#fully expecting it to be established not in real time in like a prequel or something similar

[puhpandas]

you know the content drought is bad when you think about content from over a year ago and still get excited

[kinogane]

On Ninian’s Paired Ending

Theoretically, because of what is established about Eliwood in The Binding Blade, it stands to reason that pairing anyone up with Eliwood in the prequel, The Blazing Blade, can be construed as knowingly setting them up for tragedy. There’s a small wrinkle, however, in that The Binding Blade was never released outside of Japan, while The Blazing Blade was (under the annoying title Fire Emblem), which means that in practice, non-Japanese players can’t reasonably be expected to know about Eliwood’s partner’s fate.

With one major exception: Ninian.

If you raise Eliwood and Ninian’s support level to A, the modified ending to the final chapter, “Light”, has Nils talk to Ninian and explicitly spell out, primarily to the audience, that neither of them will live long if they stay in Elibe. Despite this, sensing his sister’s wish to stay with Eliwood, Nils entrusts Ninian’s shorter life and happiness to Eliwood and says goodbye as he heads through the gate to live a long life, never to be seen again.

Now, granted, what exactly Nils means by “short” and “long” isn’t necessarily clear just in the context of this scene. Since it’s established that dragons live for millennia, you could reasonably interpet “short” as “short by dragon standards”, which could be still be very long by human standards. This read doesn’t hold up particularly well given further context, but just in the scope of what is presented in The Blazing Blade, it’s not patently ridiculous.

But that interpretation only deflects from the real tension at play. From Ninian’s perspective, she is trading away a long, happy life in another world with her brother for a significantly shorter, but potentially happier(?) life in Elibe with Eliwood. Whatever “short” might mean by human standards (including the player), it’s definitely short by Ninian’s standards.

From an in-universe perspective, there’s no actual tension from this decision. Nothing in the text suggests that Ninian is making this choice out of anything but her own free will. In fact, Ninian was fully ready to leave alongside Nils and was saying goodbye to Eliwood, only stopping when Nils chimes in and essentially give her and Eliwood his blessing to stay.

The tension arises when viewing all of this from a meta perspective; namely, that the writers saw fit to make this Ninian’s fate. Even as someone who likes the pairing and likes the way it plays out, because it’s effectively setting an angst time bomb, I’d be lying if I said this narrative beat felt... questionable. Like, Ninian is a character developed enough to have an identity outside of being one of Eliwood’s love interests (see also: her relationship with Nils, her other supports with Hawkeye and Florina), but making her final major act of agency be consigning herself to a brief life with Eliwood doesn’t exactly instill confidence that she actually is more than Eliwood’s love interest.

None of this, on its own, is all that noteworthy. What is noteworthy, however, is that everything I just mentioned is contingent entirely on raising Eliwood and Ninian’s support level to A. Since Ninian is only available for deployment (and, by extension, for developing supports) for seven or eight out of over thirty chapters, and Eliwood must not have more than two support conversations with other characters, this is actually quite difficult to do intentionally, let alone accidentally. If Eliwood and Ninian do not have an A-Support, then Ninian leaves with Nils as she intended to, and quite likely lives a long and happy life with her brother.

As such, knowledge of this ending imposes a special dilemma on players who do like Eliwood and Ninian together. Do you manifest their pairing in your game, etching their union into the personal canon of your save while also ostensibly dooming Ninian to a simultaneously canonical early death? Or do you instead leave them unpaired, saving Ninian in the personal canon of your save while avoiding leaving any canonical trace that the two could even be happy together and settling for other, external ways to express your preference?

I’d wager some people don’t actually see this as a dilemma, since it’s contingent on placing what they would see as undue focus on canon, and all that matters is what is expressed to the outside world, to others, which most commonly takes the form of fanwork. Whether or not the ending is actually achieved, the shackles of canon can only weigh down those that respect it, and it’s trivially easily to pick and choose as needed. What’s the issue?

And while I am ultimately of that mindset, I also think it is useful to at least sometimes take canon as it is and properly think through the implications, however inconvenient or unpleasant they might be. Canon, after all, is only what is assumed to be the common ground for all participants, so it’s at least worth thinking about how things would have to play out canonically, if discussing works of fiction with other people is something to be valued.

I bring this up as someone who’s been sitting on an Eliwood/Ninian fic that tries to explore how Ninian (and to a lesser extent, Eliwood) would go about living in the time between The Blazing Blade and The Binding Blade, with the knowledge that she’s not long for the world perpetually lingering over the two. It’s something I’ve been thinking about ever since I learned about the way the pairing plays out in The Blazing Blade for the reasons highlighted above. Doomed relationships are nothing new in video games, but this specific kind of doomed relationship, where actualizing it necessarily brings about an otherwise avoidable death, is considerably rarer.

It’s not all that surprising that I personally would take to it, since it’s an obvious wellspring of angst, but it’s one that requires some legwork to really hit. It’s one thing to die, mourning for a potential that was never realized; it’s another (and in my opinion, more gutwrenching) thing to actually realize that potential then fade away, believing wholeheartedly that it was all worth it in the end.

Canonically speaking, if Eliwood and Ninian were to be together, it could only ever be for a few years. And through her actions, we, as an audience, are to believe that spending a few years with her beloved Eliwood would make Ninian happier than spending many years amongst her kind in another land would.

And as someone who on some level wants the two to be together, I feel at least some obligation to try to imagine a life where that holds true, in my own small way, even if such a life is bound to end in tears.

[shootycatfishgame]

Well its done, "Shooty and the Catfish Episode 2: The Spoopies" is finally out in the wild for people to play, why you can even play it yourself for free if you head on over here:   https://visitorsfromdreams.itch.io/shootycatfish-episode2 Truth be told the game has been out for 3 days now and has only been downloaded a grand total of 4 times. It might seem like a discouraging number for sure but its important to remember that this is the second episode of a series, and with the first episode itself only being downloaded a total of 124 times to date (my previous project Hazmat is sitting at 525 downloads and Flatwoods at 849 downloads) its not that surprising. In all honesty im not really expecting the series to really gain any sort of momentum until its fully finished and released as a stand alone product on Steam, and I think thats fair enough. The idea behind the episodic releases was largely so I could get the feedback to improve each episode as the project went along, and I think I have achieved that so far. So I guess you could consider this to be a post mortem. Where did things go right with Episode 2 and where did they go wrong? Well, for where things went right, development started in March and was finished in September so you could say the game had a 7 month development cycle. Looking back at it now due to the length of the episode that actually feels really excessive considering the amount of content in the actual game (which I will come back too) but compared to the first episodes 2 year development cycle it was a huge improvement. I am also pretty happy with how the games set up worked. Episode 1 played it very strait with its single town and non linear dungeon set up taken right from the standard JRPG guidebook. Episode 2 on the other hand was a little more experimental. The opening town was more about establishing a tone then a solid narrative with the Episodes dungeon being where all of the real story telling happens. While im sure this isnt a new idea, its something I havent personally experienced in any turn based RPGs. Sure, its not uncommon to find environmental story telling packed into the game world, but to have every combat encounter also be an NPC that pushes the narrative forward? I think the results were perhaps a little wordy and at times a bit on the nose, but for the most part I think it works. Episode 1 had a very non linear dungeon which worked well but it was nice working on something a little more directed as well which Episode 2's layout definitely was.

Im really happy without how the quality of life improvements in the game turned out, introducing new elements like coded doors for different kinds of keys and giving you the option of finishing the game without fighting the optional boss which, you know, actually made that optional boss optional. In fact I was so happy with those changes I went back and patched them into Episode 1 only a couple weeks back.

So where did things go wrong?

Well, to be honest, the only thing I wasnt happy with was how long it took me to get this game out. Like I said, 7 months is a big improvement compared to 2 years, but its still a lot longer than it should have been. Some of this was definitely my fault... as mentioned above there was a big push to have all the narrative put into the dungeon, but the down side of that was that it meant there was a lot more meaningful dialogue in this Episode than there was in Episode 1. The previous Episodes dialogue was mostly made up of silly gags from goofy NPCs in town, but for this Episode I had to create that ALONG with the more serious and narrative driven dialogue found in the dungeon itself. There were several weeks where I didnt touch the game at all because it all seemed so daunting. Ironically when I finally forced myself to write those sections it ended up only taking me 2 nights, so really I spent weeks if not months putting the project off out of fear of something that ended up taking collectively 6 hours tops.

So yeah... that explains some of the delay, but not all of it. The second issue that struck me during the development of this Episode was my own insecurity. The first 5 months this games development were during a time when I didnt know what was happening with my job,  I was very nervous, and with my fiance being processed through the notoriously awful Australian immigration system I was also pretty damn scared. The last few weeks of those 5 months was a massive period of crunch at work for a huge project and then immediately it was over... and I was out of a job. If I had known for sure that this was how the gig would have turned out I would have spent more of my free time trying to develop a following. I might have even been able to get my Patreon into a state that could have helped me out financially a little, or atleast thats what I liked to think I would have done, but at the time I didnt have the confidence or energy to do so. This was followed with me taking up a freelance project (well quite a few actually but most were great) which while it has definitely paid my bills over the last couple of months, it has also left me exhausted, emotionally and physically. All of this slowed down the development of the game, and perhaps even more importantly had a large impact on the writing of it.

"Shooty and the Catfish: Episode 2 - The Spoopies" deals with some pretty heavy themes, with suicide and the treatment of suicide victims being chief amoung them. Then on top of that I realised half way through development that while the idea of an office building full of ghosts of asshole business people who commited suicide after a stock market crash does have some comedic value (poor taste as it may be), the gameplay loop of systematically killing every single one of those ghosts has absolutely no comedic value and is quite possibly the most morbid thing I had ever created... Ironically not even on purpose... I found myself in a situation where I accidently created a "suicide victims ghost murder simulator". While im no stranger to creating offensive or disturbing content, for once this wasnt my intention but rather the result of the games story concept clashing with the established gameplay mechanics... and realising too late. What do you do when you set out to make a dumb comedy about 2 wise cracking idiots that kill monsters for money and instead... well here we are. What a mess... Im not going to pretend that the game handles the subject of suicide well and I also dont think I ever could approach the subject in a satisfying way. If its treatment upsets or offends anyone I think thats completely understandable and any critism I receive because of it is completely justified. Something I do think that is a positive to come out of all this however is this is the first game project I have worked on that I feel, to me personally, is a piece of "art". Well I mean... I think all games are art, but playing through this game now I can see the struggle I was going through developing it reflected through the characters and through the writing. Its almost like playing through 5 months of my own loose streamed consciousness. My stress, my depression, my insecurity, my fear, my defeatism, its all there. The game has tonal whiplash of morbid  nihilism and stupid dumb goofy comedy in a way I havent been able to pull of since my 2014 film Spilt Coffee (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp2HSx_f9WE) which ironically serves as a prequel to this game and was created at a time of my life when again, I felt quite trapped. Episode 2 might be the worst game I have made to a lot of people and thats totally fair, but I think its also my most personal and sincere for what thats worth. Thats it for this update, I have gone on long enough as it is. So where do we go from here? Well... I made myself and my players a promise at the end of Episode 2, and thats that Episode 3 will be a fun light hearted adventure. I think after this games development I really need it, and hopefully the contents of this depressing Episode doesnt stop those players from coming with me on that adventure too. If your interested in helping me support my indie game development then why not check out my Patreon? https://www.patreon.com/VisitorsFromDreams Every little bit helps ~ <3

Thanks again to everyone who has taken the time to read this post.

[smuthuttpodcast]

It's always amazing to take part in the fandom with people that truly love the characters.

Name/Handle/Alias

Icefire149

About how long would you say you’ve been rooting for Reylo?

Since shortly after TFA hit theaters. After thinking about the movie I realized the structure felt like everything was pushing Rey and Kylo's plots to the moment they collided. And I thought, oh I can get behind an enemies to lovers story. 

What did you think of the way Rise of Skywalker handled Rey and Kylo’s relationship?

Not a single character in TROS was handled well. The sequence when Ben is rushing to her - gets the lightsaber - reaches her - and heals her - that was all really nice. But that is only because of the actors. Their body language and expressions sold it. The movie's plot is clunky and needed to let the actors shine and gradually let the characters connect. 

Do you think the film understood why you, and other people, felt like Rey and Kylo had something together? Did it get their chemistry?

The filmmakers are extremely lucky the actors had natural chemistry. Other than that I feel like the film was on the verge of understanding. They opted to spend the time on the fetch quest instead. 

What about the handling of Kylo’s redemption? Was it something you had to think through in your stories?

Kylo's redemption was probably one of the most fun aspects of daydreaming about where the plot was going. After TFA the sky was the limit. It could go anywhere. TLJ left us with two interesting paths: he clamps down on his choice to be the Supreme Leader and fully embraces the dark or he cracks so badly the light consumes him. I couldn't wait to see what path TROS chose. What we got was a disappointment. His redemption felt very slapped together. Was it Leia? Did he hear her or was feeling her spirit enough? Did she offer him forgiveness? Was it Rey showing him compassion and healing him? I don't know and I hate that. 

How did you handle or would you have handled the redemption of Kylo Ren in your fics? How did you envision Kylo/Ben’s redemption before TROS and how do you (re)envision it after seeing TROS?

After TLJ I favored the idea that he's getting redeemed. During that final scene where Kylo sees Rey through their bond, I felt that he was finally in the middle of his transition. Throughout TFA & TLJ we see Kylo and Rey struggle with the light and the dark pulling them. After the chamber scene killing Snoke, he wasn't quite there yet. He couldn’t commit to being Ben so he tried to convince Rey to join him. And I felt that after getting through seeing Luke again and realizing the state of his life, he's left feeling like he might want to be Ben. And he sees Rey through the force and has to confront that everything with Rey was real. She saw Ben and that vision can be a reality, but he doesn't know if that opportunity will come again. So I saw TROS opening on a Kylo that is so fractured he's barely being held together. Who is he? What does he want? This leads to massive friction with the First Order and the Knights of Ren. They expect a leader. A plan. And he will not make a move on the Resistance. Even though they know after TLJ they are so close to crushing them. This would lead to Hux leading a coup to get him locked up. Hux wants him to see what a better Supreme Leader he will be so he leaves Kylo alive. Just locked up. This gives us time to see Kylo shatter all together. The ball has been rolling since seeing Luke. Ben has to confront everything in his memory. All the bad he did and what was done to him. All this conflict should filter through the force to Rey. There's room to bond over fears and past traumas. Between this and confiding to Leia about the force bond with her son, Rey should really begin to understand his actions. Ultimately, he will chose to be Ben and by letting the light in he can connect to Luke and the other force ghosts. By the middle act he should be rescued / escaped from prison and end up as a valuable asset to the Resistance. His knowledge outweighs their lack of trust in him. They need him. And he needs to work towards making amends, starting with destroying the FO so the universe can begin healing.

What did you think of where Rey landed at the end? There had been a lot of excitement around Star Wars having a female protagonist. Do you think she lived up to the promise of her character?

Rey’s character was something to be excited about. She was a survivor. Quick thinking. Her interest in flying led her to being a pilot in theory and then had to hope it was enough when her and Finn steal the Falcon. She was sad but hopeful. Her kindness and compassion led her to helping BB8, Finn, the Resistance, and Kylo. Her racing to Kylo in TLJ was the ultimate testament to her compassion. She saw Ben under the mask. She saw a chance to bring Leia and Han's son home. The force awakened in her and both sides of it began pulling at her. And despite all her anger and pain over the hard life she had been living, she still kept reaching for the light in the end. TROS felt hollow. Where was the Rey we've been following? Where was her growth? None of her relationships felt like they grew. And suddenly everything she did before was moot. Her powers - because of her blood. Her skills - because of blood. Her compassion &choice to follow the light - because of her choosing to be the new skywalker heir. 

