Star Vs. the Forces of Evil is an action comedy cartoon about an interdimensional mage-warrior princess visiting Earth. Season 1 was previously reviewed here. Season 2 aired on Disney XD between July 2016 and February 2017. This review contains spoilers for season 1. Keep in mind this review will contain spoilers for season 1.
Most of season 1 was spent with Star (Eden Sher) and Marco living at Marco’s house on Earth and Star sort of trying to integrate into Earth life while also fending off attacks from the Ludo and his gang of monsters who want to try to steal her wand. This seemingly steady formula for the show was completely disrupted at the end of the season as another monster, Toffee, usurps Ludo’s position as leader of the gang and forces Star to destroy her wand to save Marco: killing Toffee and throwing Ludo into a journey fending for himself in the space between worlds.
Although Star and Marco are still living at Marco’s house, with Ludo no longer leading daily attacks to steal Star’s wand, the show broadens to flesh out other secondary characters and expanding the lore of Mewni. Even though episode is very short, two half-episodes in every half hour show, and many of the stories are more or less standalone, this season really starts to show there is a greater lore involved here with more facets than you might expect for the silly kid’s show it may appear to be on the surface.
I love this show and highly recommend it for kids and adults alike!
The bird bones arrived on Grandma’s porch every day at dusk with no warning. There were all kinds of skeletons, each distinct: finches, crows, goldfinches, tiny barn owls, starlings, and once, a blue heron that had covered nearly the entire stoop.
Muriel sat on her grandmother’s front porch each summer night, trying to spot when it happened. She never managed to see. She’d blink, or take a breath at the wrong time, or twitch her chin to flick hair at humming insects. And in that moment, the bones would appear on the cedar boards pocked with peeling white paint.
She tried every trick she knew. She propped her eyelids open with finger and thumb, held her breath, sat as still as a girl could in the heat of July and the buzz of mosquitoes hungry for a snack. Her eyes would tear-blur or a gnat would crash into her eyelashes or the porch would creak and startle her. And then the bones were there.
“But who brings them?” Muriel asked her grandma, frustrated.
“They bring themselves,” Grandma said with shrug. She’d scoop up the maze of tiny, brittle pieces that had once been alive, carry the bones inside, and Muriel didn’t see them again.
She had no more success finding out what Grandma did with the bones, either. It was like a dream: she would follow Grandma into the pine log cabin, across the faded welcome mat, through the hallway, and then…Muriel would find herself in the kitchen with a mug of hot cocoa, or up in her loft room with a glass of cold cider, or, sometimes, in the back yard on the tire swing with a juice box forgotten in one hand.
*
Muriel decided to be bad.
Grandma told her never to touch the bones. But everything else she tried failed. So Muriel waited, and when the bones appeared, she touched them.
The bones belonged to a chickadee, and there was a black feather tucked against the crown of its skull like a memento.
“You’re a patient one, ain’t you,” said the chickadee skull. Its polished beak clacked and its bones shivered in the muggy air.
Muriel gasped. Was this why Grandma told her not to touch? That was unfair! She could have made friends with all the bones if she’d known.
It was late August, and when September came, she would have to go back to the city. Back to her parents who argued and stinky buses clouding the sky and the downstairs apartment neighbors who broke glass and screamed all night. No bird bones ever showed up outside her window even once she learned how to remove the screen. She saw only pigeons vying for space on light posts, or sometimes seagulls before a storm.
“Hi,” Muriel said to the chickadee. “My name is Muriel.” It seemed polite to introduce herself first. “Who are you?”
The chickadee rustled, the scrape of bone against wood soft like dry maple leaves. “If I had a name, it’s been sucked like marrow from my memory. How about you call me Chip?”
Muriel nodded. She glanced over her shoulder, worried Grandma would come and scoop up Chip’s bones and she’d never get to talk to the chickadee again. She didn’t mind not having other people her age around to play with. She didn’t really like the way other kids did gestures and words and glances. It made her tired, and she just wanted to wander back into the woods behind the school yard until she reached a road and stop signs and loud trucks.
“Why are you just bones, Chip?”
The bird laughed—a whistling sound that wasn’t so high-pitched that it hurt her ears. “I died,” Chip said. “I think I was on an important quest. Delivering a message to the Queen.”
Muriel leaned forward, elbows jutting out as she clasped her knees and rocked back and forth on the step. “The Queen of where?”
“I wish I could remember,” Chip said. The skull sighed, sounding very sad. “But death takes odd things from us.”
“I’m sorry,” Muriel said.
She felt bad for Chip. Was being dead scary? Adults seemed to believe this. Her mom didn’t want her watching TV because there was too much violence. Not seeing bad things didn’t make them disappear, though. She’d seen animals die.
Once she’d spotted a falcon divebomb another bird, scoop it up in sun-sharp talons, and fly away. She wished she could be a falcon. Soaring over the skyscrapers, eating pigeons who were too slow, never having to go to school where she got laughed at because she couldn’t read at her grade level. Words danced like shivering bones, rearranging into the shapes that skittered about to evade her fingers and brain.
Here at Grandma’s, her grandmother read to her when she asked, and never sighed in exasperation if she couldn’t read the back of a cereal box at breakfast. Grandma’s cabin was a special place. Muriel was sure that was why the bones came here, and not other houses.
“Was the message all words?” Muriel asked.
“It was a song,” Chip said. “Five bars with three grace notes in the final coda.”
“Just music?” Muriel loved music. She especially loved her soft headphones Grandma had given her, the ones that wrapped around her entire ears, and not the prickly buds that hurt.
“Well,” Chip said, “you’ve heard birdsong before, right? Human words get so…tangled up and spiky. Used against or for, to harm or to take. Sometimes to heal. But human words are not nearly as eloquent as birdsong.”
“I wish I was a bird,” Muriel said, sighing. Then she heard the creak of the floorboards behind her and knew Grandma was coming to scoop up Chip.
