Once Upon A Time / Grimm: Which Had The Stronger First Season?

by XdarksparkX

Originally written: August 17, 2012

In the Fall of 2011, a new genre craze seemed to sweep across our television stations: that of the modernization of classic fairy-tales. Two of the “Big Four” networks rolled out programs based upon this concept, which I suppose only seems like a craze because of the notoriety of these networks, coupled with the fact that you would see a promo for one series and get it confused with the other until proper brand establishment set in.

ABC rolled out Once Upon A Time, a story about a bail bonds collector named Emma who discovers the town of Storybrooke, Maine after the son she gave up for adoption 10-years-ago named Henry shows up on her doorstep and claims he lives there, but that it is also plagued by a curse that only she can lift.  She returns him to the town, only to find out that Henry believes that all the people who live there are actually alternate reality versions of various fairy tale characters that Disney has adapted over the past 90 years.  Touted as network television’s ‘next big thing’ due to writers of LOST being involved (The question that surely arises—is that really a selling point given the fact that most people claimed it was the eventual convoluted writing of LOST after so many seasons that turned them off from the show?), Once Upon A Time was given a cushy Sunday night 8 PM time slot and a full 22 episode order (from it’s original of 13) after just two episodes had aired, though it did not pick up a second season order until 3 days before the season finale premiere.

NBC’s Grimm on the other hand, had a start up that was much more… well, grim I suppose.  Based directly upon the original works of the much darker Grimms’ Fairy Tales than the Disney inspired re-tellings of classic fables, Grimm follows the story of Detective Nick Burkhart, a Portland cop who suddenly discovers that he is a “Grimm”, a line of guardians who are supposed to keep order and balance between the likes of humanity and the fantastical creatures of the Grimm brother’s tales, who disguise themselves as everyday citizens (usually, only a Grimm can see their true form). As his job continues to call him to more bizarre and gruesome crime scenes, Nick starts to realize just how big the population of these creatures is in our world. NBC only seemed to promote Grimm after ABC started running Once Upon A Time’s hype packages and bumps, leading to the initial brand confusion I mentioned earlier.  It was given a Friday night slot, a virtual ratings death-sentence for most original dramas, but allegedly had a 22-episode order from the get go and was renewed two months before Once Upon A Time got its second season extension. Rather odd faith in a series (or the show runners) from NBC given the horrific timeslot it was forced to overcome, but I digress.

With Grimm’s return having snuck up on me by premiering on August 13th (much earlier than most fall serial shows), I figured now would be the ideal time to sit down and hammer out my comparison piece on how both shows executed their initial season’s story arcs and character developments.

[OBVIOUS WARNING SHOULD BE OBVIOUS:]

MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR BOTH FIRST SEASONS ARE PRESENT THROUGHOUT.

READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

MAIN NARRATIVE ARCS

ONCE:

Okay, so I know that it’s obvious that the Emma/Henry/Snow White/Prince Charming/Regina storyline is the primary one given the copious amount of exposition and centric episodes they force us to drudge through before they give someone else the chance to shine in Once, I just wish it didn’t feel like they were trying to force their characters down my throat. Even after they had planted the seed with them and given them their first centric episode, they got secondary visits of some kind extremely quickly whereas there were other more interesting characters around (LOST had the same problem though, Jack or Kate would get two centric episodes before someone like say Jin & Sun or Michael got their first).  Perhaps series creators and writers Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz thought that it would be easier for the viewer to follow along if done this way, but really, it came off as I mentioned.  In the same breath, I will say that the critical story node—both our introduction to it via in medias res in the Pilot, and the eventual intertwining of characters stories and their roles into it during the finale arc was extremely enjoyable (Episode 20: “The Stranger” is easily my favorite from this arc). I always worry when show’s attempt to do that, because it becomes a very haphazard Jenga construction when you try to tie various characters into such a critical plot thread—one false move and it collapses in spectacular fashion.  Once succeeded in this regard with minimal damage done to the structure, which should keep the viewer who prides themselves on logical thinking fairly happy.

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GRIMM:
Grimm had a little bit of a problem with this.  They started out with the usual cadence, but after the introductory arc of the first four episodes or so, they went so far down the path of establishing what being a Grimm meant and what the existence actually entailed that I admittedly forgot about the primary antagonistic group for a third of the season.  Nick’s superior officer Captain Renard and the pretense under which he was introduced basically faded away over time as it became more apparent that his agenda had to do with using Nick and not so much Nick’s swift and immediate demise.  The Reapers are basically forgotten until they appear once in and regain their prominence in the finale arc. Still, it really tightened up in the latter third of the season, progressing prior arcs like Juliette and Nick’s relationship and the strains his secrecy puts on them, and introducing new ones like Nick’s partner Hank being unable to deny the fact that he has witnessed things that are not of this world, and how—even if everyone around him will deny it—he will have to mentally cope with what he saw for the rest of his life. It advanced to a satisfying cliffhanger, and an eyebrow-raising twist that will surely have people begging for more answers than the Season 2 premiere will be able to contain.

Once: A-
Grimm: B-

SUB PLOTS: SIDE CHARACTER EXPOSITION / ARCS

This really was the biggest strength of both shows in their initial season.

ONCE:

Once had an interesting way of dealing with the amount of characters Storybrooke claimed that the show runners wanted to cover.  They basically assigned a writer to certain characters (or at least, that’s how it appears when you put the central character and writers credits together through multiple episodes), so that the arcs could claim a certain continuity and flow to them. It’s a move that works in general due to the consistency in which the character’s individual arc sees—it works spectacularly if the given writers have a clear cut concept and inspiration to take the character down a compelling path, and fails epically when the person writing either lacks a true spark to really give us something different, or perhaps just doesn’t “get it”.

