Moon Knight, 'Gods and Monsters' - May 4

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about the MK season one finale instead – and it is a jumble.

Ok, no, let’s try again: for a show that aimed at talking about the mysteries of the mind on one hand, and that was flipping between the various settings – a mental institution, U.K., Egypt, and so on – MK was remarkably straightforward and controlled: it was yet another hero’s journey, one that MCU kept under tight control…until the twist at the end… which could be seen a mile away.

…When AoS’ S1 had Ward turned traitor, it worked because it was so unexpected… and nothing gave it away. In MK S1, the appearance of a third personality – Jake Lockley (or whoever) – was choreographed several episodes before the S1 finale. Therefore, when the man – or the personality, whatever – did appear in MK and finished ‘the Harrow job’, no one was surprised. Except maybe for Harrow.

Let us elaborate. In the S1 finale, the Spector and Grant personalities of the titular character have reunited with each other and with Khonshu, and defeated Harrow and Ammit. We have discussed Ammit/Ammut before, and the same goes for Tawaret, who bonded with Layla as well. Again, Tawaret is not a warrior goddess; Ammit/Ammut is not much of a deity period, and I, for one, just could not help but to visualize Mr. Riordan’s ‘Kane Chronicles’, especially the second book, where the Kane siblings, Carter and Sadie, have their confrontation with Khonshu.

Again, I proclaim: MK has not ripped-off ‘Kane Chronicles’ directly; the two media are quite different, not to mention that Layla’s character is quite original… in that that she’s a strong, independent woman who lives in MCU, (the viewers of the 2021 ‘Black Widow’ film) will be so impressed… and who is an avatar of an ancient Egyptian goddess, just as Marc/Steven/Jake is an avatar of an Egyptian god. Pause.

…Khonshu appeared to be quite ready and willing to work with the Jake personality of MK, implying that he himself is just as morally shady and ambiguous as Jake himself is? Not surprising, given Khonshu’s re-appearance in the Marvel comics, when he appeared as an enemy of the Avengers, and while he was not as evil as Mephisto was, (the comic version, as we have not seen a live-action one yet), he certainly was a bad piece of work – and MCU’s Khonshu lives-up to that rep, no problem.

…The problem here is that Layla is still legally married to MK, regardless of which personality is in the driver’s seat, and Jake is quite nasty, by all standards; plus, there is Khonshu playing extra interference, and the god’s moral ambiguity and other personality flaws can easily make an already tense situation worse. What is left?

‘Dr. Strange 2’ is coming out in a couple of days, and people are already divided about it – fair enough. In RL – and did I fail to tell you that it sucks, ‘cause it does – the RF has pissed-off the West by trying to use the Holocaust as its’ justification regarding its’ conflict with Ukraine, and it didn’t work, while overseas, the U.S. will try to use the RF to ty to discredit the Donald again. Can’t say that I blame the latter; if the Donald runs in the elections-2024 and wins – and given the current POTUS’ less than stellar performance here, it could happen – if the Donald wins, then the rest of the Western world can freely tell America to shove-off and sort itself, because this sort of political unpredictability gets very tiring very fast – but we digressed.

…The final face-off between Ammit/Ammut and Khonshu is reminiscent of the showdown between Set, (possessed secretly by Apop), and Horus, in the first book of the ‘Kane Chronicles’, and here I have to talk about Ammit again – not only her/their deification by MCU is absolute fiction, their depiction of the ‘new’ deity is highly reminiscent of Sobek instead.

More precisely, Ammit/Ammut was a Chimera: hippo in the back, lion in the front, and a crocodile head to cap it all. Sobek, on the other hand, was depicted as a crocodile-headed human, (or a crocodile), nothing more, and yes, he was a proper god, a warrior and a protector, (among other things). To conflate him and Ammit (Ammut) was, and is, just wrong, it is cultural appropriation at its’ stupidest worst.

…Whereas Layla’s current evolution into Tawaret’s representative smacks of copyright infringement instead: her new duds are just excessively similar to what WW wore in the WW84 film. Tawaret is a hippo goddess of fertility, (among other things), so why the slimming get-up? …Oh, wait; it is Disney/MCU, never mind. When money is not involved, Disney is certain to play it safe; and when it is… well; we will just have to see what, and how, the fight between Disney and the Republicans in the state of Florida will go. Did I not mention that the real life sucks?

