#it was just too many loose emotional ends to tie up in three combat focused episodes

[satisfactuality]

i genuinely think the biggest issue with junior year is that the last roleplay focused episode was ep 17.

[aion-rsa]

Star Wars: Alphabet Squadron Review

http://bit.ly/2XFqLfY

A thoughtful take on the starfighter squadron novels.

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This was a difficult book to review. Aiming high, it landed in the middle, with deep characterization and a strong stance about the morality of Star Wars muddled by drawn-out scenes and dry prose. Alphabet Squadron is the first in a buzzy series, reminiscent of the beloved X-Wing novels, and it just almost succeeds as a thoughtful ensemble story.

The titular squadron is tasked with finding and defeating Shadow Wing, an elite TIE Fighter squad. (For what it’s worth, the name “Alphabet Squadron” is as much of a joke among characters in-universe as it might sound as a title.) In order to do that, squad leader Yrica Quell needs to make sure five people in five different starfighters can work together. It’s a daunting task, especially since she’s only ever served in the Empire before this, and used to fly in Shadow Wing. 

read more: Star Wars Movie and TV Release Date Calendar

Author Alexander Freed’s Battlefront: Twilight Company set a high bar for military fiction in Star Wars, as well as the less pulpy tone of the new Expanded Universe. It starred a soldier who didn’t really want to be part of the Rebellion, but learned why a galactic war might be worth fighting. Its memorable characters and take on classic movie scenes were blisteringly stark and beautifully empathetic. Alphabet Squadron’s protagonist is even further removed from the hero mold: Quell worked for the Empire for the entire Galactic Civil War, until shortly after the destruction of the second Death Star.

At the core of Alphabet Squadron is the story of why readers would even want to root for a person who stuck around the genocidal state that long. Quell switches between lukewarm and boiling, guilt-ridden and twitchy with trauma. She exudes “a sort of glasslike sharpness, equally likely to injure or shatter,” and is “simultaneously hypervigilant and unfocused.” Freed’s portrayal of her trauma is unflinching; Quell is awkward and stiff and possibly even cruel, and that’s part of what makes this such a crunchy character study. She’s one step removed from her own emotions. “She wondered how sincere she sounded—she’d never been any good at conveying empathy, no mater how real.” 

read more: Why Rey's Parentage Shouldn't Change

I love that Quell isn’t a Jedi, isn’t even a fighter ace. She, like Luke Skywalker, is thrown into her story, but she isn’t greeted warmly in the New Republic. Hers would be an uphill battle even without the Empire. She also arrived at a time when the New Republic is going through growing pains, learning how to win. People who joined because they wanted an anarchic system now have to deal with being the ruling government. Quell is feeling those growing pains on a personal level as she deals with everyone from self-interested spies to the unflappable General Hera Syndulla. 

The first volume of the three-book series focuses on bringing the Alphabet team together, and succeeds at making them all unique and fun people. Quell is joined by roguish Nath, farm boy Wyl, angry Chass, and mysterious Kairos. Between them is a web of mistrust and frustrations: Wyl and Chass bump heads because Wyl once forced Chass to live instead of dying with the rest of her squad. Many of them are hiding something from one another. The novel’s most interesting stylistic choice comes from an emphasis on characters telling stories to one another, and an agnostic uncertainty about how much of those stories are true. 

Further Reading: The Definitive Star Wars Gift Guide

Unfortunately, individual scenes and the arc of the book as a whole are paced slowly and stretched too thin. The three-book format seems to have given permission for the first volume to be dry at times. Its character arcs are loose, its set pieces, especially in the latter half of the book, are less heart-pounding than most Star Wars stories. It’s just too long. The best combat scenes in the book happen toward the beginning, in a moving space siege reminiscent of the slow fleet chase in The Last Jedi.

Maybe that’s because, later in the book, the largest threat seems to come from inside the squadron. The loosely sketched pilots of Shadow Wing never quite feel like people, even though I’m also reading the comic book tie-in featuring them. They aren’t particularly frightening either, except perhaps for Grandmother, the Imperial commander who still believes in fighting the Old Republic’s enemies. Perhaps this is one of the reasons the ending seems flat even with a dramatic location and plenty of space dogfights. 

read more: Toxic Masculinity is the True Villain of The Last Jedi

Freed’s prose is solid with moments of insight. A distant third person point of view becomes nearly omniscient at times, which isn’t unusual in tie-in books but becomes particularly buoyant when contrasted with Freed’s sharp prose elsewhere. It has a good awareness of space, though, with vivid scenes and an emphasis on the rough-and-tumble physicality of flying in a one- or two-person spaceship. A starfighter-focused book needs to have strong action scenes, and the ones here are good but not great, with tension coming more from the character relationships than from the threat of attack. 

