Fiddler from the Past

I bring you a thorough distraction from what I'm supposed to be writing, in order to tell you of a very long-winded coincidence. 

One year my middle school put on the play Fiddler on the Roof. I tried out for it. Probably the first and only time I did so. I would have been out of town for one of the performances. That's definitely why I didn't get picked - not because of my lack of acting talent. 

O__O

(I actually have no idea how good my audition was, or how good I was at singing back then). 

Anyway, I must have seen the Fiddler on the Roof film before my school announced the play. And a long time ago, probably a few years after my failed tryout, I bought Tradition off of iTunes. I thought I was buying the version from the film. It wasn't from the film. That didn't stop me from listening to it many times. But somewhere along the way, the song vanished from my computer music collection. So I haven't listened to it in some years. Nor have I seen the movie in a long while. 

Fast forward to the last few days, when I got distracted by watching some freaking awesome videos about making the Wicked movie. And the scene from Spiderman No Way Home where Dr. Octavius attacks Peter. Youtube combined those two things, and suggested a video about filming Spiderman 2. The video showed Dr. Octavius is in his full villain outfit, including the arms. I was thrilled to discover that those arms are sometimes real - not only cg. And they're moved by puppeteers. Puppet robot arms! I love it (maybe because Dad and I have been watching some of the old Muppet Show episodes, which are a lot of fun). Man, that must be an awkward rig to be strapped to, but I love when things are real. Cg can do amazing things, but real is just so... real, you know? All this is to say, actor Alfred Molina was ready to film the next scene. Instead, he started to sing "If I were a Rich Man," from Fiddler on the Roof. Complete with the mechanical arms clacking in time to the beat. 

About a week before, I had just seen a completely unrelated video featuring the same song. An interesting coincidence, since I hadn't thought about that song in a long time. I want to watch the movie again. But I also never knew that Alfred Molina sings. When I found out in high school that Hugh Jackman sings, I was blown out of the water. I listened to his version of Oklahoma so many times - that was long before The Greatest Showman existed. I wonder how I would have reacted back then if I realized that both Wolverine and Dr. Octavius sang.

Last night, I found Alfred Molina's version of Fiddler on the Roof on Youtube. Not great video quality - so I guess it was sneakily taken by someone in the audience. The video was blurry, but it was fun to hear the songs again. I was amazed at how well I remembered some of them. 

Something about their version of Tradition caught my attention. The way the choir sang, and how Tevye delivers some of his lines. I made a mental note to look into it.

Just now, I pulled out my stack of old CDs. I have a massive music collection. I've gone to great lengths to find some songs. And I continue to burn my music collections onto CDs, because I have had many close calls with the music on my computer. For example, when I've gotten a new computer, and a number of the songs wouldn't transfer over. Or, for some reason every now and then a song stops working. And some songs from iTunes that I've bought and show up on my purchase history will not load onto my computer, or laptop, or phone. Even an itunes employee couldn't figure it out. Maybe that's how Tradition fell off of my computer. So yes, I keep CDs of all my music because I've had to rely on them many times to recover songs that have somehow self-destructed. I was confident that the Tradition song I'd bought as a teenager was still on one of those CDs. It was (thankfully on one of the first CDs I looked at - they're labeled pretty well XD )

I plugged in my disk reader and loaded the CD onto my computer. None of the songs were labeled, which is always annoying, but for some reason that often happens for burned CDs. It's like the computer remembers the names, but the CD itself doesn't. I kept telling myself that of all the versions of Tradition available on iTunes, it was highly unlikely to be the same version I had just listened to. But for some reason at the last second, I decided that it must be the same version. I clicked play. And the version of Tradition I listened to so many times was the version that Alfred Molina sang. 

I guess I'll take this opportunity to put Tradition back on my computer. It's clearly a very determined song.

Takoyaki

I went back and tweaked something on the post I wrote a couple days ago. The one where I went on a random Spiderman tangent about Dr. Octavius: villain name Dr. Octopus. 

I have a pile of recipes I've printed out that I want to try making. After fixing the blog post, I picked up the recipe on the top of the pile. It was a recipe for Takoyaki. Fried octopus. 

