street serenade

Cheesy, but adoreable I say.

s e r e n i t y

Yeah but he's verging on creepy in some scenes, so is Bella.
but he does have his adorable moments.

Who else do we not like?

street serenade

This might be a little OT, but, okay, like in most YA fanfics Hamilton's dad is portrayed as very cold and unloving, even though in YA we only see him once and he doesn't seem like that much of a meanie at all. His character gets a lot of undeserved flack, I think.

What do you think about Caroline? I know she gets negative remarks, but I didn't think she was that bad. Especially after she and Scout have that talk under the tree. She could've been all bitter, but she seemed very mature about it.

I still hate Finn, though. Bah. I think it's the hair.

s e r e n i t y

He didnt seem mean in the show, its weird that everyones got this weird and mean dad except Bella and well he's not even her real dad is he?

Caroline is OK, Im not exactly decided about her so far, I havent seen the talk under the tree yet so Ill comment on that when I do but in the episode I did see, she was OK, I didnt see what all the fuss about her was but I didnt hate her.

Hate is a strong word I dislike Finn too, hes creepy and he's only there to try and fill in the father figure type cause the show seems to be seriously lacking that but he just comes across as creepy.

street serenade

One of the running things in YA seemed to be how everyone had some kind of issue with their parentual units. Most of the characters were only children, too. I think all of them except for Bella.

Yeah, Finn's whole cool, hip, with-it teacher schitck just seemed so forced.

s e r e n i t y

Huh weird I hadnt thought of it that way, but then again I mean arent most TV show characters only children? either that or we dont see their siblings. Im thinking One Tree Hill here but then I realised Lucas and Nathan are actually half-brothers

Its like Will says 'Ive got a problem' and hes like 'OMG thats like so cool we have the same problems, I was just like you when I was younger YAYZ'.

street serenade

Yes, exactly!

s e r e n i t y

Its just so cheesy and cliche, I just know it and am able to spot it in movies now everytime someone tells a teacher or someone they look up to their situation is tough, the teacher takes them and shows them how he/she has had the same situation once but overcame it.

Its right up there with the whole 'Because I choose to' line which seems to be the must-have line for movies right now.

street serenade

Oh, my god, what about movies with slow-clap scenes in them? The character is standing in the middle of a crowded room about to make some declaration, terrified they'll be mocked for, and when they finally do the crowd begins to clap slowly here and there until the whole room is full of applause. Ugh, hate that.

What's worse is I just read a book(freaking Time Traveller's Wife, which is supposed to be this epic, serious peice of fiction, but is full of cliches) that incorporates a slow-clap? I can't respect a novelist who resorts to movie cliches. Meh.

What's the 'I choose to' line? Not familar with that one.

s e r e n i t y

Ugh, the slow clap is just awful, from the second they stand up you know thats how its gonna be 'one clap, now the second clap, ... now everybody clap'

Time Travellers Wife, I havent read that one, classics rarely live up to the hype.

Seriously? you havent heard it? lucky you then, its in every single cartoon ever made and in every single action movie with a hero that has both a dark side and light side (Hellboy, Matrix, HP,...) and at the end the villain says 'you have to do this,' or 'now you die' or 'why are you fighting the urges to join evil' and the guy says in a very serious low voice thats supposed to give us this whole feeling of 'wow that was a great realisation he came to' he says: 'because I choose to'

street serenade

Hmm, I've seen the Matrix and Hellboy, but it's been a few years. I forgot those kind of parts.

Ohh, how I love b!tching about movies.

s e r e n i t y

It sure is a great passtime, I like bitching about Iranian movie even more cause those have more cliches in one minute than Hollywood movies have in a whole trilogy

Well its at the end of Matrix 3 and Agent Smith asks Neo 'why do you still fight' or something like that and then something about what the ORacle has forseen and how he cant succeed and Neo says 'because I choose to'
It was cool at first to show how everyone has a hand in their own destiny but now that even cartoons are doing it, its getting old.

Finnegan

Oh wow! A thread I've never posted on. I feel like a male dog who's found a virgin fire hydrant in his neighborhood ...

The YA character I like least is Paige Bennett. A facade of femininity masking emasculating aggressiveness. Why's she there in a show about (Antin's quote) "the perfection of youth"?

I think it's not just to give Scout someone to date while he angsts about Bella. Any girl could have filled that role ... and lots of girls who aren't very nice, and pose no emotional challenge to Bella, could have filled that role.

What's interesting about Paige is that her character seems designed to contrast strikingly with that of another girl with whom Paige never interacts, namely Jake Pratt. Although Paige and Jake both go to the cotillion and are both in the same literature class in YA 4, they never speak to each other. However, Paige, whose sexual aggressiveness belies her French manicure, is the direct opposite of Jake, who dresses as a boy but waits patiently for Hamilton to give her the miracle she needs. It's an example of how YA's superficially distinct Jake-Hamilton and Scout-Will-Bella storylines interact thematically -- how the Scout-Wil-Bella storyline underscores and illustrates, indirectly, the Jake-Hamilton storyline that is the heart of the drama.

A bit of symbolic awareness helps -- Bella falls first for Will's future potential (Scout), then for Will's past (Sean), before starting to realize, when she's with Jake and Hamilton, that she really loves Will's present, changing self.

As another poster has commented, "Bella plays it safe." She won't take risks for love. Again, the contrast with Jake Pratt could not be stronger. And again, the ostensibly "main" storyline that gets the most airtime serves to underscore, by contrast, the "true love" storyline.

(Will's dad is nasty. But I can't view him as a separate character -- Wil's relationship with his dad is so odd that it begs for a symbolic interpretation. I think Will's dad is the part of Will that Will dreams up Rawley to kill. His idealism and his adult complancency literally can't live with each other. And Will's dad is his adult complacency: "You're all the things he'll never be as good as," as Will's mom tells Will in YA 5. Another hint, not quite so explicit, is Will's mom telling him, earlier in YA 5, that his dad has been looking at Will's old trophies -- reminiscing about past accomplishments, not focused on the need to keep growing.)

wolkenfuehlen

I think because there is a severe lack of a girl like that on the show otherwise. Bella and Jake, though very different, both are more the girl next door/one of the boys. Lena falls into that category, too. Caroline really is too perfect/naive. As a viewer back then I really didn't like Paige a lot either (she seemed mostly to fill the need for a female counterpart for Bella in the love triangle), but I quite like now, in hindsight, that she is portrayed as a female teenager who is aware of her sexuality and not just waiting for a guy to sweep her off her feet - she's taking matters into her own hands. Quite an unusual storyline on a teen drama, or any show, really, at least if the character does not end up being the local ****ty character (see: Grace). Could've probably been portrayed a lot better, but then there's the whole limitation to 8 episodes again, so this is as good as it gets, given the circumstances.

I don't want to say I 'liked' Will's dad, but I did think come the end of episode 5 he had turned around a little bit and taken a tiny step towards Will. It would've been nice to see that explored a little more afterwards. (Nevermind that the entire storyline in itself is such a cliché. )