Between the prickly protagonists and muted story, this one might not be for everyone. It drags in the middle, and omits some scenes in strange places. Why don’t we see more of Alphabet’s very early days together? The reader also needs to be ready to accept that they won’t know everything about the characters: some reveals feel artificial, since the characters know the answers when the reader does not.

read more: How Diversity Makes Rogue One a Better Star Wars Movie

This book asks great questions: What is the meaning of making a moral choice only after all of the moral lines have been crossed? Is Quell a good leader or just a war criminal hanging on to a purpose by the skin of her teeth? What exactly is Quell’s moral code? What does it mean to have fallen into galactic war without fully deciding either one side or the other? I love to have a Star Wars book that sits with its protagonist like this. Considering that it’s the first in a series, a conclusion isn’t expected. Instead, I think Quell will be a great conversation-starter in the fandom for a while, and I look forward to sitting with her a little longer … even if the novel’s answers were always going to struggle to live up to the questions it asks.

Megan Crouse writes about Star Wars and pop culture for StarWars.com, Star Wars Insider, and Den of Geek. Read more of her work here. Find her on Twitter @blogfullofwords.

Books

4/5

Star Wars

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Star Wars

Star Wars Alphabet Squadron

Review Megan Crouse

Jun 10, 2019

from Books http://bit.ly/2MDxjuf

[thedramafilesblog-blog]

Appearing before the Dramacourt: Hwarang: Poet Warrior Youth Ep 18

***If this is your first time browsing The Drama Files, please read The Rules section first for our reviewing and rating system***

Issues:

Whether the Won Hwa story line should be better explained

Whether Han Sung’s death was necessary

Whether they realized that they only had 2 episodes left and was scrambling to tie up loose ends by introducing so many developments in this episode

Whether Han Sung, as a character, was poorly written

The Rule(s):

Yes. It is super confusing and there has been no explanation as to what their specific role is.

Yes. In a way.

Yes. *scrambles*

Yes!

Application:

RedRosette J: So, having watched this episode, I am immediately regretting switching to the regular episode post format. This episode was just terrible and I had to struggle to think of problems in it (that were not going to be as repetitive as 17). At this point, I’m totally convinced that this drama has just become a shitty makjang drama. The biggest difference in this episode was the Taehyung was on screen probably the most since he’s been on the whole drama because they had to kill him off. *eyeroll* The cutest part of this drama was Ban Ryu and Soo Yeon getting back together (again, it looks like Ban Ryu’s internal drama was resolved off screen in the last episode, which is such a pity because Do Ji Han such a good actor and could have really brought some substance to this shit show at this point). I honestly have no real thoughts about this episode because at this point I have completely given up. This show should have been 16 episodes. I’m so glad next week is the finale week. I don’t know if I can take more of this. -.-

Jubiemon J: I think there were actually too many big picture problems that all fell under issue three which we’ve listed. I can’t believe that this drama was pre-produced. The writing should have been better in that case and . . . I’m surprised to learn that this is from the same network that pre-produced Descendants. Anyway, this episode clearly focused on Hansung and as we all probably know, he dies in this episode. (I’m starting to suspect that they had to kill him off b/c of his idol commitments. I’m trying to rationalize the reason for his character’s death because that whole conflict with his grandpa being faced with issues from Banryu’s evil uncle or whatever came out of nowhere.) We’re close to the end, yet we also haven’t seen Yeowool’s story. The actor playing Yeowool does a great job with what he has, but it’s a shame that we can’t learn more about Yeowool. It also seems like JiDwi gave up on Aro out of nowhere? I wished that they had some emotional talk where she rejected him firmly and properly.

Issue 1:  Whether the Won Hwa story line should be better explained?

