Relating to Characters: Part I
The premiere of The Rise of Skywalker (2019) nears. Scuttlebutt around plot leaks are discouraging. One of the scariest is that test audiences laughed at how easily Rey disposed of the Emperor. Sigh. Even if that’s not true, or it is true but has been corrected, I’m not expecting much. Disney’s Star Wars movies have featured an array of unrelatable one-dimensional characters. They have no depth and take no real journey (unless, like Rey, it’s to discover who they are). They’re flash and style with little substance. Just because these characters belong to an extraordinary sci-fantasy premise doesn’t mean they have to be unrelatable. You can create relatability in characters…
Old Friends and New
I wrote last week that I would also talk about the crew behind Little Diva Rising, so I’ll start with the person who kicked everything off: Tony Nicholas. In 1977, my family moved into a new house – only four other families lived in the street. Several months later, another family moved in across the street – Tony’s. He was about a year older than me, but as kids we bonded and had the same sense of adventure and imagination and temerity – the typical way kids look at and experience and challenge the world. Tony was always a fan of the fight genre – particularly Bruce Lee, whose mystique…