Week 4: Reading from a Position

Wonder Woman was created in late 1941 a superhero and an homage to independent, strong, courageous women.  Like Superman, she has a secret identity and a secret history.  

My Theme Park would be age-appropriate for all family members starting off with the entrance gate having typical Persepolis columns interwoven with beautiful foliage and strong vines.  I would add gold-leafing on some of the sections. Since the graphic novels imply Paradise Island was somewhere in the Pacific my first attraction would be a beautiful boat ride throughout the “island.”
 

The boat will journey all the way to the other side of the Theme Park, so tired guests would not have to walk all the way back.  This attraction would have Steve Trevor’s World War II plane “crash” wreckage in the beginning with crates and vines around it.  As you journey through the misty crystal waters, there will be a “clay baby” area with pottery and waterfalls and mist machines creating humidity.  Some “creatures” would be encountered on this attraction, e.g. Kangas. 

There would be colosseums and training area structures as well as Temples constructed for Artemis, Athena, Demeter, Hestia and Aphrodite.   This is a mellow ride with a few waterfalls and some Centaurs and Pegasus. Exiting the boat left is Paradise Island Café, serving tropical drinks, sweet red wines, Mediterranean Gyros, Spanakopita’s and other Greek-themed foods.   To the right is Etta Candy’s Shop with delicious “Golden Lasso” licorice whips, Primary-colored cupcakes and cake pops and malted milkshakes in a 40’s theme. 

Straight ahead is Zeus’s Fury – a roller coaster mostly indoors.  You start off facing a huge Zeus ticked off with lightning above and cold breezes whipping your hair around, then up it goes, and each car rotates 180 degrees.  During this maneuver, there is an out of control feeling that causes disorientation.  This ride is based upon Zeus making Wonder Woman go into the pits of Themyscira to retrieve his greatest “treasure” – his son.  The coaster dips down and you can see gigantic treasure, an animatronic Hydras and other beasts.  

One interactive ride would be “Spirit of Truth” where you would sit in a domed track car and different “Villains” would make their appearance and  you would “shoot them” with a laser beam and earn points.  I want to embody her character “fighting” classic villains such as Doctor Poison, Cheetah, Ares, Circe, Doctor Psycho and Giganta.

I would also have a Wonder Woman Museum showing the history of Wonder-Woman and highlight some of the “before her time” aspects.  Particularly, her Golden Lasso/ Lie-Detector and some of the Slavery aspects.

Week 3: Reading Mythology True Grit

Week Three: Reading Mythology True Grit

True Grit isn't based off of a real story but rather the author doing a lot of research into Western themes. The landscape is very wild and open large fields and rivers it's a large view and very "American" and open without rules this leaves more room for the narrative like fighting and horseback riding almost like it's an arena. Right and wrong in western movies are also kinda grey. It is in a traditional sense of genre is about morality and law. True Grit makes a point of not really knowing who's good or bad. We as the audience don't know who the hero really is. The genre of Western is a melodrama. Girls aren't typically in western movies as a main character. But the narrative is told by a young 14 year old girl Mattie Ross who has a interesting perspective and point of view of all the characters. My own interpretation is that Mattie is grounded and more mature for dealing with problems in the novel. She seems genuine even if sometimes we don't know if we should trust the narrative. I think she is trustworthy because this is her avenging and getting justice for her father who was murdered. Her character has more of hero intentions and doesn't have a grey area its either black or white for her. She's not as a hateful person trying to get revenge but more of someone who wants to bring justice to the person who murdered her father.

The author wanted the retelling and dialogue to be from Mattie and how she is seeing things and hearing them. In both versions of the movie and novel it feels like there is a ton of dialogue. I like how Rooster and Mattie can relate to each other and he even begins to call her "little sister" and has that line of friendship and family familiarity. We can see Rooster starting to care for her and protect her. We can see they are a duo and and they both show heroic traits like being bold and courageous. They both want to get to their goal and I think this reflects in both the title and the characters. She never questions herself or second guesses, she perceivers and has no regrets for her actions. Opposed to LaBoeuf who's a arrogant and do things his own way. I find him to be a annoying character but I think thats the point. He's just there to balance out the duos personalities. He's always out to prove himself and trying to prove himself. We don't really know his motive for things or whats about him.

Week 2: Storyverses

Week 2: Pride, Prejudice and Prologue
Over the last 2 weeks we read and in class discussed the novel by Jane Austen called Pride and Prejudice. Some first thoughts is that the novel itself I find hard to read, so I listened to a audiobook while following along with the novel. Elizabeth is such a interesting character because she's not really high class and she's so caring about her sister and trying to be true to herself rather than caring about being rich and popular. She is such a cool and nice character and you can totally see the character reflect the author and the personality. I think what's the best part of the novel is the narration. I think it's about people having bad first impressions and why you should really never judge people. Both Elizabeth and Darcy have both faults of being stubborn and misunderstanding each other. Elizabeth's sisters and herself are expected to be married and the plot revolves around trying to marry because there is no one to inherit the house. At the time people didn't marry for love but for money and property. It's why this story translates well to today is that you don't know peoples intentions and their actions being for the good of others rather than their self.

Prologue:

I've taken this class previously last semester and I am learning to become more of a critical thinker and to experience more. Before this I have read and experienced a lot of literature but I'm not an expert. I do enjoy reading in my free time even though I wish I wrote more. When I was younger I always knew I wanted to create compelling stories and characters since it was my main influence into what I wanted to do. As I never was one to make very good grades as far as writing I always loved reading and feeling that connection with either the story or the author.

Week 1 Storytelling

Week 1 Storytelling - The Wife of Bath's Prologue and The Wife of Bath's Tale

Returning to the course, our first assignment is The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and The Wife of Bath’s Tale are what we had to read this week and discuss in class. 

What we know about the story is that it was originally told by the Marriage Group of the Canterbury Tales. It was written specifically by Chaucer Factoids. It is basically a bunch of pilgrims talking about their philosophies on both love, sexuality and marriage. It’s even set in when King Arthur was king.  The prologue is just the narrator, discussing and talking before they tell the tale. It’s giving context to the story that is going to be told, maybe she is relating to the story itself. It’s her interpretation of the story. This is telling us as readers what the storyteller is to the story and how they think. It’s put in here to already set a perspective on the tale.

The story is basically a romance that’s taking place in a medieval time period, in which a knight is punished for not acting… knightly. He knight is ordered to be executed by the court of women. As a punishment instead of dying he has to figure out what women “truly desire” and is challenged to try to find the answer. The knight looks around and tries to find the answers to the questions. The knight ends up finding 24 ladies dancing and tries to approach them, and instead they disappear and it appears to an old lady who offers to help him. After giving him the answer which is giving power and respect to women and after saving his life she wants him to marry him even if she’s old and poor to him. She even tries to rationalize and say that because of those reasons she would never run away or cheat. The knight ends up letting the old lady decide if they should be married. He is giving power to her in this moment. It’s because the Knight became a bit more wise from what happened before, and lets her take control of the situation. After this, he either sees her in a different way or she changes to be young and pretty to the Knight. This is kind of a "happy ever after" scenario. I'm pretty satisfied with the storytelling and how this story is being told and it's theme. I think the most interesting part was the Knight himself and how he became different and grew to be better and learn from what he did wrong.