So... I know it's been a while, but I've come back to report an exciting update regarding my book!
My debut YA romantasy book, Love Be Damned, is coming out this May!!!
It's coming out May 15th, to be exact! Save the date!
I know this is a media blog that's been focused on movies and TV shows over the past few years (if you forgive my extended absences), but this book has been taking up most of my life for the past few years, and so it's nice to be able to share it with you all.
Love Be Damned means a lot to me, and not just because it's my first published novel. This is a book that I started writing in college because I felt that Black girls weren't really seen, and now I get to put out a piece of work that shows Black girls in the light I know we deserve.
To top it off, I'm going to share a little secret with you guys. (Because you're so special!) If anyone is interested, here is a link to read the book early: Download Love Be Damned. All I ask is that you leave an honest review on Goodreads or Amazon in exchange when you're done.
With that said, I'm probably going to start posting more here about the media that I like (more movies and TV shows) and less about this book once things finally start to calm down. Maybe I'll write a blog post about one of my favorite old movies, The Heiress (1949), because I could definitely write an entire college dissertation on this movie.
If you do decide to download the book and take a look for yourself, please be sure to leave a comment letting me know! I'd love to know I was reaching readers before the book even comes out!
As always, thanks for reading! I hope to have an actual movie/ TV show update for you guys soon!
I'm thrilled to announce that my debut novel, Love Be Damned, will be released next year, in Spring of 2025!
If you haven't heard, Love Be Damned is my YA contemporary romantic-fantasy novel, about a girl who is trying to save her sister from the demon who possessed her boyfriend. In case this sounds interesting to you, here is the official blurb:
Teen fashionista Ayana always
believed she’d go to hell and back for her sister, Sabrina, but she never
thought it would be so literal. After a family dinner where Sabrina’s boyfriend,
Damian, is replaced by a shape-shifting mirror demon that’s out for her soul, Ayana
is forced to put her designing dreams on hold to become the chic demon-slayer
her sister needs.
Unfortunately, demon
hunting isn’t as easy as sprinkling holy water around, especially not when Damian
may be working with an accomplice: the musical, charming Carter, who is suddenly
everywhere, and has taken an alarming interest in Ayana. Just as she starts to
fall for him, coincidences begin to pile up, and Ayana realizes that Carter and
Damian’s appearances in her life may not be due to chance after all. Perhaps
the two are more intertwined than she thought.
To save her sister and
protect her heart, Ayana is forced to team up with her disaster cousin, her
baking-obsessed best friend, and her eccentric guardian angel to confront the
one thing she hadn’t been expecting to fight: love.
In this stylish,
laugh-out-loud story of sisterhood and self-acceptance, Ayana learns to face
the demon in the mirror, and that sometimes, you can fall in love for the hell
of it.
If you were ever a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer or That's So Raven, I'm sure you're going to love this story. This book is full of hilarious dialogue, cinnamon roll love interests (who also love cinnamon rolls, lol) and memorable, chaotic characters.
The official release date is in Spring 2025, but I will be sure to keep you all posted as soon as I know more. Be on the lookout for pre-order information in the coming months.
In the meantime, please enjoy this character art I commissioned of the lovely characters, as done by @starrysola on X (formerly known as Twitter).
Ayana and her crush, Carter
Ayana and her sister, Sabrina
Nova, Ayana's guardian angel, and Damian, the demon
Ayana's friend Eva, and Ayana's cousin, Theo
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Happy Black History Month, y'all! I know it's almost over, but that doesn't mean I can't check in.
It's been a hot minute since I've said anything on this blog. I bet you thought I forgot about you, huh?
Well, you'd be... a little correct.
The truth is, I've been busy.
Between trying to get a book published and working a full-time job, I regret to say that I've been neglecting my duties to tell you about what I've been watching. I'm sorry to leave you hanging, but life's been a little hectic recently. (If you wanted to know what I've been watching in the meantime, you can follow me on Letterboxd here.)
Now that I'm back, though, I feel the need to put you onto something I discovered a while ago.
Allow me to introduce: Marvel's Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur!
Listen close, because I'm only gonna say this once: Marvel's Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur is the Into the Spider-verse of cartoon TV shows. As in, this show is visually perfect, musically captivating, and dreadfully underrated.
This show SLAPS.
I cannot begin to tell you how much I love this show, but I can try. If' you're not watching it already, you're missing out.
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur follows a Black teenaged girl named Lunella Lafayette as she goes about her life in the Lower East Side of New York City. Only, she's an absolute genius. After experimenting one day, she accidentally opened a portal to another dimension, summoning a giant red T-Rex named Devil. Together, Lunella and her dinosaur fight crime as the eponymous "Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur." They become the champions of the Lower East Side, taking back their power from anyone who tries to take it from them.
Similarly to Big Hero 6 that came before, long before it was animated, Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur started out as a Marvel comic book. Making her way onto the scene in 2015 with her first issue, Lunella Lafayette was declared the smartest character in the Marvel universe (Yes, that means even smarter than Reed Richards, Tony Stark, Victor von Doom, and Bruce Banner!), and along with her pet dinosaur, she started kicking butt and taking names using her genius and his strength.
The Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur comics ran from 2015-2019, and she has fought with everyone from the X-Men to Miles Morales's Spider-Man (BTW, thank you Sinclair, ilysm.) They share a lot of similarities with the Moon Girl I watched on TV, but they are definitely different.
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur Comic #1 (2022)
Marvel's Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur (TV series)
For example, one of Moon Girl's powers in the comic books is that she is able to create a neural link with Devil Dinosaur in order to switch consciousnesses with him. (While this happens in the show, it is only for one episode and is explained away using a scientific device instead of an innate ability). Another thing to note is that the Moon Girl from the comics is significantly younger than the one on TV at only 9 years old. The Moon Girl on TV is 13 years old and attends middle school with her best friend, Casey.
The show was how I first became familiar with Moon Girl as a character, and so the show version of Moon Girl is what I will be conducting this review on. I haven't read many Moon Girl comic books yet, but if I get my hands on a few, I'd be interested to see how many more differences there are in the characters.
Devil and Lunella in her secret hideout in a hidden underground subway tunnel.
I could gush about this series all day, honestly. If I did, I would start with the fact that Lunella is a little Black girl who also happens to be a genius, which is not a character model I've seen depicted so lovingly since Susie Carmichael on Rugrats in the 90s (and she was a toddler).
