RedPiggy's Realizations

RedPiggy

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FRAGGLE ROCK VERSUS DINOSAURS
By Kelly Masters (RedPiggy)

In the mid-eighties, there was a show called Fraggle Rock. Fast forward to the early nineties, and you get the show Dinosaurs. Let’s take a look at the shows that, in a way, are related, shall we?

Fraggle Rock was designed to promote harmony among different cultures, as well as provide a hopeful environmental message. Over the course of four seasons, we find that it is really about Gobo and his personal journey. He begins the series as afraid of leaving his comfort zone, his home, going out into Doc’s Workshop as a desperate necessity to be over as soon as possible. He’s kind of like Ernie of Sesame Street, who dreams of adventure but doesn’t have the spine to explore much farther than his own neighborhood, at least alone. And before I’m flamed for saying that, go watch I Don’t Want to Live on the Moon on Youtube. I don’t pull my opinions out of thin air. At any rate, to Gobo, his home is just his home. He takes most of the environment for granted. Even when the Ditzies, the light and life source of the Rock, start to die out, it’s mostly just an environmental hazard to him (albeit a very dangerous one) that needs to be fixed. He becomes even more cynical as the series progresses, due in part to his realization that his Uncle Matt, his idol in exploration, isn’t nearly the skilled Fraggle Gobo thought he was. When his friends suffer from following Matt’s rules, it’s like his faith is completely shattered. It’s only when he finally learns to sympathize with Doc at the end that he regains faith in his home, and it rewards him by providing him with a magic tunnel that allows him to see his friend.

Dinosaurs, meanwhile, also deals with different cultures and environmentalism. Over the course of four seasons, we follow Earl Sinclair and his family and their personal journeys. Earl frequently feels torn between being loyal to not only his work and his family, but also a tradition of wild and bloodthirsty nature. In this way, he is very similar to Pa Gorg, who also had trouble learning from the mistakes of his family traditions while trying to honor them. His wife, Fran, starts off as homemaker and mother, but later grows into the jobforce, battling discrimination and her own arrogance. Robbie, the eldest child, is the typical Lisa Simpson-esque naïve liberal, who shrugs off tradition even when there is something valuable to learn from it. Charlene, the middle child, starts off as completely shallow and materialistic, but later develops an interest in more profound subjects. In fact, while Robbie was the ultra-environmentalist, at the finale, it is Charlene who vigorously protests the destruction of the bunch beetles. Baby Sinclair doesn’t change a whole lot, though it could be said that he learned to value his family more as the series progressed, even if he remained largely sarcastic about it. Ethyl, Fran’s mom, was ready to die when we first see her, as per dinosaur tradition when she reached seventy-two years of age, but as the series progressed, she not only found much to live for, but also had to deal with the lonely reality of being one of the few “old” dinosaurs around (though the fact she wasn’t hurled off a cliff seems to have made the rounds in Dinosaur society, as eventually we see lots of elderly dinosaurs, such as BP’s mom, which could be a whole ‘nuther article in itself). BP Richfield … well … doesn’t really change all that much, but we do see at least an ounce of a softer side when dealing with his family. In the first episode, BP hires Arthur, a mammal, precisely because he has no home nor family. BP laughs with glee at the thought of hurling his mother-in-law in a later episode. However, his own mother lives to elderly status and has BP wrapped around her little finger, while his daughter is one of the only lights in his dark heart. He’s not like Sam the Eagle, though: BP is vicious and cruel, whereas Sam is just a naïve conservative who truly wants what is good but doesn’t understand much of the country he loves.

It’s been said on Muppet Central that Fraggle Rock should be lauded for its upbeat optimism. Well, it’s more optimistic than Dinosaurs, I’ll grant you. However, I might be related to Boober: Fraggles aren’t optimistic insomuch as they are willfully in denial of how bad their lives truly are. This is a world where there are cave-ins, carnivorous plants, carnivorous animals, Gorgs who want to kill the “pests” in their garden, humans who unknowingly poison their environment, a magical species without which the entire location dies out – sheesh, it’s a wonder Fraggles don’t need to drink constantly to deal with all the danger. It’s a wonder they can get out of bed each morning.

The reason I characterize Fraggles this way is because, if one is truly honest, it’s similar to the cognitive dissonance suffered by the dinosaurs. They are so tempted by the perks of civilization that they tell themselves everything will be okay. Unlike the first show, though, there is no happy ending here. The dinosaurs, we are led to believe in the finale, go extinct. Anything they did to try and help was too little, too late.

