SI & FH - July 22

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, but SI does not fare much better either.

…Now, some of you are raising a point that while AoS was a show about a group of people, (i.e. the titular characters), SI is a show about Nick Fury and his entourage, just as the ‘Hawkeye’ Series had been about Hawkeye… and the other Hawkeye, (you decide which is which). This is reasonable, but, again, if you look at ‘Hawkeye’, it was more than just about Hawkeyes one and two, it was also about their families, (especially about Kate’s), and about Echo, (another Marvel character who may or may not getting their own series in the future). In other words, ‘Hawkeye’ was part of MCU’s zeitgeist of that time, that of transitions: the title of ‘Hawkeye’ passed from Clint to Kate, and the landscape of MCU itself changed: NYC got a new vigilante, Echo, while Fisk was on the out, (supposedly), and Yelena Belova got further established in MCU than compared to her MCU debut in the ‘Black Widow’ film. SI does nothing like that, it is just Nick Fury running around, trying to save the world, while his few allies are just dying, and he’s blithely ignoring them: ‘Jeeves is dead? Thanks for the update, bye!’ There is no hook to capture and hold the audience’s attention, no nothing.

…AoS had the same problem, as a matter of fact, even from the start, but because they had several core characters who didn’t die in the initial episodes, for example, this show began to generate plenty of drama by the second half of the first season, and that was what kept it going, especially in the first three-four seasons. SI doesn’t have that either – the characters are both new and forgettable, and the new ‘Marvels’ trailer only further emphasized that SI is less of a milestone for MCU, and more of an aside, forgotten as quickly as possible. Why? Because that movie is about the Kree, not the Skrulls, as villains.

The fact that SI has evil Skrulls for villains, (rather than plain-mundane Chinese, North Koreans or Russians – thank God for that), is also a problem: by now MCU has established that Kree are the bad guys out of the two, and the Skrulls are allies of Fury and Earth’s humans; to have them suddenly become evil has made things even more convoluted and uncomfortable for MCU and its’ narrative, so the odds of SI being shoved aside and forgotten after its’ run ends is perfect.

Pause. Going back to the new ‘Marvels’ trailer, we also see Fury there, but no other member of the SI cast, including Ms. Sonya, who is just a variant of countess Val, of whom there’s no sign, which is proof that SI is about to be done and gone in MCU. True, the first ‘Captain Marvel’ film also starred Phil Coulson, who ended his AoS run being more live than dead, and the ‘Marvels’ trailer ignores that as well, but AoS is apocrypha of MCU on one hand, and on the other, MCU is restructuring itself even regardless of AoS by now. Is that it?

For SI – yes. For FH – not so much. This week the game has released a depiction of a new PC character, the Ocelotl. Succinctly put, this character is based on a RL and fantasy versions of the Aztec Jaguar Knight caste, but because of copyright infringement, or because FH is trying to be fancy, the character is named after the ocelot wildcat instead.

An ocelot is a sizeable feline, true, after the jaguar and the puma it is the biggest cat in the American tropics, but the jaguar could easily have an ocelot for breakfast if the latter got unlucky on one paw, and on the other, the North/Central American bobcat could probably overpower it as well. There is no idea as to why FH ignored the jaguar, the American biggest cat, in the favor of the ocelot, but it still did.

As for the new character’s weapons… He wields a Macahuitl and Tepoztopilli. The first is a wooden sword/baseball bat studded with sharp shards of obsidian. The second is a wooden spear with a wide head, also studded with sharp shards of obsidian. In the original Mesoamerica, which had no metal armor, such weapons were formidable, tearing at a human body, and obsidian shards could and would splinter on impact, further hurting the human. Against metal, (ok, steel), arms and armor, however, as well as firearms, the Aztec weapon proved inefficient, and the Natives would acquire those weapons and armor quickly enough, though it wasn’t sufficient to save their empire from collapsing… from several reasons, actually, but none of them are relevant to FH. What is important, supposedly, is that the Aztec Jaguar was already featured in S2 of Deadliest Warrior, (DW), where he faced a Zande warrior of Africa, and lost. Now, under a new name, he is returning to mass media – it will be interesting to see how the ‘Ocelotl’ will fair in the game.

This is it for now. See you all soon!

What if, 'Killmonger' - Sep 15

Disclaimer: real life sucks, so let’s talk about one of its’ aspects first, instead, before returning to MCU. Where are we?

Ah yes, the YouTube. On this occasion, I watched a video called ‘Black Mamba vs. Viper’, where the victory was awarded to the black mamba, and I have to say that I disagree with it.

What is wrong with this match? For a start, the term ‘viper’ is an umbrella term: it covers the ‘true’ vipers, (such as the adder of Europe and the gaboon viper of Africa), the pit vipers, and also their immediate relatives – but that is unimportant, actually.

