The Last Jedi and my view of Star Wars

On Monday I laid out some of the things I found troublesome with The Last Jedi and on Tuesday I listed a few things I thought the movie did well. After reading both of those posts it would be natural to ask where my Star Wars fan level currently rests. As I said in Monday’s post, I walked out of the movie theater still a Star Wars fan after both times I watched the film. My love of Star Wars has managed to survive everything that both George Lucas and Disney have done to the series, so a single enjoyable but problematic film isn’t going to turn me off to Star Wars. At the same time, however, I can’t deny that I’m a little less optimistic then I was in the aftermath of The Force Awakens and Rogue One. Despite it’s flaws, The Force Awakens had me convinced that a bright future was possible for Star Wars and I had high hopes for where the series would go. Rogue One was a good movie and affirmed this positive outlook, but now The Last Jedi has dimmed the light a little. I still have hopes for whatever Episode 9 turns out to be—it’s just that those hopes are a little tempered now. Next in line for Star Wars is the Han Solo movie. Hopefully that doesn’t cause my Star Wars fandom to fade a little more.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Part 2

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE LAST JEDI IN THIS POST

Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Part 1

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE LAST JEDI IN THIS POST

Doctor Who

I posted the image below to Facebook on Monday, but I think my creation is good enough for me to publish it here too. Also, I worked a continuous 13.5-hour shift today, so I’m in no condition to write a normal post. I’m not a fan of Doctor Who, but that could all change if the dream below comes to life.

I’ve never seen more than bits and pieces of Doctor Who and am largely clueless as to what the show is about, but I am resolutely convinced that Adam Sandler would be the greatest Doctor of all time. Please join me in starting a social media campaign to bring this dream to fruition. #AdamSandlerDoctorWho

Star Wars: Rogue One

Last year my first “normal” writing piece was related to Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Seeing as how we’re supposed to be getting a new Star Wars movie each year for the next several years, I’m thinking I’ll try to take it a tradition for the first “normal” writing piece of each year to be Star Wars-related. Today I’m going to give a very brief overview of my experience in watching Star Wars: Rogue One and my opinion of the movie. If you haven’t seen the movie you can relax—there will be no spoilers here.

I watch Rogue One last month, about four to five weeks after its initial release. It was a Saturday afternoon when I walked into the theater and when I came out I was quite pleased with how the movie turned out. Though not perfect, it does so much right that Rogue One will very likely be remembered as one of the better Star Wars movies. After the safe, and arguably necessary, play that was The Force Awakens, it was good to see a Star Wars movie that stretched out and told a story with a more unique feel to it. Rogue One also does what at first might seem impossible, in that it actually makes A New Hope better. I can’t tell you how it does this without going into spoilers, but I do think it will make people look at Episode 4 in a slightly different light. On the negative side I would say there are a few scattered scenes to could have been shortened or cut altogether, but this is a minor complaint. Rogue One is a great movie. After seeing it I’m much more confident in Disney’s handling of Star Wars and I look forward to where they take the series from here.

Suicide Squad

I saw Suicide Squad, and it was just ok. When it first came out I noticed it was getting bad reviews, but I had enjoyed Batman v Superman, which had also gotten panned by the critics, so maybe I would turn out liking Suicide Squad as well. I watched Suicide Squad with a friend of mine two weeks after its release, and at the end of the movie I walked out I could say that it wasn’t that bad, but it also wasn’t particularly good. Some things in the movie worked, and some didn’t. Though I won’t spoil the main plot of the movie, there are a few things I want to quickly mention.

As would be expected from a film with such a large cast of characters, not everyone gets equal levels of screen time. While some like Deadshot and Harley Quinn get bits of backstory and character development, others like Katana and Killer Croc are kind of just there and only serve to fill up space. Jared Leto’s take on Joker is something I’m still undecided on, as while he does capture the classic psychotic traits we expect from the character, the Joker in Suicide Squad is a crime lord, which seems rather mundane for him. What I did like was Will Smith’s performance as Deadshot, and I would go so far as to say that he carries every scene that he’s prominent in. As someone who’s not into comic books, I had never heard of the film’s main villain, and though I’m told the villain is fairly well known in the DC universe, I think Suicide Squad might have been helped by having a more prominent, higher profile villain. Lastly, I find it very strange that members of the Justice League are MIA from the movie’s final confrontation. The situation the Suicide Squad is sent in to deal with has been going on for two days, and in the movie both Batman and Flash make cameo appearances early on, so we know that the heroes already exist at this point, so where are they? I think we have to assume that Suicide Squad takes place after the events of Batman v Superman, because otherwise it would make no sense that Superman didn’t notice what was going on and put an end to the crisis before things got worse.

