Keeping up

[liv]

Unusually for me, I managed to watch a couple of popular things soon after they came out. So, have some opinions about Pokémon Detective Pikachu and Good Omens.

Pokémon Detective Pikachu is good fun but horribly ableist.

Partners' children were really excited because PDP was the First! Ever! live action Pokémon movie! I wasn't completely convinced that live action Pokémon was either all that novel, or something the world needed, especially since it's humans interacting with CGI which is pretty old hat by now. However, it came out when we were all in France so it seemed a good time to go and see it. So we found a cinema that was showing the English language "VO" film with French subtitles, and were almost the only people in the entire theatre. (I was quite impressed with the subtitles; they captured the humour and the slangy hardboiled style, and occasionally made sexist jokes in the original script less sexist.)

It did almost everything I could ask for from a live action Pokémon movie. The animation was good, and they brought the creatures to life really well. It took me a while for me to get my head around furry Pikachu, but fine. The dialogue was quite funny for adults as well as children, and there were lots and lots and lots of Pokémon references both in the main focus and in the background. The plot was reasonably obvious but done quite nicely, with good acting and characterization. And the incongruity of Pikachu as a hardboiled detective was rather lovely.

But argh, the ableism! The supervillain is a guy who tries to destroy all Pokémon and humans because he's so frustrated by losing mobility due to an illness. I don't have a problem with a disabled villain, I don't have a major problem with using outdated language like "confined to a wheelchair" or "trapped in a defective body", because that could be interpreted as characterization. But having someone's motivation for being melodramatically evil being simply the fact that he is paralysed is just awful and has no place in a 2019 film. Plus he's a plutocrat and a gadget-head; he could have invented just about any technology imaginable to accomplish whatever he wanted, but no, he's "stuck" in a wheelchair that is hardly more than a hospital-style armchair-on-wheels, and he's only interested in inventing doomsday devices.

I was also disappointed that the protagonist's estranged father turns out to be white. I was quite enjoying exploring father-son relationships and general self-discovery for an African-American young man, but I would have liked it even better if the father had also been African-American.

If you can get past the awfulness of the villain plot, the film has some really lovely moments. I really liked what they did with Mewtwo.

I utterly, ridiculously loved Good Omens, it's adorable and perfect.

cjwatson kindly lent us his Amazon account, and watched the series through for the second time with me and jack. It was just wonderful, spending a couple of weekend afternoons curled up with two of my partners, watching Crowley and Aziraphale being adorable while averting Armageddon. I loved all the casting (except maybe Arjona as Anathema), and I loved how the show captures the spirit of the book, and the visual and verbal humour. Mind you, I'm not someone for whom GO was a completely formative book, so I'm probably more forgiving than some viewers might be. I really liked the extra scene from the planned sequel, especially because the rest of the plot is familiar so it was really exciting to have a plot twist, and one that fits in so well with the rest.

The show also retains much of the book's attitude to religion, irreverent and humorous but sincere when it needs to be. I'm always going to be uncomfortable portraying God on screen, but that's just because I'm Jewish and it's a Christian show. I'm not sure how much I should even have an opinion about this but I thought the depiction of the Crucifixion was going a bit far, and it would have been better if they'd had the angel and demon observing from a distance rather than showing the detail. But the Four Horsemen are great, and the various demons are great (particularly impressed with Beelzebub's flies and Dagon's fishiness).

The chemistry between the two leads is what really makes the show. I love how much they played up the rom-com aspects that are a bit subtextual in the original books. I feel like I don't really need fanfic, given that the relationship actually on screen is so perfect. Though I'm most certainly glad that GO fanfic is flourishing again, I was always fond of book fandom. There's even a delightful montage of Crowley and Aziraphale interacting at key moments in history as a very long intro to one of the episodes. And the final scene, with Tori Amos singing A nightingale sang in Berkeley Square is the most perfectly romantic thing ever.

Comments

[rushthatspeaks]

Yeah, I mean, I mostly loved Detective Pikachu-- I saw it twice in theatres-- but I remain annoyed by the extremely loving Pokemon CGI that did not include any of their obvious and easily extrapolatable roles as service animals, aides to the mobility-impaired, developmentally disabled, etc.. There should have been diversity of ability in the crowd scenes-- which still wouldn't make the villain a great idea, but would at least establish him as failing to handle a situation that others were wrangling successfully, which would be a smidge better.

[liv]

Yes, that's a good point. If they had showed some other characters with disabilities who were not genocidal supervillains it would have helped a lot. I love the idea of Pokémon as service animals too!

[lethargic_man]

I really liked the extra scene from the planned sequel, especially knowing that the I really liked the extra scene from the planned sequel, especially knowing that the

Can we have the rest of this sentence, please?

[liv]

Ah, good spot. I meant to say, it was exciting to have a plot twist when the rest of the show was based on sticking to the plot of the book.

[kass]

I was surprised that I enjoyed Detective Pikachu; I expected to grin and bear it for my kid's sake, but we are both geeky enough about Pokemon at this juncture that I found the film pretty charming. And, yes, agreed on the ableism, which was ugh.

I absolutely adored Good Omens. It is my new favorite thing.

[liv]

Yeah, I was about there with Detective Pikachu, I was expecting it to be a bearable children's film and I was excited for the kids' excitement, but there was a lot about it that I really loved. The procession with the Bulbasaurs taking Pikachu to the place of healing ❤!

I am so glad you get to love GO. I am not at all surprised that it's exactly your sort of thing, and I'm glad it does work so well for you. (And thanks for the pointer to michaelsheen talking about midrash, too!)

[ayebydan]

DP was something I never wanted to see. I guess pokemon would have fur but ...it seemed really off-putting! Then more of the plot came out and...yeah. I don't want kids thinking disabled people are just balls of rage. Or that our rage will result in X or Y.

Good Omens was amazing. I'm not a fan of the writing style of Gaiman but my best friend adores him so I have spent a good fortune over the years on various 'cool things' for her and then this appeared so I was like 'I think this is the best of his things hmmm'. I was not yet convinced though. But I ended up watching American Gods with another bestie months ago when I was at work and she was using my tv while I was away. I came into find Bilquis...being Bilquis and was like O________o #'excuse me what are you watching on my tv ect'. But I got hooked. So I decided if that was great I'd give GO a try and...long story short I marathons it in one day and now have MANY feelings. I am especially in love of the way Michael is accepting all of his fans and all the way they express their love and encouraging artistic growth through fandom and it has just become a really beautiful thing, above and beyond what it started as.

[liv]

I think not watching Detective Pikachu is the wise choice for you. It's particularly bad to have such a horrible plot about disabled folk in a children's film, IMO. As for the fur thing, well, some pokemon it makes sense, like I didn't have a problem with furry Snorlax, but I was definitely unsure about Pikachu. I suppose it's a way for the animators to show off their skills.

[naath]

GO was indeed perfect and beautiful. If you like that sort of thing the script book is pre-editorial-cuts (4 other horse persons, sadly omitted) and has humorous 'stage' directions.

(and noooooo, *I* didn't fall down a fic rabbit hole, must be someone else. ahem)

[soon_lee]

Good Omens was about as good an adaptation I could have hoped for considering the difficulties of adapting something that worked really well in one medium into another. I loved it.