Connecting to Character: A look at the Star Wars Hera Syndulla Jacket by Her Universe

Written by Daniel – In this post, I am going to be examining a jacket released by the “fangirl fashion” site Her Universe, founded by actress Ashley Eckstein. The jacket in question is inspired by Hera Syndulla and the jacket she wears as seen in the Disney+ series Ahsoka (Filoni, 2023-). This post is going to be examining Hera’s jacket and how it was adapted from onscreen to function as an item for the wardrobe. I’ll be looking in particular at how the Her Universe jacket connects the wearer with the onscreen character, permits a celebration of character, and also how the jacket connects fans to the wider source material of the Star Wars universe. The purpose of this post is not to try and sell you this jacket or give you any fashion gossip, rather I’m interested in the exploration of Star Wars, character analysis, and costume.

And it’s Scooby-Doo! WrestleMania Mystery doot! doo doo dooooo!

Written by Daniel – I know sod all about WWE and WrestleMania, so if you’re here for WWE content, you’re going to want to look elsewhere. As far as I’m concerned the theatrics of WWE are excessive celebrations of masculinity and violence, they’re horribly outdated, and I just can’t comprehend the appeal. But with this lighthearted, and entirely bias introduction out of the way, let’s get into the ins and outs of the film.

2014’s Scooby-Doo! WrestleMania Mystery directed by Brandon Vietti, is the first WWE/Scooby Doo crossover (Scooby-Doo and WWE: Curse of the Speed Deamon following a couple years later in 2016, directed by Tim Divar). The film is an advert for WWE, that’s all I think of it, and it’s a pretty wild advert. Shaggy and Scooby, apparently avid fans of WWE, win V.I.P. tickets to WrestleMania for completing the WWE video game to the highest possible level. Shaggy and Scooby persuade the gang to go with them, and of course when they arrive at WWE City, it’s not long before the gang learn about a giant ghost bear who’s terrorising the wrestlers. The gang team up with the likes of John Cena and… well they only really team up with Cena, but there are a whole bunch of other WWE personalities who make the occasional cameo. The team gang up with Cena to try and catch the ghost bear and stop it from ruining wrestle mania. But as they try to save Wrestle Mania, Scooby is framed for trying to end it, by stealing the WWE Champion’s belt!!

‘Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins’ and the Love of Film Making

Written by Daniel – Continuing the Scooby-Doo DVD film release reviews (though I will highlight that this film was made for television, originally broadcast on Cartoon Network), I now find myself looking at 2009’s Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins, directed by Brian Levant.

Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins gives us an origin story as to how the Mystery Inc. gang first met, and the events which unfolded which kept them together and made them the friends they are today. Set during the gangs high school years in Coolsville, the film opens with a series of misunderstandings which bring Shaggy, Daphne, Fred and Velma together, and landing them in detention. It’s here as the gang mope around in the library, they are confronted by two gruesome ghosts! The ghosts reap havoc around the library, and by the time the Vice Principle gets there, the ghosts are gone. This unlikely band are blamed for causing the damage, and promptly suspended from school. So it’s up to them to track down the ghosts and clear their names.

Unsurprisingly, this film does have its flaws. Most of which are probably the result of the fact that this is a cheap kids film made for TV. To some it is considered Scooby-Doo 3, a prequel to the first cinema release live-action films (Scooby-Doo: The Movie (Gosnell, 2002) and Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (Gosnell, 2004)). Though the ending of the film, as I shall go into later on in the post would actually suggest that this is a live-action prequel to fit in with the series What’s New, Scooby-Doo? (2002-2006) which had ended three years before the release of the film, though I do not doubt the show was still getting repeats. I’ll touch upon some of the issues I have with this film to start off, but I don’t want to dwell on this too much, as I am much more interested in discussing what this film gets right, and how it makes the best of its low budget.

‘Scooby-Doo! Stage Fright’ vs Phantom of the Opera

Written by Daniel – I’ve written a number of blog posts on Scooby-Doo now. If your familiar with my work, you’ll know that I wrote a dissertation on Scooby-Doo’s straight to DVD films (which centred around international travel). Whilst I’ve been sorting through a number of old boxes, I found that I still had some of the Scooby-Doo DVD’s I bought during this research, but never explored in the thesis itself (on account that they didn’t fit the central study of international relations). Not wanting these DVD’s to go to waste, I’m going to share a series of short reviews for each film. First up is 2013’s Scooby-Doo! Stage Fright, directed by Victor Cook.

