Here's remade masterpost of free and full shakespeare adaptations! Thanks @william-shakespeare-official for this excellent post. Unfortunately, a lot of the links in it are broken, so I thought I'd make an updated version (also I just wanted to organize things a bit more)
Anthony and Cleopatra:
~ Josette Simon, Antony Byrne & Ben Allen - 2017
As You Like It:
~ At Wolfe Park - 2013
~ Kenneth Brannagh's - 2006
Coriolanus:
~ NYET Alumni - 2016
~ Tom Hiddleston - 2014
~ Ralph Fiennes - 2011
Cymbelline:
~ Michael Almereyda's - 2014
Hamlet:
~ David Tennant - 2009
~ Ethan Hawke & Diane Venora - 2000
~ Kenneth Branagh's - 1989
~ BCC's Part One & Two - 1990
~ Broadway - 1964
~ Christopher Plummer - 1964
~ Laurence Olivier's - 1948
Henry IV:
~ BBC's Part One & Two - 1989
~ The Brussel's Shakespeare Society's - 2017
Henry V:
~ The BBC's - 1990
~ Laurence Olivier's - 1944
Julius Caesar:
~ Phyllida Lloyd's - 2019
~ The BBC's - 1979
~ John Gielgud - 1970
King Lear:
~ The RSC's - 2008
~ Laurence Olivier - 1983
~ The BBC's - 1975
~ James Earl Jones - 1974
~ Orson Wells - 1953
Love's Labour's Lost:
~ Calvin University - 2016
Macbeth:
~ Antoni Cimolino & Shelagh O'Brien's - 2017
~ Ian McKellen & Judi Dench - 1969
~ Sean Connery - 1961
Measure for Measure:
~ Hugo Weaving - 2019
~ The BBC's - 1990
The Merchant of Venice:
~ Al Pacino - 2004
~ Trevor Nunn & Chris Hunt - 2001
~ The BBC's - 1980
~ Lawrence Olivier - 1973
The Merry Wives of Windsor:
~ The Royal Shakespeare Company's - 1982
A Midsummer Night's Dream:
~ Oliver Chris & Gwendoline Christie - 2019
~ City of Columbus's - 2018
~ The Globe's - 2013
~ The BBC's - 1988
~ Lindsay Duncan & Alex Jennings - 1986
Much Ado About Nothing:
~ Shakespeare in the Park - 2019
~ Kenneth Branagh - 1993
~ The BBC's - 1984
Othello:
~ The BBC's Part One & Two - 1990
Richard II:
~ David Tennant - 2013
~ Deborah Warner's - 1997
~ The BBC's - 1978
Richard III:
~ Ian McKellen - 1995
~ Laurence Olivier - 1955
Romeo and Juliet:
~ Simon Godwin's - 2021
~ The BBC's - 1988
~ Laurence Harvey & Susan Shentall - 1954
The Taming of the Shrew:
~ Ontario production?
~ American Conservatory Theater - 1976
~ Richard Burton & Elizabeth Taylor - 1967
~ Mary Pickford & Samuel Taylor - 1929
The Tempest:
~ Gregory Doran's - 2017
~ The BBC's - 1988
Timon of Athens:
~ Barry Avrich's - 2024
Troilus and Cressida:
~ Audio Production
~ This one I found on youtube? - 2016
Titus Andronicus:
~ Anthony Hopkins - 1999
Twelfth night:
~ Texas Shakespeare Festival's - 2015
~ Alec Guinness, Joan Plowright & Ralph Richardson - 1970
Two Gentlemen of Verona:
~ Katherine Steweart's - 2018
~ The BBC's
The Winter's Tale:
~ Antony Sher - 1999 (Warning: they don't have a bear...)
Bonuses:
Time Loop Hamlet! (A personal fav of mine)
Rock Opera Hamlet???
Shakespeare animated tales
The Complete Works Of Shakespeare Abridged comedy
From the original post:
A Midwinter's Tale, about a man trying to make Hamlet.
Russian Hamlet here
Here's Scotland, PA, the 2001 modern Hamlet retelling.
Rave Macbeth for anyone interested is here.
This one is the Taming of the Shrew modern retelling.
The french Romeo & Juliet musical with English subtitles is here!