RedRosette J: Okay. This show is not sophisticated enough to have no exposition for the viewers. It’s not some superbly written masterpiece which doesn’t infantlize the viewers and expects them to keep up. No. This is a very badly written script and in a badly written script, when there is no exposition, the viewers get left behind and have no idea what the hell is going on! So please, if you’re going to introduce a new concept, begin by explaining what on earth it is! [My bad if they did explain and somehow it got mistranslated and I missed it. If so, disregard this issue] Even if they’ve been mentioned the Won Hwa for a few episodes, it hasn’t really been a huge part of the plot until now so it might have been useful to have a nice refresher  of what it actually means. The Queen keep saying that she is going to turn the women into Won Hwa or whatever and that they will be the ones to lead Hwarang and that they get tossed aside (read: killed) when the Royal Family is done with them. That’s all fine. That just makes it sound like a job posting with a badly written job description but without the actual job title being listed. I keep thinking that they are Super Concubines or something because logically, it stands to reason that if they are to lead Hwarang, they need to be like trained in combat and what not, and then given the flashback to Sun Woo’s mom (*gasp* spoiler) being pregnant with the Prince’s baby aka Sun Woo (*gasp* double spoiler), it seems like she might have also been a concubine. I don’t know. I’m just guessing because they won’t tell us what it is! You need to tell the viewers what their exact role is!

Jubiemon J: I got SO confused with Won Hwa that I had to do a bit of Googling. The drama like RedRosette hadn’t explained Won Hwa properly. Plus that term came out of nowhere. I don’t recall Won Hwa being an issue or a thing during the previous episodes. I really think bringing back the Won Hwa wouldn’t do much at all? The Queen really is on her crazy mode where she wants a female and a male harem.

RedRosette J Aside: Okay fine Jubiemon googled it and the wiki page says that they are actually warriors led by two women, and then one of them murdered someone and the Won Hwa was disbanded and gave way to the Hwarang. Still. The Won Hwa plot line could have been introduced better!

Neither do we!!!!

Is this the job?

Okay but how?

Is this job related too??

Issue 2: Whether Han Sung’s death was necessary

RedRosette J: Okay who else knew that this was coming? (There were spoilers/rumours when the show first started that Taehyung’s character might die) The issue is that it was written so poorly, that the whole thing just felt so comical and fell drastically short of the emotional impact that it should have had. To be honest, even though I knew that Han Sung was going to die, I totally didn’t expect them to introduce the death plot line the way they did. It just felt forced and there was absolutely no build up to it at all. It was so sudden and just really wasn’t cohesive in the grand scheme of the plot.

The only saving grace was that the boys’ actual bromance (which exists off screen) kicked in as they mourned his death which wasn’t awful to watch. Taehyung, to his credit, did an adequate job as Han Sung. I might add though, that the death scene was so cringey and super ridiculous that I was actually laughing. Out loud. Which I doubt was the intended viewer reaction. Taehyung’s acting was not close to being anything great, but even as a total noob, he was leagues better than Baekhyun in Scarlet Heart Ryeo. But, sweetie, so back to acting class. Really. I love his goofy, weirdo personality with the other Bangtan guys and I think that’s what saved his acting and his character for me, because I kept seeing Taehyung as himself in it. Essentially, Han Sung had to die to bring the guys together and stand on their own and stop being led by their dads and moms and grandpas. Hopefully this lets them become a force of their own, but realistically, Han Sung’s death could have been written and acted much, much better.

Jubiemon J: I also think this death was written very poorly. We never saw Han Sung fanboying over Sunwoo this hard until this episode. (I really think Han Sung was in love with Sunwoo for this episode.)  I didn’t get emotional over his death because I just thought how idiotic it was for him to die. We never had news of Hansung’s grandfather facing problems and then bam . . .this episode he was like a slave to Banryu’s evil uncle/father. Sure his sacrifice was supposed to make Sunwoo/Ji Dwi be more determined to be King and set things straight, but I just don’t think Hansung’s death made such an impact. I think it should have been Aro who was sacrificed instead to affect the two of them. Hansung barely had any screen time to show that he was really, really close with the boys. Heck, he didn’t even dorm with the guys till far, far later. Sure, Aro did an arrow to her heart, but she’ll live . . . so . . . meh. Finally, did Sunwoo really have to carry Hansung’s dead body . . . to a class full of students? He should have called for help immediately. That scene was just so . . . ugh.

Ugh

Oh come on! Really?!?!

Poor Han Sungie!!

Ok but why would you bring him to your classroom?!?

Damn straight!