I've talked about the lack of Black kids in cartoons before [see my review on Craig of the Creek, along with my review of the first season of The Proud Familyreboot (although side note- I did actually enjoy the second season of Louder and Prouder so much more than the first. Perhaps it just took a moment to find its footing)], but I appreciate so much that Lunella is an authentically Black girl who just happens to be a super genius. I love stories where we get to see complex, multi-faceted Black kids.
I also love that she's a superhero. There's so much to be said about the freedom of allowing a little black girl super-genius to partner up with a giant red dinosaur in the middle of LES NY. It invokes a sense of playfulness that a lot of Black characters don't really get in media, especially in cartoons. While I admire cartoons that can stick to the reality of the Black experience growing up, like The Proud Family and even Craig of the Creek (which leans into a child's concept of fantasy without fully embracing the fantastical), Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur goes balls to the wall in an effort to give Black girls more freedom in cartoons.
Not only does Moon Girl fight aliens, but she also travels through dimensions, she has met universe bending omniscient super beings, AND she has a talking DINOSAUR for crying out loud!
A major reason why this show means so much to me hearkens back to a poem by Danez Smith called "Dinosaurs in the Hood."
Let’s make a movie calledDinosaurs in the Hood.
Jurassic Park meets Friday meets The Pursuit of Happyness.
There should be a scene where a little black boy is playing
with a toy dinosaur on the bus, then looks out the window
& sees the T. Rex, because there has to be a T. Rex. (Smith, par 1-5)
Moon Girl fills the hole that something like that “Dinosaurs in the Hood”would represent. Almost down to the T. Not only is there a T.Rex (because there has to be a T.Rex) but there is an element of whimsy and fantasy that mixes with Black reality that isn’t explored often enough in life, and even less often in animation.
Not since the days of Static Shock (which was honestly before my time) have Black kids had the chance to see a Black superhero be the main character of their own fantasy cartoon. Sure, Black kids were allowed to have auxiliary characters in other cartoons (Cyborg from Teen Titans and Storm from X-Men the Animated Series come to mind), but to be the lead superhero, and to be allowed to be fantastical and witty and fun and human… that’s the dream, baby.
To top it off, this superhero show deals with everything from racial discrimination in academic spaces, to gentrification, to lack of care given to communities of color. It's insane to me that there are entire episodes dedicated to the biases we hold of people with criminal records, and the politics of Black hair, and they're all treated with the amount of care and consideration required without talking down to the intended child audience!
That said, Moon Girl isn't just a show focused on social issues (even though they are present), but this show tackles the general anxieties children may have about growing up, such as cyberbullying, fitting in at school, finding dates for dances, and navigating relationships with family and friends. Lunella deals with awkward scenarios at sleepovers, fights with her best friend, and she even wants to get away from her annoying parents sometimes, just like any other teenager.
Moon Girl is the Black girl's equivalent of Spider-Man, and I say that in all seriousness.
Not to keep making the comparison, though, but on a character level, I feel like this show was perfectly casted, just like how Into the Spider-Verse was perfectly casted.
Diamond White (who I knew from X-Factor when she competed in 2012), voices and the titular Lunella Lafayette. Not only is Diamond a talented voice actress in her own right, but she also sings a lot of the songs for the show (including the opening theme: see below), and brings Moon Girl to life in a way no one else could. Not only does she embrace slang without sounding inauthentic, but she brings joy and life to Lunella that reminds me of what it was like to be a little Black kid. I love her version of Lunella so much.
But Diamond White isn’t the only iconic casting choice. In fact, the whole voice cast is absolutely stacked.
Some of the voice talent featured in the show includes Laurence Fishburne (who also produced the series) as The Beyonder, an omniscient super being from another dimension, Alfre Woodard as Mimi, Lunella’s grandmother, and Craig Robinson as Lunella’s school principal. If that wasn’t enough, in season two, there are even some more unexpected voice actors in the cast, like Xolo Maridueña from Cobra Kai making an appearance, along with Robin Thede from Black Lady Sketch Show, and Erika Ishii from Dimension 20 (iykyk).
BTS of Laurence Fishburne as The Beyonder, talking about Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur
Aside from the voice talent, the characters themselves shine through the screen in every episode. As a character, I love that Lunella has a commitment to her family, but she also has a commitment to herself. She’s a genius who recognizes her flaws, but also learns how to overcome them with confidence and grace. She’s kind without being inauthentic, and she really cares about her community. Overall, she’s perfect- a 10/10 character.
The other characters in this show are fun, too, with Lunella’s grandma Mimi and her best friend Casey immediately coming to mind. Mimi is loving, smart and caring, always teaching Lunella about how to stay true to herself and maintain her confidence in dark times. She also has a big secret that she really hopes won’t get out (no spoilers!). Casey is Lunella’s best friend and the only person she reveals her secret identity to. She’s a social media savant and constantly acting as Moon Girl’s manager/ PR rep whenever they’re in public. (Something I actually admire about this show is that they don’t make Devil a talking dinosaur. He mostly just growls and occasionally communicates with a slight speech affectation, however most of his dialogue is through images in thought bubbles so the audience knows what he’s saying without him actually having to speak.)
As if the characters and the voice acting weren’t enough to lure me in, the music of this show just had to steal my heart. The music is definitely a major highlight of the series for me.
In the pilot episode of the show, Lunella's mom gives her an old tape player that she eventually tricks out into a multipurpose music player/ baddie tracker. During every major battle in the show, Moon Girl turns on her music to give her a soundtrack to fight to. Each song underscores the episode it's in perfectly, but especially in high-stakes battles. The sound design in this show is impeccable, and honestly the fight scenes have made me cry more than once just because they're underscored by the perfect music number. If there is a heavy thematic meaning to the battle, you better believe the song will come up again later on. I unironically have several songs from this show on multiple playlists on Spotify (My personal favorite is “My hair is a mood” by Jane Handcock; it’s the modern Black girl’s version of “I am not my hair” by India Arie. Again, iykyk).
To make my point as clear as possible, I'll just say that the composer for this show is Rafael Saddiq, who, if you didn't know, is a multi-hyphenate Grammy winner, and a producer on Beyonce's iconic Renaissance album, for which he earned two additional Grammy nominations. This man is serious about his business, and it shows.
Clearly, I know what I'm talking about, because as of February 2024, Marvel's Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur has five Emmy wins. Those wins were for outstanding main title (see below), outstanding casting for an animated program (told you!!), and outstanding special class animated program for the pilot episode (among other awards). (If anything, this is proof that I should be an Emmy voter.)