I can reasonably pin this shift in mood on the absence of one person: Jim Henson. Good ol’ Jim wanted his worlds to have happy endings, if they had endings at all (as I understand it, he fought tooth and nail not to give the Fraggles an ending, but lost the argument). It wasn’t just his Muppet properties either … Labyrinth and Dark Crystal both go to great lengths to make sure everything’s hunky-dory by the end credits.

And yet, while it could be said that the Henson company changed in mood after Jim Henson’s death, one has to wonder if he is blameless for the shift to pessimism. After all, Dinosaurs was his idea, even the notion that civilization was the cause of all their problems. His projects had started getting darker anyway, and while he tried to counter discomfort with Dark Crystal’s dark tone with more Muppety silliness in Labyrinth, he was definitely trying to go for a more Guillermo del Toro mood towards the end of his life, and was, as I have read in various sources, rather depressed that fans who willingly joined him on his dream in the Muppets and such seemed to balk at following him into darker regions of the imagination. He must have felt like Kermit whenever Miss Piggy ditched the group as soon as a cloud darkened the sky of their dream. But, that’s another rant for another time.

Anyway, another difference between Fraggles and dinosaurs is how they treat other “cultures”, or species. In Fraggle Rock, there’s prejudice and fear, but it’s more like a kid’s discomfort at seeing someone different. It’s innocent ignorance, nothing more. While they do it to lots of different creatures, the Gorgs and the Doozers are the main species that fit with the tolerance theme of the show. It’s only after a couple of seasons are in the hole that Fraggles finally start appreciating the other species for who they are. Dinosaurs, on the other hand, are willfully hostile to both mammals (somewhat understandable as they, unlike Fraggles, are mostly carnivores) and four-legged dinosaurs (who also tend to be herbivores, which is a target of derision in the bipedal carnivorous dinosaur segment of society). There is no “perfect harmony” here. Mammals are continuously on the dinner plate despite the main cast becoming friends with some specific characters and even when Earl agrees with Monica DeVertebrae (an apatosaur) or she gets married to his best friend (a T-Rex named Roy), he never truly accepts her and resents her throughout.

In some ways, it’s hard to determine which approach I like better. I’ll always love the optimism of Fraggle Rock, but Dinosaurs simply seems more realistic. Sometimes, an unhappy ending is just inevitable, though one can choose how one deals with it. Teaching children that there will always be a light at the end of the tunnel is setting them up, in my humble opinion, for a very, very sharp learning curve ahead. It’s like putting a happy face on a failing paper in kindergarten and then wondering why they’re not succeeding in college. It’s like telling a tone-deaf screeching owl they can sing and then watching sadly as the person gets thrown out of American Idol for making ears bleed.

There’s an episode of Fraggle Rock where Red worries to almost Boober-levels about Mokey’s safety as the latter goes on a solitary journey. Others try to tell her that Mokey will be just fine because she just sort of lucks out, basically. That’s a fine summary of how Fraggles get through their day: they just luck out most of the time. For me, the Fraggles don’t learn if nothing is going wrong. Go watch the episode where Red and Boober get stuck in a cave-in. That has to be one of the most powerful episodes in the series, and it’s an early one at that. From my perspective, it’s our struggles that give us strength. Dinosaurs had to struggle far more often and they just simply couldn’t win regardless. However, it can’t be said they truly lost. While it’s arguable whether BP ever learned anything (on the finale, you’d think he’d at least mention his daughter, but he’s too busy counting money alone in his trailer), it seems everyone else in the main cast was stronger by the end. Was it worth it to grow and learn if you’re just going to die anyway?

Yes, yes, it was. None of us are immortal. The Gorgs and Fraggles are long-lived, but even they will die at some point. Sometimes we can’t write our own ending. Sometimes, it’s just a given, but we can write how our characters deal with it. Happy ending or sad ending … in the end, everything ends.

But did you learn from what happened before it?
 

RedPiggy

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Return to Labyrinth: My Thoughts

Well, the mangas are all gone. Four volumes of a sequel by the actual company (as opposed to a fanfic) to breathe new life into the franchise. These are mainly my thoughts about stuff I've been reading in reviews on things like amazon.com.

