Shieldmaidens of Rohan

After a much tinkering and procrastination, I finally finished the three Shieldmaidens of Rohan that I started back in June. Each one has a foot and mounted version so I've averaged a model a month, which is quite the poor show. In either case, here they are:

I've gone quite simple with this, and kitted them out in three wargear options available for Riders of Rohan (even though it's technically only two, it just depends on which weapon they are holding). This is simply because that is what they will represent on the tabletop, and it is a great way to add variety to my force of Riders as it grows. I really try my hardest to avoid duplicating models where possible.

The base of each shieldmaiden is one of the female Mirkwood Ranger minis. I wanted them to be "authentically female" rather than just giving a normal warrior slightly longer hair or something. Without going third party, the GW range has limited female options, most of which are hero options (Eowyn, Arwen and Galadriel). The Rangers however offer a good mix of options that are relatively easy to "Rohan-ify" and come in plastic, which is much easier to work with than alternatives.

Most of the rest of the components then come from existing Warriors or Riders of Rohan, although I did take some hands and weapons from 3D printed Rohan scouts (I believe they are Medbury). This was because they have smaller scaled hand sizes that better matched the Ranger's own. The Rohan models hands seem almost twice as large.

So, why Shieldmaidens? They don't exactly exist in the lore and Eowyn is the big exception to the rule. I have three reasons:

1) They add variety to my army.
2) They represent my girlfriend and two daughters.
3) They represent the real-life female jockeys that made up the cast of Riders in the Jackson films.
4) It's a bit of fanfiction that I accept is lore-innacurate.

With the upcoming "War of the Rohirrim" (WotR) film (two days away at the time of writing), the fairly recent culmination of Rings of Power's second season and also the recent announcement of the Hunt for Gollum... duology? Trilogy? (Tolkien help us), the conversation around Middle Earth canonicity is huge right now. I generally fall on the side of "stick to the canon" but not without wiggle room for a good adapation. For example, the Jackson trilogy? Good adapation. Rings of Power? Bad adaptation. WotR? Remains to be seen.

WotR is ostensibly the story of Helm Hammerhand, one of the greatest kings of Rohan and reads as almost mythological. It's the story of a man driven to wrath when his country comes under threat from both outside and in. What we are getting in the upcoming film instead seems to be the story of Hera Hammerhand. Whilst this character exists in lore (unlike RoP Isildur's sister. Where's Anarion gone Amazon?), she is little more than an unnamed plot device. Now, this is not necessarily a bad thing, Tolkien's writings on Helm is a mere two pages, and addresses a period of several years. There is scope to build a story around Hera or her brothers there, however the film I want to see is about Helm and the war between Rohan and Dunland during the Long Winter. So long as we get that faithfully, even if Hera is the main character, I will be happy with the film... assuming it is well-written of course.

We know why we are getting this story as well. Ostensibly the producers wanted a female-led film. One set in Rohan, with parallels to Eowyn is an easy selling point. Middle Earth's stories are limited to Eowyn, Luthien and Haleth for good female-led options, and two of those are Simarillion-era stories, and not well-known to the average Lord of the Rings fan. That last one also being the name of Hama's son in the Jackson trilogy also throws people off.

I'd originally written a long rant extolling the virtues of good adaptions and trashing Rings of Power, even bringing up various video games (some good and fun, but very lore-innacurate) and The Hobbit films (bloated a messy with some good sections), but it's a discussions that's been done to death.

It's easy to say there is no perfect adaptation of Tolkien's works. Jackon's films are perhaps mostly highly ranked (excepting The Hobbit trilogy), but even it has gaps and changes. Tom Bombadil and The Scouring of the Shire are big ones many people point out, but I personally miss Aragorn and Eomer's banter at Helm's Deep, The Passing of the Grey Company, and Theoden slaying the Serpent King.

So, how am I resolving my shieldmaidens into the lore of Middle Earth? They will simply exist in my army as women who picked up thier husband's gear in their stead, be they away figthing, hunting or just dead. Rohan is a country with a long history of war, and there is many a time where the women of Rohan may have had to take up arms to defend hearth and kin. They just may not have ridden as official members of an Eored. I don't think this detracts from Eowyn's story, and I think it is lore-friendly enough.

