My own self

People fake a lot of human interactions, but I feel like I fake them all, and I fake them very well. That’s my burden, I guess.

Many people have recommended me this show based on a book called Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsey, but I believe main credit for pushing me past the "will try it out sometime"-block and into the "trying it out now"-zone should be handed to Amras Elensar more than anyone else. By funny coincidence, the day before my scheduled watch of the pilot episode, Shirgaal reviewed it as well, a very positive one that would probably have tipped me over had I not decided to watch it already.

I was strongly skeptical at first mainly due to my lack of interest in and the downright unpleasantness of seeing a lot of explicit violence on screen. Oddly, the show didn't have much of it, and most of what there was happened in the first few episodes. Sure, they don't shy away from it, but they usually cut away from the worse acts of violence, just showing the lead-up and, of course, the results, but even the latter category got a little less horridly vivid as the show progressed. I applaud. No need to speculate, right.

The show, you see, is not at all about the violence. It's about the lack of feeling anything that drives the character(s) to it. The main and title character Dexter Morgan is not just the centre building block of the show, he is its epitome, its foundation and walls both, its carrying pillar, its axis mundi. A quote from Jane Espenson's blog springs to mind - "A House without a House at its centre cannot stand" - nor could a Dexter without a Dexter. With that, as on House, comes a myriad of strengths and weaknesses.

This is, to me, the first of show's two main issues keeping me from unequivocally loving it to, if you'll pardon a quite tasteless pun (and of course you will, you're reading my weblog after all and shouldn't be expecting any better), bits. See, I'm an ensemble cast man. I grew up loving Animals of Farthing Wood and Sinbad the Sailor. I got sold on serialized television in my teens through shows like Friends, Angel, Buffy, Judging Amy and Babylon 5. My present-day top favourite TV-shows are to a one marked by a big family of protagonists, each able to carry an episode on their own if they need to - and they're usually given the chance, too.

That's why a show like Dexter or House M.D. have hard times really climbing the ladder of my list of excellent shows. When this much time and energy is spent on the title character, making him look interesting and give him issues to deal with, the other characters have to suffer, and what's left is only degrees of how much So believe me when I tell you - it's still an excellent show, and you should try it out.

The other issue I have with the show is simply one of genre and premise - it's not really for me. I don't mean I don't enjoy it, I do, but I can never enjoy it as much as I would if this took place in Narnia rather than Miami. It's a mental block, a genre preference, a silly boy's silly tastes, call it what you will, but to me, any premise of a story set in present day in the real world will necessarily be less interesting than something that's not. That need not bother the reader though, and I will not bring that up again in this review. Just keep in mind that this is an additional reason for me to be less-than-excited with the show that's colouring what I think of it.

So, what IS this show? Well, without spoiling much beyond the pilot, it's a show following Dexter, a man shaped by a horrid and suppressed childhood trauma and a freakishly intelligent, hard, caring and morally free-thinking adoptive father into a trained killer. He has no emotions, having only the urge to kill, but he channels his need to do so into carefully planned out and just as carefully executed entrapments and killings of other serial killers on the Code his adoptive father taught him. Simultaneously, he was trained to blend in as a normal person, faking emotions, faking human relations, faking affection and attachment. And he's damned good at it, too, just about everybody loves Dexter. But Dexter, sadly, loves no-one.

Or at least, that's how the season starts out. Dexter is living an emotionless life in the forensics of the Miami police by day, being almost a prodigy at analysing dead bodies and blood splatters. By night he is killing off the scum of the Earth, and feeling good about it too. Then comes along the Ice Truck Killer, an, in Dexter's eyes, true artist of murder, and Dexter gets caught up in his game.

The cast is good for a title-character-focused show. Dexter's sister is lacking a little bit in charisma, but I honestly feel that's mostly because her character is an off-putting combination of insecure and overly sure of herself, and not through any fault of the actress'. The policemen in Dexter's life are all interesting enough, the exception maybe being a character I grew quite the distaste for, the local lieutenant. Thankfully she has a superior officer who is a far more classy brand of jackass (reminding me every so slightly of the awesome Rawls of The Wire) and knows how to put her into her place, which produced some of my favourite non-Dexter scenes of the show.

There are only two truly fascinating characters beyond Dexter himself, though - the Ice Truck Killer, and Dexter's girlfriend, Rita. A long-time victim of spousal abuse and single mum to two, Dexter chooses to spend time with Rita because she is damaged and, in a way, empty like him. The awkwardness and tentative steps of their relationship is beautiful and my by far favourite aspect of the show.

The show is heavy on the season mystery while following smaller episode-by-episode plots as well, much like Veronica Mars used to be, but in that comparison, the mystery is a little less captivating and more predictable than Veronica's was despite (or because) getting more attention during the entire season's run. It's still very good, though, and the show as a whole is incredibly addictive.




Now follows the spoilery part of the review, those who haven't seen the season yet and think they will at some point should skip to the last paragraph.

As the season progresses the Ice Truck Killer keeps attempting to undermine Harry's Code in Dexter's head, keeps trying to open up his suppressed memories to reveal, among other things, his adoptive father's somewhat less than truthful behaviour with regards to Dexter's childhood.

Rudy/Brian was very interesting. The problem was, of course, that I felt pretty confident that he was the Ice Truck Killer the second the character came on scene. You could tell that the man in the white coat was a character actor, and not just some random guy, and that was really enough. It's a sad fact, but, dramatically, they HAVE to make the killer into someone that's already introduced on the show to make the reveal exciting enough, and he was the only character who not only grew from a background-character with two lines into one with as much screentime as any other supporting actor, but who was clearly not cast by a nobody-actor.

When they started heaping on hints on him in addition, I actually started thinking he might not be the guy after all, but an intentional mislead. So that the Big Mystery Of The Season really only ever had one real candidate among the cast was saddening. The character himself, though, was awesome, as was the actor. I have to admit that while I obviously realized he had some connection to Dexter’s childhood, once I saw how young he was (and thus he couldn't possibly have been the killer of Dexter's mum) I stopped thinking about that and thus didn’t see his being Dexter’s brother coming until just a short while before it was revealed. So at least they got me a little there.

As loose ends go, the season didn't really leave many except obvious start-ups for season 2, but I do wonder a lot on Brian's need to kill their biological father. It felt as though there was something there that should've been revealed but never was, which bugs me.

The unblocking of Dexter's memories also leading him to feel a little again, thus starting to care for his sister beyond Harry's Code just as Harry's authority was broken down enough in his head for him to consider breaking it, was a very nice and ironic twist. Brian would probably have succeeded in his scheme had he confronted Dexter with Harry's lies without also unblocking his memories - he would've lost faith in his father's Code without regaining some sense of emotion.

This also lead to a very nice - and long in the coming - turn in Dexter's relationship with Rita, as he is genuinely starting to need company in his life. The season finale is very, very good.




On the whole, the season is a beautifully crafted story with very good visuals and at times very funny little mental remarks from Dexter, and my only real complaint isn't truly valid - as it is that I don't think this particular story could be told much better, but that I think they could have made a story more suited to my tastes in stead. As it stands, it is a very successful and almost equally daring piece of work. The only thing I've seen that's remotely similar to this is the very excellent and thoroughly canceled The Inside, but even that wasn't quite as dark as the mere premise of this show. I might not have heard of James Manos Jr. before (Wikipedia claims he's been involved on The Sopranos and The Shield though), but he's made what's easily one of the best made shows I've ever seen, and certainly one of the more addictive ones. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and look forward to the second season - which I will of course be watching right away.

Just for anyone who might wonder, the show (click here for my post about its pilot), whilst miraculously still not formally cancelled, has been moved to this summer, where its piss-poor ratings will look a little less shitty next to exclusively reruns of more popular and far less interesting shows. Also for anyone who might wonder, every single episode that's aired before they moved it has delivered on the promise of the pilot. I watch ungodly amounts of American television, and of all the current shows, this is my favourite by far. (Even Pushing Daisies is a far cry behind, though I will admit that's probably due to it being less up my alley genre-wise than Kings). Of the six episodes aired so far, only the one failed to leave me completely overwhelmed, and even that one was a cut above most other shows I currently watch, especially now that Battlestar is done. I need to go to giants of Television Past to find suitable shows to compare Kings to, but I won't, as it will just crank your after this post unreasonably high expectations even higher than they already are. Suffice to say that if good dialogue, an interesting world, compelling acting and lots of delicious politics and intrigue with a very well done layer of the religious and spiritual sprinkled in sounds made for you - not to mention Ian Mc-bloody-Shane owning every television screen he has ever appeared on - Kings is a show you should go watch, and a show you should go watch now. Though of course you can't, because they booted it to mid-June. So catch it this summer, or get it on DVD once it is cancelled as these ambitious and impeccably well done shows always are. I implore you.

You probably should not read this if you've not seen the Battlestar Galactica finale yet. It's pretty vague, but still.

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Shakespeare editor George Steevens (1736-1800) who died on this date, once carved an Anglo-Saxon inscription on the remnant of a chimney slab, making it appear to be the gravestone of King Hardecanute of Denmark. It read: "Here Hardcnut drank a wine-horn dry, stared about him, and died." This sleight of hand was done to avenge some adverse criticism Steevens had received from a Mr. Gough, director of the Society of Antiquities, for whom this stone "bait" was placed in an antiqury's shop that he was known to freqeuent. After Gough's "discovery," a paper was read before excited Society members, and a likeness of the fakery was published in Gentleman's Magazine. Steeven's hoax was soon discovered, and he was denounced by the archeological comunity. But Steevens had the last word, writing gleefully of having deceived the gullible director who was incapable of, as Steevens put it, "wriggling off the hook on which he is so archæologically suspended."

- Jeffrey Kacirk,
on the Thursday 22nd January entry of his Forgotten English - A 365-Day Calendar of Vanishing Vocabulary and Folklore for 2009.

I'm one strange animal, I am. Star Wars is an excellent example of why. I love Star Wars. Really do. I might not be as fanboy as they come, but with Star Wars, that extreme is a little crazier than usual. Suffice to say I know why it'd be better if Han still shot first, who Ysanne Isard was, how Chewbacca dies, what the Outbound Flight Project was, what changes the DVD-releases of the original trilogy did to the story, how Palpatine survived episode VI and why the coolest villain of the Star Wars-universe is neither a Sith nor depicted in the movies. I might not be among the most devoted fans, but out of any random group of a hundred people, I'd bet you I'm in the top three as far as interest in this world and these movies is concerned. This probably makes me strange enough for most people, but I believe my readership here, small as it is, to be somewhat more selective in handing out the "strange"-label. So let me try to demonstrate.

I don't particularly think these movies are all that great. No no, I don't just mean the three more recent ones. I mean all of them. Alright, Empire Strikes Back is pretty awesome. But IV and VI are overrated.

That's right. I'm a huge big Star Wars enthusiast, and I just said the original movie isn't all that. To make matters worse, I don't think the new ones are as bad as they're cracked down to be.


