I watched Veronica Mars
16 March 2014 06:54 pm![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
frayadjacentAnd I liked it. Especially Mac's hair. Between that and Jennifer Lawrence's Oscar Hair, I am seriously considering a cut.
I was really dreading the Veronica-Piz-Logan love triangle, and, well, the fact that it existed PERIOD is a minus in my book. But it was less an issue than I'd feared. Basically, my Veronica/Logan feelings are: I like Veronica, I sometimes like Logan, I almost never like Veronica/Logan. I mean, I understand the ways that they are a good match, but it's just not my kind of ship at ALL. Especially since, my first time through, I spent most of S1 utterly convinced that Logan had raped her, and that's not a taste I can get out of my mouth easily.
(When I told people this later, they were surprised by my interpretation, but apparently Jason Dohring intentionally played the car light smashing scene in the pilot episode as though he'd raped her. See: not making this shit up.)
Anyway, I am not overly happy with the shippy ending, but I did like that the movie got Veronica back in Neptune, back doing PI work. Especially when the alternative is corporate lakey. And being far from her dad.
Oh, how I love Keith Mars. How I love their relationship. And Veronica's interactions with Wallace and Mac were golden.
It's interesting to compare this movie with the Doctor Who Anniversary Special, or even with S3 of Sherlock, all of which feature heavy fan servicing. In this case, I was much more the fan being serviced, which really elevated my enjoyment.
Anyway, back to Veronica's decision to stay in Neptune. I guess I wish that NYC vs Neptune, Corporate Lakey vs Underdog PI, could have been more clearly separate from Piz vs Logan. Because I feel like Veronica could have moved back to Neptune, or gone for different kind of lawyering work, without the love triangle business. I mean, when she kept putting off going home, to ME it felt like she was doing it because she cared about the case, and she was being drawn into the work, more so than because of Logan. But I think that's partly just my own wishful interpretation of Veronica -- there are aspects of the narrative, especially the literal Veronica-As-Narrator narrative, that indicate otherwise.
Also, were Piz and Veronica supposed to have been together for a long time? I thought it was very weird that she'd never met his parents.
Did anyone else notice that, at the end, Veronica associated keeping corporations safe from "frivolous" lawsuits with cleanliness? While she associated working as PI to bring down a corrupt police department that frames and brutalizes people of color as part of an active gentrification effort with dirtiness? I feel like that really got at the heart of Veronica -- she mostly works on the side of justice, and she obviously has a solid sense of right and wrong. But in some ways she also just likes to be the underdog, she likes the thrill of PI work, she's smart and she's curious and not afraid of confrontation and that's why she'd rather be "down in the dirt", as much as out of a sense of doing what's right. She's not actually much of a feminist, nor is she really an advocate for social justice. It feels relevant to some of the shitty things she did as a teenager, and it's also why I'm SO GLAD she never started working for the FBI.
Anyway, I really enjoyed Veronica's homecoming, especially with all the minor character cameos and her fun interactions with them. I do hope they make another movie, because I enjoyed this one, and it left lots of room for future development.
Hmm, I do feel like the above post suffers a bit from me having an easier time describing what I don't like than what I like. Really! I liked the movie a lot! I will squee with you if you want to squee! :D
I was really dreading the Veronica-Piz-Logan love triangle, and, well, the fact that it existed PERIOD is a minus in my book. But it was less an issue than I'd feared. Basically, my Veronica/Logan feelings are: I like Veronica, I sometimes like Logan, I almost never like Veronica/Logan. I mean, I understand the ways that they are a good match, but it's just not my kind of ship at ALL. Especially since, my first time through, I spent most of S1 utterly convinced that Logan had raped her, and that's not a taste I can get out of my mouth easily.
(When I told people this later, they were surprised by my interpretation, but apparently Jason Dohring intentionally played the car light smashing scene in the pilot episode as though he'd raped her. See: not making this shit up.)
Anyway, I am not overly happy with the shippy ending, but I did like that the movie got Veronica back in Neptune, back doing PI work. Especially when the alternative is corporate lakey. And being far from her dad.
Oh, how I love Keith Mars. How I love their relationship. And Veronica's interactions with Wallace and Mac were golden.
It's interesting to compare this movie with the Doctor Who Anniversary Special, or even with S3 of Sherlock, all of which feature heavy fan servicing. In this case, I was much more the fan being serviced, which really elevated my enjoyment.
Anyway, back to Veronica's decision to stay in Neptune. I guess I wish that NYC vs Neptune, Corporate Lakey vs Underdog PI, could have been more clearly separate from Piz vs Logan. Because I feel like Veronica could have moved back to Neptune, or gone for different kind of lawyering work, without the love triangle business. I mean, when she kept putting off going home, to ME it felt like she was doing it because she cared about the case, and she was being drawn into the work, more so than because of Logan. But I think that's partly just my own wishful interpretation of Veronica -- there are aspects of the narrative, especially the literal Veronica-As-Narrator narrative, that indicate otherwise.
Also, were Piz and Veronica supposed to have been together for a long time? I thought it was very weird that she'd never met his parents.
Did anyone else notice that, at the end, Veronica associated keeping corporations safe from "frivolous" lawsuits with cleanliness? While she associated working as PI to bring down a corrupt police department that frames and brutalizes people of color as part of an active gentrification effort with dirtiness? I feel like that really got at the heart of Veronica -- she mostly works on the side of justice, and she obviously has a solid sense of right and wrong. But in some ways she also just likes to be the underdog, she likes the thrill of PI work, she's smart and she's curious and not afraid of confrontation and that's why she'd rather be "down in the dirt", as much as out of a sense of doing what's right. She's not actually much of a feminist, nor is she really an advocate for social justice. It feels relevant to some of the shitty things she did as a teenager, and it's also why I'm SO GLAD she never started working for the FBI.
Anyway, I really enjoyed Veronica's homecoming, especially with all the minor character cameos and her fun interactions with them. I do hope they make another movie, because I enjoyed this one, and it left lots of room for future development.
Hmm, I do feel like the above post suffers a bit from me having an easier time describing what I don't like than what I like. Really! I liked the movie a lot! I will squee with you if you want to squee! :D
no subject
on 16/3/14 05:10 pm (UTC)Perhaps Chris is a nice guy IL but I could have lived w/o Piz being the current boyfriend. But overall I'm happy with the movie, and Piz being there isn't my #1 objection or anything.
no subject
on 17/3/14 02:16 am (UTC)Yeah, I noticed that "this whole last year" dialogue when I was skimming through some of the shooting script later, and wondered if they'd cut it or if it was just my bad attention span. I guess it was the latter!
I kinda don't care about Veronica/Piz either way too much on their own. Like most people say, he seems nice, and I honestly remember so little about S3 that that's about all I can say about him. But the fact that they were together means that a love triangle was inevitable. At least both Piz and Logan were mature about it. (As was Veronica.) So yeah, I guess in that light I would have preferred she be single at the start of the movie.
On the other hand, Piz's presence meant that Ira Glass got to do a cameo, which was fun.
no subject
on 24/3/14 08:59 pm (UTC)no subject
on 25/3/14 04:40 am (UTC)no subject
on 25/3/14 12:06 pm (UTC)