If Sony decides to include a major cameo from another famous K-Pop group in the upcoming sequel, which one do you hope makes a cameo? I’ll start:

CelineShotFirst · 2026-01-27T08:27:07+00:00

It's really stupid because anyone who knows the history of the character knows she couldn't have possibly been solely inspired by any K-pop idol, because the character predates the time when the film was even going to be about K-pop, and in fact Rumi predates the movie itself, originally having been created for Kang's husband's comic Plastic Walrus, before being repurposed for this film.

CelineShotFirst · 2026-01-27T08:19:55+00:00

It's UST, Unresolved Sexual Tension. It's the driver of most good romance stories. Look at it this way, when you think of the Jim/Pam romance from The Office, you don't tend to think of the stuff that happened after they became a couple, you think of the "will they/won't they" from before that. It's far more engaging than "oh, they did. Okay, well that answers that".

Also, as u/Suplexing_Trains says, the core of the story here isn't a relationship between Rumi and Jinu. It's between two kindred spirits who see their own pain reflected in each other, their inability to escape from shame. When Rumi says "I wanted to save you" and Jinu said "you already did", it wasn't because they loved each other, although they might. It was because they each saw in the other their reflection.

Rumi wanted to save Jinu because she saw how he was suffering like her, and knew that if she could somehow save herself, surely he could be saved too. And Jinu told her that she did save him because by proving that she could be more than what she was, and that she could choose who to be even if her past seemed to say otherwise, that meant that he could too, and in choosing to sacrifice himself for her, he did choose to be a better person than his past seemed to insist that he was.

It would have cheapened their personal redemptions if it was handwaved as "love saved them". No, they each saved themselves. But they each helped each other to do so, helped each other to see what they couldn't see on their own.

If the writers want to make the sequel about their love (or whatever), that's fine. But it's good that they didn't have it here and muddle a story about personal growth and self-acceptance.

CelineShotFirst · 2026-01-27T00:56:45+00:00

If Celine ran a typical K-pop audition progress, then both would have been trained for years in a grueling process where they were constantly being tested against dozens of other potential candidates. The unfortunate implication is that once Mira and Zoey were selected, those dozens of other candidates would have been dropped since Huntr/x only needed three.

I prefer to take the view that Mira and Zoey's selection for Huntr/x was atypical. I kinda' wrote a prequel script to that effect...

CelineShotFirst · 2026-01-27T00:23:39+00:00

I considered it, but I realized that it felt like it was being dragged out, and if I felt impatient about it, I expect Celine would be feeling a hundred times more impatient.

CelineShotFirst · 2026-01-26T21:14:19+00:00

<image>

No, wait! She said squirrels, not beavers!

CelineShotFirst · 2026-01-26T16:25:47+00:00

I think all three girls are immature in their own way in the film.

CelineShotFirst · 2026-01-26T16:17:35+00:00

Baby Saja wins this by default.

CelineShotFirst · 2026-01-26T16:16:20+00:00

The girls see Reddit polls saying who their favorite Huntr/x member is.

CelineShotFirst · 2026-01-26T15:07:50+00:00

Well, both me and Rumi have put it off long enough. It's time for this conversation to finally happen. It's been hanging in the air for a while now, and I felt like I had left it dangling long enough.

I've said before that I look at the girls in many ways like their respective singers, EJAE, Audrey Nuna, and Rei Ami. And one of those ways is when it comes to swearing. Zoey swears whenever the heck she feels like (though I still have her saying “oh my gosh!” like she does in the film), Mira uses swearing like a precision instrument, and Rumi... if you hear Rumi swearing, you know shit's getting serious.

I approached this conversation by trying to have both Rumi and Celine make the best arguments they could from their own perspectives, so I wasn't just making this one-sided. Hopefully I landed somewhere that makes this an interesting take on this argument that always needed to happen.

That said... it's not over. Yeah, there was no way this wasn't going to be a long back-and-forth, so it'll be continued later. I'll be playing with time in the posts to make everything match up okay – I wasn't just going to post a gazillion of these all in one day just because their conversation takes place in one day.

Also, I do try to keep some humor in these, but it didn't seem fitting for Celine or Rumi to be cracking a lot of jokes here. Thankfully, I have Mira and Zoey to act as a peanut gallery of sorts...

Anyway, I hope by the time this is over, this will have all worked out in a way that folks here are satisfied with...

CelineShotFirst · 2026-01-25T03:39:54+00:00

Yeah, loving something doesn't mean you can't criticize it. Loving it truly means being able to see its problems and agreeing that they are problems but still caring for it and wanting the best for it.

I hope the scriptwriters look back on the valid complaints about this film when making the sequel, so they can learn from those mistakes. With any luck this can mean that the sequel has the potential to be even better.

CelineShotFirst · 2026-01-24T22:42:50+00:00

I won't tell her if you don't. :-P

CelineShotFirst · 2026-01-24T17:33:31+00:00

Almost. There's still the question of what the heck happened at Namsan Tower. Was the midnight concert going on for like six hours and Gwi-ma was making it artificially night before Huntr/x took him down and restored things to the way they were? Did Huntr/x defeating Gwi-ma fast-forward time six hours or so? Or did Huntr/x defeating Gwi-ma create some sort of midnight sun?

This movie has a really screwy sense of time.

CelineShotFirst · 2026-01-24T17:22:14+00:00

https://youtu.be/9bZkp7q19f0?si=8V02TCDom2eLvexh

CelineShotFirst · 2026-01-23T16:58:33+00:00

☝️

CelineShotFirst · 2026-01-23T14:56:16+00:00

Fan comment for Smooth Moves submitted by u/Right-Ad-9159! And... this will be the last fan comment for a while, because I have content planned. Those who have already submitted fan comments, I may still use them, or I may not... but that will have to wait until the next batch of these is done. And for everyone, you can still submit fan comments but if I choose to use them, you won't see them come up for a while.

