kindofplace Reviews

65 (2023)

Schlocky B-movie throwback

[4/10 · 22 December 2023]

Fluffy action-adventure with jump scares and an utter absence of plot.

How/why did the ship end up 65 million years in the past? Were they supposed to colonize the planet with the first humans? If so, why send them to the mass-extinction event that wipes out most life on the planet? When they're off to rendezvous with the rescue ship, were they waiting for them in the past or was that ship sent to the past once the SOS was received? Did she really puke up the rest of that parasite that put her to sleep? She sure recovered quickly. I think its body is still inside her. How did they know exactly how much ammo and explosive marbles to bring along? Doesn't the toxic, steamy geyser spray affect humans at all, even if it's just deflected? What time of year is it? It looks like autumn most of the time. When their scanner device says the asteroid impact is in 12 hours, they go through afternoon, dusk, night time, dawn, and into broad daylight again before Ming sends his Hot Hail. Are they quite sure their little torn-up cockpit is structurally sound enough to launch into space, and are we meant to believe it flies faster than the impact shockwave? And why does she look so feral? Puberty's gonna be rough on her. This movie would have been so much better if they just gave him the white rifle from the original '80s Lazer Tag. They clearly didn't think to explain anything before or after, the movie's really about the humans showing up and leaving. To where? For why? It's one of those "check your brain at the door" movies where your ability to see through the plot (or lack thereof) is considered a problem. This movie's not for you, it's for Beavis.

Ahsoka (2023– )

Fleeting moments of hope, but a tedious downhill slog

[3/10 · 7 October 2023]

A modest improvement above Kenobi and Book of Boba Fett in that it's not egregiously contradictory to established plot points from the original movies and the production values are marginally better. This entire 8 episodes feels like they're just plugging holes left by previous Disney mishandlings. It's a bore and a chore to sit through. I was cautiously optimistic after Dave Filoni's Mandalorian Season 2 episode revealed Dawson as live-Action Ahsoka, but hardly any of the strong points of that episode and Filoni's direction carry over to this show. When Ahsoka was shows to be empathic to those around her, while at other times contemplative the past and potential future outcomes, none of those facets of Jedi tradition or abilities really comes through on this show except as exposition. It doesn't come through in Ahsoka's feelings here, she just smirks and folds her arms... a lot. Characters just... seem to barely stay awake here. You also can't just sit down and watch this without any context of other shows like Rebels if you want to make any sense what characters are going on about. .

Thrawn finally shows up late in this season and the big quest/search ends abruptly and too easily. Why travel to another galaxy and make it a big deal when you can find what/who you're looking for just a few miles down the road, not on a different planet or another solar system.... Just go off in a random direction and stumble into your macguffin by mid-afternoon, no biggie.

Production looks awfully cheap at times. The opening takeover scene, for instance. But not nearly as bad as the previously mentioned shows. The empty starship bridge and its foamy plastic consoles and wall fixtures sets the bar pretty low here.

So far, Disney's track record is not good. Andor has been the only Disney Star Wars project that managed to deliver a decent, resonant story without needing the usual trappings of lightsaber duels or cheap nods to the audience. But the "meh" of Ahsoka after Lucasfilm has utterly wrecked box office potential and anticipation for more movies, and then dumping the offensively bad Fett and Kenobi bait & switch shows, has actually led me to finally cancel my Disney+ subscription . I don't have enough nice things to say about how they've assimilated and whitewashed another property but can't be bothered to set any standards after the movies used to get Oscar noms and wins too. Disney don't even want to try. Here's hoping they continue to give Tony Gilroy what he needs to nake Andor Seaon 2 as good as the first, because Star Wars has become a burning wasteland of popular moviemaking and turned it all to mush.

Alien: Isolation (2014 Video Game)

Aged extremely well. Amazing art direction

[8/10 · 15 July 2023]

All over thi game, it's obvious how much they wanted to create a movie-like experience despite the first person video game perspective. Plenty has been said about how faithful this is as a tribute to the 1979 film. This game is more easily described in film terms (set design, lighting versus level design, graphics, etc).

A respectable amount of "uncanny valley" effect on the character models hardly detracts from the finished product at all. It's really amazing to finally be playing this game nine years after its release and the character models are still the only thing striking me as dated about this game.

I'm also playing a port of this game on iOS... yes, on an iphone, using Screem Mirroring to my desktop monitor. I physically could not play this game on a mobile phone screen, and the controls are mostly fine except for tapping to execute various commands (hiding in lockers, acquiring objects, climbing ladders, getting into vents, etc). It can sometimes take several attempts to work, and in some unlucky situations, I just have to give up trying. This must be unique to the mobile or iOS port.

Some of the alien's physical and behavioural traits are different in the game, and they mostly make sense from a gameplay perspective, but I wish they could have been more faithful to the 1979 version of the creature, or even if a setting's option was offered to let the player choose. In-game, the Alien is loud and clumsy, stomping around when nearby or just sounding blackout drunk when you hear its movements in overhead ducts. Seriously, bumping and slipping and tripping before a long pause and then you listen to the sound fade as it stumbles further away. It snorts and growls as it searches for you, like a bear or tiger. I half-expect it to lift one leg and mark its territory.

I prefer the humanoid legs and the unholy, androgynous form that stalks and plays with its food, like in the 1979 film. Each director has introduced variations, but it seems like this iteration of the creature is an attempt to compete with ADHD as much as translate the premise to a video game. This wouldn't translate to a franchise movie since the "plot" mostly consists of a series of carrots on sticks to get Amanda to the next McGuffin. That's no substitute for story. I'll also just say that at least in the first two movies, Androids are not your friends. Even Bishop, who was just following his programming by allowing a Queen (and at least one egg) onto the Sulaco. Samuels doesn't fit the mold and he's boring as a result.

Star Wars: Visions: The Bandits of Golak (2023) Season 2, Episode 7

Stick with it. Bollywood Jedi with surprising

[7/10 · 8 June 2023]

I was about to switch this one off. What is it with Star Wars sticking these annoying, problematic kids like Omega from Bad Batch into these stories? Once the antagonist appears, everything comes together and this episode switches gears into the kinetic action that the prequels introduced to Jedi duels. Not only that, but the antagonist is worth the watch for the actor's performance as well as the striking character design combining familiar Star Wars villain motifs with traditional Indian folk art. I would love to see this character in live action or even the inevitable cosplay.

Glad I didn't switch off.

Dune (1984)

A mostly gorgeous mess to behold

[7/10 · 27 April 2023]

I was 12 when this version of Dune released in theatres. Being one of the very first movies to get the new PG-13 rating, I wasn't allowed to see it, but I remember renting this movie with a friend when it came out on home video, and we got about half-way through it and could make no sense of it at all. But when a much longer cut aired on TV years later, it made much more sense to me and I could get into the environmental and geo-political allegory. It's a great example of a movie should have been great, and elements of it still are. It totally disregards let points of the novel and you would never convince me Kyle McLachlan is actually 15 years old like he is in the book. The ending is an impossible spectacle just for the sake of ending on a moment of awe, but it already makes a sequel impossible. It had classic moments of Lynch dementia that earn that PG-13, while some of the craziness defies explanation.

Despite everything this film has stacked against it, this has to be my favourite film as far as costumes go. Filmed and staged like a historical epic, with a timeless look to the film stock as much as the lighting - it looks like Hitchcock, while the costumes have a historical epic feeling, especially in the Atreides uniforms. The Harkonnen look like suitably, literally toxic in the heavy black rubber. The Fremen stillsuits, while not remotely camouflaged as described in the novel, are a precursor to decades of virile superhero costumes with a distinct H. R. Giger organic texture. They were apparently hellish to wear in the heat, but they still look incredible nearly 40 years later.

