#to me it is true that they are both dumb poe fans.....

[cinnabuncrumbs]

luke lunes more like lenore lunes..... its still monday for me it counts

[bigskydreaming]

So, how far do you think Jasons booktastes goes? Is he like a hard-core classic fan or does it variate between his moods?

Absolutely the latter, IMO. I know there’s a tendency to lean hard into the idea that Jason’s just all about the classics, but I think overall we have a rather finite and white European and American skewed 'definition’ of what constitutes a classic in the first place, and you know me and my classist rantings.....unless you don’t but whatever, now you do, I’m personally leery of over-emphasizing Jason’s sophisticated reading palette or whatever as like, some kind of pushback against his otherwise lower-class origin because I don’t think its necessary. I mean who knows if that’s how its intended in any given specific situation, but I definitely feel like there’s a general undercurrent of that threaded through a lot of Jason’s depictions overall that I’m like ‘no thanks’ to.

I think Jason’s all over the place as a reader. His only defining characteristic as a reader IMO is that he’s a voracious one, and he reads anything and everything he can get his hands on, and finds something appealing and in new and different ways in every genre. I think as his skills develop as Robin and a detective, he hungrily reads mystery novels to see how quickly he can figure out who did it. I think he reads true crime to try and solve it ahead of the book’s conclusions the same way we’ve seen Dick solve cases watching America’s Most Wanted. 

I think before traveling was an option for Jason, living with Bruce, he enjoyed travel guides/pieces and nonfiction, to get a sense of places far away from Gotham. I think once he was living with Bruce and encountering colleagues of his dad’s who were literally from other planets and had advanced technology and magic, he had a growing personal collection of fantasy and sci-fi books just so when he did get a chance to join Bruce when he was around other heroes he could be like “okay I read in this one book where they did this spell are there any real spells like that huh huh?” or “so in this one series they had a spaceship that could do this do you know of any spaceships that are like that like could that be real?” I think he loves mythology because a) he’s gay duh and b) Diana is an actual Amazon, like why wouldn’t you love mythology when you could fact-check Edith Hamilton against an actual Amazon it just makes sense.

I think he’s got shelves full of old-school dimestore pulp fiction novels, the long-running series kinds, because he doesn’t think cheap equals bad and also they’re just fun. And also also, he loves the serialized nature of a lot of works because one of the biggest evidences of stability in his young life, before ADITF, like, one of the things that finally got him thinking like wow this is like how I live now huh, was the realization that when before, the unpredictable nature of his life meant he kinda just had to read things in one go and not count on ever being able to follow up on them, like......when living with Bruce, he suddenly just realized one day that like, all those series that have so many more books in them than I could ever read in one go, the kind of things you’re meant to RETURN to, to follow along over periods of months and years.....I can do that now, here. 

And even after his return as the Red Hood, once he slowly started settling into his new life and put his focus not just towards reacting to his trauma but trying to build beyond that again and have actual hobbies, interests, etc.....one of the biggest evidences to him that he could do that, be more than JUST the Red Hood, was literally no different from when he first had that epiphany living with Bruce. When he looked into all those series that he perhaps never got to finish, or that were still ongoing when he was killed, and found an unexpected continuity in the reminder and awareness that they were still out there, waiting for him to finish them, that they were still being published, available for him to catch up......that his life had ended, but then he came back so maybe it was more just interrupted. That so many things are different now from how they were before, but some things are still the same, that he’s so different now but in some ways he IS still the same.

Like yeah, sure, I do think he’s got plenty of Jane Austen on his shelves, but he’s also got Octavia Butler and Ursula K. LeGuin and Mary Shelley not once but twice....nah let’s go wild and make it five times....cuz I think he’s got very specific SYSTEMS for how his books are arranged, one of those particular things that arose from the awareness that he actually COULD be particular about his books, that it was entirely up to him......and once he found out that Frankenstein’s Monster existed he was like okay but is the book based on that or was that based on the book, did art imitate life or did life imitate art I HAVE TO KNOW IF IT GOES IN FICTION OR NON-FICTION! And so Alfred and Bruce and Dick and Barbara all had the same idea of like, why not both, both is good, and gave him an extra copy and so he ended up with like five copies of Frankenstein.

Also, literally every time he ends up with a case or aware of a case where vampires or werewolves or aliens or gods are involved, you can find a whole new section of fiction and nonfiction on the related subject in his room, and he’s scribbled all throughout the margins like LOL WELL THIS ISNT RIGHT and NOPE GOT THIS WRONG and IF THIS AUTHOR WAS ALIVE TODAY I WOULD TELL THEM RIGHT TO THEIR STUPID FACE ABOUT HOW NOT ACCURATE THEIR SAFETY PROTOCOLS FOR DEALING WITH VAMPIRES ARE LIKE THATS THE LAST TIME I BRING GARLIC TO A VAMPIRE FIGHT AND THINK IM DOING ANYTHING BUT SMELLING LIKE A TASTY PASTA FLAVORED TREAT, LIKE THANKS FOR NOTHING YOU ABSOLUTE HACK.

(Also I think Jason thinks Poe’s a pretentious boor, mostly because I find it funny to script scenes in my head where Jason just goes OFF about various authors and his Opinions on them, but he still likes his stuff for the mood and is like DONT @ ME, IM COMPLICATED, but this is entirely because of an old personal headcanon of mine where like, the frequent references to the gothic nature of Gotham tied to Jason’s very Gothammite nature resulted in my brain doing a What If where Jason either post-Robin-where-he-didn’t-die or even post-Red Hood picks a raven themed ensemble and calls himself something like Nevermore, and is like, Caw Caw, Im Gotham, Bitch).

In summation, I think Jason is eclectic as hell, and like, if its a book, and he’s got the time, he’s gotta read it because duh, that’s just the law of the jungle, he’s like lololol what there’s a book and I’m just what, just not going to read it? That’s what you think? LMAO that makes no sense you sound so dumb right now.

[randomeditscreates]

The Force Awakens Breakdown

So I know no one gives a shit about my opinions on movies and my last post about the sequel trilogy [ST] But honestly I want to continue talking about these crap movies. So now that we got that through, lets start.

1) Jar Jar Abrams start this movie by basically ripping off the concept of the OT [Original Trilogy] The First Order [The empire] has taken over with a dark side user [Kylo Ren in this one, and Darth Vader in the OT] with a more powerful dark side user in the background pulling all the strings [Snoke and Creamy Sheeve respectfully] With an opposing side that happening to be small in numbers, [The Rebels and The Resistance(What they're resisting, no fucking clue, but it sounds nice)]

2) Rey Palpatine (I refuse to use the other name) is the protagonist of this story, and just so happens to live in a desert planet, you know like Luke. And happens to be the most laziest character Jar Jar and Kathleen Kennedy ever created. She's kind, and friendly and her only flaw is that she doesn't have any family. She's a scavenger, yet has so much proficient in the force, you would think she's been training for decades. She has great skill in flying ships and fixing them, that you would think, it would at least be a throwaway line. But nope, she has no reasoning for knowing how to fly or fix ships and the only reasoning we really have is that, Jar Jar wanted it, so he put it in. And throughout this movie and following ones, she picks up skills like their pokemon cards because fuck hard work. Now Rey pisses me off, not just because of her lazy character, but because during all the movies, nothing ever fucking happens to her, she doesn't get hurt to an extreme degree like Finn, She doesn't go through a huge revelation, all that happens is that Rey loses Han (someone she barely knows) then she magically beat Kylo,( who if you don't remember has years even decades over Rey in training) and then decides to find Luke. And that leads to the third problem...

3) The movie is too full. for being a movie that is 2 hours and 16 minutes, yes I fucking looked it up, this movie seems to drag on and not develop any of their concepts. Because while I fucking agree that Rian Johnson left fucking nothing for Jar Jar to work with, at least his story had some character development, and yes it dumb and breaks the world but I'll take what I can get. All the main characters in this movie all ends up the same as they start off with. Rey is a happy and kind character with no past, turns to Rey is a happy and kind character with no past and force abilities. Kylo Ren is tangled up Christmas lights drenched in yogurt and acid, and turns into a tangled up Christmas lights drenched in yogurt and acid, who ends up Killing his father. But if you remember is haunted by that death by TLJ [The Last Jedi] Poe Dameron is a self assured Spit-fired Pilot and ends up a Spit-fired self assured Pilot who's Not dead. Even the characters who do get develop, Finn and, oh my god, it's only Finn, get's completely rewritten in TLJ and gets the story arc redone just terribly. We can't even talk about Han, Leia or even Maz, because Han doesn't change and then dies, Leia doesn't get enough screen time to show anything about this character, and Maz is supposed to Yoda in a yellow and female clothing, and they do shit with that too because it leads to this..

4) Maz Kanata and holy fuck, she's literally the reason Han is dead. Maz yells very loudly to the entire cantina that Han Solo is here, which leads for the First Order to be notified. She somehow has Luke's lightsaber [It doesn't get explained, not even in the later movies] and somehow Rey is drawn to it, and leads to Maz giving advice, but you know the shitty type because it ends with Rey running away in the forest for her to get caught by Kylo. She tells Finn that he shouldn't leave, and that it turns makes him severely injured. And if you don't remember she does the same to Han, and he ends up dead. And her cantina gets fucking destroyed after being their for centuries, yet she couldn't give a fuck. and it shows the true issue, Jar Jar and Kathleen Kennedy in extent doesn't give a fuck about characters and just wants to to get from point A to point B with a lot of flashing lights.

5) Han Solo: Character Assassination. A character who developed into a man who was ready to risk it all for the rebellion. A character we loved in the OT is now broken down into his New Hope person all over again. Who apparently has scammed everyone in the galaxy? Um, Jar Jar, I know it might seem strange to you, but a smuggler needs people who trust him to get jobs and therefore receive income. But I guess I shouldn't expect much from the same man that think a Smuggler would want to be easily known or recognized. Also Leia and him are either broken up or divorced and that makes me feel really happy to know a couple that I loved are no longer together and one of this dead. Because Han Solo is just there for fan service and to shoot his gun, because that's what he's here for to go pew pew. Oh and to die, that what all the OT fans wanted, One of the main three characters killed by their own child.

6) Subtle doesn't exist in this movie, everything is given the delicacy of a hammer. We find out that Kylo or Ben, (I really don't fucking give a shit) is the son of Han solo, by Snoke just saying, the droid is in the possession of your father Han Solo, like no shit I assumed that when you mentioned the Millennium Falcon. Who would you think I thought Kylo was the son of, Chewbacca? Finn's story arc is the only one that makes you think, and brings a new aspect to the movies, and to the Stormtroopers. I just fucking wish we could do the same for the others Stormtroopers, because the other are killed with no regards that most of them, as Finn states were sold into this at a young age. Good job Resistance for killing all these people who was forced into this with no regards. How does a series that came like a decade before you (Star Wars: The Clones War Series) manage to develop the concepts that stormtroopers or clones are not mindless drones better than you. (The Rookie episode in the first season helps flesh out all the clones and they only have 25 minutes per episode, get you're shit together Lucas Films) And these are only the examples I could think of, off the top of my head.

7) Rey is a great example of Sexism, but instead it goes the other way around then usual. All the male characters are laughed at and or ridiculed, but all the females are perfect and don't need to change. One of the last scene is a great example of this, Kylo Ren, the one with years of training and two powerful masters who trained him, gets beat by Rey, someone who has no skill with a lightsaber and didn't even know she could use the force until Jar Jar decided to pull it out his ass. Even Finn who has at least close quarters fighting skills under his belt couldn't beat Kylo, and has to be saved by Rey. Now I will admit to being a feminist but Kathleen version completely differs from mine. Because while I believe both men and women are both capable of reaching the same level of skill, Kathleen think women should be able to do incredible things without working for it. And it clear by her stupid "The Force is female" Like shut the fuck up, the force was never given a gender, why the fuck are you doing it now? I also found out that most of the Crew in Lucas Film, happens to be female. and it's clear who's doing that. Again I am a feminist but I hate when people just have diversity for the sake of diversity instead of the person's capabilities. It's very vindictive of the Feminist movement, The Black Lives Movement and LGBT+ agenda as well, as we're trying to make people see them as just like everyone else which they fucking are (I will not stand for any form of bigotry and if you don't like something simply because of someone's race, gender or sexuality, you are shit human being) , they just so happen to not be a straight white man. And that they have the same struggles as everyone else. Also we already had strong female characters in the series without the big emphasis on the fact that they have a vagina. As from the basis, Star Wars was never about gender and because of this we got fully developed character we could relate to.

Now Dishonorable Mentions

A) This movie is fucking 2 hours and 16 minutes long, yet it feel so unfinished

B) Jar Jar Abrams deep seated love for mystery boxes and how it get more screen time then the actual Character it involves (Rey)

C) The movie could've been great, they're was definitely potential but it was dwarfed by mystery boxes and Visuals

D) Rey is not a Mary Sue in this Movie, she becomes one by the end of TLJ but she's not yet. So I guess it one positive.

E) Jar Jar inability for world Building, and doesn't even fucking tries to explain how the First Order even began to rise.

F) Poe Fucking Dameron, and the amount of time that is dedicated to him. I love him but come on, just make it someone like Han, as it could bring up the relationship between him and his son, which could then bring more emphasis when we reveal their relationship. But no lets bring up a character who we all assume is dead until about the end. And then does absolutely fucking nothing.

G) And Lastly when we see Han die, we don't get a scene of any of the characters we give a fuck about and who knows Han mourn his death, instead we just have two characters who had about 15 minutes of screen time with Han, and Chewbacca. And it doesn't get better because Rian Johnson decides in the second movie that we don't need a scene of Luke mourning over the man who fought side by side with him and is his Sister's husband. No Instead we get a scene of him drinking tit milk.

So that's it, well for now, I'll make another post for this if I have any more issues. But that it for now. I would also like to make it damn clear now, as I'll probably continue this, that me tearing apart a movie is based soley on the technical aspects of it. And that if you enjoyed this movie, you are entitled to it, but you cannot defend this movie's writing , because as I hoped I made clear, the writing is very much shit.

[themattress]

Using this video as a segue into this post, which ignores the dregs of the Fandom Menace who were never going to like this movie and just distills the five main points made by critics.

1. It threw away what The Last Jedi established. 2. It's too chock-full of stuff and with too rushed a pace.  3. It has no deep themes and nothing insightful to say. 4. It lacks imagination and is all rehashing and nostalgia-bait fanservice. 5. It's a disappointing ending to both a trilogy and a nine-film saga.

1. This criticism seems to recur the most, since critics didn’t just like TLJ and Rian Johnson’s vision for the franchise, they loved it; they were blown away by it. So naturally it cuts deep when they see TROS set back a lot of what TLJ established (Rey actually does come from a noteworthy lineage, actually does have to undergo true Jedi training, and even ends up becoming a Skywalker. Finn is back to hanging out with Rey rather than Rose, and Rose herself has a minor role. Poe is prone to being reckless and hot-tempered again. Luke isn’t a grumpy old man anymore. Kylo Ren, after reforging his old mask, is redeemed while a decrepit old wielder of the Dark Side is the Big Bad. Hux doesn’t get much of a role and is killed off midway through. The Force-sensitive children like that “broom boy” don’t factor into anything. The story takes a familiar path rather than subverting audience expectations.) Honest Trailers even joked that the film was the long-awaited sequel to The Force Awakens rather than to The Last Jedi. And I can understand this critique, it’s a valid one to make. 

But I’d also have to argue that not only is J.J Abrams entitled to bring the story back in line with his old ideas from his time making TFA since Disney and Lucasfilm specifically reached out to him to direct TROS (and c’mon, Rian Johnson threw out TFA’s establishment first, if it’s wrong of J.J then it was wrong of Rian too), and that a film that exactly followed TLJ’s establishment like Colin Trevorrow’s unproduced Duel of the Fates would feel too bleak and wrong for the franchise, but that the movie doesn’t ignore TLJ as much as it’s made out. The events of TLJ still happened exactly as we saw them, they are still acknowledged, and they are even built upon in interesting ways. I loved seeing Luke no longer a grumpy old man because that’s what TLJ’s climax set up with him: he learned the error of his ways and re-embraced his status as a Jedi and as a legend. The galaxy coming to the Resistance’s aid in the final battle is the perfect pay-off to them not doing so in the Battle of Crait and shows how Luke’s last stand really did inspire hope once more. I loved the three-way power struggle in the First Order between Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, Hux and (representing Palpatine’s interests) Pryde. I thought Palpatine being behind Snoke made perfect sense. I’m glad Rose was still present at all. I though Kylo Ren’s redemption was handled very well. And I loved Rey becoming a Skywalker in the end, that just felt like such a right conclusion to me.

2. There’s an easy explanation as to why it’s chock-full with stuff - Kathleen Kennedy didn’t require Rian Johnson to adapt any of it in TLJ even though much of it was conceived by J.J Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan when making TFA. J.J literally needed to fit two movies’ worth of content into this one movie because TLJ spent too much time wheel-spinning and navel-gazing (and keep in mind that I like TLJ; but I’m not going to pretend like it didn’t screw the pooch on multiple fronts). As for the pace, I definitely agree when it comes to the first act and whoever thought it was a good idea to excise so much of what was filmed for it needs to be slapped upside-down the head. But things start to improve after the big Pasaana canyon race, and once they get off Pasaana altogether the pace settles down into the usual SW film groove. I think critics were so burned by that first half-hour that it colored their impression of the rest of the film, even when looking at it objectively the rest of the film does have a lot more breathing room and calmer, introspective moments between the big action set pieces. 

3. I see this a lot from critics and am all...?????? I’m sorry, did we watch the same movie!? “They win by making you think you’re alone, but there’s more of us”. “Your mother’s gone. But what she stood for, what she fought for.... that’s not gone.”  “We had each other. That’s how we won.” “Your spirit...your heart...some things are stronger than blood”. These themes are every bit as spelled out as the themes from TLJ that critics praised so much...but then, critics thought that one of TLJ’s themes was the villain’s justification of his own atrocities (”Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to”) so maybe them missing all of these themes isn’t so surprising. 

4. First off, the “lacking imagination” criticism will always astound me when The Force Awakens is one of the most critically praised films in the series and it literally ripped off the entire plot structure of A New Hope. None of the “member berries” in this film came close to that level of rehashing. Secondly, Star Wars has been all about nostalgia and pleasing crowds (”fanservice”) since its inception, and recycling various set-ups and tropes and sequences has been a thing for a long time (to quote George Lucas: “It’s like poetry, they rhyme.”) And lastly, this is the finale to the Skywalker Saga, so of fucking course it’ll be full of nostalgia and fanservice and sequences reminiscent of all the previous films! It’s a celebration as well as a send-off! Avengers: Endgame is a critical darling, and it literally traveled back in time to several of the past movies that led up to it! So what’s the problem here? I, for one, thought it was very cleverly and seamlessly done for the most part, and being done in the framework of a dumb, goofy blockbuster (which was all Star Wars was originally meant to be; it was never meant to be taken as seriously as it unfortunately has).

5. The main reasoning behind this criticism is that TROS fully exposes and embodies Disney and Lucasfilm’s lack of planning when it came to the Sequel Trilogy, which is so disheartening that it makes this finale a disappointing one to both the trilogy and the whole saga. First of all, every finale has been considered disappointing in their times: ROTJ was possibly even more loathed by fans and critics (while still enjoyed by general audiences) than TROS, and while ROTS got middling reviews from critics, it was still considered to be flat-out bad just like its predecessors by fans - being the least bad of them wasn’t high praise (even the general audience enjoyment seemed more tepid compared to ROTJ and TROS). On all fronts, the perception of the movies only improved with age, so that will likely be the same case here.

More importantly, anyone who did their homework or even some simple critical thinking not only could have realized that there was no plan for the Sequel Trilogy from the days of TLJ, but from the days of TFA. From the moment that movie rehashed the plot of A New Hope and relied heavily on Mystery Boxes to hook viewers, I knew there was no solid plan for this trilogy and that they were making it up as they went along. When you’re aware of this fact well in advance, I think that you end up being more impressed by TROS for being able to wrap the trilogy and saga up in the tight, definitively close-ended way that it did. I know that I certainly was. Much of this had to do with J.J Abram’s idea to bring back Palpatine. People whine that he was brought in with no foreshadowing at the last minute and that he was nowhere near the Sequel Trilogy beforehand and that him being here makes ROTJ pointless, and yet not only was Palpatine everywhere near the whole saga from the very beginning (which, as J.J has said, would make it bizarre for it to end without him), but ROTJ was already made pointless by TFA by its decision to reverse all the heroes’ victories and bring back the Empire. If Palpatine, the Emperor, the very creator of the Empire, did not find a way to return from his defeat in ROTJ and was thus not behind the Empire’s resurrection, how fucking cheap would that be? Some random other decrepit, all-powerful Dark Side wielder just came along and brought it back to the point of reversing all the heroes’ victories? And then he gets supplanted by Han and Leia’s son, which would make the Sequel Trilogy and whole saga’s Final Boss the guy who humiliatingly got his ass handed to him in both previous films’ climaxes? IMHO, the Sequel Trilogy really would suck if that was what it amounted to! That would be a true “disappointing ending to both a trilogy and a nine-film saga.” When it comes to the film series (the Skywalker Saga), the only valid excuse for not ending the conflict with the Empire in ROTJ is if the Emperor wasn’t truly vanquished in it. Period.

