(no subject)
Sep. 14th, 2004 11:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annundrielI've finally started packing for school. Probably a good idea since we're leaving Saturday. It's not too hard, most of the stuff is still packed from coming home, but I still have to figure exactly what books and VHS/DVDs I want to bring and whathaveyou. (I finally found a good background-noise movie while looking for my tape of Mansfield Park. Our Mutual Friend. It's long, it's Dicken's, and it's quiet. I love it loads, but there are parts I don't *need* to watch and it won't make me rant. Woo. Also contemplating bringing A Room With a View.) I know what I want to take with me, like, exactly. It's just getting it all together that is a hassle.
*
I found one of my old copies of Creative Screenwriting in my pile o' magazines and found an interesting quote (at least I found it interesting) about Pirates of the Caribbean and its structure. Also? Ted Elliott quotes Neil Gaiman at one point in the interview.
When you were developing Pirates' characters, did you intentionally compare and contrast them, such as Norrington versus Will?
TERRY ROSSIO: That's something we tend to do when we do story creating in conjunction with character creation. It's fun to take whatever your major theme is and then use your characters and character design in such a way as you can fully explore all the major facets of the theme. If you put the characters at these different extremes in your theme, when they come together there's almost automatically something interesting happening in the scene between the characters, because they've been designed that way.
TED ELLIOTT: Going back to the classical Greek construction, the way those plays worked was that you would have a protagonist who would embody a particular point of view. The antagonist would embody an opposing point of view, and the structure of the story was an argument between these two points of view, with the resolution of the story being the resolution of the argument. In Pirates, Elizabeth is the protagonist, representing the idea of the romance of the pirate. The romantic illusion of the outlaw is a very common concept in our society; in fact, the underpinning of all romances is the anti-hero, the Byronic bad boy. That's what Elizabeth is looking for. Each of the characters surrounding her present differing points of view on that issue. [Buena Vista Motion Picture group President] Nina Jacobson put it best. She said it's like an animated movie: you have the prince (Norrington), the pauper (Will), the rogue (Jack) and the villain (Barbossa). All of these characters are presenting these different points of view to the princess (Elizabeth). Hopefully, the final resolution of the story is our point of view about the whole thing, which is "Don't fall in love with the romantic illusion; find the romantic reality."
So, yes, I find this interesting. I remember one of the things that surprised me, but I greatly appreciated, about PotC was the fact that at the end of the movie Norrington let Elizabeth go to Will without any argument. Because he is a good man. Generally it seems as though a character in his position would have made a fuss. I can't think of any examples at the moment, but there must be enough of these characters that I was genuinely struck by Norrington's decency. Of course now I would argue that from his behavior in the rest of the movie, it should have been clear by the end that he wasn't going to force Elizabeth to do anything. (Hindsight is 20/20, yes? Hindsight with deleted scenes is even better.)
I also like to point out that Norrington in the animated movie description is the "prince", not the "villain". I've run across people who consider Norrington a bad guy, a villain. Yes, he is in opposition to Jack, Will, Elizabeth, but only because he's trying to, oh y'know, do his job. He is an antagonist, simply in opposition to the protagonist. Barbossa is the villain, in opposition to the protagonist, but also evil. (All villains are antagonists, but not all antagonists are villains?)
Somewhere I read that one of the writer's (Elliott I think) said that had this been any other movie, Norrington would have been the romantic hero. So it's actually kind of fun that Will is instead, because it's different. And they let Will come in and be the romantic lead without sullying the integrity of the character of Norrington. So I will forgive Will for being played by in a declarative manner by Orlando and appreciate the fact that there's more to the movie than just pretty faces and funny accents.
Also, seriously, when you've got the writer's bringing up Neil Gaiman and quoting his work almost randomly in an interview how can you not just appreciate that?
I need to go read some Neil. Everyone else should, too.
