#dee plays jedi fallen order

[risingshards]

I finished Jedi Survivor and have to talk about it and nobody I know has it WAHHH

MAJOR SPOILERS FOLLOW

My thought as the catharsis of finishing settles is that I think it's one of my favorite Star Wars things like ever.

For reference, my tippy top tier of Star Wars is the OT (duh), KOTOR series, OG Battlefronts, Mandalorian (particularly S2), Visions (especially The Twins which is maybe my favorite #1 SW thing because I'm so obsessed with Am and it's like Star Wars I love distilled into half an hour), TFA, and some particular TCW and Rebels arcs. There's probably more that I'm forgetting I tend to do that. And of course the Jedi series.

My Jedi series history: I remember at Celebration 2019, one of the best experiences of my life, I left one of the meet and greets (I met Ian McDiarmid and Billy Dee Williams!!!) and my partner at the time and I looked at the main stage and were like "wait what the fuck is Ian from Shameless doing here?!?!" Because we were in lines all day, we didn't see the announcement that Fallen Order was a thing.

And then the first one was a great time. Maybe a bit too hard for my game ability, but with difficulty turned down I was able to handle it. I loved how they just let Cal be kind, just a sweet good dude, like the true spirit of what a Jedi can be is in him, BD-1 is one of the best game companions ever, the supporting cast of Merrin/Cere/Greez was REAL good, loved the main villain and made sure to get her figure and Cal's, and the failure is not the end scene made me ugly ugly cry and is one of my favorite (I'm talking favorite a lot which I think is a persistent theme for me playing this series). So I was excited for Survivor obviously.

And it was very very good. There are a lot of things I can't stop thinking about in game, I had trouble sleeping one night (not cuz of the game it was just one of my "well we aren't sleeping tonight" nights and spent most of it just like "wow what about this thing in jedi survivor" which is the sign of a game I either supremely cared about or was supremely troubled about (for example of the latter, I legit lost sleep after finishing Mass Effect 3 LOL).

I loved how big the opening was and how well it told the themes of the story and Cal's journey, weary from fighting the Empire and weary from losing friend after friend.

The inciting incident of Cal finding the frozen in bacta Jedi from the High Republic era Dagan Gera was my like "YES. OH MY GOD YES. RESPAWN YOUR VISION FOR STAR WARS IS JUST LIKE THIS IS WHAT I WANT!!!" Something about this angsty anime boy villain had me like "RELEASE THE ACTION FIGURE FOR HIM ASAP PLEASE HE'S COOOOOOOL." And the High Republic thing had me excited for Cal to get a new story that was his own deal that wasn't just Cal vs. Empire (well. didn't get that entirely but the main thrust of the story was the High Republic adventure which was fun.)

The family aspect was handled really well here too, with Cal's family being separated and you gradually reunite with them. Greez is like the lovable grandpa uncle, Cere the new parent/guardian figure to Cal after losing his previous one, and Merrin as the scary gf. BD-1 of course the loyal best friend pet, I have a small dog so like BD 1 and Cal's friendship hits so hard for me.

I thought the moral of the game would be like "you don't need to have this big mythical home in Tanalorr to go for, you have one to establish in Koboh" but they twisted me similarly to Cal breaking the holocron in Fallen Order. The Jedha battle with the crazy walker thing was amazing, and Cal and Merrin are so sweet together that I dug the kiss a lot.

The story felt like it halted for a bit after that and before getting to Dagan at the observatory, with the beautiful force vision duel with Dagan feeling like a "well the game COULD end here and I'd be pretty satisfied" moment. Then things went into high gear with Bode's betrayal leading to everything falling apart. Playing as Cere was amazing, and I did lose my mind for Vader showing up (love the parallel to him being in water for the first game and fire here, third game he'll be in the air or the dirt for the elemental trifecta). I definitely got emotional losing Cere, and thought that was really well handled, dealing with the tragic sense of "this couldn't end up any other way with Vader wanting revenge on her" well. As they said later, she got to go out winning her battle against the dark side and that's beautiful.

The last act of the game is mostly focused on dealing with Bode's betrayal. Cal's dalliances with the dark side are super interesting, because nothing is the same once he gets that first taste. Even the pause menu is tainted afterwards, as if a part of his soul is corrupted by just tapping into that incredible energy once. Mechanically it was a bit clunky to make tapping into the dark side a forced thing like in the last boss fight, and a bit of a clone of Ghost of Tsushima's ghost stance but Sucker Punch ya won't make Sly 5 so I'm not gonna judge if people take stuff from ya. Bode was gone by the end and willing to physically hurt his own daughter so like I didn't feel bad about Cal tapping into the dark side to defeat him (when Bode hit BD-1, that was his "oh there's no coming back for this guy is there" moment). I really loved the ending with the pyre funeral for Cere, Cordova, and Bode. It felt like a movie ending, and Cal talking to Cere about being so afraid of failing, of losing himself to the darkness was beautiful and probably the closest the game got to the failure speech in terms of making me bawl from the first game. After finishing, I felt like I had just finished watching a movie, like the same cathartic feeling of finishing a big Star Wars movie.

My bigger downsides: 155GB for a console game is fucking absurd. That stretch of time where it was just gameplay with the story being light was a bit of a drag (those sequences of just wave after wave of enemy were BS), and it felt like there weren't a lot of planets total (unless the side missions add planets because I just played the main story, that'd be cool if the bounties sent you back to old planets from the first game). I REALLY wish Dagan Gera had more to do and wasn't in the same role as Taron Malicos where he's the like sub-antagonist that gets offed relatively easily because I feel like there was so much more potential with a reawakened High Republic Era Jedi who immediately falls to the dark side. Like Second Sister, I do wish there was more with these super interesting villain characters before they get somewhat anticlimactically killed off, but cool as fuck villains getting somewhat anticlimactically killed off is basically Star Wars tradition.

I think it's a downside of the time period that at the end of the day the Empire has to be the big bad looming over everything. I'd love to see Respawn get a blank slate (there are a couple teams I'd love to see get a blank slate doing their own Star Wars from scratch, like Respawn, the Clone Wars team...) where they aren't beholden to have things fit into a timeline. But the Jedi series has been fine about that so far and nothing's felt like too hopeless or too crunching into a timeline. It was kind of cool in a video game-y way that you can be like "Oh it's the sequel so the formula is setting in, oh here's the sub villain, now we beat them, oh here's a surprise Vader appearance, etc. etc." I was excited for the Raiders led by Dagan to be a new threat for Cal and co., but because it's the Emprie reign era the Imps end up taking the main villain focus, which makes sense ofc, but I'm a slut for new factions.

Another downside that's not the game's fault: I'm streaming the game for a friend, and they guessed the entire plot immediately and I'm so mad at them about it because I hadn't pieced anything together when they did LOL. 30 seconds into Bode's appearance they were like "he did it. traitor. he's a spy for the empire and killed everyone there. i bet vader shows up too" and now I'm like I HOPE YOU DIDNT READ SPOILERS AND ARE JUST ACTING LIKE YOU PREDICTED THIS CUZ THAT'S A LITTLE TOO SPOT ON but I know they're just a genre savvy type. usually I can guess the immediate traitor which is a trope of games but I was just like "bode's voice actor voiced kotallo and charles :) " Part of me is thinking of ways to convince them they're wrong to mislead them as revenge but I'd have to act really well to pull that off and that'd be mean lmao.

What I'm hoping for to close out the trilogy assuming it gets a third game: I don't want Cal to turn to the dark side, but I do trust this team to handle his battle with it well. In a galaxy of tragic endings, there aren't many I want to have a happy ending more than Cal so that's my main hope for the third game. I hope Cal and his family establishing the hidden path is their way out of avoiding a fate of just "vader and the empire wipe them out because canon dictates it so." They've done so well so far that I trust this team to handle wrapping up Cal's story well, so I'm mainly just excited for what's next.

[twinsunstars]

Reflecting on Star Wars Celebration 2023

For 2023, Star Wars Celebration was held in London, England, part of Europe. Fans had a blast, whether they actually attended in person wearing cosplay or just regular clothes, or tuned into the live broadcasts on the Star Wars Youtube channel. Like last year in 2022, there were a lot of surprises and awesome guests, but 2023 had a lot of special moments and emotional responses. The hosts of each panel also need some appreciation, I loved the energy and relatable moods they brought to each day. In this post, I’ll recap some of the amazing highlights of each celebration day, and share my thoughts on the panels I attended while tuning into the lives at home. 

Starting off with Day 1, the excitement was at the top-level. Considering it was in London, the live started at 5 AM for me where I live. So I definitely did not get any sleep, but it was worth it. The Ahsoka series got the most recognition of the day with the teaser trailer dropping to all the fans. I woke up to the trailer being posted and immediately watched it, trying not to scream so loudly. Rebels fans were truly getting fed with the new live-action debuts of Hera, Sabine, Ezra, Thrawn, and Chopper. The Acolyte cast were given introductions, and I had no idea that a star from Squid Game (Lee Jung-jae) was going to be in it. I’m really excited to see more of this show. The Making of Andor was discussed with a few of the cast members and creators there, and Diego Luna really highlighted what Andor means to a personal level. Season 2 is in the making, and that will be something worth looking forward to. The next Star Wars films were also announced, and Dave Filoni’s directing one??? Let’s see what he has in store for us.

Day 2 included just as much fun as the first day had. There were more discussions on the Ahsoka characters, and Lars Mikkelsen IS PLAYING THRAWN?! Definitely a good live-action casting choice. Ming-Na Wen came to celebration to host the panel celebrating 40 years of Return of the Jedi, looking back at the characters and how that movie’s plot set up a lot of iconic memories. She also came to an interview to discuss her character, Fennec Shand, and how she is a “badass”. Andy Serkis came to the stage and certainly incited a powerful audience (”ONE WAY OUT!”). It’s unbelievable how it’s already been 15 years of The Clone Wars, with Matt Lanter, James Arnold Taylor, and Ashley Eckstein looking back at the legacy of all of it. Ian McDarmid served the iconic laughter of Palpatine, and Anthony Daniels arrived with his usual charm that makes C-3PO lovable, and got to meet one of his droid fans. Billy Dee William’s charm is irresistible, and we love to see Star Wars authors getting recognition.  

In Day 3, there was a lot more looking back to look forward to. Starting off with the panel celebrating a few of the villains of the Sequels-Phasma, Snoke, and Palpatine-it was interesting to hear their perspectives. Cameron Monaghan served his look on the stage while rocking a poncho, and we love to hear the discussions about ponchos. He even gave it to a cosplaying fan, which was so sweet. Discussing “Jedi Survivor”, the sequel to “Jedi: Fallen Order”, there’s a lot more action to look forward to in the next game. Vivien Lyra Blair is just too adorable, and we have to agree with Hayden Christhansen; “This is where the fun begins” is one of the best Anakin lines. Along with Ewan McGregor and a few other cast members and creators, the team looks back at the Obi-Wan Kenobi series, getting nostalgia between the relationship of Obi-Wan and Anakin. 

And finally, Day 4 was sad as it was to be the last day of celebration, but the energy was extra hyped this day. This day was filled with content of The Bad Batch, and we love to see everyone fangirling over Dee Bradley Baker performing the voices of a few clones. (Tech and Phee are canon now after they talked about it, you can’t change my mind.) Michelle Ang is so pure at heart, and we love to hear her takes on Omega and having her grow up a bit. The fact that Season 3 will be the last Bad Batch season is saddening, there’s still so much to discover. Ashley Eckstein is truly such a kind human being, and we love to see her giving the Ahsoka recognition that is truly deserved. A second season of Tales of the Jedi was announced, and we will be getting a Volume 2 of Star Wars: Visions, and I am in love with the animation. The fact that the studio who produced the film “Wolfwalkers” is getting to create a short in this makes me happy. Listen, Nubs, that little jedi from that upcoming Disney Junior show, Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures, is so CUTE! The closing ceremony was filled with a lot of emotions, but we can’t wait until the next celebration to see everyone again. Star Wars Celebration is truly home.

My first celebration was back in 2022, and I had attended that one through the lives at home as well. Whenever I sit down to attend the live streams, I really feel like I’m there at celebration, and I have tons of fun every time. Let’s look forward to enjoying ourselves again in 2025 in Japan!

[inquisitorhotpants]

Jedi: Fallen Order Review

Okay, I was super resistant to getting this game because I have no interest in playing games as a boring-ass white guy. If I could pick my character in 2005, there’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to pick my character now. So I was like “nope, sorry, I was very excited but I’m going to pass, thank you.”

Now that we’re sheltering in place, it was on sale and I was like, “okay, why not? If it sucks, at least I didn’t spend that much money on it.”

... it did not suck.

In fact, it’s in the #2 spot on my list of Best Star Wars Games.

Let’s get the critiques out of the way first:

Boring white dude protag

Honestly, as much as I liked Cal, I wouldn’t have had to warm up to him so much if I could have at least picked male or female character. “But the character is canon” is the worst reason to decide he needs to be a pasty white guy. The worst.

The combat was uneven at times

I played it on story mode because I was there for the story. Most of the time it was fine, and then other times, inexplicably, I could hit nothing and ended up burning through all my stims trying to stay alive fighting trash. It was frustrating af to be nose to nose with a bad guy and the only sound I hear is my lightsaber whiffing.

