How I Would Change Spiderman Homecoming

How I Would Change Spiderman Homecoming

I am a huge Spiderman fan and love the character. Spiderman homecoming was an amazing outing for the character. The arc that Peter goes through in the movie is learning that being Spiderman isn’t just taking down world ending threats it’s all the little things he does to help everyone, that he can’t lose sight of the people he is trying to protect while trying to prove himself, and that with great power comes great responsibility. Except that phrased isn’t said. Instead they try really hard to avoid the classic saying as well as Uncle Ben. Instead of making the phrase that Peter remembers under the rubble be “If you’re nothing without this suit then you shouldn’t have it.” I would have made the quote the classic “With great power comes great responsibility.”. I would also change the arc of Peter realizing this a bit. I would have made Peter still have the conflict with Peter and make him the voice of reason but frame it with Uncle Ben within the arc. Keep Peter trying to prove himself to Tony and him learning that through his attempt he has thrown caution to the wind and moved away from why he initially became Spiderman. But have him realize this through remembering Uncle Ben and the iconic phrase. Tony taking the suit away was the wake-up call and when Peter is returning in his mismatched  clothes I would have put a flashback to Uncle Ben giving Peter his great power speech and when Peter is trapped under the rubble have him remember the what Uncle Ben told him. Also I would have Uncle Ben’s death be mentioned in the movie sometime before this.

This would include Uncle Ben in the MCU Spiderman’s story hitting home with old fans and letting new fans know how important Uncle Ben is to the Spiderman character. I showed this movie to my little cousin as an introduction to Spiderman and while watching it I realized that there was no way she would know who Uncle Ben is or that he is integral to the character of Spiderman which is what I wish would have been addressed and conveyed in Spiderman Homecoming. Other than that I loved the movie and it is easily one of my favorite superhero movies.

The Dragon Prince Rewatch Thoughts and Ideas About the Future

Since season 3 is right around the corner I have decided to rewatch the first 2 seasons of the dragon prince. And the show was better upon a rewatch than I remember it being. Knowing certain things that are going to happen changes how you read scenes near the beginning and allows you to notice the seeds for future events or character choices. There is a scene in the second episode, before we are told of Rayla’s fear and dislike of water, where she is determined to set her mistakes right and she gets to a river and hesitates, gathers her berrings, and then crosses. This scene is only a couple of seconds long, if that, but you can tell that she is wary of water even before you’re told. There are plenty more moments like this and it astounded me while I was watching. 

The pacing also feels better while rewatching. When I first saw the dragon prince I remember thinking the pacing felt off. In some moments it was really fast while others it was really slow. I’m typically not that affected by pacing, but there were certain moments that I felt needed more time to develop that were rushed through and some that were given too much time that weren’t that important to the story. I still think that some moments were rushed, but the slower moments fit a lot better now. For example when I first watched season 1 I was genuinely surprised that it ended at episode 9. It didn’t feel like a finale at the time, but going immediately into season 2 felt a lot more organic.

Now to get into talking about my thoughts on the show as a whole. And my predictions for the future.

Characters:

Rayla- Rayla is my personal favorite character. Our introduction to her manages to showcase the characteristics of her that will become the driving force of the story, her compassion which clashes with her mission and immense skill. It only takes a single scene to set up her most important characteristics to the story. It was interesting to learn how her culture affects the way she sees herself and the people around her. And how it lead to her negatively viewing herself because compassion and fear are frowned upon. She also didn’t just get over her bias against humans. Her view changes gradually and her decision to travel with the princes didn’t come from her being more enlightened than other elves, but from her unique set of circumstances with her past and inner conflict. The writing of Rayla managed to impress me yet again while watching the show. I couldn’t believe that they managed to create a character that was able to organically kick start the plot without neglecting the societal biases that would affect her character. I believe Rayla is a really well written character that has a lot of potential to grow. We will probably get to explore a lot of it in season 3. I hope to get her backstory and a greater expansion of Moonshadow elf culture now that her and Callum are in Xadia.

