The Force Aweakens

I saw “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.”  Now, I didn’t hate it.  But I can’t say that I loved it.  It was good.  Not as good as the originals but better than the prequels.  There were cool things (the special effects were great eye candy, the pacing was fast and intense, and it was cool to see Han and Chewy being Han and Chewy).   But, of course, I have to ruin everything by blabbing my stupid opinions because I’m a nerd and I need some sort of narcissistic release.  So I’ll just go ahead and get the big spoilers out of the way.   Captain Kirk dies, Data gets emotions, and they completely destroy the Enterprise.  Anywhooooo….  

Understand this:  I take Star Wars VERY seriously.  It was my entire childhood, so I put it up on a big ATAT-sized pedestal.  So I was excited to hear that Lawrence Kasdan was writing.  After all, he did write “Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi,” two of the most monumental and influential movies in film history.  However, he also wrote and directed “Dreamcatcher.”  That’s that movie about aliens that burst out of people’s butts.  And I’m not using hyperbole or being sarcastic.  They pop out of your pooper.  Just watch it.  NO, DON'T!  Just take my word for it.  It’s terrible.

TFA was not a poop monster.  Thank God.  But I still question some of Kasdan’s decisions.  Today, I had a friend ask, "Well, how would you have written it?"  I'll tell ya!   

RHYME AND REASON

Initially, it was stated that this film was to “rhyme” with the original film.  But as nearly everyone has pointed out, it doesn’t quite rhyme.  It’s more like a rap song that sampled a cover band.  It’s too similar, and for me, it weakens its impact.    

James Cameron’s “Aliens” is a perfect example of how to make a sequel that rhymes but feels like a totally different film.  At the end of “Aliens,” Ripley reaches safety but risks her own life by going back into a crumbling complex on the verge of exploding to save Newt.  Of course she’s going to do that!  Newt was a cute blond girl with an English accent.  But she did the EXACT SAME THING in the first film! The Nostromo was set to explode, Ripley was safely onboard the escape shuttle.  But she went back onto the crumbling Nostromo.  Why?  To save a Jonesy, a cute blond kitty with an English accent!

Meow, indeed.

"Alien" suit in Airlock Scene

In “Aliens,” Ripley rescues Newt and gets back on board the Sulaco to safety.  Whew!  That was a close one.  But the Momma Alien snuck onboard the Sulaco, too!   Guess what!   In the original film, Ripley gets back to the shuttle, thinks she is safe only to discover that the alien snuck onboard the shuttle, too!   So what does Ripley do?  In both films, she dons a safety suit, and blows them out of the airlock.  

"Aliens" suit in Airlock Scene

She also calls the Mother Alien a “bitch.”  You know what other non-human she called a bitch?  The Nostromo’s computer, MOTHER, when she couldn’t stop the self-destruct sequence.  And in both instances, it was used a tension-breaker.  There are many, many other callbacks.   It can be argued that they are both essentially the same film, but I have NEVER heard anyone ever complain about it.  Why?  They just felt like a different films.  Cameron took those similarities, but he carved out a completely different approach and atmosphere.

“The Force Awakes” was too blatant and obvious with its inspirations.  It was essentially “A New Hope” dressed in the Emperor’s new clothes.  And I’d imagine his robes would probably smell like sauerkraut and mothballs. 

STARKILLER BASE   

The bad guys really need to get out of the Blowing-Up-Planets business.   They aren’t particularly good at it.  They need a new tactic.  Or at least they need to hire someone else to design their exhaust ports.   The assault on Starkiller Base really felt like a video game.  I’ve seen this before, and honestly they did it better the first time.  And who cared about the planets they did blow up?  We don’t even know anything about them.  

