Category: Media

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The Rise of Skywalker

I actually saw it Tuesday night, thanks to a friend who works at ILM.  Thanks, DC!

I got to see a crew screening, surrounded by ILM employees and their friends and family.  DC was with his kids, and we bumped into DL and his VERY pregnant wife.  They joked that there could be more excitement in the theatre, since the baby was due a few days ago.

We got free popcorn and sodas.  There was nothing being sold except alcohol, so the kids and I didn’t get any candy.  Bummer.

The theatre was sparsely filled, which was great, because I could hear EVERY. LINE. OF. DIALOGUE, unlike other openings where the crowd is rather boisterous.

These are my initial thoughts after coming home and mulling it about in my head.

I loved it.  This movie had almost everything that I love about Star Wars.

I laughed, cried, cheered, not in that order, and repeatedly.  There were a couple of ‘WTF?’ moments.

This is the first time that I left a theatre after a Star Wars movie totally happy.

My initial ranking puts it behind Rogue One and Star Wars in my personal list, which makes it my 3rd favorite.

So my revised top 10 Star Wars films list looks like this:

  1. Rogue One
  2. Star Wars
  3. The Rise of Skywalker
  4. The Last Jedi
  5. The Empire Strikes Back
  6. Solo
  7. The Force Awakens
  8. Return of the Jedi
  9. Revenge of the Sith
  10. The Phantom Menace

Admittedly, I felt that it was a bit slow at first, but things really picked up in the second half or even 2/3rds of the film.

Recommended (duh).

Go see it!

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Chapter 5

The title of the episode made my jaw drop.

As I though about it later while driving to work, I teared up, because I know Dad would have liked this series, and this episode.

Anyways, The Mandalorian Chapter 5 is everything I’ve ever wanted from a Star Wars TV show.  Familiar locales, a Mando bounty hunter, [redacted], and a plot that was familiar as well, but with a Star Wars flair to it.

Speaking of familiar locales, is it weird that I knew where he was before they confirmed it in the episode?

And as much as I love the little dude, I was glad that there was less Baby Yoda than in all 4 previous episodes.

That other character straight up looked like what I figure I would look like in that universe, right down to his profession.  And fate.

In fact, my head canon now accepts that that WAS me in this episode.  So there.

Thanks, Dave Filoni!

I love this series, probably more than anything else in Star Wars, except Star Wars.

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Never Give Up…

“That was a hell of a thing.” – Fred Kwan

There were maybe 30+ folks in the theatre.  The sound cut out during the pre movie thing by Screen Junkies, including an Honest Trailer for Galaxy Quest.  It was restored a couple of minutes later after a customer went out to tell one of the workers.

The documentary was great, lots of stories of behind the scenes by cast and crew and commentary from celebrity fans like Greg Berlanti, Damon Lindelof and Wil Wheaton.

I teared up when they were talking about Alan Rickman.

This documentary reminded me of how much I love this movie.

Afterwards I picked up one of the souvenir Rise of Skywalker lightsaber cups from the snack bar.

I should have filled it up with blue Icee.  Oh well.

Once I got home, I turned on the movie.

I highly recommend it if you’re a fan of the movie.  Not sure where it will be shown again, to be honest.

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Compartmentalization

In Fandom, we all ask who/what are favorites are:

  • Favorite Show
  • Favorite Movie
  • Favorite Character

Each can further be quantified buy genre or specific show or movie, in the case of characters.

In the case of Star Trek, for example, my favorite characters are Spock, Data, and Odo in TOS, TNG, and DS9, respectively.

In Star Wars, my favorites are Han Solo, Boba Fett, Captain Rex, Kanan Jarrus, Jyn Erso, and The Mandalorian.

But if I had to chose an overall favorite in each?

Spock, obviously, for Star Trek.

In Star Wars, it’s trickier, for me, but if pressed on it, Boba Fett would be chosen over Han Solo.

That is, until now.  3 episodes in and The Mandalorian is fast becoming my overall favorite character.  He’s what Boba Fett should have been, had the prequels never been made and his backstory changed from what had been written or speculated.

This comes from a comment/thread on a friend’s timeline on Facebook, where it was asked if Boba Fett was cool or just looked cool.  I replied that some of the Expanded Universe stories with Fett were cool.

I still think Fett is cool, though.  The Mandalorian is simply better.

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This is the Way

Rarely has a show have me so engulfed that I have tears of joy by the third episode.

Those tears were for something specific in that episode, but still.

The Mandalorian is SO GOOD.

“I gotta get one of those.”

The one thing that annoys me three episodes in is that my Mandalorian action figure is now TOTALLY inaccurate.

Annoying, but I don’t care.

I have spoken.

This is the Way.

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Randomness

I don’t recall if I ever read “Call of the Wild”.  And if I did, I can’t recall most of the plot.

At the moment, I’m about as enthusiastic about the announcement of the new Star Trek film as I was about the announcement of the first J.J. Abrams Star Trek film.

I blame Star Trek Beyond and Discovery.  Maybe Into Darkness as well.

Project: Blueberry Pie was a semi success.  The pie was okay, just more watery/runny than I was expecting.

The little voice in your head is wise.  Listen to it.

Come ON, you Spurs! #mourinho #really

The Saga ends in a month.  I’m ready and not ready for it to end.

Star Wars will live on.

Buh.

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I Have Spoken

I’m gonna say it:

After one episode, The Mandalorian is my favorite Star Wars since the original film.

It’s everything I’ve wanted from Star Wars since I was 10 and 11: it’s a Star Wars TV series AND it’s got a guy who looks like the guy that I liked from the cartoon in The Star Wars Holiday Special.

Seriously, I’ve wanted a TV version of Star Wars since I saw the original movie.  I even imagined episode descriptions as listed in TV Guide, like “Artoo gets captured by the Jawas again.”

And Boba Fett has been my second favorite character since I first saw him in that animated short in 1978.

I’ve gotten lots of shit from people over the years because Fett was a ‘do nothing’ character, much like Captain Phasma in the newer films.  But like Phasma, Boba Fett was a much better character in other media, like comics and novels, and my own imagination.

My gaming group actually met Boba Fett during one scenario, where my bounty hunter character called in a favor from him.

It was the look, and the mystery of Fett and his Mandalorian armor, that made him one of my favorites.

And even back then, and through the years, I never let other people’s opinion’s about him change my fandom.

If there’s one thing I actually hate about the prequels, it’s the way they changed the back story of Boba Fett, making him the son a guy who was the original clone of the Clone Wars.  No more Jaster Mereel, no more Mandalorian background except for the armor.

Which brings us to now, where this new Mandalorian character is everything Boba Fett SHOULD had been, but wasn’t, but it doesn’t matter now because he’s just as much of a badass as I imagined Fett to be in the first place.

Thanks again to Jon Favreau, for breathing life into the side of the Star Wars universe that always appealed to me: bounty hunters and the scum and villainy of the underworld in a galaxy far, far away.

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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!

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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.