She flapped her hands, frustrated. She had been told never to touch the bones. They were brittle and delicate, and Grandma said they lingered of the Old Spaces, which were not meant for small girl-palms to hold.
“Where do you go now?” Muriel asked, afraid that Chip would stop talking to her as soon as the chickadee saw Grandma. “Can I come?”
“Hmmm,” Chip said. “Do you think you can remember a song?”
“Yes!”
“That would be helpful,” Chip said. “Maybe you could take the song to someone who can fly it back to the Queen.”
“I’ll try,” Muriel said, eager to do bird-things like remember music.
“Take my feather,” Chip said, and Muriel plucked it from Chip’s skull.
It was soft and felt nice on her fingers. She rubbed it across her hands.
“Listen…” Chip said.
But then the screen door hinges squawked too loud, and Muriel spun around. She looked up at Grandma, hiding her hands behind her back.
With the feather in hand, Muriel saw a different Grandma. This Grandma wore a dark gown spun with peacock feathers and hawk feathers and swan feathers. Giant black wings hung down her back. A hood pulled over her hair was shaped like a bird skull of indeterminate species. Her hands, too, had changed: now the fingers were long and curved like talons, heavy and pale ivory. This Grandma’s eyes were round and gold like an owl’s. Bird-Grandma blinked at her, slow and serene, and in her arms, the ghostly outline of Chip’s body rested at the crook of her elbow.
Muriel gasped. She let go of Chip’s feather as she clapped her hands over her mouth.
Bird-Grandma disappeared, and there was only Muriel’s grandma again: human and old and smelling of lavender and garlic. Grandma held Chip’s bones in her hand.
“Did you touch the bones?” Grandma asked, but not in an angry-voice.
Muriel quickly scooped up the feather to show Grandma the truth, and then the bird-woman was there again. Muriel realized this was her grandmother. The way the birds saw her.
“Why do you have wings?” Muriel asked.
Grandma’s owl-eyes blinked again. “I’m a Reaper of Air,” she said. Her voice sounded the same. Warm and kind like fresh-baked brownies. “Kin come here when they pass, and I carry them to the Forever Skies.”
Muriel liked Bird-Grandma. She wasn’t scary now that Muriel knew she was a grandma to both girls and birds.
“Chip was delivering a message to the Queen, and I’m going to help,” Muriel said. “What’s the song, Grandma?”
Bird-Grandma’s wings rustled like bedsheets hung to dry in the summer breeze. “Listen.”
Muriel held Chip’s feather up to her ear. A melody filled her head: a song that had no words. Muriel gasped. It was the prettiest music she’d ever heard, better than the piano sonatas mixed with loon song she had on CD.
The song stopped and Muriel knew it was missing the last few notes. She shook the feather, but no more music fell out. “Oh no,” Muriel whispered. How was she supposed to give the Queen the message if she didn’t know all the music? “Grandma, the song isn’t fixed!”
Bird-Grandma’s eyelids half-closed, just like Grandma’s did when she was sleepy but pretending not to be asleep. “Death takes odd things from us. But they can be found again if you wish.”
Muriel wiped her face and put Chip’s feather in her pocket. She needed to find the rest of the song to take to the Queen. This is what Chip wanted, and Chip was her friend. Muriel helped her friends. She didn’t have many. They were all important.
“Where did the death take Chip’s song?”
Bird-Grandma sighed, a great flutter of feathers. “Come with me, child. You touched the bones when I told you not to do so, but that is past. I will help you.”
*
Muriel followed Bird-Grandma down the basement stairs into a great big room filled with windows. So many windows, Muriel couldn’t count them all. She didn’t know they were in Grandma’s basement. The windows didn’t have glass and they came in all shapes and sizes—some so small even a hummingbird would get stuck. And there was one, near the ground, that was girl-sized.
Muriel crouched and peered through the window. There was a forest outside, with multi-colored trees like crayons that had lots of arms. It made her eyes itch. She didn’t like the feel of crayon paper or wax.
“You touched the dead,” Bird-Grandma said. “Your aura pulled away the last of the music.”
Muriel wrinkled her nose. “I didn’t mean to!”
“I know, my child.” Bird-Grandma laid Chip’s bones down on a towel spread on the ground by the small window. “You are a powerful force. It is why I asked you not to touch the bones. You pull things into your orbit, a moon influencing tides.”
Muriel looked at the crayon forest and shivered. “Did I put Chip’s song in there?”
“Yes,” Bird-Grandma said. “These windows are portals to different fears. At times, the dead slip loose and must be retrieved. I carry our kin to the Forever Skies so the dead need not pass through these other lands.” She pointed up, up, up.
Muriel peered at the ceiling. There was a vault of black sky and peeking between the fluffy clouds streamed beams of sun and stars and moon: brilliant night lights so the bird bones wouldn’t get scared of the dark.
“Are you bringing Chip up there?” Muriel asked.
“Yes. But if you wish to find the song, child, you must hurry. Music fades quickly if not remembered.”
Muriel nodded fiercely. She was going to help Chip and bring the lost song to the Queen once she found the missing notes. Then Chip would be happy.
Bird-Grandma bent down and placed a long, smooth feather in Muriel’s hand. “This will bring you back to me as soon as you let it go,” she said.
Gripping the feather tight, Muriel crouched and shuffled into the window in search of Chip’s song.
*
Inside the crayon-forest, everything was loud and crunchy. Muriel gasped. Scratchy sounds flew around her head like bugs. The trees swayed and whooshed, paper leaves bumping together in awful crinkling waves.
“Go away!” Muriel yelled at the noise.
Instead, the swoopy, itchy sounds popped and cracked and squealed like fireworks. Echoes bounced against her hair in big purple sparkles and stung her cheeks. She swatted at the air. The bad-sounds shrieked orange and whistled pink, swirling faster around her face. Muriel started crying. It hurt! There was so much interference she couldn’t think clearly. She clapped her hands over her ears and almost lost hold of Grandma’s feather. How could she find Chip’s song in this place?