Callum- Callum really becomes a great character in season 2. Season 1 felt like it was setup for his character and season 2 was the season where he actually got to shine. His insecurities and disposition made for an interesting, yet predictable, starting point that was enhanced by how well it juxtaposed with Rayla’s insecurities and personality. They used it to create an interesting dynamic between the two. This insecurity lead to him gaining an intense focus on magic, because it was the first thing he felt he excelled at, until he finally learns how to perform it without a primal stone or resorting to dark magic. This also lead to a juxtaposition between him and Claudia, which I have no doubt will be explored more in depth later. Claudia is falling farther and farther down the hole that is dark magic and becoming over reliant on its “quick fix” nature, while Callum is taking the long path to learning primal magic which seems to be a safer, longer term fix than dark magic. Callum is a character I find the most interesting when he is mirroring other characters. He manages to put the journeys of others into a different perspective.

Claudia and Soren- These are the characters, other than Rayla, that I think will benefit the most from season 3. There is a lot of setup with their relationship between their father, the princes, and each other. They seem to be set up to take different paths within the third season to either follow their father or find some sort of redemption. Soren is the one with the most interesting relationship to their father in that, while Claudia ultimately seems to care more for her brother’s well being than their father’s opinion of her as shown with her decision to save Soren not the “egg” during her moment of truth, Soren wants so badly to make their father proud that when he’s paralyzed he’s happy because now he can’t do the bad things he felt he had to do to make his father proud. This moment changed the way I saw his character. He no longer seemed mean spirited or “evil”. And it lead to me believing that he could be heading toward a path of redemption where he eventually breaks free of his father’s influence. Claudia on the other hand has relied more and more on dark magic to where she will find herself at a crossroads where she will acknowledge the negative aspects of dark magic and choose either to continue down the rabbit hole or reject it. I want to believe that Claudia will make the decision to reject dark magic, but I have the feeling that Claudia and Soren will find themselves on separate paths where Soren will reject their father and try to save Claudia from herself and Claudia will continue down her path of dark magic and by association down the path of her father’s acceptance, at least initially. She is characterized as someone who cares a lot about the people close to her and she will do anything for them, so I think in the end she will make the right choice unless something drastic happens.

Ezran- The final member of our trio. He’s the character who’s future I’m the least sure of/have the least ideas of where it can go. He’s finally grown enough to stop running from his problems like he did so many times before, but he hasn’t shown an affinity for leading, mostly due to his young age, which leads me to believe he won’t hold the throne for very long in season 3. Ezran running from his problems and him liking hide and seek become sort of intertwined. In the first episode Ezran plays hide and seek with Bait and later runs away to hide in the secret tunnels in the castle when Callum harshly told him the truth about the moonshadow assassins. Later in season 2 he plays hide and seek with Bait and Zym while Callum and Rayla are defending the dragon, which he realizes was a bad idea when he can’t find Zym. He later “runs” away after learning the truth about his father’s death, but actually goes to talk with Claudia to go back and take the throne. The realization that hide and seek was a bad idea can be paralleled with his realization that he can’t run and hide from his responsibilities like he tried to before. Him actually playing hide and seek with someone other than Bait, who is easily found, made him realize that “hiding” actually created more problems, possibly losing Zym, than it solved, combating boredom. This was an interesting parallel I found on my second rewatch that once again hints at what is going to happen before it actually happens.

Story:

The dragon prince is a show that finds its basis in darker themes such as the cycles of war and vengeance, societal bigotry, that neither side is entirely just in war, etc. These are all heavy themes that the dragon prince handles surprisingly well. The pilot episode alone shows all of these things directly and doesn’t shy away. It ends with King Harrow and all the elven assassins but Runnan dead with Rayla, Callum, and Ezran on the run in hopes that while they have lost today they may be able to stop future all out war if they manage to accomplish a near insurmountable task with everyone seemingly against them. There isn’t a victory, just a quiet desperation that they must succeed later. This is very different from most animated shows aimed at the same demographic. This starts out dark and then gets lighter then slowly becomes even darker than before. Shows I’ve seen this compared to like Avatar: the Last Airbender, the Legend of Korra, etc all had much lighter pilot episodes before delving into much darker territory. This sets the bar right out of the gate. The story does a much better job than a lot of cartoons I’ve seen at dealing with the messiness of war. Both the humans and elves have done bad things in the name of “justice” and the show acknowledges this instead of naming a side that is “right”. This is rare in shows that thrive off of good vs evil. With the dragon prince no one seems truly evil. Even with Viren, who is the closest to a big bad this show has, is steeped in shades of grey. This is the major thing that sets the dragon prince apart from its contemporaries. The basic premise of the story is pretty straightforward and something that has been done before, but the way it does it is unique.

