The Phantom and Nightcrawler: There’s Always a Choice

I stumbled across a website that contains archives of old comic books, and I took advantage of the situation to learn more about Nightcrawler of the X-Men. Learning about his origins, I realized there were some interesting parallels between his origins and those of Erik, the Phantom of the Opera (and phantom of this blog for as frequently as he manages to insert himself into posts).

To make a long story short, Kurt spent most of his childhood as a sideshow performer at a circus–a lot like Erik did. They also experienced similar treatments of hatred and fear, and both escaped as soon as they got the chance. Where they differ, however, is how they reacted to their situations. We all know what happened to Erik–he turned his back on the world and became an insane, homicidal psychopath. Kurt, however, chose to forgive and not lose hope in humanity.

That decision really impressed me. I knew he was one of the good guys because of X-Men United, but when I was reading his story, I really felt that I was reading the origin of a villain. But that wasn’t what he chose to be. So I found his story extremely fascinating when compared to Erik’s; although they both suffered similar misfortunes as children, they reacted to that misfortune in drastically different ways.

I also feel a little less sorry for Erik now. My reaction to him was similar to what Christine and the Persian felt for him, loathing mixed with pity. But now that I know that Kurt had an almost identical childhood and yet did not become an insane, homicidal psychopath, I’m like…sorry, Erik. You had a choice, buddy, and this was what you chose to be.

But at least he achieved a redemption of sorts and probably made it as far as Literary Purgatory.

So Apparently “The Last Jedi” is Retconning the Chosen One Prophecy

It came to my attention today that The Last Jedi is rumored to reveal that Luke Skywalker operated under the belief that Kylo Ren was the Chosen One. And now he might believe that Rey is the Chosen One. Naturally, my jaw was on the floor. Everyone knows the Chosen One was Anakin/Vader–George Lucas himself confirmed it multiple times–so how they think they can get away with saying he wasn’t the Chosen One is beyond me. We spent six movies with this character with the knowledge he was the Chosen One; you can’t just change that on the fly! They even stated it explicitly with the Mortis storyline from The Clone Wars!

But that’s not all. They are also completely retconning what the Chosen One prophecy stated. I don’t believe it was ever recited in full, but the gist of it was that there would come a Jedi who was conceived not by a human father but by the midichlorians, the microscopic life forms that allow people to commune with the Force, and this Jedi was destined to overthrow the Sith order and bring balance to the Force. But now they are changing the prophecy; now it says that the Chosen One is the reincarnation of the founder of the Jedi Order.

What the–YOU CAN’T RETCON THE CHOSEN ONE PROPHECY! IF YOU HAVE TO RETCON ANYTHING, WHY DON’T YOU MAKE JAR JAR THE SITH LORD HE WAS ORIGINALLY SUPPOSED TO BE!?

I really, really hope a lot of this stuff turns out to be rumors, and they leave the prophecy alone. My geek rage levels will not be pretty if it’s true.

“Shin Godzilla” Proves No One Does the King of the Monsters Like the Japanese

Due to the success of the 2014 Godzilla movie from Legendary Pictures, Toho decided to reboot their beloved monster franchise. Originally the movies were supposed to end with Godzilla: Final Wars in 2004, but the King of the Monsters proved to be so popular in the latest American film that the Japanese couldn’t resist dusting off the original and putting him back in action.

Except it’s not quite the original. This was a complete reboot, meaning that all of the previous movies from 1954 onwards didn’t happen. It felt a bit weird at first, especially when everyone was gasping in awe at “How can he do that!?” and “Why is he destroying Tokyo!?” Guys, if you had kept the original movies, you’d already know the answers to those questions. And interestingly enough, it was not an actor in a suit this time–apparently they tried the suit, but it didn’t work, so they used motion capture instead. I must say they did a darn good job; it looked like a suit.

The good news is that it kept a lot of the spirit of the original movies–ordinary weapons being useless, important lessons about the dangers of nuclear weapons, Godzilla’s radioactive breath razing Japan to the ground…they even kept the original Godzilla theme! There were some cool new things about Godzilla as well, especially his evolutionary stages (I call Stage 2 Godzilla the Awkward Teenage Years).

Yep, even Godzilla had to put up with puberty.

Speaking of appearances, the Shin Godzilla design was pretty controversial when it was first revealed, but on the whole I liked it. It was definitely more menacing than we’ve seen before. I just didn’t particularly like the arms or the tail; they looked way too disproportionate to the rest of the body. Then again, Godzilla hadn’t reached his final form yet, so perhaps when he was fully grown, everything would have looked fine.

In terms of effects, I think this is the most visually stunning Godzilla movie we’ve ever seen. This was especially evident with the radioactive breath.

Burn, baby, burn…

It wasn’t perfect; the parts without Godzilla seem a bit dull, but I think that’s been true of all the Godzilla movies–we’re here for the monster fights, not the human subplots. But I must say that they did come up with a clever, not-too-pseudo-sciencey way of defeating Godzilla, proving that they actually thought about the story.

What’s my final decision? The Japanese are the only ones who know how to do a decent Godzilla movie; the Americans should never have tried, and I hope we start to see more of Godzilla’s frenemies make a comeback as well.

Long live the King!

Happy Birthday, My Turn to Talk!

We’re celebrating the 5th birthday of My Turn to Talk today! Woo-hoo! I never expected to last this long! And what an exciting year it’s been, from the premiere of Star Trek Beyond to overanalzying Dracula to the 50th anniversary of Star Trek to discovering “Scream of the Shalka” to celebrating the 30th anniversary of The Phantom of the Opera (even if the Facebook page decided to remove the videos) to surviving National Blog Post Writing Month to the awesome French Beauty and the Beast adaptation to saying farewell to Hugh Jackman as Wolverine to the premiere of Doctor Who‘s tenth season to tracing the parallels between Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings to the introduction of the Thirteenth Doctor.

Whew, I never realized how busy I was last year until I typed all that out! I can’t wait to see what else I’ll accomplish in this coming year! And it is you, dear readers, that inspire me to come back and keep typing away–even it’s something I think is a little silly, I do take pleasure in thinking that somewhere out there, these crazy ramblings of mine are making someone smile.

And now for the obligatory posting of “One Day More”:

Mauve Alert! Doctor Who Christmas Trailer Released!

The moment is coming for the Doctor to regenerate, but he’s going out in style with help from his first self and a man who may or may not be the Brigadier.

I should be sad because it’s Capaldi’s last episode, but WE HAVE THE FIRST DOCTOR IN THIS EPISODE! 

Farewell to a Doctor Who Legend

It was announced yesterday that Deborah Watling, who played the Second Doctor’s companion Victoria Waterfield, lost her battle with lung cancer at the age of 69. Victoria joined the Doctor and Jamie in their travels after her father was killed by the Daleks in 1967’s “The Evil of the Daleks” and was introduced to a world she never imagined existed. Although she enjoyed seeing all of time and space, she eventually settled down in 1968 as the adopted daughter of Frank and Maggie Harris.

I had the opportunity to meet Deborah Watling at a convention last year (even got her autograph), and she was such a kind and sweet lady–so much fun to talk to. I dearly hope she rests in peace.

Thirteenth Doctor Announced

The wait is finally over…

I can’t say I’m sold on the choice of actor, but I’m going to watch a couple of episodes before passing judgement.