Until next time.

Everything, Everywhere, All At Once

I find it quite interesting that my return to this blog came from three movies that have formed a little trilogy of the themes of Multiverses and Choice. Ok, maybe Doctor Strange is a little bit of stretch on that, but all three movies; Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, Evangelion: 3.0+1.01 Thrice Upon a Time, and now finally Everything, Everywhere, All At Once, have some level of multiverse to them and some level of the power of choice.

I’d like to say I planned this, but I really didn’t. Doctor Strange was me nerd-complaining, Evangelion was me running on insomnia, and Everything is me trying to highlight a great film that has been missed by many for how well it does things that the first movie discussed just didn’t, whilst still telling a compelling, character driven story like the best of the second.

Interestingly, they also all have really long titles.

EEAAO, to save typing and reading, really was missed. A short cinematic release just before the big guns of Top Gun, and around the time of Doctor Strange, Northlander (also highly recommended) and Sonic 2. The marketing seemed sparse to the point I didn’t even hear about the recommendation to watch it until after it had left cinemas. I’ve since picked it up by other means, but this one I’ll be picking in physical format as soon as I can. That may sound silly in this fancy cloud-driven on-demand everything-is-a-service era (no I don’t have any bones to pick), but I like to have copies of things I like so I know I can return to them whenever I need to, without having to worry about licensing, subscription fees or servers shutting down.

I’m a luddite I know.

Before I go too much further into EEAAO, I’m going to simply say that you should just go watch the damn film. I’m going to endeavour to keep it spoiler free, but it'll be pretty difficult to discuss what I want to discuss without giving things away, and witnessing this film first hand without knowing what’s coming is something special.

So go. Go now. I’ll see you in a couple of hours.

…

I hope you enjoyed it. There’s a hell of a lot going on here, it’s a tremendously dense movie, and in spite of a lot of the “sillier” aspects of it, none of it is wasted. Every word and action seems to have been placed purposefully, unlike so many other movies recently where off-hand comments and random actions just happen without comment or reason. The paint universe in Doctor Strange comes to mind. We get a brief fun flash of Strange and America being paint, then a quick mention as a joke, and nothing of it. That’s not saying that it has too, but with the all universes featured in EEAAO, not one is there as a passing comment and all has a use and point and adds to the story.

With me complaining so much about the wasted potential of Doctor Strange 2, to see this movie so soon afterwards only increases that feeling. I praised the actors there, but I think EEAAO has it beaten here too. It may be because the script is better, but Michelle Yeoh, Stephanie Hsu, James Hong, Ke Huy Quan (yes, frickin Short Round is in this and he’s actually amazing), and Jamie Lee Curtis all knock it out of the bag. Originally, this film was supposed to feature Jackie Chan and Awkwafina at different points in production (replaced by Yeoh and Hsu respectively), but I can honestly say the casting changes were for the better. 

The main reason I love this whole thing however is that it all comes down to choice. Every new universe is explicitly created from a branching choice. The characters can gain the skills of their own alternative-choiced-selves by performing ridiculous actions to slingshot themselves across the timelines temporarily, experiencing and living both. It’s the key mechanic in bringing many of the film’s action scenes, which retain that Jackie Chan style of improvisation and a fast-pace in really effective and engaging ways. 

For all of the wackiness and kung-fu however, the core of the story still revolves around the choices, or lack thereof of the family of Evelyn, Waymond and Joy. It’s about responsibility for your actions and choices, and how you don’t have to do everything on your own. It’s about appreciating what you have, without losing sight of moving forwards, and has an aspect of anti-nihilism.

It’s very heartwarming as we see the characters finally choose to try understanding one another, and begin to communicate properly. Sitting on the edge of annihilation juxtaposed against the simple act of talking to your family in a carpark.

Then there’s Joy’s loneliness. For all that nothing matters to her, that she’s so done with being aware of everything that she wants to end it all, the whole time she’s reaching out for someone to share even that with. And it can’t just be anybody, it has to be someone who understands the why of it, who has experienced what she has. She’s someone who knows everything and can do anything, and yet feels so small.  