 It’s a bit hard to put into words all the things I think about the dragon prince, but this is my best stab at it. It looks like the dragon prince will continue to raise the stakes with this upcoming season and become darker and more morally nuanced with the upcoming season. I’m really excited for season 3 to release and hope it manages to continue the great things that it has done with its previous two seasons

Korra’s Growth (Book 4: Balance)

Korra has been a character defined by her resilience. She is broken down time and time again and the tolls she is forced to pay become greater with each season. The biggest problem with her resilience was that to forge forward she pushed her pain back and with the breaking of her spirit and body in Book 3 she can’t push it back and avoid it any longer. This time she can’t move forward until she deals with the trauma of what has happened to her. People seemed to struggle with understanding Korra’s mental illness and even Korra herself struggled to understand it. Korra’s journey to recover brings her to a greater understanding of who she is and this understanding allows her to open herself up to her enemies and friends in a way she couldn’t before. She grows to realize that being the avatar isn’t really about being able to bend all the elements, but who she is as a person. The most influential avatars were able to enact real change during their time because of their ideals and their individual identities. Korra’s struggle to grasp this and discover her own identity is realized in this Book.

Korra was at her lowest point from the end of book 3 to the beginning of book 4. Her struggles with identity and ptsd don’t just go away and she can’t truly move forward until she faces them. She avoids them for many years and they fester into a negative mindset towards herself. She completely disregards her own wellbeing throughout the latter part of the Korra Alone episode and spirals into a state of self destruction in her desperation to get better and discover herself. Her recovery process is slow which frustrates her because the longer she is incapacitated the longer others do her “job” for her and the less her place in the world matters. Korra’s decision to go out on her own mirrors Zuko’s in the episode that this one was named after, Zuko Alone. They are both trying to discover for themselves what they should do and their identity separate from their birthright and their frustration at their inability to find what they are searching for leads to their inward anger turning towards an outward conflict. With Korra the outward conflict manifests differently in that she sees herself. That version of her is a manifestation of her trauma and the destruction of the basis of her believed identity. She tries to defeat it and destroy it, but fails time and time again. She takes a while to learn that she can’t destroy it but instead needs to accept it and learn to channel it positively because it has shaped her and made her who she is. She struggles with this and it leads her to Toph. Toph is exactly what she needs at this moment because Toph won’t hold back and will be frank with her. Korra needs to know that she isn’t in this alone but she also needs someone able to give her a reality check. She is so busy fighting herself that she hasn’t taken the time to think of what she is really running from and Toph opens her eyes to what exactly that is. 

Korra was completely broken after her confrontation with the red lotus. This was the third time that she had hit “rock bottom” and to her it must have seemed like everytime her rock bottom somehow got lower. She grows to subconsciously dread what could come next which leads to her inadvertently holding herself back from fully physically recovering. The fact that she has to be the one to take the poison out of her body shows that only she can make the decision to move forward and return to her duties as the avatar, no one else can do it for her. They can only help her get to that point. Toph not only opens Korra’s eyes to the reality of her physical state, but also teaches her how to see expand her view and see the world through a different lens in both a metaphorical and literal sense with the philosophies of her enemies and the spirit energy respectively. This widening of her scope makes it so that she can be found by the airbending siblings and in a way Korra has discovered a part of herself that she didn’t know about, her connection to the whole world through energy bending. Once Korra is found by the airbender children she decides to remove the poison and go with them to Zaofu. In this moment she decided to stop letting her fear hold her back from doing what she needs. She had conflicting feelings because she simultaneously dreaded the possibility of the avatar having no place in the world and the pain that came from being the avatar. Her decision to move forward in spite of these fears and face at least the physical part of her fear shows her desire to do what she believes is right and her resilience. In Zaofu she is brought face to face with Kuvira, the source of unrest. Korra tries to approach the situation with diplomacy first, much to the chagrin of Opal and Suyin, showing a blatant change from previous seasons. Korra admits that the “old her” would have jumped straight into physical conflict with Kuvira to end this, but she thinks that there must be a better way. Korra knows now that solving problems with force more often than not causes detriment to both sides and that trying to find a middle ground is the best course of action for everybody. Suyin tries to end the conflict with force by, what is implied to be, assassinating Kuvira which escalates the situation and leads to the forceful takeover of Zaofu. Korra takes considerably more caution and only uses violence when absolutely necessary, but mentally Korra still hasn’t completely recovered from the fight with Zaheer and sees the shadow version of herself projected onto Kuvira. Korra sees herself in Kuvira: the confident attitude, adeptness at the physical side of bending, and her penchant for physical conflict. Kuvira is a dark mirror to what Korra could have been if she hadn’t gone through the trials that she did. She is a dark version of what Korra’s trauma could have made her if she didn’t decide to change and also a dark mirror of what Korra could have been if she hadn’t learned humility, but this also gives Korra hope that Kuvira wasn’t beyond reason or redemption. Korra can’t quite reach Kuvira yet though because she hasn’t yet dealt with the mental and spiritual block she has that is preventing her self-realization. Korra hasn’t fully realized the similarities between her and Kuvira and found a way through to her. 