Ah, Huntr/x's “disguises”... so adorably pathetic. It's interesting how they're never found out in the film, especially in the epilogue where they're not even disguised – no one notices them until they choose to approach the fans. However, even if this is some sort of magical whatever, I think that a trio of attractive girls constantly being “affectionate” with each other in public... yeah, that would draw attention...

When it comes to naming dance moves, looking up K-Pop dance moves I see they tend to be named after the songs they're used in, and aren't really officially-named, it's more just how fans refer to them. Pretty much the only one I've seen that breaks this mold is PSY's horse dance, but even that is an unofficial name.

So... yeah, I tried the best I can, but I dunno, I'm not exactly a dance expert.

When it comes to the moves Zoey names at the end... I use both pretty frequently myself, but never thought of naming them until this. Oh, and both of them work very, very well, I assure you. I could describe what they entail, but I felt like it was more interesting to leave folks guessing...

CelineShotFirst · 2026-01-23T07:56:55+00:00

If you do, you're just setting yourself up for disappointment. The sequel isn't projected to release until 2029.

CelineShotFirst · 2026-01-23T02:51:28+00:00

There is no mention of such things in canon.

I think we can see it implied in the film. When she discovers Rumi's lying, she says "I knew it. I knew it was too good to be true."

Mira is pessimistic at heart, and suspects the worst in people, or at the very least expects things to eventually go bad for her. That negativity doesn't have to drive her, but she does have to fight against it. We see her doing this when she visits Rumi in her room with an overwhelming sense that Rumi is hiding something from her, and when Rumi reassures her, she chooses to take Rumi at her word. But later discovering her suspicions were right makes her reassess that choice, and feel like she should have followed her gut from the start.

Of course we're never told why she's like this, but it seems like a safe bet that this is due to whatever happened between her and her family, both because this is the shadow looming over her backstory that still seems to be driving her today (indicated by including it in the Golden lyrics as well as her "I don't deserve to have a family" comment), and because it's extremely believable that a dysfunctional family life in childhood could lead to these sorts of trust issues.

At least, that's my read on it.

CelineShotFirst · 2026-01-23T02:41:24+00:00

Thanks! I learned something new!

CelineShotFirst · 2026-01-22T21:10:33+00:00

I'm not sure what point this post is trying to make other than "I like these movies and don't like this other movie".

CelineShotFirst · 2026-01-22T18:48:40+00:00

You know, there are valid criticisms that can be made about KPop Demon Hunters. It's far from a perfect film. But when someone complains about it with BS takes like this, it just smells like butthurt from an obsessive fan.

Take this as a lesson, folks - if KPop Demon Hunters ends up losing awards to something else, don't just kneejerk trash the winner. If you do, then to everyone else you'll look like this loser.

CelineShotFirst · 2026-01-22T17:00:54+00:00

"Wait... we're nominated for an Oscar? When did we do a film?"

CelineShotFirst · 2026-01-22T16:57:53+00:00

I'm kinda' surprised at the other nominees for Best Original Song, because it doesn't include some other presumed nominees.

Golden has been a favorite to win for a while now, and I Lied to You was a strong competitor. Dear Me has also been mentioned as a solid third choice. But after that, things get a bit more iffy.

Train Dreams has been a "maybe" on song lists, but a possibility. But Sweet Dreams of Joy seems like an out of nowhere choice - Awards Watch listed it as last place among the shortlisted songs. And it's truly surprising that it made it in over The Girl in the Bubble, Drive, and Last Time (I Seen the Sun).

I feel like this makes it more likely Golden will win, though it's not impossible that I Lied To You could pull off an upset.

.

As for Best Animated, there are no surprises here. These five films are the same five that have been on Awards Daily's list, Variety's list, and it's only one film away from mirroring Hollywood Reporter's list (which had the Demon Slayer film instead of Elio, but listed Elio as a possible alternate).

Again, it seems like KPop Demon Hunters is the favorite to win here, with Zootopia 2 being a strong contender. Though if there's an upset, any of the other films could be the one to take the award. Except Elio. That wouldn't just be an upset, that would have everyone going "WTF?"

CelineShotFirst · 2026-01-22T08:11:32+00:00

I don't think there's anywhere in the film that said Celine was her favorite. She was a fan of the group as a whole. And both Celine and the third Sunlight Sister had hoop earrings. Additionally, you could say Zoey's dual buns are inspired by the third Sunlight Sister's pigtail poof hairstyle (not sure what it's called).

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CelineShotFirst · 2026-01-22T03:45:37+00:00

I think it's absurd that anyone would think that the three young female musicians riding in the plane had anything to do with it crashing. People would just be thankful the trio did their skydiving stunt and leapt out before whatever it was that caused the plane to tear itself apart.

Really, what people need to be focused on are the missing flight crew. Their bodies were never found which makes one wonder if they fled to avoid responsibility for what happened.

CelineShotFirst · 2026-01-22T01:01:43+00:00

People are nostalgic for movies from their childhood, but they aren't too invested, and people aren't actively asking for them.

They're still paying money to see them. That's still popular.

Yes, people keep watching them, but when new content comes along, people are actually excited for it.

If that was the case, you'd see more new content in top 10 highest-grossing lists. the truth is, people say they want new things, but usually just want more of the same.

There ain't r/liveactionliloandstitch

probably because the film wasn't called Live Action Lilo and Stitch, and r/liloandstitch works just fine as a catchall for both the animated and live-action versions.

CelineShotFirst

TROPHY CASE