“Mulan (1998)” and “Mulan (2020)”

Date: February 4, 2021

Musical Accompaniment: Happy 4th Day of Black History Month!

“I put a spell on you / Because you’re mine…”

Interstellar News: Today was another long day. We finished The Wizard of Oz as well as Return to Oz and then watched a panel discussing the latter. I was thinking about writing my thoughts on those two movies, but I’m going to think on them some more. I plan to get back to Trek tomorrow or Saturday. Tonight, you get my thoughts on the 1998 Animated and 2020 Live Action versions of Mulan.

animated Mulan poster from 1998
“You are one lucky bug.”

“I’ll make a man out of you.”: The 1998 animated version has been one of my favorites since it came out. I was 12 when it came out, and I had always been a “tomboy”, so of course Mulan became my favorite Disney “princess”. The songs are catchy, I had already discovered my love of Asian culture and dragons, and the story was wonderful. A young woman tries to be the perfect daughter and she follows her instincts to protect her family and winds up saving all of China and turning a head or two. Grandma is also the absolute best and has the best sense of humor. As this is an animated movie there’s the ability to have the horse, dog, and cricket display personality, the spirits to be, well, animated, and to draw the characters in body shapes that don’t usually occur in nature. I won’t say this movie is perfect and has no flaws, but it’s my post so I’m not going to discuss those here… so there!

“The fiercest winter storm could not destroy this makeup”

“Loyal, Brave, and True.”: I was expecting this live action version to be similar to what Disney did with the live action version of Beauty and the Beast, a retelling of the same story but with no animation. This is far from the case. There are no songs and the story is different in so many ways, but it’s still very good. This version as magic, chi, a younger sister, a different enemy, Mulan being forced to share the barracks, and no dragons or cricket. The music is still there, in the background, and there are a lot of callbacks to the movie in some of the dialogue (“today you become men”, “what do you look for in a woman?”, etc.) that is spoken. I love the little village the Hua family lives in, especially when the bit with the chicken reminded me of the animated Hercules movie. As with the animated version, this one has its flaws and is far from perfect. The message, however, is the same. Gender is a social construct and it doesn’t matter what genitals you were born with… we all make our own paths.

I highly recommend watching both animated versions, the sequel Mulan II is actually a lot of fun, and this live action version. They are all empowering and visually pleasing. Also, Disney+’s GroupWatch worked awesomely.

TA Out!

Sports Night: “Thespis”

Date: February 3, 2021

Season 1, Episode 8

Music Video of the Day: Happy 3rd Day of Black History Month!

“Send my love to the new PlayStation2” — yeah, that dates the hell out of this song. hahahahahaha.

Interstellar News: Happy 13 months to my blog! Tonight I watched The Wizard of Oz with the husband person in preparation for Return to Oz tomorrow, as there will be a Classics Track panel on its 35th anniversary and it’s been ages since I’ve seen both.

Favorite Quote:

Natalie: So Thespis is the Roman god of theater?

Jeremy: That’s exactly right. Except he’s not Roman and he’s not a god.

Natalie: What is he?

Jeremy: He’s Greek, and he’s a ghost.

I absolutely love Jeremy and his geekiness.

“For a guy who’s read The Hobbit 14 times, you’re not so dumb.”: This episode is delightful and I love it for so many reasons. Jeremy enlightens the crew about Thespis, Dana is nervous about Thanksgiving, Dan and Casey have a small tiff over their work anniversary, and Isaac becomes a grandfather. All three of these stories have the same thread of focusing on what is important rather than whatever they’re focusing on. Dan remembered the anniversary and Casey didn’t, but Dan also feels like Casey stayed with him because he wasn’t offered the Conan show. Turns out Casey was offered the show, never told Dan, it’s what ultimately led to his divorce from Lisa, and they settle their fight because they’re together now and such a wonderful team. I love they way they feed off of each other, they are work husbands and it just plain works for them.

Dana standing in front of Casey and Dan as the turkey falls on the desk
“Say, Dana? This wouldn’t happen to be your frozen turkey by any chance, now would it?”

Isaac had a fight with his wife, but none of that matters when his daughter has a troubled labor and he needs to get to where they are immediately. Everything goes well and all the men get cigars, sigh, but it’s touching how everyone is so happy for Isaac and his family in that moment. Dana is so focused on her mother’s approval she forgets what’s important until the turkey takes a dive, the show has a ton of problems, and Jeremy reminds her what the spirit of Thanksgiving is really all about. This absolutely reminds me about all the things I would do to get ready for when my mom came to visit me, which I still do for my dad and my in-laws. A great and wonderful episode with catchy dialogue and a happy ending for all involved… except for the turkey of course.

TA Out!

Sports Night: “Dear Louise…”

Date: February 2, 2021

Season 1, Episode 7

Music Video of the Day: Happy 2nd day of Black History Month!

Can’t write up this episode without including this song. Although KC is white, many of the band members throughout the years have been Black and celebrated.

Interstellar News: Tonight I finally watched the live action Mulan and tried out the “GroupWatch” feature on Disney+ (which worked great). Mulan is my favorite Disney Princess and I’ve always been enamored of Asian culture, and I loved the interpretation of the story. I might write that up one of these nights, or maybe I won’t.

Favorite Quote:

Jeremy: El Perro Fumando?

Dana: The Flaming Dog.

Casey: Smoking Dog.

Dana: Not the Flaming Dog?

Casey: The dog’s not gay.

Dana: I wasn’t suggesting the dog was gay, I was suggesting the dog was on fire.

Such a fantastic exchange, considering neither of them likely speak Spanish.

