beccaelizabeth (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
beccaelizabeth) wrote2010-10-18 06:39 pm
beccaelizabeth) wrote2010-10-18 06:39 pm
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ST:TNG Family
This is a beautiful bit of writing. It's like thematic origami, all the pieces fold together and make connections with each other. It's about fathers and sons, and parents and children, and brothers, and the path laid down before you, and the road not taken. And it goes exactly and precisely at this point in the series, pulling together threads, bringing out emotional reactions the show usually wouldn't make time for. But it has the science fiction thread real strong in it too, with debates about synthehol vs alcohol, old school cooking vs replicators, hand made vs technology, and how some think there's a vs in there and others think they're all of a piece, plus a bit about raising a whole extra continent, which leaves you wondering why humans think they need it, and would be an awesome technical achievement. And at the heart of everything, Starfleet. You get more of a sense of how Starfleet fits into the lives of not-Starfleet humans from this episode than from, well, probably the series to date. You get a sense of continuity and conflict in human culture that was frankly missing from the cosy 'we all agree here' 'humans think this' version that seems to exist on the ship. Science fiction at its understated best.
There's Worf and his parents, with mention from O'Brien about his dad. There's a constellation of Picards, Jean-Luc and his brother and his nephew and his sister-in-law and the invisible but ever present late father. And there's the Crusher family, with Beverley retrieving tangible reminders of the late Jack, and making him visible in the message to Wesley. All the interactions layer up, all have Starfleet in there somewhere, and career, and rank, and responsibility. You can keep unfolding this episode for a good long while. I love it.
There was only one note that was a bit disappointing. You spend the episode with the Crusher sub plot with the message, you find it exists, you see it handed over, you want to see what it says and how Wes will react. And, well, you see what it says. That bit about 'sorry for all the mistakes I'm going to make' wraps in to all the story threads, as does saying he can see everyone he loves in him and they'll always be connected. But Wes? I kept waiting for a reaction, and after a while I kind of wanted to poke him to try and find the 'on' button. It's just sad.
... I'd feel bad about saying that but I'm far, far less critical than Wil Wheaton is of himself. Harsh.
You can start with the arrogant couldn't give a damn teenager and get a lot out of that scene though. You'd have to get the actor to do it, but I mean Wes being all excessively 18 about it is a pretty good place to start. So he's got that veneer of 18 on, that knows it all and won't care layer, and here he is handed something he's supposed to have feelings about. What's with that? Like he wants that right now? So he'd swallow it where his mom could see, but out in the corridor he'd be all 'this is bullshit', that self protective distancing and anger, but feeling like he has to, and that works for Wesley Crusher. It's not season one blinky wide eyed Wes, but that kind of cute, it is grown out of now.
But once you're in the holodeck you need something else. For a start you need to be let under the teenager mask. I have noticed teenage males attempt the same vaguely disdainful kind of pissed off expression for what seems like years at a stretch. That doesn't work here. Even if he'd have the teenage equivalent of poker face outside, in the holodeck we need more from him. Maybe he lets it drop, like Reg Barclay, alone in a totally controllable environment. That would tell us some things about young Wes that the adults would not know. But I don't think it would work here, because this message is something he doesn't control, and that's his whole problem with the situation. So instead it's more of a case of switching points of view. Maybe he wouldn't show the world that stuff, but the story is going to be in his point of view for a while, so he has to show the camera. I don't know, subtle difference, might not be worky. But either way we need a moment for him to take a breath and be only in this room now, blank box where anything could happen. One moment to get present.
Then the image of his father comes up.
... I think in the episode he walks in and there's this guy in front of him, but I think I'd need a moment before that, to change realities.
Then Wes gets the first sight of his father.
What's his first reaction?
Would he have seen his father like this before? It seems unlikely. Photos and videos are shown in common use, holos only for special.
And even if: this is life sized. And it's his height.
So the first thing he gets with this version of his father is, this is a man he can look in the eye.
It's a whole perspective shift.
When I watch TNG I get this double layered emotional awareness, remembering who I was and how I felt last time I saw it, and responding to all the characters as the person I am now. Wesley would get that big time in that moment. Last time he saw his father he was, what, six? Tiny kid. And in previous episodes he's said some days he's not even sure he can remember his face. His father in his memory is The Grown Up, but kind of distant and fuzzed out, more of an archetype than a man. So looking at this man he'd recognize him, and his six year old self would have a ton of feelings, so he'd have that awareness, plus the years of loss since then... but he'd also be an 18 year old, officially a grown man, looking another man in the face. Recognition. Age vertigo. Realisation.
