#she lives and exists in a vacuum where only her flaws remain

[breaswift]

“can’t I have a little fun?” = can’t I pretend to wax poetic and blog about how one certain waste of a woman needs to fall off the face of the earth in the name of saving the culture? all while calling myself a christian and tearing down a fellow christian woman?

if you ask me i think it's a bit fucking pathetic that you are so obsessed with trying to take down taylor swift. im not a fan of her either but you're taking it to a level that's beyond reasonable, it's not normal or healthy to be this fixated on a single person and it's a bit concerning seeing how much you put into this hatred

My dear friend- I can appreciate your concerns. I also see many a person unhealthily fixated on a celebrity or public figure of some kind.

I, however, offer Taylor Swift no particular attention to her personhood. I am simply interested in evaluating her music using my experience as a critic of literature. I am a published literary critic- so I have spent much of my life working on a skillset that enables this type of work. I have multiple college degrees- all of which have engendered in me a sense of critical thinking and aesthetic interrogation.

If you have issue with my posts- feel free to write a rebuttal. However, I do expect actual thought and effort to go into your argument. I will not waste my time engaging with a subpar argument. Also, if you want help learning to write a good argument- I also teach critical thinking courses and units on argumentative writing at the collegiate level. I would be happy to help you with any questions you might have- about literature, critical thinking, or argumentation.

I love thoughtful critique- but refrain from calling people "pathetic" simply because they hold opinions which differ from yours. It is beneath you to stoop down a sling insults where you could have thoughtful discussion.

In any case, can't I do what I want with my free time? Can't I have a little fun?

In any case- if you are worried about my mental health failing because I think about Taylor Swift's music critically, I just logged off for a full month. I finished the summer focusing on preparing for my new job, moving cross-country, and enjoying what's left of my vacation. I sat on a beach with a book and listened to the sound of the tide shifting in the distance. Now, I am home again- writing to you from a small apartment after a long day's work.

What a rewarding life we can all live- should we choose to enjoy the world. I do love how time marches on.

With peace and love, my friend, do not worry about me.

[safeandtuckedaway]

Is it possible to like anything? Mixed thoughts on morality, turning a blind eye and "The Matrix"

I care a lot about media, and communication. As a guy that has some issues talking about exactly how he's feeling and has low social energy, things like shows, movies and books were a lot more important and relevant to my formative years than interaction with other people – not that I didn't have friends on my teen years, I did, just. Well, a lot of stuff to consider at that time that is irrelevant to this stream of consciousness. Something that I also care about is the message said media brings, and how that is inherently linked to who wrote, or directed the piece of media. This brings question to some of the internet's most infamously discussions: is it "ok" to like something made by someone that does very questionable decisions? I honestly don't have a definitive answer for that. More often than not, this kind of discussion feels to me to be in a vacuum in the internet, or of less politically inclined people. There are good articles out there, but they never seem to demand you not watch something, but to make people reflect on the bad writing, direction or production something got. Which I think is the way to go. Most of what I read and watch of radical left doesn't even mention such an issue with representation and how it should be completely isolated and burned to the ground, as I'm afraid they're more concerned with some more "tangible" problems, like the rise of imperialism, neoliberalism and fascism and imperialist and neoliberal feminism as a tool to maintain the capitalist system, often times built by people of color and resources from the "Southern" countries, and maintained cleaned and pristine by women of color (VERGÈS, 2019)¹.

I'm just a guy in his mid twenties with a degree in graphic design and a thesis in communication design. I didn't study political science in university. So I think I can do my part by talking about communication, then. Also I will try not to pull info out of my ass.

As some people might know from now, Matrix "4" Resurrections' trailer launched this week, and with that, some people were kind to remind past's fuck ups of Lana Wachowski regarding race in many of her works, like Sense8, Speed Racer and Cloud Atlas. Listen, I can't ignore the fact that the decisions made in these films are in the very least, questionable and distastful, specially regarding Asian people. Also she really out there rocking dreads, which I'm not even gonna get into, as I think it's already very well established why that's not a good look for white people. I only watched maybe one episode of Sense8, but this article here sums up pretty well what's weird about it. It also brings a good message by the end.

So, can you like anything without being morally crushed by what you know is right? Can you enjoy a piece of media that is flawed by the creator's White Gaze/Straight Gaze/Cisgender Gaze? I admit I have a hard time dealing with feelings of morality. It feels rather individual and super subjective on most accounts, and doesn't leave out (ironically?) a lot of nuance for different cultures and practices in the world. I wanna talk about that more in the future. Either way, about media, I'm of the opinion that you can enjoy those things if you wish to. Fuck it. Make it your own. Be critical of what you consume, as most things we do are made under the wing of big corporations owned by people that don't care about us, if we need screen time or actually be portrayed as a human being.

If anything, I would like to plead that people pay more attention to the independent side of media creation, if possible. The internet has its advantages in that regard. Don't lock yourself in on Netflix and [insert other streaming services here] and its desperately neoliberal vision of queer people. It's hard, but there's many POC and LGBTQIA+ folks that work hard to bring better stories for people just like them. Look for POC that make books and short films and documentaries. By comparison, it will be easy to spot how flawed The White Gaze makes when telling a story.

I'm gonna talk a little about The Matrix (1999) below, so I'm gonna do one of those fancy "Keep reading" right now.

So, I re-watched The Matrix (1999) yesterday and found the plot with Cypher turning against the other members of the Resistance as a pretty good analogy of what most people live their lives currently, under capitalism and overconsumption: Willing to throw your group under the bus, to literally destroy the remains of human existence that are still left, for the comfort of being blissfully ignorant. "I wanna be rich, and someone important, like an actor", he said to Agent Smith, that probably wouldn't fucking do that even if the plan did the way they wanted to. I like to believe it was the greed of the few that brought down humanity by their own creation in the Matrix universe, but unfortunately that is not brought up, in that case, bring in that "humanity" as a whole did it. There's another scene, when Agent Smith is alone with Morpheus, where he monologues about how "humanity" is a "cancer" for the Earth, for "abusing all the resources from an area and have no way to survive but to move to another area". This again shows the lack of perspective from The Wachowskis, blaming humans, that have existed for thousands of years, for the environmental atrocities that capitalism, that has only existed for a couple hundred years, has caused to the planet.

