Tuesday, October 17, 2017

Riverdale: Best show to watch right now - a review

RIVERDALE




Fair Warning: this review contains details till season 2 episode 1 so consider this a spoiler warning.

The reinventing of the classic Archie Comics at first seem sort of odd at first as we knew Archie and friend as fun goofy bunch with funny stories.
The show takes a different approach to these classic characters that involves a more serious tone and a plot surrounding a murder mystery.

It is a refreshing take on the classic Archie something that is a change of pace. It's not something new as the comics did started publishing horror stories in recent times with titles like Afterlife with Archie and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina also the upcoming Jughead the Hunger.

Season 1 main plot line focus on the murder of Jason Blossom and we are kept guessing through to the end. the twist and turns keeps you hooked. Moreover the other story lines gets you invested as well. This doesn't shy from tackling social issues like slut-shaming and privilege.


But the biggest driving force and what keeps to interested is the characters and the range of emotions they carry.
Central characters are the people you invest the most in but supporting characters also carry quite a weight.
Another thing that would captivate you is the look and the feel of the show, the entire atmosphere is nostalgic. You could easily think of it as a 80s style if they had the morden technology like cell phones.

The monologues by Jughead are easier some of the best lines from the show. Two friends Jughead and Archie can't be more different from each other as one is a lonesome outsider and other is a popular jock respectively.
And the romance between the main characters is very different from that of the comics; while it starts with the feeling between Archie and Betty and then Archie's attraction to the new girl in town Veronica. But it quickly moves away from that and Betty falls in love with Jughead and Archie after a series of affairs (including Miss Grundy) falls in love with Veronica.

Archie is a player like in the comics but he has more serious moment and real teen problems. To me Archie is not the main guy for me, it as to me Jughead. He carries a lot of the story forward and his romance with Betty is real a treat.

A silent character is Hiram Lodge who was missing from the entire Season 1 and only appeared at the end of episode 1 of season 2.
Could he be the antagonist of season 2? Only time will tell, but even as a mentioned-only character in season 1 he still carried a presence and it would be great to final see him on screen.

Deaths are happening in this show from time to time and these elements keep the show grounded.

Season 2 will introduce Sabrina before she will get her on show on The CW, like they did for Flash on the TV show Arrow. Fans are eagerly waiting for Sabrina to come to Riverdale and start her own show soon.

Riverdale treatment is a good formula and would be interesting for future episodes as well as Sabrina's own show.

Is Deckard a Replicant? Blade Runner 2049



The new movie Blade Runner 2049 doesn't exactly answer this question; Is Deckard a replicant?
This is a long debated question among fans with the unicorn origami, the logic being the implanted memories. The theme of implanted memories does appear, we still don't have any concrete evidence to the age old question.

Still we can speculate and from my point of view Deckard is not a replicant.

Here are my 2 cents:

I was never convinced from the evidence from the first movie as well. The premises is implanted memories of Deckard mean that he is a replicant. However In the first movie we know the memories that are implanted in Rachael are of a real person i.e. Tyrell's niece, where does Deckard's memories come from?

This could be someone who is not mentioned or it could be Deckard's own memories and since he is a Blade Runner his memories have been recorded by Tyrell Corporation.
Now why would they do that and why would it be in the movie.
Firstly we need to acknowledge that Deckard has been forced to do things against his will, like the job of killing the 4 replicants at the start of the movie. So he may had to give his memories since he is an exceptional individual.
Why would they show it in the movie? this could be to imply Deckard is a replicant or it could be just a cool shot Mr. Scott wanted to add.
It could mean that Tyrell had been manipulating Deckard through understanding his memories. By studying his memories Tyrell made Rachael in a way Deckard would be fall in love with her. Thus insuring her survival by not getting retired by him.

Moving to the sequel Blade Runner 2049 it is revealed that it was Tyrell's experiment to give replicants the ability to reproduce as it was discussed between Wallace and Deckard. He goes on to explain how his meeting with Rachael was premeditated by Tyrell to make sure Deckard falls in love with her and make the miracle baby.
Now there is an ambiguity to this logic as it can be argued that, would Tyrell want 2 replicants to make the miracle baby?
To analyse this we have to take into account that the events of the previous movie had Deckard killing runaways and if the purpose of Deckard was to make a baby it would be just logical to have a simple narrative for him to fall in love.
Not to mention these events are what lead to Tyrell's death and he was a highly intelligent being, he would go through unnecessary steps which would lead to his death in his experiment. Also it would make sense to have a hybird of human replicant as the miracle baby as it would have more chances of success.

Hopefully we would get another sequel soon and not decades later and would give us more answers.
Till then we could only speculate.