In the weekend preceding Christmas and in the extended Christmas weekend proper, I did a full re-watch of the sage, including the very good Clone Wars-animated series as an episode 2.5 (the old one, not the new and digitally animated stuff that is currently airing), and here is my attempt at an efficient review of the whole thing. And be warned in advance - this is a review of the current DVD-editions of the movies. If you're some kind of anal purist denying their existence, that's your business. This post is about the official saga as it exists right now. (With Clone Wars added in because, well, that's what it was made for and this is my weblog.)



The Phantom Menance

Viceroy Nute Gunray: "My lord. Is that... legal?"
Darth Sidious: "I will make it legal."

Movie Plot:
The Phantom Menance tells the story of a small planet in the Galactic Republic falling victim to an illegal trade blockade that escalates into a full-scale invasion by a powerful interplanetary guild named the Trade Federation. The Republic, struggling with corruption and power-struggles in the ruling body of the Senate, finds itself incapable of ending the situation easily. The Supreme Chancellor, acting on his own, sends two Jedi to sort the matter out. The members of this ancient order of wizard-priests and warriors sent is a Jedi Knight named Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice. Qui-Gon is a strong-willed and well respected member of his order, one having the skill set and experience deemed necessary to sit on its ruling Council yet not yet awarded the position due to his many theological differences with them. His apprentice, Obi-Wan, while far more tempered with the conservative ideas of the Council, remains his faithful and loyal if somewhat critical junior companion during his master's disagreement with the ruling body of their Order. The remaining main characters of the tale are two equally gifted but vastly different individuals - the immensely capable but very young ruler of the invaded planet, Padmé Amidala, an idealistic but cunning politician with great loyalty to her people, and Anakin Skywalker, the even younger and mysteriously fatherless slave boy from the Outer Rim of the galaxy with enormous understanding of all things mechanical and a natural affinity for the mystic Jedi arts with no historical parallel. Despite the objections of the Council, Qui-Gon Jinn, convinced this boy is one told of in prophecy, and introduces the boy to the Jedi teachings. The Trade Federation's actions are revealed to be the product of a secret plot by the hidden sect of the Sith, when the Sith Order's junior member, Lord Maul, is sent to kill the Jedi and Amidala but fails. The Order of the Sith, believed extinct for centuries, are users of the same mystical Force as the Jedi, but on directly opposing theological grounds, acting on self-preservation rather than altruism. The disunity in the Galactic Senate is disposed of by removing the friendly but politically weak Supreme Chancellor in favour of electing another, stronger politician friendly to the little planet's need. Amidala is not satisfied with the speed of the Republic's promised assistance, and goes back to her planet to ally herself with a less technologically advances species indigenous to the planet's swamps and oceans to overthrow the occupation. The Jedi Council, alarmed by the presence of a Sith Lord in the affair, send Jinn and Kenobi back with her for her protection. The planet is re-taken and the junior Sith Lord slain by Kenobi, after he himself slaying Jinn. Kenobi, following his master's dying request, takes up the boy Skywalker as his apprentice with a Jedi Council begrudgingly agreeing despite its senior member, Yoda, still disagreeing. The movie ends of a note of unity and success, despite not having unraveled the Sith's role in the affair nor found the location or identity of Lord Maul's teacher in the order.

Saga Plot:
The Chosen One, Anakin Skywalker, is found as a slave boy on the Outer Rim planet of Tatooine by maverick Jedi Knight Qui-Gon Jinn, and the evil Sith Order resurfaces after centuries of hiding. Jinn dies, but is able to include Skywalker in the Jedi Order, under the tutelage of Jinn's old apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi, despite doubts in the Jedi Order's ruling body as to the boy's fitness. Skywalker harbours anger and fear for his mother, trapped as a slave back on Tatooine, and is additionally far older than what is customary for indoctrination into the Order. Skywalker's status as the One Chosen to bring balance to the Jedi's pantheistic Force is also doubted by several of the Order's prominent members. The Sith Order suffers a set-back in losing its junior member and having its plot to through an illegal invasion of a small planet create dissension and mistrust in the Galactic Senate foiled, but succeeds in the main goal of removing its moral leader from office and installing a new one named Palpatine as Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic.

Favourite Moment:
When Darth Maul attacks the two Jedi in Theed towards the movie's end.

Worst Moment:
Jar Jar Binks' outrageous amounts of luck during the movie's final combat.

Missed Opportunity:
Intrigue, dammit. All this talk about corruption and beuracracy, and we never see any of it!

Best Surprise:
The character of Qui-Gon Jinn. His dissension with the Council proper and huge role in the Saga's more theological aspects is by far this movie's greatest contribution. However, it should also be mentioned that Darth Maul is the only successful of Lucas' many attempts at recreating a badguy of Darth Vader's visual impact.

My Overall Opinion:
This movie has a ton of weaknesses. Ridiculously stupid gags and jokes (many of them put in the mouth of Jar Jar Binks, seeing as C-3PO is unavailable for most of the film) abound, of course, but anyone who has ever seen a Star Wars-film expects that. Far more damaging is the podrace which, while entertaining enough the first time around, drags out into the insane upon rewatching. The rest of the movie holds up surprisingly well. R2-D2's mysteriously casual entry into the story is fitting with the enigmatic character he's always been, and the introduction of Anakin, while certainly far from perfect, works better than many of the movie's critics claim. Qui-Gon Jinn and Darth Maul, as mentioned, both work great to flesh out and draw me into this pre-Empire Star Wars-universe, and I quite like Nute Gunray, viceroy of the Trade Federation, as well. Amidala has her best movie in the saga by far, here, where she actually gets things to do. Palpatine is wonderfully jovial. The main complaints, character-wise, are the unnecessarily silly Jar Jar and the underused Obi-Wan who never really has much to say or do in the film at all.
The acting and the dialogue (which is very hard to separate in these movies) are actually pretty great in this one compared to what one sees in most of them. Perhaps due to the utter and complete lack of romance - it is worthy of note that the most cringe-worthy pieces of dialogue here all come out in Padmé and Anakin's single private conversation... The plot is surprisingly multifaceted and layered. There is some major problems with the pacing, however, and again the overlong podrace contributes to make that problem worse. As mentioned, I would have loved to see more of the politics on Coruscant, but intrigue and political maneuvering is rarely more than hinted at in these movies, so I am grateful for what little I get.

Rating:
A rather okay 6.5/10. It's really better than people want you to think.



Attack of the Clones

Obi-Wan Kenobi: "I have to admit that without the clones, it would have not been a victory."
Yoda: "Victory? Victory you say? Master Obi-Wan, not victory. The shroud of the dark side has fallen. Begun the Clone War has."

Movie Plot:
Attack of the Clones is a movie about a complex conspiracy that starts with two thwarted attempts at assassinating Senator Amidala of the Galactic Senate and ends with the revelation of a group of powerful interstellar organisations declaring independence from the Galactic Republic. When Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi is sent to investigate the attempted murders he discovers to his astonishment a vast army of trained and equipped clones that the makers of insist were built on the order of a late Jedi on behalf of the Republic, despite nobody back in the capitol knowing about this. When shadowing the skilled bounty hunter who both was behind the assassination-attempts and provided the source DNA for the clone army, Kenobi discovers he has been hired by a renegade Jedi Master known as Count Dooku. Dooku, being the leading figure of the separatist movement against the Republic, captures Kenobi and, upon finding he cannot be swayed to the Separatist cause, sentences him to be executed. Kenobi's apprentice Anakin Skywalker, enraged after the recent loss of his mother, and Senator Amidala whom he has been assigned to protect together attempt to rescue Kenobi, and fails. A larger-scale rescue attempt organised by the Jedi Council is also in vain, but they are saved at the last minute by the arrival of the clone army, the situation having demanded that they be put into use despite their mysterious origin. The seperatist conspiracy's vast armies of combat droids engage the clones in combat, and Dooku flees the planet after having been revealed to have turned from the Jedi code and made use of what is known as the Dark Side of the Force the Jedi live attuned to. The movie ends with Skywalker secretly marrying the Senator Amidala despite the Jedi creed against attachment designed to avoid this exact type of turning, and the galaxy having been thrust into a full-scale war.

Saga Plot:
Starting ten years after the previous installment, Attack of the Clones furthers the Sith plot to gain control of the galaxy by pitting the Republic against itself in a civil war between its government and the great corporate powers. The unrest created by the situation allows the Supreme Chancellor Palpatine to remain in office long after his terms expire, and expose the Jedi Order, ancient enemy of the Sith, time and time again to participate in the war-effort and thus put its members in mortal danger. A powerful and disgruntled Jedi Master, Dooku, Qui-Gon Jinn's old teacher, has been recruited to replace Lord Maul as the junior member of the Sith Order, and uses his popular and charismatic public persona to take the position as leader of the Separatist alliance fighting the Republic's forces. The Republic is manipulated into making use of an army of fully trained clones with mysterious origins, giving them a fighting chance against the Separatist's vast droid forces so as to drag out the conflict and further the Sith agenda. The Chosen One, Anakin Skywalker, finds his mother after spending ten years apart only to lose her moments later. In his anger, he slaughters the entire tribe of primitives responsible. The senior Jedi Master, Yoda, is alerted by the voice of the late Qui-Gon Jinn, who is somehow reaching out from the beyond in a failed attempt to keep Skywalker from succumbing to his rage. As Skywalker is additionally scared of further loss when he opens a forbidden romance with Amidala, now a Galactic Senator, the Jedi code of no attachment has the opposite effect of the intended. Skywalker's forbidden attachment makes him scared of being found out, forming the exact cycle of bad emotions the ban is there to keep him from in the first place.

Favourite Moment:
Dooku interrogating Kenobi.

Worst Moment:
The attempts at romantic dialogue between Skywalker and Amidala on Naboo. Probably the worst one in the entire Saga, to be frank.

Missed Opportunity:
The Clone Wars. While this movie's plot is quite interesting indeed and most of its problems owing to the mediocre-to-bad writing and execution of this plot, it is a shame to both skip over all of Anakin and Obi-Wan's years and adventures together as friends between episode I and II and all of their experiences during the Clone Wars, as their friendship is a pivotal part of the saga.

Best Surprise:
The intricacy of the plot behind the Clone Wars. While the execution, again, is sometimes a little limping, the idea of one single individual recruiting and arranging both sides of an intergalactic civil war to further his personal agendas is quite brilliant.