Like I said, it is okay to like things that can be questionable. I like this slip that the character Cypher is. He is the embodiment of a lot of issues and he is inherently opposite of our "good guys" characters in Matrix. I can still be critical of their lack of eyesight on what – and who – is really killing the planet, and their very distasteful idea of going post-racial when the fact is that race still very much matters.

¹ VERGÈS, FRANÇOISE, Decolonial Feminism. 2019

[aion-rsa]

The Walking Dead: What the Commonwealth Means for Season 11 and the Ending

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This article contains major spoilers for The Walking Dead comic and potentially season 11.

The end is nigh for The Walking Dead.

And we’re not just talking about the news that The Walking Dead season 11 will serve as the final season of the long-running zombie drama. We’re also referring to the fact that the show will soon no longer have any material from the original comic series to draw from. 

Robert Kirkman’s Walking Dead comic lasted for 193 issues and 32 volumes before concluding in July of 2019. The Walking Dead season 10 finale, in which the Whisperers are dispatched and Eugene arrives at a powerful new community called The Commonwealth, takes the show’s story up to around the start of Volume 30: New World Order.

In many ways, this final Commonwealth arc is the comic’s biggest storytelling gambit yet, with lots of new concepts and moving parts. The Walking Dead TV show now only has 30 episodes (6 remaining “extra” season 10 episodes and 24 season 11 episodes) to tell the whole thing. 

So in the grand tradition of our comic book catch ups dating back to season 8, we will give you a fair share of Walking Dead season 11 spoilers here by detailing what is yet to come in the final arc of the comics and therefore what is what yet to come in the final arc of the show. Read along to find out how what The Commonwealth is and how The Walking Dead will end.

What is The Commonwealth?

When Eugene, Yumiko, Ezekiel, and Princess arrive at the train depot rendezvous at the end of season 10, the armor on the soldiers that accost them leaves absolutely no mystery as to where they are. Eugene and company have arrived at The Commonwealth. What exactly is the Commonwealth? Well to put it in the simplest terms possible: The Commonwealth is a community…a big, big, big, big, big community. 

In the comics, The Commonwealth exists somewhere in Ohio. In the show it’s somewhere in West Virginia. But if this show Commonwealth takes after the book Commonwealth, then Eugene and friends can expect to have just encountered a community of 50,000 people. 50,000! That’s an above-average sized suburb just about anywhere in the U.S. in normal times. In the context of the zombie apocalypse, it’s a super-city. For comparison’s sake, the combined population of Alexandria, Hilltop, The Kingdom, The Sanctuary, and Oceanside numbers in the hundreds.

As evidenced by its highly organized and heavily armored soldiers, The Commonwealth is an extremely advanced society. It has a functioning government led by Governor Pamela Milton. It has distinct military and police forces to keep people safe. It even has a thriving restaurant scene and recreational activities like baseball games held in stadiums. All is well at The Commonwealth. But also, like…is all well at The Commonwealth?

The Rotten Core

The penultimate volume of The Walking Dead comic series is called “The Rotten Core” for a reason. Nobody at The Commonwealth is purely evil like The Governor of Woodbury, nor does any one there exhibit the sheer savagery of a Negan or Alpha. But that’s not to say that Governor Pamela Milton and the political and social institutions of The Commonwealth aren’t flawed.

The goal of The Commonwealth was to build something that would resemble the world before the zombie apocalypse. And they did so. The Commonwealth rebuilt the world as it was with all its conveniences, safety, and unfortunately: inequality. Eugene and his crew (which includes Michonne, Siddiq, Magna, and Yumiko in the comic) soon find out the drawbacks of The Commonwealth’s highly-civilized lifestyle. Instead of being celebrated like a hero for making first contact with a new society, Eugene’s new friend Stephanie is chastised and punished for acting above her station. Stephanie and Michonne’s long-lost daughter Elodie then begin to let Eugene and co. in on the various rules of The Commonwealth.

Citizens of The Commonwealth are assigned jobs and statuses based on the jobs and statuses that they enjoyed in the “before world.” When the Alexandrians are brought to meet Governor Pamela Milton, Milton is thrilled to discover that Michonne was a lawyer in her previous life. Michonne is almost immediately welcomed into the community and given a grand apartment befitting her status as someone who can help judicate matters in The Commonwealth. Eugene, despite being the most brilliant individual in his community, is not afforded anywhere near the same level of respect due to his modest high school teacher background.

One thing that is important to note is that, even though the core of the Commonwealth is rotten and the behavior of its politicians is unfair, it’s not necessarily seen as wildly nefarious. People are allowed the opportunity to “move up” to a new social caste once per year. The system makes the Alexandrians uncomfortable, but no one appears to be so weirded out by it that they feel the need to intervene. Princess even says she thinks the system of social advancement seems fair to her. 

But not everybody at The Commonwealth is a fan of the current state of affairs. 

Alexandrian-Commonwealth Diplomacy 

A Commonwealth soldier named Mercer is one of the most important characters introduced in this final arc, and he (or a character like him) is almost certain to make an appearance on the TV show. Mercer is a physically-imposing specimen of a man and one of the Commonwealth’s most impressive soldiers. Mercer is also, quite frankly, sick of The Commonwealth’s shit. Governor Pam Milton isn’t a despot. But that doesn’t mean she’s a particularly inspiring or effective leader either. Milton lets her spoiled, truly awful son Sebastian treat Mercer like a personal lapdog. Mercer has his eye on starting a coup to overthrow Pamela, and the introduction of these Alexandrian strangers who live freer lifestyles seems to accelerate Mercer’s desires.

Eventually Milton, Mercer, and Eugene return to Alexandria so that The Governor can see where Eugene comes from and meet the great Rick Grimes. Upon seeing Alexandria, Milton calls it a “shithole” but eventually warms up to it and is tremendously impressed by Rick. Rick gives Milton and the Commonwealth community a tour and the two discuss their political philosophies. 

This is another area in which this arc of the comic is pleasantly non-confrontational. The Commonwealth is definitely the “antagonist” of these final batches of issues, but Rick Grimes and Pamela Milton don’t really have an antagonistic relationship. Upon finding out how The Commonwealth does things, Rick makes it clear that he doesn’t approve of that approach, but he also says he cannot begrudge them their successes. When Rick, Eugene, and the Commonwealthers return to the massive community, Rick is absolutely enchanted by what he sees. 

The relative peace and stability of The Commonwealth is mind-bending to Rick. He literally cries when having dinner out on the town with Michonne as he wishes Andrea could have been alive for this. The Commonwealth, in many ways, is the end game that Rick has been striving for. Unfortunately, that rotten core cannot be ignored much longer. 

