"The Open Portals - Part 1" Now Available

Check it out! Part 1 of my new young adult sic-fi/fantasy novel "The Open Portals" is now available on Kindle for $2.99:

"The Open Portals - Part 1" by Katelyn Rushe

Returning to her life on Earth hasn't been easy for young Amber Brenin. Rendered powerless and surrounded by people who don't believe her tales of inter-dimensional travel, she misses the world of Rökshena more than ever, and when her feelings for her father Robert also become strained, she comes to see her homeward as nothing but a prison. Even worse is the knowledge that she must stay away from Rökshena to protect it from the Black Gadget.

However, this soon changes when amber discovers that the four Voxacustos have found their way to Earth as well. Now forced to defend her homeworld from them, she must strike a bargain with the Black Gadget and journey back to Rökshena with Robert to obtain the element Faelodine, the Voxacustos' one weakness. Can Amber defeat her old enemies on Earth and keep Rökshena safe, or has she already doomed both worlds?

Also check out Parts 1 and 2 of "The Last Creator," now on sale for $1.99 each:

"The Last Creator - Part 1"
"The Last Creator - Part 2"

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Top 5 Plot Holes the New "Beauty and the Beast" Fixes

Well, Disney just released their newest live-action remake of an animated classic with Beauty and the Beast this past weekend, and judging from the film's reception so far, we can probably expect a lot more remakes from them in the future. I'll admit I was hesitant to see this one at first, not because I object to remaking Beauty and the Beast, but because the previews didn't make this version seem any different from the 1991 animated film. Why pay $11 for a theater ticket when I can watch my VHS of the original for free?

But just like Belle with the castle's West Wing, curiosity got the better of me and I went to see the new film. Not only did it turn out to be an entertaining remake, but it also turned out to be a smart remake that fixes a lot of the original's problems. Fairy tales by nature are riddled with plot holes and the 1991 Beauty and the Beast, while still a great film, is riddled with them too. With that said, here are my top five examples of how the new version fills those holes with some real world logic.

5. How did Belle get the Injured Beast Back to the Castle?

After a violent encounter with the Beast about halfway through the 1991 film, Belle flees from the castle and gets attacked by wolves in the forest. The Beast fights off the pack, but gets badly injured in the process and passes out with no one but Belle to help him. She does get him back to the castle, but aside from one shot of her leading her horse through the woods with the unconscious hero slung over its back, we don't see how she manages that. How does a lone 17-year-old woman get what must be at least a 600-pound heap of dead weight onto a horse's back? It's the animated equivalent of not showing how the explorers moved unconscious King Kong from his island onto their boat; just because it's minor to the story doesn't mean we don't have questions about it.

The new Beauty and the Beast resolves this by keeping the Beast awake after fighting off the wolves. He collapses from his injuries, but he has enough strength left to help Belle get him onto the horse. Having him awake and struggling instead of unconscious also adds tension to the scene when Belle is debating whether to help him or finish her escape, since there's still a chance that he may be dangerous to her as well. All in all, this version of the scene makes some moments simpler and others more complex in a way that keeps it engaging but not as distracting.

4. What Happened to the Townspeople at the End?

This is more of a loose plot thread than a plot hole, but it's still an enormous missing piece that merits addressing. In the climax of the 1991 version, the villain Gaston leads an angry mob of townspeople to the Beast's castle where they do battle with all of the enchanted objects inside. We see a few minutes of people getting beaten up by furniture and appliances in funny, creative ways, then the people retreat and the focus settles on Gaston fighting the Beast on top of the castle. Gaston eventually falls to his death, then Belle and the Beast break the curse, everything goes back to normal, and the happy couple closes out the film by dancing together in the castle with all of the re-humanized servants gathered around them.

The only thing missing in all of this is what happened to the rest of the townspeople after they retreated. Are we meant to believe that they just went back to their normal lives after failing to kill the creature that Gaston made them so afraid of? If they were fearful enough of the Beast to invade his home in the first place, wouldn't they be fearful enough now that they might spread word of the demonic castle and come back in greater numbers? I guess it wouldn't matter since they would discover upon returning that the Beast is human again, but the film totally ignores these questions because of "Happily ever after."

