#making her one of the last surviving 'scary' level sith from the empire

[raven-of-domain-kwaad]

Trying out the Andronikos romance and I was not prepared for just how sweet it is.

[rebelsofshield]

Panels Far, Far Away: A Week in Star Wars Comics 10/3/19

It’s October which means it’s time to return to Mustafar for another series of creepy shenanigans! Also, Doctor Aphra tries her best to survive as an official employee of the Empire and Greg Pak’s sprint towards the end of this volume of Star Wars continues.

Star Wars #72 written by Greg Pak and art by Phil Noto

Look. I’m sure you’re tired of hearing me say it, but Rock People. I never would have guessed that a story where C-3PO and Chewbacca team up with sentient stone men to thwart the plans of Darth Vader would be one of my favorite stories in the seventy five issue run of Star Wars, but here we are. If this whole arc was simply this storyline, I would be throwing out “A” grades every issue. Between the humor, brilliant art, playful action, and one of the best character beats for C-3PO in years, each installment of this story twists what came before while also just being damn fun.

The same, unfortunately, can’t be said about the other two stories. Han and Leia’s noir love triangle has a fun character moment for Han, but we’ve been stuck in the same ballroom set piece for three issues now. There’s a lot going on in this particular narrative, but the pacing over these last several installments has all but halted. Hopefully things pick up next chapter.

Luke suffers the most though. While the idea of Luke meeting up with a young thief who learned the Force from the Guardians of the Whills is an interesting one and has the potential for all manner of character and hijinks, writer Greg Pak’s handling of Luke here can’t help but feel poor and misguided. It is unclear at this point why Luke has any trust for Warba, who has repeatedly used and lied to him while offered little in return. Young Skywalker is still in his good natured farmboy phase of his character development, but after over seventy issues one would think that his naiveté would have worn off just a little. It’s a disappointingly simple character turn that hopefully will improve in future issues.  

Score: B

Star Wars: Doctor Aphra #37 written by Simon Spurrier and art by Caspar Wijngaard

It all ends where it began. With just four issues left in her long winding journey, Doctor Aphra once again finds herself working for the Empire and just under the shadow of Darth Vader himself.

Bringing Aphra and Vader together again after all this time is a logical jump for the final story arc of this comic. Aphra’s scheming and leverage over Darth Vader always made her the perfect foil for the galaxy’s most iconic villain and seeing Simon Spurrier get to fully dig into this dynamic makes for some fun storytelling opportunities. The rapidly approaching end to this long strange voyage is likely to spell nothing but doom and sadness for our good doctor, but the journey still proves fun and filled with humor.

Spurrier has a particular knack for finding creative spins on existing Star Wars concepts and twisting them to fit into the bizarre corner of the galaxy that he has carved out for Doctor Aphra. Having a full Imperial task force focused on weeding out old temples that may serve as rebel bases is the perfect blending of this particular story’s concepts and such an obvious fit for Aphra, even if it goes awry incredibly quickly. It leads to a twist that is sure to personalize the upcoming issues in unexpected ways. It may feel a little convenient, but the emotional fallout is sure to make it worth it.

Caspar Wijngaard is a welcome addition to this book. I did not make my frustrations with Wilton Santos’s pencils subtle, and I’m glad to see that Spurrier’s frequent collaborator has taken his place and is back on board for another story. Wijngaard’s pencil style lends itself well to motion and character design and while this issue is light on action, it does offer ample opportunity to show off his creativity. Wijngaard’s work still looks best when he handles his own colors and it’s hard not to be a little disappointed that Lee Loughridge has stepped in. Loughride’s work is serviceable and does a great job at capturing mood and environment, but Wijngaard’s faces lack definition and it does a disservice to some of the weightier moments

Score: B+

Star Wars Adventures: Return to Vader’s Castle #1 written by Cavan Scott and art by Francesco Francavilla and Megan Levens

The original Tales from Vader’s Castle remains my favorite project put out by IDW’s tenure on Star Wars. Cavan Scott, Derek Charm, and a host of other artists were able to churn out a series of fun Star Wars set horror stories without ever sacrificing the book’s decided audience of younger readers. Giving the anthology stories of Adventures a solid frame narrative to work with added a fun level of consequence and continuity and it built to a finale that contained some of the best visual storytelling in a Star Wars comic of the last year.