Revolution!

Perhaps it’s because of Rick’s presence and the knowledge of what kind of community he leads, or perhaps it’s just because they can’t handle any more bullshit – whatever the reason, the lower class of the Commonwealth eventually erupts in glorious revolution. In what is certain to be a disturbingly familiar moment when it airs on television, a Commonwealth soldier beats a citizen into a coma after finding the citizen had an affair with the soldier’s wife. The people of The Commonwealth have themselves a lengthy, destructive riot. 

After the riot dies down, Rick embarrasses Pamela by helping to clean up all the debris. It’s an act that doesn’t go unnoticed among the people of The Commonwealth. Both Dwight and Mercer now see Rick as an important figure to their respective causes. Mercer believes that Rick can be the key to leading a bloodless coup. Dwight also wants a coup but not a bloodless one. He wants Alexandrian and its 100-something people to violently overthrow The Commonwealth…because Dwight is a moron. Things get so tense that Rick sends a message back to Alexandria and Hilltop to Maggie to prepare for war just in case. 

Ultimately, however, Rick wants nothing to do with either plan and he is eventually forced to kill Dwight when Dwight pulls a gun on Pamela. The damage, however, has already been done. Pamela’s political powers and influence are at their lowest and the citizens’ frustrations are at their height. Mercer enlists the help of Dwight’s old girlfriend Laura to recruit other Commonwealth soldiers to their cause. The military rises up and Pamela and Sebastian are forced to flee to neighboring city Greenville.

There’s now a leadership vacuum and you just know who loves stepping into those…Rick Grimes once again accepts the burden of leadership thrust upon him and announces that there will now be democratic elections held in The Commonwealth. All is well…except…

Rest in Peace

Before we discuss the very final arc of The Walking Dead comic and The Walking Dead TV show, let’s take a brief moment to remark upon just how much has changed here. In the lengthy plot description above, you may notice that many characters involved are no longer on the show. The Walking Dead will have to try out the comic’s final arc without Rick Grimes, Michonne, Siddiq, Dwight, or Laura. Thankfully, in many cases that won’t be a big issue. Daryl and Carol can step in for Rick and Michonne pretty easily in most cases. Siddiq and Laura don’t play too significant of roles and Dwight could be really anyone from Alexandria who is annoyed with the current state of affairs (Alden maybe?).

But the lack of Rick is really going to be apparent for this final arc to the extent that the show will likely have to go in a completely new direction. Volume 32: Rest in Peace is all about the sad death of one Rick Grimes. Hammering home once again how civil this whole arc is, Rick visits Pamela in jail where she says she has no hard feelings about how things went down. Unfortunately, her son does. And that’s how one night, the mighty Rick Grimes is shot and killed in his home by one privileged brat. The penultimate issue of the comic deals with the heartbreaking fallout and with Carl Grimes (who is also dead in the show) making the magnanimous decision not to kill Sebastian. The final issue of the book then rolls right into an extended flash forward that you can read more about here. 

Of course, The Walking Dead TV show doesn’t appear in a position to pull off a similar arc here. Rick is already off the show and has movie plot armor anyway. Neither Daryl or Carol will step into Rick’s death mask as the pair is getting their own spinoff. Perhaps Maggie could step in and take the bullet for Rick but even that doesn’t have the same oomph. 

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No, it seems likely that the conclusion of The Walking Dead TV series will deviate from the comic significantly. That doesn’t mean we won’t get a lot of The Commonwealth arc up to a certain point. But at the very end, The Walking Dead will be on its own…just like how it started with a first season full of Darabont deviations. 

The post The Walking Dead: What the Commonwealth Means for Season 11 and the Ending appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/33u9oDT

[literaturemonamour]

“To wait. In our lives we know joy, anger, sorrow, and a hundred other emotions, but these emotions all together occupy a bare one percent of our time. The remaining ninety-nine percent is just living in waiting. I wait in momentary expectation, feeling as though my breasts are being crushed, for the sound in the corridor of the footsteps of happiness. Empty. Oh, life is too painful, the reality that confirms the universal belief that it is best not to be born.”

The Setting Sun is a solemn portrait of post-war Japan and the decline of aristocracy. A slow, detailed read, the prose is straightforward and heart-searing. Dazai seamlessly combines the struggles of an aristocratic family with a glimpse of Japanese women’s social mores. I have read and loved Dazai’s magnum opus, No Longer Human a couple of years ago, which remains one of my favorite books ever since. The Setting Sun came close at achieving the same level of the dreariness of futile existence where one seeks solace in opium and moral decadence. But alas, the novel failed to achieve the same level of masterful storytelling.

The novel focuses on an aristocratic family, comprised of Kazuko and her ageing mother who recently relocated to a small house in the countryside, where they experience a financial downfall and an unexpected return of Kazuko’s brother, Naoji whom they presumed was killed in the war. The family struggles with adjusting themselves to new hardships and they are financially dependent on Kazuko’s uncle. Meanwhile, Kazuko is tormented by her own anguish and the unbearable yearning for her lover. She begins writing a series of love letters that go unanswered to a man she barely knew, begging him to accept her as his mistress. It’s indeed a foolish act of desperation. But at this point, Kazuko has nothing to lose. Her life seems utterly meaningless as if she is sucked into a vacuum where nothing ever happens while she is also overcome by desires and is constantly being crushed by the weight of her futile existence. The presence of resentment for their conditions is palpable, looming on every page. The family appears to be clueless about how to cope with their new lives, at some point they feel victimized as aristocracy is at its nadir. The old days of glory and excessive indulgence are bygone. Each member of the family begins to drift apart in the attempt to find meanings or something to reaffirm their belief that it’s worthy to stay alive. 

Dazai’s inclination towards using letters as a flashback technique, which worked exquisitely in No Longer Human, fails to work this time. The novel becomes slightly tedious and less compelling in its narrative. However, he exemplifies how Western arts and literature are deeply embedded in Japanese culture. His characters often make allusions to famous French writers and painters. Dazai, who studied French literature at the university beautifully integrates western influences into his writings. His oeuvre serves as a relic from the era where western influence begins to penetrate into Japanese literature for the first time.   