Denis Villeneuve's modern tale holds together better as a film, but he had full support from his studio and even got to split his version into 2 films. Lynch's Dune suffers from a torturous production process, and scenes have a weird, non sequitir tone, and we're sometimes even literally unfinished in parts. This version gets a lot of flack for characters' internal monologues frequently narrating scenes in whispered exposition, but i quite like this way of telling the story, and how it shifts to different character perspectives as the book did.

This is also a film not preoccupied with looking "cool", but it remains proudly, profoundly odd. With that in mind, and lots of caveats, I recommend checking this out. When Francesca Annis steps into frame as Lady Jessica, with that fur-lined hood keeping the rain of her, you'll see what I mean about the costumes in this film. Many of the sets, too, have an ornate, tactile quality that would make Ridley Scott jealous.

Try not to take this movie as seriously as it takes itself, and you should be able to enjoy this epic from the future. Find the longer cut if you can. It makes much more sense, too. Lynch deserves more respect for what he managed to achieve and the De Laurentiis family should bend over bsckwards to get his participation on a newer cut of the film someday.

The Mandalorian: Chapter 24: The Return (2023) Season 3, Episode 8

Whelp, at least we got 2 entertaining seasons.

[4/10 · 19 April 2023]

That was a season finalé?!

The most aimless, filler-laden season (so far) sputters to a close like a giant, stale fart you built up in your sleep. Lots of choppy action obfuscated by excessive shadow and contrast set way too high in the colour grading stage. Who's hitting whom and with what body part? And how do the punch each other 30 feet away in an instant?

Moff Gideon reveals himself to be nothing more than the actual cliche of moustache twirling, just suddenly louder.

Din Djarin continues to "duh" his way through another episode and fails to make good on the self-sacrifice hinted at in previous episodes.

Grogu is actually nearly given something to do in this episode. When the inevitable Season 4 drops, the only way forward is to reveal Grogu hardly knows what's going on most of the time, it's just that everyone around him continues to project what they want him to be, so that's how others see him.

It's another level boss fight stretched out to sit on length. More ugly indoor cave sets better suited to Deep Space 9. A disturbingly banal conclusion that won't even attempt to deliver any form of surprise or twist after Season 2 dropped ChatGPT Luke on us. Since Lucasfilm couldn't stand to stick by the emotional send-off and show Din Djarin in the aftermath of that, it's st this point that Disney Star Wars has metastasized itself as a TV entity and no longer the cinematic events that used to even win Oscars. Despite the storytelling feast that Andor S1 delivered, The Mandalorian has now carved its path around back to the cynical marketing exercises known as The Book of Boba Fett and The Reva & Obi-Wan Show. While not nearly as bad as those shows, The Mandalorian drifts closer to them in tone and predictability. Season 3 never achieved the high points its earlier seasons hit, despite the filler. It's like watching old ladies doing tai-chi but with only the minimum of effort or interest, lazily repeating the motions while chatting about anything else.

If you thought pre-Disney Boba Fett was cool, this show will have you so sick of Mandalorian "culture" plot lines and that grating, pretentious line deliver of the Armorer in her "medieval for girls" bronze armor with mini-shirt (tee-hee).

Besides, who were "The Spies" that an earlier episode title referred to, anyway?

I don't think I've ever seen a TV show take such a radical hard turn away from clearly being a passion project for the show runners, to being a "Fine. Keep it. Do it your way.", middle finger to the corporate interests that couldn't abide by Grogu being away for a single episode after Season 2.

This is what happens when studios greenlight productions and hire writers as an afterthought, instead of starting with a story anyone feels is worth putting before cameras.

RoboCop (2014)

Insubstantial as a remake, fun Vancouver location-spotting

[4/10 · 8 April 2023]

A PG-13 Robocop was never going to live up to the witty satire of the hyper-violent Paul Verhoeven original. And it's a shame, because there's so much talent on display, fine casting without much for them to do. Samuel L. Jackson basically functions as a narrator or the voice you hear in your head when you read those non-spoken blocks of comic book text: he's only there for plot exposition to compress the movie's running time.

This is the kind of movie that gets made for people who think the first lightsaber duel in the original Star Wars is "weak" without taking into account where filmmaking was in 1977 versus the hype-choreographed duels in the prequels. That's what the 2014 Robocop comes down to, putting actors in a tame re-telling of the same story, and while the likes of Gary Oldman and Michael Keaton, and even Joel Kinnamen as Murphy, deliver more grounded performances in this reboot, the material doesn't necessitate all the effort, bless 'em. And I don't even get a sense of what the director was truly going for since everything is so watered down and timid, as if scripted by bots based on survey input from studio shareholders. This is filmmaking strictly for the purposes of farming an existing property for content, not motivated by telling a story or developing character arcs that audiences are meant to respond or relate to. This movie wouldn't stand on its own without the superioe original to compare it to.

But if you live in Vancouver or plan on visiting, go find a used DVD copy of this and Deadpool 1 & 2. Make it a drinking game whenever an obvious East Van/Strathcona/Chinatown location appears, then you're guaranteed more mileage from this remake unless Niel Blomkampp's sequel ever gets made (not likely):

The Mandalorian: Chapter 22: Guns for Hire (2023) Season 3, Episode 6

Mediocre

[4/10 · 6 April 2023]

Mediocrity is such a relief when you get accustomed to the diminishing returns and the treading water this show has been doing for Season 3.

From the Logan's Run techno-utopia complete with tube cars, the Special Guest Stars (welcome faces the Star Wars property could easily have made room for before), to the Blade Runner chase, this episode piles on the nostalgia-bait shamelessly, this episode had a tall order as far as production design, new character, and an abundance of aliens (some of which express emotion in ways modern Star Wars rarely bothers to give creature masks articulation needed, so audiences seem to have grown accustomed to the rubbery one-piece aliens overpopulating the galaxy since the sequel trilogy).

This season has really been about Bo-Katan and not so much Din Djarin. Early speculation that this show could work as an anthology of story arcs featuring different Mandalorians, might turn out to be true at this rate. While 90% of this episode is pure side quest filler, the other 10% finally pushes Bo-Katan's cause forward and seems to reveal her true intentions, as hard as they've been to read at times. A twist from events a few episodes back gets her closer to her goals and the closing shot has me wishing this was where Season 3 started instead of revisiting older characters mostly to fill airtime.

Ultimately a very fluffy episode, yet technically just adequate. Bryce Dallas Howard is obviously having fun when she directs episode of this show.. She'll have the clout to make whatever Hollywood project she wants, before long.

A.L.F. (1987–1989)

Hated the sitcom; the cartoons were ahead of their time!

[8/10 · 1 April 2023]

The ALF cartoons were clearly not written by the same people behind the sitcom. Where else do you find Saturday morning cartoons with post-modern meta-humour not dissimilar to Mystery Science Theater 3000? Standout episodes include Madame Poughkeepsie, the fortune teller who grants Gordon's wish to have a more many head of hair, but curses him to tender anyone he touches instantly hairless, or the Arnold Schwarzenegger parody filming "The Gutsquisher" in his hometown, complete with Arnold likeness and voice impression, "AAAUHNGG! I mahst skvish gütts!".

Alf Tales also has laugh-out-loud re-tellings of Cinderella (with Marlon Brando as Fairy Godmother and evil step-sisters Janet & Latoya) and loads of gags kids under 10 wouldn't even get when the show was current. This was really subversive TV in the mid-late '80s. The sitcom was just a puppet show and the groaning that comes along with their attempt at "jokes".

The writers earned their paycheques on the cartoons, though. Watch and listen, as much of the humour zips past if you're not paying attention.

The Mandalorian: Chapter 21: The Pirate (2023) Season 3, Episode 5

Cheesy, heavy on the kiddie fluff,

[2/10 · 30 March 2023]

There's one side of Star Wars that's top-tier production values and engaging storytelling, then there's the ADHD kiddie angle that never really hit Star Wars until The Holiday Special had corny TV comedians hamming it up with the tackiness and tired sight gags like Harvey Korman pouring liquids into his head.