The new version answers these questions by showing the townspeople come back to the castle right after the climax is over. They discover that the Beast and his servants were humans all along, and then they join the celebration at the end. The new film wraps up the storylines of hundreds of characters that the 1991 version didn't even care about, and it gets a lot of humorous and poignant moments out of them for it. What's more, it doesn't take all that much time to do any of this, which further enforces that Beauty and the Beast is about more than just a handful of core characters.

3. Why Doesn't Anyone Wonder What Happened to the Prince?

One of the more common complaints about the 1991 version is that nobody in Belle's town ever seems to wonder why they haven't seen or heard from the prince in years when his castle is so close to their homes. He's their ruling monarch, isn't he? At the very least, he's a local prominent figure whose dealings would probably be heard about in nearby settlements like theirs, so why doesn't anyone find it odd or try to investigate when he suddenly disappears from the public eye?

Again, the new version makes quick work of resolving this. A line in the opening narration explains that the enchantress who cursed the castle also erased its existence and the existence of the people inside it from the memories of everyone in the outside world, ensuring that nobody would come and try to help the prince. This is further demonstrated when the townspeople return to the castle after the curse is broken and begin recognizing the characters who had been cursed.

It's arguably the greatest overall shortcoming of the 1991 version that it doesn't treat the townspeople like they're really people. Maybe that was the idea since they're supposed to be too simple for Belle's taste and it does create an ironic contrast with the more humanized characters in the castle, but it vilifies them for basically just wanting to protect their homes and families from something beyond their understanding. They're easily misled, but in the spirit of the story, I think it was smart of the new film to link their sheeplike mentalities with the curse and show that they can change their ways once someone like Belle opens their minds.

2. Where Did All of the Cursed People Come From?

Another question that viewers often raise about the 1991 film is how there could be so many people in the castle who were turned into talking objects. Practically every single kitchen utensil, light fixture, cleaning supply, and piece of furniture in sight has the ability to move, which means that every single one had to have been a living thing originally. Were there seriously thousands of servants working in the castle when it was cursed? Were some of those objects actually birds and rodents that just happened to be on the roof or in the dungeon at the time? No explanation is ever given.

In the new movie though, we learn that the prince liked to host extravagant balls for thousands of guests and was in the middle of hosting one when the enchantress came to his door. This clears up the issue by showing that most of the enchanted objects were once visitors who normally wouldn't have been in the castle. Things like this go a long way in grounding the story in reality, which is important to do in modern adaptations of fairy tales.

Also, having so many of the curse victims not belong in the castle is likely why the screenwriters came up with the idea of erasing the outside world's memories of them. If this is the case, then this solution is especially good because it fixes two plot holes for the price of one.

1. How Long Does the Curse Last?

We all know how the prince came to be cursed in the 1991 film: an old woman came to his door seeking shelter, he turned her away because she was ugly, and she revealed herself to be the enchantress and turned him into a monster as punishment. Her terms were that if he could learn to be kind and find true love by his twenty-first birthday, the curse would be lifted. His time with Belle takes place in the days leading up to his twenty-first birthday, but one line in the song "Be Our Guest" reveals that the Beast and all of his housemates have been under their curse for ten years. Do the math, and you realize that the prince was only eleven years old when he turned away the enchantress.

Not only does this raise all sorts of questions about why a child of the royal family was allowed to answer the door alone and whether he even deserved to be punished for turning away a stranger, it also creates an inconsistency. You can't argue that the 1991 Beast started as a child and grew into an adult during his time under the curse because the portrait of his human self that he destroys shows him as an adult, not as the child that he should have been at the time when it was painted. The timeframe of the curse is often regarded as the biggest pothole in the 1991 version, and fortunately, the new version does fix it.

How do they fix it? By making the prince an adult to begin with and never actually saying how much time the characters spend under their curse. The writers even change the line in "Be Our Guest" from "Ten years we've been rusting" to "Too long we've been rusting" to keep the amount of time ambiguous. Unlike with Belle getting the injured Beast back to his castle, the remake knew that the curse's duration was an insignificant detail and eliminated that detail altogether.

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It's kind of funny how easily the new Beauty and the Beast fixes these problems from the original. I don't know how the writing process for the remake went, but it almost feels like the screenwriters went online and studied every YouTube video, message board rant, and fan article about the original's plot holes beforehand and then made a point to address each one in their script. Filmgoers are a lot more keen to scrutinize movies these days, so filmmakers have to be more scrutinizing of their products while making them -- and in the case of the screenplay, they did well with this one.