The ground was full of sevens, sharp and pokey, and bitey threes that tried to eat her toes. She kicked the numbers away. The sevens made garlic farts when they melted. Her nose felt like Rudolph’s, shiny and round and made of mean bully-laughs.
She huddled down and banged her forehead against the softer sixes that puffed up like little flowers. These were minty and didn’t sting her nose. She should have brought her headphones. But then she might not hear the song through the squishy foam and soothing soft-static.
The feather whispered in her ear, Let go and come home.
“I can’t,” Muriel told the feather. Her palms were sticky, like when candy canes melted. She rubbed her free hand on her jeans. The fabric crinkled plasticky and so yellow it scraped her brain. She gripped the feather’s stem harder. “Chip needs the music.”
Before Grandma had given her the nice headphones, one of her favorite teachers, Ms. Eugene, let her wear a soft microplush headband when the sounds in class got too big and made her hit herself.
“The fabric will sing you a song just for you,” Ms. Eugene had said, and she guided Muriel’s hands gently so her palms pressed against the softness over her ears. “Can you hear it?”
The music was really coming from Ms. Eugene’s throat, but it felt nice on Muriel’s skin and she slowly calmed down. Ms. Eugene let her keep the headband, even though it was winter and she already had a hat. She wore the microplush under her beanie, humming Ms. Eugene’s song to herself on the bus. The headband memorized the music and played it back for her right in her ears, and the rumble of the bus and the outside-voices of the other kids weren’t so bad.
Muriel remembered Ms. Eugene’s headband’s music. She hummed it to herself until her throat felt too big for her skin, like it would pop out. The esophagus, she’d learned in school, was long and round and tube-like, so of course it would roll away if it escaped. She kept her lips together.
Slowly, the forest-sounds grew dimmer. Muriel peeked, still humming. The trees shuffled together, shiny with wax and dry paper, but the swooping sounds were further away. She got to her feet.
Suddenly, the ground went sideways—all the trees were on the ceiling, waving at her with confetti-leaves, and the sevens and threes danced like wiggly string cheese in front of her eyes.
Her stomach did a flip-flop, like when
she spun in circles so fast she threw up. The sky was filled with white radio
noise. It was raining polka dots that didn’t have any water.
Stop it stop it STOP IT! Muriel yelled at the world, silently, because she needed her
lips to hum the song. You’re being mean!
Grandma said she pulled things into her orbit. If she could attract bad sounds, why couldn’t she be a magnet for good things, like music? She shut her eyes so the crayon-trees didn’t scratch her, so the numbers would stop being green, so the sky would fold back and stop being under her feet, and began humming Chip’s song. Over and over, stopping just before the missing notes made it crash into silence.
Nothing but the crunch-whiiish of paper. The screeches kept popping against her hands and arms, sparkly fingers that made her want to scream DON’T TOUCH.
Had the ground gone back to normal? Her
hair still waved around like she was sideways, but her stomach didn’t hurt
anymore.
Again, Muriel hummed Chip’s song, feeling the vibrations in her throat and up into her chin. She imagined herself to be a Muriel-shaped bird, covered in the softest of soft feathers, lighter than air. She would zoom around the sky and sing with the other birds and they would be her friends.
She opened her mouth and tried to sing Chip’s birdsong the way she’d heard it from Chip’s feather. The lost notes would want to come back to their song, where they belonged. Her voice was squawky and full of missteps. She wasn’t good at singing. Not like Ms. Eugene and Chip and all the birds.
Let go and come home, Grandma’s feather whispered.
“No,” Muriel said, and took a deep breath. She sat down so her knees didn’t wobble. The ground was a weird squishy sponge now, without numbers, but it was where it belonged. She thought of Chip’s bones and the sadness of missing the notes of the song. The Queen needed to hear the music.
She rocked back and forth and tried again. Her hair stopped floating.
For her friend Chip and for Grandma and for all the birds.
This time, her voice sounded more like birdsong and closer to the melody Chip sung for her.
A quiet trill made her jump. The lost notes!
Slowly, Muriel peeked her eyelids open and looked around. There, several big steps away in a waxy bush made from ugly taupe crayon-paper, trembled the music from Chip’s song. Giant twos and zeros loomed like cartoon skyscrapers over the bush.
A huge crash-boom of pea soup thunder swirled above the little notes. Muriel gasped. The enormous sound would smash the music and break it into shrill bits. She couldn’t let the lost notes get hurt.
Muriel leapt to her feet and raced like a peregrine falcon towards the bush. Air whipped against her face and she clutched her feather until her sticky hand ached. “Hold on!”
The crash-boom swooped down, thick as moldy oatmeal, but Muriel was fast—peregrine falcons could dive faster than racecars, and raptors weren’t painfully loud. She scooped the notes up in her free hand, humming the melody like her own birdsong, and jumped away.
CRASH! BOOM!
The sound smacked into the ground, flattening the crayon-paper bush and throwing Muriel on her back from impact. She went rolling. Muriel screamed. Her ears pounded like drums and it hurt hurt HURT
All around her, the world wobbled like Jell-O
stars and it was going to squish her and she’d be stuck like a gummy bear and she
didn’t want to stay here, she wanted to go home and—
She clutched the lost notes against her shirt. They shivered, almost slipping through her fingers. “Hold on,” Muriel whispered, and before the huge sound could pounce on her, she let go of the feather.
*
Muriel sat on the floor of Grandma’s cabin, her ears still hurting from the loudness. But here by all the windows, it was quiet. Bird-Grandma draped her favorite blanket over her shoulders, and she curled up in the snuggly fabric. And there were her headphones! She put them on, but left her right ear open just a little.
The music notes wiggled in her hand. “Are you okay?” Muriel asked them, slowly uncurling her fingers.
The music trilled again, and suddenly they vanished. She sat up, grinning. “Grandma! I know Chip’s music!”
Bird-Grandma nodded solemnly. She still held the chickadee bones in her great palm.
