Aliens, or Angels? Who Knows?

English: "The Snake in the Grass or
Satan Transform'd to an Angel
 of Light." At the sides are a
 Puritan and a Covenanter above an
author writing. Courtesy of the
 British Museum.
 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yeah, I'm playing catch up again.  I really intended to post every day while I was off school, but after working so hard on my critical analysis draft, I was feeling pretty self-indulgent.  Anyway, this morning I realized it was Thursday, and now I'm kicking myself (also again).
I think my draft was okay, although my thesis was not.  I went with:  The information revealed about Quill's father in Guardians of the Galaxy adds up to him being an angel rather than just another nonhuman.  I don't think I really made that point.

I had to make a list of everything that is said about him in the film, and in the draft I basically used the list, except for the material that was in my scene.  The point of this was to include the info without saying too much about all of the other scenes, because I didn't want to give the impression that I was analyzing those scenes (something forbidden in the instructions).  I'll find out if this is a problem at my conference with the prof next Monday, when I also hope to get some help with my thesis.

Related articles (some of which are very strange)

• Why Seeing Lights is a Sign from Your Angels (higherdensity.wordpress.com)
• [Flash Sale] the Ultimate Angel Messages book ... (angelladytm.wordpress.com)
• The Sirius Transmission and the Multi-Dimensional Light Body Upgrade : Star Seed Transmissions 2015 | Starchild Global with Ceila Fenn (foreverunlimited.wordpress.com)
• Angelic protectors..... (wepresson.wordpress.com)

What about the fantasy-adventure genre?

Strange Fantasy 01
 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The critical approach that I'm taking for my research project is genre criticism, and the film I'm analyzing is Percy Jackson & the Olympians:  The Lightning Thief.  My understanding of this approach is that it looks at how a film fits into an established genre, or doesn't.  Science fiction and fantasy is one of those genres, as is Action/Adventure, and it seems that my film fits into both, but it's not really science fiction or action:  it's fantasy-adventure.  Beyond that, it is also part of a subgenre that features kids as the heroes. 

And there's the problem for me as well as the benefit.  It seems to me that I'm going to be trying to identify and define a new(ish) category, so there might not be a lot of material available on this genre (bad) while I will have to do a lot to explain my model (good, in terms of meeting the length requirement).  Not only that but I have to include a lot of different films if I stick to what I have so far.  The characteristic that all of them share is that the adults are not involved in the stories except as villains or advisors (and their advice is frequently ignored by the kids).  However, I think that I have to exclude all of the teen-dystopia films (like The Hunger Games), because some of them are almost horror films, going all the way back to the first Halloween, which actually is a horror film.  And that's just the start! 

This is going to take a lot of thinking.  I'm hoping to get started on my library research in the next week.

Related articles

• List of Literary Genres and Definitions (authorphilpartington.wordpress.com)
• Under the Umbrella (thereanddraftagain.wordpress.com)
• Great Minds Criticize Alike (hunterjournal.wordpress.com)
• Distinguishing the Subgenres of General Fiction (kisawhipkey.com)
• Subgenre of the Week: Sword and Sorcery (atsiko.wordpress.com)
• What Makes a Good Fantasy Movie? (greyhawkgrognard.blogspot.com)
• The Entire Stonewiser Series Free! Mark Your Calendar! (fuonlyknew.com)
• Fantasy, the Not-so-mortal Instrument (sweetasredvelvet.wordpress.com)
• Brave New Worlds before Huxley and Orwell (writersinspire.wordpress.com)