Korra is then pushed into a situation where she needs to confront the root of her spiritual disconnect and the man who pushed her to her physical and mental limits. She initially confronts Zaheer to say to his face that she isn’t afraid, but she’s lying when she says this and he calls her out on it. He calls her out on her denial. The problem isn’t that she’s afraid it’s that she won’t accept what happened to her and that she is afraid, she’s pushed it back like she did everything else. Zaheer guiding her into the spirit world marks a notable change within Korra in that she found a middle ground with an enemy and accepts his help. She realizes that his offer for help is genuine because he realizes that his actions have brought about the exact opposite effect of what was intended. Her acceptance of his help is where she enacts Toph’s lesson about learning from her enemies and it is through these actions of trust towards her enemy that she is able to grow to empathize with her enemies to the point where she can get them to trust her and end a conflict without force. By accepting what has happened to her she is able to feel whole and stronger than before. She has discovered who she is and is now confident in that identity. 

She uses this new understanding of herself to become the leader she was always meant to be. She leads the republic city forces against Kuvira’s colossus and cooperates seamlessly with everybody to infiltrate and take Kuvira and the colossus down. Once the colossus is down Korra tries to reason with Kuvira. Now that the weapon of mass destruction is no longer threatening anybody Kuvira no longer has her power over everybody and there is a greater chance of getting through to her now that she has lost her advantage. Korra realizes that to prevent greater bloodshed Kuvira needs to stand down. Korra deciding to protect Kuvira from the spirit energy blast was the culmination of her journey as a person and as the avatar. Her deciding to protect Kuvira shows her growth in empathy and desire to help not only her friends, but also her enemies. Kuvira and Korra are mirrored against each other again in the spirit world with Korra blue and Kuvira originally being a purple Korra. This visualizes what Korra herself has come to realize about the similarities between her and Kuvira. Korra uses this understanding to connect with Kuvira and be honest about her own struggles and find common ground. She has come to see that no one ideology has all the answers and that to truly achieve balance she needs to open herself up to change. Through her trials and tribulations she has remained resilient and picked herself up each and every time she fell. It is through this desire to keep going that Korra is able to find ways to grow. Korra had to find balance within herself and with that personal growth came spiritual growth and an ability to change the world for the better through lessons learned from her enemies.

Catra-The Thin Line Between Love and Hate

Dreamworks has yet again produced a villain I love from one of their Netflix animated series with the character of Catra. Catra is given a complex dynamic with the protagonist Adora that ties into her journey of the season and her spiral downwards into hate. Her mindset is best explored in the episode “Promise” with the scene the title references being the turning point that causes her to make up her mind and take the plunge.

For Catra’s whole life she was always considered second best. Adora was liked more by everyone around them be it shadow weaver or their teammates. Adora was the only one who cared about Catra and put Catra first. This caused conflict to arise within Catra because her jealousy and anger were towards the person she cared about most and who cared about her the most. When Adora chose to leave the horde in spite of Catra trying to get her to stay Catra was hurt and betrayed. In her mind she came in second. Adora chose the rebellion over her. The only person who truly cared about her had chosen something else over her and the jealousy and hate that that she had tried to submerge came to the surface and she worked to sabotage the cause that had made Adora leave. Everything she does up until “Promise” is do destroy the rebellion not Adora herself and she continually tries to talk Adora into coming back to the horde, back to her.