Here's the 1948 one,
the Orson Wells Othello movie with Portuguese subtitles there
The Choice of Compassion: A Scene Analysis of Aang vs Zuko
should aang have killed ozai?
the age old question. the discourse secondary only to the infamous kat.aang vs zutara ship war. the argument that's been raging for sixteen long, long years and inspired dozens upon dozens of thinkpieces on either side.
so naturally, i'm here to add one more that no one asked for.
now, this debate keeps getting mischaracterized as The Side That Respects Pacifism vs The Side That Wants A Preteen To Commit Brutal Murder when, for the most part, i don't think anyone is really staking their life on the homicide hill. the real issue most people take with aang's arc in the finale isn't him sparing ozai, but rather the deus ex-machina mechanism through which he's able to do so. i agree with that, but i would also take it further to argue that the real problem is that aang's ending is not thematically and narratively consistent with the rest of his arc as set up in the show.
to illustrate this, let's take a look at another scene that plays with similar themes: zuko choosing to save zhao in the siege of the north.
the basics of both scenes are the same: both boys choose, against all logic and common sense, to spare someone who would never show them the same mercy. when it comes down to compassion versus violence, they choose compassion, even at risk to themselves.
but where the siege of the north differs from sozin's comet is that zuko choosing to save zhao is thematically consistent with his arc in season 1, and aligns with where it will go in seasons 2 and 3.
zuko's journey throughout the show is one of rediscovery. he has to find his way back to who he used to be, before his family and his nation warped his perception of right and wrong, and forced him into believing he had to become someone he didn't want to be. it's clear as early as the storm episode that zuko is fundamentally kind, and the person he is now is as a result of being indoctrinated in a culture that perverted violence and cruelty into honour and strength.
in trying to save zhao, the personification of the fire nation's worst qualities and most twisted teachings, zuko turns against the values he's been raised with most of his life and instead chooses to remain true to himself and what he believes is right. it's a triumphant moment because it's zuko returning to the heart of who he is, and who he's truly supposed to be.
and even though his decision may be logically unsound (why risk yourself trying to save someone who tried to kill you?) you don't see anyone complaining that zuko shouldn't have tried at all, because his choice here is a direct - even if brief - resolution to the internal conflict the show has previously established for his character. the narrative consistency of the set-up and payoff allows the audience to recognize the thematic cohesion of this moment in zuko's arc - which is what makes it so powerful and satisfying.
so, the question is: does the same apply to aang's choice not to kill ozai?
the argument supporting aang's decision is usually something as follows: "aang sparing ozai is his way of remaining true to his people and making sure they aren't forgotten. it's a powerful symbol of how he's keeping their culture and beliefs alive even though the fire nation tried to wipe them out."
now that's not a bad argument, in theory. the problem, though, is that if this is the resolution of aang's arc, it has to be a direct response to a conflict established in said arc... and remaining true to air nomad values is not a struggle the show ever set up for aang until the finale.
not once in any of the previous seasons does aang seem to be forgetting his people's ideals, or losing his identity through assimilation, or struggling to reconcile his air nomad beliefs with the ideas he's encountering in this new, changed world. there isn't a long-term, sustained arc about him being worried or concerned about air nomad culture dying out completely, or about taking on the burden of keeping it alive. in fact, the only episode that does reckon with this theme in any capacity - the northern air temple - seems to push the opposite message: that aang should move on and adapt to this changing world instead of remaining mired in the past, and protecting the culture of a people long gone.
(note: i don't like how the NAT episode handled this theme, but for the purposes of this post, we will take it as it was written.)
both zuko and aang are characters whose arcs revolve around change, but if zuko's arc is about moving back to who he truly is, then aang's arc is about moving forward. it's about going from the last airbender to the avatar - about drawing wisdom from different places, about immersing himself in the practices, beliefs and cultures of the other nations, and learning to value them as he values his own.
it's the classic want vs need: what aang wants is to be nothing more than a goofy, peaceful airbender but what he needs is to become a fully-realized avatar, the embodiment of four nations in one. and this conflict is established and re-established repeatedly over three seasons, most especially in his struggle to learn earthbending and firebending, both of which called for him to adopt new perspectives and beliefs contrary to his own.
this is why aang refusing to kill ozai feels so narratively unfulfilling, because it's the complete antithesis of what the show established for aang's narrative over three seasons. the plot point of his absolute pacifism not only comes out of left field (where was this problem when he was going to battle ozai during the eclipse?), it's also incongruous with the depiction of other air nomads in the series (both yangchen and gyatso don't seem to practice absolute pacifism) and with where aang's own arc appeared to be leading.
additionally, it also conflicts with the thematic clash that the aang vs ozai fight is supposed to represent: what was meant to be balance and harmony vs dominance and supremacy now turns into... air nomad beliefs vs fire nation beliefs, which runs contrary to the fundamental message of the entire show. not exactly what you want for the final battle between your protagonist and antagonist!
all of this is not to say that aang should have gone turbo avatar state on ozai and singlehandedly yeeted him into the spirit world. but there were a dozen other ways to handle ozai's end: give him a disney death, let aang learn energybending of his own accord and incapacitate him the way katara took down azula, or - my personal favourite - bring in the spirits in a neat parallel to the book 1 finale, and have ozai's death be a consequence of the imbalance he propagated in the world (i've always felt the avatar being the spirit bridge was a plotline that kinda got shafted in book three, and bringing back someone like koh, for instance, would've slapped).