What is important is that the black mamba is an elaphid snake: its’ fangs are short and fixed, immobile – and its venom is a neurotoxin, it attacks the nervous system first. The fangs of the vipers – all of them – are much longer and fold when the snake closes its’ mouth – and their venom is a hemotoxin, it attacks the blood vessels first. Again, that is not important, but…

…But what is important is that snakes are scaly, rather than furry or feathery, unlike how birds and mammals are. As a result, when two snakes fight each other, they need to pierce scales, rather than fur or feathers, and scales can be tougher to pierce. The king cobra, which hunts and eats other snakes – hey, it is a living – is a cousin of the black mamba, (though do not ask me how close – apparently, the king cobra is not a ‘true’ cobra, whatever that implies beyond scientific classification), meaning that its’ fangs are relatively short and fixed and its’ venom is a neurotoxin… see above. However, it isn’t just much bigger and stronger than a black mamba – the king cobra is the biggest modern venomous snake, period, according to the official science – but it also has extra thick scales, in case its’ prey tries to counterattack with its’ own venomous bite… Put otherwise, the king cobra is a snake-hunting specialist and the black mamba isn’t, and when fighting a viper – any viper – it has to deal with an opponent whose scales might be thicker and tougher than its’ own, and whose fangs are certainly longer and sharper than the black mamba’s own… I am not saying that the black mamba cannot win this fight; I am just saying that the odds are stacked against it, that is all. Now onto the MCU?

Well yes, though given how Erik Killmonger – or N’Jadoka – has behaved in this week’s episode – we are not done with snakes. See, the way that the teaser trailer for this week’s episode was set up made us – well, me, for one – think that he might become a hero in this AU. Conversely, he became a villain, a manipulator and a blackguard, has killed quite a few people, some of whom were, or could’ve been, quite important to MCU, and have become king of Wakanda at the end, (though the episode ends with some optimism, more reminiscent of the ep 1x03 than the ep 1x04, for comparison). I am going with Shakespeare’s Richard III.

Let me elaborate. When it comes to ‘Black Panther’ the franchise and its’ corner of the Marvel universe(s), the themes of kings, kingdoms and kingships come up regularly, for all of the obvious reasons. The previous example was the 1x02 episode of ‘What if?’ which featured T’Challa as the Star-Lord, yes, but also as some sort of an outlaw king, a ‘white’ king, a fair and a just king and so on. Killmonger, conversely, is T’Challa’s direct opposite, something that this week’s episode of ‘What if?’ showed loud and clear, and that’s not a problem, but…

…But having already talked about the ‘Black Panther’ film recently in regards to the ‘Shang-Chi’ film, I got to re-digging some of my old files about the former film, and among them I found some articles that pointed out specifically that Killmonger was the villain of the movie, pure and simple, and not some conflicted anti-hero, cough. Now, this week – Sep 15, 2021 – we got a ‘What if?’ Killmonger episode, which confirms that no matter what the world, Killmonger is always a villain, and Tony Stark – for a different example – is not.

…Yes, this is a dig at the fact that there are plenty of people who are still sore at Tony, or at captain Rogers, in regards to MCU’s take on the Civil War plotline. There are also enough people who are still sore at Ward at the role he played in MCU’s AoS, especially the S1, when the effect was the strongest. Well, to put it bluntly, Killmonger was much more successful and ruthless than Ward ever was, period, so take that, critics!.. And also accept predeterminism, I guess.

No, seriously, the un- or intended other side of this week’s ‘What if?’ episode is that nature beats nurture, so to speak. Again, to use that particular contrast, but by befriended Stark, Killmonger got himself the opportunities that - anyone in S.H.I.E.L.D., ok, fine – would have dreamed about, (cough, the FitzSimmons, cough). And how does Killmonger repay Stark for all of those opportunities? With monstrous ingratitude, to put it lightly. Whereas T’Challa tries to think of everybody, and tries to make the world a better place for everyone, Killmonger cares only about himself, and the world can go screw itself for all that he cares. Fair enough, though the ‘Black Panther’ movie had that message rather muddled, and that version of Killmonger is dead anyhow, right?..

Is there anything left? Ah yes, the Hawkeye trailer that came out yesterday, (Sep 14, 2021). So far, it does a good job of capturing the Hawkeye spirit – I am talking about both Barton and Bishop – one that is serious, formidable, yet also a goofball on occasion, with some humor at least. (The Hawkeye version from the Ultimates comics lacked humor completely).  Here, we see the Avengers’ underdog finally getting his time to shine, and I’m not talking about ‘Rogers: the musical’ either. The bon mot here is that MCU is finally moving forwards from Thanos’ snap/Blip and its’ aftereffects for good… at least until Kang the Conqueror comes forth… conquering. Given that the current Avengers’ status is either ‘in transit’ or ‘undetermined’ I honestly hope that Kang will take his sweet time getting to MCU… and he probably will, as the ‘Loki’ S1 finale revealed that he has an entire multiverse for taking…and he already took over the TVA – but we digress. The point is that unlike the ‘Shang-Chi’ film, the ‘Hawkeye’ series fit well with the rest of the MCU Phase 4 – it is a transition story as Barton passes the moniker of Hawkeye from himself onto Kate Bishop.

As for everything else… oh brother. Apparently, the main villains of ‘Hawkeye’ – so far – are the tracksuit mafia, some sort of a Russian mafia variant. Oh, good Lord – now is so the time to annoy the Russians further. Not. As the U.S. has demonstrated to the rest of the world, it isn’t the shining nation on the hill that it claimed to be, and while RF’s president Putin is a staunchly anti-American man, it is just as true that for years – maybe even a couple of decades – the U.S. could’ve forced the RF to replace him with anyone else, really, like Mikhail Khodorkovsky but not necessarily, who would’ve kept the RF pro-American. Instead, the U.S. seemed to be perfectly content with Putin until 2014, when it all ended, and now they are trying to put the genie back into the bottle, only not. Biden agreed that Putin is a murderer – and then he promptly had official talks with him later the same year, (2021). Seriously, people make up your mind – either Putin is a killer and his regime is a direct affront to the American democracy, in which case any friendly discussion with him is impossible, or he isn’t, and his regime isn’t, and in that case, calling him a ‘killer’ or anything is just rude and wrong and pointless.

