Encanto's Director Jared Bush Answered More Questions About The Movie On Twitter! (part 1)

THE BOX IS NABOO

That’s it, I’m doing it, I’m writing that stupid meta I’ve had in the works for two and a half years, I’m sharing it with the world. I promised it for last Thursday, my poll was forever ago, but whatever! I’m writing that freaking thing.

(super duper long post, press j to skip)

Enter my rabbit hole.

First thing to establish: the Box makes no sense whatsoever in-universe.

Recap of the context for the “Box” episode (s4e17): Palpatine is planning his own kidnapping. It was never meant to succeed, and while the plan would obviously benefit him (making the Jedi look bad, pushing Anakin closer to the Dark Side, making Republic citizens more afraid -> more docile, etc…) his actual goal is never explained, and it’s weird that he’d go to such extreme lengths for results so minimal that we’re never told what they are.

So Palpatine asks Dooku to kidnap him at the Festival of Lights on Naboo. Dooku hires Moralo Eval to design a giant box-thingy to test bounty hunters to hire the best of them to kidnap Palpatine. Moralo then gets arrested to alert the Republic that something is afoot, and hires Cad Bane to break him out. Obi-Wan - undercover to learn Moralo’s plan - goes with them. They evade capture and go to Serenno, and Bane and Obi-Wan have to pass the box-thingy test. The level of brainkarked logic here… Truly on par with Megamind, Gru and Heinz Doofenshmirtz.

Setting aside the insane plot holes and utterly nonsensical behavior of the villains, the Box itself is moronic from a plot perspective. It’s insanely complex, obviously incredibly expensive and would have taken months (more like years but it’s a short war) to make when it’s not even needed for the dastardly plot! Just hire some guys who have already proven themselves against Jedi! Throw cash at Bane and Embo and a few others! Maybe attack them with your saber and see how they do! 

And after all that, Dooku still ends up trying to kidnap Palpatine on his own. I can’t even… 

So why does the Box exist? Well, apart from giving us a good thrill and being generally awesome to look at, it has actual narrative purpose.

The box is Naboo.

What the Box lacks in plot relevance, it makes up for with its heavily symbolic meaning. It very closely follows Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon’s experiences on Naboo - but only certain parts, which I’ll explain later.

We start with clean, sterile environments, SW’s favored way of showing villainy.

Then we have the protagonists locked in a room as dioxis, a poison gas, pours in.

And then they escape… this way.

(Okay, here the shaft is down, not up. And it’s not a ventilation shaft per say, it’s the designed escape route. Same difference).

We then skip most of TPM (namely, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon discovering the droid army, finding Padmé, leaving Naboo, landing on Tatooine, going to Coruscant, etc, etc) to come back to Naboo and go directly to the lightsabers and catwalks.

(Note: in both scenes, Obi-Wan has to propel himself from a catwalk.)

In TPM and TCW, the catwalks are immediately followed by ray shields

And we finally end with the last scenes. Now, they don’t look the same but they are structurally identical. 

Obi-Wan is faced with a challenge unsuited for his abilities (facing Darth Maul // shooting three moving targets when he’s far more skilled with a blade than a blaster) on a narrow space above a melting pit/pit of fire. 

He first watches someone die failing to complete the task…

 … and has to do it himself, faring much better than expected (holding his own against Maul // shooting all the targets easily). 

He then almost falls to his death and gets saved unexpectedly.

And then there’s the final showdown.

In both scenes, Obi-Wan is angry. And in TCW Dooku eggs him on, banking on his anger. (More on that later.) In both cases though, he centers himself and is able to overcome both his opponent and his own unbalance. But in TCW, he doesn’t go for the kill, because he doesn’t need to. 

The Box, as a literal character-explorator ex-machina, thus shows us Obi-Wan’s growth.  

