Disney's The Little Mermaid is a Better Movie Than You Think...

 This is my rant about criticism of Disney's The Little Mermaid:

I saw a post about the live action Little Mermaid movie and saw a comment that basically said, “This is a horrible movie because it teaches children to disobey their parents and tells women that they need to drastically change their bodies for a man.”

I definitely agree that a woman having to drastically change her body for the sake of a man is a terrible idea and that’s the start of a toxic relationship. However…I feel like this comment is missing 90% of context in the movie. So here’s my response:

1. First, Ariel is a really cool character because she’s an amazing archaeologist who is intensely curious about worlds beyond her own, and she’s open-minded enough to consider that humans might be a lot more than just murderers who eat fish and kill mermaids. She’s bold, adventurous, and brave enough to face down sharks to pursue her interests. She’s also not afraid to stand up to her dad and tell him what she thinks. So…she’s a lot more than a woman who is only doing things for the sake of a man.

2. Second, even though Ariel falls into the common cliché of ‘love at first sight,’ you have to admit, she ends up having FANTASTIC taste in choosing Prince Eric. Not only is he handsome, athletic, and plays the flute, he refuses to settle for a princess that he doesn’t really love, and when the boat catches fire, he saves his mentor Grimsby, and then GOES BACK to rescue his dog, Max! This definitely makes him a promising prospect for a romantic relationship, and Ariel sees all of it. And later, Eric finds Ariel as a mute castaway on the beach and immediately takes her home to help her, never treats her badly just because she’s homeless and can’t talk, they spend a whole day together where he gets to see her amazing, adventurous spirit and enthusiasm for life on full display, and he ends up genuinely liking her! Even though their romance happens extremely quickly, it’s a relationship that has a surprisingly good foundation. And that moment when he’s playing his flute, and Grimsby tells him that maybe he should stop chasing a dream girl that might not exist, Eric deliberately throws it away because he really is falling in love with Ariel and decides to choose her! Even though she doesn’t have a voice! That was awesome!

3. Third, Ariel wasn’t only “changing her body for a man,” she was also escaping a hostile home environment after her dad pulverizes her entire artifact collection. I’d probably want to run away from home, too. This isn’t about a child disobeying their parents, it’s about her dad making some really bad parenting choices. And as a bonus, it also happens to be a perfect opportunity for her to finally experience the human world like she’s always wanted. There’s more going on with that decision than just trying to make a guy like her. And when she turns back into a mermaid and Ursula has been defeated, she genuinely wants to go back.

a. For the record, I wholeheartedly sympathize with King Tritan’s desire to protect his children, but pulverizing her entire collection? Really? That’s supposed to convince her that humans are the bad guy?

4. Fourth--more reasons why Eric is an amazing choice for Ariel—on the wedding boat, when the spell on him is broken, he immediately goes back to Ariel, and when she turns into a mermaid right in front of him, he doesn’t freak out or get mad at her for not telling him. He immediately accepts her the way she is. And when Ursula grabs her, he doesn’t even hesitate to jump into a rowboat and try and save her with nothing but the clothes on his back and a harpoon! If that’s not true love, I don’t know what is. And during the climax, they both help each other in fighting Ursula, and then when they finally have their wedding, it’s clear that the mermaids are welcome participants, and Eric fully accepts them and is happy to be a bridge between their two peoples. I mean, wow, what an amazing guy!

In conclusion, yes, the Little Mermaid does suffer from some common romance tropes, but Disney did a good job of making Ariel into a cool, adventurous character, and Eric turns out to be an AMAZING guy, and all the elements are there for a healthy, sincere relationship that brings two very different nations together. I think it’s an amazing movie 😊 It doesn’t deserve to reduced to only “it teaches children to disobey their parents and women that they have to change their bodies for a man.

How I Fixed Moana With Help From Voltron Part II

So. The giant question of identity. Moana showed us part of the equation, but what’s the other half? What was the final piece that Moana missed?

It was choice. The power we all have to make our own decisions. That’s the other half. Family history, DNA, psychology, bodily rhythms…etc, all of those things are huge influences on who we are. But they are not ALL of who we are. The other half is the choices that we make.