“Sing for them,” Bird-Grandma said. “Let them take the music to the Queen of Air where they will be welcomed.”
Muriel clutched her blanket around herself and put her mouth close to Bird-Grandma’s hand. Then sang the whole song. Chip’s bones rustled.
“Thanks, friend,” Chip said.
“You’re welcome,” Muriel replied.
Bird-Grandma lifted her arm and her hand stretched like a huge wing unfolding, carrying Chip up into the vaulted sky.
*
Grandma and Muriel sat on the front step, drinking hot cocoa with extra marshmallows, and watched the sky twinkle with summer stars. They were nice and quiet stars, and the trees around Grandma’s house were good trees, with non-yelling leaves and plain bark. Muriel sighed, happy to be home.
“Grandma?”
“Yes, dear?”
“Can I help you collect songs if they get lost again?” Muriel had her headphones on, but she could always hear her grandmother’s soft, soothing voice. She was still bouncy from her adventure and happy Chip was safe, and the song for the Queen of Air was whole.
Grandma smiled. “Yes. I will teach you how to care for the bones so your touch does not pull them away.”
Muriel beamed. She swallowed the sweetness of melty chocolate and marshmallows, then leaned her head on Grandma’s shoulder. She would have to go back when the summer was over, but she would know lots of new birdsongs and would always have her friends.
Merc Fenn Wolfmoor is a queer non-binary writer who lives in Minnesota. Merc is a Nebula Awards finalist, and their stories have appeared in Lightspeed, Fireside, Apex, Uncanny, Nightmare, and several Year’s Best anthologies. You can find Merc on Twitter @Merc_Wolfmoor or their website: http://mercfennwolfmoor.com. Their debut short story collection, SO YOU WANT TO BE A ROBOT, was published by Lethe Press.
Allegiant is a 2016 dystopic science fiction movie, based on the 2013 novel of the same name by Veronica Roth. It was the third movie in the series, just as the book was the third and final in the book series, but there was originally planned to be a fourth movie, Ascendant, which was originally supposed to be Allegiant Part 2, but was cancelled. The book Allegiant was reviewed here. The first movie Divergent is reviewed here, and the second movie Insurgent is reviewed here. Some of the general summary of the plot here is the same as the review here of the Divergent book because the basis of it was reasonably closely adapted.
These stories take place in a future Chicago which is walled-off from the rest of the world and has been split into five factions: Candor (who value truth, Abnegation (who value selflessness), Amity (who value harmony), Dauntless (who value courage), and Erudite (who value intelligence). This order has existed for a long time, relatively undisturbed, but now the world is reeling from several major disturbances in the social order that began when Erudite converted much of dauntless into mindless soldiers and slaughtered much of Abnegation before they could be stopped. The factionless who have lived starving and forgotten in the background for much of recent history have risen up under a new leader, and now on the heels of that change, a video has surfaced that shakes the foundations of their whole world.
The video says that the world outside of Chicago had been corrupt, and that the city was sealed to allow the Divergent population to increase and that this recent increase means that it is time to reopen the city to the outside world again. Tris Prior (Shailene Woodley) and her boyfriend Tobias (Theo James), both Divergent who have played major roles in the recent changes, lead the group to venture out into the outside world. There they meet David (Jeff Daniels) who is a leader in the world outside, and they find out much more about the world outside.
This movie is notable in that it might be one of the furthest adaptation from its source material of any movie I’ve ever seen. It feels like someone budgeted for a huge special effects team before reading the book and realizing there is not actually a lot of need for special effects. It makes it very confusing and distracting if you have read the book first (or probably vice versa) and then you’re like, “wait I really really don’t remember this at all”. If you squint you can kindof see the core of the plot between the two, but so much is changed in such a huge way that it’s barely recognizable at all. And, okay, so the third book was my least favorite in the trilogy, and maybe that’s why they decided to make a completely different movie adaptation? I honestly don’t know. Maybe the movie would be better if you hadn’t read the book first and have expectations that they have something to do with each other? But it’s hard to recommend if you have read the book
Meme the Game Disney Edition is, as you might expect, a card-based game game about making memes from Disney snapshots. Although I haven’t played the original Meme: The Game game, it seems to be the identical idea but made friendly for kids with kid-friendly phrases and pictures from Disney movies. Similar to Apples to Apples or a kid-friendly Cards Against Humanity, but with pictures.
The premise of the game is that one player is the judge and the other players have to pick the best picture and word combinations from their hand that they think is the funniest. That’s really all there is to it (see the cover of the game. That’s pretty much it, rinse and repeat!
Audience Suitable for all ages that are old enough to read on their own (at least if they want to play their own hands). If they are pretty young, even if they can read, they might not get some of the jokes.
Challenge Mostly based on chance and on having some guess about the judge’s sense of humor.
Session Time Could play as many rounds as you want.
Replayability As with other of this type of game, a lot of the novelty can wear off pretty quickly, it may be quite fun for a short while.
Originality Not particularly, it is a spinoff of another game which in itself is apparently inspired by several iterations of other games, though this one does have Disney movie nostalgia going for it.
Overall We got it for pretty cheap, $5. The novelty wore off quite quickly, though it was fun for a game or two.
This is one of a series of articles wherein I examine a music video as a short film, focusing on the story rather than the music, trying to identify the story arcs and characters motivations, and consider the larger implication of events.
The film this week is Radioactive by Imagine Dragons, a fantasy action thriller.
The film starts as our protagonist, a young woman in a hoodie, walks through the woods alone with a blanket-covered kennel. She approaches a shack on what appears to be a quiet rural property, until she enters and is surrounded by the ruckus of an underground gambling ring. Men shout and wave money at a central ring while the boss of the ring (Lou Diamond Philips) smokes a cigar and fiddles with a key hung around his neck. A chalkboard marks 115 wins for the Champ and 0 for the Challengers.
