Gedo senki (Tales from Earthsea)

It's fun to throw around terms like immortality or magic at times, to take part in mythological shenanigans as reputedly envisaged in fermenting fashion.

But if reality needs be materialistically applied, I've never been interested in living forever, it seems like it would be incredibly dull in fact, and if you kept growing older, an encumbering plight. 

Vampires apparently don't age but who would want to live forever without the sun?, that would be an extremely unfortunate predicament certainly not to be genuinely envied.

I do believe in life after death perhaps sustained through the potent dreamworld, your dreams persisting perhaps like purgatory until you reach some form of nirvana. 

The belief in life after death does solve several concrete problems, and leaves you less burdened by temporal considerations throughout the rapid progression of time.

Make sure you're not too much of a prick and worries of damnation fade as well, the congenial afterlife even animal heaven I imagine sustained by decent people across the land.

I don't think repenting on your death bed or absolution late in life prevents the onset of hell for the truly wicked.

They're punished ruthlessly post-mortality.

Somewhat like Jacob Marley.

But I don't think the punishment is indefinite the chance to rise again indeed enlightening, I've always intuitively believed in reincarnation (as I've mentioned before) for which I was reprimanded at a young age.

Perhaps there is nothing else perhaps just the dirt and ashes follow, after a fertile robust life inquisitively lived through cultural sleuthing.

I find it much less depressing and much more constructive to think otherwise however, there really is no way to determine the answer, and a future filled with multiple lives and multiverses leads to more pleasant thoughts throughout mortal life.

I don't mean for such thoughts to influence government spending or tax-based initiatives, practical reality indeed paramount when trying to spend hard-earned vital incomes.

With competing ideologies in the democratic realm unfortunately the phrase practical realities becomes more abstract, but it's still less corrupt than a one-party system and at least you can still critique and disagree.

Imagine immortality during an ice age, who knows, perhaps that's how we survived!

Like many others, I believe death's a natural part of life.

Not that it means I want to stop living.

Cool film. 

DragonHeart

The legendary influence of brave King Arthur still honourably remembered throughout the land, a formidable knight (Dennis Quaid as Sir Bowen) rationally instructs a young prince (David Thewlis/Lee Oakes as King/Prince Einon) in the art of cultural governance.

But his teachings are rebelliously ignored as the arrogant Prince comes of age, even after he promised a dragon he would rule wisely, in exchange for the gift of reanimation.

Thus, he becomes cruel and wicked and the people live in disquieting fear, hoping to generally avoid his lavish caprice as they seek sustenance, friendship, and shelter.

The knight falls upon hard times and spends his days pursuing dragons, whom he blames for corrupting his pupil with zealous malevolent menacing magic.

He's incorrect, however, it wasn't the dragon's heart which inspired his tyranny, he was just none too fond of brotherhood and was rather upset when the villagers killed his father.

One dragon outwits noble Bowen and convinces him to embrace bold trickery, to put on a show where he pretends to save a village from the dragon's wrath, and then pockets the coveted reward money.

While engaged in these fraudulent shenanigans a spirited damsel calls out their ruse (Dina Meyer as Kara), a damsel who's just escaped from the King, and is encouraging audacious insurrection. 

They're rather embarrassed and ashamed yet she also reminds them of Arthur's code, after which they forge a loyal alliance earnestly determined to challenge the King.

The King believes himself to be safe and capable of outmaneuvering a band of rebels.

But they're much more organized than he thinks.

Passionate conflict irascibly ensues. 

It's not as intense as it sounds in fact it's quite lighthearted and foolhardy throughout, as Bowen and the last of the dragons creatively argue and discuss history.

Indeed, the lighthearted nature of DragonHeart made me think the comedic potential of dragons has yet to be convincingly explored, a foul-mouthed cheeky ironic lazy dragon perhaps to emerge in the 21st century.

Rather than aiding a distraught hero as he or she engages in epic discord, or simply guarding treasure and punishing those hoping to steal it, he or she could find work in a disingenuous small village, and wholeheartedly take part in wisecracking thereafter.

Perhaps something out of the ordinary would emerge by the film's playful abashed final moments.

Or it would just embrace jaded mischief throughout.

For a solid hour and forty-five minutes. 

*With Pete Postlethwaite (Gilbert) and Jason Isaacs (Felton).