Me going:

 

And just to make it stranger, a couple weeks ago I started a National Geographic series about octopuses. And I'll be finishing that soon.

Back to the Drawing Board

Sigh, once again I have rewritten my query letter. I kept a few phrases, but that's about it. I wonder how many times I've completely re-written it. 

Fern Finally has a Timeline. And Octopuses.

I've thrown Fern into all kinds of stories. Movies, books, anime, games. But I never really had a proper timeline. It was just a vague order of the places she visited. And it was mostly the order in which I saw the movie (or anime, etc). 

I haven't written out most of her stories - I just kept notes on them. But occasionally I do write them if I have a clear video in my head. Otherwise I'll lose some of the details over time.

Sometimes Fern goes back to a place over and over, either to help across a span of time, or just to visit old friends. It was during some of these longer-term missions that I realized I needed a proper timeline. Otherwise I had no sense of what might be happening in her life that would affect her decisions and relationships. 

At long last, I started putting Fern's timeline into place. I had to be careful, because some of the missions do influence each other. And I also had to keep in mind how old she was - her timeline spans several years. Though the first couple years are with the X-Men, which is where she got her start (literally - it's the first time I created a character named Fern, though at first she was just a side character).

It's kinda cool. Now that the timeline is done, I can see how Fern and her friends grow over time.  And how her team builds.

 

I often get super attached to actors who play characters that become Fern's friends. There are a lot of them.

What seems like a random Spider-man digression will eventually work its way back in to the topic!  Mostly.

Sometimes when I revisit a movie/etc that I've stuck Fern into, I get a surge of motivation about it. I just watched a movie from very early in Fern's timeline: Spider-man 2 (from the Spider-man movies I grew up with, starring Tobey Maguire). I always loved the first two movies. My mom thought that the villain in Spider-man 2 was a dumb design for a super-villain. But I always liked him (he's pretty popular). When I watched the movie this time, I figured out why I like him so much. 

Dr. Octavius only has a few minutes of screen time before the disaster. But he makes amazing use of those minutes. On his first appearance, he's a little aloof and annoyed at being bossed around by a snotty rich kid. And who can blame him? (I mean, Harry is more concerned about revenge and money than Rosie's death and Doc ending up in the hospital). But Doc and Peter bond right away, and soon are at Doc's house. You can see how much he and his wife love each other, and the way they talk and tease really draws you in. Just in that short scene, you can't help but grow to like them. I'd never noticed before how impressive it is that they accomplish it so quickly. (When Peter and Doc are bantering in that scene, I want to laugh and shout, "nerds!" I am a nerd, so I use that word with love). I can't think of other characters that make a stupid joke on one of the biggest days of their life, and then apologize for it.

Then comes the accident, leaving Dr. Octavius completely devastated. Not only was his life's work destroyed, but his wife was killed during the malfunction. He's completely vulnerable in that moment, and that's when he loses control to his own machines. Only when Peter reconnects with him does he manage to regain control of himself. Dr. Octavius manages to save the city, but at the cost of his own life. 

It always pissed me off that he only had a couple minutes between breaking free and dying. So, enter Fern. I love using Fern to save people. She and Spider-man would be buds. They're both animal-themed nerds, after all.

As a matter of fact, the reason I pulled out these older Spider-man movies was because I just watched one of the newest Spider-man movies (I've been in the very slow process of catching up with the MCU films). I'd heard that Doctor Octavius would be in Spider-man No Way Home, but I didn't know how it would play out. To my astonishment, the MCU version of Peter Parker breaks the boundaries of space-time and saves Doctor Octavius and a number of others. Watch me going, "hey, that was my idea!" I love using Fern to interfere with stories, but I get annoyed when other people do it. Can you say "hypocrite?" But I was also happy to see some "old friends." 

In the scene Dr. Octavius finally regains control of himself, he says in amazement that his mind is his own again. No more sinister voices directing his actions. It gave a whole new perspective to what he must have been going through. 

And it was hilarious seeing Peter take over Dr. Octavius's arms and drag him around. I just found that scene on Youtube, and I was laughing my head off as I watched it again. Man, Doc is so pissed.