My Overall Opinion:
I remember being pleasantly surprised by this movie. The title is horrible, being another one in the pulp vain of "Return of the Jedi" and "Empire Strikes Back" - or "Star Wars" itself, for that matter - which is understandable but not very fun. I didn't grow up reading that kind of stuff, I have no nostalgic feelings for it being recreated on the big screen with billions of dollars' worth of special effects. Add to that that The Phantom Menance, which I liked well enough, had left an enormous amount of story untold between itself and IV and set up a huge number of discrepancies as well, I felt this movie had an enormous pressure on itself to be efficient, make sense and fill gaps. Of course, it didn't. It barely filled any, leaving even the story of the Clone Wars untold, only showing us how it begins. I knew that from the title - I mean, it is called the ATTACK of the clones, not the clone war - and so the automatic disappointment came with the ticket. Thus, my expectations to the movie were rather low. And also thus, I really, really liked it. Originally I liked it far better than VI, actually, and would even have compared it to IV. The years since then of rewatching and comparing has convinced me that alright, IV is a solid bit better, and while II might compare to VI, it certainly isn't a clear-cut superior movie in any way. However, the mere fact that it could please me so speaks not exclusively of my low expectations, but also of the movie itself. It is rather fun. The plot is by far the most complex of any of the installments in the saga, which I wholeheartedly approve of. Some minor details in it make little sense and was never cleared up, like the Sifo-Dyas-person who ordered the clone army, but on the whole, it is rather well pulled off. A main problem is the romance - and not just the poor writing. Far more confusing is the attraction itself. Amidala is depicted as a sophisticated, devoted and highly intelligent woman of strong beliefs and convictions, but within the scope of a few shallow conversations, she somehow falls head over heels for a whining, self-absorbed man far younger than herself and whose politics differ vastly from hers. There is no scene to explain this. His affection for her - which is far more understandable - is given ample time, but there is literally no scene to explain her going from being mildly amused by his awkward crush to loving him so much she breaks laws and endangers careers left and right to marry him.
Dooku is a huge positive surprise in this movie. Of course Christopher Lee is most of the reason for that, but the character is indeed highly interesting even if someone else had played him. A Jedi Master, the only one in generations to leave the Order, who was Yoda's Padawan, Qui-Gon's teacher, and the most gifted Jedi the order seen before Anakin, who might or might not have turned to the dark side... very interesting character indeed. The interplay with him and Sidious is another great lost opportunity in this saga, it would be highly interesting indeed to see how Sidious would deal with taking on an apprentice very close to himself in wisdom, knowledge and experience. Unlike Maul, trained from infancy, and Vader, influenced during his entire upbringing and taken on before he was anywhere near Dooku's experience and knowledge, Darth Tyranus is the kind of character you would expect to be the senior Sith Lord, not the junior one. The concept of this interests me very much. (Anyone liking Tyranus' character, by the way, should consider reading the novel Yoda: Dark Rendezvous, which I remember I quite enjoyed.)
The relationship between Obi-Wan and Anakin is actually very well done here. It's just enough of a teacher-student relationship and just enough of an older brother-younger brother relationship to sell them in their dual roles as adoptive father/son and growing equals. It sets up the idea of these two fighting side by side in the Clone Wars very strongly without showing it very much, and this aids later movies a lot. While Hayden Christensen isn't great as Anakin, he's good enough, the main problem with the character is the choices done with him in the writing, making him seem whiny and self-centered in the ridiculous. Ewan McGregor's Obi-Wan, as I mentioned in the comments here, is this movie's saving grace on the dialogue- and character-side, often being amusing even during his fight scenes.

Rating: Weakish 7.5/10. While it has great issues to be sure, I've always liked this one. It might not be a very well made movie, but it manages to entertain me time and time again every time I rewatch it, and I'm rewarding that in the grade.



Clone Wars

"Jedi! Their Order is a fading light in the dark. Corrupt and arrogant, they must be punished. The Jedi shall fall."
- Asajj Ventress, Dark Acolyte

Series Plot: The first volume of Clone Wars chronicles the early days of the Clone Wars by showing a selection of battles on different planets spread throughout the universe, intercut with a bigger plot of the Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker leading the attack on Muunilinst, one of the main bases of power for the Separatist-aligned Banking Clan. Related to this plot is another story-thread where Count Dooku discovers and trains the Force-sensitive Asajj Ventress in lightsaber combat. Ventress, who has personal reasons to hate the Jedi and desires more than anything to become a full-fledged Sith, leaps at the opportunity to prove herself to her new Sith Master, and becomes his personal assassin during the war. In truth, Dooku has no plans of taking her on as a real apprentice, and is only using her, with his own Master's blessing. As the battle on Muunilinst comes to a close, Ventress appears in her fighter and creates havoc for the Republic space forces. Skywalker chases after her alone, against the orders of his master Kenobi, being lured into a trap on a distant location. Ventress and Skywalker duel, matching each other closely in skill, and Skywalker finally triumphs by tapping into his anger, stepping closer to using the Dark Side of the Force. The volume closes with Dooku's reveal of his new right hand man in the Separatist side of the war, a cyborg general known as Grievous. Griveous, not only a tactical genious, is also highly skilled in close combat, being able to surprise and kill several Jedi at once as the volume ends. In the second volume, we see Skywalker receiving his full Jedi Knighthood, and then skip a couple of years ahead to the end of the war, where Grievous is sent to kidnap Supreme Chancellor Palpatine of the Republic. Meanwhile, Skywalker and Kenobi are investigating a secret hideout of his on a planet far away, discovering a plot by the Separatist-supporting Techno Union to create further cyborg soldiers to supplement the droids who have proved inferior to the Republic's clones. The volume comes to an end almost exactly at the point where the third movie will begin, with the Chancellor being kidnapped.

Saga Plot: The Chosen One, Anakin Skywalker, is as the Clone Wars progress becoming more and more experienced and powerful as a warrior and as a Jedi, receiving his Knighthood and on his new, more equal footing tying an even closer friendship to his former Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. Kenobi himself has been granted the title of Master and put on the Jedi Council for his efforts during the war. Skywalker is showing himself as very capable and talented, but when pressed, especially when on his own, he repeatedly turn to darker deeds and emotions than what the Jedi Code allows him. While investigating a Separatist plot to create cyborg soldiers, he experiences a vision through the Force to help him sort out a mystery during his current assignment, a vision that at the same time is foreboding to him personally that the very actions he takes to save his loved ones will end up destroying them. The Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Sidious, sends his top General Grievous to attack the Republic capitol and kidnap their Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, likely to further his goals of keeping the war as close and scary as possible to the inhabitants of the Republic and lure Skywalker, a strong supporter and friend of Palpatine's, into another direct combat where he will let his emotions rule him.

Favourite Moment:
Grievous' entrance at the end of Volume I.

Worst Moment:
The very silly and cheesy-looking opening shot of Yoda riding in front of a massive army of clone troopers simply running against a droid army firing on them.

Missed Opportunity:
This one is difficult, as I feel this very short series was excellent at just this - taking opportunities. However, it would have been nice to see the alleged brilliant Grievious actually perform some form of brilliant tactic instead of exclusively doing hand-to-hand-combat in his every scene.

Best Surprise:
Mace Windu's single-handedly taking on a droid regiment without a lightsaber. Tons of fun.

My Overall Opinion:
While it has its faults here and there, this short series of animated episodes is in many ways an almost necessary element to the Saga in my opinion. It shows us how Anakin makes darker and darker decisions throughout the war without Obi-Wan fully catching on to the development in a believable way. Similarly we get to see him and Amidala struggle with their hidden marriage, which is also of great aid in making later events a tad more believable. It displays Obi-Wan and Anakin's close-knit friendship over time, making the few scenes early in Episode III not have to carry this important plot-point alone. We're also informed (by implication) of Obi-Wan's promotion to the Jedi Council and we're shown Anakin being given his Jedi Knighthood, both of which has simply happened before Episode III begins. We get to see the clone troopers bond a little with their Jedi generals, which makes the Order 66-scenes of Revenge of the Sith far more compelling. We get to see Dooku placing someone in the exact position he himself will be placed in the opening scenes of the next movie, which makes for delicious irony. General Grievous, whose entire presence in Episode III is redundant and pointless, is actually way cool in this series, making up a little for his character's existence. And, maybe most important of all, we get a glimpse into the wide-spread battles and devastation of the Clone Wars, making the war's existence seem more horrid and important than it otherwise would when mainly transpiring between two movies.

Rating: Solid 7.5/10. For an animated series of shorts that you can alternatively watch as one full-length movie, this is stellar. Of course, when compared to actual movies the pacing and plot-threads chosen comes off as a little odd.




Revenge of the Sith

"So this is how liberty dies... with thunderous applause."
- Senator Padmé Amidala to Senator Bail Organa

Movie Plot:
The galaxy is at the end of a three-year long civil war, and in a final stunt Separatist leader Count Dooku and his attack-dog General Grievous have kidnapped the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic, Palpatine, in a daring attack at the capitol planet. Republican heroes of the war, generals and Jedi Knights Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi, is dispatched to rescue the Chancellor before the Separatists can escape Republic space with him. Their attempt is successful, but Skywalker breaks many of the Jedi Code teachings when he, on his good friend the Chancellor's encouragement, kills a defenseless Dooku while his companion Jedi and former master Kenobi is temporarily knocked out. This is not the first of Skywalker's many breaches on the Jedi rules, nor will it be the last, as he is increasingly consumed by self-righteous anger and ambition to save a galaxy he is increasingly tired of seeing ravaged by war, regardless of the cost. Simultaneously, his illegal marriage to Senator Padmé Amidala is taking its toll on him, adding fear to be discovered and fear to lose her and their unborn child to the mix. These feelings are continuously nurtured and fed by the Chancellor who, unbeknown to anyone, is the mastermind of the entire civil war, a ploy to keep him in power for long enough to do a coup d'état from the inside of the Republic. He sees in Skywalker his future apprentice, a powerful pawn to wrist away from the Jedi Order he secretly hates and put to use for his own purposes. Pitting Skywalker against his Order and playing off of Skywalker's increasingly dire premonitions of the fate of his wife, Chancellor Palpatine's scheme is only outed to the Jedi at the very last moment - and it becomes too late. Having convinced Skywalker that he and he alone has the means and knowledge to save his beloved wife, and further convincing him that the elite Jedi's corruption and arrogance is the root of the unrest and civil war, Palpatine turns Skywalker to his aid, averting his outing by the Jedi, naming Skywalker his apprentice and right-hand man. He then triggers a latent programming in the Republic's cloned armies, of which he is still the legal ruler, making them turn on their Jedi generals and eradicate them all. Skywalker, committed in full to the Chancellor's teachings, goes to the Jedi Temple and kills all the children in training for Jedi Knighthood, proving his loyalty to the Chancellor's creed of anything necessary to restore peace and unity. Travelling to the headquarters of the remaining Separatist leaders on Palpatine's bidding, Skywalker assassinates them all, singlehandedly ending the war. His old Master Kenobi survives the clone army's attempt at his life, and returns to the capitol, only to discover Skywalker's betrayal of their order. He and Skywalker's wife, political idealist and disillusioned Senator Amidala fresh from a Senate session where Palpatine declared himself Emperor for life, go to meet Skywalker and reason with him. It is to no avail, in his rage and confusion Skywalker is convinced they are now both plotting against him, attacking his wife and almost killing her. Kenobi engages him in a duel, which he finally wins. The movie ends as Palpatine resurrects Skywalker as a cyborg trapped in a black armour, and Amidala dying as she births two young children that Kenobi whisks away into hiding.