In “Promise” Catra is forced to confront her conflicting feelings and contradicting actions and appearance. Catra for most of her life has put on a mask of uncaring like nothing phases her. This is an attempt to convince others and herself that nothing can hurt her. The only person the facade slips around is Adora because she trusts Adora. She comes to view her reliance and trust in Adora as a weakness. When Catra is confronted with the images and scenes from her childhood that highlight the disparity in the value placed on her life in comparison to Adora her indecision tipped towards giving in to her negative feelings toward Adora, but what really caused her to make up her mind was the titular scene of the promise. Catra runs from Adora with her world collapsing around her being constantly reminded of her inferiority and runs into the memory. The memory played out in front of Catra and when both young Catra and older Catra asked the question “Promise?” only young Adora was there to respond with reassurance. Older Adora was no longer by Catra’s side and the reality of the situation set in. Catra decided that since Adora wouldn’t come back she had to look out for herself. Because she can’t come to terms with the fact that Adora cared about her and still left her Catra takes on a more negative view of Adora’s actions and convinces herself that Adora never truly cared and made her believe that Catra needed her to hold her back. When Catra comes back and destroys the spiders attacking Adora it somewhat mirrors what younger Catra does in the promise scene except this time instead of running after Adora with new hope and continuing their friendship she comes back having given in to her negative feelings to sever it. This cemented Catra’s stance against Adora and pushed her to fully embrace her role to take down the rebellion along with Adora.

The line between love and hate is thin. A nudge from one side or the other can make one land on the complete opposite side of where they started.

Rayla - Breaking the Cycle

I believe Rayla is a well written character and this season really hit that home for me. Rayla is a character that is burdened by the past. We get to see just how deeply she is affected by her parents “betrayal” and the sacrifices she has, however inadvertently, caused on her quest to right her parents wrongs and do what she believes is right. This causes Rayla great personal suffering. It gets to the point where she believes she deserves all the bad things that have happened to her because she wasn’t/isn’t good enough. All of the pressure and self esteem issues put Rayla’s self sacrificial nature in a different light. It isn’t just because of the moonshadow elf culture and their dedication to duty. She believes she has to redeem herself and her parents no matter what.

When they make it to the lair of the dragon queen and it’s stay and fight a losing battle or run with Zym she decided to stay, while the others run, and face what will be her death. We see the utter desperation to not make the same mistake her parents did. She had already become a “ghost” to her people. Banished from her village because they believed she ran from her responsibilities when in reality she took on a task possibly even more perilous. They wouldn’t know of her sacrifice and the only ones who could wouldn’t be able to tell them, so this was clearly a personal choice to Rayla. A chance to possibly redeem herself and her parents in her own eyes, even if just for a few seconds. The show’s core theme is about the next generation stepping up and breaking the cycles the last generation create, but with Rayla it is shown how that can also become negative and self destructive when taken to the extreme. She is 100% willing to sacrifice her own life and possible happiness to redeem her parents and her own mistakes. She feels she can’t continue to go on if she doesn’t give everything she has to this endeavor. It almost becomes its own tragic cycle of service and sacrifice.

When Callum reveals what happened the day Viren came from the dragon prince it was the push she needed to accept that she couldn’t face this alone and that she should make a decision with everyone else. She wouldn’t have to carry the burden alone, at least not fully. Their decision to stay and fight solidified to Rayla that this was what she was meant to do. Being named the “last dragonguard” was an important step because, while now knowing her parents didn’t run away, the wounds that were created over all those years of believing and being told they did haven’t just disappeared. She still needed to be the “last dragonguard” to heal them. Rayla’s final confrontation with Viren mirrors that of her parents down to being frozen while Viren goes after the dragon prince. Rayla manages to free herself, with the help of Bait, and stop Viren from killing Zym in a final blow that takes both of them over the edge. This perfectly symbolizes the cyclical nature of history. Viren did this with Rayla’s parents and now Rayla herself, both times it is Viren’s lust for strength that blinds him to what Rayla and her parents are doing/coercing him into doing, both Rayla and her parents save Zym, but in moves that cost (or potentially cost) them their futures with the people they care about. The thing that breaks the cycle is Callum. He has been what has tempered Rayla this whole time, supported her when she did something reckless, and convincing her that she has worth. He doesn’t prevent her from tackling Viren, but prevents her from falling to her death afterwards. This is the difference that saved the cycle from continuing. While the others abandoned Rayla’s parents and they were left to protect the egg themselves, Rayla’s support system stayed no matter what.