That’s the theme that I saw in the Blade of Marmora episode in Voltron season 2. Keith’s knife was the only clue he had about his past, his parents, and where he came from. A knife inscribed with the symbol of the Blade of Marmora resistance group. But the Marmorians were furious when they discovered that he had one of their knives. They insisted that he return it to them. Keith refused, choosing to go through the Trials of Marmora instead, where he would obtain knowledge…or death.

Keith shows grit, stubbornness, perseverance, and strength as he goes through the physical and mental trials. A vision of Shiro chastises him for refusing to give up the knife. Shiro says, “Just give them the knife. You know exactly who you are. A paladin of Voltron. We’re the only family you need.” Keith resists the temptation. I was thinking, “Yeah! Go, Keith! Don’t give in!” And then Keith sees a new vision. The vision that presents him with a terrible choice: give up the knife, or watch the earth burn. 

Video link: Keith's Vision

And then it happens. The critical moment. Keith is barely conscious, the red lion is attacking the base, and Shiro is ready to fight through every Marmorian soldier to rescue Keith. And then Keith does the LAST thing I ever expected. He gives up the knife:

Video Link: Waking the Blade

The knife glows with an inner light and lengthens to its full size. Keith passed the test! He awakened the blade!

By letting go of his desire to learn about his past, he became worthy of the blade. I was like, “Wow. That was amazing. Wait a sec, THAT’s the other half of the Moana equation!!!” Choice!!!

Although family history and DNA are very important parts of our identities, the other part of who we are is the choices that we make. That’s an identity that has nothing to do with our heritage, where we come from, or our parents. A friend of mine was commenting on the Westworld series and said this about choices: we all have different voices inside of us. Who we are is determined by which voice we choose to follow: “[Agency] is understanding that different parts of you will argue for different paths. Agency is a matter of choosing identity, binding yourself to a path [by] fostering habits of thought and action…these choices, of necessity, restrict future options, but the point of life isn't to keep many options available; it's to make morally better ones available.”

Ultimately, it didn’t matter where Keith came from, and after I saw that episode, I figured out how to fix the Moana climax scene:

Moana holds up the heart of Te Fiti, and the demon Te Ka races towards her. Moana sings:

“This is not who you are. You know who you are…”

And the next line would be:

“Who you choose to be.”

Moana would hold the heart up high, and Te Fiti would reach out, and take the heart herself, making a clear choice of who she wants to be.

THAT would have been a very powerful ending. Disney ALMOST hit the nail on the head, but not quite. And maybe my ending doesn’t quite work either. It has the other half of the identity equation, but isn’t fully aligned with the context and buildup of the climax scene. I’d probably have to fiddle with the choreography for it to fit. Anyhow, I hope Disney will hit the nail on the head next time, like they did with Zootopia. (And Big Hero 6, and Frozen, and Wreck it Ralph, and if we want to get into Pixar, Wall-E, Bug’s Life…and I need to look at a full list of Disney/Pixar movies to complete this list…so stay tuned for next week’s post) 

How I Fixed Moana with Help From Voltron - Part I

One of the annoying things about being obsessed with writing is that sometimes, even with a fantastic movie, you can't stop thinking some little, minuscule flaw that bugged you. I really loved the Moana movie. Wonderful characters, beautiful cinematography, catchy music, and one of the funniest, most cleverly choreographed animated movies I’ve ever seen. It was brilliant! My favorite part was where the ocean hits Maui with a poisoned dart to force him to teach Moana about wayfaring. It was such a perfectly crafted scene, one of the best setup and payoff moments in the movie. 