…Getting back to the Egyptian myths and mythos… there were several falcon-associated deities in there, but they tended to be male, because they were associated with the pharaoh, (who were overwhelmingly male themselves, cough); the most famous are Ra, Horus, and their fusion, Horus-Ra – the Egyptian myths could be quite confusing on their own right, (which may be why WW84’s creative team tried to go with the Mesoamerican imagery instead), but we digress.

…No, we are not, not really. The final official judgement on the MK S1 is out, but mine is that it is one part reworked Mr. Riordan’s ‘Kane Chronicles’, one part MCU attempt to tackle serious issues, (mental issues in this case), one part MCU sticking to what they know best – i.e. entertaining people, and all of this is wrapped-up into an ‘independent’ MCU series, which takes place separate from the rest of the MCU. The end result is something that you can see for yourself, and I will take my leave of you now.

See you all soon!

Moon Knight, 'Afterlife' - April 27

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about MK. Only, it continues to travel down Mr. Riordan’s ‘Kane Chronicles’ trilogy, so here isn’t much to talk about either.

No, really, throughout the trilogy, (especially in the second and the third books), Carter and Sadie Kane regularly travel into the Egyptian Afterlife, to converse with their father, (who is also the avatar of Osiris), and for other goals as well – and here we get Oscar Isaac’s characters, who do exactly that.

The Kane siblings travel usually on a magical boat, clearly associated with the ‘authentic’ slash ‘original’ myths of ancient Egypt; and in this week’s MK episode, ‘Afterlife’, we got the same thing, save that apparently in MK’s case the magical boat is the hospital/mental asylum that Marc and Steven found themselves on/in…which doesn’t make much logical sense, but this is MCU, where logical sense doesn’t always exist…where are we?

Ah, yes, Tawaret. In this week’s episode, she is the one doing the judging of Marc and Steven, and finds them wanting. This isn’t too surprising – since the series’ premiere, MK was all about ancient Egypt, ancient Egyptian myths, and especially the ancient Egyptian afterlife & the myths about the afterlife, but, again, I repeat – the ancient Egyptians’ judge of the afterlife was Anubis, or/and Osiris, not Tawaret, who is more associated with childbirth and fertility instead; Mr. Riordan played fast and loose with her role in the ‘Kane Chronicles’, but MK has him beat easily.

Again, not an issue, but for the statement that DCEU’s WW84 did not do Egypt and its’ culture much respect; compared to MCU’s MK, WW84’s treatment of Egypt was tasteful and restrained instead. Ouch! Anything else?

Yes, back in the real life, we saw a live raccoon in our local park; given that it was a sunny afternoon, this makes it unusual, as wild raccoons are more active and bold during night-time instead; we didn’t approach it, as though it is smaller than a coyote is, a wild raccoon is still formidable and powerful and must be treated with respect, but it was certainly an event that was more exciting – and important – to me in my life than anything than MK can throw at me at this point, all of MCU’s pageantry and spectacle aside. Ah well, real life sucks, but sometimes it does deliver a gem instead.

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

Moon Knight, 'Tomb' - April 20

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about MK instead.

Sadly, here is not too much to talk about either, except… for the Egyptian mythology: in this week’s MK episode – ‘Tomb’ – we get to meet Tawaret at the very end of the ep. So what?

‘The Kane Chronicles’ by Mr. Rick Riordan, that is still what’s up. In the second book of that trilogy, Carter and Sadie Kane – the titular characters – get to go to the Egyptian underworld, (because of Osiris, cough), where they meet Tawaret, aside from the other characters, (including the moon god, Khonshu). Here, in ‘Tomb’, Marc and Steven seem to be trapped in some sort of a limbo, depicted as a mental asylum, but that… is nothing new in the world of comics, DC’s Batman got trapped in this sort of thing quite regularly, for example, and they meet Tawaret.

