luciazephyr | (no subject)

I'm there basically for the subtext and the acting. Plot was AMAZINGLY awful :|

This was the movie that proved to me that I won't excuse a film's badness because of how much I love the HoYay. GOD. The cinematography was lovely, the score was stunning, the acting from the three leads was perfect, it had the usual Ritchie awesomeness.

BUT. THE. PLOT. SUCKED. Sucked enough to drag all the greatness out of it.

I was certainly seduced enough to completely ignore the plot and focus on the the above, plus asdfjkl; costumes unfffffff, and I have a Thing for violinists plucking strings vs. bowing them, so RDJ was hitting a not oft-scratched kink of mine, therefore I could forgive A LOT. And Holmes/Watson's dynamic was, like, almost identical (in the best way) to House/Wilson from "House" that I was in heaven.

On the positive side, they're already working on the sequel, so the writers have to have heard the complaints by now, and tentatively optimistic that the second shot will produce a plot that makes sense.

If not, well. There's always the pretty.

I am very much looking forward to a sequel. I'm almost certain it'd be better than this one. :excited:

I...liked it?

*hides in a corner*

*settles in the same corner*

That's fine. I was just severely disappointed in the story. I vent on LJ a lot.

Ignore the iffy Blackwod plot. And that Irene was the distressed damsel more times than she should have. The real plot was the epic, epic love between Holmes and Watson. And possibly the love between Blackwood and Coward.

I PARTICULARLY LIKED THE PART WHERE HE WANTED TO TAKE OVER AMERICA, BECAUSE OBVIOUSLY WE ONLY CARE ABOUT STUFF WHEN AMERICA IS INVOLVED

at least it wasn't a major part of the plot and they didn't relocate it to America or anything, but still I AM SO DISCRIMINATED AGAINST IN THE MAINSTREAM MOVIE INDUSTRY, LET ME WATCH SOME BRITPORN WITHOUT HAVING TO THINK ABOUT WHAT WENT ON ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST

However, I went to see it for the HoYay, came out 1) not seeing the HoYay (they are bros! this goes for the books, too, thankfully. I feel the same way about Kirk and Spock) and 2) shipping Holmes/Irene.

Have you read the books? Apart from occasional forays into Victorian racism they're much better and Holmes and Watson are more likeable and less cartoonish than the ones in the film. Particularly Holmes. He's sort of like a bipolar, strangely giddy force of nature. He gets enthusiastic. He puts much more into the relationship than movie!Holmes, like playing Watson's favourite tunes on the violin as thanks for putting up with him. And he sings. He is awesome.

Haven't you heard? It's all about America, Fly.

See, I came out seeing the HoYay. It was really heavy IMO. I kinda ship Holmes/Watson/Irene because all three are totally awesome.

I'm very hesitant to go anywhere near the books. My history with period piece books (if you can call them that when they were actually written in that timeframe) is very very bad. I couldn't get past the first five paragraphs of Pride and Prejudice. So I guess it all depends ont he writing style.

Mum's forcing me to DL some of the Jeremy Brentt episodes though, so there's that.

They're easier to read than Austen, significantly. OH, LET ME COPY PASTE SOME BITS AT YOU:

His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. ...My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.

"You appear to be astonished," he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. "Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it."

"To forget it!"

"You see," he explained, "I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones."

"But the Solar System!" I protested.

"What the deuce is it to me?" he interrupted impatiently; "you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work."

and later

I see that I have alluded above to his powers upon the violin. These were very remarkable, but as eccentric as all his other accomplishments. That he could play pieces, and difficult pieces, I knew well, because at my request he has played me some of Mendelssohn's Lieder, and other favourites. When left to himself, however, he would seldom produce any music or attempt any recognized air. Leaning back in his arm-chair of an evening, he would close his eyes and scrape carelessly at the fiddle which was thrown across his knee. Sometimes the chords were sonorous and melancholy. Occasionally they were fantastic and cheerful. Clearly they reflected the thoughts which possessed him, but whether the music aided those thoughts, or whether the playing was simply the result of a whim or fancy was more than I could determine. I might have rebelled against these exasperating solos had it not been that he usually terminated them by playing in quick succession a whole series of my favourite airs as a slight compensation for the trial upon my patience.

And then Watson talks fandom with him and gets upset when Holmes insults his favourite characters:

"You remind me of Edgar Allen Poe's Dupin. I had no idea that such individuals did exist outside of stories."

Sherlock Holmes rose and lit his pipe.

"No doubt you think that you are complimenting me in comparing me to Dupin," he observed. "Now, in my opinion, Dupin was a very inferior fellow. That trick of his of breaking in on his friends' thoughts with an apropos remark after a quarter of an hour's silence is really very showy and superficial. He had some analytical genius, no doubt; but he was by no means such a phenomenon as Poe appeared to imagine."

"Have you read Gaboriau's works?" I asked. "Does Lecoq come up to your idea of a detective?"

Sherlock Holmes sniffed sardonically. "Lecoq was a miserable bungler," he said, in an angry voice; "he had only one thing to recommend him, and that was his energy. That book made me positively ill. The question was how to identify an unknown prisoner. I could have done it in twenty-four hours. Lecoq took six months or so. It might be made a text-book for detectives to teach them what to avoid."

I felt rather indignant at having two characters whom I had admired treated in this cavalier style.

Okay, that seems much much easier to parse than most 'classics' I've read.

And that last bit sounds like the start of a flamewar, srsly.

Also, that violin thing is actually kinda sweet. 83

Also, that violin thing is actually kinda sweet.

It's the fact that he knows all of Watson's favourites even though they've only just met each other, and realises he's annoying and cares about what Watson thinks and it just jhfsdjkfhdjh

Also, it wasn't that I couldn't see the HoYay, I just didn't - ~see~ it. In the Avatar sense. You know?

It's the eternal temptation of the Holmes story writer to have a mystery that the ENTIRE FATE OF ENGLAND depends upon. Somebody mentioned that the story of how they caught Blackwood the first time would have been far more interesting.

The problem is that Holmes would not do well in the long run if given a mystery the ENTIRE FATE OF ENGLAND depends on. He complains repeatedly in the books about how there's no real mysteries, no criminal who can challenge him, no danger, as much as he craves it. If he was given a situation where the entire fate of England depended on him solving a mystery, he would be in the greatest of spirits for the entire thing, and afterwards know nothing as large, important or tense would ever happen again and sink into cocaine and abject, bitter misery.