So you know how people talk about the first ten minutes of Up like that's the most gut-wrenchingly painful thing they've ever watched? I will totally admit that I teared up over Carl and Ellie but it was stoic weeping at best. The first ten minutes of John Wick, though, that made me cry like a sixteen-year-old who just got dumped. Ugh, it was awful and I kept tearing up through the rest of the film.
I will ugly-cry about fictional dogs over fictional people 100% of the time. Dogs are the best. Being friends with dogs is probably the best idea that humans ever had and that's coming from somebody who wishes the space program could be my girlfriend. Dogs. Fucking seriously. I mean, yeah, the dead wife thing is sad too but ugh, don't hurt dogs. Unless you're hurting a fictional dog in order to make an audience okay with the fact that your protagonist is going to murder the population of a South Dakota town. Then we'll see it as a pretty good justification and still find Murder McAwesomeHair a totally acceptable audience proxy.
Having super kick-ass action sequences also helps.
And Willem Dafoe.
And, like, everything?
I enjoyed the shit out of this movie, folks, ugly crying and ultra violence or no. I like action movies, I like Keanu Reeves, I like stories about secret assassination cartels, I like car chases. John Wick wasn't a fantastic, world-shaking, paradigm-shifting piece of high art, by any means, but it was really entertaining and more well-done than it needed to be which was just a nice cherry on top of a solid concept.
I am looking forward to the sequel. So long as nobody hurts the dog.
Cheers,
- Alli
Tuesday, January 19, 2016
Second season blues
So I love the movie Fargo (Marge Gunderson 4eva, if you disagree get out) and I was really extra super impressed with the unexpectedly wonderful first season of Fargo on FX. Season two was okay. Just okay.
I think part of what I like most about Fargo as a film and in the first season are the representation and subversion of expectations - when's the last time you saw a heavily pregnant woman pull a gun on a suspect in a major film? When's the last time you saw a Deaf hitman portrayed as simultaneously intelligent and imposing in a way that had nothing to do with his Deafness in any form of media? And that was also in a show that starred a fat woman as the main character (and supreme badass). And both the original film and first season were written brilliantly; the pacing created a perfect surreality and underscored some bitingly minimalist humor.
Season two was okay. The inclusion of two non-white lead characters was a pleasant surprise that brought up some fascinating conflicts (though the fact that both characters were extremely violent gangsters is troubling). Marital strain was a theme, as were toxic masculinity and police corruption. But there was too much pointlessly bizarre crap clogging up the background. The whole side story with Regan was overdeveloped and did nothing to further the humor, mood, or plot. And then there was the other thing. The really stupid thing. (Spoilers - next sentence) Why the fuck did they feel the need to add aliens who never did anything to this season? (End Spoilers)
So. Anyway. I will say that every single actor in the whole season did a top-notch job. Everyone was just perfect. There were some moments of tremendous humor, and a few instances of human tenderness that were touching.
So it was okay. But not as great as I wished it could be.
Cheers,
- Alli
I think part of what I like most about Fargo as a film and in the first season are the representation and subversion of expectations - when's the last time you saw a heavily pregnant woman pull a gun on a suspect in a major film? When's the last time you saw a Deaf hitman portrayed as simultaneously intelligent and imposing in a way that had nothing to do with his Deafness in any form of media? And that was also in a show that starred a fat woman as the main character (and supreme badass). And both the original film and first season were written brilliantly; the pacing created a perfect surreality and underscored some bitingly minimalist humor.
Season two was okay. The inclusion of two non-white lead characters was a pleasant surprise that brought up some fascinating conflicts (though the fact that both characters were extremely violent gangsters is troubling). Marital strain was a theme, as were toxic masculinity and police corruption. But there was too much pointlessly bizarre crap clogging up the background. The whole side story with Regan was overdeveloped and did nothing to further the humor, mood, or plot. And then there was the other thing. The really stupid thing. (Spoilers - next sentence) Why the fuck did they feel the need to add aliens who never did anything to this season? (End Spoilers)
So. Anyway. I will say that every single actor in the whole season did a top-notch job. Everyone was just perfect. There were some moments of tremendous humor, and a few instances of human tenderness that were touching.
So it was okay. But not as great as I wished it could be.
