Quarantine entry #3 - March 24

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and in this instance because it is just the third day of the lockdown/quarantine. So far the highlights of my day were 1) seeing a white-breasted nuthatch, (much bigger and chunkier than its’ red-breasted cousin is); 2) seeing a junco, (at least I think that it was – I don’t have access to my guidebooks for the moment, and without them identifying birds is harder than with them); and 3) seeing someone’s cat wander by, (and possibly scaring away the local birds and squirrels – you can never tell with cats, after all). Not exactly the heights of excitement, so I went back to DW, and this time I chose the ‘Sun Tzu vs. Vlad the Impaler’ S2 episode. And-?

…And it had never struck me before that this episode is not too different from the RCRW one, (see the entry from 2 days ago). Vlad came across as a fighter/barbarian combo, while Sun Tzu was more of a strategist. Fair enough, but the truth is, DW was about the weapons, rather than the warriors, at least in the first two seasons. In the final third season this got less clear-cut, but STVI was an S2 episode, so it was still all about the weapons, and Vlad’s weapons were more advanced than ST’s were.

To elaborate, ST’s weapons were from before the firearms were invented, and Vlad’s – from after. It can be argued that Vlad’s hand cannon – a primitive firearm – did not make too much difference in the final simulation, but the simulations are based upon the numbers derived from the earlier tests, and on that occasion, Vlad’s hand cannon proved to be a more efficient weapon than ST’s incendiary arrows were, and in a way that made sense too. Sometimes, TV can suck as much as real life does, only differently.

Now, as for the ‘X-factors’, they did not really make a difference, and this is where the reference to the RCRW episode comes in. Not unlike his Roman counterpart, ST was a more detached leader, he preferred a hands-off approach, and was not really big on battles on a personal level. Yes, he was much smarter and sneakier than Vlad was, but because this was a one-on-one fight, in the end, Vlad’s superior strength and military equipment were able to carry the Impaler through. Hooray!

…And yes, you cannot call STVI a prejudiced episode – Vlad’s weapons slash equipment were genuinely better than ST’s were, they were more advanced and derived too, and his armor was tougher as well. Therefore, he won fairly. Anything else?

Sadly, no. I do not feel like ranting about anything DW related here and now, and as for FH, I must admit that I care for the proto-Chinese faction, the newest faction, the least of them all. In addition, Ubisoft itself seems to be putting FH on the backburner as compared to its’ other products, such Assassin’s Creed or the Tom Clancy based one. Maybe that’s justifiable, a crossover with the Prince of Persia or not; frankly, the latter’s heyday was probably in the 90s, and now I’m not so certain that a fusion with him will give FH any sort of a boost at all, but maybe that’s just me. It is hard to stay positive, when there are little to none people on the streets and the only sounds are birds, planes, trains, and the occasional car. COVID-19 is not as bad as people are making it out to be, but because the key word here is ‘people in charge’, the results are bad all the same. It is hard to say if the old dream of the ‘global village’ will die, (hint: not too likely), but people are using COVID-19 as an excuse to push their plans and progress their plots all the same and things are changing, period. Where will we end up when this is all over? Who knows; what I know is that I will probably not be talking about DW tomorrow – just to spice things up.

…This is it for now; see you all soon!

Quarantine entry #2 - March 23

It is the second day of the quarantine, and real life still sucks more than it usually does (obligatory disclaimer, this is). I am still going through the DW episodes; this time I stopped on one of S1’s last episodes – ‘William Wallace vs. Shaka Zulu’. This episode is not prejudiced, just faulty. Why?

Well, for most of the weapons, the two contestants went neck to neck, practically – Wallace’s claymore sword, (used by the Highlander in FH, remember?) wasn’t really superior to Zulu’s sword-like spear, and the Scottish chainmail wasn’t too different or really superior from the African shield.

The ranged weapons – ditto. Zulu had a glorified throwing stick, while Wallace had a ball and a chain combo – neither weapon was very effective.

The mid-range weapons: Wallace had a war hammer, (just as the Shaman in FH does), and Zulu – a battle-axe, (FH’s Hitokiri, I suppose). Both weapons are similar in design and function, neither gets a real edge.

