3+1 Short Paragraphs: Terminator: Dark Fate

2019, Tim Miller (Deadpool) -- download

I could literally transplant the first paragraph of my writeup for Terminator: Genisys as the opening paragraph for this movie. Both had a brief period of hype, a claim to resurrect the franchise with something entirely new, a failed opening at the box office and then a quiet fade into On Demand and Streaming. Sorry guys, I guess few people care any longer.

And yet, much like I enjoyed the last one, I rather enjoyed this one. It's not perfect, but what is these days. Well, actually there are many many Very Good movies, but with genre we often accept what we get. That's another post. ANYWAYZ, this is a Trump-era movie, made by Miller to piss off the Red Hat Legion, set in Mexico and (re)placing the focus from Sara Connor to a new, young Mexican woman. She will not bear the leader of the rebellion against the machines, she will be the leader of the rebellion. I like that; fuck you, neckbeard fan boys.

This movie also washes away, much like the last did, all the movies after the 2nd. This is still the world where Arny came for Sara Connor, where Kyle Reese saved her, where her own son rescued her from the hospital, but not long after, while they were on the run, another Terminator appeared and killed John. Even with John dead, 1997 comes and goes with no apocalypse, but that doesn't mean she lets her guard down. Come 2019, Sara Connor is old, grizzled and very very angry. Thus Grace (MacKenzie Davis, Halt & Catch Fire) appears, a Terminator-adjacent warrior from another future where we are again fighting the machines. She's human, but augmented. And just behind her comes an Uber-T1000 (Gabriel Luna, Agents of SHIELD), all liquid metal with an internal, independent skeletal chassis; alas no flaming skull. Grace shows up to find & protect Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes, Cumbia Ninja) but other than that, they have no goal in mind, beyond stay alive. Old Sara saves their ass, leading them to the source of her unlikely coincidental appearance, someone who has been feeding her the time & locations of other Terminator incursions for the last 30 years. Its the old Arny model, the one that killed John. Old in much of the sense of the word, in that his human skin has aged, but also his expanding his sentience, settled into a life protecting a woman & her son. Sara hates him, but acknowledges he can help. And thus, they combine forces to protect Dani.

There's a lot there, enough already for the three (not short) paragraphs. But what I liked about his movie was more than the small movie appeal, the less-than-blockbuster nature that the first also was, but that it played a tune on many notes. For one, it felt a lot like Logan, visually and tonally, with a weight and fatigue, yes for the franchise as well as the seemingly unending battle for the future. The future is very Who-vian, in that there seems to be fixed events. You can change the future, delay things, but these events always eventually happen, in some form or another. This is not the Skynet future we know, just another rising of the machines, another death of humanity and another appearance of a warrior to lead the survivors. And again, the paradox of she who is sent back to protect the warrior actually begins the cycle.

Note: If I can say one bad thing about this movie is that Miller majorly skimped on the special effects budget. This was so below even current TV capabilities and quality, it was extremely distracting. Everytime Liquid Terminator appeared, he was rubbery and off-colour, looking like a test-pattern instead of the final work. Not sure why this happened.

Shanghai Fortress vs Wandering Earth

2019, Hua-Tao Teng (Love is Not Blind) -- Netflix
2019, Frant Gwo (Lee's Adventure) -- download/Netflix

*record scratch*

Of note, I had to kill the idea of doing three paragraphs on just the one movie, as so much of the two have merged together in my mind. Both are grand, sweeping, epic Chinese science fiction movies in the tradition of the Hollywood Blockbuster. Both are utterly ridiculous.

Oi. Where do I go on this one? How about the current immense funding of Hollywood movies by  Chinese corporations, under the auspices of building blockbusters that will do well in the "after market" ? How about how different the melodrama of one region of the world is from this part of the world ? How about the blatant, unapologetic rip-off of Independence Day 2 as if Shanghai Fortress was intentionally meant to be the sequel. How about the inherent low expectations of scifi mega-blockbusters? Just complaining about how bad it (they) was/were, considering I am the guy who still enjoys the Total Recall re-make, seems kind of weak.

But... Oh. Migawd. As mentioned, the premise of Shanghai Fortress really runs parallel to Independence Day 2, a movie that was significantly funded by China. In both movies, we pick up after Earth has successfully fought off an alien invasion, and has had the time and resources to create a defense force, both in people and in the latter movie, a proper force field. The movies are about this defense, in anticipation of a second major attack from the aliens. There is also something about the discovery of space-rocks beneath the city of Shanghai, which is a great power source, and probably what the aliens were coming here for in the first place. The problem is that all this setup happened in the first movie, the one that doesn't exist. The one we should probably have seen. But, ignoring that, we get our main characters, a cast of young, beautiful drone pilots, who are also repair engineers, who are also a military ground squad, who are also pilots of advanced warplanes, who are also... well, they are whoever the plot needs them to be when everyone else either dies or proves too incapable of saving the world. And then the aliens DO come back.

Conversely, The Wandering Earth. Woo-boy, the premise -- the mightily over-the-top idea of attaching rockets to the entire planet Earth and flying the whole thing through place to another solar system. Why? Because the sun is dying and if they don't, then we will freeze, along with the rest of the solar system. But its hard to get past this premise. For one, I highly doubt the surface of the Earth is that stable. We like to think of it as a big, solid rock, when in fact, when we factor in scale, its a rather fragile egg. Any rocket powerful enough to move the planet would just punch through the mantle. Also, move. They need them to MOVE THE PLANET! To get the planet to leave the solar system we would have to reach incredible velocity, or it would end up taking generations before reaching whatever next solar system we could settle into. And if we leave the sun behind for that long, wouldn't we just freeze anyway?

But no, let's ignore that and just focus on the movie itself. The Wandering Earth takes place in the final days before The Earth departs its current location and heads off into space. Generations have focused their resources on building the engines, as The Sun dies out and the planet gets colder. The Chosen Few have moved into secure facilities beneath each giant rocket. Yeah, that is where I want to be when they first test these gargantuan scale rockets -- right under them. Again, ignore that. Our cast are some minor functional staff, a young guy and his sister, she who has never seen the surface, tragic orphans being raised by their grampa. While he is conning a way so the two can go upstairs, drama happens when some of the rockets begin failing. And they get mixed up with it all.

Both movies are about young, beautiful, relatively inexperienced people ending up at the centre of situations that will either save the planet or doom it. Surprisingly enough, the movie with the most ridiculous premise (The Wandering Earth) has the most relatable characters, in that they are more down to earth, even if the situations they are in are astronomically big. Heh. Down to Earth. Meanwhile Shanghai Fortress gives us a cast of young heartthrobs who are supposed to be exemplary examples of youth raised under the Chinese flag. Apparently they are perfect at everything, despite tragic circumstances, despite being young. It reminded me of those 80s/90s TV shows where the main characters were always assigned the task to fix anything, even if it was outside their wheelhouse; why are you sending the pilot to fix the space station, instead of an actual engineer?!? At least in tWE, the kids just end up there, and have to just make do.

I am actually rather surprised at myself in that while watching each movie, tWE staggered me at how silly the idea was, with SF being an acceptably by-the-books alien invasion story, yet when I think back to them, the former just feels so much better thought through. I can actually accept the mega silly choices they make in tWE vs the just-for-the-optics choices they make in SF.

As these mega blockbuster movies continue to be made, and as China tries to create its very own "aftermarket" in the rest of the world, I wonder what kind of features we are going to start seeing over here. When will we get our first (American) traditional superhero movie? Will we get a Too Fast franchise heist actioner? What will we get?

I Saw This!! What I Have Been Watching: 2020 Edition: Pt A

I Saw This (double exclamation point) is our feature wherein Kent(!) or Toasty(¡) attempt to write about a bunch of stuff they watched some time ago and meant to write about but just never got around to doing so. But every time I try not to write, bad things happen, very bad things. Somewhere. To someone.