This film should have started out on Tatooine.   We see a sandy-blond young man emerging after a hard day’s work on the moisture farm.  He looks into horizon and sees this breath-taking double sunset.   The music swells dramatically as he thinks about his hopes, his dreams, his past, and his future.  But just as he looks back up to the two suns…one of the suns begins to flicker and then dies out.  Then a red blast from the outer regions of space decimates his planet.  As the planet is ripped apart, we hear millions of voices cry out in terror…and then they are suddenly silenced.   Cut to somewhere in a remote, uncharted region of space, we see Luke Skywalker all alone.  He suddenly is hit with a great disturbance in the force and experiences the pain of their deaths.   And he knows that their blood is on his hands.  He knows Kylo Ren chose his home planet in an effort to smoke him out of hiding and exact his revenge.

There, we showed something familiar…something we have a connection to…something the characters are connected to…something we all cared about…

and we turned it upside down and took it in a direction that no one would dare to.   

REMNANTS OF THE EMPIRE
At the end of ROTJ, both of the Empire's big wigs died.  Coruscant celebrated the end of the Empire's rule by toppling the statue of Palpatine.  And fireworks lit up the Endor sky as Ewoks danced like little idiots singing, "Yub yub."  The Empire was left in shambles, a New Republic was formed, and balance was restored to the Force.  But was it really?

 Star Wars canon now dictates that the First Order rose from remnants of the Empire.  But what bothers me is that the First Order seems MORE powerful than the Empire, as if it was the events of Episodes 4 thru 6 had no impact.    Geez Louise, they can destroy multiple planets AND suck the energy from a sun!  To me, this completely trivializes the battles of Yavin and Endor and I think it was a lazy and expected direction. 

It would have been WAY more interesting to have the First Order operating as a independent terrorist organization trying to undermine the New Republic...you know, kinda like what the Rebels did to the Empire (there's yer rhyming, JJ!).  That would give a little more validity to how a young outsider like Ben Solo could work his way up ranks so quickly. The First Order could have been on the downlow for 30 years, slowly plotting their own "Battle of Yavin" moment on the New Republic as the entire galaxy has completely forgotten what life was like under the rule of the Empire.  With their attack, it would catch everyone off guard and set the course for real conflict in the next installments.   I think this was another missed opportunity.

THE CHARACTERS

Looking pretty intense...moments before she gets punched
and shoved into a trash compactor.

CAPTAIN PHASMA:  What exactly is she captain of?  Starkiller Base is on a planet, not a ship.   It was just confusing.   Now, don’t get me wrong, some of my all-time favorite “captains” actually lack credentials (particularly Cap’n Crunch and Captain Kangaroo).  But her title left me expecting…well…something more.   I am also disappointed that her character looked so cool, but she had about as much authority as an assistant manager at a 99 Cent Store.  We needed to see her actually do something…ANYTHING…to make her intimidating.  She just kinda discounts Finn’s panic attack and that’s it.  And ironically, I’ve found more impressive discounts at the 99 Cent Store.

FINN:  Finn’s first day on the job doesn’t go too well.  After witnessing a fellow trooper die, and he starts rethinking his career options.  I’m confused by this choice.   It seems like this was a perfect opportunity to see him show sympathy for the people in peril to reconnect with his suppressed humanity.  He seemed to be more disturbed by the death of a person committing the executions, not the actual people being executed.  Of course, they are all humans…but with Storm Trooper gear on, those soldiers appear to lose their humanity.  I thought that was the point of those armored outfits (since they definitely don’t protect anyone from laser blasts).  Plus, they were all supposed to be mentally reprogrammed from childhood so he shouldn’t have emotionally connected with any fellow soldiers.   It really felt like he was mourning the death of a mindless drone.   

Why not have him experience a PTSD panic attack as he is about to kill the colonists, flashing him back to his childhood when he was taken from his family?   This could give him and Rey mirror opposite backstories (he’s taken from his family, she is abandoned by hers) and make them somewhat of kindred spirits.  Then Captain Phasma could confront him, demand that he kills as ordered.  When he refuses, she angrily relieves him of his post, kills the colonists without mercy or hesitation, and tells him to get back on the shuttle to await further mental reprogramming.  This would make Phasma dangerous and unpredictable, and make the scene feel less forced.   HA forced tee hee.