There’s criticism of the movie that argues it’s akin to “fan fiction” and that is has too much fan service. As fans and fan-fiction writers, how do you react to that?

It feels like an insult to fan fiction. Fan fiction generally serves to explore dynamics between characters, subtext, and plot points in ways and usually in deeper meaning than the canon material ever dared to go into. TROS managed to ignore established plot threads and character arcs in favor of half heartedly appealing to as many fans as possible. Savages tormented the actress that played Rose. The movie didn't dare cut her out completely because there are still tons of people that love her. Solution: you could blink and miss her. People sure love their ships and Disney loves sinking them. Also just to hammer home that Finn and Poe are not an option we need to add in some love interests. People want some plot threads linking back to prequel material like force ghosts. Let's just add in some rapid fire narration that didn't satisfy anyone. Kylo is a hot topic so lets: slap a last second redemption on him without going into his back story or seeing him make amends, he heals Rey, gives a smooch for the Reylos, and kill him with no resolution so the people thirsting for his blood since he killed Han are satisfied. And the people that have been yelling about his redemption can't say there wasn't one. Fan fiction writers at least have the audacity to say when they're ignoring canon. TROS keeps acting like they had no other narrative options. 

Tell us about your favorite parts of the fandom. How does the fandom lift you up and embody the best parts of Reylo and Star Wars?

The fan fiction writers and the theorists are my favorites. They look at the material and find new ways of seeing and continuing what's there. Their creativity is inspiring and hopeful. It's always amazing to take part in the fandom with people that truly love the characters.

Are you still writing any Star Wars fanfic? Tell us about it! (Don't forget your Ao3 handle!)

No, not at the moment. I should return to the reylo modern au I started years ago. I outlined all the plot points, unlike what happened with this sequel trilogy....

[attacksoftheclones]

Why We Need to Appreciate Padmé Amidala

In spirit of #SWisagirlthingtoo making its way around Twitter, I thought now would be the perfect time to make a post I’ve been wanting to write for a while. Star Wars up until recently has not given much attention to its heroines, perhaps with the exception of the iconic Princess and General Leia Organa. It is incredibly sad that it has taken this long for the franchise to realise that characters such as Leia, Padmé and Rey (as well as the many animated heroines we have met such as Ahsoka and Hera) have been and will forever continue to be definitive factors in the way many girls have and will grow up.

When it comes to Star Wars, I loved Leia and I love Rey, but they are both not the heroine I connected with. I connected with former Queen and then Senator Padmé Amidala from the highly criticised (although increasingly less so) prequels and then again in the animated series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Any Padmé fan knows that loving her as a character most often means you’ll often be told that in the end she did ‘nothing but cry over Anakin’ or is in no way comparable to her daughter, you’ll find it frustrating that no reference is made to her at all following Episode III and you’ll know that she has little to no presence in merchandising even when you are more than willing to throw coins down Disney’s way for her.

But Padmé deserves to overcome all of the above. Padmé constantly has to battle against both what people expected her to be (arguably a Leia clone) and the often restrictive and limiting definitions of what makes a “strong female character”, especially in pop culture. Regardless, here is why Padmé is such an underappreciated and amazing character.

The Phantom Menace:

Padmé is elected queen at 14 years old, a competent and strong leader wise beyond her years. She was educated in public service from an early age, earning the trust of her people after serving as the Princess of Theed and becoming a junior senatorial adviser upon joining the team of Apprentice Legislators from the age of 8.

She is one of the first people to acknowledge and realise the failures of the Republic (“It is clear to me now that the Republic no longer functions”, “Wake up, Senators, you must wake up!”).

She is brave enough to take part in espionage missions in order to allow herself to take part in both negotiations and the action, as well as to keep herself safe.

When the time comes, she is brave enough to reveal herself as the queen even though it is not asked of her.

It is her idea to form the Gungan Alliance and to try retake Naboo herself. She is able to realise that a diplomatic solution is no longer plausible for her home planet and instead of sitting back and ordering action from the sidelines, she fights alongside her people and risks her life in doing so.

She delivers victory, bringing the two species of Naboo together and liberates her people.

Padmé served the full two terms allowed by Naboo’s laws but was so popular as a leader that her people wanted to amend the constitution in order to allow her to remain queen.

Attack of the Clones:

Padmé continues to serve her people as the representative of Naboo in the Galatic Senate, even as her life continues to be threatened and also after she watches her decoy (and friend) die.

Despite more threats to her safety, Padmé is selfless in going with Anakin to Tatooine to try and save his mother as well as wanting to help and rescue Obi-Wan.

Padmé is prepared to put her career first. She denies her feelings for Anakin right until she believes she is going to die on Geonosis and understandably realises that her career does not have to be the only satisfaction in her life. She accepts that she is entitled and allowed to love, even when Anakin does not share the same luxury.

She decides to become committed to hiding her relationship so that she can continue her duties for the Republic as well as attempting to ensure Anakin is not denied his life as a Jedi.

Her every action is not driven by her love for Anakin. She decides to go rescue Obi-Wan when Anakin argues against it and whilst Anakin and Obi-Wan bickered when chained up on Geonosis, she instead took the time to rescue herself and reach higher ground.

Padmé survived the Battle of Geonosis as a clever politician and as a blaster-weilding fighter whilst many other Jedi and trained clones died. She proves again that she can fight.

The Clone Wars:

Padmé essentially becomes a hero through her politics.

We see more of her in action in the Senate, particularly in the episode The Pursuit of Peace where she gives an unforgettable speech. “Who are we fighting for? My people, your people, all of our people. This war is meant to save them from suffering, not increase it. I support our brave soldiers whether they come from the clone factories or from any of the thousands of systems loyal to the Republic… It is our duty and our responsibility to preserve the lives of those around us.” The full version can be found on Youtube.

Padmé continues to be the target of further assassination attempts but continues to expand her power and influence nonetheless.

Padmé cleverly earns the attention of the galaxy’s most important players and is able to come to adaptable and sufficient compromises with them despite differences in beliefs and alliances.

Missions with Ahsoka!!

She again does not let her decisions be influenced or driven by Anakin. When Anakin does not want her to go on a mission he deems to dangerous in the episode Senate Spy, she replies “You’re not going to let me? It’s not your decision to make, it’s mine”. Padmé puts her duty to the Republic first, even when it bothers Anakin on multiple occasions.

She is brave enough to leave Anakin when he violently attacks Rush Clovis, whom she had been previously romantically linked with.

Revenge of the Sith:

Yes, many of her scenes where she is active in the early formations of the Rebel Alliance are cut and we will never forgive George Lucas 5eva. The original ending where she attempts to assassinate Anakin also would have been awesome. This movie is where Star Wars fails Padmé, but her role in it still can not be ignored.

Padmé is able to question the state of the Republic when many around her are too afraid to in fear of accepting what it may truly mean – “What if the democracy we thought we were serving no longer exists and the Republic has become the very evil we’ve been fighting to destroy?”

She recognises that Palpatine has gained too much power in the Senate upon becoming Emperor and reorganising the Republic into the Empire, famously stating “so this is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause”. This leads her to form the early stages of the Rebel Alliance that would ultimately become a deleted scene but should still be considered canon.

Once learning all that Anakin has done, Padmé states that he is “going down a path [she] can not follow”. She is not blinded by love and is able to see his actions for what they are and who he has now become. He ultimately destroyed everything she had worked so hard to preserve.

Whatever way you want to believe Padmé died, she went through unimaginable heartbreak and her emotions should not totally be criticised because her pain will never be understood by most. People also often fail to realise that Padmé’s fate is also that of the Republic. She was fated to die with it as she was symbolic of its spirit. I think it is fair to say that she was never destined to live past the birth of Luke and Leia (despite that one line from Leia in Return of the Jedi which can be argued for) as Vader would never have been fully committed to being Palpatine’s apprentice with Padmé around and her future would have had to have been reduced to one of hiding.

It is Padmé that instills the hope and kindness in Luke that allows him to refuse the dark side and resurface the last bit of humanity left in Anakin/Vader. Luke does not win over his father through combat or power but through embodying the eternal impression of light that his mother left on his father. Like his mother, Luke knows that fighting, or ‘aggressive negotiations’, will not always be the answer. A New Hope is ultimately a product of Padme’s legacy.

I know myself that I would not be the person I am today without my favourite female characters. Through female characters, as girls we can feel as though we have defeated great evils, overcome inner conflicts and sometimes even get to save the boys for a change. We might not be able to pick up a blaster or lightsaber in real life, but we learn it’s okay to take charge and that there is absolutely no reason we should feel ashamed for doing so. We learn that we can aim for and strive for any goal whilst also feeling confident and every bit capable to get the guy on the side if we wish to and that having such feelings should not be seen to diminish our strength in any way.

Padmé carried the weight of her gender throughout the entirety of the prequel trilogy and for that reason alone she was never going to please everyone. She was the new female lead and many hoped she would be a character who was along the lines of being Force sensitive or perhaps even a pilot like Rey. But Padmé’s strength was in being kind when she had every reason not to be and was a force to be reckoned with through her intelligence and diplomacy that helped preserve the security and stability of the Republic for as long as it was able to stand under Palpatine’s manipulative rule. She was the humanitarian the galaxy needed when it began to lose all humanity.

Many people who grew up watching the prequels first probably connect with Padmé more because they never tried to fit her into a mould or an already established idea. But I do hope that fans of any age can come to recognise that Padmé is as worthy of being centre stage in the Star Wars arena as any other female character and I truly hope Forces of Destiny can help bring that about. Of course we need more representation in the Star Wars universe and I will never deny that, but I am lucky enough that I did gain a character from Star Wars that I adore so much. I also appreciate that these female characters can be every bit important to male fans as they are to female fans and any male fan that is able to appreciate our heroines as equal to our heroes is helping fandom and pop culture take a step in a better direction than it has in the past.

[aion-rsa]

WandaVision: What Is Nexus?

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This article contains WandaVision spoilers.

We got at least one big reveal in the seventh episode of Marvel’s WandaVision, and though it was indeed a key turning point that we’d been expecting since the series began, it wasn’t quite what some fans hoped for. There are still two episodes to go, however, and we suspect there might be more huge reveals left to come, and yet more wild commercials that many of us will spend hours picking apart.

The commercial in episode 7 was for an antidepressant called Nexus. The term “Nexus” has ties to the established MCU and Marvel Comics, and we’re here to talk you through what you need to know about the ramifications Nexus might have in both WandaVision and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, for which WandaVision essentially acts as a prequel series.

So, let’s get down to business!

The Avengers: Age of Ultron Connection

Avengers: Age of Ultron has been referenced heavily in WandaVision to date and, yes, there is a Nexus connection to be found in the 2015 blockbuster that properly introduced us to both Wanda and Vision. In Age of Ultron, NEXUS is an internet hub in Oslo that Tony Stark visits when he’s tracking Ultron’s attempts to get nuclear codes. When Stark arrives at NEXUS, he finds that JARVIS has survived Ultron’s attacks by scattering himself on the internet.

Is the commercial a random reference to AoU’s NEXUS internet hub? Perhaps, but the Nexus ad voiceover is very telling, and speaks to a much larger reveal on the horizon:

“Feeling depressed? Like the world goes on without you? Do you just want to be left alone? Ask your Doctor about Nexus, a unique antidepressant that works to anchor you back to your reality, or the reality of your choice. Side effects include: feeling your feelings, confronting your truth, seizing your destiny, and possibly more depression. You should not take Nexus until your Doctor has cleared you to move on with your life. Nexus: because the world doesn’t revolve around you. Or does it?”

When we last saw Wanda Maximoff in Avengers: Endgame, she was just starting to grieve the loss of Vision, but we now know exactly how unhealthy Wanda’s grieving process was, and it was probably made that much worse when she found out about SWORD Director Hayward’s Vision-tampering CATARACT project.

Wanda admits she created Westview as a result, but still isn’t quite sure how she did it, and even in the often idyllic world of Westview she hasn’t really been able to block out her depression. In fact, it appears to be overwhelming her a little more with each passing episode, and that’s never been more evident than in episode 7, “Breaking the Fourth Wall,” where Wanda uncovers the truth about who has been behind some of the most nefarious magic in The Hex: nosy neighbor Agnes, aka iconic Marvel Comics witch Agatha Harkness.

The Marvel Comics Connection

What does the Nexus ad truly tell us about where this is leading? The medication certainly appears to be a rather ‘unique’ antidepressant in the surreal realm of WandaVision because it promises to stop the patient suppressing their depression and loss rather than help them dull those feelings, but in a very real sense “Nexus” could bring Wanda back to reality and fully establish her role in Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe – and it probably will involve help from a very specific Doctor!

See, in Marvel Comics, the Nexus refers to the Nexus of All Realities, and it’s quite different to its underwhelming MCU internet hub counterpart. First appearing in 1972’s Fear #11, the Nexus forms a cross-dimensional gateway that provides access to all possible realities and is a place where all the realities of the multiverse intersect. Wanda Maximoff herself is often referred to as a Nexus Being, a multiversal anchor who serves to protect us from threats outside our reality.

As the ad says, Nexus works to either “anchor you back to your reality,” or one of Wanda’s choosing, like The Hex. Wanda could be about to discover that the reason why she suddenly had so much control over reality is because she is a Nexus Being connected to the powerful mystical node that provides access to anywhere in the grand multiverse. If so, it’s only a matter of time before Wanda’s Doctor – Doctor Strange, that is – shows up to try and prevent things deteriorating in Westview even further.

To be honest, since it’s already confirmed that Strange and Wanda get caught up in the ‘Multiverse of Madness’ in Sam Raimi’s upcoming Doctor Strange sequel, we’re not entirely convinced that the pair will be able to deal with the Nexus’ existence on Earth all that smoothly, but WandaVision is almost definitely heading for a huge, big budget MCU-style climax over the next two weeks with at least one huge cameo in the offing.

The excitement is real.

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from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3qAiRmh

[thebastardofgloucester]

all the posts collating reactions to The Empire Strikes Back or writing mock Rotten Tomatoes reviews to imply that the criticisms of this film aren’t worth paying attention to are just…so missing the point

exactly two works that said what ‘Star Wars’ was existed at the time of Empire’s release in 1980: Star Wars (not yet renamed ‘A New Hope’) and Alan Dean Foster’s 'Splinter of the Mind’s Eye’ (a sequel written in case Star Wars was a flop that could be filmed on a shoestring budget and without Harrison Ford. It’s Wild and puts the lie to the idea that Lucas had any idea where the Skywalker story was going; highly recommend)

in the year of our Lord 2017, The Last Jedi was released as the third film in a revival of a six film, single creative vision franchise, with the added baggage of over two decades of novels, comics, video games, and other media (the only thing ever fully expelled from canon was the infamous holiday special, which, honestly, had greater creative merit than some of the stuff that got to stay)

what’s the point? Expectations. No, not people who didn’t want anything to change and are Mad About It or whatever facile narrative the authors of those blog posts and reviews are using to explain why this film is probably more divisive than the goddamn prequels. The problem is that not only does The Last Jedi clash with decades of fandom, it is even at loggerheads with its sister films in this particular revival. and it doesn’t get the same benefit of the doubt that ESB got because that’s not how franchises and fandoms actually work. you don’t get to ignore everything that came before to tell your own story. they have to work together. 