But as much as I loved the movie, there was something missing. A tiny little piece that was all the movie needed to be enshrined in my personal “world’s greatest movies” category. It had to do with the theme. The theme of Moana was, ‘know who you really are, and be who you truly are.’ Knowing yourself is such a powerful and beautiful theme. I was excited to see what the movie would do with it. And for most of the movie, it worked really well. Moana discovered the secrets of her ancestors and explored her identity as a wayfarer. But at the last second, during the climax, as Moana puts the heart back into Te Fiti, the theme stumbled. Here’s why:

The movie emphasizes that Moana’s identity comes from her ancestors. Family history is very important and helps us learn more about ourselves. Our ancestors are an important part of our personal identities. I loved seeing a movie that talked about family history. But I felt like the theme was saying, “Be who you really are! Who you really are is your ancestors!” And…that was it. The movie never took that theme any further. Yes, who you really are is definitely influenced by your ancestors. I totally agree. But…that is not ALL of who we are. In act two I kept thinking, “Yeah, cool, identity, ancestors, and…? I kept waiting for the second half of the equation. Ancestors was the first half of the identity equation and I was SO excited to find out what the other half was. 

My heart sank at the climactic moment. Moana holds out the heart of Te’fiti, saying, "This is not who you are...I know who you are...” And when they touch foreheads, and she opened her mouth to speak again, I just knew, this was the moment I’d been waiting for, the moment when the movie was going to say the other half of the theme, the missing piece, the solution to the equation! But Moana repeats the same idea. “Who you truly are.” And that was it. And I was like, "But how do you KNOW who you truly are?! How do you figure that out?!"

I was crushed. This brilliant movie had been building up to this ONE MOMENT. Not just this moment, but this single line of dialogue…and for me, it kind of failed. I felt bereft, like a lone wanderer in a desert, searching for the answer to the secret of identity, the secret that Moana had teased me with, but never answered. I was so disappointed. The movie was still successful, it earned loads of money at the box office, and nobody I talked to seemed to notice anything missing. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Moana had presented a deep, abiding question…and never answered it. What was the other half of the equation of identity? The truth Moana should have said, but never did? 

Eventually, I found the answer in the LAST place I expected: an episode of the new Voltron series on Netflix. They didn’t even have an entire movie to address the question, they answered it in 23 minutes, an amazing feat. I’ll get into that in part two of this post.

Why Now You See Me 2 Didn't Work--The First Movie Was Way Too Cool

SPOILER ALERT! Do not read unless you have already watched Now You See Me 2!

I FINALLY watched the sequel to Now You See Me last night. I loved act one—the four horsemen, getting back into business, taking down another corporate evil guy with a brilliant succession of amazing tricks, and then…an evil mastermind disrupts their show, kidnaps them, and they wake up across the world in Macau where they are roped into doing another heist. All of that was great. We have a new villain, the horsemen are far from home, devoid of support, the Eye is who knows where, and they have to figure out what to do next. Putting familiar characters WAY out of their comfort zone is a brilliant plot device.

Opening setup—awesome. Follow up to the amazing setup—not so awesome. (Except for the fight scene between Rhodes and Walter’s goons in the market. I LOVED that scene) I realized that the very things that made the first movie so exciting were the same things that unfortunately sabotaged the sequel.

First of all, the four horsemen were characters that are WAY too competent for their own good. Or rather, far too competent for the good of the story. The heists in the first movie and the Octo infiltration prove, without a doubt, that these characters can break in ANYWHERE, in a heartbeat. They are BRILLIANT. The hypnotism, especially, is like a free pass into any secure institution, and they can use it so effortlessly. Because of their skills, I knew that in act three, when they are “captured” for the second time by Walter Mabry’s security forces in London,  it had to be fake. I knew it because they weren’t immediately ducking out of the handcuffs and using all of their magician tricks to get away. Having characters that can infiltrate anything, and duck out of handcuffs without even blinking is really difficult when setting up a story because they can, in all seriousness, get out of whatever situation you put them into. As a writer, having characters that are WAY too competent can be a nightmare because it’s so hard to put them in real danger. So as a writer myself, I completely understand why this movie stumbled a bit in that area. Figuring out how to have tension and danger with overly competent characters is HARD.

