avrelia

I like Natasha Romanoff as played by Scarlett Johanson in several MCU movies. She smart, capable, good with people, a good friend, can be both a loyal comrade and a leader in emergency, and, of course can kick asses and take names at the same time. I have never read any comics with her, so I have no idea about how true she is to her comics counterpart or anything.
But I do have several problems with her portrayal and her story in MCU and I am not really looking forward to her upcoming movie. I have a feeling that the writers and directors didn’t quite know what to do with her character, and only did some cool things by accident.
1) Romance is horrible. I have no idea who and how came up with the idea of Natasha/Bruce romance, but for me it’s one of the worst parts of MCU, and I blame Joss Whedon, because as a self-proclaimed feminist he should have known better.
Natasha and Bruce have no chemistry and no pull of any kind. I mean, Bruce, as palyed by Mark Ruffalo has great chemistry with Tony, with Thor and Valkyrie (both as Bruce and Hulk with those two). Natasha is great with Pepper, Hawkeye and his wife, Steve…. Even Okoye, for two minutes they share the screen. I wouldn’t mind seeing her having a polyamory family with the Bartons. But then again, she didn’t need any romance at all, she is fine just wielding a power of friendship. I mean, my favorite Natasha scenes are her with Steve in Winter Soldier.
With Bruce she is suddenly boring and sad that she cannot have children. And the whole power of lullaby and the rest.. bleargh
2) Her history. Maybe because she didn’t have an origin movie and the definite origin story in the MCU, or because her comic origin are so weird and hard to update, but I am close to tearing my hair out every time Natasha says anything about begin Russian or have that part of her family addressed. I want to like having a great Russian character in MCU, but the fact is, there is nothing Russian in Natasha that we saw.
“Regimes fall every day. I tend not to weep over that, I'm Russian. Or I used to be.”
That phrase makes no sense whatsoever. It would be the contrary, I think. Regimes don’t fall that often in Russia for her to be so blasé about it. I mean, she might be blasé about it, but not because she is Russian (ethnically or culturally), but because due to her previous line of work she helped to fall some of them. That I could buy, but it’s not what she said. I mean, Joss Whedon is famous for his dialogues, but half of stuff Natasha says in Avengers directed by him, makes little sense.
And her name is weird for Russian eye and ear. Natasha, Natalia is great, it’s one of my grandmothers’ name. But “otchestvo”, name formed out of her fathers’ one? Makes no sense. Again, sometimes Russian names look weird transcribed in other languages’s alphabets, sure. Some people have rare and unusual names, sure. But it still looks more like a random selection of letters than actual names. Unless it the Black Widow movie it starts to make perfect sense. Her last name… Romanoff. I get it, it’s a comic convention. But it suggest immigration that happened in 18-early 20th centuries, not now. Now it would be Romanova or Romanov. And it was still fine, until the Black Widow movie that has Elena Belova as a character. Then it becomes really jarring.
Basically, all that Russian part of MCU makes no sense (Agent Carter has it really bad, BTW), and I suspect it will have even less sense after the Black Widow movie.
3) Her end in the “Endgame”. Ok, it might have made sense from Natasha’s POV to try and die for her friend – because Natasha is the best friend anyone can have, but from the story perspective – it was wrong to kill of Natasha instead of Clint and even worse not to acknowledge it properly. And Yes, people die all the time for many reasons, way before we are ready to let them go, but it was not what the story was about. It was such a waste, I am still sad about stupidity of it.

Because joy and mil obsession

1) I am pretty sure it isn’t the term, but it’s something I call good bones: the basics of plot, world-building and characters that allows the characters live in this world even when we are not looking and tell us an engaging story. It allows us to fill in the blanks, to make educated guesses about past, present and the future of the world and characters. And even when we are mistaken in our guesses, we still can see how it happened. It also allowed change of the meduim- continuations in graphic novel to feel right and effortlessly true to the original cartoon series.

2) characters again. I have never realized just how much work went into creating each cartoon character – writers, voice actors, voice directors, storyboard artists, animators, and I am probably missing some. But when I am watching, I don’t notice it, I don’t think about it, because the characters are alive, and I feel for them, cry, laugh, want to kick them of hug them. They talk in my head, and I am that close to writing it all down. I can’t even point to my favorite character: I love all main ones, I love Katara and Sokka, and Aang, and Toph, and Zuko, and Mai, and Azula, and Ty Lee. And Uncle Iroh, and Momo and Appa.

3) it’s a kids’ show that doesn’t look down to kids, and while avoiding anything too graphic, it doesn’t avoid mature themes – the whole story takes place during the war, most characters lost someone – or in case of Aang, almost everyone he knew and all of his nation. And we see these kids deal with it, we see them make all kinds of choices and face the consequences and do better next time of not.

4) there are so many things said about the series over the past ten years – why it is so great, and can it be the greatest show ever (no, for me BtVS is still the best ever) and all the major themes like Redemption and Honor and Mercy and Love and Vengeance and that it’s hard to think of something new to say after reading or listening to several essays. There are also hilarious recaps to read. I wish there could be more of those. But I do enjoy pondering the little things. Like Fire Nation’s attitude to dance. Or what did girls learn at Fire Nation Royal Academy for Girls? And how did Ty Lee and Mai become Azula’s friends? (Azula said they were going to be friends and they didn’t have the heart to refuse?) Did Zuko have any friends in fire nation, except for Mai? Yes, somehow fire nation is more fun to ponder about, but I spend a lot of time thinking about other folk as well.