I dreaded the eventual return of the kiddie puppet pirate king and sure enough, it's pure filler slop and hard to watch the puppeteers running this mossy Rick James and not get his mouth movements remotely close to his dialogue. He looks like repurposed animatronic puppetry from Showbiz Pizza Place, but with greasy(?) moss for hair, curling his lip and rocking back and forth... the only thing missing is a musical instrument.

The Armorer continues her one-note line delivery but finally has a little more to offer than simply being the show's inventory/Pause Mode screen NPC. Scenes with her continue to hold this show back. The writers should just get rid of her. Either put her as a villain or just reveal who she is and what her backstory is and surprise viewers with some new perspective on her snobby mannerisms, at least. She just continues to really be the authority over the Mandalorians and her costume is too cartoony even for this show. Give her some growth and some newfound purpose or just give her a cruel death so viewers will think she deserved better for something, but she's really just there to keep the cult aspect going and the show deserves better. Evolve or die miserably, but do it soon.

Scenes in this episode flow like mud. The action is shot and edited with such a chaotic lack of spatial awareness of where characters are going or aiming at, then we just cut to someone who may or not be their target, facing random directions and taking fire in the form of pyrotechnic squibs that knock them over or cause them to just retreat behind cover with no consequences. This is Star Wars where the blasters are all set to Tickle.

Carl Weathers is having more fun with his role and he has provided competent direction to at least a couple of prior episodes. Paul Sun-Hyung Lee gets more screen time, probably since his Rangers spin-off show failed to launch, but his scenes are so stiff and it's more because of the way they're paced and cut that gives a limp, mechanical line delivery to just about everyone in some scenes, and it doesn't help that Pedro Pascal's stunt double is clearly getting the screen time and is not the one delivering his lines.

The show ends with a twist that may return the series back to it's Season 1 & 2 story arcs. OK, but I hope the show can return to larger story arcs and less of this filler. The pirates are cringey and do this show no favors. But bonus points for a Rebels character's live action cameo that is delivered nicely, with a grounded, casual tone that Star Wars could use more of lately, except it makes the Pirate King's appearance even more of a joke by comparison. This season's lack of purpose and detour away from its main characters underwhelms.

This is not the way .

The Mandalorian: Chapter 17: The Apostate (2023) Season 3, Episode 1

Repetitive, banal, predictable. S3 looking tired already

[5/10 · 4 March 2023]

I can't imagine a more bland season opener. Since the emotional Season 2 finalé had all its impact cancelled out by Book of Boba Fett, Din and Grogu are already back together, cruising around in the Naboo star fighter that can't be used for bounty hunting because there's no room for passengers. It doesn't even need a droid for hyperspace travel. Our hero decides to stop and check out the Galaxy's Edge expansion of Disney World to catch up with Carl Weathers, who clearly has a lot of fun on this show. A pack of thugs is loitering outside a school, demanding drinks. Since drunk thugs on school ground is a bad look, Weathers tells them to take it someplace else and it escalates, until our hero steps in and they gun down several of the generic alien thugs (if they look like Jabba's Palace rejects, Star Wars tells us they will thug out because racial profiling is always OK in their galaxy). The one surviving thug then tries to ambush our hero in an asteroid field, so you know what that means: uninspired callbacks to the other asteroid field scenes from some old Star Wars movies they had in theatres, and you have to remember those of you won't get The Feels).

So, surviving thug lures out hero towards a flamboyantly coloured starship captained by the "pirate king", who is actually a genetic spicing of Mighty Boosh's Old Gregg, Davey Jones from those pirate movies, and Moss Man from Masters of the Universe, with some bonus Rick James effect, except built by the local Methodist Church Sunday school kids, and it's so amazing. You can't even spot the Elmer's Glue but he loses a few pieces of macaroni. So our hero gets away and this pirate king character goes full Doctor Klaw ("I'll get you next time, Gadget! Next timmmmme!") Our hero goes to visit Starbucks but she's in. Mood because he has the dorksaber and she can't keep her people in line without it. After that reminder, Our hero leaves.

Oh yeah, IG-11 nearly gets revived, but has reverted to old programming-, This is all just making Andor look so much better.

Andor: Rix Road (2022) Season 1, Episode 12

Finally, Star Wars has standards again!

[9/10 · 23 November 2022]

Despite the retcons and rebrandings and wiping the name "Slave I" away, some of us remember how Old People Star Wars used to get Oscar nominations. When George Lucas said Star Wars was "for 12-year-old boys", he wasn't wrong, but he also said that to deflect the criticism he knew The Phantom Menace was about to be greeted with. Making things "for kids" in our culture has become an excuse to either not try so hard, or even peddle absolute garbage to a market that just doesn't know better. Kids' shows... kids' breakfast cereals, even. (Face it, kids are tricked into eating junk food to replace a daily meal, and keep doing it until they grow out of it.)

This doesn't pretend to be a kids' show, when Star Wars has become reduced to a string of cliches presented on screen. Obi-Wan Kenobi should have been a walk in the park for Disney to produce an entertaining show that fleshed out characters without straining continuity or insulting the audience who know the characters and situations better than the writers do. No one should have to suffer a Boba Fett mini-series where the Most Notorious Bounty Hunter In Yne Galaxy inexplicably decides to become a humanitarian crime lord without the crime when he's not indulging in lengthy flashbacks that have no relevance to the the scenes before or after and offer no insight into why he's not longer the character audiences tuned in to see.

Yet, amidst this cynical feed trough approach Disney has towards this property, it's a wonder how anyone can bring achieve the creative control over of production values and storytelling reminiscent of Star Wars when we didn't know for 3 years if Han would survive the carbon freeze, of Luke finding the charred bodies of his aunt & uncle, when Han was a drug smuggler, or interrogation droids entered the room with huge hypodermics. Even at its best, Old People Star Wars never even had dialogue this good.

As a single episode, I can't say it tops the previous one for me, but that's still 11 episodes in a row where I went from impressed to genuine amazement at how each was better than the last. Ep12 comes close. Plenty of plot threats are deliberately dangled to line up Season 2. I didn't need to see them all resolved yet, and I'm glad they didn't try to.... But so much develops here!

If you're reading reviews of a season finale, I don't need to tell you to watch the rest first. After a slow start, this series gets it's direction 3 episodes in and each episode stands up to repeat viewings. It's not going to replace the Original Trilogy and it's not a half-asses attempt to keep the ball rolling by retooling and remaking what's already been done to death.

I did not have high hopes - or any hopes at all for this show. I didn't want to see a Cassian Andor spin-off. It's just such a shame hasn't applied the level of care to their previous live-action Star Wars shows (Mandalorian will be the bigger crowd pleaser, but it has filler problems, too much winking at the viewer, and that ugly modern Star Wars plastic look that doesn't match the greasy, rusting patina that used to make Star Wars look "lived-in".

I may not have been spoon-fed everything I wanted from this finale, but I'm in awe at what this 12-episode season has done to explore different corners of the setting and taking the time and care to find nuance and get solid-or-better performances from every speaking role.

Thanks, Tony Gilroy, for not insulting your audience.

Andor (2022– )

How can a show get consistently better with each episode?

[9/10 · 16 November 2022]

It's an espionage-drama set in the Star Wars universe. Nuanced storytelling that does more to validate the Star Wars property than decades of by-the-numbers filler movies & shows. It doesn't condescend to its audience or cop out with more callbacks and cliches than substance.

