Vid Review: "Desert Rose" by phoenixchilde, and Season 1 of Heroes
Remember how I told you all to watch Desert Rose, by phoenixchilde? *G* Well, now that it's been shown at Vividcon (at the Newbies Rock! Vidshow), I'm going to ramble at length about Season 1 of Heroes, and how this vid influenced the way I watched the show, when I marathoned the eps this summer.

If you haven't watched the vid, go watch it now (I've given the link above), because it is absolutely FANTASTIC. Plus, I discuss it in great detail and you want to have the experience of watching it unspoiled before listening to me go on and on about it. :D



Here's the beginning of the note I wrote to the vidder, phoenixchilde:

Seriously, you had me hooked from the very first frame. I loved, loved, loved it. Not only is this the most technically accomplished Heroes vid I've seen so far, it's also one of the most thematically complex and visually captivating, and just...oh, words cannot express how much I love this vid. And I'm a pretty picky vid-watcher, so trust me when I tell you that I don't usually gush at such length.

I love how you tie together the stories of Peter, Mohinder, and Sylar--the three characters who are working hardest to try to understand what's going on, how all the pieces of the puzzle fit together, and how they fit in in the overall scheme of things.

And now, here's an extended version of the feedback I sent to her, because I can't stop thinking about this vid. As I wrote in my note above, the vid mainly focuses on Peter, Mohinder, and Sylar. But it's about a whole lot more than that--it's about the biggest themes in the show: evolution, connections, destiny, human potential.

Peter

00:10 Peter on the roof, preparing to jump. Possibly the most overvidded shot in the fandom, but it still manages to give me chills in this vid. I think it's because of the way it matches up to the wailing vocals in the music, and the techno beats in the background that suggest that something big is coming.



And then--and then--we zoom in on Peter's eye, which becomes The Eclipse, which fades into The List. What a great way of showing us that he's going to connect all these people, that he's our point of entry into this world, and of hinting at his Empath nature. I'm astonished at how much of Peter's character phoenixchilde was able to grasp just from the first half of the season, because this vid was made during the first hiatus, if I'm not mistaken. She just gets him. (This is also evident from her Peter fic.)

1:02 One of the most beautiful and expressive shots on the show: Peter moving between Isaac's paintings, seeing all of these mysteries for the first time, bewildered and overwhelmed, while Isaac is drawn in despite himself, following Peter's motions, hypnotized by the possibilities that are suddenly opening up in front of them. A new alliance formed--a new connection made. That is, after all, what Peter does. The brief shot of them, staring up at the enormous painting they have completed together, is just wonderful.



3:11 A gorgeous, gorgeous sequence showing Peter against the New York sky, as Mohinder, Sylar, and Chandra all fade in and out against the background, again showing that Peter's the common point of connection, that somehow there are threads running from him to all the others, that they are part of his vision of the future, part of his destiny. And the final figure to fade in and out is the RNA helix: the final driving force shaping his fate.



Mohinder

1:25 Mohinder's story gets launched a little further on in the vid, and of course it's triggered by his father's interactions with Sylar. The vid starts with Chandra looking at the map, zooms into the map, and zooms back out onto Mohinder, standing in front of the same map, taking up his father's work. Wow.

The lyrics for Mohinder's arc are perfect. "This way she moves in the logic of all my dreams." That's what Mohinder's looking for, literally and figuratively: something logical, something to explain his dreams--both the dreams he has in India, and his scientific dreams, the fanciful tales that his father told him and that may not have been so fanciful after all.

And it works beautifully to tie his story to Peter's, because as cadesama has often pointed out, Peter actually operates according to dream logic.