Cheers,
- Alli
Saturday, January 16, 2016
Flawed show produces terrible film, no one is surprised
On a quiet Saturday, if no one is around to claim the TV for either sportsball or the news, I will helplessly watch Law & Order (SVU, Criminal Intent, or original recipe, I don't care) for as long as TBS, WE, IFC, or anyone else is playing it. It's an awful habit that I can't really explain - I never watched Law & Order before about two years ago, it's a shitty procedural that's frequently based on complete fantasy, and when it's not totally over-the-top fantastic it's totally over-the-top moralistic and I can't help it seriously I've watched for seven hours at a time before. So a few Saturdays ago I was scrolling around seeing if I could catch Stabler and Benson chasing down a bad guy when lo and behold I stumbled upon the worst thing to ever come out of Wolf Films.
Did you know they made a Law & Order movie? IT'S THE WORST. Exiled follows the story of Detective Lenny's Partner in the Early Nineties after he's been banished from the 27th Precinct for punching a City Council Member. Detective Handsome has been banished to Staten Island to chase cats out of trees while Lenny & Co get to solve real crimes. But then a dead prostitute washes up on Detective Jawline's side of the harbor - he has to convince his new chief to let him work the case when they could just hand it back to the NYPD; Det. Pecs gets in a fight with his partner and is assigned to work the case with another detective no one wants to work with because - plot twist - she's a woman! With a vagina and a kid and everything! So Det.s Toxic Masculinity and Boob Haver go to the ME's office and identify the dead prostitute and DUN DUN DUN it turns out she was also a stripper whose twin sister is a ballerina and she was pregnant when she was killed! The ballerina twin sister gets flirty with Det. Eyebrows and lets them know her sister had a pimp named Something Kinda Racist (played by Ice-T before his stint as Finn) - the pimp tells the detectives that the murdered girl was dancing at a club so they go investigate and Det. Slow Down Turbo gets aggressive with the club owner, who happens to know Det. Single Mom from their time in elementary school. Well, it turns out that the 27th has been running surveillance on the club because it's run by the mob.
You get it. This movie was every single crime procedural trope rolled up in one. It wasn't just an extra-long episode of Law & Order, it was the ULTIMATE Law & Order, the Law & Order to end all Law & Orders. And a show that is entertaining enough to watch in a big block is not attractive when viewed in its most concentrated form. This movie was a mess, the actors who are totally competent for an hour-a-week network show don't perform as well in a vehicle with higher production value, and what would make a decent two-episode-arc falls apart as an hour and a half of film.
DUN
DUN
Nobody's shocked.
Cheers,
- Alli
Did you know they made a Law & Order movie? IT'S THE WORST. Exiled follows the story of Detective Lenny's Partner in the Early Nineties after he's been banished from the 27th Precinct for punching a City Council Member. Detective Handsome has been banished to Staten Island to chase cats out of trees while Lenny & Co get to solve real crimes. But then a dead prostitute washes up on Detective Jawline's side of the harbor - he has to convince his new chief to let him work the case when they could just hand it back to the NYPD; Det. Pecs gets in a fight with his partner and is assigned to work the case with another detective no one wants to work with because - plot twist - she's a woman! With a vagina and a kid and everything! So Det.s Toxic Masculinity and Boob Haver go to the ME's office and identify the dead prostitute and DUN DUN DUN it turns out she was also a stripper whose twin sister is a ballerina and she was pregnant when she was killed! The ballerina twin sister gets flirty with Det. Eyebrows and lets them know her sister had a pimp named Something Kinda Racist (played by Ice-T before his stint as Finn) - the pimp tells the detectives that the murdered girl was dancing at a club so they go investigate and Det. Slow Down Turbo gets aggressive with the club owner, who happens to know Det. Single Mom from their time in elementary school. Well, it turns out that the 27th has been running surveillance on the club because it's run by the mob.
You get it. This movie was every single crime procedural trope rolled up in one. It wasn't just an extra-long episode of Law & Order, it was the ULTIMATE Law & Order, the Law & Order to end all Law & Orders. And a show that is entertaining enough to watch in a big block is not attractive when viewed in its most concentrated form. This movie was a mess, the actors who are totally competent for an hour-a-week network show don't perform as well in a vehicle with higher production value, and what would make a decent two-episode-arc falls apart as an hour and a half of film.
DUN
DUN
Nobody's shocked.