That said, Once was able to claim phenomenal character-centric episodes for almost all of its additional characters, starting with the excellent Jiminy Cricket-centric episode “That Still Small Voice”, written by one of my personal favorite writers for the small screen, Buffy alum Jane Espenson.  Pretty much any character that was assigned to Jane (Mr. Gold [Rumpelstiltskin], Belle, Ruby [Red Riding Hood], and the aforementioned Jiminy) was given royal treatment in their characterizations and re-imaginings, as she knocked every single one of their origins and back-stories out of the park. (Not to mention, both Ruby and Belle got upgraded to regulars for the second season.  Color me giddy.)

I took notice because of her looks, I stuck around because of her kick-ass origin.

With these characters and others such as Grumpy and the Geppetto/Pinocchio pair, Once seemed to always strike a perfect balance between the established pop-culture knowledge and recurring traits of the characters, taking them to a much more interpersonal and subtext ridden place, slowly evolving them over time, adding a dash of maturity, with the occasional claim-of -ownership twist for good measure to create stories that should be the prime examples of what Once intends to be.  Suffice to say, those aforementioned character are easily my current favorites on the show given their psychological depth and excellent progressions of their origins.  Even the weaker sub plot arcs like Cinderella don’t bring down what the show was achieving at its peak when it was handling the residents of Storybrooke with a stroke of creative flair and narrative intrigue.

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GRIMM:

Grimm was no slouch here either.  Monroe is simply one of the best comic-relief characters on television right now.  He's a Blutbad (werewolf) who runs into Nick in the Pilot episode when Nick mistakenly assumes him to be the suspect in the disappearance case he's investigating.  After the misunderstanding is cleared up, the two discuss the history of the Grimms and Wesen, Monroe amazed to meet a Grimm in person (and live to tell the tale, it seems most Grimms that proceeded Nick killed first and asked questions never).  The arc he and Nick subsequently go through felt both believable and surprisingly satisfying when you witness the eventual dynamic and mutual respect the characters grow to have for each other.  With obvious implications that he and Nick’s budding friendship is going to be catalytic in more ways than one as the series progresses, you really couldn’t ask for more out of a “buddy cop movie” type of partnership.

[L-R: Monroe, Nick]
“Last time I protected someone for you, it was not exactly a pleasant experience. How is that guy by the way? Were they able to sew his arm back on?”

Even though he was pretty much relegated to being “the contrast of Nick’s life, primarily through the direct character contrast between him and Monroe” for a majority of the season, the arc that they started up roughly 15 episodes in that slowly began dragging Hank into the world of Grimms and Wesen was very well done.  I also thoroughly enjoy Juliette’s character, and the slow burn the writers are using so that we as a viewer fall for her more and more as time goes on in the same vein Nick did is a beloved display of patience and care of viewer investment on the writers part.  It’s also something that scares the hell out of me, mainly because I’ve seen it used as a setup for something truly horrific to befall the character in question. I can recall one particular instance where I felt this type of interest and elation at seeing where the writers would take a side-character’s growth and watching them evolve through various arcs: Amy Acker in the Buffy spin-off Angel as Winifred Burkle, and those of you who watched the entire series know exactly what that sick bastard Joss Whedon did to THAT character after we had fallen ass-over-teakettle for her.  (It doesn’t help that one of the show’s creators, David Greenwalt, is a former Buffy/Angel producer.  Fucking Whedon, he’s made me into the most paranoid bastard whenever I start liking characters.  Partially related side-note: Amy Acker had guest roles in both shows, so that makes them both winners to some extent in my book regardless of the letter-grade outcomes).

I know what you’re thinking of pulling with this character, Greenwalt.

Don't you fucking dare...

The only problem I can find with the Grimm gang is a bit too often it became obvious that they were more tools for Nick to use rather than actually their own characters at times. Rosalee (a young woman who comes into the show about halfway through the season and winds up running her brother’s spice shop after he’s murdered) became the convenient mythical spell remedy guru; Monroe was the go-to guy for creature-of-the-week exposition (the show even mentions this point in a bit of slight meta-humor, when after the umpteenth time of being asked if he knew about a certain type of Wesen, Monroe turns to Nick and says “what am I, your personal Grimmopedia?”); Nick and Hank’s co-worker Sergeant Wu was the snarky bastard who you were just waiting for something to happen to.  Mainly because he would be oblivious to it until the effects took hold, and when they did it would allow Nick and company to have an up-close and easily containable victim of the otherworldly ailment, because you knew there would be no reason to give him all this screen time if he wasn’t going to contribute to the supernatural side of the show in SOME way.  The Scooby Gang from Buffy evolved into that slowly over time, whereas it just kind of quickly became that in Grimm.  Slightly predictable in that sense, and that’s really the one thing that knocks it down a peg.

Once: A-
Grimm: B+

THE PRIMARY ANTAGONISTS

However, if the Sub-Plots and Side Character Arcs were the universal strength between the shows, then Primary Antagonists Arcs were the precise antithesis; the yin to that yang.

ONCE:

This is really primarily a point because of Once Upon A Time’s unbelievable failure in this department. I won’t beat around the bush here: The Evil Queen’s origin arc made her the LAMEST primary antagonist the show could have.

I don’t give two shits if the guys who write her narrative arc are the sole reason the show even exists in the first place, they are being upstaged and shown how you do this shit right on an international stage by people they’ve hired on who can write FAR better tragic back-stories with far more logical psychological progression for characters who are conflicted by their circumstances.  Jane Espenson ALONE completely decimated their attempts to make the Evil Queen sympathetic with her fantastic arcs for Mr. Gold and Ruby.  This bothers me because these same two men are the ones who are credited with writing the fantastic Grumpy-centric episode, “Dreamy”.  It’s an absolute mind-numbing conundrum how they could manage to botch their PRIMARY ANTAGONIST, while giving a second-tier side character such a phenomenal tragedy-based origin.