12_12_12: The weird thing about Peter is that he almost never considers logic, AT ALL. I mean, even the kookiest of people usually use some kind of rationale for judging their own and others' behavior, but Peter...practically never. He just seems to make these weird, irrational leaps in logic based on nothing more than gut instinct, and the bizarre thing is that he's often right in the essentials if not in the details.

cadesama: Dream logic. He seriously acts like he's living in a dream, and it works -- just like how Hiro acts like he's in a comic book, and it typically works. Although, with Hiro, there really is more of an excuse for comic book logic being the right logic. Peter ... yeah, I have no doubt everyone thought he was a problem child all his life, and had no idea what to do with him because he's not only a flake, but a flake that's right.

"This fire burns...I realize that nothing's as it seems" matched up with Mohinder looking at a photograph of him and Chandra, putting away Chandra's ashes--that's the fire that's burning him initially, that's what keeps him going: his father. And of course everything he held to be true and self-evident about the world is being called into question.

"I need to know why he died. I need to know that it wasn't all for nothing!" (Mohinder talking about Chandra's research, Pilot)

Mohinder and Peter

And then Peter shows up at Mohinder's door. Both of them looking at the eclipse, talking about their fathers, themselves, their lives, Chandra's research: Activating Evolution.

"I lift my gaze to empty skies above." To Mohinder, they seem like empty skies now--the eclipse is meaningless, a coincidental event, and he leaves Peter on the subway, intent on giving up, letting go, as he lets go of his father's ashes.

Peter's also frustrated in his journey: we see Mohinder refusing to believe him, we see him falling off the monkey bars in his attempt to fly. But of course, to Peter, the skies are anything but empty: the eclipse is a sign, he's convinced that he has a destiny, that these events are connected somehow. And the final shot leading into the bridge is Peter flying, flying into the sky, which fades into New York itself.

And then we get the bridge.

2:23: "Are you sure you want to quit?" This is the moment of decision for Peter and Mohinder. Will Peter accept Hiro's mission? Will Mohinder go back to pursue the mystery his father died trying to unravel? Both of them could have stopped here--gone back to safer, quieter lives. I know a lot of people were bored with Mohinder's storyline in India: I wasn't. And I think part of the reason why I wasn't was because this is a huge turning point in the story. It's a big decision for Mohinder--not only about whether or not he should continue his father's research, but what he wants to do with his life, what kind of life he wants to have.



The same holds for Peter. He's talked about "being special," he's talked about destiny. But when it comes down to the actual moment of decision, it's not such an easy choice to make. When FutureHiro appears to him on the subway, when Simone shows him the painting, when he's about to walk into almost certain death--he has a choice.

"This is what you've been waiting for. Be the one we need."

It's wonderful how the vid pauses here, making use of the lull in the music before the quickening of pace at 2:35, to let us appreciate that this is a conscious decision on the parts of both characters. I love vids that really make use of the bridge, and this is a great example. It reminds me of the scene in Serenity where Mal's information flashes up no the screen, and it says VOLUNTEER in huge flashing capitals. Mohinder and Peter are volunteers: they're stepping up to the plate.

"Are you sure you want to quit?"

And then Mohinder presses "NO" and Claire's running up the steps at Homecoming and Peter's facing Sylar and both of them are in it up to their necks now, the music's ramping up and there's no going back. I was literally jumping out of my seat. I love, love, love the quick cuts to the painting of Claire when the bridge ends, and the irrevocable decision has been made.



2:45: If I had to pick one section, just one, from the vid that I loved the most, it would have to be the next part, where the vidder cuts together the "Homecoming" storyline and Peter piecing together the paintings in Isaac's loft. The clock ticks forward, inexorably--the puzzle falls into place, it's really happening, it's really here. And what's amazing about this part is that we get Peter putting up the comic book panels that Isaac's painted of the Odessa High School Homecoming, and the two of them looking at the painting Peter completes. And the careful vid-watcher will remember that very early on in the vid--at 00:29--we got a shot of the paintings that hadn't been put together into a complete comic book page yet. The vid poses a question at the beginning: how are these events connected? How are these people connected? And then, more than halfway through, we get the answer. Not only that, we get one of the characters in the vid figuring out the answer for himself. If that's not friggin' amazing, I don't know what is.





