Let's Fix Blue Sky: The car crash scene

Reiji was given two character traumas in the show.  Both of them feel a bit off to me but they really have the potential to be deep and moving.  Some of the drama in the show could have worked really well if they would rely less on dialog and more on visuals and sound.  For example, the car crash scene where Reiji loses his parents and his sister almost dies of hypothermia could have been very dramatic and moving but ended up being just... embarrassing.  Lets take a look at what's wrong with the scene.

 While this is a powerful image, I'm pretty sure if they were dead, they wouldn't be holding on to the wheel like that still.  After that kind of impact, they would be slumped up against the wheel... heck where are the airbags?  I swear.  We don't even need to show the parents

 This shot is good.  They didn't even need to do a pan to it.  They could have just left it a still with snow falling.

 All right, I'm pretty sure that this wouldn't be working still... also I don't know why but this is the most embarrassing part.  Sure you Reiji to associate the song with this trauma but this... isn't the way to do it.

 look kid, you should be screaming right now.

Aw geez, are you freaking kidding me.

look kid, get out of the dang car and flag down people.






I don't know what it is that bothers me so much about this scene.  It's just so... gah.  Here's how I would have done the scene.

 First off I would have the parents talking with the kids in the back, laughing, having fun, the music casually playing in the background.  It would be a blizzard, and you would only be able to see a bit of the road

 Suddenly a car looses control and collides with them head on.  There would be no sound, maybe a quick gasp from the mom.  The song on the other hand would be the only thing you hear.

 Instead of hearing or seeing the collision, the screen would go black and suddenly be silent.





I would then show a pan of the wreckage over to Reiji who has gotten out of the car with his sister to find help.  I would have the two cars end up at the bottom of a hill.  Here is where his sister would say "it's so cold..."  We could even not have any words at all, just Reiji screaming into the sky while holding his sister.  No music, just the wind howling and him screaming as it pans to him.

Here I could either have him start climbing the hill with his sister in his arms, saying "We wont die, we wont die." as the song starts and gets louder as he climbs.  Or this could be a zoom pan on his face just screaming and holding his sister and the closer the zoom gets, the louder the music gets like a memory.  Knowing trauma like this first hand, I know that music would often go through my mind as if I was actually hearing it.  It's a very real and strange sensation.

See, much more effective and realistic.  If we break this strong character and show that he really did experience some sort of trauma, we get attached to them easier.  With how the show did it, he's a little too strong for such a young kid.  This is when his heart hardens and his attitude towards life changes.  We wouldn't know if the the parents had died or not but we don't really need to know that.  Perhaps we could reveal that he's an orphan in the end when he says why he's so mad at Kanade.  Maybe he's mad because Kanade treated him like an orphan charity case.
gah, this show is a mess.