In this book, Dazai also did something daring. He chose to tell the story from a female perspective through his heroine, a bold choice–I must say. But I feel like there’s something amiss in his depiction of Kazuko. He only grasps the idea of what it’s like to be a woman on the surface without giving her much depth. Dazai assumes that women’s worries only include banal, domestic things such as, finding the right man, starting a family, and performing household chores. It’s rather perplexing that he assumes the only thing that will give Kazuko’s life a meaning is having a child.  Dazai, as a writer whom I expected so much more from–doesn’t even scratch the veneer of female existence. Although, it’s arguable that Kazuko could have been modelled after Japanese women at the time, who were bound by social mores, therefore his heroine–comes off as an ordinary woman who invokes indifference from the reader.

Naoji, on the other hand seems like a more intricate, complex character. A real victim of the human condition. Not much is known about him before he comes back from the war. He remained a mysterious shadow hovering over Kazuko’s life until she secretly reads his journal then we finally get a glimpse of him as a person. He perceives suicide as an ultimate liberation, the only way to ease his suffering. Unlike Kazuko and their mother, Naoji detests aristocracy and believes it is the source of humiliation and debasement. He couldn’t stand when people start treating him as an aristocrat nor could he accept his condition as someone who resorts to begging and borrowing money either. With his family’s fortune in decline and the death of his mother whom he thinks is the only cohesive bond that holds the family together, he could no longer bear his own internal conflicts and sees no point in continuing his life. Naoji is a particularly pitiful character, much like Ōba Yōzō from No Longer Human—tormented and socially exiled in their own minds. I wonder how could one person live with that much suffering and shame as he writes in his letters and how much personal experience Dazai has put into creating this character? It is reminiscent of Dazai’s upbringing and his short and tragic life comprised of many failed suicide attempts, but he kept on trying until he finally took his own life a few months after he published his last book. 

I’m aware that this book sounds very bleak but it isn’t a terrible book by all means. Quite the contrary, in fact The Setting Sun has its great qualities and it amplifies the emptiness of human existence, the inability of Japanese people to cope with the loss of their great nation, a time where one keeps on searching for the smallest glimpse of silver lining that would reassure them that life is worth living and this deafening silence is not permanent. This book is an elegy to the old aristocratic Japanese society which was plunged into a limbo in the blink of an eye, a heart-rending tale of a family torn apart by the beginning of a new era. Mind you, the novel isn’t without flaws, yet it still retains its unparalleled excellence.

[casualarsonist]

Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens review

‘A 7/10 is a work that is, for the most part, successful in its intentions. It’s a worthy and entertaining experience that perhaps slips a little here and there in how it keeps you engaged. It might have issues that frustrate, or it might be an acquired taste, but it certainly deserves to be elevated about its peers for reasons of quality, uniqueness, or ambition.’

- Me, 2017

A few months ago I wrote an article detailing my rating criteria. I wanted not just to inform the reader as to how I come to make my decisions, but set out some clear guidelines for myself, something that I could come back to if ever I felt uncertain about exactly where my feelings fell and, perhaps, to mark a line in the sand that would help me come to terms with some of the more negative feelings I have towards popular pieces of media. Above you can see the little blurb I wrote for what I believe a 7/10, or a ‘good’ film or novel or video game stands for, and I want you to pay particular attention to the last four words – ‘quality, uniqueness, or ambition’ – because for now they’re going to be important.

Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens is a film by J.J. Abrams Disney’s board of directors. It is the seventh film in the series, and most reviewers regarded it as a welcome return to form following George Lucas’ shockingly inept reappearance with the prequel trilogy in the late nineties/early noughties. For the majority of today’s youth, their memories of Star Wars are defined by these pulpy, clumsy, brightly-coloured prequel movie. They films were a big thing at the time, make no mistake, partly because of the anticipation held by established fans, and partly because children couldn’t escape the merchandising that littered every fast-food restaurant on the planet. But, like the overpriced plastic cups bearing Darth Maul’s scowling visage, so too were the films disposable tat, aimed at drilling gaudy two-dimensional images into the modern consciousness. Lucas, for his part, has always remained steadfast in his belief that his vision of Star Wars was the ‘one true’ Star Wars, but some cursory and utterly unscientific polling on my part indicates that children that were first introduced to the series via the prequel trilogy largely lack the reverence for the series that those who were weaned on the classic three. And why would they? What about the prequel trilogy would leave any self-respecting individual hungry for more, especially after the sinister mystery and the darkness of Darth Vader has been replaced with this:

And this:

I can only speak for myself at this point, but as someone for whom the stories of Luke, Leia, and Han were an irreplaceable part of my youth, the thing that made me return to Episode Two and Three was a naive and desperate hope that things would change - the same naive and desperate hope that led me to believe that Disney might be the saviour of the franchise, or that Star Wars Battlefront II would be anything other than a greed-raped stain upon the world, which is to say that at midnight on the night of The Force Awakens’ UK release I too was hopeful for something, anything other than the ugly, bloated, and utterly asinine prequel trilogy.

But ‘a return to form’ from older fans desperate to purge the memory of Mister Binks et al. is not necessarily a definitive seal of quality. Nor is the endorsement of a generation of people that never knew the original trilogy in a context separate from Hayden Christensen’s sand tantrums. And as the minutes and days and weeks stretched on following my first and only viewing of Episode VII, I found myself more and more disgruntled by it, by the memory of it, and by the many faults that existed despite the low bar it had to leap to be better than its immediate predecessors.

Now don’t get me wrong - The Force Awakens is not a technical failure, nor could it reasonably be called a ‘bad film’ were it to exist in a vacuum; from most angles it is objectively better than all three of the prequels, but I can’t say that it demonstrates either uniqueness or ambition. It’s possibly the most brazenly derivative film I have ever seen, and to simply call it ‘safe’ would be to seriously understate the depth of the film’s cannibalisation of its own mythos. This lazy and insulting lack of originality is made worse by frustratingly insubstantial glimpses at a wider narrative which are followed by, at best, nothing, and at worst…well:

‘You haven’t bought the season pass that unlocks the rest of this film’s plot.’

