The Multiverse Saga has been moving at a glacier’s pace. We’re umpteen movies and series worth of content into the 2nd saga, the Marvel Cinematic Multiverse Saga, and the Avengers still haven’t assembled! The pieces are finally moving into place for this to happen, hallelujah, in Captain America (4): Brave New World. We’re also finally seeing some resolution to events set in place during the Eternals (2021), Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021) and even The Incredible Hulk (2008). It also sets up the sure-to-follow Mutant Saga. None of this is spoiler territory as we’ve seen these reveals in trailers and casting.
Fans are sick of the setup, and movies have to stand on their own. Captain America 4 doesn’t really do that; it really helps if you’ve seen the above films. It is, however, a better than average Marvel movie. Some issues that have plagued recent ones have been improved upon. It still feels like one piece of a larger puzzle, which wasn’t so much an issue with Phase One’s Captain America films.
Captain America is now Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), and the movie recaps that Steve Rogers entrusted the shield to him. Carl Lumbly returns as Isiah Bradley, the forgotten super soldier that was ill treated by his country. Just as there is a new Captain America, there is also a new Falcon: Joaquin Torres played Danny Ramirez. Those who haven’t seen or don’t remember much of the Falcon and the Winter Soldier will be lost as to who these characters are. New to the team is Harrison Ford as now-President Thunderbolt Ross. Controversially to some, this role was recast after the death of William Hurt. Harrison’s take on the character is far more Ford, but I had forgotten how much I like the guy as a baddie. Ford’s role was large, and he was great in every mood of the mercurial president. Also new to the multiverse, Shira Haas was terrific as the former Black Widow, Ruth Bat-Seraph. Giancarlo Esposito was a fine secondary villain as Sidewinder, but we have all seen Esposito chew the scenery with far more vigor in other famous roles. He brought the chill, but not so much the fury.
Since Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Sam is more accepted as Captain America, but still suffers from self doubt and questions whether he should have taken the super soldier serum or not. He is given perspective from the supporting characters, but ultimately feels like he has something to prove. It’s not as emotional or satisfying a character arc as he had in the TV series. Mackie, of course, plays the role with the passion we expect from the actor. He is certainly his own Captain. Steve Rogers was more quiet and reserved. He spoke softly, but knew he could back up his words. Mackie’s Captain is a little more fun loving, a little more brash and loud, and a blast to watch, especially in intense one-on-one scenes with Ford.
The cloak-and-dagger plot isn’t too complex. It all comes down to a personal vendetta to take down President Ross and expose him as the monster he really is. There’s worldwide tension over Celestial Island, a massive statue in the middle of the Indian Ocean that was created during the events of the Eternals and barely referenced since. Why? Probably because the celestial named Tiamut is not just made of rock, but also contains Adamantium. The same stuff Wolverine’s bones are made of. With Adamantium introduced into the storyline, we have even more setup for the eventual X-Men. Turns out this stuff is even more valuable than Vibranium, and stronger too. America and Japan are at the edge of war after an incident involving a stolen shipment of Japanese-owned Adamantium. In an eerie case of prophecy, America and its allies are falling apart. This, and some scenes with Ross losing his temper to his upper staff, felt…ominous.
Ultimately, at the end of the film, you know what Marvel wanted to show you: Captain America vs. the Red Hulk. There are plenty of action scenes before that, but this is where Marvel may be learning something of a lesson. If you look at something like Black Panther 2, or the Marvels, the action scenes had way too much going on with so much visual noise. They were hard to follow, and in many ways, nonsensical. These action scenes are scaled down. In fact, the battle of Celestial Island featured primarily just four combatants: two jets, Captain America, and the Falcon. There were missiles and big fleets of ships, but the action was kept to mostly those four elements. The Red Hulk segments also felt scaled back slightly, and easy to follow and enjoy. We saw the film in IMAX, and the Red Hulk looked great. The action wasn’t as CG-ish and washed out as we were used to. The giant Celestial made a cool backdrop for a battle, but I would have liked to have seen more.
The soundtrack was interesting. While I liked the score by Laura Karpman, it didn’t feel like it fit the mood of several scenes, including the opening.
There is one character design that deviated far from the original comic material and looked creepy enough, but might have missed the mark of what could have been.