Cheers,
- Alli
Nathaniel Hawthorne: Not a fan of Puritans
I mean, it's pretty obvious. Hawthorne doesn't like hypocrites. He's pretty clear on that point. And it's sort of hard to miss when he's hammering you over the head with it on every single page of the story that basically everyone in the US had to read in high school.
Upon reflection, I was an idiot. I'm fairly certain that I'm going to come to that conclusion about past versions of myself every five years or so, but high school Alli was pretty slow on the uptake. It took me forever - like, at least fifty pages - to "get" that Dimmesdale was the father. Reading the book now it's like "oh, obviously - this is a criticism of puritanical hypocrisy right from the first page, of course he's the father." But I guess I was seventeen the first time around and I suppose I can forgive myself.
And really forgiveness is the key here, isn't it? The townsfolk couldn't forgive Hester and suffered for it, Dimmesdale couldn't forgive himself and suffered for it, Hester COULD forgive herself AND Dimmesdale but he had to take it away from her because the puritans were awful. So right in one, Mr. Hawthorne. We get it. Puritans: they sucked.
Which was just a little tiresome to read? I mean that's mostly what I got out of this go-round. I admired Hawthorne's admiration for Hester's character but it was just sort of exhausting by the end of the novel.
Anyway, it did allow me to finally identify the kind of writing I most like from Hawthorne: any time he's snarkily talking about witchcraft. It's the only pleasant part of The House of Seven Gables, the whole reason that "Young Goodman Brown" is a fantastic story, and the most diverting (and cuttingly funny) part of The Scarlet Letter. Yes, yes, yes, the novel is a masterwork by a Giant of American Literature but fuck, okay, I picked up on the Pearl of Great Price symbolism, it got boring, and now I wanna hear about the disappointments and cacklings of Mistress Hibbins.
Cheers,
- Alli
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. Barnes and Noble Classics. New York: New York.
2003. (1850).
Dafuq did I just read?
I like magic realism. I like the fantasy and horror of our imaginations to seep into realistic fiction and make the world topsy-turvy. I like ambiguous books. That said, I don't know what the ass is going on in Crossing the Hudson.
Funnily enough I also like books with no likable characters and this book also falls into that category - Gustav and his parents are repugnant, obsessed, and bizarre; they have moments where you can connect to them as a reader (Gustav's frustration with Rosa is something that I can be particularly sympathetic to) but for a book that's ostensibly about examining relationships it remains incredibly difficult to form a relationship with these characters.
For the majority of the book everyone's a little monster and nothing makes much sense - which I suppose is true of the real world as well. That makes it upsetting that as the book reaches its climax puzzle pieces begin to fit together and the world is given a familiar (false) narrative path to follow.
Maybe it's all escapism, maybe it's the story of a man who hates himself and wants to narrate his way out of a life story he doesn't want to believe in, maybe it's offering an outlet of hope to people who feel trapped by their realities, maybe it's examining the world as a delusion. I can't fucking tell.
I didn't hate this book, it wasn't bad, and it was a lot of fun to read. But in places the characters were too repulsive, at the end the delusion was too convenient, and I was left feeling like the story was forced or false - like an intricate, beautiful door that opens to reveal crude scribbles on a brick wall. The book was reaching for a conclusion that it just couldn't articulate and, while it was a beautiful journey to get to the end of that journey, you finish and feel like you're more lost than you were when you started reading.
Cheers,
- Alli
Jungk, Peter Stephan. Crossing the Hudson. Handsel Books. New York: New York. 2008. (2005).
Friday, January 8, 2016
Cheeses for us meeces
Is there anything, at all, wrong with the Muppets? I'm sure there's something but at the moment it's just not coming to mind.
My sister makes her own special Advent calendar every year; she uses a big poster-board, decorates it with a Christmas tree covered in ornaments, and underneath each ornament is the poster for a Christmas move (Die Hard is always the first of the 25 movies). This year A Muppet Christmas Carol ended up on her board and we sat down to watch it as a family during the night when I normally go to my parents' house to watch TV shows about violent criminals.
A Muppet Christmas Carol is a charming interpretation of Dickens' novella. The Great Gonzo is very funny as Dickens and the story as a whole stays very true to the spirit of the original. It's a story of redemption and hope and kindness in a cold dark world so it's kind of hard to completely fuck up.
