Author: Chris S.

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Andor Season 2

I almost want to put Andor ahead of Rogue One on my list of favorite Star Wars projects, but as I still leave the original 1977 film at the top because everything afterwards came from it, we don’t get the Andor show without Rogue One.

That said, Andor‘s two seasons was an amazing piece of Star Wars storytelling.

And as awesome as the third arc (Episodes 7-9) was, this fourth arc was quieter but told as good a story.

The backstory of Luthen, the rescue of Kleya, the final chapter all hold up to the rest of the series.  And while I expected some bittersweet endings, there were some moments of satisfaction with the fate of certain characters we’ve followed since Season 1.

As for that final shot, that was probably the most satisfying of them all, as a couple of characters who I was most concerned about were shown to be at peace and safe.

When the series ended, Disney+ popped up ‘You may also like: Rogue One‘ and I immediately pressed play to start watching what’s jokingly referred to as the 2 hour 13 minute post credits scene to Andor.

I got about a third of the way through before it was about bedtime for me, but I also decided that instead of finishing the film soon, I’m going to watch the entire Andor Saga from Season 1 to Rogue One, probably over the rest of the month, and then celebrate the anniversary of Star Wars on the 25th with a viewing of the first film.

As for my overall review of Andor Season 2, I’ll just say that it joins Season 1 as the best Star Wars content since The Empire Strikes Back.

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Episode 6

As I type this, it’s been maybe a couple of hours since I finished watching Tales of the Underworld, the latest animated offering from Star Wars.

And I’m still a bit of a wreck.

The first three episodes featured fan-favorite Asajj Ventriss, while the last three episodes featured another fan-favorite, Cad Bane.

All the episodes were good, but when I got to the final episode and realized what they were doing, I simply could not believe it.

Minor spoiler here, but basically they were paying tribute to High Noon.

Which is one of my Dad’s favorite movies.  The one that both of us would stop what we were doing and watch if we found it playing on some TV channel.

There so many scenes in the episode that echoed the movie.

By the end, I was tearing up, but smiling, and about an hour later, thinking back on the episode, I began to sob and totally lost it.

Dad’s death anniversary is a week away, a day before Mother’s Day this year, so that combo would inevitably do me in emotionally, but of course it triggered a week early because of Star Wars.

While watching a reactor’s first viewing of the original Star Wars today, I was reminded of something I asked my Dad when I was 10:

“What was your favorite part of Star Wars?”

Dad told me that he liked the part where Luke blew up the Death Star.

I think he would have liked this episode of Tales of the Underworld, even though he didn’t watch much of the animated shows.

And to be totally honest, I felt him there, watching that episode with me, as we always did with High Noon.

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Thunderbolts*

This one felt more like a Marvel film that most of the recent Marvel films.

I liked it, it was much better than Brave New World.

The characters were good, the plot was good, and the villain was better than Sidewinder and Sterns.

For me it was worth it JUST for the post credits scene, which was hinted at if you paid attention to the MUSIC part of the credits.

My nephew said that he wouldn’t mind another stand alone movie/Disney+ special with this team, but we both know that that’s not going to happen.

It was a fun time at the movies, even with the heavy themes they hit throughout the film.

Thumbs up!  Go see it!  In the theatre!  Or wait for streaming!

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Brave New World

Overall, I liked it.

It was not a bad movie, nor a great movie.

It felt to me like a bunch of set pieces/action scenes that were put together around something of a plot.

Anthony Mackie was great as Captain America.

Danny Ramirez was okay as Falcon.

Nothing really jumped out at me as significant, but like others have said elsewhere, this feels like it set up so much for the next few movies, and at the same time it tied up a bunch of loose ends in the MCU, dating back to 2008.

What did stand out (and I may be biased) was Harrison Ford taking over the role of Thunderbolt Ross from the late great William Hurt.  He and Mackie carried the film.  A lot of the supporting characters seemed flat to me, including the main villain.

There were a couple of cameos that surprised me, though on reflection they shouldn’t have.

This film was better than a majority of Marvel films that came out after Endgame, which isn’t saying much, of course, but I would rank it above Eternals, and I actually liked Eternals.

Here’s hoping Thunderbolts* lives up to it’s hype in May.

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#prepare4launch

It’s no secret that Superman and Spider-Man are my top 2 superheroes from DC and Marvel, respectively.

But in the early 80s, when Marvel stopped publishing The Micronauts, of which I had a subscription, I chose to get the Fantastic Four as a replacement title in the mail.  And the reason for that was because I loved the late 70s Fantastic Four cartoon, which introduced H.E.R.B.I.E. the Robot.

This was just as John Byrne started his run on the book, and I loved everything about the look of his Fantastic Four.

I had a mail subscription for a few more years, and then started getting the book monthly along with a bunch of other books from a comic book store.

I gave up on comics in the mid 90s, and I think I stopped getting FF shortly before that.

Flash forward to this morning, and I waited that full hour until the actual trailer was shown.

Annoyed as I was with the stupid countdown and the overly drawn out interviews, the trailer was awesome.

The Thing looked like the Thing I’ve always known.  Johnny, Reed, and Sue all looked great, to me.  As did Galactus’ shadow and helmet.

The whole retro vibe of this movie feels so right for the way the MCU works and how the FF needs to be brought into Phase 5.

I may be more excited about this movie than I am about Gunn’s Superman.

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Secret Movie Night

Cinemark had one of their $5 Secret Movie Nights on Monday, and I bought a ticket a couple of weeks ago, when it was first announced.

I had a feeling I knew what movie it was from what was coming out later this week.

I love the original Gladiator, and for $5, I was willing to see if this sequel was as good if not better.

It was good.  I think the original was better.

We still had like 20 minutes of trailers before the movie started, but once it did, I had a big grin on my face when the title appeared.

All the actors were good, especially Denzel and Pedro, and the callbacks to the first film were great.

Overall I think it’s worth a watch.  3 stars out of 4.

Go see it!

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Stream of Consciousness

This morning I found out that a blu-ray and DVD set were released for the COMPLETE Super Friends series.

I then looked up how much they were, and actually put the blu-ray set in my cart on Amazon.

I then remembered that I bought a bunch of  Super Friends content on  Amazon Prime Video a year or so ago using an Amazon gift card.

I then checked how many episodes of Super Friends were made.

93.

I then went back to Amazon Prime Video and counted the total number of episodes that I had purchased, over the 9 seasons of the series.

93.

Well then.

I then removed the blu-ray set from my Amazon cart.