There is one post-credit scene. Everyone in the theater stayed. They knew the drill. It was a cool little sequence that hints at the big things we know are coming in Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars. It feels like we’re finally getting closer to the ending.
Rating the four Captain America films, you just cannot top The Winter Soldier, or Civil War. That’s not going to happen. Brave New World is a welcome continuation of the legacy. It’s light on big emotions, but it does satisfy for action and furthering the adventures of the heroes who will one day soon be known as the Avengers again. Bring it on.
Here’s my list, for what it’s worth. Turns out I didn’t go watch many movies in theatre, but did stream a lot of content. It also seems I like watching cartoons and anime, but that’s not really a surprise. – Frank
Film and Streaming
Blood of Zeus, Netflix Castlevania Season 3, Netflix Dragon’s Dogma, Netflix The Mandalorian, Disney+ 1917 The Boys season 2, Prime Bill and Ted Face the Music Altered Carbon Season 2 Netflix October Faction, Netflix Bosch, Prime
Music
Testament, Titans of Creation, track “Night of the Witch”
Static-X, Project Regeneration Vol 1., track “Hollow”
Sepultura, Quadra, track “Raging Void”
Trivium, What the Dead Men Say
Five Finger Death Punch, F8, track “Scar Tissue”
MICHAEL, MAX THE AXE’S STUNT DOUBLE
Gorillaz – Song Machine
Warbringer – Weapons of Tomorrow
Lamb of God – Lamb of God
Run the Jewels – RTJ4
Poppy – I Disagree
The Chats – High Risk Behaviour
Oliver Tree – Ugly is Beautiful
King Gizzard – K.G.
Testament – Titans of Creation
Atomic Bitchwax – Scorpio
Runners Up
Flaming Lips – American Lips
Midnight – Rebirth by Blasphemy
Deep Purple – Whoosh!
Jeff Rosenstock – No Dream
Blue Oyster Cult – The Symbol Remains
“Look outside. Is the world more peaceful since the revolution? I see nothing but death and chaos.” — The Client
THE MANDALORIAN(2019 Disney+ series)
2019 might have been the biggest year ever in the history of the Star Wars franchise. Not only did the original Saga finally come to an end after 42 years of wondering if it would ever happen, but even the very first Star Wars live action TV series came to be. This comes a full 15 years after its aborted predecessor, Star Wars Underworld was announced. Headed up by Jon Favreau, The Mandalorian Season One was a commercial and critical success.
But was it as good as its hype?
Pedro Pascal headlines as the mysterious Mandalorian, a bounty hunter trying to make ends meet about five years after the battle of Endor. The New Republic rules the roost and times are lean, but the Empire is not gone. Not yet. The Imperial Client (Werner Herzog) needs a very important asset. The Client leads a run down, rag-tag Imperial force in hiding on a backwater world. Via Greef Karga (Carl Weathers), the Client acquires Mando’s services. Deliver the package alive, but dead will suffice if necessary. Bounty hunting, after all, is a complicated profession.
Today in 2020, the entire world knows what came as a tremendous surprise back when the pilot episode first aired. There are no spoilers. The asset, though claimed to be 50 years old, is just a child. An alien child with a familiar green hue and large, pointed ears. The internet quickly dubbed it “Baby Yoda”.
Through the course of eight episodes, we learn that Mandalorians are almost extinct, “purged” by the Empire like the Jedi were. Those remaining live in secret. We also discover that the Child the Empire wants so badly can use the Force; powerfully so. Instinctively with no training. The implication here is that Yoda’s species are uniquely strong in the Force. The only other members of the species that we have seen were on the Jedi council. The Child can do things that only one Jedi in the entire history of the Saga (Rey) has been shown to do. What isn’t clear is what the Empire wants with the Child. The Client is just as happy if it ends up dead. Dr. Pershing, a scientist under his protection with cloning insignia on his uniform, clearly wants it alive.
The Mandalorian is not the average bounty hunter. Though hard on the outside, he has a soft spot for “foundlings” (orphans), since he was orphaned by a droid army during the Clone Wars. This also left him with a strong distrust for droids.
