Links and Updates

I realize it’s been quiet on this blog lately, but there’s just so much going on in my life right now: work, niece/nephew, more work, focusing on getting through the winter…

I’ve recently enjoyed some annual leave, and used the time in order to catch up on big-budget franchise shlock that has been stored in the hard-drive for a while now – I’ll have more to say on all that in my next Reading/Watching Log.

For now, here are some interesting up-and-coming projects…

They’ve announced the cast for the next Avengers movie in what I would have dismissed as a completely bizarre way, were it not for the numbers it racketed up on YouTube, which indicate that someone knew what they were doing. A very slow pan across a row of chairs in an empty warehouse, with the name of each major cast member written on the backs was how the MCU revealed the players in the next big crossover.

For the record, I’ve only just attempted to catch up on the franchise during my latest annual leave (I have a few more films under my belt, but I fear the shows are completely beyond me at this point) but I always enjoy the fallout of a promotional stunt. In this case, it’s intriguing to see what names have been spotlighted, and which have been omitted.

First of all, it’s clear that the Powers That Be are putting all their Thunderbolts and Fantastic Four eggs in one basket. The full cast of each film is present and accounted for. (Well, almost. The glaring omission of Olga Kurylenko among the Thunderbolts ended up being a massive – and obvious – spoiler. RIP Taskmaster).

A reasonable chunk of the Black Panther cast is here as well (Letitia Wright, Winston Duke and Tenoch Huerta Mejía), and Simu Li finally makes his return to the franchise – though as far as I can tell, he’s the only cast member from Shang-Chi that appears.

Among the old stalwarts are Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Tom Hiddleston, Chris Hemsworth and Paul Rudd, as well as Robert Downey Junior returning as Doctor Doom. I’m not as up in arms about it as a lot of people, despite the slight whiff of desperation about his presence – but then again, I am not even remotely invested in these films anyway. Since their inception, I’ve been enjoying them as the lightest of popcorn flicks.

And then, the surprises. Kelsey Grammer isn’t that shocking since we saw him reprise his role as Beast during the stinger in The Marvels, but I have to admit gasping at the inclusion of Alan Cummings, who notoriously didn’t appear in X-Men 3 because he hated all the blue prosthetics. A little less surprising is Channing Tatum, who finally got to play Gambit in Deadpool and Wolverine, but then we’re straight back to the raised eyebrows with the name-dropping of Rebecca Romijn, James Marsden, Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan rounding out the original X-Men cast.

I have mixed feelings. I’ve always wanted to see the original X-Men cast all together again for one last hoorah, but this notably leaves out Halle Berry, Famke Janssen and Anna Paquin. (That last one is especially disappointing since we’ve finally got an onscreen Gambit). And what are the odds that these guys will only appear in very small cameo roles that will require them to die instantly in order to establish the threat that Doctor Doom poses? (We’ve already seen it before with the Illuminati members in Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness – how many times are we going to see Professor X die on screen, anyway?)

And I’m afraid there are some names that I simply don’t know. Lewis Pullman? Danny Ramirez? Wyatt Russell? I’m not trying to be a dick, but I honestly have no idea who these people are.

But then there are the big omissions. Of the original surviving Avengers cast, Chris Hemsworth is the only one that appears – so where’s Jeremy Renner and Mark Ruffalo? And what about some of the second-tier heavies (Tom Holland, Brie Larson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen) or the multitude of heroes that were introduced in all those streaming shows (Tatiana Maslany, Oscar Isaac, Iman Vellani, Charlie Cox)? And is it not a bit strange that Channing Tatum is appearing but not Ryan Reynolds or Hugh Jackman? Come on, there’s no way they’re not turning up in some capacity after the success of Deadpool and Wolverine.

And I have to say it: twenty-seven chairs and only five of them belong to women. Whelp, I guess it reminded me why I’ve never been that invested!

