Dude, You're *rocking* That Frog Costume

Spider-Man [2002]

By 2002, the superhero genre was making a solid recovery. Blade had done well, but it was 2000's X-Men that really jump-started it. No...

My review of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man.

1695

BOW BEFORE THE MIGHT OF MY SEXY

How sexy is your name?

Add the letters in your first name using the numbers below =)  - Under 60 points= NOT TOO SEXY - Between 61-300 points= PRETTY SEXY - Between 301-599 points= VERY SEXY - Over 600= THE ULTIMATE SEXIEST

  A=100 B=14 C=9 D=28 E=145 F=12

G=3 H=10 I=200 J=100 K=114 L=100 M=25

N=450 O=80 P=2 Q=12 R=400 S=113 T=405

U=11 V=10 W=10 X=3 Y=210 Z=23

Don’t forget to add your name and your total!!!

[Not the anon, but I'd be interested in your answer to these objections.]

I don't have any problem whatsoever with the ideas in the episode - conceptually, it's brilliant. "The Moon is an egg" is a contender for the best premise Doctor Who has ever had. Playing it out against a backdrop of a humanity that has lost interest in space exploration and, in the process, in its own future gives the story real weight and resonance. And putting the fate of the Moon's life and humanity's future in the hands of three women of wildly different generations and experiences is terrific, giving a fantastically feminist spin to a golden-age yarn.

But I've watched it three times, and every time, I found the execution in both the writing and directing badly lacking, and despite some lovely moments (particularly the last scene), it feels like a near-miss to me.

To begin with, the entire thing is set up by the Doctor telling Courtney she's "not special", which Clara suggests will impact her entire life, and Courtney responds with, "You can’t just take me away like that! It’s like you kicked a big hole in the side of my life! You really think it? I’m nothing? I’m not special?"

Admittedly, it’s been a while since I was a young disruptive influence myself, but I don't buy this. At all. I mean, a rebellious 15-year-old responds to getting told they're "not special" basically by rejecting it and forgetting that person exists, assuming they care in the first place. And if they do go into a deep funk and freak out about it, honestly, they're probably immature and spoiled, which certainly isn't how Courtney's been built up. Her entire reaction rings completely false, and, worse, it basically means she spends the entire episode moping around. It feels like those artificial Hollywood stories about parents who are evil for missing the kid's baseball game because they were making a living and, you know, putting food on the kid's table when they get back from the game. The drama falls flat, and Courtney, who I really liked in The Caretaker, ends up being written like an obnoxious TV 10-year-old. Ellis George is appealing when given the chance, but she can't sell this guano. This failure is especially egregious in a season that excels at building the stories on vividly real drama and characterizations.

(I do love the bit where the Doctor suggests the astronauts shoot her first, though.)

And this sort of thing comes from a script that delivers its ideas in an incredibly sloppy way. The clearest example is probably the spidery death of Red Shirt Astronaut #2. He gets all of two lines before getting spidered to death 1/3 of the way in, at which point Lundvik stops to give a eulogy about how he was the guy who trained her, and apparently his name was Duke, and she’s really upset about all this, and I’m just mildly surprised the astronauts actually knew each others’ names for all they’ve actually acknowledged each other at this point. Maybe if the script had cared to develop any of the astronauts at all, this might have some impact, but it doesn’t even get around to telling us Lundvik’s name before the end credits, let alone give her any sort of apparent personality beyond the intensity Hermione Norris gives her. Of course it doesn’t bother with the red shirts. I mean, were we really supposed to care when she delivers her eulogy?

Or there's little details like Courtney taking a big antibacterial bottle with her in her spacesuit. Even the Doctor’s advanced spacesuits look large and cumbersome, and seem unlikely to have pockets large enough for that. But even if they do, does Ms Disruptive Influence really seem like the kind of girl to go through the hassle of carrying around a full-size bottle of Windex in her spacesuit?

Even the climactic debate between Lundvik, Clara, and Courtney has moments that feel off. When Lundvik proclaims, “It is killing people. It is destroying the Earth,” Clara responds with “You cannot blame a baby for kicking.” All the coastal cities were flooded. Lundvik rightly calls it “the greatest natural disaster in history.” The baby kicking metaphor kinda breaks down once you’ve broken the 100 million mark on your death slate. All this sloppy writing climaxes, of course, with the moment where Clara asks the world to vote, but they only get 45 minutes, meaning we actually only get the votes of Europe, whoever actually has lights in Africa, and the American East Coast. That 45 minutes is completely arbitrary, just to put a bit of faux-cleverness in the cold open. Changing the deadline to 24 hours wouldn't impact the story in any negative way, and would allow the entire world to actually vote.

None of this is helped by the directing; the color is badly washed out, removing any sense of wonder to the moon, but that's the only limp attempt at atmosphere in the thing. None of the horror builds tension. The action sequences, while thankfully not the point, are poorly done. Rather than papering over the flaws of the script, the directing only exacerbates the parts that don't work, and don't help the bits that do.