We catch glimpses of the singers of the background music, who sometimes pause their music to stare apprehensively at the trapdoor in the ceiling, the implication being that they are imprisoned in a dungeon under the shack, presumably locked with the key around the boss’s neck. They are doing their best to play despite drums and guitar caked in thick layers of dust.
The Challenger turns out to be a monster puppet that looks like a gorilla with long purple hair. Muscular and vicious and under the command of the boss, it puts challengers, other puppets and stuffed animals of various shapes, to quick ends, beating and often dismembering them before they are dropped into the dungeon through the trap door to join Imagine Dragons down there.
Our protagonist reveals the resident of her kennel, a pink and white teddy bear, and she pits it against the Champ. At first it seems the fight is going the way every other fight has gone, with the Champ winning decisively, but just when it’s about to be dumped in the dungeon with the others it rises again and gathers itself, gathering some kind of glowing energy into its plushy fist and knocks out the Champ. The shack goes completely silent as everyone freezes in shock at this unexpected development. The boss sics his guards on the bear, and the bear vaporizes them each in turn, and the gamblers cleare out of the shack in a rush, abandoning the boss. Our protagonist takes his key before dumping the boss down the trap door.
She frees Imagine Dragons to go free, and the boss picks himself up from the ground in the dungeon, as a swarm of his plushy victims closes in on him with squeaking sounds and malicious intent and the boss screams as the screen goes black.
Is this a fantasy film or a documentary, the presence of Imagine Dragons in the film might imply that this is a true story from their personal history. Perhaps before they made it big? I don’t believe I’ve heard any public interviews discussing this incident in greater detail, but it’s possible that the boss of that gambling ring has other surviving friends or family who would get their revenge about anyone who gave too many details. It does make me wonder too if this ring is an isolated occurrence or if there are illegal puppet fighting rings all over the place. And even though the boss got his comeuppance, it’s still sad to think of all of the plush creatures who had died there before that, and the people who came to gamble over it. In many ways it’s a classic tale of bad people getting what’s coming to them, but no doubt the survivors will suffer for the rest of their lives from their trauma there. Maybe someday there will be followup films about them finding their happiness in family or art or charity, however they can.
Next up in the Music Video Drilldown series will be Q.U.E.E.N. by Janelle Monáe.
Insurgent is a 2015 dystopic science fiction film based on the 2012 novel of the same name by Veronica Roth, both of which are the 2nd installment in the Divergent series. The first movie, Divergent, was reviewed here, and the Insurgent book was reviewed here. Much of the general summary of the plot here is the same as the review here of the Divergent book because the basis of it was reasonably closely adapted.
These stories take place in a future Chicago which is walled-off from the rest of the world and has been split into five factions: Candor (who value truth, Abnegation (who value selflessness), Amity (who value harmony), Dauntless (who value courage), and Erudite (who value intelligence). This order has existed for a long time, relatively undisturbed, but now the world is reeling from coordinated attack masterminded by Erudite that involved turning much of the deadly and well-trained Dauntless into mindless killing drones. Now the remnants of Dauntless are scattered and trying to figure out how they’re going to fit in in the new shaken order.
Tris Prior (Shailene Woodley)was born Abnegation but chose to switch to Dauntless when she turned sixteen, the one opportunity anyone has to switch. Although she is officially Dauntless, she has shown tendencies that seem to say she is actually “Divergent”, which means she has aptitudes for more than one of the factions, as does her boyfriend Tobias (Theo James). This is considered very rare, and very dangerous–others have died for even being suspected of being Divergent. This unusual trait may have saved many lives because she was able to resist the conditioning that turned much of the rest of Dauntless into mindless killing machines.
She and many of Dauntless are now hiding out in Amity, trying to find their next plans. It is a troubled truce with Amity, who value harmony and thus do not get along well with the violent and impulsive Dauntless. But their refuge isn’t going to last very long anyway, because the other members of Dauntless, the ones who sided with Erudite after the original conflict, are coming.
The first movie was a very close adaptation, but this movie, about halfway through, has quite a bit of divergence (ha)from its source material. The characters are the same, the setup is the same, but it ends up in a significantly different place than the book its based on, even though they’re kindof thematically connected. I admit I found this quite distracting, having read the book first, trying to figure out if this was one of those cases where an author lost the creative control over their own work and this was some Hollywood creative going wild making an adaptation into something completely different, or if Veronica Roth did have a say and decided she wanted something significantly different from her book. Still plenty of action and intrigue, but if you have already read the book you may find yourself distracted by the changes that didn’t really seem that necessary and which interfere with the third book being able to be set up in the same way.
Divergent is a 2014 dystopic science fiction movie distributed by Lionsgate, based on the 2011 book of the same title by Veronica Roth. Much of the general summary of the plot here is the same as the review here of the Divergent book because it was very closely based.
The story takes place in an isolated city-state that used to be Chicago in the future, where it is walled off from the rest of the world where no one seems to know what is happening outside of it. Almost all of society is split into five factions, each of which values certain human traits above all others. At the age of sixteen, every person must decide which faction they will belong to for the rest of their lives or risk falling into the huddled masses of the factionless who are barely acknowledged by the society.
The Abnegation values selflessness, and expect its members to never think of themselves. Dauntless values courage, its members are like a trained military force, expected to take on dangerous challenges without hesitation. Candor values honesty, and its members are expected to always tell the truth in all situations. Amity values harmony, and wants everyone to get along peacefully. Erudite value intelligence, they’re the inventors of the society. Every person is expected to be a clear fit for one of the factions or they are an outcast, but there are whispers that some people are “divergent” who have tendencies toward several factions at once, these people are considered dangerous to their social order.
Beatrice Prior (Shailene Woodley) is born and raised as Abnegation, but although she sees the worth in Abnegation’s values, she feels like an impostor because she can’t seem to hold to those values. On her Choosing Day she has to choose between staying with her family in Abnegation or leaving them behind to join one of the other factions. She joins the Dauntless faction because it seems to be the closest to what she wants to be, there she is trained by a mysterious man who calls himself Four (Theo James).