Rayla had both helped break the cycle and been stuck in her own cycle throughout the show. In an ironic twist of fate that is contrary to moonshadow elf culture it was through opening up and showing “weakness” to others that the cycle she was stuck in was broken. “To break that cycle, someone has to take a stand when no one else will.” Taking a stand isn’t based in fighting or resistance, but love and compassion. It was Rayla’s compassion that lead to the entire journey of the show and the possibility of breaking the cycle of war and revenge. It was Ezran and Callum’s acceptance and support that helped Rayla break her own cycle. It was like King Harrow said “I now believe true strength is found in vulnerability. In forgiveness. In love. There is a beautiful, upside-down truth, which is that these moments of purest strength appear as weakness to those who don’t know better. For a long time, I didn’t know better. I ask you and your brother to reject history as a narrative of strength, and instead, have faith that it can be a narrative of love.”

Joker-a Master of Perspective

Joker uses perspective to enhance the movie storytelling perspective. It is a story about the descent of a man giving into his darker desires. This is typically seen as a tragic tale, but the music and camera shots portray it as the opposite. It feels like a man going from despair to hope. 

The music in the opening shot is called “Hoyt’s Office” and it has a sinister and foreboding feel to it whereas the music at the end of the film called “Call Me Joker” is much more hopeful and delicate, the music is softer and more personal instead of the sharp low tones of the beginning. The shot choice also changes the perspective of scenes that should be dark like when Arthur kills his mother Arthur sits next to the window which bathes the shot in light and creates an uplifting atmosphere and the lens reflects light which gives the shot a dreamy look like Arthur enjoys his choice and has finally fulfilled one of his wildest dreams. The final shots of him in the asylum are again bathed in light with minimal sound and the actions are happening slower than normal giving it that dream like feel to it once again. The final shot I’ll talk about is when Joker is dancing on the car during the riot. He is the center of the frame once again and everything around him seems to fade away. This is emphasized by the shots at a superior angle where only Joker and the sky are in shot with everyone else just out of view and the wide angle view when everyone else is in shot but the noise they would have been making is overtaken by the score. He is finally “seen” by people. He has become the center of this revolution and the world can finally see his solo performance.

The perspective is also in use when it comes to the fact that Arthur is made to clearly be an unreliable narrator in the film which can bring many interpretations of the events that unfold. Until the first time Arthur gives into his darker desires most of the abuse he endures is physical. Once he kills the three men on the subway the abuse shifts to emotional with his mother and then once he kills her it becomes verbal until he kills Murray and then he becomes the Joker and the movie ends with Arthur feeling free and not hesitating to give into his desires. This can be seen as the journey of how much Arthur can justify his actions. With each killing he is able to justify his actions with less and less provocation. At the beginning he shot the men in self defense and by the end he was killing people because he deemed it “what they deserve”. (This was also seen when he killed Randall when Randall came over to try and comfort him about his mother’s death and he kills him because of what Randall did at the beginning of the movie. Now that Arthur has made it this far in his descent he sees nothing wrong with killing Randall when earlier he held himself back.) Because of how the abuse seems to shift to allow Arthur to justify his actions it can lead to questions on if the abuse was really like the way it was portrayed or if it had been warped in some way due to Arthur’s perception. (This is just a single possibility that is left up to the viewer’s interpretation)

Joker is incredibly interesting in its use of film making techniques and how it uses all of the facets of the audio visual medium to convey its story. I was left fascinated in how well made it was with a great performance by Joaquin Phoenix, masterful cinematography and directing, and an emotive score. The film and superhero nerd in me loved every second of it.