WoW Moviewatch: The Harvest Chapter 1
by Michael Gray 
Mar 13th 2009 at 12:00PM
The Harvest - Chapter 1 is the first, full-length machinima movie attempt by UltraViolet. She's the same author who created Buff My Warlock back in January, and I think you can see the growth of her skills over time. "The Harvest" is somewhere between a horror and mystery drama.
As the story goes, there's been a recent rash of deaths in Elwynn Forest. (Presumably, not Hogger's fault.) All the victims are young women, lacking any tell-tale signs of how their deaths may have occured. The story's focused on a young barmaid named Elane, whose greatest concern in life is dodging every bit of work that comes her way. Hijinks ensue, including the appearance of a mysterious figure.
The first thing I want to say about UltraViolet's work is that I'm strongly encouraged that the main character isn't a "Mary Sue." If you're not familiar with the term, a "Mary Sue" is an escapist character written by an author. The character is usually the most awesome, coolest thing ever. (This is a criticism often applied to Bella in the Twilight series.) By virtue of Elane's faults and characterization, I'm pretty sure Elane isn't serving as a prop for UltraViolet's fantasies, and that gives me a lot of hope for the continuing series.
The dialogue and action is a little awkward. The voice acting and scripting all seem in earnest, and the heart's in the right place, but there are a few too many tropes and cliches scattered through the character interaction. I chalk this up to this being UltraViolet's first piece. Her pacing, plot plan, and basic flow all seem pretty good. She just needs some more time working with her actors, and putting pen to paper, to get away from some of the easy-fallbacks for dialogue. I'm eager to see how the plot develops for Chapter 2, given the promise I see in this installment.
If you have any suggestions for WoW Moviewatch, you can mail them to us at machinima AT wowinsider DOT com.
Previously on Moviewatch ..
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Machinima, WoW Moviewatch
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
JLocke Mar 13th 2009 12:09PM
Ah demonic children laughing lol
Theadrick Mar 13th 2009 12:24PM
The term "Mary Sue" is problematic and has been criticized by a number of authors. People read fiction, particularly fantasy, as a means of escapism. It only makes sense that some of the characters, particularly the protagonists... will be "over the top" in some ways.
Every character from Odysseus to Sherlock Holmes and Frodo could be considered a "Mary Sue". To me it sounds like a term some disgruntled English professor came up with after he couldn't get his book published.
skreeran Mar 13th 2009 2:59PM
Well said.
Hugh "Nomad" Hancock Mar 13th 2009 3:23PM
Well said.
Many of the most popular characters ever - including Bella from Twilight - have elements of the Mary-Sue, precisely because people read to escape, as you say. As a scriptwriter, one of my big tasks at the moment is unlearning some of my internal editing and actually learning to put those elements back *into* a character.
(Sherlock Holmes is *so* a Mary-Sue character.)
Arashikou Mar 13th 2009 5:40PM
Nomad raises an interesting point. Is there a difference between knowingly putting elements of a Mary Sue in a character for the sake of your audience's suppressed fantasies vs. accidentally creating a Mary Sue for your own suppressed fantasies?
I admit, when I was first introduced to the term, it was SPECIFICALLY reserved for the latter: cases where the author's inexperience or arrogance had led them to create a character that could do anything and be anything and transparently acted out the author's personal vendettas and secret hopes - to the detriment of the story, as such characters tended only to resonate with the limited number of people who shared the author's specific fantasies and as such stories tended to offer little or no conflict, and certainly none that said Mary Sue could not deal with instantly, thus depriving the rest of the audience of anything interesting to read. Also, such characters tend to be weakly characterized, although I can't remember off the top of my head why that was.
To paraphrase my professor: "Stories have characters. A Mary Sue is more like a diary entry, providing vent for the author's frustrations and wishes with no regard for what anyone but the writer thinks of it. And like a diary, it is rarely worth sharing." (And before anyone says it - yes, someone pointed out that people these days often share their diaries as LiveJournals or blogs, to which the professor replied something to the effect of "No one has any shame over putting their poop on a pedestal anymore.")
A Mary Sue in that sense is always a bad thing. And given that machinima are often made by people with little or no writing experience, they seem to have a disproportionately high occurrence of this kind of Mary Sue. (Same with fanfiction, roleplaying, etc.) In that sense, the article's comment is quite right: Having a main character that is clearly not a Mary Sue is reassuring, as it shows the story has avoided a common and major writing pitfall, which bodes well as an indicator that the writing in this series will be better than average for a machinima.
kozom Mar 13th 2009 12:27PM
"by sylvanas' left tit!"
made me laugh.
Cartra Mar 13th 2009 12:49PM
This is supposed to be a comedy right?
zweitblom Mar 14th 2009 4:33AM
""The Harvest" is somewhere between a horror and mystery drama."
link13 Mar 17th 2009 6:21AM
No bodey whants to be My frend