This is a reasonably faithful adaptation of the movie. The main difference overall seems to be that it feels like the Dauntless acts are dialed up even higher so that rather than being simply reckless they are borderline suicidal, I guess to punch up the movie shock effect. But this is still an interesting look at a really terrible social structure that I would never recommend (particularly that you have to choose your faction at sixteen and can never change it forevermore). Worth a watch!
Ruth slammed through a metal security hatch. Solid steel met Ruth’s super strength and speed, and it shredded like tinfoil. From Ruth’s perspective, the world was frozen in time. Soldiers were posed in action – walking through halls, manning their posts, and otherwise going about the daily business of staffing a nuclear missile silo. None of them would be aware of the super hero in their midst. Only later – instantaneous in their perception, but many long seconds in Ruth’s – would they experience her intrusion: ruined passageways and an obliterated weapon.
Racing deep into the heart of the facility, she found the apocalyptic missile she was looking for. An unfortunate man, holding a cup of coffee and dressed in an officer’s uniform, stood in a door she needed to use. There wasn’t room to move past him. Nor was there time to pause.
She did her very best, but felt the contact, and cursed. He would feel nothing. The energy of her speed would transfer into him like dynamite, and his men would find his remains covering the wall, ceiling, and floor. To her, it was nothing but a passing touch of her hip against his.
It was a horrible but unavoidable sacrifice.
Fluorescent lights illuminated the industrial scaffolding before her. Rails terminated in single-point perspective at her destination: a three-story tall intercontinental ballistic missile awakening in its silo. She plowed into it with both fists outstretched. The smooth metal body rent like tissue, and the rocket engine beneath crumpled. As she exited the missile she twisted in mid-air and slammed feet-first into the concrete wall on the other side. Her impact sent cracks spiderwebbing in all directions. The resulting earthquake would shake the entire facility.
She lunged back through the hole she had made. The officer she had killed no longer occupied the exit. He had been erased, and in his place was a vaguely man-shaped red mist. She passed through the blood, resigned in the fact that she could do no more harm than she already had. Crimson droplets streaked off of her, leaving a gruesome wake through the facility.
“I’m sorry I could not move him in time.” The manifestation of Psyche’s words in Ruth’s mind corresponded with the telepathic revelation of Ruth’s next target – another ICBM silo in Colorado. There were thousands. Each one represented millions of deaths, and many were already preparing to launch. Some were already in the air.
“I understand.” Ruth replied needlessly. Psyche already knew that Ruth comprehended what was at stake, and that one life was a necessary cost. The god-like telepath had filled her with a total awareness of what was happening all around the earth. The first shots in a new world war had been fired. If not for Psyche, those shots would also be the last. She had bet on Ruth as possessing both the power and the willingness to help her. Together, they might stave off the apocalypse.
For months, tensions around the world had risen to a crescendo. World leaders had committed to posturing and provocation instead of compromise and understanding. The Doomsday Clock maintained by the world’s atomic scientists had inched ever closer to midnight.
It was now many minutes past that terrible abstract midnight. Ruth had been bounding through missile silos, crushing the terrible weapons within, and moving on to the next for nearly an hour – a lifetime for a speedster like her. Psyche, who herself had plucked the information from anyone on earth who possessed it, trickled their locations into Ruth’s mind one after the other. If any nuclear missiles were unknown to her, they were in the Dark Spots created by other super-powered psychers who carefully guarded those secrets.
“How many are in the air?” Ruth asked as she plowed into and out of another target. This time she had managed to avoid touching anyone – leaving only merciful ruin in her trail.
“Five.” Psyche replied.
“Where are they going?” Ruth compartmentalized her conversation with Psyche. As each new nuclear missile location bloomed within her thoughts the destruction she wrought became a blur in her memory. Many innocent soldiers – like the officer who had inadvertently blocked her path, and had absorbed the kinetic energy of her passing – would die because of her. But it was their lives, or the lives of everyone on earth.
Fate.
Bad luck.
“You cannot stop the missiles in the air. Focus on what you can do.” Replied Psyche calmly.
Ruth felt Psyche’s intrusion into parts of her thoughts that were not devoted to the task at hand and recoiled. “Don’t do that!” She barked.
“I’m sorry.” Psyche’s influence withdrew from the deepest parts of Ruth’s consciousness, and released a flood of emotions – unproductive but necessary emotions – that Psyche had been repressing. Ruth’s eyes welled as she dismantled the next weapon and the next. Her tears stretched from one silo to another suspended in a thousands-of-miles-long wake of despair.
Earlier in the evening, Psyche had roused Ruth from her sleep with a telepathic infusion of knowledge. It had taken Ruth a few minutes to process the gravity of the information that had been thrust upon her. The creation of new synapses within her brain needed to be integrated into the whole, and that had taken a few eternal minutes. Once that had happened, Ruth remained paralyzed by conflicting thoughts and feelings. A singular consideration rose above all else – there was no time.
There was no time to reverse the horrible choices that had been made by leaders across the world.
There was no time for discussion with other super heroes.
No time to resent Psyche for her telepathic intrusion.
No time to dress.
No time to kiss her wife Kara goodbye.
Those moments had been enough to put five missiles in the air. Millions of lives were lost to Ruth’s indecision. The guilt filled her, but also fueled her. She sprang into action.
She snatched a headset in vain hopes of getting help.
Her nightgown fell away under the punishing gale.
Kara awoke to an empty bed.
Now, the West Coast gave way to the Pacific Ocean. The water was as solid as the earth to her super-sonic footfalls. Behind her was a five-story tall plume of steam and water. Before her was the continental Asian dawn. Beneath the infinite blue waves lurked countless submarines preparing to launch their own apocalyptic cargo. Psyche had not bothered to share their location. Swimming, even at super-speed was the equivalent of digging through stone. It could be done, but not at a rate necessary to avert calamity.
“You are not alone. Leviathan and Yam are with us. They will do what they can to disable the submarines.” Psyche said, knowing Ruth’s thoughts.