I could dig into all the horrifying implications of the Muppet universe here (if even fruit and vegetables can sing can you really eat anything in this universe without becoming a murderer of sentient creatures) but it's a lot more comforting just to revel in the hilarity of the Muppets messing with Victorian England and appreciate the wonderful songwriters who work with the Jim Henson Company. I tend to not be a fan of musicals but I'll always make an exception for a Muppet feature because they're always so mind-bogglingly good. The songs manage to switch between humor and pathos from verse to verse without breaking a sweat, there are always fantastic little setpieces going on in the background of the main musical number (the backstory of the mouses without houses and meeces without cheeses referenced in my title here is a great example) and everyone involved can always FUCKING SING in a way that's really impressive when you remember that the vocalists involved are pretending to be foam pigs, rats, and Gonzos.
Anyway, A Muppet Christmas Carol is a lovely holiday film that's actually relatively agnostic for having "Christ" right there in the title and a bevy of spirits moving through the story. It's a frank discussion of the importance of caring for the people around you and working to better the world and that's as good a message as is ever offered up in Christmas movies, so I'll take it.
Cheers,
- Alli
My sister makes her own special Advent calendar every year; she uses a big poster-board, decorates it with a Christmas tree covered in ornaments, and underneath each ornament is the poster for a Christmas move (Die Hard is always the first of the 25 movies). This year A Muppet Christmas Carol ended up on her board and we sat down to watch it as a family during the night when I normally go to my parents' house to watch TV shows about violent criminals.
A Muppet Christmas Carol is a charming interpretation of Dickens' novella. The Great Gonzo is very funny as Dickens and the story as a whole stays very true to the spirit of the original. It's a story of redemption and hope and kindness in a cold dark world so it's kind of hard to completely fuck up.
I could dig into all the horrifying implications of the Muppet universe here (if even fruit and vegetables can sing can you really eat anything in this universe without becoming a murderer of sentient creatures) but it's a lot more comforting just to revel in the hilarity of the Muppets messing with Victorian England and appreciate the wonderful songwriters who work with the Jim Henson Company. I tend to not be a fan of musicals but I'll always make an exception for a Muppet feature because they're always so mind-bogglingly good. The songs manage to switch between humor and pathos from verse to verse without breaking a sweat, there are always fantastic little setpieces going on in the background of the main musical number (the backstory of the mouses without houses and meeces without cheeses referenced in my title here is a great example) and everyone involved can always FUCKING SING in a way that's really impressive when you remember that the vocalists involved are pretending to be foam pigs, rats, and Gonzos.
Anyway, A Muppet Christmas Carol is a lovely holiday film that's actually relatively agnostic for having "Christ" right there in the title and a bevy of spirits moving through the story. It's a frank discussion of the importance of caring for the people around you and working to better the world and that's as good a message as is ever offered up in Christmas movies, so I'll take it.
Cheers,
- Alli
Saturday, December 26, 2015
Star Wars Spoilers: The Physics Awaken
There is so much about this universe that I don't understand. The politics don't make sense, the parenting doesn't make sense, and the physics don't make sense. Let's start with those.
If the Republic is restored and the Empire is destroyed where does the First Order come from and why isn't the Resistance part of the Republic? Wouldn't the First Order really be the Resistance and the Resistance be the military arm of the Republic? At least when the film starts, before the First Order blows up the capitol of the Republic? And would blowing up the capitol really totally take down the Republic because if so it's a pretty shitty form of galactic representation. Why would the Republic have a single-planet (or even single-system) base in a universe where there's solid proof that someone can relatively easily destroy a planet? If the Resistance really is the military arm of the Republic then having them in a different system makes sense because then you can't target both Republic and Resistance at the same time. But that's also why your senate should be spread out and not concentrated on a single planet in a universe where planet-destroying weapons have been developed. Just sayin'. But the Resistance seems to be resisting the First Order, which gets us to the problem of history. Does no one in this universe have history classes? It's pretty clear that the Empire and its Storm Troopers were a not-good thing, so once its last planet-destroying weapon was destroyed why did anyone from any planet have any dealings with people who pretty clearly were trying to bring back the Empire. It's not like the resources for all this shit are exactly common - Bespin is where the gas for blasters comes from and Lando Calrissian was in charge of mining it - why wasn't the supply to Empire supporters cut off? Is there no way to track shipping mainfests or flight paths in this universe? The background of the prequels was a trade agreement gone wrong - so shouldn't there be some kind of embargo in place against planets with strong First Order ties? I get that we're talking about an entire universe here, full of faster-than-light travel and smugglers like Han Solo but if your government can't keep tabs on people building planet-destroying weapons then it isn't really a very good government, is it? Which means it was actually clever of the Resistance to go rogue and not trust basically anyone but it also means that no one should trust anyone and you're in a constant state of war. Wooo Star Wars!