To add injury to insult, Carter and Sadie encounter Tawaret who works in a retirement home for aged Egyptian gods, i.e. an alternate medical facility to the mental asylum that the Moon Knight, (Moon Knights?), has found himself/themselves in. I.e., Mr. Riordan associated Tawaret with a medical profession, and ‘Moon Knight’ seems to be running with it. Given how MK’s cast and crew reamed Gal Gadot and Patty Jenkins in regards to their treatment of Egypt in WW84, this dependence on Mr. Riordan’s works seems strange, almost hypocritical. Anything else?

Aye, ‘The Secrets of Dumbledore’ movie. I have seen it, and found it to be disappointing. Why?

Let us start with ‘The Book of Boba Fett’. Unlike ‘The Mandalorian’ series, ‘Boba Fett’ was less of a success because whereas ‘The Mandalorian’ series moved the entire SW universe onwards, ‘Boba Fett’ did not. Well, technically, it did, as the SW universe has the entire linear time concept, but you have to admit that ‘The Mandalorian’ also developed and expanded the SW universe in content, whereas ‘Boba Fett’ did not.

But the same can be said about ‘The Secrets of Dumbledore’ – it didn’t really introduce anything new into the wizarding world; the story did move forwards at a livelier pace than the ‘Boba Fett’ series did, but whereas MK has Tawaret, ‘The Secrets’ had a qilin.

A qilin is a mythical Far Eastern animal that is supposed to appear before a birth or a death of a great sage or a ruler, but to the Western audience/readers, especially the baseline members, a qilin is a Far Eastern analogue of a unicorn instead. Consequently, the use/participation of the qilin in ‘The Secrets of Dumbledore’ and the election that was the climax of the movie, transformed the election from, well, an election, as conceived by the Western audience into something more among the lines of ‘and the hand of God chose the rightful king and cast the pretender into Gehenna’ – this sort of thing. Given how the elections are a big deal in RL – maybe even an even bigger deal given the RF’s assault on the Ukraine – the way that ‘The Secrets’ handled the elections’ concept is outright insulting!

In addition, since we are going back to real life, people have already talked about the nearly complete absence of Tina Goldstein’s character from the movie. The team behind ‘The Secrets’ did not even try to explain it – they could have made Tina pregnant, or ill, or something, but no – and therefore, people are believing that she’s avoiding J.-Ro because of the latter’s transphobic statements. Fair enough, though it is weird – J.-Ro had no problems with Dumbledore being gay so that she could court the sexual minorities for her novels, or Hermione being a person of color so that the real life people of color would like her works before, so why the abrupt change of tune? Ah well, it is her life, her choice, and nothing else. Is that it?

Yes, pretty much – MK continues to be largely divorced from the rest of MCU, the occasional nudge-nudge wink-wink Easter egg aside, the Donald seems to be preparing for the 2024 election after all, and if he does win it, then the rest of the West will stop looking at the U.S. as their spiritual leader for sure, and – that is it.

See you all soon!

Moon Knight, Type - April 13

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about the third episode of ‘Moon Knight’ – ‘Friendly Type’. Sadly, MK continues to not quite deliver, and-

-And nothing, sadly. First, Oscar Isaacs continues to imitate Tom Hardy’s characters – he has Steven, he has Marc, and he can even do Khonshu – though Khonshu got petrified by the finale of this week’s episode.

Second, MK continues to imitate the original Indiana Jones movie trilogy and the like – we got a European adventurer in the exotic foreign country with its’ treacherous natives and mysterious undercurrents – the Dany plotline in the original ASOIAF novels has demonstrated the same theme, and fairly recently too; Hell, the entire face-off in the arena where MK on foot fought an opponent on horse is certainly reminiscent of a certain showdown in one of the ASOIAF novels…

Third, the Rick Riordan factor. In his universe, the modern Greco-Roman world is USA, (with Canada being Hyperborea, seriously!), while Egypt is associated with the U.K. instead. Ergo, now, in ‘Moon Knight’, we got the U.K., (especially England), and Egypt, delivered with barely more maturity than the novels in the ‘Kane Trilogy’ series did! Yes, Disney owns both Riordanverse and MCU, but still, this is not the sort of crosspollination that I have expected in ‘Moon Knight’.