Moon Girl is an Emmy winner, baby! Now that's what I'm talking about!
THE EMMY WINNING Moon Girl opening title theme.
Season two just premiered earlier this month, and I've already binged every available episode of the series to date. Suffice to say that the second season builds on the first in the best way possible, although I'd be lying if I didn't say that my favorite episode of the show is in season two. As an anxious perfectionist, season 2, episode 7 holds a special place in my heart (particularly as I dip my toes in the publishing industry- yeesh). You should watch season two for that episode alone, but the entire season is excellent television.
Poster for Marvel's Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur Season Two
Lunella with her new science teacher, Dr. Ojo (from Wakanda), in Season 2, Episode 7: “Make It, Don’t Break It!” of Marvel's Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur
I'll end this by saying if you haven't seen the show even after all this, you don't have to subscribe to Disney+ or just take my word for how good it is. You can see the show for yourself! The first six episodes of the show are on YouTube for free (along with the season one finale, so be careful of spoilers). You can watch it in this playlist, here.
I hope you love it as much as I do.
I know I did this review a little differently than I've done past reviews, but I've been away for a while, so things may be a little different around here while I settle back in. I just wanted to let you know that this show means a lot to me. I hope it means something to you, too.
This show is obviously S tier. I feel the same way about Marvel'sMoon Girl and Devil Dinosaur that white women felt about the Barbie movie last year. Moon Girl is everything to me, representing facets of Black girlhood that I wish were more widely talked about in animation, and allowing grown ass women like me to feel seen for the first time in a cartoon about a girl who owns a dinosaur. It is easily one of my favorite shows, and I think it is on par with the Spider-verse films in terms of quality, heart, and care presented to its Black characters.
It’s been a while. I hope you’re doing good, and I hope your 2023 is off to a wonderful start.
If you’re reading this, then that means I’m currently on hiatus from this blog. I am not sure for how long, or when I’ll be back, but I appreciate everyone who has come here to read my unhinged takes on the latest TV/ movies.
In case you were wondering what’s been going on with me, well, a lot has been going on! 2022 was a busy year for me, writing wise. First, I started a Patreon for people to see my thoughts on movies up to three months earlier than they posted here. I also sent out short stories from an adult sci-fi anthology that I wrote, titled Under the Poisoned Silver Sky. Starting a Patreon was a fun way to put my writing out there, and it was a nice way to make a few extra bucks each month. Despite that, though, Patreon felt time consuming, and I often felt pressured to produce content to justify the price point I was charging. Ultimately, I deactivated my Patreon account earlier this year in order to make time for some other projects that I’m more excited about.
“What other projects?” You may be asking.
Well, I’m glad you (hypothetically) asked!
If you didn’t know, I wrote a book! (Well, another one, anyway.)
It’s called Love Be Damned, and it’s a YA speculative rom-com about a girl whose sister falls in love with a demon. I’m really proud of it, and I think it’s one of the best things I’ve written to date. Recently, in November of last year, I was lucky enough to secure a literary agent who is just as passionate about the book as I am. Hopefully, I will go on submission to publishers sometime in the near future and have more exciting news to share about the state of this book.
For now, most of my energy is going towards making Love Be Damned as polished as it can be so that it will turn into something you can physically enjoy in the real world. I’m still watching movies and TV shows that I enjoy and have plenty of thoughts on, but for now, I may not post on this blog as often while I work on my more professional writing.
If something comes up that I just have to talk about, though, you know where to find me.
This isn’t a goodbye, this is a see you later. I hope when we meet again, I either have good news about my book, or the new Spider-verse movie coming out this summer.
So long, friends! I wish you only the best, and I hope to post more soon. Thanks for reading!
To kick off the first real post of the new year, I wanted to bring your attention to something amazing I discovered recently: Craig of the Creek.
Craig of the Creek is my new favorite comfort show, and I want to share it with all of you now.
Now, I've been meaning to watch this show ever since my "Fight Night" post about The Proud Family and its reboot. In it, I mentioned that I was disappointed that The Proud Family was the only black cartoon to make a lasting impact on children's animation within the last 20 years. Since then, black cartoons have been far and few between, with even less of them for children/ family audiences. Much to my disappointment, out of all the children’s cartoons on TV recently, the only black show that I was aware of was Craig of the Creek.
A black animator I follow on YouTube, Toonrific Tariq, did a wonderful video on why this is a shame, and why this shouldn't be the case, specifically in the context of Craig of the Creek. I highly recommend watching the whole video, as it covers everything that I felt and still feel on the subject of black animation, all while being funny and relatable.
Toonrific Tariq's video, "How to Black: An Analysis of Black Cartoon Characters"
Nonetheless, I'm glad that Craig of the Creek exists in the capacity that it does today, and I'm so happy that I was able to watch all four seasons of it that are currently available on HBO Max.*
I want everyone to appreciate this show as much as I do, and so I'm going to talk about it at length until you get on my level.
Let's begin, shall we?
Category 1: Characters- A+
One area where Craig of the Creek shines where other shows (animated or otherwise) may fall flat is their characters.
The three main characters of this show are the titular Craig Williams, along with his two best friends, Kelsey Pokoly, and John Paul "JP" Mercer. They each have their own unique character traits that make them stand out as people, but of course, they all work better as a team. It's crazy that none of these characters are older than twelve, but they all have a lot of personality between them.
Craig is a map-maker, and uses his love of the Creek behind his house as an excuse to explore and document everything he's found in and around it. He helps the other kids in the community and he often likes to go an adventures just to discover what's out there. He's a smart kid, with an eye for math and engineering, but he's a little oblivious sometimes, which can get him into trouble.
Kelsey is a warrior at heart, who is determined to become the hero of her own fantasy novel series. She loves reading and writing fantastical stories about her and her friends, and she's definitely not afraid of a fight. She often hangs around the Creek with her pet bird, Mortimer, and her PVC pipe turned "sword" to fend off any enemies at the Creek.
JP is the heart of the group, and he's also the oldest among the three friends. He's never afraid to get messy in the Creek, and he's not the sharpest tool in the shed. Even though he may not be the brightest in his friend group, that doesn't make him dumb by any means- he has the highest emotional intelligence of everyone around him. He loves monster trucks and going on adventures with his best friends.
JP, Kelsey and Craig
While the main characters of the show are important, and it is good to root for them and like them, I think Craig of the Creek has more than enough side characters to also root for and like. In fact, the supporting characters may be the best part of the show.