On to parenting: when the fuck are people in this universe going to start being honest with their children? And stop abandoning them on sand planets? And tell them who their fucking parents are? Because I'm pretty sure we witnessed some cousin-or-sibling potential incest situations between Rey and Ben. At least I sort of have to hope we did because otherwise I'm concerned about why every woman in this universe looks exactly like Amidala. Why did no one sit down and explain to a young Ben, before his Jedi training started, that his grandfather was a powerful man who made terrible choices that tore his life apart and he eventually repented of? I mean that's probably a heavy load of shit to dump on a child but let's be real - if that child is a magic kicking laser wizard you probably want to start them out right and get all the dark family secrets out of the way so they can avoid making similar kicking wizard mistakes. Like murdering all the other apprentices at a Jedi school. If Ben had been sat down by Mom and Pop and Uncle Luke and had the whole story of Grampy Ani explained to him he probably would have been scared shitless of the the Dark Side (but we all know that fear>hate>anger>suffering so who the fuck knows, maybe it WAS explained to him). Also It's becoming painfully clear that the path of the Jedi is utter bullshit. Isolating children from their families to train with celibate kicking wizards who attempt to stifle all emotions is not an effective method of raising people. Jedi aren't supposed to love, they aren't supposed to be afraid, they aren't supposed to feel anything but the force (and its balances and disturbances) which appears to have the side-effect of making force-sensitive people occasionally kill a bunch of kids. So yeah, it looks like the New Jedi Academy is just as poorly planned as the Old Jedi Academy and maybe it's time for Luke to put together some fucking worksheets that he can send out to the parents of force-sensitive children to practice at home instead of consolidating into an easily-killable clump of people who ignore/bottle their emotions. Anybody who makes a mistake bad enough to end with almost all of their students dead and then fucks off for a couple of decades instead of attempting to rectify that mistake shouldn't be in charge of children Just sayin'.
Physics: So is Han force-sensitive and unaware of it or is the speed of light somewhat malleable in this universe (obviously somewhat malleable because 12 parsecs/flight to Degobah/other random faster-than-light stuff that ignores relativity)? Unless Han is force-sensitive and could use that as a cheat around timing there's no way that he could aim the Falcon at a planet to get in while its shields are cycling and not mis-time it badly enough that either the ship would just dissolve as it was passing through or they'd come out of light speed at its core or something along those lines. Also Starkiller base makes no goddamned sense. They fired the weapon once, destroying the seat of the Republic but as they're gearing up to fire again and destroy the Resistance base we find out that firing the weapon uses up a whole goddamned sun. Fucking what? I mean, okay, Tatooine was a binary system, maybe Starkiller base was a binary system too but it sure as fuck wasn't a trinary system or the sky wouldn't have gone completely dark while it was charging to fire. So if they fire again does that mean they're done? No more suns to suck up so that's it, two shots? Or does the planet hang on to some of that solar power to propel itself toward a new sun to suck up? If so how much time does that take because the kind of energy you would need to move a whole goddamned planet across that amount of space is ridiculous. And if you're trying to do so faster than light it's even MORE ridiculous. And stars are FUCKING FAR. Our sun is eight light minutes away from Earth which means that it takes eight minutes for light from our closest star to get here. The closest star other than our sun is Proxima Centauri, which is 4.24 light years away which means that it would take over 4 years to get there if we were traveling at the speed of light. We're in a pretty sparse part of the milky way but even Proxima Centauri (part of a three-star cluster) is .13 light-years away from Alpha Centauri A and B so it takes weeks for light to travel between those incredibly close neighbors. And did you know that there's a specific range that a planet can occupy before it's either too close or too far from a star to support life? Starkiller base just removed itself from that range and has to find a way back into it soon or everyone on it is fucked. Everyone on it is fucked anyway because after the destruction of TWO fucking Death Stars the First Order STILL hasn't figured out that you need to decentralize and contain your power source/weapon/overload system/whatever someplace that it can't be taken down by exterior fire. These people can carve out the mantle of a planet but they still rely on surface-accessible power storage? Bullshit. Also develop a new fucking weapon. You made a Death Star only more so. Why not make a bunch of mini Death Stars that don't actually explode whole planets they just burn off the atmosphere? Seems like this would be a good solution to that whole mobility/not actually destroying suns/planets/resources issue. You don't actually need to blow up a planet to kill off all life on that planet and it seems like it would take less energy to set an atmosphere on fire or fling an asteroid at a planet than it would to make a really big explosion. Or five really big explosions. C'mon, you've got tractor beams, manipulate some gravity and have fun with physics, don't just blow stuff up and kill stars.