But if you were wondering, the Beast still doesn't get a name in this version. That's a mystery that's going to remain as old as time.

Groundhog Shack

Coming back from a one-month hiatus, I want to kick off 2017 with a good old off-the-wall movie fan theory. Since Groundhog Day was earlier this month, I think it's only fitting to discuss the movie Groundhog Day -- and how it could work as a prequel to Caddyshack.

In case anyone doesn't know the premise of these films, Groundhog Day is about a grouchy weatherman named Phil Connors who gets trapped in a time loop and has to relive the same day of his life (which falls on the titular holiday) over and over again until he figures out how to do everything right. Caddyshack is about a teenage country club caddy trying to make money for college while an eccentric new club member clashes with the snobby regulars and an insane groundskeeper named Carl Spackler battles wits with a gopher that's tunneling through the golf course. Today's fan theory is that Carl from Caddyshack is actually Phil from Groundhog Day who lost his mind after his experience in the time loop and assumed a new identity.

The first piece of evidence to support this is the creative team behind these films. Not only are Phil and Carl both played by Bill Murray, but both movies were directed and cowritten by Harold Ramis. While Groundhog Day may not have been intended as a prequel to Caddyshack, it's entirely possible that Murray and Ramis subconsciously incorporated elements of Carl into Phil's character arc.

For instance, we see that the two characters are each very mellow and detached from their surroundings. While this can be chalked up to Bill Murray just being Bill Murray in both performances, the characters aren't exactly alike. We see that Phil is much more lucid and expressive than Carl at the beginning of Groundhog Day. It's only as his ordeal of reliving the same day goes on longer and longer that we see him slip into a deep depression, start to lose touch with his emotions and surroundings, and become much more like the crazy groundskeeper from Caddyshack. This is especially apparent in a scene where he kidnaps the Punxsutawney Phil groundhog and talks to it while driving both of them off of a cliff in a failed suicide attempt. It's as if he comes to see the ground-dwelling rodent as the cause of all his torment and decides that destroying such an animal -- even an entirely different one that lives on a golf course -- is a suitable way of restoring order in the world.

In turn, we can also find hints of Phil in Carl's behavior. Phil is a weatherman in Groundhog Day, a job that requires him to narrate a great deal of what he does to a viewing audience that he never actually sees. Similarly, Carl in Caddyshack has a habit of discussing his plans and explaining his actions out loud even when he is completely alone. It could be that Carl retained some of his old identity and is still under the delusion that he's being watched by an audience that he needs to keep informed.

One problem with this theory is that it seems to conflict with the ending of Groundhog Day. In that movie, Phil breaks his curse by changing his ways and learning new skills and then gets the girl in the end. This is a happy ending, so how does it fall apart by the beginning of Caddyshack?

The answer could lie in the very last scene of Groundhog Day. As Phil and his new girlfriend Rita emerge from the house where they're staying in Punxsutawney, he remarks how beautiful the scenery around them is and suggests that the two of them buy a house together in that town. Rita makes no comment on this sporadic idea, not even when Phil backtracks by suggesting that they just start off renting. Harold Ramis speculated that Phil spends a decade in the time loop at the very least; considering this, the character is probably so rearing to finally get on with his life at the movie's end that he may be moving too fast.

It's easy to imagine this rushed, impulsive behavior pushing Rita to leave him somewhere down the line, and since the two of them are coworkers, it's also conceivable that Phil might impulsively decide to quit his job after losing the woman that he spent so much time pining for. From there, he could very well continue on a mental downward spiral as he struggles to fathom the point of his time loop experience until his love of scenery makes him take up caddying. This could eventually lead to his meeting with the Dalai Lama on a golf course that he recounts in Caddyshack, in which the Buddhist leader promises him "total consciousness" if he dies on his death bed (as opposed to committing suicide, perhaps). Maybe this encounter inspires Phil to assume a new identity and embrace his new life on the golf course now that he has the assurance that everything will make sense to him one day. It just so happens that the sudden arrival of another ground-dwelling rodent into his life resurrects his long-dormant hatred for them.

