Reading/Watching Log #60

Last batch of the year!

I didn’t do so great with my New Years’ Resolution of focusing on female-centric stories and female creators: for the most part I managed it, and the quality of stories definitely went up, but during lockdown and in some other areas I just let myself watch or read what I wanted, such was my worry about anxiety levels.

Bu to wrap things up, I went back to the female-focus well, with three period dramas involving three very different queens, books about witches and writers and detectives, and the long-awaited offering from Cartoon Saloon: Wolfwalkers, which is the most gorgeous fairy tale I’ve seen in a long time, starring two imminently loveable heroines.

I took my niece to see the Cinderella pantomime, which was great fun, and secured tickets for two more ballets in the coming year, which is something to look forward to. And I’ve had the last three weeks off, and am well into my “sleep till ten and stay up all night reading” part of the holiday.

I’m very aware that Christmas around the world was a very different experience from what we were allowed to enjoy in New Zealand, and even though the vaccination process has started, we’re still a long way from collective normality. I hope you were able to have some degree of fun over the break, even if it was just cuddling up with a cat in front of the television.

His Dark Materials: Æsahættr

 That was… not great. And yet, it’s pretty obvious that Covid-19 played its part in why this episode felt incredibly creaky and disjointed (though once again, the writers and directors decide against adding anything that could even remotely be construed as emotionally urgent – the only reasonably affecting thing was Lee Scoresby’s death, and that was entirely down to Lin Manual Miranda).

So I’m inclined to give them a bit of a pass, even though this episode was full of choppy editing and weird pacing. Some of the scenes even had characters standing awkwardly at the required three-feet distance when they should have logically moved closer to one another. Hey, it is what it is.

Review: Toy Story That Time Forgot

Who doesn’t love Christmas Specials?

With the release of a Toy Story Halloween Special, it was only a matter of time before Pixar followed up with a Christmas one, and of the two, I think Toy Story That Time Forgot has the tiniest edge over its spooky counterpart. Whereas Tale of Terror was very much built around horror tropes that befitted the holiday it was celebrating, this one is only tenuously linked to Christmas, and yet it builds such an immersive world with its Battlesaur characters that I get wrapped up in the adventure every single time.

Released in 2014, it is longer by its predecessor by exactly one minute, and once again employs a female character as its protagonist (is it annoying that the likes of Jessie and Trixie have to wait for television specials to enjoy the limelight? Yes, but this is the last time I’ll mention it, I promise).

In this case, Trixie the triceratops is frustrated at being cast into the role of anything but a dinosaur in Bonnie’s elaborate games, only to realize that her purpose as a toy is to sublimate herself to her child’s needs. This is a lesson she imparts to the episode’s most important new character, Reptillus Maximus, an anthropomorphic dinosaur action figure that (like Buzz nearly twenty years earlier) doesn’t realize he’s a toy.

It’s basically the same epiphany that the toys learn in all these movies – except, bizarrely, the fourth one. But we’ll get to that in due course...

Angela Barrett: Brave Knight, Fair Lady

You’ve probably never heard of Marie de France, which is not surprising since virtually nothing is known of her life, including her real name. Marie de France was the non de plume of a poet who lived in England during the late 12th century, and is principally known for The Lais of Marie de France, a collection of twelve narrative poems that are all largely concerned with the concept of courtly love.

This retelling of her stories was published in 1989, with the intent of drawing more attention to her literary contribution, and it’s neither the first nor the last time Naomi Lewis and Angela Barrett collaborated on a project. It’s also a perfect match for Barrett’s particular style, for her ornate details and delicate brushstrokes capture that distinct quality of the subject matter: a mysterious medieval period that only ever existed in tales of chivalry and romance.

His Dark Materials: Malice

This was very much a penultimate episode, with almost all the characters making an appearance, and an underlying sense of things coming to a head. (Though it does make me wonder where the Asriel-centric episode would have been placed had it been completed in time).

Mary is exploring Cittàgazze, so is Mrs Coulter and Lord Boreal, Lee and John Parry have also crossed through the doorway into that world, and Lyra and Will are joined by Serafina and the other witches, who take them up into the hills (in the book it’s because that’s where the alethiometer is directing them. Here…I guess they’re just trying to reach higher ground?)

