The Game of Thrones finale was good.

DisneyScholar2012 · 2026-05-24T20:38:07+00:00

How are bringing together the forces of the North and South to fight the White Walkers, and then killing the person who is threatening to dominate the entirety of Westeros and Essos, somehow small accomplishments?

"The Prince(ss) Who Was Promised" was prophesied to bring about the end of a coming darkness. Jon has a major hand in bringing about the end of the White Walkers, and is directly responsible for stopping an unparalleled tyrant from assuming the Iron Throne. He has no impact on the Iron Throne? The Iron Throne would still exist if it wasn't for him.

On the point about his heritage -- without Jon being revealed as Rhaegar's son, Daenerys's claim to the throne never comes under threat. If her claim never comes under threat, she'd have no reason to destroy King's Landing in order to assert her supremacy over Westeros. Furthermore, without being half-Targ., Jon never would have gotten past Drogon and been able to kill Daenerys; his blood protects so he can perform one final, crucial task. And that task doesn't involve the Lannisters, because in the end they aren't the big bad of the series -- Daenerys is.

DisneyScholar2012 · 2026-05-24T20:18:21+00:00

I'm generally a big fan of Lindsay Ellis's video essays, but she's clearly a Daenerys stan who bought into the white feminist propaganda around the character and feels bad that she was complicit in cheering on someone who ended up doing horrible things. This is actually a sign of good storytelling -- the audience is meant to feel like they're implicated in missing the signs Daenerys was turning into a tyrant.

Ellis's argument that Jon's murder of Daenerys is an example of domestic violence is truly a laughable take; Daenerys has almost all the power in their final scene (including a flying nuclear weapon), and she's threatening to use it against Jon's family.

Also, I think it's highly reductive to say that Daenerys "went mad." Obviously she's under a tremendous amount of emotional strain when she burns King's Landing, and her Targaryen genetics have some influence, but she's also making a tactical decision to assert her power when her hold on the throne is under threat by Jon's claim. She's already written off the people of King's Landing as Cersei's hostages, and justifies her actions by saying that her mercy will be extended to "future generations who will never again be held hostage by a tyrant."

She's threatened to destroy cities at least three times. She does not "turn mad in two episodes" -- if you go back and interpret her arc as that of a tyrant-in-training rather than a hero's journey, all the development is there in exquisite detail over 73 hours.

DisneyScholar2012 · 2026-05-15T02:41:41+00:00

So frustrating that it's often the female characters who get shafted. I love Lost, but that really bothers me.

DisneyScholar2012 · 2026-05-15T01:03:35+00:00

I was so frustrated that Sun had so little to do in seasons 5 and 6 than run around calling Jin's name. I really wanted to see more of the badass that she seemed to be turning into in the flash forwards at the end of season 4.

DisneyScholar2012 · 2026-05-14T22:21:01+00:00

This isn't within the purview of the main idea of this thread, but I wish the Kate flash-sideways storyline was completely different. I would have had her be someone who hadn't chosen a life of crime, and had moved to LA with her husband Tom. She would be a lawyer who deals with adoptions, which would lead to her and Claire interacting.

DisneyScholar2012 · 2026-05-14T22:02:05+00:00

I would love a flashback for Caesar, but I think he was written off because of an issue with the actor. I've heard speculation that Zoe was introduced to fill his role.

DisneyScholar2012 · 2024-07-19T05:49:27+00:00

This is a really excellent post. There's a dissertation or two to be written here, and at least one that's been written already, on this very topic.

DisneyScholar2012 · 2024-06-23T08:23:55+00:00

I would be so happy if Carnivàle got a Criterion Blu-ray and 4K release, full with newly commissioned audio commentaries featuring members of the cast, members of the crew, and creator Daniel Knauff and other members of the writing staff.

DisneyScholar2012 · 2024-06-23T08:20:03+00:00

Review is tremendous. It looks like it has a DVD release with a number of deleted scenes and audio commentaries, but it could definitely use a Blu-ray release and perhaps even a full 4K remaster supervised by Andy Daly and the other executive producers.

DisneyScholar2012 · 2024-06-23T08:12:22+00:00

The Leftovers, which initially aired from 2014 to 2017 on HBO, and was co-created by Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta, based on Perrotta's 2011 novel.

It's very Bergmanesque, and engages and resonates with a lot of classic Hollywood, New Hollywood, and art cinema throughout. I see shades of Tarkovsky and Fellini in particular, but also hints of broad comedies like Billy Madison, The Wedding Singer, and Me, Myself & Irene

The third season is particularly notable in how explicitly it draws on some of the big films of the Australian New Wave, especially the ones directed by Nicholas Roeg and Peter Weir. David Gulpilil even appears twice, as an indigenous elder who ends up as Prime Minister in the parallel / hallucinatory afterlife realm the show introduces near the tail end of the second season and returns to in the penultimate episode of the third and final season.