If Jareth and Sarah don't get married, I'm going to scream.
Spare me. This is basically the loud griping of J/S shippers. They truly believe that Sarah's Disney-esque fantasies should really come true. Let me try to spell it out for the shippers: it ... was ... never ... going ... to ... happen. Jim Henson GAVE you the shippy thing back in the ballroom fantasy scene in the movie. Sarah ... herself ... broke ... away ... from ... the ... fantasy ... because ... there ... was ... something ... more ... mature ... she ... could ... be ... doing. The ballroom scene is the classic stereotypical Disney thing, with a beautiful girl pretending to be older than she is, wearing an impractical dress, dancing the night away with Prince Charming. And yet, the jeering crowd makes you feel like a gang rape is going to occur. Sarah is creeped out when a more "adult" way of looking at it occurs. She FLEES from the Goblin (Pepe Le Pew's School of Sexual Harrassment Graduate) King. And you SERIOUSLY think they're gonna be married? Only in YOUR little bubble dreams, honeys.

And another thing, if Sarah were anything but white, EVERYONE would gripe that the only way Sarah could be happy is to be the love slave of a rich white guy, who manipulates her into thinking that she has no self-worth without him. The Henson company would have been a pile of cinders in walls of flame. Instead, as apparently this truly is the dream of nearly every white girl (my princess fantasies were always a little more action-oriented), everyone's griping that Sarah should value making goo-goo eyes at Jareth instead of being productive.

In other words, be happy that they have feelings for one another. Be happy you get some romance. But the love-slave Cinderella thing is best left to previous generations that brainwashed girls into thinking sex and parties defined their self-worth.

Toby was useless.
So was Teen Sarah. The plot of the entire movie was about Sarah's coming of age, where she had to learn to grow up and value what's truly important in life. Do you ever really get an idea that she truly values Toby? It seems more like "Holy cow -- if I don't find the kid, I'll be imprisoned forever!" Yes, she even jumps about five feet to a platform to "sacrifice herself" for the baby, but in the end, she admits she still needs to invite characters from another world to her house. Uh, yeah. I'm all for the "keep the inner child" thing, but let's face it ... it's the manga where Sarah finally starts acting like a responsible adult. At the end of the movie, after ALL THE WHINING in the theme about how Sarah needs to stop being selfish ... does she invite her new "friends" to kick Jareth's ***? Of course not. She takes all those lessons about working together and throws them into the trash can so that she trade some barbs with Jareth. Yeah. At least TOBY becomes King, tries his best to do the right thing for his new friends, even the ones who don't really like him, and ends up not killing everyone because he realizes friendship is something to be valued. Did Sarah ever rescue Hoggle from something? Did Sarah ever sit down with her new friends and ask them about their lives? No. She was self-absorbed throughout the entire picture. She didn't value her friends enough to learn more about them. She didn't value Jareth enough to admit that the kidnapped baby thing IS HER FAULT. In fact, she never DOES admit it's her fault. Even after Jareth flat out tells her at the end it's her fault, she STILL BLAMES HIM. How mature is that?

No, give me Toby, who can at least ACT responsible.

Sarah deserved to have her fantasies come true.
Like I noted previously, it's the shippers' fantasies, not hers. At any rate, if becoming Queen was so wonderful, why was Jareth willing to watch the Labyrinth and all its residents die? He HATED his job. He was irritated by the goblins in the movie and saw them as cheap sources of entertainment in the manga (at least in volume 4). If even Jareth can't stand the stereotypical fairy tale thing, why would you make Sarah do it?

The movie was way better.
Bull. The movie and the mangas have the exact same moral. Not only that, but as I've noted, we never learn anything about anyone in the movie. We actually get backstories in the mangas. Sarah never fully appreciates the world in which she's thrown. Toby actually goes to the trouble of learning about those around him and how the world works. All Sarah does in the movie is whine about life's not fair. We needed a longer format to delve more deeply into the Underground. You can't do that in two hours in a movie.