…As a matter of fact, MCU – and by MCU, I mean AoS – tried to do something about Russia before the ‘Black Widow’ film did. To wit, seasons 3 through 5 featured a yahoo called Anton Ivanov, who was a pitiful imitation of Ward, and who never amounted to anything because AoS just couldn’t figure out what to do with him – the man died forgotten and unlamented for, a Watchdog Alpha or not – and now MCU is returning once more to mother Russia in the characters of the Russian mafia. Sigh. Odds of them being as generic as Dreykov was in the ‘Black Widow’ movie ae quite high, hence why I am going to finish my rant for the moment, but I am not impressed, though that, of course, is irrelevant…

For now, though this is it. See you all soon!

Black Widow - July 12

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about the ‘Black Widow’ film, which was released last Friday, (July 9, 2021), after about a year’s worth of delay.

The ‘Black Widow’ movie works. The characters are relatable, the plot is understandable, and the visuals are really good. Admittedly, the movie never goes ‘full woke’, but it still works; it is also politically detached, but fewer people are complaining about that.

Let us elaborate. No, ‘Black Widow’ does not go into the subjugation of women by men fully, though girl power is clearly the motto of the movie; male characters are shoved to the sidelines, or are outright evil, as they are in case of general Dreykov.

Again, let me elaborate: ‘Dreykov’, however you want to spell it, is not a Russian surname; Romanova, Belova, Shostakoff, Vostokoff are, however mangled by their adaptation to English. More importantly, while at least some part of the ‘Black Widow’ takes place in Russia, (because ‘Black Widow’, no duh), there’s little of that ‘Russian ethnic flavor’ that you could’ve expected this movie to have; aside from the occasional accent, (done for fun as much as for authenticity), and some throwaway location titles, the action of the ‘Black Widow’ could’ve taken place almost anywhere else, and in fact in part it does – in Budapest, which is a Hungarian city, not a Russian one. That is an important difference, you know!

…Am I griping? Perhaps. The fact is that the ‘Black Widow’ movie is also generic, by MCU standards; there’s the entire gender issue – some of the movie critics are complaining that Disney/MCU didn’t take it far enough, but the thing is that the ‘Black Widow’ movie isn’t controversial, there isn’t anything really controversial about it, that’s a big part of its’ appeal, (that, and the pleasant visual aesthetics), but it is also its’ main flaw – some of the people are upset about everything and anything – real life sucks, remember? – though many more of them would rather watch the ‘Black Widow’ – or any other movie, really – just to escape reality, for however little a time period. I know that I did. What next?

A brief mention of Marvel’s ‘What If?’ series, which arrive on August 2021. Even in the trailers, this series is already a spectacle, but if you dig just a bit deeper, you will recover the same lack of controversy that marks the ‘Black Widow’. There are plenty of Marvel characters that will be appearing in the ‘What If?’ episodes, but none of them belong to AoS, (aside from Brock Rumlow, but he was not a part of AoS at all). Clearly, Marvel is done with S.H.I.E.L.D. …that puts the ‘Black Widow’ in an odd position. Just like WV, ‘Sam & Bucky’, and ‘Loki’, ‘Black Widow’ is a transition story, one where the titular…well, title, passes from Nat onto Yelena, but to complete the circle, Yelena has to become an assassin for… S.H.I.E.L.D. Or an agent, technically speaking, but there is no S.H.I.E.L.D. in MCU anymore. AoS was supposed to bring S.H.I.E.L.D. back to glory after the events in ‘The Winter Soldier’ film, but due to a bunch of RL factors, that never happened.

…Ok, within the game terms it did, but in RL? Once AoS ended, Disney/MCU put S.H.I.E.L.D. under the rug and does not appear to be bringing it back anytime soon; rather, it is S.W.O.R.D. that is trying to fill-in the gap, but judging by how it didn’t appear beyond WV, MCU hasn’t quite worked-out all of its’ kinks with that plotline yet either.

…It would be nice to talk about the flaws of WV, and how that show flourished despite them, but I won’t; getting back to ‘Black Widow’, we got another shot of contessa Val…this time recruiting Yelena…or rather, she has already done that, and is sending her after Hawkeye in the mid-credits series. The story has come full circle, again. Natasha got involved with S.H.I.E.L.D. over Barton the Hawkeye, and Yelena might get involved with S.H.I.E.L.D. and the (new) Avengers over Hawkeye…either Barton or Kate Bishop, who will star in the upcoming ‘Hawkeye’ series. How will the absence of S.H.I.E.L.D. affect these series, (after all, Barton was an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. just as Natasha was), remains to be seen.

And getting back to ‘What If?’, now that we’re talking about the various MCU series once more, the other thing that is noticeable about the (admittedly current) character roster is that there’re no Defenders, or X-Men, or anyone else that wasn’t a part of MCU, (up to Phase 4, anyways). By now Disney & MCU own them, of course, but apparently it isn’t a full ownership or something, and so the duo in question would rather keep them in a drawer somewhere rather than on… small screens and start yet another ruckus – the old one with Sony isn’t all that forgotten, it seems; the world of ‘Venom’ and cohorts stands apart from MCU, as do some other series, for example ‘Helstrom’.