Sure, not everybody read the EU (and trust me some of them are better off for it). But almost everybody saw The Force Awakens, most of them saw Rogue One, and a fair number of them, old and young fans alike, eagerly consumed the New EU content that offered glimpses into how the events of The Force Awakens came about and what mysteries were set up in what was effectively a reboot rather than a sequel. Generally, you know, regardless of how much you hate 'puzzleboxes,’ it is reasonable to expect that what one film sets up will have a payoff in the next, particularly when the first film takes such care to be sensitive to what the fans want (as JJ and Kasden did with TFA) - because while this is a money faucet for Disney, sure, there’s no point in bringing this franchise back without those fans (and of course, their kids) - and what they got from Rian and the Lucasfilm story team was…a confirmation that they had been wasting their time. It’s all well and good to pull the rug out from under the audience (as this film does incessantly) but it’s cynical bullshit to basically bait them with promo material and the preceding canon and then to deliver on basically nothing and expect everyone to just be okay with it. This film effectively penalizes the people who cared the most and spent the most time engaging with The Force Awakens and rewards people who may not have really been here for what Lucas was selling to begin with. As one review put it, it ‘does not care what you think about Star Wars’.

But when you set expectations as deliberately as Kennedy and the Lucasfilm Story Group did in JJ and Kasden’s TFA, it’s not great writing to blow them to pieces mid-narrative. It’s just lazy. the idea that Rey has no connection to the Skywalker line? a good idea, potentially, but clumsily executed, as it is played out less as an important revelation and more an excuse to not actually give any kind of answer to how Rey came to be Ben’s equal on the Light (or why she even is ‘Light’ honestly; I love Angry Rey but there’s seemingly no danger in her temptation) or where she got a skill set rivaled in this franchise only by literal Space Jesus Anakin Skywalker. Snoke is a one-noted villain; having him be betrayed by Kylo in the midst of his own villain arc? a very good idea. it belongs as the climax of the film, not the end of act 2 so there is no time for anything to breathe, just more never-ending crises and hardship.

Like, spare me the 'force visions are unreliable’ (Rey’s was unlike anything we had seen before, it wasn’t Anakin’s nightmare or Luke on Dagobah) bs; the film didn’t say that what Rey saw was wrong for x reason, it just pretended that it never happened and Rey didn’t say anything about it); spare me ‘our heroes have to fail and sometimes all the plans don’t work out’ we know that, we live in the real world of 2017 but while making your clever point you have wasted the presence of three extremely talented actors of color, and let down the audiences waiting for a chance to see people who look like them be the heroes for once. instead it turns out they didn’t actually matter all that much, but maybe next film! 

It’s not clever. It’s not visionary. It’s cheap, it’s cowardly, and it isn’t actually that original because the film leaves us exactly where we expected. Poe is the leader and Leia’s heir to command, Finn is a newly-committed Rebel brimming with unrealized potential, Rey is a Jedi character (amorphously defined) who we know exactly as much about as we started, Luke is gone, even if he went out in pretty spectacular fashion, Carrie’s death means that Leia will be leaving us soon, and Kyle Ben has become the big bad. That’s the only real development - Snoke’s death and Ben’s rejection of his redemption - and it’s buried under Rey, our erstwhile heroine, being a vehicle for the villain’s character development. The only character this film particularly cares about is a white fascist who gets every chance to be redeemed and rejects them while the film expects us to keep caring. 

So, yeah. People are mad. Not because of the same ‘the series is changed forever now’ shit that the haters of ESB were on about. Because the real changes? Ben being the real villain, the smallfolk of the galaxy being the source of light and conduits of the Force? I don’t see anyone complaining all that hard about them. 

the complaints are about the damage done to beloved characters for…not all that much of a payoff. the misuse and marginalization of the characters of color. the disdain with which the script treats the nostalgia of the Force Awakens. the unrelenting pace of the film that just grinds the Resistance (and the audience) down and just tells them to trust us, even as more and more and more is taken away. Rey’s parentage isn’t the only thing cast aside - promises of developments in Finn’s story - his identity, his potential to cause a revolt in the First Order, even his force sensitivity (you want a force user from nothing? how about a child soldier from a nameless family who as we are continually reminded used to be on sanitation crew) - are broken. Rey has her dream of family taken away…and replaced with…well the film doesn’t really bother to say because she’s a plot device for most of act 3. We don’t get to see her reject Ren and leave him. Because this isn’t her story; it’s his. Kylo is unconscious, so the scene is over. Tell me how that is a satisfying arc for our erstwhile protagonist? Poe’s character is completely uprooted from what we’ve seen before to make him an obnoxious hotheaded menace whose emotions threaten the survival of the Resistance if two old white women aren’t able to keep him in check. Rose says a lot and gets to do almost nothing. Luke…Luke is torn down to justify the fall of Ben Solo, never given the chance to establish a meaningful bond with his erstwhile successor, and is only given the chance to atone by acting as a diversion to give the others time to escape. he dies alone, a failure, even if he is at peace with how things turned out.

last year we were shown a movie in the wake of one of the more traumatic political events in the life of the people on this website where a diverse and sympathetic cast fight hard and are entirely wiped out. But their deaths come in a spectacular and charged finale that carries the desperation and grief and pathos through into the beginning of the story we know and love. it all feels worth something. Rogue One has its flaws as a film but it comes together in a way that The Last Jedi does not. In the end, what Jyn and Cassian and the others do is just enough to get the plans away, to start the sequence of events that will lead to the Empire’s destruction.

Here?

there’s just not enough left. not enough of the Resistance, not enough story, not enough hope. 

to have that hope repeatedly stripped away and cynically exploited through a narrative that drags the characters from crisis to crisis without bothering to justify itself or its role in the story (while retreading the highlights of Episodes V and VI without the emotional depth to back them up), and in so doing wears down the audience as much as the characters is not why I have devoted so much of my life and emotional energy to this series about space wizards and their galaxy-destroying family squabbles and eventual chance for redemption. for all his many, many faults, George Lucas understood that.

you can’t just talk about hope. sooner or later you have to see it. You have to feel that what you are suffering will be worth it. The text needs to tell you as much. it’s clumsy and cliched and it is necessary. In the Empire Strikes Back, after Han is captured and Luke is beaten, the turning point is Lando. Lando changes the course of the movie, rescuing Leia and Chewie, who rescue Luke. They live to fight another day, and at the end they are wounded but among friends. 

the moment in The Last Jedi where that could have happened was when Leia’s signal went out. How terrific would it have been if after being betrayed by a scoundrel the original scoundrel with a heart of gold, Lando Calrissian, arrives at the head of a fleet made up of all the alien races so inexplicably missing from the sequel trilogy so far, fending off the First Order long enough for the Resistance to escape with most of the survivors on Crait?

But Rian had to have one last twist of the knife. so nobody came. only Luke, and only as a distraction to buy time that ultimately cost him his life and reduced his legacy to giving everything to atone for his past sins. there is no Lando moment. there is no turning point, no moment where a larger victory is hinted at. and no, a single stable boy far, far away from the war is not the same thing. It makes an interesting point about the force and the metanarrative of Star Wars. It is not what this film needed after everything it put its characters and audience through.

and so at the end I’m not hopeful. I’m just tired. So, very tired. And I miss what made me fall in love with this series about space wizards and the Skywalker family in the first place

[luciferofthesouthpole]

My Shitty Anime Masterpost

alright so this is mostly just for myself and @twilight--fades bc i can never fucking remember what i’ve watched or what it was even abt in the first place and also to turn my best friend into a weeb. most of it’s yuri or has rlly gay subtext aside from a few.

just a disclaimer these are all my personal opinions and i’ve no doubt that i’ve given some of these shows ratings they don’t deserve. also a 10/10 rating for Gay means that it’s canon and has been explicitly established in the show. anything short of that means that it’s still considered subtext and not confirmed by either the show itself or the ppl who worked on it.

Senki Zesshou Symphogear (aka symphogay)

Senki Zesshou Symphogear (戦姫絶唱シンフォギア - translated as Superb Song of the Valkyries: Symphogear) is a sci-fi series about Gay Magical Girl Warriors who use Power Armor fueled by The Power of Rock to battle Eldritch Abominations (from r/symphogear).  that’s it. that’s the show.

Gay: 9/10  Personal rating: 11/10 (please i beg you all to watch this it’s amazing)

Kill la Kill

i honestly can’t even remember much abt this other than the fact that there’s a shit ton of fanservice and the animation/art is rlly good.  the story was decent although it’s confusing in the beginning.

Gay: just don’t   Personal Rating: 7/10

Little Witch Academia

super cute and heartwarming. animated by Trigger, like Kill la Kill, except this does like a 180 and has basically 0 fanservice. the first half is slice of life while the second half has much more drama and plot. all the girls are likeable and have very distinct personalities and i love them all.

Gay: 7/10 (mostly subtext but you don’t have to look too hard)   Personal Rating: 8/10

Love Live! School Idol Project

high school anime abt a group of girls who become idols to save their school from getting shut down. mostly slice of life, but there’s enough drama in there to keep the plot going.  good music and rlly pretty art. the concerts/songs are 3D animated, but its not too bad; just very noticeable. (can’t remember too much abt this since i binge watched it a while ago)

Gay: 5/10 (subtext but you rlly have to squint to see it)  Personal Rating: 7/10

Love Live! Sunshine!!

sequel spin-off to love live. the plot of the 1st season basically follows the original which is kinda boring, but it’s not bad enough to make you stop watching the show. i personally like the cast for sunshine more than the original, but that’s just me. the 3D animation improves a lot and i sometimes couldn’t tell btwn the two when i first started watching this. this has more slice of life in it with the plot being kind of a background thing, but stuff does still happen.

Gay: 7/10 (more obvious w/ this one but still subtext)  Personal Rating: 8/10

Konohana Kitan

gay fox spirits help run an inn, basically. p much all slice of life and while it may seem boring at first, the themes for the episodes are rlly heartwarming and will give you feels. art is rlly pretty and the characters are cute too.

Gay: 9.5/10   Personal Rating: 8.5/10

Sakura Trick

best friends turned lovers kind of thing. its a high school slice of life anime so don’t expect too much out of it. there’s quite a bit of kissing but all of it is rlly eroticized for some fucking reason???? so im just conflicted abt all of it. other than that i actually rlly like the art style.

Gay: 10/10   Personal Rating: 6/10

Yuru Yuri

slice of life but very fluffy and cute. i can’t remember too much abt this one but there were some p funny moments and definitely a lot of adorable ones. (yes this is the one where our personal disc server icon is from)

Gay: 8/10 (subtext but it’s fairly obvious)   Personal Rating: 7.5/10

Puella Magi Madoka Magica

meguca is suffering

Gay: 9.9/10  Personal Rating: 9.5/10

Strawberry Panic

this one is an oldy but still good.  it’s a high school anime with a lot of drama but all the gay in it is canon.  a little frustrating to watch bc you’re gonna spend the whole time yelling at your screen for the girls to just get together already.

Gay: 10/10   Personal Rating: 6.5/10 (i’m honestly not a fan of high school anime hence the low rating, but it’s still good; one of those yuri anime you watch to get into the genre since its very well done)

Kannazuki no Miko (Priestesses of the Godless Month)

(this isn’t cover art like what i’ve done w/ the other ones but this pic is way too iconic to not use)

oh boy this one. i have a love/hate relationship w/ this one bc on one hand its absolute garbage but on the other hand the ending completely makes up for it. like, this fits into the sun and moon trope perfectly and i’m weak for that shit. the pacing is p bad and you have a forcefully inserted boring male love interest cock-blocking my lesbians the whole time. but god that last fucking episode makes all the pain and suffering worth it because its SO. FUCKING. GAY.

Gay: 10/10   Personal Rating: 7/10 (i’m giving this a much higher rating than it deserves and it’s only bc of the last episode and the fact that it has my two favorite things: mecha and lesbians)

Akuma no Riddle

lesbian assassins. that’s it.

Gay: 9.5/10 (canon in the manga but the subtext is obvious in the anime)  Personal Rating: 7.5/10 (Note: i went back and skimmed through the manga ending bc when i initially started reading it, the last volume hadn’t been released yet. that said, i recommend watching the anime then reading the manga if you want even more gay bc it is canon and way more explicit abt it in the manga.)

Candy Boy

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Gay: 10/10   Personal Rating: no

Citrus

i know this hasn’t come out yet, but i’m caught up in the manga. the art is very good, both in the manga and from what i’ve seen in the anime PV’s. high school drama but it’s actually not bad (also they’re step-sisters so it’s some weird pseudo incest thing   ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ) 

Gay: 10/10   Personal Rating: for the manga - 8/10 (i’ll update/change this when the anime comes out and finishes its season)

Princess Principal

lesbian spies in victorian london. i love the aesthetic of this anime but it’s one downside is a lack of a solid plot. it’s very vague for most of it except for the last few episodes. characters are likeable and interesting with diverse backstories. this one does get a dark at times and pulls in a lot of real world issues. (note: the episodes are not in chronological order so things may seem confusing at first and you’ll have a bunch of questions, but everything p much gets answered at one point. i recommend watching the episodes in release order and then in chronological order so you get fully acquainted to everything initially then are able to pick up on anything you missed the first time.)

Gay: 8.5/10   Personal Rating: 8/10

Izetta: The Last Witch 

just look at the cover it’s already gay. in a nutshell, gay witch helps her princess gf win a war by using her op magic. this is more of an action/war anime but the gay is very prominent and one of the main focuses of the show. the story wasn’t too bad and falls on a few cliches; nothing too bad and interesting enough to keep you watching.

Gay: 9/10   Personal Rating: 7/10

Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid

yeah let’s just ignore the title. slice of life w/ some comedy. there’s not much to it, but it’s a nice fluffy anime to watch. this was actually better than i thought it’d be and way more gay than what i expected, too. (just a warning: there is a shit ton of fanservice in this one and some weird ass loli and maid stuff so watch at your own risk)

Gay: 9.5/10 (it’s glaringly obvious and p in your face but idk if it’s actually canon) Personal Rating: 7.5/10

Katana Maidens ~ Toji no Miko 

this one honestly surprised me (in a good way); i thought it would be one of those anime that had a creative concept at the start but ends up disappointing bc of bad writing but this wasn’t the case for toji no miko. there’s nothing amazing about this, but it’s a p good anime to watch if you want some action. (note: one problem i have w/ this is that there are so many characters in this that it’s hard to keep track of all of them) (note 2: this is a 2 cour anime so i may or may not change my rating when it ends)

Gay: 7.5 (literally every character in this show is female except for some one’s grandpa so there’s a shit ton of shipping material) Personal Rating: 8/10

Yuru Camp△

one word: comfy slice of life anime abt winter camping. this anime is one of the most relaxing things i have ever watched and never failed to brighten up my day. good music, good humor, and a cute cast of characters.

Gay: 6.5/10   Personal Rating: yuru camp cured my depression, cleared my skin, and actually made me want to leave my room for once 10/10

Yuuki Yuuna wa Yuusha de Aru (Yuki Yuna Is a Hero)

meguca is suffering 2.0 this is honestly a very good successor the pmmm and i highly recommend it if you hate yourself enough to endure all the pain again. (note: watch the original show, the prequel, then the 2nd season in that order)

Gay: 9/10 (was originally 8/10 but Togo exists and she is one of the biggest lesbian ever) Personal Rating: 9/10

and w/ that, i’m done w/ all the “yuri” anime (subtext or actual canon). the rest of these are from all kinds of genres and basically anything i’ve actually really enjoyed and recommend to anyone regardless of what they prefer to watch.

Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion

kind of a classic and an anime a lot of ppl first watch when getting into anime. its a mecha anime thats all 2D/hand animated so that’s already a huge plus for me. there’s quite a bit of fanservice, unfortunately. from what i remember the plot was p solid and complex. def one of my favorite anime of all time.

