Tuesday, February 22, 2022

Don't Stop Him Now, He's Having Such A Good Time

No comment about the length of time between posts. I'm just gonna jump right into the story here.

In a bit. First, a little background.

So, in movies and tv I am a huge fan of the trope of Soundtrack Dissonance. As a TLDR, it's exactly what it says on the tin. The tone of the soundtrack directly clashes with what's happening on screen, and you see it in a lot of movies and tv shows, in action scenes in particular. Rather than having an intense orchestral piece matching the setpiece, the background music is anything from a peaceful ballet piece to a classic rock song that's completely out of place. A good example of this is the church fight in Kingsman: The Secret Service which is set to Lynyrd Skynyrd's Free Bird, and it's every bit as ridiculous as it sounds.

One song that's commonly used is Queen's Don't Stop Me Now, which has been used in a number of scenes in movies such as the power test in Shazam! or a montage in Sonic the Hedgehog, or my personal favorite, the fight in the pub in Shaun of the Dead (warning, this is a clip from an R-rated film for language and violence, viewer discretion advised), where not only is it playing in the background in universe, the fight itself is in time with the song. It's...absolutely beautiful in its absurdity.

Which brings us to our story, from the first campaign with our friend David (the one with the bard starting the zombie apocalypse). It was the mid-campaign climax, but essentially, we arrived at the gates of a city and our characters were wanted as fugitives by the then-current villain (it's complicated, but usual D&D stuff). There was a faction of clerics and paladins to the dragon god Bahamut deadlocked against a cult trying to summon the evil dragon goddess Tiamat from Avernus to bring about the end of days, standard demon or dragon cult stuff. Anyway, we were met at the city gates by a huge horde of cultists who were out for blood.

So...from the perspective of almost all of us, it was the leadup to the standard final battle where we all drew our weapons, unsure of whether we were going to make it out alive, as the epic music swells. I say almost all of us because...well...then there's the dwarf Ryuu.

As in, the one who asked to be tossed to the river bank to solo a bunch of orcs.

For you see, as he drew his weapons, under that big bushy beard of his, a smile cracked.

And I don't remember who started it, but someone made a joke about how off it would be if different, happier music was playing in his head, and then I started singing under my breath, "'Cause I'm havin' a good time, HAVIN' A GOOD TIME!" Which drew some questions until I explained where I was coming from and pulled up Don't Stop Me Now on my phone.

We rolled for initiative, and Ryuu went first. And every time his turn came up, I switched the background music to Don't Stop Me Now. Because while the rest of us were fighting the big, serious, epic climactic battle, he was having the time of his life transforming himself into a four foot tall Beyblade of destruction. It was so perfect that if that campaign ever got the Legend of Vox Machina-esque adaptation that we definitely don't deserve, I would offer a substantial percentage of my cut of the royalties just to have Don't Stop Me Now in the background of that scene, in that exact manner. When focusing on the rest of the party, epic, tense fight music, with occasional cutbacks to Ryuu with a massive smile on his face as he relishes in the violence while Don't Stop Me Now plays.

I'd do it myself if I knew anything about animation and had any sort of art skills. Or understanding of shot composition and fight choreography.

A guy can dream.

No comments:

Post a Comment