Giant Fail

This past weekend saw the release of the tenth and final episode of the sixth season of the HBO series Game of Thrones. Episode one of season six was the first episode of Game of Thrones I had ever watched (you can read my short, nonsensical commentary on it here) but I hadn’t watched any other episodes since then. I thought it might be interesting to watch the final episode of the season just to compare it to the first, and the next day I discussed the episode with a friend of mine who is more familiar with the show. He helped me fill in some of the gaps of what’s going on in the world of Game of Thrones, and I now feel a bit more knowledgeable about the show, though I still can’t claim to know that much.

I’m not going to discuss episode ten in this post. Instead, I’m going to go on a dumb rant about something else related to Game of Thrones. After talking with my friend, I watched episode nine of season six, because I had read such great things about the massive battle that takes place in it. I watched the episode, and sure enough there was a big battle with some impressive cinematography and tons of deaths to be had. While the battle is very well done, there’s one part that really bothered me. Namely, Jon Snow’s army has a giant in it, but said giant’s tactical potential is completely squandered. The giant looks to be something like fifteen feet tall, and strong enough to wield a tree trunk like a club or staff, but instead he’s fighting with just his bare hands. All Jon Snow had to do was give the giant a large tree to uproot, and with it the giant could have both broken through Bolton’s battle line, as well as breached the gates of the city of Winterfell, and possibly have survived the battle. This is what we call squandering a valuable asset. I understand that things needed to play out the way they did in the show for the sake of drama, but this was really stupid. Combined with his taking the bait from Bolton and doing his best Leroy Jenkins impersonation, I have serious doubts about Jon Snow’s competency as a battlefield commander after watching this episode.

Too Much Star Wars?

Is there such as thing as having too much Star Wars? That question came to mind a few months ago when I saw a news article about how Disney had plans to release a new Star Wars movie every year, starting last year and going until 2020. I love Star Wars as much as anyone else, but I do wonder if having a Star Wars film every year for the next several years will take some of the luster off the brand. When Disney acquired Lucasfilm, and by extension Star Wars, in 2012 I knew there were going to be changes and Disney would milk the franchise for all it was worth, but I didn’t foresee them cranking out spinoff movies in addition to a new trilogy. I can’t blame Disney for doing this, and they’ll likely rake in billions of dollars over the coming years, but part of me feels like Star Wars movies won’t be quite as special if they’re coming out on a such a regular schedule. Then again, maybe I’m wrong, and like a drug addict my desire for more Star Wars will only grow with the increased volume of Star Wars entertainment.

Game of Thrones, Season 6, Episode 1

My friend over at Free Refills was originally going to do a few writing pieces on Game of Thrones this week, but due to unforeseen circumstances he hasn't been able to do so. These are dire times indeed, but never fear Internet, I am here and ready to step up to the plate and quench your immeasurable thirst for Game of Thrones commentary. I feel like Batman and the Bat Signal has just been lit. Just be forewarned, this Batman has no training in martial arts or detective skills, has no cool gadgets, is completely unfamiliar with Gotham City, and generally has no idea what he's doing.

This past Sunday I watched my very first episode of Game of Thrones with the Season 6 premier. Yes, you read that right. The first episode of Game of Thrones that I watched was Season 6, Episode 1. Putting that shocking truth behind us, let's recap what happened, as best as I can remember it. There was guy lying dead in the snow, some conspiring went on, a few people died, a blind girl got whacked with a stick, some people are running away and had to cross a river, a bald guy and a short guy walked around town and talked for awhile, a white-haired girl has been captured by marauders, two guys on horseback are looking for her, some lady's daughter is dead, and a woman in red decided to strip naked and then looked in a mirror and somehow turned old and decrepit. I also vaguely remember a dragon somewhere in there. Maybe it was just the recap or preview of the preceding or next episode.

Right off the bat, let me say that Game of Thrones has done something that up until now didn't seem possible in my mind, namely that we have a show that has so much murder, intrigue, and nudity, that, by comparison, dragons aren't that big of a deal. Normally when a TV show or movie has a dragon in it, the first reaction is "holy @#$% it's a dragon!" but in Game of Thrones the reaction is more like "yeah, yeah, whatever, tell me more about that person who just killed the other person." Moving on to other things, I don't know why, but I found it strangely hilarious that a man named Jon Snow is dead in the snow at the start of the episode. The rest of the show had lots of short scenes with lots of characters, which was fantastic for my first experience with Game of Thrones because it loaded me down with a ton of people who I don't know anything about, but thankfully a few of them died so my list got a little shorter by the end. The episode felt a bit odd, in that a lot happened, and yet it feels like almost nothing happened. That said, I'll concede that this is probably just my ignorance of everything that is going on in the show. I'm sure that seemingly random murder of the wheelchair guy and his son has big implications for something, somewhere, but I have no idea why. I finished the episode sort of interested in everything that was going on, though some of the storyline fragments were better than others. The full-body reveal at the end struck me as unnecessary and I suspect that Game of Thrones suffers from the pointless nudity that modern entertainment often succumbs to.

