Mikhail's TV Digest #15 Covers March and a bit of April
A couple of guest posts, a couple of originals, and some bonus thoughts
This is the delayed fifteenth issue of what is typically an ongoing monthly-ish series that I like to call Mikhail’s Textual Variations Digest, aka MTVD, for short. It includes links to my recent posts, as well as some additional related thoughts and notes.
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March 5
This is the first guest post I’ve hosted, courtesy of writer
, who wrote about a cool sci-fi series that explores multiple timelines, each of which shows different ways one person’s life could turn out, kinda like the movie Sliding Doors.March 21
The second guest post comes from
, who examines the differences between the live-action and manga versions of the series One-Piece, specifically when it comes to the characterization of the female characters.March 26
I return to original posting with a short but focused look at the much lauded Dune Part 2, which I found to have a rushed climax. I speculate why this happened and compare it to the similarly rushed conclusion of David Lynch’s 1984 adaptation. This has become one of my most popular recent posts, apparently thanks to search engines.
Since publishing it, I’ve become increasingly convinced that the main reason for the rushed storytelling is indeed budget. I cannot fully confirm this at the moment, but my theory is that because Covid made movies cost more in general while considerably diminishing theatrical audiences, studios like WBD have started cutting back on budgets for their blockbuster pictures, forcing filmmakers to in turn cut down a picture’s scope and running time.
April 2
I meant to publish this long article on Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon Part 1 back in February, but life intervened and so I had to delay it. In some ways, I think this was for the better, in that I was able to time it to precede the Netflix release of Part 2 on April 19. I wound up writing this in a “FAQ” style, responding to many questions that arose following the premiere of the film in a sanitized 135-minute PG-13 Cut, rather than Snyder’s director’s cut.
That the picture was released in this manner was not at all surprising to me. I reported about the multi-version release strategy when the news broke back in September of last year. But it seems to have taken a whole lot of people by surprise, resulting in a bunch of incorrect and often poorly thought-out conclusions about Netflix and Snyder himself.
Having since seen Part 2, I now believe that the two parts should’ve been one movie and that Rebel Moon could easily work as a single 3-hour PG-13 film. I’m also sad The Scargiver, despite being a better film in every respect, is being bashed by critics. I’d love to share more thoughts on all this at some point. Maybe when the R-rated versions come out this Summer.
I've been pretty offline the last little while, when it comes to Substack, but I've got about a dozen of your posts queued up to read very soon - excited to dig in :D
Always appreciate your continued support.