And as well as the age, which isn't so very much different from Wes, there's the uniform. Wes could read at a glance what I had to look up - lieutenant junior grade, which is the next rank up from Ensign. This Jack Crusher is not quite a peer, but rather than a whole generation distant he's more like the next step up. So what Wes would realise just on first seeing the man is, this is a man he could be.
And then he runs program.
It's a great speech, full of emotion, probably great to act, could be fun to watch one of the regular characters make to a new born. Except for the thing where it would in TV land mean he's about to die. But this guy is already dead and a one off character to us, so the whole story should be Wesley's reactions.
Opening sentences a one two of emotional whammy: Idea of self as ten weeks old, and then his father saying he wouldn't exist any more by the time Wes saw that message. I don't know, maybe other people can get their heads around being ten weeks old once, but last time mum looked at me and said I looked just like I did when I was new I had this total does not compute moment, because everything that is me, it does not fit back into a baby. Baby was seed of me, but this me, there's nothing but genetics in common. So Wes hearing that... this guy hadn't really met him yet. He'd met this baby that would become him, but he hadn't got to know Wes yet. He's in the room talking to him, but he's a very distant 18 years away. Loss. Distance. And boom, the guy making the message knows it, and for a moment it's like he's predicted his own death, but no, he just knows that 18 years will make different people of them all. So Wes has had all day to get the idea of a message from his father... or not, I know, he could have gone straight there, but that makes it more like picking up the answerphone. I think he'd have built up to it. He's got used to the idea his father will be talking to him, and then he realises, yes and no. He'll feel the no. Losing him all over again.
So this young man says how he doesn't know the first thing about being a father, and I suspect Wesley would identify with that if the thought had ever crossed his mind, but here he'd be confused, because of course your father knows how. So then Jack apologises for all the mistakes, and Wes would just hurt, because he wasn't there to *make* any. And then Jack says just that, that he wouldn't be there. Even in the original plan, he wasn't going to be around while Wes was growing up. But he's not expecting Wes to grieve, he's asking him not to resent Jack... and that's why angry Wes is a good place to start, because of course he does, even if only with that angry twisty part that seems to suck all the energy when you're a teenager and makes you all sweary and stuff.
And that's like the first three sentences. Seconds! You can't write it out and have it keep the emotional flow going. You need an actor. It's exactly the kind of scene which is why I want to do screenwriting and not, er, have to figure out how to make this all be paragraphs and have the same effect.
So it keeps going. Don't resent, maybe you'll understand, maybe you'll want to try on one of these uniforms: said to an 18 year old he wouldn't expect that Wes already earned one of his own. Usually he'd still be in the academy. When Wes walked out in that uniform the first time I was so :-D about it, it was so cool. He saves the ship a lot for years and now he gets it acknowledged. Ensign! Rock! So Wes would be having a moment of uniform-of-win... but the whole thrust of this message is about how the uniform takes you away from your family. Took Jack away from his family, but with Jack as more of a peer than usual, maybe Wes notices, it could take him away from his. It hadn't occurred to him he'd get assigned anywhere but Enterprise, or that the people he's friends with there would not always be there. It probably hasn't occurred to him he could be leaving kids of his own behind, or risking them on Galaxy class ships. Maybe he realises that now. Maybe he's just stuck thinking about how much his father gave to Starfleet, and how little he gave to him. Either way, he's looking at that uniform in a really complex light - as complex as this whole episode has been about following in your father's footsteps: it's the path set out for you, it looks like the right thing, but what has it cost?
And then Jack says Wes will probably be a doctor like his mother.
Do you think that ever occurred to Wes? Or his mom even? And now he hears his father wanted him to follow her. Woah. Moment to wonder if he's doing it wrong this way.
And then there's all that love and snuggles stuff. Which by then he needs like desert water. And it leads up to saying maybe he'll make a better message next time. Except there wasn't a next time. Wes was six when his father died, but the only message that got made was the new baby message. Did he change his mind? Forget about it? Expect that he'd always be there? Get busy with work? We can't know, Wes can't know, and that has to ache like losing him has ached for years. When did he lose him, if Starfleet took him away? How does he feel right then?
Turned around and lost and hurting.
And then his dad says 'I love you', and Wes goes for the hug...
... and the holodeck disappears the message. Ghost. Empty.
Sad!
I can get all that from the speech, there's like acres of emotion and years and careers and all wrapped up in there, but from watching?
Is one of the moments I'd rather watch in my head I think.
:-/
It's not where the episode ends. We have that whole :-( sad bit, but then Picard comes home to Enterprise, and Work has snuggly parents who feed him from afar, and we have :-) again. And then it ends with Rene out in the garden looking up at the stars, and "Let him dream."
