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If there's a singular intended theme to the fourth chapter in The Handmaid's Tale, it's control and the limits of control. That's appropriate as that feeds into the themes of the entire novel. If there's an unintended theme (and I'm not entirely certain it was unintended), it's the potential for motivated mistakes.

We start with a look at Nick. Nick is a Guardian, and one with a cigarette indicating both something to trade and the connections to do so on the black market. He's old enough and ranked enough that he could have been issued a woman, as wife primarily and, potentially, servants in the forms of Marthas and Handmaids. But, for some reason, he hasn't. Either he doesn't rate due to a defect or he just doesn't have the right connections in the system to make that work.
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Enter Serena Joy. Or rather, enter the character who, at the end of the chapter, we will find out is named Serena Joy. This chapter gives us little information, for the most part, on who Serena Joy is. She's blond, she's older than our main character. And, our main character is, in her narrating words, "a reproach" of her.

Serena Joy shows no indication of any kind of empathy or compassion for our main character and, in fact, shows all signs of antipathy. In narration, the main character (who I know is Offred but is yet to be called that) notes that Serena, as a wife, is allowed to strike someone in the main character's position, that of a handmaid, with her bare palm. This has scriptural support.

At the very end of the chapter, our main character recognizes this wife and notes her name. As a young child, before in a world with television and freedom for women (at least more than here and now) she would, on Saturday mornings, search for cartoons on TV. When those weren't to be found, she'd switch to religious programming (before the days of Cable that was easy to find in paid TV time) for story time aimed at young children. Based on that, Serena Joy was a recognizable face, with foreshadowing to note that we'll find out more about her back story.

Our main character, upon this realization, notes that her situation is worse than she thought.

Serena Joy... is Cain.
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This is going to be about "Star Wars: The Last Jedi". There will be spoilers. Warning given cut to follow.
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I'm just starting into my reread of The Handmaid's Tale and, before I really get into it, I know this is going to be different than the other two.

BNW, as I just got through saying in that deconstruction, is more about the false image of the changing values of a changing world than it is about anything real. It's a fear of the different without a full knowledge of what's familiar.

1984 took what was going on at the time, and arguably what is the sins of all societies, and extrapolated from that. I now know why, between the two, it's 1984 that has made the more lasting impression.

The Handmaid's Tale is different. Margaret Atwood constructed both the events that changed American society and the Republic of Gilead from events that had already happened elsewhere. This just isn't as theoretical as either of the previous books.
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The movie Bright is on Netflix. That means that, by the time you're watching it, you haven't paid for it. Therefore, you haven't wasted any money on it. And, hey, it entertained me, mildly, for the time it was running in which I wasn't going to do anything else but waste time anyway, so no more wasted time than there was going to be. So, on that level, I'm not going to tell you to avoid watching.

I will tell you not to expect much. Included in that is... You shouldn't expect Bright to live up to its own ambitions. It just isn't thoughtful enough on the topic. It can entertain enough to eat up some time, but not much else.

The ambition is to say something important and profound on the topic of bigotry. The tools are good ones, fantasy elements in an alternate-history modern day world to make an allegory for a generally hated race. The problems... are big ones.
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I... can't view Brave New World as a key dystopian fiction, anymore. It's a straw-man fiction, much like if anti-feminists were to write a fictional world of the feminist ideal. It's less a chilling view of the future and more of a chilling view of how people view you when they're unwilling to actually see you.

I'm going to tackle two chapters at once, because they're basically the same thing, a drawn-out discussion on why Fordly society is as it is and why it is inferior, though happier, to previous ways of life and society (which is to say, ways that Huxley approves of). And, again, I'm put amind of the recent Kevin Sorbo movie "Let There Be Light".

In that movie, Kevin Sorbo plays the world's top atheist who presents atheism as being about sex, drugs, and music with rocks in. His home-life is one of bitter, alcoholic loneliness. The notion, much like at the heart of this book, is that it's impossible to be different, to not have these particular values, without having different, quite important values to replace them.

I'll go over the beats.
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There's part of me that doesn't want to be too hard on John, here. After all, he's just lost his mother. What's more, he's just lost his mother to her own decision to OD on Soma, a drug that, as presented in the novel, is nigh-impossible to overdose.

This could have been her opportunity to take joy in introducing John, as someone she knows and loves, to the home that she has so longed for. Instead, once she's reached that home she longed for, she decided to seek oblivion. She preferred what was openly stated to be killing her to spending time alive in the world in which she had given birth to John.

That, plus the years of abuse he suffered by her hand directly and by the Malpais people responding to her, he can lay (perhaps not justly) at the feet of Fordly society.