What I Have Been (or Am) Watching is the admitted state of me spending too much time in front of the TV. And despite what I said above, I have been avoiding telling you about what I have been watching. Not that you care. But at least I am not telling you about my character

The Dropped

Being someone who watches far too much TV, and there being far too much TV for me to consume, I sometimes drop a show that doesn't keep my attention. Its not that I find it terrible, it just doesn't keep me there. Really really bad is rarely the reason I stop watching, in fact, often a reason I just keep on watching.

Evil, 2019, CBS

David is a Man of God, not quite a priest, not quite an exorcist, but employed by the Vatican to deal with cases of miracle, or anti-miracle (possession) for that matter. Kristen is a forensic psychologist hired by the state as an expert witness. After being drawn together during one of her cases, where the criminal acts as if possessed, she ends up working with David and his team. And together, the fight crime.

The crux of a show like Evil is to supposed to be about exploring which is worse -- the evil that men do, or the evil that men are influenced to do, by otherworldly entities. Y'know, the oldest excuse in the book -- the Devil Made Me Do It. It would be so much easier if we could attach all the atrocities in the world to something other than the nature of mankind. Man kind. The show wants to have utterly objective Kristen fall prey to questioning, to doubt and to come to an understanding there is more than her science. It wants David, with his faith in the Evil his Foe is capable of, to be subjected to how much worse the (more than?) average person can be.

There are some very sweetly evil things about this show, such as Michael Emerson (Lost, Person of Interest) as Dr. Townsend, someone we know right away is A Devil, but who performs all his greatest evils through very earthly acts. Emerson is vile, scathingly so, slick and very serpentine. When I stopped watching, he had just seduced Kristen's mother, making the woman believe Kristen's fear of the man was a daughter thing. Kristen also has her very own Incubus, a demon that invades her dreams, but whose impact carries over into the real world. This is possibly the creepiest aspect of the show, and they really need to draw more upon this aspect and spread it around the rest of the show.

The problem I found was that the show just wasn't sure what direction it wanted to go. The tonal shifts were wrought with a lack of dedication. And I am just not sure whether the characters truly felt committed to their beliefs, which is likely intentional, but comes off as a lack of clarity in the underlining story.

Prodigal Son, 2019, Fox

Malcom is a profiler for the NYPD, a quirky, eccentric man like all profilers are. He's a mild shade of Will Graham (Red Dragon) with one distinct aspect -- he is the son of a notorious serial killer called The Surgeon (Michael Sheen, Frost/Nixon; note: how the heck did they get him for mid-grade TV ?!?!). His dad has been locked up since he is a child, and Malcom refuses to interact with him, until he is faced with profiling a copy-cat serial killer.

Once the door is opened to Malcom working with his dad, the door never shuts. The Surgeon, who lives quite the luxurious lifestyle behind bars, feels a need to reconnect with his distraught family. It plays out as manipulative. Malcom is angry, confrontational and fragile. I got the idea they might try and flip the circumstances on us, with Malcom eventually ending up as the serial killer and The Surgeon assisting the police, but alas the show didn't seem that well thought out. It might be worth binging on Netflix, when it eventually ends up there, but not worth the effort of weekly DLing/watching.

Daybreak, 2019, Netflix

Post-Apocalyptic, Zombie drama comedy based on a graphic novel sounds right down my alley. It was diminished somewhat by the focus on teenagers, as in adults all went zombified and all that remains are the various cliques of kids, but I gave it a shot. It was actually better than I thought it would be, having a bit of heart, but only just a tiny bit. So, eventually it was just supplanted by the next shiny, likely more murderous thing -- I am currently on another Murder Show binge.

Josh was the New Kid in a Glendale, California school when the zombie plague hit. He was the nice kid, the Canadian kid, in love with the school dear, Sam, a British girl whom everyone loved. When we start off, Josh is holed up in  his well protected house, stocked full of survival goods, expositioning us everything we need to know, Zombieland style. We learn what we need about the zombies, about the survivors and about how all the high school cliques (jocks, goths, nerds, etc.) have become the survivor factions that control his area of Glendale. Sam is missing and Josh just needs to find her.

This is a bright and sunny apocalypse. Sure, all the adults are dead and/or flesh eating zombies, and sure the clique that once controlled how they went to high school now controls all of their world, but there is plenty of food to be found and chance to recreate themselves. There must have been plenty of prozac in the water, cuz nobody seems all that bent out of shape by the end of the world. Once the first few episodes went past the world building, introducing the gay kid (pacifist samurai), the little kid (genius pyromaniac), psycho kid(s), etc. it held little depth to keep me coming back. And it got cancelled so I doubt it will go far, as too many of these shows save too much for the later yet unknown seasons.

The I-Land, 2019, Netflix

The trailer for the show mocks the Fyre Festival debacle, but doesn't tell you much more. Luckily, Netflix does trailer-independent previews when you mouse-over, which revealed a Lost rip off with a bunch of pretty people waking up on a tropical island, not sure who they are nor how they got there. Insert instant conflict. Insert lazy channel-flicking fodder, or at least the new digital version of it, as Kent referenced. What the Hell, let's see what it's about. Its likely to have A Twist.

Episode Three revealed this somewhat expected twist, but not before pitting all these pretty, amnesiac people against each other. Yep, almost instantly they reacted to each other like it was an episode of the other popular island TV show, Survivor, which I assume is intentional but just ended up being batshit. It was supposed to be subtly hinting at he underlying people sans memories, but it came off as these people people being stupid and antagonistic. For example, in Episode Two, one of the characters discovers what looks like an abandoned hotel or apartment complex -- instant shelter and likely some mouldy supplies. Instead, one alpha character yells about having just finished building a beach side camp for them, so they never go to the buildings.

Episode Three's twist, that they are all inside a chemically induced virtual reality, that they are all convicts participating (against their will) in an experiment, to prove that without the life baggage, they can be Good People (bzzzzzt), proves to be even more inane. After the reveal and the stupidity around it, I was out. Maybe some rainy, channel flicking day will bring me back.

V Wars, 2019, Netflix

After a couple of successes, Netflix must just be looking for the next graphic novel adaptation they can fund or just snatch up. As highlighted above, many are likely to be terrible. But the comic landscape is vast and genre-plenty, so there is lots to try out. We may be post-vampire, but there are still a couple of years to milk it before all the vamp fans fade out.

Dr. Luther Swann (Ian Somerhalder, The Vampire Diaries) is an epidemiologist who is asked to fly north quickly, to find out why some of his counterparts at an Arctic research site have gone silent. Sounds odd, but its entirely a plot of convenience. They need to get Swann to the site of where everything begins; the show doesn't care about the logic of that. So Swann, and his best buddy the pilot, fly off to find the base abandoned, signs of violence and a weird, black ash/mold/motes floating in the air. Be worried? Weirded out? Yes. Protect yourself? Bzzzzzt. But eventually they clue in and admit what they have exposed themselves to.

Back in civilization, they are quarantined. Pilot Buddy shows signs of suffering from some unknown disease, while Swann is just fine. They are released, as nothing shows up to have caused their discomfort.

And then the killing begins. Way Up North, the site dug into old ice and uncovered frozen prions. Both men are infected, but Swann is immune. Meanwhile Pilot Buddy turns into a vampire, which is slowly revealed over the first few episodes. The best friends become enemies when Swann won't help cover up his buddy's blood hungry murders. Things get worse when Swann transmits it to his wife, after some recovery sex, and has to kill her to protect his son. Thus the vampire plague is released.

I stopped watching before I knew the exact path this show was to take, but I assumed it was going to spread as quick as a cold virus, eventually separating the new vampire species from the cattle. Thus, the Wars of V Wars. It was so very very Canadian, and not in the fun, self-aware state of so many shows I watch. It was overly serious, not well thought out, conspiracy trope filled and definitely C-grade. Not being of any higher quality, The Strain, the Guillermo del Toro penned (with a co-writer) series from a few years ago at least had a more compelling plot. This did not. Again, it might end up being a rainy day or flu day (Corona? Vampire?) binge watch.