Am I going to watch any other Game of Thrones episodes? Right now I'm not sure. Given that the show is in its sixth season, I would have a lot of episodes that I would have to watch to get caught up with it and I'm not sure I have the time or interest to do that. It might be better for me to just stick with being the incompetent substitute for whenever Free Refills is unable to give a proper discussion of the show.

Batman v Superman

A week ago I went and saw the movie Batman v Superman. I had been interested in seeing it since it was announced, but when it first came out and reviews starting being published my curiosity spiked. Batman v Superman was getting some of the most bipolar reviews I had seen for a movie, with some people loving it and others absolutely hating it. With such a discord of opinions I knew I needed to see the movie for myself, and now here I am adding my thoughts to the cacophony of voices on the internet.

Having seen Batman v Superman, I find myself on the more positive side of the review spectrum. The movie has a few issues, but I still enjoyed watching it. In particular I really liked Ben Affleck's performance as both Batman and Bruce Wayne, which is a tricky dual-role for an actor to pull off. The movie has plenty of fun action sequences and a genuinely badass moment when Wonder Woman arrives during the final battle. Wonder Woman herself has only a supporting role in the movie, but then again the movie is called Batman v Superman, so that shouldn't be surprising. As someone with only a basic basic knowledge of Superman lore, I can't say too much about how he is portrayed in the movie but I didn't have any problems with it. The one character that could have used a little more work was Lex Luthor, who is a bit unhinged at the start of the movie and by the end is doing his best Joker impersonation. My guess is that the movie is implying that his behavior is tied to him having some sort of communication with or knowledge about Darkseid, but I would have liked a scene or two to give some more development to his degeneracy. Other than Luthor, my one major problem with Batman v Superman is that it's a little too long. The movie is roughly 2.5 hours in length, and I think about 20 minutes could have been cut out for a tighter experience. Still, even though it probably should have been a little shorter I had a good time watching it.

Remakes

A number of years ago, my generation reached the point where we started yearning to bring back the entertainment properties we loved in our childhoods, but updated with contemporary sensibilities. Television shows in particular are commonly named as candidates for getting remade. While I can understand the desire for these remake, I'm concerned about a trend I've heard from people discussing what they want in remakes, which is the desire for the remakes to be very dark and/or hyperviolent. I'm not sure if this desire merely comes from the mistaken belief that such things make a entertainment property superior to those that lack them, or if this a testament to our society's ever-present desire to push the envelope on what sorts of things are portrayed in entertainment. Since remakes are not something I'm particularly interested in, I'm never part of these conversations, but if I was I would be curious to find out exactly why some people want these reboots to be so gritty.

Let It Go

While on the flight from Paris to Minneapolis last November, I finally saw the movie Frozen. I also for the first time, and in context, heard the whole length of the hit song "Let It Go." I stopped regularly watching Disney movies sometime when I was a teenager, but I remember many of the songs from those movies, and I can't deny that Let It Go is an incredibly catchy song that will likely rank among the most popular songs in any Disney movie. Awhile after returning home, I went to Youtube and looked up the song to listen to it again. I quickly found it on one of Disney's official Youtube channels, but I also noticed that Disney had produce many other versions of the song in various foreign languages. One video that Disney had produced had the song being sung in 25 different languages (not simultaneously, but with a different singer singing different sections of the song). I was quite impressed with this video and noted that Disney had even gone so far as to include both Castilian Spanish and Latin American Spanish, making a distinction that not everyone knows about. There are even a few sections for languages from smaller ethnic groups, such as Catalan and Flemish. After watching the video it occurred to me that Disney is one of the few entertainment companies with means of producing something like this, and I scrolled down to the comments section to see what other people thought. I mean, this should be the sort of Youtube video that ought to get a lot of positive feedback, right?

Oh, silly me. I had completely forgotten that the Youtube comments section is the internet's cesspool for hatred and inflammatory remarks. Instead of celebrating the achievement of this video, there were instead a large number of commenters complaining about how their language wasn't in the video or how terrible a particular section was. This was rather disheartening and I soon closed the tab with the video and moved on. I haven't revisited the video in some time now, so hopefully the comments section isn't so abrasive now, but I do wish people could stop complaining for a minute and just appreciate when a person or organization goes through the effort to make something like that video.

