Teen Love, Romeo+Juliet and the King Killer Chronicles

This is just a small random post. I am posting it here instead of in the Fandom journal, because it relates to our class discussion, and is more my thoughts than actions of the Fandom.

One aspect in our talk about Romeo and Juliet that I found interesting was the talk about them being teens. Many seemed to agree their love felt rushed, but that was somewhat acceptable because they were teenagers. Whether you agreed with whether their love was true, or would have faded away with time, The story itself doesn't seem to be hurt by it. You don't hear a lot of complaints that it is unrealistic, and it ruins the story because of it. In short, the rushed love affair seemed to be accepted because the individuals (Romeo and Juliet) were teenagers.

I find this interesting because in my fandom, the exact opposite is true. The main male and female characters  (Kvothe and Denna respectively) are obviously very interested in each other. For Kvothe, it is obvious because we have his perspective and  Denna has hinted, flirted, and in one case (while drugged admittedly) flat out said she liked Kvothe. And yet neither character has had the nerve to make a serious move. This has lead to some hatred or annoyance at  one or both of the characters but a lot of people seem to accept and even empathize with their relationship, because they are teenagers. You will hear comments like, well they're teenagers of course they're going to be shy.

I find it really interesting that both being really impulsive and being extremely cautious in a relationship can be related with the same, oh well they're teenagers. To be honest it sounds accurate to me, it was just something I found funny, and while seemingly paradoxical, accurate.

West Side Story and Warm Bodies

I had seen West Side Story a long time ago so I had almost no memory of it so I went in mostly fresh. I had heard it was good and after watching it I have to agree. It was a really good movie. It was also amusing hearing songs that I had heard before and finding out they're from this movie. But it left me with two big thoughts. Firstly Baz Lurhmann's felt a bit inspired by West Side Story, especially the opening sequence of his movie.

The Other interesting aspect for me was the changes that were made. One specific change seemed so small, but on reflection, has such a large impact on the meaning of the story. And that change, was the removal of parents. In West Side Story (WSS) the only real parental figures we see are Doc, and the police. And none of them are treated with any respect by the gangs.. In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, much of the blame lies on the adults who did nothing to actually prevent the violence between their households from taking place. There was a lot of responsibility placed on them to uphold the peace and their failure to do so, caused the deaths to occur. But by removing those authority figures the blame for the deaths shifts from them to the gangs. They made the choice to pick fights and while death was never actually intended, they are the only ones are responsible for it. They lose any opportunity to hide behind the fact that it was their house's or families feud and have to accept that they were responsible for the deaths. It creates a very different dynamic because in Romeo and Juliet, the blame was on their parents for not ending the feud, and much of the tragedy lies in the fact that if the parents had ended their feud the violence could have been avoided. But in WSS the blame lies, if on any outside force, society itself. It creates a dynamic where those responsible (the gangs) seemed to have no power over what actually occurred. This makes the violence seem more inevitable, and in that light, makes the deaths more tragic.




Now on to Warm Bodies. Honestly, went in to it extremely skeptical. It did not seem like the sort of movie I would like. By the end I... I.... I didn't hate it. For the most part, while finding corny I enjoyed it. The main character was interesting as his zombie friend had some hilarious lines. However the main female lead, while attractive, I hated. Alright to be honest, I had been listening to the unabridged audio recording of World War Z (which is completely amazing and I highly recommend) and that work is a lot more serious and more recognizes hard choices have to be made sometimes. Which is why I absolutely despised the girl. She whines about her dad killing zombies, things that had been willing to kill everyone. She whines about getting medicine and worrying about the safety of the community. She whines about having to be checked for infection after she was out in zombie infested territory. She comes off as an obnoxious bratty character and considering this is supposed to be based off Romeo and Juliet the fact she didn't die is extremely disappointing.

Speaking of it being based off of Romeo and Juliet, I can kind of see it. Honestly if it was not for the balcony scene I probably would disagree. Right now, I honestly stuck with whether the balcony scene (and some of the other events) make this movie based partly of Romeo and Juliet or whether just the balcony scene was an homage to Romeo and Juliet and the rest was just a romance.

Zombie Love

This was my first time seeing Warm Bodies and I was definitely a little more than just skeptical.  I honestly thought it was just going to be another one of those million zombie movies out there.

But I was pleasantly surprised.

I actually really enjoyed the movie a lot.  I liked the fact that the plot focused more on the development of the characters rather than just the action, which is extremely uncommon for zombie movies today.

This movie is a testament to how far you can stretch the Romeo and Juliet story while keeping the integrity of the classic play.  I thought it was hilarious that they decided to incorporate the iconic balcony scene but put a twist on it by having Julie and “R” be interrupted.

Even though I’m not really on the whole zombie apocalypse bandwagon, I really liked the story that was created around Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.  Seeing the slow transformation that “R” made in the beginning from zombie to human was really moving.  Not only this, but the fact that the other zombies banded together to change for the better was actually very inspiring. 

They were the dead literally fighting for their lives.

Though the movie was riddled with some action and humor, the true message was never lost—that is, you can heal all things with love. 

I found this to be an amazing (and ironic) contrast to the classic Romeo and Juliet story because their love benefited no one.  It resulted in the deaths of several people including themselves.  But the love between “R” and Julie was completely selfless.  They broke boundaries to help the misunderstood and succeeded.  Now that’s inspirational.