Aha! Also, I don't think that means that they think it means...
Why Twitter is useful: someoene asked Vince Gilligan whose idea the fantastic Ozymandias promo for Breaking Bad had been, and he replied:
Shelley's "Ozymandias" came up a lot this season, as my writers and I are nerds who never see the sun... However, the idea of cutting the poem into a promo was the idea of the brilliant director Rian Johnson.
Thank you, Rian Johnson. In other Breaking Bad news, this article defending Skyler White is well-intentioned, but leaving entirely aside the obnoxious comments (seriously, don't read those, they make you despair of the human race, as comments about unpopular female characters sadly tend to do), this made me somewhat facepalm:
If Walter White is the anti-hero of Breaking Bad turned full-blown villain, then Skyler White has supplanted Walter as the series’ anti-hero. You couldn’t call her a moral, idealistic, or virtuous person - she slept with Ted, she smoked while she was pregnant, she laundered Walter’s money and she enjoyed it - but if there’s anyone on this show - besides Jesse Pinkman - that we should be rooting for, it’s Skyler White. She has taken on Walter’s original role in the series: Protector of the family.
Firstly, you know, I'd agree with the general point of Skyler- who is my favourite - as an anti-hero, but God knows, if you want to list her flaws and crimes, "sleeping with Ted" and "smoking while pregnant" definitely should take a backseat. Mind you, the Skyler haters bring up both regularly, which is perhaps why the article writer, defending her, did, but seriously: having an affair - especially given the circumstances of said affair - is such a minor thing compared with everything else, and I don't mean Walt's grand scale horrors. And I'm all for a healthy life, I never smoked, I resented back in the day all my class mates smoking in the bus and thus making me inhale the stuff, but why on earth Skyler lightning up a cigarette as her life increasingly turns to shit makes it to the list of her crimes: I don't even know, as the kids say today. Now, laundering Walt's money, that's another issue entirely, and does deserve to be listed. Good point about her enjoying it, too (well, not after her epiphany re: Walt not being in over his head and unable to get out, as per his "I won" after offing Gus, but before that): Skyler, like her husband, not only likes to be in control but enjoys her own cleverness and evidence of same. When she took apart Saul's initial money laundering suggestion and came up instead with a far more workable scheme, she didn't want Walt to go to prison, yes, but she also enjoyed herself. Now if I were to list Skyler's flaws and misdemeanours, those she shares with Walt would top that list: the need to be in control and having everyone follow her script, for starters. (For a hilarious take on this, see both the early season 1 intervention scene, with the pillow, and Skyler's reaction when Marie unexpectedly sides with Walt, and of course the terrific scene betweeen Skyler and Walt in early s4 when she's sketched out just what they'll tell Hank and Marie, i.e. the gambling addiction tale.) Also her ability to blind herself; not nearly as great as Walt's, which is one reason why I like Skyler, but in later s3 and the first half of s4, she essentially goes the same thing Walt did through most of s1, telling herself it's for the good of the kids while getting into the criminal life. And then, Skyler can be ruthless and petty: there was no reason (beyond the initial one, the car wash being a more plausible thing for Walt to invest in because he used to work there) to insist on this particular car wash and ruin its owner other than he'd been a jerk to her. So, article writer, this is what I'd list.
Thankfully the journalist in question in the defense part of the article also brings up something I have and would, which is that Skyler, as opposed to Walt, is then able to be brutally honest with herself. The initial impulse to send the kids away isn't just to remove them from Walt's vicinity and the very real danger zone it presents, it is, as she tells Walt, also because of herself. She's able to no longer buy into the excuse that all she does is justified by "doing it for my family", and calls Walt's favourite rationalisation "bullshit" not just for him but for herself as well. Which is why the last part of the article quote - about Skyler having taken on Walt's role as protector of the family - doesn't sit right with me, either. I mean, yes, she does that. And at her own expense - she's willing to look like the bad guy in the eyes of her son, her sister and her brother-in-law, which Walt would never be. But: seeing as the realisation that this still doesn't justify her actions was a big Skyler character point, I find it ironic that the article writer doesn't seem to get it.
Meanwhile, another article also made me rise my eyebrows: the sixteen worse things Walter White has done on Breaking Bad. Some of these are self evident, but how come the death of Krazy-8 makes the list and Walt's ultra creepy 'I forgive you' to Skyler and his manipulation of Hank and Marie using her affair do not? Also, if I read one more description of Gale as "the most innocent person of the show", I'll scream. The man was a meth manufacturer working for a drug lord. Being a clueless geek does not make one innocent. You know who is a good equivalent for Gale? Andrew Wells in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Andrew has that same geekness, crushing on a villain and believing himself to be in a comic book story. This does not, as the show makes very clear, negate his responsibility for theft, murder and attempted rape.