Fourth, I am guessing that this change of focus – from USA, (and especially NYC), to the rest of the world, (especially U.K. & Egypt) might have brought the sudden downfall in the reviews and responses regarding ‘Moon Knight’ – the American public and its’ elite aren’t very fond of pro-U.K. movies as people might think; remember the ‘King’s Man’ film? It was done with all of the main American cultural tropes, but it was Great Britain, rather than the U.S., that was in the focus of the film. The result was mixed reviews, with some of them being quite scathing too – you do not try to out-U.S. the U.S. and not pay the price!

That said, the geography in MCU is atrocious; whereas DCEU went fully imaginary, with its’ world having mostly imaginary cities such as Metropolis, Gotham, National City, Starling City and so on, MCU tries to have some real-life places as well, especially NYC…and little more. Their geography feels a lot more restrained, especially in the 90s and the early 2000s, though now it has improved – some, but not much.

Finally, all of the subtle nods to ‘the greater MCU’. It is not very impressive, about the level of the ‘Eternals’ film. The latter has been one of the least successful MCU films up to date – precisely because of that detachment, and it seems that MK suffers from the same problem, (and the same goes for the Sony films). Ah well, we have discussed this problem before, and now it is too late for MCU to change anything in MK…and they probably did not want to from the start…

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

Moon Knight, Suit - April 6

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about something else. The second episode of ‘Moon Knight’, maybe?

Unfortunately, not. See, the problem with ‘Moon Knight’ is that it is about as detached from MCU, as ‘Morbius’ is; only while ‘Morbius’ is a separate universe from MCU, ‘Moon Knight’ isn’t. Hence, the notable lack of anything MCU-related in the second episode by now is becoming kind of grating.

No, seriously, when you compare ‘Morbius’ to ‘Shang-Chi’, the lack of Marvel-related Easter eggs and co. is notable…which is expected, (see above), but in ‘Moon Knight’? You would think that we would have encountered at least one Iron Man (or some other Avengers’) graffiti by now as a minimum; but no – we have a seemingly ordinary world, inhabited by Steven, an ordinary man, who abruptly finds himself in extraordinary situation, complete with Egyptian gods. The gods themselves we have discussed in the series’ premiere, and so far, there is little development… but what! The dog-headed demons are not caught by video cameras and co. so poor Steven got fired!

…Well of course they are not seen by electronic equipment, (and maybe even by muggles, cough). If they were, the situation in ‘Moon Knight’ would be different, more derived, because not unlike ‘Morbius’, the plot in ‘Moon Knight’ is also quite basic so far: it is ‘The Bourne Identity’ meeting Rick Riordan’s ‘Kane Chronicles’, save that ‘The Kane Chronicles’ have treated the Egyptian gods more respectfully, professionally as well, but that isn’t the point.

The point is that Oscar Isaac seems to be doing Tom Hardy’s shtick in ‘Moon Knight’, and then there is also Khonshu doing his thing to try to cover this rip-off up. The movies in ‘Venom’ series have their problems, and we’ve talked about this, but they’re also quite successful, and I’m guessing that MCU decided to emulate them, as Steven/Marc summon their suit in a manner not unlike how Venom takes over Eddie in the films. I am guessing that Sony and Disney/MCU have worked out their professional differences for the latter to try this sort of thing. What is left?

…I got a chance to see ‘The Bad Guys’ in not quite legal manner cough. Now there is an interesting movie, actually, as beneath the colorful candy wrapper it sought to talk about such fundamental matters as good, evil, (ok, badness) and redemption. It is quite Biblical, and there is even a ‘Mr. Snake’ to further drive that adjective home, since you cannot go badder than a snake, which stood in for ‘The Great Adversary’ in the original Book. Yet even he – the Snake character is male in the film – becomes a ‘good guy’ by the film’s finale. Hurray, but the movie’s message is marred by several issues.

Firstly, the child-friendly wrapper gets quite heavy at time from time, so the underlying message gets quite lost. And second, while venturing bravely to talk about such monotheistic issues in an increasingly polytheistic West, the movie may not have been brave enough; ‘Mr. Snake’ might be biblical, but Mr. Wolf and The Crimson Paw, (a fox), are more of fairy tale/folklore elements, and fairly baseline too. A wolf and a fox, really?! Moreover, a red fox at that – they could have used an Arctic fox or a grey fox instead; they could have used a porcupine or a coyote; but no – a fox for a wolf.