The Feed, 2019, Amazon

This is the only British show in the mix, and the only truly scifi show. It is set the Near Future when the Google/Facebook/Twitter analog technology The Feed is everything. This is your Black Mirror level creepy technology that is implanted in your brain at birth giving you constant, instant access to the social media tool, communication and even being able to augment reality by replacing what you see with what they/you want to see. Sounds scary/grand until a conspiracy begins to grow, one the points to someone being to control the Feed and anyone connected to it.

The show centres around the Hatfield family (I really hope the McCoys show up) who invented the tech and are the Bezos/Gates analog family. They are at the point where the technology is starting to become more than just social media, where it is beginning to play a part in world politics, so of course it has its protestors. Something seedy is going on, and Daddy Hatfield (David Thewlis, Kingdom of Heaven) seems to know what, and its affecting his family, but he won't let them in on what he really knows. But Tom, the son who really didn't want to have anything to do with the family, gets directly wrapped up in it when his wife shows signs of being manipulated through The Feed.

The problem with shows like this, whether American or British, is that they like to dribble out the actual story while piling on the fictional technology. But, being TV, they only have so much budget so they can really only show you so much, which ends up with us being stuck with lots of lots of filler scenes. Unless you get a stellar cast, great directing or at the very least, a very atmospheric style it gets boring real quick. This one was definitely Black Mirror-lite and I tired of it.

***

And that was just the shows I dropped throughout 2019. Imagine what I can get bored with as this year proceeds !

Crisis on Infinite Earths

(A 2019/2020 CW Superhero Crossover Event)

I've loved superheroes about as long as I've loved Star Wars, which is as long as I can remember.  It pains me to admit that I'm a bit fatigued on both.  It's not that I'm disinterested in either (I just rewatched an episode of The Mandalorian again last night), but part of the joy of both superheroes and Star Wars for me was obsessing over minutiae, revisiting and appreciating the finer details, and delighting in the hinted at larger realities.  With SO MUCH CONTENT being released ALL THE TIME, and being an adult with job, kids, pets, and plenty of other things to do, there's next to no time to obsess, revisit, appreciate, and, sadly, delight.  It's mainly just "consume" at this point.

I've been waiting nearly my entire life for something like Crisis on Infinite Earths to appear in media.  Fans have historically spent so much time and effort complaining or trying to resolve continuities between different superhero TV shows and movies, that the solution has always been to acknowledge that they all exist in a multiverse, that they're all the star of their own stories, and those stories all differ from each other (and the comics) for fair reason.  In a very simple way, it validates their existence in relation to each other (they shouldn't have to, but us fans are a pedantic lot).  You may have been sad there's no more Smallville, but the Arrowverse didn't invalidate anything about that show.  You may be wondering how Titans and Doom Patrol and the DCEU all connect.  Well, they don't, except they're all part of a multiverse.  This always should have been implicit to fans, but it's only been through the efforts of the MCU and Arrowverse (and shows like Fringe) that the idea of parallel realities have been accepted by the mainstream and something films and movies could explore without the expectation of audiences rebuffing it.

The Crisis in comics was a way to flatten all the disparate realities and alternate earths of the DC multiverse into one reality, which helped as a hard reboot for the brand and a new jumping-on point for readers.  It was also a one-time even epic that's never been duplicated on the same scale (because it's literally impossible for it to happen, the conditions for its creation were so specific).  The point of the big Arrowverse/CW Crisis on Infinite Earths should very much be that same thing... if perhaps a softer reboot of the Arrowverse given Arrow's end, bridging the different realities of Supergirl, Batwoman, Flash and Black Lightning into one, making the potential for crossovers much simpler.  As well, it should make for a good jumping-on point for viewers of one program to get to the others, but I'll have to catch up on the returning seasons of Batwoman, Supergirl, Flash, Legends of Tomorrow and Black Lightning to see if any of them are friendlier to new viewers.(I would hazard a guess that the answer is "no" as they were all so mired in their own story lines, that this disruption probably only acts as a speedbump in their season arcs).

This Crisis has been teased since the first season of The Flash where a future newspaper headline announced Flash's disappearance following a crisis (Barry Allen notoriously died in the comic book Crisis on Infinite Earths).  The last crossover, 2018's "Elseworlds" (which I didn't review due to it being the dark year of this blog), introduced the Monitor (LaMonica Garrett) who wound up making a bargain with Oliver Queen which has weighed heavily on the character in his show ever since.  Oliver's deal with the Monitor has been the core focus of Arrow season 8, making for a tightly focused season that makes me wish every season of Arrow had only be 10-13 episodes long.  Likewise, this season of The Flash has also focused much on the forthcoming Crisis, and how the spectre of Barry's foretold disappearance/death loomed, with the Monitor dropping hints about whats coming throughout (not to mention the occasional trip into the multiverse to bear witness to an alternate Earth getting wiped away.


Which all leads to the 5-part crossover Crisis... quite literally the biggest such event in television history.  It took a year of planning by the production teams for the five series involved, and the nerd news sphere was abuzz practically daily in the months leading into the crossover.  We would see glimpses of new comics-approximate costumes characters would be wearing, we would get news of certain actors from old TV shows and movies confirming their appearance as their legendary (or not so legendary) characters.  The anticipation coming into Crisis, and the potential of what it could be were both huge!

And yet, after three years of increasingly sizeable crossovers, we certainly knew just how big these things could get, which is to say there were still a lot of warehouse and rooftop fights and things were still very much TV quality and not nearly up to snuff of a major motion picture.  For people hoping for something akin to Avengers:Infinity War and Endgame, there's definitely disappointment.  Crisis isn't an epic to draw in new viewers, it's fan service for the regular viewers (and hopefully a draw for lapsed viewers or comic book nerds who never gave the Arrowverse a chance).

All the talk of cameos and guest appearances didn't amount to much except the briefest of scenes as the "red wave" would consume one earth or the other.  My hope was that these characters would be integrated into the proceedings more than they were.  The few exceptions were a brief return to the Smallville universe, Kevin Conroy's first live action appearance as a dystopian Batman, and Brandon Routh returning as Superman for the first time since the failed franchise rekindling in 2006, leading to him doing double duty as both Superman and Ray Palmer.  The best integrated cameo was Tom Ellis' Lucifer having a very specific story purpose for his cameo, and a true sense of history with Matt Ryan's John Constantine (plus his flirtation with both Mia Queen and Diggle brought them into the scene nicely).

One of the issues with each of these crossovers is the crossover isn't just a mini-series in and of itself. Instead, each part is an episode of one of the ongoing shows, as well as a part in the crossover.  As such, each entry needs to service the cast of that show on top of servicing the crossover, which leads to fractured focus.  Crisis should, however, be jumping between characters, as many as they possibly can get to, to see how the events are impacting them, but it doesn't quite do that.  As such, characters feel tacked on (like Black Lightning or Killer Frost) and not purposeful.

This also leads to a lack of creativity with the crux of the crossover.  The Monitor has been looking for the 7 paragons of the Multiverse for the past year (and beyond) to help save it.  A whole multiverse of infinite possibilities at their disposal and the most of the 7 paragons are regular actors from 3 of the CW shows (Sara Lance, Barry Allen, Batwoman, Supergirl, J'onn J'onzz, (Brandon Routh) Superman) and the one wildcard in Ryan Choi (Osric Chau)

There's a lot of ridiculousness in the crossover, some of it good, a lot of it bad.  I love the crossovers for the character interactions.  Bringing all these random characters together, some having pre-existing dynamics, others less so, some with none, gives a lot for the writers to work with.  Since the effects budget of television is limited, these encounters are really the blockbuster part of the crossover... that's where the fun is at.  And these shows generally deliver.  Like Ray Palmer discovering meeting his Superman doppleganger face-to-face was fantastic.  Batwoman being the relative newbie had the most meeting of others to do.  Supergirl's Lex Luthor (Jon Cryer) is actually the crossover MVP, a really delightful pain in the ass that lends a great X-factor to the proceedings (and one of its biggest surprises).