Stage Fright, takes place during the lead up to the grand finale of ‘Talent Star’ a hit American talent show, and would you believe it Fred and Daphne are going to performing, broadcast live from Chicago! The film is Scooby-Doo’s take on Phantom of the Opera. Rather than being a tale about a  disfigured incel haunting an opera, we have a ghostly phantom haunting a reality show. As the story unfolds and the ‘haunting’ gets more and more violent, the Phantom’s multiple aims and targets confuse the gang, on account that they each appear to be conflicting. The Phantom reeks havoc, and scares away the contestants one by one. It’s up to the Mystery Inc. gang to track the Phantom down and find out who the masked figure really is. 

‘Strikes Back’ Strikes Back – Mewtwo Strikes Back: Evolution

Written By Daniel – Released in 2019 in Japan, the film Mewtwo Strikes Back: Evolution (dr. Yuyama and Sakakibara) dropped on Netflix everywhere else on Pokemon Day (Feb 27th 2020), celebrating the original Japanese release of Pokemon Red/Green. Mewtwo Strikes Back: Evolution is a rare breed of film, it’s a shot for shot CGI remake of Pokemon the First Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back (Yuyama, 1998). It retells the tale of Ash with his loyal Pokemon partner Pikachu and friends Brock and Misty, who are invited to a remote island to face the worlds greatest Pokemon trainer. Our heroes accept this invitation and venture to the island, only to discover that this ‘trainer’ is in fact a Pokemon named Mewtwo cloned from the ancient Mew, and seeks to wipe out humanity, and all Pokemon loyal to their human trainers!

After heavy skepticism around the announcement of the film, and even after the trailer dropped, people were unsure as to whether this film was really needed, after all most of us who are going to watch this film have probably already seen it. Even the beautiful trailer wasn’t enough to sell many of PokeFans – yes it’s beautiful but will it match to a nostalgic fondness of the original? After all this is what the film is being sold on, nostalgia, of course this word was going to pop-up, we may as well get it out of the way. There is something lost in the CGI iteration, unique to the 2D animation of the original. This is the harsh lines, and dynamic (almost noir, chiaroscuro lighting), and it’s immediately noticeable in the opening scenes. Mewtwo’s breakout sequence which opens the film in the original version is dramatic, the harsh lines and dramatic shading of the 2D drawn animation is a style engraved in Pokemon imagination. This is lost in the CGI remake, and the production team know it, filling the sequence with an excess of explosions and pretty fire effects. It’s pretty, but it feels like a cover up. With that said, the opening sequence is perhaps my only bug-bear. I think that Mewtwo Strikes Back: Evolution is the superior film, in spite of what some other fans of the original might say. Evolution feels like the film, the First Movie wanted to be, but simply couldn’t, due to technical restrictions and social expectations at the time.

Cooper-Doo! Twin Peaks Parody and Adaptation in Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated

Written by Daniel – This post has been adapted from a essay originally written in 2017 for a University assessment as part of my MRes in Film Studies at Keele University. The paper was in response to Lorna Jowette’s essay ‘Nightmare in Red? Twin Peaks Parody, Homage, Intertextuality and Mashup’ (2016). At times my essay might come across as critical of Jowette’s paper, though I’d like to highlight here just how much I love this article by Jowette it has been a big influence and the paper sparked me to question the functions of parody in children’s media, and how the parodying of certain iconography can lend it life beyond that of it’s original text.

In Lorna Jowett’s essay, ‘Nightmare in Red? Twin Peaks Parody, Homage, Intertextuality and Mashup’, Jowett examines a variety of texts which feature intertextual reference to Twin Peaks (Frost and Lynch, 1990-91), proposing that Twin Peaks is itself a parodic text which borrows and adapts styles and conventions from existing media. In parodying Twin Peaks in texts such as; Sesame Street’s ‘Twin Beaks’ (1991) or Psychoville (Shearsmith and Pemberton, 2009-11), these texts extend “Twin Peaks own strategy of pastiche and re-purposing familiar genres, shock characters, and aesthetic styles” (Jowett 2016, 212), which go to cement Twin Peaks ongoing cultural significance (Jowett 2016, 225). Whilst Jowett is successful in her analysis of Twin Peaks, there are certain questions the piece leaves unanswered. With a specific focus on Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated episodes 20 ‘Stand and Deliver’ and 22 ‘Nightmare in Red’ (Cook, 2013), I will examine the effects and potential readings of citing Twin Peaks in alternate texts, putting forward the argument that The Red Room is no longer confined to the setting (or authorial status) of Twin Peaks. As well as being an interdenominational location within the canon of Twin Peaks, the location has become an intertextual space which crosses multiple franchises and media. As means of framing this argument, Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, among other appropriate texts, shall be discussed in terms of parodic frameworks as well as pastiche and adaptation, to understand the multiplicity of readings and effects of the Scooby-Doo! and Twin Peaks mash-up.