Personal Rating: 9/10

Steins;Gate

this is rlly good but also rlly depressing. it starts of fairly slow (mostly the 1st half), but when it picks up, shit goes down.

Personal Rating: 8.5/10

Houseki no Kuni (Land of the Lustrous)

ok, so this is actually all 3D/CG animated, BUT it pulls it off amazingly well. this is how you 3D animate an anime. the environment and characters look absolutely stunning and the animation is actually fluid and very good. the plot is a little vague and just goes in a general direction, but shit happens to constantly keep you on the edge of your seat. characters are likeable and have a wide range of personalities.

Personal Rating: 9/10

The Ancient Magus’ Bride ( Mahoutsukai no Yome)

everything about this anime is amazing: the art, the animation, the characters, the story.  i honestly have nothing bad to say about this one. definitely a must watch for everyone. it’s kinda fucked up, but still amazing and you rlly feel for the characters. unfortunately, the 1st cour is a lot stronger than the 2nd one in terms of writing and starts to fall flat and a little frustrating to watch. aside from that, it would have been a perfect 10 for me.

Personal Rating: 9/10 

Made in Abyss

the world-building and environments in this anime are fantastic and i love it. the art is gorgeous and the animation is very fluid. warning: don’t let the cover fool you, this gets p fucked up later on. the majority of the cast are children so there’s some perverted jokes abt them that try to come off as comedic relief but it’s only just uncomfortable for everyone.

Personal Rating: 9.5/10

Pop Team Epic

this anime is literally just one giant fucking meme

Personal Rating: i honestly don’t even know anymore

Girls’ Last Tour

kind of slice of life abt two girls who are exploring the post-apocalyptic world they live in. very atmospheric anime that always gives a bittersweet feeling. there isn’t much of a plot bc it focuses a lot on, i guess, mundane everyday things but through a unique perspective. definitely gives you something to think abt.

Personal Rating: 8/10

Violet Evergarden

an absolutely beautiful anime. art is gorgeous and the animation is one of the most fluid things i have ever watched. this is fairly depressing and each episode will make you cry. the main character is so well written and character development for her is A+.

Personal Rating: 9.5/10

this is what i have so far and i’ll most likely add things when i end up remembering them and watching more

New anime (Spring 2018): i’m gonna put any new anime that has caught my eye in the current anime season, mostly so i can keep track of what i’m watching and determine if they should be added to the list once they’ve finished airing. i won’t put any ratings or cover; it’s just a list for the sake of organization.

toji no miko darling in the franxx uma masume: pretty derby (horse girl anime) megalo box mahou shoujo site Saredo Tsumibito wa Ryuu to Odoru gundam build divers tachibanakan triangle steins;gate 0

[theinquisitivej]

‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ - My Spoiler Filled Thoughts on its Characters

When I watched Star Wars: The Last Jedi a week ago, I came out unsure. I thought one or two of the plot threads were little more than busywork to provide something to do for the characters who were at a loose end. There were one or two things that didn’t quite add up. But I thought the themes were fascinating, the performances top notch, and several moments immediately established themselves as striking and iconic scenes that we would remember for a long time. It was a mixed bag, and I knew that I needed to let this one sit, until the conflict within me felt resolved, in some way.

         That was only a week ago, but it feels much longer. I know that Star Wars is simply a collection of films, like any other; they’re just as capable of being flawed, being very good even if it doesn’t reach the heights of being a masterpiece, or, dare I say it, even a little bit of both. But even with that consideration, the film occupied my thoughts. I was always going to think about a new Star Wars film for a long time (case in point, I still have regular conversations about the prequels), but this felt different. Much like The Last Jedi, I was confronted with both familiar ideas and unknown territory. I thought about how this new Star Wars story played with many of the tropes we all know and love, but also challenged and recontextualised them. As I considered the film over the last seven days, I thought more about its themes, and less about the gaps in logic that felt like they technically didn’t make sense. To put it another way, I grew to love the merits of The Last Jedi more and more, while I cared less and less about its weaknesses.

         If you are looking for a well-articulated negative take on this film, I’m afraid I can’t give it to you. I have a lot of love for this movie, even though there are a handful of things that bug me about the storytelling logic here or there. A film can have imperfections but still be taken to heart if the individual feels the areas it succeeds in are done with enough sincerity and conviction to back it up, and I feel The Last Jedi has more than enough of it to make it stand out for me. It feels like a worthy instalment in a series that, at its best, can be really darn special. It’s difficult for me to fully understand responding to this film with absolute hatred and disgust, because I honestly do love it that much. But I can sympathise with those feeling uncertain after watching this film, and can see how many people will come out of that feeling let down, or concluding that, after much consideration, the film was a bit weak.

         But the responses are never that diplomatic or level-headed, are they? I’ve seen far too many responses that appear to be based on projection or demanding expectations that want instant gratification. If they don’t get that gratification, they get angry, and direct that anger in ways that feel hateful and ugly, rather than constructive or considerate. I don’t mean to say that you, dear reader, are obligated to love, like, dislike, or hate this movie. I especially don’t want to imply that anyone possessing issues with this film resembles the onslaught of shitty people that have come out to spew their bile filled opinions that just so happen to be about a movie. My point is simply that there is plenty of dislike you can turn to if you want that, but I have little of it to offer.

Let’s go through this character by character, shall we? Oh, and spoilers from here on out.

Rey

         In a cast of characters that I argue are all richly developed between these first two movies, with each one being brought to life by some wonderful talent, Rey is a strong centre for this new trilogy. Daisy Ridley has the power to sell her character as driven and full of believable determination, but also grounds Rey with a likeable sense of fun and comedic delivery.  Her visual design continues to impress, as her costumes seem to somehow blend with her stance to make the way she looks as she composes herself very characteristically distinct, and her three hair buns only make her all the more memorable and easy to pick out if you saw her in a range of character silhouettes.

         Even though it was clear that Rey was starting some kind of hero’s journey in Force Awakens, it was difficult to know exactly where she was heading before. Now, the bitter disappointment she’s faced by acknowledging that her parents were nobody has not only made her journey seem clear, but has put her character into a new light. Rey’s strong connection to the force has been criticised as Mary Sue-ish, but I think this is in line with her characterisation. She was left on a barren planet with no one to look to for comfort, and surrounded herself with various totems and treasures that reminded her of the stories she loved so much. To me, this demonstrates a deeper desire to be a part of something greater. She wants to be like Luke, Leia, and Han, and be in a grand narrative where your place in the universe seems so clear. After emotionally reaching out all her life to an unseen world she could never physically touch but always believed in and felt, is it any wonder she’s developed a strong ability to connect with the Force?

         But instead of concluding that it was by her own merits that she developed this ability, she considers the possibility of some hidden inheritance, that her unknown parents were important people that passed their gifts on to her. She’s so desperate for a connection, whether it’s to an idealised dream of her mystery parents, the stories she puts so much stock in, or simply anything, that, when she’s confronted with the reality that her past is a full stop leading to nothing, it hurts her. I think Alex Shaw of School of Movies hit the nail on the head in his video when he said that one of the film’s central themes is this simple premise: “get used to disappointment”. Not many mainstream stories explore this idea, because it’s a hard thing to accept. We face it so often in life, and yet when stories end with some feelings of disappointment still remaining, that hits us hard, and we don’t always know how to handle that. This is a powerful and challenging step in Rey��s story. But although she feels disheartened, the mirror reveals that, while she has no parents to look to for comfort, all the power she has comes from her own character, her determination and drive. This is an empowering concept, and I believe that realisation will come later for Rey as she continues along her journey.

 Ben / Kylo Ren

         Kylo Ren is continuing to surprise me in the best possible way as a complex villain who you can fear, laugh at, care for, and pity all at once. If Rey’s disappointment stems from finally accepting that her parents abandoned her for no grand purpose, then Ben’s disappointment comes from the masters who have failed him in different ways. Snoke recognises his raw potential, but heaps the expectations of the past on Ben’s shoulders, chastising him for not living up to them and wearing a mask, even as he says he expects him to act like Darth Vader. Luke was responsible for protecting Ben when he was young, scared, and confused. Instead of helping him through his anger, Luke let his terror and rejection of Ben’s darker impulses show, and Ben will never feel more betrayed then he did in that moment. As much as he resents Snoke, I suspect he hates Luke more for being the one who pushed him into that situation.

         As sad as we feel for Ben not taking his chance to begin making amends and start to heal himself, and as much as he represents the real damage that angry young men can do when they feel hurt, I love that you still have the chance to laugh at Kylo Ren’s behaviour. At each viewing, the audience I was with got a huge laugh out of the look he gave General Hux when he pointlessly repeats Ben’s orders that just says “…dude, what are you doing”, as well as the unblinking compliance of the pilot landing the ship when he understands that the Supreme Leader is having one of his usual tantrums when he slams Hux against the wall. I can’t get enough of his awkwardly intense refusal to put a shirt on when he’s Force Skyping Rey. These are all moments that make you enjoy Ben’s character, even though you understand the tragedy of his journey.

 Finn

         John Boyega’s energy continues to make Finn and his interaction with the various environments he makes his way through engagingly fun. But after my first viewing, I did wonder what the significance of his storyline was. I couldn’t discern what development he had gone through, and his character didn’t advance the general storyline. He didn’t meet up with Rey, he didn’t reach the master codebreaker, he failed in his mission to disable the tracker onboard the Star Destroyer, and didn’t prevent the battering ram cannon from breaking down the base gates. His best efforts failed to meaningfully affect the progression of events. But, as I keep saying, this film is about failure and disappointment. Finn’s journey being a series of unsuccessful attempts is in keeping with the film’s themes of confronting failure. As Yoda tells Luke, failure is important, most of all, and his words are as applicable to Finn’s story as they are to Luke’s.

         But apart from the central theme of failure, what specific development does Finn get that’s unique to him? It’s not blatant, and Finn’s development is oddly subdued for someone so prominent in the film, but I would still say it’s there. Finn has finally decided what he wants to fight for. He starts by trying to escape, meet up with Rey, and run away and abandon this fight, which is exactly what he was trying to do all throughout Force Awakens. At most, Finn’s fight is to do what he can to keep Rey out of harm’s way, which is a slight upgrade from simply looking out for his own survival. But it’s a small, personal fight, and Rose looks down on him for this. When he sees a casino filled with self-made people who have no responsibility to either side of the conflict, Finn sees an ideal place he wants to escape to. It’s only when Rose encourages him to scrutinise his dream that he sees the ugliness hidden beneath it. He gets a taste for doing the right thing by freeing the Fathiers with Rose. Still, his newfound moral compass is brought into question when DJ shows him that the reprehensible casino patrons who sold weapons to the First Order also did so for the Resistance. He’s brought back to an uncertain allegiance when he considers DJ’s stance that the fight between the Resistance and the First Order is a cyclical system that you can opt to stay out of. However, any doubt in his mind is cleared away when he sees DJ betray them in a manner that’s entirely in keeping with the philosophy he shared with Finn earlier. Finn deplores this, deciding that DJ and his outlook are both wrong. His newfound fire is tested and leads to a triumphant declaration that he is indeed “rebel scum”, even being committed enough to the fight to die for it when he charges down the battering ram cannon. There’s a lot of “so what was the point of that?” moments along the path of Finn’s story, and the payoff for his arc isn’t all that grand or explicit to make it immediately obvious whether it was worth it on a first viewing. But I appreciated his development a lot on my second viewing, and don’t mind the sequences on Canto Bight quite as much as a result.

 Poe

         Turning to Poe, his arc is a little clearer. Leia flat out says she needs him to learn to be a leader and stop dashing into costly battles. Seeing Poe do his thing in spectacular fashion at the start is thrilling, but I love that he is forced to develop once his X-Wing blows up, and he is decisively cut off from just falling on old habits. The dynamic between Poe and Vice Admiral Holdo is also a smart way to confront and challenge Poe’s character, and Laura Dern makes her mark on the Star Wars universe with a character that shows us what impact Leia has had. She’s positively affected not just worlds or governments, but people, and that’s a special thing to see. However, try as I might, I do still find it difficult to understand why they didn’t tell Poe the plan earlier. I appreciate that his actions had placed him outside their immediate circle of trust, but there didn’t seem to be any need for secrecy in their plan. As soon as Poe hears the plan to take the smaller transports down to the salt planet, he completely agrees with it. It’s sensible, has the capacity to work, and its success wasn’t dependent on him or anyone else in the Resistance not knowing the full details. So even though I understand the thematic reasoning for them going the way they did, it doesn’t quite make sense for me, so that’s frustrating.

         Still, Poe’s characterisation is solid, and I like the processes he goes through that shows he’s making progress with the example of Holdo and her sacrifice to safeguard the survival of the Resistance. When the opportunity to come to Luke’s aid comes, he thinks it through, and understands the importance of taking this opportunity to escape and survive. At that moment, Leia jokingly says “what are you looking at me for? Follow him!”, and Carrie’s delivery absolutely gets a laugh, but her look of pride afterwards suggests that Leia meant every word. They shouldn’t need her to thrive and carry on, and finding someone to prove that in Poe makes her proud.

Rose

         If you feel Rose is tied too closely to a segment of the film that is meandering and superfluous for her to resonate as strongly as the other characters in this movie, fair enough. If you tell me you hate her more than Jar Jar and that she’s a worthless character, get over yourself. She is vital, because she further expands this cast of characters so it is less and less about the Skywalkers and unfeeling nobles, and instead is increasingly about the connections normal people share, mourn, and protect. I love the strength Rose shows in her efforts to protect people, even though she isn’t a Jedi, a Bounty Hunter, an ex-stormtrooper, or even all that experienced as a soldier in the Resistance. She’s a behind-the-scenes worker, and she’s one of the bravest people in all of Star Wars. Rose is great. I hope we see her more and more, and I hope most of all that her philosophy spreads.

 Luke

         Mark Hamill has delighted me for many things beyond playing Luke in the original trilogy all those years ago. From his passionate and unwavering conviction he openly shows on social media, to his rich legacy of voice acting work with a cavalcade of the most deliciously villainous sounding bad guys, and being a regular on the comforting Regular Show, I’ve been thankful for him and his work for a long time now. Seeing him on top form in a live-action role is so pleasant to experience, but certainly not unexpected. What brings a smile to my face is the thought of someone who’s lost track of Hamill since Return of the Jedi, and then goes on to see him in this and is stunned by taking in the weathered, wizened man he plays so very well.

         But it’s not his humour, his countless scenes that represent the crux of this film’s immensely meaty themes that will make it important for a long, long time that I feel is the highlight of what Luke brings to the table; it’s his final standoff. When I saw the sumptuous shot of a line of the First Order’s mechanical might all poised against the lone figure of Luke, I eagerly awaited some almighty display of the Force, hoping to see a grandmaster decimating and scattering war machines like leaves in the wind. But that wouldn’t be right for what this film is trying to be. It would once again put the focus on Luke by making him superior to all the other good guys combined, diminishing all the characters the film had made me feel so invested in with one motion. Instead, Luke’s almighty Force display isn’t a sledgehammer, but an illusion; a magic trick.

Because Luke is a distraction from what’s important.

         Ben may want to wipe away the past, but he’s so obsessed with it that he fails to grasp the true significance of the present, which is that Luke is not the Resistance. Luke’s appearance even reflects this, as his hair doesn’t resemble what he looks like now, but what he looked like the night he and Ben clashed lightsabres. Luke has made himself look like the man Ben remembers, who he will never get over, even though he won’t exist for much longer. The Resistance, the true thorn in Ben and the First Order’s side, and the ones with the real power to affect the future, are making their escape. Meanwhile, the afterimage of a man with no physical presence or power to affect the present is causing an angry man with an entire army at his disposal to waste his time and flail at nothing. The image of Luke Skywalker, the hero who toppled an Empire, is romantic, and we have invested a great deal into it. But it is dangerous for Ben, and it is dangerous for us to think for a moment that the fight will be won by one person with special blood that was born into greatness, when it will be fought and won by a group of people who have multiple backgrounds that have come together.