So, again, Spider-man No Way Home lead me to re-watch the first two Spider-man movies. I hadn't seen them in quite a while even though I own them. I had a new perspective on the mechanical arms. Octopuses are so freaking cool (spiders also, to be fair). Each octopus arm kinda has its own brain, which is how the mechanical arms work.

I also got a bunch of new ideas about Fern's role in this movie. For example, Ben and Doctor Octavius would definitely be lab partners, geeking out about all kinds of tech (saying that makes me think of Entrapta and Hordak). And it's cool to think that the mechanical arms - once so dangerous - could become a powerful asset wielded by an ally. 

I always thought that Spiderman 2 was the first movie I'd seen his actor in: Alfred Molina. But every now and then I look up actors that appear in a specific film. Probably Strange Magic, in this case. Sometimes I discover, to my astonishment, that an actor appears in other movies that I know very well. Which was the case with Alfred Molina. His first film role was in Indiana Jones. He was covered with live tarantulas. There's a documentary about making Indiana Jones, where he talks about the experience. He's standing there during filming, with giant spiders all over his back, and they're telling him to look scared. And he's going, "I'm scared! I'm sacred!" (Does anyone else find it fitting that he went on to fight a certain spider in a later film?) He also had a role in Ladyhawk. A slightly hokey older movie, which I nevertheless love. 

Okay, final digression. My high school principal looked exactly like the villain from Spiderman (the first film). I wasn't the only one who thought so. They mentioned it in the yearbook. To my nerdy delight, Alfred Molina also bears a slight resemblance to the band director I had in high school. I loved to make fun of the fact that Spider-man villains were taking over my school.

Greatful

I have a confession

I always spell "greatful" wrong. 

It's really spelled "grateful." "Great" doesn't actually appear in the word. Except, grate-fully, I'm finally starting to get it write instead of having to re-right it each time the red underline appears on a word document. 

 Red-fronted brown lemur

Moana 2

I was undecided about whether or not I wanted to see Moana 2 in theaters. I knew it would be visually fun to watch. But Dad wanted to go. He likes the original Moana, as do I. And he loves the fact that Maui's tattoos move. My dad, believe it or not, is half covered in tattoos. And Maui's tattoos are more entertaining than the ones in The Illustrated Man (another tale of moving tattoos, but more dangerous than Maui's).

It was fun to revisit old friends. And get to know some of the Motunui people better. I kinda wish it had a more interesting name than just "Moana 2" though. 

Spoilers. I need to create some kind of icon to put with my "spoiler warnings."

I didn't like Maui in the first movie. I've complained about it so much to other people, but I don't think I ever explained it here. Basically, I really love most of the first Moana. But the whole middle section annoyed the heck out of me. Mostly because of Maui. He literally tries to kill Moana, and never even apologizes, or acknowledges it. He locks her in a cave with no food or water, and it's mostly by dumb luck that she gets out. All I can say is that I eventually became accustomed to Maui.

Then the Jungle Cruise movie came out. I wasn't super excited about it, though it grew on me more after I went to the Amazon myself. Maui's actor plays the main guy in Jungle Cruise. I liked him in it. And because actors can make me like characters more, I think that may have gotten me to warm up to Maui slightly.

Moana 2 made me like Maui more. I wrote about this a really really long time ago, but there's a topic in film (and other media) that always hits me hard in the gut. It's when the tough, unflappable characters are brought low. That happened in Moana 2, when the crew rescued the drowning Maui. To be fair,  Maui got his @$$ handed to him in the first Moana, clobbered by a giant crab. And while it is hard to watch, I didn't like Maui in the first movie, so didn't really feel it. 

 

Funny story interlude. Some people at Fanime have awesome character costumes. A few years ago, I saw a guy dressed as Maui. I asked to take a picture of him, so I could show my dad. Maui posed and let me take the shot. 

"Thank you," I said. 

"You're welcome." 

Oh man, I'd stepped right into that one. I was kinda infuriated, but also very impressed. He got me good.

 

It's nice that they gave the coconuts (kakamora) more depth. 

The music didn't sound same like the same song-writer from the first movie. And indeed it wasn't the same person. It sounds like Lin Manual Miranda just had too much on his plate. Though the songs were pretty good. I won't be able to judge until I get to know the new ones better though.

It was pretty to watch. But it left me asking "why" over and over.  