But the crossover doesn't hold whenever it really needs to get into its action, or its cosmic events.  The big culmination of the Crisis in part 4 takes place largely in a quarry outside Vancouver, which is given a cheap filter to attempt for something otherworldly but never looked anything other than a quarry outside Vancouver.  There are frequent fights against shadow demons, unexplained forces of the Anti-monitor, who are no real threat at all, given that a single punch is enough to dissipate them.  While it allows every participant, powered or not, to participate in the fight, it makes for rather silly and tedious sequences when Supergirl is just as effective as regular human Ryan Choi in combat.

I want Crisis to be far more epic than it was, to let go of the confines of its production reality and really drive a story home.  For how much Arrow and Flash led into this crossover, neither really play into those narratives satisfactorily.  I mean, Arrow's whole purpose was leading into Oliver's death, which was handled with a terribly anticlimactic rooftop fight (another fucking rooftop fight) at the end of the first chapter.  Oliver's end isn't finished there, however, as he later returns as the Spectre, a character not at all set up previously in the Arrowverse, and very poorly introduced here.  It's one of the biggest swings-and-misses of the crossover.

I think the big Crisis event would have worked even better had it a focal character to work through it.  Perhaps focusing on Ryan Choi as he's drawn into this world of superheroes.  Or else if the event was in fact a mini-series (say in 3 parts containing the more epic scope of it) with character-specific crossovers in all the other shows, thus giving room to set up things like the Spectre. (It sounds like Black Lightning managed to do this, but I won't be able to see it until the season winds up on Netflix in the summer). As is it's uncohesive and a little frantic.

Chapter 1 is the setup, the perfunctory gathering of heroes and establishing the threat (which has been established in Arrow and Flash already).   But as the Supergirl entry, it gets mired in trying to save first Clark and Lois on Argo City, and then trying to save "Earth 38" (Supergirl's earth) from the Anti-Matter wave by emigrating the people of that earth to "Earth 1" (the main Arrowverse earth).  There's no real repercussions of all that migration (the impact of such a massive migration, plus the sudden awareness for Earth 1 inhabitants of the multiverse, since Earth 1 eventually gets destroyed as well.  It's a hollow victory.   There's a side visit to "Earth 95" where Sara encounters a "dark reality" Oliver... while I hoped for more alternate reality versions of characters, this one was a bit thin.   This chapter also climaxes with a nonsensical indoor battle inside an abandoned shopping mall (or office building lobby) that's supposed to be a high tech tower that's holding back the anti-matter wave.  Shortly after the indoor battle progresses to a rooftop battle resulting in Oliver's anticlimactic (first) death.

The next chapter deals with the fallout of Oliver's death, as Mia and Barry try to find an Earth with a functional Lazarus pit, much to Sara's objections.  It also adds Lex Luthor to the mix who steals the Book of Destiny and tries to kill every Superman in the multiverse.  We get another alternate reality, Earth 74 where we meet a not-that-different Rory and a rusted-out Waverider with a Len Snart (Wentworth Miller, yay) voiced AI.  Chapter 4 also introduces the quest for the Paragons of reality, but also reintroduces the Book of Destiny from the Elseworlds crossover.  This episode gives us the visit to the Smallville universe, Earth 99 Batman (Conroy) and Earth 96 Superman (Routh).  It's a full episode of side journeys that are meaningful to the main story and to some of the characters, with a lot of fun aspects (Superman vs. Superman fight) plus it puts a nice focus on the Arrowverse Lois and Clark who will be getting their own spinoff.  It's pretty much what I wanted out of every episode of the Crisis crossover but only really worked here.  The quest for paragons should have continued with the next chapter 

Where Chapter 1 opened with various Earths being destroyed (Batman 89, Titans, Batman 66), the third part starts with Earth 205, the short-lived Birds of Prey universe.  I was expecting more of these. Being the Flash episode, Frost, Cisco and Elongated Man join the mix, and they immediately resolve the identity of the last three Paragons. Sigh.  Layla Michaels, Diggle's wife, now Harbinger, has been corrupted by the Anti-Monitor, so added to the reveal that Oliver both died and then was returned via the Lazarus Pit last episode, Diggle's having a bad day.  As established in Arrowverse canon, Oliver's soul needs to be returned to his body leading to the Earth 666 world and Lucifer encounter.  The Flash team brings with it the corniest entry, and having to deal with so much of what The Flash set up this season it kind of grinds down the momentum of the crossover.  But it has its moments, particularly the treadmill sequence with Flash, Earth 90 Flash and Black Lightning is so comic booky (perhaps it's my nostalgia for the 90's Flash TV show, that this is such a bittersweet sendoff too, as I'm sure the Smallville moment in the last chapter tweaked the fans of that show).  And I love Cress Williams joining this crew.  The chapter ends with the end of everything, sending only the Paragons to the vanishing point, a point in space outside of time, and one great surprise ending.


The fourth chapter treads similar ground to Avengers:Endgame with characters entering the Speed Force and interfering in the "greatest hits" moments of theirs or other characters' lives.  It's rather tremendous fan service, while having some narrative purpose (ultimately, like so much of Crisis, the logic of the purpose of these proceedings are a conundrum).  It also provides an origin story for the Monitor and the whole event and further's Oliver's journey.  It's got some great bits, but also some bits that painfully expose the budgetary limits of the CW niche programming.

Ultimately, what I wanted out from Crisis was not seeing what happens (mainly because I knew it's budget couldn't live up to what I wanted it to be), but to see where it winds up.  And where it winds up in the fifth chapter is close to what I was hoping for... a unified Earth that presents itself as something significantly different than what we've seen before.  All the main shows - Arrow, Flash, Supergirl, Black Lightning, Legends of Tomorrow, Batwoman - are all part of the same reality now.  Only the Paragons are aware that it's a new reality (causing Kara much confusion), but J'onn, being a powerful telepath, is able to mind-jog people into remembering, which I think would be pretty traumatic, and is a bit of a terrible cheat, methinks.

The new reality kicks in with Lex Luthor having been rewritten a world-renowned good dude, receiving a Nobel Peace Prize, much to Kara's shock.  Later proceedings are interrupted by a Giant Beebo storming down the streets like a Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, which sends characters of all different walks into a delightful action sequence.  The moments leading into the Beebo reveal had me thinking Starro the Conqueror (literally a giant outer space starfish) was going to show up.  That it was Beebo was just as delightful, and it sets a bit more of a comic-bookish tone to the new reality of the DCCW universe (no longer the "Arrowverse" without Arrow leading it), and that the possibility of Starro appearing (or anything else larger than life like that) certainly not as out of the question as it may have been before.  (I miss Legends tackling oddball elements of DC Comics rather than weird generic mystical shit).

As great as it would have been to flatten out ALL TV and Movie realities into one realities, that wasn't really tenable.  The final part of the crossover ends dropping some highlights as to the realities of the known Multiverse, including the new Stargirl TV show, Titans, Doom Patrol, and Swamp Thing.  Even though Ezra Miller's Flash makes a delightful guest appearance in part four, this end summary wisely avoids making any predictions about what reality/realities the current DC Cinematic Universe(s) would occupy.  (Miller's appearance happened post-production at a Warner Bros. executive's request, but I can't help but think how much more awesome this crossover would have been adding in Zachary Levi's Shazam as a paragon, and likely how willing Levi would have been to participate.  I believe the shows producers just avoided the DCCU altogether when preparing expecting that they wouldn't be allowed to even touch it, given how much an impact the movies have had on ongoing stories and character in the Arrowverse over the years).

If anything, my biggest issue with Crisis was in how it was presented, broken up into three nightly parts prior to the December holidays, and then two parts on one night two weeks into the new year.  It really impacted the flow and progress.  I probably would have watched the whole thing over again had it all come out before the holidays.  It's not perfect, it's not the Avengers, it may not appeal much to outsiders, it may not be well told, and it may not pay off on a lot of the build up (both in universe and in the meta commentary) but it has its moments (both of the "hell yeah" and "bwahaha"), and it does its fan service relatively nicely, and it ends exactly how it should which kind of turned my whole opinion on it around...somewhat.