The game was clearly not in any way configured for PC.

Even when you start it up, it’s like “well, you CAN play it with a keyboard, technically, but you should really have a game controller.” Look, I don’t play this kind of stuff on the console because I am not good with dual analog sticks. Please take the time to make a keyboard configuration that makes sense, game devs, thanks.

And now the good:

Beedee is the goodest boy.

There is no arguing with this. BD-8 is the bestest droid buddy anyone could ask for. One of his scenes made me cry, okay?

I really did care about Cal.

This one surprised me, and I attribute it almost entirely to Cameron Monaghan’s voice acting. I really did like Cal. I wanted him to succeed. I wanted to see him regain his connection to the Force. I just wanted him to have a break cause man he deserves one.

The way they incorporated Cal’s memories and training and the Purge were fantastic.

I cried when we finally saw what happened. It broke my heart.

All the locations are gorgeous and photo mode is so much fun.

If I hadn’t been streaming the whole game, I’d have spent HOURS taking pictures.

The campaign is short because there are no side quests, and yet it doesn’t feel like the game is missing anything.

Even when I went back to one of the earlier planets to look for treasures I’d missed, I couldn’t shake this nagging feeling that I needed to be doing something else. I finally gave up and went back to finish the main storyline before doing anything else.

The last 3.5 hours are a fucking ride oh my god

Cried three times. Literally exclaimed HOLY SHIT out loud in shock and surprise and fear (and then died because I was just sitting there agog and couldn’t react in time).

I did not sign up for this many fucking feels from an EA game.

Darth Vader is my favorite character and has been since I was little. I have never been *scared* when he showed up until this game. xD

The music is great - fits very well into the universe without ripping off earlier music.

The one exemption to this is when you’re finally seeing the Purge, they use Revenge of the Sith music to great effect. Ugh it’s HEARTBREAKING.

It FELT like Star Wars.

Huge and vast and weird and scary and yet you still get all the rule of cool (lightsaber combat! running on walls! oh man when it works right it’s PHENOMENAL) and familiarity.

The gameplay is basically “Star Wars meets Tomb Raider”

When it works it’s an absolute marvel (sometimes that timing can really fuck you up lmao). So much fun.

found family found family fOUND FAMILY

Honestly, I know I’m going to go back to get 100% completion and I’m definitely going to play it again.

[bedlamsbard]

Putting aside aesthetics and characterization (inasmuch as I can), I have been trying to logic out why Mando Ahsoka feels so different from Rebels Ahsoka (to me, personally; I know many other people feel fine about it), especially in terms of having a character who’s known in Rebels for her “I am no Jedi” line going to a character who is specifically introduced as “The Jedi” in The Mandalorian.  (And who is identified as “Ahsoka Tano, Jedi Knight” on merch -- merch is merch, it’s essentially meaningless, but it’s still a choice that was made somewhere along the line.)

“Shroud of Darkness,” Rebels 2.17

“Twilight of the Apprentice,” Rebels 2.21

This is strictly Doylist and not Watsonian; I don’t care what went on in the character’s life in between Rebels and Mando; I’m trying to guess what was happening in the writers room.

I was noodling through this on Twitter, in case it looks familiar.

My first thought was Dave taking a cut scene from Rebels as canon going into Mando, something he shared on Twitter back in the lead-up to S4.  Looking at this again I’m not sure this was a cut scene or a scene that he wrote that never made it into the actual script. (Certainly I can’t see how it would have fit into the episode.)

Here Bendu specifically identifies Ahsoka as “former Jedi Knight.”  This is also obviously not canon, because Twitter posts aren’t canon, Dave.  (Though that doesn’t mean that he might have taken it as part of his working backstory for the character anyway.)

I was then thinking about TCW and the unused TCW arcs as they existed in 2016 when this aired (with the rough guess that Rebels S2 was probably written in 2014).  There are three Ahsoka arcs that were written and existed in 2016 in some form (”scripts and some artwork” is what Pablo Hidalgo says, and some pre-viz and recordings from the original Walkabout arc that were shown at a couple Celebrations), but which hadn’t made it into S6 (which came out in 2014): Ahsoka’s Walkabout (in its original form with Nix Okami instead of the Martez sisters), the Siege of Mandalore, and an arc which would have taken place between those two, “Return to the Jedi.”  We know about these because of a panel from Star Wars Celebration Europe in 2016 called Ahsoka’s Untold Tales -- I was actually at this panel, but I haven’t thought about it in a while.  Here’s the SW.com liveblog of it; here’s the video.

I remember hearing somewhere that the TCW team had nine seasons or so written, but can’t find the source for that number now.  When S7 was made, there were obviously a lot of compromises made that we’ll never really know about, minus a tell-all memoir or documentary, which probably isn’t coming any time soon.  Knowing that this Return to the Jedi arc existed, I wondered if at one point Dave had tried to get all three Ahsoka arcs into S7 before having to give one up for the Bad Batch arc (especially as we now know there’s going to be a Bad Batch TV show); it’s also entirely possible that at one point in the production process there was the possibility of a full 22 episode season floated, which would have made three Ahsoka arcs in one season less unbalanced.

I went to go look up what the Return to the Jedi arc actually was, since 2016 was a long time ago and I haven’t really thought about this panel since.  My guess is that it had been intended for one Ahsoka arc per remaining season (7, 8, 9).  Pablo Hidalgo says that after the Walkabout arc, Ahsoka would have stayed on Coruscant as “an under-city vigilante of some degree, helping people who can’t help themselves,” and Dave points out that he talked about this with George Lucas, as well.  The Return of the Jedi arc would have involved Ahsoka finding out about a nefarious plot targeting Yoda and working with the Jedi to figure out what’s what with that -- this revealed that below the Jedi Temple was an ancient Sith shrine. (Some details of this were revealed at Star Wars Celebration Anaheim in 2015.)

Ahsoka would have been protecting the holocron vault from Darth Sidious, putting her lightsaber blade through the door while Palps shoots Force lightning up the blade.

“The whole purpose of that particular arc would have been to bring Ahsoka back. She’s not a Jedi, she doesn’t change her decision, but she gets involved in Jedi business again.”

The next Ahsoka arc and the final arc of the series would have been the Siege of Mandalore arc, which “reunites Ahsoka with the clone troopers, with Anakin.”  My guess is that the end of the Return to the Jedi arc would have involved Ahsoka making the decision to go to Mandalore because the Jedi themselves couldn’t get involved in that conflict at the time (especially the emphasis in the panel that Pablo and Dave put on Ahsoka as being “a responsible person” who couldn’t ignore that the war was still going on, and because Ahsoka knew Satine).  (It would be interesting to know when if this arc would have fallen before or after the Darth Maul - Son of Dathomir comics, which are based off another unmade TCW arc.)  This would probably have put as much as a season between this arc and the final arc -- given TCW’s funky timeline that doesn’t mean much, but in terms of audience expectation it helps.

(also, damn, the context of the beginning of Siege of Mandalore in the original concept vs. how it actually happens in S7 is very different -- like, on the surface identical but the emotions involved are totally different.)

Before going into the next part of the panel (post-war), Pablo Hidalgo adds “We consider it to have happened and that’s how we inform the writing in Rebels, because that’s the history that these characters carry in their heads.”

So going into Rebels, the writing team was working with the background that Ahsoka had not only left the Jedi Order once, in “The Wrong Jedi,” but had reinforced her decision not to go back to the Jedi by not returning to the Order during the Return to the Jedi arc.  That explains why in Rebels she’s so adamant about not being a Jedi or being in the Order; it’s a decision that she has made not once, but twice.

Fast forward four years to 2020, where we have the Siege of Mandalore arc in S7.

It’s heavily implied that Ahsoka was planning to go back to the Order after the end of the war, and in fact Yoda treats her as such.

Now, there’s no way to know if this exchange was in the original Siege of Mandalore scripts short of those being released at some point (which is possible but seems unlikely when the character is still in play), but because of the way S7 plays out there is no way to put the Return to the Jedi arc back into the story, which means all the emotional context and Ahsoka doubling down on not returning to the Order is thrown out of the window.  That’s a fair chunk of backstory to take into the Rebels writers room.

(It should also be noted that presumably E.K. Johnston wrote the Ahsoka novel with the assumption that that arc was still part of Ahsoka’s working canon, though she may not have seen scripts for it; I feel like I read somewhere that she had seen scripts for the original version of the Siege of Mandalore, which changed quite a lot between original concept and the eventual 2020 version, as is evident from the novel vs the show.)

Going into The Mandalorian, then, Dave Filoni is not only working without a writers room (as Mando has only had two writers, Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau), but working with an entirely different continuity than what the Rebels writers room was working with.

Trying to backtrack when various scripts were written is an exercise in futility to some extent; I usually guess anywhere from a year to two years out from when the shows air.  (I seem to remember that around this time in 2016 it came out that Katee Sackhoff was doing something for Disney, which ended up being the recording for Bo-Katan in Rebels S4, which wouldn’t air for another year, but don’t quote me on these dates.)  Dave ends the panel by saying that “After the season 2 finale for Rebels I was very adamant that that was it for Ahsoka...in Rebels...but after this reaction it might just be possible...it might be possible to see her again. She might have something to do. Maybe.”  (For those trying to run dates in their heads: the con was in July 2016, the season 2 finale aired in March 2016, WBW aired in February 2018.)  My guess is that they hadn’t recorded for that part of S4 yet (and S4 is so weirdly paced that I have questions about how it was made), but that the initial scripts for S4 had already been written at this point.

Looking back at the Star Wars Celebration Chicago 2019 TCW panel where Ashley Eckstein talks about getting the news about TCW S7 from Dee Bradley Baker (rather than from Dave Filoni, and hoo boy is this uncomfortable to watch knowing that the script for “The Jedi” had almost certainly been written and Dave may have already made the decision not to talk to Ashley about it), there’s still not like...a clear way to tell when that happened.  Except that Dee talks about “wine tasting with the Rebels,” which likely puts it back when Rebels S4 was either still actively airing (2017-2018) or before it had wrapped filming (2017).  (I actually vaguely remember seeing pictures from this wine tasting but I can’t remember whose twitter it was on and going to look feels creepy.)  Probably the scripts weren’t fully revised at that point but they may have been -- still, this was certainly after S2 and could potentially be before S4 had been fully finalized.  We got the TCW renewal announcement in 2019, but the animation wasn’t fully completed yet so didn’t get more than that teaser trailer.  This is only important insofar as it involves which set of backstory was being used for WBW Ahsoka, an episode that Dave Filoni wrote and co-directed.  (Honestly? I think Mando Ahsoka matches okay with WBW Ahsoka but is a little off Rebels S2 Ahsoka, but that’s off my memory of WBW, an episode I refuse to rewatch.)  Certainly with the epilogue he knew he was setting up for something else.

ETA: I FORGOT AN IMPORTANT PART OF THIS TIMELINE AND THAT’S THE RISE OF SKYWALKER because I try not to think about TROS, frankly, but as we may remember Ahsoka is included in the “be with me” scene in the final confrontation.  This always struck me as weird given the “I am no Jedi” thing from Rebels, but she’s the most well-known female Force-user so I had just mentally written it off as easy shorthand and JJ Abrams being lazy about it. HOWEVER, presumably JJ talked to Dave about which prequel era Jedi to include (there’s a note in one of the previous SWC liveblogs about Rian Johnson being in the Rebels writers room at some point).  TROS came out in December 2019, I can’t recall exactly when they did the voiceovers for that scene (if anyone has ever mentioned it), but it was probably fairly late in the process since I believe that there were still edits being made up until fairly soon before the premiere.  (I have a completely different theory that the Lego Star Wars Holiday Special from this year was written off an earlier version of TROS.)  If Dave had already moved towards making Ahsoka more inclined towards the Jedi, with a full-on return to calling herself one regardless of the existence of the Order (as Mando implies), then her inclusion here makes a LOT more sense than it did a year ago.

Anyway this is all very conspiracy theorist, but it does explain something that was puzzling me: Rebels S2 Ahsoka and Mando Ahsoka (as well as TCW S7 Ahsoka and potentially Rebels S4 Ahsoka) were written off slightly different backstories which differed in one very key thing: how committed Ahsoka was to no longer being a Jedi.

Now, this sort of thing happens all the time in anything with an ongoing continuity; obviously TCW makes major changes to how viewers might read or write Obi-Wan and Anakin/Vader in RotS or the OT.  I was just trying to narrow it down in this particular case because until I started thinking about it I had assumed that it was all being written off the same assumed backstory. And many people read Ahsoka differently in Mando than I did or found her perfectly in character, this was for me to track references down about something that was bothering me in hopes of an explanation that would satisfy me.

[themadmanandhisbox]

Top ten fave characters

I was tagged by @namesonboats, thank you!

Rules: List your favorite character from 10 different fandoms then tag ten people.

Oof this will be tough. Most fandoms I have multiple favorite characters but I’ll give this a shot.

Star Wars: This is an incredibly tough one. If you’ve played Jedi Fallen Order you know how amazing Cal Kestis & Nightsister Merrin and they quickly became one of my favorite ships. But if I had to choose only one character from the universe it would be Din Djarin/The Mandalorian. His character is just so badass and awesome and goes on forever. Watching his character development over the 16 episodes as he becomes a father to Grogu. I could be here for a month with all the reasons Din is amazing so I’ll just leave it short here.

