Reviews

Wonder Woman–1

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At last! I finally saw it.

Good luck convincing my family to go see a superhero flick in theaters. The only reason I saw Ragnarok was because they were going to see a different film at the same time. (Save for one sibling who went with me.)

So I had to buy this movie before I could see it.

Now, what did I think?

Well, some of you probably know that this movie has been widely approved by fans and I think also critics, but I’ve seen some negative stuff about it too. So I’ll start with that.

The worst thing aobut this film…it’s too short.

I’m serious, the whole opening part moves really fast, and unfortunately without a whole lot of detail besides setting up the story. I wouldn’t care, (I didn’t with Captain America) if it wasn’t for the fact that the mythological side of it is interesting, and you can’t help but wish you got to know the Amazons better and see more of Diana’s childhood there.

Still, if you want more, that’s a good sign right?

I was sure I’d like them if I had more time in which to do so. But I will say the attire and the scenery were awesome and gave me the correct idea of the island being a paradise. Heck, I’d want to train there.

People’s main problem with the film is that it’s just like Captain America, and its’ just like every other DC (or even Marvel) film to date. It did nothing new.

Well, considering Marvel is using the same plotline in every single one of its films and getting away with it more often than not, does that seem like a fair complaint?

But I’m not here to take sides in this stupid fan base war.

Was it like Captain America? Yes. More so than some people have been willing to admit. There’s a wired evil genius making dangerous weapons and getting help from a god (instead of just a thing belonging to the gods). There’s a ragtag team of unlikely heroes gathered by the main characters to do a mission the authorities think is insane. Wonder Woman goes off alone to do something she was strongly advised against doing in order to save people. She loses someone close to her. And there’s other similarities too.

But. Wonder Woman was already like Captain America in a lot of ways. And perhaps we shouldn’t blame DC for taking a page from the book of more successful writers.

It worked out well for them.

Anyway, originality is not what makes or breaks a superhero film. All superheros are somewhat unoriginal now, if only because there was so many of them back in the early days of their conception. You will never get complete originality for all of them if you have dozens to wade through.

I personally don’t care.

That said, should this movie have tried something new?

Well, I think it did, but I’ll probably put that into part two.

For now I’ll address the plot.

Was it new? No.

Sorry, making it about a woman isn’t enough to make it new. That’s a dead horse to keep beating if you ask me.

But my question is, why does it need to be new?

How exactly do you make an origin story new? They changed enough as it was.

Making the War WWI instead of WWII was an interesting step. But I liked it after thinking it over. One major point of the film is whether mankind is naturally evil or not. Wonder Woman seeing multiple wars gives her a lot more time and a lot more stakes to reckon with when she makes her choices. And that she keeps choosing to be a protector every time gives her the mark of consistency and faithfulness that, honestly, I have yet to see with another of these rebooted heroes.

Think about it, Wonder Woman has seen more terrors, more of man’s own evil, in her life time, than even Captain America, or the Avengers. And yet she has more resolve to do the right thing than the Avengers even have about their own role in the world.

I’ll get more into that later, suffice it to say, I like it.

And making Professor Poison a woman ought to be a progressive enough leap for the feminists out there, since it’s highly unlikely. And not historically accurate.

But I thought it was a good choice because in the past Wonder Woman has fallen into the cliche “blame the men and their pig pigheadedness for everything” attitude. When she came face to face with Professor Poison, there was no way to say that evil and malice and stubbornness are only male problems. They are human problems.

Also, Ares is not a respecter of sexes. he uses either to accomplish his purpose. So apparently, does Zeus.

One of the best things about his movie is how little it even brought feminism up. Or sexism. It was there. But the main focus is on humanity and its failings as a whole. Not what gender you are.

Again, one wishes there was more time to develop everyone’s character. By the end Diana and Steve are the ones we know best. But I felt like there was so much more to know aobut Steve before he was gone.

And yes, Diana and Steve’s relationship was way too fast, but they didn’t have much choice about that. And they did build up to it fairly well. With Steve’s fascination with her being apparent without being creepy. And hers in turn, though hers was more innocent.

