Listening to soundtrack music right now, and I’m reminded just how impactful a proper death can be in a well-told story. I mean the death of a character that cuts you right to the core, that feels real and makes you think about real life. And, I suppose that’s why death is important in stories; they make us think about real life.
The death of Gandalf, for example is about the loss of our parents and/or grandparents. If the Hero’s Journey is a story form that mirrors our own lives, the loss of the mentor is something that we all must endure at some point. We must face our lives alone, standing on our own two feet at some point, or we will never become the heroes we are meant to be.
The death of Spock, for example, is about much of the same, with perhaps the twist that none of us can truly cheat death. We might get away with it for a while, but never forever. And those who sacrifice themselves for the rest are truly the best of us. Those are the heroes that we never forget, and the ones we so rarely deserve.
I love that Spock’s crew deserved the sacrifice he gave them. They were worthy to succeed him, and we loved all of them the more because of it.
We watched Onward tonight, which is the latest film from Pixar, and I suppose it did deal with death in its own way, but I didn’t have the topic on my mind until listening to the music I am right now 😛 It really was very impromptu. But, it’s true…there is nothing quite like a good death in a story to really make me feel something. It’s rare.
Onward was okay. It should have been much much better with some story tweaks. It could have reeaaalllyyy cut deep. But, as it is, it’s very sweet. For the new “lesser” era of Pixar, it was one of there more solid films of late.
We were going through their recent releases and damn…they’ve dropped off. Big time. The last truly great film they’ve done, at least for me, was Inside Out, and that was like 5 years ago. Oof. Cars 3 was fine, but on the same kind of level as Onward. The last Toy Story was…not good. Finding Dory was almost terrible. Coco was good. That one definitely pulled some heartstrings well, but I had a few issues with that one too that took me out of it.
Inside Out was rather astonishing how good it was. Pixar used to do that to me. On the regular. Just kind of blindside me with how fucking good their movies were. Not any more. It was bound to happen eventually, I suppose. You can’t keep the band together forever, not with that much talent.
But, I still recommend Onward. It’s fun. And very, very sweet.
Night!