It ain’t J.J’s fault that he was actually looking at the bigger picture while critics were not.

Bonus: another video plug, because this guy is a Star Wars fan that truly deserves it.

[princesssarcastia]

The Rise of Skywalker Review

Well, I actually went to see it!  I wasn’t sure that I would, but I’m honestly glad, because now i’ve got thoughts.

The first twenty minutes or so seemed really slapdash and disjointed, like they wanted to set up things for later but didn’t want to take the time to set them up well.  Everything was really rushed and shallow for that period.

But! This movie had a lot of poe-rey-finn interactions which I enjoyed deeply.  Rey and Poe sniping at each other, Finn and Rey being adorably close and caring, Finn and Poe being adorably close and caring.  They feel like they’ve actually spent time together! Excellent.

Leia’s scenes felt a little weird, like they were shoehorned in, but i still miss her so I’m kinda glad for her presence anyway.  Having her train Rey, pick up where Luke left off and push her to the finish line, makes me delighted.  Yes, Leia is force sensitive!!  She trained with her brother!!  She knows how to pass on what she learned!!!  She built a lightsaber!!!!!! excellent. (sidenote her lightsaber was sick.  i loved it. i want one)

I also liked how we got to see some diverse planets and terrain.  did they do their best on that front? no.  would have loved to see some more weird-ass alien planets, or even weird-ass terrain that actually exists in the real world, but they’re deathly afraid of being like the prequels, soooo.

The whole thing with the “sith dagger” and C-3P0′s memory was a shit storyline.  Here’s a magic item that will do everything we need! Give you the location of your navigator thing!! Magically fit against the skyline of the wreck of the deathstar, even though it’s an ancient artifact and the deathstar is constantly battered by incredibly powerful waves on an alien planet! ugh.  dumb.

If that droid from the old shipwreck was gonna have that knwoeldge the whole time,,,,,,, why not just let Rey befriend the droid,,,,,,,,instead of doing a “psych! gotcha!” with C-3P0′s memory. 

JJ Abrams being afraid to give real consequences to the new trio’s actions was shit.  Let them kill Chewie!  Let them essentially kill C-3P0! Or leave it out of the equation entirely!!!  These fake-outs cheapen emotional responses and motivations of the heroes of our story.

and hey, speaking of cheapening shit, why the ever-loving FUCK did they bring Palpatine back.  why.  I hate that.  I hated that SO MUCH IT WAS SO DUMB.  SO.  DUMB.  so darth vader redeemed and sacrificed himself over nothing, huh??  Anakin Skywalker, dumb bitch to the end, couldn’t even die right, because palpatine was fucking alive the whole time.  fuccking hell.  any hey, guess what?? Jedi can force-heal people, too! ha ha ha hahahahaha ha h  h a stupid anakin for believing palpatine had unique force powers and turning to the dark side, when really, it was a light-side power all along!!! (kill me)

(side note: healing being a power of the light and not the dark is thematically better, but uh.  see petty retconning below)

Making Rey his granddaughter is inarguably worse than having her be a true nobody, which was my number one pick.  I might even have been fine with it if she discovered it on her own!! But noooo, we need to have Kylo Ren and Luke tell her who she is.  Oh yeah, they knew who she was the whole time, lol! Isn’t that cute, stupid women having to be told who they are and what their legacy is. 

Which also makes her previous conversation with Kylo in TLJ cheap too! Look, I get it, we all hated TLJ, and Rian Johnson’s choices.  But...having Kylo tell Rey who she is twice, in two separate movies, and tell her two separate things each time, and have it be played straight both times, is just.  so.      dumb.   petty retconning of other people’s work is kind of disgusting.

That being said, in this movie I didn’t feel like Rey’s storyline was about anyone but her.  I mean, palpatine elements for sure, but except for being told whose granddaughter she was, she was basically in control of her own destiny.  I liked that a lot.

Rey’s fight with Kylo on the wreck of the death star? *chef’s kiss*.  Amazing.  Incredible.  Lightsaber duels have gotten so much better and I love them.  somewhere inside me my five-year old self is screaming for joy and picking up her toy lighsabers.  Ridley and Driver have, unfortunately, very good chemistry in their scenes together, and the tension while they fought was so good. 

Poe as a former drug dealer makes me tired.  Poe Dameron, who idolizes Leia and had rebellion pilots for parents, was a drug dealer?? You kidding me?? ugh.

Also, if i’m being petty, I hated the way force ghosts could interact with reality. 

Lando Calrissian!! Lando I love you.  I love you so much.  The idea of all those people coming to the Resistance’s aid is pretty cool tbh, and I liked it.  I liked Lando playing ambassador and politician for the resistance. 

I absolutely hated the ““planet-killing-cannon”“ palpatine’s fleet had.  These fucking,  fan-pandering morons just cannot let the idea of a planet-killer go, can they?  It’s not like a shit ton of ships, the biggest fleet in the galaxy, able to blockade hyper-space lanes and entire planets, would be a good enough threat, oh no.  audiences aren’t smart enough to respond to something that complicated, so we need to make it SUPER OBVIOUS, just like in TLJ.  “the death star but bigger/portable” is dumb.

Finn finding other defectors was so fucking cool, I love that for him.  Also, like, Im pretty sure they were all force-sensitive like he is, which I think is amazing.  Confirming Finn’s force sensitivity was the best decision they made in this movie, tbh. 

The driving problem of this movie was, in my opinion, the exec and creative teams being unable to stick to their guns with Kylo Ren as the big villian.  Twice, people reached out to him for redemption: his father in TFA, and rey in TLJ.  Twice, he rejected that offer, and ascended to Supreme Leader.

But instead of letting him do that, they instead turned him back to the light for little to no discernible reason.  What, his mother dying finally pushed him over the edge?? You kidding me???? He LITERALLY murdered his father in cold blood. i call bullshit. 

And because they couldn’t let kylo be the main villian, they also had to bring back palpatine.  Look man, Adam Driver abso-fuckin-lutely has the chops to be a big bad.  He’s really good at his job, actually, and I believe he could carry the weight of being the scary leader and face of the dark side.  But no, y’all are chicken.

I mean, even though I hated him turning back, driver-as-ben-solo was fucking lit.  He was so good for those, what two minutes?? The tension during his rush to Rey??? Him fucking with the KNights of Ren?? His switcheroo with Rey, the way he nods and bows a little when the Knights all step back, knowing they’re about to get their asses kicked?? Oh my god! It was so fun to watch.  You could tell, even from that much, he’s a cocky little shit, and would have been so fun to watch for three movies instead of three minutes.

Their kiss at the end when he dies?? boo, hiss, no thank you.  Not a fan.  I’ll concede their chemistry as actors, but that was not romantic chemistry between their characters.  nuh-uh no way no how.  gross.

Overall, like a 5/10.  Wildly inconsistent.  I really liked some parts, and enjoyed other parts out of context, and really hated other parts. 

ps— me, watching the ot3 hug Like That™: NOW KISS.

[romantasyrabbittrail]

Long, Barely Coherent Thoughts about The Rise of Skywalker

Since some of you wanted to hear my thoughts about “The Rise of Skywalker”, I’ve taken some time to write them up and provide context for why I responded the way I did.

A small preamble: I didn’t hate it. Hate is a strong word. And there were moments that I liked. Some that I even loved. However, the aggregate feeling for the movie overall was disappointment. For certain elements, it went beyond that into something genuinely painful and I don’t think that will make sense unless I also go into why I loved the previous two installments of this trilogy.

Also, if you loved this movie, I’m very happy for you. This is about my personal response to a piece of media and I make no judgements on those who enjoyed what you saw. I wish I could join you.

Finally, I will be talking about some sensitive subjects, including child loss and abuse. Please be aware of that before reading further.

Okay, so what was my overall impression of The Rise of Skywalker?

Soulless. Cowardly. Incoherent. Badly paced.

I spent large portions of the movie unable to get into the action because the pacing was so breakneck. There was no time to breathe. Consequently, there was never enough time to recover from one rush before another started. If everything is exciting, nothing is.

I think that this was a deliberate choice to cover up the lack of sense behind the exposition. Oscar Isaac’s Poe Dameron looks dead inside as he temporarily takes up the mantle of Basil Exposition to explain that somehow or other, Emperor Palpatine has returned and there’s a hard time limit on destroying his fleet.

This is a fine example of a running problem throughout the movie. Whereas both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi used visual storytelling to move the story forward, things in TROS were explained through dialogue time and again. And the dialogue was incredibly clunky.

But back to the story. We are given a paper thin explanation of the Emperor’s return, and immediately are thrown into a fetch quest to find the Big Bad. I’m sure it will make an exciting video game adaptation.

The thing though is that the fetch quest makes no sense. One of the wayfinders is found in the first two minutes of the movie. Yes, it’s in the hands of the bad guys. But does the audience not remember that our heroine is bound to the villain? Why couldn’t she try to use that bond to get at the directions? Why does the Resistance not try to use that bond? Has she hidden from them her connection to Kylo Ren? Either she’s built up a wall of mistrust between her found family and herself by keeping the bond a secret, or she’s revealed all and no one thinks to try to use that bond to their advantage. It’s just conveniently overlooked.

Oh, a sidenote. Wayfinder. Why? There is an in-universe word for such objects already. It’s a holocron. Why not use holocron? We throw Star Wars-isms at the audience all the time. It would be an Easter Egg to the diehards while not bothering the general audience one iota.

Back to our fetch quest. We head to the desert planet of Pasaana. There’s a festival going on. A festival about family. Rey looks longingly at children and infants. A child gives her a fertility necklace. And then suddenly she’s connected by her bondmate through the force.

Now it’s no secret that the Rey and Kylo dynamic is one of the reasons I loved the first two movies in the trilogy. The actors have great chemistry. More importantly, the characters have interesting conflict. And yet that conflict seems off in this movie. TLJ left them complicated enemies. But they feel out of character. I don’t understand what each is trying to get out of their encounters. I have to do massive amounts of work to understand their actions and the dialogue doesn’t help. Because it doesn’t ring true.

Setting such details aside, Kylo rips off the necklace in a moment worthy of the Phantom of the Opera and for once it’s an action that makes sense, having both the subtext of obsessive love and jealousy, and the text of offering a clue for analysis to Rey’s location. Bravo. The writers did something right.

Meanwhile, we get a clunky reintroduction of Lando Calrissian. Has he been stuck on this desert for over 7 years? Longer? We just don’t know and he doesn’t tell us. Our heroes hitch a ride and then we get a fun speeder chase.

Okay, a couple more questions. There’s some good stuff here. The omnipresence of the First Order helps convey how thorough their control is. But why doesn’t Rey hotwire the speeder? It was established two movies ago that she’s a good mechanic. And on Jakku that kind of skill makes sense. Why hand that off to Poe? And why this Trio stuff. It’s fanon. We have just been assuming that Finn’s best friends would form the new Han, Luke, and Leia. Because reasons. None of them textual. It was a failure of TFA to not establish this dynamic if this was an essential element of Star Wars that had to be there from the start.

Which gets to the heart the problem in fandom which is that Star Wars is different  for every fan. What is essential to the series is subjective. For me, Star Wars is light sabers, hyperspace, the Force, epic battles, strange world with one biome only per world. So I’ve never felt like something was missing. But if an essential element was a very particular character dynamic (like a good guy Trio), then I can see why some fans felt let down. As if all the pieces were there but never got put together.

Back to Pasaana. We have a brief descent into the underworld in which Rey has a moment of true Jedi compassion and is rewarded when her compassion for the monster leads to an exit from said underworld. Nice. Mythically coherent. And hey, we also get one of the MacGuffins we’ve been searching for, so, bonus.

 Now we get the arrival of Kylo and his backup band. What was the point of these dudes? I mean, they look cool and I can’t wait to edit videos of them to classic NKOTB. But narratively, why are they there? Why did Kylo reforge the mask? Why all these questions in the third act when we should be in the process of tying up loose ends.

Rey, in a moment reminiscent of bull leaping from Crete, goes out to stall them? I guess? And then ends up in a battle of wills with Kylo that leads to her inadvertent use of Force Lightning.

Okay, another side trip. Are they trying to make out that Dark Side Powers are genetic? Because that’s all I can figure. Really, it’s kind of gross because it suggests that darkness isn’t a human trait that we all carry and must confront, but rather that Rey’s specific problem is a dark legacy. Which, that’s Kylo’s story. He’s the one grappling with the legacy of Vader and how that led his family to fear his darkness rather than aid him in confronting it.

Anyway, we have Rey briefly thinking she’s killed Chewie and that sets our heroes off to our next quest location and another set of problems: Why did we make the Latino man a drug runner and car thief? No, this isn’t just putting an unneeded real world spin on the universe. This is about narrative consistency. Because in a bid to make Poe Dameron an ersatz Han Solo, they broke his actual in-universe back story that had been established in comics and novels. That Poe Dameron was a pilot in the New Republic Navy, the child of war heroes Kes Dameron and Shara Bey. He grew up on Yavin IV. When did he have time to be a smuggler? He’s only a few years older that Ben Solo.

See Lucasfilm has a Story Group that is supposed to help keep narrative consistency between the various media released. And I can’t help shake the feeling that the Story Group was ignored or stonewalled. To please who? The fans? Which fans? Because I would be under the impression that the fans who read the novels and the comics, who dig the trivia aspects of the universe, would be the first to desire the universe to remain coherent.

The Kijimi stuff is fun. Babu Frik is adorable. C3PO is touching. There’s good moments. There really are.

We now go to the infiltration of the Star Destroyer (Does it have a name? Nerds, help me out here. Usually I know this sort of thing.) Again, good moments. I like the implication that Rey’s Force Powers disturb Poe, but it’s never brought up again. One of dozens of Chekhov’s guns left unfired. This is incredibly sloppy in the plotting. Hux is the mole!?! Fun. Yet, again, wasted. And out of character, but I’m sure that’s not going to bother the general audience. Rey gets caught sneaking around in Kylo’s bedroom? Priceless, and some good imagery (smashing the altar to Vader) combined with incredibly clunky dialogue and some more serious questions that never get answered.

The whole time Kylo thought Vader was talking to him it was Palpatine? Why the hell does he still have that mask on a pedestal? He just couldn’t bear to get rid of a collectible? He hadn’t had time to konmari yet? And just what does smashing the pedestal symbolize? Is this the start of Kylo breaking free? We’ll probably never know.

Rey escapes on the Falcon. After getting the worst character reveal in the Saga. I’m sorry. Rey Palapatine is just dumb. I liked that she was a nobody. It allowed her to be the Forces solution to the manipulation and abuse heaped upon the Skywalkers. She was brought into the story and bound to the last scion of House Skywalker as a corrective. She wasn’t overpowered. (No really. She executed a few very basic Jedi skills in the first two movies, none of them exceptional.) And her skill level makes sense the moment you understand that she is bound to Ben Solo. She is literally downloading his training. She can do what he can do. Even her fighting style mirrors his. Fun fact: if you watch the scene in The Last Jedi where she’s practicing sword forms on Ach-to, and compare them to Kylo in his duel with Luke, they’re identical. To a move. Rey is powerful because the Force chooses its vessels. No one was asking who Mace Windu’s parents were. Or Ki-Adi Mundi’s. But Rey is skilled because a very clear in universe device means she has access to Ben Solo’s mind and that included every skill he ever learned.

Alrighty, so now our team is on to the next step in the quest, the ocean moon of Kef Bir, one of the many moons in the Endor system. (No, it’s not the Forest or Sanctuary Moon with the Ewoks.) We meet Jannah, another wasted character. She is pretty and could have been cool. But she exists for us to realize that Finn is probably Force Sensitive and that he broke conditioning not due to innate morality but because he’s not a Muggle.

Which brings me to my gripe with how Finn’s character was treated. He spent the whole movie running around shouting Rey. That’s it. That’s his arc. I don’t mind that he can feel the Force. But I feel like his development was regressed. He had a clear character arc in the first two movies. From a man running away from responsibility to one willing to fight for a friend, to a man willing to commit to cause. This movie should have had him building on that, and perhaps like Moses returning to free the rest of the Stormtroopers who are canonically child soldiers brainwashed into fighting for the bad guys.

Back to the plot. Rey takes off for the Death Star, searches the haunted house and yet again has her moment in the cave, this time confronting a dark vision of herself. Dang that was cool. Would have liked to see more of that. Anyway, she confronts Kylo and he smashes the holocron. Emphasizing for us how pointless this fetch quest has been. Girl could have hopped a ride in his TIE at any point and dealt with the fallout after they dealt with the emperor.

They fight. It wasn’t a bad fight. Just not my favorite. It did emphasize though that Kylo is never ever fighting on the offensive with her. Never in three movies has he ever taken an advantage of an opening for a killing blow, and never was it more obvious than in this fight. Kylo gets distracted, Rey stabs him mortally, and this act seems to wake her up from whatever possessed her in the throne room. She heals him and runs away.

This brings up another thing that bothers me. I know the filmmakers were working with some severe challenges with their footage of Carrie. I don’t think it was badly used for the most part. But I was left baffled at what exactly was going on here.

I was not baffled at Kylo/Ben’s confrontation with Han. This was the high point of the movie for me. It was pitch perfect in tone, and touched on the one an only sin Ben ever committed that wasn’t connected to a war objective, the murder of his father. And it made clear that the prodigal was loved and wanted and it wasn’t too late to come home. The heart of Ben’s problem has been the conviction that he has done too much wrong to come home, and while it is only a memory, it is a true memory of the man who loved Ben enough to walk straight into Hell though he knew it would probably be the death of him. I can forgive this scene for throwing the lightsaber  into the ocean. I realize that most of the audience doesn’t know that you can heal kyber crystals. Yes, the saber was a metaphor for Ben’s damaged and unstable soul, and yes, it would have been poetic (and badass) for him to show up later with a healed lightsaber, stable and blue and looking like something an angel would fight with. But I’ll forgive that for the poetry of what happens on Exegol.

And then we go to my low point. I’ll set my costumer’s beef with Luke Skywalker’s wig aside. It looked cheap and that’s all I’ll say. It was more the deliberate middle finger to TLJ in the lines while ignoring that Luke’s most iconic and Jedi-like moment in the original trilogy was casting aside his lightsaber in an act of compassion. Yes, Rey was burning her ship and throwing away her weapon for the wrong reason.  And it was a deliberate echo of Luke who also was appalled when his fear was twisted by the Dark into an attack on his nephew. She is overcome with the same shame and fear of self. Luke can speak to this in a real way. With better dialogue, it might have worked for me. Alas, it didn’t. Instead we got more exposition to provide us with an extra lightsaber. And more questions about why everyone in this family gave up on Ben Solo.

Here’s the thing. If Leia remains untrained, lots of things make sense: her instinctive but infrequent use of the Force; her fear for her son and sense of inadequacy in dealing with he struggles with darkness, her unresolved issues with her father which lead her to hide her parentage not only from the galaxy but also from her own son. All of this is undone by the training reveal and makes us wonder why everyone was willing to help a descendent of Palpatine but not their own flesh and blood. And in a movie that used dialogue to explain nearly everything, these lacunae stand out more than they would in a film that trusted the audience more. See you could have had Luke say “We messed up. We gave in to fear. And we didn’t want to make the same mistake with you. Rey. I’m the son of Darth Vader. I know more than any man that we are more than our bloodline. And forgetting that with Ben was the worst mistake of my life.” But  he didn’t. Which in a movie which tells as much as or more than it shows seems like a deliberate choice.

Have you noticed that I’m ignoring the space battles? That’s because they’re forgettable. I just didn’t care about them. Especially since the galactic conflict remained essentially unresolved. Back to the Force Plot, the only plot that matters.

