Another subverted trope in this chapter -- a Big Bad Guy whipping out a superweapon at the last second:
Baltine: *Stands up in Max-Earth/Palinor power armor*
Daryla: *micrology choking off blood to brain until Baltine's dead-dead-dead*
Not sure how I feel about Daryla just offing Baltine like that. Yeah, yeah, Baltine was a bastard, yeah, yeah, in the moment he was moving to attack, so it's a "defense kill," but she did enter the situation with the express intent of taking his life.
When Krystyan's eyes flashed red, more a second I thought you were about to pull a "mind swap" gag. But it hit the other aen'fa as well, and my brain went, "Ah, yes, Unihex just died..."
Yes, nice contrast between Nisha deciding to not kill, and embrace a shred of hope and Daryla choosing to embrace bloody vengeance.
You know I got the B5 reference. I admit the rest went over my head. Never seen American Psycho, haven't seen Fight Club since it's initial theatrical run, and the Star Wars prequels are mercifully blurred in memory. I know I re-watched those once, but the takeaway was, "Yes, these are as bad as I remember." Oddly my strongest memory of the prequels is the battle of Geonosis, where the clones in white armor are lit up red by the red sun, but Padme is lit in white -- making it my go to example of how a major blockbuster can fuck up the compositing with bad lighting. My second example is the warg battle in Mirkwood in the first Hobbit movie where the full moon is behind our heroes, but they are mysteriously front lit by an unmotivated blue light. Pisses me off.
But I digress. What else is new?
Anyways, Baltine dead.
Also, nice affirmation on Daryla's love for Lola, though I'm not sure how Lola will react if she hears the tale of this chapter.
I had planned to have a bigger fight between Mecha-Baltine and the others, but by this point in the story it a) felt like a repeat of the big action we've already had between magic and tech and b) it seemed more impactful to have Daryla be decisive. Not only is it a demonstration of her power, it also speaks to how her father has consistently underestimated her, and his own arrogance.
Unmotivated lights are used all the time in films. It's interesting how a lot of the time it doesn't bother us, but occasionally it can be REALLY distracting. I suspect when the film is not particularly good in the first place, we start noticing that sort of thing...
A Mecha-Baltine fight wouldn't be totally unmotivated. Building his power armor shows that he was learning and adapting, and I'm certain his co-conspirators had no clue it existed. That was Baltine's little contingency backup in case of double-cross (whether initiated by Baltine or someone else).
But it works out nicely that all his plans come to nothing because he underestimated his daughter.
Unmotivated fight scenes have bothered me for decades. I'd rather the action sequence leave me wanting more rather than be dragged out. I think it's the "Matrix" movies which broke me there. Famously, the Wachowskis planned two movies, but the studio wanted a trilogy -- so their solution was to pad out interminable action sequences. Matrix 2? They go into the Matrix to get the Watchmaker... From the beginning of the fight with the twins to the end of the truck battle is 45 minutes. The Watchmaker is killed during this. Then someone says "We didn't need him anyway," which means, narratively speaking, that entire 45 minute sequence is a bigger waste of the audience's time than episode 3 of a Jon Pertwee era six-part Doctor Who story. Matrix 3? I was at a buddy's. He had to get ready for work, so he took a shower, made and ate dinner, put his daughter to bed, came back and jokingly asked "What did I miss?"
I replied, "Yeah, the machines are still attacking, a bunch of NPCs died, and Nebuchadnezzar is still trying to get to Zion."
"That's where we were an hour ago!"
"Yeah, so nothing has happened."
Ugh, I'm annoyed just remembering it. Took Sense8 to bring back any respect for the Wachowskis after that -- and it was JMS writing that got me to watch it!
(Turns out the Wachowskis and JMS together overcome each other's weaknesses. JMS could provide coherent plot and developed characters, the Wachowskis kept JMS from getting too indulgent with the words.)
Yeah, that was an unexpectedly effective partnership. Plus, the Wachowskis brought their stylish sensibility.
I would, however, politely point at Speed Racer, which I quietly think is a bit of a masterpiece, and came out at some point in-between Matrix and Sense8.
Perhaps if I saw it again I'd re-evaluate it, but, SPEED RACER is NOT the movie to change one's mind if one's current opinion on the writers/directors is that they can generate stunning visuals, but drag out long action sequences, and only deal with two dimensional characters...
(Side note: I also REFUSE to call that "hundreds of still cameras synced up on tracks around a subject" technique "The Matrix Effect," as 1) that's a 19th century invention, 2) used in movies like "Wing Commander," and "Lost in Space," and 2a) the opening titles of Howard Stern's TV show years before "The Matrix" came out, as 2b) Howard's "TV show" was merely having three cameras set up in studio during his radio show and editing down for TV (not a show with a budget is the point), and 3) using a specific camera rig developed by John Woo for Face/Off. All the Wachowskis did there was be the first to add Y axis displacement along the track. To be fair, they iterated the effect in a cool way which hadn't been done before, but that would be like calling rear-screen projection "The Superman (1978) e
Effect" because that movie combined rear-projection with a "Pepper's Ghost" to get some camera movement.)