Nezha zhi motong jiangshi (Ne Zha)

A couple committed to protecting their realm from demons who maladroitly arise, jests with the birth of a magical newborn, who's an ill-tempered god hellbent on partaking in routine village life, annoyed that his powers are quotidianly ill-favoured, too young to hold back when hospitably disposed.

He seeks friendship yet is prone to mischief and can't comprehend why he's consistently rebuked, which leads to volatile discontent declarations, and generalized feelings of mutual disaffection.

His parents are uncertain of how to raise their malcontent offspring, and trust a hedonistic immortal to both guide and provide active care.

But he responds too precociously to his loosely structured lessons, and the results are both disconcerting and counterproductive, things becoming much worse when he learns he'll live only three short years, and is indeed frenetically fated, to unleash wanton reviled ill-repute.

He meets his counterpart one day, who is destined for greener pastures, seaside pastures, a god of water secretly raised by dragons, who's also inquisitive and young, and seeking to make trusted oddball friends.

The divine proclamations which indisputably govern their predetermined constitutions have been cast in immaterial chrome, yet they're determined to follow different paths, to make their own fates, randomly preconditioned.

Listen for The Terminator theme music.

It's super deep, this Nezha zhi motong jiangshi (Ne Zha), with its lone bemused disposition, abounding with intricate detail, as it contemplates counterintuition.

In action, while it calisthenically unreels, as hyper-reactive as its nimble namesake, as unrestrictive as leaps and bounds.

Part tragedy as it generates sympathy for a youngster who can't help but cause destruction, yet longs for someone to play with, who isn't afraid of him, or easily duped.

Part comedy as symbiotic shenanigans cerebrally startle and delicately sway.

It's as if predictability were vehemently critiqued by innocent gifted youth, aware of their otherworldly powers and dismissive of fate and forecast.

As if it's comic that ties bind no matter how much agency's secured, and tragic that you exist apart especially if you're born romantic.

To be fated for mystic fortunes adds pressure to attempts to chill, as youth imagines the outer world while taxing mundane rhapsodics.

Nezha (Lü Yanting) gives 'er despite scorn and protest, as misinterpretation confounds.

The film's must-see animation for lovers of fantasy and robust storytelling.

Extraordinarily complex and profound.

Still innocent enough for younger audiences.

Downright quizzical.

Epically nuanced.

Pete's Dragon

A child's imagination can limitlessly prosper as it infinitely expands if pedagogically nurtured like a flourishing free spirit.

In David Lowery's Pete's Dragon, we find a young child (Oakes Fegley as Pete) who has been living in the woods for several years under the watchful eye of a caring dragon.

Elliot's the beastie's name.

His existence is undeniable in the film, but, if he is thought of as representing limitless imagination and Pete has developed limitless imagination while growing up on his own in the wild, then after he is discovered by humankind, what becomes of that imagination in terms of future potential?

In terms of the options available in town?

Two brothers are presented, one (Wes Bentley as Jack) who owns a logging company and abides by the law when extracting timber, and another (Karl Urban as Gavin) who manages the company on the ground and breaks those laws in order to earn higher profits.

Either way Pete's imagination will have to adapt to human civilization, since both options extract wood from the forest.

Jack takes Pete in while waiting to hear from child services, after Pete befriends his daughter Natalie (Oona Laurence), and for the first time since the fatal car accident in the film's opening moments, Pete is surrounded by and immersed within nourishing comforts, comforts that can lovingly engage his imagination.

Meanwhile Gavin, having learned of Elliot's existence, hunts down and viciously traps him, thereby attempting to turn Pete's imagination into an estranged exploited sideshow.

Cunning and ingenuity, no doubt the reflexive byproducts of that imagination, enable Pete and his friends to free tethered Elliot, who is then chased by his would be oppressor, and forced to unleash incendiary objections.

Foes defeated and stability secured, in the end we see Elliot and Pete reunited, Elliot having found companions as well, or Pete having developed an in/dependent artistic/commercial sensitivity, nurtured by a disposable income.

Perhaps not the most well rounded layer of metaphorical interactivity, but if relativity is applied to expand upon the definitions of stability and comfort, as it should be if Elliot is taken into consideration, and these definitions proliferate within the realm of free choice, it's possible that everyone could have their own community of dragons, loveable in their specialized elasticities, curious to energetically explore.

Why the heck not?

As Summer is applied to the upcoming scholastic year?

It's a wikithing.

I can be cheesier.