I don't want Pacific Rim 2

Back in 2013 a movie called Pacific Rim came out. The basic premise of the movie was that inter-dimensional aliens were sending giant monsters through a portal deep in the Pacific Ocean and humanity built giant robots to fight them. Having grown up watching Godzilla movies and other films and tv shows with giant monsters and/or robots, Pacific Rim was right up my alley and I liked it a lot when I saw it. Pacific Rim did modestly well in American theaters, but it made a lot of money overseas, and last year I read an article online about the studio behind Pacific Rim mentioning that it was considering making a sequel. You would think with how much I liked Pacific Rim that I would be enthusiastic about a sequel, but I'm not. Pacific Rim worked perfectly as a stand-alone film and I'm afraid that if it a sequel was ever made it would be something like The Matrix Reloaded or the second Pirates of the Caribbean - a movie that certainly has its cool moments but is fundamentally unnecessary and a step down from the original. The way Pacific Rim ended is also be problematic for a sequel, as it seemed to give a pretty definitive ending to the movie's storyline. But, knowing the way Hollywood works, there's a decent chance Pacific Rim 2 will one day get made. If it does come out I will probably see it in spite of my reservations. Maybe, just maybe, I will be proven wrong and it will actually be good, but I'm not counting on it.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

A little over a week ago I went with a friend to the movie theater to watch Star Wars: The Force Awakens. I had already seen the movie three weeks earlier, in January, but my friend had not seen the movie yet and I thought it would be worthwhile to watch the movie a second time to further reflect on it and double check to make sure I was remembering it correctly. While I have my opinions on Star Wars: The Force Awakens, I'm not going to talk about them here. Rather, the purpose of this post is to tell my story leading up to when I first saw it.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens came out in the fourth quarter of 2015, and in the weeks and months leading up to its release more and more media relating to the movie appeared on television and the internet. A few months prior to the movie's premier, I decided I didn't want to know anything more about it and stopped reading or viewing material related to it. I wanted to go into the theater knowing as little as possible and experiencing the plot as it played out. Since I'm not a movie person I normally only see a small number of films each year at the movie theater and usually have no issue with people spoiling films, as the vast majority of them I'll never end up watching anyway. With Star Wars: The Force Awakens, though, I was intent on avoiding spoilers. Something about this film, being such a major pop-culture event, and the fact that I like Star Wars in general, made it seem worthy of special treatment.

This would not be easy, however. My normal movie policy is to not watch a film in theater until three to five weeks after it has come out, so that I don't have to deal with crowds. Keeping to this policy would mean I would have a long stretch of time whereby I would be vulnerable to people intentionally or unintentionally ruining the film for me. Social media in particular would be a veritable minefield of spoilers, so services like Facebook and Twitter would require extra caution when I was using them. I even went so far as to deciding to not read any reviews of the movie when it came out, as I knew that other peoples' opinions might color my own and I wanted my thoughts on the movie to be mine, not a remix of the views of others.

On November 18, 2015, Star Wars: The Force Awakens came out and my gauntlet began. Over the following weeks I was able to maintain my vigilance against spoilers, though there were perils along the path. While it was fairly simple to avoid any online article with Star Wars in the headline, on social media it was hard to not see stuff that people would just blurt out. When the time finally came for me to watch Star Wars: The Force Awakens, I had come out of my spoiler-dodging ordeal having avoided the worst of the possible spoilers, though one of the movie's major twists had been ruined. On the day that I saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens I went to a morning showtime and once inside the theater I sat down to experience the film that I had been eagerly looking forward to seeing. Delaying my gratification had the positive bonus of there only being four other people in the theater when I saw it, so I didn't have to endure the annoyance of other people talking or distracting from the film. When the movie was over I emerged from the theater and it felt safe again to use the internet. I had seen Star Wars: The Force Awakens. My life could now return to normal.

LOTR Syndrome

Recently I watched through a miniseries on the History Channel called The World Wars. The premise of the series is that many of the major figures from World War 2 had defining experiences during World War 1. Through reenactments and historical footage, the series showed the transitions they went through from their younger selves prior to and during the first war to their older selves in the second. A day after I finished the series, I saw a commercial for a rerun of the series on H2, the History Channel's sister channel, however what was going to be shown was an extended version with extra scenes that did not make the cut in the original showing. This reminded me of how the Lord of the Rings movies had the theatrical versions which you saw in theaters, but when they came out on DVD you could get the extended editions of the movies which included footage that was cut from the theatrical versions. Thus, I have decided to call this phenomenon of showing one version of some sort of media at one time, and then showing an extended version at a later point, Lord of the Rings Syndrome, or, more shortly, LOTR Syndrome. Although Lord of the Rings was not the first film to do this, it is the one that stands out most in my mind, and therefore it gets the honor of having a syndrome named after it.

Unlike DBZ Syndrome, LOTR Syndrome can potentially be a good thing. If the original version was solid, and the additional material is actually meaningful, then an extended versions can be a nice bonus to the experience. If, however, the original version was not so good, then the best an extended version can hope to do is salvage the experience somewhat. I'm still debating whether or not I will watch the extended version of The Worlds Wars, not because I didn't like the series but because I don't know if I want to dedicate the time to it. If I do, I'm hopeful that what I'll get will be the good sort of LOTR Syndrome.