I will say I could have done without the whole sexual implications, or discussions. I felt the latter was poor taste when they’d only just met that day. IT seemed forced in for laughs. And later on when another man mentioned being “aroused” by her, I didn’t like it. The fact is, nice guys in the early 1900s didn’t say things like that. To a woman’s face anyway.

But I suppose nice wasn’t exactly what Steve was looking for in his friends at that particular time. SO maybe we can let it slide.

(but it wasn’t necessary, movie, it really wasn’t.)

Other than that I have no complaints. I’ll dive deeper into the meaning in part 2

Until next time–Natasha.

Thor Ragnarok

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Woohoo, I finally saw a Marvel movie in theaters!

Literally, for the first time.

I can see now why people like seeing them on the big screen, it’s just better for that kind of flick. I felt I could see more of what was happening.

Do I recommend it? You bet.

I thought it was a lot better than I was led to believe by the reviews.

The constant joking around didn’t take away from the story, though it did seem a break from Thor’s character, but considering how much solitude and stress he was under, I think anyone would have to adapt, so I could let it go.

And, unlike what I was told via the internet, the movie did take some moments to pause and pull back. Even though funny things still happened in those scenes, the character’s themselves were quite serious and I bought it.

Now, spoiler alert for the rest of what I liked:

The first two Thor films were some of the best MCU films in the franchise, to my mind. And this one delivers a satisfying ending to Thor’s private story. The character arc he’s being going through ended way better than I expected.

You see, in the same fashion as The Lion king, the first movie was about being the true king, and what that means. It means not power, but character; peace loving, but not stupid.

The second film tackles the theme of being willing to give up power and prestige for someone you love. And also being humble and willing to not have the spotlight. It also covers loss, and delves deeper into Thor and Loki’s bother-brother relationship.

After Thor declined the throne in the second movie and we saw Loki sitting upon it, I was fully prepared for a plot revolving around getting him taken care of, and more tricks and more of the same old same old.

I like Loki, but only because I always thought he was struggling with doing the terrible things he did, and I hoped he would turn around. Thor felt the same.

Oddly enough, the very thing fans were mad at Thor for doing in the Avengers (constantly believing Loki would change) we actually miss as he seems ready in this film to finally give up on him. But it was nice to see Thor finally not duped. He arrives on Asgard and immediately figures out Loki is masquerading as Odin. He exposes him in a refreshingly straightforward and speedy way, and then they go to Earth to find Odin and bring him back.

I can’t detail all the things that happen in a very short amount of movie time, so I’ll just say we get some more insights into Loki’s beef with Thor, and the whole world, apparently.

Then we meet Odin, and it doesn’t take the audience long to realize he is dying. (I mean, they’ve been leading up to it since the first film.) When he dies, Thor realizes this means he is king. But there’s no time for that to even sink in, since immediately afterward, Hella, the goddess of death and Odin’s firstborn, shows up. Odin’s life was all that was keeping her back.

Not only that, she destroys Thor’s Hammer. Making Loki freak and Thor speechless. Loki at once summons Heimdall’s portal, but in so doing unwittingly allows Hella to get to Asgard, and she throws both of t hem out of the tunnel and they land on some random planet just between the known and the unknown reality.

That planet was my least favorite part. It was frustrating to see Hella taking over Asgard, and then Thor stuck being tortured and having his hair cut and fighting the Hulk.

But, boy was that part satisfying. Thor finally gets to kick some rear without his magic hammer, and it was awesome. And that’s coming from someone who usually is bored by those fight scenes.

Also, Loki had some of the funniest moments in that part. And more character building ones too. Like how he was actually sad that Odin died, even if he had been angry at him for years.

Thor also comes to understand in part why Loki is angry. After he finds he’s been lied to by his father too, never being told about Hella’s existence till it was too late to stop her. And having so much history hidden from him.

But Thor never hesitates to do the right thing, and even to defend his father, though he admits he wasn’t perfect.