In the series, we get to know Craig's entire family- his brother and sister, his cousins, his aunt and uncle, his grandparents. We also get to see all of the kids he hangs out with in the Creek every day after school. And let me tell you- there are a lot of them.
Left to right: Bryson (Craig's cousin), Craig, Bernard (Craig's older brother), and Jessica (Craig's younger sister)
Personally, I love Craig's younger sister Jessica! She's easily my favorite character. I also love Craig's older brother, Bernard! I love Kelsey's father! I love Craig's mom! I honestly think I love the side characters in this show more than I love the main characters, and that's saying something because the main characters are so lovable.
Some of my other favorite recurring characters are- Sparkle Cadet, Wildernessa, Cannon Ball, Omar (The Green Poncho), Toman (AKA T-Money, AKA the T-Man, AKA the Tomato-Master), The Elders of the Creek (Mark, David, and Barry), Kit, and Bobby. (There are definitely more, but I had to have a hard stop for this list otherwise I would just list everyone in the Creek.)
Surprisingly, I also love some of the one-off characters. I love Paloma, the Jinx-girl. I love Angel, the Creek day-care worker. I love that kid Deltron, from the year 3030. I love the fact that even if some of the characters were only featured in one 11-minute episode, they feel fully fleshed out and real. I still think about Helen, a girl who was homeschooled and never actually showed up in the Creek (I mean, technically).
This is a testament to how real these characters seem. I feel like I know these characters, partially because I knew people like them growing up. These kids make me feel like a kid again myself, and that's pretty special, if you ask me.
Category 2: World-building- A
I'm not an outdoorsy person by any means, but this show makes me want to move to Baltimore, Maryland, and play behind the Creek in my house. A lot of this is due to the worldbuilding within the Creek, and the Creek itself.
This show's worldbuilding is next level for something that is so ordinary as living in the suburbs. Unlike other animated shows with good worldbuilding (like Amphibia or Gravity Falls), nothing all that fantastical or supernatural is happening in the Creek. (At least, mostly, anyway.)
No, Craig doesn't need to be transported to a frog society or attacked by a triangle shaped demon. Craig of the Creek is good at reminding you that every group of kids had their own subculture growing up, and kid culture had lots of little cliques. There were kids you knew with their own little worlds, and their own made-up rules and languages.
Basically, Craig of the Creek successfully captures kid-society.
Within the world of the Creek, there are several different sub-groups of kids that all hang out in areas that Craig and his friends map out as they adventure.
Craig and his friends are known as "The Stump Kids" because they always hang out by an old hollowed out tree stump where they keep all of their stuff. It's their homebase and their clubhouse of sorts. Outside of the main trio, there are several other sub-groups that are all around the Creek.
There are the kids who ride their bicycles around the Creek all the time, trying to do cool tricks (The 10-Speeds), the Horse Girls who like to pretend to be horses grazing in the meadow, the Ninja Kids who like anime and pretend to be ninjas, the Sewer Kids who like to hang out in the open sewer pipes and swim all day, and the Paintballers who play paintball all day. There are also the Forest Scouts, the Tea Timers (who hold tea parties in the Creek), the Elders (high school/ college age dorks who hang out in the Creek), and the Alliance of Science (science kids who conduct experiments in the Creek).
I could go on and on about all of the specific sub-groups within the Creek, but the cool thing about this show is that everyone has their own little clique that they fit in with, or their own role to play in the Creek as a whole. For example, there's Kit, who runs the local Trading Tree, a business where kids trade in various items for snacks that she brings to the Creek every day. Her business is a cornerstone of the Creek, and it serves as a hub for all of kid-society. Choco-rolls and candy are her currencies of choice.
Craig's map of the Creek
The fact that Craig is a map-maker makes the entire world of the Creek seem much more fleshed out and realized. This is especially true in the later seasons of the show, because soon Craig, JP, and Kelsey discover kid-lore that tells of an overpass that split the Creek in two. Eventually, the group has a whole new side of the Creek to discover.
This is where we discover what happens on the other side of the Creek. (SLIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD) In seasons 2-4 of the show, Craig discovers that there is a king who rules over all of the children on his side of the Creek by pressuring them into being his subjects. King Xavier is a bully, who runs his side of the Creek by weaponizing his rich kid status and promising to give only the best candy and toys to his "best friends."
Without getting into too many spoilers, I'll just say that King Xavier's side of the Creek truly expands Craig's world, not only through the eyes of the characters, but also in the eyes of the viewers. In learning about this entire other community of kids that play on the other side of the overpass, we get to see what life is like for them, and how they view kid-society under the rule of an oppressive bully regime.
There are so many different types of kids who hang in and around the Creek, and that's not even to mention all of the other aspects of the Creek that just make sense from a worldbuilding perspective: like how there is a daycare for the kids who have younger siblings they don't want to look after, and how every Halloween Kit makes all of the kids pay off their tabs at the Trading Tree. There are even things that I'm convinced were just one-off jokes that get fleshed into full 11-minute episodes, like the Baby Casino, where kids bet on baby games like Tic-Tac-Toe.
The entire reason why Craig of the Creek is fun to watch is because of the amazing worldbuilding that's in this normal setting. The Creek isn't a magical place in a realistic sense, but it's magical because the kids think it's magical, and so their imagination colors our viewing of it.
The Creek is just where kids go to be kids, and I think that's pretty amazing.
Category 3: Diversity- A+
In his video, "How to Black" (above), Toonrific Tariq acknowledges that Craig of the Creek was a show that was created by two white men (Matt Burnett and Ben Levin), about a young black boy as a main character as he journeys through the suburbs of his hometown and adventures in the Creek behind his house.
Some would argue that this is a bad thing, or that it's pandering to be more "woke" in today's day and age. I would wholeheartedly disagree.
Everyone should want to be represented in the media they consume; it just so happens that black people have had a long history of being excluded from animated shows, or included in problematic, and often derivative ways.
Again, I highly recommend watching Tariq's video on the subject because it covers the issues of race and representation a little more broadly than I will, however, I will say that I completely agree with the core of his argument, which is that representing another race/ group of people that you don't represent in media needs to be handled with care and grace, without representing that group just for the sake of saying that they're included.
Representation is, at its core, about the care that it takes to depict someone else as a fully fleshed out person, with real emotions and struggles not solely based on their race or their marginalized background.
I can see how much the creators of this show care about getting their representation right just from how the show presents itself.
