During the investigation of recent hollers in the Complete Monster thread, it's become apparent to the staff that an insular, unfriendly culture has evolved in the Complete Monster and Magnificent Bastard threads that is causing problems.
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It is not a super high level problem, but it has been going on for years and we cannot ignore it any longer. There will be a thread in Wiki Talk
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What is the Work
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Who is the Candidate and What have they Done?
This will be the main portion of the Effort Post. Here you list all of the crimes committed by the candidate. For candidates with longer rap sheets, keep the list to their most important and heinous crimes, we don't need to hear about every time they decide to do something minor or petty.
Do they have any Mitigating Factors or Freudian Excuse?
Here you discuss any potential redeeming or sympathetic features the character has, the character's Freudian Excuse if they have one, as well as any other potential mitigating factors like Offscreen Villainy or questions of moral agency. Try to present these as objectively as possible by presenting any evidence that may support or refute the mitigating factors.
Do they meet the Heinousness Standard?
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Final Verdict?
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Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 31st 2023 at 4:14:10 AM
J for now, I'll take look at the story and see if I can weigh in but I probably won't be able to post until tomorrow
So heres someone I've been meaning to get too after intially writing him off as a GDV last year, and it is a take on Slenderman, more specifically The Operator, which originated in Marble Hornets (for the record Word of God stated that Slenderman and The Operator are two completely different entities with different goals or methods). This take on the Operator ? Has absolutely no bearing on the canon of Marble Hornets whatsoever for reasons I will exlain later, but the short answer it has major deviations from the characters, and simply reduces him to a Serial Killer.
Always Watching: A Marble Hornets Story is advertised and presented as a spinoff supposedly set in the same universe as the show, despite so many condradictions and deviations from the lore, and no real connections to the web series save for a handful of easter eggs. The plot centres around Milo, Sara and Jake, a news crew caught in an unnessecary love triangle as they investigate the dissapearance of a family, and find themselves being haunted by the same figure that terrorized the family.
Also Angus Scrimm a makes a surprise cameo as a survior of the Operator.
Who is the Operator ? What does it do ?
An In Name Only version of the Operator of the series, the Operator here is depicted as a and compared to in-universe Serial Killer who brands it's targets and victims with the Operator Symbol, and posesses people into killing eachother (I'll explain why that's a deviation later). It is introduced in a sequence at the begining where it chases down a couple, and posesses the boyfriend just before they escape and has him kill the girlfriend. As for the plot itself, our trio of protagonists learn that the Operator is responsible for the dissapearance of a family, and uncover a series of tapes leading up to their dissapearance. We go back and forth between the news crews story and the familys story. So in cronological order...
The Operator first made its appearance known to the family, when their father Dan bought a camera, implied to be from Alex Kralie from the series, and tape over his "student film" of "some kinds chasing some guy in a suit through the woods with a flashlight". Unfortunately for them, that man in the suit has been showing up on camera in the background watching his family. He gradually becomes paranoid that someone is stalking his family, but no one believes Dan because the figure only appears on camera (another deviation), and he is soon marked by the Operator, and later his entire family is marked as well. They come to the conclusion that they have to flee their house, explaining why they dissapeared. The family goes across a couple states and hide in an isolated cabin in the woods (the most obvious place to hide from a Slenderman esque entity). Unfortuantely for them, it's not the house that's haunted, and Dan finally becomes fully possesed by the Operator, who has him smother his young screaming daughter Tara to death, much to his wife Rose's horror. He tries to strangle Rose to death, but she kills him in self defense. In fear and despair, she douses the house with gasoline and sets the house on fire with herself inside, but unfortunatley for her, she barely survives the fire, but is subsequentally institutuionalized as a Broken Bird.
As for the News Crew, they discover the families tapes, and Milo is put in charge on analyizing the tapes. Initially thinking this is the work of a mundane Serial Killer, they plan to get to the bottom of this mystery (as opposed to sending any tapes they find to the police) Milo soon finds he's been marked by the Operator, that's been showing up in his apartment. He tries to warn Charlie and Sara about what's happening to him, but they don't belive him until they see the Operator through the camera and he starts to attack them. They flee across states to find where the family is hiding , only to discover the burning wreck of their house and the last of the tapes hidden in a bunker. While on this trip, they theorize possible weaknesses for the Operator, and decide to turn their cameras off so as to not to see him. The end result ? While they are sleeping in their van, the Operator breaks into the van, kills Milo's beloved dog and leaves behind his signature as a taunt.