Thor is pretty beat upon in this movie, but his determination to go back to Asgard and save it or die trying never wavers. Even when Loki says it is no use.

And finally, finally, we get to see some of Thor’s well aimed speeches at Loki pay off.

In the epic show down, which was way better than I had expected from the trailer, (And by the way, the Led Zepplin song worked far better than you’d think) Thor finally learns to harness his power without the hammer. Which makes sense, because not even Loki needed a scepter to use all of his powers, so why would Thor? And he starts beating Hella back.

Hella is not a sympathetic villain, but we at least see why she would be bitter at Odin after what he did to her. Albeit she didn’t really give him a choice. I didn’t like her at first, but by the end I decided she did well at being inhuman, but not so much we couldn’t feel a moment of pity for her.

And Loki finally comes back and does the right thing. Without turning it into a trick at the end. (Yay!)

Also there’s Valkyrie, but I don’t have a lot to say about her. If you see it, you’ll have to decide.

Also,  Bruce Banner’s choice at the end struck me as very noble, since he is not even from Asgard, and it was one of the his best moments.

The theme of this movie is change.

Does a change in circumstances change your identity? Or are you a king with or without your hammer, and your title, and your respect?

Do circumstances dictate who you become? Is being the god of mischief all you can ever be, or can you be more?

Can you change?

Can you change you mind after years and years of trying to forget the past?

Can you change from a monster to a hero by your own free will?

Can you?

This movie says you can. And I love that message.

I loved it and I hope those of you who see it will too and forgive the few flaws with it.

–Natasha.

AntMan

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It’s review time again. Yay!

I have watched quite a few new movies of late, but not all of them are worth reviewing, or have a message I think I could dig into. I just watched this film “The Art of Getting By,” Mainly because it had the star of The Good Doctor in it, but it wasn’t very clear or well made.

Anyway, I make no secret of my dislike for the Avengers (I being it up every time I review a superhero film,) so in case you are new to this blog, I am not a Marvel fanatic.

But that’s the reason I actually liked Antman.

Maybe I have thing for superheroes based off bugs. Spiderman, the older version of Black Widow (not the modern one, sorry;) and even the ones based off mammals were some of my favorites.

Antman was acknowledged by the general public to be different form the other Marvel material to come out in the past few years. It’s most like Deadpool and Guardians of the Galaxy. But it’s like Thor in that it works as a stand alone movie.

I’ll sum up the story if you chose not to go see it.

Antman is about Scott Lang, an ex-convict who’s a master thief. Somehow he catches the attention of an old scientist named Hank Pym. (Comic fans know who that is.) Hank has a problem. And old friend and mentee of his has finally cracked part of his code for the Pym particle. Which gives someone the ability to change their size and density. this particle can actually be used in pretty genius ways to wreak havoc, so there is cause for alarm.

Scott is just the unlikely hero Hank is looking for to send in instead of his daughter, whom he doesn’t want to put in danger.

So Scott trains with ants; and Hope, Hank’s daughter; and with the special suit Hank made for the particle.

The particle can also mess with someone’s mind if the don’t have proper protection, which is why the bad guy in this film is so bonkers. (Though he seems pretty sane compared to the other Avenger’s foes.)

So if you like superhero flicks; and micro battles; and weird and vague science; this is the film for you.

All joking aside, even with its obvious flaws in believability, this is a charming movie. It’s funny, and Scott’s development into a hero isn’t hard to buy.

He’s never really a bad guy to begin with, though he is a thief, he wants to go straight. He falls off the wagon, so to speak with a little help from his loser friends. But in the end he decides to take toe more noble course, and her even redeems his buddies into being good guys.

I won’t say his friends were the best comic relief ever, but they got a chuckle or two out of me. And the flashbacks were certainly unique.

Scott’s motivation through the whole thing is to be able to spend time with his daughter. Sort of similar to Drax’es motivation in Guardians of the Galaxy. He does some dumb stuff in order to make that happen faster, but in the end he sacrifices even the possibility in order to save her life and her stepdad’s.