…Here is a shout-out to MCU’s Ghost Rider, whose show died before it was born. Played by Gabriel Luna in AoS, it was supposed to be his first hurrah; instead, MCU’s Ghost Rider joined its’ Deathlok in being a one-hit wonder; at least Grant Ward lasted for three whole seasons… where were we?

…With a very good movie in the character of ‘Black Widow’, (or whatever). It may not be controversial, (even the Taskmaster does not really push the envelope, not yet, anyhow), but it is still fun to watch and easy to enjoy – and that is really what Disney, (MCU or otherwise), is aiming for.

Well, this is it for now – see you all soon!

Loki, 'Journey into Mystery' - July 8

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, just ask the poor people in Florida, whose condominium has collapsed, to say nothing of the entire COVID-19 hoopla that is still continuing, and is in its’ 3^rd year by now; before long, I suspect, people will start fighting each other en masse for being pro or contra vaccination, to say nothing of anything going on above the personal level. What next?

Well, ‘Loki’ s1, (or the entire series, actually), has come to its penultimate episode, and just as I have written last week, (or thereabouts), it seems to be continuing the fine tradition of AoS in treating character deaths’… in an inconsistent manner. Agent Mobius is apparently fine and dandy, even though he and Loki have appeared to have parted ways for good on one hand, while the ‘Classical Loki’ is definitely dead, having been eaten by Alioth, which is yet another example of ‘MCU utilizing obscure Marvel trivia to great success’, I’m certain.

Listen – I enjoyed watching the ‘Classical Loki’ prance on screen, I really did, but you have to admit, that as a character who appeared only in last week’s episode’s post-credit scene and who hadn’t lasted for a full week’s episode, I’m just wasn’t invested into him as much as I had into agent M, who’s been with the audience from the show’s start. Not unlike AoS, ‘Loki’ is playing favorites in the question who lives and who dies, and that rather rankles.

On the other hand, Loki and Sylvie have reunited…wait. The duo has been apart for less than one episode…but then again, they were together for about two episodes and a bit, so, again, it is somewhat hard to take their relationship seriously… wait again. Sylvie might be her own character and not a variant Loki? You do not say!

…Before we try to generate some excitement about those two, a brief word about the ‘alligator Loki’, and it is: ‘What?’ Even the professional commenters on the MCU shows (and beyond) were stumped by it, and the closest they could come up with was ‘There was a frog Thor in the comics, why not an alligator Loki?’

Because common sense, I suppose – as a Norse god, Loki does not get associated with crocs or gators very often, (not to mention that the entire Thor/Frog combo was something of a gag originally, I suspect). The pagan god who is associated with crocodiles is the Egyptian god Sobek, who is a part of the Marvel canon, actually, but who hasn’t appeared in MCU so far…this might be his surrogate or something. (Also, was I the only one, who found MCU's Alioth to be depicted rather similarly to the cosmic serpent Apep from the 'Gods of Egypt' film from the early 2010s? I hope that this wasn't intential, because that film was bad, think of Rick Riordan's 'The Kane Chronicles' trilogy written for adults, and quite badly too - but I digress).

Listen again: the show’s title is ‘Loki’, and the show is about Loki, after all – the one that had appeared in MCU movies and etc. from the start. The ‘kid Loki’ is his past. The ‘classical Loki’ had been his future but now Loki is making a new one, with Sylvie, (at least for now). The ‘boastful Loki’ is the opposite of the titular one, hence why they are the most different – physically – from each other. The ‘alligator Loki’ is the outsider, thrown in here for variety, the ‘president Loki’ is the evil – ok, eviller – twin of the titular character, and hence why he must be defeated. I am certain that the psychologists can define all of this ‘headology’ much more professionally than I can, and so they probably will, after the show is over, in various YouTube videos, but that is their call. Is there anything left for us in the ‘Journey into Mystery’?

No, not really. For all of its’ window dressing, ‘Loki’ is a very simple, baseline show, actually – it’s a ‘hero’s journey’ cliché, in which a young man ventures forth, and finds everything that he needs to become a man, including love and a family. Yes, Sylvie can argue that the same can be said about a woman – fair enough. She and Loki have found each other and so Sylvie’s quest against the space god-lizards have progressed much quicker than it had before, so there! …Anything else?

Well, the ‘Black Widow’ film will be officially available tomorrow, so we will discuss it then, or maybe even next week. Marvel’s ‘What If?’ TV series will arrive only in August, so, again, we will have to discuss that then. The last week’s episode of ‘Loki’ was padding, because of the S1’s plot simplicity: if the god of chaos got only a 5-episode S1, it would simply be sad.

Therefore, for now, this is it. See you all soon!

Mulan trailer 2 - Dec 5

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about yet another movie trailer – this time, it is the upcoming ‘Mulan’ remake. And? What can be said about it? Looks like it is going to be ‘woke’.

…You know what; let us talk about what this term means in relation to movies, starting with the upcoming ‘Mulan’ remake. In the original ‘Mulan I’ movie, there were two specific characters that were particular: the matchmaker and Chi-Fu, aka the clerk that was there with Li Shang’s secondary army. The Matchmaker was a fat mountain of a woman; Chi-Fu – a skinny weasel of a man; both were minor antagonists, and both were physically unattractive, in a comic way. From what the remake’s second trailer shows us, ‘Mulan-2020’ will have none of this.