All the strands are coming together…

His Dark Materials: The Scholar

Watching these episodes while concurrently reading the novel is an interesting exercise in how stories get adapted for television, as the chronology of the chapters is very scrambled at this stage. In the book, Will and Lyra’s attempt to steal back the alethiometer happens right on the back of their successful retrieval of the subtle knife, while Lee Scoresby finding John Parry (which occurred in the last episode, cut amidst scenes of the Tower of Angels) comes directly afterwards.

Meanwhile, all of Mary Malone’s material in this episode happens long after the chapter in which Will and Lyra confront Mrs Coulter and Lord Boreal at the latter’s house, but (as with Lee Scoresby in the last episode) has been pushed forward and interspersed with the Will/Lyra adventure.

And two chapters worth of witch-related material has yet to appear, as by this point in the book, they have long since entered the world of Cittàgazze, witnessed the Spectres attacking a convoy, gathered information about this specific threat, seen Ruta Skadi go off with a group of angels, and rescued Will and Lyra from the feral children. Next episode, maybe?

I can understand why these changes have been made, and it’s a good idea to scatter scenes of the supporting cast throughout the “A-plot” of Lyra and Will, but it also means I have to keep skipping back and forth while reading!

His Dark Materials: Tower of the Angels

Argh, I’m running behind on these episodes…

If last week was about looking for things, this week was about finding them: Will and Lyra find the subtle knife (according to the book, it doesn’t have capitals), Lee Scoresby finds Stanislaus Grumman, a.k.a. Jopari, a.k.a. John Parry, Will’s father, and Mary Malone finds a way to communicate directly with the shadow particles...

Links and Updates

Some interesting announcements and creative decisions have made waves in fandom these past few weeks, from yet another disappointing ending to a long-running show, to a pretty incredible choice from Warner Brothers about how they’re going to handle their delayed slate of films in the coming year…

Woman of the Month: Ofelia

I revisited Pan’s Labyrinth last month, and aside from my frustration that Ivana Baquero clearly doesn’t have the career she deserves, I was filled with warmth at the realization that Ofelia is truly one of my favourite heroines of all time.

Set in 1944 after the Spanish Civil War, eleven-year old Ofelia travels with her pregnant mother to join her stepfather in his rural villa, where he and his men are attempting to rout the last remaining rebels that oppose the fascist regime. Captain Vidal is a cold and cruel man, and Ofelia can’t fathom why her mother ever married him.

But this barely figures into her story (at least to start with). One night she follows a fairy into the labyrinth that lies on the villa grounds, and creeps down a spiraling set of steps where a faun is waiting for her. He has a story to tell, as strange as it is intoxicating: that she’s the reincarnation of a princess who fled from her Underground Kingdom, whose father has opened portals all over the world in the hopes that she might one day be returned to him.

It sounds like the sort of fantasy a lonely little girl would come up with (who among us didn’t imagine ourselves as a lost princess as a child?) but in Ofelia’s case everything points to this story being real. And all she has to do to prove her identity is pass three tests…

Interviews with Guillermo del Toro about Pan’s Labyrinth are always fascinating, and he has plenty to say about the character of Ofelia and how she fits into the film’s central thesis. He’s often pointed out that Ofelia is the only character in the film who never takes a life (even Ofelia’s mother ends up throwing the mandrake root in the fire) and it’s her clear conviction that she does not have the right to harm her baby brother – even with the threat of losing what she so desperately wants – that ultimately saves her.

No one can put it better than the man himself:

If people watch it carefully, the precise wording of the faun's words to the girl is: "You have to pass three tests before the full moon shines in the sky. We have to make sure that your spirit is intact and not become mortal."

That's the real purpose of the tests. It's not if she gets the dagger and she gets the key, those are the mechanics of the test, mechanics which she can then proceed to fault. She can flunk the tests. The mechanics of the test she succeeds in. She believes in herself. She does what she thinks is right. She fucks up here and there but—when the real test come, when she is cornered with no other options but to either kill or give her own life—she chooses to put her own life at risk rather than the kid's.

