“Pratchett went back to older throwaway jokes (like dwarves being apparently unisex) and used them as metaphors to discuss social change, racial assimilation, and other complex issues, while reexamining the species he’d thrown in at the margins of his world simply because they existed at the margins of every other fantasy universe. If goblins and orcs and trolls could think, then why were they always just there to be slaughtered by the heroes? And if the heroes slaughtered sentient beings en masse, how heroic exactly were they? It was a long overdue start on redressing issues long swept under the rug by a parade of Tolkien successors who never thought of anyone green and slimy as anything but a notch on the protagonist’s sword, and much of the urgency in Pratchett’s last few books seemed to be related to them. ‘There’s only one true evil in the world,’ he said through his characters. ‘And that’s treating people like they were things.’ And in the last of his ‘grown-up’ Discworld books, that idea is shouted with the ferocity of those who have only a few words left and want to make them count. Goblins are people. Golems are people. Dwarves are people, and they do not become any less people because they decide to go by the gender they know themselves to be instead of the one society forces on them. Even trains might be people, and you’ll never know one way or the other unless you ask them, because treating someone like they’re a person and not a thing should be your default. And the only people who cling to tradition at the expense of real people are sad, angry dwellers in the darkness who don’t even understand how pathetic they are, clutching and grasping at the things they remember without ever understanding that the world was never that simple to begin with. The future is bright, it is shining, and it belongs to everyone.”
One overlooked thing that really sets the Lord of the Rings films apart from other franchises is how earnest they are-
Most movies are so afraid of being “cheesy” that whenever they say something like “friendship is the most powerful force in the world” they quickly undercut it with a joke to show We Don’t Really Believe That! 😉 Even Disney films nowadays have the characters mock their own movie’s tropes (”if you start singing, I’m gonna throw up!”) It’s like winking at the camera: “See, audience? We know this is ridiculous! We’re in on the joke!”
But Lord of the Rings is just 12.5 hours of friendship and love being the most powerful forces in the world, played straight. Characters have conversations about how much their home and family and friends mean to them, how hope is eternal, how there is so much in the world that’s worth living for…. and the film doesn’t apologize for that. There’s no winking at the audience about How Cheesy and Silly All This Is; it’s just. Completely in earnest.
And when Lord of the Rings does “lean on the fourth wall” to talk about storytelling within the film, it’s never to make jokes about How Ridiculous These Storytelling Tropes are (the way most films do)…. but instead to talk about how valuable these stories can be. Like Sam’s Speech at the end of the Two Towers: the greatest stories are ones that give you something to believe in, give you hope, that help you see there are things in a bleak violent world that are worth living for
Plus we could get Shuri supplying her with ridiculous gadgets, and her constantly giving reports to Okoye and the rest of the Dora Milaje, while T’Challa tries to calm his nerves and not freeze every time they do whatever Shuri’s version of Skype is.
a Marvel tv series based on N’jadaka and how he survived on the streets of Oakland as an orphan all the way to going to MIT and becoming an american mercenary nicknamed “Killmonger” and meeting Klaue.
….and last season ending on him entering a museum in London
Marvel DO WHAT YOU GOTTA DO
I WOULD WEEP
you lot just don’t understand how serious I am about this shit…. so my fingers did some flexing and…..
“did chris evans actually jump that high to grab onto that helicopter in civil war?”
friendly reminder that chris vaulted with ease over chris pratt after just telling him less than a minute before that he would be able to clear him if he only put his head down.
I want a Celebrity Obstacle Course show where all the pretty people can show off their hard stunt work for us and also occasionally eat it, because they need to be humbled sometimes. The judges would be career stunt people, to give them visibility, because they work even harder. Shirts optional.
You wouldn’t even finish the phrase “Celebrity Ninja Warrior” before Chris would start jumping up and doing yelling “Me! Me! Pick me!”
Anyone know how to contact Netflix about this?
friendly reminder Chris did most of his stunts bc the stunt guys couldn’t move like him.
“One thing we found, too, is Chris can run very fast. He also has a very unique run. It’s almost a dancer’s run. And when we tried to double him for running, there was nobody who could run like him. They just didn’t have the same dynamics or the way he moves. He had to end up doing most of his running.”
“What we also found, is that we had gymnasts come in to do things, and Chris could do the same stuff that they could do, but it would look like Chris Evans. When the body doubles or the gymnasts or the runners did it, it just didn’t look like him. He has such a unique way of moving, and he could pretty much do all of his own physical stuff that wasn’t dangerous. Like this shot right here, we had a gymnast do this, and Chris actually ended up doing it better. That’s Chris here. He hops up on a tank and over a 12-foot wall. It looks effortless but it’s not that easy!”
“Chris worked his butt off for four months doing gymnastics and stunt training so in a scene like this he could go toe-to-toe with Georges St-Pierre and make it look really credible. Once the helmet comes off, 95% of that is Chris, except obviously for that massive aerial kick that he does.I think he did a fantastic job.”
The really cool thing about Chris Evans is that he’s a super talented, athletic guy. He retains things amazingly well. I mean, I’m blown away. I can show him a 15-punch fight two times, and he’s got it. – Thomas Harper, Stunt Coordinator, CATWS
Sometimes the help you need isn’t the help you want. Call 1-800-273-8255 if you’re thinking of suicide.
This comic meant a whole lot to me. It was sincere in its depiction and treated the issue through the eyes of a grounded person. Not some godly hero saying everything is better than it seems, but a person trying his best before bringing her somewhere who can actually help.
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