In TPM, Obi-Wan follows Qui-Gon’s lead. In TCW, he is the leader. He identifies the gas, makes the plans. He doesn’t fall from catwalks anymore - he runs atop moving ones. He doesn’t stay stuck behind ray-shields, he finds the solution. (Btw, how did Moralo know what blood type Derrown the Exterminator was? There was a 50% chance of him dying - thus killing all of the bounty hunters. Was that an acceptable outcome? TCW I need answers!) He doesn’t slay his foes, because he’s become powerful enough, skilled enough and wise enough to survive (and win) without needing to kill.

He’s grown - and, even more interestingly, he’s also stayed the same. In the previous episodes, we see some of the dark aspects of Obi-Wan. How he - like all Force-wielders, all people - could lose himself if he stopped maintaining absolute control.

But in the Box, surrounded by the worst criminals of the Galaxy, the most ruthless, worthless people, he’s still kind and tries his best to keep them alive.

The Box is a reminder and a reassurance for the audience that Obi-Wan Kenobi is still there under Rako’s face. He hasn’t lost his compassion, his restrain. He’s still a Jedi. And he’s an awesome, badass one. 

And now, for what it tells us about Dooku! 

It’s much shorter, don’t worry. Basically, Dooku considers that the best way to pick “the best of the best” of the deadliest people in the Galaxy is making them go through what killed his Padawan. There, I’ve broken your hearts, you’re welcome. 

More seriously, Dooku is a manipulative ass. It’s pretty clear that he knows Rako is Obi-Wan, or at the very least suspects it. 

He has an interesting reaction upon learning Rako’s identity, he keeps praising him despite his usual distaste for low-lifes, he smirks secretively after Eval says “I’ll show you who’s weak” (not included there because it’s a close-up of Dooku’s lips and no one wants to see that) and he tells Rako he’s very disappointed when he doesn’t finish off Eval.

[Later]

(Look at this smug asshole - I can’t. YOUR GRANDSON IS THE BEST, WE KNOW, STOP ACTIVELY RUINING HIS LIFE ALREADY.)

(Dooku… why…)

Now obviously Dooku couldn’t have made the Box specifically for Obi-Wan, because it would have to have been designed months before the Council ever decided to send Obi-Wan undercover, but he has no qualms trying to use it to push Obi-Wan to the Dark Side. Ffs Dooku, making your spiritual grandson relive one of the most traumatic events of his life on the off chance that he’ll join you and (desecrate his Master’s memory in doing so) is not okay!

Final tidbits of analysis: I mentioned that not all of TPM is mirrored in the Box. What’s omitted is the droids (even though Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon fight B1′s and droidekas between the dioxis and the ventilation shafts) and anything pertaining to Sidious (all the political stuff on Coruscant). You’ll also note that the fake lightsabers are orange.

=> The Box distances itself from anything that connects Dooku to Naboo. Red lightsabers are the trademark of the Sith, so they’re not used. The bounty hunters will be facing Jedi, so logically the fake sabers should be green or blue - but no, they’re orange, the color closest to red. It fits with Dooku’s special brand of dishonesty - he always tells bits of the real story but twists them just enough to absolve himself of any fault and to justify his choices. 

(”We can destroy the Sith” -> fails to mention he’s a Sith Lord himself; “the Viceroy came to me for help, that’s why I’m attacking the Republic” -> fails to mention he’s Sidious’ underling and is playing the Viceroy like a fiddle; “Qui-Gon would have joined me” -> fails to mention he’s working for the man who ordered Qui-Gon’s death; “I told you everything you needed to know” -> never said that Palps was Sidious; “Sifo-Dyas understood, that’s why he helped me” -> doesn’t admit to killing Sifo-Dyas right after getting his help)

So we have a twisted version of Naboo, droid-free (as droids are now irrevocably associated with Dooku) and with sabers that aren’t quite red. Keep in mind that Dooku had already fallen by TPM. (We know this because he killed Sifo-Dyas and created the Clone Army - part of Sidious’ plan - when Valorum was still Chancellor, as per the episode The Lost One.) That means Dooku was (in)directly complicit in Qui-Gon’s death. And the Box doesn’t (refuses to?) acknowledge that. 