I also had to give the movie points for showing her stepdad to be a good man, who could change his mind, and be noble. Instead of the typical jerk-face stepdads tend to be to our protagonist real dads.

I don’t know if this movie is reaching for a deeper meaning. It doesn’t really have to. No one expected it to be the the big thought provoking film of the franchise. But it has plenty of good old family messages. Like reconciliation, forgiveness, being able to say you are sorry, and giving up things for your family or friends.

It also even works in how the most likely person isn’t always the best one to do something. And sometimes the difference is really in what’s motivating them.

The mentee, whose name escapes me, might have been more likely to become Hank’s successor, but he got too caught up in the power of it and not the principle. Whereas Scott is more freaked by the power, but willing to do it for the principle of making the world safer for his daughter as well as Hank’s.

Another really cool thing was how Scott just naturally became the means for helping Hank and Hope to make peace. He didn’t really try to be that person, he just helped both of them to realize the truth about themselves and each other. Then he made tea. And a guy who can do that doesn’t come along all that often.

Ha ha ha.

Yeah, I know my humor really isn’t helped by me typing out a laugh, but oh well.

It was nice that all the relational healing in this film didn’t feel super rushed, and the people sharing their past didn’t leave the bad taste in my mouth that Bruce Banner, and Natasha’s true confessions did in Age of Ultron.

For the record, I do realize that Natasha’s remarks didn’t mean exactly what they sounded like, but still, ugh.

I also just realized that calling her Natasha is super confusing since that’s my name.

Yikes.

Anyway, so to sum it all up. Antman is a good family movie. IT’s not the most intense, but it is interesting, moving, and one you would be able to rewatch over and over without feeling exhausted. OR super confused because of some god or villain’s antics.

Seriously, what is happening with Loki? Doesn’t anyone in Marvel get that a character endlessly pulling the same crud isn’t development!

I think what makes this movie work is that it does not take itself too seriously, so we can all take it just seriously enough to get the message. But not be rabid fans or anti-fans over it.

And that’s so much better for everyone.

So, until next time–Natasha.

 

 

 

 

 

Wins vs Sins–1

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This may be an old subject with some of you, but I think it’s one of those that has to be revisited again and again.

And that is the subject of positivism vs negativity.

Since studies have shown that the former is clearly better for health and happiness than the latter, most of us have no excuse to be negative. But you’ve probably noticed that that hasn’t stopped the vast majority of people from being negative.

The problem is that it is and always has been a habit to be negative. I know people who will admit that they shouldn’t be that way, but will not put in the effort to actually change their attitude.

I started thinking about this last night, when I was watching a YouTube video (way later than I should have been, but sometimes it happens.) This video was criticizing this other YouTube channel that those of you who are big movie watchers have probably heard of. Cinema Sins.

I happen to have watched a few of their videos myself (what person hasn’t who looks up internet reviews?) I didn’t like them. Not for any of the reasons this guy was listing, but because the channel was hugely inappropriate in its humor. (And I mean gross levels of it. Not just that tongue in cheek kind of stuff.)

Anyway, so I wasn’t super defensive about hearing it criticized. And I thought the video made some legitimate points, but I won’t list them all here.

What I really was thinking about was the point that questioned if these wholly negative reviews were actually good reviews or good comedy.

I want to unpack that idea more than the actual video did, because I think it’s a whole missed discussion opportunity.

Judging both from the comment sections of YouTube, and actual people I’ve heard talk about this, many just don’t see the point of even caring about movie reviews or reviewers, and whether they are serious or not, because, in these people’s minds, movies should not be taken that seriously.

To those people I would say that when kids are kissing frogs and maniacs are planning crimes because of something they saw in a movie, we had better take it seriously.

Even if what we take out of that is that people are morons.

Well, to be fair, many of them are.

But stupidity, in my experience, is almost always taught. It’s not an innate trait of the average person to be an idiot. There’s always a few who just seem to be born without a clue, but usually it’s choices made between childhood and adulthood that shape someone’s intelligence.