All different races and all different ethnicities are included in the Creek. This is especially evident because Craig and his whole family is black. I wholeheartedly love the episodes with Craig's family because as someone who grew up with a black family and watched other shows about black families (see, again, my take on the original TheProud Family), this meant so much to me. There's a Halloween episode where Duane and Nicole, Craig's parents, dress up as Urkel and Missy Elliot, and it made me smile because I understood those references despite not being the target audience for this show. I love the use of black slang when Craig's uncle and cousins drop by. I love the way Craig understands there are certain things young black kids just don't do. I love that Jessica has attitude without being disrespectful to adults (which is a real problem that I have with little black girls on TV nowadays, but that's an issue for another time). Overall, I just love the care that was taken into these depictions of black characters, even though their defining trait isn't that they're black. They just are.
Craig's family at Thanksgiving (sans Craig, his cousin Bryson, and his older brother, Bernard)
There's also not a shortage of black kids in the Creek outside of Craig and his family. There's also Cannonball and Warp-speed from the 10-Speeds, Kit, and Sparkle Cadet, just to name a few. Not to mention, there are so many other examples of kids coming from other racial and ethnic backgrounds in the Creek, such as the Sewer Queen being Filipino and Raj from the Honey Suckle Rangers being Indian. Both of their cultures are explored in individual episodes where we get to know their families and backgrounds outside of the Creek.
The LGBT+ representation in this show is also incredible because Kelsey is canonically queer, along with a few other characters in the Creek, like the Creek Witches (two teen goth girls who trick the kids into thinking they're witches) and the Honeysuckle Rangers. There are also references to nonbinary characters- the merkid comes to mind- along with Angel, the Creek babysitter, who is also nonbinary.
In the fourth season of Craig of the Creek, the show introduced Jackie, who is a kid who is deaf/hard of hearing and introduced Craig to sign language. The fact that this show bothered to include something as real as sign language (specifically for a kid of color), was truly iconic behavior from the creators of the show. I don't believe I've seen disability representation like this since the animated The Little Mermaid series on the Disney Channel (or maybe Toph from Avatar: The Last Airbender).
Everyone should aspire to be this aware of other perspectives, and to take as much care as possible to represent them as well as Craig of the Creek did.
Category 4: Plot- C+
One thing about Craig of the Creek is that since this show is character-based and not plot-based, there isn't an overarching plot for most of the stories in this series.
Each episode of Craig of the Creek is more of less self-contained, so even if you start watching it in the middle of a season, you can follow along fine. Most of the storylines are about life in the Creek of Craig learning a lesson with his family of his friends. However, in the later seasons of the show, there are episodes that enhance the lore of the Creek, such as (SPOILER) the story arc with King Xavier and his impending invasion. The multi-episode story arc with King Xavier in seasons 2-3 was/is the most cohesive plot in the entire show, as most of the show's plots are one-offs or 1-2 episode arcs.
Most of the show just revolves around the main trio messing around and growing up. The stakes for most episodes are relatively low, but because the main characters are kids, everything seems like the biggest deal in the world. Everything from wearing a coat that makes you look uncool, to not wanting to try new foods, to wanting to beat your father at video games, all becomes life-or-death situations, despite how all of these issues are fairly common in everyday life.
The animation definitely reflects the severity of these issues to these kids, though.
Which leads into-
Category 5: Animation- A
Craig of the Creek was created by a lot of the same people who worked on Steven Universe (a show that I have never seen, nor do I have any interest in seeing due to the toxic fandom surrounding it), and from what I can tell, it includes a lot of the same themes of friendship and inclusion of people of color and LGBT+ representation. Matt Burnett and Ben Levin, the co-creators of Craig of the Creek, actually used to work with the storyboard artists for Steven Universe before Craig of the Creek was picked up by Cartoon Network.
Poster for Steven Universe (2013-2020)
Outside of Steven Universe, one of the things that I really appreciated when researching this post was that many of the storyboard artists for Craig of the Creek were people of color, specifically black people (some of whom also worked on Steven Universe as well). In fact, Pearl Low, one of the storyboard artists from the Oscar-winning short film, Hair Love, was a part of animating Sparkle Cadet in Craig of the Creek, which I think is amazing! (Watch the reel of her animation here- it's super interesting.)
The fact that this show hired more than one person of color to storyboard their show (Richie Pope, Lamar Abrams, Amish Kumar, and Tiffany Ford just to name a few) speaks volumes to the amount of care the team behind Craig of the Creek put into the show. Too often are animated spaces limited to white animators, further limiting the amount of access that people of color have in the world of animation.
I'm glad that this show not only depicts a person of color, but it also includes other people of color in the animation process, further cementing this show as one of my favorites.
Category 6: Kid-Friendliness- A+
This show was definitely 100% written for kids and with kids in mind. The amount of imagination involved with this show is incredible, and I can say without a doubt that this show is propaganda to get kids to play outside instead of play video games. If I were a child, I'm pretty sure it would work.
Sure, Craig and his friends have cell phones, but they rarely come up, as they spend most of their time playing and imagining fun worlds in the Creek. They run, they adventure, and they hang out with friends. This show is everything it meant to be a kid growing up, and yet it still manages to be so modern and new.
If kids aren't watching this show, they should start. This show is the best comfort cartoon that I've seen in recent years, because even though it doesn't have much of a cohesive plot (most of the time), the adventures the Stump Kids go on are fun and light-hearted. They learn lessons and conquer their fears, they adventure into worlds unknown, and live with imagination in their hearts.
I love this show.
Craig of the Creek is on the same level as another cartoon that I really enjoyed, Amphibia. I do believe I enjoyed this show a tad more, though, due to the fact that the characters are more relatable to me and my family, and it was so easy to binge several 40-episode seasons in a few weeks.
*As of October 2022, Craig of the Creek fell victim to the infamous (and truly heinous) HBO Max/ Discovery + merger, as Cartoon Network, the network that aired Craig of the Creek, has been effectively gutted by this move (see my previous post regarding HBO Max and animated content). Since then, the show's final season 5 order has been cut in half, along with its spinoff, Jessica's Big Little World's, first season being halved as well. There is a Twitter thread about this issue from Richie Pope, a storyboard artist for Craig of the Creek, linked here.
Along with other shows that have been impacted by this merger, such as Infinity Train or Close Enough (which is an adult animated series produced by HBO Max, not Cartoon Network, but stay with me), the merits of these shows are not what is preventing them from sticking around or not being cancelled by Cartoon Network or HBO Max. It is their profitability. Unfortunately, due to this awful corporate merger, there have been several casualties, and Craig of the Creek just happens to be the latest in this long, horrible list.