Mando’s quest takes him, in his gleaming pre-Empire ship the Razor Crest, all the way to planet Nostalgia in the Fan Service sector. Every alien species and reference from Saga and spin-off films will await you. The animated series are likewise plundered for references and threads to pull. Don’t ask yourself how the scavenging Jawas managed to spread through the galaxy, ask how they brought a sandcrawler with them. Also ask how the Mandalorian, who lived through both the Clone Wars and the Galactic Civil War, has never heard of anything resembling the Force in his life. Not impossible, true, not impossible. But certainly unlikely?
To the show’s strength, Mando surrounds himself with allies including the wise Ugnaught Kuill (Nick Nolte) and the former Rebel shock trooper Cara Dune (Gina Carano). He even reluctantly forms an alliance with bounty hunter droid IG-11 (Taika Waititi). Each one of these bring out another aspect of Mando’s disguised personality.
Unfortunately, the show’s weaknesses are apparent by the second episode. It lacks a consistent tone and even the soundtrack is all over the board. Mando’s path is too twisted by side missions and quests, like a video game biding its time before you’re back to your main story. A few episodes play out like actual video games, particularly the sixth. Some such as the fourth suffer from substandard acting and poor direction (which came as a surprise, being directed by Bryce Dallas Howard). While there is nothing low-budget about the Mandalorian, some of the performances are pretty cut-rate.
The meandering season finally returns to form when Mando and the Child encounter the Imperials once again. And guess what — they’re not as poorly equipped as we were led to believe. Giancarlo Esposito, who was unforgettable on Breaking Bad as drug kingpin Gus Fring, menaces our heroes one more time as Moff Gideon. With a squadron of crack Imperial Death Troopers and a custom TIE Fighter, Moff Gideon is willing to sacrifice his own men to get the Child back.
The show is a hit. “This is the way” is a phrase that has entered our modern lexicon, along with “I have spoken” and “I can bring you in warm or I can bring you in cold.” To say that season one was successful is an understatement. Season two is already locked and loaded, bringing in Rosario Dawson to the fold playing former Jedi Ahsoka Tano. She will likely be the first protagonist on the show to understand who the Child is and what Moff Gideon wants it for.
Hopefully season two will cut down on the obvious fan service. (Did Bill Burr really have to do a Gungan impression in episode six?) With one season down, we look forward to a tighter story with fewer episodes where nothing really happens. And we certainly anticipate what Pedro Pascal will bring to the role next time. His performance, limited to voice and body language, was without flaw. The set must have been electric any time he was together with Werner Herzog.
Episode highlights of the season: four out of of eight great episodes.
1. “The Mandalorian” directed by Dave Filoni
3. “The Sin” by Deborah Chow
7. “The Reckoning” by Deborah Chow
8. “Redemption” by Taika Waititi
The rest don’t bring much to the story and can be skipped with little lost except most of the fan service.
STAR WARS: The Rise of Skywalker original motion picture soundtrack (2019 Lucasfilm/Disney)
Music by JOHN WILLIAMS
There are very few film series with soundtracks that can do what The Rise of Skywalker does. John Williams has now built up such an expansive list of familiar themes, that it takes just one note to anticipate which one is coming next. Whether it be Leia’s, Rey’s, or Emperor Palpatine’s himself, The Rise of Skywalker is loaded with music you already hold deep in your heart.
Let us all be grateful that John Williams scored the complete nine-movie saga. If inconsistent writers and directors make the series as a whole a bumpy ride, then John Williams’ steady hand is the glue that holds it all together. Something like the movie itself, the soundtrack to The Rise of Skywalker attempts to conclude more than just a trilogy, but the Skywalker Saga. In the liner notes, Williams says that he hopes the nine movie scores will be seen as a “singular, organic whole”. Because of his consistent but always evolving vision, this is exactly what has happened. The Rise of Skywalker is the finale.
Rey’s theme, as heard in “The Force is With You”, stands out as the strongest of the sequel trilogy. What is interesting about that is how different it is from previous Star Wars motifs. It is light and delicate, but part of the new universe. It is difficult not to get emotional when you hear everything coming together in the end. There are surprises and an ample number of weighty moments. Of course, there are also new things to enjoy, and old things put together in new ways.
I like that the people who designed the packaging avoided the boneheaded spoilers of the past by putting the track listing inside. It’s unfortunate this final trilogy had the most boring cover art of the entire saga, but be forewarned: a deluxe Rise of Skywalker soundtrack has been announced for March. We can hope for a better sleeve on that edition.