And the crazy thing is, I called this from the outset.  I’ve been ranting about this since the second episode in.

That’s right, I’ve had a problem with Regina/The Evil Queen since her first centric episode “The Thing You Love Most”.  In it, we find out the price she paid in order to have The Dark Curse (aka “LOST Smoke Monster II: Purple Electric Boogaloo”) befall the Enchanted Realm and send all of its residents to Storybrooke—or “A Land Without Magic” as they put it.  She kills her father—stabs him with a knife no less, so it’s not like she went about this in an impersonal way—but tries to give this “I’m so heartbroken over doing this, don’t you viewers pity my choices?” face.  No, because YOU STILL MADE THE CHOICE YOU SO RESENT.  Call me when the well-being of something of legitimately innocent (no, your moral compass does NOT count as currency here) is somehow involved in whether or not you commit your next despicable act, on the road mind you to doing something you admit is going to destroy everyone’s happiness.  If NO ONE was happy, and their happiness was taken away due to say a balancing act by the world or something for Charming bringing Snow back from the dead with the kiss (thereby making Snow White’s happy ending the lone in-your-face exception), then MAYBE I could see her logic path of wanting to be a Queen who does right by her people, but is conflicted due to the cost of the curse and what it could bring about (doubtful, but still). Alas, it wasn’t.  The entire desire to curse the Enchanted Realm was based on a pathetic and pitiful warpath of vengeance directed towards a girl who—within the most skewed outlook—“wronged” her.

With all due respect Your Highness, you’re as stupid as your outfit is superfluous.

I blame Magneto for the seething hatred I have for this character.  No, I seriously do.  I feel that thanks to Bryan Singer’s first two X-Men films, he is one of the best anti-villain characters around that you can easily reference so that people are able to quickly grasp why exactly you have a problem with a villain who does horrible acts with flighty motives.  The fact that he does what he does not because he wants to be “evil” or a dick, but because of the outlook that his back-story caused that makes him believe that what he’s doing is right is the freaking blueprint for how to write a believable antagonist.  It’s a basic rule of thumb in good literature: unless your antagonist is meant to be a manifestation of pure evil, there has to be a thread of connection or understanding from the audience to the antagonist (even in the slightest of terms).  The primary way to do this, the antagonist MUST have either a strong conviction (usually to the point of delusion) to what they’re doing, with the cause of delusion being something the audience can easily accept or understand; or they must become who they are by sheer circumstance.  This is especially true when you have a show like this that claims a copious amount of compelling characters getting tragic origins that allow us to understand their psyche (again, the fact that they did this perfectly in the Grumpy episode continues to baffle my mind). They didn’t do any of this with the Evil Queen, she garners zero connection or understanding due to the sheer logical fallacy from which her motives are derived.

The killer was, it only got worse from there.

She falls for the Genie (who she eventually turns into her Magic Mirror), “frames” him (ha! puns...) for the murder of her husband that SHE committed (once again using the “it hurts me soo badd” face behind the affected character’s back, before whirling around and acting cold and heartless to one of the few people to truly give two shits about her), and has nothing but contempt in her eyes when he’s begging for a reason as to why she did it. And then comes the episode centric to her hate for Snow, “The Stable Boy”.

Once upon a time, before the Queen (sans “Evil” prefix) gained her claim to royalty, she was a young girl named Regina and deeply in love with a stable boy named Daniel.  For reasons likely of ye olde political bullshit (like “you’re supposed to marry for power, you kitchen-dwelling baby-oven”), her mother wants to force her into marrying Snow White’s father King Leopold, after Regina saves the young girl from her runaway horse.  Regina’s mother Cora does not approve of Daniel (obviously).  She is also a callous, emotionally bankrupt, magically inclined BITCH who manipulates people as if it was her God-given ability.

Despite this disapproval, Regina runs to Daniel to tell him that they should run away together and never look back. It’s a classic Romeo & Juliet tale… until they decided to start making out in the stable that little Snow White happens to wander into.  Regina gives chase to the fleeing youth and explains that she doesn’t love Snow’s father, she loves Daniel. After some convincing, Snow White understands and is happy for Regina because she found “twuu wuvv”, and agrees to keep this a secret.

Of course, Cora comes into the picture, and manipulates the naive little girl into revealing the true reason for Regina’s unhappiness, with promises of nothing but concern and love for Regina’s well-being (because that’s what master manipulators do. Adults fall for that shit, what hope does a wide-eyed child who thinks the world is a decent place have?)  She then proceeds to stop Regina and Daniel just before they can sneak off into the night from the stables in their runaway attempt.  Cora once again flexes her manipulation muscle and says “you can go if you like Regina”, and then goes over to Daniel and says “always do what’s best for your children”. What she actually means by that is RIP OUT THE HEART OF THE BOY YOUR DAUGHTER LOVES IF YOU DON’T APPROVE!  Of course, with her only reason for running now maggot food, Regina bends to her mother’s will and marries Leopold.

And who is the obvious basis of hatred after reading that? Why, the CHILD of course. Never mind that you just watched your own mother input Back-Back-Low Punch for the Heart Rip Fatality, no, clearly the child who was tricked by the manipulating adult is the one to blame.

You call it malicious intent, everyone with active brain cells calls it childhood naiveté.

A child.  She chose to hold a grudge against a looks-about-8-years-of-age child because her mother is a sadistic bitch.  A sadistic bitch who’s dancing around with your lover’s HEART IN HER HAND saying “nanny-nanny-boo-boo / no-happiness-for-youu / he’s-nothing-more-than-horse-poo” and the first thing you do is clench your fist, turn away and say “curse you, hopefully little child”? NO! Fuck you MOM for being a controlling, batshit crazy, festering sore of human existence!  For that amazing bout of stupid alone Regina should go die in a ditch. She can be with Daniel, and we won’t have to endure any more “bawwing” from this dumb broad.  Win all the way around.