I'm 11 episodes in, with just one more to go for Season One. My single complaint is the absence of aliens both as background and in speaking roles. This may finally be corrected going forward, at least to some extent, from 11 onward. Alien cultures and the dialogue between "Basic"-speaking characters and subtitled chatter have been key storytelling features of Star Wars, and without those, the show becomes too human-centric, with only occasional funny-shaped heads used as set dresssing. With that as my single complaint, it's really such a minor issue with this show that finally respects its audience as much as The Empire Strikes Back did over 40 years ago. No hammy comebacks or muppet slapstick; no monotone, confused green screen performances,; no over-reliance on series tropes about destiny or who's-related-to-whom character reveals that made Star Wars not just predictable but tediously fan service in recent years. Lightsabers and Jedi powers are nowhere to be seen (unless we just got a big hint, but that still preserves the mystique and doesn't make the universe overpopulated by force users, for a much-needed change).

[edit: After seeing the season 1 finalé, I can say this show has not only paid off immensely, I've since re-watched Season 1 and would give it a 9.5. Not only does the show stand up well, so many "boring", quiet conversations mean so much more as pieces of foreshadowing. Some of those moments are heartbreaking once you know what comes next for these characters.

If you find this show doesn't "feel like Star Wars", I say Dedra Meero is more Star Wars than the Muppet Mayor of Amos Espa and his comic relief receptionist Twi-Lek or a wannabe crime lord with no crime and no posse. The Fondor Haulcraft and Cantwell Class Arrestor Cruiser are more Star Wars than anonymous thugs in green face paint stumbling and running into tree branches. Kino Loy is more Star Wars than a bumbling grifter pretending to be a Jedi. Revealing, multi-layered character dialogue, social commentary, and a rebel's manifesto are more Star Wars than hiding a kid under a trench coat on not being spotted on a military installation on high alert. If those examples of other Disney+ Star Wars moments didn't offend you but you find this show doesn't "feel like Star Wars", then you have vast amounts of filler already and you have nothing to complain about.] If you're the kind of viewer who complains about 3-hour movie runtimes, you'll find the pacing boring. But if you like to sit down and see what a story is doing to establish and grow its characters, then come on in! This isn't a product for binge-watching. Take in one episode per week or watch in the contained, ususlly 3-episode story arcs: 1-3, 4-6, 7,8-10, 11-12. You may find yourself rewatching some before proceeding to the next one.

When this show was announced, I was far from optimistic. After the ugly made-for-TV looking and more egregiously pointless and forced Book of Boba Fett and Reva & Obi Wan Show, I had even less interest in a show about a Rogue One character who could only be explored in his past, and really, if they could squander the opportunities of Boba Fett series and Obi-Wan spin-offs into such wastes of budget and viewers' time, why would they bother finding competent writers or production designers capable of actually elevating another Star Wars series up to feature film standards?

Andor isn't so much a great character or leader as much as he inspires others to be. He still just wants to do the Han Solo thing and get out of trouble and be left alone, but in order to do that, he learns to instil a sense or urgency in people capable of leadership.

Star Wars has had problems with investing audience emotion. The prequels had a dysfunctional concept of "romance" more akin to a boy mashing Barbie doll faces together or a stalker who thinks persistence will win over his victim's heart. No chemistry or human love exists in that entire portrayal of "romance". But the writers of Andor spring a trap on the audience introducing the concept of grief through they eye(s) of a droid and pull it off with just a few small scenes. There is genuine mystery here surrounding character identity and allegiance, but I feel safe enough in promising it's no one's father.

The show is gorgeous to look at. Filmed on real locations, the layers of effects to create scale and ships flying around are all mostly seamless, but more importantly they all just look natural instead of competing for your attention. So far, there's not a weak performance in the show (from the adults), although ISB Agent Dedra Meero's villainous sneer can be over-the-top, actress Denise Gough clearly gets that this woman is as capable as she is ruthless, and she's held back by bureaucracy and a work ethic amongst those around her that leaves them complacent with merely doing what they think is "enough" to reach their goals; that sneer is perfect. The audience gains a strange respect for Meero for her commitment while also fearing her efficiency and, as hinted in an interrogation scene, a serious sadistic streak.

Like the show as a whole, executed above any reasonable standard of expectation.

Viewers may find the pacing slow early on. Don't binge this and don't "watch" it in the background. Save it for when you can sit down and and observe what's going on. You'll be rewarded generously.

Watchmen (2019)

A deeper connection than a mere "sequel". Great until rushes finalé.

[8/10 · 27 August 2022]

It's a slow-burner companion piece to the original story; one that does for the TV drama format what the original did for the comic book medium. It dares the viewer to keep up, to defy the clichés of formulaic sequels that assume the viewer only wants a carbon copy of the original, made bigger (a convention that James Cameron had the last word on (and put to rest) with ALIENS). It won't even be clear to most viewers how this even relates to Moore's & Gibbons' story for the first few episodes, and viewers will have to consider Zack Snyder's 2009 adaptation as a separate entity, an interpretation from a blockbuster movie-style perspective where the artifice of big and loud is just part of the language of its medium where this series is daring enough to reveal major legacy characters as mundane, visually underwhelming, yet logical extensions that put much of the series' heavy lifting on the shoulders of the cast (to mixed degrees of success. (The weakest link being Jeremy Irons' broad comic tone that plays like Moe Howard from Three Stooges as if he was in a Coen Brothers film. Irons removes the menace, charisma, and complexity of his character and makes him a buffoon, and his final scene sadly caters to that interpretation. I suspect the production was so thrilled to have Irons onboard that they gave him too much room to pull his character towards whatever he felt like on a given day, and his smirking, hammy performance isn't helped by his awkward, distracting attempt at an American accent.))

Viewers are going to be confronted by social themes some find "divisive", and that will be enough for some to react negatively and give up watching altogether. And that's really too bad, but if you're an adult and racially motivated violence and scenes of a bisexual character having sex with another male (told in both a dramatic flashback as about as matter-of-factly as most hetero sex scenes, followed by physical intimacy and complicated interracial dynamics, preceded by a cartoonish TV show-within-a-show scandalizing the same pair's relationship), this kind of barrier may be the biggest hurdle to some viewers to watching any further. Too bad.

The finalé is a stain on the rest of the series. It rushes between plot threads to cap them off neatly, but the result is a Scooby Doo comedy caper tone that undermines what came before it and has this viewer questioning why the show compresses so much into one episode instead of adding 3 more to make a total of 12 to match the original story's 12 chapters. While the comics had the recurring clock motif that the 12 chapters fit neatly with, then so should this series have had 12 episodes to fit with the egg motif. The additional episodes could have explored antagonists and let viewers spend time with the show's best new character who disappears after a stunning spotlight episode where viewers empathize with his trauma and then never see him again until the finalé that only gives him some silly one-liners and the show's most Scooby Doo moment.

Prey (I) (2022)

Enjoyable pulp fluff

[7/10 · 6 August 2022]

A competently executed Predator film. It's been a long time. It makes great visual use of the setting. The score is actually haunting (especially the main village theme early and near the end) in parts, and still does it's job well even at its weakest moments. The high-concept premise manages to avoid Disney-fying Comanche culture like I expected it to and the lead performance carries the story well.

You know when audience reviews cite "woke politics" as the source of all a film's flaws and their review really just aims to prevent you from seeing something, lest that film or show have a "message" or it's clear the reviewer hardly talks about the film in question because they don't intend to see it, when they're just using movie reviews as a platform for their own politics that are supposedly facing threats from things like action movies with female protagonists or Native Americans. I have issues with some of the editing resulting in confusing action scenes but I'm not looking for some way that puts my white male identity in danger. I'm glad to see this franchise trying out a different take on the premise and not relying on the next Arnold or Dwayne Johnson. The stakes are different. A female lead gives you more of an underdog and if you just inherently don't want to see that in movies, just be honest with yourself first and foremost and say so.

Turning Red (2022)

Ethnical difficulties

[8/10 · 4 July 2022]

Ever read product reviews where someone gives a poor rating because the bought the wrong item? Same goes for every review complaining that they watched a movie that didn't cater to them.