Saga Plot:
The Dark Lord of the Sith's schemes come to full frutation as the Galactic Republic is transformed into the Galactic Empire and its cloned armies turn their allegiance to him personally, and even his Sith apprentice Darth Tyranus find his ambitions and ideals betrayed by his master. The Chosen One, after a decade of careful prodding and a cataclysmic three years of brutal warfare, is finally turned to give into his darker emotions in a misguided attempt at protecting his loved ones. He becomes Darth Vader, new apprentice to The Dark Lord Sidious, and aids in the almost complete destruction of the Jedi Order as well as the ending of the Clone Wars by the brutal eradication of its remaining leaders. His wife, heartbroken at the fate of her husband, dies shortly after giving birth to his twin children, Vader never realising she lived long enough to birth them. Obi-Wan Kenobi, anguished at his former apprentice's turn to the Dark Side, duels with Vader and triumphs, leaving Vader a mutilated man dying slowly and alone with nothing but his hatred left. The Jedi Grand Master Yoda, with Kenobi the last of their Order left, confronts the Sith Lord Sidious, newly declared Emperor, but fails in killing him and is forced to flee. He reconvenes with Kenobi, revealing to him that his former master Qui-Gon Jinn has discovered how to retain his essence and personality in death, teaching Kenobi how to communicate with the late Jinn so that he, too, can learn this skill in the decades to come. A small part of the Galactic Senate quietly opposes the Emperor, and one of them, Senator Bail Organa, adopts Vader's daughter in secrecy. Vader's son is in equal secrecy taken to live on the distant planet of Tatooine, Kenobi going with him to guard him from dangers but judging his failure with Vader to be too great to take the responsibility for actually raising the boy. The child is thus left in the care of Vader's step-brother and his young wife, with Kenobi settling down quietly not too far from their dwelling. As the movie ends, Darth Sidious finds his mutilated apprentice and manages to save his life by putting him inside a cybernetic suit that will sustain him. Vader, having lost anything else, remains his Master's faithful servant, seeing his only remaining purpose in life to maintain order and peace throughout the newly established Empire.

Favourite Moment:
Order 66.

Worst Moment:
Realising General Grievous was going to be about as interesting as an old boot compared to in the animated show.

Missed Opportunity:
Oh, dear lord. How about the entire movie? This movie was the final installment in the Saga, bridging the new and the old together, and it could have served us twists and turns and surprising reveals nobody had seen coming. Instead, it took the safe route. It did what everyone expected it would do. Sure, it did it relatively well, but it did exactly what was expected, and with the possible exception of Yoda's showdown with Sidious, nothing else whatsoever. This movie could have served up innumerable twists that would have turned the entire Saga on its head, made the old movies be seen in a completely different and the new ones simply seem better. But it didn't, and that will always be a major disappointment to me.

But if you want specifics and not wishful thinking, not having Qui-Gon reveal the major turning point of the entire saga on-screen is probably as big as they get.

Best Surprise:
Mace Windu, the character without a mentionable purpose in the previous two movies, is here a guy whose mere existence was totally selling half the movie's plot-points. The Jedi elite's distrust of the Senate and the Chancellor, the Jedi elite's distrust of Anakin's loyalties, the one who agrees to bend the rules just enough that it sells Anakin on the Jedi actually being as corrupt as Palpatine's been suggesting... And so on and so forth. Thank the lord that Lucas thought to include this character in the previous two movies, this one would hardly have worked at all without him.

My Overall Opinion:
This was a good one, but it stopped a good bit short of greatness. Palpatine's outing as evil is too over the top at several times - his understated smug evil in VI works much better than his screaming and howling in III - but McDiarmid and his character's great and small moments are still what is keeping this movie going. Also still good is McGregor ("Mc", it seems, helps) and his Obi-Wan, who is really selling the affectionate comradery of Kenobi and Skywalker early on in the movie and thus also one of the key plot-points in the end of the movie when their friendship dissolves. The rest of the cast (Frank Oz' Yoda aside, of course) doesn't really impress, but honestly, they're not given anything to impress with. Christensen does a fair job as the conflicted and turning Anakin, but still comes off as a little too whiny to be any real fun. Still, I've seen bonus material where Lucas is instructing him how to say some lines - and believe you me, he wants them to sound that whiny. It's not Christensen's fault, at least not his alone. However, his character's ripple-effects on those around him makes it worth the journey, and the truly dark moments are sold very well by Christensen. And those are what really counts, right? Portman has a good bit more important a role here than in II, but this is of course joined by LESS screen-time. (At least it feels like it, I haven't timed) So her character never really has a chance at doing anything interesting. The deleted scenes-plotline of her helping founding what will grow into the Rebel Alliance would have helped, but even that would have been much too little, in my opinion. And having her "lose the will to live" rather than simply having her die from the damage done by Anakin and the premature childbirth is still pretty stupid. All complaints aside, though, this movie does work, and it works rather well. There's action, there's drama, there's tragedy, there's reveal, and it packs more intensity than any other movie in the Saga. Half the movie's scenes feel as intense as, say, the final duel-scene on the second Death Star in VI, which is a really good thing. R2 is finally amusing and cool again, and 3PO and Jar-Jar are both giving too little to do to be annoying. I still hold Grievous' being a redundant character for the movies, but his existence adds a lot to the Expanded Universe as a planned scapegoat for Dooku and a brilliant tactician and tragicly exploited hero for the Separatist side, so I'm not unhappy they made him. However, we should have been shown him do something cool. In the books, he's a military genious, in the animated series he routinely kicks Jedi ass, but in the actual movie he just comes off as a smug coward. Keeping the charismatic Dooku in the movie for more than five minutes and let him serve like the secondary villain would have been far berre for this movie when seen on its own or only in context of the other five movies. Finally, not putting Qui-Gon's ghost in the movie is ridiculous beyond belief. It reduces what should be a major plot-point to a throw-away remark of Yoda's, and makes the ghosts of the old trilogy seem haphazard and random. They've always seemed like overly convenient plot-mechanisms, dropping this opportunity to redeem them and make them a big part of the saga plot is outrageous. Not to mention how much of a stretch it is that Anakin somehow manages to learn this within an hour after dying in VI. Sigh. Also, it robbed me of an extra scene with Liam Neeson, dammit.

Rating: A grudging 8.5/10.



A New Hope

"This will be a day long remembered. It has seen the end of Kenobi, it will soon see the end of the Rebellion."
- Darth Vader

Movie Plot:
Luke Skywalker, nineteen, has grown up on a moisture-farm with his uncle and aunt, but longs to leave and explore the galaxy. He gets his wish granted, but not in quite the way he had imagined, when the purchase of two droids for the farm sends him spinning into a chain of events leaving him in the middle of a rebellion against the fascist Empire that rules the galaxy. One of the droids turn out to have significant intel on the Empire's biggest military secret, and Skywalker needs to get this information to the Rebels. He's taken into the tutelage of an old, mysterious hermit that once went by the name Obi-Wan Kenobi, and together they hire small-time smuggler Han Solo to fly them in secret to a Rebel leader named Bail Organa. Meanwhile, Organa's daughter has been captured and tortured for information by the Empire. The officer in charge of the secret military project, Governor Wilhuf Tarkin, decides to apply their new weapon against Organa's home planet to make the daughter, Leia, reveal the Rebel Alliance's secret base. The weapon, an immense space station called the Death Star, fires and obliterates the planet, with Bail Organa on it. Skywalker, Solo and Kenobi's arrival is thus met not with the friendly planet they expect, but rather the battle station responsible for destroying it. Through a series of events they manage to escape with Leia Organa aboard their ship, but without Kenobi, who is killed by his old disciple turned Imperial agent Darth Vader aboard the station. Skywalker and, eventually, Solo, join Organa and the Rebel Alliance after having followed her to their base. They apply the information in the droid in a desperate attempt at destroying the Death Star, which succeeds against all odds, killing Tarkin. The movie ends with the Alliance celebrating their first major victory against the Empire.

Saga Plot:
The Chosen One has for the past nineteen years been aiding Darth Sidious, now Emperor Palpatine, in bringing the galaxy to order and peace by any means necessary. However, a small but stubborn group of rebels keep avoiding capture, most recently by stealing the schematics to the Empire's secret superweapon the Death Star. The Chosen One, now known by the Sith name of Darth Vader, traces the thieves to Senator Leia Organa, the daughter of a known rebel sympathizer, and ignores her diplomatic immunity as a Senator by searching her ship for the plans. However, the plans, stored in the droid R2-D2, has been sent off the ship to the planet of Tatooine before Vader's entry to Organa's ship, the droid having been programmed to locate an Obi-Wan Kenobi once on the planet. Vader arrests Organa and tortures her for information on the location of the rebel base. When this fails to work, commander of the Death Star Governor Wilhuf Tarkin decides to destroy Organa's home planet to make her talk - this also failing. Meanwhile the droid R2-D2 has maneuvered himself into the company of Kenobi, a Jedi Master who has spent the last nineteen years in hiding, by way of young farmboy Luke Skywalker. Kenobi attempts to recruit Skywalker to the rebel cause, telling him that Skywalker's father was an old pupil and friend of his once killed by Darth Vader. Skywalker is tempted, but refuses, until he returns home to the farm to see his adoptive parents having been killed by the Empire who are on the droid's trail. His mind now changed, Skywalker and Kenobi take the droid to meet with Organa's father by way of renting the ship of small-time smuggler Han Solo. On the way there Kenobi attempts instructing Skywalker in the basics of Jedi training and philosophy. Arriving, they find the planet recently destroyed, and are brought aboard the immense battle station responsible - The Death Star. Once aboard, they manage to flee, bringing Organa with them. Kenobi seeks out his old pupil, Vader, and duels him to allow the rest of the group to escape. As he sees he has succeeded, Kenobi drops his guard and concentrates on the techniques taught him by his late Master Qui-Gon Jinn, disappearing into the Force as Vader strikes the killing blow. Skywalker, Solo and Organa flees to the Rebel base, not aware the Death Star is tracking them to find its location, having let them escape on purpose. Skywalker and Solo both join the Rebel Alliance, the latter doing so despite being overdue at a powerful gangster boss named Jabba the Hutt's place with a heavy fee. With the aid of the schematics stored in the droid, the Alliance manages to destroy the Death Star, Skywalker piloting the decisive fighter whilst aided by the late Kenobi through the Force.

Favourite Moment:
Vader demonstrating the power of the Force to the unbelieving Admiral during Tarkin's meeting.

Worst Moment:
Obi-Wan's silly little pirouette in the middle of his duel with Vader.

Missed Opportunity:
Obi-Wan and Vader's duel is very anti-climactic - even when NOT seen in context of the ones in the prequel trilogy it looks kind of stale and wooden. This could have been the Giant Final Showdown Duel To End All Duels, you know. With both participants actually being well-trained, experienced lightsaber-users, unlike Luke in V and VI...