The sad thing is, Regina is actually a pretty good antagonist in Storybrooke (like, teeth grindingly annoying in the way an antagonist is supposed to be), but not even that can save her from the completely inept reasoning behind why they are all in Storybrooke in the first place, and the abhorrent acts she commits to see the curse through so she can extract vengeance on a young woman who possessed the naiveté of a little girl when she was... 
a little girl. Fail, fail, fail.

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GRIMM:
That whole rant has taken a lot out of me, and with Grimm the real problem is both the lack of a consistent threat from the alleged Primary Antagonists, and the aforementioned disappearance of them from the main arc in the middle of the season.  The Reapers (supposedly fearsome people who hunt Grimms down) finally run into Nick in one of the last episodes of the season and get properly dispatched in the span of a fifteen minute fight scene, with Nick barely batting an eyelash.  Legitimate threat my ass, Nick actually trolls the guy who sent them by sending their heads back in a box. BAMF point for the Grimm, but a Fail point for the Reaper Keeper.

I’m surprised Nick didn’t go for the ultimate troll attempt and have the note say “All your base are belong to us.”

I can’t really include Captain Renard yet because his motives are unclear and he has yet to actually directly “antagonize” our protagonist, lest we count the few BS missions he sent Adelaide on.  Really, the only thing that keeps this section above water for Grimm is the Hexenbiest Adelaide. She first attempted to take out Nick’s Aunt Marie (who passed the knowledge of the Grimms and her stash of miscellany down to him) early in the season, and then successfully cursed Juliette in the finale arc before Nick finally stripped the crazy witch of her powers.

Once: F
Grimm: D+


SECONDARY ANTAGONISTS

ONCE:
Now that I think about it, Once didn’t really seem to have any secondary antagonists (well, none worthy of legitimate mention that weren’t mere one-episode bumps in the road in Storybrooke). One could argue a case for Mr. Gold, but it’s hard for me to label him a straight antagonist, maybe because his phenomenal back-story didn’t do much in the way of making him an easily dis-likeable antagonistic, but more a pity worthy figure of tragedy. I’d probably prefer to give him the label of tritagonist before I gave him one of antagonist.  Still, I guess given his actions overall being primarily shady, including those in the finale, I’ll count him, which bumps the grade up a tick.

“I’m a difficult man to love...”

Not when Jane Espenson writes your back-story...

Other than that, there where occasional ones in the Enchanted Realm, like The Blind Witch and Maleficent, but they were both fleeting bits with little to no actual use in the overall story (Maleficent was basically relegated to the role of “Conveniently Deadly Storage Locker / Last Level Boss Battle” for the season finale episode “A Land Without Magic”). Funny how the lack of secondary antagonists worked out, because more of them could’ve helped take my mind off of the abhorrent primary antagonist they kept trying to shove down my throat as if she had legitimate motives.

+          +          +

GRIMM:
As for Grimm, this was obviously one of it’s initial strengths given the fact that each episode was more often than not about a fabled creature from the pages of Grimms’ Fairy Tales stepping out of line in a hostile manner and giving Nick shit when he eventually tracked them down.  The creature variety, coupled with the solid arcs they were given and the lack of ham-fisting the exposition each required is what really allowed me the fun curiosity of wondering which character would be Nick find himself at odds with in the subsequent episode (This basically worked in stark contrast to Once, where it was “who will be the protagonist in the flashback” as opposed to “who will be the antagonist of the week”).  The only problem was the fact that they actually started overshadowing the Primary Antagonists a bit too much in the middle of the season as previously stated, to the point where it almost felt like the episodes had a cadence akin to an episode of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers than a major network primetime serial drama.  However, this feeling for me only lasted an episode or two, at which point they put the wheels in motion for the finale arc, and the symptoms vanished rather quickly.  The obvious note of “it also helps that Nick doesn’t know anything about them, so learning along with him helps the audience connect to him” aside, they handled it just about as best they could with minor slip ups or falters.

Once: C+
Grimm: B

OVERALL GRADES—SEASON ONE

Once: B- 

(A-; A-; F; C+)
[It shined brilliantly in certain categories, but completely failing in a critical area drags the overall grade down.  I guess the use of the catchphrase “From the writers of LOST” had a bit of karma attached to it.]

Grimm: B

(B-; B+; D+; B)
[A solid opening season with a good, yet somewhat predictable cadence that did well in establishing the universe, with a fantastic finale arc that gave us an intriguing cliff hanger to keep us wanting more.]

I am unsure if I will do this article again for Season 2 of the shows, but I will say that both are off to a very good start despite their initial flaws and failings, and I am very interested to see where both shows go with the introductory phase out of the equation.

Grimm’s second season currently airs Mondays at 10/9c on NBC.

Once Upon A Time’s second season starts Sunday, September 30th at 8/7c on ABC.
(Dates and times are accurate as of this writing [8/17/2012])

Theme Park Thoughts: Harry Potter & The Forbidden Journey

For a while now I've been trying to get some of my more vocal friends to contribute to the site, mainly due to my terrible back log of content that can never find its way from the "in progress" queue to the desired finished state as fast as I would like. A recent discussion with one of my best friends, Blizz, was sparked by a frequent topic of ours -- theme parks. In particular, the rants and narrative analysis I wanted to do on some of their attractions as part of the Theme Park Thoughts series. Luckily, Blizz's affinity for completed works far outweighs my own, and he has graciously allowed me to share his phenomenal narrative-based rant on a ride we both consider to be one of the best attractions of all-time: Harry Potter & The Forbidden Journey. Enjoy.

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by Blizz

Originally written: June 3rd, 2012

Let me be clear, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey is one of the best rides I’ve ever been on. It also follows one of the most moronic plotlines ever conceived.

