#I've actually edited this down a lot and still feel like I'm not properly articulating myself

[quieticmoss]

So I'm pretty bad at expressing myself through writing cuz I'm pretty shit at it, but I can't get out of my head the scene of Jaiden comforting and confronting Roier during Festa Junina. It's the fact that Jaiden, through her own grief and self isolation, grabs a hold of a drowning Roier. Looking at him and truly seeing him and accepting him at his lowest point. Loudly declaring that he deserves kindness and love and she is his partner and that she is here for him. 

And I believe she will not waver about her conviction and affection for him. And while she may need time and she may be hurt beyond comprehension, she will never actually leave him until the day she is no longer wanted. (Even then she will leave with kindness and understanding.) 

In fact, until the day when one or both are ready to come apart and become their own person again, I believe that together they will be holding each other up. Unwilling to let the other fall despite their own pain.

And just, I love their partnership so much. I know other people in this fandom have been upset that Jaiden or Roier haven't been there for each other enough since Bobby's death, but I need people to understand that both are the type to self isolate when upset. Like Roier might still be a part of the bigger group and acting dramatic around others while Jaiden is acting fine with her usual silliness and then completely disappearing, but both doing the same thing. Both are trying to make a “joke” about how much of a mess they have become after Bobby died without ever having to open up and talk to anybody about it. Both are giving a show as if to say “I wont let you see how much I’m actually hurting because if you actually saw me grieve without my mask of silliness, I will become a burden and you will leave me” 

And by god if I don't feel this to my very core which might be why I’m so obsessed over this. Cuz despite their own fear of being perceived and the feeling of becoming a burden or being looked down upon and used, they are still reaching out and offering others nothing but love.

Like if I remember correctly there was a time when someone (I can't remember who, sorry) asked Roier what he wanted and he said that he wanted someone to fully accepting him and give him a place to feel like he was being cared about, and to be the one on the receiving end of love rather than always being the one to reach out. And here is Jaiden with the sun rising behind her with arms wide open bathed in the new dawning warmth, only offering love and asking for nothing in return. 

Bobby may have been their sunset, but together through the love they have for each other they are creating their own sunrise. 

 And just, ahhhh, sorry I know all of this was overly long winded and badly written and I'm deeply embarrassed by the fact that I can't write better than this but I wanted to try out being a part of a voice in the void of a fandom for once and get a little bit of my love for these two out there.

[geoffreytoday]

Wake up sleepy head

We've finally arrived at the sequel trilogy!

For those of you who have been following along with my notes for this project, I can imagine you're wondering what my feelings about the sequel trilogy are. I mean, I have to imagine, because I'm reasonably sure that no one is actually reading these, and if by some bizarre happenstance somebody is, they almost certainly have not wondered this and do not care. That's okay though, my imagined audience is happy to ask me the questions that I feel like answering :p

Hey Geoff, you've talked at length about your issues with the prequels, but what do you think about the sequels?

Good question! Thanks for asking, I appreciate your engagement.

I like the sequels... most of them. Let's talk about it.

I approached The Force Awakens with a lot of trepidation and anxiety. Having been burned by the prequels, I was not confident that the sequel trilogy would be any different. I worried that the magic of the orig trig might not be something that could be recaptured or replicated.

The first teaser trailer did little to reassure me that Episode VII would or could be good. The shakey-cam shot of the stormtroopers aboard the landing craft felt inconsistent with the established look of Star Wars, the design of the stormtrooper helmets was silly, giving me Disney cartoon duckbill vibes, and that stupid beachball droid looked ridiculous.

In fact, the only thing I liked about the teaser was the big thing the obsessive Star Wars fans were complaining about: Kylo Ren's lightsaber with the cross guard blades. I thought that looked fun and bad ass. Everyone else was moaning about it being stupid and unbelievable. You know, cuz Star Wars has always been so believable :p

I didn't think much of the title either. I didn't hate it. I liked it better than the titles for episodes I, II, and IV, but I wasn't excited by it either.

Suffice it to say, when I sat down in the theater on opening night, I was nervous. I did not want to hate another Star Wars movie. Hating Star Wars movies makes me sad.

My fears were not allayed when the opening music blasted through the theater. It sounded wrong. I've not read anyone else bring this up, though I have looked, but to my ear the opening music for episodes VII, VIII, and IX all sound off. The opening blast feels weak and artificial. It sounds like a synthesizer rather than an orchestra. It lacked the power, the oomph of the first six films, and put me in mind of a video game rather than a film.

I'm not a particularly musical person, I don't have the vocabulary or experience to properly articulate what the actual problems is. All I know is that there is no music in the world that I am more familiar with than the scores to the Star Wars saga. I have been listening to those scores obsessively my whole life.

They are so ingrained in my brain that I can tell by ear whether I'm listening to the original scores or the special editions, based solely on the slight differences in timing for specific pieces. The special edition required certain sections be lengthened by a handful of beats here and there to accommodate the newly lengthened scenes.

So when I say that the opening music in the sequels doesn't sound right to me, that's based on 40 years worth of constant exposure to the originals.

The opening crawl was alright, better than any of the crawls from the prequels. Still, I remained trepidatious. The opening sequence was decent, the exchange between Poe and Max Von Sydow was okay, the raid on the village was exciting, my fears about BB-8 looking silly had been immediately washed away, but I wasn't sold yet.

Then Poe took a shot at Kylo Ren, and he froze that blaster bolt in place with the force. That got my attention. That was something truly new. Something I had never seen before. That was something deeply cool. The only prequel moment that even came close to that was the reveal of Maul's double bladed lightsaber, and they wasted that reveal in the first trailer.

The prequels had plenty of impressive visual effects, don't get me wrong, but this was the first time since 1983 that a Star Wars movie had made me go "Whoa!". That was an exciting feeling.

I still wasn't convinced though. Spectacle is rad and all, but it's just the icing, TFA could still turn out to be a bran muffin masquerading as a cupcake.

Kylo Ren and Poe are brought face to face, and after a few beats of silence Poe says "So who talks first? You talk first? I talk first?" and in that moment I released a breath I didn't even know I'd been holding. That was the moment when my fear melted away, and I could feel that old, familiar Star Wars magic in my chest, warming my soul. The rest of the movie might suck, but in that moment I was watching Star Wars, and I was content.

I loved The Force Awakens. The movie legitimately made me giddy. I left the theater so happy and relieved. I loved a Star Wars movie again! Every time I went back to the theater, that giddiness returned. TFA had delivered what I had wanted from the prequels but never got, the magic of Star Wars.

This is, of course, my own personal experience. Your mileage may vary.

This post is getting long, so I'll cut it here. Tune in next time, when I'll be discussing everything I'm going to change about a movie I already love :p