legionworld | Movie Night VI: Direct to DVD

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Movie Night VI: Direct to DVD

Who| Wash and anyone who wants to join
What| Movie night!
Where| The same lounge it's always in
When| After Time Ripples, Mind Slayer, and Wash Dies At The End
Warnings/Notes| Yet another classic!

It's been an odd few weeks, to say the least. Wash barely waits to be out of the hospital before he heads to the lounge to set up a movie night. He's had a request for a classic, and he'd managed to get in an order for the film before everything had gone batshit insane, so it's already arrived and he's just about ready to go.

The usual snacks and drinks are set up, along with a few mugs and goblets that are a little closer to theme. There's also the usual sofas and couches, draped with blankets and with bean bag chairs strewn around around the room. The usual sign hangs outside the door, with the movie's MPAA rating and a brief summary of the movie's plot, along with the usual note: Movie night is neutral territory.

The movie tonight, of course, is The Princess Bride.

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America's here because she got an invite. Because, obviously, people want meat. No matter how much Wash objects and insists it's for everyone, she's pretty sure that's the only reason she's even considered for these events.

Afterwards, she's left scowling. Talk about a disaster of the movie. "So, the corrupt Prince gets to live as the King, his Princess is captured by people he can claim were agents of Gilder, and Buttercup's stuck with a man who's killed dozens of people because, as we know, The Dread Pirate Roberts leaves no survivors. But it's fine because they kissed."

The Judge spreads her hands and twists around in her seat to glower at some random soul. "Is this what passes for a happy ending?"

This, right here- this is exactly why North is sitting near America, and he smiles to himself as he watches her interrogate her immediate perimeter, nursing the last of the coffee he'd brought to keep himself awake through what he'd heard was a love story of some kind of another. He'd been pretty sure that the real entertainment would be seeing her reaction to the thing, and as always, she does not disappoint.

"What can I say, romance is subjective." He gives a lift of his eyebrows, curious under the bemusement. "What do you think should've happened?"

She scoffs and crosses her arms, scowling at the credits. It doesn't seem like there'd be a mid or end credits stinger to improve things, either. What a waste of hard drive space.

"What do I think should've happened?" She glances up at North. Even sitting, he's taller than her. Still, he's opened the floodgates. "There's a lot of problems with the movie as a whole, but I'll ignore them to focus on the ending. First, I think Buttercup should have had a drokking spine instead of being such a stupid, pathetic waste of air. She's an embarrassment of a female character who could have been replaced with a golden idol or some other inanimate object for all the difference she made in the plot. Here she is, the queen of Florin. She's got a helpless, self-admitted mass murderer who's famous for never leaving survivors and who she knows for a fact has killed one person in his quest to bed her. As well, he's already struck her across the face once. That's assault. Presumably a crime, and doubly so if they have any laws about touching their royalty."

If anyone thinks she wasn't calculating prison sentences in her head during the film, they don't know America very well.

"So. A helpless murderer. By Mega-City One Law, she should just call the guards, but in a more feudal society I'd imagine she has the authority to order or carry out executions on her own. I would have had her kill the Dread Pirate Roberts and announce his death publicly, ending his reign of terror across the high seas for good. Any other imitators can be called just that." She holds up a second finger. "The matter of Prince Humperdinck. She knows that he's a corrupt prince. He claimed to have killed Westley, but failed to do so. We could call that murder, but I've already established that as ruler of his realm he has the authority to do so. She doesn't know he intends to kill her or that he set up the entire kidnapping. However, she does know that he can't have good things in mind for her, given how he was rushing her wedding and the fact that he outright lied to her about killing Westley. The best thing for her to do in that situation is wait, kill Humperdinck when he comes in to greet his wife after fighting off the 'intruders' and claim that Roberts and Humperdinck had slain each other in combat, leaving her to rule the kingdom with much less corruption now that Humperdinck and Count Rugen aren't actively trying to brew up a war through her murder."

"As for the two mercenaries, Inigo and Fezzik," America waves her hand dismissively. "It's unfortunate, but the guards really can't contain them at all. I don't see a way to have them captured without throwing away lives, so they'd have to escape. Inigo, at least, gets his happy ending, even if it's entirely a criminal matter, and Fezzik gets to nurse his boyfriend back to health. Again." She pauses, considering something for a moment. "Are we sure this isn't just a subtle way for Washington to announce his preference for larger men?"

You're going to have to forgive Garrus for eavesdropping, but given that he's occupying the chair only a few feet to the left, it can't really be helped.

That being said ... he likes the way she thinks. He came away from the movie with a lot of the same gripes - maybe not to the same extent, he still has a little joy left in his heart - but the same gripes nonetheless, particularly when it came to Buttercup and Humperdinck.

To the surprise of no one who actually knows him, he's perfectly fine with Inigo getting his happy ending.

"Can we watch that version of the movie instead?" Garrus says, only half-joking, gesturing towards America.