You could ask me why I’m freely choosing to pick on a ride that I actually think is one of the best attractions in the world, when I could just as easily take pot shots at some defenseless idiot of a ride, like Curse of DarKastle at Busch Gardens Williamsburg.  And I still might.  But it’s the fact that Forbidden Journey is so well-known and so beloved that makes its complete and utter disregard for the story it’s telling all the more inexplicable.

This review is my last-ditch attempt to understand why J.K. Rowling was such a stickler for details with every aspect of the Wizarding World…except when it came to its marquee attraction.  Maybe she was stuck in a daydream (presumably one vividly depicting all the fun people wouldn’t have on Pottermore), or maybe she figured whatever team was working on this could…I don’t know…do it themselves?

Whatever it was, something went wrong.

But enough intro, let’s get to the ride.

Prior to riding, we get a tour of many parts of the castle – we start first in the dungeons, then move into the greenhouse, and finally reach Dumbledore’s office, where the headmaster at last introduces us to our roles in this little adventure.  We’re muggles, apparently – the first ever to tour the castle.

And here, from the very first premise of the ride itself, my bullshit meters start going crazy.

If you think about what we’re being told here for even the slightest amount of time, your mind will explode with so many questions that this plot (already) deserves to be scrapped.  We’re talking the-Wizarding-World-has-experienced-society-shattering-changes-and-someone-better-tell-me-what-the-hell-they-are-before-my-brain-hemmorages type problems.

Doesn’t anyone remember the International Statue of Wizarding Secrecy?  You know, the law exists to ensure that the Wizarding World is safely hidden from the muggle world.  I know I sound like a huge fanboy here, citing wizard-law, but really, this is isn’t a technicality.  It’s more like the fundamental basis of the Harry Potter universe.  The wizarding world is a secret.  Period.

There are big penalties for even the slightest infraction of this law – in a lot of cases, people’s wands are confiscated, which is kind of like removing your ability to be a contributing member of society.

So just what the fuck has happened that we’re suddenly giving everyday muggles tours of wizarding schools?  Was there great societal upheaval?  Has the Ministry of Magic completely collapsed now that anarchy reigns?  Does that mean Cornelius Fudge is rotting in Azkaban?  Are there riots in major muggle cities now that 7 billion people now know that there’s a sizable population that can do everything from erase their memories to turn them into tea kettles on a whim?  Is no one going to let me know if the resulting wide-spread mania is resulting in calls for World War III?

So, since it’s physically fucking impossible to even begin to sort out this alternate universe that Universal’s created, I’m going to have to go with the cleanest solution I can conjure up.  There’s no societal upheaval, there are no huge changes to the way the Wizarding World operates in the books and movies.  And that means...Dumbledore is a lunatic.

And I really think that’s a bold choice on the part of both Universal and J.K. Rowling.  You’d expect that they’d take the easy route and just have a completely sane Dumbledore give us a simple plotline.  Instead we get all this interesting subtext!  And let’s face it, no other ride sports a preshow where you’re literally unsure of whether or not the authority figure is too nuts to make it to the safety instructions before he blows his brains out in front of everyone.  You’ve got to hand it to the guy, this is the biggest screw-you to the man ever conceived.  You know, if the man was everyone you know and love.

Well I guess there WERE a few times where he KIND OF screwed everyone over...

And considering the conga line you’re walking in, it looks like Dumbledore’s not just making an exception to the rule.  He’s got the Ford fucking assembly line going here, mass producing treason. What an asshole.

Finally, feeling crushed and dumbfounded, we’re allowed to make our way into the next preshow, where Harry, Ron, and Hermione sneak in to tell us that we’re headed straight for a boring lecture telling us all about Wizarding history which, after the complete catastrophe that was the last preshow, I’d actually be pretty damn interested in.  But the trio assure me I’ll have a more fun if I follow them and go get burned alive, smashed, and eaten – I mean…go watch a game of Quidditch.

I haven’t even the slightest idea why Harry wants to be a part of Dumbledore’s batshit plan to watch the world burn, and I certainly can’t figure out why he’d risk the likely inhuman punishment that surely follows from derailing the first ever tour of Hogwarts just so guests can watch him play sports.  Does that make Harry strangely a narcissistic jackass?  I mean…possibly.  Still, considering there were no universe-shattering revelations in this scene, I leave feeling like I got off scot free.

So we wander aimlessly around random rooms in the castle, because son-of-a-bitch Harry told us to meet him in the Room of Requirement (you know, that hidden magical room that only a few people know about?), but neglected to give us any directions to get there.  Thanks, Harry.  As I’m forced to remember all too often, I’m a muggle, meaning that my experience in navigating foreign castles with shifting staircases is pretty close to nil.

As a result, we go completely out of our way and  stumble through the Gryffindor Common Room before finally doubling back to find the Room of Req.  There we find some magic benches that Hermione has enchanted to fly.  She smiles and says a spell I don’t recognize, and then the theme music whisks us off into the ride.

Suddenly we’re at the top of the astronomy tower.  As if to confirm that this isn’t going to be the shortest ride ever, Ron conveniently points out the obvious:  “Hermione did it!  They’re flying!”

We head out towards the Quidditch pitch until Hagrid stops us by the bridge, holding up some large broken shackles.  “Haven’t seen the dragon, have yeh?”

So…I guess Hagrid’s breaking the law again, and got another dragon, this time a full grown one, which he’s been keeping in secret on school premises.  I find this a little hard to believe, since he couldn’t keep a baby secret for more than 5 minutes after it hatched.  At least this blind spot is consistent with Hagrid’s character, but I’m also sure I heard one of the paintings say “Did you hear?  Hagrid’s lost the dragon again,” on my way through the queue line.  So, does everyone know about clearly illegal animal freely roaming the grounds?  Did all the third years pool their money together to buy a Hungarian Horntail as a class pet?  For reference, this thing is thirty feet tall and wants to murder everything in sight.

