So I had actually seen the 2015 Disney movie Tomorrowland once before, not long after it came out. I didn't enjoy it very much at the time and, unfortunately, it didn't improve upon a second viewing. The film stars George Clooney as grizzled crank Frank Walker, former child genius booted out of Tomorrowland, a futuristic city in which our betters live. Athena- a robot in the form of a young girl- recruited Frank when he was a child and she now recruits high school student Casey Newton for some obscure mission, entangling the now aging Frank as well. Casey is, of course, feisty, optimistic and- we are constantly assured- smarter than everyone else. A convoluted and meandering plot ensues. I wouldn't say that I hated this movie... mostly I was just irritated by it. The plot is riddled with gaping holes and the film isn't engaging enough to overlook them. In addition, it's a message movie in which you aren't just hit over the head with the message: you are repeatedly cudgeled with it, presumably in the hope of beating you into submission. Ultimately, the film is plodding, plot-challenged, and preachy, presenting an over-simplified view of the world's troubles and a jaw-droppingly fatuous solution to them... the "dreamers" are going to save us from ourselves. Puh-leese. They couldn't even save this movie. Related Posts: Mr. Thornton's disastrous marriage proposal is a serious misstep for all involved. Mrs. Thornton grudgingly encourages her son to declare himself, believing Margaret to be in love with him. The only evidence she has of this is Margaret's behaviour at the mob scene, which she misinterprets. She judges Margaret's motivations for action by her own. While Mrs. Thornton would courageously risk- or give- her life for those she loves, she would never feel compelled to do so for a stranger, or even an acquaintance. It doesn't occur to her that Margaret might have a reason other than love to throw herself in front of Mr. Thornton. Thornton predicts Margaret's response much more accurately, if for the wrong reasons, and doesn't assume that she returns his affections. The events of the strike, however, cause him to prematurely approach Margaret and express his feelings. It's a mistake; up to this point, their interactions have been wary and frequently adversarial, making his proposal seem abrupt and unexpected, leading Margaret to initially assume that he's asking out of a sense of duty. Margaret has slowly been gaining respect for Thornton, though she is still conflicted about some of his opinions, but she is nowhere near ready to receive an offer of marriage from him. She has already shown herself to be awkward in dealing with sudden marriage proposals... embarassed and upset, and then offended by Thornton's demeanor, there was no way Margaret was going to accept him. It is at this low point, though, that we see Mr. Thornton's innate kindness and nobility of character. Disappointed and angry, it would be easy for Thornton to wash his hands of the entire Hale family. Instead, he remains on friendly terms with Mr. Hale and worries about Mrs. Hale's health, doing what he can to provide things to relieve her symptoms. Thornton also insists his mother refrain from speaking ill of Margaret, despite the fact that she has hurt him badly if unintentionally. It is in this section of the novel that we find out what happens in the immediate aftermath of the strike. First of all, it kills the strike because the strikers lose the public's good will when they resort to violence. This is an extremely realistic point. A number of years ago in this neck of the woods, the transit workers went on strike. Public opinion was divided at first, but it took a fatal nosedive when the idiot strikers, during a snowstorm, blocked the municipality's snowplows and refused to let them out to clear and salt the roads. The public is generally pretty tolerant of protest until lives are threatened by it. The strike was settled soon after this incident because the transit workers realized that people had no more stomach for their cause. This is what happens to the strike in North And South. We see the early effects of the strike in these chapters. The millowners and manufacturers are adversely affected as many of their orders are late or unfinished. In the case of Mr. Thornton, this is exascerbated by the Irish hands, whose unskilled work is substandard and must be redone, causing further delay and expense. On the other hand, following the riot over the Irish workers, the masters now have the upper hand with the demorallized strikers. They know the financially strapped workers are desperate to get back to work and are thus able to set terms before rehiring them. The negative impact of all of this on a personal level is clearly shown through the character of Boucher. He is a reluctant participant in the strike from the first, forced into it by the union. Unable to cope with the deprivations suffered by his family because of the strike, Boucher participates in the riot. Now, despised and reviled by both sides due to his actions, he goes to Nicholas for help and is turned away. A weak man but not an evil one, it is impossible not to pity him as he is driven to desperation by a situation not of his making or choosing. The tragedy of Bessie's death is rendered even more sad by the knowledge that her final days are spent surrounded by anger and upheaval. The Higgins' house is the scene of the confrontation between an angry Nicholas and hysterical Boucher after the riot. In addition, Nicholas, one of the leaders of the union, is filled with despair over the failure of the strike. Now depressed and angry, he starts spending time at the local pub, coming home intoxicated. It's in this atmosphere of stress and anger that Bessie's life comes to its untimely end. Related Posts:*My two year old nephew showing the "story" he wrote- he says it's about him playing with his cousins. *Another nephew was roughhousing with his brother and accidentally put a hole in the wall; that night, my sister and her husband found a note from him: *One of my other nephews- who's four- seems convinced that their community is fraught with danger. Recently, my sister took