When IDW announced that we would be returning to Mustafar for another round of macabre tales from the Dark Side, I could not have been more excited. Even with Derek Charm sitting this anthology out, Return to Vader’s Castle still looks to be a delightfully creepy continuation of what is hopefully a holiday tradition.

Scott switches up the framework this year and has the different stories being told by Darth Vader’s mysterious servant, Vanee, to an unfortunate listener. Vanee is an underdeveloped but suitably unnerving character so his place as our Crypt Keeper for this anthology works well. While I won’t spoil the reveal of who Vanee’s audience is, it comes as a fun piece of continuity to last year’s event, but it may be lost on many of the comics younger readers who may not have been keeping up.

Francesco Francavilla nails these framed sections, with shadowy pencils and sinister character designs. Each frame is colored in dark blues, reds, and greens and it gives all the segments in Vader’s castle an air of dark magic and playful scares.

As for the actual tale, the decision to make the mysterious monster at its center Spider-Maul is an inspired one. This insane, monstrous version of the fallen Sith Lord makes for the perfect haunted house villain and Scott sets up a fun plot that sees young scavengers happening upon his trap. The art for this segment disappoints however. While Megan Levens draws a suitably creepy Maul and the scenes concerning the young scavengers function fine, Charlie Kirchoff’s pencils prove misplaced. The comic is rendered too bright and colorful and it robs the story of its eerie atmosphere. The result feels divorced from what is a surprisingly dark tale on the page.

All in all, I am happy to be back in the walls of Fortress Vader. I’m a sucker for Halloween and fun seasonal scary stories set in the galaxy far, far away could not be more my jam. I look forward to future weeks.

Score: B

[scrawnydutchman]

Star Wars: The Last Jedi Movie Review

*NOTE: The following review contains spoilers, highlighted in bold letters for reader’s convenience. If you haven’t seen the film yet, skip the bold letter sections of this review and come back to read them when you have seen it.

Well, the long anticipated episode 8 to the beloved Star Wars franchise is here. My group of friends and I went into The Last Jedi  knowing that it had some pretty mixed opinions going around for it. Some people, like my brothers, were giving it some high praise for being absolutely spectacular and epic. Others were calling it stupid and non sensical. Now that I’ve seen the film, what’s my verdict? Well . . . . it’s no wonder people are as divided about the quality of this film as they are, because it’s a very mixed bag. It may be the most dramatic and thematically deep Star Wars film in years, possibly the whole franchise . . . but it’s also the most laugh out loud ridiculous. Yes, that includes The Phantom Menace. But while the prequels were mainly just boring and/or annoying, The Last Jedi is silly in a way that kept me consistently laughing hard in the theater. It’s an unintentional comedic goldmine.

PLOT:

Synopsis:

After the events of The Force Awakens, the rebellion is on their last set of legs in their fight against the First Order. There are so few rebels left in the fight and hope is dwindling. The only chance they have left is if Rey can receive Jedi training from the rediscovered Luke Skywalker in hopes that she can help the rebellion survive and eventually overthrow the First Order. Will the rebellion win the battle?

Now I know that’s a pretty bare bones synopsis but really, it’s the only way I can be as cautious about spoilers as possible. This movie has like 50 different twists and turns happen throughout it’s runtime. Every time you think one cliche’d or recycled plot point is going to happen, they go in a completely different direction. My guess is that after the fact that The Force Awakens was a pretty blatant repeat of old film beats leftover from A New Hope and to a lesser extent The Empire Strikes Back, the writers decided they wanted to flex their own creative chops a bit and experiment with the old formula. Honestly, I welcome it. I like that this movie was so unpredictable, since The Force Awakens and Rogue One were truthfully pretty easy to guess (Rogue One especially since it was a prequel). I also like the ways this movie challenges the old Star Wars formula we’ve come to love. 