Best Surprise:
Nobody who knows me at all will be surprised when I say Tarkin's character on this point. Seriously, even the first time I saw this movie as a twelve-year-old he totally stole the show from Vader for me. But the introduction of Han Solo's character is a close second.

My Overall Opinion:
This is a good movie. It's not really great, its plot is a little too formulaic and predictable for that, and it has some pacing issues that become increasingly apparent on rewatches. That admitted, though, it is still a good movie. Everything works here, the story is told in an efficient yet exciting manner, and it provides a great introduction to how the galaxy looks and feels after almost two decades under the Empire. Some dialogue, especially Leia's for some reason, sound a little wooden or artificial, but compared to some of the scenes in II or even III, it shouldn't even make you raise an eyebrow. The acting is alright, the characters are mostly plain stereotypes but charmingly executed ones, and the unusual visual setting of the standard myth/faery-tale-like plot succeeds greatly at making it seem more original and interesting than it really is. Most emotional moments are very underplayed, though, and could possibly have been better used. Luke gets over his adoptive parents/uncle and aunt's death in a matter of minutes, Obi-Wan's death - which is actually grieved more on screen by Luke than that of his parents - is done in the middle of a scene focusing mostly on action elsewhere, and the destruction of Leia's entire home planet with her father on it is virtually given no chance to impress upon the viewer the enormity of the tragedy at all. The expedience of the plot always bring you over to the next plot-point or action-scene rather than dwelling at these things, their consequences and the characters' reactions to them. It's not strictly necessary, of course, especially considering the fairy-tale-like quality of this movie, but it fits poorly with the remaining five movies' way of doing things, where this exact kind of emotional attachments and loss (though nearly all of them far less serious than any of these) is played up quite heavily.

Rating: A strong 8/10



The Empire Strikes Back

Luke Skywalker: "I won't fail you. I'm not afraid."
Yoda: "You will be. You will be."

Movie Plot:
The Rebel Alliance's fight against the Galactic Empire sees another setback as their base on the icy planet of Hoth is discovered and ran off. A Commander Luke Skywalker, hero of the Alliance for his efforts in the battle of Yavin some years back, sees a vision of his late mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi, urging him to travel to a remote planet and locate Kenobi's old master Yoda. Under Yoda's tutelage, Skywalker receives training as a Jedi Knight, an ancient but nearly extinct order of warrior priests Kenobi belonged to. Meanwhile, Skywalker's rebel friends Chewbacca, Leia Organa and Han Solo find themselves separated from the main Rebel force, and in need of hiding out from the Empire's infamous agent Darth Vader, the man Kenobi has said killed Skywalker's father. They travel to the planet of Bespin, where Solo claims to have an influential friend from his days as a smuggler named Lando Calrissian. Lando welcomes the group, but turns coat on them and sells them out to Vader. Vader, being primarily interested in Skywalker, holds the group as bait. Through his Jedi training, Luke senses his friends' danger and interrupts his apprenticeship to go save them against Yoda's strong urgings. Skywalker enters the trap and is nearly taken by Vader, but throws himself seemingly to his death to evade capture after learning that Vader did not kill but is in fact Skywalker's father. Narrowly escaping death by calling upon Organa's help through his Jedi techniques, they, Chewbacca and a Calrissian having turned coats a second time flee the Empire's grasp. Solo, being wanted by a powerful gangster lord for some unfinished business from his smuggling years, is frozen down by Vader and given over to a bounty hunter. The movie ends with Skywalker being given a mechanical hand restoring one lost in his fight with Vader, and wondering why Kenobi lied to him about his father's fate.

Saga Plot:
The Chosen One - Darth Vader - having discovered the identify of the pilot blowing up the Death Star as none other than his own son long presumed dead, endeavors at length to capture the young man, Luke Skywalker, during his over-arching efforts to stomp out the rebellion against his Master Darth Sidious and restore order and tranquility to the galaxy. Convincing his Master that Skywalker can be turned to the Dark Side, Vader captures Skywalker's closest friends - including the former senator Leia Organa - to lure him into a trap. Skywalker, meanwhile, has temporarily left the Rebel Alliance to seek training in the Jedi arts by the Jedi Grand Master Yoda, still in self-imposed exile on Dagobah. Against Yoda's counsel he chooses to go to his friends' aid, and faces Vader in a duel. When Vader realises Skywalker is better trained in the Jedi arts than he thought, he attributes this to Obi-Wan Kenobi's teachings before his death, not knowing about Yoda's continued survival. The increased ability of Skywalker's seems to change his plans - rather than trapping his son and bring him to Sidious, Vader now suggests to him that they together can usurp the power from his master and rule the galaxy as father and son. Additionally, he is by telling Skywalker this sowing strong seeds of doubt of Kenobi's words and teachings in Skywalker's mind by revealing that he was lied to about the fate of Skywalker's father, not killed by Vader but in fact Vader himself. Again, the Chosen One desires to put his own perceived better judgment above the rest of the galaxy to impose upon it order and peace, seeing Skywalker as a potentially powerful and loyal ally to rid himself of Sidious' overrule. Skywalker, however, refuses, and escapes after calling through the Force upon Organa to come to his aid. Together, they escape with every one of Skywalker's friends except Han Solo, who is handed over by the Empire to bounty hunter Boba Fett for delivery to the gangster boss Jabba the Hutt.

Favourite Moment:
Vader's callous promotion of Piett to Admiral through the videolink whilst his previous Admiral is choking on the ground. Runner-ups would probably be Yoda's quarreling with R2-D2 over Luke's flashlight and just about every scene Han Solo has in the movie.

Worst Moment:
Tricky, as this is by far the strongest of the series. However, I find the constant re-appearing of Kenobi's ghost to be ludicrous, as it renders Yoda pointless. There is no reason for Luke to go to Dagobah if he can communicate with Kenobi's spirit - he already has a teacher, then. Yet another thing that could have been easily cleared up in episode III if they'd only spent a minute or two laying out the rules indubitably surrounding the Force Ghost-existence. Sigh.

Missed Opportunity:
The desire Vader expresses to topple the Emperor and rule himself is never really explored beyond this in the movies, which I find to be a shame. As it stands, we have no idea if his offer is intended only to ensnare Luke or if he genuinely wishes to ally with him to overthrow Palpatine.

Best Surprise:
The Organa-Solo romance, which unlike the Amidala-Skywalker one is actually believable, probably due to the one party's heavy protests that it is not.

My Overall Opinion:
Very, very, very good. If every Star Wars-movie was this good, this would probably have been the best movie-series I'd ever seen, despite having what is arguably the lamest title. (A tight contest, I know) The movie works splendidly both on its own and as a chapter in the longer story. I find it especially interesting how Vader here again expresses a desire to overthrow the Emperor and rule himself - mirroring exactly what he offers Amidala in episode III. While he then probably didn't fully understand the full extent of Sidious' powers and additionally was not impaired by his mechanical suit, it is interesting indeed that he twenty years or so later repeats the exact same request to his son - but this time with the opportunity to actually gain a usable ally in such a confrontation. The ramifications of this are many and interesting, in part because there is little to nothing given in the movies as to his actual intents and reasoning behind either proposal.
There are some smaller continuity-issues with the more recent movies in Yoda's dialogue, as his views on the training of Luke seems rather lax and open compared to the one he adhered to in the Jedi Council. Of course, there is the added lessons of Qui-Gon Jinn in this Yoda's past that wasn't in the Yoda of the prequels', so perhaps Jinn's far more open-minded views have rubbed off and been given dominance. If so, this is an interesting development indeed, as Jinn's foremost rebellious decision to train the nine years old Anakin Skywalker could arguably be seen as a argument to not lend any credence to his views. Yoda, however, seems convinced, allowing the training of one more than ten years Anakin's older...
Almost everything about this movie works - it is arguably the best paced one of the entire series as well as the best written one - and there really isn't much more to say about it.

Rating: A weak 9.5/10



Return of the Jedi

Luke Skywalker: "There's nothing to see. I used to live here, you know."
Han Solo: "You're going to die here, you know. Convenient."

Movie Plot:
Han Solo, former smuggler and current hero of the Rebel Alliance, is held captive by the vengeful gangster lord Jabba the Hutt. A close-knit group of his best friends from the Alliance decide to help him escape under the leadership of Luke Skywalker, self-declared Jedi Knight after a year of personal studies and training built on the teachings of Jedi Grand Master Yoda. Jabba is killed and Solo freed, and the group travels to reunite with the Rebel Alliance proper, except Skywalker who leaves for the planet where his old master is waiting to finish his training. Upon arriving, Skywalker finds Yoda on his deathbed, and is told that one final test waits him before he will be a full Jedi Knight - confronting his father, Darth Vader, the right hand of the Emperor the Rebels are trying to overthrow. The Emperor, meanwhile, has built an immensely powerful battle station known as a Death Star much like the one destroyed by Skywalker half a decade earlier, only this one is far bigger. However, it is also incomplete. The Rebel Alliance decides to attack it while it is still not operational, but find the Emperor quite prepared - and the Death Star to be only appearing as unfinished to draw the rebels out. Skywalker and his team are dispatched to a small moon where the projector of a protective force shield to guard the Death Star is located while the main Rebel force attack the Star and the Imperial fleet surrounding it. On the moon, with the aid of some primitive natives, the Imperial forces are overwhelmed and the shield knocked down. Skywalker, though, is captured, and brought by Vader to the Emperor aboard the Death Star, who desires to turn him into one of his agents. The attempt is unsuccessful, and the Emperor decides to kill Skywalker, only to be thrown to his death at the last minute by Vader, choosing his son's life over that of his lord. Vader, dying from injuries sustained upon him by the Emperor, is brought by Skywalker off the battle station mere seconds before it is destroyed by the Rebels. The movie ends as the major victory and the death of the Emperor incites uprisings all over the galaxy and Skywalker and his friends celebrate on the moon with their newfound friends among the natives.