They track Rose down to an institution - where Angus Scrimm makes his cameo and is intially mistaken for the Operator from a distance - and she's still the wreck she is after her house fire, and get no answers from her, but since the Operator is seemingly isn't after her, she must have done something to stop the Operator, which they think is killing her husband. As the Operator advances on them at their cabin, Milo gets the idea since he was the one who got the Operator's attention like Dan did, then he has to kill himself to save his friends, so he hangs himself on the spot...only for the Operator to possess and forcibly reanimates Milo into a zombie, and butchers his friends. After Milo kills Sara, the Operator drops his corpse like a puppet.
Continuity Snarl Issues ? Now like I said, this film has no baring on the character of the "main" Marble Hornets series, nor the series as a whole. This film is totally stand alone and self contained. It does not continue or expand on the lore or story, in fact outright deviates from it in a number of ways. And I am gonna explain why now...
-adjusts nerd glasses-
This film, despite being billed as a spinoff, has fuck all to do with Marble Hornets besides a few easter eggs. It's not connected to it story wise, and the only returnng character is The Operator and that's In Name Only.
First lets talk about the use of the "Operator Symbol" - in the actual series; the Operator symbol isn't created by the Operator himself, and he sure as shit isn't branding people with it or marking places with it. It is the character Alex Kralie's personal expression for the Operator and a symptom of his ilness, meaning "No Face", using a circle and an X to symbolize the lack of the Operator's face. If anything it's Alex's calling card, and not a mark by the Operator itself...all images of the symbol came from Alex, and he was the only one who drew the symbol. And no character was branded or marked with it.
In this movie ? The Operator Symbol is just relegated to the Operator's Serial Killer calling card, and personal signature. As we established, that was not the case in the series, but the movie treats it as something the Operator uses to let victims know he is/was there and is coming for them. If anything in the original series it would have been Alex's calling card, since it was an image he alone created and used. Alex in the series was more of a Serial Killer than the Operator, which leads us too.
The Operator's behaviour in the movie is a total contrast to his characterization in the series. In the series, the Operator was more of an force and best described as a living virus who spreads through knowledge. The Operator doesn't kill people in the series, he doesn't force people to kill for him. He has no servants, no puppets, nothing. Sure people go insane by prolonged exposure, but they aren't carrying out its will, rather they are acting on a psychotic break. The insanity his victims suffer is more of a natural consequence to his presance than something it he does intentionally We've seen in the series the Operator doesn't want it's infected victims killed because then it wouldn't spread it's disease.
This films Operator ? Is activley posessing people, sadiscally toying with and taunting them, killing them, sometimes out of spite. The Operator in the film posesses people to use as human puppets to kill for it, when that never happened in the orignal series. This isn't just Adaptational Villainy, this is Adaptational Personality Change. Less force of nature or madness, and more supernatural slasher villain.
The most blatant deviation is how the film says you can only see the Operator through a camera...but in the series, that was not the case; lots of characters can see the Operator without the use of the camera. Hell, one of the most awesome scenes in the series was the character Tim stands up to the Operator, with the cloest camera on the scene being on the ground several yards away.
This film is so far off from Marble Hornets, it seems more like they just used the title and loose easter eggs to market off of. The creators of Marble Hornets weren't even involved in creating the movie. Slender: The Arrival has more to due with Marble Hornets since they had the same writing team.
Generic Doomsday Villain issues ?
Now like his canon self, the Operator doesn't talk, and thus doesn't verbally communicate a personality; he's certainly not as talkative as the Slenderman in Windigo. Now the orignal incarnation of the Operator is what I call a GDV done right since it was more of a mysterious force than a character. Here ? Again, he's treated and behaves more like a silent Serial Killer who likes to toy with his victims, and displays some personality through actions, rather than words, mainly using a signature or calling card to mark and taunt his victims. He displays a mimial For the Evulz personality, such as using a father to smother his young daughter on camera, or killing a dog to spite and mock the protagonist, specifially using people like marionettes.