Rey confronts Palpatine. Yawn. At this point I just don’t care. For most of the movie, she hasn’t seemed like my Rey. I couldn’t relate and by this point I’ve lost interest so I’m more wondering where did all these people come from. Are there concessions? How much does a hot dog and Coke cost on Exegol? Does this stadium have bathrooms? Nice to see that it’s built like the AT&T one down the street with the sliding roof panels. And then my boy Ben Solo arrives and the film is good again. Without a word of dialogue (besides “ow”) Adam Driver delivers the best performance of the movie, showing that the Han Solo of the trilogy was there the whole time in his son. Was there ever a more Han Solo thing than running into a Dark Side temple in your pajamas, armed only with a blaster? And then Rey passes him Anakin’s saber. OMG. Brilliance. The best part of the movie. For a moment I thought that they would at least wrap it up well. And for a moment they’re side by side and all is right in the world. And then Palpatine throws Ben in a pit.

I hate this. I don’t hate this movie but I hate this moment. For three movies we’ve set up that Rey and Ben (He’s Ben now; don’t’ @ me.) are equals in the Force. They have a Yin/Yang dynamic that made this work. The natural conclusion here should have been that they take out Palpatine together. Because both have a beef with him. This is the man responsible for ruining the lives of four generations of Skywalkers. And while Ben is at the bottom of a pit, Rey stands alone, calling on the Jedi to help her.

The Jedi that are ignoring the Skywalker at the bottom of the pit.

Including Ben’s grandfather that he’s been begging for years to help him.

Including his uncle who promised to always be with him. (We were robbed of Ghost Luke trolling Kylo. Robbed I tell you. Mark Hamill would have nailed that.)

Ben is at the bottom of a pit being ignored while the Jedi transform Rey into their sacrificial lamb for Girl Power points.

So, yeah, I hated how Rey defeated Palpatine. It was wrong. It wasn’t in union with her bondmate. It wasn’t through the power of love and compassion. It was Space Wonder Woman meets Harry Potter. And then she dies. Because the Jedi only ever viewed people as tools in their grand battle with the Sith.

But Ben. Oh, Ben loves Rey for who she is. And he climbs out of the pit without a lick of help from anyone and cradles her lifeless form in the most heartbreaking Pieta, and you can see on his face the moment he make his decision and gives everything of himself to bring her back. It was beautiful, and they share the most pure, the most perfect kiss.

And then he dies.

And that’s where the movie breaks me. Because he didn’t have to die. It doesn’t make sense. Why does Leia hold on until this moment? Why does Maz seem satisfied? Where did Ben go? Why does he go unmourned? Where is his Force ghost? This movie just leaves us with more questions.

And the very end kills me. Rey is on Tatooine. A dead world that holds no importance to her (or Leia, I might add). She buries the Skywalker sabers. A funeral. She sees the ghosts of Luke and Leia bless her as she takes on the Skywalker name. A name that she could have taken in a life-affirming way through marriage, but that appears as scavenged from the dead that she has surrounded herself with as she ends the movie an eternal child, side by side with a stolen droid.

It makes no sense.

But whence my nerd rage? Why do I care? Why have I devoted over 3K words to this?

Because the first two movies in this trilogy made me care about these characters.

When I first saw The Force Awakens, I connected immediately with her loneliness. Loneliness is something I get viscerally. I have always been socially awkward and had difficulty making friends. I rarely felt known or understood and I understood that deep longing to belong. When Rey was being interrogated by Kylo Ren, that was what struck me. He notices her loneliness.

And you realize that Kylo is projecting. That he is seeing in her a kindred spirit. He too is lonely, and trapped by fear into being stuck in a place that he knows in his heart of hearts is a dead world. He too is trapped by relics of the past.

So, you see, Rey and Kylo were both me. I had lived that loneliness. I had experienced profound isolation and the sense that no one truly understood me. I desperately wanted them to find their belonging and heal their wounds. And that’s certainly the story that TLJ picked up on and continued.

But there was more. I became fascinated with the question of how the son of Han and Leia fell, and I could see the possibilities in the pattern of their characters: Leia, the woman driven by duty, trying to build the New Republic to make a better galaxy for her son, and leaving her son vulnerable to predation in the process; Han, a man who had only just stopped running from responsibility, and who’s own lack of father figures left him feeling inadequate as a father. Throw in a villain who can groom and psychically abuse their son and you have the ingredients for a tragedy.

And because I identified with Leia, Ben became, in a way, an additional child. A parent’s greatest fear is that in trying to do the right thing for your child you inadvertently make things worse. Poor Leia. She needed a mother to tell her child mattered more than a bill in the Senate. That the galaxy could wait. But Palpatine killed her mother. Both her mothers, because he was as complicit in the death of Breha Organa as he was in the death of Padme Amidala Naberrie.

So when Ben Solo died, it was like losing a child. And anyone who knows me personally knows that I do not choose that phrasing lightly. And being a mother, there is always a sense of survivor’s guilt. The sense that if you had done the right thing, it wouldn’t have happened. It doesn’t matter if that isn’t the truth. It’s how it feels.

I have met so many people online who identify with Ben Solo because they were abused as children. Who like him processed their trauma in unhealthy ways. It’s not where I come from, but I have the capacity to empathize and hear the message they’re inadvertently being told: that if you do bad things because you’ve been groomed and manipulated and brainwashed, you can’t come back. Even if you turn your life around, it won’t matter. You’ll only find peace in death and you will die unremembered as punishment for your sins. And your family will replace you with someone nicer and easier to live with.

But I can hear you saying: It’s not that deep. It’s fake and in space. It’s just a story.

Well, here’s the problem:

1)    The brain does not distinguish real people from fictional characters. The part of the brain that produces serotonin and dopamine can’t distinguish fact from fiction. This is actually why art has the power to heal. The catharsis experienced in a work of art can help us process trauma because we relate to the characters in the story. But the flip side is that stories can cause genuine trauma. If we related to characters in a story and they are treated unjustly, we feel that injustice and it hurts as badly as if it were real.

2)    Ben Solo was written to be sympathetic. He is the child of beloved characters. His backstory is one filled with pain. He was failed by every family member who should have protected him. He was abused physically and mentally for years. Recently published materials exonerate him from the destruction of the Jedi temple. It was all part of a plot to push him to the Dark. All Ben ever wanted was to be loved for who he was. And that was snatched away from him.

3)    I can’t turn off my brain. I can’t stop asking questions and trying to make sense of things. I can help but see the Chekhov’s guns and the symbols and the messages, however inadvertent.

4)    It is a grand failure of a movie if it only works on a surface level and not when you start digging deeper. Every other Star Wars movie, including The Phantom Menace, rewards the person who can’t turn off their brain. This was the first one that falls apart so completely the second you start asking questions.

I wish I could like this movie. I was prepared to like it if not love it. And while I got Ben’s redemption and the Rey and Kylo romance that I wanted, I feel like I got nothing. Like they don’t matter at all.

I am planning to start new hobbies in the new year. I got some war gaming miniatures painting sets for Christmas and I’m glad I have a new special interest to pour myself into. I have enjoyed sharing my love of Star Wars trivia with my kids but it just hurts too much at the moment to spend time thinking about a franchise that has been so  badly mangled. I’m probably in the bargaining stage of grief at the moment. I wholly buy the theory that there was happy ending filmed and someone blinked in the game of chicken, leaving us the mess that we were handed.

I’m also planning to get back to writing. If even Disney can’t tell a fairy tale properly anymore, it’s time for a new batch of writers to get out there and tell the stories I want to hear. I am sick of grimdark fantasies and cynicism masquerading as sophistication. I may write a fanfic or two to fix the story in my mind, but I think that ultimately I need to be creating original works. I know that there are children eager to believe in happy endings, plenty of women who believe that Byronic heroes can be redeemed, and not a few men who will buy both if the story is well told.

[doctordisaster]

Okay, so about the space movie: it is not good. I haven’t come out of a star war feeling this disappointed since the prequels. It’s worse than revenge of the sith. I think it must be better than phantom menace, but I’m not sure. That’s how bad it is: I’d need to rewatch the worst installment in the series to confidently rank the newest.

I’ve seen some people say they enjoyed it in the theater but liked it less the more they thought about it — which was more or less my experience with Solo. That was not my experience this time. I was numbed, bored, or annoyed for most of the movie’s runtime. There are a few good moments, but it is by and large just not fun to watch.

It also appears to have been plotted by an angry mob of reddit incels. Bad fan theories, unwanted redemption arcs, and pointless throwbacks rule the day. Assholes drove Kelly Marie Tran off of Twitter; JJ Abrams drove Kelly Marie Tran out of Star Wars. Every moment of character development from the previous film was actively and loudly reversed. As a matter of fact, every status quo change in this very film was reversed, usually within seconds of screen time. At every point at which the movie ought to have turned right, it turned left.

Below the cut I’m going to list things I liked and things I didn’t. Don’t read it if you want to be surprised by the movie's disappointments live in the theater.

Good things in space movie no. 9:

The little goblin who works on droids is cute

Lando’s scenes are all very nice

Chewie trying to hide in a crowd was funny

Wedge! I love Wedge!

I loved the design of Kylo Ren’s space office

The moment where literally every spaceship that has ever been in a star war shows up. Also the moment where literally every person who has ever played a Jedi speaks a line. These are each a nice gimmick, although I am not sure both should have been used, and certainly not that close together.

I like the moment where Poe and The Female Person Poe Put His Definitely Heterosexual Penis Into At Some Point In The Past have a whole conversation just with their facial expressions. It’s especially impressive because The Female Person Poe Put His Definitely Heterosexual Penis Into At Some Point In The Past is wearing a metal helmet that entirely conceals her face.

The scene where Finn and The Female Person Finn Is Going To Put His Definitely Heterosexual Penis Into At Some Point In The Future bond over the shared elements of their history was very nice.

The scene where force ghost Luke explains that he was wrong to isolate himself from the universe is nowhere near as good as any of Luke and Rey’s scenes in TLJ, but it’s definitely necessary considering how confused some fans seemed to be on this point.

Some of the banter between the main three is quite fun

The scene of young Leia and Luke doing Jedi stuff is lovely and I wanted more of it.

Bad things in movie 9 from outer space:

Everything about Palpatine. Bringing him back is stupid. His plan is stupid. His inexplicable motivations are stupid. The fact that he has apparently just been sitting on his ass for 40 years is really stupid. Not explaining how he survived being thrown down a bottomless pit, exploding, and then the station he was on also exploding is extremely stupid.

Speaking of stupid, Rey Palpatine is the single worst idea that has ever been in any of these films. One of the most obnoxious things about JJ Abrams “mystery boxes” is that the mystery he deems the holy grail of box mysteries and buries deep deep down at the bottom of the mystery box is consistently something obvious and bad and not even slightly clever. There were literally two dumb fan theories for Rey’s parentage — Kenobi and Palpatine — and Palpatine was the one that was dumber.

It’s worse than midiclorians, because now Palpy fucks. Palpy canonically fucks.

Gross.

The only potentially good thing about bringing back Palpy is getting to enjoy Ian McDiarmid’s gloriously campy performance again, but for some goddamn reason they trap him on an empty soundstage lit only by strobes, then color grade everything to pure gray so you can’t fucking see what’s going on.

I get that it’s supposed to be the heart of evil and darkness, but good production design can evoke that without making it impossible to see the actors and unpleasant to look at the frame

Speaking of which, how is this movie so ugly??? There are maybe three visually nice locations and everything else is just hideous. This is a complaint I’d never even consider leveling at a previous star war. Even the shittiest ones were beautiful to look at.

Every Star Destroyer has an onboard death star superlaser now. I started by booing, saw that the superlasers are just a metal cock and balls, and then laughed my ass off through the rest of the supposedly serious scene where it blows up a planet.

The way you kill a star destroyer now is you shoot it in its dick

The only people who will be pleased by this movie are Reylo shippers and that is a horrible thing to be true

The macguffin chase that constitutes the first two thirds of this movie is pointless and boring. I especially loved the multiple times when someone lost a macguffin only to go “oh I forgot I have a spare in the glovebox”

Can we even list all the times something supposedly momentous happened only to be reversed moments later?

chewie dies! wait it was somehow the wrong ship even though they were in the middle of a literal fucking desert and there was no other ship around

The Female Person Poe Put His Definitely Heterosexual Penis Into At Some Point In The Past just got obliterated along with her entire planet by a different penis, this one attached to a star destroyer! oh wait she didn’t. no explanation she just didn’t die.

also the droid gremlin is with her

hux turned spy for the resist— oh wait he’s dead

Rey killed Kylo! But she feels bad so she heals him back

Palpatine just killed Kylo! Oh wait he didn’t. No explanation he just didn’t die, because JJ needed him to immediately reverse another supposedly momentous death.

Kylo smashed the macguffin! we’re doomed oh wait glovebox

Palpatine just electrocuted the entire rebel fleet to death! oh they got better

There’s absolutely no way to get across these waves! Oh wait Rey just... went across them

Well maybe it’s because she has the force and was able to oh wait Finn just went across them too

Well maybe that’s because The Female Person Finn Is Going To Put His Definitely Heterosexual Penis Into At Some Point In The Future is such an expert at navigating the oh wait Kylo is there as well

If only this movie took place in a universe with vehicles that do not touch the ground, we could have skipped this entire stupid subplot

3po makes a massive sacrifice by allowing his memory to be wiped! oh wait he had a backup

I also hate that 3po’s memory wipe is treated, before it happens, with pathos and gravitas, and then the moment he actually loses everything about his life and all his friends, it’s IMMEDIATELY treated as a joke

I love the way Rey is briefly dead but then Kylo goes “oh no!” and uses the last of his life force to bring her back. I wanted her to go “oh no!” and then use the last of her life force to bring him back. And then he’d go “oh no!” and use the last of his life force to

When the emperor dies, they show a montage of star destroyers blowing up elsewhere in the galaxy. Including one over endor? Why did they have a star destroyer over endor. How did the ewoks blow it up? Did they tie a log to one of the other moons and another log to another other moon and then cut the vines and the logs went smoosh

At the start of the movie Palpy promises Kylo his throne and limitless power in exchange for the one thing he wants most desperately in the world, which is for Rey to be dead. Then Rey shows up and Palpy goes “ah good you are here, I need you to kill me so my spirit can transfer to you” as though these demands aren’t utterly contradictory on every level. Then when she refuses he’s like “oh well, I suppose I can suck your and Kylo’s life forces out and rejuvenate myself to rule anew” as though that isn’t vastly preferable to plans A and B from his perspective

why is he in this movie

Having the knights of ren in this movie really justifies Rian Johnson’s choice not to have them in TLJ.

Every time the knights of ren appear, the timpanist bangs out the music cue for the sand people, so I think John Williams just decided that they ARE sand people in different hats.

Remember the eerie moment in TLJ where Rey and Kylo were connected across a vast distance through the force and Rey was in a monsoon and when the connection closed Kylo found some raindrops on his glove? Remember when Luke used a similar ability, without any physical transference, and the strain was so great that it ended his life? Now do you remember when TROS turned that into a totally mundane effortless 3d fax machine so they could pass necklaces and macguffins and lightsabers back and forth constantly, and even have whole physically real saber duels even though the script was too lazy to put them in the same place? Hey that fucking sucked

Remember Rose Tico? JJ doesn’t

The scene of Poe “micro-jumping” the Falcon is awful on so many levels. First of all, it’s just a one-off joke from Guardians of the Galaxy, but played straight for some reason. Second, changing the setting of the chase every few seconds makes the action just as numbing and impossible to follow as Michael Bay’s worst. Third, it makes no sense that the TIEs are following them through the microjumps, and the fact that they can do so makes the microjumps completely pointless. Why are you even microjumping if they can just follow you? Then the characters spend several scenes going on and on about what a big deal microjumps are, only for no one to ever do it or refer to it again.

Rey asks “what was snoke’s deal,” as though reading off a card with questions from our most obnoxious audience members, and Palpy goes “Snoke was my creation” which makes sense, like he trained the guy and equipped him and pulled his strings from the shadows and no, wait, the camera is panning over to a literal Jar O’ Snokes that Palpy just has handy in his empty strobelit soundstage.

I wish the camera had kept panning to show a Jar O’ Phasmas and a Jar O’ Huxes and maybe a Jar O’ Unkar Plutts so that all the characters from TFA could have an Offically Explained Back Story

If he put all the jars in another jar he could have a Jar Jar and the circle would be complete

I liked the part where they were having a lightsaber duel on a pier and the swings got slower and slower and finally they stopped and just kind of stared at each other like “wtf is even the point of this” because that was exactly how I felt at that moment.

tbh that was exactly how I felt for most of the movie

[sleaveheralone]

Now guys,I know this will shock you but...the old Ducktales wasn't perfect too

Let's really think about it : you guys constantly complain about how Scrooge having to raise Della and Donald would be out of character...yet you guys are totally fine with Scrooge raising Huey,Dewey and Louie in the old Ducktales and being a perfect parent to them,exept for the first episode: he wanted to see their grades,he told them not to get into fights（yeah,because HE never ever got into fights,not even once...）, he wanted them to be polite etc...guys...that is COMPLITELY out of character for him! Remember what Don Rosa Scrooge told the triplets when he first met them? "You'll excuse me...I'm not used to children! I never had time to be one myself!" Scrooge,aside from being a person that alone most of his life has always had a hard time adapting and doesn't know how some things changed since he was young! There is NO way that he instantly adapted perfectly to having three kids in so little time! Reboot Scrooge had the advantage of having had a little experience with Donald and Della but he still needs to adapt and we saw it several times! It makes sense! Donald was extremely dumbed down in the old Ducktales: he only did things right by accident,he never seemed to take offense when Scrooge insulted him,made SCROOGE look like the voice of reason every time they were together...yeah,that totally seems in character. Also Scrooge living in a mension instead of the money bin it's extremely weird yet again none of you complained. What about the fact that in the episode "Send in the clones" the Beagle Boys told Magica that they got life sentence,yet we see them free running around in several episodes,which makes no sense since it's impossible for criminal like them to be absolved. Since you guys always like to point out every logical flaws in the new Ducktales,it seems only fair for me to talk about the flaws of the old one as well,especially since there are so many that are waaaay too bitter towards the reboot. Let's talk about Magica: now, they changed the reason why she wanted the number one dime...at least at first. In the earlier episodes she wanted it to rule the world（no idea how the dime would allow her to do that） and needed to put it inside an amulet but since the episode with Gladstone she wanted it to get rich...yeah they retconned it which I'm sure it left several fans confused on what she wanted. Also,this is something that I have always wondered even while reading the comics: why isn't Magica considered a global threat both in the old show or the comics?! She either wants to take over the world or gain the Mida's touch,that would make her destroy the world economy...yet no one,aside of Scrooge is afraid of her. In fact...she doesn't seem to care that she would destroy the whole economy and therefore she wouldn't be rich anymore（she literally tells Scrooge that she doesn't care if the economy falls apart in one comic）. And what about Poe De Spell? Magica's brother: in the orinal Ducktales her crow Ratface was called Poe and was actually Magica's brother who got turned into a crow. Now THAT would have been an interesting story...if they did anything with it! But no: after the episode "Send in the clones" they never talk about this again. Even in the episode "Duck to the future" , where Magica sent Scrooge in the future and she finally gets the dime we never see Poe's true form. Heck,we don't even know he was turn back to normal because I think that the writers retconned Poe being her brother as well,since she always treated him like he was simply her pet. Or what about the episode "Return to the Klondike" where we learn that the triplets hate romantic mushy stuff...yet at the beginning of the episode we see them happy as they help Webby and Beakley preparing cards for Valentine's Day...wait...what? They don't even look like they don't like it but they have been forced to do it: they look like they are having fun. Or when Goldie told Scrooge that she didn't want to go with him in Duckburg because White Agony Creek was her home? In the episode "Ducky Mountain High" she says that as soon as her claim ran out of gold she left and got another job...way to be consistent. And rember in the episode "Till Nephews do us apart" how Scrooge instantly fell in love with a woman he just met to the point of trusting her more than his own family? And how the episode made it seem like he would allow her to fire Beakley and Duckworth and send the triplets away? Yeah,totally in character,especially on how long it took him to realize that she only wanted his money...even AFTER she told him that to his face😑 And how he never even for one second thought about Goldie before marrying another woman but when she shows up at the end he says "Goldie! My true love!" Yeah right... And how about some of the morals that often resetted in later episodes? In the episode "Home Sweet Homer" the moral was that kids grow up to be themselves and it was Scrooge who told it to the triplets...yet in the episode " Working for Scales" hegets mad at them for messing up,saying that he hoped that they would grow up to be like him. Or what about in the episode "Duck to the future" where he told the kids that it's wrong to make money at other's expence...I repeat it again...a billionare...a capitalist with his own company just said that is wrong to make money at other's expence...which is exactly what he does for living...look I know it's a kids show but really? And in the episode with Gladstone? At the end Scrooge agrees with Gladstone on how important luck is to the point of accepting Gladstone's charm,which is an awful lesson for kids: "Remember kids,never actually try anything in your life,you just have to have good luck and constantly depend on a lucky charm"...yeah... Again,you guys point out every flaw in the new Ducktales but ignore the ones in the old Ducktales. And the old Ducktales has several animation errors as well: in the episode "Send in the clones" in some shots Scrooge is tall as the triplets,while in others he is taller than them; in the episode "A whale of a bad time" Donald ,while pressing random buttons,accidently burns Scrooge's top hat but few scene later,while they were still in the submarine with no way of changing clothes...his hat gets fixed; and what about the several times where some duck's bill would disappear? Or when they miscolored the triplets' hats? Or when in the episode "Ducky Mountain High" where,while Glomgold and Scrooge were throwing each other out of Goldie's house and they colored Scrooge's sideburns brown? Yeah,funny how you guys constantly look for every single frame in the new Ducktales to find animation errors but you ignore the ones in the old one. In short: both shows have flaws,none of the two is perfect and it's complitely fine to like either just one of them or both. But stop calling the one you hate shit or saying that it ruined your childhood（for people who constantly complain about Scrooge not being mature enough for his age,you guys need some growing up yourselves）and let others like it.