The above moment was not the first point in The Force Awakens that I audibly groaned, but it was the point that I remember the best because it typifies the one of the biggest problems with the film: nearly everything in the narrative of this film that might otherwise be interesting is left unelaborated - the story has been gutted and the meat saved for a time when the Star Wars Plot Advisory Committee can inform future auteurs directors writers meat puppets as to what they can and can’t include in order to maximise appeal amongst the key age demographics of zero-to-dead. And I would apologise for the slight spoiler in the above gif, but if you think that the scene contains some pivotal plot point or revelation then you’re wrong. The film repeatedly hints at a grander and more engaging arc that it doesn’t just fail to elaborate on, but actively hides from the viewer behind the most galling cardinal sin in storytelling -  the ‘I can’t explain now’ hook. Worse still is the fact that the film doesn’t explain why it can’t explain, we’re simply expected to swallow it hook, line, and sinker. I imagine that at this point, Abrams Disney pictured the audience on the edge of their seat wrapped in suspense, not scoffing and searching the theatre for other visibly incredulous patrons as I was. In any case, I couldn’t spoil the plot of the film for you if I tried, because everyone who has watched the original trilogy has seen it already. 

A plucky, Force-adept youngster lives on a desolate sand planet. After coming under threat from an army of technically superior stormtroopers, the youngster flees on the Millenium Falcon, falling in with a scrappy bunch of resistance fighters. Leia Organa and Han Solo assist. They are pursued by an evil Sith Lord in a black mask and are tasked with demolishing a super-weapon capable of destroying planets. The main characters infiltrate on foot, and the oldest of them dies. A group of pilots attack the super-weapon from space, and their weapons cause a chain-reaction that destroys it.

Sound familiar? Of course it does, because it’s the plot of A New Fucking Hope. You know this by now because it’s two years later and you’ve read all the reviews, but I can’t overemphasise just how much of The Force Awaken’s story is copy-pasted directly from the first film. But at least Mr J.J. Abrams Disney makes a pretty fucking compelling case as to how the Starkiller Base is NOT AT ALL like the Death Star (apart from the fact that it has exactly the same function, and contains the word ‘star’ in its name, and a word relating directly to death). 

I mean, for one thing, it’s bigger. That completely changes everything right there. 

Sorry J.J. Disney, my bad.

You’ll also notice that the design of the Starkiller Base is what I like the refer to as ‘shithouse’, and ‘not at all memorable’, which might be the single biggest difference between the two weapons. Maybe I was wrong after all. 

Sigh, but it’s not all bad, I guess. In fact, the one single thing that I think they managed to do right was arguably the hardest thing to do - nail the new characters. While it’s clear that this is Daisy Ridley’s first major film, she has enough charisma and courage to allow Rey to be the naive vessel the audience needs. She stands particularly strong in scenes across from Adam Driver’s villain, Kylo Ren, and their emotional tug-of-war is compelling. John Boyega is a natural performer, and his exemplary comic timing is keenly displayed both in his dialogue and through his performance. These three people form the pillars of energy and focus upon which the entirety of the film’s integrity rests. Harrison Ford’s comeback is welcome, but much of his input feels keenly meta and thus at odds with the character of Han as we knew it, exposing J.J’s Disney’s weakness at adapting such well-established and iconic personalities. I might say the same for Carrie Fisher, except she has fuck-all to do but stand around, talk in no detail about anything, and have her disgusting old age blurred out by a tasteful CGI filter that sits over her face the entire time. Oh, and Oscar Isaac plays a pilot gifted with the ability to destroy planet-sized doomsday cannons in 30 seconds of screen-time. Which is…y’know, a great way to end a film (and further invalidate a threat that was outmatched forty years ago by a plastic orb on a string). 

But again, my vitriol has outpaced me, so I need to come back and reiterate that, as an individual viewing experience, The Force Awakens is not a ‘bad’ film. It’s capably shot, has some witty dialogue, and a good cast with an excellent grasp on their characterisation and fantastic rapport. It isn’t perfect no matter what lens you view it through, and some of its greatest flaws come as a result of Disney’s clear desire to make the most mass-appeal product possible, but if you’re looking for some safe, immediate entertainment that won’t demand much from you, then The Force Awakens is a reasonable choice. 

But I’m not sure if I’ll ever feel compelled to watch it again, because at its core I don’t think this film is art. I don’t think it exists for any reason other than because a company saw a demand they could offer a supply to, and make some sweet dollas in doing so. It checks the boxes on its list of ‘things to please the average moviegoer’ so transparently that it almost feels as if it were written by an algorithm, and as much as the people in it are trying to make something meaningful of it all, The Force Awakens remains a product, an item, market-researched so thoroughly your psyche can still detect the aura of the focus-grouped decisions at every turn. It’s in the absurd jokes, and the conspicuous acceleration through the thin plot, and the way it waves references in your face like someone trying to get a smile from a baby by jingling their keys - it feels like the film is toying with me, pointing at all the positive reviews and asking me goadingly why I don’t come over and play with it like everyone else. Perhaps if I weren’t so cynical I could get past that, but I can’t forgive the insidious process through which Disney churns these movies out. As shitty as the prequel trilogy films are, you simply can’t say that they’re not imaginative, original, or creative - the unmistakable imprint of George Lucas’ mind was branded upon them, for better or worse. Whose creative mark lies upon The Force Awakens? It’s been sterilised by Disney’s corporate cloth, and watching it feels like watching a stranger rifling through someone else’s old stuff and playing ‘Star Wars’ with toys that aren’t theirs to touch. It’s not a ‘good’ film. It’s not a 7/10. It’s just okay. 

6/10

Just Okay

[marquis-de-largebaguette]

Should I Purchase A DC47 Or DC50?

