutes after meeting him). People generally made good choices in the present part of the story.

As for the past ... well ... As soon as they mentioned the dam in the story, I thought, "Oh, that's not a good thing. They won't like that." I'm not sure that dam where it was would have even worked. They seemed to just be blocking off one of the waterfalls into the fjord. I'd think the resulting lake would have just started spilling over on either side of the dam.

I'm very much on Team Anna in the movies, so I felt for her when she thought she'd lost everyone but then pulled herself together to take the next right step.

I think I'm behind a movie in the Toy Story series, but I'm mostly focusing on The Mandalorian right now. And then I need to catch up with the Marvel movies because I'm intrigued by WandaVision, but I don't think I know enough to get it, and I need to get a better grounding in the Avengers stuff to understand half my pastor's sermons (he's a bit of a comics geek, and he uses a lot of Marvel-related references).

[Camera One]

I was rewatching the animated "Anastasia", and the last two lines were... "It's a perfect ending."  "No, it's a perfect beginning".  I couldn't help but roll my eyes.  Thanks, Once.

[Camera One]

A&E's new "Epic" series has cast its first lead, and this is the character description:

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Fanyinka, the first actor cast in the project, will play The Seer, a mysterious and playful figure who can lead you down the path of true love.

The description reminded me of how Alice was in the first episode of Season 7, playful and seemingly knowledgeable.

I can imagine this as a teaser for "Once" Season 8.

An "anthology" series means each episode is stand-alone, right?  I guess this character might be the common thread in the stories, and maybe they all occur in the same "universe".  

[KingOfHearts]

On 3/23/2021 at 2:07 PM, Camera One said:

An "anthology" series means each episode is stand-alone, right?  I guess this character might be the common thread in the stories, and maybe they all occur in the same "universe".  

Wouldn't be surprised if we thought it was an anthology series, only for the twist at the end of the first season to be that it's actually all part of a single multiverse and Rumple The Author The Seer has been the one pulling the strings in each story. 

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Epic is described as a romantic anthology series that reinvents fairy tales for a new audience.

This sounds so much like OUAT. It's like they just wanted to keep doing OUAT but with different actors. It's still a very broad concept, though. 

Edited March 31, 2021 by KingOfHearts

[KingOfHearts]

I think it's interesting no one can agree on the time period Cruella exists in. The animated 101 Dalmatians took place in 1958, the live-action remake in the modern 1990s, in OUAT it was the 1920s, and now in the new "Cruella" movie its the 1970s. As flamboyantly iconic of a character she is, it's weird how well she fits in various decades.

I'm actually curious how the new "Cruella" movie will compare to OUAT. I'd say there's a decent chance I'll prefer OUAT's version of the character, as what happened with Frozen 2. OUAT's Cruella was actually a really cool reimagining of the character even if she was nestled inside of a garbage story arc and set adjacent to some awful worldbuilding. 

Edited April 1, 2021 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

This second trailer to Cruella seems to explain a bit more.  Spoilers from the trailer below.

The Dalmatians actually appear in this one, and Cruella seems to be stealing them from the other villain, the Emma Thompson character.  

So our running joke that maybe Cruella is stealing the dogs not to make coats out of them, but to save them from the evil Anita and Roger might be sorta true (well, at least from an evil Emma Thompson).  

Which brings me to the question of how far one can go, before a character is no longer that character.  Does looking like a character make you that character?  This new movie seems to explain the origin of her unique "look".  But a Cruella who steals puppies from a loving family to kill them for fur coats is essentially a different character, from an individualistic girl waging war with her fashionista rival?  

This new movie does look very stylish and fun, so that's a plus I guess.  It reminded a bit less of Harley Quinn in this trailer.

With "Once", that Cruella could very well have stolen puppies and killed them for her fur coat.  

[Camera One]

They're writing a new movie focusing on Cinderella's Evil Stepsisters:

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The new movie apparently seeks to tell the story of those characters from early childhood through the fairy tale ending of Cinderella. 

Can't see them topping the superbly written Clorinda in Season 6 or Drizella and Anastasia in  Season 7.  

[daxx]

I am sure they were simply misunderstood and Cinderella just ruined their lives. 🙄🤦‍♀️

[Camera One]

21 minutes ago, daxx said:

I am sure they were simply misunderstood and Cinderella just ruined their lives.

Cinderella's intentionally negligent housekeeping skills resulted in a mouse infestation that resulted in disease entering the house that killed the third stepsister.  Cinderella also slandered her stepmother's name, resulting in their financial hardship.  The Prince's true love was one of the stepsisters, but Cinderella robbed her and wore her dress to the ball, impersonating the stepsister and getting pregnant with the Prince's child, so he was obligated to marry her.