Yet, my point from last week remains. What we're seeing isn't a realistic society. It's a straw man concocted by someone who doesn't understand the new value sets he's criticizing. And that puts a light on what's to come.
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There are two competing elements of this chapter/scene. It's short and it packs an emotional punch. At the same time, that emotional punch is delivered because it is a culture depicted by someone who isn't interested in it.

Here is the chapter where Linda dies. Or rather, here is the chapter where John is there for Linda's death. And, in that much, you can't help but feel for John. You don't have to like him at this point, but you have to feel for him at least a little. His mother is dying and suffering from severe dementia.
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Before I go into this I want to note three things.

Firstly, RedSixWing gave me the basic idea. Thank you.

Secondly, in comments over on Slacktivist, Dragoness_E gave me a good note on how not to go forward. Thank you.

Both of you had a big influence in how this turned out.

Thirdly, Seed of Bismuth didn't like how I did this, but did have their own thoughts. I would have stolen them for another Case, but there was talk of maybe doing a webcomic and I really want to see how that would go.

That said, for our Extended Cinematic Universe, we've established the world and the conflict and now can roll on into a stage wherein both sides are actively recruiting. And, that can make the premise of some movies.
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I've repeatedly mentioned that the world Huxley creates for this novel isn't sex positive and is not the alternative to his culture's attitude towards sex, one which we can label "purity culture". Instead, it is a sex-mandating purity culture to mirror Huxley's own sex-averse or sex-controling purity culture. That makes this chapter Purity Culture Clash.

Were I to guess at Huxley's intention, I would imagine that he intends for us to agree with John's judgment but, at the same time, sympathize with Lenina. When I first read this book, back in the 90s and back as a High School Student, I did. Then again, I had a lot more agreement than disagreement with Huxley back then.

This chapter begins with Lenina being distracted by her affection for John. Her job is, apparently, administering vaccinations to feti.

Note: InquisitiveRaven, way back at the first part of this deconstruction, commented that the vaccinations are issued at a point before a fetus would have a functioning immune system. It's just more science that we have to forgive for the sake of the story.
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Chapter twelve is a simple chapter. It's short and it gives a great deal of tell but not show, regarding the story Bernard, John, and Helmholtz. But, for all of that, it's also showing us a great deal about the society that Huxley wrote about.

And, here I think that Huxley's aware of how much the chilling society he wrote about mirrors his own comfortable society, which he fears falling to the, as Bernard says, inexpensive life.

I have my disagreements with Huxley. That's unlikely to end any time soon. There are two important consolations for Huxley on that regard. The first and most obvious is that Huxley, even assuming that he continues to exist, probably doesn't care, in the slightest, what I think of his book.

The other is that this chapter is the clearest example of this book's continuing value.
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Hopefully, at this point we have two good movies to the project. And, we have three... and a half characters to start. By this point, the movies have either failed or they're successful enough that we've earned audience good-will enough to start pushing for the connected universe. With that in mind, we can *now*, not straight from the beginning, start making movies with the specific end of a combined effort.

Towards that end, let's bring in another major bad guy.

1999 brought us The Mummy, which was an alright action/adventure with comedy elements. It amused... but it really didn't take the idea seriously. 2017 took the idea seriously, but attempted to make Tom Cruz into a god... literally... and no.

Fair warning, I only know the original movie based on a Wiki-summary. I can see how that makes for a good movie, but I want to try something else, something based on who was mummified, why, and what's happened since that mummification.
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Chapter eleven has two intended themes and one big unintended theme.

The first theme is that Bernard is getting caught up with his newfound popularity. This is more told than shown and I'm mainly alright with that.

Thanks to his association with "the savage", Bernard has something to offer women to get dates and a reason to be invited to all the best parties, where people listen to what he has to say. And, I'm perfectly okay not seeing all of that, particularly the part where he "has" six girls in a week.

About the only thing that's left subtle is that Bernard is engaging in the exact same behavior that had him so angry at the beginning of the book. This much is fairly simple.

On this, I have only to say that, during this, I don't like Bernard... but I have to admit how easily I would have, given the opportunity, done the same. I view this, like my view of 1984 as very High School in nature and the person I was in High School, given a shot of popularity, might very well have gotten caught up just like Bernard. I don't know if it was to my benefit or detriment that I didn't get that option.
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In the comments section of the blog, Barrier Breaker, link to the specific post below*, one ex-Christian commented on how they felt their life improved since leaving Christianity. That comment included a line likening God to "some invisible spy creeping around keeping tabs on every move I make." This, as you can understand, is not a view of God appreciated by most Christians (or by yourself if you're within my target reader). So, you can somewhat understand the following response.