A Fresh Look at Vincent Van Gogh. Her disabilities do not cause us way too many problems in your own home as she knows her away around the house and when we go out, we usually just go to places where she only has to walk short distances. . Her disabilities do not cause us a lot of problems at home as she knows her away around the house and when we go out, we usually just go to places where she only has to walk short distances. . Peace, Love and Healing*Bernie S. For instance, it is commonly believed that those from higher socio-economic backgrounds will have greater advantages in become successful, while those from poorer backgrounds use a greater possibility of following in their parents' footsteps. Since then, their airlines achieved high safety ratings. Both the DC47 multi-floor and DC50 multi-floor come with identical accessories, the combination tool (debris nozzle that doubles up using a brush for dusting) and stair tool. After all, even if it is true--and science lets us know that it's all regulated but a given--that entire universe once existed as a singularity in the form small compared to asubatomic particle before it exploded into the entire world that we now call our own, the spiritual isn't necessarily made void. I am speaking of Van Gogh's drive to capture and so to state his spiritualism in the very life of his paintings. Again, you, the reader, will be able to add to this list as well nevertheless the point remains, our brains work much like the fabled genie within the bottle who grants us whatever we wish and this is not any doubt why the wise old saying tells us, be careful that which you wish for, as you might just get it. Part Two: Legacy. Going back to time, however, Vincent Van Gogh was born in 1853 to poor parents in Groot-Zundert, Netherlands. Reach - 3 m. (Tangle-Free Turbine Tool*). DC47:Size - H: 22 x W: 22 x D: 48 cm. First, color was more than sensuous to Van Gogh, color spoke towards the viewer in symbol. larger bin capacity. The obvious difference between the two in this regard is the type of vacuum -- it is up for you to decide whether you prefer either those of an upright (DC50) or even a canister (DC47) vacuum, which can be an area I can't really assist you in since it ultimately comes as a result of personal preference. Gladwell succeeds in selecting an interesting topic and building upon it having a variety of anecdotes, providing interesting items of trivia, such as why hockey players tend to become born within the beginning of the year. For instance, it is commonly believed that those from higher socio-economic backgrounds will have greater advantages in become successful, while those from poorer backgrounds possess a greater chance of following inside their parents' footsteps. This needless to say means they are are fantastic selections for those who are tight on space for storing or live inside a flat etc. Dyson DC50 Video Summary. . . This, I suppose, was my flaw as an expert art reviewer. " we understand The Tipping Point summary just as much as we could about Vincent Van Gogh.

[redlemonz]

Day #28

Four weeks since sick-day Monday. A whole February's worth of a month, and it's the 21st too - my favourite new unlucky number. I can already tell it's going to be an absolutely splendid day and return to the workplace. My thoughts, along with time as my usual brain's archenemy, instantly strike down the usual Monday morning anxiety upon me. Shivers spark inside my spine, though I am not actually cold. If only I could escape this and sleep another horrendous morning away. Unfortunately I've already used up my quota for a sick day this month as at my last sick-day Friday, and am feeing sane enough to realise that my mind needs to be focused on some work anyway to divert its attention temporarily. It's alright too, because I'm pretty much use to the anxiety by now as it's mostly under my control these days (or so I like to tell myself anyway). It also helps that she's actually contributed to reducing it greatly through making her presence apparent in my life. Another smiley face, exchange of emojis and so on, via digital communication last night is more than sufficient to ensure my stability is in tact. Not that I'm relying on her at all or anything, it just so happens that she can naturally provide such a positive effect upon my life without even really trying. I'm quite over this empty feeling though - just getting by, living each day with a lack of physical emotion being exhibited upon my face for the majority. My expressionless gaze which stares back at me in the mirror displays just that - it doesn't really give a shit about all that much anymore. Everything's kind of just blankly existing around me, and here I am, dead inside and floating by as an insignificant spec of dust. So suck me into this equally empty vacuum and be done with it already. Day 28 - Bad company "I don't want to see you" are the words which continue to echo over and over again in my head, from our conversation four nights ago. Even though we're seemingly on good terms, can talk regularly and exchange photos now and then, hearing those words on repeat are still simply painful and can bring a tear to anyone's eyes. I know where she's coming from obviously, and that it's probably not ideal given the circumstances to see each other, but that general statement can regardlessly be scarring and be lodged against my insecurities sadly - because I allow it to. I can't help that it makes me feel so unwanted and minuscule, as if I don't even matter. I can't stop thinking about it either, because I want to be able to confirm to myself that I am indeed not worth the time and effort as is the belief that's been preached into me countlessly. Driving this knife into myself deeper helps me prepare for whatever future disappointments await around the corner in my life, reaffirming the pessimistic elements in my life that I extensively lost when I was with her (yup, my negativity during us being together was surprisingly a growing improvement). It sucks, but it is intrinsic that I must attain back that greater sense of negativity as otherwise my vulnerability factor is enlarged, by my own flawed mechanisms. That instrument to my own destruction being that my mind believes for some whacky reason (although true) that there is definitely some correlation between one's level of positivity and their general expectations. Anyway, what I'm really trying to get at is that work sucked. I spoke little words on a verbal scale, but my fingers on a keyboard spoke volumes on the digital screen of success. The more stuff that's on there, the more work you're doing obviously, right? Nevertheless, I got swamped with every task on a bloody Monday that supposedly just so happened to be urgent, even though they don't bother using the damn red exclamation mark in the emails to attribute it accordingly so. Yes, I'm finding any excuse to sprinkle my salt (careful with your mind) towards work today because it wasn't actually all too bad when it comes down to it, but once in a while it's nice to blame something else for my own catastrophic internal suffering. Man, what really got me was another regrettable memory I was itching to forget, but of course, fate always finds a way to remind me of the asshole I am. One of three was thrilling us with his weekend meal escapades (yes, food is stimulating stuff - quite literally if I may add, energy homeostasis and stuff. Do I even science? Fuck yeah.. on rare occasions). He went to this exorbitant buffet restaurant with his family and friends, situated in a hotel, named after simply a number which corresponds to the various cuisine-kitchens on offer. The beginning of that story was more than sufficient in sparking another moment of repentance, as she accompanied my hand there one night for a special dinner date I had booked (which she even dressed up and looked absolutely stunning for), and at which I behaved as an impolite and rude bastard. It's sad too really, because I would tend to pride myself upon chivalry, out of the limited bucket of anything that I even have to offer at all. To be completely straightforward about my sins (and goodness I hate admitting this), I put the food before her. As soon as I'd be done finishing a plate, I wouldn't hesitate to simply get up and proceed towards another serving whilst she sat and ate her meal on her own.. on multiple occasions. I ruined another nice evening for us, through my own selfishness and lack of thought about her in that moment. What's worse is that it was our unofficial anniversary (I booked the reservation in as our anniversary with the belief we may likely attain some freebies, and huzzah - gourmet chocolates.. would've been a proud moment if I wasn't such a dick that night). I was just an unforgivably bad date as a result, and offered poor company to this beautiful Princess (excuse me - Queen) whom I took for granted, on a dynamically visible level. Another apology which shouldn't have ever been required if I could have just had basic common courtesy for the woman I love. At least I was fortunate enough to receive another chance during one of the occasions in which I visited her down in snowy mountain town. We attended another buffet, named after that historically famous Mongolian warlord, where I remembered my faults and attempted to redeem myself - and hey, what a surprise, it was a really enjoyable night in each other's company. Might I add that I happen to have had a corresponding song, with regards to said historically famous Mongolian warlord, which has been stuck in my head the whole day courtesy of her. Might I also say, that she video snapped me herself singing along to the radio on the way to, and from work today, which brought a radiant glow of blissful happiness to my maniacal Monday. Three different friends reached out to me today - what a wonderful coincidence. Blondie, the mastermind and I don't think I've mentioned my lovely, but unofficial ditzy sibling who renamed her last name on social media to match my fake last name for over a year (because said last name is a loveable Turkish dip that resembles my actual last name when sounded aloud.. on a somewhat loose tangent, and is also variably dependant upon one's accent). Anyway, all three were sweetly inviting me to various future events - some that I can dodge when the time comes, and one I can decline straightaway. Not doing a great job at not being a dick, clearly, but trust me when I can reaffirm that I'm still not quite ready to be the negative nick of the group (that 'n' deserves to remain a lowercase, because it's not worthy of being labelled proper). My company will purely not even be that of adequate quality, and it's subsequently better for others that it's avoided as a result. So of course I had limited responses to each, and abruptly wished them a nice week ahead, because I still can't commit myself to a conversation when my primary sensations are emptiness and heartbreak. Also my dippy sibling, better known as The Colonel (pronounced Call-oh-nell according to her, when ordering fried chicken) asked me if I'm free on the weekend to assist her with purchasing her first vehicle, and insisted that I could provide some useful "manly input". I have to acknowledge that she is one of the sweetest and most treasured people in my life, before I can simply acclaim, what the fuck? My track record with owning cars is pretty well known among my inner circles. I've wasted over $10,000 (which would be much greater than my current savings account) on two European cars which didn't even last a year - combined. I've then decided after those bad decisions that purchasing brand new would be the genius alternative, so there's another $26,000 not well spent on which I'm finally finishing repayments upon by the end of this year. My street smart knowledge of cars may as well be the equivalent to some douchebag who sticks black stripes unevenly upon only the front hood of his red car to make it go faster. Oh wait, I am that idiotic douchebag. Nevertheless, I can't afford to have any contributing role in assisting the Colonel with her purchase as anything I say or do can and will be used against me in the court of my mind. So if something were to go wrong or be out of order, it's common knowledge by now to gather where the unforgiving blame, failure and consequent punishment would be suffered. I can't risk that on my lack of a conscience, therefore I kindly apologised and referred her to other potential professionals in the matter. Even my better half knew that I was down right stupid when it came to cars. She's got a hatchback as old as I essentially am, and it's probably still the more efficient and universally favourable option between our two cars. That's because she actually has the logic I seem to perpetually lack.. damn, I'm going to fail without her. All I want now is to be able to sit beside her in that car again, holding her hand (when we're not at risk of crashing towards our deaths), or resting mine lovingly upon her thigh, as we sing along to the stereo as the beautiful lunatics we are together.