Naruto: This is another tough one but Minato Namikaze has always been my favorite character. Dude was such a gentle badass. In the Ninja World where leaving your friends to die instead of saving them to complete the mission was what you were suppose to do, and The White Fang was dishonored after choosing his comrades over the mission, Minato was so badass during the Third Great Ninja War that all the other nations had flee on sight orders if you saw him. He killed a thousand ninja in the blink of an eye and then was back home in an apron cleaning dishes for Kushina. Absolute badass. Getting to see him with Naruto during the 4th Great Ninja War was so great.

ATLA: Ugh so tough. It really comes down to Sokka and Azula for me which isn’t surprising since Sokkla is my OTP. But I think if I had to choose just one it’d be Sokka. So much of who he is as a goofy, smart, kind hearted, intelligent dumbass, is who I’ve been/tried to be in my life. I relate to both Sokka and Azula which is why I love them both so much and this answer could vary from day to day tbh.

Mass Effect: Liara T’soni. Such a badass awesome character. Every playthrough I tell myself I’m finally going to romance Tali and yet I end up romancing Liara again >.>

Star Trek: Captain Sisko. Sisko was just such a badass powerful character. Picard was the federation poster boy. He was the one Starfleet held up and said “look! Look how well he represents our utopian ideals!!!” which is great and all. But Sisko. Sisko was the man who had to make the hard calls, who had to get his hands dirty and do things that don’t fall into that morally perfect little garden the Federation liked to believe itself to be. He had to make harsh calls, do hard things, to protect utopia. In The Pale Moonlight will forever remain one of the best episodes of Trek and nothing will ever be able to change that.

So… I lied. I cheated. I bribed men to cover up the crimes of other men. I am an accessory to murder. But most damning of all… I think I can live with it… And if I had to do it all over again… I would. Garak was right about one thing – a guilty conscience is a small price to pay for the safety of the Alpha Quadrant. So I will learn to live with it…Because I can live with it…I can live with it.

 Sisko was a good man making hard choice in a brutal war the likes of which the Federation had never imagined. He had to make the hard calls to protect not only the Federation but the Alpha Quadrant as a whole. As soon as the Dominion had pacified the Federation and Klingons, they would have turned on the Romulans for sure.

Stargate: This is a tough one. Growing up I always admired Samantha Carter. Smart, clever, charming, badass, every bit a warrior as the men. It was inspiring to see a well written female character who was one of the smartest people on Earth, who was compassionate yet firm in her believes, capable of defending herself and her team mates. The Stargate franchise spawned so many great characters but I think if I had to choose one it’d be John Sheppard. A lot of considered him an O’neill lite, and he definitely had a little bit of O’neill to him, but he was different enough and his own character that I really enjoyed watching over the 5 years of Atlantis. His willingness to put his own health and safety aside to rescue his friends and team mates(See S5E01 “Search & Rescue” where despite the fact he’s got internal bleeding and probably a whole litany of other problems, he goes on the rescue mission for Teyla, disobeying a direct order from Sam while also telling her he had more respect for her than any other CO he’d ever served under). It’s that sort of selflessness coupled with his humor, charm, wit, and his ability to come up with clever ideas that leave Rodney frustrated he didn’t think of that, that makes Col. Sheppard my favorite.

SPOP: Catra. Thank you for coming to my TED talk xD

Battlestar Galactica: Lee “Apollo” Adama. This is another tough one like most of my choices, as RDM’s nuBSG had so many amazingly developed, flawed, characters that made them seem like actual, real human beings. But Apollo was my favorite I think. Smart, skilled, compassionate. Strong moral compass... for the most part(we’ll gloss over his affair with Starbuck while married to Dee). I will never not feel bad for him. I think part of him truly did love Dee, just not as much as he loved Kara, and as soon as it looked like he was rekindling the spark with Dee she killed herself. And then they finally find Earth the Second, and it looks like he’s finally going to get to settle down with Kara like he’s always wanted, poof, she’s an Angel and has completed her purpose. Bill is off burying Laura, and he’ll probably never see his dad again. Dude went through so much character growth, so much pain and hurt and ended up alone.

Dragonball: I grew up watching DBZ so it’s always had a soft spot in my heart. And my favorite character has always been a tie between Future Trunks & Vegeta. But I think I’m going to give it to Future Trunks. He was such a badass. His entry was sooooo badass, the way he dismantled Frezia and his father with his sword. When he got back to the future after the Cell Games he wasted no time killing 17 & 18 and then Cell. He was a take no bullshit, don’t fuck around like Vegeta, Goku, and SSJ2 Kid Gohan(All I can think of anymore is Dragonball Z Abridged where Gohan gets so mad at himself for letting his Vegeta show xD) Not to mention kid me for whatever reason was super enamored with his seatbelt buckle style belts he used. Idk why but like 10 year old me thought that was the coolest shit ever.

Teen Titans(the good one not GO): Raven. I always loved Raven and she’s been my favorite TT since I watched the OG show. Her character development throughout the show was amazing. Going from thinking she was too dangerous/weird to love to having friends and a family. Will always be my favorite and it’s not even a contest.

I’m not going to tag anyone in this because but if you see this and want to play, feel free to tag me as having tagged you! Thanks so much again for tagging me!

[babygirljoelmiller]

15, 16, and 17 for the star wars asks! 🚀💫

ooo thank you dee!!

15. Did you play any Star Wars video games?

yes! i recently finished jedi fallen order and i loved that game so much i want to replay it already but it was so frustrating i probably won’t rip. besides that, i’ve only played the lego star wars games because i’ve never had the right console/PC to play kotor or the others like it. 

16. Have you read any Star Wars books?

i’ve read all of the darth maul books and now i’m working on some of the boba fett stories! if you go through my kindle/reading apps you can clearly see when i develop a new hyperfixation on a fictional man LOL. also i read the ahsoka novel in one sitting it was so good 😭

17. How were you introduced to the fandom?

hmm i’ve been into star wars my whole life, but i didn’t start interacting with fandom stuff until around december 2020 when i was desperate for more mual material after finishing all of the legends books. then i became friends with a bunch of funny, horny, super creative people and now here we all are!

[son-of-alderaan]

J.J. Abrams is racing.

The director has been tasked with bringing four decades of the most popular and longest-running sci-fi franchise of all time to an epic conclusion. And nowadays he’s feeling a bit like Luke Skywalker flying his X-wing down the Death Star trench in A New Hope as TIE fighters closed in — under a bit of pressure, in other words, with the fate of the entire Star Wars universe depending on him.

“We always knew we were going to have three fewer months to postproduction this film,” says Abrams, who took over co-writing and directing duties on the movie two years ago after successfully rebooting the franchise with 2015’s blockbuster The Force Awakens. “So much is still being worked on. It’s literally a practical race to get it finished.”

If that admission sounds worrisome, hold your fire on those tweets.

Despite a deadline crunch to make the film’s Dec. 20 worldwide launch (EW’s interview was conducted in late October), Abrams says he’s feeling “infinitely better” at this very late stage about The Rise of Skywalker than he was about The Force Awakens.

“We had more reshoots on Episode VII than this one,” Abrams says. “We had more story adjustments on VII than this one. We didn’t know if these characters would work, if the actors would be able to carry a Star Wars movie. There were a lot of things we didn’t know. On this, we knew who and what worked, and everyone is doing the best work I’ve ever seen anyone do. But the ambition of this movie is far greater than Force Awakens. What we set out to do was far more challenging. Everything is exponentially larger on this.” 

For example: Disney has released three trailers for The Rise of Skywalker. Some of the shots are stunning and seemingly revealing: desert scavenger–turned–Jedi apprentice Rey (Daisy Ridley) and First Order leader Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) clashing with lightsabers on the half-submerged wreckage of the second Death Star, which was blown up in Return of the Jedi; Rey facing off against a somehow resurrected Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid); the Millennium Falcon flying into a massive armada of Star Destroyers. Plus, those bewildering teases of Rey turning to the Dark Side and teaming up with Kylo.

Yet Abrams says fans still don’t really know anything. “The [trailers] that have come out are scratching the surface of what the movie is,” the famously spoiler-averse director says.

Asked if there are major action sequences we’ve yet to see any footage from, Abrams replies with a firm “Yes” and then, naturally, goes silent.

John Boyega, who plays stormtrooper–turned–Resistance fighter Finn, says his first reaction to the script penned by Abrams and Chris Terrio was he had to “read the script six more times because there was so much information in there.”

Here’s what we know about how Episode IX begins: It’s been more than a year since the events of 2017’s The Last Jedi. The First Order has decimated the Resistance. Rey has been training to use the Force. Finn and hotshot pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) have been sent by General Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) to find allies throughout the galaxy, but so far haven’t had any luck. “They’re trying to put bandaids on this leaking ship of the Resistance,” Isaac says.

Their mission leads Finn, Poe, and Rey to work together, which has, oddly, never happened before in the trilogy. And since there’s a time jump, the characters have all grown and changed since we last saw them. “We’re not just a ragtag group of people who have been thrown together,” Isaac says. “We’ve actually had time to train. There are some really great sequences with the three of us in infiltrating spaces.”

Both Isaac and Boyega say they had their character wishes granted for the final film. Isaac wanted Poe to get “out the cockpit and into the group,” while Boyega wanted Finn to become a more capable solider (and not, as the actor candidly puts it, just a “comedic goofy dude who never gets stuff done”).

“I definitely wanted more after Episode VIII,” Boyega says. “[Rise of Skywalker] makes Finn’s Episode VIII arc make more sense. We got to bring out a side of Finn we haven’t seen.”

To help spark the trio’s on-screen chemistry, Abrams told his cast to feel free to improvise dialogue, and many scenes were shot using long, continuous takes to keep their flow going. “J.J. came back with a new energy and new vibe,” Boegya says. “He wanted dialogue to be messy and natural, and that got all of us really excited.”

“I think it really captures the spirit of the original trilogy,” Isaac adds. “On top of that there’s fact that Rey has…“

The actor stops, catching himself before revealing too much.

Rey has… what?

“Rey is driving her own thing,” Ridley says. “She’s not doing what other people are telling her to do.”

We last saw Rey mourning the death of her mentor Luke Skywalker (who returns in the film, presumably in Force ghost form, played once again by Mark Hamill) and shutting the door to Kylo’s power-mad seduction attempt. The heroine has since made progress in her Jedi training. “I have skills that have developed, but ‘confident’ isn’t a word I’d use to describe it,” Ridley says. “She’s definitely more in control of everything and can do new fun stuff, but she’s vulnerable and a little insecure about at all.”

Yet Rey will use more than her Force powers in the new film. As Abrams hints: “The scavenger who is desperate and haggling for portions and trying to survive [in Force Awakens] — those special skills and that special experience ends up being something that is essential to saving the galaxy.”

Ridley trained in kickboxing for the final chapter as well, but says the emotional toll of Rey’s journey was more difficult than any combat scenes. “It’s a heavy story for Rey,” Ridley says. “There were days where I was literally like, ‘I can’t do this, I’m so tired, I don’t know if I can like reach that emotion again.’”

Part of Rey’s journey involves solving the mystery of her identity. Well, again. Kylo revealed in The Last Jedi that Rey’s parents are deceased nobodies, “filthy junk traders [who] sold you off for drinking money.” The line embraced the idea that a hero doesn’t need to come from somebody special in order to be somebody special. Yet many fans called foul as the trilogy has teased Rey’s identity as being crucial information from the start (“Classified?” Rey echoed back to BB-8 during her debut sequence. “Me too. Big secret”).

“The parents thing is not satisfied — for her and for the audience,” Ridley says. “That’s something she’s still trying to figure out — where does she come from?”

It’s unclear if Abrams has made a course correction to Last Jedi writer-director Rian Johnson’s plan or there was always more to say about Rey’s parentage. Either way, wasn’t the Episode VIII scene supposed to be sincere?

“It’s not that she doesn’t believe it,” Ridley says carefully, “but she feels there’s more to the story. And she needs to figure out what’s come before so she can figure out what to do next…”

An even bigger cliffhanger is the resolution of Rey’s complex relationship with the First Order’s ruthless leader, who, okay, sure, also looks hot shirtless in high-waisted pants (but what if he didn’t?). Kylo has grown beyond being a “petulant teenager,” and Driver says Kylo’s killing of Supreme Leader Snoke was “kind of a birth moment for him.”

“He had all of these pseudo father figures that he had to either live up to or literally kill to become his own person for the first time,” the actor says.

Naturally, Kylo’s destiny will lead to at least one lightsaber clash with Rey. Abrams sees the duo as “two sides of the same coin,” noting, “even when they’re not together they still haunt each other in a way — they know they are each other’s unresolved business.”

For his part, Driver rejects any labels for the Rey-Kylo relationship. “I don’t think it’s all one thing,” he says. “Part of the fun of playing it is the boundaries of it keep changing. At times it’s more intimate, sometimes less intimate. Sometimes it’s codependent. And then it’s, obviously, adversarial.”