I was thinking that Crisis may be a stopping point for the DCCW for me, but it's energized the reality just enough to keep my toes in it and see how it builds out/carries on without Arrow.

We Agree: Star Wars Ep9: Rise of the Skywalker

2019, JJ Abrams (Star Trek) -- Cinema

Yes, I know and I prefer my way of (mis)spelling the movie title; just cuz.

I told myself, and Kent in comments, that I c/would not write about this movie yet as I was just not sure and not until I had seen it another time. But that is not likely to happen any time soon, so here I am writing down some thoughts. Thoughts that are along the line of We Agree.

So, recap (well, personal not previous movies). I am the guy who really enjoys Ep1: The Phantom Menace. But I rather despise the next two movies in the prequel trilogy, so much so that I rarely re-watch them. For some reason, I have never done a ReWatch tagged write up of the primary centre mass of the movies, but I am that guy who remembers the lead-up and the utter joy at seeing the original movie, tagging along with my older brother Kenny, when I was 10 years old. I am A Fan. Thus, Ep7 was OK, I liked humming the familiar tune, but I missed getting goosebumps from the opening brass. And I was definitely in one of the minorities (not often a Straight White Cis Guy can say that) in that I really really liked Ep8. I cannot argue the fanboys for not liking it, and prefer to not acknowledge the frothing neckbeards for the hate. I really need to post a ReWatch to cover my feelings on it, as I saw it during The Great Hiatus of Late 2017 Early 2018.

So, the one sentence summary, considering I am still in the Only Seen It Once state? It was fine, it was just fine. Yeah, that is probably my greatest issue with it, in that is was just fine.

So, recap. Proper recap. Luke is dead, most of the Resistance is dead (massive side note: I had to do some wiki reading to understand exactly why there was even a Resistance when this trilogy began. If the Empire was defeated, and the New Republic was in charge, who were they resisting? Wouldn't they just be policing the Galaxy? Well, when the First Order began rising, the New Republic did little to stop them. Let them be, they thought, they can have the fringe worlds and we will rule ours. But being a galactic bureaucracy just led to them appearing weak in the eyes of many worlds, which then decided (or were forced) to secede to the First Order. The New Republic continued to turn a blind eye, so thus rose The Resistance, to actively defend against the depredations of the New/Old Empire), the New Republic themselves are dead, Snoke is dead, Han is dead and any allies the Resistance had seemingly turned away. Ben/Ren is in charge of the First Order. All seems rather bleak.

***SPOILY SPOIL SPOILERS***

We begin with Ben Ren finding a magic triangle, that reminded me somewhat of the magical sphere that Starlord finds in Guardians of the Galaxy Pt 1. But this one leads him to a hidden planet where (OMINOUS MUSIC !!) he finds the barely living corpse of Darth Sidious himself, Emperor Palpatine. Oooooo, Fanboys had a theory on the Internet and got sooooo pissy when things didn't lead that way, so Insert One Sheev Palpatine (his name is Sheev?!?!?) as the Big Bad, the guy who created Snoke but who really wanted Kylo Ren to join the Dark Side, and rule at his side. Also, Palpatine was able to secretly build a fleet of classic Star Destroyers without anyone finding his secret planet. Even if he did it Ancient Pharoah style and killed the builders after they were finished, I am sure someone would notice the loss of an engineering force large enough to create THOUSANDS of Star Destroyers, let alone the depletion of resources for it. But who cares, come stand by my side, hisses Emperor Space Zombie.

Back in Resistance Town, the Good Guys are learning the Deep Dark Secret at pretty much the same time as we are, and they also learn the only way to find him is via the Magic Triangle. Now, off on a Quest to find the only other MT. Don't get me wrong, Quests are fun, in the grand Star Wars tradition, and everyone gets to go together and see new, albeit another desert, planets. The first acts of the movie are just fun fun fun, But if The Force Awakens hummed a familiar tone, The Rise of Skywalker was performing an updated cover of the original tune. This is everything all the Fanboys wanted, including the retcon-ing of decisions made in the last, so that People Get What They Wanted.

The only clue to where the Magical Triangle might be is the last known location of a "Jedi Hunter". After a first unfortunate encounter with Ren, where Rey reveals (to the audience, really) her connection to Palpatine, via a blast of Force Lightning. After that, and a cryptic clue on a dagger (how D&D), the next step is now hidden inside C3PO, but locked behind a directive he cannot contradict without a mind wipe. It's a false device for dramatic effect, but it does address whether droids are considers "people" or not. There is tragedy in him losing his mind, but there is more weight to them choosing to not do it without consent. And the clue is revealed; the Magical Triangle is inside the ruins of the Death Star 2. An end of Act 2 battle between Rey and Ren continues the love / hate / goo goo eyes between the two, but does culminate in an act of compassion. Alas it also dashes the Key to the Planet of the Sith.

As Kent pointed out, so so much happens in this movie, that we rarely get a moment to rest and recupe, rarely do we get a moment to consider what has gone on so far. Its all rushing towards a final confrontation, a final ending to this trilogy, a final ending to Old Republic vs New Republic, Empire vs Resistance, Rey vs Ren, etc. etc. A final ending to nine movies. And I guess we get exactly what we wanted. We get the end of Palpatine, for real this time. We get the story of Rey they all wanted. They. We get an end to Kylo Ren and for a brief moment, a redemption arc for Ben Solo. We get Poe's acknowledgement of his own over confidence, which can only be redeemed when he relies on others. We even get a kiss and a laugh between Rey and Ben.

But did I get a satisfactory ending. Again, I am not entirely sure yet. Maybe we will know when I do the ReWatch.

Black Moon Rising

1986, d. Harley Cokeliss - AmazonPrime

A common trope of boredom through to the turn of the century was channel-flipping.  Just thumbing the remote one channel at a time, pausing for moments to catch mere glimpses - a few lines of dialogue, a mid-sales pitch on a shopping network, a cheesy action sequence - before moving onto the next thing that probably doesn't interest you.  The equivalent these days is thumbing our way through our streaming services to add things to our lists, but taking a good long time before pressing "play" on something.  The difference here is we don't tend to catch those mere glimpses of the show or movie, just a picture and a brief 1-2 line synopsis (some, but not all, Netflix apps now have a preview feature if you pause on a selected title for a moment).  AmazonPrime has, for some productions, a prominently featured "Play Trailer" beside their "Play Movie" button.  And that trailer for Black Moon Rising is what suckered me into watching this decidedly middling, obviously forgettable mid-80's Fast and Furious franchise precursor.  I immediately paraphrased Troy from Community, "That looks terrible...I want to watch it twice."



There's definitely a 5-minutes-into-the-future vibe to that trailer, with the Lalo Schifrin synth score and the titular "future car", the Black Moon, and of course name checking John Carpenter as co-screenwriter, but it's all a bit of a smokescreen.  This is such a vintage 80's also-ran action movie, it's almost painful.  Yet it is still quite watchable, mostly thanks to the charisma of Tommy Lee Jones, here a very lithe 39-years-old, complete with a topless scene that'll make you say "damn, Tommy Lee Jones was cut!"  I know I had never, ever, even momentarily, contemplated Jones' sex appeal before.  That changed.

The film's plot is very convoluted.  There are three competing stories.  The first finds Jones' master thief, Quint, being blackmailed by the FBI (Police Academy's Bubba Smith) into obtaining evidence for a case they're pursuing (pretty sure that would get thrown out in a court of law, so why bother?).  He gets caught, but escapes and is on the run from some bad people. 

The poster screams Blade Runner.
It's no Blade Runner...  I actually stayed
awake watching this one.

The second plot has to do with an experimental supercar, the Black Moon, developed by a former NASA engineer and piloted by an expert driver, and maintained by a mute Larry from Newhart (no brother Darryl or other brother Darryl though).  It runs  on water and can go faster than any other car in history, and has a light composite frame never before seen.  They're courting auto manufacturers who are dubious about the whole thing.  Plot A dovetails into Plot B when Quint, stalled out at a gas station, stashes the data tape on the Black Moon, planning to retrieve it later in Los Angeles.

