bloodyrosemccoy: (N64)
bloodyrosemccoy ([personal profile] bloodyrosemccoy) wrote2009-09-09 05:03 pm

TALES OF INTEREST

So my brother finally got me to watch a few episodes of There Will Be Brawl. I was operating on the principle that I don’t usually go for Grimdarkification (except when my brain gets away from me …), but then neither does he, so if he liked it I might too.*

… Okay, it’s pretty well-done. It’s the first time anyone’s struck the balance between absurd and engaging in a grimdark Nintendo story. The nods to Brawl itself—especially the suggestion that the ousted characters from previous SSMB games were outright murdered—assure me that the filmmakers really like their subject. And the minor-key Mario music’s a nice touch.

On the other hand, I am now a lot more afraid of Kirby than I ever was of Hannibal Lecter.** And I can’t unwatch it.


*Then again, if I were still an anthro nerd, I could probably do a long thesis analyzing whether fan-generated Grimdark like this is more parodying, serious, or both, or examining why people get such a kick out of subverting happy innocuous childhood stuff into Sin City. (Of course you get a kick. But examining why—now that’s an academic’s dream.)

Granted, I have a hard time believing Sin City itself isn’t a parody, so I might be a little biased.

**I honestly didn’t see it coming when they foreshadowed with the whole “eat your guts and walk around in your skin” comment there. Then I just about died laughing.

[identity profile] agenttrojie.livejournal.com 2009-09-10 01:13 am (UTC)(link)
*pops head out of Narnia fandom*

examining why people get such a kick out of subverting happy innocuous childhood stuff into Sin City

If you can work out why, this perpetrator would like to know!

*returns to the sexnpolitics of Golden Age Narnia*

[identity profile] padparadscha.livejournal.com 2009-09-10 04:34 am (UTC)(link)
*grin* I would share with you the stories I wrote, over many years as a tweener and a teenager, set in the Mushroom Kingdom and its surrounding countries. There were politics, mythology, religion, and I even worked out a detailed biology regarding Mushroom People. And while there was romance and horror and betrayal and murder and Impending Doom, it was also never quite Grimdark.

I WOULD share this with you, but then I would have to kill you.

[identity profile] agenttrojie.livejournal.com 2009-09-10 04:37 am (UTC)(link)
'No thanks, I choose life!'

In all honesty though, why is making things more complicated and less happy fun? I wish I knew.

[identity profile] padparadscha.livejournal.com 2009-09-10 04:58 am (UTC)(link)
I do know that fanfiction's probably as old as mythology itself--retelling is what we humans DO.

I think "complicated and less happy" = "more interesting." But me, I find that if you make it TOO bleak, it's as ridiculous as if you make it too saccharine. I like a happy medium.

Also, we may like to take the idea and see what WE can do with it. Just because one person did one thing with a premise doesn't mean there aren't other possibilities!

[identity profile] pandoras-closet.livejournal.com 2009-09-10 02:19 am (UTC)(link)
I am . . . amused.

Amused and slightly intrigued.

[identity profile] westrider.livejournal.com 2009-09-10 08:22 am (UTC)(link)
I think whether or not Sin City is a parody is almost a Poe's Law sort of situation. And The Spirit even more so.

[identity profile] gwalla.livejournal.com 2009-09-10 08:35 pm (UTC)(link)
You know, this reminds me that I never metaquoted Grimdark Seuss. Time to fix that...