Monster High: Frights, Camera, Action! (2014)

Written by Daniel – It’s a cheap kids film! and as far as cheap kids films go, it’s fine. In all honesty I really like the look of this film, its style is pretty cool. But as for the film’s events and certain representations, it’s pretty dated (even by 2014 standards).

The film centres around Draculaura, who has been lead to believe that she’s going to be the next Vampire queen. In reality Lord Stoker (whose been given the responsibility to find the next Vampire Queen) has chosen Draculaura to use her as a puppet leader and shape the world to how he wishes it to be. Upon discovering this, Draculaura goes on a world wide treasure hunt to try and find the rightful queen, eventually leading them all the way to Hauntlywood.

Scooby-Doo! and the Snowman Mystery (1973)

Written by Daniel – Well a Merry Christmas to you! To get into the Christmas spirit here’s a very festive blog post, in which I’ll be taking a look at an album called ‘Scooby-Doo and the Snowman Mystery’. In 1973 Music For Pleasure records in collaboration with Hanna-Barbera Enterprises Ltd. created two Musial-Adventures ‘Where are you Scooby-Doo? and Mystery Incorporated’ and ‘Scooby Doo and the Snowman Mystery’ as part of their Merry Go Round series. So get your chestnuts roasting, wrap yourself in tinsel, take the gin from Nan, and with out further ado lets wind up the old record player.

‘Scooby Doo and the Snowman Mystery’ follows Scooby and the gang as they try to get to the bottom of why Snowmen could possibly be behind a recent spell of robberies in the Swiss Alps. Side A opens with the gang hearing about the robberies on the news, so they book airline tickets and head over to investigate (yep, for some reason, we see the gang book travel tickets and get on a plane, as opposed to stumbling on the mystery as is typical in the television series). They are lured into a horrifying house, full of secret passages and traps, will Scooby and the gang survive in one piece?!?     

Ever After High (Way Too Wonderland): Jester’s Wild

Written by Daniel – Episode 2 of series 3 ‘Way Too Wonderland’ of Ever After High unfolds like a strange dream of being back at school, and having to endure the schedule and rules of school once again, only nothing makes sense. Classes are just strange elaborate series of events with apparently no rules or respect for reality – and no one around you is ever going to help. When will we wake up from this nightmare!

We’ve got a few new characters into the mix, namely: The White Rabbit, the handsome Chase Redford (The Red Knight); and Courtly Jester (daughter of the Jester playing card). Courtney as far as I can tell is Ever After High‘s equivalent of DC’s Harley Quinn. The character has a classic jester appearance merged with stereotypical punk iconography, and for what it’s worth, I really like the design and find the character an intriguing one, as I shall go into further detail later in the post (the one flaw with the character is the voice work – she has this awful English accent, which I think they chose to fit in with the punk aesthetics, unfortunately it’s just not good). The episode shows Apple, Raven, Madeline, Kitty, Briar and Liz having to go through Wonderland’s annual school day, and if they are going to warn Liz’s mother The Queen of Hearts of a plot to kill her in time for tea, they need to graduate form school (keeping track? good). 

Ever After High – Legacy Day

Written by Dan – Thoughts on Ever After High ep. 1: ‘Legacy Day’. In which we are introduced to Raven Queen (daughter of the Evil Queen) and Apple White (daughter of Snow White).

Ever After High is the high school for all the sons and daughters of all our favourite fairy tails, we join our main characters on the lead up to Legacy Day, where students sign the Storybook of Legends and swear to fulfil their destiny by retelling the stories their parents did. I see the show as an allegory for fairy tales being passed on generation by generation. What this means however is that everyone who is the child of an evil character is destined to be evil, and those born under heroes and royalty are destined to greatness. Raven Queen, doesn’t want to be evil, she doesn’t want her life spelled out for her, knowing that she will fail and be punished for things she does not want to do. Raven is not an evil or selfish person, she just wants control over her life, so threatens to abstain from taking part in Legacy Day. This prospect is terrifying to Apple White, who needs Raven to poison her, if she isn’t poisoned by Raven then she’ll never be saved by prince charming and she’ll never become queen.