... and that's when I started crying.
... yeah, I know, but we're all that kid, right now. Humanity is that kid, right now. Dreaming about starships. And it seems further away with every decade.
Plus, I have seen later films. It's really damn depressing if you've seen later films.
So then I get on the internet and get all analytical.
... I don't know why anyone would want to read all this. Eh, I had interesting unfolding it.
There's Worf and his parents, with mention from O'Brien about his dad. There's a constellation of Picards, Jean-Luc and his brother and his nephew and his sister-in-law and the invisible but ever present late father. And there's the Crusher family, with Beverley retrieving tangible reminders of the late Jack, and making him visible in the message to Wesley. All the interactions layer up, all have Starfleet in there somewhere, and career, and rank, and responsibility. You can keep unfolding this episode for a good long while. I love it.
There was only one note that was a bit disappointing. You spend the episode with the Crusher sub plot with the message, you find it exists, you see it handed over, you want to see what it says and how Wes will react. And, well, you see what it says. That bit about 'sorry for all the mistakes I'm going to make' wraps in to all the story threads, as does saying he can see everyone he loves in him and they'll always be connected. But Wes? I kept waiting for a reaction, and after a while I kind of wanted to poke him to try and find the 'on' button. It's just sad.
... I'd feel bad about saying that but I'm far, far less critical than Wil Wheaton is of himself. Harsh.
You can start with the arrogant couldn't give a damn teenager and get a lot out of that scene though. You'd have to get the actor to do it, but I mean Wes being all excessively 18 about it is a pretty good place to start. So he's got that veneer of 18 on, that knows it all and won't care layer, and here he is handed something he's supposed to have feelings about. What's with that? Like he wants that right now? So he'd swallow it where his mom could see, but out in the corridor he'd be all 'this is bullshit', that self protective distancing and anger, but feeling like he has to, and that works for Wesley Crusher. It's not season one blinky wide eyed Wes, but that kind of cute, it is grown out of now.
But once you're in the holodeck you need something else. For a start you need to be let under the teenager mask. I have noticed teenage males attempt the same vaguely disdainful kind of pissed off expression for what seems like years at a stretch. That doesn't work here. Even if he'd have the teenage equivalent of poker face outside, in the holodeck we need more from him. Maybe he lets it drop, like Reg Barclay, alone in a totally controllable environment. That would tell us some things about young Wes that the adults would not know. But I don't think it would work here, because this message is something he doesn't control, and that's his whole problem with the situation. So instead it's more of a case of switching points of view. Maybe he wouldn't show the world that stuff, but the story is going to be in his point of view for a while, so he has to show the camera. I don't know, subtle difference, might not be worky. But either way we need a moment for him to take a breath and be only in this room now, blank box where anything could happen. One moment to get present.
Then the image of his father comes up.
... I think in the episode he walks in and there's this guy in front of him, but I think I'd need a moment before that, to change realities.
Then Wes gets the first sight of his father.
What's his first reaction?
Would he have seen his father like this before? It seems unlikely. Photos and videos are shown in common use, holos only for special.
And even if: this is life sized. And it's his height.
So the first thing he gets with this version of his father is, this is a man he can look in the eye.
It's a whole perspective shift.
When I watch TNG I get this double layered emotional awareness, remembering who I was and how I felt last time I saw it, and responding to all the characters as the person I am now. Wesley would get that big time in that moment. Last time he saw his father he was, what, six? Tiny kid. And in previous episodes he's said some days he's not even sure he can remember his face. His father in his memory is The Grown Up, but kind of distant and fuzzed out, more of an archetype than a man. So looking at this man he'd recognize him, and his six year old self would have a ton of feelings, so he'd have that awareness, plus the years of loss since then... but he'd also be an 18 year old, officially a grown man, looking another man in the face. Recognition. Age vertigo. Realisation.
And as well as the age, which isn't so very much different from Wes, there's the uniform. Wes could read at a glance what I had to look up - lieutenant junior grade, which is the next rank up from Ensign. This Jack Crusher is not quite a peer, but rather than a whole generation distant he's more like the next step up. So what Wes would realise just on first seeing the man is, this is a man he could be.
And then he runs program.
It's a great speech, full of emotion, probably great to act, could be fun to watch one of the regular characters make to a new born. Except for the thing where it would in TV land mean he's about to die. But this guy is already dead and a one off character to us, so the whole story should be Wesley's reactions.