John Williams has been an integral part of Star Wars since the beginning, and this time he was rewarded with [SPOILER] his very first cameo on screen. The circle is truly now complete. This thoroughly enjoyable score should be universally beloved even if the film is not.
“New The Mandalorian trailer looks like the Star Wars we’re used to,” says the media.
“What the fuck are you on?” says I.
The Mandalorian is Jon Favreau’s new Star Wars bounty hunter series starring Pedro Pascal, Carl Weathers and Werner Herzog. And it looks nothing — nothing at all — like “the Star Wars we’re used to”, so ignore the hype.
No Jedi. No Skywalkers. An unexplored timeline (just after Endor). No, this looks like something entirely new. Which is good. Don’t believe the hype. Tell the hype to fuck off.
“Is the world more peaceful since the revolution?” asks Herzog.
One thing that is exactly the same as old Star Wars: Nobody knows what a parsec is.
Maybe some things are only funny to me. My buddy Chris likes to tease me. He calls my treasured action figure collection my “dolls”.
He went to Disney a little while ago, so I asked if he could pick me up an exclusive Star Wars set while he was there. “Sure, I’ll look for your dolls” he said. A few days later, I had an email from him titled “Nerd Toy”. “I dropped your dolls off at work,” it read. My dolls, my nerd toys! And I love them. He even put them in his carry-on bag so they wouldn’t get damaged.
Thanks buddy, it’s worth the teasing that I take!
This is one of three Disney Park exclusive sets, and it’s awesome! Thank you Chris and Laurie for picking them up for your nerd friend.
I was following an SUV to work the other day. I couldn’t read what they had on the back window, but it was something large. A business ad, maybe? I waited til the next stop so I could read what it was. Curiosity, y’know?
It was written in huge – I’m talking gigantic – Disney princess font. And it said:
OK then! I’m not sure how much that costs at the pumps.
STAR WARS: The Last Jedi original motion picture soundtrack (2017 Lucasfilm/Disney)
Rejoice, dear soundtrack fans, for John Williams is slated to compose the music for the final Star Wars saga film, Episode IX. It will be a fitting close for the saga, because Williams will have done all nine films. Star Wars is about the saga. The anthology films are extraneous to the core Skywalker story. Episode VIII, The Last Jedi, is mostly about two Skywalkers: Luke, and his nephew Ben Solo, inheritor of the mighty Skywalker blood. The film score revisits many classic cues related to the main characters. Even Darth Vader’s shadow still looms, musically and spiritually.
The Last Jedi spends much time revisiting classic musical cues, such as “The Asteroid Field” from The Empire Strikes Back. One of the best revisits is of more recent vintage. It’s also very different. “Rey’s Theme”, from The Force Awakens, stands atop the mountain in company with the best of the best Star Wars music. Hearing it again in The Last Jedi is a ready reminder that Williams has the magic. Rey is the hero of this particular trilogy, and in The Last Jedi she proved herself. It’s all up to her, now.
One of the biggest and most delightful surprises was the return of Yoda. Yoda’s theme recurs within “The Sacred Jedi Texts”. The beloved Jedi Master brought hope to the film, and his music lifts the soul. The Last Jedi, however, is a dark film and much of the music matches. It could be argued that The Last Jedi is the darkest film of the whole saga, even more so than Revenge of the Sith. “Revisiting Snoke” reflects the dark, while tension-filled pieces like “A New Alliance” keep you riveted to your seat. There are some fantastic percussion beats in the latter.
The military-style marching of “The Battle of Crait” recalls classic Star Wars action, and the music for the Luke scene is stunningly emotional. In fact, the music for any of Luke’s screen appearances gives goosebumps. John Williams’ score is, in many ways, more successful than the movie at hitting home. I think this soundtrack release will receive more home play with the average buyer than the overlong movie.
There are two minor critiques to be addressed. One is when Leia’s theme is dropped into the end credits for the touching Carrie Fisher tribute. Yes, it’s heartbreakingly appropriate, but the music doesn’t fit well. It comes across as a cut and paste job without enough transition. A second is in regards to the Canto Bight casino music. On many Star Wars soundtracks, Williams has a chance to go outside the box. “Cantina Band”, “Lapti Nek”, “Yub Nub” and the music by Maz Kanata’s castle band are prime examples. The steel drumming in “Canto Bight” sounds a bit too much like a retread of the original “Cantina Band”, but with more…samba.
