We read ANOTHER Amish romance (Part 1)

     Question: 

             If we were so disappointed in the last Beverly Lewis Amish romance we read, why are we reading another?

      Answer: 

               1. We're looking to see if the last one was just a fluke -- the obligatory bad stretch for authors -- or if there are consistent patterns in her writing. 

               2. It makes us so much more confident in our own writing.

      And no, Seasons of Grace was not a fluke. In fact, it was fairly good compared to this.

The Parting

    Nellie-mae Fisher is a young Amish woman in the 1960s. Her younger sister drowned earlier that year and the entire family is badly shaken because of it. But Nellie's grief competes for the spotlight with Caleb Yoder and his "admiring gaze". 

     However, Caleb -- a 'free-thinking' young man -- must make sure that Fisher family has no dark secrets in their past to appease his father before his attraction to Nellie becomes too serious.

     Meanwhile, in the midst of grief, Nellie's father, Reuben, discovers the truth of salvation and begins to question the traditions of their community.

The Characters 

     Oh, where to begin...

     There are honestly enough terrible characters to be their own blog post...

     We are introduced to Nellie-mae through a first-person prologue which begins with her asserting that her baking is far better than her mother's in every way. 

      That's basically all you need to know to about her personality.

      This attitude continues throughout the book, with Nellie condemning her sisters for being gossips, envious, weak-willed, and stout while she is clearly too good to fall prey to such vices. She's the perfect Amish woman -- hardworking and traditional, no matter how much she may pine for forbidden guitars to be brought to the youth gatherings.

      Also, every bit of her pettiness and self-centeredness is obviously fine because the other characters deserve it. Her older sister often leaves her waiting, so why not take the long route for an errand specifically to make said sister late for work?

      At least her characterization is consistent, as horrible as it may be.

      Caleb is a manipulative creep with the backbone of a pool noodle. Moving on.

      Nellie's elder sisters, Rhoda and Nan, are portrayed as jerks because they don't spend time with Nellie -- though, considering her personality, who could blame them?

      However, this is not to say they are without flaws. 

      Nan is snide and likes to spread discord among the family.

      Rhoda, well.... Rhoda's personality really gets fleshed out in the second book. Let's say that in this book, her terrible, shameful personality flaws are 'works for Englishers' and 'fat'. (Excuse me a moment as I go on a tangent about this. Considering the setting of this story, I can understand how working for 'Englishers' would be seen as not-so-great, but the way her physicality is addressed is just plain cruel. Don't get me wrong, obesity is very unhealthy, but it seems to be the style of these books that anyone not distinctly slender or lean is immediately 'plump', or 'ample', or "like a pumpkin about to roll off." Yeah. Obviously that will have no impact on young women of stocky build who read this. None at all.)

      I would talk about Suzy (the younger sister who drowned) but her character is only fully appreciable with the plot-twist development that happens near the end. 

     Nellie's older brother, Ephram, is an ice-blooded scum king. He and Nan are almost completely alike, except for the added bonus that he doesn't refer to his wife by name (using instead 'her', 'she', or 'woman') and oversees all her visits to make sure the conversation stays within his parameters of 'suitable for well-behaved Amish women.'

     Nellie's mother, Betsy, is exceedingly codependent on her children and has a rather creepy fascination with her granddaughter who resembles Suzy.

     Nellie's dad, Reuben, is unquestionably the best person in the entire family. His care for his family goes beyond just the physical needs, and he eagerly seeks to understand the Scriptures as well as he can and deepen his relationship with God (much to the disbelief and fury of their local bishop.)

     And then we have the subplot of Rosanna.

     Rosanna is Nellie-mae's dear friend (tells you a lot about her already.) She and her husband have not been able to have any children of their own, and this in turn has made her very discouraged. Now, I would sympathize with her except for what happens next. Her cousin Kate comes to her and cheerfully tells her that she's going to give her her next baby (with the context that she and her husband rarely agree about anything, but he readily agreed to this.)

(Property of Nickelodeon, not used for profit.)

   Then throughout the book Kate starts wavering about her promise, and Rosanna complains that it's so inconvenient and wonders what's wrong with her. Obviously she's never been a mother before, since she doesn't grasp the basic concept that a mother might maybe be emotionally attached to her children.

   Though Kate's caveat that they might keep the baby "if it's a boy" doesn't make me that sympathetic towards her either.

Alternative Title: The Worst Community on Earth

    I really hope that Amish society has changed since the 1960s.

    Problem is, researching it is nearly impossible. 

    I need to see if my local library's open yet...

    So in my review of 'Seasons of Grace' I mentioned that the community presented was rather cultish. Well, this community - of Honeybrook, Pennsylvania - makes it look like Sesame Street nextdoor to Panem.