This is admittedly a dark interpretation of Groundhog Day, as it seems to dismiss all of the good will in that movie. Bear in mind though that Harold Ramis was a follower of Buddhism and that he incorporated several Buddhist themes into the script, such as reincarnation and finding happiness by shedding selfish desires. Another major aspect of Buddhism is the idea that achieving simplicity in one's life is important in finding peace of mind. Well, people don't get much simpler than Carl from Caddyshack.

What's especially interesting about Carl's subplot is that for as much as he considers the golf course gopher to be his "enemy," he never seems all that angry while plotting to destroy it. If anything, he seems to find a lot of joy in hatching his schemes. It's as if the intention of the time loop wasn't to prepare him for bigger and grander things in his life like Groundhog Day suggests, but rather to make him incompatible with the busy, unfulfilling life that he had and force him into a much simpler existence.

Some may consider this notion to be dark as well, but in a movie like Groundhog Day that features womanizing, suicide, and murdering a cute, innocent animal, darkness certainly has its place. Actually, you can argue that the wackier and more cartoonish world of Caddyshack is a much happier place for Phil/Carl to live, and all evidence in his scenes seems to support that he is in fact happy. Perhaps the real intention of the time loop wasn't to prepare Phil spiritually for anything, but rather to test him spiritually and then eventually reward him for passing that test.

Carl may not be living with Rita in a big house with a white picket fence, but his time loop ordeal has led him to another paradise, even if that paradise is full of gopher holes.

Mourning Celebrities

Just when we all thought 2016 couldn't possibly turn out to be a lousier year, we lost another icon in Carrie Fisher just a few days before 2017 -- and after several reports that her condition was becoming stable, no less. From David Bowie and Alan Rickman to Gene Wilder and even Prince, 2016 seems to have been the ultimate year of saying goodbye to great talents well before their time. For a lot of people, this is bound to raise the question of whether or not it's right for us to really mourn the deaths of celebrities that we didn't know personally.

The answer: of course it is. Every real person's death is tragic, and celebrities are no exception. Even though we may not have known them personally, we still knew who they were and followed their careers throughout much of our lives. Some of them, like Carrie Fisher, even became prominent personalities in our lives because of the beloved characters that they played. Mourning the loss of a favorite entertainer is no less justified than mourning the loss of a casual friend that we saw from time to time and had fond memories of.

Also, knowing someone's body of work better than we knew them doesn't mean we have no reason to miss them. There was nothing questionable about people missing figures like Ronald Reagan or Pope John Paul II, after all. It can be argued of course that those cases were different since those figures devoted their lives to serving the people and helped millions, but a similar thing can be said for entertainers if you think about it. 

Think of all the little girls and even boys who saw Princess Leia as a role model. Think of all the people with drug addictions and mental illnesses who may have kept Carrie Fisher's real life struggles and advice in the backs of their minds while overcoming those obstacles. Think of all the filmmakers, writers, and artists who do what they love today because they saw "Star Wars" as kids and wanted to be a part of something equally creative when they grew up. Inspiring people can sometimes do just as much good in their lives as helping them, and anyone who does anything to inspire someone in a positive way deserves to be celebrated after they're gone.

Does "Home Alone" Happen in Kevin's Head?

Well, it's that time of year again. The time of year when all the classic Christmas movies air on TV to celebrate the holidays and we all watch them because it's a tradition. One such film that aired recently was 1990's Home Alone, and while I've seen it dozens of times, a few oddities stood out this time and got me thinking. This led me to a fan theory about this movie: that most of it only happens in the hero Kevin McCallister's head.

I know, "It-Was-Just-In-His-Head" theories are a dime a dozen in films these days, but there are a ton of things in Home Alone that either really strain logic or just don't make sense when you think about them. The whole premise alone seems like an impossibly perfect series of coincidences. What are the odds of a storm knocking out the phone lines in a neighborhood on the same week that nearly every resident of that neighborhood is either out of town or on their way out? What are the odds that Kevin slept through all the noisy commotion of his huge family rushing to leave the house on time and then a kid the same age and height as Kevin happened to cross paths with them and get mistaken for him during their head count?

That doesn't even include the cartoonishly dumb crooks who specifically want to rob Kevin's house, the cops who only take emergency calls seriously at the story's convenience, and the mysterious old man who never seems to question why an eight-year-old is completely alone in public every time they cross paths. There's also a scary furnace in the basement that comes to life and talks, but we'll get to that later. This stuff could all just be kids movie logic, or maybe it's all the logic of an actual kid, Kevin McCallister, who's very smart and imaginative.