KYLO REN:  I’m not sure what was going on with Adam Driver.   I know he’s a good actor…but when he takes the mask off he’s kinda unbelievable.  And now, I shouldn’t be criticizing anyone’s appearance (I mean, I look like a diseased yak with a bad perm).  But Driver is odd-looking.  People in my theatre actually laughed when they saw his face.   They could have scarred up his face or something.  He needed to be intense and scary.  It didn’t help that his character was whiny.   And when he got shot by Chewbacca…why did he bleed?   Wouldn’t a laser blast instantly cauterize the wound?  I am also not sure of why he is such a fanboy of his grandpappy.   In the end, Vader became good and tried to redeem himself.  What legacy is he trying to complete on Vader’s behalf?  And why hasn’t Ghost Vader come to him and said, “Hey, Drakar Noir!  Stop being a poopy head!”

REY:  I assume that Rey was a Padawan before she was dropped off at Jakku after Kylo Ren began executing the remaining Jedi, and had her memory suppressed by some Jedi mind trick.  That could be the only explanation as to why she is able to access the force so quickly when it took Luke 3 films to master it.   However, the first object she was able to move was a lightsaber in the snow…And that is the exact same object that Luke was first able to move with the force (in the Wampa’s cave).  That was a nice touch.  She’s probably a relative of Luke or a former student of his.  I’m sure it’ll be revealed in the upcoming installments.

This is the Chewy I wanted to see.

CHEWBACCA:  Han and Chewy were awesome, the best part of the film for me.   But when Chewy's 4 decade-long bromance comes to end with Han's death, he just kinda roars and starts shooting lasers.  Shouldn’t Chewy become the brutal animal that he was meant to be?   We could have seen a side of him that we have only heard about… contorting his face in an uncontrollable, animalistic rage….ripping storm troopers limbs apart as if he was playing Dejarik against a cheating droid.  It would have been amazing.  SIDE NOTE:  My friend, Vince, made a great suggestion regarding Han and Chewy...while they are doing their silly bickering back and forth, it would have been awesome to have Han say something to Chewy like, "I did too shoot first!"  I think he's right, and people would have cheered in the audience.  

MAZ:  Am I the only one that thinks she looks like a bald Edna Mode from The Incredibles?  Her character was kinda forgettable.   Which is a shame because it seems like a lot of work went into bringing her to life.  I suspect maybe she was cool and complicated, but her role was seriously edited for time.

BB8:  So cute.   But I like Chopper from Star Wars Rebels better.  BTW, if you aren’t watching Star Wars Rebels on Disney XD, you are missing out.   It is very Star-Wars-ish with LOTS of influence from Ralph McQuarrie’s work.

LIGHT SABER DUELS

Sigh.  The prequels have all of the light saber battles beat, I hate to admit. 

INTERNET CHATTER

There was a rumor that the film was supposed to start with Luke’s severed hand still holding his Light Saber floating through space and finding its way to Jakku.   WHAT?  HOW?  Luke’s hand was severed on Bespin, not in space.   And even if it did end up in space, wouldn’t it just burn up upon entry of Jakku’s atmosphere?   Hopefully, this was just a rumor.  If it was included, I would have just sat there with a big ole sourpuss expression and crossed arms saying, “Well now, this just will NOT do.  Not do at all!”

So that’s my problems with the film.   Now, understand that I still enjoyed it, but I had issues with the writing.   Mainly because I am a control freak and I spent countless hours playing with my Star Wars action figures as a child (long after my friends had graduated to He-man and G.I. Joe).  There are a lot of cool bits, but Kasdan let me down.   But hey, the next film is going to be directed by Rian Johnson.  And he’s awesome.  He directed the Ozymandias episode of “Breaking Bad,” which for me was probably the best hour of television I had ever witnessed.   I think that he is going to bring a lot to the franchise, and I can’t wait. 

I just hope he questions some of Kasdan’s poop alien moments.  We can’t let another turd get through the blockade.       