[lilyfromfrogzcountry]

Saw TROS - spoilers ahead, don’t read if you don’t want to be spoiled

I need to get some things off my chest to sort out my feelings about this movie :)

It wasn’t as /bad/ as I expected. Let’s say I didn’t get bored. However, there was a lot of stuff I found weird, dumb or that didn’t make sense to me. A lot of things seemed rushed and like last minute additions, which spoiled a bit my enjoyment of this movie. So here’s a little summary of what I liked and didn’t like.

((Before reading, please be aware that i’m a hux fan and a multishipper (reylo included). If this bothers you, please avoid reading this post, since this will probably influence my perception of the movie))

⛔⛔ SPOILERS JUST BELOW - BE WARNED ⛔⛔

What I liked :

Finn finding other stormtroopers having defected (a whole battalion, even), and realizing that he’s not alone. Even if it was to be expected, Finn was always presented as an exception in the story. This shows us the First Order’s stormtrooper program isn’t as efficient in its brainwashing as they claim to be.

Hux being a spy for the Resistance. I know some Hux fans may not have liked it, but I personally found it to be an interesting development in his character. It’s not everyday that a high ranking officer, who’s been a ‘true believer’ in the cause his whole life, changes side like that. I wish it would have been explored more deeply and seriously. Too bad it felt like a last minute addition.

This idea that “some things are stronger than blood”. Rey’s ancestry doesn’t matter, doesn’t influence her destiny. Light side or Dark: what matters is who she chooses to be.

CGI young Luke and Leia flashback (I’m really a fan of this CGI way of bringing back younger versions of actors, the result is always quite realistic imo).

This cute and polite new little robot, D-0 . So sad to learn it was abused by its former master :’(

Kylo’s clothes changing when turning back to the Light. Bye bye black menacing attire and long cape, hello simple shirt and pants. Even if I loved his former look, I quite liked this one as well, it made him appear more “human”. Also, damn, I really found Kylo to be a treat in this movie, he looked so good!

Rey always making a difference between Ben and Kylo Ren : she makes it clear that what interest her is Ben, ie. the Light side of him. It is only after he turns back to the Light for good, after he becomes Ben again, that he earns her trust and love.

Rey lethaly wounding Kylo, then healing him. Because it really seems to be the thing that shook this boy’s soul and made him turn back to the Light (it’s a big part of why, at least). Also, I’m always a sucker for nice characters showing compassion towards villains.

That reylo kiss tho. I know this is a very controversial ship, but since TFA, I was personally certain something deep was going to happen between those 2. I’m glad it was a cute, sweet and hopeful kiss, right after Kylo saved Rey no less. We even get some Ben Smile™. I really wish the movie would have ended here and there, on this hopeful note.

A lot of Hux’s scenes, since I just like him a lot, and he looks both cute and funny (even if I don’t really appreciate how this character was turned into a joke after TFA). Him being unsettled by Kylo having his mask back on, and then saying fearfully how it ‘looks good’ when Kylo calls him out on it in front of everyone. Kylo waving his finger at Hux to shut him up. The whole interaction with Finn and Poe, how they were surprised he was the spy, how he helped them escape, how he asked to be shot to pretend he was taken hostage, the “I don’t care who wins, I just want Kylo Ren to lose” line, etc. Also, how strong his mind must be if he managed to hide the fact he was the spy from Kylo for so long (or did Kylo know and just ignored it?)

What I didn’t like

Rey being Palpatine’s granddaughter and all her powers coming from him. I’m disappointed, because what really interested me in this character since TFA is that she was a nobody. Star Wars had always been centered around the Skywalker family and its Exceptional Destiny™. It was nice for a change to see someone who came from nothing be the main protagonist and shake up the galaxy just because it was the right thing to do (a parallel to Finn, a simple and almost exceedingly banal stormtrooper who chose to become something more, and wasn’t pushed by some hidden destiny/heritage). Also, this whole Palaptine arc seemed like it was added at the last minute.

The whole ‘Palpatine is back and wants to make a new Empire’ shit. For me, Palpatine was really a thing of the past. That’s also what interested me in the First Order: the fact this was a regime built on the ruins of the Empire, having evolved under its shadow and memory, but wanting to become something more. It was a good way of exploring the “how the past can influence the present” thematic, and could be used as an interesting parallel to IRL authoritatian regimes reclaiming a glorious past. If Palpatine was behind everything from the beginning, nothing of this matters. Also, what was the deal with Snoke, then? Was he a mere creation of Palpatine from the beginning? Or a real being that got captured and manipulated? What was the point of this character?

Hux’s death. Like, I may be biased because he’s my favorite character, but his death was so rushed and unnecessary. Did he really need to be killed off by Pryde like that, in such a quick and callous way? With Phasma and Snoke gone, he was the only one left in the First Order to have a past history with Kylo. I think it would have been better to have them interact more, especially with the whole story of Hux being a spy. It would have created some interesting interactions. Also, he’s not anybody storywise: he’s one of the architects of the First Order’s rise to power, perfected the Stormtrooper program, participated in the creation of Starkiller Base, gave the order to destroy the Republic... He’s not some random underling. Nobody seems to react or care when he’s killed off out of the blue, which doesn’t make any sense storywise.

The whole character of Allegiant General Pryde. What was even the point of this character? Where does he come from? What did he do that Hux couldn’t have done? The only interesting thing about this character seems to be that he already served Palpatine during the Empire, but after this fact is stated, it doesn’t come up again and doesn’t really influence the story. He doesn’t do anything extraordinary, just gives random orders. Clearly a waste, imo.

The fact that the Rose/Finn thing is completely abandoned. I know a lot of people didn’t like that kiss in TLJ. I personnaly didn’t really care. But it’s weird it’s never mentioned again, and that even in the few interactions those characters have together, there’s no awkwardness, no aknowledgement that it ever happened (even just to say “we moved on”). It’s like it never even existed. What was the point of that kiss, then?

That weird love triangle thing I felt between Rey/Finn/Poe, and the hostility Poe seemed to have towards Rey for a good part of the movie. I really wonder if they didn’t try to subtly cater to Finn/Rey shippers (by making Finn seem in love with Rey) and to Finn/Poe shippers (by making Poe seem in love with Finn, and jealous towards Rey), while nothing clear is ever stated out loud. Of course, I may have misread the vibes, but that’s what their interactions made me think of.

Kylo’s death. Like, I may here again be biased because I like redemption stories, but was it really necessary to have him die right when he turns back to the Light? I was so hopeful for him, and it was all gone in an instant. Also, his death was very weird and seemed rushed. Rey kisses him, he smiles, he seems quite fine and not /at all/ on the verge of death, and then he just loses conciousness and disappears? What even was that?? (also, very sad to make that whole family die off without having known any true happiness away from Palpatine’s manipulations)

Stuff overwhelming the story: too many big revelations, too many powerful ships appearing out of the blue, too many weird stuff happening with Palpatine (wtf was that ‘ritual’ even? what was this shadowy audience he had?). Just...a lot of stuff to digest. And the Palpatine storyline seemed like it was added out of the blue. Nothing in the 2 last movies gave a clue about this (or it wasn’t obvious). Seemed like a cheap last minute addition..

[recentanimenews]

Manga the Week of 7/14/21

SEAN: Now that July 4th has come and gone and terrified all our dogs, what manga do we have to soothe us?

MICHELLE: My big tabby is also not a fan.

MELINDA: My cats are fine, but I’m traumatized.

SEAN: Airship, in print, has Hello World, a sci-fi one shot with a “fix your past to stop a tragic death” plot. Given Seven Seas also published orange, there’s a lot of this going around.

ASH: I did like orange, so I’m far from opposed to this particular premise.

ANNA: Somewhere I have the first volume of orange, unread.

SEAN: Also in print, Airship has Berserk of Gluttony 3.

Digitally, we get the 12th volume of Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation.

Denpa lists a debut on its website for next week: Lil’ Leo (Reo-kun). This one-shot cat manga is by Moto Hagio, famous for They Were Eleven, The Poe Clan, Otherworld Barbara, etc. This is about a cat who decides to go to school one day like the neighbor kid, then subsequently finds there’s nothing he can’t do. It ran in Flowers.

MICHELLE: Oooh.

ASH: I’m really looking forward to this one.

ANNA: Cool.

MELINDA: Moto Hagio and cats. What’s not to love?

SEAN: It’s a quiet week for J-Novel Club, as we have only Black Summoner 5 and Seirei Gensouki: Spirit Chronicles 15.

In print, Kodansha has Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card 9, Heaven’s Design Team 5, Toppu GP 5, and Yuri Is My Job! 7.

The digital debut is In the Clear Moonlit Dusk (Uruwashi no Yoi no Tsuki), a Dessert series from the creator of Daytime Shooting Star. The cover reminds me a bit of I Hate You More than Anyone!, and is about a “school prince” – female – meeting the other “school prince” – male.

MICHELLE: Looks fun!

ASH: It really could be!

ANNA: I really liked Daytime Shooting Star. so I’m curious about this.

MELINDA: Interested…

SEAN: We also get Ace of the Diamond 33, ASHIDAKA – The Iron Hero 3, Cells at Work: Baby! 3, The Dawn of the Witch 3, Giant Killing 24, Police in a Pod 2, Shaman King: Marcos 2, The Springtime of My Life Began with You 3, Tokyo Revengers 21, and the 6th and final volume of Vampire Dormitory.

MICHELLE: I really have to get caught up on Ace of the Diamond and Giant Killing. I like both a lot.

SEAN: Two debuts for Seven Seas. The Invincible Shovel (Scoop Musou: “Scoop Hadouhou!” (｀・ω・´)〓〓〓〓★(゜Д゜ ;;) .:∴DOGOoo) is the manga adaptation of the comedy light novel, and features shovels. So many shovels.

ASH: That title is kind of amazing.

ANNA: I don’t know what to think about anything anymore.

SEAN: The other is Mars Red, a manga from Comic Garden that had an anime recently, about a young reporter who meets a friend of hers who a) died years ago, and b) is now part of a vampire A-Team.

Also from Seven Seas: Gal Gohan 8 and The Hidden Dungeon Only I Can Enter 3.

Square Enix has a 4th volume of Soul Eater: The Perfect Edition.

SuBLime has a debut. Bad Boys, Happy Home (Dousei Yankee Akamatsu Seven) ran in Akita Shoten’s Kachi Comi, and features a high school punk who regularly picks fights with a homeless man… then, when the homeless man is kicked from where he normally sleeps, the punk offers up his own home!

ASH: I’ll admit, I’m curious.

SEAN: Viz Media gives us, at long last, the final 40th volume of RIN-NE. I admit I long since stopped reading this, but I hope everything works out for the dumb guy and the somewhat stoic girl who (presumably) loves him.

MICHELLE: I didn’t hate RIN-NE, but it’s true that nothing of consequence ever seems to happen.

SEAN: Viz also has Case Closed 79, Fly Me to the Moon 6, and Splatoon: Squid Kids Comedy Show 4.

Yen On has Goblin Slayer Side Story II: Dai Katana 2. They’ve also got a paperback reissue of The Miracles of the Namiya General Store.

ASH: I’m still happy that The Miracles of the Namiya General Store was translated.

SEAN: Yen Press debuts The Maid I Hired Recently Is Mysterious (Saikin Yatotta Maid ga Ayashii), a Gangan Joker title about a maid that teases the young boy who is her charge. Gonna be honest, this is by the author of Breasts Are My Favorite Things in the World!, and I hated that, so…

MELINDA: Yen Press staying on brand, I see.

SEAN: Also from Yen Press next week: Bungo Stray Dogs 19, Days on Fes 2, The Hero Is Overpowered But Overly Cautious 3, Horimiya 15, In Another World with My Smartphone 2, Interspecies Reviewers 5, Love and Heart 2, No Matter How I Look at It, It’s You Guys’ Fault I’m Not Popular! 18, Slasher Maidens 3, A Terrified Teacher at Ghoul School 10, To Save the World, Can You Wake Up the Morning After with a Demi-Human? 3, and The Vampire and His Pleasant Companions 3.

What manga makes you calm and tranquil?

By: Sean Gaffney

[twentysomethinginorlando]

Star Wars: The Last Jedi Review

Having now seen Star Wars: The Last Jedi a second time and ridden Star Tours with the new scene, I now feel like I have a better handle on the movie to talk about it. SPOILERS AHEAD, you've been warned. 

I personally did not grow up on Star Wars. Honestly, looking at my upbringing, I'm not sure how my parents turned out such a nerd. I didn't see the movies at all until I was twelve or thirteen, and they never really resonated with me. I feel terrible saying this now, but I never cared for Leia. Or for Padme for that matter. I didn't relate to them in the slightest.  

Then I moved to Orlando, and found myself at Star Wars Weekends. While I didn't get a lot of the references, and didn't have a great understanding of the canon, I love fandoms. I love people who are passionate about what they love. I love cosplay! The last year of Star Wars Weekends I went as Jedi Korra, because apparently I don't know how to cosplay anyone but Korra. (Changing that this year, come MegaCon!)  

Then in 2015 I found myself at the opening night release of The Force Awakens, and suddenly I found myself in love with Star Wars. Because of Rey. Finally I had a character I cared about! Finn and Poe and BB-8 were all great too, but I had a badass female character to root for at last.

I was out of town when The Last Jedi released, and found myself staying off the internet for days trying to avoid spoilers. Somehow I managed it, and saw the movie only knowing there were mixed reviews and that a lot of the complaints were dumb.

Seeing the movie the first time was incredibly stressful. My heart was in my throat as the Resistance lost all their bombers, and all I could think as Finn headed for that battering ram canon was, "I swear to God, if Finn dies without seeing Rey, I'm not going to be able to handle it, oh my god, do not pull a CW on me right now." (I have a lot of feelings about the whole Supergirl/Mon-El thing that's happening right now.)

The second go around was much more enjoyable because I already knew what was going to happen. I could sit and enjoy the story. Some of the things I hadn't like the first time seemed not to matter anymore, and I found the positive side of things. The first time, the entire Rose and Finn adventure seemed pointless since it didn't pay off and I was super annoyed by the whole thing. The second time I realized how accurate it was. Sometimes you try your hardest and fail anyway, and find out you trusted the wrong person. I still think Benicio del Toro's character DJ felt a little out of place, and I didn't care for him, but he makes some very good points about the larger scheme of things, and has one of the best lines in the film. "Eh, they blow you up today, you blow them up tomorrow."

Luke says the war is just beginning, but hasn't the war been going since Anakin fell to the Dark Side? DJ kinda has a point. I really hope he shows up again, because that will make him his presence in this movie mesh better.

Poe Dameron has quickly become my second favorite character behind Rey. His trolling of Hux at the start of the movie made me so happy, and everything he did over the course of the film made me love him even more. Even his introduction with Rey, which was well over due. I love that he treats BB-8 like a dog.

I love that we got to see Finn grow. He grew in the first movie, but watching him go from running away to getting ready to sacrifice himself was wonderful. I also love that his literal first thought upon waking up was Rey. Not about himself. For someone so self-centered from the start, he has a habit of putting her first. "Rebel scum." Indeed.

Most of all, I loved Rey's story line. I love that she kept up with Luke, that she didn't give up. I love that we got to see her training with both her staff and the saber, and I desperately hope we get to see her with a lightsaber staff in Episode XI. I loved her interactions with Kylo Ren, I love that we got to see her soften for him, BUT NOT HAVE FEELINGS FOR HIM. I want my girl to be happy and single and a powerful and SHE DOES NOT NEED A LOVE INTEREST! That throne room fight scene was one of the best I've ever seen, and I loved every second of it. It's going right behind the No Man's Land scene in Wonder Woman in my list of best moments in film in 2017. The way Kylo Ren brings her the saber and they immediately go back to back to fight the guards is beautiful. That second when she figures out to drop her saber and catch it in her other hand to kill the guard is just brilliant. I even love Kylo Ren fighting with the saber in one hand and one of the guard's weapons in the other.

I've already gotten into several arguments on Facebook because I like the Porgs. They were actually created to help disguise the fact that the island they were filming on was covered in puffins and I think it's brilliant. I'm really proud of myself I haven't bought one. Yet. I did buy a silly Lightsaber refillable cup though...

Since the Force Awakens I have been mildly convinced that the writers of the new Star Wars are Avatar: the Last Airbender fans. Case in point, Dave Filoni, who is behind the Clone Wars and Rebels television shows, left the first season of Avatar to go make Clone Wars. Disney fought the rights to Star Wars in 2012, just after the first season of Legend of Korra. I can't be the only person who seems some similarities between Korra and Rey. When Force Awakens came out, my friends and I kicked around the theory of Kylo Ren pulling a "Zuko", meaning he'd follow a similar pattern as Prince Zuko and we would eventually get "Hi, Kylo Ren here." The Last Jedi stayed pretty true to this theory, Zuko did betray Katara in the season two finale, "The Crossroads of Destiny", and Kylo turned on Rey when she refused to stand with him. So in theory, Kylo could still come join the band of heroes in the final chapter, but I don't know who he would be standing with them against. Snoke is dead! I mean, he's dead dead. So maybe we actually get a true raged out Sith Lord as our bad guy? Honestly, I'd be okay with that.

Not everyone can be redeemed.

This already went on longer than I planned so just a few final notes.

 I don't think Phasma is dead. At least I hope not.

I don't think Rey's parents are nobodies. I don't want her to be a Skywalker, because we're embracing the idea that anyone can be Force sensitive, but I don't think they're "nobodies". I think Kylo Ren was trying to manipulate her. I'm still partial to her being related to Obi Wan, but I'm open to other ideas.

I love how Kylo Ren fights but that stupid sideways stance of his needs to go away.

I think we're going to see Han haunting Kylo Ren.

I figured out Luke was a Force projection, but not for the same reasons as everyone else apparently. I didn't realize he was younger, I thought he just cut his hair to be more presentable. The footprints gave it away pretty quickly, but I just had a gut feeling. I love when I'm right!

All the people saying this "ruined" Star Wars are welcome to their opinion, but I happily disagree with them. We're going in a new direction that was badly needed.

I LOVED the new scene on Star Tours. Poe now gives you the message about the rebel spy, and I was the Rebel Spy! I’m totally down with Poe needing my help. What I didn’t like was that in showing up on Crait, the Star Tours speeder should have been visible in the movie and it’s impossible for C3-P0 and R2-D2 to be in two places at once. But I can’t get over that. Doesn’t make me twitch nearly as much as Gringotts at Universal’s storyline does.

[jedihafren]

This morning I was thinking about TFA and mystery boxes. Mostly I didn’t read any of the Journey to the Force Awakens stuff because none of it seemed to actually be that important tbh. I read Shattered Empire because the panels looked good, and because I already liked Poe and knew it featured his parents, and so I wanted that backstory. But Aftermath seemed to be new non-film characters and I found the writing difficult to really invest in.There were three juvenile fiction books about Luke/Han/Leia that all seemed to be set earlier on, I still haven’t read those. And then there was Lost Stars, and I did read that eventually, but it literally told me nothing that would have been helpful to know going into TFA. (I mean, background of why there’s a star destroyer on Jakku is interesting, but also does not matter at all in terms of story).

Going into TFA I was more or less anticipating that Luke would be someplace interesting, Kylo Ren was likely a Solo (or possibly a Skywalker, but I was kind of assuming he was a Jacen wannabe), Han was likely to die (Harrison Ford etc), and we’d get an answer on Finn or Rey, or maybe both, as well as a better feel of what the galaxy was doing.

Exit the other side, Luke’s story-line was a credit roll, a question mark, and a haunting look, Kylo Ren is a Solo, Han did die, and Finn and Rey are still inside a damn mystery box, with Rey in particular subjecting me to numerous mind numbing parenting theories that I am so very tired of. In addition to this? I really had no clue what was going on politically until after I read the Before the Awakening short story set, which came out the weekend the film did. I laughed that I learned more about the politics of the galaxy in 30 pages of a children’s story than I did 2 hours of a film, but I’m not really laughing, and it’s also true.