I can think of two ways to look at this theory. The first and easier one to explain is that Kevin goes to bed after his fight with his family at the start of the film and dreams the rest of the story. He could have fallen asleep in that attic bedroom with the desire to be rid of his family fresh in his mind, then he dreamed a wild scenario where they left him behind and he grew to miss them just like his mother said he would. That would explain all of the coincidences, the crooks' abilities to survive his booby traps, and how Kevin is able to clean up the evidence of those booby traps so perfectly overnight. Kevin's habit of talking to himself and to the audience could be seen as his thoughts projecting themselves into his dream while he's thinking them. It could also be that the cop played by Joe Pesci in the first scene was a real cop, but since his eerie demeanor stuck with Kevin, the kid imagined him as the villain in his dream.

The only hitch with this theory is that we never see Kevin wake up from his dream. The ending scene where he wakes up on Christmas and his family comes home from Paris is consistent with his dream scenario, not with the scenario at the start of the film where the family is still getting ready to leave for Paris. A possible explanation for this is that we, the audience, are the ones who are meant to "wake up"from Kevin's dream and then apply what we learned from that dream to our own lives.

The second way to look at the "It-Was-Just-In-His-Head" theory is that Kevin was in fact left behind by mistake but imagined a lot of the things that he encountered during his time alone.

That's where the talking furnace comes in. The first time we see this phenomenon, Kevin himself says that it's only his imagination, then we see him silence the monstrous appliance by overcoming his fear of it. This is the only time the film ever confirms that something in it isn't real, but that can't be the only thing that Kevin concocts in his head.

Take Old Man Marley for instance. The whole point of his character is that he has an unfair reputation and he's really a nice guy once you talk to him. If he's not a deranged serial killer like the rumors say, then why does he always stare at Kevin in silence like a psychopath whenever they see each other? He doesn't say hello, he doesn't nod his head in acknowledgement — heck, he doesn't even blink. Your first thought could be that he's socially awkward because he's a recluse, but in the church scene where he finally talks to Kevin, he's totally friendly and tells the kid that there's no reason to be afraid of him. That doesn't add up.

It's entirely possible, just like with the furnace, that Kevin's imagination is making him see Marley in a more menacing way than the man really appears, and that illusion falls away once the boy's fear is overcome.

We get another glimpse at this exaggerated perception of things when Kevin first discovers that his family is gone. He recalls some of the hurtful things that his relatives said to him the night before, except their voices and expressions are much harsher than we saw them to be originally. One of those remarks, where his older brother Buzz threatens to feed him to a pet tarantula, isn't even something that we heard said before in the film. Was Kevin recalling a line from a deleted scene, or was he only imagining that Buzz ever made that threat?

It's more debatable whether or not the crooks Harry and Marv are really as they seem in this interpretation. Their behavior is consistent between their scenes with Kevin and their scenes without him, though their gullibility (and lack of peripheral vision) are questionable. It's also still questionable that they can be so physically sound after several falls down the stairs, blows to the head, and being partially set on fire. Perhaps Kevin's booby traps are not as effective as he perceives them to be and he didn't do nearly as much damage to the villains as he thought.

Unlike the dream theory, this notion of Kevin more or less hallucinating parts of his life opens the discussion for all kinds of mental issues that he may or may not have. Fans often find his talking to himself and his perfect aim with a BB gun to be concerning, and there are quite a few ideas floating around for what kind of a person he becomes when he grows up. That's another topic for another essay, though.

The "It-Was-Just-In-His-Head" theory may seem like a stretch, but Home Alone has been described by the people behind it as a dark comedy for children. While many children are able to appreciate dark humor, many others probably aren't. Dark humor often requires a cynical, less-than-innocent view of the world in order to fully grasp and enjoy it, and it takes years for someone to develop such a worldview. It could be that this film was made as a dark comedy with some light-hearted humorous elements in it so that different age groups would find it funny for different reasons. Perhaps the intent was that very young viewers would like it for its simpler elements at first and then develop a more complex and darker understanding of it as they grew up with it, similar to the way a lot of people view their families growing up.