Is it a good thing? On one level – yes. Already, Disney/Marvel is catching flack both for the upcoming Red Guardian in the ‘Black Widow-2020’ film: not unlike Thor in ‘Endgame’, he is something of a fat funny drunk, not unlike John Falstaff from Shakespeare’s ‘Henry IV’ plays, but enough of modern people found neither Thor in ‘Endgame’ nor this version of the Red Guardian particularly funny, and they made it known to Disney. True, Disney is still going forth with this version of the Red Guardian in the ‘Black Widow-2020’ movie, as they did with the fat Thor in the ‘Avengers: Endgame’ film, but-

-But here real life sneaks in, and brings forth – the Peloton. However correctly it is spelled, earlier this week, (Dec 4, 2019), it brought forth its’ own shit-storm regarding WG and WL. To wit, sometime in November 2019 it released a short ad, which goes like this: A husband gifts a wife a Peloton for holidays, she begins to workout on it, and it changes her life somehow – because she loses weight or whatever. The end.

Let us call upon Captain Obvious, and he states that, firstly, the wife in question – ‘Grace from Boston’ – was never that fat to begin with. Yes, compared to the Kardashians she may be plain, but not everyone is a Kardashian yet, thank you very much. She may have weighted, say, 52 kg at the beginning of the ad, at the end – around 50, but then again, she was supposed to have worked-out on the Peloton for an entire year. (What is a Peloton? A souped-up exercise bike, essentially, with its’ own Internet or whatever. Where were we?) This is kind of lackluster, but to be honest, the entire ad is vapid and empty – it tries to present itself as sincere, authentic and deep, but in reality it’s lackluster, its’ actors don’t look like people that need exercise for weight loss to begin with, they don’t look like average Americans (or Canadians) who watch such ads very much, and so those average Americans (and Canadians?) tore down Peloton’s real-life stock by… 9 or 10%. Considering that an average Peloton is a luxury item, that is not such a small deal. However – what this got to do with Disney?

To begin with, a Peloton is a luxury item, just like a movie – you do not need either of them in real life, you can spend money on them if you want, but this money can always be spent somehow else, on something more necessary, and since a Peloton costs somewhere between $2000 and $2500, you better get most of your money’s worth from it…and be ready to spend more money on it, both for electric bills, (because it runs on electricity rather than on solar or wind power, from what I can understand), and for maintenance; even an ordinary exercise bike or treadmill need this sort of thing every once in a while, and if you don’t maintain them, they die, with or without electricity. 

Considering that a Peloton proportionally is more complex than an average treadmill… yeah, maintaining it is probably more expansive than an average treadmill too. What next?

Next, Captain Obvious points out that no movie – Blu-Ray, DVD, ticket, whatever – ever cost a four-digit figure. True, and you don’t have to maintain it as you do a Peloton, an exercise bike, a DVD-player or any other device, but again – it’s luxury, you can get along in your life without it, and so movie companies like Disney and Sony spent a lot of time trying to get you to spent money on their movies all the same, just as Peloton does for ads that advertise their products – and what do you assume all of those trailers are-?

Since we are back with Peloton, what was its’ problem? Why are people so angry at it, hating it, mocking it? Because Peloton’s approach with it backfired – its’ actors are unrealistic, (Grace from Boston is shown wearing pink-colored high-heels in winter, which is just is not right, because while Boston is a more southern city than Toronto is, its’ winters still get very snowy – not the best weather for high heels). They are already trim and fit, they do not relate to an average viewer of the ad, who probably is not as trim and fit – and this brings us to Marvel and Disney.

Listen: before Thor in ‘Endgame’ and now – the Red Guardian in ‘Black Widow’, there was Maui in ‘Moana’, (2016). This is notable because, firstly, ‘Moana’ is a less asexual version of ‘Frozen II’ (2019): both movies talk about ecology, both movies have female leads, (though Moana is more like Anna than like Elsa), neither movie has a definite villain: though ‘Moana’ does have a certain, cough, ‘Shiny’ crustacean, but if you compare him to someone like Jafar or Ursula, let alone the original Maleficient he isn’t that bad, and both deal with ecology: in ‘Moana’, the world is experiencing a magical analog of global warming, while Elsa’s is more of a would-be ice age – but that’s only the dressing, the underlining message is the same. Yes, Maui is acting much more morally ambiguous than Kristoff does, but that does not matter, Moana may actually be smarter than Elsa and her sister, and in the end, she does save the day… largely by herself, whereas Elsa and Anna actually need each other and to lesser extent – other people to do that.

Is ‘Moana’ a more derived and complex movie than ‘Frozen 2’? Hard to say, but it certainly is than ‘Frozen 1’. Where were we?

Ah yes, Maui. He does not look like a typical Disney male lead, now does he? And from what I can remember, when ‘Moana’ was released in 2016, Disney did catch criticism about Maui’s looks – and then people began to defend Disney’s choice, and this brought controversy, something that Disney is trying to avoid.

Disney/Marvel went on ahead with the fat Thor in ‘Endgame’? Yes, but Thor was only one character out of many in that movie, and Disney/Marvel’s approach to controversy was to do its’ best to kill it, especially after the Tony/Steve rivalry began to get out of hand and the Marvel fandom was already semi-split and divided as to whether or not Hydra was Nazi or only evil? In SW, Disney did its’ best to plough over the fans’ complains, so ‘Solo’ made only millions of dollars in cash, not billions, because enough people had enough of Disney/SW, so now Disney is spending a lot of money to make a lot comics, animated series, series like ‘The Mandalorian’ and etc., to turn the public opinion back in their favor. This brings us back to ‘Mulan 2020’.