Finally, we get special weapons, and Zulu has a spit of poison. Here where it falls apart for him, as this poison is not really a weapon at all, does not get him any kills, unlike Wallace’s targe and dagger combo. Whatever else you can say about them, they kill, and so Wallace killed Zulu in the episode’s stimulation face-off. It went just under 2 minutes, making it one of the shortest fights in the DW’s entire history – but DW S1 was weird like that, this is why I continued to watch it even in the more formalized S2 & 3 – but we talked about it before. Anything else?

Just one more thing – Wallace’s war hammer, (in real life that is two words, unlike the game franchise, where it is just one), reminded me not only of the Shaman, but also of Robert Baratheon from the Martin-verse.

Here is the thing. I do not care for Cersei, either the novel or the GoT version, but Robert Baratheon was not too sympathetic either. Frankly, I suspect that GM based him on real life Henry VIII, (maybe influenced by Shakespeare’s depiction of that monarch), who used to be a valiant knight and warrior in his youth, but became a tyrant as well as monstrously fat in his later days. The main difference between Henry VIII and his GM counterparts, (there were more than a few of them, including several Targaryens), was that Henry VIII also actively influenced U.K. economics, changed the country from being Catholic to Protestant, (and this trait remained after his death), and was in general a much more active and pro-active king.

Pause. Yeah, if you ever read GM’s books, (especially before his Targaryen love fest), then you would notice that there was little progress, social or otherwise. Yes, ASOIAF/GoT is fantasy, but a relatively realistic one, more so than LotR is, for comparison, and in real life, once people get fed up with how things are made, they try to do their best to change them – even Shakespeare’s plays about English history, (as well as others, such as ‘Coriolanus’, for example), reflect it.

Not so in GM’s novels – the world of Westeros doesn’t change too much, even after losing their dragons and becoming much diminished, Targaryens continue to rule, everyone else – to obey, and nothing changed until that ill-fated tourney, when Rhaegar absconded with Lyanna Stark and jumpstarted the entire Robert’s rebellion. When Robert killed Rhaegar at the Trident, and the Lannisters finished the job at King’s Landing, the world of Westeros did change…and then it stopped. GM doesn’t appear to be too interested in change, the entire ASOIAF novel line – at least until the final seasons of GoT derailed everything – was about the return of Targaryens, as represented by Jon and Dany. Yes, the king would have been a former ranger of the North… I mean, a Night Crow, one of the black-robed folk at the Wall, cough, and the queen wouldn’t have been a virtuous elven maiden, platinum hair and lavender eyes or not, but a much more experienced and jaded woman, (in theory). Instead, however, we got, well, GoT S8, where Jon killed Dany, and the throne went to Bran, even though ‘the Wise and the Crafty shouldn’t rule’, according to the late and lamented Terry Pratchett. Plus, the North did separate from the rest of Westeros – this would be as if Scotland won slash seceded from the rest of the U.K…. wait, are we talking about the real world again?

Back to Westeros and Westeros v. 2, because in real life the U.K. is still united. Everyone was aware, consciously or not, that the last two seasons of GoT went against the grain of GM’s novels, but they were still aired anyhow, and GM endured it…why?

Because whereas now the hoopla associated with GoT and GM has noticeably died down, back then, right after GoT was finished, there were a lot of plans for sequels, spin-offs, prequels, what have you – and GM was probably going to get at least a part of the financial plenty from all of this bounty. But! If he confronted the HBO and co. regarding his disapproval etc. regarding the last GoT seasons, his relationship with HBO and co. would have deteriorated no matter what the outcome was, and then he would’ve had problems, especially if GoT was cancelled, and it would be his fault, even if just in part. GM may look like someone atypical, but he certainly loves his money, I would bet!

…And yes, people are aware by now that his views regarding his fans are not very flattering for the fans, but the fact is that GM’s novels are products that people need to buy…at least from his POV. Otherwise, if his works will remain on the shelves, he is in trouble, and since they are, odds are that he will not go to confront HBO, (or didn’t, in the past tense), because GoT and co. are his ‘other’ source of income. Fair enough, especially since by now the world of Westeros does not appear to be coming to the big screens anymore, and GM may be in trouble nevertheless.

