Entries tagged with star wars

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Ford ... Falcon?

I have a feeling you wouldn't want to be in this car when the driver's dodging potholes.

Guess I should have waited to post this until May Fourth ... but I've been holding on to it since last summer, and with the recent weather I'm getting a new hope that summer might actually get here again.

http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

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movie review: Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker

On her birthday, my wife suggested we go see the new Star Wars movie.

And now you know why I married her.

So, how much do you want to know about Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker? I think I'm going to go spoiler free, because that will make this much, much shorter. First of all, if you hate fan service, forget it. (Fan service has different meanings. In this case I'm going with when movie makers put something into the flick that's not necessary to the story, but is just put in to make the fans happy.

I love fan service. I mean, I'm a fan, and I want to be happy. My writing instructors would be horrified ("Remove anything that's not story!"), but what the hey.

When you're dealing with the ninth movie in a series, it's hard not to have fan service. As we begin there's been so much history, even with the newer characters, not to mention characters like Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher's last movie appearance. I promised I wouldn't cry ... *sob*)

As we open two of the big three Star Wars characters have died--um, surely you're not worried about spoilers from the last movie, right? The one left is Leia, who we don't see all that much of for obvious reasons, but all three of them loom large in the story as their friends discover a new threat that's way, WAY bigger than the First Order they've been battling against. There's not a lot of infighting among our heroes this time (but plenty of welcome bantering) as they try to track down and neutralize the new threat, while Rei trains under Leia's direction to become a Jedi.

And that's about all I'm going to say about the plot, other than that at the end, it revolves around the conflict between Rei and Kylo Ren, as well as within them. It involves the reappearance of a lot of old friends, some of which are expected and others very surprising. We even get a few new characters, who manage to fit in as best they can.

And there you have the biggest problem with Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker: There are so many characters, and so many strings to tie up (although they mostly do get resolved), that it's hard for everyone to get enough screen time. The movie's well over two hours, but I wonder if it wouldn't have been better stretched into a TV miniseries--or if that would give us too many endings and goodbyes, as with the last Lord of the Rings movie.

There were a couple of spellbinding moments from the trailers that turn out disappointing, as the actual moments come and go without much development past what we already saw. There are also those who will see similarities between this movie and Return of the Jedi, and they're not wrong.

Just the same ... wow.

There's a great mix of action, plot, and character--heavy on the action, but after all, the word "wars" is in the title. We get solid acting, awesome effects even by modern standards, a good score, and although we never get the answers we sought about Snoke, this movie's villain has an actual history and connection with our heroes. You may cheer a little, and maybe even shed a tear. I did.

My score

Entertainment Value: 4 out of 4 M&Ms. Okay, maybe not the brown ones, but if you fall asleep at this movie, get checked for narcolepsy.

Oscar Potential: 3 out of 4 M&Ms. You know, if they took out the space and laser swords and set this plot and these characters into some historical adventure, they're be raking in the statues.

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Movie Review: Solo: A Star Wars Story

As all fourteen of my regular readers know, I'm easily entertained. Butterflies, flowers, dumb eighties sitcoms, there's a good chance I'll sit through them all as long as they're not Kardashian-type "reality" TV shows.

So yes, I was entertained by Solo: A Star Wars Story, and would definitely watch it again. But I'm also not dumb (shut up, I'm not), and I know when a movie has serious flaws.

Even when I can't figure out what they are.

"Who's the girl? Does Leia know about this?"

Let's face it, as soon as you heard the name of this movie you knew what it would be about. Sure enough, we get an origin story, with Alden Ehrenreich playing a young Han Solo trapped on his home world, which seems entirely taken over by spaceship building industries. (On a related note, the Star Wars universe is even worse than other science fiction ventures in having a world be just a region. A desert world, a snow world, a city world ... don't any of these planets have other continents? How does an entire world have just one climate?)

Han is a small time crook who, even back then, should never be told the odds, and he just wants to get off-planet with his girlfriend (!) and become a pilot. But things go horribly wrong, and now he's sworn to return after joining the first organization that will give him the pilot training he needs. Not his first bad decision, and not his last.

Although there are surprises along the way, the rest of the story pretty much hits the beats we expect: Han makes friends with a big walking carpet, meets a certain charming swindler who owns a certain ship, gets a gun, learns not to trust anyone, gets first shot at the Kessel Run, so on, so forth ...

It is fun seeing the way some of our beloved conventions about Han come about, and there are indeed some surprises along the way. And a few big surprises. (One of my favorites was finding out just how the Millennium Falcon ended up with such a superior navigation computer.) Yes, "fun" fits--it was fun, and I'll happily sit down to watch it again.

"Chewie, change the light bulbs!"

But Solo: A Star Wars Story just didn't ... gel. For one thing, the movie seemed too dark. I don't mean in tone--I mean it literally seemed dark for long portions of the film--maybe it was the theater where I saw it. The effects and score were good, but not great, which also covers the plot and just about everything else. Alden Ehrenreich did a credible job, but do you want to be the guy who follows Harrison Ford? Me neither.

The rest of the cast did well, especially Woody Harrelson, Emilia Clarke, and Donald Glover, who, despite what others have said, made a great Lando Calrissian. We also get Paul Bettany, who's provides us a fun villain in Dryden Vos.

"If this doesn't work out, I'm thinking of playing Indiana Jones."

I suspect if it had been made independent of a franchise, Solo: A Star Wars Story would be considered good space opera. But it wasn't, and as Star Wars movies go it seems weak ... not to mention a whole movie should have been devoted to Han and Chewie forming a friendship, rather than a few scenes.

My Score:

Entertainment Value: 3 out of 4 M&Ms. Great action sequences, good cast, missing the heart that made the early Star Wars movies so great. Hardcore Star Wars fans have devolved into a mutual hatred society, so I might have liked it more because I'm more of a casual fan.

Oscar Potential: 1 out of 4 M&Ms. Ain't gonna happen.