Firstly, ‘Mulan 2020’ already had had controversy, when earlier in 2019 the movie’s female lead, Liu Yifei, made an anti-Hong Kong statement; whether she was right or wrong is another question, but many people became genuinely angry at her statement. The result? Neither she nor anyone else of ‘Mulan 2020’ cast and crew made this sort of statement ever again for the rest of 2019, Disney wants to make money, damn it, not to cause controversy!

…We might have already discussed it in regards to ‘Frozen 2’ – around the time it was released, Ms. Jennifer Lee, who was in charge of it, made a statement that roughly amounted to ‘Elsa knows her sexuality best, she’ll tell us who she likes when she decides to’, and this statement reveals, that as far as women go, Ms. Lee has really big-ass balls, because it takes genuinely big-ass balls to make this sort of statement. Listen: Elsa is a fictional character, made by CGI. A live actress voices her, but only because Hollywood has not figured out how to make machines speak as well as real people – for now. Elsa is going to have a relationship with whomever the script tells her to – male, female, human, non-human, etc. Nothing more, nothing less, but-

-But the truth is, whether Elsa will be revealed as gay or as straight, plenty of fans will be upset and angry about it…maybe angry enough to abandon the ‘Frozen’ franchise – something that might’ve occurred to Disney’s SW franchise around the time of the ‘Solo’ film (2018). Not surprisingly then, Disney is trying its’ best to avoid a repetition of this situation from that time and until the present, let alone the future: MCU’s Red Guardian may be stirring controversy, but you don’t hear this about any of ‘Mulan-2020’s characters, now do you? They all appear to be physically attractive at the very least – just as the spouses of the misfortunate Peloton ad are. This also makes them about as relatable as the spouses of the Peloton ad are, and with the removal of such canon characters as Mushu the dragon and Cri-Kee the cricket, Disney may discover that their strategy has misfired instead.

…What strategy, you may ask? Simple: the ‘Black Widow’ trailer has generated plenty of discussion. The second ‘Mulan’ trailer – none at all; in fact, its’ timing may have been deliberate – Disney is burying it under the heap of SW-related news. Disney does not like controversy, especially when its’ ‘heartland’ – the Disney princess franchise – is involved. This brings us back to ‘Frozen 2’. In it, Disney has genuinely made something new – the new ‘Frozen’ film has nothing in common with the first movie save for the main characters – but when it comes to the underlying message, its’ depiction of the new Arendale-world as an ecologically-friend utopia, it falls flat. Even IGN, which these days hates to make negative reviews, admitted that Disney didn’t quite go the distance with ‘Frozen 2’; whatever it plans to do with ‘Mulan-2020’ may experience the same problem, and this brings us back to ‘wokeness’. It may be becoming a term with multiple meanings, but apparently in relation to movies and similar media? It is beginning to mean ‘inoffensive’, ‘vapid’, and ‘bland as possible’, as the characters of the Peloton ad show. They have no personalities, no characteristics that make them unique – and in Western societies, everyone is unique. Just ask Greta Thunberg, would you? ‘Mulan-2020’ doesn’t appear to be as bad as this ad, but neither it is as ‘bland’ as Disney might assume that it would be: for example, the new Shan-Yu still does have a falcon – only it’s no longer a mere bird, but his witch girlfriend, who’s the brains behind this invasion. Pause.

The ‘Mulan’ trailer 2 mentioned a phoenix that guards the imperial throne. This is worthy of a digression: the movie is talking of a Chinese phoenix, which, incidentally, is nothing like the Western phoenix. The latter is a Solar symbol, its’ depiction vary, but usually it is vaguely eagle-like, (because in Christian symbolism, the eagle is connected to the sun, a religious relic left from the pagan times). The Chinese phoenix looks much like an elaborate, more derived version of a rooster, or one of its’ wilder cousins, a pheasant of some sort. (The males of Asiatic species can look even more unusual than the peafowl males do). Why, sometimes it is even used in place of the rooster in the Chinese zodiac – but the point is while in the past there were male Chinese phoenixes called feng, and female, called huang, these days the Chinese phoenix called simply fenghuang and it is baseline female – an opposite to the Chinese dragon, which is baseline male.

Pause. Mushu the dragon exchanges a look with Captain Obvious and leaves to pump some weights: he needs to get into shape with a potentially hot phoenix girlfriend.

It must be pointed out that the Chinese phoenix is just as mythical, imaginary and make-believe as the Western phoenix is; it may be based on a wild pheasant or a domestic rooster, but that is it. Very quickly it became its’ own entity, and it is one that has no literal connotations with reality. There is no fire behind this smoke, no cryptid behind this myth. End of story.

…But the question of whether or not Mulan will learn/figure out as to how to turn into the phoenix to challenge the evil barbarian-witch for the supremacy of the skies has just began. Disney is trying to avoid controversy…but this way lies blandness and lack of interest from the potential viewers; as ‘Frozen 2’ showed, if you don’t go the full distance, you don’t catch the full attention. Yes, by making a concise, intentional statement you, well, officially commit yourself to some cause or another; you will be judged by its’ standards, good or bad. Pause.