Getting back from the real life to Westeros, what about Robert Baratheon? My point is that his war hammer made him an atypical knight from the start – realism or not, GM’s knights fight with swords, and seemingly – only with swords; even such fairly mundane weapons as war hammers, clubs and spears seem to be exotic weapons in their hands. This was not the case in real life; tourney lances aside, so I cannot help but to wonder if Robert did not win at the Trident, because he was wielding an atypical weapon by Westeros’ knightly standard and because he was also atypically large and strong by Westeros’ standards as well. Quite a bit of imagery associated with Robert Baratheon, (and by extension with Gendry, cough), is reminiscent of storms and thunder clouds and of Thor, the Norse thunder god, whose trademark weapons was the war hammer, as practically everyone knows these days. Where was GM going with this? In GoT it went nowhere, save for Arya and Gendry’s relationship, and GM himself is keeping mum, even before the COVID-19 struck.

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

Quarantine entry #1 - March 22

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about something else – DW, for exactly. Why DW? Because I’m currently in the New York State, which is on lockdown at least for the next couple of weeks, and everything is closed, (well, almost everything), and there’s limited material to go on, so let’s pull out something out of the old dusty closet; might as well be DW.

So, what to talk about in DW? Let us try with another old chestnut – the Roman Centurion vs. the Rajput Warrior. After all of those years that had gone by after this episode was first aired, is there anything new about this episode?

Sadly, no. It is still a well written and an exciting episode, but nothing more. The only notable thing about RCRW is that it is also an honest and a non-prejudiced episode, but we have talked about this problem of the late DW a long, long time ago, so what there is left?

Firstly, yes, the Rajput had the advantage here – the ancient Roman, (as well as the Greek), army often had had problems with one on one fight. Yes, there are all of those one on one battles in the Iliad, aka, one of the first two authentic Western novels, but I must confess I have my own doubts about the novels’ authenticity, some things just don’t add up – but that is another story altogether.

Anyhow, the Rajput here has the advantage because his weapons are not so much advanced as better designed for a one on one fight – in a team fight, the situation would have been reversed. Of course, there is also the question as to why DW had the Centurion team (hey, remember his FH incarnation, incidentally?), bring forth a Scorpion – a stationary oversized crossbow, essentially, but, hey, they had something similar in an earlier S2 episode, when Alexander the Great’s ballista took on Attila the Hun’s Scythian battle-axe. It ended badly for Alexander – Attila won that showdown. What next?

The movies are being postponed, which is good – I was beginning to feel as if my blog is turning into a list of reviews, and I do not want that. I do not know what I am going to do with my blog yet, but it will be more than just a smattering of reviews – of movies, TV shows, Netflix shows, no! There will be something else! Maybe even discussions about something!

…For now, though, the best part of my day so far was that I saw a blue jay through the window in the yard outside. None of us is willing to leave because of the lockdown, unless it is for the grocery shopping or something similar, and the animals know it, somehow. Will they take over the world back from the humans? Probably not, simply because fear fades, and humans get tired of being scared all the time, COVID-19 or not.

To make matters worse, people are taking advantage of COVID-19, and usually for the worse. That is a part of real life, and especially of the American dream, with its’ individuality and entrepreneurship – both direct descendants of the Protestant, (especially the Anglo-Saxon version) way of life. Fair enough, but it means that there isn’t only good things stemming from this root, but bad ones too – and the same could be said about communism, as the Chinese seem to be having their COVID-19 issues well under control…no matter the cost. The Russians, of course, are a different story, but that is because they are a different story – they always tried to be a part of the West, culturally and politically speaking, but because the Russian proletariat and the elite were almost two different cultures throughout most of Russian history…things got muddled, and the West didn’t do anything to help either. The 1990s were just the latest example of that – the missed opportunity for the West to fix the Russian issue for good…instead the West got whatever it got in the person of Putin, and it can’t be fixed; maybe the West doesn’t want it to be fixed, but then all its’ those fiery speeches about the virtues of Democracy begin to seem fixed. What next?

