Soon

With the impending premiere of The Mandalorian, I’ll be able to pick my favorite Star Wars characters from film, animation, comics, and now live action TV.

Currently my top threes:

Film: Han Solo, Boba Fett, Jyn Erso

Animation: Kanan Jarrus, Captain Rex, Ahsoka Tano

Comics: Jaxxon, Doctor Aphra, Beilert Valance

Projected for TV: Mandalorian, IG-11, Cara Dume

To be fair, those are the ones who I have as action figures.

And I find it amusing that there is a bounty hunter in 3 of the 4 lists.  There could have been, but I really didn’t like Cad Bane.

Valance actually pre-dated Boba Fett by a couple of months in 1978.

This was the only ongoing Star Wars material back in the day.  I picked it up from the corner store.  And it was probably the beginning of my obsession with bounty hunters in Star Wars.

And Jaxxon’s on the cover of this issue, too!

An Elegant Weapon

If there was another moment that blew my mind when I was first saw Star Wars when I was 10 years old, it was this scene:

Actually, it challenged my brain more than blew my mind.

HOW WAS SUCH A WEAPON POSSIBLE?!?!

I didn’t recall seeing a laser sword of any kind up to that point in my limited viewing of science fiction material.

That’s probably when I realized just how advanced things were in a galaxy far, far away.

Well, and droids.  And spaceships.

But a lightsaber?

Probably one of the reasons I identified with Han instead of Luke.

Ranged combat vs. Melee combat.

Which carries over to this day, preferring a blaster to a scrapper in City of Heroes, for example.

I’m continually, subconsciously influenced by a movie from 1977.

Though nowadays I do prefer to play a paladin-type.  Not quite a Jedi, but close.

Terminator Dark Fate

I really liked it.

I love how it ‘ignores’ the other sequels, but it really doesn’t.

Within a minute into the movie, everything changes.

It helps if you’ve watched Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which pretty much laid down the rules on how time travel can change things in the timeline, as it did in the finale, where they arrived in a future where they never heard of John Connor.

It also helps that the showrunner for that series has a ‘story by’ credit in the current film.

Later the film explains those same rules, but again, having seen the TV series does help a bit.

And this film makes me a little more annoyed that the Ghost Rider series on Hulu has been scrapped.  Gabriel Luna make a good bad guy here, and he was great as Ghost Rider in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

I never saw Genisys and was disappointed with both Rise of the Machines and Salvation.  So to me this movie is the sequel to T2: Judgement Day.

3 stars out of 4.  Recommended.  Go see it!

So little time

I find myself with more things that I want to do with the same amount of time given to do them.

Which has never been enough time.

Gaming stuff, writing/artsy stuff, social stuff, family stuff, and other stuff.

It’ll all work itself out.

I think.

Growth

As much as I pan the Prequel Trilogy, the one thing that was good (for me) was Obi-Wan Kenobi, and by extension, Qui-Gon Jinn.  Those two were my favorite characters from those movies, period.  I’m looking forward to the Ewan McGregor ‘Kenobi’ series on Disney+.

“We’ll handle this.”

As a 10 year old, I seemed to identify more with Han Solo, and this went on throughout the Original Trilogy, from Episodes IV to VI.  I like to think that my personality during my teen and young adult years was influenced by Han Solo, Indiana Jones, and Mr. Spock.

But watching The Phantom Menace, I realized that at that point in my life I was identifying more with the Jedi, particularly Qui-Gon.  I wasn’t as reckless and cocky (heh) as I was when I was younger, I was growing more patient and understanding as my career as a sysadmin went on.

“ID-10-T error…”

As far as the Sequel Trilogy, I seem to have gone back to identifying with Solo, mainly because, like him, I’ve seen shit over the past 30+ years that’s changed my world view.  Seeing him admit that he had been wrong about the Force was oddly satisfying.

What brought this on?  Discussion with a co-worker when she brought her Batuu lightsaber around to my cubicle, and talking about the impact of a 42 year old movie on a person, or people like us.

Arrow S08E02

RE: that ending

If you’ve read Crisis on Infinite Earths, then you should know who Lyla Michaels really is.

Heck, I knew who she was and would possible become when they introduced her in season 1.

Moments

The quote that stuck with me the most from the trailer?

“Confronting fear is the destiny of the Jedi.”

Because I’ve faced my greatest fear, finding my Dad’s lifeless body at home.

The image that made me gasp?

Similar to the first image of a Star Destroyer in the original film, which had the same effect, more or less, on 10-year old me.

The bit of music that hit me in the feels?

Tie between Yoda’s theme during Threepio’s line:

“Taking one last look sir… at my friends.”

And the overly-triumphant Star Wars main theme during the latter half of the trailer.

A friend said that I have 2 months to get ready for this film, after I stated that I wasn’t ready.

After watching the trailer more than a dozen times, sleeping on it, letting it permeate my dreams, and waking up on Dad’s birthday, I think I may actually be ready for this.

The Rise of Skywalker

I’m not ready.

I’m just not.  Because this is a saga that I’ve followed since childhood and through my teen and adult life.  And ending it seems to tell me that I have to be an adult now.

And I’m not ready.  I never will be.

Arrow Season 8 Premiere

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much.  I had stopped watching about a season or two ago, I think.  When was Michael Emerson first introduced?

Anyways, the episode was pretty nuts, with Oliver on a parallel world posing as himself, and all the slight changes on that world due to his absence.

I couldn’t follow the flash forward stuff because I don’t know the background behind these characters.  I guess I can either read up or watch a few episodes from last season.

But what really got me was the ending, and the red skies and the antimatter cloud annihilating everything it touches, just like in the comics.

I’m really looking forward to the crossover.

Lemme ‘splain

  1. Superman was, is, and will always be my favorite super hero of all time.
  2. Kingdom Come is one of my all time favorite comic book stories.
  3. Superman Returns is one of my favorite Superman films.

So this image:

fills me with more happiness than humans should be allowed.