Why did Maui lose his tattoos? Was it supposed to represent that he lost his powers, or something? It seemed like the only reason to do that. But it also didn't really mean anything. He was only without his powers for a couple minutes, and I don't think they would have been any help during that two minutes. He'd already lost his hook.

What's with the thunder god and bat goddess? We don't really hear anything about how they got to where they are, and what happened to them. Are they trying to imply that a Moana 3 is on the way? And why were they going so far out of their way to make the bat lady seem evil? She would have been really cool if she made more sense. 

I think this is unfair, but I almost feel like Moana's sister was just put there for motivation factors. 

Also, something about the way the animate the faces is different. It's strange, which my just be because I'm used to the first movie. 

Did they really need to pull the "On no, Moana's dead!" card? They already did that with Elsa and Olaf. I didn't buy it then either. We know you're not going to kill off the princess, Disney. (Moana says she's not a princess, but she's a "Disney Princess"). The only thing I liked about that scene is that it was good seeing Maui's vulnerable side. All the rest of it, I was just going, "really?"

And what were they trying to imply with her tattoos? Is she supposed to be a demigod now, like Maui? 

Ah well. As far as sequels go, this one was pretty good.

Wicked

Wicked! Finally, finally, finally, they made a movie of it! 

When I first saw the trailer, I immediately sent Nick a message about it. He's the one that taught me about the stage play. I was both excited and terrified. Excited for the potential of an amazing film, and terrified in case they messed it up. In the message to Nick I said, "I'm gonna cry if they don't do it justice." 

The two of us went to see it together. And when the movie started, it took us flying up over Oz, and to Munchkinland. Everyone there is celebrating Elphaba's death. And Glinda is celebrating with them, but you can just see the heartbreak she's trying to hide. And I started crying. So, Wicked did make me cry. But only because they did an awesome job. 

I loved it. They really captured heart of the stage play. In fact, I only had one complaint, but I'll get to that later. 

Spoilers, as well as some vague references to part 2. 

The movie is long. Considering this is only the first half of the story, I expected they had added a ton of filler. But they didn't. I couldn't identify any random stuff they threw in. All they did was fill out the existing parts. And maybe some scenes were a little long. Like the dance. That was supposed to be super awkward, but they could have shortened it a bit. 

I love the original Elphaba and Glinda so much that I thought it would be hard to like new versions of them. But both of the new ladies were awesome too. And I love that the two original stars got a cameo. A pretty hilarious one too. And it was so sweet to see them greet the new versions of their characters. 

I love that the whole school is smitten with Fiyero. He looks too old to be in school, but the play does cover many years. So he'll fit the part when the next movie rolls around. (Fiyero's actor is actually one year younger than Elphaba's).

Madame Morrible is a nasty piece of work (especially in part 2). But damn, she has style. 

Doctor Dillamund really got me this time. Maybe because I've gotten to be good friends with some goats. But his fate hit me a lot harder this time than it did during the play. Poor guy. TT^TT. I hope they include something in movie 2 about him getting help. 

I also hope that movie 2 does a better job with Boq. I could never accept that the play version was anything like the corresponding character in The Wizard of Oz. 

I like they way they framed "I'm Not That Girl." With the green plants and pink flowers in the background. Green and pink, representing Elphie and Glinda.

And Defying Gravity. Such a freaking awesome song. The new Elphie is an amazing singer. But this is where I had my only complaint about the movie. They broke up "Defying Gravity" into too many pieces. It kinda took some of the power out of it. It was broken up some in the original version, but not as much. I'm going to find the soundtrack and see if there's a version that's a little more fluid. 

I managed to drag my parents to see it with me. Mom saw it in theaters with me and Nick (I kinda bullied her into coming, so she could drive XD It was a long time ago). Dad was familiar with many of the songs, after hearing me sing them dozens of times over the years. I was glad to find that Dad was getting hooked into the movie. At one point, Mom leaned over and whispered to me about Glinda, "what a little shit!" I laughed. She really is at first. Mom had forgotten that from the play. I had not.

And while Glinda may be a little shit to Elphie at first, I so love both characters. 

The only question is, when they release part 2, will there be a special edition DVD set? And can I wait that long to get it?