It's not too expressive, but I think it does just enough to save him from being a GDV.
Heinous Standard ?
Technically the only villain, Mind Raping a number of people, possessing them into killing their loved ones, one of which being a little girl at the hands of her father, which we see on camera, reducing the girls mother to become a broken wreck. You know the drill.
Alex Kralie in he original series becomes a cold blooded killer who harms more people in the Operator, but we aren't taking that into account, because the movie doesn't take the show into account.
Any other mitigating factors ?
Short answer "No". Long answer "no".
"It's like...a cliff, and if I do it, I'm just gonna...fall." "I think we're already falling."Sure to the Operator.
J’m’arrête pas tant qu’j’vois pas des lignes sur les moniteurs (Not stoppin 'til I see Flatlines)Sure to the Operator. We've let worse than J up. Yes to him.
Anyways, another candidate tonight?
What's the setting?
Never Too Young To Die is an obscure 80s cult classic action-comedy affectionately sending up the espionage genre. Lance Stargrove is an athletic acrobat with a secret agent father who never has time for him—so woe is Lance when his dad kicks the bucket and he ends up falling into his secret agent business, defending Los Angelos from crooks and creeps alongside his father's saucy assistant Danja, played by the late Vanity.
Their antagonist, one of the most gloriously over-the-top villains I've seen lately? Gene Simmons as Velvet Von Ragnar.
Who is Velvet? What has he done?
Velvet Von Ragnar is the leader of a notorious gang and a wicked, flamboyant hermaphrodite—half man, half woman, all evil. Velvet delights in anarchy and chaos of all kinds, having shed countless amounts of blood in the past for his own giggles, and he opens the film announcing his latest, greatest scheme: threatening to poison the entire water supply of L.A. with radioactive waste that's "worse" than lethal and will contaminate it for ten-thousand years, all for ransom, for jewels, for money. Velvet confronts Lance's father, the secret spy whom has been has enemy for years, and forces him to stand down and give the floppy disk that will let him access the water supply over to him by promising to kill Lance. Even after Lance's father surrenders, Velvet guns him down, giggling hysterically.
Velvet isn't a man or woman who goes back on a promise, though, so Velvet decides to exact his promise, having Lance violently beaten in his own home and constantly trying to have him killed, while kidnapping Danja and trying to have her slowly cooked to death. Velvet demonstrates a constant liking for "the finger," using his razor-sharp fingernails to gouge out the throats of people, something he does to a captured secret agent and one of his failed minions throughout the film. Velvet eventually reveals he's been posing as the heroes' ally Carruthers, taking off his sunglasses to reveal his horrifying eyeliner, capturing Danja and Lance to have them ripped apart by his minions while forcefully tongue-kissing Danja in front of Lance.
Eventually, his plot foiled, Velvet decides to go ahead with poisoning L.A.'s drinking water entirely out of spite, gloating to Lance that the toxic water is minutes away from flowing to millions of oblivious homes. Eventually, while trying to knock Lance off a cliff and making a sadistic, drawn-out ordeal of it, Lance takes Velvet's hand and forces his razor-sharp finger nail into his throat, kicking him screaming off a cliff.
Any mitigating factors?
Nope. The film is obviously having fun with its premise and Velvet isn't exactly a subtle character—you can't really do anything else with Gene Simmons wearing prosthetic breasts—but Velvet, for as much of a caricature he and everyone else in the film is, is played seriously within the film's odd boundaries with some genuinely dark scenes and vicious moments. The closest thing he gets to a redeeming quality is treating his scientist assistant Riley like a pet, calling him "good boy" and the like. Needless to say, nothing genuinely humane there, especially as he makes something of a tendency to get touchy-feely and affectionate with his minions while killing them and never showing a whit of care toward their deaths.
Conclusion?
Bizarre keeper, but a keeper from a gloriously So Bad, It's Good film. He's like Mok by way of Frank-N-Furter.
Thoughts?
Edited by Scraggle on Aug 13th 2019 at 12:06:54 PM
Sure to Velvet Von Ragnar.
J’m’arrête pas tant qu’j’vois pas des lignes sur les moniteurs (Not stoppin 'til I see Flatlines)