Sylar

"Her shadows play in the shape of a man's desire": Of course, this is Sylar's desire--to possess these powers. "It's an evolutionary imperative." And then the quick cuts from the paintings of Claire at her high school to the book--Activating Evolution, the force that Sylar is claiming as his motivation.

01:12 OK, how cool is it the way the image of Gabriel, the shy watchmaker, being given hope for the first time, keeps fading into the image of Sylar, menacing and dangerous in the hallway at Claire's school? Shadows of the monster within, hints of what's to come.

"Sweet perfume never tortured me more than this." Brian Davis. Telekinesis. The promise of power, the promise of being special. And, of course, the fear that he isn't *is* torture to Sylar.

The Homecoming sequence: In the middle of all the images of Sylar killing Jackie, chasing Claire, attacking Peter, we suddenly get a shot of Gabriel looking through his instruments: a reminder of who he is--The Watchmaker. He knows how things work. He's just applying his knowledge in a different way. Chilling.



Big-Ass Themes

This vid really doesn't shy away from the biggest themes in Heroes: on the contrary, it goes straight for them. Destiny. Life. Evolution.

• The Helix: Activating Evolution. The words, the concept, the idea of evolution as a driving force is constantly present in every beat, every frame of this vid. Chandra Suresh's book appears again and again, together with his files, his notes: Teleportation. Human Flight Potential. Rapid Cell Regeneration. And the RNA helix is ever-present as well--in Isaac's painting of Niki, in the model on Mohinder's desk, in the sketches on Chandra's wall.
  
  

  "This is God. Respect accordingly."

  
  
  1:30-1:36: "This way she moves in the logic of all my dreams" Connections, connections, connections. I love the sequence of clips of Mohinder linking different cities on the map, different powers, different people, all bound by the symbol that's present throughout the vid: the RNA helix. Activating evolution--the force that's driving all these events, ever-present, latent potential, waiting to be expressed.
  
  
• The Eclipse: "a global event." The image of the eclipse, seen by Mohinder, Peter, Isaac (in his painting), Claire, by Niki in the pinhole camera. Is it a sign? A trigger? Or just another reminder of the fact that these people are all connected?
  
  
• The Paintings.
  
  "I dream of love as time runs through my hand": The vid intercuts Peter sketching in the hospital with him looking at Isaac's painting, and the actual event (Peter levitating on the roof). It really shows that these stories are interconnected, that everything Isaac's painting is coming true. And on a technical note: Peter's leg movements when he's falling to the roof matches perfectly with the quick drumbeats that lead into the next section of the music. It's little details like this that lift the vid from great to brilliant.
  
  The paintings are used throughout the vid to emphasize the fact that everything taking place is a puzzle, an enigma to be worked out and understood--that is, if it can be understood. We have to work to understand the paintings, to make connections between them, form them into a coherent story, as with the Homecoming sequence, or to draw the correct interpretations from them, as with the painting of Peter falling (which Peter mistakenly believes is a painting of him flying.)
  
  
• The List.
  
  00:18 -- The eclipse fades into The List on Mohinder's computer. I just said, "Yes!" when I saw that. We're being introduced to all these people, "seemingly ordinary...but they're not." People around the globe, just being discovered, discovering themselves.
  
  And of course, at the end we come back to The List again: and we see all these people in Peter's vision, Peter's dream, all coming together for the final climactic event.
  
  "The sweet intoxication of the fall" And where is it all leading? I love how the explosion matches up to the long note of "fall," how you come back to The List that started the vid, all the characters poised on the brink of discovery, of connection. Mohinder looking at his computer, Isaac looking at his painting, Peter looking at his own fate, seeing his own death. And instead of zooming IN, as we did at the beginning of the vid, entering this world, this story, we zoom OUT, left wondering what's coming next.