Granted, you don’t need to know extra story going into TFA. It’s enjoyable enough as a film for your movie going fans. But I’m just going to posit that nothing I read in Before the Awakening would have dampened my enjoyment of the film - in fact, it might have increased it, actually. Nothing I read in Bloodline truly dampened my enjoyment of the film, again - it kind of increased it. YES it gives away that Han and Leia were married and have a kid, but did anyone genuinely really not expect that? Would knowing that going into TFA have been SUCH a big deal? Was anyone really that surprised when Han said ‘I saw him? I saw our son?’ Really? And in the meantime, watching TFA after I finished Bloodline made Leia’s story richer. Knowing the background made me care more.

Which leads me to this: Sometimes mysteries aren’t interesting, sometimes they’re just mystery boxes. Sometimes they’re annoying, and sometimes not knowing anything about the history leading up to the story doesn’t increase your enjoyment of the story, while having a logical lead-up to the story does.

There are mystery boxes in TFA that I find genuinely fascinating - why and how Ben became Kylo, who the hell Snoke is, and what happened with Luke’s Jedi. But I mostly am annoyed that we still don’t know who Rey’s parents are. I’m still annoyed that the only role Luke has played in any of the post-RotJ media except for a brief appearance in Shattered Empire has been ‘I am off doing mysterious Jedi things and cannot be bothered to interact with anyone around me’. Hermit Luke is boring as fuck y’all. Especially when we don’t even get stories about what Hermit Luke is Hermit-ing on.

'I am your father’ is not necessarily a goal to aspire too. And as it turns out that kind of cinematic reveal isn’t something you’re going to be able to re-create in every story, and if that’s all you’re trying to do, you’re going to end up doing so at the expense of the story.

I think outside of my continual rant about Han & Leia, this is the thing that annoys/bores/irritates me the most with current Star Wars media. I feel like there’s a semi-obsession with mysteries and secrets and reveals, that isn’t necessarily doing the story any good. By all means hold onto some mysteries tightly, but make it a few. Make it a good few. Make it so that when it reveals it all makes sense. And stop just hands-off-ing certain characters because you want to maintain the mystery of what they are doing. It’s not that I mind new characters, but I’m super tired of feeling like everyone has been given ‘do not open’ orders with Luke Skywalker. I’m tired of no stories about Ben’s early training. I’m tired of feeling like Secrets trump Storytelling.

This was in my drafts, and I decided to go ahead and post it because it’s a pretty legit look at where I was post-TFA. I also think it’s interesting that I really was fine with TLJ, I’m fine with TLJ saying, hey none of those mysteries you thought were important, really were (like, I thought they were dumb TO BEGIN WITH).  Also, and this is important - Amilyn Holdo being in Leia: Princess of Alderaan increased my enjoyment of The Last Jedi, did because of that novel I think that she was less likely to turn out as much a devil as they were making her out to be? Yes, but it really enhanced the conflict between her and Poe, it deepened the significance of her scenes with Leia. I was crying during the goodbye scene between those two women, and I’m not certain would have teared up so much if I hadn’t known that they’d been friends since they were teenagers. 

I understand on some level them wanting to elevate the films and keep the mysteries about them, but there is backstory and history you can’t tell in two hours, or even 2.5 hours, and sometimes that history and backstory can make the film better. 

So, and I don’t really expect this JJ Abrams being in charge of 9, I’m going to be honest, but I really would like to see more the Leia: Princess of Alderaan level of backstory, in the future. It doesn’t ruin the film, it really only enhances it, and that’s what the Expanded Universe really should offer in this new world of films plus books, comics. 

[hela-of-ren]

Use Somebody

Request: May I request one with Matty? Where he’s best friends with the reader and she one day asks him to teach her how to kiss coz she’s about to go out on her first date with someone else? But when they kiss, somehow, sparks fly and they realise how attracted they are to each other. Soft, delicate atmosphere and cute romance? Thank you bby x   

My little Matt is finally getting some more love and I may have squealed a bit at your request. Matt is such a fluff muffin of love and I just wanna cuddle him all day and night so this is PERFECT. Also, the song I used as inspiration and included in the request is the cover of ‘Use Somebody’ by Laura Jansen. All hail the fluffy blonde triplet of love! <3

Warning: All the fluff EVER.

________________________________

“Matty! Listen, I need to ask a huge favor!” your hand clutched the phone to your ear as butterflies flew in your stomach.

Tonight was to be the first date you’d be going on since…well, ever. This was in fact the first date you’d be going on and your nerves were at an all time high. Not only had you never been on a real date, but you’d never been kissed or kissed anyone.

“Y/N? What’s wrong?” Matt could always sense your nerves.

You and Matt had been best friends since you were using training wheels, one never without the other. The tall blonde was always there to for you, whether it be to tutor you in physics or watch late night toons and eat grilled cheese with you. Matt was always your number one.

“I really don’t wanna say it over the phone, but can you please come over? It’s an emergency!” You didn’t want to beg, but you would if necessary.

“Uhm yeah, I’ll be over in ten minutes!” With a small crash from his end, the line disconnected. You shook your head at how clumsy he could be.

You walked over to your vanity, already dressed and primped for the night. Your hair was put up into a simple up-do with strands falling and framing your face, makeup simple with a touch of lip gloss and mascara.

You’d met Poe from history class, starting off as each other’s study buddies for Mr. Lando’s topic on the first world war. He had been super awesome with sharing his notes with you and helping you to grasp the dates and times for the upcoming test.

Before you knew it Poe had asked you to grab some dinner with him at the local diner. This was the first time a boy who wasn’t out to get in your pants had truly shown interest in you. He was polite, charming, funny and super cute in a very rugged way.

Rewind to what any of this had to do with Matt.

You didn’t trust anyone more than you trusted Matt and if anyone was gonna be your first kiss, it might as well be him. You’d pondered looking up YouTube tutorials on how to kiss, but nothing could ever beat a physical demonstration.

“Y/N?” Matt’s voice rang from downstairs.

“Up here, Matty!” You answered.

You began to smooth out your dress hearing his footsteps get closer to your room. Your turned around just in time to see Matt stand in the doorway of your room still in his orange work uniform, did he ever stop working?

“Thank god you’re here, Matty.” Your greeting went unnoticed by Matt whose view was in tunnel vision and directly focused on you. You looked absolutely breath taking, not that he didn’t think that way of you all the time, but…you were almost glowing.

He tried in vain to close his mouth before mentally slapping himself, he must have looked like a dumb ass…again.

“So you’re probably wondering why I called you here.” You pretended not to notice his momentary lapse in response. “I didn’t really know who else to trust.” You started to ring your hands together.

“Y/N, you know you can trust me. What ever it is, you can tell me.” The sweat of his palms would beg to disagree. No, whatever it was he could handle it.

“I’m going on a date tonight…”

Except that.

“…and I need you to teach me how to kiss.”

…what?

If his mouth hand hung open before, his jaw was on the damn floor now. She was going on a date? She wanted to kiss him? All those rumors about him being a robot might be true because he could feel his brain malfunctioning. He ran his hand through his blonde curls to make sure no wires were sparking before sitting himself down on your bed.

Okay, no wires and no sparks. That meant that everything you just said was real. Sure the kissing part made him nervous, but he’d be lying if he never thought about dipping you in his arms and planting a passionate kiss on your lips. Matt had always had a crush on you ever since you were small, always trailing after you like the tall, blonde, orange fluff he was.

By the time you both reached high school it only became clearer that he was in love with you, always finding new ways to see and hang out with you through tutoring or ‘forgetting’ to pack a lunch. Being in your senior year together only made it more obvious that college was quickly approaching and he’d need to spend as much time with you as he could.

But now you were going on a date…with someone that wasn’t him and he really didn’t know what to say or do without acting like a jealous prick.

“Matty?” You knew this was a dumb idea, the poor boy wouldn’t even look at you now. “Hey listen, forget I said anything. It was a stupid idea…” You trailed off and played with your dress to distract yourself. “I just didn’t wanna look like an idiot, seems like I already am.” You whispered.

Your tone of voice had Matt looking up and his heart nearly shattered at how small you looked. You began to chew on your lip and walk towards the vanity before he stopped you.

“NO!” His yell had your startled when you turned to look at him. “I mean, you’re not an idiot. I didn’t respond because- because the…atmosphere isn’t right.” He mentally smacked himself.

‘Good one, Solo.’

“Y- you need to have a romantic atmosphere to perform a great kiss.” He stuttered out.

He quickly stood up and rummaged around in the fanny pack he always had clipped to his waist, pulling out a lighter and going to your book case to retrieve some candles. Lighting the lavender wicks he carried them over to your bedside table and set them down.

After arranging them in a perfect manner he made his way over to your CD player, flicking through the selections available and settling on one in particular. He flicked through the song titles before choosing one and immediately ran over to your light switch to dim the lights.

I’ve been roaming around Always looking down at all I see

Matt slowly sat back on your bed before patting the space next to him nervously. You looked at him in awe for a second, finally walking to sit till your shoulders touched each other.

“No offense, Matt…but how is this going to help in other situat-” He cut you off with a ‘shhhh.’

“Focus on now,” He moved so that you faced each other, “Just close your eyes and focus.” When had his voice become so seductive? You closed your eyes and breathed deeply, letting out a gentle exhale.

You know that I could use somebody You know that I could use somebody

“Feel the music around you, listen to the candles flicker and spark.” His voice had grown closer and your heart had picked up speed, shoulders tensing slightly. You felt Matt place his hands on your shoulders gently.

“Easy, Y/N. Relax, the whole reason you go in for a kiss is because you feel comfortable and safe with that person.” His thumbs began to stroke your bare shoulders. “I want you to feel what you’re feeling for every kiss we- I mean, you have.” He gulped at his almost slip up.

At his words you began to understand why he’d done all this. The smell of lavender filled your nose and the gentle sounds of the acoustic music soothed you until your lips slightly parted. The light from the candles cast a gentle glow on the two of you, filling your skin with a soft warmth.

Someone like you, and all you know, and how you speak Countless lovers under cover of the street

You felt his hands slide up from your shoulders to cup either side of your face, the extra warmth of his hands producing a slight blush to your cheeks. He moved closer until you felt his breath fan over your lips.

You know that I could use somebody You know that I could use somebody

“Are you sure?” He whispered one final time. You nodded your head and immediately felt his plush lip come in contact with yours. His lips had always looked soft, but the feeling of them covering yours was truly indescribable.

Someone like you Someone like you

Your hands felt useless and eventually found their way to his orange vest, clutching gently to his chest as his hands brought you closer. You felt him gently bring your bottom lip between his in a gentle suck before he slowly broke the kiss.

Those stories about fireworks going off during one’s first kiss might not happen to everyone, but it definitely just happened to you. His kiss was so gentle yet also passionate in a way that you were pretty sure were reserved for lovers.

Oh…

You slowly opened your eyes until you were staring into two pools of chocolate obscured by glasses, his hands still resting on your cheeks.

“Matty?” Your eyes looking into his.

“Y-yes?” He whispered.

“How long?” You knew he’d understand what you were asking. He let his hands slip from your face as he sighed.

“As long as I can remember…” He trailed off with a small shake of his head. You smiled gently at his hanging head, reaching for your phone on the nightstand. you began to type rapidly over the screen, Matt looking up in confusion at the sound.

“W- what are you doing?” His brow furrowed. You pressed send and tossed the phone back onto your bed before gently clasping his chin and pressing a slow peck to his lips. You broke the kiss and smiled at him.

“I don’t think I’ll need that date after all.” Your hand moved to his cheek to stroke with your thumb. His face lit up in that signature goofy grin you loved as he moved in to kiss you again, your finger coming up to press to his lips.

His face started to look panicked before you reached up to remove his glasses and gently toss them onto the bed. Your arms coming back up to wrap around his shoulders.

“Much better.” You pressed your lips back to his and felt him smile into the kiss before wrapping his arms around your waist and pulling you onto his lap.

I’ve been roaming around, Always looking down at all I see

[ofstarsandvibranium]

Internet Famous

Fandom: Star Wars (Modern AU)

Pairing: Poe Dameron x Reader

Summary: Poe and Reader are friends who came together and started a youtube channel for fun. 1 million subscribers later, they’re now internet famous. Their friendship has thrived, however, all of their fans can obviously see that Poe and Reader aren’t just friends.

Internet Famous Masterlist

The video is clicked and it shows you and Poe, “Hey guys! I’m Y/N!”

“And I’m Poe,” Poe waves shyly.

“Welcome to our channel, Rebel-Rousers!”

“So, Y/N and I have been seeing these videos called Most Likely To. So we’re going to be reading off statements and we’ll hold up our signs that says Poe or Y/N.”

“If you like our content, please like, subscribe, and comment! We love to hear from you guys.”

Poe looked at you, “Let’s get started?”

You nodded, “I’ll read the first statement,” you cleared your throat, “Okay. Most likely to end up in jail.” You held up your Poe sign while he held up his Y/N sign.

“Wait, hold on! What?!” Poe exclaimed, “What makes you think that?!”

You laughed, “Don’t play dumb! You get into a lot of mischief! My snapchat followers know how you really are!”

“Okay, true. Fine. My turn: most likely to move away?”

You both looked at each other and said in unison, “Neither of us,” and smiled at each other.

“Poe’s my best friend! There’s no way I’m gonna be away from him.”

“Yeah! Plus, you can’t get rid of me easily.” Poe wrapped his arm around your shoulder and kissed your temple. You were used to that by now.

The video paused.

Rey groaned, “They’re so into each other! I think I’m gonna vomit.”

Finn nodded, “Our poor, dear friends. So oblivious."

Rey scrolled down to the comments section, "Look! Even their subscribers can see it!" 

 Finn leaned towards the screen and read some comments off, "'Omg. Poe and Y/N just need to get together already!' 'Look at how Poe stares at Y/N at 2:35!' 'I ship them so hard!' 'Waiting for the day that they get married.' WHY ARE THEY SO OBLIVIOUS?!" Finn explains. Him and Rey just shook their heads at their friends. 

You were lying on the couch in the living of the apartment you shared with Poe. You two have gone through so much together. Graduating high school together, going to college together, moving in together, and starting your guys’ youtube channel. You didn’t expect it to become such a big hit. You two were just best friends doing little skits, challenges, and song covers. 

You were scrolling through twitter when Poe came from the kitchen and sat on your legs. You groaned, “Yeah, okay. That’s totally fine. Just sit on my legs so I can’t move.”

Poe smirked at you, “Oh thanks. You’re such a good friend.” You took the pillow from under you head and smacked Poe with it. 

Your phone suddenly dinged and you looked to see that you got an email. You opened it up and read it. When you were finished, you sat up and excitedly started hitting Poe on the arm.

“Ow! Ow! What the hell?!”

You stopped, “We just got invited to VidCon!”

“Wait, really?!”

You nodded aggresively, “They want us to do a panel!”

“Holy crap! This is great!” 

“So we’re doing it?”

Poe scoffed, “Is that even a question? HELL YEAH, WE’RE GOING!”

PART 2

[toddcowardd]

The Captain, The Pilot and You (Part One)

Rating: Teen-ish idk this is going to lead into smut so

Warning: dirty dancing at the end, lots of alcohol consumptions 

Paring: Cassian Andor x Reader (Eventual Cassian x Poe x Reader but this part is very cassian centric)

Summary: It's Valentine's day and you're lonely, bitter, and just got dumped. So what better way to spend it than at the rebellions annual party and get drunk! Little do you know that your drunken shenanigans with a certain pilot and captain will lead to something so much more.

Sometimes, being in the rebellion sucked.

Not that going to different places in the galaxy and fighting off fascist soldiers wasn’t cool because, well, it was. But, sometimes you just felt so lonely. Especially on days like today where it’s a literal celebration of romantic love.

You walked around the buzzing base after your latest mission debriefing, hands tucked deeply into your jacket pockets, eyes planted firmly to the floor to avoid seeing all the happy couples around you. The lovey dovey atmosphere of the base become far too much for you as you hurried off in the direction of your quarters.

There was a lot of excited chatter filling the air, some of the higher ups allowed for a party to happen later tonight in celebration of this cursed day. You’ve decided to skip out on it and lay in bed watching dumb holodramas all night.

Pathetic? Maybe.  But you weren’t about to get all fancied up only to be surrounded by happy couples the entire night before retiring to you room alone. You looked up around the base before disappearing down the corridor to everyone quarters. Couples everywhere and gods it even seemed like the droids on base had a partner. You felt like the only single person in the rebellion. That wasn’t true, there was some people who didn’t have a special someone like; Captain Andor.

You shake your head at the thought of him. Sure, he was handsome and amazing and incredible and courageous and friendly but, he’d never date you. He was in a committed relationship to the rebellion and nothing (or no one) else. He’d politely shrug off any romantic advance that came his way no matter who it was. There was no use in you trying when you already knew the outcome.

The door to you quarters slide open after you typed in your key code. Another potential partner could be Commander Dameron. He too was gorgeous, amazing, friendly, brave and other like adjectives. And unlike Captian Andor he was very willing to go into a relationship. The problem was that he almost never did because he was too busy bouncing around everyone. He just had so much love to give and would rather give it to multiple people over one.  

You flopped face down onto your bed. If you were being honest then you’d admit to having feelings for both. And that you’d want to date both (at the same time preferably). You knew deep down that that’d never happen. The chances of you defecting and dating an imperial were higher than that happening. The chances of you being a member of a family with strong jedi ties would be higher than that. Literally anything happening would have a higher chance than that. You turn towards the window, looking out to Yavin’s lush greenery. The setting sun painted the sky in a beautiful mixture of pink and purple.

That party would be starting soon.  

It was rather unfortunate for you that you aren’t going. Maybe by some weird twist of the force you’d meet someone there. Maybe it’d be Dameron or Andor. Or maybe it would just be someone else.

At least if you’d go and you were to meet someone, you’d hypothetically get laid at the end of the night.

Maybe.

You sit up and rethink your plans for the night. The pros of going would be; you don’t look like a recluse, you’d at least get some food and drinks out of it and you could possibly hook up with someone and maybe get into a relationship. Maybe. The cons were; you would be surrounded by everyone else’s love, you’d be alone, you could possibly leave alone and you might get food poisoning because the food on base is very hit and miss.

You look out to the window again, some rebels already in more formal clothing were making their way to the central most temple for the party. Perhaps you could go for an hour or two, then return to your room for your previously planned self-pitying and bad holodramas. You sigh and turn to look at your dark empty room.

“Well… why the hell not?” you mumble to yourself, getting up and making your way to the shower.

************************

You arrive to the party area roughly an hour later with a plan to stay for about 2 hours before faking tiredness and leaving while getting drunk in the process.

The majority of the room was dominated by a dance floor, filled with couples dancing every dance imaginable. You sigh bitterly, going straight to the bar area. The bartender looks at you with a chipper smile.

“What can I get for you Cap-“

“Something strong and alcoholic.” You grumble. He nods and turns to make your drink. The song shifts to a slower song as everyone in the room seemed to attach themselves together. You make a disgusted noise in the back of your throat. Gods, you hated this holiday. The bartender slides you drink next to your hands, you pick it up, downing it immediately.

The bartender looks to the empty glass them to you.

“Is everything alrigh-“

“Yeah, yeah” You cut him off with a hand wave. “Just keep ‘em coming.”

He nods and makes you another one, setting it in front of you. You pick it up, starting to drink it while surveying who else is at the bar. You get half way done when you see a familiar pair of tired eyes looking down into a full glass of alcohol.

You stare at him a bit, continuing to drink whatever the bartender puts in front of you. Your cheeks start to burn hotly. Cassian has drank half his drink but he refuses to look up from the counter. You head buzzes, you sip at part of your next drink, getting half way down to match his before you make your move.

“Hey Captain Andor!” You call out, the alcohol was making you loosen up and feel more confident.

He glances over to you, giving you a small wave back. You finish your drink, leaving the glass at your spot before going over to Cassian.

“What are you doing here Captain Andor?”

He sips his drink. “K said it’d be healthy for me to get out and socialize.”

“Socialize” You say while throwing up air quotes with your fingers. A small smirk dances on his face as the bartender sets another drink next to you. You start to drink it. “You’re droid wants you to get laid. He’s nicely telling you that you’re unbearably wound up”

“How many of those have you had Captain Y/N?” He asks amusingly, motioning towards your drink.

“Not nearly enough Captain Andor.” You finish the drink “I need at least a whole lot more as punishment to myself for talking myself to coming here” You glance to the bartender whose already making another.