In conclusion, I would submit the mangas are actually better than the movie. However, if the Hensons wanted to make a sequel other than the mangas, I would suggest a video game rather than a movie. A movie would just end up with the same flaws as the first film unless you're Peter Jackson and willing to keep everyone in the theater for hours. The beauty of a video game is that with multiple endings and in-game choices, the shippers can get the story they want, the fantasy action folks can get what they want ... they can shape the story to their own whims. People are whining about the mangas because you cannot stay the hand of destiny, and Forbes and Henson were the hands. However, with a well-written video game, the audience can be the hand of destiny and feel more fulfilled.
 

minor muppetz

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Ethyl, Fran’s mom, was ready to die when we first see her, as per dinosaur tradition when she reached seventy-two years of age, but as the series progressed, she not only found much to live for, but also had to deal with the lonely reality of being one of the few “old” dinosaurs around (though the fact she wasn’t hurled off a cliff seems to have made the rounds in Dinosaur society, as eventually we see lots of elderly dinosaurs, such as BP’s mom, which could be a whole ‘nuther article in itself). BP Richfield … well … doesn’t really change all that much, but
But do we really know that the other elderly dinosaurs already made it past 72? For all we know Ethyl could have been a year or more odler than Richfield's mom.
 

RedPiggy

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Actually, that's a good point! I only kinda assumed BP's mom's age based on the fragile way she acted, but naturally that doesn't really prove anything.
 

Redsonga

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I submit that there are many ways to look at the Labyrinth movie, and that S/J shipping does not have to come down to Sarah being a sex slave for him if she was to have picked him. It's all well and good to see Sarah picking her world as the more mature choice but I think that there are stories to be told that are equally mature if she had stayed.
I guess I just think so much is not told that Labyrinth J/S shipping does not have to come down to 'if you think this\like fairy tales you fail women's lib forever' feeling :\. ( when you say best left to previous generations that brainwashed girls into thinking sex and parties defined their self-worth. ) I mean. It just seems a bit harsh...

There is so much not there that I see the manga more as official fanfic and would rather make up my own background stories about why Jareth is so unhappy and exactly what it is he rules etc than take what the manga shows as canon. It has pretty art, but that is about all I take to heart....

Still, I'm not putting down anyone who likes it, just saying it's not for me. If that makes me a blind J/S shipper than I guess I am..But then I always loved pairings where something was a bit less than perfect (Who said being queen\staying had to be wonderful to be worth it anyway? Who knows based just on the movie, what being king or queen really even means besides watching goblins all day? Who sayings that besides 'being' with Jareth Sarah would never be productive or have her say ever again? All we have is what the characters say, and a lot of that is actually lines from a book. (I wonder about that book now, most of all if the whole movie isn't taken as just a dream. Hmmm...) We don't see every side of Jareth or know how much power a queen would have over him in the film, we only get a flash of things.). I don't see Sarah having to be a mindless slave for it to happen is all, and well, writing about the fantasy world is just more interesting to me. I know, I'm weak, but real life can be so...real life :\. I'd much rather write the never going to happen fairy tale, in Laby or FR :\.

All and all I think that Toby (who was basically a blank character they could grow into anything to fit the plot, not saying he is useless or a bad character, he's not) kind of steals the character growth that could\might have happened to Sarah if she had stayed or at least been trapped there for more than...was it not even a day? I think she would have grown, been fleshed out, and been able to end up being just as understanding as Toby given the chance and well, maybe even friendship and something more with Jareth. Who knows? It's just the feeling I get, like Sarah only had a few hours and because of this she was always in the heat of that moment rather than showing the other sides of her....the same with Jareth, really, now that I think of it :confused:
 

Redsonga

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Sorry about the ranting before, I was half awake and sick (actually I still am really) ...

Sarah deserved to have her fantasies come true.

You know, now that I think about it even, that doesn't have to mean that if they come true it would be sunshine and rainbows or misery and suffering. You could really make it into both by fleshing the universe and characters out and not even saying anything in the movie was wrong...
The manga is just one way it could be fleshed out in my POV. A J/S story could just as well be made with the right support of new canon :excited:.
Since the characters and future in the manga were made after the fact I feel like normal well made J/S fanfic has just as much right to be as anything else is all I'm saying :smile:. Some of we J/S shippers do have IQs :wink:
 

minor muppetz

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I can reasonably pin this shift in mood on the absence of one person: Jim Henson. Good ol’ Jim wanted his worlds to have happy endings, if they had endings at all (as I understand it, he fought tooth and nail not to give the Fraggles an ending, but lost the argument).


Are you sure he "fought tooth and nail" and "lost the argument"? Because that doesn't sound like the Jim Henson fans know. Of course I only have the first season set of Fraggle Rock so maybe it was explained that way in the last box set.
 