Saga Plot:
Luke Skywalker has trained himself further in the Jedi arts since his defeat on Bespin, and decides he is ready to attempt freeing his friend Han Solo from his captivity under the crime lord Jabba the Hutt. He recruits a small group of friends including Leia Organa who unknown to either of them is his biological sister, infiltrates Jabba's lair, and succeeds at rescuring Solo, killing Jabba in the process. Solo, Organa and the others decide to go rejoin the Rebel Alliance, but Skywalker finally decides to return to Yoda, the only surviving Jedi Master of the days of the Galactic Republic, to finish his training. Once arrived at Yoda's, however, Skywalker finds the old master on his deathbed, and is handed out only a few more sentences of advice before Yoda, exercising Qui-Gon Jinn's technique, becomes one with the Force. He tells him that his training is almost complete, but he lacks a final trial; facing Vader, who Yoda now admits to be Skywalker's father. Furthermore, he warns Skywalker not to underestimate the Emperor, like he himself once did. He also tells Skywalker that he has a sibling, to which Obi-Wan Kenobi's apparition later adds the identity of. Skywalker rejoins the Rebel Alliance, who are planning to attack Darth Sidious' latest superweapon, a new, bigger Death Star, before it is completed. In truth, the Death Star is part of the Sith Lord's plan to lure out and ensnare the entire Rebel Alliance. Skywalker decides to try helping his father rather than killing him - despite this being something Yoda, in his vast experience which included Dooku in a very similar situation only twenty years earlier, considered impossible - and confronts the Chosen One in person, surrendering to him. Vader, on orders of his master, brings him to the Emperor aboard the new Death Star, assuming they will once again try to implement their plan of changing Skywalker to their side, bringing order and tranquility to the galaxy. Once in front of the Emperor, Skywalker is taunted by him in front of a silently watching Vader. He is informed that the Death Star is indeed operational, and they are expecting the rebels. Succeeding in thus summoning Skywalker's rage, the Emperor dares him to reclaim his lightsaber and kill him. Skywalker yields to his anger and grabs his lightsaber, but is stopped in his efforts by Vader. In the ensuing duel, Vader constantly has the upper hand, Skywalker attempting to make his father stop and join him against the Emperor to no avail. Vader, insisting he is not at all conflicted in his loyalties, senses within Skywalker the concern for his sister, thus discovering her existence for the first time. Suggesting that he will simply kill Skywalker and try turning her instead, Vader manages to urge Skywalker's anger back out, but gets more than he bargained for. In a turn of events much reminiscent of Kenobi's defeat of the vastly more skilled Darth Maul on Naboo more than thirty-odd years earlier, Skywalker overwhelms Vader with his sudden anger and defeats him by chopping of his sword-hand, placing him in yet another situation mirroring years past as the Emperor gleefully applauds. Back then, Vader had been talked into killing the unarmed Dooku, great current villain of the galaxy, in front of Sidious seeking to replace one apprentice by one younger, more easily controlled and more potentially powerful. The Emperor asks Skywalker to kill his father and take his place at the Emperor's side. Unlike his father two decades earlier, Skywalker recognises the similarities between the man defeated before him and the man he could himself become, considering his own artificial hand and looking at the stump of Vader's. He holds to the Jedi code, and turns off his lightsaber, throwing it aside, sparing his father - and, as Yoda warned him not to, discounting the Emperor as a lone old man. Darth Sidious, his scheme thwarted, is repulsed by the decision, and throws lightning out of his fingers through the Force, incapacitating and torturing Skywalker. The Chosen One gets back up on his feet, and looks at his master torturing his son, declaring Skywalker's imminent death. Betrayed by the man who told him for the past thirty years that it was his role as the Chosen One to bring order in the galaxy, believing himself groomed for the day when he himself would run it, Vader's doubts on killing his own son take him over and he finally decides that the way of the Sith is not the best solution to anything. Realising that while his many evil deeds and murders in the name of peace and order were beyond him to rectify, he could still save his son, Vader grabs hold of his master. Unprepared, Sidious can do nothing but scream as he is thrown into a reactor-shaft and into his death. The lightning spread from his hands get caught in Vader's mechanical body and fries his life-supporting systems. Finally dying the death he's been suffering through for twenty-three years, he asks Skywalker to take off his mask so he can see him with his own eyes before dying. Admitting he had been torn for a long time about his service to the Emperor, the Chosen One died, having lived twenty-three years as Anakin Skywalker and twenty-three years as Darth Vader. Being back in the pure side of the Force through his personal love for and attachment to his son, the Chosen One intuitively preserves his personality in death like Jinn before him. By killing his master and dying himself, he has done what no man has done and what no Jedi managed to do - he has destroyed the entire Order of the Sith and thus fulfilled the prophecy, leaving his son to restore the Jedi Order to keep the new balance. Luke Skywalker escapes the Death Star with his father's armour, and rejoins his sister and his friends in the Rebel Alliance who have won the greatest military battle against the Empire yet by destroying their new Death Star while Skywalker kept Vader and the Emperor occupied. Across the galaxy, different planets give rise to sudden uprisings at the news of the Emperor's death, and on a small forest moon, Skywalker, watched over by the Force Ghosts of his father, Yoda and Kenobi tells Organa that she is his sister.

Favourite Moment:
"And now, young Skywalker... you will die." Enter sardonic smile.

Worst Moment:
Certain moments of the Ewok-battle against the Empire which shows much too much pre-planning and knowledge of exact battle-situations as they would occur bringing what's already an unrealistic segment into the realm of the hysterically ridiculous.

Missed Opportunity:
Leia's role as Luke's sister feels like it could have been used a lot more in these movies, but I suppose that's a result of Lucas suddenly deciding to do six instead of nine of them. I'm also a little pissed that the awesome-looking Imperial Red Guards never got to fight anyone.

Best Surprise:
The opening segment with Jabba, where Luke as a Jedi is genuinely cool.

My Overall Opinion:
This is a fair, alright movie that brings a satisfactory end to the saga. It suffers from the boring "let us build a new Death Star"-plot, but this is a plot that is quite admittedly rather believable - because why wouldn't they just make a new one? It is also somewhat uneven, in that I much prefer the beginning of movie up until the Rebel attack on Endor/the Death Star, where the pacing gets a little off and you additionally have to somehow account for how a tribe of teddy-bears can triumph over a legion of a galaxy's best troops who are aware of an imminent attack. That said, the final scenes between Palpatine, Anakin and Luke aboard the Death Star are pretty awesome. The problem of the dying Jedi Master reveals itself here yet again - what does it matter what Yoda has time to tell Luke and what he doesn't, as both he and Obi-Wan can reappear and talk to him for hours later if they want to? (And Obi-Wan indeed does just that - showing up after Yoda's passing to clear up some things Yoda was vague about) There is also the oddity of Luke somehow having trained himself quite efficiently in the year since the events of Episode V, but without ever having time to return to Yoda - which you'd think would have been more constructive. Oh, well. Despite a number of silly chinks like that, he movie is an alright one, and an adequate ending to the overall story.

Rating: Strong 6.5/10


Thanks for reading.

Can you spell "quirky"? It seems to be Bryan Fuller's favourite. The man has recently gotten tons of attention for being brought back on the way-past-limping Heroes where he has previously contributed by among other things penning the episode Company Man in the first season - the one episode of the entire show that I'd like to own on DVD. What's maybe gotten a little less attention is what he's been doing while he's been away from Heroes - and it is, unsurprisingly, a cute and quirky little show.

There is something about Fuller's shows that makes "cute and quirky little show" seem like a suitable description on all of them. Dead Like Me - which he created and then left after quarreling with the studio - is by far the weakest one of them (due to Fuller's absence, mayhaps?) but it, too, is decidedly quirky. Thinking back on it, in fact, it occurs to me that the pilot and base concept presented in it was much quirkier than the rest of the show ever was... Fuller is definitely a writer with a fascination for the odd and unexpected. The other (perhaps slightly more well-known?) show of his was Wonderfalls, which only got one shortened season, but where Fuller at least stayed on. And so, I must say, did the quirky. I'm no big fan of Dead Like Me, but I quite enjoy Wonderfalls. (And I LOVE Company Man, the memory of it being the only reason I'm still putting up with Heroes) My expectations, thus, to his third quirky little show were as mixed as they get. And I say "little" even though it was nominated for twelve and won three Emmy Awards. Because it's just so cute, you can't think of it as anything else. If this show had gotten ten seasons, it'd still be a cute and quirky little thing.

So what was this show? Well, as this post's title has long since given away, it was called Pushing Daisies, and its cancellation is what has brought Fuller back on Heroes. The second season is still ongoing, being on a Christmas hiatus before airing its final three episodes, but the first, stumped by the writer's strike, ended this spring, and I've recently caught up on it. While shorter than it should have been, I must say the season holds up well despite the premature ending.

The show's base concept is just as odd as on the other two shows: Ned, a pie-maker and part-time assisting private investigator, has a unique talent. When he touches someone, or something, that is dead, if comes back to life. If he touches it again, it dies, for good. And if he leaves it alive for more than a minute, something else in the vicinity of approximately the same strength of life-force dies in a poof of cosmic balancing. His part-time P.I.'ing is a result of this, as the eminent Emerson Cod, private eye, discovers Ned's talent, and makes use of him to have one-minute-interviews with murder-victims - thus easily catching killers and claiming rewards. The duo becomes a trio, however, when the murder-victim turns out to be Ned's childhood sweetheart, and he doesn't manage to bring himself to put her back out before her minute is up. The cast is rounded off with Olive Snook, Ned's employee at The Pie Hole who is head over heels in love with him, but unaware of his secret powers.

Now, with the other two shows, most of the oddness ended there. Not so with Pushing Daisies. The entire shape of the show is purposefully strange: filled with bright colours, a calm, British narrator's voice with an obsession of exact numbers and times, and taking place in a world that's an odd blend of the present day and the 1950's. Two inspirations strike me as very obvious - anything by Tim Burton, and Amélie. The show is borrowing heavily from both, in homages sometimes subtle and sometimes obvious. The strange thing, I'm not a big fan of neither Burton nor the somewhat too artsy Amélie, but I really, really liked this show. The blend of Fuller's quirky humour with the larger-than-life look and feel of the show makes for a lovely little fairy-tale land that feels both real and fantastic at the same time. Think of some of the intense, powerful scenes of Jackson's The Fellowship of the Ring. Didn't those just make the fantastical seem awfully real? Pushing Daisies does just the opposite, making the real seem awfully fantastical. And I quite like it.

The characters are lovable, to a one. My personal favourite would no doubt be Mr. Cod, but every single character is amazing. The loving relationship that develops between Ned and his untouchable childhood sweetheart is possibly the sweetest romance I've ever seen depicted on screen - all the more so for their inability to ever touch each other. The cases of the week are usually quite interesting and always quite absurd. The dialogue is wonderful.

This is one of the strongest recent shows I've seen, and while it's not quite enough up my alley (no wizards, no dragons, no politics, no intrigue, and no Darth Vader!) to be a show I'll ever wholeheartedly love, if this is your thing, I can promise you that you'll do just that. And even if it's not, I cannot see how you can do anything but enjoy this colourful festivity of a TV-show. It's touching, funny, pretty, engaging and sometimes even sad. But most of all, it's a cute and quirky little thing created by Bryan Fuller.

Which is probably why it's so good.

I'm not a fan of digital animation. In fact, I'm kind of outright opposed. With the exception of Toy Story, I had yet to see a single good animated movie where I didn't feel traditional animation wouldn't have worked as well or usually way better than the digital one. Wall-E is the first movie to join Toy Story in that exclusive club, and mostly that's because of Wall-E himself. Brilliantly designed to actually seem almost convincingly and realistically built, the digital animation brings his mechanical self to life in the exact same manner as the toys of Toy Story did - it looks faintly fake, but it's supposed to, because it's not a living thing, and this adds an entire new dimension to the experience of watching it.