RedRosette J Aside: Although I will miss these two:

Issue 3: Whether they realized that they only had 2 episodes left and was scrambling to tie up loose ends by introducing so many developments in this episode

RedRosette J: They definitely did. All of a sudden, all the leftover issues were just crammed into one episode and the viewers were expected to just deal with it. We got a paternity reveal, birth mom reveal, secret history reveal, death reveal, and a King reveal. That’s a lot of reveals to take in in 60 minutes. It just felt way too sloppy and the production was bad too. *sigh* I can only hope that next week, when it crashes and burns in the finale, it does so with only a small bang.

Jubiemon J: For sure, they decided to put everything together. How easy is it for Sunwoo to find his father all of a sudden? Plus wasn’t his father supposed to be banished or at least in hiding, yet he can just come in and out of the palace so easily? And that whole dialogue totally reminded me of Star Wars: “Luke, I am your father.” I think Luke had it worse though. Then we had that Wonhwa thing going on just so that Aro can be in danger again. Trust me that girl is always placed in the most bizarre scenes where she has to be rescued somehow. She never does the rescuing and just has to suffer from the Damsel in Distress syndrome. In all honesty, what evil character aka the Queen would just tell one of the good guys all of her plans? I’m talking about that scene where the Queen warned Aro that she’d kill Aro once her use as a Wonhwa was over. I seriously laughed at that dialogue. It’s just ridiculous. If you wanted the Queen to be super evil, you might as well started her plotting far, far earlier and made her much smarter. Then the writer took the easy way out and decided to kill of Hansung to explain why Sunwo/Ji Dwi would step up to their game. *Rolls eyes*

Reveal 1

Reveal 2

Reveal 3

Issue 4: Whether Hansung, as a character, was poorly written

Jubiemon J: Hansung, as a character, was poorly written and probably used only as a marketing ploy. When I watched the interviews with the cast, they all suggested that Hansung was a very important character. I assumed that he’d have more scenes and more character development. Surprisingly, Banryu and Sooho had more air time. I did like those two characters and enjoyed their character development and bond. However, I expected Hansung and Yeowool to have had a similar level of development. The writer tried to portray Hansung as an innocent, sweet kid, and we did see that coming from Taehyung.

The writer also failed to show Hansung as someone who struggled with his role and his relationship with his brother. There were a few choppy scenes that hinted that perhaps Hansung had an inferior complex towards his brother and felt out of place or burdened with his responsibilities. However, those weren’t explored well at all.

Unfortunately, the writer made Taehyung’s job as a first-time actor harder with a poor character. Having a poor character probably means that the bulk of the work must lie on the actor alongside the director to try to give more depth to the character. Taehyung is not as experienced as an actor as Do Jihan or Jo Yoonwo to be able to show hints of frustration or burden. Taehyung does a wonderful job playing the happy-go-lucky, cute character because that is how he is like as a BTS member. However, I’ve found that he does struggle with more emotionally charged, deeper scenes which is likely due to his inexperience.

Jo Yoonwo as Yeowool has minimal scenes, but throughout the drama I was convinced of his bond with Hansung. Thus I only felt sad when I saw Yeowool’s reaction to Hansung’s death. Do Jihan, on the other hand, doesn’t have that many scenes either, but I was convinced with his character’s conflict between doing what he thinks is right and maintaining his family’s reputation. Do Jihan is great at expressing through his eyes or other little actions like making his face all tense when his character has to force himself to stay calm.

I also didn’t like how Hansung, as a character, seemed to be written as stupid. Being innocent does not mean that one is stupid. Hansung’s death was totally preventable. I found it hard to believe that Hansung had seen the “must kill” message addressed to his brother and didn’t even think it was sketchy. He didn’t even question his brother when he passed that gift to him. During the few scenes that Hansung is in, he often asks a lot of questions or at least has some inquisitive nature (ie ep 17 at the cafeteria where Sunwoo joins Hansung and Yeowool for lunch). Then it was only after he saw his brother fighting with Sunwoo did it all click to him? Seriously? No. That just made him seem so stupid and took away the sadness of his character’s death.

Conclusion: Appeal Dismissed.

Rating: 2 = Yell At Everyone -.-

File No: Hwan: POET-WARRIOR-Youth-Ep-18 Appearing before the Dramacourt: Hwarang: Poet Warrior Youth Ep 18 ***If this is your first time browsing The Drama Files, please read The Rules section first for our reviewing and rating system***