That's a real test. That's what makes her immortal. That's what makes her that she has not become a mortal. So [in] the movie all the tests are a misdirection.

Gah, I love it. To del Toro, disobedience is a crucial part of life – not for what it might gain you, but for what it reveals about yourself when you refuse to give into the cruelty of the world around you. Ofelia’s world is one of danger and defiance, and her story is one of innocence and integrity winning out over the violence of fascism simply by refusing to partake in it. Even at the cost of her own life, she wins a profound moral victory.

She died so young, but in stark contrast with the dying Vidal being told that his son: “will never even know your name”, we the audience know that Ofelia’s presence will linger, not only in the brother she saved, but in signs as subtle and fragile as a white flower blooming on a tree branch.

Reading/Watching Log #59

This is essentially the second half of my Halloween viewing, featuring several horror movies and shows, though I evened it all out with a glut of children’s books. It was a mixed bag this month, with some stuff that I really didn’t enjoy and only absorbed because of my annoying need to finish everything I’ve started – and once again, I ended up watching some stuff that didn’t strictly adhere to my New Year’s Resolution.

But there’s some good stuff too. I revisited the Scream trilogy for the first time in years, as well as Pan’s Labyrinth, once of my all-time favourite films. I finally watched Over the Garden Wall and Fleabag, highly rated television that I’ve been meaning to get to for years, and finished several books series by Robin Stevens and Cressida Cowell that I’m going to remember fondly.

Plus, I went to the ballet, which is always a treat.

His Dark Materials: Theft

 It only took one and a half seasons, but for the first time this show managed to inject a sense of urgency into the proceedings. That is, the feeling that important things might be at stake, that characters might have to pick up the pace, and that there could (excepting Roger’s death) be actual consequences if the right things don’t happen at the right time.

Sorry to be so scathing, but this show still struggles with conveying the sheer momentousness of the themes and events that the book trilogy captured so effortlessly. Never underestimate the need for urgency in any given story.

This is an episode marked by the way its characters are all looking for something: people, artefacts, answers. For Lee Scoresby, it’s a straightforward quest to find Stanislaus Grumman (though only the most obtuse won’t have realized by this stage that Grumman and Will’s father are one and the same). For the likes of Lord Boreal, it’s the promise of a powerful weapon that was teased throughout the last season, and is here described for the first time. For Mary, it’s a basic understanding of the bizarre events that have converged in her office over the past couple of days.

And for Lyra and Will, it’s a double-whammy: Lyra wants to know more about Dust, Will wants to find his father, and – as is becoming increasingly clear – both those goals are interjoined. Interestingly enough, Lyra begins this episode with prioritizing her own situation for Roger’s sake, even though Pan (who let’s remember, is her deeper self) argues that they should follow the instructions of the alethiometer and assist Will in the search for his father.

It’s a “do this in order to get to that” situation, and with the power of hindsight (and with having the book at hand) you can see what’s at work here is the show setting up the thoroughfare between Lyra losing the alethiometer and Will gaining the Subtle Knife.

His Dark Materials: The Cave

This episode, as well as the chapters they’re based on, are all about intel gathering. As Lyra goes to a natural history museum and a nearby college to learn more about this world’s understanding of Dust, Will contacts the family lawyer and learns that his paternal grandparents are living in Oxford.

There are some minor changes between this material and the book, but some of Jack Thorpe’s earlier creative decisions are beginning to pay off. Most of them involve Lord Boreal, who has emerged as an active cohort of Mrs Coulter, revealed last season as a man who had access to the windows across dimensions.

At the time it felt like padding, but now we can see how it fits into the wider narrative: Pullman doesn’t bother to explain any of Lord Boreal's movements or abilities in the book – he coincidentally spots Lyra at the museum and she vaguely recognizes him from the cocktail party way back in Northern Lights.

No spoilers, but his part to play is very minor and we get no understanding whatsoever as to how he managed to move from one world to the next. Here, we know that he’s also been using the window that Lyra and Will have accessed (and presumably, several more) making it far less of a coincidence that he would be at the right time and place to spot them emerging from the traffic island into the streets of Will’s Oxford.