JUDGEMENT DAY...And I'm Judge, Jury, and Executioner.

When I heard that they were making another Terminator film, (as a nerd) I could already feel my midichlorians tingle. Rise of the Machines was a bit of a let down. Salvation was crap. So Genisys was our only hope. Well, I just saw it. AND.....

Oh, where do I start? While there were a few interesting twists, overall the writing was lame. The acting was boring. None of the off-hand jokes landed. Sarah Connor is now apparently a 12 year-old girl. And we have a Terminator that looks like Chandler Bing from “Friends.”

We all know the story. Skynet decides to blow up the world after it unexpectedly becomes self-aware.

But in this film, the timeline has changed. And Sarah, Reese, and “Old Man T-800” try to destroy Skynet before it becomes the next crazy popular download called GENISYS. Because when the entire world downloads it to their smart phones and junk, it’s planning on playing Angry Birds using nukes instead of cockatoos. And even though this deranged OS system is gonna try to eradicate the human race, you gotta admit that it’s still WAAAAAY better than Windows Vista.

Who still says "bucko" anymore?

So here’s the really stupid part. It has a countdown to the download…and essentially the end of humanity. I guess that’s supposed to add tension, but it doesn’t. Because in this timeline, Skynet is already self-aware. It knows all about John Conner and that humans are a threat and I’m sure it thinks it’s fat even though it’s totally not. So it realizes that Sarah and Reese are trying to destroy it and what does it do? Does it go ahead and launch missiles 7 minutes early to ensure its inevitable take-over of the world? Nope. IT JUST CONTINUES TO COUNT DOWN AND WATCHES THEM TRY TO BLOW IT UP. And spoiler...they blow it up. For an advanced artificial intelligence, it’s pretty stupid. And that was one of the many things that irritated me about the film. 



Don’t get me wrong, the old Terminator films had plenty of stupid things going on in them. Think about it…an advanced artificial intelligence decides to create realistic cyborgs to blend in with humans in a post-apocalyptic world, and this is what it comes up with?



SERIOUSLY, WHO IS WORKING OUT AT A GYM AND TAKING STEROIDS IN A CRUMBLING WORLD RULED BY KILLER ROBOTS???



And so this super smart computer managed to create a cybernetic organism with living tissue over a hyper-alloy endoskeleton, but for some reason it talks like a 1950’s robot doing a really bad Elmer Fudd impression? REALLY?



And the T-800 was supposed to be this ultimate infiltration weapon, but how could that be when they made like a billion of them? They were cranking them out like a Playdoh Fun Factory.



Wouldn’t people just say, “oh, that’s the terminator right there. Yeah, that guy that looks like he works out and eats food. Oh, and there’s another one over there cuz they all look alike. They’re like the Kardashians but with more personality.” 

And remember that hydraulic crushy machine that Sarah used to kill the first Terminator? Why would a computer factory even have one of those? What purpose would that serve?



And let’s not forget when the T-800 realizes that what it’s like to be human.



Yeah, that was stupid, but I forgave it. Why? Because the characters actually HAD character, and you could connect with them. John was full of pre-teen angst, Sarah was fragile and suffering from PTSD (was she nuts or wasn't she?), the T-800 was cool and sometimes unintentionally funny, and the T-1000 was psychotic, cold, and calculating. The action was tense. The was a depth to everyone's interactions.  They used a cool GnR song.  And the story was imaginative, unlike anything I had ever seen at the time. Just the thought of Skynet was terrifying because it started out innocent, and developed on into this monster. Now we give Skynet a face with Dr. Who and Chandler Bing (BOTH characters and performances which are completely forgettable), and it suddenly doesn't seem so scary. It was what you’d expect from a movie made by a bunch suits who don’t have a passion for story-telling or innovation. It’s just a copy of a copy of a copy. I wish they had pooed duh plug on this one.

And a little side note: Can all you programmers out there please just put a subroutine in whatever you are developing that says, DON’T KILL HUMANITY! Please! If I get killed by a Zune, I’d be totally embarrassed.