Given what you wrote, I would be interested in knowing what exactly did you once presumably believe; the..."invisible spy creeping around keeping tabs on every move I make"...doesn't corresponded to any belief system that I'm familiar with, certainly not Christian theism,so...what are you talking about here?

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To remind of the theme of the Cases I'm going with, the idea is that I think that there is artistic and entertainment value to be had in a Universal Monster Extended Cinematic Universe. Two previous attempts, Dracula Untold and The Mummy have failed at that attempt... largely on the basis that they just weren't good movies.

Last time, I worked with Dracula as a source material (though, arguably the idea can work with just about any vampire). The important point was to make sure that it was a good stand-alone movie. Elements could be expanded later, but there shouldn't be any effort to tease for future movies before we know there's a good movie in the first place.

We're going to keep with the stand-alone effort and, now, move from Dracula to another classic horror villain. The previous was large and powerful and impossible to fully defeat because it was so big. Let's focus a little smaller with this one, on the strange case of a young student of psychology, looking to become a doctor.

Did I over play the foreshadowing? I think so. Let's look at Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
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There's one part I didn't get into when the opportunity was there. But, right now, it makes for some good compare and contrast. I talked about John's reaction to the Director and, by my guess, the expectation that the Director would regard him as a son rather than the mere concept as an embarrassment. But, let's talk a little about how the Director presents one of the core theses of Fordly society.

The topic is Bernard Marx and the Director's insistence that Bernard must be held to account. He's very good at his job, which would be a reason to accept eccentricity. The Director responds...

"I know. But that's all the more reason for severity. His intellectual eminence carries with it corresponding moral responsibilities. The greater a man's talents, the greater his power to lead astray. It is better that one should suffer than that many should be corrupted. Consider the mater dispassionately, Mr. Foster, and you will see that no offence is so heinous as unorthodoxy of behaviour. Murder kills only the individual-and, after all, what is an individual?" With a sweeping gesture he indicated the rows of microscopes, the test-tubes, the incubators. "We can make a new one with the greatest ease-as many as we like. Unorthodoxy threatens more than the life of a mere individual; it strikes at Society itself. Yes, at Society itself," he repeated.

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Universal wants their own extended universe franchise. I get it. Marvel shows that can be done well. DC shows that, even if not done well, that can be done profitably. And, it should be noted that Universal has done this before. Way back when we were just getting into those Universal Movie Monsters, Dracula met the Wolfman. Dracula met Frankenstein (well, really the monster but the guy needs a name). The Mummy met Abbot and Costello.

(And, Abbot and Costello were monsters. Make no mistake. Dracula can just hypnotize you and drain your blood. Abbot and Costello had truly Lovecraftian powers. They had the power to twist math and make 13X7=21. Though, I don't think they'll make it into the extended universe.)

It's worked for them before. It will work for them again. And, I have no doubt that they'll try it again. I don't see why they shouldn't. But, they should take care. First, to take it one movie at a time. Secondly, they should make use of the opportunities such an attempt would provide them.

In that vei... In that effort, I'll start with Dracula.
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John, in chapters nine and ten, gives us a demonstration of someone who's expectations do not conform to any realistic appreciation of reality. I'm not going to say that he's mentally ill because I don't believe that any of his behavior requires that. I am going to say that, in terms of his expectations and his model of human relations, he's not well.

That's understandable. It's important to remember, in chapter nine, that there are three major models he has for how humans are supposed to relate to each other.
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This is a rather obscure one from the 1980's. I just don't hear anybody talking about it anymore and... that's just as well. I did enjoy this movie, repeatedly. I'd watch it over and over again because, and this is important, I was a child who liked repetition. When the sequel came to cable, I watched it and enjoyed on the basis of a movie that was bad enough to be amusing in its own right.

Of movies from the 80's, there are better movies to be remembered. Then again, a movie doesn't need to reach heights of art. It just needs to be amusing enough to be worth what you paid to see it, especially if it's on cable and that cost was shared with a great deal of much better entertainment.

For those who, quite reasonably, don't know, Mannequin is the story of an artist and the bit of anthropomoriphized plastic he falls in love with... Really.

Okay, there's a more generous description. There are two main characters.
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I'm thankful to Huxley for one thing about Chapter 8. In this chapter we get a few quick glimpses of John's life in the Pueblo. It looks at the culture that is a mishmash of various cultures and one with a lack of what we, today or in Huxley's time, would consider advanced technology. It would have been very easy for Huxley to present us with the "Simpler Time" narrative.

You know how the trope goes. The "Simpler Time" wherein people were better to each other, more neighborly. They might not have had all our gadgets, but they really cared about each other and they would never...

Except... here... no.
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