5) the story is really simple at its core: the world has to be saved. Aang is the Avatar, he can defeat the Fire Lord, stop the war and save the world after he learns the mastery over all four elements: Air, Water, Earth and Fire. Over the course of three seasons he does that, acquires friends and foes, have adventures and it all ends well.

6) the comics start telling stories that happen after the world is saved, and things get complicated. As I said before I was really apprehensive about comics, but now I love them, and looking forward to the new ones (There is a new team working on them, and I am very excited.) Comics, of course, are pretty divisive – which is normal, of course, after a perfect show, the change is too visible, and not always comfortable, but I find the main storylines to be “in character” and a lot of little tidbits that deepen my view of that universe.

7) Watching and reading as an adult, 40 yo woman with kids certainly adds amusement, and a certain different understanding.

8) again, it’s so much fun to ponder small things and the characters we know little about. And maybe draw conclusions that were never intended, but fit very well.
9) Now I can’t but wonder what would be the live action series that Netflix wants to make. (Netflix wants to make series out of everything, right?) It has a chance to be decent, and I hope they take it.

Long time ago elisi made a post about reasons why Spike stayed in LA and not went to look for Buffy in Europe. I read it, enjoyed, said "I have some thoughts, but I will comment later", and went on to some other stuff.

Here comes later, and my thoughts (random and disjointed) on why Spike stayed in LA (besides obvious meta-reasons) ;)

Also dedicated to Ats5 dvd release. Though I am not going to buy those dvds for a long time to come.

( Spike in LA, spoilers for AtS s5 )

Ok, the Anya’s story is done and I am very proud. It was a joy and a pain to write it - picking up piece by piece from the five years of BtVS, digging up my memories, trying to look up from Anya’s perspective – outside and inside Anya. It brought my some frustrations and some discoveries. I started with the thesis that Anya’s story was an examination of what it is to be a human. This role reminds me slightly of the character of Data form Star Trek: TNG, an outsider, trying to figure out human, only different, because this is Buffyverse we are talking about.

Anya’s life is always on the background – it is more visible when she is with Xander, but other time you have to look for it. Of, course, this is Buffy’s story, not Anya’s, so this is understandable. Anya is one of the reflections of Buffy – trying to set a balance between her demon and human sides. Anya’s story seems to pretty consistent – even it its most frustrating parts. Most of her quirks are not attributed to her demon powers, but to her personality – that stays the same throughout the ages.

I was tired of Anya being presented as an innocent victim if Scoobies abuse. Yes, they weren’t especially nice to her. But were she nice? Let’s not forget that she was a murderous demon, who probably cause more death and destruction than Spike and Angel together – after any vampire can only kill one victim at the time, whereas a vengeance demon don’t have this kind of limitation. A well-developed wish can empty a country.

I think remembering that Anya was a dangerous demon, who for the most of the time didn’t feel bad about causing death to humans for the duration of twelve centuries will do her character, and her development more justice than white-washing.

Now I am going to be frustrated with the weather, volleyball, my ficathon Story (it existed only in my head so far), and the lack of comments.

Did I just say it? Sorry, I am mean.

HAve a great weekend, everybody!!!

I am supposed to be used to severe winters. So what? It doesn't make walking in –20 C plus chilly wind any more exiting. Well, I do think that winter should be with snow and temperatures below zero, I was missing it in Vancouver. Yet you know: wind sucks. Today is it nice enough actually, but yesterday I was telling myself: "Why did I what winter anyway? Was I out of my mind or what?"

Enough about the weather.

I am crazy re-editing my thesis proposal. Arguing with my husband about choice of words. What was I thinking, hoping to finish everything in December? Plus, I almost forgot about application to York University. I do not want there, not really, but it is supposed to be my back up plan. I am so have to send everything next week. Grrrrr...

Okay, about AtS 5.09( Read more... )

It is time to make wishes and to seriously expect them to come true. Sometimes they actually do. So, I've made my list. I posted here those concerned AtS.

( Read more... )

I am writing my recommendation for the Graduate School (strength – originality; weaknesses – passion for procrastination; how to describe yourself believably as a future academic genius, anyway?), while listening to The Doors .

I like it, but I am not a real fan, and I know almost nothing behind the songs. Why am I writing this? One of the songs, The Crystal Ship eerily reminded me of Drusilla. The melody, the lyrics

( Read more... ) – brought her image to my mind. Then weird plot bunnies appeared. Dru does have a taste for poets, right? She’s had something of a “flower child” image; Spike mentioned having been at Woodstock; Jim Morrison died young.

They could have known each other. Very closely. In the world where Spike and Dru actually exist.

Now, as I dumped this “brilliant” idea here, I can go back to serious stuff.


Just got my TOEFL score. I needed 5 for writing, I've got 4.5. I hate 30-minutes essays on the silliest topics ever. Will have to do it again. Shit.