Lastly, and not related to Breaking Bad (since Walt didn't, as Jesse once wished he would, create robots): a very cool multifandom vid about A.I./Human interactions - If a machine. Lots of Sarah Connor Chronicles and Terminator footage, but also the Alien films and Prometheus as well as Battlestar Galactica.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/913264.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
Shelley's "Ozymandias" came up a lot this season, as my writers and I are nerds who never see the sun... However, the idea of cutting the poem into a promo was the idea of the brilliant director Rian Johnson.
Thank you, Rian Johnson. In other Breaking Bad news, this article defending Skyler White is well-intentioned, but leaving entirely aside the obnoxious comments (seriously, don't read those, they make you despair of the human race, as comments about unpopular female characters sadly tend to do), this made me somewhat facepalm:
If Walter White is the anti-hero of Breaking Bad turned full-blown villain, then Skyler White has supplanted Walter as the series’ anti-hero. You couldn’t call her a moral, idealistic, or virtuous person - she slept with Ted, she smoked while she was pregnant, she laundered Walter’s money and she enjoyed it - but if there’s anyone on this show - besides Jesse Pinkman - that we should be rooting for, it’s Skyler White. She has taken on Walter’s original role in the series: Protector of the family.
Firstly, you know, I'd agree with the general point of Skyler- who is my favourite - as an anti-hero, but God knows, if you want to list her flaws and crimes, "sleeping with Ted" and "smoking while pregnant" definitely should take a backseat. Mind you, the Skyler haters bring up both regularly, which is perhaps why the article writer, defending her, did, but seriously: having an affair - especially given the circumstances of said affair - is such a minor thing compared with everything else, and I don't mean Walt's grand scale horrors. And I'm all for a healthy life, I never smoked, I resented back in the day all my class mates smoking in the bus and thus making me inhale the stuff, but why on earth Skyler lightning up a cigarette as her life increasingly turns to shit makes it to the list of her crimes: I don't even know, as the kids say today. Now, laundering Walt's money, that's another issue entirely, and does deserve to be listed. Good point about her enjoying it, too (well, not after her epiphany re: Walt not being in over his head and unable to get out, as per his "I won" after offing Gus, but before that): Skyler, like her husband, not only likes to be in control but enjoys her own cleverness and evidence of same. When she took apart Saul's initial money laundering suggestion and came up instead with a far more workable scheme, she didn't want Walt to go to prison, yes, but she also enjoyed herself. Now if I were to list Skyler's flaws and misdemeanours, those she shares with Walt would top that list: the need to be in control and having everyone follow her script, for starters. (For a hilarious take on this, see both the early season 1 intervention scene, with the pillow, and Skyler's reaction when Marie unexpectedly sides with Walt, and of course the terrific scene betweeen Skyler and Walt in early s4 when she's sketched out just what they'll tell Hank and Marie, i.e. the gambling addiction tale.) Also her ability to blind herself; not nearly as great as Walt's, which is one reason why I like Skyler, but in later s3 and the first half of s4, she essentially goes the same thing Walt did through most of s1, telling herself it's for the good of the kids while getting into the criminal life. And then, Skyler can be ruthless and petty: there was no reason (beyond the initial one, the car wash being a more plausible thing for Walt to invest in because he used to work there) to insist on this particular car wash and ruin its owner other than he'd been a jerk to her. So, article writer, this is what I'd list.
Thankfully the journalist in question in the defense part of the article also brings up something I have and would, which is that Skyler, as opposed to Walt, is then able to be brutally honest with herself. The initial impulse to send the kids away isn't just to remove them from Walt's vicinity and the very real danger zone it presents, it is, as she tells Walt, also because of herself. She's able to no longer buy into the excuse that all she does is justified by "doing it for my family", and calls Walt's favourite rationalisation "bullshit" not just for him but for herself as well. Which is why the last part of the article quote - about Skyler having taken on Walt's role as protector of the family - doesn't sit right with me, either. I mean, yes, she does that. And at her own expense - she's willing to look like the bad guy in the eyes of her son, her sister and her brother-in-law, which Walt would never be. But: seeing as the realisation that this still doesn't justify her actions was a big Skyler character point, I find it ironic that the article writer doesn't seem to get it.
Meanwhile, another article also made me rise my eyebrows: the sixteen worse things Walter White has done on Breaking Bad. Some of these are self evident, but how come the death of Krazy-8 makes the list and Walt's ultra creepy 'I forgive you' to Skyler and his manipulation of Hank and Marie using her affair do not? Also, if I read one more description of Gale as "the most innocent person of the show", I'll scream. The man was a meth manufacturer working for a drug lord. Being a clueless geek does not make one innocent. You know who is a good equivalent for Gale? Andrew Wells in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Andrew has that same geekness, crushing on a villain and believing himself to be in a comic book story. This does not, as the show makes very clear, negate his responsibility for theft, murder and attempted rape.
Lastly, and not related to Breaking Bad (since Walt didn't, as Jesse once wished he would, create robots): a very cool multifandom vid about A.I./Human interactions - If a machine. Lots of Sarah Connor Chronicles and Terminator footage, but also the Alien films and Prometheus as well as Battlestar Galactica.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/913264.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.