Anyway, nitpicky shit aside I enjoyed the movie. I liked the interplay between almost all of the characters though I think there could have been a lot more development done with Han to explain his return to smuggling as a coping mechanism. I liked everything with the new mains, though BB-8 was adorable, and wasn't too annoyed with 3PO for a change. I hope there's more Leia in later films and I hope someone explains why in the name of hot holy fuck she didn't get force training or if she did why she wasn't engaged in the training of Kylo and the other apprentices because that seems like a better use of her time than heading a Resistance that shouldn't have needed to exist in the first place. So. Looking forward to some answers and pretty happy in general. And hey, it was a hell of a lot better than the prequels!
Cheers,
- Alli
If the Republic is restored and the Empire is destroyed where does the First Order come from and why isn't the Resistance part of the Republic? Wouldn't the First Order really be the Resistance and the Resistance be the military arm of the Republic? At least when the film starts, before the First Order blows up the capitol of the Republic? And would blowing up the capitol really totally take down the Republic because if so it's a pretty shitty form of galactic representation. Why would the Republic have a single-planet (or even single-system) base in a universe where there's solid proof that someone can relatively easily destroy a planet? If the Resistance really is the military arm of the Republic then having them in a different system makes sense because then you can't target both Republic and Resistance at the same time. But that's also why your senate should be spread out and not concentrated on a single planet in a universe where planet-destroying weapons have been developed. Just sayin'. But the Resistance seems to be resisting the First Order, which gets us to the problem of history. Does no one in this universe have history classes? It's pretty clear that the Empire and its Storm Troopers were a not-good thing, so once its last planet-destroying weapon was destroyed why did anyone from any planet have any dealings with people who pretty clearly were trying to bring back the Empire. It's not like the resources for all this shit are exactly common - Bespin is where the gas for blasters comes from and Lando Calrissian was in charge of mining it - why wasn't the supply to Empire supporters cut off? Is there no way to track shipping mainfests or flight paths in this universe? The background of the prequels was a trade agreement gone wrong - so shouldn't there be some kind of embargo in place against planets with strong First Order ties? I get that we're talking about an entire universe here, full of faster-than-light travel and smugglers like Han Solo but if your government can't keep tabs on people building planet-destroying weapons then it isn't really a very good government, is it? Which means it was actually clever of the Resistance to go rogue and not trust basically anyone but it also means that no one should trust anyone and you're in a constant state of war. Wooo Star Wars!
On to parenting: when the fuck are people in this universe going to start being honest with their children? And stop abandoning them on sand planets? And tell them who their fucking parents are? Because I'm pretty sure we witnessed some cousin-or-sibling potential incest situations between Rey and Ben. At least I sort of have to hope we did because otherwise I'm concerned about why every woman in this universe looks exactly like Amidala. Why did no one sit down and explain to a young Ben, before his Jedi training started, that his grandfather was a powerful man who made terrible choices that tore his life apart and he eventually repented of? I mean that's probably a heavy load of shit to dump on a child but let's be real - if that child is a magic kicking laser wizard you probably want to start them out right and get all the dark family secrets out of the way so they can avoid making similar kicking wizard mistakes. Like murdering all the other apprentices at a Jedi school. If Ben had been sat down by Mom and Pop and Uncle Luke and had the whole story of Grampy Ani explained to him he probably would have been scared shitless of the the Dark Side (but we all know that fear>hate>anger>suffering so who the fuck knows, maybe it WAS explained to him). Also It's becoming painfully clear that the path of the Jedi is utter bullshit. Isolating children from their families to train with celibate kicking wizards who attempt to stifle all emotions is not an effective method of raising people. Jedi aren't supposed to love, they aren't supposed to be afraid, they aren't supposed to feel anything but the force (and its balances and disturbances) which appears to have the side-effect of making force-sensitive people occasionally kill a bunch of kids. So yeah, it looks like the New Jedi Academy is just as poorly planned as the Old Jedi Academy and maybe it's time for Luke to put together some fucking worksheets that he can send out to the parents of force-sensitive children to practice at home instead of consolidating into an easily-killable clump of people who ignore/bottle their emotions. Anybody who makes a mistake bad enough to end with almost all of their students dead and then fucks off for a couple of decades instead of attempting to rectify that mistake shouldn't be in charge of children Just sayin'.