All parties present will have to excuse North, as from the parting line he's laughing helplessly into his hand, peeking at Wash for all of half a second, and going into a second peal of laugher that has him red in the face by the time there's a vote of confidence for America's revisions.

"I have to agree. That's definitely a better Buttercup," he finally manages, keeping his eyes valiantly trained away from the Washington-and-company side of the room. "But what's the tipping point? Where does she go from pining over this guy to being willing to kill him?"

Garrus gets a nod. Seems like she's not the only one who had problems with this movie.

"The second she realizes he's been making a game of mocking her with the idea of him as a petty form of revenge for marrying a prince after he's been 'dead' for years." Because come on. "And definitely after she remembers he hit her during said mockery."

Edited 2017-07-07 19:52 (UTC)

"Not to mention the fact that he's at the very least an accessory to possibly hundreds of murders based on the reputation Dread Pirate Roberts has built up," Garrus adds in.

"Call me crazy, but I think wondering whether or not he's the same farmboy she used to know is a pretty reasonable reaction even before he put his hands on her."

"Hopefully this means she doesn't throw herself down the hill." North can get behind Big Impressive Gestures, when there's even a semblance of a point to them. But buying a fresh coat of bruises and risking bashing your head open on a rock when there's nothing close to a need for it? That's idiotic. And their friend here (whose height and face still has North's spine prickling adrenaline-ready and his trigger finger itchy, even though he intellectually knows he couldn't possibly be sitting an arm's length from an Elite picking holes in the plot of a romance-adventure film) - he has a good point.

"I mean, you're right. Even if he used to be Westley, he isn't anymore."

"Maybe more of a controlled roll. Even if Humperdinck is tracking her, and she still believes he truly loves her enough to do so at this point, she doesn't know that Inigo and Fezzik are dead. Just that they might be. And given her probable lack of survival training, it is probably best to stick close to the man who wants you enough to return after years of being away. At the very least, he's not going to kill her right off the bat. Besides, if he can track her through the open sea, up the Cliffs of Insanity, and through as much space as the three assassins can put between them, she obviously can't slip away on her lonesome."

She shrugs. Sometimes survival means playing along.

"Honestly, I don't see why most of the rest of the movie shouldn't play out as it did before. It's best not to aggravate him and, with Humperdinck being the greatest tracker in the land and having horses, it's only a matter of time before they catch up. Therefore, it's best to stick close to Roberts." She pauses, then nods to Garrus. "Who used to be Westley, yes. I don't think any of us walked away from our first kills unchanged."

Except maybe Kubo. But he's special.

"Besides, if she doesn't get the promise to let Roberts go from Humperdinck, how would she find out about his treachery without him killing her first? Because, let's be real. She's not winning in a fight against him."

"Though it would make it a hell of a moment if she gets the drop on him later," Garrus muses after nodding his agreement all throughout America's list of suggestions. "Not to mention it would go a long way towards making this her story."

Which, maybe it wasn't meant to be - especially as it stands right now - but it should be. Most of the plot revolves around her, she should get to be a part of it at the very least.

Shockingly, Kubo nodded along with most of this.

"He shouldn't have hit her," is all the input he solemnly gives. "I don't understand THAT part either."

"I think he's trying to keep up his cover as the Dread Pirate Roberts for as long as possible. Though . . ." He shakes his head. There are things he doesn't want to think about - things he can't fix right now anyway, if ever, though they shadow his words a little all the same. "If you think you love someone but you're willing to do that, something's gone wrong. You can't just call it a love story at that point."

He'd mostly been benignly bored and inattentive through a lot of the romance and relationship parts, but they're right. Buttercup should be angrier.

"What's the drokking point?" She pauses, then glances at Kubo. "Pardon the language." And then she focuses back on North. "But there's no one around. Just him and the woman he supposedly loves. Why would keeping up the charade of being Roberts matter at all? If anything, if he'd told her right off, she wouldn't have struggled against him."

Granted, for the vision of a political thriller that she and Garrus seemed to be building up to, prolonging the reveal as long as they did would probably go for the height of drama. She pauses, considering, then glances at Kubo, then the alien. "The problematic slap aside, as stupid as he was for doing so, I suppose drama demands it. If he told her right before being captured, her head might be swimming too much to protest for his life. If he told her at the beginning, the woman we want her to be would probably realize just what sort of monster she's dealing with early on. This does give her a precious bit of time to process the truth of the matter without getting too far into realizing what it means to be the Dread Pirate Roberts."

Robbie had been listening to the conversation from the start, but he hadn't wanted to out himself as a book nerd and, to be honest, hadn't wanted to provide America with ammunition against one of his favorite movie quote sources.

Only the amount of stuff he's biting his tongue about has reached critical mass. "In the book, Buttercup's a lot dumber. I think they tried to make her as smart as they could, without addressing that plot hole."

He can't stop with just that, though. "And it's heavily implied most of them die in the end."

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Movie Night VI: Direct to DVD

AMERICA

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