So much for the animation - I'm still not a fan, but I admit that it's well used in this particular movie - now what of the actual plot?

Well, it's very straightforward, simple and predictable. Mostly, though, in the good ways. The Disney-ways, if you'd like. What it also was - this too unsurprising when one considers the movie's basic premise - was rather melancholy. Where it surprised me a little, though, was in how sweet it was. Not because I didn't think it would be - I thought it'd try very hard - but is succeeded at it a good bit better than I thought it would.

The first twenty minutes of the movie are the most melancholy ones, but also the best ones by far. The utter lack of dialogue, the almost as complete lack of character-interaction (making what little there is seem very precious), the completely desolate world of futuristic garbage... it's Wall-E's twenty minutes, and they're the reason the entire rest of the movie works.

While I did enjoy the movie, I sort of can't truly claim I loved it. Mostly, well, it's the good kind of predictable but still maybe a little bit too much so. But also, I'm a softy, and a world in which every surviving human is so utterly pathetic as in this one and the only creatures with sympathetic personalities are programmed machines is a world which scares me and makes me sad. No matter how happy an ending they might dish up for me. In general, I don't like movies that make me sad or melancholy.

The bug was funny, but revolted me more than the gags were really worth. What IS it with children's movies and using insects as comedic relief in recent years? Gwuahlg. The other characters were fine, and Eva and Wall-E in particular impresed me. I must say that the human captain was alright too, but having the people computer animated just looked weird next to the very realisic-looking droids. It would've been far better if they'd somehow managed to keep using real-life people like they did in the glimpses to the past, methinks. Even if that, too, would've seemed a clash.

All in all, well worth the look, I felt got exactly what I felt the trailer and the posters promised me. Which is too bad, these computer-animated flicks really need to start going down the crapper so someone puts up the money and effort required to make proper animated movies again instead...

A decent 7/10

I've never had high expectations to webisodes spun off of TV-shows, and while I've seen many worth the bother, I've seen few to none that actually impressed. Heroes: Going Postal is a recent series of such webisodes, and while it doesn't quite impress, it get's a darn sight closer than most.

Refreshingly short at only three very quick episodes, the somewhat unoriginally named story is about a postman in the Heroes-universe who has the ability to shout at super-loud intensities. The webisodes pick up the day where he is first approached by The Company, and chronicles the events following that, and has an ending which seems to promise that it'll actually do something I judge to be very important for webisodes to really hold much interest - it seems to be enlightening for what I assume will at least be a small aspect of the upcoming season 3, Heroes: Villains. This, being relevant for the main series without being necessary, is something other shows often fail a little at managing, and I hope that I'm not wrong in thinking Heroes might have broken the norm a little with this.

If you haven't seen it, and you are a viewer of the regular show, it's well worth the less-than-fifteen-minutes it'll take out of your day.

Shiver my timbers, shiver my sails.

Dead men tell no tales.

- Final two lines of Muppet Treasure Island opening song



So, I might be biased in all sorts of directions, being one of those kinds who read Treasure Island somewhere between five and twelve times growing up, but I doubt many will give much of an argument if I claim that Long John Silver is indubitably one of the most compelling fictional characters of the villainous persuasion there ever was.

In this movie, he is played by Tim Curry, who does a decent but not really that memorable job of it. This might not be just Curry's fault, though, as the movie clearly tries to hold the focus on the Muppet-characters and on the protagonist Jim. The only human-starred character that makes an impact is Billy Connolly's short appearance as Billy Bones in the beginning, and let's face it, he's Billy Connolly, he'd make an impact if he spent the entire movie locked inside a box.

So, there's probably many ways to view this movie. As a Muppet-movie I don't feel qualified, having only seen their "Wizard of Oz" and "Take Manhattan" once each ages back. As a musical, a book-adaption and as a story, though, I feel like I can throw in a few cents worth of comments.

The songs are, on the most part, entertaining, and only occasionally pull you out of the on-going plot - and when it does, it's rather done on purpose. A few are too silly for my tastes, but memorable numbers like the opening song I quoted from, the "Sailing for adventure on the deep, blue sea" is engaging, and several others stuck with me.

The Muppets, as a whole, are funny, and, with my limited experience with The Muppet Show, well cast. Especially Sam the Eagle as First Mate Arrow is awesome in this film. While the movie wildly diverges from the book at several points, it's rather clear that the makers have read it thoroughly anyway, keeping things like the black spot on a page of the Bible, Benjamin Gunn ("Benjamina Gunn", a.k.a. Miss Piggy, Flint's lover) and Arrow's disappearance mid-voyage in the tale. Blind Pew deserves a special mention, he's - despite the blind-jokes - almost as ominous here as he was in the book. You almost forget that 90% of the characters aren't people, that's how well it's done.

As a story, it runs relatively simply and straightforwardly. There's no huge surprises, even if you haven't read the book, and it's very kid-friendly in the few twists it does. It's very funny on occasion, and worth seeing in its own right, but to me this movie's main strength was how much it made me wish to read the book again, something I haven't done in a decade.

I think that if I find the time, I will now.

Good fun! 7/10

This animated science fiction movie from 2000 has an incredibly impressive list of directors and writers - a list I was not aware of myself until after I'd seen it. The directors? Gary Goldman and Don Bluth - the two ex-Disney animators (both were involved in the animtaion of The Rescuers and Pete's Dragon, Bluth additionally had his hands in Robin Hood, The Sword in the Stone, and others) who's made such major animation successes outside of Disney together as The Land Before Time, An American Tail, The Secret of NIMH and Anastasia. And the writers? John August (Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Corpse Bride), Ben Edlund (Firefly, Angel(he wrote Jaynestown and Smile Time!), Point Pleasant and Supernatural) and, well, Joss Whedon.

I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, but I can't help but wonder if I'd have been a little let down had I known about this rooster of brilliance before I sat down to watch it due to incredibly high expectations. Heck, I wasn't even aware it was animated before it started up.

So what is it? Well, it's basically the sci-fi-movie everybody who hated the Star Wars-prequels have been begging for. The movie starts with an alien destruction of Earth, where a very influential scientist must stay behind to save the incredibly important Titan-project. His very young son is hurried off planet with other refugees just in the nick of time. Cut a good decade ahead, and the son is grown up. Then an old co-worker of his father's shows up and tells him he has to save mankind and find the lost Titan-project.

The movie is flowing over with odd and funny aliens, something the Star Wars-crowd probably likes but an issue for me. I never like universes where you only see one single individual from three quarters of the alien species you encounter. It feels phony. Still, they're on the whole rather well made.

Despite this, it's a little dark. Not scary horrid dark, but it's closer to Empire Strikes Back than Return of the Jedi, if you know what I mean. This works well though. It's got a somewhat predictable plot, mediated by some twists you see coming and others you might not. The world that's built seems rich and, with the exception of the ridiculous amounts of different kinds of sentients, believable. There was a couple of choices towards the end where I felt they should've gone darker and less child-friendly, but on the whole the movie was surprisingly daring for an animated movie that clearly doesn't exclusively cater to an adult crowd.

Some characters stand out - the father's old co-worker is a distinct Han Solo-rip off (no attempts are made to hide that), but he works well. His first mate Preed is nothing like Chewie, though, but rather a cold, superior, even omnious alien with a posh English accent. The crew on the ship - and thus the cast that gets mentionable screentime in the movie beyond the main character - is filled out with another human, the main character's love interest, another alien, this one female, the grumpy weapons expert that seems to be fifty per cent Zoe, twenty per cent Kaylee and thirty per cent Jayne, and the incredibly eccentric green-skinned scientist Gune who is just so thoroughly lovably silly you have to like him.

The main character himself is very much the traditional hero-in-the-budding type, but maybe a good bit more reluctant and selfish at first than one'd expect, originating with his abandonment issues with regards to his father. He's not going to stick with you for long after the movie, but he works well enough and isn't annoying like such characters often end up being.

The movie of course looks beautiful - I mean, Don Bluth is involved, it had to - and I'd highly recommend to check it out if you're at all interested in entertaining sci-fi movies. It doesn't reinvent the wheel by a long shot, but it gives it a very good spin.

Weak 8.5/10

I know. You had it sorted.

- King Edmund of Narnia

Well, what do you know. I liked it.



Turns out I didn't really expect that. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe started out really well, and then turned mediocre at some point around the beavers' cabin and stayed that way. While I did have higher hopes for Caspian - BBC only gave the book two episodes in their otherwise stellar adaptations of the series, so this was the one place Disney could actually look like the better attempt - I still didn't really think I'd go "huh. Pretty good." But I did.

The story is much, much darker than that of the previous movie, and the themes and characters, while still children and aimed at children, are of a much more adult nature. It also feels much more realistic - the human nation of evil looking interestingly realistic compared to the flashy armour of the good-guys brought back from the first movie. In this and other ways, the first movie serves as a backdrop for the viewer of how Narnia could be, how beautiful and safe it used to be, compared to how it is now, in the movie, in much the same way as their memories of their previous stay does the same to the Pevensy-children.

They keep up a decent level of humour, which works very well in the otherwise darker plot. The action-scenes, unlike those of the first one, are quite interesting and engaging. The characters also, though with the weaknesses you have to accept when the story is about children trying to act as adults and with memories of being such.

Speaking of characters - I was again vastly impressed with Edmund. By far my favourite character of the series of books and the BBC-series alike, he keeps it up in these movies. His calm, understated presence, his vast self-control and quick head for one his age in beautiful contrast to his personality before the scarring experience of his own betrayal in Wardrobe. Whenever Peter and Caspian had their (quite understandably motivated if childishly played out) feuds and conflicts, Edmund looks even more the gathered, reasonable grown-up.

I was very happy with what they did with all the four children, actually. This is the last trip of the eldest two to Narnia, and the entire movie was built around how Susan and Peter had various issues and problems with being back there whilst Lucy and Edmund - in very different but equally effective ways - was very much at home and at ease. I'd actually go so far as to say that this was done better than in the book, where their final expulsion from Narnia in the end seems a little out of nowhere. Here, you understand why.

The movie had really only two issues. The least jarring one was the strong sense of a Lord of the Rings-rip-off in the end where we get both the march of the Ents and the washing away for Isengard and the Ringwraiths by Rivendell heavily alluded to.

The other one was the Christian symbolism propaganda. I don't think I've ever seen a movie where the plot was so intrinsically dependent on the viewer accepting certain Christian doctrines and values, foremost of which the blind trust in God. What's worse is, I honestly don't know if I can say that this is a problem with the movie - after all, this only means that it is staying true to the original story. If they skipped this in the movie or toned it down, it'd not be as faithful an adaptation by far. Still, it strongly diminished my enjoyment of the movie - to my mind, the idea of the best option being to sit still and do nothing and trust God to come and help you out is ridiculous and insulting, even if you do believe in Him. Still - in this story He is real, and within the frames of the story, the plot is very well done.