“Disable? You mean destroy.” Ruth attempted to take an angry tone. Neither Leviathan nor Yam were known to be particularly merciful or cautious heroes. They would crush each vessel, tear them open, or slam them into rocks without regard for the helpless crews within.
She wanted to be furious at Psyche, but failed. Time allowed only for cold brutality, and Psyche had wisely asked the right supers for help – including her.
“There was no time.” Psyche responded with the mantra that had become Ruth’s singular understanding of the world.
“Ruth!” Came a familiar voice in her headset. “Stop! You are killing us! What are you doing?”
She knew General Edict – the commander of North American Super Heroes – had spoken those words mere minutes ago. An eternity.
By the time military personnel had realized that the American nuclear arsenal was being disabled… By the time they had contacted General Edict… by the time Edict had realized who was responsible… by the time the soundwaves from his voice box had reached the microphone… by the time the sound had been converted to a signal… by the time that signal had found her headset… the question may as well be a fossilized artifact of a forgotten era, yet Ruth was compelled to answer.
“Billions of lives are at stake!” She screamed back at him as the water beneath her became Chinese soil. In the same breath she slammed through a lineup of missile trucks tucked away upon a mountain pass. Their weapons were pointed skyward – the thrusters red with the glow of igniting rocket fuel. The soldiers who guarded the trucks were statues whose perception of their environment would go from nervous anticipation to flaming ruin.
“You’re killing us!” Edict repeated.
Ruth ignored him.
“Six.” Psyche’s dispassionate telepathic tone conveyed the next nuclear missile site to Ruth along with information she had not intended to share. Another missile had launched.
Psyche was dealing with too much. She was monitoring a mental map of nuclear weapons while directing Ruth at super-speed over thousands of miles. She was trying to keep innocent soldiers out of harm’s way – Ruth’s way – and searching for notions of a new launch somewhere on earth. She was psychically informing other heroes who might be able to stop a missile in the air. She was also protecting Ruth from psychic attack.
Paladins – The Asian, European, African, and Australian federation of Supers – were bringing telepathy, as well as teleportation, clairvoyance, precognition, and other powers Ruth could scarcely imagine, to bear upon her.
General Edict’s Alliance was doing the same – though they could not know that she was now working on destroying the Paladin arsenal. Information moved too slowly.
“Where is it headed?” Ruth asked.
“You cannot stop it. Focus on what you can do.” Psyche repeated.
Ruth sprinted over the mountains of Korea and Russia, shattering missile silos and launch pads.
“Seven.” Psyche let slip again.
“Tell me where it’s going!” Ruth demanded.
“You cannot stop it.” Psyche remained firm.
Ruth dashed through Indian hills and Pakistani forests, bulldozing nuclear trucks as she went.
“Eight.” Came Psyche’s next slip with a vision of Supers across the world mobilizing against Ruth. Giants, sorcerers, fallen gods, technological wizards, caped champions, and cloaked crusaders were dropping whatever they were doing to intercept missiles or hunt for the rogue super who had crippled the military arsenal. Most moved far too slowly to be of any concern, others might be just fast enough to defend the European missiles that were Ruth’s next targets.
“What if…” Ruth began.
“They won’t!” Psyche replied with a strain in her tone that Ruth had never heard before.
Ruth rushed through Turkey and Belgium, Italy and Germany, France and Britain. The weapons that America and Russia had shared over the decades seemed endless. Each one was armed and pointed skyward in the moment of its destruction.
There was no sign of super-powered resistance. Ruth careened through site after site with a desperation born of the apocalypse.
And then the messages stopped.
Psyche had infused her with one goal after another – thousands upon thousands of missions with potential for unspeakable holocaust. Sometimes the telepathic message had come with an unintended tidbit of Psyche’s consciousness. Other times it came with feelings of dread or near-overwhelming anxiety. When another did not arrive, Ruth continued to sprint. She was lost on what to do next.
“Is that all?” She asked, her heart skipping a beat at the notion that Psyche might have been killed – overwhelmed by her own effort, or murdered by Supers.
“Yes.” Psyche replied curtly.
Ruth was momentarily relieved, but still determined. “Where are the launched missiles headed!” Ruth again demanded, unwilling to rest while the fate of millions remained uncertain.
“Los Angeles.” Psyche answered.
The prospect of worldwide nuclear annihilation was replaced by the impending death of a city.
“What about the other seven. Is anyone doing anything?” Ruth launched herself towards a new destination. In moments, the Atlantic Ocean sprawled before her, and she plunged into the night with renewed determination.
“Yes.” Psyche said again, this time with an empathic hint of sorrow.
“That… that’s good.” Ruth absorbed Psyche’s fear, and understood. Some of the airborne missiles would be stopped. Some would not. “I can help.”
“You can’t.” Psyche replied. “You have done what you can.”
“No! I can do this! I just destroyed all the world’s nuclear weapons. I can save one city.”
“The missile is already in the air. You cannot fly.” Psyche’s tone was both fearful and sad – a recognition of a monumental failure amidst an epic success. Billions had been saved, yet millions would still die.
“Ruth? Can you hear me? If you can hear me, please come home.” Kara came over her headset. “They’re looking for you. If you turn yourself in you’ll be ok. They promise you’ll be ok, but you have to come home.”
Kara was a speedster like Ruth, and was perhaps one of the few supers on earth who might catch her. Unlike Ruth, Kara lacked super strength. She could never hope to stop Ruth physically, and would never try. It was smart that General Edict had chosen to employ Kara in this manner. Like Edict’s first communication, Kara’s was millennia behind Ruth’s present.
Again, Ruth was compelled to reply.
“I did it, Kara!” Ruth attempted to summon joy even as she sprinted towards another calamitous task. “I saved the world!”
She then considered whether she should give voice to her next words – whether the risk was too great, or if Edict would see reason. “There’s a bomb headed towards Los Angeles. I’m going to try to stop it. Tell him I’ll turn myself in after that.”