Jurassic World recap

So the new Jurassic World film is SOOOOO predictable. 

Remember that park where a T-Rex om-nom-nommed on a bunch of innocent people?   Well, its finally open to the public!   And they put Fonzi’s Daughter in charge!

Oooo, she’s so uptight, she has to schedule things like love and laughter.  

Yes, she’s such a cold, calculated business person, she doesn’t even know how to relate to anyone…especially not kids!   Uh oh!  Her nephews (Lenny and Squiggy) come to visit. 

She promises not to let them get eaten.  That’s her assistant’s job!  Besides, she is much too busy trying to figure out why her freak-abomination-slap-in-god’s-face-holy-crap-it’s-alive-kill-it-kill-it dinosaur hybrid is so unhappy. 

So she calls in the dino whisperer, played by none other than “Guardian of the Parks and Rec” himself, Ralph Mouth.  

Guess what?   He’s the exact opposite of her, and they used to date!  LOLZ!  Oh, he is rude and dirty and wears wrinkled clothes and is just as sassy as you please.

At least he understands that these “attractions” are complicated beings, not dollar signs.  So she shows him the dinosaur, and it is just about the meanest thing you ever did see.  Oh and it’s a girl. 

This meany-pants actually ATE her sibling.   In fact, she’s a killing machine, and she has to eat everything she sees and eat it really fast (kinda like my brother at Golden Corral 15 minutes before they close).   And she also uses the lord’s name in vain and I swear she’s selling weed to the middle schoolers.  I think she was named Chompers 2000 or something, and she's also like super smart.

Ralph Mouth is obviously upset.   He says, “OMG!  What did you breed this dinosaur with?”

“DNA from a t-rex, Janice Dickenson, some rusty bear traps, and a bulldozer.”

“WHAT???   That’s not a dinosaur, that’s the mystery ingredients on a bad episode of “Chopped.”  What kinda crazy cuckoobrains are running your lab???"

We're gonna do it!

That’s when they notice that Chompers 2000 is missing!   Remember me saying she was super smart?  Well, she tricked them into thinking she found a way out of her enclosure!  Tee hee!  

Ralph Mouth tries to figure out how she got out.   And then, Chompers pops out and tries to om-nom-nom him!  Luckily, the gates close REALLY slow (for safety reasons, I’m sure) so Ralph got out.   BUT so did Chompers!  WOMP!  WOOOOOMP!

So now Chompers is running wild, eating people like Skittles and they close down the park (NO REFUNDS!).   Well, this is not how I expected to spend a weekend on an isolated island with viscious, hungry, savage beasts.  Wait until I write my review on Trip Advisor! They lose track of Chompers 2000 after she claws out her LoJack.   But they find Lenny and Squiggy.

Ralph Mouth tries to get his raptor friends to attack Chompers.  But when they meet up, they totally hit it off!   Then they start gossiping about Ralph.  

Lenny and Squiggy eventually find Fonzi’s Daughter and Ralph Mouth, and then it’s a showdown.   And Fonzi’s Daughter pulls out the big guns.

Remember when the T-Rex was chomping everyone and everything in it’s path like Chompers 2000 is doing?  Well, he conveniently doesn’t do that anymore.   He only fights other dinosaurs.   He puts a world of hurt on Chompers, and Chompers is killed by the Guppysarus.  The theme park is left in shambles and then to beat it all, Chachi accidently burns down Arnold’s Drive-In.

Fonzi’s Daughter is now dirty, smelly, and her hair is all messed up (kinda like Ralph Mouth!).   She’s been taught that the bottom line isn’t the most important thing, and she’s proud that Lenny and Squiggy got a tour of the island and not a tour of Chompers colon.  The end.

I actually like Bryce Dallas Howard.  She's totally cute and likable, but the script was so obvious, it grated on my nerves.  And why didn't they let Chris Pratt be funnier?   That's what he does best!   To be honest, I just wanted to see dinosaurs fight.   At least we got a little of that.