Even so, intelligence is not a permanent thing. People can become stupider, they can also become smarter. We used to understand that before IQ tests cam along to tell us those things are set in stone.

So, the charge that movies are playing to the stupidest parts of human nature, and society, should be taken seriously. Because it reflects on us, what we find funny, and what we support.

People like Cinema Sins are right to be disgusted with cinema that is only there to be stupid and “funny.”

I think the dumbest thing anyone can say about movies is that they don’t matter and should not be taken seriously.

That eliminates about a third of the voices on this subject.

So, turning to the other two main opinions on reviews, I want to explain where I am on this.

At first when I started watching negative reviews, I liked it. I was frustrated with plenty of the entertainment out there, and I thought a lot of it was dumb. It was nice to be agreed with by a public source. Plus, it was funny; and I also learned some terms that people use and how movies and shows are typically rated. All helpful and interesting stuff to know for the movie goer who really wants to be careful about their time.

But the problem was, these reviews picked apart movies I did like as well as movies I didn’t. Sometimes I acknowledged they had a point. But other times, like with my favorite movie of all, it was really painful to hear it mocked to dust.

More recently I started seeking out more positive reviews. Cinema Wins, a spin off of the other, makes good review that are all focused on finding the bright side. Another good channel was How It Should Have Ended; which does poke a lot of fun at films, but ultimately they are positive, and just freaking genius some of the time. (If you like that type of humor. I won’t say everyone would like it.)

Now, Cinema Wins is sometimes naively positive about movies. But the guy knows he is, and admits it. Which is why I prefer it to these negative Nancy reviews I’m so sick of. A reviewer of movies should actually want to like movies. Otherwise how can they admit anything is of merit in any franchise?

See, at first it didn’t occur to me that watching movies expressly to find fault was a problem. But once I noticed that I couldn’t enjoy even movies I liked as much anymore now that I had all this negativity going through my mind, I got upset.

I’m not even a big fan of the entertainment industry as a whole. But when I find a gem, I don’t like it being picked apart.

Now everyone will have different standards for what constitutes a good movie. Often I think people go by the wrong things, but that’s because reviews have shifted to focusing on stuff that is minor.

How well a scene is shot, how colorful it is, or how melodic the soundtrack is are not really major things. And nitpicking every line of dialogue, or every element that doesn’t make perfect sense can completely miss the point both of the movie, and of storytelling itself.

When people used to gather around storytellers (like we do around TVs now) it didn’t matter how realistic the story was. The point was in what it meant. Was it a warning? Did it explain something about life? Did it give hope?

What’s ironic is that now, many movies and books actually use this older reason for storytelling telling as a plot point within their story.

Take that briefly popular The Giver book. The whole story turns on the past, the stories as it were, that the Giver shares with the Receiver.

The same thing with Ayn Rand’s little Anthem story. The books and tales of the past end up opening Prometheus’ eyes to the present.

It’s sad that even though this element of storytelling is used, it has to be done undercover, because people will pick the actual book to pieces over little things.

No one would fault the Receiver for accepting what the Giver tells him. (Or gives him. I haven’t actually read the book.) But in the real world, stories aren’t often received so well.

I think I’ll have to make a part two to finish this properly, so until next post–Natasha.

Redeeming the time: X-men style.

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When I did my X-men review, I wanted to go more into Days of Future Past, but I ran out of time. So, here we go.

Honestly, this one was my favorite.

I’m going to jump right in by bringing up the principle theme, split into two different plot lines, of the film.

The theme is Redemption.

First off we learn that in the future mutants are hunted down (so much for the efforts of the X-men in all the previous movies) and so are any humans who side with them or who harbor some early form of the mutant x-gene.

The reason all this happened is not because of Magneto’s heinous acts against humanity, as one might expect, but because of one murder of Mystique’s. Her first ( not her last.)

