Why do all movies seem to be about death?

Earlier this year, I lost two close members of my family. It wrecked my dad. 

I was talking to Nicole about how hard it is to pick out a movie that doesn't make someone depressed. We realized how few movies we could think of that don't feature death, or something similarly heavy. What films are a good way to distract someone for a while, and cheer them up? Even a scene in a movie my dad loves can remind him of something. A lot of Disney movies have a big, wrenching death. Yeah, you all know the one that wrecked every kid while they were growing up. 

The first gentle ones I thought of were Ponyo and Kiki's Delivery Service. I'm sure there's many more, but a casual scan of my memory didn't reveal much. No one dies in Totoro, but the girls think their mom is going to die. And everyone is afraid that Mei might be dead. 

There are so many themes that a story could tackle. And yet so many of them are about death. Sometimes that's very deliberate. But other times, I get the sense that filmmakers feel they have to kill someone off. 

Commentaries are Mostly Boring

I recently rewatched my favorite season of Doctor Who. I kinda didn't feel ready to start it because there was hard stuff going on with my family. And there still is. But I'm glad I saw it again. Seeing The Doctor and Donna again was like visiting old friends. 

I'm still watching through the bonus features on my movies. David Tennant, AKA The Doctor, made a video diary during the big reunion episode where characters from the last few seasons all team up. It was fun to watch them horsing around. They said it was hard to focus because they were having such a good time together. In one part, Jack was having a fan moment about meeting his favorite villain. 

A little while ago, Hank Green mentioned in a video that no one cares about audio commentaries in movies. Which is kinda fair. Most of them are pretty boring. But there are hidden gems. There was a commentary between Donna and Jenny - two of my favorite characters from the show. The composer was also with them. But Donna and Jenny stole the show, joking and laughing. He seemed kinda frustrated and tried to get them back on topic. Usually I would have liked to hear the composer's stories. But it was fun to hear Donna and Jenny. 

(I just discovered some new episodes with the Doctor and Donna! Gonna check them out <3. )

Occasionally when I'm biking uphill, people will cheer me on. It's usually not on the steepest hills. So I would joke about how I wished there weren't any hills harder than this one. But whenever I said something like that, the people would just stare back at me. 

So now if someone cheers me on, I just grin at them. 

I probably talk too much anyway. 

Give the Baddies Some Depth

I like it when villains have proper depth. When they're real people that have problems, and not just evil personified. That being said, there are movies and books I like which just have an evil villain. And I'm guilty of that occasionally. 

(for Frozen and The Sorcerer's Apprentice)

I think in Frozen, it could have been a pretty simple fix. I even posted about it before. I think it would have been more interesting if Prince Hans wasn't totally evil. He could have tried to win Ana over without trying to murder her. And when true love's kiss fails, he has to admit that he doesn't really love her. He was just hoping to marry well. (I don't think the kiss would have healed Ana anyway - she had to do something to prove her own love, as happens when she saves her sister. The trolls gave her bad advice. Like encouraging her to marry someone she just met. Even though Kristoff was just lecturing Ana how that's bad). 

And Horvath in The Sorcerer's Apprentice is one of those classy British bad guys. It may be cliché, but it is entertaining. His story boils down to, "I hath been spurned by a girl. I will now team up with the bad guy to kill everyone." Now, I'm probably reading too much into this. But I kinda feel like the actor tried to give the character more depth than he was given in the script. Because when Horvath opens the last layer of the grimhold, he seems hopeful that it's Veronica, the lady he liked. So maybe the whole time he was really trying to save her? In a sort of ends-justifies-the-means way. (I'm still confused by the ending. Because he's clearly still at large. Did they plan a sequel?) 

The Dark Side of Survival TV

In middle school, we read Hatchet. That book is what first got me fascinated with survival skills. I think Survivor was the first survival show I ran across, and I was fascinated by it. But then, I think at the end of the first season, one of the contestants delivered this horrible speech about how she wished that another contestants would die a gruesome death. From then on, I never cared to watch survival shows. I found other ways to study the skills. 

Then I met someone who was on one of those shows, and he knew other people who had done it. I 'd thought that the episodes were total fakes. But they do indeed throw people into the wilderness. They only help in emergencies, and not always effectively. Like when one woman was badly burned, the nurses weren't prepared to treat burns. Despite the importance of fire in a survival situation. 

The company that filmed one show treated the contestants as total garbage. For example, one location looked like a great place, with plenty of resources and food to hunt. It wasn't until the contestant flew to Europe to film that they told him the location was a nature reserve. He couldn't hunt anything except for frogs and fish. Neither could he harvest and trees, except for an invasive species which wasn't a great building material. So most opportunities for food and shelter were gone. 

Another guy said that the show didn't buy them any hunting permits. There was plenty of food, yet once again they couldn't get any of it. That season was not good for fish, so everyone out there was slowly starving. 

Some of these shows don't even pay the contestants unless they make it all the way through? These poor people go through starvation and potential injury, and may not get anything for it. While the film crew and everyone else stays comfortable, and gets paid normally. 

These crews can be condescending and disgusted about the contestants that are out there suffering for a television show. And episodes are edited to deliberately make some contestants look incompetent. They don't show their full shelter, or their fishing successes. But they'll show someone crying because of personal problems. 

It's sick that companies make money watching people suffer and starve. Even people skilled at survival can't hope to stay healthy in these restricted situations. So I'm glad I don't follow those shows. 

But the contestants also said that it was a great opportunity to practice survival, with an emergency net if anything went wrong. And they talked with fondness about how beautiful some of their locations were. 

Stretch it Out

I need to make Evva's story a bit longer. Which is hard to imagine because editing is largely about cutting things out. But I think if I focus more on culture, plants, and crafts, it should help fill things out. They're things that Evva is learning a lot about anyway. And of course, I could always add more character interactions. 

I just have to do it in a way that feels natural and interesting. 

Battle Music

Music during battle scenes is often intense, overbearing, and even grating. 

But I like it when the battle music is epic. Something I'd like to listen to on its own. I understand why not all music should sound nice, and I often don't notice it in the context of the movie. But I also enjoy listening to soundtracks, and I skip the songs that are unpleasant to listen to. 

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe has a powerful battle song. Star Wars and Studio Ghibli have some great ones too. 

Plus some video games have awesome battle songs.