That she picks Evelyn, her mother, is an expression that you can believe begins as a form of payback. Alpha-Evelyn clearly puts a lot of pressure and demands on Joy, to the point of making her what she is now. Initially it seems clear that the main Evelyn we follow is the same way, but it’s hinted that wasn’t always the case, and there is love there. It just takes everything that happens going on to demonstrate that. Refreshingly, it calls her Joy out on her own bullshit even as the story is focused on Evelyn’s faults. The breakdown of the relationship isn’t solely due to Evelyn’s choices, it’s a confluence of both of thiers, alongside Weymond’s and Gong Gong’s. For the latter of whom, the choices are decades old and yet have had far-reaching effects. 

It really goes to show how the clashes of ideas and desires can create conflict, but also something beautiful.

I can understand why some may not like this film, that certain parts may take them out of it enough to miss the messaging it displays within all the seeming nonsense, or in the quieter moments between setpieces. I do think the seeming mundanity of the early scenes is enough to ground you and keep you following the characters as things ramp up and get weird however. They’re very fully realised, enough that every choice they make is consistent with their character. No mean feat considering that we’re often dealing with variants in other universes. There’s depths to this movie that feels authentic, rather than cheap one-liners and unearned payoffs.

It’s refreshing, and I’m looking forward to watching it again.

Thank you for reading. If you’ll excuse me, I have some googly eyes to stick on things.

Movie Thoughts: Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness

So, Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. The latest in Phase 4 of the MCU, another entry in the post-Endgame/post-Infinity Saga live-action comic book adaptations presented to us by the House of Mouse and Kevin Feige. (And doesn't Kevin want us to know it, check those credits).

If you're reading this, be ready for spoilers, cos I'm not planning to mince words. The spoilers aren't just for this film, but also for Wandavision and Spiderman: Far From Home at minimum.

Without further ado, was it good?

Ehhhh…

That's really hard to say, Marvel generally does well with the spectacle of seeing the big heroes on screen, the actors are generally good (Cumberbatch and Olsen were a treat) and it at least feels well put together.

However I'm leaning towards the idea that it was not good. The tone shifts a lot, the pacing is all over the place, characters are either wasted, underutilised or lacking in personality or motives, and the writing and plotting just falls apart. Remember when the MCU's continuity generally held together and made sense? Not so much any more!

Knowing where to start is tricky, so I'll go with the trailers. We've known for a while that this Doctor Strange movie would have supporting hero characters in the form of Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch fresh from her Disney+ series, and America Chavez, a new introduction to the MCU.

Strange, following from his supporting role in Spiderman as the catalyst for bringing in mutiversal Spidermen and associated rogues gallery, appears to be having multiversal troubles of his own. Wanda being there makes sense, being part of the more 'mystical' side of the MCU after her powers were retconned from being granted by an Infinity Stone to having always been present as the Scarlet Witch is some prophesied being in Wandavision. America Chavez, whilst new, has a powerset that auto-includes multiversal travel, by way of punching star-shaped holes in reality. A little silly, but there it is.

Notably, we got no true villain from the trailer, aside from maybe us having an evil!Strange.

Very soon we learn that it is Wanda herself that is the villain of the film. Hot off the back of what many viewers rate as her villainous acts in Wandavision, and in possession of the rather corrupting Darkhold, Scarlet Witch is here to hunt down America Chavez. And why do you ask? She wants to steal the girl's powers so she can travel to other realities to be with the two sons she created in Westview.

Already there are problems with this premise. Any reality with copies of her sons would naturally have its own Wanda she would have to replace or steal from in some way. The focus is all on her sons and not on her equally missing husband, Vision. (Nominally I guess they couldn't get or didn't want to include Bettany for this film, but after Wandavision the absence feels glaring, not least because he is in some way, alive again). On top of this, she originally created the two boys purely from magic, and whilst this was done via out-of-control grief and with meddling from Agatha, no reason is given for her not being able to just recreate them.

There's a lot that can and should be covered as a follow-up to Wandavision, and whilst Doctor Strange does deserve his own film, this one in particular should've been the Scarlet Witch movie, with him once more supporting if needed. But then, this yet again showcases the failure of the MCU to trust fully in a female-led film, despite their supposed dog whistling for mighty and fabled DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION.