The third plot has to do with Linda Hamilton's Nina, master car thief and the right hand woman in Robert Vaughn's car theft/development scheme that makes no sense (he's stealing cars to display in office buildings for criminals?  Is that what's happening?).  Of course, she steals the Black Moon before Quint can recover the tape and then the story gets going...kind of .

There's car chases, fist fights, gunplay, uzis, big hair, and sex...so, typical 80's action movie.  Everything is so sub par, however.  The car chases are more tedious than exciting, 80's gunplay was mostly about people jumping out of the way of submachine gun bullets or cars getting shot up, and the sex scene so perfunctory.  That said, Tommy Lee Jones has charisma to spare, here.  It's easy to think of him only as the old cranky guy from almost every movie he was in post 1990, but seeing him as a bit of a younger buck, making sweet time with a lady and it's a revelation just how charming he is.  He's got a real knack for delivering dry wit and sarcasm. 

The film's weaving of the three plots is rather forced, and Cokeliss' execution of the film is so mechanical.  There's little actual excitement.  Some of that might be in comparison to today's standards of blockbuster, but I think if this were any good for its time, I would have heard about it before two weeks ago.  The opening credits had some nice composition and framing, but after that it routinely feels like an episode of The Rockford Files.  It's TV quality. 

There is a scene, however, of a car jumping from one tower to another, which should be spectacular but is exactly as cheesy looking as you'd expect from a modestly budgeted 80's action movie.  Not a forgotten masterpiece, not even a forgotten curiosity, just kind of forgotten for a reason. 

Star Wars: Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker

2019, d. JJ Abrams - in theatre

Sigh.

I'm having the hardest time writing a review of the latest Star Wars film.  If you follow this blog you know I am an impassioned Star Wars nerd and I have been for nearly my entire life.  I am by no means the biggest Star Wars nerd, nor the most impassioned, but I'm probably in the upper 15% thereof.  I love it.

I did not love this.

[PREAMBLE]

There is a subsection of fandom, of the internet, of life that think they should always have their way, and they have taken to being the worst people in our society in their expression of their desires, and the disappointment they feel when their desires aren't met.  Episode VII: The Force Awakens itself awakened this force of ugly underground trolls, but they just stirred and stewed.  They were still excited about the return of Star Wars, but Episode VII wasn't exactly what they wanted.  Cries of "Mary Sue" and basement boys totally butt hurt over ... well, whatever it is they can't deal with in life that they then project it into outrage at pop culture and entertainment.

But that awakening led to an absolute explosion with Episode VIII: The Last Jedi.  Rian Johnson, as writer and director, was keen to work within the Star Wars universe, and also work outside it, examining the metacommentary of Star Wars fandom and storytelling.  It didn't go over well with some people, and next to, say, Donald Trump, it's one of the most divisive things on the planet.  The trolls loathed that film.  By the sheer fact that not only didn't it give them what they wanted, but it actively played against their very expectations was just too much and their brains exploded into unquestionable self-entitled rage.  They drove Kelly Marie Tran off twitter with vile harassment.  They've been calling for Kathleen Kennedy's head on a spike for years.  They see red even thinking about how Johnson decided their hero, Luke Skywalker, turned out.  JJ Abrams' first Star Wars film was a puzzle box filled with so many questions, that Johnson answered in a way that nobody expected (people spent so much time debating these questions and looking for clues, that to either have them dismissed as irrelevant or answered so plainly was not appealing at all to many).  They went to forums, and aggregate sites, and social media and everywhere and anywhere to try to sink not just the movie, not just its cast or director, not just its producer, but the entire Disney studio system that put it out.  They tried to raise money for a remake for fuck's sake....  This criticism from this sector of the fandom can be boiled down to misogyny, racism, and immaturity, and should've been ignored, but boy was it loud.

So loud, that it was hard to hear that there were actually more level headed criticisms out there.  I've spoken to people who aren't huge, impassioned Star Wars nerds who either just didn't know how to feel about The Last Jedi or didn't like it for very specific reasons...some of which being the tone of the film, the comedy that wasn't really like anything previous in Star Wars, or being left with feeling of dissatisfaction (given how it ends with death, despair, and only the slightest nugget of hope...it's a 2017 film all the way).  I don't blame people for those reactions.  There are also actual fans who just don't like any metacommentary in Star Wars, and that's a valid criticism, as it's not something that's been so direct, or so of-the-moment (the prequels have a very specific metacommentary, George Lucas' observation of the nature of humanity and how we fall-into tyranny instead of being overtaken by are uncomfortably prescient).

Critically, The Last Jedi was exceptionally well received, and there's a very strong section of fandom who either loved it straight away or who have come to love it over the past couple years.  And it still made bank.  But the rage machine seeped into group making Episode IX, or at least to the executive branch, and "course correction", at least to those excited by the prospects left at the end of Episode VIII, was the worst case scenario.

Well, The Rise of Skywalker not only attempts so much "course correcting" with in the film, but they actively marketed to film to insinuate as much.  The subheading might as well have read: "More of what you love, less of what you didn't, and reversals on decisions made last time to make you happy!"

[SPOILER FREE REVIEW]

The ugly trolls of Star Wars fandom complained with The Force Awakens and even more so with The Last Jedi that these were "films by committee" and represented the ugly influence of the Disney machine on their revered property.  Honestly, I see The Force Awakens as pretty great hybrid of Lawrence Kasdan's script (co-writer of The Empire Strikes Back) and JJ Abrams directorial style that feels earnestly like Star Wars (if almost a little too much like Star Wars).  Same feel, new generation of leads.  Even more so, The Last Jedi feels like the most singular vision in Star Wars outside of Episode IV and the Prequels which Lucas invested himself in...and it was a better written, better directed, better acted movie than all of those (certainly the Prequels).

But this one, this Rise of Skywalker feels like corporate dictation all over.  It plays like a film trying to meet very specific objectives.  There's the backtracking they had to do, there's all the fanservicing they had to do, they had a trilogy to conclude, but they also decided to try and wrap all nine films together in a way that it wasn't actually set up to do.  They wanted to apply real meaning and importance to everything going on, and they wanted the shouty, pouty fandom to shut the hell up.  This film screams, at almost every turn, "we're trying so hard to give you what you want".  There's very little in this film that seems to be what the director and production team want, though.

The Rise of Skywalker is a hot mess of a movie.  From post-release news, we know that there was more than a bit of a rush job put on this.  Lucasfilm had director Colin Trevorrow lined up for the longest time to take on Episode IX, but shortly after The Last Jedi Trevorrow was fired and JJ was convinced to return.  Disney had a baked-in release date for this final installment and it meant that everyone was under too much pressure and decisions weren't necessarily made in the best way.

The opening half hour of this film reflects that.  It's frenetically paced.  The opening crawl is an information dump that just jumps right past BIG events and tries to proceed as if we're just cool with it.  It then proceeds to give us scenes that are barely a minute long over for the next half hour (this may be faulty memory on my part, but, regardless, the opening act is all over the place).  It's dizzying and overwhelming.  Between the opening crawl and the opening act, it's like they were trying to cram a whole film's worth of set-up and content in.

The best moments in this film are the ones that are allowed to breathe.  Any time where a scene takes place for more than two minutes, where the characters actually connect with each other and aren't just spouting exposition or exclamations to action, it's actually really great.  But there aren't many of those.  The film has just too much to do to sit still.

I could rail against this.  I could be one of those Star Wars fans who just rages at how I didn't get what I wanted out of this.  Ultimately, though, I recognize that I feel like one of those reasonable fans who just didn't like The Last Jedi.  This film didn't deliver what I feel like the last film was setting up... the unexpected.  I suppose looping right back to Emperor Palpatine as the big bad was unexpected, except for the fact that it was already done in the old Expanded Universe of comics and novels.  It feels like a rehash.