When an audience review puts its focus on an "agenda" being pushed, take a look at how much attention they give to the film in question. If it's not already obvious that they're just part of a review bombing campaign, they simply don't want you to see the movie that they couldn't be bothered to actually see for themselves. But at least they make it pretty easy to tell they're really just here to point fingers and use movie discussions as soapboxes for an agenda they pretend not to have.

If a PG-rated animated film about a girl entering puberty is offensive to some because of some maxi-pads (oh. Heaven's mercy, please don't let your children enter a grocery store!), then what do these offended individuals think the transforming-into-a-red-panda plot is actually about?

The animation has plenty of modem Pixar trademarks while paying generous homage to the quieter Studio Ghibli dramas. The characters are often impulsive, overreacting, kinda like most cartoon characters. Personally, I appreciate the irony of a pre-teen character thinking she's self-aware and actuslly independent. (Like conspiracy theorists who fancy themselves immune to conditioning or propaganda.). It's an introductory character monologue, not a political manifesto.

The Mandalorian: Chapter 13: The Jedi (2020) Season 2, Episode 5

Short, sweet. The best Star Wars in 40 years.

[9/10 · 15 June 2022]

If you want an idea of what Star Wars is really capable of, what the appeal is, or what opportunities 90% of the glut of Disney's Star Wars content misses by a wide margin, this single episode lays it down with grace and a somber, emotionally mature approach outside anything else in live action Star Wars.

I never got into the Clone Wars, either 2D or computer animated series. Characters look like ventriloquist dolls without any laws of physics applying to their movements. The later series features young Ahsoka Tano, a 'tween pupil of Anakin's who never appeared in the films, so her obvious afterthought role in the show is inconsequential to the films. Plus, as she's introduced on the show, she's an obvious proxy for younger viewers to relate to... especially young girls. That in and of itself isn't so bad, but the character is obnoxious and irritating, but I understand the show giver her a decent character arc across several seasons. Even if you've never heard of her, the introduction of Ahsoka Tano as an adult in this episode is everything decades of Star Wars wanted us to imagine a Jedi to be.

The first such character to even appear on this show is only briefly glimpsed in dark, foggy atmosphere, dodging gunfire and striking as two pure white lightsaber blades appear, strike, and retract before she moves to her next target. It's as beautiful as it is exciting to watch. And when we meet her, she's burdened with memories of the Jedi at the height of their power and her existence as a ronin.

George Lucas was never shy about his love for Akira Kurosawa films, and Dave Filoni runs with that influence throughout this episode. There are confident, quiet moments like you've never seen in Star Wars before. And genuine, heartfelt sadness that The Mandalorian and The Child may be forced to part ways sooner than they think.

Then there's the double-duel scene, with a Western-style, blasters-in-holsters but if suspense while they listen for the outcome of the former Jedi and the episode's villain in a VERY Kurosawa stand-off that I won't spoil, except to say that it's gorgeous from the choreography and the editing and it!: nothing like the prequel-era twirling where no one tries to strike each other.

Dave Filoni should direct more live action. This isn't the typical Disney Star Wars that brings a legacy character out for a quick hit of fan service and retcon. Of course, this turned out to be a back door pilot for an Ahsoka spin-off. My hopes aren't high for it after the disastrous Book of Boba Fett or the miserable Obi-Wan Show, but it's got better odds after this single episode.

Obi-Wan Kenobi: Part V (2022) Season 1, Episode 5

Nostalgia Bait presents: 40-yr-old Padawan

[3/10 · 15 June 2022]

"I know we said no communication, but your silence.. . Worries me." -Bail Organa (sounding like an ex- who doesn't get the "no contact" concept) ... who then goes on to divulge his present and future whereabouts and re-emphasize the hyper-critical secret mission to protect The Childrens. You know, just in case his transmission should get SAVED and fall into enemy hands. Can you guess what happens, kids? What else can he ruin?

The same Bail Organa who failed to protect Leia and convinces Obi-Wan to neglect his own duty to watch over Luke, and does nothing to at least offer protection for Luke in the meantime. Now you can't keep blaming Leia for everything bad that happens!

Cue nostalgia-bait scene: Hey, kids! Remember when Obi-Wan trained a 40-year-old Padawan? Enjoy this brand new filler content! I wouldn't object to padding the other five episodes out with flashbacks like this if the scenes were relevant and some of the $25 million per episode was spent on better makeup and a VFX de-aging but it looks like they skimped on the hair weave and beard dye again.

The good guys arrive at a studio (made to look like it's made of hamburger meat and/or feces) in their electric potato space bus (face it: the art direction on this entire show is proof Disney learned nothing from Ralph McQuarrie).

Leia's dollar store drone is possessed by Satan, so bad guys have hacked it to nark on the good guys. (Star Wars, yo!) But it's a race against time before the drone turns up with the Star Wars logo across its back. But they showed Hayden's face, so this episode will be better. By this time next week, this action-packed feast will be over, leading into RevaVision, the new Disney+ show for RealFans™!

Hey, kids! It's Comic Relief Imposter Jedi! You loved him in The Eternals, now someone's determined to stick his face all over this show! Star Wars, yo!

Obi-Wan calls up Reva's Psychic Friends Hotline and explains the point of the flashback of her at the start of the series. What did you think that clip of the younglings was about?

Reva goes on to tell Obi-Wan she's been hunting Jedi in pursuit of her real goal: to defeat Vader. That's right... exterminate Jedi in order to exterminate Vader. Sounds legit. Someone got paid to write this for Star Wars.

Then Tala makes out with her labour droid and suicides.

Leia finds her crappy toy and de-hacks it so she can go back to stalking adults with it. The roof of the studio opens up.

Obi-Wan gets left with some stormtroopers and what do you think happens?

Then Vader shows up and so does the OG Grand Inquisitator, who wants his job title back and she stole it, so she gets a stabby and they... leave her ..."to die". (Someone is getting paid and not sued to write this. For TV. For Star Wars. For public consumption.). All so Reva can come back after her REVA-lation and inevitable change of heart to become a good guy to kick off her own spin-off show as if this wasn't her show already!

But they showed Hayden's face and they do some killer Force-voguing moves (cue Salt n' Pepa's "Push It"), so people will wait another week to cancel their Disney+ subscriptions.

It's finally happened: nostalgia for the prequels! Lower your standards far enough and anything's possible! This show's ugly production design and empty characters with zero chemistry or appeal and simpering, weepy musical score would never get approval as a theatrical release, or even syndicated TV if it didn't have the Star Wars name. Low effort slop.

Obi-Wan Kenobi: Part IV (2022) Season 1, Episode 4

Marginally better filler, still cheap and full of holes

[2/10 · 8 June 2022]

Remember: when your peasant attire burns in tatters ("Liar, liar, pants on fire!"), the midichlorians will regenerate your outfit as a nicotine-and-BO-stained prequel-era Jedi tunic (for extra stealth)!.

Things happen in this episode. Threatening and intimidating a child with torture. Obi-Wan gets his peasant garb replaced witb prequel-era Jedi attire like any Jedi in hiding would wear. James Earl Jones gets his voice simulated by an AI that delivers his lines. Just when you think you'd had enough bacta tank flashback sequences.... Next Week, Obi-Wan announces his new plan to confront Reva ... with respect and launch his own criminal empire with no crime and no gang. Because that's how Star Wars is now.

So, the good guys sneak into an Imprrial installation without shields but they have fighters racked up in their hangar, which no one bothers to launch later.

Obi-Wan communicates with a Rebel spy within the facility, and agents within earshot even look over as she responds with a communicator in-hand... but they just ignore this obvious treason/security breach. Why? Because the show needs a thing to happen and this is how writers do things in Disney's Star Wars. She even lures one behind a rack of computer equipment and presumably chokes him out, leaving the body plainly visible in an active room with other Imperials coming and going. Presumably, adults get paid for writing this.