 Leia

         I don’t know enough about the technicalities that went into this film’s production to know how much of it would have been filmed and completed before Carrie Fisher passed away, or how much of the final product was affected by a loss that still feels difficult to believe. Whatever the case, it is fortuitous that we got as much as we did of Carrie’s final performance. It’s hard to admit this, but I thought the little we saw of Leia in Force Awakens was a little off the first time I saw it, even though it felt wonderful to see the character again. She didn’t have as much time to develop this new, aged version of Leia as Harrison Ford did as Han, and I found it difficult to interpret what she was like now, how she felt about things, and what sort of approach they were taking with her character going forward.

         But whether it’s the change in director, the fact that we got a lot more time with her on screen, or a combination of the storybeats, tugging at your heartstrings music, and a performance that feels like Carrie was in a comfortable place where she knew exactly how to play the part, the Leia we see in The Last Jedi is exactly what we needed and wanted to see. The way she carries herself makes it plain that this woman is a general, a leader who inspires people and has such gravity that you can’t help but be pulled towards them. It also made all the difference that you could hear the real Carrie Fisher coming through in the delivery, because you at once knew that Leia still wouldn’t take crap from anyone, but was also kind-hearted enough to want the best for the people around her. That is a woman I know people would believe in, follow, and care enough for to fight for the same things that she does. Watching this film makes you unsure if Carrie really ever left, because she feels so alive and with us in this performance. It’s only when the credits roll, and the dedication appears on screen accompanied by an echoing rendition of Leia’s theme that the loss feels achingly real again.

 Conclusion

         You’ve read far enough to know I think this movie’s great. I’m glad I waited before I wrote about this, because I wouldn’t have known what to say a week ago. I know that the people who have a deep hatred for this movie will likely not change their minds, and that’s fine. No one owes anyone anything when it comes to how they feel about a movie. I hope a lot of people do enjoy a film about facing failures and disappointment with reflection and a resolve to make sure you never stop trying to protect what you love, rather than putting all your energy into attacking what you hate, because I’d simply like to see more of that. Putting everything about Star Wars aside, I think any film with that sort of message is worth making and seeing.

9/10.

Filled with a strong host of characters, an appreciation for the old but an eye on the future, and a valuable theme that we are all capable of brave resolve in the face of failure and hate, The Last Jedi is an excellent film. It’s also a pretty decent Star Wars movie too.

[galacticnewsnetwork]

'Star Wars Battlefront II' Story Review

By: Dominic Jones

When it was announced at Star Wars Celebration last April that the sequel to 2015’s disappointing Star Wars Battlefront would feature content from all eras of the Star Wars saga AND a story mode (both of which were lacking in the first game), the response from Star Wars fans was elation.  While the general opinion of the game has been eroded by controversy surrounding some less than popular decisions by developer EA (micro-transactions and whatnot), the game has still made quite the impression on the Star Warscommunity. With the game having been out for a little while now, I wanted to take some time to examine the story of Battlefront II and how well it works as an installment in the Star Wars saga.  This is not a gaming review, so I won’t be talking about gameplay mechanics or micro-transactions, or anything else related to how the game itself works.  There are plenty of great reviews out there that cover that stuff, written by people who are more qualified than I am to talk about it. Instead, I want talk about the story alone.  And yes, this will contain spoilers, so if you haven’t played the game yet (or watched the cutscenes on YouTube)--and want to be surprised when you do--stop reading now. Battlefront II makes a strong impression right off the top, introducing us to Inferno Squad, an elite special forces unit in the Imperial military.  The first mission sees Inferno Squad’s leader Iden Versio captured by the Rebel Alliance, or so we think.  Writers Mitch Dyer and Walt Williams do an excellent job at establishing Iden’s abilities, and we quickly learn she let herself be captured so that she could retrieve a key piece of information that the Rebels don’t yet realize has fallen into their hands.  The information Iden is retrieving is the Emperor’s plan to lure the Rebellion to Endor only to surprise them with the full might of the Imperial navy.

I bring up this first mission for two reasons; first, because of how well it introduces us to Iden and, by extension, the other members of Inferno Squad.  And second, because it demonstrates the way Battlefront II was able to successfully weave itself into the fabric of existing stories in interesting and meaningful ways without compromising the integrity of those other stories.  By having the Rebels come so close to discovering Palpatine’s trap only to have Inferno Squad steal back the information, Dyer and Williams manage to emphasize the skill of Iden and her colleagues in a way that doesn’t feel like it takes anything away from Palpatine’s actions in the films. Battlefront II does this a lot, telling its own story on the edges of pre-existing Star Wars storylines and interacting with them only when it makes sense (mostly).  The game doesn’t cover tons of new ground in Star Wars history, as the trailers might have had you believe.  (It was implied in the trailers that the game would cover a larger portion of the history between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens, with scenes such as Iden giving a speech on Starkiller Base--which doesn’t actually happen).  Instead,  Battlefront II stays mostly within the relatively safe time period between the battle of Endor and the battle of Jakku.  This means the game finds itself crossing over with stories featured in the comic book series Shattered Empire and the Aftermath trilogy of novels.  Again, Dyer and Williams do an excellent job of including Easter Eggs that reward fans who have read the other series, while maintaining an emotional core to the story that is not reliant on outside knowledge. At the At the centre of the Battlefront II story are the bonds between Iden Versio and her fellow Inferno Squad members, Gideon Hask and Del Meeko, as well as Iden’s interactions with her father, Admiral Garrick Versio.  While these relationships are hinted at in the introductory mission, it’s in the game’s second mission--set during the battle of Endor--where they are fully established.  The strength of Battlefront II’s story rests entirely on the strength of its characters, especially Iden and Del.  Their struggle to find their place in the new, post-Palpatine galaxy is what carries the story.  Yes, there are fun appearances from iconic, legacy characters, but those also serve to further Iden and Del’s story, thus escalating the drama of the narrative. The turning point in the story comes a few missions later, when the Empire chooses to wipe out the population of Vardos, Iden and Del’s home planet, despite it being a loyal Imperial world.  Their hesitance to comply puts Iden and Del at odds with Gideon, Garrick, and the rest of the Empire.  Faced with the reality of the Empire’s actions, Iden and Del choose to disobey orders, save some of the population, and defect.  Gideon, on the other hand, chooses to remain loyal.  Inferno Squad is permanently fractured. The defection of Iden and Del defect was not a twist I was expecting and I was pleasantly surprised by it.  I hadn’t even really considered it as a possibility, partially because the trailers implied that we would see Iden join the First Order.  It was probably for the best that the twist did because it kept the game focused on the story of its principle characters, rather than spend too much time on filling in the gaps in Star Wars history.  Plus, as a bonus, this twist opened up opened up some fun moments of interaction between the Inferno Squad members and some iconic, legacy characters in non-confrontational settings.

The unexpected nature Iden and Del's rejection of the Empire does not mean it was unearned.  Looking back on the game’s early missions, both Iden and Del make comments about their displeasure with different aspects of the Empire.  So when the Empire showed its true face on Vardos they were already primed to question its motives.  If you take Christie Golden’s prequel novel, Inferno Squad, into account, it becomes all the more believable.  There were times when reading that novel I found myself wondering if Iden and Del might defect (Del more so than Iden).  Don’t believe me?  Check out the spoiler section of the review I wrote of the novel back in August!  I’m not claiming to have been completely right--shortly after bringing it up back then, I wrote off the possibility of either of them defecting--I mention this now only to point out how well the novel serves to set up the game’s story. Another relationship that the novel Inferno Squad did an excellent job setting up was that of Iden and her father.  In the book, Garrick appears mostly as a cold authority figure in Iden’s life, one with little affection for his daughter outside of her ability to serve the Empire.  At the end of the novel, we get a brief glimpse at his softer side.  The game picks up with their relationship in a slightly (emphasis on slightly) better place than in the novel.  But they are soon at odds again over the Empire’s destruction of Vardos, which ultimately leads to Iden’s defection.  Interestingly, Garrick never really sees Iden’s choice as any sort of personal betrayal.  Perhaps he realizes that the Empire’s time is coming to end. We get a better sense of this during Iden and Garrick’s final meeting during the Battle of Jakku.  Iden, now fully committed to the New Republic, makes a last ditch effort to rescue Garrick aboard his crashing star destroyer.  In this moment, Garrick transforms from the cold authority figure of the novel and most of the game to a tragic character.  In his final moments, Garrick is unmasked as having fought for the Empire not because he believed in it, but only because he knew no other life.  In his own way he praises Iden for getting out, telling her “you deserve to live in peace.”  It’s a heart wrenching goodbye between father and daughter. In addition to adventures with the new characters, Battlefront II also gives us a chance to check in with some legacy characters and see where they’re at in the period immediately following Return of the Jedi.  Generally, the appearances are done very well.  The characters have meaningful impact on the game’s main story of Iden and Del, while also giving it a sense of weight and importance in the Star Wars mythology.  With one exception: Han Solo.

There’s nothing wrong, per se, with the Han Solo mission in Battlefront II.  It gives players a chance to explore Maz Kanata’s castle, an area that didn’t get very much attention in The Force Awakens.  And it was a lot of fun to see Han and Maz interact in this era, given their history (and future).  But Han’s impact on the story of Iden and Del is non-existent.  There is nothing about this mission that adds to the story outside of the excitement of playing as Han Solo. Granted, this is a video game, so perhaps that’s to be expected. But when compared to the other legacy characters it feels like a missed opportunity that Han has no real place in the game’s story, unlike Luke, who plants the idea in Del’s mind that there are alternatives to fighting for the Empire.  Or Lando, as one of the few Rebellion generals who would be willing to accept Iden and Del into their ranks because he knows what it takes to reject the Empire.  Or Leia, who serves to show how the Alliance leadership treats its people as compared the Empire.  But Han is just there for the sake of having Han Solo in the game. My main criticism of the story of Battlefront II is its pacing.  The game starts and ends strong, with moving character moments, plot twists, and intrigue, but there are sections in the middle that lack any significant forward momentum (like the Han Solo section).  It’s hard to get too worked up about this, though, because it is a video game after all, and story has to be factored into the larger equation which includes gameplay.  Because of this, all the missions are approximately the same length, with the result that some of the missions feel like they’re given more time than they’re worth.  For example, while it would be ludicrous to suggest that the mission to save the Imperial shipyards at Fondor is just as important as the Battle of Jakku, nevertheless Battlefront II gives the same screen time to both.  Another problem is that some of the missions don’t really contribute much to the overall story.  The Fondor mission is one example;  Lando’s mission to Sullust and Han’s mission are others.  Had this story been told in a film or a novel, this would probably not have been an issue, but at the end of the day the story had to serve the gameplay experience--which resulted in a  narrative that was stretched rather thin in some places. A couple of other quick points I want to touch on before wrapping things up.  First, I have to say that the dialogue for Luke Skywalker was perfect.  Dyer and Williams  did a superb job at capturing Luke at this point in his life.  He comes across as a character who is at peace and full of hope, which seems just right and yet bittersweet considering where he seems to wind up (“I only know one truth: it’s time for the Jedi to end”). Second, Shriv is a fantastic new character.  He  first appears when Iden and Del surrender to the Rebellion after escaping Vardos, and reluctantly becomes part of their new team.  Shriv steals every scene he’s in with his sarcastic humor, making him a great new addition to the Star Wars galaxy.

Finally, let’s talk about the epilogue with Kylo Ren.  While it was cool to see Kylo interact with Del, still ultimately Kylo’s appearance here felt somewhat perfunctory.  With The Last Jedicoming out next month, it’s clear that the makers of Battlefront II wanted a tie in with the new film, but the manner of Kylo’s injection seems a bit contrived.  And the fact that the scene deals with Kylo searching for Lor San Tekka is also kind of underwhelming at this point.  We know Kylo finds Lor, but unless we’re actually going to learn something about either of them, the search itself isn’t of much interest. What made this scene work for me was not the Kylo Ren appearance, but rather the reveal that Gideon is still alive and now a part of the First Order.  His final scene with Del was brilliantly written and executed (pun intended).  It made this whole epilogue mission worth it.  Now, instead of looking forward to a showdown between Iden and Kylo in the upcoming free DLC, what I’m really excited to see is the reunion of Iden and Gideon.  Given how it played out between Gideon and Del, a scene with Iden promises both high stakes and high drama. And, no I don’t think Rey is Iden and Del’s daughter.  Come on, people. Overall, I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the story of Battlefront II.  I went in expecting a history lesson on what happened between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens.  Instead, I was treated to an emotional story about how two people faced with tragedy and an uncomfortable truth chose to do something about it.  Iden Versio and Del Meeko are worthy additions to the Star Wars pantheon of great heroes.  Is the story perfect? No, at times it suffers from the restraints of its medium.  But it’s still a fun ride mixing classic locations and characters with new ones that feel every bit as important as the icons. You can follow me on Twitter: @DominicJ25

Follow The Star Wars Underworld on Twitter @TheSWU for more updates about this story and other breaking Star Wars news.

Source: Star Wars Underworld

[ramajmedia]

Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Season 1 Ending & Future Explained

Warning! SPOILERS ahead for The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance and The Dark Crystal movie.

The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance season 1's ending not only sets up the events of the original Dark Crystal movie, but it outlines where the series could go in future seasons. Age of Resistance is a prequel to the 1982 film directed by Jim Henson and Frank Oz, featuring again the stunning puppetry and effects of The Jim Henson Company. The 10-episode series greatly expands on the lore of The Dark Crystal, pulling much of its inspiration from Henson and Oz's original notes on the world and creatures from the original film.

In The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, three Gelfling - Rian (Taron Egerton), Deet (Nathalia Emmanuel), and Brea (Anya Taylor-Joy) - discover that the ruling lords of Thra, the Skeksis, are draining the Gelfling of their essence in order to prolong their own lives. They struggle to convince their fellow Gelfling of the atrocities taking place, eventually needing to travel to a sacred site, the Circle of the Suns, in order to learn the truth about the Skeksis, their world, Thra, and the Dark Crystal. There, Rian, Deet, and Brea gain the knowledge they seek, but it alone won't be enough to defeat the Skeksis and save Thra.

Related: Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Cast & Character Guide

The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance season 1 ends with the Gelfling winning a battle against the Skeksis, but sadly, this victory only marks the beginning of what will be a very long and troubling time. And not just for the Gelfling, but for all of Thra. Still, the Age of Resistance season 1 ending isn't totally without hope. Here's what the ending of The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance season 1 means for the future of the series and how it can connect with The Dark Crystal.

The urSkeks Explained

Upon reaching the Circle of the Suns, Rian, Deet, and Brea (as well as their Podling friend, Hup) meet a most strange pair - a Skeksis known simply as The Heretic, and an urRu called urGoh the Wanderer. The odd couple perform for them a puppet show ("that most ancient and sacred of arts") that reveals a startling truth: every gentle urRu (Mystics) and cruel Skeksis are one half of another whole being, the urSkeks. It's a reveal The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance holds until this moment, but one that anyone who's seen the original Dark Crystal has been anxiously awaiting.

Since having learned the truth themselves, all The Heretic and urGoh wish for is to be reunited - and perhaps in their deaths, which interestingly aren't really explained, they are reunited. The other Skeksis, however, don't appear at all interested in being reunited seeing as professing such a desire is why they banished The Heretic in the first place. This detail, though, does and will continue to factor in to Age of Resistance's story. During the final battle, the Archer kills himself, and his other half, the Hunter, up and dies at the very same time, only further emphasizing the link between the two species. And we can only assume that with the deaths of both the General and the Collector, there must also be two corresponding Mystics who die.

