Sol1056

So far, the only one I've found is dramacool, but they're one episode behind.

The Untamed's timeskips also confused me at first, but the story's midpoint twist hit me hard. When I rewatched, I realized why it worked so well, and why it was such a viral hit even with people who'd never seen wuxia. (That's for its own essay, some other time!) Honestly, I think it's a better description to say Untamed began with a flash-forward prologue, because everything after is pretty linear.

You're right about flashbacks. Done right, a flashback must (a) tell something we didn't already know AND (b) push the story/plot forward. Frex, flashback where we discover A was a spy the whole time AND how A has pushed the story in a different direction as a result: that works. But a _fifteen minute_ flashback for a minor character whose story line has _already_ been resolved, that tells us little more than we'd already learned, and none of that little creates any twist or change in the story line? All that does is pause the story so we can wallow in ugly crying. And while comedy can be used to great effect without destroying tension (and can even heighten it more, when applied well), it is very very very hard to restore tension when a flashback effectively becomes an intermission.

I empathize with the "it creates context!" but when it's all context that's no longer relevant to the story, then the story would be stronger if those flashbacks were edited severely, if not edited out.

Also, you owe me a keyboard, since I spit tea all over mine for this: Guo as the Jack Snyder of wuxia? lolol. Yeah, neither of them can write to save their lives, and both re-use other IPs, but at least Snyder gets permission, versus Guo's long history of plagiarism. Guo creates tension via atmosphere, setting, costumes, and insisting his actors all speak in portentous, there's-a-second-meaning-to-this voices. Snyder's tension comes from how he uses the camera, and that means he can make even a school-yard fist fight tangent into a edge-of-your-seat moment. Snyder's flaw is he doesn't linger (or else you'll see the plot holes). Guo's flaw is all he can seem to manage is lingering (as if this 10-minute minor character post-death flashback will distract you from the plot holes). At least Snyder's exciting about it. I think Guo's had some works with substance, but I'm starting to doubt FoF will be among them.

I didn't say it was five minutes long. I said "about five minutes into" -- meaning it's around the 5 minute mark in the show.

And frankly, just two minutes of it was two minutes of wierdness too many.

I'm waiting for someone to do a fan edit where it skips every musical montage that does nothing to push the plot forward or resolve any previous plot issues, every flashback (and every subsequent iteration of that flashback also flashbacking), and like you, at least the majority of the comedic nonsense that a) wasn't funny and b) brought the plot movement to a complete halt.

Honestly, few can compare to GJM's cinematography, or his ability to create major atmosphere. Several are GJM's equal when it comes to getting complex performances out of actors (especially newer/younger ones). But no one compares to just how bad GJM is at writing. Even the ones that always fall apart in the 4th quarter are still better, since GJM's stories usually fall apart only a few episodes in, and from there on it's smoke and mirrors to cover all the cracks. (And that's without going into his absolute failures when it comes to sound engineering -- there is no time ost lyrics should be louder than actual dialogue!)

At this point, I'm just seeing this as a post-apocalyptic semi-dystopian story, where these five -- along with at most a dozen other characters -- are all that remains in the world. It's downright eerie how many scenes have zero of anyone else in the background. It's like the world just isn't populated anymore, except for these people meandering on their toxic-fume-inspired non-stop side quests.

What the hell is with the soundtrack about five minutes into ep15? It sounds like Sergio Leone doing a musical showdown with the Muppet Show chickens.

It seems like any woman older than 35 was suddenly "mother-in-law", but I especially got lost when Zhang says he found it in "mother-in-law's room" and I'm like, which MiL would that be? The only ones I've seen so far, one is far away and the other is dead. I'm lost. I have no idea what anyone means.

Oh, he is getting annoying. Telling her to "let go" of criminals is ridiculous. He acts as if she's acting purely out of a personal grudge against the criminals, and disregarding she's acting according to the rules and with the entire crew's agreement. It's like declaring an executioner's own personal dislike for the doomed renders the executioner somehow as bad as the criminals. I suppose in some scholarly theory, someone would find a way to argue that, but in reality, it's just stupid. Why even bother having a rule of law, then?

I understand it's supposed to be pathos, tears, heartbreak, etc, when an injured character begs another not to defend them. To me, it's shades of kdrama's beloved 3rd-quarter idiot hero: it's okay if I suffer as long as you're safe, etc etc. Meanwhile, I'm over here screaming, if no one defends, you're all going down. Now is not the time to swallow your teeth and smile about it.

This is true. A lot of the scenes are barely lit, and many fake the 'light through ship windows' to explain the illumination, which is a good workaround. Ship interiors were almost always very dark, since candles and lamp oil were a limited resource. It's not like you can just pop into the nearest convenience store and grab more.

And while SoPG isn't quite as I-can't-see-a-damn-thing dark as western shows (I'm thinking Black Sails, even thought it was hella good about showing how dim under-decks usually was) -- SoPG is also not lit with an array of football-stadium lights so everything's evenly bright and visible. I'd actually rather have the dim than the 'we always sleep with thirty candles burning that somehow make the room artificially as bright as day' version.)