Redsonga

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Are you sure he "fought tooth and nail" and "lost the argument"? Because that doesn't sound like the Jim Henson fans know. Of course I only have the first season set of Fraggle Rock so maybe it was explained that way in the last box set.
I thought he wanted an ending to :\. I mean, you can have an ending and make it a happy one without ruining anything...
The feeling I got from the last season was that it was planned and the channel wanted more, not less and that is what he was fighting against, more episodes watering it down....
I could be wrong though, but I have all the DVD sets and have seen all the extras:smile:
 

RedPiggy

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It's all well and good to see Sarah picking her world as the more mature choice but I think that there are stories to be told that are equally mature if she had stayed.
I agree. However, in my defense, I've rarely come across anyone who can tell a mature story where she stays. I've read a couple, but most plots seem to be just about Sarah, no matter what age she is in the story, fawning over Jareth, which is 180 degrees away from how she acts in the movie. I don't mind the idea that she grows to love him, but the movie is quite clear she had, at best, a shallow fangirl-type attraction to him, which was utterly decimated by having to face him. She "loved" him while he was merely a daydream in her head, but when she finally saw the reality, she wasn't too thrilled. It's like people who worship celebrities. They don't want to see them as real people. Real people can disappoint.
I mean. It just seems a bit harsh...
*nods* I see how it's harsh. However, keep in mind I'm reacting to stuff like on Jake's website or imdb.com, where most of the flames were the "I'm a little princess" type folks. No one lives that world, and while it's fun to pretend, if one argues that Jareth's kingdom is real, then some reality needs to show up every now and again. I am being harsh to Sarah, but I feel it's still accurate: she never changes. In the movie, there's no concept that she values anything. You can argue that she only tries to get the kid because she's afraid of being blamed for yet another disaster (she IS melodramatic, after all). Sarah, unlike Teen Toby, NEVER tries to get to know her "friends". They are just characters to her. "You may not be much of a friend but ...." The whole movie spends time trying to force this self-absorbed teenager into valuing others, but when the finale finally occurs, she decides to dump everyone and face Jareth herself. Contrast this with Kermit, who admits his strength comes from his friends who believe in him. Even at the end, when Sarah admits she needs them, they are still a bunch of visitors in her life. Yes, she values them more, but it's like fifty cents' worth of love instead of nothing. She's on the road to being an adult, but she certainly never ends the movie like one.
I don't see Sarah having to be a mindless slave for it to happen is all, and well, writing about the fantasy world is just more interesting to me.
It's interesting to me as well. I spent better part of a year I think on Comeback King, meticulously researching for it. However, go over on fanfiction.net and see if not a good bit of stories are basically fantasy porn. Sarah turns into the sexual fantasies of whatever woman/girl is writing the thing. They are, in hindsight, just like Sarah, I guess. However, the point of the movie is that fantasy can be much deeper than slobbering over some guy's body. Lest we forget, Sarah ... rejects ... that ... concept. She doesn't kiss Jareth. She runs from him. I'm all for fantasy, but stories that ignore the most basic parts of her character just ask too much of me.
All and all I think that Toby (who was basically a blank character they could grow into anything to fit the plot, not saying he is useless or a bad character, he's not) kind of steals the character growth that could\might have happened to Sarah if she had stayed or at least been trapped there for more than...was it not even a day?
I agree that Sarah should've had that character development. Unlike Sarah, he WANTS to learn about his peers and surroundings (interestingly, moreso than he wants to engage in his own world). He's different from Sarah. Sarah was happy just to LARP for a few hours, knowing full well that it was an act. Toby seems to live, breathe, and eat the fantasy world. He'd much rather be there (well, up to the end, anyway) than his own world. Sarah is more like Ernie: nice to visit, doesn't want to stay.
I thought he wanted an ending to
Jim Henson had to be "convinced" to let the Fraggles have an ending. The writers claim he wanted it open. Actually, the idea that this "isn't the Jim Henson fans know" seems to ignore a prevalent theme. Labyrinth has an open ending. By the end of Fraggle Rock, plots were clearly being reused and yet still Jim wanted to keep it open. Kermit and Piggy's relationship was always kept ambiguous. The only evidence I can see offhand, that Jim didn't mind endings, is that near death he finally started to imagine Dinosaurs, which involves the futility of civilization.
And this is not meant to denigrate the man. I am a deep lover of his dream. But I'll still calls 'em how I see's 'em. Sarah is a spoiled brat, Kermit's relationship is borderline insulting if not fully so, and you can never leave the magic.
 
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