[casualarsonist]

Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi review

*SPOILERS*, but who cares at this point?

I’ve placed a lot of expectation on myself for this review. It’s been through three incarnations already, and I still can’t get it right. It’s muddled, it says too little about too many things, it’s all over the place emotionally, and it needs a good edit. 

...Hey then, I suppose in that case it’s perfect, because it’s exactly like Star Wars: The Last Jedi *badoom tish*.

For those that don’t know, I’m a massive Star Wars fan with all the usual caveats applying - not the prequels, not the garbage games, not the Christmas Special. And yet The ‘Last Jedi’ was the first Star Wars film ever released that I straight-up refused to watch. It started with me simply failing to care, and then it became an antagonistic joke to some people who asked me to review it, until finally it turned into a matter of earnest protest - I was not going to pay to see this film, because that way Disney wins. It was only after I realised it was released on a streaming service that my girlfriend had a subscription for that I decided to bite the bullet. I’ve asked myself many times before and since how the hell things could possibly have gotten to this point - to the point that I, the second biggest fan I know, for whom the series was and is a deep and integral part of my life, would simply stop giving a shit?

In the case of The Last Jedi, it began with the mundanity of Disney’s output. Who would have guessed that, after all the prophecies of hope and dread following the corporation’s acquisition of the Star Wars licence, the actual end-result would be that they would simply bore us to death with aggressively average releases? That fact, coupled with the unfathomable laziness of The Force Awakens’ rehashing of A New Hope’s story, and the cavalcade of negative press, reviews, and anecdotes I read and heard in the wake of The Last Jedi’s release hammered the last nail in the coffin with such force, it might as well have been fired directly from the Death Star. For what it’s worth now, it’s immediately clear that even though the prequel trilogy are, by most metrics, terrible films, at least they still very much fit into the Star Wars universe. There’s something about George Lucas’ touch, something that I can’t explain, in that while it stands for nothing in terms of guaranteeing quality, it can at least be counted on to sprinkle originality and imagination over an otherwise well-worn, classic story. George Lucas’ Episode VII sure as hell wouldn’t have been a blatant reboot of A New Hope. And whatever your thoughts on the man, the fact is that without him, we’re stuck in a real worst-case scenario: a bunch of isolated  ‘enthusiasts’ writing disconnected fan-fiction screenplays for the corporate zombies on Disney’s board to mutilate in accordance with their latest focus-group data. Mediocre scripts rendered ever-more tedious by a studio intent on watering down anything and everything that might turn someone away, and in doing so, they end up turning away everyone that was looking for something new. For the series that I so adore, this is a fate worse than death. So it is that we end up with Rian Johnson’s crack at the franchise, and so it is that I found myself completely and utterly ambivalent. 

I wish I had enough passion in me to savage this film - to create a real spectacle piece, a cathartic script to read for anyone else feeling angry and disappointed. I wish that, after all the waiting and the bemused anticipation, The Last Jedi had made me mad enough to rip it to pieces...but, honestly, I don’t know if it did. I think the overwhelming sensation that filled me when it was all said and done was that it met my expectations exactly. And don’t get me wrong - by most metrics, The Last Jedi is an utter clusterfuck. By most metrics, it’s a terrible Star Wars film. But it’s not like Johnson scorched the earth of the franchise - Disney had more to do with that than he. Johnson’s script simply built itself a weird, amateurish hovel atop a pre-existing ruin. And while I’m not saying that no-one could ever possibly release a good Star Wars film again (even though I don’t think they will), for me - and judging by the extremely lackluster numbers of ‘Solo’, a great deal of others - Disney simply cannot recapture the strange, flawed, wizard-magic of George Lucas and Lucasfilm, and I don’t know if I’m ever going to care about another Star Wars film again. 