Well, real life still sucks. The COVID-19 is still going strong, but because people are taking advantage of it in different ways, or just reacting to it differently, it is hard to differentiate truth from fiction; in this case, truth may not be subjective, but with everything that is going on around here, it is getting hard to figure out just what truth here actually is, and that is just as bad. Hopefully though, real life will get its’ head out of its’ ass and sort it all out, or else it’s going to be Italy all over again, (and Spain isn’t doing much better either), that’s all.

…And by that I mean that we’re done for now – see you all soon!

Superman: Red Son - Feb 26

Obligatory disclaimer: real life still sucks for all sorts of reasons. For a more specific explanation, see the previous entry. Now, about the latest animated Superman movie – the Red Son, (as opposed to the Red Sun and the Rad Son labels that I have seen on YouTube since yesterday).

…Ok, what about it?

It is one of the more depressing Superman and DC stories ever, one where Superman grows up in the U.S.S.R., (as opposed to the U.K. or in the darkest Africa, which are also DC comic stories, incidentally), has interactions with Bizarro, a variant Barman, Wonder Woman, a Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) and so on, and mows down the opposition, no sweat. Pause?

Yeah, the live action Justice League movie had something similar, only it was so bad, that it was actually funny, (when it was not being so lackluster that it was insipid instead. Cough Infinity War rip-off cough). SRS, on the other hand, is none of those things, it is actually well put together, and it is somewhat sad. Violent too, for an animated movie, even more so than the actual comic was.

True, I am not the biggest fan of DC and it has been a long time since I have read the SRS comic, but there are some differences between it and the movie. More importantly, reading the comic is not important to watching the movie, and the movie is…depressing, straightforward, simple and well made, from the technical side of things. And-?

And it is the simplicity that is the defining point of SRS – usually DC can do convoluted about as well as Marvel does, Disney baking or not. Here, conversely, everything is going from point A to point B, which concludes with Superman apparently finding a possible ‘redemption’ after his stunt as the flagman of communism. What?

…Here is the thing. SRS is not exactly a propaganda piece, because for any propaganda piece to work, the state/country in which it is released needs consistency, and right now, the US is in the state of flux, because of the upcoming elections. Nobody knows as to who will win, but the safe bet is the Donald, in no small part because the Democrats, a), can’t get their shit together, and b), now that it is coming together, the forerunner will be either Bloomberg, a variant of the Donald, or Sanders, a social-democrat, and neither man is very popular with the rest of the Democratic party’s leaders. Will they opt to instead give the U.S. to the Donald for another 4 years while they try to find someone better? Odds are very good on this one too. Will they continue to bitch about the Donald, even though they aren’t all that better than he is, (as surprising as that sounds)? Yes. Did I mention that real life sucks? Do bears shit in the woods?

Getting back to SRS, again, it isn’t intended to be propaganda, but you have to admit that its’ timing isn’t very good, and given that we’re talking about the Western society here, at least someone there will think so and act accordingly with unpredictable results – but for the majority, SRS will be just another DC animated movie and as such it will fade into obscurity, either becoming a classic or not. Go, team DC! Another solid hit for you, really. Anything else?

Sadly, no, not this time. See you all soon instead!

Harley Quinn and the prodigal son - Feb 25

Obligatory disclaimer… no, wait. Secondly, the ‘Harley Quinn’ cartoon TV show’s great, no doubt about it. Firstly – real life sucks. No matter what you try, no matter what you try to figure something out, real life will derail you, and then-

Pause. Let us talk about the Biblical parable of the prodigal son. No, we will not talk about the TV series of the same name, because I found it to be forgettable and meh; we are talking about the actual article. In it, the titular character lives his loving but traditional family, screws his life completely, returns home with tail between his legs, (metaphorically speaking), and is celebrated with a fattened calf, because, as both the narrator, (the Savior?), and the father of the family tell the audience and the other son, who dutifully worked at the family business all the time while his bro wasted his chance, Heavens are happier at one repented sinner than over many more people who neither sinned nor repented to begin with.

…You know, who sinned and then repented? Judas. Yes, that guy. Does it mean that he also ended up in Heaven and not, you know, in Hell, according to Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy’? Just asking, but the truth is that in the ‘Prodigal Son’ parable everyone is an asshole.