John Williams did it again, but will we ever see a proper 2 CD edition with all the music? That would be nice.
If you are a Star Wars fan, there is a good chance that you are getting sick of social media right now. No one has done more to ruin the spirit of the holidays than angry Star Wars fanboys. Ever since the release of The Last Jedi on December 18, upset fanboys have been whining non-stop about the newest movie. They have started a petition to have the film re-made by someone else. Like a swarm of constantly moaning mosquitoes, they attack anyone with a positive or even neutral view of the film, using words such as “retarded” or “sheep” to describe those who liked it. It’s like being friends with a Trump fan. You can only take so much before you have to completely unplug.
Well fanboys, this is where you get yours. It’s time for everyone else to strike back. Line up, whiners — it’s go time!
Yes, The Last Jedi is deeply flawed. It’s not nearly bad as The Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones, but it has problems. Let’s be realistic about this film and avoid crying in our cornflakes. The biggest issue I have with the film is the disregard that Rian Johnson has for the original movies. All Star Wars saga films are supposed to work as one long movie. That means the visual style has to be consistent. Out of nowhere, Rian Johnson introduced slow motion. The Star Wars saga has never bowed to this trend before. The Last Jedi is completely out of step every time this lazy film technique is used to artificially boost drama. Johnson also uses flashbacks like nobody has before in Star Wars. It’s not clear but these might be considered “Force visions”, something that both George Lucas and JJ Abrams used in their movies. Yet the flashbacks and slow motion problems aren’t even the things that the butthurt fanboys are whining about.
The rallying cry of the fanboys is “Disney ruined Luke Skywalker”. This is where we enter spoiler territory.
The Luke Skywalker of The Last Jedi is a broken man. He is haunted by his failure with Ben Solo. He realises what we fans always knew: there is a cycle of conflict between light and dark. Luke claims that a Jedi was “responsible for the training and creation of Darth Vader”. He is referring to his old master Obi-Wan Kenobi. But Luke may shoulder even more responsibility, with his creation of Kylo Ren. We witness the moment it happens. Ben Solo was already beginning to fall to the dark side. Luke sensed this. He peered into Ben’s mind and was shocked to find that he was already horribly corrupted. In a moment of weakness, he ignited his lightsaber to murder his nephew. This is the moment that changed everything: Ben became Kylo Ren, killed some of Luke’s students, and left with the rest. Skywalker’s failure was complete. He retreated to the first Jedi Temple, intending to atone for his mistake by dying there in shame.
Consider this, and ask “did Disney ruin Luke Skywalker”?
I say the answer is “no”. Disney did not ruin Luke Skywalker. If you feel Luke has been ruined, it was the collective authors of the old Star Wars Expanded Universe who did the ruining.
When George Lucas re-launched Star Wars in 1999 with The Phantom Menace, he did it the only way he could: with his own original story, not some re-hashed source material written in a novel by a third party. Therefore we never had to endure some obscure adventure of Yoda aboard his Jedi ship Chu’unthor. Why would Lucas want to copy a book he never read? Of course he wouldn’t. For better or for worse, he mostly ignored the books and wrote his own stories. The only detail he took from the books was the Republic capitol city of Coruscant, which was actually ripped off from Isaac Asimov in the first place. In his Foundation and Empire novels (a huge influence on Star Wars), Asimov described the capitol world of Trantor, a city-planet much like Coruscant. “As the centre of the Imperial Government for unbroken hundreds of generations and located, as it was, toward the central regions of the Galaxy among the most densely populated and industrially advanced worlds of the system, it could scarcely help being the densest and richest clot of humanity the Race had ever seen.” Since Lucas has always drawn from the wide palette of classic science fiction, it makes sense for an element like Coruscant be retained from the books.
The post-Return of the Jedi era of Star Wars has already been explored ad-nauseum in books, comics and video games. Luke had a wife named Mara Jade. He ran a Jedi school. Han and Leia had three Jedi kids. They had many many adventures battling the Imperial Remnant, Force witches, a cloned Emperor (twice!), a cloned Luke (named Luuke), and dozens of previously unknown darksiders.