“You’re here alone?” Cassian questions

“Well of course!” You groan “I’m always alone because I’m not all that pretty or charming.”

Cassian looks taken aback by your words. “Who says that?”

You throw your arms in the air “I says that! And my ex says that!”

You down another drink as the captain studies your sadden facial expression. “That Y-Wing pilot you were dating?”

You nod in response, not even questioning how he knew and/or remembered that. You start to sip at the next drink given to you by the bartender, whimpering a bit.

“He left me for that new X-Wing pilot that came a few months ago.” You slump onto the bar counter sobbing in your arms. “I leave for one mission and come back to all his stuff out of my room and them all snuggled up to each other! And I confront him about it and he says the pretty and charming stuff and im just so…. hurt by it all!”

Cassian pries the drink from your hand, setting it aside. He rubs small circles into you back trying to calm you down.

“Hey, hey, hey, hey listen to me.” He lowers his voice “He doesn’t deserve you and he’s wrong for leaving you like that, for saying you aren’t pretty and that you aren’t charming.”

You lift you head a bit and look at Cassian. “Do you really think that?”

He nods with a smile “Yes, I really think that.” He finishes his drink, motioning for another. You shyly grin back at him.  

Cassian takes your hands in his “Hey, you know what we should do?”

“Trash his Y-Wing?!” You inquire, face lighting up

“Mmmm no, we should dance.”

Your eyebrows scrunch in confusion. Dancing? With Cassian Andor? This had to be a dream. You stare at his face for any sign that this wasn’t real or some cruel joke. You found none.

“Okay yeah, l-lets dance.” You fumble your words a bit as he finishes his second drink. He grabs your hand and leads you towards the dance floor, as a more upbeat yet sensual song starts up.

He pulls you both towards the middle. Two strong hands firmly grasp your hips and pull you as close to him as humanly possible. You instinctively wrap your arms around his neck so you wouldn’t lose balance. Cassian smirks as he starts to sway both your hips to the music. You sway with him, trying your best to keep up with his quick and slightly rough pace. The room felt hot or maybe it was just you. Cassian’s face was just a centimeters from yours, his forehead pressed against yours. His eyes stared deeply into yours as he continued to gyrate to the music with you. It was defiantly just you. You said nothing, you mind was buzzing with millions of different things but, all you could feel yourself doing was staring back to him.  

His breathe fans against your face while one of his hands travels down your thigh a bit. His fingers absent mindedly push up the hem of your dress slightly as he grabs you by the thigh and hoists up one of your legs. This maneuver pulls you even closer to him if that was even possible. You feel you face grow warm and red. His lips were just millimeters away from your and you so badly wanted to close the gap. But you didn’t, you bit your bottom lip and watched as his eyes glance down to your lips.

A second later he dips you down, causing you to gasp in surprise. He lifts you back up immediately, pulling you close to him once more.

“That was unexpected Captain” you giggle, dancing with him more expertly now. He merely smirks in response.

You two continue on with the song, getting slightly handsier with one another with each passing beat. By the time the song finishes your both panting messes.  You feel hot and sweat plastered up against Cassian and you have no doubt that he feels the same way. You grab his hands, prying away from him and leading him back to the bar. You get to your prior spots, staring at one another in utter admiration. The bartender sets down two drinks before rushing off.

“Where did you learn to dance like that?” You ask Cassian as you sip your new drink

He shrugs “Undercover missions to clubs and such. What about you?”

“Just now in an attempt to keep up with you” You laugh.

“Well you did a good job” He smirks again.

Gods that smirk was beautiful. You could really get used to him throwing it your way as often as he was tonight. You lean against the bar as he takes one of your hands in his, squeezing it lightly. A wide grin spreads across you face. Yeah you could defiantly get used to this

I HOPE YALL LIKED IT PART TWO WILL BE UP EVENTUALLY/SOON/LATER/IN A FEW DAYS :”^)))) 

I also hope the dancing was good idk that was my first time writing it soooooo

If you wanna be tagged in future parts then tell me pls :))

@brownvalerie @raypclmer 

[tube-thoughts-blog]

Vol. 15

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

The Haunted: Stalked By A Vampire *Bumps in the night & an invisible sucker of energy, Animal Planet? Okay, the family had a dog & 2 cats, animal enough for ya? A mom of 5, w/ a husband away at work all the time, projects her somber moods over certain recent life events, like her admitted miscarriages, onto her family. Instead of time spent really trying in the care of mental health experts, paranormal "experts" are called in. The spook investigators sound like they're making a metaphor about this "energy Vampire" continuing to follow this woman around as if they really meant to be saying her mental health problems. Sadly, they're serious only about the supernatural & not this woman or family's mental well being.* 1 star

Jerry Springer: "I'm Happy I Cut Off My Own Legs!" *A middle aged man turned trans-gender woman achieves another lifelong goal when "she," after many hilariously described failed attempts (homemade guillotine),  discovers that a power saw is the right tool for the job. On a side note, Caitlyn Jenner is still a former male Olympics track star w/ both "her" legs.* 1 star

The Comfort Zone w/ Ray Comfort: Ken Ham "Aliens Go To Hell" (Live Interview) *The creator of the Creation Museum claims to be saying that he doesn't believe that NASA is complete nonsense, but he suggests that it's a waste of time & money. From the smarmy & unfunny remarks of Ken, Ray, & the other co-hosts/tools it's obvious that they're attempting, & failing, in trying to tie the secular scientific community in w/ hardcore UFO believers.* 1 star

Penn & Teller Bullshit!: Twelve Stepping & Hypnosis *Have a disease? Then get on your knees. Close your eyes, count backwards, & you're cured.* 3 stars

--- Everything Is Terrible:

*M... Kay...: God first, money second, cosmetics third, individuality somewhere after family & a career w/ Mary Kay.* 2 1/2 stars

*Pre-Marital Sex Who Do You Listen To: Listen to the dorky 80s rock band PETRA, some supposed experts in the emerging HIV-AIDS crisis who have an obvious religious bias, &  your local Republican congressman & or minister... heck could have been dad's country club golf buddy / spiritual guru of the green. Keep your privates holy & clean.* Decent

*Sheep: "Have you ever had a mountain top experience, girls?" We know that if you listen to this Peggy Hill look-&-act-a-like w/ her own baaaa talk show, you haven't had a female orgasm, because that's not righteous of a lady, baaaaa!* either 1 or 3 stars

*Evolution Is, As Evolution Does: "A dog, a wolf, a coyote, & a banana. Which is not like the others?" I give up. I need further religious instruction to answer this question or parable. Oh, it's not a parable? It's just an attempt to disprove evolution... banana!* Folly! me banana. Daylight come & me still don't know if earth 6 thousand or 6 billion old!

*2 Minute - The Second Coming: End times & a non-believer can't even get a cheeseburger & a medium coke w/out the mark of the beast or ending up like an unfortunate soul in a story by Edgar Allan Poe.* either 1 or 3 stars

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

GoodBadFlicks.com : Dead Heat *Treat Williams looks so much like Bill Pullman. Treat Williams makes a great zombie.Treat Williams & Joe Piscopo make a great buddy cop duo. The 80s were probaby the only decade that a great zombie cop buddy action comedy could be made.* 3 stars for the review

--- Siskel & Ebert: The Worst Films of 1984 (aka The Stinkers of 84)

*Always loved the intros for Siskel & Ebert. I'm more familiar w/ the one from my childhood where they meet out in front of the theater looking grumpy while buying newspapers & paying the cabbie. This one is from close to a decade earlier & they're much more cheery fellows as they go about a quirky routine of getting their movie concession snacks.

*Sheena, Queen of the Jungle: Roger thinks that Sheena isn't even a good bad movie w/ inappropriate music for the action scenes "sounds like it belongs in a honeymoon video" & Tanya Roberts not being sexy enough. I like that Roger is thinking like Joe Bob. Yeah, doesn't look great to me. Yep, 80s & before were about the only time a blonde white chick could be seriously considered a jungle queen.* looks like folly

*Rhinestone: Siskel isn't fond of hearing Sylvester Stallone sing bad country music in a popular, at the time, urban cowboy genre disaster. I wouldn't either. Dolly Parton is his co-star & it looks like they had zero chemistry. Could have been the awful dialogue. More weird is that Stallone seemed to be trying a southern accent... ugh...* 1 star

*Bolero: Roger & Gene like Bo Derek better in Tarzan & 10. This is one of those infamous movies that true film fans always hear about & torture themselves with. No thanks. Looks awkward & one of those arthouse flicks that make sex dull.* 1/2 a crushed matador's penis

*Cannonball Run 2: Gene can't appreciate a country wide car race movie that only has a small animated car race at the end. I remember liking these Cannonball Run movies as a kid. Not sure if they still hold up. Probably couldn't stomach so much of Burt's physicalcomedy. Dom Deluise makes me slightly chuckle though.* close to 2 stars

*City Heat: Roger thinks that bad action & bad comedy equals a bad movie. Siskel thinks that the actors slept walked through the making of it. One would think that an Eastwood & Reynolds 1920s or 30s gangster buddy film would have some entertaining value, but it looks like it was played way too tongue in cheek.* 1 star

*Dune: Siskel & Ebert think Dune was squandered potential. Turning out to be dusty in its ugly presentation & confusingly boring. As poorly made as "an old serial like Captain Video." Dune is another divisive infamous movie. I'm not qualified enough to comment on it as I've never gotten around to seeing it. Only David Lynch movie that I haven't.*

*Siskel & Ebert's honorable mentions of 84:

*Friday the 13th, The Final Chapter: "Bad news it won't be the last one." Respectfully, I say, screw you, Gene. Lucky for us 80s kids, he was right.*

More than decent.

*Windy City: "Tearjerker about a guy mostly in love with himself." A forgettable romantic comedy looks like. Every generation of movie goers has hundreds of 'em.* Dull.

*The Woman in Red: "Kelly LeBrock was not on screen enough." - Siskel. Also starring Gene Wilder lusting over her. Can't blame either Gene.* could be fair.

*Where The Boys Are: "Sex & surf replaced by inflatable dolls & sun tan lotion." - Ebert. Sounds like Roger is bitter about being too old & chubby to go to the beach where they were filming 80s sex comedies. Was it a sex comedy?* another could be fair.

*Best Defense: "A stupid military espionage story." starring Dudley Moore & Eddie Murphy .Murphy was already teaming up w/ other actors to make bad comedy movies in 84? I thought Eddie was on fire until some time in the 90s when he started screwing up.* early folly

*Harry & Son: "Painfully contrived" father son movie featuring Paul Newman.* skip, 1/2 star

*Silent Night, Deadly Night: "Crude, mean spirited slasher movie" & not a Holiday classic? What did Gene expect? It's A Wonderful Life? Thank Santa for mean spirited 80s holiday themed slasher movies. Again, this time I'll have to respectfully disagree w/ a generation of movie reviewers my parents' age who just didn't get a certain genre's finer points.* more than decent

Gene promises a feature on Hollywood's hottest new comic. Coming, next week, "The Secret of Bill Murray." Ha. Awesome time period.

Siskel & Ebert are sponsored by: Diet Shasta (generic soda for generic people like Gene & Roger), Pan Am airlines for those who wanna be spread across the Pacific ocean like so much untraceable no rescue debris... Raisinets & Goobers... Glade Smoke Away fordingy smokers who stink & wear dingy colored clothes like Gene & Roger & every other adult in the early 80s...

Roger & Gene separate at the entrance to leaving the theater. Trying to pretend that they don't secretly go to a motel together after the movies.

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Occult Demon Cassette presents "Rock, It's Your Decision" 1982 (Christian Anti-Rock VHS) *It's your decision to surrender to your parents' & youth minister's opinion on devil music. That is unless you, being a dumb teenager wasting precious brain cells on rock & bible school lessons, can find, via religiously biased "research" materials backed up by scripture, a damn good reason to damn your soul to hell with rock music. Bwahahaha! That laugh might have sounded evil. But it came from a wholesome, square & uptight, while at the same time trying to be understanding to teens, youth minister.* folly

Uncharted Zone: I Only Set the Stage - Paul Gormley *Dad rock in dad jean shorts. She devil in red. The pit of hell & horrible green screen amateur music video fx. Also that ole aging rocker cosplay Satan himself.* close to 2 stars

--- Night Flight (1990):

*A jean ensemble wearing 80s teen breaks into the carnival to blast his rock cassette ove rthe audio system & to ride the rollercoaster all by himself. Sony "Take It For A Spin" 2 1/2 stars

*West Michigan's "Kids Film Festival" featuring "Problem Child 1"... "The Jetsons Movie"... Bill Cosby's "Ghost Dad"... "The Jungle Book".. "Back to the Future 3"...* 2 1/2 stars

*"Give 'Em A Brake!" road worker safety ad sponsored by the "Detroit Pistons" & the Michigan Department of Transportation. I don't want to sound like Bill O'Reilly, here, but looking at the short shorts on the early 90s NBA players makes me miss pre-HIP HOP fashions & attitudes NBA. Not a lot of disgusting tattoos either. They actually look like basketball players not "thugs" in baggy pajamas.* more than 2 stars

*Toon Theater - Goodnight Norma... Goodnight Milton: A miserable couple show their very grotesque secret sides when they get home from a night out with "friends" that they despise behind closed doors.* 3 stars

*Night Flight bumper featuring Bela Lugosi & Boris Karlof playing a game of chess.* 3 stars

*"They're young, they're beautiful, & we have their private phone numbers." Call 1 900... Yeah, I seriously doubt beautiful women want their private phone numbers given out to perverts.* more than 2 1/2 stars

*A bald middle aged man is positively thrilled w/ his game show experience on Grand Rapids tv's "The Jokers Wild."* 2 1/2 stars

*A kid sits on his carpet floor playing w/ his firetruck dreaming about one day becoming a fireman. On the 13 inch t.v. starts playing a cheesy jingle "America needs you... America needs me... America the beautiful, we're gonna save the free... So, I'm gonna be the best that I can be because America needs me!" The kid is magically transported onto the back of a firetruck on a fire & rescue mission. He's zapped back to his living room floor w/ a new "America Needs Me!" t-shirt. He gives a thumbs up & says "Drug Free"... Central Michigan Substance Abuse Center... Huh? What the hell did the fireman fantasy have to do with drugs? I'm so confused.* close to 3 stars or 1 star

*Extreme closeups of mouths as they give confessions to the camera "I couldn't help myself" along with pulsating drum & synth music as the off camera industrial fan blows the hotmodel's hair as she holds an ominous red telephone not connected to anything. It's not a wireless phone, it's one of the old school curved chorded phones, so that's why it looks odd to me & I've decided to comment on it & waste words doing so.* 3 stars

*A grandma sits down in the rocking chair, in her shack, to tell a bedtime story to a young child... for some reason, it appears that the tape cuts out & shoots to somethingelse.. not sure if this is part of the story... doesn't seem so... maybe I'm wrong

*"From Outerspace They Came" logo for a 50s sci fi style flick

*Now claymation monsters in a claymation city... looks great

*Guitar solo & the beginning of "Would you take me to Funky Town" cool

*50s sci fi space explorers sit back & prepare to be blasted off into space... I'm ready

*Logo for "Space Monster" where an astronaut encounters a creepy looking humanoid alien who won't stop flicking his tongue.* Weird, thumbs up

*Grandma's back to tell another story... So, I guess beginning w/ the first time we saw her that was the first Night Flight video essay.* 3 stars for that one

*Here begins another Night Flight Video Essay

*1940s looking cartoon screen card for "The Pincussion Man" as Bowie & Queen's "Under Pressure" begins to play.

*It's a happy cartoon planet of balloon animal creatures & explosions

*interspiced into that is a 50s era show or movie featuring a guy being hypnotized to walk funny & then being levetated onto a table.* goes together well.* 3 stars for that essay, unless this is gonna be one big long essay. I'm unclear, so I'm breaking it up.

*Grandma's back for her bit & to start another song w/ selected animation / skits for it

*Witchy cat woman Diana Ross leads a hunk, in a white suit, by the hand through a dreamlike black & white world.* She's into horror makeup like her protege Michael Jackson, I guess

*She's a panther woman but she "don't wanna be eaten alive" even though she's planning on sucking the meat from this guy's bones. Eat me, Diana, Mistress of the Motown Night!

*It sounds like Michael Jackson is singing backup vocals on this song. Sounds good & 80s funky.* More than 2 1/2 stars for that one.

*Grandmas back, once again, & once upon a time... But the Nightflight bumper & announcer lady means that entire series of video essays is over, I'm assuming.*

*Not even 20 minutes into this episode of Night Flight & there's already been more entertainment content value than most modern cable channels, much less their lineup of awful shows, feature all fucking day & night long.* Viva Night Flight

*Spooky as shit ad for a psychic hotline. Most psychic hotlines usually feature white & black trash idiots talking about how it helped their relationships or fortunes. This one is complete X-Files nightmare inducing photoshop of Egyptian images, ghost children, zooming cosmos, skulls, phantom robed creatures, & other ancient religious iconography.* 3 stars

*Promo for the tabloid news journal show "Inside Edition" featuring a story on a cop undercover as a teenager. He gets executed by students. Maybe his very adult mustache was a giveaway. His grieving mom is nothing to laugh at, but Inside Edition is the one doing the exploiting, I'm sure. Probably pretending it's some kind of youth crime epidemic & not some random & odd circumstance act. Ah, there's host Bill O'Reilly. Ha.* 1 star

*Ad for a dirtbike arena racing "Thrills & Chills" home video.* I'll pass. 2 stars

*special preview for "Frankenhooker" coming to vhs home video.* 3 stars

*Comedy Cuts - Mario Joyner: Jokes about how black folks don't try to get a fade by frost bite in the Winter like white folk do w/ their sun tan in the Summer.* close to 2 1/2 stars

*Comedy Cuts - Norman Gunston - Roving Reporter: A neurotic Brit raves about some bloodbank conspiracy & then startles random real people on the Hollywood Walk of Fame while asking them for free blood donations. Ha.* close to 3 stars

*Inside Edition promo about Judy Garland's failed comeback tv show. No surprise that this shameless show picks easy targets like dead celebrities. Then, an even more ironic story featuring Bill Cosby talking with teens about sex... Oh, boy....* 1 star

*A morbid "This little piggy" ends in a toe tag for an abused child. In a Child Welfare League of America ad. A grim time period involving child abuse.*

2 stars

*Feature on the resurgence of 70s shock rocker Alice Cooper.* 2 1/2 stars

*Night Flight makes use of their vault of movie & cartoon clips for some horse riding, cowboy, wild indian, kung fu, arabian knight horseback tricks action in a faux ad for "Billy Jo Bob's Riding Academy" "2 Miles Past Bucky's Gunshop"* cool close to 3 stars

*Tuxedo wearing James Stacy holds up a Dirty Harry sized handgun & then says that drunk drivers do more damage. "It could cost you an arm & a leg." He then reveals to be missing both his arm & leg. Heavy, but I'm not sure which statistic is higher for U.S. deaths.* close to 2 1/2 stars. They really don't know how to do effective, startling public service announcements, like this one, anymore.