 Just to be sure, everyone's ok with this murder-machine living right next door, right?

We’re chased around by this fire-breathing ball of death until we fall face first into the Forbidden Forest.  Flashes of lightning tell us that it’s time to be afraid.  I briefly ponder how all these flashes can penetrate the thick layers upon layers of leaves that block out all sunlight (especially when I didn’t see any lightning in the actual sky ten seconds ago). Maybe the forest generates its own internal weather patterns that only exist below the canopy?  But I digress, and the ride reminds me that I have bigger problems by promptly spitting in my face.

For once, that’s actually not me being dramatic – a spider the size of a Toyota Tundra bursts out of the forest and spits in my face.  The other spiders in the forest start following suit, and pretty soon I’m just living out a nightmare I probably have every five nights anyway.

This is leaving me pretty nervous over the status of our heroes.  Harry and Ron are nowhere to be found.  Were they burned off-screen by the dragon while we weren’t looking?  Were they torn apart by these aracontulas while I was blinded by spider-spit?  Surely they wouldn’t leave us for dead…it’s their fault we’re in this mess anyway, so just where the hell are they?

Luckily, Hermione’s here (…huh?) to lead us out of the forest.  Yeah…she’s there…standing right in the middle of this spider-lair making not even the slightest attempt to conceal herself.  That’s ok, though, since the spiders are crawling all around her, ignoring her presence completely.  How did she even know we were here, considering we were all the way across school grounds when we ran into trouble?  More perplexing:  How did she even get here?  She then calmly delivers the biggest understatement she can manage:  “The forest isn’t safe!”

So anyway, we escape the woods, dodge the Whomping Willow, and head to the Quidditch Pitch.  Though, considering our escorts have probably been dismembered over the course of the last two scenes, I’m not really sure why we we’re still going.

We get there and…son of a bitch…

Harry’s perfectly unscathed.  And what’s worse, over the last three or four scenes, it’s immediately apparent that he’s been ignoring our imminent death to play sports.  As if to rub it all in, he turns back to us and says:  “Where’ve you been?”

Where’ve I been!?  Where’ve YOU been, you dick?

No wonder.

Is this the same Harry Potter I read about?  This guy reminds me more of a complete sociopath than anything else.  Seriously, there’s no way that Harry simply didn’t notice we were gone.  There’s no way he didn’t notice that that disappearance coincided EXACTLY with the moment we were attacked by a vicious dragon.  The only explanation is that he intentionally left us behind because we were holding him up on his way to his precious Quidditch match.  Holy Christ, what happened to that “saving people” thing? 

He says, “The snitch, follow me!”  The ride says we should, but I have a suspicion that we’re all only doing this because we want to catch this guy and wring his neck.

We really only have time to hear Draco Malfoy spout some generic trash-talking line about Harry’s mother before the plot, once and for all, collapses completely.

And it happens with one line.

“Dementors!”

Thanks, Ron.

This one word leaves me feeling so insulted on so many levels, that I feel I need to freeze our progression right here, right now.

I’m going to start by noting that the dialogue in this ride has almost completely fallen apart at this point.  There are almost no lines that last more than three words, and we’re inhabiting some sort of weird, Scooby-Doo type universe where all the characters only exist to state the skull-numbingly obvious.

“The Dragon!” --  “Dementors!” -- “They’re flying!” along with about twenty variations of the phrase “Look out!” comprise the entirety of the script.  I know it’s a ride, not a movie, but seriously – it’s not too hard to put actual characters into a ride, instead of a collection of sounding boards.  Here, let’s use an example from my personal favorite dark ride, The Amazing Adventures of Spiderman.

ORIGINAL VERSION

J. Jonah:  My SCOOP! My beautiful SCOOP…!

[Doc Ock misses Spiderman and hits a theater sign with his levitation cannon.]

Spiderman:  Woa!  Doc, your aim’s worse than your haircut!

Ock:  Well it’s good enough for your sitting-duck friends! [Blasts the SCOOP.] Have a nice trip!

[SCOOP rises up into the NYC skyline.]

Spiderman:  Hey, wait for me!  You’re not insured for this!

HP-altered Version

J. Jonah:  It isn’t safe out there!

[Ock misses theater sign]

Spiderman:  Woa!  You missed.

Ock:  I can still catch your friends. [Hits SCOOP.] I got you!

[SCOOP rises]

Spiderman:  You’re flying!

[Spiderman watches SCOOP rise, but neglects to follow.  He takes out his camera to take pictures for Bugle, realizing that it’s both inconvenient to pursue it and that he needs some shots to get his paycheck tomorrow.  Oh, Mary Jane’s calling.  He’ll catch up with the plot later.]

You see what happens when you take a pretty good scene and strip it down to a narration?  And on top of it, add characters acting completely out of character?  It sounds stupid as hell, doesn’t it?

Ok, now let’s get to the bigger issue here.  Dementors.  Their presence and the reaction to it is so insane and baffling that they deserve a few paragraphs of commentary, just to themselves.

First off, everyone knows muggles can’t see dementors right?  Like, that’s the one creature that JKR went out of her way to mention was invisible to non-magic folk.  And this ride already took such pains to call us muggles…I’m just left dumbfounded.

Why the fuck are they here?  They have no reason to be.  There are no dark wizards on the loose.  Even if they were acting rogue, how did they get onto the school grounds?  Did Dumbledore think it was a good idea to let them in on the same day that he let muggles into the school for the first time?  Is he trying to kill us?  This is starting to look increasingly likely, and I’m forced to wonder why the most logical solution for every plothole so far has been that Dumbledore is a cackling maniac.

You really ARE a scumbag...

And why is no one reacting to this?  A horde of SOUL-SUCKING MONSTERS has descended onto the playing field and is KILLING ATHLETES RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE SPECTATORS.  If your response is anything below the level of “HOLY SHIT” then you have some serious issues.  The most we hear is “Dementors!” and maybe an “Oh no!”?

