The Real Problem with “The Last Jedi”

I can almost hear the groans and see the eye-rolls, but I’m plugging away anyway. Ever since its release in December 2017, The Last Jedi has been by far one of the most divisive and controversial films in Star Wars. Most people seem to be in either the “I love it” or “I hate it” camps; in my own review, I had a mixed opinion–I liked how it was trying to be different and be its own movie instead of copying another (looking squarely at you, Force Awakens), but there were a lot of elements I thought could have been handled better than they actually were. After so many months of articles and discussions about the film, though, I think I’ve discovered what the basic problem seems to be.

No one is allowed to dislike it.

If anyone, for any reason, says they didn’t like it, they are automatically called all sorts of horrendous names and treated like online lepers. Some of the reasons are (in my opinion) kind of ridiculous; others hold validity, but all are equally treated with disdain. Why is this? There was no juvenile name-calling if you didn’t like the prequels–the name-calling usually happens if you say you did like them–so why is this happening with the sequel films? Different people are going to like different movies; you can’t force them to like The Last Jedi if there was stuff they didn’t like.

I think this is contributing to why more and more people seem to be voicing their displeasure with The Last Jedi–they see the online bullying that comes with saying you didn’t like it, and they don’t want to stand for it. And I can’t say that I blame them. Since when did liking certain movies become mandatory?

With that in mind, I really hope Episode IX helps to reunite the fractured fandom. Because if it continues in this state, I really don’t see how it can last at all.

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Happy Birthday, My Turn to Talk!

Six years! Can you believe it!? And what a year it’s been. We’ve covered everything from the 2016 Godzilla movie from Japan to the big eclipse to the pilot of Star Trek: Discovery to a fascinating story about St. Michael the Archangel to exploring the cause for Tolkien’s canonization to saying farewell to the Twelfth Doctor to reviewing The Last Jedi to watching bluegrass-playing Dominicans to discovering The Clone Wars to the greatest day of my Whovian life to saying goodbye to Once Upon a Time to an updated comparison of the Jedi and Sith in Star Wars: The Old Republic.

As always, I thank you all for continuing to read my random musings year after year. Onwards to the next year!

This Time We Have a Proper Trailer

In light of the disappointing teaser we got on Sunday, I have to say the new trailer Doctor Who released for Comic Con is much better. I’m feeling a tab more hopeful about the new season now although I’m still not giving it a free pass. Still, at least we got more than people eating this time.

New “Doctor Who” Teaser is Here!

Honestly…I found this underwhelming and disappointing. It was really nothing more than the new companions eating, and the Doctor’s new powers were more confusing than they were intriguing. The more I hear about the new season, the more I worry Chris Chibnall doesn’t know what he’s doing, and the show will suffer for it. I really hope the ComiCon trailer scheduled for release later this week is better.

Happy Independence Day!

I know I shared this clip last year, but I’m sharing it again not only for it’s awesomeness but for what it represents–a leader who is willing to fight alongside his people, who shows that he has no intention of asking them to do something that he isn’t willing to do himself. A modern-day Aragorn, a foreshadowing of Captain Kirk–I guess I’ve always admired the leaders who stand up and say, “Follow me.”

Jedi vs. Sith Part Two

A couple of years ago I wrote a post about how I was playing Star Wars: The Old Republic and comparing my Jedi and Sith characters. In that post I remarked that I felt the Jedi was the stronger of the two characters based on how the fighting style seemed more focused and controlled. Well, I think I’ve changed my mind.

After I wrote the original post, I eventually finished the class stories for my Jedi Consular and Sith Inquisitor and also played as a Jedi Knight and Sith Warrior. And after finishing all four of the Force-wielding classes, I have to say that the Sith get better everything–better stories, better companions, better music, etc. The Jedi are definitely the better fighters, but their stories just seem so bland when compared to their Sith counterparts. Of course, it could be that I found the Sith stories more compelling because I wasn’t strictly dark side with them; I made a lot of light side choices that added a certain amount of nuance to the overall plot whereas I was pretty much straight light side with the Jedi. But on the whole the Sith characters just came across as so much more interesting.

Just how interesting did I find the Sith? I played through the Warrior story twice, once as a marauder and once as a juggernaut. To be perfectly honest, though, I did think the Jedi Knight story was just about on an even keel with the Sith Warrior story in terms of quality. In fact, after playing all of the Force-wielding classes, I began to think the Jedi Consular story was pretty boring, which made me a little sad because the Consular was the first character I ever created. At the time it was utterly fascinating, but compared with the other stories, it ends up a bit underwhelming. So in a way, it’s kind of interesting to see how a couple extra years in the game have changed my opinion of it.

Some Thoughts on “Doctor Who: Nightmare of Eden”

I originally hadn’t planned on writing a review of this 1979 serial, but it surprised me by going in an entirely different direction than I had expected. Featuring Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor, Lalla Ward as Romana, and David Brierly as the voice of K-9, “Nightmare of Eden” starts off with a standard ships-in-space-are-in-trouble motif but ends with inter-dimensional portals and drug smuggling. It’s been lambasted a bit for certain scenes coming off as cheap pantomime, but I didn’t really notice anything I would describe like that. Yes, there were some silly moments, but that’s often been the case with Doctor Who, especially with the Fourth Doctor.

Speaking of silly, the monster-of-the-week Mandrels have been criticized as well for not being scary–and they weren’t–but I really liked the idea that the powder into which they crumbled after death was the new source for the deadly Vraxoin drug. In a sense, I think that should qualify them for being scary, that their dead bodies produced a substance capable of destroying entire planets.

I also liked the inter-dimensional aspects that came into play with the Continual Event Transmuter. The technology was a bit like what the primitive Time Lords used (at least, that’s the impression I got from the Doctor and Romana), so in a way it was kind of like watching the development of Time Lord technology, albeit in the hands of a human who didn’t fully understand what he was working with.

Final verdict: it’s not the best Fourth Doctor outing, but it went down some paths I hadn’t expected and so turned out to be pretty enjoyable. This is one of those take-it-or-leave-it stories–you may enjoy it, but you won’t necessarily miss out on anything if you choose to skip it.