Footsteps in the Fifth Element

I’ve been thinking a lot about this movie and Disney in general lately, especially as so many people are articulating the parts that don’t work for them in this movie and in the way Disney is handling this in a bigger way.  The discussion of Finn’s part of the story and the lack of it actually doing anything or having any ultimate meaning is part of what’s gotten me back on this track– One of the conflicts I see, in the sense of trying to understand wtf Disney is even doing, is that this movie really, really is Not That Deep.  So many people write these big think pieces and maybe some of them might hit on some of the actual intentions there, I’ve haven’t see Rian talk much about that kind of stuff.  But so many of them are ascribing these big, sweeping themes to the movie that just don’t really hold up. FOR EXAMPLE:  “Let the past die.” as a way of saying that we need to let go, that the movies are about moving on.  Well, if that’s the intention, maybe they shouldn’t regress the characters to saying they’re the Rebellion instead of the Resistance, in a deliberate move to call back to the OT.  Maybe Disney shouldn’t be producing all those OT-based toys, if they’re trying to move on from the past. Maybe we shouldn’t be getting all those comics and novels about the OT characters then. OR:  Poe’s story makes sense to me as a story that’s about the running theme of the movie, that the main characters are being truly set into their roles, that the focus is on having a character really truly catalyze them into cementing themselves into the role they’re going to play in this story.  But when I look at Poe’s story just on its own merits, it feels like a disaster.  He disobeys orders and gets all their bombers taken out.  He makes a scene on the bridge.  He mutinies against direct orders.  He puts a plan into action that gets even more people dead and their plan to escape to Crait is fucked over because of it. Yet, when he has a plan, people look to Leia, just so the movie can have her say, “What are you looking at me for?  Follow him!”  Wtf???  How on earth is this a story that should end with Poe getting support?  How is this a good story for his character at all??  And ultimately I can only chalk it up to that this movie is not that deep. The problem is that the movie seems to be trying to achieve that kind of depth, but it just really, really is not that deep. So then we get to the Force-related stuff.  “Oooh, they’re saying that the Force doesn’t belong to the Jedi!  So revolutionary!”  No, that’s been there since all the way back to the PT.  We see Jedi as the central characters because they’re our main characters, but, hell, the Whills have existed since before the very first film was made, the Nightsisters also existed just fine, this movie pretty much only shows us Jedi and whatever Snoke and Kylo are.  Again, this movie is not that deep.  It is nothing new and certainly not revolutionary. (I put that last one more on the fans than the movie, because the movie itself seemed pretty damn clear that the Force itself was bending over backward to smack Luke in the face and to create new Force users who are pretty sure to be Jedi, especially since Rey sneaked those books onto the Falcon.) Sometimes trying to understand this movie feels like a bit of a fool’s errand to me, because I’m not sure there are satisfying answers to be found.

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This is awesome! Thank you so much!!!

Be careful with your honey, my friends! <3

And um… don’t judge me… >\> I have a bit of a weakness for lovey dovey stuff…. but you didn’t hear that from me. >.>”

Now that I look back, the story had some good potential, and hey, maybe I’ll explore it sometime in the future, just with some major changes. 

Seriously, I just… how did… why… why you so awesome, dude?

Throwback Thursday (yeah, I know it was yesterday, whatever) to my old art school days of 2006.  This was the first time I did anything major with pen and ink, and then I didn’t use them again for ten years.  Not sure why?  Ink always scared me for the longest time, I guess.  Nothing a little Inktober couldn’t cure :)

Artwork © 2017 designsbysloan.com || Animal crossing © Nintendo Please don’t use, repost or edit without permission; thanks!

Inktober - Hang In There by chibiBiscuit

Inktober - Rarity by chibiBiscuit

Change isn’t going to come from Washington, D.C., change is going to come from around the dinner table (Paraphrase of Pastor @gregsurratt of @seacoastchurch). • Increasingly, I see people (I’ve been guilty myself) nowadays strive so hard to be right at the expense of doing right. I see this so much with the rise of social media and the divisiveness that comes from political extremes. Are we trying to DO right or just BE right when we discuss issues with one another (whether they’re hot button issues or not)? Let’s be honest with ourselves, we already have our mind made up before we even hear the other person. We don’t care about what they are about to say because we already have the 10 rebuttals to prove they’re wrong. It’s about winning the argument. It’s about “being” right. Somewhere along the way we have lost the ability to have a healthy and constructive dialogue. We’ve lost love in our interactions. We have abandoned the value of different viewpoints and working together as people. The world is full of people who see the world differently than you and me. That’s great. God has made us unique. We all have different backgrounds and experiences that filters the lens we use to see the world. Let’s hold more open and honest discussions. Let’s have meals with those who have different views than us and try to understand how they see things differently and why. Let’s learn from one another. Let’s grow together. Let’s change the world together. -Mark #goodnewsfeed http://ift.tt/2y3C0CB

Commission, please don’t use, repost, etc

It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.  What are we holding onto, Sam?  That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo… And it’s worth fighting for.

So where’s this silly shallow hippie fever-dream I’ve heard so much about? It sounds like a much lesser story than the one that actually exists.

I mean, it’s not Game of Thrones. It’s not gritty in the same way. But the protagonist of LOTR was minor gentry from a backwater nobody’d heard of, and the REAL hero who saved the world by saving him was his gardener. All the great kings and queens and lords and ladies in the story are background characters compared to the story of the little people. Literally little people, but symbolically too.

well thank fuck for that

Write what you want to write.

Artwork and character © 2017 designsbysloan.com | Breath of the Wild © Nintendo Please don’t use, repost or edit without permission; thanks!