Second, and this is another area where the film suffers from the success of the first, when EVERYTHING is a trick, it’s impossible for the audience to suspend disbelief. When you have two movies that are both supported by a foundation of the biggest “Ha ha! I got you!” ever, then by the time you get to the climax of the second movie and we think they’re being thrown out of the airplane, I already know that it’s all a trick, it’s not real, and so, none of the danger feels real, and I end up tapping my foot impatiently, wishing that the movie would hurry up and get to the big reveal. Which means…all the enjoyment of the scene goes out the window. And again, this is another issue that would make a writer want to rip his/her hair out. If the audience already knows that everything is a trick, then how in the world do you convince them, or trick them, that what is happening is real? It’s a horrendously difficult story problem. Again, as a writer, I can understand why the story stumbled.

The third problem was that in the end, the biggest plot twist was that there sort of wasn’t any villain at all because Thaddeus had planned the entire thing from beginning to end, including dropping the safe with Rhodes inside into the water, just so that Rhodes could fully come to terms with his past. In the first movie, having a seemingly innocent character be revealed as the mastermind at the end (Agent Rhodes) was an amazing plot twist. But because Thaddeus was in control the whole time, you realize that villainous Walter was just a pawn in his own game, which means he was never a real threat. EVERYTHING was a setup from the very beginning, and that cheapened the victory that the horsemen won over Walter in act three.

The fourth problem was confusing character motivations. The first instance where I really noticed it was when Walter throws Rhodes into the magician’s safe and they toss him into the water. Now, yes, using the safe to kill Rhodes is a brilliant piece of poetic justice. Unfortunately, it’s poetic justice with a couple of problems. First, Walter and his father wanted Rhodes to help them locate the horsemen.  So stop and think for a second, what does Walter REALLY want? The chip. Who has it? The horsemen. And because the horsemen are so skilled at disappearing, Rhodes is their only link to the horsemen. Why in the world would you stuff your best lead into a safe and drop it into the ocean? Even though killing Rhodes is a satisfying revenge, it also means that Walter has lost his best chance at finding the horsemen. They could have tortured him for information, or at the very least, used him as a hostage so that they could trade him for the chip. The safe thing was cool and exciting…but it didn’t really make sense.

The second, big confusing moment was when I saw Thaddeus’s lushly furnished jail cell. That visual proved that Thaddeus was in complete control of his environment and that he could have left the prison whenever he wanted to. Again, the problem of having a character that is too competent. If Thaddeus could leave whenever he wanted, then why does he care about Rhodes and the four horsemen? Why does he even need to go to Macau? Why does any of it matter to him? At the end, he’s revealed as the mastermind and then his actions make more sense, but before you get to that point, he’s portrayed as a villain out for revenge, and his choices don’t really make sense. I wish Thaddeus had sold the act a little better.

And as a final note, the whole stealing the chip sequence where they are passing and tossing a card all over the room went on far too long. Not that it wasn’t fun to watch, I just didn’t understand why it was necessary to keep it going for so long—you get searched, the guards leave you alone, and then it would be safe for you to keep holding the card, right? You don’t have to contort yourself into knots to pass it to each member of the team three or four times, right?

All in all, very fun to watch, but the logic holes in act three meant that the climax fell flat and the resolution felt hollow. I salute the writers for wrestling with such a difficult story. I’d definitely be willing to try out a third movie if it ever came out, in the hopes that the writing team had a chance to figure out the right answers for those difficult plot problems.

Networking Trip in LA

Here's a lovely view of Sunset Blvd at sunset, after my class was finished. I'm standing on top of the parking structure next to the LA Film School. The night before, there were even students filming a project there, and it brought back fond memories of doing short films at Colorado film school.

Even though I was unable to meet with the manager who was interested in  my pilot while I was in LA, I still met some awesome people in my screenwriting class, and I had lunch with a friend who works as a story editor on the animated show Thunderbirds Are Go!

       Side Note: I was helping an old roommate clean up her house last week for a move, and saw her          kids watching the show Rescuebots. I was like, "Dude! My friend Patrick the story editor totally          knows the people who write for that show, and here I am, listening to it in the background, which        means I'm a friend of someone who is friends with other people who write content that is being          played, right now, in thousands of homes across the world. AWESOME!