Look, obviously they’re going to keep a few things under wraps, and there’s always the second movie to usher in the rest of the roster. I’m happy to wait upon events. But it was still such an odd way to drum up excitement for this film, at a time when the MCU isn’t exactly at its strongest. I’ll spare you the talk about box office returns and superhero fatigue, but – well, nothing lasts forever. This massive undertaking has to end at some point, whether it’s after these films or in another thirty years’ time.

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In franchises that are more pertinent to my interests, there’s been some forward momentum on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer continuation. Early on, a short synopsis was released that described Buffy mentoring a young trio called Nova (a cerebral 16-year-old who is very smart and a bit of a loner), Hugo (an out-and-proud nerd who comes from money) and Gracie (a young expert on vampires, who will be introduced as an acolyte of Buffy).

This filled me with optimism given that it indicated the showrunners were aware that the key dynamic of that show was the friendship which existed between Buffy, Willow and Xander – more than any of Buffy’s romances, more than the bond between the Slayer and the Watcher, even. The synopsis even described Nova and Hugo as Gracie’s “Willow and Xander.”

But then Sarah Michelle Gellar tweeted out that this was a completely fabricated bit of news, and my spirits dropped. I guess there’s still time to introduce a broody vampire stalking our new protagonist…

Who was introduced just a short time later! In an Instagram video, Gellar broke the news that a new Slayer has been called, and it’s Ryan Kiera Armstrong (mostly known for her roles in Firestarter and Skeleton Crew. She was also Diana’s little sister in Anne with an E!) This to me is good news, as you really need fresh blood in these types of reboots/continuations, though it has to be with the caveat that she’s just one of many Slayers out there in the world. Hopefully she’ll be poised as Buffy’s particular protégée and not the singular Chosen One after every single other Slayer has been killed. Do NOT retcon the events of the show’s finale.

I’m also a little bemused at the fact some of the fanbase seems ornery over the fact Armstrong is literally fifteen years old. Because let’s face it, there are things that simply aren’t going to happen in a story when the main character is fifteen. Perhaps they’re trying to skew for a younger demographic?

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In sadder news, I discovered just this week that author L.J. Smith passed away back in March of this year. She was one of the staples of my early adolescence, and though she’s probably best know for The Vampire Diaries, I was fonder of The Secret Circle, Dark Visions, The Forbidden Game and the Night World series. They extremely YA, but also very fun and surprisingly well-written.

But of course, the ten-part Night World series is notorious for getting to book nine and then never releasing the final instalment, Strange Fate. Despite getting as far as a synopsis and cover art, it never appeared on the shelves, and if you think Game of Thrones fans have it bad… well, let’s just say that if I had the choice of getting to finish only one of these stories, I would definitely choose Night World. What happens to the Wild Powers? Who was “the witch who is not a witch?” Do Ash and Mary Lynette ever reunite? How do the myriad of characters introduced within the first nine books end up saving (or dooming) the world?

I had resigned myself to never finding out, and news of Smith’s passing at least gave me a sense of… not closure exactly, but of “well, that’s that,” but then I did some digging, and apparently Smith sent in a two-part manuscript to her editor before she died. So… could it be? Are we actually going to get the end of this story nearly thirty years later? I honestly can’t bring myself to get my hopes up at this stage, so I suppose we’re just going to have to wait upon events.

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In light of the recent(ish) release of the live-action Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which I will hopefully never, ever have to see, here are some interesting links regarding other adaptations of the famous fairy tale:

Remember When There Were Two Snow White Movies in 2012?

Nine Evil Queens Who Stole the Spotlight from Snow White

Snow White’s Latest Take on Girl Power is Just Monarchy  

That last one really does make me want to laugh-cry. Obviously the bloviating about “wokeness” in media is tedious, but there is something to be said (exasperatingly) about the attempt to modernize old stories in ways that are completely at odds with what those old stories are actually about – especially when they’ve already been put through the Disney machine.