their dog out for a walk after supper. As she was heading down the driveway, the four year old ran out the door and joined her. After a short time, he spoke up: “It’s cold! I wish we were home!” “Why did you come then?” “Because I didn’t want the bad guys to get you!” “You came to protect me?” “Yes! Because I’m the strongest one and I can fight... and bite... the bad guys!” *Another day, my sister was doing her morning Bible reading and asked the same nephew if he wanted to pray with her. He did- he prayed for his older brothers and sisters at school to “get home safely... and to be safe from any monsters trying to eat them.” * One of the nieces detected danger from another direction... at the end of a show they were watching, she commented about the villain: “I knew he was bad the moment I saw him!” “Really? How did you know?” “He has sideburns!” Note to self: A bit of trivia: sideburns derive their name from Civil War General Ambrose Burnside (1824-1881). He certainly had luxurious ones: Related Posts:In 1955, Milton Mayer wrote a book detailing numerous interviews he conducted with German citizens after the war, trying to understand what made them embrace Nazism. He did not interview important, high ranking men, but ordinary, work-a-day, average people who tried to explain what had happened. The quote below is taken from one of those interviews. In light of recent disgraceful remarks and behaviours- not by a few knuckle-dragging neo-nazis, but by elected politicians in both Britain and America- and their colleagues' equally despicable cowardice in dealing with them, I feel that it's an important reminder. “But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D. And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying ‘Jewish swine,’ collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way.” ― Milton Sanford Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-45 Related Posts: Mr. Thornton is upset that Margaret went home, saying that she couldn't have been well enough to travel. Mrs. Thornton says exasperatedly that she seemed well enough and the doctor went with her. Thornton calms down and thanks his mother for going for the doctor. He also tells her that he has to go back out for a meeting with the police, and that he intends to stop at the Hales' on the way home, to see Margaret. Upset, Mrs. Thornton makes him promise not to go to the Hales' house until the next day- using the excuse that it will be too late for Mrs. Hale. Thornton reluctantly agrees. When he gets home late that night, Thornton tells his mother that he is going to the Hales' the next day and will be proposing to Margaret. Mrs. Thornton says that he's pretty much duty bound to, since Margaret made such a public display of her feelings for him. Thornton says that duty has nothing to do with it: he can't help himself, though he can't believe that Margaret might actually care for him. Margaret passes a sleepless night, almost writhing in embarassment over the events of the day. She is pale, drained and tired when she rises in the morning. She is still weak and upset when Mr. Thornton is announced. He attempts to thank Margaret for her actions the day before but, horribly embarassed by the gossip, worried that her parents will find out what happened, and offended that her actions have been misinterpreted, she coldly tells him that she would have done the same for anyone. Thornton is hurt by her icy words and demeanor and responds by expressing his love for her in a rather angry and forceful way. Not too surprisingly, the scene ends in angry words and refusal. It's an extremely dark time for all the characters in North And South; when Margaret goes to visit Bessie Higgins she finds that her health has declined considerably, no doubt aggravated by the drama over the now-ended strike. The strike has ended in failure because of the riot. Nicholas and the other union leaders who advocated peaceful methods are demorallized and angry, realizing that with the violent riot, they lost the public's support and therefore the strike. When a desperate Boucher comes to him for help, Nicholas throws him out of the house, angrily threatening to turn him over to the police himself. Mrs. Hale's health is also failing, and though she has accepted the fact that she is dying, she cannot accept the idea that she will not see her beloved son again. One day she gives way, sobbing hysterically to Margaret that she cannot bear it. To calm her, Margaret promises to write to Frederick in Spain and ask him to come back to England. She does so, and mails the letter immediately before she can change her mind. Later Margaret confesses what she's done to her father, who is glad for her mother's sake but also very worried. If Frederick comes home and anyone finds out, he will be arrested and tried for mutiny. Things are not going well for Mr. Thorton, personally or professionally. He was genuinely devastated by Margaret's icy refusal of his offer of marriage, despite of his hiding it with anger. His mother is far more angry, insulted by the thought that Margaret didn't consider her son good enough for her. Mr. Thornton makes her promise not to speak ill of Margaret, though it's doubtful that Mrs. Thornton will ever forgive her. The strike has made it impossible for Mr. Thornton's mill to meet its deadlines; the untrained Irish hands are slow and much of their work must be redone. Even with the strikers back to work, the orders are unfinished. Added to this, Fanny has gotten engaged and is spending money hand over fist on wedding preparations. Despite these troubles and despite his disappointment and anger with Margaret, Mr. Thornton continues to find and buy fresh fruit for Mrs. Hale, knowing how very ill she is. He also tells the doctor to let him know if there's anything else which Mrs. Hale needs and can't afford. Mrs. Hale is extremely grateful for the fruit, praisinf Thornton to her daughter, which makes Margaret feel very awkward. Her own troubles are driven from her mind, however, when Mary Higgins- Bessie's sister- arrives at the door in tears with the news that Bessie has died. (To Be Continued..)
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