However, knowing the truth about the Skeksis is only one step on the path to defeating them. In order for the Gelfling to free Thra from their grip, they're going to need to fight together as one.

The Crystal Shard Reveal Begins The Age Of Resistance

A new age dawns in Thra at the end of The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, born from the battle at Stone-in-the-Wood where the Gelfling send the Skeksis scrambling back to their castle. But more importantly, this battle marks the moment when the seven Gelfling clans are united as one thanks to the Dual Glaive. As foretold to them by The Heretic and urGoh, the creators of the Dual Glaive, this sword holds the power to unite the Gelfling and defeat the Skeksis because it "carries the spirit of Thra." The battle at Stone-in-the-Wood proves this to be true, but it's not just because the Dual Glaive is some special sword that can communicate via the fires of Thra or suck the stolen essence out of Skeksis - it's because the Dual Glaive holds the Crystal Shard!

The reveal that the Crystal Shard is the gem in the hilt of the Dual Glaive is hugely important, as anyone who's seen The Dark Crystal will attest. The loss of this shard when the Crystal of Truth was cracked in the aftermath of the split between Skeksis and urRu is why it darkened and became The Dark Crystal. Returning the shard will not only heal the Crystal, it will also reunite the Skeksis and urRu together in their urSkek forms. Now that the Gelfling possess the Crystal Shard, they are finally a real threat to the Skeksis' power.

Related: Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance World, Creature & Terminology Guide

The Skeksis Create the Garthim

In The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance ending, the Gelfling appear well on their way to saving Thra and defeating the Skeksis. Unfortunately, it's only going to get much harder for the Gelfling in the years between now and The Dark Crystal film, and the final scene of Age of Resistance offers up one big reason why - the Garthim.

The Garthim play a large role in The Dark Crystal film, acting as the Skeksis' personal guard and army. They are ruthless monsters with no purpose other than to destroy and they will be the biggest threat to the Gelfling from this point on. Not to mention, learning that the Garthim are not merely a Skeksis creation, but one made from the gruesome combination of two native species of Thra - the Arathim and Gruenaks - only makes them all the more horrific.

The creation of the Garthim signal that the devastating Garthim War is not far off. It also means more Skeksis, like skekUng, the soon-to-be Garthim Master, will be returning to the castle. The Gelfling may have won a great victory against the Skeksis at Stone-in-the-Wood, even recovering the Crystal Shard, but their battle to free Thra is far from over.

Deet's Darkening Transformation Explained

Much of what is revealed in The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance season 1 ending is already established thanks to The Dark Crystal film. This includes the truth about the Mystics and Skeksis, the discovery of the Crystal Shard, and creation of the Garthim. However, there's one major event from Age of Resistance that is never referenced by the film and is, therefore, left as one of the series' biggest surprises - Deet's transformation.

What happens to Deet in Age of Resistance is never fully revealed, but in being gifted the powers of the Sanctuary Tree, she experiences a crucially important vision and gains the ability to absorb and manipulate the Darkening (a terrible blight seeping from The Dark Crystal and tainting all of Thra). Deet's vision is a hint of what's to come - even including a scene taken directly from The Dark Crystal movie - but it also suggests that her new powers will lead a cruel fate.

The final shot in Deet's vision shows her seated on the Skeksis Emeperor's throne, her face streaked with purple veins. This isn't all that different from how she appears after absorbing and firing the Darkening energy back at the Skeksis during the battle at Stone-in-the-Wood, suggesting her condition will only get worse each time she manipulates the Darkening. Following the battle, Deet is seen by Rian wandering away from everyone else, and in her wake, the plants of Thra wither and die. Deet is being changed by the Darkening, that's clear, but does this mean she could actually turn evil and join the Skeksis as her vision might imply? Hopefully not, but Deet becoming a vessel of the Darkening most likely won't have a happy ending.

What Comes Next For The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance?

The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance is the beginning of a story that's already had its ending told in the film, The Dark Crystal. Luckily, that hasn't really hurt Age of Resistance's storytelling as there is quite a lot of left to be explored between the two points in time. There hasn't yet been an official number of years given for how much time passes between Age of Resistance and The Dark Crystal, but there is at least one clue that suggests it's many, many years - the Wall of Destiny.

In The Dark Crystal, Jen discovers an ancient Gelfling ruin called the Wall of Destiny that depicts how to heal the Crystal with the Crystal Shard. The carving, it's implied, is very old by this point. Just how old isn't clear, but this suggests there's a significant time-frame in which Age of Resistance can tell its story. It's possible, and even likely, that something like the creation of the Wall of Destiny is what's next for Age of Resistance, with the Gelfling next learning how to heal The Dark Crystal now that they've discovered the lost shard.

There are other events which must happen, too, like the Garthim War, but perhaps what's most devastating is the knowledge that before the Age of Resistance ends, the Gelfling must lose. Their victory over the Skeksis happens in The Dark Crystal and that means Age of Resistance must show defeat of the Gelfling. All hope is not lost, of course, but this hints at a very somber The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance ending.

Next: What To Expect From Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Season 2

source https://screenrant.com/dark-crystal-age-resistance-season-1-ending-explained/

[geekns]

Star Wars, a fairy tale (prequel edition)

(Original trilogy edition)

Return of the Jedi came out when one and a half, a full year before my sister was born.  The Phantom Menace came out when i was seventeen and a half.  I thought i was an adult but i was still pretty naive at the time.  I was fully a fangirl, very invested in Star Trek at that point.  I had no access to any sort of spoilers, was barely online and discovering my first fanfiction.  So i didn't know a lot going in.

Taco Bell (and Lays) were involved in the merchandising.  I remember going to Taco Bell and the characters were on my cup.  I tried Sour Cream and Cheddar Ruffles for the first time (Ewan McGregor was on the bag).  And i took an online quiz that had such questions about how many dresses Queen Amidala wore (who is Queen Amidala?!?) and whether she was trained in any combat (she was!).  Basically, i went into the Phantom Menace completely blind.

The first film had to do a lot of setting up people’s characters, which is part of the reason that it’s so disliked i’m sure (i’m not going to lie, Jar Jar Binks).  But let’s just say that it’s hard to set up an entire trilogy on the shoulders of a kid that's going to be recast in the second film.  It’s Padme and Obi Wan that we get to follow follow for the longest.

Padme is the older in the new sanctioned couple (a switch from first time around).  Padme is even more articulate and capable of protecting herself than Leia.  And most of the entire wonderful underdog aspect of our heroes is lost since the Jedi are so powerful and Padme is so educated (she's in a position of power Leia never really achieved since her father was the senator and Alderaan was destroyed).

Ani is even more whiny than Luke but is also handsome in an unconventional way, a cocky smart ass that isn't the safe, expected choice for someone of Padme's background, and is the character that feels everything intensely.  He feels for Padme, he feels about what the Jedi should be and aren't, he feels about being separated from his mother, he feels about slavery, he feels about the power that should be his but isn't.  Fortunately he's not entirely smooth operator and flies by the seat of his pants at least some of the time.

And Obi Wan plays the part of Luke here, really, the detatched Jedi who is working hard to redeem Ani throughout the arc.  Because let's be honest, Ani is tainted in the eyes of the Jedi council.  He's too old when he's discovered, he's not sanctioned as a Padawan, Ani has to fight every step of the way and Obi Wan has his back.  The interesting thing about it is that Obi Wan didn't even like or believe in Ani to begin with but becomes like a father to him.  He's a little whiny and pretentious but he's definitely hot and capable of kicking ass.  Oh, and the sass.

My favorite of this trilogy is once again the second film, Attack of the Clones.  I was heavily invested in Padme and Anakin's relationship.  In retrospect i'm not entirely sure why, it doesn't work as well as Han and Leia's, and people have a point when they say that Obi Wan is more attractive, but i do know that Padme was the dawn of the kickass female phase of fandom.  I know we had Ripley and others years before, but this is when it came into vogue and brought about Dark Angel, Alias, and Whedon started doing his thing (i was only vaguely aware of Buffy so i'm not sure how much he had to do with it and when).  Padme was even more who i wanted to see as a heroine than Leia had been...the irony being that she is even more feminine and dresses up in ridiculous gowns that are ceremonial and princessy and all that.

So my main problem with the original trilogy is that her character was utterly destroyed in Revenge of the Sith.  She gets pregnant and is suddenly ineffectual, whiny, and completely blinded to who her husband is.  I’m not against her loving him  regardless. But I'll be frank, the way Anakin turns to the Dark Side is problematic for me, not his reasons for being desperate to save Padme, but the fact that he trusts Palpatine at all.  I get it that the Jedi Council completely broke trust and messed things up big time but the film wasn't completely fleshed out and broke canon.

It was established in Return of the Jedi that Padme knew her mother, it would have made far more sense to me if she had married Senator Organa or just been around while Leia was growing up (though Vader would have potentially heard about Padme still being alive and figured out that Leia was his).  At any rate, she wasn't supposed to die of a broken heart, and in fact she doesn't.  It hasn't been explained why she died, there was no medical reason and she still had hope that Anakin had light in him.  I have a little consolation in the theory that Anakin survived by Palpatine literally draining the life out of Padme to sustain the new Vader.  Padme would have willingly given her life for husband or children certainly.

A brief mention of Qui-Gonn, who was a father figure to Obi Wan, who taught Obi Wan and Ani that it is important to question authority when they're being wrong/stupid, and to always stand up for what's right.  The entire Jedi religion is problematic to me, something i wasn't expecting after growing up on the original trilogy, wanting to be a Jedi throughout the subsequent trilogy, and in RL basically being raised to follow the Light.  No marriage, no love, no checks and balances.  Everything was a mess, everything was meaningless, there was no real point to the war.  It was only to bring the Emperor to power.

But understand this: Anakin did bring balance to the force by destroying both the Jedi and the Sith. Both factions had it wrong.  It falls to the next generation of Force sensatives to figure out how to build something new, namely the two characters in the new trilogy who aren’t using their real names.

[getoffthesoapbox]

[SnB:VS] EP2 - Two Worlds Collide

After dissecting the opening and ending themes of the show, I thought I was done with this past week’s episode of Shingeki no Bahamut: Virgin Soul. It’s not my style to analyze individual episodes until much later in a series; I like to see the story threads play out for a while before I begin analyzing.

But something about episode 2 kept nagging at me all this week, leaving me no choice but to dig in to the sections that stood out to me. This isn’t a full episode analysis, but rather a selection of musings about particular scenes, mostly concerning Azazel and Nina (with a bit of Mugaro), as well as the third PV.

On Azazel as an Individual

Right off the bat, we’re seeing most of Azazel’s darker sides. This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, considering he was a sinister character in the prequel series. If he’s to be a protagonist in this series, we need to see not only character growth, but also some serious atonement.

But first we must establish what exactly is wrong with him. This episode does a great job of that. It takes pains not to make him unlikable and to make his ultimate cause a just one while still holding him accountable for his bad behavior. 

Azazel’s fighting for a noble cause, but he himself is not a noble character. What an interesting conundrum for the viewer! Azazel has a myopic focus on his goals and doesn’t care who he hurts or harms in order to achieve them. He is a demon, and this likely comes naturally to him, but it’s not the best way to build an alliance.

He does have altruistic impulses, and the episode takes pains to show them. He rescued Nina after she reverted back to her human form and dropped her off with Rita. He is kind to Mugaro and empathizes the suffering Mugaro’s been through. He’s incredibly compassionate toward the plight of the poor female demons in the last scene. 

However, his flaws are significant. He’s cruel to Nina, hypocritical to Kaisar, and unable to see the logic flaws in his own arguments against humans--he can’t seem to understand that the anger he has toward humans is the same anger humans have toward him. He has no ability to see from others’ perspectives. 

Fortunately, the story doesn’t allow his darker impulses to go unrewarded. When he’s being an unbearable and overbearing nag, he gets punched in the face. When he’s being a hypocrite, he gets reminded of his double standards. When he’s attempting to boss people around, no one listens to him. This lack of respect by the story for him diminishes the “danger” of his darker impulses and makes it clear he’s supposed to grow out of them. 

If he is to grow as a character and to truly become a worthy protagonist, he’s going to have to master himself and learn how to treat humans, angels, and demons with the same dignity and respect. Although he is correct to take the lives of the people who tortured demons, he appears to take a sadistic pleasure in his victims’ pain. True justice does not seek revenge or pleasure. True justice is about righting a wrong and setting the balance straight. Azazel needs to move beyond his base demon instincts and become a man of justice and mercy, a man who can be admired by angel, demon, and human alike. 

I suspect this is his challenge throughout the story, and if he is to be a proper love interest for Nina he’ll have to master himself quickly. I suspect she’ll have other suitors who may appear more worthy by comparison. More on this in the Azazel and Nina section.

On Nina as an Individual

Nina doesn’t get featured too much in this episode, but what we do see showed a few new things.

She’s a devoted daughter who tries not to let her mom worry, even when she’s struggling. She’s an optimist, but is open to adjusting her opinions to better reflect reality. She’s clearly compassionate--when she sees the plight of the demons, she takes it to heart. 

She gets easily overwhelmed by male attention, even if it makes her uncomfortable. She’s not very good at standing her ground and putting people in their place. Her personality is fairly agreeable, which clearly allows people to take advantage of her. 

I suspect her tendency to accept people at face value and not question them or their motives is going to be her undoing early on in the series. She’ll have to learn to see deeper and clearer, to judge and filter, while still maintaining her core compassionate heart.

She offers something Azazel lacks, and that is genuine mercy. If Azazel is to become a protagonist who is the sword of justice, he’ll need to be tempered by mercy in order to balance out. Nina, in my estimation, will provide that temperance. I’m not sure where their relationship will go (more on that below), but I do think they’ll at least have to work together in order to accomplish whatever their goals end up being. I think they’re two halves of the justice and mercy whole. They need each other to become their fullest selves, in whatever capacity that will be. 

On The Inevitable Love Triangle

Before I dive into the key scene of episode 2 (at least for me), I want to say a little about the inevitable love triangle and the third PV that was released before this series aired.

I fully expect Nina to be in a love triangle with Azazel and the Turbaned Gentleman from the third PV and the ending theme during the course of this series. 

Given how the story is being set up, it’s clear that she’s supposed to be attracted to Azazel’s looks but put off by his attitude. This allows for their trajectory to be a traditional “beauty and the beast” trajectory; as he’s atoning and becoming a better person, she’ll begin to appreciate him and see him in a better light. 

At the same time, Nina is going to follow a more shoujo-style trajectory: she’ll meet a “mysterious stranger” who will ultimately break her heart, wising her up to the ways of the world and opening her up to reevaluating what she’s looking for in a partner. 

I expect Nina and Azazel won’t see each other as potential relationship partners for the majority of the first twelve episodes. Instead, they’ll just run into each other on their respective paths, bump heads with each other, change each others’ worldviews, and continue pursuing their respective goals until they collide head on at the halfway point.

Once Nina is disappointed in love, and once Azazel realizes what a turd he is, they can then face each other and we’ll likely see feelings begin to blossom in the latter half of the series. What becomes of it all, who knows. Hopefully nothing as tragic as what happened in the previous series to poor Favaro and Amira. I’d like some better fates this time. ;)

On Azazel and Nina

Now that all the other stuff is out of the way, I can unpack this wonderful little scene. So much here!

We can see two things from Nina’s and Azazel’s second meeting:

Nina finds Azazel attractive.

Azazel sees Nina as a tool and doesn’t see her as a woman.