He’s obviously able to recognize Lyra, but Thorpe has also written him as the man behind the pursuit of John Parry’s letters, giving the children a common enemy and providing linkage between their parallel quests. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but well played Jack Thorpe. It makes me wonder if some of his other additions (the witch politics, the Magisterium machinations) will have a greater narrative purpose than just filling in time.

Xena Warrior Princess: Forgiven, King Con, When in Rome...

 The next three episodes are a mixed bag in the sense that two make several questionable creative decisions and the other is genuinely my favourite Xena Warrior Princess episode of all time. It’s the show at its cleverest and wittiest, whilst maintaining a fairly solid plot and forcing its two leads to confront serious ethical quandaries.

All of the Rome-centric episodes can be relied upon to be of above-average quality, but When In Rome somehow manages to be a cut above the rest: drawing on events past and present (mostly in regards to Caesar), concocting a fairly intelligent Rescue Plot, confronting Xena and Gabrielle with their recent trust issues, and stacking the cast with solid guest stars.

The episode makes it onto numerous “best of” or “top ten” Xena episode lists, but I’m probably alone in making it my #1.

His Dark Materials: The City of Magpies

We’re back with the second season of His Dark Materials, which (I’m safely assuming) covers the entirety of The Subtle Knife, the middle book of the trilogy. I’m hoping for an uptick in quality, if not simply because this is brand new material to be adapted, and the series no longer has to sit in the shadow of the 2007 film. (Not that the film was any good, but there was still a sense of contrast/compare at work).

I’ll start with an unpopular opinion: The Subtle Knife is actually my favourite book of the three, though I couldn’t really tell you why. There is some fair criticism that the narrative shifted from Lyra to Will Parry as the story’s protagonist, and I can fully understand why this would be so infuriating, especially after how vividly she was brought to life in Northern Lights.

And yet… I actually prefer the introspective Will to the more rambunctious Lyra, even if that’s purely down to who I relate to more. (That said, the problem of gender-perspective becomes even more egregious in The Amber Spyglass, in which Lyra spends the first few chapters as an unconscious damsel in distress).

The Subtle Knife also taught me that not every plot-point has to be explained, whether it’s John Parry inexplicably being in possession Lee Scoresby’s ring or the unexplained images on the upper right-hand corner of each page (they denote what world the action is currently taking place in, but the reader has to figure that out for themselves), and rendered so many extraordinary landscapes (the streets of Cittàgazze) and heart-stopping sequences (Will and Lyra using the knife to move between worlds in the attempt to steal back her alethiometer).

Reading it for the first time was like flying; I’ll never forget how utterly riveting and immersive it was. Even the tiniest of thought-provoking details, like Lyra entering the museum and seeing the sleigh that took her to Bolvangar or Will pondering the linked etymology between amber and electricity stayed with me for years.

Season two kicks off with a gathering of forces, setting up the three major strands of the episode: Lyra and Will meeting in Cittàgazze, Lee Scoresby accompanying Serafina to the witch enclave, and Mrs Coulter undergoing her usual machinations onboard a Magisterium vessel. So, let’s go through them in order:

Links and Updates

 Holy shit, that was one heck of a weekend. How we feeling guys?

Trump has been ousted, Biden and Harris won the day, Giuliani led a press conference in a parking lot due to a screwup in the booking, a serious fistfight broke out at my library (not politically related, but still extremely violent and upsetting), Putin was falsely rumoured to be resigning… and apparently Dean and Castiel from Supernatural are canon now? Only for one half of that ship to die immediately afterwards? Which still managed to start trending on Twitter in the midst of the election chaos?

This probably summed it up as well as anything can:

It’s a lot to process: I’ve been high on serotonin for the past twenty-four hours, blaring NSYNC’s Bye Bye Bye on the headphones, and scrolling through the thousands of memes that have flooded the various internet dashboards. Saturday I came home still reluctant to call the race due to my deeply superstitious fear of jinxing things; now it’s Sunday night and I’m just relaxing.

