Annotated 35-20
This scene’s pretty straightforward. I like Gring’s sass, I like Prill’s sincerity, I like the way they play off each other and off the minimalism of the head mason here. And all this is basically to keep things light and enjoyable until the next high-adrenaline scene kicks into–OH LOOK WE ALREADY STARTED
The layout is simple by choice, with the images in pairs: the camera holds its pose in the first pairing, and moves around to give a kind of symmetry to the second and third pairings. I thought this simplicity, and six boxes of equal size and shape, would reinforce the scene’s feeling of “la la la, nothing unusual to see here, just a couple of kids on an important but non-threatening errand.” Hopefully it disarmed a few of you.
Although I think it’s true that the Beast generally prefers prey that offers no resistance (WAV’s killed a few of these things before, he knows what’s what), it also seems to have a retaliatory instinct when attacked. Does it know this drum could be a threat to it? Hard to say, but back on its homeworld, there were probably similar situations of Cyberians like WAV running off to gather equipment.
“WHY ARE YOU SO OLD???” is a great line.
‘Because I didn’t annoy my elders into killing me. So you have nothing to worry about.’
“Because I don’t like any of the other options.”
“You could go back in time and delay your own conception so that you were born more recently!”
“Oh yeah, why didn’t I think of that? BRB”
“You’d be old too, if you were as old as I am.”