Physics: So is Han force-sensitive and unaware of it or is the speed of light somewhat malleable in this universe (obviously somewhat malleable because 12 parsecs/flight to Degobah/other random faster-than-light stuff that ignores relativity)? Unless Han is force-sensitive and could use that as a cheat around timing there's no way that he could aim the Falcon at a planet to get in while its shields are cycling and not mis-time it badly enough that either the ship would just dissolve as it was passing through or they'd come out of light speed at its core or something along those lines. Also Starkiller base makes no goddamned sense. They fired the weapon once, destroying the seat of the Republic but as they're gearing up to fire again and destroy the Resistance base we find out that firing the weapon uses up a whole goddamned sun. Fucking what? I mean, okay, Tatooine was a binary system, maybe Starkiller base was a binary system too but it sure as fuck wasn't a trinary system or the sky wouldn't have gone completely dark while it was charging to fire. So if they fire again does that mean they're done? No more suns to suck up so that's it, two shots? Or does the planet hang on to some of that solar power to propel itself toward a new sun to suck up? If so how much time does that take because the kind of energy you would need to move a whole goddamned planet across that amount of space is ridiculous. And if you're trying to do so faster than light it's even MORE ridiculous. And stars are FUCKING FAR. Our sun is eight light minutes away from Earth which means that it takes eight minutes for light from our closest star to get here. The closest star other than our sun is Proxima Centauri, which is 4.24 light years away which means that it would take over 4 years to get there if we were traveling at the speed of light. We're in a pretty sparse part of the milky way but even Proxima Centauri (part of a three-star cluster) is .13 light-years away from Alpha Centauri A and B so it takes weeks for light to travel between those incredibly close neighbors. And did you know that there's a specific range that a planet can occupy before it's either too close or too far from a star to support life? Starkiller base just removed itself from that range and has to find a way back into it soon or everyone on it is fucked. Everyone on it is fucked anyway because after the destruction of TWO fucking Death Stars the First Order STILL hasn't figured out that you need to decentralize and contain your power source/weapon/overload system/whatever someplace that it can't be taken down by exterior fire. These people can carve out the mantle of a planet but they still rely on surface-accessible power storage? Bullshit. Also develop a new fucking weapon. You made a Death Star only more so. Why not make a bunch of mini Death Stars that don't actually explode whole planets they just burn off the atmosphere? Seems like this would be a good solution to that whole mobility/not actually destroying suns/planets/resources issue. You don't actually need to blow up a planet to kill off all life on that planet and it seems like it would take less energy to set an atmosphere on fire or fling an asteroid at a planet than it would to make a really big explosion. Or five really big explosions. C'mon, you've got tractor beams, manipulate some gravity and have fun with physics, don't just blow stuff up and kill stars.
Anyway, nitpicky shit aside I enjoyed the movie. I liked the interplay between almost all of the characters though I think there could have been a lot more development done with Han to explain his return to smuggling as a coping mechanism. I liked everything with the new mains, though BB-8 was adorable, and wasn't too annoyed with 3PO for a change. I hope there's more Leia in later films and I hope someone explains why in the name of hot holy fuck she didn't get force training or if she did why she wasn't engaged in the training of Kylo and the other apprentices because that seems like a better use of her time than heading a Resistance that shouldn't have needed to exist in the first place. So. Looking forward to some answers and pretty happy in general. And hey, it was a hell of a lot better than the prequels!
Cheers,
- Alli
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