First off, I love the rhythmic editing in this, particularly the fight, the clapping and the liquid metal, and the young and old Charles Fisher sections. On a visual level, I'm just so taken by Jesse's reflection in the liquid metal, as well as all the other water imagery.
This is such a great song choice for Jesse, it's a song that *feels* like crushing, aching desperation and the dark, violent underside of love lost or betrayed. The pace and the voice are almost upbeat and bright but it's just relentlessly brutal. I really like that the "love" here is not just romantic love, not even primarily romantic, but also ideals and trust and a whole variety of other kinds of connections. I love the various permutations of the hunters and the hunted to illustrate the different relationships and the ways none of them are completely without manipulation or ulterior motives. Riley is the victim, but she was also a hunter; Jesse is a betrayer but she was also betrayed; John loved Riley but was also culpable in her death.
I think the show grew at least four sizes in gorgeous complexity with the addition of Jesse's POV and this vid does a great job portraying her motivations. I love the way you've used not only killer robots throughout, but also the humans, like Charles Fisher and then John, who work with them, in her POV, traitorously. John's alliance with the machines, illustrated in the vid by Cameron and the T-1000 her mission was sent to retrieve, is such a fundamental violation of what she thought she was fighting for. In Jesse's mind, there's no difference between Charles Fisher and future!John, their supposed SAVIOR, and how is she supposed to sit back and just let that happen?
What I take from this is how Jesse reaches a point where she's lost too much and she just shatters. Her love and violence spurs more violence, from Derek, from Riley, until they are directing the violence at each other. How Jesse just. . . rips everyone apart, even those she loves (because I do think she loved Riley, I just think Jesse is a soldier and she had a mission, and there's no room for more than that) because the killer robots ripped her apart until she can't care about anything but making that not so. And, as far as she's concerned, John helped them do it.
Yet what she does with her rage is *try to do something about it*, to change him back to the John Connor he's supposed be, the myth that she was sold. The relaxed "AWOL" moments with Derek are such a great contrast, because it's such a LIE every bit as much as the sweet Jesse/Riley hotel scenes are a LIE (except in all the ways they're also true). It's cover for the fact that she's still on her mission and that Riley is collateral damage, because that's how war works. She's here not because she hates John, she's not fighting with this desperate rage to *beat* him, but because she wants to believe in him again, and that's vastly more interesting to me.
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This is such a great song choice for Jesse, it's a song that *feels* like crushing, aching desperation and the dark, violent underside of love lost or betrayed. The pace and the voice are almost upbeat and bright but it's just relentlessly brutal. I really like that the "love" here is not just romantic love, not even primarily romantic, but also ideals and trust and a whole variety of other kinds of connections. I love the various permutations of the hunters and the hunted to illustrate the different relationships and the ways none of them are completely without manipulation or ulterior motives. Riley is the victim, but she was also a hunter; Jesse is a betrayer but she was also betrayed; John loved Riley but was also culpable in her death.
I think the show grew at least four sizes in gorgeous complexity with the addition of Jesse's POV and this vid does a great job portraying her motivations. I love the way you've used not only killer robots throughout, but also the humans, like Charles Fisher and then John, who work with them, in her POV, traitorously. John's alliance with the machines, illustrated in the vid by Cameron and the T-1000 her mission was sent to retrieve, is such a fundamental violation of what she thought she was fighting for. In Jesse's mind, there's no difference between Charles Fisher and future!John, their supposed SAVIOR, and how is she supposed to sit back and just let that happen?
What I take from this is how Jesse reaches a point where she's lost too much and she just shatters. Her love and violence spurs more violence, from Derek, from Riley, until they are directing the violence at each other. How Jesse just. . . rips everyone apart, even those she loves (because I do think she loved Riley, I just think Jesse is a soldier and she had a mission, and there's no room for more than that) because the killer robots ripped her apart until she can't care about anything but making that not so. And, as far as she's concerned, John helped them do it.
Yet what she does with her rage is *try to do something about it*, to change him back to the John Connor he's supposed be, the myth that she was sold. The relaxed "AWOL" moments with Derek are such a great contrast, because it's such a LIE every bit as much as the sweet Jesse/Riley hotel scenes are a LIE (except in all the ways they're also true). It's cover for the fact that she's still on her mission and that Riley is collateral damage, because that's how war works. She's here not because she hates John, she's not fighting with this desperate rage to *beat* him, but because she wants to believe in him again, and that's vastly more interesting to me.
OH SHOW. <3
ETA: Also, aww VIDWAR goes artsy! <# <# <#