So here this is, for what it’s worth. I’m not totally happy with this, but it Gets the Job Done. The right thing to do would be to split off a new subplot here actually following Elvira attempting to live out this Ghost List, show her gradually developing ennui, her realization that Life Is for the Living, and some kind of nuanced, ostensive definition of exactly what it means that Life Is for the Living.
Instead this is essentially the scene in Star Trek: Generations where Captain Kirk is all like NO, CAPTAIN PICARD, THERE’S NO REASON I SHOULD LEAVE MY WORLD OF INFINITE BLISS TO GO WITH YOU and then his horse makes a certain jump too easily and he realizes that WHERE THERE IS NO FEAR, THERE IS NO JOY and he goes to get murdered in a desert, because that is truly living. This whole horse-jumping-the-ravine scene happened because the filmmakers didn’t want to do it the right way — to show the evolution of character until we ourselves feel the terrible forces of narrative gravity operating upon those characters, until we Understand Them — so they did it the quick way. This is also the logic behind this scene right here. I apologize for this scene right here, and thanks to the miracle of technology, I don’t have to fool you into thinking that I Achieved All My Intentions With This, as a film studio does for PR reasons because a lot of money and a lot of people’s reputations are at stake. It’s not like I’m charging money for this or anything. The best feature of the Internet the abiding gateway into imperfection that it provides, like a stable wormhole into someone’s universe in process. This is not a feature we should try to fix, I think.
(Another neat thing about Generations is that we see Captain Picard’s dream of ultimate happiness, which is essentially to be Mr. Fezziwig.)
Join us Thursday for a page that I DO, however, feel lives up to all the dreams I had for it!