Here’s some fandom related news, since technically that’s what this blog is meant to be about…

Legend of the Seeker: Brennidon

The one in which they try to make us interested in Richard’s secret biological family.

It’s a trope well-known to fantasy fiction: that the protagonist will have some sort of secret lineage that elevates him to a position of “specialness”, often compounded by a mystical prophecy surrounding the circumstances of his birth and detailing the great stuff he’s destined to do as an adult. Honestly, the number of fantasy heroes that don’t have this as an intrinsic part of their backstory are far outnumbered by the ones that do. From Luke Skywalker to Harry Potter, King Arthur to any one of the Greek heroes that were secretly sired by Zeus – a significant parentage and a great destiny go hand in hand.

And with that comes a tried-and-true method of trying to circumvent the above hero from rising: what TV Tropes calls Nice Job Breaking It Herod. The bad guy knows that a destined hero who poses a threat to his monopoly on power has been born somewhere in the vicinity, and so sends out his troops to make sure he never reaches manhood – and just to make sure the job is done properly, usually decrees that there’s no real need for accuracy. If there’s a baby, kill it.  

It’s a pretty popular story in the Bible, from Moses escaping the Pharaoh’s genocide of the slave children, to King Herod sending his men out to kill Baby Jesus, but it pops up across various times and cultures: Saturn devours his own children to prevent one of them from overthrowing him, Krishna narrowly avoids the same fate at the hands of his uncle Kamsa, and Greek mythology is veritably full of baby princes who are saved by helpful shepherds who find them left to die of exposure on various hilltops because they’ll one day overthrow their fathers.

Harry Potter was targeted by Voldemort because a prophecy stated he would be his enemy’s downfall, and Jon Snow had to grow up as a disgraced bastard because his true lineage made him too vulnerable to assassination attempts. In a rare case of a heroic character greenlighting this procedure, King Arthur once ordered the drowning of babies born on May Day in an attempt to avoid the destruction that Mordred would one day unleash on Camelot, and in an even rarer female example, Willow depicted Elora Danan being hunted down as a baby after she’s foretold as being the one who will defeat the evil Queen Bavmorda (that movie ended on a weird subversion of this trope, since she didn’t have any sort of direct hand in the destruction of Bavmorda. So… was she a normal baby the whole time, and it was just the efforts of good people to protect an innocent that was the true saviour? Unclear).

You could even make a case for The Terminator movies being based on this, though the titular Terminator goes back a step in time and targets the Chosen One’s mother.

My point in bringing all this up is that Legend of the Seeker also goes to the same well in drawing up a backstory for Richard Cypher – but for some reason, whether it’s because the trope is as old as time, or because the show adds no interesting wrinkles to the familiar setup – it’s as uninteresting as it is unnecessary. Like, seriously unnecessary. I’m not sure what they do with the remaining mystery of Richard’s father in season two, but by the end of this season the revelations of his paternity and family tree which are presumably meant to rock his world, have absolutely no bearing on his character or the resolution of the plot.

It’s really quite bizarre.

Woman of the Month: Cleopatra

Cleopatra from Cleopatra in Space

We have a collective fascination with the figure of Queen Cleopatra, and across the years she’s appeared in everything from Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra to Xena Warrior Princess (played by Gina Torres, no less). To think of her is to imagine great beauty, great power, and the way both those attributes led her to tragic end – so it’s no wonder she’s appeared so prolifically throughout history in fine art, Hollywood films, and… well, commercials.

Cleopatra in Space isn’t even the first time she’s been catapulted through time and into the far-flung future: Cleopatra 2525 was a thing back in the early noughts (though granted, the titular Cleopatra of that show wasn’t actually the Egyptian Queen). But Mike Maihack’s six-part graphic novel series puts a fantasy/sci-fi spin on the early years of Cleopatra’s life, as does the animated adaptation airing on Peacock.

Both depict a young Cleopatra (still a teenage princess with a living father) discovering a strange tablet that flings her thirty-thousand years into the future. There she learns that she’s a prophesied Chosen One destined to save the Nile Galaxy from the oppressive rule of Emperor Octavian – though she must first undergo combat and leadership training by enrolling at P.Y.R.A.M.I.D. (Pharaoh Yasiro's Research Academy and Military Initiative of Defence) and do so incognito. The council of talking cats that run the place don’t want to broadcast her arrival to any potential spies.