The Atlantic Ocean ended and Canada began. Darkness cloaked the countryside, and there was a long stretch of tranquility that masked the world-wide chaos.
Psyche was quiet – though Ruth knew that she would be long-dead if Psyche had somehow become disabled or otherwise revoked the Dark Spot that protected her from malicious telepaths.
“How are you going to stop it?” Kara’s headset signal stabilized, and her voice came through clearly. Their conversation was approaching real-time – save for any technological latency.
“I haven’t really figured that out. Any ideas?” Ruth added a chuckle for levity, but Kara knew her too well.
“We can’t save L.A.” Edict’s stern voice came over the network. “We intercepted New York and Chicago. We have a team on San Diego. Just turn yourself in.”
“I can save L.A!” Ruth responded angrily. “I’m almost there.”
The Rocky Mountains rose into view before a starry backdrop.
“How?” Kara’s question was filled with dread.
“I’ll… I’ll run up a vertical surface and smash through the missile while it’s in the air.” Ruth gave voice to a plan that sounded like it might work.
“What if you miss?” Ruth heard Kara choke back tears. She banished the thought of her crying wife from her mind as Los Angeles skyscrapers came into view.
“I won’t miss.” Ruth beheld a long contrail originating from a glowing point of light above the city. The missile was directly above Los Angeles – far closer than Ruth had anticipated… though like all things in her hyper-fast world it was nearly frozen in stasis.
“If you miss you’ll be suspended in the air above the bomb. You’ll have nothing to push off of. No way to run.” Kara’s words came from years of experience that knew death all too well. Tragedy always lurked about the perimeter of super hero life, but they had always faced that possibility together, until now.
“Please come back.”
“I have to try.” Ruth sped through the streets of the city. Motionless pedestrians gaped at the approaching light – perhaps vaguely comprehending it’s meaning. Unmoving cars upon the street contained occupants that were oblivious to impending doom.
“Please.” Kara pled.
Ruth found a building that looked to be beneath the missile and hurled herself upwards. The impact of her footfalls shattered earthquake-proof glass and sent shards erupting into the air behind her.
“Please don’t.” Kara’s voice trembled.
When she reached the top, Ruth flung herself off the building and into flight towards the bomb. “I’m up.” She said.
The missile grew larger as she approached. Thirty-feet long, and marked with Russian words she could not read, its glowing engines shone brightly against the night sky. Its tip was pointed menacingly at the city below.
With subtle tilts of her arms and hands Ruth steered herself towards her target. Her jump had been perfect.
“Did you hit it?” The terror in Kara’s voice was mingled with hope.
“I’m about to.” Ruth replied.The speed at which she collided with the missile was almost too much for her to process. She slammed through metal in an explosion of debris that tailed her ascent.
“I hit it!” She shouted.
“I… I… Oh my god! You hit it!” Kara screamed over the headset.
Ruth could hear cheers erupt from the behind Kara. Edict’s command center was monitoring the situation, and might have even seen her in action via satellite. Ruth spun around in the air, and looked down at the city.
“You hit it!” Kara continued screaming. “I love you!”
Ruth looked for the remains of the bomb and followed the wreckage of the missile and the contrail to their point of intersection. The weapon was damaged and canted awkwardly from her strike. As she reached the peak of her ascent, she gradually slipped from stasis into real time. A dreadful fact became evident. The warhead was still intact.
“I love you, too.” Ruth replied. Her mind raced for options, but found none.
For a brief moment before gravity reclaimed her, Ruth became weightless. The city lights blanketed the earth. Darkness swathed the ocean to the West and the mountains to the East.
“Come home.” Kara wept. “You saved the city! You saved the world! Everything is going to be ok.”
Cars moved through the streets, and people walked along the sidewalks. Ruth had returned to a world that moved with her in lockstep.
“I love you.” Ruth replied. “I’m sorry.”
A flash brighter than the most radiant sun eclipsed the city below.
Author’s Note: I recently read an article about the artists who created super heroes as an outlet to fight the injustice they saw in the world. Many problems of the era, such as the rise of Hitler or systemic racism, seemed too big to be tackled by the average person. These artists created characters that were able to face these challenges head on. I wanted to write a story about a modern character who could do the same, while alluding to some of the classic tropes of comic book stories.
Mark Rivett has professional experience as an educator, digital artist, and application developer. Mark began living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1997, but now resides in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In addition to a background in digital technology, Mark is fascinated by the macabre and his writing is inspired by the horror and suspense genre.
Dog Man: A Tale of Two Kitties is a 2017 graphic novel for kids, the third in the Dog Man series by Dav Pilkey (creator of Captain Underpants), the series has been reviewed here. The title character Dog Man is a half-dog half-policeman who fights crime with the strengths and weaknesses of both a man and a dog, often against Petey the Cat, but also against other villains that threaten the peace of his city.
In this book, Petey the Cat buys a cloning kit with the intent with having an evil villain clone to wreak havoc alongside him. But he doesn’t read the fine print to realize that it does not produce a fully grown clone, so he ends up producing Lil’ Petey, a child version of himself who calls him Papa and has very different interests (like telling the world’s worst knock-knock jokes). Suddenly having this new responsibility, will Petey turn over a new leaf?
Another entertaining book in the series, and it’s fun to see the origins of Lil’ Petey (who is a major character for following books which I read first so it was weird to go back and have him not be there!). Recommended for early grade school kids especially, this kind of book can be great for kids to practice reading, as long as you don’t mind some potty humor.
Dog Man Unleashed is a 2016 graphic novel for kids, the sequel to the popular Dog Man graphic novel, previously reviewed here. In this novel, Dog Man (half dog half policeman) is facing off against both old villains (like Petey the Cat) and new: a telekinetic fish, another Petey made out of paper.
This is another solid addition to the series, very appealing to early grade school kids especially! Great for helping kids learn to read by giving them something to be excited about! Very fun! Dav Pilkey has a great sense of humor for kids!