All in all a much stronger movie than the previous one - remember the scenes the first one had with Tumnus the Faun? Well, most of this movie is almost at that level of well done. They've even improved upon the book, primarily by adding a political intrigue subplot in the court of King Miras.

Recommended. I was impressed. A very strong 8/10 if you think you can stomach the Trust In Aslan-plot.

So, what is The Terminal?


Well, it's a cute movie starring Tom Hanks and Catherine Zeta-Jones. It's admittedly hard to place in a genre, so I suppose that combined with a lack of action-scenes and a, usually, low-key humour to the comedy makes it a drama.

The Terminal is blessed with one of the more interesting premises for a movie I've heard - a traveller (Tom Hanks) to NY from an obscure East-European country is trapped in the international-bit of the airport when his country diplomatically ceases to exist while he is in transit due to a coup d'etat back home. His passport thus rendered worthless for the time being, he's trapped outside the system for what turns into months and months, having to get by at the international section of the airport.

Did I mention that he doesn't speak English?

Though the slow-pacedness of the movie at times threatened to get a little boring, it never quite got there. There was always enough sweetness to smile at, cynicism to grin at or funny to chuckle at to keep you interested. Tom Hanks portrays the man lost outside of the modern world's rules and systems beautifully, as he based on sheer force of personality and capability grows increasingly successfully into his new life on the airport.

And through it all, you sit there wondering - what IS this guy going to NY for in the first place, anyway?

A very sweet and very entertaining movie, though at times a tad too slow for my tastes. A very strong 8,5/10, and a wholehearted recommendation for anyone who can enjoy and sit through a movie without action-scenes or over-the-top-comedy. And maybe some of you other people should check it out, too.

So, some weeks ago I finally finished this show's second - and last - season, and on the whole, it had more of the same.

That being said, I think it took things a notch up. Less blatantly obvious continuity-issues, more by the way of character-arcs, and even some action a couple of places to beef up the drama a bit.

The show's not exactly dark, but it's moody. It does little good on my disposition, watching Dead Like Me, which is, I think, both its main virtue and its main flaw in my book. Sure, it's frequently rather funny, and occasionally rather poignant. But mainly, it's a sombre drama disguised as a fantasy-show with quips and sarcasms.

I won't go into a long, detailed review, partly 'cause I watched most of the show several months back and I don't feel like I remember enough details to do so, but also partly because I believe my more general impressions were aptly described in the post on season 1. Had the sombre mood of this not so easily darkened my own, I think I would have liked this show far more. As it is, it was a good show with good characters, on occasion even a laugh-out-loud-funny show, and certainly an entertaining show, but not really a show I'd like to rewatch. I'm to easily affected of the melancholy of a show whose main character is a dead girl.

Still, if they ever get around to getting out that DVD-movie-sequel, I'll watch it.

The first one is okay - classic, yes, interesting, definitely, but the plot is pretty easy to predict and most of the gags aren't all that funny despite Doc Brown's hilarity. So I'm actually going to go against all normative behaviour and say the first one isn't as good as the sequels...
Strong 6,5/10

The second one, I like a lot more. Sure, it's almost as predictable, and at times a little too far on the cheesy side, but it's got more Doc Brown than the first one, and the use of the first movie's highlights in it is simply exquisitly well done. The far more clear villain-part of Alternate 1985-Biff and the actually intelligent 2015-Biff makes for a far more action-filled drama than the much more circumstances-based adversary of the first movie. Still, as always with this kind of movies, the gazillion logical flaws involved in their time-travel-rules bugs me a little too much for it to really shine.
A weak 8/10

The third one I find to be about as strong as the second one. The change in scenery to the wild west is clever, and what it lacks on epicness compared to the second one it makes up for in action. Doc Brown's love-story is also quite well done, and it's funny to boot.
Another 8/10

Not that much to say, really. I felt the first one was a good bit better, but this still wasn't a disappointment. Mainly, it just lacked the main character's insane history-show-off-scenes, which was a drag, and also, well, no Sean Bean. Ed Harris is of course about as good a replacement as you can get, but he doesn't get enough screen-time to really build a character, due to the inclusion of the mother. Still, good arc on him, considering, if maybe a little predictable.

I liked the movie well enough, though it had some annoying little unbelievables, like the Mt. Rushmore mechanism causing a rockslide in the neighbouring mountain. It had a few moments, like the French coppers, Crusade's Galen as the British copper and, of course, the Nicholas Cage "kidnap the President"-scene, which I luckily hadn't gotten spoiled by the insanely spoiler-rich trilaer or a review like this one. Oh, and all the surviving characters from the first movie was in it, which I always appreciate in sequels.

Good, fun action, but hardly on the level of the Indiana Jones-like fun of the original.

7/10

Hm. Interesting. Created by Bryan Fuller ("Wonderfalls") though he dropped out early in the first season after a quarrel with the studio, this series is about yet another young, sarcastic girl with a somewhat peculiar ability/life. Or in this case, ability/unlife. That's right. Georgia Lass is a Grim Reaper.

The pilot, as well as several other episodes throughout the season, is quite sombre, dealing with death, loss and acceptance. Sometimes in poignant ways, sometimes in silly ways, sometimes in insensitive ways and sometimes in cozy ways. Some episodes are funnier and lighter, but Georgia ("George", as she's called) deals with death in some capacity in most of them. A side-plot following those she left behind after her death in the pilot - a well-meaning but horribly poor at parenting-mother, a push-over father, and the little sister who looked up to her but she always ignored - as they cope with her death always serves to ground and make serious the few episodes where George's main plot isn't sad enough.

That being said, the show is frequently funny and silly in individual scenes, even if the general tone isn't the happiest. As mentioned, George dies in the pilot - in a very funny and surreal way, true to the tone of the show - and she's introduced to some other Reapers. She gets assigned to the division for external deaths by acts or events of sudden violence, meaning they get murders, accidents, suicides and that kind of thing, other forms of death being handled by other divisions of reapers. Smart way to keep her reaps interesting from episode to episode.

Her division consists of Betty the daredevil, Mason the drug-using (English) corpse-pillaging wreck, Roxie the aggressive parking officer, and Rube. Rube, Mandy Patinkin, is the leader of the division, and as such somewhat more mysterious than the rest of them - because of course, even to the Reapers, what lays beyond for other people is just as unknown as to the souls they reap. Later the division is joined by Daisy, a self-loving has-been actress.

At average, George has to reap one soul per day, meaning there's lots of time left over. And the job doesn't pay. She's not allowed any contact with her friends and relatives from when she was alive, so, she has to go get herself a job. Something she never got around to in real life. And the job, of course, comes complete with a wacky superior and mind-numbing boredom. In many ways, the show deals with George growing up post-mortem, experiencing things and responsibilities she always avoided in life, and a growing affection and longing for the family she ignored while alive. This first season is stuffed with instances of her doing tiny things for her little sister without actually meeting her or letting her know she's still, sort of, alive.

The main weakness of the season is somewhat episodic plots - the main season-arc concerns her family, not George and the reapers despite their much larger chunk of screentime, and the only character-arc of importance is in George herself, as she very, very slowly and gradually comes to term with her new existance. There is also, however, some plotholes. Mainly dealing with the rules of the more fantasy parts of the show, the technical details around the reaps, etc, but also, sometimes, even more annoyingly, with the actual plots, like when George's roommate in one particular episode apparently, out of nowhere, isn't her roommate, before their situation being back to normal in the next. Still, they're not so big or numerous to provide a serious problem. A nuiscance, though, that it is.

The dialogue is entertaining, and so are the characters, especially George's co-Reapers and her regular work-boss Delores (same actress who plays the demon recieving the vessels with the souls in, ironically, "Reaper", by the way).

While the show was cancelled after its second season, apparently, a direct-to-DVD-movie is on the way, so there is some hope for a fullness of story here still.

I like this show, it's strong and it's decent, but I've yet to love it. It's also a little too much on the sombre side for me - I'm very delicate when it comes to sadness in my entertainment, it gets to my mood a little too easily. Still, I will without a doubt watch the second season as well. In fact, I'm four episodes in, and so far I have a tiny little suspicion that this season is going to be better than the first.

Or something. (My puns pain even me. I'm sadomachopunny.)


Anyway, I recently saw Elizabeth: The Golden Age in the theatre, and then the day after (!) the first movie, Elizabeth, from the late 1990's aired on Norwegian television. So I saw that too. Ironically, I just the day before protested to the idea of a genre of "queen-movies", and, well... maybe there's something to it. Blanchett really pulls off this personal journey of the strong but untested woman in a man's world in the first one as well as the life of a woman cut off from a woman's life such as her time would have it be in the second.

As you've probably gathered by now, I thought they were good! Better than I thought they'd be. I actually preferred the sequel to the first one due to a series of reasons, foremost of which is probably simply the fact of having seen it in the cinema. Then again, the first one also had Elizabeth walk around be all unsure of herself the entire time, and she only got properly cool by the last scene, so I think that might have been a big influence on preferring the sequel - especially after seeing it first and thus expecting her to be cool in the first one only to find that she's not. (With the exception of the very clever treatment of the duke of Anjou, anyway) Because, by comparison, the sequel had Elizabeth go about her ruling very, very convicingly capable manner, and thus she came off as quite cool, though no less conflicted when in private than she was in the first one.

I should add, I love Cate Blanchett when she's in regal-mode, in the end-scene of the first one as well as in key scenes in the sequel she speaks in a certain commanding manner which quite frankly rocks like crazy. I dare even the most inane republican not to get a tiny little closet-feeling of royalism if he'd been in the room with a queen speaking to him like that.

Geoffrey Rush's Walsingham was awesome, but he had, like, no screen-time at all in the first one - and I already thought he had little to do in the sequel and was expecting there to be more of him in the first, not less. This was a huge disappointment. Also, I preferred Clive Owen's Sir Raleigh greatly to Joseph Fiennes' Eal of Leicester as far as romantic interests go, and the plot surrounding it, too, was more interesting in the sequel. However, Owen's Raleigh might have been painted a tiny tad too much the unflawed hero for my tastes, so I'm not exclusively positive.

All in all, two very strong movies. I'd give Elizabeth a weak 8 out of 10 (if I ever do a rewatch, I might retcon this post into showing 7,5) and The Golden Age a fair 8,5/10.

It's been a few weeks since I saw this movie now, but I still remember most of it rather vividly. A very eccentricly done film, but entertaining and kind of heart-warming.

If I have anything to complain about, it was the pacing. The movie didn't really feel like it started 'til a good fifty minutes into the two-hour experience, which is a bit too slow, especially in a drama where there's no exciting action-scenes or hilarious comedy (amusing stuff aplenty, got a lot of smiles from me, but very little that made me laugh out loud) to make the start-up-bits feel more exciting.

A nice, feel-good'y kind of movie which at points is quite funny to boot. 8/10.