The graphic novels and the cartoon diverge a little from this point onwards, though they generally still contain the same plot-points and characterizations. Cleopatra in particular is a truly fantastic character, and quite ground-breaking in a number of ways: she’s arrogant, impulsive, hot-headed, self-centred and reckless. She’s also friendly, enthusiastic, carefree and a lot of fun to be around – a very specific type of imperfect heroine that we don’t see a lot of.

As this review points out, we typically see these traits in male heroes (Ben of Ben 10 or Lance in Voltron: Legendary Defender), and even those female characters who are depicted as similarly rash and cocky (Adora in She-Ra or Korra in The Legend of Korra) at least have a very acute sense of the burdens placed upon them, and the understanding that they needed to shoulder life-or-death responsibilities.  

Cleopatra…? Not so much. She’d much rather be hanging out with her friends or playing around with the innovative technologies that surround her. And of course, it makes sense that she would respond to her new surroundings in this way: she’s an Ancient Egyptian Princess after all; she’s not only naturally used to getting her own way, but also excited to be in a place where she can enjoy a level of freedom she’s never experienced before. It’s a far cry from the dull future (or past) of duty and monotony that awaited her as Queen of Egypt.

Ultimately, it’s her own indolence that she must overcome. Though she’s caring and brave, it’s never on the grand scale that’s required to grasp the massive threat that Octavian poses (to be fair, that’s not all on her – Octavian is about as imposing as Toy Story’s Emperor Zurg, and I really wish the show would take its “fate of the galaxy” stakes a little more seriously). And with the show just finishing its first season, and having not yet read the sixth and final instalment in the graphic novels, how she goes about achieving this remains to be seen…

Reading/Watching Log #58

October means Halloween, so there is an excess of spooky films under the cut – surprisingly enough, the horror genre is often quite kind to women. Yes, a lot of it is based on fear of a certain kind of womanhood, but that underlying tension opens up all kinds of possibilities for subversive storytelling.

For instance, these days it’s outright impossible to deal with the subject of witches without including a feminist subtext (whether you meant to or not) and even movies like The Craft and Ginger Snaps, which are in many ways cautionary tales aimed at women, end up being so compelling in their depiction of said women seizing power and owning their sexuality that the intended moral of the story is completely obliterated. Let's face it, nothing about Nancy's fate in The Craft deterred nineties teenagers from dabbling in witchcraft...

Aside from that I finally read The Hunger Games prequel centred on Coriolanus Snow that I’ve had on reserve at the library since July, gotten through not one but two sequel series to books I read years ago, and enjoyed a smattering of graphic novels. But I’m still working through a ton of horror-based material that I won’t be able to discuss until the end of November, which is what happens when a themed holiday takes place on the last day of the month.

Review: Toy Story: Tale of Terror!

I’m not sure anyone was in a huge hurry to see more of Woody, Buzz, Jessie and the rest of the gang after their glorious send-off at the end of Toy Story 3 – not because we didn’t love them, but because… well, why mess with perfection? Why go back to the well and risk overexposure? Why compromise that utterly sublime ending?

I’ll get to Toy Story 4 in due course, in which many of these fears did in fact materialize, but the shorts and specials that were released between 2011 and 2014 were delectable little trifles that gave us more adventures of the toys without backtracking on any of the developments or characterizations of the movie trilogy. For now at least, I can continue raving about the continued success of the franchise.

This, plus the Christmas Special (Toy Story That Time Forgot) and three short films (Small Fry, Hawaiian Vacation and Partysaurus Rex) all work beautifully as a sort of coda to the trilogy, giving us glimpses into what is essentially the toys’ happy ending with Bonnie, the new owner who loves and cherishes them, and who they can protect and nurture in return. With that in mind, you can’t blame Pixar Studios for wanting to play a little longer in this particular sandpit.

I’ll get to the rest in good time, but for now, in honour of Halloween: Toy Story: Tale of Terror!