Overall, I love this show. It captures the magic and imagination around being a kid, and it allows for a broader audience to feel represented in its animation without feeling cheap or like it's pandering to certain people.Craig of the Creek is a perfect cartoon in my book (an A), and I hope that this show goes on to influence other animators to make shows that also inspire kids and adults alike to dream bigger and create more hopeful, inclusive content.
Thanks for reading!
This post was originally released last October as one of the final posts that I had for the early access tier of my Patreon. I want to say that I really appreciate anyone and everyone who read my blog posts on my now defunct Patreon, and everyone who reads them here, now. Thank you for your continued support.
As a result, our movies now reflect this idea of multiple versions of reality, where things could be better if only a few things were different. If one choice was different, what would be the outcome? For example, what if Donald Trump never became president? How would everyone's lives be different? Or what if COVID had been prevented? And so on, and so on...
This resulting speculation is causing filmmakers to make several movies all about the multiverse.
One could argue that all of this started back in 2017, with the release of the best (yes, I said best) multi-verse movie ever released, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. But even still, it has persisted. For example, three different multiverse movies have released within the past year alone (two of them were Marvel movies, but never mind that) all with varying degrees of success. Today we’re examining Spider-Man: No Way Home, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and Everything Everywhere, all at Once.
Let’s get it started, shall we? These inter-dimensional portals aren’t going to jump through themselves.
Spider-Man: No Way Home - C+
Allow me to be the first one to tell you that Spider-Man: No Way Home is an overrated movie. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying that because I didn't like the film, or because I didn’t have a good time in the theater when I saw it. I just think this movie is undeserving of the hype it got, and the subsequent praise as the best Spider-Man movie ever.
(In case you’re unclear on my stance on this, you should read my review for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verseagain as a reminder that Spider-Verse is the best Spider-Man film, animated or otherwise.)
That said, you can think what you want about the state of the Marvel Cinematic Universe at the moment (because there is a lot you could think), but you can't deny that Spider-Man: No Way Home was a big deal. Spider-Man: No Way Home was the first movie to make a billion-dollars during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it is currently the 6th highest grossing movie of all time. People went all out to see this movie, and so it had to be the best Spider-Man movie ever, right?
(*crickets*)
...Right?
Well... let’s get into it.
The plot of Spider-Man: No Way Home follows Peter Parker (played by Tom Holland) after he's recently been exposed as Spider-Man by his now deceased villain, Mysterio (played by Jake Gyllenhaal in Spider-Man: Far from Home). Now Peter Parker is considered a public enemy who murders people. In response, he, his girlfriend MJ (Zendaya), and his friend Ned, are basically forced to go into hiding. However, when his reputation impacts Peter and his friends' ability to get into college, Peter goes to his dear old friend, Doctor Strange, to fix things.
And here is where the plot gets messy, so buckle up.
Peter asks Doctor Strange to use his powers to cast a spell to make everyone forget that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. However, when Peter gets tripped up on his words, the spell goes haywire, causing the multi-verse to rip apart. Now(SPOILERS TO FOLLOW) instead of forgetting that Peter Parker is Spider-Man, everyone from every universe who knew that Peter Parker was Spider-Man is coming to find Peter. This includes some of Spider-Man's most infamous villains from other movies such as Doc Ock from Spider-Man 2 (played again by Alfred Molina), Electro (played again by Jamie Foxx) from The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and of course, the Green Goblin (played again by the delightfully unhinged Willem Dafoe) from the original Spider-Man movie from 2002.
Dr. Octopus (Alfred Molina) trying to kill Spider-Man (Tom Holland)
Once Peter realizes what's going on, instead of attempting to reverse the hole he created in the multi-verse, he decided to cure the villains of their evil powers and prove to them that he was not a murderer like the Spider-Men from the universes they came from. So, after some shenanigans, Peter (Holland), along with other versions of Peter Parker/ Spider-Man across the multi-verse (Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield) set out to cure their villains of their evil powers before sending everyone back to the dimension where they came from.
Now that I’ve laid everything out, it’s clear that the plot has a multitude of holes in it. Everything about this story seems incredibly contrived and arbitrary.
Like- why didn't Doctor Strange stop the spell after Peter tried to fix it the first time?
What do you mean you want to change the bad guys and turn them good? How is that going to help them if they still have to be sent back into their universe where they die anyway? Wouldn't that impact the grand timeline or disrupt the multi-verse or something?
Why didn't Zendaya push the button that would send everyone back to the proper dimension after the Green Goblin killed Aunt May? She totally said she would push it if things went wrong, and yet she didn’t.
The answer to all of these questions is- so the plot can happen. Without any of these very specific plot holes the story wouldn’t progress, and the movie would be over. I don't know about you, but to me these seem like HUGE problems that should’ve been buffed out in a writer’s room somewhere.
That's not even to mention the logistics of the multi-verse. The film never explains what happens to the villains once they go back to their universes. We don't even get a flashback scene to a previous Spider-Man film, which I thought would have been a cool way to show continuity, but no. Also, by wishing for everyone to forget Peter Parker at the end of the movie, does that erase the other Peter Parkers from the other universes? There are so many questions left unanswered.
And yet... people ate this movie up to the tune of 1.9 billion dollars worldwide. And while I definitely have several critiques about this movie's plot and structure, I have to say... I kind of get it.
High School Musical 3: Senior Year (2008)
Hear me out: No Way Home is the High School Musical 3 of Spider-Man films, in that it’s light on plot and heavy on fan service. This movie probably wouldn't make a lot of sense if you haven't seen any of the previous versions of Spider-Man, just like High School Musical 3 doesn't mean anything to people who didn't see the original two. Funnily enough, both movies even have a plot where everyone is trying to get into college, and all of the characters try to delay the inevitable before(SPOILERS for No Way Home and HSM3) the main couple break up in the end.
Jokes aside, I will say that although No Way Home's plot is inherently flawed, the movie itself is still entertaining. There's something to be said about reuniting three generations of Spider-Man on screen and bringing everyone together for a kick-ass tribute to the web-slinger. It was so much fun to watch this movie the first time in theaters, and I can tell that all of the older Spider-Men actors involved were glad to be a part of this movie. (Despite the press interviews that very clearly stressed out Andrew Garfield before the movie came out.)
Happy bois!! (Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield)
This movie has the benefit of spectacle on its side. As stupid as this sounds, there's something exciting about this particular brand synergy. Marvel and Sony own every version of Spider-Man put to film, and so for them to come together to prove that the previous versions of Spider-Man weren't failed launches/reboots, but in fact, versions of the same character from alternate realities, feels like a treat to the fans who saw every Spider-Man movie that came before No Way Home(even Venom).