(Also omitted in the Box are the Gungans and Tatooine. It makes sense, because Dooku probably wouldn’t have the full details regarding those parts of TPM, and would see them as irrelevant if he did. He utterly despises Anakin, and Gungans are the type of people he always dismisses out of hand). 

Anyway, that’s my two cents about the Box. To quote Lucas…

“It’s like poetry. It rhymes.”

Thanks to @lethebantroubadour @impossiblybluebox​ @nonbinarywithaknife @ytoz​ and @kaitie85386​ for voting for this one. Next up is a compilation of the Jedi being casually tactile with each other (because they’re a warm and affectionate culture, dammit).

Also thanks to @laciefuyu​ for giving me gifs I ended up not using ^^; you rock anyway!

friends

Why is Count Dooku's characterization vastly different in The Clone Wars then Attack of the Clones? In AOTC he's all like, "I'm sorry old friend" and "Back down", in TCW he seems to take pleasure in killing Jedi. What happened?

Okay, so I lightly touched on this back in this post where I compare the Dooku we see in the Legends continuity to the Dooku we see in Canon and in this video. George Lucas quotes used as sources can be found at the end.

To start with: there's a dichotomy to Dooku.

On the one hand... he makes good points. His concerns are the same that many Jedi share: the Senate is corrupt, and its representatives are abusing their power for their own selfish needs, sometimes even using Jedi to do so.

On the other hand... Dooku's a Sith. Which means he - like the Senators - is also after power, if not moreso. He's greedy, selfish and ambitious. Sure, he makes good points but he’s part of the problem; he knows it, but he doesn’t care.

More importantly, like Maul and Grievous, the primary purpose of Dooku, as a character, is to show us who Anakin is going to turn into:

An evil, corrupted old man. A prodigal son of the Jedi Order (with closet fascist-leanings) who, in his unquenchable thirst for power, was reduced to being a slave of Darth Sidious.

One of the big differences between Dooku and Anakin, however, is that Dooku was always more politically savvy.

Count Dooku has a public image.

He uses his past as a Jedi to cultivate this persona of a wise intellectual, a rational man with fair and just demands, one who fights for the little guy.

He is the head of the Separatist movement, a charismatic figure known throughout the galaxy for his political idealism, even giving lectures at universities.

But it is just a persona.

I mean, that's probably how he started out, sure, but by the time we see him in Attack of the Clones, Dooku is a Sith Lord, and he's been one for over 10 years, because we know he was going by "Tyranus" while ordering Sifo-Dyas' death and hiring Jango Fett a few months before the invasion of Naboo.

QUICK NOTE: In Canon, Dooku left the Jedi Order 10 years before Qui-Gon’s death. So chances are, he's actually been a Sith for almost 20 years, as we know he was already a darksider 8 years prior to The Phantom Menace because he tried to recruit Rael Averross at the end of the book Master & Apprentice.

Which means he's pure evil.

Deep down, Dooku's the guy we see in The Clone Wars: Darth Tyranus, a ruthless, sadistic killer whose only goal is to destroy the Jedi Order and bend the galaxy to his will.

But the galaxy can't know this, right? They think he's Count Dooku, a kind-hearted man whose beliefs are controversial but ultimately altruistic. Hell, even the Jedi remember him fondly.

So, like Palpatine, he keeps up the facade.

He does this with Obi-Wan, as he secretly tries to recruit him to overthrow Sidious (who Lucas compares to Vader trying to do with Luke in Empire Strikes Back):

He does this with the Jedi, calling Mace "old friend", telling him he's sorry he's about to have them executed.

He plays this charade up to the very end...

... but when Obi-Wan still won't back down, he is left with no choice but to kill him the fastest way he can: with a lightsaber.

A red-bladed lightsaber, in signature Sith fashion. One he’s been careful to keep a secret.

But Obi-Wan's seen it, he's seen the Force Lightning... he's been given a peek behind the curtains, so now he has to die. 