Another subverted trope in this chapter -- a Big Bad Guy whipping out a superweapon at the last second:
Baltine: *Stands up in Max-Earth/Palinor power armor*
Daryla: *micrology choking off blood to brain until Baltine's dead-dead-dead*
Not sure how I feel about Daryla just offing Baltine like that. Yeah, yeah, Baltine was a bastard, yeah, yeah, in the moment he was moving to attack, so it's a "defense kill," but she did enter the situation with the express intent of taking his life.
When Krystyan's eyes flashed red, more a second I thought you were about to pull a "mind swap" gag. But it hit the other aen'fa as well, and my brain went, "Ah, yes, Unihex just died..."
Yes, nice contrast between Nisha deciding to not kill, and embrace a shred of hope and Daryla choosing to embrace bloody vengeance.
You know I got the B5 reference. I admit the rest went over my head. Never seen American Psycho, haven't seen Fight Club since it's initial theatrical run, and the Star Wars prequels are mercifully blurred in memory. I know I re-watched those once, but the takeaway was, "Yes, these are as bad as I remember." Oddly my strongest memory of the prequels is the battle of Geonosis, where the clones in white armor are lit up red by the red sun, but Padme is lit in white -- making it my go to example of how a major blockbuster can fuck up the compositing with bad lighting. My second example is the warg battle in Mirkwood in the first Hobbit movie where the full moon is behind our heroes, but they are mysteriously front lit by an unmotivated blue light. Pisses me off.
But I digress. What else is new?
Anyways, Baltine dead.
Also, nice affirmation on Daryla's love for Lola, though I'm not sure how Lola will react if she hears the tale of this chapter.
I had planned to have a bigger fight between Mecha-Baltine and the others, but by this point in the story it a) felt like a repeat of the big action we've already had between magic and tech and b) it seemed more impactful to have Daryla be decisive. Not only is it a demonstration of her power, it also speaks to how her father has consistently underestimated her, and his own arrogance.
Unmotivated lights are used all the time in films. It's interesting how a lot of the time it doesn't bother us, but occasionally it can be REALLY distracting. I suspect when the film is not particularly good in the first place, we start noticing that sort of thing...
A Mecha-Baltine fight wouldn't be totally unmotivated. Building his power armor shows that he was learning and adapting, and I'm certain his co-conspirators had no clue it existed. That was Baltine's little contingency backup in case of double-cross (whether initiated by Baltine or someone else).
But it works out nicely that all his plans come to nothing because he underestimated his daughter.
Unmotivated fight scenes have bothered me for decades. I'd rather the action sequence leave me wanting more rather than be dragged out. I think it's the "Matrix" movies which broke me there. Famously, the Wachowskis planned two movies, but the studio wanted a trilogy -- so their solution was to pad out interminable action sequences. Matrix 2? They go into the Matrix to get the Watchmaker... From the beginning of the fight with the twins to the end of the truck battle is 45 minutes. The Watchmaker is killed during this. Then someone says "We didn't need him anyway," which means, narratively speaking, that entire 45 minute sequence is a bigger waste of the audience's time than episode 3 of a Jon Pertwee era six-part Doctor Who story. Matrix 3? I was at a buddy's. He had to get ready for work, so he took a shower, made and ate dinner, put his daughter to bed, came back and jokingly asked "What did I miss?"
I replied, "Yeah, the machines are still attacking, a bunch of NPCs died, and Nebuchadnezzar is still trying to get to Zion."
"That's where we were an hour ago!"
"Yeah, so nothing has happened."
Ugh, I'm annoyed just remembering it. Took Sense8 to bring back any respect for the Wachowskis after that -- and it was JMS writing that got me to watch it!
(Turns out the Wachowskis and JMS together overcome each other's weaknesses. JMS could provide coherent plot and developed characters, the Wachowskis kept JMS from getting too indulgent with the words.)
Yeah, that was an unexpectedly effective partnership. Plus, the Wachowskis brought their stylish sensibility.
I would, however, politely point at Speed Racer, which I quietly think is a bit of a masterpiece, and came out at some point in-between Matrix and Sense8.
Perhaps if I saw it again I'd re-evaluate it, but, SPEED RACER is NOT the movie to change one's mind if one's current opinion on the writers/directors is that they can generate stunning visuals, but drag out long action sequences, and only deal with two dimensional characters...
(Side note: I also REFUSE to call that "hundreds of still cameras synced up on tracks around a subject" technique "The Matrix Effect," as 1) that's a 19th century invention, 2) used in movies like "Wing Commander," and "Lost in Space," and 2a) the opening titles of Howard Stern's TV show years before "The Matrix" came out, as 2b) Howard's "TV show" was merely having three cameras set up in studio during his radio show and editing down for TV (not a show with a budget is the point), and 3) using a specific camera rig developed by John Woo for Face/Off. All the Wachowskis did there was be the first to add Y axis displacement along the track. To be fair, they iterated the effect in a cool way which hadn't been done before, but that would be like calling rear-screen projection "The Superman (1978) e
Effect" because that movie combined rear-projection with a "Pepper's Ghost" to get some camera movement.)