Mystique was always a pretty rough and seemingly merciless and conscience-less character in the first three films, in the fourth we learn she wasn’t always that way, in the fifth they finally get around to asking “What if she could have been different?”

If they could stop her from murdering the man, Trask, they could stop the war that is killing off all of them.

What if?

There are a couple things that come to my mind when I think about the idea of traveling back in time to save people.

There’s my favorite book, Till We Have Faces, in which the main character thinks that the gods can change the past. At first thinking they do so to make us seem guilty, and later realizing they do so by changing us ourselves into different people.

Then there is that verse in the Bible that says we redeem the time because the days are evil.

That certainly fits this movie’s whole premise.

I don’t believe time travel is strictly possible. But if it were, I would think it was like any other gift, meant to be used to help and to heal, but able to be used to do damage.

There’s plenty of fiction that covers the latter, but this film interestingly enough shows how, even with the best of intentions, someone could still make the future worse than ever by going back. There’s a delicate moment when Future Charles warns the team not to wake Logan up, or there will be a worse darkness than there is now. By which he means that thanks to Erik, the mutants will have exterminated humans.

Now if Logan had not gone back and busted Erik out, that could not have happened.

Actually Erik was mostly useless in the film. He didn’t help convince Raven not to shoot the guy, he didn’t try to change the people’s minds about mutants, he almost sealed their fate.

But I guess it was better for him.

Raven was the most intriguing character to me from the beginning, since I had heard she turned good eventually, but I was constantly frustrated by her poor choices.

What I liked about this film was its disdain of the idea that Raven was meant to kill Trask, and that the War was meant to happen. Of course those terrible things weren’t meant to happen.

The movie admits, through Younger Charles, that Raven needs to have a choice, but it never leaves any doubt that there is only one right choice for her to make.

That’s the thing abut knowing the future, it’s pretty hard to argue with it.

The reason Raven refuses to listen at first seems to be pure stubbornness and resentment of Charles’es attempt to control her; but I think it’s also human nature to deny consequences to our bad choices…why else do we make them?

The theme of redeeming the time comes in strongly in another way, through Logan’s wake up call to Charles himself. We know that before Logan came back, Charles wasted a good portion of those years, and was not there for Raven or for other mutants, as Erik spitefully (and unjustly considering his many betrayals) points out.

But Charles changes that, and redeems his own time as well as Raven’s.

Raven always chose Erik before, he was more intriguing, he had a sort of magnetic personality, even Charles felt its pull though he knew better than to listen to him.

What makes Raven in the end choose Charles is a number of factors.

Partly it’s that she realizes a lot sooner that Erik is not loyal to her, and does not care about her in any recognizable way; as she had thought he did. (By the way, trying to kill someone and then flirting with them when it is too late is sick and only seems charismatic in movies.)

Partly it’s that she is told the future depends basically on her actions. (Which is one thing that does not change oddly enough. People are positioned, they don’t get to choose that, they only get to choose how they use that position.)

But the most important thing that changes her mind is Charles’es persistence, and finally his releasing of her to be who she truly is.

And who she was, he believes, was never the person Erik saw her as, Older Erik admits he set her on a dark path; who she was was not even exactly what Charles himself thought, she was more than that.

When released from those negative expectations, Raven realizes what she really wants, and she drops the gun.

That moment was every bit as epic as it was intended to be, because we know how hard they worked for it.

Raven sees an opportunity to be seen as a hero instead of a villain, and she chooses it. And I personally thought the look on her face when she turns to Charles and Hank afterwards was pure relief.

Raven actually saves her own life by doing this, though no one ever actually told her (in the cut version I saw) that she died as a result of shooting Trask.

Much like another fictional character named Raven (Ever After High), she changes the whole course of history in one moment.

And who knows when any one of us might do the same thing?

Until next time–Natasha.

100_3907

The Good Doctor.

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I don’t know if any of you have heard of the person Temple Grandin. She was a high functioning autistic woman, (actually I believe she’s still around,) she thought in pictorials.

I think we owe her some of our modern understanding of the condition, and also of how people who have it cope with things and overcome their disability.

