September 6th, 2010
Nine-thirty am.
On a Monday. Labor Day, to be exact.
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Des has instructed me that I need to update this thing more. And here I was thinking I updated often enough. *pats Des, wherever she is*
So, since I'm updating, I might as well worry a lot, eh?
Last day of summer vacation. *sobs into doggy, since her pillow is upstairs*
I spent last night intensively studying my schedule and pinpointing where each and every one of my classrooms is on my mental map of the school. *remembers her first day last year, when she got lost and couldn't remember where her math room was and was the last person there* Luckily, they turn bells off on the first day. *does happy dance* So...hopefully it will not be noticed if I'm a bit late, although I don't expect to be. And maybe I'll feel better after first period, since I'm with one of my besties. *hopes* Although I did spend ten minutes last night trying to figure out if they would mind if I brought my lunch to gym because I have gym right before lunch and my locker is on the other end of the school, and I don't want to be late to lunch. These are the stupid things I worry about.
Anyways, yesterday I spent three hours watching The Patriot, and it has earned a spot on my favorite movies list, right next to Gladiator. Because it's special.
And so, since I also promised Des it would be a long post (although I'm being kicked off the computer -__________________-) I shall now explain to my 2.4 readers the entire plot of the movie and my opinions on most every scene.
So, in the beginning of the movie there's this guy, Benjamin Martin, played by Mel Gibson, who lives in South Carolina, and the American Revolution is about to start, but he wants to keep the peace and doesn't want a war. He also fought in the French and Indian War and was a hero of Fort Wilderness, although the don't explain this to you until, like, two hours later. Anyways, he has seven kids and his wife is dead, most likely due to giving birth to those seven kids. This is the part where I jump away from the plot to point something out. Mel Gibson? He may be a terrible person and whatnot *can't remember what he did that was bad but knows it was bad* but he is a damn good actor. Seriously. Back to the plot now.
Either way, his kids are extremely hard to keep track of at times (one of them never does anything, but he's four-ish, so that's excused) but given that six of them play kinda important roles to the story, we'll go through them all. First is Gabriel, who's eighteen, methinks, and played by Heath Ledger (before he died, that is *sheds tear*). He signs up for the Continental (Patriot) Army and is basically the reason all this crap happens to his family, but he's still an awesome character, even though it took me about an hour to actually like his character and ignore the fact that he dragged his family into the war with his foolishness. After Gabriel is Thomas, whom I liked; he's fifteen. And then there's Nathan, who is awesome in the scene he's in, and he's probably thirteen. And then there's Margaret (I think . . . her name's something like that). Now she doesn't exactly do much, but she's there for a good chunk of the movie, in the background. So she's somewhere between ten and twelve. *thinks she's twelve* But I fail at guessing ages. Although I think she's older or around the same age as Samuel, who I would pin at eleven. And then there's William, who's . . . young-ish, maybe five. He's the one of no importance. After him is Susan, who's maybe three, and never talks. And that's all of them, methinks (and their ages are guessed from the scenes that take place in 1780).
So, anyways, Gabriel/Heath Ledger (that is an awesome name . . . *steals name to use in story, at least the Heath part*) signs up to join the Continental Army after they have a meeting thing of the council or something of the sort about if South Carolina should sign the Declaration of Independence. This extremely annoys his dad, who does not want war, and is part of the council, actually. They decided to sign the Declaration, by the way. Anyways, *is skipping minuscule events and four years* (also, in those four years Charleston falls to the British, etc.) next thing you know he's showing up at their house, (somehow they are rich, no idea how, but they have a huge house), wounded, and carrying messages for his army.
So then, the next day, there's a huge skirmish right on their land and there's a whole load of wounded soldiers afterwards. They care for both the Continental and Loyalist soldiers, and the guy in charge of the Loyalist soldiers thanks him. Then the guy in charge of him shows up, and has all the wounded Continentals killed. I never learned his name, and to me he's simply Malfoy's dad, which he gets for playing him in Harry Potter. Anyways, once he figures out that there were Patriot dispatches in their house, which Gabriel left there, and he decides that now they are going to keep Gabriel as a prisoner and then hang him without trial. Then they take Gabriel and burn their freaking house down. But first, Thomas tries to go save his brother, he's doing pretty damn good. Until Malfoy's dad freaking shoots him in the chest and he dies in Mel Gibson/Ben's arms.
Now, Ben/Mel Gibson is more worried about his son being taken and Thomas being dead then his freaking house burning down with all his worldly possessions inside, although this is understandable, because Thomas is dead and he was awesome. Moving on. So as the house burning, Ben goes back inside. And what does he get? Weapons. Guns and axes/tomahawks and the like. And then he hands one rifle to each Samuel and Nathan (here comes the part when they're epic) and then one to Margaret, and tells her to hide in the field with the little kids and run to their aunt's if they're not back by sunset or some other time. Their aunt also owns not one but two huge houses, and has no children or husband, and no indicator as to how she got the gigantic house. Moving on to the part that amazes me.
So, Nathan and Samuel follow their dad, Benjamin/Mel Gibson, through the woods until they have view of the road. He then finds a spot for them to hide so they can shoot the officers as they pass by on the road below. This part really disturbs me. These kids are most likely around eleven and thirteen, and their dad is asking them to kill a whole crap load of people to get their brother back. So then he instructs them to aim for the officers and leaves them to hide a bunch of loaded rifles behind trees so that he can also shoot them more easily. And then they completely massacre twenty officers, although it's more of Ben/Mel Gibson killing people than his kids, which is still a small comfort. After he shoots a couple of them he completely massacres a few with axes. This part is extremely freaky, and it really makes you wonder. That is, until you learn what happened at Fort Wilderness, but that's a long while later.
