and now I need a Mission: Impossible icon
Jul. 29th, 2018 06:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
simplecoffeeI went and watched the first Mission: Impossible film, because of course I did, and...I'm lost. It's a fandom of mine now. I'm in.
I am also very, very drugged right now - it's been a miserable week, allergy-wise - so instead of attempting coherent paragraphs, I'm going to make a list. Things I enjoyed about the first MI film, and specifically the series protagonist, Ethan Hunt:
I am also very, very drugged right now - it's been a miserable week, allergy-wise - so instead of attempting coherent paragraphs, I'm going to make a list. Things I enjoyed about the first MI film, and specifically the series protagonist, Ethan Hunt:
• Turns out the nightmares in Fallout are not a one-off occurrence: Hunt's had a tendency to vivid, messed-up dreams since the very first film. So far, he seems never to have told a soul about them; he shakes them off as normal, they serve no particular narrative purpose, and they're never addressed. They're just there, in his head and therefore on the screen, a part of him only we get to see.
• I adored Hunt's original team. In the few minutes of screentime they shared, they were a family not unlike the marshals in The Fugitive. There's a gorgeously layered moment early on in the film, in which Hunt and Sarah are undercover playing the part of a necking couple, clinging desperately to each other as they hear their teammate crying out in pain over their earpieces, powerless to help. There's so much affection and love there, deep and clearly wholly platonic, and the next several minutes of things-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket utterly destroyed me. Good job, MI.
• Speaking of platonic affection: later on in the film, someone Hunt considers a friend attempts to seduce him. Not only does he not immediately go along with it (as one would expect of a character like this in a film like this): he's obviously extremely weirded out by it. Hell, the camera fades to black on his extremely weirded out expression. Now it is possible to argue they were shooting for 'conflicted, leaning toward accepting' and instead got 'weirded out', but I think this was deliberate - in part because there's a frisking scene earlier that's much more clearly deliberately non-sexualized, and in part because:
• BOY IS HUNT GOOD AT FLIRTING WHEN HE WANTS TO. The interesting part of this is the circumstances under which he wants to. 'Cause it's not when a friend is coming on to him, nor when he has to make sure an agent is clean of weapons and wiretaps. No: it's when he meets a capable adversary who also acknowledges him as capable in his own right. It doesn't hurt that she's a hella foxy older lady, who drives a hard bargain and calls him 'dear boy' while doing so.
okay, so I may have paid more attention to this than I should because 'dominant lady x pretty boy' is a bit of a Thing with me, not gonna lie
• Hunt tends to have a lot of accusations flung at him; comes with the territory, I suppose, since it's happened in both MI and MI: Fallout. What fascinates me about this is that he never responds directly to any of them. People will be like "you're a traitor!!1!" and Hunt will just...sit there. He is not a traitor. You'll either believe it eventually, or you won't. He has better things to do than argue about it. Can he go now? Okay? Good.
• Honestly just the detail about the nightmares would've been enough for me to lose my heart, but there is also the rest of it, and what I'm trying to say is: I've lost my heart. I'm going to eat the other four films up with a spoon.
...I am also, inevitably, idly author-doodling around the idea of a Fugitive crossover. Hunt knows Noah (they're around the same age), and will sometimes show up injured at the marshals' office for a drink and to be patched up between impossible missions. Sam sees 'Noah's friend + injured' and immediately considers him an Honorary Kid. Nobody tells on the honorary kid, 'cause officially he doesn't exist, anyway.
• I adored Hunt's original team. In the few minutes of screentime they shared, they were a family not unlike the marshals in The Fugitive. There's a gorgeously layered moment early on in the film, in which Hunt and Sarah are undercover playing the part of a necking couple, clinging desperately to each other as they hear their teammate crying out in pain over their earpieces, powerless to help. There's so much affection and love there, deep and clearly wholly platonic, and the next several minutes of things-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket utterly destroyed me. Good job, MI.
• Speaking of platonic affection: later on in the film, someone Hunt considers a friend attempts to seduce him. Not only does he not immediately go along with it (as one would expect of a character like this in a film like this): he's obviously extremely weirded out by it. Hell, the camera fades to black on his extremely weirded out expression. Now it is possible to argue they were shooting for 'conflicted, leaning toward accepting' and instead got 'weirded out', but I think this was deliberate - in part because there's a frisking scene earlier that's much more clearly deliberately non-sexualized, and in part because:
• BOY IS HUNT GOOD AT FLIRTING WHEN HE WANTS TO. The interesting part of this is the circumstances under which he wants to. 'Cause it's not when a friend is coming on to him, nor when he has to make sure an agent is clean of weapons and wiretaps. No: it's when he meets a capable adversary who also acknowledges him as capable in his own right. It doesn't hurt that she's a hella foxy older lady, who drives a hard bargain and calls him 'dear boy' while doing so.
• Hunt tends to have a lot of accusations flung at him; comes with the territory, I suppose, since it's happened in both MI and MI: Fallout. What fascinates me about this is that he never responds directly to any of them. People will be like "you're a traitor!!1!" and Hunt will just...sit there. He is not a traitor. You'll either believe it eventually, or you won't. He has better things to do than argue about it. Can he go now? Okay? Good.
• Honestly just the detail about the nightmares would've been enough for me to lose my heart, but there is also the rest of it, and what I'm trying to say is: I've lost my heart. I'm going to eat the other four films up with a spoon.
...I am also, inevitably, idly author-doodling around the idea of a Fugitive crossover. Hunt knows Noah (they're around the same age), and will sometimes show up injured at the marshals' office for a drink and to be patched up between impossible missions. Sam sees 'Noah's friend + injured' and immediately considers him an Honorary Kid. Nobody tells on the honorary kid, 'cause officially he doesn't exist, anyway.