Unlike with deafness or blindness, no one can really argue that Autism is not a disability. It causes a lot of frustration for the people who have it. I’m sure thy often wish they didn’t. But it’s the way they are and they have to deal with it.

I want to say upfront I don’t see these people as weird, or less then human, as some  have in the past. I see them rather as people who have involuntarily been put behind these glass walls of communication. They can look out, but it’s much harder to get out. And much harder for us to get in.

I want to give a cautious endorsement today to one of abs’s newest shows.

First off, I don’t like abc at all. So this is a big thing for me, but for once I like what they are doing.

The new show is barely a month old. It’s The Good Doctor.

Anyway, the main character of the Good Doctor, Shawn Murphy, is autistic. He is amazingly high functioning, but still very much autistic. He talks with the odd monotone they use, and has to have things a certain way.

Shawn is a doctor (duh) at as hospital in San Jose, California. They were reluctant to take him on because he has a hard time with communication. Which they really stress as important for the patients.

Back when I first started seeing commercials for this show, I was skeptical that the writers would do anything imaginative with it, though I thought it was a good idea.

I don’t know about you, but thanks to the relatives I have who like medical drama shows, I’ve seen quite a bit of Grey’s Anatomy, Bones (not exactly medical, but similar,) and NCIS.

And not one of them stressed communication and patient comfort that I could see. So, yay for San Jose!

Though the hospital has plenty of issues in its inner workings, which I’d like to think are exaggerated for dramatic effect, and not what real hospitals are focusing on, but I have no real knowledge of it.

But even though the authority figures there are concerned with image and increasing their numbers; the live-ins, Shawn, Clair, and Jared, are a tad more concerned with helping people. Especially Clair, who is actually getting in trouble quite a bit for being too nice and not honest enough with the patients.

Shawn has no filter when he speaks, so after he’s hired he steps on people’s toes without realizing why they would have a problem with what he’s saying. He has the gift of thinking in pictures and patterns (like the real life Temple Grandin) so when he looks at the human body, he intuitively understands it far better than the average doctor. He can figure out things in his mind that machine scans can’t pick up on.

A bit like Superman, who can see better with his own X-ray vision, than any X-ray machine can. Because the human capacity is always more flexible and can be improved and honed in time, while a machine can’t correct or stretch itself.

Shawn may have no social skills whatsoever, but his heart is in the right place. He is always striving to make sure the patient is completely healthy.

What I would say this shows gift is is that it understands what you, the audience, are felling watching it. Clair wants to understand Shawn better but knows nothing about how to handle him, so she starts from the ground up. And we feel the same way, trying to comprehend this person, and even though we often get glimpses into what’s going on in his mind, we still struggle with really understanding him.

It makes me wonder if the writers themselves are figuring it out as they go and hoping to better understand Autism because of their efforts.

Actually, I feel like I have almost a unique perspective on this type of thing. At least a different one than anyone else I know has.

Because, whether you have Autism, or whether you just don’t fit into the social mold society has established; it’s your decision whether you will withdraw further than ever and become even more locked into your own mind, or whether you will push the barriers.

Temple Grandin was a real life example of what Shawn Murphy is fictitiously demonstrating. Someone who realized she was different form other people, but knew that didn’t have to stop her from doing something with her life, and also realized that if her needs should be met and understood, then she should understand other peoples.

For example, Temple didn’t like being hugged. (I used to dislike that also.) But overtime she realized what a hug meant to people and she grew to offer them as a way to comfort others.

The more I learn about people with disabilities, the more I’m convinced the actual disability is the one we choose to have.

The introvert only becomes a total recluse when they accept that they can’t function with other people at all.

The person with dyslexia only becomes illiterate when they accept that they can never find a way around their problem with printed text.

You get the idea.

In conclusion, I like this show’s progress so far, I think it might actually accomplish what you would hope its goal is. To help people better understand those who have this condition, and know how to respond to them.

That’s worth making a show for.

Until next time–Natasha.