They’re not on the same page at all. This is a classic set up for conflict and sparks. 

Nina tries to avoid Azazel because he makes her uncomfortable. We still don’t know why attractive men make her go out of control, but her avoidance here is about keeping herself under control. 

Azazel, viewing Nina as an object, is having none of that and roughly grabs her and pulls her to face him. This is not presented romantically and it’s definitely meant to make the viewer uncomfortable for Nina, which is good. Azazel’s in the wrong here. He’s also incredibly rude to Nina, calling her “kisama” instead of a more polite pronoun. 

Azazel then launches into demanding she join him without even trying to explain himself or help her understand why he needs her. He...has no social skills. Nina has none either, or she wouldn’t just stand there like a flustered goose letting him manhandle her. Goodness.

Fortunately the narrative doesn’t reward Azazel for his treatment of Nina. It makes sure to humiliate him. He’s acting all cool and badass, and then loses his temper like a child when she doesn’t immediately follow his order to follow him to the demon ghetto.

Azazel then begins to explain the demon situation to Nina, but he of course is busy denigrating humans who, although they are currently participating in atrocious abuse of the demons, actually have real and legitimate reasons to fear demons badly given how demons have treated humans. Nina flat out questions Azazel’s hatred, but she doesn’t judge him (this will likely be important for their relationship in the future).

Azazel reframes Charioce for Nina, who in episode 1 was told he was this great savior. Nina isn’t the type to really dwell on serious things (a character flaw which will likely come back to bite her later), so she gets distracted by the pretty! again, instead of giving what Azazel’s saying proper consideration. They’re not connecting with each other. Azazel isn’t reaching her; his approach is wrong.

Only seeing the actual situation of the demons is what gets Nina’s attention. She compares their desperation over crumbs to her full belly and finally begins to take the situation seriously. She’s not the one who offers compassion to the demons, though. That’s for Mugaro. Once Nina sees all this, she suddenly begins paying real attention to what Azazel’s telling her. They’re finally “seeing” the same scenery, a sign they’ll be able to connect as the story goes along.

Azazel then launches into the...absolute worst failure of a recruitment attempt I have ever seen. He talks selfishly about what he needs and then not only does he manhandle her again, but he demands she give him her power. He gets into her intimate zone and she becomes visibly uncomfortable, both because she’s attracted to him and because he’s scaring her. He even goes so far as to shake her and yell at her throughout the conversation. 

At this point, they immediately revert to being on different pages (because they can’t see eye-to-eye at this stage in their interactions). She tries to get across to him that she has reasons for not wanting to transform, and he refuses to listen to her, flat out orders her to stop talking and is just in general completely disrespectful to her agency and wishes. 

Then Azazel launches into basically a love confession and startles everyone, even the demons. This is the moment that cements him as a future love interest narratively. He doesn’t realize what he’s just done, or what it means, because he’s a clueless idiot who has no social skills. Nina, of course, takes his words in the unintended romantic context, even though he’s just being perfectly honest about needing her as a tool. 

The narrative then steps in to smack Azazel in the face for being a complete bastard to Nina through the vehicle of our favorite zombie girl, Rita. It further confirms Azazel needs to change his behavior by having Nina fly to hide behind Rita. (Side note, but I liked the English rephrasing of Rita’s Japanese joke better than the real version; the Japanese version has Rita saying Azazel was supposed to be a rag demon, not a perv, but it’s just so funny that the English called him a nag demon instead, LOL. I felt his nagging and obnoxious overbearing orders were completely over the top.)

In the end, Azazel slinks off like the sorry manchild he is, and the narrative is quite clear about not letting him maintain his dignity. He lost this battle, and if he ever wants to win Nina to his cause, he’s going to have to do a lot better than that in the future. 

On Mugaro

Mugaro ships it. Mugaro, I’m right there with you. We can root for them together. 

Onward to episode 3! Here’s hoping Azazel will grow up quickly, and Nina will start learning how to interact with handsome men without blushing all the darn time. I’m looking forward to the arrival of Mysterious Turbaned Gentleman Whose True Identity Is Totally Obvious as well. He’ll shake things up a bit. ;) But I’m sure Azazel will ultimately prevail, given there’s no other reason to focus on him in a story with a female heroine who’s obsessed with pretty men. =P

In the meantime, the burning question for me is...what is this ship’s darn name? AzaNin? Demon Dragon? Inquiring minds want to know. 

[jasonfry]

Author’s Notes: Imperial Justice, Pt. 1

WARNING: These notes will completely spoil Servants of the Empire: Imperial Justice. Haven’t read it? Stop and go here.

(Start here for notes for Edge of the Galaxy and here for Rebel in the Ranks.)

Being a writer means you can never separate a book from the experience of writing it.

Imperial Justice is the third book in the Servants of the Empire series and a lot of people’s favorite of the four. But I can’t see it that way. For me, it’s the one that was torture to write and that I wasn’t sure worked – a feeling I almost never have once a book is finished. My memories are mostly about hating this book and wanting it out of my life.

What happened? The chapters in the middle of a larger story are always tough – you’re past establishing the characters and the stakes but haven’t reached the resolution and closure. But beyond that, Imperial Justice posed narrative problems that I hadn’t fully anticipated while writing Edge of the Galaxy and Rebel in the Ranks. 

The first problem was where to put the break between it and The Secret Academy. Zare Leonis’s story in Imperial Justice had to incorporate his cameo in the Rebels episode “Vision of Hope,” in which he tells Ezra he’s being transferred to Arkanis. My original idea was to continue the story beyond that, ending with Beck Ollet recognizing Zare in the mysterious tower on Arkanis. 

That would have been a cliffhanger to appreciate even by my nasty standards, and one I filched from the ending of Tolkien’s The Two Towers. It also would have meant Zare’s chunk of the story included both a real accomplishment – getting to Arkanis – and a gigantic, potentially fatal reversal.

Good plan, except that moment didn’t work as a break between the books -- I had too much story before it and not enough after it. So I had to back up, and the break point wound up being one that left Zare essentially stuck at the Lothal Academy for the duration of the book. Given that Zare enrolled in the academy to find his lost sister Dhara, I worried that readers would get impatient with Zare or turn against him for not pushing hard enough.

The saving grace was I had more room to maneuver with Merei Spanjaf, who’d evolved from a supporting character into a full-fledged protagonist. Rebel in the Ranks ended with a cliffhanger. as Merei discovered that a) the software she’d installed in an Imperial ministry hadn’t deleted itself as planned and b) her mother had been assigned to track down the intruder. Having that room was a relief, but not a solution – I couldn’t have Zare twiddling his thumbs for a whole book while Merei’s story unfolded.

When you’ve got a storytelling problem you can’t solve, sometimes the answer is to lean into the sharp points – put the problem at the center of the story. That’s what I wound up doing: I started with the fear and frustration of being stuck, then ratcheted up the pressure on Zare and Merei until something had to give. 

That made Imperial Justice work, but it was no fun as a writer. Worse, it came at a time when I was struggling with The Rise of Earth, the third book of my Jupiter Pirates series. (About which more here.) Normally I like switching back and forth between projects – I can recharge my batteries for the idle project while getting things done on the active one. But The Rise of Earth was another middle chapter that came with similar storytelling challenges to Imperial Justice. So I’d switch gears only to immediately feel stuck all over again. 

Here’s one good thing: this was the first book in the Servants of the Empire series that I got to name. And it’s even a pretty good title, which is rarity for me. A small thing, but at the time I’d take anything I could get.

Part 1: Loyalty

We start with Zare and the cadets out for one of their dawn runs, bantering and even singing a martial song. If that seems oddly cheery considering this is the Imperial military, that was what I was after.

I wanted the narrative to stick close to what I thought of as a shadow story. In the shadow story, Dhara was never kidnapped and Zare didn’t witness the killing of innocents. Instead, he followed his sister to the academy, ready to serve the Empire he and his family believed in, and was molded into a model Imperial officer by Sergeant Currahee and Lieutenant Chiron – to whom he gave his gratitude and loyalty.

A lot of scenes in the first part of Imperial Justice would fit that story if given a slight twist. Chiron is a familiar character type, the Noble Villain, but he really is a good person -- his fatal flaw is his inability to see that the Empire he serves only exists in his head. Currahee’s the tough drill sergeant who’s mean for her soldiers’ own good, and by the end of Imperial Justice we get a hint that there’s a heart somewhere inside her scarred self. Oleg’s a jerk, true, but cadets such as Kabak and Rykoff (the replacements for Dev Morgan and Jai Kell) seem decent enough. And in the first half of Imperial Justice we see that Zare is becoming both a capable soldier and a leader, coolly navigating the battlefield and the barracks. 

So at least at first, the real story and the shadow story aren’t so different. Even Zare’s confrontations with Oleg would play differently if we didn’t know the Empire is fundamentally evil and Zare’s in danger every day he’s a cadet. The idea was to make the reader uneasy and establish a growing sense of claustrophobia as the cadets are ordered to do things that are harder and harder to justify.

Merei has a shadow story too. She gets drawn into Yahenna Laxo’s web, running messages and thumb drives to the crime boss’s clients. Which is kind of fun ... at least at first. Merei gives as good as she gets from Laxo’s hirelings and customers, is paid better than any teenaged schoolgirl could expect, and even enjoys arguing with Laxo, who’s smart and has a certain slouchy charm. Once again, you can imagine a story where Merei overlooked a few unsavory things and rose up the ranks, winning Laxo’s trust and becoming a loyal operative. As with Zare, in the beginning that story’s not so different from the one that actually unfolds.

Some quick notes about part 1:

Note that the dust storms are getting worse, and Zare is snapped out of his good mood by the sight of a construction site for a weapons lab, one that’s torn open the green fields of Lothal. To the Empire Lothal is a world occupied to be used up and thrown away, and we see its exploitation worsen as the series goes along. 

The marching song was fun to write – it’s basically the Marines’ Hymn with locations from Legends subbing for the likes of Montezuma and Tripoli. Oddly, while writing Imperial Justice I also made up a song for the Star Wars Insider short story “Last Call at the Zero Angle” and I had a pirates’ ditty in mind for The Rise of Earth. (The last one got scrapped.) I have no idea why I thought every project should be a musical during those couple of weeks.

The demise of the nanny droid is a horrifying scene – one where I saw a way to turn writing for a younger audience to my advantage. You probably wouldn’t have Oleg execute a living prisoner in a kids’ book, but you can dispose of a droid -- and fairly graphically at that. The scene shows you the kind of officer Oleg will become, and that his cruelty will be rewarded, not punished. There’s also a subtle commentary on the difference between living beings and droids, and whether there should be any.

Kabak and Rykoff are named for baseball writers of my acquaintance, though our own maneuvers were limited to drinking beer and arguing about the Hall of Fame. Since they’re Yankee fans, I made them bad guys.

The scene featuring Merei, her mother Jessa and her father Gandr is an info-dump and a recounting of what’s come before – I decided to take care of both things in one shot so I could move on with the story. Scenes like that work better if the info-dump is delivered through dialogue – it’s easier on the reader, and you can also use the conversation to bump characters into each other. So in addition to learning what Merei’s up against, we also get some insight into Jessa and Gandr’s relationship, a bit of conflict between Merei and her mother, and a sense that Jessa is a formidable opponent.

Young banthas were cubs in Legends, which was cute but zoologically questionable. Now they’ve calves. That was Story Group’s sensible suggestion.

I liked the scene where Merei fences with Laxo about what led him to a life of crime. Laxo sees the Empire for what it is and opposes it, but he’s an opportunist rather than a revolutionary – perceptive, but lacking the moral clarity that would turn perception into action. As with the shadow stories, it’s a small difference that means everything.

The unnamed Gotal criminal was also a fun character to write, particularly his ongoing war of words with Laxo. Kriffing Laxo!

Zare’s interrogation about his loyalty was an interesting bit to write – it starts out as a comic scene, with Zare thinking about all the extraordinarily disloyal things he’s done and then blandly answering “no sir” each time. But then it takes an ominous turn, as Roddance pushes Chiron aside. And it ends with a callback to the prequels that means nothing to Zare but the reader immediately knows is a dangerous development.

Next up: A poet and a breakup. And whatever happened to Oleg? Right here!

[briangroth27]

Power Rangers 2 Wish List

I loved the new Power Rangers and even though it didn’t do great at the box office, I’m hopeful for a sequel! I think the proposed 5 sequels/prequels plan will be pared down a bit in light of the box office take, but that’s just an opportunity for Saban and Lionsgate to focus on delivering a tight, fun, and entertaining follow-up built on the excellent foundation of the first movie. I was impressed that, even with modern teen struggles and a more grounded take, the movie never felt ashamed to be Power Rangers, and that should definitely continue. Here are a few things I’d love to see in the sequel!

More Trini and Zack! I liked what we got from the team in the first movie, but Zack and especially Trini felt underutilized and underdeveloped. Hopefully that’s remedied in the sequel. Billy trying to increase/stay in his morphed state permanently to protect himself was an idea I had a while back (which also briefly appeared in the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers comic), but maybe it could apply to Trini or Zack instead. Trini had big walls set up because of her parents and Zack’s fun persona is a shield against the impending death of his mother, so either one of them could feel like they need a little extra power to get through their lives for a bit. It’d be interesting to discover how much of Zack’s bravado is real and how much is a mask. How will the inevitable loss of his mother affect him, and how will that affect his performance as a Ranger? Billy lost a parent too, but it seems like Zack is primed to delve into the “I have all these amazing abilities but still couldn’t save this important person” trope, and investigating the Rangers’ inability to save everyone (especially after reviving Billy in the first movie) through the eyes of their most jovial member would be a new angle. They could also explore what his potential could be if he weren’t spending all his time ditching school. 

Like I suggested in my review, Trini’s helicopter parents provide the perfect setup to play with her trying to sneak out of the house using her superpowers or to subvert the “keep your identity secret” superhero trope with her sarcasm. Another way to go is to establish she’s got an aptitude for science, so she and Billy can team up on that like on the show. Since Trini is the first LGBTQ superhero in a movie, exploring those romantic relationships in detail would be groundbreaking. Whatever they do with them, Trini and Zack definitely need equal focus in the next movie.

Explore How Being Rangers Affects Their Lives Will the team being forced to open up to each other for their powers to work create awkward situations where they have to talk to continue being an effective team? Will they have any privacy or secrets from each other from here on out? Since they’re teenagers, exploring that aspect of their bond is a great way to inject some comedy and drama to the Rangers as a unit.

How were the kid’s pre-Rangers dreams changed by becoming superheroes? What did they want to be? Do they even have those kinds of options now that they’re heroes? Can they hold down an afterschool job if the city is overrun with monsters? Kimberly’s aspirations were dealt with in her exit from the series, but not all the Rangers got that chance and looking at that kind of thing would be great character development here too.

Billy Adds to the Ranger Arsenal In the original show, Billy invented the team’s wristwatch communicators and tied them into the Morphing Grid, allowing for teleportation to and from the Command Center at will. Something similar would be cool here, especially if the writers don’t want to spend time sending the kids through that complicated cave/underwater sequence every time they need to speak to Zordon. I’d also love to see the other Ranger-specific weapons make an appearance (Zack’s ax, Billy’s lance, Trini’s daggers, and Kimberly’s bow) since Jason got to use his Power Sword in the first movie. Maybe Billy could figure out how to manifest those other weapons for each of the Rangers. I wouldn’t mind his tinkering smoothing out the Ranger uniforms either: I prefer the more simplistic designs from 1995’s MMPR movie (I don’t hate the new ones, I just found them over-designed and too busy).