Over lunch, Patrick told me that since I've finished an original pilot, all I need to do is write another animated spec, a live action spec, and then he can shop my scripts around to his friends who will be hiring writers for their own shows next year!!

As amazingly awesome as that was to hear, I have to admit that on the inside, I was staring at him with my jaw on the floor, thinking, "I just went through 18 months of blood, sweat, tears, and emotional torture, and now you want me to do that all over AGAIN?!!!!"

But hey, maybe the next script will only take me two months instead of 18. I'm crossing my fingers that all the blood, sweat, and tears means that eventually, I'll be able to write dozens of scripts off the top of my head and churn out tons of stories every year, and finally be like my favorite author, Brandon Sanderson, who writes a dizzying amount of content and shows no signs of slowing down or stopping.

I DID IT!!!!

Guess what?! I FINALLY, FINALLY, FINALLY finished my urban fantasy pilot after 18 months of brainstorming, outlining, writing draft after draft that just didn't work, and then more brainstorming, outlining, writing draft after draft...etc. In fact, after I finished draft number 10 (yep, count it. TEN DRAFTS), I stared at my computer screen. Just stared. I was speechless. I couldn't believe it. I'd actually done it. I'd finally figured out a good structure for the story and wrote a script that I was actually happy with.

HALLELUJAH!!!!!!!!!

I'm going to say that again:

HALLELUJAH!!!!!!!!!

I honestly, seriously considered dropping the project a dozen times. Every time I finished another draft that just didn't click, I promised myself that I was going to give up. Put it on the shelf. Try again at a later date. Forget this frustrating, annoying, stupid story even existed. To be honest, I'm not sure why I kept going. One thing that really helped was that I met a junior literary manager last year when all I had was a logline and a poster. That was it. It was the only story he was interested in. Knowing that somebody in Hollywood wanted to look at it was a great motivating factor. But even so, I was still in a deep, dark, black hole of knowing with absolute certainty that this story was never EVER going to work.

But...a hard knot of stubbornness deep inside me refused to give up. Back in June I had promised myself that I would write just one more good draft, and then I would give up the project forever, satisfied that I had at least given it a really good try. Well, one more 'good draft' turned into five more drafts since none of them were a 'good draft.' I panicked in August, wrote even more frantically, I even signed up for a November screenwriting class in California--a perfect opportunity to meet that manager in person and renew my connection with him (even though I was five months late in giving him my promised pilot script). The class really helped to give me an extra hard push the last couple weeks. I find that I do WAY better in my writing if I have real deadlines--screenwriting contests, weekend trips to California...etc.

I finished draft 10 while being deathly ill and watching loads of Korean drama episodes (Shopping King Louis is really cute, and W was a wild, crazy, amazing adventure criss-crossing the realms of fiction and reality!). I even managed to get it through a critique group the day before I left for California, and I was so lucky my sister tagged along for the trip because I didn't even have enough energy to drive.

Unfortunately, the manager I wanted to meet was traveling and the meeting didn't work out, but I did send him the script, and it's on his to-do list.

I still can't believe I did it. Wow.

GAPF-Pitch pitch pitch until you die!!!

The Great American Pitchfest, headed by Bob and Signe is an amazing experience. First of all, it's nice being around other people that are just as crazy as you are about writing. You even get to attend classes where people tell you that it's okay to be crazy enough to want a job as a writer and give you tips on how to deflect questions like, "When are you going to get a real job?" I love seeing people pitch their screenplays. Here's what I learned:

1. Have onesheets for your ideas.
2. Practice your pitch. A LOT.
3. Nobody cares about you wanting to be a script reader, they just want ideas.
4. Have five strong ideas in your quiver.
5. Don't act desperate. Movie industry people can smell desperation a mile away.
6. Research the production company
7. Carry IB Profen in your pocket or your purse.
8. Wear sneakers, not heels
9. Paying good money for good artwork on your onesheets is worth it.
10. You only have one chance to impress, so make sure your script has gone through LOTS and LOTS of editing before you send it to anyone.