That Rey and Kylo end up battling on the wreckage of the second Death Star continues Abrams’ penchant for showcasing ruined relics of the original trilogy — like Rey spelunking in a wrecked Star Destroyer and living in an AT-AT walker on Jakku in Force Awakens. “It felt like going into the haunted house, the place that you have to go to,” Abrams says of bringing back the iconic space station. “This is a story of people having to grapple with the burden the prior generation dumps on those that follow. So literally returning to this wreck of the past and having to fight it out felt like an obvious metaphor, but also felt incredibly cinematic.”

Of course, there’s another original trilogy fallen icon in the film too. Fisher died after filming The Last Jedi. Figuring out how to utilize Fisher’s previously deleted scenes in the new movie was one of Abrams’ biggest challenges. “Saying Leia had passed away, or that she was off somewhere else, felt like a cheat,” Abrams says. “Then I remembered we had these scenes that we hadn’t used from Episode VII. It was like finding this impossible answer to this impossible question. Suddenly we had classic Carrie in these amazing moments. So when you see in the movie, it’s her, she’s there. It’s not like there’s some crazy digital trickery. She’s just in the movie.”

A couple of other original trilogy characters are likewise integral. Billy Dee Williams is back as that ol’ pirate Lando Calrissian for the first time in live action since Return of the Jedi. Williams says he’s excited to return to the character despite enduring fans coming up to him for decades accusing him of betraying Han Solo. “The whole Star Wars experience feels like it never goes away; It’s always there,” Williams says. “There are all of these things that have happened in Lando’s life that he’s got to resolve.”

There’s also paranoid android C-3PO, who in the latest Skywalker trailer ominously says he’s taking a “last look” at his friends. Threepio is essential to a movie’s plot for the first time since A New Hope (Ridley points out Rey might spend more time with Threepio than any character in the film).

“In previous recent movies Threepio has just been kind of window dressing, something on the mantlepiece, you polish it and dust it o when guests are coming,” says Anthony Daniels, who has played the golden droid’s body and voice in every Skywalker Saga movie. “J.J. and Chris came up with this aspect of Threepio we had not seen before that’s remarkably clever. They go down deep into ancient Star Wars and came up with something refreshingly new.”

Joining Threepio in the metal headgear club is newcomer to the saga Keri Russell. Despite having worked with Abrams for years on Felicity, the actress found herself escorted to a small room where she could only read the Skywalker script under watchful guard. Her character is Zorii Bliss, who’s “involved in some intimate, sketchy stuff” and wears a large brass-and-crimson Daft Punk-like helmet.

“For a shy person this is my ultimate dream job — I get to be in Star Wars and my face is covered,” Russell marvels. “I can see everyone and no one can see me. Though I now have giant throbbing neck muscles like Mr. T.”

There’s also newcomer Naomi Ackie portraying Jannah, a bow-and-arrow-wielding warrior who rides a horse-like creature called an Orbak. Real animals were used on set, and until you’ve ridden a horse dressed up like exotic alien across the surface of the Death Star you haven’t really lived. “I was just gobsmacked,” Ackie says of the experience. “Every day you’re grappling with the fact that every choice you make in a small moment is going to be broadcast to the entire world.”

While the film is introducing new characters, Abrams insists Rise of Skywalker won’t set up a future story. He’s not leaving loose threads for Disney to hang another trilogy directly onto the back of this one. Lucas’ original dream of an intergalactic tale about a farm boy from Tatooine is at last about to set — just like those dreamy twin suns collapsing into the desert. “It’s a very good ending, and a good ending feels right,” Daniels says simply.

And yet, in another way, the final Skywalker Saga film is very much about the future of the franchise. Star Wars will continue to exist in an omniscient Force-like fashion, in everything from toys to TV shows to videogames to theme parks, but new movies have always been the brand’s creative core. Since buying Lucasfilm in 2012, Disney’s movies in a galaxy far, far away peaked early at the box office with Force Awakens and sunk to their lowest level with the most recent entry, 2018’s Solo: A Star Wars Story.

At one point during our interview, Abrams declares, “the stakes are all or nothing with this film.” He was referring to its high-stakes story line, but the same could also be said about the franchise. Even if we never see Rey, Finn and Poe on screen again, Rise of Skywalker’s popularity will likely make an impact on Disney’s next studio moves — guiding like a fallen Jedi or Sith’s unseen hand.

Speaking of: There’s at least one key player we haven’t discussed. Palpatine’s return may be the most closely guarded story line in the film. How is the Emperor, who Vader tossed into the Death Star’s reactor core, back in a seemingly corporeal form?

“This has been a very long chess match that’s been played between the Jedi and the Sith — all the way back to the very beginning,” Issac teases. “It’s an amazing thing to see that really come to the forefront.”

The Rise of Skywalker might very well turn out to be a full-fledged reunion special of Force ghosts. And what are the rules that govern the Jedi and Sith spirit realm anyway? Obi-Wan Kenobi said in Empire Strikes Back that he “cannot interfere” with Luke’s fight with Vader. But in The Last Jedi, Yoda suddenly called down a lightning strike. What can Force ghosts do — and not do — in our world?

Abrams’ reply to that key question is pretty much what you’d expect.

“That’s probably best answered,” the director says, “by not answering it.”

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Michael in the Mainstream - Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker

Star Wars is a franchise very near and dear to my heart. I’ve grown up watching the films and have fond memories of each of them, in particular Revenge of the Sith, which I got to see in theaters with my father. It’s a series that has introduced me to great characters, great actors, great ways to tell stories, and if nothing else the movies were always fun. I never saw a Star Wars movie I couldn’t enjoy on some level.

That all changed with this movie.

The Rise of Skywalker is a wet fart of a finale. It is a mess, it is underwhelming, it is disrespectful to the previous two films, and worst of all it’s bland. But hyperbole aside, this movie isn’t a complete and utter waste; it’s certainly not the worst film of all time or anything, or even the worst Star Wars movie. It’s just a sad case of a mixed bag where the bag skews more to the bad side than the good side.

Let’s go over what I actually did enjoy first. Obviously, the score was fantastic, but I think this goes without saying; John Williams has never once screwed around, so why would he stop now? His music honestly does a lot of the heavy lifting emotion-wise, as scenes such as the supposed trinity of this trilogy’s reunion at the end would not have any sort of impact otherwise. Then we have stuff like the practical effects, which is both a blessing and a curse as they seem to be a sort of dancing bear for this trilogy. As great and lively as they make the worlds, they shouldn’t be what gets focus over story and character development… but hey, Babu Frik is great.

Speaking of characters, there are a few who were handled very well in this film. In terms of comedy, there is C-3PO and Palpatine. C-3PO is just a genuine riot here, and almost every goofy little joke he cracked gave me a genuine chuckle. He’s really at his best here. Palpatine on the other hand is just a character who is so inherently hilarious that it is physically impossible to be mad at him. Like, he’s an evil zombie wizard who spends half the film insulting Kylo Ren and then the other half cackling and shooting lightning in his big arena full of hooded weirdos while strapped to a big dialysis machine and wearing a sparkling red vest under his robe. Sheev Palpatine is pretty much the greatest character in human history, and while his role in this film is so stupid, shoehorned, and underbaked, you cannot help but crack a grin at the sheer lunacy good ol’ Sheev brings to the table. The sheer revelation that this man actually, canonically had more sex than Kylo Ren is enough to send a man into a fit of giggles.

In terms of actual character, Rey gets a solid arc marred by some incredibly poor writing choices, but overall stays solid throughout. Her interactions with Kylo Ren especially solidify her as an interesting and engaging character, and honestly the whole reveal that she’s a Palpatine is intriguing and could have added depth to her… but they managed to bungle it. And it’s an easy fix too; early on, there’s a scene where she and Kylo are playing tug-of-war with a transporter that is holding an iconic character. Rey accidentally unleashes Palpatine lightning and blows it up, seemingly killing the character inside… only for the character to inexplicably be alive two scenes later. Now, if Rey had actually killed said character by accident and spent the rest of the film struggling with her nature, it would make her ultimate showdown and rejection of Grandpa Sheev’s ideology all the more sweeter and satisfying. A moment at the end would have likewise been improved if she had simply not chosen to rename herself and instead chose to just simply be “Rey,” but gotta have that sweet, sweet branding! Still, I think Rey is remarkably done here, though not nearly as good as she was in The Last Jedi.

But the real MVP here is definitely Adam Driver as Kylo Ren. I’m just gonna say it: this guy carries the film. He has had the most remarkably consistent character arc in this new trilogy, and that concludes just as well here, though sadly in the most obvious way: with a redemption. However, it comes not from Rey, as desperate shippers had hoped, but from his parents – Leia and Han both play a part in ensuring their son’s redemption. And when he’s redeemed, the way Driver is able to convey the character of Ben Solo with just his face and body language is incredible enough to make the redeemed man feel like a totally different character than when he was Kylo Ren, and all of this is without speaking. Driver deserves every ounce of praise he gets for these films, and while I feel his arc would have been far more satisfying if it wasn’t a carbon copy of Anakin’s arc, it’s a testament to Driver’s skill that he managed to sell me such a cliché turn of events and made it work.

This is where my kindness dries up, however, as the rest of this is going to be pretty negative. The story here is just an incoherent mess; it honestly feels like an entire trilogy crammed into one film, a film divorced entirely from the other two films. The big problem with this trilogy is how there is so little cohesion between films that each film feels like a soft reset, and nowhere is that more clear than here. It doesn’t help that this film decides to cram in a bunch of stupid backspaces to everything from The Last Jedi, the most awkward and egregious being how they write off the “Holdo Maneuver” as a one in a million shot at success despite the fact that using the far more obvious “using the rebels as suicide bombers is a bit morally iffy and such a move should not be used unless we’re totally desperate” explanation would have sufficed. It honestly feels like the writers were chickening out a lot of the time and decided to try and distract us from their yellow-bellied attempts at ignoring the previous film by slapping us in the face with tons of fanservice. Sometimes it works – the voices of all the fallen Jedi in the final act was an awesome touch (I hear you Qui-Gon, Windu, and Ahsoka!) - but most of them time it is just painfully on-the-nose and groan worthy, such as when Chewbacca gets his medal. The worst offender here is Lando, who is so carelessly tossed into this mess of a plot that it feels really disrespectful to Billy Dee Williams.

Speaking of screwing over characters though, no one got it worse than Finn, Poe, and Rose. With Rose, it’s frankly just insulting they didn’t even try. It would have been so easy to redeem Rose in the eyes of the fans that didn’t like her character in The Last Jedi; if The Clone Wars can make Jar Jar a likable character, then I’m pretty sure a big budget Hollywood blockbuster can fix the issues of a poorly written character in its sequel. Instead though, this film takes the coward’s route and relegates Rose to a role less important to the plot than Babu Frik, who despite his integral role is only in one single scene. Poe is just handled as nonsensically as ever, given really dumb jokes and a forced and unneeded backstory as a spice smuggler, complete with an implied female love interest in an attempt to try and convince us the character is heterosexual.

But Finn gets it worst of all. Not only does he get a forced implied love interest (who is black, because we can’t have miscegenation in our big blockbuster films!), but he just in general gets shafted so hard. Finn being shafted has been a running theme with this trilogy. The first film set him up to be an integral, important main character, one who would even become the main character…. And then he slowly faded from relevance as the writers put him in increasingly bad plotlines, culminating with the slap in the face this movie gives us by implying but not outright stating that Finn can use the Force. There were so many interesting ways they could take Finn’s arc and they chose the route that is, quite frankly, the absolute worst. The fact that Finn got totally shafted in such a way despite being a fan favorite is all the more baffling and honestly has me wondering what the suits at Disney were thinking. If they weren’t actually minimizing a character as beloved as Finn was after The Force Awakens out of racism, what were they even trying to do? John Boyega has a right to be as angry as he is.

There’s other stuff that’s obnoxious. Leia’s scenes are all terrible and poorly executed, which comes off as really disrespectful to Carrie Fisher; the romance in this film which, as mentioned above, is totally forced, but special mention goes to the Ben/Rey kiss at the end, which while not some life-ending travesty is so utterly out of nowhere due to the lack of romantic chemistry between the two in any of these films that it’s laughable; the editing is so incoherent and terrible in places that it feels like it was done by someone on a mixture of crack and Red Bull; the complete waste that is Hux and his childish reasoning for betraying the First Order, completing the character’s change from a terrifying Nazi allegory to a complete and utter joke; the fact that the new First Order general who takes center stage gets so little development despite being a great throwback to Grand Moff Tarkin and a genuinely amazing character otherwise, with a fascinating history with Palpatine that is never explored and no meaningful interactions with the heroes; the complete and utter unexplained nature of Palpatine’s return; and just how painfully unfunny a lot of the humor in this film is. This movie just has so many problems, so many flaws, and it ends on such a completely limp and unsatisfying note that it’s honestly kind of sad.

This film… I don’t know about this film. It’s definitely not the worst Star Wars film, because it at least has some genuinely good bits to it, unlike Attack of the Clones which I can only really justify liking ironically. But that being said, this film is just so unsatisfying, and what’s more, it’s not very memorable. Not much will stick with you with this one, and if it does, it might be more of the bad things rather than the good ones, which is a shame, because I do think there’s some good stuff buried under the garbage here, but I don’t know if it’s worth sitting through this film to find. This is not the worst thing ever, I really can’t stress that enough… but it’s just not fun, engaging, or anything that will really make you feel anything meaningful, and sometimes that’s just worse.