“I’ve found that when I need a stamp, one materializes.”: This is such a wonderful episode, which apparently was inspired by several M*A*S*H episodes where they wrote letters home. It’s a fun way to give a little more background to some of the characters, but all through Jeremy’s eyes as the newest person in the office. It’s a beautiful touch to have his sister be hearing impaired and Casey immediately being respectful of why Jeremy is writing to her instead of just calling. It’s a great callback to how email was sort of a thing but people didn’t see its benefit, so letters were also still a thing if you didn’t or couldn’t phone for some reason. To this day, though, I still love getting letters in the mail. My mom used to send me ones all the time, usually with recipes or ways to lose weight/eat healthier, and I miss that I don’t really have anyone to do that anymore.

Old lady looking at computer... "How do I put a stamp on this email?"

Also in this episode… Dan can’t write, Isaac’s daughter is dating a Republican, Dana gets a haircut, and Casey and Gordon verbally spar and it’s fantastic. There’s also the bit about Isaac’s friend who played in the Negro League who died after a carjacking, and it’s heartbreaking that people are still killing folks because of their skin color all these years later. In case anyone was wondering… Black Lives Matter. Latinx Lives Mater. LGBTQA Lives Matter. Every damn life matters, so let’s take care of each other. Stay home, wash your hands, wear your mask, and be safe everyone.

TA Out!

VOY: “The Voyager Conspiracy”

Date: February 1, 2021

Season 6, Episode 9

Music Video of the Day: In honor of Black History Month, I’m going to highlight some of my favorite Black artists.

“Everybody gets a nice autograph picture / One for you and one for your sister / Who had to work tonight but is an avid listener”

Interstellar News: I told you I’d be back! It’s nice to be feeling a little more like myself and get a workout in today.

“I don’t have the benefit of a cortical processor. Why don’t you give me the abridged version?”: Seven refits her alcove so she can process Voyager’s information more quickly. She identifies photonic fleas that are causing an issue with power on the ship, at which Janeway and Torres are impressed. They encounter an alien named Tash who is building a catapult to try to get him home sooner than 10 years. Seven discovers this uses Caretaker technology and then jumps the shark with her conspiracy theories. One is that Janeway stranded them there on purpose in order to invade the DQ, another that Chakotay is reviving the Maquis, and lastly that she was the original reason for Voyager coming to the DQ. Janeway talks her off the ledge, Seven gets her implant fixed, and they use the catapult to cut three years off of their journey home.

Favorite Quote:

Janeway: We’ve been through too much to stop trusting each other.

Chakotay: You didn’t poison the coffee, did you?

Janeway: Not any more than I usually do.

Janeway and Chakotay exchanging jokes.
Me when I'm talking to a conspiracy theorist: (Dwight Shrute)" I don't believe you, continue."
“You’ve uncovered some interesting facts. But your interpretation is far-fetched. These are random incidents. Granted, some of them are hard to explain, but there’s no conspiracy here.”

“Quantity is less relevant than quality. You must be able to interpret the data and enjoy the process.”: This episode starts off promising and then drops really quickly. Seven’s proof of flea infestation is very much like all of the wonderful detective bits from Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot and quite impressive. As she takes on more information she gets overloaded, but it’s not clear she’s gone absolutely batshit until she calls Janeway in. The problem with conspiracy theories is that the abundance of facts put together in a particular way eventually sounds plausible to even the most level headed of us, but they always have one failure. Think of how many things had to happen in JUST THE RIGHT SET OF EVENTS in order for the conspiracy to work. How did Tash know that Voyager would be in that part of space at that very moment? Think of Kes propelling them 10,000 light years across Borg space, or the many other times Voyager hit a speed ramp. It’s just like “Rascals” and “Badda-Bing Badda-Bang” where everything had to happen in a certain way for the plan to not fall completely apart. It was fun to watch Seven go off the deep end, and then it was just sad. Overall, this episode earns itself 4 chicken dumplings.

TA Out!

“The Legend of Korra, Book 2: Spirits”

Date: January 31, 2021

Music Video of the Day:

“Here Is Gone” by Goo Goo Dolls
“I thought I lost you somewhere / But you were never really ever there at all.“

Interstellar News: After finishing Season 1, we continued to watch Season 2 while we ate dinner these last two weeks. I fully intend to start back with Trek tomorrow night.

TL;DR: Book 1 was all about Korra learning to airbend in order to fully become the Avatar. She completed that, and then some, but now it’s time for her to deal with the spiritual side of being the Avatar. She meets her Uncle, who treats her like a grown-up and then eventually becomes the big bad of the season, the first Avatar, and the light and dark spirits of Raava and Vaatu, respectively. She finds out shocking family secrets, loses her memories, loses her connections with her past lives, and even trades breakups with Mako. The season ends with Korra pulling a Doctor Manhattan, saving the world, and making a big change that will absolutely, totally, not have any consequences in the next season (here I am, waving in sarcasm).

Big blue spirit Korra fights Vaatu-merged with her uncle
“Now, ten thousand years of darkness begins!”

“He became a legend because of who he was, not what he was.”: This season bumps up the action and shows us not only more bending, but more of the spiritual world. There are still plenty of callbacks to The Last Airbender and also Season 1, but it’s also a good story that comes to a conclusion but also opens the door to discovering the consequences of those actions… which I am sure I will discover in Season 3. Korra finally “becomes” the Avatar, and it’s such a great journey for her as it’s the complete package of teenage angst and the weight of the world on her shoulders. There’s also Varrick, who is absolutely crazy and super rich, and his insanity is truly wonderful throughout the season. Bolin gets to become a movie star and he’s an absolute joy to watch when he can’t decide how he feels about Eska. Tenzin gets some much needed family time and we get to learn more about what it was like to have Aang as a father from two different sources. It’s so wonderful to see the threads of born family and chosen family stringing together. I can’t wait to see what happens next.

TA Out!