Let us elaborate. The titular character is an asshole because he had wasted all of his potential, literally and otherwise, and ended up being good for nothing but to herd pigs. When Jacob the patriarch, (son of Isaac, father of Joseph), ended up being a shepherd, he ended up making a fortune and married to Leah and Rebecca, (and not to mention a couple of concubines on top of them). The prodigal son? He did jack squat, other than bitch and moan about his fate & come crawling back to his family, as the parable intended to. Man, the Savior sometimes could be a jerk storyteller!

However, the rest of the family is not much different from the titular character…only they are. While he was doing nothing, they were doing the same thing repeatedly – running the family farm, (because of the fattened calf reference, because otherwise we got nothing to go on here). Yes, that is often hard, repetitive and boring, which is why the prodigal son ran away. And then he just partied hard and this is it, possibly because that is the only thing he had ever done? With his father if not outright enabling him, then certainly babying him, because he is the baby of the family, maybe? Pause.

Yes, something similar happened to Joseph back in the Old Testament, only our man Joseph did become the viceroy of Egypt or something similar, and revealed himself to be a bad ass. The titular character is an uninitiative waste of space and his father is okay with it, he is that forgiving. At least this time he gave his other some cock and bull excuse, dimly aware that this time he might have gone over the line.

…This isn’t the point of the parable? See above, cough Judas cough. St. Augustine supposedly once said that he believes in Christ and Christianity, because it is absurd, (or that absurd?). Fair enough, but proportionally, St. Augustine was closer to the time when the Gospels actually got written, (following the Word of God) than to our time in this time and space continuum, and it tells.

…So what does that have to do with me? Nothing, save that I am doing my best to find a regular job, (I may be no Old Testament Joseph, but still), and am having zero luck. My family, on the other hand, seems to be shoehorning me into the position of the parable’s older son, who works almost for nothing save for room and board. Did I tell you that I hate my life? Because I do. Arthur Fleck (cough Phoenix cough) was a genius if he was able to rework his life from a tragedy into a comedy, because I certainly cannot.

…Yes, I know that Joker in all of his incarnations is anti-hero at best and a villain at worse, as he was, or rather is, in the ‘Harley Quinn’ cartoon, which is doing all the same things that the ‘fantabulous emancipation’ film has done, but at a slower pace. Then again, it is a cartoon series, not a single-shot film, so it can afford to be prolonged.

One aspect that is affected by this is the Harley-Ivy relationship: the S1 finale ended with Ivy being dead, and/or resurrected, I am not sure. I.e., whatever relationship Harley and Ivy will have, this will be taken slowly, I suspect. Then again, DC is not Marvel, it doesn’t have Disney backing it up, (yet), so it’s not surprising that Ivy and Harley may be going the ‘Elsa met Honeymaren’ routine. Hell, Joker is outright absent in the ‘Superman: Red Son’ movie, and it is still a good one. (It just came out this February).

…Yes, SRS is focusing more on the Superman’s corner of DC’s Elseworlds than Batman’s, (cough spoilers cough), but still, the laughing prince of crime tends to pop up in unexpected places, but we digress. (SRS is not a bad animated movie either, incidentally). The point is that my life lately sucks more than it usually does, more family sucks more than it usually does, and I see no way out, period. I do not intend to be either the good or the prodigal son, while we are on the subject. For better or for worse, I am just trying to be myself, regardless as to what this entails, down to the end - now if only all my ads on LinkedIn, and Glassdoor, and Indeed, and Monster, and so on would come to a fruition. (Sad face emoji).

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

Call of the Wild 2020 - Feb 21

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. One’s family makes it worse, and you hate them, you hate them, you hate them forever – onto the 30^th generation, onto the 20^th incarnation, and beyond! All hail Lilith and Sammael! …Where were we?

Ah yes, real life sucks, so let us talk about the 2020 ‘Call of the Wild’ film. We have discussed it last year already, when we only had just a teaser to go on, and it was released only this month, (aka February 2020), and what can I say? It is neither ‘Cats-2019’ nor quite as bad as ‘Doolittle-2020’, but it is certainly worse than the ‘Sonic’ movie is, and when you fail to surpass an anthropomorphic extradimensional blue hedgehog (supposedly) creature, then you suck.