In reality, wolves ignore foxes normally, which is good, because otherwise? The former can easily overpower and eat the latter, but that is real life, where politicians – no offence, Ms. Foxington – are not necessarily ‘good guys’, eh? But real life has little connection to children films, so let’s just accept ‘The Bad Guys’ as a good film – and the ‘Moon Knight’ as a struggling MCU TV show – and move on.

This is it for now; see you all soon!

Moon Knight, series premiere - March 30

 

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, hence why I kept on down low for several months now. However, I have come back, (and with a new haircut), and I feel like discussing something new for the moment.

The problem is, what do I want to discuss? Given my blog’s latest tendencies, people might assume that I want to talk about MCU’s ‘Moon Knight’ premiere, ‘The Goldfish Problem’. Fair enough, but for the moment there’s nothing to discuss: MCU has made a wide choice by making ‘Moon Knight’ separate from the rest of MCU – for the moment – but it does leave us rather bare-handed and flat-footed as to where to go from here; so far, there’s nothing, except…

Except for Ammit, also known as Ammut, (and Ahemait, apparently). As a matter of fact, she was an Egyptian deity, but the thing is that the ancient Egyptians did not worship her/it; instead, Ammut was an underling of Anubis, who was the divine judge of their afterlife, and if an ancient Egyptian was found to be unworthy, Ammut would it his heart, and the ancient Egyptian would be ‘dead a second time’, according to the official sources. As such, the ancient Egyptians did not worship Ammut, and in the religion of mainly animal-headed deities, Ammut was a completely bestial chimera, with the head of a crocodile, the main and the forequarters of a lion, and the hindquarters of a hippopotamus: whereas the Greek Chimera was just three random animals jumbled together, the Egyptian Ammut personified three of the deadliest animals known to the ancient Egyptian culture and society. Neat, but she/it still was not worshiped… unlike in MCU. That is not a problem, actually, but a while back there was an article about how the team Moon Knight criticized Gal Gadot and Patty Jenkins as to how they handled the Egyptian angle in WW1984, calling their approach… retrograde and backwards, basically. The irony here is that MCU seems to be treating the ancient Egyptian mythology very similarly, especially when you look at the episode’s monster.

Let us roll back. At the episode’s finale, the show’s main villain, Arthur Harrow, have conjured up some sort of a demon creature with a humanoid body and the head-skull of a jackal, (for simplicity’s sake, let’s treat it as such). Well, given the strong influence of the ‘Mummy’ trilogy (of the late 1990s and the early 2000s) in the monster’s depiction and actions, I feel that MCU have repeated the trilogy’s confusion and conflation of Anubis and Set.

…If there are people who are not too versed in the ancient Egyptian myths, then while Anubis was the divine judge of the ancient Egyptian underworld, Set was a god of evil instead; the two are depicted similarly – Anubis has the head of a jackal, whereas Set has the head of… a Set beast or a sha, a creature that hasn’t been fully identified yet, (though some people associate it with the saluki, an ancient dog breed; the fact that Set was also Anubis’ father in the ancient Egyptian canon doesn’t help things either. Still, the ancient Egyptians had no problem in keeping the two gods apart, and they did not consider Set wholly bad; he was one of the strongest lieutenants of Ra, the sun god, and regularly helped Ra with fighting Apep, the chthonic demon-snake of the ancient Egyptian myths. More precisely, Rick Riordan got the facts down flat in his ‘Kane Chronicles’ trilogy, and since Mr. Riordan is associated with Disney just as the MCU is, there’s no reason as to why MCU had to conflate the two gods and throw Ammut/Ammit into the mix as well. I wonder as to how they will treat Khonshu the moon god now…

Did we digress, or rather ramble? Well yes, we have. In my defence, it has been a while since I wrote in my blog and I have a lot under my belt, but an article entry about the ‘Moon Knight’ series’ premiere isn’t it, sadly. Therefore, I am ending my rant for now.

See you all soon (hopefully)!