Twilight the Movie, SPN 5:01

[oselle]

Someone at work loaned me the DVD of Twilight. It's 11:30 pm and I've basically been trying to watch it since I got home at 7:30. I thought it would be fun, brainless diversion for a rainy night but it can't even accomplish that much because it's so stupefyingly dull. I keep turning it off to go do more interesting things. Like load my dishwasher. I'm thinking that maybe, maybe this is actually some kind of brilliant, subversive satire. One day we'll find out that Stephenie Meyer is not a Mormon hausfrau who built a multi-million-dollar franchise off a single wet dream but is, in fact, a chain-smoking performance artist from Berlin who cooked up this whole scheme as a way to prove to her fellow bongo-playing, tiny-moustachioed bohemians that the rubes will buy anything if it's packaged the right way.

RE: SPN 5:01.

I'm glad that in the last 30 seconds Dean finally got around to saying to Sam what he (and Bobby and Anna and Castiel and anyone else I can think of) should have said to Sam all last season: You chose a demon over your own brother and you can't be trusted. PERIOD. I'd get excited about this development but I'm sure that before the Thanksgiving hiatus rolls around, at least one person, prophet or angel will give Dean his usual humiliating kick to the curb and lecture him about forgiveness and family and blabbity-blah-blah-blah and Dean will be all contrite and self-castigating and there'll be some teary roadside blabbity-blah and BLAH. Enjoy those balls while you got 'em, Deano, 'cause you'll be handing them over soon enough.

Speaking of humiliation, BOY am I glad I've stuck to my guns and never attended a con because their depiction of the "typical" fan was, shall we say, less than flattering and they've got to be getting that impression from somewhere. I want that "fourth wall" to go back up RIGHT THE FUCK NOW because they are getting way, way too off on wanking the fandom. It unsuspends the disbelief, it's not funny, it's clearly just a running inside gag for the show's writers and cast, and it makes me fucking squirm. It embarasses me. I have many, many opportunities to be humiliated by my life, I don't need to have it piled on by a goddamn TV show. YMMV LOL.

I liked the new Meg (and that actress was maddeningly familiar). She had great presence but she lasted all of two minutes so buh-bye to that.

The opening was pure Annie Wilkes cockadoodie WTFness with Sam and Dean suddenly being raptured up to an airplane that apparently crashes (?) but not before our boys get whisked off yet again to some car that is not the Impala as repeated lingering close-ups of the sleek digital dashboard more than effectively demonstrated.

I liked the way they worked Lucifer's vessel into the story as someone who's been a victim of horrible tragedy and therefore is vulnerable to such temptation. I especially liked Lucifer telling him that contrary to the stories, he always tells the truth, because I think there is something horribly apt about that. In SPNverse at least, Lucifer is certainly coming across as far more honest and honorable than any other divine entity we've yet encountered.

Since it's been canon for four years that any old guttersnipe of a demon can possess whomever he likes whenever he likes, I guess I have to fanwank that angels, even the most powerful, need permission from their vessels because they're better than demons, not less potent.

Castiel continues to kick ass and at this point he's stealing the show from his co-stars. I notice that Misha now has "above the fold" co-billing with the Js, as I'm sure you all noticed as well.

The highlight of the premiere, however, was the nape of Jensen's neck. It struck me as especially pretty last night and I look forward to seeing more of it this season.

Comments

[oselle.livejournal.com]

Supernatural has always toyed with "deep matters" and then backed away from them when things get too heavy. I don't want the show to turn into a damn tent revival or Highway to Heaven but I think it is possible to work with this sort of pop-culture theology and mysticism in a way that's satisfying and compelling -- and taking the subject matter seriously is the first step. I'm sure you recall that Peter Jackson's fundamental commandment for adapting LoTR to the screen was "no winks to the audience" and that's why those movies worked (dwarf-tossing aside). Besides that, I think it's the responsibility of the creators to tell the best goddamn story they possibly can -- and self-referential horsing around sure as hell isn't going to help them do it.

[sixth-queen.livejournal.com]

X-files and Buffy handled the pop theology by dividing into heavy and light episodes. My two favorite X-files episodes are polar opposites. The light episode was the one with the circus freaks, and the heavy episode was the heavily Catholic one with the 4 polydigital girls who turned out to be saints(?).

Technically there were a couple winks to the audience in LotR, but PJ (or probably Barrie Osborne) wisely bumped them to the DVD's. Like,

My axe is embedded in his spinal cord!
Game over man, Game over! [ok ok, I mixed in some Aliens ;-) ]
Lego surfing the stairs...well that's walking a fine line.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

My favorite X-Files episode that dealt with theology was the one about the stigmatic little boy (who actually bore a striking resemblance to a pre-teen Jensen Ackles). In that episode the boy was being pursued by evil forces and had a freakish-looking "guardian" who eventually died to protect him and who may or may not have been an actual saint or angel. What I recall most about the episode was that it was one of the few in which Mulder was the skeptic and and Scully, motivated by her own Catholic faith, was the believer, and it dealt with religious mysticism in a way that was neither "winky" nor over the top, basically leaving the interpretation up to the viewer.

The difference with SPN is that, unlike the X-Files, it has constructed its central storyarc around religion (or at least religious symbolism) and now we've got all sorts of very Judeo-Christian angels and demons running around and we've even got Lucifer talking about his love for God. So eventually they're just going to have to deal with it or sweep it under the rug.