Let us elaborate. The ‘Call of the Wild-2020’ movie failed on several levels. One is the CGI – oh, the technical side was done marvellously, we’re talking Cirque du Soleil quality, (a curse upon this abomination for 30 generations, for 20 incarnations!!), but regardless, you can still feel that the dogs are CGI very easily, so there’s that, and that’s a problem: just ‘like ‘White Fang’, the ‘Call of the Wild’ is a dog novel; humans play important roles, even critical ones, but the main characters are dogs and wolves. Considering that the 2020 ‘Call of the Wild’ film had only CGI animals, this means that it put itself at a disadvantage: the non-human characters just do not look real, no matter how authentic they were supposed to be.

The human characters have their own problem. The original novel was written in 1903, when political correctness was unheard-of, and so all of the human characters in ‘Call of the Wild’ were Caucasian, (technically speaking), and except for Mercedes, (played by Karen Gillian in this film) – male. So now, we got the two Quebecois mail workers played by Omar Sy, (an Afro-American) and Cara Gee, (an Ojibway woman). This is very politically correct and modern, but, sadly, ‘Call of the Wild’ seems to be one of those pieces that does not do transition to ‘modern’ too well in general. The original novel, just as its’ companion ‘White Fang’ was very, well, manly. The 2020 movie is anything but, and seems to be going for a more balanced, modern, politically correct approach – and instead got a pale imitation of the original novel.

Yes, Han Solo… I mean, Indiana Jones… I mean, Mr. Ford did his best to liven the movie, and may be its’ redeeming feature, period. (Chewbacca mutters and tells Han that you should never have a dog do a Wookie’s job, and can we try it again, in space, this time? Han points out that that is what the SW4 movie is for. Chewie sniffs and hugs his best friend. The end). However, you have to admit that his current incarnation – John Thornton – is rather manly himself, (possibly for the greater contrast with Dan Stevens’ Hal, who looks ridiculous in an unattended manner by the movie’s standards). The conclusion itself is also different, pause.

In the original novel, Thornton and his dogs, (except for Buck, of course), are killed by Native Americans, and in response Buck teams up with the local wolf pack and begins to kill them instead – this is how the novel ends. Here, the Thornton arc is resolved in a different manner, and Buck teams-up with the wolves in part because he gets into a relationship with a local she-wolf, black in color. Apocryphal Lilith much?

Now, about wolves – we talked about them before, when we discussed the AFO episode ‘Puma vs. Grey Wolf”, and the punch line here is that wolves aren’t just stereotypical grey color, they can range from white to black, why the great Audubon himself made a couple of paintings that featured precisely the white and black color morphs of the wolf, (he also made paintings of the so-called Inuit dog and Indian dog, but we won’t get into this here), but that’s it. Wolves may be of any color, but they are still the common or grey wolf, Canis lupus, the end. Why give Buck’s love interest an atypical fur color? It is anyone’s guess.

Speaking of love interests… first, Cara Gee? Is she pregnant in real life? If you look at the interview clip on the IGN YouTube channel, you see that she is caressing her stomach and the camera is angled thusly as to keep it out of the view. Maybe I am overreading this, but it still looks weird. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see if news of her pregnancy and/or childbirth hit TMZ or something similar.

Back to dogs and wolves… Yes, Buck is a hybrid dog to begin with, even in the original novel, (a St. Bernard-Scotch Collie mix), which makes himself something of a hybrid, which makes it kind of doubtful that he and a wolf would have viable offspring. St. Bernards are a derived dog breed, they are some of the biggest dogs around, and they are cases of gigantism from natural P.O.V., which may create issues if they are released in the wild. Yes, ‘Call of the Wild’ is fiction, a fairy tale, (sort of), but it can be noted that in the original novel Buck is not interested in any female dogs or wolves whatsoever, and there is no romance at all in ‘Call of the Wild’, (whereas in ‘White Fang’ the situation is different). Here, in the 2020 movie, the situation is different, and not in a good way – compared to the book, the movie feels diminished, a disappointment. Yes, political correctness is important, especially now, when the coronavirus, (yes, I know that it got renamed, but let’s not get too distracted here), is bringing the worst in humanity again, including the anti-Asians racism, (though apparently in Ukraine the native people are turning upon each other instead – how are they better than their Russian cousins, are again? That is right, they are not, apparently. Ouch!), but sometimes it just does not work, period. In ‘Frozen 2’, the socio-political agenda did not work, but it was still a good film, just different from ‘Frozen 1’.