One aspect of the Rangers mythos that was missing from the movie was a true “It’s Morphin Time!” moment, since the kids’ bond opened the Morphing Grid to do it for them. While the kids are already superpowered out of costume and don’t have morphers, perhaps Billy could build mobile devices that connect directly to the Grid in the event of an emergency without needing to depend on the unity of the team. This could create drama by accidentally disrupting their connection, since they’ll no longer always have to be fully connected, which could then turn around and save them if Tommy Oliver betrays them, totally shattering their bond for a time.

The Teens Do Martial Arts I didn’t mind the Power Coins granting the kids superpowers when not fully morphed (the villains were scaled up enough to necessitate this), but I’d like the team to learn some finesse to go along with their brute force. Each of them could develop their own style of fighting like on the show, which would add variety to fight scenes. Kimberly’s past as a cheerleader, for instance, could include a heavy emphasis on gymnastics. Zack could develop his capoeira-like hip hop kido, or something similar. The first time Zack sees Trini, it looks like she’s practicing Kung Fu or Tai Chi, so perhaps she could teach the team members who don’t know martial arts already. While Jason was a former football star, it’d be a fun switch to make the girls the most athletically proficient. 

The Teens Become Socially Conscious Pitching in on the Angel Grove rebuilding efforts would be a good start, but I’d love to see the kids arcing back toward their community-minded do-gooder selves from the show. They don’t have to be perfect boy and girl scouts, but it wouldn’t hurt to show them teaching kids sports or science—and not because of court mandated community service. Outside of Green Arrow and the X-men, the Power Rangers are among the most social justice-minded of all superheroes, and it’d be good to get to that aspect.

Tommy (or Tommi) Oliver The first movie’s post-credit scene lays out the arrival of Tommy Oliver, the Green Ranger, though I wouldn’t have minded one more film with just the original five Rangers to explore their dynamic before it’s changed completely. Still, I’m definitely excited for the prospect of a traitor Ranger, especially with the emphasis on the team’s need for unity and trust to morph. Someone who can get past their defenses and the stab them in the back would be a perfect adversary! Plus, it’d be a case of history repeating itself after Rita went bad, which works well thematically: maybe Zordon argues not to trust Oliver but the Rangers don’t listen and fight to save Tommy’s soul instead of outright killing him. If Tommy and Kimberly have a romantic relationship, his betrayer status and her scandalous selfie-sharing would give them fairly complimentary redemption arcs.

The cast wants a female Tommy (Tommi?) to change things up and give the team an even boy/girl ratio for once. I wouldn’t mind that; making Tommi a girl would subvert expectations that whatever guy stepping into Jason David Frank’s green and white boots would have to bear. Since Tommy’s arguably the most popular and iconic Ranger, that’s a huge bar to clear that could be sidestepped by going in an entirely different direction (JDF doesn’t seem opposed to it either). That’s not to say, of course, that Tommi Oliver couldn’t be every bit as badass, evil, and compelling in her redemption arc as JDF was; just that the monumental expectations might be done away with. Plus, it would be good to have gender balance. Maybe Tommi dates Trini and they play out the Tommy/Kimberly romance with her instead. Tommi and Jason dating would add an entirely different layer to their rivalry from the original show, while Tommi/Billy would probably be heartbreaking. Tommi could also be twisted literally in Rita’s image, though that may be a strike against this idea since we’ve just had an evil female Green Ranger in the first movie. Whatever they do with Tommy/Tommi, I hope they keep the character’s Native American roots; the diversity in the first film was fantastic and that should continue as the series progresses (everyone deserves to see themselves as heroes!).

If Tommy/Tommi does become the eventual leader, that’d provoke a great change in the dynamic of the team. Where does Jason fit if he’s not the leader, especially as rising to that challenge was so key to his arc in the first movie? The show couldn’t answer that question due to contract disputes leading Austin St. John to stop filming for Jason’s final episodes, so I’d like the movies to go there. How do the other Rangers feel about being led by a total newcomer when they’ve all put in the time and were never evil?

More Monsters! We got the Putty Patrol and Goldar in the first movie, but I hope the sequel goes all-out with a horde of monsters unleashed on Angel Grove all at once. It doesn’t look like we’ll get Finster and his Monster-Matic here, but the way Rita’s powers manifested monsters felt similar to Lord Zedd’s penchant for turning everyday objects into beasts. I think Zedd��definitely the show’s coolest enemy—feels more like an endgame villain than appearing in the first sequel (he probably corrupted Rita in the first place), but nothing says he can’t give Rita a new source of magic (and the show has plenty of them) to create monsters and retake the Zeo Crystal (Zedd’s goal in the original series). Elizabeth Banks was a blast in this film, and I wouldn’t mind bringing her back for revenge.

Was the very conspicuous scorpion on the boulder in the Pit a nod to Scorpina (one of Rita’s best flunkies!)? Could it be mutated into Scorpina by some damage to the ship/Morphing Grid over the course of the battle? Could she be Zedd’s new champion in addition to Tommy? Or maybe she mutates by accident and has her own agenda entirely.

Amy Jo Johnson said she’d like to come back as a villain; she was great fun as one in Power Rangers Turbo, so I say bring it on!

A Vast Universe Perhaps this is why there were four sequels and a prequel planned; the Power Rangers universe is huge, even just contained to the MMPR-In Space Zordon era. Space, other dimensions, magic, science fiction, horror elements, and different time periods are all on the table in the Power Rangers world. I’d love for these movies to go big and not feel constrained by the bounds of Earth. I don’t think this needs to happen in the next movie, but it’s something I hope they keep in mind if there are more (though things like the Dark Dimension could be fun, weird challenges to throw at the team next time).

Bulk and Skull Jason’s prank buddy Damo, possibly feeling rejected after Jason found new friends, and the “Bully of Detention” could’ve easily been these Power Rangers mainstays in their nascent stages. Maybe Damo’s full name is Eugene Damo Skullovitch and the Bully of Detention is named Farkas Bulkmeier (he seems more Bulk than Skull). Mirroring the Rangers’ superhero battles with everyday bullying would draw another smart line from their superhero lives to more relatable ones (just as understanding each other and working together grants them the power to be heroes and protects them with literal armor). Contrasting with the epic nature of the Ranger adventures, Bulk and Skull provide comic relief and represent grounded problems they can’t just morph and fight against (even though Jason did slap a bully).

Series Stars in Cameos/Supporting Roles Amy Jo Johnson and Jason David Frank are always welcome back, and it’d be great to have Austin St. John, David Yost, and Walter Jones back onscreen to complete the original (living) Ranger team. Jason Narvy and Paul Schrier absolutely deserve to be included too, since they’re the series’ longest-running characters. Something similar to the Harold Ramis bust in 2016’s Ghostbusters would be a great way to include and honor Thuy Trang as well. Later Rangers like Johnny Yong Bosch, Nakia Burrise, Karan Ashley, Catherine Sutherland, and Steve Cardenas would also be welcome. Rose McIver is very talented and was once a Ranger; having her do something in these films would be fantastic!

Two Things I Don’t Want As a kid, I thought the team getting new zords each season was cool, but as an adult I realize later seasons’ vehicles never lived up to the original Dinozords. They’re the coolest to this day and I hope the movies don’t ditch them anytime soon (if at all). Some refining of their appearance would be fine, but the films would be hard-pressed to outdo the Dinozords.

Along those same lines, I hope we don’t see the rapid cast changeover of later Rangers seasons. I’d be fine never getting a second generation of Power Rangers in the movies, but I wouldn’t want to explore more than one additional set of replacements. I believe the original Rangers are rich enough to spend several movies on without worrying about them feeling overdone.

Whatever they do, I can’t wait to see what they’ve got in store for us and the first movie has bought a lot of good will with me for this franchise. After a long hiatus from the fandom for me, “It’s Morphin’ Time!” all over again!

[theconservativebrief]

As a deeply jaded Harry Potter fan, I sometimes have to make a conscious effort to focus on the positives. So I think it’s worth noting that I didn’t have to try too hard to find some positives to focus on in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.

The second installment in the Harry Potter prequel series is now in theaters, and with it, author J.K. Rowling, who writes the screenplays, has introduced a host of serious wrinkles in her own established universe. The plot is confusing, disjointed, and seemingly devoted to setting up a convoluted storyline that will play out in future installments.

Watching the film feels a bit like being dropped into the middle of a very thick novel that’s full of words whose meanings you don’t know. And this holds true no matter your level of Harry Potter fandom; Rowling does a ton of worldbuilding on the fly, and expects viewers to roll with it and figure things out as they go. That’s difficult to do, and it makes The Grimes of Grindelwald hard to review, because it’s so obviously laying the foundation for some future film.

But even given all of that, there are things to like about it; and the things to like are, I think, pretty interesting things!

The Crimes of Grindelwald picks up where the first Fantastic Beasts film left off: with the dark wizard Grindelwald (the controversial Johnny Depp) sitting in jail after infiltrating the American magical congress. (Why he wanted to infiltrate it in the first place wasn’t ever fully explained, but it clearly involved being generically evil.)

In the opening moments of the new film, Grindelwald dramatically escapes prison, leaving Professor Dumbledore — an inexplicably de-camped Jude Law — to decide how to respond. Dumbledore, who was canonically in love with Grindelwald as a teen and may have once been in a relationship with him, is either unwilling or unable to fight him now, in adulthood, so he sends our hero Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) to battle Grindelwald in his stead. This involves finding the one person who can effectively fight him: Credence (Ezra Miller), who we encountered in the first Fantastic Beasts film as a frightened orphan, confused about his identity and unaware of his own tremendous magical abilities.

The Crimes of Grindelwald then follows Newt as he attempts to locate Credence in Paris. It also follows Grindelwald as he attempts to locate Credence, and as he launches what must be the most hastily assembled and disturbingly muffled political allegory ever thrown together by a writer capable of much greater nuance than this. The driving force of The Crimes of Grindelwald’s plot — though it’s difficult to refrain from putting sarcasm quotes around “plot” — is for Newt to find Credence before Grindelwald can, because the implication is that whoever gets to Credence first will have the best chance at deploying his magic as a weapon for their side. (More on what those sides are fighting for in a moment.)

Along the way, the movie gets sidetracked by a tangled web of subplots. Characters keep tossing around fragments of prophecies whose origins are never properly contextualized and whose predictions are never fully explained. There are baby-killings, cases of mistaken identity, mysterious characters with mysterious backgrounds, dramatic flashbacks, and several different moments that disrupt the established canonical timeline of the Harry Potter universe in ways that are sure to break the brains of Harry Potter fans across the internet. There’s even a giant Chinese fire-dragon cat-thing that needs to be dealt with. (It’s cute!)

But none of these subplots further the narrative beyond providing an occasional dramatic reveal that ultimately goes nowhere. Characters show up, deliver backstory and dramatic revelations, and then, more often than not, die. The effect is basically that watching the The Crimes of Grindelwald feels like staring at that spinning top from Inception for two hours straight before eventually realizing it’s never going to fall over, because it doesn’t have enough mass to upset its inertia. There’s just no story, no substance . And what little substance there is essentially forms dramatic exposition for the next Fantastic Beasts movie.

It’s especially unfortunate that this wheel-spinning for the sake of expository setup was one of the chief complaints of critics who reviewed the previous Fantastic Beasts film. But the previous film had so much more actual plot than this one that by comparison, The Crimes of Grindelwald feels extra-flimsy and empty. At least in the previous film, there was a set of clearly achievable objectives involving the rounding-up of a bunch of fantastic beasts!

But. But! Do we watch Harry Potter movies for the plot, or do we watch Harry Potter movies for the wizarding world? Because The Crimes of Grindelwald contributes beauty and a solid sense of setting and depth to the Harry Potter universe, and it deserves credit for that.

One of the things I continue to admire and love most about the Harry Potter film franchise in its latter-day installments is how director David Yates, who has helmed all of the movies since the fifth one in the main franchise, remains fully committed to J.K. Rowling’s vision, no matter how obscure it might get. And let’s be real, Fantastic Beasts is a totally new franchise arc that’s headed who-knows-where, and Rowling’s vision is deeply obscured in The Crimes of Grindelwald.

Yet Yates, with the trademark mix of sensitivity, detail, and emphasis on sumptuous worldbuilding that he’s deployed in each of the six Harry Potter films he’s directed so far, manages to make things work on his end. The Gilded Age wizarding world, Art Deco with a splash of steampunk, moves from vintage New York to London and Paris over the course of the film, and it looks as lovely and inviting as ever.

While the magical elements can feel a bit paint-by-numbers at times, it’s clear that Yates, Rowling, and longtime Harry Potter screenwriter-turned-producer Steve Kloves are still thinking deeply about how to keep the details of this world feeling unique and magical. And I think, for the most part, they do feel magical; that is, they feel like a world I enjoy spending time in, even when I’m exasperated by the lack of story.

It helps that Fantastic Beasts’ characters are, for the most part, characters I enjoy watching. It’s hard to overstate just how unique Redmayne’s Newt Scamander is within the annals of fictional heroes. Not only is he plainly and unremarkably neurodivergent, but he subverts typical onscreen representations of masculinity in refreshing and unexpected ways. Rowling seems to have written him by consciously sidestepping the tropes of toxic masculinity, and the result is that Newt, however overshadowed he is by plot dramatics, always feels like the answer to the questions she’s trying to ask about violence and propaganda and side-taking.

Unfortunately, those questions aren’t very well-posed. Grindelwald’s dark wizardry is a tangled mishmash of World War I-era fashion, militant Fascism disguised as leftist rhetoric, and concern-trolling about Nazis and World War II, designed to appeal to pureblood wizards of all races, including at least one character who’s coded Jewish. What Grindelwald’s actual politics are beyond wanting Muggle genocide is anyone’s guess, but given that this film is arriving during one of the most politically confusing and polarized eras in recent history, it’s mildly worrying that Grindelwald’s actual message is as vague and “insert-your-own-ideology” as possible.

And then there’s Grindelwald himself. The sheer number of characters in The Crimes of Grindelwald means we spend less time with Newt and his core group of friends than before, but we arguably spend the most time with Grindelwald. And though Johnny Depp’s performance is notably subdued (for Depp, at least), Grindelwald still feels like the series’ flamboyant gay villain (a stereotype that’s exacerbated further due to how toned-down and butch Dumbledore has become) — he’s always standing a little too close to his potential allies, always tacitly seducing them into joining him on the dark side, always being framed by the film as representing something irresistible and innately evil.

It’s weird and uncomfortable to watch, and I wish I felt like more of that weirdness and discomfort is because Grindelwald is a Nazi and not because he’s queer. (All of this potential association of Grindelwald’s evilness with his queerness is built into the narrative of the Harry Potter books, but given that so far, there are only two known queer characters in the entire wizarding universe, and given that one of them is an evil genocidal Aryan and the other one is in love with the evil genocidal Aryan, we can be forgiven for feeling a little queasy about how things are playing out.)

But commenting too critically on The Crimes of Grindelwald could, at this point, amount to unfair speculation. Rowling is clearly in the middle of juggling eight or nine plot points at once, as she loves to do, and it seems somewhat futile to do anything more than stand back and let her at it, until we finally have a coherent 10-hour film that we can judge as a whole. What we clearly don’t have in The Crimes of Grindelwald is a movie; instead, we have a heavily fragmented, not terribly coherent piece of something larger.

Whether that other, larger thing eventually coalesces into the sparkling magical story we came for, or whether it disapparates into oblivion, remains to be seen. But for Harry Potter fans who’ve put their trust in J.K. Rowling for all this time, the best thing I can say about The Crimes of Grindelwald is probably this: It won’t make you want to put your wand away any time soon.

Original Source -> Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald feels like a giant prologue for some other movie

via The Conservative Brief