*Bela Lugosi in "The Phantom Creeps": "Mad Genius Running Wild" the papers say as Bela creates things like a giant killer robot, super villain invisibility, & bombs that can be tossed like firecrackers.* 2 1/2 stars

*Painter Paul Collins shows off his artwork from time spent on a Native American Indian reservation & he calls them an "endangered species" in an ad for the Michigan Indian Child Welfare Agency.* 2 1/2 stars

*The silhoutte of an 80s chick & the breathy words "fantasy phone" must have been enough to get phone sex horny losers to "finish" after the chick tells them "I'll start & yo ufinish." 5 dollars for the first minute. They want their 5 bucks first because they know that you'll finish in under a minute if you're desperate enough to call one of these numbers. Just a "hot" girl speaking to you at all is enough to reach climax.* 2 stars

*Rocky Horror Picture Show - Timewarp: Might have seemed lazy to toss this classic into the late night variety, but it hadn't been done to death by this point or ruined by the awful people involved with the musical show "Glee."*

2 1/2 stars

*The Fleshtones - I Was a Teenage Zombie: Would make a great B-side to "Surfin' Dead" plus the movie clips look decent as well.* close to 3 stars

*Yazoo - Don't Go: Don't remember the video for this being so horror inspired.* Decent

*Sheena Easton - Telephone: All the classic Universal monsters plus a disembodied hand are after Sheena. Can't say that I blame them after she tempted all w/ her "Sugar Walls"* 2 1/2 stars

*Comedy Cuts - Colin Quinn: He pokes fun at growing up Irish-Catholic dealing w/ cop relatives & touchy priests.* close to 3 stars

*Louis Armstrong's "Wonderful World" set to video of kung fu cinematic action.* 3 stars

*Rudy Vallee in The Musical Doctor: A singing emergency room where a "Step & fetch it" black stereotype is seeking treatment. The doc prescribes him the smooth sounds of inter-spliced clips of Sting from The Police (huh? ha!). He's black, so he'll also need a dose of interspliced Chaka Khan's "I Feel For You."* either 1 or 3 stars

*Old old Hollywood clips of beautiful ladies doing some synchronized swimming dances while the Night Flight voice over lady pokes fun at Dr. Vallee's techniques.* 3 stars

*Dr. Vallee has another crazy patient. This one has hammer toe "Stop Hammertime" w/ the MC himself spliced in. No kidding.* 2 1/2 stars

*Another patient is suffering from lack of music, so he gets some Dionne Warwick "That's What Friends Are For" followed by Biz Markie's "Just a Friend" R & B from "Babyface"... blues from some of the masters... more MC Hammer "Can't Touch This"... my my my my.... "Bel Biv Devoe" for dessert...* 2 1/2 stars early Obamacare

*Cultural tv game show featuring everything from President Ike to President Reagan from James Dean to Disco. Hot pants to the VCR. "Tic Tac Dough."* close to 3 stars

*Not ready for tv women in an ad for the Displaced Homemaker Program. This is exactly why women need not to be homemakers or second class citizens. I'm no liberal or femi-nazi controlled thinker, but seeing these poor women's lives ruined after divorce or becoming a widow is just sad & a product of our failure as a society.* 2 stars

*Pretentious Bono in a cowboy hat during one of U2's concert tours from the 80s. One where they're filming it in black & white. He's trying to get art street cred by having blues legend B.B. King join U2 on stage.* 2 stars

*B.B. King - I Need Some Help: performed on what looks like Austin City Limits. This time w/out Bono to ruin the performance.* 2 1/2 stars

*B.B. King - Lucille: Steve Martin, Dan Akroyd, the lovely Michelle Pfeiffer, & Eddie Murphy join B.B. for a quirky video.* close to 3 stars

*Robert Cray - Right Next Door: Rather subdued, sitting alone in an artsy room w/ flowing curtain window w/ bare minimum light shining through it, guitar solo video.* 2 1/2 stars

*Robert Cray - Nothing But a Woman: This video has Cray singing & 80s cartoon graphic sinterspliced w/ Cray & the band video fx. 80s MTV & Monty Python esque* 2 1/2 stars

*Albert Collins - The Trouble W/ Money: This looks like a 70s era performance on something like The Midnight Special. Collins is a haggard looking old school black dude who plays his guitar like he's making love to a woman.*

close to 3 stars

*Renee Taylor's "2" (1967 short comedy film): Parody of pretentious Eye-Talian cinema & modern people's pretentious self loathing in love affairs.*

close to 3 stars

*"Big Cheese & the Food Groupies" California Raisins style animated wholesome snack PSA w/ the characters singing in the fridge for some happy kids.* 2 1/2 weird stars

*Night Flight's Sci Fi Monsters video essay:

*Oingo Boingo - Weird Science: Interspliced w/ old clips of early 20th century films like "A Voyage to the Moon" or whatever it's called.* more than decent

*"We Have the Technology" interspliced w/ the electrocution scene from the 50s classic "Thing from Another World."* close to terrific

*The theme from Doctor Who interspliced w/ Doctor Who style robots & a stadium rock anthem by TimeLords.* 3 stars

*Kate Bush is a spooky banshee in "Experiment 4".* 3 stars

*"Ladies & gentleman, Elvis 1990" a Billy Idol look-a-like spliced w/ scenes of cyberpunk dystopias & Godzilla.* close to 3 stars

*Now a true Elvis look-a-like in outerspace singing "Video Babe" while flying saucers destroy Washington monuments.* 3 stars

*Herbie Hancock's 80s synthesizer classic spliced w/ scenes of early 20th century movie magic explorers encountering dangerous tribe people of the moon.* 2 1/2 stars

*Fishbone? in a weird sci video that ends in a nuclear explosion.*

could be terrific

*Night Flight's Never Coming Attractions:

*GI's go rocket riding in "Invasion of the Star Creatures": Super tall & sexy vixens from the stars encounter some dopey & short in stature army privates who they seduce & unleash kooky monsters upon.*

3 stars, I'd watch it, looks cheesy good.

*"Space Monster": 50s sci fi space adventure where the spaceships & planets are held up by string & the stars are holes pocked in a black canvas w/ light shining through. The alien monster is a humanoid w/ a large head, big ears, & a flickering tongue.* 2 1/2 stars

*Della's Diner, a West Michigan theater presentation of a kitschy diner complete w/ big haired waitresses & eccentric patrons. All presented by the local Grand Rapids tv station.* 2 1/2 stars

*Another "America Needs Me Drug Free" PSA featuring this time a black kid who wants to grow up to be like his black hero fighter pilot. He only got a t-shirt, no ride on the jet like the boy on the firetruck. I guess the Air Force said no. Darn. Do drugs!* 2 stars

*Night Flight's toon theater:

*Mouseferatu: Very well animated & sort of risque. When Mousey finds his intended victim, she's a very sexy pussycat sleeping in the nude. & despite all his rage, he's still just a rat in a cage when daylight comes to turn him to bones.* 3 stars

*Retro black & white clip of some ranch cows & a bull singing a country & western diddy.* 3 stars

*Promo for "Ghoulies 2" on Grand Rapids TV 8.* 3 stars

Following Night Flight on TV 8 is the syndicated cult classic "Dynaman" mock dubbed in English & parodying the already super-weird Japanese Power Rangers pre-cursor.

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

"Dog Police" *A nerd rock 80s weirdo band's lead singer takes his werewolf date to the night club where the trench coat "Untouchables" look-a-like "Dog Police" bust her for bestiality?* 3 stars

James Randi Debates Two Mediums & Psychiatrist Brian Weiss *Gay mustache & spirit aficionado James Van Praagh along w/ 20 questions for 20,000 gullible people champion John Edward bring a hack psychiatrist & author of a book about past lives to a debate w/ admitted cynic Randi. Which leads to Randi face palming & taking the whole thing about as serious as one would imagine. CNBC's half zombie half talk show host Charles Grodin seems to be hopeful about the psychic claims.* 1 star

Penn & Teller Bullshit!: Feng Shui & Bottled Water *A refreshing arrangement sold at a bullshit price.* 3 stars

--- DinosaurDracula.com presents Creepy Commercials Countdown:

*ABC TGIF Monster Bash Weekend (1993): The Olsen twins host the Halloween edition of TGIF. When you're 11, you're definitely uncool enough to watch ABC on a Friday night. I still am uncool enough. Family Matters was the Breaking Bad of its era. Boy Meets World never appealed to me. Step By Step was okay. I remember most about it having the guy from the Kickboxer sequel. Hangin' With Mr. Cooper is lame when you think back on it, but it worked for the time. A "cool" middle school or junior high teacher who was down w/ the kids & played basketball. However, nothing about this particular promo is spooky or creepy enough. The 80s would have tried harder w/ the scary theme than the 90s seemed to.* 2 stars

*Real Ghostbusters Super Weapons (1990): Some kids take their awesome Nerf officially licensed Real Ghostbusters toy weapons of minor destruction & chase the poor dog around their spooky dark house. That's what I call fun animal abuse. *wink* 3 stars

*Predator 2 (1990) Movie Promo: I love the narrator's voice describing all of Predator's high tech weapons. Similar sounding voices noted all the high tech features of new cars at the time. It slipped my mind that Bill Paxton is in this movie. Of course everyone who has seen it will remember Danny Glover's manic, awesome performance, or Gary Busey being in it before he went completely off the deep end of eccentricity. But Bill Paxton was in both the Alien & the Predator sequels. That's cool.* 3 stars

*Coca-Cola Classic 'Dracula' (1992): A Bela Lugosi impersonator, in a striking visually black & white castle setting, scares a blonde victim from her sleep. Instead of putting up a cross, in defense, it's a juicy red Coca-Cola can. I guess Dracula's blood sugar was low, because he goes from pale to plump tan in seconds. He bites into the can sideways & slurps the syrupy soda. What coke addict hasn't imagined something similar? The ad end sbadly, however, as it approaches Twilight sparkly "vampire" territory when the spooky couple walk out the door into an animated Disney daytime cartoon scene complete w/ chirping love birds.* either 1 or 3 stars

*Highland Superstores 'Phantom of the Opera' (1989): The organ music from "The Phantom" is still unsettling after around a 100 years of it being in our nightmares. Dinosaur Dracula mentioned this, in his article, & it's true, "appliance stores are dreadfully dull." In the 80s, during the era of dull parents & dingy colors on everything including off white & putrid yellow fridges, microwaves, washers & dryers, & dishwashers. Some were even the same green color of The Creature from the Black Lagoon's bowel movements. If I were "The Phantom" I wouldn't dwell at Highland Superstores. If I were a disgruntled former manager of an appliance store, I wouldn't. Hell would seem happier.* 2 1/2 stars

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Beavis & Butthead: Plasmatics - The Damned *"Explosions... half naked chicks. This video has something for everyone."*

3 plus stars w/ riffing 3 stars w/out

--- TV Carnage:

*Straight Body Builder Bio #1: "When in Rome do as the Romans do." The Romans did gay stuff in Rome. In Southern California, this feminine Rick James, on roids, can make delicious ancient Chinese herbal tea, draw comics of other buff fantasy masculine heroic figures, strum his string instrument, & play w/ his pooch on the beach.* close to 2 1/2 stars

*Tell Me About It: The reporting from the red carpet premier of Legally Blonde is as dumb & inspid as imagined.* zero stars

*The Hump Day Return of Aids!: "Real men don't talk to their women about sex." Laughs. Huh. Huh. Starts humping potentially aids infected partner.*

2 1/2 stars

*Tom Arnold Stars In Long Lost Porn: Didn't know Tom was so patient & considerate to the half naked chicks he lets ride on the back of his Harley Davidson.* 2 1/2 stars

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

"The Last Dragon" (1985) *A midnight movie happening inside another midnight movie featuring kids from Soul Train. Also feels like Motown is making fun of MTV's Cindy Lauper & Madonna.* 3 stars

"Shotgun" (1989) *A buddy cop Lethal Weapon wannabe that's almost as awkward as Samurai Cop. There's a plot about a sicko torturing & killing hookers that's similar to Wings Hauser's "Vice Squad. "Then a finale that's a revenge gunfight south of the border that recalls 70s grindhouse classic "Rolling Thunder" but is more over the top like a Rambo sequel.* between 2 & 2 1/2

Cannon Films "Hospital Massacre" (1981) *Creepy fact: if you ever walk into a room & see someone crawling out a window, looking back w/ a devious smile on their face, know something horrible has happened in the room. Our scream queen, the gorgeous Barbi Benton, doesn't even realize she's being stalked by a slasher for over an hour of the movie. She thinks she's just being inconvenience by hospital procedure red tape & a screwed up test result. However, the kills are bloody good, the atmosphere is spooky, & there's even some black comedy.*

more than 2 1/2 stars or plus

"Video Wasteland Combilation" *Twinkle Twat, feminine deoderant spray. Baby upchuck doll. Punk singer w/ dry heaves. Way USA starring Tesco Vee. Aeon Flux. Tim Allen as Docu-Comic. Dawn of the Night of the Dead - The Musical. John Waters & Divine. West Germany Air Show Disaster. Vincent Price on the 64,000 Dollar Question. LSD-25. This Is Elvis's Birthday '92.* 2 1/2 stars

SCTV Monster Chiller Horror Theatre w/ Count Floyd: The House of Cats *Bored housecats "jumping" at the screen in 3D. Well, at least Count Floyd promises so. John Candy drugs women & turns them into his personal pussycats until they rebel or at least he has to act like they're clawing him, when they couldn't be bothered to even paw.* close to 2 1/2 stars

Brass Eye: Sex *Bad aids vs. good aids, the mucking about homosexual scandal of her majesty's royal navy ,the debasement of an American politician, an asexual man up a pole watching pornography, beating off assailants, Peter Stringfellow, & a giant whore on the loose.* 3 stars

=== Geraldo Rivera: Hate Mongers (1988)

*Skinhead smackdown smashes Geraldo in the schnoz.* 1 infamous star (not of David)

[Note: Geraldo has always loved pouring fuel onto a fire. Not for justly reasons, either. Here it would appear so, to the people of the time period, but fast forward to today & Geraldo is standing among "Black Lives Matter" protestors & telling them that racism no longer exists in America.

Geraldo: race baiter, troublemaker, & obvious fraudulent media manipulator of any era he's in.]

(edit, years later:

I still think Geraldo is a douche, but I've woken up how much of an idiot I was for kind of casually being apathetic to & half way supporting groups like "Black Lives Matter."

I think most everyone has if they don't have "tribal" interests or are a "race blind" moron who'll be dragged into the streets while trying to high five a "friend" of color during a riot or "peaceful" protest someday & be treated to a beating similar to the one Reginald Denny received on CNN in LA in 92 after the Rodney King verdict?)

================================================================================

Mysteries From Beyond the Other Dominion w/ Franklin Ruehl *Eerie coincidences between the Kennedy & Lincoln assassinations. I like the true nerdiness of this early Sci-Fi Channel show. If it were a part of a nerd culture channel or website, today, it would have faux nerd hipsters ironically doing it & not the earnest weirdness of Ruehl & company.* 3 stars

--- Found Footage Fest:

*Special Delivery: "The bitch, the bitch, the bitch," the female dog is having puppies.* 2 1/2 stars

*Something Big: "The first nude pop video" might "offend" as it warns, but the mostly tasteful nude images of big breasted women aren't as obscene as the Euro-sleaze leadsinger's crooning & 70s porno mustache.* 2 1/2 stars

*The Appointment... With Death: You'll never see Hawaii, if you keep smartin' off to the monotone voiced angel of death premonitions.* either 1 or 3 stars

*I'm A Spoon: Women of all body types used to search for that perfect fit, but eventually gave up to the potato sack look of sweatpants w/ sassy slogans on the ass.* 2 stars

*I Gotta Go!: When you get that feeling way down below. A sanitized version of the uh oh diarrhea song from Steve Martin's Parent Trap. There's no Barney the Dinosaur to help the toddlers & kids sing along & poop, but there's a chimp taking a shit (for giggles).* 3turds

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Grandpa Munster's SuperScarySaturday on TBS Superstation: King Kong vs. Godzilla the Debate *Since neither monster can talk, pro wrestling personalities, of the 80s, are doing the cheerleading. Motormouth evangelist look-a-like, w/ a tennis racket, Jim Cornette, preaches for Godzilla, says that his monster is younger than the "dying of old age" King Kong, and he can breathe fire. Lynyrd Skynyrd roadie wannabe Michael P.S. Hayes, standing up for his hairy hero, boasts that Kong can swat planes while still holding onto a babe. I call it a tie. So, would any other fan of both monsters.* 3 stars

--- Occult Demon Cassette Presents: "Exposing the Satanic Web" 1990 (Satanic Panic VHS)

*Yesterday Satanism, today radical Islam, tomorrow extraterrestrial orgasms?

Who knows what the future holds, but the religious right will most likely be there to spread their brand of disinformation.

People really couldn't tell that the crayon drawings of occult rituals were done by adults w/ agendas?

Motley Crue images pop up constantly in these old scare films.

Motley Crue obviously weren't a threat to America's teenagers. They're now bloated white trash rock has-beens trying to get their near elderly groupies to still flash their saggy tits!

Those women didn't end up sacrifices of the devil. They probably had about five dirty young'uns that never got sacrificed either, 'cause Satanic Panic was just that panic that meant nothing.

Nerdy teens who played Dungeons & Dragons didn't role play murder half the parent population in the U.S. No, they're still harmless adult nerds.

The reformed high-priest of Satanism turned Christian now confessing his former dark powers & deeds.

Is it okay that he claims to have committed horrible acts because he's asked for forgiveness from God?

Shouldn't he be in jail? That's proof that he's full of shit. That all of the scare-mongers of these videos are full of shit, & have taken a simple fantasy game, a rebellious youth music that they don't enjoy or understand, & victimless boredom in juvenile property crime through graffiti & tried to turn it into a scare tactic tool to push people fearfully into the arms of the major cult in America, the Christian religions.

Satan obviously wasn't as savvy as these evangelicals who still have the ear of their cult, after all these years, while Motley Crue & Freddy Krueger are no longer being fed virgins at the altar of willing black magic fiends & disturbed teenagers.*

(edit, years later:

Man listen to me. Full on liberal apathy & cynicism disguised as trying to be clever.

I still slightly chuckle at the hysteria of the 80s Satanic Panic.

but to believe Islam isn't an obvious threat to the west is to be in denial or downright actually evil... no hysteria. but truth.

the type of person I was then would rather ignore the truth, & claim it was islamophobia delusion while looking at hipster blogs like dangerousmindsdotnet for the latestdug up piece of pop culture from a bygone era to be mocked

then getting my "news" from the Daily Show w/ it's highly cut & edited slant leaning the views towards an agenda while claiming bias everywhere else & only everwhere else...

I can't say I ever saw any metal heads hold a Satanic animal sacrifice orgy, but I have seen real life footage of hordes of muslims flooding Europe & the after effects in the news

hard evidence of rapes, terrorist bombings / shootings / stabbings / hackings / huge vehicle homicide of dozens / beheadings / literal fucking jihad...

not scaremongering, you blind hipster dope (me, several years ago) but all out war on the civilization that once provided your shits & giggles & safety shelter to enjoy them in w/out getting gutted for being an infidel)

1 star

=======================================================

People Are Talking w/ Tom Bergeron: James Randi Debunks Faith Healer (youtube) *Tom Bergeron sits looking at clips of extremely funny faith healings. One in particular where a fake had played the role of both a crippled man & a woman w/ bad ovaries. This could be America's Funniest Home videos, but sadly Randi points out that the placebo effect of these dramatically staged acts do harm when the believers don't seek real medical help from actual doctors instead of faith healers.* 3 stars

City Confidential: Rock Springs, Deadly Shootout in the Wild West *"Cowboy Caligula."* more than 2 1/2 stars

Viper: Past Tense *Amnesia love affairs, brainwashed agents of assassination, & chance collisions of the heavens. Plays like something noir that would be in Frank Miller's Sin City.* close to 3

Forever Knight: Cherry Blossoms *Vampire detective versus Chinese mafia seeking to slay a wounded witness. Wrongly accused vampire versus elderly Chinese acupuncturist seeking revenge against the vampire who slayed his mother 60 years before.*

between 2 1/2 & 3 stars

The Greatest American Hero: The Best Desk Scenario *Fumbling the ball near the endzone or too many cooks trying to read the anarchist's cookbook.* 2 1/2 stars

Look Around You: Computers *In Bournesmouth, one can bibble or bobble if they're beardless or bearded, but not if they're brandishing a petticoat (female).* close to 3 stars

The Prisoner: Hammer Into Anvil *Creates an unhinged melody.* 3 stars

Farscape: Bone To Be Wild *The old routine of one "submarine" silently hiding from another's radar. Deepspace Donner Party bone eater massacre. Johnny Appleseed "Frankenstein's Monster" look-a-like or Swamp Thing stranded on an asteroid. Our hero Crichton needs to be sensitive to "plant phobia." The spiritual blue alien lady Zan (Xan?) is actually a sentient plant. Captain Ahab under scrutiny. Babysitting a weaponized junior Leviathan (a Death Star in a diaper).* 3 stars

---- Night Visions w/ Henry Rollins:

The Passenger List: A little twilight zone twist & a lot of 9-11 era zeitgeist of airline tragedy grief.* between 2 1/2 & 3 stars

The Bokor: Bayou medical school morphine junkies, grotesque medical cadaver, & a voodoo curse.* more than 2 1/2 stars

Rollins: Puts on a stale attempt at Rod Serling.* between 1 1/2 & 2 stars

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Uncharted Zone: Fifty Dollar Boots - Johnny Fire *50 dollar budget quality black & white video for a rockabilly crooner & his 50 dollar boot wearing chick guitar player.* close to 2 1/2 stars

Beavis & Butthead: Jennifer Tryin - Happier *Gen X drug store despair, Beavis taking diarrhea medicine & pooping a brick that he keeps in his sock drawer, & Butthead wanting to live in denial that he ever heard Beavis talk about it.* 3 stars w/ riffing close to 2 1/2 stars w/out

Justified: Season 1 Episode 6 *"There's more than smart" & there's more than art. Especially Adolf Hitler's shitty art. It's a nebulous or abstract concept.* close to 3 stars

True Detective: Haunted Houses *Still life. Nearer to silence (unholy ghosts) than God.* 3 stars

Hannibal: Trou Normand *Losing time opening doors, unearthing graves, & making monuments to the desecrated.* 3 stars

Penn & Teller Bullshit!: Talking to the Dead & ESP *Party tricks & charades for suckers & the sad.* 3 stars

James Randi's Fiery Takedown of a Psychic Fraud *An admitted wizard takes a lethal overdose of homeopathic medicine to prove a cruel farce.* more than 2 1/2 stars

Ripley's Believe It Or Not! w/ Jack Palance: Episode 3 (1985) *Giant 1980s supercomputers are used to photoshop the Tibetan god-king out of Shangri La, like an impractical automotive 5th wheel or discarded apple peel (peeled by an Edison style mass industrial invention), & placed, by 2001 Hal's robo-cousin, out into the sun to purify like a baby orangutan or an eskimo mummy. Also pre-CitySlickers Curly's gold* 2 Fair

Fargo: Buridan's Ass *Breach in a white out or bludgeoned like fish out of water.* 3 stars

"XTRO" (1983) *A deeply disturbed British schoolboy's estranged daddy returns from his absentee fatherhood vacation on H.R. Geiger's homeworld after traumatizing the boy w/ his "Fire in the Sky" style abrupt bon voyage goodbye. Often tonally too whimsical to be taken seriously, while at other times being astonishingly creepy.* between 2 & 2 1/2 stars or more

Tales from the Crypt: The Reluctant Vampire *Mr. Longtooth (Malcom McDowell) isn't a glamourous Dracula. He's a cowardly nightwatchman at a failing blood bank. Can he win the heart of his mousey love interest, at the blood bank, w/out biting her neck? Will he find the courage to stand up to his bully of a boss (Cheers' George Wendt) or will he fall prey to a weird looking Van Helsing?* Decent

"Saturday Night Dead" KYW-TV 3 Philadelphia (February 1, 1986) *"The maddening minx of movie-dom" Stella, a redheaded Rhonda Shear look-a-like glamour doll, traipses around her ghoulish horror set kiddingly admitting to bedding, on her monster talking bed, the Philadelphia Eagles football team. She is in dire need of a butler & wants him to be as hunky as Sylvester Stallone's Rambo. Looks like Philly had a pretty decent version of Elvira or Rhonda. Not bad.* 2 1/2 stars

--- Monstervision w/ Joe Bob Briggs: Waxwork

*Drive-In Totals: 43 dead bodies.... 0 nekkid breasts (sorry).. 1 Live severed hand.. .African Voodoo Face Painting.. French S & M.. Fang Sprouting.. Bat Shooting.. Raw Meat Gobbling.. Sword Fighting.. Strangling.. Stabbing.. Head Butting.. Ax to the Back... Death by Fire.. Gratuitous Dialogue w/ Loud Music.. Werewolf Fu.. Vampire Fu.. Mummy Fu.. Zombie Fu.. Senior Citizen Fu..