So, they get Gabriel back after killing only twenty people. *sarcasm* Then they escape back to their aunt's house, and some more stuff happens. Gabriel is bent on returning to the army, even though his brother and father just murdered twenty people for him. I can't get over that. And then Ben decides that he's joining the militia as well.
Anyways, at this time Malfoy's father hears of the attack on the soldiers from one private who was there and survived. When he says it was all one man who did it, Ben is dubbed "the ghost" by them, and Malfoy's dad has a new vendetta against him.
Back to Ben. So, he decides he's joining the army, and figures out that currently the rebel army sucks and Cornwallis, a Loyalist general, basically has nothing keeping him from a direct assault on Washington's troops farther north. Since Mel Gibson/Ben is now a Colonel, he is in charge of organizing a militia that will keep Cornwallis strictly in the South and thus away from obliterating Washington's troops. The French are, at this point, supposed to arrive to help them in six months or so, and so they have to keep Cornwallis where he is until then.
At this point their ragtag militia starts being completely awesome and attacking British supply lines and burning bridges (literally, not metaphorically) and being overall awesome. At one point they steal Cornwallis's personal belongings, including his journal/memoirs and his two Great Danes, named Jupiter and Mars. *snickers* Ben reads his journal and figures that his fatal flaw is pride. They keep him in the south for a subsequent six months, and then Cornwallis blames Malfoy's dad for using unnecessarily cruel tactics in war that reflect badly on him, and that if he hadn't done stupid things like burn houses, then "the ghost" wouldn't exist.
Somewhere along the line, they burn down Aunt Charlotte's house as well, although they get out fine. *doesn't remember the whole thing or when exactly it took place*
Also, at one point Malfoy's dad captures eighteen of Ben's soldiers. So then he rides up to the gates with Cornwallis's Great Danes so that he can negotiate the release of his eighteen men by saying that he has eighteen British officers, and so they arrange a prisoner exchange, in which Ben says he also give them some of Cornwallis's stolen possessions and his dogs back. So they give him his men and he arranges for them to go pick up theirs. Of course, as Ben is leaving, Malfoy's dad shows up and correctly assumes that Ben is "the ghost" although he can't attack him unless he attacks first due to some sort of stupid army etiquette. *rolls eyes* So then he torments him by bringing up Thomas's death. At this point Ben stares him straight in the eye and informs him that before the war is over, he will kill him, and in his true awesomeness, just jumps back on his horse and rides off, somehow not killing Malfoy's father.
Of course, it turns out that the "captured officers" are scarecrows in British army garb. Cornwallis decides to let Malfoy's dad do whatever he deems necessary to stop the militia. *remembers* Oh yeah, and that's when they burn down Aunt Charlotte's house, hoping to find his family. They then escape to some sort of safe place, and are helped there by Gabriel. While they're there he marries his friend from when he was a kid, Anne something.
Then, once the militia has left, after staying there a week, Malfoy's dad gathers everybody in Anne's hometown in the church.
He subsequently burns the church down. Everyone inside dies.
Malfoy's dad is a bastard.
So Gabriel and some of the militia, after discovering that the church was burned down by Malfoy's dad and his men, go hunt them down. In the end, everyone who was there but Malfoy's dad and Gabriel is dead.
Then Gabriel shoots at Malfoy's dad just a split second before it could happen vice versa with him on the receiving end of the bullet. Of course, then it turns out that Malfoy's dad is indeed not mortally wounded, but faking it, and when Gabriel is about to fatally stab him in the back he flips over and stabs Gabriel through the stomach. So now he has killed not one but two of Ben's kids, and the really cool ones too. *sulks*
And when Malfoy's dad stabs Gabriel there were actually tears in my eyes. Because he freaking killed Gabriel. Who, like Thomas, dies in his father's arms. He then apologizes for his aforementioned brother's death, but Ben tells him it was in fact not Gabriel's fault but his own, although I don't think it was either of their faults. Because it's Malfoy's dad's fault. *glares at Malfoy's dad* Because he shot him.
Now this is where the whole thing about Mel Gibson being such a freaking awesome actor comes in. Because I have no idea how anyone fakes that scene he did as Gabriel died. Anyways, then he decides that he simply doesn't want to fight anymore, understandable, and he gives up on the army. Until he looks through Gabriel's stuff and finds a battered American flag, at which point he decides to continue fighting and rides back into the militia's ranks as they are marching, holding the flag. Of course, these things seem to happen only in movies, but it was meaningful nonetheless.
So the next thing you know the Continentals are in another battle, and they use the fact that Cornwallis underestimates the militia against him. However, the troops start losing their spirit and he runs through the ranks carrying the flag again, and they continue fighting. In the end, he gets in a showdown with Malfoy's dad. And he wins. I really am too bored to describe it, so let's just say it was cool, okay? Wait, I have to describe it so I can talk about the cool part. See, they're fighting, and Malfoy's dad has Ben on his knees and is about to kill him, saying that obviously Ben is not the better man. Then the latter ducks and avoids getting killed by Malfoy's dad and stabs the former in the stomach, saying that his sons were better men.
This is the part where I sob over dead characters, because I don't care so much about the ending.
THEY KILLED THOMAS AND GABRIEL. NO. HOW DARE THEY?! *insert rant here*
Anyways, on Saturday night I made a schedule for the next two weeks, and if I stick to it, which is so far so good, I will have all my oneshots done, have finished eight hours of NaNo planning, three hours of OTP planning, and character profiles for the six main characters in my NaNo. All done. In two weeks. It's amazing.
And this blog post is finally done, so I'm off to plan for NaNo.
--Ave, off to plan for NaNo
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