thought I'd do this before the fandom gets [even more] chaotic. 3 days to go til the SGE movie officially comes out!!!
â Ella is the name, she/her, PH resident, and older than usual for my main fandom, The School for Good and Evil
â aside from SGE, this is also a blog for the Grishaverse, the Osemanverse, Arcane, The Selection, OUAT, The Owl House, and a lot of Other Things
â you will absolutely not find any Agaphie or Jaric or Raphie content here
â but if you're a supporter of anything Tagatha, Hestadil, or anyone who wasn't mentioned in the previous bullet then u are especially welcome <3
not many people know this about me but I actually rescued twenty children and ten old ladies from a meteor strike with one hand tied behind my back and my shoes on the wrong feet but I don't really talk about it much I'm really humble. beatrix please call me back baby what does he have that I don't
the biggest loss of the sge movie was not having the circus of talents. not because we didnât get to see âgood character momentsâ and âcool and insane fight scenesâ but because we didnât get to hear THIS iconic exchange happen afterwards:
Thanks Paul for literally adapting the otherness came for me, it's much appreciated, bit weird to adapt my whole never!tedros fic without telling me but not complaining đâ
this will be in bullet point but will be quite wordy, and it's just part 1. also not proofread so fair warning! first time giving Actual Opinions and it's just me spitballing but anyone can take it as they wish
listened to the first 4 songs on the OST when it was released, and after watching the movie, the OST still SLAPS
brutal, however, does not slap. as much as I love olivia rodrigo, brutal did not need to be there. and when the ending was okay, the accompanying modern music definitely ruined the okayness. couldnât stand the credits and I watched all of it hshshsjks
costumes overall are so good. some were questionable (that initial theory that Agatha's poofy pink-purple dress in the trial by tale was early on in the movie and that it represented her not fitting into good that well yet? I believed that, and yea I donât think it's symbolising anything now), choices in the makeup department are also questionable (hello Sophie nude lip, cannot get over you + never!Tedros facial scars??)
- but overall, loved them I swear. Beatrix and Millicent were my favourites
somehow the characters were more⊠underdeveloped in the movie than they were in the books. a typical and forgivable choice yes, but why add new *characters* for certain one-liners when you couldâve just given them to the existing, underdeveloped ones?? (Chaddick, hi, Iâm so sorry. you too Reena, Anadil)
uhhhh story progression. or rather, story fragments they chose to take away that I find are actually important to understand the twist later on? i.e. the whole nemesis thing and the Good and Evil rules.
- like yes I totally get that they wanted to be subtle, that they wanted the viewers to be like âoh wow I totally forgot about thatâ but MAN. people will not remember smth that just seems like ordinary Dovey Being Good. and the nemesis dreams & symptoms werenât even mentioned! from a non-fanâs perspective, that one wart was nothing. I dunno I dunno but the impact just wasnât there
speaking of important lines. actually so disappointed âyou were beautiful all alongâ didnât make it. I understand why they didnât dwell on it as it would make the [already 2.5hr long] movie dragging but there probably was some other way that I cannot cite right now
that said, I guess they really wanted to shift the message of the books? from messages about inner beauty and breaking standards, itâs really now focused on their friendship and that gray area between good and evil. which is nice in its own way
hahaaaa I did expect that a lot of class scenes would be cut, but erm. we literally only get 3 classes, and one wasnât that useful. really thought theyâd change the coffin scene into smth else that conveyed the message but guess not. again, dragging movie concerns
how could I forget the point of Sophie being Evil. or was she really? Gavaldon Sophie wasnât that bad. in fact, she seemed like every other teenage girl until she came to the school. her Evil started to show there at least, esp in Room 66
- but that full 180 with Hester. I did not like that. how did they go from Sophie almost killing both Hester and her demon to Hester suddenly being okay with a truce through facials?? just because Sophie got a haircut?? and started being⊠less princess-looking? please
Iâm aware Iâm being too critical and nitpicky now so here are some things I liked
I've mentioned the OST and the costumes BUT OH the set! we've seen it all in stills and trailers but it really is as magical <3 kudos to the set design & production team!!!
Gregor Charming. cute. when I saw/heard his name, I remembered seeing it on the OST but I hadnât listened to it yet. I liked the short character buildup, comedic timings and all, and actually showing the viewers how messed up the school can be with his âexpulsionâ. also it makes the whole Tedros killing the just-mogrified stymph even more jarring for Agatha
Tagatha! adorable babies. I liked their friendship. definitely the same, if not a little more than what was shown in the books. you can really see how Agatha gets comfortable with him, as does Tedros
- cute inside jokes. love that. AND A KISS
- I cackled when Tedros said he loved Agatha at the ball. It was a very book!Tedros move and I approve
Trial by Tale was fair. itâs made more minor and more swift but the point was taken across
Anemone's more complex personality and background BIG YES! You go Michelle Yeoh
I also liiiiked The Never Ball! Sophie turning up as a hag, the whole Nevers become Evers and vice versa, and the fight that broke out between the schools. Very nice, very good, and the modern music here was g
the whole cast really, but Sofia Wylie and Kerry Washington in particular. I love them. The way they portrayed Agatha and Dovey was straight out of the book imo, but they made it their own at the same time. Obsessed.
can't think of anything else atm bc I went out and am tired as heck but would rate 7/10! enjoyed it well minus the qualms I mentioned
that's it for now? will make a pt 2 when I've really processed everything tomorrow
Sophie and Agatha donât need to be a couple to be queer.