Ultimately, this film has an incredibly uncertain audience. It’s wrapping up a trilogy in one of the biggest franchises on earth with a plotline that tries to pander to fans in a way that feels gross and condescending, leaving the film feeling like it was made for absolutely no one. If you like this, that’s fine; Star Wars is a franchise that has greatness ingrained in its DNA, to the point where I can’t say any of the films are really among the worst I’ve ever seen. But I think generally this is not going to be a film worth watching, and certainly one to skip in any future marathons of the franchise. It really is a shame… this trilogy if nothing else was full of potential to be a new take on Star Wars for a new generation. Instead, it ended up as a confusing, corporate mess. 

[phantom-of-the-keurig]

1-5, 13, 14, 17, 18, and 19 for the Star Wars ask, please!

1. Movie

Fave; I answered this one already, but another one of my favorites is Rogue One! I like, really vibe with that movie. I actually liked it so much that I was shocked when I found out most people don’t like it. 

Least Fave; I’m not a massive fan of The Phantom Menace, but I still like it more than Attack of the Clones, lol 

2. Pairing

Fave; Right now it’s a tie between Satine x Obi-Wan and Cody x Obi-Wan~ 

Least Fave; Obi-Wan x Anakin just,,,,rubs me the wrong way,,,,

3. TV show episode

Fave; I absolutely adore the Rookies episode from season one of Clone Wars

Least Fave; Lol, the majority of Star Wars Rebels episodes 

4. Character

Fave; I have so freaking many ya’ll, ugh, but Obi-Wan Kenobi has been my ride or die since I was a little kid 

Least Fave; *clenches fist of rage* Ezra Bridger 

5. Actor / actress 

Fave; Dee Bradley Baker! He voices all of the clones from the show, battlefront 2, and the ones in Jedi Fallen Order! I think he even did the prerecorded lines for the Boba Fett walk around character at the Disney parks. 

Least Fave; Natalia Tena, who played Xi’an in the Mandalorian. I loved her in Game of Thrones, so I’m not sure why her character in Mando was so hard to watch. Still, its bad enough that I avoid that episodes anytime I rewatch the series 

13. Kiss

Fave; I’m a sucker for angsty kisses, so I vibe pretty hard with that Rey and Ben kiss at the end of the Rise of Skywalker

Least Fave; Leia and Luke’s kiss is just,,,,so awkward, even without the context that they’re twins

14. Fight

Fave; Already answered but I have lots of favorites, don’t you worry!!! I love the fight between Anakin and Obi-Wan cut together with the fight between Yoda and Palpatine in Revenge of the Sith 

Least Fave; The fight between Finn and Phasma in Last Jedi wasn’t nearly as hyped as it should have been

17. Hero

Fave; Captain Rex <3 

Least Fave; *clenches another fist of rage* Sabine Wren 

18. Villain

Fave; General Grievous has struck fear and awe into my heart ever since I first laid eyes on him in the 2003 2-D animated Clone Wars series 

Least Fave; So like, General Tarkin is boring af to me but like, people love him?? They go poco loco??? And I just,,,do not feel that vibe but I respect it 

19. Outfit

Fave; Literally anything Satine Kryze wears, lol

Least Fave; There is an episode of Clone Wars where Jar Jar Binks wears a hazmat suit. Which is bad enough on its own, but then, he puts the helmet on and his eyes are all squished and misplaced and it is awful. I feel like having strong words with Dave Filoni anytime I think about it. 

[unexpectedreylo]

What To Expect From The SWCC IX Panel On Friday

The panel We’re All Waiting For is day after tomorrow.  

According to Celebration attendees who did not get into the panel and verified to me by a Lucasfilm employee on Twitter, starwars.com WILL live stream this panel along with the other “biggies” from the convention:  The Mandalorian, Galaxy’s Edge, Jedi: Fallen Order, The Clone Wars, and TPM 20th anniversary, etc..

The panel is set for 11 a.m. CST in the U.S..  That’s high noon for you on the East Coast, 10 a.m. Mountain, and 9 a.m. in the PST. 

The only confirmed and announced person who’s attending is J.J. Abrams.  However, there are also “guests.”  Kathleen Kennedy is almost a certainty along with at least one of the other producers.  Supposedly Oscar Isaac told some entertainment writer he’s going to be at the convention, meaning he’s scheduled for this panel.  I also think it’s very likely we’ll see Daisy Ridley with her really short hair (if she can get away from her endless reshoots for “Chaos Walking”), John Boyega, Billy Dee Williams, Joonas Suotamo, Anthony Daniels, Greg Grunberg, and Kelly Marie Tran.  I think there’s a very good chance we’ll see at least some of the following:  co-writer Chris Terrio, Richard E. Grant, Dominic Monaghan, Naomi Ackie, Billie Lourd, production designer Rick Carter, and concept artist Doug Chiang.  

Under maybe/maybe not:  Domnhall Gleeson (he’s never been to any of the previous Celebrations), Lupita N’yongo (also never been to any of the previous Celebrations).  It would be a nice surprise but don’t get your hopes up.

Under “I doubt it, at least not in person”:  Adam Driver and Keri Russell.  “Burn This” formally opens this week so they’re not missing any shows now.  Theoretically Disney could spring for a private jet to zip them from NYC to Chicago just to appear for the panel and fly them back in time for the play, since it’s only about an hour’s flight between the two cities.  But I really doubt the producers of “Burn This” want to risk having not just one but its two lead stars stranded in another city because of mechanical issues or weather and it has to refund a crapload of money to eager fans who, let’s be honest, paid to see them.  They can however participate by Skype or Face Time (Force bond???), because that’s what Hayden Christensen did in 2005 for Celebration III, since he was on the set of another movie at the time.  Driver wasn’t at the previous Celebrations anyway and I think Lucasfilm likes keeping him and Kylo Ren a mystery.

And no, I don’t think they’re putting on Hayden Christensen.  

UPDATE:  Mark Hamill stated on Twitter he’s not coming to the con.

What we’re going to get for sure:

The title.

At least SOME footage if not an entire teaser trailer.  Frankly, it would be a disaster if we got nothing at all.  We’re expecting it!

Brand new spankin’ photos of our beloved characters and sets.

What we’re probably going to get:

Info about the new characters, planets, state of the galaxy, and how long it’s been since TLJ.

Hintsy poos that will drive us insane for months, particularly in regard to relationships between characters, what was picked up from TLJ, what Abrams thinks about the general direction of things but in a really vague way.  We MIGHT find out if the Force bond is still there.  Or not.

What we could get:

Final confirmation that Rey’s parents are not Skywalkers, Kenobis, or Lannisters and/or Rey and Kylo are not related.  This should be obvious by now, but some people won’t accept it unless they hear it from J.J. himself.  It’s not a spoiler because it’s not supposed to be an issue anymore.

A peek/hint of how they’ve intergrated Leia into the movie.

What we’re not getting:

Whether or not Anakin is in the movie.

Whether or not there’s a full-on romance between Rey and Kylo.

What the hell Kylo and Rey are in regard to the Force.

Confirmation/denial of Bendemption.

Who lives and who dies, including Leia.

I predict the trailer/footage will be shown at the very end of the panel, approximately 12 p.m. CST/1 p.m. EST/11 a.m. MST/10 a.m. PST.  The title could be revealed earlier in the panel...or maybe they’ll do it the same way ROTS did, just show the footage and smack the title on at the end.  Abrams likes mystery and drama, so I’m leaning toward the second option.

[that-shamrock-vibe]

Movie Reviews: Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (Spoilers)

Spoiler Warning: I am posting this review a few days after the movie first drops in the U.K, so if you haven’t yet seen the movie don’t read on.

Fan-Service:

Alright so before jumping into the character analysis, which I probably should just do because I have a lot to say, I want to quickly talk about a major problem with this movie, and yes I will be saying that a lot, and that is the fan-service.

There is a heeping load of fan-service moments and things just thrown in to either make fans nostalgic of what has come before or just to say they did it and I at large am pissed off because every bit of fan-service here I personally did not ask for and nothing I wanted as a fan was there.

For instance, Lando. I love Lando and will talk about him in his own section further down but I did not see the point of him in this movie. Billy Dee Williams still looks good in the role, but the man did nothing to contribute to the progression of the movie or the mission other than go off and get reinforcements which anyone else already in this trilogy could have done, like Maz Kanata...what did she contribute also?

Also Ewoks, I’m sorry I know the last part of this movie was on Endor because said system is around the place the Death Star fell and Palpatine still resides, but my freakin’ god seeing a split second shot of two Ewoks, who again I loved in Episode VI, but also to get Warwick Davies back to play Wicket (I think that’s the same one anyway)...what was the freakin’ point?

My final rant point is on the quite blatant fan service of LGBT representation. This particular topic is personal to me as a gay man and someone whose academic venture over the last three years has been about LGBT representation.

When you have quite a clear fanbase or sub fandom that are screaming for certain shipping couples, but then refuse to deliiver on the gay male ship in favour of the predictable hetero ship, to the point where this movie gives both Finn and Poe female love interests and makes Finn look slightly like a tool for having two other love interests but still wanting Rey...all of this I can forgive because it is kind of like the “Stucky” ship in the MCU.

However, to then, out of nowhere, have a lesbian kiss between two Resistance members at the end of the film during celebrations, one of whom was apparently the harbinger of doom because she delivered all the bad news and the other was a pilot, who I know was also Rosa Parks in Doctor Who so happy she has a role like this, but again it just felt forced, out of nowhere, with characters no one cares about and honestly I would have been happier seeing Poe and Finn kiss.

Characters:

Rey:

As I said in my non-spoiler review, Rey truly comes into her own as a Jedi in this movie. I do think The Last Jedi only really serviced her and moved her piece forward on the development chessboard.

However, while it is great to see Leia mentoring Rey at the start of the movie and doing a serviceable job, the fact Luke is still mentoring her from beyond the grave and his teachings are being upheld and honoured by Rey is really great to see.

This does not however justify the end of this movie, which is where we begin with Rey’s character.

One of the biggest mysteries of this trilogy has been discovering who Rey is and where she fits in with Star Wars lore. We know that Finn was a Stormtrooper and Poe fulfills that Han Solo role, but while Rey fills the Jedi quota for the trilogy, fans have long-suspected that she is somehow related to either Luke, Leia, Han or even Obi-Wan Kenobi.

I don’t think anyone was expecting her to actually be revealed as the granddaughter of Emperor Palpatine...and to be honest I don’t think anyone actually wanted it.

It’s a losing battle comparing any movie to Avengers: Endgame, but during Avengers: Endgame when big character and plot moments hit, the audience erupted in either shock or cheers. I get the feeling that the reveal of Rey being a Palpatine was supposed to ignite that type of response. I had a moderately full audience and there was no reaction from them.

However, not only does this service Rey as a character for the second half of the movie because her character motivation is not only about battling her inner demons and heritage, but also discovering who she is in her own right...something she has been searching for since we first met the character on Jakku in The Force Awakens

This leads to the last scene of the movie which is a culmination of not just the last three movies but also her confrontation with Palpatine. On Tatooine just outside the Lars Homestead, Rey buries both Luke and Leia’s lightsabers. She then surprisingly pulls out her own lightsaber which happens to be yellow...or gold (if it’s meant to be grey or white the lighting did it no favours) and with her sidekick BB-8 heads off into the twin sunsets, but not before some random old woman asks who she is, she responds with “Rey” but when she asks “Rey who?” she looks to the left and sees the Force Ghosts of Luke and Leia and turns back to the woman answering with, “Rey Skywalker”.

This is what is meant by the title “The Rise of Skywalker” as the name will now live-on in Rey, who has adopted the name only. She is not actually a Skywalker and if you think about the fact Rey and Kylo kissed a few scenes prior to this, it is kind of disturbing that she sees both Luke as a father figure and Leia as a mother figure.

I am not happy with this development for two reasons 1) It’s a cheat, not only is it a cheat of promise in the title but it’s a cheat in practise because Rey wasn’t revealed to be a secret Skywalker she merely decided to use the name as a surname because I guess “Rey Palpatine” would not serve her well.

I also don’t like the idea of a surname being used as a mantle, we now have seen six “Skywalkers” either officially or unofficially so in the movie canon and out of the six, five either are or were Jedi or at least “ones with the force” because both Leia and Ben (Kylo Ren) have never been Jedi at least in the movies but while Ben was a Sith, Leia was an apprentice and both had access to the force.

Shmi I believe (Anakin’s mother) is the only named “Skywalker” to not have any attachment or affiliations with the force. Now I don’t know if Skywalker is her maiden name or married name but aside from her, as I said, everyone with the Skywalker bloodline has at least had a “force sense” so to make Rey the last of the Jedi, that we know of, and also now giving her the name of Skywalker just to honour Luke and Leia and not actually be related does seem a tad cheap to me.

