Ok so I’m gonna go over some shots from the Knights of Guinevere pilot.
First we have this:
It looks to be a prototype sketch of Guinevere. It seems like Orville paid an artist to design her, and he isn’t happy with the product, so he wrote all these notes on the “imperfections” of her design. We can tell these are his notes because of the little “O” next to each of them.
He notes that the small point in her hair feels too “violent,” that her eyelashes are “not symmetrical” and need to be “fixed,” that her pupils should be dilated to be more “appealing,” and he seems very upset at the idea of her even having faint wrinkles. All in all, he seems much more concerned with her design being palatable to the public than he is about preserving the uniqueness of the design.
To me, this is just showing how corporations don’t really appreciate artists’ creations for what they are, and they’re so obsessed with perfection and making a profit that they end up scrubbing all of the humanity and individuality from the art.
Next there’s this news screen:
This is obviously a criticism of Disney. “Live action remake greenlit.” “No one asked for it, so we’re making it.” “This Princess can save herself!” the performative activism, the live action remakes, the endless milking of any creative concept for money… I don’t need to explain how this is a parody of Disney.
First, the background is filled with merchandise and imagery of Guinevere. the computer likely belongs to someone at the company, maybe even Orville himself. Maybe they’re monitoring the public reception of the movie. Or maybe this is just a fan.
Looking at the comments, it looks like this movie isn’t out of the norm. One commenter says “Park planet is creatively dead. I feel so bad for this generation.” Implying that Park Planet used to be creative in previous decades, but it has turned into a soulless corporate money farm. (Yet another Disney parallel.) There’s some other ones and it’s obviously parodying internet comment sections of today, but there’s also a cryptic comment that says “We do not need medicine, to Heal.” I’m not sure what this means, but maybe we’ll find out in future episodes.
regardless of how people feel about this live action remake, they’re all just giving it more attention by commenting on it. And if Park Planet is anything like Disney, it doesn’t care what people are saying about the movie, as long as they’re talking about it.
Then there’s this new poster:
The headline says “Chaos at the Castle!” and it shows someone trying to cut Guinevere’s hair. But it looks like it ended up a lot bloodier. The sneak peek photo in the corner shows what looks like a bloodied Guinevere hand on the floor. Guinevere seems to have been seriously injured by this event, and there is no sympathy for her from the reporters.
I feel like this really drives home the metaphor of Guinevere, as a creative project/idea, literally being brutalized and exploited for views and money. Park Planet does not care about Guinevere, they only care about how they can wring her dry of money. Much like the relationship between many artists and corporations today, including Dana Terrace.
At the top, it also says “Made with 100% rock paper.” I’m assuming sourcing paper from rock is some kind of mainstream environmental standard. Trying to say that they’re being mindful of the environment while poisoning and polluting the planet. A classic corporate move.
Also, at the very bottom, a headline reports “newborn babies turning blue.” This is likely a result of the “blue blood” poisoning that’s going around.
I think this blue lung disease is another metaphor for how the corporatization of art is literally poisoning society. (We see this in the comments on the live action remake, where people are cynical and bitter instead of inspired.) But that’s just my thoughts.
-END OF RANT-