Bringing every previous version of Spider-Man into this movie really saved the film for me. Despite how messy and nonsensical the plot was, I can't deny that I was sucked in by the charm of Andrew Garfield reprising his role as Spider-Man in this movie. I also really liked seeing Tobey Maguire again as an older version of Peter Parker. Seeing him play this role again after 20 years was nostalgic in a way I couldn't explain. (Despite all my gripes, I can confidently say I would have loved this movie hands-down if the MCU had introduced Miles Morales in this film. (Although Jamie Foxx did make a nod to there being a black Spider-Man).)
As of right now, who's to say what's next in the world of Spider-Man? I do hope to see more of Andrew Garfield in the role, because he was incredibly good as the web-slinger (despite my less than stellar feelings about The Amazing Spider-Man movies), and so it's promising that he's signed on to be in more Marvel projects in the future, whatever that means.
I can still confidently say that this movie is overrated, because despite the hype that it received from fans, it's far from the best Spider-Man movie. However, with a solid rewrite, No Way Home could have easily been a top ten Marvel movie for me. As it stands now, though, it's a little too underwritten to bump any of my other superhero faves.
Now that that's done, let's hop into a different, but not dissimilar dimension, where things are a little... strange.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness- D+
(Get it, because I said strange before?)
I’m conflicted on this rating because I don’t think this movie is as bad as my grade would make it seem. However, I stand by the decision to grade Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness a D+, because that was truly what I felt it deserved after watching it. In my opinion, this was a very expensive, very well-made cheese fest. This movie couldn’t have been cornier if you stranded it in the middle of rural Illinois.
It’s not so much that this movie is bad- it’s just…
Well…
Let’s start with the plot, and then we’ll discuss.
The plot of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness follows Doctor Strange as he attempts to save a teenaged girl named America Chavez from demons hunting her across the multiverse. America has the ability to jump through the multiverse, and so someone is trying to kill her and take her powers for themselves.
When America finds Doctor Strange and Wong (the Sorcerer Supreme), Doctor Strange goes to his old friend, Wanda Maximoff, AKA the Scarlet Witch, for help. (SPOILERS AHEAD) Only, it turns out that Wanda was the one trying to capture and kill America Chavez the whole time in order to jump to a universe where she has children and can be a mother again.
The plot ensues when Wanda chases America and Doctor Strange across multiple universes (it’s actually only like 3) in order to kill America and take her power for herself.
(*Sigh*) Now… that was a lot…
Right off the bat, this movie is introducing a lot of new information that doesn’t fully make sense if you’re not keyed into what’s going on in the Marvel Cinematic Universe at all times. Like No Way Home that came before it, Multiverse of Madness really asks viewers to be aware of everything under the Marvel brand umbrella in order to follow their latest movie/TV show.
This is especially evident with the movie’s main antagonist, Wanda Maximoff. For those people who do not have a Disney+ subscription, the last time she was shown on screen was in the billion-dollar finale to the original Avengers franchise, Avengers: Endgame. Since then, however, Wanda Maximoff has made a dramatic transformation. In the span between Avengers: Endgame and this film, Wanda has been developing wildly as a character. This development only makes sense, though, if you have a Disney+ subscription and watched the first of many Marvel shows, WandaVision.
For context (which is actually very important to the plot of this movie, annoyingly), the plot of WandaVision follows Wanda after the events of Infinity War and Endgame after she is coping with the loss of Vision, the man/android that she loved. (SPOILERS for WandaVision) In her grief, she ends up capturing an entire town of people and brainwashing them into thinking that they’re in a family sitcom, with her family as the leads (It’s a lot more endearing than it sounds, I promise.). In her fantasy sitcom, Wanda is married to Vision and they have twin boys together. They recreate classic sitcoms such as I Love Lucy and The Brady Bunch, full of wacky shenanigans. Only, she willed Vision and her sons to exist through magic, and they are not real.
By the end of the series, Wanda has to cope with this by dealing with the trauma caused by the loss of her brother, her family, and her husband. At the end of the show, Wanda releases the town from their spell and lets go of her husband and children, leaving to study her witchcraft alone.
I’ve said this before in my review of The Fate of the Furious, but it bears repeating now. Franchises that require moviegoers to be tapped into every previous iteration of every character and to know every movie by heart before watching the latest one are usually not good movies. Movies like The Avengers and other crossover films have been using this strategy to promote the Marvel brand for years, and for the most part it has worked out fine. However, something about incorporating WandaVision, a Marvel TV show that premiered on Disney+, feels different. The barrier to entry has risen.
Let’s say someone didn’t have a Disney+ subscription and had never even heard of WandaVision (but knew all of the previous Marvel movies); they would be completely lost when going into this film. Which is why I argue that movies -especially when they’re big commercial properties like Marvel- should be able to be enjoyed without having to go looking for supplemental material to fill in the gaps. At this point, there are so many Marvel properties and superheroes that having to know everything about every single one of them feels like homework.
As someone who never saw any of the other Marvel shows that originally aired on Netflix like Luke Cage and Jessica Jones, I can’t help but feel sympathetic to this. Brand synergy can only get you so far, especially when the MCU has expanded outside of the realm of theatrical releases. If either of these characters were to show up in a future Avengers movie (which I’m sure they will) I will have no idea who they are or what their story is because I never watched the supplementary material about them when it was on Netflix. (I probably won’t seek it out now that it’s transitioning to Disney+, either.)
However, I will say that even with the added context of WandaVision, Wanda’s villainous motivation doesn’t really add up in Multiverse of Madness. No, something weird happened with her character in the span between WandaVision and this movie. Somewhere behind the scenes, Wanda essentially went from this:
Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) in WandaVision
to this:
Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) in Multiverse of Madness
If you want to talk about flaws with this movie and character development, the crux of them fall on Wanda Maximoff as a character.All of the growth that she made in WandaVision in regards to getting over her grief and the loss of her husband and children (who were recreations that she conjured through magic, by the way) disappeared faster than her Sokovian accent, all so she could be evil in this movie, even though it didn’t make sense. Her entire motivation falls apart once you watch WandaVision, and yet you need to watch the show to even make sense of her motivation, which is even more frustrating.