…The problem with such state of affairs that it will cost you something or other, no matter how clever or powerful you may consider yourself to be. Fair enough, but remember the parable of the bat: beasts went to war with the birds, the bat tried to sit on the fence, siding with the winner, but eventually both sides caught onto her game and exiled her from both parties, condemning the bat to a life of ignominy and darkness. Disney, of course, is nothing like that, it has its’ own cause and commitment – money. Ergo, any attempts to do something truly radical and progressive will always fall flat, as they did with ‘Frozen 2’, with Marvel’s ‘Black Panther’ (2018), no matter how Disney and its’ associates claim otherwise. Genuine, authentic commitment to anything other than money always costs money. Disney is not ready to lose money for anything, as the events surrounding ‘Solo’ showed. And thus, Disney and its’ movies (in all of its’ incarnations) will never be as radical and new and authentic as Disney always claims and/or tries to make them. The end.

…This is it for now – see you all soon.

Black Widow trailer 1 - Dec 4

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. So we look onto the TV and what do we see there? The ‘Vikings’ season premiere! And-?

And I was wrong – it will not be the Turco-Mongols that the titular characters will be fighting, but the Russians. Oh, for fuck’s sake!

Let me elaborate. These days, the Russia that the West knows is associated with Moscow, or as the Slavic people acknowledge it, (sometimes) – the Moscow Rus. Reasonable enough, right? The problem – the first one – that during the Viking era – the Rus that existed in the world was the so-called Kiev Rus, it existed primarily on the territory of modern Ukraine and the Balkans, Eastern Europe, really – and Moscow was only its’ north-east periphery at best.

…Real life carefully point-out to me that the Donald decided to replace the Democrats fictional Russian interference – the Russian threat to the U.S. regime is quite real, but meddle in the election-2016 it did not – but equally fictional Ukrainian one. Democrats firmly rejected it, Republicans are just as firmly pro-Donald, so now what?

Nobody knows. At least since the year 2016 the West figured out by now that using fictional Russian threats to distract from real-life problems – the Epstein fallout, for example, or the Brexit – just makes it works and have stopped using them. Substituting them with just as fictional Ukrainian threats is worse, since Ukraine is trying to be the part of the Western culture for real, for what reasons, is another thing, but for real. They do not deserve this sort of a backstab… but they are getting it anyways.

And now we return to the ‘Vikings’, where the Vikings will be fighting the Russo-Ukrainians, even though…

…Even though in reality they were the ones to establish the state slash kingdom of Rus – the Russians themselves accept it. The first Russian dynasty were the Ruriks, whose founder, Rurik, alongside with his brother, Sinehus and Truvore, was a Variag/Varangian – a Viking. The Russian name ‘Oleg’, and its’ female counterpart, ‘Olga’, are Russified versions of the Norse ‘Helgi’ (male) and ‘Helga’ (female). Far from fighting with the Rus, the real-life Vikings colonized and began to civilize them. …Yes, they were still Vikings. …Yes, in real life their version of colonizing meant that for about half a year they would plunder – but increasingly systematically – their Slavic subjects – and the rest of the year was spent by their journeys back and forth, as well as by other interactions, with the Byzantine Empire. These days, the geographic West took the place of the Byzantines, but otherwise? The ethnically Russian spiritual heirs of Russia, Ukraine and probably Belarus too follow the same model: they plunder, however systematically, their subjects and live-off on their spoils in the West, literally a distance away from their subjects – and the West largely has no problem with that. The 90s could have been a literal new leaf in the Russian history as the pro-Western faction of its’ society assumed that it would – instead this period became known as ‘The Big Grab’ and ‘The Cut-Throat Nineties’: neither name is particularly positive either in English or in Russian… where were we?

Ah yes, for a show that is a part of a History channel, the ‘Vikings’ are a great big pile of pseudo-history crap, as it was pointed out in the past seasons. They also discard a potentially very positive propaganda piece by having them arrive on the Rus territory and bringing to the latter the light of the true Western civilization – instead, we got some sort of a ‘cold war’ that we know that they are going to win; in reality, of course, the Kiev Rus actually became superior to the Viking Scandinavia by the XI century and it was only after the Scandinavian Vikings converted to Christianity and became a part of the European culture properly did they begin to catch up. But until the Kiev Rus succumbed to the Turco-Mongol yoke, it and Scandinavia were very close to each other – politically, socially, dynastically and so on. To see the ‘Vikings’ go the way it went is just sad. What next?

Next is the new ‘Black Widow’ trailer that came out recently, (Dec 3, 2019). Supposedly, it will take place in Budapest, Hungary, because in the very first ‘Avengers’ film, (the one where Loki’s loaned alien army invaded NYC, remember it?), Nat and Clint mentioned some sort of a Budapest incident in their past. Maybe we will see it; yes, Jeremy Renner, who plays Hawkeye in MCU, has had his own #MeToo moment, but maybe we will still see him and Samuel Jackson’s Nick Fury star against ScarJo’s Black Widow in her 2020 film. What next?

I cannot shake the feeling that this movie include plenty of time jumps, simply because it will take place in the past, as in the ‘present’, aka the ‘Endgame’ film, the Black Widow is dead and probably won’t be coming back. Since even the trailer already introduces us to Yelena Belova, who is one of the ‘other’ Black Widows of Marvel comics, the odds of her becoming the next Black Widow of MCU is quite high.