Which brings me to the backdrop. The idea of the world having abandoned space travel, only recovering it when shown something truly beautiful, and thus embracing its future, has a powerful relevance. But this idea is basically mentioned offhandedly in a couple of lines. We never see this world, and the few mentions of it by the astronauts aren't enough for it to really sink in emotionally. The Doctor's speech at the end almost seems to come out of nowhere.

As I say, I love the idea conceptually. I snarked about the science on my blog, but I don't actually have a problem with that; I'm not going to object an awesome idea like "the Moon is an egg", and if I'm not going to object to that, who cares about the fact that the Space Shuttle had no ability to make it to the moon and its landing is ludicrous? It's all in fun, and complaining about it really isn't much more than snarking. I mean, yes, when you can say with a straight face that Michael Bay’s Armageddon had a superior grasp on astronomy, physics, and how the space program actually works, you could probably at least check the first paragraph of the corresponding Wikipedia pages before filming. But Moffat’s fairy tale approach hasn't bothered me before, and I love it more often than not. I mean, if you don’t like the moon hatching into a dragonfly, you’re probably watching the wrong show.

But the characterizations, atmosphere, and world-building all feel sloppy and dashed-off, leaving it to stand strictly on its ideas (which are admittedly grand) and some magnificent Doctorishness. That's enough that I certainly don't hate it, but it's very much the mess the Anon claims it to be.

Poppycock, sir! Kill the Moon is a mess.

I mean, I assume you’ve read my review of it, so where do you disagree?

My review of Robot of Sherwood.

"The meeting between these two fantastic figures should be the most revolutionary and politically explosive episode since...

... oh, no, wait, it's a Gatiss script."

Boy doesn’t give a damn, girl finds inspiration in correctly defining “tomorrow”, and all of us who love the movie put our hands in on ears going “la-la-la I can’t hear you” about the racism.

Spoil the ending of your favorite movie with no context.

He spins a top that may or may not have fallen over before reuniting with his children.

I honestly expected another all-Moffat-women-are-the-same post when I clicked the link   and was positively suprised   not only does it include a deconstruction of the femme fatale archetype and how it apploes to Moffat's characters   but also some really good comparison between Amy and Clara   meta   non-celebratory business   sherlock   doctor who   clara oswald   amy pond   irene adler   mary watson   mary morstan   I DON'T like the use of the word 'real' in the manner   it just reminds me unpleasantly   and I don't usually make that distinction   but a man talking about writing stories representation what 'real women' face   seems misguided   but overall this is good   and deserves a read  

Thanks!

I suppose "real" may not be the best word under the circumstances. Based on my experiences with women, and having talked to a number of them about this before writing it, those scripts do seem to reflect the reality of women's lives within fantasy. But in the future I'll strive to be more careful to specify when I need to that I am myself a man and basing what I'm saying on my observations rather than my own experiences, as such.

A new update to my blog.

Box Office Prediction (August 15-17)

I know it's a long shot, but I'm calling Guardians of the Galaxy to retake the number one spot this weekend, though it won't be until the weekend actuals are released on Monday that we'll know.

At any rate, Guardians, Expendables 3, and Ninja Turtles 5 will all make ~$25 million.

With mixed word of mouth and terrible reviews, the turtles should dive pretty fast, staunched only because family audiences hang on a little harder than teenagers; it'll lose around 60%.

Expendables should be able to open near the $28-$30 million of the first two, but the enjoyable yet underwhelming nature of the first films (and the growing consensus from critics and screenings that this one succeeds and fails similarly) combined with the usual diminishing returns for sequels means it probably won't be much over $25 million.

In its third weekend, Captain America 2 fell 49%; Guardians is being received even better than Cap, so it should end up hitting at least $22 million. I think, though, that on Sunday, it will take the top spot by enough of a margin that it will end up claiming the weekend.

Meanwhile, Let's Be Cops should do fine, but it'll burn off a lot of demand by opening on Wednesday. It should make $30ish million over the five days, but probably just under $20 million for the three-day weekend.

The Giver does not look very good. Certainly, it doesn't look all that much like the book, which will turn off a lot if its fans, and looks too generic to grab anyone else. It'll hit low teens at best.

PREDICTIONS:

Guardians - $25 million

Ninja Turtles - $24 million

Expendables - $23 million

Let's Be Cops - $19 million

The Giver - $13 million

The Hundred Foot Journey - $7 million

Into the Storm - $6 million

Lucy - $5 million

Hercules - $3 million

Step Up All In - $3 million

the phrase “curiosity killed the cat” is actually not the full phrase it actually is “curiosity killed the cat but satisfaction brought it back” so don’t let anyone tell you not to be a curious little baby okay go and be interested in the world uwu