the point is that for the resolution of aang's arc to be thematically consistent with the established narrative (the validity of this narrative, and whether it should have been different, is another point entirely, but it cannot be denied that this is what the show chose to go with), he needed to place the values and beliefs of the other nations on equal footing with his own, and win because of this willingness to draw from all nations instead of relying solely on his own.
ultimately, remaining true to his compassionate, peaceful nature is not a struggle in aang's narrative the way that it is in zuko's, which is why him choosing to spare ozai doesn't have anywhere near the emotional resonance or satisfaction of zuko reaching out to zhao. meanwhile, the conflict that does characterize aang's arc - being forced to become the avatar - never comes to a meaningful resolution the way that zuko's does. rather, it's thrown out the window in favour of a last minute plot point that robs aang of both agency and development, and destroys the thematic cohesion of his narrative for nothing.
like thinking about the start of 2022, coming off 2021 when max's ruthless driving reputation was a lot more spoken about, and charles was asked if he thinks that max drives too dangerously/too dirty and he was just like :) well i like racing him :) it's always on the limit :) it's a lot of fun :) and he's time and time showed that he can get on max's level at least w2w without crashing the both of them out. kind of a skill issue for everyone else ngl
Thinking about the economic effect of the spinning wheel in Europe and how when the king in the Sleeping Beauty story has all the spinning wheels burned that's not just a gesture. He's forcing his people to either import fabric or rely on drop spindles thereby setting themselves back enormously compared with other kingdoms that presumably still have spinning wheels. He's risking poverty, insurgence, invasion, public nudity. In this essay I will
The Tanith Lee story "Thorns" goes into this in detail, with clothes that have to be tied together because they can't be sewn, and everyone trying to make do with dull tools!
I thought I'd do better but there were just some things that apparently never crossed my dash. However, as a smut writer in good standing, I have to dust my shoulders off a bit at my results.
Hello Aquarium family. It’s with great sadness that we share that our beloved sea otter Rosa passed away today. At 24 years old, Rosa was the oldest resident otter at the Aquarium and one of our most experienced surrogate moms, having raised 15 stranded sea otter pups in her time with us.
While Rosa spent the last few months behind the scenes getting extra special care from our staff, she was the matriarch of the Sea Otters exhibit. Beloved and cherished by millions of visitors and fans of the live Sea Otter Cam, she was instantly recognizable thanks to her blonde head (eclipsed only by Ivy as our most grizzled of kelp grizzlies) and her signature head-all-the-way-back swimming style.
“Rosa was one of our most playful sea otters, and even at 24 years old, she would still be seen frolicking and wrestling with the younger otters when she instigated it,” said Melanie Oerter, curator of mammals. “Rosa was usually found sleeping against the window while on exhibit with her chin tucked tight into her chest and her tail swishing back and forth.”
After being found stranded as a four-week-old pup in September 1999, Rosa became part of the Aquarium family before our sea otter surrogacy program even took shape. Our Sea Otter Program staff raised her by hand for nearly seven months before releasing her to the wild.
Rosa eventually returned to the Aquarium once again in March 2002 when she didn’t take to life outside of human care, and she immediately became a fixture in the formative years of our sea otter surrogacy program as a caring adoptive mother for rescued pups destined for wild release.
She was a delight to work with, though she certainly had her expectations of our staff according to the many Sea Otter Mammalogists who trained (were trained by?) Rosa over the years.
"Rosa was an incredibly smart otter! Generally calm and patient with the staff. However, she could be defiant at times and there would be no convincing her to do something she did not want to do," said Oerter. "She would often just look at us or swim away. I believe she was the one who was really training us all of these years. I certainly learned a lot from working with such an incredible otter. It has been a privilege and to say we will miss her is understated."
Rosa relaxed into retirement from surrogacy in 2019, acting as a companion and cornerstone in the ever-changing raft of otters in our care.
Wild female sea otters live between 15 and 20 years, and reaching the age of 24 is a testament to the exceptional care Rosa received throughout her life from our Veterinary and Animal Care teams. In recent years, she began showing signs of age-related health concerns. In the last few weeks, her health had been deteriorating. After an exam, the veterinary and animal care teams made the difficult choice to humanely euthanize Rosa because those health conditions were compromising her quality of life. She passed away peacefully, surrounded by her caretakers.
Rosa’s legacy lives on both at the Aquarium with our other resident sea otters Kit, Selka, Ivy, and Ruby, and in the wild, where sea otter pups she raised continue to raise pups of their own, contributing to the recovery of their species and their ecosystems along the California coast.
Rosa was an inspiration to millions as a charismatic ambassador for her threatened species while playing a leading role in the story of sea otter recovery from near-extinction during the fur trade. Rosa will be greatly missed by all of us who got to know her over the years.
To celebrate Rosa’s long life, please feel free to share photos and stories of your encounters with Rosa at the Aquarium in the comment section on this post, in her memory and for the staff and volunteers grieving her loss. Thank you all for being such a big part of Rosa’s life. 🦦♥️