One way in which the film does this is it’s blurring the line between good and evil. Star Wars has always been pretty blunt and rigid about who are the true antagonists in it’s story, pretty childishly so even. It got to a point where the movie villains have been pretty cartoonishly evil (especially lord Palpatine and Snoke). But in The Last Jedi it’s not that simple. Despite the fact that we saw Ben Solo kill his own father, he makes decisions in this film that make us think he might turn to the light, such as kill Lord Snoke when he threatens the life of Rey. We also get a pretty poignant scene with the code breaker about how the grotesquely wealthy weapons dealers provide starships and guns for both the first order and the rebellion alike, making a point that the rebellion also does ethically questionable things for it’s cause. We as the audience even get trust dilemmas with beloved characters we’ve known for years, like Luke friggin Skywalker!! Did he fail Kylo Ren and make him succumb to the dark side?! Did he attempt to murder him?! Were his actions justified?! Stuff like this is great and It’s a welcome change of pace from an otherwise pretty black and white story about who’s the good and who’s the bad. 

That said, not every choice in this movie is a good one. Sometimes the twists and turns of this plot are counter intuitive, for a number of reasons. For one, because this movie is big reveal after big reveal after big reveal, a lot of times characters actions, even if completely understandable in retrospect, could have been made a lot easier if they just EXPLAINED why it was they were doing what they were doing. Luke is reluctant to teach Rey the force, and goes for literal DAYS without explaining anything to her. The code breaker guy needs Rose’s cherished necklace in order to infiltrate the First Order’s tracker, but won’t just explain that and creates this whole thing about being selfish and heartless. But by far the biggest offender is vice admiral Holdo, who had a completely noble reason for charging the escape pods but couldn’t be bothered to explain what she was doing to Poe, leading him to mutiny against her. The plot forces these characters to behave irrationally in order for big reveals to happen, and had they been honest and communicative with each other they could have saved themselves ample amount of time. But being open about your thinking doesn’t fill a 2 and a half hour runtime I guess. 

Another way in which the movie challenges old Star Wars sensibilities is that while The Force Awakens  tried desperately hard to be as much like the old films as possible with it’s constant references and reappearances of old characters, this film has quite a bit of those old themes disappear by the end of the film and even has Kylo Ren talk about getting rid of the old ways to Rey. Luke Skywalker dies by the end of the film (albeit through a string of what I think are fakeouts). Snoke is killed off, and of course due to the unfortunate passing of Carrie Fisher, it’s unlikely Leia will be appearing in episode nine (unless they already finished shooting her scenes). I appreciate this films willingness to explore it’s own territory, as if to say “alright guys, we had our fun gushing over all the cameos and nostalgic feels, but now it’s time to tell our own story”.

But all of that said, there’s a great deal of silliness in this movie. Like, Star Wars 1-3 levels of silliness. The most prominent coming to my mind being when Leia is flung out into the cold depths of space after an explosion and survives by channeling the force and guiding her body to the safe remains of a rebellion ship. Now at first I thought this was the world’s ballsiest way of killing off a character whose actress tragically passed away the year prior. Instead, it’s the most laughably ridiculous part in the whole movie. If you’re one of those people who was upset at how quickly Rey was learning the force, how about seeing Leia, who has NEVER DEMONSTRATED SUCH COMPETENCE IN THE FORCE,  suddenly being able to defy death in a way that no jedi or sith has ever done before?! There’s also basic plothole knitpicky shit, like if Finn and Rose were arrested for illegal parking then why was their spaceship still kept on the beach where it shouldn’t be? But to be fair they end up not being able to use it for escape anyway. Also the Chrome lady Stormtrooper from The Force Awakens shows up again, but does nothing and is taken out like a chump. She’s pretty much the Boba Fett of these new movies; she looks cool and sells toys, but does absolutely nothing. The irony is she has more dialogue than Boba ever did but is somehow less memorable.

Overall the plot of this film is a bit too ambitious for it’s own good, but I appreciate the ambition regardless.

VISUALS:

Much like previous Star Wars movies of recent years, this movie is pretty hit and miss. I’ll give it credit that it isn’t like The Force Awakens where it’s just too aesthetically similar to previous films to really have it’s own visual identity and it isn’t like Rogue One where the new stuff pretty jarringly clashes with the old. This movie has a pretty consistent feel and look to it and offers some creative new environments and creatures.

