Thoughts on Underworld: Awakening
So this movie finally hit the Redbox! A few jumbled thoughts right after viewing it.
First of all, I agree with other fans of the series that this movie is definitely the second best of the series. The story in UW3 is a touch more tightly written, but this was much better than I expected!
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First of all, I agree with other fans of the series that this movie is definitely the second best of the series. The story in UW3 is a touch more tightly written, but this was much better than I expected!
( Read more... )
-I figured they picked any drug and went with it. It's not likely that ODing could kill her at any rate.
-"[The battle] NEVER ENDS" is actually a direct line from the bridge anime. Thought you ought to know. :)
-There seems to be an amicable split between people who think Eve is a test tube baby and those who do not. I'm on the latter end, and believe that Selene and Michael's escape attempt at the beginning is because at the very least on some unconscious level Selene knows she's pregnant. The Purge is something that would require days (the movie says nine days, I think?) to politically get off the ground, so why didn't they leave before then?
-Headcanon time concerning the Lanes! They were turned at the same time, Quint when he was in his early-to-mid teens under the supervision of his father. I was very much in the middle of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo when UW4 came out, so there was a definite bleeding of concepts. Around 2009ish, Stephen was a doctor with a stable career, a deep-seeded misogyny, and a raging case of sexual dysfunction. He actually purposely seeks out to get infected with one of the immortal viruses in order to overcome his problem. He also arranges for his wife and son to be infected as well. Mrs. Lane, horrified at what he husband, already a jerk, has become, kills herself. Quint, at this point maybe thirteen and already his father's son to the core, accepts it and grows up. Again, I was reading Larrson at the time. The main theme of all his books is "men who hate women," are violent against them. There is such a horrid, almost rapey relationship between the Lanes, especially Quint, and Eve. "It's worse is you try and fight it" and all that. I'm actually going to sit down and properly write this all at some point. But the whole point to all this speculation about the Lanes is that I genuinely feel that Stephen is a far more evil character than Viktor or Marcus ever were.
-The scene where Selene breaks Michael out of hibernation just KILLS me, and was the closest to the idea I feared going into the movie that there would be a point at which Selene would have to inevitably choose between her daughter and her (essentially) husband.
-I predicted the psychic thing years ago! There's a moment in UW2 when Marcus just KNOWS that his twin is nearby for no reason at all. And a scene in UW1 has Selene finding Michael in the depths of the lycan den when she for all intents and purposes should have no clue. I feel like this "hybrid child has psychic connection to her parents" was not out of the blue at all, but the next logical step.
-David: my theory is that he's not a hybrid, but a next-level vampire like Selene. He's in the daylight at the end, but still has vampire eyes.
-I have no headcanon for Sebastian except that his first name is Ronald. I liked his character a great deal but haven't speculated much beyond that. Ithil wrote some amazing short stories for him, though, and should post them soon.
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-I thought there was a rape-y undertone to Lane's treatment of Eve as well, particularly since the surgery is - what? Performing an invasive operation to remove her eggs for cloning? He's destroying her body by attacking her feminine element. The fact that he specifies her "coming of age" is particularly telling, since if he was really just after her genetic material, he could have removed the eggs at anytime without havin to wait for female puberty to occur. (The look on Quint's face when they're talking about it seriously skeeved me out. There was a moment where I actually thought they WERE going to forcefully breed her to produce some sort of lycan dominant hybrid. I have never been so relieved to hear somebody was going under the knife.)
I don't know if it's specifically intended as misogynistic by the writers, but I do think they were borrowing elements of that dehumanizing violence to represent how deep his hatred runs for vampire kind.
-I'd totally forgot about Markus and William's connection. Hmm. That could be an interesting argument for the possibility of Selene having conceived her naturally, if we go by the idea that the bond could be formed in the womb. If they release extra promotional material beyond this movie, I'd be interested to see if Eve's bond to Michael is dual-functioning as it is with Selene.
-I should have specified that I thought David was a Vampire/Corvinus hybrid, not a lycan/vampire one. :)
Also, while I'm talking to you about this, I just realized that the three sewer lycans that chased down the van must have been under Lane's orders. Which meant they must have been playing (and looking) the part of starved underlings in order to complete facade. Worst job ever.
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