*
Went to the dentist today. Everything spectacular. Came home and finished watching Buffy Season 6 as I'd never seen the ending before. It made me cry. (I'm such a weenie.) And Giles came back! And was very cool and spiffy and I love him so. (What is with me and these older British men, really?) It made me want some Giles/Anya fic for some reason. I loved her reaction when Giles and Buffy hugged in the Magic Shop and you could just *see* how much she wanted to be part of that. (Poor Anya.) Watching it also made me miss the old Scooby days, so tonight I watched "Welcome to the Hellmouth". They're all so *young* looking! *hearts 'em all*
Aw, memories.
*
I am completely in love with the Garden State soundtrack.
*
I found one of my old copies of Creative Screenwriting in my pile o' magazines and found an interesting quote (at least I found it interesting) about Pirates of the Caribbean and its structure. Also? Ted Elliott quotes Neil Gaiman at one point in the interview.
When you were developing Pirates' characters, did you intentionally compare and contrast them, such as Norrington versus Will?
TERRY ROSSIO: That's something we tend to do when we do story creating in conjunction with character creation. It's fun to take whatever your major theme is and then use your characters and character design in such a way as you can fully explore all the major facets of the theme. If you put the characters at these different extremes in your theme, when they come together there's almost automatically something interesting happening in the scene between the characters, because they've been designed that way.
TED ELLIOTT: Going back to the classical Greek construction, the way those plays worked was that you would have a protagonist who would embody a particular point of view. The antagonist would embody an opposing point of view, and the structure of the story was an argument between these two points of view, with the resolution of the story being the resolution of the argument. In Pirates, Elizabeth is the protagonist, representing the idea of the romance of the pirate. The romantic illusion of the outlaw is a very common concept in our society; in fact, the underpinning of all romances is the anti-hero, the Byronic bad boy. That's what Elizabeth is looking for. Each of the characters surrounding her present differing points of view on that issue. [Buena Vista Motion Picture group President] Nina Jacobson put it best. She said it's like an animated movie: you have the prince (Norrington), the pauper (Will), the rogue (Jack) and the villain (Barbossa). All of these characters are presenting these different points of view to the princess (Elizabeth). Hopefully, the final resolution of the story is our point of view about the whole thing, which is "Don't fall in love with the romantic illusion; find the romantic reality."
So, yes, I find this interesting. I remember one of the things that surprised me, but I greatly appreciated, about PotC was the fact that at the end of the movie Norrington let Elizabeth go to Will without any argument. Because he is a good man. Generally it seems as though a character in his position would have made a fuss. I can't think of any examples at the moment, but there must be enough of these characters that I was genuinely struck by Norrington's decency. Of course now I would argue that from his behavior in the rest of the movie, it should have been clear by the end that he wasn't going to force Elizabeth to do anything. (Hindsight is 20/20, yes? Hindsight with deleted scenes is even better.)
I also like to point out that Norrington in the animated movie description is the "prince", not the "villain". I've run across people who consider Norrington a bad guy, a villain. Yes, he is in opposition to Jack, Will, Elizabeth, but only because he's trying to, oh y'know, do his job. He is an antagonist, simply in opposition to the protagonist. Barbossa is the villain, in opposition to the protagonist, but also evil. (All villains are antagonists, but not all antagonists are villains?)
Somewhere I read that one of the writer's (Elliott I think) said that had this been any other movie, Norrington would have been the romantic hero. So it's actually kind of fun that Will is instead, because it's different. And they let Will come in and be the romantic lead without sullying the integrity of the character of Norrington. So I will forgive Will for being played by in a declarative manner by Orlando and appreciate the fact that there's more to the movie than just pretty faces and funny accents.
Also, seriously, when you've got the writer's bringing up Neil Gaiman and quoting his work almost randomly in an interview how can you not just appreciate that?
I need to go read some Neil. Everyone else should, too.
*
Went to the dentist today. Everything spectacular. Came home and finished watching Buffy Season 6 as I'd never seen the ending before. It made me cry. (I'm such a weenie.) And Giles came back! And was very cool and spiffy and I love him so. (What is with me and these older British men, really?) It made me want some Giles/Anya fic for some reason. I loved her reaction when Giles and Buffy hugged in the Magic Shop and you could just *see* how much she wanted to be part of that. (Poor Anya.) Watching it also made me miss the old Scooby days, so tonight I watched "Welcome to the Hellmouth". They're all so *young* looking! *hearts 'em all*
Aw, memories.