…Not unlike the ‘Dark Phoenix-2019’, this version of ‘Call of the Wild’ just is not a good film, and political correctness just makes it worse, period. It may not be as bad as real life, (cough the coronavirus cough), but it is not very good either, both because of the CGI dogs (and scenery) and not. Go and see ‘Sonic’ instead.

…This is it for now, see you all soon!

The Harley Quinn Movie - Feb 6

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, pure and simple, and your family tends to make it worse – and it is also simple. So, let us talk about something more complex – the latest DC movie – instead.

Why it is a more complex subject? Because in reality, it is two movies stitched into one – first, we got ‘Birds of Prey’, (BOP), which deals with a group of anti-heroes, led by Harley Quinn, in a fight against a crime boss named ‘the Black Mask’, (DC’s answer to Marvel’s Red Skull, BTW), and the second is ‘the fantabulous emancipation’ of the same Harley Quinn as she gets over the Joker, (Jared Leto’s version). Pause.

Now, this is not the first case of two movies being stitched into one – I personally remember the ‘Lost World: Fallen Kingdom’ film, which was two films – the first being the team Owen/Claire (OC) teaming up with the minions of the Evil E to rescue several dinosaurs, (including Rexy and Blue), from the exploding island; and the second being team OC infiltrating/getting captured by the Evil E’s minions to get into the Lockwood mansion and stop the Indoraptor from…something – yes, it’s a killing machine, but nothing more; the movie heavily anthropomorphized it, but it still was nowhere as formidable as the I-Rex from the first ‘Lost World’ film was, and plenty of dinosaurs got out into the world… but we digress.

…And the second film was the SW8 movie, where everything from Rey and Ben’s final confrontation in the ex-Snoke’s throne room feels like a tag-on from an entirely different SW8 film – maybe it was borrowed from the original SW8 script? Or something? Hard to tell, and we have discussed the SW8 & 9 films before, so let us get back to the DCEU.

Did DC succeed with their latest film? As people have acknowledged, it’s no ‘Joker-2019’, and indeed, when the discussions about BOP-emancipation began, ‘Joker-2019’ was avoided. Not surprising, since on one hand, ‘Joker-2019’ is an outlier and not a part of the DCEU per se, and as such, it is a completely different film from the DCEU ones… and it had also won an Oscar. Not surprisingly, then, that team DC does not known as to what to do about ‘Joker-2019’ and tend to avoid it in their discussions, especially unofficial ones.

That said, ‘Joker-2019’ did try to discuss important social issues in real life…and the Harley Quinn double-whammy tried to be feminist! Feminist! Feminist! In addition, girl power! Rawr! …Did it succeed?

Leaving aside the impressive interweaving of the two films, BOP and ‘the fantabulous emancipation’, done in a way that would make Marvel’s Deadpool, (especially the MCU version), proud. That said, since people treat it as a single film instead, well… it is done by the book – women are good, men are bad, (or outright evil), and women are beating them down as soon as they are done being oppressed by them. Just look at Greta Thunberg, back in real life.

…What is this? Now that the initial shock value is gone, Greta seems to have met only a limited success – people are indulging her, going along and pretending that she matters. Since none of her efforts seem to have actually amount to anything beyond making this or that public statement and talking to this or that leader of some country or another… Greta is beginning to feel like a trained parrot that everyone loves but will forget as soon as the entire out of sight out of mind situation occurs – and this, atypically, brings us to Cassandra Cain.

Why? Here is the thing. Margot Robbie’s Harley is consistent with her depiction in 2016’s ‘Suicide Squad’ film. Dinah and the Huntress look nothing like their counterparts in the DC ‘Arrow’ TV-verse (or the original BOP TV series), but DC is inconsistent like this, so that is acceptable. However, for both Renee and Cassandra, this is their official entrance into the live-action DC depiction, (especially for Cass), so what, and who, was thinking? They took ‘Orphan’, one of Batman’s most formidable lieutenants, and turned her into a plucky extra from ‘Ocean’s 8’!