Just like Lucas wrote his own original prequel stories, there was no way that fans should have expected Disney to recycle old material from novels. Not for something as important as Star Wars. It’s fine to do that with Marvel comics, but Star Wars doesn’t originate in books. Therefore, there would be no Mara Jade, no clones, no reheated stories and no baggage.
Any Star Wars fan had plenty of time to enjoy the heroic and sometimes tedious adventures of Luke Skywalker in books over the last 25 years. They started off well enough: Timothy Zahn’s excellent Heir to the Empire trilogy could easily have been a film trilogy, if only made when the actors were younger. Things got dicey after Zahn. Proceed at your own risk. Kevin J. Anderson’s Jedi Academy trilogy was one of the worst. The Black Fleet trilogy by Michael P. Kube-McDowell was good but perhaps a bit too “sci-fi” for Star Wars (and it discussed Luke’s mother long before the prequel trilogy, rendering it obsolete by the movies).
The Star Wars sequel trilogy could never be rehashed from books. It had to be new, and it had to go in unexpected directions. That’s what Rian Johnson tried to do. Instead of the heroic Luke, one we’ve seen swashbuckling in those old books, he gave us something far more shocking: a realistic Luke. Not the legendary Luke, but a human being. Someone who responds like a real, flawed person. What fanboy is to say they “know” Luke best? All they think they know is what they gleaned from the books over the years. It has become their “head canon”, and they stubbornly refuse to let it go. As we’ve discussed, fanboys should have known the movies would have to go in a new direction as they always have. All we really know about Luke is what we have seen on screen. In his very first movie, he was trying to escape from his reality. In The Last Jedi, he’s not that different, as Yoda himself points out. The contradiction between the legend and reality of Luke is one of the most important themes of the movie, and one that Luke and Rey struggle with.
It’s true that Mark Hamill read the script for The Last Jedi and was immediately turned off. Yet he went in there and played the best Luke I’ve ever seen. Ruined Luke? I just don’t see it. All I ever wanted, ever since I was a kid walking out of that theater in 1983, was to see Luke Skywalker become the most powerful Jedi of all time. There is no question that the Luke of The Last Jedi is exactly that. He did things with the Force that we didn’t even know could be done! Fanboys wanted to see Luke do prequel-style lightsaber acrobatics. As if the most powerful Jedi of all time would need a lightsaber? Think back to The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Did Yoda and the Emperor wield lightsabers in the original trilogy? No. Nor does Luke in the sequel trilogy. Balance. Besides, do you really want to see more somersaulting with laser swords? Didn’t you get enough of that with the prequels? What more could possibly be added to that? They never really topped Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace for lightsaber action.
Let’s move on to another popular fanboy complaint. “Disney is trying to kill Star Wars by killing all the old characters”.
Ludicrous. From Ben Kenobi to Yoda to even Anakin Skywalker himself, Star Wars has a habit of knocking off the heroes. It’s the only way to have any tension. If you know nobody will die, the movie has no weight. Disney is in it to make money. Pissing off whiny fans on purpose probably isn’t in their business strategy. It’s not personal, fanboys. Lucas always said that the sequel trilogy would be about the next generation, with Luke having a “cameo”. It’s kind of annoying that this has to be explained to you.
Next fanboy complaint: “Rey is nobody from nowhere”.
Possibly. We don’t know that for sure. That’s up to JJ Abrams to confirm or deny in Episode IX. But what is the problem with it, if it were true? All we really know is that when darkness rises, so does the light to meet it. Where did Obi-Wan Kenobi come from? Mace Windu? Hell, we don’t even know the name of Yoda’s species let alone where he came from. It is OK if Rey is not related to a past character. Kylo Ren is. He carries the Skywalker blood. If that blood dies with him in Episode IX, wouldn’t that be an appropriate end to the Skywalker saga? It would mean the nine movies tell the complete story of the Skywalker line, from the start to the end. Where is the issue?