And now Leia's cheap-ass dollar store drone is possessed. You can see the bad midichlorians glowing at the end.

T-47 scenes looked like crayon drawings in some kid's iMovie project. We've been watching a fan film this whole time. They arrive looking like they're obviously about to crash, but they now screech to a halt in mid-air and hover in place while no one figures out how to shoot in their general direction. We see one land with enough momentum it should have thrown the pilot through the windshield. Seriously, are they using muppet technology for ships on this show? Then as they make their escape, they're met with little a carrier craft that looks more like a cardboard cutout. I call it the Rebel Potato Space Bus, shot like Hanna Barbera did driving scenes on the Flintstones, in front of a scrolling background.

Obi-Wan needs to go back and smack Bail Organa for failing to do his own job. Least he could have done was step in or provide some sort of protection for Luke.

And we get more "kids show" moments like threatening a child with "pain" and loading her up in a torture rack. Reva is the kind of woman who steals lollipops from kids and does her own homage to Samuel L Jackson's Big Kahuna Burger scene just to be mean to kids.

So the big rescue consists mainly of hiding a kid under a trench coat and walking through a busy hangar while the station is on high alert. Some familiar Star Wars fighter craft show up but no one me too s they only have 2 seats: 1 for the pilot and 1 very cramped, rear-facing passenger seat that they somehow fit 3 passengers into offscreen. In fact, the other craft commits suicide to distract the audience from wondering how the escapees physically fit into 1 seat.

Oh, and bonus points to the set designer who saved the production a few bucks by incorporating greenscreens into those facility windows.

This was the least awful episode so far, and there's only 1/3 of the "season" left. What an epic story this show tells. Future generations will be rewatching this show the way people do with the first 2 movie trilogies today, and they won't be able to take the original movies seriously because we never see anyone consume the drugs Han Solo smuggles for a living. We know he does, but the special effects and choreography aren't at that level yet. But you can watch this show and draw your own conclusions about the "writing" process. The more I think of it, that scene in an earlier episode with Flea and those thugs drooling gibberish on the floor, makes a convincing portrait of this show's stunted development. It's obviously such a big clue.

Now we have only two more episodes for Reva to discover her true self so she can run through flowery fields and feel the freshness. The showrunners themselves spoiled it by bragging how they can't wait for viewers to "experience her story". They obviously never felt any freshness or enthusiasm for Obi-Wan's story, even if they give him a free Jedi outfit (that probably came off a corpse) to sneak around in this episode. Did he check the pockets yet? It's probably loaded up with glitterstim. How else are the writers supposed to get through the next two episodes? Make them about Reva!

Obi-Wan Kenobi (2022)

Torturously paced, offensively bad visuals,

[3/10 · 2 June 2022]

I had hopes that this show might turn things around for Star Wars under Disney. Whatever algorithm or committee is responsible for the extensive re-writes and re-shoots gave up on making this work as part of any continuity with pre-Disney Star Wars. So, we learn this show isn't about Obi-Wan protecting Luke, but instead, it retcons Leia into now knowing Obi-Wan, which she clearly doesn't in the iconic holographic message she sends with R2 in the first movie, nor did she react to seeing him get killed, nor did she mourn with Luke. Retconning this is insulting to anyone who's even seen Star Wars ('77), whether you liked it or not.

It's clear by now that Disney's not interested in expanding or developing the story from the films onward; they're using Star Wars as a marketing asset and their shareholders want returns on their investment -faster. We saw it when The Force Awakens simply mimicked the first movie instead of exploring the setting and how it would evolve after the end of the first trilogy. Everything's back where it was in 1977. None of the characters have the appeal or chemistry and the visuals are based more on discarded concept sketches so no need to innovate or even credit the original talent 40 years later. Disney Star Wars is less alien-centric and the costumes and props look like hollow plastic shells... like theme park animatronics. Disney Star Wars relies on trotting out legacy characters for cheap hits of sentiment that wear off when you realize those cameo appearances totally undermine those characters' arcs (Luke's robotic "him or me" emotional blackmail attempt with Grogu).

So, whatever entity insisted on greenlighting this show without a story in place might also be responsible for giving us a Leia that only shows slight hints that she has a bright future ahead, because kid-Leia is a petulant, whiny brat too stupid to recognize that the stranger dressed like an inquisitor is probably an inquisitor. The same one who just chased her and her reluctant guardian off of wannabe-Blade Runner world. Oh, and everyone knows they teleport now. So when someone's in pursuit and finds the getaway tunnel you were just casually strolling along in such a hurry, and they beat you to the exit where she stands next to a dead guy where you were expecting a live guy, this Leia's hopping right in that ice cream van.

Carrie Fisher's Leia was great partly because she was a response to the damsel in distress trope. Once she's out of her cell, she takes charge of her own rescue. TV kid-Leia is a useless, helpless brat who can't stop getting abducted, over and over again! But she has a toy robot that gets everyone out of trouble. But at least it looks as cheap as an actual Hasbro toy.

Yep, here's the Obi-Wan Kenobi TV show you requested. It just had to turn out better than the waste of time and IP that was Book of Boba Fett (the ugliest, cheapest looking live action Star Wars to date ... with this running a tight 2nd).

And the main villain of the show.... Simply by casting a performer (whose career won't gain much from this role, sadly) doesn't look threatening at all, but quite attractive and capable... nothing about her casting suggests she's really a villain. Her character is at odds with her superiors and other inquisitors. The only trajectory for her is to have some big REVA-lation and switch teams or reach some breaking point where she helps bratgirl and the pathetic version of Obi-Wan who's not just been adrift in hiding for 10 years, half-way through his own mini-series, he's almost as useless as Boba Fett pretending to be a crime lord with no crime and no criminals to lord over (with respect).

The show gives Obi-Wan a peasant costume to get away from the old plothole surrounding Jedi attire and older Obi-Wan's prequel outfit looking too similar to his later Tatooine monk-like appearance, but half-way through the show, he's given a full-on prequel-era Jedi outfit yet he sneaks around imperial facilities without attracting much attention. Maybe I missed it, and it's not like I ever want to go back and find out, but is there any explanation why someone had Jedi garments to give to Obi-Wan?

Disney Star Wars goes out of its way not to "subvert expectations", this is low effort bait-&-switch. Obi-Wan's not messing with The Force except as a desperate last resort, and he's still bumbling and unprepared in the meantime. It's like pitching a show about The Most Notorious Bounty Hunter In The Galaxy, but any number of head-canon fan fiction scenarios show more imagination than what Disney's pushing on us.

Star Wars used to win Oscars for its production design, sound, costume design, and even the archetypical quest of the first movie got a Best Original Screenplay nom. It won Special Achievement awards for sound and ILM's visual effects. This slop is ugly from a visual standpoint, action scenes are clumsy and abrupt. Night time scenes are so badly de-contrasted it's mostly just shapes blobbing around against an indoor set. Characters act trapped by laser roadblocks that they can clearly just walk around. The first episode abduction scene is incongruously, laughably shot and edited like Barney the Dinosaur could jump out from behind that tree and peek-a-boo to the camera. Remember Star Wars action scenes being entertaining and visually exciting, with characters who had great chemistry on screen and some relatability? John Williams' orchestral score was practically a narrator, and it stayed tight against whatever happened on screen and from one scene to the next. This Star Wars doesn't bother to do those things. If simply being "more Star Wars" is all you ever hoped for, or it takes someone else's observations to sour your opinion of what you're trying to enjoy but can't unite put your finger on what's wrong with it, then maybe you'll get more mileage from this and many, many more shows like this to come. But if you try and rewatch these shows like you have with the movies, it'll sink in eventually. This is all being phoned in. It's strictly marketing to sell Disney+ subscriptions. The story stopped mattering once Disney shareholders began greelighting first and hiring screenwriters as afterthoughts.