Next, the trailer introduces us to the Red Guardian, in his Alexi Shostakov avatar, (because there was many Red Guardian characters in the Marvel comics). In the Marvel comics, Shostakov is Ronin these days, but in MCU, it was Renner’s Hawkeye who got to be Ronin, while a much older Shostakov version is the Red Guardian. ‘Much older’ because in the comics he is actually Natasha’s ex-husband; here, he seems to be more of a funny crazy old drunken uncle figure to Nat and the girls. ‘The girls’, because it brings us to the final new character introduced in this trailer – Melina Vostokoff. In the comics, she became the Iron Maiden… who is a Black Widow villain, not an Iron Man one, connotations be damned. In Marvel’s Mangaverse, (Earth-2301, I have no life, sue me), this is the superhero name of Tony Stark’s twin sister, but so far there is no evidence of such character in MCU, so let’s assume that the Iron Maiden will be the superhero or supervillain alias of Vostokoff…or she can become the new Task Master. In Marvel comics, the Task Master is an ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. agent named Tony Masters – aka a man. This is also how the Task Master has appeared in Marvel cartoons, but as people pointed out, it is always possible that MCU will do a gender bender on this character instead. What next?

Well, let us give a shout-out to the new ‘James Bond’ movie trailer that came out today, (Dec 4, 2019), and move onto ‘Kings of Pain’. Why? Because the double-oh trailer reveals that the titular character of this film will just be running around, hitting and gunning down people, while saving either the world or his own skin in the process. Fun! – but nothing to discuss, however; even ‘Kings of Pain’ have more context, so let’s talk about them instead. Seriously, double-oh movies are pure suspense/action/adventure flicks with some romance and porn thrown in, so let’s give credit to ‘Kings’ – whatever they are, this isn’t them.

…No, actually, let us talk about the ‘Kings’ credit in this week’s episode – how does it fall?

In the neutral field, we got the velvet ant portion of the episode: this week, the not so dynamic duo went to Africa because of the Nile monitor. (Think a much smaller version of the better-known Komodo dragon). Why Nile monitor? Because ‘Brave Wilderness’ had a Nile monitor episode, as well as a velvet ant episode and a hippopotamus one.

…Getting back to the velvet ant, listen: there are 400 species of these insects living in the U.S., so there was no need for the ‘Kings’ cast and crew go to Africa to catch a couple of them. However, the velvet ants, (who really are wasps, whose females are wingless), probably live in Africa, so it evens out.

Next – the bad: the hippopotamus encounter. It was completely unconvincing: the duo’s boat was shaken around in the dark supposedly by a hippo…that is it. The camera stayed mostly on the show’s leads, we never got a glimpse of the hippo, and everyone made it to shore safely.

Listen: the hippopotamus is one of Africa’s Big Five, i.e. it is one of Africa’s biggest animals. It is also one of Africa’s most dangerous and ornery animals. Why? Because the first modern humans appeared in Africa, and they stayed in Africa, and the modern African animals evolved in co-existence with humans and human civilizations, and they know that humans aren’t their friends, but are dangerous, and tend to attack them – to attack us – with the slightest provocation because this knowledge is almost instinctual by now. The hippos’ twist – we are talking about the common hippopotamus here, not its’ pygmy sibling – is that it is an amphibious animal: like its’ cousins whales, dolphins and porpoises its’ skin does not endure well the sun, but unlike whales, dolphins and porpoises hippos can move on land just fine. Indeed, they do not really swim – more like walk along the bottoms of rivers and lakes, surfacing for air. Did not prevent them from colonizing Madagascar in the past, yes, (they are extinct there now, though)… where were we?

Ah, yes – hippos have explosive tempers and know how to use it. They are not as fast on land as rhinos and elephants are, but they still can run, and they can trample, and their jaws with tusk-like teeth are huge and strong enough to tear apart canoes and smaller rowboats, as well as lions and Nile crocodiles, so if the cast and crew of ‘Kings’ have encountered a genuinely upset hippo, odds would be that this ‘river horse’ would not only took bites out of some boats and what else have you, it could’ve also followed them to dry land, (actually, at night hippos prefer dry land to water – they forage there) and had a rematch. Nothing of this sort happened, so excuse me for being sceptical.

However, what has happened in real life was the Nile monitor biting the show’s main leads. That certainly was not fake, so kudos to them for this. While nowhere as large enough as the Komodo dragon, let alone the probably extinct Australian Megalania, the Nile monitor is still a very large lizard, with powerful jaws, claws and slapping tail; I don’t know if the duo’s interactions with the lizard took place in Africa or on a set, the monitor did bite them, and for the record? The teeth of the monitor lizards are serrated and sharp, they rip their prey, not crush it as the crocodiles do. Pieces of meat often get caught in their teeth, where they rot, giving the monitors – even the Komodo dragon – a very potent and atypical venom: Komodo dragons kill water buffalos with it, and let us be fair: a water buffalo’s immune system is much more robust than a human’s. True, a Nile monitor is also much smaller than a Komodo dragon is, but it still got powerful jaws and a toxic bite, and it showed. Coyote Petersen on ‘Brave Wilderness’ didn’t even try to have the Nile monitor bite him. So yes, here ‘Kings of Pain’ certainly broke the mould and showed that they are capable of something real and not staged. This certainly puts them ahead of the ‘Vikings’ and their messed-up world history.

…Yes, it’s kind of dramatic and strange that the official History channel in Canada airs mostly reality shows that don’t really have anything to do with History; the ‘Vikings’ are historical fiction, but at least they’re historical. That is real life for you, though. It sucks. I hope that when the ‘Black Widow’ movie comes out in May 2020 it will be good and a welcome distraction from real life instead.

This is it for now though – see you all soon!