Dec 172011
Celestial Elf created this delightful machinima, and posted link to it in a comment thread, but it’s way too good for The Juggler to let it languish there.
Evohe Blessed Yule!
Arts, Culture, and Pop-Culture from a Pagan Perspective.
Celestial Elf created this delightful machinima, and posted link to it in a comment thread, but it’s way too good for The Juggler to let it languish there.
Evohe Blessed Yule!
Hey Celestial Elf- that was fantastic! I especially loved the Guy Fawkes guys with “Occupy Christmas” going and super-especially that wonderful Three Realms vision at the end: really well-done!
Hey Celestial Elf- I continue to be really impressed with your creation here: it’s basically appreciated as a Pagan animated short, and as such, is a really interesting vision (ah, a Vision in a Pagan Solstice Carol animated short) of the future of Pagan entertainment. It “gets” what Paganism is about in a way that a lot of popular entertainment that wants to deal with Pagan themes does not, and for that reason, is much more heartfelt. It also “looks” very different from anything else out there, for being so Pagan-oriented. Expanded to an hour-and-a-half, you could be looking at a seriously Pagan animated movie here.
I love the “Occupy Christmas” thing at the beginning- very spot-on and topical- as well as the references to Nightmare Before Christmas and- that is Dobby the House-Elf there at one point, right?- and the Gods (including the Solstice God and the Horned God) reveling at the end.
See, I’m still stuck on this: Seriously, let’s pretend that the Pagan Television Network (PTN) is up and running- expanded to 20-some minutes (so that, with commercial breaks, you would be looking at filling a 30-minute time-slot), this could be totally the Prototype of a Pagan Solstice Season Holiday Animated Classic. The thing where you would want to expand it, is after Jack pulls Scrooge (as the Conductor Between the Realms) into the Underworld. According to Joseph Campbell, you want more of a Confrontation with the Darkness of Scrooge’s Karma- maybe he could meet Hecate or the Weird Sisters, to compel upon him the lessons of his ways? THEN he has the Vision of the Joyful Gods.
I appreciate the constraints of the YouTube format. I’m psyched, cause I think there is really something here. I’m serious- I think this could make the basis for a Pagan Television Holiday Classic: once the day arrives when we are in a position to have Pagan Television Holiday Classics. As Laura was talking before (in the “Muppets Christmas Carol” section) the “Scrooge” story is very Pagan (really): being visited by 3 Spirits who teach you about Karma:
http://culture.pagannewswirecollective.com/2011/12/confessions-of-a-pagan-geek-the-huntsman/
Hey Celestial Elf- I beg your pardon, I find myself still kind of inspired by your piece, and was thinking (if you don’t mind me throwing some ideas your way): say Jack spirals Scrooge down into the Underworld (love that Nightmare Before Christmas reference, and love that Jack takes Scrooge Between the Worlds). Hold off on the song that you have here now; give Jack something more sinister and dark, about “going into the Underground to meet the Fate that you have made for yourself”- something like that- this part can be very Alice-in-Wonderland, as they fall to the Underground- Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland.
Then Scrooge arrives alone, in this rocky cavern; ahead there are 3 torches, and 3 Hooded Women waiting. These are the Weird Sisters from Macbeth, and- since you seem to like cultural references, here might be an impeachable one for you to call out- cause The Scottish Play is as much about Karma as is Scrooge- and you could basically incorporate certain bits from Shakespeare’s play, perhaps to interesting effect.
The first thing, the Sisters greet Scrooge (as in the play [I.iii]): Hail Ebanezor Scrooge! Hail Ebanezor Scrooge! Hail Ebanezor Scrooge! And they charge him with his faults.
What I love about your short is its “Occupy Wall Street” sub-text- cause Scrooge CONCENTRATES his wealth, doesn’t he, instead of SHARING it equitably, right?
So the 3 charge him with the misery that he has inflicted upon others thru his miserly ways, and Scrooge doesn’t believe them. No, no, that’s not so.
This is from Act 4, scene 1: the Cauldron Scene, when the Witches summon the Spirits for Macbeth:
Show! Show! Show his eyes and grieve his heart! Come like Shadows! So depart!
And visions of how miserable all the people whom Scrooge knows are, and how poor and shivering with cold, because Scrooge won’t share his wealth. And then, here’s the thing- Tiny Tim has died- because his father couldn’t AFFORD to BUY the medicine that would have saved him, because Scrooge doesn’t pay him enough.
It’s interesting to notice that poor Tiny Tim- hobbled in one foot and reliant on crutches- is like the Wounded Shaman Archetype.
So Scrooge is like, is all this so? (What Macbeth says at the end of the Cauldron Scene) and the Witches answer, Ay, sir, all this is so. But why stands [Ebanezor Scrooge] thus amazedly? Come, Sisters, cheer we up his sprites and show the best of our delights! Let us charm the air to give a sound, while we perform our Antic Round [they are going to dance in a circle], that this great king may kindly say, our duties did his welcome pay!
Now, in the play, the Witches vanish here- but you could lift the “Weird Sisters” Charm from Act I, scene 3, to use as they start to dance around Scrooge- “The Weird Sisters, hand in hand, posters of the sea and land, thus do go about! about! [they are dancing in a circle] Thrice to thine and thrice to mine and thrice again to make up nine!!! Peace! The Charm’s wound Up!!”
And they could go swirling all about, and all the visions of the miseries that Scrooge has caused rise up to overwhelm him- and this sequence could be very nightmarish-
Until- suddenly he’s someplace else again, and now there is this funny little comic Witch (like Yoda, but as a Witch) maybe this is even Hecate Herself, tho that could be a secret. And she’s like, Do you truly wish to change?
And he’s like, I do.
And then you have that fantastic Pagan Vision of yours at the end.
That sequence there sells the deal.
Hi Zan, thank you so much for all your comments and im delighted that you ‘get it’ ..someone had too haha
Re all the suggestions, brilliant and much for me to think about,
many thanks & Bright Blessings by Stone and Star ~
[...] a gently delightful medieval rendition of Scarborough Fair. As was Scott’s perception before, Celestial Elf’s work is too good to languish in the comments section of the Juggler, to [...]