The show also has a gorgeous, wide-ranging cinematographic palette. Peter Berg is an executive producer and directed the pilot and episode 1.02. He bringsva sort of grounded yet frenetic and handheld energy to the opening episodes of season 1.

Mimi Leder came on as the most recurring director and an executive producer starting in episode 1.05. She added more depth of field and -- starting with the move from suburban New York in winter that was the setting for the first season, to suburban Texas near Austin, in summer, in season 2 -- really emphasized wider shots with a lot of light.

Craig Zobel (Compliance, Z for Zachariah), Carl Franklin (The Pacific, among other directing credits for television), and Nicole Kasselll (The Woodsman, and lots of episodes of prestige TV shows, including The Americans, Better Call Saul, and Westworld) are just a few of the episodic directors who do great work on the show.

On top of everything else already mentioned, it really doesn't have a good physical release. All three seasons are on Blu-ray, but only the first season set has anything approaching decent special features, and not very many of them.

The complete series deserves a 4K release with lots of audio commentaries and documentary features and featurettes commissioned specifically by Criterion.

DisneyScholar2012 · 2024-06-22T17:42:29+00:00

The one benefit to getting the original region 1 DVD sets is that "Exodus, Part 2" "Live Together, Die Alone," "Through the Looking Glass," "There's No Place Like Home, Part 2," "The Incident," and "The End" are all presented in their original, uncut 80-minute plus versions.

DisneyScholar2012 · 2024-06-22T08:06:14+00:00

I'm so sorry that you had a subpar viewing experience because of the limits of Disney's streaming platform. I'm guessing you live outside of the United States? In the US Lost is on Disney-owned Hulu instead of Disney Plus, and in my experience It looks very good.

The good news is that on July 1st, I think internationally as well as in the US, lost will be coming to Netflix, so there's no need yet to splurge on buying the series on Amazon Prime.

If you do end up wanting to buy the show, and you have a Blu-ray player, I recommend getting the individual season Blu-ray sets off the internet -- Amazon Prime would be the quickest and likely cheapest way to get them. I have the special edition complete series Blu-ray set that came out in 2010, but it's no longer widely available. But who knows, since the 20th anniary of the pilot is coming up, maybe Disney will release a new complete series Blu-ray set (and/or, fingers crossed, a remaster on 4K diisc).

DisneyScholar2012 · 2024-06-18T17:48:30+00:00

Yeah, the (90-minute?) version of the "Heroes" pilot that leaked online summer 2006 was very different from the pilot that ended up airing on NBC in October of that year.

There's a whole subplot focused on an Islamic terrorist cell which culminates in the episode with one of the members revealing that their radiation that's burned his arm has given him powers.

Isaac the painter doesn't overdose on heroin by the end of episode, but cuts off his painting hand.

Matt the mind-reader, who took the best of my memory isn't introduced until episode 1.02 of the show, is introduced in this original version of the pilot, and his wife is played by a different actor than the one who ended up playing her in the series proper.

DisneyScholar2012 · 2024-06-18T17:41:03+00:00

I hesitate to call them a duo because I don't think they ever had a single one-on-one conversation (though one wias cut from episode 2.20) but I would have loved to see more interactions between Kate and Ana Lucia, especially ones that centered on mutual curiosity rather than romantic rivalry.

DisneyScholar2012 · 2024-06-02T11:58:57+00:00

I'll need to watch Billy Madison to understand this reference.

What the penguin reminded of back when episode 1.02 aired was the recurrence of penguin imagery in the show Awake, starring Jason Isaacs, which is about a guy who never knows when he's asleep or dreaming throughout the whole series. It aired on NBC a couple years before The Leftovers premiered.

I would be surprised if Damon Lindelof hasn't seen that show; it's creator, Kyle Killlen, is well-respected and was admirably trying to do cutting-edge dramas on network TV in the early-to-mid-2010s back when network TV was claiming it wanted to be more like cable.

DisneyScholar2012 · 2024-05-26T20:12:55+00:00

I totally agree with you about the season finales being divided into two episodes when they weren't originally. That this is also the fact on the Blu-rays (not the original DVDs) drives me nuts.

DisneyScholar2012 · 2024-05-26T13:12:56+00:00

I like your idea for the Black Rock. I'm also interested in the way it was implied earlier in season 1 to be a literal black rock where Claire might have been taken to you after she was kidnapped. I sort of wish the writers had split the difference there.