[Shanna Marie]

8 hours ago, Camera One said:

The Prince's true love was one of the stepsisters, but Cinderella robbed her and wore her dress to the ball, impersonating the stepsister and getting pregnant with the Prince's child, so he was obligated to marry her.

I actually recently read a story along those lines. It was called "Stepsister" and is a finalist for a Nebula Award. Unfortunately, it was in Fantasy and Science Fiction magazine, so isn't available online.

Except they didn't really take the "poor stepsister, and Cinderella was the real villain" approach. The stepmother and stepsisters were cruel and abusive, and they don't try to downplay that. But Cinderella was also pretty badly damaged by their treatment, to the point that she's insecure and paranoid even after marrying the prince. Instead of there being a fairy godmother and a ball, there's a day when people have access to fairy magic and it's a big party. The stepsister and the prince hook up. Then Cinderella uses fairy magic to win the prince. The prince is horrified by what he later learns the stepsister did to Cinderella (she has scars), but the stepsister is the one he was actually attracted to, and Cinderella worries about losing her husband when she doesn't have magic to lure him, so she becomes paranoid, insecure, and jealous.

[Shanna Marie]

The documentary about L. Frank Baum that was on PBS last week (it should still be online for another week or so) was interesting and there were a few things that made me think about how they used his work on this show. For one thing, he was very much a feminist and spoke out in favor of women's suffrage. His mother-in-law was a feminist author, and she inspired a lot of his work. She wrote a book on witch trials and how the persecution of witchcraft was generally just a persecution of women who had any kind of knowledge or power (not necessarily magical, but clout in the community, being someone people listened to). It was actually pretty radical for him to have made Glinda a good witch. There hadn't really been stories before about good witches. In fact, that was considered an oxymoron. 

He also was very specific that he was writing an American fairy tale, which is why I find it so weird that on Once, the regular character from his universe was British. It's also funny that they made the good witches so ineffective and focused on the bad one when he made such an effort to show that witches could be good. I guess she did eventually become good, and she was a victim, and all that, but it didn't necessarily follow his idea about wise women with power being a positive thing. Even when Zelena became sort of good, she was never what I'd call wise.

[Camera One]

On 4/30/2021 at 9:51 AM, Shanna Marie said:

The documentary about L. Frank Baum that was on PBS last week (it should still be online for another week or so) was interesting and there were a few things that made me think about how they used his work on this show. 

Thanks for the heads-up.  I just watched it and I too found it interesting, though it was disheartening to hear of some of the things he wrote as a newspaper editor while keeping in mind he lived in a different time. 

There was so much scope for the imagination in Oz, and its treatment on "Once" was anything but.  In some ways, the sense of "place" in "Once" wasn't very strong.  At least Oz didn't look like another Enchanted Forest, but it wasn't very distinctive.  Even "Wonderland"'s geography didn't feel very magical or distinct, and the problem went beyond the bad CGI/greenscreen.  

Edited May 2, 2021 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

22 hours ago, Camera One said:

it was disheartening to hear of some of the things he wrote as a newspaper editor while keeping in mind he lived in a different time. 

Calling for genocide might have been a bit extreme even for his time. It was an interesting juxtaposition for him to be so horribly racist while also being such a progressive feminist.

22 hours ago, Camera One said:

At least Oz didn't look like another Enchanted Forest, but it was very distinctive. 

I wish we could have seen more of the Emerald City. That was something I found interesting in the Baum documentary, that he based the Emerald City on the "White City" from the World's Fair, and the point being that it was all surface, like how the Emerald City was only really emerald because of the glasses. That seems like something they could have worked with on Once. They could even have pulled a twist and had it be Zelena who made everyone wear green glasses so that everyone else looked green, too, and no one realized she was any different.

[Camera One]

30 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

Calling for genocide might have been a bit extreme even for his time. It was an interesting juxtaposition for him to be so horribly racist while also being such a progressive feminist.

Yeah, I thought that too.  It seemed like his rhetoric escalated quickly.

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That seems like something they could have worked with on Once. They could even have pulled a twist and had it be Zelena who made everyone wear green glasses so that everyone else looked green, too, and no one realized she was any different.

That would have been a good twist. 

What I liked about the documentary was how it connected some of his references in Oz to his actual life.  Like he was trying to sell oil, and the Tin Can's oil can.  He raised chickens and there was Belinda the Chicken in the third or fourth book.  And the White City/Emerald City.

Edited May 2, 2021 by Camera One