What kind of screwed up alternate Hogwarts did we fall into?  There’s no connection between any of the events that have transpired so far.  Want proof?  Tell me, if this plotline was presented to you ENTIRELY IN REVERSE, would it make any less sense?

No, of course not, because this whole thing is one big montage.  It’s like we’re riding Jimmy Neutron’s Nicktoon Blast or something.

Ok, now that I’ve got this all off my chest…let’s continue.  Somehow we fall into what I believe is the Chamber of Secrets and have to dodge the dementors we shouldn’t be able to see but can anyway.  Harry’s gone missing again.  No surprises there.  Finally, when things finally look their bleakest, Harry’s forced to finally do a good deed and save us all by Expecto Patronum-ing all the dementors.

“Follow me!” he says.  Then, suddenly, the tunnel starts caving in, for what reason I don’t know.  In any case, this is the script’s last chance to make an impression on me and it does a marvelous job, as Harry shouts out such memorable lines as “It’s caving in!” and “Watch out!” And who could forget the part when he said “We have to get out, quick!”  Pure gold, all of it.

So after escaping Wild Arctic’s finale, we immediately fly to the great hall, where Harry’s being held up by the entire Gryffindor team, snitch-in-hand.  “Thanks everybody!  You were brilliant!”

I mean, I guess I was pretty—Hey wait.  Wait.  When did you catch that snitch Harry,  huh?  I don’t think you caught it in the game – it was interrupted by dementors.  The only time you could’ve gotten it was…oh no.  You piece of crap.

The only explanation is that Harry went back to get it while we were in the Chamber running from dementors.  Seriously?  He abandoned us AGAIN for sports?  What kind of a person does that?  Oh my GOD this is insane.

This is the ONLY argument for not killing him right now, on the spot.

Dumbledore says I’m welcome back “anytime,” but it’s Harry’s betrayal I’m still reeling from when my feet touch the ground again.  Wow.

So what’s the end result?  Well, contrary to everything you’ve read, this is, as I stated from the beginning, actually one of the best rides in the world.  It’s succeeds with flying colors in every area EXCEPT the plot, so I should to acknowledge it’s better than just about every other dark ride on the planet (ahem, except Spidey).  But I mean…come on.  How hard is it really to think up a plot that isn’t so completely at odds with common sense, when you have the author on board?

Oh well.  I guess there’s nothing more I can do.  Nothing, I suppose, besides frantically re-reading the entire Potter series, starting with the assumption that Harry really is in love with his own celebrity, while Dumbledore spends the majority of his time plotting unique and grisly ends for each of the supporting characters.  I expect interesting results.

TITANIC: 100 Year-Anniversary -- A Retrospect on James Cameron’s Blockbuster

by XdarksparkX

Originally written: April 7 – 14, 2012

James Cameron’s Titanic changed my life.  At least, to a degree.  I know that seems like a wrought cliché in 2012, but in this instance it rings true 110%.  It’s what got me interested in the history of the infamous ship, and its what made me an enthusiast of the ill-fated story and subsequent wreck that it claims.  It was one of the key films in my life that managed to illicit such a prominent emotional response from (the then 9-year-old) me that something within said “This is what I want to do with my life: I want to tell stories that move people like this.”
 

Which is funny considering that I frequently state that I am very under whelmed by the first two and a half hours of the film.
 

I could go into a tirade right now, or my usual foaming-at-the-mouth “stark ranting mad” persona here, but I won’t.  That’s not what this particular write up is about.  I feel like I finally “get” what Cameron was truly attempting to pull out of his audience with this film.  Yes the story he wrote was very basic and utilitarian, and some the characters were one-dimensional, but subsequent recent viewings due to the fast-approaching 100th Anniversary have given me a deeper insight than I had previously claimed in understanding what Cameron was attempting as a whole—particularly with the slow burn of the film.  The ship only lasted 4 days, so illustrating as much of those four days as possible helps drive home the emotional gut check when the inevitable tragedy befalls the “unsinkable” ship.  That’s fairly obvious to some.  Yet there was something more…
 

There was something Cameron captured, something that I haven’t been able to quantify or describe properly, so this is my attempt.  What I do know, is that it’s something that has little to do with the slightly superfluous love-story between Rose and Jack.
 

Let it be stated early in this piece, I believe Titanic is classified as a good movie in spite of the 140 minute love story that proceeds the disaster, not because of it.  Titanic isn’t really about star-crossed lovers meeting on an ill-fated ocean liner.  It’s a much deeper human interest story whose emotional depths stretches as far down as the 12,500 feet where the remains of Harland and Wolff’s epitome of early 1900’s luxury now resides in the North Atlantic ocean.  In fact, all you would have to do is tell me the setup (poor boy / rich girl fall for each other), and then proceed to show me the beginning of the end, and personally I would be just as invested as I was with the final cut.  The love story is basically compartmentalized by the scene where Rose jumps from the lifeboat back on the ship.  That scene is so powerful due to what we know is going to befall the ship, the referential line of “you jump, I jump” only has its emotional power slightly boosted by its previous mention.
 

Now, obviously there are scenes that give us exposition behind Rose’s life catalyst known as Jack Dawson, since the story is really using first and second person narrative when Rose is recollecting back to the ship.  This exposition is obviously there to make him an endearing character (9-year-old me thought he was a pretty badass dude, all things considered), so I can’t say that it’s entirely a wash.  Still, I stand by my stance that there was something much deeper and more horrific that Cameron was able to illustrate beyond just the sudden birth and swift death of a classic romance.

...Like what happens when you get water in your Panavision film camera.