…Actually, the entire movie has a strong feeling of ‘Ocean’s 8’, especially in regards to girl power – ‘Ocean’s 8’ was ‘Ocean’s 11’ albeit gender-flipped and more edgy. Alas, as the ‘Ghostbusters’ reboot showed, gender flipping a movie plot is not always enough, (both it and ‘Ocean’s 8’ are largely forgotten by now), and as ‘Like a Boss’ proved, girl power on its own isn’t a miraculous money-maker either.

Does the Harley Quinn movie has anything else going for it? It is bright, it is loud, it verges on the absurd, and the good guys – that is, girls – win in the end. It is not trying to be intentionally deep if you move away from the titular heroine as she goes on a journey of self-discovery and the rest of team BOP is going for the ride as they need to work together to defeat the Black Mask and Zsasz. The latter are completely unsympathetic, (especially Zsasz), nonredeemable, and are killed at the end. 

Sigh. Even Marvel/MCU is moving past killing every villain in their movies – Loki is back and being redesigned, so’s MCU’s version of Zemo, (and maybe others?). Seeing how DCEU is trying to ape MCU still, maybe it is time for them to stop killing-off their villains… oh, right, Joker. Pause. Never mind. This version of the Black Mask was decisively influenced by the comics’ Joker, and it shows – the movie’s villains have actually more time on screen than its’ heroes – aside from Harley, and this brings us to Cass, but also – to the hyena.

Cass is simple – Harley decided to make her her protégé or something. Ask Harley. Maybe she knows. But the hyena is something else. True to the DC canon, it is a spotted hyena, which is the biggest modern hyena species, and the strongest. It can literally rip a person apart with its’ bone-crushing jaws, so seeing Harley interact with her new pet is something else. I really hope that she had picked-up her comic-book counterpart’s hyena managing skills, because otherwise, there will be trouble!

…As it is, there may be trouble already, as the movie shows no sign of a Poison Ivy. These days, in most incarnations, Ivy and Harley are a couple, a duo, a team – Ivy helps Harley the way that Joker did not, would not, or could not – take your pick. They are also a couple, the same way that Willow and Tara were on the BtVS TV series, for example, so her absence in the movie is glaring, and also telling.

In ‘Frozen 2’, there was Honeymaren, Elsa’s new potential love interest, and yet nothing came of it. Why?

Because Disney does not like to make statements that hurt it in the wallet; it does not like to be hurt in the wallet to begin with: their ‘damage control’ in the SW9 film is the latest evidence of that. Only, in SW9, this ‘damage control’ didn’t succeed, so for now no more SW movies, and especially trilogies; ‘The Mandalorian’ and the like will need to carry the SW-universe forwards for now.

For Disney, their ‘Princess’ series are even more important than SW is, so they have no intention of rocking the boat by getting either the same-sex issues or the sexuality issues involved. Yes, there is many fanworks that do just that, but they do not matter, especially not to Disney, whereas DC…

…Well, in DC, there is the current Harley Quinn cartoon series, which seems to be going precisely in that direction, by the means of an endgame. Yes, DC is not putting all of their eggs in one basket, and the HQ cartoon series is different, and much more balanced, than the HQ movie is, but the signs of this were there in the last trailer, so we were warned. Anything else?

No, not really. ‘The Fantabulous Emancipation’ gave a new dimension to the movie, which otherwise would have been just a more violent and psychedelically crazy ‘Ocean’s 8’. The gangster setting…well, ever since the Superman/Batman animated series of the 1990s, the gangster setting was the default for Gotham, which only served to make the Black Mask and Zsasz even more formidable. The fights themselves were nothing special, certainly not in 2020, and they were not any more feminist than the ‘Like a Boss’ movie was. So, yes, Harley Quinn saved the movie and the day, just not how she probably intended to… i.e., this her normal M.O., especially without Ivy around to ground her, cough. Hint-hint. Regardless, go Harley!

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