And you see the change in Dooku’s behavior. He starts to taunt Obi-Wan, he’s grinning, there’s a sadistic glimmer in his eye. For a brief moment, he drops the mask and goes to town.

Oh and Anakin joins in, whatever the more the merrier. But then Yoda joins in... and Dooku can't beat Yoda. Crap, he's gonna tell everyone. 

The secret of him being a Sith Lord is gonna get out...!

But this is Palpatine and Dooku we're talking about. Political geniuses, masters of spin and flipping the story. If the secret got out... who cares?

Seriously, who cares if the Jedi know he’s a Sith, now? The war's already started, Order 66 is right around the corner. He won't even bother pretending he's a good guy, with the Jedi.

Him playing the role of the "villain" when facing the Republic also makes it so that the Senate will want to keep the war going until he's captured or dead.

And because they're at war, he can simply wave the fiendish acts the Republic lays at his feet as "slanderous propaganda" in front of the Separatists, they'll just eat it up.

Furthermore, Dooku being his true, ruthless self when engaging with the Republic also has a second perk: it'll make the Jedi look bad.

'Cause the galaxy doesn't really get what a Sith Lord is, they think it's just some Jedi variant. So that's still a Jedi, right?

As such, Dooku's cruel actions and cruelty then feed into the anti-Jedi conspiracy theories about them "starting the war" and the growing distrust that'll make it so that - when the Jedi are eventually wiped out - the general public will just go "good riddance".

Which was the main goal of the entire Clone War conflict.

TLDR:

The guy we see in most of Attack of the Clones is Count Dooku, political idealist, AKA who he presents himself to be.

The characterization we see at the end of Attack of the Clones, in The Clone Wars and in Revenge of the Sith is that of Darth Tyranus, Sith Lord, AKA his true self.

George Lucas Quotes:

About Dooku’s valid points:

“I wanted a more sophisticated kind of villain. Dooku’s disenchantment with the corruption in the [Republic] is actually valid. It’s all valid. So, Chris plays it as, “Is he really a villain or is he just someone who is disenchanted and trying to make things right?”” - Starlog Magazine #300, 2002

“The confrontation between Obi-Wan and Dooku originally was a confrontation between Padmé and Dooku, and it was a political thing. I decided, after seeing the movie, that I didn’t need that scene with Padmé and Dooku, it was in the wrong part of the picture, and this one, with Obi-Wan, would be more appropriate. It would work better if Dooku would actually tell the truth about what’s going on and then create a situation where nobody believed him. And it also allows you to kinda have some sympathy for Dooku in that he carries the sympathies of most of the Jedi which is that the Senate is corrupt and is incapable of carrying out any meaningful actions because they argue about everything all the time.” - Attack of the Clones, Director’s Commentary, 2002

About the similarities between Anakin and Dooku:

“[In the garage scene, Anakin] sort of lays out his ambition and you’ll see later on his ambition and his dialogue here is the same as Dooku’s. He says “I will become more powerful than every Jedi.” And you’ll hear later on Dooku will say “I have become more powerful than any Jedi.” [...] And Dooku is, kind of, the fallen Jedi who was converted to the Dark Side because the other Sith Lord didn’t have time to start from scratch, and so we can see that that’s where this is going to lead which is that it is possible for a Jedi to be converted. It is possible for a Jedi to want to become more powerful.” - Attack of the Clones, Director’s Commentary, 2002

“I needed to get across the point that Jedi can leave the Order, to set up what happens with Anakin later on. Also, in the end when you realize that Dooku is Darth Tyranus, it explains what Darth Sidious did after Darth Maul was killed: he seduce a Jedi who had become disenchanted with the Republic. He preyed on that disenchantment and converted him to the dark side, which is also a setup for what happens with Anakin.” - Mythmaking: Behind the Scenes of Attack of the Clones, 2002

About Dooku’s true nature:

