Space Sweepers and The Court of Miracles
Dec. 30th, 2021 08:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearLast night, we watched Space Sweepers and Netflix - a Korean sci-fi movie that was a lot of fun. In 2092, the Earth is getting more and more inhospitable, and the richest of the rich have moved up to a beautifully terraformed dome habitat in orbit. Our crew of heroes make money by snaring space debris before it can cause damage to anything that's actually supposed to be in orbit. They find a little girl on a damaged shuttle and initially think they can ransom her for a lot of money...
It was very silly, and a lot of it didn't make sense. But it was very interesting from a storytelling point of view, because I didn't care about that at all, since it was also very emotionally satisfying. I was completely invested, and the various twists at the end really worked, even though I had no idea how. Richard Armitage was clearly enjoying himself tremendously as the bad guy, and I loved the whole crew of the Victory. The exposition was a bit clunky in places, but the character backgrounds were still emotive. It was visually stunning and an awful lot of thought had obviously gone into all the design.
We found one review that praised the film for its 'casual diversity' - well, the main crew and the little girl were all Korean, there was one black character and one Indian character - and I think everyone else was white, soooo... Maybe not so much? But I did really like the use of all the different languages.
Overall, a lot of fun that also got me in the feels.
Another of my Christmas presents was The Court of Miracles by Kester Grant, a reimagining of Les Miserables, if the French Revolution hadn't been successful. I read it in three days, and found it very compelling in terms of world-building, character development and overall plot. For most of reading it, though, I felt the connection to Les Mis was tenuous at best, with it largely being a totally different story, just with some of the same character names. I therefore dismissed it as a marketing ploy for a book that should have easily been able to stand on its own merits, because it was so good. BUT - towards the end, the parallels with Les Mis got more obvious, and the way the conclusion subverted the ending of that story was actually really clever and very satisfying. I particularly liked the bit in the acknowledgements about the author wanting to strangle Marius and feeling that Eponine deserved a lot better - both of which I heartily agree with! So, overall, an excellent book.
It was very silly, and a lot of it didn't make sense. But it was very interesting from a storytelling point of view, because I didn't care about that at all, since it was also very emotionally satisfying. I was completely invested, and the various twists at the end really worked, even though I had no idea how. Richard Armitage was clearly enjoying himself tremendously as the bad guy, and I loved the whole crew of the Victory. The exposition was a bit clunky in places, but the character backgrounds were still emotive. It was visually stunning and an awful lot of thought had obviously gone into all the design.
We found one review that praised the film for its 'casual diversity' - well, the main crew and the little girl were all Korean, there was one black character and one Indian character - and I think everyone else was white, soooo... Maybe not so much? But I did really like the use of all the different languages.
Overall, a lot of fun that also got me in the feels.
Another of my Christmas presents was The Court of Miracles by Kester Grant, a reimagining of Les Miserables, if the French Revolution hadn't been successful. I read it in three days, and found it very compelling in terms of world-building, character development and overall plot. For most of reading it, though, I felt the connection to Les Mis was tenuous at best, with it largely being a totally different story, just with some of the same character names. I therefore dismissed it as a marketing ploy for a book that should have easily been able to stand on its own merits, because it was so good. BUT - towards the end, the parallels with Les Mis got more obvious, and the way the conclusion subverted the ending of that story was actually really clever and very satisfying. I particularly liked the bit in the acknowledgements about the author wanting to strangle Marius and feeling that Eponine deserved a lot better - both of which I heartily agree with! So, overall, an excellent book.
