However, one point I’ve pondered recently is the scene on the Enterprise where Sybok divulges the inner trauma (so he thinks) of Spock and McCoy. Kirk, of course, refuses to play along but there are a couple of things wrapped up in this scene that seem especially…
This post contains mild spoilers for the Loki Disney+ series.
This is your only chance to turn back.
A while back, I asked the rather ridiculous legal question of what action (crime?) Nebula committed when she killed her doppelganger from 2014. I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one thinking about these crazy things. IO9/Gizmodo writer, Charles Pulliam-Moore, asks whether that relationship should be considered incest. Give it a read. Does your answer reconcile with your answer to my question? For the most part, it does for me.
To refresh your recollection, I concluded that Nebula committed parricide, the killing of a close relative. By my semantics, it would follow that Loki and Sylvie’s relationship is incest (a relationship with a close relative). That doesn’t quite track, though. My first thought (and one contemplated in the article and the science fiction it cites) was that it would be more appropriate to refer to it as a particular form of incest: selfcest. Is that a different thing? The issue with my conclusion on Nebula, as I just said, was one of semantics more than logic. There simply isn’t a word for the killing of your multiverse doppelganger unless you call it suicide, which I declined to do. You’re not really the same person. However, in the case of Loki and Sylvie’s relationship, the genetic similarity becomes even more important because I’d imagine that a child of their pairing would be even more likely to develop genetic abnormalities. But if this logic holds, it’s definitely incest, but selfcest (as I interpret the term) doesn’t really exist, or wouldn’t assuming multiverses existed and could be traversed.
The only way I can fully reconcile this is if we reimagine the word, selfcest. To be a bit blunt, selfcest seems analogous to masturbation, but I don’t think anyone would call it that. Ergo, to be precise, we’d need a new word that describes the specific instance of incest where the other party was your mutliverse doppelganger. Returning to how I handled Nebula’s act, none of the alternatives, whether preexisting my post or coined by me, seem acceptable. Mirrocest, clonecest, dimensionicest, alterocest, etc. are goofy and/or inaccurate.
But having used the term, “multiverse doppelganger,” so many times in this post, I think I have the answer: Doppelcest, and by extension, doppelcide for Nebula. At the very least, you must admit that it’s better than multiversaldoppelcest.
Nice save, huh?
With the multiverse on the horizon, this could become a non-negligible issue for the viewers. Or at least for the weird viewers. Like me.
If you know any good shrinks in the DC area, hook me up. I’m clearly in great need of one.
Two movies recently hit Paramount+. Yesterday, I wrote about A Quiet Place 2. Today, I’m really sad to report that Bill & Ted failed me.
I don’t think this is a case of growing out of the material. I’ve grown out of professional wrestling. I know what it feels like to just not care anymore because of who I am now. On the other hand, I haven’t grown out of Star Trek or Star Wars. Weirdly, I’ve absolutely grown out of the old Godzilla movies but love the new ones because I loved the old ones. I’m not sure that makes sense, but there it is.
This movie was atrocious. The pacing was terrible. The new characters were stupid. We all thought Station was stupid, but we didn’t throw the baby out with the bath water. We sucked it up and enjoyed Bogus Journey anyway. But here, I couldn’t do that. There were too may actors/characters added that were a second rate versions of the actors/characters they were replacing. What’s worse, the android was replacing Death even though Death was still in the movie. Death was a watered down version of his character in Bogus Journey, but my nostalgia kicked in and I was okay with that. But nostalgia couldn’t save this movie. Probably worst of all is that the heroes aren’t even Bill and Ted. Why did they name the movie Bill & Ted [anything] if Bill and Ted aren’t really the heroes.
It’s rare for me to be this disappointed in a movie that I want to love so much.
Two movies recently hit Paramount+, and I’ve been dying to see them both. First up is A Quiet Place 2. I’m not a fan of horror movies, so when a few of the typical horror tropes reared their ugly heads, it took quite a bit away from my enjoyment of the movie. As with all horror movies, people make stupid decisions just to advance the plot (lazy writing), and are then saved because logic always gives ground to the needs of the script. If that doesn’t bother you as much as it did me, then you may like this movie a lot more than I did.
That’s important, because I still liked (not loved) it despite these flaws. As much as I wanted to punch the main characters in the face, I found myself really caring for them. I wanted them to win. The opening act was also very tense, and while it didn’t answer all the questions we have, it gave us some more with which to work.
I should warn you that the movie doesn’t really have an ending. I guess that’s to make sure there’s A Quiet Place 3.
This is a link to a sad story for me, care of Den of Geek. It celebrates the birthday of the special effects pioneer, Ray Harryhausen. As I’ve written, I love Clash of the Titans. It was a huge part of my childhood. It’s a shame that it represents the end of an era. TL;DR: A brutal review of Clash of the Titans by a dense, visionless critic (not my favorite group of people) writing for Variety drowned out the positive reviews and disheartened Harryhausen. This was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back, causing him to retire from filmmaking. While his techniques had largely (not completely!) become antiquated at that point, my guess is that he would have adapted if he had stayed. We’ll never know. Even if that’s not the case, the article points out that he was more than just a special effects guy.
For the average person, social media isn’t as focused as a movie review. That is, as a non-celebrity, I don’t wake up every morning expecting an attack on my character, but the volume of commentary is so large that you’d be a fool not to think it’ll come your way eventually. Don’t let it bum you out, especially when it comes from people that don’t know you that are saying things that aren’t true.
Ray left for Olympus in 2013. Rest in peace, good sir.
Wouldn’t it be cool if he were buried on Mt. Olympus?
Going forward, Sundays are lazy days for me. I either post something silly or other people’s work. Usually both. Today, in light of yesterday’s return to the movie theater for another MCU film, and in preparation for the season (series?) finale of Loki, I give you a new perspective on the number of alternate timelines Dr. Strange viewed in Avengers: Endgame.