“If you put two Sith together, they try to get others to join them to get rid of the other Sith. Dooku's ambition here is really to get rid of Darth Sidious. He's trying to get Obi-Wan's assistance in that [...] so that he and Obi-Wan could overthrow Sidious and take over. And it's exactly the same scene as when Darth Vader does it with Luke to try to get rid of Sidious.” - Attack of the Clones, Commentary Track 2, 2002

“In the midst of this turmoil, a separatist movement was formed under the leadership of the charismatic former Jedi Count Dooku. By promising an alternative to the corruption and greed that was rotting the Republic from within, Dooku was able to persuade thousands of star systems to secede from the Republic. Unbeknownst to most of his followers, Dooku was himself a Dark Lord of the Sith, acting in collusion with his master, Darth Sidious, who, over the years, had struck an unholy alliance with the greater forces of commerce and their private droid armies.” - Shatterpoint, Prologue, 2004

some arcane stuff again!

wow so cool;;;; 

I wonder if they are able to have a normal conversation, What is it like? From prison to prison. In his view, there is no difference between talon and governments.

Overwatch: Vertigo

“I c-can’t stop.”

더 보기

"Given how important the idea of intelligence is to most people’s vanity, it is critical never inadvertently to insult or impugn a person’s brain power. That is an unforgivable sin." - Robert Greene When I read this sentence, I immediately thought of how Snape's immediate response to James and Sirius's Gryffindor aspirations was to impugn their intelligence, and how - for years and years - they insisted that he was in fact the stupid one, from the insults on the marauders' map (I think "padfoot" called him an idiot?) to the party line they all toed, that the underlying reason for the enmity was that James and Sirius were... good at things. Every time I start getting over how angry the whole thing makes me, something occurs to me that makes me angry all over again. Truly, how dare this impoverished nobody suggest that he might be intelligent, and more intelligent than the two rich purebloods! I wonder how come this is not such a sore spot for Lupin. Meanwhile, whenever Sirius does ascribe intelligence to Snape, it's of the "evil" and "wrong" kind. I gotta hand it to Harry and Ron. They got to age 12 (TWELVE!) already able to live with the fact that someone's cleverer than them and love her all the same. Imagine

Had an idea that max transforms into the shadow monsters sense its part of his own world or nightmare?

ImJustUpToDrawMonsters

so gemma was orpheus all along. when she looked back, called mark’s name, and asked him to come home.. innie mark realized he had no feelings for this woman. if she had stayed facing forward maybe the allegiance to his outie would have won out. but gemma turning around made him hesitate long enough for helly to appear. and when she called his name.. it was game over. eurydice embraced the underworld with open arms.

I'm always shocked when I see canon art where Reed is just... ripped. Like, I fully expect him to have at least SOME muscle (he's been a hero for a long time after all) but then there's art where he's just a svelte muscle man and I'm like W O W

Personally, I prefer my Reed very tall and very, very slender, with like…hardly any muscle at all. Looking very much like the nerdiest professor on Earth. Ben, the former football jock turned test pilot and wannabe astronaut, is the one who should be built like a brick house, even before the cosmic rays, not Reed. I wouldn’t mind buff Sue either — she was a jock in high school and on the swim team, and she has her own pool in the Baxter Building where she swims regularly. And she’s an expert martial artist, trained by Danny Rand himself. So she should have muscles. I just don’t really buy that Reed would, like…work out. Or care about his appearance at all. I don’t know if he even technically has muscles anymore, so working out wouldn’t help him at all anyway. I honestly just HATE IT when he’s really buff — I despise Eaglesham’s Reed (from Hickman’s run), who looks like he has Clark Kent’s body type, which…Reed should never look like that.

This is more like what I picture Reed looking like:

TALL AND SKINNY. YES, THANK YOU.

He CAN actually make his body look however he wants it to, though. So if he wanted to have giant rippling muscles, he technically could fake it. Personally, whenever I see him looking very buff, I imagine he’s doing this:

And Sue, Johnny, Ben, Val, and Franklin are all just giggling quietly to themselves because Reed just showed up to breakfast one morning with bulging muscles out of nowhere. And then they disappear just as abruptly after Sue has a talk with him.