It’s not like when Han and Leia named their son Ben after Ben Kenobi, Obi-Wan’s hermit name, because that was honouring a fallen friend. I get Rey officially has no living family, particularly after killing her grandfather, and choosing to adopt the Skywalker name is both a way for the name to live on in her and to honour both her mentors, but this is supposed to be the end of the Skywalker era and with Rey newly being a Skywalker at the end of the movie and also once again seemingly being on her own (with BB-8) on her adventures at the end it just seems like there is more to come from her and I really don’t think there should be.

I am not saying Daisy Ridley can never come back as Rey in any future Star Wars movies but I’m thinking more in a Harrison Ford/Billy Dee Williams way not a Mark Hamill/Carrie Fisher way, at least not for now.

Also, I mentioned in my non-spoiler that a lot was promised leading up to this movie and something the trailers teased heavily was “Dark Rey”. The two biggest theories surrounding this reveal of Rey as a Sith with collapsible double-edged red lightsaber were that 1) Rey would legitimately turn to the dark side and Ben Solo would be the one to bring her back to the light or that 2) The Dark Rey we saw would be some sort of vision, hallucination or dream akin to when Luke believed he was fighting Vader during his training with Yoda on Dagobah and in fact it was an illusion used as a metaphor for him fighting his inner darkness.

It turned out, of course, to be the latter theory but the movie at least had the reveal of Rey being a Palpatine to explain why the 30 second scene we see this vision in exists...no lie it’s about the same amount of time as Luke battled himself for in Episode V.

Basically when Rey was filled with rage over Kylo Ren while trying to save Chewie from being taken by the First/Final Order, she succumbed to her anger and rather than using the force in the traditional sense she was discovered to have the ability to produce force lightning, as only Sith Lords have been able to do.

While Dark Rey did look cool, I’m glad she wasn’t actually Rey and we actually had to spend a chunk of the movie with her as a Sith, particularly not with that lightsaber.

I’ll be talking about him again when I talk about Palpatine but the only master of the double-edged lightsaber for me is Darth Maul. That’s his thing in my opinion aside from his looks and he owns it.

On the positives of Rey, I do like the fact that they have set her up as the feminist hero in the same sense that Moana and Belle are feminist Disney princesses. I think obviously making Rey the focus of the trilogy meant that more young girls would look up to her as opposed to Leia or Padmé before her and so making her the strong and tenacious Jedi Knight that she is was one of the best things about this trilogy, when done right.

I did also like how she interacted with Finn and Poe, I’m not entirely sure why they have the type of banter they had due to the lack of the trio interacting in this trilogy but I enjoyed the sparring between Rey and Poe over the Falcon damage and BB-8 damage and even when it seemed Finn was about to profess his love for Rey before dying but then not dying and so going quiet about it and Rey effectively calling him out for it.

However, what did Rey wrong throughout this trilogy is just how easy everything seemed to come for her. As I said before she was often off on her own mission without Poe and Finn with only BB-8 and sometimes Chewie for company. The fact we never saw her properly train with a lightsaber or the force before being revealed as an expert with both still annoys me and here, the fact she goes to give up after Leia’s death but is stopped by Luke, a Force Ghost, who then reveals that she is in fact not stranded after burning her ship because Luke has his old X-Wing summoned from the depths of the sea was just stupid.

Also, where did Rey get her new lightsaber from? Because unless Leia left it for her or R2 created it for her we don’t know where it came from or why it is distinctly different to Luke and Leia’s.

Finn:

Finn I feel revealed himself as my favourite character of the new trilogy during this movie, meaning originating in this trilogy, because I haven’t really had one up until now due to the lack of any likeable development throughout.

However, John Boyega really does Finn justice here not only making the character more likeable but also giving him a potentially great character development arc that could see him come full circle from when we first met him during The Force Awakens.

The only problem is, from what we see, this story abruptly goes completely nowhere.

The development comes when the trio arrive on Kef Bir where the Death Star remains are and come across a tribe of freedom fighters led by Naomi Acke’s waste of a character Jannah.

It’s revealed that Jannah and her tribe were once in fact Stormtroopers but, like Finn, decided to rebel against their Sith overlords and vowed to aide the resistance to thwart them.

This could have been how Finn’s story ended had he made the decision to join the freedom fighters by the end of the movie, now granted with no Sith or First Order there’s no need for freedom fighters but just for Finn to have found his people and his place to belong would have been a fitting ending for him.

Also to any shippers out there hoping for a Finn/Poe romance, I think the writers made it quite clear in this movie that both guys have eyes for the ladies with Finn apparently interested in Rose, Rey and Jannah.

The Finn-Poe bromance is in full bloom here though, finally, and it is filled with both the banter that I so hate in laddish behaviour but still enjoy here and also the fact that they can both be real with each other even when it’s something the other may not want to hear.

I am annoyed they never really wrapped anything up for Finn, aside from him finding his tribe but not actually sticking with them. The movie kept throwing out curve balls to do with his story and character but never had them either caught or thrown back, so his story is still all over the place.

Would I want to see John Boyega return? I guess yes if he does return with Jannah and maybe even Lando, I have a theory on where that will go, because at least it is a newer direction for the character.

Kylo Ren:

I never liked Kylo Ren or Adam Driver, I have never really seen the appeal in either of them and believe Kylo is simply Darth Vader-lite. I’ve always hated that mask and even now it has notable cracks I still don’t like it. I just feel as though the mask was always Vader’s thing and Kylo’s is the fact that he has that lightsaber sword.

That being said, once again the most notable plot point in this movie is the relationship between Kylo and Rey. The chemistry is quite easily there, I do see these two as a couple in another reality and Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver do sell that rather well.

I did come to enjoy their shared force communication in this movie particularly as it was noted to have some interesting side-effects, most notably the ability to take something from the other’s location. I audibally gasped when Kylo snatched that necklace from Rey and that’s how he knew where she was, similarly how when Rey accidentally destroyed that plinth with Vader’s helmet on and it fell at Kylo’s feet he knew she was in his quarters.

My favourite example of this go was at the very end when Rey was facing off against Palpatine and Ben (Kylo reformed) was facing off against the Knights of Ren and Rey was able to psychically transport her lightsaber to him. I can’t remember if it was Luke or Leia’s she gave to him but I do hope it was Leia’s because him fighting with his mother’s lightsaber would have been so awesome.

Speaking of his reform, I found that to be the sloppiest moment in the movie. I really did not understand the quickness in which he went from wanting to turn Rey to the dark side to denouncing the Sith altogether. Now yes, your mother dying is going to be a turmoil for any individual and seeing the ghost of your father, because yes Han Solo returns in this movie, is going to throw you...but there was no real internal struggle and it just seemed again very rushed and the almost as if the writers were saying “Well the audience know this is where we were always going to take the character so there’s no need for the internal struggle to be shown”.

Also, I understand that he didn’t exactly have time for a costume change and merely took off his Kylo Ren armour, but then he merely looked like he was wearing pyjamas in that final battle. I wasn’t expecting an Elsa level transformation or anything but something a bit more...more.

Then when it did come to Ben joining Rey in battling Palpatine and Palpatine, quite strategically in my opinion, sent him flying down that pit, the fact that he anticlimactically climbed up the pit I originally thought was the movie saying “See a Skywalker rose” similarly to how The Dark Knight Rises had Batman climbing up that cliff-face. But no, apparently the “Rise of Skywalker” was nothing to do with an actual Skywalker.

The most confusing part of this movie though is what exactly happened at the very end of the movie when Ben died and Leia faded away at the same time. Leia’s “last great act” was to stop Ben from battling Rey, this seemingly caused her to die. However, when Ben died, Leia faded. So are we presuming that somehow Leia enthralled her son to be good? If so, was his redemption a fake? Also if so, did Rey technically kiss Leia not Ben?

Yes, this kiss was the biggest anti-climax in the entire trilogy. Everyone has been pushing for a “Reylo” coupling and it finally happens only for Ben to die immediately after, it was pure and simple fan service.

Poe Dameron:

I have never really cared for Poe, nothing particularly against him or Oscar Isaac but I just felt as if the character was always trying too hard to be Han Solo and failing every time.

This movie not only emphasised how much of a waste Poe had been, but also why you should always be careful what you wish for because it may happen and it may transpire that you are not as attuned to it as you thought you were.

I am talking about Poe now being the General of the Resistance after Leia’s death and effectively leading the Resistance to their doom. I remember when Han was made a general during Return of the Jedi and while he was also slightly incompetent he at least learned from mistakes whereas Poe...got so many people killed he should have been court-marshalled.

Every action he made in this movie seemed to be wrong and he was continuously pulled up on it by everyone, Finn, Rey, Chewie, even 3PO. I quite liked the concept of doing that lightspeed jumping that apparently you’re not supposed to do because it reminded me of Guardians 2, but they weren’t supposed to do it there either and that wasn’t at the consequence of damaging the Millennium Falcon!

Also, they made a blatant reference that Poe had a previous lover in Kari Mitchell’s character, but the only problem with this is we’ve never heard anything about Poe’s history prior to the events of this trilogy so we are supposed to care about it now? When the trilogy is about to end?

Had we heard from episode 1 about hints of Poe’s history and maybe a lost or abandoned lover then seeing their reunion here may have held some weight...but with what we got it didn’t work.

I don’t even know where we left Poe aside from obviously being a war hero for being the leader of the Resistance. But unlike Rey who has gone off to do her own thing and Finn who has the potential to be going off with Jannah and her tribe, Poe doesn’t really have a place.

Even BB-8, who seems to be Poe’s main concern throughout this movie, goes off with Rey, so where does that leave him?

General Leia:

As I said in my non-spoiler review, it is such a shame that this is the lasting impression fans will have of General Leia. I am not saying they should have altered Episode VIII to include Leia’s death but there was something so disjointed about her involvement in this movie.

That being said, I did enjoy some of her lines to Rey at the start of the movie and they did try very hard to make it flow with the story despite clearly being lines meant for another situation. I liked all her pearls of wisdom to her about trusting droids and being comfortable with who you are.

However, this movie’s greatest insult is definitely showing a flashback to Luke and Leia training as Luke was clearly Leia’s Jedi Master at some point after Episode VI.

Now yes, we were shown a de-aged Luke and Leia so they looked slightly like how they did during Episode VI, and it was dark enough a setting that they didn’t look as bad as Leia did at the end of Rogue One, but that one scene sparks a great controversy with this whole trilogy.

Why the heck haven’t we ever had a follow-up movie to Episode VI that simply focuses on Luke, Leia and Han? A movie that shows Leia being trained as a Jedi would have not only satisfied a lot of movie-centric fans curiosities but also would have set up this trilogy slightly better with maybe showing Leia pregnant with Ben and why Luke chose to isolate himself, why Leia and Han’s marriage broke down. Something just to give fans of the original trilogy closure and then introduce these new characters rather than having the original trilogy and new trilogy all try to co-exist and wrap up at the same time.

Also, I swear in this one scene we saw Luke’s lightsaber was green so why were both his and Leia’s lightsabers blue when Rey had them?

Then also with her actual death, as I said with Kylo felt rather anti-climactic and weird. I understand fully that Carrie Fisher’s passing was a complete shock for everyone and so they had to work with what they had, but not only does it simply feel like Leia getting into bed and then death, you have Maz expositioning it before it happens...is that why Maz is back? To be the exposition of the movie?

Again I love Lupita and understand why she was cast in Episode VII because she was the hot ticket to have back then, but she doesn’t do anything in these movies.

I did appreciate her line of “Goodbye princess”, that did spark some emotion that wasn’t annoyance or rage and was sadness for both Leia and Carrie Fisher so the movie got me there.

Lando Calrissian:

Billy Dee Williams as Lando was one of my favourite things about the original trilogy. I loved how similar he was to Han but while Harrison Ford had an almost smouldering rogue quality about him, Lando was suave and cool with this real jazzy vibe about him.

Even seeing him back it was a bright spot in this movie, however, I don’t think he was utilised as well as he could have been. After Leia died and Poe was gathering the Resistance for a mission debrief, Lando looked like that old war veteran that was simply there to lend advice, when in actuality he was the one with the most experience, who fought the Empire once before and won so why wasn’t he saying what was what?

Then at the very end when everyone is celebrating the victory, Lando randomly comes across Jannah who asks where he’s from and he responds “Gold System” while she responds with not knowing where she is from and so he says “Let’s find out”. I don’t know if they’re trying to go down the route that Lando is Jannah’s father maybe but they are definitely pushing for either a spin-off or some form of continuation to this particular story.

Now again, I liked Jannah here, and feel a movie focusing on Lando, Jannah and even Finn would work. But it was so randomly placed at the very end of the movie that it just seemed like the writers had no idea what to do with either character.

Also I did not like the fact Lando never had a scene with Leia in the movie, just simply one scene where the two reminisce about old times or talk about Han would have been good but instead we had another Star Wars alum return and not interact with anyone else from the alumni cast.

The Resistance:

I mentioned the Resistance a bit with most characters but here is my problem with them as an organization, they are not organised! The Resistance was formed in Episode IV to thwart the Empire, they destroyed two Death Stars and seemingly saw the death of the Emperor...when in actuality the Emperor survived and simply rebranded the Empire into the First Order so they failed on their main mission.

Then for the last three movies what exactly have they achieved? Because I cannot point out one successful thing this organisation has managed to achieve on their own. Rey was the one to kill the Emperor which saw the end of the First/Final Order, all the Resistance did was provide cannon fodder.