I really dislike the rhetoric that if agaphie isnât canon, than Agatha and Sophie are straight. They are both EXTREMELY queer coded as just individuals. (tbh so many of the sge characters are â that series is the gayest fucking heteronormative shit I have ever laid eyes on smh)Â
Letâs start with Agatha, coz hers is the most obvious. That girl is a bisexual through and through. From the start, she is already deemed an outsider by her village; that Randy guy or whatever even says that she âhas no friends and is queerâ. So, from the get-go, Agatha is already different. She also doesnât fit into the conventional notions of femininity. She doesnât like very traditional feminine activities. In the books, she dresses goth as opposed to the very âgirlyâ girls in her village. In the movies, she dresses in a very androgynous/masc style. (also keep in mind that this series is 19th inspired â so what was considered gnc is gonna be different)
When sheâs sent to the school for good, she is forced into roles of femininity that she never had to before. However, as much as she hates it, she still wants to be perceived as beautiful and normal, hence the famous dovey âyouâre beautiful just the way you areâ scene.Â
Now from then on, i wish that instead of deciding to change herself and beecome very feminine, Agatha, decides to accept who she is, and maybe even wears a suit to the dance or smth. Now, alot of people argue that Agatha had to unlearn her internalised misogyny, which she definitely had a lot of; please remember that alot of this misogyny came from never being accepted as the girl that she was in her home town. Once Dovey accepts her and tells her that sheâs beautiful, Agatha is able to feel more confident and secure in gender presentation more than ever while ALSO accepting the girls around her who are more feminine.
Ok, now moving onto Sophie. that girl is the biggest comphet lesbian i have ever seen. Like please, her attraction to men is not geniune in the slightest. Her crush on Tedros was more about securing her status as the princess she always wanted to be, her crush on Rafal was also about status, and the desperate need to feel loved and wanted by somebody. And as for Rhian, I assume she just wanted to feel loved properly after her failed relationships (donât even get me started on hort â she settled for that boy big time and iâm still mad about it).
I definitely think that before the sisters plot she had a crush on agatha (and agatha had a crush on her lol) and later on she was def in love with Nicola â No i will not elaborate (ok perhaps i will but on a seperate post lmao).
Anyways, as much as i wish Agaphie had been canon, I wish at least we got a confirmation that Agatha is bi & gnc (or perhaps nb??) and that Sophie is a lesbian with comphet. They are both so fucking queer coded and we deserved it. Having hope that this is addressed in the movie.Â
Also lets not even get started on Tedrosâ bi coding lol.
Philippines marketing is making everyone else look shit and inept by flying a mini stymph on strings with a banner attached to it around the Mall of Asia arena in Manila. It is incredibly funny and whoever decided to do it is a genius. Fly free
Netflix UK put up a billboard on tottenham court road and said "yeah whatever" and Netflix PH said "FUCK you guys, watch this"
I'm a bit sad that the marketing is Just Ok for the movie bc I feel like there's been loads of missed opportunities :( the wednesday series did like an advertising website for their fake goth school and I was mad as hell bc it felt like something WE should have gotten?! they haven't really leaned into the whole... school thing at all, like?? I thought maybe they could do a yearbook thing, or class photos, or sort of make pisstake private-school style advertisements that have a Oh Isn't The School for Good So Nice* :) (*WE ARE NOT LIABLE IF YOU DIE ON OUR WATCH) vibe, like... stuff like the handbook? Or they could have leant a bit harder on the fairytales thing and ik they'd get Descendants-and-EAH-Comparisoned into next year... but I don't see Descendants having king arthur. bitch. But yeah I find it to just generally be very run of the mill movie advertising and not very inspired, which... yk there's nothing WRONG with it (aside from the mistakes occasionally hh) and bit by bit it's fine (like, the photos for the character posters are great photos, the trailers are well put together, it's nice there's a good tie-in song) but I just feel like it's a bit... lackluster, somehow? and I'm really surprised they haven't pushed harder with the social media side of things-- only having an instagram, and not really posting that often, really surprised me bc you'd have thought for a movie that is aimed at young people they'd have gone in on the socials and gone the whole nine yards, cringe corporate tiktok and twitter and all, but they seem more concerned with billboards and buses, which I find a bit confusing. there's also the frustrating thing that it's nearly all USA-based marketing, or if it's not the US, it's very limited in the UK, and... idk I just feel like there could have been more done with actually like... less expense, in some places? not sure