I get it though, he was the Phantom Menace of the prequels, and the big boss of the Original Trilogy, so it should wrap back here...it's just not very...clever.  It feels unearned.  In reality, if this was the plan, it should have been two films, one setting up the discovery of his existence, the next trying to find him as to take him and his secret fleet down.


The reality is The Rise of Skywalker isn't necessarily bad.  It's entertaining enough, and there is SO MUCH STAR WARS that the expanded universe of novels and comics and video games and television can play with this for a decade filling in the blanks.


But there's not much in this film that feels new.  The best critique of this film I heard was very simple: how is the galaxy any different here than it was at the end of Return of the Jedi?  I mean, Episode VII went through the motions of the Original Trilogy in quick succession, but it still felt very, very new, very exciting.  It still feels very energetic when I watch it four years later.  But this, there's a lack of energy to it.


Rian Johnson left a wide open path of possibilities and the decision to go towards fan appeasement resulted in no risks being taken.  There are deaths in this film, but there are also so many death fake-outs that it's kind of ridiculous how many times we get tricked into thinking someone is dead.  The first such fake out is huge, but so immediately reversed that the gut punch we felt leaves no lasting mark.  It's such a neutered movie.

I rewatched The Last Jedi again shortly after watching The Rise of Skywalker and any doubt I had about that film washed away (I mean, I loved it before, but I wondered if it was just pushing so hard against the haters), especially when compared to Episode IX.

The problem, as I see it, was there was no complete vision for this trilogy.  Just like the Original Trilogy (and much of the Prequel Trilogy) there was no endgame really planned.  Had there been then perhaps The Last Jedi would have delivered more of what fans were hoping for, more answers to questions teased out in The Force Awakens, all leading to a unified, satisfying conclusion here.  But there was no plan.  Each movie was left to its own devices, the first tasked with softly rebooting the whole thing, the second allowed to forge its own twisty path, and the third needing to wrap it all up, all with zero real guidelines.  So this is what we get.

That's a look that says "I was a co-
star in the last one and I have, like,
one minute of screen time now???
WTF?!?

The Rise of Skywalker finds JJ Abrams returning to try and put a cap on what he started, and what George Lucas started before him.  But it seems like Abrams was so stuck on his original concepts and plans for where things were going that he couldn't get past them (or didn't have time to get past them) for this one.  Things like the Knights of Ren or the crashed Death Star or this one being Leia focused or Ray's parentage... all these things could have been left aside thanks to the open door Johnson left behind.  But they feel unsuited to the narrative, forced back into place where they no longer belong, and not really given the weight they deserve for one reason or another.

I really wanted to watch the film again before writing about it, but that doesn't seem to be happening.  If I don't make it back to the theatre, that will be two Star Wars films in a row I only saw once on the big screen (I came to really love Solo watching it on home video, it seems much better suited on the small screen).  I have watched the Mandalorian so many times though.  I'm not sure if that says anything about Star Wars, or my fandom (I'm still buying comics, books and toys a plenty, I tell you what, from sources new and old), except maybe that Disney just needs to work outside of the established characters for the next feature and not try to connect everything.

[RANKING]



1. Empire Strikes Back
2. Star Wars
2.5 ---> The Mandalorian
3. The Last Jedi
3.5 ---> Rebels
4. Rogue One
5. The Force Awakens
5.5 ---> The Clone Wars (Series + Movie)
6. Solo
7. Revenge of the Sith
8. Return of the Jedi
9. The Phantom Menace
10. The Rise of Skywalker
11. Attack of the Clones
11.5 ---> Resistance

10 for 10: more TV than necessary

[10 for 10... that's 10 consumables which we give ourselves 10 minutes apiece to write about.  Part of our problem is we don't often have the spare hour or two to give to writing a big long review for every movie or TV show we watch.  How about a 10-minute non-review full of half-remembered scattershot thoughts? Surely that's doable?   ]

In this edition:

Living With Yourself (season 1 - Netflix)
Batwoman (3 episodes - CW/Showcase)
Stumptown (pilot episode - ABC)
Genndy Tartakovski's Primal (season 1 - Cartoon Network)
His Dark Materials (3 episodes - HBO)
The World According to Jeff Goldblum (4 episodes - Disney+)
Harley Quinn  (5 episodes - Cartoon Network)
Impulse (season 2 - YouTube)
Rick & Morty (season 4 - Cartoon Network)
The Mandalorian (season 1 redux - Disney+)


---

Over the holidays I did back-to-back viewings of Us and Enemy (unfortunately The Double was unavailable), getting some intriguing doppleganger viewing in.  I had forgotten that, back in October, we had watched Living With Yourself, the Paul Rudd-starring Netflix vehicle about a struggling advertising executive who is referred to an experimental self-improvement process, and comes out feeling like a new man...because he is, literally, a new man.  The Paul Rudd that steps out of the treatment is actually a rapidly grown clone with some behavioral modifications that immediately starts improving his life...better performance at work, a better relationship with his wife.  But the original Paul Rudd, who was supposed to be terminated, wakes up in a shallow grave and finds his life usurped by this newer version.  But rather than being nefarious nemeses they wind up more like twins, since they both basically have the same shared memories and experiences, just their attitudes are slightly different.  The show doesn't put them through any overtly extraordinary paces, despite their unique situation, instead it reminds us that the only person who can make our own lives better is ourself (it's a metaphor).  That said I loved how the show would keep switching its POV character from episode to episode, following one Paul, and then at the start of the next episode recapping the previous episode's events from the POV from the other Paul.  The show may not be the goofy comedy I was hoping for, nor is it a forced farce, or sci-fi nightmare, instead it's a light drama in the vein of Amazon's Forever or Netflix's Maniac (both shows left unreviewed from The Dark Year of this blog).  It has some sharp storytelling tricks to establish a very human and grounded tale.  Not exceptional but certainly watchable (as most Rudd vehicles are) with some very enjoyable elements.

[10:00 (I actually forgot to start the clock, oops)]

---

Batwoman as a comic book character is a difficult choice to base a whole TV series off of.  Kate Kane is an excellent character, but the modern interpretation of her is not even 15 years old at this point and she's only had a handful of solo adventures.  In the time between her introduction into comics and today, the entire universe she exists in had at least one huge reboot and a few soft ones, so the character hasn't really had time to grow as part of the DC superhero community.  The basics is she's Bruce Wayne's cousin (from his mom's side).  Her dad is a hard-driving ex-military.  She dropped out of the military due to "don't ask, don't tell" policies.  She had childhood trauma as a result of the deaths of her mother and sister in a car accident.  She becomes Batwoman, for reasons I don't recall.

In the show, she becomes Batwoman because Batman/Bruce Wayne up and disappeared from Gotham three years prior and someone has to do something about all the crime (and her dad's private security force is...problematic).  Kate's comic book time hasn't been long enough to establish a very thorough rogues gallery, so the only villain she's really connected to is Alice, who runs an "Alice in Wonderland" gang motif, and who is really Kate's crazy, long-thought-dead sister.

3+1 Short Paragraphs: Ready or Not

2019, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett (V/H/S) -- download

This is one of the ones we would normally save for 31 Days of Halloween, but seeing it came out just after, we ended up watching anyway. Cannot save everything for the following year or we end up just not seeing a bunch at all (ed. note: whoah, I have a bunch from 2019 I have yet to post. Xmas Posts sort of pushed them off the radar). Not staying on track is a common theme for any "event" based posting stream. I am surprised I watched as many Xmas movies as I did, all things considered.

NOW, where was I ? Yes, a movie better suited for the event, but something we just wanted to see. And it was worth it,  as we quite enjoyed this small very Canadian thriller-comedy. Grace (Samara Weaving, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) is marrying into the big Le Domas family, that made their name from a legacy of boardgames. Yep, Old Boardgames Money. That should be a hint that something is awry. This is a weird, eccentric family who don't deny they are odd, but affirm Grace that if she wants to be In, she has to play their games. Literal games.