Even aside from the faulty villain, Multiverse of Madness feels like a camp movie. In the same way that Wonder Woman 1984 made no sense, so too does this film. While this movie is not nearly as nonsensical or bad as Wonder Woman 1984, many details in this movie were eye-roll inducing, or downright silly. Some examples off the top of my head are Doctor Strange’s introduction to the Illuminati (to which Doctor Strange responds “Illumi-whaty?” which literally made me groan in pain), and America Chavez’s fear of bees opening up a multiverse portal that potentially killed her parents (yes, really).
The camp of this film is to say nothing of the directing, which was definitely influenced by Sam Raimi’s style. Despite directing a few of the previous Spider-Man films starring Tobey Maguire in the early 2000s, Raimi really hasn’t directed any other superhero films, especially Marvel films. However, since Raimi returned to Marvel for Multiverse of Madness, there were definite horror details throughout it, like jump-scares, plenty of blood, and even an insane zombie scene in the third act. It was interesting to see Raimi take on another superhero movie and alter the genre to be more horror-like, just like when he introduced Doc Ock in 2004 with Spider-Man 2. However, the horror directing only added to the over-the-top nature of this movie for me.
Overall, this movie just felt like it was… too much. Everything that happened in this movie seemed like it was out of character or just outright corny. By the time zombie Doctor Strange showed up at the end of the movie, I was… tired. This movie was disappointing for a multitude of reasons, but it definitely was madness.
With that, let’s move on to our final movie in this multiverse.
Everything, Everywhere, All at Once- B-
This movie gets it right where all of the others got it wrong. This movie feels authentic, and it was made with an intention of telling a real story instead of just making money or capitalizing on nostalgic IP. This movie can be felt where the others were more hollow. Even the best attempts from Peter Parker and Wanda Maximoff couldn’t get me to cry, and I’m a crybaby.
But this movie?
Man, this movie… I was practically weeping by the time it was over.
In case you haven't seen it, Everything, Everywhere, All at Once follows Evelyn Quan (Michelle Yeoh), a Chinese immigrant who is currently going through it. She and her husband, Waymond (Ke Huy Quan), own a laundromat that is currently being audited by the IRS, and their marriage is on the brink of collapse. To top everything off, in an effort to keep her old-fashioned father happy, Evelyn asks her lesbian daughter not to come out to her grandfather at the family's Chinese New Year celebration, further driving a rift between her and her daughter.
It truly seems like everything is falling apart for Evelyn, even though she's trying so hard to keep it together.
But then- she discovers the multi-verse.
Evelyn discovers that the multiverse is made up of a web of dimensions connected by every choice that was or was not made in life. In this dimension, she is actually the most miserable version of herself because of all of the choices that she made throughout her life. In learning about the multiverse, Evelyn gets a glimpse at all of the lives she could have lived if her circumstances or choices had been different. There are universes where she never moved to America and became a singer, there are universes where she became a chef at Benihana, there are universes where she has hotdogs for fingers- anything could happen in any multitude of universes.
Through some shenanigans (because I don't want to spoil the movie, and I'm not sure I could even if I wanted to), Evelyn discovers that despite being the worst version of herself, she is the version who is destined to save the multi-verse from the universe-jumper, Jobu Tupaki, who was causing the end of all things.
This movie left me feeling more than a few things while watching it, but primarily, I was impressed. I really enjoyed the action scenes in this movie, and the kung-fu that Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan demonstrated throughout the film. It was honestly cool to see a modern kung-fu movie where the leads were realistic portrayals of an immigrant family. Big props to the fight choreographer for constructing such cool fight scenes using props that I had never seen used before in kung-fu movies (like a fanny pack, for example).
Another thing that I was deeply impressed by was the costuming for this film. Specifically, the costumes for Jobu Tupaki were AMAZING. Being able to jump through universes gave them a great sense of style, and I loved looking at the outfits in this movie. Every version of each character in this film had a different look, and so costuming each actor for each universe must've been difficult, but I would be lying if I said that I didn't love Shirley Kurata's work on this movie. The writers were working hard on this movie, sure, but Shirley was making the characters come to life. The costume designer for this movie was a 10/10, and I hope to see more projects that she works on.
I think I was overwhelmed by some of the plot, though. A lot of the multiverse theory was confusing to me at first, because it felt sudden to me when it happened in the film, even though I had some inkling of what this movie was about before I watched it. Perhaps I was just slow to keep up, but I found myself momentarily confused by some aspects of the multi-verse, or even failing to keep up with which universe we were currently in. I admire this movie for being different and keeping the concept fresh, though. This was a different take on the multi-verse jumping that we've seen in other media, so that was nice. Aside from my confusion, I still think that the overall story itself was compelling and touching.
The humor in this movie reminds me of a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books and Everything, Everywhere, All at Once share a unique sense of nihilism and absurdism that oddly works. The wackiness of the universes in this movie mixing with the concept of nothing having real consequence screams The Restaurant at the End of the Universe to me (as we all know that the answer to life, the universe, and everything is 42). As if that wasn't enough, in TheHitchhiker's Guide books, there is a device known as an Infinite Improbability Drive, which calculates the likelihood of anything in the universe happening when you jump across the universe. The idea behind the random "verse-jumping" in this movie is the same as the Improbability Drive: if the universe can exist, it's probable that it does, and you could end up anywhere.
However, the heart of Everything, Everywhere, All at Once is Evelyn's relationship with her family. (SLIGHT SPOILER)Once she realizes the Jobu Tupaki is attempting to take over her daughter by convincing her and everyone around her the nothing has meaning in an endless multi-verse, Evelyn is forced to make a choice- to believe that everything that is happening everywhere all at once is meaningless, or to hang onto her family despite everything.
(In case you were wondering, this was the part that made me cry.)
Now, since we've covered Everything, Everywhere All at Once, I think I'm a little tired of all this verse-jumping. There're only so many universes I can travel to in one day.
Let's go home.
And... we're back.
Perhaps this really is the darkest dimension and the most chaotic timeline. Somehow even if our fingers were hotdogs or if we wound up meeting the Illuminati, I still wouldn't find things nearly as problematic or strange as the times we're living in now.
The truth is that things are bad right now, and they're not going to get better unless we do something about it. But it's hard to know what to do when everything seems to be crumbling all at once, and the walls are caving in around you.
But- to quote yet another movie about time travel and a multiverse of sorts:
"Your future hasn't been written yet. No one's has. Your future is whatever you make it. So make it a good one." - Emmett "Doc" Brown, Back to the Future III (AKA the worst one)
We're just going to have to go out there and fight for the future we deserve.
I know we can get through this together. Merry Christmas, everyone.
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