Also, when Lando finally arrived with the cavelry, I don’t know if they were trying to imply that some of the voices you heard were cameos from the shows but again, I don’t watch the shows. I know I saw both John Williams and Lin Minuel Miranda in cameo roles during the big air battle which I felt were both good and bad elements because they were so random but all in all, I have never been a fan of the Resistance.

Also Greg Grunberg, I like the actor, I liked him on Heroes, I know he is friends with JJ Abrams...but there is doing your friend a solid, and then there is making your movie more pointless then it needs to be. He was unnecessary and I’m glad he died.

Villains:

Okay so I have labelled this section “Villains” because I don’t think even they know what they’re calling themselves anymore. They were originally the First Order, then they changed their name to the Final Order, this got laughs from my audience because it was so stupid. Then Palpatine tried creating his new Empire which lasted all of 5 minutes...there was no order to this First, Final or Any Order.

As for Palpatine himself, his return was very abrupt as it was right at the start of the movie. I did enjoy the atmosphere they set up around the villain with the lightning and the desolate wasteland but what was with that fecking crane? I get he has no legs but the result was him looking more like a Dementor than the all-powerful formidable Emperor Palpatine.

Also, he mentioned how “The dark side of the force grants powers unthinkable”...which still doesn’t explain how he is still alive or reborn after being thrown down that tunnel in Episode VI.

Again, the reveal of him having Rey as a granddaughter came out of nowhere because we never knew Palpatine had a family, despite the fact Palpatine is one of few characters we have seen throughout the first two trilogies.

I did appreciate them establishing Ben and Rey’s bond as a type off life force energy which Palpatine utilised to rejuvenate himself. Although why he didn’t rejuvinate himself back to human form rather than the wrinkled old man is beyond me.

In regards to the First Order, the reveal that General Hux was in fact a spy giving secrets to the Resistance was again laughable, just him revealing “I’m the spy!” was enough to make me laugh.

Again Domnhall Gleeson is a good actor but this role has been so extreme and overdramatic that it has become a cartoon rather than a legitimate threat.

As for Richard E. Grant, people are really quick to insult Idris Elba for Cats but I think the actor who needs a word with his agent is Richard because, as much as he loves this franchise, he wasn’t quite enthralled in the world and rather seemingly playing the part of someone who is lucky enough to be on the movie.

My final point is on the fact that Palpatine claimed he is the culmination of all the Sith, meaning he has all the souls of all the past Sith in him. This is quite reminiscent to me of the Dark Swan arc in Once Upon a Time where Emma, and later Hook, became the Dark One and was able to summon all the past Dark Ones.

However, unlike Rey who was able to hear the voices of all the past Jedi, we only heard two past Sith Lords voices in Vader and Snoke. I know it wouldn’t be right to provide new voice clips for most of them because Christopher Lee, who portrayed Dooku, is sadly dead, but just to hear Darth Maul, Dooku and even General Grievous along with Vader and Snoke would have been a nice touch.

Meanwhile on the Jedi side you apparently had the voices of Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan both young and old, Mace Windu, Luke Skywalker, Yoda...and then you have a bunch of others who I don’t know because I don’t watch Clone Wars or Rebels so I didn’t recognise any of them.

Future:

Alright so where does the future of this franchise leave us...well we know that Disney+ is currently making waves with The Mandalorian and will soon to be hopefully making more waves with the Cassian Andor and Obi-Wan Kenobi shows, however in terms of movies I am not sure where they go from here.

I do feel the most logical step is to focus on rebuilding during the hiatus and then coming back stronger.

Overall I rate the movie a 5/10, this movie was a complete hot mess. There were no solid great moments and aside from some great lightsaber battles between Reylo as well as some okay space battles towards the end of the movie, but the story was practically non-existence and there was no finality that the end of an era requires.

So that’s my spoiler review for Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker, what did you guys think? Post your comments and check out more Movie Reviews as well as other posts.

[ask-the-almighty-google]

Something else I really loved was how this game was such a love letter to the animated shows Clone Wars AND Rebels both. The idea that Inquisitors were fallen Jedi was touched upon in Rebels, and Inquisitors really got their introduction there properly in the cinematic universe too, and seeing the way that was touched and expanded upon was amazing. Even the holocron with Obi-Wan’s warning was something introduced in Rebels!

The fact that all of the clones in the flashbacks are voiced by Dee Bradley Baker, who voiced them in Clone Wars and then again in Rebels, amazing. Dathomir and the Nightsighters may have been introduced in Clone Wars to develop both Maul (a Nightbrother) and Ventress’ (Nightsister) backstories, but Fallen Order actually made me care about them as a plot element. It really brings home the fact that the Force isn’t black and white, Jedi and Sith. What Merrin does with her magick freaks people out, sure, but once they get to know her it doesn’t seem to actually bother Cere OR Cal to be near her, which tells me the magicks she uses when tapping into the Force are less Dark, as was suggested in the Clone Wars, and more neutral-leaning.

Here we see another Padawan whose Master died so that they could live, echoing Kanan and Depa Billaba, but much more recent. Much more fresh, more raw. You see Ilum, as it was introduced in Clone Wars, and actually feel why it was so important to the Jedi beyond being a sacred place. It’s ALIVE in its own way. Just the fact that they also show a Master who failed to protect their Padawan, rather than succeed, and the ramifications of that.

The whole Zeffo Tomb Search I loved, feeling like a cross between Tomb Raider and Prince of Persia for me personally. But it also gave me echoes of the Belsavis Missions in Star Wars: The Old Republic, where you interact with the ancient precursor race the Rakata. And that may have not been the intention or it may have, but it connects what is seen as a more obscure element of Star Wars to the more mainstream and it made me so happy to see.

This game really is a love letter to the fans playing it, bringing in so many elements of lore from so many different areas, and I love it so much.

OKAY! I am ready to discuss my Fallen Order thoughts and feels. And the place I want to start is how this game reminded me of why I love Star Wars. It has been so long since I felt this adoration. While I am old enough to have started out with the OT, I am a prequel fan at heart. This era fascinates me, and Fallen Order capitalised on everything I find narratively satisfying.

So, here we go. BIG spoilers ahead:

BD-1. I have never cared about a droid in Star Wars like this. When you're separated when Cal's captured by the bounty hunter, I was racing around the cells in a panic to get BD-1 back. Just the fact that BD-1 is your little buddy, helping you out... oh goodness and when you see the video from Cordova where BD-1's memory was wiped. I wept.

Cal. Okay, firstly, as a natural ginger, I was THRILLED to have a ginger Jedi. Basically, Cal is me and I am Cal, okay? 😋 Secondly, his character development, from this traumatised child to young man finding his own strength just got to me. The idea that he didn't have to keep himself hidden, that he could be who he is, hit HARD. The vision where he has to face his own pride? AMAZING. Order 66 has always, always, always been so devastating and THAT SCENE in Revenge of the Sith always wrecks me. You know the one. When you finally find out what happened to Cal and his Master, it hurts. Oh my gosh, the fact that you HIGH FIVE A CLONE right before Order 66 broke me. Just... oh gosh. So much crying.

Found family. Look, I am a sucker for a found family story. This had all the right ingredients and I cannot wait to see where they go in the sequel.

Worldbuilding. For the first time in ages, the Star Wars universe feels BIG again. It's not just "Sand Planet that isn't Tatooine", "Starbase That Isn't the Death Star". Right at the start where you see the giant Separatist ship, I was just fascinated with where they were going. And the fact that you see the remnants of the Clone Wars everywhere, aged and forgotten already, fascinated me. I also loved the Tomb Raider / Uncharted vibe to the whole thing!

The Jedi. The fact that Cere and Cal didn't know each other and weren't constantly dropping the names of other famous Jedi really worked for me. And look at that, you CAN care about characters that surnames aren't Skywalker or Palpatine... *AHEM* Finally, the Jedi Order feels HUGE again. Yeah, we got a Yoda (and a Yaddle omg!!!!) reference, and of course we saw Obi-Wan's warning, but Cal wasn't like "I trained with Master Kenobi once, and Master Skywalker! And this one time, I got to see Master Windu's purple lightsaber!!!" I love that neither of them knew who Vader was. It felt more organic, because why would Cal know anyone when he was so young when The Purge happened? Oh, and the Inquisitors being Jedi who were tortured into succumbing to the dark side is such an amazing plot point. I am so curious to see where this might go in either the Kenobi show or the next Fallen Order game.

DARTH VADER. For the first time in my life I was genuinely terrified of Darth Vader. That moment when he's just THERE when you get on the turbolift?!? Omg. Screaming. I was SCREAMING. The nature of a videogame meant you really feel the depth of his power. I had no idea that was coming. The whole finale was just phenomenal.

Lightsaber combat. Let's just say I'm glad all my hours of Dark Souls and Bloodborne prepared me 💪

So all in all, an amazing story with awesome characters and I am ready for MORE!

[tube-thoughts-blog]

tube thoughts vol. 2

zero stars - terrible, 1/2 a star - dull, 1 star - folly, 1 1/2 stars - lacking,   2 stars - fair, 2 1/2 stars - decent, 3 stars - terrific

zack snyder's 300: Rise of an Empire *Lady warrior commandeers the battle scenes and saves it from being a male meat fest like the first film.* 3 stars

rifftrax presents "Independence Day" *One way to make this movie more moronic would be if social media existed in its world at the time.* 3 stars with riffing 2 without

Cannon films "Ninja 3: The Domination" *Spunky shinobi, you must avenge me!* 3 stars

Septic Man *Municipal shit-storm* either zero stars for grossness or 3 stars for grossness and surrealness

"The Stuff" a Larry Cohen film starring Michael Moriarty *Ba-da-ba-ba-ba, I'm lovin' it.* 3 stars

Farscape premier episode *Awol from the ratcage.* 3 stars

Garth Marenghi's: Darkplace "The Creeping Moss from the Shores of Shoggoth" *Brocolli from space. I'd thought it had tasted odd.* 3 stars

Albert Pyun's "Omega Doom" starring Rutger Hauer *It's nice to know after we've killed ourselves off, through constant warfare, sentient robots will become gun nuts and start acting out cold war westerns.* 2 1/2 stars

Kenny vs. Spenny: "Who Can Sell More Bibles?" *The Devil is in the details.* 3 stars

Masters of Horror: Clive Barker's "Valerie on the Stairs" *Another bodice-ripper.* 2 stars

"I Spit On Your Grave" uncut 1978 either zero stars or 3 stars

"Beyond the Door" *Paranormal pregnancy with personality.* 3 stars

Twin Peaks: "The Condemned Woman" *Josie and the pine weasels* 2 1/2 stars

Lost and Found Video Night: Vol 7 -- 3 stars

Seinfeld: "The Frogger" *George's high score.* 3 stars

Kolchak, The Night Stalker: "Mr. R.I.N.G." *What's the difference between right and wrong? robot need to know.* 3 stars

Everything is Terrible "The Rise and Fall of God" *Homeschool is the answer.* 3 stars

Roger Corman presents Andrew Stevens' "Subliminal Seduction" featuring Sharknado's Ian Ziering and Critters' Dee Wallace Stone *CD-ROM Inception meets Tommy Wiseau's "The Room"  type inept erotic thriller.* 3 stars

David Cronenberg's "eXistenZ" *Jennifer Jason Leigh penetrates Jude Law's port hole in order to play an addictive and twisted version of The Sims.* 3 stars

rifftrax presents "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" *Butter scraped over too much bread.* 3 plus stars with riffing 3 stars without

"Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone" *Han Solo babysits a brat-pack ginger cutie, Ernie Hudson is Lando, and Michael Ironside is a Darth Humongous who believes that Earth Girls Are Easy.* 3 stars

"Riddick" *Robinson Crusoe machismo* 3 stars

Farscape: "I, E.T." *My name is Mud.* 3 stars

Dominion: pilot episode *Bright light city gonna set my soul on fire.* 2 1/2 stars

"Thor: Dark World" *Science lady Padme pines for Adam of Eternia so that she inadvertently stumbles into the evil fudge and awakens the 9th Doctor Keebler Who causes the realms to converge like ornaments on an imploding Christmas tree.* 3 stars

"Priest" *Paul Bettany's Obi-Wan character is disenchanted with his forced retirement  in a Catholic 1984 dystopia and his regret filled dreams lead to the wasteland where his  fallen knights of the old republic partner, a cowboy from hell Karl Urban, lurks about with his horde of bloodsucking bandits and xenomorph vampires. A decent cameo from Brad  Dourif as a snake oil salesman. This movie's biggest flaw is that it forgets  the classic genre work of Sergio Leone,  John Carpenter, and George Miller and instead mimmicks the cliche Matrix ripoff style hack work of Paul W.S. Anderson's Resident Evil flicks.* 2 stars

"Scanners 2: The New Order" *If you get inside me, go gently, and easy on the nosebleeds. This kind of telepathic power in the hands of a fascist P.D., no thankee.* 3 stars

Joe Bob's Christmas Special: Charles Band's "Pets" *Inhabits the same universe as other weird,  dumb kids' adventure comedies like 'Garbage Pail Kids', 'The Super Mario Bros Movie', 'Ernest Scared Stupid', and 'Problem Child 1 & 2'* 1 1/2 stars