Before anyone gets their backs up about that last sentence, my gripe is with how often these ideals are done in ways that are cheap, lazy, stereotypical, at the cost of pre-established things, or even downright offensive. If you're going to champion a cause, do it well.

Captain Marvel was awful, with an unlikeable 'hero' enough that her Endgame presence was supposedly reduced, and also her now sharing title space for her second movie with Kamala Khan and I assume Monica Rambeau. The less said about how much Black Widow soiled the memory of Nat's better showings up to that point the better. (Also Widow should've had a film in Phase 2 or 3, and one better than what we got).

In fact, Wandavision may be the best female-led production in the MCU to date… if you ignore the kludgy attempts to 'redeem' her and keep her heroic by the end. Even as a huge grief-driven mistake, she still enslaved and dream-tortured a few hundred people with no recompense to them.

Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness is certainly its sequel however. Imagine it, a fully Sam Raimi directed, Evil Dead-style movie with the titular Scarlet Witch as the villainous lead. Keeping the Darkhold as the corrupting influence so that she can still be broken from it by the end if you wish is just fine, but perhaps the idea would be considered too dark for the MCU. We get glimpses of it, but Raimi was clearly reined in and I'm left wondering what was in his original extra 40 minutes and what we lost to reshoots.

So instead we have this as a Doctor Strange movie, though it's not as if he's completely devoid of story. In his first movie, he obtained and utilised the time stone to defeat Dormmamu, turned Mordo from Kamar-Taj and became close to being the Sorcerer Supreme many would recognise from the comics. He was the one who found the path to victory in Infinity War and Endgame. We learn in Spiderman that being erased from existence for five years cost him the position of Sorcerer Supreme (Wong holds it), and that he still has that self-assurance of his abilities to mess with and attempt difficult spells as one of the most powerful humans in the MCU. Truly the man who learned to astral project so he could read whilst he slept in order to learn magic.

So we start his second film with a variant of him dying and him attending the wedding of Christine, his love interest from the first film. Oof.

Christine remains a major part of the story throughout, with a running question of "Are you happy?". She, or variants of her, criticise him for his need to "be the one always be holding the knife", Strange's demonstrated cockiness and belief of smug superiority from his surgeon days. A flaw he's likely not fully overcome, and what could've been the arc for this film, had the story been different, as I don't believe he experiences growth past this here. We also meet a Strange variant who destroyed his reality trying to "get" his own Christine, drawing parallels to the Strange from the recent What If? animated series.

And yet, by the end of the film the only growth our Dr Strange seems to have learned is to be a bit more respectful to Wong. Him repairing the watch seems meant as him growing past his accident and Christine, but I'm not so sure this flows. Him respectfully attending her wedding at the beginning seems to show this already, and the accident is the subject of his first film.

However, we know that the director/writer team for the first Doctor Strange movie left this production because they were unable to continue building on his characters arcs in this sequel, which is why Raimi is at the helm here. This is a shame, because he really is a side-character in his own movie.

To cover the last of the three main characters, America Chavez is more of a plot macguffin than a character, at best a generic, snarky teenager than anything more. From a rather utopian-looking reality that allows for two women to have a child (supposedly, I haven't researched so if I'm wrong I misheard), her powers activate when she's scared enough. She has no control over this, which causes her traumatic event of getting stung by a bee and throwing her moms somewhere into the multiverse and seeing her jumping realities at random for what appears to be a good 8-10 years alone.

America appears to be presented as a pro-feminist, progressive character, two mothers and wearing a pride-flag pin on her chest, yet interestingly only learns how to use her power after getting a pep-talk from Strange and requires him (and variants of him) to constantly save her throughout the film. I am possibly over-analysing here, but it seemed incongruent with messaging we typically see these days, especially when paired with Wanda's motivations and role. That the two things that made me consider her to be a pro-feminist character (not a criticism, just an observation) were downright subtle compared to more cludgy writing we've seen in other media was a pleasant surprise, which made it even more odd to see America as the damsel and macguffin. (Cynically, that subtleness may be for China’s benefit however).