There are two scenes that are forever burned into my memory. The first is the unbelievably tragic montage to the haunting rendition of Nearer My God To Thee by the ship’s band, with the mother putting her children to sleep before the coming embrace of fate takes them away, and the old couple holding each other as the water rushes in around their bed.  That latter image is probably the only film image that can consistently get me choked up, no matter how much I brace and prepare my mind for it, it always gets me.  It was during this scene, that the light bulb clicked I got what Cameron captured.  It was the horrible, depressing truth of it all. The fact that some of these scenarios likely played out on that ship, stories which we will never know because those who lived them took up their final residence upon the seabed of the North Atlantic a century ago.
 

The second scene was something that further drove this point home, but with far more haunting imagery.  Back in 1998, for the first time in my life, I felt a cold, horrified chill fall over me.  I had watched Scream a year before (my first “real” horror movie), but this was something that truly and completely terrified my soul:  Officer Lowe deciding to go back and save people, only to realize he waited too long when he sees the corpse of a mother and her infant amidst the frozen wasteland.  He then calls to the black,  “Is there anyone alive out there? Can anyone hear me?”  The power in this (again, something that I just realized during recent viewings) was that almost every character we see meet a tragic end was introduced to us at one point or another throughout the ship’s lifespan of the film. It was only when I realized that the woman with the baby was the same one who asked Captain Smith: “Captain, where should I go? Please?” only to get no response, that I literally jumped back as if the Reaper himself had spawned from my television.  Cameron had basically planted these minor characters in your subconscious, so that when he revisited them after the wreck had claimed their bodies, you unknowingly had an emotional connection to seeing their corpses. He managed to somehow throw the despicable fact that we as humans don’t tend to truly “see” people until it’s too late right back into our faces, and haunt our very being while doing so.
 

However, at the very least, Cameron didn’t completely waste those initial 140 minutes.  He used it in an attempt to further our emotional connection to the characters, no matter how seldom that effect might have been in the long run for some of us, it made the movie what it was for others.
 

Of course I can’t write about Titanic without mentioning the infamous “floating door” scene.  I’ve heard some people defend this scene by stating that the reason Rose didn’t insist that Jack simply climb on top of her were the “social norms” and gender roles that were of the time period.  The only problem with this logic is the fact that Rose’s character has spent the majority of the past 165 minutes attempting to buck those trends, and Jack’s entire purpose within the narrative is to further that rebellious attitude.  So how can she look the man who’s been helping her embrace this and NOT once think ‘screw social conventions, this is about life and death’?  It’s not like she was unaware at how frigidly cold the waters of the Atlantic were that night, she had been in there just as he was.  Cameron’s explanation is that it was not a matter of space, but of buoyancy. If they had tried to balance it out, the door would’ve been pushed down enough where they both would’ve been exposed to the waters enough to the point where neither could survive.  The problem with this explanation is that it leaves a remaining logical fallacy, which comes from the fact that Jack was a bit too perceptive in realizing that it would act as Cameron stated after only one attempt at getting on the door, which came from overloading the same side of the object and watching it naturally tilt over.  I understand the basis of Cameron’s subtext of “women and children first” even until the end, and the duality between the men in her life, as Jack graciously gets Rose on the door and chooses to stay in the icy tomb of an ocean while we are just 20 minutes removed from watching her ex-fiancé beat people with an oar to stave them off from swamping his lifeboat.  Still, the scene just doesn’t sit right with me.

"So Leo, this is where you're gonna die. Now, despite science telling us corpses float (like the ones all around you), all of the heterosexual men who will have to hear about how dreamy you are for the next two years are going to pull you down. It's a symbolic troll-face moment. There won't be a dry feminine eye in the house, and I will proceed to wipe my ass with Charmin Ultra culled from diamonds from here on out. Everybody good with that?  No?  Too bad, let's shoot it!"

I do realize now that there is a deeper subtext that had to take place with Jack’s death, and why I am now at least slightly more forgiving of the scene than I was over the past 15 years.  He needed to die to further the gut punch of the fact that every one of the “forgettable people” (Jack, Fabrizo, Tommy, etc) in the film perish during the sinking, without word or legacy to carry on their memory, save for Rose.  It’s not only to show Rose as someone who was not oblivious to the plight of others (as she had lived it with them, while most of her peers sat in the lifeboats built for 40 but carrying only TWELVE GODDAMN PASSENGERS! *ahem* Sorry, nerd rage moment there), but also as a commentary on the fact that they were the people we connected with.  The good of these characters and the realization that they would “exist only in memory” when they passed, while the people we grew to loathe, despise, or just not care for (Cal and Rose’s mother Ruth) would pass on some frame of remembrance and historic mention simply by their position in life.  I don’t think it’s as much about Rich=Bad; Poor=Good (though it’s very easy to take that away from it given how the character archetypes played out), but more of the fact that the cold truth of our world is that some of the best people will be forgotten in favor of those in more lucrative social standings.

Despite both actresses who played Rose claiming to believe different, Cameron stated, “I want people to decide for themselves whether or not Old Rose died in her sleep, or is simply dreaming.”  It’s interesting that he said that because upon close examination of the final scene, 9-year-old me got chills when I realized that everyone, and I do mean EVERYONE who died the night of the sinking is present in the Grand Staircase when she reunites with Jack.  Fabrizo, Tommy, and Mr. Andrews are obvious selections.  As are lesser ones like Trudy (Rose’s stewardess aboard the ship) and John Jacob Astor.  However, upon further viewings, there are characters in which Rose had little to no actually physical interaction with (that we saw at least) that make an appearance.  Captain Smith, Officer Murdoch, Cora (the little girl Jack was originally dancing with at the lower class party he takes Rose to) and her father, and even bandleader Wallace Hartley and his troupe.  All of whom we can safely assume perished on that horrific night, all of whom are present.  This is primarily what leads me to come to the conclusion that Cameron’s intention was that she really did pass away that night, an old lady warm in her bed, just as Jack had envisioned for her.