    Honeybrook boasts a variety of attractions, including (but not limited to)

         - Churches where the sermons are only preached in High German, which nobody but the elders understand, so you've just got to listen close and you'll miraculously begin to understand what the words mean.

         - Be advised, you are only allowed to read Scriptures sanctioned by the local bishop, and we openly discourage meeting together to study and discuss the Scriptures independently, as such would be rebellion against our ministers, who are "divinely ordained" by drawing lots.

         - Social activities like laughing about animals literally being worked to death.

         - Courting traditions, which involve the young woman sneaking out of her house without telling anyone where she's going, who she'll be with, or how long she'll be gone, to go and wait for her beau out in the woods - ALONE. AT NIGHT. Once he arrives, they'll drive all over the county together, and maybe (if they're the more risque type) go find a covered bridge to do some necking in (Beverly's words, not mine.)

         - Embraced sexism! "God made boys to be tough and hardworking, and girls -- well, they were supposed to be soft and sweet and mighty submissive." (We would also hope that if any first-time mothers visit, their firstborn is a boy, because that's how it always ought to be.)

         Yup.

    Summary

    You know those nightmares where something horrible is happening and you know it's a dream, but when you wake up you're hit with the realization that it could be real?

    This book is like one of those.

    I could go into a whole tangent about how dangerous the romanticization of the Amish lifestyle is in general, but this... this would require deep study just to know how far that tangent would have to go. Maybe some other time.

    Due to overlapping circumstances, our reading schedule is sort of on hold right now, but our church library should be opening (hopefully) by mid-July, so we'll see what happens then.

    I hope a meteor strikes the town and only Reuben escapes. 

    That'd be so nice.

Movie Review: Tron Legacy

     Okay, to be upfront: I don't typically like reboots/remakes. Most of the time they're worse than the original, and are only useful as paperweights or cash-grabs (Disney's 2019 Aladdin is an exception, but I'll talk about that later.) 

     But I was willing to give Tron Legacy a try. The first one was pretty okay, maybe a 7/10 for me, so how much worse could the sequel be?

    Well... it's complicated.

Overview

     27 years after the events of the first film, Kevin Flynn has disappeared. Nobody knows why he would or why he could, especially not his son, Sam. 

    Then one day Sam finds out a message was sent from his dad's office in the abandoned arcade. He goes down there to see what he can find and is accidentally teleported onto the Grid. But this virtual world is very different from the paradise his father told him about in bedtime stories. The users are hated -- as they are said to enslave programs -- and a program by the name of Clu has risen up to be the overlord of a 'perfected' society. But Clu doesn't know where Kevin Flynn is either. So he's very happy when Sam is conscripted into the arena games. What better bait could he have asked for?

Story and Characters

    From the premise, I was a bit more invested in this film than the original (I'm sorry, Original fans, forgive me.)

    Part of the reason is probably because I really like stories with a lot of family dynamics and emotional growth, but the other part is basically because the protagonist's goal was a lot more consistent and impacted nearly every decision he made. 

    To be blunt, in the original film Flynn's goal developed from 'Prove I made the program,' to 'Survive the game,' which ended with him just getting the proof he wanted in the end. Sam's goal always stays fairly within the ballpark of 'Get dad back,' even as he's trying to survive, because what's the point of going back to the normal world if he can't have his father with him?

    However, his character arc seems a bit stilted in the end, as the ultimate decision of change isn't made by him, but forced upon him.

    I really appreciated the fact that his reactions to being transported to the Grid are incredibly realistic, though. Great job on that, director/screenwriter/actor team!

   Kevin Flynn's arc is a bit more satisfying, in that he goes from a self-preserving 'what happens will happen, just stay zen' mindset to actively pursuing goals for the sake of his son.

   Clu was a much more entertaining villain, as he has all of K. Flynn's traits, skewed by his ideals of perfection and mathematical calculation. But because of this, he comes off more as Kevin's villain, not Sam's, which makes their conflict really impersonal. For an example, when they find out Clu's reprogramming programs into mindless soldiers, Kevin is sorrowful, guilt-ridden, and horrified, while Sam's reaction is more along the lines of an American patriot.

   At least Clue does fight Sam, though.

  Also more connected with Clu and his crusade of perfectionism is the rebel program, Quorra, who has been living with K. Flynn as his apprentice ever since he disappeared. As far as obligatory strong female characters go, she actually wasn't that bad, because:

            A. She had a unique personality

            B. She had dreams and goals of her own

            C. When she caused a problem which risked all of their lives, she apologized for it

   (Man, that bar is so low...)

   

   However, above all this, I've got to say that the direction choices and editing stunted a lot of character appreciation for me, for instance:

   "Why is Sam just crouching on the floor for 15 seconds during this fight scene, watching programs get shredded apart? Oh, yeah, so we could have Quorra do that sick jump over him. I see."