My favorite environment in the whole movie is the casino. While I was initially afraid going into it that this would just be another cantina just like the bar in The Force Awakens was, this movie has a setting that’s reminiscent enough of real life casinos to be instantly recognizable but also has enough distinguishing features to be it’s own version of it and also creates solid additions to the lore of the world. This is an explanation as to how the First order gets it’s weaponry, as well as how there’s one aspect in which the rebellion isn’t perfect. It’s also just an environment we haven’t seen in Star Wars before; a rich aristocratic type place that’s beautiful on the surface but hides a sinister underbelly. 

This movie also has some decent CGI effects . . . . mostly. Okay, the Star Wars films have recently had a reputation for having somewhat scary looking CGI characters, particularly the recreations of Tarkin and young Leia in Rogue One. But the creatures and machinery in The Last Jedi are pretty creative designs and are pulled off effectively .  .. again  . . mostly.

But of course, this movie has as many goofy visuals as it does plotpoints. I already mentioned the hilarious image of Carrie Fisher’s limp body floating through space via conveniently appearing force powers, but there’s also Kylo Ren’s weirdly wide shirtless body which has been meme-ing for a while (EDIT: Apparently that’s actually what Adam Driver looks like Extra weird). The visual problems aren’t just with the CGI though. This movie has noticeably weird cuts and overall editing with it’s clips that does a weirdly specific amount of worldbuilding. There is of course the infamous shot of Mark Hamill milking the utters of a CGI animal that adds nothing to the plot and could have easily been cut out while still maintaining a two and a half hour movie. There’s also this one shot of a laundry iron coming down that would initially have you believe it’s just a starship in the SHAPE of a laundry iron, but it is in fact just a simple laundry iron ironing out the wrinkles of First Order officer’s uniform. YES, THIS SCENE ACTUALLY HAPPENS and it is so off-putting and weird it’s hilarious. I didn’t know how much I wanted to learn about the day to day maintenance a First Order officer has to go through until right now. Are there dish washing droids on their ship? Is there a vacuum droid? Is there a sewing machine constantly making new uniforms every few minutes? I have SO many questions.

The verdict on the visuals is pretty much the same as the verdict on the plot. Lot’s of ambitious choices; some effective, some weird but still entertaining. 

Acting Performances:

The cast here is pretty damn good. Rey and Finn bring the awesomeness from The Force Awakens back (albeit with a few corny one liners worthy of The Phantom Menace). Kylo Ren is more likable this time around, playing up how he’s just an emotionally confused guy who doesn’t know what to think, kind of like a Star Wars version of Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Mark Hamill has both a gut wrenchingly hilarious and compellingly emotional performance (and is particularly badass in the finale). Carrie Fisher remains classy as ever even in her final on screen performance. There’s some pretty decent new additions as well. I like Rose a lot; she’s cute (if only a little stupid in the end). I like the Code breaker guy (even if he’s kind of a Deus ex Machina) because he’s a morally ambiguous character who only acts with money as his motivation. He’s kind of badass in his own way and I hope he comes back in Episode 9. Poe was great. Holdo was . . . . .eh, kind of just a generic by-the-books general butting heads with the reckless Poe. I know she ultimately has good intentions, but because she’s both introduced and dies in this movie she doesn’t leave much impact otherwise. Not much else to say here.

Sound/Music Production:

Typical great Star Wars quality. Effective sound effects, unique voices coming from every CGI creature, a soundtrack that’s not offensive but also not as poignantly epic as the original trilogy. Overall serviceable.

Conclusion:

Whether it’s edge-of-your-seat exciting or bombastically hilarious, The Last Jedi is very entertaining. I appreciate it’s very ambitious choices even if a lot of them are pretty stupid, and I do legitimately like the ideas of blurring the line between good and evil and moving on from the old ways of doing a Star Wars movie. The film keeps you guessing, has good drama, interesting ideas, all tied together with hit-and-miss execution. I’d say give it a watch!

Plot: 1/1 - Average (but with extra credit due to being hilarious)

Visuals: 1/1 - Average  (but with extra credit due to being hilarious)

Acting Performance: .5/1 Average

Sound/Music Production: .5/1 Average

OVERALL: 3/4.