Sami Rami & The Coen Bros present "Crimewave" aka "The XYZ Murders" *Reminiscent of the Three Stooges, classic Mel Brooks, 40s cartoons, humorous Tom Waits song tales, and the original SNL.* 3 stars

Udo Kier in "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Miss OSbourne'  --sexploitation-- *Show me where it hurts. Fill me with  hatred. My pleasure is seeing your dead body.* 3 stars

Masters of Horror: "Right to Die" *The crispy, vengeful ghost of Terry Shiavo.* 3 stars

William Lustig's "Vigilante" starring Robert Forster & Fred Williamson *Regular Joe nihilism* 3 stars

rifftrax presents Ridley Scott's "Alien" *H.R. Giger porn on the sattelite of love.* 3 plus stars with riffing 3 without

Josh Brolin is DC's "Jonah Hex" *Sometimes spooky, often dumb B-western that's sadly too gutless to show any blood n grit. Still it might fit into a marathon of 'The Quick and the Dead', 'Five Bloody Graves',  'Navajo Joe', and 'Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter.'*  2 stars

"Rhinestone Cowgirls" 1982 --xxx-- *Easy listenin' and screwin', plus plenty of other prickly  situations protruding in Cactus Corner.*  2 stars

Kolchak, The Night Stalker: "Primal Scream" *Unfrozen caveman mauler.* 3 stars

"Shogun Assassin" *Daddy day samurai* 3 stars

Monstervision with Joe Bob Briggs: Dino De Laurentiis presents "Orca" *starring Richard Harris as a salty sea-dog, Charlotte Rampling as a sensitive marine biologist, Bo Derek as a sexy shipmate and Shamu snack, plus the indian fella from 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' lending his wisdom by saying things like,  "The old ways no longer work. Now, even our gods dance to a new tune."*  2 1/2 stars

"Baron Blood" *Decent dubbing, giallo lite, moody nightscapes, cursed castle, creepy stalking.*  2 1/2 stars

Garth Marenghi's Darkplace: "Illuminatum & Illuminata" *Interviewer: Do you believe in the Horned One?  the actor Todd Rivers: You mean the Hoofed One? Interviewer: Yeah.*  3 stars

Beavis & Butthead: "Time Machine" *Butthead: 1832, that's like not now.  Beavis: Yeah, aren't we more than that?* 2 1/2 stars

Twin Peaks: "Wounds and Scars" *"A country habit. We are so very trusting."* 3 stars

Monstervision with Joe Bob Briggs:  Wes Craven's "The People Under the Stairs" *A ghetto version of Twin Peaks' "Black Lodge" where "Hills Have Eyes" type inbred freaks are trapped in the cellar and "Sometimes further in is the only way out." in a twisted Tom & Jerry style game of cat & mouse.* 3 stars

Masters of Horror: "We All Scream for Ice Cream" starring Lee Tergesen, William Forsythe, and the kid from Bad Santa and Eastbound & Down *The Good Humor Man returns from the land of the popsicles to scoop out and dish some cold and sticky revenge.* 3 stars

Gun Fu John Woo and Risky Bidness Tom Cruise present: "Mission Impossible 2" *We've got the cure, we made the disease. Dianetics incorporated.* 3 stars

Tim & Eric present: Bedtime Stories "Hole" *Spitting surreal absurdism sometimes sidetracks the sinister suburban satire.* 2 1/2 stars

MST3K presents: Charles Band's "Laserblast" *Moppy-haired stoner with a muscle-van gets to rain down the fire of the lizard alien gods on his stereotypical 70s burnout and redneck cop enemies in his one horse desert hometown.* 3 stars with riffing 2 without

Farscape: "Exodus from Genesis" *A hot time in the roach maternity ward in the outer reaches of the universe, tonight.* 3 stars

"Saga, Curse of the Shadow" aka "The Shadow Cabal" *Somewhere between Peter Jackson's LOTR and LARPers that run around yelling, "Lightning bolt, lightnight bolt, lightning bolt!"  2 1/2 stars

"Night of the Loving Dangerously" --xxx-- *With the allure of his ever-wanton ex-wife, Traci Lords, private dick, Peter North, is pulled into a web of blackmail involving his ex's new fiance- a perverted CEO  with everything to lose, Jamie Gillis,  his naughty daddy's girl daughter, and gay son's snooping photographer boyfriend.*  2 1/2 stars

Monstervision with Joe Bob Briggs: "Poltergeist" *Joe Bob maligns Spielberg's involvement with a Tobe Hooper horor flick, Heather O'Rourke gives me the sads, an 80s kids bedroom is full of nostalgic shit, the mom looks sexy even with a streak of grey hair, there's some kind of message about the sinister nature of suburban sprawl,  a sassy medium with a drawl steals the show, and Joe Bob ponders the difference between "Go into the light" & "Stay away from the light."* 3 stars

Lost & Found Video Night Vol. 5 *Hot diggity tallyho* 3 stars

"Purely Physical" 1982 --xxx-- *Schmaltzy motel fornicating where the lovers' lips refuse to move when the pillow talk gets filthy.*  2 1/2 stars

Kolchak, The Night Stalker: "The Trevi Collection" *Fashion victims. Some hilariously bad acting from a witch.* 3 stars

"Gallowwalkers" starring Wesley Snipes *Spaghetti vampire western. The kind of movie Blade 3 should have been.* 3 stars

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back & Return of the Jedi ---despecialized editions--- *Impressive. Most impressive* 3 stars

Monstervision with Joe Bob Briggs: 1954's U.S. version of "Godzilla"  & "Godzilla vs. Mothra" *Tokyo stompin' in a Texas trailer park.* 3 stars

"Manborg" 2011 *Will Ferrell's 'Westworld', Scott Pilgrim vs. Mega City 1, Napoleon Dynamite 2: Judgment Day, Tom Green's 'Total Recall', Jim Carrey's "Battlefield Earth', Sam Raimi's 'Mortal Kombat: Annihilation', Paul Verhoeven's 'Army of Darkness', Patrick Swazy, Jacki Chan, Jake Busey, and Cynthia Rothrock  in 'Revenge of the Sith'.*  3 stars

Masters of Horror: Stuart Gordon presents Edgar Alan Poe's "The Black Cat" *Pluto, the little devil.* 2 1/2 stars

rifftrax presents: "The Last Slumber Party" *More potty-mouthed and homophobic than a Wayans Bros. "Horror" "Comedy" "Movie"* 2 1/2 stars with riffing 1 1/2 without

The Outer Limits: George R.R. Martin's "Sandkings" starring Beau & Lloyd Bridges *Red menace* 3 stars

rifftrax presents: "Battlefield Earth" *L. Ron Hubbard's  The Passion of the Prometheus as acted out by the rat-brained man-animal, John Travolta.*  2 stars with riffing 1 star without

Monstervision with Joe Bob Briggs: Mel Brooks "Spaceballs" 3 stars

rifftrax presents "Fantasic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer" *Fate of world hangs in balance while obnoxious bantering, obnoxious celebrity  style wedding is overshadowing focus, obnoxious background extras actors mug for the camera and stare at the pop culture status heroes, obnoxious twirling mustache Dr. Doom villain moments, obnoxious studio thinking Galactus is a stupid concept and yet going through with having his threat to earth being the plot-- leaving us with a cloud of lame spacedust* 1 1/2 stars with riffing 1 star without

Troma presents: Lucio Fulci's "Rome 2072: The New Gladiators" *Televised brutality in a cyber-disco dystopia where the cities of the future are painfully obvious scale models covered in Christmas lights and dirtbikes along with karate chops are still considered pretty badass.* 2 1/2 stars

--- Game of Thrones: Season 3 episode 1

*The inept, pudgy comic relief gets to stumble around  in the snow avoiding ice zombies,

the dashing dwarf gets dissed by dear old dad,

the high class pimp positions himself near the daughter of the woman who always shunned his advances,

the would be future queen shows kindess to orphans and gets politely scolded for it,

a crow defects to the king beyond the wall,

a fiery zealot harshly deals with infidels,

a shiprecked war veteran brother puts himself back in harm's way to try to talk sense to his witch's pussy whipped brother,

the king of the north returns to his scorched hometown and imprisons his mum there,

a puppy eyed dragon mama sails with her seasick soldiers and goes shopping for baby slaughtering drone warriors while narrowly escaping creepy child with scorpion assassination attempt.*

3 stars

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rifftrax' Mike Nelson riffs "Predator" *"Speak mono-Slavic-ally and carry a big stick."* 3 plus stars with riffing 3 without

George Lucas & Ron Howard present: "Willow" *In order to save a red-headed bastard baby, Frodo Skywalker  fellowships a force of ragtags including a Han Solo in Pocahontas drag, an indian in the cupboard Kevin Pollack,  and a wizard lady trapped by spell in the body of a wombat.*  3 stars

rifftrax presents: "Twilight: New Moon" *A frigid, psycho chick gets dumped by her prissy,  older, unhealthy obsession. she then begins having night terrors ruining  the sleep of her closet gay lumberjack dad. next, she begins leading a lovesick  puppydog around on a leash while getting wreckless on a mopad, attempting suicide  for attention and all before going on a sisterhood of traveling pants adventure to a pretentious Anne Rice version of faggy Europe. 1980s teens were awesome. 2000s teens are awful.*  2 stars with riffing 1 star without

---- monstervision with Joe Bob Briggs:

"Slaughter High" aka "April Fool's Day"

*These jokers aint' f-f-f-foolin'. They like their drugs, they like their sex, they like their cruel pranks on nerds.

Unlucky for them,  their 10th year class reunion takes place at the now abandoned old high school in the middle of nowhere on a rainy night.

It's the perfect setting for an old dark house horror mixed with Agatha Christie style revenge picture.

This is one of the best episodes of monstervision.

It features a classic 1980s slasher flick, it has the original mail girl, Joe Bob skewers the logic of the TNT censors, and he reads an awkward letter from a male admirer named Rufus.*

3 stars

---------------------------------------------------------------

"A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors" *Freddy flew over the cuckoos' nest* 3 stars

The Outer Limits: "Valerie 23" *Do androids sleep mode with electric wet dreams? 2 be or R2D2? See, I could think of some existential questions to ask my prototype sexbot over a romantic dinner, especially if she were the first sentient being of her kind, and had Hulk strength for no apparently necessary reason.* 2 1/2 stars

Jamie Gillis in "Midnight Heat" 1983 --xxx-- *Rare grime. A gem of a different time. Seedy NYC.* 3 stars

Masters of Horror: "The Washingtonians" *Patriotic blue hairs set their wooden teeth on edge about the disclosure of that rich colonial tradition of chomping on cherry tastin' child flesh.* 2 stars

Farscape: "Throne for a Loss" *Rigel, the royal pain in the rear.*  3 stars

"Hellraiser 2: Hellbound" uncut *The stigmata of Sigmund Freud, from the makers of 'Scratch it, sniff it, squeeze it, suck it,' now available at finer novelty shops.* 3 stars

Twin Peaks: "On the Wings of Love" *Hangover cures, hidden secret half-sister, hallelujah for the hard of hearing, hometown beauty pageant queen hitlist, and hoot owl hieroglypics.* 2 1/2 stars

Monstervision with Joe Bob Briggs:  Randy Quaid in "Parents" *A Norman Rockwell painting hanging on the wall behind the desk at the Bates Motel.* 3 stars

The Outer Limits: "Blood Brothers" *Twelve immortal monkeys* 2 1/2 stars

"Kill List" 2011 -- *This feels like it could be a Garth Ennis story. It has old mates drinking together and shooting the shite about life. It has acts of extreme violence almost to the point  of dark comedy. It has a bleak poignancy. There's also the occult undertones like a Hellblazer comic.* 3 stars

William Hurt in Ken Russell's "Altered States" *Waiting, in a fish-bowl, for Godot.* 3 stars

Kolchak, The Night Stalker: "Chopper" *Stunt motorcycle riding, sword slashing specter with separation anxiety.* 3 stars

Farscape: "Back, and Back, and Back to the Future" *"Psychic Spanish-fly," alien lady combat, genetically structured spy seductress, quantum singularity also known as a blackhole used as a soul saving secret weapon of mass destruction that is seriously in jeopardy of being stolen or accidentally set off."* 3 stars

"The Wind" starring Meg Foster, Wings Hauser, & Steve Railsback *Swept up in stormy solitude and story.* 3 stars

The Outer Limits: "The Second Soul" *Lending our dead bodies, like they were used cars, to alien parasites, leads to some serious moral implications. Feels like a 50s style sci fi message about the dangers of multiculturalism given a more progressive twist at the end.* 2 1/2 stars

"Virgin Witch" --sexploitation-- *Prissy Galore throws a feisty spell when a group of dysfunctional devil worshippers decide they really, really fancy her.* 2 1/2 stars

Van Damme / Raul Julia "Streetfighter" *"Who wants to go home, and who wants to go with ME?!" Self aware dumb fun.*  2 1/2 stars

rifftrax' Mike Nelson riffs "xXx" starring Vin Diesel, Samuel L. Jackson, & Asia Argento *Double Ohhh Seven sez, "Do the DEW, dude."* 3 stars with riffing 2 stars without