Then again, perhaps it all would've been clearer with better writing for the character, and I have to wonder if the lack of control is true for her comic counterpart. We essentially got her first steps on the old "hero's journey" in this film, but it feels thin and I have to wonder if she'd have benefitted from an introduction before now (I think being in Loki would make a lot of sense), to give us a more capable and assured America, even if she remains Wanda's target and needs to team up with Strange, but in a way that's more partnership and less damsel in distress. I'm thinking "America Chavez, Guide to the Multiverse" here.

However, I think I've rambled about the characters enough, let's talk about other oddities, such as missing characters. I've already mentioned Vision, strangely missing when by far he's the character most connected to Wanda, and currently a big question mark in the MCU. Sticking with Wandavision, there's also the absence of Monica Rambeau, though we could at least expect that she's tied up with SWORD.

A final one for Wanda would be Hawkeye. The two were given a bond during Age of Ultron and Civil War, and we've seen nothing from him since in relation to Wanda, likely due to screen time concerns. Clint had his own grief-rampage and regret of it after the fact, so who else would be better to try and reason with Wanda, even if it proved fruitless. We can guess that Strange wouldn't know to contact him for that reason, and he's presumably busy with family and Kate Bishop.

For Strange, the main missing character would be Mordo. This is made even more hilarious considering we get a variant of him, though reportedly he was gonna show in a deleted scene where he fails to hunt down Wanda and gets beheaded. This being removed was good, as it would've been a huge waste of Chiwetel Ejiorfor, who is a great actor.

That said, the idea that Strange did not call for any assistance in stopping Wanda feels odd. The pacing made it feel like things happened quickly, and they did at least rally a bunch of sorcerers at Kamar-Taj, but considering what they gathered to stop Thanos (who wanted to remake the universe), when Wanda may cause multiversal destruction, it's hard to justify. Not helped in the least by Endgame showing that sorcerers could portal from even extreme distances like Titan to Earth. The lack of use of portals in some circumstances is another issue, especially for anyone who's a fan of the Portal video games.

He still knows Spiderman even if he doesn't know that it's Peter Parker under the mask, who they bring him up to make a butt-webs joke! We also have to wonder chronologically where the post-credits scene for Shang-Chi falls, as he and Marvel's Katy were picked up by Wong.

For another thing entirely, the story for this film was penned by the same writer who did Loki. Considering what Loki did for the multiverse and time-travel in the MCU (and by all I could swear on do I hate it), it is incredibly odd to not have Kang or the TVA involved in some way or even mentioned. Then again if there was an overarching plan I could've had input on, I'd have introduced America with them, but it seems the MCU is lacking in this oversight these days. Loki himself or Sylvie, due to being magic users, are options too.

Of course adding all this would make for a mess, but the MCU has expanded without thought and consideration for wider effects. Time-Travel and Mutiverses just skim the surface. "What is X doing", will forever be a question made harder by instant teleportation. With everything being such high stakes all the time, we need more grounding.

Another issue is power levels. Strange and Wong often seem to stand around for long periods of time without utilising any of the much more useful magic they've demonstrated in the past, but then sometimes still do. We all saw the trailer shot of Strange magically buzz-sawing a bus in half, and yet he doesn't use it on the big monster that threw the bus in the first place. Him and Wong try to hold this bus-throwing monster down with a chain and their own weight and physical strength instead. For some reason. Muscle Wizards they are not. At other times Strange summons snakes once and this odd cat head thing in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment. I've seen many people criticise the magic music fight scene, but if the more creative aspects of magic had been more consistently used, as per his fight with Thanos, I think it would not have registered that way.

Wanda too is ridiculously powerful, keeping Strange and America on the run throughout (which is fine as a horror villain) and solo-killing the entirety of the Illuminati. What an awful way to introduce Krazinski as Reed Richards. Her powers remain as vague as ever, from the original red smokey telekinesis and hallucination inducing she started with, to what now appears to be reality warping and "abilities as needed" like being able to travel through reflections. Darkhold-provided or not, balancing her back down for future appearances may be difficult, and despite the ending, I don't believe she's gone just yet.

I don't think I have anything further to say that has not already been covered by others. The film feels like a litany of missed opportunities in so many ways, I could possibly ramble a lot longer than the 2000+ words I've reached so far. Let me know what you think.

The memory store will always be a fucking stupid idea and the epitome of lazy writing however.

Peace!