Fanboys have similar complaints about Supreme Leader Snoke. It’s unlikely we’ll learn anything more about him, leaving him as one of those dangling threads. It would have been pretty cool to find out more about him, but it turns out he was just a red herring. Misdirection. And that has fanboys in a rage! Every single fan theory about Snoke was wrong! Fanboys have been hoping to find out that he was a cloned Vader, Emperor, Darth Plagueis or someone from the distant past. Well, he wasn’t, and perhaps he wasn’t even as powerful as fans theorised. This leaves Kylo Ren as the one true villain in the sequel trilogy. Again, this upset all the fanboy theories, who expected Kylo to turn good, and Luke or Rey to go bad.
Without going full fanboy, I’ll put it out there that using Snoke as a red herring was a missed opportunity. Andy Serkis was so good as Snoke in The Last Jedi, it’s a real miss that he didn’t amount to more. Serkis is the one actor who gives Hamill a run for his money. In their effort to thwart the fan theories, perhaps Johnson and Disney blew Snoke. Any backstory to Snoke will likely be left to the realm of comics and books, which is unfortunate. It is unlikely he’ll have anything to do with Episode IX, as there’s a new Supreme Leader in town and his name is Kylo Ren.
The last of the major fanboy complaints is regarding the big Leia scene. Kudos to Rian Johnson for faking out the death of Leia in the movie, as I’m sure many thought she was surely dead. Ejected into space, Leia uses the Force to pull herself back to the ship. This scene takes a number of leaps of faith. One has to assume that the Force “somehow” protected Leia, and kept her alive until she could regain consciousness, all without being able to breath. In the freezing cold, radiation-rich vacuum of space. Well, sure, I guess. There’s nothing in the Star Wars films that excludes this from being possible. It’s just one of the things about this movie that was not good. Also not worth getting all butthurt about. Did you fanboys even see The Phantom Menace? Let me know how it’s possible to take a submarine to a planet’s core.
So now, the butthurt is so intense that fanboys are demanding The Last Jedi be removed from canon and remade. This is more a sign of the times than the quality of the film. Such uproar never happened in 1999. In 2017, spoilt internet warriors are used to getting what they want when they cry. Well, fanboys, you’ll have to learn a lesson they used to teach us back in the day: suck it up, buttercups.
The Last Jedi could have used some work in the editing. Shortening the Leia scene would have made it less outlandish. Cutting the artificial slow motion would have made a huge difference. The opening battle was way too long, featuring a nonsensical segment of fake tension with a new character called Paige. There is a side mission featuring the characters of Finn and Rose (Paige’s sister) that had multiple issues, including a pointless chase scene and a wasted opportunity to spend time in a high-rolling Star Wars casino. Their secret mission doesn’t even impact the outcome of the story. All it really serves to do is find a role for Finn, who otherwise had no story in The Last Jedi.
There’s a lot to be enjoyed with Johnson’s direction. His dialogue is an improvement, but less is often more. Some of the best character moments are performed with no speaking at all. His visual style is stunning (slow motion aside). The big lightsaber battle with Snoke’s red guards is one of the best in the saga. So fluid, so beautiful.
The real issue with the film’s reception has little to do with Finn and Rose. It has everything to do with fans becoming attached to their own theories. Remember what Ben Kenobi said? “Let go”. And Yoda? “Unlearn what you have learned.” That’s not a Deus ex machina, fanboys. You’ve been watching too much Youtube and spending too much time on Reddit. Discussion boards were flooded with talk of the Knights of Ren; a throwaway line from The Force Awakens that fans got attached to. That the Knights did not appear and were not even mentioned in The Last Jedi has fanboys throwing tantrums like we have never seen. Perhaps they’ll show up in IX, but if not, who cares?
Rian Johnson himself warned us about spoiling the movie for ourselves. When the first trailer was released, he wrote on Twitter, “I am legitimately torn. If you want to come in clean, absolutely avoid it.” You should have listened.
Let go, fanboys. Unlearn what you have learned. You’re ruining this for everyone!
The Multiverse Saga has been moving at a glacier’s pace. We’re umpteen movies and series worth of content into the 2nd saga, the Marvel Cinematic Multiverse Saga, and the Avengers still haven’t assembled! The pieces are finally moving into place for this to happen, hallelujah, in Captain America (4): Brave New World. We’re also finally seeing some resolution to events set in place during the Eternals (2021), Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021) and even The Incredible Hulk (2008). It also sets up the sure-to-follow Mutant Saga. None of this is spoiler territory as we’ve seen these reveals in trailers and casting.
mikeladano.com 