*Joe Bob says this isn't a haunted house movie, it's a "nasty" house movie, like his grandma would always say, "That's nasty!"

*Burt Reynolds for Liz Taylor perfume (Ladies, don't wear anything that gives Burt a smell boner).

*Songs 4 Life Christian mix CD (90s, the era that bland white people safe religious music w/out any gospel soul or passion reared its dorky head).

*CNN has Bill Clinton's sworn testimony in the shadow of impeachment (ah, the Lewinsky era, we survived that.).

*Rent Matthew MuhConUhHey! & Skeet Ulrich, tonight! (not male escorts. a shitty VhS tape of the movie "Newton Boys").

*Pure Reggae mix cd 1-800 ad (A island jam collection featuring the theme to Cops "Bad Boys" plus Apache Indian's "Boom Shakalak"... pass the herb & turn it up, mon!).

*Joe Bob's Jailbreak w/ Reno the Mail Girl: Talk of Joe Bob's jealousy because Reno might have dated / made love to a midget instead of Joe Bob & also Reno gets a love poem from a jailbird in a Mojave prison unit in Arizona.*

*Carpenters Love Songs mix cd ad. Being a kid in the 80s & 90s, & not an adult in the 70s, I only had vague knowledge of who Karen Carpenter was & that she had died tragically young. Anytime, I would see these ads w/ their hazy cloud aesthetics along w/ faded quality videos of Karen singing her mostly melancholy songs, I would get the creeps.*

*Waxwork: Remember 2011's "Cabin in the Woods"?... Well, Joss Whedon's "genius" turning of a monster/slasher movie conventions on its head script wasn't that original. In the 80s, somebody else did it first. This monster mayhem flick, featuring almost every creature & horror character known, is set in a wax museum instead of a cabin in the woods. Starring the teenage boys from Gremlins & Twin Peaks plus Return of the Living Dead 2 along with their 80s valley girl girlfriends. The main villain is legendary not so good movie & tv show actor David Warner (the movies/shows not being so good. Warner is always great).*

between 2 & 2 1/2 stars for Waxwork, more than 2 1/2 for Joe Bob, & close to 2 for the ads

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TNT 100% Weird: The Twonky *"Whenever I think of women, I think of French fried potatoes." A very nervous man's wife leaves town, gifting him his first television set to keep him company. This is when tv's were brand new & confusing to man. It didn't help that this particular tv was unlike any other in that it could work the magic of a genie or a futuristic robot.* close to 3 stars

Wizards & Warriors: The Dungeon of Death *"Badgers, we don't need no stinkin' badgers." What we got is a ragtag rescue squad of a Renaissance fair Clint Eastwood type, a carnival strong man, a high wire walking hottie, & one of the munchkins from the Wizard of Oz. Trouble is there's a mole.* close to 3 stars

--- Sci Fi Channel (1993) Feature Film: The Clone Master

*A pair of alien hands find a time capsule buried in the sand. The date says 1993. Inside is a bottle of head & shoulders. Our great legacy, dandruff shampoo...

*95 cents a minute hotline to find out what's coming up on the Sci Fi channel's schedule? Wow, wouldn't a 99 cent, one time purchase, TV Guide not suffice? That's phone sex level of horny to know when the next episode of the original Star Trek is airing.

*Sci Fi had great station bumpers. I'll try to describe this one... it has a picturesque set lakehouse w/ the phone off the receiver "hello, are you there?" & geese flying against a newly alien earth skyline featuring a ring planet between earth & the moon.

*Extremely nerdy voice over "Emmy Award winning Battlestar Galactica, weeknights."

*Beatles Live 1964 in London for the first time on VHS or BETA

*Curly haired cute model "All those holes. All that protection." Science strikes again. Always Maxi Pads w/ new technology. New as in holes. I have a hole in my soul from all the sanitary napkin girly confessional commercials that I've had to endure all my life.

*A generic couple enjoy a generic romantic evening over generic pasta & generic white wine while listening to "Easy 70's" a generic mix cd of 70s soft rock like Crystal Gale & Kenny Loggins among others. He leaves w/out sex. Because this type of music makes one sterile.

*Vintage ad for Craftmatic adjustable beds. The old couple is giddy to talk to their over the phone Craftmatic salesperson. I'm giddy too for my memories of these ads. though the actual beds were usually in the homes of some sick acquaintance of my parents&grandparents

*"Never miss another favorite program." VCR Voice, the voice operated vcr remote control. Pssss... VCR Voice... record Skinemax & those early morning workout shows w/ the ladies in spandex....

*Smokey the Bear is talked about by a kid who makes him seem almost mythical. Maybe in 3,000 years, when our culture is long forgotten & misunderstood, they'll find something about Smokey the Bear & wonder what the fuck was up w/ us having a cartoon bear to warn humans about forest fire safety & natural resource preservation responsibility.

*"Can dinosaur cloning really happen? The truth behind the fiction." A Sci Fi special on Jurassic Park. It can & did, but tune in to Alex Jones InFoWars or Jesse Ventura's new show on Glen Beck's Blaze channel to find out.

*"Dark Shadows" weekdays on Sci Fi. Now, that's a weekday soap opera that I would sink my teeth in to. Someone get me my Bon Bons & my Moo Moo...

*1 800 ad for Sci Fi Classic home video's "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy."

*Back on earth, Frankie Valli & the 4 Seasons on every music listening format known to man. That's as advanced as we are....

*Speaking of identical twins & cloning... Elvis, in his 68 Comeback Special, decked out in his black leather spacesuit... Get a collector's copy. Copy... wink wink. Elvis, often imitated, never duplicated except in utero or however it go...

*Classic kitchen knife displays of incredible feats by the World Class Ginsu knife. Showoff All the other dull culinary utensils got Ginsu off & murdered him & buried his stainless steel body under the goal post in Food Network's Iron Chef Kitchen Stadium.

*Walter Koenig for a huge collection of Star Trek (Original & Next Generation) themes,sound fx, & a 6 minute bridge sequence. Sound fx, okay... maybe... a 6 minute bridge sequence... alright, I can sort of see that... still, it's nerdom bordering insanity.

*K-Tel Conway Twitty videos. Not the right station. Not as much as Sci Fi isn't a rhinestone sequened audience as it's not an audience where they can relate to a hillbilly heart-throb's songs about sleeping w/ a horde of women. Live long & amorously prosperous.

*"The majesty & might of Marvel leaps off of the page & onto the screen" shows clips of 70s Hulk tv show & one of the 70s Spider Man tv movies. Modern Marvel fanboys would scoff at the words majesty & might being used for these classics. "They don't even have after credits sequences or universe building." They do have Stan Lee hosting the Mighty Marvel Marathon on Sci Fi 1993. Sixteen years before Iron Man....

*Clone Master: It's a good clone movie when the existential grief of being a clone does not fully get in the way of the clone capers, clone antics, & clone based comedy. Also, Cold War era conpirators could get away w/ a lot thanks to government secrecy not allowing anyone to share information to know what the hell was going on in different sections of all their hush hush top secret work like cloning.*

3 stars for Sci Fi's bumpers, close to 3 for the ads, & 2 1/2 stars for Clone Master

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Mystery Science Theater 3000: The She Creature *Kooky age regression hypnotism to spook squares & Eve-era mer-monster to slaughter them.* 3 stars w/ riffing 2 1/2 stars w/out

Nathan On Your Side: Talking to the Animals *non-confrontational dialogue w/ bed wetting cat.* more than 2 stars

The Cinema Snob: Woodchipper Massacre *No Fargo woodchipper action. No massacre. More terrible like Poland invaded by Hitler, only w/out any of that massacre. Just the terrible.* 2 1/2 for Snob

Conan O'Brien - In the Year 2000: Taco Bell 2000 *A "chilling" glimpse into the prophecy of Charmin toilet paper's involvement w/ the bowel dooming food chain.* 3 stars

A & E presents An Evening at the Improv: Norm MacDonald (1991) *Homeless dog owners & backseat blues.* close to 3 stars

HBO Not Necessarily the News: The Spork Episode (1983) *Mr. T. imporium. Panda pest control. Des Moines pudding disaster. Light beer for fat drunks. Rich Hall's weekly sniglet words: scrit is anything that has sat in the same spot for 50 years... yinkel is anybody that combs their hair over their bald spot thinking that nobody will notice... spork the combination spoon fork device (did he invent that term? wow, cool, if so)... furbling is the act of walking through a maze of ropes at the airport or bank even though you're the only one in line (haaa)... porkus non grata is the squashed piece of bacon at the bottom of the package.. lactomangulation is having to open a milkcarton from the opposite side because of one side's malfunction.. carperpetuation is the act of running over a piece of string w/ a vacuum 4 or 5 times before picking it up & inspecting it & then putting it back down for one last attempt.*

decent though dated

"Best of the Worst Star Search Auditions" (youtube) *"Let me do my thang to ya!"  You'd never see a bearded lady singing Patsy Cline on America's Got Talent.* 3 stars

Insomniac w/ Dave Attell: San Francisco *If you come to this frontier town, eventually you're gonna ask yourself "am I a fog rider, a pickle pilot, or a proud baby mudfoot?"* 3 stars

--- Memory Hole:

*Cranial Deformity Dance Dad: I'm tired of spaghetti. But you always like sketti.* 3 stars

*Clinton Torture: Bill's bubbles is just tryna give you kisses.* 2 1/2 stars

*I'm On The T.V.: Been waitin' for you to turn me on.* more than 2 1/2 stars

*Rap 4 Ca$h: A school teacher, of 25 years, will do anything for a raise.* 1 star

*Island Of Original Ideas Mirror Effect: an idiot's idea of an interesting illusion.* folly

======================================================

Penn & Teller Bullshit!: Creationism & The Bible, Fact or Fiction *Pissing on one's own feet while the ground crumbles beneath forming a crater of disbelief. Leaving one in critical need & clinging to the causal or a creed.* Folly?

James Randi Debunks An Astrologer *"Everybody believes that they have a sense of humor." - Stephen Fry who doesn't believe that the astrologer accurately judged his friend Hugh Laurie.* close to decent

Forbidden Transmission: World Bizarre *freewheeling babel.* more than 2 1/2 stars

Weird TV: Burning Man - Early Years *Survival issues, sexuality, porta potty use, & potato gun fun.*

between 2 & 2 1/2 stars

"Dawn of the Mummy" *Classic Universal horror theme grave robbed by Euro-sleaze exploitation schlock vandals.* 2 1/2 stars

PBS presents American Experience: The Lobotomist *"Ambition makes you look pretty ugly." -Paranoid Android- A look at the doctor who tried to turn a grotesque medical procedure into a McDonald's style franchise value menu item forthe severe to the even the slightly mentally ill.* either zero or 3 stars

Alien Sex Fiend - "Now, I'm Feeling Zombiefied" *Face is caked white, you see a dead rat & you take a bite...* 2 1/2 stars

"You Spin Me Round" (Literal video version) *Freaky pirate all tied up (in himself).* close to 3 for the literal 3 for the actual

Uncharted Zone: "Hurry, There's A Hurricane" - Ken Manning *Hold on to your hats & to each other.* close to 3 stars

--- Reel Wild Cinema w/ Sandra Bernhard: Lunatics on the Loose:

*Sandra wants to go to third base w/ Antonio Banderas, her Aztec fantasy...

*Curse of the Aztec Mummy: Beehive hairdo damsels in distress, rubber bat attack, crotch crawling spider, & hideous ghoul doing the rigor-mortis-arms trance step dance*

*Sandra promises a movie with bad dubbing, coming up, "So don't go away." For the bad dubbing, I'll definitely stay.

*America's Most Wanted & Top Cops on USA network. A one two punch of justice & dullness.

*A soccer ball toting toddler wakes his middle aged dad up & his dad needs a small pouch sized doze of Folgers coffee. I bet this man can't even take a morning shit in peace.

*A disembodied red lipsticked mouth for Rembrandt whitening toothpaste. "2 shades whiter" promised. All the varying shades of teeth color from white to off white to yellow to grey to diseased orangish brown to black... Amusing memory of Mitch Hedberg's tartar sauce joke

*The Psychic Solution w/ a very self aware ad where they parody "bad psychic" hotline call centers complete w/ dart board for predictions & vanity mirror distractions during calls.

*Sandra now promises stock Civil War footage w/ clips from a nudist colony. Robert E. Lee is rolling over in his grave in his slave mistress's underwear that he demanded to be buried in.

*The Monster of Camp Sunshine: Thank that "scientist in the sky" for water pollution & sexual deviancy.*

*Quirky-reggae-whitebread-feelin' Long John Silver fast food joint on the beach commercial where there are tropical birds inside the establishment (sure the health inspector likes that notion) & couples relax in the waves drinking supersized sodas in foam cups (I bet those don't get put in the proper trash bin & instead float about the waves onto the beach)

*Crocodile Dundee vs. Ogre of Revenge of the Nerds & Bloodsport in a station wagon chase....

*Kenny Kingston "legendary psychic" & sleazy old school Hollywood showman look-a-like w/ love advice for lonely yuppies who go through everyday being horny & instead of acting on it & taking chances they wait for over the phone voodoo advice...

*Dweezil Zappa is Sandra's guest: Not sure if it's his rainbow colored girly liquor drink talking but Dweezil let it slip that he might believe that Aztec civlization dates back at least a million years....

*Sandra wants t.v. trying to scare people instead of always endearing itself to them.

*Bloody Pit of Horror: More tortured by the swingers he performs medieval cruelty upon, the Crimson Executioner gets caught up in his own scarlet devices.*

*A crystal ball gazing clairvoyant, w/ pink hair, predicts that Snoop Doggy Dog, Bush, & Dennis Miller will be at the 1996 MTV Video Awards. Pumpkins will also be smashed.

*USA capitalizes on the Unabomber headlines w/ their own original movie version...

*Sandra would have no sympathy for a girlfriend caught in a devious bondage trap...

*Oath of Green Blood: Audience participation required in taking a vial of verdant liquid that might make one vile or vivacious.

*Star Trek's original resident black boundaries breaker is sadly selling her soul as a spokesperson for a psychic hotline. This one even makes the claim that's often been used as a joke against psychics "Lottery winner predicted." Yep, "it happened."

*Coming attractions: Scream of the Demon Lover... Giant from the Unknown (awakened after hundreds of years & wearing conquistador armor. so, it's the Spanish to blame)... The Crawling Thing from Planet 13 promises to attack audience members (nice gimmick ploy)...

3 for Sandra, 3 for the shorts, & close to 2 for the ads

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"Sting of Death" -1965- *The Hunchback of the Everglades suffers a squelching at the hands of Florida Gator co-ed swingers & marine scientists. He goes all man-o-war on their jiggly jellyfish jive asses.* 2 stars

Baywatch Nights: Pursuit *Stinks of 90s sleaze/cheese. Says "Nights" but can't help in filming over half the show on the pretty beaches during the day. Featuring a couple of my boyhood tv crushes, Carol Alt & Angie Harmon.* between 1 1/2 & 2 stars

Beavis & Butthead: Varga - "Greed" *Beavis has the great idea that someone should invent something to watch music videos on (a television). Butthead's great idea is Beavis should shut up.* 3 w/riffing 2 1/2 w/out

Troma presents "Blondes Have More Guns" *Basic Instinct parodies haven't aged well, but Troma satire silliness is timeless.* between 2 & 2 1/2 stars

Penn & Teller Bullshit!: The Business of Love, Yoga, Tantric Sex, Etc. & Sex, Sex, Sex *Follow made up rules, follow hokey signs, follow shady email-spam links, & fuck if any of it happens to work.* 3 stars

--- Found Footage Fest:

*Video Dating: Looking for a goddess. A goddess is a woman, any woman, all women. No fatties!* 3 stars

*Sexual Harassment Comedy: Don't say anything, ever, because you're an obvious dickhead.* 1 star or close to 3

*Courtship vs. Dating: Don't get hung up on sweaty beefcakes. Acquire the fire to be a hard to get Christian cock-tease.* 2 1/2 stars

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David Hasselhoff - "Hooked On A Feeling" (Literal Video Version) *Hoff w/ "wiener" out & high on believing. "Please throw a fish at me!"* more than decent w/riffing or close to decent w/out

Nathan On Your Side: Sex In Advertising & Penis Extension *What turns you on? Please tell Santa so that we can market correctly.*

2 1/2 stars

Occult Demon Cassette presents "How To Be Cool At Parties" w/ Malcom Jamal Warner (1986) *Anybody can act like a jackass.* 2 1/2 stars

Pee Wee's Playhouse - Adult Humor & Innuendo (youtube) *Being a Spring chicken, I wasn't spry enough to see just how subliminal Saturday mornings really were.* 3 stars

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Pod People *Smuckers presents movies

A) Redneck poachers run into 'The Thing From Another World' B) Lil' Opie & his new pet Alf... or C) Ace of Base's tragic vacation in the Catskill Mtns. Joel says "It stinks! *okay hand gesture*"*

3 stars w/riffing between 1 1/2 & 2 w/out

Herman's Head (Pilot Episode) *Clever premise pulled off effectively. Made even better by the voice of Lisa Simpson & another Simpsons' legend Hank Azaria's charm.* close to 3 stars

Comics Only: Employee of the Week - Hank Gallo (1990) *Talent scout who searches the gay leather bar scene.* 2 1/2 stars

--- Rachel Sweet - The Sweet Life (The Comedy Channel circa the early 1990s):

*Lou Diamond Phillips makes fun of greasy haired Johnny Depp

*Jon Stewart impersonates a pretentious French director

*Rachel Sweet is a quirky raven-haired petite cutey poking fun at the Cosmo magazine's version of a girly girl

*Naked centerfold spread of David Hasselhoff is mocked by Rachel...

*Classic "Cow Cow Boogie" film short, that I just saw on Night Flight, is sang along to karaoke style by Rachel... she's definitely sweet

*Quotes: An unexamined life is not worth living - Plato... Time eases all things -Sophocles Get over it - Rachel Sweet... (cute)

more than 2 stars

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