Plot

   Genuinely not bad. Sam's an incredibly impulsive and emotion-driven character, so his decisions keep the plot moving at a steady pace, and the worldbuilding of the new Grid gives a lot of nice challenges.

The Fatal Flaw

   Generally I'd say this is a good example of the importance of music to a film. I understand that one of the main attractions of this film is that the soundtrack was composed by Daft Punk (who makes a cameo in the film) and it's fairly good, but it's overall tone is disconnected from everything on screen, floating above the film so it makes scenes that should be emotionally gripping fall flat. If your protagonist is screaming in fury/terror but the music sounds like something from a techno spa, it's not going to work.

   Also this film was smothered in the latter acts by a ton of Buddhist philosophy which was really distracting from what should have been the primary theme of a father and son trying to reconnect after years of separation and estrangement, rather than, 'Be zen, answers will fall into your lap -- Oh wait, you mean I've actually got to make decisions that require self-sacrifice and further abandoning my son? Uh, it's fine. He'll get over it. Because he'll learn to be indiff- I mean, zen.'

Summary

   I had high hopes for this movie. Then the second and third acts came along and slapped those hopes in the face. The visuals were nice, but no amount of computer graphics in the world can cover up a forced and bad moral theme.  

   Probably a film I'd watch again only to spark deep philosophical discussions with friends.

   5/10.

Movie Review: Tron

    You know what the biggest problem with legendary old movies is? 

     You really have no way of knowing what they're like until you watch them. 

     Because they're so popular, no one bothers to review them anymore, and most of them came out before 1984, so the only real ratings at the time were G and R (which wasn't really accurate until much, much later, which is why us kids got the VERY suggestive bar song in The Great Mouse Detective, but couldn't watch The Ghost and The Darkness, which is debatably less violent than Lord of the Rings.)

     But now I've gotten myself a subscription to a streaming service and guess what I found!!!

(Alternative title: Epileptic Triggers 101)

      Due to pop-culture and the sequel, you're probably familiar with the premise: A man gets transported into a computer, and there are epic Frisbee fights. 

      Sorry to bust the bubble, but only the first part of that really applies to this film. 

The Story & Plot

     Before we begin, a clarification:

     Story is the why characters do things, such as Frodo wanting to protect the Shire and the friends he loves.

     Plot is how characters do things.

     This movie is an example of all plot, minimal story.

     Early on, Flynn says he has to hack into Encom to prove that he created a game his boss is now taking the credit for, but nothing in the rest of the film reflects this moral conflict, except for the concept of the Master Control Program absorbing other programs to make itself bigger.

     Being pulled into the game, Flynn's focus abruptly changes to breaking the MCP so he can escape.

     Admittedly, I wasn't too invested in the tension because SPOILERS >> I knew a bunch of the characters make it to the sequel<< SPOILERS but also because the characters themselves didn't seem that invested in them either. Maybe it was just a thing of the era. 'When all seems hopeless, might as well go to your doom quietly, unless you're the main character!'

The Characters

   The characters are all pretty simplistic, but not horribly so. Despite what I said about the lack of tension in the previous category, the actors themselves are very good and have just the right amount of earnestness in their portrayals, neither being cardboard or melodramatic.

    Sark, though.

    Sark is the primary villain, tasked by the MCP to kill Flynn in the games. Sark boasts to the MCP that he's grown tired of fighting accounting programs and the like, but is too afraid to take on a user. So we end up with a villain whose specific task is to kill Flynn, but he and Flynn NEVER have a direct confrontation (except for when he's boasting about capturing Flynn, then saunters off.) 

    

The World

     The most popular view of Tron was about how it utilized computer-animation to portray the computer world, and, predictably, it's a bit underwhelming to us now, but I can see how shocking it would be to audiences back then.

      As for worldbuilding, I think I'd be able to appreciate it more if I was a programmer, because then I'd understand how the different programs function better. 

    I did like the detail that programs take on the appearance of their makers, and regard their makers as somewhat divine, because that makes sense, given the situation. However, if the filmmakers were trying to draw some real-world parallels with this, then it gets hairy later on when one of the programs asks Flynn if they [the users] have a plan, and Flynn says that there is no plan. 

Negative Details

   One scene.

   Flynn's ex-co-workers come to visit him and he makes several comments that imply that the female co-worker has had sex with him and that she is now having sex with the male co-worker (or at least is living with him,) and that he himself is willing to do it again. 

   That's it.

   I'm honestly surprised it's only that much!

Conclusion

   All in all, I'd say a pretty okay movie. Not very engaging, but alright. Probably a good sick-day movie.

   I'm hoping the sequel is better.