I guess you win some, you lose some, eh?

I've been on ships that size when docked, and on tidal waters, they still sway. (Might surprise you to know that even air craft carriers will have the slightest swaying motion at the dock. Which frankly made it even worse, because you're standing on something the size of a skyscraper laid on its side. But anyway.)

That said, I'm not asking for verisimilitude in terms of whether the floor is suddenly vertical. But it does help with that sense of realism if at least they're careful about open flame, that everything is clearly tied down in some way that it won't roll, fall, or tip over. And come to think of it, I'm still not sure why there's a guy in the ship's basement keeping a roaring fire going. That part feels oddly Miyasaki, but that could just be me.

As a weird side note, I have to say I'm really appreciating the director's willingness to allow silence. So many directors (especially in comedic works) think every moment there must be something happening, and if not, there must be lyrical OST happening. Instead, this guy seems fine letting the story breathe as needed.

(I think my favorite character-insight moment is thanks to the director not feeling the need to fill every gap with some kind of noise. I'll keep details light, but it's the point where the camera pans across to show a single character, sitting alone -- shoulders up, seems like they're waiting -- and then after a second or two, the shoulders drop... and the camera still lingers. You can't even see the character's face, but you can tell they were on guard, and then... they stop pretending. With the silence continuing, what's left feels like disappointment maybe even regret. The willingness to let that shift come in its own time, no rushing, made for such a quiet but important character moment. So beautifully done.)

Does anyone else feel like when vocal bgm (OST songs) kicks in, it's almost louder than the dialogue? There've been several scenes now where I can't hear anyone talking over the lyrics, but that might just be my college-years hearing damage, or is it?

Okay, so like two-thirds of the scenes are taking place on a ship (which I only just figured out is called the Mirage, doh). Ignoring the fact the set never tilts or moves like a ship would -- yes, even at the dock -- or that the majority of cast members don't know how to damn well Pick! Up! Their! Feet! -- does anyone else look at all the stuff on horizontal surfaces and think, that thing's going flying across the room and breaking into a dozen pieces with the first strong wave?

[Also ignoring that a ship's greatest fear is always FIRE. Candles, just laying around, lit, all the time, unwatched! Those candles should be bolted/attached to the horizontal or vertical surface, with cages around them so the candles can't be knocked over! ...No, really, I'm fine. Totally fine.]

I see comments going by that DW would rather 'earn' her freedom through hard work. I think that's a misreading of the text, and that if someone handed her back her father's thing along with compensation for years of slavery, she'd leave so fast there'd be a dust storm in her wake. Instead, I think it's that she intuitively knows any safety (or status) provided by another will be what they've loaned her, and not of her own making. In which case, she's still not really her own person, in the sense of making her own rules that others must respect.

More to the point, I think she sees shelter under another's wing as just another kind of cage.

Gee, so much not thank you for spoiling it for the rest of us.

And there were other ways to withhold the info but still be smart: they push the boat out, but mom gets shot by an arrow... so they get away, but Mom's infected/poisoned/bleeding out and no longer aware of what's going on. That'd be when Mom would throw herself overboard, insisting she's slowing them down. Voila, all the angst and none (or at least a lot less) of the stupidity. Sigh.

She did. She told DW the father's name, which I think was implied to be a family name, not a personal name: "Wei". Ep6 has a flashback that further complicates the possible explanations.

pls mark as spoiler, so we don't ruin it for anyone coming late to the series. thank you!

What? I'm not criticizing her at all. I think the actress is doing fine, and for the most part, her story line and her personality are common tropes for physically strong female characters. What I'm criticizing is that Guo apparently felt that for the story, we had to suffer through multiple iterations that blamed her for all the tragedy. Guo seems to be one who particularly enjoys finding ways to beat on female characters, which I 100% fid distasteful -- because I also happen to hate the "a strong woman is automatically to blame for a weak man" zero-plus game.

Besides, why is 'had to kill her own brother' not reason enough to be pretty shut off from the world? The only reason her past really matters -- for the story! this is fiction, not real life -- about what she did or didn't do is if it impacts the present-day part of the story. The new information must change things -- not for us, but in the story. If we learn some detail and nothing else changes in terms of her contribution to the story or how the story unrolls overall, her backstory's just become a variation on a Sexy Lamp. Short version: if you could replace her backstory with any other, and there's no visible impact on the story, the backstory is adding nothing.

I think Guo's choices do her character, and her story, a huge injustice and isn't even warranted in terms of moving the story forward. Hell yeah I'll criticize that episode, because in the end, it felt like a big tangent that amounted to little more than "she hasn't suffered enough! let's retread this so we can enjoy seeing her suffer more!" and I hate that crap.

* Sexy Lamp is a spin-off of the Bechdel Test: "if you can replace your female character with a sexy lamp and the story still basically works, maybe you need another draft."

Uh, Lilun. For some reason, I keep forgetting his name.