I can't tell you not to watch something, but I can warn you that this breaks story elements of the first movie and it forces an unnecessary storyline between characters who didn't know each other and fails miserably at setting up or delivering the supposed "rematch of the decade". The writers of this show would rather punch you in the gut for pocket change than familiarize themselves with the characters they're borrowing and treating oh-so-poorly.

These six episodes are a collosal waste of all the time and resources involved, as well as viewers' previous time they could have spent imagining much, much better than this show has any intention of delivering. Shame on the producers for using the property to just pump out another slab of deceptive, hollow brand flexing.

Obi-Wan Kenobi: Part III (2022) Season 1, Episode 3

squandered. Predictable,

[3/10 · 1 June 2022]

What seemed like a good start with lots of promise, turns into a predictable slog with the cheap, TV budget look that Book of Boba Fett suffers from. At 44 minutes minus 2.5 mins of recap and opening title plus over 6 minutes of end credits, 35.5 minutes doesn't need any more padding out, you'd think.

For those who think the original Obi-Wan /Vader duel in '77 is the "weakest" lightsaber battle in all of Star Wars just because it's not hyper-choreographed and not modern enough, we finally get the most underwhelming lightsaber duel in the entire franchise. If you can even call it that. It barely gets started. Just as sht sorta seems to start happening, even the cuts from one critical event to another just play like a screeching halt. Remember how Return of the Jedi juggled three simultaneous climaxes in space, on Endor, and on Death Star 2.0? This is roughly half an hour of Disney TV Star Wars, so just plug your ears and shout, "Shut up, haterz!", if anyone tries to ask why they don't just walk around the laser fence or bring up how the old movies got Oscar noms and Special Achievement nods. Lowered expectations means easier ratings with less effort.

Anyone reading this could have come up with a more entertaining story picking up where the last episode left off. [They stow away on a ship. It reaches its destination and they sneak off. They go to a rendezvous spot and no one shows up. They hitch a ride. They run into the authorities. They get away. Vader shows up and comes looking for them. They split up. Obi-Wan finds himself up against Vader and he wets his pants and Vader starts a big fire...then blows it out with his Sith power breath, then someone comes along and starts that fire again and Vader stands there bored with the lack of writing. Meanwhile, the kid is led down an escape tunnel, but casually in Stroll Mode. They split up after they stop to talk about it for a while. Rescue Lady heads back and Girlicia is supposed to run to the end of the tunnel, but the episode still doesn't even have 36 minutes of actual footage yet, so she vaguely wanders in the general direction to pad the running time. But the mean lady who hasn't had her redemption scene yet is onto them and finds the tunnel entrance. When we cut back yo Girlicia in no hurry and not remotely out of breath from so much not-running, she runs into the mean lady who's now beat her to the end of the tunnel despite never passing each other to get there.

I told you, anyone reading this could come up with better, but a couple of Vader scenes ought to suffice, so you don't notice how Leia is suddenly oblivious to Reva's intentions and the fact that it's the same woman who chased them onto a cargo ship at the end of last episode and despite that she's armoured up in glossy black attire with glowy red bits just like the other inquisitors. "Sounds legit", Leia says before credits roll. If Leia still doesn't know who this is, and the dead body at her feet don't tip her off, then at least the Empire doesn't have to use ice cream trucks since Leia clearly doesn't know what Stranger Danger means.

And now we've passed the half-way point of this epic-as-asswipe 6 episode Television Event.

Disney is just swimming in the Star Wars brand but just assembly-lining cheap TV content when Star Wars used to be this rousing adventure told with state-of-the-art sound and visuals, where scenes had momentum and even when you could tell something was just a puppet or special effect, it was always handled with care and it was always done in ways you hadn't seen before, and still not distracting you from an engaging storyline. Now it looks on par with Star Trek: Enterprise as far as production standards. Make no mistake: if you lived through the bleak Ewok Adventure TV this is history repeating, but without the excuses. You're supposed to forget by now about the exotic, thematic locales that change the tone of the movies from snow to swamp to desert to military complex to forest to Art Deco floating city. Disney shareholders are out to milk this teat dry, not explore this fictional galaxy and all its storytelling potential.

If you keep subscribing, they'll just pump out more slop. If I make it to the end of this mini-series, I'll be deciding whether to cancel my Disney+ subscription or not. Disney outright damaged Star Wars as a rewatchable, engaging and envelope-pushing cinematic experience, and they're not even trying to reach new heights as a TV presence. I even had hopes for feisty Leia as a kid, but we just get token glimpses of her character being capable or relateable. She's just an annoying brat and now she's fussing and whining. She'll probably get a scene where she takes control of the situation to save Ovi-Wan's ass at the very end. Who wants to bet the writers give her a droid-style memory wipe to explain how her holographic message to Obi-Wan on Tatooine is clearly from someone who's never met him? Nope. Story and character don't matter . Here's more content, so come up to the trough and start feeding!

Dynaman (1988– )

Before Power Rangers, MST3K & Kids In The Hall...

[9/10 · 24 May 2022]

While it wouldn't be possible to produce a show today, with the voice talent speaking in stereotypical Japanese accents (along with conspicuously stereotypical British and NYC Jewish charicatures (even pre-South Park, no one is safe), once one puts this in context as a product of its time, the short, 6-episode run of this show bears an overabundance of jokes that truly demand repeat viewings to catch even half of. Not all episodes are up to the laughing-milk-thru-your-nostrils standards as, say, "The Seven Brides of Lucky Pierre", but even its weakest episode is maybe too subversive to ever expect a show like this on any network to this day. But I caught episodes (and taped them religiously) starting in early 1988 on USA Network's Night Flight, then saw the first two episodes air once on Nickelodeon, and even as late as the mid-'90s caught Night Flight airing on Seattle's NBC affiliate and if I was lucky, a half-hour of DYNAMAN might be aired as part of it.

If you like Mystery Science Theatre 3000's meta-commentary and obscure pop culture references, you get it all here, too, in the ridiculously improvised English voiceovers that have no relation to the original dialogue from the Japanese show the footage comes from.

Kids and parents were cheated years later when "Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers" came from later seasons of the same Japanese show, with an American for the scenes out of costume, but the show was a cynical sugar rush of spastic action and merchandising. DYNAMAN, though, remains at least as quotable as James Cameron's ALIENS. Any time I'd see a clip from Power Rangers, I'd lament the missed opportunity that no one ever exclaims, "HEY!! It's a giant frog!! And he's all covered with swollen M&Ms!", or at least, "Hip-hip hooray!! We're orphans!"

Not for another 10 years or so, would I notice in the credits, that 4/5 of Kids In The Hall are credited with writing, and Mark McKinney is even the voice of Dyna Blue!

I suspected it was the totally incongruous pop music used in the action scenes that kept this show from getting past its 6th episode. It was probably just too oddball to find a network to do more than test it on audiences. It's not a show you can fold laundry to, you have to be there with it to catch most of the jokes (and, admittedly, some of them go by too quickly or in some cases, the recording sounds muffled (especially in the Flipper episode). This is a far, far better show than Power Rangers could ever be, and it's a shame this didn't find the success that the latter got.

Fragments of badly dubbed broadcasts are occasionally on YouTube... until they get pulled. Find some. Watch with friends. Then listen to your new Patrick Swayze album.

The Book of Boba Fett: Chapter 7: In the Name of Honor (2022) Season 1, Episode 7

Perfunctory. Predictable. You know exactly what happens.

[1/10 · 9 February 2022]

Yeah, so the past six episode obviously "build" to this cacophonous excuse for a climax and there still isn't any character arc or justification for the first 4 episodes of a lobotomized Boba Fett to suddenly decide that being a wannabe mafia don is somehow his calling or even a decent premise for even a single episode of a show.

Hey, kids! Remember the rancor? What do you think happens? That's right! And how much of the entire budget for this series do you think went into that?