Yes, it’s that famous nerd-fan hyperbole at play here - I won’t deny that I care more than I should - but I want to reiterate that I’m not so much in histrionics over this particular instalment, but about what the film and its collective flaws represent. The feeling George Lucas got during the test screening of The Phantom Menace - that dreadful understanding that your multi-million-dollar creation is a dog’s breakfast - is a feeling that should have echoed throughout the entirety of Disney HQ when The Last Jedi was first screened. Disney’s fractured, unfocused, haphazard production process is directly mirrored in The Last Jedi’s fractured, unfocused, haphazard final product. Its plot is a mess and filled with holes and unfinished ideas. It’s tone-deaf. Every single attempt at humour is groan-inducing. It’s so fixated on concluding the stories of old, core characters, and yet unceremoniously shovels beloved side-characters into a mass grave; and every single time it tries to introduce someone or something new, they either don’t fit properly into the universe, or the film drops it like a pot of Kevin Malone’s chili into the middle of a confusing series of events, glossing over character’s histories to such an extent that it’s impossible to care about them. Admiral Ackbar is in this film, apparently. I didn’t know that until one of the characters mentions that he’d been killed. Maybe I wasn’t paying enough attention, or maybe they said his name while I was yelling at the TV in incredulous rage, but one of the most revered characters in the series is eliminated with such little fanfare, I didn’t even know he was onscreen when it happened. He’s then supplanted by a commander that was apparently trained by Leia, but has never been mentioned in 40 years of canon. She’s killed an hour later. That’s cool. That was a good decision.  

It’s going to be really hard to detail all the missteps in The Last Jedi’s lumbering progression towards its underwhelming end, but I’ll try to relate some of the most impactful. Through an absurd web of barely-connected story threads, we follow Luke Skywalker as he drinks raw milk from an alien’s tit. We see General Hux turned into some slapstick comedy ragdoll existing only to scream incomprehensibly and be dragged around the set by the dark jedi. We see Luke toss his old lightsaber away as if the last time he had it, it didn’t disappear down a bottomless pit. We’re still not given an explanation as to where and how it was found, and we probably never will. We see every side character from the previous film either written-out or killed. We see Leia somehow master the Force to overcome certain death, and it’s never explained how. We see an X-Wing ‘drift’ in the vacuum of space. We see Captain Phasma return as if she’s some kind of nemesis to Finn, only to have her ass kicked by the ex-stormtrooper grunt in a 30-second fight before falling to her presumed death. Leia chastises Poe for being reckless, then immediately sanctions his recklessness. Finn decides that the only way to stop a First Order weapon is to fly into it and kill himself. This does not happen, and there are no consequences. Yoda’s force ghost somehow burns down the site of old Jedi texts, and then the texts turn up unscathed in a throwaway shot later on. A joke prop from A New Hope is given a role of sentimental importance, even though most people won’t even know it ever existed, and won’t therefore have any emotional connection with it - I didn’t, and I’ve watched the film about 30 times. And perhaps most importantly, we see the ‘Resistance’ on the run from an evil entity that somehow crawled out of the ashes of a decimated Empire with enough manpower and capital to finance and build a weapon the size of a literal planet, lost that planet along with all the men and materiel remaining on it, and STILL remains far more powerful than the fighting force and governing power that defeated its every incarnation throughout history. Apparently, eradicating the Empire’s dictatorial command structure and freeing the most influential planets in the galaxy does absolutely nothing to weaken it, and yet the entirety of the armed forces of the new Galactic Republic exists aboard a dozen underpowered ships. 

Nothing makes sense. Nothing is sacred. The weakness of J.J. Abrams conceit for Episode VII is revealed here as Johnson intentionally erases every mystery he established and tosses away all the minor characters that glimmered with the faint hope of being something more interesting this time around. He’s stated in interviews that he was trying to ‘subvert audience expectations’, and if your expectation was that the second film in the trilogy would build on the first, he certainly succeeded in that goal. But what story is The Last Jedi trying to tell? Like The Force Awakens, it’s so trapped by the prestige of its past and the burden of creating a future that, in accordance with Disney, must please every single human being alive, that it achieves nothing. When Mark Hamill tells you to your face that he completely disagrees with every single decision you’ve made about a character he’s known and lived for forty years, your decisions probably need a rethink. But Johnson didn’t rethink his decisions, and Mark Hamill is such a boss that he gave it his all regardless. No, The Last Jedi doesn’t scorch the earth. It simply salts the already desolate landscape so that nothing more may grow again, at least from this story-cycle.

So with all this frustration, you might assume that I despised the film...but I didn’t. It has the worst script of any Star Wars film, no doubt - worse in its inept storytelling and its awful, atonal jokes than almost anything Lucas ever wrote – and yet I'd still watch it again sooner than Episode 2. I’d watch it sooner than The Force Awakens. It's stupid, and overlong, and a directionless, muddled mess, but it still has some good moments. I liked seeing Luke, despite the potential of his character being wasted. I liked the idea of a union between Kylo and Rey, even if that too was squandered. I still like Kylo Ren, even if that’s not a popular opinion. As much as Admiral Holdo's character was ineptly shoehorned into the plot, I liked her final scene. Leia carries herself with strength and dignity, and actually gives orders and counsel, as she should. These moments are a drop in a bucket when it comes to tallying the bad vs the good, but they're there, and they’re okay. 

But this film cannot be fixed. Rian Johnson has said that J.J. Abrams shared no long-term plans for the trilogy. No shit. For every three films planned, George Lucas had a three-film arc; that’s what tied together even the worst of the Lucasfilm releases. Disney has no such plan. They’re trying to cobble together a trilogy of films without retaining any creative staff, and giving the new people they bring in through a revolving door free-reign to do whatever they want right up until it clashes with the company’s monetisation plan. There’s no consistency. There’s no permanence. There’s no balance or flow between instalments because there’s no unified oversight, and the end result is that every incoming writer has to spend a large portion of their time guessing the answers to questions that the previous writer posed. And Rian Johnson, for his part, has no idea what he’s doing or where he’s going. His contribution to the Star Wars legacy is to undo everything Abrams left for him, retroactively destroying any worth The Force Awakens might have had, and establish nothing for himself. Every film in this new cycle has been a patchwork mess led by an ever-changing roster of freelance writers and directors looking for a million-dollar paycheck. It’s an utter disaster, and Disney can call it ‘canon’ all it likes, but this is not a real Star Wars film. 

3/10