*
I am completely in love with the Garden State soundtrack.
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-15 09:05 am (UTC)Ahem.. now back to our regularly scheduled program...
[I couldn't even read all the way thru this entry without saying the above]
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-15 05:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-15 07:32 pm (UTC)Never used the word "f**k" so many times in print....heh.
Date: 2004-09-15 08:46 pm (UTC)"You don't talk to me that way! You fuck my wife? You fuck my wife? You fuck my wife?"
"I am your wife!"
"That doesn't matter! That doesn't matter! I say again, you fuck my wife?"
"All right, yes, I fucked your wife. I am your wife, and I fucked her."
"....fucking matches...I can't get 'em...I'm going to drive around town and put babies on spikes."
Oh no! Space monkeys are attacking!
*eats popcorn* (I may have gotten carried away. It's too much fun. *uses spider-man icon*)
Re: Never used the word "f**k" so many times in print....heh.
Date: 2004-09-15 09:04 pm (UTC)Fuckin' handbag... with a brick in it! *turns around chair* It's the Queen! *turns around other chair* Dunno who that is!
Re: Never used the word "f**k" so many times in print....heh.
Date: 2004-09-15 09:15 pm (UTC)Were there monkeys? Some terrifying space monkeys maybe got loose?
*vroomvroom* Ciao...
Shiny!
Date: 2004-09-15 10:09 pm (UTC)::beep beep beep boop beep:: Janine, I love you really, even though you fucked my wife!
::explosion::
::shovels popcorn down throat::
Love the Eddie to Firefly back to Eddie transition ;)
Re: Shiny!
Date: 2004-09-16 03:20 am (UTC)"What is it, Lieutenant Sebastion?"
"It's the rebels, sir. They're here."
"My God man! Do they want tea?"
"No, I think they're after something more than that, sir. I don't know what it is, but they've brought a flag."
"Damn, that's dashed cunning of them!"
Now, wouldn't it be perfect if Eddie was *on* Firefly?
Re: Shiny!
Date: 2004-09-16 04:34 am (UTC)Re: Shiny!
Date: 2004-09-16 06:30 am (UTC)"Fucking 'ell, look at these guys! Look at that!....They've got guns....They've got guns! Jesus, they've got guns!....I was surprised. Were you surprised? I was suprised."
For some reason I now really want to see Jayne and Eddie discuss the NRA. And see Jayne running around going "Bang! Bang! Rat-a-tat-tat!" (You've hit upon a great combo here. Won't they be HI-larious together?)
Re: Shiny!
Date: 2004-09-16 06:55 am (UTC)Re: Shiny!
Date: 2004-09-16 09:13 pm (UTC)In heels no less!
Re: Shiny!
Date: 2004-09-17 03:18 am (UTC)::squee:: And Shepherd Book and Eddie can debate about Noah and his speedboat and all the jam that was created in the first days of life!!!!
Re: Shiny!
Date: 2004-09-17 11:18 pm (UTC)It's friggin' scary how well shoving Eddie onto Serenity works.
River and Eddie can totally trade random facts at strange intervals...."You have no idea, do you?"....Simon would come to question his (already questionable) sexuality....Kayleee, well, I dunno what Eddie and Kaylee could do. Zoe and Eddie could be slinky together. (I wonder how Wash would take that?)
I'm running out of Eddie quotes I know! Noo!!
Re: Shiny!
Date: 2004-09-18 02:17 am (UTC)River could use her fake british accent too! That way Eddie would think she's from the old homestead! Like Badger did!
Eddie could maybe talk Simon into becoming a chiropractor, cause lord knows they'd all end up on a snowboarding trip on some outer ring planet and someone's back would go, "Oh! No thank you!" and then of course... he'd have to "crack the bones, crack the bones, crrrrack the bones! You've got diptheria, I'm gonna crack your bones. Looks like your mother, I'm gonna crack your bones!"
And Mal and Eddie can... um... pickpocket together?? Hmmm, what WOULD Mal and Eddie do?