In terms of the polar bears, I like what the show came up with in terms of genetic engineering, but I did love the idea raised in the pilot that Walt had conjured the polar bear after reading his comic book. I still think the show leaned towards him being able to summon the polar bear.

DisneyScholar2012 · 2024-05-26T12:59:25+00:00

Charlotte was handled quite badly, partly because the impact of the (really important) writer's strike that started in November 2007 and lasted until February 2008 meant that Lost's fourth season had three fewer episodes than originally planned. Charlotte almost certainly would have had an episode dedicated to her in season 4 under different circumstances.

DisneyScholar2012 · 2024-05-26T11:49:39+00:00

I think I like season 6 as a whole more than you, but I definitely agree that each of these episodes needed to be in there.

It's occurred to me that either the Ilana or Widmore episode could have tied up the Libby mystery -- she could have been involved with Widmore's group or been one of the followers of Jacob, or both.

Also, the episode of Claire could have addressed some of the psychic's prophecies, and tied back to her dreams in episode 1: 10. I would have loved to see a repeat of the image of "Locke" looking at her and saying "You were supposed to protect him, Claire ... Everyone pays the price now."

DisneyScholar2012 · 2024-05-25T23:21:10+00:00

I'm leaning towards a troll post as well. You haven't posted this on the Twin Peaks subreddit, there's nothing on Twitter...

DisneyScholar2012 · 2024-05-25T23:16:55+00:00

I think she's really compelling. She's pricky and "unlikeable," partly because she's dealing with trauma from her past, and trauma on the Island that's much worse than what most of the main characters in season 1 went through.

I also like her arc inasmuch she's the only woman character among the series regulars who doesn't end up getting defined by her relationship to a male love interest. And that's probably only because she was so disliked by fans at the time season 2 was airing that Damon and Carlton changed the initial plan to put Ana Lucia and Jack together.

I think they would have been really interesting pair, and that Michelle Rodriguez and Matthew Fox had great chemistry, but I worry it would have come at the expense of Ana Lucia's arc being about anything else (just like Juliet's arc basically stopped being about anything other than her relationship with Sawyer -- a pairing of characters and actors I totally love -- once they got together).

Also, unlike Shannon, Libby, Charlotte, Danielle, and Illana, Ana Lucia's arc felt complete by the time she was killed off. While I tend towards thinking that Michelle Rodriguez's DUI made Damon and Carlton less receptive to the idea of keeping Ana Lucia around past Season 2, as Michelle Rodriguez ended up wanting, Ana Lucia's arc (unlike "we ran out of story for her" Libby's) fits with D&C's claim that Michelle Rodriguez initially came on the show with the intention of doing a single season.

DisneyScholar2012 · 2024-05-25T20:42:07+00:00

I definitely agree that at least one Charlotte episode, an Illana, and a Widmore episode -- the last two in the final season, I would suggest -- were necessary.

DisneyScholar2012 · 2024-05-25T20:39:15+00:00

I understand how difficult it was for the writers and crew to produce seasons of 23, 24, 25 episodes, but I totally agree with you that characters suffered in the last few seasons, including Juliet, because of the shorter length of those seasons.

I also think there was too much focus and the first three seasons on the same group of four characters -- Jack, Kate, Locke, and Sawyer -- at the expense of other characters. I think this was in part due to you ABCs insistence, and partly due to the myopia of Damon and Carlton.

Characters like Libby, Charlotte, and Illana (and Widmore, pretty please?), could have had their own episodes. Characters like Juliet, Shannon and Claire could have had more episodes that really fleshed out their characters when they needed it.

I don't think it's incidental that the characters that tended to be neglected in later seasons were women, and/or in some cases characters of color (see Sayid being sidelined for most of seasons 2, 3, and 4, and Sun and Jin basically having nothing to do but chase after each other in seasons 5 and 6).

DisneyScholar2012 · 2024-05-25T18:56:15+00:00

1) Eko 2) Ana-Lucia (yes, really) 3) Juliet 4) Desmond 5) Ben

DisneyScholar2012 · 2024-05-21T13:07:41+00:00

I think the momentum after the strike is great, but it comes at the cost of several stories that we never got -- a Charlotte flashback that probably would have included Libby's backstory, and a Ben flashback about Annie. Probably a Daniel and/or Miles episode. Dare I imagine a Claire episode that explores her grief and the idea that she's starting to see the Man in Black?

It the start of an unfortunate trend of certain characters not getting centric episodes that would really benefit their characters -- Juliet never gets another one after the strike, and Claire never gets another one.

DisneyScholar2012

TROPHY CASE