Whether the events in Home Alone really are as they seem or if they're just the product of a very unique child's imagination, the film still proves today that a comedy can challenge you and make you think — even when you're home for the holidays.

"Godfather Syndrome" in Movies

It's no news to anyone that movie sequels tend to pale in comparison to their original films. This can be disappointing enough to fans, but it can be all the more disappointing when a film has at least one good sequel and then a bad one. It gives us a false sense of security, a belief that the creative minds behind a franchise can do no wrong, and that makes it feel almost like a betrayal when a bad sequel finally comes along.

We've seen this happen in series like Terminator, The Dark Knight, Scream, Shrek, and dozens of others, but the odd thing that a lot of those franchises seem to share is that they didn't start to go bad until their third installment. This occurrence is so common that it's even come to be called "Godfather Syndrome" after one of its most infamous casualties. Why is the third time not the charm in so many franchises? The reasons vary, though a few trends do seem to crop up.

One frequent cause of Godfather Syndrome, of course, is studio interference. The second film in a series is often made as an experiment to see how fans of the original will respond to sequels. If that experiment is a huge success, like the sequel Aliens was, the studio tends to apply more pressure on the filmmakers for the next sequel in order to take the most advantage of the franchise's popularity. The result in this case was Alien 3, which had its release date announced before the script was finished and had to severely compromise its story, effects, and most other creative aspects in order to meet that deadline. There's also the case of Spider-Man 3, where the studio forced director Sam Raimi to include a popular villain from the comics despite his story already having two other villains in it. In the end, each franchise was left with a third film that most fans consider to be a convoluted letdown.

Another common cause of Godfather Syndrome is a change in the creative team behind a film series. Filmmakers have changing passions just like any other type of artist, so it's rare for them to remain involved with a franchise to the same extent throughout its entire run. However, if the director, writer, or any other major player hands the reins to someone new in between films, the change in style is usually noticeable. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but if the key visionaries in a film series are replaced after making the first two films, a lot of their understanding of the series's themes, character arcs, and overall identity is at risk of being lost in Part 3.

For instance, the original X-Men trilogy saw a change in director from Bryan Singer to Brett Ratner for its third film X-Men: The Last Stand, and this led to a huge shift in the presentation. Major characters acted nothing like themselves, subtle undertones were replaced with ludicrous action set pieces, and storylines set up in the previous films were either badly mishandled or dropped altogether. This sequel simply didn't mesh with its predecessors, and when that happens with the third film of a trilogy that follows an ongoing story arc, it can cheapen all three films.

Probably the most disheartening cause of Godfather Syndrome, however, is when the original creators themselves simply lose their touch. Just look at the syndrome's namesake, the Godfather trilogy. The Godfather Part III was written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola just like the first two films, but more than a decade had passed in between the release of Part II and the beginning of Part III's production. No storyteller is going to have the same style or perspective after such a long time, and even though Part III tried to center itself around this idea of time changing people, the fact remained that it didn't feel like a Godfather film.

In other cases, the writers run out of ideas within the scope of the series's universe after two movies and they expand the scope too much in the third one. That's why we got a third Pirates of the Caribbean film that barely took place in the Caribbean and had more characters and storylines in it than a George R.R. Martin daydream.

These aren't even the only three causes of Godfather Syndrome. Sometimes if the second movie in a series ends in a cliffhanger, the third movie gets bogged down with having to resolve those plot threads while also telling its own story. Other times the franchise starts to become self-aware after the second film's reception and panders more in the third installment. And then there are instances where a third film isn't inherently bad, but the second film was just so good that no other sequel can measure up to it. All three of these factors seem to afflict Return of the Jedi, and while it often gets hailed as the weakest film in the original Star Wars trilogy, I really don't know any Star Wars fans who hate it.

Bottom line, making any good film is something of a cinematic miracle. It takes a perfect storm of things going right in order for the product to turn out well, and unless that film is Part 1 of a preplanned story arc, every one of those things has to go right all over again for each sequel to turn out the same way. If a franchise is lucky enough to make that happen more than once, it probably can only make it happen twice -- but that doesn't stop Hollywood from trying at least three times. We fans may see Godfather Syndrome as a stab in the back from the film world, but in the words of The Godfather (and also, sadly, the third Pirates of the Caribbean film), "It's nothing personal. It's just business."