The Pikes are the dullest antagonists you can imagine, and you can's help looking at their tiny faces and figuring out how the performer's human face fits behind it. That's about all they have to offer as far as background or purpose.

Fett rounds up his posse and they stand their ground against a Syndicate takeover of the same two towns that anything ever happens, happens at. (Did they not think of Anchorhead?) The big showdown happens in a series of slow-motion flips and stunts and it's all edited together so lethargically, it's clear that padding out runtime takes priority over exciting or coherent action scenes. About a thousand blaster shots fly at multiple targets, out in the open and no one gets hit until the script calls for some nobody background character to go down and their teammate has to urgently run radio commentary that _____'s down.

Remember Grogu? What do you think happens? That's exactly right, because this show is written to give fans what they want! But you just know that Luke sent him away with some more emotional abuse to stew on, throwing his chain mail shirt at him and yelling, "Fine! Go to your Mandalorian, then!", and he trashes his temple, sobbing. "R2, chart a course and fly this little green turd back to his FRIEND who has his own show! I want him out of my sight!" Yeah, sorry, kids. The rancor ate the rest of the Luke budget.

Let's just cap this dreary 5 +2 episode marketing exercise with Fett and his new family gathering and laughing while the camera pans up.

This show didn't remotely redeem itself. The two "good" episodes didn't even have Fett except for a single momentary cameo, yet he remains most absent when he's onscreen. This isn't "subversion of expectations", it's bait & switch. This is not the same character who was always a step ahead of Han & Luke. The showrunners canMy even contrive an excuse to just show off his hidden arsenal more than a whopping two times in his own show. You've got a 40-plus-year-old premise of a loner bounty hunter with the most unusual spaceship in pop culture, who's as archetypical as Bond of Indy, then he gets his own show and they squander everything established about the character, confine him to the most overused setting in all of Star Wars, and rob him of the wits to come out ahead because the writing doesn't have any. This is all about squeezing the property dry by banking on your sentimental attachment to Old People's Star Wars. Any moment you had any reaction to on this show is built on the backs of 40+year-old movie scenes yet they can't be bothered to expand on or develop any character or story arc consistent with what came before. You get a rancor tearing sht up and Grogu shows up just in time to save everyone and preach the word of Cheezus. This is mouthbreather TV.

The Book of Boba Fett (2021–2022)

Sloppy, tedious, perfunctory excuse for programming.

[1/10 · 15 January 2022]

Bring back Star Wars for old people! Remember when Star Wars was this prestigious affair with some of the greatest creative talents in cinema, when the technical expertise in cinematography, film editing, art direction, sound design, sound editing, costume design shone so brightly along with charming screen personalities and screen chemistry that crackled on-screen? Remember how Star Wars got 11 Oscar nominations? Disney doesn't want your high expectations, or else how can they continue cranking out so much product? They also want you to forget Boba Fett was a mercenary killer, notorious as "the most feared bounty hunter in the galaxy", just like most people forget Han Solo was a drug smuggler.

Boba Fett was already wasted in Season 2 of The Mandalorian, with one chaotic action sequence to show off the hidden gadgets in his armour, against the laziest, most disposable fodder of comic relief Stormtroopers, and then he's reduced to playing the getaway driver for the remaining episodes. And yet even that waste is more entertaining than any single moment he gets in his own series. Are you ready to sit down and watch episodes of Boba Fett behaving like a dementia patient and proclaiming that he's now a crime boss who wants to just be nice and fair to people? Another quick glance at the rudimentary premise of the show reveals that he's not going to outwit or track anyone, but he's going to run his new criminal empire with no criminal activity except intimidating a casino for protection money, but essentially, he has no plan, nor does he have a character arc to even explain why he's not the same character you tuned in to see. He's just a squatter in Jabba's former residence and he has no reason to be where he is from the middle of the first episode to the end of the season. If anything, things just get worse while he makes everything worse for himself and everyone else because the showrunners seem determined not to entertain you. Perhaps you've heard: the show is so tedious that 2 of the last 3 episodes are clearly lifted from the upcoming season of the show this spun off from. The production values even go way up while the title character is absent, except for 1 of 2 lines of dialogue. Lucasfilm really should be ashamed and I hope Robert Rodriguez in particular never lives this down. This isn't even "for kids"-tier bad... children and adults alike will wonder who this show is meant for. It's a loud middle finger to viewers who tune in for the title character.

Boba Fett decides to continue wearing his bounty hunter armour while claiming the mantle of crime lord, and whatever reasons or outcomes you imagine from just hearing that, I assure you, are far more interesting than what this show offers. After three episodes of aimless absence of a storyline, the story is no further ahead than when it started. We've had the Tusken Raiders revisited again and again in flashback, with little to nothing learned that we didn't already get from one scene with them in The Mandalorian. Rubbery costumes, airbrushed sets, and the most embarrassing, sloppy, geriatric chase scene you will ever lay eyes on, which Fett only jumps into once it's over. Cosplay enthusiasts may rejoice that their to-do lists will get shorter and cost a lot less once this show's effect on Star Wars sinks in, but audiences are really getting cheated here. Nothing in this show justifies its runtime, much less it's place in Star Wars lore. The only theme or message that comes across is "watch more Disney+".

Alien: Covenant (2017)

Bent on diminishing Alien's accomplishments

[3/10 · 6 January 2022]

When a bad sequel comes along, you'll hear people say the original will always be there to enjoy, but Alien: Convenient goes out of its way to undermine and "reveal" that the premise of the first film is not an instance of humanity against unknowable, ancient, alien forces of nature, but against the brainchild of one of humanity's own creations, making the universe a lot less fascinating and terrifying.

While Prometheus was a maddening farce of stupidity in theatres, numerous scenes cut for "pacing" actually give some reason behind a biologist intent on petting a space cobra. Prometheus was also a visual feast, and gorgeous in 3D, but the modest box office take led Fox to drop support of the narrative tangent Scott wanted to take from the franchise. Viewers who couldn't draw the obvious conclusions to connect Prometheus to Alien, convinced the studio that the solution was to drag Scott kicking and screaming to make the movie he promoted Prometheus by saying he had no intention of making. The entire final act of Convenient is Scott rehashing the cat-&-mouse alien-stalks-aboard-spaceship concept that he often described as "cooked. It's done" to death. Scott proceeds to demonstrate what he meant, by avoiding any tension or excitement to "give the fans what they want", a conventional, predictable slasher premise complete with shower scene with a young horny couple so determined to do The Squish, that they must be punished... just like horny teens getting it on in front of Jason Voorhees... and this is immediately after losing most of their crew, complete with R&B body massage music, baby.

With a drastically lowered budget this time, the visuals are drab, no longer filmed in 3D, and glaring sacrifices are made to the plot, where landing parties explore a new planet without even donning protective spacesuits, like they just took a helicopter trip to a jungle instead. But those cute hats, though..!

Characters are even stupider. No one seems to notice that they're hiding in the ruins of a dead alien civilization or that the architecture is inconsistently giant-scale. That alone should give the terrorized survivors plenty to respond to. The new captain witnesses the deaths of several of his crew, including his wife, and their landing craft just exploded, but he soon witnesses their creepy Android saviour communing with one of the horrible creatures that was just feeding off the body of a crew member just a few feet away. After gunning the creature down, the Android reacts in the most histrionic emulation of shock, theatrically shouting, "IT TRUSTED ME!" (But you can substitute Frank N. Furter's "How CAN you..?!!", or "I didn't make him... FOR YOU!"). What follows isn't far removed from one character telling the other to stick his head in a woodchipper. Realizing he just got pwned, the captain looks at the Android and says, in all seriousness, "What do you believe in, David?" I'll take Damon Lindelof's biblical references any day over this.

Oh, and if you cared, the survivor of Prometheus dies offscreen between films. Fox learned nothing from Alien3.