Of course, this game ends up involving bizarre rituals and murder. Like the rather terrible Satanic Panic, the wealthy Le Domas fortune didn't come massive boardgame sales, but from The Devil. Or at least some incarnation of him that they claim they made a deal with. They don't really know, as no one has ever actually succeeded in foiling the ritual. Every time someone marries in, they have to play a game. Most of the games are benign, but Hide & Seek has a malevolent method; Grace as to hide, and the rest, including her new husband, have to seek her, in order to murder her. If they don't, poof goes the forture. Or worse. Who knows.

This is a fun little romp because Grace quickly goes from terrified to Not Taking Any More Shit. Like Clara in [REC] 3 (Spanish ones), she quickly rips off the hem of wedding dress and gets to defending herself. Some of the family are focused and will do anything to keep their legacy intact, while others, like Emilie (Melanie Scrofano, Wynona Earp) are just unfortunately mixed up in all this batshit crazy and do their best to carry on -- unfortunately, that involves her accidentally killing most of her children's nannies. In case you are wondering, yes the kids are just as involved in all thus murder and mayhem. In the end, Grace does survive and yes, the family goes KA-BLOOP as the consequences of not completing the ritual fulfills itself.

Bonus Line: Yes, Roman was right, this movie does smack a little of A Cabin in the Woods, but not for the playing with tropes of horror, but more from the clever.

[We Disagree] Alita: Battle Angel

2018, d. Robert Rodriguez - Crave

Remember the first trailer for Alita: Battle Angel?  The one where Alita's eyes are so huge they're legitimately upsetting...the kind of unnatural visual that gets the villagers rallying with their torches and storming the castle ready to kill the beasts.  In case you forgot:




Looking into those huge CGEyes, the trailer is a horrifying and unsettling journey beyond the uncanny valley.  But once you actually start watching the you can possibly look past the eyes and instead be tangibly upset with the tangibly unreality of Alita's entire computer animated face that is on screen throughout over 80% of the film.  You'll never ease into it's not-human nature...the way the mouth moves primarily, especially when it contorts into a pinched, fangy smile.  *Shudder*

In the year-ish since Alita's debut and unsuccessful domestic box office venture (though it did make considerable bank globally), the film has garnered a rather cult-like collection of supporters (*cough*Toast*cough*).  I won't ever deny anyone something they enjoy, but dear god this is a terrible, terrible movie.

I don't know the source material since I'm not an anime fan.  There's something structurally about most anime that I find grating, so I just avoid most of it (which isn't to say I dislike all Japanese animation, like Studio Ghibli and non-genre anime tend to be ok, but I just can't summon the energy to wade through it all to find the ones I could tolerate).  What bothers me about this westernized "live action" re-envisioning of the anime isn't the aspects that feel anime.  No, it's the godawful dialogue, character dynamics, story progression and, grrr, futuresport.  I hate futuresports.


The relationships between the characters only exist in cliche.  There's not a single dynamic here that feels unique, and every  one of those relationships progress in the film in completely predictable fashion.  Like memory-less Alita, the waif-ish ingenue, immediately falls in love with Hugo, and accepts Dr. Dyson as her father figure, and makes "the big speech" to try to rally the antagonistic hunter-warriors to her aide against the bad guys.

As a result, the dialogue in this film is clunky as hell.  The characters only ever speak like they're reading lines in preparation for a series of very bad plays.  I can't think of a single moment where it felt like two characters shared anything real between them.  All dialogue here seems to have intent, whether it's overt exposition or pensive pondering or brutal, Hallmark-ian romantic exchanges. 

The film's visuals are very unique, and the world is rather distinct (it's a far future society that has all but collapsed, where there exists only one remaining city, "Iron City", surrounded by trash, and above it a hovering golden city Zalem, the dream of every lowly person to achieve status to go up there.  But rather than this acting as any sort of tangible class metaphor, the story ignores it for a cliched adventure about a cyborg girl and her missing memories and a lot of stupid futuresport.

The source material was originally serialized manga, and even the original anime was multi-part.  The film reflects this with it's many, many, too many plot threads, like the murder mystery plot, or Hugo's dreams of being a Motorball star and going to Zalem, or Alita's missing memories, or Dr. Dyson's tension with his estranged ex wife over the use of their dead daughter's body (and name) for this amnesiac cyborg... the "hunter warriors" league, the influence of Nova from high up above, the curious case of the missing limbs, etc etc.  This film has so much going on, and almost all of it is exhaustingly cliche.
 The reality of Alita revolves around its futuresport, called "Motorball".  The biggest champion of Motorball has the potential to elevate to Zalem, so everyone is obsessed with it.  People body mod with cybernetics to give them an advantage in Motorball, and it's an "anything goes" sport.  It's people wearing rollerblades with rockets on them racing after a ball in a circular track, trying to slam the ball into a repository.  It's just cyborg Rollerball.  God I hate futuresports.  Films can get too mired in explaining futuresports rules, or they can forget to really explain the futuresport and just let it happen, and in either case it's annoying...does anyone *really* care about the result of any futuresports game ever?  It's never playing out in real-time so the drama of a sports match can never capture the feeling of watch a real sport, so what's the point?  (Yes, Quiddich is a futuresport and I hate the amount of space it takes up in those books and movies too).

Most of Robert Rodriguez's films are enjoyable, even if they're not great films .  There's a consistent style shared among most of his films from the Desperado trilogy through to the various grindhouse-inspired work and his kids movies.  The outsiders are Sin City and Predators, where the director is working on an established property that isn't his own and seems to create a tighter, more careful production.  This is definitely in that outsider territory, to the point that I didn't remember he was the director until the end credits.

Likewise I forgot that James Cameron was involved with this.  It was seeing Cameron's script credit (with Laeta Kalogridis) that it all made sense.  Cameron trades almost exclusively in big showy productions filled with boring stock characters who never remotely feel or act like real people.  I can accept those types of characters in a cheap, intentionally stupid Hallmark movie, but in a film costing over a hundred million dollars, I want characters that believe their reality.   

I hated this movie.

3 Short Paragraphs: Six Underground.

2019, Michael Bay (The Rock) -- Netflix

6 Underground premieres in a few hours and we would like to once again apologize that the movie is not a Sneaker Pimps biopic...

But feeling pretty confident you're gonna like what @VancityReynolds and Michael Bay have made for you

— Netflix US (@netflix) December 12, 2019

Yes, that was my first thought. And no that does not count as the first paragraph. This does. OK, technically the next does.

I am not a Bay Fan. But strangely enough, a fan of many Bay Movies. I have to admit, he does have style. And who wouldn't think, that when combined with Ryan Reynolds personality, there could be a little bit of over the top magic? Well, based on Reynold's promotion of the movie via social media, I sure did. His statement of it being the most baytastic Michael Bay movie of all times, and his counting of the number of the baysplosions, just sold it to me. Of course, we have to expect a bit of fourth-wall breaking or meta commentary from Reynolds, as he may have inadvertently type-cast himself (as himself) via Deadpool. Alas...

Reynolds plays <Insert Technology Billionaire>  man who becomes disillusioned with the world and decides to do something about it. Fund climate change? Feed the starving? Fuel research into world saving technologies? Nope, he decides to fake his death and recruit a bunch of <insert character card> cliche SMEs to help him take down definitively Evil (Big E) Bad Guys, of which there number Six. Six Bad Guys vs Six Good Guys. Cuz that makes sense.

The movie focuses on Bad Guy Number One, a despotic leader of a desert-y X-istan country. What follows are a bunch of highly Bay choreographed action pieces funded by Reynolds, who has a loose, badly put together plan that relies on... luck? First all, I get some of his hires, as they are worldly spies or hitmen, but why a doctor? Sure, have your Secret Base stocked full of doctors but bringing her along on missions full of guns and guns and guns and baysplosions? But it's Bay-tastic and doesn't have to make sense. So, then why... is... it... so... boring. I literally began following asleep as we jumped from one Baysplosive scene to the next, one Reynolds quip to the next, one super-saturated beautiful set-piece to the next. In the end, they kill one (ONE!) main Evil Bad Guy, so I assume he is hoping for a franchise? Not sure I will be there...

And they didn't even use the song...