Sometimes I shouldn't use words

Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown had an article on The Awl about the awsomeness of Ripley and Buffy and Marti Noxon and River and Summer Glau which was totally heartwarming except the (very small) part where she dismissed Sarah Connor in order to elevate Ellen Ripley to mother of all fictional mother figures.

I do love Ripley, I do. Even though I think the only Alien film I’ve actually seen all of in one sitting is Aliens I love her. In the 80’s I loved “Get away from her” Ripley almost as much as I loved “No living man am I” Eowyn a decade or so before. Alien hybrid Ripley is the one bit of awesome in a very strange broken movie. Ripley in maternal mode is the mother little girls wish for but not, I think, the mother to speak for them when they grow up when and if they have daughters of their own. Sarah speaks.

It’s a constant of Terminator 2 discussions that someone will claim it’s really a John Connor origin story but even in the movie (which is less Sarah than the show) who gets the voiceover? I generally hate them but what other female character gets the voiceover? I’m coming up Clueless. Eye roll. Whatever. Sarah speaks.

There are two scenes I remember from first seeing the movie. The dream sequence where her nightmare was the world burning (see, Sarah has to save the world) and another, much quieter scene when she’s watching Arnie with John and thinking how the machine will never let him down, never be angry with him, always be there. She can’t compete. In the show this theme is revisited in the parallels between Sarah and Weaver. Aliens has the classic good-bad mother dichotomy in Ripley vs the Alien queen. Its bad mother is a giant pulsating mass of teeth and venom, a maternal nightmare dreamed by people for whom mama will never be the name they call themselves (Sigmund I’m talking to you). Weaver isn’t bad. She’s cold, fluid metal, all things to all people; a beautiful quicksilver mermonster; the perfect other mother; the one who takes John away when he’s ready. Sarah lets him go. I think that’s the part that speaks to me. Much deeper than “Get away from her you bitch!”

One of these mornings
You're going to rise up singing
Then you'll spread your wings
And you'll take to the sky

But until that morning
There's a'nothing can harm you
With your daddy and mammy standing by

Riot Act by thuviaptarth is a character study of T:SCC’s Riley. It cuts at you with her fracturedness while also celebrating her courage and capacity for life. God, I miss that show. It ended so well I was almost happy about the cancellation at first but that feeling has passed and now it’s just gone. In its place we have Dollhouse. Which is very different.

( Subtlety is for little men )

First some links:

One to chaila43’s two TSCC vidlets done for the Itty-Bitty Viddy Ficcy Thon challenge. Small is beautiful!

The other to thuviaptarth’s commentary on kiki-miserychick’s fabulous Sarah Connor vid Ding!Dong!

The latest challenge in vid commentary is for vidders and viewers to do paired commentaries on their own vids. I’m in two minds about this, at least the vidder part. I'll happily put myself forward to comment on other people’s vids but the prospect of signing up to do something in depth and illustrated on your own work feels much more presumptious. I mean I’ve babbled on at length about some of my vids but that was just text and text is cheap. Screencaps would be taking self-involvment to a whole new level. One alternative would be to do an audio commentary but that would involve listening to recordings of myself and again a world of not worthy. Sometimes it’s hard being raised English. There is one vid of mine that I think could bypass the self-screencapping issues. I could do a commentary on Babies illustrated mostly by Biology textbook scans. Yeah, that would work.

I’ve been on holiday all through Vividcon and its aftermath hence radio silence. I hardly know where to start but these are the two vids that stood out for me most during the first frenzy of downloading.

Land by sweetestdrain
(  Johnny Rotten is full of it )

Bachelorette by obsessive24
( I'm the branch that you break )

In spite of its failings, or maybe because of them, I think the BSG ending rather lends itself to vidding. A vidder can work around all the darns and duct tape holding the original together and weave the good threads back into one small but perfect tapestry.

Follow Me into the Darkness by threezerotwo
To me, one of those small perfect things was the penultimate chapter of Kara’s story. Not the ultimate because Kara is no angel (and certainly not a bloody pigeon) but Kara as not quite Kara, who had her memories but hadn’t had to live through them. I liked the way it seemed to give her the distance to finally piece together the puzzle of herself. This vid’s subdued colouring and fragmented images express that Kara beautifully and gives her an ending that feels just right. With fire, not fade away.

Slow Down Gandhi by obsessive24
The Cylons had a plan but there never did seem to be much of one for the civilians on the show. The two-part mutiny in S4.5 was one of the few times they got to play centre stage and even then the focus was on the leaders and the dice clearly weighted - Zarek’s murderous ambition was hammered home from his killing of Laird. It’s all there in this vid. Gold lit decadence aboard Colonial One while the masses lurk in the shadows. The egocentric anger driving the men who would be Ghandi. Throughout the people remain a blur, camera pans over hands and feet, only coming face to face with the viewer when the show’s over and still nothing has changed.

Unnatural Selection by charmax
Terminators and cylons are very different kinds of robots. But both were made to be perfect and in both cases their first free act was to destroy their maker. They enter the evolutionary process by trying to end it only to find that perfection is incompatible with survival. They adapt, they change, they die and in dying live. Who’d have thought classic Darwinism could be so visually striking or bust such a beat?

Lost at Sea by halcyon_shift
The tragedy of Jesse. The strong smooth movement through water that eventually draws her down, a strange counterpoint to the clatter of jagged images from life on land.

According to Josh Friedman on the terminator blog these past three episodes were envisaged as a Sarah Connor triptych.

A note about the recent/current episodes: some months ago I determined to steer the show towards its title, towards Sarah Connor. I wanted to explore not simply the idea of chasing Skynet and all that that entails, but also the psychological effects of doing so. It wasn’t enough to just hunt/fight/protect; I wanted to see what was going on inside her head, especially when those around her doubted her. Now some of you find that interesting, some of you don’t, some of you probably would but don’t think I’ve done a good job depicting it. And most of you are just pissed there’s not enough Cameron.

Is it difficult starting up with dark, psychological episodes after being gone for two months? Seems that’s the case. People are worked up about the Friday night thing and the ratings and I probably underestimated that microscope in my desire to explore Sarah and her demons. To be completely honest, the network warned me not to do it but I felt (and still feel) these stories (and I consider the upcoming Some Must Sleep… as the third part of the Sarah triptych) were/are vital parts of the show. But that’s coming from the guy who believes that if you enjoy watching Weaver slaughter thirty people in one episode you’re obligated to go to their funeral in the next.

( Three is a magic number )