The original Beauty and the Beast story was about normalizing the prospect of marrying older, less attractive men – an actual reality for the young women who were reading it in 1740. The Little Mermaid was about how the quest for an immortal soul and the pain it will cost you is more important than worldly love. Snow White was about adolescence and (to quote Fleabag) the currency of youth. No one likes to mention that Snow White’s stepmother was her actual mother in the very first iterations of the tale.

In the hands of Disney, they all became animated love stories. Which… fine. Because stories like this are meant to change and be reshaped over time. The problem now is they’re not being changed or reshaped in any interesting sort of way. They’re just cash-grabs, which mean that “updates” are done in the shallowest, lip-servicey way possible.

Think of the new “scientific” Belle making a washing machine that has no narrative purpose whatsoever, or Jasmine singing a song about how she won’t be silenced that’s completely non-diegetic and immediately followed by Jafar casting a spell on her that renders her mute, or the change in lyrics in “Kiss the Girl” going from “possible she wants you too, there is one way to ask her,” to “use your words, boy, and ask her,” which only makes it glaringly obvious that he doesn’t ask permission before trying to kiss her.

It’s almost like Disney is apologizing for their animated classics, but in ways that make the purported problems they’re trying to solve actively worse.

Look, I don’t want to go back to the days when fairy tales princesses spend most of their screentime unconscious or as helpless victims. But I also want the changes that are wrought to be GOOD and MEANINGFUL.

Here’s another article that points all this out: Snow White May Be Bad, But It’s Girlboss Heroine Isn’t The Reason Why.

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Another great write-up of the Fear Street trilogy, especially regarding the power of stories.

Every Hunger Games Book Gets Blunter About What Messages Fans Keep Missing (it’s a fool’s errand, Suzanne Collins – fandom is all about the aesthetic, not uncomfortable truths or – God forbid – media literacy).

Speaking of, Suzanne Collins Wants To Use The Hunger Games to Fix Our Media Literacy Problem

For some reason we’re getting a resurgence in Jane Austen adaptations, with a new Pride and Prejudice coming from the BBC (starring Emma Corrin, Jack Lowden and Olivia Coleman), casting announced for Janice Hadlow’s The Other Bennett Girl (which is a romance centred on Mary Bennett) and PBS’s Jane Austen biography series, which seems to be told from Cassandra Austen’s point of view. What’s next, Jo Baker’s Longbourn?

Enola Holmes 3 is currently shooting, and I was surprisingly delighted that they managed to keep Sharon Duncan-Brewster and Hamish Patel as Moriarty and Watson respectively. Given their relatively small parts in the sequel and the long hiatus between that film and this, I feared that these two roles in particular would run the risk of being recast. But no, it seems we have a full deck!

I love the premise of the upcoming Welcome to Derry, which has been planned as a three-part show that will delve deeper into the past (and Pennywise’s origins) with each passing season: 1962, 1935, and finally 1908. I’m all for that, and it reminds me very much of what they did with Fear Street… but let’s be brutally honest – what are the odds it’s actually going to make it to three seasons? I can’t get my hopes up again, I just can’t. So I’ll check back in about 2035 – if they get that far, this’ll be when the last season finally airs.

Emma Mackey has been cast as the White Witch in Greta Gerwig’s take on The Chronicles of Narnia, which… okay, I’m sorta onboard. Sadly the ship has sailed on the possibility of Demi Moore in the role (don’t laugh, just think about it! Moore back in 2005 with some dialect coaching would have been unexpectedly perfect). It’s still unclear whether they’ll be adapting The Magician’s Nephew or The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, and rumours that Meryl Streep will be voicing Aslan are a bit befuddling.

Finally, Pixar’s Elio has already been released, but I’m somewhat fascinated by the film’s two prominent trailers, which seemingly advertise two profoundly different plotlines. I release there was quite a lot of reconfiguring during the development of this film, but it just interests me to see two such different presentations of the finished product.