Opening sentences a one two of emotional whammy: Idea of self as ten weeks old, and then his father saying he wouldn't exist any more by the time Wes saw that message. I don't know, maybe other people can get their heads around being ten weeks old once, but last time mum looked at me and said I looked just like I did when I was new I had this total does not compute moment, because everything that is me, it does not fit back into a baby. Baby was seed of me, but this me, there's nothing but genetics in common. So Wes hearing that... this guy hadn't really met him yet. He'd met this baby that would become him, but he hadn't got to know Wes yet. He's in the room talking to him, but he's a very distant 18 years away. Loss. Distance. And boom, the guy making the message knows it, and for a moment it's like he's predicted his own death, but no, he just knows that 18 years will make different people of them all. So Wes has had all day to get the idea of a message from his father... or not, I know, he could have gone straight there, but that makes it more like picking up the answerphone. I think he'd have built up to it. He's got used to the idea his father will be talking to him, and then he realises, yes and no. He'll feel the no. Losing him all over again.
So this young man says how he doesn't know the first thing about being a father, and I suspect Wesley would identify with that if the thought had ever crossed his mind, but here he'd be confused, because of course your father knows how. So then Jack apologises for all the mistakes, and Wes would just hurt, because he wasn't there to *make* any. And then Jack says just that, that he wouldn't be there. Even in the original plan, he wasn't going to be around while Wes was growing up. But he's not expecting Wes to grieve, he's asking him not to resent Jack... and that's why angry Wes is a good place to start, because of course he does, even if only with that angry twisty part that seems to suck all the energy when you're a teenager and makes you all sweary and stuff.
And that's like the first three sentences. Seconds! You can't write it out and have it keep the emotional flow going. You need an actor. It's exactly the kind of scene which is why I want to do screenwriting and not, er, have to figure out how to make this all be paragraphs and have the same effect.
So it keeps going. Don't resent, maybe you'll understand, maybe you'll want to try on one of these uniforms: said to an 18 year old he wouldn't expect that Wes already earned one of his own. Usually he'd still be in the academy. When Wes walked out in that uniform the first time I was so :-D about it, it was so cool. He saves the ship a lot for years and now he gets it acknowledged. Ensign! Rock! So Wes would be having a moment of uniform-of-win... but the whole thrust of this message is about how the uniform takes you away from your family. Took Jack away from his family, but with Jack as more of a peer than usual, maybe Wes notices, it could take him away from his. It hadn't occurred to him he'd get assigned anywhere but Enterprise, or that the people he's friends with there would not always be there. It probably hasn't occurred to him he could be leaving kids of his own behind, or risking them on Galaxy class ships. Maybe he realises that now. Maybe he's just stuck thinking about how much his father gave to Starfleet, and how little he gave to him. Either way, he's looking at that uniform in a really complex light - as complex as this whole episode has been about following in your father's footsteps: it's the path set out for you, it looks like the right thing, but what has it cost?
And then Jack says Wes will probably be a doctor like his mother.
Do you think that ever occurred to Wes? Or his mom even? And now he hears his father wanted him to follow her. Woah. Moment to wonder if he's doing it wrong this way.
And then there's all that love and snuggles stuff. Which by then he needs like desert water. And it leads up to saying maybe he'll make a better message next time. Except there wasn't a next time. Wes was six when his father died, but the only message that got made was the new baby message. Did he change his mind? Forget about it? Expect that he'd always be there? Get busy with work? We can't know, Wes can't know, and that has to ache like losing him has ached for years. When did he lose him, if Starfleet took him away? How does he feel right then?
Turned around and lost and hurting.
And then his dad says 'I love you', and Wes goes for the hug...
... and the holodeck disappears the message. Ghost. Empty.
Sad!
I can get all that from the speech, there's like acres of emotion and years and careers and all wrapped up in there, but from watching?
Is one of the moments I'd rather watch in my head I think.
:-/
It's not where the episode ends. We have that whole :-( sad bit, but then Picard comes home to Enterprise, and Work has snuggly parents who feed him from afar, and we have :-) again. And then it ends with Rene out in the garden looking up at the stars, and "Let him dream."
... and that's when I started crying.
... yeah, I know, but we're all that kid, right now. Humanity is that kid, right now. Dreaming about starships. And it seems further away with every decade.
Plus, I have seen later films. It's really damn depressing if you've seen later films.
So then I get on the internet and get all analytical.
... I don't know why anyone would want to read all this. Eh, I had interesting unfolding it.
no subject
Back when even the movies were made, the storytelling impact of DVDs still hadn't been realized, so they probably didn't realize they'd created a funny-aneurysm-moment with Rene. If they had . . . they would've probably still done it. TPTB are a pretty callous bunch overall.
~